Текст книги "Eye for an Eye"

Автор книги: Ben Coes

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

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. Little 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.”

Raul sighted the sniper nest atop the knoll, setting the Dragunov on its bipod. He spent several minutes calibrating the scope as well as adjusting for bullet drop. Once he had the rifle good to go, he moved it slowly back and forth along the back of the rambling stucco mansion.

Chang pulled an MRE from his pack and ripped the tinfoil lid from it, then stuffed the food into his face.

“We have three hours before the dead guard is discovered,” said Hu-Shao.

Raul listened, studying the house, looking for signs of life.

“What if I don’t get a shot?” asked Raul.

“Then we hit the house. If you haven’t killed Andreas in two hours, we move in.”

Raul pulled his eye from the end of the rifle scope. He stood up.

“Where the hell are you going?” said Hu-Shao angrily.

“To take a piss,” said Raul, pointing to his crotch. “I might work for you, Chinaman, but he doesn’t.”

*   *   *

As Raul walked off into the darkness to pee, Hu-Shao put the scope to his eye, pretending to study the house; but his eye glanced sideways, watching Raul as he walked away.

Hu-Shao removed a 9mm Strike One from his shoulder holster. He reached into his front pocket for a suppressor, screwing it into the muzzle of the handgun.

Chang, on his back, looked up from his MRE.

“What are you doing?”

“Following orders,” answered Hu-Shao, checking the magazine. “Eat your dog food and shut the fuck up.”

He gripped the weapon and stuck it into the pocket of his Windbreaker, clutching the grip, prepared to fire.

“What did he do?” whispered Chang.

Hu-Shao sat down on the ground, against a rock, behind the sniper rifle. He was directly behind where Raul would be after he shot the American.

“That’s the wrong question,” said Hu-Shao.

“What’s the right question?”

“The right question is, am I going to kill you too?” Hu-Shao whispered, smiling viciously.

Chang laughed nervously.

“When will you do it?” whispered Chang.

“After he shoots the American.”

*   *   *

Raul walked behind the hill for several hundred feet, whistling. The sky was black and blue and dotted with stars. He unzipped his pants and peed on the ground, then began a slow walk back toward Hu-Shao and Chang. He walked nonchalantly over the hill, to the right of where he’d left. The dark outline of the ranch house was visible in the far distance, the lights from windows casting dull yellow into the evening.

He saw Chang first, lying on the ground, next to the Dragunov. He was staring through his night optics at the ranch house.

Hu-Shao was behind Chang and the rifle, reclined against a rock. His hand was stuffed inside the pocket of his Windbreaker. He was looking in the opposite direction, waiting for Raul to return.

Raul removed the Colt from his jeans. He moved the safety off. He walked in silence down the slope of the hill. He aimed the gun at the back of Hu-Shao’s head. He paused for a moment, then two. Finally, as if by instinct, Hu-Shao turned.

Hu-Shao’s eyes met Raul’s. Hu-Shao’s mouth went agape. He tried to say something but couldn’t. Then he ripped his hand—clutching the weapon—from the Windbreaker and swung it up at Raul.

Raul pumped the trigger. There was a low mechanical thud as a slug tore a hole just above Hu-Shao’s lip, at the center of his mustache. The back of his skull exploded across the rock. Raul fired again, this time ripping a hole into Hu-Shao’s right eye, destroying the front of his face.

Chang turned at the sound. He stared in silence and horror at the destroyed skull of Hu-Shao.

Raul knelt and picked up the spent cartridges from his gun. He moved to Hu-Shao, picked up his weapon, then began to search for the slugs that had ripped through him.

“It goes without saying,” said Raul, patting the grass in the twilight, not even looking up from the ground, “don’t do anything stupid or you’ll end up the same way.”

Raul stood up and stuck the gun between his belt and back.

“What do we do with him?”

“Carry him out,” said Raul. “Tell them Andreas shot back.”

Chang nodded in stunned agreement.

“How did you know?” Chang asked.

“I knew it the moment he stepped on the plane. In fact, I knew it before you stepped on the plane. Now let’s kill the gringo and get the fuck out of Argentina.”

19

ESTANCIA EL COLIBRI

CÓRDOBA

On the terrace outside the main house, Dewey and Jessica ate a dinner of trout, fresh tomatoes, and rice with toasted pine nuts. They shared a bottle of wine. Candles, and the stars above the Argentine sky, provided the only light.

After dinner was done, Nico and Maria sat down and had a glass of wine with them. At some point, Maria brought out homemade strawberry shortcake.

The couples sat talking for a long time, laughing, finishing off the bottle of wine. Finally, Nico and Maria stood to clear off plates.

Dewey felt his eyelids getting heavy.

“You tired?” Jessica asked.

“I’m getting too old for this,” he said.

Jessica shook her head, giggling.

