I have a job to do. I’ve already been partly paid to do it. I’ve already cashed the check, as it were. And here is the reality: if I decline, he’ll still end up just as dead. It might delay things by a week or so, maybe not even that. I’m not the only hired gun around. Thinking that makes me realize something: they’d brought me a long way and from another country to do this hit. There is a reason for that. Who is this guy?
Some simple Googling brings results right away, but none that answer the question. He’d designed a Sterling engine that purified water based on a proprietary system that utilized graphene. A by-product of the purification system had been a graphene-based fuel cell that was thinner and lighter by far than any other. That had been nearly a decade ago. He is now at the head of a company that develops and implements new solutions for both of those things: water purification and alternate fuel sources. The company has been successful enough that he also heads a large nonprofit that does good work in third-world countries cleaning water and providing power. He is a good and successful guy with a social conscience and the ability to do something about it. Nothing I read about him makes me like him less. And someone wants him dead.
On the surface, there is no one obvious who might be responsible. At least, it is not obvious to me. His is a private company, so no possible takeover plans could be afoot. No enemies that I am aware of. But experience has shown me that you can never tell what it looks like inside someone else’s life.
I give some thought to sending a text, beginning a sequence, in order to find out who bought the hit, but I know even as I have this thought that it is a useless avenue. A network like the one I am part of didn’t get and stay successful by giving up sensitive information like that. It strikes me that even asking about it might put both him and my livelihood in jeopardy. Maybe even my life.
I consider my options. I can do the job I have come to do. If I do that, I will know it is tidily and properly done and he didn’t suffer. I will be humane. Not everyone in my business always is. Or I can feasibly not do the job without too much loss of face or reputation if I act quickly and bow out in a professional manner. “Something’s come up.” He’d still end up just as dead, but I wouldn’t have had anything to do with it.
I don’t love either of these options, so I toy briefly with the idea of telling him the truth, or something close to it. That there is danger here. For everyone concerned. It would expose me—and would he want to date a hit woman? Date and possibly more—it occurred to me that few would. And, in any case, his knowledge won’t protect him. Possibly nothing can.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BY THE TIME I get to the seawall, the sun is shining. It seems transformed from the night before. A different place on a sunny midday than it had been on a rainy night. There are large ocean-going vessels at anchor in the protected water of the bay while sailing vessels bob around them like ponies playing in a field and kayakers paddle near the shore like merry little birds.
The seawall itself is packed with all manner of jovial traffic. Mothers and nannies pushing strollers and taking in the air. Kids on rollerblades and skateboards gearing up to inflict injuries they’ll regret in a couple of decades. Couples holding hands and making memories to sustain them when love has died. Hairy youths followed by clouds of marijuana smoke flouting a law that is imprecise. All manner of humanity out to enjoy a rare day of Vancouver sunshine. I walk and walk and soak it in, enjoying the feeling of sunshine on my skin and the warmth that kisses the top of my head. It is a gorgeous day.
I am approaching his building when my phone rings. It is him.
“What does your day look like?” he asks.
“Looks like sunshine,” I say in truth, still walking in his direction, though he has no idea. “What a gorgeous city.”
“How would you like to see beyond it? I have to run up to Squamish to see a man about a dog. Wanna come? I figure after we could drive up to Whistler for dinner. Maybe stay the night. How does that sound?”
None of the place names have any meaning for me. It doesn’t matter.
“Do you really have to see a man about a dog?”
“I do not. It’s an expression. It’s a meeting. Won’t take long.”
“Sure. Okay. If it’s not an actual dog, that changes everything. I’m maybe half an hour, forty minutes from my hotel. So any time after that?”
“Perfect.” I can hear the smile. “I’ll pick you up from your hotel in an hour.”
By the time we end the call, I am standing outside of his office building. It looks friendlier in the sunshine, all sand-colored cornices, sunlight glinting off original glass. I stay in the shadows of the building across the street, though there are few shadows on this bright day. With a plan to see him now in place, I’m not sure what I am doing here, though, in all fairness, I hadn’t known why I was walking there in the first place. Thinking. Hard. Tossing around this and that. Knowing there are several possibilities, but really only one outcome I can see.
I trudge back to the hotel, day less bright now. Pull
