by Blake Banner
Fenninger turned and pointed at him. “Listen to me! You have no idea what’s going on here, Bob. You are out of your depth. This man is not who he says he is. He is an imposter! I am not going to tell you anything about Omega because we are sworn to secrecy. But I can tell you that if he were who he says he is, he would never in a million years have revealed what he has revealed in front of you! He has murdered the partners at Intelligent Imaging Consultants because he is on a private crusade to destroy us. He will stop at nothing—nothing! to achieve his ends, and believe me, he will not think twice about cutting your throat.”
We were at an impasse, but I was tied up and Fenninger was free to move about and make a phone call. If he called Beta or Alpha I was screwed. I nodded several times, slowly, then looked at the Captain.
“He’s right. I would, and will, kill you…” I glanced at the Hulk. “Both of you, without hesitation, if you stand in my way. This man has been sentenced to death by our mutual employer.” I turned to Fenninger and spoke quietly. “You are right, Alpha and Walker reached a truce, an understanding. I am not Lacklan Walker. But by all means, go and call Alpha, or Beta, let them know what has happened, and that you have me tied to a chair, threatening to kill me. Please, you’ll be doing me a favor.”
That threw him. He was disconcerted. He muttered, “There is no signal up here…”
I said, “You have a landline.”
He hesitated a moment longer. I made a question with my face and showed it to the captain. “What’s it going to take, Bob? Get off the fence and back the right horse.”
Fenninger snarled at me, pointed at me with a trembling finger. “Fuck you!”
With that he turned and marched out of the room. I raised an eyebrow at Captain Bob. “You’re going to let him go?”
I struggled to my feet with difficulty, leaning forward with the chair legs projecting out behind me. They watched me, frowning, as I stretched my arms down my side and backed toward the wall. As I rammed the legs against the tiles, stretching my arms down and out, loosening the ropes around my shoulders, I spoke through gritted teeth.
“Serious brownie points go to the man who cuts these ropes, guys. We are running out of time and you are running out of credit!”
I rammed the chair legs again and heard something creak. The ropes were beginning to ride up onto my shoulders. The Hulk took a step toward me. Captain Bob said, “No, wait…”
I shouted, “What for? Goddammit!” I rammed again. “Do you realize…” I rammed again, heard a leg crack, “…how much trouble…” Another ram and a coil of rope came loose over my shoulder. They stared, transfixed. “…you are going to be in…” Another ram, the rope started to come loose and the Hulk was there, pulling it over my head, allowing the chair to drop, broken to the floor.
I said, “Thanks,” glanced at Captain Bob and said to the Hulk, “I need my Sig and my knife.”
He turned and looked at the captain. The captain stared back at both of us, paralyzed by indecision.
I said, “Chose your battles, Captain, and only choose the battles you can win. This is your last chance. Get off the fence and join the right side.”
He took a deep breath, reached behind his back and pulled out my Sig. He stepped forward and handed it to me. I cocked it and slipped it in its holster. I held out my hand, “And my knife, please.”
He handed that to me too and I put it in my waistband. I had put everything into getting this far, but I had given no thought to what I would do once I got here. These two were reluctant allies for now, but how long would they stay on my side? Fenninger was probably on the phone to Alpha or Beta right then, and they would mobilize against me within twenty minutes or half an hour. To cap it all, I had not wanted Omega to be aware that I had broken the truce I’d agreed with Ben. If there was any chance that I could still stop Fenninger from calling, I needed to seize it right then.
Eleven
I had no time to think it through. I snapped, “Where is he phoning from?”
The captain grunted, jerked his head toward the door and walked ahead. I followed and the Hulk followed me. We crossed the patio back toward the main entrance. To the left there was a staircase up to the galleried landing, and over on the right there was an archway that led down two steps into a spacious, modern drawing room with a copper fireplace in the center and sliding glass doors that I guessed led out to gardens or a pool, but now showed only black glass.
Captain Bob stopped on the threshold. Fenninger was sitting perched on a large, overstuffed calico armchair. He had a phone in his hand and was staring at it. I pushed past the captain, went down the steps and crossed to stand in front of Fenninger. He didn’t look up. He just kept staring at the telephone.
