by Michael Crow
“Oh, blow me, Rob.”
“Hey. Another little cognitive hitch.”
And it’s all kind of fun, watching these kids perform. They’re very good, they’re improvising around the script, which calls for drawing the outsider—me—into the group, making him feel he’s a welcome part of a tight crew. Smart and competent on duty, but open, relaxed folks off, the kind he’ll like and trust and maybe believe are his friends. Every contact—the Mex dinner, the jogging, now lunch—has had that object, and they haven’t fluffed many lines.
“Hey, you’ve got a free half hour before your next task, Luther,” Allison says as we’re finishing up. “Rob and I have some stuff to take care of, so do what you like. We’ll catch you later.”
What I’d like is more of a sense of the place that features, apparently, 24/7 surveillance in my room. What else have they got in place? How hardened is this house? This is definitely need-to-know for me, though nobody else seems to think so.
I decide I’ll try the back patio the dining room overlooks. It seems fenced no differently than every other house on the block I can see from the window. I find some stairs going down a level, a short corridor that ends at a steel door. There’s a Terry clone sitting in a wooden chair there. I make a gesture, he nods, punches some keys on a numeric electronic lock. Interior bolts pull back with a heavy click, the door swings open, and I’m out on the flagstones, flickering patterns of light and dark from the sun peering through the leaves of trees. The door stays open, the Terry clone seems preoccupied with his fingernails, but I act as if someone’s watching me. I check out the flower beds built up against the fence, which is ordinary eight-foot cedar planking, I amble to the far end of the patio and look back at the house. The security’s damned near invisible, but after a few minutes I finally spot some telltales. Tucked under a couple of windowsills are small cubes I’m pretty sure are motion sensors, though they’re cased in wood painted the same off-white as the sills. Where the rain gutter meets the downspouts at each corner of the house, I spot a glint when the breeze shifts the leaves and sun hits glass. Surveillance cameras, but smaller than any I’ve seen before. My eyes track the downspouts. About a meter above the fence, I see the first of what look like copper rivets spaced evenly about six inches apart. Turning, I see the four-by-fours at the fence corners are about a meter taller than the planking and feature the same copper circles: infrared, or maybe the latest laser system. The ordinary-looking fence may as well be topped with coils of razor wire; nobody’s coming over unseen or unheard.
Tight. I’m walking back toward the steel door, which has to be four inches thick, hinges set inside so they can’t be popped, when I glimpse a bit of insulated wire poking through the moss between the flagstones. I take a little skip, feel the stone I come down on give just a fraction. Pressure pads under the flags, wired to the interior alarm system?
Christ! I’d thought this was a prep house, but if the rear security is representative, it’s been as hardened as a safe house for defectors or high-value sources some bad guys with lots of skills and resources very badly want to kill. That’s a nasty surprise.
But soon after I’m back inside, the armored steel door thunking solidly shut as I head upstairs, I run into an unexpectedly sweet one.
six
SHE’S STANDING BY THE WINDOW AND HALF-TURNS quickly when I walk into my lockless room: large, slightly canted eyes the pale blue of a Siberian husky’s, almost black hair with perfect bangs and a sharp cut at the jawline, and a smile that almost cracks my heart. She’s wearing a tight black turtleneck over a short, russet suede skirt and matching suede ankle boots. She says hello, tells me her name is Nadya. In perfect Russian, slight Moscow accent.
Nadya. Not something real but unappealing to the American ear, like Ludmilla or Svetlana. Not tutor-prim, plain, stiff. The damned profile again.
Nadya’s smile is a sham, she’s brisk, all business. But that’s okay; the devious bastards knew it would be, since she’s stunning—not per the general American standard, but exactly the way I can never resist. Maybe they don’t know it would still have been okay if she wasn’t, so long as she was as bright and quick as she soon proves to be.
