Matt Hilton - Cut and run

Ordinarily, houses that proved impregnable at the ground level were never as heavily fortified against an attack from above and Rickard was counting on this being true here. He readied himself, gripping tightly as he prepared to swing down and kick his way through the small attic window he'd noticed earlier.

He took a deep breath, as though about to dive into deep water. Then, in the next instant, he let it out again. He straightened up, staring in disbelief at the car roaring along the street towards him.

When the urge to get moving takes me I've no option but obey. It didn't matter that I had no firm plan of action in mind, just that there was yet another woman out there fleeing for her life from a maniac. I had to do something. I was sick of running away, or playing catch-up, and it was about time I put Rickard on the back foot for a change.

'I need some air. I'm coming with you.'

I didn't argue with Rink. We come from the same school of thought and I knew that he felt exactly the same way as I did.

Harvey stayed behind. He was as good as any analyst that Walter had access to, and would be able to help the CIA men coordinate the search for Rickard from the hotel room. 'If anything comes up, I'll call,' he promised.

We took the Chrysler and went back to the office block from where Ken Wetherby ran his operation. Wetherby wasn't pleased to see us. His face had swollen where I'd given him the parting shot, but hadn't begun to bruise yet. Maybe he thought I was going to give him a matching lump on the other side.

'OK, take it easy, Wetherby. I'm not here for trouble this time.'

The two men that Rink had beaten up were conspicuous by their absence. Probably down at A amp; E, I assumed. Only the third man, the first to feel a clubbing right from Rink, was there, and he looked no easier than Wetherby did about us showing up again. His hand crept towards a gun in a holster on his hip. Rink gave him a slow shake of his head and the man's fingers drifted from his gun and dug awkwardly in his trouser pocket.

'Can we have a little privacy?' My question was more to spare the young mercenary any further discomfort, and offered him a way out without him losing any more face.

'You OK with that, sir?'

Wetherby scowled at the young man, then waved him out of the room. When the man was gone, Wetherby grunted. 'Not as if he was going to be much help anyway.'

'Like I said, we're not here for trouble this time.'

Wetherby slumped in the chair behind his desk. I noticed that his papers and laser printer had been returned to their rightful place, but it didn't look like much work had been done since our last visit.

'What are you here for, Hunter?'

Propping myself on the corner of his desk, I folded my arms over my chest and looked down at him from a position of dominance. 'I want your help.'

There was nothing of a request in my voice. Wetherby could refuse my order, but I didn't think he would.

'I told you that none of the people on my books were involved. What more do you want from me?'

'Tell me about Luke Rickard.'

A strobe of emotions flickered across Wetherby's face. The one that took root was fear. He looked down at his desk, focusing on the untidy pile of documents.

'Don't deny that you know him,' I said. 'You'd be wasting all our time.'

'I don't know him.' His voice was barely above a whisper. He looked up at me and then across the room to where Rink lounged against a wall. 'But I know of him.'

'You tried to recruit him?'

'I don't approach people. They come to me.'

'You came to me,' I reminded him. It was why I'd come back to clear things up with him. Most of the people on his books were all above board, applicants who were recruited via his website: usually they were soldiers returning from war with no hope of going back to a humdrum civilian lifestyle. After Wetherby put them through a rigorous selection process he sent them off to a training camp that he ran in the Everglades. Those that passed the course were shipped off to be close protection bodyguards to business people or minders to celebrities. But then there were other contracts that Wetherby negotiated – for these he sought and recruited specialists. Basically he was pimping murderers. It was this arm of his business that I'd taken umbrage with.

'Contrary to what you think, I don't deal with criminals,' Wetherby said. 'When I found out about Rickard, I immediately severed all communication.'

'He's that bad?'

'And then some.'

I shared a glance with Rink. Returning my attention to Wetherby, I asked, 'So how is it that no one seems to have heard of him?'

'He's that good at what he does.'

Imogen Ballard had thwarted him twice, and now so had his wife. 'So why's he making all these mistakes all of a sudden?'

'I can't begin to imagine why,' Wetherby said.

'Tell me about him.'

Wetherby didn't have to rack his brains very much and I wondered if he'd been considering Rickard as the shooter the first time we were here. If he'd said so then maybe a couple of his men wouldn't have needed a few days off to recuperate.

'First off, he's not really called Luke Rickard. That's an assumed identity.'

I'd already come to that conclusion. 'So who is he?'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'No idea.'

'How did you hear about him?'

'Some of the other men were talking about him. They'd heard stories from out in the field. It seems that Rickard is a freelance assassin who works for those willing to pay the highest fee.'

I thought about a man I'd killed last year. Dantalion: a freak who went by the name of a fallen angel. He had been a freelance assassin too. He didn't work through the usual channels either.

'What's his background?'

'I'd guess that he was military.'

'His prints aren't on record, so that rules that out.'

'Assuming that he's an American, you mean?'

He had a point. Both the FBI and CIA had been concentrating on their own databases. I made a mental note to have Harvey cast the net further afield. 'From what you were able to dig up on him, who are the people he's worked for in the past?'

'You know how difficult something like that is to substantiate. I can only tell you about the rumours…'

'So tell me.'

'Paramilitary groups mostly. He's been in Sierra Leone, Darfur, Bosnia, Lebanon and Gaza.'

'What about closer to home?'

'Yes, there are rumours that he's done select work here before.'

'OK. Next question, Wetherby, and I want the truth. You tried to recruit him. Who was it for?'

'I can't disclose any details about my clients. You can't expect me to do that.'

Rink picks and chooses his time to speak, but when he does his words mean something. 'Unless you want us to have another falling out, we do.'

Wetherby threw his hands in the air. 'You realise what my name will mean if this gets out?'

'Shit?' Rink asked.

'Exactly.' Wetherby ran his hands over his face. He probed the spot where I'd punched him earlier and it was a catalyst for his anger. 'Why the hell should I tell you anything? I don't owe you a goddamn thing.'

'No one will get anything from us,' I said. 'You have my word.'

He made a noise in his throat like he was being strangled. The anger went out of him like he was a deflating balloon. With resigned deliberation he leaned down and slid open a drawer in his desk. It was a good place to conceal a gun, but I was at an angle where I could see that wasn't the case. He pulled out a folder and opened it on his desk.

'I don't have a name, just a number. Maybe you have better resources than I do and can trace it.'

That was a given fact but I made him none the wiser. I borrowed a pen and jotted the number on a slip of paper that I pocketed. 'So what were your feelings?'