When Jeff finished packing the duffel bag and with Kimball standing idly by, the former assassin hoisted the duffel over his shoulder and stood before his former teammate, their eyes locking on to each other not so much as macho posturing, but knowing this would be the last time they saw each other, the last of a dying breed.
“I know it didn’t seem like it, but it was kinda good to see you again,” he told Kimball. “You stirred up old memories. Good memories. And I’m not talking about the killing, either. I’m talking about the times we all hung out together as a family, since we didn’t have anyone besides ourselves. You, me, my brother, Hawk — everyone.” The corners of his lips rounded upward into a marginal smile. “Even that crazy Irishman,” he added. And then the smile was gone.
Kimball took a step forward and undid the arms he had crossed around his chest. “Where will you go?” he asked.
Jeff headed quickly out of the Vault and made his way to the stairwell. Kimball followed close behind.
“I have accounts all over the world, which is to say that I’m set for the rest of my life. So I’ll probably go somewhere nice. Somewhere tropical where the women don’t have to wear their bikini tops because the weather’s too nice and it’s not against the law.” And then, with far more seriousness in the tone of his voice: “Somewhere where he can’t get to me.”
Kimball knew he was referring to the assassin. “Stay safe.”
“Trust me. I plan to.”
When they reached the top level of the shop Jeff placed the duffel bag on the floor and went to the keypad next to the security door. With lightning strikes of his fingers, he tapped in a code against the numeric keys and the bars retracted from the door, unlocking it.
As the door automatically opened with mechanical slowness behind him, he surveyed the shop one last moment, absorbing the moments he and his brother shared here. It was dirty. It was dingy. But it was theirs and it was home.
Without turning to Kimball, he said, “And what about you? Are you going back to the Church?”
“Yes.”
“Are you happy there?”
“I am.”
Jeff closed his eyes, the download of this memory complete. Then: “I’m glad for you,” he finally told him.
As Jeff stood in the doorway facing the truck and with his back to Kimball, he said, “We don’t stand a chance, do we?”
“There’s always a chance.”
Even though Kimball could not see it from where he stood, Jeff feigned a smile. “Well, at least these guns in my duffel will double my chances against him, don’t you think?”
Kimball didn’t answer.
So Jeff answered for him. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d agree with that,” he said.
Jeff went into the alleyway, unlocked and opened the door to his pickup, tossed his duffel bag into the rear of the truck, got inside, situated himself, and then rolled the window down. For a long moment he sat there and stared straight ahead, saying nothing. But before too long he faced Kimball with his hard-lined features bearing no sense of emotion — good, bad or indifferent. “One thing’s for absolute certain,” he finally said. “No matter what you’re doing with the Church or how long you wear the collar, I’ll see you again, Kimball. Only I’ll see you in Hell. And that’s a fact.”
With that Jeff toggled the button and the electric window rolled up between them.
After the assassin fired the shot that killed Stanley Hardwick, he calmly broke down the rifle with quick efficiency, then headed for his vehicle and engaged the GPS monitoring system just in case Kimball and Jeff Hardwick decided to alter their return course, which they didn’t.
Without a doubt he knew they had killed the senator, an added plus to the entire agenda. And then he followed them right to their Baltimore door with them most likely coming to the realization that there was a GPS frequency module attached to the vehicle.
But that wasn’t the only thing attached.
From his vantage point on a wrought-iron landing of a fire escape less than a half a block away, the assassin had a clear view of the pickup.
In his hand was a metal box, silver, about the size of a cigarette pack. When he saw Jeff leave the store and head for the truck, the assassin raised the four-inch aerial, lifted the protective plastic covering the button, and placed the pad of his thumb on the button.
With the patience of a saint, he waited.
As the window of the pickup rolled up, Kimball stepped closer to the doorway, closer to the alley, their eyes locking for the last time.
Standing at the threshold, Kimball’s mind toiled with the thought of seeing Jeffrey Hardwick in Hell. And he had to wonder: Was the man right in assessing Kimball’s mission for deliverance something unattainable? Had he already secured his fate by the actions of his past? Certainly this was what Jeff was alluding to. But Kimball had come to realize long ago that for every two steps taken toward redemption, there will always be someone there to knock him back. But that was all right since success did not come without struggle. His reaction to Jeff’s statement was to simply smile back.
When the window rolled up to its full extent, Jeff reached forward to place the key into the ignition. Attached to the dash, however, by tape, was a scroll. Jeff peeled it away and began to unfurl the material. As he did, he saw that it was a photo of his old unit, the faces clearly circled in red, the letters clearly visible. In the red circle surrounding his face was the letter ‘O.’
The assassin was here — inside the cab!
Oh, no!
Jeff tossed the photo aside and immediately rushed to panic as he tried to disengage the seatbelt to exit the vehicle, the one-time elite commando whimpering like an abandoned puppy.
His hands moved quickly, the thumb pressing the latch.
Nothing.
He then pulled at the belt, slapped the button, tugged at the strap. And then his heart began to race and thump, his blood coursing with speed induced by adrenaline. The roar of blood-rushing thunder now reached his ears, causing him to grow deaf to anything beyond the center of his world. Panic was setting in, his sight going red at the periphery and closing in.
The latch was jammed.
And he saw the reason why.
There was a piece of metal jamming the mechanism. It was rigged that once the belt was clipped in, then it was nearly impossible to undo.
And then he remembered.
His knife!
But the moment his fingers touched the hilt he heard an audible click — and then the whine of something gearing up. It was a sound he heard many times before with explosive devices.
Now it had become the sound of his life coming to a quick and bloody end.
Taking his fingers off the hilt of his knife, Jeffrey Hardwick turned and looked out the window one last time. The last image he would ever take in would be that of Kimball Hayden standing in the doorway of the surplus store. And oddly enough a single thought came to his mind: The priest who is not a priest.
With that his world became a white-hot flash as flames poured into the truck from the ventilation systems, engulfing him, the incredible heat quickly building to the point that the pickup’s tempered glass exploded outward in all directions. And then the enormous explosion— the yellow mass of hot flame boiling upward into a fireball, the vehicle then taking flight and performing a fiery cartwheel before coming down as scorched metal, the flames continuing to fan outward from the charred debris.
From the sky a flaming photo seesawed back to Earth, the edges burning inward. When it landed on the ground the flames consumed its entirety until there was nothing left but ashes that would eventually be cast aside by the wind.