by Ben Coes
Dewey started laughing.
“If you tell my parents—”
“Oh, man, that’s insulting,” said Dewey.
“Aren’t you government people?” he asked, getting to his feet, embarrassed.
“Tell you what,” said Dewey. “Get us a couple of horses and we won’t fly you to Guantánamo.”
Alvaro got a big grin on his face.
“Deal,” said Alvaro. “I have the perfect horses for you.”
Alvaro showed them around the stables. The barn itself was a long, light green rectangular building with a red tin roof. Inside, more than forty horses were stabled. Near the middle of the long line of horses, Alvaro stopped at a large, black stallion.
“This is my father’s,” he said. “A beautiful horse. A champion. Very smart. You can handle him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Da Gama.”
In the stable next to Da Gama, a smaller, black-and-tan filly leaned over the railing and put her snout next to Jessica’s head, then licked her before she even knew the horse was there.
“Thea,” said Alvaro. “My mother’s.”
* * *
Alvaro outfitted Thea while Dewey got Da Gama ready. They climbed onto the horses and moved out through the stable door.
The stallion beneath Dewey gave him a familiar feeling. He’d grown up riding and loved the feeling, the bond, between a rider and a horse. As he rode Da Gama out onto the green grass next to the stables, looking at the mountains in the distance, he reached down and ran his right hand along Da Gama’s neck.
Jessica trailed behind him.
Alvaro came out onto the lawn.
“What’s the lay of the land?” asked Dewey. “Anything we need to watch out for?”
“Don’t go beyond the northern fork of the river,” said Alvaro, pointing toward the mountains. “Da Gama will know how to get back, but I would keep in sight.”
Dewey grinned at Jessica.
“You ready?”
“I’m ready.”
* * *
They rode south for two hours. The views were stunning, the kind no picture book could ever do true justice to. Mountains streaked bluegreen and, on top, white with snow; valleys of fields that ran for miles, balkanized by wildflowers, heaving in the breeze, like a Chinese fan; red-tailed hawks soaring above, then streaking through the air toward earth, diving at the ground and grabbing a rodent before lifting back off into the blue, cloudless sky.
When they hit a slow-running stream, they stopped beneath an ancient elm tree to let the horses drink.
For as long as she could remember, Jessica had wanted to fall in love, to get married, to have a family. She’d dreamed of wedding dresses, bridesmaids, china settings, a honeymoon. Yet Jessica had never found someone. She’d lived through the marriage whirlwind of late twenties to mid-thirties, attending at least two dozen weddings of her friends.
The truth is, she could’ve married any number of men who’d courted her over the years, accomplished men, one of the top attorneys in Washington, a widowed U.S. senator, the British ambassador to the United States, wealthy businessmen.
Jessica looked toward Dewey. He turned and smiled.
“Nice out here, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Not bad.”
They leaned in, toward each other, beneath the shade branch of the big elm, and kissed.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you too.”
A tear came to Jessica’s eye and ran down her cheek, even as she smiled.
“Why are you crying?” he asked.
“Because I’m so stinkin’ happy,” she said.
* * *
Four miles to the north as the crow flies, Raul, lying still on his stomach, saw movement through the scope. A sedan pulled in and parked in front of the Suburban.
“I have movement,” said Raul.
Hu-Shao and Chang both put binoculars against their eyes and watched as two men stood next to the cars, talking. After a few minutes, the Americans climbed back into the cars. The man who’d been in the Suburban climbed into the sedan and pulled a U-turn, then drove quickly out of the driveway.
“What now?” asked Raul, impatiently.
Hu-Shao watched the sedan pull out, then put his binoculars down.
“We wait. In the meantime, make sure the Dragunov is calibrated.”
“We could’ve killed him by now,” said Raul.
“And he could’ve killed us, Raul. Now please, if you will be so kind, shut the fuck up. Go make sure that twenty-pound bag of shit Russian rifle is working.”
