by Dana Haynes
“Ah. Right. Of course.”
“The people who sanctioned our company are the kind that have kept America weak,” Cyrus Acton continued. “They would put onerous regulations ahead of American jobs. It’s our responsibility to convince our guests to look beyond the sanctions.”
Brevidge beamed. Convincing people to do otherwise was as good a description of the art of the sell as any he’d ever heard. And when it came to that, Todd Brevidge was the Beatles of sales.
“When they see what we can do, they’ll change their minds. Guaranteed!”
Mr. Acton smiled. His face was long, his cheekbones prominent, his chin pointed. “Guaranteed?”
Todd felt his underarms begin to perspire. “Absolutely. Positively. Completely.”
Mr. Acton smiled. “That’s what we in management like about you, Todd. We appreciate your uncompromising faith in the product.”
Brevidge grinned and shot the engineer, Snow, a look. “Then give me twenty-four hours, sir. And I think I can make wholehearted believers out of the buyers. You could stake your life on it, sir!”
Mr. Acton smiled. He patted the young salesman on the shoulder.
“Oh gosh, no, Todd.” He laughed. “We’ll stake yours.”
Three
Daria and the quiet man, Diego, retired to her rented apartment in the tiny village. The town consisted of one paved street that paralleled the highway to Genoa and a second paved street that led down to the docks.
Daria stripped, removed her various bandages, and showered. Gingerly.
She threw on panties and an old T-shirt and padded out to find Diego leaning against the wall, glancing out the room’s single small, dingy window. He set his hat upside down on the room’s cheap, chipped chest of drawers.
Diego was Mexican; born and raised in Mexico City. He was of Indio blood, claimed to be an Aztec, but only if he was drunk enough to speak in complete sentences, which was rarely. He’d spent his teens in East LA. He’d been a hoodlum (good at it), and after 9/11, a soldier (excellent at it). When soldiering hadn’t turned into a career—something about decking a superior officer—Diego had gone back to the family business, thugging.
Diego stopped inspecting the town’s one dusty street as Daria stepped out of the bathroom. She tossed a tube of ointment, a box of cotton balls, and adhesive plasters onto the bed. She perched on the side. “Make yourself useful.”
Diego walked over and sat on the bed, too. He applied astringent to the cut under her right eye, drawing not a sound from her. He rooted through the box, found two small plaster strips, and fashioned them into a butterfly bandage.
“There. Rib?”
Daria glowered at him, but glowering just tugged at the butterfly bandage. She twisted sideways, raised her left arm over her head and lifted the T-shirt over one breast. Any casual observer could tell that Diego had seen all the important bits of Daria Gibron before today. Usually wounded. He leaned forward and peered at the zucchini-shaped bruise on her flank. He probed it none too gently with a blunt finger. His hands were small but rigid and scarred from boxing.
“Not broken. You’ll heal.”
He affixed a square of cotton over the bruise with adhesive tape. It wouldn’t speed up the healing process but would keep her clothes from annoying the sensitive bruise.
She lowered her shirt.
“What was that, at the junkyard?”
Daria pointed to the cheap plywood chest of drawers by the bed, atop which sat Diego’s old hat along with a half-full bottle of cheap Czech vodka and two mismatched coffee cups. Diego eased off the bed and poured them each a generous portion.
Daria sipped hers, rib protesting even the act of swallowing. “It’s a sport. It’s called Parkour.”
Diego snorted, or appeared to snort. It was silent. “Looked like gang rape.”
“Ismael and Mehmet? God, no!” The very notion made her laugh. “They’re sweethearts. They’re teaching me Parkour, or free running. The idea is to move as fast, and as creatively, as you can over a broken, obstructed course. You don’t dodge the obstacles, you incorporate them.”
Diego again checked out the street scene through the one window. He wasn’t looking for specific trouble; it was the habit of a lifetime. “Why?”
“For the lads? To get on YouTube, to impress other boys, to impress girls. Mostly to impress girls.”
“An’ you? Another of your martial arts?”
Daria laughed, and of course that hurt, too. “No! The Kavlek brothers are nineteen and twenty-one. You saw: I didn’t last five minutes evading them. No chance at being truly competitive at Parkour at my age. I’ll never be of their caliber.”
