To Rule in Hell

by Blake Banner

  “I am a United States Senator, goddammit! You cannot treat me like this!”

  I picked up a leaflet on the bedside table. It advertised take out pizza and hamburgers. I studied at it a moment. “I have heard you say some real smart things over the last year, Cyndi. But what you said just now was about the stupidest thing I ever heard anybody say. Political office does not make you worthy of respect. Your actions make you worthy of respect.” I handed her the leaflet. “We don’t leave this room till tomorrow morning. Choose something to eat. I’ll call out.”

  She threw the leaflet on the bed, then slammed into the bathroom to have a shower. I chose for her, made the call, poured myself a stiff measure of Irish and sat and thought about the only weak link in our security so far. It might be nothing, or it might prove to be a problem the closer we got to Albuquerque.

  Unless she had told her husband, the only person who knew that Cyndi was with me, in that car, was Major Charles Hawthorn. At least, that had been true this morning. Now it was anybody’s guess. I had taken an eccentric enough route coming out of D.C. to throw any tail off our scent, but the closer we got to our destination, the smaller the search area was going to become. I had no particular reason to believe that Hawthorn was in the pay of Omega, but I had no reason not to, either. And logic dictated that over the last few months Omega would have been pulling out all the stops to get somebody in Cyndi’s inner circle. Her husband and Hawthorn would have been prime targets for them.

  Whether he was in their pocket or not, I had to assume that he was, and that meant that within the next few hours I needed to find a new vehicle: either rent one or steal one. Both had drawbacks in terms of being traceable, but for the moment I figured renting as Joseph O’Brien was the safest bet, because Omega would not yet have made the connection between the Focus and the fake ID.

  Cyndi came out of the bathroom in a robe with a towel wrapped around her head like a turban. She sat in a chair on the other side of the room, with her elbows on her knees and seemed to examine her thumbs for a moment. She still had her gloves on.

  “I owe you an apology,” she said. I didn’t say anything and after a moment she looked up. I was watching her. “What I said about being a senator was stupid and you were right to slap me down. And it is also true that I have been on your case all day. I guess I am scared and my go-to response to being scared is to become aggressive.”

  “It’s not the worst go-to response to fear. Just make sure you focus your aggression in the right direction. Apology accepted.”

  She smiled. “You are also a big pain in the ass when you get going.”

  I lit a Camel, then tossed the bottle of Bushmills, the pack of cigarettes and my lighter across the bed, where she could reach them. She poured herself a drink and lit up.

  After a moment I said, “There is a threshold.”

  She frowned. “A threshold?”

  “When people are trying to kill you. At first there is a sense of unreality as though your brain cannot accept that this is really happening. A lot of people die in that state. If you manage to survive it, you cross over a threshold, where the full impact of the possibility of death hits you. Then your autonomic system kicks in and takes over and you panic. Because as a species, at least in the West, we have forgotten how to deal with death. Your heart rate goes off the scale, your blood pressure goes through the roof and, worst of all, you stop thinking. A lot of people who didn’t die in the first stage, die in a state of panic.”

  “And then?”

  “Then you realize that if you want to live, you need to focus and think. You can’t give in to panic. And you can’t pander to emotions, fear, good manners or sensibilities. You focus on what you need to do to stay alive.”

  “Is this a master class from the master?”

  “You’d better believe it.”

  “And I am in the first stage?”

  “Yes.”

  She sighed. “I guess you’re right. I do find it hard to believe that anybody could be that crazy.”

  I sipped my drink and took a long drag of the cigarette. As I let out the smoke I said, “I am not sure that they are crazy, Cyndi. I have known two of them very well. Psychosis is being unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy. They haven’t got that problem. The big difference with them is that, what for most people would be fantasy, for them, is reality.” I paused, frowning, thinking. “It’s hard to explain. Having somebody killed, triggering a war in which two hundred thousand people die, children are slaughtered or become homeless, families are destroyed…” I shrugged. “To the men and women who constitute Omega, who inhabit that level of power, that kind of inhuman atrocity is their daily bread. It’s not a fantasy. It is their reality.”

