by Dom Testa
He might’ve told her he was a law enforcement officer and flashed a fake badge. That’s often all it took for someone to spill everything: a believable ID and a winning smile. Maybe I’d been painted as an embezzler from a big Atlanta brokerage firm. No need to worry, ma’am, we’ll just corral him and be out of your hair in a jiffy.
Their game plan here would be different than it was in Oregon. Instead of knocking me off right away, they’d want to drag me someplace and ply me with questions. What was my interest in drones? Why such intricate, high-tech machines? And why from Sgt. Brown? After the queries there’d likely be a bullet, but first they’d demand answers.
That was exactly what I wanted, too. Was Baseball Cap this guy Parnell? Just how helpful could he be? Maybe not much, maybe a lot. But I could use him to find Richter.
The manager returned to the office, and Baseball Cap got back on his phone, this time for mere seconds. Then he walked toward my room, blowing a bubble from his gum and looking totally carefree. I knew better. Inside he’d gone to Defcon 2, ready for action if I was on the premises. I began measured breathing exercises and slowly flexed my fingers on the gun’s grip. As soon as he reached the door I dropped to one knee and peeked around the edge. Sure enough, the fact that the room was unlocked and open a crack had him puzzled. He looked around, but mostly at the parking lot, before nudging the door open with his foot. As he disappeared inside I saw the glint of his weapon.
In a flash I was back down the walkway until I stood just to the side of the open door. I heard him inside, walking on the tile around the bathroom. A second later the shower curtain was pulled back. I waited to hear him approach the door again, and cringed when an 18-wheeler blew past on the road, masking all sounds from the room. Then I heard a creak just a few feet away. He was near the door.
In one motion I took a step around the corner and inside, raising my gun at the same time. He froze, gun at his side, the barrel of my Glock three feet from his nose.
He stopped chewing his gum.
Using his same foot maneuver I pushed the door closed until it clicked, never once blinking. I backed up until I was against the door, now out of range of a kick or other assault. I said, “Gun. Floor. Pronto.”
He set it down, also not blinking.
“On your ass,” I said. He hesitated, then sank to his knees.
“You don’t follow instructions well,” I said. “Your ass. And hurry. I’m impatient. Good boy. Now sit on your hands.”
If you ever see a movie where someone gets the drop on someone else and asks them to kneel, you know it’s Hollywood. Anyone can launch themselves from a position on their knees. On your ass it’s awkward and slow.
I reached behind and locked the door, then moved to one side, away from the window. “Now slowly turn your pockets inside out. Uh-uh, remember: slowly. That’s a good boy.” His cell phone plopped onto the carpet, and a set of car keys, but that was all. Pretty typical for someone on a job. “How long until Richter gets here?”
He finally blinked. “Who?”
I didn’t need an answer. His partner would arrive any minute. I simply wanted him to know I knew. I pulled from my pocket a wad of the napkins I’d picked up at the coffee shop. “All right, open up. Say ahh.” When he failed to do so, I took one big step and shot my heel into his face, knocking him onto his back. Keeping the Glock centered on his nose, I shoved the wad of napkins into his mouth, which now hung open in shock. Then I spun him over onto his stomach and delivered a punch with my left hand into his kidneys. His muffled howls brought me oodles of satisfaction.
“Just letting you know right now,” I said, leaning toward his ear. “There’s a better than 50-50 chance I’m going to shoot you in just a minute or two, as soon as your little buddy gets here. Probably through your right eye. I’ll only incapacitate Richter, because I need to talk to him. He’s a bigger fish, I think. But you’re probably getting killed today. Payback for sweet Kyra, asshole.”
He was too jacked up to even attempt an answer. His head was turned to one side on the dingy carpet and he worked hard drawing air through his nose, a sickening, desperate sound. His eyes, wide open, stared at the legs of the room’s dresser in uncomprehending shock. The napkins were soaked with blood, a darker red than you’d expect. I may have broken his jaw.
