“Some people have a strong code of ethics.”
“She wouldn’t get the rest of her fee.”
“She might not care.”
“Like the psycho in
No Country for Old Men
.”
I nodded. “The guy had a strong code of ethics.”
“So you think Detroit being in the ground might not be the end of it.”
“Can’t let my guard down. Can’t assume that was the epilogue to my situation.”
He asked, “What’s happening in Powder Springs?”
I took a breath. “It got pretty bad.”
“Who covered?”
“Guy working for me. Heavyweight boxer. Think he’s good with guns too.”
“You get the details from your guy?”
“Will find out when I get back.”
I remained uneasy. Living in caution mode. My gut told me this wasn’t done. I had a presentiment that something extremely brutal was going to happen, more violence, more tragedy.
Konstantin said, “Catherine and the kid?”
That paused me. Magnified my aches. I said, “They’re gone.”
“What happened?”
“I happened.”
I went to the window and looked down on Old Parham Road. Catherine and the kid weren’t at the house. Detroit had sent people to come after them, but they weren’t there when the assassins had arrived. Catherine had taken the kid, packed up, taken her passport, taken all the money out of the account I had set up for her, and left the country. I’d gone after the truth and she’d run away. Running away had saved her life. Had saved the kid’s life. The reason why she had left, it was still back at Powder Springs.
Her fears were inside a FedEx package. Answers from DNA Solutions. The answer to X. Y. Z.
Konstantin said, “You’re strong. Smart. Relentless. Shrewd and cunning. A powerful fighter.”
I nodded at his assessment. Still, that wasn’t enough.
Hawks came into the front room, foot wrapped, on crutches. Cowboy boots replaced with sandals. Jeans replaced with linen pants. Antigua T-shirt. No bra. Her face was bruised but looked better than it had earlier. The baseball cap and wide lenses on her sunglasses hid most of the damage.
She asked, “How are you feeling?”
“The strawberry blonde. She’s out there.”
Hawks said, “The game isn’t over until the last man is out.”
I nodded, stepped away from the tinted window but went right back.
It wouldn’t be over until the fat lady sang. And she wasn’t singing. I couldn’t hear an aria being belted out by a heavyset woman dressed like a valkyrie. This was intermission, not the final curtain.
Left shoulder ached. Had been tended to by the doc from Devil’s Bridge. Would take a while to heal. Just like the rest of my body. I wasn’t in any shape to fight again, not like that. Could barely move.
Ten minutes later a car pulled up and parked next to Vigi’s, close to the bus stop. Two people got out, a male and a female, college students, both in worn shorts and inexpensive sandals, both wearing AUA T-shirts. They laughed as they opened the trunk of their ride, took out a box, and came upstairs.
The girl was Punjabi. Her friend was silent, didn’t know if he was European or American.
Konstantin opened the door, his hand behind his back, nine-millimeter in his hand.
With a congenial smile he asked, “Can I help you?”
She smiled. “This heat is a
killer
today.”
Konstantin nodded. Her tall companion handed Konstantin the box.
The girl said, “You’re Russian.”
Konstantin nodded.
He handed the girl an envelope filled with enough money to cover the transaction.
She said, “These sell for five but I’m letting them go for half that. Need the cash. Fees at the university are kicking my butt. And the gas prices. I saw on CNN that back in the States people are stealing gas by drilling into gas tanks. Crazy. You caught me on a good day. Need the fast cash.”
I asked, “Did you sell any hardware to a man with red hair?”
She evaluated me and my injuries, my arm in a sling, my aching walk, then she shook her head.
“Revealing my customers, not good for business. Just like if anybody asked me if I sold some merchandise to you, I’d say no. If I see you on the street, I don’t know you. That’s how I roll.”
We stared at each other.
I nodded.
She did the same.
That gunrunner turned around, walked back down the stairs a few dollars richer.
