Chapter One
Stretched out on the bed of the Islander Hotel in San Diego, Nathan Daniel McBride stared at the ceiling. With a sigh he touched his face, tracing three deep scars. Marks from another time. Another world. The longest scar started at his left ear, ran down the side of his face, and ended at the tip of his chin. The next followed a diagonal path from the top of his forehead, across the bridge of his nose, and etched his left cheek. Visibly the worst, the third drew a deep arched line from temple to jaw. Nice touch, that one. At six-foot-five, two hundred and forty pounds, he''d kept himself lean and hard in defiance of his forty-four years.
He rolled toward the woman beside him. She smiled, enjoying his attention. In contrast, Mara had flawless skin. Her kind brown eyes and black hair perfectly complemented an athletic physique. In her mid-twenties, she was nothing short of stunning. But perhaps what he appreciated the most about her: She rarely broke their silent moments.
"Have I ever really thanked you?"
She slid a leg over his hips. "Thanked me? I should thank you. You''re not like the others."
The others. It felt like a slap in the face. Denial. It was so self-serving. Mara was a prostitute. He was a john. One of her johns, he reminded himself. Sure, they''d been seeing each other twice a week for the last eight months, but what kind of relationship was that? Empty. Going nowhere. She was so beautiful, and he was ... what? Did the scars make him ugly? Or something else? Like what he used to do for a living? He wondered how different his life would be if he hadn''t joined the Marine Corps. Would he have a wife? Children? A home? Not just a roof over his head, but a real home, a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, a sense of family. But he had joined the service, and he had become a sniper. And he had been captured and tortured in a remote Nicaraguan jungle more than a decade ago. His captors had carved him like a Thanksgiving turkey. An inch apart, dozens of crisscrossing scars covered his chest and back, making him look like a human wicker basket. By all rights he should be dead from the crucifixion the mercenaries had created. Suspended from a tree, the vertical cage had forced him to stand. After two days and nights on his feet with no food or water, the pain in his legs had been literally blinding. He''d been delirious with infection and fever. In and out of consciousness-
"Where are you?"
"Huh?"
"You were gone again."
"Sorry."
She traced one of the grooves on his chest with a forefinger.
"Are you happy, Mara?"
"You''ve never asked me that before." She smiled, but it didn''t reach her eyes. "I can''t meet you Friday."
He sat up. "What? Why not?"
"Shhhh ... It''s okay. I have another meeting. Some drug company bigwig. Karen set it up."
"Mara, if it''s money-" She touched his lips. "You''re so generous to me. It''s not the money."
"You could work at my security company. I can get you an apartment. You don''t have to do this. It''s ... dangerous."
"I''m glad you care. Will I see you next week?"
His cell phone interrupted them. He reached over to the nightstand and flipped it open. "Hello?"
"Nathan? It''s Karen. It''s that big guy. He''s here again." Karen''s voice sounded on the edge of panic. "He''s got Cindy."
"I''ll be there in seven minutes. Can you make it out to the patio?"
"I ... I think so."
"Do it. Turn off as many lights as you can."
Two minutes later he was striding through the hotel''s lobby with Mara in tow. Once outside the automatic glass doors, he sprinted over to his Mustang, Mara''s heels clicking on the concrete as she ran to keep up with him.
He climbed in, fired up the engine, and flipped on the headlights. Turning west onto Hotel Circle North, he accelerated to fifty. "Seat belt," he said. Mara fastened herself in as he swerved into the oncoming lane of traffic to pass a minivan.
"I thought it was over with that guy."
"Apparently he didn''t understand my warning."
"What are you going to do?"
"Give him a stronger warning."
He ran the red light and smoked the tires as he made the turn onto Interstate 8. Within ten seconds he was doing eighty miles an hour as he screamed under the Morena Boulevard overpass, then down the I-5 north on-ramp. The engine roared as he punched the Mustang up to one hundred ten miles an hour.
Four minutes had passed since Karen''s call. A lot could happen in four minutes. He forced the thought aside and concentrated on driving.
