Rattlesnake

by Andy Maslen

  “Another cocktail, sir?”

  Gabriel opened his eyes. The seatbelt lights had winked out while his eyes were closed. A flight attendant stood respectfully at his side, her frosted pink lips curved into a smile of what he took to be genuine good humour.

  “Yes, please. Same again.”

  She removed the empty flute from his tray and returned a minute or two later with a full replacement, garnished once again with a spiral of orange peel. Under the combined influence of the champagne, brandy and Cointreau, the muscles surrounding his viscera relaxed further. He could feel his neck and shoulders unclenching and permitted himself a small smile. Not victory, but a tactical win. He looked down at the smooth landscape of cloud below his window, a sheet of frosting raised here and there into strange twisted peaks as if put there by a skilled pastry cook with a taste for baroque architecture. He imagined Vinnie, already dead of a bullet wound, hurtling earthwards through just such a sheet of cloud, punching a man-shaped hole through it on his way to the desert. And the face of the man who had placed him there. Clark Orton. He nodded to himself.

  We’ll meet again, Mr Orton. Then we’ll talk about Vinnie.

  53

  The Lone Star State

  TEXAS

  GABRIEL emerged from the arrivals terminal at San Antonio International Airport into the intense heat of the Texan summer. Keeping his head down, he inhaled deeply. The air wasn't as polluted as Phnom Penh’s, but it felt almost too thick to breathe. The culture shock, even after his short stay in Cambodia, was extreme. The people were so much bigger. Not just taller, but bulkier. This was a country that had known abundance for many decades. No enforced starvation, no genocide, no incompetent, corrupt crew of Marxists in charge, systematically impoverishing the citizenry whilst enriching themselves.

  The question ricocheting around inside his skull was, “Are they still looking for me?” By anybody’s standards, killing two CIA agents – even if one death was inadvertent – would count as a massive checkmark in the debit column of your life. He knelt to retie his shoelace and took the opportunity to scan the people around him. He’d once been told by an experienced undercover operator working in Belfast that the SAS were hopeless at blending in. “Listen mate,” he’d said in a broad Bogside accent radically different from his normal upper-class tones. “A bomber jacket and stone-washed jeans aren’t what ye might call urban camo, OK?” Gabriel had a feeling that the CIA would be just as inept at blending in, especially as the two men sent after him so far had been built like prop-forwards, or what did the Americans call them, linebackers? But everyone around him looked, well, normal. Lots of pastel shorts and Hawaiian shirts. A few suits. Some uniforms. Plenty of family reunions and executives looking for their drivers. But no slit-eyed spooks in black with the watchful gaze of predators.

  He walked to the taxi rank and asked the driver to take him to the centre of Helotes.

  “You British?” the driver asked after a couple of minutes.

  Gabriel didn’t mind being asked. Americans in particular had a strong sense of loyalty to their hometowns, and he supposed that gave them an interest in where others came from. He gave his standard answer.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Kind of. You here on vacation?”

  “Staying with a friend. Listen, this might sound odd, but I want to see some of the city on my way in. Can you take a few random turns for me? Even go all the way around the block?”

  “Buddy, as long as the meter’s on and you’re paying, I can do whatever you like.”

  The driver was as good as his word, and they spent the next hour weaving around the backstreets and residential avenues of San Antonio, doubling back, reversing into people’s driveways and changing direction, even racing down a narrow alley like undercover cops in a heist movie. Gabriel monitored the traffic in front and behind them for the entire trip, looking for the same vehicle turning up on unconnected streets, or cars making the same turns as his taxi. He saw nothing to worry him and eventually reached the conclusion that, for now, he was on his own.

  The driver turned onto East Commerce Street, a four-lane, one-way street running east-west two blocks south from the Alamo. He dropped Gabriel at the entrance to a shopping complex called The Shops at Rivercenter.

