by David Perry
Zanns’s dark-brown eyes suddenly seemed to become alert with possibility. “I see,” she said slowly. Then she quickly excused herself and moved off to speak with someone who was waving at her. Jasmine wandered in the direction of the food, leaving Jason alone.
The urge to bolt was formidable; he felt as if his sins against Chrissie were being broadcast on a moving teletype across his chest, like sports scores, for all these strangers to see. And naturally, Chrissie was distant, distracted and in mourning. She just buried her father, Jason thought. Had you truly expected…?
He ambled through the house, trying to shake off his uneasiness. The mere act of walking eased his anxiety slightly. The dining room table was covered with potluck platters, which were largely being ignored. He scanned faces, hoping for a friendly port in which to drop a conversational anchor. But he was miles from shore, and the seas were choppy. He circled twice.
On his final lap, he noticed a tall man who looked as out of place as he did, standing alone in a corner. With a gray, fuzzy ponytail, a fraying tweed jacket, and cratered skin, the man looked like a cross between a beardless Abe Lincoln and Willie Nelson. His eyes darted about, studying everyone, and locked on Jason’s. They each nodded, kindred souls stuck in the abyss of social awkwardness.
Jason was about to drift over and strike up a conversation with the fellow misfit, when he spotted Christine, moving through the kitchen into the dining room. She was alone, trying to find some privacy. Tears lined her cheeks. She was overcome with emotion. Jason entered from the living room. Though it was not his to give, he wanted to offer understanding, support. A small voice inside him cautioned him to leave her alone, but he ignored it, intercepting her near the oak buffet.
Christine spotted him, wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, and avoided his eyes. She let out an exasperated sigh, communicating with a wave of her hand what words could not. Jason reached for a paper napkin from a stack on the table and handed it to Chrissie. “Come with me,” he said. He grasped her hand, and an electric jolt coursed through his body. He led her out the back door onto the porch, and sat on the top step. He patted the spot beside him. “Sit.”
Chrissie complied. They stared out at the backyard in silence for a long moment as Jason tried to organize his thoughts. “I remember how hard it was burying my father five years ago,” he began. “He had a massive heart attack. Died where he was standing and was gone before he hit the floor. I know how you feel, Chrissie.”
Chrissie studied the steps and did not speak. Jason saw her lower lip quivering. “Jason, why did you come by today?”
“You invited me when I saw you at the funeral. Remember?”
“I know that. I didn’t think you’d actually accept.”
“I guess I owed it to your father…and you,” Jason replied. He turned to look at her. “Why did you invite me?”
Christine sighed. “Seeing you at the funeral brought me back to happier times. At least, they were happier until you…” Her voice trailed off.
Jason scanned the backyard. The lawn was dying, yellow, and overgrown, sprouting weeds. He wanted to crawl into it and die himself.
“Maybe someday I could explain it all to you. But I know now’s not a good time.” He removed a Keller’s business card from his suit and scribbled his cell number. “When you’re ready, let me know.”
Christine accepted the card and turned it in her hands. “We’ll see,” she whispered.
Jason cleared his throat and changed the topic. “I hadn’t spoken to Thomas in years, but I think about him every so often. Was he in good spirits before the accident?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she replied. “Daddy and I weren’t close in the last few years.”
“Really? Why not?” Jason remembered how Chrissie had adored her father and hung on every word he uttered.
“Daddy changed. It got worse with each month that passed.”
“I know it’s none of my business, Chrissie, but I have a hard time believing what I read in the papers. The article said he was drunk and ran off the road. Is that what you’re talking about? Because that’s not the man I knew.”
“Tell me about it. I grew up with him. I got all the Southern Baptist lectures.” Christine squeezed her nose with the napkin. “I’m not talking about drinking. There were other things about Daddy that were strange.” She placed her hand on Jason’s arm. Her touch was magnetic through the sleeve of his suit. “I’m talking about his obsession.”
“What obsession? What are you talking about? Your father wasn’t the obsessive type.”
