I step back. The breath I inhale is more beautiful than any I’ve felt in a long time. There is a kind of freedom in this act I’ve never experienced before. I don’t have to treat the psychopath mass murderer with respect or dignity. This could be a slippery slope.
McCarthy sits up, one eye closed. His face is a mess of blood and broken bones. He smiles. A dirty, grimy, fucked-up, spaced-out, serial killer’s smile. The fresh hit of meth has probably dulled his senses.
“What is the name of this Grand Fuckup you keep going on about?” I shake my hand out. The knuckles ache, but the pain dulls after opening and closing the hand a few times.
“You will respect the Grand Sovereign Mage when you speak, or I will have your tongue for your blasphemous ways,” McCarthy hisses. Dried blood around his lips cracks with his words.
“Here.” Ann hands me her gun. She bends over to reach in her duffle bag and pulls out the bolt cutters we used to cut the lock on McCarthy’s gate. “Put your hand out.”
“Which one?” McCarthy grins at Ann. Trying to show her he’s not afraid.
Ann shakes her head. “Don’t matter none.”
McCarthy holds his left hand out to her. The hand shakes, but I’d guess it’s more from the high than the fear. He looks up at her and winks with his good eye.
She slides the blades of the cutter over the two smallest fingers of his left hand. “Jackson, it’s going to be awful hard for you to continue cooking meth if you’re missing a couple fingers. I imagine that would make it pretty difficult to hold on to all those toxic, explosive chemicals with only three digits, yeah? Now, I’m going to ask you for the last time, what is your Grand Sovereign Mage’s name?”
McCarthy snorts out a laugh. “You know, for a mouthy cunt, I really like your style. But I’ve got to say, you ain’t got the gall for something like that you annoying little bit—OH MY GOD!” McCarthy screams in agony as two of his fingers drop in to the dirt at his feet. “JESUS H. CHRIST WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEMYOUFUCKINGCUNTICANTBELIEVEYOUJUSTCUTMYGODDAMNEDFINGERSOFF!” McCarthy shoves his bleeding hand into his stomach as he screeches incoherent nonsense.
“That’s not the answer I’m looking for. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to hold your hand out one more time, Mr. McCarthy.” There is zero emotion in Ann’s voice. She could just as easily be ordering a double cheeseburger and fries.
“YOUCANTDOTHATYOUCANDOTHATHOWCOULDYOUDOTHATTOME?” McCarthy sucks back snot and cries to himself.
“
Jackson
.” Ann turns on the stern parent voice. That whole this-hurts-me-more-than-it-hurts-you bullshit parents spew along with their constant warnings.
“Donovan. Okay? Jesus. Fuck.” Jackson screeches. “Andy fucking Donovan. Just please, Gawd, fuck, leave me alone!” Jackson rocks himself, cradling his bloody hand.
“See, Jackson, was that so hard?” Ann coos like a mother comforting a child. If McCarthy wasn’t such a vile fuck that inspired grandiose levels of sarcasm, I’d think I was partnered with a sociopath.
McCarthy curls into a fetal position and weeps to himself. His lips move, but no words come out. Maybe he’s saying a prayer, maybe he’s cussing Ann. Either way, we’ve got what we need. Time to see what Grand Sovereign Mage Andy Donovan is all about.
WE DON’T SPEAK
on the way back to the car. The walk is a nice bit of genuflection on the war crimes we just committed. I’m not saying the guy didn’t deserve it. I’m just saying that my partner just hacked off two of the man’s digits and then we left him stoned and bleeding on his front porch. Times like this it’s best to keep your thoughts on the inside for a little while. Mull them around to find the most eloquent way to broach the subject.
“What the fuck just happened?” I open the door to the Explorer and Ann gets in next to me.
She turns to me, face screwed up, angry. “What do you bloody mean, ‘What just happened?’”
“You just cut a man’s fingers off.” I jam the car into gear and turn around. We can’t be clear of this damn compound soon enough.
She huffs. “You didn’t seem to care much about the fucking tosser when you were knocking his teeth down his throat.” She sets the GPS unit on the dash and sits back in her seat, arms crossed.
“Yeah, but I didn’t remove any of his fingers. What if he dies?” The argument is weak and loses all its gusto before clearing my lips. Piece-of-shit dope manufacturer, bomb tinkerer, and killer doesn’t deserve to live. Maybe taking a couple fingers was too kind a punishment.
