Righteous Apostate: Raptor Apocalypse Book 3

by Steve R. Yeager

  The chair pressed hard against his spine, making the barely healed injury on his shoulder prickle. The spacious quarters around him were lavishly decorated, serving to further sour his mood. And no matter which way he turned, he could not seem to get comfortable. He was exhausted. Maybe even beyond exhausted, and would give up a lot just to find a dark hole, crawl inside, and sleep for a month. But there was no time to rest, not yet. Andrea had asked him to do this one final thing, and, after arguing with her about it while recovering, he finally gave in and agreed to do it, almost convincing himself it was indeed the right thing to do. And if it were executed skillfully enough, maybe everything would work out in their favor.

  “You look like shit,” Andrea said.

  He lifted his chin and studied her face. He hardly knew this woman, but she had saved Kate. He owed her for that, owed her a lot.

  She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. “You are listening to me, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled.

  He could tell she was under a great deal of pressure. Tiny lines had formed cracks where her cheeks met her ears, and she kept fidgeting with a pair of black-framed glasses too large for her face.

  “What you are doing is crucial,” she said. She folded her arms behind her back, mumbled something incoherent, and walked away through an archway leading to a small kitchen at the rear of the quarters.

  Cory sat across the room from Jesse in an identical high-backed chair. The fancy chairs had probably once cost a fortune, with their rich velvet fabric and bright brass tacks. Now they were simply utilitarian, a place to rest for a while. Kate stood beside Cory and alternated between dabbing his forehead with a green washcloth and dipping the cloth in a bowl of water. His eyes were glazed over and he looked nauseated. He had a concussion, or so Andrea had said earlier. For once, the guy would be no help at all. He was a liability.

  Andrea returned from the kitchen with a glass of water, stopping in front of Jesse. She handed him the glass. He put it against his swollen lips and sipped. She waited for him to swallow. “We have about five minutes until we’ve got to go,” she said. “I’m counting on you. We’re all counting on you.”

  Jesse thought of the others he’d killed a few weeks back. He’d shot a guy who had raised his hands in surrender, just like a cold-blooded killer. That’s what it made him, didn’t it? Because of what he’d done, he didn’t want to do this, knowing where it would lead. But she’d committed them to this course, and the only way out was to see it finished.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I got this.”

  Andrea stared at him for a moment, deadly serious. She squeezed out her bottom lip and nodded back. Then she glanced at Cory. “He’ll be no good to us. Not for a day or two, minimum.” As she lifted herself to standing, her joints popped like dried kindling. “Kate will have to watch over him. She can do that, I’m sure. She’ll have him back to normal in no time.”

  Raising an eyebrow, Jesse said nothing. Normal? What was normal for that guy? He’d seen all kinds of different versions of Cory. Knowing which one was normal would take some time to process.

  The door to the quarters swung open. Jesse started to rise but slumped back into his chair when he saw who it was.

  David Gonzalez joined them, shutting the door. He turned and stared at the closed steel-clad door for a beat before facing everyone in the room. “You really should lock the fucking door,” he said, straightening his shoulders and putting some steel in his spine. The recognizable part of his face remained scrunched in agitation. The LED lighting over his head made the other side, the scarred one, appear bluish and sickly.

  “Why bother?” Andrea said. “Who else could it possibly be? Cyrus back from the dead? Could it be—?”

  David cut her off. “We’re almost ready,” he said. “They’ve gathered.”

  “Have they all been searched? Disarmed?” she asked, skeptically.

  “Yeah. But…”

  “But what?”

  There was an uncomfortable silence between them. Jesse guessed something had gone wrong. He placed a hand over his belly to settle it, knowing with certainty this was all about to go sideways.

  David sucked drool back into his mouth. “I can’t,” he said. “We’re already getting pushback from Tommy and those assholes who joined up with him. They’re sensing blood in the water and want to settle a few scores.”

  Jesse noted Andrea’s change in stance. Her legs widened, and she stood taller. All signs of weakness left her. Either she was very good at pretending, or she’d been preparing for this for a long time.

  She glared at David. “You have got to get your shit together.” Her tone was firm and unwavering. “We are all relying on you now. You’ve got to lead us. You know what that means, right? If you plan to show those monsters any mercy, they will shit all over you and feed you to the raptors.”

  David frowned. Jesse had figured David was the stronger of the two, but he’d been wrong. Andrea was stronger. What kind of bad shit had she been through? And if she now had to prop the guy up—give him a little backbone—that didn’t bode well for what was coming next. No matter how he figured it, these were not the right people to pull this off. Far from it. They didn’t have the stomach to do what was necessary. With a weary resignation, he didn’t know whether he could go through with it either. Too much was stacking up for him to make sense of it all. Less than an hour ago, he had wanted to kill David, wanted to destroy him with every fiber of his being. Instead, he had spared the man because of something Kate had said. Her simple “no” had saved the guy’s life. He didn’t know why, he’d just sensed in his gut she was right. He glanced at her. She was still worrying over Cory, so he nodded her his appreciation. She looked up at him, calm, serene but said nothing.

