The Deaths of Tao Read online

  He noted his sunken cheeks and the four-day fuzz on his chin. His black hair, cropped in a crooked faux hawk, was tangled and uneven. Satisfied, he parked the car, reached into the back seat for his cowboy hat, and stuffed his pistol into his jeans.

  He got out and circled around to the front. One thing about rural roadside bars off the highway in the middle of the Appalachians, the patrons were usually the same folks coming in and out, and there wasn’t a bouncer patting you down. That last part was especially important. Roen felt his knife sheath slide down his ankle. He’d have to poke a tighter hole soon. His new weight loss regime of eating only once a day must have reached his calves.

  He swung the door open and tipped his hat to Amy, the bartender. She was the hottest young thing within a hundred kilometers, which, truth be told, was probably a sample size of about a thousand and most of them men. He also suspected she was pushing forty.

  “Charlie,” she nodded. “A late night? We’re closing in a bit.”

  “Just a drink or three, ma’am,” he replied. “I’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”

  “No worries, cowboy,” she smirked.

  You know she does not believe you for a second…

  “I’m practicing for a time when I have to really pull it off.”

  When that time comes, let us hope your life is not depending on it.

  Roen wasn’t that oblivious. He knew she didn’t call him cowboy because she actually thought he was one. He tried his best to emulate the southern mountain dialect of the people here, but he sounded silly. Still, it amused the locals, and over the past year, they had grown to tolerate his presence. It was one thing to be a stranger, but it was another entirely to be one who tried to fit in. It’s those who didn’t try who tended to piss them off. Still, he was a novelty here even after a year and they often took turns playing guessing games trying to figure out what crime he was hiding from. The consensus was he was running from tax fraud.

  You really should just drop it.

  “When in Rome, Tao, when in Rome.”

  I lived in Rome for centuries. The last thing the Romans wanted was for the non-Romans to emulate them.

  There was an old sound system playing Buck Owens on cassette. Roen knew it was Buck Owens because the bar rotated the same four tapes every night, and he was berated extensively the first time he asked about this giant of American music. He actually thought Buck sounded a little flat but that could just be the tape after a million playbacks.

  Door in the back ajar. Garbage can blocking exit. Shotgun behind the bar. Two men at the far booth. Looks like Howie and his inseparable friend again.

  Chipmunk Voice was at the far end of the bar, where he usually sat with his eyes glued to the television, a rickety old tube set that still had dials. Roen half expected to find the television broken every time he came in, and marveled at that wonderful piece of American ingenuity. They really didn’t build them like that anymore.

  Raisin was sitting by himself at the booth closest to the door. He waved at Roen and beckoned him over. Roen averted his eyes and pretended not to notice the ancient man who smelled like he had been buried and recently dug up. Instead, he took a seat in the middle of the bar where he could keep an eye on both the entrance and the exit.

  “What’ll it be, handsome?” Amy said in her sandpaper voice. She called everyone handsome, but Roen secretly harbored the suspicion that she really meant it with him. “The same?”

  He nodded. “Wait,” he patted his pockets; it felt light. He had brought one of his fake identifications with him tonight and had forgotten to transfer his money. “Cutty,” he said dejectedly. “Neat. No, better make this one on the rocks.”

  Cutty gives you headaches.

  “So does not eating.”

  No, that just makes you grumpy.

  Amy brought over two glasses of brown liquid and slid one toward him. “Got your usual Glen. I’ll just put it on your tab, and this one too.” She winked. She thought she was doing him a kindness, but frankly, Roen would rather just get the Cutty than buy her a drink.

  He suppressed his sigh and raised the glass. “To the finest lady this side of the mountain.” They clinked and emptied their glasses.

  She brought the bottle out from the shelf and poured them both another drink. This was about to get expensive on his dime. “So what kept you so late from visiting me tonight, Charlie?” she asked, twirling the bottle in her hand.

  “Shooting a dozen guys trying to kill Jill” seemed like the wrong thing to say.

