by Derek Haas
“Copeland,” Archie’s voice cuts through the fog. “Come on over. Curtis is here and he wants to talk at you.”
“On my way,” I answer, and hit the “end” button.
It takes a few minutes until I can push out of the fire and rise from bed.
Risina, I’m sorry. I didn’t deserve your trust and I didn’t deserve your love but the endless pain I suffer . . . I try to take on as much as I can so somehow, some way, maybe it can relieve some of your suffering. Perhaps the pain and terror and incomprehension you felt in those last few days can be reduced by my pain until the end of my days.
Can you save a past soul through present suffering?
Can you cleanse a dead loved one by consuming yourself in fire?
Aren’t past, present, and future linked in the mind, in memory, in imagination? And if so, doesn’t it make sense I can still save her?
I’ll try, Risina.
Forever, I’ll try.
Archie has an office in Mag Mile that enters off Ohio. There are no signs, no names on a pegboard letting you know what floor to exit the elevator. Three large men in suits greet you in the lobby and frisk you carefully before sending you through metal detectors. On the other side, two security cards must be waved in front of a scanner to send a visitor to the top floor. There, a wiry Nigerian man leads you to a waiting room where you are frisked and wanded again. Archie may look like he plays fast and loose, but he’s a meticulously cautious fence. He’s lived a long time working as a middleman in a business that exploits weaknesses, and he’s done it through vigilance, cautiousness, and uncompromising professionalism. He wasn’t always this skillful, but in the time since I joined him, he’s watched and learned and grown. Other fences we’ve crossed paths with fall by the wayside as they accumulate mistakes. Archie does not plan to join them.
I’m shown into a large office with windows overlooking Millennium Park. From my vantage point, I see the Geary stage, the big bean, the video towers with the moving faces that soak kids in the summertime. Only a few bundled tourists brave the temperatures now, taking selfies with the sculptures.
I stand at the window, and if I shift my focus, I can see my reflection in the glass. I give myself a quick once-over, like a mechanic checking under the hood, and I have to say, I don’t look so bad. I’m five foot eleven with skin the color of creamed coffee. My father was a white politician from New York and my mother was a black prostitute from outside of Baltimore, so my color is a match for my general disposition: a swirl of light and darkness. I’m thinner than usual by a solid ten pounds, the product of not caring about my appetite. I’ve lost some muscle too, but I can get that back. I don’t look at my face often. There is nothing special about it, which is why I’ve had so much success as a contract killer. I never stand out in a crowd. I’m the invisible man Ralph Ellison wrote about, and I’ve practiced ways to make sure I’m forgotten by anyone who comes across me in the wild. No tattoos, no wild hair, nothing to stand out, nothing to get pointed to in a police book.
The door opens and Archie steps inside with a tall, dark-skinned black man wearing khakis and a sweater. “Copeland, this is Curtis, I was telling you about him. Curtis, Cope.”
I nod a greeting and Archie gestures to a quartet of leather chairs facing a coffee table. I sit on one side, and Archie and Curtis the other.
“Copeland is a Silver Bear assassin,” Archie begins. “That’s a term the Russians use. Means he never defaults on a job, he’ll take any assignment no matter how difficult, and he gets paid the high end of the high end.”
Curtis assesses me but keeps his face inscrutable. “I know what it means. How come I never heard of him?”
“’Cause I wanted it that way,” Archie answers. “You get a hitter like Cope, here, you break him too soon, you let his name build out there, you stir up hornets that don’t need stirring up, you know what I’m saying?”
Curtis looks somewhere between satisfied and unsure.
Archie presses forward. He has an uncanny ability to take a non-answer for yes. “Tell us about this cat needs protecting.”
Curtis measures me, then leans back like he’s already dipped a toe in the pool just by being here, so he might as well sink to the bottom. “The man’s name is Matthew Boone and he lives just outside of Portland, Oregon. He made a hundred million dollars writing code for facial recognition software, which got him connected to Homeland Security, which got him connected to the U.S. government, which got him connected to some Eastern Bloc countries, which got him a price on his head. He’s not sure who, when, where, or how, but someone wants him dead, and he doesn’t trust our government or foreign governments or nobody. He got a peek behind the curtain of the way the world really works, and it scared the hell out of him. That’s the majority of what I know. He’s scared and he doesn’t wanna be dead.”
I rise and pace, thinking it over. “How do you know him?”
Curtis rubs his hands. “We went to school together.”
“Where?”
“MIT. He reached out because he heard what I do now.”
“What do you do now, Curtis?”
“I make guns.”
Curtis is full of surprises. He unfolds his hands like he’s laying his history out on the table. “Handguns, rifles, assault rifles, semiautomatic rifles. Custom made.”
“Legally?”
“Some. Enough. What do you carry?”
“Glock.”
“Good weapon,” Curtis nods. “There are advantages to a custom-made piece, you should know.”
“I can imagine.”
“I can hook you up.”
“Maybe someday.”
Curtis scratches an eyebrow with his thumb, looks at Archie, continues. “Anyway, Matthew Boone got spooked and reached out to me and I said I know a guy and maybe he can help.”
