Tailor put his phone away. “You know, I told her about you, Val.”
“What you’d say?”
“That I loved you like my brother, and that you’d saved my life a bunch of times, but I didn’t know what happened to you, and I figured you were dead.”
“Yeah . . . sorry, man.”
“So you want to give me shit for getting respectable, kiss my ass. Like you know anything about respectable. Vanguard? Left us to die. Dead Six? Left us to die. I’m tired of being left to die, Val, and you should be too.”
“I am. That’s why I’m still with Exodus. I’m not really with-with them, but anyway. They came back for me, well, Ling did, at least.”
“Sure,” Tailor said, obviously not believing me about Exodus.
“No. Really. The assholes we worked for in Zubara, they had me in a secret prison, and Ling got me out.”
“How’d you end up in prison?”
“Remember Gordon?” Of course he remembered Gordon. “Yeah, well, I kind of murdered him.”
That made him grin. “Serves that fucker right.” Now that was the Tailor I remembered. “Ha!”
I spent the next little while catching Tailor up, about my time in North Gap, and what had gone on since, though I kept the recent details fuzzy. I gave him shit about having a girlfriend, he would give me far more if he knew I had one too, not to mention, oh yeah, I’m doing this because a teenage girl who can predict the future asked me to would go over great.
Surprisingly enough, he tried to be comforting about what I’d gone through in North Gap. Of course, being Tailor, he sucked at it. “Man, Val, that’s bullshit what happened to you, but you got through. That’s what matters.”
I realized then that I hadn’t told him everything.
“Val, are you okay?”
“Hawk’s dead, Tailor.”
“What? How?”
“I think I gave him up under interrogation. They couldn’t find me, so they went and got him instead. I called him to let him know I was okay, and they were waiting. He tried to fight back and they shot him, right there on the fucking phone.”
Tailor’s face started to turn red. Tailor had been nearly as tight with Hawk as I had been. “Who shot him?”
“Majestic. You know who.”
“No, who. I want the name of the motherfucker that pulled the trigger.”
“Underhill. He was an old guy named Underhill, and he’s still after me.”
“Oh, fuck . . .” Tailor glanced around, suddenly nervous. He leaned in and whispered, “No shit? Underhill? The Underhill?”
“You know him?”
“Of him. He’s a fucking legend, Val. I’m talking old school, wild west days, Cold War, Phoenix Program, shit like that. The people I work for now are at odds with the people we worked for in the Zoob, so we keep tabs. I’ve seen a lot of intel about them since I’ve been here, and I’ve heard a lot of stories. Underhill is the unrelenting motherfucker they let off the chain when they absolutely, positively, need somebody caught. They call him the bloodhound, because when he finds your trail, you can’t shake him. Everybody I work with thought he was retired. If they pulled him back, Majestic really wants you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Listen to me real careful, Val, I’m saying this as your friend, get out, and go someplace far, far away. Take Ling, she’s really rocking that sexy librarian thing, whatever, but get the fuck out of Dodge. Because otherwise Underhill will find you, and you’re dead meat.”
Tailor really was worried about me. Regardless of his cushy job working for the bad guys, he was still my friend. “I can’t do that, man. I’ve got to stop Blue first.”
“Well, look,” Tailor said. “I know the boss was pretty skeptical of what you had to say, but I was still told to give you whatever support you need. I’ve got people. I’m a pretty big deal in this outfit now, and the boss trusts me. We’ll find the Montalban woman and end this, I can promise you that.”
“And Underhill?”
Tailor had an evil glint in his eye. I’d seen that look before, it meant he was getting fired up. “There’s a truce between my boss and Underhill’s people. If he’s operating in Europe without permission, he’s breaking the rules. You can talk shit about the rules all you want, Val, but they’re there for a reason. They keep wars from happening. If that Majestic son of a bitch comes here, I’ll show him this is my house. Now finish your fucking nuggets so I can get back to work.”
