R Patterson - The Shadow Hunter

Washington, D.C.

VICTOR EDGEFIELD RUBBED his knee and grimaced in pain. Since suffering a severe injury jumping from a bridge eight years ago, all the hours of physical therapy hadn’t helped him recover. He sucked a breath through his teeth as he eased back from his desk at the U.S. State Department.

When he was forced out of the field, he lost his passion for the agency. Working as a desk analyst was torture, serving as a daily reminder that he couldn’t be assisting on operations. Frustrated with his plight, he put in his early retirement papers. His supervisor used connections to get Edgefield a job at the State Department, working as an information officer. But instead of the job being what he needed for his mental health, he resorted to other means to get his adrenaline pumping.

At first, betting on sporting events was a passing fancy, but it grew into an obsession. And before Edgefield could stop, his debt had grown into a mountain. The hours he spent poring over statistics analyzing each game created a chasm between him and his wife Rebecca. She was five months pregnant when she learned how deep he was into gambling. He didn’t tell her until three months later that he was a quarter of a million in the hole with an illegal bookie who promised to exact as much pain as possible.

The aluminum bat a man nicknamed The Hatchet put to Edgefield’s knee exacerbated his injury. It also strained his marriage to the point that within a few months after Corey’s birth, Rebecca left Edgefield. He didn’t really blame her on the nights when he sat at home alone drinking a fifth of scotch. Given his state of mind, he wouldn’t want to be married to himself either. Instead of marrying a spy, she woke up one morning to learn that she was married to a degenerate gambler.

As the debt piled higher, he never thought he could recover. But that was before the man with the scar on his face approached him. Scar Face went by the moniker The Hustler, and he asked Edgefield if he’d be interested in getting out of debt.

“Of course,” Edgefield had said. “What do I need to do?”

“Sell your soul to the devil,” The Hatchet had replied.

Edgefield had remained stoic. “Where do I sign?”

The two men broke into laughter, but The Hatchet was only partially joking. Edgefield didn’t owe his soul, but he did owe his allegiance to someone other than his country. When he began scouring diplomatic cables for information that The Hatchet’s superiors might find useful, Edgefield felt dirty, used, traitorous. But the guilt lessened each time he received a large deposit in his offshore account, which he quickly rerouted to Manuel Diaz, who stopped sending over any enforcers when he began receiving regular payments from Edgefield.

After the latest cable landed on his desk, he made a copy and tucked it into his coat pocket. He opened up his desk drawer and stared at the bottle of whisky peeking from behind the yellow legal pad. Instead of succumbing to the desire to take a little nip before he left the office for the day, Edgefield took a deep breath as he looked at the ledger. His debt was down to fifteen thousand. He was in disbelief, wondering how the number had dropped to such a manageable level.

One more and I’m out.

Edgefield sifted through a few more cables before he found one that would earn him the extra funds to end his makeshift indentured servitude. He pulled out his burner phone and took a screenshot of the cable, one that would be sure to get his contact’s attention. Within seconds, a text buzzed on his burner phone.

Perfect. A deposit has just made to your account.

Edgefield smiled, reveling in a moment he feared would never come. He checked his banking app and then forwarded the final payment to Diaz. Once he was notified, Edgefield wrote back his contact.

I’m out. That’s the last one.

Edgefield interlocked his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair. He’d finally done it. The eight-hundred-pound gorilla on his back had finally been shed.

As he closed down his computer, Edgefield started whistling. He used to do it all the time, but he hadn’t in years—until now.

“Got a date tonight?” his colleague, Eric, asked as Edgefield headed toward the elevators.

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy.”

“Sue me,” Edgefield said, hitting the button to take him down to the parking garage. “I’m in a good mood.”

“But you’re never in a good mood.”

“Sue me,” Edgefield said with a sneer.

“And now you’re back to the grinch.”

Edgefield scowled. “The grinch?”

“Yeah, it’s what we call you behind your back, or, in this case, to your face. Work’s a lot more fun when you aren’t acting like a grumpy old man all the time.”

Edgefield flashed a quick hand gesture that wouldn’t endear himself to Eric. But Edgefield didn’t care. Nobody knew the kind of pain he’d been laboring under for the past few years. He put on as good a face as he felt was humanly possible. And if it made him seem like an old codger, so be it. Edgefield didn’t have time, nor did he care, to worry about what people thought about him.

The elevator doors closed and then he began to descend to the parking deck. Before he reached the bottom, his cell phone buzzed with a message. He whipped out his phone and read it before his mouth went dry. His stomach began to churn.

The message was from his contact who’d been receiving copies of all the cables Edgefield considered relevant.

No you’re not

Beneath the message was a picture of Edgefield’s son. The implication was clear.

Edgefield wasn’t done until they told him he was done.

Yakutsk, Russia

WHEN HAWK ARRIVED in Yakutsk, he went straight to a store and purchased a prepaid cell phone. He next withdrew a thousand dollars in cash from an ATM so he could move more freely without getting tracked. It wasn’t much, but it would have to suffice under the circumstances. After he secured a room at a dilapidated motel near downtown, he called Alex.

“Did you make it?” she asked.

“Finally,” he said. “Driving through the middle of Siberia makes driving across Texas seem like a trip to the local grocery store.”

“That’s because you didn’t have me to keep you company,” she said with a laugh.

“I needed something other than that godawful electro polka music to keep me awake. I swear I’d tell the Russians anything if they made me listen to that garbage for hours on end.”

“Do you at least have Bollywood movies on pay-per-view in your hotel room?” she asked.

“ Motel room,” he corrected. “And I’m pretty sure that’s far too high of a production bar for this part of the world.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Most of the programming looks like it was recorded on VHS.”

“I’m glad to hear you took time out of this mission to watch television.”

Hawk grunted. “I only turned on the TV while I was settling in, mostly out of morbid curiosity. It’s a decision I already regret.”

“So what’s your next move?”

“Based on the operational briefing, the last known location for Tyson was in the Yakutsk prison.”

“And how do you intend on getting into there? Because you better make damn sure you don’t get arrested.”

Hawk smiled. “Me? Get arrested? Whatever would I do that would land me in prison?”

“Hawk, stop kidding around. It wouldn’t be a joke if they detained you for any reason.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve already hidden my backup passport just in case they try to play that game. And it wouldn’t be the first time some bureaucrat took away my passport and used that as justification for keeping me in prison.”