Free Gun Metal Heart by Dana Haynes

the top than the bottom and shaped more or less like a standing coffin. A small, round, convex second mirror had been adhered to the bottom of the mirror.
    Kenner leaned forward to see around Thorson’s torso. “Jesus! That’s her!” he whispered.
    He eased slowly back, praying the Gibron woman wouldn’t feel the vibration as she leaned against their van. He turned his head to Saito in the back. “Don’t fuckin’ move, dude. She’s touching the van!”
    Daria Gibron was reflected in the coffin-shaped mirror. Thorson knew her. He felt he knew her better than any soul alive. He had seen her that last November in New York. Also in Milan. And a thousand times in his nightmares. He had studied her photo at least once per day.
    All during his quick, quiet, and dishonorable removal from the ranks of the Central Intelligence Agency, Thorson had studied the photos daily. At home he’d glued a photo of her on the ceiling, over the bench where he pressed weights. He looked up into her obsidian eyes as he counted off reps.
    Today she wore her hair tightly back and braided. She wore very dark sunglasses. She looked more tanned than before, and more fit. The muscles beneath her bare shoulders looked as solid as the meat of a walnut.
    Thorson’s hand shook, in tiny, involuntary spasms. He was entirely unaware of it.
    Daria Gibron leaned one hand on the side the van, bent one knee, and raised her foot behind her. She adjusted the ankle strap of her sandal.
    Kenner hardly breathed. “Too many eyes on the street, man. Would love to cap her ass, but not here.” He licked his suddenly dry lips.
    Thorson’s eye flickered to the round, convex mirror at the bottom of the coffin-shaped mirror. Daria looked distorted and mutated, her head and legs tiny, her chest and shoulders comically wide. She looked monstrous. Like the images in his nightmares.
    â€œWe don’t cap her out here on the street. Right, man?”
    Thorson stared at the mirror.
    â€œYo. Owen?”
    Daria set her foot back on the pavement. She removed her hand from the side of the van. She straightened her sexy little dress and walked on. They could watch her through the windshield now. Other pedestrians hustled by. A hummingbird flitted into view and disappeared.
    Kenner exhaled. “That was fucking intense!”
    He laughed.
    He glanced at Thorson. “We’re not. Right? Not capping this bitch, here ’n’ now?”
    Thorson realized his friend was speaking. He blinked sweat from his eyes. His right hand cramped. “What?”
    â€œGibron. We’re not doing her in broad daylight. Right?”
    Thorson nodded. “Of course.”
    â€œThen … you won’t need that, man.”
    Confused, Thorson frowned. Kenner nodded downward.
    Thorson realized he had drawn his Glock. His finger was not indexed safely along the side of the weapon. It was tight, flush, against the trigger.
    â€œNo,” he said, and slid the weapon into his holster. “Of course not.”

 
    Ten
    Washington, D.C.
    The last committee meeting on the Hill ended at 9:00 P.M. Tuesday. John Broom asked for a quick meeting with the senator following that.
    Senator Singer Cavanaugh escorted John and Chief of Staff Calvin Pope into his cluttered office on the top floor of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, one of the three grand sisters along Constitution Avenue, along with the Hart and Russell office buildings.
    Cavanaugh looked like he fit in the ornate building. He had turned seventy and stood six foot six. He was thin and exceedingly Southern, with a mop of white hair and bushy eyebrows, a hawklike nose, piercing blue eyes, and a fondness for seersucker suits and black bow ties. He’d had a mild stroke the summer before and walked with a cane. The cane was wooden, a little too short and slightly bowed.
    Singer limped into his office. It was going on hour number fourteen for that particular day, which