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Damon rolled to a stop near the curb and surveyed the scene before him. The quiet residential street in Cherry Hill was hard to miss, even though it looked just like all the other quiet residential streets in this development. Poplar Lane was closed off and local police had set up a perimeter, their cars with flashing lights blocking all traffic from entering. As Damon watched, two of the police cars slowly pulled out of the way to allow a coroner’s van to roll through the makeshift barricade. He took the opportunity afforded by the temporary breach in the blockade to roll his Jeep up behind it and hold his ID out the window.
“Agent Peterson. Agent Walker is expecting me,” he said shortly to one of the officers.
The young policeman took his ID and walked away from the Jeep to speak into the mouthpiece attached to his collar. Behind the perimeter, the coroner’s van rolled slowly down the street to come to a stop outside the house from Viper’s surveillance video. Spotlights were set up all around the house. A few neighbors were settled on their porches, watching the activity as people in suits and black windbreakers scurried around importantly. The entire scene was one of quietly controlled and efficient chaos.
Somewhere, behind it all, Viper was lurking. They had taken separate cars from her house, and Damon was glad for that. Hot anger had been palpable after he told her the news, her legendary control slipping, and Hawk didn't want to be anywhere near her until she calmed down. She agreed that he should go meet Stephanie at the scene while she watched from a distance. Where, exactly, that distance was, he had no idea. But Viper had already pulled the Camaro out of the garage and disappeared down the drive before he’d thought to ask.
Damon caught sight of Stephanie as she stepped out of the front door, stripping off latex gloves as she spoke to someone over her shoulder. A uniform called something to her and she looked up and right at Damon. She waved him forward impatiently. Damon took his foot off the brake and rolled forward, holding his hand out for his ID as he rolled past the uniform who held it out to him, waving him forward importantly.
“You're just in time to take a look before they move the body,” Stephanie called to him as he got out of the Jeep. “I'm still waiting for a positive id. We may have to wait until God-knows when, unless your people have some information mine don't,” she continued, shaking his hand briskly and turning to walk with him towards the house. “The problem is that no one has a picture of him, but based on height, weight, and physical description, I think it may be him.”
“You don't sound sure.” Damon detected the hesitation in her voice immediately.
Stephanie glanced at him and smiled ruefully.
“There is a somewhat distinctive mark on this man's face,” she admitted. “It doesn't come up in any of the physical descriptions of Johann Topamari that we’ve seen. John is trying to confirm that now.” She motioned him to the side of the house. “The body is actually in the back yard,” she explained. “We're processing the house now. It would be easier to walk around, if you don't mind.”
“Not at all,” he said agreeably, following her down the side of the house towards the backyard. “What have you got from the house so far?”
“Not much. It’s is owned by a Joseph Greene, but he's been renting it out for years. The current lease is actually being held by a company in New York as temporary living for re-locating employees. We're checking with them. There were two people living here and no sign of female clothing. They never used the kitchen; lots of take-out containers. No desktop computers and no laptops, but there is a wireless router and an ISP box, so the laptop must be with the roommate. There were some atlases of Pennsylvania, Jersey, and Delaware. Other than that, nothing too spectacular. They were careful.”
They came to the edge of the backyard and Damon found the entire area awash with white light from multiple spotlights. Several agents were milling around, going carefully over the entire yard. The body itself was impossible to miss. It was hanging from a tree in the center of the yard, each wrist tied up and secured to a thick branch, stretching the arms out taut. The feet were hanging a good three feet from the ground. The throat had been cut and, judging by the enormous pool of blood on the grass, the body was left to bleed out.
“Not very pretty,” Stephanie said after a moment.
“Not very, no.” Damon started to move forward, then paused. “Is it safe to go this way?” he asked, motioning a path to the body.
She nodded.
“Yes. We've finished with this side of the yard,” she replied, walking behind him.
