by Jason Kasper
“I’m awake,” the man said with a low, Eastern European accent.
Ophie ripped off the hood, and the man squinted and blinked while appraising his surroundings. He was bald and unshaven, with deep-set eyes that flashed from Ophie to Boss and Matz before finally settling on me.
“Refilling the ranks quickly, I see. Who’s the kid?”
Ophie said, “Luka, David. David, this is Luka.”
The man’s eyes didn’t move from mine. “I don’t know you.”
Ophie snapped his fingers, directing Luka’s attention back to him. “What do you have, stage fright? Mind your fucking business.”
Luka stared at Ophie in defiance. “I’m not going to tell you anything.”
“Iyam nut guing to tale zchou anyzching? That’s adorable. All this time in America and you still sound like a fucking movie villain. And relax, this isn’t an interrogation.”
“Then what is it?”
“Adjudication. We know you killed Caspian. You’re just here to answer for it. And now that we’ve got that out of the way, you can say anything you want from now until I actually kill you, which won’t happen for the longest hour or so of your fucking life. You can sing the Macedonian National Anthem, for all I care. But if I were a gambling man, I’d bet you’re just going to scream a whole lot.”
“If it makes you feel better, go ahead and kill me. I’m ready.”
“Oh, it will definitely make me feel better. But you know what else will? When we find your manager and do some interior decorating with his brain matter.”
“Good luck finding him. I don’t even know his location, and torture is not going to change that.”
“I believe you, Luka. He’s pretty good on the run. If he could go back to high-society living or just lower his goddamn standards back to the underground, we’d find him. But bouncing around white suburbia rental properties? That’s a stroke of genius. Ian’s been having a hell of a time trying to locate him for us.”
“Too bad.”
“Funny thing is, Saudis have that stubborn sense of personal honor. I bet if his nephew were killed, he’d come pay his respects to the grieving father. What do you think?”
“You’ll never get to Saamir, either.”
“Really? That’s interesting, because Saamir is dead.”
Luka watched Ophie for a moment. “That’s bullshit,” he said flatly.
“No, he’s fucking dead, along with seven guys from the security detail. Ian’s been running surveillance on his father since before the trigger got pulled, and with the funeral coming up, I’d say it’s just a matter of time before your boss comes slithering in at some godforsaken hour of the night. You know what happens after that.”
“If you could have gotten to Saamir, you would have killed him before now.”
“Sorry you’ve missed out on current events during your fourteen-hour ride in a trunk, but he’s dead as a stump. Seems someone lit him up in his office while he had a coke spoon in one hand and his CFO’s tit in the other.”
“You couldn’t even get into his building.”
“Getting in wasn’t the problem, Luka. Problem was getting out. Guess who pulled that off?”
Luka’s stare, intensified with rage, fixed on Matz.
Ophie followed Luka’s eyes. “Not this time, Luka. Matz just drove the getaway car. Saamir got his head blown off by the new guy. Turns out he likes to jump off skyscrapers and shit. Don’t believe me?”
Luka looked me up and down. “No. I don’t.”
“I’ll make you a bet. If Saamir is alive, I’ll let you walk out of here right now. Hell, I’ll drive you to the nearest bus station and send you on your way with a ham sandwich. But if you’re wrong” —Ophie rocked his head back and forth as if considering his options—“I get to torture and kill you, then put your corpse in the freezer like you did with my best friend’s body for four days before you dumped him—”
Matz interrupted, “There’s no room in the spare freezer. I made a grocery run a few days ago. You know there’s no room.”
“Then throw out some fucking chicken breasts. You cook them every night, and I think I speak for everyone here when I say we’d prefer anything else at this point. And we all know you’re too much of a spineless pussy to touch Boss’s ice cream.”
“The ice cream stays,” Boss said with a grim sense of finality, leaning over to look at Matz. “That’s not up for debate.”
