Swords of Exodus

by Larry Correia

  The old Uyghur spoke again. “Is not man.” He spat on the floor. “Is demon.”

  We all went back into our cabins and closed the doors, lunch forgotten.

  LORENZO

  Crossroads City

  March 10th

  “Welcome to the wild-wild-middle,” Reaper said as he stepped from the raised platform of the train station and into the slush-and mud-covered street. The air smelled like cooking smoke, diesel fumes, and unwashed people. It was remarkably cold, but the street was crowded with busy people from every culture you could think of. The music of twenty languages bombarded my ears.

  The surrounding mountains around us had been stripped of all their trees, and the amount of growth that had occurred here since my last visit was positively shocking. I grunted as I lifted my bags, marveling at the sprawling development that had seemingly sprung up overnight. The Crossroads had exploded.

  The three of us were dressed in Mountain Yuppiflage, brightly colored, Gore-Tex parkas and snow pants. We looked like typical Europeans or Americans at a ski resort. I hated wearing anything colorful, but we had a cover to keep up. My coat was puffy, green with big black stripes. I was wearing a black neoprene skull cap and Bolle sunglasses. I hadn’t shaved for the last few weeks and had a pretty decent beard going. Then again, I was one of those guys with a Homer Simpson face who could grow a goatee in forty-eight hours. The last time I’d been in The Crossroads I had been clean shaven with long hair, and that had been seven years ago, so hopefully I wouldn’t run into anyone who would recognize me.

  Jill’s coat was yellow and Reaper’s was red. With his hair pulled back in a ponytail and the facial piercings gone, Reaper actually could be pretty convincing as a professional techie type. He carried a briefcase filled with information about our make-believe mining concern. Jill was going to play the part of our young go-getter junior executive in search of cheap ore.

  “Which way to our hotel?” Jill asked in Spanish. Her breath formed a steam halo around her face. We would be in character from here on out. “You, find out where the hotel is, and then get my luggage.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered humbly. For somebody with no criminal past, Jill had no problem playing pretend, either that or she just really liked ordering me around. I examined the crowd, looking for a potential guide that wouldn’t just rip us off or lead us down some alley to get robbed and murdered. The throng of people was pushing and shoving, unloading cargo from the train, yelling in a dozen different language, and just taking care of random bits of business. They were dressed in everything from expensive Western clothing, like us, to Russian-style long coats and fur hats, to traditional robes and fur coats. Almost everyone appeared to be armed. The people who weren’t, were either too poor to afford a gun or too rich to bother, and those guys were obviously flanked by armed henchmen.

  I picked out a kid, probably eight years old, who was begging by the entrance to the first-class car. He held out his hands as I approached. I wasn’t quite sure what he was, so I started with Russian. “Do you know where the Glorious Cloud is?” He cocked his head, so I asked him the same thing in Chinese. My Chinese wasn’t as good as my Russian, but apparently he understood and replied with some rapid-fire chatter in a dialect that I barely understood. I held up some cash. We had a guide.

  The boy led us through the streets of Crossroad City. The main road from the train station was asphalt and I think the side streets were gravel. There was so much snow and mud slush that it was hard to tell. I saw a few motor vehicles, usually bigger trucks, Russian 4x4s, a few horses and yaks, and surprisingly enough, bicycles. I wasn’t sure how the riders managed to stay upright riding through ice, but they did. There were a few waiting rickshaw drivers who shouted for our business, but Ling had told me the Exodus meetingplace was near the train station. Being on foot gives you a better feel for a place anyway.

  The buildings were of every sort imaginable, from concrete bunkers, to mud-walled compounds, to wood-frame buildings that would look normal in suburban America. The streets didn’t even vaguely resemble straight lines. There was no rhyme or reason to how Crossroads City was laid out. There was no zoning here. Hell, there was no law whatsoever. People built whatever they felt like.

  I watched the people. Business was being conducted on every corner. There was no central marketplace because the entire town was the marketplace. You could go to any street here, buy three machine guns, a sack of opium, and a chicken, and have change left over. One man handed over a small stack of currency to a street vendor, and the vendor passed back an RPG rocket.

