by Jon Land
Carlos Salomao did his best to look Blaine in the eye, but his eyes kept drifting—first to the unsightly scar running through McCracken’s left eyebrow, then back in the direction of the front door.
“Senhor McCracken, your friend is in jail because Brazilian customs officials denied him entry into the country. He lacked a visa. They had no choice, but he took exception to their denial.”
“By exception, you mean…?”
“Several of the police officers attempted to restrain him. He injured a number of them.”
“Which doesn’t tell me what he was doing down here in the first place.”
“I sent for him, senhor, just like I sent for you.”
“You sent for him? Just who the hell are you, Carlos?”
Salomao tried to smile and failed. “I am many things, much like you.”
“What do you know about me?”
Salomao looked confident for the first time. “Before Vietnam or after?”
“Let’s try after.”
“Let’s see…You spent the rest of 1972 in Japan and then joined the CIA. You led the covert U.S. assistance effort for Israel during the October Yom Kippur War of 1973, then remained in Israel until the early part of 1974. From there, you took part in activities in South America, Africa, Germany, and Italy. You were suspended from active duty following an incident of gross insubordination in London, 1980.”
“Like to hear about it, Carlos? British feet dragging cost a plane load of people their lives. I decided to voice my displeasure by shooting the groin area of Churchill’s Statue in Parliament Square. Won me the nickname ‘McCrackonballs’.”
“Senhor, I—”
“And yours are next on my hit list—unless you tell me how you happened to come by some supposedly classified information.”
“I am in the information business, senhor. It is how I found your friend.”
“Found him for who?”
“I am part Tupi Indian, senhor. I was born in the Amazon Basin. I left, but my roots remain strong.” Salomao’s lips quivered. “Just over a month ago, three members of my tribe vanished in the woods. Since then, the killings have continued. No matter what steps they take, no matter what defenses they erect, some nights one or two of my people disappear. Sometimes hunters go out during the day and never return. When they are found—what is left of them, that is—it is terrible, senhor. They believe a demon has risen from the underworld to punish them, a demon they call Ananga Teide, the Spirit of the Dead. They asked for help, but only a special person from outside the tribe would be trusted.”
“Johnny Wareagle…”
Salomao nodded. “They accepted him as the living incarnation of Tupan, the Tupi god. He came down here to help, but he never got the chance to try. Now he is in Casa do Diabo—and there he will remain for a considerable time…without your help.”
“And how do you expect me to bring this off?”
“With your influence perhaps. And if that falls short…” Salomao’s shrug completed his thought.
“Yeah, bust him out so he can go up to the Amazon and finish what you called him down here to do. Thing is, I know he never would have told you or anyone else about me.”
“Não. I was able to get a look at his passport. Your name was listed as next of kin.”
Blaine smiled in spite of himself. “Close enough.”
“I am responsible for this, senhor. It is a wrong I must right.”
“Bullshit, Carlos. If you knew Johnny Wareagle at all, you’d know that he’s not about to walk away from an unfinished job. He’ll head straight for your Tupi tribe even if he has to plow through the whole Brazilian militia en route. And since you’re so up on my file, you know that I’ll be with him.”
Salomao didn’t bother denying it. “What I don’t know, senhor, is whether the two of you will be enough.”
São Paulo is a thriving, bustling metropolis, the center of Brazil’s banking and commerce. By far the largest and most modern city in South America, it seems a combination of the pace of New York and the expanse of Los Angeles. Skyscrapers dominate the horizon in jagged concrete clusters, while below, the din of screeching brakes and honking horns are common sounds within the ever-present snarl of traffic.
Because of this traffic, the drive from the airport had taken an interminable sixty-five minutes. But the traffic was lighter leaving the city; eventually giving way to a freshly paved four-lane divided highway leading north to Atibaia. As the miles sped by, the modern look of the city gave way to simpler and more rural forms of construction. Whitewashed stone and terra-cotta replaced steel and glass as the dominant building base.
The jail Johnny Wareagle was being held in, on the outskirts of Atibaia, was rectangular in structure and three stories high. The building had the look of an old fort, except for the chain-link fence topped with barbed wire that enclosed it and the blacktop parking lot within. Blaine’s papers were found to be all in order and, after a casual frisk revealed him weaponless, he was escorted down a long corridor. The walls smelled of must, mold, and age. McCracken figured the mere running of his finger across them would cause the years to peel back, layer by layer. He felt his nostrils clog with the dust filling the air and noticed that the loose-grouted floor tiles were producing a rattling echo underfoot. His escort opened the door to a small windowless room and told Blaine to enter.
McCracken did as he was told, but elected not to take one of the two chairs at a thick wood table. Except for these, the claustrophobic cubicle was barren.
Christ, Johnny. What the hell happened?
It made no sense, none of it. Johnny Wareagle was the most rational man Blaine had ever known, and their friendship stretched back over twenty years. Always, though, it was Blaine coming to Johnny, his mystical Indian friend, for help.
Until today. The tables had turned now. It was Wareagle who needed help, and Blaine was here to provide it.
