Dead Six (18 page)

The only people we’d let out of the building alive were three Indonesian girls Hudson and Wheeler found in the basement. They were drugged up and had been used as playthings by the terrorist recruits. We found a weapons cache also. AK-103 assault rifles and GP-30 grenade launchers from Russia. G3 rifles from Iran and Pakistan. Rocket-propelled grenades and launchers from China. Thousands and thousands of rounds of ammunition. So we dumped some gas, popped a thermite grenade, and burned it all.

As we hurried outside, we noticed that the air reeked of gasoline. In the few minutes we were inside, Animal had kept himself busy by dousing all of the cars parked on the street with gas. As we backed down the street, Hudson tossed a road flare out of the van, igniting the gas and setting the whole row of cars ablaze, just like the building.

The fire quickly spread to the neighboring warehouses. Before long, the entire block was engulfed in flames. It took the city firefighters all night to put the inferno out. In the morning, they found an Ace of Spades playing card stuck to a light pole at the end of the street. Our little calling card been Colonel Hunter’s idea. I liked it.

LORENZO

April 10

I stood on the balcony of our apartment. It was part of a complex at the south end of the city, near the intersection of old world and new money, oil-rich and third world poor. The compound itself was relatively modern, but more importantly, it was landscaped in such a way that we had quite a bit of privacy. We had some university students sharing one wall, and an old couple below us, but they all kept to themselves. We entered only through the attached garage, and that was in a van with tinted windows. The ID I had used to set up the lease was a top-of-the-line forgery of a Zubaran Oil Ministry employee who worked weird hours, and our only paleface, Reaper, never went outside anyway. We might as well have been invisible.

The balcony was where I came to contemplate. Every wall inside our hideout had something mission related tacked up, as I had to memorize a lot of facts and faces, but that could get obnoxious after a while. I had brought the manila folder from Thailand with me and had been absently flipping through the photos. It had been a long time since I had seen most of those people, and I had never met any of the kids, and now they were all going to die if I didn’t play my cards right.

Over the last few weeks there had been shootings, bombings, and all manner of craziness. Normally Zubara was a quiet place, but now there were blue uniformed SF troops on every corner, and random checkpoints set up by the secret police. There was a war going on, and it was making life difficult for us honest criminals.

I suppose I could call myself an honest criminal. I had tried being a regular criminal, but I found that I didn’t have the stomach to lie to and steal from normal folks. Terrorists on the other hand had lots of money, were fun to lie to, and nobody seemed to mind when I occasionally killed them. And it was easier to sleep at night since I was able to convince myself that I used my sociopathic tendencies for good.
Mostly
.

The local news was full of stories about random murders and disappearances. Somebody was going down a checklist of the Zoob’s terrorist underworld like a bad issue of
The Punisher
, and the worst part was that we had no idea who it was. The word on the street was that it was the emir’s secret police killing men loyal to General Sabah, but from what I had seen, this was too professional for those thugs. My money was on the Israelis, but even that didn’t make any sense. The hits were stirring up the fundies and talk of revolution was becoming more and more common. If the emir lost power, then the Izzies would have yet another oil-rich country hating them and funding Hezbollah and that struck me as a bad thing, but then again, I had never been the diplomat type.

So if it wasn’t the emir, and it wasn’t Mossad, who was raising so much hell in the area? It couldn’t be the CIA, as they were way too obvious. I had no evidence, but I was sure that whoever had blown Falah’s heart out was one of them. Having some sort of hit squad mowing down the people that I was supposed to be infiltrating was definitely screwing with my work. It didn’t really matter, though. I just had to keep a low profile until I could get to Adar.
Piece of cake.

The sliding door opened and Reaper appeared, gangly and squinting at the sudden brightness. The boy really needed to get more sun, but that would take him away from his precious computers and high-speed Internet.

Reaper was an interesting case. He’d been one of those super-genius kids, awkward and goofy as hell I was sure, and he’d been attending MIT when he was fourteen. When I’d met him six years ago he’d been on the run from the law. Ironically enough, he had the most serious criminal record of my crew. My rap sheet only showed a handful of juvenile offenses whereas Reaper, the child prodigy, had been an overachiever and been indicted for several hundred counts of felony fraud, hacking, and embezzlement before he was old enough to drive.

