by Layton Green
I am coming for you.
Grey parked his Jeep and noted with satisfaction the handful of pickup trucks already in the parking lot. One of the trucks had a bumper sticker depicting a confederate flag and a gun, along with a slogan that said COME AND TAKE IT.
Employees, Grey was guessing. Just the people he wanted to talk to.
If talking was what one could call it.
After wrapping a length of heavy chain he had bought at a hardware store on the way over around his hand, three feet of tempered steel dangling loose to the ground, Grey left his vehicle, checked to make sure no one was watching, and rapped on the door to the Peach Shack.
-18-
The figure creeping behind Viktor was no ghost, but a lean, six-foot tall man dressed entirely in black. His strong-jawed face glowed pale in the moonlight, and a long scar curved across the bottom of his throat like a mock turtleneck. Similar to Kristof, his skin possessed a plastic or rubbery quality, as if not quite real.
Alarmed by the sudden appearance of the man, Viktor stumbled backwards, almost tripping over a headstone. Another glance told him the man’s dark clothing was in fact black-and-green combat fatigues, and that his hand was resting on the grip of a handgun strapped to his belt.
“Professor Radek!” Sergeant Linde said, beaming a flashlight across the lawn as she stepped out of the grapevines.
At the sound of her voice, the man stopped advancing on Viktor and froze near the doorway of the crypt.
Naomi walked quickly towards them, her eyes trained on the man in camo. “You’re on private property, professor.”
After an economical glance at Viktor, as if assessing a threat, the man turned towards Naomi and stepped into the beam of light. The sight of him caused her to gasp.
To his right, Viktor heard a door open. A set of floodlights popped on, and Jans van Draker stepped out of the doorway to the wine cellar, dressed in the same clothes from earlier. “What an unexpected surprise,” he called from across the lawn.
Naomi lowered her flashlight as she turned to face van Draker. Viktor glanced back at the man in camo, and did a double take. There was still a lean man in fatigues standing by the closed doorway to the crypt, arms folded across his chest and a stern expression on his face—but it was a different man.
Viktor was sure of it. Though similar at a glance, the newcomer was a few inches taller, his features less defined. Most of all, his face bore no trace of a scar or the eerie plasticity of the other man’s skin.
“I noticed Professor Radek trespassing on your property,” Naomi said to van Draker. “I decided to intervene.”
“Ya? And why were you watching my property at night?”
“For this very reason,” Naomi shot back. “I feared the professor wasn’t satisfied by our walkthrough today.”
There was a hard edge to van Draker’s voice. “Why not?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
Viktor turned towards the guard standing by the crypt. “What happened to the other man?”
The guard’s face was as expressive as a brick wall. “Who?”
“You know who.”
“I see you’ve found my guardhouse,” van Draker said, waving a hand as he strode towards the cemetery. “A bit morbid, I’m afraid.”
“Your guardhouse?” Viktor said incredulously.
Van Draker waved a hand. “Show him, Pieter. It’s fine.”
The man in fatigues opened the door to the crypt. Wary of a trick, Viktor cautiously peered inside, Naomi right behind him. Instead of a cobwebbed mausoleum, he saw a metal desk built into the side of the vault, a high-tech switchboard, and a small bank of monitors overseeing the grounds.
Viktor blinked. There was no sign of the other man.
“Where is he?” Viktor asked the guard again.
“Who?” Jans asked, as he approached.
“A different guard approached me first. I’m sure of it.”
Van Draker’s look turned quizzical. “You must be mistaken. Pieter is the only man on duty tonight. It was dark and you must be tired, after such a long day worrying about my affairs.”
Viktor noticed Sergeant Linde, too, eyeing the guard in confusion. For whatever reason, she chose to remain silent. “Well, professor?” Naomi said. “Would you care to explain?”
“I stepped out for a midnight stroll, and am afraid I got a bit lost.”
Van Draker smirked. “And then stumbled over an eight-foot wall?”
