The Color of Night

CHAPTER 43

He gazed out the cab window at the London streets. A light fog encircled the street lamps with bright halos.

Knightsbridge.

Mara had been right to call his hand. He couldn’t do that to her anymore, even though all of his years of experience running agents made him resist revealing his plans to her. Under the circumstances, however, it actually would be foolish of him to continue to keep his intentions from her. But in this present instance, what he was about to do definitely took their conspiracy to another level. It would provoke some serious discussion, and Strand knew they hadn’t had time for that before he left.

Hammersmith.

He had to admit that he found making decisions far more complex now that he was making them for the two of them rather than for himself alone. He found himself second-guessing his instincts, double-checking his gut reactions. His responses to developments were slower. Worst of all, his doubts were more profound. He actually began to fear them.

King Street.

In all the years he had been involved in intelligence operations, never had so much been at stake. If an operation went to hell, seldom did his own life risk a mortal wound. Failures were disappointments, not tragedies. Not for him personally. For others? Yes, but he dealt with that. Perhaps what he was going through now was retribution for all those tragedies in other people’s lives that he had managed to “deal with.” It wasn’t the same at all now. In those days he told himself that if he suffered with everyone who suffered, he wouldn’t be able to go on. And that was true, of course. But he wasn’t sure it was moral to have been so stoic, to have repressed so much compassion in the name of emotional self-preservation.

Chiswick High Road.

The Terrier pub was on a street of darkness. Chiswick was littered with pockets of urban moribundity, and the Terrier, it seemed, was the last living thing on this street. Brick row houses on either side disappeared into the fog. The inhabitants seemed to be gone, swallowed up by the maw of Disappointment, the last mythical creature of the modern age in which people still actually believed.

He asked the cab to wait for him, and he got out on a wet, gritty sidewalk in front of the pub. The front door of the pub was open, but there was no rollicking on the inside, none of the gay, unruly laughter that he had seen in Mayfair. Here it was silent and grim and smelled of stale lager and piss.

Strand stepped through the door but did not have time to adjust his vision to the darkness before he heard a scratchy voice wheeze his name.

“Harry. Over here.”

He turned toward the booths along the wall and made out a solitary, sallow face looking at him through the smutty gloom. Strand moved to the booth and sat down.

“Jeeeezz-us.” The word came from a raw, wounded throat. “Here you are, the real fuckin’ thing.”

Strand reached across the sticky table and shook hands with the man whose head hunkered down between his bony shoulders. Even in the twilight of the pub Strand could see a wasted man.

“You have a real knack for ‘out of the way,’ Hodge,” Strand said.

The laugh was raspy and without strength.

“Hell, this isn’t out of the way, Harry. This is where I live. My part of town.”

Strand was embarrassed.

“Well, I appreciate your help, Mack. I didn’t even know you were still here.”

“Till I die,” Mack Hodge said.

It was a deliberate reference to his situation. Strand had already realized that the man was in serious trouble. As his eyes adjusted to the low light, Hodge’s face emerged as unrecognizable. Strand was appalled. The flush, boisterous face of memory was gone. The old familiar voice, spookily altered, issued from a papier-meche visage.

“You’re sick, Mack?” Strand asked. He had to. The man wanted him to.

“Dying.”

Strand hesitated. “How long has this been going on?”

“Too fuckin’ long.”

Strand was shocked to see him lift a cigarette and puff on it, the end glowing mean and red between them.

“But not much longer,” Hodge added.

“I’m sorry,” Strand said.

“Shit.” Hodge shook his knobby and emaciated head dismissively, the few remaining wisps of hair on top of it floating aimlessly. “It comes to all of us.”

A mug of some kind of beer was clunked down in front of Strand. He sipped it. It was the last thing he wanted to do. And then he sipped again. Smoke floated up from the drawn and sunken mouth across from him and hung in the fetid air between them.

“Even in this dark, godforsaken place I can see you’re still handsome, Harry.”

It was the strangest remark that Strand could imagine. It was not a Mack Hodge remark. Strand didn’t say anything. Nothing, nothing at all seemed appropriate.

