by Siegel, Alex
He spotted the shed straight ahead. Made of rusty, corrugated steel, it wasn't quite big enough to store a car. He stopped in the shadow of a tree before he got too close.
"Do you see anybody?" he whispered.
Smythe was breathing hard. "No, but wait. Let me catch my breath. You're in much better shape than me."
Aaron looked up. Fall had come but the trees still held many leaves. Yellow, red, and brown had replaced the lush greens of summer. He searched for any sign of the enemy. The combination of the flickering fire and a light breeze made all the leaves appear to dance in the night.
"The neighbors must've called the fire department by now," he said. "The Eternals will run when they hear the sirens, and we'll go home empty handed."
"Better than going home dead." Smythe shrugged.
Aaron didn't like that response. "I'm going to run to the shed now."
Smythe raised his Beretta. "I'll cover you."
"Are you a good shot?"
"I could perform surgery with this gun. Go."
Aaron dashed forward. He realized he was entrusting his life to a man with questionable loyalties. From the way he talked, it was clear Smythe still didn't consider himself a Spear.
Aaron put those doubts out of his mind as he approached the shed. He kept to the shadows, but the front door of the shed was fully exposed. He took a deep breath and ran the last several yards in the open.
The door was fully open, which surprised him. He had assumed Marina would lock herself inside. He couldn't just stand in the light, so he went in.
The interior was a jumble of flickering, disorienting shadows. While his eyes were still adjusting, he saw a dark shape moving around. He wasn't alone.
Aaron raised his gun. "Freeze," he said quietly, "or I'll drop you where you stand."
"Go ahead and shoot," a deep masculine voice replied. "Death is my ultimate reward."
Aaron couldn't leave this guy behind to cause mischief. On the other hand capturing him alive would be time consuming, dangerous, and noisy. This shed was a lousy place for a fight. In the meantime Smythe or Marina might desperately need Aaron's help. He had only one choice.
"As you wish." Aaron pulled the trigger and put a .45 caliber slug into the enemy's brain. The suppressor made the shot sound like a soft thump instead of a loud bang.
He checked the video surveillance monitors and found all twenty displays turned off. The power cord for the entire system had been cut with a sharp knife. Marina sabotaged it, he thought. She didn't want the enemy using it.
He checked the shed for clues. Marina had taken her body armor and weapons, which was an encouraging sign. He found words written on the wall in face paint, and they read, "Black truck on street. See you there." He smiled.
He ran back outside, and the bright fire dazzled his eyes. The entire house was engulfed in flames now.
Aaron heard quick footsteps to his right. He reflexively dove to the ground and rolled. He looked back to see another Eternal standing with a dagger. He was a large man wearing a cloak, hood, gloves, and boots, leaving no skin exposed. All his clothes were black. The dagger's blade had a milky, wet gleam. Poison? Aaron wondered.
The Eternal fell on Aaron with the clear intention of stabbing him. Aaron grabbed his wrist and twisted so that the blade pointed up instead of down. The move was automatic, the result of countless hours of training. The Eternal landed on the dagger, grunted, and rolled over. The blade was buried in his abdomen up to the hilt, and blood trickled from the wound.
Aaron scrambled to his feet in case the enemy had the strength for a second attack, but it quickly became clear the fight was over. The Eternal was making choking noises, and all his limbs trembled violently. He expired several seconds later.
Definitely poison, Aaron thought.
"Nice move."
Aaron spun around and saw Smythe approaching. "Thanks," Aaron said.
"But I thought you wanted to take live prisoners."
"I do, but they're not cooperating. Marina is investigating a black truck parked on the street. Let's go."
Aaron heard distant sirens. No! Not yet! He ran towards the street.
He spotted the truck, which was the size of a small moving van. It was already pulling away. His heart skipped a beat when he saw that Marina was standing on the rear bumper and clinging to the back of the truck. She wore gray and black camouflage fatigues.
