Hunter held his breath through a long silence as his eyes moved about the room - searching for a response.
The man’s voice became subdued. “Bro, gimme your cell number, I’ll call you on your cell. Midnight tonight, no land-line shit. Be ready. Be in East LA. Don’t be drivin’ no blacked out SUV. If you do - you burn.”
Hunter nodded. “Got it, I’ll be drivin’ a ‘98 silver Continental, black top, just me and a buddy. And uh - he’s black, just in case I get uncomfortable about steppin’ out of the Lincoln, okay? Don’t go layin’ shit on me like, uh – meetin’ in some alley.”
“That’s a shame ‘cause it is in a fuckin’ alley. I need to feel good about handin’ stolen property over to a fuckin’ cop. You flash your lights when you get here. I need to know it’s you before I show my hand.”
**** Ishmael White was a pencil pusher who’d been described by associates as a ‘lazy narcoleptic little fuck’. Hunter gave him a break and accepted him for the assignment; the fact he was the only black agent available heavily influenced his decision. The alternative, a middle aged Irishman named O’Toole came with a nervous twitch. Rumor had it the twitch was contagious, so Hunter went with the lazy narcoleptic little fuck.
Night time excursions ‘in the field’ were new to young Ishmael White, but Hunter gave him leeway, ignored his uneasiness and chose the new black kid as his partner.
Hunter appreciated Sam’s Lincoln. The car was mint, and Sam had babied her from the day it left the dealership back in ‘98. Hunter cruised along Sunset and fully appreciated why Sam was dubious about allowing him the use of baby.
Gardner Hunter shook his head, smiled and placed a hand on White’s knee. White flinched and moved away. Hunter gave him a minute then faked a yawn. “Bit nervy, are we? Just stay awake.”
His effort of consolatory humor fell on deaf ears. Ishmael called into the backup car and checked communication lines were clear, his voice nervy, eyes twitching.
The SUV crawled along one block behind the Lincoln. White’s eyes slid to Hunter as he edged the Continental between two rows of parked vehicles as the 5th Dimension hummed in the CD player. White frowned at Sam’s music selection, Up, Up and Away. He reached for the volume knob, turned the music down and spoke softly into his microphone.
“Who’s that – up ahead?” He gestured nervously toward dark figures hunched in doorways. “You see that glow?”
A glow illuminated a face as a match was raised to a cigarette.
“A couple of guys over there too,” and he pointed to their left where two homeless scavengers rummaged about in one of several dumpsters. They turned a corner and moved slowly into a darkened alley. A crowd of street people huddled about glowing embers in a makeshift fortyfour gallon drum heater.
“Look at ‘em, man,” White said pointing at the mix of derelicts. “Brothers everywhere, just looking wasted, just staring at us.”
Hunter spoke softly into his mic. “Paul, can you guys see us okay?”
The shadowing driver replied. “Yeah, we gotcha, you want us to move in closer?”
“Nah, hold your distance, don’t wanna scare our boy off.”
“Our boy?” the lazy narcoleptic little fuck grumbled.
“Figure of speech, no disrespect intended.”
White was shaky for his twenty-four years. He said to Hunter, “I’m scared shitless,” then to the backup vehicle, “We’re slowing down.” His voice reached panic level. “We’re slowing down. Now we’re stopping.” Then to Hunter, “Why are we stopping?” He paused, stared ahead, his eyes squinting. “Someone’s moving this way. Is that a
- is that a – shit! It’s a – that’s an oozi.” White pounded his right foot on the floorboard and shouted, “Move it, move it. Move it!”
Both men dropped below the dash of the Lincoln as a spray of bullets shattered glass.
White screamed, “Go, go, go!”
Hunter grabbed a brief glance over the rear seat. “Shit! We can’t go back, there’s a fuckin’ bus back of us.”
More bullets shredded through the headlining of the Continental.
“We’re getting a fuckin’ sunroof,” White cried. “I don’t care about the bus. Go, go, go!”
The Lincoln reversed at speed, scrapping between the bus and the alley wall, leaving the outer skin of baby’s nearside doors on the brickwork, and finally coming to rest tightly jammed between the wall and an abandoned rusting Toyota van. There was an eerie silence. A face leaned into the lowered window and moved to the beat of Hunter’s music.
