by S. T. Boston
Rico was scanning the kitchen, hoping to find some food when he saw Maya rushing back into the kitchen. The sound of gunfire followed; whipping around in confusion, he saw a flash of light before Chris frantically grabbed at his chest. A second muzzle flash lit the room like a burst of summer lightning, before Rico watched in horror as a slug tore into Chris's neck. In an instant, he'd disappeared behind the breakfast bar as if a hole had opened in the floor and swallowed him. Not wanting to suffer the same fate, Rico broke left, trying to reach the lounge.
Maya was faster, and he felt the weight of the gun as she aimed the muzzle squarely at his chest with deadly accuracy. He froze, threw his hands up and turned back to stare at her, her pretty face grim, the expression in her eyes deadly. “Why?” he spat.
“I'm sorry, Rico,” she replied, and for a second he almost believed her, because there was a hint of regret in her voice. Then the muzzle flashed again and fire exploded through his body, darkness engulfing him before his body hit the floor.
* * *
Grimacing, Rico pushed himself up onto his elbows, fighting against the inertia of his body which seemed determined to slip in the blood and plant him painfully onto his back. Why did she cross us? he thought, as he finally managed to get into a sitting position.
“Chris? Chris! You alive over there?” he called, but there was no reply. His mind raced through the circumstances that could possibly have led to this bizarre situation – though no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't think of a single reason why Maya had done this.
In a panic, he surveyed the blood spreading around him like a wet, red carpet. He'd already lost a lot of blood, and the crimson, life-giving liquid still oozed from the wound in his chest, his heart working to both keep him alive and killing him at the same time. Rico's head began to swim uncontrollably, the room pirouette before his eyes in some insane death dance. Losing the battle to stay upright, he crashed painfully onto the tiled floor, clawing frantically at the hole in his body. His mind still working at a hundred miles an hour, death's warm blanket slid over his body and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
* * *
With a little regret and a touch of sadness, Maya eyed the dead bodies of her fallen comrades, slain by her own hand. Slowly, Maya unscrewed the still-warm silencer from the pistol and cast it aside, even before she'd nailed Rico, the device had started to deteriorate. She had genuinely liked both guys; Rico had been a little flirtatious, but he trod carefully, and respected who she was, never pushing the boundaries too far. Tucking the gun into her coat pocket, Maya slid her phone out and snapped a couple of pictures, making sure to get enough of the room in the shot for Adam Fisher to distinguish where they'd been taken. She thumbed through the shots, nodding approval before she fished the car keys out of Chris's pocket. Reaching the back door, she slipped out of the property and silently paced down the drive to the awaiting car. After the short drive to the hotel, she would dump the BMW – it was easily traceable and she needed to be well and truly off the radar. The dashboard clock told her Adam was due to start his book talk in twenty minutes, and with a little luck she'd get there in time to hear it all. She was very interested in what he had to say.
Chapter 8
Sam took a long swig from a second plastic beaker of the warm, metallic-tasting water, eyeing the inspector over the rim. His seemingly tall-tale had taken over an hour to tell, but to his surprise the inspector hadn't interrupted once, just sat there, silently; not seeming judgmental but in an unsettling manner which made it impossible to read just how he was taking it all. If this guy could remain as stony faced during a game of cards, he wasn't the kind of opponent Sam would want to face. The only words to pass his lips during the whole story had been the occasional 'I see', and 'Huhhm'.
“That's quite a story, Monsieur Becker.” Inspector Ackhart finally announced, with more than a hint of doubt in his voice. Sam wasn't sure what he'd expected; he wouldn't have been surprised if the inspector had howled with laughter and packed him straight off to the crazy house. “I have heard some strange accounts, and what people believe to be reasonable excuses for their crimes, but this has to top the list!” Much to Sam's dismay, Ackhart's last words were doled out with a hint of anger. His heavily accented, yet perfect English seemed to only highlight his contempt.
