Every Day Above Ground

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  “The more the better,” I said.

  Hollis goggled at a girl in full Vampirella costume, wearing barely enough red fabric to make a couple of belts. “How did you know about this?”

  Before I could answer, the lot attendant came to take my twenty bucks and waved us in the direction of the next available spot. Hollis slid the Navigator into place and we piled out. I grabbed my mask off the passenger seat, and gave each of them one of the laminated badges I’d acquired the day before. Corcoran stared at the badge like I’d handed him a giant cockroach.

  From the back of the big SUV, I removed two hard-sided rolling suitcases, one in metallic red, the second in a shiny blue.

  Hollis slipped on his hockey mask. “How do I look?” he said.

  With his blood-spattered mask and soiled field coat, he made a fair Jason Voorhees, if a little short. “Unidentifiable,” I said, tossing him a set of keys.

  “Perfect. See you all later.” As he walked off, Hollis shot a finger at Corcoran, who was trying to adjust his horribly scarred Nightmare on Elm Street mask.

  “Fucking thing’s uncomfortable as shit,” Corcoran said. “And this sweater itches.”

  “You know where to go,” I said.

  “Yes, goddammit. We went through it enough times.”

  I joined the stream of cosplayers, carrying the empty suitcases. I was dressed in dark blue coveralls, street clothes underneath. The multichannel radio was in my pocket. The EverCon badge went around my neck on a lanyard, just like every other attendee. Most people around us had yellow badges. Ours were green. Special access.

  Before joining the crush at the entrance doors, I put in the earpiece and slipped my white mask on over it.

  “Hey! Halloween!” said a bandoliered Wookie to my side. I gave him a thumbs-up. My spectral mask was the same as the one worn by the character in the slasher flicks. It was pale and expressionless. Unnerving. And just like the silent killer in the films, no one would expect me to speak.

  The throng split itself into haphazard lines, one to each doorway. Gatekeepers wearing the red badges of conference organizers swiped each attendee’s pass with a laser reader. Behind them, a table for each door, with private security personnel in blue windbreakers checking every bag.

  Two pairs of uniformed cops flanked the entrances. They chatted with one another about whatever cops on easy duty talk about.

  “Would you open your suitcases, please?” said the windbreaker at our door. I popped the latches to show the empty interiors.

  “For all the loot,” I said.

  He smiled. “Have fun shopping.”

  The entrance doors led to a bank of escalators, leading up to the central atrium and the convention halls. At the top of the escalators was an attention deficit sufferer’s nightmare. Two or three hundred people in costumes, and a few human-powered contraptions that were far beyond the usual definition and size of costumes, milled about the open floor like debutantes making their entrances. An entire cadre of Avengers pretended to do battle with a squad of X-Men. Darth Maul crossed swords with Captain Jack for a selfie. I stepped back to let a twelve-foot steampunk giraffe amble past.

  Cyndra would have loved this. Maybe I could take her to a convention someday. Assuming I survived this one.

  My mask from Halloween fit right in. Not elaborate. Easily recognizable, and less interesting for it. No one would be interrupting our business to ask for a picture, which I’d noticed yesterday happened a lot to people wearing the best costumes, or the skimpiest. One girl dressed in green hot pants as Misty from Pokémon had a line waiting.

  I inched my way through the atrium crowd and down a lobby long enough to have served as the runway for a small plane. Booths dominated the lobby, selling everything from action figures to rare comic books to more costumes, just in case anyone felt left out.

  My earpiece buzzed. Corcoran, on the radio channel reserved for him and Hollis.

  “They’re here,” he said. “Mick O’Hasson, and two guys shadowing about ten yards off him. They’re wearing sport jackets, can you believe that?”

  I could. Boule hadn’t known about our little costume party at EverCon until half an hour ago, when I’d told him.

  “O’Hasson just got in line at the will-call window. One of his shadows is wheeling a big-ass footlocker on a hand truck. Is that what I think it is?”

  “Let’s hope so,” I said.

  “It’s heavy enough to be gold, by the look of it. Hang on. The geek at the window gave O’Hasson a package,” Corcoran said.

