Swords of Exodus [Dead Six 02] (9 page)

Now in darkness, world stops turning

As the war machine keeps burning

“You think I’m stupid? I saw you talking. Thinking she’s all too good for me? Then she leaves with that fuck head? Like he’s better than me?” He was shouting now. A couple of other guys stood behind him, obviously his friends, grinning stupidly. “And you, you little prick. I never seen you ‘round here before. Where the fuck do you get off comin’ in here and stealin’ all the pussy?”

And here we go.
Years of experience told me how this was going to turn out.

“Didn’t Patrick Swayze beat you up in
Road House
?”

The Captain’s brow scrunched in drunk confusion. “Huh?” Then in drunk anger. “Oh, you wanna dance, boy? You think you’re tough?”

It doesn’t matter what country you’re in. There are places like the Golden Manatee everywhere and the inhabitants are always the same. The adrenaline began to flow as Ozzie got to my favorite part of “War Pigs.”

Day of judgment, God is calling

On their knees, the war pigs crawling

Begging mercy for their sins

Satan laughing spreads his wings

“All right now,” I said, as I grabbed the hand on my shirt, dropped my elbow, and bowed my head. The Captain screamed as the pressure hit his wrist. He went right to his knees. “I don’t want any trouble,” I said calmly. He reached into his pocket with his other hand and pulled out a knife.
Idiot.

I levered his arm and snapped his wrist before stepping back and kicking him in the face. I was wearing heavy work boots to fit in with the crowd, and the steel toe removed his front teeth.

“He hit Chet!” someone shouted.
This asshole looks like a Chet.
One of Captain Chet’s friends charged me. I ducked the clumsy blow, and brought my knee into his stomach. The moose kept going, and went head first into the pool table.

“The Mexican broke my arm!” Chet screamed from the floor. I suppose all brown people look the same to guys like Chet. “Help me, Timbo!”

A giant of a man stood up from a nearby table, dumping the two girls sitting on his lap to the floor. “Who hit my little brother?” He bellowed. That had to be Timbo, and he was bigger than my old buddy Train, bigger than Bob, bigger than Antoine, like
holy shit, that’s one big motherfucker
big.

“The Mexican!” the Captain cried, pointing his good arm at me.
So much for low profile.

“Come on, boys, let’s get him!” Timbo said. Half a dozen other brutes stood up from their tables. The number-one sport in Tickville was whooping ass, and it looked like I was playing for the visiting team.

The sound of a shotgun getting a shell pumped into the chamber was loud enough to hear over the jukebox. All eyes fixated on the owner, a heavyset, surly-looking, middle-aged woman named Betty. “Take it outside, Timbo!” she ordered. “You wreck my place one more time and I swear to Christ I’ll have the sheriff lock you up for a month!”

I’m a tough guy, but I’m a lot smarter than I am tough. While everyone was distracted by Betty’s shotgun, I sprinted for the door, ducked an eight ball that somebody chucked at me from the pool table, knocked down a waitress, “Sorry!” and was out the door. A bottle shattered on the door frame next to me.
So long, suckers.

Then I collided with two more big guys coming in from the snow. “Watch it, asshole.” One grimy hand latched onto my left coat sleeve.

“Sorry,” I replied, as I tried to shove past them.

“Grab him, Frank!” Timbo yelled from inside the Golden Manatee. “He beat up Chet!”

“He didn’t beat me up!” the Captain protested, cradling his damaged arm. “He suckered me with some kung fu shit! Hold that son of a bitch!”

“You got it, bro,” said Frank as he squeezed my arm.

How many brothers does this asshole have?
I clamped onto Frank’s hand with my right, levered my left elbow up and over, and broke his forearm. His head dipped down and intercepted with my knee at a remarkable velocity. I pulled away, dodged a wild swing from the other guy, started to run, and slipped in the snow. I hit the ground hard, scrambling to get away.

The crew from the Golden Manatee was piling out now, chanting, “Fight! Fight!
Fight
!” Except for Frank, who started screaming when he realized the floppy lump inside his forearm was a bone.

I felt a hand the size of a canned ham clamp onto my collar, lift me effortlessly, and toss me onto the hood of a nearby pickup. Timbo was strong.

