Final Target

by John Gilstrap

  Marlin had been Charles Clark’s right hand for nearly twenty-five years now, and as the senator’s career had soared, so had that of Marlin, his chief of staff. The elevation in status had seemed so much better in the early days than it did now. It was a fact of nature on Capitol Hill that as senators became more important and more well known, their days evolved into ego-soothing ceremonial and self-promotional crap, while the day-to-day business of legislating flowed into the laps of staffers. Marlin was able to trickle some of that down to his own staff, of course, but some jobs needed his hand and his alone.

  Even the senator himself could not tackle tonight’s task. Not with the stakes that were in play. The problem with letting genies out of the bottle was that they rarely went back inside. Not without dreadful consequences.

  So, here he sat at two thirty in the morning in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel on Connecticut Avenue, far away from his office and even farther away from his bed, trying to look interested in an otherwise very uninteresting biography of Lincoln while keeping an eye out for his contact.

  As he waited, his mind drifted back to the beginning of his career, when he spent countless hours doing this very activity in far less posh surroundings in some of the most inhospitable cities in the world. Marlin had learned tradecraft from the best in the business—the best that the Puzzle Palace had to offer. Back then, it had all felt so important, so necessary for the survival of humankind. History had since shown most of his worst nightmare scenarios to have been overblown, but that didn’t make them any less real at the time. And who knew? Maybe all those wasted hours by all those thousands of spies were the key factor that had kept the nightmares from coming true.

  Back then, the causes were large, but the actual physical danger to him was always relatively small. More recently, that equation had been turned upside down. The causes were small, but the dangers were far more real. That was especially true for Marlin, if not in the corporeal sense, then certainly in terms of a continued life outside of concrete and steel walls.

  He was here to fight on behalf of his boss, and he’d do the job he’d promised to do, but when this was done, so was he. He was getting too old for this petty political crap.

  Politicians liked to think of Washington as a war zone, a fact that for Marlin only underscored the tragedy of how few of them had ever actually been in a fight. While political life meant everything to the 535 egos with nice offices at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue, real life meant a lot more. The difference would seem merely academic if not for the fact that real lives would soon have to be sacrificed in order to save a few political ones. Oversight of that job fell to Marlin.

  At 0247, Marlin finally saw the guest he’d been waiting for. Nicole Alvarez had no doubt been an attractive woman in her earlier years. Tall for a Hispanic woman, she’d been blessed with ample breasts and an ampler ass, and she exuded a hardness that countered her physical attributes. The limp didn’t help, and neither did the scars on her face, which intersected to form an X under her right eye. For any other covert agent, such markings would be disqualifying, but since Nicole was attached to her embassy and therefore had diplomatic immunity, she had nothing to worry about.

  Unlike Marlin, who had plenty to keep him up nights.

  Nicole made eye contact as she passed, but did not slow as she headed across the lobby and exited out the rear doors onto Seventeenth Street, Northwest. Marlin checked his watch one more time and started a mental stopwatch set for five minutes.

  When the time expired, he rose from his chair and strolled to the Connecticut Avenue exit. He walked out into the stifling heat and humidity. He turned right and then right again onto Desales Street. He walked as if he belonged there at this hour, keeping his stride steady yet appropriately cautious. This part of D.C. was relatively safe at any hour, but the operative word was relatively. This was the center of what the locals called the Golden Triangle, which meant it teemed with activity during the workday but was a ghost town after midnight. Marlin was keenly aware of the fact that he was the sole star of countless security cameras if anyone was in the mood to watch.

  At Seventeenth Street, Northwest, he stopped for the red pedestrian light, and after a glance confirmed that the street was as empty as he’d anticipated, he crossed over to the alley that ran to the canyon of Dumpsters that served the needs of various lobbying firms. The target location was an isolated alcove behind a red building that carried an L Street address, where the stench of rotting trash made his eyes water, and the skittering of unseen rat claws made the skin on his neck pucker.

