Godless Murder Machine (The Postmodern Adventures of Kill Team One Book 2)

by Mike Leon

  “I am,” Sid says.

  “We have a problem,” the customer says.

  “What is it?”

  “Three weeks ago I bought my son a game here and then this morning I saw what was in it and I just could not believe...” She stops short of finishing her sentence. “It’s disgusting.”

  Disgusting. From Sid’s perspective people have a very low standard for using that word. No video game, no fantasy collection of animated characters, meets his definition. But one game seems to reach for it more eagerly than any other. She pulls that very game from the shopping bag in her hand.

  Jordan gasps when he sees the cover. “You bought Chainsawdomy 2 for a kid?”

  She sets the game down on the counter in front of them and Sid examines the cover. It features a colorful computerized image of a baby half consumed under a riding lawnmower. A stream of chunky red giblets blows from the discharge chute. The gore spray is partially obscured by a white and black ESRB M rating logo. Ragged text at the top of the package reads Chainsawdomy 2: Anal Rape-ocalypse. An orange sticker next to that reads THIS IS NOT FOR KIDS, and yet another slightly overlapping sticker reads OR WOMEN WHO MAY BE PREGNANT.

  “How was I supposed to know what was in it?” the customer says.

  “Did you look at the package at all?” Sid says.

  “Of course! It doesn’t say anything about…” She pauses, looks at the child, and spells out the next word. “N-u-d-i-t-y.”

  “Boobies!” yelps her child enthusiastically.

  “What?” Sid says.

  “It’s gots boobs!”

  “It does?” Jordan mumbles.

  “It’s when you burn the school down and kill your teacher with the drill,” the kid giggles. “She’s naked and it showses her boobs!”

  Jordan crosses himself. “Jesus and Luke Skywalker, please protect us.”

  “He saw a woman’s breasts!” the mother squawks. “How am I supposed to explain that to him? He’s only seven for God’s sakes!”

  Sid wishes for nothing more than to replace all his memories of carnage with memories of soft supple tits.

  “So, do you want us to explain boobs to him for you?” he asks. It’s the best solution he can devise. And he isn’t certain he can do a proper job of it either.

  “No,” she snaps. “Smartass. I want my money back for this filth.”

  “When did you buy it?”

  “Three weeks ago. I have the receipt right here.”

  “We don’t take anything back after seven days.” It’s written on the receipts, and it’s detailed in the handbook. Breaking those rules would be a violation of the mission parameters for his job here.

  “You’re gonna take this back.”

  “No. That’s outside the parame—rules.”

  “I don’t care what it’s outside. I know the law! I’m a lawyer! In America it’s illegal not to give somebody a full refund when they ask for it!”

  “Is that true?” Sid asks Jordan.

  “I don’t think so,” Jordan says.

  “It is if I say so,” the customer says. “I’m the customer and the customer is always right!”

  “No,” Sid says. “You’re wrong.”

  “Who’s your supervisor?” she angrily demands.

  “Who’s your supervisor?” Sid calmly repeats back to her.

  She leans across the counter, her eyes filled with anger. “You listen to me, you stupid loser. You’re. Going. To. Take. This. Fucking. Game. Back. Right. Now.”

  “No.”

  The customer purses her lips so tightly they nearly bump into her flaring nose.

  Then she does something unfathomably stupid. She hits him. Sid sees it coming, of course. Her open hand moves at a relative snail’s pace through his world of lightning fast ninjas, swift as death kung fu assassins, and other ridiculous superhuman foes. He has every impulse to catch her strike, snap her fat little wrist, then crush her shrieking ugly face until it shrieks no more.

  But Bruce told him no more killing in the store.

  It doesn’t hurt when she slaps him. He remains as still as a bronze statue. She even reels away clutching her hand in the seconds after, obviously unaccustomed to striking a warrior of such solid constitution. But he hears something then, something akin to the ringing after an explosion, but it isn’t in his ears at all. It’s somewhere he can’t quite place.

  The angry customer stretches her hand and then backs away from the counter quickly to make her retreat.

