The Executioner's Game (5 page)

He was a little surprised when he went out to the valet and found her waiting for him.

“Your friends are long-winded,” she said.

“I was headed home,” said Luther. He gave the valet his ticket.

“Are you sure that beautiful girl you were with in there won't mind?” she asked.

“You don't seem like the jealous type,” he said.

“And you never answer a question directly.” Tomiko moved closer to him, nestling under his arm. “Maybe you'll be more talkative tomorrow morning.”

They didn't talk much on the way back to Luther's place. Tomiko rubbed his leg and pulled his hand under her skirt while he drove. It was elegant the way she did it, as if she'd done it before, but not with just anyone.

They got to his condo and went inside the building under the watchful eye of the guard at the door. Luther very badly wanted to kiss her, but he didn't really like public displays of affection. Tomiko controlled herself as well, and it only made what was coming more exciting for them both.

When Luther got to his door, Tomiko pulled him to her and kissed him hard. He gave in for a moment and then moved to find his keys. She pulled his hand to her breast, as if sensing that he was going to do some other silly thing with it.

Luther was letting go, wanting her body and the lovely, sweet abandon it would bring. Then all his instincts were immediately turned back on.

The polycord on the doorjamb was broken.

Luther pushed Tomiko away a little too hard. He moved back and assumed a slightly crouched posture. How stupid he'd been, he thought. He knew that desire was the most potent of all dis
ablers, and no matter how many times you read the E-1 manual, no matter how many courses in counteragent methods you took, you lost IQ points when your dick got stiff.

“What's wrong?” asked Tomiko breathlessly.

Luther didn't answer. He just watched her standing there looking gorgeous and confused. Did she know that his place had been compromised? Did she kiss him because she wanted to fuck him or because she wanted him to go inside without seeing that the polycord seal had been broken? Luther's face fell into a flat, dangerous look, the look that said he was about to do violence, and Tomiko unconsciously took a step backward.

If she was going to do something, it would happen right now, Luther thought, and he'd have to respond quickly and cleanly. He had a backup weapon, an S&W shorty .40 in an ankle holster. The P99 was too big to hide under his clothes. He'd have to drop her before she could reach hers. But Tomiko just kept looking at him with innocence and fear in her eyes. The moment was heavy, but he did not sense danger from her.

Luther quickly assessed the situation and began to relax. If Tomiko was out to get him, she could have done so many times in the car or at the club. She was just what he thought she was: a beautiful woman who wanted to sleep with him.

“I'm okay,” said Luther. “But I don't think it's a good idea for you to stay tonight.”

“Are you married or something?” she asked with a tiny bit of disappointment in her voice.

“No, I'm not,” he responded calmly. “Look, the guard downstairs will call a car for you. I'm sorry, Tomiko, really.”

Tomiko was struck silent. Luther could see so many things going through her head: Was he lying? Was he gay? Was he crazy?
She stood straight and then walked over to him, placing a small kiss on his cheek.

“Take care, Jordan,” she said. And she said his name as if she wasn't sure it was his real name. She had intuition, too, this woman, and he was deeply sorry to see her move away from him. He wanted to grab her, to forget who and what he was, but that feeling was buried under a mountain of training and discipline.

Luther watched her walk off. When he was sure she was gone, he pulled the shorty .40 and went inside. He moved into the little hallway off the front door. He knew that if there were someone still inside, he would have to show himself soon or the element of surprise would be lost. Who would be foolish enough to try to take down an E-1 agent in D.C.? Not many, Luther thought, but that didn't stop him from moving into the living room, then into the bedrooms and kitchen, looking for intruders. He checked each closet and even the ledge outside the window. He made a thorough sweep and even did a quick electronic scan for devices. It was all clear.

But someone had been inside his place, he thought. Luther turned off all the lights, went into his utility area, and removed a pair of thermal readout glasses. Through the glasses Luther could now see impressions of depth and temperature. The glasses were effective, but they hurt his eyes like all hell.

Luther saw his own depression tracks. Temperature readings showed pink where he had pressed his hands just moments before. Then he saw them—foot impressions left by someone else. The impressions looked to be those of a smaller person. He followed the footprints into his bedroom and saw them stop by his bed.

He saw hand impressions and temperature readings on his
bedcovers. The handprints were thick and rounded at the fingertips, telling Luther that the intruder had worn gloves. The impressions ended at his pillow.

Luther gently pressed the pillow and heard the soft crinkle of paper as he did. He took off the glasses and lifted the pillow carefully. His eyes adjusted, and the pain stopped as he did.

Under the pillow, written on a piece of plain white paper and printed with care and precision, was this message:

 

DON'T TAKE THE MISSION.