Naomi took Viktor by the arm. “I’ll deal with Professor Radek. I apologize for the intrusion.”
“Tsk tsk. The professor is only curious. Ya, I believe he thinks I am some kind of Dr. Frankenstein.” He gave a light-hearted chuckle. “Isn’t that true, professor?”
His comment caused Naomi to pale.
“Are you?” Viktor asked.
Van Draker’s head wove slowly back and forth. “Perhaps, as a younger man, in another life. But are not all true scientists? I confess: ‘it was the secrets of heaven and earth I desired to learn, the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man.’ ”
“Quoting the great work itself,” Viktor said. “You left out the parts about combining human body parts and bringing them to life.”
“Is the concept so strange? Did Jesus not commit the first necromantic act by raising Lazarus from the dead? Followed by Christ’s own resurrection? God gave us the precedent Himself!”
“I believe there was a slightly different context.”
“Was there? Or did He employ imagery we could envision at the time, the shroud of the grave instead of an operating table? I am not one who believes that faith is a concept distinct from reason. What is God but the ultimate expression of science? Quantum physics, black holes, the miracle of the human brain? We are searching for kernels of truth in the mill of the universe, a place of unimaginable size and complexity. Are we not entitled to answers from our creator? Are we ourselves not like the Frankenstein monster, stumbling through the village of our reality, confused and frightened?”
“So you’re still searching?”
“Who isn’t? I read all the new journals, I ponder my existence every night with my journal and my glass of wine, a toast to the heavens by the dying embers of the fire.”
“I see.”
Van Draker’s face turned wistful. “To be honest, I wish I were still practicing. There is so much work to be done. Let me quote again: ‘What glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!’ ”
“Were your motives so pure when you experimented on unwilling victims during Apartheid?”
Van Draker’s eyes flashed. “Choices for the greater good are always made, by governments and individuals alike. It is an inevitable fact of human progress.”
“Then perhaps we should not progress so rapidly,” Viktor said quietly.
“I’m confused, professor. I’m familiar with your life’s work. You seek the truth, the answers to life and death, as much as anyone.”
“Not at the expense of others.”
Van Draker gave a slow, knowing smile. “Men of greatness always make sacrifices along the way.”
Sergeant Linde gripped Viktor’s arm and shone her flashlight towards the long driveway. “I apologize again for the intrusion. I’ll deal with this in an appropriate manner.”
“Ya, of course,” van Draker said. “Thank you for your service, officer. Shall I have Pieter take you to your car?”
“That won’t be necessary,” she said, with a hitch in her voice.
“What about a glass of wine to settle the nerves? We’ve all had an eventful evening, and you must be wondering why I emerged from the cellar. I confess I’m subject to bouts of insomnia, and had just opened a nice vintage.”
Naomi and Viktor exchanged a glance.
“Come,” van Draker said. “Earlier today, you sought my opinion on the matter of the boy, and I’ve given it some thought.”
Wh
at is his game? Viktor wondered, as Sergeant Linde hesitated. Still, the professor didn’t want to waste an opportunity to gain valuable information. He tipped his head. “I’d be obliged.”
After another moment, Naomi gave her assent as well. With a magnanimous sweep of his palm, van Draker walked across the lawn and opened the old wooden door to the cellar, exposing the murky interior.
-19-
Grey had knocked instead of kicking in the door to the Peach Shack so he could catch his first opponent by surprise. As soon as the familiar, scrawny skinhead with a nose ring, spiked dog collar, and 88 tattooed across his chest opened the door, Grey snapped a front kick straight into his solar plexus, caving his torso and sending him flying backwards.
Chairs scraped across the floor as “Sweet Home Alabama” played in the background. Bodies rose. Grey scanned the room like a hawk eyeing a panicked group of squirrels.
