by Tom Wood
Would she ever let him leave? It was a question he thought much about.
After the morning’s attack, security had been doubled. Sicarios lined the hallway and stood outside on the curb. More gunmen stood either end of the street too. Lavandier opened the door to the waiting limousine, and Heloise climbed inside.
A beautiful day, as many were at this time of year. Lavandier, always a lover of the sun, relished Guatemala’s equatorial sunshine. He sported a fine bronzed hue year-round, which was an all-over tan, thanks to the privacy afforded to him by extreme wealth and high walls.
The vehicle was more akin to a tank than a car. From the outside it had the classic, long shape beloved by the rich the world over. It was always highly polished, always gleaming. The windows were tinted. The license plate was personalized. It was at home pulling up outside a premiere or black-tie function, but it was so much more.
Not only had all exterior paneling been replaced with thick armor, but the chassis itself had been remodeled to support the huge amount of extra weight. The engine had been replaced with a double-capacity machine, with more cylinders and a supercharger to drag the hidden bulk. Every window was an inch-thick laminate of alternate layers of glass and polymer. None of these features were unique in the armored-limousine world, but most armored limousines had not been built for cartel bosses in countries that could almost be classified as war zones. The underside of the limousine was armored too, and again differed from similar upgrades, because that armor was shaped in a V to help direct and distribute the force of an explosion from a mine or IED.
Had Heloise been traveling in it this morning, they might have been spared a trip to Dr. Flores’s clinic. But Heloise liked to drive. She liked sports cars. She didn’t like Lavandier’s words of caution.
He kept his I told you so to himself because he liked his tongue inside his mouth, where it belonged. Heloise had long nails as hard as claws, and his poise was tested to its limits when she used them on her enemies.
Beyond protection alone, the limousine had offensive capabilities. The sunroof, which, as in its civilian model, was large enough for a person to stand through, also had a machine gun fixed to its underside. When the sunroof was open, the machine gun could be folded out and deployed. Lavandier dreaded the day when Heloise instructed him to make use of the weapon. He had been taught to fire it by one of her armorers, but his aim was awful even while safely practicing in a field. Against enemy sicarios out for blood, he would be no help. If their survival ever depended on Lavandier’s competence with a weapon, they were all corpses.
Which was one of the many reasons he said, “This situation has become untenable.”
“If you have a winning strategy, dear Luis, I wonder why you are only now voicing it.”
“I’m no soldier,” he said. “I’m no general. But you pay me to advise you, to offer an outside perspective, and I think that’s what is missing here.”
“Are you telling me that you can no longer provide that service? Because I am both surprised and disappointed that your loyalty is so transient, so temporary. Can we even call it loyalty if it can falter so easily?”
“My loyalty is eternal,” Lavandier was quick to explain. “As well you know. What I’m talking about is familiarity. In this war we know our enemies like they know us. There are no surprises. This morning’s attack was not unexpected. It is just the latest of many, and there will be many more to follow.”
“We will respond in kind,” Heloise said. “We have to demonstrate our strength. We need to show there is consequence.”
“I know and I agree, but we will land a blow without—forgive my impudence—conviction. We will kill some sicarios, maybe slaughter some traffickers, but they will be replaced. They are always replaced. Ours and theirs.”
“You’re telling me nothing I don’t already know, Luis, and you misunderstand me. We don’t simply need a response, but a statement.”
“Of course,” he said. “I do understand that.”
“Not merely externally,” Heloise explained. “But internally too.”
“In which case I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”
“My men need to see an immediate show of strength.”
He began to catch up. “Even if it’s pointed in the wrong direction?”
“Any direction I point is the correct one.”
Lavandier bowed his head in apologetic reverence. “Yes, patron.”
Heloise said, “Now tell me what you’re proposing.”
“The other side is winning because they have the advantage of strength. Their influence is wider. Not because they have an outside perspective.”
She looked away, dismissive. “Mercenaries only fight as hard as you pay them. They have no allegiance. They will not lay down their lives to protect mine, and they will turn on us the instant a better offer comes their way.”
“I’m not suggesting you hire an army. We have enough sicarios as it is. I’m talking about a professional. Someone we don’t know, who no one knows. Someone who won’t be seen coming.”
“An outside perspective,” Heloise said.
Lavandier nodded. “And if self-preservation isn’t enough, there is a more practical matter to consider.”
“I’m listening.”
“What did our friend in the mayor’s office say?”
Heloise looked away.
“Continued violence, let alone an escalation, makes it harder for him.”
“He’s paid more than enough as it is and we have nothing to show for it.”
“And we never will if we stop him doing his job.”
“He gets us a license, that’s all. It’s a piece of paper ultimately.”
“A piece of paper with an estimated two-billion-dollar annual gross.”
Lavandier said nothing more because there was no need. He was paid to advise Heloise. He could convince her of nothing. Every decision was hers.
