Reign of Coins (10 page)

How clearly Kaslow could read my thoughts would determine whether or not I could come up with something…some heroic scheme. We were completely screwed if he read my thoughts verbatim. Yet, until I knew for certain, I decided to trust my instincts. If I failed to save Sam, I prayed Alistair had the good sense to run until he found his way to the Royal Garden’s main lobby.

I lunged and it was futile—at least in my efforts to save Agent Daniels. My supernatural curse means only that I can’t die physically. As long as the blow isn’t to my brain, heart, or a combination of other vital organs, I will regenerate every damaged tissue in under a minute—two minutes tops. Great for me, but fairly useless against someone whose strength far surpasses that of an Olympic power lifter. All the combat skills I’ve acquired over the years are no match against the Tree of Life’s
influence.

Kaslow shoved me and I flew back onto my ass nearly a dozen feet away, where Alistair stood frozen in fear. Agent Daniels no longer struggled to escape his grip.

“Perhaps you would like to see my rendition of Mount Vesuvius’ wrath upon the foolish townsfolk of Pompeii, no?”

He tore off the agent’s head at the shoulders with minimal effort and tossed it inside the empty elevator car. Kaslow pointed the top of the headless corpse at the elevator and covered the entire car with the agent’s blood rush. He squeezed the torso as if trying to get every ounce of blood out. It sickened me further to hear the sound of ruptured organs amid bones splintering inside what used to be my CIA colleague.

I stood up and shoved Alistair forcefully down the hallway, glancing over my shoulder as Kaslow retrieved his knife from the elevator door. For a moment, I thought we might escape. However, Kaslow produced a pair of semi-automatic Steyrs equipped with silencers. An expert marksman, it wasn’t likely he’d miss Alistair. Not unless I mirrored my son’s movements, staying between him and Kaslow’s bullets.

“Run for the stairs, Ali!”

A bullet ripped through my right shoulder, closer to my heart than I’d assumed Kaslow would aim.

“Run! Run like the frightened doe that you are, William,
and your fawn!” Kaslow cackled. Less than twenty feet away, his steady footfalls announced he trotted behind us.

Stalking us like a couple of wounded animals! Such a cocky mother….

“There’s the stairs, Pops!”

Alistair’s voice was shrill, but hopeful. He zigzagged, hinting at speed that made him a Scottish soccer star many years ago.

“You’ll
never
get there!” Anger from Kaslow, followed by a volley of shots. Several bullets struck my legs and pierced my stomach. It suddenly dawned on me that he could paralyze me if he hit my spine. But I could no longer mimic my son’s moves. Meanwhile, Kaslow gained on us. His breaths were steady and unlabored.

Such confidence often leads to slight mistakes. Alistair had just reached the stairs when Kaslow slowed up to take fateful aim at my son’s back. In the few seconds before the trigger was pulled, I sprinted and dove in front of Alistair, as the bullet that would’ve killed him tore through my left lung.

That one hurt like a royal mother…but at least my momentum carried my son through the door. I managed to close it with my right hand from behind me. An extra few seconds was all I hoped for. We scrambled down the stairs to the next floor, making it through the door just moments before new bullets came our way.

“Are you hit?” I asked Alistair, as we raced down the hallway to the elevators.

“Not yet,” he blurted out between breaths.

A night maid and several guests were mulling about. We startled them as we sprinted by. All the while, I prepared myself for bullet spray coming from behind, but didn’t chance a take a peek over my shoulder until we reached the elevators. The night maid was handing extra towels to a guest, and neither one seemed threatened…. Kaslow had not pursued us.

“Should we chance taking the elevator?”

Alistair shook, and I feared a breakdown was on the way. I almost said ‘no’, and prepared to suggest we take the other stairs further down the hall. But, the doors opened.

The car sat empty, the lighted arrow pointing down.

I urged my son aboard, and heard shrill shrieks from above us as the door closed. Someone had surely stumbled onto Viktor Kaslow’s fresh kill. Alistair slumped to his knees and cried.

He cried harder than I’ve ever witnessed. “There, there, son...we’re going to be okay. We’ve got to move quickly once we reach the main floor,”

“I c-can’t…I can’t do this anymore!” he sobbed.

“Yes, you can son—I will get us to safety in just a short while. Trust me.”

“That’s
not
what I mean!” he said, pushing me away as he stood up. We had just passed the second floor and would reach the main floor momentarily. “I can’t be
you!
I tried, but it doesn’t work!”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

So far out of left field, he totally lost me as to what he meant.

“I’ve been trying to be like you for
years!”

It damned near tore my heart out. I didn’t know what to say. But getting to the root of whatever this shit was about would have to wait.

“Hang on, son…I’ve got to get us out of here.”

The elevator chimed for the main level. The lobby bustled with excitement, and a pair of police officers prepared to take our places on the elevator with an anxious looking night manager from the hotel. I stepped out casually, and looked around. No sign of our nemesis…but who could be sure?

“My laptop…I need to go back upstairs and—”

“No, son…I’ll buy you a new one or get someone to come back for it,” I said. “And, whatever I’ve done to upset you, I’ll make it right. We’ll talk about it as soon as it’s safe enough.” I gently urged him to keep up with me to the main entrance.

“When you said you’ll get somebody to come back here for it, did you mean somebody like Roderick?”

“Yes…someone like him.”

He had more questions, but I shushed him. Hard to predict what Kaslow would do with dozens of people coming in and out of the famed hotel. Would he take out the innocent to catch his prize? Once his usual M.O., he was so much worse now.

“There’s a taxi coming up, and it looks empty. We better grab it while the coast is clear.”

