Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Ethan Cross
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Part Two
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Part Three
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Copyright
The Shepherd Series
The Shepherd
The Prophet
Blind Justice
The Cage (an exclusive digital short story)
Ethan Cross was born and raised in a small town in rural Illinois. When a fireman or a policeman would visit his school, most of his classmates’ heads would swim with aspirations of growing up and catching bad guys or saving someone from a blazing inferno. When these moments came for Ethan, however, his dreams weren’t to someday be a cop or put out fires; he just wanted to write about it.
Now his dream of telling stories on a grand scale has come to fruition with the publication of the Shepherd novels.
First of all, I want to thank my beautiful wife, Gina, and my kids—James, Madison, and Calissa—for their love and support (especially Gina who has to endure a lot of craziness in the name of research and put up with me in general).
Next, I wish to thank my parents, Leroy and Emily, for taking me to countless movies as a child and instilling in me a deep love of stories. Also, thank you to my mother, Emily, for always being my first beta reader and my mother-in-law, Karen, for being my best saleswoman.
And, as always, none of this would be possible without the help of my UK editor: Francesca Pathak—my wonderful agents: Danny Baror and Heather Baror-Shapiro—and my incredible mentor, editor, and friend: Lou Aronica. In addition to these, I wouldn’t be here without the guidance and friendship of all my fellow authors at the International Thriller Writers organization.
To all of these and my extraordinary readers, thank you so much. I couldn’t be living my dream without your support!
DONNY JEUNG CONSIDERED removing his badge before sticking the hypodermic needle in his arm. It was a strange and fleeting thought. What difference did it make? He could take off the uniform and the badge and the gun, and he’d still be a cop. And he’d also still be a junkie. Such thoughts floated into the ether as he depressed the plunger and the heroin entered his veins. He leaned back against the toilet bowl, the porcelain cool on his back. Sounds and smells took on exaggerated vibrancy. The aroma of pine-scented air freshener and the acrid tang of urine swirling over the muted conversations and scraping of plates in the restaurant. Euphoria enfolded him, and for a few moments he forgot the argument he’d had with his father earlier that evening.
His father, Captain Dae-Hyun Jeung of the Kansas City Police Department, was the highest-ranking Korean immigrant in American law enforcement and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. Donny had never wanted to be a cop and had only agreed to join the academy because it was the best of his limited options.
He jumped as the radio on his shoulder crackled to life. “Donny, get out here. We’ve got a possible burglary in progress.”
“On my way,” Donny replied as he tried to clear his head.
He pushed open the door of the bathroom stall, splashed some water on his face, and floated past the throng of restaurant patrons—mostly drunks and college kids at that hour—as he made his way out to the cruiser. He fell into the passenger seat and noticed his partner, a large-framed guy called Neil Wagner, shoot him a suspicious glance before they pulled away from the parking lot. Donny wanted to smack the condescending look from the other cop’s face. Wagner’s gut hung over his belt, and he stank of cigarette smoke. He had barely passed his last physical-performance exam, and yet Wagner had the nerve to judge Donny for a few harmless extra-curricular activities. Luckily, Wagner knew better than to say anything or report Donny. It was one of the few instances when Donny was glad to have Captain Dae-Hyun Jeung as a father. Not that his father would protect him out of love, but the captain wouldn’t want to hurt his own illustrious reputation and his dreams of one day becoming commissioner.
They followed Barry Road into the Jefferson Highlands, onto streets filled with modest but newer homes with large well-maintained yards. The residences sat back from the street, and shadows obscured the house numbers. When they located the source of the call, Wagner pulled to the curb and they began to check the perimeter. Donny moved to the east side of the house while Neil circled west.
Donny’s flashlight beam danced over the red-rock landscaping as he checked the windows for any signs of forced entry. His head felt like it wasn’t attached to his body, and he fought to maintain focus on the task at hand. He tripped over a tiny lawn gnome that wore a funny red hat matching its plump cheeks. Donny giggled at the peculiar little figure and then kicked it over on its side.
“I think I heard something out front. I’m going to head back that way,” Wagner said over the radio.
“Copy that.”
Donny continued around to the home’s rear. No swing sets, sandboxes, or toys. No kids in the house. He congratulated himself for the deduction. He could have been a detective. Take that, Dad.
“Donny, head back to the car. We’re at the wrong—”
“Don’t move! I’ve got a gun!” A voice shrieked behind Donny and startled him into action. Without thinking, he whirled around, dropped to one knee, and fired his Glock at the shadowy figure who had threatened his life.
A small voice cried out in pain, and the figure crumpled to the grass of the backyard. Donny kept his gun trained on the unmoving form of the attacker. He heard running footsteps coming around the side of the house and looked up to see Wagner heading toward him, wide-eyed and winded.
