Prodigal Son

by Gregg Hurwitz

  “You’ve certainly given us good cause.”

  “I’m ready to go to trial.” Evan gave with another series of twitches. “Let’s let the American people hear about what you’re doing here.”

  “It must be nice,” the major general said, “to do so much complaining and offer no solutions. I need to get into that business, because God knows what I do here to protect idiots like you out there is a helluva lot harder.” He snapped the sheet curtly to his side and turned to leave. “We’re done, Mr. Norris.”

  53

  Bump in the Night

  For Declan, twilight was the hardest time of day. Morning and afternoon he moved with a predator’s fearless stride, the world around him lit with clarity. Obstacles and opportunities. Prey moving obliviously before his all-knowing gaze, a living buffet. And at night he felt invisible, capable of doing things that one could do only when no one was watching.

  But the transition froze him in a child’s place, the gold leaching from the sky, the air murky like fog, promising uncertainty. During the gloaming he was neither the active hunter nor the one who lurked.

  Queenie read this in him like she read everything, though they’d never discussed it. They sat in her Mustang now on stakeout, waiting for an opening to get their surveillance gear in place. They were also waiting for the doctor to return their call. They’d left two messages and finally texted him the new information about the Nowhere Man. He’d process it in his cold reptilian fashion, hostility tempered by logic, and then he’d toss the grenade back into their laps.

  Declan stared at the moths gathering beneath the streetlight, feeling that constriction in his chest that presaged his night terrors. They wouldn’t come on now, not while he was awake, but they’d flicker at the edges of his awareness, a reminder of the waiting nightmares.

  Queenie reached over and took his hand. Breathe deep, little brother.

  He said, “I am.”

  She adjusted the mirror for a better view of the building they were watching. “I know.”

  He placed a hand reassuringly on his stomach, felt the cotton twill soft against his skin. No fingernail scrapes there. The insides of his thighs smoldered, memory twitches of cigarette burns.

  Queenie tightened her grip. Not real. Not real.

  He would be okay. Just a few minutes as the earth turned, and then night would fall like a soothing blanket and he’d be invisible again, safe until sleep.

  An obese woman in a pink pantsuit exited her minivan and walked past them on the sidewalk. He thought about the bones inside her holding up all that weight. The blood coursing through her veins, keeping the whole enterprise functioning. There was enough iron in a human body to make a three-inch nail. That’s all anyone was. Parts and particles. Raw matter that could be rearranged. You could dress it up with gym muscle or bespoke clothes or plastic surgery, but at the end of the tunnel people were just pain receptors and nerves, ligament and marrow.

  The charade was exhausting.

  He adjusted his cuff link, watched the orb of illumination hanging from the streetlamp grow more pronounced until it stood out against the darkness, a fishbowl holding a swirl of fluttering moths.

  It was safe now for a while.

  He exhaled, released his sister’s hand.

  “It’s not our fault, you know,” he said. “What we are.”

  She looked over at him. Snapped her gum. “That’s the only thing scarier than if it is our fault.”

  “My first memories are her telling me I was toxic. Dangerous. Didn’t care about anyone but myself. Maybe it wasn’t true. But that’s what I heard when my brain was just … when my brain was just clay. And now?” He held out his arms, biceps bulging beneath the tailored suit jacket. “Now it is true.”

  “You care about me,” Queenie said.

  “That doesn’t count.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You are me.”

  She pursed her lips, considered.

  Declan said, “What if we don’t get away with anything?”

  “Mom did.”

  “No,” he said. “Mom lived in hell. And now maybe we do, too.”

  The phone rang through the speakers. Once. Twice.

  He and Queenie looked at each other.

  Then he answered.

  “Who the fuck is Andre Duran?” the doctor said.

  “Nobody,” Declan said. “He’s a nobody.”

  “That’s what you’ve been telling me. But now we have this—what?—private assassin on our hands?”

  “The Nowhere Man.”

  “And what exactly is he?”

  “A thing that goes bump in the night,” Declan said.

