Hollywood is an All Volunteer Army (46 page)

“Well, I suppose that explains it. Can I call you Gil?”

“I'd prefer if you didn't. Always sounded too—fish-like for me.”

Max laughed. “Well, Gilgamesh, what are you doing here?”

“We're private investigators.”

“Working for whom?”

“Working for the parents of Bea Cherbourg.”

“Bea Cherbourg? That little bitch who killed herself?”

“You killed her. You and Sara Hutton. We know that. We were hired to get the evidence.”

“All this was about that stupid little bitch? How did you get Lydia Corfu involved?”

“We needed a way to get close to Sara Hutton and you. To be able to get up here. We read things in Bea's diary that made us think you were running a weird sex club up here. We thought, maybe that's how she died, through some weird erotic death thing, like those people who choke themselves for the ejaculation. We promised Lydia all the material on the videotapes and exclusivity to break the story. Also to sell the story back to Hollywood for a feature. Seemed poetic justice.”

“Weird sex club?”

“Yeah.”

“Unbelievable. Lydia's offer to buy Olympic was, of course, part of the ruse.”

“Yes.”

“We never took it seriously, you know. We weren't desperate for money, no matter what Robert Pye told you. The Enclave will provide the money. We just need to go through an elaborate effort to hide the tracks.”

Max thought for a moment, then said. “I'm impressed. Moderately. I mean, I got on to you soon into the process, didn't I? Still, an elaborate a scheme for a couple of private investigators in the pay of a not well-to-do middle class couple. What did they do? Mortgage the house?”

“No. This is a pro bono case.”

“Oh really? Intrigue and amuse me some more.”

“Bea Cherbourg was my niece.”

“Ah. So it's personal, is it? How long have you been a private investigator?”

“Ever since I retired from the FBI.”

“No wonder you're incompetent. You were in undercover, I take it.”

“Yes.”

“And this Mike?”

“A civilian we recruited. He knew Bea. Had a crush on her. She had told him she was going on this retreat.”

“Well, what an absolutely stupid story—but stupid in that oh-so-human way.” Max smiled a big grin. “I believe it. No reason not to, at this point, I guess, as you will all be dead, and a bother to me no more.”

“Why—why did you kill Bea?”

“We didn't. I told you. She killed herself. All we ever did in the initiations was put on a little show for effect, give the people a little jolt to the lips and wounds they could proudly show off. For some reason Bea grabbed the switch out of Sara's hand and wouldn't stop pushing the button. It came as a shock—if I may use that term—to all of us. There was Sara standing there screaming, ‘Get this bitch off my ass!' Our other initiates not knowing if this was real—or part of the show, standing with their mouths hanging open. I had to go behind the screen and pull the plug to stop the damn thing. By that time your none-too-bright niece was dead. And lipless.

“I had had a bad feeling about her all along, but Sara was being ruled by lust. Did you know she fucked your niece, by the way? On several occasions. The last one being a beach party where Sara keep wanting to be called Annette. I had to be ‘Frankie' and fuck your niece also. Sara really is quite warped, sometimes, but, I allow her one now and then to keep her lesbo libido under control. Helps keep her mind focused.

“At first I thought the damn thing was a disaster. The frying of Bea. Until I saw its effect on the initiates. Suddenly they really knew the power of the Enclave, I could see it in their eyes. I've always counted on their greed for their loyalty, but this was a wonderful added assurance. Fear. Very effective. I decided at that moment that at each initiation we would kill someone. One of Sara's lusts or some dispensable development executive. Plenty to choose from. Then you guys came along and provided Lydia. Couldn't have been more perfect.”

“How are you going to account for all these missing people?”

“Certain people in this world are accountable for what they do and certain people aren't. We aren't. Do you understand? Even when we have glitches, even when we make a lapse of judgment and hire a hard-drinking Eskimo to do a simple job like transport a body into Russia, and that hard-drinking Eskimo drinks hard and thinks throwing the damn body into the Bering Sea would be just as effective, forgetting, due to the hard drink, that it's Winter and the Bering Strait is frozen over—even then, body discovered, we will never be held accountable. The Enclave takes care of its own.”

“What are you going to do with us?”

“I told you. You will rest in peace in Russia.”

“Why Russia?”

“I have a bit of a hobby there. Mock dogfights are okay when your amusing hoi polloi, but when you really want to test your skills, you've got to have live ammo. Not too many places around here you can do that, if you're not government issued, so to speak. But in the uncluttered skies over the great Central Siberian Plateau, there's not too many authorities around to bother you, and the few that are, are easily paid off. I've refurbished many old Culver PQ-14 radio controlled target aircraft. It's a lot of fun, shooting them down, but it's just not the same thing as a real kill. Luckily, turning a hobby into profit, I've never found a lack of adventurers who will pay me to fight them. Rich enthusiasts with their own warbirds who want to test their mettle and skill. Compared to me, they have very little, but then they never realize that until it's too late. The high price of self-knowledge.”

Roee groaned next to me and opened his eyes. The muzzle of an AK-47 was placed between them.

“I'm so happy you're all right, Mr. Jenkins. Tell me, do you really fly? Or was that just part of your ruse, which Mr. Paul has now thoroughly revealed.”

Roee, looking rather cross-eyed, answered. “No, we fly.”

“Just Cessna's and Pipers?”

“No. We can fly anything.”

“I thought as much. You guys just looked the type. I'm pleased. I'm going to offer you a noble death, then, instead of an ignoble death, which would be easy to arrange for me and extremely painful for you. The lovely Sara Hutton and I will challenge you two to a dogfight in the skies over San Simeon. It won't rouse any suspicion, people will just think it's part of another air show. When the two of you finally crash and burn, it will just be an unfortunate accident.”

