The Enemy Inside

FIFTY-NINE

Sit in the other chair,” he says. He points at it lazily with the pistol as if he might shoot this one next.

I roll to my side and struggle to get up on one knee. He has half an eye on me. Time is running out.

He transfers the pistol to his left hand while he works the cell phone with his right. He’s laid the Taser on a small table near the spiral staircase a few feet away. Struggling with his thumb to punch numbers on the phone, calling somewhere for backup.

He is distracted. I shield what I am about to do with my body, my back to him as I struggle to my feet. It’s now or never. In the time that he looks away, I reach out and grab the solid piece of oak, the hunk of wood with its shattered end that had been the leg of the chair. It’s about eight inches long and heavy. If I could close the distance on him I might have a chance.

With my other hand I grab the two wires and yank. The pain is excruciating, but the darts come loose. I leave the Taser wires and the two darts on the floor near the broken chair hoping he won’t notice that I’m no longer wired at least long enough for me to make a move. His attention at the moment is directed at the phone.

He is talking on the phone when something dances off the edge of the desk over the back of my hand and across the floor. Like a fast red moth it covers the distance between us and climbs his leg in less than a second.

He sees it the same time I do, his back half turned, out of the corner of his eye. He stands. I am on one knee still getting up. We see the same thing, the solid red beam of light streaming across the room. Suddenly his eyes open wide. He spins around looking at the glass doors, the garden outside.

I turn my head to look. The blinding beam of red light refracted in the glass of the door scatters and then comes back together. A woman, thin as a wisp, outside, Diana the archer.

I turn back to look at him just as he aligns the pistol left-handed, getting a bead on her. I raise myself up and throw the heavy piece of oak with everything I’ve got. It misses the gun, grazes his hand, and hits him in the head just as he squeezes off the round.

The sound of the shot shatters the silence. I hear the tinkle of broken glass as it hits the tile behind me, but I don’t turn to look. Instead I launch myself from one knee to my feet and charge him.

He sees me, drops the phone, and transfers the pistol to his right hand as he moves the muzzle down on me.

I’m looking up, staring straight down the barrel wondering if he’s true to his word, whether I’ll feel pain as the copper-coated lead enters my brain.

The bullet went wide. It shattered the glass and snapped past her ear. The vacant pane opened the avenue of flight as Ana pointed the laser at his chest and let the arrow fly. Just as she did, she saw the back of the lawyer rising up. There was nothing she could do but watch the red flare of the arrow.

Lunging forward, waiting for death, I feel something slice my ear as the red light tracking something yellow lodged itself in the center of his chest. He jerks as he pulls the trigger.

I hear the bullet slam into something behind me. The fleeting look on his face, something quizzical. His knees buckle before I can reach him. He dissolves to the floor as I sail over the top and land on the tiles behind him. When I roll and look, I see his hand with the pistol still twitching.

Before I can get to my feet I hear another pane of glass being broken in the door. As I stand up I see the mystery lady drop a rock onto the cement outside. She slips her hand through the open pane and unlocks the door.

When I look down his hand is still moving. I step over him to try and pry the gun from his hand.

“Leave it!”

When I look up she has another arrow in the bow. This one is pointed at me. There’s a large black duffel bag at her feet.

“I don’t know who you are,” I say. “I don’t particularly care. But you saved my life. And I thank you.” But I don’t pick up the gun.

“I could say the same of you,” she says. “What was it you threw at him?”

“A broken leg from the chair.”

“Under the circumstances I really don’t want to have to do this. But you saw me kill him. You’re a witness. That is something I cannot afford to leave behind. I’m sorry,” and she starts to flex the bow.

This is my first hint that she is not some Good Samaritan who simply happened by. “Hold on!”

But she doesn’t. She has the bow fully extended, bringing it down on me. “Before I do, I need to know what your connection is. How do you know this man?”

“I don’t. Give me a minute and I’ll tell you what I know.” My mind is racing, my heart pounding. I am exhausted, the adrenaline drained from my body. If I’m going to survive the next two minutes I am going to have to give her some reason.

She looks down at the dying form on the floor. His hand has stopped moving, but it’s still holding the pistol, now in a death grip.

