Eden Plague - Latest Edition Read Online Free Page B

was probably already reporting to her Agency masters and there would soon be a cleanup team on the way. They might make it all go away, or they might set it up to implicate him, or they might come try to recruit him using a different approach - something a lot more certain. Like eight Men In Black with body armor and tranquilizer darts and beanbag rounds. He tried not to imagine, tried to stay on track, tried to stick to the facts.
    Instead, he sat there staring at the body.
    Should I call the cops?
Was it easier to deal with the local authorities, claim a righteous shoot in his own home? But he’d have to rearrange the scene, because he’d simply executed Jenkins. No matter how you sliced it, he’d killed him in hot blood, without just cause.
    With Miss Wallis, had she stayed dead, he’d have had justification. She’d had a weapon, she’d fired on him. In fact, the weapon should still be down there, all the proof he needed. Elise had bolted out his still-open side door. She’d had no time to detour to the basement.
    No, he had to either deal with the Agency, or he had to run.
    Flight was an option. Disappear, get out of the country. Slip across to Mexico before the alarm went out, from there to points south. Take a tramp freighter to South Africa maybe, sell his skills. Private security firms there like guys with combat experience. They’d get him a new identity, if he was willing to be one of their quasi-mercenary security contractors and kick back part of his pay. He’d made some good contacts in the Green Zone in Baghdad. The Zone had been a patchwork of embassy territories then, with South Africans, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Philippinos, even Gurkhas providing security for each little walled compound.
    He shook himself out of the fog of reminiscence. He had to do something, he had to act, or he was going to be acted upon. But he didn’t want to run. It was not in his nature.
    His phone rang.
    He stared at it stupidly for a couple of rings. Nobody called his home phone but telemarketers and work, and he didn’t have the kind of job that called him after hours.
    He heaved himself up and grabbed the handset, looked at the number. He didn’t recognize it but it was 703. Local, Northern Virginia. Telemarketers had other numbers, 866 or 877 or weird ones from foreign countries that tried to scam people. He decided to answer.
    Maybe they wanted to talk, whoever ‘they’ were. Maybe he wanted to listen. Maybe there was some way out of this mess.
    “Hello?”
    “Dan?” It sounded like Elise.
    “Yeah. Elise?”
Bitch. Shoot at me then run away when I try to be nice.
    “Yes, Dan. We have a little time. They don’t know what happened yet. When they do, they will probably want to clean up and they’re going to insist you join up. If you don’t play ball, they’ll either do you the hard way, frame you or disappear you.” She had a trace of Texas in her voice now, if he knew his Westerns.
    “About like I thought. What are we gonna do about it?” He suddenly had a feeling she was in a tough spot, too, having failed to recruit him, and lost her boss as well.
Or maybe she wanted out of their grip. She’d said she’d had no choice. Maybe I misjudged her.
    Or maybe it's all a crock of bull.
    “I want to talk with you, but not on an unsecure line, and not at the wrong end of a gun. Especially not when you’re all amped up like you are now. Somewhere a bit more friendly.”
    He wondered at the tone of her voice, no-nonsense but with an undertone of concern. Or was he imagining it? “How do we do that? You could be armed next time, and
I
can’t come back from the dead like you can.”
    “I didn’t come back from the dead, I wasn’t dead. I can be killed. It’s just harder. And it still hurts to be shot.”
    “So you say. How and where? And don’t you think they
are
listening right now?”
    “Possibly.” She sighed, audibly. “Look, I’m sick of being their slave. I have to get out from under, no matter