by Josh Lanyon
I tossed the ball one last time to Buck and glanced back. I’d heard the phone jangle a few minutes before, and I knew who he going to see. Bryce would, not unnaturally, want a full accounting.
“Not to worry,” I replied. “And no need to rush home. I’ll probably have an early night.” And I probably would. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
“Up to you,” he said indifferently.
When I looked back he was gone from the porch.
I threw the ball a few more times to Buck, but he found my efforts disappointing and eventually wandered off to harass the waterfowl.
I watched the sunset for a time, then went inside the house. It seemed unnaturally quiet. Lena had left for the day shortly after her pep talk to me—kindly meant but clearly off-mark. I made myself tea, found some oatmeal biscuits in the cupboard, and went into Stephen’s study to call the Old Man.
I caught him on his way out for a late supper for some Minister or another. I told him I was coming in, and gave him the details. He was surprisingly cordial—but then he was always gracious in victory and relentless in defeat.
“I’ll be letting our associates at Langley know,” he said.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I said. “I can get myself home without an escort.”
“All the same,” he said. And I shut up. Of course I would have a CIA escort—certainly until I got on the plane, and maybe all the way across the shining sea. That was mere professional courtesy. I had broken protocol, violated a dozen policies. Having my flight changed to one of the chartered CIA specials was the least of it. I was looking at a psych evaluation and a probable sanction. I might even be out of a job, but that was probably too much to hope for.
I said, “Then can we set the pick up for Dulles?” I didn’t want to be taken into custody in front of Stephen.
The Old Man hesitated, but he was a shrewd old bird and I think he knew exactly what my problem was—and of course the more I cooperated, the happier everyone would be.
He agreed, told me urbanely he looked forward to seeing me, and rang off. I turned on the TV, watched for a time. Was there anywhere in the world that wasn’t a mess?
An hour went by.
Then another.
It was dark outside and the crickets were chirping—and there was still no sign of Stephen.
Not totally unexpected. In Bryce’s shoes I’d have been equally reluctant to trust me. Nor would Stephen be looking forward to an evening of my company should I not be tactful enough to take myself off to bed early.
Another hour passed.
I must have dozed. When I opened my eyes I heard Buck barking, and I knew that bark. I’d heard it outside mountain villages and inside the walls of a private estate. I knew it because I was usually the cause of it. The barking grew louder and then I heard Stephen’s SUV in the front drive, tires crunching on gravel.
The floorboard near the kitchen creaked.
And all at once I knew we were in a hell of a mess.
I turned out the lamp and rolled off the sofa onto the floor. Footsteps vibrated down the hall toward the study. I skittered over to the rifle cabinet, but it was locked. Probably no one had opened it since the Senator died.
Diving behind Stephen’s desk, I grabbed the heavy cast iron paperweight. The overhead light went on, the fan whirring softly into life. I stayed still. Depending on where the intruder was in the house when the light had gone out, he might think—assume—I had turned out the lamp and gone upstairs. Or maybe not.
He stood inside the doorway listening for me. I could feel him in the strained silence.
Except that it wasn’t silent. Buck was barking hysterically, and then the barking cut off on a screech.
“Buck?” Stephen called from the front of the house.
And we were out of time. The footsteps started back down the hallway toward the front door. I scrambled up from behind the desk and followed him—a bulky figure in black wearing a dark ski mask. He was not fast on his feet. I caught him up in three steps. He spun around, and I slammed him over the head with the paperweight. He slumped to the floor, and I stepped over him and picked up his fallen pistol—a Heckler & Koch SOCOM specially fitted with a sound and flash suppressor. Fitted with an infrared laser sight as well, but the would-be assassin wasn’t wearing goggles—which was the first good news I’d had in twenty-four hours.
A second man was coming through the back porch door. I shot him in the chest with the silenced gun and he fell back out the door, the porch door swinging back with a bang against the house. I turned out the kitchen light. Turned out the porch light as I reached the back door—just in time to see Stephen coming around the corner of the house.
