Skillful Death (52 page)

“Here’s an old passport.” He hands me a small green book. It looks official and it has his picture, pasted in the corner and stamped with a seal. Bud looks exactly the same as he did, according to the passport, in 1973. “I don’t know why I kept that. It has an old name. Here’s a picture of Diki.” He hands me an old photo. It could be anyone’s kid.

“You know how easy it is to forge documents,” I say.

“Here are the results of a blood test I had a few years ago. They thought they were being helpful when they sent my blood out for a DNA screen. As you can see, from several factors they claim their machine malfunctioned. It reported an approximate age of one-fifty. They list the genetic origin as Belarus. That’s pretty close.”

“With your money, I’m sure you could get test results that say anything you’d like them to say.”

“True,” he says.

He opens up a big yellow envelope and shakes out a radiograph.

“These things are impossible to read,” he says, holding the black film up to the light from the window. “But here you can see the spirit of the village.”

“Looks like you’ve got an extra big heart,” I say. I’ve had some experience with X-rays. This one is of someone’s chest, and either the heart is too big, or there’s an extra mass right beside it.

“I have two hearts. One pumps my blood and the other is the spirit of the village.”

“What does it pump?”

“Nothing, as far as anyone can tell. It beats, but it doesn’t make much noise because nothing flows through it. You can hear it if you’d like. I have a stethoscope around here somewhere.”
 

“I’ll take your word for it.”
 

Now that he’s told me what to look for, the X-ray really does look like it shows two different hearts. That’s fascinating. Easily faked, but it’s still fascinating.

“Here’s an MRI of the hearts and a letter from the doctor talking about the phenomenon.”

“It’s a known phenomenon?” I look over the paper. In it, the doctor is talking about the stages of development of the heart.

“During embryo development, we all have two hearts. They fuse together at some point. If you read to the end, you’ll see that the author eventually punts his theory. Embryos with cardia bifida have two hearts that are both hooked up. My second heart isn’t hooked to anything.”

“So, in strictly scientific terms, the village wants your second heart? That’s what it comes down to?”

“Yes.”

“But, in your mind, when you give up your spare physical heart, it’s going to break your metaphysical heart.”

“Yes.”

The alarm is very quiet. Bud jumps up and runs to the computer on the table. He expands the view of one of the cameras.

“This can’t be. They’re inside the perimeter,” he says. “Come quick.”

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I grab my backpack and the little laptop I’ve been writing on. Bud takes my arm and pulls me towards a narrow cupboard in the kitchen. He opens the door and we’re looking at a broom, a mop, and a shelf with cleaning supplies. The inside of the door has one of those racks where you can store your batteries. Bud pops out one of the AA batteries, flips it around and plugs it back into the holder. I’m about to ask him what he’s up to when the whole inside of the closet pops out and swings out of the way.
 

The inside of the closet is a doorway to a panic room. Bud keys in a code and an inner door swings and he pulls me through. When he hits a button on the inside, the closet reassembles itself behind me and the inner door closes again. It’s like a vault in here.

There are some empty racks on the opposite wall. I’m guessing that’s where the equipment on the kitchen table is from. It looks like this room used to have a lot more monitoring hooked up, but Bud has scavenged it.

“Are we going to…” I begin to ask.

Bud puts a finger to his lips. He messes with a control panel of some sort and I hear a distant hissing sound.

“I have the noise canceling on. You can talk now,” he says.

“Are we going to be able to see anything in here? It seems like you took all the monitors out to the dining room.”

“Yes, I left two in here,” he says.

He goes over to the wall and opens a set of cabinet doors. He has two medium-sized monitors mounted in there. When he turns them on, they show split screens of eight different views of the house. Every few seconds some the views change. It looks like any scene with movement stays locked. Five are locked right now. Five different views show men creeping on the property.

“Those are Providentials?” I ask.

“Perhaps. Or mercenaries.”

