The Guardian

by David Hosp

  She hesitated, waiting for some sign that an alarm had been tripped. There was nothing but silence, however, and after a moment, she felt sure that she was still undetected.

  She got down on her belly and shimmied her way through the low gap, letting herself down onto the damp and uneven basement floor.

  It was even darker inside than she’d expected. She crouched on the ground, waiting for her eyes to adjust. After a moment, she was able to make out charcoal-toned shapes. The basement was little more than a glorified crawl space, with a low ceiling of exposed beams and rotted insulation dripping from in between the joists. It ran the length and breadth of the house, except that in the eastern-most section, away from the cliff, the natural rock ledge grew from beneath and ran up to meet a low span of foundation on the far side. In the center of the area, a rough but sturdy tower of stone rose up through the flooring above. She guessed that it was the foundation for the chimney. In between that tower and the north side of the house, a ladder was built into a support.

  Cianna crept over to the ladder and looked up. There was a hatch cut in between two joists, hinged on one side. She put a foot on the bottom rung and put her hand up to push on the hatch. It moved, but reluctantly. Climbing up another rung, she pushed harder, and the hatch rose higher. She snaked a hand into the gap to see what was causing the resistance and felt the bottom of a piece of rug. With a little effort, she was able to move it to the side and raise the hatch enough that she would be able to slip through onto the first floor.

  It was dangerous; perhaps even foolish. She had no idea what part of the house she was emerging into, and whether it was in a spot where Ainsworth could see her and pick her off as she pulled herself out. But she had few options, so she climbed the ladder as quickly and quietly as she could.

  The hatch opened into a large pantry. The door was closed, and the lights were off, but there was enough light coming from the wide gap underneath the door for her to see. She let the trapdoor down quietly and stood at the door, listening for any movement. Hearing none, she opened the door slowly, and followed the barrel of her gun out into the house.

  ‘Your gun,’ Ainsworth said. His voice was cold, and it was clear that any sentimentality that had kept him from viewing Saunders as a threat was gone.

  ‘My gun?’ Saunders could only play for time now.

  ‘You said it was in a shoulder holster.’ Ainsworth gestured with the barrel of his gun. ‘Open your jacket slowly, please.’

  ‘Lawrence, I don’t understand . . .’

  ‘Yes, you do. Do it now, Jack. You know me well enough that you have little doubt that I will shoot you if I need to. Open your coat, now.’

  It was true. He’d been behind a desk for several years, but before that, Ainsworth had been known as one of the most ruthless men in the Agency. He had taught Jack everything he knew, and there was little question that he was prepared to kill even Saunders if he thought it necessary to ensure the success of a mission he’d set in motion. Saunders did as he’d been instructed.

  ‘With your right hand, unsnap the holster,’ Ainsworth instructed.

  ‘It’s unsnapped,’ Saunders replied.

  Ainsworth looked offended. ‘Did you come in here expecting to be able to reach for your gun? Did you really think that I would allow that to happen?’

  ‘You always taught me to be ready for anything. I figured it couldn’t hurt. You never know what kind of dangerous creatures there are up here in the mountains.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Ainsworth said. ‘The bears.’

  ‘The bears,’ Saunders agreed.

  Ainsworth advanced toward Saunders, his gun now pointed at the man’s head. He was close enough that a shot couldn’t miss. ‘If I see either of your hands move, I’ll kill you.’

  ‘Understood.’

  Ainsworth reached out with his left hand and grabbed Saunders’s gun by the butt. He pulled on it, his eyes still on Saunders. It caught, and Ainsworth gave it a harder tug. It still didn’t come free. Ainsworth looked down at it for the first time, and saw that the holster was snapped shut. He was confused for a moment, as he pulled at the strap to free the gun. ‘The holster is snapped,’ he said in an annoyed voice. ‘You told me—’

  He realized his mistake even as the words came out of his mouth. He’d taken his eyes off Saunders only for a split second, but he understood instantly that it was enough of a mistake to be fatal. He squeezed the trigger on his own gun even before he looked up, hoping that he’d get lucky.

  He didn’t.

  At the moment Ainsworth’s eyes went to Saunders’s gun, Saunders ducked to the left and swung his right arm upward. His fist connected with Ainsworth’s arm just as the gun went off, and Saunders could hear the bullet whistle by his ear. Ainsworth was thrown off balance, and Saunders grabbed the older man’s gun with his right hand and locked him in a headlock with his left. The two of them struggled as Ainsworth tried to maneuver the gun around to aim it at Saunders. Saunders tightened his choke hold on his mentor, cutting off his breath bit by bit. He could feel Ainsworth losing strength. For a moment, he thought the fight was won. Ainsworth had only his left hand free, and it was unlikely that he could generate any strength in a punch, or would be able to grab hold of anything he could use as a weapon.

  Saunders realized he’d underestimated the old man when he felt the tightening on his testicles. Ainsworth had reached around behind him and sought out a weak spot. There was little Saunders could do; he couldn’t let go of the gun, and the headlock was the only way he saw to put the man down at the moment. He screamed out in pain, and tightened the choke hold. His reaction only encouraged Ainsworth, who tightened his grip.

