No Way Back (14 page)

THE HITTERS COME JUST PAST MIDNIGHT. FUCKERS
think they’re ninjas or something. But they’re amateurs, watched too many movies.

Sonny and I have finished a circuit, half-finished coffees in the monitor room, when the watcher hisses through his teeth. Our eyes go to the screens. The steady green lines of the infrared perimeter are strobing in two separate places. Then the motion sensors in those areas buzz. Intruders over the fence. I don’t hesitate; I ease back the slide of the HK SOG .45 with the long, tubular supressor screwed to its muzzle, confirm there’s a round in the chamber. Then slip the night-vision goggles I’ve felt like a fool carrying around all evening over my head. Shadows flick on the video monitors. I turn toward Sonny, laugh. We look like a couple of giant insects in business suits.

“Crazy guys, Mistah Prentice,” he says. “We go commit some mayhem, okay?”

We slip out the rear door of our wing like we’re greased. No moon, no mist. Lights from the main house
dancing on the surface of the pool seem bright as lightning flashes through the goggles, but wisely Sonny’s had no floods illuminating the grounds. We pause where two tightly clipped hedges of cypress form a straight path to that nice redwood deck on the edge of the sea cliff. Only sound’s the breakers bashing the cliff base. Sonny listens a second to what’s coming over his earphone from the watcher in the monitor room, holds up three thick fingers, points right, then holds up two, points left. Before he’s even finished the gesture I’m moving right, hugging the outside of the hedge, then moving crouched but fast over the needled ground from one low, twisted pine to another. Scan the terrain, everything that weird wavery pale green night-eyes make the world, every object and feature clear but somehow not quite real.

Gets real, real fast. An idiot all in black with a black hood, carrying a suppressed MP5, emerges from behind a tree fifteen meters off. My HK pop-pops softly as I double-tap. A can’t-miss situation, no challenge at all. Asshole never even sees who sent 200-grain XTPs slamming into his belly, his upper chest. Just goes down, doesn’t even twitch.

I cut an arc around behind the body, moving from tree to tree, cliff at my back. See my other two targets moving together toward the house, zigging and zagging on the far side of the pool. I’m behind them now, maybe twenty-five meters. Looks like one’s got an M4 with a grenade launcher under the barrel, the other’s carrying a Steyr AUG assault rifle. They pause behind the last stunted pine before a stretch of open grass. From there they’ve got a clear, short shot at the glass wall of the main house. Bad mistake, that pause; they should have zigged apart. I’m zeroed on them, kneeling, with the HK held in both hands. The M4 ninja slides sideways a foot, ready to send a grenade arcing through glass into the
main room. I cap him, aiming for a head shot but hitting him in the back of his neck, just where it meets his shoulders. He sprawls foward, flat on his face. The Steyr guy fucks up worse. He freezes, head swiveling wildly, no doubt wondering where the hell that pop came from. I double-tap him in the back. Down. Then I sprint up, put one in each of their heads, just in case they’re wearing body armor.

I think I hear a couple of pops on the other side of the house. Must be Sonny committing mayhem. I move fast toward the first hitter, head-shoot him once. Just in case. Fuck cover then. I run back to the hedge, go left. See Sonny strolling back, pistol pointed to the ground. I lower mine.

“You take them down okay, no problem, Mistah Prentice?” he calls.

“Three. No problem at all.”

“Ah, that good, Mistah Prentice.” Sonny removes his goggles. “Yeah, watcher telling me they down, no movement. Good mayhem. But now I gotta inform Mistah Kim, goddamn. You like to walk around the house once, twice? Double-check?”

“Roger that.” Sonny’s hitters are sprawled awkward in death, one on either side of the gravel walk about ten meters from the front door. I keep circling, take off my goggles when I reach the swimming pool. I can see perfectly into the main room. There’s the party in full swing, a few couples dancing, Nadya about to give some white-haired coot in a blue blazer cardiac arrest, Allison pretending she’s not bored shitless by a white-haired woman with a black cardigan draped over the shoulders of her garishly flowered dress. A couple nice pieces of imported eye candy walk around hip-shot, like runway models. Giving Rob and a few strangers who look like him neck strain as they try to watch and keep their con
versation going at the same time. Kim’s off to one side, into it with Westley and two CEO-types closer to Westley’s age than his. Kim’s grinning big time. Trace of music, mostly bass notes, leaks through the double-paned glass.

