“Nice to meet you.”
“This is Hideo Katsumoto,” she said. An imposing Japanese man with a shaved head bowed politely, a move which I awkwardly attempted to return. He then shook my hand, and though his hands were thinner than mine, he had a grip like a vice.
“Mr. Valentine,” he said curtly.
“Michael, we will be working with Katsumoto during the operation.”
“I am happy to have Ling at my side during this operation,” Katsumoto said. “She will be my second-in-command.”
I wondered how Ling really felt about effectively being demoted from team leader, but Ling’s face was a mask, as always. “You will be with us, Michael, if you’re feeling up to it.”
“Doing what, exactly?”
“I must be blunt,” Katsumoto said. “I do not like the practice of colluding with outsiders. As I’m sure you can understand, they are often security risks and prove to be less than reliable. Ling has vouched for you, however, and we are short on personnel. If you wish, you may come along on the mission and assist however you can.”
“You’re not an initiated member of our order, so you will not be in the chain of command,” Ling clarified. “But an extra hand with as much combat experience as you have would be a great asset to the operation.”
It sounded like Ling was talking me up, trying to convince the others that I was worth the trouble they went through to get me. I figured they were just sticking me with her because they didn’t know what to do with me. Fair enough. They could have just left me to rot in North Gap, so I didn’t feel I had any grounds to complain. I wasn’t sure if I was in any shape to fight, but I tried to conceal my misgivings. These people had done a lot for me, risking their lives in the process. I felt obligated to put on a brave face. “I’ll do what I can,” I said with fake confidence. “But I don’t know what we’re doing here. I’ve only been given the briefest of overviews on this entire operation.”
Ibrahim and Katsumoto looked at each other, then at Ling. “For operational security reasons, you won’t be given a complete overview, I’m afraid,” Ibrahim said. “Please, Mr. Valentine, we mean no disrespect. We have procedures . . .”
I waved my hand. “It’s fine.” I’d spent too long as a mercenary to expect otherwise. “I don’t need to know what I don’t need to know.”
“No, you do not,” Katsumoto replied. “Our swords won’t be directly involved in the primary assault on Sala Jihan’s compound. That will be Ibrahim’s responsibility. Our mission is to capture the hydroelectric plant upriver.”
“I see.” I was honestly intrigued. “Are we going to disable it, cut off their power?”
“In part,” Ibrahim answered. “We have acquired detailed plans of the structure. Our engineers have determined the best possible points of attack. We have more than sufficient explosives to structurally compromise the dam forever.”
I thought about the huge reservoir upriver from the dam. “You’re going to blow the dam and flood the town?”
Ibrahim nodded. “It is for the best.”
I looked at the three Exodus warriors in front of me, and didn’t know what to say. Flooding the valley would drown thousands of people. The deluge wouldn’t discriminate between the deserving and the innocent. The surprise on my face must have been evident.
“It isn’t like that at all, Michael,” Ling said.
“The dam will not fail immediately. If our engineers are correct, eventually the dam will collapse and flood The Crossroads. They will have time to evacuate. We expect the people who live here will disperse once the power fails. If any are foolish enough to remain in this wicked place, then they do so at their own risk. Regardless of whether or not the mission to kill Sala Jihan succeeds, we shall cleanse this valley and wipe The Crossroads off the face of the earth.”
“You must understand.” Katsumoto said. “This place was used for horrible things when a lesser man ruled it. Now someone truly evil is in charge and it has only grown worse. Should Ibrahim’s attack fail, this is our only hope of ending the human trafficking in this part of the world. Even if Ibrahim succeeds, there is no promise that the cycle will not continue, with Jihan replaced by another, just as he replaced Eduard Montalban before him. It is necessary.”
If the people who lived here didn’t clue in and evacuate, they would die. Exodus was utterly committed to their mission, to the fundamental belief that they were doing the right thing. I wondered what it was like to have that kind of certainty in life. On the other hand, everything I’d learned about The Crossroads was unsettling. Of all the places in the world that could stand to be wiped off the map, it was pretty close the top of the list.
