Death Before Dishonor Read online

  Fatima finally popped up one sleepy morning while Yuri was watching her flat. He went instantly from torpid consciousness to live-wire when he realized it was her through his binoculars, and he immediately put in a call to Terry for support. Yuri then moved to higher ground to ready their attack. Terry arrived shortly after with his rifle. From their new perch, they could see straight through Fatima’s living room and kitchen windows. They simply had to wait for the right moment to pull the trigger. Five hours had passed since sunrise and since the two brothers had been able to move about actively—Yuri’s patience was visibly wearing thin.

  Terry lay prone on the parapet, clad in his marble-colored ghillie suit and gripping a small sandbag that supported the barrel of his weapon, focusing his attention through the scope of his 7.62mm cartridge-fed sniper rifle. He breathed slowly and deliberately so as not to affect the aim of his weapon adversely if he had to rapidly squeeze a shot off. He maintained constant pressure on the sandbag with his left hand to maintain the constant elevation of the barrel.

  Yuri, also prone to Terry’s left and equally dressed for the occasion, spied the penthouse through his binoculars. He swiftly noted atmospheric conditions and referenced them against the waterproof chart he had attached to his left forearm. After prompt calculation, Yuri explained the factors to Terry, who adjusted his aim accordingly.

  Yuri reached into one of the pouches on his right hip and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, drawing a lone cigarette with his lips and lighting it with one fluid motion. Terry’s left eye shot in Yuri’s direction, his attention drawn by the grinding click of the flint and the raspy inhale that followed. Terry stared hard from the corner of his eyes before returning his attention downrange.

  Yuri scanned the rooftops before lifting his head when he noticed something suspicious. “You need to check this out.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just look.”

  Terry broke away from the scope and rolled slightly. Yuri placed the binoculars to Terry’s eyes and pointed.

  “Dude,” Terry said venomously when he saw a woman sunbathing nude on a balcony, “are you freaking serious?”

  “That’s how Brazilians prevent tan lines.”

  “Can you fucking take this seriously?” Terry returned his face to the scope.

  Well, that escalated quickly, thought Yuri. “Man, who pissed in your Cheerios today?” he asked, throwing Terry a sidelong glance.

  “Got some things on my mind, and you’re not helping acting like you’re fucking twelve.”

  “Why don’t you pump your goddamn brakes, Tinkerbell. I’m on your team, remember?”

  Terry was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Not particularly, no.”

  “Fine, suffer on your own then.” Then there was silence between them for the better part of fifteen minutes. In that time, Yuri smoked two more cigarettes and sent intermittent text messages. Finally, he spoke again: “Hey, when we get done, I really want to go see that big-ass statue.” Yuri threw a thumb over his shoulder.

  “That big-ass statue? Mind narrowing it down a little more for me? That is, of course, assuming that That Big-Ass Statue has a name other than That Big-Ass Statue.”

  “Hell, I don’t know.” Yuri pointed at Corcovado Mountain. “The big-ass statue on top of that peak over there. You know, the one that you see on all the postcards of Rio.”

  “Oh, you mean the Christ the Redeemer statue?”

  “Yeah—sure.”

  “You don’t even know its name. Why would you want to go see it?”

  “Do I need to know its name to want to go see it?”

  Terry glanced in Yuri’s direction with his left eye. “Usually, knowing a landmark’s name is a requisite for going to see it. I mean, how can you appreciate something when you don’t even know something as simple as its name?”

  “What fucking difference does it make?”

  “It makes a lot of fucking difference as a matter of fact.”

  “You scrutinize everything I do, Terry. You’re such a woman about everything. I almost don’t pay you any attention anymore.”

  “I don’t scrutinize everything you do.”

  “The fuck you don’t. You scrutinize everything.”

  Terry snapped his head in Yuri’s direction. “No, I don’t. I only scrutinize the stupid things that you do—which just happens to constitute ninety percent of everything you do. So yeah,” Terry said with a shrug, “I guess I can see how that could be mistaken as constant scrutiny. Which brings me to my next point: Why do I have to bring up smoking on ops?”

