Dean Koontz - Dragonfly

Moving quickly, stealthily, Canning caught the dead man and eased him to the floor. He let go of the corpse, stepped over it, and went out into the bedroom.

The other agent wasn't there.

Canning listened and heard nothing.

He went into the living room and, when he saw that the front door was standing wide open just twenty-five feet away, faded into the shadows by the bookcases. He hesitated for a moment and was about to move toward the door — then held his breath as the second agent came back in from the landing. The man — Damon? — closed and locked the door.

“Freeze,” Canning said.

Because he already had his gun drawn, Damon evidently decided that he could regain the advantage. His decision was made with the rapid thought and fluid reaction that identified a first-rate agent. He turned and got off three silenced shots in a smooth ballet-style movement.

But he was shooting blind. The bullets were all high and wide of their mark. They ripped — with dull reports — into the spines of the hardbound books which lined the wall shelves.

Also at a disadvantage because of the extremely poor light, Canning fired twice, even as the other man was finishing his turn and getting off his third shot.

Damon cried out, fell to his right, and rolled clumsily behind the sofa. He was hit, probably high in the left arm or in that shoulder.

Canning went down on one knee. He heard Damon curse. Softly. But with pain. Then: deep breathing, a scuffling noise…

“I don't want to have to kill you,” Canning said.

Damon rose up and fired again.

It was close — but not nearly close enough.

Canning held the Colt out in front of him and moved silently through the shadows. He crouched behind an easy chair and braced the barrel of the pistol along the chair's padded arm. He watched the sofa.

Overhead, thunder cracked and the rain battered the roof with great fervor.

Ten seconds passed.

Ten more.

A minute.

Suddenly the agent scuttled out from behind the sofa and waddled toward the gray light that spilled in from the kitchen. At the doorway he was perfectly silhouetted.

Canning shot him.

Damon's right leg buckled under him, and he collapsed onto the kitchen floor, failing to choke back a scream.

Cautiously but swiftly, Canning got up from behind the easy chair and went after him.

Damon rolled onto his back and fired through the living-room doorway.

As he reached the kitchen Canning saw the gun coming up at him, and he threw himself to the left. When he heard the whoosh! of the silencer an instant later, he pitched himself back to the right and fired twice, at point-blank range, straight down into the man who lay before him.

When he finally let out his breath, Canning sounded like a bellows.

Lightning flashed again, revealing the bloodied body and the open, sightless eyes.

Canning took the magazine out of the Colt and replaced it with a fresh one. He slipped the pistol back into its holster.

“ Dad, have you ever killed anyone?”

“ What kind of question is that?”

“ Well, you work for the CIA.”

“ Not everyone at the agency wears a cloak and carries a dagger, Mike. Most of us just sit at desks and page through foreign technical journals, looking for bits and pieces of data, clues that someone else can work into a puzzle.”

“ You're not a desk man.”

“ I'm not?”

“ You aren't the type.”

“ Well, it isn't easy to—”

“ Have you ever killed anyone?”

“ Suppose I have.”

“ Suppose.”

“ And I'm not saying I have.”

“ Just suppose.”

“ Do you think it would have been in self-defense — or do you think your father's a hired assassin?”

“ Oh, it would be in self-defense.”

“ Well, thanks.”

“ Technically.”

“ Technically?”

“ Well, Dad, if you'd chosen to work for someone besides the CIA, if you were a civilian, then foreign undercover agents wouldn't have any reason to kill you. Right? If you were a lawyer or a teacher, your job wouldn't require you to kill anyone in self-defense. So even if you did kill only in self-defense — well, you chose the job that made it necessary … So you must have enjoyed it.”

“ You think I could enjoy killing a man?”

“ That's what I'm asking.”

“ Jesus!”

“ I'm not saying it was a conscious enjoyment. It's more subtle than that.”

“ I've never enjoyed it!”

“ Then you admit to murder?”

“ No such thing.”

“ Wrong term, I guess. You admit to killing.”

“ We agreed this was a purely theoretical discussion.”

“ Sure.”

“ Mike, you try to see everything as black and white. The agency isn't like that. Neither is life. There are shades of gray, shadows. I don't see any point discussing this with you. You don't seem mature enough to think about those grays and shadows.”

“ Sure. You're right.”

“ Don't be so damned smug. You only think you've won.”

“ Gee, Dad, I didn't know this was a contest. I didn't know I could win or lose.”

“ Sure.”

Canning stepped over the corpse, went to the kitchen door, and looked down at the courtyard. The two potted cherry trees shivered in the wind. So far as he could see, no other men were waiting out there.

He locked the door, reached for the light switch, thought better of that, got a flashlight from a drawer by the sink, and went to search the dead men. Being careful not to get blood on his clothes, Canning first attended to the agent who was sprawled on the kitchen floor. He found a wallet full of papers and credit cards in the name of Damon Hillary. There was also a thin plastic case which was full of business cards for Intermountain Incorporated. Intermountain was an agency front. He went into the bedroom and dragged the other man out of the closet. This one, he discovered, was named Louis Hobartson and was also an employee of Intermountain.

In the bathroom he washed the blood off his hands. He used a wad of tissues to wipe smears of blood from the wallets, flushed the tissues down the commode. He checked himself in the mirror to be certain that his suit hadn't been soiled.

He looked at his watch: three-fifteen.

In the bedroom again, he neatly laid back the covers on the bed, lifted the mattress, and slipped both wallets far back on top of the box springs. He dropped the mattress, pulled the bedclothes in place, and smoothed out the wrinkles. Now, if the Commiteemen retrieved their men before he had time to tell McAlister to come after them, Hillary and Hobartson would not disappear without a trace.

He took his suitcases out of the closet and carried them back into the living room.

He took his raincoat from the front closet and struggled into it on his way to the living-room windows. Parting the velvet drapes half an inch, he saw that the LTD was still parked across the street, the driver still looking this way. Canning glanced at his wrist-watch: three-eighteen. When he looked at the street again, a taxi was just angling in beside the curb downstairs. The cabbie gave three long signals with the horn.

Canning left the apartment, locked up, carried his bags downstairs. At the foyer door he hesitated, then opened it, pushed through, and hurried to the cab. Without getting out in the rain, the cabbie had thrown open the rear door. It was a high-roof, British-style taxi; therefore, Canning didn't have to lift his suitcases in ahead of him. He stepped in, cases in hand, and sat down, wondering if the man in the LTD would be crazy enough to try to shoot him right out here on the street.