Chapter 7

They both remained alert, constantly glancing over their shoulders, on the lookout for anyone following them, but no one else appeared. Taylor had continued taking a winding path to the airport, just in case, but it seemed like they’d managed to lose them.

After a few more blocks, he finally let himself relax.

“So, who is this high-profile person in the U.S. government you did a job for?”

“Straight to business, huh?” she said with a small smile. “Can’t even buy a girl dinner first?”

“If it was up to me, I’d hand you over to those assholes and let them have their way with you. I’m only here because you’ve managed to convince other people that you’re not completely full of shit. So before I pull over and hogtie you for the Chechens, maybe you should start talking.”

“Still have that stick up your butt, I see. Fine. I was hired to take out some guy named Darryl Casall, who’s apparently a minor celebrity, although I’d never heard of him before getting the contract on him.”

Taylor was vaguely aware of him, but only because he spent time around Washington types, and the guy had made a big splash by beating a popular Democrat in a senate race where the Republican looked weak. Kara was supposed to have dinner with Mary Jane a few months previously, but her friend had been forced to cancel to do some kind of event with her mother because the party was worried about losing a valuable senate seat. For the life of him, Taylor could not remember the name of the person he was running against.

Or at least that’s roughly what Taylor knew from how Kara had explained it to him. Taylor himself didn’t follow politics or celebrities, so almost everyone involved had been an unknown name to him. His name popped up a few months later, and Taylor had remembered him from the earlier event enough for it to register.

“Didn’t he die of a heart attack a few months ago?” Taylor asked.

“Which is what I was paid to make it look like.”

“You gave him a heart attack?”

“Basically.”

“And someone in the government wanted him dead?”

“Yep. I actually didn’t know that at first. Usually, in this line of work, we don’t find out why the person is being targeted. We get a name, some info, and that’s it. Often though, it’s not hard to figure out.”

“Like when it’s a witness for or against the mob,” Taylor said.

“Don’t tell me you’re still sour about that! It was just business.”

“Being shot at doesn’t feel like business.”

“Hey, most of the time I wasn’t shooting at you at all. Had I wanted to drop you, I would have.”

She wasn’t wrong, but it still didn’t do much for Taylor’s opinion of her.

“So, how’d you figure it out?” Taylor asked, ignoring her point.

“So, something that isn’t really talked about in the business, but even though we’re not supposed to care about why someone’s gotten tagged, we often figure it out. It takes a lot of time to follow these people and work out their schedule, especially on a stealth job like this, and we’re people. We can’t help but think about why they may have been selected, what they may have done. Anyway, for famous people, usually it’s about money, but this guy wasn’t rich by any means. At least not to make my fee worth it. His marriage seemed pretty happy and I saw nothing that suggested he was cheating, so that wasn’t likely either. No real business partners, no criminal activity I could find, nothing. Really, the only thing that made sense, the only person who looked like they’d benefit from his death was the guy he was running against.”

“Are you saying a U.S. senator paid to have his opponent killed?”

“He was behind in the polls and it looked like he was going to lose. And these guys have a lot of money tied up in being a senator.”

“But you don’t know for sure?” Taylor asked. “You said you had proof that a government official was behind it. They’re not going to give you immunity for guesses.”

“I know that,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I was willing to let it go, ‘cause what do I care, but the middleman screwed up by naming him when confirming the client was happy with the job. It wasn’t direct, but it was enough to know I was right, and that should be enough for your people. Your tech people should be able to verify the emails, and I can give you the middleman, who knows the guy who hired him. Besides, everything I read about you said you didn’t really care much about procedure and what’s actually legally chargeable.”

“Fine,” Taylor said. “So who is he?”

“Richard Ellsworth.”

As soon as she said it, he remembered that was who Casall was running against. Taylor didn’t know much about politics, but he thought that Ellsworth was somewhat high in the party.

“If the job was successful, why are they after you now?”

“Maybe he found out his contact let his name slip, but who knows? It could have just been Ellsworth tying up loose ends.”

“Does that happen a lot? The client trying to take out the hitman?”

“It’s not common, but it happens. It’s actually more of a risk on smaller-scale jobs. Things high profile like this, and the level I work at, it’s almost never a problem. Which is why I lean toward his guy giving him up. Either way, he’s decided I’m a problem and has the money to try and do something about it.”

