Anodyne Eyes

by Milt Mays

  He jogged to the train station, arriving in time to purchase tickets for a private roomette. He boarded, but before going to his roomette, he sat at the bar and made idle conversation with a gray-mustached man whose wild eyes and wobbly posture proved he had been there a while. The train began moving. Jabril bought him another beer, asked where he was from and found the man was going to New Hampshire and would get off at the next stop in a half hour. Jabril wished the drunkard good luck and patted him on the back, gently letting the two electronic bugs fall into the man’s outer coat pocket.

  He found his roomette, two comfortable bright blue cloth seats facing each other. But he had no time to get comfortable. The Clausewitz Volkswagen billboard was visible out the window. Without thinking, he slid Jacob Malcolm’s cell phone under the seat cushion. As he withdrew his hand from the phone, a thought hit him and he retrieved the phone. The history had to be erased, which he did, replacing the phone under the seat. He exited the roomette, locked the door behind him and walked to the open area between cars. Emotions had always brought on his changing forms in the past; he knew that much. He envisioned his mother dying. The damn Americans had done that. Anger welled inside, his leg muscles engorged and he jumped off the train. Ultra-strong legs kept him upright without falling. Simple.

  The train and Jake Malcolm’s GPS-tagged cell phone pulled away, leading anyone tracking that phone in the wrong direction. If that didn’t do it, the two electronic bugs he’d slipped into the drunkard’s coat pocket would lead them in another, completely different direction.

  Chapter 9

  Jabril calmed himself and walked, his legs returning to normal. The Sentra was right where he’d left it. He jumped in and drove. It all came back to him like yesterday, though it had been over fifteen years. And even though he was happy to have the memory, a needling concern crept in again. There had been cases he’d read about—coma for ten years then awakening and remembering everything like nothing had happened. So maybe he was like that, able to remember that the safety deposit box was at a bank in Pensacola, and to remember the phone number for the bank. If the box was still there, it held several documents, passports, and money he needed to return to his country. But he was not going back to his country, was he? A slight tickle behind his left ear. No, he was not leaving without destroying what was left of the USA. But he still had to call. Had to. That was what being a good soldier meant. Follow orders. Complete the mission. He pulled over and dialed the number.

  Yes, said the polite young man who sounded like a boy, the Wells Fargo and safety deposit box were still at the same address. They had remodeled, added a new feature of Internet-based safety deposit boxes. Cheaper than the old metal boxes at only two hundred dollars a year. Would Jabril be interested? No? No problem. They still kept the old-fashioned metal boxes for their older customers. Jabril wanted to slice the pleasant young man’s carotid. He inhaled a long slow breath and exhaled even slower through his nose, thanked the “boy” and hung up. Relief swept over him like a cool shower on the desert. Now to concentrate on the real mission.

  He would be going west, that was sure, a feeling as sure as he knew he had to make a run south, make a stop in Richmond. The chants at the meetings with his father rang in his brain. Kill the infidels. Kill the infidels. There was no clear plan he could write down or even think through, yet he knew he would be going west soon, and there he would find the way to finish the infidels.

  Suddenly it all came back: The touch of Alex’s hand, the firm grip a second before he released to fall, the sorrow, the relief and the final decision to forget his mother and finish the infidels. Yes, he would finish them. This time for sure.

  Yet he felt confused, as if this push to kill and finish the infidels was not his real desire. There was something deeper that connected him to Alex, someone a long time ago.

  A shivering wave behind his left ear and he shook his head. He must stay focused. Richmond first, then west.

  On I-95 outside Richmond, hunger gnawed at him. He stopped and had four Whoppers, two large fries, and three chocolate shakes. Ahh. His energy was already returning. He burped loudly and rubbed his stomach. The news played on the large flat screen television on the wall. Another person had died of a mysterious disease in Wisconsin, around Milwaukee. The local officials were worried about an infectious agent causing generalized hemorrhaging from ears, eyes and GI tract. In the medical school nearby, laboratory mice with large canine teeth had attacked a few technicians. The CDC was being called in. There was speculation that a virus killed the people and caused unusual behavior in the lab mice.

