Designated Targets

by John Birmingham

  The two male officers leaned forward and gave the scene their undivided attention. Taylor seemed just about to speak when something strange happened. One of the men exercising on the boat broke away from the others and made a run at the gunnels. He leapt over the side and dropped out of sight. Everyone on the deck froze for a second, but then two armed soldiers suddenly ran to the same side and raised their rifles.

  Nguyen quickly refocused directly on them, pulling in to twenty meters virtual. “They’re shooting at him,” she said. “That’s it. I’d bet my much-reduced pay packet that he’s Chinese, not Japanese.”

  There was no sound, but they could all see the puffs of smoke and the impact of recoil.

  “I think so,” Taylor agreed.

  The American major tapped at the screen with his index finger. “You know, these things are just marvelous, but I think we’re going to need to grab some of these characters for a little—what do you guys call it—face time?”

  Nguyen nodded. Almost to herself. “That’s a bit beyond my reach, sir. But if you’re willing to take it up the line, I’ll cut you together a briefing stick from the take.”

  Brennan agreed as they watched the shooters on the deck of the ship slap each other on the back.

  “I guess that one didn’t get away,” said Lieutenant Commander Nguyen.

  7

  NEW YORK

  She wasn’t Rita Hayworth, and it wasn’t the Ritz, but Slim Jim wasn’t about to write to his congressman, either. He’d never had his dick sucked so often or so well by a movie star. In fact, he’d never had his dick sucked by a movie star. Or by anyone he hadn’t paid, really.

  Not that Norma was a movie star just yet, but she would be. He’d already seen most of her films, and she was gonna turn into a seriously hot piece of ass.

  And if his apartment wasn’t the Ritz, it was nearly as classy. So classy, in fact, that all his dough nearly hadn’t been enough to get him in. Ms. O’Brien had been forced to twist a few arms before the board had consented. And old Walt Winchell had helped out some, too.

  He was a good fuckin’ egg, old Walt was.

  In fact, lying in his big bed overlooking Central Park, recalling every detail of the previous night, Slim Jim Davidson figured himself to be just about the happiest guy in the world. He wondered whether he ought to call Norma at the little studio apartment he’d bought for her, just to get her to come over and give his pipes a really good cleaning before he got up and seized the day. After all, it never hurt to remind a girl like that who held the purse strings.

  But in the end, he didn’t reach for the phone. His hand was stayed by something he’d never once experienced in his short and—up until now—reasonably shitty life. He was overcome by a small, warm feeling he vaguely recognized as a sense of . . .

  Generosity.

  A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and a great rich, rolling laugh burst forth. Yeah, that was it, all right. He felt like just about the most generous motherfucker in the whole wide world. His mother would have been shocked, even appalled, since she was one of the worst fucking grifters he’d ever met. At least she had been, until she was beaten to death by that bum she’d hooked up with down in Tallahasee way back in—what, ’35 or ’36? Still, she’d a been proud that at least one of her boys had amounted to something. Then she woulda cheated him of at least half of what he was worth.

  And he was worth plenty.

  “Top o’ the mornin’, Ma!” he crowed to his empty bedroom. “Top o’ the fuckin’ morning!”

  He reached around under the covers, enjoying the slippery feel of the silk sheets, taking his time to find what he wanted. His remote for the sound system had got itself kicked down near the foot of the bed. He snagged it up with his foot and thumbed the button to fill the apartment with music. The neighbors had complained about him playing AC/DC before breakfast, and he didn’t want to get kicked out. So he’d dialed it back a little, programmed some Elvis, some Benny Goodman, a little Herb Alpert and Garth Brooks, to mix in with his favorite bits of Metallica, Sacre Coeur, and the Beach Boys. He had what Ms. O’Brien called “eclectic” tastes, but then, he had eighty years to catch up on, so she could just go fuck herself—a thought that brought on a slow smile.

  So he was about to reach for the phone to call Norma after all, when his good humor was ruined by a hammering at the door.

  Shit.

