As he drove, the man playing Philip wondered what the real Philip Kindred was doing right now. The official story was that the Kindreds were still on the loose; the FBI had kept them on their Ten Most Wanted list for the past year. Unofficially, they were told not to worry about the real Kindreds, because they had been apprehended a year ago and were being confined in secret and wouldn’t be talking to anybody.
Probably safe to say that nobody told Jonathan Hunter this little bit of news.
26
I wanted a symphony of powerful men…
… of lonely women
… of thick-necked losers
… of human ships that crash in the night.
—Sylvester Stallone
THE ARREST was straightforward. They eased the handcuffs on him, pulled him to his feet, shuffled him down the hallway, digital cameras capturing the scene, the cops shooing them away. He had feeling back in his legs now, and in his arms. Middle of his chest still felt dead, though. They read him Miranda. They put a hand on top of his head as they eased him into the back of the car. Slammed the door shut, ready to bring him in.
They figured out who he was, and his connection with the Philly PD, fairly quickly. They called in more uniforms when they realized they had a celebrity death. Their goal was to get Hardie away from the scene and let the tech guys start working it over.
Hardie wanted to save them the trouble and shout: I did it.
You won’t find a shred of evidence that’ll say otherwise.
His hands around her throat.
His fist that smashed into her badly bruised eye.
His skin cells all over her body.
They’d even helpfully left his duffel bag behind, the one that used to contain the one irreplaceable thing in his life.
Now it contained Lane Madden DVDs, photos, magazine articles, and other stalkerish paraphernalia.
Used to work with the Philly police or not… Hardie did it, and he was going down for it.
Hardie wondered how soon they’d let Deke know, if they’d try to contact him on the plane. Cell phones didn’t (allegedly) work up there, but many airlines had Internet. Hardie’s name was in the system, and he couldn’t imagine Deke wouldn’t have alerts in place in case anything went wrong with Charlie or his family in hiding. Deke would probably head right to the station house, ask for time alone with Hardie. Would Deke believe him? No idea. Even if Deke did, who would he go looking for? Where would he start?
And what did it matter, anyway? Their mission was accomplished. Delayed maybe. But Lane Madden still ended up dead, and the truth along with her. The truth about what had really happened to poor little Kevin Hunter.
In her last moments, she’d begged him, wordlessly pleading with him:
Save me.
Hardie couldn’t get rid of the image of her racked with pain, struggling to speak:
Save me.
The more he thought about it, me wasn’t right. Her lips hadn’t come together to form an m. Her tongue had darted out first, and a moment later, she ended the word with an m.
She wasn’t saying
Save me.
Lane was saying
Save them.
All it once it came to Hardie, his lizard brain finally snapping the last piece into place. Why hadn’t he realized it earlier, after Lane had confessed her sins?
As Deke had put it:
These shadowy agents or whatever want the actress gone before she tells the truth, right? Hell, if they’re already going through all this trouble, why not just bump off the Hunters, too? They’re the ones pushing for the answers. They could even do it on live TV.
The address in the GPS. 11804 Bloomfield. The one that Lane quickly dismissed from the screen.
11804 Bloomfield, Studio City, CA.
Oh fuck.
They weren’t done yet.
O’Neal didn’t say it out loud, but he couldn’t keep the thought from rattling around in his fuzzy, sleep-deprived mind.
They shouldn’t be doing this.
Seriously, it should be some other unit. He knew what Mann was thinking: turning this assignment over to another production team midstream was a sign of weakness. And you never showed weakness to your employers, because suddenly they’d lose your number and you’d never receive another assignment.
There were other directors out there—some legends, others rising stars. They were all known only by their monosyllabic code names, inspired by Hollywood directors. O’Neal had worked for “Fritz” (after Lang) as well as “Ray” (after Nicholas). He’d heard rumors of a “Hitch” as well as a “Brian” (after De Palma). Some Guild wags joked that Brian was actually the real Brian De Palma, moonlighting between thrillers. Meanwhile, some directors specialized. There was a “Howard” who was an expert on faking plane crashes, from Cessnas to 747s; an “Oliver” who worked on assassinations.
Deputy directors like O’Neal typically took on the names of famous actors, dead or alive. O’Neal took his name from Ryan; in the past he’d worked with an Eli (Wallach), a Van (Hefflin), a Sam (uel L. Jackson), a Myrna (Loy), a Bob (Culp).
The code names made it easy to keep Guild members straight. The code names also provided a nice protective layer of absurdity. Even if you were to stumble upon their plans, what were you going to say? Some dudes named “Oliver” and “Kevin” were plotting to assassinate a Rwandan president?
Mann’s code name, however, was both clever and a big fuck-you to the boys’ club that was the Guild. She chose it in honor of Anthony Mann, western and film-noir director extraordinaire, and claimed to be a huge fan of his work. But O’Neal knew it was just her way of saying:
Oh, I’ll show you who’s the fucking Mann.
No doubt about it, Mann was extremely talented. She worked with efficiency and innovation and with small, agile units. Not only did she smash through the glass ceiling of their peculiar little business, but she did it without leaving a fingerprint.
