Codename: Winterborn (The Last Survivors Book 1)

by Allan Yoskowitz

  He dove over the end of the roof and came down hard, landing exactly where he wanted to—on the fire escape.

  His next leap took him straight down the stairs, jumping down almost to the next landing. He jumped over the side of the stairs, and landed on the next set, and kept going in that fashion, making it down several stories in several seconds.

  The stairs sparked where the bullets struck, but each one narrowly missed Anderson as he leapt from landing to landing. He was on the ground within moments, and dropped at a run, sprinting down the alley and across the street in the blink of an eye.

  *

  Kevin Anderson slowed down to a walk as he neared his hotel. The last thing he wanted was a bellman looking at him strangely as he sprinted in. He strolled in calmly, as though he owned the place. With the credit card bill he would rack up by the time his stay was over, he might as well own it.

  The first thing he noticed upon walking in wasn't the plush carpets, or the fine wood paneling. It wasn't the lounge on his left—an elevated platform three steps off the ground, surrounded by brass bars (unlike other hotels, for “other clientele”, there were ashtrays on almost every linen-covered coffee table). It was the lobby full of military men.

  Oh crap. He looked around. Everyone there had obvious military training, but he couldn't tell where they had come from. They were all in simple black uniforms and outfits, and no one wore olive drab, oddly enough. No Marine green, Air Force blue… just black.

  They, too, were in the hotel lobby as though they owned the place. They lounged about, smoking, drinking liquor for the most part. They were the quietest group of grunts having fun that he had ever seen.

  He blinked and realized exactly what they were... They were Mercenaries.

  Anderson felt his pulse rate steadily climb. Had they found him? Was this Mandy's idea of reinforcements?

  He forced himself calm and continued walking. He stepped right past the lounge straight for the elevators. He tapped the up button, and felt, more than heard anyone behind him.

  Six Mercenaries were right there, standing directly behind him. All of them had duffel bags and suitcases. Remain calm. Externally, he frowned thoughtfully and shook his head. One of the Mercenaries, a nearly seven-foot monster, smiled down at him.

  “What's the matter, never seen a Merc before?”

  Anderson smiled sheepishly. “No, I haven't, really. There a convention in town?”

  One of the smaller ones shook his head. “Just a large-scale contract.”

  Kevin nodded thoughtfully and stepped into the back of the elevator when it came. He tapped the top floor on his way by.

  The seven Mercenaries hit a button for a different floor each as they slowly, quietly piled into the elevator. The largest one tucked himself into the corner next to Kevin on one side, and one that was 6'3” stood next to him on the other. The next five piled in front, pressing him against the back wall so much that he could smell the sweat and aftershave of those around him.

  “So,” a guy in front said, “who do you think is going to get this guy first, us or Mandy?”

  The one next to Anderson chuckled. A deep, rumbling laugh. “It's only a few hundred of us against one of her, just to get one fellow. I think the odds are about even.”

  “Where are we going to start looking for this Anderson schmuck?”

  The elevator came to a stop, and the first one let out. “Probably every rat-infested hellhole in this city. See you guys later.”

  The doors slowly slid closed, and the elevator’s room increased a bit. It then, slowly, started inching its way to the next floor.

  “Personally,” the giant said, “the main problem is that this fellow looks so damned ordinary, we could probably walk right by him and not even notice.”

  The one on the other side of Anderson looked right over his head and smiled. “Yeah, tell me about it. Wouldn't it be really stupid if that happened? Hell, I've studied this guy's picture so long that I thought half the guys in the room downstairs looked just like him. This guy could be him,” he said, gesturing at Anderson.

  The elevator crawled to a stop again, and Anderson waited for at least one of the two guys on either side of him to just plain leave already.

  “Hell, I remember something about the British one time looking for a guy in Dublin, only they couldn't find him. And the guy stayed in the same freaking hotel as them.”

  Now Anderson's blood ran cold. One good hard look at the guest list here and—

  “Are you kidding me? Look at who we're looking for. He—”

  The elevator’s ping interrupted him and he hefted his duffel and moved through the Mercenaries in front of him, out the door.

