The hunter restricted himself to a nod. Asking someone in his line of work if he knew of Haiti was a lot like asking a Nazi-hunter if he could point to Germany on the map.
“Haiti’s a shit-hole already,” said Aherne. “We’ve got people in there. On the ground. They’re picking up loose ends. Pretty soon, won’t be anyone on that black-ass-backwards island knows shit.”
Recalling wild, mountainous, secretive Haiti, the hunter had his doubts, which he kept to himself. “Good,” he said. “This is a hell of a job you’re asking me to do. Wouldn’t want to be doing it again, if your Cubans didn’t get the message.”
“Oh, they’ll get the message,” said Aherne. “You just do your job. Do it right. Let us do ours.”
That was the end of it. The last conversation. After that, there was only a wire: $250,000 into a numbered Swiss account. Also a date, a time, a location.
And here he was. Under the street, where nobody ever thought to look. Close to the action. So close he wouldn’t even need a scope, though he’d use one anyway. Just to be sure. Because even with a magic bullet, you still needed a head shot to put one of these fuckers down. Even the simplest and slowest were hard to kill. The dangerous ones, the strong ones with their identity and their memories intact—they could survive almost anything.
Except salt and silver; a head shot.
Up above, the noise was building. Down here in the concrete tunnels of the storm water system, all the voices, all the words were lost, echoing back and forth until all the sense was gone, only a building cataract roar remaining. The hunter lay his cheek against the stock of his gun, sighting down through the scope, checking his reference marks: the streetlight; the ‘no-parking’ sign; the underpass to the east. Normally he didn’t work like this. Mostly he got in close, for certainty. Couldn’t do that here. Under the street, in the storm drain: close as he could get, and hope to get away afterwards.
The noise built, the echoes amplifying until his head filled with white, meaningless sound. Like standing under a waterfall. Must be getting near now.
How had the Cubans got so close? Aherne wouldn’t say. Security, he said. Sore point, more likely. Probably it was pussy. The target was a famous pussy-hound. There were ways to get close to a man like that; close enough to administer certain poisons, deliver certain drugs. Close enough to bite.
He thought about the photos Aherne showed him. The slabs of raw meat and offal on the famous dinner settings. The man himself, his mouth bloodstained and feral, shoveling wet, reddish lumps into his face. You could fake stuff like that, of course, but the hunter was a professional, and you couldn’t fake it all. There were receipts. Purchase orders. Changes in pattern that wouldn’t mean anything to most people, but to a hunter, to someone like him, it was enough.
And if it wasn’t, there was the target himself, the motorcade coming into view down the slope towards the underpass as the noise climbed to a roar. You could see it, if you looked. The scope picked it all out in merciless detail: the dark bruises beneath dull eyes, the thinning hair, the skin grey under carefully applied makeup.
Officially it was Addison’s disease, a glandular syndrome with symptoms including weight loss, difficulty in standing up, changes in mood and personality, and even a craving for highly salted foods. The hunter grinned mirthlessly. There were other explanations for symptoms like that. But Addison’s is how history would remember it—if he did his job right, at least.
Steady, now. The big, black car cruising slowly down the hill. No advance vehicles to interfere with his sight-lines; Aherne had seen to that. Steady. Rest the specially-made rifle on the bipod, match the movement of the car, bring the cross-hairs onto the target. A little commotion (perhaps a shot from one of the others?) and the man in front slid neatly to one side, out of the way. An instant of perfection: squeeze the trigger.
Silver and salt. One round only, and the target’s skull exploded away above his eye. A pink cloud expanded, and wet lumps spattered the car’s trunk.
The screaming began, but the hunter was already turning away. He retrieved the single, spent shell, folded the bipod away, and even while he was still breaking down the weapon, already he was walking away, striding coolly down the dark, echoing drain towards his waiting car and the carefully planned getaway.
One shot. The hunter shook his head, and almost laughed. A quarter million dollars for maybe an ounce of silver, and the US was no longer led by an untouchable, undead President.
