She shook her head. “This has all been rather . . . hasty. I’m still not sure how we’re going to get Valentine out without them killing him.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll come up with something. I always do.”
Chapter 3: The Princess of Montana
LORENZO
Bozeman, Montana
February 10th
“You’re serious. This is your plan?” Ling was incredulous.
I held up the spaghetti-strapped tank top and the denim miniskirt. “Come on. You need to look the part.”
Ling glanced around the Walmart, embarrassed. She caught the skimpy top when I tossed it to her. “This is . . .” she looked at the tag, “a size too small.”
“Changing room is right over there.” I nodded my head.
“But . . .”
“Look. I know you don’t trust me but you need to work with me here. We’re going to an oil roughneck town in the middle-of-nowhere Montana, not the French Riviera. So unless you want to put Antoine in drag, this is the best I can come up with.”
Antoine grunted.
Ling gave me a dirty look and went into the changing room.
“I hope your boss can lighten up for this,” I told Antoine, “or at least fake it. She’s a little intense.”
Antoine folded his massive arms and glared at me. Over the last few days I had discovered that he was very protective of Ling. She was clearly his superior, but he seemed almost like a father figure. Shen, on the other hand, was a cipher. He hardly ever spoke. He stood a short way away from us, and seemed to be uncomfortable shopping at Walmart at two o’ clock in the morning. Every freak, junkie, and crazy in Bozeman was wandering around the huge store, making a nuisance of themselves as the hapless employees tried to buff the floors and restock the shelves.
“You are from here?” Antoine asked me out of the blue.
“Not here, specifically. Born and raised in the US. Only been back briefly a handful of times over the last few years . . . And every time it seems a little bit worse, a little rougher.”
“Indeed.” Antoine looked around the gigantic store filled with more food and goods in one night than whatever West African village he hailed from had probably seen in its history. He chuckled, surely thinking whatever you say, fat American. First world problems. “Times are hard.”
I may have detached myself from the world, didn’t mean I didn’t pay attention to current events, especially those that could present job opportunities. I was retired, not dead. “The economy is shit, but this country has bigger problems.”
“I do not understand.” Antoine looked to his partner. Shen as usual had nothing to say. “Compared to most of the world, this place is a paradise.”
“Listen . . .” It was hard to explain. “I’ve lived in every shit hole on Earth, and they’re all the same. It pisses me off to see the same thing creeping in here. There are always assholes who want to hurt the regular people, and then along come the control freaks who want to capitalize on fear of the scary assholes to control the regular people. The scary assholes just don’t care, so repeat, repeat, repeat. Government’s like a ratchet, and it just keeps on cranking down. This isn’t the country I grew up in anymore. People got too scared of the assholes so now the ratchet’s getting real tight. People think they’re trading chaos for order, but they’re just trading normal human evil for the really dangerous organized kind of evil, the kind that simply does not give a shit. Only bureaucrats can give you true evil.”
“Exodus stands against any entity which would deprive man of his freedom.”
I laughed. “Good luck with that. My brother and Valentine exposed a rogue federal agency killing folks and breaking every law you can think of. It was a big deal. They called it Zubaragate. It was all over the news for a couple of weeks, but what changed since?”
“Nothing.” Antoine admitted.
“Nothing. Valentine’s in prison and Bob’s missing, and not a damn thing changed, because a majority of the people are stupid, willfully ignorant, naïve fools, who expect bureaucrats to save them and wipe their asses for them, and the ratchet just keeps on getting tighter.”
“I am surprised this offends you.”
I glanced over at him. Antoine was smarter than he looked. I had said too much. These people weren’t my friends. They didn’t deserve a look inside my head. “Yeah . . . Too much control. Too many people watching. I don’t like people watching me.” My phone vibrated in my pocket, interrupting my thoughts. It was Reaper. Good. This conversation was starting to piss me off. I tapped the Bluetooth headset in my ear.
