by H. L. Murphy
Fuck you, asshole.
My rifle bucked three times, crimson plumes erupted from the Captain’s chest. The man fell away from a shrieking Madalina, his hands grasped at empty air. If I had thought the Gypsy was afraid before, the moment her eyes met mine and she processed exactly who I was, Madalina fell to absolute pieces. I mean, it wasn't everyday you were rescued from being gang raped by a man you tried to kill. I supposed it was normal to be upset.
Whatever was going through Madalina’s tiny mind, I was sure it wasn't good. She had been in the cabin with Captain Rapey long enough for terrible things to be inflicted on her. Seeing a dead man perforate her first, please dear god let that be true, would be rapist had to have been fucking with her mind something fierce.
“Get dressed,” I snarled, trying not to stare at her naked body. I'm a man, I couldn't help it. If there was a naked woman within our line of sight we would take the spectacle in. Besides, she had some rather interesting tattoo work. Madalina sobbed several times before she slowly started to collect the tattered remains of her clothes. Everything she had been wearing had been removed through the simple expedient of tearing it from her body. Despite the situation I couldn't help but think this was what happened when you wore yoga pants and gauze tee shirts. I couldn't recall the last time someone had managed to rip blue jeans the way her yoga pants had been torn. Kind? Not particularly. True? You betcha. “Five minutes, and I'm out of here.”
Interlude Three
“Horace, you don't understand,” Nicholas Desanto repeated for the umpteenth time. “I really can't help you. We can't even be having this conversation. You know that, so I don't even know why you're asking.”
“I know, Nicky boy, I know,” Horace Mayweather stood within the secured communications suite about his carrier glaring at a CCTV image of the CIA man. The short, stout, man paced nervously back and forth on the edge of Central Park. “However, you've misunderstood the nature of this call. I'm not asking you to disclose the location of Dr. Cynthia Zhao. I telling you that if you don't tell me exactly where she is, right goddamn now, you will find that special retirement fund you've spent the last twenty years putting together suddenly, and inexplicably, vanishes, that your mistress will be found strangled with all evidence pointing to you, and that your children will become faces on the side of milk cartons. Do I make myself clear, Nicky Boy?”
“You, you can't…” Nicholas trailed off as the breadth of the threat struck home. For Mayweather to have known about Sasha was one thing, he hardly worked to keep it a secret, but his retirement fund. That was a whole different matter. And his children? They were protected at all times by some of the Agencies best shooters, there was no way Mayweather could possibly harm them. “You don't have the resources. You can't intimidate me.”
“Nicholas,” Mayweather said quietly,”I can have your entire bloodline erased from the face of the planet before dinner. Remember who I am, and what my mandate is. The one reason, the only reason, you weren't liquidated after our little adventure is because I wished it so. I have men in every corner of the globe on stand by, just waiting, pleading, for the opportunity to rid this world of a useless piece of bureaucratic trash like you.
“Now, for the last time,” Mayweather breathed the question with all the deadly intonation he possessed,”where is Dr. Zhao?”
The Deputy Director of Intelligence drew in a long ragged breath, the years spent deluding himself of his relative invulnerability stripped away by a man he had always belittled in his thoughts. Over the past twenty years, Desanto had squirreled away twenty million dollars siphoned from various black bag projects, not to mention the absolute debacle that had been the war in Iraq. Hell, that mess had been good for ten million in nice, safe bearer bonds. So clean, so crisp, so readily accepted by his banker in Switzerland. Everything he had worked so carefully for, exposed by that dinosaur of a naval officer. He didn't give a damn about Sasha, half the time he wanted to strangle the needy bitch, but he couldn't lose the money. He could even suffer the loss of his two ungrateful sons, but not his money.
In that moment, Nicholas Desanto finally accepted something about himself he had always known, but worked day and night to deny. Nick Desanto was a rat bastard who cared for no one so much as he cared for himself.
“Dr. Zhao was incarcerated in a maximum security research facility,” Nicholas spoke the words in utter defeat.
