John Miller - Upside Down

“Who is his real target, his opponent?” Winter asked.

“There was silence for a moment. Then Adams told Winter: “You are.”

“He'll wish he had a checker player to kill,” Nicky said, laughing. “Massey here will eat him alive.”

“You are a worthy opponent for Styer, but you won't get a shot at him, Massey.”

“Sniper, is he?” Nicky said.

Adams shook his head slowly.

“You've been running surveillance on me?” Winter asked.

“Yes,” Adams said. “Audio bugs, phone taps, GPS trackers. But we've been careful to keep our numbers down so neither Styer nor you would make us.”

“You've seen him watching me?”

“We've never seen him, but he has amazing sources for intelligence, and he's a master at disguising himself. We don't think he's been piggybacking our communications, but it is possible. That's why I communicate with my handler only through encrypted e-mails.”

“How long have you been on me?”

“Awhile.”

“Days?”

Adams nodded.

“Weeks?”

“Yes. Weeks.”

“Your job is to protect me from Styer?” Winter said.

“Yes.”

Winter was sure Adams was lying. “Why is he after me?” he asked.

“That is classified.” Adams glanced up into the mirror at Nicky. “Lock me up. Styer'll kill you, and they'll kill me for letting him do it.”

“How do you know he's after me?”

“We turned Styer's handler. The-”

“Who the pink fuck is we?” Nicky interrupted, exasperated.

“Let him finish,” Winter snapped.

“The handler's a businessman. Yuri Chenchenko sold us Styer for enough benefits that it's a zero-sum decision. We want Styer because he kills people we don't want dead. He's an enemy of the state, so making a deal with his handler for him was a no-brainer.”

“If you are who I think you want me to believe you are, you sure as hell aren't here to protect me. If you are assigned to kill this Styer, I'm your bait, so you owe me the truth.”

“It might be because…” He shook his head slightly. “This is just between us, it has to stay that way.”

“Fine,” Winter said. “My word.”

“Cross my heart,” Nicky said.

“It could be sort of our fault that he's after you.”

“Define ‘sort of.'”

“Look, I know you aren't going to shoot me, Green. So aim that damn gun somewhere else.”

“So far, you ain't bought yourself a thing but a. 45-caliber hollow point. I hope you got extra gore insurance on this car when you rented it.”

Winter opened the breech of the Glock he'd removed from Adams's pocket and saw the glint of brass. He pointed the weapon at Adams. “Put the Colt away, Nicky. He knows I'll shoot him.”

“When a certain Russian mobster, who wasn't technically guilty of what he was convicted of last year, whom you helped the A.G. frame, made an attempt to hire a hit on the attorney general, the FBI intercepted the messenger and came to see us about it. We saw an opportunity to thwart that hit and to get Styer, someone we wanted. We offered Yuri a deal, and Yuri offered Styer an assignment to get you, which he took because of your stellar reputation, Massey.”

Winter asked. “Why didn't y'all get Yuri to point him out to you-give you his hideout?”

“Styer moves constantly, keeps everything secret, so if there was a mole in his group, or someone gets turned, he'll be safe. He trusts Yuri, but even Yuri never knows where Styer is, so all he could do was send him to us like he did. If Styer survives and figures out he was set up, he'll go straight back to Russia and kill Yuri. He has independent ties into intelligence and helpers.”

“Styer ran over Hank and Millie because he wanted Winter?” Nicky said, obviously stunned. “That makes you people responsible.”

“Does my director know about this?” Winter asked.

“No. Nobody outside my group does.”

“You're gonna kill this Styer?” Nicky said. “How?”

“When he comes for Massey, I'll be there. He'll be coming soon. He will want to take you man to man, pit his skills against yours. That's why he used Trammell. Styer wants you angry, motivated, so you'll be on your game.”

“If he is watching, what effect will you showing up have on his plan?”

“He'll just think an FBI agent was sent in to evaluate the Trammels' accident. He'll check up on me using his intelligence resources, and he'll believe it.”

“What about my family? Will he go after them?” The Russians, like the Colombian cartels, were notorious for killing entire families as an object lesson.

“Not a chance Styer would do that.”

“He doesn't kill women or children?” Nicky asked, sounding skeptical.

“It would serve no purpose.”

“Last year I killed some men. Were any of them friends of yours?” Winter asked Adams.

“I don't have any friends,” Adams answered.

“If you are who I think you are, you know who Fifteen is.”

“He runs our organization.”

“Your boss goes by a number?” Nicky asked.

“It's not his real name,” Adams said.

“He like the fifteenth in line for the throne?” Nicky said. “This is horse dookie.”

“Fifteen ran into a blowtorch while he was on a mission in East Germany during the Cold War. Fifteen hours is how long he was interrogated without talking.”

“Can't be true,” Nicky argued. “He's lying, Winter.”

Winter handed Adams back his Glock.

The cutout made Winter uneasy, in the same way sharing the interior of the car with a coiled cottonmouth might. But since the agent was a specialist-something Winter was painfully familiar with-that uneasy feeling wasn't necessarily a bad thing. If Adams so much as sneezed wrong, Winter would kill him.

The cells run by Fifteen, the groups Adams was affiliated with, were ex-military Special Forces-trained cleaners, assassins called cutouts because their identities were fictitious. Fifteen was powerful. And he was at the top of the list of the most poisonous and frightening individuals Winter had ever met.

“Green,” Adams said, “I'm going to give you this one.”

“One what?”

“Breaking into my rooms and putting that gun to my head. I understand why you did it and, even though I would have done the same thing, the next time you aim that gun at me you'd better pull the trigger.”

“If I feel called on to draw down on you again, that won't be a problem.”

Adams laughed.

Hood cinched tight, hands clenched together in the front pocket, Faith Ann lay flat in the narrow space between the hard cases, duffels, and rucksacks piled inside the tall steel cage on the van's roof. The raised flat bars that comprised the floor of the cage allowed the air to come at her from above and below, adding to the chilling effect of the wind. If she could have huddled up more, it would have made the ride more comfortable. At least she was hidden. By her watch it had been two hours of driving up and down rural roads. How long did it take to get to a Bible bee? She ventured a peek. Peter had mentioned sightseeing before the contest, but not that it would take hours. Below her, the kids started singing. Their voices filtered up to her from the open van windows.

She might not freeze to death this time of year, but darkness would drop the temperature, and she was bone tired-not to mention that she had important things to do. Sometimes it was as if she had dreamed the murders, had confused real life with a scary movie, and that her mother was really at the office, or at home, and perfectly fine.

Faith Ann saw the approaching sunset as an accusation against her. Horace Pond was sitting in a cell in the isolated Death House Unit at Angola. Faith Ann imagined him praying with Sister Ellen, his small voice telling God that he didn't kill anybody. Maybe Sister Ellen believed him, but Faith Ann knew hardly anybody, except a convicted killer's family and maybe a lawyer like her mother, ever really believed people in Horace Pond's position.