The Hit

by Patrick Quinlan

Every few minutes, the Town Car rattled over some rough road, or slowed to a crawl to pick its way across a monster chuckhole. Road maintenance was no longer a priority, it seemed. On the right, a maxi van, that Third World taxi service deathtrap, zoomed by going the other direction. The driver laid on his horn as he passed. The maxi went by so fast that Gant didn’t notice much about it. He was left with the impression that maybe a dozen people were packed inside. All he knew for sure was that the van was still operational, the driver still had access to gasoline, and there was a slogan painted in bright colors on the front of the van: Angel Eyes.

  On the left, across more undergrowth, Gant caught a glimpse of the turquoise ocean. On the right, through the bushes, and on the other side of a dilapidated green fence, Gant spied cinderblock homes and tin-roof clapboard shanties in a riot of fading colors. Many of the roofs were outfitted with cisterns to catch rainwater, Gant knew. The whole set up had been described to him months ago. But the cisterns were hardly much use these days.

  High above the roofs and etched against the sky, he noticed the grand prize – a large water tower. It caught his eye for a few seconds before he looked away. He’d seen aerial and ground-level photos of it, of course, but had never seen it in person. The communities on this island were served by two old towers, this one the Town Car was passing and one other. The water was pump-driven up into the towers from the tiny local reservoir, the pumps powered by diesel gas. The water pressure in people’s homes was created by gravity as the water came down from the towers.

  The towers themselves were very low security – you could simply cut open a chain link fence, and in each case, climb a staircase a few stories up to the tank. Each of the tanks had vents that could easily be forced open. It was mind boggling, such open access to a vital community resource like water. For a moment, Gant found himself lost in thought about it.

  Suddenly, up ahead, two children darted out from the grasses on the right. They were black kids, boys, dressed only in shorts. They hurled something at the car, throwing their projectiles ahead of the car’s path, timing it perfectly, nailing the spot where the car would be in another second.

  It was some kind of red fruit. Gant heard the first one hit somewhere at the front of the car – maybe the windshield. The second one crashed into the window next to Gant’s head. It made a loud THUMP, then hung there for a moment, stuck to the glass, weird, pulpy, almost obscene. The center of it looked like the mouth of some kind of suckerfish, with ruby-colored tendrils extending away like the arms of an octopus. Then the whole mess slithered to the bottom of the window and fell away. In its wake it left a path of slime, like a snail might leave behind.

  ‘The car is bulletproof, of course,’ Howe said. ‘Including the windows.’

  ‘They’re throwing away food,’ Gant said.

  ‘Yes, very foolish. Maybe it was rotten.’

  Gant smiled. ‘Those little kids are probably pretty good at throwing a baseball. In another couple of years, maybe they’ll be just as good with a firebomb. Or a grenade.’ The thought pleased him somehow.

  Howe smiled in return, but it looked more like a wince. ‘That’s one of Mr Fielding’s concerns. But hopefully, things will never get that far.’

  The car slowed to a stop on a curve. Up ahead and to his right, Gant saw two of the men from the airstrip climb out of the lead SUV. They both had compact machine guns cradled in their arms. Suddenly there was the blat of automatic weaponry. Gant’s heart skipped a beat at the sound. He looked back to where the kids had been – they were both OK, running through the high grass toward the shanties. The gunmen had fired into the air.

  ‘Not very sporting,’ Gant said. ‘Firing on children, even over their heads, could be counter-productive.’

  Howe was unapologetic. ‘We live in a profoundly active balance of terror with the neighbors, I’m afraid. We don’t shoot children, but we do try to demonstrate who is in charge on this island. Increasingly, it’s a lesson that seems lost on their parents.’

  Gant just looked at Howe. He took a good long look. Howe was a man who had probably never fired a weapon in anger during his entire life. But Howe held Gant’s stare, his eyes never wavering. It was easy to be a tough guy in the back of a limousine.

  ‘I guess that’s why we hire a person like Mr Tyler Gant,’ Howe said. ‘To remind everyone just who’s in charge around here.’

