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

by Mike Leon

  “I prefer to make my own.” The routine is important. It is a common form of sabotage to replace explosives with other harmless facsimiles. Fatimah learned a long time ago to prevent this by manufacturing her own explosives. None can be trusted.

  “Well, I’ll be leaving as soon as the trucks roll out. And I wanted to make sure you’re well accommodated.”

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  “Who do you mean?”

  “No one. Pay it no mind.”

  “Is there anything else you need?”

  “No, Mr. Stromwell. My needs are few and I want for nothing except the destruction of the Beast.”

  “It’s remarkable how devoted you are to that cause.”

  “My devotion is only to Allah, may He be glorified and exalted. Do not mistake it for anything else.”

  “I’m not implying. I’ve never met anyone so dedicated to anything.”

  “If there was nothing left for you in this world and the laws of God and man called for your death, but even that was impossible, what would you do? Who would you appeal to?”

  “Still, I heard what happened to you. You must have some personal feelings—some stake in this after everything.”

  “No. None.”

  “I suppose it’s just hard for me to understand, given my predilections.”

  INT. THE BLACK OMEN - DAY

  Lily makes the rounds, asking for lap dances, but it’s almost impossible to get anything on a slow afternoon with Molly here. One guy outright tells her he’s holding out for Molly to finish on the main stage. Lily represses the urge to smack him and returns to the bar.

  “No luck out there?” Jessica asks.

  “Competition is fierce,” Lily says. “I’m about to head out anyway.”

  She walks off in the direction of the club’s dressing room, which is down a short hallway beyond the restrooms. She sees a man ahead of her. He’s tall and husky and expensively dressed and clean cut except for a tattoo over his left eyebrow that looks like a single word in Cyrillic writing. He’s coming out of the dressing room.

  “Hey!” Lily says. “You’re not supposed to be in there!”

  He smiles at her lustily as he brushes past, shouldering her aside. Lily continues into the dressing room quickly.

  She finds a mess inside. Two chairs have been knocked over. One of them is smashed. One of the many mirrors, this one in the corner of the room, is shattered to bits. Pieces of broken glass lie on the desk beneath it and several of the light bulbs that surround its border have been broken off into jagged nubs. A woman sits on the floor beneath it with her arms wrapped around her quivering naked breasts. She is clothed only in tight pink boy shorts and she faces the wall, but is identifiable by the fluffy brown hair that hangs to her shoulders. It’s Yvonne, one of the club’s dancers.

  “Yvonne? That motherfucker…. I bet we can still catch him!” Lily goes for the door.

  “No!” Yvonne shouts, whipping her head around to reveal trails of running mascara and a big swelling welt around one eye.

  Lily stops in her tracks. “What? Big Dave’ll trounce this douche.”

  “No. It is not your business!” Her Latvian accent is much more prominent when she’s upset.

  “The fuck it is! He smashed up the club!”

  “He works for Igor Volchenko.”

  “Come again?”

  “He works for Igor Volchenko.”

  “Nope. Still drawing a blank…”

  “He is boss of Obshchiy Syndicate.”

  It takes Lily a moment to process the information, then another moment to believe it. Then she reacts in the dumbest way possible. “Shut. Up.” Lily says. She’s filled with girlish excitement. “Real Russian mafia guys? In my titty bar?”

  “It is not funny. The Syndicate is responsible for… terrible atrocities in my country.”

  “What do they want with you?”

  “The only thing they ever want from stupid girls like me.” Yvonne turns down to the floor in shame.

  “You don’t mean your incredible free throw skills, do you?”

  “No. Sergei wants me back.”

  “Oh no, Yvonne. Not a guy with face ink. Never date a guy with face ink.”

  “You do not understand. It is complicated.”

  “It’s not that complicated. Face tattoo equals no sex. No date. Don’t even give them your number.”

  “I did not have a choice, Lily. I... I did not come here for college like I told your mother.”

  “Yeah. I know. None of the girls here are actually in college. That’s just a thing we say.”

