by Jack Cuatt
“Don't shoot!” the shooter screams. He's young and completely bald with caterpillar eyebrows and a heavy shadow of beard. His face is drained of color; his eyes jitter and jump. He throws his hands in front of his face like they might stop a bullet. “Don't shoot!”
Machine puts two shredders into his chest that shatter his ribs, chew through his heart, and slap him into the door. He bounces off the wood panel, buckles at the waist and hits the tile on his chin. Machine puts another round through the top of his head for insurance then rises slowly, tension cramping his arms and calves. He looks around the room.
‘Bap! Bap!’ Two silenced shots come from the direction of Machine's bedroom. One bullet flies by his head and slams into the kitchen wall, but he ducks into the second one while trying to turn and drop in the same motion. The bullet grazes his left shoulder and knocks him sprawling. Pain ice picks into his brain and the Smith flies from his hand. But it doesn’t slow him down; he spins across the carpet in a barrel-roll, heading for the fallen Smith.
The shooter, a fat man with a silenced 10mm automatic, strides into the living room, squeezing the trigger, tracking Machine’s roll across the carpet. Bullets chew into the black shag. One burns Machine’s thigh. He abandons the Smith and scuttles behind the sofa, the razor in his hand his only weapon.
The fat shooter stops firing as he advances across the room. He knows he has Machine trapped. He double-hands his pistol as he nears the sofa, waiting for a clear shot.
Hesitation equals death. Machine learned that lesson well while working with Moses. He surges to his feet, dives over the sofa, lands hard on his left shoulder, and rolls through the kitchen entrance as bullets plow into the walls on either side of him. He rolls to his feet and crouches between the counter and the butcher block island, the razor in his right fist. He flicks the blade open; it’s sharpened edge gleams wickedly in the dim light.
The fat man is in no hurry. He knows Machine is wounded, and that the Smith is on the living room floor. He advances cautiously on the kitchen entrance then leaps through the gap, sweeping the 10mm before him.
Machine comes off the floor fast and hard. He knocks the automatic up and aside, shoulders the man back against the butcher’s block and drives the razor deep into his heavy gut. He drags the blade upward, opening the fat man up from navel to breastbone, rupturing his lungs, stomach, and heart in a single vicious slash. The fat man’s eyes bulge as blood spews from his mouth in coughing gouts, showering the kitchen counter and floor. His pistol hits the tile.
Machine holds him against the butcher’s block until the fat man goes limp, then pulls the razor free and steps away. The fat man falls like a cow in a slaughterhouse.
Machine staggers into the living room. The blood is flowing fast from his wounded shoulder, but he ignores it. He retrieves the Smith and makes a fast circuit of the apartment.
There is no one else here.
He puts a fresh clip in the Smith and steps into the bathroom. He strips off his jacket and shirt. His shoulder is a bloody mess. The bullet has cut a ragged-edged furrow through the meat of his bicep. His pants leg is torn and a burning red line crosses his calf. Combined with all of his previous wounds, he's in pretty miserable shape. He feels like a burned-out circuit. He needs rest, but he will have none. He has two bodies to take care of.
Under the sink in the bathroom, gauze, alcohol, surgical tape, and thread are combined in a leather satchel. Everything he needs. It takes him fifteen minutes to clean and dress his shoulder and leg. He's almost out of surgical tape by the time he's through. Bare-chested, wearing only the damp jeans, he returns to the entryway and kneels beside the first of his would be killers.
The Man’s pistol is lying close to his hand. Machine pushes it clear of the spreading blood but doesn't pick it up. It's a nice weapon, but he won't keep it. It didn't bring its owner any luck. He flips the shooter's coattail up, wriggles a bulging vinyl wallet out of the man's back pocket and drops it on the floor between his own feet. A quick pat-down from shoulders to ankles reveals another billfold, a sap with a spring-loaded handle and a money clip with a few thousand in hundreds.
