“I pulled the trigger.”
The relentless hiss of the oxygen kept on, a backdrop for Evan’s mounting dismay. A single bullet had opened the floodgates. A war crime. Treason. A nation destroyed, four thousand dead, and a new chapter in American imperialism. The weight of it threatened to crush him.
Remorse spread through him, heated and seething. He tried to get his arms around it, wrestle it down, reshape it into something sharp and unforgiving, something he could weaponize.
The Mystery Man adjusted the tube beneath his nose. “You ensured that this was all pinned on an anonymous Chechen shooter. If you were to say now that you were behind the scope, it would point to America. And if it points to us, it’ll point to Bennett. Now you understand why he has to have you killed.” He shook his head, the tufts of hair sparse and thin. “The wolves are massing at the White House gates. You can bet he hears them howling every night when he goes to sleep.” He closed his eyes, the lids translucent and veined. “I hear them myself sometimes.”
Evan stood again. The light from the window streamed over his shoulders, his shadow falling across the Mystery Man. Evan waited for him to open his eyes again.
Then he asked, “Why are you still alive? Why did Bennett let you live?”
“Is that what you call this? Living?” The Mystery Man grinned flatly. “Because clearly I don’t represent a threat. At least for many more days. Plus, I had an insurance policy.”
He lifted a hand and pointed past the desk, a shawl of loose skin draped around the bone of his forearm. “Left file cabinet. Bottom drawer.”
Evan circled the desk, crouched, and slid the drawer open. It held a number of hanging files. He thumbed through them. Redacted operation reports, redacted intelligence briefings, redacted after-action reviews.
Evan looked from the blacked-out papers across the room to the Mystery Man. “These are useless.”
The answer came as a wheeze. “Behind the drawer.”
Evan pulled the drawer out all the way and then wiggled it free of its tracks. Lying flat on the floor, he peered into the empty slot.
A hatch had been cut into the metal rear of the cabinet.
Aligned with a jagged mouth of drywall.
Inside the wall rested a single manila file.
Mashing his cheek to the cabinet, Evan strained to reach it. With his fingertips he managed to slide it out.
The file held yellowed logistics reports from 1997, brittle with age, the corners flaking. A transcript from a call to the round man. A report on the acquisition of the 7.62 × 54mmR round with its damning fingerprint. Surveillance photos of the foreign minister, an assembled schedule of his movements.
Evan lost himself in the file so thoroughly that he’d forgotten that the Mystery Man was in the room until he heard the strained voice from behind him. “You can go public now.”
Evan turned to face him. “Not my style. I prefer to take care of things myself.”
“Be careful. Orphan A is a very dangerous man. And he’s had his sights on you for a long time.”
Evan started for the bed. “Once I neutralize Bennett, Orphan A will be irrelevant.”
“No. Killing you, it’s personal for him.”
Evan halted. “Why?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Well,” Evan said. “I’m going to find out.”
“When?”
“Now.”
Evan pulled the .357 from his waistband.
The Mystery Man’s voice was weak, but his stare was not. “You’ll never pull it off. Bennett. It’s impossible.”
Evan said, “He’s already dead.”
He thumbed the lever to open the well-greased wheel and spun it, watching the six brass heads roll. With a snap of his wrist, he reseated the cylinder.
It would do.
The Mystery Man settled back on the bed. Then he nodded. “I suppose we should get to the next part now.” He let his eyes draw shut for the last time, that death rattle sounding in his chest.
A few seconds passed and then a few more, but still the rattle persisted, reminding him that he continued to draw breath.
When at last he opened his eyes, the room was empty.
61
A Knot Tightening
A flyer flapping beneath the knocker on the front door announced that the house was in probate.
Even worse, it was in disrepair.
Rusting gutters heaped with leaves. Wood panels warped up off the nails. One of the address numbers had fallen from its perch, leaving a 7 of fresh paint floating on the weather-bleached post. A bundle of heavy-duty rattraps, no doubt left on the porch swing by the probate Realtor, answered the question of what had chewed through the underbelly of the porch. Most of the screens had fallen from the panes.