  He sat in the booth and a black woman in tight white pants walked by, her swaying buttocks seductively firm. To take her from behind in the bathroom and enjoy those high, firm buttocks—an involuntary groan escaped from his throat and his penis throbbed. He glanced around hoping no one had heard while he gripped the table and a claw emerged from one finger. It felt like lancing a boil: pain with pleasure. Squeezing his eyes shut, he concentrated on his mission, calming himself. His penis relaxed and the claw retracted.

  He walked outside to avoid seeing the woman again. The rain on his back helped cool his thoughts. In the car, again without thinking, his fingers tapped another number on the throw-away, a contact for a secret terrorist cell now twenty years old.

  “Yes?” The voice was gravelly, female and sexy. He was hard in a second.

  “The Redskins should do well this year.” The words came out as naturally as if he was talking to an old friend.

  She chuckled on the other end. “Are you joking? They’re pathetic. Who the fuck is this, anyway?”

  He studied his fingers holding the phone. Gleaming claws slid out. There was hardly any pain. All he could think of was shredding the pathetic whore on the other end of the line. If her brother had not raped her already, Jabril would enjoy doing it himself, and tearing out her vocal chords. His eyes tightened inside his head as if the sockets had become smaller. Although the rain was drumming fast, he could see each drop as it fell onto the windshield as if viewed through a slow motion camera: an oblong glistening sphere, then expanding onto the glass, then a starburst. The point of his tongue explored each eyetooth. They had grown larger and were razor sharp. His tongue oozed and the metallic taste of blood made him breathe faster.

  All of these changes had taken seconds. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed out slowly through his nose. Control!

  “Never mind. I will place two thousand on the Saints.” The secondary pass phrase had come to him as if he’d learned it yesterday.

  “Now you’re talking. Just a minute.”

  The rain came down in earnest, a cacophony on the roof. Rivulets of water filled the parking lot and roads. The air was close, the smell like fresh mud. He breathed in and out slowly several times. No longer could he see each raindrop. It fell in a more natural smear across the windows. His fangs and claws retracted. Control of his anger was the key to remaining undiscovered.

  Lightning slashed and thunder almost drowned out the reply. “You want the Saints. How many points?”

  Jabril frowned. “I want to speak to Juwani.”

  “Shit, that raghead moved out a here last year. We don’t tolerate his kind, neither.”

  Jabril must find Juwani, must convince this ignorant redneck that he was not the same kind as Juwani. Once he had been an expert at the Southern USA idioms and slang, Kentucky his forte. It all came back so easily.

  “Good. That’s what I thought. But, I was kinda hoping you could confirm his forwarding address. I’m from the FBI and we’re trying to track down all of those scumbags.”

  “Last I heard he moved to Florida, someplace called Bagdad. Not related to the one in that sand-hole Iraq, neither. Not sure why he went there. For all I know they hung him down there. They ain’t friendly to ragheads, neither. More like Southern Alabama, you know with the KKK and all.”

  Ah, the South. It never changed, Jabril thought. “Thanks. You’ve been a great help. If I
might ask, you said you weren’t real buddy-buddy, so how’d you know where he went?”

  “His kid still goes to school here. Nice girl, too. She’s Christian and goes to Sunday school with my kids. Her name is Isabelle and she stays with her aunt, Mrs. Anna Jasper. She’s from Petersburg, great grand pappy fought in the Civil War. She lives over in Hopewell now, though. They’re good people.”

  “Maybe I could give her a call. You have a number?”

  He got the number and ended the call. On the phone’s map function, a city spelled Bagdad lay north of Pensacola. Typical American South, couldn’t even get the spelling right. He could be there tomorrow or the next day, but the pull to the west was too strong. His mission was there. He could not afford the detour. Unless of course he had to. Perhaps he should call Mrs. Anna Jasper, this so-called aunt, first, to make sure.