The men on the screens are all moving like SWAT guys in a movie. They glide over the floor and move in bursts, entering quickly and checking all their angles. They communicate with hand-signals. Some are wearing forest camouflage, some are dressed all in black. They’ve either got tight masks or face paint. I can’t see anyone’s features. A few hold rifles, and the others have something else. I’m guessing they’re stun guns.
 

“How come you don’t have any security guys?”

“I have some, but I don’t trust them. So I built this room.”

“How long are we going to be able to stay here?”

“Food and water for weeks. We won’t need it,” he says. “I just want to make sure they’re all inside the house, and we’ll make a run for it. If you’re up for it.”

“What’s the alternative?”

“They’re after me. You could probably stay here while they chase me. They won’t be completely sure anyone else is here, so as long as you don’t leave this room, I’ll bet you could wait a few days and then just make a clean getaway.”

It doesn’t seem appealing. Judging from the monitors, I don’t have much time to consider my options. The men are inside the building and Bud is keying an authorization code.

“This isn’t murder,” he says. “This gas will just knock them out for a few minutes.”

“How did they get by the alarms, and the monitors, and the mines?”

“I have no idea.”

Bud hits the final button and the panel lights up red.
 

“Take this, just in case,” Bud says. He hands me a gas mask.
 

The men on the monitor are still creeping. I don’t see any gas at all. The ones coming up the stairs drop first. They just settle to the ground, and it’s almost a graceful fall. The guy in the kitchen falls. Two in the dining room go down. A few in the hallway drop. All the guys are on the floor.

Bud is wearing his mask. I put mine on. It’s hard to see. It’s not quite as dark as a welding helmet, but fairly dim. The display brightens a bit. Bud reaches up and flips a switch on the side and an overlay lights up. I’ve got statistics on air quality, temperature, my heart rate, and respiration.
 

“We’re going out the side,” Bud says.

He opens a big door and keys in yet another code. A recessed panel about as big as a window slides into a slot in the wall. It opens up on the shady afternoon. It’s beautiful outside, and the wind carries in a puff of the summer air. I bet it smells wonderful, but I can’t smell anything through the gas mask. When the panel retracts all the way to the side, I can see the full thickness of the wall. This room is built to last. At about two feet thick, it must be as secure as a vault.

Bud sticks his head through the opening and looks down.

“Almost ready,” he says.
 

“For what?” I ask. We’re on the third floor of his house. It must be at least twenty-five feet down to the ground.

“Take a look,” he says.

I lean forward and look out the hatch. The display on my gas mask is distracting. Little triangles light up in the yard. They’re overlays from the display. I’m guessing it’s showing me the location of all the mines. Below the hatch on the ground, a big air bag has sprung from the side of the house and it’s inflating.

“Wouldn’t a ladder be easier?”

“This is faster,” he says.

Bud jumps up on the ledge of the window and pulls himself through. He’s spry for an older man. In a wink, he’s gone. I look down and see him land on his back and roll to the side.

“Give it a second to re-inflate,” he says. His voice is coming through a speaker in my gas mask.

As I watch, the airbag starts to puff up once more. A flashing light on the display behind me catches my eye. I turn to see one of the guys on the video monitor. He’s up again and he’s running down the stairs. I guess the gas doesn’t last very long.

The bag looks pretty full. I’ve never jumped onto an airbag before, but Bud made it look pretty easy. I jump out a little and pull in my legs so I can land on my back. It’s a quick trip down, but somehow I rotate too much and I pretty much land on my head. Good thing the airbag is forgiving. My mask comes off, but I’m fine. I slip it back on so I can see the mines.

They’re everywhere. I can’t imagine how the invaders made it through the yard without blowing up.

The boss has wheeled out a small motorcycle from some compartment. Whenever I visited this house, I always thought it was quaint and humble. It seemed like such a modest place for such a wealthy man. I’m seeing a different side of it now. All the rustic simplicity was just a cover for Bud’s clever gadgets.