Nobody in there ever heard a thing. Nobody there had any idea the party was seconds away from getting juiced and jolted by a 40mm grenade, followed by a lot of full-auto spray.

Anybody in there still alive after the grenade would have heard that pretty clear.

I see Sonny sidle up to Kim, suit unmussed and weapon either left in the monitor room or perfectly concealed. He mouths a couple of words. Kim bobs at the two CEOs, takes Westley by the arm, and they follow Sonny out of the room. Nobody seems to notice. Except Allison, whose eyes track them. A Rob-type, likely some software start-up’s starter Kim has invested in, is dancing so close with one of the imported sweeties that their bodies look like they’ve been glued together. They’re moving toward the wall. I see the girl’s ass pressed against the glass, see her partner’s hands creep round, start pulling up her skirt. She isn’t wearing anything under.

That’s enough. I cross the pool terrace, enter the back door, go straight to the monitor room. Sonny, Kim, Westley, and the watcher are all scanning the bank of monitors. Most just show landscapes. Three show still lifes, with corpses.

Kim’s face is tight, skin gone sallow. “Terrible, terrible. How can this be?” he’s saying, flicking a hand at the screens as if the gesture will make the images vanish. “How can this be, Westley?”

“As we discussed, Mister Kim,” Westley says. “The very reason we agreed to take certain measures.”

Kim’s right leg starts to tremble. “People murdered
outside my house. No, no, no. This can’t be. We did not discuss killing. We did not.”

“I must remind you we spoke at length of threats from ultra-rightist Korean groups bitterly opposed to your connection with the North,” Westley says. “Someone—perhaps one of those groups—sent these men to kill you tonight, Mister Kim. They had to be eliminated. I assumed you understood the possibility of such an event. Why else would you have accepted my suggestion that we increase your security arrangements?”

“You assume too much! I never wanted anything like this. It’s horrible!”

Kim’s voice rises half an octave, both hands flapping now. Suddenly he notices my presence. He makes a visible effort to calm himself, shoving those hands into his jacket pockets. Face. He doesn’t want to lose face. He may also be realizing at last that he was very close to being assassinated a few minutes ago. But his eyes recoil from the HK he spots in my hand.

“Mister Prentice,” Kim says. “Mister Prentice, I…yes, thank you for dealing with this so efficiently.”

“I realize this is very unpleasant, Mister Kim,” Westley says. “Extremely upsetting for everyone. But I believe it would be instructive if we reviewed the incident. To put it into proper perspective, so to speak. May we?”

Kim looks at Sonny, glances at me, stares at Westley. Then his gaze seems to drift down to his leg. It’s still trembling. But he nods to the watcher at the console, who rewinds and plays the tapes on two monitors. I see some alien insectoid in a suit with an HK, see some muzzle flashes, see the alien cut an arc. More muzzle flashes as he shoots two ninjas from behind. First time I’ve ever seen myself kill after the fact. I’m juked, a little dizzy.

“Those men were heavily armed, Mister Kim. Their intentions were evil. Mister Park and Mister Prentice did
only what was necessary to prevent a tragedy,” Westley says. Kim’s face is tighter, his color worse.

“Yes. Of course,” Kim says.

“I’d appreciate it if those tapes were erased. Right now, please,” I say.

I’m ignored.

“Be assured, Mister Kim, there will be no trace of tonight’s unfortunate incident,” Westley says. “We will identify the bodies. And we will find whoever might have sent these people here.”

“The, eh, bodies will of course be removed quickly? Before my guests begin to depart?” Kim asks.

“Absolutely, sir,” Westley says. “No need to ruin anyone’s evening. No need anyone outside this room should ever know a thing about this.”

Fucking Westley. This kind of shit was not supposed to happen. Not here, for sure.

In the little staff lounge next to the monitor room, Sonny pops a beer and I pour myself a coffee from the Thermos. I sit, light a cigarette. He stands, shifting his weight leg to leg, drains half the bottle in one pull. “You some pretty slick guy, Mistah Prentice.” He kills the bottle, tosses it into a plastic trashcan. “Long time since I commit any mayhem.”

“Looked to me like you’ve kept your edge,” I say.

Sonny laughs, pops a second beer; the sound’s only marginally less than an HK firing. He drains half the bottle, sets it down smartly on the table. The adrenaline dump does a fast fade. So does his smile.

“That Mistah Westley! All his fault, damn straight.”

“How’s that?” I ask.

