Killfile (24 page)

Screaming children and exhausted
parents wander around us. Hipsters with multiple piercings sneer at the chain restaurant and the rides, trying hard to kill whatever childlike wonder they've got left inside them. There's a polyglottal soup of languages and accents in the air as tourists compare what's in front of their eyes with what they've seen on TV. Homeless people sift through the trash cans and beg spare change, their hunger and exhaustion numbed a little by drugs. And from all sides, all around me, there's pressure, like the water in the deep end of the pool, a heavier atmosphere pressing on me, the weight of a few thousand minds, all gathered in one spot, all of them filled with need and want.

This is where we agreed to meet: the Santa Monica Pier at noon. Broad daylight, big crowds, hundreds of potential witnesses.

Ordinarily you'd never get me within a thousand yards of a place like this. It's up there with Disneyland in my nightmares. But this should keep both sides honest.

Preston agreed a little too fast, with a minimum of bitching. That makes me think either I made a mistake or he really has given up. From my perspective, it's about as safe here as possible. There's no good sniper position within a half mile, and too many police and civilians
for an ambush. Even if he could get a guy on a roof somewhere, the fixed attention on me would instantly set off my alarm bells. Anyone in the crowd who targets me should wake me up to immediate danger as well.

I have to have faith in my talent. All the mental noise around me is worth what I'm gaining in safety. This is about as good as I can get.

The pier starts with a long bridge sloping down from the street to the structure. There are two concrete walkways on either side for pedestrians—never enough room for all of them—and a two-lane road for the cars that are early enough to get a space on the pier's parking lot.

I put Kelsey at a spot on the walkway, well above the place where I'm meeting Preston's men. She can watch the crowd and watch my back from here.

“Almost done,” I tell her. “Just this last bit, and then it's over.”

“Then what happens?” she asks.

“You can't be serious. You want to talk about our relationship now?”

She smiles. “Guys always get so scared when it's time to talk commitment,” she says. “Don't be a jerk. When this is over, I'm going to run away from you as fast and as far as I can. No offense.”

“Some taken.”

“Well, if you ever get that island, I might come visit. If you think you could use a friend.”

I look at her. “Might be nice,” I admit.

I check my watch as an excuse to look away. Almost time for the meet. Now comes the tricky part. I've done this only a few times, and it's never easy.

I look at her. “Do you trust me?”

She gives me a look back.

She's right. She's already trusted me more than anyone should.

I lean close and touch my forehead to hers.

This isn't necessary, but it makes things easier. Physical proximity always makes my talent work better. I'm sure there's a whole theory behind that, but I've never been interested in the process much. Just the results.

I look inside her head. Really look. I push past the surface thoughts and her memories and her buzz of anxiety. I submerge myself inside her physical responses, the sound of the pier and the ocean, the brightness of the sun through her closed eyelids, the slight breeze carrying the scents of fried food and salt water. I'm hearing what she hears. Seeing what she sees.

It's as intimate as being in bed together, but out in public, in broad daylight. She shakes, just a little bit, and grips my arms as if to maintain her balance.

I swim back to the surface and pull out. But I leave a chunk of myself behind.

When I open my eyes, I have to split-screen my consciousness. On the one side, everything that I see: Kelsey, standing there in the sun, with people streaming around her as they head down for fun and frolic.

And on the other side, I see myself through her eyes. I look worried. And older than I remember.

She can feel it, that piece of myself still inside her head. Without my talent, she can't see it the same way. All she can feel is her end of the link, like a telephone connection left open after one person hangs up. She doesn't get the visuals or the words or the inside of my mind. But she knows I'm there.

She could break the link if she wanted. I could claw hard and try to hang on, but there's really nothing I can do to keep her from shaking me out of her head when she's had enough. That's why this requires trust.

“Oh man,” she says. “That's weird.”

“Just take it easy. I'm right here.”

She nods. She turns her head, and my perspective shifts. The world tilts on one side of the split screen. She looks down and sees the meeting spot, the tables outside the carousel on the pier.

On my side of the screen, I'm still looking at her. Her perspective jumps around while she checks the crowd.

I have to fight the urge to try to direct her vision. That just leads to migraines. She looks where she looks. I'm a passive rider. It's like wearing 3-D glasses or talking on the phone while driving. It takes a little getting used to at first.

Kelsey is smarter than I am, and tougher than I thought possible, but she's still basically a civilian. She doesn't have my training. She doesn't know what to look for or how to pick an enemy out of the crowd. So I'm going to have to do a ride-along. With her up here, I can look for anyone else working for Preston through her eyes. I can watch my back at the same time she does.

It might also have occurred to me that this is also the best way to keep her away from Preston's men and still be with her.

Before I pull away, I kiss her.

Again, not necessary, but we need all the luck we can get right now.

I check my watch. Time to go.

Half of my mind is filled with the picture of me walking away from her.