  “Gift wrap that for you, sir?” Jill giggled.

  “Quiet.” I could feel eyes on us. Everyone was watched here. Every worker, every peasant, and every hired tough was a potential spy.

  The nicer buildings had sign posts in front of them. There usually wasn’t anything actually written, just carved symbols, but I recognized a lot of them, Red Dragon Triad, Luminous Path, Chechen Brotherhood, Russian mob, Al Qaeda, Yakuza, heck, even the Sicilians had a rather nice brick rambler. Since I had left, The Crossroads had grown into a super criminal United Nations. If a mob boss six thousand miles away might need to get some particular bit of rare merchandise, or place an order for a huge amount of product, or even just have his emissaries sit down across the table from their rivals, this was the place.

  Each faction had some toughs hanging out by their front entrance. Normally I would expect all sorts of posturing between the groups, but they seemed to ignore each other. All of them glared at us legitimate businessmen. As we passed in front of the sprawling Russian compound, one of the drunker Russians shouted something profane at my girlfriend while simulating something really nasty with his AK. Classy bunch.

  We had to step aside to keep from being run over by a giant septic-pumper truck. “Well, at least they don’t just throw it in the street, like most of the places we’ve worked,” Reaper muttered. “Though they’re probably gonna go dump it in the water supply.”

  This was Reaper’s first time here. He’d probably be surprised that even criminal scumbags didn’t want nasty water. “You had your shots.”

  “Stop, thief!” one of the street vendors shouted in Chinese. Ironically, three quarters of the people on the street looked up to see if they were the one being talked about. A young man in a fur robe crashed past me, pushing his way through the crowd and past the Russian compound, a bag of grain thrown over one shoulder. The various factions’ toughs laughed and pointed.

  The thief didn’t make it far. A black shape materialized from around the corner ahead of the runner, and moved to intercept at an astonishing rate of speed. There was a sound like a watermelon hitting a bat, and the thief’s head snapped back. He did most of a flip before landing in the snow.

  The crowd froze. The noise in the immediate area died down to muted whispers. The man in black stood over the twitching thief. The new arrival was short and broad, cloaked from head to toe in some thick, shapeless furs with a large hood. Under the hood was a black mask and round, tinted goggles. The goggles surveyed the crowd, and I swear that even the Yakuza and the Chechens shrank back under that gaze. Canvas bandoleers of rifle ammo crossed his chest in an X, on top of that was a leather necklace strung with wolf teeth. He had an ancient M44 Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifle in his hands, and a single drop of blood fell from the stock from where he had brutally clubbed the runner.

  “One of the Brothers!” a nearby street vendor hissed. The black-clad man’s head snapped in the direction of the voice, and the vendor fearfully averted his gaze.

  The thief moaned, spat out a mouthful of blood, and started to rise, sack of grain spilled open beside him. He rolled over, realized who had taken him down, and immediately began to cry. I didn’t know what language it was, but begging for mercy sounds pretty much the same everywhere. Without a word, the man in black flipped out the M44’s bayonet and stabbed forward once. The scream turned into gurgling as the spike was twisted. Then the street was quiet agai
n. The man jerked the spike out in a red splash. The tinted goggles surveyed the street once more before he wiped the blood off his bayonet on the thief’s pants. He turned and walked away, never having said a word.

  A moment later the street came back to life, as if nothing had ever happened.

  The crowd was ignoring the dead body, except for a couple of street urchins who were already stealing his shoes and coat. Our guide looked wistful at the missed opportunity. “Who was that?” I asked the kid, putting my forefingers and thumbs in a circle over my eyes like I was wearing goggles. The boy said something I couldn’t understand.

  “The Brothers are the Pale Man’s personal bodyguard. They keep the peace in town,” said one of the more sober Russian mafia who had sauntered up behind us. He took a drag on his cigarette and blew it out in a cloud. “They don’t ever talk, and they never show their faces. Nobody smart fucks with them.”

  “I don’t think they’re so tough,” said the drunker Russian that had been offering his sensitive undying love to Jill just a moment before.

