by Tom Wood
Which was why Victor put so much effort into ensuring the potential for such fallout was minimal.
Chicago was close by but also far away, in another country, another world almost. Efforts to find him would be concentrated there. No investigator was going to think the perpetrator had rowed in from Canada and rowed back again. Likewise, no one on this side of the border would have guessed a man on a fishing trip was really a professional assassin preparing for a job in the US. No one would think that when he left the following morning he was, in fact, extracting after the successful completion of a contract worth millions of dollars.
When he returned to the motel, only one person looked at Victor any differently.
Joshua was waiting for him.
The boy’s face, so inexpressive previously, now expressed much remorse. He had his hands behind his back, no doubt fingers restless and fidgeting.
Struggling to find his words, Joshua’s lips trembled and quivered.
‘You’re forgiven,’ Victor told him.
Those lips formed an O. ‘I … am?’
‘And I won’t tell your mother.’
‘You won’t?’
Victor said, ‘It would be hypocritical of me to do so given I used to take things that didn’t belong to me when I was your age. Do you know what a hypocrite is, Joshua?’
‘Maybe. Kind of.’
‘I’m many things,’ Victor said, ‘but I try not to be one of those. In the absence of true virtues I tend to hang on to what’s left over.’
Joshua, of course, did not understand the last part. Victor hadn’t expected him to do so, which was why he was free to make such an admission. He spoke with honesty so rarely it was almost exhilarating to do so. It felt liberating.
‘You really forgive me?’
Victor nodded. ‘No harm, no foul.’
The boy thrust out his hand. ‘My name is Joshua Joseph Levell and I’m seven and one half years old.’
Victor took the tiny hand in his own. ‘It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Joshua Joseph Levell.’
‘What’s your name?’
Victor fished out his driver’s licence and held it out low enough so the boy could read.
Joshua said, ‘Your name is Wilson Murdoch.’
‘That’s what it says right there,’ Victor told him. ‘How old are you?’
‘It has my date of birth there too.’
Joshua struggled with the resulting mathematics.
Victor told him Murdoch’s age: ‘Thirty-five.’
‘You’re old.’
‘I feel even older,’ Victor said. ‘Why did you want to know my age?’
Joshua hesitated. ‘Why do you want to know why I want to know?’
‘I’m always interested in people who are interested in me,’ Victor said. ‘It helps me understand them better.’
Joshua considered this as he watched Victor unload his truck, his gaze finding and focusing on the laser-sword fishing rod.
‘Do you like fishing?’
Victor nodded. ‘I do indeed.’
‘Isn’t it boring?’
Victor nodded again. ‘That’s exactly why I like it. I find it relaxing.’
The boy considered this until-now alien concept: liking something that was boring, that wasn’t fun. A contradiction of everything he knew to be true.
‘How do you fish?’ he asked.
‘There are many ways,’ Victor began. ‘But I use a rod and a lure and a hook. The fish does the rest. In many ways you could say that the fish catches itself.’
Joshua spent a moment thinking on this, trying to imagine how a fish might conspire with the fisherman to be caught. He pulled a face. Not quite a frown because his skin was too young and too plump with subcutaneous fat to crease.
Tentatively, he said, ‘Can you … show me?’
Victor should have expected this, he realised, even with his limited understanding of children.
‘You want me to teach you how to fish?’
With the same tentativeness, Joshua nodded.
‘I’m afraid I’m leaving tomorrow morning,’ Victor answered, glad to have a genuine reason. ‘And even if I were not, I fish out on the lake. The water is very deep and very cold. It’s far too dangerous for a young man such as yourself to be out there.’
Joshua was silent.
Victor said, ‘You should start off on the shore, where it’s safe. I’m sure your father will show you the basics if you ask him.’
He looked at his feet. ‘I don’t have a father.’
‘Your mother then,’ Victor suggested, thinking Michelle seemed like the kind of woman who might enjoy such outdoor activities.
‘She hates fish because they stink.’
Joshua’s voice was quiet because he was forlorn. As if this was his one chance to learn to fish and Victor was denying him that singular, impossible-to-replicate opportunity. But perhaps by tomorrow Joshua would no longer be interested. A child changed its mind all the time, surely. Today’s passion could be tomorrow’s boredom, Victor told himself. Still, Victor lived in the present more than anyone and saw Joshua’s disappointment, his sadness, in its entirety and its eternity.
‘A friend,’ Victor said. ‘Or a friend’s parent might know how to fish and be willing to show you.’
Joshua diverted his eyes. ‘No one wants to be my friend because I have too many chrome-somes.’
It took a lot for the boy to make this admission, Victor saw, because to admit it made it real and that made it undeniable. Now, as well as sadness Joshua was lost to despair.
Victor shrugged. ‘That’s no big deal. I had no friends either when I was your age.’
He said this in an attempt to reassure, to offer Joshua a little hope that things for him might one day be better. Victor, not understanding children, felt optimistic about this reassurance. He realised too late that he had set Joshua up for more disappointment and more despair.
