Judd toppled over, dead. His eyes stared at the dirt.
Still Tim would not release the knife. He couldn’t. It was as if he had plugged into some electrical socket and nothing but pure energy was surging through his body. Even Judd’s warm blood oozing over his fingers was like an invigorating salve. It was like the old beliefs Big Bill used to tell him about how killing an enemy gave you his strength. That’s what Tim felt, like he had more strength and power than his body could contain.
Finally, Tim let go of the knife and stood up.
The men around the fire looked at him as blandly as if he’d just stepped on an ant. One of them took a swig from his canteen and said, “Your mess, kid. You clean it up.”
Tim smiled. Despite their hardened gazes, he could tell they respected him and even, a little, feared him. Now he belonged. After all these months, he belonged. He knew now what they felt on those raids, the sense of power, almost invulnerability. What would his father say? Tim wondered. Surely he must have felt it too, in Vietnam. Yet Tim knew his father would disapprove of these feelings, would try to stop them. And right now Tim didn’t want them to stop. Ever.
He looked over at Fallows’ tent, saw the flap move slightly. Had Fallows been watching? He must have, Tim realized. That made him feel good. Proud.
“Hey,” Bechler yelled, struggling to stand on his wounded leg. “Anybody gonna give me a hand?”
No one moved. Tim looked at the others, at Bechler. He smiled and walked back to his tent.
* * *
14
Eric nudged Bolinski’s dead body with his foot. “More food for the zoo animals.” He turned to Washington. “What about you? Want to be on tomorrow’s menu?”
Washington shook his head. “No way, man.”
“Good, then let’s get going.”
“Sure, man. Whatever you say. Where to?”
Eric looked disappointed as he reloaded his crossbow. “Fallows said you guys were stupid, but he didn’t say this stupid.”
Washington didn’t respond. Eric aimed the crossbow at him. Washington raised his hands and back-pedaled a couple of steps.
Eric stooped over Bolinski’s body and pulled the bolt out. He wiped the blood on Bolinski’s blue shirt and shoved it back into the quiver at his waist. “Bolinski was your commander, therefore he’s responsible for this screw-up. Fallows instructed me to make sure he was punished.” Eric grinned.
“He had no right!” Washington shouted angrily. Then, aware that he may have said too much, he laughed. “Bolinski may have been a fool, but he was an okay dude, man.”
Eric spoke in Russian. “Now he is a dead dude.”
“What is that? Pig Latin?”
Eric lifted the crossbow to his shoulder and aimed down the runner, lining up the bolt’s point with Washington’s chest. Again he spoke in Russian. “Fallows said if I thought you were going to screw up this operation any more, I should fix you too. Well?”
Washington stared for a minute, his eyes studying Eric, calculating. Finally he let out a deep weary sigh. He nodded at Eric, answering in Russian. “Let’s go.”
“You first,” Eric said.
They hiked through the zoo, Eric watchful for any stray animals. He let Washington lead the way since he had no idea where they were going. Except back to Fallows.
So far it was working. Killing Bolinski had convinced Washington that Eric was indeed sent by Fallows, though Eric still didn’t know what the connection was between the two Soviets and Fallows. Nor did he know why two Russians were dressed in U.S. navy uniforms, or why they were posing as Americans.
“Your American is impressive,” Eric said.
“Better than your Russian.”
“Six-week crash course in the service. Tourist stuff mostly.”
Washington smiled. “Lingo, baby. Jive. That’s what I speak.”
“You learn it in spy school?”
“Spy school?” he laughed. “Shit, I learned it at UCLA. I’m South African. Zulu, to be exact. I was a teenager fighting the Afrikaners’ apartheid in my country with small acts of terrorism. Well, more like vandalism. Slashing tires and such of white businessmen. My father disapproved, naturally, being a member of the Colored Persons Representative Council. Anyway, my underground activities were noticed and I was given money to help organize other youths.”
“KGB,” Eric said.
“Yes, though I didn’t know that at the time. Not that it would have mattered. They were doing something to help our cause.”