  “Like I said, nobody smart fucks with them,” said the first. “Shut the fuck up, Gregor. War between houses and stealing in general is bad for business. The Brothers kill anybody that messes with that, unless they take a liking to you—then they drag you off to the slave mines.” I was supposed to be the interpreter, so I quickly translated all this into Spanish for Jill, and the lead Russian took that as an indicator as to who was supposedly the boss. “Welcome to The Crossroads, lady. Should you businessfolk need any assistance, some of my men are always looking for freelance security work. And most of them are smarter than Gregor here. We’re much more reliable than those slant-eyed homosexuals.” He nodded down the street toward the other factions’ houses.

  “We’ll keep that in mind, thank you,” Jill responded politely, glancing nervously toward the dead thief, who was now missing most of his clothing. Even the grain was gone. “Are they just going to leave him there?”

  The Russian shrugged. “It serves as a warning. If he’s got family, they’ll collect him eventually. Or not. The wolves creep into town at night when nobody’s around, take care of it.” He laughed, but I didn’t think he was making a joke. “Enjoy your stay here.”

  I said goodbye to the Russian killers and we continued on.

  A minute later our guide pointed at a wooden, three-story building, with a giant porch that circled the entire thing. Surprisingly, it looked rather nice. Nobody ever said anarchy had to be uncomfortable. There was a sign over the double door written in a few languages. I was able to read the third one down: Glorious Cloud Hotel. A roughly-carved wooden dragon was wrapped around the sign pole, breathing wooden fire. I gave the boy about $20 worth of rubles, and the way his face lit up, I could tell that was a big deal, easily worth passing up on looting the dead guy’s shoes.

  The interior of the Glorious Cloud was immaculately clean, and once the door was closed to the chaos of the street, the hotel lobby was peaceful and smelled like incense. The lady behind the desk was elderly Han, and extremely polite. She took our money, handed us a key, explained the meal schedule, and pointed us up the stairs to our rooms.

  I handed her one final coin. “A tip.” She took the coin, and rubbed her thumb around the outside edge without thinking. She looked at me curiously when she found that one edge of the coin had been smashed flat.

  “Will you be staying until the thaw?” she asked.

  “I’m told the forest is beautiful in spring.” I completed the Exodus code phrase.

  “Thank you, kind sir. Please enjoy your stay at The Crossroads.”

  The view out our window was spectacular. We were on the top floor, and the town stretched out below us in a confused mass before sprawling out into the edges of the mountains. The Crossroads were situated in an X-shaped valley. Each leg was about nine miles long, with the bottom two descending into China. Lake Tansai and the big dam built by the Russians was barely visible in the distance. Against the mountains a few miles away was the abandoned military base which had been taken over by Sala Jihan and turned into a fortress. If my brother was still alive he would be in there. The entire mountain around the base was torn open by a gash that could probably be seen from space. Those were Jihan’s mines.

  The Glorious Cloud’s rooms were small, but clean. Reaper was off taking care of our survey gear that porters had delivered to the hotel.

  I felt Jill’s arms encircle me from behind. She squeezed me tight and tucked her face against the back of my neck. I could feel her warm breath. “You okay, honey?” I asked quietly. I had to remember, this was my world. Not hers.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve just never seen anything like that before.”

  I didn’t know if she meant the thief getting executed in the street, or the villagers’ bodies left up as warning signs. Either way, it wasn’t a pleasant welcome. “I know. I warned you about this place. I shouldn’t have let you come.”

  “I didn’t give you a choice. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’m not going mushy on you. I have to do this. Bob’s my family now too, and not only that, I owe those Majestic assholes.”

  “They did ruin your life.”

  “I can’t say they ruined it anymore now, can I?” She squeezed me tight, as if afraid to let go. “But they did change it pretty drastically. I have to help you do this, you know that.”

  I gently disentangled myself, turned to face her, and took her into my arms. I well and truly loved this woman. “You really did beat me down over you coming on this job.”

