by Barry Eisler
“I was wondering if you were back yet.” Alex.
“Yeah. Just got here.”
“Did you see Sarah? She went out awhile ago.”
He hesitated. “Yeah, I saw her. She’s in her room. Listen, I need to go out again. I’ll come over there and brief you.”
He hung up, checked the corridor through the peephole, then walked across the hallway to the third room.
“How was Pearl’s?” Alex asked him.
For a second, Ben forgot he was supposed to have been there. “It was fine,” he said. “You get anything done?”
“Not really. We were experimenting with using Obsidian in different environments. No breakthroughs. And nothing in Hilzoy’s notes to help us. At least not that we’ve been able to recognize and use. I’m going to play around a little more on my own.”
“All right. I need to go out, do a few things.”
Alex raised his eyebrows quizzically. “What?”
Ben shook his head. “Just this and that. Day job stuff.” He didn’t distrust Alex, but Alex didn’t need to know, either, and operational security was operational security.
“Whatever,” Alex said. “Anyway, there’s something I was thinking about. When this is done, I was thinking maybe you and I … we could go to the cemetery.”
Ben frowned. “Why?”
“Just to pay our respects. You haven’t been around in a while. When was the last time you visited Mom and Dad’s graves? Or Katie’s?”
“I never visited them.”
“That’s kind of my point.”
Here we go again, Ben thought. Judging me. This time for not sharing his superstitions about genuflecting over a clod of dirt.
“I don’t do graves,” Ben said, tamping down his temper. “But if you want to, that’s fine. Knock yourself out.”
“You know, I don’t think I’m asking too much—”
“Yes, you are. You’re asking too much. Like always.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ben felt his temper slipping away like a greasy cord. “It means I almost ate a bullet today that was intended for you, and I don’t feel like a lecture now about how I’m a bad son and brother because I won’t pop over to the place where my parents’ and sister’s bodies currently serve as worm food.”
Alex’s jaw tightened. “Don’t talk like that.”
“Like what? They’re dead, Alex. They’re gone. They don’t exist.”
“Yeah? What did you do when they did exist? You were too busy to be with Mom even when she was dying!”
Ben felt a sort of heavy, angry surprise, and shook his head as if to clear it. How could this be happening? All the years, all the distance, and here they were, trapped in some kind of infinite loop. “What did you say?”
Alex started to take a step backward, but then held his ground. “You heard me.”
Ben paused, forcing the anger back. “I was there for her,” he said after a moment. “And she knew it.”
“She didn’t know it. All she knew was that you were too busy running around playing G.I. Joe to even be with her when she was sick.”
“I called her every goddamn day, Alex, and she understood why I couldn’t come back. She told me not to come.”
“You can’t recognize a politeness bluff? What did you want her to do, beg you to come? Fucking beg you? And you wouldn’t have, even if she did!”
“Oh, and you took care of her? I didn’t see you taking any time off from law school.”
“I didn’t have to take time off! I was there almost every day!”
“Alex, you’re so full of shit. You were there because you could be, because you could get all your studying done sitting with her in a hospital room. If you were with her it was only because it didn’t interfere with your almighty fucking career plans. You didn’t stay home to take care of her, you stayed home because you were afraid to do anything else.”
Alex’s voice drifted up a notch. “I was with her when she died. I was holding her hand, not sleeping like a baby in a different time zone.”
“She was unconscious for a month before she died, and no one knew when she was going to go,” Ben said, the anger building, trying to get around him. “She wouldn’t have noticed whether I was there or not.”
“She noticed,” Alex whispered, nodding. “She could tell.”
“She couldn’t tell shit!” Ben shouted. “Her brain was shot full of tumors, she was doped to the eyeballs, the hospital could have burned down around her and she wouldn’t have fucking known it! Why don’t you just admit that you were there for yourself, not for her, and you wouldn’t have been there at all if you ever had the balls to do anything else? Mom being sick was the best excuse anyone ever gave you to just stay at home and never go anywhere else!”
