by Matt Rogers
He sat completely still, his mind serene, at ease. One thing his violent past had taught him was perspective, and he considered it the most important concept in forging what he was today. Have one near-death experience and you realise almost nothing in life matters as much as you think.
Do it a couple of times, and your whole world tilts on its axis. What you considered important problems reveal themselves as the slight grievances they actually are.
Make a career out of it, and you end up almost monastic, calm and zen-like in every situation that doesn’t involve fighting desperately and barbarically for your life.
Slater couldn’t care less about when the plane reached the terminal. He closed his eyes and dipped back into rest. He’d planned the sequence of events as soon as Ruby left the hotel room in Quibdó, flying through the information available to him and dispensing with anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Then there was nothing left to think about, so he took the time to detach from the world.
Years ago, he’d worked out the secret to keeping most of his traumatic memories at bay was deep and concentrated meditation. Sounds simple enough, but the first time he’d dispensed with every stray thought and focused entirely on the present moment, it had alleviated him of most of the stress and anxiety from past near-death encounters in an instant. Shocked, unnerved, he’d pressed on and made a habit out of it.
He had recent horrors in his mind, but he’d tamed them, subdued them, and now he was free.
His retirement had involved barbaric wars in Yemen, Macau, and Russia respectively. All extreme regions in every sense. Nothing commonplace. From one extreme to the next. Poverty in Yemen. Luxury in Macau. And desolation in the Russian Far East.
So an ordinary civilian flight landing in New York felt surreal. He’d never been one to blend in. He wasn’t wired that way. The brain resting between his ears had been beaten and battered over years of hardship, and now sitting in a normal setting surrounded by normal people wasn’t something he was accustomed to. He waited until the plane emptied, then walked down the deserted aisles. No luggage to collect from the baggage carousel, no carry-on to cart behind him.
Just the clothes on his back and the passport in his pocket.
But he didn’t need anything else. Not in this day and age. Not with a phone, and a credit card set up in anonymity in Zurich. He navigated through the throngs of foot traffic, found a car rental service, booked a luxury sedan for a hefty fee that didn’t matter in the slightest, and drove the Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupé out of the airport’s jurisdiction with the radio off and the smell of plush leather in the air.
He sat quietly in the driver’s seat, calloused hands on the wheel, feeling the purr of German engineering under the hood. There was bumper to bumper traffic, but it barely fazed him. He waited it out and was rewarded with a smooth ride along North Conduit Avenue, heading fast for Brooklyn. He connected his phone to the car’s audio system via Bluetooth and spoke into it, using voice command to dial a number he knew off by heart.
He knew of the stereotype — the ancient military veteran detached from technology — but it couldn’t have been further from the truth.
He knew how to adapt to the times.
He was a man of supreme efficiency.
His earlier woes about being excommunicated from the secret government underworld didn’t apply to ordinary administrative enquiries. He knew who to call to get what he wanted, and sometimes that involved slight breaches of privacy. Nothing the government wasn’t accustomed to.
‘Slater,’ he said, as soon as the expensive speakers on either side of him indicated the call was connected.
‘Confirm that,’ a pleasant female voice said.
He rattled off a list of identification numbers provided to him at the very start of his career. He heard the woman tapping away at a keyboard. Probably trawling a database. She wouldn’t find much. It would all be blacked out, and for good reason. But she’d understand his clearance level. She’d give him what he needed, as long as it wasn’t too outrageous.
‘Will Slater?’
‘Yeah,’ he said.
‘We shouldn’t be talking to you.’
‘I thought I was cleared of wrongdoing.’
‘You were put back in the database. That doesn’t mean I should be helping you. Rumour is you’re on shaky ground with us. And you’ve severed your ties with the upper echelon.’
‘Yeah, well, shit happens. I don’t need much.’
‘Maybe I don’t want to give you shit.’
There was a certain hostility in her voice he wasn’t anticipating. Not on a professional level, either. And he thought he recognised the inflection, from years earlier. It reminded him of a drunken night in Washington.
‘Enya?’ he said.
‘You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?’
‘Surely you’re not still bitter about that.’
‘I was young and dumb and drunk, but I still told you how I felt. And you just disappeared. Never heard from you again until right now.’
‘You still working for the same place?’
‘Obviously. I know Black Force didn’t give you much of a leash. But you were allowed to meet agents from surface-level divisions. Like intelligence gathering. Isn’t that what you told me? I just remember being impressed at the time.’
‘You knew about what I did, so you knew about why I disappeared. That was my life.’
‘I’m not some dumb bitch who fell in love with you.’
‘I know that. It was one night.’
‘I just wanted an explanation.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I’m sure you can imagine the headspace I was in. If I remember correctly I told you quite a lot.’
‘You over-shared, probably. Given your division’s level of classification.’
‘You knew about what we were. That was clearance enough. And I needed someone to talk to.’
‘I thought you were opening up to me.’
‘I did.’
‘And then you left.’
‘Sorry. I was fucked up back then.’
‘Did you keep working for them?’
