“So you say Teach sent you.”
“Yes.”
“You saw her or she called you?”
“She called Green. I was already here, part of a training exercise.”
Pilgrim pointed at De La Pena’s black eyes. “Were you training to be a punching bag?”
“She told me to get to Dallas and help this guy clean any Cellar evidence out of the house,” Green said.
“She’s been kidnapped,” Pilgrim said.
“She told us you tried to kidnap her,” Green said. “You killed her helper, she escaped. Sell your story down the street, man.”
“I killed Barker, yeah, but he turned traitor. Not me. She got grabbed.”
The two men stared at him. Not believing him, he saw.
“Who has her?” Pilgrim asked softly. “I think you know. Stop the lies, man.” He kicked them hard, nailing De La Pena in the back, and both guys fell over. “She’s not operating of her own accord, she’s under a thumb.”
“She told me what to do,” De La Pena said. “She said you’d gone bad and-”
What are you doing, Teach? Pilgrim wondered. “Get up,” he ordered them. He could question them in the kitchen; as unappealing as it sounded, a bit of fear at the tip of a knife might loosen their tongues.
De La Pena and Green rose awkwardly, like conjoined twins always facing each other.
Pilgrim gestured them back into the narrow confines of the hallway and they walked sideways, facing each other. De La Pena stood a foot taller than Green, and Green hurried to keep pace. Then Green stumbled, nearly going to one knee. De La Pena stopped and hauled him up, and as Green rose he lashed a sharp, precise kick and caught Pilgrim hard in the gun hand, pinning his weapon back into his chest. Pilgrim backpedaled into the master bedroom.
Pilgrim swung the gun up again, but now they were on top of him, moving as one. De La Pena launched Green again, swinging the smaller man, and Green’s feet slammed into Pilgrim’s chest. Air whooshed out of Pilgrim’s lungs, and as Green fell, De La Pena launched a well-timed kick that smashed Pilgrim’s gun out of his hand. The weapon slammed into the far wall.
Pilgrim collapsed against the wall and the two fell on top of him, sliding to the hardwood floor, De La Pena pinioning Pilgrim with his weight, the men’s joined hands closing on his throat, strangling him in symphony.
He jammed a finger into Green’s eye.
Green howled and twisted away. De La Pena raised and lowered their joined hands, closed a circle around Pilgrim, tried to crush him between himself and Green. Pilgrim punched Green, short and brutally hard, again. He felt Green’s lip tear and nose break under his blows. De La Pena pushed all his weight against Pilgrim.
Pilgrim’s lungs and his throat were suddenly empty of oxygen. Fresh agony flamed in his shoulder.
Pilgrim’s feet lifted off the hardwood, and he shoved them between his opponents and the wall and pushed, knocking them all off balance. The tangle of men collapsed to the floor again and De La Pena’s choking hold broke, for just a second. Breath, sudden and sweet. Pilgrim hammered an elbow hard into De La Pena’s face, once, twice, pain rocketing up his hurt arm. De La Pena tried to head-butt him, hit the shoulder instead, nearly made Pilgrim faint from the pain. Pilgrim rolled atop De La Pena, pulling Green on top of him.
“Grab his throat!” De La Pena yelled at Green.
Pilgrim’s and Green’s faces were an inch apart and Pilgrim closed his hands around Green’s neck, and Green was trying to squirm away from Pilgrim’s reach, panic in his eyes.
“No, no, don’t,” Green grunted, knowing what the grip meant.
Pilgrim closed his fingers around the jaw, around the head, with precision and care, and the crack was audible. The dying sigh went straight into Pilgrim’s face.
Green lolled, a limp weight attached to De La Pena’s hands, lying atop them. Pilgrim slid lower, seized Green’s dead head, rammed it against De La Pena’s face. Pilgrim writhed, ducked from between the bodies, but De La Pena grabbed at his hair and throat.