He nodded and moved towards the body. It was facing the neighbor’s yard to the right, and a quick glance told him that the neighbors had a clear view from their deck. He moved forward carefully, his eyes scanning the yard. A metal waist-high fence surrounded the yard and thick boxwoods ran the length of it to the left side. At the end of the garden, two more tall old oak trees, similar in size and age to the one supporting the body, loomed out of the growing darkness. The rest of the yard was neglected, and what grass there was grew in patches. It was a tired looking yard, in need of care and attention. And now, it was in need of a priest.
Damon turned his attention to the body. He was aware of the medical examiner and his assistant, with their vinyl bag and heavy plastic sheet, waiting a few feet away. Stephanie motioned to them as he approached and they stood to the side, watching. He stopped outside the pool of blood on the grass and looked up into the discolored face of the corpse.
A strange mixture of relief and uneasiness swept through him. The face hanging at an odd angle was not the face of Johann Topamari. Pulling out his phone, he snapped a picture of it before stepping away. He nodded to the medical examiners and turned away. Stephanie watched as he typed into his phone quickly.
“I'll see what my people say,” Damon said, looking up when he was done.
Stephanie nodded and watched as the examiner positioned the plastic sheet and his assistant positioned a ladder.
“How on earth did they get him up there?” she wondered out loud.
Hawk glanced up.
“It wouldn't be hard if he was partially drugged,” he said. “Your tox screen will tell you. If he was drugged, but not unconscious, a strong man or two average men could have got him up there. The neighbors didn't see anything?”
“No.” Stephanie turned and walked with him back towards the house. “They were away and just got back this evening. The husband walked outside and saw him. He called the police, who called me once they got here and saw the body. Thankfully, the senior investigator recognized it as similar to a description we sent out.”
“I don't think it’s Johann,” Damon told her as they reached the corner of the house and started towards the front. “But, of course, I'll wait and see what my people say.”
Stephanie looked at him sharply.
“How can you know?” she demanded quickly.
Damon met her searching glance with a smile.
“I'm afraid I have a little more information as to his appearance than you apparently do,” he answered blandly. “But I'm not going to trust my memory. I'll let someone else take the heat on this one,” he added with a wink.
Stephanie pursed her lips and was silent.
Alina finished her initial scan of the light-flooded yard and directed her military binoculars to the figure strung up from the branch of the tree. She was balanced comfortably in the fat upper limbs of a maple tree a few houses down, in a backyard opposite from Johann's. The beacon of light a few houses away was impossible to miss. She took note of the scurrying agents and her lips twitched slightly when Damon and Stephanie came into the backyard. Damon was striding as if he owned the yard, and Stephanie was matching him stride for stride. Two egos unconsciously competing. Watching them would have been humorous if she didn't have a body, literally, swaying in the breeze.
Alina focused on the corpse, her heart thumping. As much as she tried to repress it, a mixed bag of emotions was flooding over her. Her hand shook ever so slightly as she adjusted the focus on the binoculars and started to zoom in on the face, apprehension making her fingers move more slowly than normal. A million thoughts flooded her mind, as they had been since Hawk told her that Stephanie thought she had Johann's body. Who had beat her to him? And why? And how? How could she possibly have failed a second time? Was Johann turning out to be her unicorn, impossible to catch? Washington had been quite clear about the ramifications if she should fail a second time. This was her atonement mission; her chance to correct a mistake on an otherwise flawless resume.
Viper zoomed in on the face of the body hanging lifelessly from the oak tree. Her brain registered the slit throat and approximate angle of the killer’s knife even as she recognized the face. Relief washed through her instantly, followed almost immediately by utter shock. Alina dropped the binoculars around her neck just as her phone vibrated against her thigh. She mindlessly reached into her cargo pocket and pulled out the smartphone, swiping the screen. Glancing down, she found herself staring at a close-up of the face she had just seen. Hawk had added one line to the photo.
Is this Johann's associate?
