The Diaries - 01 (46 page)

Gage cracked his
knuckles before stretching lightly.
 
Unlike
his quarry, he was sober.
 
He was wide
awake.
 
He was ready.
 
A quick glance at his Timex showed the time
as 4:12 a.m.
 
He doubted Bruno and his
brother practiced stand-to, or even knew what the hell it meant.
 
And, as he reminded himself, this may not be
their place.
 
It would be the last one he
would check.
 
If it wasn’t, Gage decided
he would jog back to his hotel for sleep.
 
He could start fresh again tomorrow.

The path was not
incredibly long, but it was well concealed by the thick brambles on both sides
of the rutted path.
 
The leafless trees partially
shrouded the purple night, making the dark even darker as fingers of uncut
limbs scraped Gage, keeping him away from the edge of the rough road.
 
As the drive leveled off, Gage sensed light
coming from an opening at the top of the hill.
 
He slowed.
 
When he reached the
mouth of the path, he peered around a large tree, seeing a small timber and
stone house.
 
It appeared to be very old
and, thankfully, had no exterior lights turned on.
 
The light Gage had seen was spilling from a
large window to the right of the front door.
 
From what he could see, the entire residence was unkempt, with stains on
the white boards and scraggly bushes struggling to grow around the stone
foundation.

Taking his time,
Gage waited a full five minutes before easing himself into the clearing around
the home.
 
He moved low and slow to give
himself a view of the right side of the house.
 
When he was in position, Gage allowed his eyes to adjust to the
blackness and what he saw took his breath.
 
Parked to the right rear of the house, at an
odd angle, was a blue Opel four-door.

The
blue Opel four-door.

Gage licked his
lips, moved to the house and flattened himself against the side.
 
He slid around to the front, lowering his bag
to his feet and removing a black rod, extending it.
 
Gage tilted the mirror on the end to a
desired angle, using it to peer around the room inside the large plate glass
window.

Sitting in an
orange chair in the center of the room was Bruno.
 
Through the tiny mirror, Gage could clearly
see the scar on his forehead.
 
An already
disgusting man, he was all the more repulsive at that moment because he was
masturbating—or trying to.
 
Between Gage
and Bruno was a television, probably displaying a pornographic film.
 
As the light from the TV danced, Gage noticed
with some satisfaction that Bruno was flaccid.

Booze will do that
to you,
little
big man.

Gage twisted the
mirror, scanning the grimy room for any sign of the man he presumed to be
Bruno’s brother.
 
Other than garbage,
dirty plates, and a pistol sitting in front of Bruno, he saw no sign of the
other goon.

After hitching up
his bag, he made his way around the house, ready to run at the first sign of a
dog, alarm, or even a motion-detecting light.
 
Fortunately for him, there were none.
 
At the back of the house were three windows, and the first one he came
to revealed dull light coming from inside.
 
With the mirror, Gage was able to see the light coming from a bathroom
at the back of what looked like a bedroom.
 
And in the center of the bedroom was a double bed, upon which was the
other thug, facedown, his clothes still on.
 
He wasn’t moving.

Just in case, Gage
checked every other room, even looking for signs of a basement.
 
After fifteen tedious minutes, he was certain
the brothers were the only two people in the house.
 

Gage’s heart beat
like the thump of artillery.
 
He licked
his lips, stunned to find himself smiling, grinning wide like some kid going to
his first big-league ball game.
 
He
collected himself, willing his decisions and actions to be surgical.
 
The time for pleasure would come later.

Making his way
back to the north side of the house, where the car was parked, Gage ascended
the three-step stoop, checking the door knob.
 
It was unlocked.
 
He took a deep
breath, twisted it, and waited for an alarm or reaction.

Nothing happened.

Gage eased the
door open, cringing when a squeak escaped.
 
He trained his nine millimeter down the hallway but no one
appeared.
 
Gage stepped inside, leaving
the door open.
 
He cleared the room,
eventually lowering his bag to the floor and leaving it in a corner by the old
gas stove.
 
As Gage watched for movement,
he cursed himself for not deciding on a shotgun rather than the sniper
rifle.
 
It had all boiled down to a
question of space, and the rifle broke down to a smaller size than the Spas-12
Gage wished he was holding right now.
 
He’d simply have to make do.
 
Gage
stepped left, chancing a look into the room with the television.
 
Sure enough, what appeared to be a very old
skin flick was playing with the volume turned louder than necessary.
 
It was American.

Gage stepped further
to the left, training the pistol where he expected Bruno to be.

He wasn’t there.

Gage again became
aware of his heart rate.
 
He spun to the
right to make sure Bruno hadn’t come into the kitchen through the other
entrance.
 
He slid into a shadow at the
front of the kitchen, waiting.

Gage didn’t have
to wait long.
 
Moments later, he heard a
flush and Bruno staggered back through the TV room, straight into the kitchen
without turning the light on.
 

He waited for
Bruno to open the refrigerator before he moved.
 
As Bruno was retrieving a jug of orange juice and a hunk of unwrapped Swiss
cheese, rimmed by bluish mold, Gage pressed the nine millimeter to the back of
his head.

“Don’t make a
sound,” Gage said in German.

Bruno, for all his
drunkenness, acted like a man who’d had a gun jabbed into his skin before.
 
He froze, dropping both items from his hand
with a loud clunk.

Gage, concerned
the sound might have roused the other one, listened for movement from the back
of the house, hearing nothing.

“
Sprichst
du Deutsch?” Gage asked.

Bruno shook his
head, lifting his hands as he swayed.
 
