Deadly Weakness (Gray Spear Society)

by Siegel, Alex

  "Yes, sir." Hanley didn't like the rules the Society lived by, but he was coming to understand them.

  "And also be careful around the legate," Aaron said. "She's not very... friendly. Just avoid her if you can."

  "No problem, sir."

  Aaron drove to the John Hancock Center. At night it looked like a black tower that reached all the way to the heavens. A valet took the car. Aaron and Hanley went inside and found an elevator. Aaron pressed the button for the 95th floor.

  "Did you rent the Signature Room?"

  Aaron nodded.

  "Nice." Hanley raised his eyebrows.

  "When the legate attends a party, it should be nice."

  The elevator doors opened. Hanley walked into a dining room with glass walls on three sides. The view of Chicago at night was stunning. He had to force himself to look at the people in the room.

  As he was coming to expect, all of them had the muscular bodies of professional athletes. Hanley believed he was in good shape, but he was a fat slug compared to this crowd. Everybody appeared normal otherwise. If they had physical oddities, they were hiding them well. Only Yule stood out as obviously unnatural. His big dark sunglasses looked out of place in the dimly lit setting.

  A sign hung from the ceiling which read, "CONGRATULATIONS!"

  "Who are we congratulating?" Hanley said.

  "Marina," Aaron said, "for her promotion."

  Hanley spotted Marina across the room. She wore a green evening dress and a ruby necklace. He had known she was a beautiful woman, but now she looked absolutely gorgeous. Even her too short hair was attractively arranged.

  "Don't stare at my girlfriend like that," Aaron said. "It upsets me."

  "Sorry, sir." Hanley walked over to Marina. "Congratulations, ma'am."

  "Thank you." She nodded.

  He noticed the legate. She was standing in the darkest part of the room, and her presence made it even darker. Except for her bodyguard, everybody else was a safe distance from her.

  Hanley looked back at Marina. "The legate doesn't seem to be having much fun."

  "She's not a very happy person. When she smiles, it usually means somebody is about to die."

  "That's sad."

  "It is," Marina said. "She paid a high price for her power."

  Somebody tapped Hanley on the shoulder. He turned and saw Norbert's smiling face. He also wore a tuxedo, and Hanley was starting to feel embarrassed about his own attire.

  Two identical young women were with him. They had long dark hair and tanned skin. Their features suggested a Middle-eastern background. One wore a spectacular diamond necklace with a pendant so large it had to be a fake. White shirts and pleated, red skirts looked very out of place in the formal setting. Their feet were bare.

  "It was nice knowing you," Norbert said, "but I should say good bye while I have the chance. We'll probably never meet again. The cells rarely mix."

  Hanley shook his hand. "I'm very glad we did meet, even if it was a little awkward at first. Who are these ladies with you?"

  "The twins, Bethany and Leanna."

  "Ah! The magicians who make debts disappear."

  Hanley shook the twins' delicate hands. They had calluses on the tips of their fingers.

  "No gowns for you?" he said.

  "This is what we always wear," one of them explained.

  "Always? You never change clothes?"

  "They have many copies of exactly the same outfit," Norbert said. "They don't like variety."

  "Oh." Hanley frowned. The twins could've been much more beautiful if they had just dressed better.

  "By the way," one of the girls said, "we'll finish deleting you tomorrow."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Erasing your identity. You won't be able to go back to the FBI. Your badge won't work."

  "How much will you erase?" he said.

  "All of it. From your birth certificate to tonight's hotel bill."

  "My military service record? My medals?"

  "Gone," she said.

  He wasn't sure how he felt about that news. He had paid for those medals with his own blood.

  Norbert suddenly had an alarmed expression. He ushered the twins away.

  "Do you know what you're supposed to do tomorrow?" a new voice said.

  Hanley turned and found himself looking into the eyes of the legate. As before, it was a very disturbing experience. He grasped the price she had paid for power. God had taken away some of her humanity and had left a cold black void inside.

