Demon (14 page)

“Anything else, Greg? What about you, Mr. Dead Insurgent?”

“Time to stop feeling guilty, Mike. You can't judge yourself. But you will be judged.” The voice of the insurgent had changed. Mike's head snapped to the left. The smiling dead man had been replaced by Gunny Lowe, standing in his cammies, hole through his throat gone.

“You are what you are,” Lowe said. “There's a reason for that. Accept responsibility.”

Mike shook his head. “You sound like my damn boss.”

Lowe jerked his right thumb over his shoulder at the sea of bodies. “All those are yours, Mike. Some you've killed already. Some you're going to kill real soon.”

Mike looked past Lowe's shoulder at the water. So many. Impossible.

No way could he kill that number. Then he shifted and looked at the sea on his right. Even more white eyes, all staring at him, hands reaching out.

Don't kill me, those eyes said. Please. The hands didn't want to grab him. They were up, palm out. Stop. They wanted him to stop what he would do to them. What he had done to him.

“You can't listen to them,” Lowe said. “Marines kill the enemy to achieve victory. That's what you do, Mike. You kill the bad guys. Accept it because there are many more to come. Take responsibility. There's a difference between just and selfish.”

“Accept it, Mike,” Greg said. “Because if you can't, you won't survive when you face it.”

“You're a killer, Mike,” Lowe said. “But you're still a good guy. Remember that. It's how you'll win.”

L
ight shone in Mike's right eye. Then his left. Then he saw blue dots and he blinked and sat up. He found himself in a bed of white linen. Around him were similar beds arranged in several short rows. In them, there were soldiers and Marines with various wounds treated.

“Good morning.”

To Mike's left stood a short balding man with a stethoscope hanging around his neck.

“Morning.” Mike cleared his throat, trying to forget the dream. “Were you just shining light in my eyes or did I dream that, too?”

The doctor held up a pen light and smiled and then slipped it in his breast pocket. “Just checking your pupils. You're not in shock or anything.”

Mike shifted and pain from his side rocketed up his spine. He gritted his teeth and breathed hard.

“Easy there, Mr. Hosselkus. You had to have surgery to remove shrapnel. It's going to smart for a while.”

That damn alias. “How bad was it?”

“You got lucky. Other than blood loss, you had no problems. Should be able to move around well enough in a couple of weeks.”

“Where am I?”

“Medical Ward at Camp Bucca.”

“Where's my stuff?”

“The gun is in the armory. Your clothes were ruined.” The doc reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “But you can have this now.”

“Thanks.” Mike took the phone. “How long before I can be discharged?”

“Not anytime soon.”

“Best case? I need numbers, Doc, or my boss will throw a shit fit.”

“Three days. But even then, you should stay in a bed most of the time for ten days, minimum.”

Mike shook his head. “I got work to do.”

The doc chuckled. “Sure. But how are you going to do it if you can barely move?”

“I guess I'll find out.”

The doc motioned to the injured servicemen around them. “I hear similar tough talk like that every day. Don't think you're so special.”

Mike shrugged. “Okay.”

The doc walked away and Mike turned on the cell phone. There wasn't much of a charge left but enough so he could give Glenn an update. A few moments later, he had his boss on the phone.

“About time you checked in,” Glenn said.

“I had a bit of an accident.”

“Yeah, I know. Heard all about the firefight at R91.”

“How did you find out?”

“I am the eye that never blinks.”

Mike chuckled. “Fine. I'll leave it alone.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Fucked up.” Mike lifted his gown and looked at his injury. The skin on his right side was bruised and swollen, colored purple and blue and pink. A long line of sutures curved from his love handle up to his ribcage. Blood had congealed between the stitches. “I'll be okay to get back on this case in a few days.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“What?”

“I want you to take it easy and recover.”

“What about figuring out what caused all this?”

“It's done. There's nothing for you to do.”

