The Marked, page 21
A small, white star, glimmering in the swirling dark. He saw it before his eyes burst, runneling butterfat streaks down his cheeks that had just bare minutes ago been patted with expensive aftershave.
It was beautiful. It was the power he wanted, the power he craved.
It exploded.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Precious Cargo
Helicopters buzzed, black birds scenting prey. Searchlights stabbed the wooded property before settling on a massive, ugly stack of log housing on the lake’s western shore. The ground arm, a long snake of headlights, was coming down the miles of bumping gravel driveway, and ATVs hummed in the woods to draw the net tight.
The house, a few windows lit with electric gold, was silent. Soon, they would reach it. A shadow detached itself from the smaller bulk of a boathouse, built with a studio apartment and security feeds over the slowly rotting rowboat heaped on the first floor. The owner, apparently, was not an avid boater, despite the house’s lovely location.
Mr. Bell, in a black knitted cap, a sweater, and dark jeans instead of a suit, kept low. He moved with an ease that bespoke some training in running while bent double, taking advantage of every cover. He was almost discovered by a few roving helicopter lights, and they might have caught him when the flares lit up overhead, if the main house had not…
Well, exploded.
One moment, there was a pile of faux-cabin on the lakeshore. The next, it disintegrated, a globe of brilliant white expanding to swallow the whole structure. A shockwave boomed out, and the helicopters danced as a wall of heated air crashed into them. Cars slewed wildly, radio chatter lighting up like Christmas trees, popping zing of gunfire in the trees as two of the ATV troops thought they were under rocket attack and blundered into each other.
The light shrank, leaving ghostly shapes dancing on everyone’s retinas. One of the helicopters slid majestically downward into the lake, but both pilot and gunner survived—and were docked later for incompetence.
Where the house had stood, there was a smoking crater twenty feet deep. The entire thing had been vaporized. At the very bottom of the charred bowl, a single pale spot. Water trickled over the thin edge separating the crater from the lake’s edge.
The hide Mr. Bell had prepared high up in a stand of pines was still solid, even if the flooring was a little crooked because the trees had bent before the shockwave. He settled down with binoculars, peering down the wooded slope at the ruffled lake, the pier truncated between the shore and ten feet out pointing its lonely finger at the distant, silent mountains. He watched as the teams went into the fast-filling crater and a small form was lifted out on a stretcher. It was bundled into a waiting LifeFlight helicopter, probably bristling with medical equipment inside, and the heli rose slowly, bearing its precious cargo into the night.
Mr. Bell continued to watch. Later, when the hubbub died down, he would hike out. There was a new identity waiting for him, plenty of cash, and a report to make.
His real name was most decidedly not Mr. Bell. And, if pressed, he might have admitted he was rather relieved the foul sonofabitch was dead.
There was, however, nobody there to ask him what he thought. Which was probably all for the best.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Make Me the Offer
Three days later
“Dennis Rowland.” Phil tucked his hands in his armpits instead of folding his arms. It was dim in this cubicle-sized room, because the one-way mirror worked better that way. There was no camera equipment in here, though. Not yet. “Fortune 500, one of those extreme sports types. Crashed an ultralight in the mountains, was miraculously unhurt.”
“You’re shitting me.” Marlock slumped against the wall, staring at the open file folder in his thankfully-not-shaking hands. The picture clipped to the first page was a publicity still, a blond motherfucker with bright blue eyes and a smarmy smile. The man was worth a couple billion, and the file had a list of suspected and verified victims Marlock could add to. “Probably when his Mark triggered.”
“Well, we’ll never know. His body was vaporized, along with that fucking lakehouse. And probably his executive secretary too. That asshole could answer a few questions.”
“Too bad.” The only thing that mattered was on the other side of the mirror, and Marlock kept his eyes on the pages.
Phil rocked back on his heels a bit, came back to balance. Same old sports jackets, same old violently patterned ties. “Yeah, well. His holdings are nice and substantial, and they’re ours now. Finders keepers; they cover the shortfall from Project Catch-The-Asshole-No-Matter-What-Research-Says nicely.”
