“So what? Ninety percent of his observations of us are negative. The one place where you do deal with a larger issue is when it comes to money. You portray everyone who’s rich as evil.”
“Kap never uses the word ‘evil.’ He just notes that the distribution of wealth on earth is insane. Kap never gets angry at the rich. But he can’t help feeling their behavior is illogical, because such unfairness cannot be sustained forever. At one point equality is either achieved or a culture falls apart due to internal pressures. History has taught us that much.”
Matt laughs. “Bullshit. America’s the most powerful nation on earth. But ninety percent of the wealth of this country is held by one percent of the people, and America shows no signs of faltering. It grows stronger with each passing decade.”
“China grows stronger with each passing decade,” I say. “They’re the ones who pay the interest on our national debt.”
“I knew, I knew it,” Matt jeers. “You’re a left-wing liberal.”
“You could not be more wrong.” I hold up both my hands and flex them. “I believe only the strong survive.”
“Then you’re a Republican, like me,” Matt says.
“I despise Republicans,” Teri mutters.
“I’m neither,” I reply.
Matt misunderstands me, of course. Having lived so long, I can’t tell the difference between the two political parties. They both sound like broken records that started skipping after the founding fathers died. Now there were some real men!
Matt continues—he still wants to win the argument.
“At the end of the story, when Kap’s partner returns to find Kap and restores his memory, he makes an impassioned argument why violent races cannot be allowed to spread across the stars. I assume that was you talking. It sounded like it came from your heart.”
“It’s true, I did speak through his partner.”
Teri is hurt by my remark. “Do you really feel there’s no hope for humanity?”
I find it hard to lie to those I care about.
“I feel the road we’re on leads nowhere. Yet part of me is an eternal optimist. I feel if we can change direction, we can survive.”
“Why hire Teri to help you write a medical thriller?” Matt asks. “Your heart is clearly with bigger themes. Write a novel that focuses on a dystopian society.”
“You mean, a novel that takes place after the bomb drops?”
“That’s already been done,” Teri says.
“Alisa will tell you that everything’s been done,” Matt says.
“True. It’s how you do it that counts,” I say. “But as far as my thriller being a small story—you have to understand it deals with our genetic code. I think our genes are the keys to our existence. They can either be our greatest wealth or our worst curse.”
“How does it start?” Matt asks.
“With someone dying from a mysterious cause.”
Matt smiles. “I look forward to reading it.”
“I hope I can help you with it,” Teri adds nervously.
“You’ll help, trust me. I’ll give you more work than you can handle.”
Matt leans over and puts his arm around his girlfriend. “Let me tell you a secret about my girl that took me a long time to discover. She’s tougher than you and I put together.”
He lowers his head and kisses her, showing no inhibitions. Teri, aware that I’m watching, breaks away. But I feel the heat of her body. Naturally, I feel my own heat. The guy has sex appeal enough to sell by the pint.
I give Teri a list of books I want her to hunt down and buy. My next novel is not just an excuse to get to know her. I honestly think it can warn mankind about what’s coming next.
The books I want Teri to find are not easily available. A few were self-published. All deal with the human genome. I give her cash to purchase the material and she promises to bring me receipts.
Matt squeezes me tightly and whispers in my ear. “There’s something about you,” he says, so softly Teri cannot hear.
The remark strikes me deeply. I wanted to have lunch together to get to know them better. But when I look back, I realize it was Matt who did all the probing. I suspect his teasing was all a charade. That he’s like me, and has no political views at all. It makes me wonder what he really thinks.
“Do you know what it is?” I whisper back.
“Something. Something.”
SIX
Over the next week, I have them out to my house twice. The first time they come together. The next time they come separately. They both say the latter happened accidentally, but I feel they’re trying to feel me out. I don’t mind, I enjoy their company in either form, although I realize it could be a mistake for me to be alone with Matt. The guy has ingredient XYZ—if there is such a thing. He’s so damn sexy! If I didn’t love Teri so much, I’d have already jumped him. Even if he put up a fight, I wouldn’t have cared.
But the trouble is I do care.
The day after I visit with them alone, I check my e-mail and discover that my female FBI agent, Claire Mason, has tracked the van’s license plate number—the van the assassin used to haul his Gatling gun in—and has discovered that a Claudious Ember rented it a week ago from a Hertz in Manhattan. A further examination of his whereabouts shows he flew into Los Angeles the previous week, before flying to New York.
His original point of departure? Zurich, Switzerland.
It probably means nothing, but one of Yaksha’s men, Slim, told me that Yaksha worked out of Switzerland. I tell Claire to fly to Zurich and expand her search. Once more, I warn her to be cautious, to mask her trail, to be wary of strangers.
I only send Claire after Claudious. She made the breakthrough—it’s her right to follow up on it. She knows how well I reward success. Besides, if I sent my other FBI agent to Switzerland, and the two detectives, they would get in each other’s way. Worse, they might call attention to themselves. Claire is the smartest in the group. I trust her to be careful.
Claudious was not careful enough. Whenever I leave the country, I carry several passports and frequently change my ID. Also, he should have removed the license plate on the van, or swapped it with another, and filed down the identification number on the engine. To give the guy his due, he was probably confident he would kill me without much trouble.
