Darwin's Blade (35 page)

Lawrence turned and looked at Syd and the district attorney. “Whoever killed Mr. Esposito—and we have witnesses who will place the former mafia hit man Tony Constanza here at the time of Esposito's murder—must have held a gun on Mr. Esposito while removing this screw with a wrench.”

“We didn't find any wrench at the accident scene,” said Hernandez.

“Exactly,” said Lawrence. He signaled for Trudy to shut off the video and he walked out of the shadow of the scissors lift with Dar following.

Trudy and Lawrence dropped by Dar's condo for a drink before heading back to Escondido. Syd seemed to be in no hurry for the talk she had asked for after Tom Santana's funeral.

“OK, we have the Esposito thing nailed with Constanza as the man,” said Trudy. “The Willis case up at Carmel has been reopened and the FBI have taken possession of the Camry…They're going to use every forensic trick they know to find a print or fiber or something.”

“Warren is going all out on this one,” said Syd.

“Three field agents dead,” said Lawrence. “I wouldn't wonder.”

“Is Dallas Trace just crazy?” asked Trudy. “He's been a defense counsel for thirty years…Doesn't he know that the one thing you don't get away with in this country is killing law enforcement people?”

Dar cleared his throat. “I don't think Trace is running things anymore—if he ever was,” he said.

The other three looked at him.

“This behavior is Russian,” continued Dar. “Their crime bosses run the country. If government bureaucrats or police get in the way, they murder them. That simple.”

“That's true,” said Syd. “They have no RICO statutes over there, or anything similar that allows federal or local police to really crack down on the bastards. The Russian mob owns and runs the distribution of coal, natural gas, alcohol, half the foods available, and electric energy.”

Trudy said, “So you're saying that the Alliance brought in the Russians to organize things, but that now the
Organizatsiya
is calling the shots?”

“That's my bet,” said Dar. “I think Dallas Trace and the others who wanted to get in on the capper business climbed onto a tiger—or maybe I should say onto a bear—and now it's all they can do to hang on and not get eaten.”

“It's too late for that,” said Syd, her gaze distant. “They've gone too far. They're all going to get eaten, even the Russian bear…and slowly, I hope.”

“So what would you like to talk about?” asked Dar when the Stewarts had left. Syd sat on the sofa across from Dar's chair, lost in thought.

Her head came up and she met Dar's eyes with that intelligent, blue-eyed, attentive gaze that had first called to Dar. “Actually, I don't want to just talk,” she said. “I wanted to make a suggestion.”

“Yes?” said Dar.

“I want to come up to the cabin with you this weekend,” said Syd. “Not to play bodyguard and not for a strategy session. Just you and me getting away together.”

Dar felt the words jolt him. He hesitated. “It might not be very safe around…” He had been going to say “me,” but he said, “… the cabin.”

Syd smiled. “Where is it safe if they keep coming after us, Dar? If you don't want to go away with me, it's OK, but let's not worry about being safe right now.”

Dar understood that the sentence had more than one meaning for her. “Do you need to drive back to the hotel to get your stuff?”

Syd kicked the small duffel bag she'd carried in with her earlier. “I'm already packed,” she said.

While driving out of town together in the Land Cruiser, his old rifle and the loaned weapon and ammunition under tarps in the back, a few groceries—steaks, fresh salad, a bottle of wine—in the backseat, Dar suddenly had a thought. Perhaps he was being presumptuous, but if she felt the way he did, she might not be spending the night in the sheep wagon.
Damn,
thought Dar,
I
should have stopped at a drugstore before we left town.
He suddenly blushed. For years he'd been totally faithful to Barbara, and then there had been no one.

Syd touched his arm lightly. He looked over at her.

“Do you believe in telepathy?” she said. She was smiling again.

“No,” said Dar.

“Me either,” said the chief investigator. “But can I pretend that it exists for a minute?”

“Sure,” said Dar, returning his gaze to the road and hoping that his neck and cheeks were not as red as they felt.