He heard the already familiar rattling echo and turned back toward the door. As the rattling grew closer, a second sound joined it—that of clanging metal. Its origin was obvious even before the door was thrust open to reveal Wareagle, his wrists and legs chained in irons. He had to duck his seven-foot frame to make it under the doorway. The pair of accompanying guards shoved the big Indian inside and closed the door behind him.
“Hello, Blainey.”
“Hello, Indian. Nice digs you got here.”
McCracken’s humor seldom gained any reaction from Wareagle, and today was no exception.
“I’m sorry you were bothered,” the Indian apologized as he bowed his coal-black ponytailed head. “It was not my choice.”
“I’m here, Indian. Now tell me, what gives?”
“What did the little man tell you?”
“That he asked you to come down to Brazil to help out some Indians. That you landed here after busting up some Brazilian authorities who didn’t welcome you into the country with open arms. Accurate?”
“More or less.”
“Which?”
Wareagle gazed down at him, the stare unlike any Blaine had seen from him before.
“He should not have involved you, Blainey.”
“Too late. I’m here.” McCracken pulled back one of the wobbly chairs. “Let’s sit down.”
Wareagle obliged, settling himself uneasily in the chair that was much too small for him. Its legs creaked from the strain.
“You’re in a hell of a mess, Indian. Two of the cops you put in the hospital are gonna be there for a while. Not like a man of your experience to lose control.”
Wareagle hesitated. “I have never experienced anything like that which drew me down here.”
“Carlos drew you down here—and the biggest mistake you made was not calling me before you left.”
“You were in England. I did not think it fair to disturb you.”
“My holiday could have been postponed.”
Johnny looked at him somberly. “I needed to come alone.”
“I mis
sed you Thanksgiving, Indian. I’m not much good in the kitchen,” Blaine said, instantly aware that his attempt at humor had failed again.
“Please, Blainey. Do not look for that which is too far out of your line of sight. I am a warrior. In my veins flows the blood of others who shed it fighting for who they were. The spirits counsel that we only die when we fail to live true to the legacy of that life force. After the hellfire, I died and the blood ran cold in me. But then you breathed new life into me that winter night and reminded me of my true heritage. There was so much I had to make up for. Years, Blainey. Years where I forsook the very creed that made me. This is my chance to atone, to push the blood of my ancestors through veins that beg for it. For them. For me.”
“You’re speaking about now, Indian?”
“My work is not nearly finished.”
“Not a lot you can get done behind bars.”
“I will find my way out in time.”
“Not without help, you won’t.”
“This is not your fight, Blainey.”
“Sure, and the dozen or so I’ve involved you in weren’t yours, either. Look, Johnny. I might not be able to hear those spirits of yours yet, but I’ve got a pretty good sense of how they talk. If you’re down here for a reason, then I must be, too.”
Wareagle could do nothing but shrug.
“Look, Indian. All the pull in the world’s not gonna get you out of here anytime soon. So first off we’ve got to come up with our own version of early release. Then we head up the Amazon to find whatever the hell it is that’s killing these Tupis. See, I’m signing on, Johnny. For once, your war becomes mine.”
The Indian smiled faintly. “Blainey, our fates are connected at the level where only the spirits roam. I knew it from the first time we met in the hellfire, where we fought the Black Hearts. But the enemy we face this time has no heart at all.”
“Monsters, Indian?”
“As close as can be, Blainey.”
Chapter 3
JERRY DEAN TAYLOR left the homeless shelter just after midnight. The unseasonably cold temperatures had brought more people in off the streets than the staff was prepared for, and the result was a frantic rush to create enough bed space and come up with sufficient hot food. Volunteers didn’t show up in volume until the real Philadelphia cold kicked in, so Jerry Dean found himself dishing out soup for the better part of the evening.
The funds that allowed for the center’s existence and upkeep came from his foundation, but Jerry Dean was not—had never been—the hands-off type. He threw himself headlong into a problem he saw as the scourge of America. What kind of country was it that couldn’t ensure adequate homes for all its people? Obviously the public sector was failing, leaving it up to the private sector to pick up the slack. The program Jerry Dean was piping millions into was being used as a pilot all across the country.
Jerry Dean had parked his car two blocks from the shelter, but it might have been miles, his knees making him pay for every step. Seven years of high school and college football had ruined both of them, and spending the night on his feet wasn’t exactly aspirin. They’d been better since he’d lost the thirty pounds to get back to his college weight of two-fifty, but there weren’t enough working parts left in either of them to make any weight loss vanquish the pain.
No jogging tomorrow, coach….
Jerry Dean’s car was in sight when he realized he was being followed. The steps were just muted enough to tell him the walker was trying to disguise them. He tensed. People knew him around here, knew what he was about. And he knew the gangs and the junkies, some on a first-name basis. Most people left him alone, and those that didn’t know him should have been warned off by a frame that was still six-four off the ground, though a bit softer around the edges.
Jerry Dean spun as the muted footsteps continued to clack on the concrete behind him. Nothing was there. Just the night and the splotchy glares of shattered streetlights. But there had been someone.
