“Why are small children running around unsupervised in the woods?”
McGlade folded his arms across his chest. “Stop being a douche.”
“You want to drive five hours to Chicago with two trained killing machines in the back seat?”
“We just need to get them inside the house. Then I can anonymously call Animal Control and they can find them a good home.”
“We need to find Pasha.”
“And I’m helping you find Pasha. But first you need to help me for two minutes to get the dogs inside.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out half a bottle of B‘Estrus. “It worked once. It should work again.”
HUGO
The Man With Seven Tears stared silently at the ceiling while peeling off the thumbnail on his left hand. First he split them down the middle with Göth, then pulled off the individual halves as if shelling a pistachio nut. It was slippery work, and a great deal of blood was dripping onto the giant’s lap. He scarcely noticed it, forcing his focus on the exquisite pain. Forcing himself to embrace it, then ignore it.
He didn’t have his weights with him, and had already done hundreds of push-ups. Hugo normally didn’t mind waiting. Life was all about killing time, in one way or another. But as the zero hour approached, he found himself growing antsy.
One more day, he thought, staring intently at the crack. One more day, then he would be responsible for thousands of deaths. The largest terrorist act ever, anywhere.
And after, he would deal with Phineas. That had been an itch he’d been waiting to scratch for a very long time.
“Waaa maaa mmaa waaamam waaaa.”
Annoyed at the interruption, Hugo stared up at General Packer, who was trying to talk with a gas mask on.
“I can’t understand you with that thing on your head.”
“Waaa aaaa waaaa maaa aaaaa.”
Hugo had an urge to grab the mask and yank, then snap it against Packer’s face like a giant rubber band. This whole thing irritated him. It was so pre-planned that all of the challenge, all of the fun, had been taken out of it.
“Are you deaf, old man? I can’t hear you.”
Packer pushed the mask off his face. “I said that’s how you adjust the straps to make sure it’s snug. You got it?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s taken a helluva long time to get to this moment. All of this shit,” Packer gestured with his hands, “including the canisters, is years old. You don’t want to take a chance with leaks. That’s why the gas mask and hazmat suit.”
“I got it.”
“Okay. Let’s run through it.”
“We ran through it.”
“Well let’s run through it again. We only got one shot at this. Jesus, what happened to your hand?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s bleeding.”
“It’s nothing.”
Packer tried, and failed, to hide his look of disgust. “Okay. You see the stage monitor?”
Was Packer becoming senile? “Of course I see it.”
There were only four monitors on the wall. One showing the alley entrance, one showing the outside door to the control room, one showing the front of the theater, and one showing the stage. Currently there were lots of people, running around, doing shit.
“According to rehearsals, the egg scene will begin tomorrow at 1:48. But that’s approximate. If the show is running fast or slow, it may be a few minutes off. The cue is…”
“When the smoke machines go off.” This was boring. “We’ve been over this.”
“And we’ll go over it again. And again. You can’t screw this up.”
Hugo stood up, scowling at Packer. “Are you saying I screw things up?”
Packer took a step back and raised his hands. “No, of course not, I’m just trying to convey the importance of the matter, here. We have to get everything right.”
“We? You’re going to be at your house in Decatur. I’m the one here, exposing myself to that shit.”
Hugo wasn’t actually complaining. He wanted to be there. When would he ever get another chance to kill over six thousand people?
Too bad this was the lamest way to commit mass murder in the history of ever.
“I know it’s on you, Hugo. It’s all on you. And the Supreme Caucasian appreciates it. The whole Caucasian Nation appreciates it. You’re going to be a hero.”
Hugo didn’t care about being a hero. He didn’t care about any of this. He’d joined the CN as a way of subsidizing his criminal behavior. Robbing and fighting and killing. Not sitting in a room, watching a clock and pressing buttons. That was for assholes like Packer.
But Packer was too chickenshit.
“So when you see the smoke machines…” Packer prodded.