“Daddy changed. It’s complicated—and somewhat embarrassing. I can’t get into it here, I have to get back to my guests,” she said.
“I understand.” Jason studied her swollen eyes. “Chrissie, if there’s anything I can do…”
Christine held up the card he’d just given her. “Maybe we’ll have that conversation and we can talk about…the past. And I could tell you about Daddy’s transformation, as disconcerting as it was. But it would be much easier if I showed you.”
CHAPTER 2
As Lily Zanns smoothed her bulky sweater in the mirror, she heard Oliver, her powerful jack-of-all-trades, moving about above her in the yacht’s command center. She knew that he was watching the weather radar and the electronic jamming equipment like a nervous mother. Vengeance shuddered as the keel scraped the bottom of the hidden cove. They were well beyond the Coleman Bridge, miles into the York River.
Her stomach tensed. After she’d made the appropriate, polite appearance at Thomas Pettigrew’s house after the funeral, she’d raced back to the mansion with Jasmine Kader. They’d changed clothes and hopped on the waiting yacht. This was their seventh cruise up the river to discuss the details of their plan. If all went well, there would be only one more before the fateful day.
The intercom crackled with Oliver’s rich voice. “We are in position, Ms. Lily.”
Sam Fairing and Jasmine Kader waited, sitting on the cushioned seats lining the main salon inside Zanns’s sixty-eight-foot motor yacht. The sun had descended behind the treetops, and the moonlit water sparkled through the large windows.
Zanns scuffed her leather deck shoes into the thick carpet and regarded herself in the mirror a moment longer. Rather than evaluating her appearance, though, her thoughts wandered to the secret faction led by the mysterious man with only one name. Hammon. The word was of Greek derivation and meant “hidden one.” It was an apt description. The only portal through which Zanns could contact Hammon was the weasel, Steven Cooper. Cooper was Hammon’s eyes, ears, and mouthpiece. Through him, Hammon had expressed his deep concern over Pettigrew’s discovery of the drop site and the archaic delivery method they were employing. Of course, Pettigrew hadn’t known what he’d stumbled upon, thinking it merely a prescription scam. Their plans were put on hold while steps were taken to bury the nosy bastard. Several tense days of dialogue with Hammon through his intermediary had ensued. She’d finally managed to convince both of them that all was in order.
They had come too far and sacrificed too much to turn back now. Her lover, the man for whom she was carrying out this mission, had been executed nearly three years ago. Their plan had been hatched before he was gone. The time of reckoning was nearly at hand. Three long years of work and worry would be rewarded in a mere nineteen days.
On the table in the center of the room rested a map and a package. Moving from the mirror, Zanns checked the coordinates she’d given Oliver an hour earlier. It was time to take the next step. She faced her two illegitimate children, studying them with analytical aloofness.
Jasmine Kader broke the trance and walked to the table beside Zanns. She was taller and younger than her brother, floating with the graceful, long-legged stride of a prima ballerina. Long black hair hung down to her perfectly formed breasts, framing a face that rarely smiled, and black eyes that devoured weakness.
Sam Fairing, on the other hand, was shorter and seemed to be constructed of rigid, inflexible fib
ers. Every part of him was exact, never out of place. Zanns studied his eyes as he took a spot beside his sister. Both of them possessed the black, soulless eyes of their dead father. She had grand plans for her son. Their mission would vault him onto the world stage and catapult him into the vacuum created by his father’s death.
Zanns’s gaze was not that of a loving, nurturing mother. She did not recall with fondness bygone days of birthday parties, graduations, and recitals. No, Zanns analyzed and evaluated her children as perfect killing machines. They were weapons that would deliver fatal blows and bring—as the yacht’s name so succinctly described—vengeance for all the world to witness.
“This is the second-to-last delivery,” she said, running her hand over the torn plastic of the package. “The information has been confirmed and is finalized. The words and diagrams on these pages will allow us to seal the fate of the two cowardly infidels and leave our mark on history.”
