Hard Return

by J. Carson Black

  Whoever it was—one person or an army—he would be ready for them. He knew how to evade, and he knew how to fight, and he knew how to kill.

  He allowed himself to drift back into sleep and awoke again at four a.m. Rested. Ready. He ordered room service. Turned the shower on and left the bathroom door open. Called out to the hotel employee who brought it to leave it outside the door. He waited ten full minutes and then retrieved the food.

  He turned on the television. The “news” had moved on. There were more pressing and important things in the world than a poor photo of one person of interest.

  There was nothing about Gordon C. Tuttle High School. Already it was old news, fading like that photograph would if it were printed up and exposed to the light. Presidential, global, and local politics took the spotlight, the same flames fanned over and over again.

  But Landry thought about the school. He wondered where his wife and daughter were. He wondered how Kristal was handling Luke’s death. He wondered if she suspected it had something to do with her father.

  He wondered how she had taken the news about him—that he was alive.

  What would she think? Would she think he had something to do with the deaths of those kids? With Luke’s death?

  He couldn’t believe that. Kristal would know he loved her. She had to know he loved her and her mother more than anything else on earth. She had to know that he would never shoot up a school.

  From what he’d seen on the news, they were still leaving out details on the shooter’s death.

  In fact, they had ignored that whole aspect. More than a week had gone by and there was very little on the shooting, if anything. When his picture popped up on the screen yesterday, Landry assumed that they were thinking he was an associate of the shooter. Maybe an accomplice.

  They would assume that a sniper of his caliber would be a professional. These were no dummies, these cops. If he were working the case, he would have guessed that the two had worked together—himself and the shooter—and that he had shot the shooter to keep him from being captured and questioned.

  Caught and interviewed—those were the nonmilitary terms for it.

  The problem was, they were looking at it the wrong way. Landry was convinced that someone had shot up the school to lure him out. Someone already suspected he was alive.

  And all those kids were dead because of it.

  He had to stay at large. He had to figure out who had tried to draw him out. And he had to find his wife and daughter and make sure they were safe.

  The restaurant, Sam’s Place, was on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles proper, a busy part of town with plenty of high-rises, businesses, four lanes of traffic, bistros, shops, and hotels lining the streets. Not too upscale but not down in the mouth, either. Sam’s Place was a chain with four rooms chock-full of talking people. It was lunch hour, the noise level was high—a loud babble, people leaning forward and conversing earnestly with one another. The waiters were young and attractive, probably college students, friendly but busy. They couldn’t afford to linger. Taking orders was down to a science. The kind of place where the young server tried to sell them an appetizer by rote.

  Eric wore blue. Landry wore gray. Just like Landry’s favorite film of all time, Casablanca, a heady cauldron of war, betrayal, spies, sentimentality, patriotism, and outrageous heroism. Sam’s Place fit the theme.

  Eric the Red had cleaned up nicely. He wore a blue shirt and a blue tie and navy-blue slacks. Good shoes. Reasonably good slacks, a nice watch. Eric could afford a nice watch. He had the requisite iPhone and the get-down-to-business-after-the-first-drink attitude. Busy, busy, busy.

  Landry, likewise. He wore a gray shirt, a darker gray tie, charcoal gray slacks.

  There were plenty of others who wore those two colors, but the uniformity of the presentation made them stand out across a crowded room.

  Of course Eric the Red would stand out in any room.

  They made it easy on the server. Generic food. Generic drinks. Earnest conversation—and the server knew from experience that the best thing he could do was leave them alone, popping up only to put down a plate or sell another drink or dessert.

  They’d managed an out-of-the-way corner at a two-top where the weak and unobtrusive sound system played “As Time Goes By” through the speaker above. Eric had set his briefcase on the small table, had a printout under one hand.

  “Got some news for you, bro,” Eric said, leaning forward so he could be heard over the rush of sound. “It’s from the Toolshed.”

  Landry had known it was coming. “I’m a mark?”

  Eric nodded.

  “You know who put out the paper on me?”

  “No idea.”

  Landry absorbed this. He’d been prepared for this eventuality, ever since his photo was put up on TV.

  The trip to Austria had yielded results, but not the one he’d expected. He’d expected to be hired for a hit, thought that he would get into the network that way, as—Peterman.

  “The pic, man. They’re taking it seriously.”

  “Who’s taking it seriously? Is there a way to find out who put the paper out on me?”

  “No idea and no way to find out. Somebody got a nasty surprise when you showed up on TV.”

  Landry reflected that it would be a lot of people. Hard to narrow down.

  Eric leaned forward. “I do have a marginal framework—a hack. He may be able to get you what you need.”

  Two questions. Landry asked them. One was “How long will it take?” and the other was “How much?”

  “Might be a couple of days, or it could be like that.” Eric snapped his fingers. “You know how it goes.” And he named a price.

  Just then the waiter, who looked to be all of twelve, came by with the food. “Careful,” he said. “These plates are hot.”

  Andrew Keller, FBI special agent, Los Angeles field office, had figured out within a few hours that the man who spun stories about a brother with a fishing lodge in Montana—and had extracted information from him—was a fake. And Andrew could thank his lucky stars that the information the man had extracted was minimal.

