The Rogue Agent (The Agent Series) Read online

  Back on his feet, Cahill dug into his jeans pocket with his bloodied hand for his Zippo lighter.

  He waited till the fuel had surrounded both rear tires before stepping away and thumbing the flint wheel, engaging a flame.

  As he strode toward the copter, he flung the lighter onto the shimmering puddle spreading fast behind him.

  Even over the sound of the rotors he could hear the sudden whoosh of the fuel igniting.

  And despite the rotor wash, he felt a gust of heat rush his back.

  By the time he was aboard the copter, the SUV was engulfed in flames.

  He didn’t bother to look back, just sat in a jump seat and watched as the medics worked on Ula.

  Steadily, efficiently, professionally.

  No hint of the inner turmoil Cahill had fought to control as he’d struggled to keep her alive.

  As the copter lifted off, he felt the familiar sensation of gravity tugging at his insides.

  Banking sharply and heading toward the northeast, the Bell flew at top cruising speed just above the tree line.

  She died midflight, ten miles from their destination.

  It wasn’t a quiet death, and there was no escape from the horror of it for anyone in the crowded cabin.

  The only consolation—a small one—was that she had lost consciousness well before the level of blood loss triggered a seizure.

  Her body shuddered violently, her lungs expelling a whining, pitiful moan.

  An agony for those witnessing it, one that carried on unbearably for minutes.

  Cahill did the only thing he could do: close his eyes and wait for the inevitable.

  Once the seizures were done—once there was nothing to hear but the powerful engine above the cabin and the rotors cutting air—he opened his eyes and studied his fellow survivors.

  For the girl, Valena, shock had given way to raw anguish. Tears smeared her young face.

  Based on the closeness between mother and daughter—and the fact that Ula had brought her daughter into harm’s way—there was likely no father in the picture.

  He’d never before witnessed the very moment at which a child had become an orphan.

  He watched her till he felt compelled to offer her some semblance of privacy and turned away, looking next at Hammerton, who had already cast his gaze downward and was whispering to himself a quiet prayer.

  Finally, Cahill turned to Ballentine and saw on the kid’s face something he had seen many times before.

  The expression of dismay that comes with the realization that one is in over one’s head.

  That not only had one failed magnificently, but one had done so at a time when failure was not an option.

  There were men who never came back from such a traumatizing event, yet at this moment there was no way for Cahill to know which kind of man the kid was.

  And anyway, what did that matter now?

  Ballentine eventually met Cahill’s eyes, though he held them only briefly.

  He, too, bowed his head, but his lips were motionless.

  Turning away, Cahill looked out the window and down at the dark terrain below. It wasn’t long before he glimpsed a cluster of brick buildings surrounded by playing fields.

  This was Taft School—the prep school he had attended, and a visual landmark he had anticipated.

  One that meant the old tavern was just fifteen seconds away.

  Only at this moment did Cahill become aware of his own injuries—flesh wounds, from what he could surmise, some to his forehead and face, one to his left arm, another to his neck.

  He had no idea how close that last wound had come to his carotid artery, but whether it missed by an inch or just a fraction of one, there was no mistaking that he was alive because of dumb luck, and he disliked owing his life to chance.

  He’d spent the last fifteen years in the pursuit of skills meant to keep him—and others—alive.

  That insatiable acquisition of capabilities defined his adult life and was a quest he had begun in the very buildings now below him.

  A reckless and troubled teenage boy in need of direction, finding it the day he put on a pair of boxing gloves.

  Tonight’s narrow escape was simply a reminder that all preparation was in fact an illusion.

  Yes, fortune favored the prepared, but at any given moment, even the elite were vulnerable to bad luck.

  But he pushed this thought from his mind, along with everything else that would interfere with his ability to reason.

  Pain, rage, fear, sorrow, and confusion.

  There were just too many questions that needed to be answered for him to be wasting time and energy on anything other than what was critical. And what was critical was the little he currently knew, and everything he didn’t know and was determined, whatever the cost, to find out.

  Exactly fifteen seconds after passing beyond the bare trees that bordered the northeastern edge of the campus, the old tavern finally came into view.

  A hilltop farmhouse now, but originally a roadside inn during the American Revolution.

  A safe house—Cahill’s own safe house, self-funded, so known only to a few, and complete with surgery facilities and a state-of-the-art survivalist bunker that doubled as a secure command-and-control center.

  It was also the home of Sandy Montrose—one of the few people Cahill could implicitly trust.

  A lifelong friend and, along with her veterinarian husband, Cahill’s instructor in all things medical.

  The Bell began its controlled rotational turn, maneuvering for the small clearing behind the three-story barn that served as a makeshift landing pad. As the copter lowered, Cahill spotted two people standing on the edge of the driveway.

  Sandy and her husband, Kevin, both waiting to render expert aid.

  She would patch Cahill up, just as she had done on that night Erica had been gunned down.

  The night Cahill had both survived and died.

