Reckoning

by James Byron Huggins

  Gage turned his sweat-soaked head, indifferent, to meet the gaze.

  Sergeant Mac waited a moment, and then he nodded. He laughed. He clapped his hands, once. And then he went to the jeep, happily trading his canteens. He seemed to move back with a lightness, a joy in his step.

  "On your feet, ladies!" he called out, smiling at Gage. "We ain't got all day!"

  As before, they went down the hill, running.

  They passed what they passed before. But it was different to Gage; everything was less, and less important. The only thing that mattered to him now was how far he could go within himself, how deep he could go within the pain.

  Red clay dust in the humid air as they plodded forward. It was only five miles from the hill that the first ones began to surrender to the smothering heat.

  A cry went up, the column breaking as a man collapsed.

  "Keep it up, girls!" cried Sergeant Mac. "Medics'll get 'im!"

  Above his mind, in the heat, Gage heard the cry and knew what had happened. He knew the ambulance would attend to the wounded. But he wasn't there. He heard the cry and he knew. But he wasn't there. He was here, inside, beneath the heat, in his mind.

  Sergeant Mac moved up the column, was a pace to the side and slightly behind Gage, where he held steady. Gage knew why Sergeant Mac had moved close, felt the eyes watching him.

  Don't show ... any weakness ...

  Not thinking, Gage felt the truth, the true reason why he would not be broken, not by anything. Part of it was simple; a desire to be the best, the toughest. Part of it was a determination to stay alive, to ultimately be the strongest survivor in a savage world. But deep inside, because he was truly a soldier, he knew that he would also endure because he simply wanted the respect of the feared Sergeant Mac. For that, Gage knew he would embrace the pain.

  The day wore on, breaking stones with its heat, and men began to fall; ten, fifteen, and then twenty sprawling onto their faces in the burning roadway, moaning, crying out and struggling up only to stagger blindly to the side to fall away, lost in delirium, red heat, exhaustion.

  Medics took them away to somewhere else where they could be like the rest.

  Gage never remembered the final few miles. He only remembered his gaze wandering across the horizon, losing focus, his mind zoning so deeply he forgot where he was. He forgot Sandman beside him, forgot it all until there was only the running. He remembered only the running, his mind coming back to it again and again, red dust, step and step, rifle and sweat, pain.

  Running, pain, running and pain.

  His shoulders were burned deep by the straps, his chest numb. His hands frozen to the rifle like claws, stiff and swollen. But long ago, somewhere in the dusty steps, Gage had found comfort and strength in his wounds, in his battered and blistered feet that soaked his socks in blood. Somehow, it made him happy. Even as he knew he would feel different, somehow, and somehow less, if his wounds were taken from him, if the pain were taken away from him.

  Leading, Sergeant Mac angled at the end of the roadway, where tall brown posts decked with rope marked the beginning of the obstacle course. They finished the run, 15 soldiers staggering across the line, fleeing the dust, the road, to the shade of the evergreens and pines.

  "Take a break!" Sergeant Mac called out, winded, as the last of the line came across. He turned to them all as they staggered in fatigue. "You've done well, boys! Only the men who make it to this line are considered for Delta! And now that you're all warmed up, we'll see what you are really made of! You got five minutes to rest up! Drop your packs!"

  Fourteen soldiers fell to the ground.

  Sandman collapsed like a tree, his pack on his back, too tired to shift it off. His face was contorted as he heaved in humid gulps of air, red air that burned the lungs and nostrils with each ragged breath.

  Floating in fatigue, Gage stayed on his feet and turned. Eyes vacuous, he shed the pack, dropping it hard to the ground and instantly felt as if he would ascend into the air, so light. But he knew it was false, would fail in moments when stiffening legs began protesting the abuse.

  Standing, he stared at Sergeant Mac.

  Expecting it now, the old sergeant stood waiting. He smiled wildly as Gage stared at him.

  Smiled like a man who loved it.

  "You still alive, Gage?"

  Gage laughed shortly, breathing hard. He shook his head. "You can't break me."

  "Can't break you, huh? And why's that?"

  Gage thought for a moment, didn't know how to answer. He just knew that it was something inside him, a lot of things inside him. He knew that the more he hurt, the harder he became, living and dying at once; the perfect world.

