Bald and sweaty, the giant shrugged. He was obese, but there was something about the way that he moved that suggested there was a lot of dense muscle under all that blubber. “Do not be alarmed. This is not a trap. Keep the money. Consider it a tip. You see, I work for Big Eddie.” He trailed off as he spoke, smiling with that strange quality of the slightly schizophrenic. He must have noticed my unconscious flinch at the name. “Big Eddie has an assignment for you.”
My crew exchanged nervous glances. Oh hell no. Everyone here knew what working for Eddie entailed. They all looked to me for confirmation. I slowly put my chopsticks down. “I retired from his organization. Me and your boss are square.”
“I am afraid you are mistaken,” the fat man stated. “Our employer does not believe in retirement, merely extended leaves of absence, and then only at his convenience. You have been away from the fold so long. He merely arranged this last assignment as a test to see if you had maintained your previous skill sets.”
I had always known that some sort of reckoning would come. Standing to leave, I pulled some Thai baht from my wallet and threw them on the table. I had no interest in anything related to Big Eddie, one of the most brutal crime lords in history and an all-around bad dude. Prior jobs performed for the man had left me independently wealthy, but with a lot of scars and a trail of bodies from here to Moscow. “Come on, guys; let’s go.”
“Our employer insists that you are the only person who can complete this assignment. Your knowledge of languages, of disguises, your ability to blend in with any culture, to infiltrate any group, and your gift for violence are legendary. He spoke very highly of you, that there is no place safe from you, no item you cannot steal, no target you cannot eliminate. You, sir, are the best of the best, and he is prepared to compensate you generously for your valuable services.”
It didn’t matter how much money he was talking about, because it just wasn’t worth it. “Tell him to find somebody else.”
The fat man laughed, but it never reached his eyes. “Our employer said you would say that.” He placed a manila folder on the table and shoved it toward me. He passed other folders to Carl, Train, and Reaper. “He said you should look at this before you make any rash decisions, Mr—” And then he called me by my real last name.
I froze. There was no way he could have known that. He opened the folder.
Pictures. Lots of pictures.
My crew began to flip through the pages of their files, eyes widening in shock, mouths falling open. Carl began swearing in Portuguese. Reaper, dumbfounded, stood and pulled his Glock from his waistband, letting it dangle, folder still open in his other hand. Finally, he raised the gun and pointed it at the fat man’s head and snarled, “You’re threatening my mom?”
“Of course.” The fat man wiped his brow with a silk handkerchief as he began to read from my folder. “Mr. Lorenzo, your adoptive family consisted of six siblings, oh my, I do love large families. Robert, Jenny, Tom, George, Pat.” He shoved a list of addresses toward me, paper clipped to a series of photos. “Big Eddie knows where each of them lives, where they work, what they do, and how to reach them at any time. Should you attempt to contact them, Big Eddie will find out, and he will be most displeased.”
“They know about my daughter?” Train asked in disbelief, his big hands crunching the edges of the folder.
“You bastard.” I knew he was not bluffing. Eddie was capable of anything. They must have been gathering this information on me for years.
“All five of your siblings are married. You have nine nieces and nephews, with one bundle of joy on the way,” he told me as he passed me another stack of photos. School photos. I was across the table before he knew what was happening, my knife open and pressed hard between his second and third chin.
He didn’t even flinch. “Your mother lives with your sister Jenny now, still in your hometown. On Tuesday evenings she goes to her book club. During the week she baby sits while Jenny goes to work as the night manager of an International House of Pancakes.”
I twisted the knife, and a small trickle of blood splattered on his white collar. His little pig eyes were hard and cold as he stared me down. “Your oldest brother, Robert, is, surprisingly enough, a federal agent. I take it he has no idea what you do for a living. He has a lovely home in the suburbs, a beautiful wife, a son, and two lovely daughters. You will take on this assignment or Big Eddie will take care of them first. You know how he feels about police officers.”
“And if I just cut your throat and disappear?” I hissed, leashed anger bubbling to the surface.
