by Neovictorian
Certainly, they were proud when he went to Harvard for grad school, got his doctorate, became a full Georgetown professor. Would they be proud if they knew he was justifying terrorism now? Well, they do know that. So does the administration of a prestigious motherfucking American university. It used to be Catholic. So does the Mayor of DC, currently attending a banquet honoring him. Does his family know that he’s actually participating, arranging murder? Would they still be proud of him? Maybe. I don’t know, and I realize that it doesn’t matter. I flash on the picture of the body of the young girl killed in the truck attack in Orlando last year. The one they couldn’t, wouldn’t show on television. You had to get on the internet to find it, and all the major social media tried their best to chase it down, block it, ban anyone who posted it. Why? It was real. It wasn’t just an image of an Imam mouthing murder in a foreign language. It might incite Islamophobia.
We’ll, I’d seen it.
Her entire lower half had been almost sheared off, legs and hips attached by only a strip of skin and muscle. What there was of the legs had no shape, had been pulverized and flattened. Her back pack, lying a few feet away, was intact. It was pink and white and shiny and had an arc of red hearts running up it. The bottom half was covered with blood, which was a darker, browner color than the hearts.
A “legacy of colonialism” was to blame, I believe Zaludi had said on the news channels, and US missile strikes on ISIS leaders that had caused civilian casualties. Oh, but he “condemned” the attack, all right.
He’d probably been setting up my killing during that same time.
Everyone was a beautiful baby, once. I carefully remove the Bowie from its sheath. Hold it up to eye level, tip my head down slightly to shine the faint light on the blade. I was tempted to polish the tiny imperfections out of it, but in the end I just sharpened it until the very edge was the only thing that really gleamed. Mr. Randall or one of his master craftsmen had forged and shaped the blade over 60 years ago. I wonder if, as someone put it in the shipping box, they had a flash of the strange career the knife would have.
Maybe it is Zaludi’s son, back in Pakistan. I want to have a son too, someday. A son that he did his best to be sure would never, ever be born.
The knife in my hand seems to vibrate. I carefully, slowly slide it back into the sheath and go to wait for him to get back home.
55. Today, Juneau, Alaska May 27, 6:14 pm
The drive into the town is almost surreal, a thin strip of inland ocean to the right of the highway and sharp, massive mountains rising straight out of the water on both sides, covered with dense forest on the lower half and jagged white peaks on the upper.
I decide I don’t need to talk to the captain and crew on the yacht, not yet, maybe tomorrow. I feel like a tracking dog now, straining at the leash, I want to get to the spot where Eve was last seen and sniff the air, get a feeling for where she might have gone, and how.
We don’t say much, just looking and drinking in the sights as I drive, until Lisa says, “I’m getting hungry. Do you mind stopping for a quick bite before we hike up there? It’s about a 20 minute walk from the trailhead.”
I glance over at her, smirk. “You should have eaten some of the caviar or foie gras or whatever you had on the plane. You never stopped working on your laptop until they shut down the engines.”
She sticks her tongue out at me, her face screwed into a comically exaggerated grimace.
“We don’t have any of that on the plane, funny boy. There was some frozen pizza though. Now I wish I’d pulled it out.”
I mirror back the grimace. “That stuff will make you fat and slow.” I laugh at the thought and I can see she doesn’t like it. I turn back to the road.
“Get on your phone and see if you can find something good and fast. No pizza.”
We come around a curve and I see cruise ships on the horizon, at least four of them, massive floating hotels.
“Find something that’s not close to the docks,” I tell her. “Look at the size of those ships. There’s thousands of old people swarming around down there right now.”
She taps on her phone a few times, turns to me and giggles.
“How about sushi? Are you man enough to swallow some salmon roe and raw tuna? Turn left at the light.”
