“So how do you know who to kill?” asked one of the kids.
“I get a message from Intelligence. They let me know who my target is, where my target is, and anything special that I need to be aware of about my target. They also give me a window of time to get the job done, usually a couple of days. Sometimes, if the job is more difficult, a week. So I go to the destination. I have a safe house assigned to me. The safe house is always owned by a person on our side, without children, who will let me stay with them while I complete my job.”
“Do they know what you're there to do?”
“They know, but I'm not supposed to give them any details. You'll learn soon that knowledge can be very dangerous.”
“What's it like to kill someone?” It didn't feel right telling them the real answer. The real answer was that it was easier than you'd think.
“I don't think of my targets as people. They're simply the enemy. We're the good guys. They're the bad guys.” We were nearing the end of the session. The kids' parents would be back to pick them up soon. “A couple more questions.”
“But how can you be sure that the person you're supposed to kill is one of them?”
“First, I trust my Intelligence. These guys are good at what they do,” I said, motioning to Matt. “But it's not just that. There's something else, something that I can't really describe. You know because they know. When you meet one of them, you can sense it, and so can they. You can feel it. Like I said, it's hard to explain. One day, if you're lucky, you'll know what I'm talking about.”
“And what if we're not lucky?” asked one of the kids.
“Then it will be too late.” I paused for a moment, unsure if I'd said too much. Another hand went up. It was a girl in the back. To this point, she'd been quiet. I'd almost thought that no one was going to ask the question that Matt and I were waiting for, but if anyone asked it, I knew it would be her. She looked the most afraid, but I knew that was only because she was the only one brave enough not to hide her fear. I pointed to her.
“Why?” she asked, her voice soft but sure.
I knew what she meant but it didn't matter that I knew. I needed everyone else to know too. “Why what?” I prodded her.
She looked around at the others before speaking, almost afraid to ask the question. “Why are they trying to kill us? Why do they hate us? Why do we have to kill them? Why?” Her voice trailed off. She could have kept going. She could have kept asking why this and why that forever but she made herself stop. The room went quiet. All the eyes moved from the girl back to me. Everything depended on my answer.
“Matt has told you that they are evil, but what is evil?” I shrugged. “Sometimes I'm sure I know. Sometimes I have my doubts.” I looked at Matt. He was glaring at me nervously, unsure of where I was going with my answer. He didn't have to worry. I'd done this before. “Here's what I do know: they've killed your parents, your brothers, your sisters. If they haven't yet, they're going to try.” I paused, purely for effect. “They will kill everyone you've ever loved, and then they will kill you.” I stared at the girl even though I wasn't only speaking to her. I was speaking to all of them. “Unless we stop them.”
I could have kept going. I could have asked them if that was reason enough. I didn't have to. I could see it in their eyes, even the eyes of the girl who had asked the question. I hadn't actually answered her question. I did better. I'd invalidated it. “Isn't that enough?”