These people respected me. Despite my misgivings, I was going to stay professional. “Understood,” I said simply.
“We will get into the specifics of the operation later,” Katsumoto said. “For now, just know that we have discussed this matter at length. If there were not so many tens of thousands of innocent lives in danger, we would not be taking such drastic action.”
Ibrahim addressed Ling. “There is another matter we need to bring to your attention. I have met this Lorenzo you spoke of. He is much as you described, driven, yet shortsighted.”
“He is a horrible man,” Ling said. “But he grows on you.”
“So does a fungus.” Ibrahim grinned. “Yesterday, Lorenzo went into the fortress and met with Sala Jihan.”
Ling’s eyes widened. “Face to face?”
“Yes. One of his people, the skinny young man with the long hair and bad complexion, brought me the intelligence they had gathered.”
“Reaper?” I asked.
Ibrahim nodded. “They are staying at the Glorious Cloud Hotel. Lorenzo departed that location after he told young Mr. Reaper to see us. He went to the arena, but was involved in an altercation there and disappeared.”
I could see the concern on Ling’s face. If the damned fool had gotten himself captured it could compromise everything. I was personally, bitterly aware of the consequences of getting yourself caught.
“We believe he was taken,” Ibrahim said. “Our operative had to leave the scene, as an altercation would have attracted the attention of the Brotherhood, but he was able to take this picture.” Ibrahim retrieved a smartphone from his pocket, tapped the screen a few times to bring up the picture, and handed the phone to Ling.
The picture was slightly blurry; the photographer was probably moving when he took it. Lorenzo was being choked out by a large, muscular man with short-cropped, blonde hair. The beard was new, but I recognized him.
My blood ran cold. “Anders.”
I spent the next half hour filling my Exodus compatriots in on everything I knew about Anders. He had been Gordon Willis’ right-hand man for Project Heartbreaker. I hadn’t seen Anders since the operation in Yemen, where we recovered a stolen nuclear warhead that was en route to General Al Sabah. I had no idea what happened to him after I killed Gordon.
“He was with Majestic,” Ling said. “Is he still?”
“I don’t know. I sure hope not. He was in on Gordon Willis’ dealings with Eduard Montalban, I know that much. I also know that those dealings were off the reservation, done on the side. After everything was found out, he may have had to get out of the country. Gordon’s superiors were mad at him, but I don’t know what went on with Anders. Hell, they should have been interrogating his ass instead of me at North Gap. Lord knows the son of a bitch has it coming. I guarantee he knows more about Project Blue than I do.”
“What is Project Blue?” Katsumoto asked.
“That is the question isn’t it?”
The Exodus man humorlessly raised an eyebrow.
“It’s a long story and not relevant right now. But you need to know that cold hearted bastard is one of the most dangerous men I’ve ever met.”
Ling looked thoughtful for a long moment. “Why did he take Mr. Lorenzo? It can’t be a coincidence.”
LORENZO
Gideon Lorenzo sat on
the fallen log, leaned his Model 70 Winchester against the bark, and used a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Dad’s bad knee was really bothering him today, and it had been a heck of a hike up the mountain. Bob and I stopped to wait for him in the peach-colored light that came just before dawn in the Texas foothills. Bob took the opportunity to take a long draw from his canteen. Both of us were young, and in excellent shape. It was only a few days after my fifteenth birthday.
“Bob, do me a favor.”
“Yeah, Dad?” my older brother said as he twisted the cap back on his old Boy Scout canteen. He was a senior in high school now, and was looking more and more like Dad every day, a veritable giant of a man. Unfortunately, Bob had also inherited the bald genes, and his hair was already thinning.
“Run along to the deer camp, and tell your uncle that we’ll be along in a minute. Ammon gets all excited if anybody’s late, and he’ll probably send out a search party. Hector can stay with me.”
“Sure thing,” Bob slung his .30-06 over his shoulder and gave me a thumbs up, “Take care of the old man for me, bro.”