  Yuri rolled his eyes. “Oh, here we go with this shit again.”

  “Yeah—here we go again. I don’t know why I have to keep repeating myself constantly, you simple-minded piss-ant.”

  “What’d you just call me?”

  “Don’t play deaf now,” Terry said acidly, returning his attention to the scope again.

  Yuri’s eyes burned a hole in the side of Terry's face. He wanted desperately to crush Terry’s cheekbone with the binoculars, but through the swelling anger, he doubted that he could make this shot alone. They were approximately five hundred meters from the target, and a shot from that distance was hard enough with two people—having only one would greatly decrease the margin of success. He would get Terry back later. In the meantime, Yuri lit another cigarette and bellowed smoke like a steam engine.

  Terry focused through the lens, trying to ignore his brother’s habit, noticing several rebel strands of ghillie suit had settled between his eye and the diopter. He forcibly exhaled upwards through puckered lips, trying to blow them clear. After several failed attempts, he realized that he would surely hyperventilate before he managed to get his suit to cooperate. Yuri reached across and moved the strands away from his brother’s eyes and smoothed them back onto the suit.

  “Better?”

  “Yeah,” Terry replied curtly, “thanks.”

  Another forty-five minutes had passed, and Terry was still agitated about his brother’s continuous smoking. Yuri’s rebellious streak used to get them in trouble when they were kids. Their headmaster, Kintake, had possessed an abusive penchant for punishing everyone when Yuri chose to be defiant; Terry had the scars to prove it. One day, Yuri’s rebelliousness would get them killed if Terry couldn’t convince him otherwise. He would continue to try. “You know, one of these days, they’re going to see the smoke,” he said.

  “What?” Yuri’s head jerked up from the binoculars, with his cigarette pressed in between his lips. “What the hell are you babbling about? Who’s going to see smoke?”

  “Fatima’s security detail. They’re going to see the smoke from your cigarette. We’re supposed to be doing this thing called stealth.”

  “Get out of here with that.” Yuri’s expression was sour. “We’re nearly five hundred meters away. How are they going to see the smoke?”

  “They’re a security detail, Yuri. They’re employed to spot things that appear abnormal.”

  “There is nothing abnormal about cigarette smoke.”

  “Maybe not. But from the perspective of a bodyguard, there sure as hell is something pretty abnormal about two guys lying on a rooftop, dressed in Halloween costumes, pointing a rifle at your employer while taking the time out for a smoke break. They are going to see and probably smell the smoke.”

  “That’s fucking impossible…and stupid.”

  “Oh—it’s possible.”

  “Fine—it’s fucking improbable, just like it’s improbable that you’re going to shut up.”

  “And it’s a terrible habit.”

  “So is nagging, but you don’t see me bitching at you constantly,” Yuri said with an unsympathetic tone.

  “I don’t know how Veronica puts up with it. Hell, I don’t know how I’ve put up with it.”

  Yuri flicked his cigarette over the side. “How about you leave Veronica out of this?”

 
“How about you stop smoking while we’re operating?”

  “How about you leave Veronica out of this before I kick that rifle up your ass?”

  “I’m shivering, little brother.”

  “I respect your opinion on most topics. You’d do well to consider where your opinion isn’t wanted.”

  “You’re right.” Terry nodded. “On second thought…smoke…drop dead.”

  “I hate talking to you, Terry.”

  “Feeling is mutual.”

  The stifling atmosphere of the ghillie suit and the tension between him and his brother caused sweat to pool beneath Yuri, and he drew closer to the edge to relieve some discomfort. The faint grinding of gravel between Yuri’s suit and the concrete of the building drew Terry’s attention. He instinctively lifted his head away from the scope to inspect Yuri’s gear to ensure that Yuri’s movement wouldn’t expose their position.