Eric didn’t want to ask too many questions, questions that someone sent by Fallows would know the answers to. Like what he was doing here. He’d have to stick to the personal chatter, pick up what he could.
They came to the outer wall. Washington pointed to the barbed wire across the top. “We’d cut through that coming in. She must’ve replaced it.”
“I’ll boost you up,” Eric said. “Throw your shirt over the wire.”
“Why me, man?”
Eric held up the crossbow. “Because I’ve got this.”
Washington nodded. “Right.”
Eric leaned the crossbow against the wall, laced his fingers together into a stirrup, and lifted Washington up onto the wall. Eric dusted off his hands and looked up. Washington was perched ten feet above him.
“Okay,” Eric said, slinging his crossbow over his shoulder. “Give me your hand.” He reached up.
Washington smiled. “Blow it out your ass, honky.” And suddenly he leaped over the barbed wire and jumped down on the other side of the wall.
“Damn!” Eric said. He had thought killing Bolinski had put a big enough scare into Washington. Not so.
Eric ran back twenty feet from the wall, tightened the bow to his back, and ran full-speed for the wall. Three feet from the wall he jumped up, arching his back and extending his hands. Ten feet. The height of a basketball rim. All those days playing one-on-one with Big Bill, dribbling around him for his patented reverse lay-up. Jumping for the rim between games while Big Bill rested and sipped beers. His fingertips could feel the rust flakes where he barely grazed the bottom of the rim.
Eric’s fingers caught the top of the wall, hooked over the edge by the first joints of the knuckles. His feet scrambled for purchase on the wall while his fingers pulled him up by inches. Then in one great effort, he was on top.
Washington was running through the dark, dodging left and right as he made for the deserted highway. Eric shouldered the crossbow, followed his zig-zagging for a few seconds, then squeezed the trigger. The bolt shooshed through the night and stabbed into the ground inches from Washington’s running feet.
“Next one’s in your leg,” Eric shouted.
Washington kept running.
“Unless I miss and hit your back.”
Washington stopped.
Eric stepped carefully over the barbed wire and jumped down from the wall. He reloaded his crossbow and jogged toward Washington.
“I had to try,” Washington shrugged when Eric arrived.
“Why? Fallows and your people are on the same side, right?”
“An uneasy alliance.” Washington pulled the arrow out of the ground and handed it to Eric. “But you are only guessing, aren’t you, Mr. Ravensmith?”
Eric showed no response.
Washington continued. “I know who you are. Bolinski and I suspected. We have heard a great deal about you since arriving here. The Warlord, isn’t it?” When Eric didn’t answer, Washington continued. “The locals have stories, exaggerations no doubt, but after seeing you at work, perhaps not.”
“Why did you come with me?”
“Why not? I figured it was better to try to escape from you than be locked indefinitely in that cage. You were right about one thing, eventually Fallows or my people would have sent somebody. Bolinski and I were idiots to enter that place, selfishly looking for fresh meat. We had been scouting and Bolinski convinced me it would be nothing more than poaching a bird or two.” Washington sighed. “So now
you will kill me unless I tell you what Russians are doing in your precious California.”
“No,” Eric said.
Washington raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“But I will kill you if you don’t take me to Fallows’ camp.”
“Then it is true. About your son. That boy is yours.”
“You’ve seen Tim?”
Washington nodded. “With Fallows. He seems quiet, withdrawn.”
Eric felt an aching in his chest. It must be what a man dying of thirst feels when he can smell the fresh water over the next dune. Eric gestured for Washington to lead the way and the tall black man started walking. Eric didn’t think about the Russians or what they were doing here. He thought only of Tim. And Fallows. The rest was none of his business.