  “Come on, Joey!” the customer barks as she snatches the little boy by the hand and drags him toward the door.

  “Boobies!” yells her child.

  “Should I call the cops?” Jordan asks, but Sid barely hears him. He’s too distracted by this new sensation which seems to grow even as he watches the angry woman rush out the door.

  “You!” she says. “You’re going to regret this!” And then she tromps off into the parking lot.

  “I can’t believe she hit you,” Jordan says.

  Sid rattles his head. The strange buzzing does not seem to be dissipating.

  INT. NICK’S HOUSE - DAY

  Nick sits on the couch with his laptop, propping his feet up on the rustic wood coffee table in the den in front of the TV.

  He answers some email inquiries. One churchgoer wants him to visit their new house for a blessing. Two others have questions about baptism arrangements. Another wants him to visit a sick elderly relative in hospice care. All of that stuff is typical. The atypical is the email from a reporter at the Morston Gazette asking questions about what happened last night. Was Ron tied to any white supremacist militia groups? Did he play first person shooter video games? Did you see him use an assault rifle? Nick closes the email. He doesn’t want to look at it anymore.

  His cell phone rings from the kitchen table, causing him to stand up from his cocoon of comfort. He stretches his back on his way to pick up the ancient device, with its one-inch black and white screen and big bubbly plastic keypad. He’s had the same cell phone since cell phones became a necessity and he refuses to buy anything newer. It’s all just a rat race anyway. He hopes the caller isn’t from a newspaper as he pushes the button to answer. If only there were a way to know who is calling before picking up…

  “Hello?” Nick says.

  “Father Papastathopoulos?” speaks someone with a foreign accent. Must be Greek, he thinks. They got his name right on the first try.

  “Yes?” Nick says.

  “Father, this is Imam Tarek ibn Rahman ibn Saeed Safwat.” Nick understands about the name thing now. “From the Morston Community Islamic Center.”

  “Oh.” Realization strikes. He’s the Imam from the mosque last night. “Imam, how are you?”

  “Better than the last time I saw you. I wanted to call and thank you for everything you did to help.”

  “I wish it just didn’t end the way it did.”

  "Terrible. That man was so hateful. So much hate. Sometimes that is the only way."

  "I can’t accept that, Imam. Violence is never the way.”

  "Oh, don’t misunderstand. Islam is a religion of peace, always. I have instructed everyone to pray in this time, even for the man who did this.”

  “That’s good, Imam. Good.”

  “There was something I do need to ask you, Father. It’s silly, but I promised someone I would ask.”

  “Yeah?”

  “During the incident, that man gave you a cell phone that belonged to Adnan. It had some sentimental photographs. His family is asking for it and the police say they don’t know where it is.”

  The expensive phone Ron handed him last night returns to his memory like the sudden realization of a dinner left in the oven far too long.

  “The iPhone!” He instinctively reaches for his coat pocket, but he isn’t wearing that coat anymore. He’s in a bathrobe. “I forgot all about it.”

  “You still have it then?”

  “I should. I think.” His coat was stained with gore after
the police shot Ron. Maria, despite being thoroughly disgusted by it, was adamant about attempting to save it and pledged to take it to be cleaned first thing in the morning. Nick figured it for a lost cause, but his wife is notoriously frugal. “It was in my coat and my wife took it to the dry cleaner. I’ll call her.”

  “It isn’t an emergency, father. As long as we know it’s safe.”

  “I can’t believe I forgot that.”

  “I forget things all the time. It’s called getting old.”

  “Yeah.” Nick laughs. “I hope the police aren’t looking for it.”

  “I won’t tell them if you don’t.” The Imam chuckles. “We’ll both end up on a watch list.”

  “I don’t need that. It already takes me too long to get through airport security.”

  “Don’t even talk, man. I wear a taqiyah everywhere. They treat me like I’m walking into Fort Knox holding a dirty bomb.”

  Nick laughs. “I bet.”

  “Well, my friend, if you find the phone, I guess let me know.”

