"Don't worry about her. She'll warm up to you eventually."
"If you say so."
Abram led the way, Amir close behind. Scott was in the back near the galley and the wet bar, in a heated debate on a sat phone. Sandra had positioned herself in one of the single beige leather comforters in the front. She retrieved a laptop from her side bag and flipped it open. She averted her eyes when Abram came onboard and hacked at the keys. Abram continued by and found a place on the sofa near the aft of the jet. The cabin smelled like freshly cut mahogany and new car. Amir took the seat across from Abram. One of nine comforters on the G550. Amir took advantage of the fully reclining capability of the comforter and closed his eyes. A clear sign that he wanted to be left alone.
Abram looked around the aircraft. Dim light filtered in from the hangar through large oval windows every few feet. Dual lighting and air conditioning lined the side panels of the cabin. The interior felt huge with only four of them. Judging from the available seating and space, Abram estimated a good eighteen people could comfortably fit. His eyes lingered on the fully stocked bar. Two cabinets were lined with crystal glasses. The others were full of alcoholic beverages Abram had never heard of. Abram stood and made his way to the back where Scott Train was finishing up his phone call. Abram scanned through the choices of hard liquor, wines, and beer. None caught his eye as appealing. Not that it would matter since he never drank anyway. He snagged a bottle of Perrier from the fridge, a glass, and two cans of ginger ale. The fridge also had various finger foods. He went with an orange and two packets of pretzels.
Abram carried his loot back to the sofa and plopped down. Amir cracked one eye open.
"You waste no time making yourself at home," Amir said, closing his eye and grinning.
Abram twisted the cap of the Perrier and poured half the bottle into his glass. He took a sip before setting it aside in one of the cup holders. Even they were encased with the dark walnut paneling. The first ginger ale hissed as Abram cracked it open. He took a long drag and savored the sweet taste. The liquid shot straight to his stomach. His stomach was quick to respond. He tore open the bags of pretzels and nibbled.
Scott Train flicked the sat phone and placed it on the bar.
"Looks like our pilots were delayed at the checkpoint."
Abram had never seen Scott Train flustered in the few times that he had interacted with him, but there was a slight tension building. He could see it in the man's temple. Scott clapped his hands together.
"Well, I'm going to have a drink. Sandra, what would you have?" he said.
"Whiskey, no ice," she said.
Amir waved his hand.
Scott looked to Abram. He raised his ginger ale.
"I'm good," he said through a mouthful of pretzels.
Scott poured himself a glass of the scotch. He drank it and then refilled it to the brim. He filled a second glass halfway for Sandra. He sipped his drink as he brought the other to the fore of the plane. Sandra reached her hand up over her head.
"Thanks," she said.
Scott Train returned to the aft and sat down next to Abram on the other end of the sofa. He leaned back and took a heavy sip of his scotch. His lips curled inward, exposing his teeth.
"I know this is all a bit confusing, but in time, it'll all make sense," Scott said, addressing Abram. "Thirty years ago when I joined the team, it was only a handful of us. We didn't have a clue what we were doing. Sure, we all had combat experience; some were linguists, others lawyers or accountants, but it was a mess. The first five years were the hardest. We had to start from the ground up. Sure, we had the aid of the CIA, but they were already cut thin dealing with the Cold War fiasco. We were pretty much on our own. As each year passed, we gradually acquired new resources and contacts, and our numbers grew. Back in 2002, we officially broke free as our own entity. It turns out politics and intelligence don't play well together. In order to preserve our anonymity, the government agreed we'd work in the shadows without any direct ties to the Intelligence Community."
"Wolff was originally a compartment of the CIA?"
"Yes. But for the last fifteen years, we've been our own boss, free of any political affiliation or agency pull. We are the watchdog of the world, so to speak. We prosecute both domestic and foreign parties."
"Whatever is in the best interests of the United States," Abram said.
"Precisely."
"And if it was deemed in the best interest of the U.S. to kill me..."
Scott Train took another sip from his glass.
Sandra broke the tension.
"Scott, I just heard back from my contact at the NSA. He confirmed the minister's attendance. We're still a go."
Sandra was holding her laptop over Abram's shoulder. His eyes traced up her exposed calves. Her skirt ended just above the knees.
"See anything you like?" she said.
Abram quickly shifted his eyes.
"Sorry."
"Inform our spotters in Ontario. Have them work out the schematics and meet us at the black house."
"On it."
Her hair bounced as she spun around and walked with a quick gait back to the front of the plan. She placed her laptop on one of the tables and leaned over, typing up the message. Abram found his eyes lingering again along the arch of her back.
"She doesn't date internally," Scott said.
He took another sip of his scotch.
"Shame really. She could use a good bang every once and awhile. Help take the edge off."
Abram didn't miss the deflation in his tone or the longing in his eyes as they strayed on her an extra millisecond longer than professionally acceptable. No doubt she had shut him down. And judging by the way he looked at her, on more than one occasion. Abram had a new respect for her. Her shoulders were taut, her focus centered. She knew what she wanted and she went for it. Abram liked that. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad working with her after all.
