Whirlwind (34 page)

“Reluctantly. Le Prophete. Meyerbeer. Rousing good stuff from the days when grand opera was truly grand. Still, if you insist…” He bent from the waist, lowering the sound. “There, does that make you happy?”

Sam knew he was about to take a risk never a pleasant thought. Schmidt was almost out of control. Sam had to assert his authority now; if he didn’t, he’d have no authority left. “The only thing that will make me happy is getting my hands on Whirlwind. McKenzie’s just a sideshow.”

“On the contrary, Samuel. Charles is an annoying pest who has thwarted me one time too often. It is my intention to recompense him for the irritation he has caused me. I believe that much is due me.”

“Oh, to hell with that. We have bigger fish to fry. Just dock him and be done with it.”

Schmidt stepped close. Sam managed not to flinch, although it wasn’t easy. “I have taken casualties this morning, Samuel. A price is owed. I do not desire to deprive my men of vengeance’s simple pleasures.”

If Sam backed off now, Schmidt would never obey him again. “I’m not paying you to amuse your people. I’m paying you to catch a Russian spy. The more time we waste here, the worse are our odds.”

“Three points.” Schmidt raised a finger. “One, Mr. Maximilian Henkes of DefCon Enterprises is paying me, Samuel, not you.” The second finger shot up, “Two, the time is not wasted. No investment in morale is wasted.” Three fingers like a trident, “Three, she will not escape. I know where she is going, exactly where she is going, and I shall be waiting for her when she arrives.”

Taken aback, Sam blurted, “Charlie talked?”

“Of course not.” He glanced at McKenzie, limp and propped by two of his soldiers. “You’d never talk, would you, Charles?”

Charlie managed to whisper something. Sam thought it might have been fuck you.

“You see, Charles and I are members of the same profession, scholars of the same school. As he was able to read the signs, so was I. Being, I acknowledge, more deductive than I, he reached his conclusions more swiftly. Nonetheless, we both arrived at the same answer, didn’t we, Charles? Come now, man, don’t look at me like that, you know how it upsets me. All you need do your voice being alarmingly weak is nod yes or no. Your deduction was that she would run for San Francisco, for the Russian rezidentura. That was her first full-time duty station, the American city she knows best. Confess, Charles, I am correct, am I not? Be a good boy, a single nod is all it takes.” He leaned close to Charlie, lifting his prisoner’s chin with a finger. “Ah, Charles, in your weakened condition your face betrays you. Try though you might to disguise it, I can readily see that you know I am right. That must hurt, mustn’t it? Indeed, I suspect that it hurts a bit more than anything I have done to you thus far. Well, fear not, old friend, I have something planned to take your mind off Miss Kolodenkova, and all the entertainment she shortly will provide.”

Charlie writhed, finding somewhere deep inside himself a reservoir of strength. He almost managed to shake himself loose of his captors. Sam almost felt sorry for him.

“By the way, Charles, did I mention your cat’s-paw, the late Mr. Con-roy?” Charlie groaned. “Yes, that hurts too, doesn’t it the knowledge that you and you alone are responsible for putting him in harm’s way. You miscalculated dear, dear and someone I suspect you liked paid the price. Although you may take comfort in the fact that I gave him a quick death, I want to assure you that he suffered beforehand.”

At last Charlie managed to speak, his voice faltering. “I wanted to get through this job with as little bloodshed as possible. That just changed.”

“With respect, Charles, your circumstances are such that your threats ring hollow.” Schmidt called over his shoulder, “Mr. Keough, do you have your drill handy?”

A potbellied, bowlegged man answered, “Aye, Mr. Black and Mr. Decker at your service, sir.”

“Charles, have you ever wondered what a power drill might feel like as it pierced your belly and churned your entrails? I would guess not, not until now.”

Blood misting from his lips, Charlie snarled, “Baloney. You know… you and Sam both know the kind of shit storm that gets unleashed if anything happens to me.”