  "What's that you say?" Sergeant Mac grinned, sweating, turning an ear forward. "You say you want to run the obstacle course?"

  Gage grunted, uncaring. "Till you get tired of callin' it," he rasped.

  Sergeant Mac leaned forward in a booming yell. "On your feet, ladies! On your feet! We got daylight! Lots of it! We're gonna run us an obstacle course! Over and over, girls! Over and over! Gage says he can't be broke, but we're gonna find out! We're gonna find out what it takes to break the boy! Let's go! Let's go-go-go!"

  Sandman staggered up, aghast. He stared at Gage. "I knew you was gonna do something like that," he gasped, eyes wide. "I knew it..."

  Gage gestured to the course, breathless. "They ain't gonna break me. I'll run this thing from now on. Ain't nuthin' gonna break me."

  "I knew it," said Sandman, face stiff in shock, shaking his head. "I knew it ..."

  On the third run through the course they lost the first man. And with every trip after that, they lost another. Hours passed, with dangerous leaps from log to log, the tower, climbing and descending the ropes, long black splinters digging into their hands, slicing fingers, pain ignored in the speed of movement. Then Sergeant Mac gave them a break with pushups and sit-ups, hundreds and hundreds of them, and then the obstacle course again, and again, until they were nothing but movement, movement and pain, pain, pain.

  In the end there was only Sandman and Gage, side by side as the glowing, golden sun fell to the trees on North Carolina's dark green horizon. Finally even Sandman could go no more, falling to his face as his arms failed, unable to press one more pushup while he laid, breathing heavily, moaning, speaking to someone that was not there as Sergeant Mac, screaming now, gave him a direct order to stand.

  Gage was stretched out beside him holding a pushup position, eyes closed in trembling pain, arms shaking, quivering. He heard Sandman's legs churning as Sergeant Mac continued to scream, scrambling blindly before they fell still. The big man was out cold. Unconscious. Escaping the pain.

  Sweating, eyes unmerciful, Sergeant Mac turned to Gage.

  "On your feet, boy," he whispered.

  Unsteady, swaying, Gage stood. He blinked through the mind-numbing exhaustion, the pale clouds, trying to focus. Sergeant Mac stood in front of him, his hands, flat and hard like boards, at his side, raised to his waist. His eyes smiled, gleaming with joy. And Gage understood. But he didn't know if he could pull it off with strength leaving him fast, empty and pale.

  "Come at me, Gage," whispered Sergeant Mac. "Show me what you learned this week in all of that kung fu hand-to-hand. Hurt me. Show me what you can dish out. Show me what you can take."

  Wearily, fluid and slow in fatigue, Gage had already moved, not waiting for anything. Even though his arms were dead, his legs gone, he closed the distance with a shuffling movement.

  A flat hand like a plank hit him in the chest, his wound, laying him back. Gage screamed at the scarlet pain.

  He hit the ground hard, screaming still and then he moaned, crying aloud, and rolled, palms pressing flat against the ground, struggling to rise, to stand. He gained his feet, turning to see Sergeant Mac smiling, holding the ground. Gage shouted and rushed, leaping forward as quickly as he could and thinking more but surprised to shock as Sergeant Mac's boot lashed out to smash into his thigh, a fist coming in th
at...

  A stunning blow and Gage was down again, rolling, holding his head with a hand and finding himself in his fatigue again rising to his feet, only movement, beyond it, even, where there was nothing but him and death, and the pain. Then he reached his feet and was slammed back again, not knowing where the blow came from, where it went.

  Who am I fighting?

  And somehow, again, he was up on stiffening legs before he felt that he had been struck down, again, gazing at a sky not totally night, above him. And then he was rising yet again, numb everywhere, fighting to gain his feet, to fight...

  Struck down again.

  Rising, rising...

  To be struck down, beyond exhaustion now, beneath it. Gage tried to stand, to find the earth in the whiteness and somehow he knew he was there, inside death. There were no more secrets hidden from him inside the pain, no mysteries, nothing. He knew it all. And the pain could not defeat him, not as long as there was still blood inside him, not as long as he could still stand, fight, endure.

  Get on your feet!

