I had no idea why Penelope disliked me so much. I simply shook my head and returned my attention to the screen, scrolling through the file.
“She is such a bitch sometimes,” Ariel said.
“Gah!” I jumped up in my chair.
The strange platinum-haired girl was standing right in front of the desk, looking through me with her eerie gaze. Her eyes reflected the flickering light of the fire and shimmered. She grinned at me. “Did I scare you?”
I laughed. “Holy hell, kiddo, you’re like a damn ninja. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I learned to be sneaky when I want to be,” she said mischievously, leaning on the desk. Dressed in blue jeans and a t-shirt, she looked like a perfectly normal American teenager, except for her weird eyes. “And you do so have friends. I’m your friend, stupid. Whatcha doin’?”
“Just reading up on everything I missed, while I was . . . you know, in captivity. What is that woman’s problem with me?”
“Penelope? Oh, she’s nice most of the time. She just doesn’t like you.”
“Yeah, I can see that. What the hell did I do?”
“Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything. She’s mistrustful of outsiders, like a lot of people in the organization are. I think you also remind her of her ex-husband. He was handsome, like you, a tough military guy.”
When I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw an emaciated shell of the very average-looking person I used to be. I felt neither handsome nor particularly tough, but I found myself blushing at the compliment all the same.
Ariel giggled, and leaned over to see the screen. “So what are you reading . . . oh.” Her demeanor darkened, and some of the light left her eyes.
“It’s the Project Heartbreaker Commission Report,” I said quietly. On the screen was picture of a man with a hard face and an eye patch. Hunter, Curtis Alan. Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.), US Army. KIA in Zubara. “I knew these people,” I said absentmindedly, as I scrolled through the faces of the dead. “Worked with them, fought with them, mourned our dead with them. We destroyed a nation together. We . . . ” I trailed off.
McAllister, Sarah Marie. Fmr. US Air Force. KIA in Zubara. Sarah looked a bit younger in the picture than she had the day she died. It probably came from her old military ID.
Ariel gently placed a hand on my shoulder. Tears were trickling down her cheeks. “She was beautiful,” she sniffled, sitting down next to me.
I took a deep breath. “Yeah she was. She didn’t know how beautiful she was, either.”
“I’m so sorry.” She squeezed my shoulder more tightly.
“For a long time, I felt like I was supposed to have died there. I told her I’d stay with her until the end. I promised her. I couldn’t keep her safe, I couldn’t protect her, but I promised her that much. I was supposed to die in the mud at Fort Saradia, next to her.”
There was a fierce light in my young companion’s eyes, reflected firelight. “No, you weren’t! I already told you. It wasn’t your time. You need to listen better, damn it!” She punched me in the shoulder.
“Ow! Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I was just saying. For a long time that’s how I felt. I resented Lorenzo for saving me. I resented him because I owed him a favor and he’s a giant asshole, and I resented him because I felt like I broke my promise to Sarah.”
“But you didn’t, did you?”
“No . . . no I guess I didn’t.” I thought back, again, to the frighteningly real dream I had. In that dream, Sarah’s eyes shined like Ariel’s sometimes seemed to. It was so vivid, so intense, that I wanted it to be real, even though I knew it was just a drug-induced hallucination. I shook my head. “It’s still hard. I miss her every day.”
“Things will get better for you,” Ariel said quietly. “I just know it. Please be strong, Michael. Please don’t give up. You saved me. You’re my knight too.” She hugged me tightly, tears in her eyes. I awkwardly patted her on the shoulder, worried that someone was going to walk in and get the wrong idea.
I grabbed the mouse and kept scrolling. “Don’t worry, kiddo,” I said, trying to sound comforting. “I’m stubborn. I’ll be okay.”
“I wish you didn’t have to go to The Crossroads,” Ariel whispered. “I’m scared. I have a bad feeling.”
I smiled. “I thought you said things were going to get better for me?”
“I’ve been wrong before,” she said ominously.