Donny didn’t move from his shooting stance as Wagner shone his light on the assailant. Wagner bent down and checked for a pulse. “Dear God you stupid—” Wagner uttered a string of curses and ran his hands through his shaggy brown hair as he paced back and forth across the manicured lawn.
“What is it?” Donny asked. “This guy was gonna shoot me . . . I was defending myself.”
Wagner’s face twisted in fury. He stomped over to Donny and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him up to his feet and dragging him toward the body. “Look at her! It’s some old woman. I was trying to tell you that we went to the wrong house. She probably thought we were burglars!”
“She had a gun.”
“Do you see a gun here? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Donny searched for answers and replayed the events in his mind. “I was defending myself,” he whispered again.
“We’re screwed, Donny. All of us. You just killed an innocent woman in her own backyard.”
“I . . . it was my fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’ll take responsibility.”
Wagner jammed a finger against Donny’s chest. “You ignorant, naive little prick. You’ve screwed the whole department on this one. The media’s going to eat us alive. You think your drug habit isn’t going to come out? Think your father isn’t going down for this?”
“I thought . . . She . . .”
“You don’t think, kid. That’s the problem. Just shut your mouth and do exactly as I say. I’m calling your father, and we’re going to figure a way out of this.”
HER REAL NAME was Rhonda Haynie, but her clients called her Scarlet. None of them had ever asked her about a last name or inquired if “Scarlet” actually appeared on her birth certificate. The kind of men who hired her didn’t care about who she was as a person. They paid for the fantasy, and that was what they got. And some of those fantasies tested the boundaries of what even she would do for money—they exposed the dark and depraved inner workings of people who seemed perfectly normal by all outward appearances.
When she opened the door of the motel room, Rhonda knew that tonight’s job would push those boundaries once again.
The paint on the walls had most likely started its life cycle as a flat white but had now aged into a dull yellow. Only one lamp lit the space from the far corner, leaving most of the room in shadow. No lights overhead. All the better to hide the filth-ridden sheets and floors that were probably swept once every six months. Generic prints of babbling brooks and nature scenes had once covered repairs in the drywall that hid holes placed there by inebriated former occupants. For some reason, the pictures had all been removed and stacked in the corner. The bed hadn’t been slept in or touched, and a blanket and pillow lay crumpled along the floor against the far wall. The place smelled like the carpet had been left out in the rain.
It was no surprise that none of the motel’s rooms seemed to be occupied, and that the parking lot was free of cars.
The client had pulled an old wooden desk chair into the center of the room and handcuffed himself to it. He just sat there, shirtless and staring at the wall, clothed in darkness. Trepidation clawed at the corners of Rhonda’s mind, but the rent needed to be paid, and so she stepped cautiously into the room and closed the door behind her.
“Hello, darling. It looks like you’re all ready for me.” She stepped toward the dresser and flipped on another small lamp. She gasped at what the light revealed.
Scars covered the man’s chest and arms. She had seen plenty in her time on the streets, but never anything like this. Burns, knife wounds, bullet holes. More damaged tissue than healthy skin. His body was a road map of pain and suffering.
“Is something wrong?” he said in a deep and confident voice.
Rhonda forced her gaze up to his face for the first time. It didn’t match the rest of the man. Handsome. Youthful. Strong features and bright, intelligent eyes. She often wondered what led her clients to seek her services. With this man, the reasons were self-evident. Anyone would be self-conscious about scars like this.
She offered her best smile. “No, baby. Everything’s fine. Just give me a minute to freshen up, and we’ll get started.”
She moved toward the bathroom, but his next words stopped her. “There’s no need for that. We won’t be engaging in any sexual activity.”
“Then what kind of activities did you have in mind?”
“There’s a knife on the dresser. I want you to cut me. Just stick in the tip and run a nice long slice. Along a triceps to start.”
Rhonda had received more than her fair share of crazy requests. Some guys wanted to be beaten or whipped or to dress her up in all manner of crazy outfits and live out their sick fantasies. But she’d never had a client ask her to mutilate his body. The thought of it nearly made her sick.
“I was told that you were the most adventurous companion that the service offered. The money’s there on the dresser beside the knife. It’s three times the fee that I was quoted.”
She looked at the dresser and the money. Judging by the thickness of the wad of bills, he was telling the truth. Still, she knew her limits all too well. She couldn’t go through with this, and she didn’t want to spend too much time in the company of any man who would make such a request.
Then an idea took shape. “Are these real handcuffs?” Rhonda asked. An edge of fear caused her voice to tremble.
She tried to examine them without raising too much suspicion, running her fingers over the edges of the cuffs and feeling for releases or anything to indicate that they were fakes.
“They’re standard police-issue.”
“How did you plan on getting those off when our business was completed? Are you a magician?” Rhonda tried to laugh, but it didn’t sound convincing even to her own ears.
The man smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “I assumed you would be kind enough to remove them. The key’s also on the dresser.”
“Good. That’s what I hoped.”
