They faced each other, panting, for a split second, the gamy physical stink of death coming off them in waves. On their elbows and bellies atop broken glass, shattered and pebbled, it was all between them now, the few-foot expanse that was survival or death. This was Dwyer’s terrain. His eyes cut around the space for something sharp or edged or heavy. He saw Behr’s do the same.
Nothing suitable
.
With grunts and the pop of glass ground to dust underfoot they ran at each other and locked up and Dwyer got his hands around Behr’s neck in a double collar tie. He yanked, then flung his hips back for a snap down, a technique that always left his opponents on their faces, spitting teeth. But this one didn’t go. He merely doubled over some.
The wound
, Dwyer thought, as he drove down and felt Behr’s clavicle there, shot apart and jagged, under his forearm. He’d broken countless healthy men with the
move, and he pushed with all the leverage his stout body possessed. But this one wouldn’t break. Then, with a guttural bellow, Behr caught him around the waist, lifted him off the ground and high into the air before dumping him with a vicious body slam that caved in his rib cage. He felt the air squeeze out of him and black pain flood in. The effort of it caused Behr to drop to his knees. Dwyer looked up and saw that the other wounded man had twisted his way into view of the doorframe, a smeared blood trail behind him, and had managed to roll and was attempting to work himself into a modified Creedmoor shooting position, his gun across the outside of his calf. Dwyer summoned the last strength he’d trained into himself over decades to gain his feet and run straight through the glass door of the pantry. He kept waiting for shots to sound and bite into him as he hit the ground outside and clambered for the cover of the side of the house, but they didn’t come …
Behr tried to give chase, but found his legs wouldn’t respond anymore and he stumbled down to his knees again. Back in the kitchen he scrabbled around on the floor for the Bulldog and the shells he’d dropped when he made his tackle, but he was weak, uncoordinated, and light-headed and he hadn’t fitted a single one into its chamber before Dwyer was out of sight. Decker lay there, his gun still up, but there was no one left to line up on. Behr crawled for the kitchen phone, yanking it down and putting it to his ear, only to find it dead.
He made his way, on hands and knees, toward Decker, grabbing a wadded-up dishtowel from the floor on his way. Behr reached him and pressed the linen hard onto the wound, which was a wickedly clean seven-inch laceration that went clear down to the bone and ran the length of his jaw, and was still gouting blood. Another inch lower and it would have been his jugular and an early good night.
That’s when a low-grade explosion erupted outside and a compressed whump rocked the kitchen. A kind of smile creased Decker’s face. His teeth shone bright white against the dark blood around his mouth for a moment.
“Mud cutter,” he said, “made it myself,” his back sinking against the floor in something resembling satisfaction. Behr
understood he’d set off some kind of booby trap near the back door on his way in.
The two of them lay there breathing raggedly for a moment. Behr dialed 911 on his cell phone and pressed Send over and over. The last thing he saw was a signal bar flicker into place and then his head dropped and blackness came.
Waddy Dwyer was completely arsed up. Hurt and alone, ribs crushed, the soft tissue of his legs shredded and his face blown up, burned, and peppered. The kind of damage he’d managed to avoid his whole career, and the kind a man never fully comes back from. He’d be completely unable to cash the $62,000 check he’d made Shug Saunders write him. He’d need to stay away from banks and most public places with cameras, especially during the day, being so recognizably disfigured now. The whole trip was for naught. Gantcher had run dry of funds and there was no one left to squeeze for his payday. It had become a complete fucking debacle. And now he was doing something he hadn’t in his whole bloody life: he was running.
One of them, probably the younger of the two, had mined the ground near the rear steps. He’d used something fragmentary and incendiary that was homemade yet effective and would’ve killed him outright had he not felt the hard metal underfoot and dove away just in time. Dwyer should have been looking for it, or something like it, after seeing they’d killed his SAS boy. Only true players could have done that to Rickie. What was it that Ruthless had said?
When pros lock up, everyone gets hurt
.
Dwyer’s own arrogance, the way he’d taken Behr lightly and only thought of killing him and not the reverse, was the true sign
of his age. Suddenly his belief in his skills outstripped his ability. Miraculously, he’d made it to the car, used a sweatshirt to blot his tattered face, and drove out of there before any police had arrived.
