“So that’s why we’re going to play a different game, I call it defining the working relationship.” My hands moved with lightning speed. I reached into the unzipped compartment and found a round, metal object. Before Ling or either of her companions knew what was happening, I slammed the hand grenade down onto the plastic table. I raised my left hand, with the grenade’s pin looped around my finger. The only thing preventing it from initiating was the death grip I had on the spoon.
Shen drew a pistol in a flash, and had it pointed at my left ear. Antoine’s left hand had never come out from under the table, but my suspicion that he had a pistol in it was confirmed by the way he moved. Ling smiled slightly.
I stared her down. “If I let go, it goes off, with a lethal radius bigger than your airplane. Try anything, we all die. Am I making myself perfectly clear?”
Ling nodded slightly at Shen, so he refrained from blowing my brains out.
“I’ve found it’s harder for people to lie when they’re about to get blown up.”
“I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know where your brother is.”
“Cut the bullshit. You think you can just come to my island, land this piece of junk on my airfield, and blackmail me into going along with this? Do you know who you’re screwing with? You come into my house and threaten me? Really?”
Antoine’s pistol came out from under the table. He raised the big FNP-45 up and pointed it between my eyes.
“Look at me, Lorenzo,” Ling ordered. “I’m telling you the truth. My people are doing everything they can to find your brother.”
I glared at her. She glared right back. She wasn’t cracking.
Antoine was starting to look nervous, and I could see his finger tightening up on the trigger. The hammer started to creep imperceptibly back. He was going to shoot me, and try to grab my hand before I let the grenade go. I shifted my glare to him, daring him to try.
Reaching across the aisle, Ling placed her tiny hand on his massive arm. “No need, Antoine. He knows I’m telling the truth. What of your lady, Mr. Lorenzo? All she will know is that you got onto a plane with another woman and were never seen again.”
I showed no emotion. I wasn’t going to give them anything. I wasn’t going to let up. I had to know the truth. “Ever see what happens to bodies in the ocean? Half of you will wash up on a St. Carl beach, bloated, green, crabs living inside. It’s pretty gross . . . Where is my brother?”
She didn’t blink. “My soul is prepared, Mr. Lorenzo. Is yours?”
A cold bead of sweat rolled down into my eye. I blinked it away. This woman was either as cold as ice or was giving me a performance worthy of an Oscar. Damned true believers. They were calling my bluff. Shit.
Ling folded her hands across her chest and stared at me, daring me to do it. I actually cracked a smile. Shaking my head, I very carefully slid the pin back into its hole, and folded it down on the other side. “I gotta hand it to you, lady. You’ve got some brass balls.”
Antoine was up in a split second, moving amazingly fast for a big man. He grabbed the grenade and snatched it away from me. I let go without a fight. “The grenade has been safed,” Antoine confirmed.
“Thank you,” Ling said. She was calm, but seemed visibly relieved. “Shen?”
Shen skull-punched me so hard it was like getting cracked with a bat. Lights flashed before my eyes, and my face hit the table. So she has a temper after all . . .
Gideon Lorenzo, my foster father, was a big man. Physically intimidating, with one of those bald heads that managed to gleam in the sun. I always felt kind of dwarfed in his presence. “You want to look at the target, but the front sight is the important part. Focus on the front sight. The target is going to be blurry behind it.” He was standing slightly behind me and his deep voice boomed even through my ear plugs.
The old Colt Series 70 bucked in my hands, and this time the can flew off the fence. I did what he had taught me, and focused, and pulled the trigger straight back to the rear. Seven shots, and I got five that time. I was getting the hang of this.
“Much better,” he said.
“Way to go, bro,” Bob said. My brother was sixteen, and nearly as big as Dad. I was fourteen, and a shrimp in comparison, but I didn’t have any of those Lorenzo family monster genes. According to the wall lines in my real father’s mug shot—the only picture I had of him—he was only five foot five. “You should stick with the 1911, you stink with the revolver.”
“Bob . . . ” Dad said sternly.