  Roen lifted the glass to her eye level and tipped his hat. “Had to check chemical levels at the plant.” The local industry in this region was chemical processing and it was common to carry odd hours. Usually, no one batted an eye at his alibis.

  Amy leaned in close, her finger running along the rim of the glass. “So what else you got planned tonight, muscles? This ol’ bottle and I are all by our lonesome.”

  Roen hesitated. On the one hand, she revolted him with her ashen face, yellow-stained teeth, and inane prattle. On the other hand, she did come with a free bottle...

  The door opened with a loud creak. “He’s already got plans,” a strong, clear voice butted in, the sound traveling all the way through the entire bar. Roen didn’t need to turn to know who it was. Instead, he took the bottle out of Amy’s hand, poured himself a double, and threw it down.

  Amy looked over lazily at the new voice and turned her back to it, pretending to be wiping the counter. “Sorry, honey, we’re closed.”

  “I’m not here for a drink,” Jill said as she took a seat next to him.

  “Get her one anyway. Tequila for the raging tempest,” Roen said.

  “I’m here to talk to this son of a bitch.” She swung a closed fist with a thumb extended out toward him.

  “Want me to get rid of her, handsome?” Amy asked. “Who is she anyway?”

  “She’s just some–” Roen said.

  “–wife,” Jill growled.

  And all the good will Roen had worked so hard to build here went up in a puff of smoke. Amy shot him a look that could kill a buffalo. “No good bastard swamp snake,” she hissed and poured Jill the shot of tequila. “Here you go, honey, this one’s on his tab.”

  Jill smiled sweetly at Amy, and the two shared a drink on Roen’s dime. The next hour went by awkwardly, the ladies lambasting him as if he weren’t there. When he shook his glass for another drink, Amy just shrugged and answered, “Pay your tab first, deadbeat,” and proceeded to pour Jill another shot.

  My advice is to run. I see no path to victory here.

  “Thanks, Genghis. At this rate, I might have to start washing dishes if I’m going to cover this tab.”

  Amy even walked Jill out of the bar when she closed shop, going as far as hugging her and telling her to “take care of yourself, sweetheart, and watch out for the snakes that slither back into your life, you pretty little thing.”

  And then Jill and Roen were standing alone on the deserted gravel lot of Buck’s Bar. They walked toward her car in silence. “She’s sweet,” Jill smirked. “Now I understand why you left me.”

  “I left you?” Roen’s voice shot up two octaves.

  Steady. Do the countdown.

  If Jill had been anyone else in the world, his fist of fury would be dropping bombs right now. Instead, he closed his eyes and counted down from fourteen, enunciating each syllable one by one. He used to count down from ten, but as the years went on and the situation worsened, a higher number became necessary. When he had calmed down, he opened his eyes slowly and studied her face. There were dark rings around her eyes and her usually straight brown hair was mussed up. Roen reached toward her and touched the cut on her cheek. “We need to get something on that, or it’ll scar. How are you?”

  She knocked his hand away. “I think what you meant to ask was how is our son?”

  “I’m not asking in the order of importance,” he ground his teeth. “How are you?”

  “Alive,” she
shrugged, “for now.”

  “How is Cameron? Does he miss his father?”

  “He doesn’t know his father!” Jill snapped.

  “I’m not the one who forbade visits,” he snapped back. “Might I–”

  Stop.

  “Tao, butt out.”

  Stop. Now. You dummies are quarreling in a parking lot at two in the morning off the side of a highway. You can go ahead and be stupid with each other, but at least have your shared idiocy some place safe where I am not endangered.

  Roen sighed. “Come on, Jill, it’s late. We’ve both been drinking. Let’s talk at my place.”

  She narrowed her eyes and her mouth curved upward. For a second, the old mischievous Jill he remembered was back. “Inviting me over? That’s a bold move. Daddy’s been asking where in Africa you Fedexed yourself to. Now I get to save him from needing vaccination shots.”