Four men were scattered around the room, including the one he had kicked. Grey recognized them all. The same bartender from the rally, a sandy-haired man built like a former college linebacker, was closest to Grey. He was holding a mop near the front door, ten feet away. The obese man with the twin goatees who had helped abduct Dr. Varela was standing above a half-eaten plate of eggs. The fourth, the craggy-faced man who had led the assault, appeared the calmest. He broke off half of his beer bottle as he eyed the length of chain Grey had brought in.
No guns in hand, as Grey doubted there would be. No one except cops and drug dealers stayed strapped indoors, in their own place of business.
As he had also guessed would happen, no one ran or reached for their cell phones.
They came at him.
The bartender switched his grip on the mop and thrust the handle at Grey’s midsection. Grey sidestepped the attack and whipped him in the face with the chain. Bone crunched and skin split and blood sprayed out of the bartender’s mouth like a burst packet of ketchup. He screamed and fell away, his mouth a broken jigsaw puzzle.
The skinhead was still on the floor, gasping for breath. The other two men leapt forward, trying to get to Grey before he could use the chain again. The fat man whipped a butterfly knife out of his pocket, slicing diagonally at Grey as Craggy Face raised the bottle. Grey let the chain dangle and stepped smoothly to the left, brush blocking the knife thrust and putting the larger man between Grey and his other attacker. The obese man turned and jabbed the knife at Grey’s stomach.
Instead of dodging, Grey took half a step back and swung down on the back of the knife hand as hard as he could, tipping his fist downward and using his base set of knuckles, the ones connecting the fingers to the hand, as a hammer. It was not an easy move, but the goateed fat man was slow and Grey was lightning fast. He scored a direct hit and felt his opponent’s weak metacarpal bones cave beneath the blow.
The butterfly knife fell from numb fingers. It took a moment for the pain to register, but when the fat man’s neurons lit up, he stood there and screamed.
Grey stepped backwards, just in time to avoid a swing of the beer bottle. Behind the craggy-faced man, the skinhead with the nose ring lurched to his feet, struggling to breathe and looking for something to use as a weapon. “You can’t do this,” he gasped. “You’re a cop.”
“Think again,” Grey said, lowering to lash Craggy Face across the knees with the chain.
Not expecting the low blow, the man staggered but kept his feet. He snarled and threw the bottle at Grey’s head, then rushed him, trying to get inside the length of chain. He had fists like granite and threw tight punches. A trained boxer. Grey whirled to the side, out of his reach, and lashed him once, twice, three times with the chain. He fell and tried to cover his head as Grey lashed him again until he lay still, a bloody mess on the floor.
Grey gripped the chain and looked around the room. The bartender was leaning against a chair for support, moaning with pain. “There’s a gun under the register,” he croaked to the skinhead. “Third drawer.”
The skinny man dove over the bar and scrambled through the drawers. Grey strode to the bartender, smacked him when he tried to get away, and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. Pinching against the sensitive bilateral occiput insertions, where the neck muscles attach to the base of the skull, Grey walked the bartender behind the bar as the skinhead fumbled with the gun.
“Shoot him!” the bartender screamed.
The skinhead raised the gun, hands shaking as he tried to find a place to aim. “I ain’t got a shot!”
Ten feet separated them. Grey kept walking, using the large bartender as a shield, knowing it was an impossible shot without going through him. Grey could tell by looking at the skinhead’s panicked face that he wasn’t ready to shoot his friend. Even so, the tiny handgun looked like a .22 that wouldn’t make it through.
The bartender bucked and tried to get free. Grey squeezed his neck and kneed him in the base of the spine, causing him to shriek in pain.
“Do it, Dale!”
The skinhead let loose a string of curses as he waved the gun in the air and backed away, towards the closed end of the bar. Grey kept advancing. The skinhead gave up and tried to dive over the counter. Grey lashed him with the chain, causing him to drop the gun. Grey flung the bartender to the ground, picked up the gun, and hopped over the bar, pulling the skinhead the rest of the way over by his dog collar.
Grey rounded all four men up on the floor in the center of the room. Craggy Face was barely conscious, but the obese man was sitting up, holding his ruined hand and flaying Grey with his eyes. Grey checked to make sure the gun was loaded, then pointed it at the group. Someone else was bound to show up before long, so he had to hurry.
