Sure enough, SUV headlights appeared. Then another set. The vehicles parked ten yards off his rear bumper. Three more black SUVs came at him from the front. He watched them grow larger in the windshield until they slant-parked, hemming him in.
He traced his fingers absently on the driver’s window, drawing patterns. Shot a breath at the dashboard. Then, groaning, he climbed out.
The men piled out of the vehicles in full battle rattle, M4 carbines raised. A few of the men held AK-47s instead. “Both hands! Let’s see ’em.”
“Okay, okay.” Jack wearily patted the air in their direction, showing his palms.
He was still pretty goddamned fit for a man in his seventies, but he’d noticed that his baseball-catcher build had started to soften over the past few months no matter how many push-ups and sit-ups he did each morning. The years caught up to everyone.
He breathed in fresh soil and night air. The cotton stretched out forever, dots of white patterned against brown stems, like snow melting on a rocky hillside. It was Thanksgiving Day; the harvest looked to be running late.
He watched the men approach, how they held their weapons, where their eyes darted. They moved well enough, but two of them had their left thumbs pointing up on the magazine well grips rather than aligned with the AK barrels. If they were forced to switch shooting sides, the charging handles would smash their thumbs when they cycled.
Freelancers. Not Orphans. Definitely not Orphans.
But there were fifteen of them.
A few grabbed Jack, patted him down roughly, and zip-tied his hands behind his back.
One man stepped forward. His shaved head gleamed in the headlights’ glow. The plates of his skull ridged his shiny scalp. It was not a pretty head. It could have used a bit of cover.
He raised a radio to his lips. “Target secured.”
The others shifted in place, boots creaking.
“Relax, boys,” Jack said. “You did good.”
The guy lowered the radio. “You’re finished, old man.”
Jack pursed his lips, took this in with a vague nod. “He’ll come for you.” He cast his eyes across the freelancers. “With all the fury in the world.”
The men blinked uncomfortably.
The door of the closest SUV opened, and another man stepped into view. Compact and muscular. He threw his sculpted arms wide, as if greeting a long-lost relative.
“You’re a hard man to track down, Jack Johns,” he said.
Jack took his measure. “Jordan Thornhill. Orphan R.”
Surprise flickered across Thornhill’s face. “You know me?”
“Of you anyway,” Jack observed. “When you live as long as I have, son, you have eyes and ears in a lot of places.”
“You’re fortunate,” Thornhill said, “to have lived so long.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “I was.”
The whoomping grew louder. A Black Hawk banked into view over the hillside and set down before them. Dirt and twigs beat at them. Jack closed his eyes against the rotor wash.
As the rotors spun down, a pair of geared-up men emerged. They wore flight suits and parachutes and looked generally overprepared. Three more men and the pilot waited inside the chopper.
Jack shouted, “A bit of overkill, don’t you think?”
Thornhill shouted, “We owe a debt of gratitude to helicopters this week!”
Jack didn’t know what to make of that.
“Well,” he said, “let’s get on with it, then.”
The two men in flight suits took Jack by either arm and conveyed him over to the helo. The others hauled him in. As they lifted off, Jack caught a bird’s-eye view of Thornhill vanishing back into the SUV as smoothly as he’d appeared. Two freelancers headed to search Jack’s truck, and the others peeled off to their respective vehicles and drove away.
The helo rose steeply and kept rising. Black Hawks have an aggressive rate of climb, and the pilot seemed intent on showing it off. This wasn’t gonna be a joyride. No, this trip had another purpose entirely.
Jack had done more jumps than he could count, so he knew how to roughly gauge altitude by the lights receding below.
They passed ten thousand feet.
Fifteen.
Somewhere north of that, they stopped and hovered.
One of the men donned a bulky headset and readied a handheld digital video camera.
Another slid open the doors on either side.
Wind ripped through the cabin, making Jack stagger. Given his cuffed wrists, he couldn’t use his arms for balance, so he took a wide stance.