Matz said, “It’s a two-hour drive to the store, Ophie. Two. Hours.”
Ophie released a frustrated sigh. “Fine, goddammit. Luka, I’ll cut your head off, put that in the freezer, if I’m lying about—”
“ENOUGH!” Luka yelled. “I don’t fucking believe you!”
Ophie spun in place, pulling his phone from his pocket and thrusting the screen toward Luka. “Read ‘em and weep, you Macedonian piece of shit!”
Luka’s face twisted into a mask of hatred. “I’ll kill you. I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU ALL!”
Ophie leaned down, placed a hand on Luka’s straining shoulders, and said, “Easy, easy now. I forgot you two used to be close. Luka, your friend Saamir is in a better place now. God has a plan, and sometimes that plan involves half a dozen Hydra-Shok hollow points and total destruction of the central nervous system.”
Luka composed himself, but his breathing came in quick bursts through flared nostrils. “My employer’s men will kill you long before you get to him.”
“Well aren’t you just the most optimistic guy to ever be tied to a chair.” Ophie turned to us, putting on a pair of shooting glasses from his shirt pocket. “Gentlemen, go ahead and don some eye protection.”
Boss retrieved three sets of identical plastic glasses from a box beside him and handed two of them to Matz. I looked at Matz questioningly when he offered me a pair.
Matz asked, “Do you know how far or in what direction bone chips will fly when you push a drill bit straight through a human kneecap?”
“No.”
“Neither do we.”
I put on the glasses.
Ophie lifted a power drill from the table and pulled the trigger. The long bit whirred to life, the sound resonating off the cellar’s stone walls before falling silent. I began to feel sick to my stomach.
Luka hyperventilated, his upper body starting to spasm and bead with sweat, but his eyes stared resolutely forward.
Ophie knelt and pulled the trigger again, pressing the spinning metal bit into Luka’s left knee. The drill’s high whine suddenly reduced to a sickening dull tone.
Luka bucked wildly in the chair and screamed so loud it made me jump. Ophie studied the end of the bloody drill bit emerging from the opposite side of the leg, and then pulled it back out.
“IT WASN’T ME! IT WAS THE IRANIAN!” Tears and saliva ran down Luka’s face, pouring over the sweat in a race to his throat.
I shifted in my seat and whispered to Matz, “Who is the Iranian?”
“He’s dead already. Stop talking.”
Ophie set the drill back on the table, exchanging it for a hammer. Next, he selected the pruning shears; after that, a hacksaw. Luka’s voice went hoarse from screaming as the stale, musty cellar air filled with a metallic-septic odor that grew in intensity with each passing minute.
I felt nauseous and began wondering if Boss was going to tell Ophie to kill Luka instead of drawing out the process any longer. Glancing over, I watched Boss flinch as flecks of blood flew onto the side of his coffee mug. He looked momentarily irritated as he examined the surface of his coffee to make sure his drink was unscathed, and then took another sip. Feeling Matz’s eyes upon me, I turned my head toward Luka, watching the scene though I didn’t want to.
Throughout the process, Ophie never rushed.
He remained patient, speaking quietly to Luka as he worked with the practiced efficiency of a hunter field dressing a trophy buck. When the chair fell over from Luka’s violent resistance, Ophie set it back upright and resumed what he was doing. As the dying man took hi
s last breaths, Ophie retrieved a knife with a broad, dark gray blade that extended seven inches to a tapered point.
“Say hello to Caspian for us,” Ophie said before slicing Luka’s throat with wide, consistent strokes, sawing back and forth until he’d reached the vertebrae. He shortened his strokes and quickened the pace until Luka’s head separated from his body. The head fell to the ground and rolled onto its side, until two bloody eye sockets faced us in a hollow stare.
My blood ran cold, and I looked over to see Matz appraising my face. “You’d better toughen up before you get someone killed,” he said. “Meet me on the range with your long gun and full kit, ready to go, in half an hour. And puke before you show up.”