It was almost too easy.
Stalin had been a whole lot scarier. For Stalin, he’d needed a wooden stake.
Roasted
…Robert Porteous
Chôn set out on the sixth day after the full moon. It was the best day to begin a journey, especially one as dangerous as his.
The wake of his boat spread silently behind him, a glassy arrowhead scored into the mirrored water of the Lyric River. Although he was small, he was sinewy and his breathing was even as the boat slipped quickly upstream with easy, smooth strokes of his oars.
It was still early, with only the first hints of dawn percolating down through the mist, and there were few other boats. Two old women were being rowed quietly downstream by a granddaughter to collect lotus flowers in the first light. Fishermen on long boats laden high with tiers of woven lobster pots cast them one by one into the shallows. Some of them recognised him, Chôn the hunter they called him or maybe Chôn the weasel, and turned their heads away. To them, he was the foundling son of his step-father. His step-father, the loner, always drunk, always brawling, who died owing everybody money.
As always, he did not show that he had noticed their disrespect. But this morning, he sat straighter as he rowed. When he got back they would have to respect him, all of them. And he would marry Lo-an, the headman’s daughter.
The river was still wide here, the clear water of the channel winding unbanked through the rice-dimpled paddies that stretched out on either side to the shrouded limestone cliffs. Squat stone funerary boxes sat on clay mounds at the edges of fields, where farmers’ families laid their dead so that their spirits could continue to watch over the rice in death as in life.
Chôn hoped to die at home. It was bad luck to die in the forest without a monument, like so many hunters, one’s spirit condemned to roam without rest. But he had taken all necessary precautions. He had set out on a day the village shaman had determined was auspicious, and had left an offering of cooked food and incense at his house-shrine. He had even killed the rabbits the day before so that unhelpful spirits would not be drawn to his departure by the blood and squealing. But most important of all, he had studied an ancient scroll that told of how a brave man could achieve greatness.
A dozen fat rabbits now lay trussed at his feet, rocking gently as he rowed. It had taken him most of the day before to prepare them. First, he had gutted each one, carefully removing the entrails. He had squeezed the grass and pellets out of the long intestines and rinsed them before tying one end. Then he had filled them with the ripe red berries he had collected from high in the forest over the last week. When each was full, a knobbly motley worm, he had knotted the top and rinsed the outside and then washed his hands before winding it back into the rabbit. It was important to not get the bitter berry-juice on the fur or the bait might be rejected uneaten. His wife-to-be, Lo-an, had sneaked from her father’s house to help. She had crouched over each little carcase sewing it shut as he took the next rabbit from the hutch.
He thought of Lo-an, standing at the river’s edge in the dim pre-dawn light, bidding him a silent farewell, one hand resting on her belly, her eyes moist. For a moment, the steady rhythm of his oars faltered and the sudden splash of the missed stroke startled two red-headed cranes into flight. If he returned successful, he would be able to ask her father for permission to marry.
If he was not successful, he would not see his child born.
Soon the rhythmic splash, splash of the lobster-pot fishermen faded into the mist. The river narrowed, the lime
stone karsts towering above him. As he rowed, Chôn watched their ranks receding behind him, the forested pillars melting away like a line of giants marching into the clouds.
After half an hour more, he steered the boat into the shallows and pulled it up onto a narrow sandy beach fringed with tall slender palms and a stand of bamboo. At one side, a dark passage framed by two massive, buttressed Sau trees marked the start of the path up the cliffs. Chôn kneeled, cleared a space and nestled a flat stone in among the Sau roots, making an improvised shrine for a votive offering of some cooked rice, parcelled up in leaf.
He carefully opened the drawstring pouch hanging from his neck and tumbled three areca nuts, each wrapped in betel leaf with a little lime, out into the palm of his hand. The harmonious combination of the nut and the leaf symbolised a happy marriage. He offered the first nut, with a prayer that he would have a long and happy union with Lo-an, that he would see his child. Then he carefully replaced the other two nuts in the pouch. One was for nightfall. The third would be an offering here in thanks … if he got out.