Dion Washington’s arrival was appropriately accompanied by the Bond classic Live and Let Die. Washington spoke with eloquence. “Good song, bro, all of those brothers in New Orleans.” His words flowed as though performing a rap routine. “I see your tears and I feel your pain and I’m here ‘cause I’ve somethin’ to gain. I know you got some cash to give so gimme it now if ya wanna live.”
As the Bond tune “Live and let die” chimed in, Washington passed a folder toward Hunter. “Here are your fuckin’ papers - gimme the cash.”
White was hoping Washington had missed his presence, but the fence pointed a condemning finger at the passenger curled under “baby’s” dashboard. He laughed aloud and stabbed a finger at the man beneath the dash. “And take the fuckin’ nigger here with ya.”
Dozens of loose papers fell from a folder. Hunter passed the case containing the money, tilted his head sideways as Washington tossed the remaining file pages onto the rear seat. Ishmael White stayed under the dash.
Dark suited men ran shouting toward them. They reached the Lincoln as Hunter and White crawled from the wreckage. One of the suited men placed a hand on each hip, leaned over, drew breath and gasped. “What the fuck just happened? We were right there, then some motherfucker in a bus cut in front of us and blocked the alleyway.”
“Most nerve-racking time of my fuckin’life,” White said. “I ain’t cut out for this shit. I gotta stay in the office. Lemme out, I gotta pee like a fuckin’ race horse.”
Hunter shook chunks of glass from his jacket as White said, “Those guys are all screwed up on crack, wasted, all looking at us like we’re from another fuckin’ planet.” He stood with his back to Hunter and peed furiously on the wheel-well of the Toyota. A minute later he shook, zipped up, faced the suited man and said with a touch of bravado, “fuckin’ hey, dude. They started coming to the car, so I shout to Hunter like FLOOR IT, so he takes off and...”
The driver of the backup vehicle nodded at the wet patch down White’s leg. “Your first time huh?”
“No shit, dude,” White groaned as he joggled his balls into a comfortable position.
Hunter collected the papers and placed them in the folder. “That Washington guy, he’s one shifty motherfucker. Don’t understand why he’d pull shit like this. He knew he had a hundred grand comin’.”
“Maybe he had another buyer,” the suited man said, “wanted his cake and eat it too. Maybe he’d been offered a second deal to smack your ass. Anyone out there gunnin’ for you?”
Hunter gently prodded his ribcage and grimaced, “Yeah, you’ve heard, huh? It’s a long line and it stretches clean around the fuckin’ block.”
“Start at the front,” Ishmael White said, faking a confident grin.
Hunter flicked a thumb at the SUV. “Gimme a lift back to the Shangri-La in Santa Monica, will you.”
He stood back and gave a sympathetic look at what was once a mint Lincoln Continental. He groaned, “Jeez - gonna be hell to pay for Sam’s fuckin’ baby.”
***** The Hotel Shangri-La overlooked the Pacific since 1939, a dramatic combination of Art Deco beauty, Hollywood allure and Los Angeles history. Its opulence did little to relieve Hunter’s aching rib cage. Sam had booked a non-smoking room and Hunter lit up his Marlboro while standing on the curb. He gingerly limped to the beach opposite the building, sat on a bench and lowered his head between his knees. He pulled a Shangri-La brochure from his coat and read the words, ‘An idyllic haven of rejuvenatio
n.’ Hunter moaned, “One can only wish.”
He checked out of the Shangri-La the following morning, hailed a cab, and in ten minutes arrived at the Wilshire Marriott. He gazed up at the twelfth floor window of the nearby building, hummed a few bars of Barry McGuire’s Eve of Destruction, broke off and groaned, “It’s been a long time, Sam, long fuckin’ time.”
The door to SoCal Exports was a welcome sight as Hunter tapped on the frosted glass and grinned at the familiar sound of the lock as it opened.
Click.
Marcie Bryant was at home in her sparsely furnished reception area. She eyed the security monitor and smiled, “Long time, stranger.”
Hunter flipped the folder against his forehead in a saluting gesture. He caught her smile as he passed the x-ray scanner and chuckled, “So why do I feel violated?”
