13

Unraveling. It was all unraveling.

Reginald Chamblis sat behind his expansive, hand-carved desk in an office bigger than many people’s apartments. A bank of large flat-screen televisions faced him. He held the multifunction remote in his hand, pressing the keys urgently, angrily, as if his discomfiture alone could will onto the screens something that would calm him. The sound was switched off on all of the units; the closed captioning was turned on. Mozart filled the room from high-fidelity speakers hidden in the walls of Chamblis’s opulent private study.

Several of the screens bore the insipid local programming that preceded news reports. There were situation comedies, afternoon talk shows and children’s programming. He had several cable news stations tuned in, but expected to see nothing there. The talk of horrors around the globe did not distract him from what was coming.

He had seen, only too well, what threatened him. What threatened his entire empire. What threatened to end the way of life to which he had become so accustomed.

On two of the screens, he saw different angles of Menard’s encounter at Chamblis’s studio. Menard was a good man, and an eager student of the discipline of the blade, but he was young and, thanks to his inexperience, reckless. He had tried, Chamblis knew, to uphold the honor of what he had been taught. But what young man of Menard’s limited life experience could be expected to stand against…that?

Chamblis pressed the button to reverse the digital recording and then watched the sequence again. On the screen, the big man with the dark hair, in profile, nodded to one of the cameras. This Cooper, supposedly of the Justice Department—knew that every second of what he was about to do would be transmitted to other eyes. Somehow that knowledge made the big Justice man that much more fearsome.

Chamblis realized, then, that he had never truly felt fear. He had always conquered other challenges so easily. Even when facing the weapons of his attackers, on that night so long ago, he had never truly been terrified.

On the screen, the big man methodically, efficiently took Menard apart. There was a grace to his movements, a coiled lethality that reminded Chamblis of a panther stalking its prey. Cooper was accustomed, Chamblis understood, to being the most dangerous man in any room he occupied. It was obvious in his carriage, in his gait. Chamblis had thought he and his duelists the predators in a sick society, taking down the weak, the infirm, the diseased, so that society as a whole would be strong. But as predators, they were nothing compared to the menacing Cooper, who was only too aware of the power he held at his command.

The casual contempt with which Cooper beat Menard into submission was the key to understanding the man. There was no passion in Cooper’s fluid movements. He was not angry. He was not even particularly agitated, despite engaging in a fight that would have had most men’s systems shaking from the adrenaline dump. No, Cooper waded through Menard easily and without rancor, his every strike calculated. Even the humiliating way he had dragged Menard from the room—here, Chamblis hit a button to switch to the hidden camera feed from the studio’s office—seemed deliberate.

Chamblis realized he was watching an expert interrogator at work, a man who understood how the human psyche was put together. Cooper saw Menard only as a potential point of data. He systematically stripped away Menard’s defenses, faking a fight that Menard desperately wanted, because this offered him the best opportunity to defeat Menard. That defeat was not physical, first and foremost, but mental. Menard was beaten mentally.

As he watched the drama unfold in the office, however, Chamblis knew that it would end badly. Menard was a poor loser. In sparring duels undertaken to first blood in the studio, he had reacted badly to losing to Andreas. He had not gone so far as to disgrace himself by striking at Andreas from behind once the duel was concluded, but he had entertained the thought. Chamblis had read it in his face, in the posture of his body, in the tense way he had answered Chamblis’s questions and then quickly departed.

There was a gun in a holster mounted underneath the desk. All of the students knew it was there; it was to be used if one of the offal of humanity, one of the wretched human beings the duelists used as their prey, came calling at the studio. It was a possibility, after all. Some homeless person or drug addict might see the duelists in action and then follow to the studio. Such eventualities used to be the only real concerns Chamblis had regarding discovery.

He had not counted on a man like Cooper of the Justice Department.

He pressed the intercom on his desk. A terse voice responded. “Yeah.”

“Tell your men,” Chamblis said, “that the targets are here, and to ready themselves to use deadly force. My security personnel are already on alert.”

“You got it. My men were promised a bonus if there was a gunfight.”

“You will of course be compensated.”

Chamblis released the intercom. Miserable vultures. He had cultivated the relationship with Detroit’s crime Families because he understood the usefulness of extralegal resources. Certainly all of his businesses, particularly the unionized ones, had benefited from the association. He did not feel anything about it, as long as it worked.

When his sources among the police had warned him that figures in Washington were sending an investigator to check on the killings his paid cops had worked to hide for him, he had hoped the firepower of the Mafia—inelegant a solution though it was—would end the threat. The overwhelming force he had employed was intended to send a message, too: Detroit is off-limits even to the highest authorities, so stay away unless you want a higher body count.

