Flay: Warriors Series, #5

Chapter One

The assassin moved only in the night when it was cool, dry, and most importantly, when roving eyes would be less watchful.

He carried fifty pounds of gear in his pack; water, rations, compass, Benchmade blade, camo tent, blood packs, an M-79 grenade launcher, a handgun, magazines. His rifle was the M82A1 Barrett.

The fifty pounds didn’t feel like much. He’d carried more for far longer.

He covered thirty miles a night, and when dawn broke, he set up his camo tent, which was less a tent and more a blanket.

It was an uncommon piece of gear few snipers had heard of. He himself hadn’t known about it till he recovered it from an American sniper. That sniper didn’t need it anymore.

The tent spread on the desert, blended with the surrounding and elevated to less than two feet from the ground. From above, it looked like undulating desert. From up close, it looked desert.

From really up close, it didn’t matter. By then either the curious or the assassin would be dead.

Each night he cleaned his weapons, made sure that sand and dust didn’t clog them and wrapped them in protective cover before staying put for the day.

The kill spot was a hundred and twenty miles away, which meant he would have to walk four nights.

Not a problem for him.

On the second day he heard vehicles in the distance, presently an image came into view over the horizon and headed straight at him. The vehicle was blurry in the heat and gradually resolved into an old army discard. But it moved and bristled with men, and that was more a cause for concern.

He cast his eyes away and looked to the left of the approaching vehicle. No point letting them feel the weight of his gaze.

The vehicle ate distance and when it was just over a mile away, he moved slowly and cast his eye against the scope.

Figures jumped in the reticule.

Bearded men, wrapped in black or white dishdashahs, AK-47s cradled in their arms, patterned kuffiyehs covering their heads and faces.

Three in the front, four in the rear.

One mile, the range finder told him.

Take the driver out, then the rest in the front. Those in the back will scramble out. Drop them one by one.

A lot would depend on their reaction time, but he had taken such shots before. But if the vehicle kept on coming then the odds shifted in the vehicle’s favor. Then, depending on when he acted, he’d probably be able to get off three or four shots before seeking fire found his position.

The vehicle veered when it was nine hundred yards away. Through his scope he could see the men arguing as they gesticulated furiously at the driver. It grew smaller and then disappeared and sand covered its tracks.

The assassin went back to his somnolent state.

Heartbeat was low and steady.

Good.

It wasn’t as if he was a stranger to such situations.

The assassin reached the kill spot early on the fourth day after making better time the previous night. He scouted for the best shooting position and when he’d found it, he set up his camo tent and hunkered down.

He wouldn’t be moving from the spot for twenty-four hours.

Dawn came, the sun rose, the desert became orange, then gold, and then a harsh burning brown. Something flashed in a distant wadi it resolved into plastic trash.

The heat made everything wavy and blurred, but the assassin was comfortable under his hide. The tent was layered to keep out the heat in the day and keep in the warmth in the night. Occasional sips of water from his canteen kept him hydrated.

A flash of light alerted him first of movement. It came from the same wadi.

The gun settled in the assassin’s hand like an old friend. He waited for the flash to resolve itself.

It turned into a Jeep moving slowly, cautiously. It had to.

It carried a high-profile person.

Two miles away and the assassin could see two men in the front and a third in the back. He waited for the scope to pick their faces and when it did, no flare of excitement passed through him, his heart beat steadily.

The hawk-like eyes in the rear matched those he was seeking. The neatly trimmed beard covered a strong chin. Everything about the man radiated authority. Even the two in the front leant backward as if drawn by the magnetic pull of the person behind them.

Inhale. Exhale. Wait for the Jeep to approach the spot he’d marked in his mind.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Bottom of the respiratory cycle where time and life paused.

His finger curled over the trigger.

The Jeep started a slight turn away from him to navigate over a rocky outcrop.

The rear door framed the hawk face.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Pause.

Pull.

The bullet flew at eight hundred and fifty meters a second and, just as the Jeep completed its turn, the target’s head disintegrated.

The assassin fired again.

Driver dead.

Another pull.

Passenger dead.

All three were clean kills, with no chance of survival.

The assassin put down his Barrett and drew out the M-79 grenade launcher.

In less than a minute, the Jeep was burning metal and fifteen minutes later, the assassin was moving fast, away from the kill zone.

With four trigger pulls in less than ten seconds, the assassin known as the Butcher of the Middle East had sent shock waves through the Middle Eastern terrorist network.

October 1st-7th

Two months later, autumn in New York.

