The Names of the Dead Read online

  “I still don’t get it.” And then he understood too well. “My God. Shadid. Omar Shadid wanted you here. The Balkans—the perfect gateway for trafficking people and drugs into Europe. Is that how much you’re in his pocket?”

  “I never worked with Shadid. It was never about that. It was about you becoming a danger, to your team, to your country.”

  “What’s Plan C?”

  “Plan C is a choice. You die or she does.”

  Wes nodded. He reached into his pack for the duct tape, got up, and walked behind Sam again. He could see Sam trying not to look at his own gun sitting on the other couch, could see him trying to build up the nerve to leap for it. In the end, he didn’t. Wes tore off a long strip of tape and put it across Sam’s mouth, smoothing it fast against the beard and pulling it tight around the back of his head.

  He went back to his pack for the knife he’d removed from the kitchen upstairs, before returning once more to stand behind Sam. He slipped his gun into his belt, grabbed hold of Sam’s hair and used the point of the knife to score a neat line up the back of his neck, midway between the carotid and the top of his spine.

  But the knife wasn’t quite as sharp as Wes had imagined. The point dragged a little as it tore the skin and drew blood. Sam produced a muffled cry and strained against the smarting touch of metal.

  “You’ve probably heard of the death of a thousand cuts. I read about it in prison just the other week. I had a lot of time to read in prison. The Chinese actually called it the lingering death.” He repeated the same cut on the other side of the neck, talking over the cry this time. “Believe it or not, it wasn’t removed from their penal code until 1905. Expert executioners could take up to three days to kill the victim, slowly slicing apart their bodies, making sure to miss all the key arteries and organs. Of course, I don’t have three days.”

  He put Sam in a headlock and stabbed the knife down into his shoulder. Sam buckled, fighting against it but at a disadvantage. Using Sam’s own movements, Wes grabbed his arm, pulling it up so he could make a shallow piercing stab into the side of his abdomen. Sam creased over, not so much with pain this time, but with a desperate realization that this wound was worse.

  By the time Wes moved back and sat on the couch again, there was already a dark patch blooming across Sam’s shirt on the side of his stomach and a look in his eyes that was pleading, in spite of everything, in spite of all the things he’d done to Wes, all the things he believed about him.

  They sat like that for a few more minutes, a stillness in the air around them. Sam was trying to stay calm, probably thinking it was his best chance of staying alive long enough for his remaining men to rescue him, and maybe there was some logic in that—despite the blood and the four wounds, he probably wouldn’t bleed to death if they got treatment for him within the next half hour.

  Wes heard a vehicle pull up somewhere, though it was impossible to tell whether it was at the front of the building or out back. He had his gun in his hand, his eyes trained on the door which was just in view beyond Sam’s head. Another minute crept by and then he heard the clumsy footsteps of two people leading another up the stairs against her will.

  They stopped at the top, then he heard them code in and the outer door opening. A prolonged pause followed. The office door pushed open a fraction and Kyle Dexter shouted through it.

  “Wes, we’re coming in! We’ve got the freak—you try anything and we kill her first, you get it?”

  He felt his stomach tighten with anger at Dexter calling her a freak.

  “Wes?”

  “I get it.”

  “Okay. There’s no reason we can’t all walk out of this tonight, all go our separate ways, put it all behind us. Agreed?”

  Wes slid Sam’s gun along the couch and wedged it deep between the two cushions.

  “Agreed.”

  “Okay, we’re coming in.”

  Wes smiled at the increasingly enfeebled Sam Garvey. This was Plan C, and Dexter wasn’t fooling anyone.

  Thirty-Nine

  They pushed Mia through the door first. She tried to smile when she saw Wes sitting there on the other side of the room, but she was also fighting the distress of being manhandled. Dexter’s hand was clamped around her arm just above the elbow, the other hand propelling her forward with the gun barrel pressed into her back.

  In the same way that Billy Tavares had stood out on the streets of Zagreb, so Dexter had always stood out in the Middle East, with that Mormon missionary look that gave away his nationality. Wes had been with him in a small town in eastern Turkey once and the local kids had even pointed at him and shouted, “Jason Bourne! Jason Bourne!” He’d taken it as a compliment, not as proof that he was the least undercover person working for the Agency.

