Point and Shoot

by Duane Swierczynski

  “Clever,” Hardie said.

  “Not really. This was just an abandoned government property the Cabal bought up. They left the signs alone.”

  “So how do you know about it?”

  “I told you, we’re at war with these bastards. When I wasn’t in surgery, being cut to look like you, I was studying up on their methods and tactics. As well as how they’ve turned our own country’s infrastructure against itself.”

  Hardie steeled himself for a lecture—he didn’t give a shit about the Cabal, or the Industry, or whatever you chose to call them … outside of how they could be stopped. Or forced to leave his family alone. Thankfully, the Other Him dropped the subject. He pulled the SUV up to the front gate, pressed a button to open the driver’s-side window, then tapped a few keys on a pad. There was a buzz. Then some clunks and a mechanical whine and the gates opened.

  “No guards?”

  “It’s self-serve.”

  Sure enough, this secret facility was disturbingly close to a drive-in fast-food restaurant. Gates opened as the SUV piloted toward them, and closed behind them, seemingly unprompted. Maybe they were short-staffed, Hardie thought. What with all of their other employees being shot into space and all.

  Inside was a tightly organized garage with three identical black vehicles resting in bays in the center. Hardie recognized those cars. Same make, same color, slightly later model. The goddamned Lincoln Town Cars. Or, as Hardie called them: “coma cars.”

  These were what the Industry or Secret America or the Cabal or whoever used to transport people around. The oversized trunk contained a full life support system for one average-sized adult human being. Breathing tubes, IV, catheter, the whole package. Stick a person in there and it’s suspended animation-ville for at least a few days. You could even park the car, and a backup battery (and reserve supplies) would keep things humming along for a few days until you returned. Perfect for those weekend getaways!

  Hardie had encountered these coma cars twice. Once, as a passenger in the trunk, the very thought of which made him break out in hives. The other time, he was a driver, which was much better, because he had someone he truly hated in the trunk. A man named Doyle.

  You’re going to leave me to die here, aren’t you, you prick!

  Oh, Doyle.

  Hardie tried to kill him, but he was still out there somewhere. Probably still pissed off.

  “Hey.”

  The Other Him was staring at him. This was still jarring to Hardie. So jarring, he wanted to punch his double in the face.

  “There’s a restroom across the way. Why don’t you clean up while I gather some weapons and supplies? We’ve got a race ahead of us.”

  Even Hardie couldn’t argue with that. He reeked of vomit, and he felt like he was going to throw up again. Funny how vomit did that to you. Vomit: All it wanted was more vomit. Anyway, better to do it in a clean bathroom.

  You know there has to be one somewhere, in one of these lockboxes or containers.

  You’d better start searching—there isn’t much time.

  You’re looking for a device called a wasp’s nest.

  Back in the glory days of the Accident People it was a fundamental piece of gear, designed to be mounted on any surface—a door, a wall, a fixture. Set the trigger mechanism and you were good to go. Ultra-useful when you absolutely, positively had to kill someone in an instant.

  That was possible because inside the wasp’s nest was a bit of neurochemical magic: a weaponized poison that rendered you unconscious within a second, then killed you about a minute later by temporarily shutting down the part of the human brain that regulates the heart. After accomplishing that task, the poison breaks down into little untraceable pieces of nothing. A coroner could order all of the tox screens he wanted but wouldn’t find jack shit. The targets almost never saw it coming, and didn’t recover to tell the tale.

  Except …

  Charlie Hardie.

  Seven years ago Hardie received a face full of the stuff, courtesy of the Accident People. He should have gone down like Sasha Grey. They were so sure that the poison inside the wasp’s nest would kill Hardie, they even shoved his big dumb self into a body bag. Left him on the floor while they took care of other business.

  That was before they realized they were dealing with Unkillable Chuck, graduate of the Project Viking School of Combat Efficiency.