“I open the valves on the canisters.” Hugo pointed with his chin to the large, metal tanks in the corner of the control room.
“Remember, you need to open both. This isn’t like the stuff The Chemist used on that politician.”
“I thought it was sarin.”
“It is sarin. But sarin degrades over time, becomes ineffective. So the Chemist separated the chemicals into two precursors to give it a longer shelf life. The precursors only create sarin when they’re combined. Do you have the Mark 1 kit, in case you get any on you?”
Hugo checked his pockets, found it in the rear. He nodded.
“If you’re exposed, inject the atropine—the smaller one—first. Take off the cap and jab it into your thigh and hold it there for a few seconds. It’s an autoinjector. Then do the same thing with the pralidoxime, the bigger one. What do you do after you open the valves?”
“I check the monitor to make sure it’s working.”
“What will you see?”
“Panic. Seizures. Vomiting. Screaming.” He smiled. “Death.”
“Then what?”
“I take the access tunnel to street-level, ditch the biohazard suit, get in the car, and mail the letters.”
“That part is important. Just as important as releasing the gas. Everyone needs to know who did this, and a lot of groups will try to take credit. The SC and I don’t trust that email nonsense. Computers can be traced. You have to mail them at the mailbox on Columbus, and it has to be that night.”
Hugo considered breaking Packer’s neck. But General Packer was the only link to the SC, and Hugo really did want to meet the SC, if only to satisfy his curiosity about the tear tattoos. If the Supreme Caucasian really had eight tears, Hugo would continue to support the cause. If it was bullshit, Hugo was going to rip off the man’s legs and shove them up his ass.
“I got it,” Hugo said. “What about the girl?”
“You know what needs to be done with the girl. You’d attract suspicion if you try to get away with a tied-up woman on your shoulder.”
“If I kill her, how do I lure my brother close?”
“He loves her. He’ll believe anything you tell him.”
Hugo wasn’t sure about that.
But killing Pasha would alleviate the boredom for a little while.
PHIN
“This is stupid,” I said.
After looking around the mansion for something to substitute for the plush stuffed dog, McGlade choose a dusty taxidermy Red fox from Milton’s trophy room. It was missing an eye, and the tail was bent in half at a right angle.
“It’s fine.” Harry shook the rest of the scent on the dead animal’s fur. “The dogs will love it.”
I’d had a lot of moments in the past few months where I morosely reflected on my life and all the decisions I’d made to get me to where I was. It all led up to me watching Harry pose a taxidermy fox, ass-first, in the doorway of a dead neo-Nazi’s mansion, in hopes of luring his killer guard dogs close to us. It was so stupid, so outrageous, so unbelievable, and I’d reached a point where I accepted it as normal.
Maybe that was the key to happiness. Accepting all the craziness, rather than trying to fight it
, or worry about it, or understand it.
It only took you how many decades to figure that out?
Earlier, Harry had risked going out into the dark to retrieve the canvas strap and boat winch. He hadn’t been devoured.
“When I call them, you pull the rope. Ready?”
“Sure. Why the hell not.”
McGlade blew the dog whistle, his cheeks puffing out with effort.
It was dark, so we didn’t see the canines coming. But after counting the seconds in my head, they both ran in through the open front door, and I yanked on the rope and closed the door behind them, and Harry tore ass into the library with me as the dogs jumped on the fox, and then I dropped the rope and closed the door and we were safe and it all actually worked out. And for some insane reason, it made me feel pretty good. The best I’d actually felt in days.
To get back outside, we had to climb through a window. Then we went back around to the front door, untied the rope from the outside knob, and I opened the door just a crack while McGlade wound it around an old book he held in his robot hand.
The dogs didn’t even seem to notice we were there.
When we exited the grounds, I spent a minute bending the wrought iron fence bar back into place.
“You want to drive? Hardly got any sleep last night, and I’m exhausted.”
“Sure.” Then I yawned.