  Now though, Dexter had grown a beard, just like his boss. But whereas Sam looked like a desperate guy approaching middle age and trying to keep up with the fashion, Dexter just looked like a confused geography teacher.

  He stopped in the open doorway and said, “Put the gun on the table in front of you.” Dexter’s voice was shaky with nerves, probably because he’d found himself where he’d never expected to be—in charge.

  “Why would I do that? You’ll just kill me.”

  “I’ll kill her if you don’t.” Wes still didn’t move, and Dexter looked at the back of Sam’s head. “Sam?”

  “He’s got duct tape over his mouth. He’s hurt but he’s still alive.”

  “What do you mean, ‘hurt’?” His eyes flicked in Sam’s direction, and the outraged expression suggested he’d seen the blood on his neck. “What did you do to him?”

  “He’s fine. Surface wounds.”

  Wes looked at Mia again. He didn’t know if she was trying to communicate anything to him or if her mind was completely focused on the hand clamped onto her arm, but he thought of what she’d said about Grace Burns being scared of him, and he could see now that Dexter was full of fear. He was so full of fear he couldn’t even see that he and Brandon Myers had the upper hand here—Dexter still desperately wanted someone to give him a way through the situation.

  “Tell you what, Kyle, you give me your assurance, as a former colleague, that you won’t shoot me, and I’ll put the gun down, just so that we can talk through this and find a way out for everyone.”

  Dexter’s eyes darted about, landing on Sam a few times, as if desperate for his current boss to explain what his former boss was doing.

  “Okay, I’ll give you my word. But you try anything, Wes, anything at all, and I’ll kill her first, then I’ll kill you.”

  “Deal.”

  Wes leaned forward and put the gun on the glass table. Sam had been staring blankly, a passive witness to Dexter’s arrival, but now his eyes darted across to the couch as if looking for his own gun. It had apparently disappeared, but Sam knew it was still there somewhere and that Wes would use it.

  Sam groaned something urgent through the duct tape but Dexter misunderstood and said, “Don’t worry, boss, we’ll get you out of there.” Sam slumped with frustration in response.

  Dexter pushed Mia right into the room now and she glanced down at the back of Sam’s head, or at the bloodied neck, curious rather than horrified. For the first time, too, Brandon Myers came into view, stepping into the office and letting the door swing shut behind him.

  He was late twenties, dark hair, average build, forgettable features—the right look to have had a decent career in this line of work. His gun was hanging casually at his side. His eyes were scanning the room. If he’d looked at Sam he’d have seen that Sam was still fixed on the couch and the spot where his gun had been until a moment before.

  “Brandon, get the gun off the table there. Keep watching him. And Wes, remember what I said.”

  Wes nodded, and watched as Myers walked around the couch, leaned over to pick up the gun, then retreated, never taking his eyes off Wes, like someone in the presence of royalty. He put the gun on the reception desk and turned back to Dexter.


  “Okay, get the duct tape off of Sam’s face.” Dexter craned his neck, looking over Sam’s shoulder, then looked at Wes. “Where’s the key for the cuffs?”

  Wes pointed to the backpack. “Want me to get it?”

  “Nice try. Toss the pack onto this couch.” Wes threw the pack so it landed next to Sam. “Okay, duct tape first.”

  Myers holstered his gun and started working at the tape on the back of Sam’s head, but as he pulled, Sam winced, then cried out through the gag.

  “Sorry, boss.” He worked more closely, slowly easing the tape free from Sam’s hair, inching forward toward his beard.

  Dexter watched him for a few seconds, then looked at Sam and smiled. He felt he had the upper hand now, just as he was about to lose it, mistaking Wes’s patience for surrender—the moment the tape came off Sam’s mouth, that would be the time, because Sam would start shouting and they’d be distracted.

  But it was taking a long time, and Sam’s eyes were watering with the pain of his hair being pulled up by the root with the tape. Wes couldn’t help but note that they made pretty good duct tape here in Croatia.

