Swords of Exodus [Dead Six 02] (33 page)

Reaper looked up from his laptop. “As soon as I see the radar go down, that’s when I’ll bring in our eyes. By the way, weather still looks good. Chances of snow the next morning, but we should be clear during the raid.” I had been adamant that he and Jill would not be placed in harm’s way. Later today they would be leaving town, just in case this all went horribly wrong. Reaper still had a job to do, but it could be done remotely just as easy as it could be done in town. Having my people out from under the gun was going to be one less thing on my mind.

“When you leave the canyon, my men will attack The Crossroads barracks and kill any Brothers present.” Diego spoke for the first time. He was relatively young, and had cultivated that Big Eddie Euro-trash vibe, down to the puffy hair and a suspicious amount of eye shadow. Ibrahim’s spies had confirmed that when Diego wasn’t working for Kat, he was cross dressing at one of the local clubs. Typical Montalban employee, but apparently Kat thought he was pretty sharp. He would be leading the Exchange’s forces in town as they surrounded and burned Jihan’s barracks to the ground. We still didn’t know how many Brothers there actually were, but as of this morning, intel indicated that there were at least two in town.

Fajkus spoke directly to Katarina. “How is your men’s morale?” His voice implied what he thought of the mercenaries.

Diego cut in. “The Montalban troops are as good as yours.”

I snorted, perhaps a little too impolitely.

Diego’s plucked eyebrows narrowed into a dangerous V. He lifted his shirt and exposed a well-worn knife handle. Ibrahim’s spies had also confirmed that Diego had participated in a few knife fights in the arena, when he wasn’t busy portraying a very convincing Celine Dion. He also had a bit of an attitude around me since I still had the reputation of having been Big Eddie’s favorite killer. “You have something to say, Lorenzo?”

I leaned back further in my comfortable chair. “I never met a transvestite I couldn’t take in a knife fight.”

Diego began to rise, but Kat glared at him. He slowly lowered himself back down, fixing me with a glare that let me know we had unfinished business, or maybe he was going to start singing the theme song from
Titanic
. Hell if I knew.

“My men don’t know they’re doing this. When we initiate, I will tell them that Jihan has already been killed,” she stated simply. “That’ll fire them up. What they don’t know can’t hurt them, and if we fail in the compound . . .” She trailed off. We all knew it wouldn’t matter for long. And she meant it when she said
we,
since Kat was going to be on the second chopper. That fact alone helped to demonstrate to Exodus that she was just as committed as they were. “How’s your troops’ morale?” she asked snidely, already knowing the answer.

“Excellent,” Ibrahim said with an honest assurance. He wasn’t exaggerating either. I had worked closely with his subordinates in planning this. They were fired up. There were still several other Exodus teams scattered around the world that were supposed to be converging here, but Ibrahim was done waiting. The Kurd had picked a course of action and was committed to seeing it through.

The next phase was the separation of the various teams to take over and control different points of the compound. My group got the brig. Ibrahim was going to personally take the missile silo that Jihan called home. I didn’t like that part at all. A commander should be someplace he can have a view of everything, and that’s not at the bottom of a giant hole, but Exodus leadership seemed to be very
lead from the front
oriented. We went over secondary plans, who would take over what areas of responsibility should some other team be incapacitated, and finally every contingency plan that we could think of.

It had been a long time since I had worked with this large a group. I grudgingly respected Exodus. Their motives were pure, their training top notch, and their fury justified. They were nuts, but they were devoted nuts. The Exchange was the wild card, but Katarina had been nothing but professional so far. Anders was a brute, but he was also cunning, and by all accounts, very good at what he did. Diego was a weirdo, but in typical Montalban fashion could be counted on to be ruthless and efficient.

We went over a few last bits of business. Ibrahim nodded at me toward the conclusion, his bushy eyebrows scrunching together. I had already agreed to meet with him secretly, to discuss a few other contingency plans that we were going to put into place in case the Montalbans fell through. There was not a lot of trust in this business.

Finally, we were done. We had planned about as much as possible in the time allotted. If we didn’t go tomorrow, it would be at least another week before we could do this again. That meant a greater chance that my brother would be dead, Exodus would lose more slaves, and Kat lost more money. None of us wanted to postpone. We were a go.

