by Michael Crow
“Hey, you notice anything a little weird here?”
“No.”
“The Muzak? Somebody’s slipped in some Dave Matthews. God, he’d die if he knew.”
“No wonder you didn’t dig Matrix,” I say. “Dave Matthews fan! Should have guessed. Though his first CD’s the only one worth listening to more than once. Reminds you of college, does it?”
“Grad school. I’ve got some sweet memories, with the Matthews Band as background music.”
“Cryptic. How about providing some detail?”
“Hell no. My romantic interludes aren’t something I’d care to have you leer and drool over. You tell me about yours, instead.”
“Don’t know that I’ve had any.”
Allison practically hoots. “You are so full of it, Terry! I know every one of those poor girls’ names.”
“Close encounters only. Thought ‘romantic’ was the operative word here.”
“Poor you, then. If that’s true. But I don’t believe it.”
“Why not? You know so much about me, what I am. Can you feature any woman being in love with me? Or me with her?”
“Sure. There’s types and types. Like finds like. That’s how the world stays populated, isn’t it?”
“Haven’t done my share of that work, then,” I say.
“Slacker. After this is over, go back to Annie and get busy.” She grins at me like I’m a kid who’s misbehaved in some slightly amusing way. I’m stung. Badly. Try hard not to let anything show.
I look around when the waitress brings our coffee. Rob’s gone. Nadya’s still sipping wine with guy in tweed. Businesslike expressions on both their faces.
“So, Dave in the background,” I say, “singing that one where he asks the gravedigger to make his shallow, so he can feel the rain. Cheap nihilism you’d call it, if I said anything like that. But it’s okay, it’s a beautiful metaphor, from Dave. And I ask, ‘Allison, why are we really doing this job?’ And Allison looks into my eyes, truth on the tip of her tongue, and says…?”
“Sorry. Details are still need-to-know. You want the broader view, for lots of jobs? It’s pretty obvious. We got a new mandate, post-9/11. Go proactive again in major ways, after being reactive only after Vietnam and Iran and even Desert Storm. And not just us. All the agencies. We’re going to sucker-punch anybody who even looks at us funny, not just sit there and take a hit first.”
“So you’re pulling in and using every guy like me you can dredge up.”
“For the moment. We’ve got more newbies than we’ve ever had, and training classes are twice, three times the size they were a few years ago, when I went through. Covert, black, even what they used to call ‘termination with extreme prejudice,’ all mandated again. The old guys are saying it’s like the sixties, pre-Carter seventies all over. They’re only pissed that they’re too creaky for the field now.”
“And that’s why kids like you are in charge of ops.”
“Kids? I’ve got six years in. Which is more than your military time, on or off the books.”
“God, I’m practically a rookie.”
“Yeah. So go get some rack time,” Allison says, signing the check Amanda something or other I can’t read upside down.
“Army jargon doesn’t suit you,” I say. “And it’s barely nine.”
“Who cares?” she says. “Wake-up’s at three forty-five, be down in the lobby ready to go at four-fifteen. Oh, and you might as well wear your tools.”
I hang up my suit and shirt, wallet and passport and money still in the pockets. Loosen the noose of my tie just enough to slip over my head and hang it too; don’t want to have to fumble around knotting it in the middle of the night. Don’t want to mess up my neat packing job either. So I leave the suitcase locked, figure I’ll wear what I came in. Take off my T and jockies, pull down the bed covers. Why do they always put too many blankets, comforters, and shams or whatever they call them on hotel beds? Dump most of them on the carpet. I lie there in the dark, smoking, feeling more than hearing the occasional roar and rumble of big jets lifting off, beginning their climb.
What I hear, after two or three more Camels, is a quiet but sharp click as the door lock snaps to open. The XD’s in my right hand quick, and I flash the brilliant Z2 on the moment the door swings and someone slips in.
Nadya, jacklighted like a doe, freezes.
“Oh bugger, Terry. Turn that off and turn on the room lights. You bloody blinded me with that thing,” she says.
“How’d you get in?” I ask, doing what she’s asked.
“This.” She’s got one hand over her eyes. The other’s holding up a clear plastic wafer, credit-card size, that seems veined with copper circuitry. “It’ll open any card lock in any hotel in the world. Didn’t they give you one?”
