PART ONE:
STRAY DOG
1 GEORGETOWN: COINCIDENCE
Dead men don’t usually drive a Jeep through Georgetown at 2:30 in the morning. But Brendan Whelan was doing just that. His officially issued death certificate was on file with the Puerto Rico Department of Health, along with those of his five colleagues. According to the documents, all of them had perished almost twenty years earlier in a plane crash off the coast of that island commonwealth. The certificates didn’t say that the six men were members of the deadliest special ops hunter-killer team ever assembled. They also didn’t disclose that they were fleeing from the execution of a Presidential Decision Directive. The PDD, a document classified as a matter of national security, had ordered the six men to be terminated with extreme prejudice. Also unsaid was the fact that none of the men’s bodies had ever been recovered. So here Whelan was, all these years later, in the most dangerous place on earth for him to be—the United States.
An old friend and mentor, Clifford Levell, was well aware of the danger, yet he all but commanded Whelan to come to him. He didn’t know what Levell wanted. The man wouldn’t say over the phone. But he owed Levell. Owed him a lot. Levell had been his mentor, his creator—in a sense his Dr. Frankenstein. He had made Whelan into the man he was today. He knew Levell wouldn’t expose him to the dangers he faced in the States if the situation wasn’t critical. Still, he was angry at having to leave his family and the comfortable, safe life he had built in Ireland. And very uneasy being back in the States.
It was early morning, a few days into a new year, and cold. Whelan wore thin glove liners, partly to counter the chill and partly to avoid leaving fingerprints in the rented Jeep. A stranger in a strange land, particularly one under a death warrant, takes precautions. A soft rain, not much more than a heavy mist, blurred the landscape, creating halo effects around the streetlights. The only sounds were the hiss of the tires on the wet street and the Grand Cherokee’s wipers wagging slowly across the windshield. The hypnotic rhythm didn't help his fatigued state. Even the odor of stale cigarette smoke from a previous user didn’t seem as annoying now.
Stifling a yawn, Whelan punched the radio’s On button, hoping it would provide some stimulation. Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” was playing. It brought back memories of another era. Some good, some not so good.
Whelan thought about the handful of others like him who also had been trained by Levell. He remembered every one of them, even the ones they’d lost along the way. All of them had been young then, and gifted in ways most people couldn’t imagine. Whelan knew he had been Levell’s prize student. He wondered what had become of the five other survivors. The same PDD authorized their executions, also.
Levell had stayed in touch with each of them over the years – separately, for their own safety. Whelan wondered whether Levell had summoned any of the other survivors to this meeting. Probably not—it was just too dangerous.
He turned the Jeep into a quiet residential section of Georgetown. It was a shame the others wouldn’t be present. He’d like to see some of them again: Larsen, the man with no neck; Stensen, the vigilante; Thomas, the philosopher; Kirkland, the Zen master; even Almeida, the weakest link but usually good for comic relief. He remembered them all—each extremely intelligent, superbly athletic, beta models of humans of the future. And stone killers every one.
Headlights caromed out of the mist to his right. Shit. Exhausted and distracted by his thoughts, he hadn’t noticed the vehicle approaching from a side street. It was too late to avoid the collision. Instinctively, he yanked the steering wheel hard left, causing the Jeep to slew on the wet road. Better for the large, black limousine to impact the passenger side of his truck at an angle rather than take its force head-on.
The Jeep was only partially angled to the left when the collision occurred. The limo’s driver had yanked his steering wheel to the right. His car’s left front fender slammed into the Jeep’s right front fender. The ugly sounds of glass shattering and metal twisting and ripping violated the stillness of the night. The force of the impact spun the Jeep 180 degrees, tires shrieking against the pavement in a futile attempt to find purchase. Momentum propelled the Jeep diagonally across the intersection. It rolled to a sudden stop as its rear bumper rammed a light pole, knocking it askew.
Whelan’s fatigue vanished with the force of the impact. His senses were fully alive now. The smell of leaking gasoline clashed with the oddly comforting scent of the leather seats. His survival instincts were on high. He couldn’t get involved with police or emergency medical personnel. The urge to climb out of the truck and bolt into the shelter of the night was powerful. And Levell’s house was only two blocks away.
