Desert Assassin

by Don Drewniak

  “Mother of Mercy,” exclaimed Morgan.

  “If there was any doubt about its awareness when we were following it in the pen, that ended when it asked me my name. When I said, ‘Bill Williams,’ it asked for my military name.”

  There was no question that Morgan wanted to ask questions, but he refrained.

  “Assassin then said it didn’t want to ‘end’ me because I didn’t end it when I first found it. And this was even though I would be of much more use than Fred.”

  “Bottomly? It had Bottomly’s brain?”

  “Yes. In the time following the escape, it managed to kill a mountain lion and that poor Fred bastard and then used both to once again transform itself.”

  “If I hadn’t seen what it had already done and if it were just about anyone other than you telling this story, I’d laugh it off.”

  “I decided to try to find out as much as possible as I could about it and stall for time hoping Art would return in time to save my ass. Assassin had no knowledge of its time in the meteor; its first memory was that of me. It wanted to know why I didn’t end it.

  “I already have dozens of questions, but I’ll hold off,” said Morgan.

  Williams recounted what he told Assassin about its being the greatest discovery in the history of mankind. “Assassin then asked me why I had been hunting it. I said that it was viewed as a threat to humans. When I asked if it created the copy of itself we found in the desert, the answer was yes.”

  “Incredible,” said Morgan.

  The Morgan who the General was intently watching and listening to was a very different person from the one the General had dealt with in the past. That Morgan was ruthless, calculating and would stop at virtually nothing to get his way. This one seemed open to reason and, perhaps, compromise.

  “By this time, I began to think of Assassin not so much as an ‘it,’ but rather as a ‘he’ or ‘him.’ I told him that the creation of the replicate or clone, or whatever it was, was very clever and asked him how he did it. He said he didn’t know, but that there was something in him which allowed him to do it. And now, the kicker. He said, and this is a direct quote, ‘Maybe I could do that to you.’ Even though it was said with the same slow halting voice as all of his previous speech, I felt that it almost brought him to laughter.”

  “I’m jealous,” interrupted Morgan, “I would have loved to have been there.”

  Instantly, Williams realized that Morgan had tossed him a meatball. While not conjuring up the image of a meatball pitch, both the General and Fowler knew that Morgan had left himself wide open for what was coming next.

  “Assassin then asked me if I worked for that black man. I asked him if he meant the man wearing a black uniform. He said that was so. Stalling for more time, I went on at length describing how I had met you and what our relationship was.”

  “Why the interest in me?”

  “I think you know. Assassin listened intently and, when I had finished, he asked where he could find you.”

  Morgan was once again speechless.

  “I told him that I didn’t know; that I only had a telephone contact and asked him why he wanted to find you. He said it was too bad that I didn’t know as you would be much more useful to him than Fred. I asked him how. He said survival and that, unlike me, he owed you nothing and then asked if I could call you and let you know where he is. I said I didn’t have your number with me.”

  “Too bad,” interrupted Fowler.

  Morgan stared at him with a combination of disbelief and irritation.

  “Bless you, Arthur,” thought the General.

  Williams continued, “He then asked me if I would tell you where he was if he let me go. I told him that was a bad idea on his part. He asked me why and I told him you would come with an army of men and a lot of weaponry.”

  Once again Fowler interrupted, “Imagine the amount of money that could be made with a Pay-Per-View telecast from Vegas of Assassin versus The Man in Black?”

  The General couldn’t contain himself and began to laugh. Morgan glowered at Fowler.

  “And down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier,” said Fowler with a perfectly straight face.

  Morgan gave up and laughed.

  When everyone settled down, Williams said, “I’ve gone over the next sequence time and again wondering how I could have played it better. I wanted to try to see if I could find out if he had replicated a second time, leaving a living copy behind, but there was no way I could come out and directly ask the question. As I was thinking as to how best ease into the question, he asked me what I do in the military. Having no idea if he had the ability to distinguish truth from lying, I told him the truth. It was then that he again caught me by surprise when he ask me if I enjoyed ending my own kind.”

  This was were the scotch had entered into the picture, making it time for Williams to bend the truth.

  “At this point, I noticed that Assassin had gradually lowered the Winchester so that it was pointing more toward my feet than my body. There was no question that he was focused more on our conversation than on guarding me. Even though I wanted to learn more from him, my orders were to kill if possible. Thank goodness I had a hunting knife belted on my right side. I pulled it out and sprang at Assassin. I caught him once in the neck and then a second time. Blood poured out. Assassin fell to the ground, stared at me and asked ‘Why?’ The next thing I remember was seeing Art.”

  “Command performance,” thought the General.

  Before Morgan could respond, Fowler looked at Morgan and said, “You should have seen him. He was sitting in a pool of blood and was splattered with it. Next to him was a dead Assassin. Bill looked up at me and said, “Give me the Merlot.”

  Morgan shook his head.

  “It gets better, Morgan.”

  “Bill keeps drinking the wine for what must have been ten minutes. He doesn’t say a word the whole time and I figured I’d better be quiet.”