  Gant glanced at the red smudge on the window. ‘Actually, you hire me when no one is in charge, and you want me to fix that.’

  The car and its SUV escorts started again. They exited the main road and followed a narrow, well-paved lane uphill through thick green foliage. The ascent was steep for a moment, and then very steep. Gant sat back in his seat, almost like an astronaut waiting for takeoff. He felt the heavy Town Car working to manage the hill.

  The entrance to Fielding’s estate was at the top of the hill. Gant took in the security – the place seemed well-guarded. The procession waited while the main gate slid open, then each car passed through in line. Unlike out at the airstrip, here the security team made no pretense. Two men stood near the booth with Uzis carried lightly in their hands. The perimeter fence was wrought iron and very tall – the gaps were too narrow for even the skinniest kid to slip through.

  Gant glanced upward and spotted bands of circular razor wire at the top. Beat that fence – a determined mob could probably take it down – and you faced about thirty yards to an identical wrought iron fence, with identical razor wire on top. The thirty yard gap between fences was a dog run. Gant spotted half a dozen Rottweilers roaming free in there. Beat the dogs, beat the second fence, and you probably confronted ten or more slack-faced, dead-eyed professional killers with automatic weapons. It would take something just short of a revolution to breach these grounds – hundreds of people, too hungry to fear death. Either that, or a sudden outbreak of empathy and reluctance to fire among the security team.

  The house itself was a palace. When the Lincoln pulled to the top of the circular driveway, Gant did a quick calculation. Old quarried stone plantation house, around two hundred years old, fully restored, probably thirty rooms. Gant’s own large home – a mansion by many people’s standards – would fit tucked neatly into a far wing of this house.

  He exited the car and immediately felt the breeze – the air wasn’t nearly as heavy up here. Ahead of him, Howe jogged briskly up the stone front steps. Gant carried his own bag and followed him. They turned around. The front of the house faced inland – a sweeping panorama downhill across the brown and green island, the township far below, and in the distance, a white sand beach. Here and there, wisps of cloud clung to the treetops – maybe a few drops of rain in those clouds, but not much. On a few of the hillsides, Gant spotted homes similar, but perhaps not as grand, as this one.

  ‘Quite a view,’ Gant said.

  Howe shrugged. ‘That’s nothing. Wait until you see the view from the veranda, and from your bedroom.’

  They crossed into the foyer. A simple white cross, seven feet high, dominated the space in front of the wide spiral stairway. Gant thought of the garish depictions of Christ on the cross from his Catholic upbringing – super-realistic, emaciated, bleeding from the spikes piercing His hands and His feet and from the thorns pricking His head, wild eyes rolling Heavenward in anguish. It was the stuff of nightmares, and had made an impression on Gant. But none of that for Fielding. Fielding’s own brand of fanatical Christianity was crisp and clean – it had abstracted ol’ Christ right out of the picture.

  Howe led Gant to the second floor and down a wide, cool hallway. Their feet echoed on polished stone. They passed through a doorway and here was what must have been Fielding’s office – fifty yards away, on the far end of what might have once been a ballroom. Gant could almost hear the strains of music and laughter from those long ago times – the good old days. As they walked across the open space, Gant could see the desk, positioned to the right of the open balcony. To the left of the balcony was a sofa, two chairs
and a settee. Two men sat there, each sipping from a teacup. Gant recognized one of them, a man with white hair, as Roscoe Fielding, the owner of this house, and the master of all he surveyed. Gant didn’t know the other man. They rose as Gant and his minder approached.

  ‘Mr Gant,’ Fielding said. ‘Good of you to join us. Do you know Representative Harting?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’ Gant extended his hand to the Congressman, who took it in his soft paw. Harting was a beefy man of indeterminate age with a swoop of sandy brown hair. He wore a light brown sports jacket over a dress shirt open at the collar, and khaki shorts – the prep school look. It was enough to make Gant dislike him instantly. Even worse, Harting’s chubby cheeks and the spot of red on each one made him look like a spoiled twelve year-old who spent much of his time indoors playing video games.