  “So, you will do this for us?” Andrea asked.

  Jesse shifted in his seat and sucked air through his teeth. He got her meaning. She must have seen his moment of self-doubt. She was not sure he was up to the task. But what was another death to him now? Maybe there would be an opportunity to walk away with no one having to die, but he was doubtful, very doubtful.

  “Yeah,” he said with a hint of introspection in his voice.

  “Even if you have to—?”

  “Yeah,” he said, this time definitively.

  She hesitated, waiting in front of him as if he might say more. He didn’t. He didn’t need to. Pinching her bottom lip between her fingers, she went to check on Cory and Kate. Cory could not keep his head from lolling to one side or the other. Andrea propped him up and held his chin in her fingers to examine his eyes, first the right one, then the left one. “Three days,” she announced as she returned him to Kate’s gentle care.

  After getting to know the guy over the past few weeks, Jesse guessed it might take Cory a day or two, max, maybe even a few hours. Asshole or not, the guy was a special kind of driven, some kind of badass. Yeah, he would be right as rain soon enough. It would take time. Time they really didn’t have.

  Watching Kate fuss over Cory gave him renewed strength. She was so competent at whatever she did. It just seemed so damn odd for someone so young to be so good at...everything. Where had she come from? Who was her father? Jesse hoped to one day meet the man and shake his hand. Eve. He was not quite sure what to do about her. She’d always been excess baggage, not really prepared to live in this new world. But had she actually betrayed them? He’d once seen a seminar on hostage negotiation. He’d been shocked to learn how common her behavior was. It was some Swedish syndrome, something like that. When he had shared the findings with his father, his dad called bullshit on it and said that there was a much better tactic. Sympathize with the victim, but make sure to beat the living shit out of the perp. So, maybe there was something redeemable in her after all. Maybe she had only been acting out of fear. Or, maybe not. Whichever the case, this was all new territory for him, especially after being on his own for so long.

  Andrea returned to collect Eve and led her to the bedroom next
to the kitchen. They spoke in hushed tones. Jesse couldn’t make out the conversation, but it sounded mostly one sided. Andrea was lecturing Eve and did so until Eve was crying and animated. Finally, Andrea returned to the very center of the room. She folded her arms across her chest.

  “It’s time to take down these savages,” she said.

  David nodded. Cory tried to rise. Andrea helped Kate push him back down. Jesse lifted himself to standing, hand over his gut, massaging it.

  “You sure you are ready?” she asked.

  He peered directly into her eyes, making sure not to waver. “This is not something I want to do. I hope you know that.” He felt he needed to justify himself. He’d been asked to do something that went against his sense of right. But he understood the necessity. They needed to score a touchdown, and he would soon be handed the ball. She said nothing in response, waiting until he moved, then joined him.

  David went out the door first, holding it open for them.

  Andrea glanced at Cory and Kate. “We’ll be back,” she said. “Make sure he stays here.”

  Kate remained silent and shifted positions to dab at another spot on Cory’s forehead, looking neither overly concerned about her patient, nor afraid to be left alone with Cory and Eve. Jesse stretched his arms out as far as they would go, rolled his aching shoulders, and flexed his fingers to loosen them. He drew his battered M9 from the waistband of his jeans and racked the slide. A quick hint of brassy gold told him there was a round in the chamber, so he let the slide snap forward, thumbed the eject button for the magazine, and felt the weight of the bullets in his hand.

  Nine shots left.

  Glancing left, right, he clicked the magazine into place and hid the gun in the gap of his back, concealing it with his shirttail.

  There was a group of men waiting in a conference room in another part of the complex. All were blissfully unaware that judgment day had arrived. Jesse figured it was unkind of him to keep them waiting.

  -4-

  THE RED CONFERENCE

  GAME TIME, JESSE thought. Time for a little mayhem.

  He kept his head low and flexed his fingers and followed Andrea and David down a series of stairwells funneling them into progressively smaller and smaller corridors before opening back up into a space wide enough to walk three abreast. She stopped in front of a blue door. On the wall beside it was a scratched placard that read, “Conference Room One.”

  Jesse waited a beat and let Andrea and David enter the room first. Heads swiveled. Jesse did his best to remain inconspicuous. This was David’s show, but Jesse was there to play an important role.

  In the center of the room was a long mahogany table. To the left of it, on the wall, hung a whiteboard filled with scribbled plans and work schedules. Light shown down from three LED fixtures above the conference table, casting bright circles on the dark surface and illuminating the grim-looking men sitting around the table. David took the head position at the far end. Andrea rounded to take a chair near him, close to the back wall. They exchanged knowing glances but no words. Nearest to David sat Ryder, the man who led Gold, the most senior of the elite squad. David had mentioned earlier they had the man’s full support, but Ryder had wanted to ice Cyrus personally. Jesse sensed resentment from the guy over that. With his steely gray eyes hidden behind bushy eyebrows and silvery beard, Ryder came off as the tough biker type. But those same cold eyes showed determination, not deception. Andrea had said earlier the three of them—she, David, and Ryder—had a connection that went deep. Jesse remained skeptical. He didn’t trust any of them, including David and Andrea.

