Jack pushed in behind Gus and went straight to Trudy. Dropping to his knees, he leaned in for a close look as her eyes fluttered open. "I believe she's coming around."
Satisfied that Trudy was all right, Carver turned his full attention to Guidry. Cocking the pistol, he pressed the barrel to Guidry's bloody forehead and asked the question he'd come all the way to Baton Rouge to ask.
"Why'd you do it?" said Carver. "Why'd you kill my brother?"
Guidry's expressionless gaze didn't change. "Same reason you're here," he said through split lips. "To avenge the dead."
*****
"The signal's coming in loud and clear." Max watched the custom-made tracking device in the dashboard of the car. Gus had designed the device, and it worked as flawlessly as his other inventions: a glowing green arm swept through concentric yellow rings, lighting up a green blip whenever it passed through the upper right quadrant.
That green blip was Sister Mayhem.
At the wheel of the speeding car, Lillian nodded briskly. "So the tracker in Kay's belt is working fine?"
"Perfectly," said Max. "She's aboard the stolen truck that bolted out of the secret base. Whoever's behind the wheel of that thing is driving like a bootlegger. They've lost every military chase vehicle on these back roads."
Lillian spun the wheel to swing the car around a hairpin turn. "But they haven't lost me."
Max laughed. "You sure can make this car go, beautiful."
"You bet, big bear." Lillian spun the wheel the other way and gunned the engine. "So where are they headed?"
"Northeast." Max checked the screen of the tracking device, then yanked a road map from the glove compartment and unfolded it. He compared the map to the blinking screen, tracing roads with his fingertip. "Look for Route 61."
Lillian raced over a hump in the road, and the car was briefly airborn. "So what do you think our destination is?"
Max's stomach jumped when they landed. "We know they stole something big and dangerous from the base. Maybe they want to get to a place where they can do maximum damage with it."
"And we both know what's in that direction, don't we?" said Lillian.
"We sure do." Max jabbed a finger at a city on the road map. "None other than Washington, D.C."
*****
"E=mc2." Sheila's eyes glittered as she said it. She smiled at Sister Mayhem--disguised as Leonard--who sat beside her on the front seat of the speeding cargo truck. "Do you know what that means, Leonard?"
Kay, of course, knew all about the formula, knew it expressed Einstein's theory of relativity...but she shook her head. She still didn't know exactly what Sheila and Marty had stolen from the base or what their plan was, and she hoped she would pick up a clue.
"Matter becomes energy," said Sheila. "And when it does, powerful forces are released...the very forces that created the universe."
Kay frowned, surprised at the depth of Sheila's knowledge of theoretical physics. Sheila, it seemed, was even smarter than Kay had thought.
"What if I told you that these forces could be harnessed?" said Sheila. "What if I told you that the power of the universe itself could be turned against the unjust?"
"I'd say that was incredible," said Sister Mayhem.
Sheila leaned closer. "What if I told you that I had that power? That it's in the back of this very truck? And that I'm going to use it tomorrow to change the world?"
Kay gazed into Sheila's wide, glittering eyes, seeking madness...finding only crystal clarity and purpose. "I'd ask you where you're going to use it."
"You'll see." Sheila winked. "Soon enough."
Sister Mayhem nodded, realizing she was stuck with Sheila and Marty for the duration. If she wanted to find out what their target was, determine their full plan, and stop it, she would have to ride with them all the way to the end of the line.
If the thing they'd stolen, the cargo in the back of the truck, could harness the power of the universe as expressed in Einstein's equation, the stakes had never been higher.
*****
"You killed my brother to 'avenge the dead?'" Carver kept the barrel of the gun pressed to Guidry's bloody forehead. "What kind of sick joke is that?"
"Are you calling my dead sister a joke?" Guidry's head left the floor as he spat the words. "Her murder's funny to you?"
Carver pushed Guidry's head back down with the gun barrel and held it there.
"Carver!" Gus called out from behind him, but he might as well have been a world away. "Don't do this, hombre! You are going too far!"
"He's right," said Jack. "We have other ways to handle this."
