Time Patrol (Area 51 The Nightstalkers) (6 page)

“What is—” Carl began in a slightly puzzled tone, staring past her, but there was a breeze by Teri’s right cheek, as if a very fast hummingbird had flitted by. A crimson streak appeared just above and outside of Carl’s left eye along the skin on the edge of his skull, extending back over his ear. The gray hood was torn back, as if an invisible hand had grabbed it and jerked.

Roland shed the ghillie suit with one smooth movement as he got to his feet, leaving the rifle lying on the log. Coinciding with his first step onto the trail, he drew his MK23 MOD-O Special Operation pistol, a bulky suppressor on the end of the barrel marring the gun’s smooth lines. He brought it up to the ready as he strode down the trail, in a proper two-handed grip as he’d been taught on the ranges and in the Killing House at Fort Bragg so many years ago.

“Going in to confirm,” he informed Neeley, still in a whisper. “Over.”

“Coming in to back up,” Neeley replied. “Over.”

Carl dropped the cinches, his left hand pressing against the side of his face, blood flowing over the fingers. “What the hell?” he yelled.

He lurched toward Teri, the point of the commando knife leading.

Teri heard a soft pop from behind and saw the splash of blood in Carl’s right elbow as a .45 caliber bullet hit the joint. Such were the vagaries of bullet trajectory on impact with the human body that the round hit the base of the humerus, changed course, traveled up the arm parallel to the bone, and then punched out Carl’s right shoulder with a pretty red spurt.

Pretty to someone like Roland, that is.

The impact of the heavy bullet spun Carl around and ripped tendons in his arm as they strained to keep it attached to his body. The tendons succeeded, barely. With a splash, Carl dropped to his knees in a puddle from the shock, a few drops of water hitting Teri on the cheek along with some specks of blood from her ex. She numbly reached up and wiped them off.

She finally looked over her shoulder and saw Roland, a massive figure dressed in black, wearing a black watch cap, his face smeared with camouflage paint, striding down the trail at a fast, but not hurried, walk, a large gun extended in his left hand, right hand cupped under left, weapon held steady and on line with his left eye. He didn’t even seem to register her, his focus was on Carl.

This sudden appearance—his casual approach—frightened her more in a much different way than the danger she had experienced just moments before. There was no anger, no rage, no passion emanating from Roland. Just cold efficiency.

He was nothing like Carl at all
, she sensed.

But then again, he was.

Carl roared, sheer rage echoing through the forest, and Teri spun back to face the monster she knew. Carl flipped the knife from ruined arm to good hand and got to his feet. “You bitch!”

He lurched forward and Roland pulled the trigger. The bullet punched into Carl’s other shoulder, staggering him back several feet.

Dimly, Teri realized that Carl had yet to get close enough to her to reach her flesh with the blade. It was as if he were a puppet, being controlled by strings of lead. Carl dropped the knife and pressed his left hand against his head once more.

“Keep running,” Roland said to Teri as he passed her.

She didn’t move.

“Go run home,” Roland added, after passing Teri. He looked at Carl’s rage-filled face and knew he had a confirmed Sanction, the face matching the previous visuals, matching the file. The attack on the ex-wife had been the slamming of the gavel, proving Carl was not reformed as he had sworn so earnestly to the government shrink during the sessions before he went rogue; tapes Roland and Neeley had watched over and over.

“She’s scared, Roland.” Neeley’s voice was in his ear. “Be nice. Running is a bad word choice.”

“Nice is not something I’m good at,” Roland said to Neeley in another moment of profound (for Roland) insight, confusing Teri, who was not part of the other end of the conversation.

“Who the hell are you?” Carl managed to mutter, as blood dripped over his left hand on the side of his head, while his right dangled uselessly. He had a large hole in his shoulder, through and through, that hadn’t seemed to register in his consciousness yet.

“The Cellar,” Roland said, and something blossomed on Carl’s face. Something Teri had never seen there: fear.

“No!” Carl screamed. “I’m secure. I’m reformed. They need me.”

“Not really,” Roland said with simple Roland logic. “Or else I wouldn’t be here.”

“They need my information!” Carl’s voice dropped from scream to beg. “It’s important. They need to know about the Ratnik! About the Patrol! About Sin Fen.”

Roland paused at this unexpected tactic. “He says he has important information,” Roland said over the radio.

Neeley’s reply was cold and dry in Roland’s ear. “They always do. It’s too late for that.”

Carl took a step back.

Teri had never seen Carl take a step back.

“I’ll be gone. No one will ever hear about me again. I’ll disappear. I’ll do my duty.”

“You can’t change,” Roland said. “You can’t stop. It’s your sentence.” Roland knew Neeley could hear his words and his brain searched for something brilliant. “It’s inevitable.”

“I’ve got friends among the Ratnik,” Carl said. “I can get you in contact with them. They can make you rich. You’ve got no clue what’s happening.”

Roland was getting bored. “I usually don’t, but it usually doesn’t matter.”

Carl’s shoulders slumped in the face of Roland’s implacability. “Red Wings,” Carl said. “Operation Red Wings.”

