Children of Paranoia (28 page)

 

The rest of the day went by in a blur. Both of us were exhausted. We were emotionally spent. We passed the day trying to absorb the new twists in our lives. We both knew that nothing would ever be the same. Every so often you would ask me a question or I would ask you one, trying to clarify some details, trying to clear up uncertainties, just trying to get to know each other. It was hard to believe that we'd only actually spent five days together.

“So, have you been to the doctor?” I remember asking.

“Why? Are you doubting that I'm pregnant?” You smiled again. “Are you still trying to get out of this?”

“No. No. No. Trust me. I just want to make sure you're taking proper care of yourself. I just want to make sure that you're taking proper care of my child.”

“This is Canada,” you replied. “Of course I've been to the doctor.”

“So when are you due?” I began counting on my fingers.

“July,” you said before I had a chance to finish counting.

“July,” I replied, and smiled.

 

 

“What about my family?” you asked at one point. I barely ever heard you talk about your family. I mythologized them in my head. They were normal. They'd produced you.

“If people think they know anything, their lives will be turned upside down. They're innocent bystanders, so they can't be physically hurt, but there are a lot of ways that people can mess with you without physically hurting you.”

“So I can't even reach out to them? I can't tell them where I am?”

“Well, there are ways. We'll be able to let them know that we're safe, maybe even send them pictures. But we won't be able to see them.” You looked worried.

“Ever?” There was strength in your voice again. I could tell that you were already willing to make any sacrifice to protect our child.

“One day, after we get away, both sides will forget about us. They'll write us off. Then we can visit your family.” Maybe, I thought. Maybe we'll be able to escape. “I want to meet them.” I smiled, trying to cheer you up. “I'm sure they'll want to meet their grandchild.”

“They're not going to understand,” you said. Your voice was sad. I wanted to say something wise to make you feel better. I didn't say anything.

 

 

“So what are you, some kind of genius?” I asked.

“No,” you replied. “I was homeschooled. My parents always kept me ahead of the other kids. I sit in classes now and I'm amazed at how smart the other students are.”

“But you're two years younger than they are.”

“So, what does age have to do with anything?”

“Why don't you just admit that you're really fucking smart?” I asked.

“Nice language, Joe.”

“Maybe if I was homeschooled, too, I'd speak more better,” I teased.

“Shut up,” you said. You picked up a pillow and threw it at my head.

“I'm excited. My kid has like a fifty/fifty chance of being a genius,” I replied after dodging the pillow. For the first time all day, you smiled.

 

 

“Does everyone have to kill people?” you asked. It was a fair question. You wanted to know if I'd volunteered for this job.

“No. There are lots of different jobs.”

“So how did you end up with the one you have?”

“Aptitude testing,” I replied.

“You're shitting me.”

“I wish I was, but I'm not. I could have been sent to Intelligence, genealogy, a bunch of other jobs. But they analyze how you react during your initial training. After analyzing my reaction, they gave me a test and the test said that I'd make a good assassin.” I looked at you. You didn't like it when I used that word. “I'll be honest, though. When I was seventeen, eighteen, I would have volunteered for this job. I was so angry with them.”

“And now?” you asked.

“Now I wish my hands were clean. But I'm still angry.”

“At them?” you asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, “at the people who murdered my family.”

 

 

“Do you think I'm a bad person?” I asked after building up the courage.

“No,” you replied. I breathed a sigh of relief. “But I don't know you.” I looked at you. You did know me. You just didn't know it. You already knew me better than anyone else in the world. I couldn't explain that to you, though. I'd have to show it to you. It would take time. “I love you, but I don't know you.” Love was good. It had gotten us this far. “And I think that what you've done is wrong, no matter how you try to justify it.” I accepted this. You hadn't lived my life. “And I'm a little scared of you. And I want you to stop killing.”

“Fair enough,” I replied. I couldn't ask for much more than that. I'd lived with fear my whole life. It was only natural that you'd be afraid, too, after what I had told you. I wish you weren't afraid of me, but time would take care of that. You didn't think I was a bad person. That was enough for me for now.

“So will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Stop killing.”

“Yes, I will,” I replied, “if they'll let me.”

 

 

“Where are we going to go?” you asked. I hadn't thought about it. We were going to try to find a place where they wouldn't think to look for us.

“I don't know. South?”

“Why south?”

“I'll take you someplace warm,” I replied.

“If we go someplace warm, what will I need you for?” you replied. Our first night together already seemed like a long time ago. I stared off into the distance, remembering the look on your face when you asked me to get under the covers with you. “What are you thinking about, Joe?” you asked.

“You,” I answered, and left it at that.

Outside the window, day was slipping into evening. “So when do we leave?” you asked.

“Soon,” I replied. “I have to take care of one thing. It will buy us some time. Then we can leave.” You didn't ask any questions. I think you knew what I had to do. You had asked me to stop killing. I promised you that I would. I planned on keeping that promise but I couldn't yet. I needed to do one more job to buy us enough time to escape. For that, I needed to do some planning.

 

 

That evening, when we had run out of questions to ask each other, I checked into a hotel under the assumed name that Allen had given me. It was suddenly important that everything look as normal as possible. I was sure that they'd be tracking me, checking to make sure that I was up to the task this time. I remembered what Jared had told me, that they had big plans for me, but I knew that I couldn't be too careful. In my whole career, I had only blown one hit, but that one was enough. Plus, I was already a day behind. They had expected me to check into the hotel the night before. From here on out, my every move had to be by the book. Check into the hotel. Do the job. Then we would have a two-week head start. It would be two weeks before they expected me to call in again. We could get halfway around the world in two weeks. For all I knew, that's what it was going to take to get away.

