Night and Day (Book 3): Bandit's Moon (33 page)

Konrad turned back to Cronin. “You
took a good shot at it, Mr. Cronin, and I appreciate the effort.” He
paused. “But as you see, it’s not as easy as it looks.”

He spun to face us. “Which is why
we will not be issuing you daggers. Or knives. Or even firearms, for that
matter. Those weapons can be deadly against skeeters, but they require a
skilled touch. And time is too short for you recruits to acquire that
skill.”

He squatted beside the bag and put
the dagger inside. His hand came out of the bag holding something a little
larger.

“This is a machete,” Konrad said,
standing and holding it in the air. “You might have seen one in a Jungle
Jim movie. Or one about poor starving beaners cutting sugar cane in
Florida.” He smiled. “Or maybe even in a popular old TV show about
zombies.”

Konrad swung the machete in a lazy
figure-eight. “This weapon, called a Golok, has a fourteen inch blade, and
it’s very sharp, though you’ll notice that it doesn’t have much of a point
on it.” He paused. “This blade is not designed for stabbing. It’s designed
for slashing and cutting.”
 

He turned back to Cronin. “Check
this out, Mr. Cronin and tell me how it feels.”

Unlike some of the rougher-looking
guys in the group, Cronin looked like the only blade he’d ever held was a
butter knife. He took the machete hesitantly.

“Don’t be shy about it,” Konrad
said. “You have to grab it and bend it to your will.” He smiled. “Like a
woman.”

Some of the guys around me
laughed.

Cronin tightened his grip on the
machete and swung it awkwardly a couple of times.

“There you go,” Konrad said. “Feel
good?”

“Yeah, not bad,” Cronin said with a
grin. “I’m bending it to my will.”

“Good,” Konrad said. “Real good.
Now cut this fucking nigger’s head off.”

“What?”

Konrad’s hand went to the holstered
pistol on his hip. “Cut his head off, Mr. Cronin,” he said, his voice low.
“Right now. Or by the Allfather, I will kill you where you
stand.”

Cronin stared at him, eyes wide,
then turned to face the bound Vee. The hand holding the machete was
trembling.

“Do it,” Konrad said. “Take that
head off, kill that skeeter. Be a man.”

Cronin raised the machete and
swung. The blade buried itself in the base of the Vee’s neck, at an
angle.

“You’re not trying to cut him
lengthwise, son,” Konrad said. “Swing horizontally, across your body, and
aim at the side of his neck, like you’re chopping down a tree.”

Cronin pulled the machete out of
the Vee’s neck and raised it over his head.

Konrad shook his head. “No, Mr.
Cronin, horizontally.”

He lowered the blade a little and
swung again. The machete went into the side of the Vee’s neck a couple of
inches and Jim bellowed behind the tape.

“Better,” Konrad said. “You’re in
the right area, but you need to put some more oomph on it. I know you’re
not a big man, but throw your weight into it. Give it all you
got.”

Nodding, Cronin pulled the machete
free, then extended his arm back behind his shoulder and swung. The blade
cut deep into the Vee’s neck. The head didn’t come off, but the cut was
deep enough to sever the spinal cord. Jim’s head fell forward and hung at a
slight angle against his chest.

“There you go!” Konrad shouted.
“Didn’t quite take the head clean off, but that’ll come with practice. So
there you are, Mr. Cronin, your first skeeter kill.” He paused. “It is your
first, isn’t it?”

Cronin nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said
uneasily.

“I knew that,” Konrad said with a
laugh. A few of the guys around me joined in the laughter.

Konrad held up his hand and the
room went silent. “And how did it feel, son?”

Cronin was silent for a moment.
“Good, sir,” he said. Then his mouth opened and he convulsed. Vomit
splattered on the stage.

“There, there,” Konrad said with a
grin. “Get those grits out of your belly.”

He took the machete from Cronin’s
hand, turned, and swung. The Vee’s head fell and rolled a few feet from the
bound body.

