The Treadstone Resurrection Read online

  “We’ll see about that,” Black said, turning his attention to the men in the back. “You three keep the safeties off until we get a handle on the situation,” Black told the three hard-looking bearded men who wore dusty plate carriers festooned with the tools of their trade: extra magazines for the H&K 416s around their necks, tourniquets, and M67 fragmentation grenades.

  “Copy that.”

  After a second pass, the pilot pulled the helo skyward and settled into a lazy orbit.

  “Convoy coming in,” Murph announced.

  Gray stepped away from the door and watched the cloud of dust that marked Vega’s approach. The first truck, a green F-150, rolled into sight, the bed packed with gunmen.

  “You want your vest?” Black asked.

  “Not my style,” Gray replied, lifting the cowboy hat off his head and running his fingers through his blond hair.

  The vest brought up memories of his classmate Mike Vickers. They had gone through the Farm together. Mike was looking for a high-value target in Iraq when their convoy hit an IED. When Gray visited him at Walter Reed hospital, he almost lost it. Something about seeing Mike lying there hooked up to all those machines. His daughter crying over what was left of her dad.

  Fuck all that. When it was his time, Gray wanted a clean death.

  The F-150 shot up the gentle incline in a cloud of brown dirt, the faces of the soldiers in the bed covered in black balaclavas. The truck made a quick lap around the top of the hill, kicking up a wall of dust before skidding to a halt.

  When the dust settled, the armed men in the back of the truck had climbed down and stood eyeing Gray’s perimeter.

  Nice and smooth, he thought, returning his attention to the black Mercedes SUV waiting at the bottom of the hill.

  One of Vega’s men raised a radio to his lips, and after giving the all-clear, the SUV started up the hill. The driver brought it to a halt in front of Gray and a slender man in an immaculate uniform and pencil-thin mustache stepped out.

  “Buenas noches,” Colonel Vega said, dropping a bag at Gray’s feet.

  The impact knocked the flap wide open enough for Gray to see the stacks of banded cash that filled the interior.

  “For the job at the Bolívar,” Vega said.

  Gray nodded for Black to retrieve the bag of cash and the two men walked to the edge of the hill, where they could not be overheard.

  “I understand we have a problem,” Vega began, the earlier smile fading as fast as it had appeared. “Something about an email and some photos.”

  Shit, how does he know about that?

  Vega seemed to read his mind. “Come, Mr. Gray, I would not be very good at my job if I didn’t know everything that was going on in my country, now, would I?” he said.

  “It is being handled.”

  “And you are sure you will have this situation resolved before the shipment is ready in three days?” Vega demanded, his eyes as cold as a rattlesnake’s before it struck.

  “I told you—” Gray snapped, momentarily losing his cool.

  “My friend”—Vega held up his hands, the warmth returning to his eyes as fast as it had vanished—“there is no need to get angry. In three days you will be a very rich man with enough money to leave this life forever,” he said with a sweep of his arm that encompassed the entire hill. “But if your CIA was to learn—”

  “Be careful, Colonel,” Gray hissed, cutting him off. “I don’t take well to threats.”

  “Very well, just make sure you take care of this Adam Hayes, and soon.”

  4

  LA CONNER, WASHINGTON

  The two-inch concrete nail punched through the shooter’s skull and hit the cranial vault, immediately severing all motor functions.

  Death was instantaneous.

  Hayes shoved the dead man off his chest. The fight hadn’t lasted five minutes, but Hayes was gassed. His breath came in short, ragged gasps and his heart hammered like an AK on full auto.

  Part of him wanted to stay there on the floor, catch his breath and figure out what in the hell had just happened, but he couldn’t think with the smoke alarm screaming at him from the wall. Hayes rolled to his feet, twisted the smoke alarm from its mount, and fastballed it across the room.

  The silence that followed was deafening.

  Get up, the voice ordered.

  Being a spectator in your own body was one of the aspects of the Treadstone protocol that Hayes had never gotten used to. The genetic therapy the docs had used to make his muscles stronger and faster was something that he could use—turn on and off when he needed them.

  But the behavior modification was a totally different animal. According to the Treadstone doc, the science was simple.

  * * *

  —

  “Your body has natural responses to certain situations. When your body needs fuel, it tells you that you are hungry. When you are tired, you feel sleepy. The hardware is all there, we just rewire it.”

  “Rewire it?” Hayes asked.

  “Think of it this way: a car has a gas and a brake pedal, right?”

  Hayes nodded.

  “Now you have two gas pedals.”

  * * *

  —

  Someone would have heard the shooting. Cops will be here soon. Make it quick. Check the body.

  He watched himself get to his feet, kneel over the dead man, and rifle through his pockets. All while a voice in his head cataloged what he found.

  Cellphone. A burner. He snapped a picture of the man’s face and then rolled the man over. Looked for a wallet, and when he didn’t find one, glanced at his watch.

  Time check. Thirty seconds. Gotta move.

  Hayes got to his feet and was about to turn to the second shooter when something on the man’s shirt grabbed his attention.

  What is it? Think, damn it.

  The pills . . .

