World Without End

by Chris Mooney

  "What are you saying?" She was trembling and didn't know why.

  "Build a special place inside yourself and don't let anyone touch it.

  When you get older, you'll discover that the world has a nasty habit of kicking good people. Sometimes they get hurt. It's not God's fault, it's just the way the world works, Button. When that happens, escape to that place and remember all the good things you have in your life."

  Renee was there now. Her eyes were clamped shut and in her mind she saw the old farmhouse she had always envisioned buying someday, the bedroom window overlooking a valley of trees, the leaves those burning colors of red and orange and yellow and gold. She was there right now, far away from the basement with its musty air lingering with piss and waste and sweat, far away from the sensation of her full bladder and the pounding cuts and bumps on her face from the man who had hit her the same man who had killed John and far away from a more frightening sight: the terrified expression of the skinny man bound to the same dentist-type chair next to her, the man with two missing fingers.

  John is here, he's lying on his back in the bed they had first made love in, his naked body white even in the dimming sunlight. She sits on top of him, riding him, he is so gentle as he touches her, then he slaps her rump and starts wiggling his body while he yells out, "Who's your daddy? Who's your daddy?"

  She laughs you have to laugh when you're around John, you can't help yourself and she swats him on the arm. Then he sits up in bed and brings her close to him, his face serious, and buries his face against her chest as if he is trying to find a way to burrow past her skin and take her with him to a place that doesn't exist in the real world, a place where two hearts are safe to whisper promises and share secrets and laugh and live forever.

  "Renee."

  The voice was bright and warm. Renee opened her eyes, not wanting to leave the place in her mind and looked down the length of her bound body. She saw a man with blond hair standing at the foot of the chair.

  He looked like a construction worker who had come home to his family.

  His eyes were a deep blue, kind.

  Smiling, the man with the blond hair walked around to the side of her head and knelt down. Renee heard something scrape against the floor, something that sounded like metal. She could feel the man's breath washing over her ear. She couldn't look at him her head was bound against the chair's headrest.

  "Are you okay?" the man whispered.

  "Talk, but keep your voice down."

  She didn't respond, didn't move. She wanted to lose herself back inside the vividness of a magic fall day where John waited for her.

  Concentrate. She tried to rebuild the image in her mind but it wouldn't form.

  "Relax, Renee. I'm a friend of Stephen's."

  Stephen Conway. The name brought back all of her rage. This was his fault. He was mixed up in some sort of CIA bullshit and had mixed John up in it and now John her life was dead because of Steve Conway.

  "I'm here to help you and the guy next to you, Dixon. I can't remove the straps yet. I have to wait until some of them leave and then I can bust both of you out of here, okay?"

  Was what this man saying true? Could he be here to help? Really?

  Before John, she had dated enough men to know that, by nature, they were full of secrets, often greedy, being kind and polite and charming so they could talk you out of your pants, only needing you if you had something of value to them. Still, she wanted to believe him.

  "Steve told you he was CIA, right?"

  The man's voice sounded so kind, so gentle and confident. Risk answering the question?

  She nodded.

  "So you did talk with him," the man said.

  "A little." Her lip was split and swollen, but her voice was strong.

  Hearing it renewed her hope.

  "Why did you want to meet him alone?"

  She swallowed and said, "You said you talked with him."

  "Briefly. We got split up." The man swallowed and then sighed.

  "They got him, Renee. He's in danger. That's why I need to know what you talked about. I know you saw what happened in the condo."

  A voice cried out, telling her to stop talking. But she didn't want to stop. She wanted to purge this dark and terrible knowledge from her heart once and for all.

  "A man with gray hair came down here and hit me," she said. She closed her eyes and felt the welts throbbing across her face and head.

  "His name is Raymond Bouchard."

  Renee took in a deep breath. Tears welled up along the rims.

  "It was the same man who killed John. He came down here and started hitting me."

  The blond man stroked her head.

  "Shhh, it's okay. Raymond Bouchard will get what's coming to him, believe me. Now just take your time and tell me what happened."

  "They killed John, and then they said they were going to kill Steve."

  "They?"

  "Bouchard and another guy, the one who planted the drugs."

  "Do you know his name?"

  "Owen Lee."

  "Go on."

  "They planted the drugs around the condo to make it look like an OD.

  Then they talked about Steve, what they were going to do to him and this other guy named Jonathan Cole."

  She felt the man's hand stop moving and heard his breath catch in his throat. Then he breathed again, only now it sounded like the labored breath of a man recovering from an unexpected blow.

  Something's wrong. She tried to squirm away from his touch. Her bladder was swollen like a water-filled balloon threatening to burst.

  "You have quite a memory, Renee. Not too many people could remember this level of detail." The cheer and warmth was gone from the man's voice, as if the words she had spoken had caused him injury. She didn't know why, but his tone reminded her of the character Ralph Fiennes played in Schindler's List, the SS commander. Every time he spoke, it was like death wrapping itself around your skin.

  "I have to pee," she said.

  "How were they going to kill Cole?"

  "Please. I can't hold it anymore," she said again, hating herself for sounding so weak.

  "Then piss in your seat."