  Only cops banged away like that, like they had a perfect right to go hassling guys in their jammies with half a woody on. He spat out a few curses, wrapped himself in a thick white robe—which he had actually bought from the Ritz, just for the effect—and stalked out of his bedroom, snatching up his flexipad from a low marble coffee table that was littered with cold food. He powered up, dropped the volume, and triggered the apartment’s security system without even having to watch what he was doing. Slim Jim spent hours practicing with his flexipad. He loved it more than he loved any human being he’d ever known.

  The hammering sounded again, and he yelled that he was coming.

  His head had cleared remarkably quickly, considering all the champagne he and Norma had enjoyed last night. He swung open the door and barked at the two cops who stood there to get the hell inside, and stop disturbing his neighbors. He needn’t have bothered, though, since they were inside before he even finished. A cursory glance told him right away they were feds.

  Bureau men.

  Ah shit.

  He didn’t piss his pants the way he might have ten years earlier. He had too many miles on the clock for that, but he could feel a shit-eating grin freezing in place on his dial. He turned away a touch too quickly, hoping they didn’t catch it, and praying that his voice didn’t waver too much.

  “Sorry, boys,” he called out as he headed into the kitchen to make himself a coffee. “My girlfriend don’t sleep over, and she keeps all her best frocks at her place. I’m afraid Mr. Hoover will just have to call her himself if he wants to borrow a little something for the—”

  Without warning, a blinding pain exploded inside his head. He was distantly, stupidly aware of it being on the left side as he toppled to the hardwood floor and down into darkness. Somehow it seemed important, that he’d been whacked from the left.

  . . .

  . . .

  . . .

  Garth Brooks was singing a cover.

  When a man loves a woman.

  Slim Jim was still in darkness. Then he was in . . . a sort of red fog. Like he was looking at the world from the inside of a bottle of wine. Then a jagged spike of fire shot through his head—the left side—and he needed to vomit.

  He was lying facedown in a broken plate of cold linguine, and his beautiful bathrobe from the Ritz Hotel was all gathered up in the small of his back, leaving his butt exposed to the breeze. He thought about rolling over, but gagged on a mouthful of bile, then groaned as somebody grabbed his robe, yanked him up, and threw him into a lounge chair. The robe came open. His nuts were slapping around. It was all very undignified, and a million miles removed from his new life as a respected businessman and registered Democrat.

  “Jesus Christ,” he coughed. “I was only joking, fellas. He can have the dresses. She left ’em in the other room.”

  “Shut up, you cocksucker.”

  “Ha! That’s good, coming from one of J. Edgar’s boys,” he said, even though he knew he was risking another whack upside the head. When none came, he blinked away some of the blurred vision that turned his attackers into dark blobs of attitude and body odor. They came into focus. Two feds, just as he recalled. Dark suits, white shirts, red ties. Everything buttoned down to within an inch of its life. Just as Mr. Hoover liked it.

  “Okay, so I’ll be shutting up now. But you are gonna want me to talk, aren’t you? Ain’t that the way it works? You beat the crap outta me, so I’ll tell you what you want to hear?”

  “Not really.”

  That surprised him, so he decided to shut up for real.

  The room was quiet for a moment
, save for Garth Brooks. As his stomach settled, Slim Jim decided that he really wanted that coffee now, perhaps with a shot of bourbon. But he decided it wasn’t the brightest idea, giving these fuckin’ apes another chance to beat on him, so he just kept quiet.

  They both stared at him a little while longer, at least one of them with eyes that looked like hard little pellets of hatred. He spoke first. “Think you’re pretty fucking smart, don’t you, Davidson?”

  “Dunno about that, man. Never finished high school.” He shrugged.

  Then the other one spoke up in a much friendlier, even cheerier tone. “Take a smart guy to end up here, wouldn’t it, Jimbo? You couldn’t buy most of this stuff on a special agent’s salary. Definitely not on a seaman’s wage.”

  Jesus Christ, they were gonna tag-team him. Good cop, bad cop. He would have laughed, if his head weren’t pounding so much. “I do what I can,” he croaked.

