Then they’d driven unhurriedly to Kittredge’s apartment in the embassy district.
It was almost as if El Grande wanted Company assets to watch the drop off. Maybe it was a not-so-subtle way of nudging him out of the VSS nest, Kittredge thought as he picked up yet another article of clothing from the mess strewn about his bedroom floor.
His day hadn’t been exactly peachy before arriving back at home, but the sight of his wrecked apartment had brought back the seriousness of his situation like a slap in the face. These were extremely serious people, and it appeared that they had taken up semi-permanent residence in his life. At least, that’s the slightly melodramatic metaphor he’d spoken aloud to himself as he’d set to work cleaning up the mess.
He’d been working his way through stacks of his and Charley’s clothing, hoping to whip the ransacked bedroom into semi-livable shape by nightfall. He’d noticed nothing missing, though he knew it would take weeks to figure out whether anything had been stolen.
They hadn’t been shy about roughing things up, though. He shook his head in wonder at the quantity of broken glass from picture frames, mirrors, and Charley’s omnipresent knick-knacks. Kittredge picked thousands of glass shards from their clothing. It was tedious work, and he wasn’t making the kind of progress he’d hoped.
His hand brushed against his pocket, and he felt the hard edge of his cell phone. He’d been avoiding turning it on, for fear of what the messages might hold, but his cleanup efforts had put him in a take-charge kind of mood. With a deep breath, he powered it on.
Five messages, all from Quinn. He listened to the first one, left sometime on Tuesday. It consisted mostly of an elaborate and questionably relevant joke about buggery being the only lasting Greek contribution to humanity, followed by a presumptuous demand for a meeting. “Be downstairs at five, sharp, and I’ll pick you up at the curb,” Quinn’s deep voice intoned.
Oops. Sorry I missed your meeting, asshole, Kittredge thought.
The remaining messages were increasingly less friendly and patient, and Kittredge deleted the last two without listening to them.
Time to figure a couple of things out, he decided.
He found the number to Charley’s room in the DC hospital. It rang only three or four times before a female voice picked up. “Mr. Arlinghaus’ room, Nurse Williamson speaking.” Kittredge went through the routine with the phone password again, then listened intently as the nurse described Charley’s condition.
Charley was beginning to make rapid, involuntary limb movements, which the nurse said was a sign of either healing in the motor cortex, or what she called coupled dreaming, where Charley’s thoughts were inciting his body to move in response, like a dog chasing rabbits in its sleep.
Either way, it was a positive sign. While she wouldn’t hazard a guess about when Charley might wake up and become lucid again, or even whether that was on the horizon, she did say that the doctors were far less concerned about his prognosis than a couple of days earlier.
Kittredge thanked her and signed off. He felt a mixture of difficult emotions as the week’s events clashed together in his mind.
Seven days earlier, he had been on the prowl for a one-night stand with a pretty male waiter at his favorite DC haunt. Then he had been Quinn’s guest, chained to the cement floor in the basement of an Alexandria safe house while Quinn did medieval things to him. Then came the revelation about the surveillance cameras in his DC crash pad, followed by Charley’s attack, and Quinn shoving him out of the car at the airport for a flight to Caracas.
And then it had really gotten crazy.
A man could use a drink right about now. Kittredge made for the liquor cabinet, dismayed to find its contents a sticky mess of desiccated spirits and broken glass.
That was more than inconvenient, and he felt his face flush with anger all over again as he grabbed his wallet to make for the liquor store around the corner. He’d spent plenty of time sober today, he thought, and he was certainly deserving of an evening constitutional to add a more pleasant veneer to the grim work of putting his apartment back together.
There was also the difficult business of orchestrating his reintroduction to his Company cohorts, which was also best faced with liquid fortification.
He had just turned toward the front door when his phone rang. Quinn. Adrenaline crashed in his stomach and his heart rate doubled.
You’ve got to do this sometime, he reasoned. Might as well get it over with.
“Hi Quinn. Torture anyone lately?”
He heard Quinn’s harsh laugh on the other end of the connection. “Not yet, but I was hoping you were free later.”
Funny. Kittredge kept quiet, forcing Quinn to make the next move. It felt like a powerful thing to do, even if it was only symbolic.
“That’s an interesting shirt, by the way,” Quinn said. “Very festive. Looks good on you, though.”
Kittredge shuddered, still not used to the idea of being watched.
He recovered quickly. “Thanks Quinn. Describe it to me.” Kittredge thought he’d test to see whether Quinn was bluffing.
“Okay, Secret Agent Man. The eggplant sets off your eyes, and I like the lemon pinstripes. Unusual, but very stylish.”
Not bluffing. “Where’s the camera, Quinn? I want to look at you while I’m talking to you.”
“Look at you, growing up so quickly. Just a few days ago, you got an extreme case of vaginitis over this kind of thing.”
“Well, it was a long week. Lots of growth opportunities.”
“Why don’t you tell me about it, Peter.” It wasn’t a question.
Kittredge told him. It made him weak in the knees, and he had to work hard to control his breathing, but he told Quinn about his new VSS contacts, their safe houses, and their agenda.
