Red Right Hand (20 page)

H
ENDRICKS SPRINTED ACROSS
the Presidio's grounds, vaulting fences, cutting through backyards, pushing through dense stands of trees. His lungs burned. His muscles ached. His stitches tugged uncomfortably. Blood oozed from his wound whenever his midsection flexed.

At least the fog provided cover. It began to blow in, cold and clammy, shortly after he fled the bridge pavilion. Gray-white tendrils reached inland, smelling of low tide and swallowing everything they touched. Shadows vanished as the fog blocked out the setting sun.

The temperature—low seventies when the sky was cloudless—plummeted. Hendricks's world shrank as the fog narrowed the margins all around. Distant landmarks became ghosts, fading into the swirling mist. Man-made objects dissolved into the scenery as edges dulled and angles softened. Sounds reverberated oddly, sometimes muffled, sometimes accentuated. His own footfalls sounded dull to his ears, like the idle tapping of an eraser against a desk, but more than once he heard a conversation or an engine's roar so loud that he assumed he was right on top of it, only to discover it was blocks away or more.

He crossed a street and plunged into a forest, branches lashing. A footpath ran parallel to his route, eastward, ever eastward, and he zigged toward it, picking up speed once he left the underbrush behind. Then, at once, the forest fell away and he was running through a rolling field of grass, the blades slickened by the moisture-laden air, the footing treacherous. A cemetery, he realized. Headstones, low and regular, dotted the field, and threatened to take his legs out from under him. Larger monuments loomed in the mist. A soldier. A cross. An angel. Each a blur as Hendricks ran past. Then the cemetery vanished as the woods enveloped him once more.

This time when he emerged, he found himself on a paved road at the edge of the Main Post. In the dim half-light, the place could be confused for a particularly quaint small town—the streets winding, the sidewalks broad, the houses tidy and attractive, the lawns well tended. Residential and commercial buildings mixed, the former Spanish single-family dwellings, the latter everything from clapboard to red brick. The streetlights flickered to life one by one and cast halos in the fog. Since there was no civilian traffic on the streets, the glow of headlights warned him of approaching Park Police patrols and afforded him a chance to hide, to duck behind a building or a parked car or merely linger in an entryway, face averted, pretending he belonged.

At one such stop, outside the old officers' club, he checked his phone. According to the map, his destination was just around the corner.

He tried not to think too much about what he was walking into or what might happen to Cameron in his absence. The U.S. government had trained Hendricks and his unit to operate autonomously behind enemy lines, and it had trained them well. What he needed now was to trust in his abilities, his instincts, his muscle memory. Overthinking led to distraction, doubt, and failure.

His muscles twitched from the sudden stillness. His breath plumed with every ragged exhalation. Blood roared in his ears. He willed his heart to slow. Felt the wound in his side throb in time. He moved the gun to his right jacket pocket. Thumbed the safety off and kept his hand around the grip.

And then rounded the corner, headed toward Segreti.

R
EYES GLANCED AT
his watch and frowned when he realized the hands had scarcely moved since the last time he'd looked.

“If you've got somewhere else to be,” Segreti said, too loud due to the aftereffects of the flash-bang grenade, “don't let us keep you.”

Reyes eyed the man—whose name Yancey had never divulged to him—with disdain. He looked so thin and frail as he sat zip-tied on the couch, but the fact was, he'd put up one hell of a fight when they'd stormed the place. He'd played possum until the lead team got within striking distance, then attacked, slicing Liman's forearm open with a folding knife and kicking out McTiernan's legs. He'd nearly gotten hold of McTiernan's gun before Stahelski put him down with a rifle butt to the face.

Lois sat beside Segreti on the couch, frightened, trembling, with Ella on her lap. Lois's bound hands were buried in the dog's coat, and she muttered an endless string of soothing nonsense in her ear. It was unclear to Reyes whether she was comforting the dog or vice versa. Either way, it was getting on his nerves.

