by Jason Kasper
She cast a final forlorn glance across my injuries and turned, passing through the curtain and leaving me alone.
FATE
Antebellum
-Before the war
9
The plane touched down and began its howling deceleration on the Handler’s airstrip as I braced myself on the stretcher. The curtain surrounding the medical area had been pulled back, revealing the otherwise nondescript interior of a cargo plane whose glow had transitioned from white to red lighting half an hour ago, just as the plane started to descend.
Now that we had landed, Parvaneh, Micah, and Reilly rose from their seats and clustered around me. Parvaneh spoke first.
“You don’t have to get up. We can cover you with a parka and roll the stretcher.”
She and Micah had already donned black coats, and Micah held an extra one for me. I thought about meeting the Handler like this—my angle of fire restricted to a waist-high plane of limited visibility, unable to move or pivot to influence the last bullet I’d ever fire.
“I can walk.”
She looked to Reilly for approval.
“How far does he need to move, ma’am?” Micah looked up sharply, and Reilly corrected himself. “Sorry—I don’t need to know, I’m not asking. If David feels his pain is manageable, then he’ll be able to walk.”
The plane came to a complete halt with a final quaking lurch of brakes, and Reilly assisted me to a standing position. I fought to keep my left arm motionless within the sling, but the pain was immense. Unwilling to risk a deadening of my reflexes at this crucial time, I’d refused further painkillers. As a result, my broken left humerus once again felt like jagged bones grating against one another.
Micah draped a parka over my shoulders and leaned in so Reilly couldn’t hear. “Don’t worry. You’re not going far.”
I nodded, watching the ramp lower at the rear of the aircraft.
Darkness lay beyond, and a single figure approached. I wouldn’t be lucky enough for the Handler to board, I knew, and assumed the approaching form would be Sage.
But instead of the redheaded woman it was an Asian man—tall, broad-shouldered, long hair combed back into a low bun. Drastic eyebrows belied a face that was perfectly composed, relaxed even.
He stopped before Parvaneh, speaking in a deep voice rich with formality. “Welcome back, ma’am. I speak for everyone when I say that—”
“Where is he, Ishway?”
“Waiting for you inside, ma’am.” He held a hand out toward me, and within his gloved palm was a familiar pair of blacked-out goggles.
Parvaneh shook her head. “David has spilled blood for this Organization and saved my life. He’s not an outsider anymore.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The goggles vanished back into Ishway’s coat pocket. He looked to Reilly and said, “Thank you for your service to the Organization. Everything that has transpired from the time you left your departure airfield in Brazil until you return to it is classified. You are not to speak of it again, under any circumstances. Anyone who inquires in any way must be reported to your Outfit chain of command at once.”
Reilly nodded his understanding and Ishway concluded, “You are to remain on the plane. You’ll be on your way as soon as the parcel is offloaded.”
Then he turned and led Parvaneh, Micah, and me toward the ramp. I was uncertain what he meant by “parcel” until I saw two additional men entering the plane and taking possession of the body bag containing Gabriel’s remains.
As we walked past them I glanced at the weapons slung over their shoulders, unable to stop myself any more than a lecher eyeing cleavage. They carried shorty M4s, 10.5-inch free-floating barrels and reflex sights that were probably good up to one hundred meters. No uniform consistency beyond civilian jackets worn under miniature plate carriers, bare except for extra rifle magazines. Varying degrees of beard growth and hair length—no one gave a shit what these two looked like as long as they could shoot, and do it well, and they paid us no mind as they prepared to lift Gabriel’s corpse.
We stepped off the ramp and into the freezing cold air, the unzipped parka over my shoulders doing little to ward off the chill but keeping my arm sling—and the pistol within it—readily accessible.
Our surroundings were only vaguely visible, with thick fog transmuting the first light of dawn into a dull luminescence. I looked down the runway that disappeared into the mist, seeing a straight strip of pavement devoid of markings or lights. There was no control tower. Glancing back at the plane, I saw it had no exterior lights on. The tail appeared a black shape in the darkness, and there was no way for me to see if it had a registration number. I caught Micah watching me closely, trailing a few steps behind and to the side.
Looking forward, I saw a murky forest drenched in fog. Towering pines ascended into a shapeless, smoky mist that hovered overhead, and as with my first visit, the smell of wet pine took hold once we passed beyond the fumes of plane exhaust. Once again, it was both cold and humid, but there was no snow at this early date in January; that combination of facts would have been ideal for narrowing weather patterns of the Pacific Northwest to pinpoint the Mist Palace’s location.
But I was past that point now, I reminded myself.
A chain-link fence with barbed wire appeared through the trees, the only portal through it a small building that we approached. What lay beyond the fence looked like a resort in the mountains: buildings were visible, to be sure, but only in hints amid the forest. Whoever had built the structures must have taken incredible measures to leave as many trees standing as possible.
I watched Ishway’s and Parvaneh’s breath billowing white in the early morning air, and tried to subdue the limp brought on by a nagging irritation in my right knee.
