End Game

  He sat up in his bed, then got out and padded over to the window in his skivvies. He touched the scars on his arm and his shoulder. Both had been repaired to the Agency’s satisfaction, though Robie figured that within another few decades they wouldn’t feel all that “satisfactory.”

  He parted the curtain and looked down upon the darkened main street of Grand, Colorado. It reminded him some of Cantrell, Mississippi, his hometown on the Gulf Coast. Actually, Cantrell was a bit bigger than Grand, though it had never been more than a traffic light stop on the way to somewhere else. His father was there with Robie’s half brother, Tyler. It was just his father and the young boy now, after what had happened back then.

  When Robie had finally gone back to his hometown, he had discovered secrets that perhaps would have been better left buried in the past.

  Blue Man, on the other hand, had come back to his childhood home often. And on this last trip back, the man had vanished.

  There were more dissimilarities there than parallels, Robie noted. But had something from Blue Man’s past come back to cause his disappearance? Did it have something to do with the suicide of his parents nearly fifty years ago? But how could it? There was nothing criminal about that.

  Or was there?

  Earlier, he had sent an encrypted e-mail with their first-day report to the DCI. Her response had been terse but direct.

  Dig deeper. And pick up the pace.

  Right. Easier said than done in a place like this.

  Cantrell had kept its secrets for a long time. Small towns just seemed to be able to do that, though one would think with fewer people the truths would stand out.

  Well, those who thought that would be wrong.

  Robie knew that each day that went by would make it more unlikely that he would ever see Blue Man again, at least alive.

  Robie had few friends.

  Blue Man had been one of them.

  Is one of them.

  Blue Man had never given up on Robie, not even when Robie had perhaps given up on himself. And for that sole reason, Robie could never give up on the man.

  His attention turned back to the street.

  The growl of a motorcycle.

  Robie squinted out into the poor light coming from a few streetlamps.

  The rider looked big, his bulk seemingly dwarfing his bike.

  He had on no helmet, and as he passed under a disc of thrown light Robie could see that his head was bald. The rider pulled into a slot in front of a building across the street and two doors down from the Walleye Bar. Robie had noticed the building before. There was a large NO TRESPASSING sign on the front door. The windows were all dark.

  Robie moved over to his bag, pulled out his night-vision scope, and returned to the window.

  Sighting through it, he watched as the man strode up to the door and knocked.

  Two beats passed and the door opened. A shaft of light from inside was freed, and Robie got a better look at the man. He was dressed all in black. There were creases where his head met the back of his neck. Tatted on one side of his head was a large swastika.

  The skinheads, Robie assumed. He wondered if they were all as large as this gent, who Robie estimated was about six four and three hundred pounds, with not much of it fat.

  The person opening the door was also revealed. She was petite, and looked to be in her twenties with soft brown hair and pretty features that looked familiar to Robie, though he couldn’t place them. She had on jeans and a sweater.

  She stepped aside, the man passed through, and the door closed behind him.

  Robie lowered his scope and tapped it against the palm of his hand.

  Did the woman live there? What was the place? It might be abandoned for all he knew.

  He looked at his watch. It was nearly one in the morning. Was this just a late date? But they hadn’t acted like a couple. They hadn’t hugged or kissed upon seeing each other.

  Robie quickly dressed, left the hotel by a side door, bypassing the sleepy front desk clerk, and stepped into an alleyway. He got his bearings, listened and watched for anyone coming, then stole across the street.

  He reached the bike, saw that it was a highway Harley, and snapped a picture of the license plate with his phone. The door the biker had entered was just ahead. But Robie decided on another entry.

  Robie hung a left, skittered down a side street, cut a right, and came up on the back side of the building.

  It was three stories tall with windows riding up the brick on each floor. There was a back door. Robie assumed it was locked, and when he checked, his assumption was proved correct.

  He stepped back and gazed up at the building’s façade. He couldn’t see one light on in the place. When the woman had opened the door an interior light had been revealed. But no light had come through the windows.

