Fathers

by Matt Rogers

  Uneventful by their standards, at least.

  They’d all bought homes in Winthrop. King and Violetta had moved into a meticulously renovated condo on Seafoam Avenue, and Slater and Alexis had acquired this traditional Dutch Colonial house with its broad fireplace in the living room and a freshly resurfaced four car driveway on Pleasant Street. The airy street names matched both the vibe of Winthrop and the nature of their new lifestyles. Alonzo had moved out on his own, more than comfortable with his own company. Introverted to the core, he only needed intermittent social interaction, so solitude suited him just fine.

  Slater drank the first espresso and felt the urge for a second. Why not?

  After he cleared the portafilter of the hard-packed ground coffee and replaced it with fresh beans, he switched the machine on again. From somewhere deep within the Rancilio, the Italian engineering spluttered, and water bubbles belched. Both the orange and green light on the front of the machine flickered out.

  Slater swore under his breath, felt that hot tickle of irritation.

  He caught himself in the act and nearly laughed.

  That’s what your life has become? A broken coffee machine is cause for concern now?

  He’d spent more than a decade practicing mindfulness meditation, which helped him wash the feeling away as soon as it materialised. Alexis came out of the bedroom, cradling her right wrist, flexing the fingers on that hand as straight as she could. The mottled white scar was visible on the back of her hand, and there was the same mark on her palm. She’d had slight mobility issues ever since a woman named Antônia had plunged a blade all the way through her hand in a mansion in El Salvador.

  Antônia had paid the cost for that.

  With her life.

  Slater asked, ‘How is it?’

  Alexis grimaced as she worked her fingers, but he could see the stiffness receding already.

  ‘Not bad,’ she said, her eyes wide as she worked through the pain. He couldn’t get over how beautiful she looked, even when she’d just rolled out of bed. ‘It’s worse in the morning, when it’s cold. It’ll be fine in a few minutes.’

  He knew it was worse than she was letting on, but just as she was the type to downplay it, he was the type to leave it at that. Dwelling on pain doesn’t make it any better. It only increases the attention you give to it, which makes it seem worse than it is. Life had taught him that. It had been one of its most brutal lessons.

  She said, ‘Coffee, please?’ and flashed those green eyes he could never resist.

  He jerked a thumb at the machine. ‘It just shit itself.’

  ‘Have you taken a look?’

  ‘How many coffees do you think we’ve run through that thing?’ Slater asked. ‘I’ll just grab a new one.’

  ‘From that spot down in Roxbury?’

  Slater nodded. ‘I might as well go this morning.’

  ‘You have to,’ she said, feigning utter seriousness. ‘How will we get anything done otherwise?’

  The “spot down in Roxbury” was where he’d got the Rancilio Silvia in the first place, a specialty alternative brewing shop offering machines and grinders you couldn’t get in the big brand stores. Slater figured if he was ever going to be an elitist snob, he’d restrict it to crafting the perfect morning hit of caffeine. Everything else in his life was about speed and crude efficiency, so he allowed himself this small luxury, despite Alexis’ pleas to take it easy in other areas, too.

  “Taking it easy” had never been in his vocabulary.

  The alternative brewing boutique didn’t open until nine, so he donned athletic wear and hit a twenty mile run at a 7:40 per mile pace. It took him a hair over two and a half hours, and he kept his heart rate low and steady so the run improved his base endurance capacity instead of thrashing the limits. He’d quickly learned that pushing to failure each workout only resulted in overtraining if you had a mind like his, because he could push further than the average athlete.

  He got back at eight-thirty after traversing most of the outer suburbs of Boston on foot, then showered, dressed, and ate. Alexis was reading a book on a soft chaise lounge in the living room under the natural light spilling through the porte-fenêtre windows.

  On his way out the door he said, ‘Surviving?’

  She looked up from the page with a wry smile. ‘Just. I’m thinking about settling for Starbucks.’

  With mock horror Slater said, ‘You are in trouble. I’ll be as fast as I can.’

