Smoke and Shadow

by Gamal Hennessy

  The boy turned the corner of the warehouse, continuing his self-centered discourse without a backward glance. Trent watched him from the darkness to make sure he didn't double back and then raced for the window. The boys often wandered in the same patterns and Trent didn't want to push his luck by sticking around and waiting for him to come back. A quick low peek into the warehouse window didn't reveal any guards inside the building. A cursory examination of the frame confirmed there was no alarm. A gentle nudge on the window allowed him to open it. After one last glance around his position, Trent lifted himself up and through the warehouse window.

  Chapter Five: Trent’s Nightmare

  Trent's nightmare began with a delicate breeze on his back.

  He circled the shipping containers with cautious, silent steps. He held a SIG P226 in a low ready position, scanning the room for opposition and opportunities. Trent needed to determine the best place to plant the charges, but he had to make sure he was alone first. When he didn't find any guards in the warehouse, Trent holstered his weapon, pulled an infrared flashlight from his pocket and prepared the first C4 charge for detonation.

  Three shipping containers dominated the room, each one of them large enough to fit a Mack truck. The faded paint on the containers gave the impression of age. Trent noticed the logo on the side said Executive Outcomes. The South African mercenary company folded a few years back, but it looked like their equipment kept on fighting the wars its owners had long since abandoned. Trent imagined crates of rifles, ammo and rocket propelled grenades. Trent tried not to think of the women and old people who might be cut down by these arms. He tried not to focus on the young boys who might be forced to use them.

  Trent worked in semi-darkness, with the penlight in his teeth, attaching the M112 demolition blocks of C-4 Tolbert provided to the sides of each container with the convenient adhesive tape on the outside of the clay like block. He chose strategic points on the inner and outer perimeter of the containers and inserted a detonator into the center of each block. If everything went according to plan, the initial blasts would vaporize both the containers and the weapons in them. The secondary wave of energy from the return of expelled gasses might be enough to destroy the entire building. Trent only had eight blocks to put in place. He couldn’t have been in the warehouse for more than five minutes.

  His only warning of disaster came from the breeze. Trent felt it on his back as he placed the second charge. He crouched at the base of the container with his back to the door of the warehouse, the door he avoided for his own entry. He didn't hear the opening of a lock. The guards must have left the door open. He didn't hear rusted hinges or the scrape of the door against the dirt and gravel road. Maybe the boys greased the door so the commanders wouldn't hear them sneak inside. Trent would never know. He didn't see the door opening and he didn't hear it, but he felt a breeze where no breeze should be. His awareness saved his life.

  Trent glanced over his shoulder and came face to face with his fears. A boy, no more than thirteen stepped through the doorway and saw Trent holding the C4 in his hands and the penlight in his teeth. Trent didn't have the time or the avenue to duck into the shadows. For a fleeting moment that lasted a lifetime, a black boy and a black man stared at each other across a distance of twenty feet separating them by hundreds of violent years.

  What did the boy see in those last moments? Did Trent appear to be a black demon with a glowing red face coiled on the ground like a poisonous snake? What did the child want to do? Did he decide to shoot Trent with the rifle in his hands, scream for help, run away in fear or stand frozen in shock? Trent would never know. The instinct of sudden violence moved Trent's body with a fluid speed that cut off all decisions, questions and hesitation.

  The boy's eyes ballooned into bright orbs of terror when Trent spun on his heels and dropped the C4. His mouth formed a trembling silent scream when Trent cleared his SIG from his side and raised it into two steady hands. The boy's body shook with desperate energy when Trent lined up his sights and squeezed the trigger with smooth, even pressure. The boy hit the ground in a tragic heap as the suppressed echo reverberated through Trent's ear and the rest of the darkened warehouse.

  Trent didn't look down at the corpse when he crossed the room and closed the warehouse door. He didn't think about the child he just killed as he set the remaining charges around the shipping containers. He didn't wonder about the boy's parents when he searched the dirt to find the spent casing. He didn't see himself as a baby killer when he slipped out of the warehouse and through the camp to reach the banks of the Lualaba. He didn't imagine the little frail body blown into oblivion when he detonated the charges and slid into the dark water. Swimming beneath the churning, mud saturated water forced him to focus on his stride and not what he'd just done. But when he reached the north bank, at a bend in the river obscuring him from the camp, everything came flooding back.

  Trent pulled himself out of the river with quivering hands that had nothing to do with the cold water. Tears poured from his eyes and disappeared into the mud as he sat on the river bank. His mind assaulted him with the image of the boy's bright eyes and silent scream until Trent vomited with choked cries. Trent sat there on the banks of the Lualaba River held down by the weight of his guilt.