He thought about that and sipped his vodka. “You mind me asking…?”
Daria drained her cup. She had known Diego for ages; their relationship dated back to her years in Europe. Initially she had thought of him as a necessary evil, a way of establishing a cover as a gunrunner. Over time that relationship had somehow changed into respect and, perhaps, at some level, friendship. Or at least comradeship. One or two of their jobs had gone south, and every time, Diego had proven himself to be a stand-up guy. Thief he may be. Thug he may be. But a good guy, all the same.
Diego leaned on the wall. His hips were narrow, his shoulders wide.
“Last winter, I was sick,” Daria spoke into her chipped coffee mug. “A kind of flu, but more than a flu. I got better. I started working out. I ran. I lifted weights, kickboxed, climbed rocks, went back to archery and fencing. All my old bad habits.”
Daria glanced up at his scarred face. She knew that some of the scars were from childhood acne. Some were from a razor fight in an alley in Ciudad Juárez. Some were from a roadside bomb outside Falluja.
She stared up at him, and Diego took the stare from those raven-black eyes the same way he’d taken punches. Without comment.
“I’m not one hundred percent. My body got better but my mind … my reaction time, my instincts. They haven’t come back.”
“And this…?”
“Parkour. It’s all about split-second decisions. About judging bad alternatives and picking the least bad. Or sometimes the least likely. Or the least predictable. It’s also fun. And, just maybe, it’s working.”
“And the bruises?”
Daria smiled up at him and twisted her long brown legs into a yoga position, feet under her, knees akimbo. “Do you fret over your bruises?”
Diego allowed himself a shallow smile. The number of people on earth who got to see that smile could be counted on two hands.
“So tell me what you need me for.”
Diego poured them both another couple of shots. “Remember Vince?”
Daria rolled her eyes. Vince Guzman, a beefy American, had been Diego’s friend and partner in crime since childhood. A Los Angelino and half Latino, Guzman was younger and considerably dumber than Diego. But by the time they were in their midteens, the two were joined at the hip. Guzman wasn’t terribly bright, and he was nowhere near as reliable as Diego. But Diego had a blind spot for him. Always had.
“And how is Vince?”
“Missing. In Florence.”
“Best tell me about it.”
Diego was quiet for a while. He sipped his drink. He never liked talking. “Vince got us a job. Bodyguarding an engineer, protecting her invention.”
Daria came close to spitting vodka across the room, and her rib snarled at her. “You two? Bodyguards?”
“We’re good at it. Who’d fuck with us?”
Daria blinked at him. Diego flickered that smile, on and off. He actually seemed to blush. “We’d have gotten around to stealing the thing eventually.”
“That’s more like it.”
“Figured the engineer was paranoid. We’d take her money. Hang in Florence. Good enough work.”
“But…?”
Diego shook his head. “Not paranoid. Bad guys.”
“Bad bad?”
He said, “Way bad. Russians. Organized. Good weps, expe
nsive comms. Chain of command. Training.” He shrugged. “Paramilitary.”
Daria sipped, waited.
“Russians had tatts. Scorpions. All white.”
She coughed, the caustic liquor hitting the wrong tube, her rib spasming and sending sparks of heat through her frame.
Diego waited.
“You’re joking! Skorpjo?”
He sighed. “‘Scorpio?’ You know ’em.” It wasn’t a question.
She wiped her lower lip with the back of her hand. Diego took the opportunity to pour her another shot.
“Not Russians. They’re Serbians. Skorpjo. Also known as White Scorpions. They were a military unit during the Yugoslav civil war, in the nineties. Racist. Exceedingly violent. Went freelance after the peace accord. You and Guzman are messing about with very bad people.”
Diego nodded, knowingly. His movements were spare, his face passive. “Figured. Fuck.”
He sounded forlorn.
“So what happened?”
Diego said, “Vince’s gone missing.”
“You think Skorpjo sussed him out?”
The quiet man shrugged.
Daria rose and crossed to him. She placed a hand on his shoulder. Diego normally hated being touched. “Look, I know you and Guzman have been friends forever. But are you certain he’s missing and hasn’t just cut a deal with the White Scorpions? You have to admit, it’s not out of the question.”
