by Declan Finn
“Major Rohaz?”
He inclined his head in a curt nod. “Lt. Anderson. So nice of you to come and visit us. May I presume that this is not a social call?”
Kevin nodded. “The more dangerous Exiles in the city come almost directly to your door, Major, and I’m looking for one of them.”
“Anything for a friend of Kyle Elsen. Please, sit.” Once they were settled in their chairs, Antonio continued. “I had hoped you were here for employment, but that hope is almost certainly in vain. As you said, Exiles come directly to my door, and you’ve waited months. Tell me, Lt. Anderson, are you enjoying your little anthropological study of our little Cannibal colony?”
Kevin didn’t even blink as his mind raced, and then his heart slowed itself an instant later. Rohaz had quoted one of the spy’s phrases from a recent report, which meant that the Mercenaries had the ability to intercept his transmissions to the East Coast—and were doing so—which shouldn’t have surprised him. He broadcast them on an open channel specifically to make certain that someone would listen in—he had only hoped it was someone on the other side of the Wastelands.
And preferably not by the people who were hunting me this time last year. He answered after a moment, his tone carefully neutral. “I haven’t been eaten yet, so I’m happy, Major.”
The head of the Mercenaries’ Guild smiled and nodded at Kevin’s reaction. “By the way, I must thank you for your reports, Lieutenant. They have been most enlightening. They are the reason why I haven’t charged you to see me—most people in this city, local or otherwise, do not come through my door unless they pay at least mid-five figures. That… and also for your part in the Omega incident—only five people around here even know that you were involved in that ordeal. Consider this my way of repaying you for saving the city.”
“I appreciate it, although I have to say I’m surprised. I would have suspected that someone in your line of work wouldn’t have cared.”
Rohaz grinned. “Lt. Anderson, I founded the Mercenaries Guild because I thought private industry would protect the country better than the government could.”
Kevin blinked. The line sounded familiar, almost like a quote. “You know, what really surprised me wasn’t the lack of a cover price at the door, it was that you folks let me in here at all without a shoot-to-kill order. Not only did we have that little, um, issue, back in the real world, but I also had some unpleasant encounters while I’ve been here.”
“Lt. Anderson,” Rohaz said with a smile, “you and I had a deal. I kept all the people I cared about out of your way, and you killed only ones I didn’t care about.”
Kevin’s jaw dropped as he stared at Rohaz a moment. The CEO of the Mercenaries had looked much different when he had been wearing a helmet with the black HUD display over his face, and when Kevin wasn’t looking at him over the barrel of his gun. “That was you on the yacht?”
Rohaz laughed. “Exactly. That is why I am deeply hoping that you are not on a mission for Mr. Elsen.”
He almost laughed himself. “No, Kyle kills people himself, and only when he’s paid to. You have no enemies who can afford to pay what he would charge to kill you, Major.”
“Actually, Lieutenant, I do. They just don’t want to dispose of me lest they should need my services, one day.” Rohaz reached for a cigarette case and withdrew one, lighting it. “I am only thankful that Mr. Elsen does not hold a grudge.” He inhaled. “So, are you looking for any member of the Exiled in particular?”
“Well, who’s the most deadly you have?”
He smiled broadly, and Kevin wondered how his face didn’t crack. “That would actually be me, Lieutenant.”
Kevin was quick to answer with his question. “Then where were you last night?”
“I was out with the rest of my Guild—on exercises in the Muir Woods.”
Kevin raised a brow. “Didn’t the Forsaken have something say about that?”
“It’s a big forest, Lieutenant, enough to hide a million Forsaken and several thousand of us. Unlike the Assassins, we need to keep up with group maneuvers. That is—” Rohaz paused. “That was the main reason why they fell—they did not fight together, so each died alone.”
Kevin said nothing, only nodded. Rohaz smirked. “Do you know why the Assassins’ Guild was leveled, Lieutenant?”
“I assumed because you were paid to do it.”
