Skills to Kill

by Brian Drake

  Hector swallowed and stepped around the bar, and walked ahead of Dane into the back office. A cluttered metal desk occupied a corner, and a matching shelf stood opposite. A pile of empty boxes sat in another corner.

  “We had some bad stuff happen, Hector. A lot of our friends are dead. Carlos and Eva among them.”

  “I only heard—”

  “About the camp, right. Funny thing about that. Carlos told me that you passed messages through the network. You knew about the camp before anybody, yet somebody tipped off the Zetas that we were in those mountains.”

  “Obviously there was a leak.”

  “Oliva called it ‘good intelligence.’”

  “You don’t think—”

  “Your place is still standing, Hector. You who were so worried about the Zetas retaliating, yet you are still here. What kind of deal did you make?”

  Hector’s mouth opened and closed.

  Dane took out the .45 and clicked off the safety.

  Hector backed up a step.

  “You sold us out.”

  “You don’t understand.” Back another step.

  “Yes I do.”

  “I didn’t mean—” and he bumped against the wall. He balled his fists. His eyes widened.

  Dane raised the gun. Hector winced.

  Dane held the gun for a few moments and watched Hector sweat and make little squeaking noises in his throat.

  He lowered the gun.

  “I’m not going to shoot you, Hector. But you’ll wish I had. You get to live with yourself. Or try to.”

  “The others—they’ll kill me!”

  “You might never hear them coming.”

  Dane put away the .45 and turned and walked out. He heard Hector let out a loud exhalation. Dane walked out with his jaw clenched and his stomach tight, but he walked out. Hector, like Rosita earlier, was just another mouse. Not worth a bullet.

  But the next name on Dane’s list was worth a bullet, and it was a shame that he would need only one.

  That evening Consuegra Oliva finished her set to rousing applause; she blew a kiss at her father, who watched from his booth. She stepped off the stage and went to her dressing room.

  Opening the door, she frowned. The light was off. She had left it on. She hit the switch, shutting the door, and then gasped as a man with a gun jumped out of a chair. She tried to fight, but he brushed her blows aside and hit her over the head with the pistol.

  Dane grabbed the woman before she collapsed and placed her on a nearby couch. He returned to his chair and sat with the .45 in his lap.

  After a few moments, somebody knocked on the door. “Connie?” The doorknob turned and Oliva stuck his head in.

  “Come in, Pablo.”

  Oliva, his eyes on the dark muzzle of Dane’s automatic, stepped inside and closed the door.

  “Take a seat.”

  Oliva gave his daughter an anxious glance.

  “She’ll wake up.”

  Oliva sat at the dressing table. “I didn’t expect you to come back,” he said. “Most people—”

  “You misjudged me,” Dane said. “Everybody misjudges me; it’s so annoying. They think I’m just another schnook. And now you get to listen to my speech. You might be right about society being apathetic. In fact I think you are right. They aren’t engaged in anything as noble as raising families. They’d rather watch television and play video games and follow celebrities on Twitter than pay attention to important things like, you know, life and liberty and the law. I get that. Some of us know the world can be better. We won’t stop fighting until people like you are gone. Tonight I’m going to shoot you, because you killed some friends of mine. But not just them. There are plenty of others for whom justice has been long delayed.”

  “My daughter—”

  “She’ll get you a nice casket, I’m sure.”

  “She knows what I do. She’ll take over. You won’t stop anything.”

  “Thanks for the tip. I have extra bullets. Might as well not waste the opportunity.”

  Oliva dashed from the table and Dane shot him. Oliva fell on his face, gagging on blood, thrashing as he tried to crawl the last remaining distance between him and Dane; Dane stood over Oliva and fired again. Oliva stopped thrashing. He lay on the ground with his hands outstretched, mere inches from Dane’s ankles.

  Dane considered the daughter a moment. She breathed easily, the welt on her forehead growing by the minute. He looked down at Oliva and back to her.