‘For eight years.’
‘So you’re probably even more fucked up now?’
Slater paused. ‘Depends how you look at it.’
‘You did good work?’
‘One of the best. Or so I’m told. I’m never one to brag.’
‘Yeah, right…’
‘Look, I need help.’
‘So you’re telling me you’re out of the game and still expecting me to help you?’
‘I need an address.’
‘What — that’s it?’
‘He’s ex-military, and he knew a guy named Russell Williams, so he’s probably at enough of a classification level to have his personal details obscured in any of your standard search directories. That’s why I’m coming to you.’
‘Why should I help you?’
‘Remember when I told you everything on that night? About my career, and the things I was doing in the service of Uncle Sam.’
‘Yes. Vividly.’
‘Even though it was a long time ago?’
‘It stuck with me. I remember thinking I could never skirt death over and over again and make an occupation out of it. I thought you were insane. In a good way.’
‘Okay, good. Think about that, and then think about whether I’d lie to you right now. I’m trying to help someone in need. I need the address for my own reasons. I don’t want to share them with you because you’ll be forced to tell your boss and it’ll go all the way up the chain of command, and then it’ll be game over.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Just think about it. Am I a bad person?’
‘You’re a dick.’
‘Am I a bad person?’
‘No.’
‘Frank Nazarian.’
‘That’s the name? Spell it for me.’
‘F,’ he said.
‘I
know how to spell Frank.’
‘Oh, right.’ He was distracted. Too busy thinking about a night almost nine years ago. He still remembered it too. He spelled out the last name, letter by letter. Then he said, ‘Sorry, Enya. For walking out on you without an explanation. I mean it.’
‘You doing okay, Will?’ she said.
‘Been better.’
‘Why?’
‘Trying to help a friend.’
‘Lady friend?’
‘Yeah, but not like that.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘She’s nine.’
A pause. ‘What have you got yourself into?’
‘Trust me, you don’t want to know.’
‘It’s our government that’s doing this?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know anything for sure. That’s what I’m trying to find out.’
She gave him the address.
51
It was nothing exciting. At least, as far as his relative experience was concerned. A quiet residential suburb on the outskirts of Brooklyn. Wide yards, old houses, old money. Plenty of room for kids to run around.
Ruby had called it a decent suburb, and she hadn’t been lying.
Slater could imagine himself growing up here. Maybe that would have provided him with some semblance of an ordinary childhood. His reality had been far different from that. But he had enough experience to know it was usually the nicest looking homes that were the most broken. He could understand how a hard ex-military man might clash with his daughter on a frequent basis. No abuse, like she’d said, but enough constant conflict to breed resentment.
And if there was one thing about ex-military, it was that they didn’t quit.
Maybe just an ordinary troubled childhood exacerbated by two different personality types. Arguments form habits, which form the entirety of daily life. They probably hated each other by the time she left.
Slater wondered how Frank Nazarian felt about it all now.
Maybe that was why he’d come here. If pressed, he wouldn’t have been able to come up with a reason. Not one that made sense. But in discussion with Ruby, he’d sensed aspects of her father that mirrored Slater’s own behaviour. He wanted to know more about the man who raised a government killer. One of the best on the planet, unless she’d been lying about that, but Slater didn’t think so.
It wasn’t something you boasted about unless you were supremely confident of the truth.
And he figured New York was the place to start on the quest to contact Williams. He probably wouldn’t find it through Nazarian if Ruby had been telling the truth. It seemed like the pair had been out of contact for years, if not a decade. Nazarian likely didn’t know it was Williams who took her daughter into the shadowy government underworld and never brought her back.
But it was as good a place to start as any.
And he figured he could find out more about the man who might have put a nine-year-old girl into a school for assassins.
From an old colleague.
Slater found the house he was looking for. One-storey, neat, squared away from the rest of the street. Nothing special about it, but a good home. A perfectly maintained lawn — the grass was cut short and radiated in colour. A bright, brilliant green. No doubt the handiwork of Nazarian. Ex-military. Meticulous in his neatness.
Old habits die hard.
The S-Class Coupé whispered to a halt on the other side of the avenue, and Slater killed the engine. He sat there with his hands on his thighs, back straight, staring at the dwelling. Unsure if he should follow through with it or not. He might be disrupting the equilibrium. A strange violent nomad wandering into a place he didn’t belong. In all likelihood there was nothing for him here.
In fact, he was almost certain.
But he was ex-military of a different kind. He had habits that wouldn’t go away quickly.
He saw everything through to its conclusion.
So he got out of the car. Tucked all his possessions in this world into his pockets and strolled across the smooth road and mounted the sidewalk and stepped through a gate in a white picket fence and made his way onto the porch and stopped in front of a thin screen door.
Ordinary civilisation.
Quintessentially American.
He felt like a distant stranger to this world. But he reached up and knocked on the door all the same. Three firm raps on the wire. The screen rattled in place. There was a doorbell, but Slater was old school in that regard. He stepped back and put his hands behind his back and waited.
