Orphan X

53 A Backstroke with No Water

Excitement pulsed to life in Slatcher’s spacious chest when he saw Morena Aguilar switch buses. Slowing the Scion, which had been trailing the northbound Downtown Express, he noted that she wasn’t catching a connection but crossing the street to hop onto a southbound bus. Reversing course back to the Strip. A basic diversionary move that would have been advised by Orphan X prior to a meet.

For three days and nights, Morena had remained under Danny Slatcher’s watchful eye. She’d visited her sister once more on the playground and slung chips and guac at a shitty fast-food joint accustomed to paying under the counter. But until now there’d been no break in her routine that indicated that Evan was back in play.

Flipping a U-turn, Slatcher immediately roused his remaining man in the field, who through some cruel parental oversight was actually named Don Julio. “Big Daddy to Tequila One. Pull off the little sister and track my location.”

With a giant thumb, he enabled a phone app that sent his coordinates.

“T-One to BD. Be to you in … seven minutes.”

Even around lunchtime the logjam leading to the Strip rivaled rush-hour L.A. Angling all the air-conditioning vents toward himself, Slatcher patiently hung three vehicles back from the bus, making sure at each stop to account for all the passengers as they got off.

How dull and achromatic Vegas looked by daylight never ceased to surprise him, a collection of odd-shaped buildings smeared in a vague row like a line of dusty Legos that had been crushed underfoot. Sahara Avenue crept by, the Stratosphere looming like an alien antenna from a seventies sci-fi flick. In the rearview Slatcher noted the slate gray SUV swing around behind him.

Again he keyed the radio. “You take point when she moves. She’ll recognize me.”

“Copy.”

The bus came up on Sands Avenue, approaching Treasure Island with its skull-and-crossbones marquee, the pirate ship slumbering in Siren’s Cove waiting for its nightly shows. Another Strip meeting seemed in the making for Evan and Morena — plenty of activity, plenty of witnesses, plenty of cameras. The bus veered east, carving between the Wynn and the Palazzo, hugging the edge of an extravagant golf course. Just before Paradise Road, the bus halted and ejected Morena through the yawning doors, her head lowered. Hands balled in the pockets of her coat, she moved at a rapid clip, shooting nervous glances all around. She passed in front of a giant outdoor parking structure, rising seven stories from the pavement like a concrete corncob, and skipped through the automated doors into the lobby of La Reverie. A purple glow uplit the soffits of the new hotel-casino, reflecting off the shimmering glass and competing with the Nevada glare.

Parking tickets be damned, Slatcher left the Scion at the curb in front of the corncob structure, positioned for a quick post-kill getaway. The SUV drifted past him, and a half block ahead he saw Julio valet at La Reverie, hop out, and slice through the smoked-glass doors. Above Slatcher’s head an open footbridge forged across from the parking structure’s top level, plugging into the side of La Reverie. For an instant he debated taking that route to come at the meet from a different angle, but having no idea where Orphan X was set up, he bolted for the casino lobby instead.

As he spun inside, he noted the elevator doors closing. On cue, a text chimed into his phone.

T1: 8TH FLOOR.

Julio had made it into the car and was riding up beside her.

Slatcher banged through the wide door into the stairwell and lunged up three stairs at a time. Despite his giant frame and extra girth, he was well conditioned, a physiological marvel. Near the fifth floor, a few spindle-legged party girls clomped their way down on improbable stilettos, and he bowled past them, flattening them to the wall. By the time he reached the eighth-floor landing, his breath burned in his chest. He waited behind the door, heard the elevator doors rumble wide. A moment later, through the tempered-glass panel above the lever handle, he watched Morena dart by, less than three feet away. Behind her, Julio ambled, light on his feet, his blend-in biz-casual suit holding the contours of his basic-training body with nary a rumple.

Easing the handle down, Slatcher leaned out of the doorway. Morena kept on with a charged walk, her hands forming fists at her sides, seemingly too focused to check behind her. Though Julio held a relaxed pace, his long legs kept him a few steps off her heels. Slatcher stepped clear of the stairwell and moved swiftly behind them both, using Julio’s breadth to block Morena’s line of sight should she decide to shoot a look over her shoulder. If he and Julio timed this right, they’d stack the doorway all at once, Morena serving as a shield for any return fire.

