CHAPTER ONE
Friday, May 6
New York City, New York
1:15 a.m.
He’d slipped inside unnoticed. Spoke to no one. Acknowledged nothing. He blended almost imperceptibly into the shadows inside the abandoned warehouse. Anticipation fed his smoldering rage like oxygen feeds embers before a wildfire.
He waited. Black turtleneck shirt, black jeans and boots covered his white skin. Turned up collar on the black leather jacket hid his unshaven face. Black gloves enveloped his hands and wrists. A black wool beret covered his closely cropped brown hair.
The stale warehouse air had been warmed by the activities. He was too hot. Anger fueled his body heat, the hat retained it, and the wool itched like crazy.
Couldn’t be helped. The man in black knew too many of these people. Although he had seen none of them in years, someone might notice him. The second-to-last thing he wanted was to be recognized.
The last thing he wanted was to fail. His anticipation had built to a fever pitch over the years. Only with iron control had he managed the rage, always there under the surface. He’d have his revenge. He could feel it. Pak would pay. It would finally happen. Tonight.
He leaned against the steel support pole and peered into the dimly lit interior of the warehouse, ignoring the sweat trickling down inside his shirt.
The stale air was thick with the stench of sweaty humans, rancid smoke, and foul dogs. He drew a deep breath, inhaling it all. He’d missed the unmistakable smell. A unique blend signaling only one thing, buried deep in his reptilian brain, triggering his entire system to feel the thrill of the fight.
Snarling, howling, barking, cheers, and curses assaulted his ears, sending an electrical hum along every nerve in his body.
Fortunes were made and lost, all in a single night. The potential for victory thrummed like a live wire in the cavernous space. The kind of victory few men throughout the world experienced even once in a lifetime.
The tension was palpable. Everyone could feel it. They craved it. Lived for it.
The man in black craved victory, too. Like a junkie craved heroin. Even after such a long period of abstinence, the embers of his desire smoldered.
He sometimes imagined that he’d lived a previous life. A time when dogfighting was the realm of fearless warriors. Perhaps he’d attended dog fights in the Roman Colosseum or fought wars alongside the Romans and the Britons. The same blood ran in his veins. He could feel it.
Something about the primitive nature of the sport appealed to him. As it did to populations everywhere he’d been in the world. The magnetic pull of the sport drew bloodthirsty souls like nothing else. It was a sinkhole into which, once experienced, a man could fall deep and never emerge.
The power to suck people in was one reason why dogfighting was illegal in all fifty US states and most countries.
Another reason the sport was illegal was its popularity. If no one had wanted to participate, there’d be no need for laws against it. After all, there were no laws against dishwashing or lawn mowing or dozens of other activities no one on the planet clamored for, right? He grinned.
Dogfighting crimes were serious felonies. If caught, prison time was unavoidable. Which was why dogfighting circuits existed as far off the grid as they could get and still be found by savages like him who disrespected such misguided laws.
In cities like this one, abandoned warehouses in decrepit areas hosted the fights for one night before the circuit moved on to the next location. Authorities were bribed to look the other way if they noticed at all.
The man in black had been heavily involved in the dogfighting world during his last stint in Asia. He loved the fierce, beautiful beasts. Gallant fighters. He’d owned dogs back then. Sold them. Presented them at fights where hundreds of thousands of dollars changed hands in a single night.
When he returned to the states, his dogfighting days had ended abruptly. It was too risky for him to attend fights now.
Tonight was the first time he’d been near the arena. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.
He had reluctantly put his passion behind him. And moved on to other activities in the interim. More lucrative. Less risk. He had no desire to live the remainder of his life in prison. The confinement alone would kill him.
But he’d monitored the organizers when he’d returned from Asia. He’d been waiting. For just this moment.
After two long years, the opportunity to kill his enemy had finally presented itself. Tonight’s crowd was the usual mix of dog owners and handlers, drug dealers and gang-bangers, and wannabes attracted by the illegal gambling.
From experience, he knew it was safer to assume everyone in the place was armed. He’d brought a knife and two untraceable handguns along. One was holstered on his ankle. The second rested heavily against his torso, stuffed into his belt in the small of his back. Just in case. He didn’t expect to use the guns. He wouldn’t need to.
He scanned the cavernous room. If he’d been spotted, the watcher was too skilled to reveal himself.
But Pak could have been followed here. He was under constant surveillance by his own country inside its borders and every time he left it. He would have tried to sneak away from his bodyguards, and he might have managed it. He was also watched by security services in every country he visited. Safest to assume Pak was being watched by enemies and allies at all times.
Which made the man in black’s mission to kill him more difficult, but not impossible. An hour after the qualifying fights began, he spied Pak across the smoky divide, close to the main fighting ring. Pak was easy to identify, even in the dim lighting amid the noisy crowd gathered around him.