“Guess they don’t trust me with one. What are you doing here?”
“Just wanted to ask what I asked when we danced: One time only? This is the last unbugged room we’re likely to be in for quite a while.”
Her eyes are bright under those black bangs.
“Nadya, please go back to your room. I don’t think I can do this.”
“Just relax, Terry, and let me do the thinking.”
“What about feelings? Can you feel for me, too? Please go now,” I say, moving to switch off the bedside lamp.
“Don’t, darling,” she smiles, swaying up to me, kicking off her shoes, slipping out of her skirt, pulling her top over her head. “I like to watch. I like to be watched.”
She bends, face close, her nose lightly brushing one cheek, pulling away a little, brushing the other, pulling away, brushing my lips, pulling away. Her incredible eyes wide and locked to mine all the while. I’m gone, incapable of resistance. Then her lips, sweet and soft, meet mine lightly, withdraw, meet mine again and stay.
So very, very slow. So very, very sweet. I lose all sense of time. Her eyes never leave mine.
It’s like nothing I’ve known. It goes on forever.
fourteen
COLD LIGHT, TOO BRIGHT, IN THE LOBBY BEFORE DAWN, and a night manager handling our checkout too cheerfully for the hour. Everybody must have had the same idea I did. Everybody’s wearing the clothes they arrived in. The only difference for me is the weight of the shoulder-holstered Wilson, the Springfield at the small of my back. In a day or two, I know, I won’t be conscious of this at all. Which is important. A man who feels he’s carrying shows he’s carrying—in small ways, but always.
We board a white van, unmarked except for a small yin-yang circle bisected horizontally by a wave, red on the top, blue on the bottom. The Korean symbol, it’s even on their flag. What was it Eunkyong told me? The red’s for male, day, heat, action, the blue symbolizes female, night, cold, passivity.
A Taoist sign. Totally wrong, like most mystic shit. What do monks know about anything real? But I’m suddenly aware my own grasp on that is pretty weak at the moment. Last night, for instance. Maybe I only dreamed it.
I must scowl or something at that notion.
“I think Terry here is deep in caffeine withdrawl, needs a fix bad,” Allison says as the van hums away from the hotel.
“He’s not alone,” Rob mutters. He’s yawning as the van bypasses the main road to the passenger terminal—still dark, empty, not open for business—and turns onto a broad expanse of tarmac. Up ahead, maybe half a klick from the sleeping airliners flocked around the commercial terminal, there’s a neat row of corporate Hawkers, Falcons, Challengers, a few little Lears. The private aviation sector, three or four hangars, only one of which is lit up. We stop there.
I step out of the van, look up at a Gulfstream, the G IV, I think. All pristine white, no markings beyond the standard FAA-required numbers. Except on the tail. There’s a discreet circle, no bigger than a basketball, divided by a horizontal wave, red on top, blue on bottom. I see men in the green glow of the cockpit. The engines are already whirring lowly, the gangway’s down. A couple of guys in white jumpsuits are transferring our lu
ggage from the van to the plane’s belly.
“KimAir, flight one, nonstop from BWI to Monterey, California, is now boarding. Have your passes ready, please,” Allison calls out, mounting the gangway.
“You miss your true calling or what?” Rob says. “‘Hello, my name is Allison and I’ll be your cabin attendant.’”
“Just board, Rob,” Allison says, disappearing into the plane.
Rob climbs the few steps, Nadya follows, I bring up the rear. We pass a curtained cubicle that must be the galley, enter the cabin. No rows of seats. It looks like a small cocktail lounge, half a dozen fat leather easy chairs around a low table, a couple more chairs against the rear bulkhead on either side of a brushed-aluminum door. Plush carpet, the same shade of blue as the yin-yang circle. A slim table flush against the side of the hull, three slim brushed aluminum laptops on it, one under each porthole. Three tiny silver cell phones, one next to each computer. A slight girl in a kimono appears from the galley, inquires in a whisper if I’d like coffee, then pads around to Allison, Rob, and Nadya, asking what they require. Then she retires behind the curtains.
