Greg Rucka - Patriot Acts

CONTENTS

THIS IS FOR JERRY,
WHO HAS BEEN MY FRIEND FROM THE START
AND WILL BE MY FRIEND AT THE END

TRUE PATRIOTISM HATES INJUSTICE IN ITS OWN LAND
MORE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE.

CLARENCE DARROW

PROLOGUE

I have never wanted to kill anyone as much as I wanted to kill the son of a bitch in front of me right now.

Hes standing thirty, maybe thirty-five feet from where Im lying hidden in the reeds and mud of this marsh. Not the easiest shot in the world but not the hardest, either, and Ive got a submachine gun set to three-round burst to help my chances, and Ive got his head in my sights, and all that remains now is for me to get on with it, to get down to business. Ive been lying here for almost four hours, feeling the autumn cold seep up from the wet earth and into my body, waiting for this moment, waiting to close the trap. Waiting for this.

Right now, in this moment, his life is mine.

I cant pull the trigger.

I list all of the reasons he must die. I conjure the faces of his victims, the small handful of them that I know about. The neighbor who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and suffered for it; the reporter who died as preamble to more death; the friend, stabbed in the heart while I watched, too far away to save him. He died in my arms, a good man who left this world too early in fear and pain.

Three people, all of whom had the misfortune to know me. Three murders added to the sea of the dead that this man now in my sights has caused. Thats what he does, you see, he murders. He does it for money, and he does it so well and so carefully that hes considered one of the ten best professional assassins working in the world today. One of The Ten, they call him, the same way they call him Oxford because they dont know his real name.

My finger refuses to budge.

I give myself more reasons to kill him. The least of them is the gun that Oxford is holding in his hands. That gunor at least its bulletsis meant for me, and for the woman I have given my word I will protect. The woman who has both destroyed my life and recreated it. The woman who, like Oxford, can bring death like birdsong on a breeze, who they call Drama because they dont know her real name.

Her name is Alena, and right now she and Natalie Trent are speeding far away from this place, to a house where she will be safe.

Leaving me, here, now, trying to decide who it is I will become.

Something gives me away. Oxford turns and the weapon in his hands finds me, and now I can add self-defense to my many reasons to cut him down. It isnt as if Ive never killed before. People have decided to point guns at me in the past, and once or twice theyve ended up dead as a result of my response. If there was ever a time to fire my weapon and kill this man, it is now. It is him or it is me, and still I cant manage it, and I think that perhaps it will be me.

Then his left knee evaporates in a cloud of blood and bone.

He staggers, losing his aim on me, searching for the muzzle flash, and I watch as his hip bursts, and the sound of the second shot barks through the darkness. He twists, falling to his last knee, and then the back of his head opens. The sound of the third shot chases him as he topples into the marsh water.

Im up and running already, racing along the trail, knowing who it is Im going to find, but not understanding why Ill find them. When I reach them, Natalie Trent is helping Alena down from her snipers perch. Then Alena is hobbling towards me on her one good leg. I catch her before she can fall. She puts her arms around me, pressing harder, and I think it is because she wants to, rather than because she needs to.

He would have killed you or you would have killed him, and I couldnt let it happen. Alenas voice is thick with her tears. I couldnt let you die for me, you understand? I couldnt let you become me.

I think about all of the dead.

Its too late, I say.

PART
ONE

CHAPTER

ONE

Natalie Trent drove, speeding us away from Allendale and the body of the man I had been unable to kill.

She drove fast at first, trying to put quick distance between ourselves and the place where Oxfords body now lay, but once we left the Franklin Turnpike for US 202, she slowed to the speed limit. From inside her coat, she pulled her cell phone, pressed the same button on it twice without ever looking away from the road, and then moved it to her ear.

About thirty minutes, Natalie told the phone, softly. Ive got both of them with meyes, both of them. Hes going to need a car.

She listened for a moment to the reply, murmured a confirmation, then ended the call and dropped the phone back into her pocket. She checked her mirrors, left then right then rear view, and when she did that, she met the reflection of my gaze. She tried a thin smile, and it looked as tired as I felt.

Dan says hell have a car waiting for you, Natalie said, paused, then added: Youre still going through with it?

Im wanted for murder, I said. I didnt say that the murder I was wanted for was probably the wrong one, the death of an FBI agent named Scott Fowler. I didnt say it because I didnt need to. Scott Fowler had been a friend to both Natalie and me, a dear friend of many years, in fact. Had been, right until the moment hed shuddered out his final breath while I tried to save him from the knife that Oxford had buried to its handle in Scotts chest.

That was Oxfords revenge, the way he had worked. Hed killed Scott because he could, and because he knew it would hurt me, and he had been right. Hed killed Scott Fowler because Scott Fowler had been unlucky enough to call himself my friend.

That he hadnt, for instance, killed Natalie Trent, or any of those other people who had the audacity to call me their friend, to care for me, wasnt for lack of trying. It was because wed barely managed to deny him the opportunity.

Natalie frowned, putting lines to her beautiful face, then shifted her attention back to the road and said nothing more. Beside me in the backseat, Alena shifted, turning her head to watch as a New Jersey State Police car raced by, lights and sirens running, heading in the opposite direction. At Alenas feet, and mine, lying flat and forlorn, Miata pricked up his ears, raised his muzzle, then lowered it again, more concerned with the tension inside the car than anything that might be happening outside of it. He was a big dog, a Doberman, strong and loyal and silent as the grave. The first two were in return for the love Alena had given him; the last was because the man Alena had taken Miata from had cut the dogs larynx, to keep him silent.

Alena watched the police car disappear into the darkness behind us, then turned back and glanced at me, then quickly away again when she saw I was watching her. With the back of her left hand, she wiped at her eyes, deliberately erasing the last of her tears. If they embarrassed her, I couldnt tell. I imagined they did. The last time Alena Cizkova had cried, shed been locked inside a Soviet prison cell with men three and four times her age. She had been eight at the time.