It feels like carrying a bomb.
I walk out of the trauma bay, head down. I don’t look for Alvarez. I can’t put her in more danger. I make it to the locker room on legs that wade through molasses, my wrist throbbing where Mercer’s man crushed it, a pulse of pain keeping time with my heart.
The room sits empty. I change fast, stripping off my scrubs with frantic movements. Jeans. Sweater. Boots. I transfer the crumpled paper to my jeans pocket.
I check my phone. No service.
Of course. They jammed the signal.
I grab my keys, threading the metal shafts through my knuckles like claws. A trick my father taught me when I started working nights.Go for the eyes, Iris. Or the throat.
I push open the heavy metal backdoor and step out into the cold night air.
2
The Asset
BOYD
My world shrinksto the size of a firing pin.
It’s the only truth I trust. Steel, oil, the satisfying click of a slide racking home. People lie. Governments lie. The agency lies as a matter of policy, weaving complex webs of deception to cover the stains on the floor. But a SIG Sauer P226 Legion is binary. It interacts with physics, not politics. No agenda, no ambition, no conscience. It either works or it doesn’t.
And I make sure it always works.
I sit in the dark of my apartment; the only light bleeding in is from the neon sign of the dive bar across the street. The cheap red buzz fills the room, painting the walls in a flickering arterial pulse.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
The room is a void. No personality, no history, no soul. A leather couch that came with the rental sits against one wall, cracking with age. A table. A single chair. No photos on the mantel. No plants dying a slow neglected death on the windowsill. If I caught a bullet tonight, the landlord could scrub my existence away with one bottle of bleach and have a new tenant in by Tuesday.
That’s how I like it. Attachments are drag coefficients. They create friction. Drag slows you down.
And in my line of work, slow is dead.
My thumb works the slide release. The metal runs cool, smelling of Hoppe’s No. 9 solvent and purpose. I strip the weapon blind. I know the topography of this gun better than the layout of this city. Recoil spring. Guide rod. Barrel. Frame. I wipe a speck of nonexistent carbon from the feed ramp with a microfiber cloth.
The phone on the table vibrates.
Not a ring. A single sharp buzz against the cheap laminate, a mechanical insect announcing an intrusion.
I don’t reach for it.
I reassemble the weapon first. The pieces lock together, fluid and seamless. Slide. Spring. Pin. Lock. I rack the slide once. Twice. The sound is the only music I need, a percussion of lethal potential.
Only then do I pick up the phone. I skip the caller ID. Only one person has this number, and he only calls when the world is burning.
“Vance.”
“We have a situation.”
Chief Hutchinson’s voice grinds like gravel on glass. He sounds tired. He always sounds tired, like the weight of the entire intelligence apparatus sits on his sternum.
“Denver General. Trauma unit.”
“I’m on leave, Hutch. Forced leave. Psychological evaluation pending. Remember?”
“Not anymore. Reinstatement is effective immediately. We have an issue.”
