Richard Doetsch - Half-Past Dawn

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The second and third monitors reflected his latest intel, dossiers, and photos pertaining to his various employees and contracts.

Cristos’s computer system was secure, with an encryption system that would be the envy of any government. But there were certain secrets for which he reserved other methods.

Unlike much of society, governments, and institutions, he did not trust his most important information to a silicon chip. He was taught at an early age that if one was to keep secrets, there was no greater location, no place more impenetrable, than his own mind. Computers could be hacked, vaults could be cracked open, associates could be coerced with everything from bribery to chemicals. But as sharp as his mind was, as good as his memory was, there were some things that needed to be recorded. In his simple homeland, a forgotten world that shunned technology in favor of a more spiritual existence, methods existed whose simplicity had been forgotten by modern society.

Cristos rose from his desk and stepped to the table where the rectangular box lay. He removed a small billfold from the breast pocket of his suit jacket, opened it, and withdrew two thin strips of metal, one L-shaped, the other with a multiwaved tip. He kneeled before the box and slipped the two sticklike objects into the lock on the near end, and with a surgeon’s careful hand, he picked the lock. After placing his tools back in their pouch and slipping it back into his pocket, he stood up, lifted the lid, and peered inside.

He stared for a moment and finally reached into the case, withdrawing a single envelope. He tore it open and removed a handwritten note. He read it through twice, before putting it back in the envelope and into his pocket.

He picked up his cell phone-satellite technology, multiple relays, and encryption software made it virtually untraceable for up to three minutes, which was twice as long as any conversation he ever needed to have-and quickly dialed.

“Hello,” a voice answered.

“Good morning,” Cristos said in a deep Eurasian accent.

“Well?” the person on the other end of the phone asked. “Do you have the case?”

“I do.” Cristos turned his head and stared at the long black box. “But it seems your intelligence-a word so inappropriate-was wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“The case was empty.”

“Empty?”

“I never had much faith in you, anyway.”

“You listen to me, I could end your life with-”

Cristos tuned out the angry voice. It always made him laugh when his employers would threaten him with death when it was that precise expertise he was hired for. The egos of the rich and powerful blinded them to reality, which always made them so surprised when they found the tables turned, when they didn’t get their way, when death turned its eye on them.

“Good-bye.” With the man still screaming on the other end, Cristos folded up his cell phone.

He walked to the door and opened it, nodding his head.

Three men entered.

“Where’s Tobin?”

“Dead,” the blond man said. “Jumped off a bridge, hit a by a tractor-trailer.”

“I take it, then, we have no files on Keeler, no toys from the girls’ room?”

The blond man shook his head no.

Cristos nodded, thinking before continuing. “The intel we received on the box in the rear of the Keelers’ car was faulty. It could be a decoy or just plain wrong.”

The three stood there

“Which one of you shot Jack Keeler?”

“I did,” the blond man said quietly.

“Your name?”

“Gallagher.”

Cristos nodded, his dark eyes staring off into space, although truth be told, they were looking inward. “You knew what was to be in the case, correct?”

Gallagher gave a subtle nod, like a child in school.

Cristos lifted the lid of the box, displaying its inside to Gallagher. “So you killed him without verifying its contents.”

And with a sudden whip of his arm, Cristos’s hand snapped out, wrapping around Gallagher’s neck, pulling him close, staring into his eyes as he slowly began to squeeze. Gallagher’s face grew crimson, the veins at his temples growing with each pulse, throbbing with agony.

Gallagher grabbed Cristos’s hands around his throat, trying in vain to pull them away. He desperately swung his fists, flailing his arms like a child in his first fight, attacking his assailant with clenched hands, but Cristos’s powerful left arm extended, his grip continuing to tighten as he blocked every blow with his right arm. And with a swipe of his leg, Cristos knocked Gallagher’s feet from beneath him, leaving him dangling.

Gallagher’s face was impossibly red, his eyes bulging in stress and fear, for he knew there was no escape.

The other two stared in shock as the life was literally squeezed out of their associate, but neither made a move, as a single step would be like raising a hand to die next.

Gallagher’s body began to twitch and vibrate as if each muscle was doing its part to escape. Robbed of his last breath, as if at the bottom of the sea, his eyes began to lose focus, his body stiffened… and he was finally released, crumpling to the ground gasping, his hands rubbing his throat.

“I wanted you to taste death, something you rendered so quickly to Jack Keeler before accomplishing your task.” Cristos looked at the three men before him. “I want you to know fear. I want you to know that no one was allowed to kill him except me.”

Cristos methodically closed the box. It was a moment. The only sound was Gallagher’s labored breathing as he climbed to his feet.

“You have six hours to find me that box.”

And the three left.

Cristos reached into his pocket and withdrew the envelope. He stared at it a moment, knowing the words written within. He didn’t know how its author possessed the forethought to write it; only a select few knew he was in the country. While the expression on his face was placid, calm, it was entirely contrary to his emotions.

For the letter in the box he had stolen was addressed to him.

CHAPTER 12

FRIDAY, 8:45 A.M.

Frank hustled down the long embankment that led to the river’s edge. The churning waters were still near flood stage after the previous night’s rains, inhibiting the recovery effort that was already well under way. He had parked his Jeep a quarter-mile up the road behind a string of emergency vehicles, flashing his old police badge to gain access to the site. Frank looked up at the crowd that stood on Rider’s Bridge in silent, rapt attention. They were not the usual rubberneckers, the morbid curious hoping to see a body. They were a mix of law enforcement, friends of Jack and Mia from the FBI, the DA’s office, and both local and city police. Even from his fifty-yard distance, he could see the grief in their faces, in their body language.

And as Frank continued to look, he felt an uneasy shame, a horrible feeling of deception for allowing so many to think the couple dead. He knew the pain he had felt at hearing of his friends’ deaths and knew it was a communal feeling shared by all of their colleagues. Although he wanted to shout out about Jack’s survival, he knew it would only further endanger Mia, wherever she might be.

Frank turned his attention to the enormous crane that sat mid-span, its cable line disappearing into the churning river below, where a small pocket of bubbles turned into a froth. An enormous man, six-four, at least 220 pounds, emerged from the water, climbing up the bank. He removed the regulator from his mouth and pushed his dive mask up onto his head.

The two men nodded to each other.

“I hate this,” the man said in a deep voice, pushing his wet blond hair from his face.

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