Iron House

by John Hart

  “What’s going on? What’s happening?”

  A connecting door joined their room to the one next door. It had a brass deadbolt, but the wood was cheap and thin. Michael shouldered it open, wood cracking at the jamb, bright metal twisting. “Go.” Michael tipped his head at the door. Elena moved into the adjoining room, Michael behind her. He forced the damaged door closed, jamming hard to make it fit. At the window, he eased back the curtain. The men were across the lot, twelve feet away. They walked in a row, the center man eyeing the motel door, the two on the sides checking their flanks. “Elena.”

  She eased up beside him. He wanted her to see, to understand. One of the men slipped a hand under his shirt, and Elena saw the dull show of black steel. “Jesus.”

  She crossed herself.

  Michael nodded toward the door between the rooms. “In ten seconds they’ll be in that room. You know how to use this?” He pulled the nine millimeter from the holster at his hip.

  “No.”

  She was truly frightened now. A different kind of fear. “It’s easy,” Michael told her. “Fifteen rounds. Semiautomatic. Just point and pull the trigger. If anyone comes through that door, you shoot him. Just keep squeezing the trigger. The safety is off.”

  “What about you?”

  He moved her back, against the wall. She had a clear line of fire at the adjoining door. “Anybody,” Michael said, then drew the forty-five and crossed back to the window. The men clustered on the sidewalk. The lot behind them was empty. They made a thorough check, then laid down the duffel bag and unzipped it, pulling out a thirty-pound sledgehammer. One last look around and the weapons came out. They kept them low against their legs, and when the hammer came off the ground they stepped back to make room for the swing. The man was large. He got his weight behind it, and when the hammer hit, the door didn’t stand a chance. It blew open with a tortured squeal. He dropped the hammer, and the other two entered first, the third right behind them.

  Michael gave them exactly two seconds, then opened the door and stepped outside. The day was just as warm, but felt cool. Wind licked his face, and part of him felt regret. He took five steps down the sidewalk, then rounded into the room behind them, his feet light and soundless, his heart rate unchanged. All three had their weapons up, their focus on the bathroom door and the shower running beyond it. No one looked back. No one heard him. It took Michael two seconds to kill all three men.

  Two seconds.

  Three bullets.

  The shots came so quickly, they sounded like strung firecrackers. Weapon leveled, Michael closed the door and checked the bodies. They were dead, no question: two in the back of the head, one in the side as he’d turned. Two of them had wallets in their back pockets. Michael checked the IDs, then tossed them in one of the shopping bags. He spared a glance at their weapons to confirm his suspicions, then gathered up spent casings and the bags of clothing. He made a last check and walked out of the room.

  The men he left on the floor.

  At the door to the adjoining room, he knocked. “It’s me.”

  “Come in.” Her voice shook.

  Michael found her crouched on the floor, weapon up and aimed at the door. “I heard…” She began to shake, and Michael took the weapon from her hands. She covered her face. “I thought … Oh, God.” She smeared her palms across her face, but there were no tears yet.

  “We’re leaving,” Michael said.

  “What happened?”

  “They were amateurs.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They died easy.” Michael was moving quickly, re-holstering the nine millimeter, pushing the shopping bags into Elena’s arms. “Someone will have heard the shots.”

  “They’re really dead? You—”

  “I should have seen it.” Michael shook his head. “The plates threw me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The van was here when we came back. I saw it, but it has Maryland plates. I was looking for New York.” Michael checked the window. “They’re contract players, probably out of Baltimore. I didn’t expect that. Wasn’t looking for it. I say they’re amateurs because they are. The van is parked so that it could be easily blocked in. No one watched their backs. Their weapons were low grade and poorly maintained. Two of them carried ID.” He shook his head. “Amateurs. Are you ready?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “North Carolina.”

  “Why?”

  “To find my brother.”

  She blinked, still stunned. “You killed them.”

  Michael opened the door, took her by the hand. “I’m trying to quit.”

  * * *

  They got in the car and drove from the lot. Michael made a number of turns and kept an eye on the rearview mirror. “We’ll need a new car.”

  “I’m going to be sick.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I’m going to be sick on you.”

  Michael worked his way back to the mall. It swarmed with people. There were thousands of cars. He drove up one row of cars and down another. “This will do.”

  “What?”

  He tilted his head at a late-model sedan. “Nondescript. No visible damage.” He parked four slots away.

  “And we’re stealing it?”

  Michael grinned. “The window’s open. It’s like an invitation. You want to come?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “Michael…” Her face caught the afternoon sun. “Those men you killed…”

  “Those men were coming to kill us.”

  “No innocents,” Elena said. “Is this what you meant?”

  “More or less.”

  “Marietta was innocent.”

  “I didn’t kill Marietta.”

  “Would you have?” She held him with the urgency of her question. “If things were reversed and it was you back in New York? Would you kill her to get what you want?”

  “I guess it depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On how badly I wanted something.” Michael slipped out of the car. In three minutes he was back. “Let’s go. Keep your head up. Act normal.”