He rose and left the cellar.
Boss took a step toward me and touched my shoulder. “Welcome to the war.”
Then he walked out behind Matz.
Ophie still held the knife, and every surface from the tip of its blade to halfway up his forearm was masked by dark, arterial blood. He stood over Luka’s remains, breathing slowly and methodically, and by all appearances was completely unaware of my presence in the room.
CHAPTER 13
“Just pull through the gate onto the tarmac,” Boss said. “There he is.”
Our headlights found the opening in a low chain link fence and Matz steered the truck through it. A distant figure guided us with the wave of a flashlight, its beam pirouetting on the ground beside the long profile of a single-engine plane. Moonlight gleamed off its smooth metal surfaces, and as we got closer I recognized familiar lines forming a Cessna Caravan, an aircraft I had skydived from hundreds of times. Matz stopped just short of the tail as the man extinguished the flashlight, and we exited the vehicle under an ink-black sky sprinkled with stars.
The man standing beside the plane was easily in his sixties, with trim silver hair topping a gaunt face between jug ears. One hand tucked a small flashlight into the pocket of his flight jacket; the other held an enormous green thermos.
“Joe,” Boss announced, stepping forward to shake his hand. “Great to see you.”
Looking around at the rest of us, the man replied in a husky voice, “Likewise, Boss. Special K isn’t coming on this one?”
“Waiting for us at the destination.”
“Leave anyone behind?”
“No. We’re down to four now.”
He nodded. “Sorry to hear that. What’s your total weight with men and equipment?”
“Just under fourteen hundred pounds.”
Joe whistled. “More than usual.”
Matz said, “Ammunition is heavy. We’ll be lighter on the way back.”
“No doubt in my mind. You boys can go ahead and load up while I finish my pre-flight, and we can take off in about twenty minutes. We’ll be in the air for three and a half hours, refuel and take a piss break, and then have another two-hour hop. Plenty of time for you to catch some sleep and get ready for the big game.”
As we began transferring cases from the truck to the plane, I asked no one in particular, “What is Special K?”
“A fucking pain in the ass,” Matz replied. He slid a black supply box off the back of the truck and carried it in front of him with both arms.
“That has wheels, you know,” Ophie called after him.
“Fuck you.”
I said to Ophie, “So Matz is angrier than usual. Perfect.”
“Half of everything he says is just playing bad cop to make sure you take shit seriously.”
“And the other half?”
“He’s a dick.” Ophie grabbed a rifle case with each hand and followed Matz. I hoisted two kit bags behind my shoulders and walked through the darkness toward the aircraft.
Boss rolled a box beside me, looked me up and down, and said, “You seem nervous.”
“Let’s go with confused. What is Special K?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. I don’t think you, of all people, will be disappointed.”
“Who is Ian, then?” We stopped in front of the cargo door to help each other load the bags and boxes.
“When former direct action guys go freelance, you get us. We’re an action arm. When former intelligence guys go freelance, you get a group like the one Ian is part of.”
“So he’s not the leader?”
Boss started walking back to the truck. “No. Ian is just our account manager. There might be ten guys working around the clock when we commission work from him, but Ian is the only face we’ll ever see.”
“Why?”
“To keep them isolated. We liaise directly with our employer, which comes with its own set of risks.”
“Who is our employer?”
Boss hoisted one kit bag from the truck, then another. He turned to me and paused for a moment before saying, “Someone I hope you never get to meet.”
“Who is he?”
“We call him the Handler. Get some bags.” He turned and walked back to the plane. I grabbed a carry-on bag with each hand and rushed to follow him. Matz knocked into my shoulder as he passed.
“You said if I pulled off the last job you’d tell me why you were going to kill Peter.”
Boss asked, “What do you know about him?”
“Laila said he was in grad school.”
“That’s probably what he told her. He was a delivery driver, and he used to move packages to Saamir’s building.”
“So?”
