Both Miller and Nikki turned towards the source, and saw agents Stern and Wolfe.
“You were at the club that night.” Stern continued as he approached Nikki, curious.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I know you.” Nikki nervously said in response.
“I never forget a face.”
“Is there a problem?” Miller asked, stepping between them.
“What is she doing here?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“Really? It’s gonna be like that?” Stern replied, stepping into Miller’s personal space.
“Gentlemen.” Wolfe said as he wedged himself between them like a referee. He gently pulled his partner aside.
“What’s this about?” Wolfe asked Stern.
“She was there that night. At the club. Where I first spotted Luthecker.”
Wolfe’s eyes went wide in surprise. He turned to Nikki, Miller.
“Is this true?”
“Look; she’s here for something that has nothing to do with your guy.” If you saw her in a club that night, that’s pure coincidence.”
“And how do you know about “my guy?”
“You papered the fucking city with him. Everyone knows why you Coalition Merc’s are here.”
“Fuck you.” Stern answered.
Nikki swallowed hard, nervous. Miller could get in big trouble because of her, and she had to say something.
“You’re right. I did see him. But I don’t know what you’re talking about. He hit on me that night, like a lot of guys did, and you tackled him, and that was it. Look, my brother was nearly killed -- “
Miller put his hand on her arm.
“Nikki.” He interrupted. “You don’t have to say shit to these guys.”
“That can change real quick.” Stern interrupted.
“Look. You want him, he’s all yours. My case is closed. Everything else is your fucking ego.”
Stern opened his mouth, about to escalate the war of words, when Wolfe put a hand on him.
“We don’t need to argue, because it’s all in the report, right?” Wolfe pressed Miller.
“Yes. Now get him the fuck out of here already.”
Wolfe nudged Stern, and the parties went in opposite directions, Miller and Stern watching each other until out of sight line.
Miller turned to Nikki.
“I’m sorry.” She said.
“Don’t worry, about it. I can handle those two assholes. And nobody ever looks at the report.”
He watched Stern and Wolfe turn the corner out of sight.
“It’s been a strange couple days. Why don’t we grab dinner later? Have a drink, take the edge off.” Miller asked.
Nikki tried not to react. Miller had gotten her to see Luthecker, and she couldn’t really say no, she felt. And he still may be able to help her.
“Okay.” She replied, forcing a smile.
“What do you think?” Stern asked, as the two agents walked in the other direction.
“I think he thinks like you think.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Did you see the way he was hovering over that girl? He doesn’t give a shit about Luthecker, trust me.”
The two men showed their ID’s to the cell lobby guard, and made their way down the hall towards the cell where Luthecker was being held.
“Brown’s gonna want to know she was here.” Stern commented.
“Do you think after our last little fiasco outside the nightclub he’s going to let this mistake slip? I don’t know about you, but I want my bonus. Our job is to deliver the package, and we are just about to do exactly that.”
Stern abruptly halted.
“We’re not mercenaries.”
Wolfe looked at his partner like he was some sort of alien.
“Of course we are. Now let’s get Luthecker and bring him to Brown, and collect our cash already.”
• • •
“Don’t try anything stupid.” Stern said, as he did a final check of Luthecker’s prisoner manacles.
Alex said nothing, just stared straight ahead at the grey concrete of the wall.
With Wolfe on one side, and Stern on the other, Alex was escorted out of his interrogation cell, and into the bright fluorescent-lit hallway.
Each agent held one of Alex’ arms, Wolfe on the left, Stern on the right. He shuffled his feet, his well worn Nike sneakers taking the maximum step length the foot chains of the manacles would allow, which wasn’t much, slowing their pace to a dead man’s walk. Alex glanced over at Stern. He could see that something was on his mind, some puzzle he was trying to solve, something recent, and Alex went through the possible causes of that particular look on his face, and the timing of it, and the incident of contact in the club, the near simultaneous space and time occupation of himself, the woman he warned, and Stern, and how attractive she looked that night combined with Stern’s muscular build and young alpha gait and the fact that she was just here, and the proximity of it all, and took a gamble.
“Did you get her phone number?” He asked.
Stern pulled Alex hard to a stop.
“What?”
“The girl who wore the black dress in the club. She was here. You ran into her. You think she’s hot. Did you get her number this time?”
Stern threw Alex against the wall.
“Who the fuck are you?” He screamed.
“Marcus.” Wolfe warned, restraining his partner. “Control yourself.” He added, before letting his partner go.
Alex locked eyes with Stern.
“Beware sheep in wolves clothing.” He ominously warned.
Wolfe slapped Alex across the face. Hard.
“If you don’t shut the fuck up, you ain’t making it to your next stop.”
Alex turned his gaze to Wolfe, who took a defensive step back.
Blood began to drip from Alex’ nose.
