Aren't we being a little paranoid?
The doorbell rang. Figuring most hired killers wouldn't drive up before dark and knock, Burke opened the sliding glass door and went into the living room. He tucked the .22 into the back of his pants and pulled the sweatshirt down to cover it. After a few silent steps across the room and a peek through the eyehole in the door, his jaw dropped. He opened the door without thinking.
"May I come in for a moment?"
"Uh, certainly Professor."
Dr. Mohandas Hasari Pal entered the room. Standing behind him on the porch was the unobtrusive butler, Mr. Nandi. Burke, expression pleasant, slid his hand around the sweatshirt to touch the gun. "Mr. Nandi?"
"My servant will wait on the porch, if that is acceptable."
"All right."
Burke closed the door gently, let the gun go as he turned to face Indira's husband. Mo Pal had a manila folder under one arm. He was dressed impeccably, as usual, in a perfectly tailored gray suit and a black silk shirt with no collar. The effect made his shaved head and severe countenance all the more imposing.
"I hope I am not intruding, Mr. Burke. I need a few moments of your time."
Say something, idiot. "Can I offer you a drink?"
"No, thank you." Pal held himself tightly, barely containing nuclear emotion. "I will try to be brief. I suspect you know why I have come here."
Oh, Jesus. Face a blank. "Not really, sir. Is it about my visit the other evening? Have you thought of something else you wanted to tell me about Peter Stryker?"
Pal, clutching the manila folder like a flotation device, strolled deeper into the sparsely furnished living room with the air of Patton on parade. Facing the plate glass door and the back yard, he cleared his throat. "One of the advantages to shaving your head is that no one notices when you begin chemotherapy, Mr. Burke. I have come here to tell you two things. The first thing is that I am dying." His large fingers snare-drummed the folder. "This is a Xerox of my medical file, should you wish to establish the veracity of that statement."
"I-I'm sorry to hear that."
Pal turned with a smile thin as a dime. "Not half as sorry as I am, I assure you. In any event, it is a highly aggressive form of bowel cancer. I have been given a reprieve by the final round of chemo, probably only a few more months. I intend to make good use of that time, Mr. Burke. I intend to spend it with those who mean the most to me." Pal moved closer. His eyes bored black holes. "And that brings me to the second thing."
"Which is?"
"Don't play me for a fool, Mr. Burke. I'm here to ask you to stay away from my wife."
Burke wobbled, dumbstruck. His face turned pale but then flushed. His gut churned with self-loathing and remorse.
"Indira may appear to be a sophisticated woman, but at heart she is still an ignorant savage from a dusty little town in India." Pal abruptly hugged himself, as if cold. He closed his eyes before resuming. "She cannot think properly, and has seen little of the real world. This, I fear, is a failing on my part. You must understand that she is a weak person, Mr. Burke. Do not take advantage of her, I beg you. Or, frankly, of me. Respect our marriage."
Burke tried. "Wait a minute, Mo. I don't know what you're talking about, here. Indira and I are only friends." The protestation sounded jeeringly feeble. He couldn't maintain the façade, caved and looked down.
Pal shoved the folder into his hands. "You can keep this or shred it, that's entirely up to you. I have also told my oncologist that you may call and that if you choose to do so, he is to answer any questions you may have."
Burke glanced briefly the file. It appeared genuine. He was not reading, just stalling for time, and wondering how much, if anything, Indira had elected to share with her husband. Did he know for certain, or was he merely probing?
Pal paced the room. "I don't know that there is any more I can do, frankly. I came here hoping I would be able to reach you, man to man."
Burke decided, closed the file. "You have."
"I see." Pal watched the shadowed garden. Outside, a shiny black crow picked at a dead insect. "Or perhaps this can all be settled for a sum of money?"
Burke dropped the file on the coffee table, gunshot loud. "Go ahead, insult me. I suppose you're entitled."
"May I assume you did not know I was ill?"
"You may."
