“To your health,” Steve said, and downed his.
Keo hissed as his went down. Even as he was tilting the glass to his lips with his still zip-tied hands, he briefly considered using it to bash Steve’s head in and grab his weapons, including the M4 Steve had leaned against the wall behind him.
“It’s been a while, huh?” Steve said with a grin, watching him closely. Too closely. It was going to be tough to catch Steve off-balance.
“I’m more of a brandy man.”
“I can see that. A world traveler like you.”
“How you figure?”
“Oh, come on. You’re not from around here, we both know that. You couldn’t find Pearland on a map if I put a gun to your head.”
“What is that, a city made of pears?”
“Cute.” He poured himself another glass and offered Keo another one too, but Keo waved him off. “You should learn to appreciate American whiskey. There’s nothing like it, especially now. Soon, there won’t be Americans anymore. No Europeans or Asians or blacks and whites and Mexicans, either. They’ll just be humans and nonhumans.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think they’ll always be Asians and blacks and whites to some people.”
“Neanderthals,” Steve said, and emptied his second glass with a flick of his wrist.
“I didn’t know you were such a progressive fella, Steve.”
A chuckle. Keo couldn’t tell if that was the whiskey talking or if Steve really was an easygoing guy. Of course, that easygoing guy had given him a nice slap last night for absolutely no reason. Okay, so there was a reason, but it was far from justified.
“I’m pragmatic,” Steve said. “It’s just us and them now. The faster the human race accepts our new position on the totem pole, the easier it’ll be for us as a species to move forward. We’re obviously the second-class citizens at the moment. All of us. That’s fine, someone has to be. But there are classes within classes. People who embrace that get to keep on keeping on.”
Keo looked out the window as two armed men in black uniforms walked the riverbanks behind Steve. “You need that many guns to keep on keeping on, Steve?”
“Can’t be helped. We have a bit of a problem, you see.” Steve leaned slightly across the table. “You wanna hear about it?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Steve shrugged.
“Gee, Steve, what kind of problem do you have?” Keo asked, with all the enthusiasm of a man being forced to recite a line at gunpoint.
Steve smiled. “I like you.”
“I don’t blame you. I’m a likable guy.”
“Was that before or after this?” he asked, tracing the left side of his face with his finger.
“Scars give a man personality. You should try it.”
“I’ll stick to looking handsome.” He leaned back in his chair. “So, this problem of mine. You see, everyone here’s gotten with the program, but not everyone out there has. I still have people running around causing trouble.”
“Like me?”
“Nah, you’re just a straggler.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
“I put people who haven’t gotten with the reality of our situation into two categories: The ones that don’t know any better, and the ones that are determined to make things miserable for everyone else. You belong in the former category.”
“Yay for me.”
“Then, of course, there are the ones in the latter category. They’re the reasons my men have to guard the marina and the bridge and the surrounding areas every second of daylight. Obviously we don’t have to worry about the nights.”
“Obviously.”
Steve offered to pour him another glass, but Keo turned it down again. “So that’s my dilemma,” Steve said, pouring himself a third shot. “I have people I need to take care of—the ones here, who depend on me and my men—but there are troublemakers out there making it difficult. That’s where you come in.”
“I didn’t know this was a job interview.”
“It is. Consider it your last job interview.”
“How so?”
“If you don’t pass, I shoot you.”
Keo smirked. “I guess I better pass, then.”
“I would think so.”
“So what’s the job?”
“Jack told me what you did on that island. That was impressive.”
“I had help.”
“The kid?”
“Yeah.”
“The kid shot Jack from the ridge when no one knew he was up there. I saw that scope on his rifle. A half-blind coal miner could have made that shot. And he actually missed. He was aiming for Jack’s chest. You, on the other hand, went at two of my guys straight on with nothing but that German gun. That takes a lot of guts. And skill.”
“You don’t care that I killed two of yours?”
“I care, but I can respect that you did what you had to do. Besides, plenty more where they came from.”
“Classes within classes, right?”
Steve nodded while eyeing Keo over the rim of his glass. “That’s right. And right now, I need a man like you, Keo.”
“To do what?”
“To do what you do.”
“You’ll have to be a little more specific. I do a lot of things. Some of them even involve whipped cream.”
“Unfortunately I’m all out of whipped cream, but I do have Gillian.”
Keo smiled back, doing his very best not to betray his thoughts. He remembered waking up on Santa Marie Island to find Gene and Steve talking. They had been for some time, too. Now he knew what the topic of conversation had been.
“You don’t look surprised,” Steve said. “I guess you saw us talking this morning. Don’t blame him; he’s just a kid. What is he, seventeen?”
“I thought he was sixteen.”
“Either/or. Doesn’t matter, I guess. These days, you have to grow up fast or you don’t grow up at all.”
Steve finished his third glass and put it down softly. The man’s hand, Keo saw, was steady. Too steady, even after three shots.
“Back to you and Gillian,” Steve said.
“What about me and Gillian?”
