Very Hard Choices

by Spider Robinson

  "Are you armed?"

  "Come around the right side of the barn, not the left. I'll wait for you by the back door."

  She stuck the phone in my shirt pocket. "Do you know how to text?"

  My face answered for me.

  "Never mind. If that vibrates, bug out. Keys are in the dashboard bay. The fuse for the lights is in the ashtray if you want 'em; your call, but make it now." She stood up and walked away, reaching behind her to unsnap the holster she wore at the small of her back. A few steps later she stopped, dropped to one knee, and took a second, much smaller gun from an ankle holster. She came back and handed it to me butt-first, shocking me speechless for the second time that night. It was a little snubnosed revolver, resembling a child's toy in everything but weight. "In case bugging out doesn't work. No safety. Point and click."

  "Nika, I—"

  "If you use it, lose it." She was gone.

  I blinked stupidly at my new gun. Five slugs, not six. If I had to fire it at all, I'd be lucky to live long enough to squeeze off all five. I had no idea what caliber they were, whether they were hollow points or anything. I'd read enough mysteries to know its accuracy was pathetic beyond about two meters, but maybe that and my lousy aim would cancel each other out. Especially left-handed; I could support its weight with my right arm, but it hurt.

  I got the car keys out of the little hollow in the center of the dashboard where people keep sunglasses, replaced them with the gun, and got out of the car. One of the many improvements they've made to cars: you can close the door with hardly any sound at all now. The driver's-side door opened and closed just as quietly. I had to rack the seat back; Jesse's shorter than I am. I replaced the fuse for the headlights with difficulty and acceptable pain. I fastened my seatbelt and put the key in the ignition and sat back to wait.

  I was confused and worried and bone weary. But it did feel wonderful to be sitting down, not walking, with the chair supporting the back of my chest. Now that I had my breath back and my pulse normal, the pain began to ease off a little. This one really wasn't all that bad, as pneumothoraces go, and wasn't getting any worse with time. I could take in nearly three-quarters of a normal breath before it started to hurt. More, if I sat very still, and did it very slowly . . .

  Distant voices shouting in the woods.

  I was standing beside the car with no memory of having gotten out of it. A billion billion stars weaved around overhead, inviting me to come dance with them. I wished I had the time. The wind had picked up, enough to make it hard to hear the voices. But nobody sounded happy.

  I turned and hurried up the road. I wanted to approach the house through the trees, and I knew the woods alongside my own driveway much better than I did the woods between Doug's driveway and my place. With no flashlight, that would be important. Call me Hawkeye.

  I was twenty meters up my drive and ten steps into the trees before I remembered the revolver sitting back in the dashboard slot. Call me Asshole.

  Voices far ahead. Gun not far behind. I seemed to stand there forever, a jackass between two piles of hay.

  A trick of the wind brought me Jesse's voice, saying, "Very hard choice." I couldn't make out the reply he got, but the tone was that of a man giving orders.

  I moved forward.

  Maddeningly conflicting imperatives: go very quickly, and don't make a sound. Extremely difficult. Feet want to make noise in the forest. But no point in arriving if I was expected.

  I think I did a pretty good job. But the sound of my breathing and my pulse thundering in my ears were enough to keep me from making out what they were saying. I arrived at the closest safe vantage point, a little less than a hundred meters from the house, just in time to hear Pitt finish a sentence with " . . . long way round."

  I could see Jesse outside, his back to me, not far from the open window of the spare bedroom. I saw his shoulders slump, then shrug. "Whatever," he agreed dully. He walked to his right, the long way round to the front door, and disappeared around the corner.

  I gave Pitt five seconds to turn away from the window, and then broke cover, moving as fast as I could without making noise, thinking faster. Pitt wanted Jesse to go to the right for some reason. If he was looking out any window it was on the right side of the house. I went left, headed for the narrow passageway between the house and the office, made very good time until I stepped wrong on something hidden in the grass and sprained my ankle falling down and landed on my bad side.

