The two of them kept moving after they reached the end of the dock, and Kyle thought Anderson was going to pass him when he noted something—the priest’s gray eyes flicked to him several times and each time they had scanned his entire body. Suddenly, without even warning to Anderson, the priest turned on Kyle.
“And this must be the great and powerful assassin, Mr. Elsen. How are you?”
The priest grabbed Kyle’s hand and squeezed. He had a powerful grip. One so strong, in fact, that Kyle thought his hand might break. The man didn’t even seem to notice how much strength he put into the handshake.
“I have been much worse, Mr. Patel.”
The priest didn’t even blink. “Call me Jack, Mr. Elsen. Call me Jack.”
Kyle nodded, speaking a moment later. “How long have you been off the force?”
Instead of being startled, Patel’s eyes glowed, as though Kyle was living up to some standard the man had held of him. “Well, you know what they say, Mr. Elsen. Once in, never out. I merely changed uniforms. God’s SWAT team, if you would.”
“What are you doing in San Francisco? Who drugged you and sent you here? You were obviously conned into coming here.”
The priest grinned broadly, “Why, my dear Assassin, I know whose idea it was to send me here, he’s a very good friend of mine, and wouldn’t lie to me.”
“With all due respect, he’s a con artist.”
“Yes, and I’m a very good one, aren’t I?”
Kyle would have sighed, if he were Anderson. “To what purpose? You cannot find God, hope, or anything like humanity left in this city.”
“My dear assassin, I don’t intend to find humanity in San Francisco, I intend to bring it.” His grin dimmed a little, no longer the showman’s act for the crowd, but now a straightforward conversation between two serious men. “And if there’s any here already, I intend to take it by the scruff of the neck, dust it off, and make a man out of it.”
Kyle, intrigued, gave his point of view. “You know that’s hardly possible. No one in this city believes in God except for people like Mr. Anderson.”
“You mean ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know’?” the priest replied.
“No,” Anderson interjected, “That’s Kyle.”
Patel nodded in his direction, then looked back to Kyle. “The thing is, Master Assassin”—Kyle arched a brow at that—“is that once people stop believing in God, it doesn’t mean that they have stopped believing. It’s that they’ll believe in anything, and I think San Francisco has proven that. We’re here to provide competition to the regular lunacies.”
Kyle admitted, to himself, that he had heard dumber ideas. “It doesn’t mean that they’ll thank you for it.”
“Master Assassin, my role model is a man whose story has only one moral: be a good little boy all your life, and you’ll still be nailed to a set of 2x4s. You can take your Forsaken, your Scavengers, and your Children of Thanatos all together, and I would take one of my men over all of them. I’ve brought men who are accomplished scientists, computer experts, and engineers, all so we can pay our way. They were much in demand in their own circles before I got at them. We’ll hold our own here, without a problem.”
Elsen, incredulous, asked, “If they are so wanted, then why are they here with you?”
“They also believe.”
More true believers…just what San Francisco needs. “Indeed. I—”
At this point, one of the black-cloaked Children of Thanatos appeared through the crowd, saying, “St. Jack, you have returned to us!”
Msgr. Patel raised a brow, glanced at Anderson, and the spy nodded. Jack turned back to the Child and said, “Msgr. Jack, if you must, my young fellow. And I’ve just arrived.”
“Yes, I know, the Angel-Servant Anderson told us of your coming. And we are honored to have you among us once again. The second coming of St. Jack.”
Kyle gave Anderson a look, and he had the nerve to smile. This was what Anderson had found so infuriatingly funny. The priest nodded and patiently treated the Child as though he was the most important thing in the world, acting as though every concern was the most serious in the world…and once the Child had extracted from him a promise to come and visit the Children of Thanatos, and finally departed, the priest gave a sigh.
“Well, I knew it was going to be a challenge when I proposed this task.” He glanced over the docks. “They seem to have everything well in hand here. Let’s go for a drink, shall we? I believe you mentioned this wonderful little place known as the Ground Zero, didn’t you?”
