IN THE CROSSHAIRS
Chapter 22
Barsad paced in the tiny courtyard, puffing furiously on a cigarette, the glowing tip of it burning through the shroud of early night. The walls of the surrounding dwellings dulled the sounds of the neighborhood streets beyond. Most people in this residential area on the eastern edge of Jaipur were home from a long day's work, the varied scents of freshly cooked meals fighting to penetrate the smell of his cigarette. His own meal sat uncomfortably in his stomach, ruined by Talia's phone call to Bane. He knew he should be glad to finally have something solid to pursue after these long weeks of frustration, but he found himself only agitated and pissed off even more than usual by this new intel.
Brennan. Of course. He should have known. Arrogant prick. Barely able to bring himself to show him or Bane the respect their ranks—let alone their service—demanded. Always beside Nyssa like a shadow, as if he expected him or Bane to stick a knife in her. Maybe I should've tried, Barsad thought now.
Bane insisted that he not assume Brennan's plot had been orchestrated by Nyssa, but believing otherwise did not come easily. She and Brennan would no doubt deny that the orders came from her, but it would probably be a lie. Or would Nyssa actually have the nerve to own up to it? Barsad snorted skeptically and threw down the stub of cigarette to crush beneath his boot. He was about to light another but refrained when Bane stepped out the rear door of the small safe house.
"I am about to call him," Bane announced. "But I will do so inside." His dark, ever-cautious gaze raked the dwellings on all sides of the courtyard. "I assume you will want to listen."
"Yeah."
"Need I caution you against making a sound during the call? He must not suspect that you are with me."
"That goes without saying," Barsad growled. He was growing tired of Bane's constant insinuation that his lieutenant was too volatile to be trusted.
"We will have this one chance to entrap him. Let us hope he takes the bait."
Barsad nodded curtly.
Bane breathed deep. "It is a fine night. Perhaps a few minutes out here after my call will relax the both of us."
Barsad only grunted and followed him back into the house.
As they climbed the cramped stairs to the upper floor of the two-story building, thoughts of James slipped through Barsad's wall of anger and impatience. If things went as planned, he would soon be reunited with his son. While he looked forward to that day, a part of him dreaded returning to Chateau Blanc where years of memories with Sanjana would haunt him even more than they did while he was away. Somehow his focus on James must override the pain of memories.
The spartan home consisted of two small bedrooms, a cramped kitchen, a bathroom, and a main room that served as both dining room and living room. The walls and floor had been soundproofed years ago when the League had first acquired this as a safe house. The family that lived on the ground floor were tenants who paid rent to the owner of the safe house—or who they believed was the owner, a private man to them, a man who mysteriously came and went, someone they dared not displease lest their rent increase or they were evicted.
Bane settled on an old sofa while Barsad remained on his feet, pacing, impatient for another cigarette. With the speaker on, Bane dialed Brennan's phone, waited, watching Barsad with a piercing stare.
"Yes?" came Brennan's voice.
Barsad stopped pacing.
"Hello, brother."
A pause. Brennan would be shocked to hear Bane's distinctive voice. Rarely was there any need for their direct contact.
"Hello," the word came back flatly.
"How is your investigation going?"
"It's progressing." A hint of resentment in his tone.
"Perhaps I can speed it along."
"What do you mean?" Suspicion.
"I know the location of your quarry."
A pause. "How?"
"I would not think how would matter to a man eager to accomplish the mission with which his mistress tasked him."
"Mistress? What d'you mean? Are you insinuating something?"
"I am not a man who insinuates, brother," Bane rumbled. "I am nothing if not brutally direct. And I caution you against impugning my honor."
Hesitation, then Brennan cleared his throat. "What's his location?"
"Before I provide you with the coordinates, I must have your assurance on two things."
"What two things?"
"Firstly, you will apprehend him; you will send no one but yourself to accomplish this."
"Why? My men are more than capable of—"
"If you think any man of your choosing is capable of subduing Deadshot, then you know nothing of the man. He is desperate, and that will make him even deadlier than usual. So I will trust this task with only the most qualified, and since you are our sister's right-hand man, so to speak, I insist that you and only you apprehend our bereft brother."
It took a moment before Brennan said, "All right. What's the second thing?"
"Your word that you will take him alive."
"That might not be possible. You just said yourself he's desperate."
Bane's anger brought him to his feet. Barsad stepped away from him.
"You will find a way to make it possible," Bane said. "Need I remind you of your orders from your commander? He is to be taken alive so he may prove his innocence."
"Or his guilt," Brennan said. "I'm not blind to his purpose like you are."
"You are not his judge and jury. Our brethren believe in a fair hearing for such a serious and egregious charge. To say otherwise puts you outside our ranks. Not a tenable place to be, I warn you."