“Where, goddamn it?”
“Where our involvement in this nightmare all began,” Nicholas explained slowly,as though if he took long enough to say it perhaps Mayweather would suddenly reverse his position and send Nicholas on his way. “Five hundred miles northwest of Midway atoll. There's an island, it's not on any map made in the last hundred years. You wouldn't believe the cost of keeping that facility a secret in today's world. I kept telling the Pentagon it would be cheaper in the long run to just build an underwater facility and fuck hiding the island.”
“Nicholas, if you're lying to me I will know very shortly,” Mayweather advised his one time associate. “In the event you are lying, I'll make you watch as I personally cut Domingo’s scrawny throat and disembowel Enrique. I will then distribute your retirement fund to my crew and give them leave in Bangkok.”
The sharp intake of breath told Mayweather his point had been made, one way or another.
“No, it's the truth,” Nicholas rambled on quickly, stacks of NDAs signed over decades violated in a heartbeat. “The island was the first recorded encounter with Strain Omega. It was the perfect choice to establish a research facility. I mean, where better than the origin of outbreak?”
“Very well, Nicholas,” Admiral Mayweather said coldly. “This conversation is over for the moment. Tell absolutely no one we have spoken. Your head is still on the block, little man.”
With that, Mayweather broke the connection leaving Nicholas Desanto with a decided lack of relief. Not only had he somehow missed something as he assembled his retirement fund, he had just disclosed the location of a level one VIP to a dangerous old man operating on a century old presidential mandate. Hadn't the current president rescinded that practically ancient order? For gods sakes, this was the twenty-first century and it was their responsibility as educated, enlightened people to help the infected, not eradicate them. Suddenly, deeply offended, Desanto decided to call the president and inform him of Mayweather's actions, but, stopped as the jingle of change into a tin cup reminded him of the twenty million dollars waiting for him the moment Desanto retired.
What was the facility to Desanto? Especially when compared to the Kings ransom waiting for him, not to mention whatever else he might divert in the five years before retirement.
“Fuck it,” he said finally. Let Mayweather slug it out with the islands security for the good doctor. In the end, the President would have Mayweather arrested, if not shot, and nothing would come of the whole mess.
Besides, Nicholas thought, Strain Omega was eradicated years ago, so there was no need for Dr. Zhao’s particular skill set.
On the other side of the planet, Admiral Mayweather disconnected his call with a resigned sigh. He had hoped against hope the doctor was easily accessible, however he couldn't possibly have described an isolated island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean as easily accessible.
“Uh, disembowel, sir,” Lieutenant Martha Jones repeated hesitantly from her station. The admiral’s keen eyes fell upon her, his face a stone mask. The young lieutenant was a good officer adept at gathering information, but lacking in real world experience. With the right teacher, Mayweather believed he was seeing his replacement.
So teach her already, he scolded himself.
“Not everyone responds to a simple ‘please’, lieutenant,” Mayweather explained in a gentler tone than he had used with Desanto. ‘From time to time, it is necessary to ratchet up the threat level in order to procure useful intel. In this instance I had previous experience with the subject and knew he would be less than cooperative. So I provided the circumstances unde
r which he would capitulate.”
“So it was a bluff?” The lieutenant asked. “You had no intention of having his children killed?”
Yes, I abso-fucking-lutey did, he thought. I'd fuck your mother while you watched to find the doctor.
“Of course not, lieutenant,” Mayweather smiled reassuringly. “But our mission now is critical to the survival of the human race, so I can't afford to be gentle with my sources. And when we arrive at the research facility, I won't be able to use kid gloves with whatever security forces are there. We must secure Dr. Zhao by any and all means possible. Will that pose a problem for you, Lieutenant?”
“No, sir,” Lieutenant Jones answered emphatically. “I'm with you all the way.”
“Excellent, lieutenant,” Mayweather smiled again. Pleased he didn't need to have the young woman detained. The admiral picked up another handset, this one connected directly to the CIC. “Captain Monroe, Mayweather here. I'm transferring a new set of coordinates to you, change our heading to intercept.”