  Think about it: how easy it was. The man who called himself Jim Branch from Kalispell never replied to the message Keller’d left on his cell, and when Keller had finally called the municipal number, he got a message saying he’d reached an office in human resources on the first floor. He called back later and got a receptionist. The receptionist said she’d never heard of Jim Branch, homicide detective from Kalispell, Montana—or his son—and as far as she knew there was no one named Branch working in the building. She’d added that if Jim Branch’s son was indeed a police officer, he would have called from one of the three offices in the Las Vegas Municipal Police Department, or used his cell.

  Which made Andrew feel like an idiot.

  No doubt about it; he’d been played. And whoever had played him was good at it.

  Now, though, he had a photo, and what do you know? They had facial-recognition software.

  He’d discovered something amazing. Ground shaking, to be more accurate.

  The man in the photo was Cyril Landry, a former Navy SEAL, last employed by Whitbread Associates, a private security firm out of Washington, DC, that no longer existed. And neither did Cyril Landry.

  Landry had been an operator—a professional killer—and that went a long way to solving the problem Special Agent Keller had with the shooting at the school.

  The shooter was a pro.

  And the shooter who shot the shooter was a pro as well.

  That was pretty sweet shooting. The shooter who took out the guy they were now calling “Mystery Meat” was a top-notch sniper. He had shot Mystery Meat in the perfect place, the base of the skull. This had the effect of cutting a marionette’s strings. The guy dropped in place, instantly dead, without even the possibility of
jerking the trigger and killing any more kids.

  In one way, the second shooter was a hero.

  But Keller had wanted to know what Cyril Landry was doing there that day, and why he’d had all that firepower with him. He knew there was a girl who went to the school named Landry. Kristal Landry. He drew up her file and the photo.

  There’s your reason right there.

  Truth be told, Keller didn’t blame the guy one bit. He would have done the same thing himself, if he’d had the chops to do it. Which, he readily admitted, he didn’t.

  But after reading up on Landry and seeing what a bad guy he was, Keller had less sympathy for him.

  If it was him. Facial recognition was fairly reliable, but not perfect.

  But it felt right. Maybe Landry was there by coincidence and shot to protect his daughter. Or maybe he shot the shooter for another reason. As a father of three, Keller wanted it to be the former. He wanted Landry to have protected his daughter. But he couldn’t rule anything out. It could just as easily go the other way. For all he knew, Landry could have wanted his daughter dead, for some reason.

  There were a lot of sick people out there.

  Keller pulled up information on Landry’s death—the firefight on a tiny private island off the Florida coast. He knew the basic outlines of the story. The private island belonged to the former attorney general of the United States. He had fallen in with some bad associates—namely, Whitbread Associates, a private security contractor that did plenty of outright illegal things, including several killings. Several killings had been ascribed to Whitbread, but they had never been proved. The attorney general was prosecuted for some crimes, but there were rumors that the time he was serving (three and a half years—the rich are different) was just the tip of the iceberg.

  There had been allegations . . .

  Crazy stuff, like dead superstars. He tried to remember the name of one of them, some country singer, a stunning blonde. His daughter had her songs on her iPhone.

  Mostly, what was written about the star’s death was tabloid stuff—but you never knew.

  Cyril Landry had died on the island. Or rather, drowned during the storm. That was Keller’s recollection of the incident. There had been a firefight. Whitbread Associates’ assets were essentially “liquidated” that night—literally. Including three dead operatives in a safe house.

  He looked at the photo again. He was convinced he was looking at the face of Cyril Landry.

  The only thing now was for them to decide what to do next. Use his name? Or just leave the photo out there as it was and see what cropped up?

  For the moment, Keller decided to keep it quiet. Horse out of the barn and so forth.

  Part of it was the idea that Landry had played him for a sucker. He had done his homework, leading him on about High Mountain Outdoor Adventures and his brother’s fishing prowess. Keller was embarrassed—he admitted that now—that he’d given more information to Landry than he should have. Not a big deal, now that he knew who and what he was dealing with. But he couldn’t help but project ahead a few scenes to the moment Landry was arrested—and hopefully he would be arrested, not killed—and they would come face to face. You thought you had me measured, was what he’d say. But you were wrong. Now who’s got the last laugh?

  That evening he stopped at the Safeway and bought his wife flowers and a box of candy. When he got home, he told her they were going out to dinner. At first she demurred, because she had worked hard all day—she was a schoolteacher—and all she wanted to do was veg out on the couch and watch another episode of House of Cards. But he jollied her into it and they had a great time. They went to Tosca for dinner, and drank a whole bottle of wine between them and an after-dinner drink. She asked him what the occasion was and he said he had a lead on the school shooting. He usually confided in her, but this time he just gave her the general outlines. She was relieved, and then happy. Clasped his hand in hers and said, “If you can get to the bottom of this . . .”

  “It could be a promotion.”

  A little voice saying: If only I hadn’t fallen for that song and dance about the fishing lodge!

