Dark Redemption (David Rivers Book 3)

by Jason Kasper

  Parvaneh’s head swung to me, her eyes frozen in a profoundly confused stare. “David, is this true?”

  “Absolutely.” I looked to the Handler. “Now tell her why.”

  He continued, “They served on a paramilitary team that turned against us.”

  “Tell her how you sentenced that team to death for serving you.”

  “Then David lied to infiltrate the Outfit, killing his partner in the process.”

  “Tell her how you turned that partner into a traitor to his own team. And tell her,” I nearly shouted, “how you killed the woman I loved.”

  His head bowed deeply in a serene nod. “Yes. I gave the order.”

  “Because they knew too much? They did everything you asked.”

  “The interconnectedness of life sometimes has unintended consequences—”

  “How does it feel to see your daughter again? Because I’ll never see the woman you took away from me.”

  Parvaneh said, “Father, you’ve earned many legitimate enemies. David can be spared and hired. He must be—I’ve given him my word of honor. Langley would have been an orphan”—the word cracked as it left her lips—“without him. And I will not stand by and watch my savior be killed.”

  The Handler’s glinting golden eyes were not upon his daughter but me, the angled bridge of his nose defiant against the symmetry of his features. “Then your savior shall watch Ian die. I cannot permit a resurrection of the conspiracy between them.”

  “Very well,” Parvaneh conceded.

  I could take the shot from where I stood. But in that moment, the Handler’s death would accomplish nothing but condemn an innocent friend to die.

  I had to find a way to save Ian.

  “No,” I said. “I trade my life for his. You’ve got your assassin—now release Ian. I want Parvaneh’s word that he will live, because yours”—I took a breath to calm the surge of anger looking at the Handler’s face imparted—“means nothing to me.”

  The Handler shook his head. “It is honor that assured our Organization’s continued survival. Not leniency. Be grateful you are not meeting the same fate.”

  “Be grateful I saved your daughter after everything you’ve done. I brought her back to you; now you can accept my life in exchange. Parvaneh, do this for me.”

  She said, “I’m sorry, David. It wasn’t your friend who saved my life, but you. This is the way it has to be.”

  Ian spoke grimly. “Don’t die along with me, David. I was never meant to be the last surviving member of the team—you were.”

  The Handler lifted his outstretched fingers toward Ian, and Racegun set an anticipatory hand on his pistol. I couldn’t force the Handler’s decision, I realized.

  But Parvaneh could.

  Reaching inside my sling in a swift movement, I pulled the .32 from its hiding place and pressed the barrel against my own temple.

  The response was so immediate that by the time the gun touched my scalp, Racegun had his pistol aimed at my face while simultaneously shifting to block the Handler from view in a single fleeting step. The Handler touched Racegun’s arm and pushed him sideways and out of his line of sight, watching me once more. His eyes were fixated on my gun.

  By then I was speaking quickly. “Parvaneh, you will have Ian pardoned or I blow my head off. Three.”

  Parvaneh’s face steeled with resolution as she turned to the Handler.

  “Father, spare them both. You already have Roshan’s blood on your hands—”

  I suddenly remembered my final confrontation with Caspian in Somalia, yelling at his bloodied figure on the hilltop. That was your scout, wasn’t it? In the desert I asked if Sergio recruited you. You said it was an Iranian named Roshan.

  “Two.”

  “—if the blood of my savior is spilt, by his hand or yours, I take Langley and walk away from this organization forever.”

  My heart was hammering at an unsustainable rate, feeling like it would explode as I watched the Handler’s face. A vast depth of intellect lay therein, but I had seen his instability firsthand and was dismayed now to observe neither fear nor surprise in his expression.

  “One.”

  “Very well,” the Handler said. “They both shall live.”

  I dropped the .32 before I got shot in the face.