“Believe what you want,” Sam sighed, placing the beaker back onto the table. “I never expected you to believe it. I lived it, and even I'm not sure I believe it all.” He chuckled nervously. “I'm at the stage now where I call shit or bust. I've got nothing left to lose, no sorry or sordid excuses for why I was at the chateau, or why I killed Monsieur Laurett while he lay in bed, or why I killed the others listed in that file. And let me tell you, Inspector – there are more cases than you have recorded there.” Ackhart leaned back in his chair, the faded orange plastic protesting. Running a hand through his greasy hair, he scrubbed his palm across his well-weathered face and rubbed his eyes.
“I will have Claude escort you back to your cell. I will come to interview you officially in a couple of hours, so we can get you into court in the morning. I would encourage you to tell me the truth, unless you plan to plead insanity. I can see no other outcome, other than you being remanded in custody until the trial. After your court appearance, it is likely you'll be permitted to make that call you so desperately want. I see no point in continuing this discussion any further. I don't know of any man of sound mind who would find a shred of truth in your story – and that's what it is, Monsieur Becker, a story! Nothing more!”
“As I said, Inspector, Laurett told me something that might mean you have no choice than to believe what I've said in the very near future. I pray I'm wrong but…” Sam paused and gazed longingly out of the small, barred window, “…I doubt it!” Before Sam could offer anything further, an urgent rapping came from outside the door.
“Enter,” Ackhart called, sounding put out by the intrusion. Right on cue the door swung open, and a guy wearing an untucked shirt and loose tie entered the room. Sam was good with faces, and this one was new in the equation. The guy scouted the room quickly, ignoring Sam, who was taking in his every detail. He spoke to the inspector in a flurry of French, which once again left Sam with no chance of understanding with his less than average grade in the language, which he'd earned more than half his life ago. He watched the inspector scowl. “Fucking Americans,” he spat, before firing a torrent of French at the visitor, who appeared to shrink from the outburst. Coming from a rank-and-file structured background, Sam knew immediately that Ackhart was this guy's superior officer. He acknowledged Sam with a curt nod before sloping out of the room, leaving the door open.
The inspector stood up, regarding Sam for the briefest of moments. “It would seem,” his voice still brewed with frustration, “that the FBI is pushing for your immediate extradition.” Dread welled up in the pit of Sam's stomach. “They are arguing that they have the most cases against you and as they seem to have gone far above my pay grade to get their own way, the extradition paperwork is on its way now. It's likely you will be taken to their embassy for initial questioning.”
“Wait!” cried Sam. “Don't those things take an age to get authorised?”
“In the old world, yes. Things operate a little differently now, I don't know whose strings have been pulled to get this one through, but I am less than happy about it.” He turned his back to Sam and went to leave the room, the fury almost palpable in his movements.
“Inspector!” Sam called. Ackhart stopped and spun around but remained silent. “If you turn me over to them, I'm dead.”
“It's likely you will be given the death penalty, yes. But not before they ship you back here and let me have my, how do you English put it? My pound of flesh!”
“No, you don't understand,” Sam spoke urgently, “this isn't the FBI, this is them!”
“Spare me,” scoffed Ackhart.
“It's the truth! Do some digging, please! If you hand me over to them, you might as we
ll put a bullet in my head now. I promise you that once I leave with them, I'll disappear of the map – forever.” Sam studied the inspector's face, and for the briefest of moments, he thought he had him, a hint of doubt appeared on his face which was undeniable. “I can prove what I said is true,” Sam persisted, and the inspector looking at him doubtfully. “When I was on Arkkadia they changed me, I never mentioned it before, but it's true.”
“Please, monsieur, spare me the drama,” Ackhart snapped. “I have wasted enough time on your fantasy already.”
“It's true, look! Look at my lip.” Sam pulled his bottom lip down with his finger. “When I was there they gave me the Gift,” Sam had left that little detail out of the account, sure the story was hard enough to swallow without claiming he was immortal. “It's nanobot technology; there are millions of them in my blood stream, and they heal any wounds I get, almost instantly.” The inspector eyed Sam's bottom lip with a disinterested expression. “When you arrested me, my face hit the stones on the beach; my lip got cut up, do you remember?”