“Pick your spot,” Allison says, flopping into one of the leather chairs that faces more or less forward. I guess I’m the only one who doesn’t mind flying backward—lots of chopper time—because Rob and Nadya flank her. The kimono girl returns with a tray, serves each of us with a bow. A couple of gulps of the coffee and I’m feeling sharper.
“What did I say about Terry needing his fix?” Allison says. “Look at him. It’s like his switch has been flipped on.”
“I think it’s Nadya who needs to pop a stay-awake, or whatever flicks her switch,” Rob says. “Did you sleep at all, Nadya?”
Uh-oh, I’m thinking.
“Up your bum, mate,” Nadya snaps. “You didn’t have the longest, most tedious dinner of your life with the senior Russia analyst from Langley. It could have been over twice as fast, if the old lech had focused mostly on business instead of mostly on my tits. Gave me bad dreams.”
She leans a little forward, looks over at Allison, and laughs. “Now Rob’s doing it, too. This is covert harassment. I’m filing a complaint with Human Resources.”
She doesn’t look at me. Her attitude’s perfect—treat Terry like you’ve always treated Terry. “At least that one’s not sexist,” she says, nodding in my direction.
None of us even notice the plane’s taxiing, until the pilot’s voice comes over the intercom, announcing we’re cleared for takeoff in Korean-accented English.
“Hey, where’s Westley?” I ask, more than a little late.
“He’s already been out there for a few days, playing golf with Mister Kim,” Allison says. “Korean businessmen have picked up bad habits like that from their Nipponese counterparts.”
“A nice walk, spoiled,” I say.
“Where’d that come from?” Rob asks.
“Some rabid anti-golfer. Read it someplace,” I say.
Then we’re accelerating a whole lot faster than any jet I’ve been on, and the lift-up’s much more sudden, the climb so steep it’s disconcerting. My hands squeeze the chair arms hard. Feel embarrassed when I notice my white knuckles. Hope the others didn’t see. I deliberately relax my hands. I’m used to the long, slow lumbering of C-130s, which always feel like they’re never going to get airborne.
Allison’s up and booting one of the laptops as soon as we level out. She types a few words, taps one key, waits a second, then shuts down. Must be an e-mail.
“Cool plane. Kim’s done it right,” I say. “But you said noncommercial all the way. This can’t have the range to cross the Pacific.”
“It might. But he doesn’t use it for that,” Allison says. “He keeps this stateside, for local hops here and there. He’s got something a bit bigger for intercontinental.”
“Oh, it’s huge,” Nadya says. “Enormous.”
“Nadya’s phallic obsession,” Allison says. “You wouldn’t believe what she did when we saw an ICBM in North Dakota once.”
“I missed that one,” Rob says.
“She stroked it!”
“Cow!” Nadya says. She can’t stop herself from giggling then.
Fucking sorority house again. The mood’s too flip, too light. It’s making me uneasy. But then I remember we’re just going to California, hang out with Mister Kim and his people for a week or so, everybody getting comfortable with everybody. And then Busan, the man’s hometown. The mission won’t get serious until Vlad. I relax a little. Too used to the raw, rough ways my team eased tension on the way into a hot LZ. Or on the way up for a HALO—high-altitude, low-opening parachute drop. Training or real world, never mattered which. One felt the same as the other. That was the fucking point, wasn’t it?
And I miss that shit, I realize. It’s insane, of course. Nobody should miss live fire, or jumping out of a perfectly airworthy plane at thirty-five thousand feet in the dead of night, free-falling for thirty-two thou, then popping a chute so you can float right into the kill zone of dudes who’re just dying to smoke you.
And I can’t wait, I’m thinking, to get to Vlad. Tried for years now to put that jones for adrenaline dumps behind me. But even a whiff of action, I want into it.
“Terry’s going all pensive on us,” Allison says. “Thinking deep thoughts, are you?”
“Terry’s taking a nap,” I say, settling deeper into my chair, shutting my eyes, and hoping I’ll see only Nadya in my dreams.
No such luck.
The bone-dry, bone-chilling desert night. No moon. No wind, no sound except the bass vibe of our well-muffled dune buggy easing up a little rise, poking its snout over the edge. Below us, maybe a thousand meters off on flats dull gray against the black night sky, we see the ominous silhouette of what’s got to be a T-55 tank, laagered up with three APCs. A company of Iraqi soldiers, still and featureless as logs, lying close around a small fire. Nobody’s up and walking, nobody’s on sentry duty. Assholes. No discipline at all. Or maybe they figure they’re so far behind the front line they can relax.
