Jais

by Jason Kasper

  My pistol went empty.

  I rose and took off running down the long hallway before the guard force composed itself to pursue. Reaching for a fresh magazine from my belt, I found none. I dug into my pocket, grabbed a partially-full magazine from earlier, and slammed it into the pistol with a euphoric feeling of relief that didn’t quite override the pull of panic in my mind.

  Rounding the next corner, I saw my last hope of salvation: an exit sign above a nearby door marking the sole alternate stairwell to the roof. I raced toward it in desperation, hearing gunshots behind me just as I flung myself through the door.

  I began taking the steps three at a time. Amid the muted fire alarm and emergency alert, I soon heard the rushing footsteps of the guard force chasing me. I fired a few rounds behind me as I ran, hoping the bullets ricocheting off the walls below me would slow their advance. As I passed the thirty-sixth floor, my pistol went empty. I reloaded with my last partially-full magazine while bounding up the steps.

  Boss transmitted, “They think you’re on the west stairwell. They’re sending a team up the east stairs, trying to beat you to the roof. Front line trace thirty-seventh floor.” I was just crossing the thirty-eighth floor when he added, “They’re already on the roof.”

  I leapt up the final stretch of stairs, holding my left arm over my unmasked face in a desperate attempt to conceal it from the surveillance camera as I shouldered my way through the rooftop door.

  A stiff breeze of warm, fishy air hit me as I stumbled into the darkness, wheeling right to see two men advancing through shoulder-height air units that hummed loudly. I fired on both of them, but had no idea if my rounds found their targets as I transitioned to another man standing on the opposite side of the roof. Muzzle flashes sparked as various guards returned fire.

  Shooting my final bullet, I felt the Glock’s slide lock to the rear.

  I turned and leaned forward into a hard sprint, letting the pistol fall out of my grip and bounce off the ground. As I ran, I unzipped the vest with both hands and writhed out of it, pulling my arms out and letting it go as I neared a waist-high cinderblock wall. I took a single running leap, planting one foot on top of the ledge and propelling myself forward as hard as I could.

  I soared into the emptiness beyond.

  Time slowed to a crawl as my body fell in a wide arc away from the building nearly four hundred feet above a line of cars. Their headlights formed a river that flowed through the base of buildings whose every surface glittered with the stars of a thousand lit windows. I tried to slow the flailing of my arms and legs to assume a stable freefall position as I coasted above two fire trucks spinning an eerie red glow that whirled reflections off the street below me.

  The ground rush grew to a deafening roar and lights accelerated upward in a trembling trajectory as I struggled to bring my wheeling right hand behind my waist. I was falling low, too many seconds into a prolonged delay by the time I finally grasped my pilot chute and frantically threw it out to the side.

  My body accelerated exponentially toward the pavement as I involuntarily braced for impact.

  I was jerked upright by a loud crack, the echo drowned by sirens as I ripped my steering toggles free and pulled my left arm down below my waist. The steep, oscillating turn barely prevented me from flying into the building to my front, and I tried to reverse course to line up with the side street on my right. My body swung left like a pendulum.

  I registered scattered pedestrians along the sidewalk next to illuminated storefronts twenty feet below me as I maneuvered the toggles to slow the canopy in its final seconds of flight. My left arm was locked straight down and my right was above my waist in an instinctive bid to achieve level flight, and against all instinct I held course until the asphalt rose to meet me. A near-sideways image of four teenagers laughing around a table through a restaurant window seared itself into my mind a millisecond before impact.

  My feet were pitched far forward of my body as my left side slammed into the sidewalk so hard that my vision exploded in bright flashes of light.

  I tried to gasp for air but couldn’t, the wind knocked out of my lungs as I rolled to a stop and my canopy fell limply behind me. I felt like I was going to suffocate. Struggling to find the cutaway handle on my harness, I weakly pulled it a moment before unseen hands grabbed me under the arms and hoisted me to my feet. I vaguely heard a loud voice call out to me as I sucked down my first gasps of oxygen.