  Not this time. Not tonight. She hadn’t done anything to hurt anybody—yet. Maybe her father was wrong. Maybe he wasn’t. But there was no reason to do anything about her now.

  Dane holstered the .45.

  Footsteps pounded down the hallway. Dane ran to the window, easing his body through and dropping into the outside alley. He started running. He did not look back.

  Dane reunited with Nina and McConn back at the hotel. They had retrieved the ledger and papers from the rock where Dane had stashed them. The items had been unmolested.

  It took an hour to go through the material. They had enough information to deliver a death blow to the cartel’s operations, information that they could pass along to the remainder of Parra’s force once another contact could be located. But there was one piece of information Dane tore from the ledger that he held up for display.

  “Here’s how we contact the Duchess,” Dane said, tapping the piece of paper.

  “Where?” Nina said.

  “New York City. Let’s bring her something she can’t refuse,” Dane said.

  “Like what?” McConn said.

  “She’s looking for an M5205, right?”

  “Think you can get one?”

  “I know where I can get one,” Dane said. “And I know who can get it for us.”

  “Anna Dalen?” Nina said.

  “Yes.”

  18

  Learn to Knit

  The truck had seen better days; now, not a sliver of cabin glass remained, ditto the tires. Only the bare wheels, pitted with rust, hung on. Most of the running bits lay scattered around the 1-ton pickup like so many Legos left on a carpet by a child who had run off and would face the wrath of his mother after she sobered up.

  “How many people have fired at that truck?”

  “Too many,” said Anna Dalen. She stood next to him with her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. She’d supplied him with arms and munitions for many years and many adventures. She might be an arms dealer, and she might have some questionable clients, but slaying dragons sometimes required one to have questionable friends.

  “So this is your private shooting range? Aren’t you afraid the authorities are going to snoop around?” Dane’s gaze swept the green valley. They were deep in the hills, about 20 miles from Anna’s home in the south of France.

  “I own this land,” she said, “and the authorities. Ready to try it out?”

  Footsteps crunched the dirt behind him. Dane turned. Dan Hunter, Anna’s main squeeze, lifted the M5205 from the trunk of the car. He rested it on his shoulder. The weapon had a large barrel and a cylindrical revolving magazine. The bores of the magazine were at least an inch and a half in diameter and designed to hold high-explosive projectiles. It was the latest in small-arms mass destruction built for the US military, which wanted something troops could carry into urban battlefields. It packed more punch than a rifle or machinegun. Hunter handed the weapon to Dane. It wasn’t any heavier than 10 pounds and had a standard pistol grip and trigger combination. Hunter held out a large projectile that resembled a 12-ounce soda pop can but with a rounded tip.

  Dane inserted the projectile into the M5205’s firing chamber. “What’s in the can?”

  “High explosive.”

  “Say good-bye to your truck.”

  They were 50 yards away from the target, a safe enough distance, Dane figured. He aimed through the top-mounted scope and eased back the trigger. The weapon slammed against his shoulder. The projectile smashed through the drive
r’s door and exploded. The shock of the blast reached them and forced Dane back a few steps.

  “That’s some power,” Dane said.

  “In an urban setting, it’s downright atomic,” Hunter said.

  “So you’re going to take it?” Anna said.

  “I’m not only going to take it, I’m going to make a trap out of it,” said Dane.

  “Be careful baiting that trap,” Anna said, as fire consumed the truck and black smoke climbed skyward. “Especially if it’s for the Duchess.” The metal popped and snapped as the fire ate away at what remained of its guts.

  Dane raised an eyebrow. “Will you take a check?”

  Dane stayed with Anna and Hunter that night, and they flew him back to Mexico the next day. He arrived late in the afternoon.

  Dane steered the rented Jag F-type convertible up the winding road along the coast. The soft leather seats held him in place, and the powerful motor grumbled as the car rocketed along, the tires gripping the road.

  He jammed the brakes and swung into the hotel parking lot, the three-building spread at the top of the hill. The bright white stucco stood out like a flame against the rocky mountain behind. He parked the car, stepped out and looked around. The ocean shimmered, the white tips of the waves cascading onto the beach. This resort on the Mexican coast was the exact opposite of Nuevo Laredo, and the irony was not lost on him.