“You!” he said to Dale, the skinhead. He debated interrogating the bartender, but Dale had been standing right next to Big Red at the rally. “Get over here.”
“Nah, man, hey, I—”
“Now!”
Like a kicked dog, Dale skulked over to Grey. He was wearing low-slung jeans and a ribbed white tank top with the edges of the 88 tattoo peeking out. Grey knew the number stood for the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, twice over. Short for Heil Hitler.
Even if Grey hadn’t been teetering on the edge of madness due to Charlie’s kidnapping, he would have shown little mercy.
Grey lifted the bottom of Dale’s chin with the gun. The skinhead cringed.
“Who is he?” Grey asked. “The big redhead at the rally. Funny accent.”
Recognition flashed in the man’s eyes. “I got no idea—”
Grey elbowed him in the side of the face. The blow spun him around and caused him to whimper and start babbling for Grey to stop. The man was a straight-up coward.
Grey pointed the gun. “I won’t ask again.”
“Don’t tell him nothing!” the bartender shouted.
Grey pressed the gun against the skinhead’s eye.
“All right!” Dale screamed. “Dag. That’s what we call him.”
“Last name?”
“Dunno, man. I ain’t his mom.”
Grey let that slide. “Where’s he from?”
“Somewhere in Europe. Germany, I think.”
Grey knew the accent wasn’t German, but Dale wouldn’t know a German accent from a Chinese one, so he pushed forward. “Where is he now?”
“I got no idea.”
“You don’t know?”
“Nah man, I swear! He’s been in town a few weeks, drumming up support. I only seen him that one time, at the rally. Swear to God.”
“Then why were you standing right next to him?”
He looked away. Grey nudged him with the gun.
“Don’t say it,” the bartender man said, his voice low and threatening.
The skinhead looked ready to cry. “I can’t, man.”
Grey grabbed him by the back of the head and pressed the gun even tighter. “Choose.”
The skinhead cursed under his breath and mumbled, “Winter, man. Winter’s people paid a bunch of us to make sure nothing happened.”
“Eric Winter?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit, Dale,” the bartender said. “You gotta shut up.”
From outside, Grey heard tires crunching on gravel. The bartender rose, and Grey swung the gun around. “Sit!”
The bartender complied, but a smug expression crept onto his face. “What are you gonna do, shoot us all?”
“Maybe,” Grey said, with quiet conviction.
The bartender’s smirk evaporated.
Grey reached up and grabbed the skinhead by his nose ring, bending him double. “Last question. If you don’t tell me the truth, fast, I’m taking this ring with me.”
“Don’t do that, man.”
“There’s a black girl named Charlie, sixteen years old. Someone took her last night in New York.”
Confusion flooded the skinhead’s eyes, and Grey’s heart sank. Damn. Whatever had happened, it was above Dale’s pay grade.
“I got no idea about that,” Dale said. “Swear to God.”
Grey looked the group over. Even the bartender looked puzzled.
A car door opened outside. The bartender opened his mouth as if to yell, and Grey pointed the gun at him. “Shut up, and you might live.”
He closed his mouth.
Grey pulled harder on Dale’s nose ring, until it started to tear through the skin. “You got to the count of three to tell me where she is. One, two—”
“Don’t! I swear I swear I swear! I got no idea what you’re talking about!”
“Who would know?” Grey said.
“What?”
“Who’s the next man up in Atlanta? Who would know something?”
“Don’t say a word!” the bartender screamed.
The skinhead looked to the side, avoiding Grey’s eyes. Grey pulled on the nose ring harder, yanking it half way out, at the same time he swept the back of Dale’s legs out and sent him crashing to the floor. Grey leaned on his chest with a knee and jammed the gun against his forehead. “I’ll shoot you right here, right now, if you don’t give me a name.”
“He won’t do it!” the bartender said.
The footsteps neared the door.