Dead Six (8 page)

Tailor and I both began to grin as we climbed the short steps. Hawk greeted us with a smile and roughly shook both of our hands. As always, his handshake nearly crushed mine.

“Goddamn, boys, it’s good to see you,” he said, his voice raspy and harsh. “How the hell are ya?”

“Doing just fine, sir,” Tailor said.

“How ’bout you, kid?” Hawk asked me.

“Things are looking up.”

“C’mon in, boys. Let’s sit down before we start unloading your truck.” Hawk opened the door and led us into his house. We followed him into the kitchen, where he had us sit down before opening the fridge. He still walked with a slight limp.

“You boys want a beer?”

“Uh, no thanks.” I hate beer.

“We’re driving,” Tailor said. “Got any Dr. Pepper?”

Hawk turned around, closing the refrigerator door. He had in his left hand one large can of beer, and in his right hand two cans of Dr. Pepper. “I bought a case after Val called me,” he answered, sitting down. “So, boys, why don’t you tell me what’s going on? Tailor, I haven’t heard from you in a year. Val here hasn’t e-mailed me in a couple of months. Then all of a sudden I get a call, asking me if I can store his stuff. So what’s going on?”

“We’re not supposed to talk about it,” Tailor said. “It’s a job. We’re going to be gone for a long time, probably over a year.”

“A job with who?” Hawk asked, sipping his beer.

“We’re . . . not really sure,” I said. Hawk set his beer down and raised his eyebrows. “I mean, I think it’s the government. It’s all very hush-hush.”

“How’s the pay?” Hawk asked.

“Insane,” Tailor responded.

“We’re not supposed to talk about it,” I said, echoing Tailor’s words.

“Don’t give me that bullshit, boy,” Hawk said. “You know I ain’t gonna go calling the newspaper or anything.”

“Does Quagmire even have a newspaper?” Tailor asked.

“Sure as hell does. The
Quagmire Sentinel.
Yesterday’s front-page headline was about the truckload of chickens that overturned on the highway outside of town. There were chickens everywhere. Now, do you have any idea where they’re sending you?”

“All they’d tell us was that it was someplace where the US doesn’t have any ongoing operations,” Tailor said. “So I’m guessing somewhere in the Middle East, probably.”

“Or somewhere in Africa,” I suggested.

“Christ, I hope not,” Tailor said. “I don’t want to go back to Africa.”

“Me, either,” I said. “But that’s the thing, Hawk. They won’t tell us anything. They just had us sign a three-year contract.”

“Kid, are you telling me you signed a contract when you had no idea who you’re working for or where you’re going? Why would you do that?”

“Twenty-five
large
every month,” I said. “They’ve already dropped a twenty-K signing bonus into my checking account.”

“Damn,” Hawk said. “That’s good money. Hell, I haven’t made that kind of money since Decker and I retook that diamond mine from the rebels. We got paid in cut stones. I still have some of ’em in the safe downstairs. Anyway . . . boys, are you sure about this?”

“No, I’m not,” I said honestly. “But . . . Hawk, I tried living the regular life. I had a normal job and everything.”

“You hated it, didn’t you?” Hawk asked, studying me.

I hesitated briefly. “Yeah. I hated it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. After Mexico . . . Christ, Hawk, most of my friends are dead now. How could I want to go back to that life? What’s wrong with me?”

“Goddamn it, Val, we’ve been over this,” Tailor said angrily.

Hawk interrupted him. “Hold on, Tailor. Val, we all go through this eventually. You get over it, and you go on to the next job. You miss that life because it’s all you’ve done. You miss the money, the excitement, the shooting. It’s normal. Anyway, you’re good at it. I’ve never seen anyone run a six-gun like you. The first time I handed you a .357 you shot like you’d been born with it in your hand. Why do you think I talked Decker into hiring you? I saw what you did in Afghanistan. You cleaned out that Hajji nest like a pro, and practically by yourself.”

“I got kicked out of the Air Force for that,” I said.

“Forget ’em,” Hawk responded. “The bureaucrats that run the military these days don’t know talent when they see it.”

“I know. Honestly? I don’t feel bad about wanting to go back. I feel bad that I
don’t
feel bad about wanting to go back.”

“No point in trying to be something you’re not, Val,” Tailor said. “That’s why I called you for this. I figured you wanted to go back as much as I did.”

