Lynx

by Matt Rogers

  Is that what you did? he asked himself.

  Did you take the easy way out?

  He didn’t know.

  That was a complicated enigma he wasn’t ready to dive into.

  He said, ‘I figured.’

  Nazarian said, ‘What were you?’

  ‘That’s complicated.’

  ‘You can tell me. I know most of the divisions.’

  ‘Not mine.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Very sure.’

  Nazarian stared deep into his eyes. He must have found something there, because he nodded. ‘Well, if you want my help, you’re going to need to share some things you might not usually deem necessary to share.’

  ‘Is that right? Didn’t know you were dictating the rules here.’

  ‘You need me. So you’d better open Pandora’s box. Because I don’t have much going on around here, so you can be damn sure I want to hear about secrets when they show up on my doorstep.’

  ‘I could get up and walk out right now,’ Slater said, encouraged by the burn of alcohol in his throat, soothing his nerves. ‘You need what I’ve got just as much as I need what you’ve got. Otherwise you’ll never find out about your daughter.’

  Harsh.

  But necessary.

  Hurt flickered in Nazarian’s eyes. Bitterness. He snatched the bottle of Laphroaig, poured another splash of liquid into his own glass, and gulped it back.

  ‘Good,’ he snarled. ‘You think I give a shit? She walked out of my life ten years ago and she hasn’t bothered to share one informative word with me since. She calls every now and then. Tells me she’s still alive, and then hangs up. Why do you think I care what happens to her? Sure, she might have reacted emotionally when she was twelve, and that’s understandable, but you don’t think I’m judging her when she gets to eighteen and still decides I’m not worth her time? Since you seem to know her so well, why don’t you get the fuck out of my house and go back to her? Wherever she is. Why don’t the both of you live happily ever after and leave me here dwelling on what might have been?’

  Tears in his eyes. The blue watering.

  Slater said, ‘There’s good reason she hasn’t contacted you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure.’

  ‘I used to work for an off-the-books regiment of the United States government handling solo black operations in places we certainly weren’t welcome. Secret funds, secret ops, nothing on the record, all of it swept under the rug and buried. That division doesn’t exist anymore. They nicknamed it Black Force to make things easier, but I’m sure it had an official name far more complicated on the dossiers. I never saw the dossiers. I was a live operative. I’ve probably killed a thousand men over the course of my life. They’ve all blurred into each other. I don’t like talking about it because that makes me dream, and the dreams aren’t good. In fact sometimes I think about putting a bullet in my head when I wake up in a cold sweat feeling panic like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Is that enough information for you?’

  Nazarian twirled the empty tumbler in his calloused hands, looking deep into Slater’s gaze. Studying him for any hint of deception.

  He found nothing.

  He nodded.

  ‘I’m sorry I overreacted,’ he said.

  ‘Me too,’ Slater said.

  ‘What do you have to do with my daughter?’

  ‘She works for a division very similar to my old unit.’

  Nazarian said nothing.

  A single tear rolled down his cheek.

  53

  After a silence that seemed to go on forever, Nazarian said, ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  His voice had lowered in both tone and confidence. There was none of the verve he’d shown earlier. It had all disintegrated in the face of Slater’s words. Which Slater found odd. Usually such a ludicrous story would be met with apprehension. But Nazarian seemed to accept it instantaneously. He seemed quiet, reserved, squared away, just like his house.

  He gazed at Slater and waited for the answer.

  Slater didn’t know what to say.

  ‘What good does it do me?’ Nazarian said, his voice shaking. ‘To know this. Do you think I can change it?’

  ‘I thought you might want to know.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know, exactly. I thought if I was in your position … I’d want to know.’

  ‘What can you tell me about it?’

  ‘Not much. I don’t know a whole lot. I only met her briefly.’

  ‘What does she look like? I haven’t seen a photo of her. For nearly ten years.’

  ‘She’s smart. And strong. And everything you’d hope for.’

  ‘Apart from the black operations part.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Slater muttered. ‘There’s that.’

  ‘Where did you meet her?’

  ‘Colombia.’

  ‘Some kind of covert underworld meet-up?’

  ‘No. Coincidence.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘It’s the truth. And I’ve been thinking about it. A lot. I’ve had a lot of time to myself. Travelled here solo from Colombia. Just got in. Anyway, Ruby was in Colombia on a live op. Sent by Uncle Sam. I was there by chance. Retired around a year ago and I’ve been seeking out trouble ever since.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Habit.’

  ‘Understood.’

  Slater paused. He studied Nazarian’s face. A knowing look passed over the blue eyes.

  Slater said, ‘When did you get out of the Green Berets?’

  ‘A few years ago.’

  ‘You been keeping busy?’

  ‘This and that.’

  ‘Apart from interior design, what do you do?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m retired.’

  ‘What does your wife do?’

  ‘She’s a nurse. She works in emergency. At Interfaith Medical Centre.’

  ‘A noble endeavour. But that doesn’t afford this furniture.’

