Once Dead Read online

  Rita hiked her grocery bag up tighter in her arm, walked around the corner to the elevator, and pressed the call button. Normally there were other people in the garage when she got home, but not tonight. Nine p.m. was one of those in-between hours when people were already settled in from work or had already headed out for dinner and an evening on the town.

  Again she heard the shuffling sound and again she turned to look over her shoulder. The jolt from the taser dropped her to the concrete floor like she’d been kicked by a mule.

  As she struggled to regain some control of her twitching body, a man knelt over her, shoved a needle into the side of her neck, and squeezed the contents of the syringe directly into her blood stream. As strong arms lifted her limp form, a black fog descended, smothering her consciousness along with the fear that tried to reawaken her. Then she drifted, that fear only one dream amongst many.

  CHAPTER 31

  Jacob Knox stared silently down at the woman seated before him, her hands bound to the steel chair’s arms, her feet to the front chair legs, her rag-filled mouth duct-taped closed. She sat atop the chair on a twenty-foot-square sheet of clear plastic. Rita Chavez’s long brown hair hung limply on her shoulders, her eyes locked on his face with a mixture of recognition, fear, and resignation to a fate she could only hope would come quickly. Unfortunately, he couldn’t grant that wish.

  Jacob thought that Rita had been feeding Jack Gregory backdoor intelligence, although he wasn’t certain of it. That didn’t really matter to him. She had been one of Jack’s past lovers and that was all that he needed.

  Although Jacob despised the man, Gregory was every bit as good as Nolan Trent thought, perhaps even better. Not only was he unpredictable, but he had a highly refined knack for doing the right thing, part of which came as a natural consequence of paying attention to minor details in his surroundings. Jacob didn’t know where the rest of that ability came from, but he didn’t deny its existence. He made a habit of never underestimating a target.

  Rita Chavez tried to say something, to at least get out a sound full of feeling, something to inspire sympathy within Jacob. But Jacob had no sympathy. Nor did he bear her any animus. It was what made Jacob the most accomplished killer the CIA had ever employed. Everyday human emotion was as alien to him as some bandy-legged green Martian. It was why he was going to kill The Ripper.

  Because Rita was CIA and one of the DCI’s favorites, Jacob would have to make certain that his setup was perfect. But that wouldn’t be a problem. The Ripper wasn’t the only one who paid attention to the fine details. It was why Jacob had spent the last day studying the little details of Vladimir Roskov’s personal kills, the videos that ended up on the internet. Roskov liked blood, lots of it. He was fond of knives and hammers, as well as the creative use of guns to maim and injure. And although it was well known that Roskov was the artist behind those productions, there was never anything in the videos to prove that.

  This video would have all of that, but with the deliberate insertion of an identifying mistake.

  Jacob peeled off his shirt, revealing a lean, muscular chest, crisscrossed with scar tissue he had applied this morning in a pattern that reasonably matched that in the photo from Jack Gregory’s file. That picture, taken in the Calcutta clinic, had been of Jack Gregory’s naked corpse, the sutured wounds boldly apparent. Not many had access to that death photo, but the CIA did and Gregory would recognize them. Jacob intended to keep his back to the camera, except for one instance when an extended backswing would momentarily reveal the chest scars to the camera. That one moment was all he needed.

  Pulling the plastic clown mask over his head, Jacob started the video recording, picked up his tool bag, and walked across the plastic sheeting toward the wide-eyed Rita Chavez.

  It was show time.

  CHAPTER 32

  Jack finished re-reading Rachel’s message for the third time, then, using the prepaid cellular wireless access point, he checked the balance in each of the three numbered Cayman Island accounts he’d given her. Paid in full for a job well done, or so she’d said. In fact, he’d been paid in full for a job half-done. But she was his employer and she was fully satisfied with the services he had provided. Time to pack it up and do what he did best, disappear.