Twelve-year-old Liz McCallum clutched her sister Zoe’s hand tightly and scanned the addresses on Columbus Avenue as she hurried them along.

She had to get back to Gramma in exactly ninety minutes and, if her eight-year-old sister didn’t keep stopping to stare at the enormous mirrored glass building, she wouldn’t be able to get back in time.

Stealing time had been an easily solved problem.

Once her classes were finished, Liz walked a few blocks from her middle school in upper Manhattan, to Zoe’s elementary school, picked up her sister and the two walked back home to Gramma, on East 112th Street. She did this every school day.

For today, she’d fabricated a field hockey match after school and had told Gramma that she arranged for Zoe to stay back in the after school recreation program, thus creating the window of opportunity.

She had hit upon the idea when she’d watched TV one night and had seen the name of the person she wanted to meet.

Gramma allowed just one hour on the computer every day and Liz used that to research the man. She’d asked Ally, her BFF, to ask her dad if he knew the man. Ally’s dad was a cop in the NYPD and the way Ally went on, he knew absolutely everyone in the world.

Ally reported solemnly the next day that her dad was very close to the man.

As if, Liz snorted inwardly but she didn’t say anything. Ally, her bestie, was prone to exaggeration. That was a new word Liz had learned in school, exaggeration.

She tugged on Zoe’s hand impatiently. ‘Come on, Peaches. If we’re late, Gramma will be furious.’ Peaches was her name for Zoe. It was just hers; no one else was allowed to call her sister that. Peaches, because Zoe looked like one, with her rosy dimpled cheeks, smiling eyes, and blonde hair that always fell over her face.

She marched inside the building and approached the security desk. She stated who she wanted to meet. The two men behind the desk looked at her, and then at Peaches.

‘Are you sure you have the right address, ma’am?’

‘Yeah.’ She corrected herself. ‘Yes.’ She had read somewhere that using formal words made people take the speaker seriously.

One of the men picked up the phone and had a brief conversation. He looked at them and Liz thought he was describing them to the voice on the other end.

‘Sure, ma’am.’ He hung up the phone and gestured at Liz to follow him.

He led them to a bank of elevators, punched a button and smiled broadly when Peaches dimpled at him. Liz was proud of her idea of bringing Peaches along. Her little sister could melt the most hardened hearts.

The elevator whooshed open and she gripped Zoe’s hand tightly and ushered her inside. The man punched the floor, winked at them and left.

Liz stepped out on their floor, walked inside the glass doors opposite and stopped and stared.

She’d been to a few offices, to her dad’s office, and had seen offices on TV, but this one was unlike any other she had seen.

It was light, airy and cheerful.

Multi-colored couches were strewn randomly, baseball bats and gloves lined the walls, a basketball hoop was at one end. In one corner she could see a small green strip, a miniature putting strip. The office felt happy.

She walked in deeper and her heart leapt when she spotted the man she wanted to see.

He was lying down on a couch, his eyes closed.

Sleeping? In the middle of the day?

She went closer and cleared her throat.

Brown eyes opened and stared at her in astonishment.

The man swung his legs and sat up so smoothly that Liz was reminded of the cheetah she’d seen hunting on TV. One moment the animal was crouching, the next it was in motion, a streak of gold and black spots.

He was dressed in a white shirt, his sleeves rolled up, with dark jeans and a leather belt over a narrow waist. He had short brown hair and intelligent eyes.

No gun.

Liz was disappointed. She was expecting guns, lots of them. She was expecting an office which bustled. One in which phones rang, people shouted, and computers hummed.

She stifled her disappointment.

‘I want to discuss something with you.’

The man raised an eyebrow.

‘I’m just the hired help, ma’am. You need to talk to them.’

He chinned behind Liz’s shoulder and she swung round to see two women she’d missed in her first glance.

Both were brown haired, tanned, and had strong faces and green eyes.

Peaches tugged on her hand and said excitedly. ‘They’re – ’

‘Yes, honey, I know, they’re twins.’

She turned back to the man.

‘Who’s in charge?’

He shrugged.

‘Both of them.’

Liz turned swiftly and saw one of the women swiftly fold back her middle finger.

I saw that.

She went to the twins who sat next to each other.

Before she could say anything, Peaches dumped the contents of her hand on the table.

Tightly squished bills fell out.

The eyes of the nearest woman widened.

Peaches said clearly. ‘We want to hire you.’

Liz tugged on her hand furiously to shush her, but Peaches was not to be silenced.

‘We want you to look at our mom.’

Liz groaned inwardly at her sister’s grammar.

