Second Skin (65 page)

‘Ah, I see it in your face, the knife thrust has been felt.’ Mick switched off the tape recorder and knelt down in front of Nicholas’s face. ‘But I want you to know something – and it is the most important
thing
in this little construct of mine: What I do here to you – to those you love, to everything you have spent so many years building, – I do not because of what happened between our fathers.’ He gestured as if waving to an unseen crowd. ‘Let their ghosts, whatever hell they may inhabit, continue their enmity on their own terms. I refuse to be bound by what went on before me. I am a deconstructionist, after all. I repudiate the past.’ He made a slow fist. ‘I use history for my own ends, I correctly interpret what went before, torching to ash the so-called
facts
cited by the cabal of criminals who seditiously call themselves
historians.
Sedition, certainly, because their lies serve to undercut the transformation of mankind.’

Mick’s head tilted back and his features rose into the wan light like a dark and dangerous sea creature disturbing the surface for the first time. ‘We are, after all, merely heralds, imprecisely marked dice cast in the great game of chance by Zeus, Jove, Odin, whatever name you wish to put to Heraclitus’s divine child. We, too, are children of the great philosopher Heraclitus, Nicky boy, because we know what he did: that change and strife are the natural order of the universe.’

Mick’s head whipped forward as his lips pulled back from shining teeth. ‘I cannot – I will not – seek revenge for what Colonel Linnear did to my father because that would require a conscience, and the plain fact is I have none. The social compact, Nicky boy, so revered by civilization, is the single worst transformation human beings were ever forced to undergo. I would willingly submit myself to the fictionalized “horrors” of a concentration camp, so ubiquitously and falsely disseminated – if anything like them had ever existed – rather than give up the best part of my humanity to society.

‘To become a sociable and pacific creature is like asking a fish to adapt to the land. What you have taken away is the very
essence,
the primordial ichor gifted us by the gods. Nietzsche taught me this: we once were happily adapted to an existence closest to godliness – we roamed free in the primordial wilderness, we went to war and gorged ourselves on adventure and conflict.’

Mick peered into Nicholas’s drug-fogged eyes. ‘All these things, you understand, were in our innate nature – they were instinctual. And what did the social contract do? It instantly said, “Fuck you,” to those instincts, branding them evil, shameful, insane. The social contract not only castrated man, but forced him into a straitjacket. But here’s the thing, the very essence of the deed: society could only muzzle our instincts; it could not kill them.’

He wiped his hands on his trousers as he stood up. ‘So began the subtle game of sublimation, of small covert satisfactions, venal and perverted, in place of the overt ones to which we were accustomed and to which we were entitled. But it got worse. Confinement and the lack of a constant supply of external enemies turned man in upon himself, persecuting, terrorizing himself. There is, I am sure you are aware, having lived in Japan for so long, a peculiar kind of violence that builds up in humans who are heavily repressed. And when at last it is released, it is terrible, awesome to behold. This is what happened. Bereft of his natural hunting grounds, told that his natural predatory instincts were criminal, man went slowly mad.’ Mick’s arms swept out in a grand gesture, again as if he were surrounded by an audience. ‘You have only to look at the world to know what I say is the truth. Where should we look? Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Russia, Ukraine, Iraq, Haiti, Colombia, Italy, Germany, the United States. Shall I go on?’ He turned his head. ‘What would be the point? Hatred is running like poisoned blood all across the globe. Madness stalks us. Total, complete madness.’

Mick slipped on his push dagger. The Damascus blade was dark as night, filmed with a thin sheen of oil. He flexed the push dagger so the blade caught the light, showing its striations. ‘So, you see, here we are, the two of us, mirror images, the darkness and the light, sunshine and shadow.’ He cocked an ear at an imaginary response. ‘What, you say, good and evil?’ He shook his head sagely. ‘No, Nicky boy, that particular comparison’s meaningless. The two of us have transcended such notions. We have gone beyond good and evil into another realm entirely. For there to be good and evil we would have to hate one another, and we don’t, do we?’ He shrugged. ‘At least, I don’t hate you. God alone knows what you think of me.’ He laughed, a brutal, eerie sound bouncing off the walls like a hardball with a load of spin. ‘Not that it matters, because a portion of the essential paradigm is missing. We’re opposite but unequal, and d’you know why, Nicky boy?’

