The Southerner's voice became instantly strong and steady, just like the guy's killing hand. "Where you at. I'll just get a-"
"No. Stay put. Find a medic on the QT and make sure they can keep their mouth shut. And we're going to need a chopper. He's going to have to be airlifted-discreetly. No one can know about this."
The last thing he needed was Isaac out in the middle of the night looking for them. The guy was the only thing standing between Jim and an accusation that he'd murdered the head of the deadliest shadow organization in the U.S. government.
He'd never live that one down. Literally.
But at least the hush-hush was not going to be a news-flash. Keeping quiet about shit was the MO in XOps-no one knew exactly how many operatives there were or where they went or what they did or whether they went by their own name or an alias.
"Do you hear me, Isaac," he demanded. "Get me what I need. Or he's a dead man."
"Roger that," came the reply over the earpiece. "Over and out."
After confiscating the gun that had been put to use, Jim picked up his boss, settled the dead, dripping weight on his shoulders, and started hoofing it.
Out of the stone shack. Out into the blustering, frigid night. Across the sand dunes.
His compass kept him on the right track, true north orientating him and leading him on through the darkness. Without the point of reference, he would have been utterly lost as the desert was a mirrored landscape, nothing but a reflection of itself in all directions.
Fucking Matthias.
God damn him.
Then again, assuming the guy lived, he'd just given Jim his ticket out of XOps... so in a way, he owed the guy his life: The bomb was one of their own and Matthias had known precisely where to put his foot in the sand. And that only happened if you wanted to blow your damned self up.
Guess Jim wasn't the only one who wanted to be free.
Surprise, surprise.
Chapter One
South Boston, present day
"Hey! Wait a--Save that shit for the ring!" Isaac Rothe shoved the advertising flyer across the car hood, ready to slam the damn thing down again if he had to. "What's my picture doing on this?"
The fight promoter seemed more interested in the damage to his Mustang, so Isaac reached out and grabbed the guy by the front of the jacket. "I said, what's my face doing on here?"
"Relax, will ya--"
Isaac brought the two of them close as sandwich bread and got a whiff of the pot the SOB smoked. "I told you. No pictures of me. Ever ."
The promoter's hands lifted in the conversational equiv of a tap-out. "I'm sorry . . . I'm really . . . Look, you're my best fighter--you get me the crowds. You're like the star of my--"
Isaac curled his fist tighter to cut off the ego stroking. "No pictures. Or no fighting. We clear?"
The promoter swallowed hard and squeaked, "Yeah. Sorry."
Isaac released his hold and ignored the wheezing as he crumpled the image of his face into a litter ball. Looking around the abandoned warehouse's parking lot, he cursed himself. Stupid. Fucking stupid of him to have trusted the smarmy bastard.
The thing was, names were not all that important. Anybody could type up a Tom, Dick, or Harry on an ID card or a birth certificate or a passport. All you needed was the right typeface and a laminating machine that could do holograms. But your mug shot, your face, your puss, your piehole . . . unless you had the funds and the contacts to plastic-surgery your ass, that was the one true identifier you had.
And his had just gotten a workout at Kinko's. God only knew how many people had seen it.
Or who had zeroed in on his whereabouts.
"Look, I was just doing you a favor." The promoter smiled, flashing a gold grille. "The bigger the crowd, the more money you make--"
Isaac shoved his forefinger up the guy's stovepipe. "You need to shut the f**k up right now. And remember what I said."
"Yeah. Okay. Sure."
There were a number of all-rights, no-problems, and anything-you-likes that followed, but Isaac turned his back on the babble, babble.
All around, grown men were getting out of cars and shoving at each other like fifteen-year-olds, the bunch of juiced-up, armchair quarterbacks ready to peanut-gallery it up: The closest they were going to get to the octagon was standing on the outside of the chicken wire looking in.
The fact that Isaac was almost done with this underground MMA moneymaker was irrelevant. The people who were looking for him didn't need any help, and that happy little close-up along with the telephone number in the 617 area code was precisely the exposure he didn't need.
Last thing he needed was an operative or . . . God forbid, Matthias's second in command . . . showing up here.
Besides, it was just too f**king dumb of the promoter. Unregulated bare-knuckle fighting coupled with illegal gambling was not something you advertised, and anyway, given the size of the crowds that showed up, the audience clearly had enough mouth.
The guy in charge, however, was a greedy moron.
And the question was now, did Isaac fight or not? The flyers had just been made, according to the man who'd shown it to him . . . and as he mentally counted the money he'd salted away, he could sure as hell use the extra thousand or two he'd earn tonight.
He glanced around and knew he had to get in the octagon. Shit . . . once more to pad his wallet and then he was gone.
Just one last time.
Striding over to the warehouse's rear entrance, he ignored the Holy-shit's and the pointing and the That's-him's. The crowd had been watching him beat the shit out of random guys for the last month, and evidently this made him a hero in their eyes.
Which was a whacked value system, as far as he was concerned. He was about as far from hero as you could get.
The bouncers at the back door both stepped aside to let him pass and he nodded at them. This was the first fight at this particular "facility," but really, the locations were all the same. In and around Boston, there were plenty of abandoned walk-ups, warehouses, and whatevers where fifty guys who wished they were Chuck Liddell could watch half a dozen who were definitely not flap around in circles in a makeshift fighting cage. And that uninspiring math added up to why the promoter had repro'd Isaac's head. Unlike the other bare-knucklers, he knew what he was doing.
Although considering how much money the U.S. government had put into training him, he'd have to be a total tool not to crack skulls like eggs by now.
And weren't all those skills, as well as so many others, going to help him stay AWOL.
God willing, that was, he thought as he stepped into the building.
Tonight's poor-man's MGM Grand was about sixty thousand square feet of cold air anchored by a concrete floor and four walls' worth of dirty windows. The "octagon" was set up in the far corner, the eight-sided ring bolted in and surprisingly sturdy.
Then again, there were a lot of construction guys who were into this shit.
Isaac went past the pair of thick-necks who were handling the gambling and even they paid him respect, asking if he needed anything to drink or eat or whatever. Shaking his head, he went to the corner behind the ring and settled in, his back to the juncture of the walls. He was always the last to fight because he was the draw, but there was no telling when he'd be up. Most of the "fighters" didn't last long, but every once in a while you got a pair of stayers who pawed at each other like two old grizzlies until even he was ready to yell, Enough, already.
There were no refs and things got stopped only when there was a heaving, red faced, walleyed idiot who was flat on his back with the winning urban warrior Weeblewobbling next to him on sweaty feet. You could go for anything, liver and family jewels included, and dirty tricks were encouraged. The one restriction was that you had to fight with whatever the good Lord gave you at birth: You couldn't bring brass knuckles, chains, knives, sand, or any of that crap inside the wire.
When the first match got rolling, Isaac panned the faces in the crowd instead of what was doing in the ring. He was searching for the out-of-place, for the eyes that were on him, for the face he knew from the past five years instead of the five weeks since he'd been gone.
Man, he knew he shouldn't have used his real name. When he'd gone for the fake ID, he should have chosen another. Sure, the social security wasn't his own, but the name . . .
It had seemed important, however. A way to piss on the territory he was in, mark this fresh start as his own.
And maybe it had been a little bit of a taunt. A come-and-find-me-if-you-dare.