  Bad Cop was back. “If you keep smart-mouthing us like that, asshole, the only thing you’ll be doing is playing pick up the soap at Leavenworth. You got a house full of contraband here.”

  Slim Jim almost opened his mouth to protest. The apartment was the registered business address of at least half a dozen of his investment companies, and those companies all had valid permits authorizing them to obtain and use twenty-first-century technology. But the memory of his fearsome lawyer, Ms. O’Brien, arose to shut his trap before he starting babbling.

  Bad Cop plowed on regardless. “I wonder how much the IRS would enjoy going through your books? That’s how they got Capone, remember? And for that matter, what would the navy make of your new billet? You’re supposed to be on active duty, aren’t you, Davidson?”

  “I do special services for the USO now,” he said. And it was true, sort of.

  “Does that mean banging that factory worker’s wife? The actress nobody knows? Norma or Marilyn or whatever her name is now.”

  “She left that guy!” he blurted out, and instantly regretted it.

  “And I’ll bet he’d love to know where she’s been these last few weeks,” the agent continued with a palpably evil grin. “And what she’s been doing. Or who she’s been doing.”

  Slim Jim felt about half the blood in his body rush into his head, then just as quickly drain out again, leaving him giddy. He took in a long slow breath to settle himself and waited for the squeeze to come. He wasn’t much surprised when it came from his new chum, the kindly special agent with the altogether friendlier line of patter.

  “Yeah, you’ve got yourself a sweet setup, here, Mr. Davidson. Be a terrible shame if it all went sour and you ended up back on that chain gang. We could probably help you with that, you know. If you could see yourself clear to helping us out with a little problem . . .”

  “Is that so?” Slim Jim replied without bothering to keep the bitter sarcasm out of his voice this time.

  “Yes, it is,” said Good Cop. “You see, we’re a little worried about these characters you’ve been doing business with, out in California. Not all of them, you understand. Just a few bad eggs, here and there. We hear things about some of them. Disturbing things, really, that’d make a red-blooded man feel a little sick.”

  The agent seemed to falter over his next line. Slim Jim couldn’t help but be impressed with his acting ability. He was very good.

  “Sexual things,” the agent said with a little choke in his voice.

  Slim Jim was tempted to make another crack about Hoover, but that would only get him beaten again, so he rearranged his bathrobe to cover himself and buy some time to think. Some of the racier scandal sheets he liked to read had published big chunks of a couple of books written about the maximum cop after he’d died, or would have died, a few decades from now. Of course, you rarely saw that kind of gossip in the “quality” press, not straight up, anyhow. But Slim Jim understood there’d been a couple of slanting references to it. He’d been all fired up to publish the fucking books himself and sell them on the black market. But Ms. O’Brien had talked him out of it. Said he didn’t need the headache of a fight with a vicious old fag like Hoover. That’s what she called him, too, “a vicious old fag.” Anyway, word was, J. Edgar was going berserk over the things people were saying about him back in the Zone. So maybe this was something to do with it.

  Or maybe they were just busting his chops because he was—let’s face it—a career criminal. Reformed or not.

  Whatever.

  His confidence was coming back now. If these guys had something on him, they’d a frog-marched him out of the place already. For the umpteenth time he found himself pathetically grateful to Ms. O’Brien and her ramrod-straight, pain-in-the-ass, do-it-by-the-fucking-book ways. She had insisted that everything he do be completely aboveboard—legally, if not morally. He even paid his taxes now. More than he had to, if truth be known. It was almost as if she’d expected this to happen.

  He was gonna have to step lightly around Norma’s old man, though. You could never tell what a pissed-off husband was gonna do. But the rest of the feebs’ routine was all bullshit and bluster.

  His silence seemed to convince Bad Cop to ham it up even further. The guy put his foot against the heavy coffee table that sat between them and gave it a vicious push, slamming the edge into Slim Jim’s unprotected shins. He yelped in pain as tears welled up in his eyes.

  “We know you’re in thick with these time-traveling assholes, Davidson. We know some of these companies of yours have picked up contracts from them. You mix with them, and you got the inside track. You’re gonna start working for your country again. Keeping us informed about them.”