  The image of Janet Price sitting across from him at his kitchen table leapt, unbidden, into his mind, bringing with it the feeling that this wasn’t over, that somewhere out there, something big was about to happen. It called to him on a primal level that he, once again, chose to ignore.

  One good thing about reaching the end of a job was that he could relax for a while. For the moment, he had a safe spot to rest and recuperate before putting the word out that The Ripper was, once again, available for hire. No need to hurry into that, though. Right now, a hot shower sounded very good.

  By the time he’d made his way down the hall, showered, and returned to his room, Jack felt at least half-human. He considered going downstairs for the continental breakfast, but the bed called to him louder than his stomach. Slipping the H&K beneath his pillow, Jack crawled beneath the thick German comforter and let his mind slip away.

  He awoke in darkness, momentarily disoriented, as he tried to recall just where he’d settled in for this sleep. The feel of the H&K brought him all the way back to reality. A glance at his watch told him it was just past four a.m. He’d been dreaming, but for once he couldn’t remember the content of those dreams. That was an improvement. He had enough blood in his life without wallowing in endless rivers of it while he slept.

  By 6:30 a.m. Jack had worked out, showered, and downed a hearty breakfast of ham, cheese, and brötchen along with three cups of stout German coffee. Back in his room, he logged on to his laptop and checked the websites he monitored for special messages. Nothing. Glancing down at Janet’s memory stick, he considered using the special program that would check to see if she had tried to contact him. But if she had, he didn’t really want to know about it. No use opening himself up to the kind of manipulation an agency like the NSA could unleash upon you.

  When he pulled up the CNN website, the picture of Rita Chavez and the accompanying headline slapped him in the face.

  Torture Killing Video of U.S. French Consular Employee Posted on Web.

  Jack read the article. Although CNN refused to provide a link to the gruesome terrorist video, it didn’t take long to find it. The video lasted an agonizing fifty-seven minutes, and Jack forced himself to watch every moment. Then he watched it again, occasionally freezing the playback to examine the tiniest details, locking each one firmly in his memory.

  The man in the clown mask had known Vladimir Roskov’s trademark technique and had applied it with a cold ruthlessness that kept Rita conscious throughout her drawn-out execution. As Jack watched, he felt the ice slide through his veins, only to vaporize under the heat of the rage that bubbled up from a deeper source. Giving himself completely to that rage, he felt it whet his focus into a glittering blade.

  Despite the obvious connection to his Roskov mission, the video was clearly intended to weaponize Jack. It also painted him with a red CIA laser target dot. Although the briefly glimpsed scars on the clown’s chest weren’t a perfect match to those Jack bore and completely missed the scars on his back, they were close enough to fool someone who had only seen his face-up death photo.

  Roskov may not have done the killing, but Roskov was at the heart of this, and the man who’d killed Rita wanted Jack to go for Roskov.

  Jack shut down the laptop, walked to the sink, and dowsed his face with cold water. Drying it with the white hand towel, he stared at himself in the mirror. As he watched the dancing red reflection fill his pupils, Jack was certain of one thing: If Rita’s killer had intended to activate The Ripper . . . mission accomplished.

  Anchanchu felt the rush of Jack’s rage course through his limbic system, using its special talent to amplify that emotional storm and feed it back to its host. As frustrating as this host could be in his determination to
enforce self-control, when Jack’s façade cracked, the intensity of his feelings went beyond any the mind worm had experienced. And it was oh-so-good when that happened.

  It was only a matter of time before Jack’s cravings for the adrenaline rush that only Anchanchu could provide controlled this hitherto unbreakable stallion. There could be no doubt. Eventually, Jack Gregory would yield to Anchanchu’s bloody spurs.

  CHAPTER 33

  Frank Rheiner had one basic rule that he’d maintained since he’d been appointed Director of Central Intelligence a year and a half ago: Don’t screw with my people. He didn’t care if it was field agents, analysts, or the grounds maintenance crews at CIA Headquarters. Someone had just violated that rule, big time. Worse, the man had tortured to death an analyst Frank had known and liked. Now that prick was about to find out why pissing on the DCI wasn’t a great plan.