The scanner picked up both the Glock in his shoulder holster and the blade in his rear belt. Marcie ran her eyes along his trouser leg. “Leave the hardware with me, handsome. Sam’s edgy about anything menacing sitting across from him.” She raised a hand to her mouth and chuckled.
“Nothing’s changed then, huh kiddo?”
“Not much. The team’s away. Guess that’s why you’re out of rehab, huh - kiddo?”
“You mean I’m a last resort - I thought I’d earned this reprieve all on my own some.”
“Still the quintessential dreamer, aren’t we, Gard?”
“Jeez, take away a man’s dreams and you ain’t leavin’ him much, huh sweetie?”
Marcie reached for the buzzing desk phone, listened for a half- minute, repetitively saying, “Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh,” and then, “I’ll send him right on in, Sam.” She placed the receiver back on the base and gave Hunter a look of impending doom.
“Sam says to cut the foreplay and send you in. Good luck - kiddo.” She placed a hand around her mouth and whispered, “You my boy - are gonna need it.”
Hunter made a reluctant entrance, arriving just as Sam glanced at his watch. Then, to his relief, the chief moved around his desk and greeted him with a warm hug. “Enjoy the Shangri-La? Thought you could do with a little spoiling. How are you feeling? White called in, said it got a bit hairy last night.”
“A bit hairy, huh? Yeah, I’d go along with that. Fuckin’ White . . . the guy spent the night under your dash.”
“Narcolepsy?”
“Yeah, somethin’ like that. Narcoleptic little fuck.”
Sam pointed at the folder clutched in Hunter’s hand. “I see you’ve got the files. Good work.”
Hunter winced as he eased himself into a chair. He slid the folder across the desk and sat blank faced as Sam rifled through the papers and set about explaining the Zurich operation. Every few minutes Hunter would let out a groan followed by an expletive, quickly followed by an abrupt, “Sorry, Sam.”
Sam skimmed over the mission. “Libra might have fooled our guys in Washington, but when Danzig failed to keep his appointment, when he just left a note under the door, well - that’s when we started digging. There’s a rivalry going on between Libra and their counterparts in Geneva, a concern known as CERNA. Libra paid off a CERNA physicist to mess with their program, instigated a fault that caused mechanical damage and setting their Geneva program way back.”
“Did they suspect one of their guys was behind the mechanical damage?”
“Not to our knowledge. CERNA did some experimental transfers, some tests involving animals. They believe the mess up was an internal configuration error. The animals they transferred, they uh – well, they are still out there, possibly suffering internal damage. CERNA was unable to program retrievals.”
“Internal damage - out there - with Blake, with our guys, what the fuck, Sam?”
“Settle down, the research by CERNA was carried out two years back, lots of things have improved since then.”
Hunter dropped both hands on the table. “Jesus Christ! They were doin’ all of this shit that long ago?”
“Yeah, regrettably, at least that long ago.”
Sam pressed a button and Marcie entered. “Could you get a couple of coffees going - Gard looks like he can use the caffeine.”
Hunter gave a wink and flashed his special killer smile. “Thanks, Marcie. The usual, cream, two lumps. Thanks darlin’.”
“As smooth as ever huh, Gard?” Sam chuckled. “We’ve had a little heart to heart with one of the former Libra guys. He’d worked with a Doctor Gerhardt Beckman; he says he can send one person off to join our guys.” He stared probingly at Hunter. “Are you getting the picture? Just one guy can go back to help them out.”
Hunter glared at Sam, who’d suddenly taken on a look of guilt. “Really, Sam, just one, huh?” and then added in a flippant way, “I’m screwed, right?”
Sam felt a little relieved, the pressure valve had eased off and he wasted no time putting on a tone of optimism, of encouragement. He placed a light at the end of Hunter’s very dark tunnel.
“This time we’ll bend the rules,” he said, “give you a big advantage. Take along a couple of Sigs, a few clips of 9mm slugs just to even the score a little, seeing how all those guys in armor are swinging axes.”
Hunter swallowed hard. Sam heard the swallow. Sam faked a chuckle and said, “After all, we can’t have you materializing in 1356 with only your dick in your hand.”
Hunter remained indifferent.
