Rohaz ground his teeth against his cigar, almost biting through it. He had spent time fighting against the Baathist party of France before he joined the Guild. He had tried to limit the amount of the Guild's interaction with the IRF, but it was hard to control a board of directors salivating at the prospect of having an entire country’s budget to play with. “So, you’re trying to kill them all before the date is set for the next team to go in.”
“Right.”
Rohaz leaned back in his chair, taking a slow drag on his cigar. He no longer tensed, no longer kept his movements the slow, precise motions of a hostage, but the leisurely posture of a man having a brandy and cigar with a business partner. “What would you need?”
“I just need your friends out of the way.”
He looked straight at Anderson. “You misunderstand me. What can I do here, now?”
Anderson paused. “Well, if you’re really going to be helpful, get all of your people off the ship tomorrow morning…and don’t search it too closely.”
“I can’t do that,” Rohaz said. “I need to leave at least some people behind. Grace and Bauer have their own personal details.”
Anderson smiled. “In which case, leave people behind that you won’t miss too much.”
“That I can arrange.”
“I feel there’s a catch here.”
“There is.” Rohaz leaned forward. “Not even the CEO of the Guild can order members to do anything. Some of our teams predate Guild membership, and treat us as a referral service. We’re an umbrella organization of mercenary groups. Individual members, directly approached, cannot be called off a contract by the hierarchy. Convinced, maybe, but that's all.”
“So, if this works,” Anderson concluded, “the CEO can discourage involvement—”
“—but can’t order Mandy, or anyone else, to stop hunting you. Otherwise, Lt. Anderson, you have yourself a deal.”
He thought a moment, and then nodded grimly. “Why would you do this?”
“You don't believe my indignation over how my people have been used?” Rohaz smiled. “Quite right. Realistic people can't afford to be idealistic in our business, can we?”
“And, your business is a business,” Anderson added. “It's throwing away money.”
Rohaz's sharp green eyes focused on Anderson. “In the short-run, maybe. But the Mercenary's Guild was founded in the belief that private industry can do for America what the government bureaucracy cannot. In turn, America, the America I grew up in, is the best place for commerce, and for peace, the world has ever known. The Mercs were to support America, make money protecting it, and in so doing, ensuring that we had the protection of the most rights of anyone on the planet.
“But there are also internal politics of my own corporation. Some people are too near-sighted to see what America's protection can grant us, so they'll cut whatever deals they think the CEO will allow them to get away with. The people you are killing off have the same lack of vision. They don't see any benefit about living in America as opposed to any other country; they only see what they can get out of their positions of power.
“In 2090, these people you are killing off had shot down any new Anti-ballistic missile systems for another ten years, saying that it would antagonize France, Russia, North Korea, and China, even though none of those countries had problems with any previous ABM systems. They, in effect, threw the country under the bus, leaving us vulnerable when the April Fool's War happened, and a third of the globe turned to glass. They've continued to screw with my company, by dragging us into these disasters of theirs, and they've compromised the security of the nation once too often. They're bad for my business, they're bad for my country, which is also bad for my business.
“At the end of the day, Lieutenant, you are a good long-term investment.”
Chapter 9: Blow Me Away
March 4th, 2093
Mandy was awoken in the middle of her nap. She rolled out of the cot, pistol drawn, and she had to stop, think a moment, breathe a bit, before she remembered that she couldn’t shoot through the door to whoever was on the other side—the door was bulletproof.
She hesitated with the gun, then sighed and stood, holstering her weapon. “Come in.”
The clerk timidly opened the door, peeking inside to make certain it was safe. “Mandy, there’s a bit of a problem.”
Mandy blinked, her light blue eyes still slightly blurry. “Can't it wait for coffee?”
The clerk shook his head and she knew it was bad. After her last explosion, she had explained her behavior as simple caffeine withdrawal, and told someone to run down to the nearest Ahab's to get her a box of coffee. “What then?”
He blinked. “Senators Bauer and Grace have just been reported lost at sea. The boat was sunk…everyone on board was lost.”
Mandy blinked a moment, until the fog cleared and she remembered that Major Rohaz was on that boat... All hands were lost…“That bastard is dead.”
Mandy pushed past the clerk and slammed him up against a wall as casually as she would swat a fly. She moved into the bullpen with all the lethal elegance of a panther crossed with a ballerina. The clerks and secretaries—having had considerably more practice than usual lately—ducked. “First person who can find me Kevin Anderson will split 50% of my commission. We're putting the full resources of the Guild on planting his sorry ass in the ground, and if anyone, the board of directors, officers, operatives, objects to that, send them to me, and I will personally gut him like a frelling fish. Am I understood?”
There was a deathly silence in the bullpen as the message was absorbed into their collective consciousness. A door squeaked open off to Mandy’s side, down the hallway of cubicles, the only sound in the entire room.
Until the sound of a striking match caught her attention. “Could I object?”
Mandy’s head whipped to the side, and she blinked, and broke out into a broad grin. She sprinted down the bullpen, and almost hugged him, but skidded to a stop at the last moment.