Midway down the hall, she tapped on a door, then turned the handle and entered. Slipping a hand beneath one impeccable lapel, Julio drew a pistol and accelerated the final two steps to the door. His own pistol now in hand, Slatcher turned on a sprint, closing on Julio, his momentum carrying him into perfect position.

They aligned to crash the room in tight order, a three-car train pulling in to the station at last.

Eight stories up from the balcony window of the gaudily decorated hotel room, Evan had watched the sluggish convoy lurch along Sands Avenue — first the wheezing bus, then the purple Scion, then a dark SUV. He’d tied a length of rappelling rope around the balcony post, letting it dangle above the open-air footbridge one story below. He’d parked his Ford F-150 on the roof of the parking structure across the bridge, backed into the space to allow for speedy egress. From the window he could see the rear of the waiting pickup, its truck vaults gleaming in the bed.

The high vantage had allowed him to watch Morena hop off the bus and scurry out of view toward the lobby. He’d noted Slatcher unpack himself from the illegally parked Scion, the SUV gliding by to pick up Morena’s tail. Then he’d walked to the door of Room 8124, unlocked it, and backed midway to the balcony. Given Slatcher’s size, Evan had debated bringing the Benelli combat shotgun, but this plan called for greater precision. Jack’s voice came to him: Shot placement trumps all calibers.

Drawing his Wilson 1911, Evan assumed a modified isosceles stance, aiming the tip of the suppressor at the door. Slatcher had been hoping that Morena would lead him to Evan.

He was about to get his wish.

Evan waited, reading vibrations through the floor. In his stomach the healing wound glowed, an excited heat spreading out beneath his rib cage.

The lever handle clicked down, and it all went live.

Morena flew through the door, immediately diving into a somersault, moving along the path Evan had cleared through the furniture. As she whipped past his calf, the bulky freelancer filled the doorframe and Evan shot him twice in the chest and put a third bullet through his nose. He dumped right there, clearing the view to Slatcher.

Behind him Evan heard Morena scrambling over the balcony, seizing the rope, starting her one-story descent to the footbridge.

Unlike the freelancer, Slatcher had barreled into view with his pistol not just raised but ready to fire, so Evan’s first round went to the gun hand. Slatcher’s pistol pinwheeled to the side, and then the big man kneed his collapsing operator forward, forcing Evan to skip back to avoid being toppled by him.

The scar tissue tugged in his gut as he raised the gun, a slight hitch that cost him. Slatcher’s eyes were locked on the barrel of Evan’s Wilson, assessing the precise line of fire, and he lifted his massive arms as he charged, catching the bullets as Evan fired.

The first round deflected wetly off the meat of Slatcher’s forearm, raised to cover the bridge of his nose, the second stigmataed his right hand, buying him a millisecond to whip his forehead out of the path.

He did not slow.

His bullet-torn forearm hammered Evan’s wrist like a steel pipe, the shotokan blow knocking Evan over. He rolled with the blow, grabbing a whirligig view of his Wilson 1911 skittering off the edge of the balcony and, far below, Morena’s form darting across the footbridge to safety. Even as he spun back up onto his feet, he recalculated. He’d trained once with a shotokan master who’d toughened his hands, feet, and shins into iron, pounding nails into the floor with his fists. The master had spoken of executing one-punch kills, and Evan knew from Slatcher’s opening salvo that he was capable of the same. The last thing he could afford was to be in this tight with a man this big.

They circled each other in the arena of the suite, both striking open-hand guards, palms turned in, fingertips floating above the upper temples. Given the size disparity, Evan had to disrupt Slatcher’s nervous system, going for the centers — eyes, nose, ears, throat. But the biggest organ was the skin. He needed Slatcher to feel pain now, not tomorrow.

