Monsters of the Apocalypse (3 page)

“Mr.
President, we’ve checked every inch of the mansion and he’s not here. We found
this...”

October, now
rummaging through Jacob's pantry looked up at the tiny electronic devices that
the nervous computer specialist held in his hand.

“What is
that?”

“A camera
and mic set. The same one they… I mean you… you have. That you have
in you. The same transmitter.”

October
grabbed a package of nuts and opened it with his teeth, then poured the
package's entirety into his mouth. The specialist watched and waited as
October chewed.

“So he
removed his own camera," October said spraying a mist of nuts towards the
nervous man. "Then he blocked the feed well enough that you’d think he
was trying to hide it, but not so well that you wouldn’t find it and hack
it?"

"Yes
sir, Mr. President."

October
froze and stared with violence at the computer specialist.

"Why
were you looking?"

"What?
I'm sorry, sir," the specialist stuttered. "What do you
mean?"

"The
thing about that is, he wouldn't do all that, without then tipping someone
off. Jacob leaves nothing to chance. He wanted me here. He
used that camera as the bait. He would make sure that the bait
worked! I mean, why would you go looking in the first place? Who
told you to go looking into the camera feeds of the Alpha's?! Who are you
working for you pathetic little twerp?!"

October
grabbed the small man by his throat so tight that the specialist started the
involuntary squeaking that comes from the strain of torn larynx.

"You,
sir, he's working for you."

October
turned to find Miho and Flores standing in the room having just entered in the
side door. Miho pointed at the choking man as she continued.

"We've
had men searching through the Alpha feeds to find Jacob for ten years - he's
just the only one good enough to have succeeded. And you're killing
him."

October let
go of the man and nodded to Flores who, after a glance to Miho, carried the
convulsing man out of the room.

"Did
that big Indian Ape just look at you for permission to follow my orders?!"
October snarled.

"Did
you just almost kill a man for no reason, Mr. President?"

October
turned away, not interested in losing yet another staring contest with the
woman. He opened the fridge, grabbed a beer and sat down at the kitchen
table. The foam from the can burst forth with a hiss as he tore it open.

"Damn
it. Why, Miho? Why did he want us here? Am I going to walk out of
this mansion and be shot? Is that what this is about?”

“We took the
time to do a two-hour sweep of the area, sir. The house was protected by
various jamming devices and scrambling insulation, so we weren't sure what was
inside, but the outside and the surrounding area were clear, we knew for sure.
Infrared cameras, radar and drones have all been searching this property for
the last two hours. If there were a bomb or a human, any kind of threat
even near here we’d know it. Now that the house is clear we can be sure
that you’re not in danger.”

"Really?
So outside when I wanted to charge in: there was danger, but now that I'm
inside: there is none? Which is it, Miho? Am I in danger or
not?!"

"I just
explained how…" Miho stopped with a sigh, and gathered herself before she
continued. "It's wise to expect danger, sir. It will keep you
alive longer. Risks that are unnecessary, like charging into the house of
your most dangerous enemy, should be avoided. Risks that are necessary,
like leaving the house of your most dangerous enemy, shouldn't be avoided."

"You're
so damn clever, aren't you," he said as he crushed the empty beer can and
threw it against the wall before finally returning to his normal breathing
pattern. He stared at his hands, watching the beat of his heart in his
fingertips.

“Okay then, Ms.
Walker. Okay. If the danger isn't here, then the danger is
somewhere else and he wanted us distracted. I would assume that the two
hour sweep would have drawn all of the local resources?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So in the
last two hours there has been no patrol, drone sweep or security checks, in
what…? A five-mile area beyond this target zone?”

“Perhaps ten
miles,” she said with hesitation.

“Miho,
what’s the most high security, high clearance building in the ten-mile area?”

President
October Carnegie watched as Flores reentered the room and took up his post
behind Miho's shoulder as she searched the glowing screen of her tablet.

“Something
called Operations Control 4B. I’m not exactly clear…” she read out loud.

