Swords of Exodus

by Larry Correia

  After a few seconds, I was able to tear my eyes away from my mother’s brutalized body. A black and white lump lay in the next room. It was my dog, Buckwheat. He’d been killed too.

  Something strange happened to me then. The dizziness stopped, my heart rate slowed, and the buzzing in my ears faded away. My head cleared. The shock and pain drifted into the background as the Calm overtook me for the very first time.

  Focus, I thought to myself. Somebody did this. They might still be here. You have to get out of here and call the Sheriff. I gritted my teeth and managed to get to my feet.

  It was in that moment that a man walked in from the next room. His image was forever burned into my mind: he had on cowboy boots and dirty, stained jeans. He wore a dirty white t-shirt and an old acid-washed jean jacket. His hair was long and uncombed, and his face was covered in stubble. His eyes were wide and his pupils were dilated. Hanging from his belt was a large hunting knife in a leather scabbard. Behind him was another man, taller and skinnier, with pale skin and no hair.

  “Jesse, look!” the skinny guy said, pointing at me. “There’s someone else here, Jesse!”

  “It’s just a fucking kid,” Jesse said, wiping his nose with his hand. “How you doing, kid? Where’s your mom keep the cash?”

  “Let’s cut him up, Jesse!” the skinny guy said excitedly, wringing his shirt in his hands. “Let’s fucking cut him up!”

  Jesse turned to his friend and shoved him. “Goddamn it, Billy, calm the fuck down! We been here too long already.”

  “But, Jesse, please!” Billy said, his voice getting even more high-pitched. “It’ll just take a minute! Look how surprised he is! He came home and found his mommy all cut up! Surprise!”

  Jesse slapped Billy, causing him to let out a squealing cry. “Get a hold of yourself, Billy! We don’t—”

  Billy interrupted Jesse. “He’s getting away!” Jesse turned around to see me running up the stairs. The skinny one, Billy, took off after me, but I made it upstairs before he did. I rounded the corner, ran down the hall, and burst into my mom’s bedroom. I slammed and locked the door behind me, just as Billy crashed into it.

  “Come out, kid!” Billy said, almost giggling with excitement. “Come on out!”

  My heart was pounding in my chest, but my head was clear. The shotgun! My mom had a pump shotgun in her closet. I hoped to God it was loaded, because I didn’t know where she kept the box of shells.

  Vaulting across the room, I pulled open the closet door and pushed my mom’s clothes aside. In the back corner was a little-used Remington 870. I heard a crash as Billy began slamming his body against the flimsy door. I grabbed the shotgun and stepped out of the closet, opening the action as I did so. It was loaded. I slammed the pump forward, pushing the shell into the chamber, just as Billy cracked the door open. His arm reached in and began fumbling for the lock.

  I was completely calm as I brought the stock of the shotgun to my left shoulder, pointed it at the door, and squeezed the trigger. The shotgun barked loudly in my mom’s bedroom, and blew a hole through the door. Billy shrieked in pain and his arm disappeared back through the door.

  Pumping another round into the chamber, I pulled the bedroom door open. Billy was lying on the floor trying to hug himself. Just below his left armpit was a gory wound. Blood was pouring onto the floor.

  “Jesse, help me!” Billy cried, his screeching voice gurgling as blood filled his lungs.

  I was on autopilot. It was like playing one of my first-person-shooter video games. I wasn’t afraid or upset. I felt nothing. I stepped over Billy and pointed the shotgun at his face. “Surprise,” I said, and squeezed the trigger again. Billy’s head exploded in a mass of brains and blood.

  I looked up, pumping the shotgun again, just as Jesse appeared at the end of the hall.

  “Billy!” he said excitedly, seeing me standing over the remains of his partner. “You killed my little brother!” I pointed the shotgun at him and fired again. I missed. The mirror at the end of the hall exploded in a shower of broken glass as Jesse disappeared back into the stairwell.