Chôn had followed the scroll’s instructions and his only weapon was his dao rua, a narrow jungle knife. It had been patiently honed to razor sharpness and he cut a bamboo carrying stick from the stand with two quick blows. He picked up the folded cloth that he had been sitting on in the boat, doubled it over again and put in on one shoulder. The rabbits were trussed in clusters of three, each cluster linked by rope to another so that he could loop them over front and back of the carrying stick and lift it all to his shoulder. He grunted a little at the weight and looked up at the karst cliff disappearing into the mist above him.
The beast was up there.
* * *
As soon as he passed between the Sau sentries, the jungle enveloped him. Its darkness was redolent of spices and decay. Birds called from all sides, from the scrub at his feet all the way up to the invisible canopy. He carried his knife in his free hand, steadying the rabbits with the other. The beast would not descend so far from its lair, but there could still be leopards.
The path soon steepened and the front rabbits dragged on the ground. Chôn stuck the knife into his waist sash and twisted the carrying stick sideways, resting it across his shoulders. Even though the air was still cool, sweat ran down his back. His mouth was dry and he paused every now and then to listen for a stream or rivulet, anxious for a drink, but heard none.
He had been climbing for less than an hour when the smell of burnt wood and camphor cautioned him to stop. He judged he had come up about three or four hundred metres from the river, about halfway. He put the rabbits down gently and crept forward, the silent hunter. Ten metres further up, the path levelled, opening onto a small glade surrounded by mossy boulders.
A clump of charred stumps stuck up like fingers on an arthritic hand, marking where some camphor saplings had stood, clinging to the rock. They had been struck by fire about a metre from the ground. Round patches had been burnt here and there into the moss as well.
Clearly the beast, but what was it doing so hunting so far down?
Chôn crumbled some charcoal between his fingers. The smell of camphor was still strong but he could tell that the fire had struck several days earlier. Perhaps the danger had passed.
Water was dripping from the boulders. He filled his cupped hands a dozen times and drank, pausing every now and again to listen intently. He tucked a couple of pieces of the charcoal into the folds of his sash before slipping back down the hill to take up his burden and resume the slow climb to the top, now more vigilant than ever.
Finally, the path levelled out to a plateau backed by yet another cliff that disappeared up into unbroken clouds. The signs of the beast were everywhere: here a patch of burnt timber, there scales scraped off on sharp boulder. The scroll had explained how to judge the size of a beast from the scratches left by the spines on its shoulders and flanks. He reached up over his head and felt into the deep grooves with his fingers. This one was big.
The lair was a black cave dug into the base of the limestone cliff. It was impossible to miss. The beast had ploughed wide runs radiating out in all directions through the forest. Chôn crouched behind a boulder a hundred metres back, watching the cave, the stench—of musk, urine, rotting scraps, fire—already overpowering. He did not want to approach any closer yet; as far as he knew, no trophy hunter who had come seeking to kill this beast had ever returned.
There was no sound or sign of movement within the cave and Chôn judged it was safe to move on. He edged sideways until he reached the back cliff, a couple of hundred metres from the cave and screened by trees. He put the carrying stick down and took each brace of rabbits over his head, dangling them down either side of his back, holding the ropes in his teeth to leave his hands free, and started to climb.
Once he was high enough to be safe, he abandoned stealth in favour of speed. The limestone was rotten; twice small lumps came away in his hands as he traversed towards the cave, tumbling into the undergrowth. As much as possible, he kept to the thick vines that grew up the cliff, watching for snakes, flicking off centipedes.
High on the cliff, he could no longer see the cave entrance. But once the runs converged to a point immediately below him, he knew he had come far enough. He hooked his left arm around a vine, hung out over the cave, pulled round one of the sets of bait and grabbed it with his left hand. Still holding the ropes tight in his teeth, he took his knife and sawed through the rope above his hand. He tucked the knife away and took the bait into his free hand. The rabbits were trussed with the three backbones turned outwards, protecting the soft bellies and their cargo so that they couldn’t snag open on a razored tooth or claw.
