The Black Wolf (In the Company of Killers, #5)(59)

“Is that a threat, Mr. Faust?” Barrett speaks up, narrowing his eyes.

“Yes. It is, Mr. Barrett. And I am not in the habit of making threats I am unable to carry out.” I straighten my suit jacket and then fold my hands loosely on the table.

Barrett smirks. “We have you, Mr. Faust,” he cautions. “Both of you, two men who may not be on a wanted list yet, but keep in mind that’s only because we’ve kept you off them.” He leans toward the table, eyeing me as if he has something over me. “We could take you right now—we could kill you right now.”

“Please Mr. Barrett”—I open a hand, palm up, and casually gesture toward his jacket pocket—“why don’t you give your son—the one in Maine—a call, before you say anything more.”

His skin pales, and the smirk vanishes from his mouth. He glances at Connors nervously, then back in my direction. Masters breathes in heavily; his jaw grinds behind his stubbled cheeks. Miller, the novice, looks a bit scared; Darros, the expert, continues to watch me the same way I’ve been watching him. Connors’ eyes shut softly and he shakes his head like a man wishing his mouthy counterpart would drop the threats already. Kenneth Ware looks impressed.

Barrett’s son answers the phone.

“Are you all right, Danny?”

“Why don’t you put him on speakerphone?” I suggest.

Hesitantly, Barrett sets his phone on the table and runs his finger over the screen.

“I’m fine, Dad,” comes his son’s voice, “he hasn’t hurt me.”

The two of them go on about the man sitting in Daniel Barrett’s living room, my man from the First Division: how he was sitting there like that, in the dark, when Daniel came home from work hours ago; how my man told Daniel that he would not hurt him and that all he wanted Daniel to do was wait for this phone call.

And then Connors calls his wife in New York and they go through the same conversation about the woman sitting with her in her kitchen. “She even let me cook dinner,” comes the wife’s voice through the speakerphone. “Not that I’m hungry after coming home to find a strange woman in our house with a gun on her hip, but I was so scared I wanted to…do what I normally do, I guess; make me feel like you’re coming home. Are you coming home, Barry?” Her voice is shaky. Connors looks to me for the answer.

“Yes, I’m coming home, Abbs,” he tells her; the hope that she is still alive when he gets there is written all over his face. “I’ll be late for that dinner, but I’ll be there.”

Barrett looks right at Dorian Flynn.

“Hey,” Flynn says, putting up his hands in his defense, “I only gave him the information you authorized me to give: your names and titles and where we’d be meeting.”

That’s more than what you can say you gave to them on us.

“You’re threatening my family?” Barrett’s hands become fists on the table, and he starts to get up, but Connors stops him.

“Mr. Faust is threatening us,” Connors says, “the same way you’re threatening him, so calm down, and sit down; no one’s going to get hurt.” He looks at me across from him with more of that hope in his features. “What did you expect, Dan, that he’d just waltz into this meeting without being thoroughly prepared? You do remember why we set up this meeting to begin with, right? Victor Faust knows what he’s doing, and”—he looks right at me—“I’m not ashamed to admit that he’s better at it than we are.” He turns back to an angry Barrett. “But that’s why he’s here, Dan, so let’s get this partnership underway, toss the distrust and the threats aside and let’s start over. Smoothly. All right?”

Connors looks to me.

“He is right, Mr. Barrett,” I say. “No one will hurt your family.”

The card I played is my way of letting them all know that if they ever betray me, or even manage to kill me, that there will be the gravest of consequences. I may not have information on Kenneth Ware, Mark Masters, Ryan Miller or David Darros yet, but I will after this meeting is over, now that I know who they are and I’ve seen their faces.

Barrett very slowly slides back into his chair. Once he has calmed himself he looks to me and nods. “OK,” he says. “A fresh start; I’d very much like that.”





Victor





The nine of us talk for an hour about what each of us knows on Vonnegut—I and Gustavsson only give them the information we agreed on before coming here, as I am sure they did the same. We discuss at length what each of us proposes we do first to go about catching Vonnegut, but in the end we all come to the agreement that it will take time, a lot of resources, possibly several undercover missions to gain more information, and that nothing will happen overnight. Before we can take a man down, we have to know who he is exactly, what he looks like—Connors’ and Barrett’s team do not even know where to begin. I pretend to have an inkling, that I have a little more on Vonnegut’s true identity than they have, just to keep them baited. But what I really have is someone who I believe has actually seen my former employer in the flesh—Izabel is the key, and no one turns that key but me. Fortunately Dorian Flynn knows nothing of what Nora told me in the room that day about Izabel. Five other people in my Order do know, however, but I trust them to keep it to themselves. For the most part.