Nazarian probably wasn’t home. Slater figured he’d get the wife, or maybe one of Ruby’s sisters. Maybe they would be able to help. Maybe not. He’d approached this in a cerebral manner. He hadn’t prepared a speech. He hadn’t chosen the words that would best suit the situation. Maybe he should have. This was important. This was information about a long-lost daughter.
A man opened the door. He was pushing fifty but still had all his hair, without a fleck of grey in it. Probably dyed. The jet black locks were pushed back off his forehead and held in place by some kind of subtle product. A good look, objectively. He was a handsome man with sharp features and slate blue eyes. Striking, was the first thing Slater thought. No wonder Ruby looked the way she did.
The guy said, ‘Can I help you?’
Warily.
He probably sensed a threat. Slater was an imposing figure to anyone, and he was coming off months in the Colombian jungle. His face sported a couple of small welts from the cartel skirmish. The man stiffened, ready for a fight if it came to that. No hesitation.
Slater said, ‘I’ve got information about your daughter. Can I come in?’
52
Whatever Frank Nazarian did, he did it well, and he was compensated for his skills.
Slater was no interior designer — hence the haphazard nature of his compound in Colombia, where he’d elected to import the most expensive furniture he could find and slap it all together in a grotesque amalgamation of luxury. Nazarian had a reasonable budget, especially given the squared-away nature of the house’s exterior, but on top of that he had tact.
He came off as a man with obsessive compulsive tendencies.
As he ushered Slater into a comfortable entranceway, he paused to adjust an elegant vase on the hall table. Despite the news regarding his daughter, he still paid attention to the small touches. He nodded with satisfaction, stepped back to allow Slater to pass, and ushered him along an expensive handmade rug into a wide kitchen and dining area.
Slater nodded his thanks, and stepped through.
He found himself in a neat space with a cluster of faded metal chairs arranged around a dining table that consisted of a giant slab of polished dark brown wood. Slater glanced at the setup, and immediately knew it was worth thousands. Both he and Nazarian were hesitant to discuss the subject of his daughter any further until they were seated, so in the meantime small talk would suffice.
Nazarian said, ‘That’s taken from an old shipwreck. Cost me a fortune.’
‘You’re doing well for yourself.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s not all about how good your kitchen table is.’
‘No, of course not. Your wife—?’
‘She’s at work.’
‘Do you work?’
‘Why don’t we sit down before we get into this stuff? Can I get you anything?’
‘Just water. Thanks.’
‘You drink?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then let’s do that. I feel like the subject justifies it.’
Slater nodded, then paused behind one of the metal chairs. He placed both hands on the seat back and stared at Nazarian. ‘Look, if you want me to leave, I will. I don’t know how touchy this subject is. I can be out of your hair in seconds and you can pretend I never came knocking. If that’s the way you want it to go.’
Nazarian just looked at him, those slate blue eyes piercing. ‘You kidding?’
Slater sat down.
Nazarian fetched two chipped
and faded whiskey tumblers down from a shelf above the sink and grabbed a bottle of Laphroaig from the minibar above the fridge. He poured a generous helping into each glass and brought them over to the massive wooden slab. He put one down in front of Slater, sat across from him on the corner of the table, and drank a hearty gulp.
He put the glass back down and interlocked his fingers. They were calloused, with dirt under the nails.
A hard man.
He said, ‘Her name first, I guess. Just to make sure you’re not here to scam me or anything.’
‘Ruby.’
Nazarian nodded. ‘Go on.’
Slater waited a beat, gathering his thoughts. He still had nothing prepared. He took a sip of the whiskey. It burned its way down his throat. The aroma wafted out of the glass, combining with the musk of the great wooden slab. He inhaled it all, and came away pleased with the combination. He picked Nazarian as a man who enjoyed cigars, straight liquor, and roaring log fireplaces.
He opened his mouth, then stared into the slate blue eyes and baulked. He tipped back the rest of the whiskey. Wiped his mouth. Bowed his head.
He said, ‘Look, let’s get things straight. I’m not here for goodwill. I’m here for myself, but I figure it could be a win-win for both of us. You get informed about what’s happening, and I get the information I need.’
‘What information do you need?’
‘As much as you can give me. Hopefully over the course of this conversation I can stress that it’s for the right reasons.’
Nazarian drained his own whiskey. ‘You ex-military?’
‘Yeah. You?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where from?’
‘I was a Green Beret.’
Slater nodded. It gelled with the picture he’d constructed in his head. Special Forces. Unforgiving, hard, cruel bastards when they needed to be. Which was almost always during their career. It probably bled over into parenting, even if that wasn’t what you intended. When Slater had rescued Shien from the depths of a luxury casino in Macau, he’d developed a bond with her he hadn’t anticipated. But, then again, he’d only been around her for a few days. Maybe the darker tendencies were exacerbated when you had to be around a kid seven days a week. Maybe that was why Slater had handed her over to Russell Williams in the first place. Because, deep down, he knew he wasn’t fit to be a parent. He’d be too harsh. He’d expect too much.