The note that had been secreted into his room was on Luther's mind as he read through the case file on Alex Deavers. He didn't know who had left the missive, and he wasn't going to try to find out right now. That would just slow him down, and if he reported it to Kilmer, it might endanger his status on the mission.

He did surmise that the note writer was an insider, someone who had training and knew how to break into a place virtually undetected. It could have been anybody from E-1, even Kilmer. Hampton was back in the United States, but he was getting ready to accompany Luther on the mission. He ruled Hampton out. Frank and Sharon Bane had both come to the X Club late and were not together, so it could have been either of them.

These were troubling thoughts for Luther, but if the note writer had wanted to do him harm, he or she would have tried.

Luther had gotten up early to read over the file on Deavers's disappearance. They had him tracked fairly well until Canada, and then they'd found the wrong man on a ship. The Canadians
had good government agents, and if they'd lost Alex, it was only because he was good, not because they were deficient. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Border Police, and the Security Intelligence Review Committee all had good people and expert trackers and fully cooperated with the United States.

If he was going to find Alex Deavers, he'd have to be resourceful. An agent leaves the evidence of nothing, he said again to himself. But that truth was relative. If nothing was left, then no one could ever find an agent. What Deavers had meant was that an agent leaves a trail of
normality
, a statement that things are maybe too right and good.

Luther looked at the ship's log information again. The
Sjømannskirken
, a Norwegian freighter, had left Great Britain and had an uneventful journey to a northern Canadian port in the province of Quebec, in Tête-à-la-Baleine. Once it got there, Gustav Brehimson, a man with questionable papers, had gotten off and disappeared. This was the man E-1 thought to be Alex Deavers.

When the man calling himself Brehimson was located, it was discovered that his real name was Norske Svalbard and that he was an illegal immigrant from Norway. Alex was nowhere to be found.

Luther checked again and again, looking for anything he might find. Then, in the captain's supplemental log, a massive pile of paper that contained everything useless that had occurred on the voyage, there was an entry that stood out. Luther didn't know why the entry was not listed separately as a report or put into the main log. He guessed that the captain didn't want to bother with all the paperwork involved. On its second night, the
Sjømannskirken
had been aided by a ship named the
Métier
, a
French vessel headed for the United States. The
Métier
had come upon the
Sjømannskirken
when she had developed engine trouble and had stopped for repairs at sea. The captain of the
Sjømannskirken
had logged information earlier about questionable engines in port. He allowed the other ship to assist, and then both ships had gone on their separate ways. The entry was a single paragraph.

Luther smiled and almost laughed at the simplicity of the event.

That was how Alex had done it.

Alex was indeed on the
Sjømannskirken
as Gustav Brehimson, but he had switched ships. Alex had sabotaged the engine and jumped aboard the Baltimore-bound
Métier
. He'd switched his papers with Norske Svalbard and then vanished. It was a classic E-1 diversion. Alex had gotten information on the
Métier's
course and planned to have the ships rendezvous. The son of a bitch had gone straight into the States.

Luther's heart began to race. He quickly got on his computer and accessed E-1's mainframe. There he got the information on the
Métier
. It had landed in Baltimore, and only its captain had kept an official record of the midocean encounter.

Alex had sneaked into the country and landed just miles from E-1 itself. It was quintessential agent logic: hide in plain sight.

Luther called Hampton, who praised him on his sleuthing. Then he reported his findings to Kilmer and started planning his trip. He didn't see it done, but he knew as soon as he hung up the phone that his little gold button was moved from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore.

As Luther prepared to go, a thought crept back into his head. It was vague at first and then became focused and intense. The
mark of a good agent is that his analytical mind processed information subconsciously. Since Kilmer had said these words, Luther had been haunted by them. It was a slip of the tongue from a man who never slipped, a lapse from a man who could not afford to have gaps in his logic. And for an agent it was undeniably a clue to something.

“…in
possession of that information, too.”

Luther was tracking a dangerous man who held something that the leader of the agency did not want to tell him about. He'd be leaving for Baltimore with more than one mystery on his mind.

Luther set out that day to make the short drive from D.C. to Baltimore, with Hampton riding shotgun. He and Hampton had done many missions together. They got along fine, but Hampton was a stickler for protocol, and Luther liked to wing it. Once, on an assignment in Korea, Hampton's by-the-book attitude caused them to be discovered, and an ambush was set for them. Luther saw the sign of the trap, but instead of avoiding it, which was the standard policy, he engaged the men and killed them all. Hampton had almost been shot. Afterward they argued bitterly about who was at fault. In Luther's mind Hampton was a stiff, and in Hampton's mind Luther could be a loose cannon. It was a good match.

