White Shotgun (2 page)

The Chef dragged the bin up the ramp that led to the vat. He drew off the tarp and backed away as toxic vapors rose from
la minèstra
. No one appreciated the quality of his work. How smooth, complete, undetectable.

LONDON

ONE

It was only another good-bye. Sterling McCord was lying on his back, staring at the lace-curtained window that looked out on the sidewalk. I was up on an elbow, studying the green in his eyes. Rainy light floated around us like the aftertaste of a kiss.

“Hello, cupcake,” he murmured.

“Don’t go,” I said.

We had been camping out in a borrowed flat in South Kensington while I was on vacation status from the Bureau. The place had belonged to the deceased relative of a friend—four rooms in the basement of a Georgian mews house just off Old Brompton Road. The air smelled of mildew and face powder, and we found frilly candy wrappers balled up on the dresser. Sterling called it “the old-lady hooch.” We’d had to push two narrow cots together, along with their wobbly headboards of padded roses, but we managed. After a couple of weeks of coming and going, it was starting to feel less like a tomb and more like a place to live. Keys on the table. Eggs in the refrigerator. Then Sterling got the call.

“Do you want to do something interesting?”

That was the way it always began. The voice on the phone. A deep Welsh accent. Sly, as if the reason he was calling wasn’t all
that
interesting. An hour later, Sterling would disappear on a mission he couldn’t discuss.

Sterling McCord worked for a private security firm called Oryx. His gear was stowed in a corner of the bedroom, laid out for quick departure, the black rucksack hanging from a doorknob. He did not travel with a weapon, preferring to improvise when he arrived. His first stop would be to purchase a Leatherman multi-tool—he must have left dozens in the field. With not much more than a canteen, a poncho, and GPS, it would take less than five minutes to dump his stuff in the rucksack and be gone.

“Is there at least time for a good-bye drink?” I asked, drawing my toes along his leg. Even at rest, his calf muscle felt like a knot of hardwood.

He played with the bracelet on my wrist. “We’ll have time.”

Sterling liked to say the only thing that made sense in the world was horses. He grew up in Kerrville, Texas, and learned the cowboy arts from his dad—how to train a cutting horse and weave tack, like the fine leather bracelet he had made for me, an eternity knot that would never come off. I had no intention of taking it off. Things were different with Sterling. It was the peaceful way we went to sleep together; deep conversations at three in the morning, someone always willing to rub the kink out of someone’s hip. I knew I had fallen in love when I woke up one morning in a white sun-drenched hotel room in Madrid to the scent of baking chocolate. Sterling had ordered his idea of breakfast in bed: two
cafés con leche
and one fresh, sweet-smelling dish of molten chocolate cake with powdered sugar on top. We laid against the pillows feeding each other spoonfuls of bittersweet chocolate. That was it.

Oryx is a type of antelope, but also a helicopter, and Sterling’s aircraft of choice. He piloted an Oryx during the war in Sierra Leone, after he left Delta Force, where he learned how to blow a door open without waking the cat. But the most essential skill in the top echelon of Special Forces is the ability to work in absolute secrecy, below the radar of the Pentagon and the FBI. The invisible warrior without boundaries is essential to our security—and a pain in the ass if he happens to be your lover.

I didn’t even know to which continent Oryx was sending him, but it was a familiar trek: the rucksack over his shoulder and my hand in his, the touch of our palms unable to deny the sweaty tension of leaving, as we walked the five blocks to Baciare, a neighborhood bistro where you could get a good plate of pasta after midnight; neither one of us expected anything more than a stiff drink to numb the coming separation.

London was on high alert. It had been an explosive spring. Two separate plots to blow up airliners were foiled at Heathrow. A Muslim student at the University of Nottingham was stopped for being in possession of an Al-Qaeda handbook he had downloaded at the library. He died in custody, stabbed by another inmate. University students clashed with gangs of teenage neocons, and dozens of cars were burned during three days of rioting in East London.