  “You think he shot the man to keep him quiet?”

  “Could be.” Although there was that small, sane voice in the back of his mind that said Landry had probably shot to save his daughter’s life. He willfully ignored that voice. The man was a stone-cold killer. “We’ve always been operating under the assumption that the shooter was a hired gun.”

  “I thought so.”

  “But I’m going to get him.”

  She looked into his eyes. “I know you will.”

  Like it was a done deal.

  He felt like a bloodhound on the scent. It was a great feeling—the best feeling in the world. The FBI’s reason for not releasing the name of the second shooter, Cyril Landry, had plenty of good points to it, but for Andrew, it was like manna from heaven. He had a second chance to even the score.

  You’re mine, he thought. I have you all to myself.

  That’ll teach you to fuck with me.

  Landry and Eric the Red met again the next day. Different restaurant, same noise. Better than the same noise. Right after they sat down, restaurant employees marched out of the kitchen clapping their hands rhythmically and singing “Happy Birthday” at the top of their lungs, the waitress in the front of the line carrying a cupcake with one candle on it. Almost every eye turned in the direction of the happy birthday boy, who looked to be around sixty years old.

  Eric the Red took a big draft of beer and spoke under the din. “As you can see, these are the results on that in-house promotion.” He pushed a folder across the table.

  Landry glanced at it, peeked inside, then put it in his briefcase. “That’s great—looks like we’re gonna be up this quarter.”

  “You know it.”

  When the birthday song ended, the place erupted in applause.

  Business done, they discussed various things. Eric had a wife and three boys. The oldest boy was in high school, a football player. “My wife’s worried about concussion. The kid’s great. Tight end. But you know, sometimes, at night, I think about his future.”

  Landry’s own mind turned to Kristal. Where was she now? He’d put out feelers—very carefully—but there was nothing. It was as if she’d disappeared from the face of the earth. Hard to believe an asshole like Todd could pull something like that off. He’d find them, though. “The sport’s changed,” he said. “All those big guys. Steroids. I wouldn’t want one of them coming at me. Concussion’s nothing to fool around with. It’s a real and present danger,” he said. “Could mess him up for the rest of his life.”

  Eric nodded, his expression glum. “You should see the suicide rate in former pro football players. Good money, though, you know that. Fame, fortune. Be able to take care of your wife and kids. A good, solid life. And there’s the camaraderie—we know about that, don’t we? But the price, man. The price is so damn high. In other news, do you have any idea who would put you up on the chalkboard?”

  “More people than I can name.”

  “Hey, yeah, I get that. You also know the board usually discusses it within a twenty-four-to-forty-eight-hour time frame. But this time—”

  “—they moved fast.”

  “No shit. Somebody wants you dead right quick. You’ve got all the life span of a burnbag print.”

  Landry smiled. A “burnbag print” was a highly combustible carrier bag that contained important info. To ensure it wouldn’t end up in the wrong hands, the bag had a high oxygen content, which created enough turbulence to destroy whatever was inside—turning the contents to ash. It was an apt description of Landry’s chances.

  He said nothing. He was thinking.

  Eric said, “Wouldn’t underestimate the guy even if he is young. You of all people know they’re meticulous in who they choose.”

&n
bsp; Landry knew that was true. After the bulletin went up, they were very careful to find the right guy—the most capable of a half dozen or so candidates.

  He also knew that once you were offered a contract, you took it. Always. You didn’t say no to the agency, even if it was a suicide run. Even if it was a major assassination. You would be off the call sheet and out of business.

  Landry thought about the guy who had shot up the school. The one lying on a slab just north of here. He thought about Devin Patel, the Juggalo kid, who left behind a sister with narcolepsy. As strange as he’d seemed, the boy had good, solid friends. He’d cared about his sister. Landry thought he must have been a good kid.

  Like Luke Brodsky. Luke Brodsky—hero—who had pushed his daughter under the car and took the bullet meant for her.

  Landry didn’t look at the information Eric gave him until he reached the hotel room. There, he took off his shoes, sat on the made bed, and opened the folder.

  The shooter’s name was Zachary Smith. The last name was kind of obvious, but it was just possible he was a Smith. There was no law against it. “Smith” was a common name for a reason.

  It sounded made up, though.

  Landry decided to call him “Zach.”

  Zach Smith was twenty-eight years old.

  He was well trained and well skilled, but Landry read between the lines. Smith wasn’t heavily experienced. Sure, he had been in the military, but he wasn’t elite military. Sure, he’d been a hired operative, but not for very long.

  It didn’t pay to underestimate someone who was coming to kill you. But what you could do was probe for potential weaknesses and come up with two or three game plans. The fact that Zach Smith was young and hadn’t had elite training might have led Landry to believe he was just another kid, a thuggish killer, and that would be a big mistake. There was some reason he’d been chosen for this hit.

  The fact was, though, Landry had the keys to the kingdom, and he knew how to use them. He might be in his late forties, but he had the one thing this kid didn’t have: experience. Thousands of miles under his belt, two wars and a military action, and countless kills. He’d seen just about every possible situation, or at least knew about them.