“I'm not going anywhere,” Reyes said. “Just counting down the seconds until I'm rid of you.”

“You wanna get rid of me? All you've gotta do is let me go. I swear you'll never see me again.”

“Sorry, pal, but I'm not the guy to talk to. You want to plead your case, you're going to have to take it up with my boss when he gets here.”

“Uh-huh. That'll go well. Anybody who'd order a raid on an innocent lady's house is bound to be real reasonable.”

“I'm sure he had his reasons.”

“Yeah? What are they?”

“Above my pay grade,” Reyes replied.

“Oh, I see. You're just a goon. A lackey. You've got no idea what's going on here. Tell me, this boss of yours—he got a name?”

“Do you?”

Segreti ignored his question. “Whoever he is, I can tell you he's crooked as fuck. I don't know what sort of line he's fed you, but I can promise you he means to kill me.”

Reyes said nothing.

“Maybe that's fine with you,” Segreti continued. “Ain't like I know you from Adam. But if you people are gonna kill me, I say let's get it over with—don't make me wait around all day. But please, I'm begging you, let Lois go. She's not involved in any of this. Only thing she did wrong was let me in when I came knocking.”

“For fuck's sake, nobody's killing anybody,” Reyes snapped. Then, to his men: “Gag him, would you? In fact, gag them both.”

The truth was, Reyes didn't know what to believe. Nothing about this assignment felt right to him. The guy was more dangerous than he let on, sure, but he didn't strike Reyes as a zealot—and if he really was involved in the bridge attack like Yancey said, why the hell had he been here playing house when they'd busted in?

Still, orders were orders—and Yancey had been handpicked by Bellum's CEO to head up West Coast operations, which carried weight among the rank and file—so Reyes kept his questions to himself.

While McTiernan and Stahelski gagged the captives, Reyes parted the curtains and looked outside. Night had fallen and a fog bank had blown in. Visibility was terrible, but near as he could tell, the street was empty except for the Humvee he'd arrived in, which was parked along the curb. Civilian vehicles were temporarily banned from all Presidio roads—he'd had to send a man in the other Humvee to meet Yancey at the Veterans Boulevard barricades. Across the street, he could just make out the vague suggestion of two homes identical to the one in which he stood. The fog reduced the nearby streetlights to nothing more than faintly glowing orbs that seemed to hover in the milky white.

Eventually the second Humvee emerged from the mist and parked behind the first. Yancey climbed out, his cell phone to his ear. When he walked through the front door, Segreti's eyes went wide and he struggled against his bonds, grunting unintelligibly through the gag in his mouth. The Bellum operative standing guard to his right stilled him with a jab to the ribs.

“Listen, Yancey—” Reyes began, but Yancey held up a finger to say
Just a minute.

“No shit? Charlie Thompson's on the line too?” Yancey said into the phone. “Tell me, is she still an insubordinate pain in the ass?” He chuckled. “Easy, Thompson, I'm just busting your balls. You never did know how to take a joke.” A pause. “That's very kind of you, Assistant Director, but I think we can take it from here. How about you send us what you've got so far, and stand down—we'll let you know if there's anything else we need. In the meantime, I'm kinda busy here, so…”

Yancey rolled his eyes at Reyes and made a sock-puppet gesture that suggested the person on the other end of the line was blabbing on. “No, not at all. I'm glad you called. It's always nice to have a chance to catch up with an old friend,” he said, his gaze settling on Segreti.

When Yancey hung up the phone, Reyes asked, “Who was that?”

“Feds,” Yancey replied. “Offering assistance, they said. Pissing on their territory, more like.” Then, to Segreti: “I've gotta hand it to you, Frank. You are one slippery motherfucker. I never thought I'd see your ugly mug again.”

Reyes eyed Yancey with suspicion. “Wait—you know this guy?”

“Our paths crossed a thousand years ago when I was with the Bureau. Seems like folks are coming out of the woodwork left and right today. I know he doesn't look like much, but believe me, he's a grade-A shitheel. We liked him for dozens—if not hundreds—of deaths back in the day, but we could never make them stick. Once he got wind that we were onto him, he up and vanished.”

