Chris Mooney - World Without End

Renee took in a deep breath. Tears welled up along the rims.

"It was the same man who killed John. He came down here and started hitting me."

The blond man stroked her head.

"Shhh, it's okay. Raymond Bouchard will get what's coming to him, believe me. Now just take your time and tell me what happened."

"They killed John, and then they said they were going to kill Steve."

"They?"

"Bouchard and another guy, the one who planted the drugs."

"Do you know his name?"

"Owen Lee."

"Go on."

"They planted the drugs around the condo to make it look like an OD.

Then they talked about Steve, what they were going to do to him and this other guy named Jonathan Cole."

She felt the man's hand stop moving and heard his breath catch in his throat. Then he breathed again, only now it sounded like the labored breath of a man recovering from an unexpected blow.

Something's wrong. She tried to squirm away from his touch. Her bladder was swollen like a water-filled balloon threatening to burst.

"You have quite a memory, Renee. Not too many people could remember this level of detail." The cheer and warmth was gone from the man's voice, as if the words she had spoken had caused him injury. She didn't know why, but his tone reminded her of the character Ralph Fiennes played in Schindler's List, the SS commander. Every time he spoke, it was like death wrapping itself around your skin.

"I have to pee," she said.

"How were they going to kill Cole?"

"Please. I can't hold it anymore," she said again, hating herself for sounding so weak.

"Then piss in your seat."

In that moment she knew she had mistakenly walked down a corridor from which there was no return.

"What's the decryption code?"

"I don't know," she said.

"One last time. What's the code?"

The man next to her Dixon was screaming from behind his strip of duct tape.

The blond man sank his teeth into her ear and then shook his head wildly like a dog trying to tear away the last remaining strip of meat from a bone. Renee screamed, writhing against the restraints that dug into her skin, and kept screaming when the blond man stood up and spit her ear onto her lap. Blood was smeared across his mouth and chin, dripping. He smiled and brought up the circular saw, its ragged teeth shining under the light, and turned it on, the whining screech of the blade drowning out the sound of the screams.

Renee Kaufmann shut her eyes. This time John was there, waiting for her on one of the paths carved out in the magnificent stretch of woods behind the farmhouse. John took her close to him and wrapped his big arms around her back and hugged her tight.

"Just hold on, Renee, it will be over in a moment and you'll be here with me, with all of us." John whispered the words against her ear over and over again. The whining screech of the blade moved closer.

The black van was perfect for this neighborhood. It was scratched, dented and dinged, but not as bad as the others, decade-old junkers plagued with rust and missing fenders and blown-out rear windows that were now covered with garbage bags and fastened to the car with duct tape. A strong wind blew, shaking the branches of the bald maple trees, and kicked the empty beer cans across the sidewalk and lawns, the air cold and sharp enough to keep everyone indoors.

Pasha Romanov sat on a chair in the back of the van, her body tucked behind the front seats, a pair of night-vision goggles strapped across her head. Her breath fogged around her as she looked through the misty green prism of light and stared at the yellow house at the end of the street. She had been parked here since late this afternoon. It was now after nine.

Just under an hour ago, she had watched a blue Nissan Maxima pull into the driveway. When the car door opened, a man with neatly combed blond hair and a burnt-orange jacket stepped out and walked up the back porch steps. It was the same man she had seen earlier at the Mobil station.

There, he had slid behind the wheel of a shiny black Jaguar, not a Nissan, his passenger a bedraggled Stephen Conway.

Pasha knew Stephen was alive before seeing him at the gas station.

After leaving the Aquarium, she had booked it straight to the van and used the surveillance gear to lock onto the transmitter in Stephen's credit card. She caught up to the white van on the high way, shadowing it, far enough away not to attract any attention. She saw the van take the exit and followed. The white van had pulled off the road and was now parked near the pay phone of a Mobil station, and there was Stephen, alive. Pasha didn't pause; she drove past them for about half a mile, pulled into a strip mall, turned around and waited for the Jaguar to move.

When she reached the highway, she expected to be following the Jaguar.

Instead, she was following the white van. And she had no idea where Stephen was, since the only means of tracking him, the credit card, was inside the van. Stephen was gone.

Or had he purposely left the credit card in the van? Had Stephen discovered something?

Pasha followed the van to this house, parked where she was now sitting and for the past three hours watched as various men came and went. In the daylight, she had used a set of binoculars hooked up to a laptop computer that allowed her to zoom in on the faces and take high-resolution pictures. By the time four o'clock rolled around, the world fading into darkness, seven men had entered the house, including the blond man.

The real surprise came just after five. A silver Honda pulled into the pitch-black driveway and out climbed the familiar figure of Raymond Bouchard, wearing a hat, his Roman profile and squarely-set jaw unmistakable even in the misty world of the night-vision.

It was clear that the house was serving as a base of operations. What wasn't clear was whether or not Major Dixon or the suit was inside.

In her mind Pasha saw the naked and bound figure of Major Dixon from the torture video, twisting beneath his restraints, screaming for it to stop. In her hands was a Clock, the barrel threaded with the silencer, and on the floor next to her were two Heckler and Koch MP-6 submachine guns with attached suppressors and laser sights. More than enough firepower.

She ran her finger over the trigger, staring at the house, thinking.

She was only one person. And right now she did not know the layout of the house, and she didn't know the best entry point. Later, in the early morning hours, she would leave the van and take a walk, and from a safe location survey the house. That meant more waiting. She thought of Raymond and wanted to burst in there now. Kept thinking about it.

She wanted to call Stephen now and find out what had happened inside the Aquarium. The problem was that his hotel room was probably bugged.

And he would have people following him, listening. If she called, if she tried to approach him when the heat was on, Raymond would discover that she was alive and would put his men on alert. They would secure the house, might even kill Dixon. Best to wait.

Raymond would leave at some point tonight, taking some of his men with him, and thereby reducing the number inside the house. She would case the house tomorrow, watching and planning. Later, when the sky had grown dark and the world had settled into sleep, Pasha would strike.

The combat gear she needed was stored here in the van.

Pasha kept watching the house, rubbing the trigger of her pistol for comfort. But the feeling wasn't as soothing as the image playing inside her head: that of the treacherous fuck Raymond Bouchard curled into a fetal position, crippled and crying as she introduced him to new levels of pain.

The man known only as Angel Eyes stands on a grate hissing -with steam.

He is covered in a thick white fog, but Comvay can see the back of the man's pale head and his hand pressed against the cold glass of the Holocaust Memorial as if locked in prayer.