Death Before Dishonor Read online

  “I won’t allow any red on my honor.”

  “How is honor in question here? We’ve already been over this.”

  “Because, Yuri, there is no honor in killing a target in front of his or her child. Ethics, remember?

  “There isn’t a single mandate that says anything about dishonor in making a hit in front of children.”

  “I’m not doing it regardless of what your skewed understanding tells you about honor. Wrong is wrong no matter what the price tag says.”

  Yuri watched Terry for a moment and then reached over and began to brush Terry’s shoulder repeatedly with his hand. After about twenty wipes, Terry became annoyed.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Terry snapped, lifting his head up from the scope.

  “I’m trying to wipe that angel off your shoulder.”

  “Get the fuck off me. I told you that I’m not going to do it, money or no,” Terry said before burying his face again.

  Yuri inched closer to his brother. “Terry, we’re assassins. We kill people for a living. That’s how we make our money. Besides, whether you kill Fatima now or at a more morally opportune time, her daughter is going to find out.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I need a new partner.” Yuri shook his head. “Mine’s broke.”

  “We’re not monsters, Yuri—”

  “I am.”

  “Yes, you are. But we still have a code that we are obligated to follow. The ancestor spirits wrote the code to guide Shinobi through moments of moral strife. We are now at a moral crossroad, and I’ve decided to hold the shot. I’m absolutely positive that the ancestor spirits would stand behind my decision.”

  “Of course they would support your decision, Terry. The ancestor spirits had no concept of two million dollars. Back then, two million dollars didn’t even exist on a single continent. But had they understood the concept, those dead-ass bushi-killers would have made a mandate telling you to stop being a bitch and take the damn shot.”

  “I highly doubt that.”

  “I’m not hearing the same confidence as before. Shadow of doubt?”

  “Hardly. Like I said, the ancestor spirits would stand behind me—”

  “And make fun of you for being stupid right now.”

  “Yuri, need I remind you that the Shinobi stood for something greater than crude, worldly things like money? They didn’t need money.”

  “Again, they didn’t know what two million dollars were. So of course they didn’t need it. But we need it; otherwise, we can’t afford to work in our profession nor live our lifestyle. We’ll have to sell our condo in the National Harbor and get a townhouse in District Heights or something. Or worse, we’ll have to go back to milking goats and harvesting small crops. Stop being so selfish and take the shot already!”

  “We can’t let greed dictate our ethics, Yuri.”

  “Terry, it was poor people that created codes, ethics, and anecdotes. Poor people made them to feel better about being poor.”

  “If you were poor, you’d have a different tone.”

  “If I were poor, I’d take the shot. You know why?

  “Because you have no moral compass.”

  “That—and I wouldn’t be poor after I got my two million dollars.”

  “You know what? I’m finished debating with you.”

  “Fuck!” Yuri screamed at a whisper’s octave. “I want to dismount! Take the damn shot!”

  “Why don’t you cry about it? Maybe I can find some money to comfort you.”

  Yuri let out an indignant sound.

  “I wonder if Veronica realizes how much of an undisciplined, greedy little beast you are.”

  “Why are you bringing up Veronica again?” Yuri snapped.

  “Because I’m trying to figure out who has the problem: you or her.”

  “Terry,” said Yuri pausing, “don’t go there.”

  “Is she stupid or naïve?”

  Terry finally hit the right button. The control rods that prevented Yuri’s emotions from reaching supercritical levels were pulled out entirely, and Yuri exploded in a rage, screaming and shouting obscenities and threats. Terry allowed his brother to vent for a couple of seconds before he reminded Yuri over and over again that if he didn’t get a hold of his emotions, they could blow it. Yuri, however, was beyond the point of rationality as he overflowed with frustration, caring little at that point about the mission.