  Saunders hung on as long as he could, but the pain was too great, and he released his grip on Ainsworth’s neck, swung his fist at the back of the man’s head, and pushed off to separate himself from the left-handed grip. At the same time, he clung to the gun to prevent Ainsworth from getting a shot off. The move might have succeeded, but Ainsworth’s fingers were wrapped so tightly around Saunders’s gonads that when he pulled away, it sent a wave of blinding pain and nausea through him so powerful that he collapsed.

  Ainsworth stumbled, choking as he tried to catch his breath. As Saunders released the gun, Ainsworth swung it around and lost control, and it fell to the floor. Saunders saw it and made a move toward it, but he was doubled over in pain; there was no chance for him to grasp it first. Ainsworth dove and grabbed it, still coughing. ‘I always told you during your training to remember, Jack,’ he sputtered, ‘that old men fight dirty.’ He raised the gun to shoot.

  Before he could get the shot off, though, there was an explosion from the far side of the room. Ainsworth was knocked off his feet, and fell backwards into the wall. There was a splatter of blood on the floral wallpaper that smeared as he slid to the floor; the gun dangled loosely in his lap.

  Saunders, still doubled over, looked up and saw Cianna at the door in a shooting stance. He looked over at Ainsworth. His eyes were still open, and he still held the gun, though it lolled impotently. Saunders crawled over to him.

  The gunshot had taken him in the chest. Cianna was carrying a military-issue 9 mm loaded with shredders that spread on impact to maximize internal damage. Saunders could tell immediately that the wound was fatal. Ainsworth was sweating and there was a heavy bubbling sound with every breath. Saunders leaned in close. ‘Where are they going?’ he asked. ‘How are Fasil and his men getting out of here?’

  Ainsworth looked at Saunders and seemed surprised that he was there. ‘Jack,’ he said. ‘It’s better this way.’

  ‘Tell me, Lawrence. I need to know how they plan to get the Cloak back to Afghanistan.’

  ‘They’re gone already,’ Ainsworth said. He smiled, and Saunders could see the blood seeping between the older man’s teeth. ‘They heard the gunshots, I’m sure.’ He coughed up some blood. ‘You won’t catch them.’

  ‘Tell me how,’ Saunders demanded. He took Ainsworth by the shoulders and s
hook him. ‘This is your one chance to set things right, don’t you understand? You can’t let this be your legacy.’

  Ainsworth shook his head. ‘My legacy is a ghost.’ He was struggling with each word. ‘That’s what we do, Jack. We take all of the risk, all of the blame, and none of the credit. That is what we signed up for.’

  ‘I didn’t sign up to start a holy war!’ Saunders screamed at Ainsworth, shaking him again.

  ‘I’m glad it was you and the girl, Jack,’ Ainsworth said, choking on a sad smile. ‘Toney’s an asshole. I would have been very unhappy if he’d been the one to take me down.’ His eyes rolled into the back of his head and his body convulsed.

  ‘Tell me, goddammit! Tell me now!’ Saunders was shaking Ainsworth more violently, but it was too late. He was dead.

  ‘Shit,’ Saunders said, releasing Ainsworth’s body and letting it slump to the floor.

  ‘What now?’ Cianna asked.

  ‘We try to catch them. Morrell said they were up at the abandoned schoolhouse. Even if they’ve left, they can’t be too far ahead of us. There’s a trail that leads up the mountain from here; maybe we can catch up to them. It’s our only chance.’

  ‘Do you know where the trail is?’

  He nodded and pulled out his gun. ‘I’ll show you.’ He started to head toward the door, but turned and said to her, ‘Thanks. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be the one dead on the floor.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ she said. ‘You’re better-looking when you’re breathing.’

  The words had barely left her mouth when his chest exploded, splattering blood and tissue all over the front of her shirt. She didn’t understand what was happening as his expression went blank and he fell to his knees. As he went down, she saw Sirus Stillwell standing in the door, his gun pointed at her.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Saunders had no understanding of what was happening; that was the strangest thing about it. In his mind he was still on his feet, turning to give chase to Fasil and his men. And yet, somehow, the images flashing before his eyes didn’t match what his brain believed he was doing. His optical screen, which should have been shifting to the front of the house, to images of running down the hallway and out the door, instead remained static, teetering on some unknown precipice, looking at Cianna Phelan as a spray of red covered her blouse. The image tilted, slowly at first, but with gathering speed, crashing to the floor – as though someone had dropped a video camera but left it on.

  There was no pain. Perhaps that was the disconnect that barred rational comprehension of what had happened. Stillwell’s round, a shredder not unlike the one Cianna had fired into Lawrence Ainsworth, struck Saunders in the ribs and ricocheted toward the center of his body, narrowly missing his heart, causing immediate trauma to his spinal cord. It had continued through his body and exited out his side and smashed into the wall as a mangled hunk of lead with three times the diameter it had had as a projectile. The feeling to most of his body had been instantly snuffed. He could move his hands a bit, but it felt as though they were caught in semi-congealed Jell-O.