Nathan''s phone rang. Seeing his business partner''s name on the blue LCD screen, he flipped it open. A call this late at night raised immediate concern. "Are you okay?"
"Me?" said Harvey. "Yeah."
"I can''t talk right now."
"Are you all right?"
"I''ll call you back in half an hour."
"Copy that. Half an hour."
Nathan glanced at his watch as he exited the freeway.
Five minutes.
Something washed through Nathan''s mind. Karen had called him, not the police. She could''ve dialed nine-one-one. He''d always suspected the police knew about her "escort service," but her girls were high-class and low-key, part of a small operation, with no more than five girls working at any given time. Karen''s women weren''t hookers trolling for their next twenty-dollar trick to feed a meth or heroin habit. They were escorts. Sophisticated corporate types.
Karen had called Nathan because he was a no-nonsense, kick-ass type of man who knew how to take care of business the old-fashioned way. He and his oldest friend Harvey owned a private security firm. They were also both ex-marines, and Nathan figured he still looked the part. The combination of his size, short rusty hair, icy blue eyes, and the scars on his face made him look tough and hard. His thoughts returned to Karen.
Six minutes. Too damned long.
After slowing for a stop sign, he accelerated to sixty miles an hour.
"Nathan!"
He saw it.
An orange cat darted out from the left. It skidded to a stop in the middle of the street and froze, its eyes shimmering bluish green in the headlights. Nathan executed a smooth adjustment of the wheel to the right, hugging the curb.
"Did we hit it?"
Mara whipped her head around. "No. It''s still there."
Nathan eased away from the curb and braked hard for the next turn. Thirty seconds later he pulled to the curb a few houses east of Karen''s place and left the engine idling-it needed a cooldown after being run so hard.
"Stay here. Turn the engine off after a couple of minutes." He reached across Mara, popped the glove box, and grabbed his SIG Sauer P226 nine-millimeter. Climbing out, he jacked a hollow-point round into the chamber and lowered the hammer, using the pistol''s de-cocking lever. He tucked the weapon into his blue jeans at the small of his back and sprinted up the sidewalk. Several houses distant, a dog barked three times, then went silent. Beneath orange cones of streetlight, chest-high recycling bins were stationed in the street''s gutter like silent sentries.
An off-road pickup was parked in Karen''s driveway. It had been lifted and decked out with monster tires and half a dozen floodlights mounted on the roll bar above the cab. Nathan shook his head. Everything oversized and out of control, just like its damned owner. Nathan paused in Karen''s front yard and listened. All quiet. He placed an ear against a dark window. No music. No sounds of a struggle. Nothing.
At the side yard, he reached over the top of the gate and unlatched the locking mechanism from its cradle. It swung silently. At the rear corner of the house he peered around a planter full of barrel cactus. Tall and slender, Karen looked cold, hugging herself in the damp air. He issued a low warbling whistle and she turned. He waved her over, and she hugged him tightly-he could feel her trembling.
"What''s the situation?"
"He''s inside with Cindy."
"Where?"
"I don''t know."
"Has he hurt her?"
"I don''t know!"
"My Mustang''s down the block."
"I can''t leave Cindy."
"I''ll handle this."
"Nathan, I-"
"Karen, please. Get going."
She paused as if to argue, then nodded and hurried through the gate.
Nathan felt feral anger begin to radiate as he pictured Cindy being brutalized by the guy. It tightened his body with adrenaline, threatened to overwhelm him. Not now, damn it. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and relaxed his hands. When he''d calmed his mind, he removed his shirt and dropped it to the deck. He didn''t want to give his opponent anything to grab.
Pulling his nine-millimeter, he traversed the rear wall of the house, his movements precise and silent. At each dark window he paused and listened. All quiet. No sound at all. Nothing. Working his way through the maze of potted plants and patio furniture, he approached the sliding glass door. Detecting no movement, he lowered into a crouch and slipped inside.
He heard it right away: a man''s voice from down the hall.
