The Short Takes

by James Grady

  “No. And now that doesn’t seem like such a great idea.”

  Nour frowns at the silver-haired American: “What’s wrong with you?”

  “We don’t have enough time for that answer.”

  Ahmed says: “How are we going to get in to get the first aid kits?”

  “I’ve got a key.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Skander grabs the key.

  Nour shakes her head: “Why did you have a knife?”

  Open your mouth and quote the woman you wish you could love forever: “What we do is our real politics.”

  Renee’s blink vibrates the air.

  You’ve got seventeen minutes.

  Skander yells: “We’re in!”

  Flow with your crew into the hollow echo that haunts modern structures.

  “Waves of hallucinogenic perception by the patient mark psychotic breaks with diminished competencies in reality,” said a shrink’s memo in your file you hacked one night from the rec room back at the CIA’s secret insane asylum.

  Hell, if all you’ve got is reality, you’re already fucked.

  Nour says: “Now what?”

  Skander tells that coed: “You’ll know when it’s time.”

  Shadows and substance in the building lobby swirl into there stands Renee.

  She stares at Skander. “What did you mean back there in the car?”

  Far bigger than you Skander, whose cheeks sport regularly shaved stubble, says: “What do you mean, what do I mean?”

  “When you said you were proud of Nour’s driving,” says Renee.

  Skander shrugs: “She did a good job for a woman.”

  Renee’s smile is a curved saber. “What jobs are for a woman?”

  “Don’t be silly,” says Skander. “We have more important things to decide now.”

  “No!” yells Renee. “Now is about deciding exactly that!”

  Skander proclaims: “Everyone has a place in our glory.”

  Born during the Paris barricades of 1968, clubbed by the goons of power in dozens of cities, alive every day Renee raises her shoulders to the wind, the stars, shouts: “And you claim the right to decide everyone’s place! Leave me the hell out of your glory!”

  Then she spits at Skander.

  And as her disgust hits its target, you realize that for Renee, helping Condor is the lesser betrayal.

  Skander lunges at who dared to.

  Grab him, whisper: “Forget it. We need her. Come, back me up.”

  “What?”

  “The last bribe has to be paid after we confirm we got the goods. My guy is in the building and on the clock. If we don’t pay him, there’s no pipeline.”

  “You want me to meet your source? Back you up because he’s not trustworthy? Could betray you—I mean betray us?” Wheels turn in Skander’s brown eyes. “Of course I’ll help you.”

  Of course you will.

  Whirl so you’re looking at the others as you say: “You all go check to be sure our delivery is in the basement. Everyone give me your cell phone numbers.”

  Eyes on the five innocent rebels and Renee—oh, Renee!—you miss the blur that is Skander until he’s grabbed your right hand, stopped it from reaching inside your black leather jacket to the pocket over your heart that holds the CIA’s cell phone.

  “I have all their numbers,” snaps Skander. “Let’s go.”

  No way to defy him and not make it a big deal, maybe blow your cover.

  Lead him toward the bank of elevators, push the summons button, fixate on the glowing skyward arrow until the elevator’s Ding! breaks you free.

  With eleven minutes until Exfilt.

  Mirror steel elevator doors slide open and release a blast of light.

  Like a northern desert wind carries you into the elevator cage. Spins you around dizzy. The flat gray metal wall braces your back as your stomach pulls reality’s breath into your lungs. Skanders’ hands … steady you. You both pretend you don’t feel him pickpocket your CIA cell phone.

  He says: “Are you OK?”

  “I am how I am.”

  Skander’s stare drills your bones. “You need to push the right button.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  A steel plate on the wall displays all the levels this cage can take you to. You’re free to choose whatever button you’re shown. But they’re labeled in languages you never mastered. Run your finger to the top of the list—can’t remember what the word is in the French written there or those swooping Arabic symbols. … So fuck it, push that button.

  “We’re going to the roof?” says Skander.

  “Guess so.”

  Inertia from the rocketing up cage sinks you in your shoes.

  Out of your mouth comes: “You could kill me up there.”

  “What a crazy thing to say.”

  “Really.”

  There’s a familiar bulge in Skander’s shirt pocket. The CIA phone. A grab away. Or manipulate him into giving it to you. Trick him into letting you photograph, video, call him, compromise him.

  Or use the roof.

  Seven minutes to Exfilt.

  Fight the feeling that the elevator’s gray steel walls are really water.

  “I wonder,” says Skander as the metal cage carrying you two hums upward: “Is this how it feels to ascend to what you infidels call heaven?

  “Of course,” he adds, “this could also be how it feels to fall into damnation.”

  “Either way, life’s about flying.”

  “No. The end justifies the trip, not the other way around.”

  “Ah,” you say. “Justice.”

  Ding! The elevator doors slide open to the night.

  “After you,” says the man whose eyes are measuring your murder.

  Step out onto the tarred roof.

  As behind you, where he can not see as much of this realm in the sky and so logically, strategically should wait to strike, Skander says: “I wonder who’s here for us.”

  “Maybe it just looks like we’re alone,” is the worthless truth you say.

  What it looks like is a long way down.