“Get down!” I yelled, stepping over the dying man feebly waving a pistol my way. I kicked him hard in the head, plucking the pistol from his hand. Putting the safety on, I wedged it in my back waistband.
About half a second later a Micro Uzi raked the side of the house, stitching bullets through the walls and windows. Glass shattered, wood splintered from inside the house. I was already scrambling to the end of the porch, peering down through the railing.
“Stephen? Jesus. Stephen?”
To my relief he was crouched in the flowerbed. He looked up, unhurt, his face a pale glimmer.
I felt almost dizzy with relief. “Are you all right? You’re not hurt?”
“What the fuck is this?” He sounded shaken but there was no panic in his voice. Anger, yes. Outrage. Fear. But all of it under control.
“It’s another long story.” I wished he wasn’t wearing a white shirt.
“I heard Buck squeal,” he said. “They shot him, didn’t they?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Goddamn you,” he said quietly and intensely, and I flinched.
There was another burst of machine gun fire. Bullets tore through the wood of the porch posts, the swing’s canvas, hitting stone and wood and glass.
I whispered into the silence that followed, “I’ll lay down a covering fire. If you could climb up here?”
He nodded curtly.
I slid across the wood flooring to one of the stone and wood pillars, stood—making myself as narrow a target as possible, and began methodically firing in the direction of the lake. I could hear the ducks and geese in a panic, saw them taking wing against the night sky.
Behind me I heard Stephen climb onto the porch.
The gunman by the lake answered back with bullets. They gouged the stone pillar in front of me, took chunks out of the wooden overhang. I watched for the muzzle flash, holding my fire.
Behind me Stephen was speaking rapidly in a low steady voice—though apparently not to me.
There was a pause in the festivities. I glanced around. He was on his cell phone calling for help. And I was proud of how cool he sounded. His father would have been proud too. And all those generations of Johnny Rebs.
He closed his cell phone. I squatted, offering him the pistol I’d taken off the second assassin, but he shook his head.
“For God’s sake, Stephen. You’ve handled a gun before.”
“I haven’t shot a rifle in over a decade. And I sure as hell never shot at anything capable of firing back. I’d be worse than useless with that,” he said.
I gnawed my lip, thinking. Maybe he was right. I said, “I’ll cover you again. Get inside the house and barricade yourself in the cellar.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What I’m trained to do.”
“No.” He was shaking his head. “Help is on the way. We just need to wait it out.”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do. Only I’m waiting out here. And you’re waiting inside.”
“I’m not hiding in the goddamn cellar while you’re up here getting shot at!”
There was another short burst of machine gun fire. Stephen pressed down lower to the wooden planks. I ducked against the stone pillar. I thought the gunman was angling around for better position. Into the pause that
followed, I said, “We don’t have a lot of time to debate this.”
He said furiously, “I’m not leaving you under fire!”
“Goddamn it. Do I tell you how to fix a broken leg? Do what I ask before you get us both killed.”
He was shaking his head stubbornly, and I said desperately, “Please. All right? Stephen, please go to the fucking cellar so I can go after this son of a bitch without having to worry about you.”
And to my bewilderment, he laughed, a breathless gust of sound and scooted over to the post where I crouched. “The magic word? Is that what you think I’m waiting for?” He grabbed me by my shoulders. “Listen to me. There’s a magic word all right. It’s love.”
I gaped at him. “Stephen —”
“Listen to me.”
I threw a look over my shoulder. Beyond the trees I could see the black glitter of the lake. The third gunman was out there somewhere, moving through the reeds, coming toward the house. And there might be more of them as well.
“Listen to me,” Stephen repeated, and I switched my attention distractedly back to him. “I can’t take it if something happens to you. I’ve spent the last two years living in fear every time the news reported a British citizen arrested for spying. Or a British soldier captured. Or killed.”