Aaron would not let the woman he loved be taken away. He shot at the tires on one side of the truck, flattening them, but the truck didn't stop.
"Jump off!" he yelled to Marina.
She shook her head.
A fire engine sped around a corner. The truck tried to swerve out of the way, but the flat tires made hard turns impossible and it crashed into a ditch. The truck rolled onto its side.
"Marina!" Aaron yelled as he sprinted forward.
He found her lying in the weeds about twenty yards away from the accident. She was unconscious but still breathing. Blood oozed from a cut on her forehead.
Smythe knelt beside her. "I'll take care of her. You worry about the enemy."
Aaron reluctantly left her in Smythe's care. Aaron ran over to the cab of the truck and looked through the cracked front windshield. Two men were inside, still held in place by their seatbelts.
For the first time Aaron saw the pale faces of the enemy. Their hair was cut short in a distinctly military style. One had a scar on his cheek. Wearing heavy, black robes, they reminded Aaron of medieval monks. They were young, no older than twenty-five, but there was no fear in their eyes.
Aaron drew his gun and aimed through the windshield. "Nobody move!"
One man reached into his robes and took out a hand grenade. He pulled the pin and held the grenade in the air like a trophy. Both Eternals watched it with calm expressions.
"No!" Aaron ran back and hid behind a tree.
The explosion sent shrapnel in all directions. He heard it whizzing past and striking the foliage all around as if it were raining. The truck was destroyed. Burning gasoline poured out and the flames reached high into the air.
A police car came up the road with its lights flashing and siren wailing.
"Smythe!" Aaron yelled. "Pick up Marina and follow me!"
Smythe lifted Marina with both arms and ran over. Aaron led him away from the road and into the murky shadows under the trees. They crouched down.
"How is she?" Aaron said.
"I hardly had time for an examination," Smythe said, "but nothing looked broken. Maybe a concussion. We should get her to a hospital just to be safe."
"That's one piece of good news." Aaron sighed. "Otherwise, the night has been a fucking disaster."
Chapter Fifteen
Aaron watched a police car park near the burning truck. Two cops stepped out of the car but didn't get close to the fiercely hot fire.
Aaron knew what he had to do even though he dreaded the idea. It was time to call Ethel. He took out his phone and punched in her number.
"Yes?" she said.
"The operation is not going well, ma'am," Aaron said. "Four Eternals are dead and none are left for interrogation. Police and firemen are here now. Marina is unconscious, but her injuries do not seem critical. Smythe and I are unhurt."
She paused. "I'm very disappointed. When you get back to headquarters, you'll explain exactly what went wrong. Did you collect any evidence at least?"
"Not yet. We can search the Eternals' bodies."
"Don't do it there. I'll dispatch a meat wagon to your location, so we can bring them back to headquarters for a complete analysis. I want to go over those corpses with a microscope. Your assignment is to make sure they get here."
"Yes, ma'am," Aaron said. "What about Marina?"
"Find an ambulance," Ethel said. "Have her taken to the nearest hospital. We'll pick her up after she recovers. Don't disappoint me again." She hung up.
He closed his phone and put it away. "Did you hear?"
Smythe nodded. "Every
word. She's a tough boss."
Aaron gently stripped off Marina's weapons and body armor and left them on the ground. He picked her up. She was soft and vulnerable in his arms.
He carried her towards the burning house while Smythe walked beside him.
"How do you want to play this?" Smythe said.
"Simple," Aaron said. "We're dressed as FBI agents. These hick cops better stay out of our way."
"In other words, act like assholes."
"Exactly."
A fire engine was parked on the driveway. Several firemen held hoses and were spraying water onto the house. The structure was a total loss, but they were making sure the fire didn't spread to the nearby trees.
Meanwhile, sheriff's deputies were inspecting the surrounding area. They had already marked the storage shed with yellow police tape.