Konrad turned to us. “I don’t want
anybody to think any less of Mr. Cronin,” he said. “The first kill is
always the hardest. We’re human. We have an emotional reaction to killing,
unlike the skeeters. But after the first one, it gets easier. And before
long, it’s no different than slaughtering a hog. Or swatting a
mosquito.”

He turned back to Cronin. “Good
job, son. You can take your seat now.”

Cronin stumbled off the stage and
made his way back to his seat. A bit wobbly, but at least he didn’t
fall.

“Each of you will have the
opportunity to do what Mr. Cronin has just done,” Konrad said. “I have a
skeeter back there for every one of you.”

He turned to the door in the back
of the room and yelled, “Cleanup!”

The door opened and a woman came
out, carrying a bucket and mop. It took me a moment to realize that it was
Sue Ward. Apparently comfort women had duties outside the
bedroom.

As she came up on stage, I noticed
a dark bruise on her left cheek. One clearly left by a fist. She kept her
eyes down and went to the puddle of vomit on the stage.

“Nice to see you again, Sue,“
Konrad said to her with a grin. Then he turned back at us. “This happens a
lot. So we always have someone like Ms. Ward available to clean up
afterward. As soon as she’s done...”

His voice trailed off as he looked
past us at the door in the front of the room. I glanced over my shoulder to
see an older man with a full graying beard and a pony tail step through and
walk up the aisle to the stage. Konrad hopped down and they spoke for about
thirty seconds.

The older man came back past us and
went out the door.

“We’re going to take a short
break,” Konrad said. “Remain in your seats and I’ll be back in a minute.”
He looked at me. “Mr. Welles. Commander Schleu needs your assistance. I’ll
take you to her.”

I didn’t like the sound of
that.

Konrad came down the aisle and
stood over me. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said.

I stood and walked to the double
doors, Konrad behind me. We went through and crossed the empty
lobby.

“So what does she need?” I
asked.

Konrad punched me in the back,
between my shoulder blades. I stumbled and fell flat on my face, then
rolled and sat up. He had his pistol in his hand, aimed at my
face.

“She probably needs to know why a
fucking undercover cop is in her building,” he said. “But we’ll never
know.”

Behind him, I saw Johnny come
through the double doors, moving quickly and deliberately.

“Personally I don’t care why you’re
here,” Konrad continued. “I just don’t like cops. So I’m going to kill
you.”

Johnny moved closer. I saw the
three-inch flick blade he always carried, clenched in his left hand. He
stopped directly behind Konrad, pulled the arm with the gun down with his
right hand and sliced Konrad’s throat.

A spurt of arterial spray from
Konrad’s carotid hit my chest as his knees buckled and he went down. Johnny
stepped back and smiled. “Motherfucker,” he muttered. “Now let’s get the
hell out of here.”

The sound of the shot and the snap
of Johnny’s head were almost simultaneous. He dropped to the floor like a
rag doll.

I looked over my shoulder. Katarina
Schleu stood in the open doorway of the leasing office, pistol extended.
Her eyes met mine. She smiled.

Chapter
Twenty-One

Schleu slowly lowered the pistol as
half a dozen of her men raced down the stairs and poured out of the hall
beside the staircase. “Plant them in the basement and get this floor
cleaned up,” she said. She jerked her chin at me. “Bring this one into my
office.”

They moved quickly, splitting into
pairs to lift Konrad and Johnny. They quickly carried them into the hall.
Apparently the stairs to the basement were that way. One of the others went
to the exercise room, opened the door, and yelled “Get your ass out here
with that mop.”

A shirtless man wearing a faded
Atlanta Braves baseball cap looked down at me. “Get up,” he said. He added
some emphasis when he prodded me with the barrel of the AK-47 in his
hands.
 

As I pushed myself to my feet, I
saw Sue Ward come out of the room in back, bucket and mop in hand. Her eyes
were wide as she stared at the blood on the floor, then at me.