Segreti snorted.

“That tracks,” Reyes said, his doubts allayed somewhat. “He didn't go down easy. Had a folding knife hidden in the front pocket of his sweatshirt and wound up cutting Liman pretty good. Poor bastard's off getting stitched up as we speak.”

“That true, Frank? You get a little feisty with my men?”

Segreti just glared.

Yancey turned his attention to the woman beside Segreti. “Who's the skirt?”

“Lois Broussard,” Reyes replied.

“This her place?”

“Looks like. It's leased from the Presidio Trust under the name Calvin Broussard. I'm guessing he's the gentleman in all the pictures.”

Yancey picked up a framed photo from the side table, glanced at it, and tossed it aside. “And where is ol' Calvin?”

“Credit card records put him in Reno. Business trip, looks like.”

“Was our guy holding Mrs. Broussard against her will?”

“Not as far as we could tell—which is why we elected to restrain her.”

“What's your connection to this lady, Frank? You keeping Calvin's side of the bed warm while he's gone?”

A single tear slid down Lois's cheek. Segreti made noises of protest through his gag.

“Sorry, buddy, I didn't quite get that. But don't worry, we'll have plenty of time to catch up when I transport you to our facility up north for questioning.”

Segreti's eyes, wide and pleading, darted from Yancey to Reyes.

“If this guy's tied to the attack in some way, shouldn't we turn him over to the authorities?” Reyes asked.

“Sure,” Yancey replied. “And I'll be happy to—just as soon as I'm done with him.”

Segreti thrashed against his restraints. The dog on Lois's lap growled as Yancey stepped in close and hit Frank twice. Segreti doubled over and sucked wind through his gag. Yancey grabbed him by the hair and yanked him upright.

That's when the dog lunged.

Yancey yelped as Ella's teeth sank into his forearm. He released Segreti and flailed wildly until he shook the dog free.

Ella sailed past Lois and slammed into a side table. The lamp atop it rocked and fell, shattering when it hit the floor.

“You okay, boss?” Reyes asked.

Yancey cradled his injured arm to his chest. Blood seeped into his sleeve. “I'm fine.”

“Weddle,” Reyes said, “shut that thing in a bedroom, would you?”

“No,” Yancey replied. “Leave it be.”

Ella hunkered low and snarled.

“You sure that's a good idea?” Reyes asked.

Yancey drew his .357 and aimed it at the dog. “You're goddamn right I'm sure.”

Lois shrieked through her gag. Segreti strained against his zip-ties.

“Whoa,” Reyes said. “I think maybe we should all just take a breath.”

Yancey ignored him and instead addressed Ella directly. “Christ, look at you. You're more throw pillow than dog—proof positive that man makes for a capricious god. It took only a couple thousand years for us to turn wolves into accessories for rich bitches.”

“Seriously, boss. I get that you're pissed, but there's no need for this. Let me stash her somewhere out of sight, okay?”

“But it's all just window dressing, ain't it?” Yancey continued. “Deep down, you're still half wild; all you wanna do is fight and fuck. It's not your fault, really—it's ours for thinking we could change your nature. But if you wanna play Big Bad Wolf with me, I'll show you how we deal with wolves where I come from.”

“For fuck's sake, Yancey, put the gun down!”

“You know, son,” Yancey said without taking his eyes off the dog, “it seems to me this little shit ain't the only one around here who needs to learn who's in charge.”

Yancey pulled the trigger.

His gun thundered.

But not before Lois threw herself off the couch.

With her arms and legs bound, she went down hard. Yancey's shot ran parallel to the couch and angled downward to the spot where Ella stood. As Lois fell, it caught her in the sternum. Segreti screamed into his gag. Reyes rushed to Lois's side—but there was no saving her. The bullet had passed clean through and left an exit wound the size of his fist. She was dead before she hit the floor.