He attacked with pencak silat, an open-hand Indonesian fighting style, feinting left, then thunderclapping Slatcher’s right side with a palm-heel ear smash. The big man’s eyes showed mostly white until the pupils rolled back into view, a robot reanimating. Evan waited for Slatcher to lash out defensively, then sidestepped, parrying with a dagger thumb to the eustachian tube at the hinge of the jaw. He felt his thumb sink pleasingly into the soft skin at the target, but he’d slipped too far inside Slatcher’s reach in order to get off the shot and knew instantly it would cost him.

Slatcher’s hands blurred, the wrecked one throwing flecks of blood upon impact. Evan did his best to cage his head, drawing the bars of his forearms together, but he was getting rained on. Despite the battering, he fought to stay inside the range of the devastating hook.

There was no break to capitalize on; Evan would have to create one. He rotated his elbow as he whipped the blade of his forearm upward like a greaser slicking back the side of his hair. The tip of his ulna, positioned like a cutting diamond, split Slatcher’s chin to the bone. Blood ribboning from the wound, Slatcher tilted back and sucked in a breath.

They were fighting in different languages, an around-the-world street brawl, Filipino deflections countering Japanese double-hand parries. They careened back through Indonesia, open-hand slaps and bone-grinding arm-break holds, Evan’s front kick finally shoving them back to standoff distance.

Crimson snakes curled around Slatcher’s arms, the bullet gashes glittering. Evan felt his right cheek swelling and prayed it wouldn’t obstruct the eye. The luxurious carpet, spotted and trampled, might have been pulled off an auto mechanic’s floor. Someone darted by the open door, shrieked, and kept on. With one foot Slatcher flipped the dead field agent’s corpse to the side, clearing space. His rocklike shoulders bulged beneath his shirt. Despite the gunshot wounds, he barely looked winded. If Evan didn’t get out soon, Slatcher was going to take him to pieces.

He charged Evan now with a shotokan lunge punch. Evan intercepted it with a muay thai teep, the ball of his lead foot clawing forward to thrust into the tendons of the lower abdomen. Given Slatcher’s substantial gut, this had little effect, but it did shift Slatcher’s weight forward, putting his head within reach.

Evan threw an arm clench over the big man’s head, his hands locked in a lace hold across the back of the impossibly broad neck, his forearms squeezing to crimp the carotids. Yanking Slatcher’s face downward, Evan threw tangs, knee strikes hammering through Slatcher’s raised, tattered forearms into his cheeks, his nose. At the same time, he torqued Slatcher from side to side, trying to keep him off balance by rocking him onto one leg, then the other.

No such luck. Slatcher was too strong — he simply picked Evan up and bulled him through the dressing mirror. Evan’s stomach screamed, the wound reopening, scar tissue tearing. The glass shattered around him, shards cascading over his shoulders.

Evan hit the carpet, and Slatcher reared back, allowing a tiny window of freedom. Evan bolted, leaping across a toppled armchair and out onto the balcony. Slatcher struck him from behind, power-driving Evan into the balusters, but Evan let his body flip over the handrail, grabbing for the rappelling rope. He caught it, lost his grip, caught it again, slid a few palm-burning yards before his hands released of their own volition. The last six feet were a free fall, the footbridge flying up to bludgeon his tailbone and shoulder blades. Before the pain could announce itself, Slatcher blotted out the sun, dangling from the rope and then letting go, size-seventeen boots growing larger by the instant.

Evan rolled up over his shoulders, shot a quick look around for his fallen Wilson — no such luck — and lurched off for the parking structure and his truck. Slatcher’s landing shook the footbridge. Within seconds the thundering steps behind Evan had quickened to a drumroll.

Despite the dagger of pain in his gut and the full-body ache from the drop, Evan stayed in a sprint, trying to dig in his pocket for the key to the truck vault. He skidded sideways onto the roof of the parking structure, nearly losing his footing as he made the turn for his truck.

Morena was long gone; Evan had told her to keep running, that he’d make sure no one came after her. That was a long-term promise. Way across the roof, an elevator opened, the family of four inside jolting cattle-prod upright at the scene before them. The father leaned forward, jabbing at a button, and the elevator swallowed them back up.

