by Jason Kasper
“Hope you didn’t go to all this trouble for me,” I offered. “My astonishment can be bought for a lot less than what this bottle probably cost.”
Watts procured a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, drawing one and tossing the rest onto the table. “Not anymore, David. You could have a Porsche 911 for the price of that bottle.”
He lit his smoke as I took a sip, tasting the peaty musk of scotch before it transitioned into a bouquet of dried fruit and licorice. The residue turned to a rich cedar in my mouth before whisking away altogether.
“Goddamn.” I winced. “I’d take this bottle over the car.”
Omari grunted in approval and reached for the bottle, but I pulled it away from him. “Apologies, Omari—I caught a wicked case of mono in Brazil. Probably best I hang onto this scotch and you guys open a new one.”
He snatched the bottle from me. “Fuck that. Nothing is sacred at a karoga, sickness or no. We drink, we talk shit, we smoke cigarettes. Nothing is forbidden to discuss, no one may get offended. This is why no women are allowed.”
“Until Parvaneh assumes the throne,” Watts pointed out.
Omari took a swig, mustache spreading as he momentarily cringed before passing the bottle to Yosef. “Until that day.”
I almost winced at the mention of the Handler’s daughter. In Rio I had joined Parvaneh’s delegation, fought to defend her when we came under attack, and had ultimately taken three bullets to save her life. We’d felt the mutual pangs of romance—until she learned that I was an assassin infiltrating the Organization with the sole purpose of killing her father.
Now, even under the current circumstances, and even with the events in Rio setting off a full-fledged war between criminal networks, I couldn’t bear the thought of Parvaneh’s electric green eyes burning into me.
“What does karoga mean?” I asked, sweeping my thoughts aside as I watched Yosef drink. His inscrutable eyes darted around the table as he swallowed and wordlessly passed the bottle to the Handler.
Omari turned his pot belly back to a tall steel pot simmering on an open charcoal flame and stirred the contents with a long wooden spoon. “My ancestors were laborers in India when the British began building the Kenya-Uganda Railway. The call went out for workers, and my ancestors boarded dowlas—small fishing boats—bringing only what they could carry on their person. They crossed the Indian Ocean in search of a better life—and those of them that survived the voyage became laborers on the railroad.”
“And learned to drink like Kenyans,” Watts added, passing the bottle to me for a second round.
I raised the bottle to my lips, only letting enough scotch enter my mouth to make the sip look convincing. My alcohol tolerance was both immense and hard-earned, but I’d need every possible iota of speed for what I was about to do.
Omari looked over his shoulder, continuing, “…this is how my ancestors dined—after a long day of building the railroad, getting eaten by lions, and dying of malaria, they would assemble around huge cooking pots with whatever food and spices they could gather. Karoga means ‘stir’ in Swahili, and that is what these meals become—‘The Stir,’ because every family would take turns cooking. It is not Indian, not Kenyan—it is a unique merger, you would say.”
The food smelled delicious, an intoxicating blend of smoky cumin, fresh ginger, and sautéed onions over roasting chicken. Watts’s and Yosef’s cigarette smoke cut through the scent of food as the Handler reached for the pack of cigarettes while addressing me.
“We reserve the Executive Karoga for events demanding celebration. Saving my daughter and the heir to this dynasty qualifies.”
Watts blew a stream of smoke toward the roof overhang, the dissipating cloud of silver matching the color of his hair. “Parvaneh’s bodyguard spoke very highly of your valor in Rio.”
“Her bodyguard commended me?”
“You sound surprised.” He offered me a cigarette, which I declined with a wave of my hand.
“Please, Watts, not until I’m accustomed to the taste of scotch that costs more per shot than any bottle I’ve ever bought in my life. And yes, I’m surprised—her bodyguard seemed about as fond of me as Yosef does. How’s the war in Brazil going, anyway?”
“Brazil?” he scoffed, handing the cigarettes to Yosef. “Try half of South America. We’ve been operating in Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia…the group that tried to kill Parvaneh has a wide reach.”
“I wasn’t part of the Outfit for long, but I don’t recall them being big enough to handle that kind of action. You guys have a reserve force, or what?”
“Hell no. We’re just using local mercenaries for most of the grunt work, led and equipped by Outfit advisors. Unilateral Outfit strike teams are reserved for high-profile targets, anyone higher up in the organization. We’ve been slicing and dicing their soldiers, but the executive staff are slippery sons of bitches. They’ve got a sophisticated evasion network, as well they should—they’ve been doing it long enough. Hiding from the government, hiding from cartel hitters. Hell, you saw how protective they were of their leader when you met with him in Brazil, am I right, David?”
I nodded distantly, recalling how Parvaneh’s delegation had been stripped of location trackers; taken on a route to lose all surveillance, complete with decoy vehicles; and then delivered to a high-rise meeting that the organization’s top leader departed via helicopter before we were allowed to return to our people.
And that was before he’d tried to have us all killed.
“They were cautious, yes,” I said. “I guess they’d need to be, given who they were crossing.” I looked around to see that the bodyguards hadn’t moved an inch, just shifted their weight from one foot to the other with a metronome-like regularity reserved for men who’d spent a majority of their adult lives pretending to be statues. Yosef slowly pulled a cigarette from the pack, his eyes never leaving my face.