The boy met his gaze and said, ‘You got some friends when you grew up?’
There was so much frightened hope in Joshua’s eyes that Victor found he couldn’t lie. To do so felt like too great a betrayal even for Victor, who was not kind, who had never been decent.
‘No,’ Victor replied with an honesty that was so easy, so effortless, that he couldn’t bear it. ‘I’ve never had a friend. A real one.’
Joshua didn’t look away and he didn’t say anything in response. Instead, his eyes grew glassy. Then orange light from the sunset glimmered on his cheeks.
Victor admonished himself for making such a clumsy error. Who was he to try and reassure anyone, least of all a child? By his own admission he knew little of children, so it was irrational even to have attempted to comfort the boy. There was nothing else he could do, could say, that would repair the damage he had done. He had failed in his objective. He had underestimated the task at hand.
An amateur mistake.
When victory was impossible, retreat was the only sensible course of action.
A backwards step towards his motel room was easy enough and straight away Joshua seemed smaller and the problem more distant.
Victor took another step away.
One more step and he would turn around and enter his room and pack up the rest of his things and wait up until dawn and in the morning get in his truck and drive away.
His job was over and his extraction would be complete.
Tomorrow he would sleep in another country, on another continent. He would wake up and check his bank balance and feel nothing as he saw the massive deposit of new funds in his numbered account.
Victor thought of trains and laughter in the night.
One more step.
He did not take it.
‘Can you swim?’ he found himself asking.
Joshua took a few seconds to respond, and when he did so his voice was quiet, unsure. ‘Yes.’
‘You’ll still need a life preserver,’ Victor said. ‘And you’ll have to do everything I tell you. I mean it. E
very single thing. If I say it, you do it. No hesitation. No questions.’
Joshua was silent.
‘It’s too late now,’ Victor continued, looking at the fading sun. ‘It’ll be dark soon. We’ll go first thing in the morning instead. Can you get yourself out of bed before dawn?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m going to teach you how to fish,’ Victor said. ‘That is what you want, isn’t it?’
Slowly, Joshua nodded.
He had not smiled. Hadn’t shown even the slightest bit of enthusiasm. This made no sense to Victor. He did not understand children but he understood that people liked getting what they wanted.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Grown-ups don’t always tell the truth.’
‘Do you think I’m lying to you?’
Slowly, Joshua nodded again.
‘Why would I do that?’
Joshua shrugged. He was too young to articulate why adults lied to him and yet it was no new experience. Maybe it happened all the time. Perhaps it happened so often he didn’t believe anything he was told. And in this way Victor understood Joshua a little better. No adult had ever told Victor the truth either: not his uncle, not the nuns, not anyone.
‘Do you know what a promise is?’
‘It means you have to do what you say you will or else.’
‘That’s exactly why I don’t make promises,’ Victor explained. ‘Circumstances can change even with the best of intentions. You can’t fail to keep your word if you never give it, can you?’
Joshua listened.
‘So, given this, I’ve only ever made a handful of promises in my entire life. Because I don’t like it if I can’t keep my word. I can’t really explain why that’s important to me but maybe one day you’ll know what that feels like too. Perhaps it’s similar to not being a hypocrite in the absence of true virtues.’ He paused, finding honesty so easy when his entire existence depended on lies. He said, ‘Because maybe if I keep my promises, if I don’t break my word, I can pretend I’m human like everyone else.’
Joshua was confused.
Victor exhaled. He had felt less vulnerability ambushed and outgunned by entire teams of enemies than he did now with one perplexed little boy.
Victor lowered himself down to his haunches so he was eye-to-eye with Joshua.
‘I promise I’ll teach you how to fish. First thing tomorrow we’re going out on the lake. Do you believe me?’
Joshua gave no answer, but his smile was the biggest Victor had seen in his life.
‘Only if your mother says it’s okay.’
One additional day, Victor told himself as Joshua rushed off to ask Michelle for permission. Remaining in a staging ground a second longer than necessary was against his strict protocols. Still, the job had gone well and was now complete. He would teach Joshua how to fish and then leave straight away. Maybe in the afternoon, maybe in the evening. Victor would still wake up in a different country, on a different continent, albeit a day later than planned.
A slight delay. That was all.
Any risk had to be minimal.
EIGHT
To be a border guard you had to be more than confident, you had to be more than just smart. You had to be able to see someone and understand them within a matter of seconds. You had to know when you were asking for their identification if you were wasting your time or if there was a chance they would be a problem.
Instinct.
You either have it or you don’t.
That’s what Derek told people. It wasn’t a skill because with a skill you might start off terrible and after lots and lots of practice one day end up pretty good. Maybe even great. Not so with this, not with instinct. Those without it can never learn it, yet those who have it can hone it and train themselves to recognise that instinct when it’s talking to them, and after recognition, after hearing it speak, then you can master it. Then you have X-ray vision and can see through people, right to their very soul.
There was no hiding from Derek, no sir.
‘How are you doing this evening?’ he asked, smiling and polite like any good Canadian.