  “No. Lily, I came here in a shipping crate with twenty other girls stowed away in the bottom of the MSC Exposition...”

  “Oh...”

  “We all thought we were coming to work in a casino. Some of the girls even practiced dealing cards on the ship. We were so naive...”

  “There was no casino, was there?”

  “No.”

  “I feel like I’ve heard this story before.”

  “It was deplorable, Lily. So many of the girls ended up on heroin or dead. And the men, so many men... The beatings. The rapes. I had to love Sergei. It was the only way out of that, but he was not much better. He is a madman. He say he love me, then he beat me, then he say he love me again all in the same minute. I ran as soon as I could. I changed my name. I got married. I changed my name again. Still, they found me.”

  “Sounds like you need to get the hell out of town.”

  “I can’t leave James and the baby. Sergei knows about them. He says he’ll kill them both.”

  “Take them with you.”

  “James doesn’t know about any of this. He’ll leave me. I’m sure of it.”

  “Not my probl—” Lily gets an idea that stops her from being quite so callous. “Hey, how much do you know about these mob guys? Like, you know where they live and hang out and stuff?”

  “Some. The police will do nothing if that is what you are thinking.”

  “I’m not talking about the police.”

  “You want to go beat them up?” Yvonne snorts snarkily.

  “I might have a way to help you and help me at the same time...”

  INT. LA MOUCHE ESPAGNOLE - NIGHT

  “Nope,” Sid says. “Absolutely no way.”

  He’s supposed to be looking at the menu while they have this discussion, but he’s having trouble looking away from Lily. She’s wearing a black...sleeve. He can’t think of another word for it. It’s just a tube stretched around her. The top of it just barely covers her breasts, and the bottom is so short that she keeps her hands pressed against the edges to prevent it from climbing up to her hips when she walks. Whatever it’s called, looking at her in it seems to be making his strange new buzzing sensation even worse, and yet he cannot look away.

  This restaurant brings a grand new set of oddities to the list of things Sid does not understand about the ways of normal people. They handed him a leather-bound list of wines when he sat down. Apparently there are different kinds—a lot of different kinds. Sid asked for water anyway, but the water they brought him appeared fizzy, and therefore suspect, so he hasn’t touched it.

  “All you have to do is kill some mob guys. They probably won’t even be bulletproof. It’ll be easy.”

  “I don’t do that stuff anymore.”

  “I googled this Obshchiy Syndicate. They run the largest sex trafficking operation in Eastern Europe.”

  “Sex traffic?”

  “Yeah. They’re basically the bad guys from Taken. Have you seen Taken, with Liam Neeson?”

  “No.”

  “They’re the worst kind of people. They need to get got.”

  “Still not interested. Do you hear anything unusual?”

  “What? You mean like you being a whiney pussy? That’s kind of unusual.”

  “No. Like a buzzing noise...”

  “Helicopters? Oh no. Are they coming? Is it an ambush?”

  “No. No helicopters.
I don’t even think it’s a sound really. Don’t worry about it.” He glances around the room and stops on a middle aged woman in a purple dress who instantly looks away as his eyes reach hers. It is the third time she has done so, and she is not the only one. “I think people are looking at us.”

  “Not us. They’re looking at you—because you’re wearing a tracksuit in the most expensive restaurant in town.” This is accurate. His tracksuit is black with white stripes along the sleeves and pant legs. He got it at Wal-Mart before he picked Lily up.

  “You said dress like Jason Statham.”

  “Not Crank Jason Statham. How did you pick the one movie where he...nevermind. Look. Back to the Russians. It’s not like anybody will find out. Mobsters get whacked all the time. They’ll just think some other mobsters did it or something.”

  “I don’t really care who finds out. What are they going to do? Send the police?” Sid laughs. He’s a spec ops ghost with a stockpile of machine guns and the fighting ability to kill ten men ten times before the first one realizes he’s dead. Even if they can find him they still have no hope of fighting him.

  “That’s what I’m saying! It’s easy.”

  “So is working at GameStop.”