  Stealth and ambush were the foundations of Ninpo. All Shinobi were trained from a very young age to mind themselves, their fellows, and their surroundings to ensure they weren’t exposing themselves to an enemy. While Shinobi weren’t sympathetic to discomfort, they reasonably understood that discomfort decreased the endurance of a Shinobi’s stealth and taught their initiates—Kodomos—to supervise their comrades for inconsistencies that might betray camouflage.

  Yuri had none that Terry noticed, but what he did notice caused his ears to flatten against his head like an angry canine. Running the length of Yuri’s back beneath the suit was a subtle, incongruous bulge—Yuri’s ninjatō. Terry resigned himself to dismiss it but opted not to when he remembered that he’d noticed Yuri carrying it in an eatery earlier this week. He carried it, Terry reasoned, not for utility—since he couldn’t find a single use for a ninjatō in an eatery—but rather as an ego-booster; and, Terry had had enough of Yuri’s ego.

  “You always bring your ninjatō on rooftop excursions?” Terry asked sardonically. “Plan on getting in a sword fight?”

  “Bloody Christ!” Yuri peeled his face away from the rangefinder and looked skyward. “You’re worse than a menstruating woman!” If the suit hadn’t covered his head, he would have pulled his hair out. “What could you possibly be bitching about now?”

  “Why would you carry a sword on a job like this? Unless, of course, you were planning on getting swept up into a sword-drawn romp with a cadre of evil ninjas.”

  Yuri frowned. “You’re supposed to be finding a place to land a bullet on Fatima’s spindly frame. Instead, you’re wasting time worrying about what the fuck I’m carrying.”

  “Apparently, I have to babysit you. What happened to the tenet: Shinobi carry no burden—the earth is like air to them?”

  “You going to tutor me in Ninjitsu-101?”

  “I guess I’ll have to since being Shinobi is brand new to you.”

  “I think I have enough experience in this profession to determine the necessity and utility of my gear, Terenzio,” Yuri growled venomously.

  “Then surely you realize that there’s neither a necessity nor any utility for your ninjatō up here. I mean, I don’t claim to know much—”

  “Bullshit,” Yuri interjected.

  Terry continued, “—but I don’t suspect you’ll end up clashing swords any time soon. You’re just carrying excess weight.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Hell no, I’m not done,” Terry said ardently.

  Yuri let out an audible groan.

  “You’re not even going to try to justify it?”

  “Just so you can listen to yourself talk?” Yuri shook his head. “No.”

  “Here—take the rifle. I’ll be back in a moment; I’m going to find you some fireball-hurling ninjas to fight.”

  “Dude”—the energy seemed to drain out of Yuri’s voice—“get off the evil ninja thing. It’s getting old.”

  Terry agreed; the evil ninja comments had gone stale even if they were true. “You know what you did?” Terry asked, but it didn’t sound like a question.

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me…”

  “You basically brought a knife to a gunfight. Flat-out poor decision-making. Rookie move if you ask me.”

  Yuri’s head jerked in Terry’s direction. “That’s just it; I didn’t ask you. And how is a fan of the naginata going to tell me about my poor weapon choice?”

  “Don’t be mad that you don’t understand it.”

  “It’s a freaking spear. And it was made for women.”

  “Exactly—it was a spear used in ancient times as a distance weapon. Know what I carry now when I need reach? A fucking rifle.” Terry paused. “Which brings us full circle to the original question: Why are you carrying a sword on a sniping mission?”

  “I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”

  Terry chortled. “I would have bet money that you would have started in with the ninjatō-is-more-than-just-a-blade nonsense, where you repeat all the propaganda about it ‘being a tool, a makeshift hammer, or makeshift ladder’ and all that jazz.”

  “Terry”—Yuri paused to blow a piece of his suit away from his eyes—“you’re a tool.”

  “It would honor me greatly if you and your ninjatō jumped from this ledge, Yuri.”