He starts the bike and slings a leg over it. He waves for me to climb on behind.

I hear men bursting from the door of the cabin as Bud guns the engine.
 

Even with me on the back, Bud makes that little motorcycle dance over the yard. In my display, I see the mines flashing by. It frightens me to see how close we’re passing by them. Behind us, the men have shaken off the effects of the gas and they’re streaming from the cabin.
 

Bud’s voice is directly in my head again. “They’ve probably got the Jeep staked out, but I have another vehicle hidden in the woods.”

We’re out of his yard now, but the display is still giving me information. It shows horizontal red lines in different directions. I’m guessing maybe he has tripwires set up. I look over Bud’s shoulder and see that he’s following a dark green line that the display is painting on the forest floor. We fly over a little ledge of rock and the bike catches some air. I nearly bounce off the back when we hit the ground again.

“Duck,” Bud says. He steers the motorcycle under a low limb and it nearly takes the top of my head off. The gas mask wouldn’t have protected my head much. I guess with all the money he spent on the cabin, he couldn’t afford a couple of helmets.

We skid to a stop, leaving a ragged tear in the moss and ferns behind the tire.

“That’s it,” he says. He shuts off the motorcycle.

“What’s it?”

I see a big yellow triangle in my gas mask display, but nothing else. I pull off my mask as Bud pulls a big camouflage tarp from a green Jeep.

“Oh,” I say.

I give him a hand.
 

“You like Jeeps, don’t you?” I ask.

“They’re handy,” he says.

We pull the tarp off the Jeep and flip it over the motorcycle. Bud takes our masks and throws them in the back as we climb into the seats. Bud’s other Jeep, the red one, has a roof, and windows, and soft seats. This one is like the tougher older brother. You would clean this Jeep by hosing it out. The sides and roof are canvas and clear plastic. To get in, you unsnap the door flap and then snap it up behind you. Instead of a seatbelt, it has a five-point harness and all the hard edges inside are wrapped in thick foam.

The road is rough. I have my harness tight and I’m holding on with both hands, but we’re being tossed around as Bud bounces down the mountain road.
 

I hear a distant percussive sound and look up. It’s hard to tell for sure, but I think I see a black helicopter through the heavy canopy of trees. Bud bounces us through a gully and I come all the way off the seat. For a second, I’m just floating in space, not being jerked around by the Jeep. It’s nice until the ground comes up to meet us and then my jaw claps shut and I nearly bite off my own tongue. I’m not normally a nauseous person, but I might throw up before this ride is through.

We hit a bunch of rocks and we’re racked from side to side. I’m glad for the padding as my head comes close to hitting the roll bars more than once. The little laptop is in the backpack clamped between my feet. I wonder if the hard drive is going to survive this trip.

“We’re almost through the worst of it,” Bud yells. Up ahead, the road disappears into low trees. The limbs slap at the windshield and sides of the Jeep. My door flap becomes unsnapped and a few branches whip my shoulder through the hole.

Suddenly, we’re out. We burst through the last of the leaves and on to a smooth gravel lane. It looks like a dry riverbed, but it’s too flat and straight to be anything but a road.

Bud increases our speed and the tires kick up the loose rocks as we drift around the easy curves.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“I have another car stashed about twenty minutes from here,” he says. “After that, I’m not sure.”

I pull myself to the limits of my harness and look up through the windows. I can’t see any helicopters, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that there may be one up there somewhere.
 

“Do you have a current passport on you?” I ask. Whenever I’m going to see the boss, I always carry a passport and all the cash I can pull together. You never know where you’re going to end up. As a rule, he’s pretty considerate, but sometimes his priorities shift. One you’ve been stranded in Iceland with nothing but five bucks and a driver’s license, you tend to be a little more careful.

“I can get to one,” he says. “Why? Where do you want to go?”

“Eastern Europe,” I say. “I’ve got an idea.”