  On the seventh ring, he started to hang up and she answered. “Hello.” Her voice was old, nasal and reminded him of the rich women in the movie, Gone with the Wind. He liked that movie. Scarlett was the kind of woman he would love to tame. Not blond, but a fighter.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Jasper, I am James Latrell from the FBI, and we’re trying to locate Mr. Juwani Moc.” He laid on the southern accent, thick. “A contact here in Richmond said y’all were takin’ care of his daughter, Isabelle, and might have information on his whereabouts.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that.” She hung up.

  Could she be hiding something, or was she merely a cranky old lady? He wondered. More likely the former. A cranky woman would have given the FBI at least some information.

  He rang her back. She answered on ring two, “Yes?”

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry to bother you. But we at the FBI would like to offer you compensation for helping us find Mr. Moc. Also, I understand you’ve been using your valuable time taking care of Isabelle, his daughter. That’ll be worth a bit more.”

  “Money, huh? How much?”

  “The reward for Mr. Moc is one-hundred thousand, and probably another twenty-five thousand for caring for Isabelle. The FBI has a bank here in Richmond, so I can pay you today, cashier’s check.”

  “Cashier’s check? No cash?”

  “Well, I suppose if the information you give us on Mr. Moc is sound, perhaps we could throw in a cash advance. Say five grand?”

  She gave him the address. He told her he’d be there in under an hour. Money worked with Americans, almost always, especially if there was cash involved. He was curious, though, why she had accepted so quickly and not bargained for more. Sounded as if she needed the money, so why not try to up the ante? A bit unusual.

  The rain had stopped and he wanted fresh air. He got out of the car and took a few deep breaths, thinking of his next move. A few errant drips pinged in puddles, tiny rocks in tiny lakes. Sun glanced off the roof of the Nissan in spangles. He climbed in the car and drove.

  Chapter 10

  Rachel sped out of D.C. and drove into the night, the Beemer a lonely flash on I-70. She had modified the car after the Oil War, tweaking the engine to get closer to fifty-five MPG even at high speeds. Alex had added a secondary gas tank that took up half the trunk, allowing almost nine hundred miles between fill-ups. Many debated how long U.S. oil would last; the military seeming to be the most pessimistic, with Ambrosia, the only major food corporation, right behind them. They said twenty years. Some scientists said perhaps fifty years with current consumption from around the world. The price was determined by the highest bidder, and those in China and India bid extremely high; as a result, they got over half of what the U.S. produced and set the global price very high. At the last station before the interstate, it was $15.99 per gallon. Gas stations had died, except in major cities, and the government controlled those. Very few people drove, except in cities. Even the Interstates were pretty dead. Any rural highways decayed and crumbled; no one went there.

  She pulled her hair back and rubber-banded it into a ponytail. Out of the way for fast driving. She made good time, seldom dropping below 80 MPH. The fuel gauge on the Beemer read about a quarter of a tank when they hit the I-465 beltway at Indianapolis, and Sam’s phone played Eye of the Tiger again. It was 7:00 p.m.

  Sam’s phone continued playing far too long. She jerked her head right and her ponytail swished over her left shoulder. Where was that damn phone? Turn off that stupid ringtone.

  Sam answered it with a voice hazed from sleep. “Yeah?”

  There was a long pause as he listened, then, “You sure?” Another pause. “You’re kidding.” Rachel could imagine the No to that one. Sam shook his head “Okay.” His voice sounded disappointed as he ended the call.

  “What?” she said.

  “Yeah,” Rocca added. “That didn’t sound promising.”

  Then Rachel’s phone rang, a heavy metal rendition by Whitesnake. She smiled. That was more like it. She answered it with the hands-free phone. “Hello, Jerry. What’s up?”

