Chapter 21: An Exile and an Assassin Walk into a Bar...
Mac had been arguing with his sister. It was an argument they had had many times before—about Kyle Elsen. Mac insisted on jerking Mickie’s chain about Kyle whenever the opportunity arose. Ever since Kyle had helped them open the Ground Zero as a very silent partner, he had been a regular customer of both the information brokerage and the bar …
Mac’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of two stools being pulled out from underneath the other side of the bar a few feet away from him. On one he saw Kyle, on the other… was a guy he didn’t recognize. He looked nice enough, but he was with Kyle…
And once again his thoughts were interrupted, this time by Mickie swatting him on the back of the head with her fingertips. Her voice was just audible over the music…she was being quiet tonight. “Wake up! Kyle’s here, with company. I’ll prep the bourbon; you get out there and meet them!” She turned away, and then stopped, turning back a moment. “And Mac, tell Lotus to run him through facial ID!”
Mac nodded and steeled himself to the idea of once again having to deal with a drunken killing machine in his bar. He put on his best game face and made his way over to the two men, silently placing the bourbon on a coaster in front of Kyle.
The Assassin gave an absentminded “Thank you,” and Mac nodded, knowing his sister would note the drink on Kyle’s tab. Finally, Mac turned to the stranger with his practiced “friendly” smile. “Welcome to Hell. May I take your order?”
A small smile quirked at the edge of the stranger's lips. “You must be Mac,” he said, a touch amused. There was something about the look in his eyes that made Mac nervous. Like with Kyle's stare, Mac felt like a bug under a magnifying glass.
“That would be me, yeah. What can I get for you?”
“Water, please.”
Mac blinked. Water? That's it? “Water isn’t cheap, bud.”
The man smiled broadly, and the smile made Mac even more nervous. “I can afford it.” His eyes glittered with amusement.
Mac found the bottle in his hand before he even realized he’d reached for it in the first place. He placed the glass on a coaster in front of the stranger without even asking to be paid. Something tells me I don’t want to piss this guy off.
“Thank you, Mac.” Even as the man spoke, he turned to glance at Kyle. “Okay, Kyle, I’m here. You’ve got your drink. What did you want talk to me about?”
Kyle sipped his bourbon. “I have my answers, Mr. Anderson. You are not an Assassin.”
Anderson? Kevin Anderson? Oh damn! The Lord High Insane Guardian of Chinatown and the drunk Assassin. My bar's ruined…
The so-named ‘Mister Anderson’ frowned at Kyle. “No, I’m not. And?”
Kyle’s voice was matter-of-fact, with slight traces of instability as he took another drink. “It merely guarantees I am the last living member of my Guild.”
Anderson raised a brow. “Indeed?”
Kyle stared at the newcomer a moment, taking another sip. Kevin settled his water down, and stared right back…a move as bright as having a staring contest with a cobra.
With the silence between the two men growing longer, Mac felt his face freeze into a nervous smile. If this drew on much longer, who knew what was going to happen. It was definitely time for Mac to involve himself before the Assassin and ‘Mr. Anderson’ tore his bar apart.
“So, Mister Anderson, have you been with us long?” Wow, that even sounded dumb to me. He smiled, trying to make a good impression. Water was relatively expensive, and Mac knew he could probably make a good amount of money from Anderson, even though it would be impossible to slip any of Mickie’s concoctions to him. Damn. That means if I want to find out anything, I might have to cozy up to this guy… damnit, I don’t want to be sociable with someone I don’t have a full file on! Who knows where he’s been?
Anderson hesitated a moment before breaking his gaze away from Kyle to glance at Mac. “Aren’t you supposed to be the information broker here, or have I been misinformed? Because, if this is your idea of an intel-gathering interrogation, you must make your living selling bad water and worse booze.”
Mac blinked, and felt his heart rate spike like he’d been stabbed with an adrenaline needle. “Um, sir, I’m sorry, I didn’t, I don’t—”
“Strangely enough,” Kyle said casually, “Mac's usually the sociable one. It's Mickie you have to worry about drugging you into a stupor.”
