Swords Of Exodus Part 25

Anders was waiting for me in the hall. He handed me a canvas backpack. Inside was my pistol, suppressor, spare magazines, holster, and knives. "Don't get stupid," he suggested. "Your woman and the kid are in our care."

"Me? Stupid? Never. Let's go."

"Here, put this on," Anders pa.s.sed me a surplus Russian army coat. It was heavy and a little bit too big, which worked out well since I was wearing a Spetsnaz armored vest underneath. "There will be a couple of goons. Take them fast."

"Aren't they slaves too? What are the odds of them putting up a fight?" I rocked and locked an orange bakelite magazine into the AKSU-74 he had given me. The weapon was short, stubby, and at the ranges we were going to be at, incredibly effective.

He shook his head. "They'll fight, I promise. Jihan brainwashes them. His soldiers only stop when you put them down." He pulled back the charging handle on his Saiga 12K, chambering a round. "Everybody knows the garrison buys supplies here, and they always pay in gold. We're a couple of toughs looking to make a buck, got it? How's your Russian?"

"Excellent."

"I do okay. Act Russian."

We were going in hard and fast. Anders had led me through a series of alleys and shadowed paths. We were now in the back room of a Montalban Exchange trade house, watching through the dust coated windows. The building we had under surveillance was a two-story, wooden construct, with no ornamentation, and very rudimentary signage proclaiming it as a seller of foodstuffs.

I didn't like going in without a plan, but Anders had been doing his homework. He glanced at his watch, one of those giant black things with every kind of dial and display known to man, waterproof down to the t.i.tanic. "The house slave usually goes shopping for the garrison around three. He normally has two soldiers with him. If they're buying a lot, then there will be another slave to help carry it back. He's the garrison cook, and they let him pick his own produce. He tried to pa.s.s Bob's coin one day while his guards weren't paying attention to get himself a little something."

"What about the Brothers?"

"I've got a distraction in place. When I call it in, some Uyghur separatists are going to firebomb one of the PLA stations south of town. Those guys all hate each other, so that was easy enough to arrange. That's the kind of thing that will draw those hooded b.a.s.t.a.r.ds right in. We give them a minute to swarm over there, then we hit."

"So, why's everybody so scared of the Brothers?"

He thought about it for a moment. "Because they're bada.s.s motherf.u.c.kers. The most we've ever seen in town at once is three, so hopefully they'll all head toward the bombing."

"What do we do if one shows up here?" I retracted the bolt on the stubby AK, and let it fly forward, chambering a green lacquered 5.45 round.

"Kill him," he answered like I was stupid. "They're tough, but they're not bulletproof. Then run. They pin us down, we're dead. If I die, Kat will a.s.sume you did it. If they catch you, and you say a word about Montalban involvement, you know she'll feed your girl to the hogs. If you're really lucky she'll put a bullet in her head first."

"Kat's a big softie like that," I muttered, watching the street. I was wearing a green-knit ski mask, rolled up on my head like a hat. "She's all heart."

"She's the devil's concubine," Anders said. "But she's great in the sack."

I turned away from the street, and studied the former G-man. "You're banging Kat, huh? Tapping the crazy?"

"Yeah. Job perk. Jealous?"

It shouldn't have surprised me. Kat always had liked to cement her working relationships with a little bit of l.u.s.t. "h.e.l.l no. Been there, done that. Literally. Doing it with a sack of angry porcupines would be safer."

Anders scowled.

I grinned viciously, looking up at the big operative. "But hey, who'd have thought we'd be belly buddies? Small world, hey?"

Anders fumed. I could tell he was contemplating just shooting me on the spot. My hands tightened around the stubby Kalashnikov in my hands. I silently dared him to make a move.

Something caught his attention then. He nodded toward the window. "They're here."

A thin man was walking up the front steps of the shop across the street. He was dressed in rough clothes, and flanked by two soldiers wearing snow camo. The soldiers were in their late teens, if that. Both were armed with AK47s. All three men had brutal burn scars across their faces. They disappeared into the building.

Anders pulled a radio out of his pocket, already set to a predetermined channel, and hit the transmit b.u.t.ton three times. Then we waited. I could feel the adrenaline begin to flow. I took long, deep breaths. There were several thumps, and in the distance a black cloud rolled up over the horizon. One of the soldiers ran back onto the porch and watched the rising smoke. We gave it a few minutes to sink in, hoping that most of the garrison strength, and especially the Brothers, would head toward the burning PLA station like moths to a flame.