  Despite the blinding cloud of chaos Yuri produced with gouts of fury, Terry keenly watched Fatima, her daughter, and her guests as he had for the duration over the debate-turned-screaming-match. Fatima, still standing on the balcony, spoke to several associates before directing them and her daughter inside. The daughter sped through the opening of the sliding glass door, and Terry watched her sprint down the hallway and disappear deep into the residence. Fatima also made her way to the door, stepping through the threshold and spinning to shut the door behind her.

  Time suddenly dilated, slowing everything to a crawl as Terry zeroed in. The muscles in his finger flexed, and he depressed the trigger. With a blast of carbon and an earthquake-like shudder, the rifle unleashed a thunderous howl and spat a flaming projectile at hypersonic speed.

  The world was locked in perpetual stillness as the slug sliced through the air, momentarily agitating and heating the air molecules as it closed the distance. In mid-flight, it cut through the tips of the feathers of a very lucky bird that coincidentally moved into the slug’s flight path; one-half of a centimeter to the left, and the bird would have disintegrated into a mist of feathers and gore.

  The round spiraled across the balcony and through the rapidly closing space between the sliding door and the jam with only inches to spare, striking true just below Fatima’s right eye. With a wet crack, Fatima’s head jerked back as the bullet exited near the neck joint, painting an abstract mural on the floor as the contents of her skull emptied through the hole.

  The gunshot snapped Yuri out of his fury, absorbing it like a sponge soaking up spilled water. He looked at Terry blankly.

  Terry withdrew the weapon from its perch, grabbed a firm hold of the sandbag, rolled over, and sat up. “When you’re done, let’s dismount.”

  Chapter Five: Forest For The Trees

  Ciccone Residence. Tokyo, Japan. Twenty-one years ago

  Motherhood was the greatest blessing Francesca could have ever experienced. She had two beautiful and intelligent sons and a greatly talented husband to help her raise them. That was more, to say the least, than many women had. In the grand scheme of things, she had little to complain about—the operative word being little. Motherhood did present some exceptional challenges that Francesca had come to recognize over the years. Every day proved to be a learning experience.

  Children were not easily raised. Francesca’s mother, Marcella, always said that childrearing was no simple task because children did not come with an instruction manual; childrearing was a trial-and-error process. And because children grew, their needs changed often. In fact, their needs changed so often that the child being raised one year was hardly the same child the following year.

  As each day passed, Francesca saw the wisdom in her mother’s words. Marcella often said that there would be great days with her children, good days with them, fair days, bad days, and flat-out terrible days. Today was one of those flat-out terrible days. She was in a harrowed mood, and it showed in everything she did. Everything that could go wrong surely did, and she swore that she would kill someone before sundown.

  The day started horribly. To begin with, she slept on her shoulder wrong, and she was now being plagued by sharp pain every time she moved it. Next in her line of gripes was the need to run errands—how she hated running errands. She then realized that her preplanned day of very-necessary errand running was going to be a very wet and very irritating day, as it seemed that the weather had its own agenda. Mother Nature, exhibiting how profoundly malicious her disposition could be, decided Francesca’s errand-day was a great time
to batter the entire western portion of Honshu with torrential rain and hurricane-like wind. And like the weather, Yuri too stirred a tempest by flying into a wild tantrum when he decided that Francesca’s breakfast choice was not to his liking, which, of course, left Francesca none too happy. Cursing—loudly—was the only thing she could do to give herself a measure of comfort as she trekked through the torrent with an aching shoulder and stomped through pools in her stilettos. She also cursed her mother’s voice in her head saying, in her nasal voice, “Fran, I can’t wait till you have children of your own so you can see what you’ve put me through.”

  As if nothing else could go wrong, Francesca received a distressing phone call from Terry’s school: Terry had been involved in a fight, and Francesca needed to attend a conference with the principal and the guidance counselor as soon as she could arrange herself and show up.

