Baker's Dozen

by Amey Zeigler

  The road ahead was dimly lit by the faint headlights. Too tired to think about how dangerous this was, Andy was almost asleep when she awoke to sirens and flashing lights shattering the darkness.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As the police boarded the bus, Christiaan listened attentively.

  “Buscamos dos americanos,” the policía told the bus driver.

  With a dry throat, Christiaan waited, his gaze downcast like the other passengers on the bus. They were searching for them.

  Christiaan weighed his options. If they could get away, and that was a pretty strong if, they were still miles from the border. Darkness could provide them some cover, but there was little vegetation and even fewer hills and places to hide. Just flat land of century plants and sage brush. He glanced out the window. The moon shined too bright. They wouldn’t get far.

  They would stay.

  For now.

  Without the wind blowing from the windows, the stationary bus grew hot. Christiaan smelled the sweat of his fellow passengers. He understood what it was like to live in a place where the government was corrupt, where people lived in fear. Bits and pieces of their conversation hung in the air.

  The uniformed policía made their way along the seats. Andy stiffened beside him. He placed a hand on hers. Sweat streaked her makeup. But in the dim light, he prayed it would go unnoticed.

  The policía brandished a flashlight, waving it on the passengers, between seats a few rows ahead of them. Andy held her bag on her lap. Imitation designer totes were pretty common in Mexico, but it was still ostentatious.

  The policía neared them and stopped to examine them. Christiaan kept his head down.

  “¿A donde vas, señor?”

  Christiaan’s heart beat, but he kept his gaze downward.

  “Chihuahua,” he said. His accent wasn’t perfect.

  The officer bent down, examining Christiaan. Christiaan closed his eyes and stilled his breath, but he breathed out in nervous tremors. In a violent motion, the policía tore off Christiaan’s mustache.

  Christiaan tensed. “Yeah, that hurt,” he groaned under his breath, knocking the policía’s flashlight out of his hand with a chop. Holding it like a bludgeon, Christiaan smacked him in the face with it, knocking him back into a row of passengers.

  “Now we have to go,” Christiaan said to Andy. An officer thrust forward with a Kimber.

  Andy stood on the seat. Using the luggage rack above their heads for an anchor, she kicked the gun from his hand, then slammed her foot into his face.

  “Get the gun,” she shouted.

  Grabbing his wrist, Christiaan twisted the policía around, forcing his face into a vacant seat, stomping on his shoulder. Christiaan picked up the gun, tossing it out the window before bolting for the entrance.

  Andy ran with him. “Why don’t you ever keep guns?” she yelled as she knocked out two more officers, disarming them before running toward the hills.

  Perhaps it was time to tell her why.

  Andy and Christiaan kicked up sand as they ran from the bus, hoping the cover of darkness would shield them from gunshot. Shots cracked in the night, a sound more terrifying than fireworks.

  Andy ran, her red bag heavy on her shoulder, worried the burn of a well-aimed gunshot would pierce her. Men shouted in Spanish. Lungs burning, she dodged to the right hiding amid some spiky yuccas to catch her breath.

  The men rushed forward, closing in the gap between them.

  “Let’s go,” Christiaan shouted, sprinting away. Andy followed.

  The landscape tilted upward, then down again. Sand filled her shoes, making them heavy and gritty. Rocks under her soles bruised her feet and stubbed her toes. Her heartbeat sounded in her ears. Blackness swallowed her vision, no sound but their feet beating dry sand and cactus.

  Andy’s lungs squeezed as she ran up another small rise in the ground, turning to the view below.

  “They’re leaving,” she said, a bit of triumph in her voice.

  “They’re searching for us.”

  Jeeps left the road, driving in wide circles. Gun showered random shadows with bullets. The bus, with its twin dim lights, like a tired, hunched old man, waiting for something to either happen or for it to collapse. Finally, it kicked into gear and started up the road again. Leaving Christiaan and Andy.

  Christiaan grabbed her hand, heading away from the road, but south, not north, pausing behind a cliff to catch their breath.