Jack took both of them by the shoulders and almost dragged them along, getting through the crowd by going along the water’s edge. “I think having a nice little drink with the both of you would lead me to a whole new understanding of your world. Come, let us talk of many things.”
*
Kyle should have seen it as inevitable. There was a group in the city called the Burners, who enjoyed setting people on fire. They did it at random, to any and all, and they got off on it.
So, Elsen wasn’t surprised when the idiots were heading toward the docks to burn people. They had heard of a gathering, and thought it would be a great place to score some points in their little game of body count. The fact that there were three versus ten thousand hadn’t occurred to them yet. Then again, right now, it was three of them against the deadliest man in San Francisco, and Kevin Anderson.
“Burners,” Anderson explained, sotto voce, to the priest. “We’ll—”
“Come, lads,” Msgr. Patel boomed, arms raised to greet the arsonists. He had one hand in a fist, the universal signal in the military for “hold position,” but since Kyle was never taught group hand signals—he was trained to fight as an individual—he was about to move when Anderson motioned him back. “Now, then, why don’t you lads just come along down with us and we’ll buy you all a drink?”
The Burners stopped, hesitant. Their victims were normally screaming in terror by now. One of them raised his gun, a revolver. “You’re going to burn, old man.”
Patel smiled. “I’m going to leave the condition of my soul to someone better qualified to judge it. So, as for burning, I don’t think so.” He continued to walk up to the Burner, and said calmly, “And if you’re going to shoot me…” He grabbed the man’s gun barrel and raised it so it pointed at his forehead. “You’re going to do it like this.”
The Burner blinked, confused, as the priest reached up, grabbed the gun by the cylinder so it wouldn’t fire, and pulled it away from him. The priest smiled gently and raised the gun by the barrel, then slowly, oh so slowly, emptied five of six bullets from the cylinder. The priest smiled and spun the barrel twice, letting it grind to a halt. “You’re in this for the thrill, aren’t you?”
The Burner blinked. “Yeah, and?”
The Priest raised the barrel to his own temple. He pulled the trigger, and the hammer fell on an empty chamber. “This is more of a thrill, wouldn’t you say?”
Kyle was speechless.
“I’ll tell you what, if I do it two more times, you’ll do it three times. Or, if I do it and die, you’ll see me dead. If not, then you’ll either do it yourself, or you’ll come talk to me later this week at my new headquarters in Chinatown. What do you say?” The Priest’s eyes glittered.
The Burner smiled, smug. Watching someone shoot himself in the head would be fun. “Sure.”
And the priest repeated the procedure, exactly. He did it three times, without hesitation. The Burners blinked, promising to show up.
Jack turned to the third Burner, and the man almost ran away. “I’ll come, honest.”
Two priests came up from the background—they were big burly types with Marine haircuts, who took hold of the Burners. “We’ll guarantee it.”
The priest smiled and the three continued on their way. Kyle spoke a moment later.
“Suicide isn’t appropriate to priests, is it?”
“No, it’s not.” Jack smiled. “But a .50 caliber revolver,
when there’s only one bullet in the cylinder, will always swing so that the bullet is in the bottom chamber. The bullet is just too heavy, and gravity won’t let it follow through on the upswing. I wasn’t in any danger.” His smile turned in to a broad grin. “There’s nothing in my line of work that says I have to play fair.”
Kyle almost smiled. There was some hope these priests might survive in his city after all.
The priest handed the gun to Anderson. “For your collection.” He looked to Kyle. “I believe you wanted to know how I thought that we would convert San Francisco back to the light, Master Assassin. And that's the way Kevin has managed this entire year.”
Anderson blinked, uncertain of how he figured into this. “I used a lot of high-tech explosives.”