  The pistol clattered to the ground and Racegun was upon me in an instant, forcing me to my knees in front of Ian and placing his barrel to my head. My collective injuries exploded in pain, causing a total-body convulsion of agony—the least of my concerns at present.

  Parvaneh snatched the .32 off the ground.

  The Handler stepped forward, holding out his hand to take the gun from her.

  “You’re afraid I’d use this on you?” she asked, her voice indignant.

  He kept his hand out, not speaking until she thrust the tiny pistol into it. Once she did, he examined it with an expression of mild fascination that faded as quickly as it appeared. His long fingers spun shut over the weapon like a spider shielding its prey from escape.

  “I’m afraid, Parvaneh,” he said, lowering the gun to his side with his eyes canted downward, “that you would use it on David.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He and his friend are alive. I have given you what you asked. Leave it at that.”

  “What does that mean?” she repeated, more loudly than before.

  The Handler spoke mournfully. “My hands aren’t stained with Roshan’s blood.” He nodded toward Ian. “His are.”

  Then he cast his gaze upon me. “And David’s.”

  Parvaneh’s face darkened, her green eyes blazing with rage. “TELL ME!”

  I remembered being in the basement of the team house as Ophie tortured Luka, who was screaming that he didn’t kill Caspian, that it was the Iranian. I leaned over to Matz and asked, Who’s the Iranian?

  And Matz’s reply: He’s dead already.

  The Iranian killed by Boss’s team before I met them, a man named Roshan who faked Caspian’s death to recruit him into the Outfit, and the father of Parvaneh’s daughter—all three were the same person.

  And Ian and I were about to bear the consequences.

  The Handler said, “That’s why I sentenced their team to death, Parvaneh. They killed Roshan. Ian located and kidnapped him. The others tortured him and cut off his head.”

  She shook her head. “That’s a lie.”

  “I’ve never lied to you, Parvaneh.”

  “You’re a fucking liar!” she yelled.

  “Since his death, I could have invented a thousand easy answers to ease your pain. I have not told you until now because when I speak to you, since the moment you were born, I speak the truth.”

  Parvaneh lowered her eyes to mine, her stare cutting through me. “David?”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” I said. “I hadn’t even met them—”

  She unleashed a moaning gasp of pain, doubling over before she stood again.

  I said, “Parvaneh, they thought he killed their teammate. In a defection scheme ordered by your father—”

  “Stop it,” she cried. “David, just stop.”

  The Handler stepped forward and took her in his arms. The embrace lasted a second before Parvaneh shrugged him off and stepped back, shattered. She understood the implications of me smuggling a pistol into that meeting yet had fought to save me anyway—for a time.

  But the Handler’s words had broken her.

  She spoke shakily now, her incredible resolve gone. “I always vowed I would kill those responsible for Roshan’s death—now I’ve saved you both. And I’ve got the rest of my life to regret that.”

  Then she looked to the Handler and said, “What happens to them now is not my concern. I never want to see David again.”

  He turned his hand upward, showing her the .32 pistol in his palm.

  “You will not, my dear. The problem that has been plaguing us requires both a bond of loyalty and a measure of collateral. For the first time, we have both
: David has just passed up a chance to kill me in order to risk dying for his friend.”

  Parvaneh nodded, and then dropped her gaze to the ground.

  What were they talking about?

  I looked to her. “I swear to you, Parvaneh, I had nothing to do with Roshan.” Then I swung my eyes to the Handler. “But you, motherfucker, killed the love of my life when you killed Karma.”

  His eyes remained on his daughter.

  “Leave us. Go be with Langley now. She’s waiting for you.”

  “Parvaneh,” I said, “he’s hidden the truth until he could use it to manipulate you. But you know me, and we’ve felt the same pain. Don’t let him win.”

  Standing in the presence of Ian, the Handler, and myself, each of us suddenly bearing some role in the death of her child’s father, she no longer knew what to believe.