With bruised and aching hands, Evan fumbled out the keys, dropped them, picked them up, all the while sensing Slatcher’s rolling-boulder approach. He fought the key into the first vault and grabbed the stock of the combat shotgun, swinging it free and scattering the sheathed katana and the tray of shotgun shells across the roof.

Slatcher was on him.

There was no time to bring the Benelli around, no time to do anything but lean to dodge the hurtling mass. Slatcher clipped him, knocking the shotgun away and crushing himself into the lowered tailgate. The collision was seismic. Bone crunched, but Slatcher gave up only an understated grunt. Evan dove for the shotgun, but it skittered out of reach toward the metal bars guarding the broad concrete overhang. The ammo boxes had burst open, red shells spraying everywhere. Bouncing off the truck, Slatcher nearly slipped on them, but he regained his footing and squared to Evan. Breathing hard, Evan pulled himself unevenly to his feet.

Slatcher stood stooped, favoring his broken hip. His split chin had painted a bib of crimson down his shirt. Blood trickled down his arms, dripped from his fingers. The collision with the truck had stunned him, and Evan had one shot to capitalize on that.

Slatcher lumbered toward him, hands coming up into fighting position. Evan sidestepped, forcing him to circle the wrong way and set his weight onto that broken hip. Slatcher gritted his teeth and took a quivering step. Bone crunched. Before he could set himself, Evan stepped forward, planting his left foot, and delivered a wing chun oblique kick with his right, pivoting to piston his heel forward, aiming beneath the pillar of Slatcher’s lead thigh. He hit the knee squarely, shattering it backward, and the big man bellowed and sagged, somehow keeping his feet. For an instant Evan wobbled off balance, time enough for Slatcher to hop forward, rotating the immense base of his hips and driving a reverse punch into Evan’s solar plexus.

Pain exploded in his wound, torpedoing through his insides. The force of the blow knocked him off his feet, and then he had only a sideways view of the rooftop as he slid back and racked into the guardrails. The back of his head clanged off the metal, concussion flares hazing the world. The sun-baked concrete cooked his cheek, and he felt a curious detachment as he watched Slatcher drag himself across the sideways roof, growing larger.

Evan blinked, snapping to. He turned his head. Through the guardrails was only the concrete slab of the solar-paneled overhang, a ten-foot ring around the structure, petals of green-black glass. Beyond that a seven-story drop. He blinked again, harder. There was more, if he could just see it. His bowling-ball slide into the rail had knocked the katana beneath the bottom metal rung, as well as a number of shotgun shells, still spinning like tops. But he wasn’t focused on them. He was focused on the Benelli combat shotgun just beyond, the barrel come to rest several inches off the rim.

Evan pulled himself up the guardrails, a boxer climbing the ropes, and spilled over the top. Slatcher’s fist skimmed overhead, missing by inches. The shells clattered; the sword finished a lazy half rotation, then fell, slotted into the space between solar panels.

Evan crawled along the curved eave toward the shotgun, hands and knees sliding on the slick solar panels. He heard Slatcher shatter a panel behind him, landing hard. Evan’s fingers strained, inches from the shotgun stock.

Slatcher lunged for him, grabbing his calf, knocking Evan’s hand forward into the Benelli.

It skimmed soundlessly off the rim. For a moment it floated against the pretty glass backdrop of La Reverie. Then it vanished. The breeze ruffled Evan’s hair, and he felt the soothing warmth of the sun on his cheek. A poetic moment of ordinary life.

Then Slatcher ripped him backward. Evan fell from all fours onto his stomach.

Rotating on his hip, he hurled his weight into a turn and kicked Slatcher with everything he had left. The top of his foot struck just below Slatcher’s jaw, hooking the big man’s head and spinning him toward the brink.

Slatcher’s broad fingers scrabbled for purchase across the sleek silicon, sending shotgun shells scattering. His legs drifted off the lip, and then his hips went, that low center of gravity tipping him over. His elbows ledged the rim. Then slipped. Slatcher’s bloody hand flailed up over his head.