“Go,” I said.
“Go where?”
I sighed. “What do you want, Reaper?”
“I got Bob’s file, and some other stuff. I’m sending it to you now.” My phone buzzed in my hand as it downloaded the data packet. At least the cell service was better than it used to be.
“How much did you get?”
“Not as much as I wanted, Chief. I went in sideways, compromised another agency’s system, gave myself the title of personnel manager, then requested some files. Tried to stay away from anything that would be classified, good thing too, ‘cause once I did the whole system came crashing down. They were on me hard. I was lucky to get what I did. Bob’s file was flagged.”
“Of course it was. Did they track you?”
“Please. I’m The Reaper.” He was always The Reaper when he was bragging. “Get this,” he continued. “Bob was fired from the FBI. He went off the reservation, disobeyed a direct order, was working on a forbidden investigation, stuff like that.”
This just kept getting better and better. “What the hell did Bob get himself into? Did they find out about his involvement with our incident last year?”
“I don’t know. The reprimands and personal notes weren’t classified. He was looking into something they told him not to look into. He tried to gain access to compartmentalized data. He pissed somebody off, that’s for sure. It’s no wonder he left the country. These people are scary.”
Reaper was just telling me like it was, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. So I changed the subject. “How’s Jill doing?”
“She’s a little freaked out. Worried about you, but she’s okay. By the way, did I ever tell you there are some seriously hot girls on your island? Dude! I’m gonna have to get a vacation place out here. You want me to go wake up Jill?”
“No. I’ll call her later.”
“Hey, one more thing. Check this out.” My phone vibrated again as Reaper sent me another file.
“What is it?”
“You wanted me to find everything I could on Valentine, right? Just look. You’re going to love this.”
What now? I retrieved my phone from my pocket and tapped the screen. I pulled up the image Reaper sent me. It was a picture of the cover of an issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine from several years ago. The screen was too small to read all of the print. The cover photo was a group of men in Tiger Stripe camouflage fatigues, carrying FAL rifles.
“What is this?”
“Just what it looks like. That’s our buddy Valentine on the cover of Soldier of Fortune.”
The cover headline read, “Switchblade Teams: Elite Special Purpose Units from Vanguard in Action!”
So that’s why he’d been tight with Hawk . . . That tight-lipped old bastard had once been his boss. We’d worked for the same bunch, only I’d been there back before they’d gone all corporate and legitimate. “Unbelievable. Have you found anything else out?”
“Oh, tons. He’s never been careful about information management. Between that and the Dead Six files that got dumped during Zubaragate, I found everything on him, easy. It’s all there.”
“Thanks. I’ll go through it when I have time. I’ll check in later.” I dropped the phone back in my pocket as Ling came out of the dressing room. I cracked a mean grin and whistled. The outfit was just as sleazy as I hoped. And Ling certainly had the body for it.
“I look like a
Bangkok whore,” she said, awkwardly trying to pull the too-short skirt down a little farther. The revealing top she was wearing had Princess written across it in pink bubble letters.
“Yes, Princess, yes you do. It’s perfect. Now if you could just try not to be so scary all the time, we might be able to pull this off.”
Shen and Antoine were stonefaced. They looked at each other, at their superior, at me, and then back at each other. Ling glared at them.
“Not a word!” she snapped, spun around, and stomped back into the changing room. “So help me God, Mr. Lorenzo.”
VALENTINE
North Gap, Montana
Seated in my usual spot on the floor, I stared into space and tried not to think. My head hurt. My mind was sluggish. I felt like I had just woken from a dream. Or maybe I was still dreaming. I couldn’t always tell.
They had put me in the machine they called the tank multiple times now. I had only the dimmest recollection of it. It seemed to me that they drugged me before putting me inside it, but they had been drugging me so much the drugs didn’t always work anymore. I remembered a mask being put over my entire face, covering my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Something else was wrapped around my waist. Other things were plugged into my body, and they’d put me in.
