KILLING SARAI (A NOVEL)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR





Victor





When Niklas and I were just boys, before we were taken by the Order, he was my best friend. We fought a lot, hand-to-hand, always trying to size the other up, and although we both often came out with bloody noses and once a broken wrist, nothing could make us turn on the other. We would walk off the battlefield, carrying on about what we thought our mother’s would have waiting for us for dinner when we got home. And we’d wake up and attend school the next day with matching black eyes.

The ones I gave him were bigger, of course, but then Niklas would say the same about those he gave me.

After we were taken by the Order, things between us began to change. Vonnegut, although rarely ever making a face-to-face appearance—and that hasn’t changed even today—said that I showed promise. But he said nothing about Niklas. And the first time I saw Niklas’ face when Vonnegut promoted me—younger than any assassin he had ever promoted—to Full Operative when I was just seventeen-years-old, I saw something in Niklas that hardened me against him: a jealous heart.

I knew at that moment that one day I might be forced to kill him.

Niklas is the only family that I have left. And as much as I wish it didn’t have to be this way, that I could be wrong about him and go back to the way things were, I know that’s not entirely possible. The truth is, I have been watching my back where my brother is concerned since last year.

And our father is to blame for that.

I suppose I should’ve listened to him….

I meet Niklas at the front door. He walks in, calm and collective as always except when he’s angry with me for having my own mind and choosing to do things the way I see fit.

I shut the door behind him.

“This is a much nicer place than the last one,” he says, looking up at the scaling ceilings with his hands folded together behind his back.

I find myself privately studying his features, looking for traces of me and our father in him. We have the same eyes, though his are bluer than mine; mine tend to appear more green at times than blue. His face is rounder, mine slimmer. But I think what separates us the most are our accents. Our father and his mother were both German. I was born in France, my mother a French spy for the Order. My father moved us to Germany when I was two-years-old and I did not meet Niklas until I was six. I helped him learn to speak English and French, but he did not have the knack for linguistics that I had and so he never was able to fully lose the accent. But despite the differences we have, I still see only a younger version of me when I look at him. Especially right now as I try to grasp the fact that I’m going to kill him. I don’t want to. I want to walk away from this and forget that it ever happened, but that’s not an option.

He smiles at me.

We have the same smile, too. I remember our father telling me this.

“Yes,” I say about the house, “I thought it was time I slept in something more upscale. I hoped I might get to stay here for a while.”

“Has that changed?” he asks curiously, having reason to believe that judging by my tone.

“Unfortunately.”

I gesture toward the living room. “Let’s sit down,” I say and he follows. “We have a lot to discuss.”

He takes the chair next to the marble side-table.

I remain standing.

I sense that he wonders why I don’t sit down as well, but the curiosity disappears from his eyes and is replaced with attention when I begin.

“Niklas,” I say, “last year on my mission to Budapest, I wasn’t being entirely honest with you.”

Niklas laughs lightly, adjusting his back against the chair. He props his left ankle on top of his right knee and interlocks his fingers in front of him, his elbows propped on the chair arms.

“Well, that wouldn’t be the first time,” he says, still smiling as if this is any other casual conversation between two brothers. “You never were one to tell even me your secrets.”

“I went to see our father,” I announce.

The smile drops from his face. He turns his chin slightly at an angle, clearly confused by my admission.

“He sent for me,” I add.

“What for? Why would he send for you, Victor? After all those years of never seeing him once, why would he send for you and not me?”

I don’t answer. I find it more difficult to tell him the truth than I imagined it would be. I always knew it would be hard, but not this hard.

“Victor?” Niklas’ eyes are filled with concern and…pain.

He stands up from the chair.

“Just tell me, brother, please.”

I swallow hard and take a steady breath.

“Niklas,” I finally go on, “your mother was eliminated by the Order because proof was found that she was selling information. You already know this.” He nods. “But after that, because she was your mother, the Order could not trust you. Even Vonnegut felt you were unstable, that one day, sooner or later, you would avenge your mother’s death and betray the Order.”

He continues to listen, his face shadowed more and more by pain and rejection. And it kills me inside to see it.

“I went to Budapest to meet with him,” I say and can no longer look at my brother. “He spoke with Vonnegut and they both agreed that you should be eliminated even if only as a precaution, to prevent the inevitable. I was given the order to carry it out.”

Niklas’ head snaps around.

I meet his eyes.