  Nicole sat on a curb at the far end, up against the L Street building. But for the glowing cherry of her cigarette, Marlin wasn’t sure that he would have seen her. As he entered the alcove, he turned a full 360 degrees on his own axis to make sure that the only prying eyes in the dark belonged to rodents.

  “You’re late,” he said quietly as he approached. “How is the price of coffee these days?”

  Nicole waited to answer until he was only a few feet away, buying time with a long pull on her cancer stick. “It’s nowhere near where we wish it could be.”

  Marlin felt his breath catch in his throat. “Did the sales meeting happen?” he asked.

  “It happened,” she said, “but the negotiations went badly. We might be looking at bankruptcy.”

  The flutter in his breath turned to nausea. This was all wrong. The sales meeting wasn’t a sales meeting at all, of course, and the negotiations weren’t negotiations, and none of it had anything to do with coffee. “What the hell happened?”

  Nicole patted a spot on the curb next to her. “Sit, before you fall,” she said. “You don’t look well.”

  He sat. After a few seconds passed, he said, “I’m waiting.”

  She took another drag on her cigarette and offered it to Marlin. “Smoke?”

  “I’m planning to die better than that,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

  Nicole didn’t make eye contact, leaving him to concentrate on the intersecting scars. “What happened was everything that could possibly go wrong,” she said.

  “Please don’t be cryptic,” Marlin said. “It’s too late.”

  “I’m afraid it’s going to get even later for you,” Nicole said. “And I don’t say that to be provocative. Your American agent . . . His name is Dawkins, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not only is Mr. Dawkins still alive, but he is also now free.”

  Marlin brought a hand to his head, as if checking himself for a fever. She was right. This was the worst of all outcomes.

  “And that’s not all,” Nicole continued. “Many are dead.”

  “Who?” Marlin could feel panic rising. “Who is dead?”

  “Everyone else. Both your team and Crazy Horse’s team. All of them.”

  They both knew Crazy Horse to be Alejandro Azul. “How is that possible?”

  Nicole finally pivoted her head to make eye contact. “I assumed you could tell me,” she said.

  Marlin recoiled from the non sequitur. “Tell you what?”

  “Must we play this game?” Nicole asked.

  “What game?” Marlin countered. “I am not playing a game. Christ, I don’t even know what game to play. What are you trying to tell me?”

  Nicole dropped her cigarette onto the pavement and crushed it under the toe of her shoe. “Okay, fine,” she said. “Who was the third team?”

  “What third team?”

  Nicole set her lips to a thin line. She placed her hands on her knees and pressed to a standing position. “You disappoint me, Mr. Bills. I thought we had an agreement.”

  Marlin rose quickly. “I thought so, too,” he said. “Honest to God, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I know nothing about a third team. I don’t even know what that means.”

  “It means that Dawkins lives,” Nicole said. “It means that his secrets live with him. It means that people will soon know things that will not end well for you.”

  No
ne of this made sense. None of it. Not any level. As Nicole moved to walk away, he reached out and grabbed her arm. “No, don’t!” he said. “I don’t—”

  Before he even knew what had happened, he was on his knees, his wrist at an impossible angle in Nicole’s grasp. “Never touch me,” she said.

  “Holy shit! Okay. Jesus.”

  The pressure went away.

  “Okay if I stand?” he asked.

  “Just don’t touch me.”

  “Yeah, I got that.” He rose to his feet again. “You need to teach me that move sometime.”

  “I’m sure you learned it when you were with the CIA,” Nicole said.

  So, she’d done her research. “That was a very long time ago.”

  She pointed to the tear in the knee of his suit pants. “Too long, it would seem.”

  “Please tell me what happened. What is this third team?”

  “It was not ours,” Nicole said. “That means it was yours.”

  “But it wasn’t. What did they do?”

