by Arthur Slade
“I feel regret. Sadness. I should not have done dose things I did. Dose murders. It was horrible. Dose people I killed. I am bad. I will repay the world with love.”
Oh, sweet Jesus! One moral rule my mother drilled into me was to never, ever consume a murderer who feels honest regret. And there was no way to be certain this wasn’t honest regret.
“Why would you say that?”
“That is vy I’m here on beach. To understand. To find my regret. Inner peach.”
“Peach? Oh, peace.” Crap. I was starving. And yet I couldn’t kill him.
“So sad. So sorry for bad deeds. Would cry but tear ducts were removed by ZARC.”
“Do you really feel regret?” I said.
“Yes. Yes. Yes.”
I pulled away. He got up. He was surprisingly spry for someone who’d lost so much blood. He took a few steps and paused to lean on the pool table.
“I can’t believe it vorked,” he said when he was a few steps away. He couldn’t quite hold steady from too much blood loss. And he was obviously a little delirious.
“What worked?”
“Dey said you had a moral code. So dat’s vy I said it.”
“So you don’t feel regret?”
He hemmed and hawed. “Not one big bit,” he said, somewhat proudly and deliriously.
I was on him in a flash. I left his body under the table.
3
Mysterious Headgear
Time was of the essence now, since Grigoriy’s corpse would soon be discovered. So I went directly to his cabana, looked left and right, then shoved open his door, snapping the lock. I stepped inside. It was a small room, indicating he didn’t have horribly extravagant tastes. A bed was in one corner. His suitcase on a luggage stand next to it. Everything was neat.
Then the floor creaked behind me. I spun around to find Dermot with a sheepish look on his face.
“Sorry, Amber,” he said, putting up his hands. “I forget how jumpy you can be after a feeding.”
“I may have to put a bell on you,” I said.
Actually, his shirt was louder than any bell. It was a red and purple Hawaiian number that could be spotted from the space station. Dermot had gained a few pounds in the last few months, but still looked slightly emaciated. The veins on his arms stood out enough to make him appear like he was halfway between a junkie and a weightlifter. He was as pale as a Victorian prince, a sign that he’d spent too much time staring at computer screens in battleships or underground bunkers. Whatever was in my sister’s paralytic agent was being beaten, or at least held at bay, by the cocktail of drugs and supplements and his augmentations.
Still, he continued to be somewhat handsome.
“You did well,” he said. “Though you have a red line along your neck.”
“Garrotte. Sneaky Grigoriy hid it in his hair. The bruising will heal.”
“Were you able to get anything out of him?”
“Only blood,” I said.
He nodded and we got to work searching Grigoriy’s room.
I found another book. It was Anna Karenina in the original Russian. Would wonders never cease! If I didn’t have all his blood sloshing around in my stomach, I could have had a conversation with Grigoriy about which Russian novelist was the greatest.
Well, no regrets about that. He was still a murderer extraordinaire.
We looked under Grigoriy’s bed and found three knives—sharp-looking pig stickers meant to skewer yet thin enough to hide in your sock. Obviously he couldn’t fit them in his bathing suit. I guess the garrotte in his hair was enough to make him feel safe.
Dermot had opened his suitcase on the bed.
“Five pants, seven shirts, twelve undershorts,” Dermot said. He happened to be holding the man’s undershorts at that time.
“You taking an inventory? Or wanting to try those on?”
“No and no. He was going to be here for a longer stay—they are clothes that are easy to hand-wash and hang dry. Perfect for travelling. That means he wouldn’t be reporting in for a week or two and ZARC won’t know he’s gone. That gives us a head start.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I said. It wasn’t, in fact none of those details had crossed my mind. But I didn’t want Dermie to feel he was outthinking me. He has a quiet way of gloating that I really loathe.
“But head start to where?” I said.
“That’s our biggest problem. We have no idea what information will be here. Keep looking.”