Now that Washington knew for sure who Eric was, he seemed even more talkative, almost friendly. “After a couple years of pranks, I became frustrated. The KGB financed my schooling here at UCLA, hoping I would come back and eventually be able to join the government. But things move slowly in South Africa. Meantime, they recruited me for this special assignment. They needed people who could convince the locals we were Americans. Bolinski, now he learned his American in spy school. I thought he overdid the bad grammar myself, but — ”
Three muffled pops sounded, like balloons breaking. Eric dove to the ground. When he looked up he saw Washington leaning against a tree, three large holes in his chest. Slowly he slid down the trunk until a broken branch hooked on one of the holes in his back and held him suspended there.
“Next shot takes your head, Eric,” a voice called. The voice came from above, from someone perched sniper-style in a tree. Considering the darkness, the gunman had to have a night-scope.
Eric tossed away his crossbow and stood up, hands on top of his head.
Three men came crashing through the brush, each carrying automatic weapons. They grabbed Eric roughly, one of them jerking Eric’s arms behind his back and slapping handcuffs on his wrists.
A minute later a lanky Vietnamese man carrying a rifle fixed with a night-scope sauntered in. He walked over to Washington’s body, poked the chest with the muzzle of his Weatherby Mark V rifle. Blood dabbed the metal tip. He nodded at one of the other men. “Strip the body and bring the clothing back with you.”
The man slung his M-16 over his shoulder, unhooked Washington’s body from the tree trunk, and began pulling off the clothes.
The Vietnamese man walked up to Eric, a sly grin on his face. “Hello, Eric.”
“Hello, Nhu.”
“Surprised to see me?”
Eric shook his head. “Wherever Fallows goes, his cronies are sure to follow.”
“He’s waiting for you, Eric.”
“Looks like the waiting is over. For both of us.”
* * *
Book Three:
WAR BUDDIES
Many sensible things banished from high life find an asylum among the mob.
Herman Melville
* * *
15
“Hey. Wait up, guys.” D.B. fastened the last button of her blouse as she ran after Wendy and Spock. They were marching toward the Primate Propogation Center. “What’s the hurry?” she said as she caught up to them. She gave Spock a quick tickle in the ribs and a pat on the head. Spock raised his hairy arms for more tickling.
Wendy kept walking. Spock ambled beside her, swinging forward on his knuckles.
D.B. noticed for the first time that Wendy was carrying a hacksaw and a hatchet. “What’s up?”
“Work.”
“Yeah, I heard of that stuff. Causes cancer.” D.B. smiled, but Wendy’s eyes stayed solemn and straight ahead. Okay, a little curt, D.B. thought, but hey, maybe she just wasn’t a morning person. Eric was pretty grouchy in the mornings too. Sometimes they didn’t speak at all until lunch. “I didn’t hear you come for Spock.”
“You were still asleep. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Thanks. That was the best sleep I’ve had in months. Something about having a friendly gorilla in the room made me feel safe.”
“Sometimes it’s better than having a man sleep over.”
D.B. gave her a look. “Yeah?”
Wendy shook her head. “I don’t mean sexually.”
“No, of course. I just, well, was, you know, curious . . .”
Wendy laughed.
D.B. watched Wendy as they walked and realized there was something different about her this morning. She wasn’t guarded like yesterday, but she was tense, angry. Maybe worried. D.B. grabbed Wendy’s arm and pulled her around. “Where’s Eric?”
“Gone.”
“Gone? Gone where? Hunting? To the bathroom?”
Wendy shrugged. “Gone.”
Spock thought the two women were playing so he hopped up to them and stuck his face between them. Wendy pushed him away. “Not now, Spock.”
D.B. sat down on the ground as if she’d just been struck hard in the stomach. She tried to breathe deeply through her mouth, but each breath burned her throat. Tears blinked down over her face. “He’s coming back, right?”
“I don’t know.”
“He went after Fallows. But how’d he know where to look?”
“He took one of the prisoners.”
Spock made a hand signal at Wendy. Wendy shook her head and signed back to him. “He wants to know if you have strawberry belly.”
“What’s that?”
“A couple years ago he got into a carton of strawberries I bought and ate them all. He was sick for two days. He thinks you have the same look he had.” Wendy put her arm around D.B.’s shoulder. “Eric will be back for you.”