Now, at a rest stop off I-65, he rinsed his torn-up thighs with bottled water and used the rest to wash down half a dozen codeine and acetaminophen and two Adderall. He was far off the road, away from the abandoned car park, tucked into thick trees where he fed Rickie’s belongings into a fire he’d built in a metal rubbish barrel. The clothes were burning well, already beyond recognition or provenance, the same with the Elvis glasses, which melted immediately when he tossed them into the flames. He added the GSM mobile jammer, along with the rest of his equipment, to the mix. It was time to travel light. Finally, he dropped Rickie’s passport in and watched the crimson cover curl, peel back, and liquefy, revealing the photo page. Black ringed holes spread across Rickie’s young, unsmiling face, before he disappeared altogether.
Dwyer limped back to the car and used the map feature on his smart phone to plot his route: straight north to Lake Michigan, then northeast on I-94 to I-196, until Route 31 would take him straight into the wilderness country of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, to Traverse City if he could make it that far on land, where he’d boost a boat and steer it around Mackinac Island into Lake Huron and Canada. From there, depending on how and if his face healed, he could bus over to Nova Scotia and catch on with a merchant ship headed for the UK, or maybe even a flight to London if the heat dissipated enough. Dwyer sketched the route in detail on paper, then texted home a coded message:
kits in dens
. That would give Sandy an idea of what was going on and what to do. Then he took the SIM card out of the already clean phone and cracked it into pieces and let them blow away on the post-rain breeze.
He started the car. He would have to dump it soon and switch into a stolen one for the second half of the drive. He had so far to
go, but all he could think about was getting back to Wales. All he could picture was Sandy, her fine hands treating his face with boric acid solution and spreading calendula and comfrey salve over the burns on his legs. He pulled out of the rest area, back onto the interstate, and started traveling.
There was noise, and white lights flashing in his eyes, and it was bone cold. He felt steel against his skin and heard tearing, then felt even colder as his shirt was cut away. There were voices, talking to each other, not to him, and scraping and digging in his body. His every nerve felt raw, as if they were plugged into a surging electrical current. Then there was a sharp jab. A needle. It was held in place with tape. A burning erupted at the spot of the puncture, it was agony, but soon a warm, floating sensation carried him away, as if in a bubble of saline. Sound became muffled as he entered a gauzy tunnel.
Was he dying or already dead?
He might’ve been. But he didn’t think so. Then, black.
His eyes opened. It was much later and everything hurt. He was flat on his back. He felt pinned in place, but not by any restraints, just his own inability to move. He stared up at the plastic diamond grid of the light fixture above him for what felt like hours, gathering himself, and then was finally able to turn his head. He saw her there, her blond hair spilled along the edge of the bed where her head was down.
“Suze.” The word was a croak, a gasp.
She rose up, a look of abject relief on her face.
“You came back.”
“I came back,” she said.
He felt himself smile. It felt like everything inside him was going to tear apart.
“You crazy jerk,” she said. “You had surgery. A collapsed lung. They gave you blood. You were a couple quarts low.”
“How long have I …?”
“Thirty hours or so, maybe a little longer,” she said. She was completely scrubbed free of makeup. He’d never seen anything as beautiful as her face.
“Dwyer?” Behr asked, his eyes cutting toward the door.
“The guy you were chasing?” she said. “There was—what did they call it?—a blast crater and lots of blood, but he was gone. Police are looking for him all over the place. They said they’re sure they’ll get him. Soon.”
His eyes closed in pain.
No they won’t
… Behr knew the man was gone again on the same dark wind he blew in on.
“And Decker?”
“He’s … okay. They sewed him up—a hundred and thirty-seven stitches—and he left. He just walked out,” she said. “They released Gina’s body to him and he had her … them … cremated this morning.”
Behr pictured Decker, alone in his Camaro, a blister on the highway, driving toward some unknown destination, bent on ungettable revenge.
“Was there a service?” he asked quietly. The words were coming more smoothly now, but it was easier to whisper than talk. “Were you there?”
“Not sure if anyone was …” Susan said, “I was a little busy.”
That’s when Behr realized she was dressed in a robe, over a hospital gown. “You had him?” Behr asked.