  Leaning forward so that his elbows rested on the smooth surface of his teak desk’s gently curved top, Frank’s eyes locked with those of his deputy, Nolan Trent.

  “Talk to me, Nolan.”

  “We’ve got a man on the ground in Paris and he’s already working a strong lead.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Jacob Knox.”

  Frank nodded. That was good news. With Knox’s special skills and the entire agency’s resources at his disposal, Rita’s killer was as good as dead.

  “Roskov?”

  “No sir. We’ve eliminated that possibility. Someone sure wanted us to think it was Roskov’s work, though.”

  “A pretty slick plan. Kill one of my top analysts and use it to make us terminate one of our most important intelligence assets.”

  “Except it didn’t work. The clown’s going down.”

  “Make sure he does.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The deputy director turned toward the door. As his hand touched the brass knob, Frank’s voice brought him up short.

  “And Nolan, tell Jacob it won’t break my heart if this perp dies hard.”

  The hint of a smile creased Nolan Trent’s lips.

  “I’ll pass it along.”

  CHAPTER 34

  The Washington Mall was beautiful, a vast grassy expanse that stretched from the Capitol steps to the Lincoln Memorial, with the spire of the George Washington Monument rising up as a centerpiece. On opposite sides, the White House and the Jefferson Memorial flanked the national public space. Surrounded by the houses of government and the repository of U.S. history, the Smithsonian Institution, this beautiful space occupied a spot that had once been worthless swamp.

  Nolan Trent walked along the mall, letting the sites he loved cleanse his soul. As hard as it was to conceive, most of the country thought of Washington, D.C., as a cesspool, a crime-ridden nation’s capital, filled with corrupt lawyer-politicians, not worthy of the nation it symbolized. And while the caliber of its politicians was a legitimate concern, the beauty that a historic progression of those politicians had created here was beyond reproach. In this one magnificent spot, free to the public, lay a vast assortment of national treasures that those who hadn’t visited could never appreciate.

  It was a crime that this great country lost the will that had driven it to greatness. The fungus of apathy had crept in, an insidious infestation cloaked in self-satisfaction, a sense that things were good enough, that the country could rest on its laurels. Robbed of a unifying sense of purpose, it gradually surrendered its precious sovereignty to the nattering nabobs at the United Nations.

  For a brief moment, he’d thought the Middle Eastern wars would provide that unifying purpose, but even there, the U.S. government had bowed its head to foreign masters until, at the end, it was forced to ask permission from the very governments it had installed, just to perform minor combat operations.

  Disillusioned by the costs and sheer idiocy of nation-building, the American public had demanded withdrawal, and who could blame them? There was no path to victory when you couldn’t attack into the heart of enemy territory for fear of collateral damage. Collateral damage! God help you if you killed some civilians, even if those were the very people supporting and enabling our enemies. Had that philosophy held sway in World War II, every American would now be speaking Japanese or German.

  Feeling his blood pressure start to rise, Nolan stopped, removed the small pill bottle from his pocket, popped one in his mouth, worked up some saliva, and swallowed. Shit. Getting old sucked.

  His thoughts turned from the crappy state of the union, to Rolf Koenig. He was the most brilliant man Nolan had ever met, but he was no saint. Thank heaven for that. Rolf had his own reasons for creating the event that was going to change everything, reasons that had nothing to do with the best interest of America. Rolf dreamed of corporations laying claim to the moon, the asteroids, eventually all the planets of our solar system. He dreamed of a space race fueled by the vast wealth out there begging to be exploited. He dreamed of the earth that could be, one that was the seat of robotic mining operations that spanned the solar system. More than that, he was going to make it happen.