“But—”

“Mike, relax. Basra is still under an evacuation order. The military is cleaning it up. The citizens are in refugee camps. The press finally got wind of the situation and are broadcasting from outside Basra twenty-four seven. Showing long-distance shots of piles of bodies. Real family stuff.”

“Other outbreaks?”

“None.”

Mike flexed his free hand into a fist. “What about the attack at R91?”

“Isolated incident. No survivors among the attackers. But I know you have information.”

Mike gritted his teeth. “What do you mean?”

“I heard a report filed by a couple of Marines that some CIA agent tortured and killed one of the insurgents.”

Fuck,
Mike thought.

“Want to tell me what happened?”

Mike hesitated, thinking about the insurgent, both at R91 and in his dream. “It was crazy talk. The guy said they were attacking to prevent anyone from opening the tomb. They didn't know it had been opened earlier that day. Called themselves ‘Guardians of the Prison.' ”

“Prison?”

“That's what he said. Said it was a prison that contained unspeakable evil. So, I guess they were supposed to make sure whatever got out and drove everyone crazy stayed inside.”

Glenn was quiet on the other end for a moment. “So, did they think there was some kind of evil spirit down there or something?”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “Something like that.”

“Well, that's just stupid.”

“I said it was crazy.” Mike remembered how cold the prison had been. The unusual material it had been constructed from. The mysterious writing on its walls and tattooed on the insurgent's body. The dream with Greg and the insurgent and Lowe. The sea of bodies. “The whole thing is crazy.”

“What do you mean?”

Mike told him about going down in the prison and all the strange stuff inside it. Glenn didn't interrupt him while he spoke.

After Mike was done, Glenn said, “Well, they believed something was down there and they were right. Whether it was a spirit or a hallucinogenic gas doesn't matter much now. It made it to Basra and hasn't appeared anywhere else. It appears our boy Henry Prince managed to carry it for a short amount of time before it ate him up.”

Mike's eyebrows narrowed. “Ate him up?”

“Once they went into Basra to clean up, they found his remains in a truck just outside the city. Coincidentally, it was the exact place the first riot started. All they found was a skeleton.”

“Jesus.”

“No shit. Whatever it was gobbled him up while it fucked with the heads of anyone around him.”

“Wait a minute,” Mike said. “They found him on the outskirts of the city, right?”

“Yeah.”

“But the murder rampage spread toward the middle of the city.”

“Yes, but the deaths stopped there and didn't spread to the rest of Basra.”

Mike rubbed his head. “Why did they stop?”

“I guess the stuff wore off. Probably weakened and died after Henry did.”

“Yeah, but that doesn't fit the pattern.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, were there any deaths like at R91 between the convoy massacre and the outskirts of Basra?”

Mike heard papers shuffling on the other end.

“No,” Glenn said.

“But there are plenty of people between the two?”

“Sure. Lots of car traffic at least.”

“So why didn't anyone else between the convoy and the outskirts of Basra go crazy and kill each other?”

Glenn was silent.

“Why did they start killing each other again in Basra only to stop?” Mike said. “At all the other sites of death, every single person was killed and the last man standing killed himself. But in Basra, that didn't happen. They never made it to the last man. Something broke the chain reaction.”

“And what was that?”

Mike pinched the bridge of his nose as his head started to ache. There was an answer, an explanation for all this, he just couldn't find it. Or make sense of it. And it sure as hell wasn't a demon.

“I have no idea.”

“Well then, I guess there is no answer.”

“There is. I know there is.”

“Perhaps. But we'll probably never know and need to accept that. If we do find it, it'll be a logical one. And it'll probably be figured out in a lab somewhere far away from Iraq.”

Mike's head throbbed. He wanted to know now, but Glenn was right. It would take months, maybe a year or two of investigations, before any scientific answer would be reached.