The cameraman shouted, “Look into the camera!”
Jack did as told.
The cameraman listened to someone over his headset and then said, “What are your current protocols for contacting Orphan X?”
Jack shuffled closer, the wind blasting his hair, and squinted into the lens. “Van Sciver, you can’t honestly believe this will work on me.”
The cameraman listened again and then repeated his question.
Jack’s shoulders ached from his hands being cinched behind his back, but he knew he wouldn’t have to bear the pain much longer.
“There is nothing you could ever do to make me give up that boy,” Jack said. “He’s the best part of me.”
The cameraman winced, clearly catching an earful from Van Sciver over the headset, then squared to Jack with renewed focus. “I’d suggest you reconsider. We’re at sixteen thousand feet, and you’re the only one up here without a parachute on.”
Jack smiled. “And you’re dumb enough to think that puts you at an advantage.”
He bulled forward, grabbed the cameraman’s rip-cord handle between his teeth, and flung his head back.
There was a moment of perfect stunned silence as the parachute hit the cabin floor.
The wind lifted the nylon gently at first, like a caress.
And then the canopy exploded open, knocking over the men in the cabin. The cameraman was sucked sideways out the open door. The Black Hawk lurched violently as first the chute and then the cameraman gummed into the tail rotor.
The Black Hawk wheeled into a violent 360. Jack gave a parting nod to the sprawled men and stepped off into the open air. On his way out, he saw the powerful ripstop nylon wrapping around the bent metal blades.
By instinct Jack snapped into an approximation of the skydiver’s stable position, flattening out, hips low, legs spread and slightly bent. His hands were cuffed, but he pulled his shoulders back, broadening his chest, keeping his hanging point above his center of gravity. The wind riffled his hair. He watched the sparse house lights wobble below, like trembling candles holding strong in a wind. He figured he’d have hit 125 miles per hour by now, terminal velocity for a human in free fall.
He’d always loved flying.
Jack thought of the malnourished twelve-year-old kid who’d climbed into his car all those years ago, blood crusted on the side of his neck. He thought about their silent hikes through the dappled light of an oak forest outside a Virginia farmhouse, how the boy would lag a few paces so he could walk in the footprints Jack left shoved into the earth. He thought about the way his stomach had roiled when he’d driven that boy, then nineteen years old, to the airport for his first mission. Jack had been more scared than Evan was. I will always be there, Jack had told him. The voice on the other end of the phone.
The ground was coming up fast.
I will always be there.
Jack shifted his legs and flipped over, now staring up at the night sky, letting gravity take his tired bones. The stars were robust tonight, impossibly sharp, the moon crisp enough that the craters stood out like smudges from a little boy’s hand. Against that glorious canopy, the Black Hawk spun and spun.
He saw it disintegrate, a final satisfaction before he hit the ground.
* * *
Evan stood in the darkness of the Vault, breathing the dank air, watching the live feed with horror.
The dizzying POV of the camera flying
haphazardly around the cabin, banging off tether straps, jump seats, screaming men. And then airborne, free of the cabin, spinning off into the black void. The only sound now was the violence of the wind.
Evan’s brain was still stuck thirty seconds back when Jack had walked out the cabin door as calmly as if he were stepping off a diving board.
The virtual ground came up and hit Evan in the face.
Static.
Evan’s last panicked text to Van Sciver remained below: NO WIAIT STOP I’LL TELL YOU WHEREWW I AM
His next exhalation carried with it a noise he didn’t recognize.
The cursor blinked.
Van Sciver’s response finally arrived: TOO LATE.
Evan removed his contact lens and fingernails and put them back in the case.
He walked out of the Vault, through his bedroom, down the hall, and across the condo to the kitchen area.
The glass of vodka waited on the island.
He picked it up with a trembling hand.
He drank it.
5
Common Interests Are Important
For the first time in memory, Evan slept in. “Slept” wasn’t quite right, as he was awake at five. But he lay in bed until nine, staring at the ceiling, his mind re-forming around what he had witnessed, like a starfish digesting prey.
