Bristlecone

Bristlecone

by

Steve Perry

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 - Steve Perry

"The Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) is the longest lived of all living things on earth today. The oldest living Pinus longaeva currently grows in the White-Inyo mountain range of California and has been given the name Methuselah; in 2006, it was 4,767 years old, over a thousand years older than any other tree (Miller 2006)."

New World Encyclopedia

Old age and treachery overcomes youth and skill every time.

Anonymous

DEDICATIONS

This book is for Dianne;

And for the early Baby Boomers

who are not going gently into

that good night, including Mike Richardson.

And for George Perry, who has,

unfortunately, mostly gone on ahead.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always, there are those who helped with the process of turning a jumbled idea inside my head into a more or less realized novel. I was the one in the chair with the keyboard, but there were others figuratively standing behind me urging me on.

Any mistakes I made with their input are mine; if you like the taste, they get part of the credit. If you don’t, it’s my fault. They supplied some of the ingredients, but I was the cook.

Thanks this time go to:

Dianne, for keeping the wolves from the door and the bed inviting and cozy; Jon, my computer game guy; Bobbe, for geographical and cultural references; Rory, for comments martial; Eric, for police work; Stevan Plinck, for the art of silat; Dan Moran, for back-up in the charge against the neocons and for sharp eyes. For other species input, Jude and Layla (and also now, Ballou.)

First readers: Nan, Tiel, Edwin, Irene, Toby, Cotten, Todd.

No animals were harmed in the making of this novel; nor was monetary or other consideration given for placement of any commercial products herein. However if Cadillac wants to send me a new Escalade for featuring said vehicle as the preferred ride of high-end espionage agents? I wouldn’t turn it down ...

SP

PROLOGUE

Tacoma, Washington

Milos had made a mistake.

Stupid, as all such mistakes were stupid, but this one more than most.

Ten years ago, five, even two -- it would never have happened, never, but here of late, there were times when his thoughts were ... less sharp than they had been. He sometimes went into a room and forgot why he had gone there; names and dates he had known for fifty years faded and would not be recalled. Yes, yes, he was past seventy, but he exercised, walked for miles, he ate well, took vitamins, and had few vices. A Cuban cigar and a glass of good port now and again. Once or twice a week was all. That shouldn’t be enough to matter. He had been sharp for too long to have his edge just thicken and grow dull ...

He had been tired from the long trip. The days when he could jump on an airplane and fly for thirty hours, bound down the steps and work for another day before going to bed were long gone. He was very fit for a man his age -- but he was no longer young by anybody under eighty’s lights. Three score and ten, and hoping for another score, at least, but not the man he had been.

He had fallen asleep an hour short of the landing at Sea-Tac, and only roused when the stewardess made him put his seat up. He had been grainy, his thoughts fogged, the air stale and lifeless, and he had collected his carry on bag and shuffled off the jet from Japan as if he didn’t have a care in the world, pulling the bag on its little wheels behind him like a vegetable shopping cart.

He did not put a cap on, no sunglasses, nothing to disguise his face, nothing!

Inexcusable, such behavior, muzzy or not. How could it have happened?

He was halfway to the rental car kiosk before the foolishness of what he had done fell upon him like a collapsing wall, and he had silently cursed himself in four languages for his stupidity! Idiotis! Nar! Sciocco! Fool!

Well, done was done, and he had to salvage it as best he could.

He did not pause as he passed the car kiosks, but proceeded outside, into a warm afternoon that stank of auto and truck exhaust and hot concrete. Now he put on his cap and shades, for whatever good they would do him. He looked at the row of waiting taxis, and the passengers queued for them, and timed it so that he was able to get a cab with a small, swarthy driver who had a thick mustache. A Middle Easterner, he was sure, Syrian, perhaps.

He approached the driver. "Aasalaamu Aleikum," he said.

Surprised a bit, the driver replied, "Wa-Aleikum Aassalaam."

I need to go to Tacoma, he said in Arabic. It was his fifth or sixth language and not his best, but he could carry on a conversation in it.

Let me get your bag, Uncle, the driver said. He smiled. That would be a nice fare for him. It was at least twenty miles one-way.

A moment. Milos bent, unzipped the suitcase, and removed a CD player from a side pocket.

You should get an iPod, the driver said. He tapped his shirt pocket. Much smaller, holds much more music.

