by Larry Hoy
The sound of leather against steel came from off camera, then the barrel of a gun appeared beside the head of the bound man. Bin Laden whimpered and tried to move his head away.
“Rahmatan min fadlka!” Mercy please!
“We’ll give you the same mercy you showed those people in the Twin Towers.”
The gunshot echoed through the movie theater speakers. The opposite side of bin Laden’s head blew out like a tornado hitting a mobile home. The force of the bullet knocked him over.
The theater on base exploded in cheers, drowning out the live feed. All the Marines were on their feet, shaking the seats in front of them, stomping their feet, and pushing each other on the back with such force that only other Marines could remain standing.
The entire country became one, giant block party. Luther celebrated the LifeEnders’ victory through the night and well into the next morning. The next day, those who were eligible put in their separation paperwork. They had seen the new American heroes, those who didn’t ask permission to avenge the country—they just did it—and a huge percentage of eligible service members wanted to join the mercenary group.
Sweetwater pulled the drapes closed and took care to overlap them so no light could leak into the darkened hotel room, which also had the effect of muffling traffic noise. Then he filled the sink with ice and dropped a few cubes in a plastic cup. Usually, this was when he did a light workout before dinner. Being small of frame and stature, he packed on as much lean muscle as his body could take and still maintain his agility. But tonight was different. Now, he needed to drink.
The new contract lay on the bed. Seeing it twisted his gut in knots, while dread filled him over what he might find there. Before watching Cooper die, the idea of being a licensed Shooter had meant big paydays, fast cars, and faster women; a lifestyle he’d always dreamed of but never thought could happen. Now he understood what death really meant, that he would be taking away everything a person had, or ever would have, whether they deserved it or not.
Instinct told him the new contract would be a bad deal, and that concerned him most of all. Assassins couldn’t have qualms about killing people; it was the entire job description, and yet here he was.
Cracking open the cheap whiskey, he threw the plastic cap across the room, as if acknowledging he wouldn’t be resealing the bottle. He half-filled a glass of yellow-brown liquid, hoping it would help him sleep through the night. Every time he closed his eyes, Sweetwater saw Robert Cooper bleeding out while half-pinned under the busted-up Chevy, like some afterimage you get from staring at the sun too long.
Flopping onto the bed, he rolled onto his back and opened his eyes, but Cooper’s image didn’t go away. Instead, the dead man stood beside the bed, bent over so his pale face could study Sweetwater with a quizzical expression.
“So, is that glass half full or half empty?” the hallucination, or the ghost, asked.
Blinking, Sweetwater rolled onto his side, drained the glass without coming up for air, and refilled the cup until whiskey spilled onto the table.
“Fuck you, Cooper, go away,” he said. “You’re not real. You’re at the coroners right now, getting your fluids drained down a steel sink. Your problems are over now. Leave me alone.” He choked down half the glass in one long pull. The full glass hadn’t bothered him, but the second one felt like he’d swallowed acid as the whiskey ate its way down to his stomach. He put the glass down, sat up in bed, and then doubled over as he coughed from the cheap booze, rasping “smooth” between gags. When he could breathe again, he threw the rest of the booze back and fought to keep it down.
Cooper stood up and laughed. “I think we both know that’s not going to happen.” Then he vanished.
Sweetwater covered his eyes with his forearm. This wasn’t going the way he’d imagined.
Night fell as the day’s events replayed over and over in his mind. When he uncovered his eyes, the darkness startled him. Weren’t ghosts more likely to show up in the dark?
Instead of turning on the lights, Sweetwater got up and pulled back the curtains, allowing the window to frame the glow of downtown Dallas at night. He sat on the bed, forearms on his thighs. He felt beads of moisture run down the outside of the plastic cup and drip onto his pants, leaving a wet spot that eventually brought him out of his reverie. He shook his head to clear it, and the brownish liquid called out to him. Sweetwater tipped the cup back again, and again, and again. Each slug went down a little easier and went from burning his throat like Drain-O to being smooth as the finest Irish whiskey.
