I checked into a cheap motel, cleaned up, shaved, and slept until sundown. My dreams were strange and featured those dancing hippos from the old Disney movie until they were violently torn apart by an alligator with an effeminate English accent. I woke in a foul mood. Jill still hadn’t called back, and frankly that was really beginning to gnaw at me. I called in an update to Reaper before leaving for Bob’s place. At least he was sounding healthier, eager for revenge, and was ready to fly out as soon as I needed him.
There was another Ford Explorer in the motel parking lot. Using my Leatherman, I swapped license plates then headed back to the suburbs.
***
Bob had a great security system. It took me almost three whole minutes to figure out how to circumvent it after I’d climbed over the back fence. Luckily he didn’t have a dog. He was allergic to them.
It didn’t seem right to break into my own brother’s house, and it certainly wasn’t the best way to make an impression, especially considering that I hadn’t seen him for years and he had no idea what I actually did for a living. But I couldn’t risk just knocking on the door in case Eddie was watching the place. The last thing I wanted to do was contact him at work while he was surrounded by other Feds. I’ve got an aversion to cops. Nothing personal, mind you, just that our philosophies on life tended to diverge rather abruptly.
It was nearing midnight as I crept through the house. There were kids’ toys scattered across the carpet and dozens of pictures on the wall. The kitchen was empty, and there were crayon drawings held onto the fridge with magnets. It was a really nice house. Clean, organized, but with that little bit of chaos that healthy kids always managed to bring. It reminded me a bit of Gideon’s house, and that thought brought back memories. Gideon Lorenzo had been a good man to take me in. Compared to how I’d grown up, their house had seemed so warm, and I never had to worry about being hit with randomly thrown beer bottles.
Suddenly the room was bathed in scalding light, blinding me. It had to be one of those eyeball-melting police flashlights. “Don’t move!” a deep voice bellowed. It was a command voice that was used to being obeyed. I slowly raised my hands to the surrender position.
“It’s me, Bob.” Hands open, I turned toward the giant in the doorway. “Shoot me, and Mom will be pissed.”
The brilliant light moved to the side, leaving white ghosts floating in my eyeballs. “Hector?”
It had been a long time since anybody had called me that.
***
Robert Lorenzo was big man, six and a half feet tall, broad and barrel-chested. He looked nothing like me at all, which wasn’t a surprise, considering that I was a foster kid.
The Lorenzos were good people. I’d never really felt like I had fit in, no matter how hard I’d tried, but they had loved me as if I were one of them regardless. They were hard-working, honestly religious, salt-of-the-Earth decent folks. My real father had been a petty criminal, crackhead, piece of filth, and Gideon Lorenzo was the judge who had finally sent him away for murder.
Gideon had never confided in me the logic behind taking me in. I just remember him staring down at me from that tall judge’s seat while I had been giving my eyewitness testimony against my real father. His kind eyes had filled with involuntary tears as I’d talked about how I’d watched my mother get her head kicked in, even after I had tried to defend her by stabbing my father with a fork. I had been twelve.
Four years. For four years I had lived with the Lorenzo family. Then something terrible had happened, popping the happy bubble where I’d briefly gotten to live like a normal person. I had violated Gideon’s deathbed final wish, but my services had been needed to make things right, and I did what I had to do.
While in their care, I had never officially taken their last name. After I dropped off the grid, I’d lived under many different names, changing identities like clothing. Eventually I’d started going by Lorenzo. It had seemed like the thing to do at the time. It had seemed right. If only I had realized that it would eventually come back to haunt me.
“So, you want to tell me how you broke into my house?” Bob asked as he settled onto his couch. He put his bare feet up on the coffee table. His Remington 870 was leaning against the arm of the couch.
“Always right to the point with you, wasn’t it?” I dodged. “Where’s the wife and kids? How’s Gwen?”
