“Do you want to know which are sex and which are deaths?” she asked.
“No. I want to go back to us not talking.”
“Fine.”
We rolled over the Ohio border, as evidenced by the sign welcoming us, and I checked the gas gauge. Still a quarter tank left. Behind me the sun was setting, bright enough to make me flip the dimmer switch on the rearview mirror. I could still smell the gas station tuna sandwiches we’d eaten hours ago, their plastic wrap balled up in the cup holder. I cracked the window, letting in some fresh air and some noise from the wind.
“The one-sixty were hits,” Hammett said.
“What? Jesus.”
“I know. I can’t believe I slept with more than two hundred people.”
“I meant the hits, Hammett.”
“It’s weird you’re focusing on the deaths, and not the sex partners.”
“That number is astonishing, too. Can you even remember all the guys?”
“They weren’t all guys.” She smirked, then winked. “And yes, I remember every one. Every death, too. Except those weren’t all one-on-one. Well, technically, neither was all the sex. But the deaths, more than half were from bombing an embassy. Also, a lot were on vacation.”
“You kill people on vacation?”
“No. I’m talking about the sex again. After a hit I like to take a few weeks off, unwind. I find that I’m really horny after an op. I go through partners like Kleenex. Are you like that?”
I was, except for the multiple-partners thing. But I didn’t feel a need to share that with her. Hammett continued, not needing any prodding.
“Before I killed my shrink, he said my hypersexuality could be due to the abuse when I was a kid.” Hammett wiggled her toes and began picking at a nail. “But I think that’s crazy. Sexual abuse doesn’t make you more sexual. It makes you hate sex. It took me a while to get over that.”
What was going unsaid hung in the air like the cigarette odor after a poker party. I didn’t want to talk about her past abuse. I didn’t want to talk to her, period. But when someone opens up to you like that, what are you supposed to do? Ignore it? Pretend it wasn’t said, and all is right and rosy in the world?
She could have been lying to get my sympathy. It would be pretty low, but Hammett was pretty low in general.
Yet, there was an undeniable ring of truth about it. I remembered my childhood. It had been grim. Add sexual abuse to the mix, there was no telling how I would have turned out.
Or maybe I knew that answer and didn’t want to think about it.
“I know we hate each other,” Hammett said. “But since we’re working together, it can’t hurt to know how we tick.”
“If you’re even telling the truth.”
“Fair enough. But we both know I am.”
Ten more miles passed in silence.
“Was it your stepfather?” I finally asked.
She nodded. “Started on my twelfth birthday. Went on for two years.”
“Then you got away from him?”
“Then I killed him. Funny. He was my first sex, and my first murder.”
“Hammett, that…that’s not sex. That’s molestation.”
“I know. I’m a victim, Chandler, not an idiot. But like it or not, he was my first. On both counts. Want to hear something really fucked up? It was so bad, I disassociated myself from it. Pretended I had an older sister named Rebecca, and she was the one being abused. And me, Betsy, I watched what was happening, but it didn’t hurt me because it wasn’t me.”
I didn’t know what to say. While I knew Hammett was a psychopath, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Betsy.
“That which does not kill you makes you bitter. Stronger, too, I guess. But I would have preferred getting that strength some other way, like in the gym, or playing an organized sport. You don’t list rape on your college application as a character builder.”
“Are you…” I wasn’t sure how to put it.
“Over it? Sometimes I think so. Other times, not. I’ve done worse to people. A lot worse. You were never…?”
“No.”
I hadn’t had a happy childhood. With the foster homes after my parents’ deaths, the bastard who had eventually adopted me, and my sadistic boyfriend Cory taking me along on his killing spree when I was fourteen, I’d had a few hurdles to jump in my young life. But I’d never experienced what Hammett had. Or more accurately, what Betsy had.
“But you were raped,” Hammett said. “By The Instructor.”
I thought back to training, his offer to me, and a bad taste hovered at the back of my mouth. “I…It wasn’t rape. It was consensual.”
“He didn’t come into your room and force himself on you?”
“No. He told me a sex drive was healthy and normal, and I could use him if I needed it.”
Hammett snorted. “And you took him up on it.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t. I laughed in his face and called him a pervert. I was right, I guess. A few weeks later, he came at me when I was sleeping.”
“That’s…Jesus…”
Hammett shrugged. “Wasn’t the worst part of Hydra training. Not by a long shot. In fact, crazy as it sounds, it got me over my fear of sex.”
That was a lot to process. I let her words sink in, nothing but the hum of tires on pavement filling the space between us.
“Shocked?” Hammett said. I could feel her watching me out of the corner of her eye.
I was, although I probably shouldn’t have been. But that wasn’t the reason for my silence.
“I don’t understand.”
“Understand? What is there to understand?”
I glanced from the highway for a moment and focused on her. “How could you work for him afterward?”
Hammett looked at me, her expression puzzled. “You know what Hydra was all about, right? What The Instructor did?”
I brought my eyes back to the road.
“He made us fearless, Chandler. We are badass motherfuckers.”