  “They killed everybody,” Nicole said. “Among them was Crazy Horse’s younger brother.”

  Marlin’s stomach knotted. “I swear to God it was not us.”

  “We all have bosses,” Nicole said. “And they think the way they think. As far as my boss is concerned, a gringo is a gringo. He told me to tell you that you have started a war.”

  “I haven’t started anything!” Marlin said, louder than he should have. “I don’t even know what is happening.”

  Nicole shifted her stance, checked her watch, then planted a fist on her hip. “Then listen. This third team you say you don’t know about won the day. They have Dawkins, and they know about Santa Inés. That is everything.”

  That was exactly what it was. Everything. Every thing. “Can’t you stop them?”

  “Oh, we will definitely stop them,” Nicole said. “They will not live another twenty-four hours. But unless you can bring life back to the dead, Crazy Horse will never forget this.”

  She paused for a second. Was that sympathy behind her stony eyes?

  “And as long as he remembers, you would be wise to remember, too.”

  * * *

  “Talk to me, Gloria,” Jonathan said as he approached through the jungle foliage. “Is everyone accounted for?”

  She whirled at the sound of his voice. “Who is that?”

  Through his NVGs, he could see her standing among a cluster of children. “It’s Scorpion. Are the children all accounted for?”

  “What was that explosion?” Gloria asked. “And where is Nando?”

  “Can we do one question at a time, please?” Jonathan said. “Have you accounted for all the children?” In the near distance, he could hear someone crying.

  “Yes, I think so. We are all very afraid.”

  “You think so, or you know so?” Boxers pressed. “That’s a pretty significant difference. An important distinction.”

  Gloria was stuck in the place people go when the world has stopped making sense to them. Realizing that the darkness didn’t help, Jonathan withdrew a light stick. He tore the wrapper, cracked the plastic tube, and shook it to combine the chemicals. As expected, he was rewarded with a green glow. He rocked his NVGs out of the way, then held the light high. “Can everyone gather around me, please?” he said to the night. He kept his tone modulated to a pleasant request instead of the order that was his instinct.

  The jungle seemed to come alive as the foliage parted and disgorged children. They moved in twos and threes and all of them partnered with others, except for one boy, who looked to be about eleven years old and was thin to the point of frail. He walked alone and seemed nervous when other kids wandered into his alone zone. Jonathan didn’t pretend to understand the history—he didn’t care—but he anticipated that the members of this group were going to be spending a lot of time with one another over the next couple of days, and interpersonal relationships, especially among kids, could be a big factor in success versus failure.

  Five of the boys carried carbines that had been confiscated from the school. Tomás was one of them, and he held the weapon in a way that led Jonathan to believe he was not a stranger to it.

  “Okay, boys,” Jonathan said. “Do you know what muzzle control means? It means don’t point that gun at anything you don’t want to kill.”

  “You’re not going to let ’em keep them, are you?” Boxers asked in English.

  “Baby steps,” Jonathan replied, also in English. “We’ll tackle one problem at a time.” In Spanish, he said, “My friends, Big Guy and Mr. Dawkins, will be making sure those guns are on safe. Let’s not let anybody else get hurt tonight.”

  “This is a mistake,” Boxers mumbled.

  “Won’t be my first. Whoever is carrying a gun, walk over to Big Guy and follow his instructions.”

  The other four boys with the carbines didn’t move until Tomás did. Another note for Jonathan’s mental file. Every group had its official leaders and its de facto ones. Tomás fit into the latter category. This was important because when things got intense, titles ceased to matter. People followed their real leaders.

  As the other kids closed in around Jonathan, they continued to stand, and they eyed him with fear. For his part, Boxers stayed outside the ring of humanity, tending to the firearms but keeping an eye on Jonathan like a nervous guard dog. A very large nervous guard dog.

  “Everybody, please sit down,” Jonathan said. “Never turn down an opportunity to rest.”