“That was her, wasn’t it? On the riverbanks while we were coming up? Come on, don’t deny it. The way you stood up and stared.” He put a hand to his chest and grinned. “It was so romantic.”
Keo remained as stone-faced as possible but internally cursed himself for giving it away on the boat. He should have known someone like Steve would have noticed.
He had to be careful around Steve. Very, very careful.
“The kid described her to me, and it was a no-brainer to put two and two together,” Steve continued. “I still remember the day she showed up. Hard to forget someone like that. Tall, black hair, and green eyes? Not a lot of those around these days. We caught her on a boat just off Galveston.”
“Just her?”
“There were others, but to hear the boys tell it, they tried to fight back and, well, bad things happen when you fight back. She survived, though, and we brought her here. That was…hmm…” He was either really thinking about it or was doing a good job of selling it. “Five months ago? Maybe six? Processing has all the information, if you’re curious.”
“Maybe I can ask her myself.”
“Maybe.” The man was watching him closely, reading every flicker of emotion on his face. “She’s gorgeous. I can see why you spent all this time trying to find her. I would, too.”
Keo leaned forward and pushed his glass back toward Steve, who smiled and refilled it.
“So what’s the job?” Keo asked.
“Right to the point? Fine. I need you to do something for me. Do this one thing, and you can either stay here with Gillian or take her and run off to…wherever. I personally don’t think there’s anything better out there, but hey, it’s still a free country.”
“Is it?”
Steve gave him a noncommittal shrug. Keo picked up the refille
d shot glass and sipped the whiskey. It went down easier the second time.
“What’s the job?” he asked again.
“I need you to kill someone for me,” Steve said.
Keo smiled.
The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Even at the end of the world, there were still people who wanted him to take away other people’s lives for their own purposes. Except this time Gillian was the payment.
Hell, he’d done worse for less.
“Who’s the target?” Keo asked.
*
“What do you need?” Steve asked.
“My guns,” Keo said.
“And?”
“That’s it.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m a very simple guy. Have gun, will assassinate.”
Steve chuckled. “So I was right about you. You were born for this. Even before the world went to shit.”
“Some people can play the piano, I can do this. So who’s the target?”
“His name’s Tobias. He’s the reason I have men on the bridge and at the marina, and sentries all around town. He’s a real pain in my ass.”
“He’s alone?”
“No. He has some men with him.”
“How many is ‘some’?”
“Maybe as few as a couple, and maybe as many as a dozen.”
“A dozen is manageable.”
“Is that right?”
“I’ve gone up against worse odds.”
“Well, shit, you really are a bad man, aren’t you?” Steve laughed. “Glad you’re on my side.”
For now, asshole.
“One thing,” Keo said.
“What’s that?”
“I want to see Gillian first.”
Steve shook his head. “Can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“You may have agreed to the job, but you haven’t earned my trust yet, Keo. You’re not going anywhere past this marina until I know I can absolutely trust you not to screw me over.”
“So tie me at the hip to Donovan.”
“You’ll probably kill Donovan if he ever got that close to you.”
Keo smiled. He had to admit, Steve had a good point. Given how many times Donovan had unnecessarily prodded him with the barrel of his rifle, Keo would have liked nothing more than to get him just a little bit closer and return the favor.
“At least let me talk to her,” Keo said.
“You already saw her on the riverbanks. She’s fine. Better than fine.”
“I see her in person, or no deal.”
Steve pulled out his sidearm—an impossibly smooth and polished Colt 1911 series semiautomatic—and laid it on the desk with a heavy thunk!, then glared across at Keo. “I have a better idea. You keep pushing me on this and I put a bullet in her leg. She doesn’t need two legs to wash clothes. What do you think?”
Keo stared back at him.
Steve didn’t move, didn’t look away, and didn’t flinch.
Fuck.
“Yeah, okay,” Keo said. “So where do I find your friend Tobias?”
Steve picked the gun up and slid it back into its holster. He didn’t laugh or grin like an idiot, and his face remained perfectly unmoved. Keo had absolutely no doubt the man would have shot Gillian just to spite him, which further convinced him that the only way he was going to survive T18 was over Steve’s dead body.
I can live with that.
“Jack will brief you on everything we know about him,” Steve said before glancing at his watch. “You have seven hours and thirty minutes to find Tobias, put a bullet in his head, and get back here before sundown.”
“What if I don’t make it back before nightfall?”
“Then I guess you better find a nice and safe place to hide until morning.”
CHAPTER 8
“You’re really good at that,” Keo said. “You raised on a farm or something?”
Jack chuckled from his horse’s saddle. “Conroe, Texas. We had more fish than horses out there. I guess I’ve had a lot of practice.”
“You boys been here long?”
“Long enough to be one of the original guys that had to clean up the houses for all the new arrivals. Let me tell you, that’s grunt work I’d rather not do again.”
“Who gets the houses?”
“The worthy ones.”
“Like you?”