I stopped scrolling when a very familiar face appeared on the screen. It, too, was an old picture. From my last DOD ID card, if I remembered right. Valentine, Constantine Michael. Fmr. US Air Force. KIA in Zubara.
Before handing over Colonel Hunter’s flash drive to Bob Lorenzo, I changed my own status from “MIA” to “confirmed KIA.” I figured if they thought I was already dead, it’d give me a better chance of staying off the radar. A good theory, and one that might’ve worked if I hadn’t gotten my stupid ass captured.
I nodded at the picture. “Ever feel like someone just walked over your grave?”
Ariel sat up and wiped her eyes, but didn’t say anything. I closed out the report and asked her if she was okay.
“I actually came down here to tell you something, Michael,” she said. The tone of her voice was subtlety different. “Majestic doesn’t know where you are right now, and they’re panicking. You’re dangerous to them, because of what you know, because of the scars they left on you, and because you escaped. You’re safe for now, I think, but they will never stop hunting you. You have to find Mr. Lorenzo’s brother. The two of you might be able to end this. Maybe.”
“Don’t you worry. If Bob Lorenzo’s at The Crossroads, I’ll find him and we’ll find a way clear of all this.” Another good theory.
“There is one more thing. Promise me you’ll watch over Ling.”
“Ling can take care of herself, I think.”
“Promise me! She’s the closest thing to family I have. Please.”
“Okay, honey. I’ll do everything I can to bring her home safe. I’ll stick with her through the whole thing.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Ariel seemed content with that answer, and smiled.
Chapter 11: Tourists
LORENZO
Altay Mountains, Russia
March 10th
The train wheels beat rhythmically on the steel tracks. Our private passenger compartment was old-school comfortable, with thick couches, real wood paneling, and an actual bearskin rug on the floor. The bar was stocked with expensive vodka and caviar. As wealthy western businessmen, we rode first class. I had scouted the other passenger cars, and they were typical Russian, the middle cars were run-down utilitarian things housing ethnic Russians and some replacement soldiers for their outpost, and the cars at the end of the train were pure third world, unheated splintery wood, almost cattle cars that were packed with Kyrgyz and Uzbek workers.
The massive diesel engine labored to get us through the mountain pass. Jill tugged on the bottom of the black window curtain. It rolled up with a snap, revealing a glorious view. We were 6,000 feet above sea level and climbing. The peaks of the Golden Mountains towered far higher around us, and my lungs ached from the lack of air. North Gap, Montana had been pleasant in comparison. I knew I had better get used to it though. The Crossroads itself was at 8,000 feet.
“It’s so pretty,” Jill said. “All that snow . . .”
I looked past her. Huge white drifts covered miles of black rock. Giant angled sheets of ice reflected the sunlight so clean and white and brilliant that it made my eyes hurt. Behind those black rock walls were mile after mile of glaciers, one of the greatest reserves of fresh water on Earth. Miles of pristine evergreens were interspaced with sluggish glacial springs.
“Looks cold.” I was feeling disagreeable. We were behind schedule. A late snowstorm had held us up in Volgostadorsk. We were supposed to have flown in, but reports said that it was going to take some time to clear the runways with that typical Russian enthusiasm and
efficiency. In other words, the one plow was broken down, and the guy that could fix it had to sober up first. The delay had put me in a foul mood. Well, fouler than normal.
“I think it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen,” Jill said. Reaper looked up from his laptop, squinted at the bright light, grunted, and returned to his files. Reaper didn’t appreciate any beauty that wasn’t pixilated. Well, unless you count strippers. Jill shook her head sadly. “You guys have no appreciation for nature.”
“Nature’s an evil whore who’ll kill you in a heartbeat,” I replied. Even though I didn’t like people, I liked being surrounded by them. The wilderness made me uncomfortable. In a crowd, I can fade away. In the woods, I was pretty much clueless.
“It’s supposed to be spring, but when the sun goes down tonight, it’ll be ten degrees below zero. A blizzard here can kill you in a manner of minutes. There are packs of wolves in that forest where the males weigh a hundred and fifty fucking pounds and eat their body weight in meat every few days,” Reaper said. He looked up from his computer. I raised an eyebrow. “Wikipedia,” he explained.