“Could've fooled me.” Anderson shrugged, and then turned back to Kyle. “So, I’m guessing the rumors are true about your Guild?”
Kyle sipped his bourbon again. “Which ones?”
“That the Guild was attacked before the April Fool’s War.”
The Assassin took another, longer sip. Mac winced at the idea. It was going to get ugly if this new guy kept going at Kyle about the fall of the Guild, or anything about the Last Day. Their bar tabs would go up, certainly, but so would the possibility of the bar itself being smashed half to Hell.
And one of the worst parts was that this Anderson prick was getting more information dissecting their responses than Mac was getting out of him. Everyone else came into this bar and spilled their guts within minutes…okay, Mickie usually helped them along with the chemical du jour, but who came in to a bar this paranoid?
Mickie placed a hand on Mac’s arm. “Lotus wants to talk to you.”
Mac blinked. Lotus never wanted to talk to anyone. Which meant Mickie was trying to get him out of the room so that she could diffuse the situation. He didn’t see how.
“Now,” Anderson continued, ignoring them again, “why would you think I’m an Assassin? Wouldn’t you know who lived or died in the attack?” He cocked his head and studied Kyle as he took another, longer, drink.
“I was…indisposed… at the time.”
Kevin arched a brow, and took another sip of his water. “Three years…hrm.”
“And what are you doing in San Francisco, Mr. Anderson?”
“I wanted to see new and interesting places, meet new people, then kill them.”
Kyle arched a brow. “You think you’re funny?”
“Oh, I am funny, Mr. Elsen. Funny in many different ways.”
“Of course he is,” Mac muttered, “…he’s having too much fun playing Batman.”
Kevin glanced at him. “Didn’t you hear your sister, Mac? Lotus wants you.”
Mac blinked, jerking back. “How did you know she’s my sister?”
At that point, Mickie smacked Mac upside the head so hard, customers on the other side of the bar looked over at them for a brief moment. “Because we’re triplets, you moron.”
Anderson smiled at her thinly, and nodded. Mac sulked off.
Mac entered the back room in short order. Lotus sat at her desk. She worked for another moment, then pushed away from the computer, and turned in her chair to look at her brother. She nodded in his direction, and then stuck her thumb out to point at the monitor. Mac looked at her, and then went back to the screen.
Lt. Kevin Michael Anderson. USMC Codename: Spartan. SEAL Codename: Winterborn. CID Codename: Nemesis. Airborne Rated, Ranger Qualified. Mossad Certified: Urban Warfare Specialist. Marksmanship Medal. Other Medals Classified. Current Status: Classified.
Mac’s eyes widened. CODE RED! “This guy’s having drinks in our bar right now?” Mac nearly screamed. “We are soooo screwed!”
*
Kevin watched as the bartender, Mac, disappeared around the corner. He turned his full attention back to Kyle. Great, I'm like a dog with a bus. Now what do I do with him?
“You…are a very strange professional,” Kyle said.
Anderson blinked. “I guess I should take that as a compliment.”
“You are the most unprofessional professional that I've ever met.”
“That I will take as a compliment.”
“As you wish.”
Kevin chuckled, and then shook his head as he raised his glass. He stopped as he came face-to-fac
e with the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, short of his own wife. The reddish blonde hair was more of a dark red-gold, with blue-green eyes that were exotic and innocent...
And her head just came over the top of the bar.
He lowered the glass. “How much do I owe you, for this, Miss...”
“Lotus,” she said softly, her gentle voice not even carrying above the din of the other bar patrons. “You owe nothing, Lt. Anderson.”
Kyle started on his barstool so fast, he almost tipped over. Kevin looked at him, about to ask if he was all right, when Elsen said, “Free? Lieutenant?”
Lotus simply smiled at him and nodded. The Assassin looked at Kevin, his mouth open. He was about to speak, when there was a scream from the back of the room.
Exile and Assassin turned as one to the source of the problem. At least a dozen men had stood, all of them staring straight at Kevin. Each was impeccably dressed in neat and tidy leather jackets, and well-tailored pants. And all were brandishing weapons.