  ‘It’s all cheap knockoffs.’

  ‘No it’s not.’

  Nazarian shrugged. ‘Okay. I pick up odd jobs.’

  ‘I just shared something with you that would get me killed if certain parties knew about it. The least you could do is tell me the truth.’

  ‘I have some skills. Not your level, but … enough.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I go where I’m needed. If I deem it the right work.’

  ‘What’s the right work for you?’

  ‘Anything that catches my interest.’

  ‘Tell me about your last job.’

  ‘Poachers. In Africa. They slaughtered fifty elephants in a reserve. Sawed off the tusks and sold them at the markets. A couple of rich wildlife conservation types didn’t like that. They put the feelers out. Found me. I went and dealt with the head poachers. In the middle of nowhere. On the plains. Could have got me killed. It paid well.’

  ‘You killed them?’

  ‘No. I’m not that guy. I just scare people. Rough them up a bit.’

  ‘Sounds like we share a very similar mindset,’ Slater said.

  ‘You want to know what I did to them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You expecting me to think you’re a bad guy if you tell me the details?’

  ‘Most would.’

  ‘I happen to come from a line of work rather similar to yours. I understand that sort of morality. I understand why you do things like that. So no more questions. I get it now.’

  ‘You have to do things like that. Every now and then.’

  Slater thought of Ruby kissing Santiago on the forehead, leaving her lipstick mark, then shoving the stake through the skull, into the brain.

  Like crosshairs.

  Slater said, ‘I agree.’

  Then he drew parallels between her and the man sitting across from him.

  He said, ‘Can you tell me more about why she left?’

  Nazarian shrugged. Poured more whiskey int
o his glass, and ignored Slater’s. ‘She probably told you the truth.’

  ‘You don’t know what she said.’

  ‘I’m sure she said there was fighting, and I was the worst guy on the planet, and it never ended, and eventually she got sick of it and left.’

  ‘Something along those lines.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s mostly true.’

  ‘The Green Berets?’

  ‘I saw some stuff that fucked me up. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t. I wasn’t a good parent. I mean, I would never lay a hand on her, but I guess I was … emotionally detached.’

  ‘She didn’t take that kindly?’

  ‘I was dealing with my own demons. She just wanted a father. I couldn’t be there for her.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I blame myself.’

  ‘You shouldn’t. It’s tricky.’

  ‘We’re never going to flesh this out in a single conversation.’

  ‘I know. But we don’t need to.’

  Nazarian looked up from his glass, and saw that Slater knew all about battling internal demons. He nodded. ‘Hopefully you understand.’

  ‘We’ve both seen a lot, I’m sure.’

  ‘You’ve probably seen more than me.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I don’t have a family.’

  ‘By choice?’

  ‘Hard to say.’

  ‘Couldn’t flesh it out in a single conversation?’

  Slater nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But we don’t need to.’

  Slater paused. ‘You regret having a family?’

  Nazarian shook his head. ‘Christ, no. I have another daughter, Abigail. We’re close as anything. And my marriage is good. It’s the only thing keeping me sane.’

  ‘Do the three of you talk about what happened with Ruby?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Swept it under the rug?’

  ‘Easier that way.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘How the hell did she wind up in a black ops program?’ Nazarian said.

  He put his head in his hands.

  Maybe now it was all starting to hit him. The reality of the situation. It hadn’t been explicitly stated, but he was slowly coming to terms with the fact his daughter was a killer. Sure, perhaps a noble one, but it was still a cold, cruel reality to face.

  Especially considering Nazarian knew the intricacies of the trade.

  He probably knew the look in a man’s eyes when he passed away. Now he would imagine his daughter in those situations, far off in foreign countries, slaughtering brutal dictators and all manner of undesirables.

  Not an easy concept to stomach.

  Now Slater reached a crossroads.

  Did he push on, and potentially destroy a family dynamic forever?

  Who are you kidding? he thought. It fell apart a decade ago.

  He said, ‘Trust me, I’m only asking you this because I need urgent help. I wouldn’t bring it up otherwise.’

  Nazarian stared at him.

  Slater said, ‘Do you remember a man named Russell Williams?’

  54

  Nazarian didn’t respond for almost a full minute.

  Then he said, ‘Did that motherfucker take her away without telling me?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Why?’ he said, exasperated, a vein protruding from the side of his temple. ‘Why did she go to him?’

  ‘Were the two of you close?’

  ‘Back then, yes. He was a Green Beret, same as me. Back in the day. But when I got out, he went up. Straight up.’

  ‘You remained friends?’

  ‘For some time. I withdrew into myself when Ruby vanished. She ran away, obviously, but I couldn’t accept it. I told myself she’d been kidnapped, maybe to assuage the guilt. So I stopped talking to anyone and everyone. Naturally I lost contact with Williams. And everyone else.’

  ‘A blessing in disguise, for him.’

