Mendes is thinner than portrayed in the agency files. Disheveled. Greasy hair and beard, he’s not exactly a role model for personal hygiene products. His eyes dart around, meeting Zeb’s only briefly.
‘It’s you who’s after us.’
Zeb doesn’t say anything. Studies him, watches his hands tremble. Zeb’s radar is not pinging, so he thinks Mendes has come alone. He’s wearing a jacket that could conceal a gun, but that doesn’t bother Zeb.
‘Holt mentioned that you killed Con, Brink…I didn’t see the bodies. Jones and I had left earlier.
‘We were six. The world was ours.’ He laughs harshly. ‘Now look where we are. Three of us left, hunted by you. Hunted by just one man, with no support from anyone. Who are you, man?’
He looks around. ‘I should kill you. Holt said whoever sees you should shoot you on the spot.’
Zeb can sense the undercover agents inching closer. Isakson was bound to be using parabolic mics to pick up their conversation, and Mendes’s last utterance would have sent the agents to highest alert.
Mendes turns back to Zeb. ‘Now that bastard has become an FBI informer, I hear. He’s safe and protected, but not Jones or I. We were with him. We both know as much as him, if not more. We also want to be protected from a madman like you and whoever else is out there.’
‘If I’m mad, what does that make you? And why ask for me? You could have had this conversation with the FBI, the NYPD, anyone.’ Zeb’s eyes bore holes in him.
‘I didn’t think the cops or anyone else would take me seriously. I wasn’t sure if I could trust them either; hence I told them I would talk only to you. I guess your coming shows how badly they want my information.’
‘If they wanted your intel that badly, they would’ve met you. There wasn’t any need for going through me. Unless it was to set me up.’
Mendes meets his eyes briefly and looks away. ‘I have my reasons. As for setting you up — that’s the risk you willingly took.’
He pauses reflectively. ‘Once we went to Somalia, we were like animals. That country changed us. Holt changed us. Maybe we wanted to change. I was different before the Congo. I believed in good, in rightness, in justice. But there…’ He trails off.
He smiles crookedly, still not meeting Zeb’s eyes. ‘What we did there…it doesn’t leave you.’
‘You telling me you got a taste for raping and killing girls now?’ Zeb asks.
Mendes stills his nervous twitching and goes white. He finally looks at Zeb. ‘It sits on your shoulder. Always. And it eats away at you.’
‘You looking for sympathy and forgiveness?’
Mendes stares at Zeb. Zeb is sprawled, relaxed. And ready.
‘Tell your friends in the FBI that I have more information than Holt has, to close down cells. Holt just gave the orders. I and the others did all the dirty work and got up-close and personal with the locals and know better than Holt, what the Al Qaeda are doing there. I know names, numbers, cells, locations, the way they work…a shit load more than what Holt knows and is feeding them. In return I want immunity. I want you to set this up for me.’
‘And why do you think I give a shit about what you want? I want you. Every one of you and mostly Holt. Why the fuck should I play matchmaker for you when I would rather plug you dead?’
‘Then I’m wasting my time with you. And as for killing me, you won’t. You see, you’re my insurance policy now. If you kill me, or I die for whatever reason, the FBI will come down on you faster than a ton of bricks.’ He smiles coldly, the nervous twitching all gone.
He stands up, looking down at Zeb, who is still sprawled in his seat. ‘Get them to give me the same deal that they’re giving Holt, or I’ll go public with their dirty dealing and bring this shit crashing down on them.’
Mendes looks at him a moment, then turns around and walks out.
Zeb follows him a moment later.
Mendes stops outside the café, with Zeb a few feet behind him. New York swirls around them and goes about its business. The agents are there. Zeb can sense them.
‘You know, Holt was right.’ Mendes turns his head to look back at Zeb.
A woman facing Mendes screams. ‘Gun! He’s got a gun!’
Mendes turns smoothly towards Zeb, his right arm sliding out of his jacket, holding a gun. People dive to the pavement, taking shelter behind up-ended tables as more screams punctuate the air.
Zeb stands still. Nothing exists now but the straightening arm of Mendes with the gun at the end of it.
Isakson breaks cover from inside an anonymous car and runs towards the two of them. ‘Stop. FBI. Throw down your gun.’
More FBI agents run screaming orders at the two.
Isakson sees Mendes’s arm straightening, his forefinger heading to the trigger as he sights Zeb.
Zeb is still standing motionless, and only when the gun has reached Mendes’s eyes does he move. All Isakson sees is a blur.
Bad time for an itch, he thinks, and the next moment the Benchmade Entourage buries itself in Mendes’s throat.
Isakson has been watching Zeb, screaming at him to duck, and he still could not see Zeb’s arm move as he threw the knife. Isakson sprints to Mendes, stoops over his fallen body, and removes the gun from his hand. One of his agents has called the paramedics, and the other agents are holding back the crowd of people, shielding them from Mendes and dispersing them. Isakson tries to stem the flow of blood from Mendes but can see it’s in vain. Zeb’s knife has severed the major arteries and major muscles in his throat.
Isakson joins Zeb, who is still standing motionless, looking dispassionately at Mendes.
‘I was listening in. You didn’t ask him anything about Al Qaeda, which is what I was interested in.’
‘Not my problem.’
Isakson shakes his head, trying to understand what’s happened. ‘Craziest thing I’ve seen or heard. He sets out his terms and then decides to kill you. Surely he would have known there was no way he could have escaped after shooting you.’
Zeb replies drily, ‘That was sorta what he wanted.’
Isakson sees the media swarm approaching and leaves to head them off. He shouts over his shoulder, ‘I’m majorly pissed that you didn’t ask him about his intel. For that alone I might just be tempted to feed you to the media.’
Zeb disappears into the throng.
‘You did what? Killed him in Times Square, in broad daylight, in front of thousands of people?’ Broker exclaims when Zeb briefs him.
‘Near Times Square. In the evening. And he was drawing a gun on me. You wanted me to pray?’
‘Yup, I see your point. Four down now,’ Broker says gleefully.
‘By the way, didn’t you say Isakson was going to hand you over on a platter to the media?’
‘He didn’t put it quite that way, but I wouldn’t put it beyond him.’
‘Hold on. Let me check the news.’
Broker comes back a few minutes later. ‘Nada. Not a thing about you. There is a brief story about a man being killed near Times Square and that the police are investigating it, but no details. Nothing much on cyberspace either, and I checked the usual — Twitter, Facebook, that shit. Let me do some digging and find out why Isakson had a change of heart. I doubt he has a heart, but we’ll never know for sure.
‘What’s next?’ he asks Zeb.
‘Nothing’s changed,’ replies Zeb. ‘I’ll continue to paint target circles on myself.’
‘Are you going back to Williamstown in the next few days?’ asks Broker.
‘Nope. I’m thinking of joining the Balthazars on their mountain trip. I wasn’t planning to go, but if Isakson feeds me to the press, then it might be better to disappear for a short while.’