Chôn swung the bait out by the rope and let it fall in a wide arc onto the bare rocks below. A moment later, he dropped its pair a metre to the side and, after repeating the juggle of knife and ropes, the third and fourth. Still no sign of the beast.
He clambered back across the cliff, keeping high. Another handhold gave way and a large flake of limestone clattered down the cliff face to the ground. This time, the crash was echoed by a roar from within the cave. Chôn pulled himself in close to the cliff and froze. The beast hunted by scent and movement. He should be safe up here, if he kept still. Another roar, followed by the dry scrape of claws on stone.
The beast pushed its head out of the cave, into Chôn’s field of view. It snorted, leaving twin clouds of steam hanging in the damp air, then snuffled loudly, pointing its head this way and that and emerged from the cave. It looked invincible, with every part of its huge body armoured in metallic scales and heavy spikes. The scales on its back were as big as Chôn’s palm, dark red at the shoulder, shading to black at the tip of its tail. A row of enormous spikes, serrated like teeth, ran down the beast’s spine to its hips where it split into two and continued on either side of the tail. As the beast took a step, the tail scythed menacingly from side to side.
The beast turned suddenly and looked up towards Chôn’s perch, long barbs swinging, pendulous, from either side of its mouth. Perhaps it had caught his scent? Chôn held his breath, not daring to move. The beast’s golden eyes seemed to stare straight at him, unwavering beneath long curved horns as thick as his arm. The jaws could have taken the whole of his body down to his waist in one gulp. A tiny scorpion climbed from the vine down his arm and disappeared, but Chôn didn’t flinch.
Then, as suddenly, the beast sniffed and lumbered towards the closest bait, long talons clattering on the rock, nudging it with its snout and pushing it along the dirt but not taking it. It lifted its massive head up for a moment, looking out into the broken forest, listening, before splaying its front limbs and dropping its chest down to the ground. It picked up the rabbits gently with its teeth and, in one quick movement, tossed them up until they were almost overhead, the beast’s neck drawn back. Then the head shot forward and engulfed the bait whole, the beast jerking its head and neck back until it was swallowed.
The beast made quick work of the other t
hree baits and sniffed around for more. All the baits had been taken successfully. Chôn should have felt exultant but instead clung to the vines weak and almost nauseous with fear. The scroll said that he had to face the beast with only a knife, using a fresh pelt as a shield against the flames. But now that he understood the real nature of the beast, he could not see how he could survive. Commonsense screamed that he should abandon his quest, his pretensions. No matter that he had been given a scroll; who was he to challenge this beast?
The beast had sauntered over to a limestone pillar and scratched its back haunches, raising its offside leg to reveal its creamy belly, the rough scales rasping a cloud of white dust into the still air. It swapped sides before reversing to the edge of the forest and pissing prodigiously on the undergrowth. Even from where Chôn hung, the stench was acrid and nauseating.
Chôn’s arms began to shake. He had become sure that he would slip from the cliff to his doom, when the beast finally walked heavily back into its lair. His scroll-guide said to wait for a day or so for the rabbits to be digested. That was supposed to give him time enough to carry out the next steps of the plan. Time enough to walk into certain death.
He took some deep breaths and climbed carefully back along the cliff and down to the plateau. He followed the base of the cliff away from the cave and found something that made his heart jump with unexpected hope. A stream ran out of a narrow cleft in the cliff, filling a shallow pool. It might be a safe retreat. Looking back, Chôn could see that one of the wide runs had been cleared straight from the cave to the pond—the beast must come here to drink. He turned to explore the cleft. It was an arm-span wide at the narrowest, not enough room for the beast to squeeze past, then widened a little to a cylindrical chute a few metres across with a waterfall running down the far side. It splashed off a boulder that jutted out at head height, over a hollow big enough to hold him.
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