by Peter Clines
In Quilt’s opinion, smoking was one of the worst vices a professional soldier could pick up. Any addiction was bad, but one that risked uncontrollable coughs and shortness of breath was deadly. Worse yet, cigarette smoke had a strong, distinctive smell that could carry up to half a mile in certain conditions.
Such as an abandoned city.
The thieves had made a camp for themselves inside a fast food restaurant just east of Wilshire and LaBrea. Quilt studied the burger shack from the unlit parking lot of a small strip mall across the street. A horrible choice. They were too visible in the front and had no view in the back. There were limited exits, too. Again, the lack of professionalism gnawed at him.
It was time for their first lesson.
He scaled the strip mall and stretched himself flat on the roof of a sushi restaurant. The G36 came off his shoulder. He flipped out the bipod and gave the suppressor a half-twist to make sure it was still locked.
Four of them were on their roof keeping watch. One was smoking. He took a long drag and the ember lit up like a tiny flare. Another reason a professional soldier didn’t smoke. Quilt could see it from across the six-lane street. It pinpointed the man’s head, even with the streetlights.
He lined up and waited for the guard to inhale again. His finger applied pressure to the trigger. The rifle made a noise like a loud cough.
The cigarette scattered in a flurry of red sparks. The thief fell over. Quilt picked up the rifle and shifted fifteen feet to his left. Even with the suppressor he would not take two sniper shots from the same position.
It took two minutes for any of the other guards to notice their friend. They called out jokes about sleeping on the job and not sharing the good stuff. When he didn’t answer, one walked over to kick him awake.
Quilt pressed his eye to the scope. He let his breath slide out. He counted his heartbeats.
The next thief, a woman, gave the dead man a gentle boot in the ribs. Then a firmer one. She bent down to shake the man awake.
There was another cough.
The second thief continued bending at the knees and slumped over the first. She never made a sound. Her rifle, one of the P90s from Quilt’s office, rattled on the rooftop.
It took a few moments for the other two to register what had happened. One, another woman, dropped flat. She had a long braid which Quilt thought was asking for trouble. The other one, a man, lifted one of the M4 carbines and began twisting randomly back and forth, as if he’d suddenly catch sight of the sniper. He looked like an idiot. An idiot who thought he looked intimidating.
Neither of them signaled the people in the restaurant below them. Quilt felt another quick flare of annoyance as he settled into his new position. His trigger finger flexed and the idiot thief twisted one last time.
The braided woman twisted away and vanished. She’d rolled straight off the edge of the building, dropping out of sight as quickly as possible. Quilt decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume it had been deliberate.
A minute later the woman appeared in the restaurant. She limped over and shook one of the thieves awake, a bearded man who slept with Quilt’s AA-12 within reach. They had a brief but animated discussion.
While they were talking Quilt marched along the roof and used up eleven more rounds shooting junkies. Eleven hits in twenty-eight seconds. Not as fast as he could’ve done on a range, but still not bad. It was a bit wasteful, but this was the most enjoyable evening he’d had in at least two months.
He stretched out again and watched their body language while he reloaded the rifle drum. The woman from the roof was tense. Another two women and three men who’d been inside didn’t seem to understand what was going on. The bearded man, their leader, seemed calm but alert.
Quilt pressed the drum back into position, set the rifle against his shoulder, and read lips though the scope. The braided woman was smart. She was keeping back with the bearded man, out of lines of sight. Not far enough back, but better than the man and woman pressed up against the glass. They were the ones who noticed the dead junkies.
The discovery had many of them in a panic. Their bearded leader—Bernie, it looked like they were calling him—was still calm. Battle-calm, Quilt realized. The man had been under fire before. It was agreed that they’d leave at dawn. They had what they’d gone out to collect. They were due at—Bernie’s face turned away when he named the location— no later than five tomorrow. They would continue to sleep in shifts and be on the road in—Bernie checked his watch—six hours.
The thieves arranged themselves along the windows, and Quilt settled down for five hours of sleep.
* * *
Quilt was already on the roof of the burger shack when the thieves woke up. Two of them opened the side door and slipped out to the bikes parked in the small lot behind the restaurant. A long, rubber-coated wire ran through frames and wheels, fastening them together into a huge mass. Considering how slack they were in so many things, Quilt found this to be overzealous and a bit hypocritical. It wasn’t as if there were lots of people stealing bikes these days. It was more likely they’d want to make a fast getaway at some point and their bikes would be useless.
One of the thieves, a skinny man with a spiked mohawk, pressed himself against the corner of the restaurant and tried to keep a lookout. One of Quilt’s M4 carbines sat loose in his arms. The woman, just as skinny, bent to the padlock fastening the two ends of the wire. She gave a quick look around herself and then focused her attention on the combination dial.
Neither of them looked up.
Quilt landed to the mohawk man’s left, hidden from the restaurant windows. He slipped one hand behind the thief’s head and slammed the edge of the other hand into the man’s throat. Pushing the head forward accented the blow and kept the skinny man from making noise against the building. He hiccupped and his eyes bugged. The striking hand grabbed him under the chin and wrenched the man’s skull around.
