“You seem to have some kind of grudge. Were you in Majestic?”
That’s who Colonel Hunter had said he answered to. “You could say that. To answer both your questions, I mean. I wasn’t really aware of who I was working for until recently. I’m not sure what Majestic is. All I can find on it is a bunch of Internet conspiracy-theory crap.”
“It’s just a name. It’s every secret, every abuse of power, every bad thing you can imagine. They used to exist to protect us, but now they just exist to consolidate their power. I’m guessing you were Dead Six, then.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“You fit the profile,” Bob said. “Young, probably former military, and you’re not wearing a wedding ring so I’m guessing you’re single. No family, either, right? Don’t get excited. I’ve been looking into this stuff for a long time. I was waiting for someone involved in that to pop up. It’s my lucky day, I guess.”
He knew too much. He looked over at me and squinted. Was he doing the math? Trying to decide if he could get to his sidearm before I could get to mine? Bob was a Fed; was he in on this?
My face went blank. “You’ve got a forty-cal Sig in a strong-side, thumb-break cop holster that’s stuck behind your seat-belt buckle. You won’t get it out fast enough.”
Bob chuckled before turning back to the road, shaking his head slightly. “Well, I’ll be. You’re quiet. You’re used to people underestimating you, aren’t you? But you turn it on like a light switch when you feel threatened. That’s something else. But listen, I’m no friend of Gordon Willis. Trust me on this one. Let’s just say that keeping up on current events is a hobby of mine. You could go so far as to say that I’m a bit of a conspiracy theorist, or at least my bosses seem to think so. Dead Six was one tiny operation out of many, all of them secret, most of them illegal, and half of them pure evil, all run by men like Willis, and if you get in the way of their power, you die.”
“What do you know about Project Heartbreaker?”
“Officially? Nothing. Unofficially, an old friend of mine was the assistant ambassador in Zubara. We were on the same ODA. He knew that I was . . . obsessed. I think was the word he used, about things like this. When things started to go bad there, he called me up, wondering if I could do some checking for him. I did, and found the stink of Willis and his people all over it. I’ve been doing research into him and the others like him for years. So I did some poking, through sources you wouldn’t understand and I wouldn’t tell you about anyway, and I learned about Dead Six. I told my friend, Jim Fiore, about what I’d found, and he was dead within forty-eight hours. I warned him not to talk, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“Because I want your help,” Bob answered. “Because I need your help. You know things. Come with me. There are plenty of us in the government, the real government, who would love to see these people stopped. We can protect you. You can help us put a stake through their heart once and for all. There are still ways to work through the system. If we shine the light of day on these cockroaches, they’ll scatter. If you come help me, we can . . .” Bob trailed off as I chuckled at him. “What is it?”
“You think I haven’t heard this line of bullshit before? Come sign up with us, serve your country, fight the bad guys, blah blah blah. It’s the same crap every time. Well, you know what? I’m done. I’m done signing up. I’m done joining the cause. I’m tired of being somebody else’s damned pawn.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh, the hell it’s not,” I said bitterly. “It’s always the same. I’m just an asset to you. I used to work for a PMC. I know all about being a commodity. At least Vanguard was honest about it and had a good benefits package. What are you offering me besides a bunch of rhetoric and empty promises?
Bob frowned. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation. These people are destroying this country. What you’ve seen is just the tip of the iceberg. If we—”
I cut him off. “No, you don’t understand,” I said harshly. “I don’t care.”
We were stopped at an intersection, waiting for a light to turn green, which seemed to take an eternity. Bob gave me a hard stare. I could almost see the gears turning behind his eyes. His expression softened a bit. “What the hell happened to you, kid?”
I looked down at my lap and exhaled. “That’s a long story.”
“More importantly,” Bob continued, returning his attention to the road as we started moving again, “what are you going to do now? You can’t hide at your friend’s place forever. If certain people find out you’re alive, they’ll kill you and everyone you know. How long do you think you can stay on the run?”
