by Leigh Barker
“Says here we’re in India,” he said to nobody in particular. “Thought we were going to Pakistan.”
“See that hill over there?” Winter said, pointing vaguely west. “That’s not Pakistan. Drive past that hill for about eight hours. Pakistan.”
“See that?” Loco said, and nudged Smokey with his elbow. “Sergeant Winter knows everything.”
Smokey shook his head slowly.
Loco frowned. “So why are we in India when Top there said we’re going to Pakistan?”
“I think he wants to surprise them,” Winter said.
“Oh right. Yeah, I get that.”
“You worry me, Loco, you know that?” Gunny said, stowing his paperback in the side pocket of his pack occupying the seat next to him, even though there was enough discreetly hidden storage for twelve passengers.
“Yeah, my dad used to say that,” Loco said, leaning over Smokey again to look out of the window. “Filipe, he’d say, you worry me.” He sat back and nodded to himself at the memory.
“Why did he call you Filipe?” Smokey said.
Loco stared at him. “Because it’s my name.” His glare shifted to a frown. “You think my mama called me Loco? She don’t want people pointing when she went past with me on her tit.”
“Jesus,” Gunny said. “Now I’ve got that image in my head for ever.”
“Time to move,” Ethan said, and stood. He looked over at the rear of the plane. “Somebody give the kid a shake.”
Winter leaned over and touched Andie’s arm. She jumped and opened her eyes.
“I was just working through the data I’ve been reading.” She tapped her laptop sitting on the table between her seat and the empty one facing her.
Winter gave her his version of a smile. “It’s okay to sleep, kid. You never know when you’re going to get to do it again.”
“I wasn’t—” She showed him what a smile looked like on a pretty young woman. “Well, okay, maybe a little.”
“Come on, we’re moving out.”
She folded her computer and got up stiffly. “Pity, it’s a nice ride.”
Winter said something she missed, but it was probably about her staring at the screen for fourteen hours and then passing out. So much for the nice ride.
There was a battered Toyota van waiting for them on the street side of arrivals. A battered green thing that had more miles on it than Farmer Jack’s pickup. Nobody even looked around for anything else as they came out through the double doors. There wouldn’t be anything. No stretched Merc, no Chrysler or anything with seats. This crappy pile of rust was surely for them.
“Shotgun!” Loco said and swerved towards the front of the van.
“Loco,” Gunny said.
Loco stopped and looked back. “What?”
Gunny raised his hand. “Nothing.”
Loco heard the van door close and spun around to see Ethan settling himself in the front seat. All comfy. He climbed into the back with the others and sat on the exposed springs that were masquerading as the seat.
“How far you say this Uzi is?” he asked, and shuffled left to get his buttock off a steel point.
“Uri,” Winter said. “Eighty miles, give or take.”
“Jesus H Christ. In this?”
Gunny looked back from the bench seat a few inches in front. “You can walk if you like.”
“Gotta be better than having my ass turned to crochet.” Loco glanced left at Andie sitting next to the window. “Sorry, kid.”
She looked up from her laptop that was already open and working. “About what? And I’m not a kid.”
He looked at her breasts pressed against her stiff white blouse, caught himself and checked out the roof. “No, I guess not.”
The Indian driver didn’t speak, and they weren’t sorry. It looked like he needed every ounce of concentration to avoid being mashed by trucks, cars and vans even more battered than this one and all thinking they owned the road.
“This your van?” Ethan said when they left the airport road and headed west towards the mountains and Kashmir. To bandit country.
The ancient Indian driver glanced at him then returned to watching the highway, which appeared to be free moving, but appearances were very deceptive. After ten minutes, the driver spoke without taking his eyes off the road.
“You think I would drive this piece of shit if I had a choice?”
Good point.
“No, I guess not,” Ethan said, and chuckled. He liked the old guy.
It was the start of a lively conversation while they bounced and slammed left and right as the old man weaved in and out of traffic with a total disregard for any sort of driving discipline. And they were still on the main N1 highway.
“You lived here all your life?” Ethan asked, in an effort to take his mind off his imminent death.
“Yes.”
“You must like it here?”
“No.”
“Four hours to Uri?”
“No.”
“No, guess not. Eighty miles at this speed…” He leaned over and looked at the dash. He could’ve saved his energy. It was busted, of course. “Three hours, then.” He leaned back.
“Two.”
Ethan glanced at him but kept his doubts to himself. He didn’t want to challenge the man to drive faster.
The lively conversation petered out, and Ethan closed his eyes.
He woke when the van lurched to a halt and the driver got out and wandered off. Ethan looked around at the cracked and ramshackle houses on both sides of the muddy street. The building the old driver had disappeared into had a red roller door and a regular door with its glass replaced by a piece of hardboard.
He got out of the van, stretched and looked towards the sound of a river roaring through the valley. He wondered if the old man expected them to follow. The building looked like some sort of shop. He left the van and stepped up onto the concrete block sidewalk as the rest of the unit got out and spread out. An instinctive move but not much use with no weapons. Carrying firearms, even on a private jet, is a good way to get the local security force all agitated.
