His first thought was that he'd never loved someone so much as he loved her in that moment.
His second thought was for Billy.
"Watch him!" Jason gestured at Adam Kent, who stood stunned and blinking behind his boxy desk. Cruz whirled, and he raised his hands high.
Jason scrambled across the floor, stepping over Galway's ruined corpse, the cop's vacant eyes staring at the ceiling. He found Washington already cradling Billy, hands stroking his hair. The old man's face was a mask of pain, and as Jason forced himself to look down, his mind was full of horrors, a cracked skull, the boy's face cyanotic blue. But though his eyes were closed, Billy's breathing seemed steady.
"He's okay," Washington rasped without looking up. "Just a cut, maybe a concussion. I don't know." His hands shook on the boy's pale shoulders.
Jason rose, the gun in his bound hands. Fire pumped in his veins. DiRisio. This time he would pay.
Kent's eyes grew wide as Jason stalked to the desk. "Mr. Palmer, I assure you, I wouldn't have hurt-"
Jason silenced him by raising the gun. "Scissors."
For a moment Kent just stared, but then his mind caught up. "Sure," he said, and reached for the desk drawer.
"Slowly."
The millionaire gently slid open a drawer and removed a pair of black handled scissors. Jason held his arms out, the gun level at Kent's belly. "Cut the zip-tie."
Kent glanced at him, at Cruz with her gun steady on his head. With exaggerated care, he slid one blade of the scissors under the tie and clamped down until the plastic broke.
"Now hers." He covered Kent while the man freed Cruz.
"Galway?" She asked, her voice cracking.
Jason shook his head, and her eyes narrowed. He stared at her for a moment, probably only a second, but it felt much longer. He was at once exhausted and jittery, every cell humming, and he let it all show in his eyes. All the pain and rage, his retinas playing a movie of Billy flying through the air. Looked at her and let her know what he was going to do.
Gave her a chance to stop him.
When she didn't, he nodded and turned for the door. Behind him he heard Cruz ordering Kent to sit down. Jason's fingers tingling with energy and the return of circulation. He paused for a moment and looked back at the scene: the slow spread of crimson from Galway's body, Scarface unmoving in front of the desk, Cruz with Kent locked dead to rights. And on the floor, Washington holding Billy, and crying.
He knew that somewhere out there, DiRisio waited. A guy like that, he wouldn't quit, not now, not over a shoulder wound. And remembering how fast he moved, the joy he took in killing, Jason wasn't sure he was a match for the man, even now.
It was ironic. Kent hadn't been wrong about him. For months, he'd half-chased death. Flirted with it. Teased it. Now that he had reasons to live, he had to gamble his life. He owed it to them. To Washington, a man of peace dragged into violence. To Ronald, killed or wounded trying to protect a boy that wasn't his. To Galway, who had turned out to be a cop after all. To Michael, who had dared dream of a better world. And to Billy, the only true innocent in the whole mess.
With the weapon in front of him, Jason stepped out the door, a soldier hunting an evil spirit in a cheap suit.
Cruz knew what Jason planned to do. In that long moment he'd stared at her, he'd told her as clearly as if he'd said the words. With that look he'd asked her permission to kill Anthony DiRisio, and she'd given it.
She supposed as a cop she ought to feel bad, but couldn't find it in herself.
"Put your hands on the desk." She cracked her voice like a whip, and Kent complied quickly. It made her sick to look at him, his former rich man's arrogance replaced by a pasty, nauseous expression. His eyes darted from body to body, the reality of costs right in front of him, no longer items on a spreadsheet. "I didn't know it would be like this," he said, his voice thin.
"Shut up," she said. "Don't move. I don't care if you're just trying to scratch your nose. Your hands leave that desk for a second, I'll blow you away." The words felt silly, something from an action movie, but they had the intended effect. Kent went rigid as a statue, palms flat and fingers spread.
Eyes still on him and gun up, she took four cautious steps back, feeling behind her with her feet to make sure she didn't trip. When she reached Galway's body, she stepped over him so that she could look down without letting Kent out of her peripheral vision.
