by Michael Crow
The instructor wants to begin with the most basic drill: pistol unholstered, cocked, and held at low ready with both hands, just as you would enter a known hot zone, real-world. The first time I move fast in a slight crouch, cold and clear, doing nothing fancy with the Wilson. When I’m through, the instructor reads the talley: fourteen of fourteen bad guys with one bullet each in the kill zone, no shot taken at three moms. I go twice more, once with the XD and once with the Korth. The place and timing of the targets’ appearance changes with each run. Same score, same time with the Springfield, same score but six seconds slower with the Korth, because it takes longer to reload a revolver.
The instructor manipulates the target control panel and we go through as a team. He uses a SIG 226, fifteen rounds of 9mm in his mags. We cover each other; I take out a bad guy who jumps up behind him, he does the same for me. Our scores match: twelve of twelve shooters dead, no shots at four moms, each.
“Hey, can we give this a try?” Rob asks the instructor.
“Solo or team?” he asks.
“Team. Okay, Rob?” Allison says. Rob nods.
“Give me a minute,” the instructor says, flicking some switches on the control panel, then disappearing for a little while behind the buildings. He comes back grinning.
“On my signal,” the instructor says. He pauses. “Go!”
They move into the block, looking pretty good, Rob holding an HK USP and Allison gripping her SIG 229 in the approved fashion. The targets and their pistols start popping early but, it seems to me, at a slightly slower pace than before.
“They look like they can shoot, they think they can shoot, but ten bucks says they’re going to be real surprised,” the instructor says to me.
“Won’t take that bet,” I say.
“Wise man.”
After they come back to the start and the instructor goes out to score, he waves us up about midway on his return. “Allison, eight of twelve dead, two moms wounded. Rob, seven of twelve, and one great shot.” He leads us to the corner of a building, pulls the spring on a target. It’s a mom, “Allison” printed in red Magic Marker at the bottom, and a hole right in the center of the infant’s head, which is positioned just in front of the mom’s heart.
“A two-for-one, Rob,” the instructor says.
“Aw, shit. Shit!” Rob says, face coloring a little. We start laughing, but it takes a beat for Rob to join in, and he manages to sound both pissed and embarrassed.
Next day, I go down the block with the Wilson and the XD holstered. First run I draw the Wilson and use a two-hand grip, but double-tap targets. Same score as before: fourteen kills, no moms. The instructor asks for a repeat. The results are identical.
“Can you go both ways?” he asks me.
“If I have to, yeah,” I say.
“Let’s try one that way,” he says.
So it’s down the block again, pulling the Wilson from under my armpit with my right hand, the XD from behind my back with my left when the first target appears. It gets tricky quick; at a couple of places, two targets pop out simultaneously at awkward angles. I pop the left one with the Wilson, swing toward the right and fire just as I put a second round into the left with the XD.
The instructor checks the targets, reports. “Slight fall-off in accuracy, but not nearly as much as I expected. Twelve instant kills, five more so close to instant they’d be down, no threat. No misses,” he says. “And no Allisons.”
Rob’s smile is lame.
“Where did you learn to shoot?” the instructor asks.
“Army,” I say. “Brigade pistol team, not all-Army.”
“Real-world experience?”
A couple of years ago, I’d have snapped back that I’d capped, greased, hammered, taken down, smoked, or any other euphemism you like for shot to death probably five times as many human beings as the photo targets I’d holed here. Now I just say, “Enough.”
He nods, turns to Allison. “There’s no work here for me. Your man’s one of the best shooters to come through in a long time. I’ll tell the guy at the gate to let you all pass if you want to use the place. But there’s no point to my presense.”
“Okay,” Allison says. “Thanks for your help.”
“No problem,” he says. Then he shakes my hand. “Nice watching you work. Good luck.”
It’s a useless vanity, I know, but during the ride home to the spook house I find myself expecting Allison or Rob to say something—even a couple of words—praising my performance. They do not. Apparently shooting isn’t a high-value item on their scale of skills. When I insist to Allison later I need shooting time at least twice a week, she agrees. But it’s Nadya who takes me to the range. She at least seems interested in what I do there.