She suggests we go to the library, which turns out to be on the second floor and fully equipped with walls of books, plus a complete suite of high-end video and audio gear. None of this interests her. We sit on a sofa, a meter apart, she curls her legs under her and faces me. Then she begins an I’d-like-to-get-to-know-you-better conversation, like a girl you just met in a bar who’s maybe a little intrigued but wary, too: What do I do? Is my work interesting? She guessed so. Hers is sometimes a bit boring, but a couple of evenings a week she goes out dancing, though most of the men she meets in Washington are also a bit boring. New York must be more interesting, she’s sure. Am I married? No? Do I mean never, or just not at the moment? Never? Why not? So what do I do for fun? Really? And your girlfriend doesn’t mind? There isn’t one? Ah. You mean they don’t know about each other, don’t you? You’re wicked, a real dog. I wouldn’t stand for that. Not for a minute.
All in Russian. A game develops. She wins. I can’t lure or trick her into speaking a single word of English. We go back and forth in Russian, drinking coffee and smoking, for almost three hours. I learn a lot about her: born in Moscow, raised in the U.K., came to the States after Cambridge, hasn’t had a regular boyfriend in almost a year, sometimes feels she’s wasting her youth, spending too many nights alone just surfing the Web. None of it true, I’m sure, except maybe the Moscow bit. She pounces like a cat every time I skitter on pronunciation, syntax, or preferred current usage.
“Not nearly as creaky as I expected. A bit old-fashioned, a bit stiff here and there. Not to worry,” she says in English—BBC, not American, so maybe the U.K. bit at least is true—as she’s leaving, putting on that beautiful smile she was wearing when she first looked at me across my room. “Tomorrow then, Luther? Super.”
Oh yes, super. They’ve punched the right button, sending me little Nadya. I like this girl, this game. It’s a shame, I find myself thinking, about the circumstances. I’m wishing we’d met in the real world, as real people. I’m missing her alluring presense already. But my mood rises from its slump when I go back to my room, sit at the desk, and begin that list Westley told me to make. I start thinking of all the weapons I’ve used, how they felt in the hand, how they performed. I circle in on a few things I’ve handled but never owned. It’s a wish list and Westley’s buying, so what the hell. Pretty soon I’ve filled a small mental box with what I consider the very finest tools in the world. Gives me a kind of Christmasy feeling, just as the encounter with Nadya did. Can’t wait to unwrap those packages.
Defense only, not offense, Westley said. So. Primary: Wilson SDS, a small, supertuned and absolutely reliable custom version of the old classic 1911 .45 ACP. With a custom Mitch Rosen shoulder holster to carry it unseen and safely under my left armpit even in condition one, cocked and locked, and a double mag case on the offside. Secondary: a Springfield XD in .357 SIG; it out-Glocks a Glock, it’s lighter yet holds twice the rounds of a SIG 239. A Kramer horsehide small-of-the-back holster for it, plus a belt-clip double mag holder that’ll also carry a SureFire Z2 combat flashlight. For my pants pocket, I want a Boker folder with a four-inch ceramic spearpoint; no steel knife made can cut as surgically as a properly sharp ceramic blade.
Now the backup, in case some little incident turns into a true goat-fuck. I’ll want a very nice leather attaché case, custom-made with Kevlar armor forming the hard-sides, and custom-pocketed inside to hold the ultimate revolver, a .357 Magnum Korth, Swiss-made, each by a single gunsmith, and as perfectly smooth and precise as the finest Swiss chronometer available. Worth every penny of the $6,000 it’ll cost. Plus three full speedloaders for the Korth, two full spare mags for both the Wilson and the XD, and four grenades: one smoke, one stun, one gas, one frag.
Perfect, I’m thinking as I survey the list. The finest gear there is, in a ne
at, unobtrusive carry mode. Not at all what I’d choose for a night assault on a military target, but ideal for a protection job. Even Westley, though, with all his resources, will have some trouble putting my package together in time for me to work out with everything, break the pistols in by putting a few hundred rounds through them and so forth. The only items readily available are the XD and the ammo: has to be Hornady XTP.
“Scribble, scribble, scribble,” I hear from the doorway behind me.
“Love letter to Nadya, Allison,” I say, not turning. “Amazing how fast it happens sometimes, isn’t it? What do the French call it? Coup de foudre?”