We did. In the washroom. Nothing. In the waste bin. Nothing. I even sliced up his pillow with my fingernails. Nothing. Well, there was a lot of foam.
With each passing moment I grew a little more antsy. Someone could come across Grigoriy’s body at any moment and scream bloody murder. And I had been spotted with him by one person. I also didn’t know whether the Belizean police were as, um, relaxed as their fellow citizens. Or would they descend on Placencia in helicopters and block all the exits with armored trucks. I really didn’t want to find out.
I picked up the book again and flipped through the pages.
“What are you looking for?” Dermot asked.
“Oh, a diagram. A map. A gun. Whenever I watch a movie, the spies find their clues hidden in a book. Open a page and there it is.”
“Looks like a typical paperback.”
I shook it. “Well, the binding is good at least.” My Library Binding Methods class had been one of my favorites. I loved putting old books back together. It meant another two or twenty years of knowledge coming out of the book. Take that, you fragmenting hard drives.
Dermot opened a dresser drawer we’d somehow missed and found two mysterious clues waiting there—a ski cap and a pair of leather gloves.
“Lamb skin interior with Thinsulate,” he said. “Good to -20.”
“So he came from a cold climate. Siberia?” I shivered at the thought of traveling there. I still hadn’t warmed up from my trip to Antarctica.
Dermot shrugged. “It really could be any northern climate, but this at least suggests he flew from that place directly to here.” He opened the ski cap and shook it as if he were checking it for dandruff.
A business card fluttered out and landed at my feet.
A card! How old style.
I picked it up and found an address in Uppsala, Sweden. Someone had written a phone number on the back.
Dermot took it from me, briefly touching my fingers as he did so. “Well, that’s all we have to go on.”
“It’s enough for me,” I said. “Besides, it’s a win-win. I’ve never been to Sweden.”
4
The Land of the Swedish Cook
The address on the card was in a neighborhood of Uppsala where the houses and apartment buildings were sunshiny yellow and light blue. I was reminded of Iceland. These Nordic cultures certainly weren’t shy about bright colors. There was a bravery in that. When I returned to the drab browns, metallic grays, and light greens of North America, it would be boring.
Oh, and the building at that address turned out to be an abandoned bowling alley called Latitude Dude. Bowling! I just couldn’t imagine that the same Vikings who’d climbed aboard their longships and crossed the waters to lay waste to England, France, and other countries would ever settle for bowling. But, like Icelanders, the Swedes exuded peacefulness these days. Perhaps bowling was the closest they came to being aggressive. Except for their ice hockey games.
Dermot had used his burnable phone to find our lodging on Airbnb. He’d rented a second-floor apartment with a large window that gave a nice view of the bowling alley. The place was furnished with a futon, tables, and shelves that all looked like they were straight from Ikea. The one noticeable exception was a six-foot chest freezer in the main room.
“What’s in there?” I asked.
“Dead bodies,” Dermot said, and he looked serious. But when I opened it, all I found was twenty freezer bags full of deer meat and a lot of icy build up.
“It looks like it could
hold a whole reindeer. Do you think we’re renting from hunters?”
Dermot shrugged and I closed the freezer. Poor humans! Vampire meals are always warm and no preparation is necessary.
There was also a tired, old TV in the corner—perhaps from the 80s. I turned it on and was surprised that it still worked. All I’d learned of Swedish culture was from watching reruns of the Muppet show—the Swedish Chef being one of my favorite characters. Thankfully most of the men in Sweden didn’t look like him.
The apartment had two bedrooms. Each had a single bed. And each with a side table and matching analog clocks. The duvets were orange. Cozy and clean. But the size of the beds didn’t seem like the landlords wanted any hanky-panky to happen in their premises.
Not that there would be any. That was guaranteed.
Dermot set himself an observation station next to the window—by that I mean he moved a chair over and pulled out a pair of binocular-like items and watched the building. The place was closed. No one went in or out.