Anders pulled down his mask, hiding his face. I did the same, rolling my eyes when I saw the skull painted on the outside of his mask. "Remember, no English," he said. "Act Russian." He jerked opened the door.

We were moving. I was only a few feet behind Anders' towering form. The street was crowded with armed men, like everywhere in The Crossroads, but now everyone was looking toward the distant explosion. Jihan's soldier was standing at the bottom of the steps, his AK at port arms, watching the commotion like everyone else. Anders threaded his way through the people, remarkably smooth for such a big man. The slave soldier never saw him coming.

Anders' shotgun had a steel folding stock. It impacted the soldier's cranium with a sound like an aluminum bat driving a home run ball over the fence. The man crumpled in a heap, but Anders was already well past. His giant combat boot impacted the door, and the frame exploded in a cloud of splinters.

We had talked about this beforehand. He b.u.t.tonhooked hard right, I went left. The main room was open, just tables of local and imported vegetables. The foodie in me marveled at the remarkable selection for this time of year. Everything you could possibly want to feed a hungry criminal underworld. "n.o.body move!" Anders ordered in Russian. A young man, dressed in the manner of the Triads, started to get indignant, but Anders kicked him brutally hard in the groin and just kept going.

"On the floor!" I shouted at the shoppers. Even if they didn't understand the language, my tone, combined with the rifle muzzle in their faces, got the point across. There were three people in front of me. None of them were who I was looking for. They complied with my orders and laid down. One Chinese man in an ap.r.o.n began to shout angrily about how he had paid his protection money already.

I didn't glance toward Anders. In an operation like this, each shooter had an area to cover. Leave your area uncontrolled to scan your partner's and you were dead in an instant.

Anders' shotgun belched thunder. A table of weird, pointy fruit exploded in yellow pulp. Something moved behind it, crouched low. The other soldier. A third blast of buckshot blasted through the wood and food. Jihan's man was still moving. He came up, swinging his AK, already depressing the trigger, and firing wildly around the shop. My Krink was set to semi-auto. I focused on the front sight, already on the soldier's chest, and stroked the trigger three times fast. He jerked as bullets tumbled through his heart and lungs. The top of his head disappeared in a red blur as Anders found him.

"I said everybody get on the d.a.m.ned floor!" I bellowed, in Russian, over the ringing in my good ear. "Where's the slave?"

"Over here," Anders called. The slave was on the ground covering his head with his hands. Anders bent down, grabbed him by the neck, and dragged him to his knees. "Talk to him quick."

My partner stepped back, scanning the room for further threats. I squatted before the shaking slave. He was confused, his eyes wide, bits of fruit splattered all over his scarred face. "Hey, look at me. Hey!" I slapped him once. That got his attention. I pulled the challenge coin out of my pocket and held it in front of his eyes. "Where did you get this?"

"I not know!"

"Where?"

"I not seen it," he sputtered, in bad Russian.

I slapped him again, hard enough to sting my hand through my glove. "Liar!"

Believe me, being a jerk to a man that had spent a good chunk of his life in slavery felt just as bad as you can imagine. I despise slavers. But I needed info, and I needed it now, and there was no way we were going to carry him out of here without getting caught. I had told myself that this was for the greater good, because if it helped end Jihan's reign, then it was freedom for thousands, and not just this one.

Anders stomped to the front door, and scanned down the street, obviously impatient. "More coming." He stepped back toward us, glanced around to make sure everyone else's head was still down, then lifted up his face mask. The slave looked startled, like he recognized him. "Clocks ticking."

"Yes, yes! I seen coin. Took from white man. Big white man. American. No hair. No hair." He rubbed his hands over his skull. "Please, no kill me."

"Is the American still alive?"

Now he appeared really scared, his eyes so wide that they appeared ready to pop out, but he looked hopefully toward Anders, almost as if he was asking permission. "Yes, alive, in master's dungeon. In fort. In Pale Man's fort." Once he had gotten past implicating his master, he seemed to decompress, to almost melt down, like he had gotten past the hard part. "Now you let me free? You take me away?" He pleaded toward Anders, tears of relief in his eyes.

BOOM.

I flinched as blood splattered across my face. Anders lowered his smoking shotgun as the slave thudded lifelessly to the floor.

"What the h.e.l.l!" I leapt up, shocked.

