Severance Package

by Duane Swierczynski

“Number three’s a big guy, probably close to two hundred pounds. And that guard looked like he was at least that. Jesus, Keene—she’s hoisting over four hundred pounds of man on her shoulders. Is that even possible?”

  “Apparently not. Look.”

  The view from the glasses froze in place. Then, Ethan Goins—number three—came into view. He was being placed on a concrete step. He looked confused.

  “What’s she doing?” McCoy asked.

  “I don’t think number three knows, either.”

  Vincent heard the return squawk of Rickards’s two-way. It was directly below him.

  “Andy!” he shouted, then started down the staircase, wrenching the lead sap from his duty belt. 1919 Market didn’t arm their guards. It freaked the suits out too much. They didn’t like the idea of working in a police state.

  All he had was a sap. The weakest kind, too: flat sap with lead shot and no spring in the shank.

  No match for somebody, say, with a gun to Andy Rickards’s head.

  Molly handed Ethan the radio, hoping he’d understand. She held up an index finger. One minute. I’ll be back for you in one minute. Maybe she could get this guard stashed.

  Ethan nodded.

  Above, someone shouted, “Andy!”

  Molly continued up, guard still slung over her shoulder. She had a decision to make. It was coming down to her mother’s life, or these security guards.

  Of course, there was another way.

  It would be violating her orders. It would be putting the operation at risk—somewhat. Early on, when she had first contacted Boyfriend, she asked about operational priorities. They were given: sanctions first, experimentation second. By continuing to pursue the experimentation, she was putting the sanctions at risk.

  If they were really watching—Boyfriend and his minders—then they’d have to understand why. And they’d have to approve.

  Molly stopped midstep, then bench-pressed the guard off her shoulders and flung him down to the next landing. Her back cried out in relief. She wanted to collapse to the staircase and hoped the spasms would go away.

  But there was no time for that now. She walked back down a few steps and knelt next to Ethan, who was looking at her with wide-eyed wonder. He was probably wondering what she was doing. Wasn’t she supposed to be stashing the guard somewhere while he distracted the other guard?

  “Ethan,” she whispered. “I want you to know something.” She gently placed her hands on the sides of his head.

  Maybe she could salvage part of the experiment, after all.

  Maybe that would count as extra credit.

  A voice behind her said, “Miss, step away from that man.”

  The flat sap in his hand was useless, Vincent realized.

  Not because he was squaring off against a gun. But because it was a girl.

  A young girl.

  In a skirt and long hair and bare feet, she didn’t look more than twenty-one. Hell, Vincent’s son would be dating girls like this in a few years.

  Here she was, doting on her fallen man—and yeah, Rickards was right. The guy did have a pen sticking out of his neck. What was that about?

  But in an instant, Vincent had a pretty clear picture of what was going on. The shattered glass, Rickards’s message, these two kids, this fire tower … all of it. It was a low-budget office burglary gone wrong. Plain and simple. She probably worked here, in an office on the thirty-first floor or higher. Just a secretary, or an assistant or something. She was certainly dressed like it—skirt, blouse. Got by on a little better than minimum. Lived with her parents maybe. Dated this dopehead here—a real sweetheart no-account type. One day, Dopehead decides he needs cash to score ecstasy, or maybe finance a deal of his own, talks his young girl into helping him break into her office. Steal a few laptops, raid the petty cash, whatever. Maybe it was heavier than that. Maybe she had the combo to a safe.

  But somewhere along the way, something bad goes down. Something spooks Dopehead; he accidentally shatters a window. She freaks. They fight. He has a seizure, because he’s an X-poppin’ Dopehead. She knows enough to know she has to open an airway. She gives him a quick-and-dirty tracheotomy, saves his life. The unthankful creep makes her carry him down the fire tower steps, hoping to get away clean. They run into Rickards. She pleads for help. Rickards calls Vincent. Vincent agrees. The girl, desperate, pushes Rickards down the steps, still hoping they’ll be able to get out of this one without her parents finding out.