  The conference didn’t go as well as she would have hoped. When she arrived, she found Terry sitting in a room alone, covered in dirt and scratches. The faculty apparently hadn’t found it necessary, or befitting, to either get him cleaned up or comfort him. They simply found it justifiable to isolate a nine-year-old in a room after he had been attacked. Furthermore, the faculty had yet to identify the assailants. Francesca made it a point to express her unhappiness with the manner in which the school was handling the problem with as much profane language as she could muster.

  She knew that her husband would surely disapprove of the way she’d handled the conference and the faculty’s actions—a small price to pay to defend her son’s honor. She would just chalk it up to maternal instinct if Pat queried her actions; he always refused to argue that.

  As she drove home through the thunderous gloom, she debated whether to call Pat at work and explain the situation and tell him to come straight home to handle this crisis. Francesca chose to wait until Pat arrived to explain the situation. It would have only been a couple more hours until he was off, and she didn’t want him rushing home in this insanity.

  ***

  Pat checked his watch; he had made it home in decent time despite the weather. Pat eased the van to a halt, trying not to hydroplane across the river that his driveway had become. The rain was coming down so hard that he could barely make out his wife’s car only fifteen feet in front of the van’s hood.

  Pat craned his neck over the steering wheel, looking at sky’s fury. Despite the myriad times that Pat had witnessed the Japanese monsoons, they still fascinated him. He was not quite sure what it was exactly about the storms that piqued his interest: the power, the indiscriminate fury, the torrents of precipitation, or the colossal surf it stirred. What he was sure of, however, was that the weather always seemed to reflect his wife’s mood. And based on the day's forecast, Pat was sure that his wife had a terrible disposition. That was okay in his mind, though. He loved his hot-blooded Italian wife, and her attitude was one of the things that he found most attractive. He described her as having a really big personality in a really small body.

  Pat tossed the door open, hopped out, slammed the door shut as he spun, and sprinted to the front door, practically diving into the cover of the patio. Drenched, he regarded the sky once more before opening the door and going inside.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” Pat said over the sound of squeaking dress shoes and the door closing behind him. He could hear Francesca moving about in the kitchen and the TV babbling in the living room. There was no answer, so he hung his keys on the rack and tried to get her attention. “How was your day?” Still nothing. He left the foyer, following the short hall that led into the kitchen. There, he found Francesca hovering over the sink—still in her stilettos—peeling potatoes.

  “Babe?” he said tenderly.

  “We got a problem,” she said, swinging around, her voice all business.

  “How do you do it?” Pat chortled.

  “Do what?”

  “Slave the weather to your mood. How do you do it?”

  “Pat, I’m serious. We have a problem. A serious one.”

  “Okay—how serious?”

  “Like stab-you-with-this-knife serious,” she said, waving a cleaver in the air.

  “Damn, you’re hostile. How can something so beautiful be so hostile?”

  “You asked.”

  Even roses had thorns.

  “I did.” He nodded. “Well, honey, you’re in luck because I’m excellent at tackling serious problems and making those problems a whole lot less serious. So, what do you got?”

  “Pat!” Francesca said through clenched teeth. She was not in the mood for her husband’s problem-minimizing optimism. Instead, she needed his problem-solving abilities.

  “Relax. I’m just joking, baby.”

  “I’m not laughing.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  Francesca nodded.

  “Okay, what’s up?”

  She pointed in the direction of the living room. “Go look at your son.”

  “Which one? We have two.”

  “Terry.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with him?”

  “Go look at him.”

  “You can’t just tell me what the problem is?”

  “Pat, go look at your son.”

  “What should I be looking for?”

  “Pat. Your son. Go look at him!”

  Pat bit back his pride and put his briefcase on the table along with his blazer. “Alright, alright. Where’s he at?”

  “I already said that he’s in the living room.”

  The nearest Pat could tell, Francesca was already operating in fifth gear regarding being agitated. To that end, Pat was going to need a little backup. So he stopped at the refrigerator for a post-work beverage. “Want a beer, babe?”