  “Will do, um, I’m not sure what the uh, nomenclature is…”

  “Imam. Imam Safwat.”

  “Alright Imam. I’ll get back to you.”

  The phone is just barely back on the table when Maria walks in the kitchen door from outside.

  “I see you’ve had a productive day,” she says, chuckling at the sight of him in his bathrobe. Maria is a chubby woman, bordering on more than chubby. She has some silver strands in her shoulder-length black hair. She sets a few plastic grocery bags down on the kitchen table.

  “Yeah. I slept until noon. I’m too old to be up all night. Hey, did you happen to find a cell phone in my jacket pocket?”

  “As a matter of fact…” Maria picks through her purse and produces the shiny new phone, clean as whistle. “The dry cleaner pulled it out. I didn’t want to touch that jacket. You didn’t tell me you bought a new phone. Are you finally crawling into the twenty-first century?”

  “Never. It’s not mine,” he says. “Ron handed it to me.”

  “Ron? Like, that Ron?” Maria’s voice takes on a high pitch of concern. “Oh my God.”

  “It belonged to the man he killed. He gave it to me when I first walked in there. He was ranting and raving—I forgot all about it. His family wants it back. You think the police will want to see it?”

  “I don’t know. Why would they? I mean I guess it might be evidence or who-knows-what.” Maria scrunches her face into a knot of scrutiny. “It has a bunch of weird numbers in it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like in the contact list.” Maria spins the phone around for him to see. “These. They’re not people’s names. Just numbers.” She reads one of them aloud: 7-M-B-6-5-3-4

  The list is filled with numbers like that one, seven digits just like phone numbers, only they include letters as well. Nick sees that there are dozens of them as Maria scrolls down the list with her thumb.

  “Weird,” Nick says. “They kind of look like license plate numbers.”

  “I bet he ran a cab company. Those middle easterners are all in the cab business.”

  “Maybe. Hey, what were you doing looking through the contacts?”

  Maria shrugs. “I wanted to make sure this wasn’t your side phone. Like for your bitches on the side.”

  “Oh yeah. Lots of those. It’s the preaching tabs. They drive women wild. Just leave it on the table. I’ll take it down to the station tomorrow. The police will make sure his family gets it.”

  “Where’s Stephen? I thought they had band practice today.”

  “He’s upstairs. I grounded him.”

  “What for?”

  “He cursed at me. You knew about this metal band nonsense?”

  “You mean Black Church?” she asks.

  “Yeah. You knew about this?”

  “Nick…” She issues him an irked glare. “He talks about it all the time.”

  “I thought he joined a black church.”

  “No. Why would he do that?”

  “Uh…” Nick considers whether he should state the obvious. “Because he’s black.”

  “I’m amazed you noticed.”

  “Come on.”

  “I keep telling you, you need to pay more attention to his interests instead of just lecturing him all the time about his grades and the dangers of loose women.” She rolls her eyes.

  “I’m paying attention now. And I don’t want him mixed up in this metal stuff. It’s bad news.”

  “It’s rock music, Nick. Remember when we were fifteen and your parents didn’t want you listening to the Doors?”

  “This is different. These metal guys all end up on drugs or dead.”

  Maria winces and looks away. Nick realizes the error of his callous comment immediately.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t think before I said that.”

  “It’s okay.” She sighs, pushing away a memory neither of them likes to recall.

  “But this is different, Maria. Jim Morrison didn’t burn churches down. They burn churches. For real. They burn them to the ground. It’s all right here on Wikipedia.”

  “Wikipedia is not a reliable source, Nick.”

  He picks up the Cannibal Corpse album from the coffee table at his feet. “Have you seen this thing?”

  Maria looks at the album sleeve and cringes. “Ugh.”

  “And the titles of some of these songs…” Nick says. “Stripped Raped and Strangled? Entrails Ripped from a Virgin’s...C-Word? I C-Word Blood?”

  “That one doesn’t make sense.”

  “It’s a different c-word.”

  “Oh. That’s really nasty.”