  Cianna was moving even before Saunders hit the ground, rolling to her left, nimble and balanced, like some acrobatic dancer whose every muscle had been trained to adhere to set choreography. She was a vision, and from his vantage he appreciated the full range of her beauty for the first time. Her face was determined, her reddish hair untamed, her body taut and athletic. As she rolled, the hardwood floor exploded within inches of her, two rounds from Sirus’s gun throwing up splinters and smoke. It was as though the rounds couldn’t catch up to her; she transcended physical threats.

  With much effort, he pulled one hand closer to his face. It was dark and sticky and smelled of wet iron. He could hear a gurgle, and he wondered whether Ainsworth had come back to life, his lungs making one final effort to absorb the air through the pools of blood. He knew it was impossible, but then everything that was playing out before him seemed impossible.

  He put the thought out of his head.

  She came out of her roll firing her gun, the weapon sighted even before she was vertical. Three shots – though, judging from the precision of her movements and the clarity in her eyes, one would have been sufficient. At the edge of the movie playing out before him, Saunders saw an enormous bald figure collapse.

  He felt an inexplicable proprietary pride in her. She was not his, he knew, and she never would be. And yet it felt as though he could take some credit for some part of her. It was probably wishful thinking, but he thought it anyway.

  She remained in a crouched shooting position for a moment, the gun pointing at the tumbled mass at the other end of the room. Then, finally, she turned and looked Saunders in the eye.

  He smiled at her. At least, he tried to smile. He had no idea that the muscles in his face were no longer responding to the nerve impulses his brain continued to send out, like a castaway cut off from the rest of the world, sending an emergency message that no one could hear. She didn’t smile back.

  She came to him, and he could see her lips moving, but he couldn’t understand the words. It was as though she was talking under water. That was okay with him, they didn’t have any time for conversation at the moment anyway; they needed to get going to chase down Fasil. They could talk about whatever seemed to have her concerned later. He expressed these thoughts to her, though they never emerged as words that could be understood.

  She was kneeling over him now, a senseless gesture. They should be moving, and yet she hovered there, her lips still moving, a look of panic on her face. Then the image began to dim and narrow. The film he’d been watching was coming to a close. That was okay with him, too. He had no more desire to be a mere spectator. If he couldn’t be a participant, what was the point of being there at all?

  The screen had gone black now, and he waited for the credits that would never come.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  ‘Holy shit! What the hell happened?’

  Cianna heard Toney’s voice from the door. Ainsworth’s lifeless body lay in a pool of blood against one wall, and Stillwell’s enormous frame was just inside the doorway. Her first shot had taken him just under the left eye on an upward trajectory and had blown the back of his skull off. In between the two dead bodies, she knelt over Saunders, blowing into his mouth, desperately trying to keep him alive. She paused only long enough to shout at Toney, ‘Help me!’ He hung at the threshold for a moment, still gaping. ‘I said, help me!’ she shouted again.

  He moved toward her. ‘Is he all right?’

  She blew three quick breaths into Saunders and paused. ‘Does he look all right? Do something!’

  He was by her now, leaning over Saunders from the other side. She could see him looking at her dubiously. She went back to giving mouth-to-mouth. She would have performed CPR, as well, but there was not enough of Saunders’s chest left to push down on. ‘I think he’s gone,’ Toney said.

  ‘No he’s not!’ Cianna replied. She redoubled her effort, blowing harder. With each breath Saunders’s chest rose and fell, giving her hope despite the wheeze of wet air that escaped from the wound in exactly the same rhythm and strength with which she blew. She heard one of Toney’s men enter the room.

  ‘Holy fuck,’ he said.

  ‘Get on the phone and get a medevac up here, now!’ Toney shouted. ‘Use my clearance identification, and tell them to hurry!’

  Cianna could hear the man on the phone, shouting orders. He returned a few moments later. ‘Are they coming?’ she demanded in between breaths.

  ‘They are,’ the man said. He touched her shoulder. ‘I don’t think he can survive,’ he said. ‘I was a medic in the Gulf before this.’

  She turned on him. ‘You were a medic?’ He nodded. ‘Good, take over for me.’

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t understand. I didn’t mean—’

  She cut him off. ‘I don’t give a shit what you meant!’ she screamed at him. ‘You keep working on him until they get here, do you understand?�
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  The man looked at Toney, who nodded, and then he bent over Saunders and began administering CPR, while also applying pressure to the wound to try to stem the bleeding.

  Toney grabbed Cianna and looked her in the eyes. ‘Did he say anything? Did you find out how they are getting out of here?’

  ‘No,’ she said. She bent down to try to help with Saunders, but Toney grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her to try to get her to focus on his question. Her reaction was swift and violent. Her fist shot up and caught him in the nose, knocking him back and drawing blood. She flew at him over Saunders’s body, grabbing for his throat with one hand as the other battered away at him. He covered his head with his arms.

  ‘You bastard!’ she screamed. ‘You fucking bastard! You did this!’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he yelled back, still protecting himself as best he could.

  ‘It’s your fault!’ She continued to attack, praying with each blow that she might find relief. It was not coming, though.