“Goddamn right,” Watts said between drags. “I don’t mean that we’ve never lost a war—we haven’t, but that’s not my point. What I’m saying is we’ve never failed to run down every high-profile individual associated with the opposition…”
Turning my head, I saw the Handler’s personal bodyguard standing a few paces behind us, his hands folded neatly over his waist. I had previously nicknamed him Racegun due to the modified pistol he carried, and while he was standing casually I knew his reflexes exceeded anyone else’s in the room.
Across the table from me, Yosef lit his cigarette. He lowered his hand, ember tilted upward to pour a thin trail of smoke to the roof, his enigmatic face remaining completely expressionless even though he knew what I was about to do.
Watts was still speaking. “…once somebody crosses the Organization, their lifespan drops to thirty days or less in most cases. If someone’s really got unlimited resources at their disposal, they might make it a year. But we always get our man—”
He fell silent as Racegun murmured “Copy” into his shirt cuff and stepped forward to touch the Handler’s shoulder, whispering something in his ear.
The Handler lowered his cigarette and listened intently, lips curling in consideration as the rest of us sat in rapt attention. Finally his head bobbed in a slight nod. “Very well. Bring it to me.”
Racegun stepped back and swung an index finger toward the single door.
The bodyguard manning the entrance announced, “Sir, your message.”
He opened the door and a curvy female entered, her red hair pulled back into a ponytail.
I recognized her at once as Sage, the lone woman who first delivered me to the Mist Palace via the Handler’s private jet. Our cryptic in-flight conversation had left me wondering who she was, but virtually all memory of her had been erased from my mind in the wake of what happened in Brazil days later.
Until now, as she entered the Executive Karoga, which I had been admitted to for one reason alone.
Her lithe beauty struck me as she advanced toward the Handler, a folded piece of paper in her hand swinging al
ongside her rounded hip. Omari and Watts turned their heads to watch her, and who could blame them? Even Yosef’s silent gaze was turned toward the display of fiery grace unexpectedly descending upon the karoga. Sage’s face registered a slight look of surprise at my presence, and we locked eyes for a split second as the undertow of adrenaline in my bloodstream surged into an all-encompassing wave.
As the Handler’s glimmering eyes twitched up at Sage amid a puff of exhaled cigarette smoke, I took a sharp breath. Grabbing the steak knife beside my plate in an icepick grip, I swung it toward the Handler’s jugular in one desperate movement—a fraction of a second meant the difference between slaying my greatest enemy and tumbling into a far different fate.
The jagged point was inches from carving its way through the Handler’s neck before Racegun’s powerful grip intercepted my arm, stopping it mid-swing and smashing my hand against the table.
“DOWN!” Racegun shouted, and what happened next told me everything I needed to know about the Handler’s security protocol.
Before Racegun could finish torqueing my right hand behind my back, the other four bodyguards in the room had their submachine guns aimed at Watts, Omari, Yosef, and Sage. I heard the slap of palms against the table as the Handler’s high council assumed prostrate positions of total submission, heads hanging low over their plates lest they be shot.
Sage stood completely still, her folded paper fluttering to the floor as she held her hands up, eyes turned downward in surrender.
Racegun spun me out of my chair and threw me against the wall, the jarring impact against my left arm making my vision go bleary with exploding tears of intense pain. One of the other bodyguards took physical control of me as Racegun grabbed the Handler, jerking him to his feet and racing him toward the door being pulled open by the attending guard.
Less than ten seconds after I reached for my knife, the Handler was evacuated. Every bodyguard followed his royal presence out the door save the one holding me, who shortly thereafter decided to remove me as an immediate threat by delivering a crushing knockout blow to my temple.
3
My right wrist was chained to the table in front of me. The spartan room was brightly lit, with two chairs bolted to the floor on either side of the table. I sat in one of them, facing a windowless metal door. A mirror covered one wall, and I briefly wondered who was watching from the other side. The black orbs of ceiling-mounted surveillance cameras watched me coldly, indifferent to my upcoming interrogation and execution.
My legitimate attempt to kill the Handler upon returning from Rio had been witnessed only by Ian, Parvaneh, and a small security detail in the garden of the Mist Palace. But at the karoga a few hours earlier, I’d swung a knife at the Handler’s throat in full view of his entire executive staff, and only Yosef and the Handler knew it had been a planned charade. There was no going back now, no fallback ploy. I was completely committed to whatever—and whoever—walked through that door. The Handler refused to tell me whom he suspected, but judging by his bizarre plan and the grave tone with which he ordered it into existence, it was someone worthy of his concern.
I felt confident the offending party was Watts, the silver-haired Boston movie star serving as the Handler’s Chief Vicar of Defense. He seemed the best bet by far. Omari, the karoga chef and finance chief, had been too jovial, too upbeat, to harbor any dark conspiratorial notions. And Yosef, having personally accepted the order as Chief Vicar of Intelligence, was beyond suspicion.
I finally heard a bolt click within the door, and I watched it expectantly, waiting for it to open. At last, the hinges creaked and I saw a solitary figure standing in the gap.