“Jesus Christ,” Reyes said. “What did you do?”

Yancey stared at Lois's corpse in wide-eyed disbelief.

“It wasn't…” he said. “I didn't…”

And then the lights went out.

W
HAT THE FUCK
is going on?”

The house's background whir ceased as appliances shut down. Yancey's voice echoed, shrill and desperate, in the sudden quiet. His hands were sweaty. His mouth was dry. He became painfully aware of his own breathing and the roar of his pulse in his ears.

A rustling to his left. A squeak of couch springs. A struggle. A thud. A grunt.

Then, one by one, flashlights came on around the room.

Reyes still crouched beside the fallen woman, blood pooling black beneath her; lifeless eyes reflecting the flashlights' beams, but now his gun was drawn and his head was cocked to one side, listening.

Segreti was sprawled beside him, straddled by two Bellum men. It seemed he'd tried to make a move despite his bonds. Yancey wished he'd died in the attempt. It would have saved Yancey the trouble of killing him.

Speaking of, that little shit of a dog was nowhere to be seen.

Yancey knew he was in danger of losing control of the situation. He tamped down his rising panic and forced some steel into his voice. “I want a goddamn sitrep
now!
”

“Could be an outage,” one of his men replied. “FEMA sent around a memo about the rescue effort taxing the power grid. Warned the lights could flicker.”

“It's not an outage,” Reyes said. He nodded toward the curtains. Light shone through the narrow gap where they met. “The streetlights are still on. Which means we've got company.”

“Get him up,” Yancey said. The men who'd tackled Segreti hauled him to his feet and held him upright by his elbows. “Remove his gag.”

Once they had, Segreti spat in Yancey's face. “You son of a bitch,” he said. “I swear you'll pay for what you did to Lois.”

“Don't you
dare
blame me for this! Her death is on
your
conscience, not mine. You're the one who put her in harm's way.”

Segreti turned his head and locked eyes with Reyes. “That how
you
see it? His actions seem justified to you? Because I promise, Lois ain't the first innocen—”

Yancey pistol-whipped Segreti. Segreti's head rocked sideways, blood spraying from his mouth. He sagged, his weight supported by the men on either side of him, and his eyes showed only whites.

Yancey cocked back his hand to hit him again. Reyes grabbed his wrist to halt the blow.

“Yancey! He's had enough!”

Yancey yanked his hand free and wheeled on Reyes. They stood nose to nose in the darkness, grips tightening on their weapons. “Are you questioning my authority, son?”

The moment hung between them—fraught, electric. The armed men around them tensed. Yancey felt as if his future hinged on the outcome of this confrontation. Reyes's challenge painted him as fallible and weak. He couldn't afford to let it stand.

Reyes glanced around the room, and realized that he was on his own.

He relaxed his posture and backed down.

“No,” he said.

Yancey smiled, wide and predatory. “I'm sorry—I must've misheard. No
what?
”

“No,
sir,
” Reyes replied through gritted teeth.

“Attaboy,” Yancey said, his confidence returning. He looked at Segreti, who was once again conscious, although his eyes swam woozily in their sockets. “So, Frank—who's your friend out there?”

Segreti frowned. Spat blood on the floor. “Fuck if I know. I didn't think I had any left.”

“Don't worry,” Yancey said, “you won't for long. Reyes, McTiernan, Bigelow, Stahelski, go check the perimeter. Weddle, Swinson, Lutz, you stay in here with me.”

The men, save Reyes, muttered their assent and geared up.

Yancey gave Reyes a hard look.

Reyes returned it.

“There a problem?” Yancey asked.

“Not so long as the prisoner is still alive when we get back.”

The streetlights looked like paper lanterns in the fog and bathed the neighborhood in gauzy white. In the long shadows of the Broussard house's backyard, though, their illumination dwindled to the false twilight of a horror-movie poster.

The back door creaked slowly open. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then two mercenaries slipped into the night, nearly invisible in their matte-black body armor. They moved with silent precision, one advancing while the other covered him.