Hodge’s laugh squeezed from his throat in intermittent gasps.

“Some kind of thing to say, huh, Harry?” Hodge’s bony head smoked. “You know what, Harry? It is absolutely true that imminent death gives the lie to life’s stupidities. I always thought you were a handsome man. But would I have ever told you that? Hell, I hardly even wanted to think it.”

Raspy grunts.

Strand had to summon all of his willpower not to break and run from this sepulchral pub. He could get what he needed elsewhere, surely.

“Quit squirming, Harry. I was just trying to convey to you a little of what it’s like…” His voice gave out in a prolonged whiffle.

“You caught me off guard, Mack.”

“Well, that’s something. You always being so goddamn controlled. Macky scores a point, huh?”

Strand could only nod. He drank the warm beer and fought the gagging reflex. He wouldn’t be able to take another sip.

“Speaking of death,” Hodge whispered, and his scrawny hand floated out of the murk, holding a wadded paper sack. He placed it on the table between them. “I believe you have need of this.”

Strand didn’t move to pick it up.

“It’s exactly what you asked for. Only better. You were never much on keeping up with the latest technology. Every ninety days there are improvements in the application of scientific knowledge to practical purposes. It’s a natural law of some sort.”

Hodge’s mug rose up to his hollow face, and he drank some beer. The cigarette followed. Glowed. Smoke leaked up through the wisps of hair.

“Do I have to know anything particular?”

“You?” Hodge paused. “This is for you personally?”

Strand didn’t respond.

Hodge didn’t speak for a moment, but Strand could hear him breathing.

“Shit, Harry…” His tone was sympathetic, even compassionate. “Shit.” There was another awkward hesitation, and then he went on with the business. “Nothing special to know, buddy. It’s a disposable weapon. Will not be detected by X ray or metal detectors-there’s no metal in it. I wouldn’t rely on its accuracy past thirty feet. It’s basically a contact delivery device. The ammunition is special, though. When you’re through with it, throw the crap into the sea. For the hit, just break the skin with the bullet. The saxitoxin will do the rest.”

He tried to cough but didn’t seem to have the energy for it. His hard-drawn breath clattered in his throat, forcing its way past the phlegm. Hodge seemed not to have anything to do with it, as if he just had to wait passively while his body did what it had to do.

“About the pellets-they’re a neurotoxin, will drop him on the spot, so you have to give some thought to that. Might make it a brush-by. Could have used ricin, but the target would’ve had time to run around awhile, call for help, go to the hospital, whatever. Doesn’t matter, no antidote for either one of these. It’s a can’t miss weapon. Only downside is you’ve got to get in close to deliver it.”

“The ammunition?”

“The bullets-pellets-are hard-cast plastic, like the gun. They come in a clip of six, the casings linked, inseparable. They’re not delicate, but I’d treat them with the utmost respect.”

“The sound?”

“About like slapping the side of your face.”

“Will it penetrate clothing?”

“A business suit, probably not much more.”

“It’s automatic?”

“You bet. That’s a recent improvement. Didn’t used to be. Made the thing a little bulkier, but it’s a welcome improvement.”

Hodge smoked and drank.

Strand withdrew an envelope from the inside pocket of his suit and laid it in front of Hodge.

“Thanks,” Strand said.

“Lot of money for a dying man,” Hodge said. “But I’ve got expenses.” He paused. “And, like everybody else, I know people who can use it.”

Strand reached across and shook Mack Hodge’s hand. The first time he had not noticed how the hand felt, but now he was aware of the brittle, parchment texture of the skin and of the sharp ridges of the individual bones.

“It was good to see you, Harry,” Hodge said. “I hope this ends well for you.”

“I appreciate it, Mack.” Strand tried to think of something promising to say, a positive good-bye, but it didn’t come to him. Hodge sensed his struggle.

“It’s supposed to rain tonight,” he said, and Strand was stricken to hear his frail voice crack with unexpected emotion.

“I’ve got to go,” Strand said.

The skull nodded, and the hand came up and the mean glare of the cigarette flared dully one last time on the wasted face.