Oh, yeah. Let’s talk about that for a second. “You should have told me.” His own suit was familiar, and his hiking boots too. Everything he needed was in his pockets. He could stroll out of here and vanish for real, this time.
“And ruin your heroic moment? You work better when you think it’s your idea.” Phil bared his teeth, an approximation of a grin. “They’re bumping you up a couple pay grades. For excellent service in deep operations. No back pay, though.”
As if it mattered. Money was the easiest thing in the world for a Marked.
Marlock kept his head down, staring at the Skinner’s face. He looked like a blow-dried turd, really, but that could have been because he knew what the man did. “I didn’t really catch the fucker.”
Phil snorted. “I’m not going to tell them that. We waited for him to make a mistake, and he did.”
“Blind fucking luck.” A potential on a long winding road. Sometimes Erik had known things, though. I see them in the lightning, Press. Was that what he’d been doing out there?
Who knew? Marlock could go back and tell Catalina the motherfucker that did for Erik was dead. He wouldn’t have to say how. Let her draw her own fucking conclusions.
His handler shifted his weight again. Maybe it was stress that had shrunk his potbelly. “Well, it ended up with a Mark the research boys are creaming their shorts over and a nice chunk of change, so who cares? I still don’t hear you thanking me.”
His hands itched. Oh, he could thank the fucker but good, with just a few moments of attention. “Thanks for putting me down a hole like a fucking ferret, Phil.”
“Dachshund, actually. They used to hunt rats. Your cute little wet nose.”
“Rowland. Big philanthropist. I’ve read articles on him. Jesus.” Marlock shook his head. His hair was still too long. No time for a trim. “He had other sites, didn’t he.” He had to have.
“Oh, yeah. Forensics is going to be pulling triple shifts. Get this, he had a penthouse in Manhattan, and a whole floor underneath it full of display cases. With Marks in them.”
“Marks?”
“Still on the skin.”
“That’s…” He was about to say, that’s impossible, but very little was impossible, when you had a Mark. There was just what you were willing to do, and what you had the will to accomplish.
“Forensics is saying there’s footage of him peeling the skin off. While the victim was still breathing.”
“Jesus Christ.” Marlock went cold all over. To think of that, to think of your Mark, your self, being torn away while you were still conscious and able to feel… “Taking trophies?” It couldn’t be just that. There was a method to the madness, and he bet Phil was doling out the information in small packets to make it manageable.
“Well, he had a Mark too. It’s on some of the discs—he kept a Greatest Hits compilation, the bastard. He put them on.”
“Put…them…” Marlock’s skin turned cold all over, and his own Mark twinged a little. That’s why. He used them.
“Put them on over his own. All the ones in the cases are decaying now. They’re trying to get them all catalogued before they turn to goo.”
“Jesus Christ.” A ball of nausea settled high up under his breastbone. “That’s why his methods kept changing.” Now that the agency knew it was possible, they might start trying the same thing.
It was high time for Marlock to retire. Maybe to a tropical island somewhere. Lay on the beach and try to forget about this.
“Yeah.” Phil took the file back, but kept his left hand tucked in his right armpit. “You really like her, don’t you.”
Fuck off. He decided to play it dumb. “Who?”
“You haven’t looked at her once, dumbass. It’s a dead giveaway.”
So Marlock made himself look through the one-way mirror.
Sunlight streamed through a bulletproof window, and there was an antique rolltop desk in the room, as well as a high-end flatscreen that would serve any channel you wanted, televangelism to porn, sports to Lifetime. The carpeting was soft and thick, the dresser and wardrobe were cherrywood and worth a pretty penny. There wasn’t a security camera in the attached bathroom, but there were nice, expensive hotel soaps and shampoos, a decent toothbrush, an assortment of dentifrices.