Unless it was a demon,
Mike thought. The supernatural answer was a lot closer and easier to latch on to, if he believed in that kind of shit. But he didn't, so he just smiled and rubbed his temples and blocked out memories of the dream.

“Yeah, you're right,” Mike said.

“Of course I am. Now, for what I want you to do . . .”

“Recover, I got it.”

“Yes, and I want you out of Iraq.”

Mike leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling, thankful his killing days were done. “Back to Langley?”

“No.”

Mike's chest tightened. “If you're not bringing me home, leave me here. At least I know the ground here.”

“You're compromised, Mike. I want you out.”

“I used the Hosselkus alias. No one knows who I am or what I'm doing here.”

“You've interacted with a lot of people, ended up in a battle, got yourself injured. They may not know your name and why you're there, but they know what you look like and that you are there. You're not dwelling in the shadows anymore. So, I want you out.”

“This is horseshit, Glenn. Don't move me somewhere else just to be your muscle boy again. Bring me home or let me work this case.”

“This isn't open to discussion. When you're healthy enough to travel, I want you on a plane to the military base in Djibouti. There's work for you in the Horn of Africa. Iraq is closed for you now.”

The low-battery warning beeped. “Goddamn it, Glenn.”

“Love you, too.”

The cell phone went dead. Mike looked at it for a moment and then clenched it in his fist.

“Fuck.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Y
usuf smoked the last cigarette in his second pack of the day and stared out the windows of the wheelhouse at a fog-blanketed sea. His hand shook as he took a drag. Then he sipped coffee.

The images of the two dead men in the berthing haunted him. The first man, with the puncture in his chest, had disturbed him; but the second man had shaken him to his core. How had he driven a broken mop handle through the back of his own head? What could impel someone to do something so abominable?

Even now, thinking of it, Yusuf found chills running up and down his back. He shivered and sipped more coffee.

The doctor had only added to the horror of the scene. He had told Yusuf that the force it took to drive the mop handle through a skull in such a short distance was impossible for a man to do to himself. Yet there were his cold dead fingers wrapped around the handle.

“You need sleep, Omar,” Alwad said.

Yusuf took another drag off the cigarette. “I tried. I could not shake those images from my head.”

“They were just bodies.”

“You did not see them.” Yusuf's tone cut sharp. He checked it, not wanting to alarm any of the crew in the wheelhouse. “It is not an easy thing to forget.”

Alwad held up his hands. “Very well. It still does not change the fact that you need sleep.”

“I would rather be here in my chair than alone with my memories.”

“I will not argue with you.”

“Good. Instead, help me figure a way to tell the crew without causing uproar.”

Alwad stood silent. A few moments passed before he said, “The bodies are all in refrigerator unit number one. The men who found them are restricted to medical, along with Jibril. Keeping them isolated has at least stemmed the tidal wave of rumors for now.”

“What is your point, Alwad?”

“Maybe we should not say anything at all.”

“Say nothing?”

“For now, yes.”

Yusuf shook his head. “I have already overheard whispers among the crew up here, wondering why those people are in medical. I even heard one mention a dead body being found.”

“Let them talk. They will anyway; even if nothing happened, there would be rumors.”

“Yes, rumors about machinery problems or not making our port. This though—”

“Is too fantastic to believe as it is.” Alwad lit his own cigarette. “Let them banter about. We will work them hard, keep them so busy that all they will want to do is eat, sleep, and complain. What they will not want to do is push the matter further.”

“And why won't they?”

“Because we are continuing on course for our destination. If there were a real problem, we would put into port. If we maintain our voyage plan, the talking will persist, but it will not grow to panic.”

Could it be that simple?
Yusuf thought. He had his doubts but also did not have a better idea.

“Maybe you are right,” Yusuf said.

He had considered pulling into a port. But since the incident in the berthing, no one else had turned up dead. For those who had stuck it out with him in getting underway from Basra, pulling into a port now, well short of their destination and their paycheck, could lead to a riot of outrage.