“The shop sells food,” a voice said from the side of the building. “Not that you’d want to risk eating it.”
American.
Ethan waited for the man to come closer. He wore hiking boots and jacket and had a camera slung around his neck, not even a digital camera. Okay, he was CIA. Or a government spook pretending to be friendly. Ethan said nothing.
“SecNav said to expect you.” The man looked him over.
“That right?” Ethan said, noting the way the man’s jacket didn’t hang smoothly over his left hip.
The man put out his hand. “Gary Cooper.”
“If you say so.” Ethan shook his hand.
“Not that Gary Cooper. He’s dead. I’m not.” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “I’ve got your kit.”
“You sent the chatty old guy to fetch us in that death trap?”
Gary Cooper grinned. “Didn’t want to send the limo, attract too much attention.”
A comedian.
“Where’s the kit?” Ethan said, looking up at the intersection indicated by Cooper’s thumb.
“In the SUV.” Cooper jumped down off the limb-threatening concrete blocks and started up the street. “Your guys can come too. The SUV is for you.”
That was the best news Ethan had heard all day. It wasn’t an SUV, it was a battered old green Land Rover.
Cooper opened the tailgate and pulled back an orange plaid blanket and stepped back. “Just what the doctor ordered.” He grinned. “Well, your boss via my boss and local bosses.”
Ethan looked into the compartment, nodded and waved the others up. “Check out your weapon but put it back. We don’t want to give the locals any sleepless nights.”
“There’s an Indian army barracks over there,” Cooper said, pointing at the sky. “This is a bad place to be seen with weapons. They got jumped by terrorists a while back.”
&
nbsp; “Copy that,” Ethan said, and lifted a M16 out of the vehicle, turned it over in his hands and put it back. “It’s done a few miles.”
Cooper shrugged. “It looks tired, but it’s deceptive.”
Ethan watched the unit check their weapons quickly, looking around to see if they were observed. The M16s and handguns had been stressed to look old, but they were as tight as when they’d come out of the box. The M40 sniper rifle snug in its rifle case was pristine, and so was its scope in its protective box, as was the Colt 9mm SMG. Special orders with no time to age them. Toys for Smokey and Loco.
Ethan nodded once at Cooper. “Good job. You got wheels?”
Cooper pointed with his thumb again, and Ethan saw a brand new black Toyota 4Runner parked nose first in a narrow alley.
They shook hands, and the CIA man strolled off down the muddy street as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
Ethan watched him go and then took a long slow look around. Nothing moved and there was nobody on the street. Nothing to worry about. The small hairs on the back of his neck told him everything he needed to know about their covert arrival.
Smokey got in behind the wheel without being told, waited for the others to mount up, then drove slowly out of the village.
Leonard Hofmann’s office occupied the whole top floor of the modern building, as was fitting for the CEO of a well-respected and very profitable multinational organization. Orpheus. He’d had the partitions removed to expose the windows on three sides.
The fourth side was his suite, a place to crash if he didn’t feel like going home to an empty house. Julieta had been gone two years now, and sometimes he missed her. A little. She’d got bored, but that was always the risk with a beautiful young woman left alone for days on end with nothing to do but spend money. Going home to her mother had been fine with him; he’d even given her a very generous—he caught himself. He’d almost thought severance check but corrected it to maintenance payment.
The pay-off had made her a rich woman, free to do whatever she wanted, but it hadn’t been enough. When she’d come after him with her lawyers, any feelings he might have had for her disappeared without an echo. It could’ve been very messy and expensive. The courts like to punish the rich. Fortunately, there was a tragic accident. A gas explosion, the investigators determined. Julieta and her dear mother had been killed. He’d attended the funeral and managed tears. For the cameras.
The whole thing was behind him now, but he’d need to do something about the empty house. Hispanic women are best, and the young ones have yet to develop an attitude. He would have Bernard arrange a viewing.
He leaned his elbow on the Kittinger desk he owned because the president had one almost as good in the Oval Office, and looked out at the vehicle lights moving slowly down on Wisconsin Avenue. He moved the printed page around his desktop with his finger. It was the same old shit; as soon as things start to look up, God pisses on you from on high.
He reread the short note and muttered quietly. There was always some shiny-assed bureaucrat trying to make a name for himself by doing something stupid. He picked up the paper and looked again at the name. Arness, Robert. Hotshot with something to prove. It was because of people like this that he was still in his office at ten at night after arriving at six in the morning. And because he didn’t want the empty house. But mostly people like this…he turned the paper again. Because of this FBI Special Agent in Charge. Why didn’t he just do his job and go catch some real bad guys? Instead of coming after the people whose businesses paid the government so they could pay him. Of course, he knew the answer. Catching bad guys didn’t progress your career. Nailing successful entrepreneurs on some stitch-up was a fast track to the big office with windows.
He crumpled the paper and threw it towards the bin. Well, this was one…hotshot whose career was going nowhere but down the toilet, and soon, very soon. He touched a button on his desk phone and returned to watching the traffic while he waited. He’d give the man five seconds. That seemed reasonable. Longer and he’d be clearing his desk.