Ibrahim addressed Katarina, very formally, very solemnly. “On behalf of Exodus, I want to thank you. I know that your reasons for helping us are to your own benefit, but know that the lives and freedom of thousands are in your hands. With almighty God’s blessing upon us, tomorrow liberty will shine on the ancient Crossroads again.”

Katarina smiled politely. She had a glass of wine in front of her. She picked it up as if she were about to give a toast. “Thank you. I—” There was a knock at the door, and she turned briefly. Anders pulled a cloth over the table, covering the model. “Please excuse me, for a moment.” Ibrahim nodded for her to proceed.

The door opened, and two Montalban retainers came in, each one holding the arm of a third, his feet dragging limply behind him. They pulled the semi-conscious man into the center of the room. Kat waved her hand. “Leave him.” The retainers dropped the man with a thud, turned and quickly left. The man curled up in a fetal position and moaned. He had obviously been severely beaten.

Katarina pushed her chair away from the table, and strolled toward the man, still holding her glass. The rest of us at the table exchanged confused glances, including Anders and Diego. The injured man seemed incoherent. “Everyone, allow me to introduce you to Dieter, one of my employees.” Kat paused, and then threw her wine in his face. He jerked awake as the alcohol burned the deep lacerations on his face. He cringed back from Kat’s feet, trying to roll away, his hands raised to cover his head.

“Ms. Katarina! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he shrieked.

“Shut up!” she screamed back at him, and then flung the glass into his face. It shattered and he yelped and scurried back further. His back collided with the wall, and he had nowhere else to go. Her voice went immediately back to a normal inflection. “Dieter was working closely with Diego on the plans for the raid. It has been brought to my attention that my
employee
has a big mouth.”

“I didn’t tell anyone anything!” Dieter insisted, still recoiling. Blood was running down his forehead into his eye, and he instinctively wiped it away with his torn shirt sleeve.

“Only because we caught you in the act before you could open your stupid mouth,” she said calmly. “How long have we worked together? We were equals under Big Eddie. So, what, eight years? Eight years I’ve considered you my friend?” She turned back to address the table. “Ibrahim, if you doubted my sincerity in this operation, don’t let your heart be troubled. Allow me to demonstrate the depth of my commitment.”

“That isn’t necessary,” Ibrahim said, stone-faced.

Kat smiled. Her teeth were a sharp white line splitting her face. “Oh, yes. It is.” A stainless SIG P232 appeared suddenly in her hand. She spun around, and there were two rapid cracks. Dieter screamed as a bullet exploded through each knee. Reaper was the only one to let out an audible gasp.

Dieter just kept on screaming, a hand on each leg, blood welling up between his clenched fingers. “Shut up! Shut up! You haven’t earned the right to scream!” Kat shrieked. The injured man choked back his pain. She walked over to the fireplace, removed an iron poker from the rack, and stuck the tip into the coals to let it heat up. She was again calm as she studied the fire. “This meeting is adjourned. We’ll rendezvous at the assigned positions tomorrow. Anders will see you out.”

So there she was.
I was wondering if that personality had finally been put away. She had been so calm since we had reunited, but apparently not. This was Evil Kat, and from the look in her eyes, and the poker in the coals, I knew the Crazy one wasn’t far behind.

I was the last one out. Kat was still watching the poker. I shook my head sadly. If Dieter was lucky he would pass out from blood loss before the metal got red hot.

“She’s irrational,” Fajkus insisted. “I say we postpone, and find a way to do it without her.”

The Exodus members were clustered under an overhang down the street from the Montalban Exchange. Roland, Svetlana, and another young Exodus operative named Phillips met us there. They’d been tailing Ibrahim to make sure their leader was safe. I scanned back and forth, but couldn’t spot any eavesdroppers. We hadn’t walked very far, so my good ear was still ringing from the sudden pistol shots.

“No,” Roland said forcefully. “Every day we wait, more slaves die.”

Svetlana spoke up. “Not only that, we’re committed to the Montalbans now. If we back off, they could easily sell us out to Jihan. No. To postpone now means that we will have to fight both of them.”

Ibrahim folded his arms. Ultimately the decision rested with him. “Lorenzo. You know her best. You were her lover once.” He stated that fact without animosity or judgment, I was simply the best source of intelligence. “Will she fail us?”