  But the wasp poison didn’t work on him. Not the way it should have. It stopped his heart, knocked him out cold. However, it failed to kill him, and by the time he ripped his way out of that black plastic body bag, the man was more than a little pissed.

  A wasp’s nest is what you need right now, to knock Hardie out. You’re pretty sure it won’t kill him. Because that would be bad.

  But it sure as shit would render him unconscious, wouldn’t it?

  If … you can find it.

  You look for the organizational principle behind this supply center. There doesn’t seem to be one. There are syringes. Black canvas bags. Surgical tubing. Pills in plastic vials identified only by bar codes. Handcuffs. Ammunition. Bottles marked with a skull and crossbones. Razor blades …

  And finally, there it was. Ready to be assembled.

  But then you hear water running through the pipes. Hardie’s at the sink, washing up, coming back soon. You need to buy yourself some time.

  When Hardie came out of the bathroom his double said, “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  Hardie stared at him. “I wish you’d stop being so good to me, Boss.”

  The clone smiled. “Cool Hand Luke. One of our favorite movies. Tell you what, we make it out of this alive, and I’ll boil up fifty eggs for you. Then we’ll go down to some honky-tonk and get our photo taken with a couple of floozies. Anyway, I do have a surprise for you. According to the files I read, you lost this bag about seven years ago. Back in the Lowenbruck House up in the Hollywood Hills.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  His double lifted his arm. Dangling from his fist was a black duffel bag.

  No.

  Couldn’t be.

  Hardie thought it had been lost forever. His black duffel bag, which he’d last seen seven years ago in the passenger seat of a Honda Whatever. Hardie believed there were two kinds of things in the world. Things that could be replaced, and things that could not. He’d spent his years in house-sitting exile giving away or tossing everything in his life that could be replaced. Which, of course, turned out to be most of the things in his life. Clothes, CDs, kitchen utensils, old books, plaques, magazines, shot glasses, movies.

  But this duffel bag …

  The one in his hand right now, the one he never used to allow to leave his side …

  That was full of the things that could not be replaced.

  “What … what is this doing here?”

  “No idea. The Cabal hangs on to all kinds of strange stuff. Not wasting resources is a thing with them. But go ahead. Take a look inside.”

  Then he looked down at the paper tag behind a plastic window. There was a name scrawled on it:

  K. CHAMBERLAIN

  “Wait. This isn’t mine.”

  “Someone must have stuck the wrong tag on it. Take a look inside. I think you’ll find the contents very interesting.”

  “How would you know?”

  “Because I am you, dummy. I’ll leave you to it.”

  And with that, his double turned back to rooting through drawers for medical supplies.

  Hardie stared at the name again. So, K. Chamberlain, who were you? Did they ruin your sorry life, too? You off somewhere having your own series of adventures? Or are you buried in an unmarked grave? With his bandaged fingers, Hardie unzipped the bag. He hadn’t laid eyes on the contents of this bag since … forever. He could barely remember what was inside, other than irreplaceable fragments of his former life. Back when he was a husband and a father and mattered to people.

  Halfway through the zip something clicked and hissed—
r />   PSSSSSSSSH

  —and Hardie felt cold drops spray his face. The Other Him was standing just a few feet away, holding a small gizmo. Before his brain could form the thought, his body said Here We Fucking Go Again. The canvas bag slipped out of his hand and landed with a thud on the concrete floor. Again, he felt crazy weak. Overcome with chills. Head spinning, and once again he wanted to scream, NO NO NO at his mind as if he could convince it to stay awake this time and

  INTERLUDE WITH THE BEST SERIAL KILLERS EVER

  Montreal, Canada—Now

  THE PSYCHOPATHS CROSSED the northern border, looking for some toys.

  Also, truth be told, the man wanted to try some poutine. His sister, based on the way she scrunched up her nose, seemed to find the idea repellent. Either way, the decision would have to wait until later, because they didn’t have much time to waste and they were looking for a story. They found it in an underground mall.