The woman behind the wheel smiled back at him through the open window, already buzzed down before the car had come to a stop.
Derek appreciated that courtesy. Annoyed him every time he had to gesture, had to make that silly winding motion that didn’t even make sense in this electronic day and age. Make him rap his knuckles on your glass and he’s going to do everything he can to wreck your day.
So, one mark in their favour from the get-go.
There were another three people in the car. All of those were men. They were all dressed in smart business attire: suits and collared shirts and neck ties, the woman included. Although she wore no tie herself.
Must be the boss if she’s driving, Derek decided. He never liked to ride in a car unless he was behind the wheel. Journeys always seemed to take longer that way when he didn’t have to concentrate on the road ahead.
She was relaxed and had one of those big white American smiles more dazzling than the surface of the sun.
‘I’m just about as good as it gets,’ she told him. ‘How about yourself?’
People didn’t often ask Derek how he was doing so he was starting to like this one.
‘I’m only doing average,’ he told her, and her smile faded. At least until he added, ‘But average for me is better than most can ever hope to do. You might say I tend to look on the bright side even when it’s pitch dark.’
‘Guess you want to see our IDs,’ she said.
‘And I don’t even charge.’
Was he flirting with her? He wasn’t sure because he was so happily married he felt an incredible sense of sympathy for anyone unfortunate enough to be single. Still, he was enjoying this pleasant interaction.
The three guys weren’t involved. Weren’t doing anything at all. Not even watching. The boss had them well trained was Derek’s guess. She didn’t look that sort but Derek wasn’t sure how that sort should look.
She reached into her jacket to produce a driver’s licence.
‘Jennifer Welch,’ Derek read.
‘Like the movie star,’ she said. ‘Like the bet.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You know, like the bet. Don’t welch on a bet.’
Derek said, ‘I always thought that was Welsh. Don’t Welsh on a bet.’
She shook her head. ‘Common misconception. Like card sharp. Most people think it’s card shark.’
‘Huh, then what does welch have to do with betting?’
She shrugged and smiled again. ‘Beats me. But then again what would the Welsh have to do with betting? You ever hear anything about famous Welsh gamblers who failed to pay up?’
‘Point taken. So, what’s a welch then?’
She raised up both palms. ‘You’d think I’d know by now, wouldn’t you?’
‘Must get pretty tired of getting asked all the time.’
‘Takes a lot to tire me. Would you like to see the IDs of my colleagues?’
Still thinking what a welch might be, Derek shook his head. ‘That would be unnecessary. I can’t imagine you’re ferrying undocumented aliens across the border. You’re not a coyote, are you?’
She snapped her fingers. ‘Darn it, you caught me red-handed.’
He tapped his nose. ‘Nothing gets by me.’
‘What gave me away?’
‘That would be telling,’ Derek said with a smile. He might have even winked.
‘Just know,’ she said with a wink of her own. ‘You’ll never take me alive.’
Derek laughed and handed back her ID. As much as he was enjoying himself, there was a backlog of vehicles piling up. He knew in his bones there were going to be some assholes to deal with because the later it was the pissier folk got. They could wait another minute, however, because screw ’em.
‘What brings you to Canada?’ Derek asked.
‘Just business,’ she
answered.
‘Isn’t it a little past office hours?’
‘No rest for the wicked,’ she said. ‘Time is of the essence because we’re already behind.’
‘Deal to close?’
‘Let’s call it putting a bad deal right again.’
‘Doesn’t sound like fun,’ he said. ‘But I guess business never is.’
She gave him a look he didn’t quite understand. ‘Can be if your job just so happens to be your pleasure.’
He would have asked for clarification of what she meant but those assholes kept piling up behind her so instead he said, ‘Welcome to Canada, I hope we treat you well,’ and motioned for her to drive on.
‘Thank you for having us.’
Illinois plates, Derek noticed as the car crossed the border. City folk, from Chicago. If he’d not been so taken by her smile he would have thought to ask about that breaking news, although what were the chances they would know anything about the shooting? Slim to none, that’s what.
Derek took one look at the pair of white trash in the next car with its windows up and knew he was about to take a wrecking ball to their entire week.
Instinct.
You either have it or you don’t.
NINE
Victor liked the dawn because it meant he had survived the night. Those first rays of sunlight, of the new day, told him he was still alive, that his unceasing vigilance had been worth the constant effort and the unending tiredness.
He slept a few hours at a time, most often in the morning then later in the day when opportunity allowed. If he slept during the night it was rare and only when he had no other choice, but never all night, never through the early hours. He had slept all through the night once, he was sure, but maybe not since those early days in the orphanage when he had been fooled by the kind words and clean sheets.
He was still angry with himself, with that boy’s naivety, his weakness.
He had promised himself never to be weak again.
It had taken most of the night to read his book about the armour of medieval English knights during the fifteenth century, but he had finished it an hour before sunrise. He had then sat through that last hour thinking of nothing but the enemy on the other side of the door and how he would kill them once they were inside his room.