Viper lifted her eyes back to the brightly-lit yard. A cold numbness stole through her body, starting in the pit of her gut. The discolored, lifeless face was indeed that of the associate that Johann had brought back from Canada. It was also the face of his brother.
Alina knew, without a doubt, that Johann would never harm a member of his family.
She stared unseeingly at the ocean of light down the block. Her mind was a swimming jumble of half-thoughts and instinctual knowledge, almost paralyzing her as her heart pounded and her breath came quick and shallow. She allowed the thoughts and emotions to run riot for a full minute before she slowly and intentionally took a long, deep breath. Her heart skipped a few beats in protest, but she took another long, slow breath. Alina closed her eyes, blocking out the artificial white light, and took another deep breath. She concentrated on the fresh smell of the new spring leaves that surrounded her and the mustiness of the bark that she leaned against.
Slowly, she forced all thought out of her mind and her heartbeat gradually returned to normal. The numbing sensation that had consumed her started to fade slowly away. Viper allowed herself a few seconds to embrace the sensation of floating high above the ground before she permitted thought to come back into her mind. This time, the thoughts were ordered and rational. She opened her eyes, seeing clearly what her mind had grasped as soon as she saw the face on the corpse.
Someone was systematically taking out Johann's entire network with the intention of ending with Johann himself. It wasn't Johann tying up loose ends, it was someone else. And they clearly knew more than Alina did right now.
She lifted the binoculars again and watched as the medical examiner cut the body down. Adjusting the focus, she slowly began to examine every tree, every yard, every street, and every sidewalk within viewing distance, looking for any sign of surveillance. Within seconds she zoomed in on the front of a vehicle, partially hidden from view by a house, parked a block or so away from Johann's. It was the front end of a black Bronco.
She dropped the binoculars back around her neck and quickly answered Hawk's message before lowering herself to a bottom limb and dropping noiselessly out of the tree. Viper took off at a run, darting out of the yard and into the next one under the cover of the growing darkness, away from Johann's house. She had surveyed the neighborhood enough in the past twenty-four hours to know that she could loop around and come up to the Bronco from the rear in a matter of minutes. She knew that she would find it was the same Bronco from this afternoon. A calm focus took hold of her as she hopped a metal fence and ran swiftly along a row of rhododendrons, disappearing into the night.
Damon and Stephanie emerged into the front yard just as John was stepping out of the house. He handed a couple of evidence bags to a young woman and waved to them.
“I'm still waiting to hear on that ID from the lab,” he said, meeting them.
Stephanie nodded.
“Agent Peterson sent it to his people too.”
John looked at Damon.
“And?”
Damon grinned.
“Still waiting,” he replied.
“Agent Peterson doesn't think it’s Johann,” Stephanie told him as the trio walked slowly towards the road.
John glanced at Damon.
“Do you know what he looks like?” he asked sharply.
Damon gave him the same answer he had given Stephanie.
“I have some additional information, but I'm waiting for confirmation.”
John was silent for a second before he stopped walking.
“Well, if it's not your terrorist, then your job is done here.”
Stephanie groaned.
“John, your tactfulness is outstanding,” she muttered. “I hope you don't take that the wrong way, Damon. John isn't known for his social graces.”
“Not at all,” he assured her with an easy laugh. “He's right. If it's not my terrorist, I'll be out of your hair.”
John watched him through sleepy eyes.
“You'll probably be glad to get back to Washington in time for the weekend,” he commented, encountering a laughing look from Damon's sharp, blue eyes.
“Oh, I might stick around for a little while yet. I'm getting re-acquainted with an old friend.”
John's eyes narrowed slightly and Stephanie's ears perked up.
“Oh? You ran into an old friend here?” she asked.
He nodded, reaching into his pocket as his phone chirped.
“Yes. Someone I knew a few years ago,” he told her, looking down at his phone. “It's been nice to touch base with her again,” he added, allowing his voice to fade away in the manner of someone who has been distracted by what he was reading.