He shot a quick glance at Stern, noted the look on his face, a mixture of anger, surprise, confusion, and fear, the result of a large combination of patterns colliding, some that he knew he had set in motion, questions of purpose, present, past and future, and he hoped that from all this chaos in the man, new patterns would begin to emerge.
The agents each grabbed one of Alex’ arms, and no longer feeling the need to be patient, began to drag him down the hallway.
• • •
“I think I have a right to know sir.”
Stern spoke clearly but carefully as he stood across from Brown. The men were in Stephen’s office, Brown more or less taking the Director’s office space over.
The two agents had successfully delivered their target to the Coalition Properties West Building, and against his partner’s wishes, Stern had requested a private meeting with Brown before the official mission debriefing.
“You’ve successfully completed your mission, soldier. You will receive your bonus.”
“Thank you sir. I appreciate that. I just have some questions.”
“You were Special Forces, correct?”
“Yes sir.”
“So you know better.”
“Yes, I was sir. I’m a decorated Veteran. But I’m not .…” He hesitated.
“I’m not a soldier anymore. I’m a private citizen now. And as such I’m allowed to ask questions.” His words had a slight hint of defiance, one that gave Brown pause.
“This guy knew things about me sir. And I feel I have a right to know how he knew.”
Brown examined his employee a moment before responding.
“He’s a very clever terrorist.” He finally answered. “And you let your guard down. You forgot you are still on the battlefield. You let him get in your head. You probably shared things with him that you didn’t even know, and he spun those things back at you to scare you.”
“With all due respect, sir, that’s not what happened at all. I shared nothing with him. Some of the stuff he said, he’s seen my file. I know it. Hell, he knew things that wouldn’t be in my file
. He knew things that no one would know. And I want to know how. I want to know if I was ever a target of something. I want to know why he’s a target of something. What has this man done?”
“Son, you’re a shooter. And you’re one of the best. That’s why you’re here. But this is the information business. And information is a far more dangerous weapon than bullets. Congratulations, you’ve just discovered that. And if you let us train you, we’ll make you far more dangerous with intelligence than you ever were with a rifle. But until then, you’re going to have to trust me. It’s not only friendly advice, soldier- it’s a condition of your employment.”
“Yes sir. Understood sir.” The answer was devoid of emotion. Which Brown knew meant that there was plenty behind it.
“Are we good then?” He asked as a subtle warning.
“Yes sir. Yes we are.”
“Glad to hear. Good job. Dismissed.”
Stern nodded, emotionless, about faced, and exited the office.
Brown watched the young man leave, a clear look of suspicion on his face.
Damn, He thought to himself. I lost another one.
PART III:
INEVITABILITY
TWENTY-ONE
HAVEN
Master Winn carefully walked the one block section of 108th in Watts, examining the half a dozen run down apartment complexes, which he now effectively controlled. Built in the sixties, the building owners had allowed the now faded stucco constructs to fall into disrepair, permitting drug dealers, sex workers, and criminal types to overtake the units. They were now empty of this element, all forced out by Rooker and his men, per their contract, leaving only a handful of legitimate tenants.
Winn, along with his newest student, Joey Nguyen, had begun an effort to clean off any tagging or gang territory markings, along several bus stops and park benches. He wanted the block clean, and the rest of the neighborhood to see the effort to make it so. It had paid off. At first, by passers had stopped and looked, the attention initially starting off as suspicion, which then turned to curiosity, and eventually, to some choosing to pitch in and help.
The Martial Arts Master knew the deal he had bargained for with Rooker, who was one of the original leaders of the decades old Crips gang and whose turf this block of real estate lay on, was tenuous at best, mostly because rival gang factions were watching, and many saw the vacuum of normal underground activity as a potential opportunity for territorial gain. Rooker had a particularly ruthless reputation on the street however, and Winn counted on a combination of this and the respect his own reputation had earned to keep the predators at bay long enough for him to establish a safe zone for those who were most vulnerable, one that over time, the community would get behind and protect.
Winn stopped in front of one of the structures he controlled, a four-story apartment building on the corner of the block, the one that housed the two empty two bedroom units he planned to use for living space when the package he sent his couriers to retrieve, Vietnamese immigrants who had been smuggled into the country and sold through a sex trafficking ring, had arrived. Winn had planned to house them here until the local Vietnamese community could absorb them into their economy.
The building, along with the others on the block, had long been abused before Winn had negotiated terms for their control. Now, free of any sordid activity, every unit inside the complex needed to be thoroughly cleaned. Nguyen had taken a small crew and had started on the hallways and the apartment interiors earlier that day, and Winn wanted to check in to see how they looked. He expected his couriers to return with the package soon, and he wanted make sure that they were ready.
Winn was aware of the fact that the Black Hats had captured Alex in the desert three days previous. William Hayes the 3rd had told him this, when the Indian had reached out via payphone to inform Winn that William Hayes the 1st, or Mawith as Winn knew him, had passed away the night previous. Winn quietly mourned the loss of his old mentor, the loss of a Great Spirit, but it was not unexpected. He had been ill for years, and, upon meeting Alex, Winn knew the old man would view that his time on this plane of existence had come to its rightful end. He hoped that the old man had given wise counsel to his group before he left.