She patted him on the shoulder, grabbed the money and the key, and headed for the door. Her fingers wrapped around the knob—but then something struck her from behind. Strong hands squeezed her shoulders and spun her around, slamming her back against the door.
He pressed the edge of the blade against her neck with just enough force to hold her in place without breaking the skin. His breath was hot on her exposed flesh. “I apologize if I gave the impression that I was secured to the chair. Because of all the scarring that runs up my forearms, my wrists are much larger than my hands. It comes in handy when I want to slip out of a pair of cuffs. The restraints were to keep me from lashing out involuntarily when you began to make the incisions. They were for your protection.”
Tears ran down Rhonda’s cheeks, streaking the layers of make-up. “Please . . . don’t . . .”
The man lowered the knife from her throat and leaned closer. “I suppose that I shouldn’t judge you too harshly. I do admire a woman who shows initiative, and you can’t blame a girl for trying. But you see, we had a verbal contract, and you’ve yet to hold up your end of things.”
Her fingers clawed at her thigh, pulling up the black fabric of the skirt. She kept a small switchblade concealed there for moments such as this. “You want me to cut you?” She felt the metal handle of the knife, pulled it free, and pushed the button to expose the blade. “How’s this for a start?”
Rhonda jammed the knife into his leg and shoved him away. She expected him to drop, but he remained on his feet and fell against the room’s door, blocking her escape. Screaming for help, she bolted for the bathroom, nearly falling over the chair resting in the middle of the floor. Once inside, she slammed the door behind her and engaged the lock.
Lime green tiles covered the walls, and the room smelled of mildew and urine. A blow shook the door frame. “You’re trying my patience,” the man said calmly from the other side.
Her whole body trembled. She wiped the man’s blood from her hand onto her dress as she scanned the room for a way out. The shower curtain was thin and white, and light shone through it. She ripped it back, snapping the rings in the process. They fell to the tile with small metallic clinks.
A window occupied the back wall. She scrambled into the tub and pushed up on the window’s frame. It wouldn’t move. She checked for a lock. Flipped the latch. Pushed again. But the window still wouldn’t budge. It must have been painted shut.
The bathroom door flew open. The wood splintering, and the knob striking the tile on the opposite wall. The old green ceramics cracked and shattered and fell to the floor.
Rhonda screamed, but he was already on top of her. His grip was like a vise. It crushed her airway and cut off her cries. He pressed her against the window and lifted her from the floor of the tub.
She clawed at his hand and kicked at him with her legs, but he was so strong and refused to relent. A wave of dizziness swept over her, and she realized that this was her last moment on Earth. She would never see her baby girl again. She would never have the chance to tell her grandma that she was sorry for running away after her parents died.
She wondered what he would do with her body. Would he mutilate her? Bury her in some shallow grave, a feast for the bugs? She imagined the worms crawling through her veins.
The man raised the knife and admired the blade. Light from the translucent window danced across its surface.
This was it. Rhonda tried not to think of the pain to come. Would he bury the knife in her stomach, stabbing her over and over, relishing each thrust in some twisted sexual way? Or would he slice her throat and let her bleed out quickly? She prayed for a quick death.
The knife came toward her. She wanted to close her eyes, didn’t want to see the sight of her own blood. But, for some reason, her eyelids refused to obey the signal that her brain was sending.
She watched as the blade swiped across his forearm just in front of her face, opening three long gashes in his flesh. The blood flowed quickly and dripped down into the bathtub. He closed his eyes as if savoring the moment and licked the blade clean.
Then he relinquished his grip. She dropped to her knees, and he backed away. She gasped in greedy mouthfuls of air, and violent sobbing seized her whole body.
Rhonda looked up to see him sitting on the toilet, watching her. He took a deep breath and said, “I apologize. I lost my head for a moment. I didn’t want to hurt you. To tell you the truth, this is the first time that I’ve contracted with someone of your profession.”
Her hands found the edge of the tub, and she pushed herself to her feet, preparing to lunge for the door. He must have sensed her intention and moved forward, blocking her way out.
“What’s your name? Your real name.”
“Screw you.” Her throat felt like she’d swallowed sandpaper.
He stepped closer, and his eyes narrowed. “I’ve killed a lot of people. Men, women. Knives, guns, fire, my bare hands. I possess an unnatural talent for extinguishing life. But I’m trying to be a good boy here, and I would appreciate it if you showed me at least some small measure of respect. What’s your name?”
“Rhonda,” she said through the tears.
“Thank you, Rhonda. It’s moments such as these when a person must examine their existence and their place in this world. We all have regrets. Some mistakes can be rectified, and some can never be undone. The trick is realizing the difference and acting upon it. In the past, I would have enjoyed killing you. I would have drawn out the process and extracted every exquisite moment of pain possible. But I’ve come to believe that there are three kinds of people in this world. At our core, we’re all either a creator, a maintainer, or a destroyer.”
