Devine was bundled into a small wooden house that was closer to falling down than remaining standing. He could feel tendrils of cold air coming in through cracks in the exterior walls. He was hurried up a narrow, enclosed set of stairs, down a hall, and into a room that was bare except for a chair in the middle. He was pushed into the chair and duct-taped to it. With his hands still zip-tied behind him, he appeared to be securely immobilized.

  He had swept the room doing a KIM recon, or Keep In Mind. You looked at as many different details as possible in a short amount of time, with the ability to recall them later, as needed. This told him there was one window where the curtains were flapping because the window was either open or the glass was missing. The floor was made of wooden planks. The only door was the one they had entered. The walls looked to be solid plaster. There was a nail sticking out of the plaster where a picture had probably hung. The chair was an ordinary wooden one, with spindly arms. It might have already been in the house, or they had bought it at some junk shop to use as his execution perch. It felt fragile under his 220 pounds.

  Not much to work with, but he probably wasn’t going to have that option anyway. Looking at the men he was reminded of a Mark Twain quote one of his instructors at West Point had taught them: Of all the animals man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.

  He didn’t know if these men took any pleasure in their work, but he did know they took pleasure in the payment they would receive for ending his life.

  He knew the hit rate for a moving target was less than 4 percent and the kill rate was under one in a hundred. Only he was stationary. He calculated the kill rate on him at damn near perfect.

  When engaged in his ceiling staring process, Devine had sometimes gone through this scenario in his mind. No way out. The last full measure. The end. As it came to all of us, just not so violently. He already knew he was not going to beg for his life, because he refused to waste his last few remaining breaths on useless things.

  He had almost died twice while in uniform, and once in civilian clothes. In each case, as his life seemed to trickle from him, Devine recalled being in the moment. He was certainly feeling the pain, and he was experiencing the sense of impending doom that anyone dying suddenly felt, because your brain was releasing all sorts of chemicals into your bloodstream to try to stave off the end of its existence, and yours. And, when all hope was gone, the brain would begin methodically shutting down all the body’s organs in an orderly procession, turning the lights out at the very end. This would normally take moments, not minutes.

  Devine had felt all of those things, three times now, and, with that experience behind him reinforcing his psyche, he prepared for what he knew was coming.

  What had Dr. Guillaume said? That Jenny’s death was instantaneous. That she was dead before her brain even realized it was over.

  But that hadn’t really been the way it had gone down. Jenny had been staring at the shooter, her killer, much like Devine was now looking at the three hardened men in front of him. She knew what was coming. Your brain knew, which meant you knew, that the end of you was imminent. Devine wondered what she had thought about. Had she panicked, pleaded for her life? Sobbed uncontrollably?

  No, he didn’t believe she had done any of those things. Everything she had done in her life up to that point spoke of a person in control. She would have stood there staring back at the person about to kill her, with a calm, even defiant detachment, maybe even daring them to pull the trigger before they wanted to. To assume, for one final time, the upper hand over someone, a measure of control, even if that person was going to be the instrument of her demise.

  Devine stared back at the men with a calm detachment. He wasn’t going to give the fuckers the satisfaction that what they were about to do had rattled him in the least.

  You go out like an Army Ranger, tabbed and scrolled.

  But they did not pull their weapons and shoot him dead. They left him there.

  He counted three sets of footsteps passing down the hall and then down the stairs.

  They had made their first mistake tonight, after an otherwise flawlessly executed mission.

  But to Devine’s mind it was a big one.

  They had left him alone.

  And alive.

  CHAPTER

  28

  MOST PEOPLE BOUND IN DUCT tape would expend all of their energy pulling and tugging at their bonds, which only made the bindings that much tighter, like a fly struggling in a spider’s web. But duct tape, like many such things, had one weak spot.

  Focused, immediate torque.

  With that in mind Devine leaned back in his chair as far as he could and then threw his torso forward with as much force as he could muster.

  The duct tape sheared off at multiple weak points. He didn’t wait to hear if any sound he had made doing this had reached downstairs. That was just wasted time better spent elsewhere.

  He stood, turned to the side, and got free of the remaining dregs of the tape.

  He then sat on the floor. Devine, despite his size and musculature, was quite limber and flexible. This was not all genetic or by happenstance; he had worked at it.

  He brought his hands under his butt and then passed them along his hamstrings, down his calves, and under his feet until his hands were now in front of him. He held his arms up in front of him and examined the zip ties. They were black and police grade, meaning they were thicker than what one normally associated with such devices.

  They also were susceptible to torque, but you had to line up the weak point.

  He used his teeth to pull the end part of the ties so it was directly in the middle of his wrists. Then he once more used his teeth to make sure the ties were as tight as possible. He sat in the chair, lifted his arms straight up over his head, and then brought them down with every ounce of adrenaline-fueled force he could. His arms passed on either side of his torso. The zip ties, incapable of surviving this sort of torque directed right at their weakest point, snapped in two at the site of the locking mechanism.

