The Trashman

by William Alan Webb

  “Do you? I don’t.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because she was there son, in person, when her grandfather accepted it.”

  “But that would make her—” I paused, not wanting to say the words. Reading my face, he saw that I understood.

  “That’s right. She’s more than 700 years old. What did she supply to bin Laden? Magic. Dona S. is one of the world’s most powerful gatandis. She disguised the terrorists and allayed suspicions using kaval in the days before the government admitted even internally that it was real.”

  Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. I glanced down at my thumb. It had now grown past the second knuckle. The pale half-moon of a nail had begun to form.

  “So, what was in it for her?”

  In the glare of midday, Andrew approached us with lunch. Dad looked at him, and then back at me.

  “The only thing she cares about, power. Crippling the USA would kill the European tourist industry for years to come, thus dragging the EU economy to the brink of insolvency. The worst hit countries would include Italy, who is engaged now in a war with the Mafia as a whole and the Red Nail in particular.”

  “And with the economy in shambles, the government couldn’t continue the fight,” I said.

  “It would also make judges and politicians more susceptible to bribes.”

  “You mean there are some who aren’t?”

  That got a laugh. “Maybe a few.”

  After three additional meals my thumbs and toes were fully regenerated, my body had regained all of its lost weight, and beating the holy fuck out of Dona S. topped my to-do list. I still had trouble believing we weren’t dead, because we didn’t seem to need sleep which, combined with an endless supply of frequent and delicious meals and the apparent lack of needing to use the bathroom, further confirmed that if we weren’t in Heaven, it passed as a reasonable facsimile. I told Dad that.

  “I found this place totally by accident,” he said. “So, how do I explain this so you’ll understand? Time is not what you think it is—”

  “Is this about Knemon?”

  That caught him off guard.

  “My son seems to know more than I thought he did. How is it that you know about Knemon?”

  “I met him when a big orange rhino tore the space-time continuum and tried to kill me.”

  “What? When, where?”

  “The air strip near Keel’s place.”

  His eyes shifted back and forth as he temporarily forgot me. “After we dropped you off that day?”

  “Yeah, a couple of hours after that.”

  “Isra and Cevdet must have been out of the loop on that. Damn, why would the Ropoco be after you? Did you find out? Was it connected to Jamaica?”

  “It was Dona S.”

  Dad sprang from his chair. “We’ve gotta go.”

  “And you’re sure we’re not dead?”

  “Not yet but hold that thought.”

  Chapter 24

  We walked through a door back into our own world. There was nothing special about it, just an ordinary, everyday wooden door supported by a simple frame standing in the middle of a field of pinkish-gray flowers that smelled like disinfectant. Andrew went first, me second, and Dad came last.

  The first thing I felt upon stepping into a puddle of green muck was a flash of danger. My reflexes took over and I jerked my leg back as a cottonmouth lunged for my calf. The fangs left tiny holes in my pant leg. When Dad came through the doorway the snake coiled to strike again, flicked its tongue to taste the air, and slithered backward ten feet.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “She’s gravid and we disturbed her nest.”

  “How do you know that?” I said, eyeing the serpent.

  “No time to explain.”

  After slogging through a few hundred yards of jungle swamp and stagnant water and cypress trees, we came out on the edge of a one square mile area that had been hacked out of the wetlands. The instant we came into view two turrets mounting large-caliber weapons popped out of the ground, aimed directly at us.

  “You are in a restricted area,” said a metallic voice from somewhere I couldn’t pin down. “Under Federal law, the penalty for unauthorized access is death. Do not move or you will be shot without further warning. You have ten seconds to make peace with your Creator if you so choose.”

  I started to speak but my father held out a hand to stop me.

  “Try it and I’ll send those bullets back where they came from,” he said.

  “You can do that?” I whispered.

  His eyebrows furrowed into a V and he shook his head once. “Of course not,” he mouthed.