“He broke two of our guys’ arms! Who’s gonna run the pumps on Monday?”

“Two arms?
This guy
’s got two arms. Eye for a tooth, asshole!” Timbo shouted. He was a biblical scholar too. I rolled to the side as he clubbed a dent into the hood of the truck. I landed on my hands and knees, kicked out, and connected my boot with his shin. “
Aaarrgh!
”

“He kicked Timbo!” There was a collective gasp from the crowd. They had fanned out, and now I was completely surrounded. Apparently, nobody was allowed to hit Timbo, because the circle was closing on me rapidly.

“There a problem here, gentlemen?” Antoine’s voice boomed over the crowd, muted slightly in the drifting snow. Shen stood slightly to his side, arms loose and ready. Their breath formed steam halos around their heads.

“Me and Master Blaster here just had a little disagreement is all,” I said.

“Why don’t you all step away from my friend?” Antoine’s tone made it clear that this wasn’t a polite suggestion. He didn’t look like a man to trifle with. He cracked his knuckles loudly.

Timbo was squatting, rubbing his ankle furiously. “Well, looks like we’re about to have us a good old-fashioned rumble. We got a wetback, a nigger, and a . . . a . . .”

“Chink?” Shen supplied helpfully.

“Yeah. A
chink
! Get ’em, boys!” Timbo ordered.

A pair of burly-looking black men, more oil workers by the look of them, appeared behind Timbo. “What the fuck did you just say, cracker?” One of them socked one of Timbo’s friends in the side of the head and pandemonium ensued.

“Don’t kill any of them!” I shouted at Antoine. I had serious doubts that we were sticking with the low-profile plan at this point. I think Timbo thought I was pleading for my friend’s lives. He couldn’t have been more wrong. He grinned at me evilly, and charged.

Then it was on like a bad episode of
The A-Team
. There were eight of the locals against the three of us. Behind them, a dozen other locals brawled with each other, with more and more roughnecks running to join the fight, crew on crew, hitting people without even knowing what was going on. The parking lot of the Golden Manatee had turned into a rumble.

Shen got a running start, and slid through the snow, right into the leading pair of roughnecks. His hands were moving so fast it was hard to track. One of the men doubled over gagging and the next stumbled back, holding his nose, blood streaming between his fingers. Antoine was right behind. He caught one fist sailing toward Shen, spun the man off the ground, and tossed him a good ten feet into the tailgate of a truck. It rocked on impact.

I was on Timbo like white on rice. He was powerful, but he was sloppy and untrained. I moved between his arms and started hitting him. I hit him in the eyes, the nose, he kept moving back, trying to make room to swing. I kept on him, all knees and elbows, not wanting to break my hands. It was nonstop punishment. Timbo was a giant punching bag.

A worker took a swing at Antoine and hit him right in the face. Antoine swayed back slightly, and smiled, actually smiled, before he punched the man once. The blow made a sound like a bat hitting a watermelon and the man collapsed into the snow. Shen went after the next man, spin-kicked him in the sternum, and followed up with a flurry of blows to the face before he even had a chance to fall down. These guys were brawlers. Shen and Antoine killed slavers and warlords for a living. The last fighters took a look at the two of them beating the shit out their friends, then turned and ran. Apparently they were the smart ones.

Timbo was swooning now, blood rushing out of his nose, his mouth, and one ear. “Fall down already!” He finally got enough distance to launch one of those haymakers, but I was faster and kicked him on his inner thigh. He toppled over as his leg went numb, femoral artery temporarily stopped, making a noise like a felled tree.

The locals cheered and continued to brawl with each other. There were now probably twenty-five men beating the hell out of each other in the parking lot and it had spilled out into the street. I looked down at Timbo, backed up a step, and punt-kicked him in the ribs. He bellowed and flopped over, looking like some sort of injured walrus, or, well, I suppose
manatee
would be more appropriate. The others that attacked us were lying in the snow, moaning, whimpering, one man was vomiting from where Shen had punched him in the stomach, and another was actually, literally, crying for his mother.

All three of us grinned at each other. Nothing like a fist-fight for a team-building exercise. These Exodus guys were actually kind of fun to hang out with.

