Whirlwind

by Joseph R. Garber

  He’s going to do it. He’s going to pull that trigger. And me…oh, hell, I can’t even see straight.

  “Last chance, Charles, last dance. Throw away that quaint antiquity. Then rise to your feet like a good boy, and I will see to the formalities.”

  Charlie hurled the gun over his shoulder.

  “Tell me, Charles, what words do you wish inscribed on your tombstone. I will arrange for the engraving. My treat.”

  Charlie growled, “He was better than his enemies.”

  “A good epitaph, albeit untrue. But then so many of them are.” Irina jerked like a puppet as he fired two rounds into her chest. “Mission accomplished. My goodness, that felt good.” As a child discarding an unwanted toy, he flung her away. She tumbled limply to the ground, her shirt ripe red as she rolled lifeless beneath the Gulfstream’s wing.

  Dear God, send me to hell. I want to be waiting when he arrives.

  “You cannot know how much pleasure the expression on your face gives me. Now be so kind as to stand up. If you’ve got the starch for it.”

  There’s nothing to do now but die proud. Choking back nausea, Charlie pressed his hands against wet asphalt.

  Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a pale face in the Gulfstream’s cockpit window. The major. The copilot. He was goggle-eyed and mouthing words that Charlie could not hear.

  What the hell, he thought, it’s worth a try. Anything is worth a try. He lifted his hands, fists balled, thumbs pointed to the sky. Thumbs-up, flyboy. Come on, think about it. I’m giving you the thumbs-up.

  The copilot’s expression was blank. He didn’t understand Charlie’s message. That’s life.

  Death, actually.

  Charlie began to rise. His body didn’t seem to be working right, all his muscles watery and aching. He cocked a knee, groaning at the pain. The breeze sounded stiffer, a whistling of winds stronger than ordinary coastal gusts. Schmidt’s damp shirt flapped around his narrow hips, untucked by what seemed to be a sudden gale.

  Not the wind. That sound’s mechanical. The rumble Charlie heard wasn’t hard weather unexpectedly storming off the sea. It was closer, localized, emanating from a single place. The place in question was not far above him.

  Schmidt had struck another theatrical pose, his pistol above his head in a two-handed grip, a master marksman lowering his sights to the bull’s-eye. It seemed, however — it seemed to Charlie — that he was fighting with the gun, not quite able to pull it down, wrestling against some power that pulled it upward.

  The roar of tidal waves and runaway trains, a pocket hurricane over Charlie’s head. The noise was unbearable. Charlie dropped prone, his fingers in his ears.

  Schmidt’s sunglasses flew from his face. His eyes were wide and round and brown and unfocused, a cow’s eyes, rolling with myopic terror in the face of thunder and lightning. The Gulfstream’s jet engine, powering up, sucked the pistol from his hand. He tried to leap down from his perch atop the TransAm, but could not. He could not move, and — evident from the fury on his face — he could not escape.

  Seven tons of thrust, the man said. He called it a flying vacuum cleaner. It can suck roofs off houses and livestock —

  Schmidt shrieked. Loud though fourteen thousand pounds of jet power might be, Schmidt’s rage was louder. “Fuck, shit!” he screamed, rising into the air. For just a moment, he hovered, floating in a sort of stillness as if weighed in the hand of a judging God.

  Judgement rendered, he disappeared with shocking swiftness.

  The engine’s pitch changed, an abrupt grinding sound, and by the time the copilot switched the engine off, Johan Schmidt was neither meat nor morsel, but only a sewer stench that turned Charlie’s stomach.

  Charlie glanced up at the cockpit window. The major was there, and maybe he was smiling. Maybe not. In either case, he’d gotten the message: If you ever need a hand, just give me a thumbs-up. That’s all it’ll take. Thumbs-up and I’m there for you.

  He forced himself erect, limping towards Irina. He would not, would not, not, not, look over his shoulder to see what had been blown out of the engine’s exhaust port. He looked only at a girl still breathing, although not breathing much. There was nothing that could be done for her. Charlie had seen enough death and more than enough. He knew where life’s borderline lay, knew that she was on its other side.