Gage made sure to stay back because as large as his target was, one good
swipe could throw Gage across the kitchen before he had a chance to react.

“English?”

“A little,” Bruno
said loudly.
 
That was all it had taken
for Gage.
 
Just like he had done to the
hotel clerk the week before, Gage sliced the weapon through the air, hitting
Bruno in the area where the spinal column connects with the brain.
 
The big Frenchman went down in a heap.
 
Gage leapt into action, jerking duct tape
from his bag and taping Bruno’s hands behind his back.
 
When he finished, Bruno was still out cold,
no doubt aided by the surplus of vodka shots he had ingested earlier.

After tossing
Bruno’s pistol into his bag, Gage used his thumb to flick the television off,
then he waited.
 
There were no other
sounds in the house.
 
Licking his lips, he
realized he felt as if he might be high on speed.
 
In the midst of what was soon to turn
violent—Gage Hartline was fully aware of the irony—he felt supreme tranquility,
as if the world was running at fast forward while he was benefitting from
personal slow-motion.
 
There had been
plenty of tense moments as a contractor, but it had been many years since he
had performed a mission that required hostility and, as Gage covered the scant
feet to the back of the house, a piece of his consciousness screamed to him:
 
“Yes!
Yes! Yes!
 
This is who you are, Matthew
Schoenfeld
.
 
You are
not Gage Hartline: neo-pacifist.
 
You are
Matthew
Schoenfeld
: mercenary, gun for hire.
 
Get those hands bloody, boy; tonight’s the
night you come back to us.
 
Come back,
Matthew.
 
Come back!”

Fully aware of his
mind’s bizarre ramblings, Gage spun into the back bedroom, seeing the other
Frenchman sitting up in his bed and rubbing his head, probably confused by the
noise but too drunk to make sense of it.

“What’s your
name?” Gage yelled in French.

The man stared at
Gage in complete bewilderment, his eyes foggy, shaking his head as if he might
be having a dream.
 
“Luc,” he managed to
stammer.

“Okay, Luc,” Gage
said calmly, “What is your brother’s name?”

“Bruno.”

Gage nodded.
 
“Very good.
 
Here’s the important part.
 
Do you
remember Monika Brink, in Frankfurt, Germany?”

Luc was far too intoxicated
not to be perfectly transparent.
 
Gage
couldn’t have done any better by injecting him with a syringe of sodium
pentothal.
 
Luc nodded.

“Did you kill
her?”

“
Oui
.”

“Merci, Luc.”
 
Gage lowered his weapon a fraction from
center mass, applying just enough pressure to squeeze off one round.
 
The tongue of yellowish flame licked from the
barrel, hurtling a jacketed round at Luc Florence and impacting him in his
mid-left abdomen.

Gage held the pistol
steadily on Luc, observing.
 
Due to his
drunkenness, and the round’s clean passage, it took Luc a fraction longer to
process what had happened than it would a normal person.
 
When Luc finally did realize the pain, he shrieked
and writhed on the bed, clutching the bleeding hole in his midsection.

And then Gage
really went to work.
 

Or was he Matthew?

***

They were in the
kitchen.
 
Bruno struggled against the
duct tape to no avail.
 
The American had
bound him too well.
 
He walked back into
Bruno’s field of vision, admiring his handiwork.
 
Apparently satisfied, he turned his attention
to the stove.
 
Bruno tried to zone out
his brother’s moaning as he watched the man jerk the stove from the wall,
jumping into the gap behind it.
 
Clouds
of dust plumed upward as if he had jumped into a pile of loose feathers.

“Oh yeah, this’ll
work just perfect.
 
Piece of crap antique
doesn’t even have a safety on it.”
 
The tan
man with the black beard lifted his head, a wildly intense expression on his
face.
 
“But then again, the French aren’t
exactly known for their engineering and design, are they?”
 
He shook his head.
 
“Nah, didn’t think so.”

It was another two
minutes before the man hoisted himself out from behind the stove.
 
He stood before Bruno, an average sized man,
but with lean, muscular forearms and moves as lithe as a twenty-year-old.
 
“Remember me?” he asked, lowering his face to
Bruno’s.

Forced to breathe
through his snot filled nose, Bruno tried to think but his head was clouded by
a day of drinking and the blow to the neck.

“From right here
in Metz,” he offered.
 

Bruno’s brain
refused to comply.
 
The man shook his
head, clucking his tongue as if he were disappointed.
 
Finally he took his finger and traced the
wound on Bruno’s head.
 
“I gave you
this.”

Bruno’s eyes went
wide with recognition of the man named Gage Hartline.
 
Earlier, when he was being bound to his
brother, Bruno thought he might still have a chance to survive this situation.

But not now.
 

The American
leaned forward, ripping the tape off Bruno’s mouth.
 
After taking several great breaths, Bruno
faked a pitiful tone.
 
“Please don’t kill
me.”

The man
straightened.
 
“How many shots of vodka did
you have tonight?”

“You were in the
bar, earlier?”

“Yes, Bruno, I was.
 
You were too stupid, too arrogant, too drunk
to even give a cursory glance to see if you had any enemies there.”
 
The man wagged a finger at him.
 
“In your line of work, that’s something you
should always do.
 
Not that it matters
anymore.”

Bruno tried to
shift his feet—they were also bound—and he felt slickness on the floor, making
him glance downward.
 
He saw Luc’s blood
pooling.

The man followed
his eyes.
 
“Gunshot wounds to the gut are
usually pretty bloody.
 
I assume he’s
your brother.”