The tiny sushi bar is across the street from what seems to be the tallest building in the area; the sign says “Federal Building and Courthouse.” So the FBI is probably right there. I think back to my questioning of Lisa this morning, why not go to the police? It makes a lot more sense, now. I’ve gathered a lot of pieces in my mind and the police were never going to be, never meant, to be a part of this. I drive around the corner and park the car in the only empty space in sight, in front of a little brown house that looks a hundred years old.
There are a couple of empty seats at the bar and the sushi chef comes right over. I’m looking at the glass case with its display of beautiful, perfect cut flesh, and before Lisa can say anything I tell him, “Two Ahi, two Hotate and two Uni sashimi, two Ebi, two Sake and two Unagi sushi. And extra wasabi.”
“What’s Uni?” asks Lisa, picking up a menu and scanning. I let her find it for herself.
“Ah, raw sea urchin,” she says, and laughs. “Well I guess I was asking for it.”
She puts down the menu and leans in closer, so that the chef, who’s slicing away a couple of feet to her left, can’t hear.
“Listen, Cal, when we hit some turbulence on the approach and the plane bounced around pretty hard, I had a sudden thought, something I’ve never even considered before; if the plane went down, what would I regret most?” she whispers.
“I wondered if my Dad had that thought at Jackson Hole, just before he went in?” she asks. “I don’t know, I don’t think so. I think he lived his life so that there wouldn’t be something like that.” Her eyes start to mist, just a hint.
I turn my face toward her, lean in until my lips are almost touching her ear.
“Everyone has something like that,” I breathe. “Everyone, ever.”
I lean back a few inches until I can see her eyes. “For me, if it happened today, it would be that I never had a son or a daughter.”
Her mouth opens the smallest amount and she breathes in, then she turns away, looks at us together in the mirror wall behind the bar until the chef brings the first course.
56. 3 years ago, Chevy Chase, Maryland May 18, 11:23 pm
I hear the car door slam faintly in the garage, and it’s like a switch is thrown, something turns on in my mind and something else turns off, I’m a machine a computer and an animal at the same time, I’m cold programmed and I know what I’m going to do, it’s like a play with a script or a ballet, choreographed but with variations.
Time slows for me so much that I hear each part of him opening the door as a separate sound, the key goes into the lock, the key turns, turns back for him to remove it, the key pulls out of the lock with a tiny scrape, a two second pause while he puts the key back in his pocket, I’m standing, knife in hand in the niche behind and to the right of the door if you’re facing it from the kitchen, the door will swing toward me, he won’t see me behind it, the kitchen light goes on, there’s a switch in the garage and it could be blinding but it’s alright because I was ready, light or no, I slit my eyes to give them a second to adjust, the door begins to open, there’s a mild squeak in the top hinge. I hear his leather soled dress shoe, loud on the beautiful oak floor, another step and his left shoulder appears, dark pinstripe suit, and I move forward slowly, but my soft soled shoes are silent, my clothes are smooth silky stuff that doesn’t even whisper, one more step and his whole body is visible now, a dark blob in the bright light, and I crouch and thrust, blade parallel to the floor, long edge to the left, right arm close in, using my legs and hips and body to generate almost all the power, aiming to stick the nine-inch blade up and into the left kidney, to immediately incapacitate.
~
The kidneys are a lot higher up the body
than most people seem to think, partially or mostly protected by the ribs, depending on the person’s unique anatomy. And using a knife, killing with one, is much more difficult than Hollywood bullshit would have you believe; in the movies, some hundred and five pound actress with big fake tits throws a knife across a room and it thunks into the chest of a guy who looks like Mr. Supreme Badass, and sticks in up to the hilt, and Supreme Badass looks surprised and drops to the ground, dead.
Score another win for Grrll Power.