The black Ford pulsed with the sounds of Biggie Smalls. The rearview mirror vibrated with the thick bass.

“Do we have to listen to that stuff all the time?” asked Hampton, referring to the music. “I know it gets you in the mood, but it just gives me a headache.”

“Sorry, but I need my music.”

“Would a little Coldplay kill you?”

“Yes, it would,” said Luther. He actually liked the group, but he was a creature of habit. “You always complain about the music. I would think that by now you would've established an appreciation.”

“It's all derivative imitation, and you know it. Hip-hop is the beginning of the end of society.”

They laughed, and Luther drove on. To anyone on the freeway, they could have been two friends off to a fun weekend, not two men looking for a third man who had to be killed.

“Do you think anyone else knows about our mission?” asked Luther.

“No, but it's not impossible that someone would know,” said Hampton. “Even secret agencies have leaks. Why? Someone say something to you?”

“No,” said Luther. He started to tell Hampton about the note but thought better of it.

Hampton flipped open a laptop computer and accessed the mainframe. Luther saw a map of Baltimore pop on-screen. Then the screen split, and a list of weapons and devices appeared. Hampton was mapping out a strategy and scenarios for finding Alex. That's why he was the best TWA in E-1. He was always thinking ahead.

Luther let Hampton go to his business and immersed himself in the throbbing bass of the song. He was in full mission mode now, ready for anything.

Luther Martin Green had been born into a normal midwestern family. His parents, Roland and Theresa, were both from the South—Kentucky and New Orleans, respectively. Roland and
Theresa had five children: Micah James, Ruth Ann, Thomas Paul, Mary Theresa, whom they all called Mary Sunshine because of her fascination with shiny objects, and finally Luther.

Like most people in Detroit, the home they made in the North was just a transplanted southern one. They struggled financially but always managed to keep the family afloat.

Luther was a tiny thing when he was born, and his mother had nicknamed him Cricket because of this. But as he grew up, it soon became obvious that young Luther was an exceptional human being. He seemed to know things before they were taught, and that which was instructed was learned immediately. He was talking and reading early and before long had plowed his way through every book in the house.

Theresa and Roland were of course proud of their son. So within the limits of their financially challenged lives, they steered resources toward the bright young man.

Luther breezed through a special prep school for gifted students and later Cass Tech High in Detroit.

In high school he met Vanessa Brown, a sweet little junior who was every bit as smart as he was. She was a book nerd but cute as she could be, and she always had a smile on her face. They bonded, sharing dreams and sweet kisses, and one night when her parents were away, they made love for the first time with each other.

After high school Luther attended West Point, scoring top marks in academics, military training, and sports. And for the first time in his life, he met people who were smarter and more accomplished in certain fields.

But while he was outmatched in some areas, no one in the institution had all the qualities he did. No one except Sharon
Bane. Sharon was the female Luther. Born to a trailer-trash family, she was a rebel and had all the talent to back it up. They became fast friends, their difference in race and gender quelling any rivalry they might have had.

Luther graduated with honors and planned to go into the Army Rangers to serve out his commission. These plans were changed when a government man came to visit. The man came each year, and each year it was rumored that he selected recruits for special assignment. Luther had never paid much attention to the rumors, but that year, after the visit, he was called in to a meeting and was surprised to see Sharon Bane and another cadet, Henry Trenchant, both of whom had also graduated at the top of their class. They were told that they would receive a special commission to work with an unclassified agency. The school did not know anything about the government man or whom he represented. It was widely rumored that the CIA or NSA was behind this.

Luther and Sharon took the offer. Henry did not and was sworn never to breathe a word of it afterward.

Luther, Sharon, and several others from Annapolis, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island were trained in secret for three years. They learned various forms of martial arts and were schooled in weapons use and explosives. The training was grueling and relentless. Eventually Luther and the others were removed from their units altogether and trained full-time.

Luther soon understood that this special unit was not the CIA. The men who trained them seemed concerned primarily with methods of elimination. Even before they told him, he knew he was being trained as an assassin.

This was when Luther met Alex Deavers. Alex's arrival was heralded as the make-or-break point of the cadets' training.

He arrived during their fight instruction one cold day in Virginia. The cadets were randomly sparring when Deavers, clad in a crisp navy suit, entered the facility and assumed a fighting pose. The other instructors backed away, leaving the cadets to face the lone man five to one.

Deavers approached the fist cadet, a young man named Tony Andrisi. Tony was generally agreed to be the best fighter of the group. Deavers faked a punch. Andrisi lifted his hands in defense and then delivered a kick that Deavers easily dodged. Then Deavers threw a punch at Andrisi that was so fast Luther thought it was another bluff, but the blow hit Andrisi on the temple and dropped him to one knee.