Cooper, whoever or whatever he was, had proved too resilient even for multiple Mob assassins. How the man, with only Detective Davis to support him, had managed to eliminate so many of the Mob killers, Chamblis had not been able to guess…until he saw the man in action at the studio. Finally he understood. Agent Cooper, whatever his real government agency might be, was obviously some kind of Special Forces headhunter. He was the most deadly killer Chamblis had ever seen, the very embodiment of the practiced lethality he had tried so hard to instill in the members of his dueling fellowship.

It galled Chamblis to again be relying on Mafia rabble to protect him, but he needed their backup more than ever. He would require what was practically an army to prevail—but he believed he had one at the ready. He owned a security company whose employees were selected for their willingness to bend the letter of the law to protect their owner. Most of them had criminal records; many of them had previous experience with weapons. Those who hadn’t had it were given it as part of their training. The security firm, Red Falcon Protection, was essentially Chamblis’s private army, a force ultimately loyal to him alone, well paid for its discretion and its fealty. Their crimson uniforms marked them as they stood at attention; a pair of them were outside the doors to his study. They would know how to respond. The Mob muscle he had contracted to bolster them, in anticipation of a need just like this one, was less disciplined, but they were vicious killers, all, and would be sufficient if any group of men could be.

There were certain less reliable persons with whom he needed to speak, however.

He picked up the ornate phone on his desk and dialed a number. It was answered on the first ring. “Griffith.”

“Why are you trying to fuck me?” Chamblis roared without preamble.

“Sir?”

“You and your partner,” Chamblis said, “have been well paid. So far you’ve given me nothing. And now the devil is at my doorstep! I thought I told you to get your asses over here!”

“We’re on our way, Mr. Chamblis.”

Chamblis looked up at the monitors covering the estate’s surveillance system. A battered Crown Victoria had pulled up to the front gate. One of the men who exited the vehicle was unmistakably Agent Cooper.

“You should already be here!” Chamblis shouted. “You both have families, Detective. If you don’t want your mothers, daughters and wives raped, your houses burned to the ground, and every finger of both hands broken, you will make sure Cooper and Davis don’t leave these grounds alive!”

“Please, sir—”

Chamblis pressed the receiver hook. Damn them for fools. It would seem you just could not buy adequate police protection these days. Sighing, he dialed a second number. Andreas Garter answered. “Yes, Maestro,” he said.

“Are you in position?”

“We are, Maestro. He has not appeared yet.”

“He won’t,” Chamblis said. “Patrick won’t be early. He will show up at exactly the appointed time. Nevertheless it was imperative that you and our people be in position ahead of time. You know what to do when I give you the signal.” Farnham had always been punctual where the ceremony of the duel was concerned. Chamblis knew that the only way to corner the man, the only way to reel him in long enough to hook him, was to challenge Farnham to a duel. A duel with Chamblis was the thing Farnham desired most in the world. Chamblis could relate to Farnham’s disturbed psyche well enough to know that much. Disturbed he might be, and without any sense of restraint, but Farnham was a duelist before anything else.

“Yes, Maestro,” Garter said. “Forgive me, Maestro, but…it seems…”

“Beneath us?” Chamblis asked. “Yes, Andreas,” he said. “I suppose it is. But Farnham is not one of us anymore. He is not entitled to the honors or the consideration that we would give one of our number. He is an aberration. A madman. A cancer, if you will. He must be cut out. You do not consider the tastes, the propriety, the sensibilities of a cancer before you remove it. You do not concern yourself with manners when a crazy man demands you face him.”

“I understand this, Maestro. I simply mean… Well. You know best.”

“Yes, I do,” Chamblis said. “I will join you as quickly as possible. There is a problem here that I must resolve. In the meantime, I want you to call the airport. Have my plane prepared and fueled. Have the pilots placed on call. I pay them well enough to do nothing most of the time. They can sit in their plane and await us.”

“Us, Maestro?”

“We have to leave the country, Andreas,” Chamblis said. “If I cannot contain the threat, we must go. We will take those members of our fellowship as we can. Call the others and see to it they understand. If we cannot contain the exposure, if I cannot stop the Justice Department agent and his police department lapdog, the brothers and sisters of our fellowship will be in danger of discovery. When that happens, I will not be able to protect them here.”

“But the Families,” Andreas protested. “Surely they could intervene.”

