David Lindsey - The Face of the Assassin

So eventually they had gotten around to their pasts, and Sabella finally managed to get Jude to reveal that he had attended the University of Texas, too. One thing led to another, and as time passed, Sabella found himself liking the guy. Which was a mistake. You could trust people (up to a point, of course, never absolutely), you could rely on them and give them responsibility, but you could never allow yourself to like them.

And maybe that was the only problem with Jude, and nothing more than that. Sabella just liked the guy, and that in itself set off the infinitesimal tremors of suspicion. Maybe, after all these years, it had come down to that: Circumstances were more meaningful than the people who populated them. Situation overrode character and personality. The extraordinary efforts that Sabella had to employ simply to stay alive had become what it meant to be alive. He had become the process to the extent that he was now little more than the process.

But now he had to move on to the next phase of his plan. And Jude was either exactly the right man to make it work for him or exactly the wrong man. It was time to find out which of the two he was.

From her place at the edge of the light, Susana called Kevern on her encrypted cell phone. Bern gathered from her side of the conversation that they were in a safe house, and that Kevern was as stunned as they were that Bern’s impersonation had actually worked. Susana also passed on the name of Estele de Leon Pheres, and then she explained the situation with Baida and said he was waiting for a response from Bern. There was some conversation about that, during which Susana said very little.

Bern watched her profile as she listened; she was shifting her weight, her movement nearly imperceptible at the edge of the shadow. He sensed that she was weighing her options. She must do that a thousand times a day, he thought, weighing the consequences of speaking or not speaking, of revealing or not revealing, of finessing a phrase this way or that. It was a life of calculation, of factoring in, of making choices.

It was, he guessed, a life of never really knowing if you had done the right thing or not, because the ramifications of having made a different choice were too complex to play out to a logical end. He wasn’t even sure there were any logical ends in the life she lived.

Finally, the conversation ended, and she snapped the phone closed.

“Okay,” she said, “Mondragon’s boys are at Mingo’s place now. Kevern’s going to pass on the information about Estele de Leon.

“In the meantime, we need to come up with a plan for you to meet with Baida again, something to drag this out a little. There’s a possibility that Quito’s people will come up with something useful from Mingo’s girls. Or if they find Estele de Leon in time, maybe she’ll come up with some information that will help us in arranging this next meeting. If they do, that could change things. But for right now, we have to play this as if those possibilities don’t exist. Kevern and his team are going to put their heads together, and then we’ll get back in touch and see what we’ve got.”

The rain continued off and on.

“Every hour, a quarter past the hour,” Susana said, confirming Baida’s instructions.

“Yeah,” Bern said. All he could think of was that this was impossible. How were the two of them going to contrive a convincing plan? And what in the hell was he going to do when the meeting actually took place? Like so much else about this madness, it seemed to be over-the-top. He couldn’t believe that people actually did these sorts of things, and that whether they lived or died depended upon success or failure in these endeavors.

The rainy night was breathless now, and the curtains hung as limp as old promises.

Bern turned on the bed and bent over and pulled off his shoes and socks. Then he shed his shirt, draping it over his suit coat on the chair.

Susana didn’t say anything. In the dusky light, he couldn’t see the finer points of her features-the little wrinkle between her eyebrows that showed she was worried or thoughtful, the pull at the corner of her mouth that foretold a change of mind. She was staring toward the window again.

With a sigh, she turned to the window, unbuttoned her dress all the way down to her stomach, and then fanned the sides for air. After a little while, she turned and came back to the bed and sat down, leaning against the headboard like Bern. She seemed oddly reluctant to begin the planning.

“What happened to Mondragon’s face?” Bern asked.

“Somebody took it off for him,” she said. “No one knows the real story. There are only outrageous rumors, everything from brujo curses to a sexual fantasy gone wrong. I don’t think anyone really knows. No one’s talking anyway.”

“When did it happen?”

“A couple of years ago. Maybe a little more.”

“Here in Mexico City?”

“Who knows.” Susana pulled her legs up, her feet flat on the bed, the skirt of her dress pooling into her lap. She rammed the fingers of both hands into the front of her thick hair and held them there as she leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees. She stared into the mirror on the armoire.

Bern couldn’t tell if she was staring at herself or at him, but in the blue haze he could see the white crotch of her panties between her raised thighs.

“It was Jude,” she said, “who was supposed to kill Ghazi Baida.”

There it was, baldly stated. What Bern had suspected all along, but had never been told, was now laid out in front of him like a corpse on a slab. No more euphemism of silence. No more implication. There it was, without apology.

For the past few days, Bern had been unable to escape the slightly out-of-focus feeling that he was constantly accompanied by a doppleganger. Jude was always there-in front of him, behind him, looking over his shoulder. Everyone he met spoke to him from within a context occupied by his double. Bern was constantly at a loss, struggling to read the hidden meanings, the implications, and the nuances in their remarks. But now, the doppleganger-his brother-acquired an altogether different dimension.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, “Jude was… he-” He stopped himself. He wanted to get it straight. “He’d done this before?” he asked.

Now Bern was sure that she was looking at him in the gloomy reflection of the old speckled mirror, using it as an intermediary, as if it would make the truth less shocking, or maybe make it somehow more comprehensible.

“Yes,” she said simply.

“That was… that was what he did?”

“He had done it before,” she said; “that’s all I know.”

“He told you that?”

“Yes.”

Bern was stunned, and he knew that she could sense that, even in the gloomy obscurity of the rainy light. He knew that she was well aware that suddenly he was nearly overcome with questions.

Still staring at him from between the wrists of her hands planted in her hair, she said, “Look, I know you’ve got to be… just… boiling over with questions, but we don’t have the time to do that right now.” She took her hands out of her hair and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I want you to understand the situation here, the situation Jude was in. It’ll help you understand what we’re up against. Just… just bear with me here. I promise you we’ll talk about it all you want later. I’ll tell you everything I know. But not now.”

Bern couldn’t bring himself to say a word. He nodded. It was all he could do.

“Okay,” she said.

He heard her take a little breath before going on.

“But this job, Baida, it couldn’t be, you know, a targeted killing,” she said. “No bomb, no booby trap, no missile from a chopper. It couldn’t be seen to be a political assassination. Remember the clandestine aspect to this. Jude had to make it look like a drug hit. Plant a false ID on him. Better yet, just make him disappear. Baida lived in secrecy; he would die in secrecy. As if it never happened. Jude knew it wasn’t going to be an easy thing to do.”