I wasn’t sure what the machine did but I knew that somehow Dr. Silvers was drilling into my mind. I’d have vivid dreams, frighteningly real dreams, that seemed to come from someone else. I knew things that I hadn’t known, and had forgotten other things altogether. I lowered my head and rubbed my temples. Trying to make sense of anything just made my head hurt worse. I didn’t know why they just didn’t kill me and be done with it.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor. It wasn’t just combat boots on the cold concrete floor, though. I heard the click of pumps and the shuffling of sneakers. I didn’t move as they unlocked my door. I didn’t stand up. I merely looked up dispassionately, and wondered what they wanted with me now.
Smoot entered first, followed by Davis. They were dressed in black fatigues and black combat boots. Smoot drew a taser from a brown plastic thigh holster and leveled it at me. A red laser dot appeared on my chest. He fanned out to the side, keeping the laser on me, as Davis went the other way, armed with a baton. There was another guard waiting in the hall as backup.
Dr. Silvers entered the room next, rolling her eyes and shaking her head slightly at the overt display of force. It was plain to see that she held her security force in some contempt. As usual, she was dressed in slacks, a turtleneck sweater, and low pumps. A wrinkled white lab coat completed her look, as if she were beating us all over the head with the fact that she was a doctor of some sort.
Behind her was Neville, her assistant and toady. A thin, wiry man with unkempt hair, Neville had a nasal voice and seemed extremely awkward in all of his interactions with other people, especially the guards. When she didn’t have him doing other things, he followed Dr. Silvers around like a beaten dog, espousing platitudes about her brilliance. I couldn’t tell if she enjoyed his sycophancy or merely tolerated it.
She stood over me for a moment without saying anything. This whole thing was very unusual. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d talked to her when I wasn’t doped up or restrained.
“I’m not going to get up, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”
She didn’t respond. She just exchanged a glance with Neville, then crouched down so she could be face to face with me. “How are you feeling today, Michael?”
I blinked rapidly. “How am I feeling?”
“It’s a simple question.”
“I feel like I went on a bender, ate a bunch of mushrooms, then got roofied. What the hell have you been doing to me?”
Dr. Silvers did something unusual then. She kicked her shoes off, then sat cross-legged on the floor, facing me, like she was addressing a frightened child. The two guards looked at each other with stupid expressions on their faces.
“When you first arrived,” Dr. Silvers began, “my organization was in a state of panic. My superiors didn’t know what to do with you. Project Heartbreaker had utterly failed. Then the worst breach of information security in our organization’s history occurred. It quickly became apparent that your Dead Six superior, Curtis Hunter, was the man who compiled all of that damaging information. From that information, though, we learned that Gordon Willis had betrayed us and was secretly in league with Eduard Montalban. The team sent to bring in Willis found him dead by your hand. Tell me, Michael, what were we to think?”
I didn’t say anything.
Dr. Silvers didn’t let my lack of participation in the conversation faze her. “As I said, they were in a state of panic. Gordon Willis had proceeded on Project Blue without any authorization from our superiors.”
“I don’t know what Project Blue is,” I managed weakly. I’d told them that a hundred times.
“I know you don’t, Michael. Unfortunately, you killed Gordon Willis, the last man we could locate that knew anything about Project Blue. My superiors were convinced you were in on his plot with the Montalbans.”
“I’m not in on anything,” I said. “I killed Gordon because he fucking deserved it.”
Dr. Silvers put an icy hand on my forearm in an attempt to be comforting. I almost flinched at her touch. “I know that now. We’ve learned everything you know and it isn’t anything more than we already know. The only other people alive who might know, like your friend Bob Lorenzo, have gone to ground.”
My heart dropped into my stomach. I didn’t remember ever telling her about Bob. I had been sure that despite everything they’d done to me, I hadn’t given him up. I was wrong. I’d betrayed him. Who else had I given up? Hawk? Ling? Lorenzo? Well, screw Lorenzo, but Jill? I felt sick, and lowered my eyes. Dr. Silvers regarded me silently for a few moments, until I was able to speak.
