Merchants of War

by Rick Partlow

He laughed. He hadn’t meant to, but the laughter bubbled out of him, harsh and bitter, almost a sob.

  “If y’all knew what I’d done in my life,” he said, “you’d all hate me. You wouldn’t want to stand here talking to me.”

  “What we did before doesn’t matter. I was in some trouble when I was a kid.” Ramirez shrugged. “Did some bad things, but when the Department of Defense came and offered me the chance to take mech pilot training and get my record wiped, I figured it was my chance for a new start. You can make a new life if you don’t like your old one.”

  “However many lives I lead, Mule,” he said, the laughter sputtering out, dying to a trickle, “I’ll fuck them all up in the end. It’s what I do, man. It’s who I am.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Patty. What have you done that’s so much worse than the rest of us?”

  “Nothing.” He looked down at the bottle. It was only about half empty, but he couldn’t force himself to drink any more of it. The answers weren’t in there. “Nothing worth talking about.

  He whipped the bottle underhanded at the Tagan, lashing out at everything it represented. It shattered, ancient glass older than him, older than his grandmother. Destroyed now, just like everything else in the world that had created it. Ramirez flinched at the explosion of glass and the sudden, powerful stench of grain alcohol.

  “You should get away from here, Mule,” he warned the man. “Get out of here before we all wind up dead.”

  Svetlana Grigoryeva hated the city. It wasn’t the destruction or the dirt or the crime that bothered her. No, those reminded her of home, of how Ekaterinburg had been since she was a little girl. She’d seen old videos and pictures of it before the war, before the drone strikes had levelled it, when the old churches had still stood, and the old auditorium had still been in use. Now all of it was laid waste and humans lived in the wreckage and fought for scraps beside the dogs and the rats.

  No, she hated Norfolk because the people here still believed, still had hope. They still hung American flags outside their front doors and raked the yards of their crumbling houses and thought that someday, if they just held out long enough, the American government would come back and save them. In Russia, everyone knew the government would never help, whether it was strong or weak. The government was a parasite living off the failing body of a dying man. She would have thought Americans would understand that by now but still they deceived themselves.

  It was better at night. Night was when the true believers retreated back behind their barred doors and padlocks, counting on their shotguns and prayer to get them to the morning. The only people on the street at night knew the truth, knew their place in this new world.

  She spotted them immediately, blocks away, but she kept walking straight ahead because to show weakness would have been worse. Better to confront a predator than to have them stalk you, unseen. They were gathered around a trio of fifty-five-gallon drums, flames licking out over the openings, smoke drifting off to the north, gathering in the gaps between buildings as if afraid to rise above the rooftops and show itself to the greater world.

  It was her first indication. There was no need for a fire tonight. If it was cool, it was only by comparison with the brutal humidity of mid-day. The fires were bait, to draw in victims. Three ancient supermarket baskets packed with all the belongings of a life spent on the street rested half in the shadows a few meters outside the overlapping circles of light, but none belonged to any of these three men. They didn’t live on these streets, they were far too clean for that, their clothes roughly made but well kept, camouflage.

  She kept her hands in her jacket pockets and kept walking. Her path would take her exactly four meters to the right of the right-most trash barrel, four meters from the partially collapsed front wall of what used to be a clothing store. She could move further over with a few steps to the right, but she’d be taking the chance they didn’t have a fourth man concealed in the store. And it would be a man. These weren’t progressive, equal opportunity bangers, they had an agenda…or possibly a menu. And she was on it.

  The soles of her boots clopped hollow on the pavement, even, steady steps. The three men watched her with predator’s eyes and said not a word. No banter, no catcalls, no invitations to come “party” with them. They hadn’t the need to try to work themselves up for this, to escalate the interaction and justify their actions by some pretense she had disrespected them or led them on. Men of that sort were easier to deal with, easier to cow with a few words and a hard glare. Words wouldn’t be an option here.

  The fingers of her right hand curled tightly around the cold, metal grip of the compact pistol in her jacket pocket. She wondered if she’d have to kill all of them or if shooting the first one would scare off the others.

  They waited until she was almost past them, till her eyes flickered to her left to keep them in her line of sight. They’d been silent, almost motionless, as if they thought they could blend into the background. The moment her head turned just an almost-imperceptible fraction of an inch, the one closest to her lunged for her. It was a practiced move, the crack of a whip, his hand aimed toward her elbow. Smart, not going for the wrist. The wrist could be pulled away more quickly. The elbow required a full body move.

  She was prepared. She took a half-step back with her left foot, a natural motion, squaring her up against the man as he went off-balance from the missed grab, all of his weight on his plant leg, the one closest to her. Her left foot snapped out, a striking cobra, catching him in the kneecap. The sound was a maul hitting a fencepost, the feeling a seashell cracking under an errant step. He screamed, dreadlocks flashing in the glow of the trash fires, teeth white and even until the butt of her pistol cracked into his face and broke three of them off at the gumline. Blood sprayed and his scream became muffled as his hands went to his mouth.

  He was falling, but she didn’t let him. Her left arm snaked around his neck, the barrel of the cheaply-fabricated Russian handgun pressing into his temple as she dragged him backwards. The other three were frozen, their eyes wide and white, mouths half-open as if about to issue a warning.