She said, “I don’t know of any professional who would be capable of ending this war.”
“Nor do I,” Lavandier admitted. “Which is a problem, granted, but also the key to the success of the idea. If we don’t know, then neither do our enemies.”
Heloise looked intrigued. She didn’t look intrigued often. “We would require a foreigner then. Someone from far away.”
Lavandier said. “My thoughts exactly.”
“Someone already proven in such work.”
He nodded.
Heloise said, “And we keep this between ourselves. Just you and I will know he exists. If there is any merit to this suggestion of yours, then it must remain a secret.”
Lavandier nodded again. “Then you’re on board with the idea?”
“That depends,” Heloise began. “That depends on who you find.”
• Chapter 8 •
Forgers had a certain flair, a certain anima. Victor had never encountered one who was overweight. He had never dealt with one who was quiet or reserved. Most had counterculture leanings. Some were idealists. At least at the start of their careers, before age began to strip away that youthful rebellion and before they understood just how valuable their skills were to those with money to spend. This one met all of Victor’s expectations and then added some contradictions of her own. This forger was female and she was young. He didn’t know her age and wouldn’t ask, but he was good at estimating. It was one of the many things he needed to be good at if he wanted to stay alive. Which he did.
At first glance, he had put her in her early twenties. Twenty-two. Maybe only a few months beyond her birthday. She was slim but her cheeks were rounded. There were no lines on her face and her skin had an unmistakable plumpness to it that no cosmetic procedure could emulate. He knew about such procedures because he had undergone many in his lifetime. Not to appear younger, but different. Each cut or injection to alter his face, little by little
, so that even he didn’t recognize himself any longer.
Only his eyes were still his own, and in them he saw nothing.
The young forger had the counterculture look, although this was not an area of his expertise. He knew little about the changing waves of fashion, but until semishaved heads and facial tattoos were as common as not, he was willing to hedge his bets that the forger had made an effort to forgo mainstream styles. Her hair was shaped into an Afro quiff, bleached platinum blond in a stark contrast to her dark skin. The music she played from her computer was unrecognizable to his ear. Whatever it was, he hoped it didn’t catch on. He found it hard enough to travel on public transport while fighting the urge to use earbuds to choke out the rude and disrespectful.
She didn’t refer to herself as a forger. She claimed to be an activist. She interspaced their professional discussions with political commentary and words like “revolution.” She spoke of “rising up.” She dreamed of “bringing the system down.” She wanted to expose “every last lying politician.” Victor neither agreed nor disagreed. He paid no attention to politicians unless he was hired to kill them.
The forger had no name that she had told him, and he feigned ignorance on the matter, but once he decided to use her services there wasn’t a lot that he didn’t know about her other than her exact age. All forgers had almost unequaled potential to do him harm. To do their job well enough to get him through airport security meant they had to know information about him he didn’t want anyone to have. Therefore, he had to have insurance. If they had his biometric data, he needed to know where they lived and who they cared most about in all the world.
Her handle was Poison Snowflake.
“You can call me Poison,” she had told him. “Or Snowflake.”
“Okay,” Victor said.
“But not Flake.”
“Okay,” Victor said again.
She had a twisting pattern of white-ink snowflake tattoos on her neck that ran from behind her left ear and down her spine, where they disappeared beneath her T-shirt. Victor couldn’t help but wonder how far down they went.
Poison had a studio apartment in Amsterdam, which was also her work studio. She had photographic equipment set up in one corner, next to sophisticated printers, laminators, and other technological wizardry needed to create and modify bogus identification of all kinds.
“I started out making fake IDs when we were teenagers,” she explained. “It was easy and fun.”
Victor pretended to be interested. “Uh huh.”
She took his photograph and printed off a passport-sized version. She spent a long time examining it, searching for something he didn’t know and didn’t ask to know. She seemed happy enough, though, and fixed it to a blank but genuine Canadian passport that Victor had supplied. She could offer passports of her own, but none that he wanted. A Canadian passport had particular value, as it granted visa-less access to many countries. As such, it had cost him a considerable price, but not as great a price as the black-market fixer who had sold it to him had ended up paying.
“I want double what we agreed,” the man had told Victor.
“That’s too bad.”
The fixer might have made a useful contact otherwise, but people were greedy, Victor had learned many times. As he went out of his way to project a nonthreatening demeanor, it was not uncommon for those he dealt with to attempt to take advantage of him. He didn’t take such things personally—he accepted it as an expected price of dealing with criminals—though his inevitable response tended to be greeted with less acquiescence.
“Please don’t . . .”
Poison’s work was interrupted by a compulsion to check her phone—phones—at regular intervals. She had several mobile devices that pinged or chimed or flashed or vibrated. All of which seemed to require her immediate attention. Victor didn’t understand what it was like to have such need for instant gratification, for endless dopamine hits. He was at his most satisfied with a coffee or a book.