“He wouldn’t wait. I went into labor while you were under. Dr. Bezucha has privileges here, and he came.”
“And I missed it.”
“You did. Won’t say you didn’t miss a lot, but I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I am.”
“And how is he?”
“He’s unbelievable,” she said. Behr couldn’t lift his head to see. She wheeled a clear plastic bassinet around the foot of the bed and close to him. In it, like a cotton-wrapped doll, was the baby, with a furrowed brow and his pink nose peeking out between a swaddling blanket and tiny watch cap. She lifted him, his eyes closed like a kitten’s, and showed him to Behr.
“Your son,” she said, with the first smile he’d seen on her in weeks. “Weighed in at eight-eight, so thank god he didn’t wait any longer.”
“Kid’s a light heavyweight,” Behr said, hardly recognizing his voice for the mystified joy in it.
“So, Frank Junior? Little Frankie?”
Behr, feeling as weak as he ever had in his life, shook his head with all the force he could muster. “No. He’s gotta do better—be better than me.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears as she held the boy up to him.
“Then it’s Trevor, because we wanted to go with a ‘T,’ ” she said. “And Frank is his middle name. Don’t even try and argue.”
There was so much to be strong for and to protect. With effort he reached out and touched the tiny fingers in front of him and held them for a moment, before his arm tired and fell away. The baby woke then, and Behr’s head sank back onto the thin pillow as he stared into the eyes of his son.
I would like to express my deep gratitude to Theodore Petrara, gunnery sergeant, USMC, Ret. (3rd Force Recon Platoon, 3rd Recon Battalion, 12th Marines, 24th Marine Amphibious Unit, Lebanon), and Steve Moses, deputy constable, Dallas, Texas, for sharing their incredible expertise. They are as generous as they are knowledgeable.
An excerpt
from David Levien’s
City of the Sun
,
Frank Behr’s relentlessly suspenseful debut
1
Jamie Gabriel wakes at 5:44, as the clock radio’s volume bursts from the silence. He rolls and hits the sleep bar, clipping off the words to an annoying pop song by some boy-band graduate who wears the same clothes and does the same moves as his backup dancers. The worst. Kids at school say they like him. Some do; the rest are just following along. Jamie listens to Green Day and Linkin Park. It’s three-quarters dark outside. He clicks off the alarm and puts his feet on the floor. Waking up is easy.
In the master bedroom sleep Mom and Dad. Carol and Paul. The carpet is wall-to-wall, light blue. New. The liver-colored stuff that came with the house when they bought it is gone. The blue goes better with the oak bedroom set, Mom says.
It was a good move for the Gabriels, to the split ranch–style on Richards Avenue, Wayne Township. Trees line most all of the blocks here. The houses have yards.
Jamie walks past his school photo, which hangs in the hall on the way to the bathroom. He hates the picture. His wheat-colored hair lay wrong that day. He takes a pee. That’s it. He’ll brush his teeth when he gets back, after breakfast, before school.
He moves through the kitchen—
Pop-Tart? Nah
—and goes out the utility door into the connected garage. Mom and Dad love it, the garage on the house, the workbench, and space for the white minivan and the blue Buick.
He hoists the garage door halfway up; it sticks on its track. A streak of black fur darts in and hits him low in the legs.
“Where you been, Tater?”
The gray-whiskered Lab’s tail thumps against the boy’s leg for a moment. After a night of prowling, Tater likes the way the boy ruffles his fur. The boy pushes him aside and crawl-walks under the garage door.
A stack of the morning
Star
waits there, acrid ink smell, still warm from the press. Jamie drags the papers inside and sets to work, folding them into thirds, throwing style.
He loads white canvas sacks and crosses them, one over each shoulder, then straddles his bike. The Mongoose is his. Paid for with six months’ delivery money after the move to Richards Avenue. Jamie ducks low and pushes the bike out underneath the garage door, when Tater rubs up against his leg again. The old dog begins to whine. He shimmies and bawls in a way that he never does.
“Whatsa matter?”
Jamie puts his feet on the pedals and cranks off on his route. Tater groans and mewls. Dogs know.