Jude Altfall sat cross-legged on a luxurious four-poster bed. She hadn’t turned the television on, and she wore only a tank top and blue cotton panties. Bright bags and boxes full of new clothes in her sizes were stacked near the foot of the bed, but she made no move toward them. Her hair was a dark, tangled mass, and the bruise on her face was visibly shrinking as she breathed.
She just sat there, staring, and it did something funny to Marlock’s chest. Her expression was slack, unconcerned. She looked like a blank-faced, breathing doll.
“She asked about you,” Phil said. “Mister Marlock. Seemed pretty concerned.”
They would swab and poke and prod her, put her through a battery of psych and other tests to find out what her Mark was capable of. In the back of Rowland’s file was a high-quality still taken from the air, showing the crater where the Skinner’s lakeside playhouse once stood, rapidly filling with foaming water.
Preston cleared his throat. “What about the sister?”
“Asked about you too. Guess you made an impression.” Phil sounded like he was grinning, the fucker. “She’s clearing security, should be along any moment.”
Marlock studied Jude’s profile. Could she feel it? His Mark was awake, sensing that bright, warm clarity. He was even picking her up through the wall, for God’s sake. Did she know it was him? Did she wonder where he’d gone? “What did you tell her?”
“That you were still alive.”
“That’s it?” He knew very well that wasn’t it. He could tell what was coming up, and the only thing more miserable than the knowledge was the squirming sense that he was luckier than he had any fucking right to be.
She was still alive. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
Aggrieved, Phil shifted his weight again. He stared through the glass like he was at the zoo. “What the fuck else did you want me to say?”
“Go ahead.”
“What?” His eyebrows up, now. The picture of innocence.
“Make me the fucking offer.” Press let himself look through the glass again. She just sat there. It wasn’t right. He didn’t even want to begin thinking about all the goddamn trauma she was going to have to sort through. At least they had trained therapists here.
“You’re optimistic.” Maybe he’d been expecting Press to make trouble.
“Why the fuck else would you brief me here, Phil?” This tiny room was filling up with the smell of them, two males with bad diets and high stress. Or maybe Marlock was just projecting. Whatever way you sliced it, they were both fucking voyeurs.
Phil sighed. He freed his left hand, let it drop. “She’ll need training.”
For the love of God, you can’t do this to her. “You’re going to agent her?”
“She’s a resource now, Press. Property of the US Government.”
You bastards. “Just like me.”
“Yeah, well, let’s hope not. Besides, they want to know what that Mark of hers can do, and you’ve had contact with her. So, really, the question is, are you going to take another powder, or are you going to play big brother with this new toy the agency’s all excited about? I told them it was a stretch for you to be anything other than a cantankerous old bastard, but they want to know. You take off again, I can’t cover it.”
Two years. Marlock pretended to think it over. He was going to need a good stiff drink soon, he could just tell. Maybe he’d even barricade his own door, sit in the dark, and really think about how much he’d fucked everything up. How he’d still come out with something he wanted.
The world wasn’t built for nice guys. It was built for real dickheads, and you had to be one to get anywhere. “You officious little prick.” There was no heat to it. Really, Phil deserved a fucking medal. It was a shame he was such an oil-oozing little worm.
“Your vocabulary’s getting better.”
“Fine. You play nice with her, and I’ll be a good little sheep in the fold.”
“Just wear the wool costume, Press. We need the wolf in it.”
Jude finally moved. Raised her head slightly, looking at the door. She must have heard footsteps, or something else, and a dull, pained expression floated over her pretty face. The bruise on her cheek was only a yellowgreen shadow.
The door slid aside, and Jude’s sweet mouth opened slightly. Some life came back into her big dark eyes.
Marlock’s chest hurt. Like a spike through it, cracking the ribs apart.
A blonde blur ran into the room, colliding with the bed. Jude rocked forward, settling on her knees, and flung her arms around her sister. Aggie looked a little wan, and her blue eyes had deep circles under them, but she clasped Jude close and began to stroke her tangled hair.