It continues to puzzle me why Claudious’s organization sent only one assassin after me. Perhaps they wanted to demonstrate what just one of their people could do. It’s possible it was a test. Perhaps they wanted to see what I could do.
The information on Marko gnaws at me. I hate that he’s out there, especially when Lisa Fetch is still working at IIC. Even if she had quit her job and moved to another city, I would be uneasy about her chances for a long life. Her connection to Randy Clifford is too tight; it was while doing her bidding that he was killed by the hit man. I feel it is only a matter of time before Marko pays Lisa and her boyfriend—the cop, Jeff Stephens—a visit.
I ask myself why I should care. Of course, I have practical reasons to be concerned about IIC. They have a file on me. They know my address. They refer to me as a “person of interest.” Worse, they say I have a “lengthy history.” Does that mean they know I’m a vampire? I don’t know, but I have to find out.
Still, none of this explains my concern about Lisa and Jeff. The truth is, I just like them, and I would hate to see something bad happen to them, especially when I can prevent it. I don’t decide who I care about—I don’t know if anyone does. But I like Lisa and Jeff enough to bump up my visit to meet Marko.
The contract killer lives in Iowa, of all places, in a small town named Fairfield. At least he is centrally located. My source tells me he owns a thousand acres of land outside of town and grows feed corn—for pigs, cows, chickens, not for humans, although people consume it indirectly in the form of corn syrup. He has two residences, one in town, the other out on his land. He sits on the city council and attends church every Sunday. He has a wife and two young child
ren. Talk about a great cover.
I fly to Cedar Rapids. A package is waiting for me at the airport, outside the secure area. In the package is a Glock .45, with two spare clips and a silencer. I’m one of those fortunate billionaires that have set up teams of gofers all over the world, people who are only too happy to deliver to me whatever I want, when I want it.
I rent a car and take a leisurely ninety minutes to reach Fairfield. By now the sun is setting, and I have only to swing by Marko’s farm to know he’s staying there with his family. “Damn,” I swear quietly. I would prefer not to have the wife and kids around—they might cramp my style. But I’m confident I can lure him outside.
For ten minutes, I study the family through an open window. Marko sits with his wife and children, watching a new science fiction TV series. A fire burns under a chestnut mantel and the house smells of roasted turkey and homemade stuffing. There are numerous biblical paintings on the walls. The man himself—who’s known in town as Joe Henderson—is forty-five, thin but wiry. He is six-two, and when he stands to get a cup of coffee for his wife from the kitchen, I notice how fast and smooth his movements are. No doubt he has the reflexes of a cat.
Mrs. Mary Henderson is fifteen years younger, pretty and plump. She wears a tiny gold crucifix, similar to my own, and a cheap store-bought dress that hides her legs. She has a boy and a girl. Both are cute, with red cheeks and bright smiles, and I can tell by their happy faces they don’t have a care in the world.
It’s clear family life suits Mr. Henderson, yet at the same time I note his constant alertness. There’s no question in my mind he was trained by some branch of the military in special ops, and a quick peek inside his mind reveals a cold darkness I have seldom seen in a human being.
But I don’t recoil in disgust. He is a curiosity. On the outside, Mr. Henderson looks like the perfect family man, but if his interior life could be displayed on a poster, it would probably be blank. He’s unlike Danny Boy, the rapist, who took pleasure in taunting his victims. In a sense Marko is a consummate professional—he kills for money, nothing more, and when he’s with his family, he’s able to block his secret life out so well he hardly thinks about it.
He’s like a robot with two sets of hard drives that he uses for memory. Two storage units that seldom connect. The guy would undoubtedly fascinate most psychologists. At some time in the past a switch must have broken inside him and cut him off from his humanity.
He does not appear to mind.
To draw him outside, I use a simple approach. His kids might have better hearing than their father, but it’s Daddy who’s been trained to listen to every tiny noise. Gathering a handful of pebbles, I stand near a window on the other side of the house from the living room and gently toss them at the glass. I throw four stones, each one a minute apart, until I finally hear him rise from his chair.
“Is something wrong, dear?” his wife calls.
“The pigs are squealing,” he calls to her as he climbs the stairs. “I just want to have a look.”
“Should we stop and tape the show?”
“That’s okay, hon. I won’t be gone long.”
Upstairs, I see him move to the window, and I hide by pressing my body against the house wall. He doesn’t turn on the bedroom light, but I know why he’s upstairs. He opens a desk drawer, with the help of a key, and takes out a semiautomatic. I can tell the type of weapon by listening to what follows. He loads it with a clip, screws on a silencer, cocks it, and slips it under the back of his belt.
He’s outside a minute later, standing on the porch, listening to the night. In this respect he is like me—his first line of defense is his hearing. I let him hear my footsteps as I scurry away from the house and into the nearby cornfield. He dashes around the side of the house, but already I’m invisible in the tall stalks. There’s no moon—the night is black as ink. I have to admire his patience, his courage. He knows he has a visitor, and in his line of work he knows that can only mean bad news. But he doesn’t turn on any lights, nor does he run back inside and call the police. He doesn’t want to alarm his family, and he’s confident he can deal with the situation.