“Too old for what?” she asked. “Luxury ranches half a world away from anyone or anything? Sex on demand with a smoking-hot Irish girl? Gourmet dinners by candlelight?”

“All of the above,” he said. “Especially the sex part. I think we need to slow things down a little.”

Jessica rolled her eyes.

“You really are not funny.”

*   *   *

Raul lay on his stomach, his right eye against the rifle scope, studying the terrace. The dim light made it hard to discern between the figures sitting at the table. Despite the relatively short firing distance, all he could see was silhouettes. There were at least four people, and while he knew he could take out several of them, he didn’t like the odds of shooting all four. So he waited, as patiently as possible. But time was running out. The guard would soon return. When he did, any chance of killing the American would be gone.

“How long do we have?” asked Raul, keeping his eye glued to the scope.

“It’s nearly eleven,” said Chang, trying not to sound worried. “We have an hour.”

Raul felt his heart pick up a beat, and he shut his eyes for a brief moment, trying to calm down.

*   *   *

At eleven, Dewey and Jessica said goodnight to the Sabellas and walked to their suite.

Jessica went to the French doors, opening them to the nighttime air. The moon and stars created a golden hue of ambient light.

Dewey went to the armoire and took off his shirt. From the top drawer, he removed two small shiny gold objects, which he’d been hiding from Jessica. He examined them in the palm of his hand.

He’d bought them in Manhattan. Each had cost ten thousand dollars at Tiffany’s. He could’ve bought them for half the price from a less well known jeweler, but it’s what Jessica wanted, and that was all he cared about. Dewey smiled as he looked down at the two rings.

“Can I show you something?” he asked.

Jessica turned from the doors, tilted her head, and smiled.

“Sure.”

*   *   *

“It’s eleven fifteen,” said Chang, whispering urgently. “We can’t wait any longer.”

Raul, on his stomach, breathed very slowly now, as he’d been trained to do. He looked in utter stillness through the high-powered PSO-1 scope at the woman standing in the middle of the French doors. She was facing him. Her mouth was centered in the crosshairs of the scope.

Behind her was a man. He was tall. He stood with his back turned at the far side of the room. Andreas. Raul pressed his finger against the trigger, almost hard enough to fire the rifle but not quite.

“She’s too close.”

“You hit the guard from a mile out,” said Chang, encouraging him. “You can do it, Raul.”

A tremor of fear made Raul shiver for a brief moment.

“Be quiet, please,” said Raul.

He slowed his breathing to the point of holding his breath. He studied Andreas in the scope, just to the right of the woman.

Raul became aware of movement—to the left, back on the terrace off the kitchen. He moved the rifle ever so slightly, finding the terrace. Someone had flipped lights on. He registered a tall man with dark skin along with a woman. He moved the weapon back to the bedroom, reacquiring the sight of the woman, standing in the middle of the doorway.

Suddenly, the woman turned, moving away from the French doors. Raul had a clean shot.

He yanked back the trigger. The low boom of the Dragunov echoed across the dark plain, then kicked back as the rifle sent a slug through the night.

*   *   *

Dewey went to open his hand and show Jessica the two rings, just as the bedroom was interrupted by a sharp noise—abrupt, violent, an unnatural sound—the fracturing of wood, the sound combining, in a terrible second, with the smell of sawdust.

Dewey’s head jerked right. The armoire lay mauled, a large hole cleaved, just inches from where he stood, splintering in a web of slivers and wood dust.

His eyes turned to Jessica. She looked panicked and lost.

Dewey, instincts suddenly taking over, lurched toward her.

“Get down!” he screamed.

*   *   *

Raul retargeted the rifle, finding the bedroom, then Andreas. He was still standing. Raul fired again.

*   *   *

The second slug tore into Jessica’s back. The bullet kicked her sideways and down. Dewey caught her as she fell, his eyes meeting hers. He laid her on the ground, out of the way of the open doors. He looked down at her white dress. A pool of blood grew quickly, forming a neat crimson circle above her heart.

Dewey leaned down to her. Her lips moved as she tried to say something, but no sounds came out, only a small trickle of red at the corner of her mouth.

Dewey held her gaze as tears came to his eyes and a terrible look crossed his face. He began to cry as he held her. He kissed her forehead, unable to say or do anything. He held his lips against her forehead for several moments as his body slowly heaved. When, finally, he lifted his lips away from her, she was gone, her eyes blank pools of green that stared straight up past him.

Dewey opened his hand. He slid one of the two rings onto her finger. He reached up and closed her eyelids.

Dewey shut his eyes as tears came down. He was gripped by pain and grief, paralyzed; but then he heard words, a voice, speaking to him:

Leave her now. Walk away. Leave her behind. Now isn’t the time. No you have to do the thing you were trained to do. What you were meant to do. The only thing you can do.

Fight.