by James Grady
Call him Vin. Call him Condor.
His arms shot toward the heaven in that black smoked night and he shuffled to the music’s blare, arms waving, feet sliding into the dancing crowd.
A roar seized the revelers. A roar that pulled other arms toward heaven, a roar that became the whole crowd bopping with the beat, the hard driving invisible anthem.
“Go old guy!” shouts someone.
A silver-haired frenzy in black leather and jeans rocks through the younger crowd to the burning barrels, to the fire itself, reaches inside his jacket, throws something into those flames, something that lands with a shower of sparks and a sizzle and crackles and on, on he dances, pulling more of that magic fuel out of his jacket, out of its sleeves, out his— Oh My God! He’s pulling stuff out of his pants and throwing it on the fire! Every throw makes him lighter, wilder, then he’s dancing hands free in the air, stomping feet with the crowd bouncing around him. “Old guy! Old guy!” Cop cruisers cut the night with red and blue spinning lights. The crowd throbs. “Old guy! Old Guy!” Burning almonds and fireplace wood, barbecue and come hither perfume, a reckless whiff of rebel herb that will become legal and corporate by the decade’s end. “Old guy! Old Guy!” There are bodies in a basement, mysteries to be found, questions clean of his fingerprints, books to be treasured. There are lovers sharing moments, dreamers dancing in the night, madmen in our marble city, and amidst those who are not his children, through the fog of his crazy, the swirl of his ghosts, the weight of his locked-up years, surging in Condor is the certainty that this oh this, this is the real world.
for Harlan Ellison
Russian Roulette
of the Condor
CHAMBER ONE
Will You Still Need Me
Silver-haired, blue-eyed Vin held an empty white coffee mug as he stood at the kitchen sink. He looked through the window to the outside world where across the road came a stranger carrying a black cane and walking without a limp.
Satellite radio filled this house inside Washington, DC’s Beltway that Thursday morning in April 2016, savvy rock songs curated by a human being, not an algorithm. Amidst the music, Vin heard Merle in the dining room whimpering goodbye to the changing of the guard.
This two-story house rose from a grass lawn and was set back from a curved suburban road just over the Maryland border from America’s white marble capital city, a gothic dwelling surrounded by a black iron bars fence tall enough to keep out casual interlopers but short enough to not look like a prison or a fortress or their inevitable fusion.
Vin looked away from the kitchen window.
Poured his attention into the empty white coffee mug.
Today I’ll work how the globe spins, he thought, yet now I’m standing here, showered and dressed after T’ai chi, then coffee at the dining room table with Merle and her insisted-on actual paper copies of the day’s New York Times and Washington Post—
—and I’m vacillating over whether to microwave a third cup from the glass pot of cold coffee. Whether to boil the tea kettle, make a fresh pot. Whether to go no more coffee today, stick my mug in the dishwasher.
He set the empty white coffee mug on the kitchen counter.
Glanced out the window, but black cane man was gone.
Vin filled the tea kettle, put it on the stove’s burner, whumped on that blue flame.
The man with the black cane didn’t limp.
“Bonnie,” said Vin: “Scan perimeter.”
A.I. Bonnie filled the three screens on the kitchen wall with images: Ms. Night Shift driving away. The curved tree line bordering the back yard. Middleclass homes seen through the black pole fence and across the two-lane old highway/commuter road.
Those screens scrolled: Sensors Track No Intrusion.
Vin turned his back on the open door to the dining room. Grabbed a glass jar filled with coffee beans. Heard shoes stepping on the wooden floor and turned around to see Mr. Day Shift enter the kitchen carrying his black medical bag.
“Hey, Justin. Everything OK?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Justin put his black medical bag on the kitchen table. “She seems pretty good this morning. Moving fine. Almost a smile. Might be the new meds.”
“Might be.”
“Speaking of new meds,” said Justin, “orders sent some for you.”
“How many pills can one person take?”
“This is just a new version of the nose spray to counter the side effects of that prostate med.”
