Dean Ing - Quantrill 1

by Systemic Shock(lit)

  The bandanna went in place again under Symons's trembling fingers. Symons backed off several paces, took a deep breath in the silence, and sprinted with what he clearly intended to be a flying kick.

  The listening Sabado was too quick. At the first sound of rapid footfalls he danced to one side, then back, and loosed several rounds toward the noise on full automatic setting.

  Symons had dived, rolled, and was up again before Sabado could fire again at the sound. This time he caught the tall blond recruit in the breast and one arm with crimson gel blanks. "Aaaah, shit," said Symons. "You got me, Sheriff."

  "You came on like a herd of turtles," said Sabado, and called for another recruit. No response. This game was altogether too realistic. The sergeant looked around him as if undecided; and Quantrill had seen that innocent-looking survey too many times. "Quantrill," Sabado cooed; "front and center."

  Quantrill sighed, stepped forward, took the goggles and tied the bandanna, crowding up against the big man, the H&K at port-arms between them. With one hand Quantrill rearranged the blindfold. "Get your goddam hand off that safety," Sabado murmured, and Quantrill's first ploy failed.

  The sturdy recruit backed away then, removing his belt in an elaborate stripper's pantomime that brought laughter. "Ah, haaaa, San Antone," someone mimicked an old Texan refrain in falsetto, and then the other recruits began to get the idea. Quantrill took off one brogan and held it like a long-dead thing. Catcalls, mocking wagers against Quantrill, other crowd noises masked his stealthy approach as he placed each foot silently on the mats. His belt was looped through its buckle, the free end wrapped in his fist, as he planted himself before the grimly smiling Sabado. The sergeant whirled, jabbed the weapon's muzzle forward, then back again, probing to learn if Quantrill was close behind him. The crowd noises were working.

  Quantrill made a slow, obvious, obscene gesture and the squad renewed its mirth. Then he tossed the brogan to the mat. The sudden burst of fifteen rounds, fired in a semicircular sweep, struck the mats five meters away from Sabado but, as the sergeant pivoted again, Quantrill was ready. The belt loop dropped over the weapon behind its front sight, the recruit leaping behind the big man, the muzzle of the H&K instantly jerked onto Sabado's shoulder as the belt half-encircled his neck.

  Sabado essayed a whirling kick but felt a pair of hands over his trigger hand, a pair of legs tangled in his. The H&K began to fire into the air, Sabado unable to prevent pressure on the trigger, and as he tried to fall on his assailant he felt Quantrill slide away. Again the vicious wrench at the weapon muzzle; this time Sabado snatched at the belt, caught it, felt it come free and without rising he swept the H&K in an arc.

  Nothing. The magazine was empty.

  Sabado stood up slowly, hauled the blindfold down. After a moment he found Quantrill standing quietly among the other recruits-as if he had been there all along. Sabado stripped away the belt, tossed it to Quantrill, held up the weapon. "It's still mine," he said. "One pace forward, Quantrill, and turn around."

  Quantrill held out his arms, slowly turned for inspection. Sabado grunted. "What's that on your hand?"

  "Blood, Sergeant," Quantrill said.

  A nod. "Did I zap you?"

  "Not with the H&K. I tore a fingernail."

  "Doesn't count," said Sabado curtly. '"We'll call this one a draw. Put your gear back on, recruit." Speaking for them all to hear: "He used his belt for leverage, and had you nik-niks to cover his noise. And he took his time, and used up all my ammo. And he didn't try me on the mat. Never mind all the things he did wrong; just remember what he did right. Dis-missed!"

  After a moment of surprise, the squad vented a cheer, some pummeling Quantrill's back before squad leader Fiero herded them into ranks and marched them back to the jammed dormitory building they used as a barracks.

  Sabado stood alone, pretending to study the fit of the H&K's magazine until he was certain that the squad could not see. Then and only then did he begin to rub the knot that was already forming on the big trapezius muscle that sloped from neck to shoulder.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Sandys jurnal Dec. 24 Tus.