All the other members of the loose band of couriers had been let go, which only meant they were now being tracked by the Black Hats for intelligence purposes, their freedom no doubt also being used as leverage to insure Alex’ cooperation. He trusted that Alex was aware of this, and would handle his situation appropriately, whatever that may be. He also trusted that the entire group’s training would see them through the difficulties that lay ahead for them as well, as those who had paid for the package of individuals they were to deliver to this location would not take kindly to the sudden loss of merchandise. But these four were Winn’s best, and he was counting on them. If they failed, all he that he hoped to set in motion would be lost.
The Martial Arts Master understood why the Black Hats were obsessed with Alex. The government had long since been sold to private interests, and those interests only understood two things: Greed and fear. The two motivations were symbiotic, feeding off of one another in a simple loop. Greed led to greed for everything, which led to the fear that there was not enough of anything. It didn’t matter what the object of desire was, be it time, love, money, food, water, it was all the same. This led to the monetization of all consumable and desirable resources that defined human existence. Everything was turned into a profit center, which in turn could be controlled and sold to the highest bidder. Winn knew that this two-headed monster of greed and fear was growing exponentially now, and becoming desperate, as resources of all types across the globe were becoming depleted. The flesh and blood behind this disease of the soul, this narcissistic ideal, would look at someone with Alex’ abilities as yet another tool to use to feed its addiction, a way to enhance the ability to instill more fear, consume even more.
Winn saw Alex’s ability quite differently. He hoped and believed that Alex, with proper training, could have the opposite effect, and actually turn the monster on itself, one person at a time, until a certain momentum would take over and make the change self-sustaining.
He had picked up on Alex’s unique ability to some degree the first time he had met him, and thus he began the young man’s training with a great deal of curiosity. He had no idea to what extent Alex could grasp an individual soul and completely change its perspective, until he had been training him for well over a year. He was shocked at this young man’s ability to perceive the absolute truth about an individual, and therefore alter their future. But even after one full year of hard training, Alex was still just a boy, unable to cope with the chaos of the countless visions of people’s behavior that came naturally into his head. He would regularly turn inward, isolating himself from the world in absolution, as a way to protect himself and others from the bombardment of information. He needed to be carefully nurtured. He needed discipline, confidence, and the love of family, the latter element something to fight for, the former elements something to fight with. And this took time. Three years, to be exact. It had been Winn’s goal from the beginning to give him exactly these tools, and when Alex was ready, he would send the young man and his new family to one of his own mentors and teacher, Mawith, with a mission in mind, and hope that the old Shaman’s words would be the final guidance necessary to open the young man’s eyes to what he could do.
Winn entered the apartment building, turned left into the stairwell, and sprinted up the steps two at a time. His legs were strong and perfectly balanced, and he barely made a sound as he glided to a stop on the fourth floor. He carefully walked down the freshly painted empty hallway, and stopped in front of Room 513, the first of the two apartments where his new guests would be staying. He put the key in the lock, twisted, and opened the door.
He stepped inside to find Rooker waiting for him.
“Winn, you old gangster.” The tall and muscular black man announced.
“Rooker.�
� Winn replied, a hint of suspicion in his voice.
The men shook hands and embraced, like respectful old adversaries.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Winn asked.
“Heard your best boy got pinched.”
“Word travels fast.”
“You ain’t the only one with messengers, my friend. This could be a problem.”
“How so?”
“Heat. We can’t have it.”
“There won’t be any heat. They have what they want.”
“That may be. But that changes things.”
“You want more money.”
“No. I got plenty. That’s not why I’m here.”
“Then why are you here?”
Rooker flashed a platinum-toothed smile, before his face got serious.
“You and I seen a lot of bad shit in our day, haven’t we?”
“Yes we have.”
“And we survived all of it. We survived ‘cause we knew how to. It’s what we’re best at, you and I.”
Rooker scratched the small amount of stubble on his chin and thought carefully about what he intended to say next.
“Believe it or not, you old Nip, I’m backin’ what you want.” He stated. “Why? Survival. Shit’s about to fall apart in this world, and where you’re goin’ with all this is the only way we survive in the long run. I see that now.”
“I am honored.”
“Not so fast. In order to survive the long run, you need to survive the short run. And to do that, ‘way we came up, you need to trust your senses. And right now, I sense violence. On a large scale, on its way here, and very soon.”
“Perhaps. At some point, my old friend, you are going to have to choose which side you are on.”
“I have. We have an agreement. I let you clean up this block, as long as no shit starts here.”
“I will honor our agreement.”
Rooker studied the old Asian for a moment. Winn came up in a hard section of Torrance, many years ago, and was spooky-tough in his day. But Rooker found the current peaceful yet determined Winn far spookier.
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