“Yes, I did.”
What was it like?
“What was it like?” she said.
“The first time?” said Lucas. “I hesitated, I guess, but only for a few seconds. It wasn’t a very tough decision to make. He would have killed me or my friends if he had the chance. That’s really what the war was about for me. I was protecting my brothers. I was there to take out the enemy. I killed people who were trying to kill me. Morality and philosophy didn’t enter into my thought process.”
Lucas was surprised that he had said so much. He turned onto his back and stared at a ceiling lit by candle flames.
“Are you all right?” said Charlotte.
“Getting sleepy, I guess.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I’m fine. Look, are we going to spend the night together this time?”
“I can’t,” said Charlotte. “I need to get home. My husband thinks I’m working a late dinner with Pakistani diplomats.”
“Okay, then,” said Lucas. He was annoyed, though he knew he had no right to be. “I gotta use the head.”
He picked up his glass of wine from the nightstand, took it with him to the bathroom, and swigged the rest of it down as he flicked on the bathroom light. He turned his head to say something to Charlotte and tripped on the floor molding that separated the carpeting from the marbled bathroom floor. He dropped the glass and watched it shatter on the marble, watched it as he was going down, put his left hand out to break his fall, watched in slow motion as he landed in the glass, his hand coming down on a large piece that was resting edge up, feeling the sting of pain. He sat back against the vanity cabinet. He said, “Stupid,” and he pulled the piece of glass out of his palm. A great flap of skin lay open below his thumb and it was white and quickly red with his blood.
“Oh, my God!” said Charlotte, who had come to the doorway and was staring with horror at his hand.
“Yeah, I know.”
He rinsed it off in the sink, but the blood would not stop coming. It was a deep cut in the shape of a crescent and he knew he’d need stitches. Charlotte gave him a washcloth. He wrapped his hand tightly, and the washcloth soon reddened.
“Get me my clothes, please,” said Lucas. “I don’t want to bleed all over this suite. At least they can mop it up in here.”
He dressed and gathered up the rest of the bathroom’s washcloths.
“You going to drive yourself?” said Charlotte.
“No sweat,” said Lucas.
“I’ll text you and see how you’re doing.”
“Yeah, okay. Hit me up.”
He kissed her deeply and left the suite, got his Jeep without too many questions from the doorman and the valet guy, and drove out to Holy Cross in Silver Spring using only his right hand. His left hand bled all over his jeans and the fabric of his seat.
He was in the waiting room of the ER for an hour or so, and he went through three more washcloths before they ushered him to a small room just inside the swinging doors, where an orderly took his vitals and applied a pressure bandage. He waited another hour, and finally a Dr. Eric Hernandez entered the room. The youngish bespectacled doctor had a look at his hand, and said, “Oh yeah, you did it,” and he had Lucas take X-rays in another room. Later still, the doctor returned and said, “I can’t guarantee that there’s not more glass in there, but I’m gonna go ahead and stitch you up.”
Lucas watched him prepare a needle of Novocain, or whatever they were using these days.
“I’m going to have to stick you in the center of your palm,” said Dr. Hernandez.
“Just put the head in, okay, Doc? And be gentle with me. It’s my first time.”
“I’ll wipe your tears away.”
“Thank you.”
“Now look, I’m not going to lie to you, this is going to hurt. If you jump, I’ll have to stick you again.”
Lucas turned his head and looked away.
It hurt like a motherfucker. But Lucas didn’t jump.
Driving back to his apartment in the middle of the night, his hand stitched, throbbing, and covered in an antibiotic ointment and a sterile pad, Lucas checked his phone. Charlotte had texted him and asked if he was okay. Also, Abraham Woldu, the real estate broker on North Capitol, had left him a long text about the men who frequently occupied the office he had leased to Serge Nikolai. There was Nikolai, of course, and the young man who he was still barely able to describe, and a blond-haired, deeply tanned man with a strong build.
Woldu had described Billy Hunter. Hunter and Nikolai were together. The two of them had targeted Grace Kinkaid. Hunter, Nikolai, and one more.
There were three.
Eleven
Three men sat in a white police-package Crown Victoria purchased at auction in Manassas, Virginia. They were in the lot of a Maryland rest area between Washington and Baltimore off Interstate 95. A middle-aged man approaching elderly had gotten out of a late-model Honda Accord and from its rear seat had retrieved a brown attaché case and a gym bag with padded handles. Now the man was walking, somewhat stoop-shouldered, toward the men’s room. The men in the Ford were watching him.
“He is taking the goods inside with him,” said Serge Bacalov from the backseat. He was dressed in tight jeans, a fitted T-shirt sporting a winged logo, and running shoes. His hair was curly and dark. He had thick lips, a simian-like muzzle, crooked teeth, and eyebrows that met above his nose.
In the passenger seat, Billy King made no comment. Bacalov tended to state the obvious and talked too much in general.
Billy was in his midthirties and wore khaki pants, leather boat shoes without socks, and a sky-blue polo shirt stretched tight across his heavily muscled shoulders and chest. His thinning blond hair was combed to the side and some of it fell across his flat, tan forehead. His eyes were pale blue and lacked warmth. He was the type seen in beach towns and marinas in November, frayed shorts and brown Reef sandals, his sunglasses hanging on a leash, sitting at the bar next to an older divorcée, preparing to move in to her settlement-house for the winter.
Beside him, behind the wheel, was a younger man named Louis Smalls. He was tall, reedy, and quiet. His eyes were deep brown and could move quickly from needy to cool. He typically dressed in jeans, faded T-shirts, and Vans, wore his hair shaggy, and had a full beard in the manner of a singer-writer circa 1970 or a sensitive, hungry young poet. Of the three men, he was the only one carrying a criminal conviction. He had done time in Hagerstown for a series of convenience store robberies, which he’d committed using a ski mask and a snub-nosed .38. He had served out his full stretch deliberately, so as to avoid supervision. Despite his innocent looks, he was capable in complicated situations, ice when things got heated, and deft in the handling of cars.
King, Smalls, and Bacalov used different last names whenever the situation demanded it. They mostly used their real Christian names. Otherwise, a man could forget who he was and not respond when being spoken to. They all possessed multiple IDs. The IDs would not be passable to the eyes of trained law enforcement professionals, but for laymen they were fine. In the city, these were easy to obtain.
“I’ll do it,” said Bacalov, eagerly, reaching under the front seat and slipping something short and substantial under his shirt.
“Go with him, Louis,” said King. “Abort if anything looks wrong.”
Smalls nodded. He and Bacalov got out of the car and went where the old man had gone. King could not see much, as a row of hedges blocked his view of the facility, but he trusted Louis to make the right call. King sat calmly and waited.
Five minutes later, Bacalov and Smalls returned and took their spots in the car. Both were empty-handed.
“What happened?” said King.