Brother, Frank

by Michael Bunker

  CHAPTER 16

  Cold blue eyes stare back at him from the motel mirror. Cyrano Dresser holds the cell phone to his ear and fights the urge to punch the image of himself that glares back at him. The voice on the other end drones on and on. Endless updates and reports, all leading to the inevitable revelation: the HADroid is still out there, still on the loose, and even his man in the BDD hasn’t been able to come up with anything.

  How can two idiots, two civilians—a nerd-ass scientist with no SERE training and a retard in a robot suit—how can they completely disappear? How is that possible? Unless...

  Two weeks have passed since the failed raid on the Atlanta loft apartment, and still there’s nothing. The plan to arrest Carlos Luna with incriminating files on his hard drive evaporated when Luna disappeared from the underground mall in Atlanta. And Carlos was the best chance they’d had to lead them to the HADroid and the fugitive doctor who’s hiding it.

  The plan was perfect—catch Carlos Luna and squeeze until he barfs up everything—but it was bungled in the implementation.

  With Luna under their thumb and charged with sharing sensitive logistical information with radical Islamist terror cells planning attacks in the continental U.S., the case would likely have been cracked by now. The evidence against Carlos was manufactured, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have worked.

  And it would have worked.

  The HADroid would be destroyed and the doc would be dead. And the BDD would be crippled.

  Putting the evidence on Luna’s laptop had been no mean feat. The guy was cagey and careful, and he didn’t allow himself to be trapped easily. And now Luna is once again in the wind. The whole search has shifted south, and the BDD mole doesn’t have a clue how to find either Luna or the HADroid.

  The voice on the line finally stops talking, and there is silence as Dresser fumes.

  Then, “I want Luna found and shipped to the new TA office in Pennsylvania,” Dresser says. “And I don’t care if we don’t have anything on him. I don’t care if we can’t legally hold him. I’m going to pull out his teeth and fingernails one at a time until he spills everything he knows.”

  The voice chatters on some more, and Dresser’s anger ratchets up a notch.

  “There is nothing we can’t do to find this weapon!” he shouts. “Do you get that? Can you comprehend what I’m saying? All the rules are out the window!”

  Dresser hangs up and dials again, and when someone picks up, he hisses darkly into the phone, “Your time is about up, you son-of-a-bitch. If you can’t give me Luna in the next few days, I’m gonna pull you in, chop you up into pieces, and feed you to your family, are we clear?”

  He disconnects again and stares at himself, seething.

  How can they just disappear? Unless...

  Unless they’re still there. Still hiding among the Amish.

  What was the last, best information we had? The best intel before we started getting flooded with bullshit leads and half-baked theories? Before the whole search shifted into Texas and Mexico and the Gulf?

  Dresser stands up straight and continues to glare into his own blue eyes. He trembles in his fury. Searching himself for solidity, for clarity. For Peshawar and what he learned there.

  Several witnesses reported seeing them in that little town... that Amish village in Ohio. We thought we had ’em. What was the name of that town? Drury? Drury Falls. And that homeless man. That little shitbird nutjob. That old drunk with the long beard. He’s the one that sent us south. Said he heard them talking. Said he knew they were going way down south, maybe to take a boat to Mexico. Said he saw them hitch a ride with a long haul trucker heading to Texas.

  All bullshit.

  Dresser takes a step back before smashing his cell phone into the mirror, shattering both it and the phone into pieces.

  * * *

  This cow, a four-year-old who’s usually a pretty good producer, has mastitis—one of her teats is infected. Mose is glad I’m here because he doesn’t have to spend money on a real vet. And I’m much more likely to not pressure him to treat the cows in ways that Mose doesn’t approve of. I’m willing to treat them naturally, if that’s at all possible.

  John and Ben, as always, are working together, milking cows in the other stalls as I continue treating this sick one. This is the evening milking, so she’s already been through this, because it’s her third treatment today. My hands ache from the frequent massages, but the cow doesn’t seem to mind too much.