  “We can rest here,” Christiaan said as the sounds of gunfire cracked farther and farther away.

  “Where’s your backpack?”

  Christiaan swore, his eyes hard. “We have no supplies. We’re dead.”

  Andy frowned. “We need a plan.”

  “We’re dead, Andy. Without my bag of water and supplies…” He swore again. “Why didn’t I pick it up?”

  “We need a plan.”

  “If only we’d gotten closer, or had water.” Christiaan rubbed his hand over his stubbled chin.

  Andy wanted to slap him. “Okay, our previous plan is scratched. So now what?”

  Christiaan volunteered for first watch, on alert for the policía. He spent most of the night mentally kicking himself for forgetting the water. Failed to save Andy. Failed the mission. Failed.

  Again.

  Sleep must have overcome him sometime because the next thing he knew, the sun pierced his lids.

  “What are you doing?” Christiaan blinked sand out of his eyes and peeled back a metallic space blanket Andy must have placed on him. “What’s the story of this emergency rain poncho?”

  Squatting, Andy had stretched plastic across a hole in the ground and held in place by a few rocks, a rock sagged toward the middle, like a giant plastic flower. “My father gave it to me years ago saying, as serious as ever, ‘Keep this on you. It could save your life someday.’ I just always thought I’d use it for rain. Not for harvesting dew.

  “I plopped it in my bag, rolling my eyes. I used to tease him about being so paranoid.” Andy paused, her hands hovered over her knees, tears stinging her eyes. “I’d do anything to have him here.”

  “Is that how you know so much about survival?”

  Andy nodded. “He made me learn. Why do you think I carry this bag everywhere?” Andy leaned back, patting the dusty, water-damaged red bag sitting in the sand. “He was the real Andrew Baker. No one knew, not even my mother. It was a secret only he and a few of his trusted friends shared.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “He disappeared. He was working on something. Not in St. Louis.”

  “You were close.”

  “Yes. He had a passion for justice.”

  “A passion you inherited.”

  “I don’t know.” Andy stared into the white sand around her. “What am I going to do once I get back to the States? You’re right. If Tyrone knows who I am, I won’t be safe. What can I do?”

  “What would you like to do?”

  Andy shook her head, shrugging off the question. “First, we need to get to civilization. We can follow the road to the border.”

  “No,” he said. “The police will be patrolling the road. But we can use it as sort of a guide.”

  “And we travel by night. It’s too hot to travel during the day without adequate water.”

  ****

  Andy propped up an umbrella as the sun rose, the shade diminishing as it rose to its zenith. She curled under the shade of the umbrella. Christiaan’s expression was tense.

  “You still upset about the water?” she asked.

  Christiaan grunted.

  Andy patted the sandy ground next to her, inviting him to join her. She smiled holding firm to the umbrella staff against the hair-dryer wind. “And I thought I’d use this for rain, too.”

  Relaxing, Christiaan cozied up next to her under the umbrella, their feet still in the sun. “In Asia, they use them for rain and for sun.”

  “Have you been to Asia?” There was so much she really didn’t know about Chri
stiaan.

  “I’ve been all over.”

  A silence prevailed. A brooding expression clouded his face, his mind elsewhere.

  “Okay,” Andy said, squatting. “Just to pass the time until sunset, how about we play a game? I ask you yes or no questions and you answer them. Fair?”

  “Interesting. Do I get to ask you questions in return?”

  “Sure, but I don’t have anything to hide.” She arched an eyebrow glancing sideways. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll take turns. First question: Have you ever killed anyone?”

  “Out of all the questions, you ask that one?” He played with twigs in the sand.

  “So, have you?” she prodded.

  Christiaan quietly answered. “Yes.”

  “Lots of people?”

  “Yes.” He sat still for a while only breathing, his eyes solemn as if reverencing the memory.

  “How many?”

  “Not a yes or no question.”

  “Fine.”

  “My turn. Why did you choose that question as the first question?”

  “Not a yes or no question but I’ll answer it: I’ve never been friends with a murderer before.”