And thank God for Nadya. I was worried she’d be next to disappear. But she still comes around every day after lunch, comes over most evenings for dinner or drinks, too. She’s changing, but in a way that eases me. The stiff drills slip almost unnoticeably into casual conversations, boy-girl stuff again, but between people who’re long past the first meeting stage, are good friends, maybe lovers or on the verge of being that.
Nadya’s my comfort, until I realize that’s one more illusion, in which I’m an eager collaborator. Then I hate it, knowing how well they know me on some levels. And how wrong they can be about others. That damned psych profile badly needs updating. Yes, I once was a hound, in the worst ways. That changed a long time ago. Does the profile reflect the fact that I now play the foul-mouthed, swinging-dick role because I have to? That my bonds with men are a survival tactic, necessary to my trade? That men bore the hell out of me, unless we share certain very narrow professional experience and expertise. And even then I can only take so much before their company feels stale, stagnant? That my interest in women, on the other hand, is only sometimes sexual and more often mental? Is there any indication that I genuinely believe women in general are sharper, smarter, and much more intriguing to talk to than any male friends I’ve ever had? That I find the subtle shifts their minds can make, the differences in the ways they perceive the world, endlessly fascinating? That my flirting is generally only cover for another interest?
No. And they absolutely can’t know the feelings I’m developing for Nadya, because I scarcely understand how this could be happening myself, in such a fucked, false, and strained situation.
Allison’s a pro, but she can’t mask the strain entirely. I begin to notice nervy gestures she never made before: tugging her ponytail absently in the middle of a conversation is the most obvious. There’s also a faint brittle quality to the mutual teasing. And the sorority-house silliness isn’t fully present when she wakes me one morning, even though she’s in her Crew catalog sleepover mode, wearing the boxers, the sloppy top, the loopy smile as she shakes my shoulder. “God, you’re the lazy one. Up! Skivvies, a shirt and tie, suit pants and coat, shoes. And put on your holsters, holding. Alteration time.”
Right, I’m thinking as I get dressed. Had to wait until my gear arrived, so the suits can be nipped and tucked just so. They have to hang naturally, no telltale bulges or lumps anywhere, no printing. No hint I’m heavily armed.
The tailor, a fat bald guy who never lost his Italian accent, starts complaining the moment he comes in with Allison and sees me standing there, coat swimming from the shoulders down, pants folded at the too-large waist, inches of fabric bunched over my shoes.
“Too skinny, too skinny,” he mumbles, walking around me, looking me up and down. He has to mumble—lots of pins held in his mouth—but the chalk and tape measure in his hands don’t keep him from making the palms-up gesture of dismay.
It takes a half hour to do the pinning and chalking. No fun being a dummy, so I’m relieved as hell when he’s finished. Until he insists—and convinces Allison—that he has to repeat the process on the other four suits, since each is cut slightly differently.
That kills the entire morning. I’m tired and cranky when at last that fat obsessive-compulsive says “Fi
nito,” carefully packs everything up, and leaves. Allison closes the green folder she’s been studying for the past two hours. She looks at me vaguely, as if she’s still mainly concentrated on what she read. Then she focuses. “Hey! Free day today. We’ll go out, wherever you want. Nice lunch, relaxing afternoon?”
“Sounds good.”
“Uh, one condition. Forget the jeans and boots. Wear a polo, khakis, those new loafers.”
“Sure.”
“Not much to ask, is it? Anyway, you’ve got to get used to this stuff. Have to feel easy and natural in it. In fact, from now on, it’s all you’ll be wearing. Suits, too, when they come back.” She grins. “If you behave, I might even let you touch my Mini. For a block or two. Okay?”
“The gardens of stone? That really where you want to go?” Allison says when we’re out and moving in her Cooper.
“It is.”
“Are you feeling a little morbid or anything? Arlington National Cemetery isn’t generally a favored destination for guys who’ve been cooped up with us. Now that I think of it, it’s never been a destination. You have somebody there? Family, friends?”