This territory held the intersection of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. Only Russia and China officially touched, with the Kazakhs and Mongols being separated by about twenty miles. Historically this area had been a crossroads of the ancient world, and the birthplace of the Turkic people. For most of the last couple centuries it had been a kind of no man’s land, populated by small villages and ethnic minorities. Over the last fifty years there had been a few border skirmishes, and one really unlucky Russian military disaster, but mostly this area had been ignored. It was steep, cold, hard to get to, and generally considered the ass end of the universe by everyone involved.
That had all changed about twenty years ago, beginning with a natural gas pipeline from southern Siberia into North China, and that had led to the construction of the rail line through the mountains. Then an oil pipeline had crossed it from Kazakhstan through Mongolia which had brought its own railroad. These lines had intersected in a mountain valley that at the time had held nothing but an abandoned Soviet military base and the ancient ruins of some people that had long since been forgotten, and a small town had sprung up at this new intersection.
Then an enterprising businessman known as Big Eddie had decided that this little crossroads was a superb hub for trafficking in all sorts of illicit goods. Afghan and Kazakh opium heading east, north, and south, the Russian Army selling off everything that wasn’t nailed down, and Chinese military hardware heading every which way. The Crossroads became a kind of international super-flea market of illicit goods. Soon every criminal, terrorist, and wannabe warlord converged on it, looking to buy and sell. People like that needed neutral places to meet and conduct business, and Big Eddie kept the peace. That mountain village had turned into a boomtown of the criminal underworld, and the boom had brought the deals and the money. Every faction on Earth wanted a piece of the action.
But The Crossroads wasn’t all fun and profit. Criminal factions tend to solve their problems with violence, and old grudges die hard. The factions needed muscle, and this attracted the mercenaries, Muslims run out of Chechnya, Mongols hungry for work, Uyghur, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Han, and every other group you could think of. If a rough man needed work, there was no better place to find it than The Crossroads.
Once it was found that the surrounding mountains held huge stores of gold, silver, copper, and zinc, all in a place where there was no government interference or regulations on how to get at that wealth, legitimate business had flocked to The Crossroads, and the area exploded. After a few years the town had swelled to almost twenty thousand people. And it was a tough town. All four of the legitimate governments that bordered The Crossroads were happy to look away from the bad things that happened there, as long as they got paid.
It had been the crown jewel in Big Eddie’s empire. Of course, none of the residents and visitors to The Crossroads knew who he really was, only that he ran the show with an iron fist, and he always got a cut of the action. Apparently that had changed rather drastically when I had shot that poodle-petting freak out of the sky, but nature abhors a vacuum, so now there was someone new at the top of the food-chain.
That’s where we came in.
“We’ll be in The Crossroads in a matter of hours. From here on out, we’re in character. Get used to it. I don’t want any—” There was a knock at the cabin door. “Hang on. I got it.”
A waiter was in the hall, pushing a steam cart. The terrain flashed by behind him through the opposite bank of windows. We were entering a valley. He was a young ethnic Uzbek, and spoke in poorly accented Russian. “Good afternoon, sir. Lunch is served,” he lifted the cover and displayed his wares. “Today, fresh salmon from Katun River, with potatoes in lamb bone marrow pudding.” It actually looked really good, but I had eclectic tastes.
First class so totally rocks. “Wonderful,” I reached into my pocket for a tip. The train lurched as the brakes were forcefully applied. I stumbled and caught myself on the doorframe. The screech of metal on metal echoed up through the carpeted floor. The waiter braced himself and kept his cart from spilling. “What’s going on?”
“I not know,” he answered, looking bewildered. “No stop here.”
“Giant wolf on the track,” Reaper suggested from behind me.
“No.” I saw the pillars of black smoke out the window. There was, or had been, a small village here. The homes had been tiny wooden things with thatch roofs, and there had only been five or six of them at the most. All of them were burning now. There were bodies strewn around in the bloody snow, none of them were moving. The train finally came to a full stop, with our car looking right at the remains.