“We may be in the same dilemma here, Dar,” she said, “not being young and modern enough to think out all the implications of this. But there's a certain advantage.”

Dar kept his eyes on the road.

“I led a really dull life as an FBI trainee before marrying Kevin,” she said, “and Kevin and I were faithful to each other, we just didn't work out. And for a bunch of reasons, there's been no one since.”

“Barbara and I…were like that,” said Dar. “I haven't…I mean I've chosen not to…”

She put her hand on his arm again. “You don't have to say anything, Dar. I'm just saying that it's your call. We're not kids. Maybe all this stupid abstinence on both our parts gives us something special to share in this day and age.”

Dar glanced at her. “You keep doing this sort of thing,” he said, “and I will believe in telepathy.”

They arrived at the cabin just at dusk. The light was thick and golden even through the nearly closed shutters.

“Do you want to have a drink and dinner now?” said Dar.

“No,” said Syd. She took her holster off her belt, removed three clips of ammunition in their neat leather belt holders, and set them on the dresser.

It had been so long since Dar had helped undress a woman that he had almost forgotten that the buttons were backward. Out of her clothes, Syd looked all gold and white in her plain underpants and bra. They kissed. Dar remembered how hooks and eyes worked and he unfastened them without fumbling. Syd's breasts were full and heavy, her hips wide: a grown woman.

“Your turn,” she said, helping him pull his T-shirt over his head. She unfastened his belt buckle. “I've been wondering since I met you,” she whispered after another kiss, her breasts compressing against his bare chest. “Are you a boxer shorts or Jockey shorts kind of guy?” She unzipped his fly and helped him step out of his chinos.

“Oh my,” she said.

“Habit I picked up way back in Vietnam days,” said Dar. “No one wore underwear in the jungle.”

“How romantic,” Syd said with a smile, but this time as she hugged him her right hand went lower and found him.

The sheets were cool. Syd swept the pillows aside. Dar kissed her mouth, kissed the pulse throbbing at the base of her throat, kissed her breasts and long nipples. Their fingers interlaced even before they began making love.

Syd kissed him deeply and long. Their fingers intermeshed more tightly as her arms spread above her head, his palms against hers, his arms pressing hers down into the sheets, every square inch of his flesh aware of hers.

They had dinner at around 11:00
P.M.
Dar grilled the steaks outside, wearing only his bathrobe, while Syd tossed the salad, fried some potato wedges—they were too impatient to wait for baked potatoes—and let the cabernet sauvignon breathe. Dar was hungry as they sat down to eat. Syd was obviously ravenous.

He had forgotten—it was that simple. Of course, he remembered the pleasure of sex—that was impossible to forget—but he had forgotten the thousands of small pleasures of intimacy with a woman. Of lying naked with her in dim light and talking before sheer, physical imperative reasserted itself; of showering together and turning the simple act of washing each other's hair into a pure form of lovemaking; of laughing while walking around in bathrobes and bare feet, starving, rushing to get dinner ready. Of being happy in the moment.

They each had a glass of Macallan single-malt for dessert and sipped it in front of the fire. The night was warm and the screens were open, letting in the rustle and scent of the pines and the occasional noise of night birds or yip of distant coyotes, but they had lit a fire anyway. Then the Scotch was left only half consumed on the side table and they were in bed again, more passionate than before, Syd crying out at the same instant Dar did, each of them abandoning the boundaries of self at the same instant.

They lay touching then in the sweat-soaked sheets, the air rich with the combined sexual scent of themselves.

“All right, it's time to tell me,” Syd said softly.

Dar propped himself up on one elbow. “All right,” he said. “Tell you what?”

“Why you joined the Marines and became a sniper.” Syd's eyes were bright in the dying firelight.

Dar actually laughed. He had been expecting something a bit more…romantic?

Syd's voice was soft but serious. “I want to know why someone as intelligent and sensitive as young Darwin Minor joined the Marines and became a sniper.”

Dar lay on his back and looked at the ceiling. He found himself strangely unprepared to explain this because he never had before. Not even to Barbara.

