“Illinois plates.” Pavel was quick to scurry down the embankment when he heard a car approaching.
He took the car’s measure as it sped by. SUV. Dark color. Factory-standard rims.
FBI, no doubt. Hunting for Agent Beacham.
Like always, they were one step behind.
His strategy to take out the male agent and frame the female agent for the murder had gone exactly to plan. Having studied human anatomy, he’d known just where to place the small blade so that death was inevitable. But the one thing he had not counted on? For Agent Beacham to run.
Why? he wondered.
In his experience, innocent people didn’t run. They naively assumed the truth would set them free.
But the buxom blond agent had ducked out so fast no one had seen her leave. No one save for Pavel himself. And after spending a good thirty seconds blinking in surprise at her quickly retreating form, he’d given chase.
Unfortunately, having left his night-vision goggles in his rented car, he’d lost her in the darkness of the dense woods.
“The FBI just passed by,” he told Bishop as he hopped back onto the road. “Probably tracking her phone. I suspect she tossed it.”
“They won’t find her. Not before you do.”
Pavel was happy to hear the certainty in Bishop’s voice.
Then again, why wouldn’t the man be certain? After all, how many targets had Pavel neutralized for Bishop? A dozen? Two dozen? More?
When Bishop called, Pavel answered. Not only did Bishop pay well, but his ambitions closely aligned with Pavel’s.
Bishop was after total societal collapse. The ruination of the American Dream. The spectacular downfall of that shining city on the hill, as Ronald Reagan had so often called the United States of America.
Pavel snorted at the audacity. Imagine believing your country is such a beacon of hope for the world that you would refer to it in biblical terms.
Things had changed in the decades since The Gipper occupied the oval office, and some of those things could be laid directly at the feet of the man himself. The seedy underbelly of American society had been exposed. All the corruption. All the bigotry, hate, racism and greed.
Pavel was happy to say he had not only watched the unmasking but had also played a part in it. Continued to play his part by irradicating any threats to people like Bishop.
Grace Beacham was a threat. One they’d hoped to easily nullify by making her look like a murderer. But the instant she’d run from the authorities, all bets were off. Her life was now forfeit.
Foolish woman.
“Give me the numbers for the plates,” Bishop instructed. “I’ll run them through the system. We need to find out who we’re dealing with. Although, I think I already know.”
“Do you?” Pavel’s tone brightened with interest. “Who?”
“Trouble,” Bishop said cryptically.
After Pavel rattled off the letters and numbers, he took one final drag on his cigarette. Tossing the butt onto the pavement, he crushed the smoldering tip with his bootheel and cut a sharp left, back into the trees. Back to the spot where he’d parked the rented car.
“What would you have me do now?” he asked as he opened the driver’s side door and slid inside the vehicle.
“Cross your fingers I’m wrong about who has her. But head west toward Chicago all the same.”
For the first time ever, Pavel detected a hint of apprehension in Bishop’s altered voice. He was quick to reassure the man. “Trouble comes with the territory, yes? The plan has changed. But the outcome will be the same.”
“If she’s with who I think she’s with? Things could get far more…complicated.”
“I live for complications,” he boasted. “They are the spice of life.”
He disconnected the call without signing off. After pocketing the phone, he whistled his favorite tune.
Hunting humans always put a song in his heart and a skip in his step.
5
Black Knights Inc.
Hunter had assumed Grace’s rattled nerves were the reason she’d spent the entire ninety-minute ride from Indiana to Chicago squirming around on the back of his bike.
As soon as they pulled up to the giant iron gates that kept the city of Chicago and all its inhabitants out of the BKI compound, however, he realized her nerves had nothing to do with her backseat boogie.
“Oh, thank god,” she breathed when he cut the engine. “Ten more minutes and I might’ve pulled a Harry to your Lloyd.”
“Huh?”
He’d like to blame his inarticulate response on lack of sleep. He’d only gotten a couple hours before the dream of her had wrenched him awake. And it was now going on six o’clock in the morning. But he knew the real reason he went all tongue-tied and ineloquent was because the instant he’d turned to look at her, he’d been struck by her eyes.
Those brown eyes that’d held him in their thrall since the first moment he’d seen them. Eyes that sparked with intelligence and wit. Eyes that could look soft and sad one minute, fierce and fiery the next.
Eyes that held a million mysteries.
Eyes he wanted to stare into until he’d solved each and every one.
“You know.” She made a face as the morning sun peeked through the skyscrapers to the east, turning the sky overhead pink and gold. “Dumb and Dumber? The motor scooter scene? Come on, you must’ve seen it. It’s a cult classic.”
His mind latched onto a vague memory of the movie and the scene in question. He felt one corner of his mouth quirk. “Is this your not-so-subtle way of telling me you need to pee?”
Her delicious-looking mouth formed a moue. “Pee is an understatement. What I need to do will give Niagara Falls a run for its money.”
There was the Grace Beacham he remembered. Funny. Forthright. And completely unconscious of just how damned adorable she was.
“Rafer!” He called to the giant ginger manning the guardhouse. “Open sesame, man! We got a woman who desperately needs to hit the head!”
Along with his three brothers, Rafer Connelly was BKI’s first line of defense against anyone trying to gain access to the grounds that consisted of the old factory building, various outbuildings, and the little foreman’s cottage. For years, the burly Chicago Irishmen had taken round-the-clock shifts guarding the gates. And it was only recently Hunter had learned to tell them apart.
They all stood at nearly six-and-a-half feet tall, sported orangey-red hair, were covered in freckles, and had thick Chicago accents that put Sam’s Southside drawl to shame. But he’d learned Manus had a mole beside his nose. Geralt had a scar running across his cheek. Toran was always chewing gum. And Rafer? Well, Rafer had a habit of blasting yacht rock at deafening decibels.
Christopher Cross’s “Sailing” crooned from the guardhouse when Rafer slid open the little window.
“Everything copacetic?” He hit the switch that had the iron gates clanging open. His eyes raked over Grace’s form with equal parts curiosity and concern.
The Connelly brothers took their jobs seriously. And they hated admitting strangers into the Black Knights’ lair.
“It’s all gravy, man.” Hunter shot him a salute before cranking over Canteen Green’s engine.