The man in black’s stomach clenched and his lip curled. He flexed his fists inside the gloves. The obese North Korean was flat out disgusting. Always had been. Only his position and his power made him in any way palatable.
Ridding the world of Pak was a service to humanity, pure and simple. Pak’s pudgy face had reddened with heat and exertion and the stress of his wagers. He pinched a smoldering cigar between the fat fingers of one hand and grasped a glass of whiskey in the other.
The last of the amber liquid splashed out as Pak waved his arms, rooting for the dog he’d wagered would win. He’d taken heavy losses tonight and his desire to win had ramped up the tension close to his breaking point.
A slender, attractive woman dressed in a sexy silk business suit, no shirt, jacket open to her navel, was glued to Pak’s side. Her name was Nina.
Tonight, Nina looked much like someone else—the love of his life the last time he’d seen her. Before Pak had kidnapped and killed her all those years ago.
Like his lover had been, Nina was way too good for Pak and everyone in the room could see that. Pak was a hideous troll. Nina was a goddess. Spectators might wonder what she wanted from him. It couldn’t be helped. Pak had a weakness for beautiful women. Nina could get close enough to him when the man in black could not.
Nina gently removed the empty whiskey glass from Pak’s hand with tapered fingers adorned with brightly polished fingernails flashing gold in the reflected light. She refilled the glass from a silver flask and placed the glass in Pak’s sweaty palm. He downed the whiskey in two gulps. She refilled the glass again.
Watching her fawning over Pak was both exciting and revolting. The man in black’s desire and revulsion flooded his body in waves, cresting and receding, like the rhythm of the sea.
He scanned the warehouse once more. Two qualifying fights battled in another dark corner. The winners would fight each other in the main ring later.
Safer to assume official and unofficial surveillance teams were stationed strategically throughout the building. He kept his distance and stayed in the shadows.
If Pak’s dog won the fight he’d be a rich man.
For a very short time. The main fight ended when Pak’s one-hundred-twenty-five-pound Bully Kutta mauled the champion mixed-breed pit bull to submission.
Deafening applause and shouts of approval went up from the crowd. Nina played her part, laughing along with the rest, her total attention on Pak.
The sweaty, red-faced Pak cheered along with them. His wide grin revealed a mouth full of misshapen teeth almost more frightening than the bloody, defeated pit bull.
Pak collected fistfuls of bills from the gamblers. He dropped the whiskey glass on the ground as he filled both hands with the cash.
As more gamblers crowded Pak to pay their debts, Nina bent to retrieve the glass. The sexy woman slid behind the crowd and out of sight.
The man in black watched the show from afar and simply nodded when Nina slipped away. An overwhelming sense of accomplishment swelled his chest with every breath.
The deed was done. Pak was as good as dead. The poison he’d ingested with the whiskey would do its work.
Not immediately. Not even tonight. But later.
When Pak returned to his room. After the whiskey glass and the flask had been destroyed. When the sexy woman was long gone.
“May you die a lonely, painful death, you son of a bitch,” the man in black muttered under his breath. “No one deserves that fate more than you.”
He kept his gaze fixed on Pak for a few moments before he slipped farther into the shadows as the next fights began. The aromas and noises and thrills he craved enveloped him for the last time.
Only one loose end to clear up. The woman, Nina. But not yet. And not here.
Ten minutes after Pak’s big win, the man in black was on his way. He walked the first four blocks, scanning for threats and witnesses until he located the stolen sedan he’d parked on the street.
A piece of crap set of wheels had been rained on at least once after he’d parked it. Soot had settled on the raindrops leaving black residue on the paint.
The silver sedan looked worse than it actually was. The old beater was in good enough shape to drive a couple thousand miles at least. Enough to get him where he needed to go.
Not the kind of ride he’d normally be caught dead in. But then, he wasn’t the one he planned to bury in it.
He drove the sedan to the airport. There he collected his personal effects and a change of clothes from a locker. He stuffed the black outfit into three trash bags and disposed of them.
Then he moved to the rendezvous point where he met the sexy woman he’d left back at the warehouse.
Nina Cloud wasn’t quite as young or attractive or sexy in the harsh overhead lighting of the terminal. She had some miles on her. She was forty, at least. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Native American. Not even the flashy gold fingernails remained to confirm potential witness accounts of her part in the murder. They’d been fake, too.
Nina offered a brown paper bag containing Pak’s empty whiskey glass. He slipped the bag into his pocket before he gave her a kiss and a stack of counterfeit fifty-dollar bills to show his appreciation. They were good counterfeits. No one would object to them.
Then he told her where to find the sedan and told her to drive herself home.
“Take your time. Do some sightseeing. You deserve a little fun,” he said, pulling her close and kissing her a bit more thoroughly.