"I have chemicals that will force the truth out of this diablo!" said Gus.
Carver heard them but couldn't stop himself. He pressed the gun barrel harder into the preacher's forehead. "Who's your sister, Guidry?"
"Delia Solomon. Late of Harlem, New York." Guidry bared his teeth in an insincere smile.
Carver frowned. As he stared at Guidry's face, he saw something familiar there; it was something he hadn't noticed until now because it was blurred by the wear and tear of time...and the fog of rage. "You're not Aaron Guidry. You're Marcus Solomon."
Guidry chuckled. "Nice to be recognized," he said. "Considering we were your neighbors. Me and Delia. Now do you remember what happened to her?"
The memories rushed back to Carver like a hurricane. Of course he remembered Delia, the beautiful girl from the tenement across the street. The girl who had died on her sixteenth birthday.
"The fire," said Carver. "I remember."
"Tell me, Carver." Guidry sneered up at him. "How did it start?"
Carver had been only seven years old at the time, but he hadn't forgotten. "It was arson," he said. "Retaliation in some kind of gang war."
"But who started it all?" said Guidry. "Who caused the retaliation?"
Carver searched his mind. "I have no idea."
Even flat on the floor with a gun to his head, Guidry projected menacing hatred instead of fear. "His name was Lee Moreau. Ring a bell?"
Carver's blood froze. "That doesn't make sense," he said. "If a gang was retaliating against Lee, wouldn't they burn down the building he was living in?"
"Not if they thought I was the one who'd ripped them off," said Guidry. "Not if Lee had framed me for stealing their drug money!"
"No." As Carver said it, he wondered if Guidry was telling the truth. Even back in the old days, Lee had gotten into trouble and hung around with a bad crowd.
"So this is why you killed my brother?" said Carver. "To avenge the death of your sister?"
Guidry nodded. "And the ruination of my own life," he said. "My own family blamed me and cast me out. I followed a trail of despair and depredation...until the Lord showed me the way. He led me to take a new name, to start over and preach His holy word. Then He led me to a jazz club in Nashville where Lee was playing piano."
Carver gazed into Guidry's bloodshot eyes, searching for a sign that he was lying. All he found was a direct, unflinching stare.
"I followed him from there," said Guidry. "I haunted him with the Holy Spirit. And one night in St. Louis, I finally took what I was owed."
Carver swallowed hard as he faced a grim possibility. Maybe, Lee had gotten what he had deserved.
If Guidry's story was true, Lee had caused Delia's death and concealed his role in it. He hadn't killed her with his own hand, but he had been a party to the murder.
"Well?" Guidry squirmed, snapping Carver out of his dark reverie. "Do you understand now?"
Carver stared at him, expressionless, unmoving.
"An eye for an eye," said Guidry. "That's what the Bible says. Now the scales are balanced."
Carver's finger twitched on the trigger of the pistol. For a moment, his heart swelled with the urge to shoot.
He wanted it more than anything, more than he ever could have imagined. After helping to dole out justice for so many others, he wanted justice for himself.
"Go ahead then." Guidry closed his ey
es. "Do what you have to."
"Carver, no!" It was Trudy. He felt her hand touch his shoulder. "If you do this, you'll destroy yourself. You'll ruin your life."
"Si," said Gus. "Killing a man in cold blood like this--it is muy malo. And you know what it would mean, don't you? You know what we would have to do."
Carver nodded. "Yes."
"We'd have to take you down," said Jack. "We'd have to bring you in. First to Kay, then the police."
Carver's heart pounded. "He killed my brother."
"And if you kill him," said Trudy, "he'll have killed you, too."
"Come on, mi hermano," said Gus. "The filthy perro is not worth it."
Sweat rolled down Carver's face and burned his eyes. His finger twitched once on the trigger. Twice.
Then, he pulled the gun from Guidry's forehead.
As Carver leaned back, Trudy threw her arms around him. "I love you," she said. "I promise, it'll be all right."
"I promise, too," said Gus, snapping a chemical vial under Guidry's nose, putting him instantly to sleep.