“I’ll be all right. And—anyway, there’s nothing to blame yourself for. I brought this on.”
His fingers dug in painfully. “No. You’re not paying attention. I’ve spent the last four hours trying to convince Bryce—and myself—that I don’t still love you.”
I admit that did get my attention. “Come again?”
He took my face in both his hands and kissed my mouth—and it was all there in that hard warm press of lips. I felt shaken as I pulled away.
“Don’t throw your life away,” Stephen said.
“I…don’t intend to.” I swallowed.
He stared at me, and I was almost grateful for the shadows that hid our expressions from each other. It went through my mind that he might be saying this—saying anything to keep me from further harm—but I dismissed the thought. This was Stephen and he wouldn’t lie about this. Not even to keep me from throwing my life away.
“I won’t let you down again,” I said.
To my relief he nodded once, curtly, and turned away. I rose and began firing at the reeds moving in the distance. Stephen dashed for the door, jumping over the dead man, disappearing inside the darkened house.
The Heckler & Koch clicked on empty. I set it aside and pulled out the pistol I’d taken from the second assassin. A Beretta M92F. Fifteen rounds in the magazine, so I needed to make every shot count. I called softly, “Stephen?”
He answered from inside the kitchen, equally softly.
I said, “Watch yourself. There could still be someone inside.”
If he answered, I didn’t hear it. I dropped down and scooted across the porch to the railing, letting myself over the side and landing on the grass in a crouch.
Silence. I could hear the weathervane high above moving rustily in the breeze. A rose trellis knocking against the side of the house. Down by the water, the ducks and geese were still having fits. Light shone from the front room, casting a yellow oblong across the grass and flowerbed.
As I watched, I saw the red fiber-optic beam of a laser slide along the front of the porch, probing the shadows—and I smiled. I spy with my little eye… Eleven to eighteen yards away. That put him on the edge of the reeds toward the west end of the house. Better yet, he believed I was still somewhere on the porch.
I sprinted to the nearest magnolia, rested my spine against it.
The geese continued to cackle and honk near the water’s edge. I looked back at the house. The living room light had gone out. The house appeared quiet and still. I turned my attention to the lake.
I wondered how long till we got reinforcements. Better—much better—if this ended here and now. Arrest meant a trial. Trial meant publicity. Publicity would be very bad news. For me. For Stephen.
I waited.
The red laser dot disappeared.
What now?
I darted to the next tree.
Nothing.
I slid down on my haunches, back against the trunk, waiting. The stitches in my thigh throbbed in time to my heartbeat. The good old femoral artery pulsing away next to all those careful little stitches. My ribs ached as I tried to draw a deep breath. I wiped my forehead. Waited.
Just as the would-be assassin appeared to be doing.
I risked another look around the tree trunk. I could see the pinpoints of starlight like tiny candles drifting on the water, and strangely a line from Little Dorrit came into my mind: While the flowers, pale and unreal in the moonlight, floated away upon the river; and thus do greater things that once were in our breasts, and near our hearts, flow from us to the eternal seas.
I could still taste Stephen’s kiss on my lips. Somewhere to my left I could hear a funny, low whining. My eyes raked the darkness, picking out a long black shadow within the other shadows. Buck. He lay in the deep grass beneath the tall trees.
I considered him. “Lie still, Buck,” I said keeping my voice low.
He whined and lifted his head a little.
Bullets thunked into wood above my head as the Uzi opened up again. I yelled like I’d been hit, threw myself in the grass, flat as I could get, head raised just enough to see over my hands as I steadied the Beretta.
Such an old trick. But then one reason it had been around forever was because it worked so well. He stood up out of the reeds, machine gun at ready, striding up the embankment toward where I lay motionless.
I took careful sight. The light was poor and my hands were not quite steady. I had to wait longer than I wanted to be sure I had him. I fired. The bullet hit him low in his left shoulder. He screamed and fired. Grass chewed up next to me in great gobs of mud and green. I rolled away and fired again, this time hitting him dead center.