17
NEAR YUQUAN HILL
BEIJING
The apartment building was made of gray concrete. It was nine stories high, neat, and well maintained, though plain-looking, with small windows. It was in an area of Beijing that was considered remote, naturalistic, with close proximity to gardens, trees, lakes, and nature.
The dark sedan pulled up to the front of the building, and Bhang emerged. He carried a large plastic grocery bag filled with fruit, milk, juice, chocolate, and vegetables.
He climbed the stairs to the ninth floor and was winded, as always, by the time he arrived at the door to unit 9B. He wheezed as he looked down at the straw welcome mat, the same worn mat that had been there for as long as he could remember.
Bhang knocked. A few moments later, a series of dead bolts could be heard, turning. The door finally opened.
“Hello, Fao,” said Bhang’s half brother, Bo Minh, a large smile on his face. “I didn’t know you would be coming. It’s Sunday. To what do I owe this honor?”
“Since when can a man not stop to pay a visit to his brother?”
With a calm smile, Bhang registered the disheveled visage of Minh. He was shirtless. His chest was so thin he could see his brother’s rib cage. His skin was approximately one shade brighter than a corpse’s. His hair was down to his shoulders, unbrushed, streaked with gray, shining with several days’ worth of grease. Minh’s thick glasses were smudged and made his eyeballs look three times their actual size.
Bhang stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his brother.
“I brought you some food,” said Bhang, hugging him.
The apartment was one large room, lit brightly, with little furniture except, along the walls, long tables atop which sat more than two dozen computer screens, all lit up with various photographs, charts, and data. The tables were chest high so that Minh could move easily between computers, remaining on his feet as he worked. At the ministry, where Minh was the chief technology officer, he worked up to twenty hours a day for months on end. At home, he didn’t stop either, as the flashing computer screens attested. Bhang still didn’t know when his brother slept.
The apartment had only two windows, at the far wall, and Bhang walked to the one on the right. He looked through the window. He could see the lovely flowers of the Beijing Botanical Garden in the distance, and Kunming Lake to the far right. As Bhang was the minister of State Security and Minh was the top technologist at the ministry, Minh could have lived anywhere he wanted. But this was where the lonely, brilliant man wanted to live. Near the flowers.
“Will you stay for tea?” asked Minh, an infectious smile on his face. “With honey and ginger, how Father made it?”
“Yes,” said Bhang.
At the mention of their father, at the sight of his frail, malnourished, wonderfully kind brother, a memory stirred.
* * *
He had never known his real father. That man had died while working at the tire factory when Bhang was only two. Bhang’s mother had remarried, to a man named Ni Minh, a kind man, who raised him like a son.
It was a warm, summer day in the alley behind the small house on the outskirts of Chengdu, where he grew up with his mother, stepfather, and little Bo.
The neighborhood boys were playing soccer, shouting and screaming, long after sunset.
Ni had asked Bhang to include Bo. Li
ttle Bo. Even at that age, he wore thick glasses and was thin and small. The other boys made fun of him. Even Bhang sometimes participated.
Bo was put in one of the nets as goaltender. It was a close game and Bo let in the winning goal. His own teammates yelled at him, pointing at him, taunting him. One of the boys picked up the ball and hurled it at Bo. It hit his head, and his glasses fell to the ground, shattering. Bhang had watched as Bo searched the ground for the glasses, feeling with his hands, tears streaming down his face. It was the moment Bhang remembered. It was the moment Bhang realized what love was and what loyalty was. It all coalesced at that moment, seeing Bo on the ground, so helpless, looking for glasses that no longer existed.
Bhang beat up the boy who hurled the ball at Bo, breaking his nose with a vicious punch. He knocked a tooth from the mouth of another boy and delivered a black eye to a third before they descended on him and thoroughly beat him, then left him on the gravel, his nose bloody, his lip too, his entire body like a large bruise. But Bhang had never felt better than at that moment.