  “I’ve been reading about this stuff. These extreme rockers are way beyond Alice Cooper and the guys from when we were kids. There was this band called the Mentors and they had their way with women at the concerts right in front of people. And their lead singer did drugs and jumped in front of a train and died. And this other singer GG Allin used to poop and then throw his poop at the audience until he ate a bunch of heroin and died.”

  “I didn’t know you could eat heroin.”

  “You can’t! That’s the point.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “We need to tell him no more. He has to get rid of the CDs—”

  “Kids don’t use CDs anymore, Nick.”

  “Okay, well, the iPod song chips or whatever they have now. He needs to get rid of them. And he can’t play in this band anymore. That has to stop.”

  “Alright,” Maria says. “Why don’t you think on it, and we’ll talk about it later.”

  “I don’t like this at all,” Nick grumbles.

  “I know. You want to order pizza tonight?” Maria wisely changes the subject. “I’m gonna have paximathia in the oven for hours.”

  “That’s fine.”

  INT. SCRAPYARD - TENT – DAY

  Fatimah has been busy. She sits on the crinkling polyethylene floor of the little tent they gave her for privacy she does not require. She erected the tent on the outskirts at Sayyid’s request, not because she fears intrusion or wandering eyes, but for the inherent danger of her task.

  In front of her folded legs sits an arrangement of a few dozen empty copper pipes. To her right is a digital scale corrected for the gallon Tupperware container on top of it. A white crystalline substance reaches nearly the brim of the container and the digital readout on the scale gives its weight as forty-seven hundred grams. Fatimah slowly pours in kerosene from a plastic jug until the readout climbs to five thousand. Then she begins to stir with a spoon.

  “Fatimah?” It’s Stromwell, outside the tent.

  “Come in,” she says. She is covered in her black shield and has no fear of him—or anything. The old man pulls back the tent curtain and ducks under the short triangular doorway. He scans over the beakers and pipes arranged inside and smiles at her.

  “This is quite a project you have here,” he says. His voice is patronizingly hig
h pitched, like he’s asking a little girl about her dolls. “What is it?”

  “I am mixing ANFO to use in bomb vests.”

  “I see.” His voice is considerably less patronizing now.

  “Stay away from that over there.” She refers to a pile of fine white powder spread out on a sheet of construction paper atop an upturned cardboard box. “That’s acetone peroxide for the detonators. It’s drying.”

  The production of Ammonium Nitrate/Fuel Oil, especially in a country where the only two ingredients are sold unrestricted in home improvement stores, is laughably easy. It is simply a 94/6 mixture of prilled ammonium nitrate and kerosene. It is a powerful explosive which is cheaply produced in large quantities. However, forming it into a viable bomb is considerably more complicated.

  ANFO is a remarkably stable explosive. It does not explode when struck, or even exposed to open flame. It requires no less than another explosion to detonate ANFO, which is where the acetone peroxide enters the equation.

  AP, acetone peroxide, or Mother of Satan, is a highly unstable explosive which can detonate when set aflame, struck with a hammer, nudged slightly, or just looked upon antagonistically. It has no legitimate industrial or agricultural use, and only someone with a raving death wish would attempt to mix more than a few grams of the compound. It is prohibitively cumbersome to produce in large enough amounts to use as a primary explosive in a weapon, but small amounts are easy to make and can trigger the ANFO effectively.

  So the anatomy of Fatimah’s bombs is thus: ANFO is packed into pipes which are clipped to a belt she wears around her chest. One of these pipes contains a smaller pipe filled with ten grams of AP which is packed around the exposed filaments of a wire connected to a battery powered clacker on the outside of the vest. Press the clacker, complete the circuit, electrical charge ignites the acetone peroxide which detonates, in turn triggering the ANFO around it. To maximize the damage, the burqa she wears is filled with nails, which are projected outward by the shockwave.

  “You don’t need to do all this.” Stromwell says. “I bought all those thousands of pounds of RDX and C4 for you to use. It would be safer and easier.”