“The Mob has its influence here,” Chamblis said. “But they have lost many…employees answering my calls. They were grudging in their response to this last need. If the men they have sent me are not sufficient, if their hired guns combined with my own private security officers cannot turn back the enemy, there will be nothing more they can do. They rely on shadows to accomplish what they do. To try to thwart the wheels of justice in broad daylight, with the public aware of their machinations…it would be too much to expect of them.”

“But, Maestro, I have many of the security personnel here,” Garter said. “Let me send them back to you. I do not need them all merely to safeguard us from one man.”

“Do not underestimate Patrick,” Chamblis said. “But I am hedging my bets, placing my pieces on this chessboard as best I may. I am dispatching one contingent of our Mafia assistance to you as well. I am about to place a call. It may come to pass that we will receive information from within the police department yet, and when that happens, I need you, or both of us, to have access to the manpower to continue working to eliminate our foes. You understand this?”

“I do, Maestro,” Garter said. “Please, Maestro, the fellowship cannot survive your loss. I would give my own life if it were required, to see you to safety.”

“I thank you for that, Andreas. But we will rebuild. And it may yet be possible to stop the threat, to hold it here.”

“I will do as you ask, Maestro.”

“Thank you, Andreas.” Chamblis replaced the receiver gently in its cradle.

The building shook.

The sound of the explosion came to him, then. It was followed by another, and another. The rattle of automatic gunfire began to echo through the big house. The vibrations of a furious gun battle were transmitted through the marble floor to Chamblis’s feet.

He took the elaborately engraved Korth revolver from his desk. There were speed loaders filled with .357 Magnum hollowpoint bullets as well. He took these and shoved them into the pockets of his tailored suit jacket. Then, as if it were an afterthought, he reached up, loosened the silk tie at his neck and yanked it off, throwing it into the wicker trash basket by his desk.

Chamblis burst from the study. “Come with me,” he told the security guards. “We have a meeting to attend. We’re getting out of here.”

As they neared the juncture to the carport, the intensity of the gunfire increased. Chamblis heard men scream. He approached the door to the connecting corridor with caution, revolver in hand. His security guards flanked him. Each man had an illegal micro-Uzi in a shoulder harness. Access to hardware like that was one of the other reasons Chamblis had thought his Mob connections a worthwhile investment.

He opened the door a crack and peered out. Bodies littered the driveway. His perimeter guards, as well as the team of Mafia goons he had detailed to the front of the estate, had obviously been decimated. He saw only a few still moving. Two Mafia gunners and a trio of uniformed guards had taken cover behind a Range Rover in the carport. The Rover was now riddled with gunfire. Beyond it, Chamblis saw his Ferrari waiting, intact and ready. He had to reach it.

“How did they get so far?” one of the guards asked.

“It doesn’t matter now,” Chamblis said. He saw the big man, Cooper, pop up from cover behind one of the low walls delineating the estate drive. The oversized pistol in Cooper’s hand barked, spitting what had to be two or three bullets in one burst. It wasn’t a pistol at all, Chamblis realized, but some kind of miniature submachine gun. One, then another of the uniformed guards went down. The other men behind the Rover tried to make a break for it.

Chamblis had only precious moments to make this work. He shouted to his guards before they could figure out what was happening. “Now! Run! Cover me!”

They broke from the corridor and ran across the bloody battleground that was the carport. Chamblis made sure his uniformed guards were between him and his enemies. Withering gunfire rained down on them. Chamblis ran and did not look back. He heard the wet thumping sound of bullets piercing bodies behind him and to his left. He prayed he would not feel the burning, numbing sledgehammer of a piece of lead entering his own body.

Chamblis reached the Ferrari and threw the door open. The last of his guards went down before his eyes. He turned the key and the engine growled its throaty, exotic rhythm. He threw the car into gear and rammed the pedal to the floor.

Bullets tore into the windshield and the hood as the Ferrari rocketed from the carport and bounced over the outstretched legs of one of the fallen mafiosi. He shot past Cooper and Davis. Bullets sparked and pinged from the rear of the car, but none struck a tire. He was moving too fast; the Ferrari was a missile and he was riding it to escape.

As he put the estate behind him, he could not shake the feeling that he would never see it again. He vowed not to give in to despair.

He had an appointment to keep and a man to kill. That man was more than just an opponent to be defeated. He was an enemy to be smashed, a traitor to be punished.

His duel with Patrick Farnham was personal, and Farnham was going to die.

Chamblis shifted gears, urging the Ferrari to over a hundred miles per hour, desperate to put distance between himself and the men who sought the destruction of everything he knew.