For the second time since entering the karoga, I was taken aback by who I saw—and for the same reason.
Sage’s vibrant red hair was now pulled back into a smart ponytail, and her professional attire modestly covered her shapely form. We watched each other in silence for a moment before she spoke.
“Good evening, Mr. Rivers.”
Under different circumstances I would have laughed at the sight of her. The Handler controlled a small army of cutthroat mercenaries, bodyguards, and psychopathic deviants, yet he was concerned about the one employee who looked like an off-duty swimsuit model.
“Good evening, Sage.” I lifted my right hand helplessly against the chain. “I always seem to be a captive audience when you’re around.”
Her face remained cold as she slid into the seat across from me before opening a small notebook and jotting something down. “I am here to investigate why you attempted to assassinate the One. You can tell me of your own free will, or we can resort to more drastic—”
“Relax, Sage. No need for theatrics.”
She leaned closer, lips parting for a second of silence before she managed, “Theatrics?”
“Look, I’ve got no living friends that I can betray by telling you the truth, so let’s get this over with. We both know how this is going to end for me.”
Although her eyes remained flat, I sensed she was concealing some emotion I couldn’t discern—was it approval, even delight?
“Very well. I have been tasked with composing a report on the incident that occurred at the Executive Karoga earlier this evening. So start with why you attempted to kill the One. From the beginning, please.”
I leaned back in my chair, leaving my handcuffed wrist atop the table. Sage began scrawling in the notebook as a formality—the whole room was doubtless wired for audio coverage. I began, “Short version? I was medically discharged from the Army last year. I had a score to settle with a man named Peter McAlister, and I murdered him in his home. Later that night three men apprehended me—”
“Their names?”
“I knew them as Boss, Matz, and Ophie.”
She tilted her head. “Criminals?”
“Yes.” I found myself nodding distantly, recalling their faces, voices, mannerisms. “What was left of a paramilitary team that conducted operations for the Handler. They recruited me to work with them.”
“In what capacity?”
Releasing a sigh, I replied, “As an assassin.”
“I need a list of targets,” she said at once. “Everyone you killed or are aware of them killing.”
“My first job was against a business executive named Saamir, at his high rise in Chicago last summer. Then I watched the team torture and execute a man named Luka for killing one of their previous teammates, and together we wiped out a safe house full of guards to eliminate a primary target and gain intelligence to target the Five Heads.”
“Tell me about the Five Heads.”
“To my knowledge, they were the US-based opposition to the Handler. He got them together for a negotiation via teleconference, and when they were united he sent my team to conduct a decapitation strike. Matz’s sister”—my voice faltered here—“was named Karma. She was one of the getaway drivers. I was in love with her. When our strike against the Five Heads was successful, the Handler had our entire team wiped out. I was the only survivor.”
I watched her face for surprise or contrition, seeing neither. Instead she made a notation that ended with her spinning the pen toward me. “And how does the only survivor end up seated next to the One at the Executive Karoga?”
A wave of nausea hit me as I prepared to recount a journey that had ended in failure on every conceivable metric. “I was contacted by a man who gave me an offer of revenge. He had me recruited by the Handler’s personal mercenary unit.”
“The Outfit.”
“Yes. I earned admission last year.”
She stopped writing abruptly. “Who contacted you?”
“I don’t know his name, or how he found me. I only met him once. Heavyset Indian man. All he said was that he’d have the Outfit call me to enter their selection process. Told me that was the only way I could get close to the Handler if I wanted to kill him, which I do. My first Outfit mission was in Somalia in December. I’d just returned when you picked me up to meet the Handler.”
She seemed satisfied with my responses thus far, as she should—my story was almost the complete truth. I only left out the fact that Ian survived with me and had initiated my contact with the Indian. This was safe territory for me to lie. The Handler’s people would support the redaction as part of my current mole hunt.
Sage set her pen down beside the open notebook. “After I delivered you to the Mist Palace upon your return from Somalia, what occurred at your first meeting with the One?”
“The Handler assigned me to the protective detail of his daughter, Parvaneh, for the upcoming negotiations in Rio de Janeiro.”
“Why would he assign a new Outfit operator to such a critical role?”
I actually guffawed. “Because he’s a lunatic.” She seemed irritated by this response. “He believed a prophecy from a woman in Somalia stating that I’d save his daughter’s life.”
A cool smile of assurance from Sage. “To my understanding, you did save his daughter’s life.”
“Blind luck,” I shot back. “But it bought me an honorary seat at the Executive Karoga, so tonight I did my best to paint that room with his arterial spray.”
She plucked her pen from the table and made a final annotation before closing her notebook. “I’ll submit my report to the Intelligence Directorate. They’ll confirm or deny your statement.”
“How about a bottle of Woodford Reserve while I wait? Last meal and all that.”
She suppressed a grin, unsure exactly what to make of me.
“I’ll be back, Mr. Rivers.”
With that, she rose and left the room.
The morning of my execution was an unseasonably warm winter day. As I walked blindly forward in blacked-out goggles, the mild air against the exposed skin of my face and hands felt almost like spring.