The Mexican stared out the window a bit. He shook his head softly. “Sure. Vince could sell someone out. Not me. I don’t think.”
Daria leaned in and kissed his badly scarred cheek. She had always admired loyalty. “How’d you find me?”
“Viking.”
She laughed. Fredrik Olsson was Europe’s preeminent fence and criminal transportation coordinator. He traded in information. Of course he’d known how to find Daria.
“I’m sorry. I’m not one hundred percent. I’m still recovering.”
Diego said, “Don’t need muscle. Got muscle.”
“Then why come find me?”
He turned to her. He looked as if the obvious simplicity of the question surprised him.
“Because you’re smart. I need brains.”
“You’re a dear.”
“You’ll help?”
Daria pondered the situation. Diego stood and let her get there.
“Truth is, I might’ve gotten all I can out of Parkour and working out. I have to get back into the game eventually.”
He nodded.
Daria squeezed his shoulder. “One question. This thing in Florence. Any chance of gratuitous violence?”
“You an’ me?” Diego drained his vodka. “Don’t see why not.”
Four
The point of being a spy is being able to blend in.
The three Americans were foreigners in France. But meeting in a McDonald’s gave them complete anonymity. Plus clean bathrooms.
Owen Cain Thorson was there first, in a booth, with a tall Diet Coke. He’d had to ask for ice. He wore black jeans and boots, a black T-shirt, and a black motorcycle jacket. It was too hot out for a motorcycle jacket, but he wore it well.
The other two spotted Thorson upon entering. Jake Kenner also was blond, but bulkier, and he favored tight T-shirts that displayed his pecs and treelike arms. Derrick Saito was cautious and quiet, with a physique built for speed rather than size. Kenner ordered coffees for them both as Saito slid into the booth opposite Thorson. A lot of the patrons were Americans, expatriated Americans, and American wannabes. The three men did not stand out.
Kenner brought the coffees and slid in. “Dude.”
Owen Cain Thorson shook their hands. “Guys.”
Saito scanned the room without appearing to do so. He said, “You looking good.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean … you know.” Saito shrugged. “Considering.”
Thorson did look good. He was a blue blood, of very old money and very staid politics. He had been the sixth generation of Thorsons to serve in the U.S. Army, and none had rotated out as anything less than a colonel. He was the third Thorson to join the CIA. One of them had retired as agency director.
Thorson was the kind of all-American male who always looked good.
Truth be told, though, he wasn’t his usual matinee idol self. His haircut was a little off. His complexion a little waxy. His eyes darted more than the guys remembered.
He’d had a bitch of a year.
Saito sipped coffee and grimaced. It was bitter. He shook out two packets of sugar and poured them both in.
Kenner grinned, clearly thrilled to be there. “Fuckin’-A, man! I thought you were freaking crazy. I never figured Langley would give us jack. But we asked around, and hey, you were right.”
Thorson nodded. His heart was racing, but he’d perfected his poker face, and he was sure the other two couldn’t tell.
Derrick Saito tried his coffee again, grimaced again, and reached for more sugar. “There’s enough brass at Langley who hate that dyke. It didn’t take me more’n a day to find the right guy.”
“But you were careful?”
Saito shrugged off the question as stupid.
Kenner leaned over the table. “She’s living in Italy! Crappy little town on the Mediterranean. Caladri. Deal they cut with her was: She stays off the grid, the Agency leaves her the fuck alone. She starts poking her nose into Agency business, the Agency fries her ass.”
Thorson said, “Sure.”
“Get this, bro: NSA’s been monitoring all comms from her known contacts. There’s this guy called Diego. Mex gangbanger, former GI. The bitch and him pulled off some shit around Europe before she moved to Los Angeles. NSA reported—today, man—to-fucking-day!—that this Diego’s in Caladri.”
Thorson’s heart hammered. “Yeah?”
“Caladri was a one-horse town before the meat shortage!” Jake Kenner laughed at his own joke. “No way this beaner is there on accident. NSA reports to the Agency. Agency checks with Eye-talian intelligence. Wops say Diego runs with another gangbanger named Guzman, and says the two of them are pulling some scam in Florence. So the smart money says the bitch either stays put in Caladri, or she pops up in Florence. Either way, we got her ass in the crosshairs. Yo?”