Her partner lay on his back. He'd been hit at least three times, two in the chest, and he lay in a spreading lake of blood. His mouth and eyes were open, and his service weapon lay a foot from his hand.
An ache rippled through her. Goddammit, Tom. A day late and a dollar short, again. She thought of his son, Aidan, seventeen years old and sullen, but with his father's bright eyes and sharp mind. He would go to college, get a job, marry, raise kids of his own, but he would never be able to say he knew his father. A man who had made mistakes and taken the easy path. Who had been, at times, a bad man, and at other times a hero. Who could only be defined, like everything else, in shades of gray.
She glanced quickly at Kent, who hadn't budged. Then she dropped to a squat and used her free hand to close Galway's eyes. Good and bad were for angels to judge. Here on earth, she could at least give him a little dignity.
"Officer Cruz!" The urgency in Washington's voice yanked her to her feet, let her know something was wrong. At first she assumed Kent was moving, and raised the Glock quickly, eyes staring down the barrel. But the millionaire sat exactly where she'd left, his face white and hands flat. She looked over to Washington.
And saw Billy convulsing in his arms.
Jason took careful steps, weapon up and sweeping. The motion was familiar. How many hundreds of times had he moved this way? How many rooms had he cleared, how many desert streets had he walked point? Though the pistol he'd picked up felt different than his M4 carbine, the principle was the same.
The living room was bright with lamps and catalog furniture. An open arch led to a darker room, and he quickstepped along the wall to stay out of the line of fire. Felt the beat of his heart, the sweat on his sides. The old fear. Back in battle.
He took a breath and then swiveled around the corner. A long table with one tall metal candlestick on it, ornate chairs on both sides, a giant hutch in the near corner. Dining room. Beyond it another door, probably to the kitchen. He tried to remember the size of the house, to place the room in context. He guessed there were maybe five or six more rooms on the ground floor. Best to clear them before tackling the upstairs. He'd be exposed on those steps.
Jason moved forward, pulse throbbing in his forehead. Stretched out a hand for the kitchen door and pushed it slowly, concentrating on the room ahead.
Behind him, the doors of the hutch parted silently, and a dark shape unfolded from it.
Cruz sprinted the few steps to where Washington knelt. The boy seemed to be in an epileptic fit, his hands and legs twitching, head jerking.
"What happened?"
Washington stared up at her, his eyes burning panic. "I don't know. He just… started. Maybe the hit to his head. Do you know what to do?"
She grimaced, then dropped beside the boy. "Here," she said, and held the Glock out.
Washington jerked away as if burned. "No, I-"
"Look, just point it at Kent, and if he moves, pull the trigger."
"You don't understand-"
Billy made a long strangled gasp. His face was beginning to color. "There's no time." She shook the gun at him. "Come on!"
Reluctantly, Washington reached for the weapon. His lips curled like something was rotting in his mouth, but he raised the gun and pointed it in Kent's direction, and that was all she cared about right now.
Her mind scrambled to remember her first-aid classes. What were you supposed to do? First, don't move him unless he was in a dangerous area. The thought would have made her laugh under other circumstances. Focus, dammit. Okay, second, get him off his back. She reached down and put her arms beneath the boy's shoulder, feeling the play of tiny muscles as she rolled him onto his side. It was coming back now. Clear the airway. She had a vision of her instructor telling her never to do it by grabbing for the tongue. Instead, pull the chin out with two fingers behind the corner of the jaw to force the tongue forward. Cruz fumbled to get one hand beneath the boy's head, the other on top.
Billy's choking gasps gave way to a slick, wet wheeze. The flailing of his limbs eased, then quieted. She held his head in place as his breathing calmed. Beside her Washington laughed, and she turned to find him looking at her and Billy, pure joy in his eyes, and she reflected that back at him, feeling a flush of happy relief unlike anything she'd ever known.
Until she heard Adam Kent say, "Washington, I'm going to have to ask you to put down that gun."