  He snapped a salute and a smile at the doorman and crossed the wide and ornate lobby to the elevators, each doorway rimmed with flakes of gold.

  He entered the two-room suite and crossed the thick carpet to the deck, where a bikini-clad Nina lay on a lounger soaking up the sun. Her tanned skin glistened; the crooked scar beside her belly button also had a darker tinge. She sipped from a glass of red wine, and a half-empty bottle rested beside the lounger.

  “Keeping busy?”

  “You didn’t tell me you’d be gone overnight.”

  “Bad cell service.”

  “Liar. So how did it go? Where’s the gun?”

  “Anna has it. She’ll keep it until we need it.”

  “You gave her money and didn’t bring the gun back?”

  “You can’t bring something like that back on an airplane, honey.”

  “So was it a big gun? Does it take lots of bullets?”

  “Explosive shells, and yes.”

  “It makes stuff go boom?”

  “Very loudly. I toasted a poor innocent truck.”

  “Truck killer!”

  “Is that your second bottle or your first?”

  “First, honey.”

  “You mean your first today?”

  “Do you think I’m a lush?”

  “You need to learn how to knit or something.”

  She held up a hand. “Potty break. Help me up.”

  He grabbed her hand and half hauled her upright. She weaved a little; he grabbed her sweat-sticky waist and pulled her close.

  “Let go,” she said, pushing back. “I’ll pee all over you.”

  “You are such a turn-on.”

  “I know. Let me go.”

  “That joke writes itself.” He gave her a shove through the door and a smack on the bottom.

  “Todd will be here in a few minutes,” she said.

  Dane closed the sliding door and took a sip from the wine bottle, grimaced and put it down. Wine wasn’t his thing, but he had plenty of Maker’s Mark and Coke. He reopened the sliding door and went to mix a proper drink.

  Dane pulled a chair over next to the lounger and lit a cigar. He swallowed some Maker’s and Coke and kept a tight grip on the glass. Nina returned, stretched like a cat on the lounger, let out a relaxing sigh.

  “Why are you angry with your glass?”

  “Huh?”

  “The way you’re holding it. You’re going to break the glass and spill your vitamins all over the deck.”

  He set down the glass. His hand and fingers were tight. He flexed them a few times.

  “Anxious, I guess.”

  Todd McConn arrived and settled his lanky frame in a lounger, tipped up his feet clad in lizard-skin boots. Dane poured a drink for his old friend.

  McConn said, “Do I get to see this supergun?”

  “Anna still has it.” Dane filled him on the test firing. McConn let out a low whistle.

  “How come we never had toys as cool as that?”

  Dane shrugged and took another drink.

  Nina said, “I’m hungry.”

  “Of course you are,” Dane said.

  They had lunch sent up and ate on the deck.

  “So what’s the plan, Steve?” McConn said.

  “Simple. We go to New York, meet the Duchess’s contact there, and offer to sell the weapon.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Dane regarded them both without comment and then looked away.

  Nina added, “You want to see the Duchess yourself, right? Go in there with McFadden hanging around and we won’t last ten seconds.”

  “Who’s McFadden?” McConn said.

  “His first name is Sean,” Dane said. “He was part of 30-30 before you joined. Former IRA. Now he’s freelance. We’ve clashed with him a few times already. I keep trying to get him to come back to the fold, the good side, if you will, but he won’t budge.”

  “Think he’ll rat you out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let me make the approach,” McConn said. “They don’t know me.”

  “McFadden is not going to switch sides,” Nina said.

  “You’ll risk everything if you go in, Steve,” McConn said.

  “He thinks his protégé will come to his senses, Todd.”

  Dane lit another cigar.

  Nina said, “Sean has made his choice. If you go through with this—”

  “I’m making the approach,” Dane said. “Todd, you hang back and cover me. All the way.”