He lied about the tunnel, saying he didn’t know which two buildings it connected – he wanted to keep Company paws from defiling the extraordinary apartment in which he’d made love to Maria, an episode he now held with some degree of preciousness – but he was otherwise completely truthful and forthcoming.
And he didn’t pull any punches with regard to the markedly better treatment he had received at the hands of the VSS. “One might be forgiven for being confused about who the bad guys are in this whole thing,” he said.
Quinn laughed. “Maybe so. But it’s probably healthier for you to suspend your disbelief and stay on the home team.”
“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
“A smart choice. I’m really impressed, Kittredge. You’re really showing some backbone here. That’s a good thing. Maybe there’s hope for you yet. But the cynic in me says that you didn’t have any other real options.”
Quite true, Kittredge thought glumly, feeling pangs of guilt and remorse at having spoken of the confidences he’d shared with the VSS, even though El Grande had encouraged him to do just that.
Quinn went on to say that he had a bunch of questions, and he’d drop by in a few moments to take Kittredge out for a beer.
“No, thanks,” Kittredge said. “I have to get my apartment put back together. But if you’d like some quality time together, feel free to stop by and help.”
Quinn laughed. “I’d rather watch. In fact, maybe you should think of me as your personal bodyguard. This is a tough town, you know. Did you hear, there was a shooting not too far from here last night? Crazy shit. A fella really has to watch out.” He laughed that cold, harsh laugh again, and it somehow reached into Kittredge’s bones and shook them.
These are truly terrible people, he thought for the hundredth time. If he’d had any doubt before about whether the Agency was behind the harrowing episode, he had none now.
“Thanks, Quinn. Swell of you. I’ll be sure to leave the bathroom door open so you can watch me take a crap.”
“I’d like that, thanks.”
Kittredge hung up.
He didn’t want to venture out, but he wasn’t about to endure the remainder of the evening sober. He grabbed
some cash and his apartment key and made for the liquor store.
It took less than half an hour to retrieve a fresh bottle of vodka from the store nearby. He chose the big bottle, which he knew was a sign either of a man planning a party or a man with a problem. Nothing new for the store clerk either way. The clerk checked him out with only the briefest of perfunctories.
He walked slowly back toward the apartment, stealing glances out of the corners of his eyes at passersby, wondering whether any of them were part of a surveillance team.
He even ducked into a recessed doorway and watched the sparse foot traffic carefully for a minute or so, looking for anything strange. Then, realizing that he really had no idea what he was looking for, and that he probably looked very foolish to any real surveillance team that might be watching, he walked back to his apartment without further attempts at spy craft.
He sat on his sofa and enjoyed the view while his first drink hit his bloodstream. It was a beautiful sensation, the first few sips of pure vodka burning his esophagus in that familiar pleasurable pain, which was a reward in itself, but was inevitably followed by the even greater bliss of a burgeoning buzz. The world took on a far more tolerable tinge.
Maybe it was the booze, but Kittredge rapidly shed his guilt at having told Quinn about El Grande and the VSS. The Venezuelans, after all, had approached him, not the other way around.
And they had approached him with full knowledge of his situation with the Agency. Whatever he was to them, whatever role they hoped he would play in their greater drama, he wasn’t going to feel badly about it.
In fact, he thought, that’s probably what they wanted in the first place. Someone to shuttle between camps, stir the pot a bit.
Maybe they had something violent in mind, and needed Kittredge to help them smoke out the Agency players. Or maybe they had sized up their Agency opponents and concluded, probably correctly, that they were well beyond their depth. Maybe Kittredge’s role was to help them start a little backchannel detente.
Or maybe the VSS was really out for blood, using him to probe the Caracas contingent of Cocksuckers In Action for weaknesses, watching how they surveilled him, observing how they responded to various scenarios.
Who the hell knows?
Kittredge decided he’d play his part, whatever it might be, and may the best bastards win. Maybe in the process, a few of them would get what they deserved. One could only hope.
Except Maria.
She was different, he decided.
49
Fredericks’ phone buzzed and jangled.
Quinn shot him a dirty look. “You’ve been a desk ape for too long,” he chided. “Ringing telephones are for dead men.”
Fredericks ignored him and answered the phone.
Curmudgeon’s dulcet tones greeted him with the first half of an authentication: “The first panacea of a mismanaged nation. . .”
“Is inflation of the currency,” Fredericks responded.
“The second is war,” Curmudgeon finished.
“The last part was totally unnecessary, except to prove how smart you are,” Fredericks said to his handler.
Curmudgeon’s easy laugh sounded in Fredericks’ ear. “Hemingway is my favorite suicide victim.”
“I thought as a priest, you weren’t allowed to condone suicide.”
“I don’t. But that doesn’t stop me from picking a favorite.”
“I’d go with Marilyn Monroe myself,” Fredericks said.
“She didn’t commit suicide.”
“She’s still my favorite. What do you want?”
“I heard something through the grapevine that might interest you,” Curmudgeon said. “Bravo has confirmed that Alpha has accepted the invitation to your party, and wishes you Godspeed and good luck.”
Bravo was the Intermediary.