  To accomplish Rolf’s dreams, he had to remove America from its position of dominance. And Nolan was going to help him do just that, although for a totally different set of reasons. Everything had unintended consequences and Nolan was convinced that if America was slapped down hard enough, the legendary American spirit would rise up, reviving the lost quest for U.S. ascendance.

  Reaching the World War II Memorial, he paused to stare across the central pool at the Washington Monument framed by the many fountains. What would the warriors who had given their lives on foreign soil think of their mighty nation now? Nolan had no doubt. The United States of America was bleeding out on its deathbed.

  The image of the reflective pool blurred, replaced by the memory of tears in his father’s blue eyes as Nolan stood beside his wheelchair at the Pointe du Hoc Ranger Monument. Despite the years that had passed since he’d taken his dad to Normandy to pay a last tribute to fallen comrades, the memory of that lonely place was vivid, as crystal clear in his mind’s eye as it had been on the day of his dad’s funeral, when a soldier handed Nolan the triangular, folded flag.

  But that moment hadn’t just triggered memories. It had triggered Nolan.

  Inhaling deeply, Nolan Trent turned away from that hallowed ground, letting his steps carry him back toward his car. If the jolt Rolf Koenig was about to deliver didn’t restart the nation’s pulse, then the America he loved was already dead.

  CHAPTER 35

  Fluent in Russian, Jack had to admit his Polish was a bit rusty. In a previous era, when the Soviet Union dictated how things were run, that would have made the border crossing an adventure. But EU membership had changed all that. Now the crossing was almost as uneventful as driving from New York to New Jersey.

  It had taken Jack two hours of driving to get from Berlin to the Gryfia Shipyard in Szczecin. As he stepped off the black motorcycle and removed his helmet, swapping it for a blue baseball cap and sunglasses, he let his gaze roam the docks. It was nearing five p.m. and at this hour most of the workers were stowing gear in preparation for their home commute. In Jack’s mind, this was what a shipyard should be, loading docks, cranes, big ships in dry-dock, the clank and roar of massive equipment, smelling of diesel fumes, paint, and sweat. It was an iron-bending world populated by hard men engaged in physically dangerous work.

  Jack liked it.

  For one thing, there were nowhere near as many web-enabled cameras here in Poland as existed in Germany. And though riding around masked by the motorcycle helmet’s dark faceplate helped, it was nice not to have to constantly think about it.

  Walking around the south side of the warehouse immediately to his left, Jack climbed the steps that led to a steel platform two dozen feet above the asphalt and stepped through a door that opened into a cluttered outer office. When he stopped in front of a gray steel-case desk, the heavyset blond woman looked up from her paperwork and removed her half-moon glasses, letting them
fall to dangle from a silver chain around her neck. Her raised left eyebrow asked the question she didn’t bother to voice.

  Jack answered it. “I’m here to see Kazimer Wozniak.”

  The woman picked the hand-rolled cigarette from a broken gear casing that served as an ashtray and dragged the smoke deep into her lungs. Letting the gray swirl roll out of her mouth, she pulled it back in through her nose, a trick she seemed to think would impress him. It didn’t.

  When she spoke, her voice sounded like a cough.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “Tell him Radoslaw Symanski wants to see him.”

  “Tell him yourself,” she said, nodding toward the open door to Jack’s right.

  As Jack stepped through the door, a great black-bearded bear of a man wrapped him in arms strong enough to snap Jack’s spine. Instead the big man planted a loud kiss on each cheek, slapped him hard on the back, and stepped away.

  “Rado. Damn, it’s good to see you. Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  “Was in the area so thought I’d drop by.”

  “Good timing. I was just straightening up some papers before knocking off for the day.”

  Jack glanced at the jumble of papers spread across the desk and grinned. “I can see that.”

  “Come on. Ludmina will shoot me if I don’t bring you home for dinner. Wait. I better give her a call so she knows to cook extra. Kaszanka okay?”

  “Nobody does blood sausage better.”