  “Holy shit! You a fucking skydiver, bro?”

  The wide face of a twenty-something man hovered in front of me, reeking of alcohol, and my blurry vision registered several others clustering around us.

  “Taxi,” I slurred.

  He howled with laughter before he boomed, in a Great Lakes accent, “Bro, your diming is perfect—you just missed a shidload-a cops rolling ‘dru here!”

  I tried to muster a weak smile as I continued gasping for oxygen and was hit with the smell of fresh pizza and stale car exhaust. The men shuffled me into a nearby cab and helped me into the back seat.

  “Drive,” I said.

  “Wait!” a voice called from the sidewalk. “Hold dat cab!” One of the young men ran up holding my cut-away parachute, which was now balled into a mess of lines and risers. He set it on my lap and slapped me on the shoulder.

  “Be careful out der, man, dat shit looks crazy!”

  “Yeah. Stick to tennis.” I closed the car door.

  “Where to?” the driver said.

  “Pullman Industrial Park.”

  He pulled away at an unhurried pace, leaving me to inhale deep breaths in the back seat as I vaguely took in the clusters of people smoking cigarettes outside a row of bars.

  As my head cleared from the impact, I finally began to feel the wash of endorphins that always followed a jump. I knew I had an hour at best before the adrenaline wore off and my body would feel like it had been struck by an eighteen-wheeler. In my mind, I saw the screaming woman’s face and wondered what the team would say. I didn’t know if I would be alive by sunrise—either they had always planned on killing me once the job was finished, or they would now for disregarding the order to abort. I could have chosen to run, but knew that, on my own, my odds were worse.

  And, as Boss had predicted, I wanted more work.

  Feeling around my neck for the earpiece that had dislodged when I hit the sidewalk, I placed it in my ear and spoke quietly into the mic.

  “Red, I need immediate pickup at Go To Hell Point 2. Touchdown.”

  KARMA

  In cauda venenum

  -In the tail, poison

  CHAPTER 11

  “Well, was she hot?” Ophie asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He shrugged his acceptance.

  Matz yelled, “What difference does that make? Was she Asian?”

  “No.”

  “Then she wasn’t that fucking hot, now was she? Why didn’t you shoot her, Suicide?”

  “She was wearing lingerie, for Christ’s sake.”

  “We give you pregnant women and zombies for training targets, and you choke when you see panties? What are you, thirteen?”

  Like most meetings in the house, this one occurred while seated around the oak dining table set atop linoleum flooring that cracked at the edges. I gazed through the sliding glass door behind Boss toward the bleached wooden porch that gave way to the overgrown yard where I had spent hours in the crate. Past that, dense woods were split by a trail leading to the range where I had prepared for killing Saamir.

  “In his defense,” Ophie said, “he ended up needing the ammunition.”

  Boss turned his gaze to me. “Five magazines would have been plenty if he’d aborted when I told him to.”

  “If I had aborted, Saamir would still be alive.”

  Matz replied, “The next time you disobey Boss, you won’t be.”

  Boss stopped him with a raised palm before turning to me. “David, this was not intended to be a high-profile event. Since you didn’t abort when or
dered, we’ve got a trail of bodies that has created a media spectacle. We took care of the taxi driver, but there are still the pedestrians who saw your face—for all we know, they could be working with police sketch artists in Chicago as we speak. And let’s not forget that anyone on the street would have just as likely detained you as helped you into a taxi, especially if you had a gun, which you would’ve had if you didn’t leave your fucking pistol on the objective.”

  “I think he learned his lesson, guys,” Ophie said. “Poor bastard was on the run from the Mongolian horde and took a swan dive off the top of a building for his efforts. I couldn’t smoke guys on the roof fast enough, and David didn’t even notice. If he had fumbled with his vest or tripped on his way to the edge, he’d be in the morgue right now instead of back here with us. He’s got combat under his belt, and he’s cut his teeth a bit on our side where the lines blur. I say we take him.”