The mohawk man went limp. Quilt held the body upright and away from the wall. The thief’s gear swayed for a moment and grew still. The rifle strap was still twisted around his arm. Quilt lowered him to the ground and stepped toward the woman.
She straightened up from the lock, pulling the wire out of the wheels, and Quilt placed his hand over her mouth. A blow to the stomach doubled her over and knocked the wind out of her. She wouldn’t be able to scream or struggle. He snapped her neck with the edge of his hand and caught the body before it fell.
He threw her corpse over his shoulder and grabbed the skinny man by the belt. He made a point of stepping only on clean stone or pavement as he carried them across the parking lot, around a hedge, and found himself in a more residential area. This was considered, if Quilt’s memory was correct, Beverly Hills-adjacent. There were small trees lining the street and little houses with expensive cars in the driveway. He dumped the bodies there.
There were a few junkies huddled in a pile on the postage-stamp lawn across the street. They’d be waking up soon as the sun got higher and warmed their bodies. And they’d wake up hungry.
Quilt had killed women up close before. His second-to-last job, the one before the doctor, had been a woman. He’d been paid to poison her. At least, the client had said the liquid was poison, but Quilt had his doubts. After several years, he had more than a passing familiarity with most toxins, natural and synthetic. The clear liquid didn’t flow right. It had separated into two distinct compounds, one of which was too viscous and clung to the sides of the microvial. More likely it was some kind of slow-release radioactive compound in suspension, possibly a tracking isotope.
Regardless, it had never been his job to question the client unless absolutely necessary. He followed the dossier, located the target in an airport bar, and struck up a casual conversation which he allowed to become more intimate. When her head had tipped back to laugh at a joke, he had slipped the liquid into her drink. He’d covered the action by dipping his own head to laugh and almost tipping over his own tall glass. Hal
f an hour later she squeezed his hand, gave him a quick kiss, and boarded her plane.
The target had a clear tan line on her index finger. She removed her wedding ring for business trips. That demonstrated a lack of morals that Quilt found bothersome, although he recognized the irony of a man such as himself being a judge of morals.
He’d almost gotten on a plane himself after that. He had a permanent room in Aswan at the Abu Simbel Hotel. It overlooked the Nile and gave him a view of an old monastery on the west bank. Even with all the recent unrest and the ever-present police, Egypt was one of the few places he ever felt peaceful and relaxed. A few weeks later the first outbreaks had been announced in China. Had he gone to Egypt, his return to the States would’ve been much more inconvenient.
The other thieves called out for their partners. Moving as little as possible, he leaned his head and shoulders to a point where he could glimpse them through the hedge. He could see Bernie and the braided woman as they looked about and called for their partners. She pointed at the open padlock and the loops of wire by the bikes.
Another man looked out from behind them. He wore a knit cap that sported three concentric circles on his forehead. If he were the type, Quilt would’ve smirked. The man was wearing a target on his skull.
None of them stepped that far from the restaurant. They weren’t that eager to find their friends. A few quick words were exchanged and the braided woman and the Human Target went back inside. Bernie stayed behind to study the back lot. He looked past the hedge, down the side street, and for a brief moment Quilt was sure the man was looking through the hedge, that he’d been spotted somehow. His hand settled to his pistol, but Bernie’s eyes drifted away and he stepped back into the restaurant. He moved backwards, never taking his eyes off the street. Quilt respected that.
He sprinted across the parking lot as soon as Bernie was gone from sight. He found footholds, seized the edges of bricks, and was on the roof less than a minute after the restaurant door closed. He caught himself at the edge of the wall and paused to get his balance. If he let momentum carry him onto the roof too quick, they’d hear him inside. He took a breath and stepped down.
A few minutes later the thieves burst through the doors. There were five of them left. Bernie, the braided woman, and another woman wore heavy, bulging backpacks. They were carrying the materials from the field hospital. The other two were the escorts. They were supposed to intercept threats. The Human Target was one of them. So was a little man with a round face.
They mounted the bikes, cautiously looking around the whole time. The round-faced man fought to free his from one of the now-extra bicycles and sent the other one crashing to the ground. His partners glared at him. From down the residential street came the moans and howls of junkies.
The thieves kicked off and began to pedal. They moved down the burger shack’s drive-through lane and out onto Wilshire. Bernie and the braided woman were in good shape and took the lead almost immediately. The round-faced man scooted up alongside them and the others fell into position behind them. The Human Target was in the rear and already falling behind. He was just too bulky and long-legged to ride his bicycle with the efficiency of the others.
Quilt glanced over his shoulder. A quartet of junkies was shuffling down the residential street to investigate the noise. The bikes had gotten out of sight just in time.
He turned back to Wilshire and set his rifle to his shoulder. The last thief rode into the scope’s cross hairs. The G36 coughed and the Human Target dropped. The bike stayed between his legs so it made almost no noise as it fell over. The rest of his team continued on, pedaling hard.
Quilt slung the rifle over his shoulder and vaulted down to ground level. The four junkies gibbered with glee and lunged toward him. He drew his MK23 and dropped each of them with a round between the eyes.