“What I tell you before? Six, seven years, never troubles. None. Westley come around, I’m thinking here troubles coming up, for sure.”

“Not quite following you on this.”

“Listen, Mistah Prentice. Seen this lotsa times before. Before I work for Mistah Kim, I’m in ROK Army—special unit, all I can say. We train hard, nothing ever happen, though. Then three, four times American guys like Westley show up, hang around a little. Next thing, crisscross DMZ, shitload of fireworks or sneak around slitting throats, what’s the difference?”

Sonny retrieves his beer, sips. “First time, I think oh, special mission. Second, I think, what’s the damn word, coincidence? Third time I get it. CIA guys just draw trouble like shit draw flies. Fourth time, know I’m wrong. Shit just lies there, don’t do nothing, flies come automatic, understand? CIA guys, they don’t just lie there. They run around, make lotsa noise, invite the bad guys for party. Only they never stay to party. Leave us to do it. Fuckers!”

“You got a point,” I say.

“Hunh!” Sonny grunts. “You one of them, Mistah Prentice.”

“No, I’m not. Ex-Special Forces, never CIA. Just got a job offer from Westley, short-term, and took it. Needed the work.”

“Hunh!” Sonny interlocks his fingers, pushes out. His knuckles pop. “Maybe yeah, maybe no. You do pretty good work. I got no problem working with you. Got big problem that we got to do it. Why those men come over the fence? Why they want to get Mistah Kim?”

“Westley said it: somebody doesn’t appreciate Mister Kim’s business with the North. Not so hard to imagine, is it?”

“Nobody bother Mistah Kim about that before. Just a little business, so what? Me, I think fucker Westley, he leaving shit all around Mistah Kim, so flies come. They don’t, so Westley running around now, making lotsa noise, invite bad guys to Mistah Kim’s party.”

“You ever suggested this to Mister Kim?”

Sonny looks shocked. Dumb mistake on my part. Of course he’d never dream of saying anything to Kim. That hierarchy thing. It’d be rude. It’d be regarded as an insult, and cost Sonny his job.

“Sorry. That was stupid. You can’t, can you?” I say. “I got a person I can talk to, though.”

“You shut up!” Sonny’s suddenly near rage. “You keeping your mouth shut tight, understand? Understand?”

Dumber and dumber, Luther, I’m thinking. “Yeah, absolutely. All this—all of it, every word—stays between you and me.”

“Better had, damn straight,” Sonny says, heavy threat in those black slits for a moment. Then he eases off. “Me, you, we take care of our business. Like we did tonight. Okay, Mistah Prentice?”

“We’re on the same page.”

“What that mean?”

“A saying. Means we have an agreement.”

“Oh. That’s good, Mistah Prentice. I like you okay. Make me unhappy if I got to mayhem you, too.”

Too? Does this Buddha already have something in mind for Westley? Allison, Nadya, Rob? Can I talk to Allison and be certain she’ll again keep it from Westley? Who do I trust now?

Nobody. That’s what I conclude. Nobody but myself.

Westley catches me early next morning as I’m coming up the stairs from my quarters, squared away in shirt and tie but missing the suitcoat, mug of coffee in one hand.

Oh shit, I’m thinking, there goes a nice start to what looks like a beautiful Northern California day, sun and cool sea air and sky the deepest blue it can manage. Because the dick’s first words are “Let’s discuss.”

He looks fresh, rested, unperturbed. But maybe he is
slowing down, slipping. He’s got to know how those particular words resonate. But he gives no sign, just leads the way to a couple of chaises near the end of the pool. I look around as we go.

“First-rate cleaners,” I say. “Nobody’d ever guess what went down last night.”

“Not a shell casing, not a blood drop on a pine needle. That is why we have cleaners. Self-evident, no? No one is supposed to have any reason at all to even speculate,” Westley says as we recline.

“Self-evident that no one speculated we’d get hitters,” I say.

Westley laughs. “You mean my remarks about no situations here? You do. And you’re partly right. I did not expect such a thing. On the other hand, I was prepared.”

“Yeah,” I admit. “I understand the enhanced perimeter security is a fairly recent addition. And then there’s the brand-new addition. Me.”

“Actually, Sonny and his longer-time colleagues could have dealt with last night adequately. That’s not to say you didn’t do very well. You performed to expectations. But your presence wasn’t the decisive factor.”

“Whatever.” I try to blow some smoke-rings, but they’re whisked away before they’re formed by the light sea breeze. “Know who they were yet?”