Aaron spotted an ambulance behind the fire truck. "Hey!" he yelled. "We have a hurt woman! Stretcher!"
Two paramedics grabbed a stretcher and ran over. He carefully transferred Marina.
"She has a head injury," he told them. "Get her to an emergency room!"
The paramedics carried her off. He sighed with relief. She'll get proper treatment now, he thought.
Two deputies came over. The older one had a name tag that read "Sgt. London." Thin wisps of brown hair lay across the top of his round head. His mustache was trimmed straight across on the bottom.
"Who are you?" London asked.
Aaron took out his wallet and showed his FBI identification. It was indistinguishable from the real thing. The Gray Spear Society prided itself on the impeccable quality of its forged credentials.
"This is an FBI operation," Aaron said. "Make sure your people don't touch a thing."
"What kind of operation?"
"The keep your fucking nose out of FBI business kind! You want to make yourself useful? Set up a perimeter. I don't want any civilians wandering into my crime scene and touching my evidence."
London stood in place and scowled.
"Is there a problem with your hearing, sergeant?" Aaron said. "I thought I made myself very clear. If you want, I can call the Bureau in Washington."
London muttered something foul and walked off.
For the next twenty minutes, Aaron and Smythe did their best to protect the dead bodies from evidence contamination. The deputies stayed out of the way, so the task wasn't hard.
Finally, the "meat wagon" arrived. It was a gray van with the word "CORONER" painted on the side in white letters. Aaron expected that the driver actually worked for the county corner, but he was also on the Society's payroll. Making dead bodies disappear was a recurring problem.
Aaron helped the driver load all the dead Eternals onto gurneys. One body was in the shed and another was in the woods. The last two in the truck were completely burned, but they were taken away regardless. Any kind of evidence was potentially useful.
Sergeant London rushed over. "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like?" Aaron said.
"You have to take pictures. You have to document the crime scene."
"These stiffs are all the documentation I need."
London frowned.
Aaron wished Marina were here. She was the professional liar.
"You're really chapping my ass," he said. "What's your full name?"
"Jeffery London."
"Hold on." Aaron called Ethel, and she picked up immediately. "I'm having a problem."
"Oh?" she said.
"A deputy named Sergeant Jeffery London."
"I'll take care of it."
"Thank you." He hung up.
Aaron stood with his arms crossed and stared at London. The sergeant stared back with a stubborn expression on his face.
A few minutes later London received a call on his own phone. "Hello?" he said. "Oh. Yes, sir. I was just... No, sir. No. Absolutely not." He put away his phone, shot a final angry glare at Aaron, and walked off.
Smythe came over and whispered, "Who called him?"
"I don't know." Aaron shrugged. "It doesn't matter. The sergeant won't annoy us again."
They finished securing the dead bodies in the coroner's van. Then, drooping with weariness, Aaron and Smythe walked away.
* * *
Aaron looked at the corpses on the floor. Two were in good condition, but the other two looked and smelled like burnt meat. They were laid out on a plastic sheet in the workout room because it was the biggest space available in headquarters. The entire team had gathered near the remains, except for Marina.
He noticed her absence every time he looked around. The latest word was that she had regained consciousness and was stable. He wished he could be with her.
Ethel crouched over one of the unburned corpses with a pair of scissors in her hand, and she began to cut off the black robes. "Every body tells a tale," she said. "We cover ourselves with clothes to hide our secrets."
She peeled back the robes to reveal a thin man with very short, brown hair. He wore a military radio headset under his hood.
"We begin with the skin," she said. "It's so pale you can count every vein. Sunlight rarely touched it. Even the face and forearms are like ivory, which is very unusual. This man only went out at night. I judge his age to be around twenty. The young make better warriors because they believe they're immortal."
She examined his hands. "Scarred knuckles. Calloused palms. The fingernails are trimmed and even. Attention to personal hygiene is a sign of discipline. This man is not a street thug. The fingertips are stained." She looked into his mouth. "But he doesn't smoke. Interesting. Drugs?"