Pal hitched up his trousers, perched gingerly on the couch, crossed long legs. The calf and ankle seemed shockingly white, belly tissue of a gutted fish. There were some small, discolored patches on the flesh of the lower muscle, like purple nickels and quarters. "Indira does not wish to dwell on that fact," he whispered, mournfully. "It upsets her. She often acts as if she were in a full state of denial, as if nothing whatsoever had changed in our lives."
Burke moved to the easy chair, parked opposite Pal. He leaned forward and clasped his calloused hands. "But something has."
Pal smiled, ruefully. "Oh, most definitely. You know, the most amazing thing about dying is how . . . physical an experience it is. Those of us who have spent decades in academia researching and reading, studying mythology, folklore, and religion as they pertain to death come to think of it as an abstract, metaphysical thing; more of a construct, or an idea, than a fact."
"And it's not."
"Oh, no. It is most certainly not." Pal's eyes burned tiger bright. "When Kali strikes your bones, it is a most grounding thing. The body fails in the most elemental of functions. The soul feels defeated and degraded. All of the abstract concepts turn to dust and blow away."
Burke squirmed. "Are you sure I can't offer you a drink, Professor?"
"Perhaps a little water, then."
Burke sprang to his feet, relieved to have an assignment. He escaped into the kitchen. "Do you mind talking about this?"
"Not at this point," Pal replied. He was up and roaming the living room, condemned man pacing the cell. "What's done is done."
Burke poured some ice water at the cooler. His mind, eager to escape the awkward situation, wandered off on a tangent: why was it that Los Angeles had a public water and power company, paid exorbitant fees for service, yet no one who could afford it ever drank from the tap? He carried the glass back to Pal. "Here you go."
Pal gulped with a Legionnaire's greed and spilled one teardrop-shaped watermark on his coat. "As I said, the final thing I came here to discuss is that I want you to leave my wife alone. At least until I am dead and gone. Do you understand clearly, Mr. Burke?"
"Oh, I understand you, sir. But in the end, doesn't Indira have as much to say about that as either one of us?"
"In a perfect world, perhaps she would." Pal pressed his advantage. "I know you had an affair with her many years ago. I realize there may still be strong feelings between you."
"I won't lie to you. There are."
"But now I am begging you. Please stop seeing her."
Burke stiffened from an intense vision: just pulling the .22, whirling around and drilling Pal through the forehead. The violent idea sprang from nowhere and momentarily seemed to have merit. Cary would probably cover him and dispose of the body. Of course then he'd have to do Mr. Nandi, too, but hell, Indira would never have to know what happened. The fantasy was so sharp and crisp Burke came close to acting it out.
"You have nothing to say to me, sir?"
Burke shuddered. "Professor, I will think about what you have told me."
"Thank you."
Pal rose up—the preacher ends the sermon. He adjusted the expensive suit and tie, walked briskly to the front door. The action left Burke behind, subordinate. He remained seated, feeling an odd mixture of guilt, resentment, and fear. Pal opened the front door. The dapper Mr. Nandi leapt at once to attend. Pal hesitated, with the eye lightening of someone who just remembered a long-lost joke. "The cause of suffering is desire, yes?" His tone was sweet, the meta-message corrosive. "If you can find it in you, please try to have the decency to allow an old man to die in peace."
Mohandas Pal left. Nandi gently closed the d
oor. Their exit seems to suck all the air out of the living room.
FORTY-FIVE
Later, Burke would have no idea how long he'd sat alone, impaled by the consequences of his behavior, writhing in exquisite shame. The shadows lengthened over the area rug and somewhere down the hall a timer lamp kicked on. The light reflected on the hardwood flooring, like a yellow flare over a darkening sea. Burke began to mourn, small sobs at first. Finally, he slapped his own face. He had betrayed Mary in her endless, sleepless sleep and disgraced himself by interfering in the Pal's marriage a second, even more damaging time. Burke felt beneath contempt.
Well, what do I do now?
Fifteen, perhaps twenty minutes later than that someone knocked. Burke palmed the .22 and padded to the door, more afraid of a return visit from Professor Pal than a hired gun. He peeked out and saw a man in a brown delivery uniform under the glare of the porch light; he was tall, slight, and blond with a thick moustache. The driver was holding a small, manila folder-sized package.