“Visiting her mom. You’ll like her. She’s nice. Now back to the B and E.” Bob looked like Dad before he had died. The resemblance was almost eerie. The last few years had rendered him totally bald, but that wasn’t a surprise, as he’d starting losing his hair at sixteen. “You could have knocked. I almost plugged you back there. I’m a light sleeper.”
Real light, apparently. I had been in full ninja mode. “The door was open,” I lied.
“No, it wasn’t,” Bob said with finality. “It was locked, and the alarm was armed. It’s been forever since I’ve seen you, and you sneak into my house in the middle of the night. Why?”
I had to be careful here. He was my older brother, and he was damn smart. I had known him very well once, but we were almost strangers now. “I need your help.”
“What’s going on, man?” Just like his father, there was no way I was going to be able to lie to this man and get away with it. I just hoped that he wouldn’t try to arrest me. That could get messy.
“I had to sneak in because there are people watching your house. You’re in danger the whole family is in danger, because of me, and I’m here to warn you.”
Bob laughed. “You always were a hoot. No, serious, what’s going on?” After a moment of studying my grim expression, he realized I was for real, and then there was a hint of anger in his voice. “What have you gotten into?”
The Lorenzos had always been a real law-and-order bunch, except for me, obviously. I leaned back on the comfortable couch and groaned. This wasn’t going to be easy. “Do you know what I do for a living?”
“You work for some international-relations firm. That was what the last Christmas card said, which, by the way, is the only reason any of us even realized you were still alive. You’ve only visited Mom, what, once since you ran off and joined the Peace Corps.” He said that with just a hint of disdain. Bob had joined the Army.
“About that . . .” We had been close once. He was only a couple of years older than me, and after Dad had died Bob had become the family rock, while I had run off. This was a lot more difficult than I had thought it would be. “I’m not a businessman. I was never in the Peace Corps. I think they’re a bunch of hippies. Look . . . I’m . . . I’m a crook.”
“Crook? Like a criminal?” The last little bit of a smile faded. His normally jovial face grew hard, and now he really reminded me of Dad. “What kind of crook?”
“A very good one. Ever hear of the Cape Town diamond-exchange robbery?” I asked. He slowly nodded. I was sure the FBI had passed around a memo about that one. It had been rather impressive. “That was me. Bangkok National. Me. Bahrain Museum of Antiquity. Me. Vladivostok gold-train heist, all me.” Bob’s eyes grew wide. Of course he had heard of those. They were some of the more infamous robberies of our generation. “After that, I decided I didn’t like robbing normal people and I started to rob from other bad guys. Those jobs you probably haven’t heard about, but I’m pretty good at this stuff.”
“You can’t be serious,” he stated.
“I worked for a man called Big Eddie for a long time, the crime lord who has a piece of everything in Asia. I’m assuming the FBI’s heard of him?”
“Of course. The organized-crime guys have a task force dedicated to just that group. Personally, I thought he was a fairy tale.”
“Oh, he’s real.” I tossed the manila folder from Thailand on the coffee table between us. Bob picked it up and started to leaf through the family pictures. “He had one last job for me, and he gave me this to assure that I’d do it. I know he’ll hurt every single person in there, and I need you to get to them first, as quiet as you can.”
My brother crumpled the edges of the folder as he read. I could see the realization that I was telling the truth dawning on his face. “I can’t believe this. This . . . this is nuts. Sure, you were always pushing the boundaries, petty theft, joyriding cars, stupid crap, but this?”
“Bob, I know this is a shock, but listen to me. You can’t be obvious. Big Eddie will find out. You can’t bring in the FBI. Eddie has men on the inside. He will find out. This man sits on Satan’s right hand. You have no idea what he’s capable of. I need you to help me stop him.”
“I can’t believe you’re some sort of international super thief, I mean, come on man, you were such a . . .”
“Dork?” I offered. It was true. Bob had been the tough one.
“No offense, but heck, when we were kids, when I played football, you did gymnastics.”
“It comes in handy. I’m a good second-story man.”