“No.” She knows I’m lying. Has to be in my dossier that there is a friend there all right. From the first Gulf War. One of the unlucky few. But I’ve no intention of staring at his grave.
“Care to share why, then?”
“No.”
Allison makes a few turns, we’re crossing a bridge over the Potomac, almost blue today under the cloudless sky. I get a partial view of white splendor: Lincoln’s place, Washington’s obelisk, the green mall, and rising green to the white Capitol. Another illusion; ten blocks southeast of where congressmen, senators, Supreme Court justices pursue their particular interests, it’s a war zone, black gangbangers with no future and nothing to lose. So they’re rolling every night, trying to make their dime, capping anyone who gets in the way. D.C. has one of the highest murder rates in the nation. Southeast—and a couple of other ’hoods—is where it goes down. And nobody woke up to it even when a congressman got robbed and shot on the Capitol grounds a few years back. Nobody wants to admit it’s hopeless, endless. Like the civil wars in Africa.
Just a glimpse, a fleeting thought too straight on to resonate. Pretty soon we’re cruising a pretty Virgina parkway, turning into Arlington, parking. I stretch, suck in some breaths deep as I can. Not quite autumn yet, but the monsoon humidity’s gone, the air seems clean and crisp.
“Well, where to?” Allison asks.
“Kennedy’s first.”
The eternal flame’s not much, most certainly not eternal, so it’s hard to know why the expressions on the faces gazing at it look so awed and reverent. The white stones around it, bearing chiseled words, interest me. “We will bear any burden, pay any price,” I read out loud.
“You a closet patriot, Terry?” Allison asks. I’m thinking she sounds just a bit spooked.
“No,” I say. “Just considering that ruthless, ambitious bastard sure knew great speechwriters when he read them.” I pause. “Let’s walk.”
I take point, aiming for quieter, less trafficked precincts. The gardens are beautiful, white marble crosses bright against the clipped grass, flowing along the contours of the rolling terrain, parting gracefully as a brook around copses of well-tended mature oaks and maples and pines. It’s artfully arranged so you can see straight lines only obliquely, though the spacing is perfect. I can’t find an angle of view that reveals the graves are as rigidly positioned as an elite division in full-dress formation on some vast parade ground—which is a brute demonstration that no man’s an individual, just an easily replaceable part. The designers worked hard to make sure no one ever sees it quite that way.
“You know what this really is, Allison,” I say. “This beautiful ground is nothing but a junkyard for broken pieces of the machine.”
“I could say that’s cheap nihilism,” she says. “Or I could spin it once, say this is the real land of the free, home of the brave. Sure, most of those here weren’t combat heroes. But they served, they didn’t shirk it. And now they’re free.”
“Free?”
“Of this fucked world, they are.”
I stop under a broad-spreading oak on a little knoll, the familiar pleasant scent of newly mown grass in the air. Allison moves up near me. So near our shoulders are almost touching.
“What are we going into?” I ask.
“What you and Westley discussed. We have an interest in a certain package that’ll be moving. From Busan to Vladivostok to Pyongyang. Sensitive, but not hot, not high intensity. We’ve got our Russian connections, the package has the North Korean ones. All you have to do is keep the package secure. We think it will be about as straightforward as it ever gets. We do not anticipate trouble. But, as usual, we want to be geared up for anything, no matter how unlikely.”
“Oh, that clears up a lot.” My tone’s sarcastic but my mind’s racing. All Westley’d said was North Asia. Now I’ve got actual places, a hint of the actual players. Did she slip up, or was she told it was time? “Listen, I know you’re wired. But here’s a question I’m sure your handlers won’t mind you answering. Why me?”
“I’m not wired, and you already asked Westley that. You’re still wondering why you were picked for something outside your specialty, when we must have a dozen contractors who do specialize in baby-sitting? And this apparent anomaly’s giving you a slightly paranoid sensation?”
“Come on, Allison. Do you really think I’m just another no-brain shooter? Yeah, probably you do. I behave like one, so maybe that is all I am. But I am not, repeat not, prone to paranoia. So, why me?”