I sighed. This was the boring part of being an assassin. The waiting. Plus, it was a seven-hour time difference and I was feeling it. I collapsed on the futon and put my feet up. I had digested most of Grigoriy’s blood and lost the twelve pounds I’d gained from him within the first twenty-four hours after dining. I’m sure any diet guru wishes they had that sort of weight-loss success.
I sighed again.
Dermot looked at me. “Do you want something?”
You, I almost said. But I couldn’t figure out how to say it as a joke. “I’m just wondering how you are. I’m sorry I slept so much on the flight.”
“I’m fine. How are you?”
“Jeez, you sound like a robot when you say that. I mean how are you since my sister bit you and you had that bad reaction to her paralytic agent and nearly wasted away to nothing. That’s what I’m asking. You look better now. Do you feel better?”
He set his fancy binoculars down. “Yes, Amber. I feel a lot better. The wasting is, well, on the run. If I was to put a number on it, I’d say I was back to about 60 percent of my previous health level.”
“God, you sure talk like a dweeb sometimes! Are you still convinced your fancy-dancy augmentations saved you?”
“Yes. I am.”
“You’re always a little vague about them. Exactly what happened?”
“The League altered my DNA. So my reflexes are faster. They altered my face since it had been damaged in the accident.”
“You mean when Hallgerdur, your ex-girlfriend shot you.” We’d been over this event before, and it was curious how he always called it an accident. “She did shoot you in the face, right?”
“Yes. The first shot anyway. The second was in the chest.”
“She really, really didn’t like you.”
Dermot was running his hand along his skull, as if feeling for where the bullet had hit him. There wasn’t a sign of the damage anymore. “She did have feelings for me once. But obviously those feelings changed. And the League changed me. Altered my structure. And my brain.”
“Your brain?”
“Well, part of it was gone.”
I think I’ll file that under Holy Shit!
“Don’t worry, Amber. It was only a negligible portion of brain. And the League scientists were able to grow it back. Most of it. But I lost things. Like…memories. Of my parents. Of my childhood.”
“Oh, Dermot. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” He was looking at his hands now, as if inspecting them for dirt.
“You mean it was that bad of a childhood?”
“No. I’m not sorry because I can’t remember a moment from that part of my past, so I am not able to be sorry it’s gone. It’s as if it never existed.”
“It existed. It was real,” I said. I thought of all the memories I had of my mother. Of her reading to me. Tobogganing down a hillside in North Dakota. “Either way, I’m sorry.”
“It’s partly why I want to help you find your mother. Because at least I can help you with your memories.”
I must say, I wanted to hug him. Not a feeling I often had for humans. “Do you ever want to see your parents?”
“Someday. If they’re alive that is. Yes, someday.”
I wanted to say more. But that was all I had. My energy was at a low ebb. It took all my will to stand and walk over to him and pat his shoulder. He reached up and touched my hand, then lifted the binoculars.
“You should sleep,” he said. “Assassins need their fifty winks.”
But I swear I saw a tear in his eye before it was covered by the binoculars.
I chose the closest bedroom, undressed, and threw myself under the covers. I was out within seconds. I dreamed of the Swedish Chef. A very odd dream. There was a lot of Muppet stuffing and blood in it.
When I awoke hours later, I opened my eyes and had the oddest yearning—for Dermot to be beside me. I rolled over and was face to face with a pillow. Ugh, I was getting soft.
I dressed and went out into the living room. Dermot was still sitting there, his spy glasses glued to his face.
The TV flickered with an old Clint Eastwood movie—The Hanged Man. Dermot hadn’t turned up the sound. I put my hand to my throat, which still was a little rough from the garrotte, then I moved my hand down to my heart.
Clint Eastwood always reminded me of my mother.
She was his biggest fan and had forced me to watch every movie he’d been in. As a kid I’d quote, “You’ve got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky?” and my mother would finish with, “Well, do ya, punk?” Then we’d laugh. He was our guilty pleasure.