Patel laughed. “No. You believed in individuals over government. You wanted to serve justice, and the only reliable way for you to get it was to deal it out directly, without the massive bureaucracy of a sprawling government. And here, notice that the local systems, the villages, the private enterprises, have survived, where the big city government system falls apart. It's much like the Catholic Church, really. When everything works, when the technology keeps everyone together, everything can move smoothly, if everyone is doing their jobs. But when something breaks down, when the communications fall apart, or when the faceless, impersonal bureaucrat with nothing invested in a community starts to meddle, then local, street-level persons have to take charge, if only for self-defense. The moral of your story, Kevin, is to trust individuals, not organizations. We're a close-knit body of individuals, banded together for common cause. And, because we are, because we're not a vast organization where the corrupt and inept can hide, we're going to win.”
*
December 31st, 2093
The Ground Zero was decorated for a full party. The streamers poured down from the ceiling like multicolored waterfalls, and alcohol flowed liberally...and all of the recorders were turned on high for when everyone spilled their secrets in a river of drug-induced logorrhea.
“The last thing I need right now is a bloody drink,” Anderson insisted to Mickie as she offered him a glass of what looked like scotch. “Take that away from me,” he said good-naturedly. “Kyle, whatever did you see in a glass of—”
He stopped as he looked in the mirror as someone held up a gun behind him. Anderson turned on his stool. “What do you think you're doing?”
The gunman blinked. “I'm going to kill you.”
“Like that? Please.” Kevin pointed at the gun. “First of all, you're holding it wrong. You're holding it at a damn ninety-degree angle.”
“More like a one-twenty,” Elsen corrected next to him.
“Thank you, Kyle. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah.” Kevin got up from the stool, stepped around the still-outstretched gun, and grabbed the hand, rotating it until the gun was straight. “Now you hold it like this. Okay?”
The gunman nodded, confused, his brow furrowed. “Um, all right.”
“And second, use both hands. Cup this one with the other...good...and now lean back, use the other foot to act as a platform... Now, both feet diagonal, better for balance...good, good. And now you can take a shot.”
The gunman smiled, swiveled to point the gun at Kevin's face, and pulled the trigger. Anderson kept smiling. “Oh, two more things. One, a gun is not a close-range weapon, and two—” he grabbed the barrel and ripped it from the man's hands “—always check your weapon when someone else touches it, lest they turn the safety on when you're not looking.”
Anderson pistol-whipped him with his own gun, and then slipped it away. “Where were we, Kyle?”
*
Amanda Esmeralda Rohaz looked at the bar from the back of the main floor. No one had noticed her come in, and that was the way she had wanted it. Her own personal disguise kit had been nearly foolproof, and if Anderson had even seen her come in, he gave no indication.
She saw him laughing and smiling at the bar, each raised voice tinged with a slight tightness of creeping hysteria. His eyes were alight with madness, but rimmed with an edge of bone weariness. Mandy Rohaz wanted to go to him. To comfort him somehow. She wanted to pretend that they were back in the hotel room in DC, his arms around her, touching her....
Until he called out for his wife.
Mandy felt her gut clench at the thought, and she sighed to herself.
She shook her head, and stared hard at the back of Kevin's head. He had somehow managed to make the acquaintance of the most dangerous creature in San Francisco. That Kevin managed to befriend the killing machine still confounded her. If indeed they were friends. If so, Kevin would be the best protected human being alive. If not, if there were anyone in this city, maybe even the world, that she would put up against Kyle Elsen, it would be Kevin.
Like that would really be possible. You're in love, but be sensible.
Mandy leaned back in her chair and frowned. The last thing Kevin had said to her had been “You must not forget to pay the debt.” It had been a line from the Phaedo, Plato's recollection of Socrates' last conversation on Earth. Socrates had been offered the chance to leave, escape his execution. Socrates had answered that society had protected him all of his life with civilization, and laws, and culture, and the society had proclaimed that he had to die because he had gone against them. He owed the city a debt, and it had been called in. He paid.
Which went a little towards explaining Kevin. He had been more than willing to accept the consequences of his actions. Maybe it was because of Mandy's involvement and the potential to screw her and the Mercenaries over. Maybe he just had a death wish. Maybe he just refused to live his entire life on the run, hunted like a rabid dog about to be put down.