  The pills were the shrink’s idea, one he’d fought for as long as he could.

  * * *

  —

  “This drug is new, but doctors in Europe are having success using it to treat the symptoms of PTSD.”

  “I’m not a big fan of pills,” Hayes said.

  She ripped the prescription from the pad and held it between her fingers. “What about nightmares, are you a fan of those?”

  Good point, he thought, taking the paper.

  “Adam, these pills are a temporary fix. They will treat the symptoms, but they won’t fix you.”

  * * *

  —

  The headache started at the back of his head, a blinding lightning bolt of pain that sent his blood pressure skyrocketing.

  His hands were shaking, the first sign of the panic attack that started in his guts. Hayes tried to get ahead of it, but it was too late. His blood pounded so hard against the ocular nerve that the room throbbed in and out of focus.

  Hayes buried his head in his hands, remembering the grounding exercise his shrink had taught him. Picture someplace safe. A place where you are in control. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the safe space, but the bodies of the two shooters lying five feet away made it impossible.

  Eighteen months of work, gone in the blink of an eye.

  The pain came back, and the image began to distort. Twisted and frayed at the edges, and Hayes’s mouth stretched wide. “Not now!” he screamed, palms pressed hard against the sides of his skull.

  He dropped to his knees, the concrete cold through his pants. I am in control.

  It was a lie. One confirmed by the gunpowder in the air and the dead bodies on the floor. And then there was the thirst. The implacable burning that reminded Hayes he wasn’t in control of shit.

  Treadstone hadn’t said anything about side effects when he’d signed up. They had told him it was just a job—another way he could serve. It wasn’t until after his first miss
ion, during the debrief in the room with the off-white tiles and institution-gray walls, that Hayes started to realize what he’d really signed up for.

  * * *

  —

  The memories came rushing back. So real and visceral that Hayes could almost feel the cold metal of the stainless-steel chair against his bare skin, see the bottle of water sitting on the table in front of him. Condensation running down the plastic like fat tears. He’d never been so thirsty in his life and every fiber in his being screamed for him to snatch the bottle from the table, tear the cap off, and down it in one long gulp.

  Instead he focused on the reflection in the two-way glass mirror mounted on the far wall. The face staring back at him a honed caricature of his own. Sharp cheekbones, on the verge of cutting through the tanned skin. Short cropped brown hair with flecks of gray that hadn’t been there before. But it was the eyes that grabbed his attention. They were blue and cold as glacial ice.

  What the hell did they do to me?

  The door clicked open and the man in the lab coat and a nurse stepped in. He walked to the table and started recording Hayes’s vitals in a cornflower-blue folder.

  “Heart rate?”

  “Eighty-nine beats per minute.”

  “Blood pressure?”

  “One-twenty over eighty.”

  Hayes studied the doctor, the way a predator sizes up potential prey. He estimated the doctor to be in his late forties, with clear blue eyes, bushy brows, and jet-black hair that was way out of regulations. Even for an officer.

  “Almost done, Doctor,” the nurse said, pulling out the needle and replacing it with a cotton ball. “Keep pressure on it until the bleeding stops,” she said, capping the needle, grabbing the three vials of blood, and walking out.

  “Cigarette?” the man asked, offering the pack of Winstons he’d taken from his lab coat.

  “Don’t smoke,” he said, watching the blood stain the cotton ball.

  The doctor scraped a match across the striker and the sulfur smell took Hayes back to the mission. The smell of the pistol after it fired.

  “Mr. Hayes, this is a routine debriefing,” the man began. “I am going to ask you a series of questions and I want you to answer them truthfully. Do you understand the instructions?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any attempt at deception will be noted on the machine,” he said, hooking his cigarette at the monitor in the corner. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Roll tape,” the man said, setting his cigarette into the ashtray and looking down at the paper.

  Hayes looked toward the mirror on the far side of the room and saw the red light come on. He knew they recorded these interviews but had always wondered who was behind the glass watching him.

  “We are going to start with the baseline. What day is it?”

  “Monday.”

  The man looked up at the monitor, didn’t see a spike, and turned back to the paper.

  “What country are you in?”

  “The United States.”

  “And the city?”

  “Alexandria.”

  Testing. They loved to test you here.

  The baseline questions were there to establish how Hayes reacted to telling the truth, and with that out of the way, it was time to begin.

  “Where were you last Tuesday?” the man asked.

  “Seattle,” Hayes lied.

  The man glanced at the monitor, an apostrophe of a frown at the edge of his lips.

  “Is Adam Hayes your real name?”

  “Yes.”

  Another lie that wasn’t picked up. The frown began to spread.

  “What is Treadstone?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  The door opened and a tech slid into the room. He walked over to the machine, looked down at the knobs and then over at the man in the white coat.

  “It’s maxed out,” he said and shrugged.

  “Problem?” Hayes asked innocently.

  “No. Walk me through the mission.”

  “The kill order came in the usual way. A name and an address. Target’s name was John Li. The workup said he was a bagman who ran numbers at the Golden Buddha. It was bullshit.”

  “Excuse me?” the doctor asked.