Here’s the reality: the vital organs are mostly behind a tough, tough layer of muscle and gristle and rib bones. Other than the hard-to-reach heart, the only way to actually kill with a knife is to cut a big artery in the throat or abdomen or limbs, puncture both lungs, or drive the blade into the brain through one of the openings in the head. Every one of these things is hard and difficult and requires strength and, ideally, a large blade. Even then, it often takes minutes, or hours, before the wounds kill. Meanwhile, the person may still have a lot of fight in them.
People get stabbed 10, 20, 30 or more times all over the body and survive, as long as they get emergency treatment reasonably quickly. I had a plan that took all this into account and a big, strong blade. I’d choreographed and visualized and practiced. Jack and I had considered taking something bigger, a real samurai sword, a Roman gladius, but those kinds of wounds would have looked premeditated; burglars don’t bring swords. As far as most of the world would ever know, this would be a tragic accident, a robbery gone bad—just like the hit on Jack and I was supposed to be a “robbery gone bad.” There was a certain beautiful symmetry to it. They probably wouldn’t discover the body for at least 12 hours, until Zaludi didn’t show up for his first class next day and they got worried at good ol’ Georgetown and called the police to do a welfare check.
~
Our plan doesn’t survive first contact with the enemy.
He has no inkling I’m there until the blade strikes right where I’m aiming, a little below halfway up his back. I’m going to drive through suit coat and shirt, up and under the bottom rib. There’s nothing but muscle there, one of the thinner spots, and that thrust should send a shock and a wave of agony through him that will put him down, on the ground, for the finishing move.
I don’t think, consider anything past or future, only completing this thrust, but instead of fabric and flesh parting, there is a soft thunk! and a shock rides up my wrist and arm and shoulder and the force of it, unexpected and from behind throws him forward as I stagger a step back, head recoiling up a little, and when I look back down he’s on his hands and knees, suit coat hanging open, and there’s no trace of blood where the knife struck, because he’s wearing body armor.
I’m not surprised, I don’t think or worry, because I’m focused, the kind of focus no man usually knows outside of sport or battle. It happened before, back in San Jose and a few weeks ago in DC, and like before things are different, they don’t move slower it’s just that my processing moves faster in relation, I see the smallest dip toward the ground of his torso, the bend of his left arm increase and it’s because his right hand has stopped supporting him, come up and is reaching for his right hip, reaching for a weapon, his right elbow swivels out away from his body, but I’ve got time, I don’t jerk or hesitate or think; I launch toward him point first, steel on target.
I can’t see his hand but his elbow jerks toward me once, he tries to draw but the gun never comes, he’s never practiced from this position and he just has time to turn enough to see me coming out of his left eye, to see his fate before I’m on him, I land on his back and he’s off balance, still trying to draw, and his brief scream of defiance ends with a grunt as he slams forward face first onto the polished wood, gun hand pinned under him, and he knows he has no chance, and I lever myself off his back with my left forearm and it’s so similar to San Jose, except Al-Rachman was on his back and this time I have the steel.
This is what the blade was meant for.
He yells “Wait, I’ll…” and I’m not listening and I’m not waiting, the right side of his face is on floor and I put the point under the exposed corner of his jaw and let all my weight drive it straight down, he tries to scream but no air is coming through his severed trachea and it’s just a mad vibration in his chest. His entire body from shoulders to heels tries once to rise, all the strength of desperation and terror at the deep, dark pit before him, and the burst almost throws me off but I ride it and I’m still there, that’s all he has left except a few feeble jerks. I lean forward and left, hoping his eyes are still working, he’s still trying to breathe, to make a sound, I think he can at least still hear.
“Listen to me you bastard, I’m the man you tried to kill. Did you think I’d come for you, is that why you had the vest and the gun? You failed,” and I want that to be the last word he ever hears and twist the knife and begin to saw it toward the front of his throat and he goes limp, giving up.
I push myself off him and pull the knife straight up, quick, to avoid getting his blood on me, but keep eyes on him. I can see his left eye staring at nothing, and the blood is pulsing out of the wound in his neck, each pulse weaker, pooling under the lapel of his expensive suit coat.
