Sins of the Reaper - 12

During the past week time seemed to slow almost to a stop, tragically reminiscent of the years spent suspended in my maker’s web, Marlowe’s failure to return filling each successive moment with greater angst. Will Dante kill Jon if he can’t turn him? or will Jon simply slip off the grid into the mists that have long cloaked him? Either could happen and I’d never be the wiser.

But as the door to the chamber slowly opens, I know that Marlowe has finally returned, a wave of relief flooding my consciousness, a shaft of light briefly violating the quiet darkness. Sitting in the chair occupied only two weeks before by the Jonny, Marlow peers motionless into the gloom, his lower lip trembling with the words he needs to speak and yet fears to utter even within the safety of the chamber.

“Does Dante know you are here?”

“Dante,” he laughs disquietedly, "It hardly matters now." But with a deep sigh he surrenders the impetus of speech a second time, the silence only broken by his now heavy breathing.

My own lips quivering, I helplessly whisper, "Does Jon still live?"

"I honestly don't know," he answers hoarsely. "I don't know anything anymore."

The terror in his voice reminds me of a day a half a lifetime ago, when I felt those same emotions in the Lacandón jungle as we stood around the bloodied and battered Chiclero.

He doesn't know. That at least is reassuring.

We sit together in sympathetic silence for several minutes till Marlowe's breathing begins to calm and an exhalation of breath announces his readiness to speak.

"Dante had known for almost a week where Shaytan was hiding," Marlowe says quietly, his nervousness slurring his words a little. "But somehow the agents dispatched to bring him in came back empty handed.

“Yesterday, Dante summoned me to his office. ‘I’m going into the field,’ he told me with a grim smile, ‘Shaytan is waiting for me there.’ Of course there was no talking him out of it. He really believed he had deduced Jon's motivation for lingering, and decided it was worth the risk to try and find him himself. Even so, he brought sufficient firepower with us to start a small war.

“The helicopters landed on a ring of barren hilltops surrounding a grassy ravine where a company drone indicated Shaytan’s heat signature shone brightly. But seeing the ground in person rather than on the targeting screen came as something of a shock. He could not have chosen a less defensible location to hide.

"Dante positioned snipers on three separate hillsides that could easily triangulate between them the entirety of the valley, before walking slowly down the hillside with a half dozen other agents. But once we found ourselves in the grassy ravine, it was easy to see we had not brought enough men to thoroughly search it.

"Dante had no intention of searching it, however. He confidently walked to the part of the ravine where the grass was the tallest and abruptly halted. In a conversational voice he said. “Good morning, Jon,” and Shaytan suddenly was standing in our midst as if he had strolled down the hillside with us.

“Blinking in the bright sunlight as if he had just awoken, he casually looked down at his chest as if expecting the red dot shakily moving there before returning his frowning gaze to us, his left index finger touching the dot before his hand moved deliberately away, his fingers spreading like a tiny explosion.

“But Dante acted as if he had not noticed his ironic pantomime, asking softly instead ‘Do you remember me, Jon?’

“Shaytan stared at him for several seconds as if straining consciousness for recognition. ‘Why am I still here?’ he finally asked in a flat voice, something in the cast of his steady eyes raising the hair on the back of my neck.

“Dante looked puzzled, his face a mask of pretended concern. ‘Why are you here, Jon?’

“But instead of answering, he elaborately pulled back the sleeve covering his left arm and then his right as if a magician demonstrating his proficiency at sleight of hand. Dramatically turning his right hand a card suddenly appeared in his palm. ‘I have one of the Reaper’s old calling cards,” he smiled tightly as he tried to pass the card to Dante.

“But Dante made no move to take it from him, his eyes coldly observing Shaytan through the scarred mask of his face. ‘Do you remember me, Jon?’

“Shaytan sighed with irritation. Instead of answering, he dropped the card, his eyes following it sadly as it fluttered into the tall grass and disappeared. ‘I’m looking for someone – a man, a corporation, a nation – someone or something who still wants to kill me,’ he finally asked. ‘Are you that man? Do you speak for that corporation or that nation?’

Dante’s eyes widened in what appeared to be genuine surprise, his questioning gaze turning briefly to me. Finally, he answered – ’I was under the impression you were looking for a woman.’

“’I already found her,’ he replied with a blank look, I’m looking for the person who sent this young man to kill me.’

His finger pointed at me as he stared at his interlocutor, but Dante only responded, ‘I’m not the man you are looking for,’ his face so sad that I almost believed him myself.

“Shaytan wasn’t having any of it, asking with sudden exasperation, ’Why am I still alive? I couldn’t have made it any easier for you. I haven’t moved from this spot for a whole week. This valley still has unexploded ordinance from artillery training the U.S. Army conducted in the mid-forties. There is not a building within two miles of here and almost never any people outside of hunting season. If you should know anything about me at all its that I can’t dodge bombs. Why am I still alive?’

“’I’m not here to hurt you, Jon … I’m here to help you.’

“’Is that why you brought a small army with you … to help me? Is that why three snipers have had me in their sights since the moment we began talking?

