Max Collins - Executive Order

“Maybe, but I doubt it. I suppose if Evans wanted to keep an eye on Willard, yeah. The addresses are damn close. But after what happened this morning, if he’s heard about it...”

“It’s a long shot he’s still around. By now, ‘Tony Evans’ may not exist.”

She couldn’t argue with that.

They swung by Skygate Apartments in a Hillcrest Heights neighborhood referred to by some residents as Marlow Heights, after the old shopping center that had long ago been replaced by Iverson Mall.

A vast complex of over a dozen matching three-story buildings fanned around a U-shaped parking lot on the north end, with a swimming pool in the bottom of the U. South of that, along Temple Lane, another dozen buildings squatted like Monopoly hotels all clustered onto one property.

Rogers pulled in near the pool. Night had settled in, but the parking lot fought back with streetlamps and nearby well-lit building entries. The two agents sat in the car and regarded the landscape before them, pool shimmer on their faces.

She said to Hardesy, “Look, even if there’s little chance our man is here, we need to be more careful than we were with Willard.”

“Yeah,” Hardesy said. “That was my screwup.”

“Not placing blame. But I’m serious.”

He held her eyes with his gaze. “I’m serious, too, boss. Glenn’s an asshole but I didn’t love shooting him.”

She could only smile. “You’re going soft in your middle age, Lucas.”

“Maybe you’re a bad influence.”

They got out of the car and crossed the parking lot to Evans’ building.

“This time,” Hardesy said with a disgusted smirk, “I will go in the back way.”

Rogers nodded. “Second floor, remember. 211.”

“See you there.”

Then Hardesy disappeared around the corner of the building.

Unlike Willard’s place, no security doors awaited them here. Rogers entered a vestibule with mailboxes on one wall, including one that said EVANS. To her left, stairs went up; to her right, stairs went down. She checked the first-floor stairwell, saw nothing, then silently climbed to the second floor, her hand on the butt of the Glock at her hip.

This guy might be a ghost who was already gone. Or he might be nobody, just a drug dealer who subbed for Willard, the sandwich dosed by somebody else. Or he might be the assassin of the Secretary of the Interior of the United States...

Her colleague came up the stairs at the opposite end of the corridor. They met at Evans’ apartment. Each took a position on either side of the door, then traded nods. Rogers drew her gun while Hardesy used a pick and a tension wrench on the lock, which he defeated in under thirty seconds.

Hardesy took a step back and turned the knob slowly, then shouldered in.

The door swung open onto a tidy living room empty but for a camp chair and small TV. They moved in, cautious, quiet. The tiny dining area at right bore only a card table and two folding chairs. She wondered how Evans explained his spartan living conditions to his guests, if he had any. The kitchen beyond had no furnishings, but a coffee pot and a microwave rested on the counter. She edged into the room, opened a cupboard and, touching nothing, found a couple of packs of ramen noodles and a bottle of sesame oil.

Beyond the kitchen was a short hallway to a bathroom and the only bedroom.

Rogers pointed to the bathroom and Hardesy kept his gun trained on the bedroom door while she ducked into the john and almost immediately backed out.

Clear , she mouthed.

She turned her attention, and Glock, to the bedroom, too. Was that breathing she heard? She couldn’t be sure — might be a breeze pulsing in an open window. Her eyes tightened and her spine stiffened as she eased the door open...

On the bed, a man lay spread-eagled on his stomach. He wore jeans and a red-and-black plaid flannel shirt. For a moment she couldn’t tell whether or not he was breathing and her mind raced to what their next step would be if the guy was dead.

Then he snort-snored and Rogers almost laughed.

But instead, she said, “Tony Evans! Federal agents — stay as you are!”

“What the shit...?” He started to push himself up, but Hardesy pushed him back down. Then the man in the plaid shirt decided to cooperate and flattened again.

Hardesy frisked him while she covered him.

“Guys!” the guy blurted. “I’m not Tony Evans!”

Hardesy said, “Then who’s that sleeping in his bed, Goldilocks?”

The guy craned to look at Hardesy. “Look, dude, what I’m trying to say is, Tony isn’t here. You’re making a mistake.”

“If you’re not Evans,” Rogers said, “who are you? Where’s your identification?”

These appeared to be questions that were too tough for him. All he managed was, “Uh...”

“Okay,” Hardesy sighed. “We’ll sort it out at the Hoover Building.”

Rogers put her Glock away and cuffed the prone man’s hands behind him.

“I’m not Evans, I tell you! You’re fucking up!”

“Somebody is,” Hardesy said, and pulled the guy to his knees, hands cuffed behind him, and for the first time Rogers could see their man’s face. He wasn’t exactly a twin, but he had the same nondescript sort of features as Glenn Willard. The two might be brothers. Maybe he wasn’t Tony Evans, but he sure as hell was the guy in the security video from outside Secretary Yellich’s office.

Hardesy pulled him around and helped him to his feet beside the bed.

“I tell you, Tony’s out. Me, I’m just crashing here.”

Rogers read him his rights and advised him to use them, adding, “Shut up until we get you back to the Hoover Building. We’ll straighten this out there.”

They marched the guy out of the apartment and down the stairs to the front door. Rogers had him by the arm and Hardesy was right behind; both agents had their guns holstered now. They stepped outside and down the two stairs to the sidewalk, Hardesy’s hand on the guy’s arm, behind him but guiding him.

Halfway down the steps, a whipcrack split the night. The suspect tumbled awkwardly to the grass, and Hardesy threw himself at Rogers. With her partner piled on top of her, she was sandwiched facing the man who’d been calling himself Tony Evans. He now had a dime-sized hole in his forehead and his empty eyes were more glazed than any drug could manage.

Getting out from under and to her feet — the dead man in the same spread-eagle posture he’d been in when they first saw him — Rogers scurried to the nearest parked car. Staying low, she called back to Hardesy, “Did you see where it came from?”

He nodded toward the cluster of buildings to the east, the other half of the complex. “Over there someplace!”

“Cover me,” she said, and headed into the parking lot, keeping her head down, hugging the shadows, but knowing she’d given Hardesy an impossible job — the rifle shot had come from a good hundred yards away. He could neither cover for her nor effectively return the shooter’s fire.

As she ran, keeping low, Glock in hand now, she focused on those buildings, watching for any sign of movement. The trajectory made a shot from a window at any height unlikely. Somebody had been in the bushes or flat-out stood there and fired, and maybe was already gone.

But no vehicle in the parking lot had taken off in the aftermath of the rifle fire.

Then she caught a corner-of-the-eye flash of navy blue — a person running toward the parking lot toward the far side of the complex!

She stopped short and ran hard in that direction. If the shooter made it to his vehicle this chase was over...

The distance between her and the navy-blue suspect wasn’t narrowing but if he tripped or slipped, she had a chance. She was still a building and a half away when he got to the parking lot, where almost certainly his car would be close by.