Justin flicked the first snap on his medical bag.
The tea kettle on the stove rumbled with heating water.
Vin shook coffee beans into the grinder, pushed its lid down for a whine that drowned out the music and all other sounds in the kitchen until Vin stopped the grind.
Heard the rumbling tea kettle generate a soft toot.
Heard the Snap! of a plastic medical glove.
Vin turned.
Saw why wearing medical gloves Justin pull a blue cap off a white plastic, thumb pump nasal spray bottle. Justin set the blue cap onto the kitchen table, his face a tense smile as he marched toward Vin holding the ready nose spray out like it was a hypodermic needle.
“Easy now,” said Justin, “might as well get it over with.”
Black cane man didn’t limp.
Vin threw the coffee grinder at Justin but its cord plugged into a counter socket jerked the grinder short and flipped it over. Coffee perfumed brown powder dusted the kitchen.
Justin boxer-shuffled forward, thrusting the spray bottle at Vin.
The tea kettle whistled a cloud of steam.
The radio played the pounding drums opening riff of Mystery Achievement, Chrissy Hynde and The Pretenders’ breakout song from Vin’s Seventies & Eighties cocaine mission daze.
Vin dodged a stab of the nasal spray.
Lunged toward the tea kettle crying on the stove—
—evaded Justin’s stab and grabbed toward a black cast iron fry pan.
Justin charged but Vin rolled back. His right arm stroked the killer’s stabbing arm, flowed with that force while re-directing it. In the blink after Justin controlled his stagger, sank/bounced up in his shoes, Vin dropped deeper into his own root and with his left hand on Justin’s ribcage directed their resultant upward surge of energy into rocketing already-rising Justin off his feet, popping him back toward the open door to the dining room …
… where into kitchen with its stop me whistling tea kettle came Merle.
Her thick widow’s peak hair never went back to blond after what happened silvered it from roots to shoulder length tips. She’d kept her high cheekbones, clean jawline. Even though chronic trembles and psychiatrist-sanctioned yoga kept her thin, mature breasts strained the bland tan blouse she wore that morning and round hips mooned her black slacks.
Her sapphire eyes nova’d as Justin crashed into her and knocked her on her ass.
Justin stabbed the nose spray toward where Merle’d been—
—whirled back and hooked a stab at Vin …
… who diverted that thrust upwards: the nasal spray stabbed Justin’s throat pssst!
The nasal spray bottle hit the kitchen floor.
Vin kicked Justin who staggered to the kitchen counter with terror-widening eyes and a quarter-sized wet spot glistening on his throat.
Justin’s gloved hands frantically wiped the wet spot trickling down his flesh as his eyes went bloodshot. He collapsed onto his back.
Vin yelled: “Why?”
Justin’s red blotched face tightened into a skeletal leer. For the seven months he’d been detailed to the day shift, Justin had bitched about the radio always tuned to “somebody singing about their own shit like it matters.” Now his bloodshot eyes revealed rage as he hissed from one song he’d heard that made sense: “Money changes everything!”
Those st
retched tight lips spit—
—Vin dodged that toxic gob as convulsions shook Justin … let him go.
The tea kettle whistled.
The radio’s song changed.
Vin grabbed trembling Merle: “Are you OK? Did spray hit—no, we’d know by now.”
“You said no,” cried Merle. “You said no more. Never again. Everything was … no!”
“Merle listen, listen! We’ve got to move now!
“Bonnie!” yelled Vin. “Lockdown!”
That A.I. female voice called out: “Lockdown initiated. What alert protocol, Condor?”
Justin was inside. A penetration agent. If there’s one … A black cane back-up killer …
“Protocol Pearl Harbor!” yelled Vin/Condor to the A.I.’s ears and see-all screens.
He pulled Merle out of the kitchen, through the dining room covered with actual meat world newspapers proclaiming: Clinton, Trump Win Big In Primaries. Life Expectancy For White Females In America Down. What’s Next For Bernie Sanders? National Archives Hosts Screening of ‘Elvis & Nixon’ Documentary. He felt Merle shrink into herself, but she gave him no resistance as he hustled her up the stairs.