"My place is next to my commander, seeing that she is protected."
"You have failed her, then, if you truly believe Deadshot is a threat," Bane said smugly, "for our brother remains at large."
Barsad smiled grimly to himself. Bane was putting on quite the convincing performance.
Brennan stewed for a moment on the other end of the line.
"You can, however, redeem yourself in her eyes," Bane continued evenly, "by apprehending him safely and delivering him to your mistress for a fair hearing. What shall it be? This is a one-time offer, and your time to accept it is running out. My patience, as you know, is notoriously short, and Barsad will soon be on the wing."
"And what would our sister say if I tell her you're withholding vital information?"
"She would no doubt deal harshly with both of us."
"Both of us?" Brennan barked a cold laugh.
"Yes. She gave you direct orders to treat Barsad with respect for his position and situation and thus bring him in alive. Imagine her reaction should I tell her you refused me reassurances to my two demands, demands that fall within your brief."
Brennan took his time, and Barsad feared their plan could fail before it even started.
"Why are you doing this?" Brennan asked in a suspicious tone. "And how do you know his location?"
"As I said, he is desperate to find Sanjana's murderer; he recently reached out to me for help. I am telling you this because I fear he is endangering himself. He is not thinking clearly. And I also want the stain of suspicion lifted from him. The only way that will happen is through an official inquiry. Remaining AWOL will not help his case."
"How do you know he'll stay put long enough for me to get to him?"
"He is expecting me to arrive at his location. Instead, you will be there…if you agree to my conditions."
"All right," Brennan said at last. "You have my word. I'll take care of this myself. Where is he?"
Barsad noted how unspecific Brennan's assurance was and how Bane purposely let it be.
When the call ended, Bane studied Barsad, then said, "Come, brother. Let us get some air. But you will spare me the stench of cigarettes."
Considering how Bane was sticking his neck out for him, Barsad offered no argument, regardless of how much he desired nicotine and something in his hand.
"This plan may end up clearing my name with the League," Barsad said, "but Sanjana's murderer will still be out there."
"Perhaps, but I am confident I can persuade our zealous operative to provide us with an identity."
"If this works."
"Yemi's intel will prove good. I am confident in that, brother. You know he is thorough."
Barsad followed him to the back stairs. "I wish I had your confidence, but since losing Sanji, I have to admit I'm lacking in that department."
Once outside, Bane turned to him, his hulking shape blocking most of the sky. A light from one of the adjacent dwellings glinted in his friend's determined eyes, and a big hand momentarily rested on Barsad's shoulder. "I assure you, brother, I will not rest until Sanjana's killer is dead."
Marcus Brennan shifted his weight where he crouched in the thick, warm Jaipur night, more of a shadow than a man. His dark clothes had allowed him passage to this third-floor rooftop nearly undetected, his training affording him a smoothness that would make someone nearby question his vision, for what man moved so like a stalking panther? The image of himself as a sleek, lean predator made Brennan smile to himself in smug approval. But there had been few people on the streets at that late hour to consider him at all. Mainly homeless orphans rifling through the clothes of unconscious drunks slumped in doorways or in the street, restless and hungry from an unproductive day of theft. The only others now about in the narrow, smelly streets below his position were prostitutes.
The quick glimpses of these women stirred his lust, but not for them. No, his desires he reserved for only one woman now. In the eyes of his brethren, that was one woman too many, but he scoffed at their opinions, discounting it as jealousy. If Nyssa deigned to wag a finger their way, they would be doing exactly as he was. But she wouldn't. Why would she when she already had the best? Brennan almost chuckled at his own confidence.
Although he knew he needed to be focused only on his mission right now, he found himself distracted by his animal impulses. Damn those whores. The glimpse of long dark hair on one of them turned his thoughts to Nyssa's hair. During the day, Nyssa always contained it, either in a braid or a ponytail trailing down her straight back or contained beneath a hat or hood. But at night, their nights together, he took great pleasure in freeing her mahogany mane and watching it spill about her shoulders like dark river water, its silken strands trailing between his fingers or clenched in his fist as he made love to her.
Love? Easy there, lad, he cautioned himself. Don't let yourself go there. Since when do you love anyone? But, he had to admit, Nyssa was far beyond a good fuck. Well, she was a damned great fuck, but it was something even more than that to him. But not love. No, that couldn't be. So what? Infatuation? No, that was for a schoolboy.
An old, faded memory flashed unexpectedly—a teacher back in school, a woman with hair similar to Nyssa's. Hair she always kept in a bun, as if on purpose to frustrate the boys in her class. When school was over for the day, she would free her hair and shake it out, and anyone staying after class for sports or other extracurriculars made sure to catch a glimpse of her. As a schoolboy, he'd jacked off many times thinking of her and that wild hair. The memories surprised him now. Where the fuck had that come from?