“Tailor’s right,” Hawk stated, a hard gleam in his eye. “You’re a natural-born
killer
, boy, and you always will be. You’re guaranteed to be miserable until you accept that.”

“It’s a good thing Tailor called,” I said. “I was about to accept Ling’s offer and join Exodus.”

“I knew it!” Tailor exclaimed. “Hawk, will you talk some sense into him?”

“Kid, Exodus is bad news. Now, I know they helped you get out of there after things went to shit in Mexico, but that’s probably only because you saved that Oriental girl’s life. They’re dangerous.”

“So were
we
,” I said.

“But we were professionals,” Hawk replied. “They’re true believers. That’s a different kind of dangerous. Better to stay away from it.”

“I don’t have the best feeling about this gig, either,” I said.

“You don’t have to go.”

“I already signed the contract.”

“So? If you need to disappear, we can make that happen. It’ll be a huge pain in my ass, but it’s doable. I’ve done it before for other folks.”

“No. I don’t want to go on the run.”

“The money’s too good to walk away from,” Tailor said.

“No kidding,” I concurred, cracking a smile. “I’ll be living large when I get back.”

“Well, let’s get to unloading your stuff, then,” Hawk said, setting his empty beer can on the table.

As darkness fell, Tailor, Hawk, and I sat on the front porch, watching one of the most beautiful desert sunsets I’d ever seen. Hawk leaned back in his chair, sipping a beer. Tailor and I sat next to him, studying the shades of red and purple that filled the sky as the sun slowly sank beneath the mountains. Real moments of peace are hard to come by in life, and no one wanted to ruin it by talking.

The sun slowly disappeared, and the stars were increasingly visible overhead. It was cold out, and our breath smoldered in the chilly air. Hawk looked over at Tailor and me. “Now you listen, boys,” he said, taking another sip of his beer. “A long time ago, I was on a job that paid too good to be true, too. More than twenty years ago now, I think. It was before we went legit and founded Vanguard. It was just Switchblade back then.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“We were straight-up mercenaries. We worked for just about anyone that had the cash to pay us, and we didn’t ask questions. We always got the job done, too. We spent most of our time in Africa. Business was good. Until this time we got in over our heads. We . . .” Hawk hesitated. “We basically overthrew the democratically elected government of Zembala.”

“Where’s that?” I asked.

“It doesn’t exist anymore,” Hawk replied. “It’s called the Central African People’s Republic now. The government of Zembala was corrupt, teetering on collapse. They had tribal conflict, religious conflict, and the Cubans screwing around there, too.”

“Fucking Cubans,” Tailor and I said simultaneously.

“We had been paid to protect the president of Zembala. He was a real piece of work, let me tell ya. He was a lying, whoring drunk, and the validity of the election results were questionable. Anyway, he was hoarding the cash from the state-run diamond mines, trying to fund his army to keep the Commies from overthrowing him. We protected him. He didn’t trust anyone from his own country. Too much tribal bullshit. We didn’t have a dog in that race, so he trusted us. But we got a better offer.” Hawk paused for a moment. “The Montalban Exchange, some big international firm, offered us a lot of money to kill the president.”

“That didn’t work out, did it?” Tailor asked.

“Christ Almighty, it was bad,” Hawk said, finishing his beer and crushing the can in his hand. “Decker went for it. We killed the president. That was easy. It got complicated after that. We left the capital for Sweothi City, getting our asses kicked the whole way. There were only a few of us left. The Montalbans were supposed to have a plane there to extract us.”

“There wasn’t a plane, was there?” Tailor asked.

Hawk laughed bitterly. “Hell, no.”

“How did you get out?” I asked. “Did the Montalban Exchange help you?”

“No, they didn’t. They just left us to die. We hooked up with some Portuguese mercs and made a run for it. Decker sacrificed one of our guys, young fella named Ozzie, to distract the Cubans. He pulled it off, though. The rest of us managed to get on a plane to South Africa. Lost a lot of good men in that mess . . .” Hawk trailed off, looking toward the darkened mountains.

“Holy shit,” Tailor said. “Ramirez never talked about that.”

“And yet the story sounds strangely familiar,” I said, giving Tailor a hard look.