  I heard the engine of a small bike or a scooter entering the parking lot outside. I pulled the Sig from my waistband, cocked it and told her, “Get into the bathroom, take your drink and your cigarette with you. Close the door.”

  She did as I said and a moment later the doorbell rang. I peered out the window. It was a kid of maybe sixteen holding a couple of bags of food and beer. I shoved the pistol back in my waistband and opened the door. As I took the bags and paid him, I had a look at the parking lot, and glanced up and down the road. Nothing had changed. There were no new vehicles parked nearby. Nothing suspicious at all. But my gut told me that was wrong.

  I closed the door and put the food on the chest of drawers. Cyndi came out of the bathroom, saw the food and smiled. It was a nice, natural smile. I studied her face a moment and somehow knew that that night she would cross the portal. I just hoped she crossed it alive.

  After we’d eaten I put the packaging into the trash and checked the time. It was midnight. Outside, on the edge of hearing, I caught the whine of a big engine. I peered out of the edge of the drapes and saw a large, black SUV parked at the gas station across the road. It hadn’t been there before. Now it was.

  I switched off the light and went on line on my laptop to rent a car from the smallest car rental I could find in Lexington, while she brushed her teeth. Then I stood and took the sheets and covers off the bed. She saw me and spoke through her toothpaste. “Wha ewe hooing?”

  “I’m being cautious. You’re going to have an uncomfortable night, I’m afraid.”

  She spat, rinsed, and wiped her mouth with a towel while I began making her a bed in the bath.

  I gave her my most charming lopsided smile and said, “At least you’re not six foot two.”

  “What are you doing?” she said again.

  “I think we might have visitors. I want you to sleep dressed and I want you to be packed and ready to leave at a moment’s notice. And I do mean a moment. I say go, we go.”

  She followed me into the bedroom where I put three pillows in a line on the bed and covered them with the eiderdown. She looked sick.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “What are you going to do? Where are you going to sleep?”

  “I’m not going to sleep tonight. But I need you rested.” I shrugged. “You won’t sleep, you’ll be too stressed, but lie down and close your eyes. Get as much rest as you can. Try to relax.” I tried to look reassuring. “You never know. I might be wrong.”

  She didn’t answer. She was standing in silhouette, backlit and framed by the bathroom door. I went and stood close to her. She looked up into my face and I could see that there was real fear in her eyes. “It’s real, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “They want to kill me.”

  “Yes.” I looked at my watch. It was twelve fifteen. “After you switch off the bathroom light, they’ll give us at least an hour to get to sleep. If they come tonight, it could be any time after twelve. Get dressed, get packed up, then get as much rest as you can. Keep your gloves on. Do not leave any prints. Once I’ve closed the door, do not come out again until I call you.”

  She nodded and went into the bathroom. I closed the door behind her and moved one o
f the chairs into the corner, so I was facing the entrance and the window at an angle. The drapes were not heavy, and the light from the streetlamps outside made enough of a glow that a body would be visible as a silhouette against them. I screwed the silencer onto the Sig, and settled to wait.

  They came at ten minutes after three. The first thing I was aware of was the scrape of a heel on blacktop across the parking lot. Then another. Then a muttered voice. That meant at least two of them. They were not trying to be quiet. Some shuffling outside the door. I thought I made out three or perhaps four bodies. Then a shadow up against the side of the window, beside the door. When they came in I would be invisible to them. I was in deep shadow in the corner. I raised my weapon and steadied my breathing.

  There was a soft rattle, then a click and the door eased open. The thin beam of a small flashlight penetrated the gloom, focused down at the floor. Two of them stood in the doorway, looking at the bed. Past them I could see another, on the left of the jamb, keeping watch. The shadow of the fourth was still visible against the drapes.

  One thing was clear so far. They were not pros. The use of the flashlight was stupid. It not only risked waking their target, it cast the rest of the room into deeper darkness. They inched in closer a couple of steps, then directed the beam of the flashlight at the bulk of cushions under the eiderdown. I waited for his first shot. I had guessed it would be silenced, and it was. His weapon spat once. Then mine spat four times, two double taps, one into the shooter’s chest, the next into his pal’s.