The tilting streetlight acted like a floodlight in the mist, focused on the Jeep. Through the crazed pattern in the damaged windshield, Whelan saw that the limo had stopped in the middle of the intersection. The limo driver and another man got out. Both were large men, dressed in badly fitting, out of fashion dark suits and solid color ties. Each wore an earbud. As they drew closer, he saw that each was wearing a brass nametag pinned to a breast pocket. The limo driver’s said “Borys.” His companion’s said “Vadim.”
Whelan waited calmly in the Jeep as the two men approached. From their facial scars and the way they carried themselves, it was clear they were no strangers to violence. Whelan assumed these were dangerous men. He kept both hands on top of the steering wheel where the men could see them.
As they approached on the driver’s side, Vadim stopped near the rear of the vehicle. Borys leaned his six-foot-five-inch frame down and peered carefully through the driver’s window. Whelan knew what they’d see: Other than a day’s growth of beard, his skin was smooth and unlined. His features were even, with a strong chin and patrician nose. He had light brown hair, parted on the right. Ordinary. Except for his eyes. They were an icy blue, like the color of a deep glacial crevasse, and they were locked onto Borys’s eyes with no sign of emotion. Whelan saw that it unnerved Borys. Men that large and sinister looking were accustomed to being the intimidator.
“You are all right, yes?” Borys said. Whelan recognized an Eastern European accent.
“Yes.”
“You have identification, yes?” Borys held out a meaty hand for emphasis.
With his right hand, Whelan reached slowly into his front pocket and pulled out his wallet. He removed a driver’s license and handed it to Borys. As the large man took it, Whelan noticed the back of his hand was heavily tattooed, even his fingers.
Borys squinted at the ID in the poor light and said, “Walter Bailey. From Omaha, Nebraska.” His W sounded more like a V. English was his second language. Barely.
“That’s right.”
Borys glanced briefly at Vadim, then, turning back, said, “You are long way from Omaha, yes? Is late. What you are doing in Georgetown?”
“Attending a college reunion. Haven’t been back here in years. Must have gotten lost.”
Borys spoke a single word in his native tongue and pointed to the ground next to the Jeep. The word was foreign to Whelan but he understood the gesture. Get out of the truck.
He kept his right hand visible on the steering wheel. With his left, he slowly reached down and opened the door. In the process, he nicked his little finger on a piece of glass from the broken windshield. A small trickle of blood began to ooze from the cut.
Whelan swung his legs over the rocker panel and stepped carefully out of the truck. He suspected the situation was about to get worse. He would need just the right moment to act.
Borys motioned Whelan out into the street. The three men stopped directly beneath the tilting streetlight. As they did, Borys suddenly raised a hand to his earbud. It drew Whelan’s attention to the additional tattoos on Borys’s neck. He glanced quickly at Vadim and saw similar body graffiti. He recognized them as gang symbols—for an especially ruthless Ukrainian crime syndicate.
Borys listened for a few moments to the voice coming through the e
arpiece then glanced at Vadim. They each took a step backward, swiftly pulling Glock 17s from the waistband of their pants. Borys said, “We are thinking you are not this man, Bailey, and we are thinking you lie about college reunion.”
Whelan said nothing.
Borys stepped closer and raised the Glock so that it was angled about 45 degrees with the ground and pointing just to the outside of Whelan’s left kneecap.
“I have good nose for bullshit,” said Borys, tapping the side of his thick nose with a meaty forefinger. “I am thinking you are one of Levell’s peoples. And you are on way to see him.” He turned slightly to smirk at Vadim. When he did, the muzzle of the weapon edged away from Whelan’s knee. It was his moment of opportunity.
Whelan moved fast. Faster than Borys’s brain could relay a message from his eyes to his trigger finger. Whelan wrapped his left hand around Borys’s thick right wrist just above the gun in his hand. Half turning to his left, he wrapped his right arm over and around the big man’s right arm. His forearm was just above Borys’s elbow. Borys, like a hound with a flea, tried to shake free of the man who was more than 50 pounds lighter. To his shock, he couldn’t.
Still gripping Borys’s arm, Whelan swiftly brought his right knee up above waist height, then