  ‘Knight in shining armour,’ she said. ‘That’s what you are.’

  He blew her a kiss on the way out.

  He didn’t know this day would change everything.

  3

  Jason King stirred when he sensed movement nearby.

  He didn’t tighten up, didn’t get tunnel vision, didn’t expect an attack from his blind side.

  Just rolled over in bed and saw Violetta smiling at him. Long blond bed hair hanging messy over her face, those round blue eyes looking right at him. High cheekbones, smooth pale skin, straight white teeth spreading into a smile.

  He blinked to wake himself up and said, ‘You’re happy this morning.’

  ‘It’s close,’ she said. ‘I can feel it.’

  He was happy, too. Pleased with himself that he hadn’t jolted awake like he was about to fight for his life. Living in a constant state of stress was a thing of the past. He still had that capacity for extreme violence — he always would — but he didn’t need to live there anymore. If something happened, it happened. He’d be his vicious relentless self. But until it did he wouldn’t let unnecessary tension creep in. It wasn’t his career anymore, wasn’t his life.

  Didn’t make him any less dangerous, though.

  Just made him stiller.

  Which, he figured, would probably take him to a new level of lethality if he let it.

  Calm in the storm.

  He peeled the covers off himself and it exposed Violetta’s forty-week belly. Aside from the bulging stomach, she looked the same. He’d almost gotten worried when she maintained her honed physique all the way through the second and third trimesters. He’d been concerned she was secretly exercising — the elevated body temperature that came along with physical intensity wouldn’t do the baby any favours — but it turned out she hadn’t. She’d diligently adhered to all the pregnancy criteria, just tweaked her diet to adjust to the lower output of burned calories. Violetta was a workhorse down in the core of her soul. She always had been, and it was why he loved her. If she couldn’t run, she’d walk. If she couldn’t walk, she’d crawl. But under no circumstances would she stop, not even when she was tasked with bringing a child into the world.

  It had become a running joke between them each morning.

  He asked, ‘Rest day today?’

  His tone said, Please take one.

  ‘Of course,’ she grinned, levering her weight off the mattress. She walked naked to the walk-in wardrobe. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. When she disappeared from sight, her voice floated out of the closet. ‘I’ll just take a quick stroll to the beach.’

  “The beach” wasn’t Winthrop Beach at the end of Seafoam Avenue where they lived. It was the very tip of Revere Beach, almost four miles north. She strolled a gentle round trip each and every morning. She’d told King she’d stop when it grew too tiring, as per the recommendations, but she was now forty weeks and still going strong. King figured she wouldn’t slow down until the moment her water broke. It was in her DNA to stay constantly in motion.

  Again, one of the dozens of reasons they fit together, two halves of a whole.

  She came out in compression leggings, a loose shirt and an oversized puffer jacket and asked, ‘What are you busying yourself with?’

  King glanced out the window at the dreary weather. He’d thought about hitting a tempo run before his errand, but now he figured he’d wait to see if it got sunny later. ‘Alonzo wants to meet.’

  ‘Sometimes I forget he’s here in town,’ she said. ‘He sure isn’t i
n desperate need of company.’

  ‘He does his own thing. I get it.’

  ‘Of course you do. You lived that way for fifteen years. No personal connections. No baggage. Just conquests.’

  She meant career-wise, but he wondered if there was a double meaning there. She was the furthest from the jealous type, though, so he knew he could have fun with it. He raised an eyebrow, still reclined in bed. ‘You calling me a womaniser?’

  She rolled her eyes, but there was a smile scratching the surface. ‘I can only imagine. Back in New York you had me in bed within, what, twelve hours of meeting me?’

  King shrugged. ‘Don’t put all the blame on me. I recall you being just as enthusiastic.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, and winked at him. ‘You were the best I ever had.’

  ‘Were?’ he said, feigning offence.

  ‘Still are,’ she reassured him. ‘But I’ll never forget that first time.’