  Francesca’s scrutiny was hot and burned a hole into the back of his neck. He supposed that he wasn’t moving fast enough for her to be pleased. But even if he had magically teleported into the living room, she wouldn’t have been any less angry. So Pat didn’t allow himself to feel pressured; the best way to deal with crisis was to do so calmly. Pat looked over his shoulder and met the icy-blue stare of the woman he loved as he took a sip of his beer and left the kitchen.

  “Hey, buddy. Mom told me to have a look at you. What’s going on?”

  Terry sat in the recliner on the far side of the sectional, focused on a sheet of paper that he repeatedly whipped a pencil across in even strokes. “Hi, Dad.”

  Pat walked up behind him and for a moment watched Yuri do somersaults in front of the TV. He considered telling Yuri to give it a rest but opted to give him the opportunity to come to that conclusion of his own volition—children needed to learn to make their own decisions—even four-year-olds. Pat returned his attention to Terry. “You watching that bonsai show again?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “How do you watch this channel? I mean, what nine-year-old really has the attention span to watch gardening?”

  “It’s not gardening, Dad—it’s bonsai. And it’s soothing.”

  “Oh, is it now?” Pat’s head jerked in Yuri’s direction when his swan dive from the coffee table to the couch drew Pat’s attention.

  Yuri spun and sat briskly onto the cushion, panting and smiling. Pat hoped Yuri had come to the realization that monkey business should cease now that Pat had walked in, but he doubted it. He was sure that Yuri was just resting in between spasms. Pat resigned himself to the fact that he would have to speak to Yuri sternly if his behavior continued.

  In the meantime, Pat returned his attention to Terry and his art. “Soothing, huh? Didn’t know that word was in your vocabulary. What other words you got in your repertoire that I don’t know about? Repertoire, got that word?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, make sure you do because that word will surely win you your next spelling bee, stud.” Pat patted Terry’s shoulder.

  Terry didn’t look up.

  Pat continued, “That’s great s
tuff you’re drawing there, son.” Pat leaned over the back of the couch for a better look. “What is it?”

  “Mechatron Supremus.”

  “You don’t say? What’s he do for a living?”

  “He’s the defender of the multiverse and champion of all battle bot warrior-scions,” Terry replied matter-of-factly.

  “He must work some serious hours to make all that happen. Is he married? What’s his wife think about his work schedule?”

  “He’s not married.”

  “No kidding. I’d be able to defend the universe too if your mother didn’t expect me to be home by dinner.”

  “It’s the multiverse, Dad.”

  “Sure—you know,” Pat said, cocking his head thoughtfully as he scrutinized his son’s artwork, “I don’t claim to know much about art nor defenders of the mechnoverses and stuff—”

  Terry cut in abruptly, “Dad, it’s the multiverse.”

  “That too,” Pat insisted, not missing a beat. “But I think you might be missing some necessary shading over in this section.” Pat tapped the page with his finger. “What do you think? Where’s the light originating from?”

  Terry stopped and considered his father’s question. Then, for a moment, he studied his sketch hard before replying, “Over here.”

  “Well, do you see that? Dad just might know what he’s talking about after all, huh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pat swelled with pride. Terry was every bit as brilliant as he was artistic and capable of abstract thinking years ahead of what was expected of a nine-year-old. And although Terry’s penchant for art did not require it, Pat sought to encourage him further and to teach him to scrutinize his own work.

  Yuri was the athlete at four years of age that Terry wasn’t. Yuri bounced and trounced all over the place and destroyed everything in the house. Pat and Francesca were resigned to putting anything valuable at a height that Yuri couldn’t reach or to putting such things into storage until Yuri had reached a less destructive age. Pat wasn’t sure there was such an age for him. Yuri was all instinct and impulse. He was a whirling ball of entropy that tended to wreak havoc all over the house. He was great to play with outside—the boy had limitless endurance—but damn it, he was annoying when the Ciccone’s were trying to keep the house clean.