  “Want me to fly to the moon by waving my arms, too?”

  “We leave in two days,” Dane said.

  “This is insane,” Nina said.

  Dane didn’t budge. “The contact is a man named Alek Savelev.”

  Nina sat up. “Wait, who?”

  “Savelev,” Dane said. “He’s the US contact for the Duchess.”

  “This,” she said, “just keeps getting better.”

  “What’s the problem now?” McConn said.

  “Alek Savelev was my captain when I was in the FSB,” she said. “This means I should make the approach.” She pointed at Dane. “You can be my wingman.”

  Dane grinned and smoked his cigar. But there was no laughter in his eyes.

  19

  Spy Kids

  New York City

  “We’re being watched.”

  Alek Savelev covered his reaction with a sip of latte. The young man who had spoken sat across from him at the small table. In the crowded coffee shop, it was hard to scan all the faces; but his student had seen one, multiple times, and finally, when he was sure, mentioned the man’s presence. Savelev swallowed his coffee and said, “Which one, Joe? Dark hair, black suit, thin tie, reading a newspaper?”

  Joe frowned. “You know? I thought—”

  “I was waiting to see how long you’d take. When did you first see him?”

  “About three blocks back.”

  “Good work; that’s about when I saw him. Now, questions.”

  “Who is he? Who sent him? What does he want, and how long has he been watching?”

  “You haven’t spotted him before?”

  “No. None of the others have reported being followed, either.”

  Savelev pressed his lips together. “Nobody’s been on my tail,” he said. “I think we need to see this gentleman up close and personal.” He pulled out a cell phone and dialed a number. “It’s me,” he said. “Who’s with you? Grab him and come to the Starbucks on 57th. Call me again when you’re a block away. Don’t get any closer than that.” He hung up and drank more coffee. “Want another?” he said.
r />   “So we keep talking?” Joe said.

  “He’s not a lip reader,” Savelev said. “And notice that your back is to him. I deliberately took this seat to make sure of that, on the off chance I’m wrong.”

  Joe nodded.

  “Know your craft,” Savelev said, “but don’t take anything for granted.”

  “Well if it’s okay to talk, we better get started.”

  “Right. You and Poppy found something. But neither of you are on assignment.”

  “It happened by accident.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Poppy met a former White House staffer at one of her parties that I think has something we can use, the goods on the entire administration and the president in particular.”

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “He told us about it.”

  “Okay.”

  “And if the Duchess—”

  Savelev held up a hand as his cell phone rang. He answered and issued instructions, and hung up and smiled at Joe.

  “They’re waiting in the alley,” the Russian said. “Come on. Let’s see how sharp our friend is.”

  They left their unfinished coffees on the table and went out into the warm afternoon.

  New York, New York. The city so nice they named it twice. Dane had visited only once before, several years ago, and the city hadn’t changed much. It was still full of too many people in too small a space. He sat in the coffee shop watching Savelev and the younger man, and read almost every article in the front section of the newspaper, with only an occasional glance at the pair. He sipped hot green tea and did not blot out the noises around him. The bad music over the speakers. The jumble of customer voices. The commotion behind the counter. There was something American about the whole experience, and it was one he did not find a facsimile of anywhere else in the world.

  Except for the chairs. The hard wooden chairs always made his rear end sore, and every coffee shop in the world had the same chairs. Like they all bought from the same place.

  Dane kept reading. He glanced at two photographs of current US president Peter Cross and noted that he had put on a few pounds since the last time he’d seen him. But he still looked sharp. Opponents continued to criticize him over policy decisions, specifically America’s continuing conflict in the Middle East. A related article highlighted his connection with Baden-Solitron, which had a huge government contract to rebuild the portions of the Middle East where US forces played. An editorial thought the connection was too close, that the president was granting favors to a friend. The connection should be investigated by Congress, the writer said, implying that Peter Cross was less than trustworthy. Dane only shook his head. Cross would always help a friend; he had helped Dane in many ways, many years ago; but he would never do anything illegal.