  “He only did two trips,” Matz said. “Then he bailed from Regiment and spent the last five years in a classroom, trying to be a fucking officer. No offense, Boss.”

  Ophie countered, “But he probably killed as many people last night as I did on my second deployment.”

  “If there were a way out of that building other than the roof, it would have been me in there. His parachute routine is a one-trick act.”

  Boss said, “It’s a skill set. But this isn’t the line of work for someone who second-guesses orders.”

  “I fucked up, Boss,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”

  He looked at me. “You understand what employment on this team would mean.”

  “I understand.”

  “If your enemies don’t kill you in this business, your employers might.”

  “Understood.”

  “And if you follow this path any further, you’ll ultimately have to leave the country. And it’s a hard, dangerous road to even earn that. Or, you can take your money from killing Saamir and leave now.”

  “I won’t make it on my own.”

  Matz said to Boss, “We’re not a depression rehab center. And being down a man shouldn’t be an excuse to keep everyone we bring in for a job. We’re not getting Caspian back.”

  Boss looked at me. “David, leave us.”

  I looked at their faces, then placed my hands on the table to brace myself as I stood, pain rippling through me. As I left the dining room, I heard Ophie say, “The kid’s been a sponge for the past week. Imagine where he could be if we work with him…”

  The interior of the remote house struck me as a place where Daniel Boone would have come to smoke pot. I walked stiffly over the scarred wooden floor of the living room, passing between battered couches and recliners that were surrounded by bookshelves stacked with dust-covered titles. Walking through an open doorway, I eased my body down the narrow staircase leading to two closed doors.

  The room on the left led to the cellar where Boss had first interrogated me. I turned right and opened the opposite door.

  My room was sparsely furnished with cheap wooden furniture, its walls painted long ago in an oppressive shade of mustard yellow. Dresser drawers were filled with nondescript articles of men’s clothing that didn’t belong to me but likely shared the same original owner as the running shoes I had found under the bed.

  I lowered myself onto the edge of the mattress, and the springs creaked loudly. My entire body ached from crash landing onto the sidewalk, with the worst soreness reserved for my left side. Lying on my back, I rested my hands at my sides and tried to straighten my spine. Sooty cobwebs clung to the corners of the graying ceiling, and above that I could hear the indistinguishable murmur of voices in the kitchen.

  I closed my eyes.

  Should I have shot the woman? In truth, the thought hadn’t even occurred to me—I told her not to look at me, and she didn’t. I performed my job and left. If one of us had to die, it was better me than her.

  Releasing a long, slow exhale, I rubbed my throbbing left shoulder and brushed aside the thought.

  Flashing images of the previous night ticked through my mind. I didn’t want to stop after only one job. The prospect of additional missions was a lifeline I wanted to cling to against the currents threatening to sweep me away. I thought back to my meeting with the colonel after finding out I was non-commissionable: Telecomm and corporate sales are pretty hot right now. I thought about an alternate future—Laila trying to check up on her platonic charity case of an ex, guilt-ridden that she couldn’t deal with my disease when she’d had the chance. Why would she? Why did she ever even get in bed with me: a fucked up foster kid with a failed engagement and a head full of memories from a war that nobody cared about anymore?

  But racing through that building and shooting at armed men in a desperate plea to make it to the roof—it was a waking dream, a life-altering event that made use of all my fucked up experiences. I didn’t care how bad my body hurt today. I didn’t care that the girl was left alive. And, throughout the planning and execution of that mission, I certainly didn’t care about Sarah or Laila or anyone else.

  I didn’t care about the Army, either—four wasted years at West Point, five counting the prep school, and I wasn’t good enough to serve in combat again? Now, I had done something far more dangerous than I ever had in war, something that command would never have approved in the first place. And if it had happened, they would have been pinning medals on my chest.

