Chapter 32
Blade saw it in slow motion. Wells extending the notebook. Barclay reaching for it. The leather-bound record of corruption and murder changing hands like a business transaction.
Wells chuckled, the sound echoing hollowly against the concrete pillars.
“You look wounded, Blade. But you should be proud. We knew Damien had buried that notebook, but the man was a drunk and a coward. He’d never been able to pin down the exact location, knowing they listened to every word.
We needed someone with a personal stake to sniff it out. ”
Barclay pocketed the notebook.
He’d been played. They’d all been played.
Blade cataloged the situation.
Barclay behind Stryker’s wheelchair, one hand gripping the handle, the other pointing his gun near Stryker’s skull. Wells stood a few feet to Barclay’s left, arms in front in a compressed ready position. The two on the wings held the room.
Left side, a man with a towering frame and copper beard. Big Red.
The other held square shoulders and a bald head, feet planted wide. The man was a dead bolt between them and the exit. Lock.
Even if he could fire before they reacted, he couldn’t take four targets simultaneously. Not from this position. Not with Tori in the line of fire.
No cover. No backup. No miracles.
There was only one variable he could change.
Only one way to shift the equation in her favor.
Blade’s finger itched to pull the trigger.
Blade narrowed his eyes, putting the pieces together. “You orchestrated the timing of Damien’s little confession through Corbin to get us moving.”
Barclay adjusted the gun he held at the back of Stryker’s head. “After all those years, Corbin finally visited his old man in prison. Guess he helped Damien find religion, and suddenly his conscience was a problem again. Started trying to convince the warden to turn on me too.”
“He wanted to save his soul. We just wanted our insurance policy back.” Wells took a step toward Tori, and Blade tensed.
“You needed Tori and me chasing that notebook so you could reclaim it before it could actually burn you.”
“You were never in control here, Detective. We simply let you off the leash long enough to fetch the one thing we couldn’t find ourselves.” Barclay patted his pocket. “Thanks for doing the heavy lifting.”
Blade stared down his sights, drifting between Barclay and Wells. The heat of his rage nearly matched the fire in his wounded bicep. He had to stop this, but how?
“So that’s the cost,” Blade said. “You turned the whole state into a graveyard just to keep Barclay out of a prison jumpsuit?”
“You really think it’s that simple, Blade? A corrupt old chief and a dusty blackmail book?” He gestured to Barclay, palm flat up. “This man is not a criminal. He’s a patriot.”
“The Nexus Initiative,” Blade said.
Wells paced the narrow space between a concrete pillar and where Barclay stood behind Stryker’s wheelchair. “He built an organization that protects the interests of this country when the politicians are too weak to act.”
“The organ harvesting isn’t a crime,” Barclay said. “It’s a pragmatic solution. Hearts for senators. Livers for tech innovators. Kidneys for defense contractors. We preserve the people who shape the world.”
Blade didn’t bother arguing. There was no reasoning with zealots. Instead he flicked a gaze to the flanking agents.
“What about the paintings?” Tori asked.
“I’m the artist,” Wells said, gesturing back through the open doorway.
Blade could see it now. The Bureau’s golden boy. Sharp suit, charming grin.
The smiling mask most serial killers wore.
Sebastian Wells was the Mandelbrot Killer.
“The Mandelbrot set is the signature of God. I’m the hand that draws it.” Wells patted his chest. “Dean provides the targets. I transform their exits into something beautiful.”
“You didn’t just paint fractals,” she said. “You recreated the crime scenes.”
Wells tilted his head. “Did I?”
“The victims are hidden in the layers,” she continued. “The spirals repeat the geometry of the kill site. The angles. The blood patterns. You’re reliving every kill.”
Tori took a slow step sideways, her gaze moving from Barclay to Wells.
“Every brushstroke lets you revisit the moment you had complete control over someone’s life,” she said. “The fear. The power. The final second.”
A smile crept across Wells’s face.
“Finally,” he said softly. “Someone who appreciates the work.”
“The faces. Hidden in the fractals,” Blade said. “Your victims.”
Wells gave a small bow.
“I prefer to think of them as my stigmata.”
“Then why were they hanging in Florek’s law office?”
Wells glanced at Barclay.
Barclay chuckled. “Because Donald Florek was a problem. Our head legal counsel brought him in to work some magic with our shell accounts.” He shook his head. “McCrary underestimated him.”