“What the hell?” Reaper said as he looked over my shoulder. “Whoa.” Jill pushed past me and into the hall and stared out the window. Other first-class passengers left their cabins and joined us, staring at the scene. There was muttering and gasping.
A blast of freezing cold and the smell of smoke flowed through the hall when the rear door opened. “Make way! Move aside!” The soldiers from the next car were pushing their way forward, in their greatcoats with AK74s in their hands.
“What is this?” asked a large man with a Ukrainian accent, gesturing at the carnage. “What happened?”
“Sala Jihan happened,” muttered a wizened old Uyghur man who was now standing next to Jill. She was frozen in shock. I don’t think she had seen anything like this before. I had warned her about this part of the world. It was no place for the good. “The Pale Man sends a message to these people.”
The lead soldier grabbed the waiter by the shoulders and shook him. “Go forward and tell the engineer to get this thing moving. He should not have stopped. Go! Now!” The waiter ran from the car in the direction of the engine.
“Aren’t you going to help those people?” the Ukrainian businessman asked.
The old Russian soldier had a master sergeant’s insignia on his great coat, and he looked like he had been around this rodeo a few times. “They are beyond help, Comrade . . .” Yep, he was old guard . . . “This is not our affair. There’s no use in getting involved.”
“But we are still in Altay! This is your jurisdiction!” The Ukrainian demanded. The train lurched forward with a chug chug noise as we restarted our journey.
“We may still be in Russia, according to the map,” the soldier said with some resignation. “But it is not our jurisdiction anymore.” The Ukrainian began to bluster. Some of the other passengers began to shout. The younger soldiers looked jumpy with their Kalashnikovs as the train car rolled forward. I grabbed Jill by the arm and tugged her back toward me. She was still transfixed on the village.
Then it was suddenly silent. Every one of us was looking out the window, without the words, as our train slowly moved past the things only a few feet outside the window. Some villagers had been left as an example. They had been impaled on stakes along the tracks. Even after all of the horrible thi
ngs that I had seen in Chechnya, Bosnia, and Africa, I couldn’t accurately describe what had been done to these people, flayed, burned, tortured, exposed muscle and dangling skin, white teeth and open eye sockets, and things I couldn’t really understand.
I pulled Jill closer, and forced her eyes down. I shouldn’t have let her come. The crowd tracked on the examples, heads moving as one as if in slow motion, as the train built up momentum and left them behind. Finally, the Ukrainian spoke, his voice quivering and higher pitched, like a child that had just woken up from a nightmare. “What manner of man could do something like that?”
The old Uyghur spoke again. “Is not man.” He spat on the floor. “Is demon.”
We all went back into our cabins and closed the doors, lunch forgotten.
LORENZO
Crossroads City
March 10th
“Welcome to the wild-wild-middle,” Reaper said as he stepped from the raised platform of the train station and into the slush and mud covered street. The air smelled like cooking smoke, diesel fumes, and unwashed people. It was remarkably cold, but the street was crowded with busy people from every culture you could think of. The music of twenty languages bombarded my ears.
The surrounding mountains around us had been stripped of all their trees, and the amount of growth that had occurred here since my last visit was positively shocking. I grunted as I lifted my bags, marveling at the sprawling development that had seemingly sprung up overnight. The Crossroads had exploded.
The three of us were dressed in Mountain Yuppiflage, brightly colored, Gore-Tex parkas and snow pants. We looked like typical Europeans or Americans at a ski-resort. I hated wearing anything colorful, but we had a cover to keep up. My coat was puffy, green with big black stripes. I was wearing a black neoprene skull cap and Bolle sunglasses. I hadn’t shaved for the last few weeks and had a pretty decent beard going. Then again, I was one of those guys with a Homer Simpson face who could grow a goatee in forty-eight hours. The last time I’d been in The Crossroads I had been clean shaven with long hair, and that had been seven years ago, so hopefully I wouldn’t run into anyone who would recognize me.
Dead Six 02 - Swords of Exodus Page 21