  The Shetlers frown on using antibiotics unless they absolutely have to, so I’m massaging the sick teat with a mixture of clay and olive oil, something I need to do three times a day while the cow heals. I work out the pus and the remnants of infection, rubbing in good stuff that makes the infection not want to stick around. We still milk out the other teats to relieve the pressure and keep the cow producing well, but we throw away the milk and sterilize all the buckets. Can’t risk spreading the infection to the other cows.

  I’m also the only one who ever touches Polly, the cow who’s sick—again, our goal is to keep the infection isolated. Polly stays in a dedicated recovery pen here in the barn, and she doesn’t mix with the other cattle directly.

  She fidgets a little while I’m rubbing in the clay, but after two days of this treatment she’s already showing signs of recovery. It won’t be long now before she’ll be back to full production.

  John and Ben finish milking the rest of the cows, and they dump the milk into the stainless steel vat. That’s where the money is, Mose says. Organic dairy products sell well to the English, and Mose Shetler loves a full milk vat. This farm doesn’t use a milking machine driven by an air compressor like some of the other Amish. Mose uses the old ways, and charges well for it.

  The boys come over and stand behind me as I finish up the clay treatment.

  Ben is showing remarkable progress and has finished all of the CAIN protocols. He’s resisted going back through them again though, and frankly, since he’s showing almost zero signs of his former autism patterns, I tend to agree that the training exercises probably won’t help him anymore. He still stims occasionally, but not much, and most of the time when I talk to him his bolts stay in his pockets. He hasn’t given them up completely, but he doesn’t need them like he used to.

  He still has awkward talking patterns once in a while, repeating things or becoming fixated on a task, or perhaps reading and re-reading the same passage in the Bible over and over. But the biggest surprise for me, ever since we first embarked on this adventure, since I first gave the signal to restart his little heart, is this: he’s never asked for his parents. Never asked to see them, never inquired about their well-being. That part of his autism—his lack of normal empathy and human connections (other than with me, and now John)—still troubles me a little. But he’s shown such a remarkable improvement that I’m feeling confident he’ll finish out his sixty days of “probation” without event.

  Almost immediately, in the second after I have that thought, I find out how very wrong I might be.

  Polly fidgets and is showing some signs of irritation. Just as I go to warn the boys, to tell them to step back, John leans in to take the bucket I used to milk out the other teats.

  What John does is wrong on several levels. He’s never supposed to touch any of the utensils or tools I use on Polly. Never. And he doesn’t notice that Polly is acting up. He doesn’t see her flinch and begin to move.

  I remember too late that I don’t have Polly tied to the stall or in the stanchion, because she’s normally so good-natured and docile. So she steps back, and when she makes contact with young John she kicks—lightning fast—and then backs hurriedly out of the stall, as if in a panic.

  Everything happens so fast I can’t even react.

  The kick catches John in the hip, and he falls directly behind Polly as she’s stumbling out of the milking pen. And before I can pull him out of the way I see Ben change.

  It’s so quick even I’m stunned. A beat or two.
That’s all it takes.

  His clothes rip to shreds and in a split second he’s fully manifested as the HADroid. Industrial death manifesting on an off-grid farm.

  With one huge robotic arm he thrusts outward and stops the cow’s movement, pushing her away like she’s made of paper, and with the other hand he pulls John violently out of the way, flinging him backward like a rag doll.

  Polly falls over on her right side and skids a few feet across the dirt floor. John slams against the barn wall, sliding down into a pile on the ground.

  Ben—Frank—steps forward, all menace and anger, and raises an enormous arm, full of violence and potential energy, set to crush the head of the cow. But in that breath of time, as he pauses at the top, his hand poised almost fifteen feet in the air to deliver the blow, John yells out. A frightened, terrified squeal...

  “Stop! Please stop! Don’t hurt her. She didn’t mean it!”

  Too late, the midnight black robot has begun the death punch. His fist comes down in a blur—but stops only an inch above the cow’s head. The huge fist just halts. No quivering. Not a tremor.