They got inside their old car and made a left on Old Parham Road, blended with traffic going back toward St. John’s and Friars Hill Road. Konstantin opened the box, my left arm in a sling and no good. Four SR9s were in the package. Along with eight clips.
The airport was ten minutes away, but we weren’t riding naked.
I took two of the nine-millimeters. The light metal feeling heavy in my hands. A small piece of lead had been the end of so many. A small piece of lead had taken down many Goliaths.
Hawks took the other two nines, inspected them, popped the clips in, nodded.
Konstantin was already strapped. He opened his jacket and took out our new fake passports.
He said, “Ready to get the hell out of here?”
“Yeah. I better get you back to the States before your wife gets worried.”
“I’m more worried about your condition and state of mind than she is about me.”
“I’m good to go.”
“You’re pacing, tense, fidgety, like you’re suffering from PTSD.”
“I’m not traumatized. I’m alert. I’m ready.”
Konstantin backed off.
He said, “We’ll all be at the airport at the same time. We’ll sit near each other, but we don’t know each other. Different airlines. Sorry about the long layovers, but that’s the best I can do.”
I stared at Hawks. She looked guilty. She used her crutches and came over to me. Kissed me.
I asked Hawks, “What was that for?”
“Worried about you, that’s all.”
“I’m not traumatized.”
Hawks smiled at me. Tried to get me to smile. I searched deep but couldn’t find a smile to give.
I frowned down at the local newspapers, the pictures of Detroit being fished out of the Caribbean Sea. Her death. I had died in London. Hunted down in the Cayman Islands. Ambushed in Huntsville.
Her death was nothing more than a Pyrrhic victory. And a Pyrrhic victory was no victory at all.
I went to the window, looked down on the men who were looking out for us.
I asked, “Why didn’t she let it go?”
Konstantin said, “Because for some it’s easier to reach a consensus for war than to reach a consensus for peace. Some people are made that way. If she was still alive, what had started between you and her might’ve lasted longer than the civil war in Colombia. That’s been going on four decades.”
I searched the Caribbean landscape, that foreboding sensation refusing to wane and let me go.
I should’ve felt vindicated, but that victorious sensation eluded me.
I had taken out the red-haired man, had done to him what I had wanted to do to the man who had killed me in London. I hadn’t taken this war to my enemy. She had outsmarted me, lured me here. It was done. Done in my favor. But I felt so motherfucking hollow. I should’ve felt good, should’ve felt relieved, but I felt empty. If I had killed her myself, that same vacant feeling would have consumed me.
Killing never felt good, never felt like a victory.
Even when I killed the man with the red hair, that action was born out of necessity. So I would have to deal with that hollowness. An empty space that was being filled with a different anger, a different fear. Catherine and the kid were gone. That canceled everything out. I sat down for a hot minute, took a few deep breaths. When I looked up Hawks and Konstantin were watching me.
Hawks asked, “What’s the problem?”
“I made too many fucking mistakes. Too many blunders.”
“What blunders?”
“Almost got you killed.”
“I didn’t see it as blunders.”
“Left you in the house alone.”
“You had to hide the dinghy, cover our tracks. Just part of what we do.”
Konstantin stepped up, said, “Think about what you did right. You were trapped. You had been outmaneuvered, outnumbered, and outgunned. Yet you managed to flip the script on whoever was attacking you.”
“I did things wrong.”
“I have done things wrong. You can and will do things wrong. You’re an assassin, not James Bond or Jason Bourne. Those motherfuckers have stunt doubles and have never been in a real gun battle in their lives. This was the real world. You’re used to being the hunter, not the one being hunted.”
I lowered my head, rubbed my eyes, angry at myself.
Konstantin said, “You had no weapons, had to be creative. They had guns and you had bottles of liquor. Look at you. You can barely move. Your injuries are severe. Fighting with elbows and fists, that shit hurts. That’s why you should always grab something, or use brass knuckles. The body is a delicate thing, no matter how strong you are.”
I didn’t say anything.