He took another step toward her, reached out, and took her hands in his. She didn’t recoil from his touch. She just stood there, oddly transfixed. Hypnotized by the intensity of his gaze.
“Maintainers keep the status quo. They’re the worker bees of our little hive, and they enjoy keeping the cosmic wheels turning. It’s what they were made for, and without them the walls of our reality would crumble. Then there are creators. Those rare individuals who dare to discover new things and think differently, to break the chains of fear and bring into existence something beautiful and new. I fall into the third group. The destroyers. But I want to be better than that. I need to be more. Unfortunately, I’ve found that I only feel alive when I’m inflicting pain or experiencing it myself.”
The man kept hold of Rhonda’s hand as he guided her gently back into the bedroom. “What I’m asking you to do is a kindness to me. I want you to help me to be a better person. To transcend my nature as a destroyer and become something more.”
He gestured toward the chair and laid the knife in her palm. She stared down at it in confusion. When her gaze returned to his face, he smiled and said, “Now, are you ready to begin?”
MARCUS WILLIAMS STARED at his office ceiling, counting the dots in the tiles and trying to ignore the terrible pounding in his skull. The throbbing stabs felt like tiny construction workers jackhammering against the backs of his eyeballs. If someone had told him that drilling a hole in his skull would have relieved the pain, he would at that moment have been standing in line at the hardware store, anxiously waiting for the business to open its doors.
He wondered if the headaches would still be happening if he didn’t work for the Shepherd Organization. On the surface, the group was a think-tank operating under the auspices of the Department of Justice and the Attorney General’s office. In reality, their mandate was to track down serial killers by any means necessary. Even if that meant bending or outright breaking the law to do it.
Marcus gently pulled his arm out from beneath Maggie Carlisle’s naked form. She stirred, rolled her shoulders, and said with a moan, “It’s time you got a real bed.”
“This is a real bed.”
“It’s a futon. Death Row inmates have nicer beds than this.”
“What can I say? I know how to treat a girl right.”
He pulled himself up from the futon, the thin metal frame creaking beneath his shifting weight. “Where you going?” Maggie asked, yawning.
“Nowhere. Go back to sleep. I just need some Tylenol.”
Maggie rolled over, exposing the long tanned curve of her back and her golden blonde hair.
He stared at her a moment. Their relationship had always been rocky, and they had achieved a sort of stalemate, but he couldn’t seem to shake her words and actions after an incident with a serial killer in Chicago. He had asked her to leave the Shepherd Organization, to put all the death and darkness behind them and start new. To be normal. She had turned him down. She had chosen her job over him. That just didn’t sit right, and although he had tried to let it go he knew that resentment had tainted their relationship. He imagined that once upon a time he would have fought to make things right, but these days he just didn’t have the energy to fight anymore. What was the point?
Marcus glanced around the office at his collection of movie memorabilia and screen-used props. An Indiana Jones hat. A replica pulse-rifle from Aliens. Carl Weathers’s severed arm from Predator. He could have bought a house in the burbs for what he had paid for that one. But he didn’t want a house. Once, maybe, but not now. He would never be normal, and the sooner he accepted that, the better off he’d be. Nearly everything he owned was in that room. He ate, slept, and worked there when he wasn’t on the road, which wasn’t too damn often.
He would have been on the road at the moment—tracking down a murderer known as the Coercion Killer—if he hadn’t been recalled to DC for some kind of mandatory psych evaluation. The Director claimed that it was just a routine hoop that the pencil-pushers were making them jump through, but Marcus suspected there was more to it than that. Even he had to admit that his work had began to suffer due to the headaches and insomnia.
His fingertips slid across the dark woodgrain of his desk’s surface as he rounded the workspace and pulled open a drawer. He took out his pills and a bottle of eighteen-year-old Glenfiddich. Then he downed the OxyContin with a long swig of Scotch straight from the bottle. His eyes watered, and his face contorted as the dark liquid slid down his throat.
He leaned back and closed his eyes as he waited for the drugs to dull the pain. After a few moments he started back to the bed, but a vibrating against his leg stopped him in his tracks. Only a handful of people in the world had his cell number, and a call this late at night was never good. It was one of two things. Either they had an urgent situation, and the Director needed them on the road immediately. Or his older brother wanted to chat.
For most people, a call from a sibling at such a late hour would have been a minor annoyance. But when your brother was one of the most wanted men in the country and a notorious serial murderer, a late-night phone call took on a whole new dimension. Still, family was family, and Ackerman was the only family Marcus had left.
Marcus looked at his phone and didn’t recognize the number, which almost without fail meant that it was Ackerman calling from a burner cell line.
He and Ackerman shared a set of parents, although they hadn’t grown up together and Marcus had only recently learned their true connection. His mother had escaped with him while he was still in the womb, abandoning his brother to a life of torture and sadism at the hands of their biological father. Ackerman Sr. had been a not-so-well-respected psychologist who wanted to explore the mind of a serial killer by creating one from his own young son. What had followed for his brother were years trapped in an undying hell marked with abuse and agony and ultimately a string of corpses from one coast to the next, the true number of which was still unknown.
