WINNER TAKES ALL Page 12

  Hunter gave it a few seconds. Let him think he’s got me.

  “All right. I’ll meet you. But I know enough about you, Mr. Lasher, to set some ground rules. It’s going to be in a nice, safe, public place. And not today. Tomorrow.”

  “Just a damned—”

  “I’ll call you on this number tomorrow morning at nine,” Hunter said. Then he broke the connection before Lasher could say another word.

  He immediately shut down his burner. Removed the battery and SIM card. Wrapped the phone in a damp paper towel after wiping it down. Dumped it in the bathroom trash receptacle.

  Moving quietly and cautiously, he took the stairs all the way down from the tenth floor into the basement garage. He moved warily from the stairwell to the nearby spot he’d reserved for one of his three vehicles—the BMW 7 Series High Security sedan. He entered the armored vehicle quickly. Locked the doors. Sat in silence for a moment.

  First, Cronin.

  Now, Lasher . . .

  3

  At 0855 the next morning, Lasher put the battery and SIM card back into his burner and powered it up.

  At 0900, a text message came through.

  He read it and swore.

  At 1130 hours, as instructed, he was standing at the curb outside the L’Enfant Plaza Metro entrance near 17th and C Street, with a copy of the Inquirer in his left hand. A new text pinged through, telling him to look for a silver Honda Civic. It pulled up within two minutes. The guy rolled down the passenger window.

  “Are you Mr. Lasher who ordered the Uber?”

  “I guess so,” Lasher snapped, getting in the back and tossing the newspaper onto the seat. He fastened his seat belt as the driver pulled out into the mid-day traffic. “So where you taking me?”

  The college-aged kid met his eyes in the rearview mirror, looking surprised.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I asked, didn’t I?”

  “Sorry. The message said I’m taking you to the Gaylord Hotel. At the National Harbor.”

  Lasher shut his eyes and swore some more.

  This was not going at all as he had anticipated.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were in the sprawling National Harbor complex bordering the Potomac River south of the city. The driver wound his way along Waterfront Street, past shops and eateries, then into the entrance of the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. He pulled under the broad, six-lane porte-cochère, stopped, then turned to him, gesturing with his phone.

  “The gentleman meeting you just contacted us. He asked you to text him when you arrive.”

  Lasher glared at him and got out, taking care to tug his leather jacket down over the Glock 17 in the waistband holster at his back. He stomped across the other parking lanes, ignoring the greetings of the valets, and marched into the hotel lobby. There he paused to text Hunter: “Well???”

  The reply came a few seconds later. More instructions. Steaming, Lasher stormed across the spacious, modern lobby and turned right.

  He found himself in a cavernous atrium of jaw-dropping dimensions. Fifteen or twenty stories of hotel rooms rose behind him and on either side, their balconies overlooking the atrium. Directly ahead, a massive glass wall, presenting a grand view of the Potomac, soared skyward to meet the enormous glass ceiling that arched high overhead.

  The bar lounge where he stood served a few customers seated on upholstered yellow chairs and brown sofas around glass tables. The lounge occupied a broad balcony overlooking what appeared to be a miniature indoor village one floor below. In its middle sat two small, quaint brick structures made to appear like two-story houses with chimneys. Surrounding them were trees, flowers, and brick walkways lit by old-fashioned street lamps. Just beyond, a fountain sprayed gaily, attracting tourists and noisy kids.

  He rode a side escalator down to that lower level. Directly under the upstairs lounge he found the National Pastime Sports Bar & Grill. It offered outside seating at small cafe-style tables. A customer at an isolated table wore mirrored sunglasses, denim jacket, jeans—and was eating a salad. The man looked up as he approached, put down his fork, and smiled.

  “Buy you lunch, Mr. Lasher?”

  4

  It was the first time Hunter had seen Lasher up close. Big guy, about six-three. Thick shoulders, narrow waist. Clearly a gym rat. The battered knuckles of a boxer or martial artist.

  Lasher looked down at him and sneered. “What happened to your face?”

  “You should see the other guys.” He motioned to the chair opposite him.