  A single vein throbbed in his neck. All else was frozen, not the least evidence of a bone-breaking struggle within.

  Mankiller. Assassin. Avenging angel. He’d mastered the art of smothering his emotions, and he’d never needed it more than he did now.

  No mercy, no prisoners, the war he waged against himself ended in seconds, reason triumphant because he was who he was, and only could be true to himself.

  Ice not man, he bent over Irina, she beneath the Gulfstream’s wing, untouched by the turbine vortex that had devoured Schmidt. The computer disk, the Whirlwind disk, was in her breast pocket.

  He’d failed her. He would not fail his son. Tears would have to wait. He had a job to do. Two jobs, really. One was seeing to it that his son did not follow his father to prison. The other was killing Dr. Sangin Wing.

  Nothing personal. Charlie just needed to kill someone at this present time. A Chinese spy would be as satisfactory as anyone else he could name.

  He lifted the Whirlwind disk from Irina’s pocket, slipping it into his own. He might have kissed her then, but stopped himself. If he did that, it would be the end, and he’d still be by her side when the law came.

  He saw Scott jump from the plane, medical kit in hand.

  Waste of time. The girl had stopped breathing. She wasn’t Irina anymore. She was just a dead thing. Charlie stood and walked away.

  Schmidt had left the keys in his Mercedes M-Class’s ignition. Fidelio played softly on the stereo: Oh namenlosen Freude, oh unnameable joy.

  Not hardly. Charlie switched it off.

  He pulled out of the parking lot, passing a fire truck — siren wailing, lights flashing — as he turned onto the highway.

  Somewhere down the road he’d abandon the Mercedes and steal a different vehicle. Somewhere farther on he’d get his leg stitched up again. Then he’d arrange a meeting with one of the Sledgehammer’s friends — someone who could unlock the contents of an encrypted disk. It would be expensive. He didn’t mind. Buying Scott his freedom was the best use to which the money could be put.

  And after that?

  Dr. Wing, of course. Quick and clean because he’d take no pleasure in it, and would be no happier once it was done.

  Then what?

  He could give himself up, he supposed. Or he could kill himself. That would save everyone a lot of trouble.

  He wasn’t sure which was the better choice. He’d make up his mind later.

  Epilogue

  The Fall of the Following Year

  Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.

  — H. L. MENCKEN

  Most of the packing boxes were full. Tomorrow the movers would come. If the trucking company was to be believed, two weeks after that the McKenzie household’s possessions would arrive at a ranch with a fine ocean view, not far from the village of San Carlos do Cabo.

  Sitting among the crates, Charlie typed a last letter to his wife.

  He’d been writing her less often these past months. Life was changing — had changed. He was moving on. Mary understood. She was moving on too.

  He was so concentrated on perfecting every word and phrase that he did not hear the footsteps behind him. Despite five months’ pregnancy and a beach-ball belly, she moved like a cat, and startled him with a kiss.

  He laughed, “Hey, you can do better than pecking my cheek, can’t you?”

  “Of course I can. You will stand up now, please.”

  He took her in his arms and it was maybe the best and most loving kiss he’d ever had — well, except for Mary’s — and Charlie McKenzie felt forty years younger.

  “I am the luckiest wom
an in the world.”

  Charlie drew his finger across her forehead, tracing the thin white scar that she would always bear. “In more ways than one,” he frowned, remembering a day of fire and fog; remembering the sight of his son in his rearview mirror; remembering how futile he thought Scott’s pounding on her chest was, and how useless he knew a Gulfstream’s emergency medical kit would be.

  But the San Carlos fire department rushed her to the town clinic, and she was still alive when the gurney rolled into ER. After fourteen hours of surgery, Scott collapsed. By then the danger was over, and, in any event, a surgical team from San Luis Obispo was on the scene.

  There’d been only one hero that day, only one. Charlie was damned proud of him.

  Prouder still of Irina, cradling in her womb another McKenzie who, in four months’ time, would begin life in San Carlos, a village where the child’s mother had — in a very real sense — begun hers.