  He stood.

  To be struck down.

  A dim physical impulse told Gage he was hurt again, lying on his back on pine needles beneath a cobalt blue space of sky; stars through a patch of broken trees and the face of a man, dark in the dusk, smiling now, with a friendly hand on Gage's chest, gently holding him down, and Gage heard the words.

  "You're the one, son," the voice said, hand gentle on his chest. "You're the one ..."

  Light.

  An old man's shout ... A woman's voice; stern, impatient, commanding ... Hands lifting him, moving him ... carrying him ... lights passing over...

  Gage weakly opened his eyes; fog, mist.

  A woman ... Sarah ... yes ... doing something ... white ... speaking to him ... encouraging hands wrapping him in something warm.

  Gage focused on the woman before she shoved the needle into his arm, warmth and oblivion.

  He closed his eyes.

  I won't fail you ... God help me ... Not any of you.

  *

  TWENTY-TWO

  "Well, it don't get no worse than this."

  Radford dropped three file folders on Kertzman's desk, then collapsed heavily in the green metal chair. Kertzman thought that the NSA damage control man looked remarkably disheveled for this hour in the morning.

  "I've read 'em," Kertzman mumbled, leaning back in his chair, blacksmith arms stretched out so his massive hands could cup a steaming mug of coffee.

  Radford almost allowed a glimmer of surprise to shine through. "Read them? How? I just got them five minutes ago. First shift faxed them in."

  Kertzman grunted. "I got sources. A couple of old-timers. Everything has happened in New York, so I told some buddies of mine to keep a lookout. Told 'em to call me if there were any big-time ex-military guys killed. There were a couple. An ex-SEAL was killed in a domestic. His wife shotgunned him while he was asleep—"

  "That'll do it," Radford interjected, a short shake of his head.

  "Then an old Army Ranger was shot in a liquor store holdup. Lower East Side. Police got the offender. Just a thug. But when I saw the incident at St. Thomas, and the rest of it, I knew we had probably found our man."

  "But how did you get the reports? The FBI guys in New York put a hold on them. Ordered no copies except for NSA. The bureau confiscated the evidence, everything. I didn't think anybody knew about this."

  Kertzman laughed. "You gotta be kiddin' me. You think that anybody below the rank of captain in NYPD gives a hoot what the FBI thinks? Everybody knows about this. There's probably a hundred copies floating around. Inside and outside the department. First-year rookies in the transit police probably got copies. The FBI putting a hold on it only made it more popular. A guy I know faxed them to me at my home last night."

  "Over a private line?" Radford asked, too accustomed to intrigue to be genuinely surprised, but appearing somewhat interested at the interworkings of Kertzman's life. "That's illegal, isn't it?"

  "Yeah," Kertzman mumbled, and then hesitated to release a long, rumbling belch. "He called me last night, told me about a real weird gunfight on the interstate between a Cavalier and an LTD. Everybody's talking about it. Even the State Patrol's mad. And they don't get mad at anything. Takes too much energy. Turns out the driver of the Cavalier is a no-name. His ID, Sergei whatever, doesn't check. NCIC doesn't know him. Nothing. So FBI does a print check, matched him against a KGB operative named Arkady Torkarev. No record of passing customs. Not supposed to be here. I got all that this morning. That's what really got my attention. Anyway, Torkarev was killed deader 'a wedge after kissing a concrete embankment in the Cavalier, so we can't ask him any questions. Then a former member of the British SAS was..." Kertzman hesitated, "and this is the real clincher, this SAS guy was shot by a fireman in St. Thomas Cathedral. And that's only ten miles away from the accident." Kertzman stared at Radford. "That's a Catholic church."

  "Yes," Radford replied quickly. "Yes, thank you. I know."

  "Yeah," Kertzman continued, "so this SAS guy is cut down in a church by a fireman, who can't really be a fireman, so it's gotta be our man. And then there was a real mean knife fight, or gunfight, or both, on Paxton, three blocks from the church only minutes after the SAS guy went down. A big Japanese and a white guy. It's all related. I'll bet everything I've got on it. So we got a dead SAS guy and a dead KGB guy. Both of them killed in strange situations with no offender in custody for anything. So I ordered a print check on it and it all comes back to Gage. Nine millimeter casings. A knife. An ax at the church. It was him, alright. He was in a major headbashin' contest with somebody." He shook his head for a moment, felt strangely agreeable. "You're right, though. It don't get no worse than this."