I am not up on the latest technology, Milos said. He smiled. I can barely use this. He waved the CD player.

In the cab, the driver asked for an address, and Milos stalled him. It is in the warehouse district, I cannot remember the number. Near the water, in the old section. I know how to get there, but not the street names. I will know it when I see it.

The driver shrugged. Doubtless he had grown up with old men around him who said such things. Men who still spoke of turning at an intersection where there were three palm trees decades after the trees had been cut down.

Milos put the CD player’s earphones into his ears, and turned the machine on, but kept the volume off.

Eventually, the watchers would fan out through the airport like hounds seeking a rabbit, he knew, once they recognized his face, and he had to assume they would. How long? A day? Two? Perhaps sooner?

The first location they would check would be the car rental places. Have you seen this man? they would ask. No?

Then they would check the limos and the taxis and the buses, and Abdul here would be asked, even if he didn’t go back to the airport -- his dispatcher, somebody, would know when he had been there. The watchers did not need to be brilliant, only persistent and thorough, and they would be that. You could sift all the sand on a beach through a colander, if you had enough time and patience.

Seen this man? Say you have? Where did you take him?

No, the trail had to end at the airport. It was bad enough as it was, it could not be allowed to get any worse.

When life handed you a bitter lemon, you should stomp it flat and bury it quickly ...

The drive took a while, the heat of the summer beating upon the air conditioned cab and if not winning entirely, not losing. He liked it a little warm, more than cold, but not too much so.

Once they reached the warehouse district, Milos offered directions: Left here, turn right there, yes, this is the way. He looked for an appropriate spot. It didn’t take long. It was a Sunday, and there were fewer people around than on a normal work day.

There it is!

The spot was between two warehouses without windows facing the alley. The driver turned in.

There, the third door, on the right.

As the driver slowed, Milos opened the CD player and removed the compact disk. There was a trick to it -- you had to use your thumbs just so, and as you snapped the disk in half, you needed to twist it a little, to get an angled break ...

He coughed loudly to cover the sound of the disk breaking.

He nodded to himself. Yes, perfect. The section in his right hand would do nicely.

I’ll get your bag, the driver said.

I can manage it, Milos said. Just open the boot for me.

Milos had a trio of hundred dollar bills in his hand where the driver could see them.

I insist, the driver said. Milos could almost read the man’s mind: After all, the old man was a fellow believer in Allah, was he not? Refreshing here among all the infidels. Plus all that cash.

Milos smiled and nodded.

When the driver opened the trunk, Milos moved. He grabbed the man’s hair with his left hand and cut his throat with the broken CD. It was not as sharp as a razor, perhaps, but sharp enough for this kind of slash. He missed the left carotid, but got the right one. Pitiful, how inept he had become. Five years ago, even two ...

He kicked the screaming, bleeding man behind the leg hard enough to drive his knee cap into the concrete, and then kicked him again in the temple -- twice, three times, finally knocking him unconscious.

It didn’t take long for the cabbie to bleed out. Milos stood by watching, making sure no one else came this way.

A shame he couldn’t enjoy it fully, see and feel the fear blossom and the panic ensue, stretch it out and make it last, but there was a time and place for everything, and this was not for pleasure. This was but more penance.

He put the body into the trunk and closed the lid. He got into the driver’s seat, rolled down the windows. He had gotten a little blood on his silk jacket, so that would have to go away. He removed the jacket -- four thousand dollars from a tailor in Hong Kong -- and laid it on the seat next to him.

One more price to pay. He shook his head.

It took him half an hour to find the right place. He made sure nobody was around, nobody could see -- and no cameras he could locate -- and he drove the car to the lip of the drop-off, hopped out, and put it into gear. The cab rolled, teetered for a moment, then fell ten feet to the water.

It took a few minutes to sink, and only a few bubbles on the surface showed afterward.

Eventually, somebody would find it. There was nothing in his bag that would lead to him, no personal effects you couldn’t buy in any market in any big city. Yes, they could do their DNA tests, but if they got this far, they would already know who had killed the cabbie and scuttled the automobile. If a local policeman found it, someone clever would eventually put the dead driver together with the airport and come up with the connection, but that would almost certainly be after he was done with his business, and even if not, they wouldn’t know where he had gone from here. In a city this size, there would be more than one way to leave without being noticed. Just another old man in a hat, whose eyes nobody couldn’t see behind shades, and who would change transportation at least twice more in two directions before he arrived at his destination. Now that it was more necessary than a precaution ...