  “How important is he to you?” she wondered.

  She could hear the trace of her accent in her voice. Most people couldn’t detect their own accents—it was a mental blind spot. Part of her training had been to do just that, to eliminate it when she needed to. There was no need at the moment, and she liked the measure of exotic strangeness it gave her.

  “Is he worth dying for?” she pressed, still dragging him in long, retreating steps, almost to the curve in the road now. “Is he your brother? Your cousin?”

  One more step and she stopped. The man was begging now, his words nearly incomprehensible through swollen lips and a mouthful of blood.

  “Please…”

  She pulled the trigger.

  The gunshot was still echoing between the buildings when the man’s body hit the pavement with an obscene, wet splat. She could taste his blood on the corner of her lip, but she didn’t wipe it off, didn’t check her jacket for splatter. She met their eyes, showing them how little his life had meant to her, how easy it would be for her to kill each and every one of them.

  She turned and rounded the corner casually, as if completely unconcerned, then ducked into a shadowy corner the moment she was out of their sight, gun raised, waiting. Mumbled words clattered off the pavement, punctuated by an exclamation, a curse. They didn’t come. They weren’t going to risk following her. Good. Gunshots, like carrion, attracted scavengers.

  She tucked the Makarov away and walked. You never ran, not unless your life depended on it. It was the same here as in the wild, those who ran looked like prey. The crumbling ruins began to give way to buildings better kept and recently repaired, the businesses still running against all odds in this city. The resilience of the human animal sometimes astounded her. There were lights here, not battery powered lanterns but real street lights, signs, as if it were any other day before the world had fallen in
on itself.

  Garry’s Machine and Tool.

  Trang International and Interstate Shipping Service. I imagine one is just about as difficult as the other these days.

  Benitez Bulk Food Service. That one was fortified with metal roll-up doors and barred windows. Food was more valuable than gold many places, and people would kill for it in quantity. She’d have been willing to bet this Benitez had armed guards during the day, and there might have even been a sniper or two on the roof covering the street during the night.

  The businesses doubled as homes in most cases, because even the comparatively wealthy couldn’t afford to maintain security on a house and a business both. One or two showed a light in an upper window. The power was on here, for those who could afford it. The plant had been built privately because there was no government to pay for it, and if there had been, it would never have passed emissions standards. It burned sewage, trash, alcohol, methane, whatever one cared to throw into it, and did it quite efficiently, particularly since they weren’t at all worried about polluting the air.

  It hardly seemed to matter when the filthy water and background radiation would likely give them cancer long before the dirty air. She could understand the sentiment; it was almost Russian in its pragmatism.

  There were cars here as well, most of them electric, recharged from the same high-priced power, though the larger cargo trucks would probably be fueled by alcohol distilled locally. She imagined they were for local travel only, since trying to circumnavigate the downed bridges and blocked highways would have been suicide.

  At the edge of the business district, she found the building she sought. It had no sign, no number, no metal doors, nothing at all to distinguish it. You simply had to know where it was. She ignored the front entrance, knowing it was blocked from inside and unusable, instead walking into the deep shadows of the alleyway between it and the next building over, abandoned and shuttered. The side door was concealed in darkness, but a knock against it revealed a solid metal core.

  There was no answer, no one demanding who was there. They’d be watching her via an infrared camera, probably had been during her approach on the main road. She waited, knowing they were likely checking back along her route, making sure she hadn’t been followed. Still, the loud clank of the lock when it was thrown startled her and she fought not to jump. They’d see it on the monitors and it would make them think less of her, chip away at the mystique she’d built. It was important to be feared by your enemies, but nearly as vital to be respected by your allies.

  The door swung inward on well-oiled hinges and she slipped into the darkness. She heard it slam shut behind her and waited, eyes slitted, knowing the light was coming. When it did, it was harsh and naked and glaring, turning the man who’d opened the door into a blurry silhouette until her vision adjusted. He looked better as a blur, she decided. His beard was patchy, trying unsuccessfully to hide the damage of childhood acne, and his nose was a testament to punches not adequately ducked. He tried to make up for his looks with impeccable clothing, but the silk suits seemed out of place. He was a man who belonged in rough clothes to match his demeanor.

  “Good evening, Ms. Grigoryeva,” he said in an attempt at pleasantries. His voice was as harsh and gravelly as his face, but she smiled thinly in return. The man did his job, which was much more important than his appearance.

  “Good morning, Alexie,” she corrected him. “I hope I am not keeping you awake.”

  “I have always been nocturnal,” he said, waving it off. “If I were more handsome, I might be able to pass myself off as a vampire.”

  “Just as well you’re not.” She sniffed a quiet laugh. “There are too many seeking to drain the blood of this place.”

  He frowned, looking more closely at her jacket. She realized she still had drops of blood painting abstract patterns across her sleeve and left lapel and she dabbed at it with a studied lack of concern.

  “Did you have any problems getting here?” he wondered.

  “Nothing worth speaking of,” she said. Just another block added to the wall of her reputation. Every little bit helped. “He is waiting for me,” she added, to shut down further conversation.