“I’m just saying. Hector can’t shoot a round gun to save his life.”
I was careful to keep the muzzle downrange like Dad had shown me as I reached over and slugged Bob in the arm. Realistically the muscles on his arm were so thick that he wouldn’t have felt it anyway, but he made a great show of being injured.
“No horseplay,” Dad ordered. “Bob, go pick up those targets. Hector will help me pick up brass. Remember, always leave the range cleaner than you found it. Your mother will have dinner ready soon.”
I put the .45 back in its case, ditched my ear plugs, and started picking up brass. Dad grimaced as he sat down next to me. He had ruined one of his knees in Vietnam, and I knew it was bothering him lately. He watched Bob go downrange, and waited until he was out of earshot. I could tell he wanted to say something.
“Hector, I just wanted to let you know. Your real father’s parole hearing was today.”
I kept looking for brass. “I’m assuming they’re keeping him in.”
“Yes.”
“Good. Hope he rots in there forever.”
Dad cleared his throat. “You know, someday he may be fit to return to society. A man can be redeemed.”
“Redemption?” I snorted. I was fourteen and knew everything. “How can somebody like him make up for what he’s done?”
One giant hand clamped onto my forearm. I looked up from the brass pile. “Hector, listen to me. You might not believe me now, but no matter what somebody has done in their past, they can be forgiven. They can make up for what they’ve done. There still needs to be justice, and that person has to pay for what they’ve done first, but anyone can be redeemed. Just remember that.”
I went back to picking up brass. “That’s insane.”
“He’s insane.”
“Obviously.” Ling’s voice. “Unfortunately we need him. We don’t have the numbers for a frontal assault.”
“They might kill Valentine as soon as we attacked anyway. No, you’re right, Ma’am. If we’re going to free him, then we need this man, even if he is unpredictable,” Antoine responded. “Did you think he was bluffing?”
“A Godless, self-absorbed narcissist like him would never willingly sacrifice his life for the sake of others, much less in a childish attempt to prove a point. Frankly, I’m rather surprised that the fact his brother is in danger was enough to compel him to do this,” Ling responded with some contempt. “However, he’s very good at what he does. His reputation indicates that.”
“Everything we have heard about this Lorenzo says that he’s a ghost. He can go anywhere. The fact that we happened to encounter his brother, just when we needed a man like him, is I think, providence. Please let me speak to him.”
I didn’t recognize the latest voice, and it was close. I groaned as I cracked open my eyes. The side of my head throbbed and the light streaming through the plane’s windows stabbed through my eyeballs and into my brain. The speaker was sitting across from me, a concerned look on his face. I was still in my chair.
Albert Einstein? I thought groggily. He was an older man, with wispy strands of white hair poking out from around his ears, and a mustache like a boot-brush. He studied me from behind his thick glasses. He was actually wearing a bow tie.
“Good afternoon,” he said with a thick German accent. “I am Dr. Bundt.” He was holding my STI 9mm casually in his bony fist, pointed toward my chest. “I’m afraid Shen hit you a little hard. I apologize for getting off on the wrong foot, but you were th
reatening to blow us up.” His smile seemed genuine.
“Who’re you?” The lump on my head hurt like a son of a bitch. Ling and Antoine were seated around me. Shen must have gone up front, behind the curtain. Brilliant Caribbean clouds scrolled past the windows.
“As I say, I am Dr. Bundt. I oversee the treatment and well-being of those unfortunate souls that we rescue. As you may expect, I have gained some experience in helping people.”
“Ironic,” I said, nodding toward my gun.
“Oh, this?” He turned it around and held it out to me. I glanced toward Ling and Antoine, waiting to see which one was going to shoot me first, but neither moved. “Go on, take it.” He shook it slightly. I took the gun slowly, the textured grip was familiar and comforting. I didn’t do anything stupid, figuring that they had probably unloaded it while I was out. I reholstered without looking. “No more of the threats, yes? We have a common goal. Both of us want to see your brother rescued. He is very well respected in our organization now. He was most insistent that rescuing Mr. Valentine should be our first priority.”