“What kind of protection detail does he have in place?”
Curtis anticipates my question. “Two teams, twenty-four hours, seventy-two on, seventy-two off. I can’t vouch for them but he pays a lot.”
“Through a service?”
“No, I think he had a guy working corporate security or something. He took him on private and that guy built his team.”
“Do you know his name?”
“Finnerich. Max Finnerich.”
There’s an image on the rim of my mind, fingernails inside a coffin. Buried alive, oxygen running out, no hope, no help, but an innate will to live. The body takes over when the mind shuts down. Out of options, cornered, left for dead, instincts take over. There is a bird, the godwit, that will fly from Alaska to New Zealand to nest, 7,000 miles, never having done it before.
Archie snaps me back to the moment. “Whatchoo thinking, Copeland? You want this Finnerich’s number so you can arrange things?”
“No. Don’t call him. Don’t tell him I’m coming. Just give me an address.”
Curtis looks between Archie and me. “That’s it then?”
Archie shrugs. “The man says give him an address, you give him an address. You and me’ll work out the business side of it later.”
Curtis stands and Archie stands and I think about fingernails and instincts.
I’ve been in Portland before, a long time ago when I was first telling you my story and I was following a presidential candidate. I traveled south from Seattle, after meeting with my old fence at Sea-Tac Airport, because players in this game like to meet in airport terminals, on the other side of security monitors. No guns, no knives, everyone in the airport holding the same cards as everyone else. That was the last meeting I had with Vespucci before I killed his top hit man, Hap Blowenfeld, the assassin who brought me into the game. Nearly a decade has passed since I traveled the Pacific Northwest, since I helped my father end his campaign.
It is cold in Portland, but there’s no snow on the ground, not like Mackinac. The sky is gray, the color of grave markers on a forgotten hill. Rain threatens, imminent, but is held back by the clouds, handcuffed, restrained.
Once out of the lot, I pull to a side street and check the trunk. There’s a blue duffel stuffed with weapons and ammunition, services arranged by Archie and provided by Suds Autowash, where rental cars are cleaned and traveling assassins can resupply without attracting the watchful eyes of law enforcement. I transfer the duffel from the trunk to the back seat and head out onto Interstate 5.
It’s one in the afternoon.
I might as well get a jump on things and check out Matthew Boone’s security detail. Archie offered to make a file for me, just like he would if Boone were my mark, but I declined. I want to observe his protection force in its natural habitat.
Boone’s company is located downtown, next to the river. It takes up the top seven floors of a thirty-story building, with Boone’s personal office on the twenty-ninth floor. The thirtieth, above it, is reserved for tech and infrastructure and servers and wires and systems and all the things we no longer think about when we turn on our computers. It serves the offices below.
I enter the lobby and walk over to a small security desk, manned by a bright-eyed, attractive, Irish woman—PEYTON, on her name tag. Late twenties, I’m guessing. Photos are taped to the inside of her counter, easy to spot from where I stand, fired employees who should not be allowed on to the elevator, I presume.
“Hello,” I say with a bored but chipper aspect.
“Yes?” she answers.
“I have a meeting with . . .” then I allow a blank look on my face, “hold on, hold on,” and I pull out my phone and start to swipe through a calendar. “The temp agency told me to remember specifically who I was subbing for and I knew I’d forget. I have it in an email. Hold on.”
“What company?”
“Pop something?”
“Popinjay?”
“That’s it.”
She moves around her desk and over to a bank of elevators as she tugs on a key card attached to a chain around her neck. She presses the up arrow, and when the car doors open, she moves inside and waves the key card in front of a reader. Then she taps the button for the twenty-third floor. It lights up obediently. “Twenty-three,” Peyton says with a smile. “That’s reception.”
Whatever illusion Boone holds that he’s protected by putting his offices in a secure building with a secure elevator is about to shatter.
I step out behind Peyton as she returns to her desk. If I wanted to pop her, take her key card, and waltz to the twenty-ninth floor, I could. If this had been a real hit, maybe I would. Lucky Peyton.
She senses movement behind her and turns, puzzled. “Something wrong?”
“Are there stairs I can take? I have a bit of claustrophobia and honestly . . .” I pat my stomach, “I need the exercise.”
“Twenty-three floors?”
“I don’t mind.” I show her all my teeth, and she returns a smile.
“Follow me.”
I do, and she leads me to an unmarked door, swipes her key card again, pulls the handle, and holds the door for me.
“Good luck,” she offers as I step inside.
The stairwell is a seldom-used, undecorated, utilitarian structure with metallic steps that switchback each half floor.
I pass the twenty-third floor in less than ten minutes and keep moving vertically. There are black credit-card-size swipe pads on each floor from twenty-four to twenty-nine, but as I hoped, the thirtieth floor has no such security.
I open the door and step out into an industrial maze of hot machines, tubes, wires, blinking lights, and data ports that only mean something to the manufacturer or repair technicians. The floor is finished, which is disappointing. I was hoping for the walking surface to be broken in places. I move among the machines, then kneel down and feel the tile with my fingers.
