Matt Hilton - Cut and run

He punched numbers into his phone.

'I have the woman,' he said.

'Is she dead?'

'Not yet.'

'Is there a problem?'

'Slight hiccup, but nothing I can't handle.'

'You were told to kill her, Rickard.'

'And that's what I will do. But it's better this way. You wanted Joe Hunter punished. This way I get to make things much, much worse for him.'

'Maybe our plan to make him run worked too well. Hunter has dropped off the map.'

'We expected him to. Not to worry, though, he'll come to me when I'm ready.'

'You're sure that you are his equal?'

'No.'

'No, Rickard?'

'I'm better than him.'

'I hope so.'

This time it was the other person who hung up first. Rickard stared at the phone, his left hand curling into a fist again.

'You hope so?' He spoke into the unresponsive phone. 'You fucking hope so?'

Twice he'd been disrespected in as many minutes.

Rickard punched the steering wheel. When it didn't break, he punched it again and again in a frenzy that didn't halt until his blood slicked the wheel.

Imogen's house was situated on the bluffs above Little Kennebec Bay, the nearest town being the tiny harbour of Machiasport. To get there we had to put down at a private airstrip outside the small town of Holden, because there was no way we'd get through security at Bangor International, then we drove up the rugged coastline in a 4?4 supplied by Rink's contact at the airstrip.

Icy rain thundered on the cab. The heater was cranked high, blowing hot, dry gusts against my face, but outside it looked cold. Wearing my Florida get-up, I might succumb to hypothermia in an hour. Rink's flamboyant shirt would be no protection at all.

'We need to stop and get kitted out,' I said.

Bryce was perhaps the best equipped for the cold, but even he nodded. We needed coats and hats that were designed for keeping the heat in rather than the sun out.

There were plenty of places on the way up to Little Kennebec Bay, and taking twenty minutes out of our journey, we restocked at a fishing tackle store. We bought fleece-lined coats and hats with ear-flaps, and we rigged Bryce out with a new pair of boots. Rink and I lived in our boots, so we were OK in that department. We paid with a credit card with a faked name. It sounds bad, but there was actually money I'd deposited into the account, so it was a genuine transaction: it would just never be traced back to me.

Behind the counter a radio was playing. A newscaster regaled his audience with the latest news. The top story centred on a gunfight where one cop had died and another was critically injured. It came as no surprise that my name was thrown into the pot, but I walked out of the store pretty thankful. There was no mention of a woman having been found mutilated.

Because mobile telephones are deceptively easy to trace, I turned off the one I'd used in Tampa, removing the battery for good measure, and purchased another with prepaid credit at a service station a little further along our route. I tried Walter Hayes Conrad again, but with similar results.

'You don't think Walter's involved, do you?' Rink asked when we were back in the 4?4 and on the road again. His tone told me that he didn't give his words much credence.

'Stuff like that only happens in the movies,' I said. But I did wonder where he'd gone to. My greatest fear was that he'd already been targeted by the people we were up against, but it was highly unlikely. Walter rarely travelled anywhere without an entourage of bodyguards. I preferred to think that he was simply too busy with his own investigation to reply to my calls. Then a thought struck me. I stared directly at Bryce.

'When we first met, you said you wanted to check whose side I was on. Again, back at the safe house, you also mentioned that "according to some people" I was the one responsible for killing our team. Was Walter one of these people?'

'No. Walter argued that it wasn't you. It was why he contacted me and sent me to find you instead.'

'He knew where to find me,' I pointed out.

'News had just come in about the murder of Jessica and Linden Case and how Case mentioned your name before he died. Walter couldn't contact you directly for fear of being implicated in that crime. He was worried that his communications were being monitored.'

'But he felt safe contacting you?'

'We keep in touch on an informal basis: face to face. We occasionally meet up to have a beer and reminisce over the good old days.'

Bryce was obfuscating the way that Walter was also famous for. If a hit on a black ops team was under investigation, the CIA would have been on to Bryce much earlier than they'd been on to me. I noticed that Rink had picked up on the lie by the way he jutted out his chin. I let it go.

But then I laughed.

'You know what this is, don't you?'

Bryce frowned. Rink's chin relaxed and a smile curled his lips.

'Walter – in his own inimitable style – has reactivated us to clear up his shit. He sent you to put me on the right track, Bryce, knowing full well that I'd be like a dog after a bone. He knew that Rink would step up to help me.'

'Figures,' Rink said.

'This is another embarrassment to the intelligence community. He wants it buried, so he's chosen us to do his dirty work for him again.'

'Just like Tubal Cain,' Rink said. He unconsciously thumbed the white scar on his chin – a reminder of said psychopath.

Bryce wasn't party to what had happened with Tubal Cain. Cain was actually Martin Maxwell, a former member of the secret service, better known as a bone-harvesting serial killer. When my brother John was kidnapped by Cain it was inevitable that I hunted the man down, but it served Walter that I bury him without a trace. On that occasion Walter had given me unofficial sanction to kill the maniac; it looked like I was being offered the same terms again.

'I'm right, Bryce?'

'I was supposed to show you the photos and then put you on Abadia's trail,' Bryce said. 'Walter didn't anticipate that you would be a fugitive from the law.'

'If he'd come directly to me those cops wouldn't have died, Imogen would be safe, and I wouldn't be being hunted like a rabid dog.'

'An' we wouldn't have to freeze our asses in Maine.' Rink said. To add validity to his words, he flicked on the windscreen wipers to bat away sleet. 'There is a good reason why I live in Florida.'

'Won't be here long,' I promised him.

'I think we're wasting our time coming here,' Bryce said. 'The woman's already dead.'

'We don't know that. Until we know for sure, we assume she's still alive.'

'You've seen the photos, Hunter. You know what happens to the victims.'

'That's exactly why we're here: I'm not going to let that happen to her.'

'We should concentrate on finding Abadia.'

'No, Bryce. We concentrate on finding Imogen first.'

The woman was in danger through no fault of her own. She'd been snatched as a way of hurting me. Kate and I had been together – if only briefly – before she was murdered, and I thought now that if Kate was still alive I'd be looking at Imogen as an extended member of my family. And no one fucks with my family.

My problem was where to start.

Imogen's house was the obvious place, but for the time being it would be cordoned off behind crime scene tape and a horde of investigators. Going there would solve nothing and most likely see us behind bars.

'Does Walter have any idea who's behind this?'

'Abadia.'

'OK. Let's play make-believe for a minute,' I said. 'Let's just suppose that Abadia survived three point-blank rounds in the chest and he's now looking for revenge: where would he start?'

'He starts by identifying the men sent to kill him.'

'Exactly. But those files were buried. So how does he get to them?'