But Pilgrim twisted free of the clutch of the living man and the weight of the dead man. He clambered to his feet as De La Pena lunged for his legs, delivering a powerhouse kick to De La Pena’s jaw, then to the stomach.
De La Pena doubled up, tried to pull Green on him as a shield. Pilgrim let him. Then he grabbed the dead man’s head from behind, pounded it again and again into De La Pena’s face.
“I’ll talk!” De La Pena finally screamed. “I’ll talk!”
Pilgrim hit him twice more for measure, then dropped Green’s body to the side.
De La Pena stayed still.
“If you move, if you look at me funny, I’ll kill you. Son of a bitch.”
“I understand,” De La Pena said through bloodied lips. The blood was not all his own.
“Who sent you?”
“Teach did. But… there’s a man. This guy, ex-military, kidnapped me last week. Brought me here. Kept me in a conference room, beat me. Beat me for no reason.” He blinked through the blood. “He knew I was ex-CIA. Knew my real name. Said Teach would be here soon to talk to me.”
“And she was.”
“Last night. She looked like she’d been in a fight. She told me the new guy was a partner, we’d be working with him. I could read the writing on the wall. He’s muscled his way into the Cellar and she’s letting him.”
“You know the guy’s name?”
“No. She didn’t tell me. He’s older but you can tell he’s definitely from our line of work. Cold eyes. He smiles like how I think a ghost smiles.” He paused. “His house is fancy.”
“Describe him.”
“Tall, late forties or early fifties, silver-haired, but very fit.”
“Anyone else?”
“There’s one other guy. Young. Irish accent.” He shrugged.
“Dressed in black? Like Johnny Cash?”
“Yeah. This new guy’s got Teach deep in his pocket. You may say she’s kidnapped but clearly she’s working with him.”
“Only because he’s threatened her or us. She’s being coerced; Teach wouldn’t ever betray us.”
“Doesn’t matter if it’s voluntary,” De La Pena said. “Teach loses control of the Cellar, I go with the flow. Whoever runs the Cellar runs me.”
“Tell me where this house is.”
“You’re entirely missing the point. These guys, they’re not keeping her at the point of a gun. They’re keeping her because they found us. This guy owns our asses because he can expose us.” De La Pena stared up at him through the blood. “What’s the CIA going to do when we come to light? Wash their hands of us. You know we can’t be acknowledged, we all made the deal when we signed up. We’ll get brought up on federal charges.” He spat a trickle of blood. “You should just vanish. Give up on trying to get Teach back. It’s a new day, man.”
“Your loyalty is an inspiration. Teach gets you out of the gutter, gives you a second chance, and you won’t fight to help her get free.”
“She’s not fighting this guy.” De La Pena shrugged. “Why should I?"
Pilgrim stood, went to the far side of the room, retrieved his gun.
De La Pena said, “Uncuff me, man; he’s dead, uncuff me.” He jerked his arm, and Green’s dead arm moved in unison. “I told you what you need to know, let me go; I never saw you, and we’re square.”
Pilgrim stood unsteadily, groped in his pocket for the weight of Barker’s passports. “If you move, I’m going to leave him bound to you and lock you out of this house. I can’t wait for you to explain to the neighbors why you’re walking the streets with a dead guy chained to you.” He picked up the phone, hit redial, listened to the phone beep a number. The number display showed 504. New Orleans area code. After the third ring, a woman briskly answered: “Hotel Marquis de Lafayette, how may I assist you today?”
“I’m trying to locate your hotel but I think I’ve taken a wrong turn.”
“We’re near Poydras and St. Charles, sir. Where are you coming from?”
“Oh, I had the address down wrong, I can find it. Thanks so much.” Pilgrim hung up the phone. He tried to imagine Barker’s last day in this house, preparing for a traitorous operation, one where he had to fool both Teach and Pilgrim, set Pilgrim up for death, isolate Teach for a kidnapping. And the last phone call he makes is to a hotel in New Orleans.