Raul pumped the trigger. The slug hit the man in the chest, throwing him backward and down to the ground.
* * *
Reaching into the pouch, Dewey found two more magazines, along with his combat knife. He fastened the knife sheath to his calf, crawled to the door, and sprinted down the hallway toward the kitchen.
As he got to the main house, he heard breaking glass coming from the kitchen.
Dewey charged into the kitchen, searching for Nico and Maria.
Maria was kneeling in the corner, pointing in silence out at the terrace. Dewey crossed in a low crouch to the doors that led outside. Nico lay in a contorted heap, surrounded by a mess of food, broken plates, and blood. His chest showed a pancake of blood where the bullet had struck.
Anger fueled with sorrow, hatred, and every other dark force that had ever compelled any man to kill and it took over Dewey. It washed over him like a storm tide, and he knew in those moments it would never leave him, never again; it would always be there, forever, and every step for the rest of his life, whether they killed him tonight or he lived to be a hundred, would be scarred by the pain that now coursed through him.
He shot out the terrace light, then crawled to the wall near the French doors. He shut out the lights inside the kitchen.
Dewey moved to Maria, kneeling against the wall. He’d never seen someone as scared. Pure terror was spread across the woman’s face. Her mouth was ajar, her lips moving in a silent scream, as tears flowed down her cheeks. Her right hand was still pointing toward her dead husband.
Dewey felt his instincts taking over then. Whatever pain, whatever sorrow, whatever trauma was to come, it would have to wait.
He felt himself going back to a familiar place. He was in Panama City, in the basement of the tenement, four dead SEALs by his side, trying to fight his way out of an ambush by one of Noriega’s kill squads. He was in the cold water six hundred feet below Capitana, on the ocean floor, oxygen running out, fighting for his life against two of Alexander Fortuna’s mercenaries. He was on the tarmac at Beirut Airport, side by side with Kohl Meir, hemmed in by Hezbollah to the south and Lebanese Special Forces to the north.
It was that time he’d come to recognize, the crucible that alone was Dewey’s, a gift and a curse: the moment of the warrior.
Dewey reached his hand out and took Maria’s hand in his own. Calmly, he placed his gun on the ground, and held her hands, comforting her. He looked into her eyes, just visible in the dim light from the night sky.
“I need you to do something, Maria,” said Dewey.
She stared, eyes transfixed on nothing, into the distance.
Dewey gently squeezed her hands.
“Can you do something for me?” asked Dewey, trying to get her back.
Slowly, Maria’s head moved up and down, nodding yes.
“I need you to be strong,” said Dewey, calmly. “He needs you to be strong. Can you do that?”
She shut her eyes. She started sobbing. Her body heaved as tears came down.
“Where are Sabina and Alvaro?” asked Dewey.
At the sound of her children’s names, Maria’s eyes suddenly became more alert. She tried to stand up. Dewey put one of his hands on her shoulder and held her down.
“Where are they, Maria?”
“Her boyfriend’s, in El Brillante.”
“That’s good,” said Dewey. “What about Alvaro?”
Maria paused, thinking, then again tried to lurch up, as she suddenly let out a low scream.
“At the polo house,” said Maria, desperation in her voice. “We need to find him.”
Dewey kept his hand on Maria’s shoulder, holding her there, against the wall.
“I’ll take care of Alvaro. You need to hide. Is there a basement?”
Maria pointed to a door at the far side of the kitchen.
“Good,” said Dewey reassuringly. “Are there guns?”
“They’re in Nico’s gun safe. I don’t know the combination.”
Dewey reached for his Colt and handed it to her.
“Have you ever fired a sidearm?”
She nodded.
“This one will kick,” said Dewey. “Hold it with both hands. I want you to take the gun and go to the basement. Find a place to hide. The next people you’ll see will probably be police; don’t shoot them. But if they’re not police, you need to kill them.”
“How will I know?”
“You’ll know. If it’s the bad guys, they’ll be quiet, and they probably won’t be Argentine. The police won’t be quiet; they’ll be looking for you, calling your name.”
Maria thought for a moment, then nodded at Dewey.
“Now go,” said Dewey. “You need to move.”
Maria crawled across the kitchen floor, opened the basement door, and disappeared into the cellar.