“Who said anything about running?”
Bob shook his head. “The best defense is a good offense, huh?” he asked sardonically. “I’ve known a lot of guys like you. Most of them were Special Forces.”
“I was in the Air Force.”
Bob laughed, somewhat defusing the tension in the car. “You know it won’t work, right? I mean, you know that, don’t you? Majestic is too big to just take out. You can’t kill the beast by running in and shooting everybody. You have to be smart about it.”
“I’m not interested in killing the beast,” I said. “And there’s only one person I need to shoot.”
“You intend to kill Gordon Willis, don’t you?” Bob asked levelly. I didn’t answer. That in and of itself was answer enough, I suppose. Bob shook his head again. “It’s a suicide mission. Majestic won’t let you touch him, and even if you succeed, you’re a dead man.”
“See, there’s where you’re wrong,” I suggested. “You don’t know everything I know. I don’t think Majestic’s got Gordon’s back anymore.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Gordon’s gone off the reservation. Project Heartbreaker failed because of his dirty dealings.”
Bob seemed surprised by this. “What? How do you know this?” I didn’t answer him. He looked frustrated at my intransigence. “It doesn’t change anything. Killing him won’t change anything. Right now you think it’ll settle the score, right whatever wrong happened to you. Trust me, even if you succeed, it won’t change. You won’t get the satisfaction you want. They’ll kill you, and it’ll have all been for nothing.”
In my mind I saw Sarah falling to the mud like a puppet with the strings cut. Not for nothing, I thought.
We went through the drive-through of some all-night burger place. Bob ordered. I was distracted. What would happen if I killed Gordon? Would I even succeed? I knew where he lived. I knew everything about him. It was all on Hunter’s flash drive. But would I be able to find him? What if he went into hiding?
If those thoughts weren’t troubling enough, something else crossed my mind. Ling warned me about trying to exact revenge. She asked me if I thought that was what Sarah would have wanted me to do. I still didn’t have an answer that I liked.
“I’m asking you one last time. Don’t do it, kid. I don’t know what happened, what you lost out there, but I can see that pain inside of you. Don’t let the pain steer you.” Bob set the bags on the seat and started driving. “Don’t throw your life away for nothing.” I glanced over at him. He seemed sincere enough. Was it possible he was actually being straight with me?
I wasn’t used to that. “I’ll think on it,” I lied.
Bob started to speak again but had to stop to answer his phone. He listened for a minute, speaking occasionally, before hanging up. “Looks like there’s been a terrorist incident in my area of responsibility. They want me out there ASAP.”
I shook my head at the surrealism of it all as we pulled back into the motel parking lot.
Bob put the Suburban in park. “Will you at least think about what I said? Look. You’re right. I don’t know you. I’m not trying to help you out of pure altruism. But you helped save my brother’s life. Are you sure you want to go it alone?”
“No,” I replied honestly. “B
ut it’s all I can do. Listen, there is something I can do to help you,” I said as I reached into my pocket. I retrieved Colonel Hunter’s blood-stained flash drive and handed it to Bob.
“What is this?” he asked. The white piece of plastic looked tiny in his huge hands.
“It’s everything,” I said. “Everything on Project Heartbreaker from start to finish. The planning, the logistics, the personnel and assets involved. Almost everything, anyway. We picked up a nuke in Yemen, too. No idea where that ended up.”
Bob’s eyes went wide. He looked at the diminutive piece of electronics as if it were a holy relic. “What? Where did you get this?”
“It was compiled by Colonel Curtis Hunter, the field commander of Dead Six. The last thing he did before dying was give this to me. I’ve gone over it. Hunter suspected Gordon’s activities for a long time and dug up as much as he could. There are still big pieces of the story missing. The stuff highlighted in green is my own notes. I filled in the gaps where I could, but there’s a lot I don’t know and a lot Hunter couldn’t find out. But the hit on your friend at the embassy is detailed on there, though I don’t think you’ll be able to pin it on anyone. A lot of the info has been sanitized.”