  Alexie nodded and waved for her to follow.

  The stairwell was dimly light, a prelude for what waited below in the basement. He didn’t like bright lights. She guessed they bothered his eyes, though she’d never considered it worth the risk to ask him. He’d always given her the impression information was a precious commodity, handed out sparingly, and she didn’t want to waste her limit on inanities. More of his men were stretched out on couches and cots in what had once been a storage room, some of them still in business suits with ties and dress shoes, others stripped down to underwear but all with a weapon close to hand. Two of the men were snoring violently, an assault on the senses that would have forced her to knife at least one of them in their sleep, but it didn’t seem to keep any of the others up.

  Alexie led her through the obstacle course of sleeping Russian muscle, past a wall of racked automatic weapons and at least two missile launchers to a door. It had once been a private office for a very successful businessman and she supposed, in a way, it still was. The door was soundproofed and sturdy, whether for privacy during business meetings or to keep his affairs secret from his wife, she couldn’t say. It amused her to imagine the lives of those who’d lived in Norfolk before it had died, their aspirations and failings, their dalliances and daydreams. They’d probably believed it would go on forever…

  Alexie didn’t knock. He didn’t like knocking either. Instead, Alexie pushed a button on what had been a receptionist’s desk and the intercom buzzed for attention.

  “Yes?” The voice was raspy, damaged, telling nothing about the man who’d used it when he’d been whole.

  “She’s here,” Alexie reported, simply, efficiently.

  There was no reply but a soft click of a lock releasing and the door swung inward a few centimeters. She favored Alexie with a thin smile and edged through the doorway, not opening it any further than she had to and pushing it shut behind her immediately.

  The office was large and well-appointed, the furniture luxurious and pre-war in its style, polished mahogany. A single lamp burned over the desk, a reading light barely bright enough to reach the edges of the room, and he stood in the darkness of a corner, hands clasped behind his back as he examined the contents of a narrow bookcase. It had probably been more for decoration than education, but you could still learn much of a man or woman by what they considered intellectually impressive.

  Over his shoulder, past a mane of greying hair, she could read some of the titles.

  1984. The Catcher in the Rye. Pride and Prejudice. Crime and Punishment. The Art of War.

  More. History books, popularized science, philosophy, self-help. Books the man who’d owned this place had thought he should have read, or thought other people would believe he should have read. Telling her nothing about that long-dead man himself except, perhaps, that he had either eclectic taste in literature or no taste of his own at all and it was a pretense. Then she spotted something more informative, something that didn’t fit with the rest, and she smiled, chuckled softly.

  “You saw it,” he said, and she knew he’d heard her quiet laugh. “You saw the book.”

  Daring, she reached past his shoulder and pulled it out. The pages were brittle with age, but you could tell it had been well-read, corners folded over to mark a place.

  “Teenage girls and sparkly vampires,” she murmured, pushing it back into its space on the shelf. “The one thing here he’d actually read.”

  “You asked to see me.” He turned, not toward her but into the darkness of the other side of the room, stepping away, walking stiffly like an old man plagued by arthritis. He fell onto the rich leather of a small sofa, sighing with the relief of sitting. “I have to believe you did not come to share good news.”

  “It’s our man Patterson.” She tried not to sound apologetic. Sh
e had done nothing wrong. God had made the big, dumb, Kentucky hick the way he was and she was simply stuck with him. “He’s less stable than I’d hoped. I am becoming concerned he is no longer reliable. I believe he may be about to run, to try to head back to his home.” She sniffed. “How he expects to make it there with no support, God alone knows.”

  “Do you believe in God, Svetlana?”

  She blinked at the question. He’d never been so personal before.

  “My parents did,” she answered. “I have never given it much consideration. If He indeed exists, we must be such a disappointment.”

  “I did once.” Very unlike him, this meandering. Was he ill? He leaned back in the couch, his head resting on the cushion, dark eyes nearly lost in the shadows. “I believed God was the Great Engineer, and the universe his grand machine, designed to wind down in just the way He’d intended so He’d never have to adjust or maintain or repair it, everything moving in a dance He’d seen at the beginning. Then I learned how truly chaotic and meaningless this universe is, how we each shape it with our misdeeds, the pebbles we carelessly toss into the pond.” A rasping breath shuddered from his chest. “Now I’ve come to think that God is something we invented because it’s simply too terrifying to admit we’re aimless billiard balls randomly ricocheting through the cosmos.” His head came up, the eyes sparkling by the reading lamp as they met hers.

  “Do what you must to ensure he stays until we no longer need him. I’m certain if there is a God, He’ll understand.”

  Eleven

  “I ain’t getting shit out of this, boss,” Ramirez admitted, waving a hand at the screen of the tablet propped up against the Tagan’s CPU on the tabletop. The table was solid metal and Nate thought it had once been used for food preparation but they’d found it knocked on its side and pushed up against one of the exterior doors. “It got knocked around too much during the attack. Maybe a computer forensics lab could put it back together.” He looked up, his baby face seeming even younger for a moment. “Maybe you could get the DoD support guys on it?”