When I’m sure, I look myself up and down in the bright kitchen light, there doesn’t seem to be any blood on me except for the rubber gloves. I set the Bowie carefully in the kitchen sink and with immense concentration I slip the left one off, outside-in, and reach for the gallon plastic bag in my back pocket, drop the glove in it and use the bare hand, staying far away from the bloody part, to do the same with the right. I set the bag on the floor and roll off five or six paper towels from Zaludi’s tastefully modern brushed stainless steel dispenser, put them over the hot water handle and turn it on halfway, do the same with the cold, pick up the Bowie by the end of the handle and rinse it, turning it over and back until the water in the sink is clear. I pull off a few more towels and dry it thoroughly, slide it back in its sheath and pick up all the used towels and slide them into the plastic bag. I slowly roll the bag, easing the air out of it, zip it shut and slide it into my back pocket.
The smell of blood is heavy in the air, so heavy that it becomes a taste as much as a smell, and it’s time for me to go. I reach for the little unit behind my right hip, press the transmit button. “ClickClick…ClickClick.”
A single click comes back in my earpiece. Jack’s rolling toward the pickup point. I take another pair of gloves from my pocket and put them on, kneel at the back of the body and take Zaludi’s wallet and phone. They’re possibly full of valuable intelligence, maybe we can use it or sell it, give it to someone who can, who knows? It helps make it look like a robbery, if it makes any difference. It was The Plan, so I do it.
I wonder if I should turn off the light, decide I should. There’s only downside to leaving it on. I switch it off with my elbow and wait until my eyes adjust. After a few seconds I can make out the shape on the floor, a darker mound in the pool of darkness, and my hands start to shake, just a little and then a surge of feeling and electricity runs through my body, not starting or ending anywhere, the whole at once, and I wonder if I can stand up, I put my hands on my knees, but it only lasts a couple of seconds and goes away as quickly as it came, leaving a light sheen of sweat on my face. I take one ragged breath and then stop that, purse my lips and blow out, out, every bit of air inside, until I know there’s nothing, but will my diaphragm to push out that last tiny puff. Then I slowly breathe in, through my nose, the air goes down past the bottom of my lungs and fills my center, my balls, my legs and feet and arms and hands, I breathe it all slowly out, relaxed, and I can see fine in the dark now, I step far to the right around the body, away from the pooled blood, and think about the route to the pickup point through the black forest.
57. Today, Juneau, Alaska May 27, 6:55 pm
Lisa pulls into the parking lot at the trailhead. I told her to do the driving up from the restaurant so I could really scan the rest of the route, both
sides of the road, instead of concentrating on just what’s ahead. It will be light for a couple more hours, despite the solid cloud cover and the occasional sprinkle of rain. The black road gleams wet, but as soon as we top the first big hill it turns to gravel, with no more guard rail. There’s a creek so far straight down from the other side of the road that it looks like a thin, silverwhite thread.
There are six cars and a dozen empty spaces. “This is where they parked. There’s nothing past this except the trail that runs about four miles to the end of this valley parallel to the old mine road,” I say. I study the map on my phone, look to the right.
“The mountain across the creek is honeycombed with shafts,” I tell Lisa. She looks at me, nods. We’re thinking the same thing.
“She could have been hidden in one of those—but she’d have to cross the creek and go through this brush…are there any shafts on this side?” she asks.
“I don’t know, but in some places this undergrowth looks like a jungle,” I say. “If someone took her, or helped her, or she just ditched Rance she could have been 50 feet off the trail and no one could have found her if she didn’t want to be.”
I look back at the map and calculate. “Like you said, the spot Eve disappeared is about a 20-minute walk from here. We’ll go a little past it, just in case, and see if there’s anything unusual, or interesting. I doubt there is, but I need to see it. If we don’t come up with anything tonight, tomorrow we’ll interview Mason and the yacht crew.”