  The man dragged the chair around so that his back would be to the glass wall of the restaurant. As he settled into the seat, for just an instant the reflecting glass revealed a tell-tale bulge beneath the lower back of his jacket.

  “Seriously, order whatever you want. This may be the last time I’ll be nice to you.” He gestured with his fork toward his salad. “Their salmon Caesar is good.”

  “I’m not hungry.” Lasher didn’t smile. His eyes were the color of a winter sky, pale and cold and dead.

  “Then at least let me buy you a beer. A salute to a worthy adversary.”

  He saw a faint spark in Lasher’s eyes. So, flattery works. Good to know.

  “All right. Sure.” Lasher motioned to a nearby server who took his order for a Guinness. Hunter asked her for a refill on his coffee and ordered a sandwich to go. They watched her retreat back inside the restaurant.

  “You’re not what you pretend to be,” Lasher began.

  “And you’re not what you think you are.”

  Hunter saw the flash of anger. The guy had thin skin. So if he was going to learn anything from him, he couldn’t remain adversarial.

  “But hey, let’s play nice,” he transitioned, offering a smile. “I’m sure you’re as curious about me as I am about you.”

  “I know a lot already. I know ‘Dylan Hunter’ is a fake name. I know you killed a guy, hand-to-hand, last Christmas—it was in the papers. But I also know you were the shooter at Linden last year who took out that traitor, Muller.”

  The way he stressed traitor was interesting.

  “What’s ‘Linden’? Who’s ‘Muller’? And what do you mean, I ‘took him out’?”

  “Oh, give me a break! I have eyes. I was there and saw you out on the road after you nailed him with that cannon you were toting—looked like a Barrett .50.” He smirked. “Besides, if you really didn’t know what I was talking about, you would’ve ignored my message and you wouldn’t be here. So let’s not fool around.”

  Ingrained CIA training taught Hunter never to blow his cover by admitting anything. But denial now seemed pointless. He needed to learn who hired Lasher and why—and he wouldn’t learn anything if he didn’t swap a bit of info with the guy.

  “All right. Sure, that was me.”

  “So you’re a trained sniper. Like me.”

  “Probably not much like you.”

  Lasher’s jaw tightened. “You think you’re hot shit. If I’d had that Barrett .50, I’d have nailed Muller myself, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation . . . So, who were you working for?”

  “Actually, it was a Barrett M99 in .416. And maybe I wasn’t working for anyone.”

  “You mean—what? That you shot him for no reason?”

  “Of course I had a reason. A personal reason.”

  Lasher nodded slowly. “I wondered about that. About who would have sent you. I couldn’t figure it out.”

  “But in your case, it wasn’t personal at all. You were hired for a contract hit.”

  Lasher shrugged. “Oh, it was a bit personal, I suppose. I hate traitors.” He smirked again. “But you’re right. In that case, money was the bigger motivator.”

  “And the Russians certainly have plenty of that.” He watched Lasher’s eyes closely as he said it.

  Just an instant of puzzlement before he caught himself. “Oh, yeah. The Russians do have plenty of that.”

  A lie.

  So, it wasn’t the Russians?
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  The server returned with the beer, coffee, and a bag containing his sandwich. He opened the bag and checked it while Lasher took a long draught, draining nearly half the glass.

  Hunter decided to play along with the lie.

  “If the Russians hired you,” he ventured, spearing a chunk of salmon, “you must have established quite a rep.”

  “You better believe it. Anybody needs a shooter, they call for me. And I get top dollar.”

  “Where did you train? Quantico? Lejeune?”

  Lasher snorted. “Jarheads.” He took another sip.

  “Benning, then.”

  He looked off into space and shrugged.

  So—Army sniper school.

  “You see any action while in uniform?”

  A scowl. “Sure. But that was a long time ago. I’m my own boss, now.”

  The scowl was interesting.

  Hunter nodded. “I get that. But what I don’t get is why the Russians are sending you after me.”

  Surprised, Lasher turned back to him and laughed. “What makes you think they sent me?”

  “Who else?” Hunter scooped up his last piece of salmon.