With his free hand, Mick grabbed Nicholas’s hair again, this time, yanked his head back and forth viciously. ‘Because you’re a Jew. Your father was dogged by this fatal flaw – in fact, I believe he hid it often enough – and so are you. Jeez, what were you thinking? You could get so oriental your skin turned yellow, but it wouldn’t be worth a damn. You can’t outrun heritage no matter how hard you try. So, you see, I
can’t
hate you because you’re inferior, too far beneath me to evoke such a strong emotion.’

Without another word, he turned on his heel, and crossing the room, he stood in front of Mikio Okami, staring up at him with opaque eyes. A curious stillness settled over him and something deep inside Nicholas’s drugged mind shouted.
No! You can’t!
Because Nicholas recognized this as the first stages of the shaman’s ritual. It was the summoning of power that would bring about an act of primeval magic.

Nicholas drove himself into a frenzy, willing himself to overcome the drug being pumped into him. He knew what was coming as surely as if he could see into the future. His mind was screaming for his body to react, but all he could manage was a soft tinkling of his chain.

Across the room, Mick was smiling gently. ‘It’s coming. You know it’s coming.’

Nicholas did. He had some experience with the Messulethe, the ancient psycho-mages; he had seen firsthand the grisly remains of Mick’s incantatory rituals.
Think!
Nicholas’s mind screamed.
It’s just like walking. Put one thought in front of the other.
From the symptoms, he had begun to zero in on what the drug was. It was a nerve toxin as well as a vascular inhibitor. Given that it was being administered by Mick Leonforte, the chances were good it was Banh Tom venom, the same toxin used on Kappa Watanabe. He knew how to hypermetabolize its chemical constituents because he had done it with Watanabe and had saved his life, but this was an altogether different situation. He was held virtually spellbound by the slow drip of the poison into his bloodstream.

All the same, he had to try. Mentally gritting his teeth, he began the hypermetabolic process, but he was so slowed down by the drug the chemical changes had little or no effect.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere in the room had turned dank and dark, as if swirls of black mist were crawling up the walls, whorling into the wan light, turning it as ashy gray as a shroud.

‘It comes!’

Mick’s cry was a howl of triumph, of the wolf pouncing upon the exposed underbelly of the deer.

No!

All at once, Mick was in motion. His daggered fist drove forward, and the dark blade of Damascus steel plunged to its guard into Mikio Okami’s chest. There was a rending as of a soul in torment or a door too long shut being pried open. The offal stench of the abattoir arose like a miasma, and blood, dark as oil, began to flood the room.

Out on the high seas Caesare Leonforte was a different person. Like a shark returned to open water, his movements were connected to a deeper, one might even say more primeval, imperative. Seeing him drive the sleek Cigarette, consulting charts, navigating surely and deftly, legs spread and slightly flexed against the pitch and roll, Vesper had the feeling he had left all his cares behind him.

At least, this is what she would have thought if Caesare had been any other person. But he was not. Over the course of days and nights with him she had come to know him better, perhaps, than she had ever wanted to. The fact was, Caesare had no cares. Not a one. He had no loyalty, he cared about nothing and no one but himself. If there had ever been in him the human capacity to love, it had been squeezed out of him by circumstance and his studiedly perverse nature. He despised his father while yearning to emulate him; he was openly contemptuous of his sister, Jaqui, while in some way needing her approval. He was a seething mass of contradictions that, far from canceling one another out, were perpetually at war. That made for a volatile and unpredictable mix.

‘Fucking feds,’ he said as he drove the Cigarette toward its inevitable rendezvous with Coast Guard cutter CGM 1176. ‘Alla time on my ass. I thought I had ’em buffaloed, thought I had ’em in my back pocket. But the feds have more heads than a fucking Hydra.’ He spoke quietly, fiercely, as if talking to himself. Vesper, standing just behind the wind – and spray-whipped cowling, wondered if he was aware of her presence. ‘Gotta regroup, gotta call in the favors, pull the strings, set ’em to dancing my tune again.’

