Page 15

CHAPTER 15

J ACKSON ARRIVED AT NEARLY MIDNIGHT into the cold, drizzly maw of the Pacific Northwest. She Ubered to an Airbnb located in an upscale neighborhood she never could have afforded on Uncle Sam’s payroll. In the garage was a four-door Hyundai SUV and another, smaller, vehicle, which would allow her to move stealthily around the region. She checked the latter over in the garage, and also scrutinized the other pieces of equipment she’d had delivered here along with the two vehicles. All seemed in order. She unpacked the weapons case she had carried onto the plane.

The kitchen was fully stocked with a list of special foods she had ordered. She made her dinner and chewed slowly, taking her time because she had to. Jackson’s digestive system had been permanently wrecked by her years-long ordeal. Water was her only libation, and sometimes even that was difficult to get and hold down. She’d had grain alcohol repeatedly forced down her throat in a bastardized offshoot method of waterboarding and, as a result, couldn’t even stomach looking at a bottle of wine, beer, or liquor. The GI guy in Belgium who’d examined her gut and intestines and treated her after she’d escaped had asked her two questions: How was she still alive? And did she want to be? After what she’d endured to survive and escape to be there seeking his help, Jackson had wanted to disembowel the medico and make the asshole eat his own intestines.

Finished with her meal, she walked into the family room, turned on the gas fireplace against the chill that had settled into her bones and metal, sat down, and opened her laptop. Jackson scrolled through the pages of intel that she had paid for from various sources and that had allowed her to set her sights on Devine. He was here, on a mission, and she needed to understand that mission better in order for her to lay a plausible trap.

She knew it would not be easy.

He knows I’m after him, and he’ll do his best to get to me first. But I doubt he knows I was able to follow him here.

She knew that a man named Danny Glass was the reason for Devine’s presence. She knew about some of Glass’s criminal endeavors and current legal troubles with the government but had no beef with him and no skin in that game.

Every man and woman for themselves from now on, especially this woman.

Jackson went to bed and slept like the dead for six hours, which was unusual; her sleep was still often disturbed by nightmares. She rose and went to the home’s small gym, where she stretched for a half hour and then ran on the treadmill for forty-five minutes. Her limbs felt clumsy and slow and her mind wasn’t much better. She hated the mornings now because that was the time during her imprisonment when she would jerk awake from a wonderful dream in which she was free and happy, only to find that she was neither.

By the afternoon, she was usually fine. She wondered if that was why Devine had managed to escape her in Geneva; she had not been at her best so early in the morning. But in truth, it was more to do with Devine. He had easily killed the two men she had brought along to murder him and they supposedly operated just fine at all hours of the day and night. They had been billed as consummate professionals at taking someone else’s life. They had turned out to be no challenge for the former Army Ranger.

And I wasn’t any better.

She slid her finger across her jaw where Devine had slugged her on the train. She knew from experience that his blow had been delivered with power but also control.

It was not a kill strike. He saw my knife in the train window’s reflection. Bad mistake on my part. But then he committed the same mistake by letting me live.

She showered, changed, had some breakfast, and drove to downtown Seattle.

She took up surveillance across the road from his hotel, finding a space on a street perpendicular to where he was staying, with her vehicle looking dead-on at the hotel entrance.

After she’d watched the place for a while, Devine emerged from his hotel, turned right, and walked down the street. Her gaze took in all of him. How he walked, how he observed all things around him. Confident but not cocky. Prepared for anything.

Just like me. Because we have to be.

She got out of her SUV and fell in behind him, but on the other side of the road. Her appearance was bulky and matronly. She found most people would never even glance at someone who looked like that, much less feel threatened by them.

Jackson knew that her years of torture had reduced her life expectancy. The doctors had suggested this to her, and she could also feel it in innumerable ways, no matter how well she ate or how hard she worked out. Her body had been taken to places no human should be forced to go, and the damage was probably irreversible. With no time to waste and enough money saved, it was now her mission to hunt down and kill everyone in her chain of command who had betrayed her and then left her to die. And as soon as Devine was taken care of, the first name on that list was going to drop.

She followed Devine to a coffee shop, where he emerged with a cup in hand. He walked back to the hotel and was standing out front waiting for something. She deduced what that was and made her way quickly back to her SUV before his rental pulled around to the front, driven by one of the valets.

A few moments later he drove off and she hooked a right on the street and took up pursuit. They drove for a while and then Devine parked in front of the Sand Bar, which was still strung with police tape. He flashed his badge and went inside while Jackson slid into an open slot across the street.

Jackson Googled the Sand Bar and scrolled down to the recent news account that detailed one Perry Rollins having been murdered inside its premises. Her pursuit of Devine had now begun.

So let the games begin. But it wasn’t really a game, was it? Not with a corpse guaranteed at the end of it.

Him or me.