  ‘Jim Harting, Tyler Gant,’ Fielding said. He put a proprietary arm around Harting’s big shoulders. ‘Jim is one of the good ones. He’s one of ours.’

  ‘Fighting the good fight,’ Gant said. ‘Don’t let me interrupt you.’

  ‘Roscoe and I were just finishing,’ Harting said, with a hint of a Southern twang. ‘He told me y’all had some important business to talk about, and I’m here for a couple more days, so… ’

  ‘He has plenty of time to grab my ear, should he need to,’ Fielding said.

  Howe smoothly escorted the Honorable James Harting out. Gant took a seat across from Fielding. Fielding was thin to the point of pain. His bony wrists extended a few inches past the end of his white cotton sleeves. His eyes seemed sunken back into his face. The face itself looked like it was written on wrinkled parchment.

  ‘The tea is still hot,’ Fielding said, gesturing to the pot on the table. ‘Hot tea on a hot day, it makes you perspire. Cools you off some.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  Fielding poured himself some, his hands shaking just a bit. ‘We see you already moved the money from the account we set up for you.’

  Gant smiled. ‘One bank account is as good as another.’

  ‘Do you trust us?’

  Gant shrugged, didn’t say anything.

  Fielding waved the issue away. ‘It’s your money. Do whatever you want with it. Anyway, that’s not why I asked you here. I thought it was time for us to meet. You’ll find that I’m a man who isn’t much for chit-chat. I like to get down to business right away. And I like to speak plainly.’

  Gant thought of the politician who had just left. He looked like a chit-chatter and double-talker, if ever there was one. ‘I’m all for speaking plainly,’ Gant said.

  Fielding nodded. ‘Good. Then here it is. We’ve paid you a lot of money, and as I say, that’s OK with me. But I’m concerned. I find you much less forthcoming with information than I’d like. We’ve had no status reports from you. You’re hesitant to talk on the telephone or to submit anything in writing, and I understand that reluctance. But you also refuse to send any of your people here to make a report, and that I don’t understand. Our mutual friends told us to expect these things from you, so I’ve been patient, but my patience is wearing thin. I’m beginning to suspect I’ve been taken for a ride. I can’t tell you how much that upsets and disappoints me.’

  Gant felt nothing as a result of Fielding’s little speech. He’d been through this type of thing before. Clients, at some point in any operation, especially one as uncertain as this, always needed to be reassured. They needed a hug, and they needed a grown-up to tell them everything was going to be all right. In fact, Fielding had lasted longer than some others before reaching that place.

  ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ Gant said. ‘I’d hardly come waltzing through all of your gunmen if I were, as you say, taking you for a ride.’

  ‘Agreed. I feel a little better already, just having you as my guest.’

  ‘So then, what would you like to know?’

  ‘Well, by now I was expecting to see… something. Some action. Since you’re here, would you like to update me on the project’s status?’

  ‘Why? Don’t you trust me?’ Gant said.

  Fielding smiled the tiniest bit. He moved a few papers aside on the table, and came up with a manila folder. He opened it and looked at the one sheet of white unlined paper inside. ‘Tyler Gant. US Army 25th Infantry Division, Vietnam. Two tours of duty, 1969 – 1971. Philadelphia Police Department, 1972 – 2003. You’ve spent most of your life in service to your country and your community. That’s to be commended. You should be proud.’

  ‘I don’t make a fetish out of it,’ Gant said.

  Fielding laughed. ‘They said you were a wiseass. I like that in a man, but only so far.’ His face became serious. ‘You know, I’m only five years older than you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, how do you do it? How do you stay so young?’

  ‘Believe me, I’m nothing like I used to be,’ Gant said. “I feel the time passing.’

  ‘But still,’ Fielding said. ‘It’s remarkable.’

  Gant shrugged. ‘I only drink the best whiskey. That helps. And I’ve been blessed with good genes.’ He didn’t mention the two days a week with a personal trainer, the five mile runs, and the yoga nearly every morning. He didn’t mention the fruit and vegetable juicing, and the four days of fasting each month. They probably had all that in a file, in any case. ‘My father turned eighty-nine this year. He just came back from his fall hunting trip. Took down a ten-point buck. Clean shot to the head.’

