The First Book of the Pure (24 page)

“So be it, dear, let’s just move on. We’re
not Normals, and we don’t always live and act like them. Besides,
you and I don’t take such actions without feeling badly, even if
it’s deserved. You had a real purpose: the greater good, and all
that. Let’s see just who’s in bed with this Mr. Schmidt, and who’s
fighting him. We’ll build a very thick file on him, I think.”

Attack!

Karl and his team were well on their way to
the palatial estate of Maximus and Robert. The two of them lived
together, but had designed their home to give them each all the
privacy they wanted. They had their own laboratories, customized
for their unique skill sets and interests. They also had separate
servants and guards, explicitly trained to serve their master’s
needs. Their people were accustomed to them sharing their living
space, and were fairly comfortable with each other. Their
households were somewhat merged while still retaining separate
allegiances. They had long since decided they’d both be more secure
covering each other’s backs; thus, this arrangement.

As Karl got close, he received reports from
his surveillance teams, sent out hours ahead. Everything seemed
normal at the estate, which was surprising, considering the
massacre they’d already perpetrated against M & R. He deployed
his team with the assumption that there were defenses much as he
would have at his own estate. A rocket launcher was on the shoulder
of an ex-marine. A sniper was on either side of the rocketeer. Karl
was on the opposite side of the house, on a hill overlooking the
rear pool and tennis courts. With him were the other five men of
his team. They were all ex-military of some kind, and were almost
arrogant in their skills.

On his throat mic, Karl instructed the three
men on the opposite side of the house to wait until they got a
signal from him before striking. If for some reason they had to
fire, they were to take out targets most dangerous to Karl’s team,
and the rocket launcher was only, and he stressed,
only
, to
be used on the central area of the several tentacled house.

Karl waved his team in, moving with practiced
stealth toward the rear of the house. He split his team up and sent
three men to the west wing and took two with him toward the east
wing. Their orders were simple: kill the men whose pictures they’d
memorized, and take out anyone else they encountered, to hide their
tracks.

As Karl and his two men got to the door,
apparently unnoticed, lights came on inside the house as well as
blinding lights outside. Karl’s reaction was instant: he raised his
weapon and shot out the lights one by one. He nodded toward the
door and the man on his left shot the lock and pushed the door
open. Karl sent two men in, one high and one low, guns extended.
Nothing. No return fire, no people, no anything. “Anything there?”
Karl asked on his throat mic of the other team.

“Nothing, sir. No people sighted. We’re in
the building, sir.”

“Sweep your wing,” Karl instructed. “Do it
quickly and return to origin.” With that he moved his own men on
further into the building with a flick of his head.

Sudden automatic weapons fire made it clear
there was a problem somewhere. Karl checked for where on his mic,
and got no response. He waved three men in, and a moment later
there was more automatic weapons fire, and two of his men were cut
in half by hidden machine guns. Karl and his remaining men dropped
to avoid fire, and Karl realized what had happened. Max and Robert
either had evacuated, leaving auto systems on hot, or they were in
there, waiting for him. He would never have thought they could
ambush him, nor that they would leave their place unattended.
Neither scenario seemed likely, but what else was there?

What he didn’t know was that the few people
remaining in the house had turned on the weapons systems and locked
themselves in the safe room, which was actually more of a bunker.
Those were their orders. It was like being in a steel vault, with
an underground air source that brought in air from some distance.
One of Karl’s RPGs couldn’t have broken through into that room.

Frustrated, Karl wasn’t willing to risk
himself to do more damage. He indicated to the men with him that
they were withdrawing, and a seriously angry Karl led the way. As
they moved quickly and as covertly as possible away from the house,
another of his men went down, an explosive bullet tearing a large
hole in his chest. Karl and the other survivor looked around and
saw nobody. Hearing a whirling noise, Karl looked up just in time
to dodge a burst of fire from a hovering black drone. He shot at it
with a reflexive action in an attempt to discourage it, and then
ran like the drone was the devil incarnate. The kind of small
explosive charge that hit his man and dropped him could quite
possibly kill Karl too. Taking stations behind trees, he and his
surviving soldier shot and disabled the drone. Fearing more were on
site and on their way, they lost no time getting the rest of the
way out. Nothing and nobody was uglier or meaner than a frustrated
Karl Schmidt.