He saw John's jaw clench out of the corner of his eye and his lips twitched ever so slightly. John was easier to read than a book, and Damon realized that he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Then his eyes focused on the brief message on his phone.
Yes. Meet you back at the house. Off to the races.
Damon frowned at the phrase he hadn't heard since those long-ago days at the training facility. Viper was going after something. Or someone.
He wasn't amused any longer. His first instinct was to go find her, but he immediately acknowledged the irrationality of that thought. He had no idea where she was or what she was after. His only course of action was to do as she said and go back to the house and wait. Hawk acknowledged the irony of being concerned for Viper's safety even as he tucked the phone back into his pocket. This sudden feeling of helplessness was completely foreign to him.
“Bad news?” John asked.
Damon looked up. John and Stephanie were both looking at him with concern.
“You look like you want to shoot someone,” John added.
Damon forced himself to smile.
“Not good news, I'm afraid,” he answered. “Your body isn't Johann Topamari, but it is one of his associates.” He looked at John with a twisted grin that he mustered up from somewhere. “Sorry, John. You're stuck with me for a little longer.”
“Who is it?” Stephanie asked, stepping out of the way as some agents passed by with more evidence from the house.
“I should have a name by the morning. They don't want to commit without running through some more databases. But you were right about the distinctive mark on his face. It is hard to mistake it.”
“Johann did that to one of his associates?” John mused out loud. “That doesn't make any sense.”
“It does if he's tying up loose ends,” Stephanie said.
“I don't buy it,” John shook his head. “I don't see him taking out his entire network.”
Stephanie leaned up against the coroner’s van at the curb. She looked like she was settling in for a long debate.
“Ok. Why?” she asked simply.
John shrugged and stood with his legs apart, balancing his weight as he stared at the sky thoughtfully.
“Why would he?” he said. “Building a network takes months, if not years, especially in the States. So why would he dismantle it now? Nothing in his file indicates any prior tendency towards suicide missions. And if he was about to commit a terrorist act, which we have absolutely no indication that he is, then why take out his entire network beforehand? It just doesn't make sense.”
“So, let’s say, for the sake of argument, that he is about to launch an attack of some sort,” Stephanie said, crossing her arms and leaning her head back against the van.
Both of them now seemed oblivious to Damon's presence as he watched them curiously. Was this really how Feds worked? One leaning on a coroner’s van and the other staring off into the sky? Despite himself, Hawk was fascinated. He was trained to think while moving. Never stop moving. If you couldn't think and move at the same time, you were dead. At this rate, he wouldn't be surprised if these two sat down for a cup of coffee and a Danish.
“And, let's say, he built his network with the intention of dismantling it once he had launched his attack,” Stephanie continued. “That would explain why he used a low-rung arms dealer and a has-been mobster.”
“And that made sense when it was just them,” John agreed. “But now we have an associate that doesn't fall into the category of 'disposable local asset.' That body is one of them.”
“One of them?” Stephanie grinned.
John shrugged.
“You know what I mean,” he retorted. “It's of Middle-Eastern descent.”
“I do feel obligated to point out that not all terrorists are of Middle-Eastern descent, nor is everyone of Middle-Eastern descent a terrorist,” Stephanie said mildly.
John stopped staring at the sky and rolled his eyes.
“Are we going to discuss semantics or the matter at hand?” he asked.
Damon chuckled despite himself.
“I think she's just trying to be socially diverse,” he told John with a grin.
“So what you're trying to say is...” Stephanie said, going back to John's train of thought. “Johann built a network mixed with both local assets and trusted associates from his home country. And, while he may have planned to eliminate the local part of his network, you can't buy into him taking out his own countrymen? Is that about the gist of it?”
“Right.” John nodded.
Stephanie straightened away from the side of the van as the medical examiner came into view, manning one end of the gurney carrying the topic of conversation.
“Ok.”
