It had been years since anyone had called Santiago Romero by his given name. The director of CHAOS was known simply as Lobo, the Spanish word for wolf. There were many stories as to how he got the name, but one thing was certain—it fit. The man was cunning, strong, and ruthless.
It was Tuesday morning, and he sat alone in the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, just a few blocks away from the White House. In less than a week his son, Oz, would arrive to attend the CHAOS Military Academy just outside of Alexandria. He was excited and a bit nervous, as any father would be considering what was at stake. Oz had spent his entire life preparing to become a CHAOS agent, and this was his moment to shine.
As the director, Lobo typically spent his days in meetings or seated at his desk, but he still carried a Sig Sauer P226 with a twenty-round magazine beneath his suit coat. He had another forty rounds hidden in the leather satchel near his foot. It was all a precaution—or perhaps it was habit. Either way, he felt better knowing that the weapon was near.
There were also five armed agents in and around the hotel, including a man posing as a bell captain who had a Benelli M4 Super 90 shotgun hidden behind the bell stand. The elevator repairman had a HK MP5 submachine gun in his tool kit and a MK23 .45 caliber handgun in a holster hidden beneath his coveralls. Then there was the agent stationed in a tree just outside the bay window, armed with an M14 sniper rifle. He wearing a ghillie suit, heavily camouflaged clothes that were designed to look like foliage, and even though Lobo knew he was out there, he couldn’t see him.
Given the nature of this meeting, the precaution felt prudent. After all, Heinrich Krone was not only an assassin of the highest order, he was also one of the Thule.
Lobo looked at his watch and saw that it was five minutes to eight. He sipped a cup of English breakfast tea with just a touch of honey as he read the Washington Post. The lead story was about the reactor leak in Iowa. Over a hundred thousand residents had been tested for radiation poisoning, with fifty-six testing positive. According to the article, they had been transferred to a nearby hospital, but Lobo knew the truth. They had contracted the mysterious virus that appeared out of nowhere, and they were all going to die.
A special investigation unit stationed at a CHAOS facility in Chicago had been sent to collect samples. The strain had mutated, but they were convinced it was the same virus found in Thailand, Mexico, and Arizona. What they didn’t know was where it had come from or how it got there. Investigators poured over travel logs from every major airline, bus, and railway that served the cities in question, but there was no passenger overlap. They even searched the homes and businesses of the infected, but they couldn’t find a point of origin. It didn’t make sense.
A CHAOS agent disguised as a member of the hotel waitstaff stopped by to freshen Lobo’s teapot. He offered his thanks and handed her a twenty-dollar bill, which she stuffed into her apron next to her Sig Sauer P230. She nodded and headed back to the kitchen with a wide smile.
Lobo had been staying at the Mandarin on and off for almost two weeks. His wife was back in Arizona with their son, and he was surprising her with some renovations at their Virginia countryside estate. With construction crews traipsing about, staying at the hotel was easier. Besides, the room service was amazing, maids cleaned his suite every morning, and the hotel was close enough to the office that it cut nearly thirty minutes off his commute.
As he waited for his appointment to arrive, his dark eyes roved the lobby floor, looking for anything unusual. Outside of the hotel staff and his undercover agents, there wasn’t much activity. A woman stood at the front desk with ten pieces of luggage, wondering if she could check in early. An older couple were on their way out for a morning walk, and a man with a pronounced bald spot and a hawkish nose was asking the concierge for directions to an office complex where he was already late for a client meeting.
The front door slid open, and a brisk wind blew through the lobby. A thin man wearing a long coat walked inside. He wore a driving cap and leather gloves, but instead of luggage he was carrying a briefcase. It was difficult to gauge his age, though he looked to be somewhere in his late twenties or maybe early thirties.
“Krone?” Lobo asked as the man approached. Even though he was born in San Antonio, Lobo still had an accent. His parents were from the city of Reynosa in Tamualipas, Mexico, and he didn’t speak English until he was six years old.
Krone nodded. As a shapeshifter, the man could have taken just about any form he desired, and he did so regularly. It made him a unique asset in the global espionage and intelligence community, though at the moment he didn’t look much like an assassin—or at least the kind of assassin you might find in a Hollywood movie. He was not heavily muscled, his head wasn’t shaved, and there were no visible tattoos. In fact, he was impeccably groomed, from his short-cropped hair to his manicured nails. His suit was clearly custom tailored, and Lobo assumed that his jacket was as well. The scarf was no doubt cashmere, and his wing-tipped shoes had been recently shined.
“Please, take a seat.” Lobo nodded to an empty couch across from where he was sitting.
Krone set his briefcase down, took off his gloves, and removed his coat, which he folded neatly before he laid it across the arm of the couch. As he sat, his eyes fell to the newspaper and then to Lobo, who watched him intently.
