‘What happened to me?’ he asked, the words little more than a whisper.
‘You were shot. Three bullets. One missed your heart by about an inch, another nicked your right lung. The third shattered your collar bone. I believe the appropriate thing to say in these situations is that you’re lucky to be alive. Not for the first time, I might add.’
He lowered his head slightly, as though to hide the expression upon his face, but Gabriel’s eyes had briefly closed and he missed the gesture.
‘How long?’ asked Gabriel.
‘Two days, or a little more. They seem to think you’re some kind of medical marvel; that, or God was watching over you.’
The ghost of a smile formed on Gabriel’s lips. ‘Except God does not believe in men like us,’ he said, and was pleased to see a frown appear on Milton’s face. ‘Why’ – he paused to draw a breath – ‘are you here?’
‘Can’t one old friend visit another?’
‘We’re not friends.’
‘We are as close to friends as either of us have,’ said Milton, and Gabriel inclined his head slightly in reluctant agreement. ‘I’ve been watching over you,’ continued Milton. He gestured toward the camera in the corner.
‘You’re a little late.’
‘We were concerned that someone might try to finish the job.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘It doesn’t matter what you believe.’
‘And are you my only visitor?’
‘No. There was another.’
‘Who?’
‘Your favorite.’
Gabriel smiled again.
‘He believes this was linked to the earlier attacks,’ said Milton. ‘He’s going after Leehagen.’
The smile faded as Gabriel regarded Milton carefully.
‘Why should Leehagen interest you?’
‘I never claimed that he did,’ said Milton, and waited to be questioned further. He thought that he saw something flit across Gabriel’s features, a vague awareness of hidden knowledge. Milton leaned in closer to him. ‘But I have some information for you. You asked me to find out what I could about Leehagen, and Nicholas Hoyle; most of it I suspect you already know. There was an anomaly, though, for want of a better word.’
Gabriel waited.
‘The one who called himself Kandic wasn’t hired to kill Leehagen.’
Gabriel considered what he had been told. His mental functions were still impaired by the drugs, and his mind was clouded. He tried desperately to clear it, but the narcotic fug was too strong. Under other circumstances, he would have made the deductions required alone, but now he needed Milton to lead him. He swallowed, then spoke.
‘Who was he sent to kill?’
‘My source says Nicholas Hoyle.’
‘By Leehagen?’
Milton shook his head. ‘Someone further afield. Hoyle is involved in an oil deal in the Caspian. It appears that there are some who would prefer it if he was involved no longer. My source also says that whatever occurred between Hoyle and Leehagen in the past, it has now been forgotten, if the feud ever truly existed in the form that was claimed. It seems they have used the rumor of their mutual antagonism to their shared advantage. “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”: at times, Hoyle’s rivals have approached Leehagen, and Leehagen’s enemies have approached Hoyle. Each man used the approaches to learn what he could to the other’s advantage. It’s an old game, and one that they’ve played well. They also share an interest in young women – very young women – or they did until Leehagen’s illness began to take its toll. Leehagen still supplies Hoyle’s needs. The girls have to be untouched. Virgins. Hoyle has a phobia about disease.’
‘But his daughter,’ said Gabriel. ‘His daughter was killed.’
‘If she was, it was not at Leehagen’s instigation. It had nothing to do with him, or any feud, real or imagined, with Hoyle.’
‘Real or imagined,’ repeated Gabriel softly. He was feeling nauseated, and the pain seemed to have intensified. It was a trap, a ruse. He closed his eyes. What was that saying? There is no fool like an old fool.
‘Help them,’ said Gabriel. He gripped the sleeve of Milton’s jacket, ignoring the stinging in the back of his hand.
‘And whom should I help?’
‘Louis. The other. Angel.’
Milton sat back in his chair, gently releasing the cloth of his jacket from Gabriel’s fingers. It was a gesture of disengagement, of distancing.
‘I can’t do that,’ he said. ‘Even after what was done to you, I can’t intervene. I won’t.’
The tension in Gabriel’s body could not be sustained. He was weakening. He sagged back into the pillows, his breath now coming in short bursts, like that of a runner at the end of a long race. He knew that the end was coming.
Milton rose. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Tell Willie,’ said Gabriel. There was a blackness descending upon him. ‘Tell Willie Brew. Just that. All I ask.’
And as he lost consciousness, he thought that he saw Milton nod.
T he house stood on an acre of land, the building itself spreading over three floors and four thousand square feet. It was secure behind high walls, with motion-activated lights in the yard and an alarm linked to a private security firm that employed men known to have no qualms about drawing, and using, their weapons.
The house was occupied by a man named Emmanuel Lowein, his wife, Celice, and their two children, David and Julie, aged eleven and twelve respectively. Also with them for the past two days were two men who spoke little and slept less. They kept the Loweins and their children away from the windows, ensured that the drapes remained closed, and monitored the grounds using a system of remote cameras.