“As it happens, monsieur, I do not.”
“Then let me prove it to you! Cut me with a knife – fuck it, shoot me in the leg! Once you see it heal, you'll have to believe me.” Sam nodded encouragement, aware that he sounded nuttier than a rat stuck in a tin shithouse with every word.
“All you are doing, monsieur, is making your case for insanity stronger. If that is your goal, you are doing very well.”
Sam sensed uncertainty in the police officer's voice, was sure he'd planted a seed of doubt in his experienced brain – he just hoped he'd fed it enough to grow. “Just double check the papers, please. These people have a very long reach, they had an operative in the presidential protection team, for fuck's sake! This – this extradition is nothing for them to arrange, not that I believe it's even genuine. I told you before, they're pretty fucking shit hot at influencing people into seeing whatever they want them to see! All I ask is that you check it out.”
“I plan to, Mr. Becker; however, they have a field team on their way to us now, and you are being collected in an hour. From here, you will either be flown to the United States, or taken to their embassy in Paris.” Leaving no room for debate, Ackhart crossed the small room in two lengthy strides, leaving Claude to take the prisoner back to his cell.
In the hallway outside, however, Ackhart paused. Becker's panic at the news had taken him off-guard, and while he couldn't bring himself to believe what the man had told him, a small worm of doubt was at work, squirming away in his stomach. Something was not right. Ackhart had done this job long enough to trust his gut and his gut didn't like this case, not at all. He checked his watch, confirming he had just under an hour to get to the bottom of it.
Chapter 9
As night raced in to claim its hold over the Peruvian desert, a brilliant, fiery red sunset cast the eastern sky ablaze, the light tendrils of high-level cloud coloured orange by the sun as it slipped over the horizon.
With his hands clamped together behind his back, military-style, he raised his face to the sky and enjoyed the last of the sun's warmth on his skin. Despite the warm desert air, a shiver of coldness ran through his ancient body. A light breeze tousled his angelic blonde hair; a sensation he hadn't experienced for many years, for in the bowels of Sheol there was no breeze, only an unnatural stillness. Closing his unearthly amber eyes, he remembered a time when this place had looked very different; when a mighty city had stood on this spot – his city. He mused over the way the Earth-Humans had worshipped him, and how at his command, they had worked tirelessly, creating the massive land drawings which had been the only thing to survive the long millennia, ancient monuments carved into the very Earth itself. Following the Great War, the Arkkadians had seen to it that every trace of the magnificent buildings that once stood here had been wiped from the Earth's surface, just as every one of his territories had been; many now nothing more than fabled accounts in various religious texts.
Trying to soak up the last of the warmth, enjoying the wonderfully clean and non-purified air, he remembered the day it had all changed – the day that should have seen the end of the Earth-Humans – the day that should have seen Earth pass into Arkkadian hands. At one time in his life, he had been Arkkadian, and had loved his planet and its people. Anger began to broil inside him, a fierce sea of emotion hitting a rocky shoreline. He managed to quell it by recalling that glorious day when the massacre had begun, a massacre which should have spread planet-wide and seen the death of every last Earth-Human. They should all have been wiped from the face of a planet that was never theirs, because they were not a native species to this rare pearl in the never-ending void of space. Had they been the true natives, he would never have sanctioned the killing of the planet's population. – No–evolved and natural life needed to be preserved, and that was just what he intended to do; secure the future of the Arkkadian race against another extinction-level event, similar to the one which had almost seen the end of his kind. Why should a race of people, biologically engineered to work and serve, be given such a gift? For a brief moment, he mused over his own genetic tampering with the human DNA strain in the days before the war. Disgusted that an inferior race had ever been created in the image of his people, he'd set about changing that, elongating the shape of the human skull, deforming it so there was no doubt who was Earth-Human and who was Arkkadian. It was a trend that spread throughout his territories. When Buer first returned to Earth with the handful of Elders from Sheol, he'd sent back some of the studies that Earth-Humans had done over the