She stood up. "Note how the abdominal muscles are taught and very lean. He exercised too much and ate too little. All his body hair is shaved off. He tried to cleanse his soul by cleansing his skin." She snipped off his underwear. "The pubic hair is gone, too."
"Ah." She studied his left arm. "Old needle marks. He used heroin but not recently. Perhaps the Order of Eternal Night cured him of a drug addiction." She rolled him onto his side. "A pattern of light scars on his back. He was whipped like a slave. The spacing of the marks indicates an expert delivered the punishment. Tragic. No tattoos, though, so he was never in a gang."
She searched his robes and placed what she found on the floor. There were three knives, which she handled gingerly. The blades were covered with a thin layer of a green, pasty substance. She discovered a length of piano wire with a wooden handle at each end.
"A garrote," she said. "How quaint."
She found one hundred dollars in the form of crisp, new twenties. A hidden pocket contained a packet of assorted pills, and she gave these to Ramirez for analysis. There was also a cell phone, which she gave to Edward.
"No identification," Ethel said. "Not even a credit card. An anonymous assassin. Edward, be careful with that phone. It's probably booby trapped."
He nodded.
"Did anybody else notice anything?" she asked.
"Let me see that headset, ma'am," Smythe said.
She slipped the headset off the dead man's head. A wire connected it to an assembly on his belt, and she gave both items to Smythe. He examined the components closely.
"This is real military gear," he said. "Digital, encrypted communication. Very high end. Not sold to civilians. I bet the manufacturer can look up the serial number and tell us who paid for it."
Ethel looked at Edward. "Well?"
"It's a good idea, ma'am," he said. "I'll get the information."
She turned her attention to the other corpses and went through a similar examination, but there were no more revelations.
Finally, she stood up and said, "We're done for now. Leave the bodies here. Everybody is dismissed."
The team quickly dispersed.
Smythe stayed with Aaron and asked, "Hungry?"
"Very," Aaron said. His body clock was so screwed up by a lack of sleep that he didn't know whether it was breakfast, lunch, or dinner time, but it was definitely time to eat.
Th
ey went to the kitchen. It was a large room with a white tiled floor. Granite counters and wooden cabinetry ran the length of three walls. There was a glass table in the center, which was big enough to seat the entire team. A pair of oversized, stainless steel refrigerators held enough food to withstand a siege.
Aaron opened a fridge and found a baking dish full of lasagna. "Hot or cold?"
"I don't care," Smythe said.
Aaron served up a large slab of cold lasagna for himself and another for Smythe. Aaron took a bite and smiled. Even chilled it tasted delicious.
"This is very good," Smythe said after he tasted the lasagna.
"Yvonne does the cooking and housekeeping around here. But don't think of her as just a maid. She was a legionnaire like us, once. A great one, I'm told."
"What happened?"
Aaron shrugged. "I never got the story. All I know is one of her missions went very wrong. Now Jack has to escort her whenever she goes outside. She jumps at her own shadow."
"That's rough." Smythe shook his head. "It sounds like your missions can get pretty crazy. How does this one rank so far?"
"Technically, we're not on a mission. We're just investigating. We don't have proof the enemies of God are involved, so we may not be able to do anything."
"But the Eternals are assassins. They murder people."
"Not our problem. We're not cops."
Smythe frowned. "We could at least notify the authorities."
"Maybe," Aaron said, "with Ethel's permission, of course."
"What if it turns out the 'enemies of God' are responsible?"
"Then we'll wipe out the Eternals down to the last man, and we'll destroy all evidence of their existence. We'll try to restore the Earth to a pristine condition. But back to your original question, I'd say this assignment is par for the course, so far. I could tell you about my first mission."
"Please." Smythe took another bite of lasagna.
"It was another cult. They had the bright idea of starting a world war."
"Why?"
"To make the world a better place."