Burke opened the door, shaking his head. "Bro, what the hell are you doing? I think you need to get some professional help."
"Don't start," Major Cary Ryan muttered, as pushed his way into the room. "Do you ever turn any lights on around here?"
"I was thinking."
"About what? Your recent visitor?" Burke blinked, wondering how much he should say. Ryan went on without a break. "I was down the street in the delivery truck when I saw the little fart on the porch. Then I watched the bald guy leave. Who is he?"
"An old professor of mine," Burke replied. He clicked the table lamp, brightened shadows. Ryan seemed ridiculous in short pants. His fake moustache looked exactly like a fake moustache. "Cary, what are you doing here?"
Cary sat on the couch with the package in his lap, noisily unwrapped. "This couldn't wait for me to run an ad or fuck around with the usual stuff, and I didn't want to say anything over the phone."
Burke turned with spread palms. He couldn't guarantee his own home wasn't bugged.
"No, you can relax," Cary said, offering a slightly apologetic smile. "I had your house swept earlier today."
"Thanks for asking." Burke parked in the easy chair. He was not annoyed. It would be good to have something to distract him from the awful sense of anguish Pal had left behind him like the fluttering tail of a kite.
Cary finished unwrapping the UPS box and removed some files. He spread several photographs on the table like a bad poker hand.
Burke spun one around, right-side up. "You already showed me these the other day. The Gamma shots from the Predator drone, right?"
"Los Gatos, northern Mexico. But look at the date stamp."
Burke squinted. "Last night."
"And now look at these UV prints."
Burke thumbed through the aerial photographs. In some, small crimson clusters dotted the landscape like sloppy flower arrangements. The shots were taken every ninety seconds over a nine minute period. "Is this what I think it is?"
Cary removed the fake moustache and rubbed his red upper lip. Burke noted his face looked wan from lack of sleep. "We sent in Steve Lukac and a short team. He picked that new kid, Charlie Carney, also Del Howison and Kevin Kramer. We jammed radar, did a fake drug flight and took them in low over the border from Texas. The chopper dropped them a half-mile downwind of Los Gatos. The insertion went perfectly."
Burke remained silent. He liked Steve Lukac and served with him for a time. It is suddenly, chillingly obvious what happened. A fire fight.
Cary spoke in a monotone that belied his tension. "You know this has never happened to me before, Red. Not in fourteen years of service. I have seldom lost a man, much less an entire team."
Burke blanched. "The whole team?" He looked down at the UV scan again, those scattered little splatters of light. "So this was a running gun battle, those are muzzle flares and explosions."
"Yes."
"The team is presumed dead."
"As near as we can tell, Howison and Kramer bought it right away. Charlie Carney and Steve Lukac got pinned down. They were badly outnumbered, but did their best to make the LZ. They never got there. One of them was killed, the other captured. We don't know which."
Burke felt stunned. "Caught and questioned by a freak drug lord like Buey? You know what they're going to do to him, don't you?"
Cary swallowed. "The last DEA agent he got his hands on ended up flayed from the crotch to the shoulders and then buried alive. We know because they found dirt in his lungs."
"Jesus H. Christ."
Burke and his former boss glared at the pictures. Finally Burke got to his feet and stumbled toward the kitchen. "I need some coffee. You want a cup?"
Cary Ryan stayed behind. His body sagged so deeply into the couch he looked physically diminished. "Sure. Just black for me."
Burke understood why Ryan had come. He wanted time to think it over. Cary stacked the UV photos again, shuffled them just to have something to do. He heard the gurgling of the coffee machine. Burke came back into the living room, sat down.
"What's the rest of it, Cary?"
Ryan removed more photographs from the folder. He slid them over. "These photos are from the day before. That area we suspect may be a mass grave just got larger. At least one other object about the size of a grown man's body was added to the pile."
"You're thinking that the agent that survived, Lukac or maybe Carney, is likely to be next. Let's get real. He's probably already dead. You know that, don't you?"
"Maybe, maybe not."
"And the kind of torture a prick like Lopez uses would break any man down. They know everything about your operation, now. And why you sent a team into Mexico."