Seconds were passing, precious moments. Dewey needed to think quickly. They could be getting away.
It had been a black-on-black design, sniper, informants, technological know-how, and, above all, audacity.
The safe thing would be to get the authorities in here. Secure the scene. Then call Hector. Get a Langley forensics team down here to analyze the slugs. But Dewey didn’t feel like doing the safe thing. He needed to find the man who triggered the rifle that killed his fiancée, and then find the men who sent him there.
He felt adrenaline surging inside him. His heart raced. He stood, took one last look at Nico’s corpse, then sprinted out of the kitchen.
Back at the bedroom, he paused outside the door, steeling himself for what lay inside. He stepped inside, trying not to look at Jessica.
Don’t look. You said your goodbye. Walk away. Leave her behind.
There’s only one thing you can do now, Dewey. It’s what you were made to do, what you were meant to do, the only thing you can do.
He went to the bureau and searched until he found Jessica’s sidearm, a government-issued Glock G30S. He slammed in a magazine, grabbed the other mag, then ran to the terrace, into the darkness.
* * *
“It was supposed to be surgical,” said Chang, to Raul’s right, watching through the binoculars.
“And I was supposed to be a doctor,” said Raul. “Things don’t always turn out as planned.”
Both men watched as, in the distance, the lights of the ranch went out one-by-one.
“Start packing up,” said Raul. “We need to get the hell out of here.”
“He’s still alive.”
“So are we. Now pack up the shit.”
“What about him?” asked Chang, nodding toward Hu-Shao.
“We’ll carry him. Let’s get moving.”
* * *
Dewey sprinted away from the ranch, through uncut fields, beneath the night sky. He ran at a grueling pace, ignoring the burning in his lungs.
The front of Dewey’s foot hit a root sticking up, and he went tumbling forward, landing on his chest. He paused for a moment on the ground. He scanned back toward the house. He could make out the dark silhouette of the ranch.
Dewey searched for something to hold on to, a feeling, a moment, to stave off the terrible thoughts. The darkness, the burning in his lungs—it all brought him back to Fort Bragg, to training, to Delta:
You’ll get used to the dark. It will become your ally. When it does, no man will be safe from you.
Dewey got up and began to run, harder this time, charging across the fields.
His mind flashed to a picture of Jessica in the river, swimming toward him. He took the memory, folded it up, then tucked it there, in a box, somewhere deep inside. Next to Robbie. He closed the box and shut it away.
Before him, on the ground, he saw a trail of beaten-down grass.
The tracks came from the south, toward the river. He scanned the horizon, seeing nothing but darkness and stars. Dewey fell into the path of beaten-down grass, sprinting, the Glock clutched in his right hand. His nostrils flared, sweat trickled down, and he felt it now, the warmth of the hunter.
He saw a flicker of light in the distance, then heard an engine.
Dewey ran faster, his lungs burning, aiming toward the light.
He came to a small hill and took it in five quick steps. There, less than a hundred feet away, was an SUV, headlights on. In front of it were two silhouettes, leaned over, carrying a body.
Dewey raised the Glock in stride, then fired.
The men saw him and dropped what they were carrying, both men lurching toward the SUV.
Dewey pulled the trigger as fast as his finger would let him. Bullets hit the vehicle, breaking glass. He hit one of the men, who fell to the ground. Dewey ran closer, firing again as the fallen man got up and limped toward the back of the SUV. The engine revved as Dewey came closer, suddenly peeling out and driving away from Dewey as he emptied the mag.
Dewey stopped, watching as the taillights receded in the distance. He could barely breathe. For nearly a minute, he leaned over, catching his breath.
He walked to the body. The man was lying facedown. The back of his head was missing. His shirt and the back of his pants were drenched in blood.
Dewey put his foot beneath the man’s torso and kicked him over. His face was partially destroyed. He had a mustache that was interrupted in the middle by a hole, the entry point to a bullet someone had fired at close range, a dollar’s worth of metal and gunpowder that had blown out the back of his skull. Another slug had been fired into his right eye. The left one was still in place, a bulging eye that looked blankly up at the sky. He looked Asian.
The lights from the SUV disappeared. It was eerily quiet.
Dewey ran back to the ranch. In the bedroom, he found his shoulder holster. He put it on, inserted the handgun, then looked one last time at Jessica. Her face was calm and still, like a sculpture.
