Blackjack (27 page)

Tiger took a breath, then told Cross everything her team knew in one continuous rush, careful to separate provable fact from legend, myth, and rumor, but not leaving anything out.

Cross listened closely, taking it all in. Then he whispered back: “This … thing, it’s not new. Been around since forever, like you said. Signature kills, but all over the globe, so it
can’t
be any single one of … whatever the hell they are.

“No pictures. No forensics. And no survivor testimony, either. When they hit, whoever’s around that they
don’t
kill, those people never see anything. No game—they
actually
don’t see anything.

“But I already might know something, something you might want to throw into those computers of yours. There was a three-man kill in here just a little while ago. All in the
same crew. All blacks, all sitting together. One of them, guy named Camden, he wasn’t
touched
. But he didn’t
see
anything. And, you know what? I believe that.

“What a sucker you all turned me into, huh? None of you have ever managed to even
see
one of them, never mind kill one for the autopsy table. And I’m supposed to capture one
alive?
”

“That’s what
Blondie
wants,” Tiger corrected him. “He thinks interrogation is the only way we’ll ever find out whoever they are. And why they’re doing what they do.”

“You trust him?”

“Get real. We all know his backup plan is not leaving witnesses. But he’s the only way Tracker and I could get a shot at the vengeance we swore. We’re outsiders … like you.”

“Didn’t you say there’s a rumor that a couple of them
did
get killed?”

“Yeah, but, like I
also
said, we don’t have any idea if it’s true. There was a report out of Africa, claimed two of them took an anti-tank round dead-center, blew them into little pieces. But, whoever they are, they always come for their dead, and they come
fast
. All we have is that one radio transmission. By the time a team got to the spot, it was nothing but fried earth.”

“What else?”

“They’re hunters, that’s all we
really
know. And they only seem to hunt hunters, if that makes any sense.”

“Maybe it does. But I’m damned if I know what kind of sense it could make.”

“I know. It’s not like anyone was hunting
them
. All we can figure is that this is like what would have happened if some UFO dropped down and rescued the Roman gladiators. But it rescued them too late—the gladiators had too much blood in their mouths to spit it out, use a toothbrush, and start over again as regular people.

“It’s not like they took a vote and decided fighting was more fun than farming. It’s like they were … transformed into something. And killing, that’s just … that’s just what they
do
, you know?”

“You sound like you don’t hate them.”

“Why would I?”

“Then, if they just do it because that’s what they are, why are you and Tracker going after them?”

“Because that’s what
we
do,” Tiger said.

Cross lit a cigarette. “They really came to the right place this time, huh? They want human-hunters, this joint’s full of them.”

“I know. We figure that’s why they hit that serial-killer freak.…”

“Yeah …” Cross mused. Then snapped his fingers. “Maybe
that’s
it.”

“What?”

“There’s been a couple of their kills in here. On the surface, they look the same as all the others. But on two of them, they let someone go, let them just walk away, like that Camden guy I told you about. They gave the same kind of pass to some white kid, too.”

“Oh, both of them got interrogated, trust me,” Tiger says. “Blondie pulled them right out of this place. But they don’t even remember
being
where it happened, never mind seeing anything. And that squares with other stuff we have. Like doing their number on a whole safari, but letting the natives go. Still, even that much, it’s only talk.”

“The stuff in
here
wasn’t talk,” Cross told her. “That white kid was about to be raped. Camden, the black guy, I’m not sure what the deal with him was, but the grapevine says he’s innocent, shouldn’t even be here in the first place. And his charge
was
rape. How could this … thing tell if a man was innocent?”

“Maybe they can smell it or something,” Tiger guessed. “Maybe that’s why dogs can smell
them
, I don’t know. But whatever they are, they’re not animals. At least not any animal anyone’s heard of. It’s like they kill for some reason, only we don’t know what that could be. Maybe it’s a … game or something, like that big-bucks consultant told us. And if all they count are the hardest targets, what’s harder than humans?”

“Yeah,” Cross thought aloud. “But if a killer’s kills belong to whoever kills
him
, maybe the goal was to get the highest body count.”

“So killing a serial killer—?”

“You’re sure it’s set up with Nyati?” Cross cut her off. He knew that, even with greasing the guards, surveillance was extra-high, and the warning knock on the door was going to come soon.

“Yes. But confirm over the transmitter first.”

“Sure. But tell your team there isn’t a whole lot of time left. Whoever they are,
what
ever they are, they’ve been going through this joint like pigs on pie.”

NIGHT FOUND
Cross lying on his bunk, eyes closed, the earplug from his institutional radio inserted. Not an uncommon sight: a lot of cons used their radios as noise-blockers to let them sleep.

Behind his eyelids, Cross watched the limousine carrying the toadish man drive away. And saw the explosion that followed. His mind was working the logic string, doing the death-math.

Maybe they were there. Right in the middle of the blast. If that’s true, we can’t kill them no matter what we use. You can’t
kill “kill.” But if they can get … splattered, maybe they have to reassemble before they can work again
.

Cross nodded, as if something he suspected had just been verified. He pulled the earplug free and got to his feet. Silently, he twisted the heel off one shoe and removed the wire inside, working in complete darkness.