“Yes, I would have been with her! I was lucky I didn’t need to take time off from school, but I would have, and that’s more than you can say.”
“Tell yourself that. Whatever makes you feel better.”
“Listen to the way you talk about her,” Alex said. “You don’t even miss her, you prick.”
“I miss her,” Ben said, automatically, but the truth was, he didn’t. He never thought of her. Of any of them. What good would it do?
“Yeah? Do you miss Dad?”
“Don’t go there, Alex. You’re not going to like what happens if you do.”
“You ever wonder why he did it?”
“I’m warning you, Alex.” What the hell? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d warned someone of anything. He hated warnings, real or bluff. When you’re going to do it, you do it. You don’t alert the other side so they can get ready. What was it about being with his brother that made him think and act like a teenager again?
“You want to know what I think?” Alex said.
“No. Not even a little. Just shut the fuck up now.”
“I think when you gave up, he did, too.”
Ben felt the blood drain from his face. He could see himself grabbing Alex’s neck and smashing his face into the wall again and again. His muscles bunched with the urge—Do it just do it beat the smugness out of the little shit teach him once and for all what happens when you fuck with the wrong people—but something held him back. Barely.
He needed to get out. If he stayed, he was going to hurt Alex.
And that would be bad because … ?
He turned and walked out of the room. Alex might have called from behind him, he wasn’t sure. The hallway was rimmed with red and he could hear a ringing in his ears.
He’d never wanted to kill someone as badly as he did right then. Well, the night was still young.
23 OUTTHOUGHT
Ben drove south on 280, the cruise control set for seventy because with the rage still coursing through him he couldn’t trust himself not to speed. It was late and traffic was light. The hills glowed faintly under a high crescent moon.
He had already decided to do one more thing tonight, and he was going to do it. Most likely nothing would come of it anyway, but by God he was going to stick to the plan no matter how hard the little shit tried to get under his skin.
He forced all the bullshit out of his mind and concentrated on tactical considerations. He started to feel better. This is who he was. This is what he was good at.
They’d sent someone for Alex at the hotel. Meaning they knew he was moving around. Meaning they probably wouldn’t bother making another run at his house. But there was a chance they might, depending on how healthy their numbers remained after they’d lost two at the Four Seasons. If they had no other leads, they might go with the only information they had: work address during the day; home address at night. He imagined himself in their shoes, whoever they were. He would know it was unlikely the target would reappear, but nor was it impossible. Alex was a civilian. It would be hard for him to break out of the patterns and habits of his daily life. He’d be in denial, too. Eventually the two could combine—an item left at home that he realized he needed,
a moment of wishful thinking, and the target might reappear at a known nexus. Ben had seen it happen before, and had been there to take advantage of it.
He’d seen at the Four Seasons that the objective of their operation had changed. It was no longer about interrogating Alex first; now it was a straightforward elimination. Under the circumstances, the question then became: Knowing what you know about Alex, where would you lay an ambush at his house?
The answer was easy. The house and a detached garage formed an L at the end of the driveway, with a wooden gate separating them and leading to the backyard. Wait behind the gate. You’d have perfect concealment, and line of sight over the whole driveway. When Alex gets home, it doesn’t matter whether he parks in the driveway or the garage. All you need to do is step out from concealment, blow his brains out with a suppressed pistol, and walk to whatever quiet side street you’d used to park your vehicle. Thank you for playing; next contestant.
If someone were waiting there, his attention would be focused on the driveway and, to a lesser extent, the street beyond it. He wouldn’t be thinking about the backyard. It wouldn’t occur to him that someone might know this terrain, and use it. Someone who, say, used to cut through the backyard, and the neighbor’s yard behind it, on his way to and from school every day.
