He pulled on his T-shirt, wrapped the towel around his neck and set off in the general direction of the bed-and-breakfast. He angled across the wide expanse of sand and then, at the last moment, hesitated as if wondering if he should go right in, changed his mind and headed toward the little café where most of those staying at Marie’s got their caffeine fixes during the day.
Once out of sight of the first beach, he picked up the pace and hurried around a second and then third corner. Twice he backtracked to make certain he wasn’t being followed. He ended up in the small garage just off a house his brother Ezekiel had found to rent. That was like Zeke. He always found the perfect place for any occasion that might come up.
Mordichai let him into the darkened room. They had a hood over the diver’s face. Ezekiel glanced up but didn’t say anything to Malichai. Instead, he turned back to the diver.
“I take that hood off your face, you’re a dead man. Do you understand me?”
The head bobbed up and down. The diver’s breathing was harsh and ragged.
“Why did you try to drown Dozer and then Malichai? I’m warning you, I’m not going to ask again. You don’t tell me what I want to know, the hood comes off, we do this the hard way and then you die. You got that?”
The head bobbed again. “I got orders. I do what I’m told.”
“Who gave you the orders?”
“I don’t know. I have a business. I’m an independent contractor and I don’t meet with clients. I just get the money up front and I carry out the order. If the order isn’t carried out, then I keep going until it’s done. That surfer should have been an easy target, but he wasn’t. They hardly paid much of anything for him. When I missed, I just returned the money. They were pissed as hell.”
“They?” Ezekiel pounced on that.
“Well, yeah. There are at least two of them. They type out the orders and send them over the computer. It’s encrypted, but I can tell it isn’t always the same man. They use different phrasing.”
Someone doing business the way this man did would pay attention to something like that. He hadn’t hesitated either, searching for a reason. He readily gave one. Malichai was certain he was telling the truth.
“Why did they want the surfer and then the soldier drowned?”
The prisoner shrugged. “I don’t ask. Usually it’s some husband or wife wanting the other killed, so they don’t have to share everything if they’re getting a divorce. I try to arrange accidents if possible. Makes it easier all the way around.”
Malichai was a little sickened by the easy way the diver spoke of killing others. Malichai was a soldier. He was also a medic. It bothered him when he had to take a life, and he did it often. It was never done easily. He shook his head and looked at Mordichai. His brother was watching the prisoner very closely.
Ezekiel was close to the prisoner, and that meant they all had eyes on him just in case. Trap was standing just to the left of him. Mordichai to the right. Malichai had remained near the door to block the exit as well.
“Your name is Henry Shevfield? You live here in San Diego?” They’d gotten his name and identity from his prints.
The man nodded.
“You’re married with three kids?”
The prisoner stiffened. “Leave my wife and kids out of this. They have no idea what I do for a living.”
“I’m sure they don’t,” Ezekiel said. “Was this the first time you dealt with these people?”
“No. They’ve used my services a few times over the last couple of years.”
Malichai stiffened and straightened from where he’d been draped against the door. A couple of years? Big things took planning. A lot of planning.
“When you say ‘a couple of years,’ is that two? Three? Just how many and what were those jobs?” Ezekiel persisted.
“Maybe two and a half. Yeah. That’s about right. The first job was some hotshot that worked for the San Diego Unified Port District. He was holding up something big and they needed him out of the way. That one was easy enough to arrange and he died in an accident. Drove a sports car way too fast. It was tragic.”
“And the next?” Ezekiel prompted.
“Woman worked for the board of directors at the San Diego Convention Center. She was a little more difficult. You’d think a suit would get out more often, but she worked mostly from home. I had to arrange a home accident. Those are much more dangerous because you can’t control the environment.”
He spoke so matter-of-factly that Malichai winced. Henry Shevfield thought very little about arranging accidents or killing other human beings for his own personal gain.