  The copter dipped behind the barn, cutting off Cahill’s view of the driveway.

  He returned his attention to those seated around him in the blood-drenched cabin.

  The waiting wounded, and the one fallen.

  Then he looked at the dead woman’s daughter.

  Her legs drawn to her chest, she was hugging her knees with trembling arms.

  No longer crying, she was now in shock.

  The copter touched down, but Cahill didn’t take his eyes off the girl’s vacant face.

  Kevin Montrose tended to Cahill’s wounds, not Sandy.

  In one of the farmhouse’s upstairs room, the veterinarian stitched closed the gash on Cahill’s neck before addressing the abrasions that cluttered his face like constellations.

  Both men remained silent throughout the procedure, and when it was completed and Kevin was gathering his gear, Cahill simply nodded his thanks, then asked whether Kevin would send Sandy up when she was ready.

  “Of course,” Kevin said. “Need anything else?”

  Cahill shook his head.

  Twenty minutes passed before Sandy entered the room.

  Cahill asked about Hammerton’s condition.

  “He’s good,” Sandy said. “It helps that he acts like he’s indestructible. How are you?”

  Cahill ignored the question. “They’re coming here. The Colonel and Raveis. Are you okay with that?”

  “Of course. I’m guessing that means you’re going operational again.”

  Cahill nodded. “Yeah.”

  “You got out for a reason.”

  “That doesn’t really matter now, does it? There’s a dead woman in your barn anyway.”

  “From what Hammerton says, it doesn’t sound like that was your fault.”

  Again, Cahill ignored what she’d said. Sandy was about to speak again when he cut her off.

  “Frank Ballentine’s dead,” he said.

  As Cahill’s closest friend, Sandy understood the significance of that. She watched him for a moment. “How?”

  “I don’t know. But I need t
o find out.”

  “How can I help?”

  “Stay out of harm’s way. And watch your backs. Something’s not right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They rushed Ballentine’s kid brother into the field. Raveis trained him, but it’s obvious he wasn’t ready.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Can’t think of a reason that doesn’t bother me.”

  “Kevin and I will stay strapped,” Sandy said.

  Staying strapped meant carrying a sidearm at all times, with a carbine or rifle either slung or nearby.

  “You see something you don’t like, anything, head straight for the bunker.”

  “We know what to do.”

  While she had taught him field medicine and emergency war surgery, he had trained her and Kevin in close-quarters battle.

  How to clear a house, room by room, when to barricade and defend, when to escape and evade.

  “Don’t worry about us,” she added.

  “Easily said.”

  “When will Raveis and the Colonel be here?”

  “An hour or so.”

  Sandy nodded, watched him for a moment more, then said, “Charlie, you seem a little . . . spooked. What’s wrong?”

  “I saw a man tonight . . .”

  Twelve

  Gateno was on the run, one of only two survivors of the second assault team.

  The other survivor was the driver of his SUV, but once they had arrived at their destination—a small warehouse on the eastern edge of Williamsburg, into which the driver steered the shot-up vehicle—Gateno waited until the man had gotten out and pulled the garage door closed before discreetly drawing his Walther and shooting him in the back of his head.

  The man hadn’t even heard the shot that killed him.

  Dragging the body to the center of the room and leaving it there, Gateno quickly grabbed a nylon duffel bag from a cupboard. It held a change of clothing—jeans and polo shirt, leather peacoat, work boots, and a billed cap.

  It was critical that the man leaving the warehouse in no way resemble the man who had fired shots from a Barrett rifle outside the Baychester Motel less than an hour ago.

  He had accomplished his objective as the Benefactor had laid it out, though he would not call the attack his most proficient.

  But that didn’t matter.

  What did was that it was time to disappear, which appealed to him now.

  It would mean a break from this—from the risks, but also from the prisoner-like existence that had been his stay in Chelsea.

  All of New York City just eight floors down, and no ability to enjoy it.

  The idea of living somewhere he wasn’t known—and the freedom to build a daily routine that included exploring new sites—felt right.

  Would he kill if he didn’t need to?

  How long would it take before he felt the urge to seek out a prostitute, use her up for hours on end, and then erase any and all traces left of himself by eliminating her?

  Where the Benefactor said he needed to go—one of the more dangerous parts of the world—would provide opportunities for both aspects of his nature.

  But there was housekeeping to do before he could get to that life.

  Firing up the furnace, Gateno incinerated the clothing he had worn during the attack, then disassembled the Barrett and laid its pieces beside the dead body.

  Next, he removed the laptop he kept locked in a heavy safe, placed it on a workbench, and powered it up, then signed in to his online storage account.

  Opening the only document contained there, he added key details of the two attacks.

  He listed the names of the men he had employed. In most cases he only had a last name, but he didn’t need anything more than that.

  Then he typed a large D beside each name, an indication that every man listed—every man who had seen his face—was deceased.

  All killed in action, with the exception of the two he had killed.

  Scrolling through the document, he found an entry he had made one year ago.