‘What happened to her, honey?’ The woman’s voice was warm, rich and felt comforting.

‘She’s dead.’

Chapter Two

October 1st-7th

In the silence that followed, Liz felt the man move behind them, but he made no attempt to come forward.

Peaches pushed the notes closer to the twins. ‘You have to find who killed my mommy,’ she said firmly in a voice that brooked no argument.

The women covered a look of amazement and the one closest to them introduced herself. ‘Meghan Petersen, and that’s Beth.’

She put her hand out and shook Liz’s firmly and shook Zoe’s too.

She’s treating us like adults.

The tightness inside Liz relaxed a little.

Meghan smiled at her. ‘Now honey, why don’t we start at the beginning?’

Her eyes moved to the man behind. ‘Chairs,’ she ordered.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Liz pulled the chair forward and sat on it, after seating Peaches.

Beth went through a door and returned with a plate of Oreos. Peaches looked at them, then at Liz and when her sister nodded, reached out and one disappeared in her mouth.

‘Now, we’re set.’

Liz glanced behind at the man who was leaning casually against a desk.

‘We came to meet Zeb Carter.’

She knew Zeb Carter ran some kind of business that helped the NYPD find badasses. She’d seen him on TV a few times when he had helped arrest the Baseball Bat Killer.

Recognition flooded her as she recalled the women she’d seen with him on TV. They were the ones in front of her.

One of them spoke and brought her back to the present. ‘Zeb’s shy, honey. Women scare him.’ She stared daggers at the man till he came round and sat next to the twins.

Liz took a deep breath and began.

Four years back, one chilly November day on Wall Street, Mary McCallum was clock watching. It wasn’t something that she indulged in normally, but it was a special day for the forty-five-year-old Director of Equity Operations at one of the largest banks in the world.

It was her twentieth wedding anniversary to Brad McCallum and she had planned a special dinner for him. She’d first met Brad when they were at Cornell University, but the casual college friendship turned to love only after they bumped into each other one day on Wall Street.

Brad, who worked in another bank, and she had married within a year of that meeting and their first daughter, Liz, was born three years later, then came Zoe.

We’re lucky, she thought as her cab sped up Broadway to their home near Central Park. Both of them grew up in upstate New York and came from very humble backgrounds. Their Upper East Side apartment was the result of hard work, long hours, sacrifice and luck.

She twisted the ring on her finger. Maybe next year, she mused, I’ll reduce my days at the bank or even quit. Brad and she had discussed it at length and while Mary wanted to spend more time at home, Brad wasn’t convinced.

‘You’ll be giving up on everything you’ve worked your ass off for,’ was his argument.

‘I didn’t work my ass off to miss out on our girls growing up,’ was her retort. ‘These years aren’t going to come back.’

She knew she’d win over Brad eventually. She always did.

She put the cake in the oven as soon as she reached home and glanced at the Mickey Mouse clock that Liz had given her, 7 p.m.

The girls would be home in forty-five minutes and Brad, by 9 p.m.

Enough time to get everything ready.

Twenty minutes later she’d finished laying the table when she remembered.

Wine. Did I forget it?

She had.

She thrust down a panic attack.

Still enough time to rush down to the convenience store around the corner and grab a bottle. It wouldn’t be the one she’d wanted, but it would have to do. Brad would understand.

She grabbed her jacket and keys and rushed outside in the cold. Her breath frosted around her and when she reached the store, it was closed.

She swore softly, glanced at her watch again.

There’s one more a block away. I can still be back in time.

She took off, walking as quickly as possible on the frosted sidewalk, never looking back.

One patch of sidewalk was badly lit, and just as she passed from light to dark, a hand grabbed her from behind and muffled her mouth.

What?

Her eyes turned wide and she kicked, back but the hold was strong and she flailed wildly and in vain.

Dear God.

Her last thoughts were of her daughters before darkness claimed her.

‘Mom’s body was found a week later.’ Liz said. ‘The cops investigated for days, weeks, months, but they didn’t find anything.’

She looked at Zoe. ‘Peaches, why don’t you check out that hoop? Mrs. Hawkins said you’re good at shooting.’

Peaches stuck her lip out and stayed put.

‘Peaches!’ Liz used that voice and her sister sullenly slid out of her seat and walked angrily to the hoop.

Liz turned her gaze back to the sisters and the man and said apologetically, ‘Zoe doesn’t know the full story. Mom’s body was found in a parking lot. It was cut and several parts were missing.’

She swallowed, her face pale, but she soldiered on. ‘One month later, a daily newspaper got something of my mom’s.’

Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the table and leaned forward.

‘They got a package, a box. It was full of ice.’

She swallowed, darted a glance at Zoe who was playing alone with the ball.

‘It had my mom’s finger.’

Meghan watched her lips tremble as she squared her shoulders. ‘Mom’s killer was never found.’

Zoe bounced the ball a couple of times and looked their way when she heard the silence.

She looked away at a fierce glance from her sister.

‘We waited and hoped for months that there would be a breakthrough. It became harder as time passed. Dad had a bad heart and it became worse after four months. But he still called the NYPD every week. They stopped taking his calls after a point. They didn’t have anything new to tell us.’

Her eyes were bright with tears. ‘Then he died. Eight months after mom disappeared. Gramma took us in and we’ve been with her ever since.’

‘Gramma?’ Zeb asked.

Beth turned upward to look at him. ‘Grandmother.’ Idiot hung loud and unspoken in the room.

‘How old are you, Liz?’ Meghan asked her, after a warning glance at Beth and Zeb.

‘I’m twelve. Peaches, I mean Zoe, is eight. We live a few blocks away with Gramma.’

She’s more mature than many eighteen-year-olds. Heck, Beth and I didn’t know shit when we were twelve.

Liz mentioned a school’s name. ‘Peaches goes to an elementary not far from mine.’

She wiped her eyes and all tremulousness left her voice as it became brisk. ‘What else do you need from me?’

Whoa!

Meghan looked at Zeb and when no help came from that direction, she said carefully. ‘Liz, you are a smart girl to find us here. But we’re not –’

‘You took our money. You have to find who killed Mom!’ Zoe shouted as she ran across from the room.

Liz grabbed her hand, pulled her close and a desperate note crept in her voice. ‘Please. You have to help us. We need to know. Do you need more money?’

Something went unsaid between the twins and Beth leaned forward and took Liz’s hand.

‘We’ll help you, honey.’

Zoe smiled and sunlight filled the room.

Liz glanced at a tiny watch on her wrist and stood up suddenly in alarm. ‘We’re late. Gramma will be worried. I’ll find a way to come again tomorrow.’

She whirled around, pulled her younger sister and fled from the office before the Petersens could say anything more.

Beth felt Zeb nod at her side and whispered urgently at Meghan. ‘Come on. Move your ass.

We’ve got to follow them, find out where they live and make sure they get home okay. ’

Once alone in the office, Zeb clasped his hands behind his head and sprawled back.

He was ex-Special Forces and worked for a U.S. government agency that didn’t exist, on missions that never came to light.

The agency took on extremely high risk, high threat, and deniable missions that no other Special Ops or deep black agency in the country’s national security set up could or would successfully undertake.

That it had never failed a single mission was primarily down to its lead operative, Zeb Carter, and the way the agency was structured.

Zeb reported to only one person, Clare, his boss, who in turn was accountable to just one person, the President of the United States of America.

Clare had started at the Agency as an analyst, had worked her way up and had been appointed as the first female Director of the Agency. The President had given her a free hand to shape it in any manner she wanted and in return, he expected total deniability. Even more than deniability, he wanted results.

To achieve that, Clare wanted not only the best operatives in the country but also the smallest possible administrative footprint.

She’d been discussing this one night in downtown Washington D.C. with her closest friend, Cassandra. Cassandra and she had studied together at Bryn Mawr and had ended up working in the political jungle that was D.C. Cassandra had pursued a career in the State Department while Clare had gravitated to the Agency.

During the evening, Clare saw a man waiting outside their bar, a man who seemed to become part of the street, around whom pedestrian traffic bent itself and flowed. Cassandra saw Clare’s glance, and laughed. ‘That’s my superhero brother, Zeb, waiting for me.’

She explained when she saw Clare’s raised eyebrows. ‘Zeb was Special Forces. He’s now a private military contractor, does security consulting, and he wouldn’t like me mentioning anything more.’ She laughed again, when she realized how ridiculous that sounded. Clare had the highest security clearance in the country.

An intrigued Clare pulled Zeb’s file and whistled at the clearances required to read it. She understood the reason when she read the contents.

She asked around discreetly and heard that he worked by his own rules. He had a tight moral code that meant he did not wage war on women or children and did not accept any assignments that went against the country’s interests.

She asked him to join the agency the next day.

Zeb refused and counter proposed that he form a team of elite operatives, private military contractors that the agency could call on. This gave the agency the near-zero footprint and deniability that Clare wanted. She mulled over it only for a few moments, before green lighting it, trusting in Zeb’s judgment to pick operatives who had a similar code to his.