  Static crackled over the line, the pause drawn out long enough that he wasn’t sure if the doctor had disconnected. “Is that trepidation I sense in your voice?”

  Queenie glanced over through mascara-heavy lashes. No.

  For the first time in memory, Declan didn’t heed her advice. “Maybe part of me’s scared,” he said. “But another part of me’s looking forward to it—staring into the face of something worth staring at. Something that might tell me what I am.”

  The doctor’s breath rumbled across the line, a shush of white noise. “If this guy’s what they say he is, you’ll have your chance soon enough.”

  It took a few moments for them to realize that the call had ended.

  Declan picked a string from his sleeve, flicked it out the window. Queenie splayed her fingers at the top of the steering wheel, admired her incarnadine nails. She looked over at him and grinned, lascivious red lips against too-white teeth. Something in her face was yearning, hungry, eager. He knew exactly what she felt, because he felt it, too.

  He stared at that smile, a mirror of his own.

  It said, We’re not the only hunters in the game anymore.

  54

  This Shitty Life

  Limping into the empty Chinese restaurant, Evan was met with a hearty round of “Irasshaimase”s from the largely Japanese waitstaff until he indicated he was merely going upstairs. Though the swelling on his cheek had diminished, his nose was still deciding whether or not it was broken, having bled sporadically for most of the drive back to Los Angeles. He’d taped his torn cuticle and popped a handful of Advil to back off the ache along his spine; he’d been the recipient of a few kidney punches in the dogpile.

  The major general had ordered him quietly removed from the base to create minimal public splash. Evan had been frog-marched outside the main gate and reunited with his crappy Civic, which had been taken apart in a search and mostly put back together again, though one hubcap remained missing and the seat cushions were all slashed. He’d driven back to Barstow to pick up his truck, stashed the beat-to-shit Honda on a side street, and headed straight here.

  He paused halfway up the creaky stairs to stretch out his elbow where a nasty contusion seeped down to clutch his forearm. His RoamZone chimed, and he glanced at the text from Joey: GOOD NEWZ. WHATEVER U DID @ CREECH NORTH WORKED. I’M IN THE DATABASES NOW.

  Before he could register his relief, another chime sounded: BAD NEWZ.

  Beneath, a forwarded article: “Senior Airman Fatally Shot at Gun Club.” A sinking sensation overtook him, dread pulling at his insides. He didn’t have to glance at the tiny photo on the text alert to know who it was.

  He pictured Rafael in his tidy room, agitated and trapped, caught between his conscience and the drive to survive. You can’t go up against this kind of power and keep breathing. They’d gaslighted him, gotten him discharged, destroyed his career, his honor. But they hadn’t been content with that.

  Evan wanted to feel sadness, but the only thing that came was anger.

  A crash echoed down at him through Andre’s flimsy door, and then the sound of someone bellowing.

  Steeling himself, he sprinted up two stairs at a time and flew inside.

  Lamp toppled, tilted shade throwing uneven light. Holes knocked through the drywall, the aftermath of a fight. A body h
urled into the cramped space between the foot of the bed and the wall, legs and one arm sticking up into view, waving animatedly.

  But no one else in the room.

  It took a moment for Evan to construct the picture.

  Upended bottle draining onto the floor. Another empty on the windowsill. Sugary scent of rum. Andre fuming into the side of the mattress. He seemed to be stuck.

  Not a brawl, then.

  A booze-induced tantrum.

  Heeling the door shut behind him, Evan entered. He hoisted Andre up, and Andre swung at him drunkenly. “Offa me!”

  Evan seized his shirt and shook him. “Knock it off.”

  Andre didn’t stop so Evan shoved him onto the bed. He lay there a moment, then reached for the mostly empty bottle on the floor.

  “I’m out there trying to save your ass, and this is what you’re doing.” Evan kicked the bottle away, out of reach. “You need to sober up, drink water.”