  We must be near a town, they brout lots of flannel for us kids to make fresh air filtars. I wonder what town. Mis-tery!! Sombody has licker in the ranch house I thout it was aginst the religin of the church of the sacrifised lamb, they pray lots but they whip you lots more. Glad mom is pregnet, the profets think thats keen and let her alone. She told me remimber your only nine and I remimber. Shana is eleven shes one of Profet Jansens wives but Im only a unfired vessel. I never heard such argumints, the profets all say the perfect kingdom of god is ours to make but all want to make it diffrent. If they think some god can make them agree there sadly mistakin. But Im dumb even for nine, no body cares much as long as I build good filtars.

  Merry Xmas jurnal I wonder if Ted ever misses me.

  If he managed to consume enough beer, thought Quan trill, he might forget other Christmas eves. He refused to look at the decorated cedar that winked its tiny chemlamps in one corner of the enlisted men's club; studied his reflection behind the beer-only bar instead.

  The seven weeks of basic training had seemed endless. Now that he'd passed through the python of basic, he was ready to be swallowed by a combat outfit. He couldn't wait to see where it would shit him out. He'd know damned soon; nobody stayed long at San Marcos after basic.

  Someone had been trying to talk to him on the next stool but finally gave it up. Someone else eased into the vacancy. The civilian beertender served him immediately, without discussion. It was like the rest of the Army, the choice was beer or no beer.

  He wondered suddenly if Cathy Palma was having a beer, then wondered why he'd thought of her. Well, she was nearly a friend. Too near. He wondered if Palma had located the kid, Sandy; thought of the plastic tea set; smiled; found his eyes misting. He thought then of the Heckler & Koch, and wondered if he were crazy for itching to get his hands on one. "So where d 'you think they'll send you, Quantrill?" The soft educated Tex-Mex drawl with its smooth sibilance made him jerk around. Then he looked at the reflection instead. Looking at Rafael Sabado through a distant mirror gave Quantrill a sense of distance that he wanted very much. He shrugged.

  "I'm interested," Sabado went on. "Everybody's got a theory, or a rumor. A few even have choices," he said, picking his words carefully.

  "Florida. Siberia. Canada. Fuckin' lot I care."

  Sabado grunted, swilled half his beer, nodded to himself. "I lost my whole family in Houston-just like that," he said with a fingersnap. "That's why I care a whole chingada lot. Why don't you?"

  "Why do you hate my guts?" Quantrill said it without thinking it out. It had been flicking at the tip of his mind for days.

  "I'll answer that when you've done two things. Have a beer on me-and tell me why you think I hate your guts."

  Quantrill had absorbed two beers already; just enough that he felt ready to catalogue all the special little treatments, the physical outrages, he had suffered at the hands of the big Chicano. It took him two minutes, all in a growl. He stared at the bubbles in the fresh beer before him.

  "Take a swig," Sabado insisted, nodding at the beer; some intensity went out of his face as he watched Quantrill do it. "First, I never, never buy for anyone I hate. A point of honor; in la raza we live on those," he grinned ruefully. He glanced back at Quantrill's reflection. "As for hitting on you,-there isn't another man in your squad who gives me a workout. They're dulces, fuckin' candy. They lack the killer instinct-and you don't, cabroncito. How old are you anyway? No shit now; strictly off the record."

  Quantrill shrugged, and told him.

  "Ay de mi, you remind me of me," Sabado gurgled deep in his throat.

  "You trying to say you kicked the shit out of me for seven weeks because you like me?"

  A shadow passed across the handsome bronze face. "Close, compadre. But I swore off liking people for the duration. I think you did too. If you played your cards right, you could learn
to do everything I do."

  Quantrill absorbed this with the beer. "You think I joined up to be an instructor?"

  "Not exactly. Something a whole lot worse-or better, if it's killing you like."

  A quick darting glance directly at the big man beside him: "Why would I like it?"