Milos sighed as he walked, the heat of the summer flowing around him. It wasn’t comfortable, to be out in it, but he suffered it as more of his payment for his stupid mistake.

PART ONE:

INCUBATION

ONE

Portland, Oregon

Arlo Hull leaned back from his work. The redwood deck was hard under his sixty-two-year-old knees, which creaked and protested the position he’d put himself in. Uncomfortable, but still shy of real pain. The morning summer sun was hot on the back of his neck, he could feel it upon his shoulders through the T-shirt, and the fir-tang scent of the bonsai drifted up from the warmed plant.

It was a San Jose Juniper, one he had trained himself from a wounded, scraggly plant he’d found along a path through next to the drugstore on the way to the park. Somebody had run over the thing with a mower, and what was left caught his attention. It was in the landscaped ground next to the concrete block wall that ran the length of the parking lot along the south side of the Rite-Aid. Some of the planting had taken, some of them had died, and this one had thrived, but lost half itself to a whirring steel blade.

Hull had gotten permission from the manager, dug it up, taken it home, put it in a training pot. He’d wired it, using heavy copper, and bent the trunk into what he thought might grow into a pleasing shape. That had been five years back, He’d repotted it three times, removed the wire, clipped limbs, and it was coming along very nicely now. Twenty centimeters tall, a nice sweep. Semi-cascade, partially-windswept, single-trunk, exposed roots out of a nice bed of fine moss. There was a dead stub of a limb that could have been lightning blasted, bleached a little to give it that aged, gray color.

This kind of shrub made a good choice for bonsai, the foliage looked proportionate to the branches. It wasn’t his best tree -- he had a rock-growth California Juniper that was nearly a hundred years old, and a Bristlecone Pine that was all of sixteen centimeters high, at about forty years old, the prize of his collection -- but the San Jose had great potential. Although at his age, he might not live long enough to see it realized. He surely wouldn’t make it to see the Bristlecone do so -- it was one of the slowest-growing trees, and the longest lived. Oldest living thing on the planet was a Bristlecone pine.

Some days, he felt that old himself ...

Khadra came out of the house through the bedroom’s French doors, carrying two glasses of iced tea.

Hull stood, his knees creaking again, and took one of the glasses she offered him. The tea was strong, a slice of lemon in it, no sugar. He took a long sip. Going to be hot out here today.

You going to worry all morning over that branch?

He smiled. Probably.

Just snip it off.

He shrugged. Drank more tea.

Or don’t snip it off. But kneeling there staring at it isn’t going to help your meniscus get better.

Hull nodded. Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then.

She laughed. You just call me a blind pig, Hull?

No, ma’am. I was just making uh, you know, a general observation. Sometimes, the Texas drawl crept back into his voice on its own; mostly these days, only when he encouraged it, like now. Texas had been long ago and far away -- a million miles and million years ...

She shook her head. Sipped at her tea. Smiled.

She was fine-looking woman. A year older than he was, her short hair gone steel gray now, though it had once been as dark as a crow’s breast. The smile wrinkles only added to her character. Gravity had been kind to her. At least both her knees still worked fine. He’d had to have arthroscopic surgery on his right one only a couple weeks back. Half the medial meniscus had been shredded. The surgeon had removed the damaged part, told him he had great joints for a man his age, except for the bad one, and offered that he’d get back 90-95% of what he’d had in the knee, probably, in a few months. Might be a numb patch on the lateral side for a while. Or maybe forever ...

Just another of a long list of insults to his body from the years. The nature of an active life. Amazing that he was still here -- he’d never really thought he’d survive long enough to retire. It was the old joke -- If he’d known he was going to live this long, he’d have taken better care of himself ...

Hull still carried the cane, a stockman’s heavy and thick hickory stick, sanded smooth, even though he didn’t need it. It made a good backup and a good disguise. It was laying on the lid of the hot tub. He set his tea down next to it, stretched his back.

Speaking of observation, she said.

They still out there?

Last time I looked.

You get a feel for them?

Black Cadillac SUV? Who does that sound like?

I think maybe I’ll walk over to the Safeway and get a newspaper, he said.

Better than wasting your life staring at a scraggly shrub, she said.

They both smiled.

