Chapter 1

Laying on a cot in his jail cell, Marco sucked on his swollen lip like a blood-flavored lollipop. When the door buzzed and slid open, he sat up quickly with a pained grunt and tucked his elbows in tight along his flanks. There are some beatings in life you cannot avoid, but a man can still protect his organs.

A trim bald man in his mid-fifties stood in the doorway, wearing a cheap yellow plastic raincoat that smelled like a sex toy. Captain Bruder greeted Marco with a dismissive nod. The raincoat made Marco think of a flasher, which lent a comic framing to the way Bruder stared at Marco, like he was trying to build up the courage to expose himself. He was certainly building up his way to some flavor of indecency. Marco couldn’t help but smile at the insistently crude picture in his head, and Bruder didn’t like the smiling one bit. The Buzzard entered the cell and slid the door shut behind him. He stood staring at the blank cell wall, hands clasped behind his back, making like he would be about as helpless as a baby bird if Marco decided to spring to the attack.

“We all agreed amongst ourselves to leave you be. That it wouldn’t be right for your father to suffer one whit more on your behalf. We agreed to leave you be. So long as he was alive.”

Satisfied that Marco wouldn’t take the bait, Bruder turned and shook his head. “You never did look one last bit like him. Makes this a notch easier.” With that, he reached inside his jacket and drew a small automatic pistol out of his belt. He tossed it on the cot beside Marco, then dug in his pants pocket and held up a single bullet, twisting it between thumb and index finger like a magician about to perform a trick, studying it closely. “Hardest thing I ever did, not putting you down the day you turned Judas.” He tossed the bullet onto the bed. “Now that he’s gone, it’s time for you to settle up.”

The Captain turned and rapped on the door, then waited stoically in front of it. Marco picked up the pistol and single round, and loaded the weapon. Bruder seemed oblivious to the potential threat. “You get one chance at an easy way out. Out of respect for a great man. Reject it, and honor has been served as far as I’m concerned.”

Marco racked the slide on the pistol, pointed it at the ceiling, and fired. Bruder shook his head in a mock display of sadness. The door slid open, and he walked out without looking back. Marco tossed the gun out after him, sending it skittering along the corridor floor. If they’d just wanted gunshot residue on his hands to make the coroner happy, he’d know soon enough, but there are some people you cannot back down from.

After Bruder passed through the door on the far end of the corridor, four large men with balaclavas over their faces and shiny new combat boots stormed through the other way, ganging toward Marco’s cell. The one on point carried a beefy cordless angle grinder. Marco didn’t bother resisting as they dropped him into a submission hold. One of the men held him by his shoulders while a third ripped the right sleeve of Marco’s prison overalls, exposing a faded tattoo of a buzzard on Marco’s right upper arm. The fourth man grinned as he held up the angle grinder and spun the disk up. Marco gritted his teeth and refused to scream as the wire bristles flayed the tattoo off his arm at five thousand rpm.

After the cleansing was finished, a man in a crisp tailored suit appeared in the doorway of the now-crowded cell. He mounted a tablet on the wall, and cleared his throat noisily while pushing up his glasses. “We will of course get you some medical attention for that arm. But first let’s get some formalities out of the way. You can think of me as your lawyer if you find that helpful. Keep in mind that I am not a lawyer, and neither is this a judicial process. You are not being charged with anything, so there’s no need to concern yourself about pleading guilty or innocent.”

Marco had difficulty focusing through the wave of endorphins flooding his system. “If I’m not being charged, you’re saying I’m free to go?”

His non-lawyer failed to appreciate the attempt at gallows humor. “You are being held under a National Security Directive. I’m afraid you don’t have a lot of rights in this situation. On the positive side, you at least get a trip out of the deal.”

“A trip?”

“In this country, executing a man is a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare.”