  ***

  The brothers tacitly engaged in a competition for first place in a smoldering game of silent treatment, not speaking to each other for nearly two hours—not even to talk about their current operation. Yuri, still spotting his brother, refused to give Terry any environmentals or advice. Terry, still needing spotting, refused to ask for any help. Terry refused to talk to Yuri until he admitted that he was unnecessarily carrying the ninjatō. Yuri simply wanted Terry to go to hell. More than anything, they wanted to terminate Fatima so they could dismount, go about their business, and take some quality time away from each other. Their target wasn’t playing nicely, though.

  Through the yawning windows of the penthouse, the brothers watched Fatima go about her day but were unable to fire. Even though a round would have little trouble passing through the glass, they didn’t want to risk giving away their position by firing through a closed window and having the round deviate half a degree and wound Fatima or miss her altogether. Inside of a couple of hundred meters, glass wasn’t much of a factor. But at the distance they were going to shoot, firing through glass had a margin of error they didn’t want to accept.

  “What if we don’t get a clean shot?” Terry said finally, deciding that he wasn’t going to continue to be petty.

  Yuri didn’t lift his head from the binoculars. “Then we’ll have to shoot the bitch through the window and call it good. Sacrifices…”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “Why’d you ask then?”

  “I was wondering if you had put together a close-quarters backup plan while you were sitting up here spying on her.”

  “Do I ever have a backup plan?”

  Terry nodded subtly. “Let’s start considering our options.”

  “Here’s an option: Shoot the bitch through the glass. We’ll cross the backup plan bridge when we get there.”

  “If we give away our position on a bogus shot, we’ll break the First Mandate. I’m not in the mood to commit seppuku.”

  “We only break the mandate if we don’t remove all traces of our presence.”

  “That’s going to prove challenging.”

  “Not if we knife everyone in the penthouse.”

  Terry sighed. Then, just as he was planning to reply to Yuri, Fatima, flustered by the conversation she was having with a colleague, stormed onto the balcony, right into Terry’s crosshairs.

  Yuri struggled to contain his elation. He quickly noted atmospheric conditions, did some calculations in his head, and blurted data to Terry. “End her!” Yuri demanded and then watched intently through the binoculars.

  There was no click.

  No thunderous belch.

  No carbon on the breeze.

  Not even the metal clink
of the shell ejecting.

  There was just an eerie silence followed by an exhale from Terry.

  Yuri gritted his teeth and gave Terry another sidelong glance. “Why didn’t I hear a boom?”

  Terry didn’t respond.

  Yuri raised his voice. “Terry, why didn’t I hear a boom?”

  “I haven’t fired?” Terry’s tone was low and calculating.

  “Get the fuck out!” Yuri exclaimed, his voice soaked with ridicule. “Why the hell not?”

  “There’s a child in the living room.”

  “Who cares?!”

  “I care.”

  “The damn kid has been in the house the entire time! Why is it a problem right this second?”

  Terry kept his attention trained down the scope. “I’m not going to kill Fatima in front of her daughter.”

  “Terry, you were just talking about not wanting to take the shot through the glass not even thirty seconds ago! Now that we have a clean shot, you’re hesitating? If you thought the glass on a window was a problem, just wait until the window of opportunity closes. Then we’ll have no choice but to shift to a new plan. And what if she skips town before we can attack again? We don’t get paid!”

  “Is that all you care about—the money?”

  “On normal days—yeah.”

  “You forgotten why we stopped being mercenaries?”

  “I don’t remember money having anything to do with the reason.”

  “I wasn’t trained to kill indiscriminately, and neither were you.”

  “This isn’t indiscriminate killing, Terry. We took this assignment because it met all of the tenants of Ninpo. We debated it and then meditated on it for hours, and you know how much I hate meditating.”

  “That might be part of your problem.”

  Yuri flashed frustration but didn’t let it slow him down. “This is as deliberate as it gets. If there’s some collateral, that goes with the territory. Won’t be the first target we’ve hit in front of children.”