Mad Dogs (39 page)

Chest burning, heaving. Heart pounding 'gainst crushing ribs. Roaring in my skull. White—Don't zone out!
Can't say it!
Got to say it.
Can't do it!
No better choice.

My eyes went from Lang to the white Cadillac where Eric held Hailey locked in his embrace. That couples' eyes found mine as my soul tore to free the words: “Not him!”

Lang said: “‘
Not him'
means
not me
?
‘Essential nature'
?”

Hailey's face glowed in something like a smile: “Eric! Obey the boss's order! Make it worth it! Hold me so we'll be together forever!”

Her command rode within the horrors Eric had no choice but to obey, rode within them and swelled them into a vision shaped by the essential nature of his loving heart.

Lang whirled towards Eric and Hailey, his own essential nature sensing danger. He ripped the tranquilizer gun from it straps—empty. But he was a man keen on close quarter combat and he charged the intertwined couple standing beside the white beast. He swung the tranquilizer gun—smashed it into Hailey's blocking arm as Eric bear hugged her waist. Lang's backswing slammed the short club below her face-blocking arms, hit her breasts above Eric's encircling grip and she cried out—

Grabbed Lang and pulled him close.

Lang flowed with his attacker. Three intertwined bodies slammed into the Caddy. Eric twisted with all his pudgy might and they spun around on the side of the car. Lang's back slammed against metal. The force of that collision flung the tranquilizer gun from his grip. Hailey held him close with one hand—sank her other hand like a claw over his mouth so that all he could articulate were gurgled screams and grunts. Eric obeyed orders and held her tight with one hand, used his other to pound the boss.

The boss who mashed against the windows of the Caddy doors. The boss who fought to stay on his feet as Eric pistoned his legs to crush their huddle against the car.

They slid along the front door, to the back door.

The silver-haired spymaster slammed the stun gun prongs into Eric.

A jolt of electricity shot through Eric—no:
another
bolt of electricity crackled through this man who'd endured a hundred worse shocks. This bolt zapped through his back to his chest—and then conducted through him as a diffused charge shocking the two people Eric pinned to the metal car.

Eric trembled, dazed. Hailey slumped, her hands falling to her sides. She might have fallen, but Eric held her tight. Holding her meant holding the shocked Lang, whose sheer insane will kept him upright as their intertwined trio slid to the rear of the car.

Hailey's hand brushed the gas tank cap an instant after consciousness returned to her eyes. Brushed it as Lang regained strength.

“Eric!” she cried.

With a twist of her wrist, a jerk of her arm, she thrust what she held between their three faces for all of them to see: the cap to the Caddy's gas tank.

Eric yelled: “Hold me forever!”

Was he repeating? Was he asking? Was he telling? I never knew.

As Hailey yelled back: “Yes!”

And Eric reached into the bundle of flesh pinned against the rear of the Caddy, found the pins on the two flash/bang grenades in the vest Lang wore.

Pulled them free.

I saw two grenade safety handles spin out of the trio—threw my back to the pavement, my hands flopping over my face with its already-signed off eyebrows.

Two flash/bang grenades burst as one bright white spark-throwing flame beside the Caddy's fume-spewing open gas tank.

The white beast roared a tremendous explosion and an orange fireball lit the night. Over the prone forms of four spies on the blacktop blew the big heat.

55

The clean up of the accidental explosion of a federal waste disposal truck parked beside an old car near the waterfront of the wildlife preserve near Parkton, Maryland was almost complete by 11:15 that next morning, Day Nine of our whacko crusade. Husky workers in lumpy coveralls waved a carload of five teenagers away from the entrance to the parking lot, telling them: “It stinks down there. Couple of our guys even threw up.”

The Alpha girl in the group told her friends: “I can smell it. Smells kind of like gasoline and burned rubber and…
eew!
Burned hair and stuff!”

The teenagers drove back to their boring hometown where no one ever had to sentence his friends to die. They counted themselves lucky for not getting caught skipping school and to keep their cover intact, told no adults about what they hadn't seen.

By 11:15, the charred skeleton of a 1959 white Cadillac had been winched into the cargo box of a huge truck, swallowed by that darkness as if it had never been.

Other things had been bagged and hauled away in unmarked panel vans.