Marcus couldn’t help but sympathize with his brother. Marcus had been raised by a New York City cop in a loving and caring home, at least up until the time when his parents were murdered. And, even then, his aunt had given him the best home she could. Despite all that, his nature was still one of violence, and dark thoughts swirled at the back of his conscious mind. Even blessed with a normal childhood, Marcus was far from normal. Ackerman had never been given a chance.
And then there was a recent revelation that Ackerman might have had even less free will regarding his murderous tendencies than previously thought.
Answering the call, Marcus said, “Hello?”
“It’s good to hear your voice. Have you missed me, brother?”
“What do you want, Frank? I was sleeping.”
“No, you weren’t. And did you know you’re the only person who has ever called me Frank?”
“Fascinating. Can we get on with it?”
“You’re in a bit of a pissy mood. The headaches are getting worse, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, well, you’re not helping the situation.”
“I’m sorry for that. I don’t want to be a burden on you, dear brother. But I was calling to tell you that I’ve been a good boy.”
Marcus walked to the window and watched the trees of Northern Virginia sway in shadow as Ackerman described a run-in with a prostitute. Finally, Ackerman said, “You made me promise not to take anyone’s life, if you would keep taking my calls, and I have fought very hard to keep that vow. Although I think it’s a bit extreme. A little too black and white for my tastes. After all, sometimes the situation warrants—”
“No. Never.”
“Agree to disagree. Besides, you kill people.”
“I’m tired, Frank. I’d like to get at least a little sleep tonight.”
“I saw a preview for a movie yesterday that got me thinking. The plot involved an apocalypse of some kind and dealt with the survivors in the aftermath. The details aren’t relevant, but it made me realize that, in a world like that, I would be a hero or even a king.”
“High monarch of a burned-out wasteland. Good for you. I’m going back to bed.”
“That thought spiraled into other revelations. Consider this: in any other period throughout history, our skills would have made us valuable assets instead of the outcasts that we are now. If we’d been born in Ancient Greece, I could have rivaled the great warrior Achilles and you would have been my Hector. During the Spanish Inquisition or the Middle Ages, my talents in the art of inflicting pain would have been in high demand. Even in the not too distant past of the Old West, I would have been a folk hero like Billy the Kid.”
“You’re a regular man of the people. When you’re not murdering them in their sleep.”
“I’ve never killed anyone in their sleep. I always wake them up first. But think about it. Maybe there are so many murderers these days because men with our gifts can’t find an honest trade to act as a healthy outlet for the natural predatory hunger in their souls. Anyway, something to think about. Sweet dreams, brother.”
Ackerman ended the call. Marcus moved back to his desk, opened the drawer again, and popped two more pills.
JOSH STEFANSON HAD never thought of himself as heroic, but he had been relatively confident that he would rise to the occasion if an emergency ever presented itself. Despite working a desk job at a local architectural firm—as opposed to something more physical and dangerous like a firefighter or police officer—he felt that he could protect his family. Now was his chance to find out.
He had seen the news stories about the killer loose in the Kansas City area whom the media had dubbed the Coercion Killer. Still, he hadn’t given a second thought to such things. The chances of actually running foul of a serial killer were astronomical, much too low to make him question his safety or that of his family. Being the next victim of the Coercion Killer would be akin to winning the lottery.
But people did win.
He drove the little blue Nissan into the parking lot and found a spot next to the entrance. The lot was nearly empty—only three other cars parked toward the back, suggesting that they belonged to employees. That was good: no witnesses.
Josh’s hands shook, and sweat dripped down his face. He didn’t bother to wipe it away. The gun rested in the glovebox. A .38 special that had been his father-in-law’s. He had never been around guns, but his wife Nancy had grown up on a farm south of KC. She had insisted that they have one in the house and that he knew how to use it. He had gone along with it, not that he ever thought he would have cause to touch the thing.
Josh opened the glovebox and pulled out the gun and a box of ammunition, spilling some of the cartridges on the floor in the process. The bullets rattled against the revolver’s cylinder as he forced his trembling fingers to shove them into place.
Six shots, but hopefully he would only need one.
He kept a photo of Nancy and the kids tucked up beside the odometer. It had been taken the previous summer at Blue Springs Lake. He liked to look at it when he was stuck in traffic and fantasize that he was drinking a beer on the boat instead of heading to work.
As he admired their smiling faces, he knew what had to be done. If he thought about it too long, he would talk himself out of it. He would either go through with this or Nancy and the kids would die. It was as simple as that. There was no room for second-guessing or alternative solutions. It was black and white. Time to man up and protect his family. To be the hero that he hoped he had the guts to be.