“If he can.”
Wendy nodded. “Meantime, you’re welcome to stay here with me and my friends.”
“I should follow Eric, try to help him.”
“Suit yourself,” Wendy said. She started into the Primate Center, paused, looked back at D.B. “Only you don’t know where he is or how to reach him. What if he comes back for your help and you’re gone, nowhere to be found?”
D.B. glanced up into Wendy’s dark eyes. “You seriously think I’d fall for that bullshit?”
“Okay, part of it’s bullshit. But part is true. This is the one place he could come to if he needed help. Right?”
D.B. sighed. “Right.”
“Okay then.” Wendy tossed the hatchet to D.B. “Make yourself useful.”
D.B. used the hatchet as a cane to push herself to her feet. Her legs still felt a little wobbly. Without Eric she felt weak, deflated. Even the world around her seemed harsher, more threatening. More real. Despite Eric’s own self-doubts, she knew that he was an island of sanity and humanity in a world preciously short on both. He was one man doing the right things for the right reasons.
Slowly D.B. followed Wendy into the Primate Center. Inside she found Wendy leaning over the dead body of Bolinski. She was pulling his clothes off.
“I recognize that wound,” D.B. said. “Eric’s crossbow.”
“Yes. He killed this one and took the other as his guide. Help me with these shoes, would you?”
D.B. knelt down at Bolinski’s feet and unlaced his left boot while Wendy tugged at the right.
“You slept with him last night, didn’t you?” D.B. asked.
“With Bolinski?”
“Stop it.”
Wendy nodded. “Yes, Eric and I made love.”
“What was it like?”
“Surely you have had sex before.”
“I don’t mean sex. I had a lifetime of that one month.” She fingered her choke collar. “From the pigs who gave me this.” She pulled a sock off Bolinski’s foot. “No, I mean with Eric. What was he like?”
Wendy looked surprised. “You mean you two have never slept together?”
“We sleep together every night. Only that’s all we do. Sleep. He’s hung up about my age.”
Wendy didn’t bother with undoing the buttons on Bolinski’s shirt. She grabbed his lapels an
d tore, popping buttons all the way down the shirt front. One button landed in D.B.’s hair and Spock picked it out. Then ate it.
“That’s why I ask,” D.B. continued. “I know sex has got to be better than the experiences I’ve had.”
Wendy stopped fussing with Bolinski’s clothing a moment and looked over at D.B. She sat down next to Bolinski’s arm and pulled her legs up to her chest. “My first time was in China. I lived in Nan-yang with my mother and her brother’s family. There was a boy my age, sixteen. He repaired bicycles in his father’s shop. Once he took me to the shop at night when it was closed. Right there on the work table among the greasy tools, axle nuts, derailleurs, and broken spokes, we made love. Both for the first time. He was so nervous he trembled.”
“And you?”
“I thought we must be doing it wrong.”
D.B. laughed. “That’s what I thought my first time. Stevie Hodell in his parents’ cabana at the country club. They were rich.” D.B. raised an eyebrow. “What about Eric?”
“Don’t build it up, D.B.,” Wendy said. “It was only one man, one night. Sex is not competitive. At least it shouldn’t be.”
“More bullshit.”
“Okay. A little bullshit. It’s just that it’s hard to describe.”
“Not when it’s bad, it’s not.”
Wendy laughed. “You’re not going to let me off the hook, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, it was like this: with some guys, you get the feeling during sex that having an orgasm is the whole reason they are with you. With Eric, I felt that sex was just one of the things he wanted to do with me, no more or less important than talking or eating or gardening. As if my company was the most important thing, regardless of what we were doing. And that’s all the details you get.” Wendy placed the sharp teeth of the hacksaw on Bolinski’s arm, right below the shoulder. “Grab an arm and start cutting,” she said to D.B. “We have mouths to feed.”
* * *
Jason Frost - Warlord 05 - Terminal Island Page 11