  And there’s Rickards now, still out cold, at the bottom of the landing.

  And here they are, Girlfriend and Dopehead, realizing they’re done for.

  “Miss,” he says in the most reassuring tone he can muster, “I really need you to step away from that guy so I can help him.”

  Detain him.

  But yeah, help him.

  Dopehead deserves jail time, but he doesn’t deserve to die.

  Molly ignored the guard, because what she had to say to Ethan was important.

  “Amy’s hanging for her life outside her office window,” she whispered. “She’s waiting for you to save her.”

  Molly pulled back slightly. She wanted the fiber-optic camera in her glasses to capture everything—his reaction, her words. Maybe it would still prove useful.

  Maybe these few seconds of video would be enough to get her back on track with Boyfriend.

  Ethan’s reaction was worth the effort. He seemed to rage against his own body. Blood seeped out of the hole in his neck, and there was a phlegmlike rattle in there. He was actually trying to talk.

  “Miss, please, step away and let me help him.”

  Molly continued, “I’ll let her know you were too busy to come up.”

  Ethan wasn’t sure if this was another dream, because none of it made sense. What made it seem like a dream was the fact that it centered around Amy. But it all felt real. His fingertips were pressing down on the smooth concrete.

  And it was the wrong woman. It was Molly here, touching him. Molly’s bare hands, touching his cheeks. Now caressing his head, her fingers sliding behind his skull, stroking his chin with her palm.

  Molly?

  Molly Lewis?

  A second before she pulled and pushed at the same time, Ethan realized this wasn’t about sex.

  It was about snapping his neck.

  The girl did exactly as Vincent asked, stepping back away from Dopehead. But something was wrong. Dopehead’s head lolled to one side. It might have been his eyes playing tricks, but Vincent thought he saw him seize his girlfriend’s hands on his face.

  “Move away,” he said. He needed to get in there, do CPR. Vincent wasn’t quite sure how you did that with a sloppy tracheotomy thrown into the mix—what, do you press your thumb down on the hole in the neck? But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try.

  The girl stood up and seemed to be moving away.

  Right until the moment she turned on Vincent. One of her hands grabbed his neck and drove him back into the cinder block wall. She squeezed hard.

  For Vincent Marella, it was the worst possible kind of déjà vu. A little over a year ago, in the Sheraton. Wide awake, knowing what was happening to him and powerless to do anything about it. His mouth open, silently screaming for air that would not come. Consciousness being stolen from him, one oxygen-deprived brain cell at a time.

  Good evening, kids, his strangler had said. He had been talking to the couple in the room. The people who had later disappeared. All because Vincent had been choked into unconsciousness, and had failed to protect them.

  And it was happening again. Not by a muscular thug, but by a young girl. A girl who looked like a mild spring breeze would blow her over.

  But her grip was steel. Vincent was already seeing gray spots dancing in his vision.

  Then he remembered the sap.

  He’d snapped it back onto his duty belt, hadn’t he?

  He had.

  Grab it. Unsnap it. Forget she’s a girl. She’s trying to kill you, Vince. Unsnap it and
get to work. Do your job, already.

  Vincent unsnapped it.

  Molly did not see it coming.

  She had been paying half attention to the security guard, waiting for the loss of oxygen to knock him out. She kept the other half of her attention on Ethan’s corpse, wondering where she could stash the body while she finished the rest of the operation. But wait; she couldn’t do that. The fire. The fire was supposed to burn up everything, including the bodies, and if he were down here, he could be discovered. Fingerprints could be lifted. And someone with enough incentive could—

  Her face felt like it exploded.

  It exploded again, this time from the opposite side. Her cheekbone shattered. Her broken camera glasses flew off her face, skittered across the concrete and down three steps, landing facedown.

  The security guard had a sap.

  The potential skull fractures didn’t worry her as much as the idea of trying to look presentable at the end of her operation. Her long hair could cover the slash trail of a bullet. It could not cover a battered face.

  A battered face would not impress her employers.