  In a shaky voice, he said, "I believe so, ma'am. I'm supposed to keep my Unit from getting in the way of the real action. And when Xavier calls me, I'm going to ask for extra time before the attack. Aaron would like three hours."

  She nodded. Her bodyguard stood behind her.

  "If you don't mind my asking," Hanley said, "what is your role tomorrow, ma'am?"

  "I'm the bait," she said flatly.

  "I don't understand."

  "Figure it out. Aaron's plan is elegantly simple, actually. His artistry is in the details. God's sublime wisdom is slowly imbuing him, and he's getting a little smarter all the time. He's already a different man these days than the one I recruited just a few years ago. I wonder what your gift will be?"

  The legate studied Hanley's face. He stood before her and tried to appear brave, but it wasn't easy. Abruptly, she walked away.

  He exhaled.

  "Do you ever get used to that, ma'am?" he asked Marina.

  "Get used to what?" she said.

  "The eyes."

  "I like her eyes. They make my venom flow."

  She held up her hand. Drops of liquid decorated the sharp tips of her black fingernails.

  He looked at her in disbelief. Marina is a monster, too, he realized. It wasn't a comforting insight considering she would control his life.

  Waiters brought out a huge cake with gray frosting. The word "CONGRATULATIONS" was written in green letters. Sparklers showered sparks everywhere.

  "My cake!" Marina said with a smile. "Let's eat!"

  * * *

  Xavier drove up to the front door of the closed cement factory. He hopped out to open a garage door, and then he drove inside.

  He parked near one of the iron ladders leading to the huge overhead loft. He went to the trunk and grabbed a ten pound box of dynamite. Holding the box under his arm, he labored up the ladder.

  There were a lot of good places to hide a bomb in the loft. It was full of debris of all shapes and sizes. He was constrained by the large size of the bomb though, and he also didn't want the location to be obvious. Somebody in the Special Missions Unit might inspect the loft.

  As he walked along, he felt the old wooden planks bending beneath his feet. Falling and breaking his legs would be an ironic accident. He tried to step on the planks that still looked strong.

  He came to a big pile of white plastic pails with blue lids. They were six gallons each and had once contained sodium hydroxide. He pulled off a lid. The pail was empty except for some white dust at the bottom. His nose suddenly itched. This will work, he thought. He emptied the box of dynamite into the pail.

  It took him half an hour to bring up all the explosives and pack it into pails. By the time he was done, he was sweating and feeling tired. He paused to rest.

  He had been on the run for a little less than a week but it felt like a year already. Lack of sleep, irregular meals, exposure to freezing cold, and constant anxiety had pushed him to the brink of total exhaustion. His injured thigh was also not healing properly. It needed antibiotics. He checked the bandage and saw fresh blood.

  After today's operation, he would have to find a warm safe place to recuperate. He had no choice. It wasn't obvious where he would go though.

  He drew upon his dwindling reserves of energy and got moving. He arranged the pails so they looked like they had fallen randomly. They didn't need to be touching each other. The explosive power of any single pail would easily set off all the others.

  H
e went back down one more time to retrieve the radio detonators. He had spent most of the night building and testing two of them just to be sure at least one worked. The electronic components had come from model planes he had purchased at a hobby shop. According to the specifications, the range of the radio was a mile, but the bombs were inside a brick building. He would have to be considerably closer to be sure the signal got through.

  He gently placed the fragile devices inside two buckets, one per bucket, and turned them on. The detonators were already attached to blasting caps and two-ounce blocks of C-4. He put the lids back on the buckets.

  He stood back to judge his work. He noticed footsteps in the dust, so he used his hand to brush them away. He couldn't be too careful.

  He went back to his car and sat inside. The warmth felt good. He allowed himself to enjoy it for a long moment. When his eyes started to close, he shook himself awake.

  Better get back to work, he thought. Rhiannon is counting on me.