  Fuck the Army, I thought, and fuck Boss and Matz. If they wanted to kill me over how I dealt with Saamir, they could go right ahead. If they banished me, I’d just finish the fucking job I started the night I met them. I couldn’t force their hand in giving me more work any more than I could force the Army’s hand into letting me serve, so they could take me as I was. Either that, or I’d have one last night of writing and drinking and let my laptop tell the parts of my story that could be told. If it ended up in a landfill unread, what the fuck did I care?

  Matz yelled from upstairs, interrupting my thoughts.

  “David! Get your fucking ass up here!”

  I opened my eyes and checked my watch, seeing that half an hour had passed. Grunting as I rolled over, I stood and ascended the narrow staircase to the team.

  “Have a seat,” Boss said as I entered the dining room. I did so, trying to conceal my pain and observing that none of them had moved from their chairs.

  He raised a hand to rub his temple. “Mistakes are going to happen, David. I accept that. I’m not going to fault you for leaving that girl alive after she’d seen you. I would argue that you went into a complex situation with minimal training because we were on a timeline. Nobody expected this to be a flawless incursion. But I cannot tolerate you, or anyone else, blatantly disregarding an order. You made it out last night because of blind luck and because the guards probably only shoot their weapons twice a year.”

  I nodded deferentially. “You’re right, Boss.”

  “Regardless of your lack of judgment in disregarding an order, your military experience is insubstantial given what we do. You just don’t have the background we’re looking for and, given your medical condition, you never will. However”—he lowered his hand and set it flat on the table between us—“we are down a man and things are about to get busy. We can’t accept you as an equal partner, but we can give you a chance as a trainee. Under any other circumstances, you wouldn’t be a candidate at all. Your continued employment will be on a daily basis. If we don’t like something we see out of you again, you’re gone.”

  Matz leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, his massive hands forming a cupped fist under his chin. “The odds are stacked against us enough as it is. Don’t make it worse by doing something dumb, like ignoring an order when Boss is trying to get you out alive. And if you endanger the life of anyone here, least of all me, I’ll kill you in a fucking second and not think twice about it. Got it?”

  “I got it, Matz.”

  Ophie was leaning back in his chair and didn’t move an inch as he said, with hi
s eyes on mine, “I guess I’m in the minority here. I saw you on the roof, brother. And I’d fight beside you any day. Not saying you’re God’s gift to the death squad, but no one who did this job ever felt prepared for it. Most of them had a lot more experience than you. So don’t be too hard on yourself. Next time, shoot the bitch and come home when Boss rings the dinner bell.”

  Before I could speak, Matz said, “All right, Suicide, the vacation’s over. Our next job is coming up, and depending on what the target individual does we’ll either be hitting a convoy or a house. I hope you remember how to use an M4, because we need to get you proficient with long shots and room clearing. And the security detail won’t be unionized this time. They’re professionals who have no issues killing cops, much less other criminals. So stop limping around and feeling sorry for yourself. Your training resumes today.”

  CHAPTER 12

  He was naked when I entered the cellar, save for a hood over his head.

  The chair looked unsuited to the task of supporting his massive frame, and the restraints that bound him seemed insubstantial against his sweat-soaked muscles. Neat lines of Cyrillic script covered his left rib, while the opposite shoulder bore a mottled burn scar that extended halfway down his chest, which rose and fell with each shallow breath.

  Instead of facing the wall that used to hold pictures of Saamir’s building, the chair was now facing black supply boxes. Matz sat on top of them, staring at the man without emotion, and Boss stood beside him drinking coffee. I quickly took a seat next to Matz.

  Ophie entered the room with a casual gait, walking across an overlaying carpet of blue tarps covering the floor. Approaching a rickety foldout table several feet from the man in the chair, he let his hand drift over a selection of tools—a power drill, pruning shears, a knife, a hammer, a hacksaw—before selecting a thin syringe. He picked it up and held it to the light, pointing the needle upward and delicately flicking the tube.

  He approached the chair and roughly injected the solution into the unconscious man’s arm. We watched the bowed and hooded head, waiting. Within seconds, his shallow breathing quickened, culminating in a sudden gasp. He lifted his head, and the hood swung from one side to the other as we waited in silence.