John Abbott - Scimitar

And her eyes filled with tears.

Arthur came to see him at the hotel at four o’clock that Sunday afternoon. It was a quiet day down here in the financial district. The two men shook hands, and then sat at the table near the windows overlooking the Hudson. They were not here to celebrate. Sonny was hoping that Arthur had come to discuss their next move. He had, after all, aborted the plan only so that he could serve another day. To sacrifice himself without having accomplished his mission would have been absurd. Arthur agreed with him.

“I was watching it all on television,” he said. “I was puzzled at first, couldn’t understand why you’d turned away, hmm?”

“Well, the moment I saw...”

“The shield, yes. I realized that later.”

“Trimmed with bunting, but unmistakable.”

“A bulletproof shield, yes.”

“I wasn’t expecting it.”

“They sometimes use it.”

“It just never occurred to me.”

“You did the right thing. If there was no way to get to him...”

“I’d have given my life to’ve done it. My very life if only...”

“Yes, I know. But don’t let it trouble you, truly. There’ll be another time. He’ll be repaid, don’t worry,” Arthur said, and smiled suddenly. “At least the boomerang worked, hmm?”

Sonny smiled, too.

This was not a joyous occasion they were sharing, but the thought of how easily he’d outwitted them was cause for at least some merriment. With great animation and obvious pleasure, he told Arthur how he’d swum back to the island instead of swimming away from it — the very principle of the boomerang escape he’d been taught at Kufra. Swimming underwater until his outstretched hands made contact with the island’s retaining wall, his lungs ready to burst, he’d taken the basting tube from his pocket, and pushed it toward the surface until only the thick end of it showed above the water. Capturing the narrow end in his mouth, he’d gently blown the tube free of water, and at last had been able to breathe again.

“That air tasted so sweet,” he told Arthur now.

“I can imagine,” Arthur said.

The makeshift snorkel in place, he’d worked his way underwater around the wall, until he reached the ferry dock. He’d lain hidden just below the surface then, clinging to one of the pilings, breathing gently through the tube, and did not climb ashore again until it was dark.

“And then what?” Arthur asked. “Did you go back to your lay-in position?”

“I couldn’t. I’d left the door locked.”

“Why on earth did you...?”

“Has there been any news of a dead park ranger?”

“No. Should there have been?”

“I imagine there will be,” Sonny said, and smiled again. “The island’s almost deserted at night. I went back to the restroom, fished out my hat...”

“Your hat?”

“Too long a story.”

“ Fished it out?”

“Yes. And then spent the rest of the night outdoors, drying off. I caught the first ferry back at ten o’clock. I’m glad you’re here, Arthur.”

“I am, too,” Arthur said.

“When do we try again?”

“Well, we’ll have to wait for instructions, hmm?”

“Of course. But...”

“And in any case, you’re known now, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but disguises can...”

“Well, disguises. You know how we feel about disguises.”

“Yes, but...”

“Mind you,” Arthur said gently, “we know it wasn’t your fault. Things simply didn’t work out the way we’d hoped they would, hmm?”

“That’s why I...”

“You mustn’t think your efforts weren’t...”

“But I really would like the opportunity to...”

“Yes, well...”

“... serve again, to do the job properly this time.”

“Well, that’s quite impossible,” Arthur said.

And suddenly there was a pistol in his hand.

Sonny blinked.

Arthur shrugged somewhat sorrowfully.

There was a silencer on the gun’s muzzle; this would be swift and soundless.

“Why?” Sonny asked. “Because I failed?”

“No, no,” Arthur said. “It would have been the same either way.”

“Either...?”

Sonny’s eyes narrowed in total understanding.

He sprang at once.

It was one thing to die in the service of God and country, but it was quite another to die the way he now realized the two women had died. Total anonymity, Arthur had told him. Claim no credit, expect no retaliation. If there were no surviving links to Scimitar...

He was not two feet from the muzzle of the pistol, his arm swinging in the backhanded deflecting swipe he’d been taught at Kufra — when Arthur fired. The first muffled shot took Sonny just below his nose, shattering the gum ridge and exploding from the back of his head. The second shot took him just above his Adam’s apple as he fell over backward, his head tilting upward, his throat exposed. Arthur fired two more bullets into his lifeless body where it lay on the floor before the windows streaming late afternoon sunlight.

He tucked the pistol into his waistband, and looked down at Sonny one last time.

“It is written on our foreheads,” he whispered.

And left.