At the wire’s end was a tiny bulb. A closer look would have revealed that the wire itself was divided into several sections, each one no more than a few inches long.

Cross wrapped individual pieces of wire around the base and top of each of the bars in his cell window. He then connected the ends of all the wires into the one anchored by the bulb. He squeezed the bulb and stepped back. A faint hissing sound accompanied the just-released acid as it ran through the hollow wires into the bars.

Less than a minute later, Cross pulled the still-smoking sections of bars away from his cell window. He opened a carton of cigarettes and removed packages of dental floss braided into a thick strand. From the heel of his other shoe, he removed a center-weighted, tri-barbed plastic hook, folded flat. Released from the pressure that had kept it folded, the hook opened fully.

Cross tied one end of the braided floss around his waist, and looped the other around the chain holding his bunk to the wall. Then he reached out the window, supported himself with one hand, and used the other to fling the weighted hook up over his head. It took four attempts before he could feel the hook lock solidly into place.

His next step was to put on his shoes. Pulling at the side of each sole exposed another, much thinner one underneath. Those undersoles were coated with a sticky compound. Climbing gear, originally developed to give second-story men an edge, it had later been perfected by Buddha, to keep
the crew ahead in the permanent arms race always running through the underworld.

Cross worked his way up, planting each sole securely, moving without haste. The rooftop was various shades of black: from the shadow-pools just past the rooftop to the faint glow from the surrounding lights, and the occasional penumbra from the bright swathe cut by tower searchlights.

Cross saw three figures, standing as if they had been waiting for him. He approached with deliberation, hands held away from his body in the universally understood gesture.

Two black men stepped forward. One carried a heavy shank, the other a much heavier lead pipe.

Cross put his hands up, stood still for their thorough search.

“Clean,” one said.

Nyati stepped forward. “Take off your shirt,” he said. “I want to see something for myself.”

Cross obeyed. He didn’t move as Nyati used a pencil flash to zero in on the tattoo. “Yeah. It’s exactly like Butch described it.”

Together the two men walked into a pool of total blackness, leaving the other two standing guard.

Nyati faced Cross. “I told Butch I’d meet with you. One time. There ain’t gonna be no more, so say
everything
you got to say.”

“These killings, easy enough to say they’re all about color, but we both know that’s not what’s going on.”

“We do, huh?”

“You know damn well I’m telling the truth. The UBG hasn’t got anybody who can walk through walls, and neither does the Brotherhood. It’s not
lobos
, either. There’s a hunter loose in this joint, and he’s working the place like a wolf turned loose in a corral of sheep. A concrete corral, with chained-up sheep.”

“You know who he is?”

“I don’t even know
what
he is … but he’s not one of us.”

“He’s not white?”

“He’s not
human
. Not anymore, anyway. He’s a trophy-taker, and his tribe is keeping score. Under their system, you kill a killer, you get credit for all
his
kills.”

“I’d say you was crazy,” Nyati replied, “except I saw some of the bodies myself. What the hell they want with spines and skulls anyway?”

“I don’t know. It’s their mark, the one they always leave behind. Like fang-and-claw marks you see in the jungle. A signature kill.”

“How you figure on stopping something like that? Specially in here, with no guns?”

“Guns wouldn’t do it.
If
there’s a way, it’s gotta be slice, not shoot. But maybe there
is
a way. I say ‘maybe’ because the odds don’t look good. But to even give us
that
much of a chance, you gotta work with me.”

“I only work with my own kind.”

“Look, I’m not doing the ‘some of my best friends are black’ number, and there’s no time for that cred crap anyway. If Butch hadn’t gotten word to you, why would you be up on this roof right now?

“All you need to know—I guess I should say
believe
—is that, in this war, I
am
your own kind. Long as that … thing’s around here, the
human
race is the only race that counts.

“It’s always some kind of ‘us against them,’ right? Black against white, outlaws against citizens. But there’s one thing I learned a long time ago—no warrior is stronger than War. Until whatever that thing is goes down, we’re all the same color, just different shades.”

“So what are those people—”

“That’s just it. They’re not ‘people’ at all. So when I say it’s us against them, that’s just what I mean.”

Cross pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. Without offering a smoke to Nyati, he fired it up, cupping the end with both hands.

“You know why I’m here,” he said. “And
I
know you got that word from people you trust. So do whatever you have to do, talk it over with whoever you need to. Make a decision, and get word to me.”

“How?”

“Friday, at noon mess, I’m gonna step into No Man’s Land. Alone. If you’re with me, you step into it, too. Make sure your men stand down. I’ll do the same. And then I’ll tell you how we can pull it off.
Maybe
pull it off. I’ll tell you face to face, right there.”

Nyati looked at Cross. “You ain’t short on balls, I’ll give you that.”

Cross slowly turned around and walked away, not looking back. The three black men were deep in conversation as Cross slipped over the rooftop and lowered himself back into his cell.

As he pulled the bars back into their original position and coated the broken spots with a black substance that gave off a faint hissing sound, a long, thin shadow shape-shifted on the roof.

The words “No Man’s Land” vibrated. Then, from inside one of the bars Cross had just sealed:

“Stay.…”

Two corners of torn playing cards trembled in the light breeze: the ace of hearts, and the jack of clubs.