years following their banishment to that bleak, sun-scorched planet. Remnants of those cone-headed creatures still echoed through the modern world, relics that took pride of place in museums and the personal collections of rich enthusiasts. The Earth-Humans had never learned the truth behind that mutated strain of human DNA however. They didn't know the painful reality of the origins of their kind, and many still foolishly looked toward the glut of religions which had developed as a result of his and his ancestors' intervention. A new surge of anger rose like bile in his ancient, yet perfectly-preserved and youthful body, for they should have known better. Many were now turning to science for answers, some suspecting the awful truth behind who they really were, but these were not the type of people mainstream science took seriously. Some of the developments he'd learned of astounded him; how they'd anticipated harnessing interplanetary travel within a hundred years. He'd read details of the Hundred Year Star Ship program, which had been gleaned from NASA by some well-placed Earth-Breeds, with interest. Amazingly, Earth-Humans had managed to theoretically design an engine very similar to the ones used in Arkkadian craft. Of course, they were still many years from putting theory into practise, but time ticks by relentlessly, and the day would come when that theory became reality. It angered him to think that this imposter race could be so close to unlocking such powerful knowledge, and there was no doubt that the Arkkadian people would welcome them with open arms the moment they perfected the technology.
The morning he'd first tried to wash the Earth's surface clean of the parasites was one of his fondest, and he recalled how he'd given the command to his faithful followers. At first light in the cities under his rule, they'd gone door-to-door, massacring entire families, people who had quite rightly both feared and worshipped his superiority. Killed with weapons that were far beyond their understanding. Having rid his own territories of vermin, they had moved on to civilisations that the foolish, Earth-Human-loving Arkkadians had studied, his craft hitting them by surprise, crushing them to the ground. The sight of his own kind, running and dying with the rats they'd nurtured had given him no joy, but it was the bigger picture that counted, and a few deaths were a necessary evil to achieving his goal. Two planets for his kind to thrive on, thus halving the chance of them being wiped out as they so nearly were, many thousands of years before.
The war and extermination had not progressed as swiftly as he'd planned, and the fighting had spread from the Earth's surf
ace to his home world, with those faithful to him bearing arms against the foolish ones who wanted to protect the abominations which only thrived as a result of their own near extinction.
The great city that had once stood proudly in the Nazca Desert was one of the first to fall; his men outnumbered by the troops sent to protect the Earth-Humans, but they had been too late. Arkkadian had turned on Arkkadian among the stone walls instead;, a fight he'd painfully lost.
Two of his cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, had been the last to fall. When ground and air attempts had failed and the Earth-Human protectors had realised that every one of their children had been slaughtered, they'd opted for the most powerful form of retribution to wipe his kind from the Earth. It was a power that the Earth-Humans had discovered and since used in their own wars – nuclear power. He had fled the Earth long before, preserving himself for a future attempt at seizing the planet he longed to control. His escape had not stopped him from weeping with sorrow, when he'd learned that nuclear fire had wiped out the last two strongholds from the land. Earth had been lost to him – for now.
Over long years, holed up on the barren planet they'd escaped to, he and his ousted followers had rebuilt and waited patiently, knowing their time would come again. He'd been close, so close to his goal, but was thwarted in what Earth-Humans would call the eleventh hour, by Oriyanna and the two who'd followed her. There was no describing the fury which ate at him like a parasite over his plans being quashed. Now though, in these final days, he'd put events into play which would deliver those responsible into his hands. They could watch as he laid waste to the Earth, wiping the Earth-Humans from the land with their own weapons of destruction. Seizing the Earth and preserving it for his kind was beyond his reach; no matter how he lusted for it, things had changed. This was about revenge, and it would be sweet. If he couldn't control the Earth, no one would. He'd rather see it destroyed than in the hands of those who should never have been.