“You're not taking into account the possibility that we might shoot you down,” I said.

“No chance of that. You see, Sara and I will have live ammo. You will have none at all. Not even blanks. You're going to have to go, ‘YAK-YAK-YAK-YAK,' just to get into the spirit of the thing.”

“Not very sporting.”

“I didn't say it would be sporting. I said it would be a noble death. You have caused me much trouble, I have no obligation to be sporting with you. I will give you a handicap, though.”

“A handicap?”

“Yes, of a sort.” Max turned to Ranger Blunt. “It will intensify the nobility if they have to fight through pain while flying, don't you think?”

“Yes, sir,” Blunt said.

“Good.” Max looked down at us. “We fly at dawn, gentlemen.”

Then he left as Ranger Blunt and one other, under the cover and protection of their compatriot's AK-47s, picked us up, shoved us against the wall and started pounding and tenderizing us for the battle ahead.

The ugly, grinning face of Sara Hutton greeted me with the dawn.

I was flat on my naked back on the tarmac of the airfield. I took a quick mental roll call of body parts and faculties and nothing seemed AWOL although I couldn't find a member of the ranks that wasn't in pain. Sara, who was squatting close to me, continued to look at me, and grin like a not-too-bright primate cousin investigating a termite hole. Soon I realized that she was playing with one of my nipples—a thought frightening enough to startle me and to make me gasp.

I heard a moan. Painfully I moved my head to the left and saw Roee laying on the ground next to me, just moving into consciousness. His clothes were torn and bloodied, as, indeed, was his face. I assumed I looked not too dissimilar. I turned back to Sara.

Her grin scrunched up into launch mode and she spat a rather large quantity of phlegm onto my eyes, nose and the right corner of my mouth.

It was warm moisture but turned cold rapidly as the temperature couldn't have been much over 50.

“Good morning,
Gil-ga-mesh
.”

“Any chance of a rag to wipe my face?” I asked.

“Here,” she said, violently pulling and ripping at Roee's shirt until a large piece tore off.

It must have helped bring clarity to his pain.

She threw the piece of shirt in my face. I sat up, wiping her gift away.

“Sorry you missed the rest of the initiation. We had a fine time. Once Sheila got rid of the barbecue and we were able to calm everyone. Now they really know how important their task is, and how our enemies surround us. I think they were awed and inspired by it all. All that remains is for them to see our enemies vanquished. So we've brought them here. Can you see? They're in the bleachers.”

I could see. They were. All five. Waiting for the show.

“Watching you die will bring real closure to this experience.”

“Boy, you really do go for the cliché, don't you?”

Sara Hutton rammed her fist into my right eye.

She stood up, angry. She yelled at one of the Rangers, “Get them into flight suits and into the Spits! You better get up there fast,” she said addressing me again, “or we'll kill you on the ground.”

Sara Hutton walked off and climbed into her waiting and running Messerschmitt 109. The plane then joined another piloted by Max for a short taxi to the runway, then a near “hand in hand” take off.

Rangers grabbed Roee and me and tossed us around as they stripped us naked. The Five, I noticed, had their binoculars trained on us, looking at the particulars no doubt.

Hope we didn't disappoint.

Various orifices were quickly checked as they looked, poked, folded us in half, and probed to see if we were concealing anything that we might be able to use to our advantage. Then we were thrown into flight suits and dragged to our Spitfires and, literally, stuffed into the cockpits. We made like rag dolls during all of this. It seemed the best way. No resistance at all. Everything hurt like hell, nonetheless.

The Ranger who stuffed me in forced a leather flight helmet on my head and plugged it into the radio just as Max and Sara flew very low over our heads, screaming, “YAK-YAK-YAK-YAK,” through the radio at us. The Ranger, ducking out of reflex, slipped off the wing and fell to the ground. He recovered quickly, jumped back up on the wing, slammed shut the cockpit flap door, and screamed at me over the rapid pounding piston engine noise, “Get moving, or next time it won't be just a sound effect!” Then he slid the bubble-bulged cockpit canopy into place over my head and jumped off the plane and ran as far away from me as he could get.

Fraught with life-or-death as the situation was, all I wanted to do was go to sleep. It seemed a good way to combat the pain, and that was the only combat I was truly interested in.

Then a voice came into my head.

“Wisdom. Remember always the wisdom.”

Wisdom, I thought. Ah, yes, I have sought all my life for wisdom.

“The teeth, Fixx. Roee, don't forget the wisdom teeth.”

Ah, yes.

Wisdom is in the manipulation of the tongue.

Mine reached back to the upper right wisdom tooth and found the very small switch. My tongue pushed it in. The flap in the fake tooth opened and the small but potent amount of Petey's special and exclusive pain killer-stimulant formula flowed into the back of my mouth and I struggled to move my throat into a swallow that would send it into my system. Once done, I repeated the action with my upper left wisdom tooth for a second dose, but didn't have to struggle to swallow as the first dose of the medicine was already taking effect.

“Whoa! Petey! What is this stuff?” I heard Roee exclaim through my obviously still concealed—and obviously waterproof—earpiece.

“Oh, just a little recipe of my mother's.”

“I take it you're receiving us okay,” I said.

“Yes, the fake nipple microphones are working beautifully. Although it was touch and go when Sara was trying to turn you on, Fixx.”

“They itch,” Roee said.

“That's because you got the application glue wet.”

“Not intentionally. You sure you can hear us okay over the engine noise? It's pretty intense.”

“Hey, my nipples are very sensitive!”