  “The intel,” Hayes said, looking at the mirror, “was bullshit. Li was MSS—Chinese national intelligence. Guards at the back door were carrying Norinco 9-millimeter pistols when I killed them.”

  “I’ll put that in my notes,” the doctor said.

  “Li went down easy.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Begged for his life. Offered me money, usual stuff.” Hayes shrugged.

  “What did you do?”

  “Put a .22 subsonic in his eye.”

  “And what did you feel when you killed him?”

  “Feel?” Hayes asked, not really understanding the question.

  “Yeah.”

  “Recoil,” Hayes answered honestly.

  “Recoil?” The man smiled.

  “Yeah, you know.” Hayes made a pistol out of his hand. “Boom.” He pantomimed pulling the trigger and the rise of the muzzle after he fired.

  “Any side effects? Headaches, trouble sleeping—?”

  “The thirst.”

  “Perfectly normal,” the man said, scratching the response in the file before tossing him the bottle of water.

  * * *

  —

  Back in the kitchen, the pain subsided as fast as it had started and Hayes got to his feet. His mouth was dry as sandpaper and his legs shook as he tottered to the sink. He turned on the faucet, opened his mouth wide under the tap, and drank until he ran out of air.

  Hayes caught his breath and was about to go back for a second drink when he heard the sirens and knew it was time to go.

  5

  LA CONNER, WASHINGTON

  Hayes stuffed the 9-millimeter into his pants, crossed to the threshold, and yanked the door open. He cast a final glance over his shoulder, and when he turned to step outside found himself looking down the barrel of a Glock 17.

  “Get the fuck on the ground!” the deputy behind the pistol ordered.

  Hayes had lost count of how many guns had been shoved in his face, and even now the Glock didn’t impress him.

  But the deputy’s shaky finger on the trigger was a different story.

  He guessed the deputy was in his early thirties, but it was hard to tell with the sweat beading up on his shaved head. One thing that was certain—he was amped up. Jaw muscles flexing like gills, pupils blown out like he’d just snorted an eight-ball of coke.

  Kill him, the voice urged.

  “I don’t kill innocent people.”

  “Wh-what?” the deputy stuttered, pistol shaking in his hand.

  Damn it.

  “Deputy Powell,” Hayes began, reading the deputy’s name off the brass plate on his shirt.

  “Get on the ground, now,” Powell ordered, closing the gap, “or I will blow your head off.”

  Hayes kept his attention on the Glock pointed at his face. The shine of the packing grease on the slide told him everything he needed to know. The pistol was brand-new, just like the deputy.

  “I said on the ground, asshole.”

  “Easy,” Hayes said, lowering himself to his knees.

  A second deputy pulled up, his car’s blue lights strobing. He hopped out, his pistol clearing the holster.

  “Baker 210 on the scene,” he said over his radio.

  “Keep your face down,” Powell commanded, pressing the pistol into the top of Hayes’s head.

  The kiss of the muzzle against his skull sent a spark coursing through Hayes’s body. His muscles went tense, the voice in his head screaming for him to kill the man. But he had a rule
. A code that he’d followed for as long as he could remember: he didn’t kill cops.

  I don’t kill cops.

  “I’m going to check the interior,” the second deputy said, stepping inside the house, his pistol at the ready. His entry was marked a moment later by a curse followed by the sound of the deputy gagging.

  Sounds like he found the bodies.

  “You stay right where you are,” Powell said, stepping to his left and peering through the doorway. “Ronny . . . you good?”

  Hayes turned his head to the side, knowing he needed to get control of the situation but unsure of how to go about it, when a third vehicle pulled up on the scene. The lack of lights on the top of the Ford Crown Vic telling him that it was a supervisor’s vehicle.

  When he saw the man step out of the vehicle and tug the faded Stetson over his bushy blond hair before walking up the drive, Hayes let out a sigh of relief.

  Lieutenant Sidney Blair was every inch the lawman: tall and rangy, with eyes that never stopped moving. He was one of the first men Hayes met when he moved to Skagit County, Washington, and his arrival on the scene was as welcome as a cool breeze on a hot day.

  “Powell, how many times do I have to tell you about trigger discipline,” Blair demanded, his Texas drawl on full display.

  “S-sorry, sir,” the deputy responded.

  Hayes heard the second deputy stumble out the door, followed by the crack of bushes and the smell of vomit.

  “Je-sus, Mary, and Joseph, Ronny, this is a crime scene . . .”

  “Sorry, Lieutenant, but—”

  “Go clean yourself up,” he said before turning to Powell, “and you get some crime scene tape up. Act like one of you has some damn sense.” Once his deputies were out of earshot, Blair flashed a toothy grin to Hayes. “Get your ass up.” He offered his hand.

  The smile disappeared and Hayes knew the reason when he saw his reflection in Blair’s mirrored sunglasses. His face was red and swollen from the fight, but Hayes knew it was the threat of violence dancing in his eyes that had given Blair pause.

  “Hey, now,” Blair said, placing his hand lightly on Hayes’s shoulder and guiding him inside the house, “Powell didn’t mean any harm. You know that, right?”