“How about coup de takeout dinner in front of a couple of DVDs?” she says.
Shit. Just like Helen, the girl I had until—Christ, it wasn’t even a month ago that I left her. Or she left me. Graduated from her fancy college in Baltimore, went back to her parents in Connecticut for the summer, probably getting ready now to move to California, grad school at Stanford. This is getting beyond psych profile. This is getting really personal, really spooky. Can Westley know everything? Is there a thing inside my head or outside in my whole life he isn’t conscious of, down to the smallest detail?
Cancel that, Luther. The emotional bonds with Helen were tissue thin, and I’m utterly indifferent to Allison as a woman. But assume everything is known, accept it. Get into the role, say something in character. Every word you utter is being recorded, either electronically or in somebody’s head.
I swivel, watch Allison walk over, hand her my list.
“I’ll deliver your love letter later. I won’t even read it first. Well, maybe a quick glance in private,” she says, pocketing the paper. “So, you’re cool with takeout?”
“Oh yeah, I’m very cool with takeout and a movie.”
“Okay! You pick the food, I’ll choose the movies. Chinese, Thai, or pizza? Really excellent pizza, very thin crust, crispy.”
“You’ve convinced me. Pizza. This place, they deliver everything-you-can-think-of-type pies?”
“Sure. I go for everything, too.”
“Extra anchovies, then?”
“Double extra, since neither of us have dates tonight. So, in the library? Say forty-five, fifty minutes if I go call right now?”
“Nineteen hundred ten, sharp. The library.”
“Military time, European airport time. Still always have to translate in my head,” she says, heading out. “Um, eighteen hundred hours is…right, so you mean ten after seven? You do.”
“I’ll be on aroma alert.”
Her laugh disappears with her down the corridor.
Westley’s nowhere, Rob’s out somewhere, and Terry’s probably clocked out, replaced by another Terry type who’ll do nightwatch on the first-floor front.
So it’s just Allison and me. Pizza’s great, movies not. Allison’s so rapt during the first, Proof of Life or something with Meg Ryan, the dreadfully implausible hippy wife of an oil company executive who’s been kidnapped by Colombian rebels, that she dribbles sauce down her front and doesn’t notice. When I groan for the third or fourth time over some idiocy or other that comes out of Ryan’s mouth, she says, “Oh, give her a break. She didn’t write this.”
“She didn’t bother acting it, either.”
“Who cares? Look at him. He’s unbelievable. Cool beyond belief.”
Him, naturally, is Russell Crowe. Rob did warn me. But at least a decent military adviser choreographed the big scene in which Crowe and a squad of mercs hit the rebel camp and snatch the hostage. “Not bad,” I say when the firefight ends.
“So it’s like that? Actual action?”
“Close enough, in terms of fire and maneuver. The way Crowe’s rifle jams on him. What’s missing is certain details.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, like your hands are shaking, you’re shaking all over, you’re white with fear and your mouth’s so dry you can’t speak, or you’re screaming and drooling like a lunatic. And very frequently there’s piss running down your legs and you don’t even know it.”
“Despite all the training? Like his SAS-type training. Aren’t you on autopilot, sort of? Kind of like a machine?”
“There is no training in the world that approximates the way a firefight rattles your bones. All the training does is maybe keep you from total freeze-up or panicked dirt-chewing when the noise, the confusion, the terror hit you like a hurricane.”
“Shit.”
“That’s right. A very loud, very disorienting storm of it,” I say.
She doesn’t respond, just keeps on watching the screen.
“Even the best books, written by very experienced guys who’ve seen it all, done it all, are crap,” I say.
“Why’s that, do you think?” She glances at me, a hint of appraisal in her eyes.
“Because there is no way at all of conveying how it feels. Gotta live through it once or twice to know.”
And instantly I’m thinking why the fuck am I ranting? What am I trying to prove to this young thing here? That I’m merely another testosterone-overloaded asshole? Annie once told me that just because I’m a jarhead brat doesn’t mean I have to keep acting like a jarhead. “Look at your father, for instance,” she’d said.
