Brad Taylor - Enemy of Mine

Jennifer said, “Pike, you know that won’t work. Kurt will flip out that we’re even in Germany. He’ll order us home and then rip us apart. Even if he agrees, he’ll want a support team here, and we don’t have time for that.”

He held up his hand. “Let it go. I’ve been thinking about it for two days. I’m not going to do the hit unsanctioned. Either Kurt facilitates or he doesn’t, but I’m not going off on a vendetta like a Mafia hit man. It’s eating me alive, and I don’t like the damage.”

Jennifer heard what he said and felt shame for what she was putting Pike through. She considered letting it go when that day sprang forth. Lucas’s hot breath, the lamp cord cutting into her hands on the bed as she tried to keep him away, the beating she had taken.

That bastard deserves to die. And Pike deserves to kill him.

“Pike, I need to show you something.”

“Jennifer, forget it. You didn’t see me at my worst. It was a living hell, and this damn mission is bringing me back.”

“Please sit down.”

He did.

Jennifer said, “I found more than Ethan’s driver’s license in Lucas’s room.”

“What do you mean?”

Jennifer pulled out an ID card and handed it to him. She watched him recognize the face, then saw him begin to change before her very eyes. The resignation of only a moment ago disappeared, replaced by a rising tsunami of violence rippling just underneath the surface. A rage vibrating the very air around him. She felt the threat from across the room, and knew she’d made a mistake.

His face twisted toward her, almost unrecognizable, the scar on his cheek standing out stark white against the mottled red of his fury. “Where the fuck did you get this? What are you up to? Some parlor trick to get me to destroy myself? Why?”

He leapt to his feet, shouting now. “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe you’d do this! I don’t even know you! I don’t want to know you. Get the fuck out!”

She began to backpedal, holding out her hands, getting out of the danger zone while she still could.

“Pike, it’s real! I didn’t want to tell you before. I didn’t know what to do with it. I found Heather’s license with Ethan’s. Lucas killed your wife. And your daughter.”

Pike stopped, the violence beginning to crack the surface. He stared through her, saying nothing, his body beginning to tremble. The phone rang, and he snatched it up. He listened for a moment, never saying a word. He ended the call, picked up the Glock, and racked the slide.

“Let’s go.”

She hesitated, frightened by the change. Unconsciously, she prepared to fight. To defend herself against what she’d created.

He didn’t attack her. Just shoved her into the wall, stabbing his hands into her jacket pockets. She began to fight back when he found what he wanted, ripping the pocket open and removing the keys to her rental car.

“Fucking stay here then. I’m not going to beg you.”

He slammed the door behind him, sucking the darkness out of the room. She collapsed into the chair.

What have I done?

I parked illegally on the street, right outside the front door of the hotel, the traffic light enough that I could do so without drawing attention. Not that I gave a damn anyway.

I stalked past the front desk, the woman behind it wishing me a good night. When I looked at her, she melted back, then glanced down quickly, pretending to become interested in something on her counter.

I sprinted up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time to the fifth floor. I glanced down the hallway, seeing it was deserted.

I walked until I reached the elevators, then took a left. Shortly, I was standing outside Lucas’s door, the Glock now in my hand.

I felt the press of time, knowing someone could poke their head out at any moment and see me with the pistol. I gently slid in the key-card, getting a green light. I popped open the door a crack and listened. I heard nothing, the room dark.

I snaked my way inside, leaving the door propped open a crack with the damaged dead bolt to give me enough light from the hallway to see.

I made out Lucas in the bed, lying facedown. I walked up to the foot and placed the red dot from the Glock right at the base of the skull, holding it in a two-handed grip. I’d already decided not to do anything stupid like waking him up and telling him why he was about to die. No, it would be a quick double-tap and I would be gone, leaving the maids to clean up the mess and the devil to explain to him why he was now in hell.

The barrel trembled, wobbling up and down, left and right, refusing to settle. My little corner of darkness wanted more than a simple bullet. Wanted to slice his life away one cut at a time, drawing it out as long as his body could stand. I finally had a face to the stalker of my dreams. And the black corner of my soul wanted to kill him exactly the way he had murdered my family.

Get a grip. Get a grip. Can’t do that and escape. Clock’s ticking. Put a bullet in his head.

I took a deep, slow breath, the crime-scene photos shining in stark Technicolor in my mind. I felt the darkness swallow me and saw my hands steady, my arms becoming twin rails with a thin bloodred dot at the center. I tightened my finger, the slack from the trigger safety gone, the trigger beginning its journey smoothly to the rear. I saw movement under the covers next to Lucas. Someone groaned, a sleep-filled little exclamation.

A whore? He brought a whore up and Knuckles said nothing?

The covers snapped back, and a boy of about six flipped to the floor, walking to the bathroom with sleep-filled eyes, completely oblivious to the storm of death standing less than four feet from him. A boy the same age as my daughter when she had been murdered.

I waited until he closed the bathroom door, then backed slowly out of the room. I made it to the stairwell before the margin between life and death slammed home. A razor’s edge that made me sick to my stomach, causing me to stop and hold on to the railing for support.

Two more pounds of trigger pull and you would have killed an innocent man.

The sun burned my eyes, even given the dark sunglasses I was wearing. The rays felt like sandpaper against the dryness. I hadn’t gotten much sleep, then had awakened at the crack of dawn to control the surveillance effort for one final try. I handled the radio while Jennifer drove, trailing the surveillance box yet again. For her part, Jennifer was treating me with kid gloves. Unsure of what I would do, and I didn’t blame her.

I had touched the face of the devil, gone further into the abyss than I had ever known, and almost became the personification of evil. Almost became the man in my dreams.

Now, we continued the hunt, but I knew it was futile. I had only one more night before Kurt began asking questions, and there was little chance we’d get lucky with the Jennifer distraction to find Lucas’s room like last time. Shit. You ended up not finding his room.

Knuckles brought me out of my thoughts. “Still eating breakfast at the Burger King. Still got his bags with him.”

Lucas had gone back under the Hauptbahnhof, wandering around doing nothing until a Burger King had opened up, and was now killing time eating a hamburger. In my mind, I half-wondered if he wasn’t going to get on a train this time instead of a new hotel. I almost wished he would. It would make my decision much easier. I wasn’t going to follow him all over Europe.

I decided to pull the trigger anyway, not waiting to see what he did. “Knuckles, go ahead and back off. Let him go.”

Jennifer whipped her head at me, and Knuckles said, “Come again? What was that?”