  The idea came when the girl saw the abandoned fashion outlet in a wing of the subterranean shopping plaza that was under perpetual construction. Her eyes danced over the dusty, pale, naked mannequins surrounded by rust-acned metal racks and cheap plastic hangers, and she silently giggled. The man glanced at her. “What are you thinking, Jane?” Jane gestured, making her ideas clear. Her brother Phil smiled. He got it instantly. They had that strange brother-sister telepathy where a few simple notions conveyed entire histories and philosophies.

  So now they were arranging a fresh corpse, which had been cleaned and scrubbed and shaved, to take the place of one of the mannequins in the abandoned storefront. Their loose plan was to kill enough people tonight, plucking them from various corners of the labyrinthine mall, until the store was “populated.”

  But the clock was running against them; there was never enough time to play, it seemed. Phil and Jane were only three bodies into restocking the store when Phil’s cell rang—their Minder.

  “Where are you two?”

  “Shopping.”

  “In a foreign country, I understand.”

  “Barely. It’s Montreal, man.”

  Which was true. Montreal wasn’t very far from the New York state border. Very drivable, with relatively unimpressive border security, even in these post-9/11 days. The two psychopaths had no trouble crossing with their bag of toys.

  “Your deal pertains to the continental United States,” their Minder said. “Not Alaska, not Hawaii. Lower Forty-eight states only. They could have me killed for this. Then they’d come after you.”

  “And that would be wicked exciting, wouldn’t it?”

  Their Minder sighed for a moment. The sigh turned into a cough, and then, after he couldn’t contain it any longer, a few chuckles.

  “You know, Phil, that would be,” he admitted.

  Phil and Jane had a deal with a secret branch of the US government. They were called upon, from time to time, to accept certain assignments. Usually, serial killers—the true, authentic DSM-IV-certified emotionless, remorseless, manipulative, and sadistic monsters—were not the kind of individuals you could use as field agents. But Phil and Jane were not your typical serial killers. They were media-savvy and intelligent, and they had a fantastic agent. They also saw the benefit of accepting the occasional assignment. Because one meager assignment equaled one year of doing anything they pleased, with the complete support of not only the US government, but its various shadowy intelligence operatives who could cover up and even offer tactical support. Not that Phil and Jane ever asked for such a thing, but it was nice to know it was available.

  Presently Phillip Kindred and his sister Jane were living in Charleston, posing as husband and wife in a town called Goose Creek. They were paid to keep a low profile. Sure, they could indulge in some of their freakier kinks, but only in private, and only in tandem with a set of professional Cabal cleaners on hand at all times.

  The care and feeding of a pair of serial killers wasn’t easy.

  Most of the time they did a good job of staying below the radar. But at other times … well, they couldn’t resist.

  They sometimes cheated and listened to their old standbys: orchestral pop and psychedelic rock. They watched stacks and stacks of DVDs—the Friday the 13th series, Maniac, as well as Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink and Saw. Even though they weren’t supposed to have a copy within a hundred miles of themselves, they would also pop in Truth Hunters Special: The Kindreds. The show featured reenactments from previous installments, and, oh, how the Kindreds loved watching those. It fed into their kinks at a crazy deep level. Phillip and Jane Kindred loved to cruise the streets of any given city on “casting call” runs, abducting people who looked perfect for the roles they had in mind, then taking them to a closed “set” (usually an abandoned or foreclosed home, or a forgotten camp cabin or industrial warehouse) and forcing them to play out scenes from their favorite horror movies.

  Or their own Truth Hunters special, which made it a real-life staging of a reenactment of their own real-life stagings.

  It was all … so … grooooooovy.

  The one reenactment that the Kindreds didn’t like: About seven years ago their employers had tapped two loser actors to portray them and kill a family of four in Studio City in the San Fernando Valley. The Kindreds themselves would have loved that gig … geez, Studio City? Right down the road from Warner Brothers and Universal and the other dream factories where so many of their favorite horror movies had been created?