  She took a few short steps backward, almost to the edge of the pavilion. She looked confused, lost in pain, and with a sharp turn that spared not a sideways glance at her father, or me, she walked off the platform, down the stairs, and into the garden.

  I wanted to yell after her, but it was no use—the last traces of her footsteps vanished along the trail.

  Ian’s voice was hoarse, raw with hatred. “Why didn’t Roshan just tell my team that Caspian was alive?”

  The Handler placed the tips of his index and middle fingers thoughtfully upon his upper lip before replying. “The Outfit screens for people who would face torture and death before compromising secrets. David knows that well by now.”

  I jerked my head toward him before the barrel against my skull forced my view back down. “Why let me return to America and join the Outfit if you always knew I was on Boss’s team?”

  “I never stop people from revenge. I lay a path and wait at the end of it.”

  Ian looked to me with contempt. “I don’t know how you got a gun next to him, David, but you should have used it.”

  “I did use it, you ungrateful bastard.”

  “You should’ve killed him when you had the chance.”

  “Well next time I’ll let you get smoked.”

  “There’s not going to be a next time. We’re both dead anyway.”

  “Gentlemen,” the Handler interrupted, “do not overestimate your resourcefulness, or my ignorance. David brought a gun in my immediate proximity for one reason alone: because I wanted him to.”

  Then he pointed an arm toward my face, the .32 a splinter of metal in his long fingers. With the barrel leveled at my head, he pulled the trigger.

  A hollow click.

  My mind launched back to Micah’s intervention at the security checkpoint. The nature of his injuries necessitates an exception to policy, and he has been under direct supervision since being shot. Call it in.

  I shook my head bitterly. “Micah?”

  “You were unconscious in the plane for some time, David.”

  “So that’s why you agreed to spare my life in front of Parvaneh. You thought I was about to die in a failed assassination attempt.”

  “The greatest protection,” he responded, “is seeing what people do when they think you are unaware of their plans.”

  Ian closed his eyes, lowering his head in a concession of rueful finality.

  The Handler continued, “My apologies, gentlemen. Your plan to kill me was admirable given your resources, but far from original. And now you are both in my immediate service.”

  Behind me, Racegun said, “She’s just left the garden, sir.”

  “What happened here tonight will never be spoken of again. Bring David to my chamber at once. Ian to a cell.” The Handler walked past us and off the platform, checking his watch.

  I heard bushes rustling below the pavilion, followed by a rush of footsteps ascending the stairs before a group of security men appeared on the platform—four? A half dozen? They wore camouflage fatigues and carried suppressed weapons, their night vision devices flipped upward on tactical helmets.

  Ian stared at me vacantly.

  I said, “I will get you out of this, Ian.”

  Then we were hoisted upright by the security team, separated, and carried out of the garden.

  10

  My left arm felt like a drill bit was being pushed through it as the pain of being strapped to the chair mounted. Once more the blacked-out goggles blocked my vision, but between the Handler’s order for me to be delivered to his chamber and his security men strapping me to a chair for the second time, I felt certain I once again occupied the throne where the Indian had died.

  And in the short wait before the Handler’s arrival, I reflected upon his genius with a curious sense of disbelief.

  The Handler had known I carried a pistol toward him, but he couldn’t possibly have foreseen that I would put that weapon to my own head. Yet in the wake of a single element disrupting his entire plan, he had deftly manipulated the situation to his advantage nonetheless.

  By finally revealing the truth about Roshan’s death, the Handler had turned Parvaneh away from me, broken the bond between us that was forged when I saved her life, and gained her ambivalence if not outright complicity to send me to my death. He had seamlessly restored order to his world at the expense of his daughter, Ian, and myself. What he had in mind for his next move across the chessboard of human actors, I had no idea.

  But I knew with great certainty that something worse awaited.

  A door opened somewhere behind me. I heard his unhurried footfalls approaching and directed my blacked-out goggles toward the sound as it arced around my side and came to a stop at my front.

