Reince considered trying to contact his wife, who would be in Canada by now, but he decided against it. The cabin in Ontario contained a satellite phone for emergencies only. If the Directors were tracking Reince, one phone call could potentially give away her position, and he did not want to give them the leverage. His plan now was to disappear.
He’d stockpiled enough money in offshore accounts to last him and his children and his children’s children. He was done playing Master of the Universe. He used his radio to contact his pilot, who was waiting on the roof with a helicopter.
He stood and swept his gaze around his office for the last time, bidding farewell to his life’s work. The skyline was beautiful around him and the sun was golden and clear reflecting from the glass on the downtown skyscrapers. Reince Blackaby blinked one last time before everything went dark and he never heard the shot, never felt the round that spattered his brains across the window in a mist of pink and then there was the sound of the metal balls clicking back and forth in a perfect and predictable display of action, reaction, and the transference of energy.
Jack Stryker unscrewed the suppressor from his weapon and holstered the 9mm under his suit coat. The pompous windbag he had just terminated lay facedown behind the desk. Stryker walked around the desk and turned the man over with his boot. The round had entered at the base of his brain and exited through the jaw, leaving a mangled mess, then ricocheted from the bulletproof glass.
Stryker sat down and began to cull through Blackaby’s computer files. Wiped clean; no surprise there. He rifled through Blackaby’s suit coat and pockets, hoping to find a flash drive, but there was nothing. The leather briefcase contained a burner phone and a yellow legal pad with rows of handwritten numbers on a single page. He planted tiny charges on each of the computer drives. Stryker grunted and grabbed the briefcase in his left hand and made his way out of the office, headed toward the stairs and the rooftop.
Stryker felt nothing. He was neither satisfied nor remorseful, and he was self-aware enough to understand why. Jack Stryker knew he was a sociopath, and he was at peace with that. He did not go out of his way to inflict harm upon others, was not a sadist like some of the men he worked with. Taking a human life meant no more to him than stepping on an ant or closing a door. Stryker thought of himself as a survivor. He was a predator when he needed to be.
He had been an outstanding soldier, but had washed out of Delta Force selection when he failed a battery of psych tests. When a general contacted him out of the blue with the opportunity to work with the Bravo Pack, Stryker had been almost, but not quite, happy. He had been with the Bravo for five years; for the first three he was a squad leader and SAW gunner, carrying out missions primarily in the Northeast. He laughed and joked with the men, fought bravely and competently, and faked his way through in the way he always did. There were those on his team who considered him a brother, not knowing that Jack could not possibly reciprocate the feeling. He was a chameleon, adept at blending in while always being somehow apart. There was an essential stillness about him that some found unsettling. They had nicknamed him “Frost.”
Jack Frost, Frosty. Iceman. That’s me.
Jack Stryker had long ago given up on humanity, both within himself and the world as a whole. People were bags of meat walking around waiting to die. There was no purpose, no hope, no sadness. Existence was everything. His back bore the scars of an orphan who has been in scores of foster homes. There were cigarette burns on his arms and legs, craters on the surface of a smashed soul.
He’d realized he was broken after he killed an older foster kid, and at first he worried about it. For some reason, any time he did a job, he would think about that kid even now, a memory unbidden flashing before him. Paul Hewes, a name Jack Stryker would never forget, was a stocky seventeen-year-old, perverse and cruel and twisted. Jack was only twelve when he shoved his nemesis from the top of an abandoned rock quarry. Jack went back to the house, feigning tears and telling a tall tale, waiting to be discovered.
What happened after that, after Jack confessed to his priest, broke him irrevocably. There was blackmail and coercion and unspeakable pain and guilt. Jack could not smell incense without gagging even all these years later. The priest was the next person Jack Stryker killed; he was fifteen by then.
For two years now, Stryker had been an assassin, and he found this suited him. He worked alone, answered only to disembodied voices on the phone or computer.
Of late, the Directors were giving Stryker an increasing amount of authority and latitude. He was beginning to understand his employers, and with this knowledge came admiration. They were like him, albeit more influential.
He considered this mission a success. His primary objective was to eliminate Reince Blackaby. Stryker had been monitoring Blackaby’s communications for a day, hoping to find some evidence that he had betrayed the Directors, but the man was careful and smart.
On the roof, Stryker nodded to the pilot and stepped into the waiting bird. Using his Integrated Infantry Combat System, he linked to command and control.
“It is finished,” he sent. “Awaiting orders.” He kept the notepad to himself. He had a feeling it would become important.
The helicopter lifted from the rooftop and Stryker headed east and a small part of him wished he could feel something other than the vibration of the aircraft.
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
Leon Smith hunkered down in his dark one-bedroom apartment all night, afraid for his family. The gunfire just beyond his doors continued all night long. He heard the boom of shotguns, the crack of pistols, and once, a burst from an automatic weapon. That these things were technically illegal had no effect on the gangs.
He’d slept in his easy chair facing the door, the revolver from his dead boss in his hand. Leon’s children and his wife slept fitfully, all piled up into one bed. He could hear them tossing and turning.
Leon hadn’t heard any police sirens. There were no rescue vehicles coming to help people. This part of Lower Antioch was a place that the cops avoided to begin with. It seemed they’d written it off entirely now. There were just screams and shouts and the sound of gunfire and things breaking and shattering.
A Laotian gang had taken over this sprawling apartment complex last year. The Blood Spiders, they called themselves. A bunch of teenagers and twenty-something kids with nothing to live for but drugs, violence, and the tenuous brotherhood of being a part of a pack.
The sun was coming up, and Leon knew he needed to get his family out. He had nowhere to go. His world was contained within these walls, everything and everyone who mattered. His wife had a sister in LA and a brother in Atlanta, but Leon had no intention of trying for either of those cities. He wanted to get out into the country. Maybe drive for the Rocky Mountains. The more he thought about it, the better the idea sounded to him.
He put the weapon in the waistband of his jeans and began to pack in the semidarkness of his meager apartment. He picked up a teddy bear, Little Eddie’s favorite possession.