  “Three badges,” I said. “The con is sold out. And something for Mickey to help him blend in. Hold your position. Fekkete will be here before too long.”

  Corcoran swore. His version of acknowledging.

  EverCon was a hot event. Passes had been considered impossible to get for months. I’d managed to acquire nine badges yesterday, thanks to some inside help. Three for us, three for Boule, and three for Fekkete. I wanted them here. But I also wanted insurance that neither of our guests would show up with an entire battalion.

  If the atrium had been dizzying, then the enormous convention hall at the end of the lobby was a fever dream. Individual costumes were dwarfed by the displays of game companies and media showpieces. Giant inflatable anime characters lined the west wall to my left, as if waiting to play the latest Call of Duty on the ten-foot-wide screens on the other side of the broad aisle. The east wall was so far away it might as well have another zip code. I could watch a TV clip or a movie trailer or a video game in progress almost anywhere I looked, and I could hear all of them at once. It was like having my head stuck in a pinball machine.

  No cops in sight. Maybe they didn’t patrol this level often. That could be a problem. Having cops around might keep anyone from getting ideas, or getting rough.

  Directly across from the entryway, a large performance stage dominated the opposite wall. Empty at the moment. It would be used in the afternoon and evening, after the larger panels downstairs concluded and thousands more people crowded the convention hall. For now, it was perfect for my needs. The closest edge of the stage offered clear sightlines to this entrance and to all aisles where someone might approach.

  It was impossible for one person to cover all points of entry into the gigantic room, but the stage came close. It would be my starting position, the best vantage point.

  I walked quickly across the room, weaving with the suitcases through a Rivendell contingent comparing elven headpieces and wigs. Past Vulcans and Little Ponies and a hundred other characters I didn’t know. My pop culture savvy was just another casualty of ten years burned in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  “Shaw.” That was Boule, on the radio I had left in Mickey’s package at the will-call window. The advantage of the radios was that I could hear all channels, while only speaking to one at a time, if I chose.

  Fekkete would find a radio waiting with his badges, too. If he showed. The drug smuggler was slippery enough that I wasn’t completely certain he would risk meeting in person, as much as he craved the gold.

  “I’m here,” I said to Boule. “It took you a while.” Long enough that I wondered if Boule had managed to slip into the room already. I was at the stage now, looking across to the first entryway.

  “The place is crowded, if you hadn’t noticed,” he said.

  Jesus, that was nearly humor. Boule must be keyed up.

  “Are you with O’Hasson?” I said.

  In answer, a small figure appeared in the entryway. Mick O’Hasson. He wore a green bowler hat and green vest, easy to see even at long distance. The Irish stereotype costume had been my idea. If security saw a leprechaun, they wouldn’t be surprised at seeing a box full of gold.

  “I see him,” I said into the radio, “but unless he ate the gold for breakfast, that’s all I see.”

  “Where’s Fekkete?” Boule answered.

  “First things. O’Hasson goes to neutral ground. Agreed?”

  “Agreed. But he’ll do what I tell him t
o do. Nothing more.” Boule must have O’Hasson wearing an earpiece himself, to respond to orders.

  “Have O’Hasson come halfway into the room, then turn left and walk to the parade balloons over on the west wall. Under the Sailor Moon one.”

  “Which one is that?”

  “Figure it out.”

  After a moment, O’Hasson began to walk into the room. The hunters had dressed him in dull gray sweatpants and sweatshirt, probably just stuffing Mick into the baggy clothes on the drive here. The emerald bowler hat and vest looked less jaunty than futile on his spare frame. He took each step without pause, but his progress was slow. Frail.

  Stay with us, Mickey, I thought. You’re almost done.

  As he made his slow way to the west wall, I scanned the room. No Boule, or any of the other hunters I’d seen two days before. No one wearing suits or sport coats.

  I had a notion of what Boule’s team had been doing during their long delay before calling me on the radio. Buying costumes.

  I turned to examine the crowd behind O’Hasson. Like observation training in the Rangers. Not focusing on anything, just looking at the whole field, to see if any of the grass moved how it shouldn’t.