  I ran down the hall after him, chambering another round in the shotgun. I rounded the corner and looked down the stairs. Jesse was pulling a pistol from his waistband. He looked up and saw me point the shotgun at him. He turned to run, stumbled, and fell down the last few steps. His gun clattered across the floor and out of sight. I fired again, but missed again, blowing a hole in the wall of the stairwell. The intruder rounded the corner at the base of the stairs as he bolted for the door.

  I went after him, running down the stairs as fast as I could. I went through the kitchen just as Jesse burst through the front door. I fired yet again. The buckshot ripped through the screen door and shattered one of the potted plants hanging on the porch, but I missed my target again.

  Jesse jumped off the porch and ran for his truck. I stumbled on the steps and fell to the ground, skinning the heel of my hand in the gravel and dropping the shotgun. I didn’t even feel it. I pushed myself up, grabbed the 12-gauge, and pumped the last round into the chamber. On my feet again, I took off in a run.

  I caught up with Jesse just as he pulled open the door of his truck. He hurriedly tried to climb in, but I was right behind him. I aimed for the back of his head and fired. Jesse’s head exploded, spattering the interior of his pickup with the contents of his skull. His lifeless body slumped forward onto the seat, slid off, and crumpled to the ground by the running boards. It left a stream of blood as it went.

  I stood there, frozen, pointing the now-empty shotgun into Jesse’s blood-spattered truck for what seemed like a long time. I heard a faint ringing in my ears, and my hands began to shake. The Calm was wearing off, and I was rapidly going into shock. I slowly lowered the shotgun and turned away.

  In a daze, I made my way back to the house, stopping only to throw up once. I sat on the porch, resting the shotgun next to me, and stared off into the distance. I didn’t feel anything inside. I’d always imagined that when you killed someone for the first time, it’d be dramatic, or emotional, like in the movies. Now that I’d done it, I didn’t see what the big deal was. I just sat there, not feeling a damned thing, as the Sun climbed into the sky.

  LORENZO

  Connley Field, Montana

  February 15th

  The tiny airport was uncontrolled. There was no tower, and only the most rudimentary of hangar facilities. Our Cessna was almost ready to roll, and Antoine and Shen were gently loading Valentine in. It had taken us hours to get here, stopping only for gas. We could have used a closer airport, but the nearer we were to the target, the more attention we would be sure to draw. This one had a great combination of obscurity and lack of witnesses.

  “I understand what you feel you must do, Lorenzo.” Ling said as she handed my bag to me from the back of the station wagon. “But I see one possible problem. If you encounter any Majestic agents—”

  “And this plane was nearby both times? They’ll focus on us like a laser beam. It won’t matter where we go, they’ll track us down. I know.” We both knew how our foes would react, and the radar coverage over North America was just too good for them not to pick out the pattern. The government, when properly motivated, could process a whole lot of data very quickly.

  But I had to go. I couldn’t just call Bob’s wife, Gwen, and tell her to run, because surely the phone would be tapped. I had nobody in that area who I could rely on, and we were short on time, with the clock ticking toward the scheduled raid. “I can’t just leave them. If these were normal government types, I wouldn’t worry. But these people . . .”

  “Yes, I know.” Ling had just got done reading a whole lot of disturbing notes and emails about Silvers’ interrogation techniques.

  I barely knew my sister-in-law. In fact, I had only met her twice, but I wasn’t about to let her be taken away by the kind of people who thought it was fun to give Valentine enough drugs to pickle an elephant and employed people like Smoot. “Then you know I’ve got to
do this.”

  “It endangers my men and jeopardizes our mission.”

  “My mission is to get my brother back, and I’ll be damned if I bring him home and his wife and kids are rotting in some secret prison shit hole . . . Look, you drop me off in Flagstaff, then take right back off. Even as powerful as Majestic is, it’ll still take them time to put it together. There’s an airfield in Santa Vasquez, Mexico. I know a guy there, and you can get a new plane, nice and clean. I’ll cross the border and meet you there, and if I’m . . . held up, you just bail without me.”

  Ling folded her arms and studied me. “Bob was right about one thing.”

