The class agreed with the book’s antiwar stance. Fallon wished he’d been able to tell them the true side of things. About the various pleasures a man could derive from watching a face explode to a bullet or the guttural gasps a victim makes when a knife digs deep and tears. He wished he could explain that violence was something to neither be shunned nor embraced. It simply was.
Just like him.
To make his point, Fallon decided to stray from the lesson plan and introduce the only story he actually remembered reading as a boy. Read so much the pages actually disintegrated, the words disappearing until there were no sentences left and Fallon reluctantly discarded the handout. He hadn’t thought of that story in a very long time until now, glad to find a copy ripe for photocopying in the school library.
“‘The Most Dangerous Game,’” the librarian said, reading over Fallon’s shoulder as collated copies spit out from the machine’s feeder. “A true classic. But a bit violent, don’t you think?”
When Fallon returned the following morning, the target family was gone, whisked away in the dawn hours by shadowy men in black SUVs, if the neighbors were to be believed. FBI or federal marshals, no doubt, extricating Fallon’s targets into witness protection Fallon had never failed before, but there were percentages involved in everything and here the odds had finally caught up with him. He found himself obsessing over every move he had made to retrace where he’d gone wrong. The wiring, perhaps. Maybe a bad chip. A reception or transmission problem, even.
That was why Fallon was awake in his motel room when they came. Four of them, all well-armed and well-skilled enough to know not to drive their car too close to his room in the motor court. But they’d left their headlights on a second too long, enough to alert Fallon that someone was coming.
He gauged the distance suggested by the strength of the headlights and counted the seconds again.
One…two…three…
The door blew inward at six, Fallon unleashing a fusillade that was every bit the equal of his four would-be killers. So much passed through his mind as the bullets chewed up the walls around him and the smell of blood mixed with sulfur and cordite. The roar from the three guns he managed to reach drowned out the screams mostly, and Fallon was screeching away from the scene before another light snapped on in any of the nearby rooms.
The reality of the moment struck him, and fast. The fact that his employers wouldn’t stop with these four men, especially since Fallon had so effortlessly executed them, was no less a reality than the fact that his time as a contractor was effectively over. There was no redemption or second chances. He had gone from the very best at what he did to irrelevant in the seconds it had taken him to gun down four men.
Catch-25.
Fallon had effectively prepared for this moment, while never really considering it a possibility. Money would not be a problem; he had plenty of it stashed away. The issue was getting to it safely, making the necessary arrangements with according precautions, and such things took time. That meant disappearing without the use of any of his various identifies, all of which could be compromised now. His employers and conduits knew too much about him, his habits and patterns. Disappearing meant relying on none of them, becoming someone else entirely while laying the groundwork for his permanent departure from parts known.
There were plenty of Third World countries into which he could vanish, only to resurface as a man with a different identity boasting the kind of skills that were always in need. Fallon couldn’t imagine himself wallowing away the time on a beach, no matter how beautiful or plentiful the women. His life had been defined by killing for too long to either risk or want change.
For now going off the grid meant avoiding all forms of security cameras and public transportation, including buses, trains and airplanes. Rental cars were out, as well, and stealing too many cars could leave the kind of pattern he needed to avoid.
That left hitchhiking. Mr. Beechum’s was the fifth car in a week to chance picking him up. Fallon didn’t kill the others and hadn’t expected to kill Beechum until the ditzy man kept speaking enthusiastically of the new job he was headed for. That’s when the plan unfolded for Fallon, and the best he was able to do for Beechum in return was kill him in quick, painless fashion.
“I love kids” was the last thing the teacher said. “Making a difference in their lives and all.”
In that moment Fallon couldn’t have known the kind of difference he’d end up making.
Fallon saw the two vans creep toward the school’s entrance when he was in the third day of discussing “The Most Dangerous Game.” They were noteworthy first for the fact they drove onto the grounds down the wrong side of the U-shaped drive fronting the building and second because the vans wore the markings of a professional cleaning service. Such markings always allowed for unquestioned access to buildings, public and otherwise, but why would a middle school with a full janitorial staff need a professional cleaning service?
Fallon’s heart began to beat faster as the vans drifted out of his line of sight. Two vans meant a dozen men or more, certainly overkill on the part of his former employers. And if they had ascertained his presence here at Hampton Lake, they’d be much better off laying an ambush instead of storming the building in full awareness of his conceivable escape.
That reality should have made him feel better.
But it didn’t.
Instincts had saved his life often enough for Fallon to learn to trust them, and right now they were scratching at his spine like scalpels peeling back the flesh.
“Rainsford’s my kind of guy,” Trent was saying from his customary perch in the back of the room.
“Why?” Fallon managed to ask, not really paying attention. His eyes strayed out the window again, but the vans did not reappear. He moved closer to the glass, hoping to better his angle.
“Because he kicks General Zaroff’s ass. And it was Zaroff’s own fucking fault.”
“Why?” Fallon asked, intrigued in spite of the nagging feeling that wouldn’t go away.
“Because he’d been playing the game too long. Hunting men, who knows how many of them.”
“So why stop?”
“Because he should’ve known he’d meet his match. Sooner or later. It’s like, you know, inevitable.”
Fallon moved away from the window, suddenly intrigued. “So why’d he keep doing it? Come on, people, put yourself in Zaroff’s shoes.”
“’Cause it’s all he had,” said a girl in the front row. “All he knew.”
“What else?”
“He was good at it,” someone else answered. “When you’re that good, you don’t think anybody’ll ever beat you.”
“Was Rainsford better at the game than the general?” Fallon asked his class.
“No,” said Trent. “Zaroff lost ’cause he got lazy. When you get lazy, you get beat every time. But Rainsford, he was a hero.”
“Why?”
“He saved lives. Of Zaroff’s future victims. Not all heroes mean to be heroes, if you get my drift.”
“May I have your attention please?”
The voice of Principal Meeks boomed over the school’s PA system.
“All students and teachers, please report to the gymnasium immediately. That’s all students and teachers, please report to the-”
The principal’s voice cut off in midsentence, as if he’d accidentally hit the wrong switch. Fallon watched his students begin to rise from their desks, replaying Meeks’s words in his head-not for content so much as cadence. Something all wrong about the tone and import. Fallon knew the sound of a man under duress, because he’d put countless men in just that position.