Fate of the Union

Seventeen

Evan Carpenter had long since stopped believing in any notion of doing his duty. That, like many of his brothers in arms, died in a jungle hell.

But he still set stock in doing his job. When he signed on for one, he delivered, as he had when his boss was Uncle Whiskers, before Carpenter wised up and realized he had a marketable skill set. Today and yesterday, his employer got the full benefit of his abilities, just as Special Operations Command once had for far less money.

He didn’t fear dying, but like any sane person, he would do his best to avoid it; and he feared no man, or at least not so far. Other than last week, and most of this week, the gig had been a snap — taking out clueless civilians, one at a time, months apart. Sometimes he felt he was damn near stealing his employer’s money.

Tonight, though, the shit would be deep and he’d more than earn his paycheck. Not that he minded a challenge — that shiver up his spine was not fear, no fucking way fear, but excitement, anticipation, expectation.

The men he would face tonight were the real deal, even if they were getting soft guarding Adam Benjamin. Still, Benjamin delaying the announcement of his candidacy had been a godsend — wading through agents of the United States Secret Service might tax even Evan Carpenter’s abilities. Taking out five mercenaries, a little off their game? That was not only possible, it sounded like fun.

Carpenter, in black duster-style coat, black fatigues, and Kevlar vest, sat in his car outside the Holiday Inn Express, weapons ready. Inside, people had no idea they were about to die. He sat back, scrolled mentally through his plan one last time, breathed deep, exhaled fully, did that again, and once more, then smiled slightly as he climbed from the car, wind whipping the duster skirt. But the cold meant nothing in the face of already pumping adrenaline.

Tonight he would impress his employer, always a plus, but his personal agenda would also be served — he’d have the opportunity to clear away the debris left by this recent bad-luck shitstorm.

Just outside the automatic glass doors of the hotel, he pulled on the black balaclava-style ski mask and withdrew the two sound-suppressed .45 automatics from the deep pockets of his duster. The pistols were in his hands as he went into the lobby, almost disappointed to see the four-man guard team in their usual places, as if they were lulled by the piped-in music (Dean Martin, “Winter Wonderland”).

Lazy was just as bad as stupid in Carpenter’s book — men hired to anticipate action, wholly unprepared for direct frontal assault. Unforgivable.

The two on the sofa midlobby were still seated when the head shots exploded through their skulls erupting blood/brains/bone and leaving halos of scarlet mist. They remained on the sofa with a ringside seat on a gunfight they didn’t realize they’d been in.

The dipshit who just never got tired of flirting with that cute brunette desk clerk almost had his .38 out of the sideways hip holster when he gained a third eye in his forehead that would gain him no insight at all.

The blond merc hated, well anyway didn’t love, having to shoot the cutie-pie clerk in her sweet head — these security bozos didn’t deserve mercifully quick deaths, but he was glad she went out light-switch fast, anyway.

All this took enough time to give the guy who always lounged at a table in the breakfast area the chance to get to his feet, and even yank his gun partway out, but Carpenter’s silenced shot caught him midface, opening his nose like a scarlet blossoming flower and spewing bloody matter out the back of his skull.

Nobody but Carpenter had gotten a shot off, and his silenced .45s only made sort of a whuff when he fired them. The only sound was that piped-in music — it always irritated Carpenter, having that old-timey crap continually foisted upon his generation.

As if he were delivering the mail, he went around to each fallen man and delivered a second head shot — overkill, he knew, but he’d seen head-shot men in combat go down and get back up again. Not everybody needed all their brains, it seemed.

Back around the check-in desk, he lingered a few seconds over the dead desk clerk. She really was a pretty young thing, or had been. Still, he’d hit her just perfect, the scarlet dot in her forehead almost like a bindi. The staring eyes and the little lake of red her hair swam in told him he needn’t waste a round.

Five dead in under two minutes. Carpenter shook his head, smiling a half smile under the ski mask. Sometimes it was just too damn easy. He returned the left-hand pistol to its deep duster pocket, having used it only on the desk clerk, and reloaded the .45 in his right. He then headed down the corridor to where he knew Adam Benjamin waited, with only one guard in the room.

Carpenter eased past that door, however, saving it for last: he had other business first. He’d timed his assault to begin five minutes after the guards in the lobby would’ve done their usual every-thirty-minute walkie-talkie check-in with the especially well-trained man guarding their boss.

Four doors past Benjamin’s room, Carpenter paused. His ear to the door reported a woman within, moaning loudly. Not in pain. Registered here was Lawrence Schafer, Benjamin’s accountant. Finally he would get the chance to see the fetching Lynn Barr naked, a frequent daydream now about to come true, but not in the circumstances he might have wished.

The magnetic passkey wouldn’t be silent, but the couple inside sounded suitably distracted. He slid the key down the slot, heard the lock click, then opened the door a few inches, just short of where the night latch would have stopped his action.

Bedsprings sang, a man grunted, a woman moaned. If they were aware that their door was now ajar, their performance gave no hint. Carpenter inserted a flat piece of flexible metal through the opening, then pulled the door almost completely shut as he slid the metal piece farther in, pushing the latch off the door.