At one point he sat up and tried to meditate, but every breath was punctuated not with mindfulness but a red flare of rage.
Finally he went and took a shower. He soaped his right hand and ran it up and down the tile, leaning his weight into the arm to stretch his shoulder. It had been recently injured, and he didn’t want the tendons and ligaments to freeze up.
Afterward he got dressed. Each bureau drawer held stacks of identical items of clothing: dark jeans, gray V-necked T-shirts, black sweatshirts. This morning in particular, it was a relief to move on autopilot, to not make any decisions. Clipping a Victorinox watch fob to his belt loop, he padded down the hall into the kitchen.
The refrigerator held a jar of cocktail olives, a stick of butter, and two vials of Epogen, an anemia med that stimulated the production of red blood cells in the event of a bad bleed. Three contingency saline bags stared back at him from the meat drawer.
His stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten in almost a day. His brain reminded him to make a sweep of his various safe houses scattered across L.A. County to take in the mail, change the automated lighting, alter the curtain and blind positions.
He had never wanted to leave his condo less.
There is nothing you could ever do to make me give up that boy.
Behind his front door, he took a deep breath, preparing himself to transition modes. Here at Castle Heights, he was Evan Smoak, importer of industrial cleaning products. Boring by design. He was fit but not noticeably muscular. Neither tall nor short. Just an average guy, not too handsome.
The only person who knew that he was not who he seemed was Mia Hall, the single mother in 12B. She had a light scattering of freckles across her nose and a birthmark on her temple that looked like it had been applied by a Renaissance painter. Because all that wasn’t complicated enough, she was also a district attorney. When it came to Evan’s work, they had settled on an unspoken and uncomfortable policy of don’t ask, don’t tell.
He pressed his forehead to the door, summoning greater resolve.
He’s the best part of me.
He stepped out into the hall, got on the elevator.
On the way down, the car stopped and Lorilee Smithson, 3F, swept in. “Evan. It’s been a while.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Always so formal.”
The third wife to an affluent older gentleman who had recently left her, Lorilee was a vigorous practitioner of cosmetic surgery and body sculpting. She’d been beautiful once, that much was clear, but it was increasingly unnerving how her forehead remained frozen in an approximation of surprise no matter what the rest of her features were doing. She was fifty years old. Or seventy.
She wove her arm through Evan’s and gave it a girlfriendy shake. “There’s a craft class right now—scrapbooking. You should really come. Preserve those childhood memories.”
He looked at her. She had three new lines radiating out from her eyes, faint wrinkles in the shiny skin. They looked pretty. They made her face look lived in. Next week they’d be gone, her face ratcheted even tighter, a tomato about to burst.
He contemplated the least number of syllables he could make that would get her to stop talking.
He said, “I’m not really a big scrapbooker.”
She squeezed his arm in hers. “C’mon. You have to try new things. At least that’s what I’m doing. I’m going through a transition right now, as you might have heard.”
Evan had heard but had absolutely no idea how to reply to her. Was this one of those times that people said, “I’m sorry”? Wasn’t that a stupid thing to tell someone whose asshole husband had left her? “It’ll get easier” sounded equally platitudinous.
Fortunately, Lorilee wasn’t much for silences. “I’m getting out there again, you know? Been seeing a new guy—a wedding photographer. But it’s hard to tell if he really likes me for me or if he just likes my money.”
She pursed her inflated lips and gave his arm another little shake.
He patted her wrist, using the gesture as subterfuge to disentangle himself from her. But when he did, his hand came away powdery with tan dust. He looked down at her arm and saw the bruise marks she’d tried to conceal. Three finger-size marks from where someone had grabbed her.
She covered her arm with her purse, looked away self-consciously. “He’s okay,” she said. “You know how those artist types are. Temperamental.”
Evan had no reply for that.