  Gabriel carried his luggage into a store called Wandering Cowboys and bought a broad-brimmed black Stetson and a pair of black cowboy boots. He wore his new purchases out of the shop, hat pulled low over his eyes, a rolling gait further shifting his identity. Five minutes later, he checked in at the Marriott on East Bowie Street under the name Lang, using the passport provided for him by a Triad boss back in Hong Kong. God, that seemed a long time ago. He booked two nights, after checking that they had plenty of empty rooms should he decide to stay for a little longer.

  He refused the offer of help with his bags and made his way up to the seventh floor and a clean, serviceable room that he felt one hundred percent certain would not be either bugged or under surveillance by the CIA.

  He set an alarm on his phone for eleven, then stripped off his clothes, showered and shaved, and fell into bed. He was asleep seconds later.

  The alarm beeped and he stretched out a hand to silence it. He’d not been dreaming and at first had the eerie sensation that he’d not been asleep at all. The curtains were open and outside it was dark. He stepped over to the window and looked out across the river and towards downtown. The city’s lights, so clean and bright in the darkness, spoke to him of wealth, satisfaction and pleasure. All the things he hoped to take away from Orton.

  Ten minutes later, a man of average height and build, dressed entirely in black, including a brand new Stetson, emerged from the front door of the hotel, looked both ways, then walked south towards East Commerce Street.

  Gabriel jammed his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders as he walked, glad he’d swapped the new boots for his well-worn running shoes. Keeping his head down, he relied on the directions he’d memorised, rather than his phone’s mapping app. He kept away from the main thoroughfares. The sidewalk was deserted apart from him, and the few cars and trucks on the roads sped past without slowing. He felt certain he wasn’t being tailed. Including a ride he hitched from a trucker at an all-night diner, it took him five and a half hours to reach the house. The residents, or those not on vacation or working nights, were tucked up in bed. That was the conclusion he drew from the empty roadways. Sunrise was still forty minutes away.

  Terri-Ann’s house was dark. He walked along the side of the property, stepped over the low picket fence and made his way round to the backyard. Thankful she didn’t have a dog, he knelt down by the kitchen door and worked a pair of lock picks into the keyhole. Ten seconds later, the lock gave with a barely audible snick and he pushed down on the handle.

  The kitchen was in darkness. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He stood motionless for a minute, letting his ears become attuned to the background noise. The soft tick of a quartz wall-mounted clock. A faint hum, which might have been an A/C unit somewhere in the garage. And, from upstairs, just discernible above the noise of his own blood rushing in his ears, music. Something slow and sad, with steel guitars and a woman’s voice. What he didn’t hear was the nervous shuffle of someone who’d waited too long for action. The muffled snap of a slide being racked. Or the whispers of a team readying themselves to strike.

  Once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he could see enough to move, he made his way to the stairs, stopping to listen again. Nothing but the music that he now recognised as Dolly Parton in one of her more soulful moods. His spider sense was active but untroubled. He trusted it enough to climb the stairs, though he kept his feet to the outside edges of the treads, minimising the risk of loose boards creaking.

  Reaching the landing, he saw a soft fan of light dusting the carpet in front of Terri-Ann’s door. He hesitated. He didn’t want to scare her, which was almost certainly likely to happen. She was awake, which was good, but even s
o, knocking or announcing himself would still give her a fright. Come on, Wolfe, he admonished himself. She lost her husband just a few weeks ago and she was tough enough to withstand that. She’ll cope with a short-term shock.

  Acknowledging the truth his inner voice spoke, he knocked twice, softly, with the back of his knuckles and then pushed the door open.

  But she wasn’t awake at all. Her bedside light was on, which accounted for the light seeping out from under the door. And Dolly Parton was indeed singing about love and loss, her voice issuing from a docking station that currently housed Terri-Ann’s iPhone. But the woman herself was sleeping soundly. Her hair was partially covering her eyes, as if she’d turned over in the night and dragged it across her forehead. One arm was flung out and over the coverlet. The other, curled into a fist, rested against her exposed cheek. On the bed beside her lay a photograph album, open at a page that appeared to be wedding pictures.