In the driveway, he slid open the garage door. A Range Rover was parked inside, and he climbed in, found the keys on the dash, and started the car. When he flipped the lights on, they illuminated a bright red motorcycle which was parked in the back of the garage. It had letters in black cursive along the side:
DUCATI
CORSE
1199
PANIGALE S
Dewey turned off the car, climbed out, and hopped on the bike.
He turned it on. It rumbled to life, the engine purring smoothly, low and loud. He revved it several times and let it scream in neutral. He put the bike in gear and moved slowly out of the garage.
At the gravel, he opened it up. The Ducati burst down the driveway. Within seconds, the bike was going sixty. As he approached the polo house, Dewey slowed to a stop. He put the kickstand down and ran inside.
He found Alvaro in one of the bunk rooms, asleep. Dewey placed his left hand on the boy’s mouth, waiting for him to wake up, which he did, struggling beneath Dewey’s hand, startled. He was a strong kid, but Dewey held him down with his right hand, with his left he put a finger to his mouth, telling him to be quiet.
“Come with me,” said Dewey.
Back on the Ducati, Alvaro sat behind Dewey, clutching him around the waist.
He pushed the throttle now as far as it would go. The front tire popped up from the ground. Dewey leaned in, pushing to settle it back down. He was at eighty miles an hour as he reached the end of the driveway, where, in the distance, he saw the Suburban. The front side window was shattered. He slowed as he came upon it. He saw the back of Morty’s head, slumped over the steering wheel.
Dewey revved the bike and sped toward the main road.
“Hold on,” he yelled over the engine.
He reached the end of the driveway and banked a hard left, then let the bike rip. The engine roared. In seconds, he’d cycled the gearbox and was moving at more than 120, chasing the killers of the only thing that mattered to him.
A few seconds later, he glanced at the digital pictograph on the console: 154.
The country road became more crowded as he approached Córdoba. He saw a gas station and cut in, then stopped.
“Get off,” said Dewey.
Alvaro climbed off the back of the bike. He was barefoot. He looked thoroughly confused, and scared.
“What’s going on?”
“Call your sister in El Brillante. Tell her to stay where she is.”
“What happened?”
Dewey looked into the boy’s eyes.
“Then call AFP. Tell them the ranch was attacked. Your mother is alive.”
“My mother is alive—”
“They killed your father.”
Alvaro looked as if he was about to faint.
“Tell AFP your mother is in the basement, hiding,” said Dewey, a hard, emotionless expression on his face. “Alvaro, you need to be tough. Your mom, your sister—they need you to be tough. That starts right now. Do you understand?”
Alvaro appeared daunted by the sudden realization of what was happening. Finally, he nodded at Dewey.
“Yeah, I understand.”
Dewey ripped out of the gas station on the Ducati, leaving a scorched line of smoking rubber. He cycled quickly through the gearbox, taking the bike back up to 100, 110, 130, and still, he didn’t slow.
He swerved past cars and trucks, swinging into the oncoming lane, then back again, as horns blared. At the outskirts of the city, he saw a sign with a picture of a plane on it. He banked right, feeling his knee scuff against the road, then opened the bike up again. He was quickly back up to 150.
Move quickly. Always have a weapon. If you’re in danger, you must be prepared to risk your own life.
Just past another sign for the airport, Dewey hit the crest of a hill he didn’t see coming. As the road dropped, the momentum of the bike thrust him forward, into the air. The bike caught air and didn’t come down for several seconds, as the engine churned furiously. Dewey fought to keep his balance, to stay straight, until, thirty feet down the road, the back tire of the bike touched down, with Dewey gripping the handlebars. The front tire hit tar a second later.
Dewey banked right into the airport entrance, again nicking his right knee on the tar as he bent the bike low.
The airport was lit up but quiet. He sped through the arrival area, looking for signs of life, then hooked around the side of the terminal, racing for the runway.
He saw two blue lights. He came on a police cruiser at the gate to the runway. The car door opened and an officer held up his hand, ordering him to stop, but Dewey kept going, past the policeman. He pushed the bike harder, pulled back, lifted the front tire, and hit the wooden gate that that led to the tarmac. It smashed into pieces.