  “You’re wasted there. You’re the ultimate badass. You could be like the warlord of a small country or something and you’re durdling around wearing a plastic name tag. It’s embarrassing.”

  “We already talked about this. You’re not convincing me.”

  “What if I give you a little incentive?” Lily’s tongue comes out to massage her top lip as she twirls one of her lengthy pigtails between her fingers. He feels her bare foot rub up against his crotch under the table. “I’m not wearing any underwear.”

  “Hmmmm,” he grumbles. She gets right to what he wants. That’s what he likes about Lily. She’s bold and simple. The few other women he has closely interacted with seemed considerably more amorphous about their desires and intentions. Sid appreciates a woman who is far less subtle. But he can’t give in to her demands this time. “No,” he says.

  She snorts and withdraws her foot, rolling her eyes like a child denied some frivolous request. The pigtails intensify the comparison.

  “I don’t get it,” she says. “You’re a wolf in the hen house. This is the United States of America. The only problems we have here are bitch-ass first world problems that you could just fix with bullets in like two seconds and you won’t even bother.”

  Lily releases a quiet growl of frustration. Sid studies her, determines it is in his best interest to make her feel better, and employs some advice given to him by Bruce. The rest of it seemed to work so far.

  “Your hair smells like angels,” Sid says.

  “What?” Lily laughs.

  “Your hair smells like angels.”

  “You’ve been acting so weird.” She shifts to an incredulous glare.

  “I have this thing. I don’t know what to call it. There was this dumb bitch at work today. And I should have… Now there’s like this buzzing feeling. I think it’s in my head. She was just so hostile. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “You’ve got your panties in a wad because a customer was mean to you?” Lily chuckles, not with him, but at him.

  “I guess. What do you do about people like that?”

  “You have a service job, Sid. People are going to be assholes. You just brush it off and move on.”

  “I don’t know if I can. Nobody has ever treated me like that except my dad, and my brother, but they had the might to back it up. This bitch couldn’t back up anything and she still kept going. It was like she didn’t have any idea she could be killed. How come she hasn’t been killed?”

  “Because nobody does that here.”

  “Then people will just act like that all the time, making threats and getting whatever they want.”

  “That’s called entitlement. Get used to it.”

  “I should have crushed her skull.”

  “Oh, really…?” Lily suddenly becomes much more interested in the topic.

  “No. I mean no. Because I don’t do that anymore.”

  She sighs.

  The waiter steps up to the table at Sid’s side. He’s a dapper fellow with a crisply pressed white dress shirt and a black bow tie. A bow tie is a useless thing. A regular tie is bad enough, but it can at least be used to clean up a spill or as a garrote. A bow tie serves neither function.

  “Are we ready to order here?” the waiter asks. We. As if he’s somehow related to them or a part of their group. It’s a manner of speaking Sid never encountered in the mercenary life. “Or do we need more time?”

  “Ready,” Sid says. “Bring me steak.”

  “The filet or the strip, sir?”

  “The biggest one.”

  “The strip then, and how would you like that cooked?”

  Sid struggles to understand the question for a moment before Lily cuts in and answers for him.

  “Medium,” Lily says.

  “Good. Good. And for the lady?”

  Lily turns from the waiter and narrows her eyes at Sid. “I think I’ll have the lobster.” She grins mischievously. The lobster. Just like Bruce said. The lobster. THE LOBSTER.

  “Excellent choice,” the waiter proclaims before scurrying away.

  INT. STEPHEN’S ROOM - NIGHT

  I don’t know man 10:27 PM

  The text message from Blayne flashes across the top of Stephen’s bulky black android phone and he unlocks the screen to respond.

  Don’t be gay. My parents are old. they’re already asleep they won’t know shit, Stephen sends. The constant embarrassments from his father have worn on him over the years. It’s bad enough having to answer the same obnoxious questions for everyone he meets while they stare at him like a zoo animal. Your dad’s white? He’s a priest? How does he have kids? He’s married too? Are you only allowed to listen to church music? Might as well be that way. Another message flashes on his phone.

  this sounds like a bad idea 10:29 PM

  He can’t tolerate it anymore. Nick and Maria get on his case about B grades and playing video games for more than an hour on school nights. They grounded him for a week when they found Pornhub in the family computer’s search history. He needs to stop following orders like a robot and live his own life. They’re not even his real parents.