In the billfold, Machine finds business cards, phone numbers, credit cards and a laminated Children of The Blood Militia ID card. The guy is a sergeant. More confirmation that the Militia was behind Red Sleeves’ assassination. But how had they tracked Machine here? No one but Moses, Connie, and Machine knew this address. More questions for another time. Machine drops the wallet, rolls the shooter over, pushes up the man’s sleeves and pulls down his collar. No swastika tattoos or clan brands, but there’s a beret with a dagger thrust through it tattooed on his forearm. A special forces tat from the Federal Armed Forces. The man is not an ex-skinhead, but a professional soldier, one of the elite of the Militia’s army.
Machine leaves the pile, including the money, and returns to the kitchen.
The fat shooter is lying face-down in a puddle of his own blood. Machine lifts the man's head by the hair. The shooter has a pudgy face, saddlebag cheeks and drooping dark circles under his eyes. He's fiftyish and out of shape for his profession. His eyes are open wide in a startled expression he will wear for eternity. Machine kneels and rifles the man's pockets. A quick pat-down reveals much the same as the other man's, except that in one of the two billfolds he finds a slip of paper with the apartment's address scrawled on it and an old photo of himself with Moses.
A photo and an address. All a chopper needs.
Machine looks over the apartment, the blood and bodies. He needs to get the place cleaned up and get the hell out of here. He gathers all the towels from the two bathrooms, dumps half of them in the entryway and takes the rest to the kitchen. He gets a bucket, baking soda, and garbage bags from under the kitchen sink and sets to work.
He uses the towels to mop up as much blood as possible from the floor, the counters, and the butcher block, but leaves the floor immediately around the fat man's corpse untouched.
After rinsing and wringing the towels out in the sink, Machine levers the fat man's head and shoulders off the floor and slips a garbage bag over his stocky torso. He lifts the feet and repeats the procedure so that the corpse is shrouded in white plastic streaked rust-red. Machine ties the bags off, drags the shooter behind the sofa and returns to the kitchen.
He uses the spray unit from the sink to hose down the counter and the floor, sweeps the pink water into the living room's dark carpet with the broom, then wipes-down the entire kitchen with paper towels soaked in pine cleaner. He doesn't worry about leaving the walls and floor damp and streaky as long as the blood is gone.
When he's done in the kitchen, he walks to the foyer, to the body sprawled in front of the door. Quickly, he bags the shooter, dumps him beside his friend and wipes the floor and door clean. The handguns, wallets, sap, everything but the cash, go in a separate bag. With tape from the kitchen, he seals all the bags air-tight. That should keep the smell down until he's been gone a long time.
Machine showers, dresses in a pair of black slacks and a black sweater, holsters the Smith, and straps on the chest-pack, weighted down by two concussion grenades, a pair of frags and four full clips for the Smith. He cleans the razor in alcohol and re-straps it to his arm. A light-weight black sport coat goes on over it all and he checks his watch. It's after 4:00 PM. He's going to be very late for the drop with Fat Paul. But first he wants to know what is inside the briefcase.
Machine retrieves Sculli's case and takes it to the kitchen counter. What did Sculli, a Militia gun dealer, have that Vlad wants so badly? And does it have anything to do with why Moses was chopped?
With the Titanium pick from his belt, Machine opens the briefcase.
As Paul said, it contains papers. Two bundles to be exact. The first bundle is a half-size set of plans for the ventilation system in the governmental section of New Town. An arms dealer with HVAC plans? One thing is certain; if Sculli was involved, it wasn't legal. Machine sets the bundle aside. The second bundle contains sta
tements of account and the terms of incorporation for Sunrise Investments, Inc. The accounts are drawn on a single Bahamian bank. Two names are authorized on the account. Mike Sculli is one, Alvin Sorrels is the other. Alvin is, was, one of Moses Slaski's manufactured identities.
The account shows an initial balance of thirty million dollars deposited on the tenth of last month. Ten wire transfers over the next three days and the balance was zero. Machine has a good idea where the money went. It will only take a moment to be sure.
He crosses to the bookcase, already levered out of the corner. An x-ray technician's lead apron is spread over the top of the safe. Beneath it is a shaped charge of plastic explosive that has been expertly placed on the safe’s burnished steel hinges. Steadying his right hand with his weak left, Machine carefully removes the blasting cap from the gray lump of explosive and puts it on the carpet beside him. He opens the safe, removes a worn envelope and tears it open. Inside is a rubberband-wrapped bundle of bank books, six in all. He opens the first.
