by Jason Kasper
Another pair of soldiers appeared through the smoky darkness, and I opened fire while advancing rapidly toward them. The first fell and I directed my fire to the second, scoring two hits that slowed his reaction but left him standing. Then my pistol went empty—I vaguely registered the jolting click of the slide locking to the rear—and I let it fall from my grip as I slid the knife free from my kit.
The last man and I were both screaming as we converged on each other. Grabbing his rifle barrel with my free hand, I plunged the knife into his stomach as hard as I could.
I felt a visceral repugnance as my blade punctured his abdomen, the aversion heightened a moment later when I canted it upward and drove it behind his ribs into vital organs. Our shouts ended together, mine out of disgust and his trailing into a wheezing breath as a horrible septic odor blasted into the space. I yanked my knife free and pushed him to the side.
Armed with nothing but a blade, I crossed into the final room.
There, I saw Cetan.
My interrogator was crouched in the corner, by all appearances trying to avoid the battle and quite horrified that it had now come to him. He had no weapon, and his eyes displayed a desperate horror upon seeing me burst through the door with a blood-covered knife.
I took a sudden half-step toward him, and this was all it took for Cetan to submit into a fetal slump, palms open toward me in surrender. Turning away, I saw a metal filing cabinet wedged between a desk and a cluster of rusted steel drums—the location of the item, just as it had been described.
I fell to my knees before the cabinet, dropping the knife and pulling open the drawer with my left hand. Rows of brick-sized boxes lined the space within, each commercially packaged with Chinese script. Flinging them out of the drawer one at a time, I caught sight of the one box in the bunch marked with an innocuous red dot sticker in the corner.
I pulled it free and clutched it in my grasp, my right hand marring its surface with the hot, greasy blood of the soldier I’d stabbed. Distant battle sounds raged outside the building but I couldn’t bring myself to react, staring instead at the box as my head swam in a cloud of almost opioid euphoria. At last I held the item, had achieved possession against all odds. It was a direct representation of Ian’s freedom, of avenging all those I’d lost along the way, of the Handler’s certain death.
Sudden gunshots in the room startled me, and I flung my head toward Cetan—a possible threat I’d unforgivably left alive in my rush to get to the item.
But Cetan’s body was crumpling with the eruptions of blood that spread across his torso like boils, his shooter blasting away in an overkill of gunfire that didn’t end until my interrogator had fallen forward into a prostration of death.
I looked to the doorway to see Cong shouting as he lowered his rifle from a firing position.
“—now! Mr. David, we must go, now!”
Gripping the box as if it would disappear into thin air if dropped, I shouted, “EXFIL, EXFIL, EXFIL!”
We consolidated with the survivors of our raiding party. Exiting the far side of the building into a downpour of rain that had become near-torrential, I heard the crackling pops of gunfire around us. My stab of fear subsided as I realized the sound was Zixin’s perimeter defense element, now trading fire with Myanmar troops to cover our escape.
With the item in hand, our raiding party sprinted through sheets of rain, along our escape route, and back to freedom.
VICTORY
Omnis vir enim sui
-Every man for himself
13
Kun met me at the safe house door upon our return, the fall of darkness accelerated by the storm clouds that continued unleashing a monsoon of rain.
I handed him the box. “I’m sorry about Tiao. We could not recover his body without being killed by army reinforcements.”
Kun accepted the box and turned it over in his hands, fondly stroking the sticker marking it from the rest of the batch.
“Tiao understood the risk. Please, come with me.”
I followed him to his workshop, a room converted into a bizarre hybrid of tool shop and laboratory. He took a seat before a weathered bench, the wall above it covered in shelves hosting hardware, power tools, and medical supplies. He set the box down on his workbench and recovered a scalpel from a drawer, removing the plastic sheath to expose a paper-thin blade.
I surveyed the room, seeing everything from biohazard disposal boxes to equipment for forging blades. “You seem very willing to accept Tiao’s loss.”
He countered, “We play these odds willingly. These are the sacrifices we make.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “But not for money.”
“You overestimate my virtue.”
Using the scalpel to delicately slice the seals at the box seams, he lifted the lid. I peered inside to see a watch—gaudy, fake, the view of its dial warped by the cheap crystal.
“Kun,” I sighed, wiping a slick of hair away from my face, “you may be deeply involved in everything illegal in this region, but you’re no ruthless criminal—you still removed your shoes in the Buddhist temple when we met.”
“So? This is our custom.”
“You’re a smart man. So are Peng and Cong. If this was about providing a decent living, you could do it any number of ways. You’re interested in the type of profit that isn’t available legally in this part of the world, and there are only two reasons for that.”
Setting the watch aside, he removed the display panel from the box and laid it upside down on the desk. “There is only one. Greed.”
“For most, yes. For people like you there’s another.”
“Oh?”
“Family.”
He picked up the scalpel and froze. His face aged further before me, the creases in his skin deepening.
I asked, “Where are they?”
“Safe. In China.”
Nodding slowly, I continued, “Provided the best education and opportunity, paid for by the sacrifices of a few members who cross the border to continue the family craft. Does your extended family in China know what you do to support them?”