“I've got two more slides to show you guys.” We had to ease them into it, but we had to give them a taste too. I motioned toward Matt. He clicked a button on the computer. The close-up of a man's face lit up on the wall. There was nothing extraordinary about the picture. He was a white man, about thirty-five years old. He was stocky and his hair was receding. In the picture he was smiling, but it wasn't a pleasant smile. It was smile full of malice. Intelligence had picked a good picture for their purposes. “This man's name is Robert Gardner.” The kids stared at the face. “When I was twelve years old, this man killed my uncle. I was with him at the time. My uncle had taken me to the mall to pick up a new baseball mitt. We were walking through the mall together and I turned to look at the dogs in the pet store window. When I turned back around my uncle was gone. They came up and grabbed him when I wasn't looking. My parents had to come to the mall and pick me up after I'd searched the mall for my uncle for hours. Nobody told me at the time that even before I gave up my search, they'd found my uncle in the Dumpster behind the food court. The men who kidnapped him had slit his throat from one ear to the other.” Nobody in the room made a sound. He was my favorite uncle. I loved him. He was with me one minute and the next minute he was gone and I was alone. I never got to see him again. You don't know what that's like, Maria. Those kids did, though. “When I turned eighteen, they told me what had happened. Then they told me who did it.” I looked back at the photo on the wall. Then I turned toward Matt again and nodded. He clicked the button on the computer and another image came up. It was a picture of the same guy. Only this time, he had one eye stuck closed from swelling. His mouth hung down loose on his jaw and his tongue was blue. There was a deep gash on his right cheek. His one open eye was fully dilated but lifeless. “This man's name is Robert Gardner. He murdered my favorite uncle. When I turned eighteen they told me who he was and where he lived.” I pointed toward the grotesque picture on the wall. “This is what he looked like when I was through with him. I was eighteen years old and he was the first man I ever killed. After I was through with him, he never had a chance to murder another one of us.” I looked around at the room full of kids. They were all staring at the picture of Robert Gardner's beaten, lifeless face. A couple of the kids looked like they were going to be sick. It was to be expected. They'd seen a lot that day. They'd seen more than most people could handle. But it was only a couple. The rest of them looked inspired. I looked at Matt. He was quietly noting each kid's reaction. The inspired were one step closer to becoming killers.
Four
The next morning, I was scheduled to check in with my contact in Intelligence. It was the same procedure every time. Stay at your safe house until your job is done. Wait for the right time. Call Intelligence to get your next assignment. Always call from a landline. Be sure that no one is listening.
I'd call and the woman who answered would sound like the receptionist from any one of a million companies. When she answered the call, I'd ask three successive operators for three different individuals. I would be transferred to the next operator after each request. As far as I could tell, none of the people that I asked to speak with actually existed. It was all just a code. The list of individuals would be given to me at the end of my previous call. I learned early on to memorize the names and to never write them down. If we forgot the names, we'd be cut off from Intelligence and on our own until someone from Intelligence found us. After going through the procedure, I was connected to my contact.
“Hey, Matt,” I said when his familiar voice finally picked up the line. There were lots of Intelligence guys named Matt. For a long time, I wasn't sure why this was. I'd find out soon enough.
“How's it going, Joe?” Matt replied. He'd been my contact for over five years. “You teach the kiddies how to survive in the real world?”
“I did what I could.”
“You ready for your next job?”
“No,” I replied.
Matt started laughing. He thought that I was kidding. He kept talking. “I've got a mark for you in Montreal. This one's important. It's been earmarked especially for you. Apparently, someone upstairs has noticed your work.”
“I'm not kidding, Matt,” I said. “I'm not ready. I need a break. No more bodies. Not for a couple of days. No more blood. Just a few days and I can come back.”
“Seriously?” Five years and I had never asked Matt for a break before. He owed me. “What do you want me to do?”
“Can the Montreal job wait?” I asked.
Matt paused for a minute. I could hear papers shuffling on his end of the line. I didn't have a clue what he was up to. “How long do you need?” he finally asked. Matt was a good guy. He watched out for his operatives. I imagined that this would take some fancy footwork on his part.
“I can call you in five days. I'll get the details from you then.”
“Where you going?” Matt asked. I couldn't tell him. I wasn't supposed to be scheduling unapproved time hanging out with other soldiers. It wasn't protocol. It was dangerous.
“Away” was all I said to him. Sandy beaches, warm water, no death.
“Five days,” Matt repeated, thinking to himself, trying to figure out how he was going to pull this off. “Don't fuck me here. I'll figure out a way to delay this one for you, but you better be ready to go in five days.”
“Thanks, Matt.”
“Michael Bullock. Dan Donovan. Pamela O'Donnell.” The names came through the receiver like Matt was speaking in Morse code. I immediately committed each name to memory. “Be careful, Joe.”
“Thanks again, Matt.” With that, Matt hung up. I booked a flight with my next call. I had no intention of letting him down. The thing is, intentions are a bitch.