In Moses' angular script a deposit of five million dollars is recorded. The date on the deposit is a week before Moses was killed. Machine sets it aside and opens the next. The same date, the same amount. The other books are no different. All together thirty million dollars.
In the back of Machine's mind a memory rolls over, blinks its eyes and goes under again. Something half-remembered. Something pertinent. He closes his eyes, leans on the counter and clears his brain, allowing the thought to mature on its own. Not forcing it, just waiting.
It only takes a moment. A conversation returns almost verbatim. Kukov had said that the Christian Council was trying to push everyone out of Low Town, the Militia, the mob, the Playboy Gangster Crips, the Hammerskins, everyone but Scarpo. The rest clicks together like a child's puzzle.
Thirty million dollars would buy a lot of nerve gas and assure the cooperation of the Children of The Blood Militia; the HVAC ductwork would deliver the gas to the government buildings; the council would be dead and the Militia and Kukov would step into the vacuum, clean up the cops, and divide the spoils.
It's so simple it makes Machine want to vomit. Kukov made a deal with the Militia and used Moses for the legwork. The money ended up missing and Moses ended up dead. Moses and Connie. Only Machine was left alive by design or accident then used to tie-up the loose ends. It also explains why the Children of The Blood Militia want Machine alive: they're after the money Moses stole.
Was Moses that far gone? Did he really think he could get away with stealing from Vlad? The only thing the money bought him was six feet of earth and a headstone.
Machine's fingernails dig into his palms and his stomach knots. Kukov and the Children of The Blood Militia. All the killing for revenge. For nothing.
He knows what he must do now. Everyone dies: Vlad, Paul, Marshall Jones. Everyone. He thinks of Marie Kukov as he considers her father’s assassination. It seems like years since he saw her at the cemetery. How will he face her after executing her father? It doesn’t matter. Vlad is a monster who planned Machine’s mother’s murder; he has to pay. And after that? Machine can't think about that now. He stands, his face a hard-lined mask of pain and determination, stows the bank books, the paperwork and the two dead hit-men’s cash in Sculli's briefcase then enters his parent's bedroom. From the nightstand on his father's side, he takes a twenty-year-old photo of his mother. She's smiling, a tree and lawn behind her. Machine doesn't know where it was taken. She looks beautiful. He puts it in the briefcase and exits the apartment without a backward glance. He will not be back.
43
Machineclimbs into the Lincoln, starts the engine, and backs out of the space. He feels wired, jittery. He hasn't had much sleep lately and it's been a long day.
Still a lot farther to go.
There's hardly any traffic on the Beltway. He turns south and drives toward the black glass buildings of the warehouse-industrial district. The storeroom in the Rhenquist building is the safest place he can think of to stash the briefcase. It's already been ransacked once; it isn't likely the thieves will return. Besides, he has no choice. He won't risk carrying the papers through New Town's gates. After the shooting at Philly's today, the guards will be doubled.
Machine turns into the building, parks on the upper level and takes Sculli's briefcase to the room below. His only company on the elevator is a thin old man cradling a green lamp with a plastic shade. The two pass no words. One look at Machine's drawn features, the cruel set of his jaw, and the old man keeps his eyes on the blinking numbers above the car's door.
Machine tucks the briefcase in the slot between the cinder blocks, locks the room and is back on the elevator in five minutes. Back in the Lincoln in six.
It's getting dark. The streetlights along the Beltway sputter on. Over the brick wall that separates New Town from Low Town, the sporadic lights of the old city are visible. A roving gunship is silhouetted on the horizon. Machine ignores the view. He keeps his speed down and drives to the North Gate.
Huge floodlights attached to the high walls turn twilight to daylight. A pair of cars are lined up at the gate. A gray LTD driven by a bald old man with an oxygen tube clipped to his shirt collar is in the lead. A new Cadillac full of teenagers is directly behind the Ford. The old man passes a card across the magnetic plate, the steel arm rises and the Ford pulls through. The teenagers in the Allante roll forward.