Time
magazine had written a cover story about him. Reaper had used that as his resume when he’d asked to join my crew.

He shuddered. “Man, it’s hot.”

I chuckled. “Wait until summer. It’s barely ninety. How’s your machine thingy coming?”

He shrugged. He’d been working on the device for Phase Three for weeks now. His room was covered in bits and pieces of the complicated gizmo. “I thought about going with a low-inductance capacitor bank discharge, but I said hell with it, the explosive pumped flux compression generator will be so much
cooler
.”

“You know, I dropped out of high school specifically so I wouldn’t have to know what any of those words meant.”

“I thought you dropped out to commit a triple homicide.”

“Quadruple,” I corrected him. “All I need to know is will it work and will it be ready in time?”

I knew it would be. Reaper had an IQ that was off the charts. He could process data like I could languages. “Starfish will be good to go, but we’ll need a couple of test runs out in the desert, just to make sure.”

“You named it Starfish?” It didn’t resemble a starfish, it looked like a big tube in an aluminum housing. “That’s cheesy.”

“Cheesy
awesome
,” he answered with pride. I’m sure the name had some sort of geeky historical reference. Reaper changed the subject and pointed at the folder in my hand. “You been thinking about your family?”

I shrugged. “A little, you know . . .” In actuality, I was terrified a bunch of my nieces and nephews were going to get shot in the head for something that they didn’t even know about, but I couldn’t let that show to the kid. He needed me to be sure, indomitable, fearless, all that leadership crap.

Reaper looked slightly embarrassed. “You worried about them?”

“Only if we fail.” The rest went unsaid. We both knew what would happen then: Eddie would kill everyone that had ever mattered to us just out of principle. But he hadn’t come out here to talk about that. “What’ve you got?”

“Adar bought the spoofed e-mails. He just wrote back. He’s leaving Iraq today. He’ll be back in a couple of days.”

I nodded. As long as he had the box, everything would be fine, but from everything I had learned, he
always
had the box. It was his prized possession and life-insurance policy. “Good. We’ll intercept him at his safe house outside of town.”

“You think he’s as scary as the rumors make him out to be?” Reaper asked. The word on Adar made him sound like some sort of jihadi Jack the Ripper. If Adar had been born into some other society, he probably would have been a serial killer. But luckily for the young murderer from Riyadh, Falah had recruited him and put his natural talents for cruelty to good use for their cause. “I mean, come on, we’ve dealt with some crazies, but this guy takes the cake. Dude, he like
eats
people and stuff.”

“No big deal.” I clapped my young associate on the back. “So he’s bug-nuts crazy and I get to kill him. I told you this job has some perks.”

“There’s more,” Reaper said. “I just heard on the news, they’re evacuating the American embassy. There’s a big mob protesting in front of it. The State Department said that all Americans need to leave Zubara right away.” His grin exposed a bank of grossly crooked teeth. “I’m guessing that doesn’t apply to us.”

I hadn’t been back in my home country in forever—too many laws, too much order. Life out on the fringe was much more to my liking. “It looks like the Zoob’s heating up. Don’t worry, we’ll be out of here before the place totally melts down.”

“I don’t know, chief,” Reaper said slowly, like he was the one with all the experience. “This shitty little country is important to a lot of powerful folks, shadowy, scary, secret government crazy shit. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a bunch of stuff going down.”

Oh, not again.
I rolled my eyes. “You’ve been listening to that conspiracy theory talk-radio show again, haven’t you?”

“From
Sea to Shining Sea
?” Reaper shrugged. “You know, it isn’t always just space aliens and Reptoids of the Hollow Earth. Their political analysis is awesome. Way better than the propaganda you get from the regular news. You really should listen. I’ve got it streaming right now if you want.”

I snorted. “If I’m ever commissioned to rob Atlantis, I’ll tune in. In the meantime, you worry too much.”

“I’m just saying, I got a bad feeling about this is all.”

VALENTINE

Fort Saradia National Historical Site

April 11

1230

“Cover me, goddamn it!” Tailor snarled as fire poured onto his position.

“Hang on, hang on,” I said. I had a situation of my own to deal with. There were at least four bad guys coming up on my left.

“I need help now or I’m gonna die! Shit. I’m hit!”

I could see where Tailor went down. I started for him, but the distraction cost me. I didn’t see the guy with the chainsaw until it was too late.