It wasn’t long after that fight before Bo started to show his genius. He could take apart and put back together anything—radios, the air conditioner at the school, Ni Minh’s electric razor. Then he started to create machines on his own. Over the course of a winter, he’d built a small combustion engine for the house that could generate electricity. Bo had carved his own path in this world, with or without Bhang, and Bhang was proud.
Bhang found himself staring out at the gardens, lost in the childhood memory, when Minh returned to the room, two hot cups of tea in hand.
“Where shall we sit, Bo?” asked Bhang, smiling and taking one of the cups from his brother.
“Wherever you like,” said Minh, waving his gaunt arm through the air, as if the room were a suite at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel instead of a furnitureless hovel that looked more like a computer closet than anything else.
Bhang laughed enthusiastically along with Minh as he sat down on the wooden floor, crossed his legs, and took the first sip from the cup.
18
CÓRDOBA
Behind the hill, out of view of the others, Raul went to work.
He found several pieces of wood bark, then set them up like targets in a line. He walked off five hundred feet, then set up the Dragunov.
He sited the first piece of bark in the rifle scope. He centered it, focused in, then fired. Nothing happened. He fired again, and still nothing. He made an adjustment to the placement of the scope on the side-rail mount. He fired again. This time, the top of the bark went flying away in a cloud of dust. It wasn’t the spot he was aiming for, but it was a start.
Hu-Shao had been right; the rifle was out of sync. Raul wouldn’t admit that to him, however. Raul loved the old Dragunov.
Raul made several more small adjustments, finding the small knob that enabled him to compensate and adjust for bullet drop over long distances.
He test-fired several more times, adjusting the knob in between shots, until he hit a piece of bark precisely where he was aiming.
Over the next hour, he went down the line of bark, at increasing distances, testing the rifle until he felt confident that the aiming mechanism was perfect.
Finally, he took his shirt off and draped it over a shrub. He walked off approximately one mile. He got down on his stomach, aimed, then fired. Leaving the rifle on its bipod, he jogged to his T-shirt. A few inches off dead center, a large tear was visible.
Raul put the shirt back on and walked back. He was ready.
* * *
Dewey and Jessica rode under the warm sun until midafternoon. They came to a bend in the river. A small promontory of meadow formed in the notch of the running water. A tree jutted out over the water. The water was dark blue and bulged at the bend, forming a deep pool. It was hot out but dry.
Dewey removed his shirt, boots, and jeans, then walked naked into the water. Jessica removed her clothing too, following him to the stream. The water was bitter cold.
“Ouch,” she said as she stepped in behind him. “That’s freezing!”
He took her hand in his. He was used to swimming in Maine. The stream was almost as cold as a Castine plunge in October, but not quite.
“Comes down from the mountains,” said Dewey. “Melting ice. It’s nothing compared to Maine, sweetie.”
“Well, I’m not swimming in this,” she said. “It’s too cold.”
“Trust me, it’s refreshing. My dad used to swim up until Thanksgiving. Now, that was cold. He called them polar bears.”
“Polar bears?”
“Yeah. Like, let’s go for a polar bear.”
“Oh,” said Jessica. “Well, I’m not some crazy Mainer, and this is too cold for me.”
“No worries,” said Dewey. He bent down, near Jessica’s legs.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Dewey wrapped his right arm around the back of Jessica’s thighs, then lifted her into the air.
She screamed.
“No!” she howled. “Put me down! Put me down right now!”
Dewey walked into the deeper water, as Jessica, dangling over his shoulder, slugged him in the back, hitting him as hard as she could.
“Help!”
“You’ll thank me after,” he said, barely noticing the pummeling Jessica was delivering. “Besides, you called my dad a crazy Mainer. You hurt my feelings.”
“Stop!” she yelled. “Help! Someone help me!”
When the water reached his waist, Dewey dived forward into the frigid water, still holding Jessica. Her screaming was muffled as they crashed into the water. A moment later, when she surfaced, Jessica began howling all over again.