I probably knew her as well as anyone could. I weighed my answer carefully. “Is she unstable? Yes. Will she fail you? I don’t think so. She’s as committed as you are, but in a different way.”

Fajkus snorted. “Bullshit.”

“Katarina is dangerous, but she’s focused like a laser beam. As long as she’s targeted on something, she’ll see it through to the end. When she’s got a goal, nothing else matters and she’ll risk anything to achieve it.” I hoped I was right, because heaven help us if I was wrong. “She’s damaged. By what, I don’t know. In a way, she’s like some of the slaves you’ve freed, only she never had someone like Dr. Bundt to help put her back together.”

The Exodus members waited for their leader’s decision. I had come to like each of these fanatics. Roland was an American, as was Phillips, and they were buddies. How they had ended up here was a mystery, but they were both earnest, smart, and likable young men. Svetlana was a sharp woman and, it turned out, a good friend of Ling. Fajkus was a surly bulldog of a man, but he struck me as honorable and honest.

“This isn’t the only way, Ibrahim,” Fajkus insisted.

There was a lot Exodus wasn’t telling me. They were playing it cool, but I knew they had other plots. First off, the number of men on the choppers was a little smaller than what I estimated they had in The Crossroads, and some of the ones I’d met so far weren’t part of the raid. In fact, nobody would tell me where Ling and Valentine were going either. However, you get used to that sort of thing in a business where nobody tells the whole truth.

“Fajkus, old friend. You’ve seen more combat than the rest of us put together, and I always value your counsel, but today I’m afraid that we must choose to associate ourselves with the lesser of two evils. If we turn back now, then Jihan will find out about our mission, and tens of thousands more will die in servitude. Not on my watch.” Ibrahim nodded. “We strike tomorrow.”

VALENTINE

Exodus Safe House

Crossroads City

March 24th

“We strike tomorrow,” Katsumoto began his briefing. “Our operation will commence simultaneously with the main assault on Sala Jihan’s fortress.” The Japanese Exodus commander used a laser pointer to indicate the old Soviet fortress on a large Cyrillic topographical map that was years out of date. The map hung on a wooden board propped against the wall. Someone had written all over it in Sharpie, indicating the present-day positions of things.

Next to the map was a large screen, onto which was projected a PowerPoint presentation detailing our assault plan. A laptop sat on a small table at the front of the room, hooked to a projector. I stood off to the side with Ling. Some fifty Exodus operatives, all of whom were taking notes or listening intently, sat in metal folding chairs. Skunky was among them.

Katsumoto continued, using a wireless mouse to advance the PowerPoint presentation as he spoke. “Our first challenge lies here,” he said. The laser dot fell on a cluster of buildings on the road that led to the hydroelectric plant. “This is a former Red Army checkpoint that is now being used by Jihan’s forces. The road from there to the dam itself is straight, open, and uphill. If we get stalled trying to break through the checkpoint, the enemy will be able to rake us with machine-gun fire and RPGs all the way up to the dam itself. Our strategy will be to smash through this checkpoint as quickly as possible. It’s about a kilometer from there to the dam. If we move quickly enough, we will be on top of the dam before its garrison knows what’s happening.”

Someone raised his hand. “Won’t they still be able to hit us with fire on the way up?”

“Yes,” Katsumoto said grimly. “Our safety lies in darkness and speed. The raid will commence after dark. To the best of our knowledge, Jihan’s forces at the dam are more primitively armed and will likely have limited night-vision capabilities. We will advance up the road without using headlights. This is risky, there is no doubt, but there is no other way. We do not have any personnel to spare to try to infiltrate the checkpoint quietly.”

The fifty guys we had were going up against a garrison of over a hundred at the plant itself. They were part of Sala Jihan’s slave army, brainwashed conscripts, but what they lacked in training they made up for in fanaticism. If we didn’t move quickly enough, the Brotherhood could be called down on us as well, and although we didn’t know how many of them there were, apparently they were well trained.

I listened intently as Katsumoto described the rest of the operation. Our initial approach would be made in a small caravan of vehicles, including two old BTR-70 armored personnel carriers that Exodus had acquired in The Crossroads. These vehicles would lead the charge through the checkpoint and up the hill, followed by the unarmored trucks.