Chapter Seven
I stood by and waited for Madalina Hurgoi to finish getting dressed for nearly five minutes before I pulled Captain Rapey’s pants off and handed them to the Gypsy. She simply stood there staring at the pants in my hands like a fucktard before I told her what to do.
“Put the fucking pants on,” I snarled. Finally, she moved to dress herself. I found the Captain’s shirt in a corner of the cabin, near the body of Wildlife Management Officer McClucky. According to the plastic plate, that was the man’s name before someone, my money was on the commandos, put a bullet in his heart and in his head. “Here, put this on.”
I threw the shirt at her, showing as little kindness as possible. My thought process was simple, return the traumatized woman to a semblance of normality as quickly as was possible. I had never liked the bitch before she knocked me from the framework, thirty-five feet above the ground, and nothing had happened to alter my opinion of her.
Despite the surroundings, I couldn't help but notice the shapeliness of her enhanced bosoms. They were quite spectacular in their artificially augmented way. I took a deep breath, and remembered the cause and effect relationship between near death experiences and sexual arousal. The one and only reason my eye was still running over the Gypsy was simple, I had nearly been killed, and possibly been killed, numerous times today. My biology was busy trying to counter the closeness of mortality by driving me to reaffirm my continued existence. Rationally, the mere thought of touching Madalina repulsed me.
I turned my attention to the dead man’s gear. Another M9 Beretta sans serial number, but this time I found a sound suppressor for the pistol. Many, many thoughts battled for supremacy, but pragmatism won out and the Beretta and suppressor left with me. Same for the spare magazines the shitbird was packing. I left his M4 where it lay, but pulled the bolt assembly. I tossed the assembly into the woods as we left. The sobbing picked up a notch, and I looked around to see a fully clothed Madalina balling into her shredded tee shirt. My hope was she was dealing the way I had seen so many women deal with bad shit, have a good cry and then move on. I didn't pretend to understand it, but I had seen it happen more than once. It wouldn't do a damned thing to chase away the nightmares that would come, but that was the future and this was the here and now.
A little voice in the back of my head told me I needed to be away from this place, right away. Unfortunately, the Princess of Drama was still getting her cry on. I couldn't risk the possibility that these assholes had buddies on their way to enjoy a thin slice of involuntary sexual intercourse with a side of straight murder.
“I'm the fuck out of here,” I announced in my best get your shit together voice. It was the same tone of voice I used when my nephews had been acting out too long and needed to be reigned in. Honestly, I expected a repeat of Madalina’s aerial assault, and I was surprised when she turned tear streaked doe eyes on me.
Fucking doe eyes? Really?
That was just emotional blackmail. Many and many a man had fallen victim to an underhanded appeal to a man’s better nature, his need to protect, to follow his moral compass, or sometimes he just heeded the call of his dick telling him there was a damn good chance of getting laid if he played the White Knight. The problem with this scenario, for me, was that moral compass pointed firmly towards Elizabeth Mary Finnegan and I was therefore immune to all emotional attacks not originated from my wife.
“Don't,” I stated coldly. I wasn't in the mood to listen to this twit try to run some high school bullshit on me. “Get off your narrow ass, and come with me. Or stay here until Captain Rapey’s buddies show up.”
“Captain Rapey,” Madalina said like she couldn't believe the words just came out of my mouth. Believe it or not, I got that look. Yeah, shocker, huh?
“Yeah, Captain Rapey,” I repeated, my inflections caused her to flinch.” Mr. Gravel Voice and El Rapo were already taken, and that dead fuck seemed to be in charge.”
As I spoke I could see Madalina’s lips move as she formed the names. It was funny as hell, but I managed not to laugh at her. Even I knew you didn't laugh in the face of a woman that had just barely avoided being gang raped. Bad form. Or something.