  “How are Louis and Lee Ann?” Roen asked. No doubt both her parents wanted to string him up and use him as a piñata. It was really too bad. Roen had spent an inordinate amount of effort to get on Louis’ good side. At first, Louis didn’t think he was good enough for Jill, but he softened when he saw the engagement ring. Then he hardened up two minutes later when he found out it was going to be a shotgun wedding. He didn’t soften again until Cameron was born.

  “Busy taking care of your son,” Jill replied, deflating. “I just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t take care of my own son with all that’s going on. I’m a terrible mother.”

  Roen saw a tear sneak out of the corner of her eye and roll down her face. He reached over to embrace her. She socked him in the shoulder. Roen bit his lip and held his hands up in surrender. At least she still hadn’t learned how to throw a punch yet, else this conversation might become painful.

  He was a bit uneasy about Jill’s parents taking care of Cameron, though. He knew that regardless of what happened between them, Jill would never badmouth him, but who knew what poison her parents, Louis especially, were whispering into his son’s ears. “How did you know I’d be at Buck’s anyway?” he asked

  “Because you’re always here after one of your watch-over-Jill escapades,” she shrugged. “Don’t think the Prophus haven’t kept an eye on you. You’re not as off the grid as you think you are.”

  She has a point. You have been maddeningly predictable lately.

  “On the subject of which, by the way,” she added, “who’s your mole in Command?”

  Roen shrugged, feigning innocence.

  “Who’s our leak?” she repeated, emphasizing each word. “Come on, your having access to mission tactics and playing shadow on some of my assignments means some jackass with misplaced loyalties is feeding you intel. Who’s the dunce?”

  “Not some of your assignments,” he grumbled. “All of them. I’ve watched your back on all twelve of those crap missions Command has sent you on over the past year.”

  “Fourteen,” she corrected.

  Roen shook his head. “Costa Rica doesn’t count. You didn’t even bring your gun. And I arranged for you to be watched in Paris. And a mole won’t be much of one if you knew, would it?”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “Sure you don’t,” he said gruffly. “You had tonight completely under control. Come on, my place isn’t far. Follow in your car. We can finish this conversation at a secure location.”

  Jill looked like she was about to protest but then thought better of it. Baji must have seen the wisdom of his proposal. It must have killed her to agree with him. A small victory. Baji barely ever conceded anything to him, and she was like this before Sonya died. It must be ten times worse now.

  They got into their cars and drove another six kilometers west deeper into the Appalachians, two lonely sets of headlights weaving through the darkened hills. Eventually, he pulled off the highway and traveled down a sloping gravel road to a dried up ravine. He parked under a small ledge that hid the car from the sky and got out. Moments later, Jill pulled up next to him.

  “Either you live in a tent, or you lured me here to murder me,” she mused, looking around.

  “After you, my lady,” Roen smirked as he gestured magnanimously at a crooked myrtle tree growing out of the slope.

  Jill rolled her eyes and peered underneath the tree. She whistled when she discovered a concrete tunnel burrowed into the ravine covered by a rusty gate. “When you said you were going underground, you really meant it,” she said, impressed. “Gone to live with your kind?”

  “Are you calling our son half-rat?” he teased.

  “My looks, my brains, thank God,” she answered.

  They passed through the gate and walked down the dark tunnel. Roen flicked a switch, and a series of dull yellow makeshift lights buzzed on one by one, illuminating a tunnel that continued on for a good fifty meters. They walked in silence for a ways, their footsteps making a series of dull thunks that echoed all around them.

  “How did you find this place?” she finally asked.

  Roen kicked a rock and watched it bounce around the circular tunnel. “When I left the Prophus, I needed a new supplier. A lead pointed me to Old Alex, a recluse selling illegal munitions. He was a doomsday prepper who bought this old nuclear missile silo back in the Eighties and turned it into one of those underground castles. What we’re passing through right now is the exhaust of Launch Pad 2.