Major Antonio Rohaz grinned around his cigar. “The rumors of my death have been slightly exaggerated.” He looked over to the people in their cubicles. “You can all belay all of those comments from Mandy here…” he arched a brow at her “...unless she’s serious about losing 50% of that commission?”
She blinked again. “Never mind, back to work.”
“Very good. Mandy, with me, if you please.”
Mandy followed, practically in a daze. It was the first time that anyone in the room could remember her showing teeth in a friendly manner.
*
“What happened?” she asked once they were both seated in Rohaz’s office.
Rohaz leaned back, lit cigar still smoldering. “I apparently got off the ship before it blew up. Most fortunate that.” He shrugged. “Perhaps someone had forgotten to do a sweep.”
Mandy leaned back, mirroring Antonio’s position, thinking it over. Anderson had gone out of his way to prevent collateral damage with Wynter's car bomb, but killed everyone on a yacht? And if Anderson had planted a bomb, why would he wait so long for it to go off? And how did Rohaz manage to get off before it did? How could the timing on all of this be so perfect without it being coordinated?
“Major…what did Kevin say to you?”
Rohaz took that moment to freshen up the fire on the cigar, gently wafting the flame against the end. “Simply put, Mandy, his fate is almost solely in your hands. I made a decision last night that could possibly threaten this firm. Before I continue on this course of action, I need to know exactly how much you…feel for this man.”
“Feel for him?” Mandy started, moving to her feet. “I don’t feel anything for him—”
“Amanda, sit down a moment,” he said gently. “I will explain everything, but right now, you have to know only this. You have to choose between the rather extravagant price on his head, or keeping him alive. The time for your compromise is coming to an end. We must hang together, or Kevin Anderson will hang alone.”
*
Henry Daley looked at the reports, the scene-of-crime analysis, even the Mercenary Guild reports, and he was hard-pressed to believe it. He had known what Kevin was out for: pounds of flesh, and enough blood for a vampire convention. And if there was anyone in Henry’s world who could have accomplished that mission, it was Anderson. But to see the reports, the photos, the bodies, was something different.
Zalak Patel had been an anomaly, but so had Denis Kennedy. Mrs. Patel had killed her husband. Kennedy’s killers would never go to trial—having the motives come out in open court would be…inconvenient. That wasn’t to say that Daley didn’t know that Anderson had at least arranged their deaths. Anderson was more than capable.
But the bodies, and the time period was amazing, even for Anderson’s skill level. He had managed years' worth of planning and operations in a matter of weeks. It was almost like Anderson was in a rush to get things done. Either that or Anderson was losing his mind. Not impossible. There were always days that Henry had thought the spy was losing his marbles, especially when reading the after-action reports. If there was a daring way and a cautious way, Anderson’d pick whatever he deemed more effective—which almost always the straightforward, direct route. Without firsthand knowledge of Anderson's goals, Henry could have told his superiors that destroying the nukes and the Eiffel Tower was definitely Anderson’s doing; he picked a small, narrow target, carefully selected, measured and chosen for maximum feasible effect...and then, just as precisely, hit it with a wrecking ball.
But even Anderson had his limits. And this sort of rate was enough to make anyone burn out like a candle. And he was definitely burning his candle at both ends. The only question would be whether or not he would last the dark night of the soul.
One thing was certain—when he was done, it would be interesting.
*
Kevin woke up from a sound sleep, taking a split second to take in his surroundings. The motel was exactly the way he had left it. Nothing had changed. It was still dismal.
Kevin almost smiled at the irony. New Orleans faced a recurring battle against corruption and hurricanes. Usually if the city lost to corruption, the hurricanes would also win. Too many tax dollars had “disappeared” from what was supposed to go into the construction of levies. After a while, it had become so blatant they just gave up fixing the levies and turned New Orleans into a series of semi-linked islands, like Venice or Miami. The country was within five minutes of indicting the Mayor when the blood-dimmed tide was loosed on April 1st, 2090.
There were more ironies in the fire than Kevin liked to dwell upon. Here he was in a world where nuclear missiles had wiped out billions, and he had been unaffected.
But one missile strike in a back street of Paris…
My life is not over, dammit. I have things to live for. Five more things, in fact. Senator Friedman is one of them. I’ll do him next. Do I want to? Why do I even want to get out of this bed? Because there are who knows how many people’s lives relying on me, whether they know it or not. I need to end this, and them…
Kevin pushed off the bed, feeling more tired than he had since Moira had been murdered. He had to keep going. There was no stopping until everyone was dead, otherwise everything he had done, every body he had dropped, would be in vain.
He paused and simply stared down into the pillowcase, looking at the pattern of the fibers. He had to kill them. Kill them all now. Kill them before…something.
Kevin Anderson fell face first into the pillow and passed out.
*
Mandy sat outside of the rundown motel, and wondered if she should have brought heavier equipment—not for Kevin Anderson, but for the insects.
She slowly slipped off the rock she had been perched on, almost pouring herself onto the ground. Her feet sank into the dirt a centimeter, and she let out a breath. Why Kevin had to do the bayou was almost beyond her understanding. Almost. Calling this place a swamp and the motel a shack would have been underestimating the one and grossly exaggerating the other.