  Nine stories up from the sidewalk, this flat roof stretches out under a star-shotgunned black umbrella. The moon grows brighter with every slamming beat of your heart. The hard surface beneath your shoes is a rectangular domain where strategically placed industrial air-conditioning units loom like hulking chess pieces. Out beyond the edge of where you can stand and not fall through the night, most of the buildings and neighborhoods show no lights as citizens hope that hiding in darkness will keep them safe. At this distance it’s impossible to tell if those huddled masses are staring at screens streaming data, images, sounds. Up here, you hear the faint whump-whump of TV and police helicopters hovering over the protestors occupying the distant glowing city square. Somewhere a siren wee-oo’s away into gone. Overhead, perhaps that’s the flapping of a bat. You breathe deep, the air is cool, and you smell old tar, your sweat and fear.

  The dark breeze is soft.

  Not enough to blow a steady man off his feet and over the edge.

  Don’t let Skander see you wobble with whispers from the ghosts of who you loved, who you fooled, who you killed. Hold on as you walk to the center of the roof.

  Walking behind you comes a bear of a man.

  Who says: “I don’t see anyone who wanted us to come up here.”

  “My whole life I’ve been told where to go by people I can’t see.”

  “And they call you Condor.”

  Turn. Face him.

  Blinking red aviation warning lights on the edges of the roof mark how far you can run. Their scarlet hue helps the moon let you see and be seen.

  The bear man says: “Do people believe you are who you say you are?”

  “Do you?”

&nb
sp; He shakes his head of black hair shorn too short for an easy grab.

  Says: “Yes.”

  Says: “No.”

  Says: “You are Condor, but you are not the enemy of the CIA or America.”

  Behind him stand ghosts. They’re laughing.

  This man you were supposed to unmask says: “In fact, you are the CIA.”

  “Everybody’s gotta be somebody.”

  That bear man slides left, puts you between him and the closest edge of the roof.

  You say: “Why don’t we call the others and let them decide who’s who?”

  “Democracy is a terrible system.”

  “Works better than what you’ve got in mind.”

  “Not if you are among the faithful,” he says.

  “Faithful to you. Everybody else is fucked.”

  Shrug, stay loose, ready.

  Say: “Let’s call the others, see what they think.”

  “Call?” Skander boxer-shuffles you toward the edge of the roof. “On this?”

  Your cell phone jiggles in his hand.

  “This is fancy.” He taunts you with it like a playground bully. “Brand new—newer than new, yes? Probably tells the CIA right where it is—where you are.”

  Maybe he’s trained in Afghanistan’s mountains, in secret camps in Iraq—hell, maybe he paid for Krav Maga lessons in Berlin or Beirut, whatever: you sense skill in his stance, know he’s bigger, younger, stronger, able to do more these last few years than solo T’ai chi and pushups in a padded cell.

  The phone, that rescue me lifeline and mission actualizer, that phone they gave you wiggles gripped in the leading left hand of he who would kill you as he says: “You will get the phone tossed to you, but not … Not yet. Not … up here.”

  He’s backing you closer to the edge of the roof.

  “There is only one freedom for the likes of you,” says the man who would be a caliph of the kind despised by cleric Ahmed. “You may have the freedom to scream.”

  You whirl and curl, yell: “Siri— Flash bang!”

  That phone in that killer’s hand, that phone with its souped-up battery not yet seen outside of Silicone Valley or secret corridors inside the Beltway, that phone upgraded with software that will go on sale in TV commercials to your fellow Americans in a few months, that phone hears your command.

  White light FLASH blinds your killer.

  The bang bloodies his hand, not fatal (next year’s upgrade), but he’s blinking—

  Snap-kick your right foot high and hard into his groin. He jackknifes, exposes his temples to your double palm-heel strikes, drops like a stone.

  Ninety seconds to Exfilt.

  He’s out, drag him to the edge of the roof and the only other sanctioned option.

  Or …

  Sanctions are for the sane.

  Be sure he stays out: kick him in the head.

  Run down the ranks of the A.C. hulks until you find the unit painted 9.

  Slam your shoulder into that steel wall—BAM! it clatters away. Grab what’s cached in the A.C.

  Get back to where the bad guy lays moaning.

  Pull off his pants.

  He’s one of those guys who goes commando.

  Takes you twenty seconds to gear up.

  Whump-whump-whump from a helicopter chopping closer in the night.

  He’s too heavy for you to pick up.

  Lay on top of half-naked him. Wrap your arms around him. Roll over so he’s on top—so you can tie his pants around the two of you.

  Whump-whump.

  A spotlight drops from heaven, reveals your waving hand and the gear it holds.

  Like a black mamba drops from the helicopter.

  Lands on Skander’s back, shocks him awake to see and feel you clicking the harness you’re wearing to the cable and he gets it, struggles, yells: “You’re insane!”

  “Yeah.”

  Whump-whump revs up.

  “I’m not the only one after you!” yells the warrior of what he calls holy.

  “You’re who I caught. And if your pants come loose, if you let go, you’ll get your reward of virgins. Or not. But no matter what, here’s the free you tossed me.”