  “Who are you?” the disembodied voice repeated. I narrowed it down to a patch of grass between the cupolas.

  “Gray Mist,” Dad answered.

  “Gray Mist?”

  “Ssshhh.”

  There was a pause, lasting until long after the ten seconds was up.

  “Gray Mist is dead.”

  “Ask Mister Keel about that.”

  Out of the side of my mouth I whispered, “I thought you didn’t know about SAD.”

  “I might not have told the truth.”

  Another pause.

  “Advance and follow orders. Be aware that your earlier bluff did not work, and we will not hesitate to—” Somebody abruptly shut off the microphone and I had the sense of being inspected. I’d been hidden by the overhang of a tree until a random breeze blew it aside so that sunlight dappled my face. “Who is the second person with you?” said a non-scrambled voice with a German accent.

  “What up, Jürgen?” I said.

  “Steed?”

  “Who else would I be?”

  “It’s hard to say underneath all of that hair.”

  “Oh yeah.” As much as I’d been scratching the six-inch beard, you’d have thought it I couldn’t forget it for even a second. “And I could probably use a shower.”

  “You could, sir,” Andrew said. “In case there was any question of it.”

  Two hours later, shaved, showered, and wearing fresh clothes, everyone seemed much happier to have me around. To be honest, I was happier, too. A man gets pretty ripe after two months.

  Everybody sat around the gaming table in the living quarters’ common room. Ribaldo and Jürgen had a much darker skin tone than the last time I’d seen them. Moroccan, maybe, or Libyan. Finger food and glasses of iced tea on coasters lay within reach. When I walked in, Ribaldo leaned over to inspect me and nodded.

  “We can eat now.” The words had a distinct Arabic edge.

  “You didn’t have to wait for me,” I said.

  “Some of us didn’t,” said Venus. The instant I heard the lilt of her Nordic accent, I fell deeply in love with her. She nodded toward the twins. “Those two have sensitive stomachs and feared they would vomit if you still stank after washing.”

  She was wearing clothes this day, tight jeans and a tighter T-shirt, but still, clothes. I tried not to show my dismay.

  “In that case, let the feast begin!”

  Dad picked up a tuna sandwich. “Not exactly what I call a feast.”

  Merkus came knuckle-running out of the kitchen, so before he snapped my father’s neck, I stepped between them.

  “I saw you gobble down a bowl of kibble, Dad,” I said. “Compared to that, tuna sandwiches are a feast, especially Merkus’s.”

  Merkus lifted his upper lip in a snarl that exposed three-inch-long incisor teeth, accompanied by a low growl. He jabbed the air with a clawed forefinger in my father’s direction.

  “You’re a guest, mate, so I’m not rippin’ yer throat out, but we value civility around here. You’d do well to remember that.”

  With that, he went back to the kitchen.

  “Touchy bloke,” Dad said. Then he turned to Jürgen. “Budget cuts force the janitor to do your cooking?”

  I sat down and held out my hands to avoid anybody getting hurt.

  “Dad, stop it! Please excuse him, folks, he’s no
t housebroken.”

  “It’s not us he needs to worry about,” Jürgen said, nodding toward the hallway door. As if given a stage cue, Cynthia Witherbot swept into the room. Dad’s eyebrows went up. He hadn’t seen her in nearly 20 years, and while Cynthia had always been a vibrant and commanding woman, she had matured into what I would have called a hot babe, if it wasn’t sexist to notice those things.

  “Nice to see you again, Nathan,” she said, taking the last seat at the table. It was perfunctory, like they were exchanging polite greetings while selecting bananas at the grocery store but she was late to pick up the kids. “For those who don’t know, in 1998 Nathan Steed joined a top-secret NSA initiative titled Project Merlin. Project Merlin was a continuance and expansion of a CIA operation called Project Dark Shade, which was elevated in security clearance beyond that which the CIA project managers held. The purpose was to investigate the potential uses and threats posed by people with magical talents and, further, to keep the existence of such people secret from the public. Nathan was presumed killed during the attack on the U.S. Capitol Building, but as we can see, that was not necessarily the case.”