Josh slid the gun into the pocket of his khakis and exited the vehicle. The breeze carried the smell of flowers and pollen. He fought the urge to sneeze, failed, and nearly lost his glasses in the process. The asphalt felt sticky beneath his feet. The sun hurt his eyes, which were already irritated from crying.
He could see his target through the bookstore’s front window, but a hardback book blocked the man’s face. The store was empty apart from the owner.
The whole situation felt so surreal. It didn’t seem that he walked to the shop’s door, more that he floated there as if it was all a dream. Or a nightmare. The door came open, and a ringing bell announced his presence. The owner lowered his book and greeted his customer with a smile.
Josh’s heart jumped and then sank. The man behind the counter looked like such a nice man. Kind eyes and an inviting smile on a wrinkled face. Gray and balding. Someone’s grandfather.
He raised the gun, not even realizing that he’d removed it from the pocket of his khakis. The old man’s smile disappeared, and fear contorted his kind features.
“I’m so sorry,” Josh said through the tears.
The man raised his hands. “Take all the money. I won’t give you any trouble.”
Josh cocked the revolver’s hammer.
The old man shook his head and backed away. “Think about what you’re doing, son.”
“I’m sorry. There’s no other way.”
The man shuddered but was relatively calm, considering the situation. “We always have a choice. I haven’t done anything to you. I don’t even know you. I’m just a normal guy who wants to see his family again.”
“So am I,” Josh said as he squeezed the trigger.
MARCUS RAN A hand through his dark hair and gave an exasperated sigh as he dropped the Kansas City PD’s case file back onto the oak-laminate table. The last killing involved a man named Josh Stefanson—a husband and father of two who had been drawn into the Coercion Killer’s sick game. The killer’s tactic was simple. He kidnapped the family of an average person and then forced them to murder another completely innocent individual. If the killer’s directions were followed, the kidnapped family was released unharmed. If not, they were returned in pieces.
So far the killer had remained true to his word and the rules of the game. But Marcus knew that there was a lot more to the case than the local police department or FBI realized. Only the Shepherd Organization had all the information. He just didn’t know what to do with it yet, and he had been explicitly ordered not to share anything with the local investigators or FBI.
“Anything happening out there?” Marcus asked his partner, Andrew Garrison, as he walked across the tiny second-floor apartment to the window.
Marcus looked down at the record store in the street opposite the apartment. A forty-two-inch computer monitor resting beside Andrew displayed camera signals being sent from miniature high-res extruded plastic cameras positioned inside the shop and along the street. But, trusting his eyes over technology, Andrew had also trained a tripod-mounted Vanguard VSP-61 spotting scope on the store’s front entrance.
“Nothing. I think he knows,” Andrew replied, leaning back in his chair and placing his hands behind his head.
“He’s still accessing the files.”
“Yeah, but he’s not taking the bait.”
Marcus had learned after a previous case that Ackerman had been accessing the Shepherd Organization’s servers through a back door on one of their office systems. But upon learning of the intrusion, the Director had decided that instead of closing up the hole they would use it against the killer. At least, that was the plan. So far, they had provided Ackerman with false information three times without him taking the bait. In this case, Marcus had inserted observations into the files that the owner of a specialty shop named Permanent Records might have seen the killer but was unwilling to help for some unknown reason.
Due to his connection with Marcus, Ackerman liked to insert himself into their investigations. On a case in Chicago he had tortured information out of an uncooperative witness and had ultimately murdered the man, using an execution method popularized during the Spanish Inquisition.
The witness had turned out to be a pedophile linked to the disappearances of several young boys, and the information that Ackerman had forced out of him had led to the resolution of the case. But, as Marcus seemed to be asking himself more and more every day, he wondered if the ends justified the means.
Andrew rubbed his eyes and asked, “How was your psych eval?”
“Painful and counter-productive. I should have been here.”
“Believe it or not, the world keeps on turning without you.”
“That’s a matter of opinion. When do you go in for your own eval?”
Andrew hesitated before saying, “I’m not sure.”
Marcus nodded, his suspicions confirmed. “Do you think I’m slipping?”
“I think you’re one of the best detectives I’ve ever worked with.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“You really want to have this conversation now?”
“You’re the one who’s always trying to get me to talk about things. So talk.”
They stared at each other a moment. Marcus had seen that look on Andrew’s face many times before. His partner was searching for the most diplomatic way to voice his concerns without hurting anyone’s feelings.
“Just say what’s on your—”
A knock on the door drew Marcus’s attention away from the discussion, his hand straying to the Sig Sauer P220 Equinox on his hip. They turned to the computer monitor in unison to see a group of seven men standing in the hall. Marcus recognized the muscular frame of the lead figure—his boss, a man known only to him as the Director. The Director had recently shaved his head since his hair was starting to thin, but Marcus suspected that the man, who had to be reaching his retirement years, could still take down most men half his age.