He shook the bicycle free of the Human Target and did a quick check of the gears and shifters. It didn’t have a lot of wear on it, but wasn’t a great bike. Most likely something that had been looted from a department store or big toy chain. It would have to do.
Another groan came from behind the hedge, followed by the sounds of tearing cloth and meat. Something had found the two bodies. It was time to get moving.
* * *
Quilt’s bike skimmed through the alleys that paralleled Wilshire. It was dangerous. Less than ten minutes on the bicycle and he’d come out into a street just a few feet from a trio of junkies. They were already eating, tearing apart one of their own, from the look of it. They’d turned and howled and gnashed their teeth at him, but their hunger outweighed the instinct to chase him.
Fifteen minutes later he caught a glimpse of the thieves across a parking lot straddled by two tall buildings. The group of cyclists seemed slow and steady compared to the blur of background around them and himself. They were half a block ahead of him, no more.
Another cross street opened up in front of him. There were two junkies there, both women, dressed in filthy running clothes. They were on the far side of the street, already looking his way.
One of them spat out a stream of nonsense syllables and lunged. He yanked the bike to the side and dodged her arms. Then he pushed himself flat against the handlebars to duck the second junkie. It let him avoid her arms, but also blocked him from pedaling for a few seconds. The bicycle shot past the women, but Quilt could feel the loss of momentum.
The women were already after him, their soiled sneakers slapping on the concrete and pavement.
Quilt stood up and cranked his legs on the pedals, but knew it was a lost cause. The junkies would catch him before he could regain enough speed. He crushed the brakes in his hand and the bike skidded around to face the women.
He reached for his pistol but one of them, the dark haired one, was too close. Her flailing hands batted his arm away from the holster. Instead, he wrapped his arm around hers and drove the heel of his other hand into the bridge of her nose. There was a loud snap as the bone was pushed back into her skull. A second pound from his palm drove it the rest of the way into her brain.
He dragged the convulsing woman across the front of the bike and into the second junkie. The bleach-blonde clawed past her dying companion and her fingers brushed his particle mask. He punched her in the face. She staggered back as Quilt shook the first junkie off his arm. The blonde howled and leaped and he shot her once in the chest and again in the mouth. She dropped over the front tire of the bike and blood gushed across his boots.
Quilt’s brow furrowed behind his glasses. Blood was bad. Blood carried the infection.
He reached into the side pouch of his backpack and yanked out a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide, his last one. He poured half of it over his boots and kicked pink, hissing droplets across the pavement. He tore the pocket off the dark-haired junkie’s pants and used it to mop some of the foaming blood away. He poured the rest of the bottle over them and heard it sizzle on the nylon. His feet were still dry. His boots were clean.
The attack and clean up had cost him just under five minutes. His brow knotted even more. The thieves were at least six blocks away by now. Quilt lifted the bike, turned it around in the air, and pumped the pedals again.
He’d gone through five blocks’ worth of alleys when he caught another glimpse of them, barely a hundred yards ahead. They must have stopped. There was no way he could’ve been so wrong in his estimates. Another minute and he was racing alongside them. He could see them flickering between buildings. A minute later he was in the lead.
They were coming out of Beverly Hills now, into the area of tall apartment buildings and taller banks. A few cars were parked along the road here, many of them with smashed windows. Quilt swerved his bike out towards Wilshire but cut onto the sidewalk. Ahead of him, at the bottom of a small hill, was the vehicle he wanted. It was an oversized SUV, its windows broken and tires slashed, probably by some tree-hugger as their final act before succumbing to the virus or being eaten.
He swung his legs off the bike while
it was still coasting and guided it down to the pavement without a sound. He crouched between the SUV and the silver Lexus in front of it. He could stare into the Lexus and see a dim, distorted reflection of the road behind him.
A dark line wavered and swelled. Quilt watched it grow closer and closer in the reflection. In the silent city, he heard oiled chains grind through gears. He swung the rifle off his shoulder and wrapped his fingers around the oversized carrying handle.
Bernie and the braided woman rushed past his narrow hiding space. Five seconds later another thief whizzed by. Then he stood and pivoted, swinging the G36 up to shoulder height.
The rifle stock clotheslined the round-faced man. It caught him under the chin on the way up, crushing his trachea and shattering his jaw where it connected to his skull. He flew back off his bike and crashed to the ground next to the SUV. His hands clawed at his throat as he tried to force air into his lungs. The bicycle rolled on for another ten or fifteen yards, held up by momentum, and then it crashed into a sign post with a loud clatter.
Quilt was already on the move. Three left. They gave up all pretense of stealth and were rushing down the hill. The sound and motion attracted more and more junkies. Over a dozen chasing them already.
He could see their destination from here and recognized it. The Los Angeles Federal Building. It stood a bit away from the other structures, the separation made more prominent by the concrete barriers and barbed wire that ringed the small plaza.
Across the street, three bonfires burned with strong, tall flames. Even from half a mile away, Quilt recognized the black smoke coming from the piles. He’d seen it often in Africa and twice in the Middle East. They weren’t burning wood.