Diary of an Assassin (9 page)

CHAPTER 20

Rhett turned on the radio as he drove and then turned it off when he found he couldn’t concentrate with it on. The farmlands that surrounded him were comforting, reminding him of his childhood.

Though he remembered little of his parents, his grandparents stood out in his mind as the kindest people he ever knew. He couldn’t remember a single instance of his grandfather getting angry with him or anyone else.

His grandparents were Mormon and had lived in rural Alaska for most of their lives. They had moved out here to be closer to the large community of Mormons that had made upstate New York their home. After having five children, including Rhett’s mother, they retired and worked their farm, making just enough money to get by. Though they didn’t have many luxuries, Rhett couldn’t remember a happier home.

His parents would come up from Philadelphia and drop him off here throughout the year for long stretches of time. Occasionally
for more than six months. School was off and on so his grandparents took it upon themselves to educate him. He would study history and math and religion outside under the apple trees when it was warm, and inside by the fire when the snow was pouring down.

The most vivid memory he had of his grandfather was after Rhett had gotten into a fistfight with some of the local boys. He came home bloodied and bruised
, and as his grandmother got some ice and aspirin out of the kitchen, his grandfather, a hulking man from a lifetime of physical labor, sat him down in the front room and looked him in the eyes.

“Why did you fight those boys?”

“They were calling me names and one of them took my hat.”

“Isaac, I used to fight too. I used to be under Satan’s influence. I would get drunk and I would fight and I would womanize. And you know what it brought me? Nothing. Nothing but
unhappiness. Every action you make affects your happiness. I’m not saying not to fight. Sometimes you have to show the world that you’re not playing around. But do you really want to lose your life over a hat? Let it go, son. You just let some things go.”

Rhett had never forgotten that. It gave him perspective and an even temperament. Life was too short to worry about petty insults.

The grocery store, a small family-owned place called Mark’s Mart, was empty except for a single elderly woman shopping for fruit. Rhett took a cart and began filling it with food and toiletries. He stood in front of the magazine rack and wondered what Stephanie would read. He ended up choosing
Cosmo
and
The Economist
and put them in the cart as well.

As he was checking out, the old man behind the counter saw him and smiled.

“Isaac, how have you been?”

“Hi
, Mr. Fielding.”

“You don’t have to call me Mr. Fielding anymore but I appreciate that. Wow, look at you. You know
, I haven’t seen you since you were eighteen years old. You got your granddad’s good looks.”

“Thanks.”

“So what have you been up to?”

“Just work.”

“You married? Any kids?”

“No.”

“You gotta have kids, Isaac. They’re the meaning of life.”

“I’ve heard. How’s the grocery business?”

“Ah, that damn Wal-Mart got built up the road a little ago and they’re killing us. I’m gonna be closing up shop soon. I just can’t sell as cheap ’cause my produce is fresh from the ground that day. You’d figure people would want better quality. But who the hell knows? Maybe things’ll swing back the other way.” He began bagging the groceries. “Boy I miss your granddad. He was a good man. Anybody around here had any problems, he was there like lightning to help out. People ain’t really like that no more.”

“I miss him too.”

“So your grandma told me all them years ago, you got into the CIA? Is that right?”

Rhett blushed. He had told his grandparents not to say anything to anyone. He could picture his grandmother, gushing with pride, unable to control bragging to someone about her only grandson.

“That was a different lifetime ago.”

“So what d’ya do now?”

“Government work.”

“Well you need anything you come ask
me, okay?”

“I will. Thanks.”

As Rhett pulled away, he glanced into the store and saw Mark Fielding helping the old woman choose her fruit. That kind of life, his grandparents’ life, didn’t exist anymore. Rhett was mature enough now that he felt old age creeping on him and he longed for simpler times and simpler people.

He
began driving back to the house, and turned on the radio to a classical station.

CHAPTER
21

Vanessa Hailstorm sat outside the terminals at JFK and waited for an attendant to grab her car. She had been traveling now for thirty-six hours straight with no sleep other than a quick nap she could grab here and there.