He heard the sound before he felt the impact, and it saved his life. Jason threw himself sideways, one arm coming up to shield his face, the other whipping the gun around. The metal candlestick that should have split his head cracked his forearm instead, a sudden nova of pain rocketing up the nerves as his fingers went numb and loose. He saw, rather than felt, the gun fall free, and for a split second it seemed to hang in defiance of gravity, time stopping long enough to allow him to admire the intricate perfection of the world, the faint trace of light silhouetting the barrel, the hatchwork of the grip.
Then Anthony DiRisio jerked the candlestick in a blurring backhanded blow, and this one Jason didn't dodge, the metal catching him in the mouth, gut-sick shiver as it connected with his teeth, white and black stars, and he was falling backwards. His arms tagged the wall, lost purchase, and then his tailbone slammed to the floor, barbed wire and broken glass scraping up the inside of his spine. Everything went wet and zoomy.
"You," Anthony DiRisio said, "are a pain in the ass. But you aren't much of a soldier." Jason had a sense of motion above him, growing closer. Then a weight on his chest. DiRisio was straddling him, knees along his sides. Leaning closer. "Kind of funny," he said, as he lay the candlestick across Jason's throat. "You get to die the same way your brother did." His right shoulder was bloody, the arm flopping, but he pinned that end of the candlestick to the ground with his leg and used his left hand to push down the other side.
The sudden pressure of the metal against his trachea made him gag. Jason gasped for breath, nothing coming, just nothing, like sucking on a cueball. Suns burst behind his eyes, and his hands flopped. He tried to buck, but DiRisio's muscles were iron, and he had leverage. The candlestick ground deeper. The killer rocked forward, his face only inches from Jason's, the individual stubble of five o'clock shadow visible on his cheeks. He smelled sour, coffee and sweat. Jason tried to get his right arm up to push against the metal bar, but it was numb and clumsy from the blow.
I'm sorry, Michael.
Then a thought. Right arm. That meant something. What?
Colors flashed behind his eyes.
Right arm. Right hand.
Darkness flowed in the edges of his vision.
Right hand pocket.
He fumbled his left arm up against DiRisio's hip. There.
Jason yanked the folding knife out of DiRisio's pocket and flicked it open. The man turned, sensing something wrong, the pressure off Jason's throat and a rush of air coming in, but Jason didn't stop, just swung his arm up as fast and hard as he could and buried the blade in the side of the monster's neck.
DiRisio's eyes bulged. He jerked back, his good left hand scrabbling at his neck, his right flopping at his waist. Blood fountained as he fell off Jason's body, crabbed backwards, his legs flying. A choking wheeze became a rattle, and then his hands started to twitch, and he collapsed with the handle protruding from his neck.
Jason pulled himself away, coughing. The pain in his throat was living fire and the air gasoline, each breath making it worse. He leaned against a wall, watching the room spin, waiting for it to slow.
And as it did, he remembered something he'd told Billy earlier. Despite the pain, he found himself smiling. He'd have to tell his nephew he'd been wrong.
Turned out you could kill a nightmare after all.
The gun felt wonderful in Washington's hand, and he hated himself for it. It rewound the clock thirty years, turned him back into an animal, a dog that bit out of fear. A killer listening to the old cold song of twisting metal. And yet, the song sounded so very much like home that when he heard Kent order him to put the gun down, he couldn't tell if he was relieved or angry.
Kent stood beside an open drawer, a snub-nosed revolver pointed at them. The pale face and shaking hands that had lulled Washington to relax, to let down his guard enough to check on the boy, they were gone. In their place was his former unflappable confidence, the slightly cruel sneer. All war is deception.
Beside him, Washington could feel Officer Cruz tense like a bowstring. She still had her hands on Billy's head, a pose that reminded him of religious iconography, the Blessed Virgin healing a wounded child. But he knew better than to expect spiritual aid.
After all, he'd made only one vow in his life, and he'd broken it. And now they lived in the shadow of the gun. He wasn't surprised. It was a lesson he'd learned early and hard. Pick up the gun and you live forever in its shadow.