I picked the hotel at random, eventually checking into a place in the old city that used to be a bank. As if to drive home the point that I was being monitored, I received a package in my hotel room only three hours after I'd checked in. They must have been monitoring the credit cards they'd given me because I was sure that I wasn't being followed. The package contained an updated status report on my target. There wasn't much in it that was new, two days a week teaching classes, one day at the strip club, lunch one day in Chinatown. The big Aussie had quit the job after getting out of the hospital. As far as they could tell, he'd fully recovered and gone back to Australia. My mark had hired a new bodyguard to replace him. This time the second bodyguard was one of them. Last time I had spent a week developing a plan that didn't work. Now I had two days to put together a new plan and I had to factor in the probability that the mark and his employees would be on high alert. There had been a killer in his house, only feet from his bedroom door, and he knew it. There's no way that didn't stick with a guy. No matter how I sliced it, this job was going to be a bitch. But this was it—the last job that I'd ever do. Get in, get out, and run. Then I'd be free. Then we'd be free to be together.

I took out my notes from the last job. I wanted to see if I could find any openings that I had failed to notice last time. His home was out. There's no way that they hadn't beefed up security since my last attempt. Besides, I'd feel like a fool screwing up the same job, the same way, twice. I had to find another location. There was too much security in the strip club. I thought about the university, but I worried that this was too close to you. I hoped that no one knew you even existed and planned on keeping it that way. Plus, there were too many eyes on campus, too many young, alert people who could ruin things. I needed to get my mark as isolated as possible. I needed to start with a smaller crowd.

There was only one option left, the Chinese restaurant where he went for lunch once a week. It was a small place, maybe twenty tables. They had two small rooms off to the sides, which were separated from the general dining area by wooden beads. My mark and his business partners always took one of these rooms. The bodyguards approached the lunch the same way every time. They split up. One ate with the mark, sitting next to him. The other ate alone in the general dining area, keeping an eye on the restaurant. The situation was far from ideal, but it was the best of the bad options. So the venue was settled. Now I needed a plan.

Poison? It would be poetic justice to kill him with one of his own poisons. The idea was too complicated, though. How could I poison him without running the risk of poisoning the other people at the table? I kept bumping into the same fact. Killing people was easy. Killing the one you wanted to kill was hard.

I began asking myself what Michael would do. I couldn't help but shake the feeling that I had simply overplanned my first attempt. I'd tried it Jared's way. I just wasn't up to Jared's standards. He was the one who'd gotten promoted. So what would Michael do? He'd probably walk in, pull out his gun, take out the bodyguard in the dining room, walk into the side room, plug the other bodyguard, plug the mark, and walk out as if he owned the place. That was just Michael's style. It went against everything we were taught. But my mark knew everything we were taught. He was taught it too. I would have to be careful not to shoot any bystanders and I'd have to work quickly. I'd have to get out of there before anyone else in the restaurant had a chance to realize what was going on. It was risky, but I was going to have to start getting used to risky.

Lunch in Chinatown was the next day. I tried to concentrate on the job. It wasn't easy.

 

 

The next morning I got up early and headed over to my mark's house. I had decided that I should follow them throughout the day, all the way up until they went for lunch. I wanted to make sure I had a few hours to watch the new bodyguard. I needed to have his image imprinted in my brain. I needed my aim to be true this time. I couldn't afford to have any doubts when the hit went down.

The new bodyguard had spent the night at my mark's house. He was blond with sharp blue eyes. He was smaller than the Aussie, but there was something about him that made me nervous. He looked a little crazy. He was, at most, five foot seven. He lacked the spectacular build the other bodyguards had. Intel hadn't given me much information about him other than that he was one of them and that he'd been hospitalized multiple times, at least three of which were for gunshot wounds. So I knew ahead of time that he was a tough person to kill.

As I followed my mark, it dawned on me that this was my last hit, my last job. After this, I'd never have to hear Allen's voice again. I could go wherever I wanted to. I could take you and run to anywhere in the world. We could have a child that wouldn't have to worry about death and murder and war. We'd be free. The whole idea began to scare the shit out of me. What scared me wasn't the running. It was what would happen after the running. I began to doubt myself in ways that I couldn't explain to you then. Suddenly, the idea of becoming a father was terrifying. All I knew how to do, all anyone had ever taught me to do, was one thing. Killing, up to that moment, had been my entire life. I took a deep breath to try to calm my nerves. I felt the weight of the gun in my backpack and found it comforting.

I followed my mark and his men downtown and watched them as they headed into the same office building I had staked out only a few weeks earlier. Just like last time, I went to the café across the street to watch the building entrance and wait. I remembered that the last time I'd sat in that café I was bored, counting down every moment as it passed. This time, I sat there terrified, wishing that time would slow down so that I'd have a few extra moments to pull myself together. The questions in my head wouldn't stop. I looked across the street again and watched the motionless door. I prayed that it would never open. I placed my backpack in my lap. I slipped my hand inside it so that I could feel the weight of the gun in my palm. I thought back to the moment, only a few months earlier, when I was sitting in the parking lot of that mall in New Jersey waiting for Jared and Michael to come and pick me up. I remembered watching the people go in and out, being envious of their lives. I looked at them and saw no fear. They came to the mall on the weekend to buy a few things and then head back to their suburban homes to watch television and wait until Monday morning, when they would wake up and shuttle off to jobs they hated. I envied their lives, their “normal” lives—their pointless, tedious, normal lives. Is that what I was destined for? And what about Michael and Jared? What about the others on my side? What about the children that I'd taught? I remembered what Jared had told me only a few nights earlier. They believed in me more than I believed in myself. Could I just give this War up? Give up the only fight I'd been raised to care about? Was I ready for any of this? I caressed the handle of the gun. Maybe I liked killing. Maybe I had seen so much death that it was the only thing that made me feel comfortable. I tried to chase these ideas from my head.