Devine wasn’t listening to any of this because it didn’t matter. He was focused on the business of combat. In his mind the dimensions of the room shrank down into a close-quarters battle zone.

  The four men became numbers in his head. Their positions, the accuracy and potency of their weaponry, their sight lines, the obstacles to getting away, the issue of having Montgomery with him, the proximity and possible use of Brad Cowl were also assigned numbers in his brain. The MP5 he could see was on two-shot selector, not full auto. Shotguns were side by side, not pump action, so twin barrels and two rounds each. Hancock had his Glock, with a standard magazine. Cowl was four feet away, drink in hand, no weapon that he could see. Shooting angles and obstructions thereto were observed and dialed into his combat brain. Possible scenarios were spit out. None of them were good. But they never were.

  His battle plan now set, it was time to play a game that was not in any way a game at all. Cowl might be really good at making money illegally. But, courtesy of the United States Army, Devine was maybe one of the absolute best at what was about to go down.

  Three . . . two . . . one.

  CHAPTER

  75

  “STAND UP, NOW!” BARKED HANCOCK.

  They both stood, but Montgomery started swaying and looked like she might be sick. “Oh my God. Oh my God,” she sobbed. “Brad, please don’t do this. Please. I’ll do anything.”

  Hancock snapped, “We are way past that, lady.”

  “Please, Brad, I don’t want to die. I won’t say anything. I swear.”

  “Too late, bitch,” said Cowl. “You screw me, I screw you right back, only a lot harder.”

  Montgomery’s eyes fluttered and then rolled back into her head. She collapsed in a dead faint against Devine, who grabbed her so she wouldn’t hit the floor.

  “Oh come on!” barked Cowl. “I don’t need this shit.” He looked at Hancock. “I got plans tonight.”

  Devine laid her on the couch, his back to the men. His hand slipped under the woman’s skirt. He pulled the palm-sized ten-shot Beretta subcompact that was holstered around Montgomery’s thigh and hidden by the flared skirt. In the span of one breath, he whirled and got off two quick shots. MP5 Man was his first take-down because that weapon vanquished all others in close-quarters combat. Shotgun Number One was next because Devine had sized up that guy as more comfortable with that weapon than Shotgun Number Two.

  Cowl screamed and tried to jump over his chair but failed. He dropped his drink, slid to the floor on his back, and covered his face with his hands. Montgomery flipped over the back of the couch and lay flat on the floor.

  Devine slid between the couch and a chair as Shotgun Number Two finally opened fire. The man had wasted precious seconds trying to fathom what had just happened. In combat, that cost you your life.

  The twin blasts tore right into the chair, only Devine wasn’t there anymore. And now the idiot had to reload. A five-shot pump in hand, and Devine was dead. It really was all in the details.

  And in a fight, you kept moving, even when part of your brain said to hunker down. A moving target drew attention, yes, but also led to poor decisions by those trying to follow the action. An immobile target let the adversary take his time, make better choices, and finish the quarry off.

  And stupid Hancock, after being nearly knocked off his feet by the falling MP5 guy, was spraying pistol shots indiscriminately, in a wide arc. That was fine if you had another shooter doing the same from a parallel position. Then the field of fire was overlapping and you got your target nine times out of ten. But the field of fire was not overlapping, and thus the man was screwed.

  The CIA apparently needed to train its people better.

  Devine curved around the back of the chair and placed a round into Shotgun Number Two’s neck, ripping the fat artery there right in two, just as planned. The man screamed, let his weapon fall, and flipped over the chair clutching at a wound that was sending blood streaming out of him like a miniature hose. He had about five seconds to live. Hancock screamed and fell back.

  Devine used the cover of that horrific spectacle to place a round into Hancock’s left knee, blowing out the cap and all bone and tissue behind it. The man collapsed in bloody agony on what was probably a fifty-thousand-dollar rug.

  Devine could have done a kill shot, but he needed one of them alive in addition to Cowl, and Hancock was now the only candidate for the job.

  Hancock had dropped his Glock and was, despite his obvious pain, reaching out for it.

  Devine had to admire the man’s guts. But that was the extent of the admiration. He rushed over, kicked the gun away, and pointed his Beretta at Hancock as Montgomery poked her head over the top of the couch.

  Cowl was on the floor screaming bloody murder, with Shotgun Number Two lying pretty much on top of him.

  “Shut up!” barked Devine. A bloodied Cowl pushed the dead man off him and skittered over to the couch.

  Devine picked up Hancock’s gun and thrust it into his waist-band, while the man lay on the floor moaning and holding his destroyed knee. Devine glanced over at Cowl, who was staring in disbelief at him.

  Hancock glared at Cowl. “You pat down everybody for weapons, you idiot!”

  Devine eyed Montgomery. “Nice plan.”

  “Thanks.” Montgomery said to Cowl triumphantly, “You were right, Brad—you just can’t trust women, at least this one.”