  Kevin Anderson winced. Now he had to leave, when one of them was starting to be helpful.

  Anderson glanced at the seven-foot monstrosity next to him, and wondered how long it would take the giant to get bored listening to Mozart as muzak and pay attention to the guy next to him.

  The doors inched closed, and Kevin's heart began to race again.

  A hand shot out between them from the other side, forcing the doors open. The Merc who just left stepped back inside. “Sorry, wrong floor.” He resumed his place and the doors slid shut again. He waited until the elevator started moving to say, “Anyway, like I said, this guy doesn't know how much more traveling he'll have to do, and he's operating on limited resources. Staying at a place like this would just suck him as dry as a cock after a blow job.”

  The elevator stopped again. Another one stepped out with a wave to the others. He kicked out his duffel into the hallway and stepped out after it.

  “But the problem there is,” said the giant, “where would Anderson hide? Seriously? Some rat hole? A few wanted posters and this guy would be as good as caught. We wouldn't even need to be as open about it; we could just do a door to door with a photo.”

  “Yes, but where?” the Mercenary's friend said. “Between DC, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, he could be anywhere. And once Congress adjourns next week, we'd be screwed.”

  Kevin blinked. Crap, he'd forgotten about that. Congress would adjourn, and all of his targets would scatter. Granted, there wasn't as much country as there used to be, but once that happened, he'd need to do a lot of traveling. The first thing he would need to do would be to burn the files of those men already killed. Each file was the size of a freaking Tolstoy novel, so carrying them around would be murder. Hell, he would probably have to pay attention to the pertinent details on all of them and burn them all.

  The elevator came to yet another stop, letting out a third member of the party. Three more stops, and four more people left.

  “By the way, when's chow time?” the biggest one asked.

  “Around seven,” said his friend. “Hotel restaurant.”

  “Great,” said one of the smaller ones in front. He got off as well. “See y'all there.”

  The 6'3” guy nodded towards him, and he picked up his bags as the doors closed. “I'm the next stop. I guess we'll have to discuss this all later. Save me a seat, would you?”

  The seven-footer nodded to him as the next stop came. The other two Mercenaries left, leaving Anderson alone in the same elevator with him. The big Mercenary breathed out softly, and leaned his head against the elevator’s back wall. Anderson stepped away from him to the opposite corner, grateful for the breathing room. The elevator’s second to last stop let out the last Merc, and Anderson smiled, even before the doors started to close.

  A hand shot back into the elevator, forcing the doors open. The monstrous Mercenary held a firm grip on the door, and Kevin Anderson suddenly realized just how big those hands were. Something along the lines of frozen turkeys. I am in such deep crap.

  The doors inches open again, and the large Merc poked his head in, looking straight at Anderson. “Hey, you.”

  Anderson blinked. “Um, yes?”

  “I just thought of something.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sorry about crowding you,
” the giant told him. “Listening to business like ours must be as boring as hell.”

  Anderson grinned. “Hey, not a problem. It happens a lot. I'm from New York. You don't know crowded unless you ride the subways. At rush hour.”

  The Merc chuckled, and let the door close. “Have a good day.”

  The doors slid shut, and the elevator was well on its way to the top floor when Kevin let out a whoop of laughter.

  *

  February 21st, 2093

  Mandy's ice blue eyes blazed as she stormed into Rohaz's office. “Da—damn it Major, what the hell do you think you're doing, making Anderson an open target?”

  Rohaz looked up from his paperwork to see Mandy fresh from the field, in full armor and helmet. “You failed to kill him three times, Amanda. And, while your father is an integral and important part of this organization, no one is that important to be an excuse for failure. And let's look at it realistically. You have failed to meet the contract. While it is still yours, and you keep the initial fee for taking the contract, the rest of the fee is now up for grabs.”

  Mandy's lips tightened in anger. “You've never done this to me before. To anyone.”