“I've already told you I was interested in the Spartans. But I didn't really tell you why.” He paused. “I was scared,” he said at last. “I was a scared kid. At age seven…I remember the day, the afternoon, where I was, the curb I sat on, when the realization hit me…At age seven I realized,
knew,
that I was going to die someday. I was already an atheist. I knew there was no afterlife. The thought scared the shit out of me.”

“Most of us encounter that sooner or later,” Syd whispered. “But usually not that young.”

Dar shook his head. “The fear wouldn't go away. I had night terrors. I began wetting the bed. I was afraid to be separated from my parents, even to go to school. I was aware that not only did I have to die, but so did
they.
What if they died while I was away in Miss Howe's third-grade class?”

Syd did not laugh. After a minute she said, “So you joined the Marines to find courage…to get over that fear?”

“No,” said Dar. “Not really. I graduated from high school early, finished college in three years with a degree in physics, but all the time, what I was really interested in was death and fear and control. That's when I started studying the Spartans and their ideas about controlling fear.” He rolled over to look at her. “The Vietnam war had started…”

Syd set her palm flat on Dar's chest. He could feel the coolness of her fingers. “And so,” she said very softly, “the U.S. Marines.”

Dar shrugged slightly. “Yeah.”

“Thinking that perhaps the Marines would still know the secret science of controlling fear.”

“Something like that,” said Dar, realizing how stupid all of this sounded.

“Did they?”

He chewed his lip a moment in thought. “No,” he said at last. “They had preserved a lot of the disciplines started by the Spartans—tried to live up to their ideals—but had lost most of the science and philosophy which lay behind and beneath the Spartan mind-set.”

“But…a sniper,” said Syd. “The only snipers I've met are on SWAT and FBI tactical teams, but they seem to be outcasts…”

“Always have been,” said Dar. “That's probably why I gravitated in that direction. Whereas even Marines are taught to be part of a bigger organism, snipers work alone—or in teams of two. Everything has to be factored in: terrain, wind velocity, distance, light—everything. Nothing can be ignored.”

“I can see why you would gravitate to that,” whispered Syd. “Always thinking.”

“The guy who set up and ran my sniper school was a Marine captain named Jim Land,” said Dar. “After the war, I read something that Land wrote for a little sniper instruction manual called
One Shoot—One Kill.
Want to hear it?”

“Yes,” whispered Syd. “More sweet nothings, please.”

Dar smiled. “Captain Land wrote: ‘It takes a special kind of courage to be alone—to be alone with your fears, to be alone with your doubts. There is no one from whom you can draw strength, except yourself. This courage is not the often seen, superficial brand, stimulated by the flow of adrenaline. And neither is it the courage that comes from the fear that others might think you are a coward.' ”

“Katalepsis,”
whispered Syd. “You told me about that before.”

“Yes,” Dar said, and continued. “‘For the sniper there is no hate of the enemy, only respect of him or her as a quarry. Psychologically, the only motive that will sustain the sniper is knowing he is doing a necessary job and having the confidence that he is the best person to do it. On the battlefield, hate will destroy any man—especially a sniper. Killing for revenge will ultimately twist his mind.

“ ‘When you look through that scope, the first thing you see is the eyes. There is a lot of difference between shooting at a shadow, shooting at an outline, and shooting at a pair of eyes. It is amazing when you put that scope on somebody, the first thing that pops out at you is the eyes. Many men can't do it…' ”

“But you did it,” said Syd. “At Dalat. You looked into human eyes and still squeezed a trigger. And that's been your survival secret for all these years.”

“What's that?” said Dar.

“Control,” said Syd. “The constant pursuit of
aphobia
—avoiding possession at all costs.”

“Maybe,” said Dar, uncomfortable with the psychoanalysis and all his blabbing that led to it. “I haven't always succeeded.”

“The .410 shell with the firing-pin imprint,” said Syd.

“A misfire,” agreed Dar. “That was eleven months after Barbara and the baby died. It seemed…logical…at the time.”