“A pity what happened in Iowa, wouldn’t you agree?” Lobo asked.
The man nodded. “Yes, it was. Hopefully we won’t have another Chernobyl on our hands.”
“Let’s hope not.” Lobo smiled, though the expression held little kindness. Krone no doubt knew that there was no reactor leak, but that wasn’t important—at least for the moment.
“Tea?” Lobo asked, but the man held up his hand.
“No, thank you.”
Lobo reached down and unfastened the latch on his satchel to pull out a manila folder, which he slid across the coffee table.
“My assignment, I presume?” Krone took the folder and opened it to find the photograph of an older man who looked to be in his sixties or seventies. He was handsome and tanned, probably from spending too much time on the golf course. His teeth were perfect, as was his silver hair, and there was a pin of the Stars and Stripes fastened to his lapel.
Krone stared at the image as though memorizing every detail, then he closed the folder and handed it back to Lobo. “It won’t be easy, you know,” he said, as his eyes fell on a gardener pruning a bush just outside the window. It was another one of Lobo’s agents, and it was clear that Krone had spotted him. “Eliminating Senator Bishop is going to draw attention. After all, your feud has been rather public. And it’s going to look like sour grapes— you know, with him leading the charge to cut your funding until you’re replaced.”
“I understand the ramifications, but at this point we don’t have a choice.” Lobo took a sip of his tea. “If the senator and his cronies had their way, I’d be rotting in a cell next to Aldrich Koenig right now. They think I’ve turned CHAOS into my own private army, and they’re scared—not that I can blame them. In their minds, my methods are . . . well, I suppose they would consider them aggressive. Brutal. Perhaps they are, but they’re also effective. The odds of this planet surviving an attack from your people are already infinitesimal—without me, they’re nonexistent.”
“So they’ve left you with no choice, is that it?”
Lobo regarded the assassin, sensing that he was being mocked. “You’re going to make the senator’s demise look like an accident. Or better yet, like a natural death.” Lobo lowered his voice. “The man turned seventy years old last month, and he’s already had one open-heart surgery. I’m sure you’ll find a creative solution to ensure the least amount of scrutiny.”
“Perhaps I’ll have that cup of tea after all.” Krone reached for the pot of steaming water and poured some into a cup before adding a teabag and a bit of cream. “You know, it’s rather odd,” he said, voice calm, face devoid of emotion. “I mean, here we’ve worked together for, what is it now . . . nearly a decade? Yet we’ve never had the pleasure of meeting before today. If you don’t mind my asking, why now?”
Lobo sat at the edge of the couch, leaning forward. His forearms rested on his knees and his fingers were interlocked as he looked directly at Krone. “I need to know that I can trust you,” he said. “And the only way to know if you can trust a man is to look him in the eyes.”
“I see,” Krone said, unflinching under the scrutiny. “Have I given you a reason to question my loyalty?”
“I’ve never been the trusting sort,” Lobo said. “It’s not terribly prudent in our line of work, as I’m sure you would agree.”
Krone bowed his head, acknowledging the truth of the statement.
“I’ll be frank,” Lobo said. “There is an entire planet filled with monsters like you, and they’re all chomping at the bit to turn Earth into their new home. It’s my job to make sure that doesn’t happen, and that alone is enough for me to doubt your loyalties.”
“So I’m a monster, am I?” Krone asked, looking relaxed as he sipped his tea. Lobo started to clarify his point, but Krone raised his hand to cut him off. “I understand what you’re saying, and it’s a perfectly fair point.”
“So why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
Lobo narrowed his eyes.
“Look, I could give you a litany of reasons why I won’t betray our pact,” Krone said. “I could start with the fact that I was born here on Earth and have very little love for my home world. I could tell you that you’ve paid me handsomely over the years, affording me a lifestyle I might never have known. But we both know none of that matters.”
He set his cup back on the saucer. “There are other important people besides Senator Bishop who would like to see you replaced. Who’s to say I won’t align myself with them should your downfall become imminent? Or if they simply offer more money?”
“And your response?”
“Here’s the thing,” Krone said after a lengthy pause. “You need me, and I always deliver. Trust has nothing to do with it. Besides, my record stands for itself. Once I accept a contract, I don’t break it.”
Lobo sat with jaw clenched and brows furrowed. With a single word, his agents could eliminate Krone if it came to that, but the assassin was right. Trust was impossible. Even foolish. “Then I take it you’ll accept the job under our current terms?”
“I’m afraid not,” Krone said. “I’ll need double the usual number, half wired to my account within the hour and the other half payable once the job is complete.”
“Then it needs to happen tonight,” Lobo said. “Senator Bishop is set to speak at a fund-raiser for a congressional candidate in Tucson. Your flight leaves in an hour.”