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For the first time in this mission he was truly afraid, but he told himself he was a professional, and he would see this job through.
He tapped the driver on the shoulder, then handed him the phone so he could see the map area they’d be working in. Contreras said, “We need to park the van very carefully. Somewhere it won’t be noticed.”
The driver grumbled something about knowing how to do his job, and then he put the van in gear and began rolling forward, while Contreras went to work setting up his monitoring station in the back.
“Madre de dios,” he muttered again.
•••
Scott Kincaid lurched up in his bed to a sitting position; sweat dripped into his eyes before he had a chance to wipe his bald head dry.
It took him a second to remember where he was—a hotel in Havana, Cuba—and what he was doing: waiting on intelligence that would direct him to his next victim.
The nightmare he’d just awoken from felt like it had lasted from the moment he laid his head on his pillow last night till right now, and it felt as authentic as it had when he’d lived the nightmare for real in his past.
As a comfort, he reached between his legs and hefted the Republic Forge Longslide pistol, held it to his beating heart, the cold metal helping to bring him out of his dream and back to the here and now.
His rib cage hurt where the Guatemalan cop had winged him several days earlier, and this sharp burning pain also helped him collect his thoughts, to take him deeper away from the nightmare, the repeat of his past, and to bring him forward to the present.
There were a hell of a lot of past events the subconscious of Scott Kincaid could have drawn on to generate a nightmare, and he did dream about all sorts of heinous things that had happened to him, at least once or twice a week.
He was a veteran of intense combat; he was an assassin. His mind had a plethora of fears to draw from when he slept.
But the nightmare tonight was not of war, and it was not of murder.
It was of Dad. The most terrifying force he’d ever come across.
Kincaid shook away last night’s horror and climbed out of bed. His ribs stung as he walked to the window. Looking out at the heavy weather, he muttered to himself. “Great. No fucking ISR.”
It was early still; storms in the Caribbean could come and go, so he pushed this concern out of his mind and checked his phone. No messages from Gama had come during the night, so right there in the darkened room he did push-ups and sit-ups; the ragged wound on his right side where the bullet had grazed him in Guatemala burned with each rep.
And then he stepped out onto the balcony and into the rain, wearing only his boxers. Using the balcony above his as a pull-up bar, he hung his body out over the narrow dirty street below, which would have certainly drawn a lot of attention here in Old Havana had there been anyone out and about.
Back inside he pulled off his underwear and toweled off, stood naked in the bathroom, and then heard the beep from his phone, indicating a text had come through Signal.
He raced back into the bedroom, snatched it up, and looked at the image of a man staring back at him. The face meant nothing, so he scrolled down to see the man’s identity.
His eyes blinked hard. Aloud in the dark Havana hotel room he whispered reverently, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Seconds later he’d jammed his earpiece into his ear and placed a call to his controller.
“Control,” the French woman said. Kincaid wondered if she ever slept.
“It’s Lancer. I’ll kill him…but I want a bonus. Three million U.S.”
“I’m not in a position—”
“Get Cyrus to approve, or I don’t go after this target.”
There was a lengthy pause, and then, just as he’d suspected, the director of Gama came on the line.
In his thick Northern European accent he said, “As before, Lancer, if you do not like the terms of your employment, go through your handler to—”
“I can’t go through my handler because my handler is fucking dead.”
“Wha…what?”
“Killed in Mexico, three nights ago. You might have seen it on the news.”