  I couldn't believe it. It seemed most unfair of all that I couldn't even curse. That open window was just too close, and for all I knew Pitt was still right beside it. I lay there clenching my teeth until the chest pain backed off enough to let me sit up. I'm not sure why I groped in the grass for whatever I'd stepped on; maybe I was planning to beat my brains out with it.

  It was a handgun.

  Nika's gun. A big mother.It wasn't the Berreta I remembered her carrying, and I recalled reading in the Vancouver Sun that the VPD had recently switched to the Sig Sauer P 266. That would mean I had 15 rounds, 9mm Parabellums. Now it seemed most unfair of all that I couldn't laugh out loud. That damned open window—

  Faint, hard-to-interpret sounds came out that damned window, and I stopped wanting to laugh. If Pitt chose to stick his head out he could hardly miss me. I drew a bead on the window, holding the gun the way I'd seen in a million movies, and waited.

  After ten seconds or so of that I remembered to wonder what those odd sounds had been. Like . . . well, as if someone in the same shape I was had tried a few pushups, and then groaned, given up and let himself fall to the mat. Just then I heard another odd noise, like a soft hissing, that faded out. Like . . . like something heavy being dragged.

  Up on your feet. Places to be. Expect the ankle to hurt like flaming Jesus fuck when you put weight on it, so you won't yelp. Hey there, you see? It only hurts like fuck. Now walk like Kwai Chang Caine, leaving no trace on the rice paper—but haul ass. Your son might still be alive.

  15.

  McKinnon closed the laptop, smiling.

  Detective Constable Mandiç was awake now, sitting up against a stack of cardboard boxes much like the one McKinnon sat on himself, as comfortably as she could with a wrist cuffed to the opposite ankle. She had nothing to say, and he was not surprised.

  "Cheer up, Nika," he said. "You don't know it, but you're very lucky I found this computer."

  Her face gave back nothing. "Am I?"

  "I'm not being ironic. You won the lottery. And not just you. All of us did. Really. I can't tell you how much better I'm feeling than I was a few minutes ago."

  "All who of us?"

  "You, me, Russell and Zudie." Maybe everybody, he thought almost giddily. "We've all hit the jackpot."

  "Why is that, Agent Pitt?" she returned the serve. He smiled fondly; that had been one of his favorite names and he hadn't thought of it in years. She sounded exactly like a computer shrink program. He was liking her more by the minute.

  "It's McKinnon today." He gestured toward the laptop beside him. "Because if this account is remotely accurate—and I know it is, I know an honest report when I read it—then all three of you are unusually ethical people."

  "Are we?"

  He got up, turned on the overhead light, closed the window and blinds. The plastic-wrapped man on the floor stirred, groaned, turned over and began to wake up. "Hell, yes. Zudie, coming out to Russell, jeopardizing a cover he'd worked on really hard, to save people he'd never meet, who'd never know he'd done it. Russell, risking his life for the same strangers and for a friend he hadn't seen in over thirty years and remembered as a flake. You, risking your job in order to serve and protect . . . prepared to lose your life, career, freedom and good opinion of yourself if the situation called for it. Any of you could have just walked away, and no one would ever have known. Instead all three of you went up against one of the scariest freaks I ever heard of—just because he was. I hope you won't be offended if I say all three of you have balls of steel. But that I've s
een before, often. Ethics of that order, however, I have found to be about as common as albino Negroes. I salute you."

  She was studying his face carefully. After a few moments of silence, she said, "You know, I have to say I agree with you. Why is that lucky for me?"

  "It means there's an excellent chance I won't have to bury you beside Allen Campbell tonight. Or your friends either."

  She didn't blink. "What would clinch the deal?"

  It had been a long time since McKinnon had been asked smart questions. "I would need to be convinced that you don't oppose what I plan to do."

  With help from Nika, the man he didn't know had struggled to a sitting position now. McKinnon knew his head hurt badly but he didn't let it show. "We would all like very much to know exactly what you plan to do, Mr. Pitt," he said quietly.

  "It's Mr. McKinnon today," I said. "Tom. Am I correct in guessing you're Walker's son? Jason . . . no, Jesse Walker?"

  "I am," he said, carefully not nodding.