Mandy had barely managed to walk into this swamp; driving was not an option, which meant it was perfect for Kevin. However, it was certainly close enough to New Orleans to make the trip easy, either by walking or by dialing for a taxi. She had seen Kevin on the Sonesta hotel video when he checked in. Despite how everyone saw him, bright and charismatic, she could tell that he was tired. She had seen him dejected and lost when his wife had been murdered, and he could still function as an operative—a little loss of sleep wasn’t going to stop him. But after killing Curtin at the hotel and dashing off immediately to board Bauer’s yacht, Kevin had to be running on empty, or fairly close. And this motel was close enough for him to crash.
In short, it was perfectly situated for someone trying to be lost, and close enough to New Orleans for that someone to get there in time to take a nap.
Mandy walked up to the motel office door, and waited, listening for something resembling life. She slowly pushed the door open, and noted an unshaven man with a ball cap pulled down over his eyes as he gently snored. Behind him, on the wall, there were numerous room keys, but only one was taken: Motel room #3. She slowly closed the door and moved for Kevin’s room.
Mandy had made up her mind; Kevin would have to die. There was no way around it. She wasn’t going to say the honor of the Guild was involved; otherwise she never would have allowed herself to be hired by the scum of the Beltway. But after he had killed all of the Senators, there weren’t many options left. He had already burned through a good chunk of the Senate—after the April Fool’s War, representatives from states that were vaporized had stepped down—and somehow, she didn’t think a quarter of the Senate could have gotten away with this without having others involved. He would have to die sooner or later.
Right now, he would be running on fumes and rage. And after he succeeded, if he succeeded, what then? Years in hiding, looking over his shoulder, and, if he was lucky, recover from having his wife blown out from under him? Kevin was skilled at hunting and evading, but for how long could he keep that up? And could he heal while the world was hunting him? Best that he be put down now, while there was still time; before others found him and made his death as undignified as possible.
Breaking into his room wasn’t hard. She slid inside, pistol drawn, silencer attached.
And then the buzzing started. It was loud, it was annoying, and she was surprised that the entire surrounding swampland hadn’t woken up at the noise.
Mandy swung toward the source, pistol drawing a bead on an alarm clock which had a long wire connecting it to a device by the door…a motion sensor lamp that Kevin could have bought at Walmart.
Mandy dropped to a crouch, gun sweeping ahead of her as she waited for Kevin Anderson to pop out of nowhere and gun her down. When nothing happened, she stepped a little further into the room. Kevin Anderson was on the bed, still and unmoving.
Mandy blinked, reached over, and touched the clock, turning the alarm off. She slowly rose, moving to Kevin’s side, her gun solidly locked onto a fixed point of his skull.
She frowned and thought a moment. Anderson had gone through a Ranger Q-course, SEAL Hell Week, and had been a Marine. Each of those courses required that he not sleep for at least three or four days at a time. He had to be able to operate at top efficiency without any rest…but now he didn’t even wake up at the sound of an alarm that he had personally rigged.
With a grimace, she readjusted her grip on the pistol. This was all the proof she needed; he was definitely slipping. If she didn’t put one in his head right now, he was going to get captured, and his death would be slower, and more painful than a bullet to the brain. It was either a mercy killing now or a slow torture for him later. Say goodbye, Lt. Anderson.
“Moira,” he breathed.
Mandy paused, finger half an ounce of pressure away from decapitating him with one shot. She thought for a moment that he might turn over in his sleep, or worse, wake up and find her there ready to kill h
im. His arms wrapped around the pillow as though it was a person.
Don’t worry, you’ll join her soon enough.
*
Kevin was having a good dream. He had all the blurry edges of a dream, as though he had come out of a deep sleep without having fully woken up. He paid no attention to the blurriness as he moved through it. He wanted it to be real, especially as Moira went through her third orgasm … it was a very good dream.
He looked across the bed at Moira, and reach out to her to bring her closer, when she put her hand on his to stay it. “You know this is a dream, right, Kev?”
“I knew the sex was too good to be true. You're also assuming I care, Moira.”
She smiled, only one cheek moving. “I know you don't, sweetheart, but if you don't realize that, you're not going to be sane very long.”
“Oh, that's never been a concern, we both know that.”
Moira smiled sadly. “I know. But if you start living inside your head, you're going to get your sorry ass killed, and I went through a lot of trouble making sure you never got it shot off. I spent my dying breath to keep you alive, and you're trying to get yourself killed.”
He paused, confused and disoriented. “You don't want me to kill them?”
Moira laughed. “Oh. Oh no. I want you to frag their sorry asses back to hell. That's not the point. What I mean is that you're driving yourself into the ground as you're doing it.”
He let out a breath. “I can't disagree. But Moira, damn it, what can I do? There's no time.”
She reached forward and touched him on the cheek. “Then make time, darling. If you let the time dictate your actions, you're going to die. And maybe not even by the enemy's crossfire.” She smiled at him, drawing closer. “You'll figure something out.”
He pushed himself closer. “Moira, are you here? Or is this just a dream?”
Moira reached under the sheets and touched him. “I'm real enough for now.”
Codename: Winterborn (The Last Survivors Book 1) Page 11