  Dexter’s confidence seemed to be growing and he sneered a little at Wes and said, “So, how did you two meet? She one of these crazies who likes to visit prisoners?”

  “You’ve no idea who she is, have you—whose daughter she is? Anything happens to her, your life’s over.”

  Sam let out a little cry as Myers started to pull the tape off his cheeks.

  “Sorry, boss.”

  Dexter looked at the ongoing operation to remove the duct tape, then back to Wes. “No, I don’t know who she is and I don’t care. What I do know is you didn’t wait long after your wife died before picking up with someone else. I mean, I don’t go for this graveyard chic myself, but whatever turns you on, I guess.”

  He let go of Mia’s arm and raised his hand, and in slow motion Wes saw what he was about to do, and saw simultaneously that his own moment might come sooner than he’d expected. Dexter had been holding her over the sleeve of her sweatshirt, but now he reached up to stroke his fingers down her cheek, probably intending to be menacing, but with no concept of how dramatically she’d react when his skin touched hers.

  Wes slid his hand along the couch, his fingers reaching down into the gap between the cushions, closing around the cold certainty of the gun.

  At the same time, Dexter’s hand reached Mia’s face. Contact. Mia screamed. Wes had expected her to scream, but this was a yell of attack, of fury rather than fear. She lashed out, elbowing Dexter hard in the neck, spinning around and away from him, launching a kick.

  Dexter hit back at her instinctively, knocking her off balance, and at the same time he leveled his gun at Wes. Myers let go of the duct tape, leaving it hanging from the side of Sam’s face, and reached for his own gun.

  They were both too late. Wes pulled Sam’s gun free and fired twice as he raised his arm, the explosion of the shots tearing the room apart. One bullet hit Brandon Myers in the side, sending him pirouetting to the floor behind the couch, while the other hit Dexter square in the chest. Dexter fired too, a couple of shots in quick succession as he fell.

  His ears still ringing from the shots, Wes jumped up and onto the couch next to Sam. He got ready to fire again. Myers was lying on his back, his gun in his right hand but pressed up against the couch, and all the fight was out of him. He tried to lift his arm but dropped the gun.

  Wes glanced over at Dexter. He’d fallen against the reception desk and was dead. Mia was huddled against the wall at the side of the room, looking unhurt. It was only now that Wes looked down at Sam, whose head was slumped forward, a bullet hole in the side of his neck, blood pumping gently from the wound.

  “I’m dying.” It was Myers, and Wes saw that there was blood oozing out of his side just above the waist.

  Wes jumped over the back of the couch, kicked the gun free, loosened Myers’s shirt and pulled it up to look at the mess of a wound. The bullet had torn a shallow path through his oblique and exited again—despite all the blood, it didn’t look like it had hit anything vital.

  Wes glanced back at Dexter, still no signs of being anything but dead. Wes had never known him be much of a shot, but he’d fired off two rounds and still managed to hit his own boss in the neck.

  “You’re not dying. Come on, get to your feet.”

  Wes gave him a hand and helped him around and onto the other couch. He collapsed there, looking weakened by that brief exertion. Wes checked Sam for a pulse, then Dexter. And finally, he crouched down a few feet away from Mia.

  “You okay?”

  She stared back at him and nodded, apparently in shock. But then she glanced at Dexter’s body and pointed.

  “He was a bad man.”

  “Yeah, he was.”

  “I don’t like to be touched.”

  “That’s why I shot him.”

  She stared at him, laughed once, then again as she got the joke, or at least saw some humor in it.

  “Can you get up?” She nodded and he said, “I just need to deal with something over here.”

  “Because you’re a soldier.”

  “Kind of.”

  He moved back over to Brandon Myers.

  Myers watched him approach, then closed his eyes.

  “Just do it. I can’t tell you anything, so just . . .” He choked on his words.

  “What are you talking about? I have no argument with you.” Myers opened his eyes, still with the look of someone who thought he was being tricked. “What have they told you about me?”