“Did you call?”
He shook his head.
I said, “Make the call.”
Now he looked up at me. He looked sick with worry and fear. He obviously didn’t play poker. I pushed the bluff. “Make the damned call!”
I snatched the phone from his hand, gripped it in my left and found the call register with my thumb. He hadn’t called anybody. I threw the phone on the sofa and pulled the Sig from my holster. Fenninger’s eyes bulged. I shot the Hulk in the heart and then took aim at Captain Bob.
Captain Bob was a Seal. He was fast, strong and aggressive. He sprang down the steps and my shot missed him by an inch. Next thing, he had collided with me and sent me staggering back, half-winded. I tried to take aim, but he wasn’t wasting any time. He was hunched into his shoulders like a boxer and delivered two powerful right crosses to my face. I dodged them, but then took two hooks to my ribs, which hurt. His fifth punch was a thundering right straight to my head, which broke though my guard and sent me tumbling over the sofa and onto the floor.
He came after me, vaulting over the couch. I was aware of Fenninger scrambling for the door. I rolled to my right, came up on one knee three feet from Bob and slammed my right fist in an uppercut to his balls.
He went down wheezing, “Jesus…!”
I didn’t have time to go in for the kill. I sprinted after Fenninger. I could not let him get away. I had clawed my way back from the brink of catastrophe. Now Fenninger had to die.
I staggered. My legs were like sandbags, my head was splitting with pain and waves of nausea kept washing over me. I knew I was concussed, but for now I had to ignore it.
Fenninger was through the arch and wrenching at the big, oak doors. I stumbled up the stairs as he pulled the doors open and ran into the night. I went after him. I still had the Sig in my hand. I could make out Fenninger’s form bobbing and weaving along the driveway toward his Jaguar. I took aim in the half light cast by the porch lamps. The Sig spat twice and I heard the whine of the ricochet. He cried out, but it wasn’t pain, it was panic. Then he dodged right, away from his car and sprinted for the vineyards.
I holstered the Sig and ran after him. On my right there was a log fence at the side of the house. In it there was a gate that stood open. In the distance I could see the black mass of the woodland I had noticed earlier, but now I could also make out broad vineyards that lay before it. I paused. A wave of nausea swept over me and made me double up and vomit. The concussion was only going to get worse, but there was nothing I could do about it. I could not let Fenninger escape, and I could not let him contact Omega.
I slowed my breathing, hunkered down and remained motionless. The moon had not risen yet and at fifteen yards the shadows were almost impenetrable, but some things caught the starlight and showed faintly luminous in the middle distance: the wooden struts that supported the vines, the turned earth of the fields where it was visible between the rows of bushes, the blond wood of a tool shed, less than a hundred yards distant. There was no movement. The only sound was the sawing of the frogs on the night air.
He had to be in among the vines. If he had continued running I would have heard him. I ran the thirty feet to the field and began to move up the side, aisle by aisle, listening. His pulse would be off th
e chart, his breathing would be ragged; if I didn’t see him, if he was lying in the shadows of the vines, I’d hear him.
I heard him. I heard a rustle, twenty yards to my right. I looked and saw a shape break loose from the bushes and bolt toward the tool shed. His pale jacket was a clear target, but he was running like a hare, scrambling left and right. I aimed, trying to anticipate his movements, fired twice. He screamed, but again it was panic, not pain. I went after him.
I was stronger and faster, but I was also sick and in pain, and he was running for his life. As he drew level with the tool shed he dodged suddenly to his left and scrabbled at the door. I assumed, wrongly, that it would be locked. I took my stance, took aim and fired just as he stumbled back and wrenched the door open. The bullet punched a hole through the wood and he vanished inside the shed. It was good enough for me. The chase was over and Fenninger was as good as dead.