Andrisi was about to move when Deavers said, “Get up and I'll kill you.” Andrisi stayed down.

Deavers put down Sharon and the other two cadets in similar fashion, each time faking an assault, then countering the aggression with a punch or kick that was too fast to defend.

Deavers got to Luther, and Luther swore he could see the shadow of a smile on his lips. Luther stood fast and then searched Deavers's face. Their eyes locked, and Luther saw something that set him at ease. Deavers raised a leg and aimed a side kick at Luther's head. Luther barely dodged the assault but did not attack. Deavers then executed a series of moves, and Luther struggled to survive them. Finally Luther landed a punch, but Deavers swept his legs from under him, ending the contest.

“Fighting is not about hurting your enemy; it's about understanding him, then killing him,” Deavers had said. “This cadet avoided my assault as best he could until he saw a weakness. But
of course he had the advantage of seeing die rest of you fail, didn't he?” And now Deavers did smile.

That day the cadets were told something of the institution called E-1. They were given as much info as they needed, which was not much. Luther surmised that he was being trained to kill, and the prospect excited and terrified him.

During the next year, Luther was taken under Deavers's wing and forged into another person. Deavers liked Luther's youth and brashness. The young kid soaked up everything Deavers had to offer, learning the history of the agency and its secrets and memorizing the E-1 rule book, the blueprint for their future.

Luther also learned to focus his anger and aggression into useful energy. Deavers trained him and the others to look at their exceptional status as human beings in a new way. They were elite and had to remain unburdened by the false morality of common people. They were being trained to eliminate the enemies of their country. They were machines to this end, and duty, honor, and patriotism were their fuel.

Luther was accepted into E-1 at the age of twenty-one, the youngest agent in the agency's history. He was given a document called the
vita pactum
, a simple one-page document in which the agent promised to give his life to the agency, and in return the agency would always take care of his every need. Luther signed it and was married to E-1 forever.

Luther took to his new job with the same fierceness and brilliance with which he did everything else. Alex Deavers saw to it that Luther was not wasted in his new occupation. He sent Luther on a mission the first week after his graduation.

Luther was dispatched to Germany to neutralize an arms dealer who'd become troublesome to peace negotiations in
Eastern Europe. Luther knew nothing of him until he got there. When he received the file, he saw that the man, Caesar Reniddo, was a former army lieutenant trained in fighting and weapons. He was also a black man.

That was Alex, Luther had thought. He wanted to test Luther in every way, including his racial loyalty.

Luther neutralized Reniddo and his two bodyguards on his first night in the country. The bodyguards were killed with a silenced weapon. Reniddo's throat was cut as he slept. Luther felt a great rush of emotion at his first kills. He was excited, guilty, sickened, and empowered by the feeling. It was like hearing bright music crescendo, then recede into silence—the cold, deep space of the human heart.

Luther left an angry note, handwritten in Lebanese. The authorities made the normal assumptions, and the matter was closed. After that first assignment, Luther had gone on mission after mission, building his skill and confidence. His former life became a distant, faded dream, hidden under layers of missions and aliases and secrets. Detroit, his family, and the young, sweet Vanessa and the Cricket were ghosts locked in some faraway country. There were women, but they never lasted long; and there were friends, but they were all within the structure of E-1's family. The agency became his life.

Luther became one of Alex Deavers's killing machines, a man possessed of deadly skill and cold, controlled emotion. He often wondered which was deadlier, the blow that killed or the lack of emotion that catalyzed it.

Luther also became a patriot. Most Americans didn't know the price of freedom, but he did. He'd visited the ghettos and hellholes of the world and had seen the look of loss and need in
the eyes of the hungry and dying that would make a common homeless man's stare look like a smile. Americans went through their privileged lives not knowing why they had cars, skyscrapers, NBA teams, and thirty-one flavors. Someone else in the world paid the price for our advantages, usually with their lives.

Luther believed in America, but he was practical about it. If his country wasn't the leader of the world, another country would have assumed the position, and it would be no less protective of its interests. A true patriot knew that everything in life was the lesser of two evils.

This was how he and the other E-1 agents justified their occupation. The men and women they eliminated were plagues on humanity. If they were allowed to live, they would undoubtedly cause the deaths of countless innocents. So by terminating them, they actually saved lives.

“Exit,” he heard Hampton say.

“Got it,” he said almost at the same time.

They were in sync as usual, he thought. He felt the music merge with his excitement as the Ford Explorer rolled off an exit and into the city of Baltimore, where he hoped that his mission would end quickly with the elimination of Alex Deavers.