“You won’t. We’ve studied you. You will do what it takes to protect your family. Plans are in place so that if I do not return, or if you are not observed attempting to complete this assignment, then your family will pay the price. You may try to warn them, you may try to protect them, you may even attempt to locate our organization. If anyone is capable enough to try, it is you. But you cannot save all of them. You know how great our employer’s reach is, and there is no place in this world where you can hide them all. At the first sign of a failure to fully cooperate, a terrible bloodbath will be on your head.”
He wasn’t bluffing. Eddie was more powerful than most governments, a shadowy figure involved in every criminal enterprise on the planet. I had never met him, and like many who had done his bidding, I suspected he wasn’t a lone individual at all, rather a very ruthless organization. Either way, if Eddie wanted somebody dead, it was only a matter of time. I withdrew the Benchmade, wiped the blood on the fat man’s shirt, folded the blade, and put it back in my pocket.
I lived under an assumed name. We all did. In this world, anything that was precious to you became a liability, potential leverage against you. How had Eddie found them? Where had I screwed up? I knew that if I tried to warn them, even if they believed me, there was no way I could protect them all. I slowly sat back down. My crew followed my example.
“That’s better. Here is your mission packet. There are three phases. As you can see from the deadline, time is of the essence.”
I opened the proffered folder, read a few lines, then laughed out loud. “You’ve got to be kidding. This is impossible.”
“The clock is ticking, Mr. Lorenzo. Complete this mission or we will kill everyone you have ever loved.” He gestured at the mushroom dish. “Are you going to finish that?”
***
“Shoulda just shot him,” Carl muttered before downing the last of his beer. He crushed the can in his fist and tossed it out the fourth-floor window of our seedy Bangkok hotel room. Odds were that the can hit a tourist or a prostitute. “Suicide, this job, I tell you that. Better to run.”
Train rubbed one callused hand across his face. Haggard, he looked like he’d aged ten years in the last hour. “And then what? Hide? Where are we gonna go?”
“We aren’t the problem,” I stated. Each of us was fully capable of going to ground and totally disappearing. The four of us exchanged knowing glances. If we thwarted Big Eddie, we were going to be knee-deep in dead babies. I hadn’t even spoken to my family in years. They thought I was some sort of international businessman. I sent them a Christmas card once in a while, that kind of thing, but it wasn’t like we were close. I’d checked out of the normal world. But I couldn’t let my brothers and sisters pay for my sins. They weren’t like me. They were good people. They were the only people who had ever shown me any kindness in my miserable youth.
We were quiet for a long time as my crew mulled over our predicament. Finally, I broke the silence. “Eddie’s men will be randomly watching these people. As soon as any one of them is contacted, they’ll kill all the others. We could maybe save some, but I don’t want to take that chance. I’m in. If any of you want out, I understand. Take your share and go. If Eddie sees that I’m on my way to the Mideast, he’ll know I’m working the job. It might buy you some time to get to your people.”
Reaper immediately raised one bony hand. “I’m with you, boss.” He was the youngest
member of my crew. I had hired him in Singapore, where he’d been avoiding extradition to the US for a host of felony charges, and put him to work as our technical geek. I was the closest thing he had to a father figure, and that was just sad.
“This is going to be the toughest thing we’ve ever done,” I warned. “There’s no shame in backing out. We’re probably going to get killed if we’re lucky or thrown into the worst kind of prison you can imagine if we’re not.”
“I’m in,” Reaper repeated with a lot more force than you would expect from looking at him. I had known that whatever I had voted for, Reaper would have my back.
I nodded. “Carl?”
My oldest friend grunted as he leaned forward in his chair. We had worked together for a very long time. When we had first met, Carl had been a Portuguese mercenary helping to overthrow an African government. Between the two of us we’d killed piles of people in dire need of killing, and a quite a few who had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. We’d robbed, conned, stolen, and murdered our way across four continents. The contents of Carl’s folder were a mystery. He was like my brother, but I didn’t know what he had left behind in the Azores all those years ago. He wasn’t exactly the conversational sort.