“Vonnegut, of course,” I go on, “did not know that we were brothers and being his Number One, he knew I could carry out the job also because we were so close, you as my liaison. Father wanted me to be the one to kill you because he felt it would be the honorable thing, that if anyone should take your life it should be me because we are family and no other should have that privilege.”

Niklas can hardly get his thoughts together. He can barely speak, but finally manages and when he does, it hurts my heart as much as his expression continues to do.

“Father wanted you to kill me?”

“Yes,” I say gently.

He starts to pace the floor and then brings his hands up to the top of his head, pushing them roughly over his hair. He looks across at me, his eyes brimmed with tears. I have never once in our lives seen my brother cry. Never. Not even when we were children, or when his mother was killed.

I grind my jaw, forcing my own tears back. I grit my teeth so hard that I feel the pressure in my skull. But I keep a straight face, as much of one as I can manage.

“Then why didn’t you?” he lashes out. “Why am I still alive? Tell me that, Victor.” The first of his tears streams down one cheek and he reaches up instinctively to wipe it away, angry at it for betraying him. “You should’ve killed me!”

“I refused,” I say. “You were the one job I could not carry out, Niklas. And so then Father had only one thing left to do: he was going to do it himself.”

Niklas’ body freezes rigidly, more hurt by this truth than the truth before it. Another tear escapes from his eye, but this time he doesn’t have the mind to wipe it away.

“I killed him,” I finally say. “Father told me that I would have to because it was the only way he wouldn’t finish the job. So I shot him where he stood.”

He can’t look at me. I feel the conflict within him, his mind and heart trying to choose which emotions to feel and which ones to reject: his hurt for what our father did, or his love for his brother, because both are too much to take on at once.

I go on:

“Being Vonnegut’s Number One, I convinced him to spare your life and made him believe that our Father was unhinged, paranoid, and that was why I had to kill him. I told Vonnegut that you were trustworthy and that I wanted a chance to prove that to him and the rest of the Order. I vowed to take full responsibility for you—”

“Full re—,” he glares at me, “full responsibility for me? What, am I a goddamned child? Everything I have done since I was seven-years old, I’ve done for the Order. I am the one of us who always did as I was told, who never questioned Vonnegut’s orders, who has never given him or anyone else reason to question me!” He clenches his hands into fists at his sides. “I have strived to become like you, Victor, to be respected and trusted and showered with the same glory Vonnegut has showered you with since before you were promoted Full Operative! I have done nothing to warrant—”

“You’ve been lying to Vonnegut for me for years, Niklas. What’s not to say that you would turn against me when the time was right? You’ve pretended to be Vonnegut’s trustworthy soldier, his liaison waiting to be promoted Full Operative, all the while lying to him whenever I asked you to.”

“Is that what this is about?!” He points upward and then drops his hand aggressively back at his side. “Have you been testing me all this time?! That’s what you’ve been doing! Isn’t it?!”

“No,” I say. “I would never use you like that, Niklas. I killed our father to save your life. Why would I then risk your life by setting you up?”

He has no answer. He just stares at me confused and hurt and angry and not knowing what to do with any of it. He collapses back into the chair, his legs splayed out into the floor, his upper-body slouched forward resting his forehead in his hand.

“Why are you telling me this now?” he asks, raising his eyes back to me. “What made you decide that today was going to be the day you turned my life upside-down? Did you just wake up this morning and say to yourself: ‘Today I think I’ll mindf*ck my brother because I have nothing better to do’?”

“I felt I owed it to you,” I say. “You should know the truth before you die.”

He looks faintly stunned, as if trying to figure out if he heard me right.

His hand drops away from his forehead and he straightens his back against the chair.

“What do you mean?”

“Niklas,” I get right to it, “I know you told Javier Ruiz where I hid the girl. Where I was with the girl.”

His eyes wrinkle with confusion.

“What are you talking about?”

I walk a couple steps to my right, my hands now behind my back to appear to be resting there. My gun is hidden safely in the back of my pants.

“When you called me while I was on my way back to Tucson, you said that the time of Javier’s last known whereabouts was at three-twelve in the afternoon.” I cock my head to one side. “Why did it take you seven hours to give me this information?”

He still hasn’t flinched. I’m beginning to find his ability to act more effective than I gave him credit for.

He thinks about the question for a moment. “I called you as soon as I found out myself. Victor, you know we don’t always get that kind of information right when it occurs.”

“Maybe so,” I say. “But you and Samantha were the only two people who knew where I was and where I planned to leave the girl.”

