He turned and looked over his shoulder before entering the large building. It was the habit of a life spent getting up to no good in the toughest parts of town, and he never fought the urge away. He’d never trusted a single soul in this crap hole of a world and he wasn’t about to start now. If he did, he knew he’d be dead before you could say betrayed.
Had coming here tonight meant trusting Linus? Never. Brick? Never. Jansons or Cruise? Never. These people were his crew. Led by that Limey Linus, what he felt for them was no more than professional respect. He watched their backs and they watched his and if any of them turned on him he’d cut them up like a snake. That’s what happened to anyone who crossed Kyle Cage. Had been like that since he was a kid and wouldn’t stop till he was in his grave, Amen.
He raised his right hand to make sure the Browning Hi Power 9mm was still in his inside pocket and skipped up the last few steps of the Natural History Museum. Yes sir, old habits die hard. A lot of people also die hard, he mused, and a second later the large red brick building had completely swallowed him up and left only the peaceful students outside.
“Get in, get down and get out,” Linus had said. He spoke to the Spiders like they were his goddam soldiers, but then like he’d just thought — old habits die hard. Before being court martialled for assaulting a senior officer, Linus Finn was a Colonel in the British Army — some kind of Guards regiment, maybe. He forgot. He respected Linus, but he wouldn’t trust him any further than he could throw him. Nothing personal. He just gave off that vibe.
Inside now and Cage turned to the right and started to walk to his target. Linus had made him remember the route by heart the night before and go through it all day. No asking for directions. No looking at maps. “You have to look like you’re supposed to be there, Kyle,” he had said in his clipped English accent. “Not some itinerant barrow boy looking for an upmarket shag.”
Cage didn’t know what most of that meant, but he caught the drift all the same. Linus never talked about himself, but it was obvious the guy had a background of old money. But not Kyle Cage, no sir. He was born on the back seat of a stolen Cadillac and never even knew his father. He had no interest in knowing him, even though his mom had the shortlist down to six. He’d fought his way to adulthood on the roughest streets of Chicago and he didn’t mind who knew it. One thing he did mind people knowing was that to this day he couldn’t read or write. That was why he learned to memorize the map like Linus had told him to — he knew he wouldn’t be able to read the signs inside the museum.
It had nothing to do with barrows and shags and whatever the hell Linus was talking about.
He continued down the long corridor. His alligator boots clicked on the polished tiles as he moved closer to the target. On either side, the doors of various offices and rooms punctuated the walls of the corridor, but the words on them were meaningless to him. It didn’t matter — there was nothing wrong with his memory and that told him to keep on going.
Up ahead now he saw a large sign with a series of letters on it. He knew from memory that he was now in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, and that meant it was time to go to work and earn his money. Reaching the door he needed, he caught a glimpse of his face in the polished window. It looked back at him like a ghost, and there on the spectre’s neck was the tattoo that had changed his life forever: a black spider.
They all wore the black spider tattoo with pride — Molly, Iveta, Bjorn and him — and they did it because Linus told them that was the rules. When Cage asked Linus who told him to have the tattoo, he broke eye contact and changed the subject. It was the only time Kyle Cage had ever seen the old Colonel look fearful.
And that was their crew. Not a family. A family loved one another. Love was not the bond that held the Spiders together. It was something else altogether — a grotesque cocktail of greed, fear, hate, revenge. He didn’t know what else, but whatever it was, it kept them together like the Mafia.
Pushing the door open, he was stopped immediately by two large men in black suits. They were wearing shades and earpieces. He knew at once they were her protection. Maybe government men, or former government.
“Not so fast, son,” one of them said in low, measured tones.
The other one raised a wide shovel-hand. “ID?”
He let them push him back out into the corridor. It would be easier this way.
“It’s right in my p-p-pocket, sir,” he said, deliberately stuttering and trying to look as nervous as possible.
He reached into his pocket with his left hand, but at the same time he reached around his back with his right hand and grabbed the Browning. The two men drew their weapons but it was too late. Cage fired the silenced rounds into their chests — two in each in as many seconds and they tumbled down to the floor in streaks of dark blood.
Cage smiled, replaced the weapon, stepped over the bodies and made his way inside, finding himself in a large research library. This is where she was supposed to be — somewhere in here among these stacks of books and journals and a handful of nerds who felt it was necessary to work on this crap so late into the day.
A man sitting behind what he guessed was some kind of checkout desk looked down at him over the top of his glasses. He wore a tweed jacket with those leather patches on the elbows, and Kyle Cage guessed he’d worked in here long enough to sniff out street trash like him.
And he was right.
The old man raised his head. “Are you looking for someone?”
Cage kept his cool. “I need to speak with Dr Evangeline Starling.”
“I see. Are you a student of hers?”
Cage lowered his head and his mind raced. He might not be able to read words but he could read human nature better than anyone. He knew this old asshole was a second and a half away from lifting that Big Ole Phone on the desk and calling the Harvard University Police Department.
“Actually, sir,” he said. The word ‘sir’ stuck in his throat like razorwire, “Yes, I am.”
The old man looked down at him, and Cage looked back, fixing his eyes on him and never letting go.
A few seconds passed as the man processed the situation, and then he moved to pick up the phone.
“Who’s asking for me?”
Kyle Cage and the man at the desk both looked over to the stacks. A beautiful young woman was walking toward them. She placed a journal down on the desk and gave both men an honest, inquisitive smile.
“I am.” Cage said.
“Are you one of my students?” Dr Starling said, her Texan accent ringing out in the hushed silence.
“Not exactly.”
The man sighed and lifted the receiver to his ear. “Right, that’s it.”
“You bet your fuckin’ ass it is, Peabody,” Cage said, and pulled the Browning out of his pocket. He fired three times into the man’s chest and blasted him back off his chair. He crashed into the wall behind the desk and slid down dead to the floor.
The students and academics in the library hardly knew what hit them. They all panicked and made for the exits. Evangeline Starling was still looking at the long line of blood and tissue that the man had left behind on the wall as he slid down.
Cage turned around and fired on the fleeing people, mowing them down with extreme prejudice and nothing in his eyes but a cold determination to survive at any cost. The bullets exploded in the silent learning space with a fierce savageness, but Dr Starling surprised and impressed Cage by what she did next.
She kept calm and didn’t scream.
“What do you want?” she said.