She was glad to be out of Paris. Though she enjoyed
Europe’s old architecture, as she would enjoy a museum, she didn’t feel France had much else to offer. The United States was where she felt most at home. She didn’t understand the French insistency on relaxed moods, the long meals that would stretch over a couple of hours, the view that life should be easy. She had to be constantly moving, constantly working, and she felt right at home in someplace like Manhattan or Los Angeles.

For a long time, she thought of herself as extremely driven and
felt that working eighteen-hour days was simply what driven people did. A man she had been dating—he wanted to make it more serious, and she had rejected him—had told her that she worked so much because she was running from something. That she simply wasn’t courageous enough to settle down.

Dating…Vanessa suddenly remembered she
had set a date for tonight. She sighed as she checked her watch. She could cancel, but she was starving anyway, as she refused to eat plane food. She might as well eat with someone else there.

When she got her car
, she hopped onto the Van Wyck Expressway heading toward Manhattan. People crowded the streets and it was just cold enough that faint steam rose from the sewers. When she was little, she remembered that the steam would billow out of the manhole covers like massive plumes of smoke. But lately, over the past twenty years, that had changed and, somehow, they didn’t steam as much in cold weather.

The Blue Fin was in the busiest se
ction of New York: Times Square. Usually, Times Square lacked any good restaurants, but Blue Fin wasn’t bad for seafood and sushi. Still, she wished her date had picked anywhere but Times Square. Tonight she wanted to eat by candlelight somewhere quiet and then go home and take a long, hot bath before sleeping for fourteen hours.

She used the valet and went inside. The restaurant was beautifully decorated and had a warm, golden glow. One wall by the staircase appeared raked over, like fingers through warm sand
. The man she was here to see was slouching at a booth and he waved her over.

“
He’s with me,” she said to the hostess before going over.

The man rose and kissed her hand, causing her to nearly roll her eyes.

“How are you?” he said.

“Exhausted, but I’ll manage. How are you, Dave?” she said as she sat down.

“Better now. I called you earlier about the show and got your voicemail.”

“What show?”

“We’re going to
Rock of Ages
? Remember, we discussed it last week.”

“Oh, right. Dave, I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. I’ve been up for thirty-six hours. Do you mind if we just have dinner and call it a night?”

He glanced down, playing with a glass of wine he had in front of him. “Sure. I guess.”

“I hate when you do that.”

“What?”

“Pout. Just tell me how you feel.”

“I already bought the tickets and I was looking forward to it. How do you think I feel?”

“Well take someone else. I’m sure you’ve got other women lined up after me.”

He shook his head. “Boy you really do have ice in those veins, don’t you?”

She exhaled. “Look, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. How about this weekend we go up to Cape Cod and get a little cabin.”

“That sounds great,” he said with a grin.

When the
waitress came Vanessa ordered an appetizer and several dishes of sushi. She leaned back in the booth and felt sleep coming over her under the warmth of the lights. As she turned to find the waitress and order a Diet Coke, her cell phone buzzed.

“Oh man,” Dave said, “here it comes.”

“Here what comes?”

“Work. Can’t you just turn your phone off? I’m sure
there’re other lawyers at your firm that can handle whatever it is.”

“You know that’s not how it works. Just give me a second.” She stood up and walked toward the
restaurant’s exit. “This is Vanessa,” she said as she stepped outside.

“We’ve got a hit.”

“Where?”

“Upstate New York. I’ve got a team headed up there now.”

“No, send it to our French magician.”

“It’ll take him hours to get—”

“Have a team keep an eye on them, but I want him handling this. If they move, you call him and tell him where. And then you call me right after.”

“I’m on it.”

She hung up the phone and walked back inside. “I have to go.”

“What?” Dave said. “You haven’t even eaten yet.”

“Call me this weekend.”

CHAPTER
22

After unpacking the groceries, Rhett checked the perimeter of the home one more time. Inside, he showered and changed into a sweat suit. Stephanie took a shower after him as he stood in the kitchen and cooked a meal of chicken skewers and lemon rice.

Cooking had always been pleasant for him
, something one could do to occupy their mind. Frequently, he would lose track of time while doing it.

“That smells great,” Stephanie said, coming out of the
bathroom in blue pajamas. “I found this in a closet. Hope it’s okay that I’m wearing it.”