“Well, get cleaning,” the man with
the rifle said.

She put her head down
and slowly began to mop up the blood and brains on the floor.

“Commander’s office,” he said to
me, with another poke of the rifle barrel. “Move your ass.”

I turned and crossed the twenty
feet to the leasing office. The door was open.

“Sit,” Schleu said from behind the
two tables in the office. She glanced at the guy with me. “Everything taken
care of out there?”

He nodded. “Stiffs are gone and one
of the comfort women is mopping up the mess.”

“Good,” Schleu said. “Find Lee and
have him report to me immediately.”

I dropped into one of the chairs.
“So what is this all about?” I asked. “Konrad said you wanted to see me,
that you needed my assistance. Next thing I know, he’s yelling and waving a
gun in my face. Then all hell breaks loose.”

Schleu put the pistol on the table
and said nothing. It was a rhetorical question, after all. We both knew
what it was about. Somebody had ratted me out. And I would put money on
Nancy Haynes as the snitch.

If Schleu’s only concern was that I
was a cop, I might be okay. I was a lot of things, but not a cop. At least
not any more. And that would be easy enough to prove, especially if she had
people in the police department.

But if she knew anything about my
post-camp activities, there wouldn’t be a discussion. Just a quick trip to
in the basement. She’d probably shoot me down there so nobody would have to
carry me.

The older guy with the beard and
pony tail came into the office. Lee. “Yeah, cap’n?” he drawled.

“What the fuck happened out there?”
she asked. “I give a simple order and now Konrad is dead.”

“Not sure,” he said. “I told Konrad
that this fella was a cop, and that you wanted him in your office, like you
said. I guess things just got out of hand.”

“Yes,” she spat. “Out of hand. How,
exactly, did things get out of hand?”

Lee shrugged. “I wasn’t there, so I
can’t say for sure. But if I had to venture a guess, I think it was Konrad
being Konrad,” he said. “All I told him was to just send this fella over
here. Low key. Not make a big deal out of it. He wouldn’t know what was
coming. He wasn’t gonna put up no fuss. But as usual, Konrad had other
ideas.”

“You’re certain you didn’t tell
Konrad to escort him here?”

He tilted his head to one side. “I
ever not follow your orders to the letter, Kat?”

Schleu sighed. “Okay, sorry,” she
said. “What happened then?”

“Guess Konrad decided to throw a
scare into him,” he said. “Knocked him down, pulled his pistol, told him he
was gonna kill him.” He paused. “You know Konrad. Just didn’t know how to
keep it in his pants.”

“I knew Konrad,” she said. “What
about the other one, the recruit?”

“Musta followed along,” Lee
said.

“Konrad didn’t leave anybody in
charge when he left the training room?”

“Appears not,” he replied. “Just
left ‘em there and walked this fella out of the room and across the
lobby.”

“Who’s in there with the recruits
now?”

“Sent Sullivan in when I saw what
happened. Keep ‘em from freakin’ out.”

“How far along did Konrad get with
the recruits this morning?”

“Not far,” Lee said. “From the
looks of it, one of the recruits had just topped off the first skeeter.
There was eight in the group. One done, the dead fella, this fella.” He
paused. “Five more to go.”

“When I’m done with you, tell
Sullivan to run them through as quickly as possible and get them back to
their rooms. No talk about what happened in the lobby.”

Lee nodded.

Schleu sat in silence for a
moment.

“That dead recruit, Ricci, had a
knife on him,” she said. “It should have been confiscated before he came
inside.”

Lee spread his arms out. “That’s
outside responsibility, not mine,” he said. “You might want to talk to
Barney about outside team procedures.”

“I plan to,” Schleu said. “Who
brought him in? What team?”

“You gave ‘em the speech,” he said
with a smile. “You don’t remember?”

“I don’t pay attention to the
teams,” she said. “I concentrate on the recruits.” She paused, then
repeated, “Who brought him in?”