“After a fashion.” Rohaz inhaled his cigarette a little. “We were given a choice: either wipe out the Assassins, or join them in death. And, of course, we were the first ones sent in to the Hall that day, the first to die… the better to keep us ‘in line’ later on in the future.”
“It sounds like you didn’t get anything out of the deal.”
“Except our lives,” Rohaz answered, clearly disgusted.
“You don’t sound too happy about it.”
The CEO of the Mercs leaned back in his chair. “I wasn’t then, and I’m still not. However, I didn’t have a say in it, Lieutenant. As I explained to you once before, we’re a rather fast and loose organization, with no strict chain of command after myself and the board of directors… The board thought that it was better to live on our knees than die on our feet, which I suppose is true. Not to mention the added incentive.”
Kevin tried to place Major Rohaz, to figure out where they met before. But he could have asked one of two things, and decided on “What incentive?”
Rohaz blinked; he was unaware that he had even said anything. He considered not answering for a moment, but finally relented. “We had our people retrained by an Assassin, a traitor then on the payroll of the Corporations. I suspect your friend Mr. Elsen would like to get his hands on him; his name is Derek Ruedés. When Kyle sends him to Hell, please ask him to send my regards.”
He frowned in thought. “I don’t think I’ve even heard Kyle this annoyed at the fall of the Guild.”
Rohaz chuckled wryly. “From what I hear of Kyle Elsen, he still doesn’t talk much in the first place. But, to answer your implied question, I wasn’t happy about it. I’m a capitalist, Lieutenant. I believe in competition. I even had occasion to share a few drinks with Assassins. I didn’t like being forced to kill them.” He shrugged. “But that is the past, and I believe I answered your question about the present. Every last member of the Mercenaries were on maneuvers last night, Exiles and all. Anyone who didn’t report in would be severely disciplined, and perhaps even terminated—and unlike the Assassins, I don’t leave dangerous Mercs lying around after they leave our employ.” He leaned forward and said, “So, why do you ask?”
Kevin considered not answering him a moment, but if what Rohaz said was true, that Derek Ruedés had trained the Mercenaries in the ways of the Assassins, keeping this a secret from Rohaz was a waste of time. “Someone was murdered in Chinatown last night, about a block from my apartment. Whoever did it was highly skilled, and probably enjoyed doing it. I figured it was an Assassin, an Exile, or someone trained by either one or the other. If you’re telling the truth, then the Mercs are out of the situation altogether.”
Rohaz paused. “Under normal circumstances, I would tell you to look at my guys. As I said, we’re not as straight-laced as the Assassins were, and as such we tend to let in some rather nasty sumbitches. The United States of America used to have the most serial killers of any nation on Earth, but I suspect that’s because the USA never employed them in their military. Some SAS boys in my outfit might have done something like this. They really enjoy inflicting pain…” He paused again. “But no, I’m sorry. I can’t help you with this. Have you talked with Nevaeh about this yet?”
Kevin blinked. Normally, he wouldn’t show confusion, but he figured it couldn’t hurt. “Who?”
“Nevaeh Kraft. She’s a local, but she deals primarily in placement for Exiles within the city—assuming she can get to them fast enough. You’ve never met her?”
Kevin shook his head. “Can’t say that I had the pleasure, but I was placed rather quickly upon arrival here.”
Rohaz allowed a corner of his mouth to turn up in what, one day, might have grown up to be a smile. He reached forward, grabbed a card out of his Rolodex, and handed it to Kevin. “Her card. You’re lucky, Lieutenant. She’s just down the street.”
Kevin nodded. “Thank you. I guess I should take my leave. You must be a busy man.”
Rohaz held out a hand to stop him. “You don’t need to rush. If you want to ask one more question, I could oblige. If you were curious about the mercenary who hunted you last year? Mandy?”
The Exile opened his mouth, but paused. Mandy. That was a name he had tried very hard not to think about in months. The mercenary had tried very hard to kill him, and probably would have, had he been even a little slower. Halfway through his mission, she had switched sides, and she wanted more from him than he could give. At the end of the day, that was a good thing – Kevin had been shipped off to this pleasant little pocket corner of Hell, and couldn’t imagine dragging Mandy along with him.