  But even in his mourning, his mind evaluated his situation. He wasn't worried about who might see him now. He could still hear secondary blasts and imagined the rebels in complete chaos. The first explosion hit while most of them slept. They would wake confused, disoriented, and disorganized. They wouldn't know if the explosion came from an accident or an attack. They wouldn't know if the detonation was the only blast or the first of many. Even if the commanders had the training to respond tactically, the child soldiers might snap under the sudden pressure, considering the strain they lived under from day to day. Some of them might run away, either in blind terror or as an opportunistic attempt at freedom. It would be hours and maybe even days before the CNDP realized what happened. Trent didn't concern himself with the rebels anymore.

  His mind shifted to his next target. Trent had to deliver a message before he left the Congo. The op required tactical thinking, even if it was driven by revenge.

  Chapter Six: Tolbert’s Nightmare

  Trent tracked Tolbert to the same dive bar they used for their last briefing. This time, Tolbert drank his Primus beer with two Chinese men. Trent decided they were representatives of the client who ordered the weapons destroyed. The three men sat closer to the bar drinking large amounts of beer, laughing hard and celebrating the success of Trent's mission. They were so blasted, they didn't even notice him sitting by the bar.

  Trent sat with his back to his target, watching Tolbert’s movements in the smudged mirror behind the bar. The space held a louder crowd tonight, even though there couldn't have been more than eight men in the room. Tonight's soccer game inspired more emotion, more yelling and more cover for Trent. Tolbert never looked in his direction. Maybe Tolbert was right. Maybe Trent could blend in with the local Bantu after all. Trent nursed his bottle of beer, waiting for the right moment to take advantage of Tolbert's ignorance.

  Trent saw his opening when Tolbert started to peel the label off his beer bottle. Trent abandoned his bottle and walked towards the bathroom in the back of the bar. He made his steps slow and awkward, with a slight stumble in his stride to project the image of a harmless drunk. He kept his head turned away from Tolbert as he passed the three men. None of them seemed to notice him. Trent stepped into the bathroom with a lurch and prepared for the arrival of his prey.

  The bar bathroom reeked of spilt beer and years of poor aim by its patrons. Three urinals lined one wall and two stalls stood on the other. A large window on the opposite wall had an opaque glass but a standard window lock. Trent stood alone in the small room. He unlocked the window, stepped into a stall and waited for Tolbert’s inevitable bathroom break.

  Trent knew the alley outside the window led both east and west to the back streets of Kol
wezi. If he couldn’t get out the front door, the window would serve as a viable secondary escape. He knew Tolbert's fondness for beer would bring him into the bathroom sooner or later. He recognized Tolbert’s ritualistic peeling of the beer label as a precursor to a visit to the men’s room. He knew the man's lack of security awareness made him vulnerable to an attack. Trent didn't know if another man would come into the bathroom with Tolbert. If they did, Trent would have to wait for another shot. But Trent stood crouched on the seat of the toilet. His Zero Tolerance drawn in one hand and the empty 9mm casing in the other, ready for the chance to swoop down on his target.

  Tolbert came in alone. Trent heard his heavy breathing and then the sound of an opening zipper. The time to strike had come. He waited to hear the rude splash rain down on the porcelain before opening the stall door and stepping behind Norman Tolbert.

  It took less than a second to alter Tolbert's reality. Trent kicked him in the back of his knee, twisted his shoulders and spun his victim into the open stall. Tolbert's piss continued to flow, sprinkling the walls and floor in a circular pattern around the men and onto his own pants. Their dance ended with Tolbert on his knees in front of the toilet. The door to the stall rattled closed behind them. Trent pressed his knife against Tolbert’s jugular and whispered into his ear.

  "Do you give a fuck now?"

  "What the fuck--"

  "Shut up unless you want to die face down in this toilet." Trent felt quivering fear shake Tolbert's body. He recognized Trent's voice. His mind began to grasp the gravity of his situation.

  "No! Don't--"

  "I said shut the fuck up!" Trent let the blade nick Tolbert's skin and his victim complied. His body shook with even more force and Trent could see tears forming in the corner of his eyes. The musty stench of shit overpowered the native funk of the stall as Tolbert lost control of his bowels. Trent fed on his fear.

  "I didn't come here to listen to your bullshit. I just came to give you my mission report because I’m a professional. Do you want to hear it or do you still not give a fuck?"

  Tolbert nodded with a wild look in his eyes. Maybe he hoped to buy himself some time for another person to come into the bathroom and save him. Maybe he just wanted another few minutes to live. Either way, he stayed quiet. So Trent kept talking.

  "I've got good news and bad news. The good news is I neutralized the target. The bad news is I had to shoot a little boy to complete your mission."

  "Wait. That's not my--"

  "Shut up." The knife cut in deeper with Trent's words. "Not your fault? It was your mission, your bad intel, and your threats put me in that position. It might not be your fault, but now it's your fucking problem because I'm done with you and your chicken shit outfit.”