  Devine didn’t take even a second to rejoice over his twin victories. He went straight to the window and looked out. The lower window had been removed for some reason, though the upper part was still there. But he wasn’t focused on that.

  Brand-new-looking bars had been screwed into the exterior walls, turning his room into a cell. Since he was not escaping via that route, he would have to get out of here the hard way.

  He turned, raced back to the duct tape, tore off some strips, used considerable strength to pull the long nail out of the wall, and rushed back to the window. The storm was starting in earnest and a bolt of lightning struck nearby. He waited, his elbow poised near the window. As soon as the deafening thunderclap sounded, he hit the glass with his elbow. The glass shattered, and he used the duct tape to pull out a long, pointed shard. He wound the duct tape around the top of it so he could grip it there without cutting his hand.

  He placed the nail between his fingers and let the business end stick out the top.

  He slowly opened the door, inch by inch, because it had creaked before. He had already seen another partially open door along the hallway when they had brought him up. He closed the door behind him and slid on his hands and knees down the hall to the other door. He pushed it open a little more so he could slide through before easing it back to its original position.

  He peered out through the gap. Perfect sight line of anyone coming up the stairs, and when they turned to the room where he had just been, their backs would be to him.

  He heard another vehicle pull up outside. The room he was in now had no window. But he could hear feet running through the rain and then the front door opened. He heard voices, some in English, some in other languages. He had a conversational knowledge of Farsi and Arabic, but those linguistic skills had withered from nonuse. It didn’t matter; the people were speaking fast and in low voices.

  He relaxed and did his combat breathing when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Two sets, two men.

  Through the gap he could see the countenances of the Asian in the lead and one of the Middle Easterners right behind. They reached the top of the stairs and turned right, their backs to Devine, just as he’d planned.

  He was on full autopilot now. It was known as unconscious competence because he had practiced both the analysis and actions based on that analysis so many times, and carried it out for real countless more times, that his mental and muscle memory was near absolute.

  Devine knew that there were around seventy-five areas of the body that could trigger incapacitating reflex injury. Now his task was to ID a few of those locations in this situation and inflict just such an injury. And do it with speed, surprise, and overwhelming aggression.

  There was a reason why a lion always went for the throat.

  He’d wanted to do this completely silently, but with two adversaries that was problematic. There were at least two more downstairs, the third man and whoever had come in just now.

  He stepped out in such a way as to give the Middle Easterner a sight of him in his peripheral. That would expose the target Devine was aiming for.

  When the man turned the glass knife slashed his throat, severing the windpipe so the man would not cry out. The thrust had also split the carotid sheath in two. The blood geyser painted the opposite wall a dripping red and splattered all over Devine as well.

  The lead man was pulling out his gun when Devine struck, and the nail hit the man’s windpipe. He recoiled and dropped his weapon, gasping for air, unable to call out. Devine next pulled the glass knife free from the first man’s throat, pivoted, and severed the second man’s carotid with it. Devine caught the man and gently laid him down on the floor, even as he gave a last, rattling gasp and joined his partner in death.

  The sounds of the attack and the men falling were fortunately mostly covered up by the sounds of the raging storm.

  Devine searched both men and found his phone and his gun.

  He quickly sent a text to Harper and Fuss telling them what had happened and approximately where he was, but that they could also track his phone. He was just about to send a message to Campbell when a voice called up, speaking in Farsi.

  Devine answered back in a low voice in Farsi, saying basically, “Be right down.”

  As soon as the other Middle Easterner poked his head up the staircase, Devine put two bullets in it. The dead man slumped to the floor, the wall behind him painted with his blood.

  There was a scream—a woman’s, Devine thought—and then he jumped to the side as the muzzle of an MP5 entered the stairwell and on full auto sprayed the area with a wall of bullets.

  Next, Devine heard people running away, and he got to his feet.

  He made his way cautiously down the stairs and then poked his head around the corner. He ducked down as more gunfire erupted. When he then heard a vehicle start he ran to the front door and jumped out onto the porch in time to see the taillights of the SUV fleeing down the road as the storm continued to roar overhead.

  He ran back to the dead man at the bottom of the stairs, because he had been the one driving before. He snagged the vehicle keys from his pocket and ran back outside. He got into the SUV, fired it up, and started to back out. However, the truck wobbled badly and he slammed it in park and hopped out.

  He went around the vehicle, his fury accelerating as he did so.

  They had shot out all four tires on their way to escaping. That was the gunfire he had heard.

  He slumped against the SUV’s fender and let the rain wash over him.

  Despite their escape Devine had one thing to be happy about.

  I’m alive.

  CHAPTER

  29

  DEVINE SAT ON THE FRONT steps of a place where three men lay dead inside.