It was good to have Tailor back.
Chapter 7: La Ville Lumière
LORENZO
Paris, France
September 10th
Things had gotten tough in Paris since the last time I’d been here. There had been several nasty terrorist incidents recently and sporadic rioting. I’d never seen so many armed cops on the streets in a European city before. There were four-man military patrols, complete with rifles and armor, wherever large numbers of people congregated. Some of the immigrant neighborhoods were no-go zones, and the gendarmes didn’t enter them unless it was in large numbers. If they did arrest somebody inside there was a good chance the incident would turn into a full-blown riot.
Personally, I think the French get a bad rap. I’ve worked with way too many tough, sensible, pragmatic Frenchmen to disrespect the culture. From my outsider’s perspective, their problem was similar to my home country, in that people with a clue how the world worked were outnumbered by easily manipulated wishful thinkers with their heads up their asses. But it was still pretty damn sobering, driving through some immigrant neighborhoods and seeing flags I recognized as belonging to terrorist factions being openly flown. I’d never expected to see that in a place like this.
Being in a hole for a year and a half had put me behind on current events. I’d read a few newspapers on my trip, but as usual the news coverage was naïve garbage written by twenty-something journalism grads who never ventured outside of Manhattan, making stupid assumptions about how the world worked. The way I saw it, the fall of Zubara had been the beginning of a chaos avalanche, and many parts of the Middle East were eating themselves. That led to lots of refugees, who the kindhearted first-worlders naturally wanted to take in. Unfortunately, among those masses were the parasitical scumbags the refugees were running from in the first place. To the psychos, refugees were just a delivery vehicle to hide in so they could start trouble in vulnerable new locations.
So the countries taking in the refugees got fucked, the refugees got double fucked, and the fanatics had a field day. Some countries went soft on them, which just made them look weak. Trust me, I made my career off of conning and robbing terrorist organizations. You can’t reason with people who think they’re righteous conquerors and Western civilization is a minor stumbling block. On the other hand, when a country goes too harsh, out comes the big brush and they start pushing in the wrong direction, it pisses people off and increases recruiting. Rooting out fanatical assholes requires a fine touch . . . and governments’ fine touch is more like Captain Hook, Proctologist.
One street I drove past was covered in trash, debris, and a few stores that were ashen wrecks. It was clear what had gone down here; I’d seen a lot of riots in my day. You can’t make a career out of profiting off the collapse of society without being around for some. Rich country, poor country, it didn’t matter. Everybody had some disaffected, angry bunch ready to blow up. When you are a professional thief, riots make for a fantastic diversion. In the western world they usually handled things with kid gloves and let the assholes burn things until they tired themselves out, but in the third world, they just machine-gunned the troublemakers and got on with life.
Strangely enough, from looking at the bitter cops, annoyed soldiers, and tired locals, the normally civilized, law-and-order types were getting mighty sick of the state of things. You could almost sense it in the air. They had tried to help by opening their doors to people in need, and got smacked in the face for it. You know things were getting bad when a major European
capitol city gives the same bad vibe as Zubara did.
Paris felt tense.
The address Jill had given Ling was next to an old industrial park on the west side of the city, in the surrounding department of Hauts-de-Seine. She’d picked an area far from the nice, shiny, business and tourist parts of town. The majority of the factories here were closed down, and judging from the nearly empty parking lots, those that were still making things were running at less than capacity. Even then it was nicer than some of the other communes I’d passed through to get here. At least there weren’t any burned-out cars abandoned on the sides of the road in this neighborhood.
I parked on the back side of the old tenements, in one of the few spaces that wasn’t covered in broken glass. The apartments were old and shabby. The asphalt was cracked and weeds were growing through it. Some young men were sitting on some nearby planters. They were the unemployed, disaffected, bored types. When they glanced my way, seeing if I looked like an easy victim, I gave them my best don’t fuck with me look and they were smart enough to realize I wouldn’t be worth their time.