  They unloaded their belongings from one car and carried them to the other. Elena stumbled twice but no one noticed. No one said a thing. In the other car and moving, Elena said, “I can’t accept your answer. I can’t sit here and accept what you said.”

  Michael drove in silence, Elena tense and miserable beside him. On the interstate, he said, “Some people deserve to die, if not for one sin, then another. When it happens to people like Marietta, it’s unfortunate.”

  “Unfortunate?”

  “It’s a bigger word than you think.”

  “She was my friend. She had parents, plans, and ambitions. A boyfriend. Jesus, Michael. She thought he was going to propose.”

  “I’ve never killed a civilian.” Michael waited until she looked at him. “If you’re smart in this business, you never have to.”

  “And you’re smart in the business?” She was angry, now, the fear fading. She wanted to lash out, and Michael understood. He’d felt it himself: survivor’s guilt, the first taste of how fast something bad could happen.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What does that even mean?”

  “It means I take precautions to keep the innocents innocent. It means I plan ahead.”

  Elena laughed a desperate laugh, white splotches in the center of each cheek. “Plan ahead? What plan? Where?”

  Michael sighed heavily, then reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. When the hand came out, it held Elena’s passport. The edges of it were crisp against his fingertips. He felt the sudden stillness in her, the parting of her lips. “There’s a direct flight from Washington. If you really want to go, I’ll take you there.”

  She took the passport and squeezed as slow understanding twisted her features. “Marietta…”

  Her voice broke, and Michael showed sympathetic eyes. He wanted to sa
y that Marietta died easily, that she died a quick death, but that would be false. Jimmy would want to make sure. So would Stevan. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said.

  But Elena did not hear him.

  She was drowning in guilt.

  * * *

  Traffic thickened as they neared the outskirts of Washington. Michael passed a station wagon—in it was a family with young kids. They were playing with toy guns, the guns shiny and small, the small faces intent. “Tell me the rest.” Elena kept her eyes on the kids. One of them waved, made a face. Elena touched her cheek once, then turned away. She still saw the kid, though: cross-eyed and puff-cheeked, nose pressed white on smeared glass as his sister aimed at his back and pulled the trigger.

  “The rest of what?” Michael passed the car.

  “The things you haven’t told me.” Elena’s eyes were smudged red. A pearl of blood rose from the crease of a torn hangnail. “Tell me all of it.”

  “You won’t like it.”

  “I will tell myself that they are only words.”

  “Baby—”

  “Please.”

  So, Michael spoke of the things he’d done. He described life as he’d lived it: life on the streets, and then as the old man’s strong right arm, what it took to do the job and move on. He spoke of other things, too: the one man he could count on, the care he took and the times he’d almost died. He spoke of his love for the old man, and he spoke of her, Elena; how, with her, he wanted more. “A normal life,” he said. “Better reasons to live.”

  By the time he finished, they were parked at Dulles International Airport. The sky above was clear. Jets split the air, impossibly large, and Elena was shaking her head. “It’s too much.”

  “You wanted to hear—”

  “I was wrong.” She looked at the terminal. People lined the sidewalk. Bags were being unloaded. She shook her head. “I can’t save you.”

  “I’m not asking you to. Just to understand, to let me try.”

  She fingered the passport, cleared her throat. “I need money.”

  “I’m more than the things I’ve done.”

  “Must I beg?”

  She was breaking, and the sight of it killed something in Michael’s heart. This was not how it was supposed to be; not the way he wanted it. He gave her cash without looking at the amount. It was a thick sheaf. Thousands. Many thousands. He took a breath, and gave her the business end of things. “Going to Spain may not keep you safe. Stevan has money, connections. He can find you if he wants to.”

  “And will he wish to?”

  An ember of hope kindled in her eyes, but it burned small, brief and cold. She worried with her nails at the raw place on her thumb. The pearl of blood had dried to a small crust. “Love me or not,” Michael said, “the safest place is with me.”

  “Safest but not safe.”

  “No. Not completely.”

  Elena nodded at this thing she already knew. She tucked both hands between her thighs, and said, “Do I look scared?”

  “You look beautiful.”

  “I’m terrified.”

  It showed in her eyes, a quiet but utter panic. She opened the door, and Michael said, “Don’t leave me.”

  “I’m sorry, Michael.”

  “I can keep you safe. I can make this right.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, but I can. Please, Elena. I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to you.”

  “And you think something will?”

  “Stevan has a vengeful soul. It’s personal between us, now. He’ll want to make me hurt. Going through you is the best way to do that.” Michael’s voice was very intent, close to pleading. “The safest place is with me.”

  “Then come to Spain. We can disappear—”

  “Julian is my brother.”

  His voice cut her off. She stared hard into his eyes, and there was no barrier between them. “So, you would choose between us?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “I can protect you both.”

  “I’m sorry, Michael.”

  “He’s my brother.”

  “And this is my baby.”

