Darren Lemke - Gemini Man

If he could have gotten a word in edgewise, perhaps he could have explained himself better. On the other hand, his Colombian Spanish was a bit rusty so he might have only made things worse. And it probably wouldn’t have mitigated their anger at the accidents he and Junior Hitman had caused, not to mention the people they had endangered by shooting at each other. Cartagena was a tourist destination; batshit-crazy men running around with guns would kill their business and their economy. Worse, he fit the description of the pendejo who had knocked out two officers, stolen a police motorcycle, and then wrecked it doing tricks to show off.

He tried to point out that he couldn’t have been that pendejo , he was the other pendejo on the other bike, whom the pendejo on the cop’s bike had been trying to kill; they could tell the difference because that pendejo had been wearing a baseball cap—but it only made them angrier. Henry couldn’t really blame them. If he’d been in their place, he’d have thought he was off his meds, too, and he’d have already called the appropriate institution to come and take him away. It made him wonder why he was still sweating in the interrogation room stone-cold sober and not floating on a Thorazine cloud in a straitjacket.

Probably because Cartagena had no institution for the criminally insane, he realized. The closest one would most likely be somewhere like Bogotá or Medellín, both of which were several hundred miles away; one hell of a drive. Maybe there was an ambulance on the way. Unless the authorities in Bogotá or Medellín were arguing with the Cartagena police about who was responsible for transporting him.

Henry began to think he was getting delirious from the heat.

He didn’t know how many hours he’d been roasting alive in the interrogation room before he finally heard a new voice, female and very familiar. She was fluent and spoke calmly but firmly, laying it out for them without impatience or hostility but refusing to be argued with. Finally a uniformed officer came into the room, detached Henry from the table, and dragged him through the police station to the front entrance where Danny was waiting.

The grey-green suit coat, white blouse, and blue jeans she was wearing gave her an air of untouchable authority, underscored by the badge on the lanyard around her neck: Homeland Security. Danny gave him an authoritative look as they stepped outside. Nope, he wouldn’t argue with her, either, Henry thought as he stood blinking in the late afternoon sunlight.

The officer said something to her that might have been either an apology or a proposal of marriage. She responded in a professional tone that had a slight hint of kindness, perhaps telling him to go now and sin no more. Then Baron pulled up at the curb and she hustled Henry into the car.

“Sorry, Baron, but your place is burned,” Henry said. “Get me somewhere I can see him coming.”

“You got it,” Baron said.

The view from San Felipe Castle was spectacular. As he sat on a low wall with Baron and Danny, Henry could see Old Town as well as the skyline of twenty-first-century Cartagena, all against a backdrop of Caribbean blue, a shade unique to this part of the world.

Baron had brought them up here by way of what he claimed was a shortcut, which turned out to involve a lot of stairs. Baron had managed them easily and Danny had simply trotted up one set of steps after another with little apparent effort. Henry had been panting before they were even halfway to the top. The Enduro could have handled all those stairs but it was probably illegal to ride a motorcycle in a national monument.

There had been a time when he’d have climbed up to the top of the castle without even thinking about it, no matter how hard his day had been.

Yeah, and there had also been a time when he wouldn’t have missed the shot in Liège, which was why he’d decided to retire in the first place.

Damn. No matter what he did, he could not get a goddam break.

The sun was starting to set now; this close to the equator, night would come quickly. He had to make some decisions about what to do next, the sooner the better.

“I wanted to go in there guns blazing,” Baron said, grinning. “She thought the diplomatic approach made more sense.”

“Gunfire would have been kinder,” Henry said. “She shredded those poor guys.”

Baron chuckled. “So, now what?” Both he and Danny were looking at him expectantly.

“I need to get to Budapest,” Henry replied.

“What’s in Budapest?” Danny and Baron asked in perfect unison.

“Jack’s informant—Yuri.” Henry stood up and stretched. A plan was coming together in his mind. The adrenaline that had kept him alive while Junior Hitman had been trying to kill him was gone and he had been holding off fatigue by sheer willpower but he knew he wasn’t going to last much longer. He had to find some way to keep his mind engaged and focused, or he was going to start feeling instead of thinking. If he did that, he might lose it and losing it was not an option, not now.

“These guys aren’t after me because I’m retiring,” Henry went on. “They’re after me because they think Jack told me something classified. Yuri ought to know something about that.”

Baron laughed a little, shaking his head. “Sorry, partner. My Aztec doesn’t have that kind of range.”

“Yeah, I was hoping we might borrow something that does. Maybe a G.”

Baron’s expression was solemn. “Wow. Taking someone’s Gulfstream. You’d really have to hate a guy to do that.” His face suddenly lit up with a broad smile. “And I know just the fella. Gimme a minute.” He took out his phone and moved away a few yards.

“I’m so fired,” Baron sang to the tune of ‘I Got A Woman.’ “Yeah, I’m so fired! I’m so fired and I don’t caaaaaaaaare!” On the last note, the jet lifted into the air, then banked gently as Baron put the last faint glow of sunset behind them.

In spite of everything, Danny smiled as she continued tending to Henry’s various cuts and abrasions. The Gulfstream’s medikit was quite extensive, which was a good thing since Henry’s injuries were, too. Danny had had to pick more than a few chunks of dirt and grit out of the long, deep scrape on his outer thigh. It was an awful process but Henry barely flinched. And he’d seemed all but unaware of all the cuts on his arms and just below his collarbone.

But the worst injury besides his leg was the one she was working on now, a gash where something sharp had been driven into his face scarily close to his eye. She used a cotton ball soaked in witch hazel to clean away the dried blood and dirt caked around it so she could see exactly how bad it was. It wasn’t long but it was deep. She saturated another cotton ball with hydrogen peroxide and warned him it was going to sting before applying it to the wound.

He winced a bit but that was all. She supposed a little sting was nothing compared to getting bike-fu’ed by a homicidal maniac—but not just any homicidal maniac. She knew Henry had seen his face. And vice versa, although Henry had been so covered with dirt and blood, the other guy may not have spotted the resemblance. Hell, she might not have recognized Henry herself if they hadn’t already met.

“Henry?” she said tentatively. No answer; he didn’t want to discuss it but Danny decided to plunge ahead anyway. What the hell, she was wiping up his blood; she was entitled to some answers. “Did you ever have a kid? A son, maybe?”

He gazed at her through hooded eyes. “No, why?”

“The guy on the motorcycle—did you notice anything funny about him?”