“Better go before the cops get here.” I was surprised to discover that I was totally out of breath. It had been awhile since I had gotten my violence on.

“Are you okay?” Shen asked.

“It must be the altitude,” I answered.

“Americans,” Antoine lamented, shaking his head. “We must hurry!”

Antoine pulled our beat-up station wagon into a dark spot in the motel parking lot. We had rented three rooms on the far edge of the building. Ling’s was the one on the end, and the other two were a buffer zone, just in case we needed to make a little noise. Smoot’s car was parked in front of the last room and the lights were on inside. Luckily there were only a few other cars in the lot. The government plates told me which one was Smoot’s ride.

“I’ll go first.”

“I’ll come with you,” Shen spoke from the backseat.

“Okay, Antoine, stay here.”

“Very well,” he said curtly. What could I say? I’d just watched this guy toss a full-grown man like a shot put. I assumed that being sneaky wasn’t his specialty. I had disabled the interior lights, so it stayed dark when I opened the door. Shen nodded at his partner as we got out of the car and made our way toward the motel.

We had broken the bulbs in the overhang earlier that day so this end of the building was cloaked in darkness. We made no noise as we crept up to the window. I had to admit, Shen was pretty good. Not as quiet as me, but pretty damn sneaky. I risked a peek. Ling and our target were both sitting on the bed. Smoot stood up and walked into the bathroom. I signaled Shen to wait at the entrance. He squatted in the shadows.

I pulled my key card and unlocked the door. The door creaked slightly as I slipped through, carefully testing the carpeted floor before I let my boot touch down. We had planned for inadvertent noise, and Ling had turned up the radio. She was sitting on the bed, glancing at her watch. I could hear Smoot talking in the attached bathroom.

“Yeah, I can’t really talk about what I do. You know how it is with government work.”

“That is
so
exciting,” Ling answered, playing up her accent, sounding again like the stereotypical naïve, passive, easily-impressed Asian schoolgirl. She saw me in the doorway. I gave her a thumbs up and started slowly into the bedroom. Ling mouthed the words
about time
. I heard the faucet shut off.
Damn it, he’s coming back.
The closet door was slightly open, so I ducked inside, trying not to rattle the hangers.

The closet door was the slatted kind, and I could peer through it. Smoot came back into the room, now not wearing a shirt, and placed his gun on the night stand. Ling made a show of staring at the Glock 23 all wide-eyed.

“Don’t let that thing intimidate you, baby. I take care of bad guys with that. See, that’s the kind of thing I do. ‘Sides, I got an even
bigger
gun to show you.” He laughed and sat on the bed beside Ling, facing away from me. “So whaddaya say, baby?”

He put his bulbous nose against her neck. Ling looked right at the closet door, and mouthed the word
now.
I had to admit that I didn’t attack because I was enjoying her discomfort. It was payback for getting me into that bar fight. I’m a bad man.

“The fact I’m a highly-trained badass scares people, but don’t worry, we’re safe here. Just relax.” Ling looked like she was about to vomit. She mouthed the word
now
again. Smoot sloppily kissed her neck, and pulled one of the spaghetti straps down over her shoulder. She narrowed her eyes, and said “Now,” out loud.

“Okay, baby, don’t worry,” Smoot said happily. “You want it now, we can do that.” Ling’s dark eyes flashed, and she pushed him away. “
Rowr
,” he said. “So you like it rough? You are a dirty little . . .
HURRK
!” Smoot’s voice was cut off in a gurgle as Ling smashed him in the throat with the knife ridge of her hand. He rose, hands clutching his throat, gagging, as Ling spun, her tiny denim skirt riding high, and kicked him in the side of the head.

“Oh shit!” I exclaimed from inside the closet at the spectacular impact of her heel to Smoot’s skull. Smoot hit the bed, eyes rolled back, totally out. Shen leapt into the room, having heard the noise, and ready to take down the target. Ling pushed the spaghetti-strap back over her shoulder.

“
Now
would be a good time, Mr. Lorenzo!” she snapped, glaring at me through the slats on the closet door.

I fell out of the closet laughing. Ling cursed in Chinese, turned on her heel, and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Shen looked at me, obviously confused, and he seemed unable to find anything to say.