Andrew opened the door, and the group filed in. The Director greeted them warmly while five of the others checked the corners and scanned their surroundings with cautious, rapid glances. Their fluid and efficient movements spoke of field training in the military or intelligence communities and experience in covert operations.
Marcus’s eyes narrowed as the final member of the group stepped inside and closed the door behind them. He was different from the others. Expensive suit covering a small frame. Designer glasses. Manicured fingernails. A leather briefcase dangling from his left fist. Obviously some kind of bureaucrat. But Marcus wondered what could have drawn one of the elite away from the marble palaces in DC to a stake-out in one of Kansas City’s worst neighborhoods. And why would he bring a team of operators along with him? None of the reasons could be good.
The man in the suit smiled and stuck out his hand. His voice was soft and friendly. It possessed a nasal quality overlaid by a New England accent. The intensity in his eyes accompanied an air of confidence. “Special Agent Williams. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Marcus met the man’s gaze and, without returning the greeting, he asked the Director, “What the hell is all this?”
With a look of warning, the Director said, “Marcus, this is Deputy Assistant Attorney General Trevor Fagan. He’s our new boss. The Attorney General’s office has decided to take a more active role in our operations.”
“Really? Then what’s with the goon squad?”
“These men are a black-ops team of contractors on loan to us from the CIA.”
“Contractors? So they’re mercenaries. Like Blackwater?”
“Something like that. They’re here to assist in the capture of Francis Ackerman Jr.”
“You mean they’re here to kill him. We’ve talked about this. We need Ackerman alive. He has knowledge about—”
The Director raised a hand. “Let’s take this in the other room.”
The man who had recruited Marcus to be a Shepherd walked into the apartment’s small bedroom with Fagan at his heels. Marcus was the last to enter. He shut the door behind them. The room was empty except for some blankets and an air mattress stuffed into one corner.
Fagan opened the briefcase and handed a Manilla folder to Marcus. In his soft voice, Fagan said, “That’s your psych eval.”
Marcus didn’t open the folder. The pounding behind his eyeballs grew in intensity. “Why don’t you give me the short version?”
Fagan nodded. His demeanor reminded Marcus of an airline rep about to tell him that they had lost his luggage. “Sure. According to the evaluation, we should pull you from active duty. Here are the highlights that I remember.” Fagan started counting off points on his fingers as he paced the room. “Paranoid, impulsive, a problem with authority, chronic insomnia, migraines, possible addiction to painkillers for the headaches, patient doesn’t seem to care whether he lives or dies to the point of having a death wish, irritability, verging on a nervous breakdown. Did I miss anything important, Director?”
The Director sighed and wouldn’t make eye contact. “I think that about sums it up.”
An air-conditioning unit rattled annoyingly in the window. Marcus broke the unit down in his mind into each component and examined them—screws, metal, knobs, condenser fan, blower, plastic grille, filter, condenser coil, evaporator coil. He tried to imagine the problem that was causing the rattle. He repeated this with the window and the housing keeping the unit in place. Fagan’s leather shoes squeaked on the hardwood floor. The bureaucrat wore some kind of padded inserts and walked with too much pressure on his heels—he most likely suffered from heel spurs. He favored his right leg, sign of an old injury. The Director had missed a small spot when shaving his head just above the left ear, leaving a patch of dark stubble. The five operators in the other room were moving around. Marcus could hear their boots on the linoleum in the kitchen and on the hardwood near the windows. Probably verifying the integrity of the surveillance system. A lemon-colored moth flapped against the light overhead. The high-pitched beep of a car horn sounded outside the window. Probably a compact car. A door opened in the apartment upstairs and footsteps padded across the carpeted floor.
Marcus wasn’t ignoring the importance of the current situation or tuning out the Director and Fagan. He simply couldn’t filter out the rest of the information as well. It all melted together in his head like watching a thousand television screens at once. He soaked up every detail and filed them away in his mental database for future reference. He tried to focus completely on the conversation, but he couldn’t turn off the rest of the world no matter how hard he tried.
He cracked his neck to the side and pressed his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose. He said, “You need me on this case, and you know it. If you want to fire me or put me in a rubber room or whatever you had in mind, that’s fine. But not until after this one is finished.”
Fagan said, “I’m not here to take you off the case, Agent Williams, and I’m not here to fire you. I’m here to get you back on track. We’re on the same team.”
Then the Deputy Assistant AG patted Marcus on the shoulder and walked into the other room. The Director started past as well, but Marcus grabbed his arm and whispered, “What’s really going on here?”
The Director’s gaze traveled from Marcus to Fagan and back again, as if he was debating whether or not to disobey orders. Then he said softly, “The powers that be are thinking of shutting down the Shepherd Organization, and that man is the one who gets to decide our fate. So, for once, please try to play nice.”
“What does that look like?”
“When it comes to Fagan, whatever your instincts tell you to do, just do the opposite.”