“It really worried me sending Drew and the guys into all of that shit but we played by Libra’s rules. Not this time. This time you get to take back artillery. We’ve a few former very annoyed Libra guys operating in a secluded section of the Zurich facility. They’ve got a couple of prototype units all set to go.”
“Prototype units? That word prototype, it kinda scares me.”
“Don’t sweat the small stuff. A few dogs were sent off and all went well. You and I are headed for Zurich.”
“Dogs huh?” And hunter made a shivering gesture. “When did you last hear from our guys?”
“Had a call from the Libra defector, one of the defecting physicists. Seems they had a tracking device locked onto our team’s coordinates. He’ll meet us when we arrive at the Libra facility.”
“What happened with the trackin’ device?”
“It’s got them baffled. Each of our guys carried some kind of transmitter, a small disc, all three shut down at the same time. Just died, last coordinates were near a place called Maupertuis.”
“That’s where I’m goin’?”
“Yeah, that’s it. We’ll leave for Zurich in the morning.”
“On the subject of good and bad news, I’ve got some uh - some news for you too, Sam.”
He reached in his pocket, slid the Lincoln keys across the desktop.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gardner Hunter
Education
March 28, 2015
Hunter and Sam sat in the Tom Bradley Terminal with time to kill, time to enjoy people watching - time to study faces of travelers pulling wheeled luggage to checkin counters. As they boarded, Hunter went through his usual routine of analyzing the appearance of passengers, searched for nuns, a football team, a folk singer with a guitar slung over his shoulder – a priest – if he saw none, he relaxed.
The overnight flight would arrive in Zurich at six o’clock; Hunter would take in an in-flight movie, spend time reading a magazine or two, throw down several miniature bottles of Courvoisier and try to grab a few hours’ sleep. Sam on the other hand would sleep the entire flight,
A beeping noise sounded as the dimmed lights of the cabin came to life. One of the flight crew announced, “Good morning, we’re one hour out of Zurich. Your flight attendant will be by shortly with coffee and beverages.”
Sam opened one eye, tugged the blanket around his neck, readjusted his pillow, eyed the six empty cognac bottles stuffed into Hunter’s magazine slot and grumbled. “Did you get any sleep at all?”
“Huh? Oh yeah, I slept like a baby.” There was a long pause as Sam went into brooding thought. �
��I emailed copies of the files to two of our physicists. They’re up on what’s going on with both CERNA and Libra.”
“That was quick. How’d you figure that?” Sam gave a look of self-satisfaction. “I sent it ten minutes after you left the office.”
“Get anythin’ back?”
“Yeah, Charlie Towne looked it over.”
“And?”
“Said he was impressed.”
“I’ve heard of Charlie, heard he’s a genius. What about the other guy?”
Sam nodded. “Pete Steinberg, he specializes in particle physics, co-discovered the neutral pion and the muon neutrino.”
Hunter sniggered, “Yeah sure, I’ve read the thesis,”
“Sure you did.”
“Really, Sam - what news have you got from the two bagel boys?”
Hunter tagged anyone with an IQ above 150 as bagel boys, a reference to Einstein’s Bagels.
“The competition between Zurich and Geneva stepped up.”
“Stepped up?”
“They raised security levels. Pete and Charlie are working on some notes scrawled in the files.”
“Notes?”
“Something to do with nuclear waste storage.”
“You mean like uh - plutonium?”
Silence.
Sam reached below the seat, pulled the file from his attaché case and rifled through the pages. “In one of their earliest efforts, CERNA sent some guy back, a dangerous character. Don’t know his name.”
“What happened?”
“Miscalculated coordinates.”
“What the fuck’s that mean, Sam?”
“They sent him back too far, that’s what we’ve found here in this file.”
“Too far?” Hunter asked. “Too far to where?”
“The Roman Empire,” Sam replied. “To the year 550.”
“Jesus, what could he do back then?”
“The guy came this close,” Sam said and held his index finger and thumb an inch apart. “He had the pandemic. CERNAwas initiating the very first depopulation sanction.”
Hunter asked, “Jesus Christ, who’s fundin’ these madmen?”
“We’ve a hunch - but that’s all it is, a hunch.”
The Lucifer Sanction Page 15