More than six hours after I blew Kane to pieces, I arrived in Anchorage. I needed a place to regroup and work out how to get to me targets, Mathias and Whisper.
Plan A: I figured the hidden surgery would be a winner because it had beds and some creature comforts. After that doctor went MIA it was shut down. At first we figured she got cold feet being on the payroll, but now I’ve come to the conclusion that Mathias had got to her when Whisper was being attended to. Another woman he helped to save—fucking do-gooder.
I secured the car’s anonymity by parking it in a back street, and with the sun not yet up, I checked out the street on foot, careful to stay hidden in the shadows. And look at that… the doors were open for business, so to speak. Lights were on inside and with wounded men and Whisper full of holes, it was logical Mathias would direct them to the only place he could trust to be vacated and fully equipped. There goes me hidey-hole.
Cezar owns the four closest buildings surrounding the printing business. They all show UNDER RENOVATION signs out front, keeping this area uninteresting to anybody passing by. The properties were to be leased once Cezar had finished his stay in Alaska. A couple of months of fake renovations was not gonna draw any suspicious eyes, keeping the area quiet with foot traffic.
Plan B: I chose the building opposite the printing business to be my home base, with the modern, reflective glass windows enabling me to look out, but nobody could see in. Some furnishings had been left behind from the last lease, giving me enough comfort for my time here. I also have access to a staff kitchen and toilets. There are security cameras on the outside of the building, which I have activated.
I took inventory of the contents of the SUV: two laptops, assorted weapons, at least two million in cash, spy equipment, several burner phones, water bottles, two arctic sleeping bags and enough patience to tie me over until I could exact revenge. I brought it all into the building through a side alley that couldn’t be seen from the printing business and set meself up—all before breakfast.
My day was spent very productively purchasing food and clothing for comfort, and to aid in disguising meself. I looked up my contact for fake IDs and passports, here in Anchorage and paid my man a visit. After flashing an overly generous bag of bills in his face, he managed to fit me into his schedule for the day.
Using the disguises, he cooked up some new identification for me. And then I killed him, took me bag of money back and disposed of the body.
Loose ends and all that jazz.
I’ve sped through the surveillance footage in the time I had been gone from the building and found men coming and going, but no Mathias or Whisper. A black Hummer and a Silver Buick were parked discreetly in the alley next to their building as the men came and went.
Darkness has eaten away the sunlight for the day, and I managed to scoot across the road, get the tracking systems in place on both vehicles, without being caught. Their security is lapse, they really aren’t expecting any trouble.
I’ve been sitting here at the window and watching the building for hours, when after midnight three men walk out the front entrance and stand talking in the car lot. I raise the night-scope binoculars and recognize a man I thought to be dead.
What the bloody hell?!
I scoop up the parabolic microphone and headset and race down the one flight of stairs that take me to the exit door to the alleyway and silently make my way closer to the front of the building.
I crouch down making sure I have the parabolic microphone set to recording and poke my head around the corner as far as I dared. I place the headset on and raise the binoculars to my eyes and listen in on their conversation.
Noting there are only two men now in the car lot: Dallas ‘Edge’ Masson, as he liked to go by, and Nicu are chatting away like best buddies.
Red flag! What the shit is going on here?
—“the suits can pick-up Cezar’s jet from where I abandon it. I need a few days of R&R and to see my mother, before I go in to be interrogated. My cover story is: I was returning the Agusta when it all went down, so I have no clue what happened during that time. The women were still drugged when they were dropped off, so they won’t be able to ID any of their saviors.
“I’ve spent enough years working for my country and going undercover, to be granted these few days of peace and Christmas cheer. I haven’t spent a Christmas with my mother in too long. Mathias can tie them over until I come in. Nobody needs to know where I’ll be for a few days.”
Another rat among my sentinels!
“Adam… Slade told us about your sister, Eve, and how you suspected Cezar to be involved in her disappearance. I didn’t know, brother. You never said anything.”
