YES, THE whole hurting somebody thing sucked.
But he told himself this was just a role he was inhabiting. Other professions did it. Soldiers inhabited a role when they were sent to foreign countries and told to drop bombs on people and they tried to avoid running over bombs set by other people. It was never “Dave White of Clifton, New Jersey” sent over to kill people; it was “Sergeant White,” stripped of his full identity and given a new one by his superiors, with orders to terminate with extreme prejudice. Same thing here.
(The man pretending to be Philip Kindred played these ethics games in his head right before a job, just to keep his sanity.)
He pulled the car to the side of the street. Parking was carefully orchestrated on a San Fernando Valley block such as this one. While there were no signs, everyone knew which spaces belonged to which abode. He had been told to park directly in front of 11802 Bloomfield, which was next door to 11804 Bloomfield.
Okay.
Immerse yourself in the role.
Your name is Philip Kindred, and you’re here for revenge.
You and your sister were watching TV Thursday night and you saw all the awful things Jonathan Hunter said about you.
Worst of all, your sister Jane saw them, too.
Saw them refer to you both as “monsters” and “evil adults with childlike desires.”
That was not a nice thing to say, Mr. Jonathan Hunter.
So we’re going to show you what we do.
“Philip Kindred” opened his eyes, opened the driver’s-side door, strode up the street, reaching his gloved hand inside the pocket of his Windbreaker for the heavy automatic that hung inside. Hoodie up, moving forward.
You are Philip Kindred.
You’re just about to the door, and the guy behind the wheel notices you. Now’s the time. You pull the gun out of your pocket, you squeeze the trigger and shoot him in the face. The guy next to him, the other half of the Hunters’ usual security detail, reaches inside his jacket, but you’re too fast for him and you shoot him in the face, too, followed by another shot to his chest and then another shot to the driver’s seat.
You are Philip Kindred. You don’t wait to make sure you’ve killed them both because you know you have, and you jog around the car and then up the Hunters’ driveway and you immediately cut to the left, along the eight-foot hedge that blocks the front yard from the street.
You are Philip Kindred. You move along the hedge, following it into the very corner of the yard, where you crouch down in the darkness and wait. You are Philip Kindred…
As the minutes ticked by, it became clear that nobody had reported the shots, or the brief cries. Not even the Hunters, who were busy preparing for Family Movie Night, waiting for their takeout pizza to arrive.
All clear.
Mann thumbed a text message. Down the street, the woman playing Jane Kindred stepped out of the stolen car, gently pushed the door shut, then went to the trunk, from where she removed an insulated bag. Holding it in her arms, she quietly darted up the street.
In the back of the house, under a cover of bamboo trees, A.D.2 killed the security system, as well as the floodlights along the side of the house and in the backyard.
As the two cops slowly choked themselves back to life and started scrambling around, trying to figure out what the fuck had happened to them, Hardie peeled away, finally beginning to understand why he’d been kept alive all this time.
God, you wily bastard. You don’t work in mysterious ways. No, your ways are pretty fucking clear right here at the end.
And it was the end; Hardie didn’t doubt that. He had been kept alive on this planet for one job, and one job only: to atone for the sins of letting an innocent family die. And how was he going to do that? By saving the lives of another innocent family.
Thanks for the clarity of mind here at the end, God. Glad to know you don’t leave us guessing forever.
Further proof that God wanted him to do something: all of the gifts.
A few minutes ago, Hardie had nothing. Now he had two Glock 23s, four loaded .40 S&W magazines. He had no idea what kind of fancy shit his old friend Topless was planning. Didn’t matter. He’d fucked up her shit this morning, so let’s fuck up her shit in the evening. Let her bring on all her syringes and magic blow darts and gases and poisons and the rest of her Agatha Christie crap. Hardie planned on squeezing the triggers of these Glocks and not stopping until Topless and her Tall Boyfriend and anyone else who wasn’t the Hunter family were dead.
He also had a button-down black polyester police shirt, taken from the second of the arresting officers. Hardie didn’t want to go traipsing around town bare-chested in a stolen police car. People tend to notice shit like that.
Finally, Hardie had a police car, and he’d disabled the two-way, the MDT, the vehicle tracking systems, the CCTV, as well as the supposedly secret LoJack device mounted in every department vehicle. Turned out to be the same gear as in Philly. Nate had shown him how to turn off all this shit years ago. Sometimes, Nate had said, you want to go ghost.
28
An act of God; a natural and unavoidable catastrophe
that interrupts the expected course of events.
—Definition of force majeure
A HAND-SCRIBBLED sign was taped to the wooden door leading to the path along the side of the Hunter home: PLEASE KEEP THIS DOOR CLOSED WE DON’T WANT TO LOSE OUR DOG. The man playing Philip Kindred knew this was a simple anti-burglary ruse; the Hunters didn’t own a dog.
He quietly scaled the wooden fence and dropped down loosely, sneakers slapping on concrete. Inside the house the TV was already on, the THX sound from the start of the DVD blaring superloud.
He quickly made his way down the cement path, past tidy trash cans and recycling bins, a perfectly coiled hose, a well-manicured berry tree, and then finally to the backyard. Right about now the actress playing Jane should be approaching the front door, ringing the bell…
Jonathan Hunter answered the door; he always answered the door. He had the exact total plus tip ($38) ready in his pocket, because each week they ordered the same items (one large Sicilian red, one round medium white, boneless wings with mild Cajun spices) from the same pizza parlor over on Ventura Boulevard. They always played the DVD past the FBI warning and the THX sound and the previews and paused it right on the company credits so they’d be ready to watch once the food arrived.
This was Family Movie Night; this night was sacred. Nothing could trump it. No business meetings, no travel plans, no matter how allegedly “important.” The network knew that, his staff knew it, and no one would dare suggest otherwise to Jonathan. His precious boy, Kevin Hunter, had been killed by some coward on a Saturday afternoon. Saturdays the family gathered to be with one another.
And while this ritual didn’t make the night terrors go away, it was a steady reminder of what mattered most.
Now the food was here, and Jonathan opened the door, already reaching into his jeans pocket for the cash. He never worried about who might be on the other side. Harry and Marvin vetted everyone who approached the Hunter home. Sometimes they even placed their own orders with the same pizza parlor.
Which was why Jonathan was stunned to see a girl, a plain-looking girl with a tiny face and stark eyes who pulled a .38 out of the insulated bag and shoved it into his throat, then pushed him back, stumbling, into his own vestibule.