His shoulder nudged the door open a few more inches. He slipped inside. Bedsprings sang, man grunted, female moaned, louder now, building. If they’d tipped to his presence, these were consummate actors. He very carefully shut the door, knowing it would make a click doing so and was ready to react.

But bedsprings sang on, grunts, moans.

Two silent steps took the blond down the short entry hall past the opposing bathroom and closet, and then there they were. Curtains drawn, room dark, but Carpenter could easily make out, on top of the covers, the beautiful naked woman riding the naked handsome man.

Grinding down on him as he thrust up into her, her brown hair down (usually in that uptight bun) and flouncing on her shoulders, she bounced and bounced on Schafer’s dick. Carpenter could see the swell of her full breasts as they bobbed above a sex-drunk Schafer’s gaping mouth.

Two high-class, powerful business types, going at it like the animals they really were at heart. Like everybody was.

They were climaxing and Carpenter let them. He wasn’t devoid of mercy. When Barr, head back, moaned, “Give it to me, give it to me,” he waited till Schafer had, then gave it to her, in the back of the head, much of the insides of which splattered abstractly on a realistic framed summer landscape screwed to the wall over the bed.

Her corpse fell, literal dead weight, onto her sexual partner, her flesh muffling his scream. Carpenter didn’t even have to pull the female body off the man — he pushed her to one side, off the bed, and crawled out on the other, between screams.

And as the accountant widened his mouth to resume that screaming, Carpenter fired into the open hole, the bullet carving a groove in the victim’s tongue on its way to severing his spinal cord.

A corpse on either side of the bed, sprawls of lifeless nothing. No need for second head shots here.

He exited without touching anything, went two doors back toward Benjamin’s room, 45 up and ready, just in case the bodyguard had heard something and might stick his head out to check.

The passkey was enough this time. Frank Elmore never used the latch — it only slowed him down when his boss beckoned.

Carpenter went in, 45 leading the way down another mini hall past closet and can. But Elmore wasn’t around the corner in bed, he was seated at a small desk against the wall, straight ahead.

The security chief looked up from his laptop and turned, expecting a staffer or possibly housekeeping, and instead saw the extended snout of the sound-suppressed .45.

No widened eyes or mouth yawning open to scream. No sign of alarm at all. It was as if this were a delivery he was expecting, and ready to sign for. His eyes were at droopy half-mast, red-rimmed, and the dried trails of tears were evident on a face smeared with five o’clock shadow. A whiskey bottle and an empty tumbler were at hand near the laptop.

“I don’t give a shit,” Elmore said.

Carpenter didn’t either. He put one between the droopy eyes and Elmore went backward, taking the desk chair with him, like a doll somebody tipped over. His black-stockinged feet looked at the mercenary, who didn’t bother with a redundant head shot here, either.

But when he checked Elmore’s corpse, Carpenter glanced up and saw a photo that took up all of the laptop screen, a very, almost too pretty black woman who he immediately recognized. With a shudder of something that was almost fear, Carpenter slapped the laptop shut and took it by its edge in his gloved left hand, and slammed it into the lip of the desk with a metallic crunch. Then he tossed it.

He reloaded and stepped back into the corridor and headed for Benjamin’s suite. The guard in there, Asher, a former Ranger, was the genuine shit. Elite. The others had been good — had being the operative word — and should have been better, but the easy gig had lulled them. But now they were history, with only Asher remaining.

The real threat among them.

He knocked, listening as Asher moved to the door. When the bodyguard was looking through the peephole, Carpenter fired a bullet through it. Then, in case he’d misjudged somehow, he quickly shifted alongside the wall next to the door, his back to it.

But the whump of the bodyguard falling to the floor spoke volumes. Some movement within the room indicated maybe Benjamin was trying to get out a window. He was just about to slide the key card down its slot when he heard coming from the lobby, “What the hell?”

A female voice.

Then from the mouth of the hall: “FBI! Freeze!”

That goddamned FBI bitch!

She was peeking around the corner. He pressed himself to Benjamin’s door in its slight recess, giving her no real sight line to shoot at him, then fired three quick rounds in her direction. When she ducked back, as the quiet shots loudly chewed the edge of the wall she was tucked behind, he took off the other way.

The bullets had distracted her enough to give Carpenter time to start down the hall, but then she was coming, and he hit the deck as her shots went wide and over him. He rolled and had both .45s out now, pointed her way, forcing her to cram herself against a hotel room door. He sent her two rounds to keep her there, and then that fucking Reeder was in the mouth of the hall behind her, coming his way, an automatic in hand.

On his feet now, on the run, Carpenter emptied his magazine back up the corridor, not bothering to see if he hit anyone or anything. He hit the exit-door crash bar and let cold in and himself out, sprinting into the parking lot. The Nissan was around front, and he abandoned it, taking off on foot.

If Reeder and that bitch had brought backup, he would be running into a world of hurt. But it appeared they hadn’t, and maybe he should lay back and wait and take them out.

But his larger mission remained, and that was the priority — that, and breathing.

He took off running.