  “They told me you don’t take prisoners. Kyle told me . . .” He stopped, looked in the direction of Dexter’s body, even though he wouldn’t have been able to see it from there. “He told me that you’re . . . well, just that you’re a dangerous person to be around.”

  “Pretty rich coming from someone who just shot his own boss in the neck. And I’m flattered by the reputation-building, but I’m not the psycho they’ve painted me as. I’m just a regular guy who did a tough job in a complex theater.” He pointed the gun at Myers. “Now, carefully, take out your phone and call Aaron Schalk.”

  Myers hesitated, then reached into his pocket for his phone and put the call through. Wes didn’t know Schalk at all but he could tell from the brusque tone audible from the phone that he didn’t go in for niceties.

  As hurt as he was, Myers sounded nervous as he said to him, “Sir, I’m handing the phone over to James Wesley.”

  Wes took the phone and could hear Schalk talking, presumably thinking Myers was still on the line, though he’d fallen silent by the time Wes put the phone to his ear.

  “Aaron Schalk?”

  “Speaking. Care to explain, Mr. Wesley?”

  “Short version is that Sam Garvey was a crook, working for an Iraqi warlord. He set me up, he killed my wife, and he did all of this to protect himself. Billy Tavares should be able to give you a fuller version.” Wes noticed Myers react with shock—he’d obviously thought that Wes had killed Billy earlier in the day. “Garvey sent Zach Pine and two colleagues to kill me on my release from prison. I killed them. I killed Scottie Peters because he organized the suicide bombing that killed my wife—”

  “What?”

  “Really? If you didn’t know about that, you might want to think about auditing all of your gray teams, because Madrid knew about it. So yeah, I killed him. I didn’t kill Grace Burns or her friend. I didn’t kill Billy Tavares. I didn’t kill Brandon here, though he took a bullet in the side and you do need to get an ambulance out here pretty quick. I didn’t kill Sam, though I did torture him a little and I would’ve killed him if Kyle Dexter hadn’t beaten me to it with a spectacular piece of friendly fire. I killed Kyle. He deserved it. Oh, your team here also kidnapped and threatened to kill the daughter of the late General Nikola Pavić, and if that ever got out, the US would lose a lot of goodwill in this part of the world.”

  There was a pause after Wes finished, probably as Schalk trie
d to assimilate everything he’d just heard.

  “What do you want?”

  He sounded confused rather than hostile.

  “I don’t want anything. I want you to leave me alone. Like I said, Tavares and Myers will tell you what happened here, or most of it. I just spent three years in prison and I lost my ex-wife—I think I deserve a hell of a lot more, but all I’m asking of my country right now is that it leaves me alone.”

  There was another pause at the other end, stretching for a few seconds before the reply finally came.

  “Okay.”

  “Good. If you’re lying and you send anyone, you better send someone good, because if they try and fail I’ll come after you and everyone else.”

  “I can’t make open-ended promises, Wesley, but if your story stacks up, you won’t have anything to fear from us.”

  “Okay, I’ll take that.”

  “Wesley, before you go, I just want you to know, we had nothing to do with your son’s disappearance, I’m certain of it. We’ve tried to trace him, but . . .”

  “I guess Rachel didn’t want us to find him. Maybe we should just respect that.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I’ll put you back on with Myers. He’s lost a bit of blood.”

  He handed the phone back to a still shell-shocked Myers, then picked up his backpack and turned around to find Mia standing waiting for him. He smiled, and they walked out of the office as Myers started to answer Schalk’s questions.

  Once they were on the street, Mia pointed and said, “It’s this way.” They started walking and then the sky above them danced with lightning. “There’s going to be a thunderstorm! I loved them when I was little.”

  He wasn’t sure why that didn’t surprise him, but again, she’d moved on so quickly that he couldn’t resist saying, “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, I told you. That man was bad. He touched my face. But you killed him, so it’s okay now.”

  “Yeah, I killed him.”

  “Like a soldier.”

  “Like a soldier.”

  She seemed remarkably untroubled by the experience, and as if to sum that up, she said, “Will you go to Milan now?” Her tone was as breezy and casual as if she’d asked him if he wanted to get some dinner.