Bob couldn’t take his eyes off the flash drive. “Why are you giving this to me?”
“You can use it more than I can,” I said honestly. “It will help you. It has the complete files of all of the people recruited for Dead Six, from the time they were approached to the time they were killed or went missing. All are listed as KIA or MIA. Iedited my own file, changed it to a confirmed KIA.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I was thinking about releasing this whole thing to the news. But I don’t know if that would do any good. So I’m giving it to you instead. If you do go public with this, make sure they think I’m dead. Okay?”
“I will,” Bob answered solemnly.
“We were serving our country,” I said quietly. “A lot of my friends died taking the fight to the enemy’s doorstep. And they sold us out and left us to die. Somebody needs to tell the world what happened. Most of us didn’t have any family at all. But some did. Their families deserve to know how they died.”
Bob gave me a look that told me he respected what I said. He’d been a soldier. He understood. I got out of the car, pulling most of the food with me.
“Valentine, wait,” Bob said, quickly shoving the thumb drive in his shirt pocket. “What if they don’t kill you? What if you’re captured? They’ll find out everything. Everyone that’s helped you, including me, will be put in danger.”
I looked at the ground for a moment. I really didn’t have a rebuttal to that. Bob didn’t want to let me go, but I’d made it clear that he couldn’t stop me. Had I really thought this through? Where would I end up if I went down this road?
My expression hardened as I buried my self-doubt. I didn’t have a choice. Bob was right. I couldn’t run forever. I wasn’t going to run off with him, either. He struck me as a sincere man, but also a lone nut who was short on friends. At least if I went my own way, I had a say over where I ended up.
That’s what I told myself, anyway. Bob wished me luck. I nodded and turned away, not looking back as he drove off.
LORENZO
Somebody was singing.
I awoke in a strange hotel room. There were bandages on my head, arms, and the back of my legs. My lungs ached and I could still feel the smoke in my sinuses. An IV bag was hanging from the wall light above me. I tracked the tube down and it disappeared under the gauze on my forearm. I hurt everywhere and my eyes grated in my sockets as I scanned the room. Reaper was asleep on the other bed, his arm wrapped in white and strapped across his torso. The kid was snoring.
I could hear the shower running. The singing was Jill. She was off-key and loud, but she sounded happy. It was a good sound.
The scarab. There was a momentary flash of panic. It was gone. I’d sacrificed so much to get it, . . . The last I’d seen, it had been in the basement of a building collapsing in flames. Then I relaxed. It didn’t matter now. Eddie was dead. I was free. I’d never even known what it was, except that it cost too many of my friend’s lives. Hopefully the fire had destroyed it, and if it hadn’t, then it could stay buried in the desert forever.
I had never even known who it was for. Whoever the important man was that Eddie had been getting the scarab for more than likely didn’t know anything about me . . . Probably.
The hotel door clicked as somebody used a card key to open it. Instinctively I looked around for my gun. It was nowhere to be seen. I relaxed as I realized it was Valentine. He entered the room with a fast-food bag in one hand and one of those cardboard drink trays full of sodas in the other. “Yo.”
“Hey,” I responded. “Where are we?”
“Vegas. Wanna hit up a strip club?”
“Only if we can’t get Siegfried and Roy tickets.”
“What? Siegfried and . . . No, man, one of ‘em got eaten by the tiger. Long time ago.”
“No kidding? Leave the country for a while and everything goes nuts.”
“Tell me about it. Everybody is okay. Hawk’s back at his place keeping a low profile. We figured that Quagmire might be a little hot, so we came here. There’s no place to disappear like Vegas. Since they grabbed Jill they never saw Hawk with either of us, so he should be in the clear as long as I don’t contact him.” Valentine set the food on the table and pulled up a chair. “Your little buddy’s been busy, going hog-wild over that computer he found. He passed out about an hour ago. He takes his Internet very seriously, doesn’t he?”
