Double Take

else.
    Nothing revved him at all right now. He turned away from the window.
    He thought back to the years before he’d gotten his Kalashnikov, the years of his youth when he’d gathered young Jamaican men around him with bribes of the very best, the most potent ganja, their spiritual aid and, it seemed to him, their only escape. He’d believed he could lead them to do almost anything at all, and what he wanted was to rob the pasty-faced Brits, break their wills, send them scurrying back to that cold, benighted island of theirs. He thought he’d convinced some of the young men to put their future in his hands, to rebel against all the Brits’ stupid laws and tedious education, their bloody imperialist history and foppish speech, the greedy thieves. His father included. His father, who’d been sent to what he thought a dismal little island as a civil servant to improve the locals’ lot. Yeah, like he had cared whether that was going to happen.
    Xavier had realized before his father had that the young men hadn’t wanted to be improved. They wanted to spend their days sprawled in the shade, wallowing in the numbing bliss of their ganja. They stayed polite to his father and had backed away from Xavier, like he was crazy and they might catch it.
    Xavier thought of his father’s endless rules and regulations, that supercilious way he looked down his nose at those he considered his inferiors, and that included anyone who hadn’t attended Sandhurst.
    And yet his father had lowered himself to bed a local, and Xavier was the result. The old man eventually sent him to England for an education he said would rival the prime minister’s. Xavier had hated the relentless cold, the bone-numbing damp, and the rain, always the rain, snaking down his neck, making him so miserable he’d wished he’d die.
    And how he’d hated the Brits. At school they rigorously caned their rebellious young to make them strong, and he was no exception. He’d heard them say more times than he could stomach that it was for his own good. He thought he might bomb Sandhurst out of existence one of these days. It was something profoundly pleasant to look forward to.
    Xavier realized he’d clenched his hands so tightly they were cramping. How could that old bastard still twist him up?
    Bad memories, he thought, that’s all. His old man was well and truly gone, ever since Xavier had squeezed three neat shots into his chest on a sodden black night in Belfast, years and years ago. His father was there to negotiate with those hate-filled blighter Irish, and ended up sprawled on the street between his two dead bodyguards. Xavier had watched the life fade out of his pale icy eyes, filled first with disbelief, and then final awareness. He leaned down and told his father that a lowly Siberian peasant had invented the Kalashnikov and what did he think of being shot with that? His father hadn’t answered, he’d died instead.
    Xavier had stood over that sodden bloody mess of tweeds, a still-furled umbrella lying next to him. He hadn’t told those dark-eyed men in Belfast that he’d have been happy to kill his old man for free. His father had fetched ten thousand pounds, and he’d enjoyed that money, along with his inheritance. At least, he’d thought, the Irish were trying to rid themselves of the bloody English, and he’d done his part. For a price.
    Incredible weapon, the Kalashnikov. He’d once thought the Ml6 was the god of all assault rifles until he’d been with a group of Palestinians on a raid in the desert and the damned thing had jammed, victim of a blizzard of blowing sand. Why, he’d asked their leader, did they use weapons that didn’t work in this hell on earth? But the Arab had only shrugged, said there would always be hardships for those who tried to carry out Allah’s wishes. Xavier found their hard-wired hatred of the Israelis insane—as if the Israelis hadn’t lived side by side with them over thousands of years as they’d fought and lost to a host of invaders. He knew deep hatred like that knotted you up, made you an easy target rather than a fluid shadow, unseen by your enemy because you moved too fast and sure. Hatred made you stupid. The Palestinians had looked at him when he’d said that, then away, quickly, and he’d known in that moment that without their hatred, they’d have nothing at all, their lives would be pointless, like that paltry stream of humanity parading below his hotel window. It was then he’d