Louis had never been in the safe house before, and he only knew of Bliss by reputation. Lowein had information about a number of Central American politicians that friends of Gabriel were very anxious to acquire. Lowein, in turn, wanted security for his family and a new life far from jungles and juntas. Gabriel was acting as the go-between, and Louis and Bliss had been assigned as added security while the negotiations were continuing. Lowein was a target, and there were those who were anxious that he should be silenced before he had a chance to share what he knew. Gabriel had long held the view that, in the event of an individual or individuals being targeted by professionals, one could do a lot worse than have men of a similar mindset as part of the guard detail.
Bliss was almost a decade older than Louis. Unlike Louis, he had high-profile kills to his name, but there were rumors that he now wished to fade into the shadows for a time. Men in their line of work eventually began to accumulate a long list of enemies, principally among those who refused to acknowledge the separation between the killer and those who had ordered the kill. To the professionals, the Reapers, it made no sense: one might as well blame the rifle itself, or the bullet, or the bomb. Like them, the Reapers were simply tools to be applied toward the ultimate end. There was nothing personal about it. Nevertheless, such reasoning could not always be understood by those who had suffered loss, whether that loss was personal, professional, political, or financial in nature.
But Gabriel did not want Bliss to leave him, and did not seem to trust Bliss entirely now that he seemed intent upon ending their relationship and refusing to do Gabriel’s bidding for much longer. Thus it was that Bliss had been assigned, with Louis, the temporary custody of the Lowein family. There would be no more kills for him for the time being, and perhaps not ever again.
It was a dull job, and they had passed the time as best they could. While the Loweins slept, Bliss spoke in the most general terms of his life as a Reaper, imparting to Louis occasional words of advice. He talked of sharpshooting, for one of Bliss’s skills lay in the use of the rifle. He told Louis of the origins of the term ‘sniper’ in the hunting of game fowl in India in the nineteenth century; of Hiram Berdan, the Civil War general who was an exponent of the art and helped to perfect the techniques still used by snipers to this da
y; of the Englishman, Major Hesketh-Pritchard, who organized the first Army School of Sniping, Observing and Scouting during World War I in response to the German sniper attacks on British soldiers; of the Russian teams in World War II, and the less efficient use of snipers by the Americans, who had yet to realize that arming a unit marksman with an M1, M1C, or M1903 was not the same as creating a sniper.
Louis listened. It seemed to him that the skills valued in a sniper were not without relevance to his own situation: intelligence, reliability, initiative, loyalty, stability, and discipline. It made sense to train repeatedly, to keep one’s abilities honed; to maintain prime physical condition, because with that came confidence, stamina, and control; not to be a smoker, for an unsuppressed cough could betray a position, and the desire for a cigarette would bring with it nervousness, and irritation, and a commensurate lowering of efficiency; and to be emotionally balanced, without anxiety or remorse when it came to a kill.
Finally, Bliss told Louis of the importance of the ‘walkaway.’ Snipers, and Reapers, were weapons of opportunity. It was important to prepare, so that one was ready when the opportunity presented itself. Good preparation could create opportunities, but sometimes the opportunity would not present itself, and it was not wise to force the situation. Another chance would come, eventually, if one were patient and prepared.
But there would be times when all was not right, when one’s instincts told one to leave, to drop everything and walk away. Bliss spoke of a job down in Chile. He had been tracking the target through his sight, and was moments away from taking the shot, when one of the bodyguards had glanced up at the window where Bliss lay in wait. Bliss knew that he was invisible to the guard. It was almost dusk, and he was swathed in black, nonreflective material against a darkened window in an anonymous block of apartments. Even the muzzle of the rifle had been blackened. There was no way that the bodyguard’s gaze should have fallen upon him, yet it had.
Bliss did not even consider taking the shot, although his finger was already tightening on the trigger. Instead, he had walked away. It was a set-up. Someone had informed. He had escaped from the building with only seconds to spare, leaving his rifle behind. Gabriel had understood, and the leak was found and plugged.
‘Remember,’ Bliss had said. ‘You only have one life. Your duty is to make it last. The trick is knowing when to stand, and when to walk away.’
Now it was after two in the morning. The Loweins were asleep upstairs, the adults together in one room on the second floor, the children next door. The third floor was unoccupied. Twice every hour, Louis or Bliss would check up on them. Downstairs, a radio played Connie Francis: a recording of some old show. It was Bliss’s choice, not Louis’s. He tolerated it out of deference to the older man.
Bliss had left him sitting in an armchair while he went upstairs to make sure all was okay with the Loweins. Only after five minutes had passed, and Bliss had not returned, did Louis stir from his chair. He walked to the hallway.
‘Bliss?’ he called. ‘You okay?’
There was no reply. He tried the walkie-talkie, but got only static in return.
He removed his gun from his holster, and began to climb the stairs. The children’s bedroom door was open, and the two kids were curled up in their beds. The nightlight by the wall had been turned off. When Louis had last checked, the light had been on. He knelt down and flipped the switch.
There was blood on the sheets, and one of the spare pillows lay on the floor, feathers pouring from twin bullet holes. He moved closer to the first bed and pulled the sheet from David Lowein. The boy was dead, the blood soaking into the pillow under his head. He checked the other bed. David’s sister had been shot once in the back.