  Stephen sends another message: so gay... 10:32 PM

  He goes to his little bathroom, more a closet than a full bath, and shoves the door open hastily as he unbuckles his pants and sets his phone down on the edge of the sink. It buzzes as soon as he sets it down.

  fine ill go 10:33 PM

  Stephen types back a reply with one hand as he leans over the toilet bowl to pee: be there in ten minutes wait ousted. No. That’s not right. Ousted? What the hell? Stupid Swype. He tries again and gets the same word. He types one letter at a time. O. U. His little thumb won’t stretch all the way to the S. He readjusts his grip on the phone to punch the letter. He feels it teetering from his fingers and swats for the save, but it’s too late. The phone tumbles into the toilet bowl.

  “No! Shit! Shit! Shit!” Stephen yelps as he lunges into the pissy water without a second of hesitation to retrieve the device. He misses and knocks the phone deeper into the bowl before he spins his hand and finally grasps it as it lodges in the drain. He plucks it from the toilet and a stream of filthy water drips through his fingers. The screen is a blank black slate and a gentle fizzle comes from inside the casing.

  “Fuck,” he whispers angrily. With Nick and Maria already mad at him, he probably won’t be getting a new phone any time soon.

  He removes the little plastic SIM card from the back of the phone and puts it in his pants pocket. He’ll just have to buy a cheap prepay at Walmart or something. From his nightstand, he retrieves an old MP3 player loaded with Lamb of God albums. With his phone toasted, that’ll have to do for tunes tonight. He puts on a black hoodie with the Misfits fiend emblazoned on the chest and stuffs h
is cash in the front pocket before he creeps down the stairs to the kitchen to avoid waking up his parents.

  He finds Nick’s car keys exactly where he expects, on the hanger shaped like a blue kitty cat next to the refrigerator. He removes them from the ring and crunches them slowly into his pocket so they don’t make any unruly jingling.

  Then he notices something new. On the counter next to the refrigerator sits a shiny new iPhone, practically straight from the factory. It seems out of place. Maria just bought a new cell phone a few weeks ago, and Nick doesn’t like smartphones. He loves to smart off about how the touch screens are too hard to use and he’d rather stay in the dark ages. He must have finally caved. Whatever the case, it’s a convenient find. Stephen already plans to surreptitiously borrow his dad’s car. His cell phone isn’t a bigger leap.

  He slips the iPhone into his pocket and tiptoes to the kitchen door, which he cautiously opens while stepping outside at a snail’s pace, then incrementally pushes closed. Once the door is shut all the way he turns to the little Chevy Volt next to him under the covered driveway attached to the house. Nick’s bright orange car was built for sissies, but it is practically silent, and that is definitely a bonus right now.

  EXT. SCRAPYARD - NIGHT

  There are ninety six of them. Rough-looking, with long beards, and capped with varying styles of head wraps. They wear a hodgepodge of military fatigues and windbreakers and sweat clothes. They sit mostly on the grass, though a few were able to secure chairs and some others have collected on top of a massive wooden cable spindle. Yusef, the computer technician sits on the edge of his van. Fatimah has a place on the trunk of a car near Sayyid, where even under her dark shield, she frequently catches some members of the group gazing at her.

  Sayyid raises his hands in praiseful gesticulation.

  إن الحمد لله؛ نحمده ونستعينه ونستغفره، ونعوذ بالله مِن شرور أنفسنا، ومِن سيئات أعمالنا، مَن يَهْدِهِ اللهُ فلا مُضِلّ له، ومَن يُضْلِلْ فلا هاديَ له، وأشهد ألا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له، وأشهد أن محمدًا عبده ورسوله، صلى الله تعالى عليه وعلى آله وأصحابه وسلّم تسليمًا كثيرًا.