“Like I said: The worthy ones. That can be you too, if you play your cards right.”
“You mean if I can find Tobias, kill him, manage to get away, and return to the town still breathing.”
“I thought all of that was implied.”
“Hard to tell with you, Jack, on account of your propensity for lying.”
“A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.”
I’ll keep that in mind for next time, dickhead.
“You can do this,” Jack was saying. He sounded almost encouraging, for a dickhead. “Steve says he’s pretty sure you used to do something like this back in the day.”
“What did Steve use to do…back in the day?”
“He was a cop. A detective. A pretty good one, too. Smart. Why do you think he’s running the show around here?”
“I thought it was because of his charming personality.”
“It ain’t that charming.”
For a guy with one bad leg, Jack was easygoing, being a dickhead notwithstanding. Then again, he was riding on a horse while Keo had to walk next to him up the length of the bridge that connected T18 and the rest of what used to be the city of Wilmont. It was midday and would have been peaceful if not for the loud, echoing clop-clop-clop of horseshoes against the steel floor.
A pair of soldiers with binoculars keeping a constant watch on both sides of the river barely paid them any attention as they walked past. There were four soldiers on the bridge, including two manning a guard station on the right lane, leaving just the left open for back and forth travel. The setup was really just two large desks stacked with sandbags underneath a camo canopy that provided plenty of shade. What Keo really paid attention to was the M60 machine gun perched between the two men.
Four men on a bridge were not nearly enough to keep T18 from invasion, but that probably wasn’t the point. The men were just a buffer, with more soldiers manning a swinging metal gate behind them. The figures he had seen earlier moving around the ringed walkway of the water tower were still there, further down the river. Now that was a hell of a perch, and likely one he’d have to evade or take out first if he ever expected to escape the town.
“Have they ever tried to attack the bridge?” Keo asked.
“They’re too smart for that,” Jack said. “Why do you think they’ve been giving us so much trouble? If they were stupid, Steve would have snuffed them out a long time ago.”
Keo looked up at Jack. The younger Miller was eyeing the other side of the bridge as if he expected the mysterious Tobias to be lying in wait for him. The full extent of Jack’s “briefing” had involved pointing out the last spot they had skirmished with Tobias’s group and what the man looked like. Tall, blond, blue eyes, and formidable. He might as well be describing Captain America.
“You respect him,” Keo said. “Tobias.”
“You have to respect the enemy in order to effectively fight him.”
“One of Steve’s sayings?”
Jack grinned but didn’t deny or confirm.
They stopped next to the guard station in the middle of the bridge. The steel structure extended about fifty meters from side to side and about fifteen meters above the water. Keo couldn’t see much of anything on the other end except a two-lane country road flanked by walls of trees. The city’s main commercial district was supposed to be beyond that. As with the right side, the left half of what used to be Wilmont was surrounded by thick woods.
And somewhere out there was Tobias.
“This is where you get off,” Jack said. He picked up the duffel bag lying across his saddle and handed it down to Keo. “
Do us both a favor and don’t open it until you’re on the other side. You know, in case the boys here get itchy fingers. It’s been a while since they’ve shot anything, so you don’t wanna tempt them.”
“Heaven forbid,” Keo said, and slung the bag over his shoulder. It was heavy, which was a good sign.
He glanced at his watch: 12:15 P.M. Just over six hours until nightfall.
“You sure you don’t want something with more firepower for the job?” Jack asked. “Not too late. I can ask one of these boys to let you borrow their M4.”
“It’s not the size of the gun, Jack; it’s the finger behind the trigger.”
“Is that what you tell the ladies?”
“I do just fine with the ladies.”
“I bet. I’ve met Gillian, by the way. I can see why you’d be willing to take this job just to get back to her. She’s something.”
“Yes, she is.”
“You’ve tapped that before, right?”
Keo didn’t answer.
“Of course you have,” Jack smiled. “Why else would you be running around out here doing Steve’s bidding. Must have been some—”
“Watch yourself.”
Jack chuckled. “Fair enough.” Then, “Well, good luck, sport, because you’re going to need it. Tobias is a hard man to find and a harder man to kill. But after seeing what you did back at Santa Marie, I’m sure you’re more than up for the job.”
“Tell me something,” Keo said, looking up at Jack.
“What’s on your mind?”
“You always knew your brother was going to come looking for you, didn’t you? That’s why you never tried to escape yesterday.”
“We’re brothers. That’s what we do; look out for one another.” He picked up the reins and was about to turn the horse around when he paused, adding, “Oh, one piece of advice. When you get Tobias in your crosshairs, don’t hesitate. You’re probably only going to get one shot at him.”
Jack galloped off, the clop-clop-clop of horseshoes against the steel bridge like gunshots.
Keo started walking. He didn’t bother looking back because he could feel the men behind the sandbags manning the M60 watching him closely. The thought of being on the wrong side of that monster when it unleashed its full fury made him shiver slightly.
Purge of Babylon (Book 6): The Isles of Elysium Page 8