Schmidt laughed. It was the most artificial laugh Sam had ever heard. “Your insurance policy? Your precious data vault? Those videos you’ve hidden on the Internet, a de adman brake to protect them? Sorry, Charles, but during the wee hours of the morning a computer gentleman known to you,

a Mr. Sledgehammer by name, unearthed your secret storage place in a hacker’s hideaway quite ridiculously called the Underground Empire dot. com of course. Now your files are gone, Charles, all gone. As is Mr. Sledgehammer. Before departing this veil of tears, he conveyed your password to one of my associates. Odysseus, it is. I give you that password so that you may have absolute confidence in the truth of what I say. You’ve no protection left at all, and when you die it will take approximately an hour your secrets die with you. Then my good friend Samuel may rest easy in his sleep.” Schmidt flicked his hand, “You two, pin him down by the shoulders. You other two, hold his legs. Mr. Keough, you are free to indulge yourself. However, I would be obliged if you kept him alive and screaming for as long as possible. Yes? Then get to it. There’s a good lad.”

Keough knelt beside Charlie. Sam tried to look away but could not. The Irishman tightened the drill bit with a chuck key, placing the point against Charlie’s left ankle. “I believe I’ll start here, and work me way up. We’ll stop at a few beauty spots along the way, as befits the kind of cunt who’d shoot me mates in the bollocks.”

Schmidt laughed that laugh of his again. “Charles, if you have any last words, now would be the time to speak them.”

She was not one of those limited creatures who are swept clean by a gust of wrath and left placid and smiling after its passing. She could store her anger in those caverns of eternity which open into every soul, and which are filled with rage and violence until the time comes when they may be stored into wisdom and love; for, in the genesis of life, love is at the beginning and the end of things.

James Stephens

Thursday, July 23. 1200 Hours Mountain Time

Friday, July 24. 1400 Hours Pacific Time

IV lost of the corpses had been coloreds, only a few white mercenaries like Schmidt.

What was supposed to be a simple coup had gone terribly wrong, and the carnage was absolute. He alone survived. A mortar blast had hurled him into unconsciousness. When he awoke beneath a blackened schoolhouse wall, his fellow mercenaries were no longer near.

They were, in fact, farther than he wished to travel.

He was only eighteen, his first time in battle. The sight of his dead comrades sickened him. Half of them, almost half, had not died cleanly in combat. Men fallen in honorable battle are not found stretched out in rows with their throats gaping and their testicles in their mouths. The enemy had taken them alive, killed them playfully, desecrated them in death.

He took no shame in terror. If they got their hands on him, he would die as horribly.

Nearby he heard their joking and jubilant laughter. The smoke of a plundered village concealed him from their eyes. Belly-crawling among the bodies, he bathed his uniform in the blood of others, and from a dead man’s mouth took … he took … it made him vomit, but he forced himself. Then he lay frozen in an outdoor abattoir as the victors strutted past, kicking carrion out of simple joy.

He prayed. Dusk was not far. If he lived past sunset, darkness would conceal his escape. He asked God to speed the night.

The chuckling black butchers moved on. Johan Schmidt tried not to weep.

Time passed. A minute? An hour? He did not know. It was still daylight, although tending toward evening when he heard the crunch of boot heels on broken glass, two men coming near… stopping… standing where he lay.

Cold metal kissed his neck. His bladder released itself. A hammer clicked back. His bowels emptied. He did not want to die, although he felt he could die for disgrace.

“Kid, you’re out of your league.” An American voice, not kindly, not forgiving.

“Got yerself a live one there, Charlie?” The second voice was improbably accented, a Texan’s twangy tones, the sort of cowboy hero Schmidt once cheered during Saturday matinees.

“This fish is too small to keep, Jack. I’m going to throw him back.”

Beneath prescription sunglasses no one had seen fit to steal, Schmidt opened his eyes. The man squatting over him was tall, broad-shouldered, sandy-haired. Unlike the other one, the Texan, he wore no American Army insignia.

“Whut? You the Christmas fairy? Gonna give this sprat a present?” Gold maple leaves on his lapels, the Texan was a colonel. The patch on his BDU sleeve proclaimed him a member of the elite Special Operations Group. Schmidt blinked in astonishment. This colonel, this Colonel Jack, had the longest pair of incisors he’d ever seen in a human mouth.

“What’s your name, son.” The one called Charlie eased the hammer of his .45 automatic down. Schmidt almost fainted with relief.

“Schmidt. Johan Schmidt.” His mouth was dry. The words did not come easily.

“I’m Charlie McKenzie, Johan, and I’ve got some advice for you. If you’re trying to play dead, don’t let snot bubble out of your nose.”

