Greg Rucka - Critical Space

Miata circled ahead of us as we followed a dirt footpath beneath the trees. The sand was fine and hot beneath my feet, and the sun had risen to almost directly above us. We sat on the beach.

She had put on a pair of sunglasses. I'd taken the Walther with me, holding it in my hand, but now, as she sat watching the water and talked, it seemed a both ridiculous and obscene thing to be carrying around.

"You are fucking out of your mind," I told her.

"I do not want to die." Her eyes tracked Miata's movement, as the dog played in the surf. "Why is that insane?"

"There are too many places to begin, but for a start, I don't believe you…"

"I am telling you the truth."

"…and even if someone is trying to kill you, you sure as hell don't need my help to keep you alive. You've got to be one of the most dangerous people in the world, and I mean physically, lethally, dangerous. I don't even like sitting this close to you, and I've got a goddamn gun in my hand."

Her mouth twitched. "Thank you."

"It's not a compliment. Even if I accept everything you've told me – and I'm not saying that I do – you have in your head more knowledge about death, about causing it, about preventing it, than any person I've ever met. And I've met some very skilled killers in my time."

She removed the sunglasses, squinting at the water. "The man after me… he is one of The Ten."

Oh, I should have seen that coming, I thought. I should have seen the headlights on that one a mile away, coming through the tunnel and making straight for me.

"Oxford?" I asked, but it was rhetorical, and even as I said it, I hoped she wouldn't answer.

"You know of Oxford?"

"I was briefed on him four days before you snatched Lady Ainsley-Hunter. Told he was coming to New York."

"He is searching for me." Miata came trotting back up the beach, sand stuck to his paws. She scratched his ears, then brushed his coat clean. When she glanced at me, she saw that I was staring at her, and she read the suspicion in my face. "What?"

"I'm trying to figure out if Miata's for show."

"He is my dog. He relies on me."

"Is that why you cut out his voice box?"

She was up and shouting down at me so quickly it made me remember just how true everything I'd said about her, thought about her, was. In her anger, she'd turned the sunglasses in her fist, now holding them like they could double as a knife. In her hands, they could.

"Poshol v pizdu!" she spat at me. "You think I would do that? You think I would do that to an animal, to a dog, to something that cannot even understand? Nu tebya k chortu!"

The gun was still in my hand and I thought I could bring it up and maybe save my life, but she had already turned away, was striding down to the water. Miata looked at me accusingly, then followed her.

Like she cares about a dog as anything other than a tool.

Like she really needs help, anyone's help, and mine specifically.

She'd stopped at the edge of the water, letting the foam splash over her feet, and I watched as she swiped sand from the seat of her shorts, then crossed her arms over her chest. Miata was pawing at some driftwood that had washed up on the shore nearby.

I went down to join her.

She stood watching the ocean, where a boat had stopped about a mile out, at the edge of the cove. Small figures wearing snorkeling gear were preparing to dive.

"I did not cut his throat," she said. "A man in Miami did that, and he is dead now, and yes, I did kill him, and yes, I was paid to do it. But I would have killed him for free."

One of the skin divers, a woman, went over the edge of the boat. There was a small splash.

"Do you know why Miata's throat was cut?" she asked. "The man I killed, he had houses where he kept drugs, and in them he had men and dogs on guard. He set traps in the houses, grenades screwed into light sockets so that when the switches were thrown the grenades would detonate. He made pits, cut holes in his floors and then filled his basement with sharp metal and broken glass.

"And he cut the throats of his dogs so the police would not hear the animals coming. He took their voices because it would make them crazy and silent and savage. I had been paid by his competition to shut down his businesses. His guards, his men, they fled when I killed him. But the dogs did not, they were mad and they were loyal, and I had to kill them to save my own life. Miata, he was still alive when it was over, and I took him away with me."

She opened her hand, unfolded the sunglasses and then, using both hands, put them back on her face. Her mouth was closed, still angry.

"I am not a monster, I am not some freak who can only achieve climax through another's pain or death. I am – I was- an assassin. Everyone who has died by my hand, they died for a very specific reason, either because they were the mark, because they led to the mark, or because they were trying to kill me."

She turned her head to see my expression, but I kept my eyes on the divers in the water.

"I do not torture animals," she said.

We watched the skin divers in the water for a while as they surfaced and dove and surfaced again.

"Why does Oxford want to kill you?" I asked her.

"Because of you," she said, and turned and walked away, calling for Miata to follow her.

"Bullshit," I told the Caribbean.

"I should have killed you," Drama said. "I should have gone through the door after the explosion, and shot you, and Dale Matsui, and Pugh."

"You would have died, too."

"Yes. But that should not have stopped me."

We had moved back into the house, into the kitchen, which was a narrow rectangle with the same earth-toned tile that covered the second floor. Drama was washing the dishes from breakfast, dumping the grounds from the French press into a trash can beneath the double sink. For a moment, I flashed on her as a kind of lethal Donna Reed, and the mental image had me grinning without meaning to.

She saw it and frowned. "When I was younger, Atticus, when I was training, death did not frighten me. Now it does. I knew if I went through the door, if I finished the job and killed you and Pugh, I would die as a result. And I wanted to live. So I ran."

A stainless steel bowl was on the floor by her feet, and she picked it up, then filled it with fresh water from the tap. When she bent to grab it, the muscles in her legs were taut and defined. I realized that she shaved her legs and pits, found that surprising. The bullet she'd taken to the thigh was a through-and-through, and it looked like she'd been lucky, that the round hadn't expanded as it passed through her body. It made me remember when I'd been shot.

"Then your friend, Chris Havel, she writes this book," Drama said. "I should have stopped her. I didn't. I should have come back and killed her, and you, and Dale, and Natalie, and Corry. I should have made the statement."

"Why didn't you?" I asked.

She moved her eyes from me, looking out the window. The breeze had picked up, and shadows came and went as the branches randomly blocked the sunlight. After a minute, I realized she wasn't going to answer.

"Why did you tell me where you live?" I asked.

Still no reply.

"Alena," I said.

Her head whipped around, and there was the hint of distraction in her look, as if I'd caught her attention by accident, as if the usage of the name amused her. Her lips came together, the corner of her mouth rose briefly.

"You will laugh," she said. "I didn't like Pugh, but I saw things in you that I saw in myself. You understand this, I know you do, it happens in your profession as well. The sense of artificial intimacy. I watched you for several weeks, and although I knew it was false, I felt it anyway. So I wanted to give you something that was special to me, something that no one else had. I gave you my home."