“I'm leaving, Madalina,” I slid the Beretta and suppressor into my snazzy tactical vest. Yes, I used the word snazzy to describe my tactical vest. It seems the only appropriate word in my vocabulary. Either that, or having inexplicably survived two fatal injuries inside an hour had taken its toll on my sanity. Yeah, that did it. Not having watched a horde of zombies hunt and kill everyone I had worked with for nearly a decade. “Come with me, or stay here. I don't care. I couldn't leave you in their hands, but I can leave you on your own.”
Three steps out the door an Madalina appeared at my side as though by some evocation of Gypsy magic. Did you see that? I was growing as a man, five minutes before I would have said it was an act of Gypsy slut magic. Thankfully, the sobbing was done and Madalina seemed in control of herself again. I walked into the darkness, night vision goggles at the ready. What I saw made me wish I was a far less masculine man so I could have had a good cry without losing serious Man Points. Bodies laid in the darkness beyond the light cast by the wildlife cabin. The common denominator among the dead was that they had met their end painfully. Past the dead sat several vehicles, though only one stood out to me.
“Wait here,” I snarled. I made my way around the mutilated bodies of the dead up to the Wildlife Management truck. It was a new model of truck produced in the past few years. Most likely it had been a reward for a job well done, or at least not as fucked up as others. The keys were, luckily enough, still in the ignition. Rifle across my lap I started up the big truck and dropped it into gear. Recent memories of being shot to death by a helicopter prompted me to leave the lights off. Illumination grew from the cabin removing the need for the NVGs, but not the need for caution. The trucks lights stayed off, and I pulled the NVGs from my eyes as I brought the vehicle to a halt next to Madalina.
“You can come with me, or pick out a car from back there,” I hitched a thumb over my shoulder. I really didn't need to take this hot mess with me, and might have actually stood a better chance of escaping the area if she were to tear ass out of here in a separate vehicle. Some hero, huh? Save someone only to use them as a distraction to save myself. When this was over I was going to have a long talk with my moral compass.
When the Gypsy climbed into the truck I was both relieved I wouldn't have her on my conscience and surprised she would willingly stay anywhere near me. I guess I seemed like the best bet to see the sun rise again. Seriously, just how fucked up did things have to be for me to seem like the only way out?
Whatever.
NVGs in place I pulled onto the street, lights out, and floored the accelerator. If the chopper pilot was using thermal imaging, we were screwed seven ways from Sunday, and I knew it. This go around, though, I knew the evil pricks were there and hunting. My only previous experience in evading a helicopter had involved
me getting me machine gunned to death. At least, I thought I had been killed. Maybe I hadn't died after all. Maybe I knocked at death’s door before I dived into the bushes.
Great. First I blasphemed with Old St. Pete, and now I was playing ding dong ditch with the Grim Reaper. Jesus fuck, I was pissing in everybody's karmic cereal bowels today.
“Where are you taking me?” Madalina asked quietly. Recent terrible experiences not withstanding, her bitchy attitude was beginning to show through. I really needed her to shut the fuck up. At my age I had been through more than my fair share of fist fights, taking and giving better than most. For all the blood I had spilled, I had never killed anyone before and I didn't care for it, even if they had deserved it. Never once killed a man despite all the provocation handed me over the years, but in the space of half an hour five men lost their lives to me. All for a woman I wouldn't have pissed on if she were on fire. It wasn't so much the woman herself, but her horrific behavior I couldn't abide. On more than one occasion I had broken the face of a man for behaving the way Madalina had, burning through people like they didn't matter. Maybe that's why I couldn't stand Madalina, she reminded me too much of the men I had beaten to bloody pulps for leaving my chick friends emotional wrecks. Yup, used the word ‘chick’ again, oh the shame.
“Up the road,” I growled through clenched teeth. My hands on the wheel clenched the hard plastic until my knuckles went white. Five sons of bitches dead by my actions, an impossible to explain recently developed ability to survive seemingly lethal injuries in seconds, and black clad private contractors running some kind of quarantine operation was beginning to stress me out.