Jonathan Maberry - Assassin's code

Below that was a printed list of forty-seven numbered accounts and the balances of each. He knew those account numbers by heart. The amounts in each were untouched.

And below that, written in a neat hand was a short note.

The road to redemption is paved with rocks.

There are no third chances.

Do it right.

Hopkins read the note over and over again. There were only two men powerful enough to have gotten this information and arranged its delivery. He had abandoned one, and he was sure the other wanted him dead.

And yet.

The note was unsigned.

But it was not Hugo Vox’s handwriting.

The young man clutched the note to his chest. The first sob nearly broke the world. The tears burned like acid. He slid out of his seat onto the carpeted floor.

And, in the silence of his cheap hotel room, Toys wept all through the night.

(5)

Hugo Vox was grinning as he entered his study in Verona. Everything had played out perfectly. The Red Order was in ruins, and good riddance to the self-important pricks. The Tariqa were being hunted with quiet vengeance by their own people. Although they had been inactive since their leaders were killed during the invasion of Baghdad, many of them had old blood on their hands, and all of them were clearly willing to continue the centuries-old insanity. The surviving members of that sect would feel a wrath greater than anything Islam had leveled against the West.

Payback, Vox mused happily, was a real bitch.

He regretted that the knights were done, or as close to done as made no difference. They were interesting as all hell. They were one of the things that pulled him into this. Vox knew that he was a sucker for something with a biblical spin. Vampires. Bloodsucking hit men for the Church. You couldn’t make this shit up.

Shame the real story didn’t get into the press. That would have been legendary. That would be books and movies. Maybe they’d have gotten Ron White to play him. Vox loved that guy, never missed his stand-up act. Looking at him was like looking in a mirror. Well, a younger mirror.

He turned on a single light, locked the door, and crossed to his computer. He had looked for Toys on the Net, using the resources that had once belonged to the Seven Kings, but he hadn’t found him. The kid was all the way off the grid.

Vox’s smile flickered when he thought of Toys and the last, hard words between them.

I hate you, Hugo. I wish you were already dead.

Had Toys really meant that?

Probably.

Fuck.

He switched on the computer, entered his passwords, and accessed his banking records. His wealth was so scattered and so well protected that it was almost impossible to calculate. Somewhere a hair’s breadth south of one hundred billion. Nothing to piss on.

Enough to rebuild the Seven Kings.

Or, maybe find the scattered remnants of the Upierczi.

Hell, maybe both.

If he was going to live forever, he might as well have some fun.

He was smiling as he tapped in his banking codes. The screen buzzed with an error message. Mistype, he figured, and tried again. And again.

“What the fuck?”

He switched to a different bank and tried to log in.

The same thing happened.

He tried seven more, his fingers trembling with panic. Nothing.

“Goddamn son of a bitch, what the f-?”

A voice behind him said, “You’re wasting your time, Hugo.”

Vox jumped and spun around in his seat. He had not seen the figure sitting quietly in the darkness of the far side of the study. Vox had not even sensed his presence. The figure was seated in a leather chair, legs crossed, body relaxed and casual, face completely hidden by shadows.

“God…” Vox gasped, and he felt as if a hand were suddenly clamped around his throat.

The figure reached to the lamp on the nearby table and switched it on. In the yellow glow of the low-wattage bulb he looked calm, his face without expression, the lenses of his tinted glasses reflecting Vox’s shocked and terrified face.

“Deacon… Holy Christ, how’d you… How’d you…?” He could not finish the sentence.

Mr. Church lifted something from his lap. A coded cell phone. A purple one. “I received this in the mail. From a mutual friend.” He tossed it onto the floor between them. “My friends in the industry constantly amaze me with what they can do with reverse engineering. Even to the point of turning a simple phone into a tracking device.”

“No…” breathed Vox. Sweat burst from his pores.

Church said nothing.

“Is Toys alive? Did you kill him?”

“What does it matter to you?”

Vox wiped an arm across his face. “You know it fucking well matters.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why does he matter to you, Hugo?” Church asked quietly.

Vox glared at him. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I wouldn’t?”

“No, because you’re a heartless prick, Deacon. Ask Circe. When’s the last time you told your own daughter you loved her? When’s the last time you loved anyone?”

“You’re saying that you love Toys?”

“He’s my son.”

“Really.” Church made a statement of it, not a question.

“Why the fuck do you think I did all this?”

“I know why you did this, Hugo. It’s what you do. It’s who you are.”

“You’re wrong. That may have been true when I was running the Kings, but this-this was different. I’m giving it all to Toys. Poor dumb kid found God again. Wants to devote his life to good works, corny as that shit sounds. So what can I do? I’m dead in a box in a few months. At least I can step out on a good note.”

“Please, Hugo,” said Church mildly. “It’s just the two of us here, and I think it’s past the time when you should be lying to me.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Church nodded and picked up a folder from the table. He whipped it across the floor so that it skittered to a stop with one corner under the toe of Vox’s left sandal. Vox looked down at the folder but did not reach for it. Instead he kicked it away.

The label on the folder read UPIER 531.

“Christ,” Vox gasped. “How the hell do you know about that?”

Church shrugged. “I know.”

Vox said, “Toys?”

Church didn’t answer. They sat in silence for almost a minute.

“Who took my money? You or Toys?”

“Who do you think?”

“I gave him a billion frigging dollars.”

“And took it back. I checked the records. You left him with a penny.”

Vox spread his hands. “He in custody?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Let him go, Deke,” murmured Vox. “The kid. Toys. Let him go.”

Church said nothing.

“Whatever he was when he was with Gault, that’s over. He wanted out when Gault joined the Kings. He tried to stop Gault. He even called your boy Ledger to warn him.”

Church said nothing.

“This stuff-Kings and intrigues and all that shit-it broke him. Or… or maybe it healed him. I don’t know. I’m not a philosopher and I’m not a priest. All I know is that he’s done. He’s really going to do as much good as he can with that money.”

Church said nothing.

Vox licked his lips. “You know the story about the guy who wrote ‘Amazing Grace.’ John Newton. Started out as a slaver then one night, right off the coast of Donegal, a storm whipped up and was going to sink the ship. Newton prayed to God to save the ship and everyone aboard. They weathered the storm and by the time the ship docked, Newton had gone through a spiritual conversion. Worked the rest of his life to abolish slavery. Became a minister. That’s Toys, Deke. He’s hit that same moment… and after he left me, I think I did too. Big perspective check when your own son leaves you.”