Keith Thomson - Twice a Spy

Charlie noted that the pilot light in the fireplace was on. The handle to turn on the gas was open as well. So he flung himself at the button for the burner, pounding it as hard as he could. Gas hissed through the pipe and created an instant blaze. He redirected the pipe at the spilled liquor, which burst into flames that streamed along the carpet toward Stanley.

The spook sidestepped the fire. Still one of his pant cuffs ignited, and, in a blink, flames coated the liquor-soaked front of his khakis. In obvious pain, he tried to beat the fire out. He was nearly successful, when Drummond popped up from behind the bar and hurled a stout highball glass.

Stanley ducked and the glass disintegrated the crystal sconce on the far wall.

Drummond threw another, this time striking Stanley’s gun hand, forcing him to drop the Glock.

Charlie lunged for it. Stanley kicked at Charlie’s head. Charlie rolled, averting the spook’s toe, but the heel caught his ear-slashing it so sharply he was surprised it remained attached. Stanley wound back again, like a field goal kicker. Charlie sat up, getting a solid grip on the gun and leveling it at the spook, freezing him.

Suddenly the door to the cabin was smashed inward. A crowd of marines in gray-green body armor, guns drawn, filled the small aperture.

Stanley waved at Charlie. “He shot Hadley.” The marines appeared to believe him. “I think she’s dead.”

“ He shot her,” Charlie said. “Look at the way she fell over. To his left. We were sitting across from him. Plus we didn’t have a gun at the time.”

The marines exchanged looks.

Charlie realized he’d offered nothing, really, in the way of evidence. Two marines rushed down, swept Hadley off the floor, and carried her up the stairs, leaving a trail of crimson drops.

Stanley followed.

Charlie heard the whine of the engine and the tingling of the rotor blades as the marine helicopter prepared to take off.

“Sir, we need you to surrender your weapon,” said one of the two marines remaining below deck, a stone-faced bruiser who towered over Charlie.

The other locked his rifle on Drummond.

“It’s his weapon!” Charlie said, regarding the door through which Stanley had exited. As soon as the words left his lips, he felt foolish because they didn’t prove a thing.

“Slowly set it on the floor and tap it to me.”

Charlie lowered the Glock an inch at a time. “Listen, we have proof that we’re being framed.”

He looked at Drummond, now being frisked by the other marine, probably the unit’s superior officer given his graying hair.

“Yes, that young man wanted to kill us!” Drummond said of Stanley, with so much indignation that it rang false.

The marines exchanged a dismissive glance.

“Let me just tell you guys one thing, while we have the chance,” Charlie pleaded.

The superior said, “Sir, it would help if you would refrain from speaking now. When we return to the American consulate, you’ll have a full debrief by the CIA.”

Charlie set the gun down. “You’ve got to understand, ‘debrief,’ in this case, is a euphemism for ‘execution.’ ”

The younger marine knelt and snatched the gun. “Please stand, slowly, and face the bar with your arms and legs outstretched.”

Charlie complied. “Just listen, for posterity if nothing else: The proof of everything I’ve been saying is on Korean Singles Online-dot-com.” He received a shove in the small of the back. “Go to Suki-eight-three-five’s page, magnify the left earring-”

The older marine sighed, seemingly in frustration. “Sir, we’d prefer not to have to sedate you.”

A short, chubby man in a suit and tie barreled down the stairs.

“Chief Corbitt,” both marines said by way of greeting.

Charlie looked up at him with a glimmer of hope.

Corbitt looked past them at the lower deck and gaped at the smoldering wreckage. “Holy merde ,” he said.

Pointe Simon pulsated with a variety of music and chatter, a good deal of which was pickup lines, Stanley supposed. He stepped into the relative quiet and cool of the sort of bar no one bothered to name-it went by 107, its number on one of the little streets in the maze near the ferry docks. Neon distillery promotions cast red and purple on the frayed bar island and the establishment’s two dozen patrons, a mix of locals and travelers on a budget. Although 107 served no food, it smelled vaguely of hamburger.

He spotted an attractive brunette sipping a drink. She wore a slinky floral-printed cocktail dress, the sort sold at the tourist bazaar at the ferry docks, revealing a lithe figure. Most anyone would guess she was a young American or Euro tourist bent on a night on the edge.

Settling onto the barstool beside hers, Stanley asked, “What do you think the chances are that I’ll meet my wife here?”

“A sure thing,” she said, leaning over a salt-rimmed margarita and kissing him on the lips. Recognition code, safety code.

This was Lanier. First name or last, Stanley didn’t know. Probably pseudo anyway. Rumint had it that she’d authored the Ayacucho hit, notable not because she trekked a hundred miles alone through Peruvian jungle and snuck past two hundred Shining Path Senderistas, but because she’d put the whole op together during a half-hour taxi ride from the Lima airport.

“So how was your day, honey?” she asked.

“I’ve had better.”

She regarded the mirrored rear wall, which offered a view of the whole place. Turning back to him, she asked, “So what the fuck went down on the boat?”

“The old man kicked a Croc while I was firing and wrecked my shot. I mean, a Croc !”

“How about that?” She spread a cool, comforting hand over his. “Just another one for the list of You Never Damned Know.”

The bartender slid Stanley a tall glass of something redolent of rum.

“What would you have done?” he asked.

“Don’t know. Spilled the milk. Maybe not spilled the milk. Either way, what we have is Hadley in brain surgery. Doesn’t look like she’ll make it, but even if she does, we’ll see to it that she doesn’t. So all is far from lost.”

“What about the other two?”

“The night, as they say, is young.”

Stanley had been trying to devise a way to get at the Clarks. “FBI’s flying down an excessive number of agents to extradite them first thing in the morning. Meanwhile they’ll be at the consulate guarded by an excessive number of marines.”

Lanier licked salt from her margarita glass. “The good news is, father and son are bound for impromptu detention rooms, in the true sense of impromptu.” All embassy and consulate holding rooms were technically improvised because neither the State Department nor the CIA had the authority to arrest or detain anyone. Nevertheless their architectural plans tended to include oversized “storage vaults” and “fallout shelters” that afforded confinement at least as secure as police holding cells. “The only reason there are bars on the windows there is to keep people from getting in.”

Stanley didn’t see where she was headed. “But we’re people.” She flashed a smile. “People with sniper training.”

After a three-minute drive from the Pointe Simon docks, two giant, beige Chevy Suburbans entered a quiet pocket of the city, sliding to a stop in a pitch-black cul-de-sac service alley beneath the American consulate, which occupied the lowest two levels of a nine-story contemporary glass hotel. The monolithic tower, bisected by a block of terraces lit sapphire-gray, reminded Charlie of a stainless steel refrigerator.

Two marines propelled him from the lead Suburban and toward the consulate’s service entrance. Foreboding filled him, so heavy that he strained to put one foot in front of the other. What were the odds, he thought, that the Cavalry would not drop by here tonight?