by JA Huss
There’s a strong breeze coming in from somewhere, like the window is wide open, but all the windows in this house are long and skinny, up near the ceiling. Or skylights. I look up, and for half a second I think this is it, the little fucking Smurf is hiding up on the ceiling like some Company version of Spiderman.
She’s not up there.
But there is a skylight up there. And it’s open. That’s where the breeze is coming from. There’s a ladder leaning up against the wall, slanted at a severe angle. I stand underneath the skylight and call up. “Sasha! You up there?”
A shadow appears over the entrance to the roof. “Yes.”
“Can I come up?”
She peeks cautiously over the side. “I guess.”
I stuff my gun in my pants and climb. She’s on the other side of the roof when I step out of the hole. “What are you doing?” I ask, walking over towards her. She’s got a hand behind her back so I figure she’s been having the same doubts about me as I’ve been having about her.
“Looking for something.”
“Oh.” Hmmm. “Like what?” I sorta laugh. “It’s a roof.”
She nods up at the sky with her head, never taking her eyes off me. “Did you know today is the summer solstice? The longest day of the year.”
“Fuck, well, it certainly felt like the longest day of my life.”
“Right?” she asks, smiling a little. And then her smile drops into a frown so fast my heart skips.
“What?” That question is all it takes for her tears to start. “What? What’s wrong?”
She walks over to the short adobe ledge around the roof and takes a seat. Her gun comes out from behind her back and she wipes her face with the back of her other hand. “We had plans today.”
“Who?” Fuck, what’s she talking about? Plans? To kill me? Does she have a partner? Who is her partner? All this shoots through my mind as she pulls herself together.
“My dad and me,” she finally manages through her tears. “We had plans to go to some secret place where ancient Indians marked the solstices using stones lined up like a wheel on the ground. And I used to know the name of it, but…” She sniffs and shakes her head. “I’ve forgotten what it’s called. And you know what?” Her eyes are all teary with sadness as she looks over at me.
I kneel down where I am so even though we are a good twenty feet apart, we’re at least eye level. “What?”
“I forgot about him too. I forgot all about him until I went to bed and then saw the date on the digital clock on the nightstand.”
Fuck. She’s thinking about her father.
“And I know you said to try not to think about things, but it’s really hard.” She lets a little sob loose. “And my body hurts from this morning. I’m not a complainer, James, I swear. But I don’t feel so good.” She drops the gun on the ground now and then wipes both hands across her face. “My head hurts. And my shoulder hurts. I don’t even think I can shoot that gun. You were right earlier. It’s got a lot of kick to it.”
I don’t know what to say. Is she playing me? Is she really sad? Is she really hurt? What the fuck am I supposed to say?
The silence goes on for too long and she takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Merc was right, I guess. I’m a crybaby. And you hate me, don’t you?”
“I don’t hate you,” I reply, a little defensively, blowing out my own long breath. “I just don’t know what to do with you. I don’t know why you’re here.”
She shrugs, then winces as her hand goes to her shoulder.
Well, pain I can deal with. So I start there. “I have a med kit in the pull-out drawers in the back of the Hummer. Take one of the tablets called Motrin before you hit the sack.” I don’t know what to say about the father thing. I’m no good at this shit. I’m the last guy to look to for sympathy. All I know is business. Death is my business. I walk over to her and kneel down so I can see her Glock. And then I pull out my Five-SeveN, pop out the magazine, pull the barrel back, and empty the chamber, letting the cartridge fall out into my palm. “Here,” I say, handing it over to her grip first. “You wanna trade guns, Smurf? This thing’s nice and light. Almost no kick at all. Just a .22 round, but you know, the shape of the bullet gives it velocity.”
She takes the gun, then the mag. Every few seconds she sniffs as quietly as she can, trying not to call attention to the fact that she’s crying. “Cop killer,” she says as she pops the magazine in.
“Yup, that’s what they call them. Cop killers. You know why, right?”
She nods. “Because the cartridge goes through Kevlar.”
“Yeah, that’s why.” She knows her shit. “Load it up. You wanna shoot it?”
She sniffs again. “Where?”
I smile and pan my arms wide. “Here. There’s no houses for miles. No one’s gonna care. Pick a target. Shoot something.”
She scans the area, making a little circle as she does it. Then she points off in the distance. “How about that sign at the edge of the property?”
“Wow. You’re cocky, huh?” She smiles at me and I smile back. “I tell you what. If you hit that target in this light, I’ll let you keep that gun forever. We can trade, huh? I’ll take that Glock off your hands and you can have this Five-SeveN.”
She gets a wide grin but tries to hide it. “I can hit that target.”
“Show me. Pretend your dad is watching you. Right now. He’s looking down on you and he sees you with me, and maybe he’s a little worried.” My voice drops and she looks up at me, her face a mess of grief, but at the same time I know she’s listening. She wants to hear something real from me. She needs something real from me. “He’s probably a little suspicious of my motives. And maybe he’s worried that I’m a bad guy. So show your dad you can handle me just fine. Shoot that target and take my gun.”