  He shook his head curtly, and his words came out sharp and clipped. “Untrue. Not only have I done this before, I have done it to anyone who has had three bites at the apple. I just haven't had to do it in years. Very rarely are the people targeted by the Guild proper this well trained. When you find him, Amanda, you may kill him—if you can find him before everyone else. If not, the rest of your fee will be given to whoever does get him. You are dis-missed.”

  *

  Purchasing a red waiter's jacket wasn't as hard as Kevin had thought it might be. He went out to a restaurant supply store, and they were cheap. They looked great, but they were meant to have food and drink spilled on them. He appeared in his suit the day after, stopping at the Senate Club. He waited over an hour for someone to finally approach the back entrance, and when they were already opening the door with their biometrics, he charged straight at them, calling “Wait!”

  The guy at the door stopped and turned. He wore a red waiter's jacket and a proper set of black slacks and leather shoes, and he automatically held the door.

  Anderson burst past him and said, “Thank you,” on his way by.

  The kitchen chef sighed and shook his head. Waiters.

  Anderson slid inside the kitchen and grabbed the first tray he could get his hands on. He quickly grabbed six sets of glasses and a bottle of scotch, pouring two fingers into each glass. He stopped up the bottle and swept into the main room, gaily handing out the glasses to any who ran out. He was congratulated on his excellent timing, and took the last remaining glass upstairs, to the private rooms.

  After a short search, he found the one name he was looking for—Senator Alfredo Beedon. Anderson smiled, knocked, and slipped into the room when there was no answer. It was less a private room and more like a personal office. It wasn't grandiose, but it was serviceable.

  He placed the tray on the desk, and sat in the Senator's chair. He quickly started opening drawers. Stationary, computer files, bank statements... Bank statements?

  He opened that drawer and looked for the dates going back a month. It only took him three steps to find what he wanted. Bank account records showing the transfer of funds from the Islamic Republic of France to Senator Alfredo Beedon of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

  Could this be enough for Anderson to come in from the cold? Ha! Sure, Kevin, he thought, because every politician who gets money from foreign, enemy governments is always thrown in jail for the rest of their natural lives. Oh, wait, that never happens! Take a confession from a French foot soldier – which will be thrown out because I tortured him – and investments, and how will anyone tie them together? One good spin machine, and we'd be back to square one.

  The door opened, and Beedon stood in the door, momentarily confused by the stranger in his chair. Anderson leapt up and over the desk, landing at Beedon's side, and slammed the door closed. With his other hand, he grabbed Beedon by the throat and said, “Hello, Alfredo. I think it's time that you and I had a little talk. Don't you?”

  *

  Senator Harold Reed looked at Friedman’s steady hand, and tried to clear his head as he brought his own scotch glass to his lips, the glass shaking. Fear wasn't something he was used to, so he couldn't readily identify it. He also couldn't rationally conclude what he could possibly have to fear. But he was nervous, and sweating, and the entire club felt like it was overheated.

  “James,” he gurgled, “how did Zalak's wife know?”

  Senator James Friedman shrugged and took a sip from the glass. “How should I know? She's always watched him like a hawk. It was only a matter of time before she dropped in on him. After that, there was no telling how she would react.”

  Reed shrugged. “But a bloody standoff with the police? Didn't see that coming. How many of them did she take with her?”

  Friedman shook his head. “None that I know of. But you know Lady Macbeth couldn't have been thinking clearly, otherwise she would have gotten her hands on an assault rifle.”

  Reed drank deeply from the brandy snifter. “True. You have any problems like them?”

  “Like Zalak and Kennedy?” Friedman shook his head. “Nothing that can be turned against me. However, you do, you know—your weight is going to kill you one day.”

  Reed looked down at himself. The man's body fit on him like a rumpled suit. He wasn't so much morbidly obese as simply morbid. “I've managed to live with this for years.”

  “Probably not for much longer, old friend.”

  Then, suddenly, a scream of terror. “Help!”