I shook my head, although even as I was doing it, I recognized it was pointless to deny what she was saying. Although I’d never felt fearless. Not exactly.
“We’re weapons. We use our bodies to kill people. Sometimes, in order to create the opportunity to kill them, we have to sleep with them. You’ve slept with targets.”
I had. And I didn’t want to discuss it. I didn’t want to think about it at all.
“Don’t tell me you’re weird about this,” Hammett said. “You can’t say murder is OK but rape is despicable.”
“It is despicable.”
“They’re both despicable. You’ve drawn some pretty creative ethical lines in the sand. You can murder some people, but not others. You can torture people, but only if you don’t enjoy it. You should never rape, but you can slit a man’s throat while he’s inside you. You have to see the disconnect there. It’s beyond hypocritical. It’s self-deceptive.”
My instinct was to ignore her, to figuratively plug my ears with my fingers and sing la-la-la-la. She didn’t know anything about me or my life. Hers had been different. Very different. She’d been through things as a child and with The Instructor—life-altering things—that I hadn’t.
We weren’t the same at all.
But I couldn’t leave it at that. Because as much as I wanted to tell myself that I couldn’t even begin to imagine where she was coming from, the truth was, like nearly any woman, I could identify with it.
“Hammett…what was done to you…as a kid…”
“I worked it out.”
“That was as wrong as wrong can be.”
“I said I worked it out. The Instructor, he knew about my past. My last hit with Hydra was a child molester. If there was an award for suffering before death, that guy won it. The things I did to him…I had to stop twice and puke.”
I noticed the tears spiking Hammett’s eyelashes, even though her voice stayed steady. She turned away and looked out the window.
“When he finally died, I got his hard drive off his computer. List of all his pedophile buddies. So I looked them all up, one at a time. Made sure when they got to hell, it was with their dicks stuffed in their mouths.”
She drew herself up in her seat and stared straight ahead, her lips pressed into something between hard resolve and a smile. “I guess you could say I went rogue.”
The Instructor had told me a little about this a few days ago, the first time I’d seen him since training. In light of recent events, my biggest surprise was that his story that day had any truth to it at all. I’d assumed every word was a lie.
“And you recruited your sisters—”
“Our sisters. The Instructor sent them after me.” Her expression morphed into a full smile. “I won them over, which forced The Instructor to see things my way.”
“And he brought you in as an independent contractor.”
“On the London thing. Yes.”
“He manipulated you,” I said, waiting to see how she would respond when the psychoanalysis spotlight was turned on her.
“Hmm?”
“The Instructor. He knew that pedophile hit would be personal. Knew it would send you over the edge.”
Hammett laughed, abrupt like a bark. “Never thought about that before. I suppose it’s possible. Why not? That son of a bitch knew everything about me. Better than I knew myself.”
“He used you.”
“Yeah. Sure seems like it now. When he started his little side project, he arranged for me to break with Hydra so I’d be there to run it for him. Makes sense.”
“His little side project was to discredit the president. And when that didn’t work, to kill him and get the VP in power. Does he own the VP?”
“From what I’ve surmised, yes.” She shook her head, chuckling. “The man is a piece of shit, but you gotta admire his style.”
“So how did you go from killing child molesters to nuking London?”
“The money was good.”
“Seriously? Genocide is OK if you’re paid enough?”
“Your hypocrisy is showing again, Chandler. You get paid for killing one person, and that’s fine. But getting paid more to kill a lot of people violates some code? That’s bullshit. Either you kill for money, or you don’t. Either life is sacred, or it isn’t. Everything else is shades of gray.”
We drove the next ten miles without talking. Much as I didn’t want to understand Hammett, or her insane motivation, I felt like I was starting to. That was bad, because understanding led to empathy, which would get in the way when it came time to kill her. She’d had some tragedy in her life. But she’d also tried to kill millions. People like Hammett shouldn’t be allowed free rein. Even if she had been manipulated.
“So what’s your number?” Hammett asked. “Are you even in double digits?”
“Let’s not talk anymore.”
“Well, shit, let’s do something. We got another five hours in the car. If we can’t pretend to be human beings, then at least put on the radio.”
I put on the radio. Hammett fussed with the dial for a few miles, unable to listen to an entire song straight through. And much as I didn’t want to, I found myself totaling up numbers in my head. I wasn’t in danger of breaking either of her records, and at my pace I wouldn’t ever break them unless I lived for another hundred years. But I was easily in double digits in both categories. And unlike my sister, my sanctions far outnumbered the men I’d slept with.
I wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Hammett switched off the radio, seemingly unable to decide upon a station. We drove another thirty miles, then pulled off the highway and stopped at a gas station. I kept my head down, mindful of pump cameras, and Hammett paid cash and returned with two black coffees and some questionable-looking fruit.
“I like apples, figured you must, too.”
I did, but instead of acknowledging it, I said, “We aren’t the same, Hammett.”
“I know. You’re boring, and a grump ass, and an idiot, and a hypocrite, and I’m more fun and have bigger tits.”
“If by fun you mean psychotic, I agree.” I pulled back onto the interstate.