  Polly doesn’t know what to think. She’s breathing heavily and her eye searches back and forth, first at the robot who’s poised to kill her, and then at the open door at the far end of the barn. She struggles to her feet as the HADroid steps back, and when she sees that she’s clear of immediate danger, she bolts for the door.

  “What? What are you?” John says, sobbing and huddling against the wall, his face a mask of confusion and terror.

  The matte black robotic head rotates until the glowing blue vision portals are locked on John. The lenses rotate and scan, and the huge head moves forward, extended by the joints and pistons that articulate the neck.

  There is a long, frightening pause as I ease forward, my hands outstretched, pleading silently with Ben to calm down.

  Ben looks at me, and then his head lowers slowly to his chest. He’s in there, Frank is.

  The graphene skin starts to roll and retract, and in seconds Ben reassumes his human form. He’s naked now and his arms are down at his sides. Despite the shock I feel, I notice that his rocket launchers never deployed. He knows he’s unarmed, so he didn’t call on them. He’s starting to take some control over his manifestation as the HADroid. But is it too late?

  Once he’s fully returned to his humanoid form, he looks at me, and he looks as if he’s about to say something. But he stops himself. No words come out. Then he closes his mouth.

  Just then, Mose Shetler comes rushing into the barn. He sees Ben’s naked form and his son cowering against the barn wall, and his eyes flare.

  “Lord have mercy!” he shouts. “What is going on in here?”

  He turns to his son and speaks quickly in his Amish tongue, and John answers and wipes his hair from his face. He stands up slowly, and for a moment we’re all just staring at Ben. Ben stands there, stoic. Naked and unafraid.

  “I don’t understand,” Mose says.

  “Let me explain,” I answer. But words fail me.

  “The cow... Polly... she came running out of the barn,” Mose says. “I... what is going on here?”

  * * *

  Carlos finishes applying powder to his face, wipes a corner of his mouth where his lipstick has passed a little beyond the line of his lip, then reaches for the mascara brush. He combs out the false eyelashes and uses a twisting motion to add some upward curl to the tips. He looks into the vanity mirror and then shrugs at himself.

  His friends used to call him “Shrug.” He squeezes his red lips into a kiss.

  If only they could see me now.

  He reaches over and pours himself a glass of rum. Captain Morgan. A double. Not too much. Needs to be loose tonight but not dumb. He swallows the smooth spiced rum and then pauses for a beat before pouring himself another.

  When was the last time he saw Brenda? Weeks? Months? He allows himself a little laugh as he realizes that seeing himself dressed like a woman has reminded him to think about his wife.

  She’s always been a good one. Steady. She knows what I do and she works with it. Works around it. But that doesn’t mean she’s not lonely.

  It’s hard to know what you should be doing when you suspect there’s a war coming and you’re torn between fighting the enemy and protecting the only family you have. Fight or flight, one of the oldest conundrums in the book. But none of that can mean too much to Brenda. She’s alone, and she has been almost since the day they lost the baby.

  Carlos downs the second drink. Feels the warmth and the calm settle on him. He pours a third.

  Brenda’s on board with what I’m doing, he thinks, but I need to find a way to get back to her soon. Her underground life, living under an alias—basically like she’s in the Witness Protection Program—it can’t be great. It can’t even be good.

  He lifts his chin and turns his head from side to side.

  What if she could see me now?

  Carlos doesn’t really look like a lady. He still looks like a man dressed up like a lady. His body shape gives him away, and his muscular shoulders and wide neck stretch at the fabric of the dress. But he’s in New Orleans and he’ll fit right in.