“’After the explosion why didn’t you finish the job?’ he asked with sudden emotion. ‘I was in a hospital for five goddamned months! You couldn’t spare a bullet to put me out of my misery?’

“’Why am I still alive?!’ he abruptly shouted, thunder suddenly crackling in the clear skies above us. Almost everyone in the group flinched at the bolt save for Shaytan, the eyes that had blinked defensively in the sun when he first appeared now dark and terrifying pools, his face gradually draining of color as he became more and more enraged.

His eyes turning toward the red dot shakily moving about his chest, his right hand darted toward it so rapidly I almost did not see his arm moving, the laser signature seemingly captured by his hand. With his left he reached casually for his forehead, knocking the red dot into his open right. I swear I saw it drop with my own eyes! Lastly, he reached behind his head with his left before holding both of his fists toward Dante.

“I’m giving you one last opportunity to kill me,” he said grimly, but this time it will cost you more than a few bullets or a 2,000-pound bomb. My life for three of yours. Would you like to pick them, or should I?”

But Dante did not answer, his eyes narrowing even as mine gazed in horror. Shaytan shrugged and pantomimed with his fists as if casting the hidden laser signatures into the air above us. The agent to the left of Dante flinched and pulled his Glock from his holster as Dante barked “Put that away!”

Shaytan just grinned and cried out – “And we have our first volunteer!”

“Fuck this!” The agent yelled as he leveled his gun at Shaytan’s middle and a sniper bullet hit him behind his ear, the blood from the impact splatting Dante on his right and two agents on his left.

“That’s a freebee”, Shaytan said, “pick two more and we’re almost done.” Tension positively crackled in the group, the agents who had reacted to the shot by reaching for their pistols now slowly drew their empty hands carefully from their coats.

“I’m not going to wait here forever. There are eight of us here. Give the signal and five will remain. That's my price. It’s far cheaper than the 129 innocents who died in the Bethlehem market the first time the company ordered my death. The next time we meet the price will significantly increase.”

“Bea told me if we left you alone that you would leave us alone.”

“It looks like you’re off to a poor start then.”

“And if we leave now?

“'Then leave and the eight of us will live to see another day. But not the Reaper. You can tell him for me that his time is up. He's had thirty years and seven days to finish the job. But somehow,’ his voice suddenly roared, ‘that still was not enough time!’

As his voice echoed in the distance a lightning bolt lit the darkening sky with a near simultaneous crash of thunder that brought me to my knees, utter darkness falling as raging and grieving voices filled the heavy air around us. After that not even the lightning could penetrate the blackness of that terrifying ravine, the thunder booming almost continuously like the voice of God passing judgment on us all.”

And then Marlowe began to weep, his voice cracking as he cried out in agony, "I thought, this is the end, the day of judgement!" I could hear his shoulders shaking.

I circled my desk in my chair much as I had the last time he had visited and wrapped him in my arms. He clung to me for a long time as he sobbed helplessly into my shoulder.

Finally, he said quietly, "My family were holy rollers when I was growing up. Every Sunday at the end of the service the preacher did an altar call. But no matter how much my parents pleaded with me, I never went down to the altar to give my life to Jesus. I thought they were all lunatics and until yesterday I still did.

"But in that terrifying darkness," he whispered, his body trembling in my arms, "I heard the last trump and saw the sky split apart with a great and blinding light. I was sure that it would set the surrounding grass on fire and me with it.

"All I could think lying on the ground as I helplessly vacated my bowels and bladder, was 'Why didn't I confess my sins at the altar?'

I began to chuckle, and Marlowe giggled a little, the unexpected laughter finally beginning to calm him. He leaned back in his chair, and I rolled back to my desk.

"Honestly," he murmured, "I don't know what happened. But a woman spoke gently to me out of that light, saying "You will live." Lifting my head, I saw her standing with wings powerfully lifted, her features shining like snow on a sunny day. She was the light in the midst of that terrible darkness, but when she disappeared the skies were suddenly clear again.

"Did Dante live?" I whispered.

"Yes." He murmured. "But everyone who carried ammunition that day died. Even the snipers. And Shaytan was not among them. As if he had never been there at all."

"And the shooter?"

"The Reaper, but I'm guessing you already knew that."

"Expected it, yes. Knew it, no."

"Was he working with Shaytan all along?"

"No. He was making things right."

Now that he had told me what I longed to hear, I did not need to speak again. I warned Dante that the time for corrective action had almost passed. But I didn't tell him the only action needed was removing the company from the playing board. How ironic, I thought, that the Reaper did the heavy lifting to atone for his and the company's sins.

It is finished.

I felt my back go rigid as my last brainstorm began, my eyes rolling back into my head, my body helplessly quaking. I heard Marlowe stand up as if at a great distance, before his footfalls moved quickly round my desk. Taking me in his arms, I finally let it all go, my pulse weakening as I rested my head softly on his shoulder. Smiling, I imagined it was Jonny who held me in his arms as I watched two white swans swimming in elegant procession with their downy grey cygnets in....