“First of all, you didn’t commit a crime,” I tell her. Thinking like a lawyer. I do what comes naturally, appeal to reason. Something in her demeanor tells me she is not going to be susceptible to emotion. Otherwise I’d be crying.

“In this state, defense of other, like self-defense, absolves all criminal intent in a homicide. So there’s no need to worry about what I saw. You have an absolute defense. He was going to kill me and you prevented it. I will testify to that in any court.”

She backs off a few steps as she relaxes the tension on the bow. Still, she doesn’t seem convinced.

I take a deep breath, though the arrow is still pointed at me.

She’s smiling.

“What’s so funny?”

“The irony of it. The concept of legal absolution and getting paid for the deed at the same time.”

“I didn’t need to hear that. I’m not sure I did. And if I did, I already forgot it. If anyone ever needed killing, you’re looking at him right there. If it were up to me I’d give you a medal.”

I spend the next several minutes bringing her current on how I got involved, along with an abbreviated version of the events of the last two months. I skirt the edges on some of the facts, the details concerning Betz and some of the names of the people involved.

By the time I’m done, the arrow is at least pointed down, somewhere near my knees. I take this as a sign that maybe I’ll live. But I’m still not sure.

“That’s all fine,” she says. “But if you’re still around, what are you going to tell the authorities?”

Lady of few words, she arrives at the pivotal question. It is upon this that I will live or die. “Leave that to me. I’m not going to tell them about you.”

“Then who killed him?”

“Who knows? He was a bad man. I’m sure he had his share of enemies.”

“He had at least one that I know of.”

“All I know is, I came out to get a signature on a document from someone who wasn’t here, found the door open and a dead body inside. I don’t even know who he is. Never saw the man before. And that’s the truth. The man I met the last time I was here, the one who said he was Mr. Becket, was someone else. Seems you can’t trust anybody anymore.

“The white lies I am prepared to tell the cops really don’t matter, at least they don’t to me, not under these circumstances. You may have been hired to come here to commit a criminal homicide, but that’s not what you did. There was an intervening force, his attempt on my life. That absolves you of the act. If you hadn’t shown up at the door I would be dead. We have a bond on this.”

I suspect that some wily prosecutor probably could work up a case against her of conspiracy to commit, but I really don’t care. And I keep the thought to myself. No sense giving her something to worry about.

She considers it for a few moments. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“What would I have to gain by telling the cops?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Nothing. I don’t even know your name. I don’t want to know.”

Slowly she lowers the bow, unstrings the arrow with my name on it, and drops them both into the bag at her feet. She leans over the body and starts to unscrew the tip of the arrow that is protruding from his back.

“What are you doing?”

“I never leave anything behind.”

“Forget I asked.”

She kicks the body over and from the front she pulls the arrow out. She snaps the shaft in half and drops all of the parts, including the tip, in a plastic bag, then deposits this in the duffel as well. “Do you want me to take the gun from his hand?” she says.

“Leave it. It might be better that way. Someone killed him, but at least he put up a fight.”

She picks up her bag and turns to go out the way she came.

“Why don’t we use the front door,” I tell her.

“I have to get my stuff,” she says. She walks around the broken chair to the side of the partner’s desk and grabs the handle on the large metal rolling case, the one I noticed when I first came in.

“That belongs to you?”

“Yeah, it’s mine. He stole it from me and used it twice.” She starts to roll it away when something catches her eye. She stops, looks down, and runs her finger along the side of the case. “Damn it!” she says.

“What’s wrong?” My heart skips a beat.

“He put a hole in it. A small fortune in cutting-edge auto-electronics, and that ungodly sack of shit goes and shoots it!” She starts cursing in some language I don’t understand, hands in the air, stamping her feet.

I don’t know where she’s from. I don’t want to know. But if pressed to the wall, I’d have to say she has a Latin temper.

“After all of this.” She leans over and examines the bullet hole. It is dead center in the middle of the box. “And he turns it into junk.”

“What’s in the box?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.” She gives me a look to kill.

“Let’s pretend I never asked.”

As we head for the front door I have visions of Casablanca, Bogart and Rains on a fog-shrouded runway. “Round up the usual suspects, Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”