Inside, the apartment building was even sleazier. There were junkies hanging around and winos sleeping in the corners. Somebody on this floor was playing really loud rap music. The elevator was out of order, so I took the stairs to the fifth floor, found the right room number, and after the briefest hesitation, knocked on the door.
This was awkward. It felt like I should have brought flowers or something. I was really excited, happy, but nervous. It was hard to explain. While I waited, I realized that a very discrete camera had been installed at the end of the hall. The peephole was already dark, so I never saw when she looked through it. From the sound of metal being moved on the other side, the door had been reinforced. Apparently Jill had been paying attention all those times I had lectured her about how to survive in this lifestyle.
The door opened. She’d changed her appearance. Her hair was shorter, and dyed lighter. She’d put on a little stress weight, and looked tired. But it was Jill. My Jill.
I could still read her expression like I’d never been away. It was a mixture of joy, disbelief, relief, and a little bit of bitterness.
Without a word, she stepped out of the way so I could come inside. While she closed the door and put down a heavy security bar, I looked around. Unlike the rest of the building, her tiny apartment was clean, orderly, and there was a half-assembled bomb on the table. There was a tablet next to the Semtex, with the screen showing feeds from four different camera angles around the block. I’d only spotted the one.
“I missed you,” she whispered.
I stretched out one hand for her, but she moved away, just the tiniest bit. But then she realized what she’d done and froze there. I stayed where I was. She’d thought I was dead. Jill had gotten on with her life. I couldn’t imagine what she’d been through, and she had no comprehension of what I’d been through, and I wanted to keep it that way. Tentatively, she reached out and touched my cheek, as if testing that I was real.
“Sorry I didn’t call.” It was a remarkably lame thing for me to say right then, but then we were pulling each other’s clothes off, so words didn’t really matter.
Later, the two of us lay in bed, listening to distant sirens through the open window, content to enjoy the human contact. Jill’s head was resting on my shoulder. It felt good to be alive. I had told her a little about the prison, but I’d glossed over or left out most of it, especially the parts I wasn’t sure had been real.
Jill ran her fingertips across the bandage on my chest. “What happened here?”
“Nothing. It’ll be just another scar.”
She’d seen the newer puckered bullet holes and fading knife lines, but she sensed this one was different. “You already had a ton of those when we met. What makes this one nothing special?”
“Sala Jihan burned me with a branding iron. Like a parting gift.”
“So you’d remember him?”
“More like a warning to never come back.”
Jill gently traced the edge of the bandage with her fingertip. “Would you go back?”
Normally I liked to finish what I started, but I was never going back to that place, no matter how much that evil son of a bitch deserved to die. “I’m never leaving you again.”
There was a lot of bitterness in Jill’s laugh. “Liar.”
That was fair. “No, I . . . I mean it. I just want to forget that place ever existed. I just want to be done.” I turned my head enough so I could look into her eyes. “I swear to you.”
“What about this thing you’ve got to do?”
She had me there. “Well, there is that.”
“That’s why you didn’t try to contact me.” She shifted slightly against me as she said it. It was remarkable how you could be this close to someone, yet distant at the same time.
“Listen, Jill, I had to do some horrible things in that prison.” How do you explain what it was like, putting a knife in some other poor unlucky bastard, just so you could maybe live one more day? Fighting for a warlord’s amusement, again and again, losing track of the lives you take as the days bleed into months in the perpetually whispering darkness. You can’t make someone understand what that’s like, and that was my problem.
“I don’t care what you had to do.”
“The only way I could survive was to go back to being the man I was before I met you. When I got out, it was easier to stay that way.”
“What was it Carl called it? Monster mode?”