If this were a real hit, if I were here to kill Boone, I would know the layout of this floor, the precise square inch directly above his desk. I would work on the floor tile at night, unhindered, open a small hole above his chair, and—
The stairwell door clicks open behind me, and I feel the old blood thicken in my veins. I’ve only been here five minutes. Boone’s security might not be so bad after all. I crane my neck, slowly, slowly, but can’t spot any movement except the top of the door closing on its hydraulic hinge.
I shuffle two feet to my left to get a better view of who arrived on the floor behind me, and I’m surprised to see Peyton. She’s not sweating, which means she’s either in great shape or she took the elevator to the twenty-ninth floor and then ascended the stairs. Either way, she had eyes on me the whole time. She suspected me from the moment I stepped off the elevator. And if that’s true, then—
The blow comes from my right, a devastating left hook delivered by a fist the size of a croquet mallet. My senses aren’t as alert as they should be, so I catch the motion only a split-second before I see the constellation map explode behind my eyes. It is a good, clean hit, precise, aimed at my right temple, and it buckles my knees. I haven’t been in a fight in a few years, and I’m out of practice. I’m not even trying to win. My battle is with consciousness.
My attacker follows with a kick to my ribs delivered by heavy boots, and when I crumple to my side to protect myself from the next blow, he uses my movement to flip me the rest of the way so I end up face down with his thick knee in the middle of my back. He must weigh 220, 230 lbs. The next thing he will do is try to get my hands behind my back so he can zip-tie them, which tells me he’s law enforcement, a former cop, now working privately for Matthew Boone.
I’m guessing Max Finnerich, but how the hell should I know? If I’m going to do anything to flip this fight, I need to do it now.
I make my body limp, free of resistance.
With his knee for leverage, he uses both hands to secure my left wrist and pulls it back. I assume he’s neutralized a lot of men this way over the years, though he’s never neutralized someone like me.
The biggest advantage you can have in a fight is if your adversary thinks it is over. As his hands pull on my wrist, his weight shifts so he can rotate my arm, and that subtle shift in leverage is all I need. I throw my hips in the direction he is leaning and Newton’s law kicks in and he can’t stop his weight from pitching forward. With him off balance, I pivot my hips, and he has to let go to break his fall. I know this is coming, so I swipe his wrist before he can plant it and his face collides with the floor, his teeth rattle, and I drive a fist into his side for good measure, sapping his energy as I punch his lungs and cut off his oxygen. I didn’t have to do the last part, but he kicked me.
Peyton, who has been watching from a few feet away, reaches for a taser attached to her hip, but my car wash Glock is out and up and pointed at her forehead. She freezes, her breath catching as she sucks in a lungful of air and is too frightened to let it back out.
Finnerich groans on the ground, disoriented, blood dripping from a busted nose. I catch movement over Peyton’s shoulder, also on both sides of me, men attempting a flanking position, reinforcements joining the fray, using the cover of construction scaffolding to shield their attack.
I could kill every man and woman in this room. Peyton first with a head shot, Finnerich before he can clear the pinprick lights from his vision, then the two men hiding on my right, and finally, the man on my left as he panics and breaks for the stairwell door. I have no qualms about that much killing. I’ve do
ne it before, more times than I can count, and I feel nothing for these men and this woman who hold deadly weapons but forget they’ve chosen a deadly profession.
But that’s not my assignment. Not this time. Wives will get kissed, children held, and these bodyguards will live simply because I was hired to protect instead of to destroy.
In lieu of toppling all these dominoes, I lower my gun, put on an affected cocky grin like an actor playing to the dollar seats, and say, “Put your hands straight out in front of you.” I advance a few steps toward Peyton, and the two men to my right signal the one on my left with all the subtlety of circus clowns. These guys. I should kill a couple just so the others can learn a terrible lesson.
I suppress that notion. Let ’em come, let ’em come, let’s get this over with. A couple more steps and Peyton understands what the other men are doing and tries to maintain eye contact with me, and these amateurs are this close to offending me so completely that whatever happens, happens, and I can’t be blamed. I mean, they’re like elephants stomping around a windowless room. But what was I expecting?
Finnerich climbs to his hands and knees and screams a battle cry from his bloody mouth, and that’s the signal his men have been waiting for. They fly from behind the scaffolding, tackle me, three on one, and I put up just enough of a fight to sell it, and then Finnerich looms over me while his three mutts pin my arms behind my back.
He spits blood on the floor in a sticky red wad, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, makes sure to lock eyes with me, then raises his boot and kicks me in the head until my world goes dark.
They’re holding me in a makeshift cell, presumably someone’s office based on the cluttered desk and credenza. The blinds are drawn. I’m bound with plastic zip ties. Peyton plus the two men who tackled me stand guard. No sign of Finnerich, which is good. My guess is he’s out explaining in person or over the phone to his boss what happened today. Another guess is his nose is pointing in a direction it wasn’t pointed in this morning.
I make a show of regaining consciousness and test my restraints. Peyton watches warily, like a fisherman with an eye on the dark clouds bunching on the horizon.