  ‘I tried to get back in contact with him. A couple of years later. But he was a ghost. I couldn’t find him in any database. No matter how much searching I did. And I was good at it. I had old contacts. But he was off the radar. Not in the way that a retired man is. I figured he kept going up until a shadow entity swallowed him. And then he was uncontactable. I assume that’s what happened?’

  Slater nodded. ‘That’s exactly what happened.’

  ‘But when I was friends with him…’

  ‘He must have already been involved with certain tendrils of the secret world,’ Slater said. ‘It would have all been kept hush-hush. He started a program in those days. Around the time Ruby disappeared, it took off. And with its success, he would have fallen out of the public eye. It would have taken him a couple of years to fall off the radar completely, but that’s what happened.’

  ‘What’s the program?’

  ‘It’s called Lynx.’

  ‘Lynx.’

  Nazarian ran the word over his tongue. He didn’t seem to like the sound of it.

  ‘Feline. Dangerous. Silent killers.’

  Slater nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘They trained her? Ever since she ran away? She’d be — Christ — twenty-one now. Twenty-two in a few days.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘She’d be brainwashed.’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘Is she a monster?’

  Slater shook his head. ‘Far from it. But you can see the moral problems with the program. Probably more than most.’

  Nazarian stared into the bottom of his glass for a long time, and then raised his head. ‘What do you need from me?’

  ‘There’s a little girl who might be in—’

  Nazarian held up a hand. ‘I’m sure your reasons are justified. What do you need from me?’

  ‘I need to talk to Williams, but—’

  ‘I’m sure you got the hint during our chat.’

  ‘You haven’t spoken to him since Ruby left?’

  ‘Not a word. If I could hand him over to you on a platter, I would.’

  ‘You have no way of contacting him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I’m back at square one.’

  ‘Can we talk about your demons?’ Nazarian said.

  Almost pleading.

  Slater hesitated, taking into account the rapid change in direction.

  He said, ‘Now’s not the time.’

  ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to relate to anybody.’

  ‘You don’t have old military buddies?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When this is all over, I’ll be back,’ Slater said. ‘We’ll have more whiskey. We’ll talk.’

  ‘I need to talk now.’

  Slater weighed the heaviness in the air. For the first time he noticed the bags underneath Nazarian’s eyes, the deep lines in his forehead, the twitching of his lip.

  He said, ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘You think I would have let you in here if my life wasn’t completely fucked?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think you were meant to come here.’

  Slater tensed in the chair, sensing the hard metal under his rear. Had he misjudged Nazarian? Was the man mad? He certainly looked it right now. He sounded it.

  ‘I’m in deep shit,’ Nazarian said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘We spoke about what I do on the side.’

  ‘Is that relevant now?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Are we about to get assaulted by a pack of poachers from Cameroon?’

  Nazarian managed a sad smile. ‘Not quite.’

  ‘What the hell is going on?’

  ‘My wife’s not at work. I sent her into Manhattan for a couple of days. She’s staying at a hotel under a fake name. Abigail is with my wife’s parents in Jersey.’

  ‘What’d you do?’

  ‘Pissed some people off.’

  ‘The wrong people?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Should I be concerned?’

/>   ‘Let’s just say it was selfish of me not to turn you away at the door. I think I deliberately involved you so I wouldn’t feel so alone. And now karma’s catching up to me, it seems.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘You didn’t hear that car door?’

  Slater got off the chair. He crossed silently to the entranceway, slunk across the rug, and glanced out one of the windows, peeking through the curtain. Nazarian stayed where he was, stooped low in his own chair, cradling his empty glass. Seemingly resigned to his fate.

  Slater called out, ‘I don’t see anything.’

  ‘The mob doesn’t show themselves. I’m a dead man walking.’

  ‘You sound awfully miserable for a Green Beret.’

  ‘I’m one ex-military guy. That’s nothing against them.’

  ‘What’d you do?’

  ‘Saw some bad shit happening. Interfered when I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘I do that all the time.’

  ‘Something tells me we’re a world apart experience-wise.’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘I’ve been drinking,’ Nazarian admitted. ‘Before you showed up here. I’m deep into this bottle. Very deep. My motor skills aren’t there. I’m a dead man when they come through that door.’

  ‘Where the fuck did all this come from?’ Slater muttered to himself.

  He crouched low, peering out the same window, staying away from the middle of the pane to avoid catching a bullet from anyone stationed across the street with an assault rifle. But he saw nothing besides a quiet residential street in Brooklyn with mown lawns and white picket fences and smooth asphalt.

  From the sitting room beside the entranceway, he called out, ‘Frank, I think you’re paranoid.’

  Then someone thundered a heavy boot into the front door and the lock snapped clean in two.

  55

  The New York City mob was not an organisation to underestimate, but at the same time, neither was Will Slater.

  He had surprisingly little information to work with. He couldn’t ascertain whether these men were showing up to simply teach Nazarian a lesson, or for something more sinister. The news about Ruby seemed to have distracted him for an adequate length of time, but eventually the facade had worn off, and Slater had stared into the eyes of what effectively constituted a dead man walking.