Gun leading the way, he crept down the dark hallway, toward the only closed door. Another surge of adrenaline swept through him, this time under his command. A smile touched his lips. Nathan McBride-in his environment, ready, willing, and able to kick ass.
The next sound banished the smile-the unmistakable sound of a hand slapping flesh. Nathan kicked the door so violently it tore away from its hinges and crashed into the room in a horizontal hail of wood splinters and drywall dust. Fully clothed, Cindy cowered on the floor in a corner, her legs tucked against her chest. The left side of her face showed a fresh impact.
The man leaning over her whirled around and squinted. "You."
"Yes, me." Just as Nathan recalled, this guy was solid muscle and huge, taller than Nathan by an inch or two. With his shaved head and hourglass torso, he looked like a bouncer. To anyone else he might have looked intimidating. To Nathan, he was three hundred pounds of hamburger with an amphibian''s brain attached.
Nathan stepped forward and slapped him with his free hand-a wet, meaty impact on the man''s cheek. He moved back and waited for the reaction he knew was coming.
The man looked Nathan in the eyes, looked at the gun, and then looked him in the eyes again.
"What, this?" Nathan said. He tossed the SIG Sauer onto the carpet at the man''s feet. Go on, reach for it. Give me an excuse. Do it!
His expression confused, the bouncer glanced down at the gun and unconsciously wiped his nostrils with his thumb and forefinger. Cocaine.
If this guy had any sense of reality, he would''ve surrendered right then and there, because he was now face-to-face with a shirtless opponent covered in menacing scars who looked like he belonged in a bare-knuckle cage-fighting match on an alien war planet. An opponent who''d just tossed his gun over, giving away a decisive advantage. And he should''ve also realized that anyone who did that against a gorilla like himself had to be trouble. But this man wasn''t thinking straight. No doubt he was accustomed to winning fights. Probably had never lost one. Well, that was about to change.
Ignoring the gun at his feet, the bouncer lowered his head and charged.
Nathan was ready.
He sidestepped and shoved the man into the wall. The guy''s head penetrated the half-inch drywall and left a cereal-bowl impression in its surface. Nathan kicked him in the ass, making the cereal bowl deeper. The man grunted, cursed, and yanked himself free.
Nathan stepped back as the man snorted, clearing dust from his nose. "It''s a little cramped in here," Nathan said. "Let''s finish this in the living room."
"No problem."
Nathan gestured toward the door and moved aside, allowing him to exit the bedroom first. He pointed at Cindy. "Stay here." Following at a safe distance in the near darkness, he sensed his opponent disappear around the living room corner more than he saw it. Then he heard a metallic scraping sound and knew exactly what it was.
The fireplace iron.
Nathan took loud, deliberate steps down the hall and stopped four feet short of the corner. The poker''s black form whooshed and penetrated the wall where he would''ve been had he kept going. More drywall dust flew. He kicked the bouncer''s arm, pinning it to the wall, and had the satisfaction of feeling the mid ulna and radius bones snap. The hand released the iron and fell away.
"Oh, man, that''s gotta hurt," Nathan said. "Had enough?"
The bouncer charged again-surprisingly fast, but not fast enough.
Nathan ducked low before thrusting upward with all his strength.
The man literally flew over Nathan''s back and landed with a grunt. He rolled onto his belly, tried to use his arms to get up, and seemed surprised when one of them didn''t work. His expression somewhat irritated, he fell to his side and looked at his arm.
"Broken," Nathan said.
"You''re a dead man."
Nathan spread his arms and looked down at himself.
The bouncer struggled to his feet and lunged forward with a left jab zeroed at Nathan''s jaw. Anticipating the punch, Nathan jerked his head to the right and snapped up with his left elbow, smashing the man''s nose. That''s a bingo! For 99.9 percent of Earth''s population, that level of blunt-force trauma did the trick. Party over. Lights out. Send the babysitter home. But this man simply wiped his nose and squinted at the fresh blood on his fingers.