Carl shrugged. “Whatever . . . I’m in.”
The last member of my crew hesitated. I knew that Train’s folder contained pictures of his estranged wife and little girl. Omaha, Nebraska, wasn’t out of Eddie’s reach. Train’s ex had divorced him while he had been serving time. She didn’t like being married to a criminal, but she apparently had no moral problems cashing the checks he mailed to her after every single one of our jobs, either. Train loved his young daughter more than life itself, and I could see that fact roiling around behind his eyes as he made up his mind.
“I can’t,” he said simply. “Sorry, Lorenzo.”
I nodded.
“Ah, Train, come on,” Reaper whined. “We need you, big guy.”
“I don’t trust Eddie,” Train spat. “And you’d be an idiot to trust him. He knows about my kid, man. I’ve got to go get her.”
I extended my hand. He hesitated only briefly before crushing it in his big mitt. He was one of only a handful of people in this world that I actually trusted. I had worked with Train for nearly a decade and his decision didn’t surprise me at all. For a man who could snap a neck with one hand, he had a remarkably soft heart. “Watch your back,” I ordered.
He gave me a sad smile. We both knew that this was the end of a long run. “No problem, chief.”
***
Train took his share of the money and slipped out that night. At the time, none of us had realized that our hotel room had been bugged even though we had swept the room.
The next morning I had awoken to a knock on our door. When I answered, gun in hand, the messenger was gone, but there had been a cardboard box left there addressed to me. The size and weight told me what it was even before I opened it. Train’s severed head had been neatly wrapped in newspaper. The only other contents were a note.
I AM WATCHING YOU.
Chapter 1:
Job Security
VALENTINE
ATC Research & Development Facility
North Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
January 18
0330
I made my way around Building 21, rattling door handles as I went. It was the second time I’d checked this building during my shift, and I didn’t expect to find it unsecured. Still, the night-shift maintenance guys had a habit of leaving doors unlocked as they did their rounds, so I often had to relock them during my rounds.
Finding nothing out of place, I returned to the front of the building. Mounted on the wall next to the front door was a small metal button, resembling a watch battery. I retrieved from my pocket an electronic wand, and touched the tip of it to the metal button on the wall.
Nothing happened. “Goddamn it,” I grumbled, wiping both the button and the end of the wand with my finger. The wand was my electronic leash. As I hit the buttons across the facility, the wand recorded the time that I was there, thus proving to my employers that I was actually doing my job. However, if there was any moisture at all on either the button or the wand, it wouldn’t register.
I tried the button again. Still, nothing happened. Swearing some more, I pulled a small cloth out of my pocket and wiped down the button and the tip of the wand. Yet again, nothing happened. A pulse of anger shot through me, and I threw the wand against the steel door of Building 21. It bounced off, leaving not so much as a dent, and clattered to the concrete sidewalk below.
I took a deep breath and looked around. The sprawling ATC facility was dark, lit only by the amber lights around the buildings and along the roads. To the south, the omnipresent glow of the Strip lit up the sky. The night air was cool but had the familiar dusty stink of Las Vegas.
I looked down at the wand and frowned. Everywhere I’d been, everything I’d done, and this was what I was reduced to. I had seen combat on four continents and had survived it all, only to be utterly defeated by badly designed electronics. I sighed loudly, though there was no one around to hear.
I picked up my wand and made one last attempt. Touching it to the button, the wand beeped loudly and registered the hit. Muttering to myself, I stuffed the wand back into my pocket and returned to my patrol truck. Building 21 was last on my scheduled rounds; I had nothing else to do but drive around for the remaining three and a half hours of my shift.