  “What?” The Cessna engine turned over with a cough and a belch of oil smoke.

  “You love very few people, but to those, you are extremely loyal.”

  It was a stupid weakness. “Don’t rub it in.”

  “I meant it as a compliment,” she said sincerely. Ling folded her arms and studied me. “You helped us. We will take this risk.”

  “Thanks.” Then I noticed something about the airfield. I stopped, tilted my head, and thought about it for a moment. It was stupid, but it could work. “Maybe we don’t need to land. That way if I screw up and attract any attention, you guys are still in the clear.” I pointed at a large green sign on a nearby hangar. “I’ve got an idea.”

  The hangar had a padlocked chain on the door, and was clearly closed for the winter. Ling followed my finger and read the sign.

  Skydiving Lessons and Rentals

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Ms. Ling, serious is my middle name,” I said with a smile.

  I woke up looking at Albert Einstein again.

  “Good evening, Mr. Lorenzo,” Dr. Bundt said over the noise of the Cessna. The good doctor had come to the rear of the plane and sat next to me. “We’ll be passing over Flagstaff in thirty minutes.”

  “Groovy.” I yawned and stretched. At least I had managed to get a couple of hours of sleep. The view out the window showed that it was nearly dark. Perfect. “I’ll get ready. We’ll need to pick a good spot. We’ve got to avoid witnesses, but someplace close enough that I can catch a ride into town.”

  “Understandable. You have done this before, I assume?”

  “Jumped out of an airplane? Yeah, a few times.” When Big Eddie had commissioned me to rob the Cape Town Diamond Exchange, my team had inserted with a HALO jump. We had practiced a multitude of times, jumping five or six times a day in the week leading up to the actual heist. Of course, one of Eddie’s men had landed on a wrought-iron fence and disemboweled himself, so I couldn’t exactly say that it had been flawlessly executed. I changed the subject. “How’s your patient?”

  Ling was forward of us, sitting on the floor, leaning on the fuselage, next to the unconscious form of Valentine. The table had been removed, and Valentine was stretched out. He still looked like shit.

  Dr. Bundt shook his head. “At this point, I do not know. He’ll live, but I do not know what shape he will be in. The boy has seen some serious trauma, and has been heavily medicated for quite some time. He still hasn’t woken up.”

  “Well, when he wakes up, the kid and I need to talk.” It was not a request.

  “It may not be that simple, I’m afraid. Not everyone comes back fully from that kind of trauma.”

  “He’s tough,” I said simply.

  “If only that were all there was to it. You see, when someone faces something so horrible, when something breaks inside their—”

  I cut him off. “Whatever, Doc. I know how horrible works. Some people wimp out, let the hurt, the evil, own them. Others lock it up and hide it, and some people are really smart, and they keep it, and learn to use it as a weapon.”

  He paused, studying me. “And I assume that you are the latter?”

  I had already said too much. “Don’t bother to psychoanalyze me, Doc. You’re wasting your time.”

  “It is what I do,” he said simply. “But if I were to make an educated guess, in a professional capacity, I would say that you had a very horrible childhood, violent, poor, probably a criminal background, most likely abusive. I can tell that by your reputation and behavior. You trust no one. Your natural instinct is to dislike everyone you meet. Your first reaction is to view them either as a threat or something you can use to your own advantage. Basically, you are what I believe you Americans would refer to as an asshole.”

  “I’m the nicest asshole you’ll ever meet. You know I’m not paying for this session, right?” I moved over to check my stolen parachute.

  He followed me. “But that’s not all you are. I can only assume that you had some respite, some brief time where you actually learned to love. Where you actually learned about family and loyalty, and that not everyone in the world existed just to prey upon one another. I can tell this by the way you speak about those that you consider your own. For them, you are very protective. Perhaps those good times were somehow taken from you, rendering you bitter and full of hate for so long—”

  “I’m not one of your freed slaves in need of fixing. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .” I hoisted the parachute and headed forward.

  His bony hand clamped down on my wrist. “Mr. Lorenzo, if I can ever be of assistance . . .”