My father. Right. Old-school Marine lifer, total believer in Semper Fi legend, been in shit so deep so many times it’s a miracle he survived. Just a classic jarhead gunnery sergeant, scruffed and tough and foul-mouthed—on the surface. Only better read in tactics, strategy, and military history than most of the officers he served under—most of whom got dead and One Way Ewing didn’t ’cause he was also smarter in the fight. Smarter with people, too. He’d have just patted Allison’s hand, said something like fuckin’ A, that’s just the way it is, this movie’s real as real. And dropped it there, not another word, smiling a big smile. He’d have been that cool about it.
Pizza’s long gone, she’s on her second beer and I’m still nursing my first and only, when movie number two rolls. It’s some tired thing with Pitt as a CIA contractor and Robert Redford, who looks like his makeup’s been slathered on by an inept mortician, as his field officer. Allison’s laughing and chuckling from the first scene, becomes more and more amused as the plot congeals. She’s practically howling during the final stretch.
“Watch a lot of CIA movies, do you?” I ask.
“Sure! They’re always such a hoot. The poor bastards try so hard, but they never get anything right. Same with you and cop movies, I expect.”
“Yeah. When I want some laughs I give the comedy section of the video rental place a big miss, head straight for the action/adventure section. Love the jokes, like guys shooting their pistols sideways, ejection port up, actually hitting their targets and never getting their eyes put out by hot flying brass.”
“Wait a sec. You can so shoot like that, if you have to.”
“Really? They teach you that at the Farm?”
“You keep making this agricultural reference. I’d love to know what you’re talking about.”
“Got it from a movie.”
“Figures!” She laughs. “I think I even know which one. But no, I haven’t shot like that. I don’t shoot. But maybe when you go to the range I’ll tag along, give it a try?”
“Okay. Just make sure you’re at least two lanes to my right. And wearing heavy-duty goggles, not regular shooting glasses.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know much better than me. Well, naturally. But big deal. You don’t have to be so damned superior and professorial about it.”
“No one’s ever used that term to describe me before.”
“It’s a wonder. If that’s true. Which I deeply doubt. I’ll bet at least a few of your girlfriends have. Patronizing lectures about warrior stuff. Probably it works on some girls.”
“Hey, I assumed I was having an exhange of views with a colleague, not talking to a slightly kinky student.”
“And I think you’re absolutely style-consistent, when it comes to women, anyway.”
“Hurts? Hah!” Allison laughs at me now. “If you have any tender spot at all—and it’s looking to me as if you do not—it certainly isn’t in that area.”
And that’s the first time, I’m thinking, this girl’s been wrong.
seven
THE GODDAMN BED’S TOO SOFT. THEN IT’S TOO HARD. I try this position, that one. No good.
I lie very still, systematically tensing and then relaxing every muscle group from my feet on up. Still no good. There’s a riot in my head, a mad crowd of images pushing and shoving that I can’t control at all.
Fucking Westley.
It’s nearly midnight when the movie ends, Allison’s headed off to her room and I’m on my way to mine when a stiff finger taps me once on the shoulder. I spin, jolted, and there’s Westley, eyes blank as ever behind those steel-rimmed glasses.
“I have something on my mind,” he says. “Discuss?”
We go down to that pseudo-Brit drawing room. Coffee is already on the table, just as before. He waits until I’ve lit a cigarette, taken a sip.
“You’re a quick study, Luther,” he says. “Is Allison handling everything properly? Is she up to this?”
“Hasn’t been much to handle yet. She’s fine.”
“You’re wondering why I’m asking. It’s quite simple. She hasn’t done a major operation before. I have very high hopes for her. So I’m concerned she does well, doesn’t make any missteps the first time out. I’d like you to keep an eye on her. No intervention. Just report back to me from time to time as the op progresses. Keep me informed of her progress, or any mistakes you see developing.”
“Spy on a spy? Not really my game.”
“Oh, but it is, in a way. Eyes and ears, that’s all I’m asking.”
“Hard to report anything to a man who keeps your kind of office hours.”