"You will have your justicia, señor. You and your brother both."
*****
The early morning sun flashed over the horizon of office building rooftops, splashing the Washington Monument with rosy light.
Brakes screeching, an olive-green cargo truck rolled to a stop at a curb near the monument. The passenger side door swung open, and Sister Mayhem--still disguised as Leonard--stepped out onto the grass, dressed in gray coveralls and black work boots.
Sheila Venus followed, dressed in the same work clothes. Her face was free of makeup, and her hair was pulled into a tight bun.
Slamming the door shut, Sheila marched around to the back of the truck with Kay and unlocked the rear door. Marty, also in gray coveralls, slid out of the driver's side and joined them.
Sheila hoisted up the rear door, and Kay helped Marty pull out a ramp and drop the end in the street. Marty and Kay walked up the ramp into the truck, then came back out pushing a cart.
The cart was square, six feet on a side, and four feet high. Its cargo was covered by white bedsheets, held in place by big buckets of paint and two stepladders.
As Marty and Kay pushed the cart up the street after Sheila, heading toward the monument, a bright blue milk delivery truck rolled up alongside them.
The driver, a pretty young woman, waved from the open side door. "'Morning!" She raised her white cap in greeting, then returned it to her smooth wave of glossy blonde hair. "Could you tell me the way to Pennsylvania Avenue, Ma'am?"
Kay smiled to herself, immediately recognizing the driver as Lillian. She and Max, who had been following the homing beacon in Kay's belt, must have gotten out ahead of her and set a trap for Sheila.
Once again, Sister Mayhem's agents had proven their reliable excellence. Kay took a breath and prepared for the action that she knew would erupt at any moment.
Sheila sighed impatiently. "Two rights, two lefts, go straight."
"And do you have the time, Ma'am?" said the driver.
"Wait a minute." Sheila frowned suspiciously. "Since when does a girl drive a milk delivery truck?"
Lillian grinned. "I'm just filling in. It's my daddy's dairy."
Suddenly, Sheila lunged at Lillian and grabbed her by the arms. With a loud grunt, Sheila pulled Lillian from the truck and pitched her to the pavement.
That was when a roar of pure rage exploded from inside the milk truck. Max burst from the back doors, wearing a milkman's uniform and a white cap that perched on his huge skull like a sugar cube on the head of an elephant.
Max's face was pinched and flushed beet red with mindless fury. He bellowed and charged toward Sheila with his sledgehammer fists clenched and raised before him.
Sheila backed away with a startled look on her face. "Easy does it, big boy."
Marty turned to Kay and punched her arm. "What're you waiting for? Get over there and stop that big ape!"
"Are you kidding?" Kay shook her head. "I'll stay right here, thanks."
Marty glared with disgust and let go of the cart. He ran over to Max, drawing a revolver from a pocket of his coveralls.
"Max!" said Kay. "Behind you! Gun!"
Marty got off one shot, which missed, before Max whirled and grabbed his gun arm. Another shot fired in the air as Max hauled up Marty by his arm and flung him across the street. Marty let go of the revolver as he flew, and it clattered to the pavement near Sheila.
Without hesitation, Sheila scooped up the revolver and swung it around to fire at Kay. The first shot winged Kay in the shoulder, and she spun and dropped to the street.
"Kay!" Before Lillian could get to her feet, Sheila had darted over to the cart.
Yanking up the bedsheets, Sheila revealed the cart's cargo--a gray metal sphere the size of a large pumpkin, studded with nodes and wires and blinking multicolored lights. The sphere rested on stubby silver legs, and a black device the size of a matchbox hung from a nub on its face, connected to the sphere by a coil of red wire.
Sheila snapped up the black box from the cart. There were three buttons on the box--green, yellow, and red--and she pressed the green one with her thumb.
The sphere started to buzz, and the lights on its surface blinked faster.
Meanwhile, Lillian got to her feet and sprinted toward the cart, her pretty face set in fierce determination. Max stomped in the same direction, snarling and flexing his enormous muscles.