  Devine checked Hancock’s blood loss. He had seen enough wounded people to be able to gauge whether someone was going to live or not. And Hancock would make it.

  He looked at Cowl. “You said you had a signal jammer in here. Where is it?”

  “Behind that vase,” said Cowl in a shaky voice, the other man’s blood all over his expensive suit and shirt.

  Devine nodded at Montgomery, who rushed over and found and turned off the device.

  “Call an ambulance,” said Devine.

  Montgomery turned her phone back on and called 911. Devine turned on his phone, texted Campbell about what had happened, and then put the phone away.

  “And now, Cowl, sit down, compose yourself, and start talking.”

  “I’m not telling you shit.”

  “Okay, but since you just tried to kill us, it doesn’t matter how much you gave the mayor and governor for their last elections.”

  “You came up here and shot the shit out of the place.”

  “Right, taking on four armed guys in a place that only you have access to.”

  “Who are you?” screamed Cowl.

  “Right now, a seriously pissed-off guy.” He pointed his gun at Cowl’s head, and the man covered his face with his hands.

  “Don’t, sweet Jesus, don’t shoot.”

  “I’d like to hear about Area 51.”

  “You say nothing, Cowl!” screamed Hancock.

  Devine pointed his gun at him. “Shut up or I’ll take out the other knee. Then you bleed out before the EMTs get to you.”

  Montgomery put her phone way and joined him. She was pale and avoided looking at the dead men.

  “Area 51?” said Devine.

  “You’ve seen it, asshole,” spat Cowl.

  “I’d like to hear your version.”

  Cowl’s tone changed and he spread his hands wide. “Look, I’ve got people to answer to. We can make a deal.”

  Hancock shouted, “You say one word, you are dead, Cowl. You know who I’m talking about.”

  Devine slugged the man on the head with the butt of his gun and Hancock fell unconscious to the floor. Then Devine looked at Cowl. “You were saying?”

  “You came here to get rich, right? Well, I can make you so rich you’ll never be able to spend it all. You can buy your island and have the bitch there in bikinis twenty-four seven, and ten more like her.”

  “I never really liked making money,” confessed Devine.

  “Then what the hell were you doing here?” snapped Cowl.

  “Area 51?”

  “This is more than me, Devine. It’s more than all of us.”

  “Well, we have to start somewhere. But let me throw you a bone. Anne Comely equals Clean Money. How’s that?”

  Cowl looked at him and snorted. “Maybe you could have done well here.”

  “I don’t think there’s a here left, Cowl.”

  Montgomery used Cowl’s phone to let the EMTs in when they arrived minutes later. They confirmed the deaths of the other men, then stabilized the still-unconscious Hancock and took him away. A contingent of federal agents appeared a few minutes later, with Campbell leading them.

  He sat down across from Cowl and studied him.

  “Who the hell are you?” said Cowl.

  “I’m either your worst nightmare or your savior. It all depends on how you want to play this.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Campbell rose. “Then I’m your worst nightmare. Hope you enjoy prison food.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Any deal I do, my lawyers sign off on it.”

  He looked at his men. “Take him but don’t charge him. Not yet.”

  They led Cowl away. Campbell looked at him and Montgomery. “I guess you thought you had gotten away from war zones, Captain.”

  “Maybe you never do,” replied Devine.

  As Devine and Montgomery left the penthouse, she said, “So, it’s finally over?”

  He shook his head. “No, not even close.”

  CHAPTER

  76

  THE 6:20 TRAIN.

  It was rainy and foggy and chilly, the opposite of what summer should be, thought Devine, but then so was everything else. He was in his normal seat. He was looking out the window. The train slowed and then stopped. There was Cowl’s mansion.

  Empty.

  He was heading to Cowl and Clean Money, as he thought of it now. The media hadn’t gotten wind of anything that had happened in Cowl’s penthouse, which had been walled off and preserved for additional processing. The decision had been made to allow the Cowl firm to stay in business for now. Campbell had texted about the progress so far. It was not encouraging.

  We have Cowl and Bartlett, for that is indeed who Karl Hancock is. But there is no electronic trail left from Area 51. It’s been NSA-level wiped. What we have on the photos and the camera feed isn’t enough. There is no chain of custody. We’ll be laughed out of court. But with Cowl cutting a deal we think we can get there in the end.

  Devine had gotten that text at one in the morning.

  As he neared the city he got a call from Campbell.

  “Extremely bad news, Devine. Cowl and Bartlett are both dead. The latter in the hospital. Pillow over his face. Sentry killed, too.”

  “And Cowl?”

  “Shivved in a holding cell. The CCTV was taken offline. We’ve put a dome of silence over all this. No leaks, no one knows, for now. But that won’t last long. Back to square one, unfortunately, but I think we have them on the run. And DOJ and the other agencies are going after them with all they’ve got, even with the stonewalling going on with some of the politicos.”

