some few men to greatness.
God DAMN, but Jon loved that stuff!
OCS. Airborne, Ranger, Special Forces, Delta. Delta was a bitch, but everything else had been pretty easy. High-speed assault. Explosive entry. Hostage rescue. Jon ate it up. Loved being a soldier, loved the company of like-minded men, loved the noise and the skills and the crazy wild-ass adventure lesser men feared.
Lesser.
Men.
Made Jon smile, even now, gazing out over his city.
Thirteen years in service, the last four with Delta, and Jon had gone private. Time to see and do something else. Get a little diversity in his life. Jon had been married six times. Long-term commitments weren’t high on his list. He loved having a mission, and completing that mission, and if he got to kick a little ass along the way and make a few bucks, so be it. If things got hairy and his pulse spooled up, it was better than getting clogged arteries.
Now, eighteen hours off the plane from Afghanistan, and Jon was already thinking about what would come next, there on his deck as the city twinkled and his slug-butt neighbors slept.
His phone vibrated. A faraway buzz on the tile beneath the chaise lounge.
Stone checked the Caller ID, recognized Pike’s number, and immediately answered. Jon had booked Joe Pike in the past, and had worked with him, too. Jon could book Pike at two thousand a day, twenty G minimum, up front and guaranteed. Special assignments, the sky had no limit. And Pike was very, very special.
“Let’s go make some money, bro. I’m smellin’ green.”
Pike’s low voice came back.
“You speak Korean, right?”
“ Juh nun han gook mal ul mae woo jal hap ni da, moo aht ul al go ship eu sae yo? ”
Jon saying he spoke Korean perfectly, and asking what Pike wanted to know.
“How about Korean organized crime?”
Jon had spent time in both South and North Korea, and could read Hangul, the modern Korean script. But coming out of the blue like this, the question made Jon wary.
“Depends. Here or in Korea?”
“I’m watching a place on Olympic. The people I’m on could be OC.”
Stone tried to sound noncommittal. He knew Koreatown well. Liked the women. Liked karaoke. The Koreans were big on noraebang.
“I might know something. I’d have to see.”
“You know something or not?”
“Maybe.”
“You good with Arabic?”
Bam! Out of left field, and now Stone was smiling. There were many Arabic dialects, from Moroccan Arabic with Berber words which often did not even sound Arabic, to the aristocratic Arabic spoken by the Saudi royal family, which was different from the Arabic spoken in the streets.
“ enta bethahraf aina be naifham kuiais. eish auzanee le olak bel logha arabeia. ”
Jon answered in street Arabic, saying Pike already knew he was fluent, and asking what he wanted translated.
Jon Stone was fluent in English, Arabic, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, and French. He could get by in Farsi, Japanese, German, and three different African dialects. He had studied only English and French in school.
Pike said, “Copy the address. Come down and see.”
“I didn’t hear a ka-ching.”
“Come down.”
“I’ve been away, man, c’mon.”
Pike didn’t respond, and Stone knew Pike was waiting him out.
“Twenty of the last twenty-one. I still smell like camels.”
“You miss it already.”
Stone stared at the faint eastern light and admitted Pike had him. Eighteen hours at home, and he already wanted to go.
“What about the money?”
“No money. It’s Cole.”
“That lame-ass turd works for shit. Why you waste your time with that guy?”
“If you can’t help, you’re gone. I’ll owe you a favor.”
Now Stone perked up. Pike’s favors meant money. He made a big deal of sighing, as if doing it was some monstrous pain in the ass, but he was already committed.
“Okay. All right. Where are you?”
Pike gave him an address.
Stone didn’t bother writing it because he would not forget it. Jon Stone never forgot anything, and never had. He could still recite junior high textbooks, operating and maintenance manuals for the M249 SAW light machine gun and twenty-seven other personal weapons systems, and both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child. Every word. Every word of every document, book, newspaper, and article he had ever read. School had been easy. Delta had been hard. Jon liked it hard.
“Be there in thirty.”
Stone placed his phone back on his belly. Far to the south, a line of bright lights descended toward LAX. Eighteen hours ago, he was strapped inside one of the lights.
Jon cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted as loudly as he could.
“KISS MY ASSSSSS!”
Far in the canyon below, another voice answered.
“Shut the fuck up, asshole!”
Jon Stone laughed, naked there in his backyard overlooking a golden city, then went inside to dress for the day.
Part 2
Elvis Cole: three days before he is taken
21
Thomas Locano phoned me at six the next morning, so early the canyon behind my house still held the fading threads of yesterday’s fog. I had slept on the couch.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you so quickly. Is everything all right?”
“My apologies for the hour, but I told you I might phone early.”
“Yes, sir, you did. This isn’t a problem.”
“Can you meet me in Echo Park by seven?”
I rolled off the couch, and went to the kitchen. This black cat who lives with me was waiting by his dish, but he wasn’t waiting for me to feed him. He had brought his own. A fourteen-inch piece of king snake was on the floor by the bowl. It was still twitching. Maybe he wanted to share.
I said, “You found something about the Syrian?”
“I found someone who knows of this man. We will see him together if you will meet me, but it has to be now. He has other obligations.”
I took the snake outside and dropped it over the rail. The cat let out a long, low war growl, then slipped off