As I drove, I listened to a late-night radio program called From Sea to Shining Sea. It was basically four hours of people talking about conspiracy theories, aliens, ghosts, and stuff like that. Most of it was a bunch of hooey, in my opinion, but it was often entertaining. Listening to the conspiracy theories regarding Mexico, the United Nations, and Vanguard Strategic Services always gave me a chuckle. They had no idea. The host, Roger Geonoy, was talking about secret government black helicopters or something with a guest. The guest was a frequent visitor to the show and only called himself “Prometheus.” He never gave his real name. Because, you know, they are listening. I barely paid attention as they went on about the supposed shadow government and its stealth helicopters. I did get another chuckle when Prometheus insisted that these choppers are sound-suppressed and can fly in what he called “whisper mode.” I’d ridden in enough helicopters to know just how freaking loud they are.
As Roger Geonoy listened to Prometheus blather on about black helicopters and cattle mutilations, I remembered my last helicopter ride in detail. The noise of the engines, the roar of gunfire. The sickening sound of bullets hitting the hull. The shrieking of the alarm as we dropped into a drained swimming pool. The ragged, bloody hole in Ramirez’ head. Doc’s guts spilled out onto the floor of the chopper.
“Sierra-Eleven, Dispatch,” my radio squawked, startling me. I realized that I’d been sitting at a stop sign for minutes on end. From Sea to Shining Sea had gone to commercial break. My heart was pounding.
Shaking it off, I answered my radio. “This is Sierra-Eleven.”
“Electrical Maintenance needs you to let them into Building Fourteen,” the Dispatcher said.
“Uh, ten-four,” I replied. “Ten-seventeen.” I took a deep breath and returned my attention to doing my stupid job.
Hours later, I pulled my patrol truck into a parking space behind the Security Office. Putting the truck in park, I finished the paperwork on my clipboard, recorded the mileage, and cut the engine. My breath steamed in the cool January air as I stepped out of the truck and made my way into the office.
“Mornin’, Val,” my supervisor, Mr. Norton, said as I passed his office en route to the ready room. “Anything happen last night?”
Pausing, I leaned into the doorway for a moment. “It was quiet, Boss.” Leaning in farther, I handed him my paperwork. “Is McDonald here yet?”
“Yeah, he’s on time today,” Mr. Norton said. “Have a good weekend, Val.”
“You, too, boss,” I said, leaving the d
oorway and making my way down the hall. I pushed open the door to the ready room. My relief, McDonald, was standing by the gun lockers, seemingly half awake. He was always seemingly half awake and had a perpetual five o’clock shadow on top of it. I found him tiresome.
He had the muzzle of his pistol in the clearing barrel as he chambered a round. Stepping past him, I opened my own gun locker, drew the .357 Magnum revolver from the holster on my left hip, and placed it inside.
“Why do you still carry that thing? We’ve got the new nine-mils, you know,” he said, holstering the pistol he’d just loaded.
“I shoot revolvers better,” I answered, not looking at him. “Not much to pass on. It was quiet last night. Some contractors are working by the old warehouse on the south side, so make sure Gate Ten is closed and locked after they leave.” I slung my gun belt over my shoulder and made my way out of the office and into the parking lot.
I found my Mustang and cranked it up. My radio was playing the morning news as I drove home, but I found it hard to pay attention. I’d lived outside of the United States for years; domestic news was something I was used to just ignoring. Frowning, I changed radio stations and listened to music for the rest of my commute home.
My apartment building was halfway across town. It didn’t look like much, but it was cheap for Vegas and wasn’t in a really bad neighborhood. It was an old motel that had been converted to apartments. The rooms were small, but there weren’t a lot of gangbangers and hookers hanging around all the time, and the cops weren’t there every night.
I made my way upstairs to the second floor. As I approached my door, I saw my next-door neighbor leaning against the railing. She smiled. “Hey,” she said, sounding tired. She removed a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket.
“Mornin’, Liz,” I said, leaning against the railing next to her. She was wearing a blue uniform, like me, but she wasn’t a security guard. Liz was a paramedic, and like me she also worked the night shift. She usually got home about the same time I did. Her curly red hair was pulled into a bun under her cap.
Dead Six-ARC Page 3