“You bastard! I’ll get you!”
She splashed water at him, but all he could do was laugh.
They swam in the pool for a while, eventually getting used to the temperature. On the far shore, Jessica swam to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
“It actually is kind of refreshing,” she said.
“Does that mean you’re not mad?”
“No, I’m still mad. I like being mad at you. It’s fun.”
“How can I make it up to you?” he asked, wrapping his hands around Jessica’s back. She wrapped her legs around his torso and moved closer.
“Well,” she said, kissing his lips, “I can think of something that might make me forgive you.”
Dewey carried her to the shore. They made love in the warm grass just above the stream, without a soul for miles.
Afterward, they swam back across the stream. Jessica spread out a red chamois blanket in the shade of the tree. They ate—ham-and-cheese sandwiches made by the chef back at the ranch—then lay on the blanket. Jessica put her head on Dewey’s shoulder. They fell asleep to the sound of the stream running by.
By the time they awoke to head back to the ranch, the sun was gone and the sky was turning into a beautiful dark purple.
* * *
Chang sat with his legs crossed, staring through the scope at the Suburban. The sky was growing dark.
He saw the sedan pull into the driveway at a few minutes before eight o’clock.
“He’s back,” said Chang.
Hu-Shao sat up abruptly, his eyes growing alert. He glanced at his watch.
“They’re running four-hour rotations,” he said. He turned to Raul, who was lying on his back, eyes closed. Hu-Shao snapped his fingers. “Let’s go.”
Raul stood and walked to the Dragunov, which was set up on its bipod and trained at the Suburban. He got down on his stomach and studied the vehicle through the high-powered thermal night scope. The two Americans were chatting again. Finally, one of the men climbed into the sedan. He pulled a U-turn and sped away. The other man climbed into the front seat of the SUV.
The Suburban was blocking some of the heat of the man’s body, and Raul wasn’t getting a very good heat print in the scope, but he was getting enough. He was, he guessed, just under a mile from the target. Raul rubbed his
finger along the steel trigger. Then he fired.
A low boom exploded from the Dragunov as the high-powered rifle kicked back and a 7.62mm Kevlar-tipped cartridge ripped from the muzzle of the rifle. He heard nothing; yet through the scope, he watched as the front side window shattered.
“What happened?” barked Hu-Shao.
Raul said nothing as he retargeted the scope and prepared to fire. He concentrated, searching for the heat spot of the target. Then he found it, in the same place it had been before; he’d killed the American.
“Bull’s-eye,” he said. “Let’s go. We have four hours until he’s discovered.”
* * *
At the polo house, Alvaro took the horses from Dewey and Jessica. They walked beneath the darkening sky back along the gravel road to the ranch. Inside their suite of rooms, they took showers, then dressed for dinner in the main house.
* * *
Raul drove the Land Cruiser in a slow, circuitous arc toward the back of the ranch. The headlights illuminated knee-high grass, night bugs, and darkness. His destination was a field of low hills at the back of the ranch house. Had they moved in a direct line, the route would have been just over a mile. Instead, they drove in a two-mile arc.
Raul stopped when Hu-Shao gave the signal. They climbed out of the SUV.
On foot, Raul, Hu-Shao, and Chang traveled light. Hu-Shao and Chang carried assault rifles and handguns. Raul carried the Dragunov, strapped across his back. He also packed his sidearm, a well-worn Colt .38 Super “El Capitan,” with a custom snub-nose suppressor in the muzzle, his most prized possession, a present his father had given him on his ninth birthday. He tucked it between his belt and back.
From the Land Cruiser, they moved in the darkness, Hu-Shao navigating with his phone. Eventually, they came within sight of the ranch house, far in the distance, its yellow lights twinkling.
Hu-Shao took out his night scope and scanned the house.
“Here,” he said, pointing at a small grassy knoll.
“What’s the distance?” asked Raul.
“Half a mile.”
