John Rain 08: Graveyard of Memories Read Free

be all right. But even if I’d killed him—and I knew from the sound his skull had made when it smashed into the pavement that I might have—how could anyone connect it with me? It was a random encounter in a random place. Even if the police were interested in investigating the death of some street hood, and they probably wouldn’t be, witnesses wouldn’t be much help. The only thing they got from me was the bag, which was presumably as anonymous and widespread a model as the Agency had been able to procure. Maybe my fingerprints were on it. But would the punk who fled with it share it with the police? More likely he had already ditched it. And even if he did share it with the police, and even if they could get a print, would they be able to match the print to me? No. They wouldn’t. I was all right.
    But the bag. Something about it was nagging at me. And then I realized.
    There were three bags, all identical. The procedure was, I would pick up a full bag from McGraw and hand him an empty. I would then repeat the operation in reverse with Miyamoto. Someone always had an empty bag to exchange for a full one. So I had to have a bag for my next exchange with McGraw.
    All right. Not such a big deal. I could just tell McGraw I had lost the empty bag.
    But no, that wouldn’t work. If I’d been careless enough to lose the bag while it was empty, I might be careless enough to lose it when it was full. I didn’t want to seem like a screw-up, even though—or actually, because—right then the description felt pretty damn accurate. I liked the job and I needed the money. What else was I going to do? In those days, there was no contractor industry for spec op veterans. I’d just been run out of the military and knew there was some kind of cloud hanging over my head. By luck, I’d landed a plum job, one of the few of them, and I didn’t want to risk it.
    All right, then, I could just buy a new bag. No one would know the difference.
    I suddenly realized I couldn’t recall quite what the bag looked like. It was black, and made of leather…or was it vinyl? I hadn’t really taken that close a look. It was about two inches wide, it had a zipper top…a brass zipper. Or brass color, anyway.
    Shit. I headed back into the station and checked in several stores. There were numerous models like the one we used for the exchange, but I didn’t see one I was sure was an exact fit.
    I went out again, frustrated and angry at myself. I’d learned in the jungle to pay obsessive attention to my environment. Sounds and smells. Shapes and shadows. A broken branch, a displacement in the elephant grass. Birdsong, or its absence. It all meant something, and often what it meant was the difference between living and dying. And you had to learn to see the patterns in advance because when a silent foe is trying to kill you, you don’t ordinarily get a second chance.
    I suddenly understood this was all equally true in urban environments, and that I’d just been too stupid to realize it. Cities had their own rhythms, their own patterns, their own details that counted. I had to learn to pay attention. I had to educate myself.
    All right, another good lesson. But what to do about the situation at hand?
    I saw only two choices. I could buy a bag and, if McGraw noticed a discrepancy, just tell him it was the bag Miyamoto gave me—and then hope he didn’t have a good way to check with Miyamoto. I could even buy three bags and swap them in one at a time until all the bags we were using were once again identical.
    But if McGraw noticed anything amiss, I’d look like worse than a screw-up. I’d look dishonest, too. They might cut me loose for screwing up. But if they caught me lying to try to conceal it, I didn’t know what would happen. What I did know was, getting cut loose might be the least of it.
    That left only one real choice. Get in touch with McGraw and come clean. It wasn’t such a big deal, was it? I hadn’t really done anything wrong. At