He points at me, his expression twisted with disbelief. “But you told me Samantha was the one. You said the girl told you that Samantha got a call….”

“I lied.”

He still hasn’t flinched.

Is he telling the truth?

I raise my gun to him.

Niklas’ eyes widen and he puts out his hands toward me.

“Victor, I didn’t betray you. I swear to you on my life, I told no one anything!”

My finger presses carefully on the trigger.

“You are my brother!” he shouts. “I have always done what you asked, kept your secrets, played your game between Vonnegut and the orders he gave you! I would die before I betrayed you!”

When Niklas’ eyes avert behind me, I know that Sarai is standing there.

“I told you not to come out.” I keep my eyes on Niklas.

He looks back and forth between the two of us, his features riddled by shock and betrayal on my part.

“You said she died.”

“I lied about that, too.”

I press the trigger a little more.

“So who’s lying to who then? Who’s been betraying who?!”

Back and forth his eyes dart.

“Victor! It. Wasn’t. Me!” he roars. He’s more angry than scared, his face twisted with heartbreak and disbelief, his hands clenched tightly into fists at his sides. “I won’t beg for my life. I won’t do it, brother. If you must kill me then kill me, be done with it, but know that I did not betray you!”

In the last second, I lower my gun and catch the breath I’ve been holding for the past few minutes.

Then I sit down in the nearby chair and slump against it.

Silence fills the room. I’ve never been so confused in my life about anything.

“I think he’s telling the truth,” Sarai says softly behind me. I feel her there, standing with her fingers draped over the back of my chair. For a moment, I almost reach up and touch them.

Finally, I raise my eyes to Niklas and say to Sarai, “I believe he is, too.”

“How is she alive?” Niklas asks, more concerned with her than the fact that I’ve decided not to shoot him. He seems to be looking at her more now than me. I can’t tell yet what level of discontent he’s feeling about this, but maybe once the shock wears off I’ll be able to read his face a little easier.

“Samantha didn’t tell Javier where we were, either,” I say. “I only told you that to get you here because I was certain you were the one. You were the only one left.”

“Samantha was killed trying to protect me,” Sarai speaks up.

I wish she’d just stop talking and go back into the room.

“Javier killed her,” she adds with sadness in her voice.

“And Sarai killed Javier before I got there,” I say.

Niklas stares at both of us for a long time, perhaps still trying to fit all of the pieces together in his mind, and likely still feeling stung by my deceiving him the way I did to get him here.

“Fine,” he says, slashing the air in front of him with his hand. “Samantha didn’t do it, but neither did I.”

Sarai’s fingers move from the back of the chair and touch the back of my shoulders, likely involuntarily because she’s so nervous. For a moment, I find myself wanting her fingers there, but I get up quickly before my brother gets the wrong idea, if he hasn’t already.

“What is all this about?” Niklas asks. “Tell me Victor; what has this girl got to do with you?” He starts pacing again, looking back at me every so often, his mind in overdrive. “You went to Mexico to hear Javier’s offer, to see whose offer was worth the contract, his or Guzmán’s. And then on the way out, you find a stowaway in your car who clearly belonged to Javier Ruiz—”

“I don’t belong to anyone,” Sarai says acidly. “And my name isn’t girl, it’s Sarai.”

I put my hand up to her and she stops talking, but her harsh gaze grows darker looking across at Niklas. She crosses her arms.

Niklas glares back at her, but he says to me, “I’ve already reported the lies you told me to get me here to Vonnegut.” He sits back down in the chair. “You know as well as I do that to retract that story will raise all sorts of questions. You can’t keep her hidden forever. You might as well have formally requested a new liaison because they will assign someone else to you simply because of our ‘miscommunication’ if that’s what we choose to tell him.” He shakes his head at me, a faint smile of disbelief at his lips. “You’ve done all of this, you’ve lied to the Order, you’ve put the entire mission in jeopardy, destroyed it actually, all because of this girl…” He sneers. “Safe House Twelve was compromised because of her.”

Niklas looks right at Sarai standing behind me and without having to see her myself, I can sense the resentment boiling within her.

“So many are dead because of her,” Niklas says. “Samantha. That girl back in Arizona. Reports were that she was only sixteen-years-old. Dead because of…Sarai.” He smirks.

I see Sarai’s long, reddish hair whip behind her as she rushes past me. I could have reached out and stopped her, but Niklas deserves whatever retribution she can manage to dish out before he knocks her on her ass.