  Trent tossed the spent casing from the baby killing bullet into the toilet. Tolbert watched the brass sink into the grey water with wide eyes. Trent watched the ugly reminder too. “Now you are on my shit list. If you don’t want to wind up like that casing, you’ll stay away from me. If I see you again, you die. If I hear your name connected to anything I don't like, you die. If I even think my name gets out because of you or if anyone comes after me because of you, you die. Are we clear, Tolbert?"

  Tolbert couldn't nod fast enough. "Anything you want. Just let me live. Please."

  "Don’t worry. I want you to live. I want your client to see you with tears on your face and shit in your pants. I want you to stay awake at night imagining me standing in your shadow. I want you to think about what happens in the real world when you decide to kill people over a few beers. You remember this conversation. We won’t be speaking again.”

  Trent pulled the knife away and slammed the butt down on the side of Tolbert’s neck. His former boss went limp and fell face first into the toilet. Trent flushed Tolbert’s head. The water belched out onto the floor and turned Tolbert’s frightened scream into comical blubbering.

  Tolbert might have emerged from the stall in a full blown rage. Maybe he called for help. Maybe he just curled up on the piss wet floor of the bathroom stall in a fetal position, frozen in shock from his near death experience. Trent didn’t know how Tolbert reacted. He walked out of the bathroom, out of the bar and into the dark streets of Kolwezi without being challenged or even noticed. And Trent never saw Norman Tolbert again.

  Interlude: Rouge Agents

  Summer 2014

  “So not only will Trent disobey direct orders, he’s also capable of turning on his superiors at any moment?”

  Rose pushed herself away from the table and stomped towards the bar. Her disapproval of Baker’s story bordered on disgust. Nikki saw how the administrator might identify with Tolbert. Like him, she had no experience in the field. She had the same disregard for security protocols and the same disdain for shooters like Trent and Chu. It didn’t take a big leap in imagination for Rose to see herself in Tolbert’s position. Living in a world of sudden violence had to be terrifying for her. Turning terror into anger served as a logical defense mechanism. Nikki understood Rose’s reaction, even if she didn’t share it.

  Baker understood Rose too, but he appeared to have much less sympathy for her. “We have to remember that our operators are people first, Ms. Mendoza. They’re not just assets for our manipulation. They have their own values, their own morals--”

  “And their own hit squads trying to kill them.” Rose jabbed the ice pick into the bucket with angry thrusts that served more as an outlet for her stress than a way to get more ice. “I don’t see how we can conduct business with someone who has a bounty on their head. If Tolbert sends men after him--”

  “Tolbert followed Trent’s instructions as far as I can tell.” Baker raised his glass to his nose to breathe in the aroma of his whiskey. “Trent’s name never came up on any publicized rendition team lists, and neither Trident. No other outfit I know of is looking for Trent based on the Congo situation. Staying away from Trent was probably the best decision Tolbert ever made.”

  “And what if he changes his mind?”

  “Dead men can’t change their minds, so that’s not really a problem anymore, is it?” Baker took a long sip and let his words hang in the air.

  “So Trent killed him after all?” Ria put her feet up on the table with a laugh. Nikki noticed the tight, supple muscles flexing under her dark skin and the intricate black tattoos swirling down the back of her thigh.

  “Nope,” Baker set down the empty glass. “Norman Tolbert died near Kennedy Airport during a job Chu did for me.”

  Nikki shook her head in confusion. “Why did you send Chu to kill Tolbert?”

  Baker threw his head back and laughed. “I didn’t. Tolbert was a victim of his own stubborn superiority complex. Chu was working an executive protection op and had to clean up Tolbert’s mess.”

  Nikki wondered how Baker could be so jolly discussing another man’s murder, but she didn’t want to pursue the subject. “Do you always use Chu as a bodyguard?”

  “No. Chu has a more versatile skill set. He can do surveillance, threat analysis and hostage rescue in addition to the straight forward protection work.”

  “Does he ignore your orders too?” Rose pushed herself back into her chair an angry flourish. Nikki wondered why she stayed in a conversation she clearly hated.

  Baker laughed again, this time with more irony. “Let’s just say Chu has an inventive way of completing his missions.”

  Book Three: Domestic Disturbance

  Chapter One: Dangerous Opportunity

  Fall 2011

  Erich Maas existed within a strict schedule of self-destruction.

  It began every day with an awkward and perfunctory kiss on the cheek of his reluctant wife. Next, he shambled through the streets of Park Slope, fighting against the waves of children racing to school and the hipsters making their daily pilgrimage into Manhattan. Maas didn't ride the train. He lingered at the independent coffee shop long enough to inspire subconscious nervousness in the nannies and stay at home parents. They clutched their c
hildren a little tighter until he left. Maas never did or said anything in public to threaten anyone, but his particular brand of disheveled didn’t sit well, even in the oasis of calculated casual Brooklyn. They could sense a problem with Maas, even if he didn’t show any visible signs.