The leader in front, who had neat, swept back black hair and a bone-white face that had almost never seen sunlight, pointed at Kevin, and bellowed, “You have desecrated the name of the One! When you attack us, you attack him! You must die!”
Anderson cocked his head, studying the creatures in front of him. “Just who the hell are you?”
“You've somehow pissed off the Forsaken, Mr. Anderson,” Kyle answered.
Anderson looked at Kyle, and the Assassin was tensed and ready to fight. “The what-
He shrugged, and then turned back to the bar, taking several last gulps of his water—
—and twisted back, pitching the glass like it was a baseball. It hurled through the air in a direct, straight line into the bridge of the leader's nose, knocking him back and off his feet.
The other eleven moved in on Anderson in a semicircle, a giant maw that was about to bite down on him. There was a blur on his left, and the Assassin had moved.
Later accounts would say the battle took ten minutes and destroyed the entire bar. In actuality, it was finished less than eight seconds from the moment the glass shattered.
Kyle Elsen stepped forward at a brisk pace that looked more like an energetic walk in the park than anything else. The Forsaken in his path saw him and were more than ready for him. The first one came at him from his right side, his knife held high. Kyle stepped with the left foot, leaning slightly away from him, and burst forward, his body moving past the knife as his right fist came up in a roundhouse that drove deep into the Forsaken's throat. Kyle's knuckles pounded up against the spinal column, pulping everything else in the way.
The second charged with a bat. Kyle sped up, moving inside the swing. The man’s forearms collided with Kyle's left bicep. With a fluid motion, the Assassin grabbed his chin with one hand, the back of his head with the other, and twisted sharply. His assailant’s neck broke with a snap loud enough to be heard throughout the bar, and Kyle spun him out of his way at the same moment his neck broke, sending the man into the next with a knife, who tripped and fell, landing on his own weapon.
Kevin Anderson had charged the Forsaken outright, pulling up a barstool that had been improperly nailed to the floorboards as he went past. His first attacker had tried to pull a gun, but the jab from the back of the stool crushed his sternum, making the gunman reconsider his life choices as he fell. Kevin recoiled with the stool and brought it down into the side of another Forsaken's head, stepped past him, and thrust forward with it into a third, knocking his head back with a resounding snap.
Three seconds.
Three more of the Forsaken had turned around, swooping onto Kyle's flank. The one to land on top of him was easily flipped over his shoulder, the man’s arm shattered mid-throw. The other two landed on either side of him, and he burst backwards, making them both face him, their metal cudgels out and ready. Kyle looked at them both as they flourished their weapons in an artistic fashion, sighed, drew his gun, and shot both in the head.
Five seconds gone by.
A Forsaken with a knife stabbed at Anderson, and Kevin intercepted it with the cushion from the stool. Another came at Kevin from the side, and a snap kick to the kneecap dropped him. He wound up and drove the rest of the stool into his final assailant's head.
Eight seconds.
Kevin whirled about, looking for other takers, and saw bodies on the ground. Oh hell.
Anderson almost laughed. Kyle wasn't even breathing hard. “Well, that was fun.”
Kyle looked at Anderson for a long, long moment, blinked, and laughed. “Yes, I think it was.”
A gunshot rang out, clipping Kyle in the head. The assassin fell. Anderson dropped and rolled, and when he came up, he found the other occupants of the bar had taken care of the shooter—the Forsaken that Kyle had thrown over his shoulder, breaking his arm. Apparently, neutralizing one arm didn't mean he couldn't fire with the other.
Kevin Anderson looked to Kyle, his face a mask of blood. “Get me a God-damned Doctor!”
*
The clinic was based in what was left of a small brownstone on the edge of San Francisco’s financial district, in the middle of the city and away from the harbor, on the edge of Haight-Ashbury, or Hashbury. Like most buildings of its type, it was made of a simple red-stone brick, obviously designed to withstand a heavy beating. Then again, it had also had to face up to The Last Day, when half the building had been obliterated.
Where Dr. Gabriel Sieger had gotten the money to rebuild it, not even the Triplets could say. He had bought it in cash, paid for any alterations in cash, and only dealt in cash. Apparently, he hadn't wanted the Hackers looking in to his past… or at least that was the general assumption.