  Now he looked deep into her eyes, savoring the memory of a perfect kiss, just the one he wanted, packed with all the affection in the world, and none of sex. Thank God she’s over it. Me too.

  Scott came into the room. “Dad, will you please stop hitting on my wife.”

  Irina looked sternly over her shoulder at her husband. “Be careful, you. You can be replaced easily, I think.”

  Cocking an eyebrow, Scott folded his arms. Charlie winked at him. Keeping his distance from Irina during the months she’d been under Scott’s full-time care had been a struggle. He rationed his visits, stopping by rarely, just often enough to give the two of them a nudge in the right direction. It hadn’t been much of a challenge. Scott had fallen for her more or less the first time he laid eyes on her. Nor did it take long for Irina, smart girl…damnit, woman… that she was, to see Scott for what he’d always been, a considerably upgraded version of his old man — Charlie: Release 2.0.

  Yeah, sure, he knew she still loved him. Always would. But now he was — as maybe he had been all along — a proxy for the good father she’d never had. Nothing wrong with that. Plenty right. It felt fine too, felt a hell of a lot better than taking advantage of a beautiful young woman in the springtime of her life, saddling her with an over-the-hill codger more than twice her age.

  He admired his upright behavior, and regretted it only slightly. Irina knew exactly what he’d done. He’d never fooled her. He never would. From now on, for the rest of her life, she need not ask herself what was right and what was wrong. The only question I must ask is: What would Charlie do?

  She watched his handsome face turn from affection to dismay as Carly — thunder and lightning in her eyes — stalked through the door, her two thoroughly cowed children in tow. Jason wore short pants, a blue blazer, and a red striped tie. Molly was adorned in a frock whose expense had made Irina blanch — until she heard what Carly had paid for her own summery, ever-so-Washingtonian ensemble: hat, gloves, and all.

  “Dad!” The voice of doom. “You’re not meeting the president dressed like that!”

  Charlie in grey twill cavalry slacks and a collarless cobalt Walking Man shirt, growled, “As a matter of fact, I am.” Oh, Charlie, you have used the wrong tone of voice, I think.

  “I wasn’t asking a question. I was stating a fact.”

  Irina looked at him with sympathy. He was going to lose, and knew it. Heaving a theatrical sigh, he tried to wheedle a compromise: “Sport coat, white shirt, no tie.”

  “Tie.”

  “No tie.”

  “Tie!” She shook her index finger at him, as lethal a weapon as Irina had ever seen. “My children are not appearing in front of every news camera in America with their grandfather looking like…like…” Sputtering with anger, she was unable to finish her sentence with the insult it required.

  “Okay, okay,” Charlie yielded, although not gracefully. “The one from Thailand, the one made of four-hundred-year-old silk. When he hands me the pardon, I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing my neckwear is more expensive than his.”

  Victorious, Carly marched out of the room.

  Irina caught a glimpse of herself, a reflection in a window. She was not as fashionably dressed as Carly, wore no jewelry but for a simple gold band, wore no makeup at all. Someday perhaps, some special day, she would surprise Charlie and don the jewels he’d pressed on her, gold and gems made all the more precious because, he’d said, his wife had instructed him to give them to her. With a Gioconda smile, she linked arms with her father-in-law. “The American people are not so smart, I think.”

  “Oh, yes, they are,” Charlie retorted, hugging her close. “There’s not a voter in this country who doesn’t recognize a professionally staged photo op when he sees one. And there’s not a voter who believes the story Washington has been feeding them. Our citizens may not always know what the truth is, but they’ll spot a lie every time.”

  Lie, hell, Charlie thought, it was a whopper of positively epic proportions. The spin doctors had concocted a cock-and-bull story about the Dutch ambassador being gunned down on the Van Wyck Expressway by members of a terrorist conspiracy. A baloney sandwich to be sure, with extra baloney on top — at the Agency’s behest, Deputy Operations Director Charles McKenzie, that patriotic paragon, heroically allowed himself to be unjustly accused and imprisoned, thus luring the forces of evil into a false sense of security. Nonetheless the intrepid McKenzie (ably assisted by Federal Officers Participating In A Multi-Agency Task Force ferchristsake), was on the case.

