Dutton shoved down his rising anger over this brutal act of treachery. He vowed to the dead they would be avenged. Danger, he knew, was part and parcel of intelligence work, but they were essentially intel brokers—Storm Trackers, tagged so because they gleaned, bought, bartered or stole information on terror operations. In short, they mapped the future of operations on both sides, predicted strike patterns, stamped flashpoints well in advance of critical mass, often war-gaming terror and counterterror scenarios on computers for Langley. They were not gunslingers, steely-eyed black ops who combed the world’s hellzones for the most wanted militants, though Dutton had fired a shot in anger more than once in his day.
Retracing his path to the door, he sensed the invisible killer was nearby and closing the gap. Dead ahead, the north corridor would take him to a stairwell, which led to the subterranean garage. Trouble was, that hall bisected another corridor that circled back to his study, leaving him to wonder if the killer was laying in wait, no doubt armed with a sound-suppressed weapon.
Poised to start blasting, Dutton bolted and glimpsed the silhouette at the end of the southern hall. He saw the dark object in the killer’s hand, the assassin darting for cover at the corridor’s edge, then he tapped the Beretta’s trigger twice on the fly. A double crack sounded, the whine of bullets ricocheting off stone in the distance, and Dutton launched himself into a full-bore sprint, the tall snake-lean figure of the killer forcing the man’s name to mind like a curse word. It suddenly occurred to Dutton there could be more than one assassin under the roof, but he reached the stone door before the fear of this realization sank in. Turning the iron handle, he hauled open the massive block to the stairwell. Shooting one last look over his shoulder, he descended the narrow passageway, weapon out and ready to take down any threat as he wound his way around the first of two corners.
He hit the concrete deck running, palmed his remote box and beeped open the door locks to his GMC vehicle. Nothing unusual about the garage, as he scanned the shadows around the stone pillars, the vehicles of his dead comrades fanned out beside his ride, but there was another entrance to this underground lot, and he was sure the assassin knew of its existence. Certain he heard the faint scuffle of feet over stone toward the north exit, he flung open the door, jumped behind the wheel, scanning the garage. Determined he would shoot or bulldoze his exit out of there, he was keying the ignition when he spotted the inert figure on the shotgun seat in the corner of his eye. He was cursing himself for what might prove a fatal oversight, gun up and tracking, when he turned and faced the unmoving shape.
And felt his blood freeze.
“Oh, God, oh, God, no…”
He heard his cry trail off, feeble and distant, as he felt his heart jackhammer, believing for a moment fear and adrenaline had warped his senses, rendering the world an hallucination, spinning in his eyes, off its axis. The sound volumed into a pure bellow of animal rage, as he reached over, ready to shake her, call her name. But he had seen dead bodies, before and the blank stare and dark hole in her temple confirmed the murderous deed.
The impulse dropped over him like a wall of stone, his hand reaching for the door, ready now to fight or die, if only in the name of vengeance. But Dutton discovered he was grabbing air. The head butt shot out of nowhere. He felt his nose mashed into his face, caught his howl of agony vanishing somewhere in the blast furnace of scalding knives tearing through his brain, then number two hammer slammed him off the eyebrow. As blood stung his eyes, blinding him, he was vaguely aware of hands clawing into his shoulders like talons.
Suddenly, he was aware his own hands were empty, bell rung, reflexes for anything resembling a counterattack nearly frozen by pain. He was airborne next, wrenched from the seat, swiping at the blood in his eyes when the bastard teed off with a kick to his groin. Another grenade of white-hot pain exploded, scalp to toes, dropping him to his knees. Paralyzed, he tasted bile and blood on his lips, and strained to make out the assassin through the burning mist in his eyes.
“All you had to do was take the money and follow a few simple directions. It could have been so easy. But here we are. Me, disappointed in my fellow man. You, sucking on a final few moments of rage and grief and disillusionment.”
Dutton coughed, sucked wind, determined then not to give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing him begging for his life. Yes, he thought, here we are. He found it all so incredible; it struck him as the deluded fantasy of psychopaths. Or was there more to it? What? Greed? Power? Delusions of grandeur? He stared up at the assassin who took a step back, the Beretta held low by his side.
“What in God’s name have you done, Locklin?” Dutton asked plainly.
“Beyond luring your wife out of the embassy under the pretense of an emergency—the emergency being you—I haven’t done anything in God’s name.”
Dutton spit blood, surprised how the powerful hatred he felt toward the killer dulled the edge of physical torment. “You rotten bastard…she didn’t know anything.”
“She’s CIA, Dutton. She would have figured it out on her own, or you would have told her one night over some pillow talk.”
“What you’re doing…it will never happen.”
“Wrong, friend, it’s already happening, but what you think you found out is just a small part of the big picture. And, by the way, maybe you’re thinking the Company station chief here in Jordan will make this up to you, stabilize the situation already in play, sound the alarm from Langley to the Pentagon? Who do you think put me in charge of security at the embassy and to monitor you and your Storm Trackers? The official paper trail that put my seal of approval in your face is so back-channeled and convoluted it would take an act of God to trace it to the original source. Besides, the good CSC has already gone the way of your wife.”
Dutton felt adrenaline drive away the sludge in his limbs, fisted some of the blood out of his eyes, glanced to the open door and spotted his weapon on the seat. He didn’t think he’d make the four-foot lunge, but he had to try. If he kept the traitor talking while the cobwebs cleared, he might be able to pull off a lightning retaliatory strike.
“Okay, I give up. You sound like you’re in a talking mood, Locklin, so why not tell me why you’ve become a dirty rat bastard selling out to the enemy?”
Locklin laughed. “There is no enemy, Dutton—other than the people you think you pledge allegiance to.”
“I work for the United States government, Locklin.”
“So do I. Listen up, here’s a lesson on the facts of life. I’m sure you’ve heard how the victors in any war write history, how the winners determine who the bad guys are, how those on the winning side can tell future generations how they wore the armor of righteousness and made the world a better place.”
“That’s what this is about? Winning? Writing history?”
“Not writing it—creating it, making the future happen. You’re a Storm Tracker, Dutton. You know something about predicting the future, how to look into the eyes of tomorrow’s incubating conflicts and figure out how it will turn out, more or less. All the future is, well, it’s just an extension of the past. Men making the same mistakes. I’m just an instrument of the future and the people you so naively pledged allegiance to—the CIA, your informants, hell, maybe even the President of the United States—they’re not going to be a part of the coming future.”
The more his vision cleared, the more sickened Dutton felt at the face of pure evil looming over him. He knew he would never leave the garage breathing, the veil of darkness shadowing Locklin’s face warning him the killer’s blustering stance was over. The Beretta was rising.
It was over.
Dutton launched himself off the ground, hand streaking out for his weapon. He braced himself for the bullets to start tearing into him. It was either