And Alpha was the goddamned Facilitator.
If he wasn’t the most powerful human on the planet, Fredericks had no idea who might hold that title. Not even the President toyed with the Facilitator.
Holy shit, Fredericks thought. We’re really going to do this. He realized that a part of him never thought they’d get green-lighted, but there it was, straight from the top, and delivered by Curmudgeon.
“Start the party at your discretion,” the priest-spy said. “But be advised that we have backchannel confirmation of the necessary precursors, so don’t cut any corners. I don’t need to remind you of the stakes.”
“Right. Thanks,” Fredericks said.
“Good luck.” With that, Curmudgeon hung up.
Fredericks turned to Quinn, seated next to him at the kitchen table in the cramped apartment that had served as the Operation Syphilis headquarters over the past few days. “We’re a go.”
“I’ll round up the usual suspects,” Quinn said.
Kittredge had just put the finishing touches on Vodka Number Four, which was going to be a masterpiece of a drink, containing nothing but near-freezing vodka and a twist of lime, when his phone rang. It had been just a bit under seven full days since his Agency friends had revealed their presence in his life, but he was already thoroughly sick of them. “Hello, Fredericks.”
“Are you soused again?”
“Insufficiently. What do you want?”
“Get dressed.”
“I am dressed.”
“Stay that way. Quinn is coming by.”
“I’d rather drink alone, thanks.”
“He’s going to pick you up. You’re going to the tailor shop.”
Kittredge was confused. He’d never made an information drop at the tailor shop during his short and unremarkable career as a spy for Exel Oil, so he wasn’t sure what the Agency could possibly want to do with him there.
“I’m confused,” he said.
“I thought you gay guys were all in to fashion and whatnot. I thought some clothes shopping would be a nice gesture.”
“I think you have me confused with a TV show. Thanks anyway, but I’ll stay here.”
“Actually,” Fredericks said in his don’t-screw-with-me tone, “this is the part where you earn your paycheck.”
“You don’t pay me,” Kittredge observed.
“Consider your lack of incarceration, and every dollar you will make in your remaining lifetime as a free citizen, to be the amount that I am paying you to do whatever the hell I tell you to do.”
Compelling, Kittredge thought.
But bottomless and infinite.
He sighed, feeling owned. “When?”
“He’ll be there in ten minutes. You really are going to the tailor to fit some clothes. Gotta look nice for Hugo.”
“Who’s Hugo?”
“You’ll see soon enough.” Fredericks hung up.
Kittredge downed his drink with imprudent quickness, and was halfway through another by the time Quinn arrived at his door.
50
El Jerga’s blood was up, more so than usual. His target may not have personally killed his uncle, but for El Jerga, mere association was guilt enough.
He would do his job, as he always did, but he would make it last.
It would be payback, and maybe even healing. He would savor its sweet depravity, relish the all-too-brief foray to the edge of his own humanity, enjoy the thrilling view into the abyss of his own soul as he killed again.
What would he ever do without a suitable conflict to feed his growing addiction? El Jerga knew he needn’t worry much about that at the moment. This particular conflict was just beginning.
His approach was completely unnoticed, byproduct of his obvious ethnicity and the mop and bucket he pushed over the hard tile floors. He whistled a Venezuelan tune, an old favorite of his, one that his uncle used to sing to him when he was an anguished boy trying to recover from the loss of his father.
He was still an anguished soul, he knew, but unlike the first time someone he loved was taken from him, El Jerga now had the power to retaliate. He held that power in his hands, to be sure, but its true source was the
blackness of his soul and the hardness of his heart.
This is the one, he thought as he read the name stenciled on the door.
He knocked twice, announced “Housekeeping,” and opened the door.
That’s him, El Jerga thought as he spied the man behind the desk.
All skin and bones. He was disappointed that the pictures were so accurate. There wasn’t much flesh for him to flay.
But he would make do.
The man hadn’t lasted nearly as long as El Jerga had wished, expiring more to end the pain than due to any particular wound.
It was a powerful thing, El Jerga thought, watching the precise moment when a man decided he would rather die than endure any further pain.
It was something of a cliché, of course, the kind of thing that people wrote songs or television shows about, but it was an immensely intense experience in the flesh. Making the decision to trade all of one’s tomorrows for the immediate end to an unbearable pain – that was truly a sublime moment to watch, to be a part of.
To cause.
El Jerga wiped the fishing knife clean for the fifth time. If killing was a barely-controlled compulsion, then cleaning up afterwards was an absolute obsession. He’d already burned the clothes and scattered their ashes in the Ohio River, where he now sent the fishing knife to what he hoped would be its final, frigid resting place.
El Jerga had left the tattered remains of the skinny man, with his gaunt skin detached from the muscle in some places and sliced in grotesque, macabre patterns in others, as a monument to the war that was just beginning.
For Venezuela.
For Uncle.
He got back into the fake cleaning company’s van, stopped off at the warehouse to change vehicles, and drove to a cluster of chain hotels just off of I-70, noticing the pleasant way the setting sun cast the high overcast in bright pink hues.
He picked the most crowded hotel, parked his car, and waited in line to check in.
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 29