Darkness Under Heaven by F. J. Chase

forget about me,” said Avakian. Kinney always reminded him of a blond California surfer boy twenty years down the road. Still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but battered by too much sun and salt.
    â€œHow did you make him?” Marquand asked.
    â€œI didn’t,” Avakian said.
    â€œYou didn’t?”
    â€œIt would probably boost my street cred if I said I did. But the truth is he stepped out of a door right in front of me. The Avakian luck. If there’s some shit, I’ll step in it. Now what was the deal with all the gunfire?”
    â€œYou don’t know?” said Marquand.
    â€œI hardly would have asked it I did,” said Avakian. “I’ve been a little out of the loop.”
    â€œThe grenade went off,” said Marquand. “Everyone, and I do mean everyone, went for their guns. The exact details are a little hazy, but it seems that a couple of the Taiwanese security men started shooting. And they shot their own guy.”
    â€œThe president?” said Avakian, amazed.
    â€œDead,” said Marquand.
    â€œNo shit?” said Avakian.
    â€œHe goes down,” said Marquand. “Then the Chinesesecurity detail opens up on them, and it’s Reservoir Dogs all over again. You’ve got both details shooting at each other point-blank. Twelve dead so far, over twenty wounded. There was lead ricocheting all over that tunnel. Turns out you were in about the safest place, down on the deck.”
    â€œYeah, it sure felt like that,” said Avakian.
    â€œEveryone’s trying to figure out whether the president got shot accidentally or on purpose,” said Marquand. “And all the people who could answer that for sure happen to be dead.”
    â€œThis is going to make the Kennedy assassination look cut and dried,” said Kinney. “The conspiracy theorists will get off on it forever.”
    â€œPanicking and shooting into the crowd is easy,” said Avakian, groaning again as he shifted position on the table. “Panicking and shooting the principal you’re there to protect is hard. So I’m guessing some part of the Taiwan security establishment decided they didn’t like snuggling up to Beijing, and decided to have themselves a little coup. And decided that here was the perfect place for it—let your traditional enemy take the rap and get stuck with the cleanup. Maybe they even had a little help from some Chinese.”
    â€œI was saying a few prayers that wouldn’t turn out to be the case,” said Marquand. “Once again they’re not answered. You haven’t mentioned your little theory to anyone, have you?”
    â€œAre you kidding?” said Avakian. “And I won’t, either.”
    â€œBut what about the grenade?” said Kinney. “You throw a grenade that might take out your own assassins? I don’t get it.”
    â€œIt was a concussion grenade,” said Avakian.
    â€œOkay,” said Marquand.
    â€œYou mean a stun grenade?” said Kinney.
    â€œNo,” said Avakian. “Our good old American hand grenade you’re thinking about is one size fits all. Kills you within five meters, wounds you within fifteen, and beyond that the fragments slow down to where they’re not lethal. Other parts of the world they issue an offensive grenade and a defensive grenade. Defensive sends fragments out a good long way, so you throw that from behind solid cover. Offensive is just explosive. So you can throw it while you’re rushing forward in the assault without fragging yourself. It has to land right next to you to be lethal, but the blast knocks everyone off their pins until you can close in and finish them off. It was an old Russian RG42 concussion, or the Chinese copy. Just TNT in a tin can. Literally.”
    â€œYou sure about that?” said Marquand.
    â€œBelieve me, I got a real close look at it,” said Avakian. “And we used to see them in El Salvador all