Dad snorted. “Old man . . . And Bob, remember, if you see something,” Dad glanced at his watch. “It isn’t legal for another . . . fifteen minutes.” As a municipal judge, it really shouldn’t have been a surprise that the senior Lorenzo was such a stickler for the rules. There wasn’t a hypocritical bone in his body, and even if the rule was dumb, he obeyed it, because he had to sit in judgment of others using the same rules.
“Okay, not like I ever see anything anyway. Hector’s the killer. See you guys in a minute.” He turned and jogged up the hill.
Dad waited for him to leave, then he patted the log next to him. “Take a seat, Hector. Enjoy the sunrise with me.”
I could tell he wanted to talk to me about something. I sat, and waited, my old Savage lever action in my lap. The forest was quiet. I was uncomfortable in the woods. It was strange, the further I got from pavement, the more twitchy it made me. I liked having noise and people. In the woods, it’s just you and what you really are. You can’t pretend to be something else when it’s so quiet and empty. The woods are about truth.
But the Lorenzo family loved the annual deer hunt. The younger kids really enjoyed the camping. I didn’t mind hunting. Apparently I was really good at killing animals, and they sure did taste great.
“So, how’s the leg, Dad? I can take your pack.”
He smiled. “Naw, I’m fine.” Which was a lie. His leg hadn’t been fine since some communist had tried to blow it off. He lived in constant pain, but you would never know it since he never let it change his attitude. “I just wanted to talk to you for a minute.”
“That time of year again? I already know. He’s not getting out.” The parole board had no interest in talking to me. They knew my opinion. If I had one regret in my life, it was that I had not had better aim when I’d stabbed him with that fork, and gotten my real father in the jugular instead of the eye socket.
“No, not that,” Dad coughed. “Honestly, we both know he’s not going anywhere. This is Texas, thank God. Men serve their time here. No, it is something else.”
I waited.
“I’m worried about your future, Hector.”
“My grades are better. I’m trying harder in class,” I lied. I hated school. Bob was the one with straight A’s, and a football scholarship. Dad was probably worried I was going to end up digging ditches. Either that or he was going to warn me about the dangers of rock and roll music again.
“No, nothing like that. In fact, Mr. Thompson told me the other day that you excel at . . .” he paused, as it was kind of distasteful, “drama. And Coach McClelland says you have a real gift for gymnastics, that you could even take state if you put your mind to it . . . and there’s nothing wrong with either of those things,” he quickly added. The Lorenzos were manly men, and neither of those things were exactly “manly” endeavors in his view.
“Dad, I promise. I like girls.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just that . . . Eh, I don’t know how to explain it. I’m concerned about your outlook. You know the kinds of people I’ve deal with.”
“Politicians? Lawyers?”
“No, I was thinking of the people I send to jail, dishonest, thieving, amoral . . . so actually, I suppose most of the politicians and lawyers I deal with would fall into the same category . . . ” he chuckled as he thought about it, but then his face darkened, and turned grim. “It’s just that sometimes I feel like I get a glimpse of what you’re going to be like as you get older. You’ve got a lot of anger in you still.”
I shrugged. Probably true, but all things considered, since I had been taken in by the Lorenzos, I had been a relatively good kid.
“I look at some of those men that I send to jail, and sometimes, I see you, and I worry. Some of them have the same kind of attitude you do. They think that what they are is what they are, and that they can’t change. People aren’t set in stone.”
“I’m not going to do anything stupid, Dad. Don’t worry,” I assured him. “You guys have been great to me. I won’t let you down.”
“But I’m not going to be around forever. Just remember, no matter what happens, a man can always repent. They can always change. You know, there’re three kinds of people in the world.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Good guys, bad guys, and those that don’t care. Now most people, if you ask them, they would say they’re one of the good guys, but really, they don’t care. They’re good as long as it’s convenient. Bad guys, well, I’m afraid you know a lot more about them than any young person should ever have to. But you want to be a good guy. Sometimes, life makes it easy to be a bad guy, or for those that don’t have the stomach for that, then they fall in that great grey middle ground. But to be one of the good guys, that takes work. It takes honor.”