My mind was churning with the magnitude of my situation. I had survived my first meeting with the Handler against all odds, with the help of the young Somali woman now on the other side of the world; I’d returned from an impossible set of circumstances in Rio after getting shot for my efforts; now I’d arrived at the Mist Palace once more, with a weapon on my person and the distance closing between me and my long-sought quarry. I wouldn’t see the sunrise that morning no matter what I did or didn’t do. The only question was whether I took the Handler out with me.
We stopped at the building’s front door, and Ishway swiped a panel on the wall with a card attached to a lanyard around his neck. With a beep, the door clicked open—just like at the Complex—and we entered the warm, brightly lit space.
It was a security checkpoint.
Two agents were in the room, both wearing black outdoor clothing and holstered Glocks. They had the stature and bearing of career security agents, and they straightened when they saw Parvaneh enter.
The room was set up much like a TSA screening checkpoint, with a conveyor belt leading into a scanner, a table and chairs for individual searches, and, in the center of the room, a walk-through metal detector.
Parvaneh and Ishway walked through without a blip, while Micah remained behind me. I hesitated.
“Step through,” an agent said.
I did, and the screeching, high-pitched beep of the detector protested.
The agent directed me to stop, then ran a wand between my legs and around my torso, front and back. Its only warbling chime came in the vicinity of my splint.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “We’re going to have to do a physical search.”
The other agent stepped forward and held my wrist with one hand, sliding his palm against my inside forearm and toward the pistol.
I stepped back. “This isn’t a fashion statement. My arm is broken.”
He was unrepentant. “Sir, I’ll need you to have a seat and let us remove the sling. You’re not stepping foot out of this building until we do.”
I looked past his pointed finger at the table. If I propped my elbow on it and they untied my sling, even momentarily, the pistol would come clattering to the surface. I hesitated, my neck ablaze with the guilt of getting cau
ght. As I took a step toward the table and my mind raced to consider alternative options, Parvaneh spoke.
“I would be dead right now if David hadn’t laid down his life for me. If either of you touch him again, you’re going to need splints—”
“Please,” Micah interceded. “Mr. Rivers is wearing a splint constructed of aluminum. The nature of his injuries necessitates an exception to policy, and he has been under direct supervision since being shot. Call it in.”
The agents maintained their unapologetic poise, but one spoke into a radio.
“Positive metal on Mr. Rivers. Micah requests exception to policy, citing physical injury and metallic splint.”
“Standby.”
My heart hammered as we waited for a response. Looking up, I saw a camera in the corner of the ceiling. I wondered who was staring back at me, deciding whether to let me pass.
“Exception to policy approved. Send Mr. Rivers through.”
“Copy.” He looked to us and nodded. “Thank you for your patience.”
Parvaneh led the way as we passed through the far door and into the early morning light.
We approached a chain-link cage whose gate only slid open after the door behind us locked into place. We continued forward, and I saw that what I thought had been a resort was actually a vast fortress.
A clear-cut swath of land extended three meters to the next fence. The ground on either side of the footpath was a flat, muddy expanse of perfectly even dirt extending in both directions. Metal poles rose at varying intervals above the opposite fence, topped with inscrutable black boxes that surely contained cameras, thermal optics, and motion sensors. I noted that the width of this no-man’s land was insufficient to be seen through the tree canopy. The gate behind us rumbled shut and clicked into place, and an identical gate to our front slid open.
I looked up as we walked into the compound; the area was almost completely shielded from overhead view by towering hardwood treetops. Even if the trees weren’t present, an aerial observer could fly a hundred feet overhead without seeing anything through the haze of mist.
We passed into the fort’s interior, where dim solar lights in the ground murkily illuminated the paved trails between the buildings. My heart rate rose with each footfall toward the Handler.
At a trail juncture, Ishway said, “This way, ma’am. He’s waiting for you in the garden.”
Parvaneh stopped abruptly. “The garden?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She turned to Micah. “What did you tell him?”
“Only the truth,” he replied, his voice unyielding in the darkness.
Parvaneh regarded him with an expression I couldn’t read in the dim light. “Very well. Let’s go.”
A turn down the paved trail took us toward an eerie sight—a fifteen-foot stone wall topped with concertina wire that seemed a dominating fixture amid the fort’s interior. Its walls extended a great distance through the forest, with additional trees rising from inside it. It was a fortress within a fortress, a seeming prison contradicted by the lack of a roof.
I couldn’t make the connection between that sight and any discernable definition of a garden, but our guide led us to a cast iron gate with three guards at each side.
They were clean-shaven, wearing stocking caps and unbuttoned overcoats. While they stood in a range of postures, each man watched me with the single-minded focus of a police dog awaiting an order to run down a fleeing suspect.
This is where I get frisked, I thought. This is where they catch me.
But instead, two of the guards opened the gate.
“Ms. Parvaneh and Mr. Rivers only,” Ishway said. “Micah, you are to wait outside.”
Micah slowed, processing this order with a sense of shock betrayed by a stutter-step toward the gate.
“There must be some mistake,” Micah said.
“There’s not.”