Counter Attack

The assertion earlier on from Karl that
Maximus had adapted well to modern methods of war and fighting was
very accurate. It wasn’t the weapons or techniques so much as it
was the man: he was a warrior, with whatever was available. Maximus
ordered everyone out of the house. They desperately wanted their
people safe through this conflict.

Max was giving orders. “I know a full
evacuation isn’t realistic, but the majority of you should leave.
Some have to stay so the place is occupied, and looks the part.
Who’s willing to stay?”

They treated their people well, and more than
enough volunteered. They picked a few, mostly those without
families, and made their plans. There was a safe room in the
basement, which was ready to be used by the five people he left on
site. They’d set up automatic weapons to cover areas which had to
be crossed after anyone entered the house. That meant four areas.
The men on site would monitor, and then enable the automatics.
After that enabling, they were to immediately close themselves off
in the safe room.

As they got closer Maximus used a burner cell
to contact the local police, and reported a bomb threat in a local
mall. That kind of thing can’t be ignored, and would keep most of
the local Leos busy. Another call to the airport twenty miles away
gave an anonymous tip regarding an explosive device armed with
sarin toxin ready to be deployed there. As deadly as sarin is, the
airport was locked down and special teams were brought in to
search. There was no point in having loose law enforcement around,
zooming in when the pyrotechnics started.

An attack team of their own was waiting for a
call about a mile away, ready to descend on the house in the event
it was actually attacked.

Max and Robert were nearing Karl’s estate at
very nearly the same time he was approaching theirs. He was ahead
of them, and was entering as they were doing their own recon. Max
got a text that said simply, “ENEMY INSIDE: READY TO ENGAGE.”

Maximus frowned. “Blast, they’re already at
our place. I’ll bet Karl isn’t even here; he might’ve gone with his
men, just as we have. Hmmm.”

“What Max?” Robert asked.

“I never believed in a ‘properly measured
response.’ They blow something up, we do the same, that kind of
thing. That never ends a war, and it doesn’t put enough fear into
the enemy. Governments always screw it up with that philosophy.
Rome believed in punitive strategies, and they ruled the world for
a long time. They eliminated the ability of their enemies to wage
war. We have to hit now, and hit hard. Any more reconnoitering will
be a waste of time. We’ll have some losses however we proceed.
Speed is more important right now. I really wish we’d had more of
those drones finished, or not left them at our estate; this
would’ve been more thorough and much easier.”

He waved their first line of troops toward
the house. Snipers from turrets built into the roofline shot at the
advancing men, and several went down. Maximus touched his throat
mic and said to everyone on his frequency, “Terry, get your team in
to get those men out of there. Everyone else, take cover and
continue firing until the objective is destroyed. Birds away,
now
!” Robert almost cowered as the well trained soldiers
under the command of Maximus Palamos began their campaign.

At his signal, bazookas opened up and the
roofline of the enormous house exploded in sections. It seemed to
him that his men had all taken adequate cover. He watched Terry as
closely as he could, glad for her skill and concerned to be putting
her in harm’s way.
She’s good, and I love watching her
work
.

“Primary team, insert
now
!” That
command sent ten men into serious jeopardy. They moved straight
toward the house, center section, carrying two heavy packages.
Three men carried each package while two ran to the sides, firing
at anything that moved. One center man carrying a package dropped.
A wing man took his place immediately. By the time they were at the
house there were seven of them instead of ten, but both packages
made it.

“
Set and run! ”
Max yelled again into
his mic.