“Heh . . . Yeah. Carl had a funny way of putting things.” Only Carl hadn’t been joking. I could never admit it to her, but part of me enjoyed being that way. Offing Diego and Varga’s men? I’d enjoyed that. Living with a complete disregard for dying was why I’d been the best. It was a cruel addiction. My foster father had seen that in me, and he’d done his best to steer me away from it, but ultimately failed. Jill had gotten me to live in peace for a time, but that had been nothing but a brief illusion. It turned out the evil was always there, eager to be used. “It isn’t the kind of thing you can just turn off and on, Jill. I didn’t ever want you to see that side of me.”
“I saw how you were in Zubara and Quagmire. Give me some credit. I don’t care.”
Jill was right, but knowing that and admitting it were two different things. She’d blundered into this world as a poor innocent victim, wrong place at the wrong time, but she’d risen to the occasion. She’d kicked ass, taken names, and was probably as stubborn as I was. But most importantly, she’d seen me at my worst, but still stuck around. We were a team, and I was an idiot to throw that away.
“I know.”
“Running from me still hurt, Lorenzo.”
I squeezed her tight and kissed her forehead. “I had to do something first, and I wanted to keep you safe.”
“Killing Katarina.”
“The same reason you’re in Paris, apparently.” We’d got the fun part of the reunion out of the way, so now we were getting into the messy, emotional, accusatory parts. I’d always sucked at that those. “Stalking the head of an organized crime family? She’s a billionaire, and probably one of the most powerful women in Europe now. What the hell are you thinking, Jill?”
She had an endearing smirk. “You weren’t around to stop her. Nobody else would. I thought she was responsible for your death. What did you expect me to do?”
“Take the vast sums of money I’ve squirreled away, go somewhere safe, and have a long and happy life.”
“That was my plan. Right after I killed that bitch,” Jill muttered. “What? You think you’re the only person who ever dreamed about getting revenge on the people who’ve screwed you? I guess you rubbed off on me, Lorenzo.”
“Damn right I did.”
“Jackass.” She laughed. Most couples, lying there naked, probably weren’t contemplating murder, but we were weird like that. It worked for us. “You know what I mean. She had to be stopped. Period. Exodus was toast. The government still wan
ts me dead. Who was I supposed to get to help? Either I had to do it, or nobody would.”
I’d never seen this side of her before. Jill had always been tough, but I’d fallen for her because of her tender side. Now she sounded like me. “Really? You were going to take down Kat by yourself.”
“Reaper’s helping, sort of.”
“Well, that’s something. How is he?”
“Not good. I think he took your death worse than I did. I don’t know if it’s PTSD, or what, but he won’t talk about it much. Me? I got drunk a bunch and wallowed in self-pity for about a month, but then I decided to focus on getting even.”
I stroked her hair. “I’ve always been a fan of the healing power of murderous revenge.”
“But Reaper, he saw something at that missile silo. I don’t know what, but it shook him. I kind of dragged him into this last year, to keep tabs on Majestic and Kat’s people. I needed his help, but more than that, I knew he needed something to work on.”
“Good.” It was kind of hard to imagine a purposeless Reaper. He was like this hyperactive ball of fixation. A Reaper without direction was scary.
“I was—I’m still—worried about him. You’ll see for yourself. He should be here soon.”
“Did you tell him about me yet?”
“Unsecure line,” she explained, though she was probably lying. Reaper was too paranoid to talk to anybody over a regular phone call. She probably just wanted me to have to explain to my best friend why I’d not bothered to tell him I was still alive as soon as I could.
“Jill and Reaper versus the world . . .” The least experienced members of my old crew, up against some of the best professional killers I’ve ever known. It was amazing they were still alive at all. “How far were you willing to go?”
She mulled that over for several seconds. “Far enough . . . Look, I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
I was too naked and comfortable to want to fight. So I dropped it.
She was silent for a moment, like she was trying to think of how to phrase something difficult. “I was with the Exodus people afterwards, while we were escaping through Mongolia. Ling gave me a number to contact her. I think she was trying to recruit me.”
Alliance of Shadows (Dead Six Series Book 3) Page 14