  She had no earpiece so Jerry’s words reverberated out the car speakers. “There’s a problem in Milwaukee,” he said. “A few lab mice have gone nuts. They’re attacking people, and doing damage, real damage. It sounds like the dog problem we had down in the Brazil lab with Alex.” Her foot came off the accelerator, her heart hammered in her chest and she almost pulled over. Fang, the dog problem in Brazil, had been the first hint that the viral mutations they had been making for biological warfare could cause a mutation in mammals, like Fang, and then like Alex. If the lab mice were infected in Milwaukee, that would have to be dealt with, pronto.

  She tried to remain calm, but could feel Rocca staring at her. She smiled and winked at him, and pushed down the accelerator. Nothing to worry about. She could handle this.

  “You know I’m on a more important mission right now.”

  “You’ve got Sam with you, right?” Jerry always knew everything. More than he should, really. Him and Sam—twin toads on a lily pad.

  “Yeah.” She tried to avoid it, but turned her head slightly to the right to catch a view of Sam.

  “He’ll tell you some news about Jabril. We think he’s headed back over the pond. So you’re free to do this.”

  “Jabril’s leaving? How do you know that?” That would be great. Jabril out of her hair. Not have to worry about Alex and Alexis.

  “Talk to Sam. We need you on this Milwaukee thing before things get out of control.”

  How loud could she scream Shit? Sam and his low places.

  “Another thing,” Jerry said. “We have information that there are people hemorrhaging and dying in Chicago and St. Louis. We have a small team out there with the CDC. It appears that the Ambrosia GMO strains of wheat, barley and corn are causing the problem, and we think it has something to do with nanotechnology causing the DNA to change. As I recall, you worked on the original Ambrosia GMO foods. We need your expertise on site. So once you’re done in Milwaukee, go to St. Louis. I expect some answers by the end of the week.”

  “Jesus, Jerry. That’s pretty quick? Besides, me and Ambrosia . . . well let’s just say I never want to associate with them again. And, I’m no expert on nanotechnology.”

  “Pressures are mounting back here. After Jabril escaped, La Riva’s getting heavy scrutiny, and these two incidents . . . our company and your job are at stake. If you know someone else . . . ?”

  The only one she knew was Alex, and that wasn’t happening. “I’ll talk to Sam. But if Jabril’s not gone—” The signal on the phone died.

  She dialed again and got nothing.

  “He might be. That was my call.” Sam said.

  She turned her head so fast toward him her ponytail flipped around and slapped her neck. “I’m pulling over. We have things to discuss.”

  She exited the freeway and braked to a stop. “So what’s this about Jabril leaving?”

  Sam held her glare for all of ten seconds then glanced away. “First of all, you need to know something about how Jabril warmed up.”

  “The power went out
from the hurricane. Duh.”

  Sam looked at Rocca who was studying the nearest streetlight.

  Rachel glanced at Sam, then Rocca. “All right. What the hell is going on?”

  “It looks like a mouse chewed into the electrical conduit and that possibly shorted out the power to the vault.”

  “Must have been a hell of a mouse. Those conduits were covered in a metal casing.”

  “Yeah, we had to shoot it.”

  “You shot a mouse? Right. Were you big brave men afraid of an itty bitty mouse?”

  “The damn thing came after us. And let me tell you, that sucker had some werewolf teeth.”

  She chuckled, shook her head in disbelief then stopped and squinted at Sam.

  One side of his mouth twitched up. “Yeah. You’re getting it now. Why are there werewolf mice in Jabril’s vault and also in Milwaukee?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you should let your boss know.”

  She redialed Jerry, but got no ring. She looked at the cell phone. “Have to try later. No bars. What about Jabril? He’s leaving?”

  “My lowest of low contacts told me Jabril’s cell phone, or at least the one he stole from one of the guards at the vault, is still moving west with the train. But the electronic microchip bugs we placed under his skin . . . they’ve been moving north.”

  “How long?” Rocca said.

  Sam scratched his eyebrows back and forth and studied the floorboards. “Couple of hours.” His voice was barely audible.

  “Two hours?” Rachel slammed her elbow into the seatback.