I loped the last few strides to the open door of the hut. I stepped to the far side and flattened myself against the wall. I could hear his breathing, ragged and shaking inside. I told myself, “On three…” and counted down in my head, “One… two…”
He exploded, screaming through the door. He had a hoe in his hands and swung it like a madman. There is nothing more dangerous than a panicking hysteric with no skill. He swung the hoe in a wide arc and smashed it into the side of my head. The pain wasn’t unbearable, but it was enough to daze me, and the next instant he was kicking me and battering me with the stick, screaming and spitting as he did it. I tried to take aim but the hoe crashed into my head again and for the second time that night I tasted my own blood.
There is a simple equation when you are facing that kind of onslaught. If you charge you might die. If you don’t, you will die. Plus I was getting real mad. I roared and charged. I took a good few blows to my ribs and head, but I was too mad to notice. I rammed my head into his gut and we went sprawling. It wasn’t exactly Jeet Kune Do, but it stopped the rain of blows.
As we went down I realized I’d dropped the Sig. I clambered to a sitting position on his chest and tried to hold down his left arm, to get a clear punch to his head. He clawed a handful of dirt with his right and threw it in my face. It got in my eyes and the pain was intense. I tried to ignore it and hammered at his head with my right fist, but his arms were everywhere. Next thing he was screaming, thrashing like a hooked shark. I fell to the side, groping for my weapon, and Fenninger was running, back toward his Jag.
I found my automatic. I staggered to my feet and made after him, swearing violently and blinking hard, trying to make tears to clear the grit from my eyes. As I ran I cursed myself for my mistakes that night. It only takes one small error, one careless slip, and death can come at you in less than a second.
Ahead of me I saw Fenninger skid to a halt to negotiate the log fence. I knew if I shot and missed I’d just drive him to greater speed, and I didn’t trust my eyes, which were still blurred and in pain. Instead I put on a burst of speed, sprinted and hurled myself at his legs. He went down with a painful grunt. I pounded him twice in the kidneys and he gasped. Then I was on him again, and this time I wasn’t going to let him go.
He rolled on his back. His eyes were wide with terror and he was gasping for air through his mouth. I pulled the Sig and he covered his face with his hands, palm out, like they could stop a bullet. I fought not to feel pity for the son of a bitch and thought of Abi and the kids, and the thousands of children whose death by starvation and thirst he was going to exploit to make himself even richer.
“Why are you doing this?” His voice was a high-pitched squeak. It would have been comical if it hadn’t been so pathetic. “I don’t even know you!”
“Is that all it takes?” I spat the words at him. “Is that all it takes, you son of a bitch? If you don’t know them, you don’t care? Is that why you can sentence a hundred thousand children to die of hunger and thirst and dehydration in the desert? Because you don’t know them?”
He still had his hands in front of his face. His voice was small. “What are you talking about?”
I grabbed the scruff of his neck in my left hand and rammed the muzzle of the Sig against his heart. “What am I talking about? What am I talking about? I am talking about the drought you are going to exploit to seize control of Saudi and Iran, to trigger war in the Middle East so that your investments in armaments, munitions and Texas oil will skyrocket! I am talking about the ruthless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people on the altar of Omega’s madness!”
He was staring at me like I was crazy. “But we have to! Don’t you understand? We have no choice! Your father was Gamma, didn’t he explain it to you? For God’s sake, don’t shoot me for that!”
My finger was tightening on the trigger. The captain’s voice froze me dead.
“Stand up. Pull the trigger and I will blow your head off.”
I turned and fired. As I did, Fenninger bucked and thrashed. My shot went wide and as it did the captain fired. Fenninger scrambled from under me and I felt the heat of the slug burn the air by my head as I fell. I pulled off two more rounds but Fenninger and the captain were already running toward the cars.
I scrabbled to my feet and ran after them. I vaulted the log fence. Dropped to one knee, took half a second to aim and pulled off two double taps, but they were already wrenching open the door and clambering into the Jag. I heard the whine of a ricochet as one of the slugs hit the chassis. Then they were reversing at speed. The car spun. I let off six more shots without aiming and the car did naught to sixty in four seconds, burning rubber down the drive toward the road.