Five
Saint Martin wasn't Saint Martin. Saint Martin was a pipe dream. It was a place that Michael had read about in a magazine. We didn't have the money or the initiative to make it to a place like that. One day, maybe. One day, when the forces above us deemed us worthy, maybe we'd get paid enough for a trip like that. For now, for us, Saint Martin had just become a call sign. It was a nickname. When Michael told us to meet in Saint Martin, we knew where to go. It was the same place we'd been going since we were teenagers. Our Saint Martin was the New Jersey Shore.
We'd come in the past during breaks from work. Whenever each of us could find the same free moments, we'd do our best to meet on a skinny little island off the Jersey coast called Long Beach Island. Our stand-in for paradise. It wasn't easy finding the time. It was even harder to get in touch with each other. The opportunities to actually meet were becoming more and more rare. We had to take them when we could even if we all knew that it was dangerous to do a trip like this so close on the heels of the jobs we just pulled only a few hours away in New York. Sometimes you just didn't feel like running anymore.
Long Beach Island wasn't an easy place to get to without a car. I had to fly back into the Philadelphia airport, take a train to Atlantic City, and then find a cab willing to take on a one-hour fare. I offered to pay the cabbie double since I knew there was no way he was going to get a fare coming back. It was the middle of the day. There wasn't a line of people waiting for cabs so he reluctantly agreed. My cabbie was a large black man with a beard and short cropped hair. There was no shortage of black people in Atlantic City. You could count the number of them at Long Beach Island on one hand. They stood out. That's why I recognized him so easily the next time I saw him.
All I had with me was a backpack with a bathing suit, a beach towel, and a couple of changes of clothes. That and about five hundred dollars in cash. It was late in the season, so the island was starting to empty out. The Jersey Shore works like a faucet. Memorial Day turns it on and the beaches get crowded and stay packed all summer. Labor Day turns it off and all that's left is a trickle, then a drip, then the whole place empties out. It was mid-September. That was always my favorite time at the shore. The water was warm. The air was still hot and the place was quiet.
The cabbie and I didn't talk much during the ride. I'm glad we didn't. It would make the things I would do later much easier. When we got to the bridge that led to the island, he simply said, “Where to?” He had a slight Caribbean accent left over from a youth spent somewhere more exotic than Jersey. I hadn't been in touch with Jared or Michael since they dropped me off at the Philadelphia airport the first time. Still, I knew where to go.
“Beach Haven,” I replied to the driver. It was always Beach Haven. It was Michael's preference. More bars in that town than the others. More inebriated women.
“Yes, sir,” the driver said. As he drove I opened up my backpack and pulled out my bathing suit. I slipped off my dirty jeans and slipped on the bathing suit in the backseat of the car. The cabbie looked back at me in the rearview mirror and shook his head. I didn't know what he thought I was going to do alone in the back of his cab.
“Just putting my bathing suit on,” I said, and he looked away. The sun was shining brightly down on the little island. We drove over the bridge and took a right-hand turn toward Beach Haven. Once we got there, I told him what street to turn down and asked him to drop me off at the beach.
“Thanks, pal,” I said, when I got out of the car.
“I'm not your pal,” he replied, taking my money and counting it. Great way to start a vacation, I thought. I didn't know the half of it. I stepped out onto the hot pavement but was only two steps from the white sand that led up to the beach. In moments, my toes were digging into the fine, powderlike sand. It was even softer when we were kids, before they started pumping in other sand in the futile attempt to save the island from being washed away forever. I walked up the little path leading to the beach, over the sand dunes. The cabbie stayed and watched me until I crested the little hill. Only then did I hear him pull away.
At the top of the hill, I looked out in front of me. There was the ocean. God, it was beautiful. Every time I saw it, I felt small again. I loved that feeling. The sun beat down on the water and glistened off the waves as they curled in toward the beach. It felt like home. It was only one of two or three places in the world that gave me that feeling.