Termination Orders(65)

Soon another waiter placed his sixteen-ounce New York strip steak in front of him. It better be rare, he thought. “Make it so rare, it’s illegal,” Hodges always said when he ordered, chuckling. But he wasn’t chuckling now. He took the steak knife and tore into the meat. It was a pale pink. He motioned to the waiter.

“You call this rare?” he growled, pointing to the steak as if the waiter had put a turd on the plate.

“My sincerest apologies, sir,” he responded, obligingly. “I will send it back to the kitchen at once, sir. We’ll have another one out for you right away.”

“Goddamn better.”

The waiter took the plate away, and Hodges hit his fist hard on the table. That idiot senator—some young Martha’s-Vineyard-vacationing asshole playboy who had probably read a book on negotiation tactics once and thought that made him enough of a man to play with the big boys—establishing dominance or some shit like that. Hodges ate whelps like him for breakfast. He didn’t need a book to tell him how to establish dominance. Hell, he’d written the book on intimidation. He could make that bastard shit his pants just by looking at him.

Hodges was so angry, he almost missed the man who had walked into the restaurant, cruised right past the hostess, and headed straight for his table. This was a man in his late thirties or early forties, wide-shouldered and solidly built, in serious shape, wearing a garish Hawaiian shirt, large sunglasses, and carrying a thin folder of some kind. Hodges had never seen the man before in his life, but like so many people he had just met, Hodges disliked him. The man pulled out the chair, straddled it, and sat down, encroaching on his space, facing him from across the table.

“Hello, Lester.”

Hodges’s eyes narrowed. “Who the hell are you?” Hodges saw another man approaching: Keller, his chief of security, who had been watching from a corner of the room. He stood by. If Hodges raised a finger, he would throw this guy out into the street like a dog and give him a couple kicks in the gut for good measure. All he had to do was give the signal.

“What the hell are you, a journalist? You with some newspaper or something?”

“No,” the man said, laughing. “Not quite. I’m more of a freelancer. My name,” he continued, “is . . . now listen well, because I want you to remember this, and it looks like you’ve had a few already, and you might forget. I’m known as Cobra.”

Hodges looked speechlessly at the man, this man known up until this moment by code name only. The man who had been causing him so much trouble, whom no one seemed to be able to find, and who was now sitting so close to him at a table, it was as if they had a goddamn lunch date. All he could do was stare.

“So you’ve heard of me,” said Cobra. “Good. That makes this even simpler. I want you to listen well. I know you answer to someone. You’re not smart enough to pull this off on your own. I want you to tell him that I found you, and I want you to tell him that I’m coming for him. He can hide, but sooner or later, I’m going to get him.”

Hodges laughed uproariously. “What the hell are you gonna do? As far as I’m concerned, you’re a fly on the wall. You’re an ant under my feet. In fact, I’m having a hard time figuring out why I shouldn’t just have Keller here take care of you right now.” He noticed that some people in the restaurant were staring.

“Oh, I don’t think you want to do that, Lester.”

Hodges gave the signal, and Keller reached out to put his hand on Cobra’s shoulder. But Cobra was quicker. He blocked Keller’s arm, grabbed two of his fingers, and snapped them back with a sickening crack. His leg swooped under Keller, causing him to fall hard, drawing gasps from other patrons and staff.

“What are you looking for here?” demanded Hodges angrily. “A payoff or something? You looking for money, Cobra?”

“No, Lester, I’m not interested in your money,” he said. “Here’s what I want. I want to watch you squirm. I know what your division has been up to. Your dirty little secret: I know, and I want you to know that I know. And I want your boss to know, too. And I want you two to go on with your lives, knowing that I’m coming for you. When you least expect it, I’ll strike, and I’ll hit you both hard. You got that?”

Hodges could only glare at him, his right hand gripping the steak knife involuntarily. Through his fury, he said, “I don’t know who you think you are or what you’re hoping to accomplish here, but you should remember something, too. You’ve threatened the wrong man this time, and believe me, you’re gonna pay.”