  Friedman’s head whipped around, looking at the problem. Someone had crumpled up at the bottom of the stairs in a lifeless heap. “Beedon?”

  Alfredo Beedon, who had been on the Senate Intelligence Committee longer than Friedman had been alive, responsible for the ever-expanding senate control of covert operations for decades, was sprawled on the floor, dead.

  Friedman moved faster than Harold Reed. He was halfway to the body while Reed was still struggling to get out of the armchair.

  The overweight senator felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, pushing him back into his chair. Reed fell back with a whump of breath. He looked up into the unusually intense eyes of a young man who looked terribly average in the waiter's outfit he wore. The only real distinguishing mark on him looked like a scar that ran the length of his jawline. It was so thin it looked like a razor mark.

  “Hello, Senator Reed. I've always wanted to meet you.”

  Harold blinked. Who was this guy? “Oh, um, thank you. I always like input from those people who had benefited from my choices.”

  The waiter reached down and grabbed Reed's hand, and Harold felt a quick pinprick in his palm. The waiter hauled the senator from his chair with amazing ease. They locked eyes. The waiter smiled wolfishly. “I never said that you benefited me at all, Senator.”

  He leaned into the senator and whispered, “My name is Kevin Anderson. You killed my team. Prepare to die.”

  Reed gasped in terrified agony. One of the spooks had survived Paris? And the man had taken it personally? That was something Reed hadn't anticipated. It wasn't personal at all—strictly and absolutely business, all the way. Maybe Reed should explain it, maybe even cut the spy in on it. Maybe that would lessen his grievances.

  But Harold Reed knew that something was wrong. His heart was starting to pound, and it never felt like this before. “Listen. I can make this right. We can all make this right. We can...” Gasp. “...Uh...we can give you...um, uh, ah, anything you want. We can...ugh...”

  “I want my wife back, you sonuvabitch,” Anderson whispered in his ear.

  The spy let go of his hand. Reed saw a ring on the man's finger, and, most importantly, a needle sticking out of the ring, on the inside of Anderson's palm...it had stuck him. “Succinylcholine. Sorry, senator, but you're having a heart
attack. I'm afraid you won't survive.”

  Reed grabbed his chest, gurgled one last time, and fell over, dead.

  Anderson looked up and shouted, “This guy's having a heart attack!”

  Friedman looked up from the dead body of his friend and mentor Beedon, and saw Harold Reed keeling over on the floor of their club. He blinked, and he knew exactly what had happened—the day had finally come, the heart attack. One part cholesterol, one part daily stress from work, and having two colleagues die the same week—and now a third in front of his eyes.

  Four dead in less than a month, who could possibly believe it? Friedman blinked behind his wireframe glasses, and wondered for a moment why he believed it.

  Maybe it was because he didn't want to think about the horrifying alternatives. He would sooner believe in a run of disastrous bad luck than to disbelieve his own invincibility. And it was probably that three of the four had matched his own personal expectations. They fit so neatly into what he had expected—but that all of it should happen in such short order was beyond his own comprehension.

  Not to mention this was their club, their sanctuary. Nothing could touch them here short of fate.

  Later, as James Friedman tried to explain himself to the DCPD, he felt ridiculous as he told the officer what had happened lately. The police officer looked at him and said, “I wouldn't think about it too much, sir. Your friend Senator Kennedy was murdered by a group of vigilantes. Two of the mob have already confessed—but I have to tell you, I don't think there's a chance they'll get convicted, considering the newspaper reports last week.”

  Friedman winced. After two of Dennis's killers had been found and arrested, within the hour, all of Sen. Kennedy's indiscretions came out in one giant package, giving them a ready defense. New York called it jury nullification. Texas called it “he needed killing.”

  “Not to mention that Zalak's wife confessed before the shootout. One was Baltimore, the other was DC, and falling down a flight of stairs … well, there is no sign of foul play against Sen. Beedon, and Sen. Reed here looks as though he simply had a heart attack. Unless you can think of someone with reason and the ability to somehow arrange for all of that to happen.”