  Molly squeezed tighter. The guard twitched and then smashed the sap down on her forearm, numbing it instantly from the wrist to the shoulder. But she refused to let go. Molly tried to snatch his weapon from him, but the lead cracked her knuckles.

  Then he brought it up again at her face, savagely. Her lips burst. A tooth shattered in her mouth.

  She squeezed even tighter, careful not to kill him. Even though she wanted to. But security guards weren’t part of the operation; such a sanction would be seen as sloppy.

  Oh, but the urge was strong. She hadn’t felt this kind of bloodlust since …

  Since 1996.

  The Olympic Games.

  The bitter sting of loss.

  Molly Lewis—whose birth name was not Molly Kaye Finnerty, but Ania Kuczun—tried to resist her basest instincts and stick to the operation.

  Ania Kuczun not only would have crushed this man’s windpipe in a matter of seconds. She would have severed and mailed his head, in a plastic-lined box, to the man’s family. She would have researched and found the person who cared about him the most. She would have sent it cash on delivery.

  Ania Kuczun had spent many years trying to become Molly Lewis.

  She couldn’t give it up now, when it mattered the most.

  The life of Helen Kuczun depended on it.

  Thirty-five hundred miles away, the monitor showed nothing but an extreme close-up of a concrete slab. Then, gray static.

  “What’s going on?” McCoy barked. He slapped the side of the table, as if that would do something.

  “I’m trying another camera.”

  “Damn it! Tap into building security. You can do that, can’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not a tech guy.”

  “Get a tech guy!” McCoy caught himself. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” Keene said, “but I’m not finding anything. What we have are access codes to the cameras on the thirty-sixth floor and not much beyond. Guess we never thought we’d need anything else.”

  McCoy cursed.

  Vincent Marella felt his skin burst with sweat and his muscles start to flutter. He assumed this was it. In his last conscious moment he thought about his boy, and all his wild conspiracy theories. If he could be with him one last time, Vincent would place his hands on the boy’s shoulders—which he remembered his own father doing to him, when it was about something important. And Vincent would tell him: You were right. The deck is stacked against the common man, and God bless you for asking the right questions. Keep asking them as long as you can.

  Then Vincent was out.

  Molly, Ania, Girlfriend. She answered to them all.

  But as the guard fell to the floor, she took a few steps back, and she heard one name the loudest: Victim.

  She felt like a victim, once again. No matter the personae she created. No matter how hard she trained. No matter how many things she learned. At her very core was the word imprinted on her DNA: Victim.

  Bruised.

  Battered.

  With another busted lip. Swallowing her own blood. Feeling it burn a hole in the lining of her stomach.

  Stop it. Take stock of yourself.

  Ania rested on the lower step, next to Ethan’s body. Her tongue found another shard of tooth; she pulled it loose with her tongue, sucked the blood from around it, then spit it at the wall. It bounced from the cinder block and landed on the guard’s chest. There you go. A souvenir.

  From Ania.

  Forget Victim; she could reclaim her birth name now. Molly Lewis was dead. She was dead the moment she poisoned her husband, mixing the potato salad while he slept. And “Girlfriend”? After this grievous setback, she wasn’t sure the name still applied.

  Ania Kuczun lives.

  EARLY LUNCH!

  You can’t get a pay raise when you’re angry. People will react to the negative energy and will resist you.

  —STUART WILDE

  Thirty-five hundred miles away, McCoy walked away from the monitors and opened the fridge. It was an American-style fridge—oversized, with a ridiculously large freezer. Neither McCoy nor Keene had ever frozen anything. It contained one item: ice cubes. McCoy scooped some out now and put them in a rocks glass, then filled it with single-malt Scotch. He put the glass to his mouth and drank steadily, as if consuming a sports drink.

  In the living room, Keene stared at his partner. He hated seeing him disappointed.

  Keene wanted to go over to him now, try to untangle the tight knots of muscles in his back and shoulders. That was where the stress hit him.

  But Keene knew better, from experience. Best to leave the man alone.