He waited a while. It wasn’t his nature to hurry someone’s work or complain about the manner in which they went about it. He recognized his own limitations and needed the expertise of others. He would pay Poison well for good work. It mattered little to him if it took her an hour or two. If patience was a virtue, it was the only way in which he was virtuous.
She didn’t look at him as she said, “You can take a seat, you know.”
“I’m fine standing.”
He was a little stiff from sparring in a nearby dojo. A private session with the owner, after hours. It was a favor of sorts, a year in the making.
She didn’t respond, but he saw the tension in her shoulders. He was fine standing, but she wasn’t fine with him standing. He glanced around at the low sofa and faux-leather bean bags before his gaze settled on the stools at the breakfast bar. He perched on one and saw her relax.
Perhaps he wasn’t being quite as unthreatening as he had intended. Or perhaps Poison’s instincts were better than average. It was rare for people to see through his facade of normalcy, but it was not impossible. For a moment he thought of a time in Berlin, and someone whom he had failed to convince of his normalcy, and who had seen straight through him.
He turned his thoughts back to the present. Memories were distraction. Distractions could be fatal.
He looked around the studio, searching for a topic to springboard small talk, but Poison was too young, too different, for him to even fake common ground. Instead, his eyes found her and the way she would roll her shoulders every so often.
“The radius and ulna,” he said.
She glanced at him. “What?”
“You’re getting shoulder discomfort because the bones in your forearms—the radius and the ulna—are pronated so you can use your keyboard and mouse. That’s an unnatural position. If your arms are hanging free at your sides, your thumb is in line with your elbow pit. When you use your computer, your hands are rotated out of this position, which twists those bones out of their natural position, creating tension. That travels up your arms and ends up in your shoulders, causing the discomfort you’re experiencing.”
She stopped her work and examined her wrists and arms, as if noticing how they worked for the first time. When she understood what he had said, she asked, “Then what’s the solution?”
“You need an ergonomic keyboard and a new mouse to go with it. Maybe a new chair.”
“Right. You’ve had this too?”
Victor nodded. He hadn’t, but he knew how the body worked, and the most efficient ways to break bones and dislocate limbs, to tear ligaments and snap tendons. A physical therapist in reverse.
Poison said, “I’ll look into it,” and turned back to her computer.
Even with the phones distracting her every few seconds, she worked fast. He saw no hurry in her actions, just skill. It was impressive watching her work.
The introduction of biometric passports had made Victor’s careful existence increasingly difficult. Once, it had been comparatively easy to acquire a genuine identity or a convincing set of fake documents. Black-market forgers were common and easy to find. Times had changed. Obtaining a genuine passport was more problematic. To craft one, a forger now had to have the ability to clone chips and photograph the retina with an infrared camera. The skills required and increased costs meant most suppliers Victor had dealt with had gone out of business. His own expenses had risen too. A thousand dollars had been enough at one time to obtain a complete set of genuine identification papers—passport, birth certificate, driver’s license—but now it was closer to a hundred thousand. It was an unavoidable cost of his profession. He couldn’t afford to get stopped at an airport. He couldn’t risk being caught pretending to be someone he was not.
Poison had all the equipment necessary and all of the skills to clone the biometric chip of the stolen Canadian passport of a man of Victor’s approximate age and
physical appearance and produce a forgery. She overcharged him, but Victor overcharged every client that had ever hired him. Besides, he would rather deal with a forger who felt confident enough in her abilities to charge too much than one who didn’t operate with the same self-belief.
He found her charming in a way he recognized as patronizing. Her youthful idealism and rebelliousness were hard to dislike. He liked the tattoos and the piercings too, the bizarre haircut and striking clothes. She wanted to make statements with her appearance. She wanted to cause a reaction. Victor didn’t have the same luxury. He spent a considerable amount of effort to blend in, to remain unnoticed. He didn’t understand what it felt like to have a fashionable hairstyle. He didn’t know which colors suited him.
He had never looked his best.
She turned on her swivel chair. “It’s going to take a while to clone the chip.”
Victor said, “No problem.”
She regarded him with pursed lips. “Say, here’s an idea: wanna do something crazy while we wait?”
He was about to ask what she was talking about, but she was already standing to take off her clothes.
He took the cue to do the same.
• Chapter 9 •
“You don’t want to screw with me,” Poison had said when they first met.
Victor hadn’t felt the need to say something similar. It would have been pointless without breaking character. He didn’t want her to know he was the most dangerous person she could meet. Instead, he gave subtle clues so she thought he was running, that he needed the passport so he could flee the country, so he could go into hiding. He didn’t know how successful he had been, but she didn’t inquire. She was a professional.
But after the barrier between professional and personal interaction had been abolished, Poison asked him why he needed a new identity.