Rainfall

“Yeah,” I told him.

“So do it.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’ve got no way out. They’re going to vaporize my people otherwise, I know that. And I’d rather it be you than some guy I don’t know, dropping a seven hundred and fifty-pound bomb from thirty-thousand feet up. You’re my blood brother, man.”

I still didn’t say anything.

“I love these people,” he said. “I really love them. Do you know how many of them have died for me? Because they know I would die for them.”

These were not just words. It’s hard for a civilian to understand the depth of trust, the depth of love, that can develop between men in combat.

“My Yards won’t be happy with you. They really love me, the crazy fucks. Think I’m a magic man. But you’re pretty slippery. You’ll get away.”

“I just want to go home,” I said.

He laughed. “There’s no home for us, John. Not after what we’ve done. It doesn’t work that way. Here.” He handed me a side arm. “Don’t worry about me. Save my Yards.”

I thought of the recruiter, the one who’d given us twenty bucks to pay some woman to sign us into the army as our mother.

“Save my Yards,” Jimmy said again.

I thought of Deirdre saying, Watch out for Jimmy, okay?

He picked up a CAR-15, a submachine gun version of the ubiquitous M-16 with a folding stock and shortened barrel, and popped in a magazine. Clicked off the safety so I could see him do it.

“C’mon, John John. I’m not going to keep asking so nicely.”

I remembered him putting out his hand after I had fought him to a standstill, saying You’re all right. What’s your name?

John Rain, fuckface, I had answered, and we had fought again.

The CAR-15 was swinging toward me.

I thought of the swimming hole near Dryden, how you had to just forget about everything else and jump.

“Last chance,” Jimmy was saying. “Last chance.”

Do what we’re asking and you’ve got a ticket home.

There’s no home for us, John. Not after what we’ve done.

I raised the pistol quickly, smoothly, chest level, double-tapping the trigger in the same motion. The two slugs slammed through his chest and blew out his back. Jimmy was dead before he hit the floor.

Two Yards burst into Jimmy’s hooch but I had already picked up the CAR. I cut them down and ran.

Their security was outward facing. They weren’t well prepared to stop someone going from the inside out. And they were shocked, demoralized, at losing Jimmy.

I took some shrapnel from an exploding claymore. The wounds were minor, but back at base they told me, “Okay, soldier, that’s your million-dollar wound. You’re going home now.” They put me on a plane, and seventy-two hours later I was back in Dryden.

The body came back two days later. There was a funeral. Jimmy’s parents were crying, Deirdre was crying. “Oh God, John, I knew, I knew he wasn’t going to make it back. Oh God,” she was saying.

Everyone wanted to know how Jimmy had died. I told them he died in a firefight. That was all I knew. Near the border.

I left town a day later. Didn’t say good-bye to any of them. Jimmy was right, there was no home after what we had done. “After such knowledge, what forgiveness?” I think some poet said.

I tell myself it’s karma, the great wheels of the universe grinding on. A lifetime ago I killed my girl’s brother. Now I take out a guy, next thing I know I’m involved with his daughter. If it were happening to someone else, I’d think it was funny.

I had called the Imperial before the meeting with Tatsu and made a reservation. I keep a few things stored at the hotel in case of a rainy day: a couple of suits, identity papers, currency, concealed weapons. The hotel people think I’m an expat Japanese who visits Japan frequently, and I pay them to keep my things so I don’t have to carry them back and forth every time I travel. I even stay there periodically to back up the story.

The Imperial is centrally located and has a great bar. More important, it’s big enough to be as anonymous as a love hotel, if you know how to play it.

I had just reached Hibiya Station on the Hibiya line when my pager went off. I pulled it from my belt and saw a number I didn’t recognize, but followed by the 5-5-5 that told me it was Tatsu.

I found a pay phone and input the number. The other side picked up on the first ring. “Secure line?” Tatsu’s voice asked.

“Secure enough.”

“The two visitors are leaving Narita at oh-nine-hundred tomorrow. It’s a ninety-minute ride to where they’re going. Our man might get there before them, though, so you’ll need to be in position early, just outside.”

“Okay. The package?”