  ‘Rocked your world?’

  Another eye roll. ‘Get that ego in check.’

  ‘Never.’

  She sauntered out into the kitchen of their townhouse and he heard the coffee grinder whirring, shredding the beans into a fine powder. She’d cut out caffeine many months ago, so he knew she was making it for him. He swung out of bed and went to the closet, dressed in rugged jeans and a cream cashmere sweater that hugged his frame like it was tailored. By the time he made it to the kitchen the espresso was ready, and he kissed her long and slow as a thank-you.

  She asked, ‘Did Alonzo say what it was about?’

  ‘Nothing urgent.’

  ‘Not like last time?’

  King almost shuddered. The last call they’d received out of the blue from Alonzo was back when they lived in Vegas. He’d warned them of a hostile threat literal moments before their Summerlin estate was assaulted by a paramilitary crew from the Special Activities Centre of the CIA. They’d barely escaped with their lives. Torn muscles, concussions, bruised ribs, broken noses … they’d been through it all. And now, over six months without the tiniest hint of an incident. Maybe that’s what Alonzo wanted to address.

  King relayed this to Violetta.

  She nodded. ‘I get the sense we were finally put on the “Do Not Disturb” list.’

  King was skeptical. ‘We slaughtered their very best operatives.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘You don’t think they’re pissed?’

  ‘Of course they’re pissed. But you can be angry and outmatched. Angry and outgunned. I doubt they want any part of you or Will for as long as you live.’

  King shook his head. ‘No way. That’s not the world I worked for. That’s not the country I know. We’re stubborn to a fault.’

  ‘Maybe I’m hopeful to start this new chapter. Too optimistic?’

  King said, ‘I don’t think so.’

  She’d handled black operations for most of her adult life, almost as long as King had waged war for his country. Optimism didn’t survive a role like that. And the training hammered into her over her career would never leave — the objectivity, the rationality. A top-down view was critical for op handlers, whereas most people looked at their life from the bottom-up. Impulsively reacting to what they couldn’t control instead of methodically attacking what they could.

  King said, ‘We’ll find out, won’t we?’

  4

  With little chance of going back to sleep, King got up and drove his Dodge RAM 1500 Warlock to the only nearby gym he’d been able to find equipped for powerlifting.

  He hit a seemingly endless succession of deadlifts, showered at the gym, then drove to Alonzo’s.

  When he parked out front the V8 Hemi powered down with that throaty chug he loved. He’d never been a truck guy, but the crew cab had looked damn good six months ago, sitting in the dealer’s lot, so he’d put down cash for it to avoid the predatory interest rates and never looked back.

  Alonzo had snatched up a modern apartment in a small luxury complex on Wadsworth Avenue, between Ingleside Park and the golf club. King still couldn’t get over the sheer square footage of the place. It wasn’t exactly an apartment — it was the size of a house in itself. The complex housed only twelve residences. Three storeys, four dwellings per floor, all of them spacious and high-ceilinged and flooded with light from the modern floor-to-ceiling glass. The complex was missing that modern cookie-cutter artificiality that comes with so many new buildings that are hastily erected for the sheer purpose of a quick profit for the developers.

  King thumbed in Alonzo’s apartment number on the panel at the front door and he was buzzed up immediately. He took the stairs up a floor, breathed in the lavender scent of the communal hallways, and walked through Alonzo’s open front door without having to knock.

  Alonzo offered his hand and King clasped it. The tech wizard looked good, far better than when they’d pulled him from imprisonment at the hands of his own country half a year ago. He was thirty pounds lighter after accepting Slater’s offer to guide his fitness. Alonzo went through about ten percent of what Slater subjected himself to, and he was already in the best shape of his life. King knew it had given Alonzo a new perspective on what the body was capable of. Alonzo used to think of King and Slater as not quite human, but now he could see the trajectory he was on, see where he could be in ten years if he stuck with it.

  King said, ‘You look good.’