  His fingers grazed my bare scalp, the smell of cloves reaching my nostrils just as the elastic band of the goggles slid over the back of my head.

  I squinted with the sudden light, seeing his face before mine as he leaned down to appraise me. But as I blinked to clear my vision, I saw that I was not in the chamber where the Indian was executed.

  Instead, the view beyond the Handler’s gaunt face was a colossal, lavishly appointed room. High gray walls led to a low, ornate wooden desk adorned with computer monitors.

  Seeing that I wasn’t in the electric chair, I allowed myself a gasp of pain.

  His palm alighted on my right shoulder as he said, “Thank you, David, for saving my daughter in Brazil.”

  He lifted his hand and ran it over his close-cropped silver hair, then began to walk in a methodical circle around me.

  “Fucking really? That’s all you have to say?”

  He continued circling my chair, his face creasing into a knowing smile as he crossed my view. “Do you know what truly troubles you, David? You hate what I represent: order. Balance. Unity. I am but the embodiment of everything you lack. You are addicted to chaos, to uncertainty. You are struck by the meaninglessness of life so often and so violently that you resent everyone not so afflicted. And I am the manifestation of total control.”

  “You’re a mass murderer who considers yourself a messiah. That’s the manifestation of total insanity.”

  “You have demonstrated considerable tenacity since you joined your last team, David. Please do not mar your credibility or waste our precious moments together with petty insults. I have a war to conduct, which is one of the more enjoyable aspects of my position. Given that the opposition tried to kill my daughter, it will be ecstasy. Gabriel has a surprising number of living relatives to attempt what he did.”

  He crossed behind my chair again, and I glanced upward to see that the ceiling was lined not with crown molding but a peculiar red pipe standing in stark contrast to the rest of the room. What the hell?

  “You can’t punish a dead man,” I said.

  “Murdering families in spectacular fashion does not serve to rebuke dead traitors, David. It serves to convince those who haven’t betrayed the Organization to remain loyal.”

  “You’re missing the bigger picture.”

  “I highly doubt that.”

  “Gabriel must’ve known you’d kill his entire family for betrayal.”<
br />
  “Most assuredly.”

  “Then what did the other side offer that was more fearsome by comparison? You know Ribeiro’s man Agustin was on the kill team they sent after us. No one else on the kill team was present at the meeting, but Agustin was. The attempt on Parvaneh’s life is a part of something bigger, and Ribeiro can’t be the only player.”

  “I came to my own conclusions prior to your return from Brazil. But they don’t concern you. So let us instead discuss the terms of your upcoming employment.”

  “I saved your daughter. You owe me some answers first.”

  He stopped in front of me, tilting his head. “I thought we had covered everything in the garden, David. What is it that you are still unclear about?”

  “Clearly it was you speaking during my interview from the Outfit.”

  He nodded, the angle of his skewed nose casting a bobbing shadow across his face.

  “Why mention my father?”

  “I couldn’t help myself, David. You have to admit, your pedigree is somewhat ironic given your chosen profession.”

  He began walking again, circling me with steady footfalls like the ticking of a grandfather clock.

  “You must have put Boss’s team under surveillance as soon as Roshan was killed.”

  “I could not risk letting them escape after such a transgression.”

  “But you could risk letting them finish your dirty work before you murdered them all?”

  “As I told you at our first meeting, David, my role is to maintain balance. Harmony is not preserved by completely sacrificing the professional for the personal or vice versa, no matter how tantalizing the prospect may seem at times.”

  “Why quote them in my interview? Why toy with me?”

  “To get the wheels turning, of course, before I paired you with Caspian. How could I not, David, knowing I had the two of you from the same team, both clinging to your lies in the aftermath of their loss…”

  “Why test me if you planned on killing me anyway?”

  “It was not you I tested, David. I expected a single survivor from Somalia. I just thought it would be Caspian.”

  I managed a tight grin and said, “Sorry to disappoint you.”