  It took the two guys outside a while to register that something was wrong. They heard the repeated spit of the weapon and assumed it was their man being thorough. They heard the grunts of pain and the thump of bodies on the floor. I guess they assumed it was the victim, falling out of bed. By the time the guy on the left of the door had turned to look in, I was right there, looking into his eyes. He wanted to shout. Actually he wanted to scream, but he couldn’t because he had the blade of my Fairbairn and Sykes fighting knife stuck through his trachea. I pulled him inside and let him drop with the knife still in his throat. In the same movement I stepped outside and put the Sig to the last man’s head. He was frowning, still wondering what the hell just happened.

  I looked him over. He was holding a bargain basement 9 mm Taurus PT 111. He was forty-something, had a belly and stubble. He looked rough. He also looked scared. I said, “Hand me your weapon. Get inside.”

  He nodded and did as I said. As we moved in, I closed the door and switched on the light. He stared down at his pal, the one with my knife in his throat. He wasn’t dead yet. His eyes had rolled up and his feet were jerking. I reached down and pulled the blade out of his throat. The blood flowed freely and he slipped away into oblivion. I wiped the blood on his pants and slipped the knife back in my boot.

  The guy with the stubble and the gut was trembling badly. I said, “What’s your name?”

  He tried three times before he could say it. “Joe. I’m Joe. Look, pal, I didn’t mean no… I mean if I’d known… We thought, we was told…”

  “Shut up, Joe.”

  “Yeah, sure…”

  I looked down at his three colleagues. They weren’t wearing Italian suits. The guy who’d done the shooting was wearing jeans and cowboy boots. He had shoulder length blond hair and a denim shirt under a black leather jacket. His weapon was a 9 mm Smith & Wesson SDVE, three hundred and fifty bucks. The guy who’d come in with him had black hair in a ponytail almost down to his waist. He was also wearing jeans and boots, just like the guy whose throat I’d cut. He was unshaven, in a sweat shirt with a brown leather jacket. These clowns were not Omega. They weren’t even pros.

  I pointed at the chair where I’d been sitting. “Sit down. Help yourself to a glass of whiskey, have a cigarette.”

  Now he looked really scared. “Why?”

  “Because we’re going to talk. Tell me what I want to hear and you go home. I might even give you some money for your trouble. Piss me off and I’ll cut your throat, like your pal.”

  He held up his hands. “OK, man. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I ain’t no hero. I ain’t about to give you no trouble.”

  He edged over and lowered himself into my chair. I sat on the end of the bed and watched him. “Drink. Smoke.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, OK. Whatever you say, pal. I’ll do whatever you say.”

  “Who did you think you were going to find here?”

  “A woman. They said there’d be a woman. They said there might be a guy, but we was to get rid of the woman. And the guy, obviously. If he was here. I didn’t know… We didn’t know it would be you… obviously…”

  He tried three times and managed to light a cigarette.

  “They?”

  “The people who paid us to do the job…”

  I smiled. “I got that, Joe. Who were those people?”

  He swallowed hard. His hands were shaking so badly he could hardly hold his drink. “I don’t know. They don’t… They never… It don’t work that way…”

  “Relax. How did they get their instructions to you?”

  He pointed his trembling cigarette hand over at the first guy I’d shot. He was almost weeping. “Hank. They talked to Hank on the telephone.”

  I shook my head. “Hank is not a hit man. Neither are you. You’re amateurs.”

  “No, no… No man, we ain’t hit men. No way. We’s, like you might say, enforcers. Hank has killed a couple of guys. Me, I never, you know? I’ll break an arm, maybe a leg. Usually I just help to hold the guy.”

  “You’re enforcers? Who for?”

  “It’s just a small outfit in Glen Burnie. We do a bit of this, a bit of that…” I waited. He swallowed. “Irish kid. He’s a bit crazy. He sells crack. Sometimes people don’t pay, so we go and see ’em.”