  He took out a phone he had stolen before coming to the factory.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Hanley was sitting in his hotel room at a desk. He was engaged in his usual activity: filling out forms and writing reports on a laptop. Being chief of the Special Missions Unit was a job that required an iron butt as much as anything else.

  His fingers stopped. Why am I doing this? I don't exist anymore.

  He closed the laptop and placed it carefully on the floor. Then he jumped up and down on it like a child throwing a temper tantrum. Finally, he kicked the damned thing across the room. The grin on his face was so broad it made his cheeks hurt.

  His personal phone rang and he grabbed it. "Hanley here."

  "This is Xavier. I picked out the perfect location for staging the attack. It's a cement factory that was closed down. Less than a mile from the enemy headquarters."

  "What's the address?" Hanley grabbed a piece of paper and a pen.

  "2925 South Hoyne Ave. That's H-O-Y-N-E. I'm here right now. There's plenty of space inside the main building where your men can get ready."

  "It's going to take me a while to get the Unit organized. Let's say, four hours?"

  "What? No!" Xavier said. "You have to move quicker than that. Do you understand how dangerous this is for me? I can't just hang out here for four hours."

  "Sorry, but my men are all over the hotel. I'm sure some of them wandered off to eat breakfast. It's going to take an hour just to notify everybody of the schedule. I'm trying to manage a hundred and forty people here. A group that large doesn't jump on short notice. And we have to pack all the equipment into the vehicles and caravan across town. The logistics of this kind of operation are a nightmare. You have no idea. Four hours actually seems a little optimistic."

  Xavier breathed into the phone. "Can you do it in three hours?"

  "I don't know," Hanley said. "I can try."

  "Then I'll go away and hide for three hours. When I come back, you'd better be here."

  "I will try, Xavier. That's the best I can promise. Besides, the timing of this attack isn't critical. This headquarters isn't going to sneak away just because we're a little late. It's a very big, very immobile building last I checked. Frankly, I'd rather not rush things. You may not appreciate it, but I'm still responsible for the lives of my men."

  Xavier muttered something unintelligible and hung up.

  Hanley immediately reached for his gray Society phone. He dialed Aaron.

  "You don't have to tell me," Aaron said. "I listened to the whole call."

  "Was the address right?" Hanley said.

  "Yes. That was Xavier's actual location according to Bethany. He made sure we knew exactly where he was. Your next job is to gather your men and move them to the cement factory. Bring light weaponry only. There's less chance of an accident that way, and you won't be doing any fighting today."

  "Yes, sir. How much time do I have?"

  "Three hours sounds good to me," Aaron said. "Take more time if absolutely necessary. The legate and some legionnaires will be prowling around the factory by the time you get there. Don't look at them."

  "Do you think Xavier will actually meet me?"

  "Not a fucking chance. At least not the real Xavier. I have to go." The call ended.

  * * *

  Xavier looked through a dirty window at the cement factory in the distance. He was in an empty apartment about a half-mile away. The only furniture was a chair and a table in front of the window. Three items were on the table: a telescope, a .338 caliber sniper rifle, and the radio transmitter for the detonators.

  He leaned down and peered through the telescope. He had cleaned a small patch of the window so the telescope would work better. Through the eyepiece he saw the back of the factory. The rear doors were wide open, giving him a view of the interior. The brown waters of the river were in the foreground. Patches of ice drifted very slowly across the surface of the water.

  Even though it was an exciting moment, it was hard to stay alert. He had watched for an hour without seeing any movement. He was too tired to deal with this combination of tension and boredom. What was the Society doing?

  He was rubbing his neck when he finally saw something. Two small motor boats were drifting along the river. The occupants were crouched down and watching the shore.

  Xavier used the telescope to get a closer look. The legate was in the lead boat. Her white hair and black skin were unmistakable, and she had her bodyguard with her. There were two more legionnaires in her boat and four in the other. Everybody wore the new type of body armor he had seen the other night. They were heavily laden with weapons. Even the legate wore guns and grenades in addition to the machetes she always carried.