Evan stood beneath the cover of the oak trees, staring across the weed-addled front yard, holding his emotions in check.
Jack had ministered to this house scrupulously, showing it the kind of rigor that for him expressed love. He’d once spent an entire morning polishing the door hinges with white toothpaste and an old gun cloth. When he was done, each plate threw off a reflection as clear as a mirror.
How you do anything is how you do everything.
Evan remembered waking up that first morning of his new life, how the dormer bedroom seemed to float above the forest, above Earth itself. A comfortable bed with clean sheets. Shelves holding books ordered by height. The surface of the desk polished to a high shine. A bouquet of unsharpened pencils rising from a mug, the bloom of possibility itself.
It had been the first place he could ever call his own.
A blue jay hopped from branch to branch overhead, plumed head nodding as it emitted a balloon-losing-air squeal. The dusky scent of the woods filled Evan’s nostrils. He knew the smell of this place in his bones.
He gazed at the front window until he pictured Jack standing there gazing out, baseball-catcher build and bulldog head, his bunched crow’s-feet lending his eyes that perennial hint of amusement. Jack, who always knew the answers before Evan did. Jack, who’d cracked open the world and served it to Evan on a platter. Jack, the closest thing to family he’d ever known.
Jack beckoned impatiently with a hand. Waiting for a red carpet, X? C’mon, let’s get ’er done.
Evan stepped out of the tree line onto the apron of cleared land.
Keeping his face pointed at the ground, he walked to the center of the front yard and paused in the wide open, exposed to the heavens.
There were eyes up there.
*
The four men approached from the points of the compass rose, a knot tightening around the two-story farmhouse.
Wade Collins.
Two cousins.
One Orphan.
Communicating through Secret Service–issue earpieces, they paused in their respective spots at the forest’s edge.
North, south, west, east.
Holt gave the order, and they closed in.
*
Evan perched on a wooden stool he’d found on its side in the kitchen, its edges smoothed and oiled by the touch of countless hands. Jack had once sat watch on this very stool in this very spot at the rear of the entryway facing the front door, his back to the dark cavern of the kitchen.
Evan remembered his quiet focus across the seventy-two-hour span, the way the shotgun lay across his knees, how he’d drunk from a thermos and otherwise never moved. His vigilance had allowed seventeen-year-old Evan to more or less go about his normal existence, training in the garage, studying in his bedroom, eating over the kitchen sink. The threat had passed, but the image of Jack’s sentinel form on the stool, unbudging and proficient, had stayed with Evan.
It seemed to say, This is how we protect what is dear to us.
Soon enough, given Naomi’s order to keep the farmhouse under constant satellite surveillance, Evan would have a chance to follow Jack’s lead.
Night had descended on the patch of Virginia forest. Aside from a pale starlight glow at the windows, the house was full dark. Most of the furniture had been carted off already, leaving the floors bare and unacceptably dusty. Evan felt as though he were inhabiting the shell of his former life.
He knew the sounds of this house. Every last creaking board, every squeak of a doorknob.
He sensed the men approach before he heard them. A vibration of the floor. A scent in the air. A pressure against his skin.
He heard the melody of a slender rake tickling lock cylinders at the back door. Beneath the kitchen window, a boot tread compressed a dead leaf. In the living room, the pane issued a complaint as it pressed against the frame. Straight ahead, the doorknob turned silently.
They were attacking from the cardinal points, requiring him to cover 360 degrees. But it also disadvantaged them, since they’d have to mind their crossfire. Evan guessed that Orphan A would hold back, use the Collins boys for cannon fodder, and strike once Evan’s attention was compromised.
One thing was certain: When it went down, it was going to go down fast.
Evan lifted the .357 from its resting place on his thigh.
And he closed his eyes.