“You say I’m psychotic. But I don’t hallucinate, I’m not catatonic, and I don’t have delusions or thought disorders.”
“You fired a nuclear missile at England. I’d say that qualifies as a thought disorder.”
“You just can’t get over that. I was following orders, doing a job. And it was a political move, not personal. The dead would have been collateral damage.”
“I think that satisfies the delusion requirement as well.”
Hammett bit into an apple. “Point is, I didn’t nuke anyone. It isn’t fair to blame me for something I didn’t finish.”
I bridled at that. “Of course it’s fair! The very fact that you’d even think such a thing is proof that you have a severe mental disorder.”
“According to your boyfriend, you’re just as bad as I am.” Hammett lowered her voice to imitate Lund. “You ended a man’s life, and felt nothing at all. That sounds pretty psychotic to me. Pot, meet kettle.”
I grabbed the other apple from her lap, realized I didn’t want Hammett picking out my food for me, then set it back down.
“What?” she said. “I’m going to poison you while you’re driving at seventy-five miles an hour? I think that satisfies your delusion requirement.”
She was right, and I took the apple again, polishing it on my shirt. “We’re done talking.”
“You’ve said that already.”
“I mean it this time.”
“You didn’t mean it when you said it before?”
I realized that was a ploy to keep me talking, so I didn’t respond. We ate our fruit in silence. Mine had a large bruise on one side, and I wondered if Hammett gave it to me on purpose. Then I wondered if she was correct, and I was acting delusional.
Did delusional people know they were delusional?
Hammett opened her window and tossed out the core. When she closed it again, she said, “I want to be the one who kills him.”
“The Instructor?”
“Yeah.”
Now that I could completely understand. “He’s all yours on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“No talking for the rest of the trip.”
Hammett was blessedly silent until we reached Illinois.
Julie
Beep…beep…beep…
The familiar sound of a heart monitor woke her.
Julie didn’t have to open her eyes to know she was in a hospital bed. She could feel the flimsy gown, smell the clash of scents, a touch of hospital mixed with a large dose of warehouse. Her mouth was dry and her head still rang from Earnshaw’s fist.
She remembered being awake when they’d taken her from the boat and loaded her into a van. The inside of the van looked more like an ambulance, with medical equipment and a stretcher in the back. But her memories felt like they belonged to someone else. Slippery and hard to grab hold of.
Julie forced her eyes open and saw concrete walls. Her wrists and ankles bound to the bed frame. She was tired, so tired she couldn’t keep her eyelids open, and she knew it was from sedatives dripping from the IV tube snaking into the back of her hand.
Plum Island. Julie knew she was back. Yet somehow it wasn’t the same. Maybe it wasn’t Plum Island, since Chandler had destroyed the lab there. But wherever she was, she wasn’t the same girl. This time, she knew what was going on. She knew what the people who took her wanted.
And most of all, she knew she was powerless to stop them.
Fleming
“Plans backfire,” The Instructor said. “Learn to improvise.”
In New Jersey, Fleming switched license plates off a minivan parked outside of a strip club. Skirting Philadelphia, she began to feel fatigued, and increasingly vulnerable. She stopped at a gas station to top off the tank, made use of the ladies’ room, and bought some fruit and energy dri
nks to get her through the long journey she had to go. Then it was back on the road.
Normally, Fleming enjoyed being alone. Solitude allowed for contemplation, self-reflection. Her life with Hydra had been stretches of inactivity punctuated by life-or-death situations. The downtime allowed her to recharge for the periods of intensity.
But these last few days had been all about intensity, and Fleming couldn’t shut her mind off. Though exhausted, her brain was working overtime, trying to plan six steps ahead so nothing went wrong. That wasn’t easy. Each move required anticipation of countermoves, and that led to hundreds of variations, the vast majority of which ended with Fleming and her sisters dead or imprisoned.
She couldn’t handle being locked up again. But the more she dwelled on the plan, the more convoluted and impossible it became. Maybe it would be smarter to run away and hide on some island, or in some third-world country. Plastic surgery, laying low, staying off the grid.
But she knew that wouldn’t work. Every time she heard a noise at night, she would imagine it to be special-ops assassins. Every man flirting with her in a bar would be a spy. Every time a phone rang, it was to detonate a bomb under her chair.
Fleming was paranoid for a reason. She knew what it was like to be hunted by the government, because she used to be the one hunting people. And no one could disappear forever, unless the government wanted them to.
The only way to live a long, happy life was to clean up this gigantic mess, no matter how impossible it seemed. Or else she might as well just pull over and eat her shotgun right now.
Fleming reached the outskirts of Baltimore just as the sun was starting to rise. By that time she would have killed a dozen people for a single espresso, but she forced herself to drive past at least six Starbucks and head straight to the address they’d found for the robotics technician, Bradley Milton.
The neighborhood was quiet, upscale condominium communities, fenced gardens, ample green space. People jogged and walked dogs and biked, and Fleming even saw a Rollerblader, surprised the fad was still around. She turned into the complex parking lot, no attendant or gate, and had just located his unit in the maze of buildings when she saw the man himself, travel mug in hand, heading for his car.
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