  He walked over to one and examined it.

  They had been blacked out with paint.

  Okay, that was definitely interesting.

  Robie stepped back and again looked up at the façade.

  This might or might not be connected to Blue Man’s disappearance, but it was certainly out of the ordinary, if not downright suspicious.

  He flipped out his pick tools and attacked the back door. If the place was alarmed he could always run for it.

  But he was faced with another dilemma when he tried to pick the lock but failed. The knob turned but the door wouldn’t open. Was it nailed shut? But the front door had been operational.

  What the hell was this place?

  He used a knife in an attempt to open the lower window. Again, he got the clasp to turn but the window did not rise.

  Clenching his knife between his teeth he put a foot on a window ledge and boosted himself up. Finding nearly invisible handholds among the uneven bricks, he made his way to the second floor and then to the third. He figured the second-floor windows might be nailed down, but not the top floor.

  He reached the window and used his knife to lever open the clasp. Then he pushed up on the window and was relieved when it slid cleanly open.

  He was inside in a moment and squatted down, letting his eyes adjust to the deeper darkness in the room and listening for any sounds. He heard nothing. He straightened and placed one foot carefully on a spot on the floor and then put his weight fully on it.

  There was no squeak.

  He put away his knife and pulled his gun. Technically he was trespassing, and whoever lived here could lawfully shoot him.

  Technically.

  It was a calculated risk, but one he figured was worth taking if for no other reason than Robie was most comfortable doing inherently dangerous things. It was only the normalcy of life that tended to bother him.

  He reached the door and opened it slowly, testing the quietness of the hinges.

  He slipped into the hall and took a few moments to study the long passage. There were doors leading off it, but they were all closed.

  He reached the top of the stairs. They were carpeted, which was good, since they would absorb sound better.

  He walked down them to the second floor. It was a mirror image of the third floor.

  He looked down the flight of steps to the first floor.

  Lights were on there.

  Harley Man and the woman were down there. Whether anyone else was Robie didn’t know.

  But he decided to find out.

  And that was when all hell broke loose in Grand, Colorado.

  Chapter

  18

  HARLEY MAN RAN out into the hallway. He had an NFL lineman’s huge, blocky build. He had a gun in one hand. He scooted over to a front window and tried to see out.

  The woman sat frozen on the bed inside the room he had just left. She had on a bra and underwear and nothing else. Her clothes were lying on the floor.

  Shots rang out and one bullet pierced the front door, zipped past Harley Man, and lodged in the wall behind him. He dropped his suitcase, ducked down, and retreated. He called out over his shoulder and the woman a
ppeared at the doorway, squatting down.

  He pointed up the stairs.

  She nodded and fled toward them even as more bullets pierced the doorway and thudded into the walls. Her bare feet pounded up the risers and she hit the second-floor landing.

  And ran right into Will Robie.

  She started to scream, but he showed her his badge and put a finger to his lips.

  “What’s going on down there?” asked Robie, even as bullets continued to fly with Harley Man now returning fire through a cracked window.

  “I don’t know. I just heard the shots.”

  “Who are you? What is this place?”

  “I’m…I’m Sheila.”

  “Who’s the guy down there?”

  “Luke.”

  “And who is Luke?”

  “Just a guy I know.”

  “Luke with a swastika on his head is just a guy you know?” He looked at her state of undress. “And what’s with that? Is this some kind of brothel?”

  “We—I am not a hooker!”

  The firing picked up.

  Footsteps pounded up the stairs and there was Luke.

  “Who the hell are you?” roared the man upon seeing Robie.

  He started to point his gun at Robie, who disarmed Luke with a kick to the hand.

  “You son of a bitch!” screamed Luke.

  He dropped into a crouch, his arms at his sides.

  A brawler, thought Robie. Okay, here we go.