The seven survivors ran like the devil
himself was pursuing hot on their tails. And that was nearly the
case. They had only sixty seconds to get far enough away to survive
the explosive devices they’d set. Every second would count. The
bombs had big payloads, and the plan hadn’t been to necessarily use
both. One was a backup. This would be big. Six men made it to the
tree line, and when the explosion hit, the seventh was instantly
killed by the blast. The others suffered some wounds from wooden
shrapnel, some from the very trees that saved their lives. Terry
had made it out, but was knocked flat from the concussion. Maximus
jumped up and personally helped her to safety.

When the debris and smoke cleared, which took
a while, they were looking at a blast hole a hundred feet across.
Robert was at a loss for words, standing with his mouth open and
his ears still covered. Max put his mouth close to Robert’s ear and
loudly yelled. “Take your hands down and act like a soldier. Enjoy
this moment of victory!” He tugged one of Robert’s arms down.

The soldiers with them were forming up as
they watched the scene, and Max gave them a huge grin. “Well done,
guys!” He pumped his right arm up and down. He was pretty sure they
would understand what he said, even though they all were deaf from
the concussive force of the explosives. Max turned back to the
place where the house had been, and watched as mountains of debris
continued to fall everywhere. “Okay, Karl, game on.”

The Beginning and the End

Two nights ago they’d bundled Kenneth up with
the few things he had with him and whisked him away to a different
house. It was still luxurious, but hours away from the first one.
Then Kenneth spent another lousy day with Bertram again, and Karl
never showed.

His host, Karl something or other, was a
monster. Maybe deranged, maybe not, but a monster nonetheless.
Kenneth knew he had to get out of there. This had gone past all
reason. When his host finally did show up, he walked over to him
and asked if he was enjoying the Kopi Luwak coffee. Kenneth nodded,
too afraid to trust his voice at the moment.

“Sorry for the inconvenience of the move,
Kenneth, but it had to be done. I find myself at war with some
other Pures and decided to get involved in it personally. It’s
funny really, because it’s been a long time since I was sure where
any others were, other than Gheret. But now, with you here, writing
our story, I find myself in a major conflict with at least two of
them.

“Also troubling to me recently is another
Normal, like you, who has things stirred up a great deal in my New
York enterprises. I’ll enjoy killing him, and I’ll do it myself. I
believe I’ve become too removed from the day-to-day parts of my
business. He’s a New York policeman, a man who keeps poking into
things of no business to him, and he’s poked at me and my interests
for the last time. If we had the time I’d have had you write his
obituary, and send it to him before I kill him. You people always
muck up things, I guess because there are so many of you, but now
and then one of you has some talent. In every horde of mice, one or
two show unusual intelligence – same thing. This Detective Goyette
is off somehow.” He had a faraway look in his eye but then he
smiled. “Some of you Normals, like Adolf, and Kublai Khan, and even
Stalin, whom I didn’t much care for, I’m afraid, have real talent.
You know, I suspected Kublai of being a Pure for a while, but alas,
he was not. You also have some talent, Kenneth. Have you finished
today’s notes on your laptop?”

“Just finishing them now, sir, if you can
wait just a moment.” Kenneth paused and looked up at Karl. “I
didn’t believe you at first, just as you thought. But now, I feel
like I’ve seen an aspect of our race on this planet known by very
few. I’ve…”

“Yes, well, just finish your work please.”
Karl cut Kenneth off with his clipped words, shot out like slugs
from a gun. Karl stood watching for several minutes as Kenneth
typed. When he saw him save the document, he asked politely, “All
done?”

Kenneth looked up at him. “Yes, all done. Do
I get to leave now? I’ve done all you asked of me. You can trust me
to never share any of this with anyone, ever!” Kenneth sounded very
sincere. The fear he had fought down in himself every day during
this ordeal had finally subsided. He had gotten comfortable with
his setting.