“Oh, Jacob,
that's very clever,” October laughed.

“Sir, what
is Operations Control 4B?”

“It’s one of
the few places that can operate the cameras in an Alpha. It’s a relic
really. No reason someone like you, someone as young as you, would think
twice about it. But…”

October got
up and walked into the living room and stared into a mirror hanging crooked on
the wall. He looked at his fat face and he knew that this image, this
viewpoint, wasn’t his alone at this moment.

“Jacob,” he laughed.
“Jacob.”

Jacob sat calmly and watched as
Nestor walked through the door and sat down across from him at the table.
Jacob smiled as he poured whiskey into the glasses that sat in front of
them. To someone who didn't know better it seemed that Nestor moved with
a simple purpose, indifferent and unaware of Arian sitting in the corner on his
laptop, or the few remaining newly recruited Alpha Team members who now guarded
the door, but Jacob did know better. He knew that if Nestor was here,
that Nestor had already found another way out and that if Nestor seemed calm,
then Nestor was positive that he would be able to kill everybody here.

Jacob ran his eyes over
Nestor. His body was mostly hidden under a black hooded sweatshirt and
the leather coat he wore above it, but there was a hint of the muscles that lay
tensed underneath. Jacob could picture in his memory the skulls and
flowers that climbed Nestor's right arm in honor of his Mexican father, his
left tattooed with the koi fish and cherry trees that were a tribute to his
Japanese mother. Jacob could picture the way those arms shook and
glistened when they killed. Nestor's chin-length hair was now pulled back
in a high ponytail, with still a smattering of strands dashing across his face.

“You look
good, Nestor. You haven’t aged a bit. What’s your secret?”

Nestor just
stared.

“It's being
Asian I would guess. That's your secret. Mine, is a sense of humor
and sunscreen. Thanks for coming.”

Nestor
nodded and set a large knife on the table between them, indifferent to the
sound of Arian shifting to point his gun at the table.

"Look
at that, Arian. That's a Sog Seal 2000. That's the knife they
issued the original Alpha Team. Talk about a historic piece.
It should be in the Smithsonian, Nestor, not here. Actually, you're
really supposed to give those back when you're discharged."

Nestor
stared, silent. Jacob shrugged.

"You
have no reason to kill me. You have scars, Nestor, so do I. We’re
even.”

“Even,”
Nestor hissed.

“Yeah.
Well, maybe not Even Steven, but friends let the little things slide.”

“Friends?”

“Nestor, how
could you ask that? Of course. Always.”

“Are you
saying that you haven’t sent dozens of assassins to kill me over the last five
years?”

“No, I’m
saying that the fact that I sent dozens of assassins to kill you over the years
doesn’t mean in the slightest that I don’t consider you my best friend.”

Nestor
shrugged and, ignoring the knife, sipped his whiskey while Jacob studied his
own drink, a grimace of mirth on his face. The cabin they were in had
seen better days. It wasn't technically owned and it was on no map.
Jacob didn't know if Nestor ever thought of it as a home or how he came by it,
but it was the one place that, with any consistency, Nestor could be
found. The last time Jacob had been here was at the end of the Great War.

After she
had died.

“I need you
to do something for me, Nestor.”

“I'm not in
the killing business anymore.”

“What in
God’s name are you talking about, Nestor? The reason I’m here is because
I need the best and one of the two guys who was even at your level, you killed
with a rolled up magazine two months ago!”

“That was
self-defense. You’d sent him to kill me.”

“That’s why
we have police in the civilized world, Nestor, instead of beating assassins to
death with magazines, you call the police and they arrest them."

"Funny,"
Nestor said flatly. "What about your Shadow Army? Your
Indians? What about Arian over there?"

"You
know my name?" Arian squeaked with excitement.

Nestor and
Jacob both turned and stared at Arian, who, in embarrassment set down his gun
and returned his gaze to his computer. Jacob sighed and lit up a
cigarette.