“Why? What’s she been up to lately?”
***
Islamic Republic of France
When several large men are busy being beaten to death, they usually don’t note that their attacker is 5’5”.
Afrim charged the woman linebacker-style. She sidestepped and cracked him in the back of the neck with the pommel of her tactical baton, cracking vertebra. Before he even hit the floor, his face hit her knee.
She turned to the rest of them, and glared. “Listen to me well, and listen to me good – all I want is your current merchandise, and I won’t kill every—last—one of you. That’s not unreasonable, is it?”
Kreshnik charged, only with a fire axe raised over his shoulder, with Fitore coming in with a crowbar. She burst in with her baton and flicked the baton at Kreshnik’s knees, then dove, rolled, and cut Fitore’s legs out from under him. She came to her feet and turned around to face them. Fitore got up, but Kreshnik was busy screaming from a shattered kneecap.
“Look,” she said simply, “I’m tired, cranky, and seriously under-fucked. I haven’t been on a successful date in months, and the last man who touched me is in freaking Siberia.”
Fitore grabbed Kreshnik’s fire axe and dual-wielded it with the crowbar, and charged. She burst forward and rammed her left shoulder into the inside of the forearm with the crowbar, and it went flying. The baton came up and slammed against the other wrist, shattering it. Her knee came up into his balls. He fell over and she pivoted out of the way.
“I mean, it’s not like I’m unattractive, am I?” she asked as she kicked Fitore in the ribs. “Men hit on me all the time.” Kick. “But you’d think at least one of them—” kick “—would be a nice guy, don’t you think?” Kick. “The law of averages dictates it.”
The door burst in, and she whirled, smacking the first one through the door across the face with a resounding crack, opening up his face from the temple to the jaw. She kicked him in the stomach just to get him out of the way, then spun ramming the point of the baton into the next one. Jeton fell over as his breath escaped him. She raised the baton. “I don’t think—” crack “—I’m being—” crack “—un—” crack “—fucking—” crack “—reasonable about this. Do you?”
She flipped open the tactical visor of her helmet, and looked around with her crystal blue eyes, which stood out in contrast with her pale skin. She growled, flipped down her HUD visor and moved to the open door. She ducked her head back before the seven men could start shooting. She took a few steps back as the door and the wall exploded in a barrage of bullets.
Since Albanians tend to shoot on full automatic…She drew both of her guns and waited a moment for the magazines to empty, then wheeled around what was left of the door frame, both guns raised. She didn’t stop as she came around, sighting from right to left. The HUD in her visor was lined up with her guns, and the icon flashed when she should shoot. Each gun fired only four times. They were not perfect head shots, or one-shot, one-kill; two bullets went into the eyes of one of them, and three bullets were throat shots. This was one part a matter of technology, and another part was the result of thousands of practiced head shots over the previous months—so many that she had had to have carpal tunnel fixed in both wrists, twice.
Her guns were raised as she closed with them, and delivered a coup de grace on the three who were shot in the throat.
She looked around once, looking at the crates. She wondered briefly what they needed so many crates for, until the door to the next room over was kicked in. She went into a dive behind the crates on her left as the bullets came in from the right, and hoped the crates were packed with something solid.
She considered her next move as her earpiece beeped. “Cortez to Mandy,” came the whip-sharp voice of Major Antonio Rohaz. “Are you busy?”
“This is Mandy,” she said in her soprano voice, “can I help you?”
“I have someone who wants to talk with you.”
Amanda Esmerelda Rohaz rolled her eyes. “Dad, I’m in the middle of something. Couldn’t you take a message?”
“The last time you left me a message,” said a different voice, “you shot me in the chest. Twice. The second time.”
Mandy’s world stopped, despite the crates being blasted to pieces around her. She didn’t even notice flying splinters pass her face, or the clash of lead bullets meeting gold bars behind her.
“Kevin?”
“Bad time?” he asked wryly.