She stepped back onto the sidewalk and the three of them silently watched the progress of the gurney.
Damon was grudgingly impressed with how quickly John had rejected the idea that Johann would have done that to his own kin. As soon as he had seen that the corpse wasn't Johann, Hawk realized that someone else was methodically eliminating Johann's network. But John had instinctively grasped what Hawk knew only from Vipers research. Damon felt he could almost start to like the man. Almost. He wondered what Alina would say when he told her how quick on his feet her ex was turning out to be.
Damon again felt that almost overwhelming need to leave and find her. He frowned.
“What if...”
Stephanie's thought was lost in the sudden, deafening roar of an explosion.
Damon acted on sheer instinct, grabbing Stephanie and throwing them both unceremoniously to the trembling ground. He twisted his head to see flames shoot high above the rooftops one street over.
Chaos instantly erupted. Screams could be heard coming from all over the neighborhood and police started running in the direction of the flames. Damon jumped up, his heart pounding and blood rushing in his ears. He had only one thought: Viper.
“You stay with her!” he shouted to John over the noise, pointing to Stephanie.
John nodded and started shouting instructions to agents around them. Their priority was the crime scene and, as Damon ran down the street to come up on the site of the explosion from the rear, he heard senior agents shouting instructions to secure the crime scene and evidence.
Hawk reached into his back holster as he ran, unsnapping the catch and pulling out his gun. His eyes scanned the area as he went, looking for signs of Viper and anything, or anyone, that didn't belong. He ran through the side yard of a dark house and emerged onto the next street behind the roaring blaze.
The heat stopped him in his tracks and Damon threw up an arm to shield his face, his breath catching painfully in his chest as he stared at the massive ball of flames. At the base was a twisted mass of metal that had once been an SUV. The flames, which only seconds before had been over three stories high, had lowered already to a manageable size, but the heat pouring from the wreckage told him that a military-grade accelerant had been used. He looked around almost frantically as police officers on the other side of the fire started shouting orders to each other.
Hawk backed up and started examining the blast radius, looking for anything that would indicate that Viper had been there. He tried not to think about the possibility of her being inside the inferno, and instead focused on the debris, searching for any sign that she had been injured...or worse. The fact that she had been here or in the vicinity was beyond doubt in his mind. The only question was whether she had caused the explosion, or been the target of it.
After searching fruitlessly for a few moments, he moved back into the shadows of a huge elm on the corner and lifted his eyes to scan the area. Sirens were already wailing in the distance as the fire department responded to the police summons, and the number of spectators was growing as people began to swarm to the second scene of chaos in their quiet neighborhood. The police started to form a human barricade in an arc around the fire, holding the curious at bay.
Hawk melted deeper into the shadows, watching. His heartbeat was returning to normal as his breathing slowed. There was no sign of Viper in the debris or in the surrounding crowds. He had to believe that she was fine. On making that determination, his mind automatically turned to the cause of the explosion. The use of the accelerant raised new questions and he scanned the area one more time, looking for something that he couldn't identify. When his phone vibrated, he felt a flood of relief. He didn't need to look to know that it was Viper.
A young policeman was watching Damon from a few yards away. He recognized him as the man with the Feds that he had let in earlier. He called over to his buddy to tell him he would be right back, then turned to head over to Damon. He took two steps and stopped, looking around in confusion.
Damon had completely disappeared.
They called him “The Engineer.” The people who hired him didn't know his real name. His reputation was extensive and solid, and that was good enough for them. He had never much cared for the name himself, but he was a practical man. He knew that the name inspired apprehension and fear, and so he allowed it. It was the only remnant from his military days that still existed. He’d made sure of that. But when a reputation is built so firmly on a name, well, there was nothing to be done about it. He accepted it and never really thought much about it. To the men and women who hired him, however, the name meant everything. It guaranteed that they were getting someone who was invisible and didn't really exist. It ensured superior planning, flawless execution, and not a trace to be found. Most important of all, it meant that there would be no failure. The Engineer had an astonishing one hundred percent success rate and clients paid very highly for his services.