"It was cocked about thirteen degrees to the right," Nathan said. "It''s straight now. No charge."
The bouncer grabbed a toppled chair with his good hand and hurled it. Nathan ducked. Behind him, the glass door spiderwebbed before exploding out onto the deck.
Roaring like a maniac, the bouncer charged a third time.
He never made it.
His foot caught on the corner of the coffee table, and he went down. Hard. Had the fall not landed him squarely on an overturned chair, it would''ve been comical. Unfortunately, his left eye socket made solid contact with the bottom of the chair''s leg. Three hundred pounds of momentum. Nathan ran the calculation in his head. It wasn''t pretty. If he was lucky, the eye could be saved, provided it wasn''t dangling out of the socket by a gooey blue-gray tendril.
The man rolled into a fetal position and cupped his eye with his good hand.
Nathan felt it, a tangible presence evaporating from the room.
This fight was over.
An absurd memory flashed through his mind, something his mother used to say: It''s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. The thing was, losing an eye was a damned serious injury. Eyes didn''t heal like broken bones; once the optic nerve was destroyed, that was it. End of story-no more vision. That fact hit close to home with Nathan. On more than one occasion his tormenters in Nicaragua had threatened to blind him with a knife. When they''d carved his face, he''d forced himself to hold perfectly still through the searing agony so the blade wouldn''t slip and take out his eyes. He shivered at the memory. As much as he resented this big man on the floor, he didn''t want to see him blind in one eye. Spending the next fifty years with a glass eye and no depth perception wouldn''t be a fair trade for terrorizing Cindy. A broken arm and a pulverized nose should be punishment enough.
"Come on," Nathan said. "Let''s have a look. It''s over, okay?"
The big guy staggered to his knees, still holding his left hand over his eye.
"I''m gonna look at that eye. If you try anything, we''ll start over."
No response.
Nathan flipped a switch on the wall and squinted at the sudden brightness. He approached the bouncer from the broken-arm side, just in case there was still some fight left in the guy, which he seriously doubted. The bouncer looked pitiful, clutching his eye-beaten and bloody, like a bully who''d finally met his match.
"Let me see it. Easy, now ... What''s your name?"
He slowly removed his hand. "Toby."
Blood was streaming out of Toby''s nose and running down his lips and chin. Nathan examined the eye from a safe distance. Fortunately the impact hadn''t been directly on the orb itself. It had missed by half an inch, but the skin was laid open on the upper brow.
"Well, Toby, I''ve got good news. You aren''t going to lose your eye, but you''ll have one hell of a shiner." Nathan stepped back. "You had a close call here." He paused to make sure he had Toby''s full attention. "You can blow this experience off, or you can use it to turn your life around, to walk a different path." Nathan watched him ponder the comment for a few seconds. Toby was a big man-huge, really-and people often associated his kind of size with stupidity. Nathan was also a big man, not as big as this guy, but he often felt people treated him as though he were all muscle and no brains.
"I lose my temper," Toby said.
"I noticed. Did you notice that the things I said were designed to make you lose your temper?"
"I can''t help it."
"Yes, you can. I know from personal experience. Trust me on this."
Toby said nothing.
Nathan crouched down. "Here''s what I do. When I feel anger coming on, and I really want to hurt someone, I stop it by using a mental image. You can call it anything you want. For me, it''s a safety catch. You with me so far?"
Toby nodded.
"Okay. I picture autumn leaves falling from trees and gently settling on the ground all around me. Give it a try. Start by closing your eyes and imagining it."
To Nathan''s surprise, Toby closed his eyes.
"You''re standing under the trees with your head tilted up, your arms out to the sides, palms up. The leaves are filtering past you, brushing against your skin. Breathe in deep; let it out slowly. See the leaves as they flutter past you." Nathan watched Toby''s face change.
He looked pretty calm for a moment, then winced. "Oh, man ... My arm hurts."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from First to Killby Andrew Peterson Copyright © 2008 by Andrew Peterson. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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