Neither of them got very far.
"Back off!" Sheila moved her thumb to the yellow button. "One step closer, and I'll destroy Washington, D.C."
Lillian stopped in her tracks. "What is that thing?"
"It's a new kind of bomb," said Sheila. "A uranium bomb. It's powerful enough to blow up this whole city."
"If that is a city-destroying bomb," said Lillian, "why use it?"
"Revenge," said Sheila. "This city killed everyone I ever cared about."
"It did?" said Lillian.
Sheila's smile shifted to a glare of pure hatred. "My husband was black," she said. "My two little boys were mixed. This city couldn't tolerate a family like ours.
"One night, when I was singing at a club, someone firebombed our house." Sheila sniffed. A single tear slid down her cheek. "My husband, my little boys--the fire killed them all."
"And that's why you're doing this?" said Max.
Sheila nodded and pressed the yellow button on the control box. The bomb buzzed louder, and the blinking lights accelerated. "One more button, and this miserable place will be wiped from the face of the earth."
Max shook his head and sighed. "Too bad, Sheila," he said. "You didn't have to do all this."
"Really?" Sheila laughed. "And why is that?"
"What happened to your family was a terrible thing," said Max. "It would've been a perfect case for the Order."
Suddenly, Sheila heard a noise behind her. She turned to see Sister Mayhem leap at her.
Grabbing the wrist of the hand that held the control box, Sister Mayhem cranked it back hard, and Sheila cried out in pain. She tried to wrench away, but Kay held her tight.
Before Sheila could press the final button, Sister Mayhem twisted her wrist with a sharp clockwise movement. The control box fell free, and Kay caught in in her free hand.
"Take this, would you?" Kay shoved Sheila toward Max, who caught her in his massive paws. "And somebody get me the President. I think he'll want to know that we found his stolen secret weapon."
*****
One week later, Sister Mayhem's team sat around a table in a Manhattan jazz club, talking and laughing as a singer performed in the spotlight onstage.
"Here's to another job well done." Gus raised his glass, and the rest of the team did the same. "Que bueno."
"I'll drink to that." As Kay lifted her own glass, her shoulder ached where Sheila had shot her. It would take some time for the wound to heal.
"How many losses does this make?" said Max.
"Zero!" Lillian bang
ed her glass into his.
"Not a one!" Jack tapped his glass against Lillian's and flashed her a brilliant smile. He ended up with soda spilled down his sleeve when Max bashed his drink away from Lillian's with a heave of his big mug of beer.
"No perro can beat this team!" said Gus. "The jealousy of our resident oso grande--our big bear, on the other hand..."
Max threw an arm around Lillian's shoulders and roared with laughter. "Here's to the Order of No Mercy!"
As Kay sipped her drink, she noticed that two of her agents were less enthusiastic than the rest. After the toast, Carver and Trudy excused themselves and got up from the table. Kay joined them.
"Where are you two off to?" said Kay as they walked toward the door of the club.
"A vacation, maybe," said Trudy. "I think we could use some time off."
"Good idea," said Kay. "It's been a tough couple of weeks."
Carver nodded. "You might say that."
"It's still pretty hard." Trudy squeezed Carver's arm and gazed at his face with concern. "Even with Guidry in prison...well, it's been hard."
"There's one thing that keeps bothering me," said Carver. "All those criminals we've outsmarted. The ones who've died because of us."
"Yes?" said Sister Mayhem.
"How far gone were they? Could we have saved them?" Carver met Kay's gaze. "Could we have saved Lee?"
Kay sighed. "Carver..." She had no answer to offer.
Carver looked at the floor. "Sometimes I wonder," he said. "If we can't save the ones who need saving, does our work have any meaning? Do we?"
Sister Mayhem said nothing. Questions of conscience and shades of gray were not part of her world or her war. The only way she could succeed in the fight she'd chosen was to hold fast to a firm moral compass and leave no room for doubt.
"I wonder about things like that sometimes." Carver took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "Then I hear someone like her." Looking up, he turned his attention to the singer in the spotlight.
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