“I don’t understand,” I managed. “Why am I still here? I told you I didn’t know what you wanted to know. What do you want from me?”
“To be honest, we established that you’d been telling us the truth some time ago. We so desperately hoped you could tell us who Colonel Hunter’s Evangeline was. Once it became apparent that you were of no value in that regard, my superiors wanted you liquidated. Just one more loose end tied up.”
“Then why haven’t you killed me yet?”
Dr. Silvers leaned in closer. She stared me in the eyes. “Because you have such potential, Michael. You are an exceptional individual, and you’ve already done great things for our organization. Your record from Project Heartbreaker is phenomenal. The fact that you survived Gordon Willis’ attempt to sanitize the operation speaks volumes about your abilities, to say nothing of the fact that you managed to track him down and kill him all on your own. All of that natural talent, that drive, needn’t go to waste.”
My eyes grew wide. I was afraid. The clouded memories, the strange impulses, the vivid dreams and lucid nightmares. “What . . . what the hell are you doing to me?”
Dr. Silvers smiled at me for the first time. “Nothing you didn’t agree to when you signed your contract, Michael. I’m just protecting our investment.”
“I hate you.”
“I know. That will pass in time. You’ll see.”
Anger pulsed through me. Every muscle in my body tightened. “Someday, I’m going to kill you.”
She gently placed a cold hand on my cheek, like a mother comforting an upset child. “I very much doubt that.”
I drifted in darkness, not sure if I was asleep or awake, or even if I was alive or dead. Images passed through my mind, fragments of memories, out of order, disconnected, adrift. They were but moments in time, seemingly unrelated to one another, but somehow I knew they were all mine.
I saw my father when I was young. He was giving me a tour of his airplane, the massive B-52 he flew for the Air Force. I was sitting in his seat, the navigator’s seat, marveling at all of the dials and buttons and screens, an anachronistic mix of three decades of technologica
l development. Then I was standing in a cemetery, looking down on my father’s grave. It was raining, and the little American flag placed on it had fallen over. I was repairing a fence line with my mother, on the back twenty acres of our farm. A tree had fallen over and broken one of our fence posts, tearing down the electric fence with it. I was a teenager, and I carried off pieces of the tree as she cut them with a chainsaw. She put the saw down, wiped her brow, and smiled. There was something wrong with her face. There was blood. Her eyes were locked open, wide, her face a mask in death. I tried to close my eyes and look away, but the moment was lost and the sadness faded with it.
I was lost in the darkness for a long time. Moments of my life came and went, each time growing blurrier, more distant, until it felt like I was watching someone else’s life.
I was sitting on a couch next to Sarah. She was playing video games against Tailor in Zubara. She was better at them than I was, and Tailor was getting increasingly, comically irritated, and kept insisting that girls weren’t supposed to be good at video games. Hudson and Wheeler were there, laughing, making fun of Tailor just to get him riled up. I looked over at her as she concentrated on the screen, and my heart moved. She was gorgeous, and she didn’t know it. She thought her nose was too big and was self-conscious about it. She worried about her appearance, but she was beautiful, and I loved her.
From the back of the van, I watched helplessly as Sarah shot a Zubaran soldier through the window. The soldier fired too. Wheeler was hit. The Zubaran solider died. Wheeler died too. He was slumped over the steering wheel, unmoving. Sarah looked at me, as if asking me to do something, to fix it, but there was nothing to be done.
She was in my arms, warm and soft, I held her tightly, and I was afraid. I was afraid we’d never leave Zubara alive. I was afraid that I’d be the death of her, like I seemed to be for everyone else in my life. I wanted to push her away, tried to push her away, but my heart couldn’t bear it.
Dead Six 02 - Swords of Exodus Page 7