Chapter 5: My Funny Valentine

LORENZO

North Gap, Montana

February 14th

0400 Hours

I was exhausted. Preparations had taken all night, another downside of this sort of rush job. Normally I would have taken weeks to prepare my disguise, to converse with the target, learning their speech patterns, their mannerisms, the quirks that make them who they are. Usually by the time I’m ready to impersonate someone, I’ve become that person. Give me enough time and I could fool their own mother. Today, I’d be lucky to not get shot at the first checkpoint.

Smoot’s uniform was just a touch too big, but there was no time to tailor it so that it would fit me exactly like it had fit him. The black BDUs had been in a duffle bag in the back seat of the government Chevy Tahoe.

The heater was running full blast, but I was still freezing. The road to the radar station was winding, and there was a sheer drop off one side of the mountain if you happened to hit a patch of unexpected ice. The wipers beat a steady cadence to keep off the steadily falling snow.

“Don’t let that thing intimidate you. Don’t let
that thing
intimidate you,” I coughed, that didn’t sound right. “Don’t let that thing intimidate you.” His accent had been Irish, Boston, but not thick. He hadn’t lived there for a long time.
Don’t lay it on. Clip the words faster.
“Don’t let
that thing intimidate
you.”

I checked my face in the rearview mirror. I wasn’t happy. The molds had barely had time to cool for the latex nose and chin, the hair color wasn’t quite the right shade of red, and even with makeup, my skin tone was a little too dark to match his pasty complexion. It takes experimentation to get things like that perfect, and I didn’t have time to experiment.

This is never going to work.

I had spent half the night interrogating Smoot. He thought it was to gather intelligence about the security at the North Gap facility. That was only partly true. Mostly I was listening to how he talked, how he acted, to get a sense of him as a person. Of course, it was always better to observe a subject in their natural environment. Unfortunately, zip-tied to a chair with Shen occasionally hitting you is not a natural environment.

To say that Roger Smoot was a dirtbag was an insult to honest, decent bags of dirt. Getting inside his head had made me want to take a shower. His laptop had been in his car, filled with every weird, deviant, sicko thing you could think of. Unfortunately, there weren’t very many job opportunities for me to pretend to be a decent human being.

The headlights cut a swath through the darkness. An old sign indicted that I was only three miles from the radar station.

This is it.

My phone buzzed. “Go.”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Jill?” I was surprised. I had been expecting Ling to check in to tell me they would be pulling off to await my signal. It was good to hear her voice, but right now I needed to get into character. “What’s going on?”

“You didn’t call me back last night. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” Her voice cut out as she spoke. I barely had any signal.

“Sorry. I’m fine. I had a lot of stuff to take care of last night.” Like kidnapping, torture, etc. “I don’t have much time. I’ve got to go. I’m about to go get the kid. I’ll call you when I can.”

“Okay, be careful. Please.” She was tough, but I could hear the nervousness in her voice.

“I love you, Jill. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, you better be, and happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh, I forgot. I’ll do something nice for you when I get home.”

“I love you, Lorenzo.” The line went dead.

Valentine’s Day. Hi-fucking-larious.

There was a guard shack at the end of the road. A hydraulic gate blocked the entrance. There was a chain link fence running around the entire property, but the real security was the host of motion detectors and thermal cameras. If Exodus had launched an attack, they would have been spotted miles away, and that probably would have ended with Valentine getting a preemptive bullet to the brain.

I stopped the Tahoe in front of the gate. The lights were on inside the shack, and a man dressed in black fatigues looked up from the flashing glare of a TV screen.

Plan A was to pass for Roger Smoot. Plan B was to pull my suppressed pistol from under the seat and shoot this man in the face. I was really rooting for Plan A. I rolled down the window. A jet of freezing air flooded the car as the intercom buzzed.

“Hey, man. How was leave?” he sounded bored. I didn’t recognize the guard from any of the personnel files, but we had no idea how up to date those were.

“Dude . . .” I could tell Smoot was a braggart, a jerk, and in his mind, a ladies’ man. “I totally scored with this hot chick. You should have seen her. Young, Asian, stacked like you wouldn’t believe.”