It was none of his business. He thought of Jack walking into space as if stepping off a diving board. Evan needed to get food, and then he had people to kill.
Her smile returned, though it labored to reach her cheeks. “That’s why I’m scrapbooking. They say common interests are important.”
A sudden dread pooled in Evan’s gut. “Where did you say the scrapbooking class was?”
The elevator doors parted on the lobby to reveal a bustling crowd of Castle Heights residents massed around various craft tables that had been erected for the event.
Every head turned to take in Lorilee and Evan.
Evan made a snapshot count. Seventeen residents, including HOA president Hugh Walters. They all looked eager for small talk.
* * *
Evan finally made it into the subterranean parking garage, closed the door behind him, and was about to exhale with relief when he noticed Mia and her nine-year-old son sitting at the bottom of the stairs.
Mia shot him a tentative glance. He couldn’t blame her for looking hesitant. He’d gone to her last night, ready to leave behind his aliases and untraceable help line to see what it might be like to attempt a normal relationship. In the wake of Jack’s call, he had left her—and the conversation—hanging.
Peter craned his neck, his charcoal eyes staring up. “Hi, Evan Smoak.”
Evan said, “What’s new?”
Peter said, “Braces suck.”
“Language,” Mia said wearily.
“What’re you doing down here?” Evan asked.
“Mom’s hiding out from the scrapbooking lady.”
“That’s not true,” Mia said.
“Is too. You called her ‘pathologically chipper.’”
“Well, she is.” Mia’s hands fluttered, then landed in her chestnut curls, a show of exasperation. “And I just needed a moment away from … chipperness.”
Peter’s raspy voice took on a mournful note. “I wanted to see, is all. Plus, she had a bowl of Hershey’s Kisses.”
“Okay, okay,” Mia said. “Go ahead. I’ll be up in a sec.”
Peter scampered up the stairs, paused before Evan, gave a chimpanzee smile to show off the new hardware. “Do I have anything stuck in my b
races?”
“Yeah,” Evan said. “Your teeth.”
Peter smirked. Then he fist-bumped Evan and shot through the door into the lobby.
Mia stood. She did a slow half turn, stretching her arms, letting them slap to her sides. “That was an odd conversation,” she said. “Last night.”
He came down the stairs. It was hard to be this close to her and not want to move even closer. She was the first person he’d ever met who’d made the notion of another life appealing. He’d had to overcome a lifetime of instinct and training to summon the courage to go to her door last night.
It felt like a decade ago.
He said, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not looking for an apology,” she said. “Just an explanation.”
Evan thought of a digital video camera hurtling around the cabin of a plummeting helicopter.
He cleared his throat, a rare nonverbal tell. “I’m afraid I can’t give one.”
She tilted her head. “You look terrible. Are you okay?”
That image flashed through his mind again: Jack stepping out of the Black Hawk, vanishing into the void. It seemed like a dream remnant, resonant and unreal.
“Yes,” he said.
“Are we gonna talk about what happened?”
“I can’t.”
“Because of whatever … things you’re into.”
“Yes.”
She looked at him more closely. In his childhood Evan had endured countless hours of training at the hands of psyops experts, training that involved brutal interrogation that lasted hours, sometimes days. To ensure he gave nothing away with his body language or facial expressions, they’d monitored everything down to his blink rate. And yet today emotion had left him loose and vulnerable. He felt as if Mia were looking right through his façade. He stood there, exposed.
“Whatever happened this time,” she said, “it hurt you.”
Evan locked down his face, held a steady gaze.
She gave a concerned nod. “Be careful.”
As he walked past, she caught him around the waist. She hauled him in and hugged him, and he felt himself tense. Her cheek was against his chest, her arms wrapped tight around the small of his back. He breathed her scent—lemongrass lotion, shampoo, a hint of perfume redolent of rain. He wanted to relax into her, but when he closed his eyes, all he could see was a Black Hawk spiraling out of control against a backdrop of stars.
Hellbent--An Orphan X Novel Page 3