She stares at me for a moment. “Are you a bad guy, James?”
I nod slowly. “Yes.”
“I’m a bad guy too.”
“So I guess we’re even,” I say back.
“Maybe,” she says as she takes aim. She draws in a long steadying breath, then breathes out and squeezes the trigger. The Five-SeveN is loud, but the ping of a bullet going through a metal sign echoes for a second after the gun blast dies away. That’s all we need to confirm her aim was true. “If we’re even,” she says, turning back to me, “then what do we do?”
“Well”—I reach down and pick up her Glock, check the magazine, finger the thread on the barrel where a suppressor would fit, then stuff it in my pants—“I guess we need a plan.”
“I guess we do.”
I nod as I stand. “I’ll let you know when I get one.”
And then I walk back over to the open skylight, half expecting to hear the crack of a high-velocity round being fired before crashing straight through my head.
But I hear a long, sad sigh instead.
I guess her trust—even if it’s conditional, temporary, and precarious—is the best I can hope for at the moment.
Chapter Forty-One - James
I go back inside, walk straight through the house, go out to the Hummer, open the door, sit inside, and slam it shut.
Fuck.
What the fuck am I doing?
I weigh my options in my head. I imagine all the ways in which each path could make life better. Then worse. Every decision has a consequence. Every moment in my life accumulates to this moment. And this moment will determine my next moment.
Life is a tower. A very tall tower. Decisions lead to actions, and action stack up—one on top of another, on top of another. And sometimes you know why you’re clawing your way up that tower, but most of the time, it’s just pulling yourself up, hand over hand. Finding each foothold one crevice at a time.
And every now and then, as you climb your tower, there’s a bridge. And you stand there looking across that bridge, but you know that’s too fucking easy. There’s no other side. If there was another side, you’d hop off the fucked-up tower you’re climbing and try som
ething new.
But there’s no other side in sight. Just a bridge.
So it’s a risk. Do you keep climbing? Do you use all your stacked moments to lift you up towards the ending you’ve been envisioning since you started this journey?
Or do you step onto the bridge and cross over into the unknown?
I guess it comes down to regrets. Not things like, Did I kill the right people? Or, Did I do my job the best way I know how?
No. Life is not about work, it’s about… love.
Unless, of course, your work is what you love.
Do I love my work?
I pull out my phone and call the number from memory. It rings and rings and then finally goes to voice mail. “Harrison,” I say in a low voice. “Call me back, I need a big.”
I end the call, go back inside, find the smokes I bought at the bar, and then walk out the back door so I can enjoy them. I flick the lighter and take a deep drag, then let it out and a little bit of comfort and relief floods into my bloodstream. I walk out towards the sign Sasha just shot and when I get there, I turn and look up to the roof. She’s gone now. Maybe back to bed. Maybe she’s pacing inside, weighing up her stacked moments too. Considering her options as she decides whether or not to step out on to that bridge.
I flick the lighter on the sign since the half-moon has dipped behind some clouds and it’s darker now.
It’s just silver, but then I realize I’m looking at it backwards and walk around the other side of the post. There’s no fence. It’s just a post in the ground facing the empty desert.
But it does have a message on this side. It says, I shoot everyone, and there’s a bullet hole smack in the middle of the sign.
Sasha is a damn good shot.
My phone buzzes in my pants and I let my cigarette dangle as I fish it out and press the green tab. “Yeah,” I say.
“What kind of favor do you need?” Harrison asks.
“You still in Vegas?”
“Yeah, till tomorrow, why?”
“I need you to pick something up in Colombia.”
His laugh is so loud I have to pull the phone away. “I’m not doing drug runs, asshole.”
I take a drag on my cigarette and let it out. “Not drugs, you freak. I’m gonna place an order for you to pick up, but I need it tomorrow night. Can you do it or not?”
“Dude,” he says, laughing. “That’s a three-leg journey at least. It’s gonna cost you a ton of dough.”
“Money is not a problem. I just need this package. Tomorrow night. Delivered to Orange County.”
“I can, but you will owe me more than money.”
“I’d expect nothing less. Look for deets soon. Later.”
I press end and immediately key in another number. It reroutes several times, making loud clicking noises that would usually have me on high alert for wiretapping. But this is just how it is when you want to talk to Roberto.
“Hola,” a woman’s voice says. “Roberto Moreno Diseñador.”
“This is Tet. I have an order and I am sending someone to pick it up tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir,” she says, switching from Spanish to English effortlessly. “How can I help you?”
I give her my request. It’s nothing special, at least for Roberto. But they don’t sell them here in the States. At least not of this caliber. And I need the best for this job. I end the call, text Harrison the details, and go find Sasha.
“Come in,” she says softly after I knock on her door. I open it up and she’s curled up in a chair on the far side of the room, still holding the gun I gave her. “That was fast,” she says through a yawn. “I hope it’s not some crackpot idea that will get me killed.”
“Well, you can let me know afterward, OK?”
She stares at me for a few seconds and I can almost see her mind spinning with questions. Will she ask them? Will I answer them?