  In that moment she knew she had mistakenly walked down a corridor from which there was no return.

  "What's the decryption code?"

  "I don't know," she said.

  "One last time. What's the code?"

  The man next to her Dixon was screaming from behind his strip of duct tape.

  The blond man sank his teeth into her ear and then shook his head wildly like a dog trying to tear away the last remaining strip of meat from a bone. Renee screamed, writhing against the restraints that dug into her skin, and kept screaming when the blond man stood up and spit her ear onto her lap. Blood was smeared across his mouth and chin, dripping. He smiled and brought up the circular saw, its ragged teeth shining under the light, and turned it on, the whining screech of the blade drowning out the sound of the screams.

  Renee Kaufmann shut her eyes. This time John was there, waiting for her on one of the paths carved out in the magnificent stretch of woods behind the farmhouse. John took her close to him and wrapped his big arms around her back and hugged her tight.

  "Just hold on, Renee, it will be over in a moment and you'll be here with me, with all of us." John whispered the words against her ear over and over again. The whining screech of the blade moved closer.

  The black van was perfect for this neighborhood. It was scratched, dented and dinged, but not as bad as the others, decade-old junkers plagued with rust and missing fenders and blown-out rear windows that were now covered with garbage bags and fastened to the car with duct tape. A strong wind blew, shaking the branches of the bald maple trees, and kicked the empty beer cans across the sidewalk and lawns, the air cold and sharp enough to keep everyone indoors.

  Pasha Romanov sat on a chair in the back of the van, her body tucked behind the front seats, a pair of night-vision goggles strapped across he
r head. Her breath fogged around her as she looked through the misty green prism of light and stared at the yellow house at the end of the street. She had been parked here since late this afternoon. It was now after nine.

  Just under an hour ago, she had watched a blue Nissan Maxima pull into the driveway. When the car door opened, a man with neatly combed blond hair and a burnt-orange jacket stepped out and walked up the back porch steps. It was the same man she had seen earlier at the Mobil station.

  There, he had slid behind the wheel of a shiny black Jaguar, not a Nissan, his passenger a bedraggled Stephen Conway.

  Pasha knew Stephen was alive before seeing him at the gas station.

  After leaving the Aquarium, she had booked it straight to the van and used the surveillance gear to lock onto the transmitter in Stephen's credit card. She caught up to the white van on the high way, shadowing it, far enough away not to attract any attention. She saw the van take the exit and followed. The white van had pulled off the road and was now parked near the pay phone of a Mobil station, and there was Stephen, alive. Pasha didn't pause; she drove past them for about half a mile, pulled into a strip mall, turned around and waited for the Jaguar to move.

  When she reached the highway, she expected to be following the Jaguar.

  Instead, she was following the white van. And she had no idea where Stephen was, since the only means of tracking him, the credit card, was inside the van. Stephen was gone.

  Or had he purposely left the credit card in the van? Had Stephen discovered something?

  Pasha followed the van to this house, parked where she was now sitting and for the past three hours watched as various men came and went. In the daylight, she had used a set of binoculars hooked up to a laptop computer that allowed her to zoom in on the faces and take high-resolution pictures. By the time four o'clock rolled around, the world fading into darkness, seven men had entered the house, including the blond man.

  The real surprise came just after five. A silver Honda pulled into the pitch-black driveway and out climbed the familiar figure of Raymond Bouchard, wearing a hat, his Roman profile and squarely-set jaw unmistakable even in the misty world of the night-vision.

  It was clear that the house was serving as a base of operations. What wasn't clear was whether or not Major Dixon or the suit was inside.

  In her mind Pasha saw the naked and bound figure of Major Dixon from the torture video, twisting beneath his restraints, screaming for it to stop. In her hands was a Clock, the barrel threaded with the silencer, and on the floor next to her were two Heckler and Koch MP-6 submachine guns with attached suppressors and laser sights. More than enough firepower.

  She ran her finger over the trigger, staring at the house, thinking.

  She was only one person. And right now she did not know the layout of the house, and she didn't know the best entry point. Later, in the early morning hours, she would leave the van and take a walk, and from a safe location survey the house. That meant more waiting. She thought of Raymond and wanted to burst in there now. Kept thinking about it.

  She wanted to call Stephen now and find out what had happened inside the Aquarium. The problem was that his hotel room was probably bugged.

  And he would have people following him, listening. If she called, if she tried to approach him when the heat was on, Raymond would discover that she was alive and would put his men on alert. They would secure the house, might even kill Dixon. Best to wait.

  Raymond would leave at some point tonight, taking some of his men with him, and thereby reducing the number inside the house. She would case the house tomorrow, watching and planning. Later, when the sky had grown dark and the world had settled into sleep, Pasha would strike.

  The combat gear she needed was stored here in the van.

  Pasha kept watching the house, rubbing the trigger of her pistol for comfort. But the feeling wasn't as soothing as the image playing inside her head: that of the treacherous fuck Raymond Bouchard curled into a fetal position, crippled and crying as she introduced him to new levels of pain.

  The man known only as Angel Eyes stands on a grate hissing -with steam.