It didn't matter, though. He was still alive, and apparently thriving. He was already the terror of the city. He was the man who had locked down Chinatown...and some thought Little Hiroshima, since apparently the Children of Thanatos couldn't tell the difference between the two areas. It wasn't an ideal situation, but she could still see him, talk to him, be with him...
She rolled her eyes at her own sentimentality. Her have a relationship with Kevin, in the middle of San Francisco? Was she out of her mind? Obviously. It would still take time for him to establish himself in the area, make certain everyone properly feared and respected him, and dissuade the occasional schmuck who tested his authority...
And his wife is still dead, after she died in his arms. And you're still the first person to talk to him afterwards. And it hasn't even been a year yet. What are you going to do, Mandy, sit around and pine after him until he gets over it? Or are you going to seduce him and become just some rebound fling?
She made a sound that was a cross between a hiccup, a laugh, and a sob, so that no one who heard her could tell. She whirled the glass around once more, and then downed the rest of her Sambuca. She gathered her things and stood, moving straight to the exit.
She didn't stop, she didn't slow, and she didn't look back this time. She had a job to do, and she would do it. Maybe, one day, her job would bring her back to San Francisco. But right now, Anderson had already moved on, about to settle in for a long stay in the belly of Hell.
It was time she moved on, too.
*
Kevin smiled and nodded at someone wishing him good health, probably just wanting to stay on his good side...and beyond him, a petite woman stepped past Leo at the door.
He blinked. That couldn't have been … “Excuse me, Kyle.”
Kevin placed his empty glass on the bar, and moved to the door, rushing along as fast as possible. He got to the door and opened it into the dark night. The street was empty.
Kevin shook his head. There were no more ghosts from his past here. They were finally gone.
The clock over the bar clicked loudly. And the bar patrons started counting down from twenty. Kevin turned around, and headed into the bar, leaving parts of himself behind.
Kevin sat next to Kyle, and neither the Exile nor the Assassin coun
ted down with the others. They just grabbed their glasses, and lightly tapped them together at midnight.
The long dark of 2093 was over.
Epilogue: The Prisoner
Kevin Anderson looked over his spy kit. It was nothing flashy, just a simple transmitter, designed for a satellite uplink and burst transmissions, so that no one could trace what he was doing. He warmed up the dictation software, turned on the microphone, and began to speak in the clearest, most precise diction. He didn't know if he wanted to make this a letter or a radio transmission. Maybe both. But, by God, someone was going to listen to him. And he didn't know who or how. Maybe someone would pick him up on a ham radio set, or maybe just hear him in DC, assuming they cared. No matter what, they were going to listen...
January 1st, 2094. For those of you just tuning in, my name is Kevin Anderson, serial number 1597. I am, for all intents and purposes, what could be called a spy, though I don’t think anyone cares what I have to report on.
As penance for my sins, I have been exiled to the city of San Francisco. You may have some problem believing there is a city of San Francisco anymore. There still is, despite the minor nuclear holocaust in 2090. San Francisco survived because of luck…or because its politically irrelevant. Either way, it’s still here. We are surrounded on all sides by what the locals call “The Wasteland”—formerly known as everything west of Texas.
San Fran has become a dumping ground for some governments to ‘disappear’ malcontents, mainly because the rest of the planet thinks the entire city has been destroyed on that day in 2090. The only people who seem to be aware that this place still exists happen to run governments…but why would they acknowledge it? It’s one city, surrounded by a desolate wasteland, taken over by makeshift feudal lords, and the lunatics from the violent ward are running this asylum. It’s a perfect makeshift prison facility—one that can’t possibly exist. It's the perfect place to ‘disappear’ guys like me—the Inconvenient. Yes, I’ve adopted my own title. Everyone else here has one, why not me?
Codename: Winterborn (The Last Survivors Book 1) Page 34