“You just yawned. I don’t want you wrecking my Vette. We could get a room in town.”
“We need to find Pasha, Harry.”
“Okay, I’ll drive, you try out the thumb drive.”
When we got back to his car, I booted up his laptop.
“What’s your password?” I asked.
“Harry McGlade is the coolest guy of all time and his dick is huge. No caps, no spaces.”
It took me three times—and about three minutes—to type all of that in correctly, only to find out that the thumb drive was also password protected.
I yawned again.
“Stop yawning,” Harry said, and yawned.
That made me yawn again, and him yawn again, and even Little Elvis, who was laying on Harry’s dashboard, opened his little pink mouth and yawned.
“I gotta stop for coffee.”
McGlade, in a masterstroke of genius, stopped at an oasis and bought a box of Turbo-A-Lert; a caffeine supplement used by truckers and speed freaks who had gotten bored with meth because it was too mellow. After he downed the fifth tablet with a can of cold espresso, we got back on the road.
I closed my eyes and sleep took me.
An undetermined time later, McGlade screamed and slammed on the brakes, pitching me forward and waking me from my nap.
“What the hell, Harry?”
The private eye was covered in a glossy sheen of sweat, his head shaking side to side like he’d developed Parkinson’s,
“Elves,” he whispered.
“Elves.”
“In the middle of the road.”
“You just stopped for elves.” I wanted to be sure I was clear.
“Dozens of elves. They were having a party. An elf party.”
I said, “I’ll drive.”
“I think I hit a few. Check if there are any elves caught in the driveshaft.”
“You took too many uppers, Harry. You’re hallucinating.”
McGlade looked at me, horrified.
“I’m screwed.”
“It’ll be okay. The pills just need to get through your system.”
“I’m screwed by the elves. Will they come after me, Phin? Will the elves plot vengeance?”
“Let’s change seats, amigo. I’ll take it from here.”
“I wet my pants.” He felt around, then sniffed his hand. “No. It’s just sweat. I think.”
I leaned over to open McGlade’s door, then unsnapped his belt and gently shoved him out of the car, all the time talking soothingly and trying to avoid any quick movements. Harry, for his part, shook like the shock-therapy poster boy and jerked his head side-to-side with undisguised paranoia. I hopped over the partition, into the driver’s seat, and he leaned under his chassis to check for elf parts.
“Get in the car, McGlade.”
“They could try to cut the brakes.”
I honked. He screamed, then quickly got in the car.
“What happened to Little Elvis?”
The hamster, who’d been content on the dashboard, was no longer there.
“Did the Elves grab Little Elvis?”
“I’m sure he’s around. You hit the brakes pretty hard.”
“They took him, Phin. The elves love hamsters. They ride hamsters into battle, like horses.” Harry clutched my shirt. “Don’t let the elves take little Elvis.”
I spotted the rodent near Harry’s feet. “He’s on the floormat. Stop acting crazy.”
Harry grabbed Little Elvis and hugged him close. “The elves are jealous of me. Of my height, and my big penis. Elves have tiny little doinkers, Phin.”
“You better let me hold your gun, too.”
I took his Magnum from his shoulder holster, putting it under the front seat.
“Like a grape with a foreskin, Phin. Real small.”
Having been asleep, I had no idea where we were, but I assumed we were going in the right direction. I put the car into gear and eased back onto the highway. A few miles up the road I saw a sign indicating we were in Iowa. Still a long way from home.
“They hide. In elf holes.”
“Just close your eyes, Harry.”
“They get you when you close your eyes. We need anti-elf spray.”
“There are no such thing as elves, McGlade.”
He gaped at me, bug-eyed and horrified. “Sweet Jesus! They got to you!”
And so it went.
Three hours later, we still weren’t back in Chicago, and Harry still hadn’t crashed. His elf hallucinations eventually stopped, being replaced by strange clicking and sucking noises, and a worrisome facial tic.