  Alonzo said, ‘I feel good,’ and patted his thin midsection. He’d gone down a couple of sizes already, had to overhaul his wardrobe, which he’d realised was a blessing in disguise after King gave him a crash course in buying clothes that didn’t look like something their grandfathers would wear.

  Now he led King across the apartment to an impossibly thin laptop on an American oak dining table. All the furniture in the apartment was styled modern Scandinavian but built with pricey materials to stand the test of time. It turned out Alonzo had better taste than he thought, now that he’d finally decided to spend some of his money.

  Alonzo gestured to one of the dining chairs, sculpted from the same solid oak as the table. King pulled it out and sat. Alonzo planted his lightweight frame down beside him and rotated the laptop screen to face King.

  He stared at what was on it.

  Soaked it in.

  Turned his head and asked, ‘What’s the catch?’

  ‘There isn’t one.’

  ‘There must be an ulterior motive.’

  Alonzo shook his head. ‘I checked it. There’s no traps. No back doors. They’re not trying to use it to find our location. They’re just letting us know.’

  ‘Why?’ King didn’t think he’d be anything other than endlessly sceptical of political motivations.

  ‘A gesture of goodwill?’ Alonzo suggested.

  A pause, then they both laughed.

  King drummed his fingers on the tabletop. The oak felt strong and solid under his calloused fingertips. ‘So that’s it?’

  ‘That’s it,’ Alonzo said. ‘I could have told you with a text, but I wanted you to see it for yourself. It’s a big thing, you know…’

  ‘It’s not,’ King said. ‘It never should have been a thing in the first place.’

  ‘That doesn’t make it less important.’

  King nodded, but he stared vacantly over the top of the laptop screen, lost in thought. He was trying to understand why positive news had spurned such a visceral reaction within him, his guts twisting into a tense knot.

  On the screen, an anonymous note read: ‘WE’RE DONE WITH YOU. FOR GOOD.’

  Nothing more, but that was all they really needed to say.

  King wiped the glassy expression off his face, composed himself. ‘How do you know it’s them?’

  ‘It was posted on the only clandestine alert feed I still have access to. The one I used to try and get Slater and I out of the Salvadoran embassy in New York. It didn’t work, obviously, but I still had the access afterwards. They decommissioned the feed because they knew I could crack it. I’m sure they st
arted a new one, but I wouldn’t know, and I don’t much care. But I log in every month or so to see if they’ve done anything with this one. This time, there was something there.’ He pointed at the screen. ‘Just that.’

  King said, ‘And what does it mean, exactly?’

  ‘There’s still a blanket on our identities,’ Alonzo said. ‘I’ll never lift that. It’d be foolish. But if I had to guess what they mean, it’s that if we coincidentally pop up on CCTV somewhere and they get a lock on us, they won’t pursue it. Imagine the level of resources they sunk into those hunters you wiped out. What sort of time they poured into them. And you four killed them all. What’s worse, Alexis was the one who killed Antônia. I’m sure they know that. Do you understand what that means? Alexis was a civilian less than two years ago. She killed the government’s best female operative with her bare hands. That doesn’t just speak to her ability to learn, but your ability to teach. If I were them, I’d be shitting my pants just thinking about going after you again. So they won’t.’

  King rolled the words over, thought about them for a while.

  Alonzo said, ‘You don’t buy it?’

  King said, ‘I buy it. Maybe I’m just suspicious of everything. Maybe I don’t need to be.’

  Alonzo shook his head. ‘You don’t.’

  King finally allowed himself a smile. ‘So we got out, we thwarted their pursuits, we got you out, and then they gave up.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘That makes them look stupid, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Lucky they’re off-the-books.’

  King laughed. Got to his feet. He felt lighter. Like something had lifted off his shoulders. He shook Alonzo’s hand again, and this time there was a little more verve in it. Victory tasted good.

  Alonzo said, ‘Now the only problems to worry about are the ones you and Slater create for yourself. And I imagine that’s a thing of the past, right?’