The phone was answered on the forth ring, so no desk clearing.
“Sir?”
Hofmann took a long breath and let his irritation float away. “Philip, I have a little job for you. One that is ideally suited to your particular talents.”
“Yes, sir. Whatever you command will be my duty and my pleas—”
“You don’t know what it is yet, Philip. Perhaps you should curtail your enthusiasm until you understand the scope of the work.”
“Yes, sir. I will, sir. But there’s nothing you could ask that I wouldn’t do willingly for you. Sir.”
Hofmann held the phone away from his ear and looked at it as he would a roadkill rodent. He put the phone back to his ear now the sycophancy was done.
“I have just sent you a file. I want this person handled.”
“With extreme prejudice, sir?”
Hofmann sighed, he couldn’t help it. “Philip, if I were to have you thrown out of your fifth-floor window, what do you think would happen?”
There was silence on the line for a moment. Then Philip spoke again, but his voice was a little squeaky. “I’d be dead, sir. On the sidewalk, sir.”
“You would. And what would happen to the things you are working on for the company?”
“You have nothing to fear, sir. Someone would pick up where I, err…left off.”
Hofmann gave him a moment, but it wasn’t enough. “And if you arrange for…how did you put it? Ah yes. Extreme prejudice, what do you think will happen to his cases?”
“Oh.”
“Quite. Oh. If it isn’t too much trouble and you’re not too busy, could I prevail on you…to do what I fucking well pay you to do?”
“Yes, sir. You can, sir. I will. Sir. No need to even think about it again, sir. You can color that—”
Hofmann put down the phone and looked out of the window. He saw Philip’s body hurtling towards the sidewalk, his arms and legs outstretched as if their air resistance might save him, then the impact with the concrete and his head exploding in a cloud of red mist like a dropped watermelon.
His hand was rock steady as he poured a glass of scotch and he smiled, both at his steady grip and the fine golden spirit glinting in the subdued light. He took a step towards his bedroom, stopped and picked up the whiskey bottle. It would save him the trip.
He moved a little stiffly; long days with no exercise were taking their toll. His sixty-nine years played no part in it.
He pushed open his door with his foot and stopped, his face close to the wood. Beech, not plastic crap or veneer, that was for people who couldn’t afford the real thing and wouldn’t appreciate it if they could. A fine tree had died in order to provide him with a beautiful door. It was sad, and the thought brought him down.
He sat on the deep cushioned sofa, pushed off his shoes, put the bottle on the table next to his arm, and leaned back. The building was quiet, and the triple-glazed windows kept most of the city at bay, so the room with its king-size bed and wall-to-wall units was almost silent. But a man needs more than authority and silence.
He took his phone from his jacket tossed over the arm of the sofa. A moment later Bernard answered. No delay, as usual.
“Mr. Hofmann,” Bernard said, his voice clipped and clear, “I believe you are about to ask me to arrange an interview for your next companion.
Hofmann laughed once. “Bernard, you never fail to amaze me.”
“Thank you, sir, but that’s my raison d’être, is it not?” He didn’t wait for a response; none was necessary. “I have taken the liberty of arranging auditions for Friday afternoon.”
“Not at my home, I trust.”
There was silence for a beat. “No, sir. That would be inappropriate. You have the use of the theater for the afternoon. If the arrangement meets with your approval.”
“It does. Please send me the details.”
“That will not be necessary, sir. I shall collect you from your privat
e entrance at two thirty.”
“Of course you will, Bernard.” Hofmann smiled again. “Goodnight, Bernard.”
“Goodnight, sir.”
Hofmann put the phone on the table next to the scotch, drained his glass and refilled it. If the rest of his people were as on the ball as Bernard, life would be a whole lot less complicated. But complications are like bugs. You might see one, but there are many more hiding in the shadows.
Ethan twisted in his seat and looked back through the rear window but could see nothing to explain the uneasy feeling itching his neck.
Gunny looked back, with the same result. “You thinking maybe we should ditch this vehicle?”
“Ditch this fine van?” Loco said, sitting up from the corner of the back seat. “We do that, Gunny, and we’ll be walking.”
“You do know you’re a soldier, right?” Winter said from next to Gunny on the middle row of seats.
“I’m a marine,” Loco said. “Marines sail not walk.”
“Like a rich kid on your father’s yacht?” Gunny said, hiding a grin.
“Makes no sense us walking when we’ve got a perfectly good set of wheels. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Then say it without speaking,” Gunny said. “The grown-ups are talking.”
Loco’s brow creased in a deep frown and he looked away.
“Now you’ve hurt his feelings, Gunny,” Andie said, and jabbed Loco with her elbow. “Hey, Loco, don’t you fret. There’s nothing wrong with sailing. We get time, I’ll show you how to do it.”
He glared at her but said nothing. The others chuckled and turned back to face front. But both Gunny and Winter looked back along the dusty road every few minutes.
Andie watched their unease for several seconds, then opened her laptop. She seemed indifferent to the Land Rover lurching and bouncing on the narrow mountain road. She stopped typing and leaned closer to the laptop balanced on her knees. Then looked up quickly.