He got off 280 at the Portola Valley–Alpine Road exit and headed south on Alpine past the low-slung wooden buildings of the Ladera shopping center, where his mom had bought groceries and his dad made sure the cars were gassed up and the tires full. His parents’ house— Alex’s house—was on a cul-de-sac called Corona Way, one of many such small streets in a neighborhood dotted with rambling houses and large, hilly lots. He made a right on La Mesa Drive, then a left on Erica Way, uneasy at how comfortable the turns were, how familiar the landscape.
There were some cars parked on the tree-lined streets, Lexuses and Mercedes and Volvos that looked like they belonged. He cruised by them slowly, checking the interiors. They were all empty, the windshields and hoods covered in evening dew.
He pulled over and killed the headlights, then opened up his bag and took out a pair of night-vision goggles. Night Optics USA D-321G-A, about six grand a pair if you could find them outside the military. And small and lightweight enough to make a perfect stocking stuffer. He adjusted the headgear and clicked on the unit, and suddenly the world was in sharp, green focus. Rock and roll.
He turned left on Escanyo Way, a cul-de-sac roughly paralleling Corona and separated from it by two winding rows of houses and yards and a thicket of trees. The street was empty of cars and there were no streetlights. He parked alongside a stand of redwood trees between two houses—the Levins’ and the Andrewses’, he remembered, if they even still lived here. Alex used to play hide-and-seek out here with their kids. He made sure the car’s interior light was set to the off position and got out, easing the door closed behind him.
The air was cold and moist and smelled of conifers and peat moss. He closed his eyes and stood with his head cocked for a moment, listening. The wind rustled in the tops of the trees, carrying with it the faintest whoosh, whoosh of the thin traffic on 280. How many nights had he snuck out, or in, along this very route, nights that smelled and sounded exactly like this one? He remembered standing in this very spot, taking a drunken leak among the trees, hoping his parents were deeply asleep, coming up with stories in case they weren’t. And then there was the time—
Enough. Focus.
Right. He eased the Glock out and headed up the grass at the extreme edge of the Levins’ front yard. He moved slowly, placing each foot carefully toe-heel against the damp grass, pausing after each step to look and listen.
It took him four minutes to cover the fifty feet to the wooden fence enclosing Alex’s backyard. It wasn’t a high fence, only six feet, built less for privacy than to contain the family dog, Arlo, a mildly neurotic poodle their mother had doted on but whom Ben had mostly just tolerated, and who in any event had long since shuffled off that mortal canine coil. He stood on his toes in the shadows of a clump of oak trees and looked over the fence. He could see the spot at the corner of the house and garage as clearly as though someone had thrown a spotlight on it. It was empty. He glanced around the yard. It was exactly as he remembered. The clubhouse their father had built them when they were kids. The hot tub no one ever used. It was like Alex was living in some kind of family museum. It was pathetic.
He scanned the yard and, seeing no one, put the Glock back into the holster and pulled himself carefully up onto the fence. He turned sideways, eased over his right leg, then his left, then slowly lowered himself to the ground. He brought out the Glock again and waited, looking and listening. Nothing.
Most of the yard was covered in wood chips or gravel. He avoided those areas, keeping to the grass, staying in the shadows. Step. Stop. Look and listen. Step. Stop. Look and listen.
The spot by the garage was so perfect an ambush point that once he had confirmed it was empty he doubted anyone was here. Probably they were short on manpower at this point. Or they figured Alex wasn’t coming back tonight. Or both.
Still, best to be certain. The only other spot that would make any sense as an ambush point was the opposite corner of the house, which faced the street at the end of a narrow dog run framed by the house on one side and the fence on the other. You could stand at the front corner in the dark and still see the street, then head back toward the garage when you saw a car turn in.
He moved carefully toward the house, stopping at the raised wooden deck that led to a pair of sliding doors and the kitchen. Step. Stop. Look and listen. He hunkered low, taking advantage of the cover and concealment the deck offered, and began to move laterally.