The SUV bumps and jerks over the terrain. Ann is quiet, like she heard my lack of conviction and took it as victory. I steer right to avoid a large rock and fishtail. Driving on slick Tennessee mud is only a shade better than ice. We pass the broken down fence before Ann finds any more words to throw at me.
“He wasn’t going to talk, all right? The slimy cock was daring us to push him. I don’t know, maybe he figured we have the same restrictions as police. Either way, we are on a clock, yeah? We need to figure out what happened with the Engine and if and how it connects to Tess.” Ann rolls her window partway down and turns her nose toward the wind. She takes a breath like she’s been waiting for clean air since we got to the compound.
“We didn’t have the time to break the guy gently. Yeah, sure, it could have been done, but how long would it have taken to sweat him out? These are exigent circumstances. I did what was necessary to get the information.” She turns back from the window, arms still crossed. Her green eyes sear into me. “You all right with that?” The tone of the question implies that she doesn’t give much of a damn what my answer is.
I’ve seen a million ‘tough women’ portrayed in movies or TV shows, worked with a few pretty tough broads on the force even. But never once have I faced the ice-cold stare of a woman with the training to rip me in half. Smaller men would crumble under that look. Hell, their dicks would probably fall off from the equivalent ratio of testosterone and estrogen coming off her silent rage.
I could say ‘no’ and hope she leaves it at that. There’s no way I’m ditching this assignment, not after everything I’ve seen and done so far. The quick answer is the easy one, but I want to think about it. I follow the series of rough roads back to the highway, rolling the thoughts of what just happened in my mind. Am I ready for more of that? McCarthy was a tougher cookie than Gagnon. If Donovan is tougher than McCarthy, what will it take to get anything out of him?
“I don’t know if I’m okay with mutilating people for information. What are we going to have to do to the next guy? Bamboo chutes? Waterboarding?”
Ann opens her mouth, but I talk over the top of her.
“Look, I’m not saying I want out. Things are too big, there are too many lives at stake for me to back down. That being said, I don’t know that I can torture another person.”
“Even one as worthless as McCarthy?
More
worthless even? What if the Grand Sovereign Mage told McCarthy to bomb that parade? What if he orchestrated other bombings? What if he somehow got the bomb in that destroyed the Engine? How many lives has this person taken?” Ann balls her hands into tight fists. “If taking a couple fingers or even killing one man means I can end this, I will.”
She’s got a point. All of it. I still don’t know if I’m ready to be James ‘KGB’ Quig, but desperate times and all. Hopefully, this is a bridge I won’t come to.
The image of a doped-up McCarthy floats before my eyes. His laugh, his throaty voice, his fuckhead demeanor. The knuckles of my right hand ache. The memory of my fist crashing into his eye brushes the surface of my skin. Suddenly, I know what I would be willing to do with no legal bonds holding me back: Anything.
The SUV rolls up to the side of the plane. We get out, Ann bringing her survival pack with her, and we climb the stairs.
“Welcome back,” Ulrich says through the open cockpit door. “Where to now?”
“Ummm…” That’s a good fucking question. I turn to Ann for guidance.
“Let’s keep her grounded for a moment. James and I need to work out what comes next.”
Ulrich looks back and forth between us. “I think I’ll step out and have a smoke.”
“Thank you,” Ann and I say.
He hangs his pilot’s hat on a hook in the cockpit, grabs a pack of cigarettes from somewhere, and heads down the ladder for some good-old-fashioned lung cancer.
“First thing’s first,” Ann says. “We need to get our name to SHI and have them start tracing it.”
“Something tells me there’s more than one Andy Donovan in the world; that could be quite the search.”
Ann uses the computer to call Adriana. When Adriana comes into view on the screen, her black hair is disheveled and her eyes are bloodshot. “How are you two still going?” Adriana stifles a yawn.
“There’s no time for sleep.” Ann drums her fingers across the tabletop. “We’ve got a name from Jackson McCarthy.”
Adriana yawns again, not bothering to cover it this time, and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. She shuffles paperwork around the desk and grabs a pen. “What’s the name?”
“Andy Donovan,” I say. “He is apparently the Grand Sovereign Mage of AHA or whatever the hell McCarthy has gotten himself in to.”
“‘Grand Sovereign Mage,’ is that a direct quote?” Adriana suppresses a laugh, as if she's not sure it’s appropriate.