As he waits, Machine’s eyes rove the guardhouses and the open area beyond them. On the other side of the gate, twenty feet away, two Jesus creeps are disinterestedly ripping the interior of an electric Dodge to shreds as the teenaged owner looks on grief stricken. One of them turns Machine’s way, the creep’s face hidden by the mirrored visor of his helmet. Machine puts his eyes forward, on the Cadillac.
The skinny kid behind the wheel swipes his card across the magnetic plate. The gate starts to rise and he puts his foot on the gas. But the gate only makes it halfway up before suddenly dropping back across the road. The kid brakes so hard he bounces off the steering wheel.
The guardhouse's door bangs open and a Jesus creep steps into the road, a Glock-20 in his right fist.
The creep is dressed in the standard uniform, solid black combat fatigues reinforced with Kevlar and a motorcycle-style helmet with mirrored visor. Silver collar tabs flash as he crosses to the Cadillac, bends down and leans through the driver's window. He takes a good look at each of the car's occupants before turning his head toward the driver.
The kid shakes his head, sputters and grovels for five minutes before the creep finally straightens up, steps away from the car and points at the sky. The gate's arm rises and the Cadillac pulls off, moving slow. But the creep doesn’t return to the guardhouse; he waves Machine forward.
Machine pulls to the gate and lowers the window as he inches his right hand under his jacket and into the chest-pack.
“Yes, officer?” he asks in his best junior citizen's voice. But the creep isn’t in the mood for pleasantries.
“Please pull forward into the detention area,” he says like the please hurts his teeth. He points at the Dodge and the two Jesus creeps standing beside it. No other comment, no explanation.
“Is there something—”
“Pull forward into the detention area,” the creep repeats.
“All right,” Machine says, but he has no intention of complying. The only thing waiting for him back in New Town is a death sentence.
The gate rises and a double row of tire shredders pop up across the road ahead leaving only a narrow opening to the left.
Machine's hand closes on a concussion grenade. The pin is wired to the chest-pack's lining. He pulls it loose. Three seconds until detonation. He counts one and hits the gas, aiming the Lincoln straight at the tire-shredders and Washington Avenue beyond. The tires bite into the asphalt, the car lunges forward, and Machine tosses the grenade out the window.
The Lincoln's tires explode on the shredders' metal teeth as the creep jerks out his Glock, and a s
econd Jesus creep explodes out of the guardhouse, already working the trigger of a Jackhammer twelve-gauge. Lead slugs are followed by lead buckshot. The rear windshield shatters.
And then the grenade detonates with a thunderclap and a brilliant yellow flash. The two creeps are almost on top of the grenade. The blast throws them twenty feet. They immediately curl into fetal positions, cradling their helmeted heads and trembling. No body-armor can stop a sonic boom.
The concussion rocks the Lincoln, the shredded rear tires jump off the asphalt, and the steering wheel spins through Machine's hands. The Lincoln sideswipes one of the concrete barricades with a shriek of bending metal. Machine jerks the wheel right and floors the accelerator and the Lincoln springs forward, waggling crazily on its blown-out tires. Machine pulls the second concussion grenade free as he fights the Lincoln one-handed, managing to straighten out the car as more Jesus creeps appear on the run. He drops the second grenade out the window.
Two black-clothed cops are almost lost in the twilight as they rush after the Lincoln, working their shotguns without breaking stride, barely rocking with the discharge. Slugs and pellets scream into the Lincoln, shaking the car but not stopping it. Machine ducks below the dash and keeps the accelerator down as the Lincoln gathers speed, still squirming and twisting along on its ruined tires.
The cops don't see the grenade rolling toward the center stripe. They're only three feet from it when it explodes, sending them flying to sprawl in the street in a rattle of Kevlar.
Machine pops back up behind the wheel, but still keeping low. Washington Avenue is dead ahead, crowded with people out for a night in the gutter. He lays on the horn but he doesn’t slow. Pedestrians dive for cover and cars veer out of the way as he flashes through the intersection, the Lincoln’s tires sending up rooster tails of black smoke. Machine doesn't see any of that. His eyes are locked on a creep battle cruiser that’s racing straight at the bullet-riddled Lincoln, red and blues flashing, siren screaming.