I scooped up his cell phone and keys and set them on the floor next to me. If I’d had time I could’ve tied his hands, but he wasn’t motivated to move a whole lot anyway.
A car approached the parking lot, much too slowly across the gravel. From the sound of it the driver parked at the far end, away from the office. There was silence, then vibration coming from my guest’s phone. A status check from Richter, no doubt. I leaned over and looked at the screen. Just a number. No problem, the phone might have a handy list of contacts we could use. I slipped it into a jacket pocket.
The sound of the car and the call must’ve encouraged the bleeding man on the floor. He tried to prop himself up. I pushed him back down with my foot, adding a little extra mustard on the shove so his already-damaged face bounced against the floor. He let out a cushioned yelp through the bloody wad of napkins.
“Oh, hush,” I said. “You gotta be a tough guy to do this job. So either be tough or at least pretend.”
Too much time had passed since the sound of the car and the phone call. Richter was rightly cautious, and I knew I was tangling with an experienced trooper. I imagined him either waiting in the car, or perhaps standing on the edge of the building where I’d hidden myself a few minutes ago. With his partner missing and not responding he’d have to check my room eventually. But just coming through the door would be beyond foolish. That’s a sure way of getting two slugs in the chest. He was assuredly putting himself in my shoes, figuring out my moves, so he knew I was patiently waiting. That meant I had to contemplate his moves. If I was Richter, what would I do?
The window. A distraction through the window, then a solid blow to the door. If the door swung open he’d be crouched, expecting a shot around chest or head height.
I crawled over to the prone figure on the floor and whispered, “I’m going to really hurt you now.” Then, with the safety on, I brought the Glock’s handle down as hard as I could on the back of his head. It takes a lot to actually knock someone unconscious, but I guarantee you a smash like that prevents anyone from making any movements on their own. More blood spilled across the floor and his breathing grew even more labored. I removed the gun’s safety. Then I dragged my friend toward the back of the room and propped him up in a sitting position against the wall leading to the bathroom. I climbed behind him and peeked out from around the corner, using both the wall and him as a shield. It was just a matter of waiting.
Which went on and on.
One minute turned into two, which became three. This had to be a calculated strategy, designed to stress my nerves and to make me impatient. Impatience bred mistakes.
But I’d seen this movie before. I could wait as long as he wanted. At a certain point his strategy would backfire and he’d be the one to get jumpy.
At the four-minute mark the fun began. The window exploded inward and something bounced off the bed. The room began filling with gas.
The bastard had lobbed a goddamned tear gas canister. Well, that’s not fair.
I ducked into the bathroom, grabbed a towel near the sink and soaked it under the faucet, all while holding my breath. Just as the gas reached the back of the room I jammed the towel up to my nose and mouth and, squinting, peered back around the corner as Richter kicked in the door. It banged against the wall and pieces of cheap wood flew through the air. The room was thick with smoke, stinging my eyes.
To really get the party started I fired a shot toward the door.
It did the trick. Richter couldn’t identify shapes through the gas and simply let loose with a volley from his automatic weapon. At least six rounds pelted the wall next to me, but unfortunately for my bloody guest another half dozen hit him. Peering acros
s the now-slumped body I got my first glimpse of Richter. Son of a bitch. He wore a gas mask that looked identical to the one I’d played with at Hash Brown’s store. Shit, it probably was the same gas mask.
I leaned back out of sight to lure him in, counted to three, then reached around and immediately let off six shots of my own. An emphatic cry, muffled by both the mask and the smog-filled room, told me I’d at least gotten a piece.
But he wasn’t giving up. Another fusillade of shells burst through the room. I can only imagine what someone in a neighboring room must’ve thought. To them it was either the start of WWIII, or somebody like my grandfather had the TV turned up to 11 again.
I didn’t necessarily like my position, but I couldn’t wait for him to close in. I blinked my eyes as much as possible, held the rag with one hand and rolled out from behind the wall, firing.
Let’s talk about gun fights for a sec.