  “I’m going out for a bit,” he said. McCoy didn’t seem to hear him. He was busy pouring himself another Scotch.

  How about you drink a Scot instead? Keene had once said, in a light moment.

  Now was not the time for that.

  Keene took his valise with laptop and cell, along with notepad and paper. He could work on some of the Dubai operation in a secluded booth at the pub just as well as he could in the apartment. He didn’t need to start surveillance for another hour and a half.

  The barman nodded to him, brought him a bag of crisps and an ice-cold orange juice. Keene was probably the only Scot within ten miles who didn’t touch alcohol or red meat. He liked to keep his mind clear, his body lean. When he first started in his line of work, back when he had another name, he told himself that the drink was necessary; it kept the darkness contained in a lockbox. Slowly, he realized that the alcohol only strengthened the darkness—emboldened it. Eventually, the alcohol locked him inside the box, along with the darkness. He didn’t need that again.

  When Keene first met McCoy, it had boggled the man’s mind.

  “You’re a Scot? And you don’t even drink beer?”

  Keene shrugged.

  “So much for a drunken shag,” McCoy had said.

  Their relationship was a complicated one.

  Keene tried to work on some of the trickier details of Dubai, but his mind kept wandering out the pub door, down the block, and four flights up. To McCoy, and his “Girlfriend.” He wondered idly: Why did he pick that code name?

  What puzzled him the most, however, was the former operative known as David Murphy.

  McCoy had told Keene about him some time ago; Murphy was famous for stopping a 9/11-style plot a full two years before the original 9/11. Clinton was still in the White House; the United States was still reeling from Columbine. The plan was a hybrid: suicide bombers in twelve American cities, armed to the teeth, with bombs jacked into pulse-checking wristwatches. The bombers were told to choose the most crowded location. Reveal weapons—preferably assault rifles. (The jihadists had been paying careful attention to Columbine.) Take out as many people as you can, stopping only to reload. When law enforcement or armed civilians come to take you down, rejoice in Allah, fo
r the watch will tell the bomb your pulse has stopped, and the bomb will do its job on the police and emergency technicians.

  Anyway, Murphy caught wind of it through an informant, arrested one would-be bomber, then extracted the entire plot—along with names and addresses—through a method of interrogation that still had not been revealed.

  In uncovering the plot, Murphy erased many, many sins.

  After 9/11, Murphy had joined an organization without a name. Some wags called it “CI-6.” This was a joke—a mutant blend of CIA and MI-6. Neither intelligence organization had anything to do with it, or knew much about it beyond rumor. CI-6 was another beast entirely. The blackest pocket of the blackest bag—in no visible way was it attached to any official budget line of any government.

  The way Keene had heard it, CI-6 had started as a joke in the crowded upstairs bar at Madam’s Organ on Eighteenth Street in Washington, D.C.

  The more the story was retold, the more the details were simultaneously obscured and embellished. One current version had it that the whole thing started as a bet, much like the Vietnam War. But this much was certain: a person of political influence met up with a person of lobbying influence, had way too many pints of Pabst Blue Ribbon one night—hell, it was a blues bar, what were you supposed to do, sip Johnnie Walker Black among the civilians?—and started talking about what to do about all these goddamn terrorists. Though in the smoky haze, the word was pronounced terrizz. As in, We gotta stop the got-damn terrizz.

  On a car ride to a houseboat party on the Potomac, a loose plan was formed. Secret financing secured. Types of operations determined.

  “It’ll be like the CIA and MI-6 got drunk and went to bed together, then didn’t tell anybody the next day.”

  Hence, CI-6.

  Pickle your brain in enough Pabst, it’ll seem funny to you, too.

  There was no official name for the covert offspring of that drunken evening.

  Those parents weren’t around to see their child take its first step; the political fixer found himself caught up in a Capitol Hill scandal soon after and was drummed out of the city posthaste. The lobbyist, too, was caught in the vacuum pull of the tidal pool. But other men were in place to handle the birth, education, and development of this fledgling life-form. The baby grew fast.