Rich McCrary, senior partner of the law firm where Florek worked.
Where they’d first seen the faces in the paintings.
Blade didn’t interrupt. He wanted everything laid out, because when he found a way out of here, these men were going to prison forever.
“Florek was smart,” Wells said, picking up the thread. “Too bad he did the one thing you should never do when you suspect powerful people of powerful crimes.”
“He went to the FBI,” Blade said.
Wells spread his hands. “He came to me.”
Florek’s crime scene strobed though his mind. He shook it loose. “You’re sick.”
“I’m an artist,” Wells said.
As if that was all the license he needed to murder.
A soft sound rasped through the room.
Blade’s attention snapped to the wheelchair.
Stryker’s head lifted and dropped forward again. A faint groan slipped past his lips.
Blade tightened his grip on the Glock. “What does he have to do with this?”
Wells followed his gaze.
A slow smile spread across his face.
“Everything.” Wells moved to the wheelchair.
Barclay took a half step back, giving Wells the space. His gun dropped from Stryker’s skull to his side.
Wells grabbed Stryker by the chin and lowered his face to within inches of his. “Stryker always had a soft spot for the broken, didn’t he?”
Wells pushed Stryker’s chin away as he released his grip. “I was his first project, long before he had a fancy name like the Warrior program. I was just a kid from juvie he thought he could save with a Bible and a boxing ring.”
Wells’s smile was thin and sharp. “But I wouldn’t listen. I didn’t want to be reformed. Stryker saw the darkness in me and got scared. He kicked me out before you and Tori ever even arrived.”
The casual use of their names made Blade’s skin crawl.
“To him, I was a failed experiment.” Wells flicked a strand of Stryker’s hair.
He turned to Barclay. “But Dean? Dean saw potential where Stryker saw a monster. He recognized my . . . unique ritualistic needs. He didn’t try to pray the darkness away.
He taught me how to sharpen it. Helped me climb the ranks of the Bureau, giving me a badge to hide behind while he pointed me at the people who threatened our mission. ”
“That’s right, son.” Barclay’s hand landed on Wells’s shoulder with paternal pride. “Sebastian had certain impulses. I gave him targets that served our mission. Channeled his artistry toward eliminating threats.”
“Enough of your resume,” Blade said. “Why did Damien have to die?”
Wells smiled like Blade had finally asked the right question. “We save the lives that matter. The leaders, the innovators, the architects of our future. Your parents, Tori, were a part of that. Then they became a threat.”
The rational tone made it worse. Lives reduced to equations. Children orphaned for balance sheets.
“Just like Dr. Forest and his daughter?” Blade asked.
“Dr. Forest thought he could freelance,” Wells continued. “Use our infrastructure for his personal crusade. We couldn’t allow that kind of exposure.”
“I suppose that’s why you left the medical ethics book at Florek’s house,” Tori said. “A little message to what happens to those who don’t follow your ethics?”
“I was hoping you’d see it. Did you know that your mother contributed a chapter?” Wells studied her for a reaction.
Tori didn’t move. Didn’t blink. The only thing that gave her away was the slight adjustment of her finger on the trigger of her Glock.
Heat rose behind Blade’s eyes, but he filed everything away and kept his sights steady. Wells was trying to get inside her head. Make her react.
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
Neither would he.
But Sebastian Wells would’ve been a teenager when the Crews were murdered.
Blade lifted his chin at Barclay. “You killed them. It was you who stabbed Nikos and Ji-Yeon while Tori watched. Then you pinned it on her brother. You started all this.”
“The Crew murders weren’t the beginning,” Barclay said, shaking his head. “No, this is centuries of groundwork. Building networks. Placing assets. Destroying others.”
Then he smiled.
Wells tilted his head, almost sympathetic. “We could make Kiara’s file-access problem disappear. Logs can be edited. Cooperate, Blade. She walks. Refuse, and she goes down for federal computer fraud.”
Blade’s jaw locked. “Don’t you threaten her.”
His gaze flicked to Tori. She wasn’t looking at him. Her focus remained locked on Stryker, something fierce and protective burning in her dark eyes.
She would die for that man. He knew it the way he knew his own heartbeat.
He caught her eye for a fraction of a second.
When I move, you get Stryker. Go.
He saw understanding in the slight widening of her eyes, the almost imperceptible nod.
His Glock was useless at this range. A shot would go wide or hit Stryker.