  Next to Ryder sat Tyrell, a massively large black man who reminded Jesse of some long forgotten TV sidekick character. Across the table from them sat Tommy, whose thick, vein-laced arms remained folded across his barrel-sized chest. Jesse was told to watch this man very closely. He had heard the guy called something that sounded like Toe-mick once, which was Slavic. Russian, probably. The guy had a flattened face as if someone had smashed his nose in with a shovel. Tattoos covered his bull neck, and he had beady, shark-like eyes.

  He was Jesse’s primary target.

  Ryder began knocking a large silver ring worn on his right hand against the mahogany tabletop. A murmur circled the table, to which Ryder frowned, scrunching the twin butterfly bandages on his left cheek and making a rhythmic tap-tap-tap pause tap-tap-tap beat until everyone settled into place. Jesse had seen most of the men seated at the table before but could not remember all the names. Those farthest from the whiteboard wore silver armbands. Those closest wore gold. Two tribes, two teams. Miles apart.

  Jesse compensated for his exhaustion, and the slowing effect it had on his mind, by forcing himself to carefully observe each man in turn, using mental tricks learned as a cop. It all came back to him like hip firing a shotgun. Focus on one person at a time, watch the eyes, watch the posture, trust your first impressions. Much could be learned from those simple tricks. He searched for other common tells—a shift of focus, mimicry of those seated nearby, position of their hands. Those methods showed him just where each man’s loyalties lay. But it wasn’t a perfect system. It never could be. Everyone present had their own agendas, and that meant the alliances could shift on tiny things, some no larger than a passing whim.

  Jesse pinched the bridge of his nose. All this thinking was giving him a headache. He drew himself up straight and found an empty spot against the side wall, near the door, and tried to remain expressionless. None of these men mattered. They were merely obstacles to overcome, but the old familiar tightening in his stomach began anew.

  Tommy cleared his throat noisily. “Why’s she here?” he asked in a voice low and guttural, accent thick.

  “The doctor?” David said. “She’s part of this. As are we all.”

  Tommy grunted his disapproval and shifted in his seat. “She will not tell me how it will be. She should not be here.”

  David waited in silence, holding Tommy with a stern gaze from his single remaining eye. His missing eyeball twitched in its socket, which Jesse found unnerving.

  “Food and drinks will be here shortly,” David said, taking his eye off Tommy.

  The shift in focus got the room’s attention. A few men smiled at the mention. One, a skinny guy in a stained blue T-shirt, slapped his palm on the tabletop and started laughing. He stopped suddenly when he realized he was the only one doing so.

  Jesse rescanned each man in turn, making guesses as to who offered a threat and who could be counted on to help. Identify, isolate, eliminate. It was a lesson he’d been taught almost too many years ago to remember. Andrea had reminded him of it earlier. Living alone for so long, lost in self-delusion, he’d forgotten many things. But his mind was clear once again, and many of those old hard-learned lessons were coming back to him now. He rubbed his throat and coughed quietly.

  Two men kept glancing ever so slightly in Tommy’s direction whenever the guy spoke, almost as if they couldn’t help themselves. Jesse tagged them both in his mind. His familiar game of picturing people as animals around a water hole came back in a flash. A couple of hyenas, he figured. Another few smirked and looked away or over at David. Relatively docile followers. Those he could probably ignore. They were neutral, undecided. When it came right down to it, it was as simple as knowing the entire right side of the table was pitted against the left side. Silver versus Gold, just as he’d first assessed when he’d walked into the room. Why Andrea had even invited the men from Silver made little sense. Maybe she thought they could be salvaged with some becoming allies. If shunned, they probably would have been hostile, but with enough force allied against them, they would have to back down. Jesse had seen Gold in action. They could handle a little dissent from Silver. So, for whatever reason they were here, he figured Andrea must have a plan in mind that went beyond him playing the wildcard.

  “What about him?” Tommy demanded, his index finger pointing like a pistol barrel at Jesse. “Has he been searched?”

  The five
men on Tommy’s side of the table nodded in agreement. Jesse didn’t flinch, but slowly held his hands up, palms facing outward.

  “He’s with me,” David said.

  A general murmur of dissent went around the conference table. The bull-necked man glanced at those closest to him, seeking support. The two that Jesse had first tagged as threats began to stand, but a glare from David and a hand signal from Ryder caused the men to retake their seats. Jesse reconfirmed in his mind that those two would likely act first. He needed to be ready to shoot them without hesitation. Andrea had said David planned to do a little bush beating to flush out those working against them, and it might explode into chaos. He had to be ready for anything.

  Hands trembling slightly, Jesse stuck his fingertips in his pockets and made an effort to hide his anxiety.

  “Cyrus is dead,” David announced with authority, sweeping his gaze over those assembled, daring anyone to challenge him. From the stern expressions on the faces of the men, everyone already knew about Cyrus. But no one turned to look at Jesse, so he guessed they had not been told yet who had killed the former leader.

  A tall man with close-cropped hair and silver armband rested his elbows on the table. “And we are supposed to just accept you taking over, Mr. David?”