  Radford sighed. "Have you heard from Carthwright?"

  "Yes." Kertzman didn't appear to want to communicate the message.

  Radford ignored it. "So what did he say?"

  "He was Carthwright," Kertzman replied, shrugging.

  Kertzman was finished, but Radford kept staring at him.

  "He isn't happy," he added finally. "He didn't sound good. He wants us to find a location for Gage, run him to ground. He doesn't seem to care if it ends in a tactical situation or not. He just wants it to end."

  Radford nodded. "Good. So what are we going to do?"

  "Did the police get anything on the LTD that left the scene of the accident?"

  "No," Radford replied. "No sightings. The black guy, or Japanese or Indian or whatever he is, is gone, too. Vanished without a trace, as they say in police work."

  "With no direction of travel," Kertzman added.

  "Whatever. He hasn't showed up at any hospitals. We have nothing. Just the Cavalier. It was registered to a warehouse that operates out of Manhattan. A legitimate operation. No connections that I can find. Owners say the car was stolen sometime last night. They didn't notice it was missing until today." Radford shrugged. "It could have happened. They've got a lot of cars. There was forced entry into the garage. Looks real. Discovered this morning. There's nothing to indicate otherwise."

  "Who owns the garage?"

  "Unlimited Storage."

  "And who owns that?"

  "AmTech Incorporated."

  "And who owns AmTech?"

  "A holding company."

  "And who controls the holding company?"

  Radford sighed. "I don't know. Probably a bigger company."

  "Trace it back."

  "OK," Radford nodded. "I'll find something."

  Kertzman thought for a minute.

  "Where's Milburn?" he asked, indifferent.

  "You're asking me?" Radford seemed taken back. "I don't know. I'm working my end. That's all I know about." He looked closely at Kertzman. "I would like to bring this all to an ending, Kertzman, if you know what I mean. This is really starting to stink, and some of that is going to rub off. I didn't ask for this assignment. I was volunteered for it. I know that a lot of those guys in the Pentagon ha
d suspicions, but you're the one who really nailed down something serious going on, figured this wildman was one of ours. You're the great white hunter. Killing bears in the mountains, no helicopters and all that jive. So maybe you should figure out a way to track this guy down."

  Radford's tone was pushing.

  Kertzman didn't seem to notice, continued to stare at the mug. His voice was distant, thoughtful. "Have you studied Gage's 201?"

  "Yeah," replied Radford. "I know everything there is to know."

  "The Black Light file?"

  "That, too."

  "Is anyone still alive that was in the unit?"

  Radford considered that. "I checked on that, like I told you I would. There's nobody still active in the field that he worked with. I put out the word on a little reward for anyone who hears from him."

  "I didn't say 'active,'" Kertzman replied moodily.

  Radford gazed at him. A long silence passed.

  "Kertzman, surely you don't expect me to just randomly contact people Gage knew in the unit." Radford's voice was indulgent. "That's a lot of footwork, isn't it? I mean, some of these guys are drunks. They don't have phones. They've fallen to the wayside. When these guys go back to civilian life they sometimes lose it."

  Kertzman was impassive. "Yeah," he said, "contact them. Find them all. There can't be more than a half-dozen. Find out where they're working. Find out who owns the companies they work for. Run the companies against this Cavalier. Cross-check everything. Look hard for somebody working for a transport company that rents aircraft. Anybody who owns a gun store or has a Class Three Firearms License, or even a Class Two. The Bureau will have it. Find out if any of them have purchased night visors, APGs, fully automatic weapons, anything that Gage might have used in Black Light. Find out if any of them have access to NCIC. Run a tag search through the Information Center and see if anyone ran the tag on the Cavalier at any time within the past forty-eight hours. Find out where the ammo used at the church was purchased, see if it can be traced back to a town within one hundred miles of where any of his old buddies live. Find a connection. Get everything on everybody, everyone who's still alive, that is. There's going to be something, somewhere. I'll take care of the SAS and KGB guys."