“N-no.” Mandy blinked twice and cleared her throat. “No, I’m fine. It’s fine. A fine time.” She ejected both magazines, and fired off two blind shots over her shoulders—it was faster than working the action to clear the chamber. “You’re with my da—darned CEO. Are you killing off his men again?”
“You could just say that he’s your father, you know,” Kevin told her. “When you held my acquaintance Kyle at gunpoint last year, he knew who you were. You should have seen the look on my face when he asked me why the daughter of the mercenary CEO had held him at gunpoint. I think Kyle even smiled. Which, let me tell you, isn’t a pretty sight.”
Mandy reloaded her guns with fresh magazines, a different load of bullets. “I know. I’ve been there, done that. I may still have the scars.” She worked the action to load each chamber with the new cartridges. “You know I was in San Francisco?”
“Yeah. And Father Jack told me about your assistance in getting them into the city.”
Mandy blinked. The last time I trust a priest to not mention operational details. “That was nice of him.”
“Next time you want a priest to keep something quiet, start with ‘bless me father for I have sinned.’”
Mandy growled. “But we didn’t. Trust me, it would have been far more interesting if we had.” She checked the HUD on her visor, and pinpointed the exact position for the shooters on her motion tracker. She aimed over her shoulder, heard the locked-on tone in her other ear, and fired. The chlorine-isotope high explosive round exploded in a 6-foot diameter ball of white-hot fire, completely disintegrating one gunman, burned a second one right down the center, and took the arm and the gun of a third.
”I’m sure you could find something,” Kevin said in that sardonic tone of his. It gave her a warm feeling all over. She could even see the half-smile that came with it.
“Me? A sinner?” Mandy said playfully. “I’m too busy to commit any interesting sins,” she said as she locked on and fired another bullet.
“Good to hear you’re keeping yourself occupied. Just don’t work yourself too hard.”
“Heh. Of course not.” Mandy popped up and fired three more rounds, and dropped down before she could be blinded by the balls of fire. “I make certain to take off every once in a while.”
“Sounds nice. You were right, I should have been in the private sector,” Kevin said. “So, you’re on vacation at the moment? Taking one of those well-deserved breaks?”
“Oh, I’m not doing much.” Mandy thought for a moment. The last burst she fired was t
he last one she heard. She looked for a moment on her motion sensors, and saw nothing. She turned her head, and looked in infrared. No one moved. Unfortunately, everything was kinda glowing. She scanned on multiple other wavelengths, but there was nothing. “It’s been rather quiet lately.”
“Really? Major Rohaz has been telling me about all sorts of missions you’ve been on lately. It sounded so exciting, and enough for a book for every week of your life. I couldn’t even imagine where you could find the time.”
Damn it, dad, can’t you ever keep your mouth shut? Mandy thought. She stood and looked around. Everyone was dead. “Oh, you know me. I’m in and I’m out in a few hours. Then it’s beers and dancing all around.”
“Uh huh,” Kevin replied, obviously doubting. “Well, if you ever want to have a long weekend sometime, I’m sure I can get you some good drinks here. And I can make sure they’re chemically inoffensive. If they’re not, I’ll kill the bartender myself.”
Mandy laughed. “I’m sure.” She took a few more steps, and listened for approaching footsteps. It seemed like she had killed everybody in the building with a gun. “You don’t want to ask why I didn’t…say hello? I was right there.”
Kevin didn’t say anything for a moment. “Nah. It was a good call.”
Mandy let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, and started to stride forward. “Thank you. And thank you for not saying anything in front of my father.”
“Not a problem. I fully understand.”
“As far as coming by … If you think it wouldn’t be a problem?”
“Nah. Not at all. I’ll be happy to clear my calendar sometime when I’m not tracking some kind of serial killer wannabe.”
Mandy blinked, thought of asking, but thought better of it. She swapped out her ammunition loads again and moved through the next door.
She had found the makeshift pens.
“Listen, could I call you back?” Mandy said. “Something just came up.”
“Understood. See you around.”
There was a distinct click, and the other side signed off. She took off her helmet, letting her raven black hair fall to her shoulder blades. She thought that might be a little bit more reassuring to all of the women in cages.