  Said case culminating in the hijacking of the national security advisor’s plane, and we mourn the memory of a loyal public servant who sacrificed his life so that the nation’s enemies could be brought to justice.

  There were enough loose bodies, a few of which looked credibly Mideastern, strewn around San Carlos to lend a minimum amount of believability to the fairy tale.

  Said fairy tale being improvised under pressure, by the way, because Charlie had secreted the full contents of the Whirlwind disk out on the Internet. Extra added attraction: Sam’s wholly damning confessions, every word of them, including a sentence that the White House devoutly wished no voter to hear: If he does know, he doesn’t give a flying fuck. It won’t happen on his watch.

  Charlie only wished he could have seen the president’s face when the downloaded recordings had arrived at the White House — accompanied by an e-mail itemizing in excruciating detail the media companies that would receive memorable recordings of Sam spilling his guts.

  Unless certain terms and conditions were met.

  Immunity for Scott, political asylum and citizenship for Irina, a pardon and apology for Charlie himself — stuff like that. Charlie asked for a lot.

  In the end he got it all, every damned thing, and he’d expected no less.

  A Secret Service agent popped his head through the door. “I just got a heads-up. Marine Corps One will be touching down on your lawn in three, that’s three, minutes.”

  “Dad —” Carly was back, brandishing shirt, tie, and jacket like implements of mass destruction.

  Good-naturedly, Charlie changed clothes. Irina tweaked his tie knot while Carly, bearing a tool kit that every mother carries, put a photogenic part in his hair.

  Charlie grinned at his daughter. Even though she didn’t smile back, he knew she was happy — in fact, downright ecstatic. A rural California village would be a good place to raise Jason and Molly. Her disgraced father was suddenly a national hero. And (ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies) she had a bank account that meant no more scrimping along on inadequate alimony checks. Moreover, she’d hit it off with Irina. That was a blessing. Living in the same house with two warring women was a bullet Charlie devoutly wished to duck. Besides, once the unnamed new McKenzie was born, Irina planned to pursue her doctorate at the University of California. Carly had volunteered that she wouldn’t mind having a Ph.D. after her name — unstated footnote: promising matrimonial candidates were as likely to be found among the ranks of post-doctoral scholars as anywhere else.

  Well,
the ranch house Charlie had bought was big enough for all of them. Scott had set up shop at the San Carlos clinic, his brother was applying for a tenure-track professorship an hour’s drive south, and Charlie himself had more or less decided that breeding pedigreed Maine Coon cats would be a fine way to spend his retirement years.

  It would be a good retirement, comfortably subsidized not only by the money he’d extorted out of Sam a year earlier, but also by his reinstated Agency pension and the check for three and a half years’ back pay the new director of Central Intelligence was obliged to present him in just a few minutes’ time.

  They walked out onto the porch, all six of them. Jason whined that he needed to go to the bathroom. Carly clipped him behind the ear. Molly smiled, as a sister always will when a brother is punished.

  Irina put her left arm around Charlie’s waist, her right around her husband’s. Marine Corps One hovered over the lawn, cameras rolling as it gently landed. Then the cameramen — there must have been thirty out there — panned slowly toward the house, focusing their lenses on a hero and his family waiting to greet the president of the United States.

  Charlie turned around and unloosened his belt.

  By his side, a sharply indrawn breath and a murderous whisper: “Dad! Don’t you dare!”

  Out of the corner of his mouth, Charlie answered sweetly, “Of course not, darling. My behavior shall be as though I am the veritable angel of the Lord.” To which he added silently, And smiting sinners is my job….

  Thanks To:

  The sturdy souls who read and mercilessly criticized my early drafts: Avner, Earl, Janice, Mary, Pete, and Terry.

  Ellen, Robert, and Scott at Trident Media who offered especially insightful advice.

  Editor Marjorie Braman and copy editor Bill Harris for their intelligence, patience, and peerless judgement.

  And special gratitude to Jack Francis and Gib Hoxie who advised me on matter aeronautical and nautical. Any errors are my fault, not theirs.