Hawk opened another beer. “None of us talked about it. We made a mistake, and it got a lot of people killed. Well . . . even if we hadn’t been there, the same thing probably would’ve happened. And Africa’s
Africa.
Every time some politician sneezes over there a hundred thousand people get slaughtered.”

“Africa sucks,” I said, looking up at the stars. The time I’d spent there hadn’t been so pleasant, either.

“It is what it is,” Hawk said quietly. “You boys be careful over there, now. Always have a way out. Don’t trust the people you work for. Remember, if you die, they don’t have to pay you.”

“Okay, Hawk,” I said.

“I
mean it
, boy,” he said harshly. “I’ve been to too many goddamned funerals already.”

VALENTINE

Kelly Field Annex

Lackland Air Force Base, Texas

February 4

0545

Southern Texas was warm, even in February. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was a far cry from the harsh winters and lake-effect snow of Northern Michigan, where I’d grown up.

The last few days had been a whirlwind. Tailor and I had been flown from Las Vegas to San Antonio. From there we were hurried to a military installation that they tried to keep secret, but I knew it was Lackland Air Force Base. I’d gone to Air Force basic military training and Security Forces School here. They kept us cooped up in an old barracks for several days. Each day, more and more people would arrive. All told, there were forty-two of us living in the barracks, that we knew of.

Food, in the form of military MREs, was brought to us, and we weren’t allowed to go outside. All cell phones had been confiscated, and those that had kept theirs hidden had found that they had no signal anyway, meaning our hosts were probably jamming them somehow. They also took all of our personal identification documents, like passports and driver’s licenses. This caused all manner of outrage, but our employers insisted that these effects would be returned when the mission was complete.

People came and went from the barracks, but they weren’t part of our group. No one knew who they were, so we all guessed that they were associates of Gordon Willis. I had to hand it to Gordon: he’d certainly managed to recruit an interesting bunch. As Tailor and I talked to, and got to know, the people that were presumably our new teammates, we learned quite a bit about them and how much we all had in common.

For starters, almost all of us had combat experience. Most were ex-military, like me, and of those, a few had been kicked out or had spent time in the Fort Leavenworth military prison. Others had an intelligence background, and most of us spoke foreign languages. Tailor and I spoke Spanish fluently. Very few of us had any close family. None of us were married.

There were a few women in the building, too, but they were confined to a different part of the barracks and weren’t allowed near us. We didn’t know how many there were. I guessed that they were afraid someone would end up pregnant or something. It seemed silly to me.

So there I was, standing on the ramp, looking at a plain white Boeing 767 jetliner that was waiting for us. The sun wouldn’t be up for another hour. We stood there in a big cluster, smoking and joking, waiting for them to tell us to board the plane. A few of us, including Tailor and me, had formed into a little circle.

“Where are we going?” someone asked. “Anyone heard?” I turned around. The guy that had asked the question was named Carlos Hudson. He was a black guy from the south side of Detroit, originally. He was the only other Red Wings fan in the whole bunch, so he and I had hit it off.

“They haven’t told us anything,” I said. “They issued us a bunch of hot-weather gear, though. We’re going to the Middle East.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Tailor said, standing next to me.

“Why would they send us to there?” someone else asked. “What are forty-two guys going to do that half the US military can’t?”

“Maybe we’re going to Iran or somewhere, then,” Hudson suggested. “You know, someplace the US ain’t supposed to be?”

“Could be the Sudan,” another guy chimed in.

“I do
not
want to go back to Africa,” Tailor said for the umpteenth time, puffing a cigarette.

“Don’t worry, boys, we’re not going to Africa,” a woman’s dusky voice said. That’s when I saw her. She was tall, probably fve ten or so, and had auburn hair pulled back into a ponytail. She had curvy features hidden beneath khaki cargo pants and a sage green fleece jacket. A green duffel bag was hoisted over her shoulder, and it looked like it weighed as much as she did. She was flanked by three other women, but there was something about her . . .

“Who are you?” Tailor asked.

“McAllister,” she said, sticking her hand out.

Tailor glanced at me, then shook her hand. “My name’s Tailor,” he said. “William Tailor. So, where
are
we going?”

“Zubara,” she said.

“Where?” someone asked.

“The Confederated Gulf Emirate of Zubara,” one of the other females, a tall black woman, said.