The Metropolitan Police were doing a good job of making the rest of the city seem jolly as ever to the tourists crushing the Embankment, but to the interested eye there was a remarkable number of foot patrols, even in the residential boroughs. Edgewater Crescent was a private square lined with redbrick town houses and cherry trees, a tiny oasis off the main drag, which was constantly jammed with posses of young men and women moving quickly, wave on wave of ethnicities and languages, unruly lines in front of the bars and gelato places. Even in this tranquil area, we saw two pairs of female police officers making the rounds beneath the Victorian streetlamps, hair pulled into scraggly ponytails, wearing bulletproof vests and boxy uniforms built for men.

Our trek was interrupted when the cell phone rang. Actually, it was a series of maddening electronic notes like a clown on crack playing an accordion.

After a moment I murmured irritably, “Why do you have such an unbelievably annoying ring?”

“Not my phone,” Sterling said.

It was my U.S. cell phone. It hadn’t rung in weeks, although out of a habitual sense of doom I always kept it charged. I dug it out of the bottom of my bag.

“Ana?” said a familiar voice. “It’s Mike Donnato, calling from Los Angeles.”

“Mike—?”

Sterling let go of my hand.

“—it’s great to hear from you!” I said.

It wasn’t great. It was a disaster. Donnato had been my handler on a domestic terrorism case in Oregon, where Sterling and I had met; and where it was pretty obvious that my FBI partner and I still had feelings for each other. Donnato’s intrusion into our last moments together in London was an unwelcome surprise.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At the office,” Donnato said. “It’s daytime in L.A.”

“What’s going on?”

“This is not official business, Ana; it’s personal.”

Oh God
, I thought.
Now that I’m with Sterling, Donnato is finally going to say he’s getting a divorce
.

“You need to check in with the legat in London,” he said, meaning the legal attaché for the FBI. Although the Bureau has no jurisdiction abroad, we maintain a presence in foreign countries to serve American citizens.

“Did someone die?”

“No, but I can’t talk about it on an unsecured phone.”

“Am I in trouble?” I asked.

“Go to the American embassy. They’re expecting you.”

“Mike, why?”

“I’m only the messenger. Do it tomorrow.”

I closed the phone. During the call, Sterling and I had not broken pace.

“What’s that about?”

“Mike wouldn’t tell me.”

“Your good ole buddy?” Sterling gave it a Texas kick just to bother me.

“Don’t be a dickhead. He’s my best friend.”

“Then why’s he holdin’ out on you?”

“It isn’t him. It’s the Bureau,” I said grimly, feeling a gut clench, like when you pass your old school packed with bad memories. One day I’ll have to return to the States to testify in that domestic terrorism case in Oregon, and possibly implicate a deputy director of the FBI. Meanwhile, I’m an active duty special agent on vacation—until they decide whether to hang me or give me a medal. Hearing the strain in Donnato’s voice, I’m thinking they’ve made up their minds.

It was a relief to get to Baciare, our comfort zone in London, our signature place, where the owner knew to bring two Proseccos and a plate of
burrata
cheese the moment we sat down.

But not tonight. Our quiet hideaway had been invaded by a raucous birthday party, a long table of shiny-faced Italian men making toasts. Espresso cups and cake plates, bottles of Champagne and platters of biscotti littered the table. The object of the celebration was a sweetheart of a boy—dark-haired and red-cheeked—who had probably just turned twenty-one. His angelic face was filmed with sweat, and he looked completely stewed. Half the men seemed to be older relatives; the others were his age, laughing together uncontrollably from whatever they had smoked in the alley.

The owner of the restaurant, a lanky fellow named Martin, who wore wire-rimmed glasses and had long gray hair trailing from a bald spot, usually greeted us with a fawning smile, murmuring,
“Grazie mille!”
between each breath. Tonight he turned us away, apologizing that it was a private celebration, but a man from the party, fortyish, fleshy face and dark hair, intervened, putting an arm around Sterling and insisting that we accept two glasses of bubbly. Martin checked his watch and reluctantly waved us to a table in the back. We promised to be quick. Sterling was to be picked up by another operative in fifteen minutes, and Oryx people were precise.