  Two painful lumps were already coming up on his shins. He rubbed at them and complained in his whiniest voice. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about, or what you need me for. They don’t make any secret of it, all the shit goes on there. They got nightclubs and bars for queers and lemons. They got all the races sleeping together. They don’t give a fuck what you think about them. And neither does Congress, or weren’t you paying attention. They’re in the Zone, man. That’s their world now.”

  At that, the friendly one looked disappointed.

  His unpleasant partner leaned forward and bared his fangs. “For now, smartass. Just for now.”

  Bad Cop placed his foot on the edge of the coffee table again, causing Slim Jim to wince in expectation. But the agent just gave the apartment a good looking-over, and he didn’t appear to like what he saw. Again, Ms. O’Brien was responsible for much of the decoration.

  She’d flipped the first time she saw how Slim Jim had decked the place out, with moose heads and porn and ratty old furniture. “This isn’t the image we’re trying to create, Mr. Davidson,” she’d said in that quiet, level tone that frightened him a little. “We are trying to establish you as a serious if somewhat rakish businessman, and this looks like the waiting room of a Chechen bordello.”

  And so, instead of seeing hunting trophies and a pair of billiards tables, the still-nameless agents got to appreciate his taste in fine Italian furniture, restricted technology, and modern art. Lots and lots of modern art, which had cost him nearly three hundred thousand dollars. That had made no sense to Slim Jim, until O’Brien told him that in eighty years, all this art crap would be worth tens of millions of dollars.

  “What the hell is that shit, anyway?” asked Bad Cop.

  Slim Jim smiled. O’Brien had made him memorize the schtick for when that Hersey guy came around to write about him for the New Yorker.

  “Those ones over there are by a guy called Pollock. He went nuts in ’38, and he started painting like that. It’s like he was cribbing from that Picasso guy over there, don’t you reckon? The three by the piano are called Bird, Male and Female, and Guardians of the Secret. My lawyer tells me they’re full of seething imagery.”

  “Jesus H. Christ,” muttered Good Cop, falling out of character for a second. “My little girl draws better than that.”

  “Yeah, looks like something a fruit would hang on h
is wall.”

  Slim Jim just deadpanned them. “Well, at least I’m banging the welder’s wife, and not Assistant Director Tolson.”

  Both men colored visibly, and Slim Jim actually wished he could take it back. What the hell was up with him, making fun of Hoover and his boyfriend in front of a couple of hired gorillas like this? He had to stop watching those wise-guy movies.

  The roughneck leaned forward again, his face bright red and shoulders like bowling balls moving around under his suit. “Listen, you little pissant. You might think you’re a big man now. But you’re a fucking bug, and you’re gonna get squashed if you don’t cooperate. You’ll do as we say, or it’s gonna go hard on you. That fucking lawyers of yours, we’ve got her number. You’re going to start recording every conversation you have with her, every crooked fucking deal you put together. She’s about this close to being disbarred, anyway. Her papers mean nothing here. All those bullshit laws she goes on about that nobody here even heard of. If you’re smart, you’ll dump her and give this guy a call.”

  A small slip of paper appeared in his hand.

  “He’s Bureau approved. He’ll set you straight, and when you’ve done that, you’re going back to California, and you’re taking this with you.” He held out a small black disk, about half the size of a garden pea. Slim Jim recognized it instantly. A microcam. Commercial, not mil-grade. The sort of thing that’d be picked up by an elint sweep in less than half a second.

  What a pair of fucking bozos, he thought. Probably don’t know what an elint sweep is. His expression, however, gave nothing away. “Okay, fellas,” he said, showing them his open, honest palms. “You got yourself a narc.”

  “That’s great, Mr. Davidson.” Good Cop beamed at him. “You won’t regret it, and your country will be grateful.”

  Slim Jim nodded and smiled nervously, as he figured he was expected to.

  He never once looked at any of the eight microcams that had recorded everything in the apartment from the moment he’d opened the door. And those microcams were mil-grade.