Marlock looked away. “Come on. Let’s give them some space.”
“You don’t want to watch the reunion?”
One day, motherfucker, I am going to strangle you with your own tie. “No. I need full debrief and check-outs at the range. There’s probably a fuckton of paperwork, isn’t there.”
“Another reason you should be grateful to me. If you’re a good boy, you can have dinner with them.”
Marlock’s pierced and aching heart, for some reason, sank like a stone. Great.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Partner
Talbot was already out the door, but Louie Vantarello had to wait for his computer to shut down. While he did, he turned the Sturmen case over in his head, one more time. It was signed, sealed, and delivered, closed like a nun’s legs, and it bothered him. He scratched at the side of his potbelly, a meditative movement, as he watched the screen go dark. The fuckers in Vice had nicer equipment. Probably because of all the confiscations.
Homicide was warming up for the early-night glut. Spring fever, everyone getting antsy, and a full moon riding high and cheese-pale over the city. He was glad to be going home.
His phone rang. Louie let out a sotto voce curse and smoothed his balding head before picking it up. Rick called it a compulsion—you’d even pick up in a phone booth if it was ringing, you bastard.
Rick was good folk. Fighting the good fight. Every time Louie woke up on his couch in the dead of night, the bottles clinking on the floor and his service weapon looking like a better way out than staying to put up with this shit, it was Rick’s mournful, golden retriever face that stopped him. The man would have to have a whole new partner, and his wife didn’t need the grief. Louie might be a slob, but he was a generous one, or so he liked to tell himself.
The desk phone rang again, insistent, demanding. Louie hitched a sigh, winced internally, and hooked up the receiver. “Homicide, Vantarello speaking.”
His body knew before the rest of him, before the man on the other side said a word. A click, and a funny underwater gargling—calls from there were always run through a filter or two. They believed in privacy. “Louis.” The following sound might have been a pleased chuckle or a gasp of pain. “In hoc.”
“Signo vinces,” Louie responded, automatically, a pale, thin murmur. Sweat sprang out on his lower back, under his arms, and in the creases of his neck. “Yes, Father?”
“You’re a good son.”
“Thank you.” Oh shit oh shit. I didn’t do anything. Maybe it’s a case. I swear I didn’t do anything.
“You are needed.”
Oh, fuck me. No. No. He wished, suddenly, frantically, that he’d joined the Freemasons instead. It would have been better, even if those arthritic fuckers couldn’t find their peens with both hands and a map. Or the Elks, they were good fellas and knew how to drink. “How may I serve?” His voice had gone up an octave, as if he was a teenager again, and scared shitless.
Father was nobody you wanted to mess with.
“Put your ring back on. And keep watch.”
Louie’s left hand turned into a fist. How did he know? He’d stopped wearing the gold band with the crest years ago. It was technically against the rules, but—
“Yes, sir,” he mumbled. “Will do.”
“Thank you. We will call again soon.”
“Looking forward to it,” Louie lied.
“The Oracle will return,” Father whispered.
“Yes.” Louie licked his dry lips. His heart pounded. “Oracle. Yes. Will return.” He waited for the click of disconnection before hanging up, the handset slipping greasily against his sweating fingers.
The ring. The crest was a lamp, and the motto snaked around it.
Oraculum auter convertentur. For a moment he was in the Priory again, firm handshakes all around after the ceremony, and the first intimation that this wasn’t a club like the Fraternal Order of Police. No, these guys were serious, and they’d helped when the bottom dropped out of the market and the house was almost foreclosed.
Father’s dark, burning eyes. You’ve made the right choice, Louis.
Louie got up, shoving his much-abused chair back into stacks of paperwork and the back of Callahan’s desk. Thank God neither him nor Ramirez were in, or Rick. Rick would take one look at Louie and begin digging, and what could he say?
The detective grabbed his coat and hurried for the door. He knew, miserably, that he would drink himself to sleep again tonight, and wake up in the dark, thinking about crazy things.