  The high cheekbones faced him. "Why wouldn't you?" Then, studying Quantrill, he narrowed his eyes and purred, "I think maybe you already know. I'd like to think so, Quantrill. Tell you what; let's go outside and inhale some fresh fallout. Trust me. I just don' want to go the macho route with all these assbreaths looking on."

  Quantrill decided he would soon be stoop-shouldered from shrugging, but went outside with Sabado. He considered the possibility that Sabado intended to pick a fight; shelved the idea rather than reject it.

  Standing beneath the single fluorescent light on the porch, Sabado faced the youth. "Ever play 'gotcha'? Alias the handslap game. Put your palms against mine." Sabado's hands were out, palms up, fingers together.

  Quantrill had played the game a few times, but denied it. He hadn't enjoyed it anyway. No challenge.

  But Sabado's right hand was less than a blur as it flicked up and around to slap the back of Quantrill's left hand. One instant he felt a cool callused palm against his, and in what seemed the same instant that palm was elsewhere. "That's a gotcha," Sabado murmured. "I keep on until I miss."

  Quantrill saw that Sabado's slaps, nothing more than gentle taps, implied great control. He found very quickly that the game could be steeped in psychological nuance. Those big hands feinted, jittered, crossed over to underline their mastery. Only when the sergeant tried to cross both hands in a tour de force move did he miss with both.

  "Your turn," Sabado smiled, and jerked his hands away the instant Quantrill touched them. "No, keep your thumbs in," he said as Quantrill used his left thumb to score.

  "You were doing it."

  "To spook you," Sabado said easily. "Makes it a cinch. Your opponent gets fluttery guts and then he's lost."

  Quantrill looked away with a headshake as if to some onlooker. And scored with a double-crossover. He scored with each hand; sometimes with eyes closed; sometimes crossing. He did not miss once in fifty moves.

  "Okay, game's over," Sabado grunted finally, as if troubled. "For awhile I couldn't figure out how you were doing it. Nobody's quicker than I am."

  "You think I'm cheating?"

  A snort. "No. I was wrong, that's all; somebody is quicker, compadre. Not because I was spooked. That's easy enough to prove."

  Sabado placed his hands atop QuantriU's again, pointed out that neither of them betrayed hypertension with vibratory tremors. "Yeah, I thought so," Sabado said, lowering his hands. "You're a gunsel, all right."

  A gunsel, he said, was an old tag. The Army psychomotor test people had culled it from studies on what they termed the 'gunslinger mystique'. The adrenal medulla produced both adrenalin and noradrenalin in response to stress, heightening the speed and strength of muscle response. In nearly all humans were emotional side effects as well as physical, a shakiness that could interfere with coordination, that could even produce panic or unconsciousness.

  But in every million humans were a few who made optimum stress-management responses. Those few, said Sabado, got the advantages of their adrenal glands without the disadvantages. ' "That's me," he added, "and that's you. In the 1880's we'd've been gunslingers. Nowadays there isn't much call for that. But the Army needs a few gunsels, people who can act alone under special hazards. I'm a referral service for those few."

  Quantril checked his lapel dosimeter, relieved to find that they were taking only a fraction of a rad per hour outside. "How do they use those guys, Sergeant: Something like a regimental combat team?"

  A long slow smiling headshake. "More effective than that, with lower profile. When I said 'alone' I meant it, Quantrill."

  "Doesn't sound like the Army to me."

  "Doesn't, does it?" Sabado pursed his lips reflectively. "But let's suppose there was a foreign national, someone who did top-level liaison between the President and, ah, another NATO country. Run it on down with me: supposethis bastard was a mole-a deep-cover Sinolnd agent-who was pinpointing our key installations to be nuked on cue. Like the Shenandoah Command Center, or the Grand Island Quartermaster complex."

  Quantrill's eyes widened. Both of those underground centers had been secret until they'd taken consecutive impact nukes, drilling down into bedrock to atomize a President and a supply center. "I guess the FBI would shoot him on sight," he said.