  Lasher stopped smiling. It was obvious that he was weighing his next words carefully.

  “You’ve made lots of enemies. Any one of them might have a motive.”

  “I suppose. But most don’t have the money to hire a contractor. And you said you get top dollar.”

  “You’re assuming a lot. What makes you think somebody hired me to whack you? You had it right earlier, on the phone. You’re afraid I’ll expose you. You came here to pay me and make that threat go away.”

  “So this is nothing but a shakedown, then. And you’re here to arrange the payoff.”

  “That’s right.” Lasher smirked. It seemed to be his favorite facial expression. He drained the last of his beer.

  Hunter put down his fork, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and sat back.

  “Bullshit.”

  Lasher’s pale blue eyes hardened again.

  “What do you mean, ‘bullshit’?”

  “For one thing, you were waiting for me that day when I visited the EPA. Somebody tipped you in advance that I’d be going there. You were working for that someone.”

  Lasher didn’t respond.

  “Then you located the office on Connecticut where I hang my hat. If you only had blackmail on your mind, you wouldn’t have wasted what must have been days or weeks staking it out, waiting for me to show up. You would have left me a message to arrange this meeting much sooner.”

  Lasher remained silent.

  “Another thing. Reporters aren’t rich. We’re lousy blackmail targets. High risk for low reward—certainly not the kind of a payday you’re used to. Besides, blackmail isn’t your gig. You’re a killer, Mr. Lasher. A hired gun. But you couldn’t take me out at my office, not with cameras and hundreds of people around. And if you knew where I lived, you’d have already taken a run at me there. So your only play was to get me to expose myself. Get me to meet you.”

  Holding Lasher’s eyes, Hunter took the food bag from the table and placed it on the floor next to his chair. Then leaned in to speak quietly, keeping his left hand under the table.

  “Except I insisted on meeting here, in a public place. Now you hope to tail me from here to some isolated spot where you can do the job”—he gestured overhead—“away from surveillance cameras.” His eyes drifted down Lasher’s body. “Why, you’re even packing a pistol for the occasion.” He grinned. “Of course, so am I.”

  Lasher’s eyes widened a little at that. “You’re bluffing.”

  Hunter held the grin. “You didn’t think a pro like me would meet you unarmed, did you? I’ve got a Sig P228 under the napkin on my lap, aimed right at your gut.”

  He could tell Lasher believed him. He went on.

  “So. Somebody’s hired you to take me out. Probably somebody among the rich and powerful I pissed off recently. Have I got it all about right, Mr. Lasher?”

  Lasher leaned in, too. Their faces were just a foot apart, now.

  “You really do think you’re hot shit,” he said softly, eyes boring into Hunter’s. “But you’re not as smart as you think. You got a few things wrong. Yeah, I’m being paid to follow you. But nobody’s paying me to kill you.”

  Hunter shook his head. “It’s obvious you aim to kill me.”

  Lasher’s jaw muscle was working. It was obvious he was struggling not to say too much. But he couldn’t help himself.

  “You weren’t listening. I said: Nobody’s paying me to do that. You say you shot Muller because it was personal. Well, when you took him out, it became personal for me.” Lasher’s balled-up right fist rested on the table, the gnarled knuckles bone-white. “I was paid quite a lot to shoot Muller. Only two people know I didn’t. Me . . . and you.”

  “So, you’re worried I’ll rat you out,” Hunter said. Then, seeing the hatred in Lasher’s eyes, he understood. “No, wait—it’s not that at all. It’s really because I finished a mission that you failed. You can’t stand that, can you?”

  “Shut up!” Lasher growled, teeth bared.

  “Sure, that’s it. Lasher, the famous international assassin. They gave you a big assignment with a big payday—but I beat you to it . . . That must gall you, huh?”

  “I said shut up!”

  “And it must have really pissed you off that I was able to lose you while you were tailing me—not just once, but twice.”

  Lasher swore and looked poised to rise.

  “Now, now, Mr. Lasher. Remember the Sig in my lap. And all the surveillance cameras watching us. I don’t think it would benefit either of us to bring EMTs and cops into this.”