His head a bit wobbly, he opened the manila envelope to study the contract, but first he sipped the last of the watery whiskey, crunched the last ice cube, and stumbled to the sink to get more. He was stalling.
He knew he’d had more than enough but tipped the bottle into the plastic cup anyway. Once the cup was full of booze and ice, he was out of excuses to stall. Like yanking a bandage off a cut, he ripped out the single sheet of paper.
The target’s picture was in the upper right corner, an image of a young woman in her early thirties: Grace Allen Tarbeau. Her mouth was twisted in an off-center smile as she posed for the camera. Taken in a rural setting, she had some silly polka-dot top hat on her head. Under the hat brim, curly red hair poured out. A few freckles sprinkled her nose. Everything framed her emerald green eyes. She was gorgeous.
Yet Sweetwater saw something else there, too, although he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Sadness touched her eyes in a way he’d never seen before, and her smile seemed more determined than happy. A feeling told him this woman had seen bad times.
Leaping from the bed, he dropped the paper and ran for the toilet. He made it to the bathroom, but not all the way to the crapper, and threw up the whiskey along with chunks of the meatball sub he’d eaten for dinner. Heaving, he looked up to see Cooper’s ghost sitting on the edge of the bathtub, leaning his elbow against the sink, holding his face in his palm. His skin had a light gray tone.
“You really going to off the girl? I got twenty bucks says you don’t.”
“Why do you sound like a 1930’s movie gangster?”
He leaned back and shrugged. “Why are you asking me?” Using his left index finger, he touched his temple and then pointed at Sweetwater. “I’m a figment of your imagination.”
“Are you?”
“Oh, you believe in ghosts! Is that what you think I am?”
“I don’t know. Hell, I don’t care, just go away!”
“Make me.”
That brought another round of retching, followed by dry heaves. Once Luther’s stomach finally calmed a little, he crawled on all fours to where he’d left the bottle, took a swig to rinse out the taste of vomit, and spit it into the sink.
“The answer’s not in that bottle, Two-Bit,” Cooper said. “It’s between your ears.”
“How did you know my nickname?”
“C’mon Luther, you’re a smart guy, so quit playing dumbass.”
“Fuck you. You’re dead.”
“And you didn’t do it, which means there’s still time to save yourself.”
“Shouldn’t you have started rotting by now?”
“Did you go blind, too? I have.” Cooper shook his head, and little bits of skin flew off. Then he rose and started to walk through the bathroom wall. He paused and glared at Luther. “Think first, think again.” It was a twist on the unofficial motto of those with a license to kill, “Shoot first, shoot again.”
With a wave, Cooper disappeared into the wall. Sweetwater pushed himself very carefully to his feet, and then, somehow, made it back to the bed, using his hands to move along the wall. Staring at the ceiling as the room swam around him, he lay there for hours waiting to pass out.
He awoke to a wet pillow and dried tears crusting his eyes.
Chapter 6
Downtown Dallas, TX
The angle of the early morning sun blazed like a high-powered laser through the hotel room window, and it was aimed right at Swe
etwater’s eyes. Covering his head with a pillow didn’t help. The sun was out there, and his eyes were not happy about it.
A cough brought enough spit into his mouth to allow him to taste cotton and sour vomit. Months had passed since he last had such a bad hangover, with pain lancing his brain at even the slightest movement. He could only move one body part at a time, and then only slowly. The process took nearly three minutes, starting with his left leg first, over the side of the bed, then the right leg. Sit up sideways and, finally, a stop to gasp for breath. The carpet felt wet under his feet and reeked of something stale and foul, but he was afraid to know why. The only thing he knew for sure was that LEI would be charged extra for damage to the room. Locking both legs against the edge of the bed, he scooted his butt until he nearly fell off and, with a deep breath, pushed to his feet.