  “The old man hated the government and thought the world was involved in one big conspiracy. Went on for hours about them coming to take his guns and his Bibles and his moonshine. Finally got busted trying to buy a Soviet tank. Died of lung cancer in prison. Guy never believed in hospitals. Thought they’d harvest his organs or something. Who’d want his dirty kidneys I’ll never know. He had no family and all his friends had four legs. When I found out he died, I moved in. Now I have a lifetime supply of munitions to play around with.”

  They reached the end of the tunnel where a large rust-stained door and a high-tech electronic keypad not unlike the ones on their safe houses barred their way. Roen muttered a phrase in front of a microphone and put his eye in front of the scanner. The door beeped and hissed open, and they entered what could only be described as his living room.

  It was a massive silo that spanned upward so far a person couldn’t see the ceiling. The room was filled with mismatched furniture; some looked like Roen had found it at a garage sale while others looked like pristine antiques. There was a couch that Jill swore was an authentic French colonial antique, and then a tacky coffee table made from carriage wheels. Three shelves of books lined one side of the circular room. There was also an air hockey table and a lifting bench on the far end. On the near side was a set of six LCD televisions stacked on top of each other.

  “Living out your Bruce Wayne dreams, I see,” she remarked. “It’s actually quite impressive. I spent the past two years imagining you were living it up on some beach in Panama surfing all day and hitting on the locals at night.”

  “That was the first six months,” he grinned. He gestured at the barren kitchen. “Mi casa es su casa.”

  “Anything respectable to drink or did you go native with the moonshine?” she asked.

  He took out a half bottle of bourbon and two glasses “Little low on ice,” he apologized as he poured her a glass and mixed it with water. “You’re staying for the night?”

  Jill shook her head. “I need to be back on the Hill in...” she checked her watch, “seven hours.”

  Roen took the glass away from her. “It’s a three-hour drive. Stay or you get water. Tao would probably like to have a few words with Baji.”

  “I’m not sure Baji feels the same way. Give me the drink. I’m a big girl.”

  Roen hesitated before handing the glass back to her. They had more pressing issues to fight about than her drinking habits. He sat down on the couch opposite her and leaned forward. “So how is our Cameron?”

  “Sprouting like a weed. Throwing kicks and punches better at three than his daddy at thirty.” Jill offered t
he first sincere smile he’d seen all night. For a few minutes, they forgot about their past and fell into the world of their son. Roen was briefly overcome by guilt and pain as she detailed Cameron’s first time on a bike with training wheels. For a few moments, their problems over the past two years were put on hold and they were a family again, sharing proud pictures of their son.

  An hour later, she was still regaling him with the latest adventures of three year-old Cameron. It had gotten late and both of them were exhausted, barely able to keep their eyes open. They huddled close together. Roen could smell the faint aroma of smoke, blood, and alcohol over her. It made him even more protective as he held her gently.

  “You did this on purpose,” she murmured sleepily. “I need to get back to Washington.”

  Roen mumbled something incomprehensible as he wrapped his arm over her shoulder and closed his eyes. And for that brief moment, they were a couple again.

  THREE

  BAJI AND TAO

  The ship burned up entering Earth’s atmosphere, breaking into several pieces that rained death across the face of the planet. It had been bred to harden its membrane when exposed to the high heat of atmospheric entry. It was the only thing that saved us from complete annihilation.

  The bulk of our people were vaporized with the main portion of the ship when it crashed into the ocean. Several hundred thousand of us survived in the fragments that were scattered across the Earth. I was in a section of the ship that crashed into the depths of what is now known as Africa.

  Tao

  “Hello, Baji.”

  Jill’s eyes fluttered open and focused on Roen looking down at her. She pulled away from him and moved to the other end of the couch, a twisted look of anger on her face. “What do you want, Tao?”

  Tao, through Roen, leaned forward. “Right now, I want to talk to my old friend. How are you?”