Hendricks studied them from the shadows, assessing strengths and weaknesses.

He'd watched the house for ten minutes, trying to formulate a plan of attack, but when Yancey arrived, he knew he had to make his move. Hendricks had been creeping toward the house when he heard the gunshot. For a moment, he'd worried he was too late. Then Segreti screamed—which meant he might be injured but was still alive.

In every scenario he considered, Hendricks was outnumbered and outgunned. The mercs carried MP5 assault rifles, fully automatic, thirty rounds to a magazine, and spare mags in their vests. And if they'd sent two men out the back, it was safe to assume there were at least two more around front. All Hendricks had was Pappas's .45, which wouldn't penetrate their body armor.

Their armor, however, afforded Hendricks some advantages. It slowed reaction times. Limited mobility. Dulled hearing. Narrowed visual fields. And the night-vision goggles they wore beneath their helmets were next to useless in the roiling fog.

One of the men took up a position behind the Jaguar in the driveway and provided cover for the other while he jogged toward the tree line. Hendricks smiled. He'd figured that's where they'd begin their search, which was why he wasn't hiding in the tree line.

Training is good. Training is valuable. But the wrong training leads to regimented thinking, which can be turned against you on the battlefield.

Thanks to the fog, Hendricks couldn't see the one searching the tree line, so he closed his eyes and listened. Heard the muffled crunch of dropped pine needles beneath boots, the dry rustle of underbrush disturbed. When the man completed his search, he shouted, “Clear! You see anything on your end?”

“Nada,” the one behind the car replied. “I've got eyes on the house's electric meter, though, and it looks like it's been fucked with. Come cover me, and I'll see if I can get the lights back on.”

“Copy that.”

The meter box was located on a small, single-story addition nestled in the back left crook of the house's original cross gable, where shadows ran thick. A flower bed encircled the addition. Shrubberies partially hid the meter box. A garden hose hung just beside.

On the roof of the addition, a gently slanting plane some fifteen feet off the ground, Hendricks lay in wait.

“Look at this—someone yanked the fucking dial off.”

His partner glanced over his shoulder without lowering his weapon, which was aimed vaguely toward the tree line. “That enough to kill the power?”

“Beats me.”

In fact, it was. Electric companies aren't wild about supplying power free of charge, so juice will flow only if the meter is plugged into the meter box. Removing it is a simple—if illegal—matter of snapping off the wire security seal and yanking the piece containing the display dial from its housing.

“They take it with 'em?”

“Dunno. Maybe.” He clipped his weapon to his vest and rooted around the flower bed for a second. “Wait—got it.”

“Is it busted?”

The merc wiped soil off the meter and turned it over in his hands. On the back were four prongs, which corresponded to four exposed slots in the box. “Doesn't seem to be.”

“Put it back, then. See what happens.”

“On it. Watch my six.”

He lined the prongs up with the slots and plugged the meter in.

A white-hot burst of sparks lit up the night. The air crackled with electricity. The smell of ozone and scorched hair invaded Hendricks's nostrils as 220 volts blew the man backward into the yard.

Hendricks had used the hose to drench the meter and the box before he'd scaled the trellis, and he'd counted on the darkness and the man's tactical gloves to hide that fact until it was too late. If he were being honest with himself, he wasn't sure if it'd work.

The electrocuted merc landed, limbs rigid, on the grass. His hair and clothes were smoking. An involuntary groan escaped his lips. The man covering him cried out and dropped his weapon when the sparks erupted from the meter box, his night-vision goggles amplifying the light and blinding him. He stripped them off and tossed them aside, staggering. Then he rubbed uselessly at his eyes and called to his fallen friend.

“Bigs? Bigs, are you okay? Talk to me—I can't see you!”

And that's when Hendricks leaped.

Reyes was inspecting the underbrush to the right of the front porch when the streetlights dimmed. On the far side of the house, a brilliant flash of white, accompanied by a firecracker pop, turned night to day. Stahelski shouted something and was quickly silenced.