"He saw my face," Anders stated as he rolled his mask back down. He reached down and took leather bag filled with coins that would have bought supplies for Jihan's garrison. Now it was just a robbery. "Move. Out the back." He gestured toward the rear of the room, then he was gone.

I stared at the body for a moment as I wiped the blood from my eyes with the back of one gloved hand. Then I followed.

Just like the old days.

We dumped the masks, coats, vests, and long guns in the alley behind the vegetable shop, then walked nonchalantly through the rambling streets back toward the Montalban Exchange. Anders had the audacity to be hungry, and stopped at a noodle cart. "You ever try this stuff? It's probably made from cats and dogs, but it's pretty good."

I sullenly waited for him to get his lunch. I had no appet.i.te. "That wasn't the plan."

He paused in his noisy slurping. "What?"

"Killing that guy."

"Your way wasn't working. We didn't have time. I showed him my face because I've got a rep around here. He had to know he was dealing with someone who would just kill him, otherwise he never would have talked in time. If we let him go, and they caught him, he'd talk, we'd die. And once he told them what we asked about, your brother would die. I'm surprised. Katarina talked you up like you were a mad-dog killer."

"I try to be a little more selective." I shoved my hands in my pockets and watched the pa.s.sing throng. There was still smoke rising from the PLA compound, but n.o.body was paying attention now.

"Well, you popped that soldier fast. He was about to shoot me when you got him," Anders said with grudging respect. I had to a.s.sume that was his version of thank you. "Hey man, at least you know your brother's alive." He tossed some coins on the counter as he pulled out his radio.

I had been preoccupied with Anders' casual murder to think it through, but this meant Bob was here. I still had a mission and a purpose. "I'll set up a meet between Kat and Exodus."

Anders keyed his radio. "It's on," he stated simply, before shoving it back into his pocket. "Your crew will be released and sent back to the Glorious Cloud. We'll be in touch." Anders ordered another batch of noodles to go.

Kat had kept her word, and Jill and Reaper were waiting at the Glorious Cloud by the time I returned. Reaper had even had some time to do some research. He had taken the note that I had slipped Jill at the Montalban Exchange, containing everything I had gleaned earlier, and gone to work.

"Your note said Anders had a SEAL Team 4 tattoo on his arm, and he mentioned being HRT," Reaper said. "So I started there."

"a.s.suming he's telling the truth." Jill was sitting on the bed next to me, also studying the screen on Reaper's laptop. She hadn't said anything yet about my earlier meeting with Katarina, and I wasn't going to bring it up either.

"Duh." Reaper rolled his eyes. "Do I tell you how to look hot? Do I tell Lorenzo how to steal stuff? No? I used the Majestic files Val took that Bob dropped on the Internet. Then I cross referenced Bob's conspiracy nut notes. I digitized them while you were s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with Exodus by the way. Then I wrote a-"And as soon as I recognized that he was about to drone on about his anarcho-crypto nerd brilliance I cut him off.

"Get to the point."

"The Project Heartbreaker records had an operative under the name of Anders, attached to Dead Six, and working for Gordon Willis, code-named Drago. But that name was a dead end. He's a ghost. No connection to a real ident.i.ty."

The way Reaper was talking, I knew he was itching to tell me more. I waited patiently. I had already killed somebody today, so I was feeling kind of mellow. "And with your 'mad skillz,'" I made quote marks with my hands, "I'm sure you got more than that."

"You know it." He started rapidly clicking, bringing up other files. "One of Bob's suspects for the Fourth Operative was a former FBI agent named Simon Andrew Sundgren. Bob said that he had some indication that this guy was a possible because of his prior training, but Bob didn't elaborate what training, but he did mention the guy was HRT. Bob only wrote about the dude for one paragraph, but he was the only one that was former FBI."

He must have noticed that my eyes were starting to gla.s.s over.

"Okay, okay." He clicked a wireless mouse and the screen changed. It was a picture of Anders, only younger, clean-shaven, with a sharp buzz cut. He looked like one of those n.a.z.i recruiting posters from World War II, a square-jawed, blue-eyed block of muscle.

"Wow. He looks a lot better without the beard," Jill said. I scowled at her. She raised her hands. "What?"

I turned back to the computer. "So you cracked the FBI database finally?"