  I nodded that I understood. “So what the hell are you doing in Kentucky?”

  “Sometimes Hank freelances, you know what I’m saying? He’ll do anything. He ain’t squeamish. So he has some clients, sometimes they call him, you know, to do a job.”

  “Who are the clients?”

  “I dunno, man. Honest to God, man. He never told us. He’d just say, ‘OK, boys, we got a job.’ And that was it. We’d go and do it…”

  “Kill somebody?”

  “Sometimes, mostly just hurt them or put a scare into ’em.”

  I thought about it. It didn’t make a lot of sense. Actually it didn’t make any sense at all.

  “Glen Burnie? That’s outside Baltimore.”

  “Pretty much, south of the river.”

  “When did you get the call?”

  “I dunno, Hank called us about five, five thirty. We was on the road by six.”

  Just after we’d stopped. I nodded. “That your black SUV in the gas station across the road?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who’s the driver?”

  “Me. I always do the driving. You ask some funny questions.”

  “Give me the keys.”

  “Whatcha gonna do?”

  “Give me the keys.”

  He reached in his pocket, pulled them out and threw them to me. I caught them with my left hand, and shot him in the head.

  FIVE

  I left him where he was in the chair, with his prints on the glass of spilled whiskey and the smoldering cigarette on the floor. I took a miniature of cheap Scotch from the mini bar, drained it and dropped the empty bottle at his feet. My shots had all been through-and-throughs, five in total. I collected the slugs and the casings, then used Joe’s Taurus to put two bullets through the knife wound in the blond guy’s trachea. After that I removed four more rounds from his magazine, leaving seven.

  When the cops arrived, they’d find a bunch of bums who’d shot each other up. They might scratch their heads at a few details, but they wouldn’t waste the Kentucky taxpayer’s dollar on these out of state low-lifes. And if they did, all they’d find would be more questions.

  I stepped out into the night.
It was turning icy cold. I ran across the road, taking care to keep my face covered against the CCTV cameras at the gas station. I climbed in the SUV, drove back to the motel and parked beside the Focus, outside the room. Then I went and tapped on the bathroom door. “Cyndi, it’s me, Lacklan. We have to go.”

  There was absolute silence for a moment, then the door opened a crack and she peered out. She was drawn and terrified. I shook my head. “We haven’t got time for this, Cyndi. I need you to get a grip and react. We have to go. Open the door.”

  She opened the door. She was trembling badly. I pushed in past her, grabbed her case and thrust it into her hands. “Go outside and get into the black SUV. Not the Focus, the SUV. You understand?”

  She stared up into my face and nodded.

  “Do it. Now.”

  She moved toward the open door. I grabbed the bedding from the bath and threw it all over the bed. Then I grabbed the whiskey, my cigarettes and the Zippo, slung my bag over my shoulder and followed her out, leaving the lights off and the door closed. There were none of my prints and none of Cyndi’s prints, none of my slugs and none of my casings. If they traced the Ford, it would lead them to Joseph O’Brien, who would soon vanish into thin air.

  The sky was black overhead. The light from the streetlamps was a dead kind of yellow, and I could see clouds of condensation billowing from Cyndi’s mouth as she stood staring into the SUV. I opened the back, threw in her case and my bag, slammed it shut and physically lifted her into the passenger seat up front. I put the whiskey on her lap, closed the door and went around to the driver’s side. Then we were pulling out of the parking lot and accelerating through the night toward Lexington. I glanced at my watch. It was four AM.

  I settled at a steady seventy, pulled my cigarettes from my pocket, shook one loose and fed it into my mouth from the pack. “Drink.” I glanced at her. She was staring at the bottle in her lap. I flipped my Zippo, leaned the cigarette into the flame and took a deep drag. As I blew out I said, “It’s not what your doctor would tell you to do for shock, but I never yet met a doctor who witnessed four men get killed. For me, whiskey does it every time. Take a shot, a big one. It’ll help, believe me.”