A cardboard shipper wrapped in black plastic sat open on the polished oak table beside the map, its contents—two simple pages—resting beside it. An overhead lamp illuminated the documents in the otherwise-dark cabin. Zanns continued, “Pettigrew’s death, though necessary, has put a crimp in our plans. Now that he is gone, we have no one on whom we can hang the blame. Fortunately, someone to take his place has fallen into our laps.”
“Who?” Fairing shifted nervously in his tall swivel chair. He drummed the armrest with his fingers and expelled a breath.
Zanns explained about her earlier encounter with Jason Rodgers. “He has no idea at the moment, but he will soon be joining our team at the Colonial.”
“He hasn’t been offered a position with us yet, Mother,” Fairing observed.
“Oh, he will be. And when he accepts, Jason Rodgers will provide us with the needed diversion in the aftermath of our decisive blow.”
Zanns studied her bastard son. He’s holding something back, she thought.
“How will you frame Rodgers? We had a plan for Pettigrew. There is no time to develop a new one now,” said Sam.
“You’re wrong. I’ve devised one as we sailed. It will be crude, but it can work,” she said. “Come, and we’ll review what our colleague from the north has sent us.” Zanns turned back to the table.
She lifted the first document, an eight-by-ten, hand-drawn map. The package had been delivered by a mole Zanns’s team had recruited years ago with Hammon’s help. Without the information provided in the packages, their mission would not have been possible.
“This is the seating chart,” she said. “Note the positions of our targets. Your shots will be taken while Torpedo is at the podium. Thunderbolt will be seated—here. After he has introduced his father.” Her index finger tapped the penciled X. Zanns glanced at Kader, her unflappable—and also bastard—daughter.
Kader leaned over the drawing. “I will eliminate Thunderbolt. Sam will kill Torpedo, correct? Two shots, two kills!”
“Yes,” replied Zanns. She picked up the second page, a typed list of names. “This is the agenda for the event. The numbers beside each name represent the length of time they are expected to speak. This will give us an idea of when Torpedo will be in place.”
Fairing leaned in, placing his face inside the cone of light. A bead of sweat had formed above his upper lip. “And Cyclops will be ready? These shots are difficult enough. Without Cyclops, they’re impossible.”
“Cooper assures me it will be ready,” said Zanns.
“This would be an excellent chance to inflict maximum casualties—” said Kader.
“The mission is Torpedo and Thunderbolt. Do not forget that!” interrupted Zanns.
Fairing cleared his throat and dabbed the sweat from his lip with a napkin.
Zanns crossed her arms in front of her chest. “What is it, child?”
Fairing and Kader exchanged nervous glances.
“What are you not telling me?” insisted Zanns. She was answered with silence. Zanns leaned on the table, placing her weight on her knuckles, which whitened under the burden. Suddenly, her hand sliced through the air and connected with Fairing’s cheek. “Now! Sam!”
Fairing did not flinch. His eyes remained locked on the shiny wood in front of him. “Thomas Pettigrew kept a box of files,” he whispered.
“And you learned of these files when you tortured him? Before he was killed?”
Fairing dipped his head in a slow, single nod.
“Why did you not mention this before?”
“We didn’t think it important. After all, the man is dead.” Fairing lifted his eyes once again, pleading with his mother.
“What is in these files?”
Kader jumped to her brother’s aid. “He had a sketch”—she pulled up the sleeve of her sweater, revealing a small, quarter-sized tattoo on her left forearm—“of this.”
“He saw our tattoo? He knew about the Simoon?”
“He saw the tattoo,” said Fairing. “He did not know what it meant, nor anything of our true plans. We’re done with Pettigrew. It’s over.”
“It is not a good idea to pursue the matter, Mother,” added Jasmine, braving her mother’s icy stare. “It might draw additional scrutiny. The box is of no value with Pettigrew dead. There are only weeks left before we complete our task.”
“I want no loose ends. Oliver will go there when the time is right, find the box, and remove it. Then we will have—as they say in American baseball—all our bases covered. There must be no connection to our organization.” She turned to Fairing. “And nothing is over until I say it is.”
