J Ward - Crave

He lowered his gun. “I’m a federal agent.” He put his hand into his coat and decided to flash his FBI credentials-which were legit to a point.

The paramedic leaned in and squinted at the laminated photograph and the bullshit name and the very real crest. “Oh… sorry, sir. We got a call…”

“It’s okay. Just pulled three days straight up at the Canadian border and I’m on my way to Manhattan. I got off the Northway looking for some chow around four a.m., but there was nothing open and I had to get some sleep. You know how that is.”

“Oh, I so get that.”

Chatter, chatter, chatter… blah, blah, blah…

When the police showed up, they ran the ID in their system, and gee frickin’ whiz, it checked out. And his story about being on a classified mission and having to pull over from exhaustion was consumed like a Thanksgiving dinner: He went from criminal to celebrity.

Stupid fools.

After he sent them off, he drove away himself and took his phone out. There were a number of voice mails… and one high alert.

Well, what do you know… looked like Isaac Rothe had turned himself in and his location was the house of his lovely and talented defense attorney. How fucking perfect: Although they could have picked him off standing up in Grier Childe’s kitchen if they’d absolutely had to, this was going to make things much less complicated.

Matthias called his number two, and as the phone rang, he thought of how many times he’d had this conversation: Go. Get the bastard. Cap him. Take care of the body.

He’d done it so many times.

As that pain in the left side of his chest fired up again, he ignored the sensation-

“Yeah?” his number two answered.

“Isaac Rothe is ready for you.”

There wasn’t even a pause. “The Beacon Hill address?”

“Yes. Go there now and get him.”

“I’m out of state.”

“Well, get ‘in state’ and get to him. ASAP.”

“Roger that. Where do you want him?”

Good question. Isaac wasn’t known for great escapes; his reputation was for fast, clean kills in extraordinary circumstances. But you didn’t pull off jobs like he had without being highly resourceful.

“Hold him at that house for me,” Matthias said abruptly.

As he considered the situation, instinct told him that a change in strategy was appropriate. After all, Grier Childe and her father could use some reining in-and nothing got a civilian’s attention more than watching someone get murdered. Good old Albie was proof of that-

For some reason, Jim Heron’s voice popped into Matthias’s brain. No specific words, just a tone that lingered, a grave, imploring tone that made Matthias feel like he had to stop everything and… do what exactly?

“Hello?” his number two demanded, like the guy had either said something that hadn’t been responded to or there’d been nothing but silence for a while.

“I don’t want you to kill him,” Matthias heard himself say.

“Oh, I know. You’re going to do that yourself.” Satisfaction. Such satisfaction, like that was the plan all along.

For no good reason, Matthias’s central processor started to spark and smoke, images flitting in and out of his mind in a mad jumble that made him think of dice rolling across a felt table. And then from out of the chaos, he saw Alistair Childe being held up off a filthy rug by two operatives in black as his son was injected with enough heroin to put an elephant into a perma-nod.

Danny… oh, Danny, my boy… Like that Irish bar song, only not musical at all when a father was hoarsely crying out the words.

“Boss,” his number two cut in. “Talk to me. What’s going on.”

So level-voiced, but it was a false pragmatism. The soldier was no doubt worried that the wheels were falling off again-that just as he had two years ago, he was going to have to drag Matthias into his fighting boots once more.

“Do not kill him,” Matthias heard himself repeat. “That’s an order.”

“I know, so you can do it. He’s for you. You have to take him.”

For a moment, Matthias felt an inescapable, tantalizing draw… “No,” he blurted, shaking hmself. “No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you must-”

“Just follow the fucking order without commentary or I’ll find someone else who will.”

With a curse, he hung up, sent a signal back to Isaac and then tried to find some solid internal ground to stand on. Shit, all of sudden, he felt like he had two different voices in his head and not only were they pulling him in opposite directions, neither was his own.

Fortunately, the return transmission from Rothe cut into the struggle.

“Matthias,” came that old, familiar voice.

“Isaac. How are you.”

“Where? When?”

“Always so to the point.” Matthias pushed his knee into the bottom of the steering wheel to keep the sedan on the road while he massaged the pain in his left pec. “I’m sending someone for you. So you stay put.”

“Unacceptable. I can’t be picked up here.”

“Dictating terms? I don’t think so.”

“Grier Childe is not going to be involved in this. I’ll turn myself in at midnight tomorrow in a public place.”

“And now you want to tell me when? Fuck you, Rothe. If you want her to stay out of it, you’ll do what I tell you to. Or do you think I can’t get past that fancy security system of hers on any night of my choosing?” Silence. “Surprised that I know about the damn thing? Well, there are other tricks to that house, Isaac. I wonder how many of them you know about.”

See, this was good. The back and forth was clearing out some of that fuzzy, foggy, waffling shit-and it reminded him of the reason behind Daniel Childe’s death: good ol’ Albie’s flapping gums.

A shot of adrenaline woke him up even further as he wondered just what kind of plans Isaac and the retired captain might have been hatching while he was out cold at the side of the road.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah, you stay tight-and in case you’ve gotten any bright ideas from that father of hers, let me set you straight. If you do anything to expose me or my organization, I will do things to that woman that she will survive physically and never heal from. And know this: My reach extends beyond my own grave.” More silence. “You’ve met the father-don’t deny it. And I’m well aware he’s been trying to take notes on XOps for the last decade. No bright ideas, Isaac. For her sake. Or I’ll ignore you and come after her. I’ll let you live a long life, knowing that you are the reason she’s ruined from the inside out-”

“She’s not part of this!” Rothe hissed. “She’s got nothing to do with me or her goddamn father!”

“Maybe. But shit happens. And I assigned her to you for a good reason-which panned out better than I thought. I never expected the two of you to get so personally involved-or did you think I didn’t hear what the pair of you got up to in that guest bedroom of hers last night?” Matthias fought against the pain in his chest, feeling as if he were drowning. “Don’t make me hurt her, Isaac. I’m getting tired of all that, I truly am. Stay where you are-I’m sending someone, and you’ll know when he gets there. And if you and her and her father are not there when he arrives, I’m going to have him find her, not you. You follow instructions and I’ll make sure no one but you gets hurt.”

Matthias hit the end button and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.

Wincing, he struggled to keep the car heading straight as the agony behind his ribs swelled to unmanageable levels. Under the onslaught, he briefly thought about driving over to the Caldwell International Airport again, but he decided to keep driving because he needed to get a grip and that was going to take time. And privacy.