Vesper shaded her eyes. In the distance, she could see a Coast Guard cutter. It seemed to be lying still on the ocean, idling its engines. Caesare saw it, too, because he changed course to port, heading toward it. He came down off of plane, ran on another hundred yards or so and cut the engines. He directed Vesper to drop anchor and she activated the electronic winch. With a soft plash, the anchor slipped out of its resting place forward. The Coast Guard cutter was near enough for Vesper to make out its designation: CGM 1176. The boat Milo captained. She could hear the throaty gurgle of its diesels, and with a puff of blue smoke from its stern, the cutter headed slowly toward them.

They boarded it without incident and Milo ordered the cutter to reverse engines. Caesare did not acknowledge Milo’s presence at all, except to say, ‘Things are fucked back at the house. We won’t be coming back to the Cigarette.’

Milo nodded. He looked trim as a greyhound ready to race in his crisp white uniform and close-clipped beard. His eyes strayed momentarily to Vesper’s as if searching for further explanation. She smiled at him, and while Caesare went aft to check on the arms shipment they would exchange for the cocaine, she slipped into the cabin near Milo.

‘What the hell’s up with him?’ Milo asked out of the corner of his mouth. Up close you could see a fine webwork of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth. As usual, his eyes were hidden behind reflective sunglasses.

‘Feds raided the compound,’ she said softly. ‘Came in by armored copter. They threw the whole nine yards at us. We escaped by a hair’s-breadth.’

Milo’s thin lips went even thinner, which, for him, connoted grave concern. ‘I better talk to him. The pipeline could be in jeopardy.’ But he stopped as Vesper put a hand on his arm.

‘I wouldn’t go anywhere near him right now if I were you. He’ll take your head clear off.’

‘I hear ya.’ Milo paused to give a course correction to the pilot. Then he nodded to Vesper and she followed him to a more private part of the cockpit. ‘Listen,’ he hissed, putting his face close to hers, ‘I got my whole career – shit, what am I saying? My entire
life
wrapped up in this operation.’

‘The arms pipeline into DARPA, you mean?’ She was talking about the highly secret government advanced weapons project from which Caesare was diverting product to sell to the highest bidder overseas.

‘Yeah, yeah.’ He looked at her and sneered. ‘You think I’d waste my time with cocaine smuggling? No fucking way, man. Too many Latino types wound tighter than a duck’s ass on machismo. They’d blow an Anglo away as soon as look at you. No, I got into this for the weapons. Hobby of mine, you know.’

Vesper didn’t but she made approving noises.

‘Anyway,’ Milo said, licking his lips, ‘I gotta stake inna pipeline. A
big
stake, know what I mean? Shit, it’s my contacts that got the big guy inta it in the first place, so I get a cut of all the action. I’m a player, see, not a fucking mule, and now that the shit’s come down I don’t want any of it sticking to me.’

‘In other words, you want denial of accountability.’

She could see the squint lines around Milo’s eyes deepen. ‘I want to smell clean all the way through this, that’s what I fucking want.’

She could sense how frightened he was, a man on the fringe of lawlessness, loving his job, but having gotten bored maybe, wanting something more, and being given a chance at it, had jumped without looking how far down he could fall. He’d said it himself – he was a player not a mule. That’s what Milo had wanted all along, but now that the shit had hit the fan, he wasn’t prepared.

‘Don’t do the crime if you can’t serve the time.’

Milo jumped as if he’d come in contact with an electric current. ‘What the fuck? I’m not serving any time.’

‘I can arrange that.’

‘Yeah? Who the fuck are you, the queen of fucking Sheba?’

‘I’m the one who can provide you with a denial of accountability.’ She looked at him. ‘You
do
want to save your own ass, right, Milo?’

She could hear his exhalation of breath, and his head moved so that even without being able to see his eyes, she knew he was looking at Caesare. She knew he was going to jump ship even before he said it. Why not? Caesare had no loyalty to his people, so when push came to shove, why should they be loyal to him?

‘If he knew...’

Milo was speaking of Caesare and she knew it. ‘He won’t. You leave him to me.’ She waited a beat. ‘Are you signed on?’

Milo moved his head again and sunlight flashed across his mirrored lenses. ‘I do no time. Is that solid?’

‘Guaranteed.’

Milo licked his lips and nodded.

Vesper had decided to pump him right then and there for the details of how they had penetrated the government safeguards when Caesare called her aft. She went with the obedience of a dog without even a glance at Milo.