  “I didn’t say I murdered them. Killing is different than murdering.”

  “You killed in self-defense only.” A yes or no question formed as a statement. She hoped for the affirmative.

  “No.”

  Andy’s face fell. She chewed her lip. The silence growing more awkward.

  “Yes,” he said suddenly. Andy’s head cocked. “Yes, what?”

  “They were bad people,” he offered. “I was sure you were going to ask.”

  “Whose definition of bad?” she prodded, her eyes little slits.

  Another long pause. Christiaan stared off to the desert. “Not a yes or no question.”

  “We’ll move on.”

  “No, I think you deserve an answer.”

  Andy stopped fiddling, her expression serious and attentive.

  Christiaan couldn’t make eye contact with her as he was about to unfold his history, something few people knew. Information enemies could use to harm him. Her goodness made her trustworthy.

  Still, he hesitated. He couldn’t even form the words. How could he go back to his past?

  “You don’t have to,” Andy said, massaging his back, her touch full of tenderness.

  “It’s just hard getting started.” He inhaled deeply. “Remember how I told you about my friend Blaine?”

  Andy nodded, but he could tell she didn’t really remember.

  “Blaine and I, and a few others ran away from a boys’ home. Blaine wasn’t afraid of anything.”

  “Was? He’s dead?”

  Christiaan hesitated. “Yes. I think so. He went mad.” Then he continued. “Anyway, we got into trouble, in and out of prisons for stealing stuff, starting fights. Until one day, I was around fifteen. One of the guys suggested we sign up as mercs.”

  “Mercs?”

  “Mercenaries. Hired guns.”

  “Oh.” Andy’s eyes lost a hint of light. She dropped her hand from his neck.

  A sense of guilt burned in him. “There weren’t many opportunities for a kid who only knew how to fight.” Except the offer to start over from the professor he’d only met once, now a dead man who needed Christiaan to bring his murderer to justice. But he couldn’t tell her everything.

  “You’re a mercenary?”

  “No. Was a mercenary.” Those were dark days. So much bloodshed. He could smell gangrene and quinine sweating out from his body. There were some horrors he never wanted to relive. He swallowed, but his mouth was dry. “We worked paid jobs for a few years until we got abandoned in Asia on an op. Bleeding, nearly dead.” His fellow mercs left him for dead. Only Blaine remained. It was a wake-up call.

  “Blaine carried me out on his shoulders even with a broken arm, saved my life in the foothills of Doi Nang Non.” He paused seeing her confused expression. “Thailand.” Andy nodded. He continued. “We met a man. A simple Chinese man in a village in the foothills. He said his name was Master Tso. He returned us to the land of the living. After nursing us back to health, he asked if we wanted to use our talents for a higher purpose.” Christiaan remembered the graying Chinese man who had a fondness for saying with a twinkle in his eye, “Common name, not common Master.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “Yes, of course. Tso Zhu promised us a better way.” Christiaan hadn’t told many people about this part of his life. It was so different than what he was living now. “He led us to one of Seven Sanctuaries of the Destroying Angels.”

  Andy let out a low whistle. “What do you mean?”

  “Their mission was to defend the weak and honor the good. In this way, I could make up for my bloody mercenary past.”

  “By killing the bad people?”

  “More or less. God’s swift retribution on those who disobeyed him.”

  “Wait, you were acting on God’s orders?”

  “When you think of God, you think of Jesus or some kind of loving God. This was in the East. Their definition of God is different. It was more like gods or Goodness or Rightness. It’s hard to translate. Think of Yin and Yang. An opposite of everything. There is evil. We counter the evil. But you have to be above reproach to join. You make certain oaths.”

  “Would one of those be a vow of chastity?”

  Christiaan smiled, his lips burning, but he couldn’t help it. “Very astute.”

  Andy exhaled. Although he didn’t tell her what his vow of chastity entailed. She didn’t need to know all the details.

  “We also don’t use guns.”

  Andy wrinkled up her nose.