T
HE CAROUSEL IS
just to the left of where the road levels out and meets the pier. There's a deck outside the entrance with metal tables.

Preston's men are there, as arranged, holding down a position at one of the tables. Three of them. Wearing baggy shorts and T-shirts, scowls on their faces as if daring any happy families to try to take their seats. People give them a lot of space. Ice cream melts, uneaten, in little paper cups in front of them.

Never trust a man who doesn't like ice cream. If that's not a saying, it should be.

On the other side of the split screen, Kelsey watches the crowd as they stream past her, on their way up and down the bridge to the pier.

Nobody looks hostile. I'm not getting that telltale prickle on the back of my neck that tells me someone is lining up a shot. I'm not a target. We're good.

I sit down at the table.

“Join you?”

“Free country,” the lead guy—Adkins, his name is Adkins—says.

“Nice day, huh?”

“If you like seventy degrees and sunshine,” Adkins says.

“Beats the hell out of a hundred and twenty in the shade in
Fallujah.” I'm trying to be nice. Two vets, talking about the war. What better way to bond?

“Fuck you. Let's just get this over with.”

So much for bonding.

I feel Kelsey's anxiety growing. Something wrong, out at the periphery of her senses. Nothing conscious. But enough to make her nervous.

Meanwhile, Iggy and the stooges are already screwing up the deal with me.

“All right. Nice doing business with you,” I say. I try to take the duffel.

Adkins won't give it up. He puts his foot down on the bag. Hard.

“No way,” he says. “Not until you give us the drive.”

“That's not how this is supposed to work,” I say quietly.

He smirks. “I'm telling you how it works.”

He's improvising. He actually thinks it's a good idea. Showing initiative as a way to impress both Preston and the people behind him.

“Adkins,” I tell him, “the people who hired you are most impressed by men who can follow orders.”

“Adkins,” I say again, as patiently as I can, “this is not the time for you to show me your dick. Follow the rules, we'll all go home happy.”

He gets defensive. I'm embarrassing him in front of the other two. Their names pop up as well:

and
.

I can feel the weapons they're carrying, under their baggy shirts, snug against their hips.

“All right,” I say, trying to project

and

into their atrophied little frontal lobes. “Let me look inside the bag. See if Preston fulfilled his end of the bargain. Then we can talk about where you can get the drive.”

“No. You tell us now.”

Jesus. Even the five-year-olds waiting in line for ice cream display more patience than this guy. I'd have better luck negotiating with them. Why did Preston send the B-team for this meet?

I'm starting to get a headache keeping it all separate.

Wait a second. Who was that?

I close my eyes and try to focus.

At the edge of Kelsey's peripheral vision.

She's not completely conscious of having seen him, that's why this is hard. She knows him, even if she's only aware of it as a nagging feeling of unease.

“Hey,” Adkins snaps. “You taking a nap on me?”

Oh right, this asshole. “Let me open the bag. Please.”

Focus. At the edge of the crowd. Dammit, Kelsey, turn your head.

“Not until you tell us where you've stashed the hard drive.”

Oh no.

I get up from the table so fast that Wylie and Gill both twitch for their weapons. Adkins nearly jumps up with me. “Hey, man, what the hell are you—”

I'm up and sprinting away from him, toward Kelsey, screaming inside my head.

Because of our link, she hears me.

comes back at me. But she starts moving. Slowly, but she moves. I try to kick her legs into gear.

She's not used to it, not used to trusting the voices in her head. That's a sign of schizophrenia in the world where she usually lives, but she has to move.

I push as hard as I can, because I know his body language, even if Kelsey doesn't. I know the threat.

In her memory, at the edges of her vision, there he was.

She trusts me. She takes a step, prepares to run.

And finally sees him again. About six feet away from her.

Snake Eater.

He's broken away from the crowd. Everyone is fixated on the Parrot Man reaching through the broken window of the minivan. Cars are stacked up behind, honking. The birds are flapping their wings madly, as if they're trying to pull their owner into the sky with them.

He sees Kelsey. That's why I never felt anyone targeting me. I wasn't the target.

She was.

She turns, and starts to run in the other direction.

Too late.

He's already made his decision. He pulls the gun and fires.

The fastest a human being has ever run is about twenty-seven miles per hour. A 9mm bullet fired from a gun moves at just under seven hundred miles per hour. It doesn't matter how much of a head start she has. The bullet catches up to her in a split second.

Entangled with her as I am, I feel it hit the same instant she does.

It breaks her shoulder blade, tears a hole through the top of her lung. She falls.

I stumble, and trip, and fall down with her.

Not real, I remind myself. Not real. It only feels like I am coughing up blood. It only feels like I am dying.

It's only real for Kelsey. She's in pain. She needs help. She's dying, every second I waste.

Get up. Ignore the signals. Get up.

I limp, and then stagger, and then run.