  “That must have been a first for you,” shot back Morgan.

  “Nice to see you have a sense of humor,” said the General.

  Fowler took center stage again. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, I have the floor. Finally, Bill looks up at me and says, “He wasn’t a bad guy.”

  Nothing was said by anyone for at least a minute. Morgan broke the silence. “No one could have invented this.” Looking at the General, he asked, “Where’s the body?”

  “Classified.”

  “What do you want?”

  Williams spoke up. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m hungry. Let’s take a break. Art, would you mind getting five orders of steak and eggs? Get the cash from the General so I won’t have to add it to what he owes me.”

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” replied the General.

  “Let me get this one,” interjected Morgan. “What I just heard is more than worth it.”

  “Imagine that,” said Fowler, “at least one top brass here who isn’t a cheapskate.”

  Morgan smiled, pulled out a wallet and said, “How much do you need, Art?”

  “A thousand will do.”

  Morgan gave him a hundred and said, “Keep the change.”

  Once again the General said, “Son-of-a-bitch.” However, he realized for the first time in his dealings with him, that Morgan was indeed displaying a sense of humor. More importantly, he was unquestionably there to make a deal. So far, the exchange of information – revealing that Assassin had been killed in exchange for learning there was at least one other Assassin or Assassin-like creature – was a wash. In addition, the General was holding a big bargaining chip, Assassin’s body.

  Fowler walked into the house with four orders of steak and eggs and four large containers of black coffee. “Everybody gets scrambled.” Holding up a cup of the coffee, he added, “Don’t worry, General, these were paid for, even the one for your pilot, from the hundred Morgan gave me.”

  “Son-of-a-bitch.”

  Everyone laughed, including the General.

  “Well, Genera
l,” said Morgan, “I’ve learned something new about you.”

  It was the first time in ages that Morgan had not called him Thomas. More often than not, Morgan’s use of Thomas was purposely condescending. His use of General was meant to show that, for this day at least, they were on equal footing.

  “Okay, Bill, what’s my tab at Killer Two’s?” asked the General.

  “Two hundred ninety will do.”

  The General pulled out his wallet, handed Williams three hundred and said, “Keep the change.”

  The eating of the combination late breakfast/early lunch went smoothly. Williams noted that Morgan seemed relaxed and wondered just how much pressure he was under from whoever gave him his orders.

  Meal over, it was time for negotiations. Morgan considered Fowler to be a loose cannon and was not comfortable with his presence, but he understood that to try to have him leave would be a tactical mistake.

  “We have a common problem,” opened Morgan. “One or more of those things are out there and we have to consider that they may be able to duplicate themselves exponentially. Even if that is the case, I’m fairly certain that we can mount enough fire power to obliterate them if – if they remain in some sort of animal form. But suppose they opt to recreate themselves in human form? Then what the hell do we do?”

  “Fortunately,” said Rappaport, “we have a finite area in which to work.”

  “Suppose,” said Fowler, “one or more them nail a large bird like an eagle?”

  Incredibly, none of the others had considered that possibility.

  Silence.

  Finally, Morgan spoke. “First, and I should have said this earlier. Bill, I can’t tell you how impressed I am with how you handled yourself with Assassin. Very few, maybe nobody else, could have done what you did.”

  “Thanks.”

  “General, I’m assuming that you indeed do have Assassin secreted somewhere. I’m not going to make any attempt to find out where. You have my word. I’m also assuming that you have had it thoroughly examined and are probably continuing to do so. If I can deliver enough, would you consider releasing to me whatever information you have about what the hell it is, how it does what it does and anything else of importance?”

  “Yes.”

  “One more thing, I’m guessing that wherever it is, Ling and Henderson are there.”

  “They are.”

  “Here’s what I’m thinking, other than praying flight doesn’t become an option for these things, we mount a two-pronged operation. One is to hunt down and destroy any and all of them that are in total or partial animal form. The second, and right now I have no idea as to how we do this, is to try to kill and or capture any that might be in human form. Kill would always be the first priority. Capture only if we absolutely don’t risk the possibility of escape.”

  “Jim knows everything I know about Assassin. He takes charge of the search and destroy of any animal or animal/human forms in the hills and mountains. He’ll tell us how many men he needs and we’ll share providing them. I’ll supply equipment, you supply the electronics and surveillance, including satellite and drones. We also can share our chopper coverage. Fair enough?”

  “Done.”

  “You and I share command of trying to ferret out any humanoids. Bill and Arthur will be free to do whatever they think is best with no interference from either one of us or anyone else.”

  “Over the past few hours, I have gained tremendous respect for just how talented Art is. I have no problem with that.”

  To the surprise of the others, Fowler said nothing.

  “Morgan, the two of us can get together in the morning to work out the details. If Bill has no objections, I’d like to reestablish a command center here. Everything we need is ready to go and can be here by early morning. I want to bring back Major Ling and Lieutenant Henderson. You can bring in two experts of your choice. You’ll get all the information we have resultant of our examination of Assassin.”

  “More than fair. Thank you. Also, I can bring in state of art computers linked to our satellite and drones with a tech to operate it. That will give me three men staying here if that’s okay.”