  Gabriel’s sense of being an intruder multiplied exponentially. He was on the point of sitting on the edge of the bed to wake her when she jerked upright, eyes staring at him. No, through him. In a matter of a few seconds she’d leant to her right, pulled open the drawer of her nightstand and pulled out a squat black Ruger LC9 pistol, which she levelled at his midsection in a two-handed shooter’s grip. The bedclothes fell away to reveal her sleepwear – a baggy, faded Roadrunners T-shirt.

  Then she processed the information her eyes were sending her brain. Her flight-or-fright reflex died away and she lowered the gun. In turn, Gabriel lowered his hands, which he’d raised in an “I surrender” gesture as soon as she’d started from her sleep.

  “Don’t shoot, Annie,” he said, attempting a Texan accent, “I ain’t come to harm you.”

  She surprised him by bursting into tears.

  “Oh, Jesus, Gabriel. I thought you were dead. After you left and I didn’t hear from you, I just, I don’t know, assumed they’d got to you. Then you sent that crazy ad. Like a spy.”

  He smiled.

  “You saw it, then? I knew you read the Express-News.”

  “I did. But you didn’t give much away.”

  “I couldn’t risk it.”

  Now Gabriel did sit down. He reached for her free hand and she squeezed back.

  “I’m sorry for startling you. I had to come this early. I needed to be sure I wasn’t being followed.

  “Followed by whom?” she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and then reaching for a tissue to blow her nose.

  “The CIA. They’ve already sent two men after me.”

  “I thought it was just one. The guy from before.”

  “Nope. Another goon turned up in Phnom Penh.”

  “And …?”

  “And he won’t be needing the return portion of his ticket.”

  He had Terri-Ann’s full attention now.

  “You’re telling me the score is now Gabriel Wolfe two, CIA none. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “’Fraid so. If it’s any consolation, he’ll never be found. And I have a feeling he wasn’t there on official business.”

  “Shit, Gabriel, could you be in any more trouble?”

  He laughed, then. Laying it out for Terri-Ann, he realised how absurd it sounded. One man getting into it with the world’s most powerful secret intelligence agency. Mind you, he thought. I am winning. For the moment, at least.

  “There’s a lot I need to tell you.”

  “I’m sure there is. But let’s not do it here. I feel a little underdressed.” She plucked at the front of her T-shirt as she said this.

  “Sorry, of course. Coffee?”

  “Please. Now go on, scoot. I’m only wearing panties under here.”

  Gabriel left her to dress, and by the time she arrived in the kitchen, in faded Levi’s and a white button-down shirt, he had a pot of coffee made.

  Sitting across from Gabriel, Terri-Ann asked the question he’d been waiting for.

  “Did you find out who killed Vinnie?”

  “It was Clark Orton.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “No. He couldn’t have. He was like family.”

  “I had it from the lips of a dying man. I believed him.”

  “But the police interviewed Clark. He couldn’t have done it. Val said he had an alibi.”

  Gabriel shrugged.

  “Alibis can be bought. Or coerced.”

  Terri-Ann clamped her lips together. Gabriel watched as emotions chased each other across her still-blotchy face. Disbelief … anger … then cold, hard hatred.

  “We have to get him.”

  “Getting him to confess isn’t going to be easy, we—”

  “No!” Terri-Ann shouted. Then she lowered her voice. “Sorry. No. I don’t mean get him to confess.”

  “What do you mean, then?”

  “I mean we have to get him. Like he got Vinnie.”

  “Don’t you think it would be better to take what we’ve got to the police?”

  She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “What exactly have we got? Tell me.”

  He could feel the anger pouring off her in waves as he recounted the story of his trip to Cambodia: Visna, Lina, Christie, Davey and Jack, the attack at Flowers of Hope, his decision to end Marie-Louise Hubert’s life at the hospital rather than let her escape justice. When he’d finished, Terri-Ann looked him in the eye.