Despite an unimpeded path to the hotel curb, it took nearly five minutes to convince Alistair we wouldn’t be cut down like vulnerable college students from a gun tower as we ran to the cab. As a further precaution, I gave the driver enough cash to last at least an hour on the road.

No choice but to find someplace new…someplace safe. Especially after we passed a patron standing in the shadows near the hotel’s parking garage. Dressed in a local Dragonflies baseball jacket and cap, along with dark sunglasses, the man smiled and waved as we drove by.

I didn’t mention it to Alistair. It would only make things worse. Besides, I knew in my heart we’d meet this man again very soon. For as long as we were in Hong Kong, Viktor Kaslow wasn’t going anywhere.

Chapter 12

We ended up at the InterContinental Hotel. A bit pricier than our previous location, but the right choice in eluding Viktor Kaslow, the CIA, and anyone else who might prove to be a threat. Even if for only a short while. My biggest worry was whether or not the hotel had a vacancy. Fortunately, it did.

And how could I afford such an extravagance, running low on cash and needing to avoid any credit card payments under the names of William and Alistair Barrow?

By no longer being those two individuals.

The inner panel of my billfold holds multiple credit cards and picture IDs for two other aliases of mine. Names I rarely use, one hasn’t seen the light of day in more than a decade, and both are tied to substantial resources.

Prudent to forgo a suite this time, and not repeat other preferences from our previous locale, we choose a standard room over the deluxe options.
Fortunately, the only other haggling point was getting a room on the third floor as opposed to the twelfth—my pick over my boy’s choice. He felt safer higher up, but I wanted something with a more immediate escape route.

Once settled in, I contacted Roderick’s cell number. While waiting for him to pick up, I reflected on a troubling conversation I had with Alistair in the taxi.

“I can’t do it any more,” he said, repeating what he’d told me on our elevator ride down to the Royal Garden’s lobby. “I’ve always wanted to please you, Pops. Maybe it’s unfair to you since you’ve never told me what you expect from me.”

“Other than to give your best effort at whatever you do, what else would be fair to ask?” I patted his knee—something I hadn’t done since he was a young boy. “I’m proud of everything you’ve accomplished, but most of all I’m simply proud
you
are my son. I love you, Ali.”

“I know you do,” he said, sadly. “But, haven’t you always secretly wanted me to be like you—to have that tough guy exterior to where nothing bothers you?”

Huh? And here I thought I was one of the softies out there. Too bad Roderick hadn’t shared the cab with us. I’m sure he’d find amusement in my boy’s opinion.

“I’m not all that tough.” I shook my head at how his perception of me drastically differed from how I’ve pictured myself. “As for a ‘tough guy exterior’, haven’t you noticed how protective I’ve been of you lately? I worry about your safety, and how you’re dealing with your abandoned professorship. I even worry about your fragile heart—I’m talking about the budding love you share with a woman half your age. I don’t want
anything
to hurt you.”

“Amy doesn’t care about the age difference since it’s shrinking by the week.” He turned to look at me. His eyes filled with tears, and it tore deeper into my heart. What could I do to lift this hidden burden from him? “Her biggest beef with me is that I’ve become ‘edgier’ since last summer.”

“I’ve noticed it, too.”

“Well, it’s me trying to be
you!”

What in the hell?!

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, Pops,
seriously!”
He wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. “You’re always stern, and when people say something you don’t agree with, you blow them off. If they do it more than once, you belittle them. And yet, people always respect you. I started imitating you about five years ago, and stepped it up when the aging began to reverse, thinking it would be cool to finally act like you without feeling like an old man trying to act young. But, I can’t live with the pressure. It hurts me to say this…even though Viktor Kaslow is a helluva lot meaner than you could ever be, I realized tonight you both lack sensitivity to what it means to be truly human.”

Wow…my son’s condemnation stung deeper than anything said to me since Jesus Christ’s silent accusation, as I watched Him whipped and beaten shortly after I accepted the price on His head. Too stunned to react, for a moment I ceased to breathe…as if finally I’d lose the very will to
live. Here I thought the crystals were turning my son into an ass, when he simply wanted to be like his dear old dad.

Did I believe this was a fair evaluation of my demeanor? Not really…until I considered how most people react to me. I don’t keep many friends, other than those who are more than a century old. As I paused to think more about it, I suddenly saw a host of cringing faces parade before my mind’s eye. Perhaps there was something to this. Perhaps….

“I’m sorry son. I had no idea.”

“It’s okay, Pops,” he assured me, as if suddenly feeling guilty. “You can’t help what your personality has become. Two thousand years means a guy’s pretty set in his ways.”

“I’ll work on it, son—I
really
will.” Despite the pain in hearing what he told me, I decided to embrace it. He smiled, and I returned his with my own, silently praying it would be
my
first step in learning to be more like him….

“William? It’s about time you called me!” Roderick had just answered my call. If his phone had rung much longer, I would’ve hung up. “What in the hell happened tonight?”

“Kaslow killed Sam.”

Alistair had just turned on the TV and was busy looking for the latest news reports. He looked sharply in my direction when I mentioned Agent Daniels’ murder.

“I’m aware of that fact,” said Roderick, coolly. He was irritated. I got the queer feeling his annoyance wasn’t directed at me. Something else drew his displeasure. “Lucky for you and Alistair, the police have been instructed to treat this as a tragic elevator accident. The hotel will be cleared of all negligence in the end, and the elevator manufacturer and maintenance contractor will escape scrutiny beyond the initial media investigation into the accident.”

“And, everyone’s palms will be heavily greased, eh?”

“Be careful, William, of biting
any
of the hands that have fed you well for many years,” he said, and this time his ire was directed at me…although less harshly than it could’ve been. “It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that a former CIA operative turned rogue has finally gotten his revenge against a former colleague in the agency he butted heads with on a regular basis.”