  ‘Amazing,’ Fielding said. ‘How’s he getting along in these dark times? Does he find it hard?’

  ‘He’s a tough old bird. Says he’s seen it worse. He was alive during the Great Depression. That was, of course, worse than now.’

  ‘I’ll grant that’s probably true,’ Fielding said. He paused, seemingly lost in thought for a moment. ‘Mr Gant, I’m concerned. That’s all I’m saying. You come highly recommended. I’m told you’re among the best at what you do, but I feel like you’ve left me in the dark here.’

  ‘Do you really want to be in the light? In matter such as these, highly sensitive matters, I operate under the assumption that the less the client knows, the better for the client. I think you should take a moment before you answer. Do you really want to know what’s happening?’

  Fielding didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes. I want to know.’

  Gant took a deep breath, then nodded. ‘We are very close. There’s a boat anchored off the East Coast of the United States, exactly where doesn’t matter at this moment. A small laboratory has been built aboard the boat. Not state of the art, but quite good under the circumstances. It has everything necessary. A person I trust, and who has experience in these matters, built the lab based on very specific guidelines. Some people I do business with have acquired a quantity of a certain substance, an organism, and they will deliver it to the boat when I give them the go ahead. A scientist is en route to the boat. He was unavoidably detained very recently, so the work is a little behind schedule, but I can tell you that soon he will be in place. Once he is, the work will proceed very quickly. After that, your men can meet us at the boat, and we’ll make the transfer.’

  Fielding nodded. ‘You’ll accompany my men back here on the plane, of course. To make sure the operation ends smoothly?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll probably bring at least one of my men with me as well.’

  ‘The scientist,’ Fielding said. ‘He’s a good man?’

  Gant chose not to answer the question. ‘I’ve worked with him before, and our previous work has been a success. What we accomplished in the past is likely what brought my name to your attention.’

  He paused, then looked deeply into Fielding’s eyes. ‘The question now becomes, are you sure you want to go through with this?’

  Gant saw the look come into Fielding’s eyes. He had seen it many times before, in many other sets of eyes. It was a hunger, like a vampire thirsty for blood.

  ‘Mr Gant, this house has been my primary residence for the past thirty years. I’m an A
merican, but this island is my home. I buried my wife here. I raised two children here. I’ve run my businesses from here. Many good friends of mine have been driven away, forced off the island, by the tyranny of the mob. Innocent people have had their homes taken, have been murdered, and far worse.’ Fielding’s thin, weak hand clenched into a fist. ‘ Worse than murdered, do I need to explain the meaning of that to you? And some of the men doing these things were policemen not even a year ago. But this isn’t Rhodesia, or Zimbabwe, or whatever you want to call it. A few of us are still here, and we’re not going anywhere. We will not be terrorized and we will not be driven out. I am totally committed to the course of action I’ve asked you to take.’

  ‘And the media reaction?’ Gant said. ‘What will you do when CNN and the BBC are broadcasting footage of corpses being buried by bulldozers? What will you do when the Marines come ashore, with investigators from the Centers for Disease Control? What will you do afterward? How will you stay here? This is going to be a land of the dead.’

  Fielding waved his hand, as he would wave away a mosquito. ‘Please don’t underestimate my ability to influence media coverage, or to influence the US government response. Let’s just say that members of Congress are among the least powerful of my friends. Anyway, this is a tiny island, barely worth mentioning. I’m sure you read the newspapers – people are dying everywhere. If a few thousand people here suddenly succumb to an infectious disease…’

  He shrugged and paused for several seconds. Then he nodded. ‘And what am I going to do in this land of the dead, as you describe it? For one thing, I’m going to stay and see my enemies defeated. Then, after an appropriate length of time has passed, I’ll repopulate the island with immigrant workers who can better appreciate the blessings available here. To put it another way, I am completely prepared for the consequences of the operation.’

  When he finished, a silence drew out between them.

  ‘Have I answered your concerns, Mr Gant?’

  ‘I guess you have. And I assume that means your operatives are ready?’