Hawks came over and hugged me. “You’ve been shot in the arm. Stung by jellyfish in the same arm. Beaten. Almost drowned. Probably swallowed God knows how much seawater. But you swam back to shore with one arm. Not to mention the blood you lost from being shot. And a groin injury.”
Konstantin said, “Groin injuries can sideline the biggest player, take them out of a football game, send a big man out on a stretcher with tears in his eyes. And you’re still moving around on yours. The two of you worked like a team. You worked how I taught you to fight. Both of you survived.”
I pushed my lips up into an overwrought smile, told them I was ready to get out of there.
I said, “The strawberry blonde.”
Hawks said, “Don’t worry about her.”
“Let me get you out of this country.” That was Konstantin. “Time to move.”
We took to the stairs. Konstantin went first, then me. Hawks wanted to come down last. Which was fine. I wanted to have her covered. A van with tinted windows waited for us down below.
I doubted we would need the guns, but I wanted them with me, my nine-millimeter pacifiers. Would carry mine until I made it to the airport. Not until then would I give my guns to my escorts, men who would walk with us and stick around while we went to three different counters to check in. Tickets had been bought online, but we still had to go to the counter, checking in still old-fashioned down here, couldn’t walk up to a machine and have it spit out an E-ticket like in the U.K. or the States. We’d go up to the counters one by one while our escorts made sure we made it inside the airport without trouble.
Hawks and I had backpacks as well. CDs, credit cards, pens, belts, and pencils inside.
This was my life. This was my world.
Hawks said, “I’m taking the other van.”
I looked at the van with darkened windows. A second van was next to that one.
I said, “That wasn’t the plan.”
Hawks said, “Plans have changed.”
Konstantin nodded in agreement. “Don’t want all of us in the same van. If they came at us on the road, they wouldn’t know which van to hit. And we could have firepower coming from two directions.”
I nodded. His strategy seemed flawed, but at the same time it made sense.
Had too much on my mind to debate that issue.
Again, Hawks came over and kissed me.
I said, “See you at the airport.”
She nodded. “See you later.”
I hopped inside the van with Konstantin, and the driver made a right, jumped into traffic, and headed toward Airport Road. I looked back, saw Hawks getting into the other van. Her arms weren’t injured. Both of her shooting hands were 100 percent. She was bruised, but she was functional.
Konstantin had his gun at his side. I rode the same way.
Sleep-deprived. On medication. Groin on fire. Aching to my bone marrow. Mind ablaze. Kept wondering how in the fuck I ended up here. I wondered who in heaven decided I would be the son of a whore and a whore-fucking mercenary. I pondered who I was and how I had come to be.
Maybe this was all I deserved. Maybe I was dead and already in hell.
But I knew. I reminded myself of what I already knew, reminded myself of my faults.
My inability to let things go. My inability to let go of things that I needed to let go.
I had done a job for Detroit a while ago, a job that had almost gone bad because the target had access to a weapon that I didn’t know anything about. His profile had painted him as peaceful and passive, a large man who had never lifted a hand to hurt anyone. That target had ended up being more gangster than the Kray brothers, came at me shooting, tried to put me in the ground. He had tried and he had failed. At that moment it had felt like I had been set up to fail. And in that angry moment I had called her, told her there was a penalty, had demanded a fee for not providing me with adequate information. I was angry. I had almost been killed and I was angry. Maybe she was afraid I would blackmail her. Either way it was a fee that Detroit had paid; then when the time was right, the last time I was in London, she had sent an assassin to track me down. An assassin who had trapped and killed me.
This was my error. My bad judgment had gotten the best of me.
I had died a slow and torturous death in London, but on that menacing day I didn’t stay dead.
Someone else had killed my assassin on my behalf. Someone had stolen my victory.
Maybe this was the life I had earned. I had killed my father when I was seven years old. I didn’t think about that often, had some sort of dissociative, almost amnesiac state when it came to that moment.
The moment that had defined me. The moment that had created me.
The Grim Reaper had followed me ever since, always with a different face.