"No. I got slapped down hard when I tried that for Bob's file. This is from Google," he explained. "See, just like all the guys working at North Gap had shady pasts, and some of the people that Majestic recruited for Dead Six had legal problems, I figured the rest of their operatives would be similar. Special Agent Sundgren is a bit of an internet celebrity." He brought up the next window. "He apparently shot some people in a standoff in North Dakota. They turned out to be unarmed and were trying to surrender. One of them was a pregnant lady."

"I remember that one. I saw a thing about it on TV once," Jill said. "There was this big standoff with some people that refused to pay taxes. When they tearga.s.sed the place, he said that the people came out with guns. The survivors said that they were unarmed and trying to surrender. Gotta love NatGeo."

"So all the intel gathering about our new buddy, Anders, has already been done for us by the internet. h.e.l.l, he's even got his own Wikipedia entry. It was really controversial. North Dakota tried to prosecute him. The Feds wouldn't release the official records of what happened, and he claimed immunity. The next thing you know, he just quit the FBI and disappeared. We know he was recruited by Majestic."

"Congratulations. You won the Internet." I gently pushed past Reaper and stole his laptop. Anders had quite the resume. Annapolis graduate, US Navy, started out as a nuke tech on a carrier, and then transferred into Naval Special Warfare. Olympic athlete. Won a bronze medal in freestyle swimming. So not only could he fight, he was apparently one h.e.l.l of a swimmer too. Multiple citations for bravery, left the Navy, joined the FBI, and eventually the elite Hostage Rescue Team. Until he jumped the gun and ma.s.sacred some people. Then n.o.body had seen him since. And now former Special Agent Sundgren was kind of an iconic figure for governmental abuses of power.

They had no idea.

"So apparently we're now in business with a jackbooted thug that shoots unarmed pregnant women. Majestic certainly wouldn't want to let a set of skills like this go to waste."

"Friggin' awesome," Jill muttered.

"Okay. Keep looking. None of this tells us what Project Blue is. There's got to be something about Anders that keyed Bob in on him, and when we know what it is, maybe we can figure out what Blue really is."

"I thought you didn't care." Reaper sounded surprised.

It really wasn't my business, I need to take care of my family and get the h.e.l.l out of here. The world's affairs weren't my problem. That altruistic bulls.h.i.t was best left for good guys like my brother.

"Well, now I guess I'm curious."

Chapter 16: Dead Leprechauns.

VALENTINE.

Exodus Safe House Crossroads City March 16th Skunky and I sat and talked for a long time. I hadn't seen him in a couple years, and both of our lives had been irrevocably changed after that ill-fated operation in Mexico. We had much to discuss. He had, of course, heard of the unrest in Zubara, h.e.l.l, the whole world had. After reading the Project Heartbreaker Commission report, Skunky was sure that I had been killed there.

What was once the Confederated Gulf Emirate of Zubara was now the Zubaran Arab Republic, run by General-turned-President-for-Life Al Sabah and his so-called Arab Socialist Party. He ruled with an iron fist that would have made Saddam Hussein proud. I'd heard you could find videos of Zubaran security forces machine-gunning protesters in the streets on YouTube.

Fat lot of good we'd done there. I was personally responsible, at least in part, for the suffering of the people of Zubara. It took me the better part of an hour to tell him the convoluted tale of how Exodus helped me escape from Zubara, and Sarah's death. I described my encounters with the Lorenzo brothers, the Montalbans, my falling out with Tailor, my capture and rescue, all of it.

When I was done talking, my former teammate closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Holy c.r.a.p, dude."

"You're telling me. You know, every morning I get up, I try not to think about it. By rights I've got no business even being alive. Almost everyone I care about is dead. Sarah is dead. The guys I worked with at Vanguard are, except for you and Tailor, and I'm not even sure about Tailor. I can't even contact Hawk because it might put him in danger. Almost everyone that took part in Project Heartbreaker is dead, too. I don't even know what the f.u.c.k I'm doing half the time. It's like I'm running on autopilot. I just go along with the flow because I don't have anywhere else to go."

"Is that why you're here?" he asked, a worried expression on his face.

I looked around, to make sure Ling wasn't listening. "At first, that was my reason for coming along. I owe Ling-and I owe Exodus-my life. She pulled me out of h.e.l.l, risking her own life and killing a bunch of people in the process. I can't just walk away from that."

"Even if you really want to," Skunky interjected.

"Even if I really want to," I repeated. "But honestly, as crazy as it sounds, this feels right to me. I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be."

"That doesn't sound crazy to me. I was lost when I got home from Mexico."

"That was a bad op," I said.