  The few glasses on the card table were dirty, crusted with residue. Evan tore through the crooked cabinet. A cracked mug on its side and a plastic cup with a pub logo. Not a single thing matched in this fucking place; it was as though Andre had designed it to maximally aggravate Evan’s OCD. Evan grabbed the cup, filled it, and held it out to Andre.

  Andre knocked it away, spraying droplets across Evan’s face. He tried to push himself up, losing traction in the sheets, and wound up slumped against the wall. “I told you I wanted to call my sponsor.”

  “I see. It’s my fault.”

  “—left me here for two days with a buncha Benjamins and nowhere to go.”

  “People are dying.” Evan was angry, angrier than made sense. “All you had to do is stay here and not screw up.”

  “That’s rich coming from you.” Andre threw himself up onto his feet, swaying unevenly. “You got chosen. You did.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They were gonna take another kid. Van Sciver and one other kid. That shoulda been me. Me.” Inexplicably, Andre was crying. “But you jumped the line. You got yourself picked. And then they took Van Sciver. And that was it. That was it. The rest of us got left behind. So how come you got to get fixed, huh?” He swung at Evan weakly, a halfhearted fist that struck him in the chest, more imploring than violent. “How come?”

  The words came heated and urgent through Evan’s clenched teeth. “I earned it.”

  “No. No. You stole it.” Another loose swing connected with Evan’s torso. “I coulda been so much more. I coulda been you. I didn’t get a shot. You shoulda been here instead of me in this shitty room. In this shitty life.”

  Andre was sobbing openly now, his contorted face eliciting not empathy from Evan but a deep, heated embarrassment he didn’t understand. The smell of booze and unwashed sheets, the vise grip of the four tight walls, the baleful drawing of Sofia—it all seemed to thicken the air, pressing in on him, compressing his chest, his judgment.

  And then the words were pouring out of him. “You had a wife. You had a kid. A normal life. You had everything anyone could’ve wanted. And you threw it all away for what? This?” Evan plucked the empty rum bottle off the floor and shook it in Andre’s face. “How useless do you have to be? How much of a coward?”

  Andre’s face hardened. He swung at Evan again, but this time with intent. Evan sidestepped the cross and punched him in the solar plexus, all fleshy gut, careful not to snap a floating rib. Andre barked out a chunk of air, fell to his knees, and vomited on the threadbare carpet. He heaved again, the hot stink of alcohol and bile rising. His lips were open, sucking for air. And then it came, screeching intakes mixed with sobs, his face shiny with tears and mucus and puke.

  He dragged himself into the bathroom in shame, kicking the door shut behind him, but it hit the frame and wobbled wide to show him clinging to the toilet, fighting for breath.

  Evan lowered his face, his cheeks burning. It was the first time he’d lashed out in anger since his childhood. Jack had taken that part of him and hammered it into an implement he could keep sheathed, a weapon he drew only with great focus and caution and reverence.

  He’d betrayed all three.

  This mission—from Veronica to Danny to Andre—reached back to that youngest part of Evan. It had found the red-hot center of his vulnerability, the scarred-over wound that made him afraid to hope or belong or have dreams of his own.

  He needed to go into the bathroom and set it right.

  And yet his feet stayed rooted. His legs didn’t obey.

  He glared at Andre. Andre glared back, his chest heaving. “And what the fuck are you?” he said. “Always on the lookout for someone to save. You need it, feed off it. Other people’s weaknesses. It’s the only thing that defines you, ’cuz you don’t have anything else. Deep down you know you’re nothing on your own. Just like me.”

  Evan felt his heartbeat fluttering the skin at his temple. His breath stretching his intercostals. The low simmer of rage waiting for an excuse to bubble over.

  He thought about what he’d been through, from the Buenos Aires Provincial Police to the Hellfire missile, from Kern Prison to the ambush at the impound lot, from Molleken’s battle lab to the battering he’d taken at Creech North.

  Andre wasn’t worth it. Whatever duty-bound sentiment had pulled Evan out of retirement wasn’t worth it. Even Veronica and the mysterious wisdom she might or might not hold wasn’t worth it. The anger welling inside him felt fresh and pure, fueled with all the vitality of youth, untempered by age or wisdom.