The agency was born.

The other members in Zeb’s team, in addition to the twins, were Bwana, Broker, Roger, Chloe, and Bear.

All of them were New York based. All of them former Special Forces, except Broker, who had been a Ranger, and Chloe, who had served in the 82nd Airborne.

Broker was their intelligence analyst and their logistics man. He ran a successful private intelligence business that catered to multinational corporations.

Most of them were in their mid-thirties, except Broker, who was the oldest and the sisters who were in their late twenties. Broker was in his early forties, but with his shaggy blond hair grown to shoulder length, his fitness level and his immaculate style, he often passed for a decade younger.

Beth and Meghan Petersen were the newest additions to his team.

Zeb had come across the twins when he was vacationing in Yellowstone National Park where he had rescued them from the clutches of a band of ruthless assassins. Once the sisters knew who Zeb was, they harangued him till he gave in and made them part of his team. The sisters had lost their parents and had no other family. Zeb and the rest of the operatives became their family.

They now ran the logistics and operational side of the agency and were treated as equals by all. They brought youth, humor, sharp intelligence, and an unrepressed energy to the agency.

On one of the agency’s missions they had rescued the daughter of a high-ranking Middle Eastern royal. A grateful father had presented a check to Clare, a check that had many zeros on it. She had handed the check back to him with a smile. The agency didn’t take rewards.

The royal added two more zeros and pushed the check back at her.

‘My daughter is my life.’ He said simply.

Clare handed the check to Zeb and Broker, shrugged when they stared blankly at her.

‘It’s yours. Do with it what you wish.’

The six of them used the money to buy the forty-four building on Columbus Avenue, and once the sisters became part of the team, made them equal partners. They invested the rest of the reward, smart investments that multiplied, and were each enormously wealthy, but they’d never worked for the agency for the money.

Zeb was their team leader, Broker, the second in command, but they didn’t have ranks. They were all equals, a tight knit team that was family first, and operatives second.

The President had once, in jest, referred to them as Clare’s Warriors.

The name stuck.

Chapter Three

October 1st–7th

‘Cold Finger Killer. That’s what the press labeled him, or her.’ Meghan read out from her screen. ‘Mary McCallum’s body had a distinctive slashing pattern. Her fingers were missing. Her face was mutilated.’

She brought up several images and showed them to the others.

Beth and she had followed the young girls back to their grandmother’s. When they returned to the office, they had researched their story.

‘Mary McCallum’s killing received wall-to-wall coverage. She was young, attractive, wealthy, pressed all the media’s buttons. But she was not the only one.’

‘A Manhattan socialite, Christine Kohler and a Wall Street lawyer, Peggy Krantz, went missing after McCallum’s killing, and the newspaper got similar packages for both of them. Their bodies were never found.’

‘The cops didn’t find the perp?’ Disbelief poured through Beth’s voice.

‘Nope. They kept the investigation active for a long while but made no headway.’

She turned away from the screen and looked at the third occupant in the office.

Zeb was in his usual place – on the couch, his eyes shut, apparently ignoring the sisters.

‘Zeb, what do we do?’

He stirred and propped himself on an elbow and faced them. ‘Tell me what you saw at their home.’

‘It’s a townhome, not far from Central Park. It looks like a five-or six-bedroom home from the outside and it screams loaded.’

Beth replied. ‘Mary and Brad, her husband, were both bankers. I looked up some benchmark salaries and bonuses for their roles. The two could have easily afforded that house.’

‘How did the husband die?’

‘Heart attack. He had a minor stroke a week after his wife disappeared, and died eight months later.’ Her voice trailed off and Zeb saw Meghan clasp Beth’s shoulder. Their mother had died when they were still in college and a couple of years back, had lost their father too.

A few students had randomly shot staff and students at the college Beth went to; the shooters had then held Beth and a few other students hostage.

Bud Petersen, a SWAT officer with Jackson P.D. had led the rescue, unaware that his daughter was one of the hostages. The captured were successfully freed, but Bud not only lost his life in the attack; Beth was shot in the head, an injury that would lead to her losing her memory of everything before that event.

The sisters had moved to Boston after the tragedy, where they had restarted their lives as businesswomen. They later sold the business and moved to New York to join Zeb and the others in the team.

‘An elderly lady opened the door when the kids arrived,’ Beth continued. ‘We were too far to get a good look, but she probably is Gramma.’

She chuckled.’ They’re something aren’t they? How many kids would