Savages

he feels like he’s moving underwater, and also because he doesn’t want to fuck up and shoot himself taking the gun
out
of his mouth.
    “The next time that I ask you to do something, I assume that I will not hear ‘Fuck you’?”
    Chon nods.
    “Good. There is a man in San Diego who is giving me a problem. You will be called with details. If I don’t hear about his death within five hours, I will kill your friend.
Buenos dias.
”
    Audio goes dead.
    Screen goes blank.

100
     
    What to do, what to do?
    Go to the FBI?
    The DEA?
    Ben is perfectly willing to do that, even though it would doubtless mean years in prison for him, if that would save O. But it wouldn’t—it would only kill her. If the feds could handle the cartels, they would have shut them down already.
    So that’s out.
    Their other alternative is …
    Nada.
    They’re fucked.
    This is Ben’s mistake, and it goes back a long way. Ben always figured that he could live with a foot in two worlds. One Birkenstock in the officially criminal marijuana-dealing demimonde and the other in the world of civilization and law.
    Now he knows that he can’t.
    He has both feet stuck in the jungle.
    Chon never harbored such illusions.
    Chon has always known that there are two worlds:
    The savage
    The less savage.
    The savage is the world of pure raw power, survival of the fittest, drug cartels and death squads, dictators and strongmen, terrorist attacks, gang wars, tribal hatreds, mass murder, mass rape.
    The less savage is the world of pure civilized power, governments and armies, multinationals and banks, oil companies, shock-and-awe, death-from-the-sky, genocide, mass economic rape.
    And Chon knows—
    They’re the same world.
    “What are we going to do?” Ben asks.
    “As soon as the intel comes in,” Chon says, “I’m going to hop in my car and kill whoever they ask me to. You’re going to get your ass off the floor and deliver the dope.”
    “You’re going to kill someone for him?!”
    “I did it for Cheney and the Sock Puppet,” Chon says. “What’s the diff?”
    The phone rings.
    Chon grabs it.
    “Yeah … yeah … got it.”
    “They gave you the address?” Ben asks.
    “Sort of.”
    “What do you mean, sort of?”
    “It’s a freaking boat,” Chon says.
    It’s a freaking boat—
    —at last, at last, putting Chon’s SEAL training to use.

101
     
    This Chon is a very brave man, Elena thinks.
    And he must love this girl very much.
    It makes her a little sad, nostalgic for passion.
    But now she knows what she wanted to know—
    These men will do anything—anything—for this woman.
    It is their strength and their weakness.

102
     
    O looks up at Lado’s black eyes.
    He looks at his watch.
    Says nothing.
    It’s good O doesn’t know what he’s thinking, doesn’t have access to this particular interior monologue:
    Five hours,
segundera
, and you’re mine. Whore that sleeps with two men, maybe I rip you up before I cut you up,
guerita.
You’re small, a spinner what they call it. I would tear you up, you won’t need two men, just one real man.
    Five hours,
putana.
Me, I hope they don’t make it.
    Yeah, O can’t hear that stream-of-consciousness gurgling.
    Good thing—even through the Oxy she’s terrified, then—
    Lado mimes pulling the starter cord of a chain saw.
    Makes a noise—
    Rum rum ruuuummmm
…

103
     
    Chon divides the world into two categories of people:
    Him, Ben, and O
    Everybody Else.
    He’d do anything for Ben and O.
    For Ben and O he’d do anything to Everybody Else.
    It’s just that simple.

104
     
    Chon screws the silencer onto the pistol
    Puts it into the wetbag
    Zips the bag up tight.
    Beyond the harbor the lights of the San Diego skyline reflect on the smooth black bay.
    A layer of color painted on the water.
    A Photoshop trick.
    Life imitating (graphic) art.
    Chon blackens his face, ties the bag’s lanyard to his wrist, and checks the Ka-Bar strapped to his right leg.
    Lowers himself into the water.
    Soundlessly.
    MOS.
    It’s a short distance to the boat but he has to do most of it underwater so as not to be seen as he passes the other sailboats moored in the harbor. All the training the navy paid for and put him through and didn’t use he uses now.
    Glides just under the surface, makes barely a ripple.
    A water snake.
    A sea otter.
    He comes up twice to check his position, see the boat’s mooring lamps.
    Behind curtains, a light on in the cabin.
    Twenty yards from the boat he angles to the