  The cable snaps tight—the big jerk, whoosh.

  Across that night sky comes a helicopter cabled to screams.

  NEXT DAY OF

  THE CONDOR

  First published by No Exit Press, 2015

  They led him out of the CIA’s secret insane asylum as the sun set over autumn’s forest there in Maine.

  Brian and Doug walked on either side of him, Brian a half-step back on the right, the package’s strong side, because even when there’ll be no problem, it pays to be prepared beyond a government salary you can only collect if you’re still alive.

  Brian and Doug seemed pleasant. Younger, of course, with functional yet fashionable short hair. Doug sported stubble that tomorrow could let him blend into Kabul with little more than a shemagh head wrap and minor clothing adjustments from the American mall apparel he wore today. Brian and Doug introduced themselves to the package at the Maine castle’s front security desk. He hoped their mission was to take him where they said he was supposed to go and not to some deserted ditch in the woods.

  Two sets of footsteps walked behind him and his escorts, but in what passes for our reality, he could only hear the walker with the clunky shoes. The soundless steps made more powerful cosmic vibrations.

  The clunky shoes belonged to Dr. Quinton, who’d succeeded the murdered Dr. Friedman and mandated Performance Protocols to replace the patient-centric approach of his predecessor, policies that hadn’t gotten that psychiatrist ice picked through his ear, but why not use that tragic opportunity to institute a new approach of accountability?

  After all, you can’t be wrong if you’ve got the right numbers.

  The soundless steps are the scruffy sneakers footfalls of blond nurse Vicki.

  She wore electric red lipstick.

  And her wedding band linked to her high school sweetheart who like every day for the last eight years lay in a Bangor Veterans Home bed tubed and cabled to beeping machines tracking the flatline of his brain waves and his heart that refused to surrender.

  The beating of that heart haunts the soft steps of she who no one really knows.

  Except for the silver-haired man walking ahead of her from this secret castle.

  And he’s nuts, so …

  The dimming of the day activates sensors in the castle’s walled parking lot where these five public servants emerge. Brian and Doug steer the parade toward a “van camper,” gray metal and tinted black glass side windows, small enough to parallel park, big enough for “road living” behind two cushioned chairs facing the sloped windshield. Utah license plates lied with their implication of not a government ride.

  Doug said: “October used to be colder.”

  Brian eyed the package’s scruffy black leather jacket. “Seems like a nice enough guy, moves better than his silver hair might make you think.”

  Doug slid open the van’s side rear door with a whirring rumble. Lights came on in the rear interior with built-in beds on each side of a narrow aisle.

  Brian said: “How we going to do this?”

  Dr. Quinton took a step—

  Stopped by Nurse Vicki, who thrust one hand at the psychiatrist’s chest and used her other to pluck the purse-like black medical case from his grasp.

  “Protocols dictate—”

  “This is still America,” said Vicki. “No dictators.”

  Dr. Quinton blinked but she was beyond that, standing in front of the package with the cobalt blue eyes, looking straight at him as she said: “Are you ready?”

  “Does that matter?”

  Her ruby smile said yes, said no.

  He spoke to bo
th her and the two soft clothes soldiers: “Where do you want me?”

  “Like she said,” answered Doug, “it’s a free country. Pick either bed.”

  The package chose the slab on the shotgun seat’s side of the van because it was less likely to catch a bullet crashing through the windshield to take out the driver.

  Nurse Vicki entered the van behind him.

  Said: “You need to take your jacket off.”

  “Might be more comfortable to stay that way,” called Brian as he climbed behind the steering wheel and slammed the driver’s door shut.

  The black leather jacket had been his before, but now the inner pocket over his heart held a laboratory-aged wallet with never-used ID’s and credit cards. Felt sad to take off his old friend the black leather jacket. Felt good to shed its weight of new lies.

  He wore a long-sleeved, suitable for an office blue shirt over black long-sleeved, thermal underwear suitable for the autumn forest. Fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. Sensed the nurse resisting helping him pull off the thermal underwear.

  He sat on the bed. Naked from the waist up. Shivered, maybe from the evening chill, maybe from the proximity of a red-lipped younger woman.

  Who couldn’t help herself, cared about who she was and was a nurse, stared at his scars but there was nothing she could do for them now, for him, she was not that able.

  Or free.

  She unzipped the medical bag that opened like the jaws of a trap: one side held hypodermic needles, alcohol and swabs, the other side held pill bottles.

  “You already took your final dose of meds back in the ward,” she said.

  “I took what they gave me. Hope that’s not final.”

  Crimson lips curled in a smile. Tears shimmered her green eyes.

  He said: “I’m glad it’s you giving me the needle.”

  “—had to be,” she whispered.

  Swabbed his bare left shoulder.

  Slid the needle into his flesh.

  Pushed the plunger.

  Said: “Not long now.”

  He dressed, stood to tuck his shirts into his black jeans.

  Nurse Vicki turned down the blanket on the rack he’d chosen.

  “Might want to keep your shoes on,” said Doug from outside the van.

  The package stretched out on his back, pillow under his head.