  Jazz floats in through the open French doors, along with the occasional shouts and hoots of revelers below. The scents of iris, hibiscus, and roses mingle in the night air along with the other smells of New Orleans—like mold, old beer, rum, tequila, and whatever else is perpetually spilled on the streets. Piss mostly, and all these fluids dry up and bake in the sun every day, only occasionally polished and shined to a sticky luster by rainstorms or the weak civic attempts to keep the city swept and presentable. The pleasant part of the fragrance wafting in the open doors comes from flowers planted in pots—spread along the balcony that runs the length of the apartment complex as it fronts Dauphine Street—and from the magnolia trees and honeysuckle and cat’s claw vines that are ubiquitous in the Big Easy.

  To Carlos, New Orleans always seemed like a city that someone just spilled a Big Gulp on, then peed on it to wash it away. Then dressed it all in flowers.

  Laissez les bon temps rouler. Let the good times roll.

  Carlos takes his drink and walks through the French doors, then leans against the balcony railing, watching the partiers mingle, his eyes lazily following a brass band that leads the motley parade of the drunken with pride and purpose. The band swings with the rhythms of Jelly Roll Morton and a uniformed drummer, sparkly with epaulets and ropes, who bangs out the beat on a bass drum.

  Boom, boom, boom.

  Crash goes the cymbal. Revelers, drinks aloft and swaying with the music, look up at Carlos and wave or shout. Some holler for him—or her—to come join the party. Carlos demurs, smiles, and waves at them with a white-gloved hand, then walks back into the apartment. As he does, he takes a last look up the street. The crowd is thick and stretches up the block, almost all the way to Canal.

  Inside, he checks to make sure his laptop is loaded into his backpack, which it is, along with a rolled-up change of clothes and some tennis shoes. Then he looks through his wallet, ID, credit cards, and the rest of the falsified documents that support his current legend. All there.

  He zips the pack and places it on an ornate French settee before pulling out his cell to check for messages. He kicks off one of his low heels and massages his foot with his gloved hand as he looks at the small screen. No messages. He kicks off the other heel.

  How women do this I’ll never know.

  He’s been on ice since he got out of Atlanta. Since he escaped the underground with Gabriella. Barely making the hookup with a professional driver who got them to within hiking distance of another safe house, deep in the backwoods of southern Georgia. From there, he was back in business.

  Gabriella, working with some other BDD cells, procured him some new identification. Some hacktivist cells work completely autonomously, leaderless but loosely affiliated, but trust is a rare commodity in the business of revolution, even among revolutionaries
nominally in the same parent organization. So being completely reliant on a BDD cell he didn’t know made Carlos nervous—the whole idea of placing his entire future and safety in the hands of strangers made his heart pound and his hands sweat. Especially since most members in these autonomous groups have ties to government. But she’d come through for him, and besides, trusting her was the only option open to him. He just hoped the ID she’d gotten him was good enough to work until he could hit one of his own safe houses.

  It was.

  All in all, Gabriella was a stand-up woman. A good one, he’d thought... for another life, perhaps. If he’d never met and fallen in love with Brenda, well... Gabby might have been the kind of girl for him. Like Paula. Paula was a girl for another life, too.

  Of course, all those thoughts were way before Carlos found out that Gabby was Tim’s girlfriend.

  Sister-in-law, then. She’d make a good sister-in-law someday.

  And she got him the makeup, and taught him how to put it on. So there’s that.

  Carlos finishes off the rum in his glass.

  Today is his last day in New Orleans. He’s waited patiently, nervously, for Paula or Patrick to make contact, but he only ever heard from Paula, and only once, not long after she was released from custody. When he was still making his way to the Big Easy. She said she was fine and that she hadn’t told the cops anything.

  She knew better than to come straight to New Orleans, though. Someone would be following her. She only had seconds to talk, and he understood that. The plan was already in place, so neither one had to speak of it on the phone: if any of them were ever to be captured or detained, upon release they would wait two weeks, lose any tails, then meet at this apartment.

  Then the plan would shift to a new safe house. They knew how to find out where. It was all online. Just-in-time information. Ready when, and only when, it would be needed.

  But they had two weeks to get to New Orleans. And the two weeks were almost gone.

  No word from Patrick, though.