“When we asked for a way into the building, Ian had one of his guys befriend Peter and elicit information. That eventually allowed Ian’s guys to get a box into the loading dock with you in it, and get it back out once it was empty.”
“You were going to kill him because he saw the face of one of the guys from Ian’s group?” We hoisted the bags onto the plane.
“Employees are high on the suspect list when something sensitive gets leaked. He could have talked.”
“The pilot could talk. You’re not going to kill him, are you?”
Boss stopped. “Joe is a living legend. Thirty-five years of service before he went private sector, and he’s seen more trouble than the rest of us combined. Remember that when you get a few jobs under your belt and start to think you’re tough. Now load the fucking plane.”
* * *
Ophie strode into the hotel room, pushed aside Boss’s luggage, and lay on the mattress. Folding his hands behind his head with a contented sigh, he closed his eyes.
“Make yourself at home,” Boss said, closing the door behind Matz.
I took a seat on the foot of the bed, noting without surprise that the room shared the same drab arrangement of hideous wall art and patterned carpet as the room I’d just checked into. Boss pulled the curtains shut, blocking out the view of the parking lot before settling himself into a chair. He put on his reading glasses and began appraising an open newspaper on the desk.
Matz cracked his knuckles and asked, “Where is he?”
Without looking up from his newspaper, Boss answered, “Should be here any minute.”
Shaking his head, Matz began pacing between the window and the door like a caged animal. Ophie appeared to be asleep beside me. I heard a soft knock at the door, and Matz lunged forward and flung it open. A balding, wiry man wearing khakis, a plaid shirt, and a leather satchel slung over his shoulder entered the room.
“What took you so long?” Matz asked.
Boss walked past me and greeted the man with a handshake and a hug. “Ian, this is our new hire, David.”
Ian’s face creased into a wide smile, and he took my hand and pulled me into a half-hug. “Pleasure to meet you, brother. Nice work on Saamir, by the way. Hopefully the button cam footage helped—one of our guys spent half a day in a suit for that.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “The hallways looked very familiar as I sprinted down them with bullets flying past my head.”
Ian looked behind me and saw Ophie on the bed. “Nice to see you, too. No need to get up.”
Ophie’s eyes remained closed as he re
plied, “We’re exhausted, Ian. I’ll only be able to muscle down six or seven beers before I pass out. Better get this briefing over with quick.”
Ian set his satchel on the bed and removed a stack of papers, then began arranging them on the red floral comforter. Ophie reluctantly sat up.
Pointing to a picture of a round-faced Middle Eastern man with a neatly trimmed moustache, Ian said, “We got positive identification on the target last night when he visited the grieving father. In order to extrapolate where his route would take him and his entourage in the coming days, we had to obtain the identity of the personal assistant and run his finances, which took my staff no small amount of effort. Short story is that one of the bank accounts he accesses routinely has been used to pay for rental properties in several states. Since their safe house network isn’t as extensive this far south, we looked for new activity and found that they’re paying rent at six new houses across three states. Once we determined the houses they stayed at on the route to Saamir’s father, we were able to refine the most likely—”
“Ian,” Boss said, “it’s late. We’re tired. What’s the target?”
Ian sighed and rubbed his earlobe between his thumb and forefinger. He pushed aside the photograph to reveal the stack of pages. “Bottom line, this is the house where you want to hit him. It’s about a forty-minute drive from here, and he’ll be arriving tomorrow afternoon and leaving the following morning. That gives you roughly a sixteen-hour window to action the target. The property itself is at the end of a cul-de-sac, so you can do a vehicle drop-off two kilometers away and move sight unseen through the woods right up to the back door. Down the street is another house that’s being remodeled, so there aren’t any tenants and the work crews don’t arrive until ten in the morning. You can put Ophie there with his sniper rifle when it’s dark and he’ll have full coverage over the front of the target house.”
Ophie asked, “What’s the range on that?”