Its external appearance had been restored to match the original building; its internal appearance was something else. When the good doctor had started, he had had the building’s frame reinforced with titanium and chromium-steel, then had radiation shielding built into the walls. The windows were proofed against bullets, acids, and incendiary devices. All of the visible entrances could withstand a sizable block of composite high explosives, if not a rocket. Why he felt the need for such heavy-duty security no one knew; maybe it was how Gabriel had gotten all of his money in the first place. The building was an oxymoron. Despite all the high-tech, high-quality security that Gabriel had built in to improving the outside of the building, the facilities inside the Clinic were limited to a few pieces of simple diagnostic equipment, old school surgical tools, bandages and drugs.
Gabriel was only five-six and rail-thin. While his eyes and hair were still brown, there were some angles where the hair looked like it was going gray, and the perpetual weariness in the eyes indicated he might be older than he looked. He had been looking forward to having a profitable day when all hell had broken loose on his doorstep.
He had just buzzed a patient in the front door when the patient had been shoved out of the way by a tall man in a brown leather jacket. Dr. Seiger was about to draw his weapon when Leo, the mountainous bouncer of the Ground Zero, charged in right behind the man, carrying the body of Kyle Elsen.
“Where's the damned doctor!?” the stranger bellowed.
Gabriel rushed forward, coming in at an angle in case the bouncer couldn't stop in time. “What the hell happened?”
“Bar fight gone bad,” Leo rumbled.
“Definite lacerated scalp,” the other guy said. “Possible internal bleeding, and he's got a concussion. Could be a brain bleed for all I know. What can I do?”
Gabriel frowned, taking a quick scan of Kyle’s form. “Stay the Hell out of my way.” He looked up at the bouncer. “Leo. Come.”
Kevin watched the two of them rush Kyle off to the back room. He looked around the crowded waiting room. “He always this cheerful?”
“This is a good day,” someone muttered.
Five minutes later, Leo came out and leaned against a wall. Anderson nodded at him, and the bouncer nodded back. “Good work,” he said, managing a weak smile. �
��Your early diagnosis will probably save him. And you were good at the Zero. Want a job working security?”
The Exile chuckled and leaned up against the wall next to Leo. “Already got one. I think guarding a bar will be a step down from my reign of terror. May I ask what that was all about?”
“The Forsaken,” Leo said simply. When Kevin said nothing, he continued. “Have you ever heard someone you've beaten up lately talk of a leader, or a 'one,' or something like that?”
“More or less. I started clearing out St. Peter-St. Paul's, and they mentioned a One.”
“Yeah. You ran into Forsaken. You've noticed the Scavengers, I take it?”
Anderson nodded. “I think piranha strip a body clean slower than those guys.”
Leo shrugged his mountain-sized shoulders. “They're poor. I don't begrudge them that. But the Forsaken...” He grimaced. “Rumor has it they have to kill someone in order to join; they prefer murder to robbery, which is why they're so well-dressed. They do nothing but talk about the Leader, the Collective, something like that.”
Anderson sighed. “Great, they've either got a cult leader or they're communized, homicidal scavengers. Just what the world needs. You know if they hold a grudge?”
Leo shook his head. “Not usually. Then again, you aren't exactly typical in this town. You’re certainly…different.”
Anderson smiled to himself. “Story of my life.” He looked around the waiting room at the desolate stares into outer space. “Scavengers,” he muttered, “Forsaken, Exiles, Mercs, Assassins, the Chinese, Corporates. Aren't there any normal people in San Francisco? Someone who isn't pushed, stamped, filed, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered?”
Leo spoke as if the words were automatic, “Think of it like a prison—”
“Shouldn't be hard.”
“—if you're not part of a gang, you're meat. You're Exiled, and you're with the Chinese. You're already covered. Hell, you were covered the first time you walked into the city.”
“Probably by snipers,” Anderson muttered. “How'd you know how fast I was adopted?”
Codename: Winterborn (The Last Survivors Book 1) Page 23