  No one moved until Gloria said, “Children, listen to what Mr. Scorpion tells you.” Even then, they obeyed with hesitation. And why not? They had no reason to trust Jonathan.

  Finally, the kids were all on the ground.

  “Thank you,” Jonathan said. “I know you all have a lot of questions, and I’ll answer as many as I can in a few minutes.” He looked to Gloria. “I need to speak to you privately.”

  “You can speak to me here,” she said.

  “No, I really can’t. Please trust me. We won’t wander far. I just need to speak with you in private.”

  “Who will take care of the children?”

  “I will,” Tomás said. He was returning from his weapons check, and he wore his M4 slung cross-shouldered, with the muzzle down and threatening no one.

  “Is that weapon loaded?” Jonathan asked.

  “Of course. What use is an unloaded gun?” The kid seemed genuinely confused by the logic.

  Jonathan smiled. “Dawkins?” he said to the night.

  The PC emerged from the edge of the light. “Here.”

  “Do me a favor,” Jonathan said. “Give my very capable friend here—Tomás—a hand keeping his friends out of danger.”

  Dawkins gave him a strange look, but he seemed to get the point. “Of course,” he said.

  Jonathan returned his eyes to Gloria. “Please,” he said. “Walk with me.” He didn’t bother to ask Boxers to come along. He’d come whether Jonathan wanted him to or not.

  They’d gone only a few yards when Gloria said, “You had no right to bring this down on us.”

  “I assure you it was not a part of my plan.”

  “Is Nando dead?”

  “Yes. His friends shot him. I had nothing to do with it.”

  She whirled on him. “You had everything to do with it. Until you killed Alejandro’s men, no one even cared about us. Certainly, no one cared about Nando. He was a good man. He had flaws, but who among us does not have flaws?”

  Jonathan let her rant, but he never slowed his pace. She needed to vent her spleen, and as long as it didn’t go on too long, he was fine with that. When he sensed a break in her flow, he said, “I am not willing to die. I came here to do a job that was all about keeping our friend Mr. Dawkins from being murdered by your friends. The very ones who would have killed you had I not saved your life.”

  “So, what is next?” Gloria asked.

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  “How many people did you kil
l in that explosion?”

  “All of them,” Jonathan said. He made his tone sharp, and he clipped his words. “Big Guy and I set off a small explosion, which became a huge explosion because of all the weapons that you and your husband—”

  “He was not my husband.”

  “And I don’t care. That huge explosion that killed all your friends—”

  “They were not my friends—”

  “Again, I don’t care. They sure as hell were not my friends. I’ll stipulate that this night inconvenienced the hell out of all of you, but I’m much happier being alive than dead.”

  “Is this why you wanted to take me away from the others?” Gloria asked. “So you could yell at me?”

  “Oh, trust me, Gloria, this is not yelling. If the time comes for me to yell, there will be exactly zero doubt that you’ve been yelled at.”

  “To bully me, then.” Tears glistened in her eyes.

  Jonathan inhaled to speak and then stopped himself. She was right. He was being a bully. She’d just lost a lot, and he was directing his anger at her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was not my intention. We got off on the wrong path.”

  She seemed startled by his words, as if she was expecting a longer argument. “What is the correct path, then?”

  Damn good question, Jonathan thought. “Look,” he said, “I’m not sure what is happening here. I don’t know what Nando was up to, and I don’t know what he had to do with the attempt to kill me earlier tonight. All I know is that we’re in a world of trouble, and I’m suddenly responsible for many more people than I had planned to be responsible for.”

  “Why don’t you just leave, then?” Gloria asked.

  “What would happen to you?”

  “Why do you care?”

  Jonathan planted his fists on his hips. “You’re not understanding the most important point, Gloria. Big Guy and I are the good guys. We are not here to hurt you.”

  “You just said yourself that you were not here to help us, either,” Gloria countered. “You said that you had not planned to be responsible for us.”