Zanns sucked in a lungful of air and expelled it. She waved away the remnants of her frustration with a flick of her wrist. It was time to plan for the coming days. “Both of you will increase your trips to the Camp. You must continue to hone your skills,” she said. Her children were top shots. But the difficulty of this mission would challenge even their skills. “Oliver will shuttle you down to the site, alternating your visits so you are not out of town together. We must not draw attention.” She motioned toward the papers. “Have you memorized these?” she asked.
They nodded in unison. Zanns folded the documents and placed them in her pants pocket.
“Don’t you want me to burn those, Mother?” Jasmine offered. “We always destroy the documents.”
“Not this time. These will be useful later for what I have planned for Jason Rodgers.”
CHAPTER 3
Christine plunged her hands into the scalding water. The pain felt good. It reminded her she was still alive. She had been numb for the last week, the last few years in fact. The last seven days seemed like seven decades.
The last guest had departed thirty minutes ago. Mrs. Liggieri had wanted to stay and help her tidy up, but Christine, needing the solitude, had practically shoved her out the door.
It had been the most challenging week in her life. Her relationship with her father had been strained, distant for some time. But his death still turned her world upside down and shook it violently. She had driven to the morgue in a trancelike fugue to identify the body. The attendant had peeled back the plastic sheet just long enough for her to nod. The bluish-white face, striped with lacerations, eyes closed. The mangy shock of white hair. Yes, it was him. Then, the attendant pulled the sheet back up and Thomas Pettigrew, the living, breathing man, was gone. Thomas Pettigrew, the father, had vanished years ago.
The meeting with the pastor about the service, the readings, and the eulogy was full of slow, painful jabs. She’d been asked if she wanted to say a few words at the funeral. She’d declined. They had not been close. She wouldn’t know what to say. Christine spent the entire funeral service with her head bowed, unable to make eye contact with anyone. Hands patted her shoulder, gentle voices offered condolences. The pastor’s voice was nothing more than background noise.
She hadn’t experienced grief this excruciating in over a decade. It was not so much that her father was gone. No, the grief was over lost opportunities. She would never make him a d
oting grandfather. He would never give her away on her wedding day. He would never marvel at the success she was gaining in her career. She’d always held out a sliver of hope that their relationship would be repaired. But even that had vanished. Her tears were splattered reminders of the forever-lost milestones of her life. The only torment she’d felt that even came close to this had been over her doomed relationship with Jason.
What remained was to deal with the microscopic pittance of her father’s estate. His bank statements showed a little more than a thousand dollars in his checking account. Even less in savings. He’d had no retirement plan that she could find. The only real asset was the decaying house. All his money had been sunk into his foolish, quixotic quests.
She was his sole heir, his only offspring and only living relative. Her mother was dead, eaten away by cancer. Daddy’s only brother, Clyde, had died years ago, after being shot in a holdup. He’d never married nor had children. Christine brushed a tear from her cheek with a forearm as soap dripped from her hands. She puffed a cleansing sigh that was only partially effective. Her chest lightened, but the relief was measured in milligrams.
Like most people, her father had had a public face. The one non-family saw. He had served on the board of the Boys and Girls Club for eight years, on that of the Arts Commission for five, and had consulted for the Peninsula Agency on Aging for three. Elected president of the Peninsula Pharmacists Association, he’d negotiated with and convinced state legislators to fund the recruitment of pharmacists to the area. As the president of the Virginia Pharmacists Association, Pettigrew had lobbied hard for the benefit of pharmacists throughout the state. He’d helped kill detrimental legislation and pushed beneficial bills. They were going to honor him with a lifetime achievement award of some kind at Lily Zanns’s mansion soon. They wanted Christine to attend. She’d declined.
The private face, his naked face, was different. The real Thomas Pettigrew was a deluded man whose peccadilloes, which had reared their heads in the last ten years, were disguised and glossed over by those closest to him. Christine and her mother, naturally, had protected the public image, speaking of his shortcomings only in hushed whispers. On her deathbed, Christine’s mother had pleaded with her to make amends with her father.