Linda Howard - Kill and Tell

He was amazed sometimes at how well things worked out. How convenient of Hayes to leave town at just the right time. Disposing of him in D.C. would have been a problem, even for Raymond. For one thing, reporters were always snooping around. For another, Hayes would have been missed. That was where he lived; he had associates, neighbors, people who would have been able to identify him. Here…

well. This was all working out very nicely. There would be three bodies here, and nothing to tie any of them to him.

All in all, he was rather proud of himself. He seemed to have a knack for this type of thing. All one had to do was plan carefully, but really, he had found most people too stupid for such meticulous thinking.

"Shoot them," he said to Raymond.

Karen tensed, her gaze locked on the big man's pistol. She started to lift her right hand, knowing even as she did so that she wouldn't be fast enough, not with the big man already aiming at her. She felt Marc gather himself.

"How much… are you paying… for our murders?" Marc gasped between phrases, his chest moving in jerks as he tried to breathe. The froth at his mouth dripped down his chin. "As much as… you paid Whitlaw… to kill… your brother?"

The big man froze. "What?"

The revelation rocked through Karen. Horrified, she stared at the man she had seen so many times on television, a man known for his integrity. So that was what Marc had read, what he hadn't had time to tell her. That was why her father had been killed.

"You had your own brother killed," she said slowly. "You hired my father to do it. He was blackmailing you, wasn't he?"

"Don't be ridiculous," the senator said, his tone uneasy as he glanced at the big man beside him.

"Mr. Stephen." The big man was white, haggard. "Mr. Stephen, let me see that book."

"Don't be ridiculous," the senator said again. "Don't tell me you believe this… this pack of lies!"

"It was in Vietnam," Karen said.

"Shut up!" The senator rounded on her, pointed his pistol at her.

"My father was a Marine sniper," she continued, though she was shaking in every limb. "You paid him twenty thousand dollars to kill your brother."

"Kill her, Raymond," the senator said, infuriated.

The older man, Raymond, still looked stunned, but he was recovering. He said, sadly, "Mr. Stephen," as he turned his weapon on the senator.

Senator Lake calmly turned and fired. Raymond staggered back, a look of astonishment and sorrow on his face. Senator Lake fired again, with no sound except that ominous little cough Karen knew would haunt her dreams, and Raymond fell.

"Damn you," the senator said furiously, wheeling on Karen. "Why couldn't you keep your stupid mouth shut?"

Marc lifted his bloodstained hand, pulling the senator's attention to him. "What about… Medina?" Marc's entire body was trembling with effort. Karen gripped him tighter with her left arm, thinking fast. If she tugged him to the ground, it would get him out of the line of fire, but the sudden motion might cause the bullet to shift, causing even more damage. She couldn't see that she had any other choice.

"Whitlaw thought he could blackmail me with the book. No one else could track him down, so I called in Medina for the job. I told him Whitlaw had killed another contract agent in Vietnam, one of Medina's friends. It was a lie, of course, but Medina had some troublesome morals. I needed him, and that was the only way I could get him. He knew Whitlaw, so he had an advantage the others lacked." Karen felt her breathing slow, get deeper. Her vision narrowed as she stared at the stylishly dressed man, until she could see only him. This man was the one who was the cause of everything. He had paid to have his own brother killed, then had her father hunted down and executed.

"Medina?" Marc gasped again. He sagged to the left, away from her. Desperately, she locked her fingers in his shirt, holding him upright. The muscles in her left arm strained and shook.

"Oh, well, obviously I had to have him taken care of, too. He wouldn't have liked finding out I lied to him. Those pesky morals of his again."

"Tell me… something."

The eyebrows rose. "As a sort of last request? Of course."

"What kind of… shithead… brags about… murder?"

The senator jerked a little, outrage flaring in his eyes as if he couldn't believe Marc had called him a

shithead. His hand came up. Something erupted in Karen's chest, an inhuman sound that was very close to a growl. She felt as if she were moving in slow motion, but so was he. Using her grip on Marc's shirt, she dragged him down and at the same time lifted his pistol.

She had fired a pistol before, and a rifle. Her father had taught her those things, too, during those walks in the woods, crouching behind her and helping her hold the heavy weapons steady. She had been only a child, six or seven years old, but the memory was suddenly clear and bright, every image sharp. When Jeanette found out, she was frightened and angry, and they quarreled. Odd how quiet everything was, how still. She centered the sights on his chest and pulled the trigger. The boom was muffled. The recoil jarred her arm.

The slug hit him in the chest, right where she had aimed it. She saw the bloom of red on his white shirt, between the open lapels of the linen jacket he wore. Why, then, did his head kind of explode? Blood and brain matter sprayed out of a large hole on the left side of his head. His eyes bulged a little, and he dropped in a boneless heap.

Abruptly, everything kicked back to normal time. She could hear again, though her ears were ringing. She could see everything in color, with a full field of vision. The harsh smell of cordite burned her nose. And Marc was collapsed on his side in the dirt and gravel.

She dropped the gun and seized him with both hands, hauling him over onto his back. She pressed her fingers into the base of his neck; his pulse was fast, thready. His eyes were half open, watching her, but she knew he was slipping out of consciousness. "I'll… make it," he promised, his voice barely audible.

"You're damn right you will," she said fiercely, tearing his T-shirt open. The edges of the dark hole were blue tinged, and bright red blood continued to bubble and froth as it left his body. She had to get the wound sealed, now. As she turned toward the burly man's body to search it for something usable, a flash of red caught her eye. She whirled back, grabbing up the pistol, crouching over Marc.

"Easy, there," a tall, lean man said, stepping fully into view. He wore a red baseball cap and sunglasses, and he held a pistol in the expert, two-handed grip of cops and other warriors. He surveyed the remains of the senator, then stepped over the body and approached Karen, tucking the pistol into his waistband at the small of his back as he did so.

McPherson's man. "Where have you been, damn it?" she said furiously, dropping the pistol again and scrambling to the other body. She patted all his pockets, searching for a pack of cigarettes. The cellophane wrapper around the pack would make a good seal. Her frantic fingers found only a wallet.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it ! Doesn't anyone smoke anymore?"

"Do you need a cigarette?" the baseball cap man asked politely but with mild puzzlement. She whirled on him with a snarl. "I need a thin piece of plastic to seal that wound." His eyebrows arched over the rims of the sunglasses. Silently, he reached into his front jeans pocket and pulled out a pair of thin latex gloves. "Will these do?"

She snatched them from him. Some gloves were too thick, the latex not pliable enough to do the job, but these were almost paper thin, like the ones put in boxes of hair coloring. "Perfect." Hastily, she slapped a

glove down on Marc's chest, covering the hole and holding it tightly in place. He gasped but immediately began to breathe better as air stopped leaking from his damaged lung. "I need something to wrap around him, to hold this tight," she said. "There are some clothes in a box in there." She jerked her head toward the storage unit behind her. "Cut something up."