  There. A man in a brown monk’s robe and hood, forty yards out on my two o’clock. He kept a drifting pace with O’Hasson’s progress across the floor. I watched from my distant vantage point until I was sure. Very broad shoulders on the monk. Boule’s thick-necked buddy Marshall, almost certainly.

  And there. Another tall hooded figure, his face hidden, hovering nearer the center of the room to my left. With one badge for O’Hasson and one for Marshall, the third man would be Boule himself. The hood twisted from side to side. Trying to locate me in the dazzling onslaught of color and sound surrounding us, no doubt.

  Half of our guests had arrived. O’Hasson was about as safe as I could make him. Time to up the stakes.

  I had prepared a text message for Fekkete, directing him to the convention center and the main hall. I fired the message off, adding the encouraging note that the gold was already here. That was my optimism showing. I hadn’t laid eyes on the kilobars yet.

  O’Hasson reached the huge red boot of the inflatable cartoon figure. Immediately, Boule piped up on the radio.

  “Where’s Fekkete?”

  “On his way now. You better get the cheese into the trap.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Bring it to the aisle where O’Hasson entered. When I see it, we’ll meet.”

  I had expected the figure in the monk’s hood to move, to fetch the gold. But the hunters surprised me.

  A hand truck loaded with a black footlocker the size of a small ottoman wheeled into view in the entryway. Pushed by a man wearing an ivory Japanese demon mask, all grinning jaws and tusks. I recognized the tobacco-colored curls of hair around the mask’s horns. Boule.

  The hunters had managed to sneak extra players onto the field. Two in monk costumes that I’d spotted. But there could be more men, in different disguises. Boule was their stalking horse, easy to spot in his suit and tie. I might have fallen for it if Marshall had been more subtle in tailing O’Hasson.

  “I’m directly across from you,” I said to Boule, “by the stage, in coveralls and a white mask.”

  He spotted me and grunted. The demon mask actually went fairly well with his light gray suit. His hand truck was the heavy-duty kind, with an extra set of wheels to allow the user to push large loads without wrestling with the weight. That didn’t mean Boule didn’t have to put some muscle into it, to get the hundred kilos of gold rolling.

  At least I hoped it was gold. If it wasn’t, this could go bad long before I was prepared for that badness to happen.

  The two monks held their positions, one by O’Hasson, the other where he could see all of us from the center of the room. Boule pushed the hand truck up to where I waited by the stage, with my two empty suitcases. We were near enough to the carpeted wall of the convention hall to have a relatively quiet pocket, away from the sensory overload of the main floor.

  “This stays locked until Fekkete shows,” Boule said through his incongruously grinning mask.

  “That won’t work,” I said. “He’ll send one of his goons to check it. The goon will give Fekkete the signal when it’s safe.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it’s what I would do, if I were a nervous son of a bitch like Fekkete. And because I told him to stay far away until I knew O’Hasson hadn’t double-crossed us with a box full of chains. Is that a box full of chains, Boule?”

  “Fuck off.” He lowered the hand truck to the ground, unstrapped the footlocker, and lifted one side and then the other down to the floor in two big heaves. “When Fekkete’s man is here, I’ll get the key to you.”

  I could easily pick the lock on the big box, but that was beside the point. Like I’d told Boule, no one was pulling a snatch-and-grab with that much metal.

  “If Fekkete doesn’t come in person, the deal’s off. Permanently,” Boule said.

  Fekkete wouldn’t trust Hinch or his other Sledge City killers with four million of anything. I was counting on his greed and suspicion to conquer his fear.

  My radio buzzed. Corcoran, from his position outside.

  “I got four gym rats out here, bitching at the ticket window girl,” he said. “No Fekkete.”

  Shit. Maybe I had been wrong.

  “Get gone,” I said to Boule, “and send O’Hasson to me with the key.”

  “When they arrive,” he repeated, and moved off into the vibrant forest of booths and people.

  “Two of them are heading inside,” Corcoran said. “I lost the others in the crowd out here. Freaks.”