“Unless he was messing with us, but I don’t think he was.” I glance at Ann who shows no emotion. “If you could just get us whatever you can on Andy Donovan ASAP, that would be excellent.”
“We’ll get it.” Adriana reaches forward and our connection closes.
“She didn’t tell us how long it would take,” Ann says.
“I’m telling you, this isn’t going to be quick. There’s a lot of work that will have to go in finding one specific Andy Donovan.” I lean my head to the window and look down. Ulrich takes a drag, drops his cigarette, and exhales a long stream of smoke as he grinds the cherry into the tarmac.
“So what do we do in the meantime,” I ask.
“While we wait on the Grand Sovereign information, we should talk to Flaura and see what she has to say. Maybe she can tell us why Tess has gone AWOL.”
“Yeah, maybe. Sounds like the best thing we’ve got going until we get a location on the head cuckoo.”
Ulrich’s blonde head appears in the entrance of the plane. He claps. “Have we decided on a location?”
“Yeah, give us just a second.” Ann presses a button on our computer and a few moments later Vince shows up on the screen.
His hair is matted down with sweat and his usual cheerful expression is notably absent. The hollows under his eyes are deep and black. Poor guy looks like he just got out of the octagon with Liddell. “You two have good news for me.” It’s a statement and a plea.
“We’ve got a lead on the bomb,” I say. “Jackson McCarthy, otherwise known as ‘CapeH8er69,’ is a notable piece of human garbage. We found the kind of fertilizer used in our bomb on his property. He’s already suspected in one anti-hero bombing, so it wouldn’t be a stretch for an actual attack on heroes.”
“But he seems a bit too dim to pull off something like our attack. He says he takes all his orders from a Grand Sovereign Mage named Andy Donovan,” Ann says.
“Name doesn’t ring a bell,” Vince says.
“But Grand Sovereign Mage does?” Ann stares at Vince through the screen. I wonder if the look comes across the screen as intense as it is in real life.
“I’m know AHA’s inner workings. The hierarchy is impressive for a hate group. AHA is made up of different subgroups, most of which are regional. Southeastern United States Anti-Hero Movement, Austrian Human-Only Organization, Portuguese Hero Abomination Association, et cetera. Each of these groups have one Supreme Griffon leader, but all of those answer to one person – the Grand Sovereign Mage.”
“So you know who this person is?” Why not start with him when we thought AHA was to blame? Then again, very rarely does the head of an organization know all of the inner workings of his own congregation.
Vince sighs. He gets a crumpled package of gum out of his pocket and finds it empty. “No. Up until this point, we’ve never had a name for one of the Mages. I know a couple have died, but we didn’t know their identity until after they died. Now we have a name, maybe we can get something.” Vince claps his hands together. “This is good, progress. Is there anything I can assist you with?”
“Yes,” Ann says, “we want to speak with Flaura. She’s with you, right?”
Vince looks over his shoulder. “Yeah, this one is all-hands-on-deck. I had a few out searching for Gravitess, but I’ve pulled everyone back here to help. Seattle looks like a fender bender compared to this mess.” Vince swipes a hand across the sweat beading on his forehead, leaving behind a black smear. “She’s by the park you guys landed at earlier, convincing some of the trees to uproot and help with the heavy lifting.”
“Do you care if we talk with her?” Hopefully this interrogation won’t end with cutting off any fingers.
A crash sounds through the speakers. Vince glances over his shoulder again. “I’ve got to go. Come out and I’ll get you a few minutes with her.” The screen goes blank.
“So,” I say, “back to Houston?”
“Back to Houston.”
“Ulrich,” I raise my voice to the captain in the cockpit. “Take us back to Houston.”
He tips his cap. “You guys sure are going to rack up those flier miles today, yeah?” He pulls the cabin door closed.
I lean back in my seat. My eyelids are refusing the ‘open’ command my brain keeps sending them. Next to me, Ann’s seat squeaks as she adjusts position. “Ann, can I ask you a question? And no, that does not count as my question. I hate that joke.”
“All right, James, but I get to ask you one too.”
“Deal.” I put my hands behind my head and stare at the inside of my eyelids. The plane engines whine to life and we shift, preparing for takeoff. “What happened back there? I mean, I get why you did what you did, but what changed?”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t seem super happy to be going in the field. You didn’t say a word when we talked to The Patriot and you seemed content to sit and gamble when I talked to River. So why go all guerilla interrogator on McCarthy?”