  “I’m gonna nail your ass, you son of a bitch.”

  “Better men than you have tried. Of course, in your case, that’s not a high bar to hurdle.”

  Lasher sucked in a deep breath, fighting to regain control.

  “You’re so tough, why don’t you prove it? Why don’t we go somewhere private? No guns—just bare-handed. Only one of us walks away, and he gets to keep the rest of his life, and all his secrets. So how about it? You have the balls to fight me—winner takes all?”

  Staying close and keeping eye contact, Hunter pretended to be thinking it over while his left hand, unseen, slipped the Sig from his lap into a deep pocket inside his jacket. At the same time, he casually moved his right hand near Lasher’s empty beer glass. He sighed, shook his head.

  “I’ll take a rain check.”

  Then, gripping the edge of the table with his left, he rose suddenly while simultaneously grabbing the beer glass with his right. The entire table, including his hot cup of coffee, tipped over and spilled onto Lasher’s lap. The killer jerked backward instinctively, while Hunter reached down and dropped the beer glass into the open food bag.

  “Shit!” Lasher yelped and shot to his feet, sending his own chair tumbling. Plates, water glasses, and the coffee cup shattered noisily on the brick floor.

  “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Hunter shouted. Everyone nearby turned, and the server rushed over to them.

  “Goddamn you!” Lasher yelled, grabbing a napkin from the floor to wipe the coffee and water splashed over his shirt, jacket, and jeans.

  “It’s my fault,” Hunter said to the server. He pulled out his wallet and peeled off a hundred-dollar bill plus a fifty. “Here, miss—this should cover the meal plus the damages, and the fifty is for your extra trouble.”

  “Oh, you don’t—”

  “No, please take it. Is there a men’s room nearby where my friend can tidy up?”

  “Of course. Right inside. Here, sir, I’ll show you.”

  Lasher glared at him. “No, I’m fine. It’s okay.”

  Hunter said, “I’ll go fetch a towel and broom to clean up my mess.”

  “Sir, you don’t have to do that. It’s our job.”

  “I insist. I’ll see the bartender and be right back.”

  Before Lash
er could move, he grabbed his bag from the floor and darted inside. He headed first toward the bar, then veered away into a run. It was a big place he’d scouted in advance. He ducked out another exit, then walked quickly to the elevator. Through the glass walls of the rising cage he could see the entire atrium. No sign of Lasher. He’d be searching inside the bar.

  He got off on the tenth floor, proceeded down the hall, and took out a keycard. Then entered the room he had booked the previous day.

  Moving to the closet, he changed into an expensive suit, tie, and wingtip shoes. He dumped his denims, boots, shades, plus the bag with the beer glass into a roll-aboard overnight bag.

  In the bathroom, he put on a latex facial disguise, with a blond wig and mustache. He obscured the still-visible wounds with some flesh-toned makeup. Donned a pair of eyeglasses. Checked his handiwork in the full-length mirror.

  He called down to the valet station and asked them to bring his car around. Then phoned the front desk and told the receptionist that, due to a change of plans, he’d be checking out immediately.

  “I hope you enjoyed your stay with us, Mr. Grayson,” she said.

  “I did indeed.”

  Hunter rode the elevator to the first floor and rolled his overnight bag toward the main entrance.

  Lasher stood in the middle of the lobby, turning slowly. Scanning for a dark-haired guy in denim.

  Hunter didn’t look at him. Thinking “I am a wealthy financial planner,” he strode confidently right past him, barely twenty feet away. Outside, he handed his claim check and a generous tip to the valet.

  Then he entered his waiting BMW and drove off, without a backward glance.

  THIRTEEN

  When Emmalee opened the door, she was surprised to see Avery Trammel standing alone in the hallway. He wore casual-but-expensive clothes: black shirt, slacks, and loafers. He gripped a bottle of champagne by its neck.

  “I regret that Julia cannot join us this evening,” he said. “When I called to arrange this little house-warming party, I did not realize she would have a schedule conflict. She will be out tonight until quite late.” He smiled at her, pointedly. “I hope you are not disappointed.”