  Where was Fekkete? Had he really decided to keep away?

  I had five minutes to stew about it before Dickson Hinch and the looming figure of Bomba appeared at the entrance to the hall. They didn’t have masks. That didn’t matter. If Fekkete had skipped the party, my world was about to get ugly enough without any extra help.

  Twenty-Six

  “We are here.” Fekkete’s voice in my ear. He had the radio. One of his men must have passed it to him outside after picking up their badges. I exhaled a whole lungful of relief.

  “Where?” I said on Fekkete’s radio channel. Hinch and Bomba still lurked in the entryway, looking around for a recognizable face. Waiting for Fekkete’s instructions.

  “In the large room,” Fekkete said in his thick accent. Maybe he’d slipped in through another entrance. Or maybe he was directing his soldiers from afar. I saw Bomba talking into a cell phone. They had spotted O’Hasson against the west wall. The little burglar was hard to miss, in his spangled green bowler and vest. He stood as ordered by the inflatable statues, looking dazed. Maybe he was in shock.

  Bomba starting moving in O’Hasson’s direction, bulling his way through the thickening crowd. He kept the cell phone pressed to his ear.

  “I have the gold,” I said to Fekkete. “O’Hasson has armed bodyguards covering him. They’re dressed in brown robes, like monks.”

  After another moment, Bomba stopped short, still a hundred feet away from O’Hasson. He rapidly looked from side to side. Good. Keep his attention focused elsewhere. If he spied Marshall, all the better.

  “Where is the gold?” Fekkete said.

  “By the big stage, with me,” I said. “O’Hasson will bring the key when I tell him to.”

  “He is doing what you say.” Fekkete sounded satisfied. “The girl is here?”

  “Never mind her,” I said. “Send one of your men to meet me at the stage. We’ll check the box and make sure.”

  That apparently met with Fekkete’s approval. Hinch began an easy lope down the long aisle toward me. As he neared I saw that he wore a Bluetooth earpiece under his lank hair; keeping in touch with Bomba or Fekkete or both.

  I used the moment to take a breath. Center myself.

  This exchange would be like the kids’ puzzle, getting a fox and a chicken and
a sack of grain across a river in a boat that could carry only one at a time. Chicken eats grain. Fox kills chicken. Only in our case, we had enough foxes running around to slaughter an entire poultry farm.

  Still no sign of Fekkete. If he wasn’t here, or if I couldn’t spot him, I’d have to grab O’Hasson and try to escape. Leave the gold behind, and hope it sidetracked all of the men here, every one of whom would be delighted to see Mick and me dead before the day was out.

  Hinch saw me watching him, and the footlocker and red and blue suitcases at my feet. He grinned challengingly and stepped up to breathe in my face.

  “Nice mask, fuckhead,” he said. “But we know it’s you in there, Zack.”

  I pressed the earpiece to switch my voice to Boule’s channel. “Send the key,” I said.

  “The fuck are these for?” Hinch tapped the red suitcase with the toe of his cowboy boot. I caught the bulge of an ankle holster on his right leg.

  “That one’s yours,” I said. “If there’s any trouble, get those hidden under the stage.”

  I had examined the performance area very carefully the day before. A short black scrim hid the legs and other supports from the audience. Curtains divided the rear of the stage from the performing area, sloping around to touch the wall.

  Out of view, in the dark claustrophobic space between stage and wall, was an access door. An emergency exit, as far as I was concerned. If this all went to hell, I might need it.

  Far off, at the west wall, I saw the wide robed figure of Marshall approach O’Hasson. Passing the key, I guessed. Another ten seconds, and O’Hasson began to make his slow way toward where Hinch and I waited. Bomba followed, keeping his distance. Would Marshall spot him? I hoped so. I wanted them playing man-to-man, worried about each other.

  “I’m still outside,” Corcoran said. “A couple of the gym rats are wandering around out here like retarded apes, but no sight of your Russian dude.”

  I didn’t want to speak with Hinch so near. Instead I gave Corcoran a triple tap on the radio, his signal to find me inside.