Sandra glanced his way. There was a moment where neither looked away. Abram raised his ginger ale in a toast. She rolled her eyes, but in a playful way. She grabbed her drink and pretended to tap his can. Abram smiled and leaned back in the sofa.
His back sank into the cushion. The pain in his lower back and ribs vanished as if he were weightless. Abram followed Amir's lead and closed his eyes. He could get used to this.
Chapter 18
Abram woke up several hours later. Amir was still passed out on his comforter, a blanket wrapped around his torso as he squeezed into the side of the seat. The cabin lighting was dimmed and the G550's twin engines roared with a gentle thrum. A lone reading light was on over one of the seats in the middle of the plane. Abram stood up and stretched his legs and arms. His ribs cried out when he pushed his arms skyward. He wouldn't do that again anytime soon.
He fumbled toward the midsection of the plane, where Scott Train was reading over a report. The seat next to him was piled with brown folders marked Confidential in red ink. Sandra's comforter was fully reclined into a bed. Two large pillows barricaded her on either side. Her laptop lay next to her.
When Train noticed Abram standing there, he closed the file he was reviewing.
"Where are we?" Abram asked.
"We're about five hours out from Ottawa. You were out for awhile."
Abram rubbed his neck. His entire body was stiff.
"Interesting choice for reading material," Abram said.
Scott Train scooped up the folders and stuffed them in a box on the floor.
"Sit," he said.
Abram obliged.
"I'm sure you can't tell me, but what were you reading?"
"Research," Scott said.
"Learn anything useful?" Abram asked.
"That's yet to be determined, but it looks promising."
Scott leaned forward and placed the folder in his lap along with the others in the box. Abram caught the name on the edge: Abram Kinkaid.
Scott Train had his file. Abram immediately felt shame.
"The
world is a fickle place. We can only do our best and hope we leave it in a better state than it was before we got here."
Abram didn't know what the man was talking about, but he let him speak.
"We all get one chance to make the world a better place. We start as children and we see the world as a place full of possibilities. Nothing is out of our reach or imagination. Then somewhere along the line our thoughts and beliefs change. Our innocence is lost. And no matter how hard we try, we can never get it back."
Abram noticed the half-empty scotch bottle stuffed in between Scott's left thigh and the armrest. Dark circles were forming under his eyes.
"All we can do is try our best," Abram offered, not sure if he was helping.
Scott squeezed Abram's leg.
"You're a good man, Kinkaid. You're a dying breed. I wish we had more men like you in the world."
The praise only furthered the shame Abram had felt upon seeing his file.
"I'm not a good man," he said. "I've made terrible mistakes. Mistakes I can never undo."
"We've all made our share of mistakes," Scott Train said. "It's what we do after them that defines us."
Both men sat in silence for the next five minutes.
"Well, I'm going to try to get some shut eye,” Scott said.
He leaned his chair back just like Sandra's and switched the overhead light off. Abram was left in the dark with only his thoughts as company. The box of files lay at his feet. Scott Train's back was to him and he was already snoring. Abram was tempted to pick up the box and go through his file, but he already knew what he'd find.
***
The memory pushed through the blockades he had constructed over the years and played out as if it were happening for the first time. Abram was only eleven at the time. His mom was in the kitchen washing dishes when his stepfather came home. He fumbled through the door, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Abram was on the living room floor doing his homework. His stepfather stumbled into the kitchen and placed the hand with the cigarette around his mother's waist. Abram couldn't remember what he said, but it was obvious his mother wanted nothing to do with him. She tried pushing him away, but he backhanded her. Her head hit the tile floor. A pool of blood flowed around her ear. His stepfather forced himself upon her and started unbuttoning his pants. He lifted her dress and rocked back and forth. His head leaned back as he chugged the whiskey, his eyes bloodshot and crazed.
Abram's mother lay there motionless, tears streaming down her face. Abram didn't remember how it happened. It all was a blur. He remembered the crack as the bat made contact with the back of his stepfather's head. The plane suddenly jolted from unexpected turbulence, only heightening Abram's memory.
His stepfather groaned and tried to stand. Abram swung again and again and again. When his father stopped moving, Abram was covered in blood. Seeing his stepfather's dead body in a blood pulp, his brain splattered along the kitchen floor, didn't haunt him. It was the look of terror on his mother's face that followed him all his life.
He had run away that night. One of the neighbors had called the police when they heard screaming. When the police showed up, they walked in on a scene that they would not easily forget. Abram's mother was sprawled along the kitchen floor, cradling her dead husband's shattered skull in her hands. The two police first to the scene went on record to state that it was self-defense. His mother was admitted to the Oceans Behavioral Hospital to undergo a psych analysis. She spent the next twenty years behind those closed walls, comatose from the daily antidepressants and pain pills. They placed her in an experimental psychotherapy program for the severe physical and psychological abuse she had suffered for six years.
When the doctors removed her dress, over eighty percent of her body was covered in bruises and welts. Two ribs had been broken and fused back together improperly. The one had been broken multiple times. She’d suffered a scaphoid fracture in her left wrist when she had been pushed down the stairs two weeks earlier, a herniated disc from the time his stepfather had smashed the living room table against her back, as well as a detached retina in her left eye.