By 11:15, the local banker had satisfied FBI credentialed men who were officially investigating a ring of cashier check thieves. His information complimented ours and added up to an Op Finding initially scoffed at in the darkness of First Response that, by 11:15, became both credible and true.

Which meant by that 11:15, SAD gunners—who'd surrounded Zane, Russell and I when they showed up—relaxed and left us alone.

We three maniacs stood at the shoreline.

By 11:15, the sky was blue. The waters of the ocean inlet in front of us had calmed to easy ripples. Birds glided overhead. Each of our inhales bore less and less of the stench of explosion and fire death.

Russell said: “Was what they both wanted, Vic.”

Zane said: “You didn't get them anything they hadn't signed on for.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Not like before,” said Russell.

“Never is.”

The water rippled.

“But both times,” Russell told me, “you played the best gig you had.”

Finally, I believed that. Said: “Guess I am a hard man to kill. Guess that's OK.”

“'Xactly. And we're damn lucky to still be here.”

The water rippled.

Russell held out his hand. We watched it tremble. He shrugged. “Anybody want the meds they offered us?”

“Nah,” I said. “
Saying no
got me this far. With a lot of help from my friends.”

“Breakthroughs,” said Zane. “All of us.”

“All of us who made it,” said Russell, staring at the fire smeared pavement.

“We all made it,” I said. “Welcome to the other side.”

“Too bad your GODS were in the Caddy,” Zane told me. “The picture of Derya. The snow globe.”

I shrugged. “Maybe not.”

“‘
Not'
is
not
more coffee,” said Russell. “My heart will pound out of my ribs.”

“And I'll have to pee… again,” said Zane.

“I don't want to drive,” I said. “Not for awhile.”

Russell said: “Do you believe them? About us not having to go back to the Castle after the next couple days of de-briefs—if we don't want to.”

My shrug came easy. “Well, we busted out once. Lucky we're still crazy.”

The three of us laughed.

A seagull screed overhead.

“Of course, they could always medicate us with a lead pill,” said Russell.

“The ultimate in mental health treatment.” I shook my bullet-free skull. “They need us. They won a great spin. They saved the world from a homicidal maniac running amok in the White House. We're the proof of their success, even if we're a secret.”

Russell shuffled, shrugged: “I might go back.”

Zane and I stared at him.

“Not to stay,” he said. “But… I'm not sure the real world is ready for my encore.”

Couldn't help myself, I tousled his hair like he was my kid brother.

And he grinned.

Cari split off from Agency bishops and joined us. “We're going now.”

“OK,” I said. “Where?”

“Ahh…” She looked at Zane.

He looked at me.

Russell stared at the rippling water.

“Vic,” said Zane, “I'm not with you anymore.”

“We're together,” said Cari. She took Zane's hand in hers.

“What?”

Russell stared at the rippling water.

“It's been a long trip,” she said. “For everybody.”

Remember looks. Words. Sounds. Closed motel room doors.

“Who knew about this?” I whispered.

Russell said: “Everybody but you.”

I shot them my harshest bullet. “He's old enough to be your father!”

“We have something else in mind,” she said.

Something inside me fell. Something inside me let go. I said: “Well, fuck me.”

Zane answered: “No. But now… I could. Can.”

And his grin soared my heart.

“Wild!” said Russell. They knocked fists like two dudes in the 'hood, and Russell said: “Later.”

“'Xactly.”

Walking away, Cari held Zane's hand with the strength of a woman who'd settled for no less than special and he held her with the patience of a man who knew how to wait.

Water lapped the shore by my feet.

“I told you that you didn't get women,” said Russell.

“Look who's talking,” I muttered.

Waves rippled in front of us.

“So,” he finally said. “Do you know what you want to do?”

Wave rippled in front of us. The sky was blue overhead. Behind us was a black smear of smoke on the asphalt, glistening diamonds of shattered glass. Waves rippled.

And I said: “Yeah.”

The End

Copyright

This ebook edition first published

in the UK in 2015 by No Exit Press,

an imprint of Oldcastle Books

P O Box 394, Harpenden,

AL5 1XJ, UK

www.noexit.co.uk

All rights reserved

© James Grady, 2007

The right of James Grady to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN

978-1-84344-665-1 (print)

978-1-84344-665-1 (epub)

978-1-84344-666-8 (kindle)

978-1-84344-667-5 (pdf)

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