“That’s a bit of an understatement. How’s Jill?”
Valentine nodded in the direction of the bathroom. “She’ll be fine.”
I had to smile. “I think she’ll be okay. So what’s our situation?”
“Jill insisted that I bring you here, and she’s hard to say no to. Your brother’s a decent medic, and he got you patched up before he had to go. Apparently some terrorist shot down an airplane in Quagmire with a surface-to-air missile. The terror alert is at red level right now.”
“What’s the world coming to?”
He looked exhausted. “Jill filled me in on Big Eddie. So your boy is dead. That’s two Montalbans I’ve either killed or helped kill. How weird is that?”
“What are you going to do now?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“I don’t know,” he stated flatly.
He might not know, but I knew where his road would lead. I had seen this kind of attitude before, depressed, violent, hovering on the fine line between homicidal and suicidal. Valentine had a weight on his shoulders, and I didn’t know if removing it would free him or destroy him.
It wasn’t in my nature to offer, but I did anyway. I’d been surprising myself a lot lately. “You want help?”
“What? No.”
I nodded. “I understand.”
“You won’t see me again,” he said, “but there is one thing. Listen to me. Your two friends here, Jill and Skyler? You get them out of this life. Look at me. Whatever it is you see? That’s their future unless you stop now. You know as well as I do that once you get in, you don’t get out.”
I glanced over at the bathroom door, then back at Valentine. I cringed at the thought of Jill becoming . . . like him.
“I gotta go. Your gun is in the drawer. I got you guys some food. I hope you like burgers.”
“Only communists and hippies don’t like burgers. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“No, I meant . . .” I shrugged. I couldn’t have done it without his help. “You know.”
He gave me a small nod in acknowledgment. “Just remember what I said.”
We were no longer enemies, but we certainly weren’t friends. “You want to stick around and say good-bye to Jill?”
“I need to go. Besides, all she does it talk about you. I’m kind of sick of it. I honestly don’t know what she sees in you.”
�
��Well, I did take a guy’s head off with piano wire for her.”
Valentine shrugged. “Girls like romantic gestures like that. Look, I gotta split. Take it easy.”
“Watch your back,” I told him.
“Watch the news.” He didn’t look back.
Epilogue:
Requiem
VALENTINE
Arlington, Virginia
July 4
2245
Sweat beaded on my face as I cleared the top of a tall fence and quietly landed in the grass. I crouched down for a moment, shrouded in darkness, and studied my surroundings. Directly in front of me was a full-sized swimming pool. Beyond that was a palatial home, situated in the more expensive half of a gated community of “rich-bitch” estates. The air smelled like gunpowder from the fireworks being set off in the streets.
I was dressed in dark clothes and had black grease paint smeared onto my face. My S&W .44 Magnum revolver was concealed under my shirt. I double-checked my coordinates on the GPS one last time; I had to make sure I had the right house. Satisfied, I stood up and moved silently across the darkened backyard toward the house. Gordon Willis didn’t know it, but he had company tonight.
The back patio door was glass. I risked a peek insid and saw no movement. The house was mostly darkened but had enough lights left on that navigation wouldn’t be difficult. I’d have to be quick. There was probably some kind of an alarm system; as soon as I busted through the door, I’d have only moments to do what I’d come to do.
Taking one last look around, I reached for the door and tried the handle. It was unlocked. Grinning to myself, I silently entered Gordon’s house, shocked that a man like him would be so lackadaisical in his home security. I drew my revolver as the door closed behind me. The tritium front sight glowed green in the dim light.
The house was lavishly furnished with tacky postmodern décor. Half the stuff in the large downstairs recroom looked like it came from Ikea. An expensive-looking pool table sat in the middle of the room. I searched the downstairs area in silence. The lower level was deserted, but I could hear sounds of movement coming from somewhere in the house. My grip on my weapon tightened slightly as I made my way up the stairs to the second floor.
Dead Six-ARC Page 58