  “Evidence.”

  “What?”

  “What evidence do you have?”

  “Only this.” He took out his phone, scrolled through a few screens then tapped a Play icon.

  His voice sounded tinny and trebly as it emerged from the phone’s speakers.

  “State your name, rank and agency, then repeat what you just told me.”

  She listened wide-eyed as Christie laid the blame squarely at Orton’s door. Gabriel watched as a fresh tear tracked down her cheek and dropped from her jaw onto the soft cotton of her shirt. She shook her head.

  “Not enough. The police wouldn’t even bother taking that to the DA’s office. They’d just say any half-assed public defender could destroy it in ten seconds.”

  “So what, then?” Knowing what was coming. Ready for it. Willing to move forward with it.

  “We take it to Orton. Confront him. Then we kill him.”

  Gabriel took a gulp of coffee, regarding Terri-Ann through the steam. You’re tougher than you look.

  “Listen. I was a soldier for thirteen years. And my work now is dangerous. I’ve done this sort of thing since I was nineteen. You’re an English professor. You can’t—”

  Terri-Ann’s blue eyes flashed.

  “Oh, no you don’t, mister!” she said, cutting him off. “Don’t you dare tell me what I can and can’t do. My daddy always told me I could do whatever I wanted to. I shot as well as the boys. Hell, I shot better than half of ’em. And I’ve defended myself all through my life. With a gun, if necessary. I buried my husband last month, and now I know who killed him. So listen to me now. Orton’s time is up. And when I say we are going to get him, that’s exactly what I mean. You. And me. OK?”

  A vein was pulsing on her right temple, and her breath was coming in short, shallow gasps. Gabriel reached across the table and took her hands in his.

  “OK. We do it. But this is Texas, not Cambodia. You have the rule of law here and honest cops for the most part. We need a plan.”

  “Fine. Let’s make a plan. Oh, and one more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  She came round the table to him, bent and kissed him softly on the cheek.

  “Thank you for risking your life for Vinnie.”

  54

  Task Allocation

  GABRIEL left the house at 8.00 the following morning. He and Terri-Ann had finished talking at 5.30, and he’d surprised himself by managing to get an hour’s sleep before his alarm woke him.

  “Have fun,” he said to Terri-Ann at the front door.

  “Oh, I will. Maybe after this I�
��ll start that novel I always promised myself I’d write. You have fun, too.”

  Gabriel walked to a nearby strip mall that hosted a couple of car rental franchises. “Mr Lang” left the Avis lot a little after nine behind the wheel of a metallic grey Toyota Camry.

  Sitting in the Marriott’s business centre, it didn’t take Gabriel long to find what he was looking for. The website of Macreadie Demolition, Inc. was most informative. The company offered a full range of commercial explosives including ammonium nitrate, fuel oil or ANFO; C-4 and other packaged explosives; as well as nitro-glycerine and dynamite. The company was based on the western edge of San Antonio.

  Twenty minutes later he pulled in at a branch of Home Depot. Gabriel had shopped in a branch of the store once before, and the layout of the San Antonio branch was familiar if not identical. Into his oversized trolley went wire cutters, bolt cutters, a tarpaulin, a set of coveralls in thick navy-blue cotton, and cable ties.

  At his next stop, a military surplus outlet, he bought a black backpack, black tactical gloves and a ski mask, also in black. A kitchen shop supplied a mortar and pestle in speckled grey lava rock, labelled on the box as a molcajete.

  Finally, at a supermarket, he bought four pounds of chuck steak and a bottle of Texas Crystal mineral water.

  He stowed all the new gear in the Camry’s trunk. Under the carpeted boot floor lay a collection of less innocent materiel. A black nylon tactical belt and holster containing Vinnie’s tiger-striped Desert Eagle. A box of Hornady Action Express .50 hollow point rounds. And a freshly whetted KA-BAR knife in a leg sheath.