‘Me.’ Maybe now I’d know why he told me all this instead of just shooting at me.
‘I tried to cover all my bases.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Criminals to give me information. Corporations to give me information. Just as I found criminals who were too ambitious for their own rings, I found… certain people, successful people, who were idealistic and had money to burn and were willing to… back another idea of mine. A way to fight back against the Suns.’ He flicked another smile.
I felt the world drop out from under me. ‘The Round Table. You started them, too.’
‘They didn’t gel quite as fast as Nine Suns did, but they provided a lot of good information. But these were either people who had inherited vast sums, or made vast sums at young ages. They didn’t relish taking orders from me. They don’t like or trust bureaucracy. So. They split off. There wasn’t anything we could do to stop them. They weren’t going to be an embarrassment the way Nine Suns would be. But still. We created two sides and then we left them to fight it out.’
‘Because they began to encroach on each other.’
‘After 9/11, no one cared what Nine Suns was doing. Punkass criminals with delusions of grandeur? Please. But now. They’re a serious threat; they’ve realized that an undermined social order, a chaos, is where they can consolidate power and profit. Look at the areas of the world that are ruled by criminals: parts of Latin America, Moldova, parts of Africa, and those are the testing grounds for Nine Suns’ vision of the world. Which is why I want to talk to you. I can offer you amnesty, Sam. That’s why I told Zviman to bring you here. I’d worked out a deal with him. Mila for you. He wouldn’t kill you if I brought him Mila.’
I shot him. I was tired of him and his excuses. The bullet hit him in the shoulder, in the gun arm, and he staggered and screamed and clutched at the wall. His gun clattered down the stairs.
What did Mila say? The unpredictable is what killls you. Well, that cut both ways. I was done with Braun.
‘You… goddamn it, let me finish! Come back and work here. You can tear them both down. Nine Suns and Round Table.’
‘Project A and Project B. I’m not interested in being the consultant who fixes your mistakes.’
‘You… do you think they’ll let you out of prison? You killed the guy Special Projects wanted. You attacked a CIA team and nearly exposed them. I’m your only choice, Sam. I’m the only way to keep your freedom and have your son.’
Braun sagged on the wall.
‘I am done,’ I said.
‘Your brother. In Afghanistan. Wasn’t a bunch of Taliban hash smugglers that killed him. It was a Nine Suns job. Initiation… ’
His gasp echoed in the foyer. ‘Now you’re just desperate. Desperate.’ I shook my head. ‘I’m not getting played by a loser like you.’
‘Your brother’s execution wasn’t what it seemed.’ He laughed. ‘Do you think it’s just coincidence that Lucy betrayed you? They aimed her at you. They’ve watched you ever since you went into the CIA. They’ve wanted to bring you to them. Both sides.’ He stuck fingers along his bloodied shoulder. ‘Christ. I need a doctor.’
‘Did you know, as a CIA officer, that my son was being held here?’
His mouth moved.
‘You’ve run and profited from your own little fiefdom.’
‘Yes. But I’m retiring. I want you to have it. You to take it over. At least I did before you shot me.’ He spat at me.
‘And Leonie?’
‘Lindsay. Ah. Don’t trust her. She’ll leave you.’ He coughed blood.
The father of Nine Suns, and the father of the Round Table, sitting before me, giving me the perfect excuse to go back to the CIA and get my old life back, with a new mission. What was I going to do with him?
The front door clanged. Mila walked in, dragging a bloodied ax. Always a good sign.
‘You okay?’ I called down to her.
‘Yes. Is Daniel here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Safe?’
‘Yes.’
She looked up the stairs at Braun and pointed. ‘This man is crazy. He thinks he is my father. I assure you my mother had much better taste.’
‘He invented Nine Suns. And the Round Table.’
‘Both?’
‘Both.’
Mila stared at him. For one second, ax in hand, she started to step up the stairs. Then she stopped. ‘You should have picked a side.’ She dropped the ax. She picked up a bloodied, slightly mangled notebook that he had dropped when I shot him.
I could hear the hiss of Braun’s breath. He wanted it. Whatever Jack Ming had found, it had to contain threads that led back to the CIA. Otherwise he wouldn’t have cared; he’d not chased after his Frankenstein monster before. Nine Suns wanted Ming dead because they didn’t want to be exposed; Braun wanted Ming dead because he didn’t want the CIA exposed.
So drag his ass out into the light.
‘Good luck, Braun. I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to let you sit and bleed on those stairs, in the place where you had so many clever ideas that have come back and bit you in the ass, and I’m leaving. If I ever see you again… ’
‘Sam. You said you wanted your old life back. It’s been your mantra, from what I understand. I am offering you your old life. All you have to do to get back into the CIA is help me clean up this mess. You get what you want and so do I.’
‘I’m not giving the CIA my friends in the Round Table. I’m not giving you Mila. And I’m not helping you.’
‘Your old life,’ he said again. ‘Yours. They will give you no peace. All I’m offering you is your only chance to regain what you lost. Your child, your career.’
‘My wife?’
Braun swallowed. ‘I can give you back what can be given. What sort of life will you have with your son now? Do you think Nine Suns will give you peace? My offer is the only one that makes sense for you.’
‘All you are offering me is a chance to be you. Which is less than nothing.’
‘This is a very good offer I am making!’
‘… if I ever see you again, or you come near Mila, or Leonie, or my son, I will kill you. If you ever try to harm August, I will kill you.’ I almost mentioned Jack Ming but perhaps better if he thought Jack Ming was dead. ‘If I think you’re thinking about me, I will kill you. Go retire. Just… go away.’
‘I’m not lying. About your brother. Lucy always said that was why you joined, to get your revenge… ’
‘And that’s why you’d lie,’ I said. ‘Think about it. You’re bragging you founded the group that killed my brother? I really would shut up now.’
I turned and went back down the hallway. I found Leonie and Daniel hiding in a closet.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘We’re all leaving. Together.’
She clutched Daniel close. She had held him for several minutes, and her closeness calmed him. He looked up at me. Blinked, disinterested. Then looked at me again, one little fist raised toward me.
I took him from Leonie; I did not ask. She did not fight me. He was hers in a way but he was mine. I tucked his little head under my arm, like I’d seen the fathers on television do, and I could smell his warm milky breath. The soft weight of him. The miracle of him.
He raised his little fist again, and I kissed it.
91
The Bahamas
Daniel was afraid of the water.
I held him close to me. I found it hard to let him go at times, it was almost as if I needed to drink in his touch. He had grown used to me, in the past several weeks, and I liked to tell myself that my absence in the first months of his life was not impossible to overcome. That being apart from me for so long at his life’s beginning wouldn’t scar him. I read obsessively about the topic of parental separation on Google. It didn’t matter what the experts said.
I would make it right.
We walked in the surge of the tide and he stared down at the waves eddying around my calves. I timed it carefully with the surf and after a healthy wave passed I dipped his feet in the cool. He giggled. As the next wave surged forward I hoisted him high out of its path and he loved being raised toward the sky. We played the game, him laughing, until I miscued and the top of a foaming wave crept up past his swimsuit to splash his chest. Then he howled in dismay. Daniel, I had learned, liked his comforts.