  “That’s no problem. I’ll bring in two extra sleepers.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  BY LATE THAT NIGHT, the old comm van and two sleepers were in place. Two more sleepers were on the way.

  The General, Rappaport and Morgan held an eight in the morning meeting in the house. Williams and Fowler spent that time in the garage packing the Pathfinder with everything they believed would be needed in the search for possible humanoid Assassins.

  “What have you got, Jim?” asked the General.

  “First, I’ll depend on Morgan to feed me information about anything remotely suspicious in a ten thousand square mile area.”

  He handed the General and Morgan hand drawn maps showing the location of the perimeters. The area where Williams had encountered Assassin was about ten miles from the northern and eastern boundaries.

  “Morgan, can you supply a drone with strike capability?”

  “Already flying.”

  “I figured as much. Ten choppers, five from each of you, with six men assigned to each. We’ll set up a base camp at the edge of the desert west of the Assassin kill spot. Here are lists of what I’ll need delivered to the camp ASAP.”

  “This is a helluva lot of firepower, Jim,” said Morgan.

  “If it means blasting out a crater to get rid of even one of these things, I’ll do it.”

  “When do you plan to start?” asked the General.

  “I’d like to be out of here by tomorrow morning.”

  “No problem from my end,” said Morgan.

  The General gave Rappaport a familiar nod – a nod which meant Rappaport would get everything he wanted.

  “General,” said Morgan. He paused to make sure the words came out correctly. “Would you have a problem if I asked Bill to tag along with him and Art?”

  This surprised the General. “What about control of your end of the operation?”

  “I’ve got a man who can handle it as well as me – maybe better. Look, I suspect that our biggest problem will turn out to be these things taking human form, especially if they are able to duplicate as rapidly as Assassin was able to. What if we are looking at a two, four, eight, sixteen scenario? There is nobody I know of that has a better chance of finding and destroying them than Bill. If he agrees to let me go, he’ll be in charge. I want to help. Again, if it weren’t for my stupidity none of this would have happened.”

  “Go ahead. If you put it to him the way you just did, I’m fairly certain he’ll agree.”

  “Thank you, General.”

  Morgan stood up and shook hands with both of them. He turned and left. As soon as Morgan exited, Rappaport said, “Tom, I have to believe that he feels he is fully responsible for this mess.”

  “He is responsible for it, but it’s good to see that he is owning up to it. There are a lot of bastards out there who would try to put the blame elsewhere. Washington is infested with them.”

  Morgan walked into the garage. “Bill, I’d like to go with the two of you.”

  “Why?”

  Morgan repeated what he had told the General and Rappaport.

  “Get your gear together, we leave in two hours.”

  As they pulled out of the driveway with Fowler behind the wheel, Morgan, who was sitting in the back seat, asked where they were headed.

  “Sandwiches from Killer Two’s. Art just called in an order. Then a bunch of back roads and trails to snake our way toward the area north of Silver City. It has a population of around ten thousand. Other than that, we’re looking at places with two or three hundred and scattered ranches. What was the name again of the other guy who disappeared?”

  “Hector Morales.”

  “Can we get a picture of him?”

  Morgan leaned over the back seat and rummaged through his gear. Out came a tablet computer. He fiddled with it for about
a minute and passed it to Williams. “That’s Morales courtesy of the Mexican government. He’s got a record for armed robbery and drug dealing. The thought of an Assassin with his brain to draw from could be big time trouble.”

  “Two illegal aliens for the price of one. Wonder what government benefits it’s eligible for?” asked Fowler. “If we capture it, do we have it deported to Mexico or to outer space?”

  Other than looking at the photo, Morgan noticed that Williams was obviously looking for a brand name on the tablet. “Custom made,” said Morgan. “Fully encrypted. If anyone else is reported missing, we’ll get it immediately along with notice of anything unusual. Satellite and drone images as well.”

  Fowler dashed into Killer Two’s, picked up the sandwiches along with potato salad, three large pickles and bottled water. Once they were underway, Morgan asked, “How much drinking are you two planning to do?” When searching for his tablet, he had spotted a case of scotch.

  “We brought it for you,” said Fowler.

  Williams fought the urge to laugh as Morgan looked confused. “The General brought the case at my request. It’s part of our weaponry.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve partially won over the General. From absolutely loathing you, in the last day he has come if not to like you, at least to trust you.”

  “He has a number of good reasons to loathe me.”

  “Anyway, I’ve been cleared to tell you the full story of the ending of Assassin.”

  “Full story?”

  “What I told you was accurate up to the point where he asked me if I enjoyed ending my own kind. I told him that the question was unexpected and difficult to answer. When he first caught my attention, I was holding a bottle of scotch and was about to pour some into a glass. I was still holding both at this point when I asked him if he would mind if I finished pouring the scotch. Assassin said, ‘No, I know about scotch from Fred.’”

  Morgan shook his head.

  “He didn’t mean that he had tried scotch, just that it was in Fred’s memory to which he now apparently had full access.”