  "That headache will be gone in just a minute," McKinnon promised. "Do I have it right that you're in public relations?"

  "You didn't go through my wallet?"

  "I've been busy. Reading."

  "I'm a junior associate at Burston-Marseller. New York office. I did a couple of years overseas."

  "Interesting. Which of the current directors do you like best there, Jesse?"

  "In what sense, Tom?"

  "Who's the most ethical human being in the firm, in your opinion?"

  Jesse allowed his surprise to show through his poker face for a moment. "Thank you—for presuming both that I like ethical men, and that there are any in public relations. Neither of those is a gimme. As for your question, I'd have to say it's a toss-up." He named two names.

  McKinnon grunted. "Very good answer. Thank you. What do you honestly think of your father's columns? I'm sure you read them."

  "What's it to you?"

  He lived in New York, alright. "Indulge me."

  "If you ever tell him a word of this I'll kill you. I think they are well-informed and well-reasoned, smart and wise both, one hundred percent honest and utterly fearless. I can't believe he gets published in a national paper."

  "Nobody cares about anything that happens in Canada," McKinnon explained gently.

  Nika was frowning. "McKinnon, what does—"

  "I like his ethics too, now," he interrupted. "Here," he added, and tossed her the handcuff key, and then her own ankle-knife in its sheath.

  She stared at them, then at him, then at them.

  "There are scissors in that open box in the corner. They'll probably work better than your knife for cutting Jesse loose."

  She and Jesse exchanged a dubious glance. Neither moved.

  "I'm extending trust," he said. "This conversation is going to take awhile, and you'll both listen better if you're comfortable and less pissed off."

  Nika picked up the key, freed herself, strapped her knife back on, and took his advice about the scissors. "Extending trust to a point," she said as she was cutting Jesse loose. "I bet you still have that gun in your spine holster."

  "Of course I do. We just met. But if this goes as well as I hope, in a little while we'll go outside and you can find your own in the weeds."

  "Really?"

  He nodded. "You're a good cop. I know that you won't try to shoot me unless I force you to. You don't know it yet, but I feel the same. I quit killing people who didn't need killing a long time ago, and for good."

  The new voice behind him in the doorway was soft, hoarse, and shockingly close. "Me, I only started killing guys a few years ago. Haven't really started making . . . distinctions like that yet. So don't move."

  McKinnon never flinched, because he always expected sudden assaults. He kept his voice calm. "Hello, Russell. I was hoping you'd show up. Congratulations: you're the first man to sneak up on me in thirty years."

  "My turf."

  The voice had moved back, out of reach. "Of course. You know every floorboard, every hinge. Still nice work. If you didn't hear, I'm Tom McKinnon tonight, not John Pitt. Are you pointing Nika's service weapon at the back of my head?"

  "Center mass. I can see you're not wearing a vest. But in a casual, purely precautionary way. And only because I'm scared shitless."

  "Sensible." McKinnon sighed. "All right. I am going to stand up in slow motion, with my hands in sight. I will reach into the open carton of stationery items right here. Very carefully I will take out a magic marker I saw in there."

  "A Sharpie, you mean?" Nika asked.

  "Probably. Here I go. Russell, don't shoot me."

  He rose with great care and did as he'd said, keeping his back to Russell. "Now I take four slow steps forward." They brought him to the room's far wall. He uncapped the marker—sure enough, they were called Sharpies now—and used it to write on the wall, large, but in script, the name "Zandor Zudenigo." The capital zed isn't easy to do in script, but he managed a pretty fair hand.

  "What does that tell me?" Russell asked behind him.

  The cop got it. "It tells us he's right-handed."

  "So?"

  McKinnon capped the Sharpie and dropped it to the floor. "Next, I'm going to lose my jacket, revealing my own weapon." He shrugged it off his shoulders, and held his arms out wide as the jacket slid down them to the floor.

  "Now I will very slowly use only the thumb and pinky of my left hand to unsnap the gun, lift it from the holster, and extend it behind me at arm's length for Nika to take. Beginning."

  Shortly he was lighter by nearly three pounds of polymer, lead, and a little bit of metal.