Kenner offered a fist. Saito reached up and bumped knuckles, but he did so with the distracted air of a man who would rather not have made the gesture but knew that if he didn’t there’d be this weird tense moment, and who needed that?
Owen Cain Thorson said, “I could use you guys. Ten thousand dollars. Each. Interested?”
Kenner said, “Shit, yes! Charges against us were bullshit! We should be on Agency time, right now! What they did to you? Double bullshit! Be good to show the suits in Langley that they took a dump on the wrong peeps. I’m in, man!”
Saito sipped his coffee and nodded.
Owen Cain Thorson smiled and gripped their hands. His hand shook, and both of the men noticed. Thorson did not.
He was within days of meeting Daria Gibron. The same Daria Gibron who had ambushed him in Manhattan. Who had embarrassed him. Embarrassed the Agency. Embarrassed the U.S. intelligence community. Who had gutted his career and his family name.
He felt the pressure of the Glock automatic tucked under his arm. It felt as if God was reaching down with a single finger and nudging Thorson’s heart.
Jake Kenner gulped all of his coffee in one swig, his Adam’s apple bobbing, then belched. Saito eased out of the booth, and Kenner followed.
Kenner said, “We gonna do this bitch?”
Thorson stood. “Yeah,” he vowed. “We are.”
Five
After lunch, Diego got in his rental and drove back to Florence. Daria said she had business to wrap up and would join him the next morning.
She grabbed a scruffy white canvas bag, tube-shaped with canvas handles, slung it over one shoulder, and walked away from the grotty little village of Caladri and its loathing of outsiders. Daria knew the name was from the Lo
mbardi dialect and translated as House of Thieves.
She tightened her shoelaces and crab-climbed her way down the craggy rock face to the shore. There were no sandy beaches here and no commercial dock.
Daria wore a wash-faded pink bikini bottom under her cutoffs. She retied her black, straight hair into a tight ponytail, stepped out of the bleached-white shorts, toed off her shoes, and dove into the sea, avoiding the rocks, but not by much. The July water was warm and briny, slate green, and only shallow waves today. Daria swam the breaststroke, knowing that would punish her bruised rib but also would loosen up the muscles that articulated her ribs. A fair trade-off. She swam for five hundred strokes, not knowing how far that took her and not caring. She counted metronomically in her head, all other thoughts abandoned. At five hundred, she paused, treading water, panting. She used her arms and legs to rotate 360 degrees. The ghostly outline of a freighter passed in the distance. The rocky shore of Caladri loomed, the hills above the mercury-stunted valley dense with dark-green vegetation. The trees of the Italian coast, this far north, would provide good cover for an ambush.
She swam back to the jagged black rocks. It took timing and dexterity to let the waves lift her high enough for a single-handed grab at the flat outcropping from which she’d jumped. It was an uninhabited and uninviting cove, and she hadn’t worried about anyone finding her shorts and shoes. She cleared the volcanic rocks, bloodying only one knee in the process. She sat on the rock for a few minutes, letting the sun dry her cropped T-shirt while she regained her breath.
One year earlier she could have swum ten times that distance without pausing for breath. There were a lot of things Daria could have done a year earlier.
She stood and snugged into the cutoffs, sun-faded to the color of a drowned man’s lips. She pulled on the low sneakers and untied her hair.
She started uphill, quickly passing from Martian rocks to scrubby growth to the railroad tracks leading west to Genoa. Beyond that was the tree line. She hiked up a nonexistent path. She braced herself with her palms on tree trunks, climbing higher. Twenty meters short of the actual path that led into the smugglers’ village, Daria veered upward again, hiking counterclockwise, ever upward. The salt from the sea dried on her skin and itched. She soon sweated it off. She hiked a zigzag path up the grueling face of the bluff, stepping over fallen branches, hearing small creatures, unseen, skitter out of her path. She used her arms as much as her legs for some of the rougher bits, hauling herself around precarious cliff faces scoured by African winds and Atlantic gales.