“Then why didn’t you just get rid of him? Take him out before he could come after you.”

“You think I didn’t consider that?” she said with a humorless laugh. “Killing Ellsworth would put me on a whole different radar. A candidate was one thing, but an actual sitting U.S. senator. You kill someone like him, and suddenly, every law enforcement agency in the country is breathing down your neck. Not to mention the heat from whoever else might have hired me.”

“Seems like you’ve been holding your own, though.”

“This isn’t the first group our esteemed senator has thrown at me. He’s hired other professionals, too.”

“Really?”

“Not the great ones. They generally don’t go after other professionals. The ones who were willing to take the job, I dealt with. But I can’t keep running. It makes it impossible to work. My other past clients are getting nervous. Some think I double-crossed someone or went to the feds. I don’t know if it’s just the situation or if the senator spread rumors, but the word is out I turned state’s evidence, pushing some of them to take contracts out on me, too. Ironic, that their fear I’d flipped was the thing that forced me to do it.”

“Fine, so you had no choice. But why me? Why demand I come out to get you.”

“Just playing it safe. I didn’t know who the senator had in his pocket, but I was pretty sure you weren’t. You seem like too much of a pain in the ass to be bought.”

Taylor snorted, but didn’t argue. She had a point.

Taylor pulled into the airport and found a spot in the most crowded section. The sun was going down, so it was dark, which meant they’d be harder to spot, at least out here in the open. Looking around the car, he found an old hat Flores had left dropped on the floorboard and handed it to Bonnie.

“Put this on with your hair up under it. It’ll help change the shape of your face,” Taylor said.

“That only works in the movies,” Bonnie said.

“Then why do so many celebrities do it? Besides, we don’t have a ton of choices.”

She made a sound but put the hat on as instructed. It did hide her face a little and made her look slightly different, but she was right, it wasn’t going to fool anyone trying hard to spot her. They got out of the jeep and made their way to the front of the airport, both on high alert. It didn’t seem like the mercs had followed them, but this was an incredibly obvious destination. Thankfully, there was no real sign of them. Getting to the terminal, they both kind of looked away from the pair of police officers by the front door and headed for ticketing.

They’d caught at least a little break, with the airport being completely packed, giving them a crowd to work with. Of course, that also meant a long line to get tickets, which had them standing in one spot. If Taylor had his choice, they’d stay on the move, not that it was that much of an option. The main check-in area was essentially one long hallway with some ticketing counters at one end, a security entry area at the other to get to terminals, and shops in between.

Neither had bags, which would make them stand out. Taylor’s was still in the hotel room, where he’d paid for a few days. He’d be able to call and have them ship him his clothes, which he packed back in his bag before heading out to find Bonnie that morning.

They’d have to use the shops to dump their guns before they went through the checkpoints, although knowing Bonnie, she probably had some kind of small ceramic thing she could sneak through security.

They’d made it almost to the front of the line when Bonnie reached out and gripped his arm hard. Taylor started to turn his head when she squeezed even harder.

“No. Do it slow. Six and four o’clock.”

Taylor turned slowly, leaning into her a little like they were a couple, being as nonchalant as he could. He tagged them instantly. One set of uniformed cops and one set of guys in suits with very obvious bulges on one side of their jackets. Probably some kind of airport security. They were searching the crowd, going from group to group, and it wasn’t hard to guess what they were looking for.

“Shit. Did they pick us up from the shootout at the market?” Taylor said, almost whispering in her ear.

“Or someone gave them my picture. It’s not out of the question that Ellsworth paid off the cops and brought in mercs to make sure he got me. But you don’t bring out this much security just for regular security checks,” she said, nodding slightly in another direction.

Taylor had already picked them up. More uniformed cops and airport security. They were starting to build up, and it looked like they were setting up some kind of perimeter. It wasn’t just for the ticketing area, though, and looking down the long hall, he could see more starting to flank either side all the way to security, which meant if they did know Bonnie was here, they didn’t know exactly where.

“We’re not going to make it through security. If they’re looking for you, they’ve got your picture and your name flagged. Even if we can buy tickets, security will flag you.”

“I have a clean passport that might work. You?”

“Just the one, but maybe they haven’t flagged me.”

“Are you willing to take that chance?” she asked.

Taylor looked at the slowly increasing number of security guys starting to fill the terminal.

“No. We need to get out of here, but the front doors are out.”