Cary shrugged, miserably. "Worse case scenario, Buey knows what Lukac knew. And Steve didn't know where the headquarters would be moved to this month, or what the new codes would be, because we never told him. If it was Carney that lived, he knew even less. I'm not that worried."
"Then why come here?"
Cary Ryan tapped the photographs with a stiffened ring finger. "Because this fucker is toast, brother. I want him punished for what he did to my boys."
"You want me to enter a foreign country illegally and off the record? Sure, what the hell. But drop into a drug lord's compound right after he's already slaughtered a solid, professional team? You're out of your mind."
"I want someone good and you're the best we've got."
"I'm the best you had, Cary. There's a difference. I'm just a contract guy, now. I pick and choose. And this one looks like a suicide run."
Ryan leaned back into the swallowing couch. "I'll double your fee."
"Still not interested." Burke's stomach clenched and his self-esteem took another swan dive.
"You and Steve were friends, Red. I know you well enough to know that this gets to you."
From down the hall, a wall clock ticked inexorably forward. Neither man spoke. Burke sat quietly, weighing his obligations and the varied challenges piling up. He had a wife in a coma, a former lover who was married to a dying man, a mountain of outrageous medical bills, a client who had just been assaulted by a professional for mysterious reasons, and a suicide that rapidly morphed into a murder investigation. These days, everything he touched seemed to rapidly spiral out of control. Fecal alchemy, man.
"I need to mull this over," Burke said, finally. He drained the coffee mug. He put it down on the table. End of discussion.
"You'll at least think about it?"
"I will. You had my home swept?" He waited for Cary to catch on and nod. "Okay. If I understand you correctly, officially you want a fresh team to go in there and see what's up and also investigate the long shot that our boy may still be alive."
"Yeah."
"But unofficially you want my team to go in there, find those miserable cock suckers and level the place when we leave."
Cary Ryan leaned forward to rest his knuckles on the coffee table like a challenged simian. "Off the record?"
"Off the
record."
"No cute euphemisms necessary, Red. I want Juan Garcia Lopez taken out, terminated, wasted. I want you to find Buey, and the rest of the lowlifes who killed my boys and blow up their shit."
Burke responded quietly, firmly. "I don't do hits, you know that."
Ryan shrugged. "Come on, Red. If you take this job, you know as well as I do how this is going to go down. It will be scorched earth, baby. Buey and his boys won't let you do it any other way."
"Cary, this isn't like you. What is it you're not telling me?"
"Nothing."
Eye to eye for a long beat. Ryan broke first. "There's a lot of heat. The Mexican government is a little pissed off, and our own guys upstairs are less than thrilled about things getting botched. Even Homeland Security is pissed because we didn't fill them in."
"You're in hot water."
"Let me put it this way, a lot of folks would prefer I let this slide. But I can't do that. I'm not willing to, okay?"
"I understand."
"But?"
Burke rubbed his knuckles. "Cary, I've got a lot on my mind right now."
"Does that mean you're not up to working? If you are going to take this on, I need you at the top of your game. I have my neck right on the chopping block. I need you cool as ice, man. It's too hairy otherwise."
Burke stared into the middle distance, hearing long-ago battles in deep mental echo. "What about Walker, can you use him instead?"
Cary seems to deflate. "If I have to, sure. But I was hoping you'd see this my way. Why don't you think it over and then get back in touch?"
"No, I can give you my answer right now." Burke ceased debating, grimaced. "I don't want to pass on this, I really don't, but I have to. I'm sorry."
FORTY-SIX
FRIDAY
The tinny, impersonal voice comes from the computer speakers, but somehow manages to sound smug anyway. "Check."
"Damn!"
Doc Washington slaps his hand down on the keyboard in frustration. He rolls his wheelchair back; stretches his arms, rolls his neck. Needles of pain are starting to tingle all over his shattered body, particularly down his neck and upper spine. Doc looks around the office and is surprised to find it empty. He has been playing chess alone for several hours and is being roundly trounced by the advanced level of the computer program.
The Pressure of Darkness Page 25