“It was
my grandmother’s. It’s fine. Hungry?”

“Starving,” she said, sitting down at the dining room table.

He dished out some rice and two skewers alongside a warm pita from the oven and placed the dish in front of her. He did the same for himself and sat down. He reached for a piece of chicken. “Wait,” Stephanie said, “we have to say a blessing.”

“What?”

“A blessing. Grace.”

“You’re kidding?” She looked at him without speaking
. “Okay, go ahead.”

She closed her eyes and interlaced her fingers. “Dear Father in Heaven, please
bless us this day that this food will nourish and strengthen our bodies, that those that wish to do us harm will be stayed, and that those we care about will be blessed by thy hand. In the name Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Rhett popped the chicken in his mouth. “I didn’t know you were religious.”

“How would you?”

“Good point.”

“My mother was. She would force us to attend church until we were eight. She felt like by then we could make our own choices. I still went but my brother stopped going.”

“My grandparents were Mormon. They forced me to go to church every Sunday until I was eighteen. Didn’t stick
, though.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Seems irrational, considering how much pain is in the world. Hard to believe someone is looking out for us.”

“I think
it’d be lonely to think we’re on our own.”

“That’s life. Anyone telling you different wants something from you.”

“So do you—oh my gosh, this is delicious.”

“Thanks.”

“Where’d you learn to cook?”

“Spain. I spent about five years there for work.”

They ate quietly a moment before she said, “Isaac, what’s happening to me? Who do you work for? Is it really the government?”

“No
. Well, kind of.”

“Who then?”

“It’s called Starlight. It’s an agency that takes care of problems.”

“Starlight…why does that sound familiar?”

“They do mercenary work. They got into trouble a few years ago for abuses their mercs were perpetrating in the Congo.”

“That’s right, that’s how I know that
name. They took over a lot of the contracts once Blackwater ran into all that trouble after Iraq.”

“They’re one of many. But mercenary work isn’t their specialty.”

“Murdering people is?”

He took a large bite of meat and followed it with a bite of pita. “Imagine if an organization was part of a covert government agency. And that organization grew rich and had an established bureaucracy, and then one day the government agency decided to shut it down. At that point, the organization
could either dissolve, or become privatized and keep everything in place. That’s what Starlight did.”

She leaned forward. “Are you telling me a government contractor carries out hits on people?”

“That’s what they were trained to do, what I was trained to do.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Those men that picked you up from the police station posing as the FBI, did they show you identification and badges?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how difficult it is to forge an FBI ID? It has several watermarks that can’t be replicated. Those were actual IDs. That car they drove had government plates. How do you think they could get ahold of all that in less than eight hours?”

“That doesn’t make sense. Bill Clinton got a blow job in the White House and it was all over
the news. General Petraeus sent a few emails on a CIA server and they got out. How could an entire agency do something like this without anyone knowing?”

“Who do you think released those emails? These guys have dirt on everyone. Something doesn’t go their way or people start thinking independently,
they’ll pay for it.”

“How did this even begin?”

“Don’t know all the details, but J. Edgar Hoover started it. It was kind of like the covert version of his FBI. Then it went to the Office of Strategic Services when that was founded in World War II, and then it went to the CIA.”

“Who runs it now?”

“I don’t have the clearance for that. I know there’s an executive. He calls himself the Messenger, but I don’t know anything about him.”

She absently twisted her fork in the rice. “This is too much to take in. I’m a member of Congress and you’re telling me everything I know about how our government works is wrong.”

He shrugged. “There have always been people doing things for God and Country that no one ever finds out about.”

“Is that what this is about? God and Country? Have they determined I’m a threat somehow?”

“No, you have a contract. That means a third party hired them. Maybe
they
think you’re a threat.”

A buzzing came from the other room and Rhett looked to her. She glanced away.
She clearly wanted to answer it. “Is your cell phone on?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t answer it, did you?”

“
I…I have obligations. People are relying on me and if I don’t—”

“Did you answer it or not?”

“It was quick. It was my assistant and I just told her—”

He jumped up. “We need to leave right now.”