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
"I said," Kent's voice firm, "put it down."
But then, what option had there been? He could explain the engineering of the Roman aqueducts, but couldn't save the boy's life. Different books. Yet he could hardly sit and watch him die. Not for a principle. Certainly no principle was so crucial it justified the death of an innocent child. At the end of a day, wasn't that what defined a principle?
Washington stood, the weapon steady in his hand.
"What are you doing?" Kent asked.
Surely no hard and fast rule applied in every situation. Or if one did, it stated that it wasn't acceptable to stand by while an innocent boy died. Or to allow a man who attacked children to go free.
And the sting of betrayal. He'd believed in this man. Needed to believe in him, to believe that there were other ways to fight.
He took a step forward.
"Freeze, goddammit." Kent cocked his pistol, held it in shaking hands. "You're a man of peace, remember? You swore you would never pick up the gun again."
Washington nodded. "I guess I was wrong, Adam." Then he squeezed the trigger, just as he'd done thirty years ago. Just like then, there was a roar, and a hot punch against his hand.
Kent's shot came a fraction of a second later, the gun jerking as he staggered back, face wild and confused. His jaw fell open. A red flower bloomed against the starched white of his shirt. He stared at it, blinking. Then his legs gave and he went down like a drunk, the pistol falling from his fingers. In the end, he died the same as anybody else.
Washington waited till he was sure Kent wouldn't get up before he fell down himself. Fire in his chest, cold in his belly. Long overdue. An old debt, now paid.
He heard Officer Cruz but he couldn't see her. Felt her rip open his shirt, press hard. She was yelling, telling him not to give up.
He smiled at her misunderstanding.
From around either side of the darkness he took to be her, he saw a strange glow. Like someone stood behind her with a flashlight. He squinted. It was odd. He couldn't bring Officer Cruz into focus, but somehow he could clearly see shapes standing on either side.
Two young boys. One was Billy, on his feet and breathing easy. The other was a smiling black boy about the same age. Who was it?
The boys each took one of his hands, Billy the left, the smiling boy the right. Their touch flooded him with peace like warm rain.
And just before he died, he saw that the smiling boy had a cauliflower ear.
August 25, 2005
They wait for him inside. Alive and dead, they wait.
He heard the shots. Somehow knew what to expect, even as he forced himself to his feet, even as he staggered through the living room, hand tracing one wall.
The living. Cruz, her arms a mess of gore as she labored over Washington. Billy on his side, eyes closed, breath steady.
The dead. Scarface, Kent. Galway.
And Washington. Jason knows even as he watches Cruz press on his chest, as he watches her try to save him. He can tell by the strange little smile on his friend's lips.
More than he's ever wanted anything, Jason wants to lie on the cool hardwood floor and close his eyes. Rest and let this all fade away.
Instead he looks around. Flashes of Baghdad, the inside of a café after a suicide bombing, chunks of drywall and wood, fist-sized holes in the walls. The glass doors to the back are spider-webbed and gaping. One of the chairs has been knocked into the fireplace, and the stuffing burns with a hungry green flame that casts flickering shadows.
Perfect.
He walks to the fireplace, bends to grab the protruding leg of the chair, a wave of heat washing red over his face. Carries it to the drapes on the rear wall and touches them. The fire leaps like a child.
He goes to the sofas. To the bookshelves. To the ornate chairs and the hardwood bar. Touches them all, and everywhere he touches, fire is born.
He leaves the chair leaning against a wall of photographs and framed newspapers. Adam Kent cutting a ribbon on his company's new offices. Adam Kent shaking hands with the Mayor. Adam Kent looking somber next to an article describing his IPO.
The car keys are in Galway's pocket. Jason kneels by Cruz, still bending over Washington, and touches her shoulder. She looks at him through a wet veil.
"Let's go," he says.
She swallows, and nods, face lit by fire. She lifts Billy, cradles him.
He takes Washington. It isn't easy, but he doesn't want it to be.