Mom went to Clint Eastwood’s house once when we were living in California and snuck into his room and watched him sleep. All night. She left before he awoke, but not before stealing one of his white undershirts.
As I said, she was his biggest fan. She was impressed that he didn’t snore.
I shook my head, banishing the memories. I was not certain Dermot had moved in the last few hours.
“Anything happen?” I asked.
“There are five signals in there.”
“Signals?”
He held the glasses in the air. “These are heat sensitive. Five people are sitting around a table and talking. I did not see them enter from this side. Obviously we can’t watch the other side. Though they could have come from underground.”
“Male or female?”
“Four are male, judging by their size. But that’s not always for certain. One is female.”
For some reason, I thought of my sister Patty. I got an arctic chill and an odd sense of longing. Like I still wanted to talk to her.
Which was insane since last time I saw her she’d wanted to take out my reproductive system—fallopian tubes, uterus, etcetera—lock, stock, and barrel and plant them in some sort of egg-making machine they called Lilith. It wasn’t sounding like an operation I’d survive. Nor did she seem to care.
And yet when we’d talked on the ship before that, she’d been perfectly sisterly. We’d bonded.
Well, until she’d tried to kill Dermot by sucking out all his blood. And stabbed me in the hand with a spear.
Obviously, I was conflicted about dear sister Patty.
“What are you thinking about?” Dermot asked.
“Oh, nothing,” I said.
“It won’t be your sister,” he said.
Could he read my mind? Oddly, him guessing my thoughts was something my mother often did. Had I spent enough time with him that he was starting to sense how I thought?
“I know that,” I said. “She’s not with ZARC. But they do have their share of femme fatales.”
“Yes,” he said. And this time I was certain he was thinking of his ex-girlfriend—Hallgerdur of the unerring shot. That made me nervous. She could be in a building two miles away and sending a carefully aimed bullet our way. I wonder whom she’d choose? Me first, since I was tougher. I stayed out of the sight line of the window.
“Who do
you think they are?” I asked.
“Honestly, Amber. I have no idea. I am used to having reams of agent-collected data funnelled to me before any decisions are made. But I’m blind, really. The five have spoken for hours. At one point it got heated—someone was shaking a fist. But other than that, I know nothing. This could be a meeting of high level ZARC operatives or a group of teens playing Dungeons and Dragons.”
“Dungeons and Dragons?” I said.
“D&D.”
“Yes. I know what it is. But really—why would that come to your mind?”
“It’s just a suggestion. It was meant to be funny.”
I snorted. “It showed your nerdiness. It’s unseemly.”
He rolled his eyes. “Anyway, we’ll only learn more if we go inside.”
“Do we draw lots?”
He gave me an are you serious? look. His face was still pale, and honestly, he wasn’t as strong and full of bustle like he’d been when I first met him. I had this feeling if we ran a few laps he’d be winded.
“I’m kidding,” I said. “I was built for this. And I kinda like bowling. Except for the shoes. Hate those stupid shoes.”
It took several minutes to get outfitted in one of the League’s patented tactical outfits, which was basically a black synthetic suit that fit me like a second skin, hid my biorhythms and pheromones, and had a few pockets for keys, C-4 explosives, and ammo. I felt stronger in the suit. And more professional.
When I came out of the room, Dermot gave me a look I couldn’t quite read. Almost like he liked what he saw.
“Go get them,” he said, gruffly. Then spoiled it all by adding, “But be careful.”
“They’re the ones who will have to be careful.”
Then I was out the door, down the stairs, and out onto the street, moving fast as a shadow.
5
Ugly Shoes, Ugly Customers
Usually, I go in through the roof. It’s kind of a cliché for me now. I’ve climbed into prisons that way. Secret Antarctic fortresses. A McDonalds (that involved doing a bit of vent diving to surprise a mafia guy in Boston—I smelled like French fries for a week). So I decided to switch things up a bit. I walked toward the front door of the bowling alley.
“What are you doing?” Dermot squawked in my earbud.