“Merle, you’re OK, but we’ve gotta evac’! Your Go Bag. In your closet. Grab it and meet me right back here.”
Condor encouraged her with a soft shove. Scurried into The Office with its glass table where three giant screens faced a keyboard and the black executive office chair on wheels.
“Bonnie: Replay fast-forward perimeter scans last seven—no, eight minutes.”
Scenes outside this house filled the screens …
… with nothing unusual. With no image of a black cane man.
“What the fuck?”
Either the V’s been hacked or I’m crazy.
Condor knew both scenarios were true.
He jerked open the closet door—
—no roaring-out Frankenstein monster.
Condor grabbed a messenger bag holding a shoulder-holstered upgraded 1911 .45 automatic he strapped over his long-sleeved maroon shirt. Clipped a belt holstered .45 onto his right hip. He bent—cursed the stiffening of his six decades—strapped a sheathed combat knife onto his right ankle under his washed-out black jeans. Made sure his black sneaker-like shoes were tied. Glanced at his bag’s gear: the dopp kit with toothbrush and paste, razor, five cycles of daily meds; ammo mags; three burner phones and charge cords; an envelope with $2,000 in cash; three passports and driver’s licenses; three wallets packed with identity-back-up “pocket litter” and credit cards; a thick packet of lilac-scented baby wipes.
He pulled on a faded black leather bomber jacket that covered his guns.
He shoved his cellphone, wallet and keys into jacket pockets, glanced at the computer screens: Screen One waterfalled data, flashed PROTOCOL PEARL HARBOR. Screen Two flashed images from inside the house—the kitchen with its corpse, the living room, the bed in the next room where he woke up with Merle. Those views kept glitching. Blackness jarred by intermittent lightning flashes commanded Screen Three.
He looped the messenger bag across his chest—made it hard to grab the shoulder-holstered .45, but the gun on his right hip was still a clear draw.
Condor met Merle in the hall. Her Go Bag hung like a heavy purse from her shoulder.
A secret underground emergency escape tunnel ran from the basement to the trees behind the house and beyond the black iron poles fence, its entrance covered by covert cameras, but based on the screens Condor’d just checked, those cameras couldn’t be accessed or trusted.
Plus, Justin knew that escape route. The NSA tech/security/medical aides knew little about the V they’d been detailed to via Top Secret/Code Word Access bureaucratic machinations, but they knew their deployment’s emergency protocols—they had to. Since Justin knew about the tunnel, whoever money changes flipped him into a traitor also probably knew, logically would post a backup strike option for Justin failing and his targets following Evac Procedures.
But watchers outside the house might think that Justin hadn’t taken his chance yet. That he was operational.
Condor strained to sense everything as he hurried Merle down the stairs.
No sounds from an attacking breach team. No dead bang grenades. Scents of his and Merle’s sweat. Her pine shampoo. Their fear.
Bottom of the stairs, he made her look at him: “One chance.”
“Good chance,” he lied. “They don’t know we know. Our car’s parked in the driveway, facing toward the gate to the street. Don’t run. Get in, seatbelt. We clear the gate like we’re going to the grocery store but we’re in the wind.”
“You should have let me die last time—was your fault then, too. You’re Condor and you always bring death.”
“I give what I get. Let’s go.”
He stepped out the front door into the sunlit morning first, braced for a bullet …
… that didn’t come.
Condor dawdled between Merle and the world as she scurried around the back of the red Ford, dove into the front seat, slammed the car’s door. He slid behind the steering wheel, used a twentieth-century key to turn on the engine, raised the gate-opening wand—
Cracking glass!
A bullet punched a coin-sized hole through the driver’s side window just beyond his face.
Punched a fist-sized hole through the front passenger window—a trajectory Merle’s head had bent out of as she curled in her seat to click her seatbelt.