  She touched her stomach, got out of the car, and even though he could no longer see her face, Michael knew she was crying. It was in the slope of her shoulders, the tilt of her head. She shoved money in a pocket, found the sidewalk, and hesitated. People jostled her. The sidewalk was crowded with women and children, with men in suits and jeans and sunglasses. Eyes flicked over her and moved on. People stood singly and in knots; horns blared where traffic snarled. Elena took one step, then stopped again. For long seconds, she stood still, shoulders rolled, head turning first left, then right. A man bumped her, and she shied, dropping her passport, then bending to retrieve it. A space opened in front of her, but she did not move. Michael got out of the car and jogged through traffic. He worked his way to a place behind her, and when he was close, he saw that the passport was bent double in her hand. He stepped next to her, and when she flinched, he said, “It’s just me.”

  She kept her eyes on the crowd. A heavyset man pushed past. A punk in dark glasses watched her from beside a concrete column. “I’ve never been scared of people before.”

  Michael scanned the crowd. “No one here is a threat.”

  “How can you know?”

  “I just do.”

  “I don’t want to die,” she said.

  “Come with me.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I’ve got you, baby.”

  “Say it again.”

  “Will you come with me?”

  She paused for a long time. “If you say it again.”

  Michael put his arm around her shoulder. He kissed a warm place on the top of her head.

  “I’ve got you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The sun came dimly to the skies of Chatham County, so lost behind black clouds that Abigail Vane barely noticed it; it was a faint presence in a heavy sky, a suspicion of orange in the still air, of color hung in the trees. Rain fell straight down, a hiss in the tall grass that was loud enough to deaden most other sounds, hard enough for Abigail to feel on the backs of her hands, the crown of her head. It stung her face as the horse ran, and as the morning stalled, black and loud and ceaseless. After two hours, her body was chilled, her fingers so cramped she could barely open them. Her back ached and her legs burned, but she didn’t care, didn’t feel. She wanted to push. She wanted to ride hard, and let the wind of a fast horse steal the scream from her throat.

  At the end of the field, she reined in, horse snorting as it danced sideways and worked the bit in its mouth. Her pants were coated with mud and horse sweat, her feet heavy in the stirrups. A wall of hardwoods loomed in the rain: oak and beech and maple, trees so tall and broad that night remained complete beneath them. She swiped at the hair that clung to her face, and then turned the horse to face back down the length of the field. From one end to the other, they’d worn a track of crushed grass and churned mud, a violent gash in the valley floor. And the horse still wanted to run. He tossed his head, rolled his eyes, and Abigail felt a wildness in him that suited her mood. He was a dangerous animal, seventeen hands tall with a streak of viciousness she’d never seen in a horse.

  But he was fast.

  Goddamn, was he fast.

  She sawed once at the reins, then put her heels in his flank and let him go. His nostrils flared, and his hooves put a thunder in the mud. They reached the end and turned. Ran it again. Her lungs were burning when the Land Rover pushed out of the trees. It was old, with paint scratched through to metal, and Abigail knew who was behind the wheel even before it lurched to a halt. She turned the horse, her hand sliding once along its hot, reeking neck. The animal jerked its head, but she patted it a final time, then walked it to the vehicle, where she found a lean, broad-shouldered man standing at the hood. He was sixty years old, but hard and straight, with large-knuckled hands and the kind
of smile you had to look closely to see. But there was no smile this time. He wore khakis and leather boots, a burgundy tie under rain gear the color of moss. Disapproval pinched his features, so that when Abigail leaned from the saddle, she said, “I don’t want to hear it, Jessup.”

  “Hear what?”

  “A lecture on safety or propriety or how a woman my age should behave.”

  “That horse. In this visibility.” Jessup Falls pointed at the horse, his voice tight. “You’re going to break your damn neck.”

  “Such language.” Her eyes sparkled, but Jessup was immune.

  “You’re going to break your neck and it will be up to me to carry you out of here.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m not being ridiculous. I’m being angry. Jesus, Abigail. That horse has injured two trainers. He almost killed the last one.”

  She waved off his concern, and slid from the horse. Rain clattered through leaves and pinged off the truck. “Why are you here, Jessup?”

  Jessup’s skin had grown ruddy with the years, his hair thin and white, but other than that, he was the same man she’d known for so long: her driver, her bodyguard. Abigail circled the horse, boots squelching in damp soil. She’d aged, too, but more gracefully. Her skin was lined, but looked more like thirty-seven than forty-seven. Her hair had its natural color. She still turned heads.

  “Your husband is up,” Jessup said. “He’s asking for you.”

  She slowed as her face angled toward the far hill, where hints of the massive house showed: a slate roof and gabled windows, one of the seven tall chimneys.

  “Are you okay?” Jessup’s voice was softer, his anger spent.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Jessup cleared his throat, unwilling to state the obvious: the soaking clothes and the mud, the horse lathered yellow at the neck. Abigail was a fine rider, but this was insane. “Julian, for one,” Jessup said.