He went down, still firing, bullets plowing into the ground until he slumped forward.
For a time I lay there panting, heart hammering, watching him. He didn’t move.
I got up, bracing myself with my free hand, walked over to him, pistol trained. I planted one foot on the machine gun barrel, rolled him over with my other. His eyes stared frozenly through the holes in the ski mask.
Kneeling, I felt him over quickly, took a pistol off him, pulled the machine gun out of his hand, and walked back up the slope. I stopped beside Buck, knelt painfully. He whined again, thumped his tail feebly.
“Good dog,” I muttered. His fur was sticky with blood, but the bullet had taken him in the shoulder. I stroked his coat. Considered trying to carry him, but there was no way with my ribs, and dropping him was not going to be beneficial.
“Stay, Buck,” I ordered, as he thrashed around, trying to get up. He subsided, whining. I gave him a final pat and rose.
The house stood dark and silent as I approached. I brought the pistol up, moving quietly onto the porch. The dead assassin still sprawled in the doorway. I stepped over him, moved across the kitchen, picking my way through glass and pottery, pulped fruit, and splintered wood.
The fridge was silent, mortally wounded. The clock ticked peacefully on the wall. The door leading down to the cellar was closed.
I moved into the hall. The lack of light made it nearly impossible to see. I moved forward silently.
Moonlight spilled onto the floorboards outside the study door. The first assassin was gone.
Jesus fucking Christ. That was my fault for not wanting to soak Stephen’s floorboards with blood. I prayed my carelessness hadn’t resulted in harm —
Harm. I couldn’t consider anything beyond that.
Maybe the assassin had fled when he regained consciousness.
Maybe Stephen had hauled him downstairs to his office to patch him up. Just like Stephen, that.
Or maybe he had taken Stephen hostage.
Maybe he’d slit his throat.
My stomach roiled in sick panic. Shut it, I thought fiercely.
I stepped back into the kitchen, finding my way through the utility room with the washer and dryer to the cellar door. It swung open silently.
Flattening myself against the wall, I whispered, “Stephen?”
Nothing.
It was a struggle to control my growing dread. I couldn’t think beyond the fact that Stephen might already be dead and it was my fault.
I felt for the wall switch, found it. Light flared on illuminating the cellar. Wine racks neatly lined one side, and on the other, shelves with canned goods, bottled water, tins, Christmas decorations. No sign of Stephen—but no sign of violence either.
Then something hit me from behind and I went crashing down the staircase with someone on top of me.
I landed at the bottom, half-stunned, my crushed ribs screaming protest. Wriggling, I tried to get out from under the weight pinning me to the floor. My right shoulder felt dislocated, and I felt frantically with my left hand for the pistol I’d dropped.
Hands locked around my throat. I stared up into black eyes behind a glistening, blood-soaked ski mask. The weight on my damaged ribs was red agony, making it difficult to think and nearly impossible to breathe. I grabbed for his hands, trying to secure one of his arms, but my right arm still wasn’t cooperating. I threw my foot over his same side foot—and tried to buck him off.
He nearly toppled, but managed to keep his hold on my throat, sinking his fingers in deeper, and I wheezed for breath. One-handed, I couldn’t break his grip and I was beginning to see stars shooting through the red tide.
Stone fragments stung my face. The rifle shot was deafening, echoing around the stone walls as the bullet plowed into the cement floor next to me. The hands around my throat stiffened—then loosened. Blood spilled out of the hole in my attacker’s chest. He pitched forward, landing half on top of me, half beside me.
I gulped for air, dragging sweet oxygen into my laboring lungs, and the dark receded from the edges of my vision.
Staring past the meaty shoulder pressing into me, I saw Stephen coming down the cellar stairs fast, rifle in hand. I wanted to tell him to be careful, to take no chances, but my bruised throat wouldn’t work.