Sweetwater had expected pain, but not like what came next. It was as if somebody had stabbed his head with an ice pick. The muscles of his shoulders spasmed and he almost gave up and went back to bed. He passed the window and a caught a sunbeam. The sunlight laser was back. He winced from the pain of the light searing through his closed eyelids and hitting the burned-out embers that used to be his eyes. The laser kept driving and blasted out the back of his skull, cauterizing everything along the way.
With his eyes closed tight, he waved his arm around like a blind man. He just happened to catch the back of a chair and waited for the world to stop its roll, or at least for the corkscrew to slow down. He leaned over the back of the chair, grabbed the armrests, and used it like a walker to shuffle to the bathroom. The merciful God above had protected most of the ice in the sink, and with the stopper closed, the part that had melted was still pretty cold. After opening the tap and filling it to the brim, Sweetwater plunged his head in as deeply as it could go, spilling water over the counter and onto the floor.
The cold water muted some of the pain and all but extinguished the burning fire in his eyeballs. A second plunge lasted longer, until he couldn’t hold his breath a second more. After diminishing the pain, Sweetwater found he could walk, sort of, and choked down everything left in the whiskey bottle, maybe two fingers, letting the alcohol burn out the leftover taste from the night before.
He returned to the sink and dipped his head again. The whiskey didn’t stay in his stomach long enough to be absorbed. Since his employer was paying for his meals, Sweetwater ordered pancakes, orange juice, a carafe of coffee, a bottle of ibuprofen, and a pitcher of ice water from room service. Bacon came with the order, but he didn’t think that was a good idea until the pancakes settled his stomach, then he wolfed down all three slices. Thirty minutes after breakfast, he felt human enough to re-enter the world.
After showering and brushing his teeth, it was after two when he finally called the LEI offices and asked for Ms. Witherbot.
A single ring and the clipped British accent spoke and gave him a different kind of headache. “Good afternoon, PS4213. What can I do for you this fine day?” Sarcasm dripped from the receiver.
“You knew it was me?” It was a stupid thing to say, but his brain function hadn’t passed 50 percent yet, maybe less.
“Caller ID is a wonderful invention; I’m surprised that you haven’t noticed it in the last twenty or so years.”
“I just want to confirm the contract you gave me yesterday.”
“Is there a problem?”
“It’s just not what I was expecting.”
“Oh? How so?”
“She’s a girl.”
“A female, yes. Were you expecting Hitler? Thirty-five percent of our contracts target females. Your introductory packet specifically indicated that we are gender-neutral on accepting and authorizing contracts. To do otherwise violates federal discrimination laws. So, as long as it complies with ancillary government regulations specific to our industry, we accept it. If you cannot accept those conditions, then this is the wrong line of work for you.”
“She can’t be thirty years old.”
“Actually, she is thirty-two. Did you even read the contract?”
“I skimmed it…and yeah, I remember now. Thirty-two.”
“You barely got past the picture,” said a third voice. “You saw her tits and forgot everything else.”
It was Cooper, sitting on the other bed smoking a cigarette. He had taken on a weird blue pallor.
Sweetwater tried to ignore him.
“If there is a problem,” the British Bitch went on, “I’ll withdraw your application. No muss, no fuss about it. I will assign this target to the next Probationary Shooter. You go back to your old life and never contact us again.”
Cooper laughed. “Old life, ha! You didn’t have one.” Smoke trickled from his nostrils.
“There’s no problem, ma’am. I just wanted to confirm.”
“I confirm the target, Grace Allen Tarbeau. Also, just in case you have not completed reading the contract, the requested time limit on this contract is tonight. The request comes with a bonus clause the company would very much like to collect. You must be on site, but we’ll have a cover identity ready for you.”
“Tonight?” Fuck! She said nothing more, waiting him out. “I didn’t seen that.” More silence. “I’ll be ready. Thank you.” There was a click and the line went dead. He heard a faint echo…was his phone tapped? What a stupid question; of course it was.
Sweetwater’s hand trembled as he reached for the contract. “It’s just the whiskey shakes,” he told Cooper as he started to read.