He stood in the shadows and watched the scurry of activity following the explosion, feeling a certain satisfaction in seeing everything play out exactly as he had planned it. So much planning, so much patience, and now he was starting to see it pay off. This was just the beginning.
He was drawing them all to him. He liked to think of them as his wayward children. They wouldn't come to him voluntarily, and so he had to orchestrate events and script their reactions, planning everything down to the last detail. Then, when they finally did what he wanted them to do, he would put them out of their misery. The Engineer wasn't a cruel man, after all. He was simply thorough. And, if his wayward children learned a valuable lesson to take with them to the next life, well, then he would be shown tolerance in his next life. It was for this reason that he was always very careful to draw them to him slowly. That way, they really did have time to think about their actions and realize where they were going. Perhaps they could learn from their journey and that of their friends.
He had known Viper would be here tonight. He’d planned it this way. He knew that she would come to make sure that the body hanging from the tree wasn’t Johann. She wouldn’t trust that agent from Homeland Security who was hanging around the Feds to make that determination for her.
The Engineer frowned slightly. Agent Peterson was an unforeseen complication. However, he was confident that he had adjusted accordingly. He was concerned about why Viper was spending so much time with a member of a government agency. She was too smart for that. She knew that none of them could be trusted, especially after that fiasco in Cairo two years ago. And yet here she was associating with not only the mystery DHS agent, but also two Feds. This was certainly something The Engineer had not expected from the Viper that he had studied. However, he admitted to being somewhat delighted with this new facet to her. She was turning out to be much more complicated than he had first thought. There was much more to her than just a brilliant assassin. He wished he had more time to explore the intricacies of her character, but his plan had to adhere to a strict time table. He was already a little off schedule because of Johann’s erratic behavior.
He sighed and lifted his binoculars, scanning the neighborhood slowly. Johann had to be here somewhere. He would have heard of Ahmed’s death by now. It was all over the police scanners, and The Engineer knew that Johann monitored the scanners. He had planned for it. He was just waiting for him to show himself. He wanted him to see the severity of the situation and accept the consequences.
Oh, yes. He had planned it all out, down to the very last detail. And, when it was all said and done, everyone would move when and where he wanted them to...just like chess pieces.
He continued to scan the growing crowds and shadows. There was still no sign of Viper or Johann. And yet, they had to be there! He thought he had glimpsed Viper just before he detonated the truck, moving in the shadows near the corner where he had parked it. But when he had looked again, no one was there. He was annoyed that he had missed her, but he was more concerned with Johann. The Engineer needed to know that Johann had seen Ahmed. It was crucial that he feel the pressure.
He turned his binoculars at movement behind the fire and watched as the DHS agent appeared on the sidewalk behind the inferno that used to be the truck. He focused in on him curiously as the agent threw up his arm to shield his face from the heat coming off the flames. Ah yes, the accelerant was burning away. Agent Peterson backed up a few steps and then started walking around the blast radius, looking on the ground at the debris. The Engineer watched him for a moment, diverted. Was he really looking for something useful in the debris? He smiled slightly. Oh, the government agents were so very predictable. Always imagining that clues were everywhere. What on earth did Viper see in him?
He moved on, dismissing Peterson from his mind. The neighbors were starting to gather, being held back by a growing number of the local police force. The Engineer swore softly and lowered his binoculars. There was no use looking for him now. Johann wouldn't show his face with this many people around.
He had missed him.
A strange feeling of frustration took hold, choking out his previous satisfaction with the evening. This was a feeling he hadn't felt in years. The Engineer never failed. His plans always played out just as he had scripted them. He never miscalculated. And yet, there was no Johann and no Viper.
This was not the way he had planned it.
The Engineer tucked his binoculars away and melted into the shadows again, disappearing swiftly into the night, leaving chaos behind him.