I don’t think I can, not yet anyway.
“Medicine Wheel or something like that.”
“What?” I shake my head at her randomness.
“That place my dad was gonna take me today. Something about a medicine wheel. And he had special permission to go up with some Native American friends because normally it’s closed to the public on the summer solstice.”
“Sorry, kid. I have no idea.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, her expression blank. “Who cares about stupid stuff like that anyway.” She turns away from me, curling her little body up in the chair like she’s cold. But this is the desert. It’s still almost eighty degrees out in the dead of night. Her posture is just another defense mechanism to protect herself from all the hurt. And not the physical kind. She’s got plenty of that tonight too. But missing that trip with her dad, that’s the kind of pain that can’t be fixed with a pill.
Not easily, anyway.
“Hey,” I say after her eyes have been closed for a few minutes. “Stupid medicine wheels are the only things that count, Sasha. How about… how about I make you a promise. For when this is all over.”
“What kind of promise?” She asks the question out of duty, it seems. Because she doesn’t even bother to open her eyes.
“I’ll take you to that place. We’ll find it and I’ll take you there.”
The tears start to fall down her face. “It’s too late. The solstice is today. I missed it and I don’t want to go anymore.”
I have nothing to say to that. Do you convince them? Kids, I mean. Is that what parents do? Convince them that they really do want to go, they’re just acting like… well, kids?
Or do you take them at their word?
I’m not sure. So I just get up and walk out. It seems like a cowardly move on my part, but fuck it. I’m not her father. She’s not my kid. She’s not my problem.
She’s my solution and nothing more.
Chapter Forty-Two - James
“We should’ve left last night,” Sasha whines.
I swear to God, if this kid complains all the way to Huntington Beach, I will not be held responsible. Already this morning she’s complained about the lack of breakfast, her lack of clean clothes, and her sore body.
“It’s soooo hot.”
The air-conditioning is on full blast, but even though the sun just came up a half hour ago, it’s almost a hundred degrees outside.
“I’m hungry.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, do you ever shut up? I’m ready to drop your ass off on the side of the road.”
Sasha lets out a big sigh and I glance over at Harper. She’s been quiet the entire ride. I reach across the center console and tap her on the shoulder. She pulls her distracted gaze away from the window and smiles half-heartedly at me. “You OK? You haven’t said much since we left.”
“Yeah, fine. Just hungry.” She looks away again.
“OK.” I scan the horizon and see some civilization coming up. “We’ll get off at the next exit.”
I know why she’s quiet. I told her I was going back to the OC to get some files. That has to be it. She has them stashed somewhere and she must’ve felt pretty confident about the hiding place, otherwise she would’ve taken them with her. But I checked her backpack. There is no flash drive or papers or any other means of containing information that I can see. And her unease this morning is proof enough. Those files are stashed and we are headed right for them.
When she escaped, as she calls it, she hopped a plane to Hawaii, changed her name and credentials, and then hopped another plane to LA. From there she was tracked to the UCLA library. And that’s as far as they got. Meaning the Company forensic surveillance team. Because for some odd reason there was a power surge at the library that day. About three minutes before Harper entered the building, to be precise. And even though the general power kicked right back on, the security systems went down. All cameras were affected.
Accident?
Hardly.
Everything about that day was coordinated by Nick. All the surveillance footage show a confident and purposeful Harper
making her way through two international airports, changing identities, accessing a cab in LA, a city she had never been to before. Then navigating her way around UCLA campus like she’s been a student there for years. In fact, she had a UCLA ID, she was wearing it around her neck just before she entered the library. There was no footage of her coming out.
After that she was back on the record. New cab procured, ride out to Huntington Beach, dropped off at the Main Street Pier. Paid with cash. She got out, walked north one block, turned up Fifth, and from what we can tell by the street cams in that area, she went straight to the apartment. There’s a gap in the footage at that point. Obviously she took the apartment, she technically still lives there for another few weeks. But I didn’t find her right away. And I was not given orders. I learned all this way after the fact. My original explanation about why I was watching her was true. I’m obsessed. I want her. She’s mine.
My information comes to me in different ways. Like the Sasha thing. The Admiral says he sent me to get her.
OK. I had not expected that, to be honest. The receptionist thing Merc and I share is not a secret. I’ve had the same arrangement with lots of different operatives over the years. So it does not surprise me that the Admiral figured it out… it’s just… Why would he care about this one little girl? That part makes no sense.
I check for Sasha in the rear view and find her watching me. I smile at her. “We’re gonna stop soon. There’s a restaurant up here, I’m sure of it.”
I look back over to Harper, but she’s got her cheek pressed up against the window, her back angled towards me.
She’s avoiding something.
Maybe it’s the files. Maybe it’s me. But either way, this day is starting to feel… off.
And when I get that off feeling things are building up to something. Something big. I’ve been in this business long enough to understand intuition is your best friend. Right now my intuition is screaming at me to be careful because this is the endgame. Or at the very least, the beginning of the end. The Admiral got in touch last night. And that can only mean one thing.