“You were in the drama club. You were really good at it too, before you dropped out.”
I shrugged. “Playing pretend comes in handy,” I answered, my voice a nearly perfect impression of his own. I’d always had a gift for being someone else. Compared to some of the cons I had pulled off, sophomore-year Hamlet was a piece of cake. “Do you believe me?”
He rubbed his face in his hands. After a long pause, he looked me in the eye. “Yes. I can see it. You always were the crazy one.” I could tell that this was breaking his heart. He had always looked out for me, like a good big brother. “Hector, you’ve got to come in with me. The FBI can protect you. I can protect you. You can testify against this Big Eddie. I can get you into the witness-protection program.”
“Bob. This is bigger than that. Way bigger.” I stood. “Please, just get everybody to safety. You don’t have much time. And you’ve got to keep it low profile. Nothing official, because he will know. You’re the only one that can do this. Eddie tried to kill me. He shot one of my friends and murdered the others. He cut one’s head off. I’ve stalled him for now, but the man is a snake, and he’ll bite soon. It’s his nature.”
My brother stood, too. He towered over me, and his face was dark, clouded with anger. The shotgun was still leaning against the couch.
“You gonna try to arrest me?” I asked. Bob was a good and honorable man, and I did not know what I would do if he tried. “If you do, then you’re signing our family’s death warrant. As soon as Eddie finds out I’ve made contact with you, they’re all dead.”
“What do you plan on doing?” Bob was seething.
“I’m going to kill Eddie first.”
“You’re a murderer, too?”
No point in beating around the bush. “Bob, I shot three Chechens and tortured a fourth one to death before I ate breakfast this morning. What do you think?” I answered, hard and low.
He was taken a back. “That was you? I saw the bulletin about the SAM and the bodies. ICE nailed some more coming over at dawn with missiles because of an anonymous tip. The report said that one of them had been cut to ribbons, bullets in the other one’s heads, execution style. . . . I can’t imagine my little brother doing that.” Bob slowly sat back down. “What have you become?”
“I’m a monster,” I answered truthfully. “But I’m still your brother. Protect them, Bob. It’s up to you.” I turned and walked for the back door. I’m sure this was a lot to take in.
“Hector.”
I stopped, hand on the doorknob. He sounded broken. It tore my heart open. “Yeah, Bob?”
“Be careful, little bro.”
“You, too,” I answered as I slipped out the door and into the night. I had to pause to wipe my eyes before scaling the back fence.
Chapter 26:
Qagmire
VALENTINE
Quagmire, Nevada
June 28
0500
The sun wouldn’t be up for a while, but the little diner where Jill worked opened at five. The place opened at the oh-dark-thirty so the local ranchers could get their breakfast and coffee. She was on early shift today and was probably getting ready for the early birds. At this hour, she’d be the only one there, doing both the cooking and the serving. The regular cooks and waitresses came in later in the morning.
I hadn’t planned on being up that early, but I still had terrible nightmares sometimes. Once I woke up from one of those, I was up for the day. Hell, I didn’t want to go back to sleep anyway. I was hungry, too, so off I went to the only place in town where I could get breakfast at that hour without cooking it myself.
A few days earlier, Hawk and I had pulled my Mustang out of his shed and dusted it off. He’d taken very good care of it. The oil had been changed, the tank was full, and the registration fee had been paid for me. I’d missed my car, and it was nice to have it back.
The diner Jill worked at was called Shifty’s, which I thought was hilarious. The place had been a staple of Quagmire life for forty years. The food was good, too. I’d eaten here every time I’d returned to Quagmire over the past few years. It was a decent place for Jill to work while she tried to figure out how to start her life all over again.
Really, I was in the same situation. After being gone for months, I was back in the United States, home sweet home. Nothing had changed. The fall of Zubara had been pretty big news while it was happening, but the press had no idea there was direct American involvement. The only ones that even suspected that were conspiracy nuts like Roger Geonoy and the kooky guests on From Sea to Shining Sea. I began to wonder if any of their other stuff about aliens, ghosts, and demons was true, too.