  He was listening to the sounds of someone vomiting into the scraggly bushes on the right side of the old shack.

  Sergeant Wendy Fuss came into view, wiping at her mouth and looking wretched.

  “Jesus, Devine,” she said, spitting onto the ground and looking at his clothes that were soaked with the blood of other men.

  Harper came out of the front door, snapped off his nitrile gloves, and glowered down at Devine.

  “How in the hell did you get outta that?”

  “You can thank the United States Army.”

  Harper glanced at the house. “I think I need to call in the county and state police on this. It’s out of my jurisdiction.”

  “Feel free.”

  “And you gonna contact your folks?” he added. “I mean, those bodies, they sort of look… well, federal.”

  “Already done and they’re on their way.”

  “So we should just seal this thing off then and wait for folks to show up?”

  “That’s what I would do,” said Devine. “And I need a ride back to town.”

  “We’ll need your statement,” said Fuss, wrinkling her nose as she rubbed her belly.

  “I can do it back in town.”

  Harper said quickly, “I’ll run you back. Wendy, you stay here on guard till the people show up.”

  Fuss looked like that was the last thing on earth she wanted to do, but the woman gamely nodded and said, “Sure, okay, Chief.”

  “I’ll radio the county and state folks right now and let them know what’s what,” said Harper as he hurried over to his cruiser.

  Fuss moved closer to Devine and looked up at him. “Did you really kill all those men?”

  “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you.”

  “It was a damn miracle.”

  “No, it wasn’t. It was slow training, deep practice, and fast execution.”

  “Well, you sure as hell executed them.”

  Devine really wasn’t listening now. He was thinking ahead, leaping from one possibility to the next: Is this related to my investigation of Jenny Silkwell? Is whoever fired at me through the window also involved in this?

  Or does it have nothing to do with Silkwell? And everything to do with me?

  Back in Putnam he gave his statement to Harper. Afterward, he went to his cottage and showered, scrubbing extra hard, then changed into clean clothes and phoned Campbell to give him a fuller report. It was late but he could always leave a message. However, the man picked up on the second ring.

  “Okay, this is getting weirder every minute,” noted the retired general after Devine had made his report.

  “The question is, is it connected to the Silkwell case, or something else, meaning me?”

  “The group in Geneva, you mean?”

  “They were speaking Farsi and I heard a woman’s voice.”

  “You thinking the woman on the train?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “How would they have tracked you down so fast?”

  “There’s only one way, sir.”

  Campbell said, “Wait, you think we have a mole in our organization?”

  “We wouldn’t be the first.”

  “I can’t believe—”

  Devine cut him off, because, one, he was tired, and two, he was pissed. “What I know to be true is that two Middle Easterners and one Asian guy knew exactly where I was and almost punched my ticket for good. I want to know why. So should you.”

  Campbell was a fine leader, which is why he simply said, “You’re right. On it. Stay tuned and watch yourself.”

  Devine put his phone away and looked around his room. Right. Watch myself. But who’s watching me?

  Best-case scenario: He had seriously reduced their manpower resources and they would have to pull back and regroup, which would give him time. They would also probably know that the feds would be all over this, another reason to lie low for a while.

  Worst-case scenario: They would redouble their efforts and try to finish the job tonight because he wouldn’t be expecting it.

  And worst-case scenario is what you always prepped for.

  He walked out to his rental, grabbed his go bag, and walked back to his cottage. He waited ten minutes and then turned the lights out. The rain had stopped and the sky had cleared. It was actually warmer than it had been.

  He constantly checked the door and the windows, looking for anyone watching him. An hour passed. He opened the window in the bathroom, and knelt there for five minutes, watching, listening, and using his sense of smell to detect anything that might do him harm.

  Satisfied, he clambered out and closed the window. He paralleled the main road for a quarter mile, then turned toward it and picked up his pace. His Army jog was designed to set a pace, not too fast and not too slow, that he could maintain pretty much forever with a sixty-pound pack on his back.

  He reached Jocelyn Point and jogged up the main drive. He had taken great pains and used all his skills to make sure he was not being followed either by vehicle or on foot. He had even scanned the skies for drones. He saw Dak’s Harley with a customized rain cover over it. Alex’s bike was still parked on the covered porch.

  He walked over to the art studio and tried the door. It was locked. He took a pick gun from his go bag, and twenty seconds later he opened the door and slipped inside.

  He looked around the dark space, took in the smells of the paints and the charcoal pencils, and the peculiar aroma of drying clay. And he could also sense the woman’s shampoo and the body wash, which he had earlier imprinted in his brain in case it became important later.

  That also meant it had not been so long ago that Alex had left her studio.

  He checked his watch. After three in the morning.

  But what did they say about artists: When the creative bell sounded you needed to answer the call no matter the time. He used his phone light to look around at her works in process and he marveled at both the woman’s obvious skill and imagination. He didn’t know which one he admired more.