Bobby cuts the engines, strips off the life jacket and steps on to the dock. ‘But there could be a rat, Marco. And if there is, it’s gotta be one of those assholes I put in the basement. One of the jerks who’s supposed to be protectin’ our interests.’
‘That was my thought, too. But there’s a problem. Carter connects with the whore and the whore connects with Ricky, who’s dead and gone. There’s no connection between the whore and anyone else in the crew.’
‘That we know about.’
‘That we know about,’ the Blade quickly agrees.
‘Look, Carter’s been one step ahead of us, right?’
‘I can’t deny it.’
‘So let’s get one step ahead of Carter. We’re gonna go get that money, right the fuck now, and bring it back here.’
The Blade hesitates – Bobby’s home is lot more exposed than the warehouse – but the look on his boss’s face is plain enough. As far as Bobby’s concerned, the deed’s as good as done. ‘Yeah, fine,’ he says. ‘You want me to call ahead, make sure the boys are awake and ready?’
‘No, Marco, you’re missin’ the whole point, which is security. That’s why I’m not gonna call until I’m comin’ through the door, and why I’m gonna take away their cellphones. No more leaks, no more bullshit.’
Message delivered, Bobby heads for the house and a fleece-lined jacket in the hall closet. He pushes a key into the lock on the back door, but then hesitates. ‘I swear, Marco, I feel better already. Now, even if Carter’s a goddamned psychic, he still has to come through me. I can’t tell ya how much I want a shot at that guy. There’s no way even to measure it.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
There’s no ductwork beneath the sleeve Carter disassembles. Removed long ago, the metal was undoubtedly sold for salvage. The sleeve and cap might have been pulled at the same time, pulled and sold, but that would have necessitated patching the hole in the roof, an expense apparently foregone.
As Carter anticipated, the resulting hole is just big enough to accommodate his shoulders and the equipment bag. He lowers the bag twenty feet to the concrete floor, repositions the grappling hook and slides down the rope to land in a corner behind stacked rolls of carpeting. Briefly, and not for the first time, he considers pulling the M89 tucked inside the bag, only to decide that the weapon’s more likely to hinder than to help. Handguns, like the Glock with its fifteen-round magazine, offer a distinct advantage in close range battles, increased mobility more than compensating for the loss in firepower. It would be a different story if the M89 was a fully automatic weapon, but unlike assault rifles, it has to be fired one shot at a time, the same as the Glock.
Carter unties the rope, opens the bag and removes the little flash bomb and the ski mask. He tucks the bomb into his shirt pocket, pulls the ski mask over his head, then hefts the bag and carries it to the stairway leading to the basement. The bag’s going to remain behind, at least for the present, and he lays it on the floor before descending. His tread is light, a matter of habit, not necessity. The stairway is made of poured concrete, virtually eliminating the possibility of his footfalls making any sound at all.
At the bottom, Carter takes the flash bomb from his pocket and cradles it in his palm. Then he shuts his eyes for a moment, the better to visualize the sequence to follow, the better to find his own center. He can die here and he knows it. The trick is to replace fear with acceptance, to reach a state of pure purpose, to become a machine designed for battle, a machine indifferent to outcome.
Carter opens his eyes, committed now. He feels nothing inside, not even excitement, his focus too intense to allow for emotion of any kind. A yard away, the flimsy, ill-fitting door between himself and his objective beckons. Carter swivels his right hip back and bends his knee slightly. When his balance is perfect, he comes forward, running the energy from his hip, through his thigh, his calf, his ankle, and into the lock itself.
The door crashes open, the wood around the lock splintering, as Carter knew it would. He slams the flash bomb on to the concrete floor inside, then covers his eyes with his left hand and draws the Glock with his right.
The flash, when the gunpowder ignites, is so intense that it bleeds through his fingers. Darkness follows a split second later and Carter leaps through the doorway. Before coming to an abrupt stop, he takes four running steps into the room, his head swiveling left and right. He first registers a man directly in front of him. The man wears brown boxers and a wife-beater T-shirt and his unseeing eyes stare up at the ceiling. To his right, a second man lies sprawled on a half-inflated air mattress. His hands cover his eyes and he’s muttering the word ‘motherfucker’ over and over again. Behind him, a third man reaches for a semi-automatic handgun lying on a table. Carter shoots this man first, pulling the trigger twice, a classic, center of mass double-tap. The rounds impact the man’s chest within an inch of each other and he drops to the floor, leaving his weapon behind.
The man on the mattress comes next. He’s lowered his hands at the crash of the gunshots, but his eyes are looking off to Carter’s left when Carter again pulls the trigger twice. The man raises a hand to the wounds on his chest, catching the first few drops of blood. Then his eyes roll up into his head and he falls back.
The third man, the man standing directly in front of Carter, has recovered his sight. He appears to be in his early twenties, a tall skinny kid with a mop of black hair that’s standing straight up. The crash of gunfire still echoes in the confined space and the sharp odor of cordite is thick enough to sting his rapidly blinking eyes.
‘Hey, I’m not fuckin’ armed. Take what the fuck you want. Take the fuckin’ building. I don’t give a fuck.’
Carter’s impressed. Four fucks in four sentences. Meanwhile, the kid’s staring at his friends. They’re not moving, not even groaning.
‘Anybody else here?’ Carter asks.
‘Nobody, I swear.’
A door on the far side of the basement flies open before Carter registers the lie. The man who steps out has a gun in his hand and he’s pulling the trigger as fast as he can, Gentleman Jerry minus the part about aiming. As Carter spins to face the threat, a bullet slams into his body armor on the left side, a matter of pure chance. The round doesn’t penetrate the Kevlar fabric, but the pain is ferocious. Carter ignores it, as he’d once ignored the roundhouse kicks delivered to his lower ribcage by a mixed martial artist named Chappy Jorgenson. He raises the Glock, sights in on the man’s chest and fires twice. Both shots strike home and the man sags into the door frame, still holding on to his weapon, an unacceptable result. Carter fires for a third time and the bullet punches a hole in the man’s face just below his right eye. Game over.
Carter spins on his heel to face the last man standing. Or the next to last, if he includes himself. The kid’s eyes are wide enough to pass for headlights. Though his lips tremble and his jaw hangs open, he doesn’t make a sound.
Carter lets the silence build for a moment, then wags a finger and says, ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire.’
‘What, what?’
Out in the field, on capture or kill missions, prisoners were never taken, nor witnesses left behind. But Carter’s got work ahead of him, physical labor, and he’s pretty sure at least one of his ribs is cracked, if not broken. Every breath produces a jet of pain that he’s struggling to mask.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ he says.
‘Don’t kill me.’
Carter likes that, a simple plea, with no excuse offered for the lie. ‘What’s your name?’