Louis was about to call in help, then stopped. There was movement in the parents’ bedroom. He could hear footsteps. He killed the nightlight and moved toward the connecting door. It stood slightly ajar. Slowly, he pushed it open, and waited.
Nothing.
He moved into the room, and a pale figure stumbled toward him. Celice Lowein’s cream nightdress was soaked with blood from the wound to her chest. He thought that she was trying to reach for him, her left hand outstretched, red with her blood and the blood of her husband who lay dead on the bed behind her, but then realized that she was staring past him, using the last of her strength to find her children.
He put his hand out to stop her, and she came to rest against it, teetering on the balls of her feet. She looked at him, and her mouth opened. There was desolation in her eyes, and then even that was gone as the life left her and she collapsed on the floor.
Just too late he heard the footsteps behind him. He prepared to turn, but the gun touched the back of his head and he froze.
‘Don’t,’ said Bliss’s voice.
‘Why?’ asked Louis.
‘Money. Why else?’
‘They’ll find you.’
‘No, they won’t. Kneel.’
Louis knew that he was going to die, but he would not die on his knees. He twisted, his own weapon a dark blur in his hand, and then Bliss’s gun spoke and all went black.
17
Willie Brew and Arno had decided, after consultation with Louis, that the auto shop should reopen. Louis had been against it, fearing for their safety, but Willie and Arno had been entirely for it, fearing for their sanity if they were not allowed to return to their little haven of automobiles, engine parts, and overalls. They had cars to repair, they argued, and promises to keep. (Actually, Arno had preceded the latter with something about having miles to go before he slept, which Willie suspected might have been part of a poem or a song or something, and he had given Arno a scowl that left him in no doubt that such contributions were not only unwelcome, but might result in engine oil being poured down his throat.)
Absent from the surroundings of his beloved auto shop, and cut off from the routines that had sustained him for so many years, Willie had found himself thinking too much. With thoughts came regrets, and with regrets came the urge, always present, never forgotten, to drink more than was wise in order to lift his mood. It was almost a contradiction in terms, but Willie was by nature a solitary man who was happiest surrounded by others, and in the role to which he was best suited: dressed in blue bib overalls with grease on his hands, in intimate congress with a motorized vehicle. The private part of himself could retreat, comfortable in the knowledge that it was not required to be fully engaged for the commission of such routine acts, while something automatic kicked in and allowed another part of himself to play the role of the cranky yet ultimately genial proprietor. Without the latter character in which to lose himself temporarily, Willie was in danger of losing the best part of himself permanently.
For this reason, even on Sundays he and Arno could often be found in the shop, tinkering away while the radio played in the background, both men oil-smeared and at peace. There was always work to be done, for they had earned their reputation and there was no shortage of willing customers for their services. Willie had also been spurred on to greater efforts by his desire to pay back the loan that he had received from Louis all those years before. Although he was grateful for what had been done, he disliked being beholden to any man financially. Money cast a shadow over any relationship, and Willie’s relationship with Louis was more unusual than most. It was predicated on the fact that Willie knew what Louis did, yet had to act as if he did not; that he was aware of the blood on this man’s hands, and it did not concern him. The attack on his place of business, and the knowledge that he had come very close to dying in it, had added another problematical dimension to his involvement with Louis. Yet Willie knew that it could never end, not entirely, for the bonds that tied them together were not merely financial. Even so, by severing the monetary connection he would be making a statement about his own independence. Perhaps also on some deeper, half-acknowledged level, he was investing the paying off of the loan with a greater significance, as though it represented the more final separation for which he secre
tly wished.
But for now, here in these grubby premises, surrounded by familiar sights and smells, such matters could be forgotten. This was his place. Here, he had purpose. Here he could be both himself, and something more than himself. It was import ant to him to reclaim it after the attack. It had been violated by the incursion of the two armed men, but by returning to it and using it for the purpose for which it had been created, he and Arno could cleanse it of that stain.
In the end they had forced Louis to concede, helped by the fact that Angel was on their side. This was largely because, in certain matters, Angel felt duty bound to take the oppos ite side to that of his partner in order to keep him on his toes, no matter how sensible a position said partner might be occupying at the time. In that way, at least, they resembled settled couples the world over. But Angel also understood Willie better than Louis did. He knew how important the auto shop was to him, and how much the attack had angered and shaken him. Willie, Angel knew, would rather have died under the gun in his shop than peacefully at home in his bed. In fact, Angel suspected that Willie’s ultimate desire was to be crushed under some suitably extravagant piece of American engineering upon which he happened to be working at the time – a ’62 Plymouth Fury, maybe, or a ’57 Dodge Royal two-door sedan – just as Catherine the Great of Russia was often said to have died under the stallion with which she was about to copulate. The relationship between mechanics and cars, particularly classic cars, had always struck Angel as slightly odd, and the affection displayed for them by Willie and Arno as particularly unsettling. Sometimes, when he entered the garage, he half expected one or both of them to be found smoking a post-coital cigarette in the backseat of a forty-year-old automobile. Actually, he expected to find worse than that, but he preferred not to torture himself with images of Willie and Arno engaged in sexual acts of an automotive nature.