“My brother, the Fed, is friends with a bunch of terrorists?” I snorted.
“I see there is much about your brother you do not know,” he said. “I think you will be very surprised when you see him next. In any case, if I were you, I’d be careful about using the word terrorist, Mr. Lorenzo. Is it not true that you were the right hand of Eduard Montalban?”
I rubbed the knot on my head, not wanting to argue. Hopefully Shen at least broke a finger or something. “Will you please tell me what is so important about that kid?”
“Mr. Valentine is one of us, though only in an honorary sense.”
“One of you? When did that happen?”
“Mexico,” Ling injected harshly. “A few years ago. He saved many lives, including mine.”
Touched a nerve there. Ling had a personal stake in Valentine, and always looking for an angle, I filed that potentially useful information away for later.
Dr. Bundt continued. “In any case, that fact was irrelevant to your brother. For him, young Mr. Valentine was far more important than that. Bob believes Valentine was the key to something very important, something which could have grave repercussions for all mankind.”
“And what would that be?”
“This I do not know. All he was able to convey to us was that there are powerful forces moving right now, and that something inside Mr. Valentine’s head may be the crux of it all.” Dr. Bundt shrugged his bony shoulders. “I do not know any more than that, I’m afraid. Once we rescue your brother you can ask him yourself. He was most adamant, though, that we need to get Mr. Valentine back alive.”
“I wouldn’t get too worked up either way.” That stupid kid getting himself captured in Virginia could have compromised everyone that he’d been involved with, including me and Jill. If I found him alive I was going to choke the shit out of him.
“So what do you say, Mr. Lorenzo? We cannot complete this mission if we are at each other’s throats.”
“Fine. But understand this, Doc. You people fuck with me and I’ll kill you all.”
Ling smiled as if she’d just thought of something funny, then stood up. “This is going well,” she said, and went forward.
VALENTINE
I’m having the strangest dream.
The images were confusing at first, but soon they formed a thread, a narrative, a story. My story. On some level I knew the thoughts were my own, but they felt unfamiliar and half-remembered. A memory of a memory.
I stood in a palatial bedroom, not sure of when I was there. An ornate, four-poster bed sits against one wall. Above it hangs a hideous painting of some tentacled monstrosity devouring a girl.
I’m not focused on the painting, though. A girl hangs from the ceiling by her bound hands. Her night-black hair is wet with blood. Her body has been ruined, mutilated, split open and dissected. She stares at me, judging me, damning me from empty sockets. The holes where her eyes should have been are black pits, so deep and dark that I fall right into them. I want to look away, but the darkness calls to me, invites me to give myself up to it.
I answer its call, and down I go, into the abyss.
You’re a natural-born killer, boy. The words sound different this time, almost mocking me. Who had said that to me? What does it mean? I couldn’t remember. I was lost in the darkness and couldn’t find my way.
I found myself on a dusty trail in Afghanistan, next to a wall made of mud. The village around me is desolate and empty. I am utterly alone. My only companion is a dead body, laying in the dirt next to me, wrapped in a poncho.
I can’t see her face, but I know it’s Arlene Chambers.. We’re waiting for a helicopter that wasn’t coming. I look down at her unmoving form and place a hand on it. It’s like touching a piece of driftwood, cold and dead.
It should have been me.
Why am I still alive?
Am I?
I cover my face with my hands, and the ancient, immutable dust and rocks of Afghanistan, witness to thousands of years of bloodshed, fade away. I am back in the abyss, and again, I welcome it.
Before I realize what’s happening, I’m in a small village somewhere. I’ve been here before, but I can’t remember when. This time I’m not alone. It’s dark, but there are fires, enough of them that I can see. People are running for their lives. Men, women, children alike, fleeing in terror.
There’s noise, gunfire. A large armored truck, an MRAP, slowly rolls through the village. A faceless machine gunner in the turret mows down anything that moves in front of him. Men in uniforms, carrying rifles, walk alongside it, shooting.