“Should’ve gone to McDonald’s, you fat fuck,” Garth “Rooster” Mintz said to Tad Ford as he reached across him for a French Toast dipper. Tad’s face squeezed in hurt, then relaxed. The smell of gasoline, the fast-food breakfast, and Tad’s Old Spice filled the battleship-gray ’81 Lincoln.
“You’re eating same as me,” Tad said back. “You’re just lucky it doesn’t stick to you.”
Rooster said nothing, just started chewing a dipper.
Tad was unsatisfied with the lack of reaction, but that was all he was going to say. Rooster was seventy-five pounds smaller than him, but he was hard. The guy was wiry. Tad could see his sinew. He’d once watched Rooster, piss drunk, tear a guy’s nostril open in a bar scrap. The whole left side of the dude’s nose was blown out, and just flapped around on his face with each breath after the fight was broken up and Rooster was pulled off.
Tad had plenty of targets of opportunity with Rooster—the small man stank much of the time. He didn’t shower most days. He left his chin-up, push-up, and sit-up sweat in place, only bothering to wipe down his tattoos. His red-blond hair hung limp and greasy as well. Then there were the scars. Nasty raised red ones that ran up and down
his forearms like someone had gone at him with a boning knife. When Tad finally screwed up the nerve to ask where he’d gotten them, Rooster merely replied, “Around.” Tad left it there.
“You’re just lucky it doesn’t stick to you,” Tad repeated, chewing on his own French toast.
“Yeah, I’m lucky,” Rooster said, turned, and looked down the street, still dark beneath all the goddamn trees. “Should’ve gone to McDonald’s.”
Jamie Gabriel, rider, pedals. He flows by silent houses, houses dark on the inside. He tosses papers into yards and onto porches. He works on his arc and velocity with each throw. An automatic sprinkler quietly sweeps one lawn, still blue in the bruised morning light. Jamie slings for the front door of that house so the paper stays dry. He works his pedals. A line of streetlight goes dark with a hiss as morning comes. Dad thinks it’s great that they moved to a neighborhood that supports tradition: newspaper routes. Mom’s not so sure—her boy needs his rest. Few people know the streets like Jamie does. Dark and empty, they’re his streets. Jamie wasn’t so sure either, at first, when he was still getting used to the work and slogging through the route on his old Huffy. But then he earned the new bike. He read an old story of a mailman who became an Olympic biker.
Why not him, too?
He has a picture. The black man’s thighs bulge and ripple. He looks like he’s set to tear his bike apart more than ride it. Jamie checks his watch. His time is looking good.
Rooster glanced at the clock inside the Lincoln. Goddamn Lincoln now smelled of an old fuel leak and Tad’s farts over the sickly sweet of the aftershave. But the car was clean. Riggi bought it in a cash deal and dropped it off with fixed-up tags. Rooster hated these goddamned pickups. He flexed his forearm, felt the corded muscle move underneath his wounded and roughly healed skin and light red arm hair. His forearm was thick for his stature. He was ripped. He was disciplined with working out, but he was a lazy bastard, he suspected, when it came to certain parts of the job. Yeah, he hated the fucking snatches.
Anybody could do ’em. It wasn’t like the house work.
That
was rarefied air, sir.
“Start the car,” Rooster said low, glancing sideways at the clock again. He scanned out the windshield of the Lincoln. The goddamn thing was like the bridge of the starship
Enterprise
.
“Oh, shit,” Tad said, his last bite of hash-brown cake sticking in his gullet. The car turned over, coarse and throaty.
They saw movement at the corner.
Jamie puts his head down and digs his pedals. He’s got a shot at his record. He’s got a shot at the
world
record. He throws and then dips his right shoulder as he makes the corner of Tibbs. The canvas sack on his left has begun to lighten and unbalance him. He straightens the Mongoose and glances up. Car. Dang. Jamie wheels around the corner right into the rusty grill and locks them up.
Tires bite asphalt and squeal. Smoke and rubber-stink roil. Brakes strain hard and hold. The vehicles come to a stop. Inches separate them.
With a blown-out breath of relief, Jamie shakes his head and starts pushing toward the curb, bending down to pick up a few papers that have lurched free.
Car doors open. Feet hit the pavement. Jamie looks up at the sound. Two men rise out of the car. They move toward him. He squeezes the hand brake hard as they approach.