  “Yeah, that was like our first real couple fight.” She grinned. “Unless you count when we first met and you punched me in the stomach.”

  “Well, you tried to shoot me first.”

  “Fair enough.” She snuggled in closer. “You know what else? We’ve been laying low on St. Carl for so long, we’ve never actually taken a trip before. This is our first vacation together.”

  “Hmm . . . Hadn’t really thought about that,” I said. “We should make the best of it.” Then she bit the bottom of my ear. I checked my watch. Exodus could wait.

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Lorenzo.”

  “Nice place you’ve got here. Wasn’t this in Raiders of the Lost Ark?”

  “I haven’t seen that film.” Ibrahim was an Iraqi Kurd. He was about my age, and appeared to be in extremely good shape. His greying hair was kept short, and his dark eyes studied me carefully as I sat across from him. The Exodus operative and I were sitting at a table in the rear of a bar near the hotel. The room was dark, smoky, loud, filled with boisterous drunken Mongolians, and reminded me of a third-world version of the Golden Manatee. “So, you’re the man that freed Michael Valentine?”

  “Yeah. That was loads of fun.”

  “His reputation is great amongst the men, and having a hero figure along for this sort of operation is good for morale.”

  “So Valentine’s a hero figure now.”

  “You are not familiar with his exploits on our behalf in Mexico?”

  “No, and it would be impossible for me to care less.”

  “Nonetheless, you have our sincere thanks.” Ibrahim chuckled. “Shen told me that you were not friends with Valentine; however, Shen spoke very highly of your bravery and skills.”

  “Shen’s here?” I glanced around the bar. I had no doubt there were some other Exodus types hidden among the patrons, but I hadn’t seen him, but he was one of the only people I’d ever met who might be as unnoticeable as I was.

  “He and Antoine are in The Crossroads. They will be assigned to one of the swords in anticipation of our assault, an assault which will have better odds of success now, thanks to your actions.”

  “Save the flattery, Ibrahim. I know the deal. So, has Ling kissed and made up with your superiors?” I asked with a smirk. “Invading Montana had to piss them off.”

  “How did you know that?” Ibrahim was suspicious.

  “Ling was motivated. Even if your bosses had to
ld her no, she would’ve still gone for it. Antoine and Shen would follow her no matter what . . . Chill out. You don’t have a leak. I’m good at reading people. It’s what I do. Whatever permission Ling had to pull off that stunt wasn’t given too freely. Exodus is a low-profile bunch, and that certainly wasn’t low profile. You might be happy to have your motivational poster on heroism, but that’s a happy bonus is all.”

  “You are perceptive,” Ibrahim was nodding. “Shen also warned me about that.”

  “Good. So we won’t waste any time blowing smoke up each other’s asses. Has there been any sign of my brother?” Behind me there was a crash as two Mongolians got into a fight. The topless dancing girl was knocked off her table.

  Ibrahim shook his head. “Sadly, no. I can show you where he was attacked after speaking with Ling, the market overlooking the arena, but there has been no sign since. My people have been listening, but no one has spoken. Ling was the last person he was with, before he was captured near the fighting pits. I’m sorry.” He must have seen my face darken, and attempted to change the subject. “After what Shen told me about you, I am glad that you and your people are here to join us.”

  “Listen, I think you and your folks are doing a good thing. Killing slavers is like killing cockroaches, but just so we’re on the same page, I’m here for my brother. Nothing personal, I’m not the joining type. I’m going to meet with this Jihan asshole, see what we can find out, and go from there. If my brother’s dead, I’m going home, but I’ll pass on any intelligence I can gather just on the general principle that I don’t like asshole warlords.”

  “I understand. The path that God has chosen for me is not for every man, but nonetheless, I appreciate your offer. And if your brother is still alive and being held in the fortress or in the mines . . .”

  “Then, I’ll gladly help you stack the bodies so deep they’ll call it Great Wall of China, the Sequel.”

  Ibrahim laughed and struck the table. “Excellent, my brother!” He raised his cup of tea, I raised my drink. “To killing assholes!” It was good to see that not every team commander in Exodus was as intense as Ling.