"I need
you to do this, Nestor. It'll save a lot of people. Do you believe
me? That I’m your friend?”

“I haven’t
killed you yet, have I?”

“Well, it’s good to see you too,
Nestor.”

October
looked down at the corpse that lay in the doorway, shot sloppily in the
stomach, but also twice through the eyes - Jacob's calling card.

“Is my
camera on?”

“No, Mr.
President,” the specialist croaked through his injured throat. "They're
all off."

"Is
there a security camera? Can we see what Jacob did when he was here other
than using amateurs for target practice?"

"Yes,
sir. I'll bring it up."

"Miho,
look at this mess. Look at the guns. Old and outdated. What
is that?"

"Shadow
Army protocol, sir. There are sensors in any military or combat-quality
gun made in the last twenty years. If more than three show up in a single
location in the US our security forces are notified - it was a program created
after the Great War, to try to prevent any sort of organized militia
attack. To get around this the Shadow Army often uses older or outdated
weaponry."

"Okay,
but I don't see any Shadow Army here. I see Americans. I see modern
day Alphas and American Security Forces. Are you telling me there wasn't
one casualty on Jacob's side?"

"It
would appear so, but I feel it's more likely that Jacob has recruited a new
group of soldiers and that's who we're seeing. These new Alphas were
probably working for Jacob."

"What?!
Find out how the hell Jacob got a team of American soldiers in his employ
without us knowing!"

Miho
silently left the room with a nod to Flores as the computer specialist brought
up the recording from the security cameras. Flores moved beside the door
silently.

“Okay,
I'm cuing the security footage right now," the specialist said, gently
rubbing his neck where the haze of a bruise had begun to form. "They
turned on all the cameras... that’s odd.”

“What?”

“Either
there was a glitch, a technical short or... or else...”

“Or else
what?!” October shouted.

“Or else
they turned the cameras on, then turned them off, then turned them on.
Over and over.”

“What?”

“Right here,
Mr. President, watch."

October
moved over to the screen as the specialist pointed at the small image of Jacob
and an almost impossibly dark man, undoubtedly one of the mercenaries from
Jacob's Shadow Army, in the identical spot only an hour earlier. He
briefly noticed the reflection of Flores in the screen, staring right back at
him.

"Right
there, sir, see this screen? You see a glass then it goes black, then the
glass comes back, now watch the black guy's hands. He’s making it do
that.”

“Where’s the
recording from the feeds? I wanna see the footage from that
camera.”

With a few
strokes the nervously sweating computer specialist brought the recording up on
the screen. October watched the screen that showed the whiskey glass
before it went black and then came back. And then, October saw it and
felt that his world had just gotten a little bit sharper - Nestor’s face.

Nestor
Bravo's face.

“Okay,
Jacob. I’ll be there. I might not kill you. I’ll have to think
about that,” the recording of Nestor said into the dark.

Then the
screen went black. The computer specialist turned and looked at President
Carnegie.

“I thought…
I thought that the camera was undetectable, Mr. Presi…”

“It is.”

“It looked
like that man knew it was on.”

“His name is
Nestor Bravo. And he did.”

“There
actually was a Nestor Bravo? I thought he was just a legend.”

“No, he
isn't.”

"So,
the "The Night of a Hundred Bullets" really happened?"

"Yes."

“Wow.
Well, sir, I can turn on his camera right now and we’ll see where he is.”

“No.
Not yet,” October said warmly tussling the smaller man's hair, before standing
up to his full height. He squinted into the dark Indian eyes and
cheekbones of Agent Flores. "Not yet."

“Why not?”

In a blur,
eyes still on Flores, October turned, grabbed and threw the small specialist
onto the ground and kicked him in the stomach. Finally October moved his
eyes from the passive Flores to the small man who was shivering with fear
underneath his raised foot.

“Because you
blasted imbecile, he can feel it when it turns on! So, before we go telling
him that we’re here and we’re watching, let’s think! This whole operation
we’ve been reacting when we should have been thinking. We've been played
from the beginning and I hate it! I hate it! It's no fair!”

