David Lindsey - The Face of the Assassin

Mondragon turned the front of his head to the window again. Just a slight shift in focus made the city rush away at warp speed, and then his own reflection was staring back at him: eyeballs and lips… a fucking horror show.

Then he picked up a wafer-thin translucent mask. Molded into the shape of a face, it was made of special materials that would fend off the infectious grit-laden smog of the city’s night air. He carefully placed it over his face, attaching it to the back of his head with two Velcro straps. He took a moment to adjust the gel and membrane inner surface of the mask to the front of his head, making it as comfortable as possible. He could wear it only a couple of hours before he would have to remove it. But it would give him a little time to maneuver outside his car.

He looked out the window of the car and thought of the people inside the buildings he was going by. He thought of the millions of people in the city. In the whole universe, only one life meant anything to him at all. The others were nothing. They were mere bits of debris, blown and whipped about in the eddies of history, spinning out their stupid and irrelevant hours and days in meaningless insignificance.

But not Ghazi Baida. Not his old friend. Not that one certain soul. He deserved a special place in the scheme of things.

He poured a bit of scotch into a glass and carefully sipped it through the mask. He had to keep the buzz going, especially while he was in the killing house. The buzz would help him focus his thoughts on the events of the coming hours.

He thought of the faces of the people who were about to die, and he thought of all the people who died every day-how many? tens of millions?-who no longer needed their face. God threw away a city of faces every day, so many faces assigned to fire and decay every day, wasted every day, that if you had them all in one place, you could shove them around with a bulldozer. You could push them into piles; you could build mountains with them. Every beggar and pustule on the globe had a face, and it was as nothing to him, no more important to him than his own ass, which he never saw. But he saw his face every day, and no one, no one, appreciated the significance of what he saw staring back at him from a mirror, or a bucket of water, or a puddle, or a window along the street.

Mondragon thought of the ubiquity of the human face, billions of them throughout the earth. A vast sea of faces. Mountains of faces pushed into the sea of faces, and every day they kept coming, gargantuan piles of faces, a face for every birth, a face for every death. Mondragon was haunted by the idea of dying without a face.

They both heard a faint tickling at the door handle, but neither of them had a chance to react before the door was pushed open and two men stepped inside, automatic weapons ready, although not pointing at them. As Susana gathered the front of her dress and started buttoning it, one of the men raised his hand for them to be calm.

Mazen Sabella came through the door between the two men.

“My apologies for coming in this way. Sorry.”

He was holding a paper bag.

One of Sabella’s guards went into the bathroom and then came out again.

“I have some coffee,” Sabella said, holding the bag up to them. “And a few pastries.” He was wearing the same clothes he had worn when Bern met with him. They were a little more wrinkled now.

The same guard went to the armoire and opened it. Then he got down on his knees and checked under the bed.

“What’s going on?” Bern asked.

“You and I have to talk,” Sabella said. “You’ve done a very good job of cleaning yourselves. The street is clean.” He addressed Susana. “Your cell phone, please.”

She reached for her purse, retrieved the phone, and gave it to Sabella, who gave it to the second guard. The man left the room with it.

“You’ll get it back,” Sabella said. “We just don’t want to be overheard.” He looked around the room. “So we’ll talk here.” Then he spoke to Susana again. “But I’m afraid we’ll have to talk alone. My men will take you across the street for a bite to eat. We’ll be able to see you from the window.”

Silence.

“Now?” Susana asked.

“Yes, please.”

Giving Bern a level look that told him nothing, she stepped into her shoes as she picked up her purse, then left the room with the two men. Bern and Sabella were alone now.

Sabella walked around the bed and sat in the chair where Susana’s bag had been. He opened the sack and put one of the paper cups of coffee on the nightstand, then placed a hard pan dulce beside it. He took the other coffee for himself.

Bern came around the end of the bed, too, and glanced down at the street, where Susana was crossing Calle Pasado to the pasteleria. The lights inside the pasteleria gave it a cheerful glow. Susana went to the glass display cases to order while one man sat at a table and the other one waited outside, where a light fog moved along the street.

Bern went over and sat down on the bed, picked up the pan dulce and the coffee, and bit into the bread, which was sweet and crumbly. His stomach was churning. What in God’s name was going to happen now?

Sabella sipped his coffee and looked at Bern with large dark eyes that sagged at the outside corners. They were bloodshot, the irises deep brown, melting into the pupils. Bern tried to swallow the bite of pan dulce, but it was too dry and hung in his throat. He sipped the coffee. This was Sabella’s show. He would have to handle the opening scene himself.

“We are completely alone,” Sabella said. “No one listening. Only the two of us. My people aren’t listening. Your people aren’t listening.” He gestured at Bern with his coffee. “You and I are alone.”

Bern stared at him, still trying to make the bread go down. Sabella stared back.

What did a man like Sabella think about in such a moment? Was he thinking strategically, trying to foresee how Jude would react to what he was about to say, and then trying to decide what his own reaction should be in response to that? This moment of hesitation, was it a moment of doubt? What could he be thinking as he sipped his coffee and watched Bern trying to hide the fact that he was nearly choking on a chunk of sugared bread, trying to hide the fact that he was petrified that his outrageous lie had been discovered by these violent people who had seen and used every imaginable trick to kill and to survive.

“Jude the smuggler,” Sabella said pensively. He sat in the straight-backed chair as if it were a throne, occupying it with confidence and shrewdness. His legs parted in a posture of stolid resolution. His back was straight, and wiry black hair showed through the open front of his shirt, while on his wrist, as on Baida’s, a black military watch counted down the diminishing hours.

“We talked about so many things, didn’t we, Judas, in Ciudad del Este?”

Bern nodded. He wanted to appear… Jude-ish. Wiser than Bern. With more guts than Bern. With a view of the world that made him unflappable, and with a cynicism that Bern would never be able to understand.

“Do you know what I think, Judas?” Sabella’s eyes were alert, but his face was benumbed by the gravity of his game, by the high stakes involved. “I think you know… precisely… who Ghazi Baida is.” He paused, letting the surprise do its work in silence. Then: “He’s not just some guy who wants to move twenty kilos of something in a box. And you’re not just a smuggler who doesn’t care what it is, who will move anything but dope. You’re not just some guy who’s trying to save his ass, who wants a bundle of money.”

Sabella raised his coffee and blew on it softly, his eyes remaining on Bern all the while. But he didn’t take a sip of the coffee.