Schmidt blinked back tears.

“A second piece of advice: go home to your mama. You’re a loser, Johan Schmidt, a born loser, and you weren’t cut out to be a fighting man.” The

American holstered his gun, and, together with Colonel Jack, loped away.

That was the first time Johan Schmidt promised himself that, given the opportunity, he would kill this man named McKenzie.

The second time was in Russia, two years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Schmidt, now a rising star in the mercenary firmament, was under contract to pick up a package just north of Novosibirsk, special delivery for a client in Pakistan.

He’d traveled light, five men on the team low profile, no luggage to speak of, in and out quickly, a speedy mission, a speedier getaway.

It was a trap. The Spetsnaz was waiting, combat-hardened veterans of the Afghan war, each and every one. Schmidt’s party didn’t have a chance. Five soldiers facing fifty assault rifles never do.

The interrogation had been … difficult. Yes, that was the word. But he’d accepted his punishment stoically, knowing that he and his men were worth more alive than dead. After all, this was the new Russia, entrepreneurship supplanting socialism, and whatever could be sold at a profit would be sold more or less intact.

Comfortable in the knowledge that he would be allowed to live, he’d given them the information they wanted. The beating they administered was mere ritual, a custom of the trade, neither ardent nor imaginative. Eventually they tired of it, leaving him roped to a chair in the traditional darkened room.

He’d been sleeping when the light snapped on. He recognized the voice instantly. “Well, I’ll be damned. You again. Didn’t listen to me the first time, did you?”

McKenzie.

The light was bright. He barely opened his eyes, the lids thin slits to sharpen vision damaged ancient history by an explosion in a country church.

This time the American was in Spetsnaz battle dress, midnight blue fatigues, a heavy Czech pistol buckled around his waist. Schmidt hated him, and he let it show.

“Sonny boy, I know exactly what you’re thinking, and you’re absolutely right. I’ve got an informer. Is he in your organization? Is he in Pakistan? Sorry, chum, you’re never going to know. All you’re going to know is that when some clown tries to hijack ten kilos of weapons-grade plutonium, I’m going to stop him. If that means cutting a deal with the Russians, then I’ll cut the deal. But I don’t think I have to explain that to you, because I can see you’ve already figured it out. And, I can see something else. It’s written on your face clear as day. Want to know what it is? I’ll tell you. It’s a single word: loser. Yup, that’s what your ugly mug proclaims, Johan Schmidt. You were born a loser, you’ve lived a loser, and it’s only because you are a lucky loser that you aren’t a dead loser right now. Go back to South Africa, boy. Once you get there, stay there. Because, as God is my witness, you are never going to make anything of yourself in this business.”

Johan Schmidt spoke his vow aloud then, “I’m going to kill you.” McKenzie laughed, and left the room. Silently, Schmidt added a prayer to his harsh deity: send this man my way again. Please, God, do this for me.

God granted the wish.

Afghanistan, 2001. His mission was to escort an aging Saudi prince one of al-Qaeda’s moneybag boys from the ruins of Kandahar to safety in Iran. It was about three in the morning when the prince’s chest exploded. A mocking voice echoed across the plains. “Schmidt! Hey, Johan Schmidt, you dumb Dutchman! Boy, you are such a loser!”

Johan’s reply was a shouted death threat and a hail of blind gunfire. McKenzie laughed an obscene insult.

It had, therefore, felt most agreeable to beat Charles to a pulp. Johan was sorry he had to stop although, truth to tell, he knew the greater pleasure would come from watching a hated adversary die in ingenious pain.

“If you have any last words, now would be the time to speak them.”

“I do. Put some decent music on your ghetto blaster. I mean Meyerbeer? Jesus! Try to show a little class, you loser.”

Sam watched Schmidt uneasily. He wasn’t a man, not human at all, just a pale waxworks statue, no spark of life in his frozen features. He sat like a crash test dummy, an inch of space between his back and the upholstery. He might as well have been stuffed and mounted.

Sam didn’t try to talk to him. The roar of helicopter blades would drown out his voice. Besides, the only thing they had to speak about was Charlie, and Sam couldn’t have borne that.

Goddamnit, two years earlier, if things had gone the way they should have no muss, no fuss everyone would have gone home happy. The president would have gotten what he wanted (even though, technically speaking,