  I sighed, crouched uncomfortably in the cramped compartment. He meant well. “Dr. Bundt, just so you know. When I was a kid, I watched my old man beat my mother to death. I stabbed one of his eyes out with a fork when he came for me next. The judge that put my dad in prison took me in and gave me a home. He was a good man. A few years later, some scumbags killed him for his watch. So I hunted them down and murdered every last one of them. I’ve spent the time since hurting people and taking their stuff. So there really isn’t much you can tell me that’s going to fill me with warm fuzzies, if you know what I mean.”

  “See? I was actually pretty close,” he said happily.

  I gently removed his hand from my arm. “Score one for psychiatry.” I moved toward the cockpit. Ling was asleep, still holding Valentine’s hand. I’d suspected there were some feelings there, at least on her side of the equation. Antoine and Shen watched me carefully step over them as I made my way to the cockpit.

  “We’re getting close,” the pilot said without turning around. “This area’s actually really forested. Where do you want to get out?”

  “That’s the highway below us. I just need to be close enough to run to it. Pick me a good, open field where I won’t break my neck, and I’ll try for that. I’ll get ready, you just give me the signal.”

  The pilot nodded. As I turned back around, Shen spoke.

  “Was Doctor Bundt trying to analyze you?”

  It took me a moment to respond. I could count the number of times that Shen had initiated conversation in the last week on one hand. “Yeah, apparently my psychological profile says I’m an asshole.”

  “I could have told you that,” he said, and actually grinned. Shen extended his hand. I shook it. He had a grip that could bend rebar. “It was a pleasure working with you.”

  “Yes, I thought I was going to have to kill you at first, but I would work with you anytime,” Antoine said simply. “It was an honor.”

  Well, I’ll be damned.

  “Thanks, guys, but this is only a detour. I’m not dead yet.” I passed forward a note that I had written some instructions on. “When you get to Santa Vasquez, the man you need to speak with at the airport is Guillermo Reyes. He runs all of the smuggling through that area. Tell him I sent you, and he’ll arrange for new tail numbers and transponder. Don’t let him give you any shit. Shen, would you help me at the door?”

  Shen moved to assist as I struggled into the chute. I had checked it on the ground in Montana, and it had appeared to be relatively new, in good condition and packed correctly, rigging seemed nice and tight, and if it wasn’t, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about it for very long. My Suunto watch had an illuminated altimeter, and had always been very accurate in the past. The light was fa
ding, and I was planning to open low enough that hopefully I would minimize any witnesses.

  I was dressed in jeans, a baggy grey long-sleeve shirt, and the same boots I had been wearing in Tickville. The holster for my STI 9mm was a standard concealment rig, nothing really jump capable, so I fixed that by zip-tying the STI’s grip to my belt. I had a pouch for the suppressor, and I hoped that it would hold, same with my two spare magazines. You may think something is securely attached to your person, but hitting the ground after a jump has a tendency to separate a lot of gear from their owners.

  “There’s a good pasture ahead. Looks fairly flat. The highway is one mile to the west,” the pilot shouted. “Get ready.”

  I noticed Ling watching me. We had woken her. Her black eyes were difficult to read.

  “If you don’t hear from me in six hours, assume I’m dead,” I said as I pulled the stolen goggles over my eyes. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier.”

  “No, you’re not. But thank you for saying so. Good luck, Lorenzo,” she said, smiling, still holding Valentine’s hand. “See you in Mexico.”

  Shen opened the door behind me. The roar of the passing airstream was deafening. The pilot pumped his fist in the air. It was time to go. I gave the Exodus operatives a wave, and stepped backward into the hundred mile-an-hour sky.

  It had been awhile. The feeling was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. The wind tore at my clothing, battered my face, and sucked the moisture right off my grinning teeth. I could only vaguely see the color and texture of the ground. The Sun was setting, and I knew that the odds of someone seeing the grey, terminal-velocity blur that was my silhouette was slim. I held my arms at my sides, clenched tight, legs extended, head down as I tore through the air at absurd speed.