“Sounds about right,” Keo said.
“You’re pretty impressive for a guy that young.”
“I didn’t have a lot of choices.”
“Hard life?”
“Hard enough.”
“I can respect that. Jack and I were the product of divorced parents; we were raised mostly apart when we were younger. Barely saw each other until our parents kicked off. I can understand having to do what you have to in order to get by. That’s what we’re doing here.”
They were back in Steve’s office in Marina 1. Keo hadn’t been certain he was going to make it off the bridge alive, but that turned out to be his paranoia getting the best of him. Steve seemed happy to keep him breathing, at least for the next few minutes.
“He was good,” Steve was saying. It took Keo a moment to figure out that he was still talking about Tobias. “Got himself a scholarship to UT in Austin. Didn’t play much there, though. As fast and big and skilled as you are, there’s always one or five other guys faster, bigger, and more skilled.”
Steve nursed his drink, staring at the glass as if he expected to find some kind of revelation swimming among the golden honey liquid.
“They were friends, you know,” Jordan had said.
And yet, he still sent me out there to kill his friend.
“What happened between the two of you?” Keo asked.
He couldn’t care less about the answer, but it was obvious Steve wanted him to ask. Keo didn’t give a shit, but he knew an opening when he saw one, and anything that kept him alive long enough to see Gillian and figure a way out of here was worth enduring the regretful ruminations of a man like Steve.
“We just couldn’t agree on the direction to take Wilmont,” Steve said. “That’s the old name, before we changed it to T18.”
“Who came up with that?”
“No idea. It’s just temporary, anyway. They say in another year or two, maybe we’ll get a real name.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
Steve grinned at him over the brim of his glass. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. You’ve only seen the black-eyed ones, right?”
“There are others?” Keo asked, even though he already knew the answer.
“Oh yeah,” Steve said. “They can do things. Crazy things.” He put the glass down with half of the whiskey still inside. “It’s hard to explain. One of those things you have to see for yourself in order to believe.”
“I’ve seen a lot in my time. I couldn’t explain most of it, either.”
“I bet you have. Seen a lot, I mean.” Steve took out Tobias’s ring and spun it on the desktop like a top. For something so gaudy, it was well-balanced and kept turning for a long time. “The kind of man who accepts a contract killing, then comes back after everything that’s happened, is a dangerous one.”
“Or useful.”
“Is that why you killed one of my guys in the woods? To make yourself more useful? That’s three you’ve forced me to replace now.”
“They all had weapons when I took them out. They had just as good of a chance to put me down as I did them. The way I figured it, I was faster and shot straighter. You should thank me for having enough self control not to plug the kid, too, or else you’d be replacing four instead of just three.”
Steve chuckled. “I should be thankful, huh?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re probably right. Besides, I got ten volunteers for every soldier I lose, anyway.”
“Everyone loves a winning team.”
“Very true.” He paused, eyeing Keo over the desk. “I know exactly why everyone is here, why they can’t volunteer fast enough when we ask for names. But what I’m curious about is you. What makes you tick?”
Keo leaned back, then met and held Steve’s hard gaze. “You’re overthinking it. I don’t give two shits about you or this town of yours. I’m a survivor. I’ve always been. I got through all this by telling myself there was something on the other side, waiting for me.”
“And what would that be?”
“Gillian.”
“What if she wants to stay?”
“Then we’ll stay.”
“Just like that?”
“I’m not fussy. And like I said, I’ve been out there for a year and it’s nothing to write home about.” He let a ghost of a smile cross his lips. “You look like you have a good thing going on here. My guess is, while you insist everyone do their duty with the blood stuff at night, you and your soldiers exempt yourselves. Am I right?”
“Perks of the job. One of many.”
“So what’s not to like? Free food, a steady job, and Gillian. Sounds pretty good to me.”
“And you’re not holding a grudge about what happened yesterday?”
“As long as you’re not holding a grudge about me killing three of your guys.”
Steve shrugged.
“So that’s that,” Keo said. “Am I pissed off about yesterday? Yeah, sure. But I understand why you did it. Hell, I can even respect it. It was clever, and a win-win situation for you however it ended up.”
“You could have died yesterday.”
“Same shit, different day. I could have died a thousand times in the last year, so there was nothing special about yesterday.”
Steve chuckled before snatching up Tobias’s ring and spinning it on the desktop again. He didn’t say anything and just watched the jewelry go round and round in front of him.
Keo waited.
Had he been convincing enough? The Keo from one year ago wouldn’t have had any problems selling Steve on what he’d just said, because it would have been the truth. But this version of him, this Keo who had voluntarily stayed on Song Island even when he didn’t have to, then stayed even longer on the Trident, was less predictable.
Finally, Steve picked up the ring and put it away before standing up. “Come on.”
“Where we going?”
“It’s a surprise. You like surprises, don’t you?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No,” Steve grinned back.
*
There was a plain white golf cart waiting for them outside Marina 1 that wasn’t there when they first entered the building. It had solar panels on top and at the back and looked pretty well-used.
Steve climbed behind the steering wheel. “Hop in.”
Keo walked around and slid in the front passenger seat. There were two seats in the back and more space where the golf bags were supposed to go. Dry mud caked the floors and fell off as Steve started the electric engine and maneuvered them through the marina, then toward the exit Keo had only seen but never gone past.
“How many of these do you have?” Keo asked.
“Three,” Steve said. “Solar panels don’t charge for shit, and it takes weeks just to get enough juice to power the batteries, so I usually end up having to switch between them.”
“Sounds like a tough life.”
Steve grinned. “Everyone’s gotta make sacrifices for the greater good.”
“I hear that. So, you wanna tell me where we’re going?”
“Relax. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. The only reason you’re still alive is because you’re right. I can use a man with your particular set of skills. You’re going to be my personal Bryan Mills.”
“Who?”
“Liam Neeson’s character in Taken.”
“I don’t watch a lot of movies.”
“You’re missing out. In the film, Neeson plays a badass ex-CIA agent with ‘a deadly set of skills.’ Some guys stole his daughter and he has to get her back. Never seen it?”
“Like I said, I’m not much of a cinephile.”
“We can change that. I have stacks of Blu-rays at my house. Just the first two Taken, though.”
“How many were there?”
“Three.”
“They took his daughter in all three parts?”
“They took his wife in the second part.”
“What about the third?”
“I don’t remember. It was kind of a shit movie. Anyway, you like classics?”
“Sure, why not.”
“One of these days you should come around and we’ll have a movie night.”