He was almost at the left corner of the house, and getting ready to take a quick peek past the edge, when he heard a voice from behind him, quiet but cutting with deadly intent through the silent night air.
“Don’t turn around. I’m wearing goggles, too. I’m behind cover, and there’s a laser dot right on your spine.”
Ben had a nanosecond to decide whether to instantly turn and engage or to comply. The calm confidence in the voice, and the facts it had just articulated, persuaded him the second choice was better. For now.
He remained motionless. Where was the guy? From where the voice had come from, he must be behind the hot tub.
“Drop the gun and lose the goggles,” the voice said. “Move very, very slowly. The laser is attached to a Taurus Judge.”
Ben knew the model—a revolver that could be chambered with .410 shotgun ammunition, rifled to disperse the shot and shred a fist-sized hole from twenty feet out.
In instant mental shorthand, his mind processed the available information. The accent was American, the diction idiomatic. He understood Ben knew firearms, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to count on the mention of the Taurus having the desired effect. He didn’t want Ben dead—yet—otherwise he’d be dead already.
So they wanted something from him. He would find out what soon enough. In the meantime, he had a few advantages. Very small, under the circumstances, but better than nothing at all. He closed his eyes.
“Drop the gun and lose the goggles,” the voice said again.
He waited, figuring he’d get one last warning, using the extra seconds to think, to give his eyes more time to adjust to the dark he would face without the goggles.
He understood the nature of his mistake. He’d assumed they would be laying an ambush for Alex, a civilian. Instead, they’d been ready for an operator, him, and adjusted their tactics and positioning accordingly. He was furious with himself for failing to have foreseen this. After they’d lost two at the Four Seasons that morning, they would have known there was serious opposition. They’d outthought him. And outplayed him.
Then he realized. The girl. Goddamn her. Goddamn himself, for letting his guard down. She was plenty smart, smarter than you’d have to be to figure out what he was planning on tonight. She’d made a call, after their littl
e moment in the corridor. And that clueless pat-down in the bar … she played dumb like a pro.
“One more chance to lose the gun and the goggles, and then I put you down.”
Without turning, Ben extended the Glock away from his body, moving very slowly as though trying to reassure the guy of his docility, but in fact giving his closed eyes precious seconds more to adjust. The Glock dropped to the wet grass with a quiet thump.
“Now the goggles. Slowly.”
The empty holster felt like a hollow in his guts. The knowledge that Alex had his backup made him want to puke. Slowly, slowly, he loosened the headgear and eased off the goggles. He opened his eyes. He had a little night vision back. But not enough. Not yet. He extended the goggles to his side and let them fall.
“Where’s the one who lives here?” the voice asked.
Thank God he’d put Alex in the extra room. They must have checked the one where the girl thought he was sleeping. It was something, but it wouldn’t last. In just a few hours, Alex would wake up and probably knock on Sarah’s door. Without Ben to warn him, he’d be toast.
He didn’t answer. The guy had given him three tries on the gun and goggles. Now that Ben was disarmed and running blind, the guy could be expected to be at least that patient again.
“Where is he?” the voice asked.
“I don’t know,” Ben said.
“We don’t want to hurt him. He has something we need. If he hands it over, he walks away. Simple.”
If he hadn’t been a hair away from being eviscerated with buckshot, Ben might have laughed. He knew what the guy was doing: helping Ben rationalize giving Alex up. Don’t help us, and you die, went the implicit calculus. Do help us, and your brother will be fine. Easy, right?
“I really don’t know,” Ben said. He shifted his eyes left, then right. Things were coming into focus now in the faint moonlight. And he knew the layout, knew it by heart.
“Let me tell you how it’s going to be,” the voice said. “You tell me where he is. I make a phone call. Some people go talk to him. You and I wait here, in his nice, warm house. When the people call me back to tell me they have what we need, we all go away, and everyone lives happily ever after. Sound good?”