I wait and listen as his heartbeat slowly accelerates from ninety beats a minute to a hundred and twenty. Fortunately, I can see as well in the dark as in the daytime, and I’m able to follow his every move. He probably has infrared goggles in his private arsenal, but he did not bring any with him. I understand. How would he explain them to his wife if she stopped him leaving the house? Still, with each passing minute I note the frustration on his face, the tension, the smell of sweat on his skin.
My goal is to lead him deeper into the field, farther away from the house. I don’t want to involve his family any more than he does. After five minutes of sitting, I shake a branch and dash another hundred yards deeper into the corn. He does not hesitate but follows quickly, making almost no noise. He’s an experienced fighter, on all terrains. He has wisely removed his shoes. Any leather shoe or boot, no matter how broken in, makes a faint squeaking sound. I, too, am barefoot.
We play the same game for the next ten minutes, with me pausing to let him catch up, and then dashing away again. I never let him get close enough to hit me with a lucky shot. But I know the game is stressful for him. His heart jumps to a hundred and seventy beats a minute. He has begun to pant, and sweat drips from his forehead. His well-lit house, only a half mile away, must look a lot farther in his eyes.
I crouch low and let him come within twenty yards of my position.
“Had enough, Marko?” I say casually.
He freezes, then scans the area in my direction, his gun held ready.
“My name’s Joe Henderson,” he replies. “What are you doing on my property?”
“Randy Clifford. New York.”
He sighs faintly. He knows now that he’s the contract. It must be a novel feeling for him, to be on the other side of the equation. His heart is a hammer in his chest. He’s scared.
“What do you want?” he asks.
“Information. In exchange for your life and the lives of your wife and children.”
“You’re a professional. You won’t kill them.”
“Not if I leave here with what I want to know. By the way, I have you in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle. The scope is infrared. If you reach for a match or cigarette, I’ll shoot.” Although I have no need of a scope at this distance, he’s expecting me to give him these instructions. The flare of a match in an infrared scope would blind the person who’s using it.
“You sound close,” he replies.
“I am.”
“Maybe too close for safety.”
“Be my guest, go ahead and take a shot. Just as long as you know I’ll take a shot of my own and you’ll be missing your right knee.”
He considers this for a moment, then lowers his gun.
“You have the advantage,” he admits.
“Drop your gun. Now, on the ground.”
He drops his gun.
“Kick it away from you.”
He does as he is told.
“Randy Clifford,” I say. “Who hired you?”
“The contract came to me over the Internet. I didn’t ask who was behind it. Like you, I never do.”
“I’m not like you, and your answer is unsatisfactory.”
He speaks quickly. “My broker can be contacted at
[email protected]”
“That link will just lead to another link. It won’t help me.”
“That’s all I have.”
“I’m warning you, seriously, you don’t want to lie to me again.”
“My broker’s a very private person. We’ve never met.”
“Not true,” I say, and I know this for a fact.
“It is true. There’s no reason for us to meet.”
I shoot his right kneecap with my silenced pistol. A .45 is a powerful round for a handgun, but it cannot compare to the armor-piercing bullets Claudious Ember and I were using a few nights ago. Marko lets out a
muffled cry and drops to one knee. His wound isn’t fatal—nor will he lose the leg—but he’s bleeding freely. I speak to him in a sympathetic tone.
“I know what you’re thinking, Marko. It doesn’t matter what you tell me, I’m going to kill you. You’re also thinking that if you hold out a bit, then break down and give me something, anything that’s useful, I might at least spare your family. To be blunt, all of this would ordinarily be true. But you’re wrong to think I’m an assassin and someone has hired me to kill you. I hate professional hit men, and when I cross paths with one, I usually kill them. Also I’ve studied your family, and your wife and children, and they appear to love you, although they would be hurt to know what little love you’re capable of.”
“I care for my family,” he says, breathing heavily. He does think I’m going to kill him.
“Fine. Right now—before your wife gets worried and comes looking for you—I want to talk business. Tell me the name and address of your broker.”
He hesitates. “Rita Centrello. She lives in New Jersey, a small town called Olive. 2112 Oates Drive. She’s an old broad, in her seventies, harmless as a fly.”
“Mafia?”
He shrugs. “It’s not like you think.”
“If you warn her that she’s going to have a visitor, I’ll come back and kill your family. Understood?”
“Sure.”
“IIC. Have you heard of them?”
He hesitates. “Yeah. Before Randy, they gave me a contract for a woman in the Bay Area who worked for them. Michelle Ranker. They’ve given me regular jobs over the last five years. Always paid top dollar. It made Rita and me wonder, you know. To be blunt, Rita doesn’t know anything about them. Believe me if you want, I don’t care. But I asked Michelle what their big secret was.”
“Right before you killed her?”
“Hey, she was in a talkative mood. She told me she’d tell me if I promised not to kill her. What the hell. She didn’t understand how this business works. I told her what she wanted to hear and she swore to me that IIC was working for the Antichrist. That they were preparing the way.”