“No. Never. They are establishing their own ventures within the law, and soon will require no more financing from me. But in the meantime they need money for the transition to legitimacy—it is quite a difficult leap to make.”
I thought of Parvaneh. Her plan to inherit the throne and leverage a transnational crime syndicate to create opportunity for the impoverished masses was so ambitious that she either couldn’t conceive of the challenges or understood them all too well and was willing to dedicate her life to their pursuit. Either way, she had noble intentions that her father, the Handler, was incapable of comprehending, much less implementing.
Brushing the thought aside, I continued, “That’s got to be tough—they benefit from your sacrifices but don’t know the pains you’ve undergone on their behalf.”
Kun didn’t skip a beat. “The soldier’s dilemma, yes? Few care what their protectors undergo, and those who care can never understand. Except the pains we take for family are never as meaningless as governments sending their armies to slaughter.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Lightly holding the scalpel, he used the tip to precisely separate the box display panel into two pieces at the seam.
Taped to the inside of one section was an inch-long glass vial.
He grinned at the sight of the vial, then frowned before he replied, “Is Iraq any better off for your nation’s intervention? Is Afghanistan?”
I hesitated, swallowing before I managed, “I’m not a foreign policy expert.”
“Nor do you have to be to answer my question. But we digress from our present agenda.” He plucked the tape from the glass vial, lifting it for me to see without the slightest tremor in his elderly hand. A clear liquid was encapsulated inside—it could have been a few drops of water for all I knew.
I shrugged. “That’s what all this has been for?”
“This, David, is b
eyond fentanyl.”
“Fentanyl?”
He chuckled to himself as he set the vial in a glass bowl atop his workbench.
“A synthetic opioid painkiller that could serve your employer’s purposes quite well. But it is known to be lethal, and advanced scanners will test for it. However”—he indicated the vial—“this is an acetyl fentanyl derivative, an extremely recent breakthrough at a single laboratory in China. They found a method to alter the fentanyl synthesis to produce a substance virtually undetectable by even the most modern chemical scanners. A small quantity was stolen from the lab and transported across the border while under chase from Chinese authorities.”
The words elicited a rush of exhilaration within me. I’d wondered why Sage had sent me to Myanmar, and it all suddenly made perfect sense: the Handler either directly controlled or had detailed intelligence on nearly every facility capable of producing cutting-edge synthetic poisons. Sage needed something sufficiently exotic to make it through the Handler’s security screening procedures, yet produced outside of the monitored assassination labs.
And in Southeast Asia, she’d found the intersection of both.
Kun watched me strangely now, waiting for me to process everything he just said. I swallowed hard. “In the cave, you said you needed to combine this with another item before I can return. What is it?”
“The other”—he reached into a workshop drawer to procure an object for me to observe—“is this.”
In his hand was an immense fountain pen the size and shape of a cigar. I recognized it at once—it was the same pen with a swirling gold dragon that the Handler had used to sign the order that had sent me into a mole hunt against Sage.
Did Kun know who the target was? Sage had surely kept it a secret.
I tried to conceal my recognition of the writing instrument with the words, “So if the poison doesn’t work, we can club the target to death with that pen?”
Kun didn’t seem amused. “This is a fountain pen replica, recreating very demanding specifications. I am told the original was modeled in Japan by the old masters around the turn of the century. It would be of incalculable worth today. But alas, while records of its creation exist in archives, the actual pen has been missing for decades.” Then he shot me a knowing look, one wizened gray eyebrow tilting with humor. “But I suspect that whoever possesses it will be dead very, very soon following your return to North America.”
“So you’re going to put the poison on the pen?”
“First I will infuse a thin sheet of transparent gel with the derivative. Then I must apply it to the grip section of the replica fountain pen—this keeps the lethal portion protected by the pen cap until the victim removes it and holds the pen to write. The amount of fingertip pressure to hold a pen of this weight will achieve instant transdermal absorption.”
“Instant transdermal absorption?” I repeated, waving my hand over his workbench. “The scalpels, the medical supplies…you’re a doctor, aren’t you?”
Kun replied in a strange, almost wistful tone, “My previous career is not who I am now.” He seemed embarrassed not that I had deduced this fact about his past but that I’d spoken it and thus forced him to relive the memory. “But we do not shed our experiences just because we have since crossed into crime. In that regard I suspect I am no more a doctor than you are a soldier. Men like you and me were not always criminals, no?”
“No, we weren’t. And as a former soldier, I told you that I could retrieve this item with the help of your men. Now I need your assurance as a former doctor that this will work. When it is used, there will be extensive medical equipment and staff on hand. If the target survives for any reason—”
He dismissed my concern with a simple shake of his head, interjecting, “Due to the potency of the derivative and the concentration at which I shall infuse the gel, death will occur within seconds. Your target can be on life support at the time of contact, it will not help him or her.”
I recalled the Handler in his office, using his pen to sign the order for my deep cover mission against Sage. Then I pictured him slumping dead on his desk before having time to seal the envelope with wax.
Smiling at the thought, I asked, “How is the target going to die?”