Edge is talking to Nicu but he’s calling Nicu—Adam? You have got to be fucking kidding me! I thought Mathias was my only stooge, but Nicu has gone and pulled a Gordon Bennett on me. It is indeed a revelation of Biblical proportions to know two snitches were among me sentinels and both still breathing. To think I thought Nicu was lost to the blaze… well, fuck a duck!
Nicu/Adam has his arms jammed into the pockets of his winter coat. He sighs like a man who has lost a lot. “You were long gone from the Special Forces, forging your life with the Soulless Bastards and living a biker’s life. More than two years ago I was on leave… Eve disappeared.”
Special Forces? Shit is starting to get right fucking juicy.
“I believed Eve had been abducted and I spent all my leave obsessed with following any leads I could find because she had no reason to leave us. I knew something was very wrong from the start. The suits got wind of my snooping about, brought me in for questioning and in a nutshell: we swapped notes. They’d already done a background check on me, knew I could look after myself, they knew I was one hundred percent invested in finding out who took my sister—whallah—I was swapping jobs and on my way deep undercover. And here we stand today.”
“Did you get the answers you were looking for?”
“Today it was confirmed by Boxer’s contact, from the records the FBI uncovered in The Pen, she’s long dead and indeed killed by them.”
“Jesus Christ! Poor Eve, I’m so sorry, brother. I don’t know what to say to—”
“Edge, there really aren’t any words. Her death is now confirmed and my mother and I can put her to rest. We don’t have a body, but we have an answer to her disappearance.”
Oh boo-fucking-hoo, so the Nicu imposter sounds sad.
“I need to speak to my mother and give her that closure in person. It will be my first Christmas in a very long time with her and what a fucking Christmas present that will be.”
My hand tightens around the microphone, because what I really want to do is shoot these two dead where they stand, with the silencer attached to the gun in the back of my pants. But then there would be no game to play and the new villain, me, would be exposed too early into the hunt. And I can’t have that. I need a little more time.
“Shit, Adam, I really am sorry. When Slade found you outside the hangar, he had to hold me back from wanting to kill you, without a second thought. I was trying to save Whisper and you had Eve—”
Bloody hell! How long have they been stalking us?
Adam slaps Edge on the back. “How about we get going. Apart from it being freakin’ freezing out here, we can talk on the flight. I need something good, to come out of all this bad and bringing Whisper a little piece of her family, is something good.”
“I just need a one-way trip from you and then you can be on your way to your mother’s place. We will find our way back. Suits will be after Cezar’s jet soon enough, anyway.”
Edge wants a joy ride in Cezar’s private plane. Sure, why not?
“Happy to accommodate, Edge, it’s the least I can do.”
Well, isn’t this cozy.
Then they were loading themselves into the Buick and they were gone, off to do some joy riding in Cezar’s private plane. No need to follow them. I had time on me hands. I would enjoy: the chase, the capture and then the kill.
I’m the one that got away.
The one they need to fear.
I pack up and head back towards the door I came through thinking about Adam’s sister, Eve.
The name is ringing a bell, but it’s not clanging loud enough. I needed to get into me files; the ones I always kept a copy of for my own security. Cezar was like a father to me, but he was also a masterful psychopath.
Once I located her in the system, I would know everything I needed to exact retribution on Nicu a.k.a. Adam, for playing me and Cezar.
Santa now had Adam on his naughty list, too.
I plug the laptop in and open it up. The power is still hooked up in the building because at face value, renovations should be going on.
Taking a seat at the large desk I start tapping the keyboard and come across me detailed list of all the stolen women. Scrolling down I find: Eve Balan. The only Eve we have abducted, and what a fucking beauty she was. Long, wavy, ebony hair, very European in looks and a fucking fit body. Everything Cezar always desired from the stolen. A beauty that was hard to compare. The girls had to all be different, didn’t matter their day job, but they had to be natural. No plastic bitches.
Adam and Eve…that right there cracks me up. What parent would do that to their kids? They certainly didn’t look like brother and sister. I pull up the image of her driver license, noting her last known address is in Colorado, three years ago.
For now I watch the goings on across the street and learn everything about these wankers and plot my next move.
Adam or Mathias.
Who is gonna get snuffed out first?