The dead man’s laugh echoed as if from the crypt. “Sure it is, and cigarettes are gonna kill me.” He rolled backward as he laughed at his own joke, and then sank out of sight into the bed.
Chapter 7
Downtown Dallas, TX
The sun was still a couple hours from setting when Sweetwater took an elevator to the top of the Renaissance Tower, one of the tallest skyscrapers in Dallas, feeling remarkably decent, testimony to the amazing results that an overdose of pain meds can have on a hangover. A brass plate in the building lobby said the building was 720 feet tall. That made for a long elevator ride. The numbers on the floor display continued to climb.
His stomach gurgled as the drugs melted into his system. The pancakes were long since digested, and he was craving something sweet, like a big slice of cake or a brownie, but it was too late for that now. It was time to get on with the job. The elevator doors opened with a ding, and he was in a small room. The glass wall opposite the elevator revealed more of the Dallas skyline than he’d ever seen before.
As soon as he stepped out, a balding man in a white suit coat grabbed his arm. The head waiter, or maybe the organizer, Sweetwater couldn’t decide which, because he looked like an undertaker rather than a guy who made sure the flowers were just so or everybody got enough food and drink. According to the British Bitch, this cadaverous guy would provide his cover story.
“You’re late,” the man said, looking down his nose. His long white tuxedo coat looked like a movie prop, emphasized by the matching white tie. All that white made him look like a funeral director in Heaven.
“They told me to expect you here at six; it is now twenty after.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, I couldn’t find a place to park.” The guy’s attitude reminded Sweetwater of a fast-food manager he’d worked for, the kind who always harassed you over meaningless bullshit just because he could. He gave him a nickname, the way he did everybody he met…the Skeleton.
“Excuses are worthless. Remember, if you are early, then you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late. If you’re late, well, that is just unacceptable.”
“I’ll try to remember that in the future.”
The man was at least six feet tall, but he couldn’t have weighed over a hundred and twenty-five pounds, a walking skeleton with sunken eyes and a long, bony nose. Sweetwater was half a foot shorter but forty pounds heavier, and all of it muscle.
“Walk this way,” said the Skeleton. Without waiting to see if Sweetwater
followed, he turned and strode away.
The roof of the building was an open-air patio. Beside the little elevator room were a few shelters. Greenery grew in concrete receptacles scattered about the roof, with wrought-iron tables and chairs organized here and there. A small crowd of over-dressed people, like those you see at campaign fund-raising events, mingled and pretended to be enjoying each other’s company. Even somebody as unsophisticated as Sweetwater could smell the phoniness.
The shelters were there for food prep. There were platters of hors d’ oeuvres and champagne flutes by the hundreds standing on tables and trays. The Skeleton led him past everything to a rack of suits, black slacks, white jackets, and black ties. He plucked one from the front of the frame.
“Here, try this one.” He gestured towards the changing tents by waving the back of his left hand. “Be quick about it. The party starts in half an hour.”
“Who are these people?” Sweetwater said, gesturing toward the ones already there.
The Skeleton gave them a half-second glance. “Who they are isn’t important. They are the clients, and that’s all that matters. Now hurry up and get dressed.”
In the tent, he stripped out of his street clothes and into the Halloween costume. The pants were a little long. Fortunately for Sweetwater, he was wearing his cowboy boots, which didn’t exactly match the waiter getup but added another inch of height. Before he put on the jacket, he opened the travel bag he’d brought with him.
Inside were the special tools he’d requested from LEI, including a shoulder holster with a Sig Sauer P320 equipped with a suppressor and loaded with subsonic, hollow-point rounds. After checking to make sure one rested in the chamber, he positioned the holster to hold the pistol barrel down along his ribcage. Opposite of the pistol, he clipped on his old USMC Ka-Bar, for good luck. Finally, he shrugged into the white dinner jacket. Like his pants, it was just a little too large, which worked to hide the pistol and harness perfectly.