“In Tickville? Fuck you, you did not.” He shook his head. The gate started to rise. I waved, and put the SUV back into drive. Suddenly, the gate stopped. The intercom buzzed again. “Hey, wait a second . . . ” I placed my hand on the grip of my STI 9mm and mentally shifted to Plan B.

“Yeah?”

“You still owe me fifty bucks from poker night, asshole.”

I let go of my gun, raised my hand, and flipped him the bird. “I’ll pay you when I pay you! Now open the goddamn gate. I’m gonna be late.” He laughed, and the gate rose. I stepped on it.

My headlights illuminated a few old dilapidated houses. Cookie-cutter, cheap base housing. A deer leapt across the road, and I had to admit that my nerves were wound tight enough, that it startled me.

I pulled my phone. “Ling. I’m in.”

“Copy. We’re at the bottom of the hill.”

“There’s one man in the guard shack. I couldn’t see what kind of weapons. The glass wasn’t thick enough to be bulletproof.”

“Godspeed, Lorenzo.” Ling’s voice cut out.

Interrogating Smoot had showed me that there was no way I was going to get any weapons or electronic devices into the building. The Glock that Smoot had been carrying was personally-owned. I was going to leave it in the truck because everybody, even the guards, got checked at the entrance. Their duty weapons were stored in a locker inside.

The main building dated back to the early ‘50s. It was a three-story building, ugly and imposing, with very few windows. There were a couple of large radar dishes on the roof, and one giant revolving ball radar that had been rusted solid for decades. There was a second chain link fence around the building, only this fence was topped with razor wire. I parked next to the other cars took a deep breath, and stepped out into the cold.

Whatever is in Valentine’s head better be worth it, Bob, because I’m freezing my ass off out here.

There was a single gate in the fence. There was another intercom, a keypad, and a camera that was looking right down at me. I pushed the intercom button.

“Identify,” the bored voice said. The camera made a mechanical noise as it tracked on me.

“Roger Smoot.”

“Enter your password.” I typed in the four-digit number that Smoot had indicated. Since I had been rather persuasive, I was relatively sure that he had finally given me the right number. The light blinked green.
Good serial rapist
.

“Stand by for thumbprint scan.”

Smoot had said that sometimes the electronics weren’t very reliable when it was below freezing. “Hurry up, man. It’s cold out here.” I dramatically shoved my hands into the pockets of my black fatigues, and found the cold lump waiting for me. The box lit up, I pulled the thing out of my pocket and smashed it against the pad. The pad blinked twice as it scanned the print, and the gate unlocked.

I pushed the gate open and shuffled toward the main entrance. Somebody had shoveled and thrown down salt, causing a layer of cold slush to form. A heavy-set, jowly man in a black uniform and a coyote-brown gun belt opened the security door for me.

“You’re late.”

“I’m hung over too,” I followed him in and nonchalantly tossed Smoot’s severed thumb in the snow behind me. He wouldn’t be missing it.

VALENTINE

There was a dull throb in the back of my head as the ceiling slowly came into focus. I didn’t move. My muscles were cramped and I ached all over. I was dizzy and nauseated on top of it. My heart was racing, as if I’d woken from a bad dream. It’s a hell of a thing, waking up and realizing you’re still in the nightmare.

But I was still in my cell, so that’s how it was. I had long since given up hope that this particular nightmare would ever end. I didn’t move, didn’t attempt to get up because I had no reason to. Why bother? What did I have to gain from getting up?

Whatever else Dr. Silvers’ machines, methods, and drugs were doing to me, having to relive the nightmares of my past were the worst. So much death. So many dead faces, blankly staring at me, silently accusing me.

The ache wasn’t as bad as it had been last time. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. A sense of ambivalence had overtaken me. It was more than ambivalence, it was apathy. I just didn’t give a damn anymore. Whatever Dr. Silvers was doing to me, it was working. I couldn’t even muster the will to sit up. My grasp was slipping. The painful memories were still painful, but more distant now. It was like being
Calm,
but all the time. As I lay there in the dark, I idly wondered what would happen to me if I let go entirely.

Just lay here and die,
I thought.
No one would blame you. No one will ever know. You’ve already been forgotten.
I grew angry at the thought. So angry my body felt hot, like I was burning with a fever. My hands balled into fists, my jaw clenched. A singular, overwhelming impulse filled my consciousness:
kill them all.