Anyway, I was in an interesting situation. It was as if the last six of months of my life had never happened. Save for the scars on my body and the ache in my heart, it would’ve been easy to pretend that all was well and that everything was normal.
And let me tell you, it was tempting. Back at the Exodus base I had been so filled with rage that I was ready to track Gordon Willis down and murder him. That had been my primary motivation for returning home, after all. But now that I was here . . . well, let’s just say that reality had sunk in a little bit.
Having a quiet life and working on Hawk’s ranch had done me a lot of good. My mom used to say that taking care of animals, especially horses, was good for the soul. She was onto something, I think. Hawk wouldn’t come out and say it, but I think he really enjoyed having Jill and me around. He was old enough to be our father, and had lived alone since his wife, Elaine, died.
Seeing Jill everyday had been nice, too. The girl was an absolute sweetheart, and she was beautiful too. After losing Sarah, I was completely disinterested in any kind of romantic pursuits, but . . . well, Jill was easy on the eyes, especially in the little cutoffs and tank top she wore when working in the garden. If things had been different . . . But they weren’t.
In any case, I wasn’t ready for anything like that, and Jill was still going on and on about how dreamy Lorenzo was. I felt bad for the girl. She was young and, despite everything she’d been through, naïve. Lorenzo wasn’t coming back for her, period, end of story. I don’t care if he did save my life; it was plain to see what was going on. I just didn’t have the heart to tell her. She’d figure it out eventually. Probably better that she came to the realization on her own.
The question remained, though: What in the hell was I supposed to do? Aside from Hawk and Jill, I didn’t really have any friends. I had nowhere else to go. And what was I going to do, go find a job? I didn’t have a fake ID or alternate passport or anything. For all I knew, the moment I popped up on the radar, Gordon Willis’s organization would come swooping down in their stealthy helicopters and make me disappear into the night. I was scared to drive my own car anywhere beyond the bounds of Quagmire.
I had thousands of dollars stashed away, so I wasn’t hurting for money at the moment. I wasn’t about to try to access my old Las Vegas Federal Credit Union account, and I doubted I’d ever been paid a dime for my service in Zubara. But I still had access to my old offshore account with the B
ank of Grand Cayman. As far as I knew, my former employers had never found out about it. They probably didn’t look real hard, considering they were planning on killing me anyway.
But I couldn’t stay in Quagmire forever. It was a small town in the middle of nowhere, which seems like a good place to hide, but it’s really not. People noticed a new face in Quagmire, especially one as scarred up as mine. Sooner or later somebody would notice me, and being noticed could get me killed. Not just me, either, but Hawk and Jill also.
Besides, I wasn’t about to just stay in Hawk’s spare bedroom, mooching off his hospitality until my savings ran out. I was determined not to be a burden on him or put him at risk. I had to leave Quagmire, and soon. But where would I go? My original plan of hunting down Gordon Willis seemed, as Ling suggested it would, silly now. The injustice of what that man had done still burned a pit in my stomach, and I hated him all the more for being powerless to change it, but what could I do? Even if I could get to him without getting picked up, would killing him change anything?
Sighing, I shook my head. Five o’clock in the morning was no time to be making big life decisions, especially not on an empty stomach. I pulled into the empty parking lot of Shifty’s and parked my Mustang. Jill liked to walk to work. It appeared I’d be her first customer.
The place was dark. Weird, I thought. Where is she? Jill should’ve been there for at least half an hour already, but the diner was still locked up. No one had been in.
Suddenly worried, I looked around the parking lot. Jill had left Hawk’s house an hour ago. It didn’t take that long to walk to the diner. I hadn’t seen her anywhere along the way. It’s hard to miss the hottest girl in town in a pink miniskirt jumper and white sneakers, after all.
Dead Six-ARC Page 50