  But at the time, the Kindreds were being “trained” in another facility. Back then, their employers weren’t too sure that serial killers could be trusted on missions.

  The Kindreds had proved them wrong.

  With the right handler, there was nothing they couldn’t accomplish.

  And their right handler turned out to be a fellow psychopath with a law degree working in an office in Century City. He indulged his darkness on a regular basis in exchange for helping mind the Kindreds. See, he knew how to speak to them.

  Their Minder, a slender lawyer named Abbott, told them, “We need you two in Flagstaff, then Philadelphia.”

  “In that order?” Phil said. “We’re a lot closer to Philadelphia.”

  “I know that. But the order is important. Flagstaff’s just a quick errand. Philadelphia is the real fun.”

  “What’s in Flagstaff?”

  “Just a family.”

  “Does it need to look like us?”

  “No. It should not look like you. It should look random.”

  “That’s no fun.”

  “But think of all the real fun you’ll be earning.”

  “Ugh. I hate work for hire.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  “Man, there’s just no room left for independents. They end up controlling everything, don’t they. Even us.”

  “They certainly do,” Abbott said. “By the way, they also listen to our conversations.”

  “I know they do. Don’t you think it’s kind of cool to scare them every once in a while?”

  The Minder chuckled. “You’re putting me in a delicate position here.”

  “Ah, I’m just kidding, bro. Guess we’re going to Flagstaff.”

  “I think you’re going to have fun.”

  Of course Phil and Jane Kindred would have fun. This was their idea of fun, and it still struck Phil now and again how lucky they were to be able to indulge themselves like this. Most psychopaths weren’t as lucky. At best, your average serial killer could look forward to a bullet in the head or a stack of life sentences in some supermax penitentiary in the middle of nowhere. Sure, a few got a TV movie of the week or a cheapo paperback. But not the Kindreds. They were blue-chip killers, with a publishing/film deal already in place with the biggest media conglomerate in the country. They were branded. They were untouchable.

  They had four more people to kill before this tableau beneath Montreal was complete. “Let’s get a move on, sis,” Phil said. “We’ve got a busy couple of days ahead of us.”

  18

&n
bsp; I’m giving you a choice: either put on these glasses or start eatin’ that trash can.

  —Roddy Piper, They Live

  THE LAST TIME something like this had happened to Charlie Hardie, he’d woken up in a body bag. Thankfully, this time was different.

  This time he jolted awake inside the trunk of one of those goddamned coma cars, with IV lines already shoved into his veins. And hey, wow, bonus! The trunk lid was still open.

  “Oh hell,” his identical twin said, holding in his hand a clear plastic mask attached to a tube. Obviously he hadn’t expected Hardie to wake up so quickly.

  “Fuck …,” Hardie said. He went to lunge at him … only he couldn’t, because he was already strapped down into the gear. “Fuck you, you fucking fuck!”

  Hardie wasn’t afraid to admit it: He had an irrational fear of the trunks of these stupid coma cars.

  “Listen to me carefully,” his double said in a tone usually reserved for the mentally challenged. “This is for your own good. For your family’s good. You’re no use to me if you’re weak and ready to pass out every two minutes. I need you rested and rejuvenated if we’re going to survive this thing. Only I know you’re too stubborn to actually rest. So consider this a forced R and R.”

  “Eat me!”

  “It’s not as bad as you remember. They’ve made a few modifications to the design in the past year. See this?” His double held up the plastic mask. The face portion was soft and rubbery, shaped like a pear.

  “This is called a laryngeal mask. No intubator, no hose down the throat. This just slips over your face and you settle into a nice, peaceful sleep. Think of it as going down on a woman. You have to admit, it kind of does look like a pussy.”

  Hardie could see that. Yes, the mouthpiece looked like a pussy, if the woman happened to be opaque and made of plastic. But he didn’t care what the mask looked like, because there was no way he was spending any more of his life in a trunk of a car.