Page 68 of Heston
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
A wicked, animalistic growl from Zack silenced him. The bastard thought he had a dog in this fight? Hardly.
The son certainly hadn’t been cut out to follow in his father’s footsteps.Tsk, tsk.But Miles had aided and abetted the attempt on Kelsey’s life, the cold-blooded murder of Tandy Lockwood, and most likely, what happened to every last one of the missing women. He had delivered the burner phone to Alex on Mount Rainier. He’d known damned well then what his old man had planned for Kelsey. Miles had, in fact, contracted the hitman, Malloy, to shoot-to-miss her. The Wirths hadn’t wanted her dead. They’d only wanted Alex in their pocket, frightened enough to willingly do anything to save his wife, enough to sway congressional votes their way.
So here Alex was. Frightened? Of these bastards? Never. Not even breathing hard. Certainly notineither of their pockets. They thought they could scare him? That he’d ever betray his country? That he wouldn’t hunt down any man or woman who ever—EVER—threatened his wife?Fools.All they’d done was piss him off. If they’d done their research, they’d have known not to challenge a United States Marine. Ever.
The fact that Miles had been in these woods playing hide-and-seek with his father, proved the younger Wirth’s complicity in all London had endured. True, she hadn’t officially signed onto The TEAM, but inadvertently, she had protected Alex and Kelsey, and she was Heston’s woman. And no one—NO ONE—fucked with Alex’s family.
Rolling his head back, he let his lungs fill with the pleasant scents of the approaching cool weather. Maybe snow. Autumn for sure. Crisp evergreens, cedars, and fallen leaves, absolutely. The rich loamy scent of decay that spoke eloquently of September’s demise and winter’s approach. At last. It was time. The stage was set. Alex was done playing.
He stepped into where Lancaster was hanging and looked up at the man. The bastard glared down at him from between his stretched arms as if he could hurt Alex. Not hardly. Lancasterhad worked up a good sweat, though. The pits of his fancy shirt were stained, as was the front, where spit from the soaking wet gag in his mouth trickled over his chin and down his neck.
“So…” Alex breathed, braced for what was to come. “You think you can order a hit onmy wife, huntmy TEAM, invade the privacy ofmy family, threaten and rape defenseless women? You think you can beat London Wilde? And what? I’d just roll over and cower in fear—of you? What are you, Lancaster? The dumbest fuck on the planet?”
The senior Wirth whined and kicked at the ground his feet couldn’t quite reach.
Poetic justice, that. Alex couldn’t help the evil smile twitching the corners of his lips. Turn-about was fair play after all.
Lancaster was now feeling the same fear London felt. Like her, he wasn’t up against an equal. Not by a long shot… No pun intended.
Ironically, Wirth writhed against the strength of his own pretty, red tie. Silk. Spun by worms a world away. Just like the oak branch, strong and durable. Bet he never guessed he was sealing his fate with that early morning decision of his to look—dapper.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Alex said conversationally. “I’ll let you live long enough to watch Zack skin Junior alive. He’ll start slow with your kid’s face, then his neck and chest. You know, the way you guys beat London Wilde. You worked her face over pretty good. She’s got a concussion for sure. Her neck’s bruised as fuck. Why? Because you thought choking her would make her climax? That you could get her off before you killed her? Who broke her ribs? You?”
Wirth shook his head for all it was—worth.
Not much.
Alex kept going. “She’s probably bleeding internally. Must’ve been hard, punching a small woman’s belly, a little thing who couldn’t fight back. Three against one, you like those odds? Maybe that’s what I’ll do. I’ll give you three-to-one odds Junior here won’t live long enough to wake up and cry for his daddy. You like the odds you gave London Wilde now?”
Wirth moaned and squirmed like a whore at a biker convention.
“No?” Alex asked as if he were surprised. Which he wasn’t. Men like the Wirths were cowards first, dishonest, dirty businessmen second. “Guess we’ll see. But by the time we’re done with your baby boy, we’ll have carved every square inch of hide off his body. If he’s stronger than he looks, if he isn’t dead by then, I’ll personally cut off his limp dick, stuff it down your throat, and let you choke on it. How do you like the odds you gave London Wilde now?”
Wirth screamed, moaned, and bellowed into his gag. Already dark and frayed, it was only getting darker. He lifted his knees and kicked both feet out, aiming to strike Alex. But missing. He pitched his head back. The veins on his forehead and in his neck looked like they were ready to pop. He huffed and puffed and he cried. He might’ve been pleading. Alex couldn’t tell. Didn’t care. He’d never learned to translate chicken shit.
By now, Wirth also knew he’d lost everything he should’ve valued more than the blood money he’d spent his life squandering.
With a chin nod, Alex signaled Zack to get to work.
Zack bent over the younger Wirth, bullied him over his shoulder, walked over to the nearby Loblolly pine, and dropped Miles into the hole beneath the tree. Alex had dug the grave after he’d stepped off The TEAM helo’s skids earlier. Digging graves was easy when a guy used small charges.
The tree itself had to be at least sixty feet tall. Most of its remaining branches were higher up its trunk, leaving the lower trunk bare. Loblollies grew like that in forests packed with other pines. They dropped their lowest branches while reaching for the sun. That left a lot of room for graves at their feet. A country boy from Virginia knew things like that.
Lancaster should’ve done his homework.
What no one else in America and the world knew, except President Adams, was that Alex and Zack were two of the ten deadliest assassins to come out of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Back in the day, before Alex lost Sara and Abby, they’d been part of a top-secret black ops team, and President Adams had been their commanding officer. They’d taken out higher value targets than those named on the infamous Most Wanted deck of playing cards. Also unknown to Americans, not all those HVTs had been in Iraq. Some were taken down deep inside Turkey, Egypt, Russia, China, and Ukraine. Bosnia. Segovia. Canada. France. Even in America. Another thing most Americans didn’t care to know or understand: America’s enemies were everywhere.
“Finish him,” Alex ordered without venom. Another form of torture was to make the victim believe that their suffering had no effect on you.
Zack dropped into the hole, straddled Miles’ prone body, flicked his hunting knife high over his head, and commenced slicing. Which was all for show. Also in that hole was a plastic bag full of cloth strips soaked in red dye that, in low light, resembled flayed strips of human skin.
When the first ‘bloody’ ribbon flew over Zack’s shoulder, Lancaster screamed into his gag. He kicked harder. He cried. Sobbed. Sweated. Writhed as if he were the one being sliced. Which was precisely the result Alex wanted: the father to believe the son suffered for the sins the father had inflicted on Kelseyand London. On every single woman and child whose lives he’d destroyed. On their families.
Alex and Zack hadn’t gotten this far in the covert surveillance business by being stupid. They both knew the worst torture took place in the mind. Miles wasn’t being skinned, wasn’t being touched by that shiny blade. But Lancaster thought he was. Fear was the abso-fuckin’-lutely perfect torture for a bastard who sold human flesh, raped, and beat women. Mental torture. Imagination at its best and its worst. That was what produced the loveliest, most gruesome horror—the mind.
Lancaster was right then choking. If he kept that up, he’d stroke out and suffocate before the first round bell rang. All while Miles lay napping inside that nice cool hole. Completely unaware of how close he was to his father. To death.