  Here was the name Ula Nakash.

  Next to it he keyed in three letters: WPD—wounded, presumed deceased.

  The last he’d seen, she was flat on her back, in the process of bleeding out onto the pavement.

  He knew enough about wounds to know she wouldn’t have lasted much longer.

  Scrolling back to the end of the document, he entered the physical description of the man who had been with her.

  The man who had seen him as the SUV passed, who’d caught at best a fleeting glimpse. But even a brief look at his face was not something he could ignore.

  Whatever the identity of that man, he was a skilled shooter.

  No, he was more than that.

  He was a gunfighter.

  But Gateno had killed men like that before.

  Once his notes were updated, he saved the document, then transferred a copy to an encrypted flash drive and signed out.

  If he was going to run, he wanted this information on his person.

  Pocketing the flash drive, he stepped to the microwave oven at the other end of the workbench. Placing the running computer inside, Gateno closed the oven door and set the timer for two minutes before pressing the “Start” button.

  He heard the cracking and snapping of circuits being fried as he stepped away.

  The final act was to open the drums of kerosene and diesel fuel scattered around the warehouse.

  The cement floor was a shallow lake in less than a minute, the dead man lying at the center of it, propellant soaking his clothing and skin and hair.

  Gateno didn’t need to drop a match on his way out the door; he had rigged a small incendiary device, the timer to which he could activate by a panel above the light switch.

  He took one last look before flipping the switch and leaving.

  Outside, he walked to the prearranged rendezvous point a few blocks east, where his courier would be waiting.

  He arrived only to find no sign of her vehicle.

  This part of Brooklyn had been staked out—no traffic cameras, no private business security cameras, a true blind spot in a city that had precious few left, so nothing to record him as he made his way out.

  He waited for a moment, felt briefly trapped.

  It was a feeling he disliked greatly.

  Moving on foot one block in any direction would expose him to traffic cameras.

  He began to scout windows, looking for shooters.

  As much as he trusted the Benefactor, there would come the day when the man would want him dead.

  Gateno trusted his gut, believed that he would know that day when it was upon him, but now he wondered whether he had missed the signs.

  More than that, could it have been the Benefactor’s intention that he not survive that second attack?

  Before his concerns could overtake him, Gateno spotted his courier’s car.

  As it got nearer, he recognized her behind the wheel.

  Still, his hand was in his jacket pocket, gripping the Walther, just in case.

  The vehicle slowed and stopped exactly where it was supposed to, and he closed the remaining distance.

  He glanced quickly into the backseat to confirm that it was indeed empty before climbing into the passenger seat.

  As he did, his cell phone vibrated. Gateno took the call, but before he could make his report, the Benefactor spoke.

  “Our inside man confirms Nakash is dead, but the situation is changing rapidly now. We may need another hit, one that requires a full assault team. I have one assembling at a staging area right now. Its leader is someone who has my full confidence. I need you there immediately.”

  Gateno replied, “Of course.”

  He was given the address.

  The call was ended. Gateno pocketed the phone.

  He thought about what he had just been told, and what it could really mean.

  If the Benefactor wanted to eliminate his assassin in the name of tying up l
oose ends, then sending him to meet his own death squad would be one way to do it.

  Gateno thought, too, about the promise that had been made during their meeting at the Chelsea Piers.

  The promise of a well-funded life away from all this with the assurance that someday he would be brought back in.

  It had struck him as odd then, and it struck him as odd now.

  Gateno gave the courier the address and asked how long it would take them to get there.

  “Two hours.”

  He nodded.

  She was young, maybe in her midtwenties, had dark hair, dark skin, was slim but strong.

  In some ways she reminded him of the women he’d paid for back in Algiers.

  He knew her only by a first name, and whether or not it was a fake didn’t matter to him.

  “Rene,” he said, “I need you to do something for me.”

  He removed the flash drive from his pocket and held it for her to see. “If something happens to me, you are to take this to a lawyer in New York City named Selad Ouellette. Say that name again.”

  Rene repeated the name.

  “He will, upon delivery, pay you ten thousand dollars for this. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, then asked, “What do you think might happen to you?”

  His reply was blunt. “Forced retirement.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Gateno ignored that, nodded toward the item in his hand. “It is important that you do not lose this, or that anyone take it from you. So at the first rest area we come to, I would like you to pull over, go to the ladies’ room, and secure this inside your body. Do you understand?”

  Rene nodded again.

  Gateno knew she would.

  She was a courier by profession, accustomed to smuggling contraband in a variety of ways.

  He removed a wad of hundreds from his jacket pocket, peeled off ten, and handed them to her, along with the flash drive. “For your troubles,” he said.

  She took the money, then steered through city streets until they reached the highway.

  A small compass was mounted on the dashboard.

  Gateno watched the thing, knew by it that they were heading north.

  The first rest area came into view twenty minutes later.

  The staging area was a private hangar at the far end of a small regional airport.