  “It has to do with ancient orders. They didn’t have guns back then. Anyway, each neophyte was trained in the Arts, and once they’d taken their Oaths, they were branded with the tattoo as Brotherhood of the Order of Destroying Angels.”

  Christiaan was transported elsewhere, speaking in a rare moment of authenticity.

  “In the Brotherhood, we wear masks to keep our identities a secret from our enemies. It keeps us safe. Anonymity is protection. It just doesn’t protect you from traitors. Your own best friend, your own Brother.”

  “You were betrayed by your brother?”

  “Not brother brother. A Brother.” Christiaan sat still, barely breathing. His gaze not seeing the desert around them, instead reliving a different scene, climate, fear. Remembering. His mind replayed the images and scenes so foreign to their current surroundings. “Rather, Blaine.”

  “Blaine? The guy who saved your life?”

  “Blaine decided the Order of Destroying Angels was outdated. He wanted to change things. Forgo the Oaths. He ended up destroying the Order itself. And himself.”

  “What did you do? How did he betray you?”

  Christian silenced her with a withering stare. “Not a yes or no question.”

  “I guess I’m confused. What does the Brotherhood do? Who were your enemies?”

  “Our targets were the same you’d pick, Andy. People involved in human trafficking, drugs, murders, and secret organizations who try to destroy civilizations and capture others.”

  Andy’s mouth fell agape.

  “Let’s change topics,” Christiaan said. He’d perhaps revealed too much.

  “Wow! You are part of a secret brotherhood seeking out justice. So, that’s why you are going after Tyrone?”

  “Yes and no.”

  Christiaan’s thoughts tore him away from the desert floor to a completely different climate, cool and damp, the smell of mildew lingering in the air. Blood, so much blood. Maybe he should tell her all. Christiaan shook his head, sighing. He’d already told her too much. But her sweet face, so full of innocence, no, nescience of the world urged him on. “No. The Order was destroyed. But yes, I still keep my Oaths. I have to. They are eternal. I am still bound to seek out evil. Not knowing what to do with myself, I found my current employer.” They were willing to make special ar
rangements to help him keep his oaths. And by traveling the world, it would help him someday find out who killed his parents.

  “Wow, I can’t believe you killed for money.”

  Christiaan wrinkled his nose, annoyed. After all he told her, she focused on this. “What about your journalism gig?”

  “I’ve never killed anyone. And I don’t do it for the money.”

  “Or the fame?”

  Andy hung there in silence. The tension told him all he needed to know. “You’re just as bad as I am,” he said.

  “I do it for justice,” Andy said at last. “I want good to triumph over evil.”

  “I don’t know if it’s possible,” Christiaan said. Only Andy gave him hope.

  The heat bubbled up around them draining them of energy. He didn’t feel like talking. His throat was dry. Several minutes passed before he spoke again.

  “My turn,” he finally said. “Do you like Mexican food?”

  “Yes. Have you ever been in love?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t even hesitate.

  “Are you still?”

  “Isn’t it my turn?”

  “Yes. That was your yes or no question. Now it’s mine. Are you still?”

  He sat contemplatively and answered slowly. “Yes.” A deep hollow of sadness gripped his chest. He’d told her too much. The gnawing in his stomach weakened his mental guard.

  Andy dropped her gaze. “Your turn,” she murmured, squeaking out the words.

  Christiaan narrowed his eyes, probing deeply. “Okay, since personal life is open season, have you seriously dated anyone since Conner?”

  Andy’s face flushed red with embarrassment. “Let’s play a different game.”

  Kicking up sand, he sat up with mock delight. “Oh, no! You’ve already extracted secrets from me.” Seeing a weakness in her armor, he urged further, adopting an air of mockery. “Is it because no one can compare to Conner? His lily-white hands and his wimpy chest must make all the women roar.” Cocking back his head, he made a roaring sound just to prove his point.

  “What have you against Conner, anyway? You’ve never liked him.”

  “I think he’s an idiot.”

  “An idiot?” Andy’s eyebrows raised defensively. “He got a job right out of college. Did you even finish college?”