Fact remained, though: they were all injured and tired and punchy and twitchy and in no condition to be conducting an operation like this. But Mann didn’t give a shit. She didn’t care how tired you were or what your plans might be or what day it was. When Mann had a production and tapped you, you dropped everything and hung in there with her until it was complete.
So here they were.
Securing the perimeter in the lovely San Fernando Valley in a brand-new white van, new communications gear. And boy, it must have galled Mann to break the new gear out of storage.
Awaiting the arrival of a new A.D.—henceforth to be known as A.D.2. (Underlings never received cool code names, just job descriptions.)
Trying to stay awake.
Waiting for eight p.m.
Which apparently… was when everything was going to happen.
Mann was keeping the details of this mission extremely close to her chest. All O’Neal knew was that there were two other teams out there; one offensive, one defensive, and O’Neal’s job was to observe and block communications as needed. Police squawks, cell-phone calls, people with digital cameras, whatever. Complete blackout, on demand. Now he was in the van, awaiting her command.
Hardie needed to get out of this police car immediately.
But he had nothing.
No shirt, no shoelaces, no socks, no underwear, no weapons of any kind. Nothing on his body but a pair of bloody, ripped, dirty jeans on his legs, and a pair of his own shoes—minus the laces—on his feet.
He was handcuffed and sitting inside a suspect-transport enclosure, which was locked and moving through the streets of L.A. on the way to the North Hollywood station.
Let’s face it: there was nothing he could do.
He eased back into the seat and closed his eyes when he felt it dig into his ass cheek. Took him a minute, but he remembered.
The tiny spring-loaded plastic vial.
The one he’d plucked from the white death van. Hardie had figured if they were forced into a corner again, he’d spray that shit all ar
ound and play the game of See Who Wakes Up First. Use their own poison against them. He’d forgotten about it, though—not that it would have done any good back in the hotel room, as they pretty much pounced the moment he stepped out of the bathroom.
Now, though. In an enclosed space…
The barrier between the backseat and the front was a hard layer of bulletproof plastic, with a group of air holes the size of quarters in the middle.
Hardie remembered what Topless had said about the stuff in the vial. The dose was designed to kill a man in two stages—first knock him out, then convince his heart to stop beating for a short while. If he sprayed this stuff in the car, all three of them would die. Hardie first. That wouldn’t do any good.
And if he waited until he was in an interrogation room, same deal. And even if he lived, there was no way he could fight his way out of a station house. Nor would he want to, because then he’d be hurting cops.
So it was now or never. While they were still on the street, where he maybe had a chance at controlling things.
Otherwise, it was like letting the Hunters just die.
God knows if he thought there was even a chance they’d believe him, Hardie’d tell them everything. Much better to have a SWAT team descend on the house and deal with the situation. But Hardie knew he was in the worst position possible—the guy absolutely nobody would believe.
He used his fingers to slide the vial out of his back pocket.
The way it worked seemed clear enough. A simple pump on one end would send the poison mist shooting out on the opposite end. But how was he supposed to lift it to the holes in the plastic barrier?
Ungracefully, he supposed.
Hardie started turning around in the back and the cop in the passenger seat immediately noticed and warned him to sit the fuck down now. Hardie ignored him and focused on the strange task of kneeling on the seat, then raising his cuffed hands—along with his ass—to the barrier. Again the passenger cop screamed, asking what the fuck he thought he was doing, and the driver joined in and began braking the vehicle—which was good news, all things considered. Hardie felt the edges of one of the air holes with the tips of his fingers and quickly put the vial through, took a deep breath, and closed his mouth and eyes and pushed it.
PSSSSSSSST
The effect was immediate. The car, with an unconscious driver slumped over its wheel, lurched to the right and came to a bone-rattling stop on the side of a parked car. Hardie’s cuffed hands were crushed by his own ass against the barrier. The vial slid out of his hands. He continued to hold his breath.
Come on come on come on…
Falling forward, Hardie led with his right shoulder and landed on his side. He flipped around and smashed against the window with both feet. First time nothing. Second time nothing. Third time was a charm.
KRESSSSHHHHH
The rest Hardie accomplished by rote, walking himself through his improvised plan step by step. It was the only way to do it. Skip to the end and realize how impossible this all seemed, and you might just lose hope.
So go ahead, Charlie.
Kick away the jagged glass from the frame. Sit up. Lunge yourself through the opening. Land on your shoulders. Breathe. You’re outside. You can open your mouth now. Suck in that air. Stand up. Come on, stand up. Get to that driver’s-side door. Turn around. Grab the handle with your fingers. Open it. Really yank it open. Cops never lock their doors because they have to get out quickly at any given moment, and the perps are always locked up in the back, so what does it matter? Open the door and let the driver come tumbling out, because many cops don’t wear their seat belts, either.
He’s down on the ground now. Good. Take the keys from his belt and uncuff yourself. You’re not going to do anybody any good with hands behind your back. Unsnap. Jam the key in. Twist. You’re doing fine, doing fine… and look, you’re free.