I stood, looking at the empty darkness where the Jag had been seconds before. I was panting and every part of my body hurt more than every other part of my body. A thin moon leered at me over the treetops in the east. It was a disaster: a total, unmitigated disaster, and the consequences were unfathomable.
I saw Captain Bob’s truck reflecting the thin moonlight, and the stronger light from the porch. Even if I took the truck and went after them, I would never make it in time. I had to accept I had lost the battle. Omega would know that I was after them. But the war was not over yet.
Beyond the truck I saw the black, gaping maw of the oak doors under the purple shrouds of the Russian vine, and through the pain and the nausea an idea began to dawn. It might work. But this time I had to make it happen, without mistakes, without fuck ups. This time it had to be perfectly executed.
It came like a strange, negative echo from my thoughts. It came from over by the trees. A voice. It said, “Boy, you really fucked up, huh?”
I moved instinctively, pulling my weapon, training it with both hands on the shadows. The voice laughed and the shadows shifted. “You didn’t kill the bad guy, so now you gonna kill the good guy who wants to help you. You’re piling fuck up on fuck up. Take a break, Mr. Lacklan Walker.”
He stepped into the pale moonlight, all stooping six feet six of him, with his woolen coat and his woolen hat. He pulled a pack of Marlboros from his pocket, opened it and held it out to me. “Smoke?”
I shook my head.
He pulled one and lit it with a disposable lighter. “I thought maybe I was going to have to help out. I was disappointed. But I am guessing today you were not giving your best.”
“You followed me.”
He made a face like he thought I could do a lot better. “That is pretty obvious, yuh?” He pointed at the Sig. “You don’t need this. The bad guys have gone. You let them get away.”
I sighed, then holstered my weapon. “What the hell are you doing here, Njal? I gave you my answer.”
He spread his hands and shrugged, smoke trailing from his nose, and he started a slow walk toward me across the parking lot. “I been told to stay with you, make sure you OK.”
“Told by whom?”
He leered and chuckled. “Now you wanna know? Before you didn’t wanna know, now you wanna know.”
I repeated, “Told by whom?”
He pointed back towa
rd the shadows with two fingers and a smoking cigarette stuck between them. “Come, I introduce you.”
“Don’t introduce me, just tell me.”
He spread his hands again and shrugged. “What can I tell you? He’s a guy. He’s just a guy with crazy, brilliant ideas. He has a different way of seeing things. His mind is…” He made a gesture in front of his eyes with his fingers, like a small explosion. “His mind is like ‘pow!’ so clear!” He shook his head. “I can’t tell you anything. You have to meet him. He is a brilliant mid, and he wants to meet you. I have to stay with you until you agree.”
I sighed. “I don’t need this, Njal.”
He did his elaborate nodding thing. “Yuh,” he said simply. “A lot of things we don’t need, but we got them anyhow.” He jerked his head toward the house. “Like the mess you got in there. What you gonna do about that? You godda clean that up.”
“Njal, you have to leave.”
He shrugged and made a noise like a nanny goat, “Yaaaah, but no.” He shook his head. “It’s not going to happen. I am here.” He gestured at the house. “We can do this together.”
I turned and walked toward the house.
We spent the next hour with a bottle of bleach and a cloth removing any forensic trace of my presence. While Njal worked through the house, I went out and found the hoes. I cleaned off my blood, put it back in the tool shed and closed the door.
We wiped all the door handles, the chair I had broken, the tiled wall and the floors in the dining room and the living room. By the time we had finished I was pretty sure that the only traces of anybody having been there were from Fenninger, Captain Bob and the Hulk, whose body still lay by the arch, staring in astonishment at the ceiling.
I found the slug a couple of feet behind him in a small pool of gore. I picked it up and put it in my pocket while Njal dug the other one out of the wall. After that I took the Hulk’s weapon and shot him in the heart again, through the original wound, and put another slug in the wall, where the 9 mm from my Sig had been. Finally I wiped my prints and squeezed the Hulk’s hand onto the gun. Njal watched me do all this, nodding slow nods of approval, and saying, “Yuh…yuh…”