THE APPRENTICE NO longer thought of itself as a person. It was a thing. A monster. An inanimate object on a mission, like a bullet pointed toward an intended target. No remorse. No guilt. No second-guessing. It had been told what to think and do, and it knew nothing else but to obey.
It wasn’t even sure if it was truly alive or if this was Hell. It couldn’t be sure that it had ever been alive. Although there were vague pictures that floated through its mind on occasion, memories of a life that it couldn’t remember living.
It would eat when its stomach ached. Not because it understood hunger, but because that was what it had been told to do. It defecated into a bucket when it felt the urge. But if the master’s instructions hadn’t been specific on that point, it would have just released the waste onto itself. It registered the smell of the feces swimming in the bucket to its right, but it didn’t feel anything about the smell one way or another. It felt nothing. It wasn’t alive.
It sat in front of the picture window, staring at the house across the street and taking meticulous notes about the family’s comings and goings. As it jotted down the time of the light being turned off in the living room, it had an odd thought. It could read and write and tell time and understand concepts like deception and fear and death. It could drive a car and fire a gun and respond when spoken to. But it didn’t remember learning of such things, as if it had simply been programmed upon its creation with a default set of knowledge.
The house around it was devoid of furniture or pictures. The space only held the chair in which it sat, the bucket to its right, and the binoculars and notebook on the window ledge. It raised the binoculars and watched as Julie Dunham shut off the light in the hallway and joined her husband, Brad Dunham, in the bedroom. That room was lit with a bluish tinge indicating that the television was still on. It knew that Julie would soon join her husband in slumber. Then it would start the timer as the master had instructed.
It sat in place for the next two hours, unmoving, unthinking, just a swirling of the fuzzy and strange images and sensations. Then the timer beeped, and it stood up from the chair, covered its face with a black balaclava, and made its way over to the Dunham home. It kept to the shadows to remain unseen, as the master had instructed.
The security system in the home would be armed, but the master had prepared for that fact. The apprentice removed a small rectangular device from its pocket and pressed the gray button at the center. With a mechanical whir and a protest of hinges, the garage door slid up.
The apprentice then moved inside and slid beneath Julie’s car before closing the garage door with another press of the button. Now it would wait for Brad to leave for work, and once he was gone it would take the family, just as the master had instructed. It didn’t want to hurt the people inside the house, and it had a hazy sense that what it was doing was wrong. But it also knew that to disobey would bring great pain, and that was the one thing that it could still feel.
MARCUS HAD BEEN resting on the air mattress and trying in vain to fall asleep for two hours when Andrew called to him from the adjacent room. The Director had taken the night shift and then Andrew had relieved him at eight in the morning. Marcus wasn’t supposed to take over until one o’clock that afternoon. Something must have been happening. He leaped to his feet and hurried to Andrew’s side. The CIA operators also came to life, preparing their equipment and readying themselves to move out. The room smelled of burned coffee and brimmed with anxious tension.
“I think we have something,” Andrew said. He tapped a key on the computer and brought up a full-screen view of a dirty-looking man with long red hair hanging over half his face and a scraggly red beard. The man moved toward the front of the record store in a stumbling zigzag.
“Is that him, Marcus?” the Director asked.
“The build’s right. I can’t be sure, but it looks just like the disguise he used when he killed Crowley in Chicago. See the way his hair is masking half of his face? Ackerman likes to use that trick to throw off facial-recognition software. Most of the programs rely on symmetry. Covering half the face keeps them from getting a read.”
“We can’t afford to wait until we’re a hundred percent,” Fagan said in his nasally New England accent. Then he nodded to the leader of the CIA squad, a tall blond with a lined face and deep-set pale blue eyes. “Go get him. We want him alive—but don’t take any chances.”
None of the operators said a word as they headed for the door. Each man was dressed in plain clothes, but all were armed with tasers and handguns concealed beneath thin jackets and hooded sweatshirts. The government had most likely trained them extensively to blend into a crowd, but there was no crowd out there to blend with. Marcus was relatively sure that Ackerman would spot them from a mile away.
He started after them, but Fagan wrapped a hand around his bicep and said, “I want you to stay here. These guys are the best. They can handle Ackerman.”
He ripped his arm free of the politician’s grasp. “I’m not taking any chances.”
“Marcus, you’re too close to this. Stand down,” the Director said.
Gritting his teeth, Marcus moved back to the monitors. He’d been reduced to an audience member at his own fight, and there wasn’t much he could say about it. At least, not until things went south.
* * *
Out of the corner of his eye, Ackerman saw the group of agents leave the apartment building. They tried to act like a group of friends on their way to a bar or a baseball game, but he could tell what they were. They couldn’t conceal their animal natures and predatory grace. Not from a man who had also been trained to kill.
Someone had upped the stakes of the game. These men moved with a calm efficiency and practiced ease that spoke of military training and skill. Could be members of the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team or, even better, a team of operators from Delta Force or the CIA.
Ackerman felt flattered.