  He is covered in a thick white fog, but Comvay can see the back of the man's pale head and his hand pressed against the cold glass of the Holocaust Memorial as if locked in prayer.

  Conivay takes a step closer and feels the air drop dramatically, bone-chilling now, and laced with an electrical charge that makes his muscles tremble with anticipation. He can feel the power radiating off the man's skin. A well-contained storm, violence that, once unleashed, knew no match. Con-way had felt this power only twice in his life. The first time was while watching his kenpo karate instructor break through five wood boards with a single kick; the second time was in college, at a keg party after a football game where three steroid-induced douche bags who loved to fight decided to take on Booker. Conway watched Book toss them aside as if they were made of paper, watched his meaty fists shaped like blocks of concrete send his opponents crumbling to their knees in painful tremors.

  Only this power is different. It is stronger, darker, and more terrifying, the kind of breathing entity that once forced adults and children to march into the sealed chambers with showers that filled with gas and screams and cries to God for mercy and forgiveness.

  "It's not what you think, Stephen. I'mm trying to stop it from happening again," Angel Eyes says, his back covered in steam and shadows.

  Overhead, the once blue sky is now roiling with dark clouds the color of ink. The streets turn dark; it starts to snow. Then a shot rings out.

  Car doors fly open and the drivers and occupants flee in terror, everyone running up stairs and bolting down streets to the building doors that offer safety. Conway doesn't see the shooter but he sees something more disturbing. Dozens of white wolves have appeared on the streets and steps leading up to Government Center. They emerge from the grass and bushes that surround the memorial, their jaws are open, their breaths steaming in the air, their blue eyes locked in a predatory stare on a man who lies twisting with pain on his back in the middle of the road.

  It's Randy Scott.

  He turns his head and his frightened eyes lock on Conway. Randy reaches out for help, his fingers trembling and dripping red. The wolves sniff the air, their eyes growing wide as they lock on the scent of the blood.

  Conway steps off the grate and makes a move up the slope when Angel Eyes calls out to him.

  "It'sa trap, Stephen."

  "If I don't help Randy, he'll die."

  "He's dead already."

  "I don't believe you."

  "You have no reason not to believe me. Why do you willingly trust Raymond?"

  Conway doesn't have an answer ready.

  "What frightens you more, Stephen? Discovering the truth about Raymond, or shattering your inner world?"

  Angel Eyes speaks with a cunning superiority, the words burrowing past Conway's skin and scaling his protective walls and barriers and then settling deep in those vulnerable, private places he kept hidden from the rest of the world.

  "You're so eager to impress, so eager to be accepted and valued in this slick den of thieves that you're blind to the jackals that surround you. Like Dixon and Randy, you're a means to an end. You're disposable. I bet that thought keeps the engine running long into the night."

  Randy cries out for help. Conway moves up the slope. The wolves start to advance. Angel Eyes speaks to him one last time.

  "You live in a wilderness of mirrors, Stephen. Jackals surround you.

  The choice is yours. I'm not going to warn you again."

  Conway runs out into the street. Dozens of glowing, predatory blue eyes bore down on him. Randy is on his back; his trembling hands are working to try to keep the blood from leaving the gunshot wound in his stomach.

  "Hang on, Randy. I'll call for help." it But Randy isn't listening. His gaze is still, focused, what people call the thousand-yard stare. The wolves are approaching them.

  "Mittens," Randy sa
ys.

  "Cat food."

  "You're not making any sense."

  Randy twists his head to Conway.

  "My cat's breath smells like cat food," he says.

  "My cat's name is Mittens. My cat's breath smells like cat food. My cat's name is mittens. Who said that, Steve?"

  "You're delirious."

  "You know me, Steve. You know what I like to watch?"

  "TV. Spans."

  "And cartoons."

  It's like watching a hidden object rise from the depths of the ocean and break the surface. It's all clear now. It makes sense.

  "The Simpsons," Conway says.

  "Right. Ralph Wiggim, remember him? The little retard who runs around saying those stupid things that make me laugh so hard I come close to pissing myself? I tried to tell you the code inside the lab in a way so they wouldn't figure it out. Only you're not a good listener, Steve. You never were. You can't even see what's happening around you."

  Randy's hand comes up with a Clock. He presses it against Conway's head, and when Randy smiles, his teeth are yellow and crooked, his breath packed with the overpowering stench of nicotine.

  "Nobody's going to save your ass this time," Randy says, but it's Armand's voice, and he fires a round into Conway's head.

  Conway woke up in a tangle of sheets. His chest and head were drenched with sweat, and his heart was pounding so hard and fast that he felt dizzy. He wiped his face, slid his feet over the bed and placed them on the cold hardwood floor. He was inside one of the spare bedrooms in Booker's penthouse condo in Beacon Hill. Con-way had gone back to the hotel, packed his stuff, and come directly here, wanting to stick close to his friend.

  The dream is a warning. They took Renee and they'll try to take Booker.

  Or worse, try to hurt someone from Book's family.

  A floor-to-ceiling window faced him. Outside, the first snowstorm of the season was in full force. Boston's downtown cluster of buildings glowed with squares of white and yellow light. Behind the bedroom door, Booker and his family were fast asleep.