Remember our conversation about how Hollywood portrays them? Yeah, those are bullshit. I’ve seen Die Hard at least 20 times and laughed my ass off at the sheer volume of rounds that “missed” John McClane. He might’ve been the most badass cop to ever come out of NYC, but those so-called professional terrorists and assassins missed with, like, 7,000 rounds of ammunition.
I wasn’t so lucky. Richter and I were firing at the same time: he on one knee, trying to crouch beside the desk, and yours truly sliding horizontally from behind the stiff in the room. We’re both good. We both hit our targets.
And it hurt like a bitch.
One round hit me in the right thigh and tore off a good chunk. But the money shot was in my lower right rib cage, and that was really not good. Through my tear-clogged eyes and the swirling gas in the room I saw him stagger back from one of my shots. I raised my arm and struggled to get off another two rounds, but he was retreating, I was torn up, and neither of these rounds hit.
He stumbled out of the room on what looked like only one good leg, slamming into the door frame before righting himself and disappearing. I lay on the floor trying to breathe, realizing that a lot of blood was oozing from my two new holes. I let the gun fall to the floor and managed to extract my phone. Poole answered within a half-ring.
“I’m down. Maybe out. Hit . . . twice. Get help . . . here now. Ambulance. I can . . . still . . . upload . . . if we hurry.”
The last sound I heard before passing out was a car tearing out of the parking lot going north while the distant wail of a siren came from the south.
Chapter Seventeen
As that guy kept saying in the Monty Python movie: “I’m not dead yet.” But I was damned close.
I regained consciousness in the ambulance and asked if they could turn off the annoying siren. It’s so freaking loud when you’re riding in the back. They ignored me, of course.
I got a whiff of something metallic, coppery, the smell of your change jar, and recognized it as blood. Mine. Well, the convict’s, but still. I was bathed in it. No matter how many times it happens I never quite get used to that look or smell. I glanced up and saw a bag of universal-donor coursing through a tube into my arm next to a bag of something else. Maybe some sort of antibiotic?
The next thing that worked its way into my semi-conscious state was pain that defied explanation. The man and woman riding along with me were working on that at the moment, too, injecting something into the IV.
A few moments later the pain retreated to the bearable stage. After my bitchy request about the siren I decided to just keep my trap shut until we got to the hospital. I closed my eyes and replayed the last scene, hoping I survived long enough to upload it.
The baseball cap dude with the obnoxious gum habit was certainly still lying in the debris that used to be my cheap motel room. He was riddled with bullets, none of which were mine, despite my threat of shooting out his eye, kid. His partner may have hit that target for me; I never got to see the guy’s face after the hurricane of lead began. I wondered again if he was Parnell.
And what of the diabolical Mr. Richter? I’d hit him at least once, of that I was sure. But he’d not only scrambled out of the room, he’d managed to race away in his car. Now, true, he might’ve passed out himself, or just crashed due to the pain and injuries. For the moment, however, I’d assume he escaped to wherever vermin like him escape to. Something told me we’d be face to face — and barrel to barrel — again.
So the most pressing matter now was getting me stable enough to upload, and getting someone from Q2 down here to provide the equipment and the help. Oh, and to provide a cover-up. The local authorities were gazing upon what looked like a 1920s Chicago mob-land shootout with a sprinkle of guerrilla warfare mixed in. And they had (so far) one survivor who’d damned well better explain just what was a-goin’ on here.
Well, we’ve got a department for that, of course. This wasn’t the first time a Q2 agent had been embroiled in a messy, bloody exchange. Just as I’m a killing specialist, we’ve got people who concentrate on one thing: Clean up and hush up incidents. Our internal nickname for them is Sanitation. My guess was they’d be on the scene within three hours, much sooner if one was already lounging around Atlanta.
And when they went into their act it was something to behold. They could sanitize a crime scene within minutes, not only removing any and all traces of our presence, but also bringing down the wrath of God — government sanctioned, you know — on anyone in law enforcement puffed up with righteous indignation. I wish I’d had a Sanitizer on call in high school.