  “Not necessarily?” Dad said.

  “Appearances can be deceiving.”

  “You were such a nice girl; what happened?” he said.

  “She wasn’t that nice, Dad,” I said.

  Cynthia slammed her palm on the table causing some potato chips to jump off my plate. “Shut up. We’re not reading for a sitcom; somebody’s life hangs in the balance here. What is wrong with you two?”

  That stopped me cold.

  “Whose life?”

  “Dawn Delvin.”

  “But…she was with Venus and Isra.” I pointed at my newest love interest, except now my brain had snapped into work mode. When that happened, people usually died.

  Cynthia’s eyes flicked to Venus, and when that gorgeous force of nature looked down, I knew what was coming.

  “Isra did not survive,” Cynthia said.

  Dad half-stood, leaning forward on his hands.

  “How?”

  Despite our relationship being 20 years gone, and Cynthia having obviously worked to control her facial tics, there were micro-expressions she couldn’t get rid of, and I knew them all. Dad’s reaction had surprised the British Bitch.

  “They shot Isra multiple times, at both short and medium range. The fatal shot was to the back of her head, and the evidence suggests she was laying in the sand, wounded, when her killer pulled the trigger. Five separate puddles of blood surrounded her body, and DNA analysis traced them to northern Sicily and Reggio Calabria, in southern Italy.”

  “They executed her,” Dad said.

  Cynthia nodded.

  “She was a kind lady.”

  “She was a Shooter, Nathan. She knew the risks of her job.”

  “That doesn’t negate what I said.”

  “No,” she agreed, “it does not.”

  He stood, hands in pockets, and walked around for a minute. Dad internalized his emotions better than most people I’d met, but that didn’t mean they weren’t boiling over inside. We all watched him, understanding the situation as far as we could. I barely knew Isra, really, and while others had known her longer and better, only my father had known her as a dog, and he taught me early in life that how people treated animals showed their true self.

  “My best friend was a brilliant African-American lady named Teresa Bulago,” Dad said after a minute or so. “She worked for Project Merlin as a linguist, had three kids under nine years old, and a great guy named Tarik for a husband. Our boss was testifying before a Senate sub-committee that morning when the jets hit the Capitol, and we were there as advisors. Neither of us had to be—it wasn’t required—but we liked our boss and wanted to help out if we could.

  “Control of my abilities wasn’t very good in those days. I’d never had any formal training, and while that was part of Project Merlin’s mission statement, we were feeling our way along. Nobody knew much about it back then because, while the government had known that kaval existed for a long, long time—at least as far back as the Civil War—their disclaimer of all things alien, paranormal, or cryptozoological meant that no in-depth research had ever been done. So, when I looked up from a seat in the gallery to see flaming jet fuel coming at me like a tidal wave, I reacted without thinking. I opened a portal to somewhere else. It wasn’t something I’d ever done and didn’t know I could do… The last thing I saw before stepping to safety was Teresa waving her arms as the flames engulfed her. Her screams still haunt me every night of my life.

  “Dona Salvatorelli tracked me down, I still don’t know how she knew about my escape, and offered to help me develop my talents. She became my mentor. She thought she was training a gatandi she could use for her own goals. Unknown to her, I’d overhead a conversation between her and Blong Cha and another one of his pupils, about their part in the 9/11 attacks, and made sure that she never learned about my ability to become a canine. They were angry that LEI had prevented bin Laden from completing payment for their services—”

  “She’s one of the richest people in the world,” Cynthia said, interrupting but with her brows knitted, meaning the answer was important to her. “What did she need with more money? Al Qaeda didn’t have enough for this to make sense.”