“Come and save me, damn it.”

There was blood everywhere as I was cut in half. “Too late. I’m dead.” I tossed the vibrating controller on the couch. Tailor swore at me first and then the Xbox.

The biggest open room on the first floor of the dorms had been turned into the rec room. We’d scrounged up a couple of games, a bunch of free weights, and a dart board. Our chalk was enjoying the break. Wheeler was spotting Hudson, as our big man bench-pressed enormous amounts of weight. Wheeler saw that we were toast and got excited. “About time. Our turn. Wrap it up, Hud.”

Hudson grunted as he shoved up three hundred pounds for the ninth time. He was actually scary. “One. More.”

“You suck, Val,” Tailor whined as his character was curb-stomped to death. “You completely and utterly suck. You sucked so hard you choked on your suck. You suck at horde mode.”

I raised an eyebrow. “It’s this stupid controller. I hate playing shooters on a console. A keyboard and mouse is superior in every way.”

Before Tailor could rebut and begin another nerd argument, Hudson racked the weights and stood up. “Get outta my chair, Tailor.” He grinned. “Let me show you how it’s done.”

“How about me and you play, Hud?” Tailor asked him. “Let these uncoordinated monkeys go play Candy Land or something. Leave the horde to the real men.”

“It’s my turn,” Wheeler insisted. “Just because it’s your call sign doesn’t mean you can hog it all day. Here, I’ll pull all the weights off for you, and we’ll see if you can do just the bar. Val, you better be ready to spot so he doesn’t drop it on his concave chest and hurt himself.”

Tailor flipped them both the bird as he passed over his controller. “Screw you, Wheeler, you soulless ginger. It ain’t my fault I want to enjoy the finest recreation that Club Sara-Dia has to offer.”

“Saradia,” Hudson corrected as he flopped onto the couch. “Say it with me. Saw-radia.”

“Sara-
Dia
!” Tailor exclaimed, needlessly accentuating his twang.

“Now you’re just messing with me,” Hudson muttered.

“What?” Tailor asked. “Sara-Dia.”

“Hell, I can’t tell if you’re Southern or handicapped,” Wheeler said. “But I repeat myself.”

We were becoming a tight crew. One of the things I’d missed after leaving Vanguard was the camaraderie. It was good to have the R&R time together. Too bad it was temporary.

One of the colonel’s security men appeared in the doorway. “Tailor, Valentine, Mr. Willis needs to speak to you right away.” He didn’t even wait for the response.

Tailor groaned. “Oh, what now?”

“Come on, man.” I headed for the door. “This is why we’re paid the medium bucks.”

“I’m management. I should be getting bigger bucks.” Tailor reluctantly followed. He stopped at the doorway to shout at Hudson and Wheeler. “Sara-
Dia
!” Then he ducked around the corner as Wheeler chucked an orange Fanta can at him.

The two of us headed across the courtyard. Tailor seemed to be in a better than normal mood, but shooting people in third-world nations was his element. “How’s Sarah doing?”

“She’s good,” I replied, suspicious. “Why?”

“I bet,” he said, smirking. I raised an eyebrow at him. “Val, I know you two are getting it on. She jumped your bones in the safe house, didn’t she?”

I chuckled. “As a matter of fact—”

Tailor laughed. “I hope you at least turned the couch cushions over.” I felt my face flush, and Tailor laughed at me again. “It’s about time, anyway. That girl’s been after you since the day you met.”

“This whole thing is insane,” I said. “I mean, it’s intense. I feel like a teenager. I don’t know how it’s going to work out, but—”

“Goddamn it Val, there you go again!” Tailor said, interrupting me. “Quit overthinking it! You always spaz out and scare the girl off.”

“When did I ever,” I began.

Tailor interrupted me again. “Remember Teresa?”

“Oh . . . right,” I said.

“I’m always right,” Tailor insisted. I was dubious about that claim, but in this instance he was. Teresa had been a medical assistant with Vanguard, and she was the last woman I’d almost had a relationship with. I more or less pushed her away. I had to give myself credit, though. I was trying
really hard
to avoid doing the same thing to Sarah. “I’m serious. Stop being such a big spaz-girl. I can’t have you worrying about some bullshit angst when we’re out in the field.”