The paramedics rushed her to Midland Memorial Hospital when her blood pressure suddenly dropped. It was later determined that she also had a ruptured spleen that had been bleeding internally for the last two days.
When she came out of surgery, she refused to speak or make eye contact with anyone. She wouldn’t eat. The nurses had to administer medicine for the pain through her IV tube, which she constantly ripped out. She was placed on suicide watch and given a sedative to keep her cooperative.
With his mother in the psychiatric ward and no other family to watch over him, Abram was placed into foster care. He remained in the system, jumping from one orphanage to the next, for the next seven years. On his eighteenth birthday, he all but slammed the door in his caretaker’s face. With only the clothes on his back and five bucks to his name, he was free. The five bucks quickly turned to zero. After three days of living on the streets, he ran into a man handing out fliers. He said there was a place where he could get a hot meal, a shower, and a warm bed for the night. The man didn’t have to tell him twice. Abram snatched the flier and made his way to the destination. It led him to a church-turned-shelter for men. There was a line of about a hundred men stretched from the front doors all the way around the corner. Figuring there wouldn’t be enough rooms for him, he turned and walked away. Feeling depleted and hopeless, Abram bumped into the man who had given him the flier.
“Where are you going, son? The future is this way.”
The man—his name was Tom, Tom Sanks—wrapped his arm around Abram and redirected him back to the old church. When they arrived, the front doors were open and men were filing in. Tom took Abram around the back of the church.
“Don’t tell anyone about this. It’s my secret entrance.”
Abram thought Tom was crazy. The “secret entrance” was the back door of the church, now the loading bay for supplies. Abram didn’t say anything. All he cared about was food. A bed was just a bonus. Tom piled a plate so high with food that Abram had to walk slowly to avoid dropping any of it. He didn’t succeed. After the meal, Tom asked Abram if he had a place to stay. Abram had said no.
“Let me see if I can pull some strings,” Tom said.
He came back twenty minutes later with a great big smile.
“Looks like we’ve got a room for you,” he said.
The rest of the men either made their way to their designated cots or left the building. There was only enough room for about fifty men. There were way more than three times that many here now. At least they had been able to get a warm meal for the night.
Abram watched them go, one by one, some with heads drooped forward in anticipatory defeat, while others held theirs high with pride and gratitude for having a meal. Abram pitied the men in despair and envied the men who faced the world with optimism and hope. His future wasn’t so hopeful at the moment.
Tom came back over.
“Hey, some of the volunteers need to head out a bit early. I could use a hand cleaning up the dishes.”
“Sure, I’ll help,” Abram had said. He took charge of cleaning the dishes while Tom, an older woman and man helped gather up the leftovers and throw away the trash.
Abram enjoyed the hot soapy water between his fingers. He didn’t mind cleaning. It actually felt good to do something. Later that evening, when they had finished packaging the leftovers, and cleaned up the kitchen, Tom took Abram to his room. Abram expected him to take him to one of the cots in the church, but instead, he led him out the “secret entrance” again. There was a trail that went off behind the church. Tom walked down this gravel path, Abram close behind. A hundred yards later or so, a small house came into view. The lights were on and there was a sweet smell floating on the air.
Tom’s wife welcomed her husband with a great smile and a kiss.
“How did it go today?” she asked.
Tom’s wife noticed Abram standing awkwardly in the shadows.
“Well, hey there. Don’t be shy, I won’t bite,” his wife said.
Abram crept closer. Tom’s wife gripped him in a big bear hug.
“We’re happy to have you. I’ve got a hot bath ready for you and your room all set up.”
“Thank you,” was all Abram had been able to say. He didn’t know these people. They had no reason to show him kindness. It had been a long time since anyone had been kind to him. Abram was staring at the freshly baked pie on the counter. His nostrils were alive with the aroma. Tom’s wife saw where his attention was. She smiled.
“Would you like a piece?”
Abram licked his lips and nodded. Tom’s wife cut them all a slice, and they ate their blueberry cobbler together around the circular table. They didn’t ask Abram anything about his past or why he was homeless. They just enjoyed his company.
Tom’s wife gathered the plates when they had each finished their pie, while Tom led Abram to his room upstairs. The stairs were steep and narrow. The ceiling pressed down as if it would crush you. The upstairs was a large loft. Abram had no doubt it was their room, but he was too embarrassed to say anything. Just as the wife had said, the claw-foot tub was steaming with a clean, hot bath.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Tom said, and left Abram alone for the evening.
Abram looked around the room. They had all sorts of gadgets and memorabilia. A chest was stacked nearly to the ceiling with hand-knitted quilts. It felt like home.
Abram wiped the tears away that had formed and removed his old, tattered clothes. A new pair of trousers, T-shirt, and boxers were neatly folded on a stool behind the tub.
Abram dipped into the hot water. His body tensed from the heat. All the filth, fear, neglect, anger, and hopelessness washed right off his body. He lay in the tub until the water grew cold, then emerged. The clothes were a bit loose on him, but they fit. And better yet, they were clean.
Kill Shot - An Abram Kinkaid Thriller Page 10