Parvaneh swept inside, and I struggled to keep pace with my knee on fire and left humerus smoldering. Looking back, I saw Micah watching us with Ishway at his side as the guards closed the gate, locking Parvaneh and me inside. I caught up to her and took in my first glimpse of what lay within the walls.
The interior was stunningly landscaped, more botanical garden than anything else. Ground lighting cast a palette of soft pastels onto the plants. The path beneath our feet turned to a trail of interconnected flat stone pieces that meandered through tranquil ponds, the landscape beset by a vast array of plants and trees that looked strangely exotic for what I presumed was the Pacific Northwest.
I asked, “Why does he want to meet us outside? It’s freezing.”
“He’s expecting a fight.”
“What does that have to do with the garden?”
“He’s unwilling to meet alone because of his fetish for bodyguards. But he seeks to isolate his organization from heated personal debates with his daughter.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Only his closest protectors have already seen the full range of drama in a very complicated relationship between me and him. This is the only place where he can minimize the number of witnesses.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. Why should there be a confrontation?”
Her eyes directed ahead, she didn’t respond. I reached in my sling to position the pistol back on the inside of my injured wrist, wincing with the effort.
Even under such bizarre circumstances, the pain in my knee and gunshot wounds dissipating amid the exhilaration of my imminent and final confrontation with the Handler, I was moved by the beauty of my surroundings. Empty benches overlooked views of fountains and boulder arrangements. As we passed over a footbridge arcing across a stretch of flowing water, I looked past the ornate guiderails to see enormous fish gliding beneath the surface. A long, serpentine shape dwarfed them all as it sliced through their ranks.
During that walk I thought not about the totality of my life, but the finality of my death.
And that’s all it came down to. After all the late-night ruminations of suicide, the close calls while parachuting from buildings and hunting other men, the desire to avenge Karma or save Ian or pursue adrenaline rushes to the very boundaries of existence, it came down to this: at the moment everything was on the line, I shut out my surroundings, everything in my past and the whisper of a future with Parvaneh that would never be, and compartmentalized my life to a single-minded focus on pointing my gun at the Handler’s face and pulling the trigger.
There would be no vengeful last words, no explanation of justice sewn or retribution claimed. I would extend my one functioning arm, the tiny pistol announced only by a small plume of smoke and an impossibly quiet pop before his body fell where he stood, likely striking the ground only a moment before I joined him.
Pulling the trigger would be my last act in life. There would be no time for a second shot. But one was all I needed.
A fleeting tribute, perhaps, but it was nothing if not fitting. Onward I had trudged, marching toward his distant figure, until now, when it would soon appear before me for the second and final time. No matter how empty an achievement my revenge had become in the path required to attain it, this was the last chance I’d ever get.
I unexpectedly remembered the words of the Somali woman: Giants are not slain at the end of golden roads.
She’d saved my life once already.
He is going to test you, and when the moment seems perfect to complete your revenge, that is the very time you must not do it.
But I’d already seen his test, passing up on the opportunity to attack him in the death chamber where the Indian had been electrocuted.
We approached a bamboo pavilion on a small hill, and while I was certain that another search lay ahead, I saw two figures standing casually within, waiting for us to arrive at the stone staircase leading up to them.
One of them was unmistakably the Handler.
I could tell it was him even from a distance, his tall, lean form and shaved silver hair distinguishable at onc
e. At his side I recognized Racegun, who surely still carried his modified 1911 pistol. He would respond quickly—but I would be quicker.
We hit the bottom of the stairs and began ascending. The pain in my knee flared as the two figures appeared over the edge above me.
Without Racegun’s presence I could have risked an inclined shot as I ascended. But with two steps to go, I planned to close the distance and come to a standing, stable position from which to fire the one bullet that would topple a dictator.
I climbed the second to last step, then took in the odd positioning of him and his guard. They seemed to be standing around some central installment of interest, and as I took the final step onto the platform, I saw what it was.
On his knees, facing us, arms tied behind his back as he looked at me with eyes red, tear-blurred, but full of hatred, was Ian.
He was unshaven, his left cheekbone swollen in a dark purple bruise, the veins on his balding temples standing out in stark relief. I studied him as I walked forward—I’d warned him, and he’d gotten caught anyway. My situation had become infinitely more complicated in a split second, and yet Ian’s eyes were unapologetic.
Parvaneh and I stood level with the Handler and his guard, the bound captive kneeling between us. Parvaneh exploded, “What is the meaning of this?”
I could take the shot from where I stood.
But to what end? It would no longer save Ian. He would die anyway; we both would.
The Handler spoke in a calm, measured tone, his voice easing around the syllables with patience. “A conspiracy between two men who plotted to kill me.”
The prophecy had been fulfilled, I realized, and now he would sever the bond between Parvaneh and me, killing the remaining two conspirators in the process.
He held a long arm toward Ian. “The architect, Avner Ian Greenberg.”
The Handler pointed to me, amber eyes meeting mine for the briefest of seconds, his face shaking with the slight tremor I’d seen the first time we’d met. “And David Clayton Rivers. The assassin.”