  “You don’t care about me,” Andre said. “This is just some favor for Ms. LeGrande.”

  Evan just breathed. Fresh air in. Stale air out. Holding himself at bay.

  Andre scowled at him. “I never asked for your help.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Like I said, leave me the fuck alone.”

  Evan took a step forward. Filled the doorway of the bathroom. Andre recoiled in fear, and Evan was ashamed at the twinge of satisfaction that gave him.

  He stared down at Andre, cringing against the toilet, filthy and pathetic and lost.

  “Gladly,” he said, and moved from the squalor down the stairs and out into the clean night air.

  55

  Lost Cause

  As Evan blazed across the city to Bel Air, his RoamZone rang. He smacked to answer, and Joey’s voice came through the Bluetooth. “We have to talk.”

  “Not a good time.”

  “I’ve been combing through the code from Molleken’s battle lab and the stuff from that Pixel phone you stole, but it wasn’t the full picture. I’m getting my head into the Creech North databases now, and looks like Molleken’s running most of their engineering initiatives. He’s got whatever clearances he needs pertaining to”—and here Joey paused to put on her Important Voice—“remotely piloted, unmanned, and autonomous weapons systems.”

  “Joey—”

  “Dude’s got cray-cray access to do what he wants under the guise of training or R ‘n’ D and the database access to cover it up. Like take a Predator out for a spin or assess the high-value-target list or overwrite commands. Which means it’s looking way worse for Andre than we thought.”

  “I don’t care.”

  A confused pause. “What?”

  “I’m aborting the mission.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the guy is self-destructive. I can’t help him.”

  “You’re just gonna let them kill him?”

  “It’s not my business anymore,” Evan said. “He never asked for my help. He never wanted my help. He’s made that clear.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She’s not my mother. You should understand that.”

  “Fine, okay.” Joey’s tone was, for once, accommodating, conciliatory. She was backpedaling and sounded unsettled, maybe even rattled. “But, like, you promised her you’d—”

  “One week after she gave birth, she dumped me into the system. She left me there all those years until Jac
k saved me. Since she’s reared her head, I’ve almost gotten killed at every turn. And for what? For her? I don’t owe that woman a goddamned thing. And I’m going to tell her that.”

  “But Andre—”

  “Joey. It’s over.”

  A stunned beat.

  “This isn’t you,” she insisted, her voice little-girl brave.

  “Maybe you don’t know me,” Evan said.

  For the first time he recalled, she couldn’t find words. As he screeched up in front of the Bel Air mansion, he severed the connection.

  Storming up the walk through the iron gate, palm trees throwing jagged shade. In the river the swans were tucked into themselves, neat origami packages of white floating beneath bowing fronds. He banged the ridiculous greyhound door knocker, the yappy dogs exploding to life inside.

  A minute later the architectural door opened, a split in the towering façade of the house. Veronica stood in the gap, heeling the dogs back, a gin and tonic bubbling in hand.

  “Evan, I’m just visiting with a friend.” She took in his face, the bruises, the scowl, her gaze sharpening. “Are you—”

  He brushed past her into the house, the dogs scrabbling across the concrete stepping blocks, barking their high-pitched barks and barely avoiding tumbling into the dark-tiled pool.

  Moving through the kitchen he said, “Off,” and they dispersed with great agitation and shot away into various halls.

  Veronica hurried to catch up, and they entered the sunken living room together. A handsome woman around Veronica’s age was sitting at the bar, leafing through a wedding album and draining the last of her G&T. She wore heavy makeup and looked—as least from this distance—to have been nipped and tucked with admirable subtlety.

  “Oh, hello,” she said.

  At Evan’s elbow Veronica said, “Janet, this is my—” She hesitated. “My son.”

  The word hung there, lead-heavy.

  “Oh? I didn’t know you had…” Janet trailed off.

  An uncomfortable silence proceeded.

  Evan cut through it. “Can you give us some privacy?”