  Devine was not nearly as optimistic as the retired general. He was sure that Area 51 would be set up somewhere else, or consolidated with another ongoing operation. He wondered how much of America others truly owned.

  The world is upside down. Good is bad and bad is deified.

  And his instincts were telling him that a killer was still out there. Four people dead and it had everything to do with Sara Ewes, and not Brad Cowl and Area 51.

  And it somehow has everything to do with me. I got the emails. They were sent to me for a reason. The killer is speaking directly to me. This is as personal as it gets.

  He didn’t get much done at work. His brain was in too much of a fog. All the other Burners were in the process of getting interviews at other firms and venting about their problems. He just tried to tune it out.

  When he got home from work that night, he found Valentine on the couch, sucking down beer and eating a hot dog instead of pizza.

  “Hey, dude, you’re early tonight. How goes it? You figure all that shit out?”

  “I think so.”

  “So all is good?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  * * *

  The news finally broke about the murder of Brad Cowl while in police custody. The financial press, already reeling from the string of murders connected to the firm, was covering all of this with astonishment mixed with a bit of glee, even as a few rumors started to circulate about possible financial improprieties at Cowl and Comely.

  As Devine read through these news accounts on his phone in his room after coming home from work one night, he shook his head.

  Possible financial improprieties? Just wait. This will make Bernie Madoff look like a third-rate grifter if it ever sees the light of day.

  Later, he texted Montgomery and arranged to meet her at a hotel the next day, where she was staying with a security team.

  In the city, he cleared her armed guards and knocked on the door of Montgomery’s room. She opened it immediately. She had on jeans and a white T-shirt. She looked like she’d been crying.

  He closed the door behind him. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  She dabbed at her eyes and sat on the bed. “My mother called. She heard about Brad and also about Christian. She wanted to know if I was involved somehow. My own mother!”

  He perched on a chair opposite her. “That must’ve been a difficult conversation.”

  “Well, at least it was a short one, since I hung up on her.”

  “You’ve still got your retirement portfolio.”

  “I’m not sure that’s going to be enough, Travis,” she said dully. “Apparently I’ve got a bull’s-eye on my back. You too.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. They probably don’t want to make more waves. They know the big guns are out for their blood.”

  She brushed the hair out of her face. “Do you really think so?”

  “I can’t guarantee it, but the truth is these guys just care about getting their money clean and using it to buy property and people. And the fact is, we’re not that important, Michelle. They go somewhere else and set up shop, and the pipeline opens up again.” He sat back. “But that doesn’t get us any closer to figuring out who killed four people.”

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  “I was thinking of going back to the scene of Sara’s murder.”

  “Can I come?” she said quickly.

  “Why?”

  “Because right now I don’t want to be alone.”

  Devine hesitated.

  “My ass is on the line too, Travis,” she snapped.

  “Okay, let me clear it with Campbell before your security team freaks out.”

  “After seeing what you did in Brad’s penthouse I feel safer with you than I do with them.”

  He got permission from Campbell, and they left the hotel. Devine used his security card to get into the Cowl Building. It being a weekend and the firm probably going under, the place was pretty much empty. They rode the elevator up to the fifty-second floor and got off. Devine led Montgomery over to the storage closet and opened the door.

  “That’s where she was found?” said Montgomery.

  “Yes. By the custodian. She was hanging from that pipe you can see in the ceiling. The chair was knocked over. Her shoes were on the floor. They tried to make it look like suicide but failed.”

  She glanced nervously at him. “Murder disguised as suicide, like Brad was talking about with you and those men in the Army who died?”

  “That’s a long story that I hope one day to be able to share with you, but not right now.”

  “And the guy who found Sara’s body?”

  “Jerry Myers, the custodian who works here. Freaked him out. There was no one else on the floor because there was an all-hands-on-deck seminar at the Ritz that morning. And the admin folks hadn’t arrived yet.”

  “Is that a coincidence?” said Montgomery. “That her body was found on the morning when no one would be up here?”

  “I don’t think so. I believe it was planned that way, which smacks of inside information.”

  “When was Ewes killed again?”

  “The previous night, between like midnight and four.”

  “So whoever killed her was long gone by the next morning. But you got the email in the morning telling you about her being dead.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I doubt whoever killed her snuck back up in that time window you were talking about to look at the crime scene so they could write you that email. They already knew what it looked like.”

  Devine thought this over. “You’re right about that. But the message did mention that a custodian had found her body. That led me to believe that the person was there that morning, because how else would they know about who found the body and when?”

  “But why would it be important for you to know who found the body? Wasn’t it enough to tell you that she was hanging in a storage room?”

  Devine started to say something and then stopped. “You’re right. I just never thought about that.”

  “So why wait until the next morning to tell you about it? Why not email you that night, as soon as she was dead? You would have called the cops and they would have found the body.”

  “I don’t know. The way you set it out, it makes no sense.”

  “But it does make sense if the killer and email sender were two different people,” said Montgomery. “The killer murdered Sara. And told the email sender about it.”