Now throw away the cuffs and give this poor bastard his life back. Don’t worry about 911. They’ll come soon enough, with all these bystanders with cell phones. Focus on the CPR. Chest compressions…
Survival rates for people experiencing cardiac arrest outside of in a hospital: eight percent.
Hardie knew that the mouth-to-mouth part wasn’t key. An EMT had told him so over a beer once, many moons ago: it was the chest compressions, stupid. When somebody’s heart stops, they still have oxygen in their blood. If you can get their pumper a-pumping again, the oxygenated blood will begin to circulate. Simple as that. In fact, blowing into someone’s mouth can be a bad thing, the EMT explained. You see a person drop, you tend to freak out. Freaking out increases your level of carbon dioxide. So you end up blowing carbon dioxide down their throat—when what they really need is oxygen.
The EMT shared a personal tip with Hardie: when compressing someone’s chest, play the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing” in your head. That keeps you pumping at one hundred beats per minute.
At the time, Hardie, being a wiseass, had asked: Wouldn’t “Stayin’ Alive” be more appropriate?
The EMT responded: “So fucking cliché, man.”
You should be dancing.
Yeah…
The cop started coughing and sputtering and waving his arms around, wondering what the fuck was going on. Hardie scrambled up, his body screaming at him, and made his way to the other cop. Yanked him out of the passenger seat, started in with the compressions. Come on, come on, Hardie thought, all the while noticing that they were about the same age, about the same build.
27
Ouch. When you get those feelings,
insurance companies start to go bankrupt.
—Reginald VelJohnson, Die Hard 2: Die Harder
YES, THE whole hurting somebody thing sucked.
But he told himself this was just a role he was inhabiting. Other professions did it. Soldiers inhabited a role when they were sent to foreign countries and told to drop bombs on people and they tried to avoid running over bombs set by other people. It was never “Dave White of Clifton, New Jersey” sent over to kill people; it was “Sergeant White,” stripped of his full identity and given a new one by his superiors, with orders to terminate with extreme prejudice. Same thing here.
(The man pretending to be Philip Kindred played these ethics games in his head right before a job, just to keep his sanity.)
He pulled the car to the side of the street. Parking was carefully orchestrated on a San Fernando Valley block such as this one. While there were no signs, everyone knew which spaces belonged to which abode. He had been told to park directly in front of 11802 Bloomfield, which was next door to 11804 Bloomfield.
Okay.
Immerse yourself in the role.
Your name is Philip Kindred, and you’re here for revenge.
You and your sister were watching TV Thursday night and you saw all the awful things Jonathan Hunter said about you.
Worst of all, your sister Jane saw them, too.
Saw them refer to you both as “monsters” and “evil adults with childlike desires.”
That was not a nice thing to say, Mr. Jonathan Hunter.
So we’re going to show you what we do.
“Philip Kindred” opened his eyes, opened the driver’s-side door, strode up the street, reaching his gloved hand inside the pocket of his Windbreaker for the heavy automatic that hung inside. Hoodie up, moving forward.
You are Philip Kindred.
You’re just about to the door, and the guy behind the wheel notices you. Now’s the time. You pull the gun out of your pocket, you squeeze the trigger and shoot him in the face. The guy next to him, the other half of the Hunters’ usual security detail, reaches inside his jacket, but you’re too fast for him and you shoot him in the face, too, followed by another shot to his chest and then another shot to the driver’s seat.
You are Philip Kindred. You don’t wait to make sure you’ve killed them both because you know you have, and you jog around the car and then up the Hunters’ driveway and you immediately cut to the left
, along the eight-foot hedge that blocks the front yard from the street.
You are Philip Kindred. You move along the hedge, following it into the very corner of the yard, where you crouch down in the darkness and wait. You are Philip Kindred…
As the minutes ticked by, it became clear that nobody had reported the shots, or the brief cries. Not even the Hunters, who were busy preparing for Family Movie Night, waiting for their takeout pizza to arrive.
All clear.
Mann thumbed a text message. Down the street, the woman playing Jane Kindred stepped out of the stolen car, gently pushed the door shut, then went to the trunk, from where she removed an insulated bag. Holding it in her arms, she quietly darted up the street.
In the back of the house, under a cover of bamboo trees, A.D.2 killed the security system, as well as the floodlights along the side of the house and in the backyard.
As the two cops slowly choked themselves back to life and started scrambling around, trying to figure out what the fuck had happened to them, Hardie peeled away, finally beginning to understand why he’d been kept alive all this time.
God, you wily bastard. You don’t work in mysterious ways. No, your ways are pretty fucking clear right here at the end.
And it was the end; Hardie didn’t doubt that. He had been kept alive on this planet for one job, and one job only: to atone for the sins of letting an innocent family die. And how was he going to do that? By saving the lives of another innocent family.
Thanks for the clarity of mind here at the end, God. Glad to know you don’t leave us guessing forever.
Further proof that God wanted him to do something: all of the gifts.
Fun and Games ch-1 Page 20