October
brought back his foot again, but stopped as he realized the large hand of Agent
Flores was resting heavily on his shoulder. He turned in anger to see
that Miho had returned and was holding forth a pink box of donuts.
October lowered his foot, his eyes on the donuts. He hardly noticed the
sobs of the bleeding man below him.

"These
were in the break room, Mr. President," Miho said flatly.

The
President grabbed a donut and sat down. He ate the donut, while Flores
carried the specialist out of the room.

"What's
it like, if you don't mind my asking, Mr. President?"

"What's
what like? The donut? Jesus, Miho, you've never had a donut?"

"No,
knowing that there's a camera in your head. That the government can see
and hear everything you do?"

"Well,
I was in my early twenties when I got mine. I've never known any other
life. I would expect it's not much different than your life. You're
watched, listened to, your phone calls bugged, your internet searches
monitored. It's there I suppose, in the back of your mind, that knowledge
that you're not alone. In some ways, it's a little comforting I
think. Could you hand me another… the one with sprinkles. They were
my idea really."

"Sprinkles?"

"The
cameras."

"Really?
Why?" she said passing over a donut that disappeared rapidly into his
mouth.

“We scared
people. They didn't know exactly what we were. The government kept
us top secret, but that only made it worse. There's no way to dispel
rumors if you won't admit something exists. Then things got out on
occasion and people really didn't want the government to have a tool that
killed so quietly, that was so lethal and efficient. People just wanted
cold unemotional machines, drones that killed, not people who killed.
Humans have a record of cruelty. But… the maple bar please… I knew
that we were important. I knew what was coming."

Flores came
back into the room and took up position beside Miho.

"Did I
kill him?" October asked, his mouth full of donut.

Flores shook
his head, no.

"Good.
Anyway, I suggested a compromise: put a camera inside our heads and a panel
could review it in cases where there was doubt. A few Supreme Court
Justices, a few senators and a few ex-generals formed the panel. Anyone
could bring a suspicious case before them and they'd review the tapes of the
Alphas and so on and so on. At first the rest of the Alphas
resisted, but I convinced them. You see, these men were killers, if they
were disbanded, where would they go? I was saving them. I think
they saw that. They agreed in the end, but insisted that if
something was going in our head, one of our own would do it. So, Jacob
did it. He designed it all and performed the surgery. He is a
frighteningly smart man. Anyway, after "The Night of a Hundred
Bullets" no one even checked the feeds anymore. We were
heroes. It was the cameras that kept us around long enough to allow us to
be heroes. I allowed that."

October
began another donut.

"When
mine is turned on I don’t feel a thing, but Nestor feels it. The son of a
bitch gave Nestor a different camera. Why would he have done that?
How would he have known that Nestor would have been the only one of us
left? How could he have known?!”

“I don’t
know, sir. Maybe…” Miho stopped glancing uncertainly at the blood where
the computer specialist had been.

“Maybe what,
Miho?"

"Maybe
he gave you the different camera. Maybe all of them could feel it, only
you couldn't."

October grew
very still and held tight to the edge of his chair.

"I
mean, sir, you were the go between for the government, you weren't a
field…"

"Shut
up, Miho. They liked me. I was… just shut up."

Miho nodded
her head and pulled out her small tablet, her eyes sparkled in the blue glow.

"What
now, sir? We have to do something."

"If we
turn Nestor's camera on, he knows. He knows we’re watching, he knows
we’re here. We turn on that camera and Nestor knows where we are,”
October said, unsuccessfully attempting to wipe the donut glaze from his
fingers onto his pants.

“So what do
want to do, sir?”

October
stared at the screens, black and ominous.

"I made them heroes, you
see? I don't know how they can ignore that. I made them heroes, so
why don't they like me? Why aren't they my friends?! Why don't they
like me?!" October screamed as he kicked in the glass of the screen that
was most clearly showing his reflection.