The fog in my mind cleared as I seethed, and I became more aware of my surroundings.
Wait a minute. The lights are off.
The surge of anger subsided somewhat, and my muscles relaxed. I didn’t realize it before, but the lights were off in my cell. They never turned the lights off. The maddening buzz of the fluorescent tubes had ceased. The only light came from under the door to the hall. Had the tubes finally burned out? They’d been on, constantly, from the first moment I’d been tossed into that cell. The darkness was strange, but comforting. My cell felt different. It was like hiding under the blankets when you’re a little kid. I’d given myself up to the abyss, and I felt at home in it.

I blinked hard as the room spun. I’d never done drugs in my life. Never so much as puffed a joint. Now? I could only imagine the chemical concoctions that they were pumping through my body. If I thought I had any future, I’d have been deeply concerned about the long-term side effects. I actually made myself laugh out loud at that thought.
Holy hell,
I’m going insane.

“And to think we always said
I
was the Queen of Crazy Town.”

The voice had come from the darkness, only a few feet away. Someone was sitting on the edge of my bed. I stayed perfectly still, breathing loudly though my nose, jaw clenched, as I tried to stave off panic. My earlier sense of detachment was replaced entirely with fear.

“It’s okay,” she said. The voice was familiar. Friendly. It came from nearby, but was at the same time distant. Like an echo, or a memory. I clenched my eyes shut as I realized the room was now very cold, like they’d left a window open or something. “Please,” she insisted. “You can open your eyes. It’s okay.”

If I’m insane I might as well embrace it.
I willed myself to sit up. The room spun so badly that I thought I was going to fall out of bed. It settled down after a moment.

In the dim light, I couldn’t see much of her. An outline, a shadow, more of a presence. But there was no doubt about it. It was her.

It was Sarah.

I looked down at the bed. I couldn’t face her. I couldn’t bear it. I just shook my head and tried to focus. “I . . . I missed you,” I managed. The words came out as little more than a throaty whisper.

“I know,” Sarah said. There was a sadness in her voice that hadn’t been there before.

“I’m sorry I left you.”

“You didn’t. You stayed until the end, just like you said you would.”

“I . . . what . . . what are you doing here?”

“A better question is, what are
you
doing here, Michael?”

I looked up at her. It was easier to see now. Her face was as I remembered it. Auburn hair cascaded over her shoulders. Her eyes were a luminescent green. I blinked hard to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. She was still there when I opened my eyes. “Even for a ghost, you’re being awfully cryptic.”

Sarah smiled as she leaned closer. “Let go. Please, just let it all go. Let me go. You’ll need to if you want to survive,” she whispered into my ear. Then she pulled away. It was like she was fading into the darkness. “You don’t have much time left.”

“Sarah, wait!” The words were hollow in my empty cell. I was alone. I was sweating, breathing heavily. I was dizzy, shaking.

Oh, God.
I buried my face in my hands.
Oh God, oh God. What are they doing to me?
Is any of this even real?

“Mr. Valentine, can I be honest with you for a moment? I’m a little disappointed in you right now.” The new voice came from my right, from the far side of the room. I could just barely see someone standing there, nothing more than a shape, out of the corner of my eye.

Gordon?

The dark figure hung there, but I couldn’t bring myself to look directly at him. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of my head. The room was too cold. The air was heavy and stale, oppressive, even.

“You had a great deal of potential,” Gordon Willis said. “You still do. My former colleagues here certainly seem to have picked up on it. A lot of people would kill for some of the opportunities you’re being presented with. Heh, no irony intended, of course.”

“This isn’t happening,” I said aloud. “This isn’t real. This isn’t real.” I clenched my eyes shut and brought my hands up over them again. “Oh God. It’s not real. It’s the drugs. It’s just the drugs.”

“You didn’t mind your dead girlfriend visiting,” Gordon sounded disappointed. “Maybe it’s the drugs, maybe not . . . Maybe in that messed-up head of yours I represent Majestic and all it stands for, so I’m just here to gloat . . . I must admit, this isn’t what I was expecting. Of course, I wasn’t expecting you to murder me in my own home, either, so I guess you’re just full of surprises.” He laughed.