Sweat poured from Hammon’s forehead. It was early in the morning. He had not slept for almost twenty-four hours.
“You … you think that threatening to kill me is the answer? If I’m dead I can’t give you any information. And I took precautions.”
“Such as?”
“I have a thick file and electronic data about the assassination attempts locked away in a safe deposit box on the East Coast. It details everything about your operation. If I do not return to America in the next twenty-four hours, I have left instructions for that box to be opened and delivered to the Secret Service and the FBI.”
“That’s ancient history. It will not give them my location. They already have my son and Cooper in custody. I’m sure your CIA has extracted information from them using very persuasive and horrific techniques. You cannot provide them with much more than they already have.”
“Perhaps. But I can give them you.”
Hussein let the direction of the gun’s barrel slip a few millimeters toward the patio bricks. “No, you were brought here by a very circuitous route. Five different planes and two boats. You were strip searched. Your electronic devices were confiscated long ago. I told you this is not my base of operations. There is no way …”
Hammon was desperate now, clutching at anything to gain an advantage. He was trying to stay alive. If he had information she needed, she would not kill him. The CIA, his own service, was getting close. They would discover enough evidence to implicate him in high treason.
He had resisted Hussein’s queries to meet face to face. But that was when America did not know she was alive. Once they’d discovered she was not dead, Hammon saw a way to mitigate his precarious situation. If he could bring them to Hussein, he might just be able to negotiate himself a lesser punishment. Hammon was acting on his own. If he could go to the intelligence community with information about where Hussein was, along with her operation, he could negotiate a deal—perhaps the chance to not die in prison.
But she had thrown him a curveball. She led him to another location, away from her base of operations. Hammon had hoped that she would still trust him enough to allow him a glimpse into her web. But he knew when he arrived he had been duped. There was nothing in this small resort villa that revealed any communications equipment, weapons, or a human apparatus of any kind.
She had played him. Now, it was his turn to play his hand, as weak as it was. He was about to play the bluff of his life.
He could see the frustration etched on the woman’s face as he smiled under the scarf. “You are too trusting, Delilah. I’ll show you,” he said. “Do you have a knife?”
Hussein shot him a quizzical look.
“You can keep the gun on me. I need a knife. A sharp knife.”
“I’m going to ask you questions. Just move your head to answer. Do you understand?”
Hutton nodded. Jason was grasping Thomas Pettigrew’s Colt firmly in his right hand, the distal half of the barrel buried in the former guard’s mouth. The effects of the alcohol had evaporated, replaced by abject fear played out in Hutton’s wide, terror-filled eyes. By the angle of the weapon and the pressure Jason exerted, Clyde Hutton must have thought it would be shoved down his throat.
Jason escorted the smaller man to the Mustang, forced him on his back onto the front seat by way of the passenger door. He led Hutton out just prior to closing time. Jason, perched atop the man, waited until the crowd filed out of Headlights. The parking lot had emptied minutes ago. With his left hand planted on Hutton’s chest, supporting his body and pinning him to the front of the Mustang’s bench seat, Jason began his interrogation.
He had taken a slew of photos of this scumbag from a distance. Jason now studied him up close for the first time. His ferret-like face, thin with a long nose, was reddened by drink. The weak chin disappeared into his neckline. The sad, gray eyes pleaded from under a shroud of pockmarked skin.
“Good,” Jason said smiling. “If you try anything, your brains will be splattered all over my car. And if I think you’re lying, same result. Got it?”
Hutton blinked slowly, and nodded again.
“How long were you a guard there?”
Hutton tried to speak, but the gun barrel stopped him. Jason removed it from his mouth but kept it trained on Hutton’s nose.
“CO,” Hutton answered.
“What?”
“We are corrections officers, not guards.”
Jason lifted the hand from Hutton’s chest and rammed his fist into the nose with a sickening crack.
“Don’t play games with me, Clyde! I’m not in a good frame of mind.”
A rivulet of blood dripped from both nostrils.
“Let’s try this again. Two years ago, you allowed someone to enter my cell at the Regional Jail in Williamsburg. He was sent there to kill me. The man with all the tattoos. Is that correct?”
Hutton nodded.
“How much?” Jason pushed the barrel between his lips. It clicked against teeth.
“How … mush … wha?” Hutton replied, his words muffled.
Jason removed the gun once more from Hutton’s mouth, raised it, and smashed it into Hutton’s cheek. The skin ruptured. A crimson trail snaked past Hutton’s ear, dripping onto the vinyl.
“How much were you paid?”
“If I could go back and do it over, I’d never have agreed. I lost my job and was lucky I didn’t go to prison. They never knew that I was paid off. I told them I made a mistake putting him in there with you. And they bought it. I lost my house and my wife left me. I got nothing left.”
“I know, Clyde, you weasel. I’ve been watching you for a long time. I almost went to prison, too, for murder. I’ve killed a few men. I don’t have a problem with adding you to the list. How much were you paid?”
“Five thousand.”
“That’s it! That’s all my life was worth? What’s his name?”
Hutton shifted his gaze from Jason to the weapon pointed at his nose.
“I’m not going to ask again.”
Jason pressed the Colt into the weasel’s neck. Hutton took several deep breaths. He pressed his eyelids together. Beads of sweat popped out on his skin. Jason smelled urine.
“If you don’t tell me, you’re a dead man. If you tell me, you live a little longer.”
Hutton swallowed hard. Jason pulled the hammer back on the Colt.
“Okay, okay,” Hutton said, pleading. “I’ll tell you. Just relax with the gun, will ya?”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know, man. You fucked him up pretty good in the cell. I never saw him again.”
Jason pressed the weapon deeper into the neck. “You’re lying.”
Hutton closed his eyes one more time. His body shook. Weak, pitiful sobs escaped his lips as his body quaked. “Just do it, get it over with. I’m a dead man anyway! Even if you don’t kill me, I’m still a dead man!”
“You weak-ass pussy.” Jason pulled the weapon back and aimed it between Hutton’s eyes. “So be it, Clyde.”
Jason sucked in a breath, held it a beat, and pulled the trigger.