  "Now I will resume my seat and you will find one of your own and we will all talk for awhile." He turned around and saw Russell Walker for the first time. He looked older than McKinnon had expected, and in some sort of pain.

  "What about?" he asked.

  Russell was right-handed too, but held Nika's gun in his left hand. Perhaps he was having one of his lung incidents. He talked in shorter sentences than McKinnon had expected from a columnist. McKinnon pretended not to notice; it would only make Russell more insecure if his weakness were exposed. His left arm was certainly strong enough; Nika's weapon looked like a Sig Sauer 9mm, and it wasn't wavering a bit in his grip.

  Nika and Jesse were both on their feet now. Nika had taken a good position, probably without thinking about it, and had McKinnon's Glock pointed at him, also at center mass. Jesse was rubbing the back of his neck.

  "Excuse me, Russell," McKinnon said. "I'm not dodging your question. I just haven't had this much fun in years. I'm going to talk about my plans and how important they are, and when you've heard me out, you'll give me your opinions of them."

  "What for?"

  He liked Russell's questions as much as Nika's. "It is my hope that when we're done talking, all three of you will agree that Russell ought to take me to meet Zudie. If that happens, we all walk away from this."

  Russell shook his head. "Zudie would rather cut his throat than come within a thousand meters of you.

  "I know," he agreed. "I don't blame him. His fiancée's death was on me, and what he must have found in my mind back then would have scared anyone shitless. We'll have to come up with a way to fix it so I'm immobilized and he gets to decide how close he comes to me. That's all I ask. If he's still as powerful as he was forty years ago, it won't take him long to know whether to stay afraid of me or not. If you kept any damned duct tape in your house, all we'd need is a tree in the middle of some wild part of the island."

  "I have plenty in my trunk," Nika said. "Unless your GPS snitch ate it by now."

  "Excellent." He sat back on his carton, brought up both legs and crossed them with some difficulty, then leaned forward on his elbows. The position left him about as harmless as possible, and made him look sincere and intense. "Okay, let's take the first hurdle. Jesse, awhile ago you thanked me for being willing to entertain the concept of an ethical public relations man."

  "Many would
call it oxymoronic," he agreed.

  "I've known a few. The two you named among them. I'm going to propose an even bigger stretch to you. Can you conceive of an ethical CIA agent?"

  "You're too old to still be CIA," Nika said.

  McKinnon felt his voice harden involuntarily. "On this laptop here, I found the secret that could destroy Russell, and you, and Zudie. Now I am going to tell you the secret that could destroy me, the one I've been protecting all my life. Here it is: I love the United States of America, and always have. I have great difficulty liking it, but I can't help loving it. If my former employers had the slightest idea I do, or how much I do, they'd have taken me out long ago. The book I could write would bring them all down. Unfortunately, it would bring the whole country down with them. We as a nation simply could not survive the disclosure of the secrets I know, and there is no way to tell only part of them.

  "I never was a Company man at heart. I worked against them as often and as hard as I worked for them. I've always been in the Saving America business for myself; I just do it on my own dime, now. There used to be some of us like that in the Company: we never once met as a group or even had a conversation about it, but we knew each other and abetted one other in screwing things up. But there are only a very few left there, now, and all but a few of them are approaching retirement age too.

  "The man who brought me in was one of the last holdovers from the original, Truman-administration CIA. No one remembers it now, but back then nearly everyone in the Agency was a liberal intellectual Democrat: the parking lot was a sea of Adlai Stevenson bumper stickers. The Major was one of the left from those days who managed to stay low enough to escape the purges that followed when the Dulles Brothers arrived with Eisenhower. And he taught me to do the same, to be his replacement. I tried to train my own replacements, but of the four I chose and mentored, two are dead, one slipped up and was canned, and one lost the faith. There's just me now. And Zudie is all I have left."

  After a short silence, Nika said, "You really aren't CIA."

  "Take back 'old,' too," Russell advised. "Look at his body language. He's perfectly at ease facing two guns and a knife in a small room, barehanded. He can probably take us all if he needs to."