Dad was rambling now. He did that once in awhile. “I’m not going to get in trouble with the law.”
He laughed aloud. “Law? Boy, good has nothing to do with the law. You can be the most evil son of a bitch to ever walk the earth . . .” that surprised me, he rarely, if ever used bad language, “and still obey the law. Heck, you can even write the laws. No, good means you do the right thing. Even when it hurts. Bad men can become good. I’ve seen it happen, and a good man can go bad.”
“Okay,” I humored him. Sometimes he liked to get philosophical. The Lorenzos were very religious, but Dad had never pushed any of his personal beliefs on his children. He just tried to teach them, and let them choose for themselves. He did make us all go to church every Sunday, however. I didn’t really mind, because there were some really good looking girls at church.
There was a crack of a gunshot from over the hillside. Gideon Lorenzo looked at his watch again. It was a very nice watch, inlaid with silver, with an onyx face, and had been given to him as a present from his father when he had graduated from law school. He sighed. “Looks like Bob jumped the gun by four minutes. That’s buck fever right there.”
“The scoundrel,” I said, imitating Dad’s voice perfectly. We both laughed.
He put his arm over my shoulder. “Be good, Hector. That’s all that I ask. . . . We better get going.”
Then the Sun was up.
It was morning.
LORENZO
Crossroads City
March 15th
It was morning.
My head ached. I cracked open my eyes and scanned the room. I was lying on a bed. I’d been dreaming about my foster father, and the last thing I recalled was him looking at his watch. It was the same watch that would cost him his life the year I turned sixteen. Ruthlessly beaten until his internal organs had ruptured by a gang of worthless hoodlums, because they thought his watch could be hocked for drug money. The law hadn’t caught them, but I had. I’d dropped off the world to find them, and kill them, and I’d never looked back.
The sheets were bright white and smelled like fresh soap. Outside the window, a roost
er crowed. The room was empty of decoration. There was only a small table by the bed with a pitcher of water and a cup, and two chairs near the closed door. Both chairs were occupied by men armed with P90 submachine guns.
“Hey.” My head was stuffed with a foggy, hung-over feeling. “Bring me that punk-ass bitch, Anders. We’ve got some unfinished business.”
“Good morning, sir,” replied the first guard. They both had that eurotrash look that the Montalban retainers seemed to cultivate. Even with Big Eddie dead, his people still tended to look like something from Sprockets. “Your clothes are under the bed. We took the liberty of washing them. Your presence has been requested at breakfast.”
At least they were polite. “Where’s my coat?”
“The one you stole off the drunk under the arena?” said the second. “It smelled like piss. We burned it. Now hurry up, the boss doesn’t like waiting.”
Breakfast with the head of the Montalban Exchange? I just hoped that Jill and Reaper had stuck with the plan and bailed when I hadn’t come back to the hotel last night. This very well might be my last meal.
The Montalban Exchange building was large, solidly constructed, and sat on a hill overlooking most of the other faction houses. The architecture was vaguely Chinese, with a red roof with upswept corners. The dining room was on the third floor, with a good view surveying the chaotic town, the mountainside, and the mighty gash in the earth that was Jihan’s mines. The walls were made of polished local wood and the floor was covered in thick rugs. A giant rectangular table filled most of the room, and it appeared to have been carved from a single epic tree. There was no one else there.
The guards gestured for me to take a seat. They then left me alone, sliding the bamboo door closed behind them.
I could hop out the window. It was a good drop to the ground, but with my acrobatic skill, I had no doubt that I could roll with it and still walk away. Then all I had to do was somehow make it out of town and then cross a whole bunch of wilderness with the Montalbans after me. And that was assuming that they didn’t have Jill and Reaper. Anders had clearly known about them. So I sat and waited. Besides, if they wanted me dead, they could easily have done it already.
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