Breathlessly, she pulled away, a satisfied smile on her lips. “See you later.”
“You bet,” he replied as they turned and walked in opposite directions.
When he reached his gate, he looked back. Nina was already at the terminal’s exit on her way to pick up the sedan. He didn’t expect to see her alive again. Which was more than okay. It was perfect.
He grinned as he handed his boarding pass to the gate attendant and entered the jetway toward the plane.
CHAPTER TWO
Five Days Later
Wednesday, May 11
Washington, DC
9:15 a.m.
FBI Special Agent Kim Otto stepped out of the cab at the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building and stood for a moment in the foggy rain staring at the 935 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. entrance. Some said it was the most hideously ugly 2,800,000 square feet of building space in DC. Hard to argue the point.
Eight stories of damp, ugly concrete on one side, eleven stories on the other, and three stories underground. The FBI had been taking a media beating for the past few years. At this point, even the building’s architecture seemed untrustworthy.
A lifetime ago, simply entering FBI headquarters had filled her with pride and excitement and a sense of belonging like no other place on earth. Back then her chief ambition was to become the first female director of the FBI. Back then she believed she’d get there.
She felt none of those things today.
Kim had been working the Jack Reacher file since early November, and she’d traveled all over the country and parts of the world like a bloodhound. But she hadn’t been to the Boss’s office even once since she got that first 4:00 a.m. phone call.
Her assignment was off-the-books. Not undercover. Not sanctioned or monitored by the usual FBI channels. Zero supervision or accountability.
Which made it feel clandestine and lonely and extremely dangerous.
In the movies, working outside the well-trained team environment was made to seem glamorous. In real life, not so much. The work was threatening, treacherous, and too often deadly.
Kim wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about walking into headquarters now, but pride and excitement were not in the mix. She was anxious, sure. Situation normal there. But what else?
She glanced at the wet scene, smelling nothing but exhaust fumes hanging on the heavy air. The famous cherry trees, a curious but welcome gift from Japan in the last century, had bloomed late this year. On the ride from National Airport, she’d seen a few wilted blossoms barely hanging on, here and there.
The National Cherry Blossom Festival had finished weeks ago, but the entire city was still flooded with tourists.
Too many people, traipsing through the puddles with their umbrellas, no reliable method for separating hostiles from friendlies. When she’d lived in Georgetown with her ex-husband, Van Nguyen, back in law school, she’d made every effort to avoid the crowds. Now, as then, the effort was futile.
An overwhelming sense of déjà vu settled on her shoulders, weighing her down whenever she thought about Van. It was strange how viscerally she reacted to him, even now. Humans seemed to absorb old wounds into our DNA somehow. We never let the anger.
She rarely allowed herself to go back there, even in her mind. She hadn’t heard anything from him in years, which was the good news. She wasn’t sure how she’d react if she met him on the streets of DC, out of the blue. She shivered involuntarily, all the way to her toes.
She shook off her sense of disquiet along with the rain sliding into her coat collar, squared her shoulders, grabbed her identification, and hustled toward the employee entrance. She felt like she was headed to the guillotine, but she couldn’t be late. She didn’t want to get fired today and she sensed she was in enough trouble already.
After she’d cleared security, Kim noticed the television mounted on the wall above the reception desk. The story that had filled the national newscasts for days was all about the mysterious poisoning of a North Korean diplomat in New York, identified by the American news media as Hana Pak.
After being hospitalized for a couple of days, the man had died. She’d heard lots of saber-rattling from the North Korean government, but he had no family and few friends. Not many who knew him or knew of him mourned Hana Pak.
She took the elevator and walked down the corridor to the Boss’s office, removing her trench coat and folding the wet sides together. She draped it over her arm, knocked on the big wooden door, and entered.
She glanced out the window behind his desk. The view wasn’t that impressive. When she’d worked in a Chicago law firm, her first job after law school, her boss had been a mid-level partner. He’d had a much better office than this, with a stunning view of the city. His annual income was about ten times higher than the director of the bureau, too.
She could have surpassed her old boss by now. Sometimes she regretted getting off the glide path to a big law leadership job. Finding her soul mate. Starting a family. She’d left all of that behind a long time ago, too. Had she made the right choices?
Some days, she really wondered.
A television played Hana Pak news, which had been all over every broadcast station. The Boss was half listening while standing near the large desk, a hammer in his hand. He was hanging a framed photo of himself with the president. When she entered, he gave the nail two solid whacks and squared the picture on the wall. He placed the hammer on his desk and gestured her toward a chair. He picked up the remote and turned off the TV.
“Strange story, isn’t it?” Kim said, shaking her head. “Some North Korean diplomat who never comes to the US is in New York for two days, and someone kills him.”
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