I checked out of the work being done in the ambulance, trying to summon Quanta’s spirit of transcendence. It worked pretty well. Then, a few minutes later and still in a deep fog, I was swept up the hallway of a hospital toward surgery. Those scenes from television hospital shows where the patient only glimpses ceiling tiles and fluorescent lights whizzing past? It’s totally like that. And someone asking me questions about allergic reactions and such.
Fast-forward — because that’s all anyone can do when it comes to anesthesia — to a recovery room where I glanced to my right and saw a somewhat-familiar face. Yep, a Sanitizer sat there, looking official and downright scary. He wouldn’t be away from my side for the duration of my stay or my life, whichever ended first. He saw me awaken and nodded once. His name wasn’t important because it wouldn’t really be his, anyway.
There’d be another Sanitizer at the motel, taking care of business. Sometimes I wondered if they actually had those little memory wands from Men In Black.
I closed my eyes and drifted.
Two days later, as I wrestled with pain in my private room, the Q2 guardian closed the door and set up a tablet. It was Quanta on the screen, looking worried about me for a change. “Hello, Swan. You doing okay?”
“Peachy. Get it? Georgia.”
“Yes, you’re quite funny.”
“I’m told the gunshot to my chest is bad but not life threatening. It would take months of rehab. On top of that, though, there’s only a very small chance of saving the leg. So you know what that means.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t sacrifice this body on purpose, did you, Swan?”
“I know you have total mind control, Quanta, and you frequently rise to self-transcendence, but for the rest of us it hurts to get shot. Twice. I won’t say I’m gonna miss this host, but I do look forward to enjoying scrambled eggs again.”
Let me supply another how-to video, just in case you didn’t pick up on the subtleties of this conversation. There are times when a Q2 agent is killed in the line of duty and we end up in a new host, like my transition from the Utah body to the scrawny dude. There are also times when, like a sick animal, we need to be put down. The skinny convict’s body had served its country, but it was now damaged beyond useful repair. It was time to say bye-bye.
We arranged for me to do an upload that evening. After that I’d be humanely euthanized and start the investment process all over again. If it sounds creepy and strange to you, imagine how it feels being the subject of the exercis
e. But since death would take place after the upload it’s yet another experience in the lights-out period. I’d never remember a thing about it.
Quanta gave me her look of resignation. We both knew her earlier speech about not having any replacements was so much hot air, so we didn’t discuss it. But she did bring up something else.
“As soon as you’re acclimated to your new body,” she said, “I want you to meet with Miller before you continue the assignment.”
“Quanta, I don’t know if there’s time.”
“It’s one hour, Swan. And it’s not a request.”
I should’ve expected it, so I gave a sigh of surrender and we moved on to other business.
“Have we caught Richter?” I asked.
“No. He had help from his side, just like you did. He’s been whisked away. We don’t know if he’s expired or not, but we think probably not.”
“What about Hash Brown? He obviously ratted me out. Do we move on him?”
“No. If we do, it’ll be after the assignment is over. For now he can just run his shop and wait for us to show up later. There’s no more damage he can do right now.”
This was true, but I didn’t like it. The muscular meatball was responsible for my getting splattered the day before, and yet he was free to sell his sleeping bags and sip warm Diet Coke all day long. Maybe I’d pay him a visit in another life. Preferably as a woman so I could surprise him in all sorts of ways.
Hadn’t considered that aspect yet, had you? Or maybe you had. File it for another chat, another time.
Anyway.
Our little operation had now definitely transitioned out of stealth mode. The fact that Richter and his sidekick — who, it turned out, was not named Parnell — were working a parallel path meant the twins knew they were under a supersized magnifying glass and were taking no chances with loose ends. The knowledge wouldn’t cause them to call off their mission, but they’d be fully on guard. That could only make our job more difficult. It wouldn’t surprise me if they stepped up the violence in defense of their divine plan.