“Sterling,” I said with some urgency as we sat down, “are we all right?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Just want to be sure,” I said.

“You say that every time.”

“It’s no fun being the one who’s left behind.”

“We could try it the other way,” he suggested wryly.

“You’d never move to L.A.”

“Maybe I would, if you’d support my bad habits. You go to work, I lie by the pool. Fair?”

“Great, except who knows? Judging from Mike’s call, I might not have a job when I get back.”

“I was just playin’ about Mike,” Sterling said. “He’s a good guy.”

I started shredding a cocktail napkin. “This is not about Mike. That’s in the past.”

“Yeah, okay,” Sterling said.

I squinted at him. “Okay, what?”

He stretched back in the chair, but his eyes held mine. His blond hair was greasy, and he hadn’t shaved for the mission. My tender hooligan.

“What are you really trying to say?” he asked.

I blushed. Luckily, he had the grace not to point it out.

“I want us to be together, is all,” I told him.

Sterling inclined his head with a tiny smile, and his eyes said,
I know you. I understand you
.

“I promise to be back as soon as I can.” He glanced at the door, ready to move. “We ain’t gonna work this out now.”

I smiled and sprinkled napkin scraps into the ashtray. “That’s what you always say.”

It was how we kept going, I suppose. It’s easy to avoid talking about the future when you tacitly agree there might not be one. He’s leaving on a dangerous assignment. I’m on an ice floe of uncertainty concerning the Bureau. You don’t want your last good-bye to be a fight.

Spoons were being tapped against wineglasses at the long birthday table and everyone was quieting down. A boy maybe fourteen years old waited to speak. He wore a yellow satin zip-up jacket, had spiked hair. Obviously they’d let him have some wine.

“I want to make a toast to my big brother, Marco,” he said. “He’s always been a wanker, but now he’s an even bigger wanker. To Marco!”

Cheers and applause. Marco stood up and hugged his little brother, then got the kid in a headlock and pounded him until the father pulled them apart.

“Basta!”
shouted the father, soft-bellied, workman’s arms. “Happy birthday, Marco!”

From the back room someone who might have been an uncle appeared, grinning and rolling out a silver racing bike with wheels that seemed to twinkle.

“For real?” shouted Marco, and threw his arms around the dad.

Sterling’s phone beeped. Time to go. He stood and slung the rucksack over his shoulder.

“Be safe,” he said.

“You too, baby.”

The party began to break up. Jackets were buttoned, phone calls made. Waiters, abandoning decorum, quickly piled the dirty dishes into plastic bins. We walked the gauntlet of cheerfully inebriated men.

“Ciao, bella!”

“The party isn’t over!”

“Come with us. Both of you. Come!”

We put on our neutral cop smiles, murmuring, “Thank you. Congratulations. Good night.”

We pushed through the wooden door that mimicked a wine cask, relieved to be out of there and breathing the cool air. The cherry trees were in snowy pink blossom. Under the lamplight, the elegant street looked enchanting.

We kissed and separated without further words. I watched as Sterling walked away, trying to tamp down the phantoms of anxiety that always arose when he left. I thought about the empty basement flat, where it was damp as a cave.

The same gentleman who had invited us to the party came up behind me. I noticed his aftershave—ocean spray and menthol—and that he was wearing a linen suit the color of wheat.

“Aah, come on, don’t look so sad! If he loves you, he’ll come back.”

I just smiled and kept on going. Others were emerging from the restaurant and hugging good night, lighting cigarettes and walking toward their cars. The boys were gathered around the bike, Marco demonstrating how light it was, and how balanced—you could pick it up with two fingers under the frame. I remember the linen suit because it reminded me of spring in Washington, D.C., and the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin, and the small stir of pride I always felt because somebody in the United States government had preserved them; someone was looking out for the trees.