Authors: James Grady

Nature of the Game (64 page)

“Why?”

Again Wes had no answer.

“It's our call, Marine. We're on the line. Besides, they don't want to do that.”

“You've got to come in.”

“Where? The CIA? What do you think they'll do about this? About Varon and the shit he pulled? What do you think they'll do to me? A drunk farm? Locked up somewhere? They trained me to get out of anywhere, and they know that. Lobotomy? What can they do with me?”

“They need to knowâ”

“You trust them to do the right thing?”

Wes blinked.

“You can't let me walk,” said Jud. “They won't stop until they know I'm accounted for. How many more people am I going to run over with their parade? The booze has got me. The ghosts have got me. You found Lorri. You saw what I did to Nora.”

“That was a combatâ”

“So what?”

Jud pushed himself to his feet. He reeled, staggered, but faced Wes.

“What do you want?” whispered Wes.

“I don't want those fuckers to win. I want to be free. I don't want to hurt anybody else. I want to beat them. I don't want to hurt anymore.”

“Ifâ”

“No ifs, no ands, no buts.” Jud smiled. “You know.”

“We can buy time toâ”

“There's no more time. There's no other place.” He pointed his finger at Wes. Like a gun. “They've got you, too.”

“No.”

“Yes,” said Jud. “You think that they'll let you walk free and clear if they make the play?”

The rain blew into the house. Wes retreated a step.

“Clock's running, Major. Nowhere to run, no time to waste.”

“Let's go.”

“No. You can't either. You leave now, you take me with you, pin me for them â¦ they win. They own you then. I know.”

“Do what you're supposed to do,” said Jud.

“That's not my job.”

“Sure it is. It's what has to be done. Do it for me. Do it myself, means I lost. Don't do it, they win. You doâ”

“Stop it!”

“You do it,” said Jud, “I'm free. Nick's safeâwithout me, he can't make enough trouble for them to care. If you do it, don't confess, they'll never know what you've got on 'em, so they'll leave you alone. Hell, you do it, they're stuck with their own shit! Let the straight world have all this! Drop a dime when you go, let the local yokels find Varon, me, his files. Shit, call the
Post
. But don't tell 'em who you are. Leave a house full of questions. That won't change the world, but let this shit rise to the top, a bloody mess smeared on the spooks' walls. Them having to scrape it off is the only way anything good'll happen, and we can't control that. Hell, do it for the damn country, it needs exercise.”

“You're crazy!”

“So what? They tapped you, sent you out, set you up: who do you owe what?”

“I don't owe you this.”

“Then I'll owe you one.” Jud laughed. “I'll pay it off. You do this, you'll be free. Me gone, they won't care about you. It's the only way to finish your job. It's the only way you can walk. Forget about me, Nick, what could happen. Do it for yourself.

“You know how I'm going to pay you off? I'm not going to give you an excuse. I'm not going to fight you, force you to take me out of the box. Make it easy. Make you always wonder if you couldn't have beaten me another way. I know what that's like. You start apologizing to your ghosts. You start to owe them. Then they own you, then you're lost. No maybes: that's my payoff to you. Clear choice, no question. I'm going to make you do it
clean
.

“Only one thing.”

Jud shuffled across the room.

Wes couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Couldn't feel, yet was so completely
there
that he was gone into a new place, a new time.

Arm's length away, Jud stopped. Bent. Wrapped his fingers around the Sig's barrel and slowly raised it to the end of Wes's straight arm. Raised it until the bore kissed his chest.

“One thing,” said Jud, holding the gun to his flesh, “I'm not going to die on my knees.”

The hammering of Jud's heart vibrated through the gun into Wes's arm, shaking him with each beat. Each blow was a nail of truth. Wes knew that if he brought Jud
in
, the CIA would pull Jud into the cloak of shadows, unseen forever, never known, never judged. Wes's hands would wrap the cloak shut; his touch would be there and theirs. Varon would become a hidden footnote, an obituary. Wes thought of Noah Hall and Director Denton, of owl-glasses Billy Cochran: one and all, somewhere down the line, they'd betrayed their duty, betrayed him, turned their gunsights on him. He owed them nothing. He owed Nick a bottom-line truth; he owed Beth an honest confession she could understand, a confession whose consequences he had to risk. This man standing before him, this heart beating and shaking Wes's whole being: he owed him what Wes would want for himself. Jud's heart beat against Wes until it felt like they'd merged into one being with two lives: they were one, and the pain and hope that Jud felt became the only hope Wes had for ending the pain, for getting free, for doing what had to be done, and his finger tightened on the trigger.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

cover design by Georgia Morrissey

This edition published in 2011 by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com