He moved.
Barclay never saw it coming. Blade drove a shoulder into his sternum and slammed him into the concrete wall. Both weapons hit the floor. Wells spun, trigger finger moving, but Barclay was in the way.
One heartbeat. That’s all it bought.
It was enough.
Blade’s fist found Barclay’s jaw. The chief’s head snapped back.
Blade didn’t wait to see how it landed. Jab to the body, cross to the chin, the combinations that had dropped men half Barclay’s age.
The old chief was thick through the chest and shoulders, but he was eating every shot, his guard coming up too slow, legs going uncertain beneath him.
Blade could feel it. Another thirty seconds, and Barclay would fold.
Barclay drove a desperate fist into Blade’s wounded side.
The beach knife wound tore open. Pain detonated through his side, and his hands dropped for one involuntary second. It was enough for Barclay to clinch, grabbing Blade’s collar, using his weight to slow the assault.
Across the room Tori had Stryker’s wheelchair moving, one hand on the grip, Glock up in the other. She muscled him behind a concrete pillar and planted herself in front of him.
Wells opened fire toward her position, shots cracking off the concrete above her head. Tori dropped below it, returned two shots from the low position, then moved again.
Blade broke the clinch with an elbow to Barclay’s forearm, stepped back, reset. Barclay’s left eye had swollen nearly shut. His lip was split, breathing labored. He was done and he knew it.
The rifle butt caught Blade behind the knee.
The leg buckled. He took the fall on his shoulder, rolled, and a boot came down where his face had been. Big Red stood over him, rifle barrel dropping toward his skull. Point blank. The concrete was cold against Blade’s back.
He could see his Glock on the floor. Ten feet away. It might as well have been a mile.
Barclay wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Finish it.”
The shot came from behind the pillar.
Big Red’s chest opened up. He dropped straight down, rifle clattering off Blade’s leg.
Blade rolled away from the body as Wells swung his weapon toward Tori’s position, firing fast, rounds popping off concrete.
Blade was already going for his gun. His knee screamed where he’d landed, the leg threatening to give again with every stride.
Barclay and Wells scrambled for the far side of the room, using the support pillars for cover. Blade reached his Glock, scooped it, came up behind a pillar of his own.
A gun barrel pressed against his temple from the other side of the concrete.
Lock.
He’d forgotten about Lock.
Pure instinct. Blade’s left hand shot up, fingers finding the slide, ripping it backward and off the frame in one motion. The pieces hit the floor. Slide one direction, frame the other.
Lock stared at the disassembled weapon for a fraction of a second.
The knife came out.
Blade still had his Glock, but the space between them was nothing. Two feet, maybe less. Lock knew it. A knife at this range beat a drawn pistol every time, and the way he moved forward said he knew exactly how to do that math.
Blade backed off the trigger, shifted his grip, used the Glock’s frame as a blocking tool on the first slash. The second got through, raking across his forearm. He dropped the gun without meaning to, fingers going slick.
Now they were even.
Lock pressed forward, every step cutting off Blade’s angles. He was fresh. Blade was bleeding from three places, his knee threatening to buckle every time he pivoted, the beach wound screaming across his ribs with each breath.
He caught a thrust on his forearm, deflected it wide, drove a palm strike into Lock’s nose. Felt it give.
Lock’s eyes watered but he didn’t slow. An elbow strike caught Blade’s jaw. He tasted blood. Another drove into his collarbone, and his shoulder went briefly dead. Lock pivoted behind him, and the forearm locked across his throat.
Blade clawed at it. Drove his elbow back into Lock’s ribs. Once. Twice. The grip didn’t change.
His vision began to gray at the edges. Across the room through the narrowing tunnel of it he could see Tori.
Wells had her pinned from the left, Barclay had worked around from the right, and she had nowhere to move without leaving Stryker exposed.
Her Glock tracked between them, buying seconds she didn’t have.
She couldn’t see everything at once.
Nobody could.
Wells fired. She ducked left. Barclay fired. She ducked right. Back and forth, walking her into a corner one shot at a time. They weren’t trying to hit her yet. They were herding her. The moment she ran out of bullets, it was over.
She needed someone to pull one of them off her.
Blade was that someone. He’d always been that someone.
His fingers found Lock’s forearm and couldn’t move it.
The gray closed in, sounds going hollow and distant, his body slacking.
He was going to die here, listening to the gunshot that killed her.