  “The payment was in further attacks,” Dad said. “Destabilizing Europe was next on the agenda, although I don’t know the specific targets. Whatever they were, I know that Dona S. decided to take on the LifeEnders Mercenaries directly, and thereby keep bin Laden alive until they got paid. They laid traps for some of the LEI teams in Afghanistan. I was tasked with helping them carry out their plans, and that’s where they fucked up. They didn’t realize I wanted to kill them, not the LifeEnders, or that my son was one of their targets.”

  “The brickyard,” I said. “Now it all makes sense.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I was supposed to open a portal to a chamber in that place where she was holding you, disguised as a cave, while Dona S. projected an image of bin Laden and his deputies to lure your team inside. Just in case that failed, she’d informed al Qaeda of her plans so they could ambush you. Instead, I blocked her connection with my mind, something she’d taught me how to do without dreaming I’d used it against her and stopped you from approaching the killing zone.”

  “And she never discovered your shape-shifting talent?” Cynthia said.

  Dad shook his head.

  “She never tried because she never suspected it. Had she concentrated on me back in that cell, we’d both be dead now.”

  “Can you still open that same portal?”

  “I could, but that’s a bad idea. The chamber had no doorways at ground level, only a grated opening in the ceiling, fifteen feet from ground level. It’s a dead end.”

  “And you couldn’t lead us into the room above that?”

  “What’s the point of that?”

  “Getting us into her stronghold.”

  “Maybe I could, but it’s dangerous. Not only because I don’t know what’s up there, but also because going places I’ve never been before is like driving at night in a maze with no headlights and only starlight to see by. It’s hard to explain.”

  “I believe you,” Cynthia said. “And thank you, Nathan, I can only imagine what you’ve been through.”

  “I meant what I said,” Dad continued, ignoring her attempt to move the meeting in a new direction. “I’m going to kill her.”

  “And I’m going to rescue Dawn,” I blurted. To my utter horror, I realized that I did have feelings for her, not feelings caused by her use of kaval on me and not lust, but an actual, genuine emotional reaction. The only other time that happened was with the woman sitting beside me at the table, so close that I could feel her body heat. “So, it’s a family thing now.”

  “Isra was more than a colleague to us,” said Ribaldo, “she was also a friend. We will go with you.”

  Jürgen nodded, and began to speak,
but got cut off by Venus.

  “Den sicilianaska tiken måsta dö,” she said, “jag kommer—” The Sicilian bitch must die, I’m coming.

  “Quiet!” Cynthia said. “Put your dicks back in your pants, people. And that means you, too, Venus. Isra was a trusted SAD agent, as were One Shot and Carlos. They died on the job, and LEI will do anything and everything to kill their killers. They will not go unavenged but running off like a pack of first graders will only get you killed. In addition to that, what are you going to do, fly to Sicily and question people in the streets of Messina about where to find Dona Salvatorelli? Don’t be stupid.”

  “Surely we know where she lives,” I said.

  “She has many homes, and all of them are guarded by sophisticated weapons and an army of Mafia soldiers willing to die to keep her safe.”

  “So, what’s your bright idea?” Dad said. Not being part of LEI, much less SAD, Cynthia’s position as assistant director meant nothing to him.

  “Never again use that tone with me, Nathan, not if you want my help.”

  “I didn’t ask for your help.”

  “Then let me rephrase it for your benefit, hear me out or leave. I do have a plan.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  His tone hadn’t changed but Cynthia drained half her glass of tea and let it go.

  “We do not know where Miss Delvin is being held captive. However, we are fairly certain the location of Dona Salvatorelli’s stronghold is…elsewhere.”

  Clearly everybody else knew what that meant, I could see it in their eyes. Even Dad understood. Only I didn’t have a clue, so I asked.

  “Elsewhere is where I took you when we escaped from the cell,” Dad said.

  “So, what’s the big deal? Let’s just go back and kick ass.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “There are countless ‘elsewheres’ Steed,” Jürgen said.

  “Like, other dimensions?”