  "The feebies don't ice folks on contract these days. Some CIA people do, but not on US soil. Treasury Department sticks to other duties. That leaves military intelligence, com-padre." Sabado's eyes were glimmering slits in the half-light. "I hear the Army has such an agency. I would imagine they'd have a few gunsels train able to go anywhere, anytime, to complete an assignment. The question is: are you interested!"

  "This is crazy, Sergeant. I mean, it can't be this simple-"

  "It isn't simple; but this is how it starts. Did you think they'd advertise in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram!"

  "No-o-o, but if they did they wouldn't ask for anybody fifteen years old."

  "Don't second-guess the Service. They'd be interested in a toddler if he had your reflexes-but it shit-sure isn't an open sesame, they run you through a heavy wringer before they take you. "If they take you. I gave somebody your name a week ago; surely you don' think I'd make this pitch unless somebody higher up gave the word. But I've told you everything I can until I get a commitment. Yes or no!"

  A youth came out the door, affixing his headgear, nodding to the pair who stood near. Quantrill smiled, nodded back, waited until they were alone again. "When do you need my answer?"

  "Right now. I didn't come here tonight because I like green beer. Something else that should go without saying but I'll say it anyhow: whatever you answer, you don" even hint to anybody about our little talk. I'd have to say I lie a lot. I wouldn' like that."

  Quantrill took a long breath; expelled it. "Okay, I'm still not sure I believe it. But I'll do it. It sure isn't what I had in mind when I joined up, Sergeant. You sure I won't wind up with an assignment like yours?"

  He had never heard Sabado laugh and was surprised at the musical gurgle deep in his chest. "This isn't an assignment, Quantrill; this is what I ask for between assignments. I'm not always a sergeant. It depends," he added vaguely.

  This Sabado was subtly different from the big swaggerer on the practice mats. The difference was unsettling until Quantrill realized it lay in the man's speech patterns. Tonight Sabado was relaxing, letting his Tex-Mex accent have its way. Tonight Rafael Sabado was not bothering with bullshit. "If he plays a lot of parts, a gunsel must get a lot of ID's," said Quantrill.

  "Sure. But none to link him with 'T' Section. For what it's worth, a gunsel can't flash an ID if he gets in trouble on assignment. And he's up against people who know some tricks-cosmetic work, false prints, martial arts-so he gets the best training Uncle can provide. What he doesn't get is any promise about tomorrow."

  "At least you're up front about it. I gather a gunsel doesn't take prisoners."

  "If they need the quarry alive, the feebies can handle it. If they don't, somebody in T Section gets the assignment."

  "What does 'T' stand for?"

  "Terminate."

  "I hope they terminated the guy who pinpointed Shenandoah."

  "What if I tol' you it was a woman, compadrel"

  "I dunno. I guess it wouldn't make any difference."

  "It didn't," Sabado grunted. "A gunsel takes what comes." Pause; flicker of something unsaid in the face. "He has to. You'll see. You have to make up your mind that T Section chose you and your assignment for a good reason.

  You may never know how much you've shortened the war, how many lives you save, but," he gave a sly chuckle,"you get to see results first-hand. More gratifying than lugging mortar rounds in fucking Siberia."

  "
Too bad; in a way I was wondering what Siberia's like."

  "You might find out if you flunk. Don't. Now get some sleep. Tomorrow right after rollcall, you make sick call. Take a book with you. Then ask to see Major Lazarus. That's all. Now repeat mat."

  "Uh,-sleep. Sick call after rollcall, ask for Major Lazarus."

  "Take a book, compadre."

  "Right." Quantrill watched the big man take the stairs two at a time; wondered if Sabado really did lie a lot; wondered if there really was a Major Lazarus.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Perhaps Major Lazarus existed. Quantrill never met him, but the fact that he became the only occupant of an examination room told him something. There were very few empty rooms in San Marcos.