He waited in the dark for another hour, then walked through the underground maze, keeping the admiral in front of him, prodding the man to go left or right with a pistol pressed against his kidney.
He went to the cells where the Wolves had been detained, stepping over a lifeless Simmons. The cells were empty. This confirmed Stryker’s hunch. The Directors sent in another kill team to do a clean sweep. They were hunting him now.
“Good-bye, Admiral,” Stryker said, and placed the muzzle at the base of the man’s brain.
“Wait,” Admiral Bates said.
Stryker squeezed the trigger, the gun bucked, and the old man fell facedown on the floor.
Jack pulled out the piece of notebook paper covered with numbers and placed it on the admiral’s back; then he sent an image of this to one of many cutouts reserved for one-time communication with his handlers. He included this brief message: “Call off your dogs. I have something you need.”
He had no confidence it would work, but he had to try. There was no place he could hide where the Directors would not eventually find him. Running from a fight was not in his nature, certainly not when it would mean his eventual demise. He was the kind of man who bided his time, chose his battles.
A cunning man, Stryker overestimated his own ability in the way that evil men often do, impressed by his ability to survive and thrive, and chalking this up to superior intellect rather than mere brutishness.
He’d killed more men than he could count, but some seemed more important than others. As he slipped out of the compound, he remembered some of them.
His childhood tormentor, of course. That pimple-faced sadist. That one always came to mind first. And the priest, even though Jack did not like to think about that time of his life. Those two murders taught him much about life, death, and himself. He understood that justice and revenge were the same thing, that redemption came from violence.
Sometimes, when he replayed murders over in his mind, he would find himself crying, and he did not understand this. Usually, the memories made him smile. One of the memories that made him smile most often was when he killed Lieutenant “Boy Scout.”
It was a long time ago, back when Stryker was an eager, fresh-faced soldier, still trying to fit in and kick ass.
The lieutenant was some kind of a Baptist, who would pray with his men before patrols, levelheaded and brave, and his men loved him. Stryker tried to, but that feeling was not in him. There was a kind of admiration, at least in the beginning.
He had this way of looking at you like he knew he had a secret he wished you knew too. Like he was almost sad you didn’t know it. But that changed over time when he looked at me. It became disappointment and then naked revulsion. It was as though the man had X-ray vision of the soul, and he judged me, decided I was beyond hope. Transferred me out of the platoon with no warning.
Stryker shot the man a year later with a suppressed sniper rifle somewhere in the mountains of Pakistan while his platoon was supposed to be providing security for Lieutenant Boy Scout.
Stryker believed in justice. He’d heard the Everglades were nice this time of year.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sometimes…
The airplane bucked and jumped through turbulence and Henry ignored it, along with the other members of his team. They were no strangers to storms.
His team consisted of Scott Wallace, the burly, bearded lumberjack who’d saved him, Mark McCoy, and, as it turned out, Carlos. Wallace had gone back to save Carlos.
“This,” Carlos said with a grin and thumb pointed toward Wallace, “is a bad motherfucker. Now I fully believe I’m the baddest man on the planet. But this sombitch is right behind me. No disrespect, Henry. You know I love you.”
“I’m with you,” Henry said.
“You should’ve seen him,” Carlos said. “Quick and steady. Like one of us.”
“I saw,” Henry said. “He’s good. Saved my ass.”
“You know I’m sitting right in front of you,” Wallace said.
“Did you say ‘one of us’?” McCoy snorted. He was stripping his sidearm for the third time. “One of us? I beg to differ.”
“What’s that supposed to mean,” Carlos said.
“First off,” McCoy said with an English lilt which made him sound smart, “the SAS has been around longer than any of your special forces outfits. You learned from us. Can we at least agree to that?”
“My mate’s got a little package,” Wallace said. “You’ll ’ave to forgive him.” He threw a bullet at McCoy’s head and it plinked off the man’s vest. Wallace guffawed.
“Think it’s funny, do ya,” McCoy said, “the yanks bashing around and fucking up the world and us with three dead mates back there? I don’t think it’s funny at all.”
“Nobody thinks it’s funny, McCoy,” Carlos said. “Our entire unit was killed.”
“I know. I’m just messing with you,” McCoy said. “Mostly, at least. I’m a bit of a wanker and I can’t help it. I had to say it. I’m sorry.”
“It’s ’cause he’s got a compensation issue,” Wallace interjected, snorting. “Really. Brilliant soldier. Just a bit of a package and insertion problem.”
Henry listened to the insults that followed and smiled. There was a banter that had to occur, a busting of balls and posturing, among members of a team. It was inevitable. He abstained from this particular exchange while the plane tore through the clouds, preferring to listen and observe his new teammates. He knew it would not be long before they turned on him, testing.
They were professionals, and each of them knew it. Not professional in the way of the man in the business suit and Brooks Brothers tie and supple leather briefcase. It was a different kind of profession, with a code all its own. There is a thing that takes place which makes no sense to any human with a sane mind. It is a defining of the hierarchy, a sense of order that comes from physical combat, and wolves understand this and do not flee from it. It is their nature.
“So how’s Jody treating your wife?” McCoy said, grinning through teeth which might have been seen to in the States.
Henry lunged across the plane, hurling his body at McCoy, shoulder dipped, head to the side, hands seeking a hold. They locked together, Henry and McCoy, tumbling onto the flight deck and rolling around while Carlos and Wallace looked on.
The fight was not the protracted hand-to-hand battle of Hollywood.
Henry caught McCoy in the groin with his knee, as his opponent tried to snake away. It was enough. The blow slowed McCoy down. Henry was behind him then, arms around his neck and head, legs wrapped around his waist. Henry choked him out in less than a minute.
“Well,” Carlos said, “I guess that’s that.”
“Right,” Wallace said.
“I’d kick your ass, too,” Carlos said.
“Cheers,” Wallace replied.
“Good show,” McCoy said when he regained consciousness, grinning. He thumped Henry on the head.
Like that, they were brothers. Maybe they were before, but now they knew it in a way they could all understand. The plane bumped and groaned and kept going south.
Wallace hailed from Edinburgh, Scotland. He possessed a bottomless well of ribald jokes, and Henry laughed until he could not breathe, as Wallace hit him with one punch line after another with Scottish burr and merry blue eyes. He was a curious man, Henry thought. He could have been anything. Why was he a Special Air Service soldier? Henry did not ask. Wallace might have kicked his ass and then made a joke about it.