After Death(82)

Michael reaches for the transponder, intending to hammer it into ruin—but hesitates. He looks at the shades that cover all the kitchen windows, and he wonders if Calaphas could be out there now, watching the house, waiting for backup. Or perhaps backup has already arrived, and a score of ISA agents are currently taking up positions. The moment the transponder ceases transmitting, they will conclude it’s been found, and they might accelerate whatever assault they have planned.

In a fraction of a minute, Michael reviews the extensive ISA file on Calaphas, which was earlier downloaded into the vast data-storage capacity of Shadow Michael and is his to pore through at high speed. Calaphas the manageable sociopath. His utter lack of conscience. His great pleasure in the application of extreme force. The murder of his brother. His numerous sanctioned killings. The atrocities he’s committed and for which he has been granted clemency in the course of his career include the brutal execution not only of his targets but on some occasions also of the spouses and children.

In most assignments, Calaphas has acted alone. It’s apparent why. In the company of sane agents, he is to some degree restrained, less able to indulge in his taste for barbarous cruelty. His history suggests why a platoon hasn’t descended on Michael. Calaphas intends to come after him alone. And the monster is most likely en route to Rancho Santa Fe and closing fast. Or already here.





DEEP INTO THE DARKNESS PEERING




Returning to his agency sedan, where the arc of eucalyptus trees faintly rustles even in the post-storm stillness, Calaphas retrieves the loaded AR-15 and three spare magazines. He doubts he will expend so many rounds, but when he goes hunting, he likes to know that he possesses far more firepower than his prey. He takes the ATN PVS7-3 night-vision goggles—Mil-Spec, Generation 4 gear—and hangs them around his neck in case he needs them later.

He pops another bennie from the blister pack. The first bennie is still cranking his engine. He doesn’t really need a second, but he’s very excited about this kill, this game-winning kill. He wants to be wired when he takes out Michael Mace. He feels everything more intensely when he’s wired. He doesn’t often take drugs, certainly not every time that he kills someone; such frequency would lead to addiction. He isn’t a recreational user. It’s about increasing the pleasure he takes from his work and therefore doing a better job. Doing a perfect job is how he’s going to get out of the game and into a higher level of life. He can tolerate a second five-milligram dose. He’s done it before. He never suffers tremors or confusion, and the stuff doesn’t make him talkative like it does most people. It just makes him hyper alert and eager for action. Yes, it can make him irritable, and it always heightens his aggression, but those aren’t necessarily bad effects. He puts the tablet under his tongue.

After locking the car, he sets out briskly for the Chandra house, ready to dodge off the road at the first sign of headlights in the distance. Although the moon is higher than before and should seem smaller than when it’s nearer the horizon, it looks enormous, the biggest moon he’s ever seen. The strange enormity of the moon must be a sign, and if it’s a sign, then it is the gamemakers’ way of signifying that Calaphas is one kill away from being the next champion to earn a life in the higher reality for which he has yearned since childhood. He feels like breaking into song. He’s not one who sings along with music on the radio. In fact, he doesn’t have a good voice for singing and never indulges in it. He feels so good, however, that he wants to sing, and he might do so if it would not draw attention to him at a moment when he needs to be stealthy. Even if breaking into song weren’t likely to jeopardize his mission, he couldn’t do so because he’s so disinterested in music that he doesn’t know the lyrics to any songs. He is hyper alert and feeling more wonderfully aggressive even than he was at Vince and Colleen’s house; he is exhilarated.

Before he comes to the imposing gate, he climbs the white board fence and drops into the yard at the Chandra place. He isn’t going to make a bold approach on the lighted driveway, but he likes the cover of the California oaks marshalled along its length. Because the trees are year-around shedders, the ground is mantled with small, dry, oval leaves like beetle shells that crunch underfoot. The sound isn’t loud enough to draw the attention of anyone in the house, and Calaphas likes it so much that he takes shorter and more steps than necessary; the sound makes him feel powerful, like a giant scoring points by stomping through the puny structures of elves, like a massive dragon under whose taloned feet the bones of vanquished knights are crushed to splinters and dust.

Killing is always satisfying work. The pathetic plea for mercy, whether spoken or unvoiced. The desolate last cry of pain and fear. The pale clouding or else the sudden bloody brightness of the eyes. The rattle in the throat, the stuttering of a last word that can’t quite be pronounced. The final flexing of the hands as they grasp at what they may no longer have. The terminal cascade of fluids. The spasms and shudders before the long stillness. As rewarding as it is to execute and witness any murder, by far the best experiences are those in which the labor is as hands-on as possible. Recently, with events moving at roller-coaster speed, Calaphas has been required by circumstances to use only a gun and finish the task expeditiously. He theorizes that advancement through the game occurs more rapidly when the killings are intimate and the thrill is therefore greatest: strangulation with bare hands, bludgeoning either with fists or a hammer, stabbing and slashing, a good long smothering with a pillow, a wire garrote applied with such measured force that the victim is able to hold on to false hope for an agonizing minute. If Michael Mace is the game-winning kill toward which Calaphas’s life has been directed, perhaps a disabling gunshot wound can be only preliminary to a more protracted and entertaining little circus of pain and blood.