No, he told himself, focusing on the present again, this wasn't love. Nyssa was an ends to a means. She was a powerful woman, and he liked power, liked having it, liked cultivating it to acquire more. That's how you survived in his world. Maybe Nyssa would find herself falling for him. Why not? Look at that damned sister of hers and Bane. Many of his League brothers said they had been surprised that their former commander had fallen for Bane, not because he was Bane but because Talia had ice running in her veins, and she masterfully manipulated every man in her life other than Bane. Brennan, however, believed Nyssa to be different than Talia when it came to men. Sure, Nyssa could cut a man down to size when needed, but she had more respect for them, something he credited to her life as a mercenary before the League.
Bane. Brennan's lip curled at the thought of the man. Maybe Bane's relationship with Talia had more to do with keeping his position as second-in-command of the League than with love, at least at the outset when Talia had been the Demon's Head. Yet Bane had stayed with her, even after she had stepped down. Love? Maybe. Or because the sex was hot. It had to be. For a minute he imagined those two going at it, and his dick began to harden. Bane was such a big motherfucker; you could probably drive a bus into Talia's pussy by now. Brennan grinned at his humor. Or, since he had never seen Bane's cock, maybe that wasn't the case. He almost laughed at the idea of Bane having a little dick. After all, there had been all those years of medication. Probably needed a blue pill to get it up. He was getting old, after all.
Unlike so many of his brothers in the League, Brennan didn't idolize Bane. In fact, he hoped his standing with Nyssa would one day see him replace Bane. That monster couldn't hold the position forever. There were rumors that Bane wanted to step down or at least scale back his involvement in missions because of his kids. Well, Brennan didn't plan on waiting for Bane to make up his mind. And the first step of his plan was to take Barsad's position once he was out of the way. Brennan didn't plan on being merely a bodyguard forever. He was no one's lackey. And surely Nyssa would reward him for eliminating a traitor like Barsad.
He had no real proof that Barsad was out to overthrow Nyssa, but her belief in the plot's plausibility gave him the opening he needed to get a leg up on his plans for promotion. Not only would Barsad's theoretical plot be foiled, but the sniper's demise would conveniently leave the position of third-in-command vacant. And it only made sense that Nyssa would want to reward him for eliminating such a highly placed traitor. Sure, filling such a vacancy required approval from the League Council, but with Nyssa's recommendation, he was a shoo-in.
He shifted his weight and debated. Could he trust Bane's intel? Well, if he'd been duped, Bane ran the risk of being censured himself. Nyssa would be told of Bane's treachery in misleading him, to throw him off Barsad's scent. Although, truth be told, the scent had grown cold some time ago. He had suspected, as Nyssa did, that Barsad had been with Bane since Bane had left Chateau Blanc to find Barsad's would-be assassin. Yet, Bane had seemed genuine on their recent phone conversation. But that motherfucker was cagey. Well, he would soon find out.
Brennan reached into the pack beside him to retrieve an infrared camera. He trained it on the two-story hostel opposite him, scanned the dozen rooms on the second floor, most occupied with prone figures, glowing red in their warmth. The last room at the end of a central hall, a private room. One body. Good. Barsad hadn't brought a whore to his room. Still loyal to his dead woman, Brennan reflected with a scoff.
Barsad did not stir, hopefully fast asleep by now and drunk. Time to move.
Brennan installed the silencer on his Glock, as well as double-checked the placement of two knives—one strapped low on his right leg, another at his waist. He waited a minute longer as a pair of men staggered down the street, talking in slurred voices. Once they were past, Brennan slipped across the street and entered the hostel.
A stale odor filled his nostrils, magnified by the stuffiness of the building. Two voices, a young couple in a nearby room, the prelude to an argument. Brennan hurried soundlessly to a nearby staircase and ascended. He couldn't afford occupants' loud voices awakening Barsad. Fortunately the rest of the place was quiet except for loud snores from more than one room.
The narrow second floor hallway lay in darkness, the bulb in the single ceiling light fixture probably burned out. No window at either end. He donned night-vision goggles and moved without sound, close to the wall, barely breathing. Outside Barsad's room, he paused to listen. Only the moderate sound of snoring from within. He swallowed hard, controlled his breathing, which had increased. He had only one opportunity here; there was no room for error or he would end up dead and his quarry once again vanished. As expected, he found the door locked. No light shone around the edges of the ill-fitting door.
Brennan drew his pistol, his palm sweaty against the warm grip. He took a step back to gather himself. Then he kicked the door in and entered with gun blazing.