Reyes took off running toward the backyard.

The fog was thick; the grass was damp. Reyes wished he were wearing a bulletproof vest beneath his suit jacket and cursed his treadless dress shoes with every slip. McTiernan—who'd been nearer to the backyard when the light show started—was well ahead of him and more sure-footed in his combat boots. It wasn't long before he vanished into the mist.

Visibility was shit. Still, near as Reyes could tell, the backyard was empty. No Bigelow, no McTiernan, no Stahelski. They weren't far, though. He could hear them engaged in battle somewhere to his right: The dull thwack of blows exchanged. The wet, popping sound of tendons snapping. A crunch of bone. A strangled cry. And then silence. Reyes hoped the sudden hush meant his men had neutralized the threat.

When he turned the corner to the side yard, his foot caught on something, tripping him. It was Bigelow. He lay flat on his back in the grass and stank like a perm gone wrong. Portions of his uniform had either melted or blown off, and his exposed skin was badly burned. Reyes checked him for a pulse and felt one, slow and weak.

Stahelski was slumped against the house not far away, his tongue lolling, eyes bulging. His helmet had been yanked backward off his head and twisted until its chinstrap cut off blood flow to his brain. Beside him was McTiernan, his right leg bent at an unnatural angle, his face misshapen by what looked to be a broken jaw.

Their guns, Reyes noted, were missing.

Reyes scrabbled over to check on the men. They were alive, but barely. Somehow, Bigelow, McTiernan, and Stahelski had all been incapacitated without anybody—friend or foe—firing a single shot.

Luckily for Reyes, McTiernan
had
managed to injure his assailant. His combat knife lay beside him on the grass, and a trail of blood led from it into the fog.

Reyes followed it, pulse racing, his finger on the trigger of his SIG Sauer. Fog obliterated the world around him. After thirty yards or so, the blood trail stopped. Then a cold circle of gunmetal touched the base of Reyes's neck, and he realized he'd been had.

“Slick move, leaving a decoy blood trail,” he said. “What, did you slice open your own goddamn arm?”

“Shut up,” the man behind him whispered. “Put your hands behind your head. And take your finger off the trigger or the last thing you'll ever see is your teeth leaving your face.”

Reyes complied. The man behind him took his weapon. Nylon rustled as he stashed it in a jacket pocket. “Now get on your knees.”

Reyes started to do so. Then he spun and looped his arm around the man's wrist, pinning the gun against his side and wrenching it sideways.

The gun fell. Reyes dove and grabbed it. The man tackled him, and the gun slipped from Reyes's hand and skidded across the lawn.

Reyes was on his stomach in the grass. His assailant drove a knee in his back and grasped for his forearm, trying to maneuver him into an armlock.

Reyes elbowed him in the temple and received three quick jabs to the kidneys for his trouble. Pain spread, wet and loose, in Reyes's guts. He curled up instinctively to protect himself. The man rose and kicked him twice. Reyes swept the man's legs out from under him, and he went down hard.

Reyes was on him in an instant, straddling his chest and raining punches. His opponent was well trained; he anticipated, blocked, deflected. As Reyes's speed waned, the man caught his swinging fist and responded with an open palm to Reyes's face, trying to break Reyes's nose. Reyes dodged it but overbalanced and toppled.

They rolled, grappling, for a moment, each struggling for an edge. Reyes's hands slipped free. He took hold of his assailant's neck and squeezed, only to release his grip when he felt the gun that he'd surrendered digging into the tender flesh beneath his chin.

The man rose but kept the SIG Sauer trained on Reyes's face. He collected his firearm from where it lay a few feet away and aimed that at Reyes too.

“There are more men inside the house,” Reyes rasped between breaths. “If you shoot me, they'll come running.”

“Not fast enough to do you any good.”

Now that the man used his full voice, Reyes thought there was something familiar about it. He squinted up at him in the dim half-light, eyes widening as recognition dawned.

“Hendricks?”