“As you were told, we’re stretched and busy. Some attrition these past few years, too. Some burnouts, some too compromised to use again. A couple of casualties we’re sure of. A few more just missing. That shouldn’t come as startling news to you.”
“It doesn’t. But it isn’t an answer, either. Come on, Allison.”
“I don’t actually know. Partly your Russian fluency. Partly the military stuff,” she says. “But I’m guessing. Because I didn’t ask for you. Westley gave you to me, Luther.”
“Luther? So I’m myself again. Terry sure did a fast fade.”
Allison won’t meet my eyes.
“And of course Westley did,” I go on. “The man’s running the op, he picks the team. Standard.”
“Actually, it isn’t. Because he isn’t.” Allison pauses. “I’m running this, Luther. Westley’s contributing.”
This is fucked beyond belief. I cannot buy it. “Don’t you mean ‘controlling’?”
“Hey, use whatever word you’re comfortable with,” she says.
“I’m real careful with words. Subtle little bastards. The wrong one at the wrong time, in some places, will get you killed.”
“Then hear this: I will be giving all the orders on this op. Nobody is going to even get bruised. I am in charge. Completely. Trust me.”
Either Allison’s deluded, or I’ve been had. Instantly every instinct I’ve been stupidly ignoring or deliberately burying since Westley appeared at Flannery’s begins strobing. I have got to get some hard intelligence on Westley, on Allison, on this whole deal. The problem: Who can provide, and how? I’m in virtual lockdown. No phone, no computer I’ve seen with Internet connections in the spook house. Never out alone, so I can’t even drop a quarter in a pay phone. And who to call? I’ve got no one inside the Company, no contacts at the DEA—not since the Francesca Russo incident—who might have CIA friends, nobody at NSA or the Pentagon.
I’m obsessed with this the rest of the day and all through a pizza dinner in the library with Allison, Nadya, and Rob. My preoccupation is impossible to miss, but they ignore it. I hardly pay attention when Westley strolls in, says, “Well, shall we watch some movies?” even though this seems completely bizarre.
But I snap to, the moment the tape starts to roll.
ten
NADYA NARRATES, STILL CURLED IN HER CHAIR. SHE’S the
only one who hasn’t straightened up, turned slightly tense, since Westley appeared.
“Thug on the right, that’s Bolgakov. Delicate villain left rear is Tchitcherine. Amazing they’re still in business. Almost chopped by Gorbachev, slipped under Yeltsin’s scythe, and so far seem to have escaped Putin’s notice.”
“Tell us why, Nadya,” Allison says.
“Swaying reeds, I imagine, no matter the breeze.” She laughs. “They’ve not been good boys, but they’ve groveled and fawned and spoken out of school about others less discreet. And of course their commands are no longer so sensitive as they were in tenser days. Siberian missile regiments. Been twiddling their thumbs for ages now.”
The video’s a combination of official coverage of what seem to be ceremonial meetings with Chinese and American figures, plus some clandestine stuff of Bolgakov and Tchitcherine’s private comings and goings. It’s been digitally enhanced or the technology has made a quantum leap in a decade, which is how long it’s been since I last saw this kind of surveillance.
“Take a good look, Terry,” Allison says. “The generals are our new Russian assets. These”—the video cuts to lower-rez short scenes, all crowded, but four faces that appear in every one—“are our package’s North Korean friends.”
“They have names?”
“Sure. They’re in the dossier you’ll be getting. Hope you can pronounce them better than you managed Eunkyong’s.”
Allison’s dig draws a chuckle from everyone. Except Westley. Westley just glances at me, shrugs, as if to say “Kids. What can you do?” It reminds me of a meet we’d had in ’99, during which he invited me to take a brief holiday in Kosovo, exercise my long-range termination skills on some Serb commanders. Which I politely declined.
“And this,” Allison says as the video switches to perfect clarity, the subject clearly conscious of the camera’s presense, even smiling and waving, “is the package. Kim Chung-hee. Mister Kim. Chairman of one of the ROK’s most progressive jaebeols. Very forward-looking businessman.”