I actually preferred him singing.
An hour later, we were back in his office. Harry locked himself in his computer lab—probably to keep out the elves—and I stretched out on his waiting room couch.
I’d been homeless before. But this was different. Previous times, I’d chosen to hit the streets. I’d been proactive, rather than reactive. My initiative, my decision.
Now, I was just reeling from punches, trying to stay on my feet. And I wasn’t sure I could recover. This might be more than just another low point. It might actually be the end.
Does it matter? Earl asked.
Probably not.
You think Hugo is a parasite. A burden on humanity. You’re no better. You’re selfish in the same way. You hurt people, take what you want, contribute nothing to the world. What have you ever done for anybody?
I thought about Kenny Jen Bang Ko. I never knew much about him. I never bothered to learn. Did he have a wife? Children? Friends?
He’d been killed for the crime of knowing me.
The same thing was going to happen to Pasha. Unless I saved her.
You won’t be able to save her. You can’t even save yourself.
I thought about Harry, tripping balls on over-the-counter stimulants, busting his ass to help me without any kind of compensation.
You’re putting him in danger, too. That’s what happens to people around you.
I thought about Jack. I hadn’t left that situation on a good note. I wondered if I could fix it.
She’s a good person. You’re a homeless, drug addicted bum. You’re not the kind of person Jack is friends with. You’re the kind she puts behind bars.
I thought about the future.
Dumb ass, you have no future. When I finally kill you, I’ll be doing the world a favor.
As with many things, Earl was probably right.
When I opened my eyes, McGlade was squatting next to me, staring, like some sort of rumpled, unshaven zombie.
“Morning,” he said. “I was watching you sleep
. Is that creepy?”
“Very.”
“Actually, I was trying to see if your chest was moving or not.”
“You thought I was dead.”
“Only a little.”
“What time is it?”
“A little after nine. I got donuts. There aren’t any left. Probably no reason to even tell you that.”
I sat up, and Earl awoke and began clawing at me. “Did you sleep?”
“No. But I stopped hallucinating. So that’s good. I still can’t get into Packer’s laptop, but I cracked the pen drive.”
“What’s on it?”
“Don’t you want to hear how I did it?”
I did not want to hear how he did it. But I was going to hear it regardless, so I relented. “Yeah.”
“I used a brute-force dictionary attack,” Harry beamed.
“Clever.” I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Took six hours. Still isn’t working on his laptop. I think I’ll try LM hashes through rainbow tables. It’s Windows, so maybe I can dump directly from the SAM files.”
“Genius.”
“I actually have no idea what I’m talking about. I got the programs from a hacker.”
I stood up, stretched. So many parts of me hurt it all blended together in a full-body throb. “What was on the pen drive?”
“Three folders, each with a text file of names and addresses. I’ve been Googling them for the last few hours, trying to figure out who they are. The first list has over ten thousand people. A lot of the addresses are for prisons. I think it’s a Caucasian Nation membership list. Packer and Hugo are both on it.”
“The second list?”
“Politicians. Journalists. Bloggers. Newscasters. CEOs. All of them right-wing. Influencers. Allies, maybe. Powerful folks, probably sympathetic to the cause.”
“And the third?”
“Left-wing politicians. Liberal journalists. High profile people of color. Activists. Heads of prominent minority organizations.”
“Enemies,” I said.
“That’s my guess.”
“Are there six thousand of them? Last time I talked to Pasha, she said that six thousand would die.”
“Let’s check.”
Harry waddled off, and I followed him. His computer lab had four desktops, two of them switched on and running programs, one of them tethered to Milton’s laptop. Little Elvis was in a cage next to it, sucking on his water drip bottle. There was also a couch, and the cushions had been taken off and stacked to the side, propping up a blanket that made sort of a tent.
Phineas Troutt Series - Three Thriller Novels (Dead On My Feet #1, Dying Breath #2, Everybody Dies #3) Page 79