“Massive respiratory depression.”
“So the target will simply…stop breathing?”
“Quite violently, I assure you. At the cellular level, there are receptors that relay oxygen and carbon dioxide levels to the brain, and the brain tells the lungs to breathe. By binding this substance with the receptors, it short-circuits the brain’s ability to ascertain vital gas levels in the body, and therefore the very process by which it operates the lungs. This”—he reached into the glass bowl and plucked the vial out, lifting it between thumb and forefinger to emphasize his point—“is the chemical equivalent of an atomic bomb against the body. Complete and total destruction, absolutely irreversible.”
I realized I’d slid closer to Kun in the course of his speech, hanging on his every word. Taking a step back, I managed, “I look forward to returning it to my employer.”
“As you should. Any one of you could have died on that mission—but not anyone could have recovered the item. When you wanted to enter Laukkai by yourself, I was fearful for you—for good reason, as things came to pass. But how you led the others into the depot was brilliant. Eventually, I think, strategy will suit you better than soldiering. Prove me right by living until that day.”
“I’ll try not to let you down,” I mumbled, feeling both flattered and strangely uneasy about his assessment.
He seemed to sense my discomfort, easily changing the subject. “You know, in three decades I have never failed a client on a commission. This time would have been particularly embarrassing”—he smiled good-naturedly—“because I fucking hate the junta.”
“It was my pleasure to assist with your problem.” I took a breath, deciding to test the waters. “But if we may speak outside the bounds of this particular order, I have a small personal request.”
He swept one hand in a self-assured wave. “Consider your request granted, if within my power.”
I nodded. “Zixin left Cong and me to die before Peng seized the cannon.”
“So I heard.”
“Then let me kill Zixin.”
Kun looked away from me, bowing his head. “Eagles do not hunt flies, David. This is what you ask for?”
“Zixin earned it.”
“I will grant you one favor only.” He turned his face back to me, his cheeks colored with emotion, a determined set to his mouth at the prospect of allowing something he found objectionable. “And yes, you may choose to use it on Zixin.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“He left you and Cong for dead, but you did not die. Revenge is futile—you cannot change the past. You can, however, alter the course of future events. I advise that you consider your favor carefully in light of what I have just told you.”
Everything in my history pounded against my brain, creating a pressure that I knew would be assuaged in a moment of murderous rage ending in Zixin’s death. I had to forcibly restrain myself from demanding that in lieu of any alternatives, but by demanding, I’d be a slave to my past self.
Zixin, I thought, was a cowardly speck on the underside of my travels. His death would do nothing to assist Ian or me.
The Handler’s death, by contrast, would.
How could I safeguard the prospect of his death when I already had the item in hand, and it was being configured into an assassination weapon of staggering lethality?
Bring back a spare.
I nodded my concession to Kun’s advice, then said, “You’ll have some poison compound remaining after finishing my employer’s commission?”
“A very small amount.”
“Make me a second pen.”
He recoiled at the words. “This is not possible. The work that went into the replica took months—”
“Not a replica. Just an ordinary
pen, treated in the same way.”
“You asked for my assurance that the poison will work. As a former doctor, let me assure you that even if I treat a second pen with the remaining traces of gel, I cannot guarantee it will cause immediate death, or even death at all. I do not let anything leave my workshop unless I am certain it will perform as I intend.”
“A policy that has crafted a well-deserved reputation over your decades of experience. A policy”—I placed a hand on his shoulder as I saw the objection grow in his eyes—“that I understand completely. This is a special request, not one tied to your reputation. There’s a saying in my former army: two is one, one is none. Always bring a spare. You want me to ensure the future instead of avenging the past? A backup item is the way to do it.”
His eyes closed in a prolonged blink as I saw his face relax. “Now you are growing instead of resorting to your past ways. You should do that more often, David: let the past exist as it was. Direct your energies forward, not back.”
I gave him a nod of understanding, to which he concluded, “Once I apply the derivative, it will take several hours to bond with the pens. Get some rest, David. They will both be ready by morning, and then you shall travel home at last.”
The next morning, I went to the rooftop to watch the sunrise. It was the first time I’d seen the neon orange blaze of sun permeating the horizon since I’d arrived in Myanmar five days earlier.
In that regard, Myanmar in monsoon season wasn’t quite so different from the British Columbian wilderness: brief glimpses of sun between otherwise omnipresent dull gray cloud cover, a shapeless mist blanketing the sky. Weather’s equivalent of depression, I mused, replicating the mind’s perception in the atmosphere.
The fighting had stopped before midnight, and a hushed calm had since descended over Laukkai. To the west, densely packed rust-colored rooftops dotted rolling hills that extended to Myanmar’s interior. In the other direction, a rolling morning mist crawled between the hunter green mountaintops across the border in China, a vision that induced the same feeling of serene tranquility as my previous wilderness exile. I looked to the craggy mountaintops splitting the brightening sky. For reasons I couldn’t explain, the mountains soothed me—from the Smokies to Afghanistan, the Pacific Northwest to the Myanmar-China border, I sensed profound if momentary glimpses of inner peace alien to me in any other setting.
