Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(124)

He expected to be strapped onto a metal chair in the center of the room. Instead, the bigger of the two enforcers half-carried him to a chair beside a shop-bench on the far wall. Dropping to a knee, the big man ripped open Freddy’s bloody pants leg

“Shit!” Freddy gasped as the pain forced beads of sweat out of his forehead like a squeezed sponge.

“Shit’s right,” the big man said. “Franky, get a look at this leg.”

Franky ambled over, glanced down, then grinned at Freddy, revealing a mouth badly in need of an orthodontist. “You like that leg?”

“Used to,” Freddy managed, between clenched teeth.

“Well it won’t bother you much longer, will it, Jimmy?”

Freddy knew he must be missing something. Probably the fever making him delirious, but this conversation wasn’t sounding good at all.

“Listen, guys. Maybe I should just be on my way. Don’t want to trouble you.”

“No trouble at all,” Franky said, moving so that he was behind the chair.

As the one called Jimmy picked up a power tool from the workbench, Franky pinned Freddy to his seat in a grip that threatened to crack ribs.

“What’re you doing? God damn it! I’m a friend of Benny Marucci’s!”

As Jimmy retrieved a bucket and walked toward the chair, his grin returned. “Oh, we know. Benny said to help you disappear, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Jimmy pulled a handheld recorder from his pocket, pressed the small red record button, and set it on the workbench. In a swift motion that belied his size, Jimmy looped a plastic tie around Freddy’s good ankle, binding it tightly to the steel chair leg. Then, lifting the damaged leg so that it rested on the bucket, he switched on the jigsaw.

As the saw bit into the skin and bone just above Freddy’s left knee, he began to scream, the sound echoing in the concrete room until it drowned out the high-pitched squeal of the saw. And despite the blood that splattered the case, the small gears on the cassette tape recorder continued to spin.





130


President Gordon sat at his desk in the Treaty Room of the White House; the voice on the secure phone was the one he’d been expecting.

“So, Bill, what have you got for me?”

“Good news, Mr. President. Freddy Hagerman is dead.”

“You have confirmation.”

“DNA and lots of it. It seems that our boys weren’t the only ones after Mr. Hagerman.”

“How so?”

“A few years back he did a series of stories on New York crime families. Apparently, one of them held a grudge. Some of their boys ran him through a crane pulley down on the docks. Most of the body went in the river, but police found a mangled leg and lots of blood on the big cable spool.”

The president hesitated. “All they found was a leg?”

“No. If that was it, we wouldn’t be certain he’s dead. The mob left a bloody cassette tape at the scene. Must’ve wanted to send a message.”

“They recorded the kill.”

“Just the audio. Pretty nasty stuff. You can hear them working on Hagerman with a power tool. Must’ve run him through the crane after that. Reminds me of what the mob did to one of the FBI boys a few years back.”

“You’re sure it’s Hagerman on the tape?”

“Voiceprints match. One more thing, Mr. President.”

“Yes?”

“When someone screams hard enough, the vocal cords start ripping. Permanent damage. The boys in the lab ran an analysis on Hagerman’s screams. At the end, his throat must have been a bloody mess.”

“Thanks, Bill.”

The president hung up the phone, leaned back in his high-backed leather chair, feeling the weight lift from his shoulders for the first time in over a week. He hadn’t admitted to himself just how much the pressure had gotten to him. If Hagerman had been able to leak the information on what was happening in the tunnels beneath Henderson House, the government would have had a serious shit-storm on its hands.

One major threat put to bed. And with the information his source in the CIA was providing, he felt confident that the remaining threat would be dealt with soon. Even though they still didn’t know Jack Gregory’s location, it was only a matter of time.

The CIA had some talented contractors, but Gregory made him nervous. After what happened in Los Alamos, the president was in no mood to take any chances this time. That’s why he’d recalled the Colombian.

The president looked out his window and smiled. Freddy Hagerman dead!

Tonight he’d break out a glass of that Chivas he’d been saving for just this occasion. When the Colombian nailed Gregory, he’d finish the rest of the bottle.





131


Sitting in the beautiful terrace dining area of the Hotel El Poblado Plaza in the heart of Medellín’s business district, Mark couldn’t begin to allow himself to relax. So intense had been his concentration on the drive from Bogotá to Medellín that he had heard the movement of the soldiers’ hands on their weapons at each checkpoint, had monitored their heart rates and breathing for any sign of increased stress.

But the trip had gone remarkably smooth. They had flown into Bogotá to avoid taking a direct path to their target, staying just long enough to purchase an old car, the transaction made in cash. Thanks to Heather’s gambling talent, there was no shortage of that. Their papers had aroused no suspicion, and after listening briefly to the intonations of local people, Mark had adjusted his Spanish so that he now sounded like a native.