Jonathan Maberry - Assassin's code

He smiled and smiled and smiled.

(8)

My plane touched down at Dulles on a blistering hot afternoon in August. When I walked out of the terminal the sun felt like it was a foot above my head. Hellish hot.

Ghost walked beside me. Silent, loyal, alert. When he smiled at the tourists, sunlight glinted off of his four new titanium teeth. I think he liked showing them off.

I saw my Explorer sitting in a no-parking zone. The big Echo Team tactical vehicle, Black Betty, was parked behind it. Bunny leaned against my fender. Top sat in the passenger seat, the door open. Lydia stood near Bunny. Just the three of them. Ghost wagged his tail when he saw them.

No one said anything. I shook hands with Bunny and Lydia, nodded to Top, who nodded back.

A cop stood a dozen yards away, trying to give us the look for blocking a loading zone. We ignored him.

I put my bags in the back and climbed behind the wheel. Top patted me on the shoulder and got out to join the others in the TacV. In silent convoy we headed out of the airport for the ride to Baltimore. We could have gotten a DMS helo, but this was fine.

As we cleared the airport traffic I took a deep breath and let it out. There was half a hitch to it, almost a sob.

Ghost laid his head on my thigh and whined softly. I stroked his fur.

When we were on the highway my phone rang. I didn’t want to answer it. I didn’t want to hear from Church or Rudy or any-damn-one else. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to get drunk.

But the DMS owns my ass, so I snatched up the phone without looking to see who I was going to growl at. “What?”

“So,” she said, “how many brownie points do I have now?”

Ghost raised his head and whuffed.

I smiled.

“Hello, Violin,” I said.