Condor slammed the gearshift into Drive.
Aimed the security wand at the gate—
—nothing: the iron barred, electronically secured system stayed shut.
He punched the gas and the Ford surged toward the locked gate.
A bullet zinged off the car roof.
Condor cranked the steering wheel. The Ford shot off the brick paved driveway and onto the green lawn in a loop that aimed it back at the gothic house.
Merle screamed: “What are you doing?”
He stomped on the brakes. Tires gouged living earth.
Condor slammed the gearshift into reverse. Lined up the iron gate between the Ford’s side mirrors just like he had driving truck in pay for college summers. Stomped on the gas.
The Ford slammed its backend into the iron bars gate at 39 mph. As Condor’d gambled, the air bags didn’t deploy. The collision knocked the gates open. Knocked one gate free so it spun off the Ford’s red roof as Condor punched the gas, the road outta here in his windshield.
“We could have been killed!” yelled Merle.
“Any time, any day!” Condor swerved through a yellow light.
“Are they following us?”
He checked his mirrors: “Who the fuck knows.”
The red Ford sped down Georgia Avenue, past Fort Stevens where a Union General once yelled to top-hatted, front line-observing Abraham Lincoln to ‘get down you fool’ so Confederate snipers wouldn’t nail the President. Condor went right onto Military Road, a multi-lane divided road cutting across the top of DC Military Road narrowed into a city street. The Ford went left on Nebraska. Cut around a black Jeep turning into the alley behind Politics & Prose bookstore.
Merle whispered: “Are you going to Homeland Security?”
Headquarters for that post-9/11 cobble waited 2.3 miles from where they were.
Clear city street ahead—
—Condor stomped on the brakes. The red Ford shuddered. Drew rubber lines on the gray pavement. Lurched to a stop crossways on Nebraska Avenue, blocking both lanes.
“Get out!” he yelled to Merle. “Grab your Go Bag!”
Then he was sneakers on the street as approaching traffic from both directions screeched to halt at the roadblock red Ford. Car horns blared through morning air.
They raced along the sidewalk the direction they’d been going. Cut away from a
triangle patch of grass proclaimed by a white on brown sign to be Jeff Stein Park, scurried up the slope of a high school soccer field, made it to the backend of a block of stores.
Condor looked back to the car horns’ cacophony.
No determined strangers charged after them.
Merle gasped: “Gotta, can’t, let me catch—”
“Watch behind us, walk backwards, hold onto me: I’ll walk us to Wisconsin Avenue.”
Condor pulled his cellphone from his shirt pocket, swiped and tapped a Facetime call.
Second ring and a visual filled his cellphone screen.
She wore her dyed red hair long enough for a feminine curve below her clean jaw and short enough to be acceptable for combat. The Edward Hopper print of silent souls at a nighthawks’ diner counter that Condor’d gifted her hung behind her on the wall of an apartment that could have been in Washington, could have been in Warsaw.
She said: “Are you clear?”
“Unknown,” said Condor. “You?”
“Processing but probably cool. Janitors found a USB stick in your downstairs computer. We’re tearing it apart, but odds are, kitchen guy stuck it in there before …
“Glad to see you,” she said.
Gave Condor a smile he told himself was almost like a daughter’s.
He said: “Can you hear me?”
“Maybe we all can,” said the redhead. “Is your companion clear?”
“On the team. What’s happening?”
“Somebody must not like you. Or us. Or both. We’ve contained the USB stick’s hack. Sophisticated. Nation state, not a cartel or private player, but not our level.”
The red-haired woman’s face blanked. “You need a new tea kettle.”
“Bring us in,” said Condor.
“Where?”
Condor stopped at the subway on Wisconsin Avenue’s busy and big bucks’ street.
“Chris Harvie’s ground. We’re downbound.”
His cellphone showed the red-haired woman blink. Nod. “ETA?”
“Maybe 20, 25. Work for you?”
“It better,” she said.