#

Hull was not so much worried as irritated. He had been living on borrowed time since 1966 as he reckoned it, when a Viet Cong’s AK-47 had chambered a dud. Great weapon, but even that wouldn’t cook off a dud. The shooter had already killed two of the team, and would have killed Hull, too, he’d been five meters away and behind them, but that misfire’s click! had given Hull enough time to finish his turn, and his M14 had worked just fine. Borrowed time, from some soldier who didn’t make it.

More like from a bunch of soldiers who didn’t make it.

For a long time, Hull had kept the dud round as a souvenir. He’d lost it in swamp in Louisiana fifteen or so years ago, fallen out of his jacket pocket while slogging through knee-deep mire. Hull had gotten tangled in a cypress knee and stumbled, and that’s where the round still was, he figured. Not worth going back to look for, that was for sure.

The Safeway was only a couple of blocks away, and even though he could read The Oregonian online via his computer, he still liked to get the print version. Probably wouldn’t be around in that form much longer, given the way the newspaper business had been going the last couple of years, might as well enjoy it while it lasted. Time soldiered on, and as always, left a lot of casualties in its wake. Kindle and IPad Slay Paper Books! Craig’s List Kills Classified ads! Details at eleven ...

He marked the black Caddy Escalade SUV as he crossed the street in front of the house. He didn’t look at it any longer than he would checking to see if there was oncoming traffic, a natural move. The glare on the windshield would have blocked his view, but his sun glasses were polarized, and he could make out two men sitting in the front seat. Half a block away, he couldn’t tell who they were, but like Khadra had said, it looked like The Department. They never rode cheap unless they had to, to fit in.

Eleven years gone. What could they want now?

He remembered when he had been approached the first time, what? almost four decades ago. The Department? The Department of what? And how Jefferson -- dead fifteen years -- had smiled enigmatically and shaken his head, not answering.

Hull had just gotten back from Vietnam, third tour, a bad-ass soldier who thought he knew which way the wind blew. Young -- no point in even attaching stupid to that, it would have been redundant. They had recruited him hard. Must have seen something even he hadn’t known about himself then. They had that knack. He learned it himself, eventually. Killers were born, not made. You could train one to be better at it, but if he didn’t have it in him to pull a trigger? Wasting your time. After a time, you got to where you could tell, sometimes almost instantly. This guy would drop the hammer. That one wouldn’t.

He knew he could shoot people in the heat of battle, he had done plenty of it. Coldly, as an assassin? He hadn’t really thought about that. But they had known.

Welcome to The Department, Hull. Let us show you some things ...

He walked to the corner and made the turn.

Yeah, the Caddy was a gimme. They wanted him to know they were there -- and who they were, so he wouldn’t get spooked and maybe do something dangerous. A decent op trying to stay sub rosa from elsewhere might have used a six-year-old Toyota and parked it in somebody’s driveway instead of the street. He or Khadra would have spotted that, too, they knew all the cars that belonged to all the houses on their street for three blocks, and most of those driven by regular visitors. The D might have gone down some, but the old timers would have known that Hull and Khadra would spot them. No, if the D was really trying to watch him without being noticed, they’d have gotten time on a spysat and footprinted him from orbit, and taken over somebody’s house and watched through a narrow opening in the curtains. They would not have given him anything to see, that would have been careless.

Working for the D, careless got you killed.

He made it to the light, leaned on his cane a little, just in case there was another team watching he hadn’t made yet. Always give them a chance to underestimate you when you could. He stepped off into the crosswalk at the signal and walked slowly, barely made it before the light changed.

Oh, lookit, feeble old cripple can hardly even walk.

A good, experienced op wouldn’t make that an automatic assumption, but all ops weren’t good or experienced.

At the Safeway, he bought a newspaper, folded it and tucked it under his arm. He wandered up and down the aisles for a couple minutes, as if looking for something.

Nobody in the store rang any alarms.

He headed home.

Yeah, it was gonna be a hot one. Maybe in more ways than one.

The Caddy was where he left it.

Inside, Khadra was washing the lunch dishes. Heating up pretty good, she said.

Ninety-four today, the weather guy said, Hull allowed.

See anybody else? She was not happy about it, either. Nothing about it could mean good news for them.

Just the Caddy.

What do you think? Should we make a call?

"And sound like a couple of whiny old farts seeing things? Lot of black