The Last Family

28

Kurt Steiner drove up magazine toward the Garden District.

The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started, the windshield clearing the final drops of water. He thought about the money in the trunk, and for a split second he fantasized that he would leave for the airport and simply be gone. He could be home early with a king’s ransom. Then he dismissed the thought and cursed himself for such a treacherous idea.

He turned his mind back to the airport in Dallas, where he had been dispatched on an errand by Martin. As usual he had no idea why the trip was important, because Martin never told him more than he absolutely had to know. Kurt didn’t blame Martin; secrecy kept him alive.

Martin put seemingly unrelated pieces of an operation into play at different times. The envelope affair a month before had been another mission that had made sense only to Martin. Kurt had been dispatched to Pueblo, Colorado, armed with an address that matched a barren-looking, garbage-strewn, and junk-stacked piece of land in the middle of nowhere with a distressed-looking trailer parked on it. Martin had given him an unsealed business envelope that held ten crisp ten-dollar bills, and a separate manila envelope with what appeared to be an advertising brochure for a condominium project. There was no vehicle in evidence, and no shade, except for a few small trees with a minimal amount of leaves on them.

He had tapped at the door, and an elderly man holding a shotgun had appeared behind the torn screen. The old man, dressed in baggy jeans, didn’t allow Kurt inside but placed the shotgun against the wall. He opened the door slightly, held out his hand, took the envelope with the cash, and opened it to count the bills. Then he took the manila envelope and peeked inside, nodded to himself, and closed the door in Kurt’s face. They had not exchanged a single word.

He was sure he wasn’t being followed, but he glanced in the rearview mirror, watching the faces and mannerisms of the people moving through, and thinking about Martin. He had met Martin while he’d been at Fort Benning learning counterinsurgency techniques as a representative of the police from a South American country. Kurt’s father was a retired diplomat and had vast cattle holdings in Argentina.

From the moment the two men had met, Kurt had felt drawn to the older man, the instructor. In Martin Fletcher he saw the kind of man one could give loyalty to. Martin was a man who deserved loyalty; he was a master of his own mind, spirit, and body-a born leader. In short, Martin was someone to swear an oath to. My loyalty is my life. Martin had taught him so much that no one, not his schools, his grandfather, his father, nor the army, had. He had learned to ignore pain, to kill without compassion, to create multiple identities and disguises, and to live dual lives comfortably. His lives were like little compartments, each with a different story, different feelings, and different motivations.

Kurt Steiner had grown up in awe of his grandfather, worshiping him as only a small child can. Kurt Rudolph Steiner was a German national who had relocated in Paraguay directly after World War II, and then in Argentina. He had been a colonel in the Waffen SS, charged with special handling of prisoners prior to the collapse of his homeland. His namesake had grown up with the stories of the leadership of Germany and of the conquests and glory that were to be found in soldiering for the right commander. In Martin, Kurt found a commander like the ones the old man had spoken of in worshipful terms. The Aryan sympathies had been drilled into the lad. Pure-blooded knights whose destiny was to rule the earth.

Martin had taught him well and had appreciated the younger man’s intensity and self-discipline. Kurt had learned lessons his grandfather hadn’t taught him, the practical day-to-day methods of survival and the ways of the modern warrior. Under Martin he had been armed and hardened. Since his country had been at war with its rebel elements, he found himself immersed in learning a useful trade. He could watch the most grotesque forms of torture and feel nothing at all for the subject. He could execute his enemies with the same detached professionalism his grandfather had described to him. Life and death were hardly more than applied mathematics. A place where honor was loyalty, and loyalty was a man’s life.

Kurt was in phenomenal physical condition thanks to constant workouts in swimming, running, martial arts, mountain climbing, bicycling, weight lifting, boxing and calisthenics.

Martin had stayed in touch with Kurt over the years. He had enlisted Kurt to be his aide while he trained troops for a cocaine cartel’s war against the Colombian government. Kurt had been charged with teaching groups on his own, using knowledge Martin had given him. It was his training that had allowed him to figure out where a sniper, if one was used, would set up to cover the dock in New Orleans.

Kurt entered the Garden District through the back door, coming down Napoleon Avenue from Tchoupoulas Street, which was the road that ran its curving path alongside the Mississippi River’s loading, docks. Kurt looked at his watch. It was early yet.

Paul had not fired a pistol since a few months before he had been shot, and he wanted to see how rusty he really was. He went down through the doors and into the indoor range located in the basement of Gun City. He was happy that he and Rainey were the only customers there. On the table in front of him were three boxes of forty-five hardball ammo, which he had purchased upstairs. He loaded seven rounds into each of his three clips and put on the earphones. Paul clipped a target on the pulley and ran it back seventeen or eighteen yards. The gun felt alien in his hand as he jacked a shell into the chamber, aimed at the target, and pulled the trigger over and over until the slide locked open. Paul didn’t see any holes in the black of the paper target. Rainey flipped the switch, the motor engaged, and the target came back.

“I missed seven times?”

“Haven’t shot in a while.”

“Six years,” he said, smiling. “I was pretty good once.”

Rainey pulled his Smith amp; Wesson. 40 and aimed down the range at Paul’s target. The explosions were almost intertwined, they were so close together. Then Rainey hit the switch, and the target rolled slowly forward, stopping a yard away. There was a swarm of holes centered on the target’s face.

Paul removed the target and replaced it with a fresh one.

“Not that good,” Paul said.

“You used to fire with both eyes open, and you’re primarily right-eyed.”

“Yeah,” Paul said. “That’s how I was taught.”

“It’s depth perception. Think of this barrel as your right eye. Use it like that, parallel to the other. Adjust for distance best you can. Just keep going and it’ll come. We can put a laser aiming device on it the size of a double-A battery.”

“Nope. I better get used to it with what I got.” Paul was silent for a few seconds. “Nothing at all from the kids.” It was a statement of fact.

Rainey was reloading his magazine from a new box of shells he had bought at the retail store upstairs from the range. “I still think Tim Buchanan might remember something.”

“Maybe I should go with you,” Paul said.

“You’re busy,” Rainey said.

“That’s silly,” Paul said. “How long could it take?”

“I’ll deal with it. I don’t think they’ll be able to deny me in person.” Rainey met his eye. “Besides, I hope you won’t take this wrong, but he’s a kid. Don’t you think your battle scars might sort of put him off?”

Paul thought about it and nodded. “Scare the shit outta him, you mean.”

Paul’s second clip was better. Three hits, one in the center of the head. Rainey clapped him on the shoulder. Next clip, there were seven hits in the target’s center mass border. Paul stopped when he still had a half box of ammo left. “I still got it,” he said, laughing. For the first time in a long time he thought things might be breaking in his direction, after all.

He turned around to say something else to Rainey, but he was gone. Paul was alone in the range. Rainey had left his box of shells on the counter. Paul folded the targets and pressed them into the trash can behind his station. Then he picked up his and Rainey’s shells before he went upstairs.