That got Roland’s attention, because he knew about that. Everyone in Special Ops did. “What about it?”

Carl dipped his head and did the second thing Teri had never experienced: apologized. “I’m sorry. I wanted to go back and change it. Change what happened. Make amends. It’s too late. They won’t let me take it back. They won’t let me change it. I can’t take it back.” He looked up. “Do what you gotta do.”

“Later, dude.” Roland pulled the trigger. A dark hole appeared in the center of Carl’s forehead, right between his eyes. His head snapped back, and he abruptly collapsed, legs bending awkwardly beneath, dropping like a bag of sand, the way all suddenly dead people do. Nothing graceful about his death at all. Not movie dead, real dead. Sucky dead.

Roland fired a second time, the bullet entering the left eye, through the orbital socket (less bone in the way) and shredding the already dead brain.

Always double-tap.

A
Nada Yada
.

Roland finally turned to Teri. “You’re safe, Ms. Stevens. I’ll take care of all of this. Go home. You don’t have to be scared anymore.”

Teri couldn’t form words.

Neither could Roland any longer, having exhausted his meager supply of sympathy.

But then Neeley was standing there, tall and slim in her black pants and turtleneck underneath a black jacket. Her short black hair, with a tinge of gray, was plastered to her scalp by the rain. She smiled at Teri, much more reassuring than Roland with his gun and barbed wire tattoo.

“You have your life back, Teri,” Neeley said. “He’s been on your trail for seven days, ever since he learned you were up here. But we’ve been trailing him for eight days. He would have never gotten to you ahead of us. You’ve been safe. It’s over.”

“Eight days?” Teri managed.

Roland slid the pistol into a holster, the end cut open to allow the suppressor to pass through, waiting for the women to be done with the chitchat. The asshole was dead. What more did she want? A band to play? Balloons to fall out of the trees?

“We had to be certain,” Neeley said. “I’m sorry he scared you, but we had to be exactly right about this. A little scared is worth a lifetime of safety, isn’t it?”

For a moment Roland wondered who the “he” was that Neeley was referring to. Certainly not him?

Teri laughed, a manic edge to it. “A lifetime of safety?”

Neeley reached out and touched her shoulder gently. Teri started; no one had touched her in years.

“You’re safe,” Neeley repeated. “It’s our job to make people like you safe. Forget all this and live your life. Go home. No one is coming for you ever again. Go.
Now
.”

Something in the way she said that last word finally evoked a response. Teri believed Neeley in a way she’d never believed Carl.

Teri took a step. Then another.

Wuthering Heights.

Teri began to run, mud splattering her rain pants. Just before she reached the turnoff for Oliver Twist, she looked over her shoulder. She saw Neeley watching her; Roland was kneeling next to Carl’s body. Neeley nodded. Then Teri was gone behind the trees.

Roland was confirming Carl was dead, not that the double-tap in the head left any doubts.

Another
Nada Yada
.

Roland then walked back along the trail, picking up the pistol shell casings along the way. He jammed the ghillie suit in a stuff sack and grabbed the rifle, retrieving its single expended casing.

By the time he got back to the corpse, Neeley had the body bag laid out next to Carl.

“Why did you lie to her?” he asked. “This was a Sanction. Not family court.”

“I was being nice,” Neeley said. “Might want to try it some time.”

Roland was referring to the fact that it wasn’t the Cellar’s job to go after wifebeaters. Carl’s fatal transgression had been freelancing for the enemies of the country after having been in the formal employ of the United States government. He’d sworn an oath and he’d violated it, much as he’d violated his marriage vows to honor and love his wife. Roland supposed if you broke one oath, it wasn’t hard to break others.

Another profound thought for the big man. He was on a roll.

“I can be nice,” Roland muttered, his feelings hurt.

Neeley paused and looked at him. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”

Roland flushed bright red, unseen underneath the camouflage paint.

“I’m hungry,” Roland said, for lack of anything else.

“You should be,” Neeley agreed.

Neeley knelt, putting her hand on Carl’s legs. Roland took the shoulders and they rolled the dead weight, always heavier for some reason from living weight, into the bag. Neeley zipped it shut.

The rain came down harder, mixing the blood deeper into the mud.

Neeley grabbed the handles on her end. “Telling her she was bait and a test for a Sanction probably wouldn’t have gone over well.”

“Probably not,” Roland agreed as he took his handles.

“Thanks.”

Roland paused, puzzled. “For?”

“Being nice in your own way.” She was looking up at him and for a second Roland could have sworn her entire figure flickered, just like Carl’s had, but it was over before he could be sure.

And then she shocked the unshockable Roland by letting go of the body bag, standing up, reaching out, grabbing his short hair in her fingers, and pulling him close. Roland let go of the bag, surrendering easily to her clutches. She kissed him, hard, and Roland was too surprised to resist; not that he wanted to.

Neeley held on to him for several long seconds, and then let go. She blinked in confusion. “What just happened?”

And then it got even weirder as the body bag slowly deflated.