  Xavier glanced at the sniper rifle. He was close enough to take a shot at the legate. However, her bodyguard had the freakish gift of looking slightly forward in time. He would push her out of the way of the bullet while Xavier was still pulling the trigger. Killing anybody else would just scare the legate away. There was no point.

  Stick to the plan, Xavier thought. She may be fast, but she can't outrun a fireball. He went back to the telescope.

  He saw more movement on the far side of the factory. A large group carrying signs was walking up the street.

  "What the hell?" he said out loud.

  He refocused the telescope. The people were protesting the Chinese occupation of Tibet, and it was a rambunctious crowd. They were yelling at the buildings as if being really loud would actually make anybody else care. Some protesters even wandered into the parking lot of the cement factory briefly.

  The crowd continued walking down the road and eventually disappeared from sight. Xavier turned his attention back to the legate. Soon it will be over, he thought.

  * * *

  Four protesters remained behind as the rest moved on. Aaron and Yule each carried a metal suitcase. Bethany had a backpack. Marina brought up the rear and watched for signs of trouble.

  Aaron led the way as they dashed into the factory and ducked into the shadows. He quickly checked his surroundings. He didn't see any immediate threats.

  "Yule, do you see anything?" Aaron said.

  Yule took his sunglasses off. His giant eyes swept back and forth, and when he blinked, Aaron could hear his eyelids slap together.

  "No," he said at last. "It looks safe."

  Aaron relaxed a little.

  "Ladies and gentleman," he said. "There is a bomb in this room. The protest march will come back this way in exactly forty-five minutes. We have until then to disarm it. Also, Xavier is watching from outside, so stay away from the windows and doors. Bethany, wait right here. Don't move an inch until I give you permission."

  "Yes, sir," Bethany said.

  "And if you see Xavier, ignore him. It's just a harmless shadow. Yule, take the lead. Use those amazing eyes."

  Yule moved forward slowly. He studied the concrete floor with great interest, although Aaron didn't see anything but dirt and cracks. The factory was filthy.
/>   "Honey," Marina said, "darling, will you finally tell me what the hell is going on?"

  Aaron smiled without looking at her. His eyes were focused on the dark corners.

  "Sure," he said. "When I was a police detective, I learned that every criminal has a modus operandi. When they find a trick that works, they always stick with it. So, when I found out Xavier was a traitor, I immediately wanted to know his M.O. Bethany's excellent research gave me the answer. Xavier uses his shadows to draw his enemies into traps."

  He drifted over to one of the offices along the side of the building. He peeked in through a dirty window. The office was empty except for a broken chair and a mop. He moved on. Before taking each step, he looked for wires strung across the ground.

  "Continue," Marina said, "please."

  "It's a very risky game though. To make his shadows act properly, he has to see them with his own eyes. He has to hide nearby and watch. Otherwise, it quickly becomes obvious they're just projections."

  "But Xavier would be dumb to take those risks with us. We almost killed him in Hastings. Why isn't he just running away?"

  "Two reasons," Aaron said. "First, he's insane. He can't let go of Rhiannon. Second, I offered him prizes worth the risks. I made sure the lure of Chicago was impossible to refuse."

  Yule looked at the floor. "Tire tracks. A vehicle was here recently. It parked there." He pointed at a spot near a ladder that appeared undistinguished to Aaron.

  "I'm still listening," Marina said. "What prizes?"

  "The legate for one," Aaron said. "She's in a boat on the river right now. We could walk outside and say hello to her if we wanted."

  She looked towards the back of the building. "How did Xavier know she would be here?"

  "Dew told him. He's the computer expert in Houston and Xavier's most trusted friend. I knew Xavier would eventually make contact with Dew out of desperation. Dew leaked the information about the legate visiting Chicago, just like I ordered him to. Dew also mentioned we're living in a temporary headquarters. He was specific about certain details. It was enough to allow Xavier to investigate further. The Chicago headquarters was the other prize."