And caught something.

The sheathed katana, stuck in the gap between sets of solar panels.

It protruded from the roof’s edge like a bracketed flag from the side of a building. Slatcher’s downward weight wedged the long sword handle tighter into place, pulling it horizontal until it locked between the panels and the concrete lip of the roof.

His mighty arm trembled. The hand tendons were frayed from the bullet wound, his fingers not clenching fully.

A suspended moment. And then his other hand flew up, clamping onto the scabbard beside the first.

He started to draw himself back toward the rooftop.

A pull-up, one hundred feet above the sidewalk.

The sheath slid an inch off the hilt. Slatcher froze. If the sheath went, he went with it. The equilibrium held. After a moment’s pause, he began inching his way up again.

Biting his cheek against the pain, Evan pulled himself toward Slatcher and the sword. Slatcher’s face strained, a vein popping in his temple. Still, he made headway.

Evan came within range. He positioned himself to kick Slatcher off, but Slatcher watched him intently, ready to react even from his compromised position. If any part of Evan’s body came within reach, he had little doubt Slatcher would latch on to it and bring Evan with him.

Evan turned to the sword instead. He fought to free it from between the panels, but Slatcher’s weight pinned it in place. He grabbed the base of the scabbard and attempted to force it off the length of sword, but the same was true, the downward pressure too strong.

Slatcher kept rising, his elbows hovering just off the concrete rim, nearly able to set down.

A crackling sound turned them both to statues.

Evan’s eyes dropped to that hairline crack in the sheath from when Peter had dropped it. The crackling noise resumed. The fissure expanded. Then forked. The fracture lines spread beneath Slatcher’s hands.

Evan’s breath snagged in his throat. Slatcher’s eyes, level with Evan’s, widened, bloodshot lines pronounced in the sclera. His lips trembled, his Adam’s apple jerking.

Both men watched, motionless.

The sheath broke into pieces beneath Slatcher’s fingers, his grip slipping, his weight tugging him downward again.

He jerked his hands off one at a time, letting the fragments fall away, his palms slapping back onto the metal itself, acquiring a new grip.

Evan waited for the cutting edge to ribbon his hands, but no — in a stroke of luck, Slatcher was hanging from the dull back of the sword.

Through clenched teeth Slatcher released a hiss of amusement at his good fortune. His neck sheeting with muscle, he coiled his arms, those cantaloupe biceps bulging, raising his giant frame again.

The two-century-old tamahagane steel flexed, the edge grinding on the concrete lip. The metal, used for cannonballs in the Meiji era, would not break.

Slatcher rose another few inches, his face lifting above the lip of the roof.

The sword grip was elongated, designed for a two-hand samurai hold. Beyond the length wedged beneath the solar panels, four extra inches protruded. Just wide enough for Evan’s fingers. The cord wrap gave him a good grip, the round tsuba guard pinching the edge of his hand.

Gripping as hard as he could, he tried to free the sword. No such luck.

A few feet past him, he sensed Slatcher rising, his shadow creeping across the rooftop, centimeter by centimeter.

The sword jogged slightly in Evan’s hand, and he realized: He couldn’t loose the sword, but he might be able to turn it.

With all his strength, he twisted the handle like a motorcycle throttle. At first nothing happened, but then the sword spun barely in its makeshift housing.

The tiny movement knocked Slatcher down six inches.

Evan kept on, turning the cutting edge upward. The sword rotated jerkingly, Slatcher losing ground, his huge form swinging from the blade. His giant hands, torn and bloody, trembled violently.

With a roar Evan ripped the sword in a quarter rotation, the sharp edge now pointing at the sky.

There was an instant of surface tension, Slatcher’s wild gaze flying up to land on Evan, and then the katana did what it was designed to do.

The blade lopped Slatcher’s fingers off at the first knuckles. His arms began cartwheeling, a backstroke with no water.

He and Evan locked eyes, and then Slatcher fell. Evan watched him plummet in the reflection off the glass of La Reverie until that, too, was cut from sight.

He did not see Slatcher hit the purple Scion, but he heard it.