Gregg Hurwitz - Buy a Bullet - An Orphan X Story

Two Dobermans appear at the fence near his car, vibrating the windows with resonant barks. He checks the time — it took them three minutes and twelve seconds to notice his presence. They are overfed, boxy around the middle, further evidence of their owner’s lack of discipline. It is time to go; even fat dogs can raise an alarm.

Sliding his laptop onto the passenger seat, he drives off. Ten minutes away in Woodside, he finds an upscale restaurant, The Village Pub. The bar has the usual selection of vodkas. He settles on a Cîroc, up, with a twist, and tells the bartender to bruise it. It pours properly, with a film of ice crystals, and it drinks even better.

He sips it halfway down, tips the bartender handsomely, returns to his car, and checks the laptop. Hashkiller has already delivered the network authorization passwords. He drives back to Radack’s estate, this time parking two blocks away, and inputs the new-found passwords. Access granted. His laptop is now a member of Radack’s internal WiFi network. Once inside the system, he finds the security cameras with ease. The hundred-plus webcam and security links are neatly aggregated on a single webpage. The configuration of the web server tells him the location of the router as well as the VPN gateway. Hashkiller makes short work of those credentials as well, and the watcher is set up to access the estate’s security camera feeds over the Internet from any location.

Heading back to the hotel, he rolls down the window. The maples, spotting the vast lawns, have gone to orange and yellow, and the heavy air tastes of autumn.

In his room, he scrolls through the feeds. Library, kitchen, bowling alley, screening room, all empty. He finds Radack in the cigar parlor drinking mezcal and playing darts with a pair of bodyguards — the one from the coffee shop and another man, Hispanic, even more sturdy. The latter strains a T-shirt at the seams and has a circular tattoo covering one biceps. The watcher waits for the right angle to identify the tattoo, but the lighting is tough. Finally, he picks up what looks like a black spear inside the circle. He places it as the emblem from the United States Marine Corps Special Operations Command. Both men look to be in their late twenties, far too young to be out of MARSOC for any good reason, which points to disciplinary discharge or drug-testing. He picks up names from the banter — Kane and Padilla. Padilla sports a hip-holstered Glock and Kane wears a single-action revolver in an upside-down shoulder holster. Radack throws back another shot and spreads his hand on the dart board, daring his lackeys to a steel-tipped game of chicken. The watcher leaves them to it.

He clicks through various cameras, finding Leanne trying to sleep in the master bedroom down the hall from the parlor. She is curled around a pillow, covering her exposed ear. Every time a burst of laughter reaches her, she starts.

He observes her for a time.

She needs him. She really does.

When he clicks back to the parlor, Radack and his henchmen have disappeared. All that remains are two empty bottles of mezcal on the bar, next to a few residual lines of cocaine. There is blood on the dartboard.

He finds the trio in the bowling alley. Radack is firing a submachine gun at a target painted in blood above the middle lane. He is tearing up the wall, sheetrock dust clouding. The shots climb off the target, the gun running him rather than the other way around.

Despite the bravado, Radack is afraid of the gun. This is good to know.

Crimson drips from Padilla’s left hand; he appears to be the dartboard casualty and the fingerpainter behind the target. After Radack empies the magazine, Padilla applauds dutifully, radiating droplets of blood. From his front right pocket, Kane removes a baggie and a military folding knife and offers Radack cocaine off the blued tip. As Radack leans over to snort, the submachine gun comes into clear view. It is an H&K 94, illegal in California even without its clandestine conversion to full auto. Radack likes his toys and dislikes protocol.

The watcher captures the image of Radack’s nose nearing the blade and enlarges it. The knife is an Emerson, popular with former military. This, too, is good to know.

Back in the bedroom, Leanne sits with her shoulder blades pressed to the corner, hugging her knees, rocking herself. Her lips move but the sub-par audio picks up nothing.

In the bowling alley, Radack jams home another magazine and, to cheers and encouragement from his paid admirers, resumes shredding the wall above the target. Two hours and three bottles of mezcal later, the men stumble outside, leaning on one another, barely keeping their feet. Radack throws a grenade in the stocked fish pond. The pop is muffled. Water sprays the laughing men and dozens of white spots bob to the surface. They drink more and pass out on the lawn. The Dobermans tentatively approach, pull dead fish from the pond, and feast.

Inside, Leanne stays in the corner, trembling. She does not sleep.

The watcher does not either.

In the morning, he calls the Stanford University Medical Center, Radack’s hospital of choice, and identifies himself as a consulting physician for Ms. Leanne Lattimore. Would they be so kind as to send the medical files from her emergency room visits? They would, provided Ms. Lattimore signs a release. This of course will not happen, but he has confirmed his hunch that Ms. Lattimore is a frequent flier at the Stanford ER.

A medical supply shop on El Camino Real sells standard teal scrubs. He changes into them in his car, drives to the hospital, and steps into the bracing air conditioning of the main lobby. Rather than heading for the bustling ER, he detours to the medical floor, lingering by a water fountain until he sees a pretty Indian physician leave her office. He waits for a break in foot traffic and slips inside. The doctor has left her computer logged on to the Epic medical records system. The watcher types in Leanne Lattimore and brings up her files.

Her injuries and admitting complaints are telling. A gashed lip and broken cheekbone she claimed to have incurred in a fender bender. When presenting with suture-worthy tears at the introitus and vaginal mucosa, she confessed to being into rough sex. Clavicle and distal radius fractures she chalked up to a snowboarding fall. Deep scrapes to her upper arm required antibiotic ointment and dressings; she explained that she’d been clawed by a dog. Photographs had been taken at the nurse’s insistence for legal reasons, should Leanne want to press charges against the dog’s owner. The watcher studies them. He has been clawed by many a dog and her wounds feature none of the trademark gouges. They do however look familiar. He has seen this nasty little trick twice before, once in Zagreb, once in Bangkok. The lacerations are caused by a potato peeler.

He is now ninety-nine percent sure, but with what he’s considering, there can be no shadow of a doubt, not an eyelash of uncertainty. This is the First Commandment: Assume Nothing.

He slips out of the hospital unobserved, stops for a quick lunch, and returns to his hotel. The woman behind the reception desk is attractive and her eye contact direct, but he pretends not to notice.

As he passes, she asks, “In town for business?” and he gives a benign nod.

In his room, he again accesses the security cameras from the estate, splitting the screen to watch multiple feeds at once. Radack’s goons are only now stirring. Radack is in the pool house, showering. A squat, middle-aged housekeeper finishes cleaning up the bowling alley with a dustpan and broom. In the screening room, Leanne sits on a padded bench, tapping at an iPad. She wears large round retro eyeglasses that accent her round face and somehow make it prettier still.