Jerry Dean turned his attention to his car. Twenty feet away was all. Couldn’t run, though. Worst thing he could do under the circumstances was show his fear.
But there’s no one here.
Jerry Dean was scared, all two hundred and fifty pounds of him scared stiff as a frozen cheesesteak. He reached the car, relaxing a bit since the steps had not returned. His hand probed a key forward toward the lock, was just inserting it when the flash came. He flinched reflexively, but his hand stayed where it was. He heard the crackling thud just before the pain exploded in his wrist. Then he saw the glinting steel.
Jerry Dean howled in pain as a dark shape whirled in a blur beside him. The steel flashed briefly again, and he felt the side of his head give under the force of another impact. Jerry Dean felt himself reeling. He was dizzy and nauseated, but something kept him on his feet. The shape swirled at him again, and this time he managed to raise an arm into the flash’s path. He felt his forearm give, and again pain flooded his insides.
But somehow he didn’t feel scared anymore. He didn’t even hurt.
All he felt was rage.
“Come on, you fucker!” he challenged, swinging alternately with both of his damaged limbs.
The blows, though, landed only on air. The shape was there, always ahead of him, dancing at the outskirts of his range. Jerry Dean had hauled back for a roundhouse punch when the worst of his two knees, the right one, got slammed and forced him hard to the pavement.
He screamed in agony as the shape loomed over him. In that moment, frozen in the landscape of pain, he thought quite rationally that his attacker was at least as big as he. The man was Oriental, cloaked in black, only a thick, round face exposed. Jerry Dean tried to block the attacker’s downward blow with upraised arms. But the glinting steel split the distance between them and smashed his face.
For Jerry Dean the pain stopped there, but he was somehow still aware of the trio of blows that followed before life and consciousness were stripped from him at the same time.
Not even breathing hard, Khan stood over the pulp that had been a man. The screams he’d evoked caused lights to snap on and faces to peer out from behind the safety of windows. But before the first eyes looked down, Khan had melted into the night once more, his blessed steel killing sticks back in their sheaths.
The yacht fought its way through the sea, pounded at every turn by the crushing swells. The storm had ended hours before, but its residue was a harsh wind that kept the waves mean. Water splashed freely across the big boat’s decks, lashing her windows like an unwanted guest determined to gain entry.
It was only a short distance from the radio room to the library, but Tiguro Nagami struggled for every step, forced to grasp the rail firmly to pull himself along.
“Come in.” The voice came from inside before Nagami could knock. He entered.
Oddly, the yacht’s sprawling library seemed to be spared the sea’s vicious onslaught. Its semidarkness revealed a safe and steady setting, undaunted by the sway.
“Khan has reported in, Kami-san,” Nagami reported to the figure huddled behind the huge desk. “Taylor has been eliminated. That brings Khan’s list to three.”
The figure behind the desk switched on his computer and pressed the latest data into the keyboard. The dim glow from the monitor caught the ghastly whiteness of his skin and hair and shimmered off his pinkish eyes. Any more light would have hurt those eyes. They had been the scourge of Takedo Takahashi’s life since the very beginning, and the affliction was growing worse. It was now impossible for him to tolerate the sun. He spent each day behind drawn blinds, venturing out only at night.
“That makes twelve so far in all,” Takahashi announced. “Exactly one-eighth of our list has been dispatched in barely six days. That’s ahead of schedule, isn’t it?”
“Slightly, Kami-san,” replied Nagami.
Kami-san, translated as Ghost man, was the label Takahashi had been branded with for the better part of his life. He did not run from this reality; in fact, he mocke
d his own disfigurement by only wearing suits that matched his skin’s pallor.
“And thus far no complications have arisen,” said Takahashi. “We chose our people well, Tiguro, exceptionally well.”
Exactly ten days had passed now since the meeting that had taken place in this very room. The lights had been turned up that night, but Takahashi still declined the sunglasses he normally would have worn, because he wanted the group of six assembled before him to see his resolve clearly at all times. They did not know his real name, nor did they want to.
But Takedo Takahashi knew them; if there were any more proficient killers in the world they would have been in the room instead. Six assassins of unparalleled prowess, chosen after months of scrutiny. Assassins who had not a single failure to their names. The room had quivered with the coldness they brought to it. Takahashi inspected each of the killers closely, focusing on features or mannerisms. The Mongol had the largest hands he had ever seen, yet was making a quarter dance nimbly from finger to finger. The bald-headed black wouldn’t let go of a smile that flashed whiter than Takahashi’s suit. The woman’s beauty attracted even his stare. The Israeli and the Arab were seated next to each other as if to affirm their lack of political opposition. The American assassin had moved his chair back a bit from the circle.
“…The time has come to explain why I have summoned all of you here this evening, to make clear what it is you are being hired to do. There are ninety-six Americans who must die within the next six weeks. Two of these are United States senators. Three more are congressmen. Four hold Cabinet-level positions. Five are associated in varying respects with the military. The remainder are business people: industrialists, financiers, manufacturers. In short, all individuals who have reached significant levels of power and influence.”