Why are they killing all these people?
I see a few more men, coming up behind the vehicle. These men are bulkier, stronger, and wear armor. One carries a FAL rifle in his hands, and shoots a terrified old man as he runs down the street.
Stop it! Why are they doing this? Who are these people?
The shooter with the FAL rifle is undeterred, unaware of my pleas. He reloads his rifle, quickly and smoothly, and fires again. A car pulls out into the street, desperately trying to get away, but it’s no use. The machine gunner and the man with the FAL rifle tear into it. It rolls to a stop, crunching against a wall, its passengers’ lives having been snuffed out.
I move closer to the man with the FAL, furious now. I don’t know what’s going on, but I desperately want to make him hear me. I’m like a ghost, silent, invisible. I have no mouth, and I must scream.
STOP IT!
The man with the rifle is aware of me now, somehow. He turns to face me, a cruel smile on his face. “Stop what?” he asks. His voice is familiar. It’s mine. He’s me.
No! I didn’t do that!
“Didn’t you?” he asks, still smiling. His voice sounds distant, like an echo. I look down, and now the rifle is in my hands. It’s still hot to the touch. I can feel the heat of the fires, smell the exhaust of the truck, and hear the screams and gunfire clearly.
No! I protest. It wasn’t me! I didn’t kill all those people!
The ghastly mirror image grins at me malevolently. “You did kill a lot of people. You’re a natural-born killer, remember? This is your natural environment.”
The burning village is gone, and suddenly I’m in a helicopter. Dim red lights provide all the illumination I have. My .44 Magnum revolver is in my hand. Rafael Montalban is in front of me, on his knees, with a surprised look on his face. I fire, the gun bucking in my hand. Before he can scream, I kick him out of the aircraft. He falls away into the darkness and disappears.
The other one is next to me again, whispering in my ear. “It’s what you do. It’s all you do.”
No . . . please stop. God, please, make it stop.
He laughs darkly. “God can’t find you here. It’s just you and me.”
Leave me alone! I scream, in silence. The other is gone then, and I’m alone, floating in a void.
Is this hell?
I don’t kno
w how long I wondered that, but I wasn’t afraid. After a while, I felt nothing at all. I drifted alone in darkness for ages, wondering about my state, but only barely. I was detached, wholly separate from myself, and I didn’t have it in me to care. No one else did, why should I?
Suddenly I was aware of my body again. I’d returned to my corporeal form. My arms and legs began to feel heavy. My back was against warm metal. I was lying on something. Muffled sounds pierced the blackness. Metallic sounds, then voices. Then there was light, blinding white light. With the light, my skin felt cold, and I began to shake.
I didn’t know what was happening. I still couldn’t see anything. But one clear voice pierced the confusion, a cold, dispassionate woman’s voice.
“Log that as eighteen hours, thirty-six minutes in the tank,” Dr. Silvers said.
“That’s amazing,” a nasally man’s voice replied. “I wasn’t sure we’d be able to keep the program going for that long.”
“Neither was I,” Dr. Silvers said. “Mr. Valentine keeps exceeding our expectations.”
The last image that crosses my mind, before mercifully losing unconsciousness, is of the sky, on fire.
LORENZO
Somewhere over Texas
February 8th
I looked up from the file in my hand, rubbed my eyes, and glanced out the window. Brown fields stretched for miles below. Somewhere down there was where I had been born. Somewhere to the east was where I had been taken in and raised by the Lorenzo family. Ling was sitting across from me, the folding plastic table in between us.
“So, what do you think?” she asked.
“Tough, but doable. This is pretty detailed information about the security at North Gap.” We had floor plans, an incomplete list of personnel files, and even some intercepted e-mail traffic from somebody named Dr. Silvers. “How’d you get this?”
“Your brother gave it to me,” she said simply. “Once he found out that we wanted to rescue Valentine, he provided everything. He has been looking into this secret organization, which he referred to as Majestic, for quite some time.”
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