Allahu akbar, you poor bastards. God’s scourge has a visual.
JoeBoy whispers to his radio. The radio hisses back. White teeth gleam out from his camo-smeared face. I figure it’s a grin.
“That big fucker. Light it up, Luther!” JoeBoy says. Snake’s behind the twin 50s mounted on the roll bar. “Yeah, man,” he says. “Light the fucker up.”
I shoulder a LAW, brace myself against the roll-bar, center the tank in the glowing green reticle of the sight. The sight image jitters. I take a deep breath, steady down, half exhale.
“Rock the ragheads, man,” Snake says.
One press of one finger.
I’m rocked hard when the missile whooses off, then blinded by the brilliant white flash as it whangs into the tank and explodes. Half-blind as JoeBoy slams the buggy, revved to the max, over the ridge and redlines across the flats straight toward the pillar of flame. Snake’s loosing shattering bursts of armor-piercing and incendiary rounds from the 50s, screaming “Fry! Fry, motherfuckers!”
White flash and red flare bypass my eyes, go straight into my brain as the APCs erupt, one after the other. A few dark figures flicker behind this scrim for a second. I hose them down, emptying two mags with my MP5 on full auto. Then there’s nothing moving but heavy waves of smoke breaking over the flames in slow motion. Until it’s Fourth of July again as Iraqi ammo cooks off into the sky. I try to blink away the awful glare. Doesn’t work. Too bright.
It’s daylight coming strong and straight in my face through the Gulfstream’s portholes I’m blinking away, waking. We’re racing the sun, the sun’s winning as it always does. Allison and Rob are dozing. Nadya’s reading a paperback. She glances up, sees my eyes are open, gives me a small smile of complicity. Then she goes back to her book, whatever it is. I stare at her a while to wipe the dream away, then watch the terrain appear through the cloud cover as the plane descends. Allison and Rob stir, stretch.
The pilot’s good. He
brings us down very steep but so smoothly the Gulfstream’s tires barely squeal. Allison and Rob unbuckle. Nadya puts her book into her shoulder bag. The little kimono bows us out of the plane.
Nobody’s waiting for us at the plane’s hangar, which is as far from the main terminal as the dimensions of this small airport allow. There’s a black Land Cruiser parked beside it. One of two guys in white jumpsuits hands Allison a key as she steps off the gangway, then joins his mate in off-loading our bags and wheeling them to the vehicle. Allison drives, Rob’s riding shotgun, Nadya and I are in the rear seat. Feels like a chunk of time went missing. The early sun’s slanting sharply over the wooded mountains to the east. It’s only around eight in the morning, local, though my watch says eleven.
As we wind up into the hills, I catch a glimpse of the Pacific. Then we get to Carmel, and I feel low-rent despite the suit and the Cruiser. We park and head off for breakfast. I see a couple of Hummers, a $150,000 Mercedes Gelandewagen, one hand-built Morgan among the BMWs, Porsches, and Lexus SUVs. Lots of folks dressed like rich lumberjacks: plaid shirt-jacs, more likely cashmere or alpaca than cotton flannel. Same style idiom in Jake Moon’s, a pancake house disguised as a Gold Rush saloon. Cappuccino’s five bucks a pop, and fifteen gets you a short stack of Jake’s rugged flapjacks—your choice of mango, passion fruit, kiwi, papaya, or organic whole-wheat blueberry. We’re crammed around a small table with a tin top, in the rear. I order blueberry.
“I believe, no, I’m sure that is Clint Eastwood,” Nadya says, pointing at the take-out counter up front, where a tall, lean guy is buying a bag of muffins. “He’s not still the mayor, is he?”
Allison glances over. “Old,” she says. “Ancient.”
“Not so,” Rob says. “Hope I look that good when I’m his age.”
Nadya snorts. “Highly unlikely. You don’t look that good now.”
“Could we possibly take a banter break? For once?” Allison says, picking at some unrecognizable fruit in her pancakes. “So, Terry, a little parting of the ways coming up.”