  He hurtled at Robie, who easily sidestepped the charging man. He delivered a bent elbow strike directly against the back of Luke’s neck, rotating his hips as he struck to give the blow the entire force of his weight and thrust. Robie could feel the tip of his elbow impact the tip of the spine, and the big man moaned and dropped to his knees. Robie followed that with a knee kick to the chin, which chipped two teeth and toppled Luke onto his back. Robie bent over the fallen man and delivered a short punch directly to the man’s nose, bouncing the back of his head off the floor. Luke groaned and lay still.

  “You bastard!”

  The woman jumped on Robie’s back. It took exactly two seconds for Robie to pull her off, lay her on the floor, and keep her there with his boot.

  “Let me up! Damn it, let me up! Luke!”

  Robie ignored her cries, calmly took out his phone, and punched one key.

  Reel picked up on the first ring. “You hear the gunfire?” she said.

  “I’m in the middle of it.” He explained the situation in two brief sentences.

  “On it,” was Reel’s curt reply.

  Next, Robie called Malloy, woke her up, and explained the situation.

  “I’ll be there as fast as I can,” she said. Robie could hear her feet hit the floor and a drawer open. “But it’s going to be about twenty minutes.”

  “It’s going to be over before then,” said Robie.

  Robie put away his phone and looked down at Sheila. “Stop screaming. I’m trying to save your ass.”

  “Get your foot off me,” she shouted.

  Robie pointed his gun at her. “Stop screaming.”

  She froze.

  “Stay down,” he ordered.

  Robie removed his foot, stepped to a cracked second floor window, and saw a half-dozen men congregating in front of the building. They all had either handguns or shotguns. They were obviously preparing to storm the building.

  He called out, “I’m with the authorities. You have one minute to leave town. After that, I can’t vouch for your safety.”

  One man, larger and older than the others, looked up. “You ain’t no authority in this town.”

  “The sheriff is on her way.”

  “Who the hell cares?” replied the man, a comment that drew laughter from his companions.

  Robie took out his night scope and drew a bead on the man. He was momentarily taken aback. This man also had a swastika on his head.

  Was this a turf battle between skinheads?

  “You’ve now got thirty-six seconds,” announced Robie.

  “Yeah? Well, now you got fuckin’ zero, prick.”

  The man aimed his gun and fired at the window. So did the others.

  Robie had already stepped well back and the bullets did no damage.

  He counted down the seconds in his head.

  He hadn’t just been talking to the skinheads. He’d been communicating with Reel, who was right now lining up her shots from the window in the hotel.

  Robie moved past the unconscious Luke and strode into a bedroom while Sheila cowered on the floor. He ripped sheets off the bed, tore them into lengths with his knife, and used some strips to bind Luke.

  He used the others to form a rope. He went to the top floor, opened the window he had come in from, tied one end of the sheets to a bedpost, and ran the other end out the window. Then he brought Sheila to the top floor.

  “Let’s go.”

  She looked terrified. “I don’t like heights. I might fall.”

  “Do you like bullets better than heights?”

  She appeared to get his meaning. She looked down at her nearly naked body. “Can I get something to cover myself?”

  Robie took off his jacket and handed it to her. “Use this. Hurry up.”

  She slipped on the jacket and zipped it up. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to climb down there.”

  “I’ll give you a piggyback ride.”

  “What?”

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her behind him. “Jump up. Arms around my shoulders, legs around my waist. Do it!”

  “But what about the guys outside?”

  “They’re going to be preoccupied in about five seconds.”

  Robie counted down in his head until he heard the first report of Reel’s rifle.

  “Let’s go.”

  She climbed up on his back, grabbed his shoulders, and locked her thighs around his waist.

  He moved to the window. “You ready?”

  She nodded, but looked scared.

  “So long as you hold on you’ll be fine,” he said. “I can do this and so can you, okay, Sheila?”

  She finally nodded.

  “Don’t look down, and don’t close your eyes, understand?”

  She nodded again.

  Robie ducked down, gripped the sheet rope with both hands, and climbed out the window. He could feel Sheila’s heart pounding against his back.

  He made his way down, hand over hand, keeping his feet planted