Ling cursed in Chinese. "This is not good. They know too much about our operation."
"Do you know the people we"re looking for, Val?" Skunky asked.
I nodded. "You have no idea."
LORENZO.
The Montalban Exchange Crossroads City March 15th There was a large balcony that circled the top level of the Montalban exchange. The red tile roof was suspended over our heads by giant wooden beams, and the only thing that separated us from a good plunge to the ground was an intricately wrought iron railing, complete with dragons and swans. The breeze carried the rough civilization smells of The Crossroads up to us. Jill and Reaper had been escorted back to the guest quarters. Anders and I walked the perimeter while one of the guards shadowed us, far enough back to not hear anything.
"So, who are you? And what is all this Fourth Operative bulls.h.i.t?"
"Don"t get ahead of yourself." Anders picked a spot with a good view of the mountains, and leaned against the railing. It creaked against his weight. As big as he was, Anders was probably a solid two seventy of muscle. "Let me tell you a story first."
This man had shadowed me for days without being spotted. I already knew he was dangerous. I wasn"t in a story mood, but no need to push him. Anders took his time finding words. I got the impression that he wasn"t much of a talker. "I a.s.sume you know something about my former organization."
I nodded. "Just what Bob said in his notes."
"I doubt he knew much."
"Enough to throw his life away in some vain attempt to stop Majestic for launching Project Blue."
Anders smiled briefly, still staring out over the distance. "Majestic . . . The name started out as a joke. Our organization had lots of names, none of them official, most of those names were just line items on a budget that went into a big black hole. It was the conspiracy theorists that started calling it Majestic. We laughed at them, but it had a nice ring to it, so it stuck. But that was long before I was recruited."
"From where?"
The big man shrugged, not wanting to say anymore about himself. "What I was doesn"t matter now. Those days are gone. There is only now."
"That"s very Zen of you, Leif Erikson."
Anders looked over at me, raising one eyebrow, as if internally debating whether he should just kill me on the spot, but he continued. "There"s a secret war being fought. It"s a cold war, but both sides have spilt a lot of blood."
"Between who?"
Anders looked at me like I was stupid. "Between my guys and the Illuminati."
"Another joke name, I take it."
"Of course. I don"t know what they call themselves. It"ll do though. You of all people should know all about them. You"ve served the Illuminati interests most of your life."
"My brother"s the conspiracy theorist. I have no idea what you"re talking about."
"Just another p.a.w.n then." Anders went back to looking at the view, his unkempt beard fluttered in the breeze. "Majestic was founded to fight commies, but they were bound to b.u.t.t heads with these other a.s.sholes. The Illuminati is made up of thirteen powerful families. They"re all old, powerful, and rich. They"ve been pulling the strings for a long time. Their base is mostly European, but they"re involved in everything, same as us. Business, crime, politics, currency manipulation, terrorism, you name it, they"ve got a piece."
"I"ve never heard of them before Bob"s notes, let alone worked for them."
"One of the thirteen families is Montalban. Ring any bells, jacka.s.s?"
"Heard of them . . ." I muttered.
"Rafael Montalban was the head of the family. It was supposed to be hands off, but Gordon had him offed in Zubara. Next in line was his brother Eduard. You killed him. Now their family is in shambles, but the other twelve go about their business, still having their secret war, like nothing ever happened. Whichever side wins steers the destiny of the world."
I could honestly say that I didn"t want to root for either side in this one.
"Project Blue was our doomsday contingency plan to destroy the Illuminati once and for all. If the war ever went from cold to hot, my team"s job was to cut their heads off in a preemptive strike." Anders cleared his throat and spit over the edge, watching it fall all the way to the bottom. "Majestic is so layered in secrets that n.o.body ever knows what"s going on. The highest levels come up with plans, but they don"t want to know how we get the job done. They just want it done. The first operative, his name was Barrington, was given the mission parameters and told to set the contingency plans in place."
"The senator?"
"Former senator. He was the idea man. Gordon Willis was number two, operations, he made it happen. Gordon was my immediate boss in black ops. He picked me and another guy named Hunter to be the boots on the ground."
"Big Boss in Zubara?"
Anders was surprised. "You"re better informed than you let on. You met?"
"Nice guy. Had his boys break a couple of my fingers."
"Lucky that"s all they did. He was old school, learned his trade fighting Soviets. Me and Hunter did the work for Blue, set everything up, put all the a.s.sets in place. It was top secret. So secret that n.o.body had a f.u.c.king clue what they were unleashing. They just gave Barrington a mission and turned him loose."
"So what went wrong?"
"Plan was in place. I never thought we would have to use it. It was too extreme, even for us. When the higher-ups realized just how nuts Barrington was, they freaked. Then Barrington died."
"Killed by the Illuminati?"
"Nah . . ." Anders shook his head. "Somebody above decided he was a liability. Barrington had certain hobbies that could lead to blackmail, and that could compromise Majestic. I was ordered to terminate him. He was into some weird, kinky things. Anonymous sick stuff in airport bathrooms, stuff like that. Then one day, when he opened a stall door, it wasn"t some messed-up little f.a.g waiting, it was me and I stuck an icepick through his ear hole. We made sure the autopsy said he had a stroke."
"I used that trick once. It doesn"t leave much blood."
Anders nodded in appreciation, one professional to another. "Anyway, Blue just sat and waited, kind of forgotten by the higher ups. Then Hunter died, betrayed to the Zubarans by Gordon. It turned out that my old buddy had cut a deal with Eddie Montalban. Gordon popped Rafael, Eddie got control of his family and deniability, everybody wins."
I"d seen that alliance myself. What Anders was saying jibed with what I"d overheard in Quagmire.
"But then Gordon "committed suicide". And then they nab Valentine at the scene? Suicide my a.s.s. I could read the writing on the wall. Four men knew about Blue, and just like that three were dead, all at the hands of other Majestic operatives. Somebody had decided to make every one of us who knew about Project Blue go away . . . So that"s when I went rogue and bailed."
I had to smirk at that. "One problem with your theory. I know Valentine. He wasn"t ordered to kill Gordon by anybody. He did that on his own. Gordon"s betrayal got his girlfriend killed. It was as simple as that. But yeah, Majestic is upset all right. Valentine doesn"t know s.h.i.t about Project Blue. They tortured the h.e.l.l out of him and he didn"t know a thing. They were torturing him because they"re scared of you. Now they"re panicking."
Anders raised that one eyebrow again.
"Your bosses didn"t drop the hammer on you guys. You fell off the face of the earth for nothing." I laughed. "But since you ran, now they think you"re a liability. h.e.l.l, dude, you could probably be back in America living it up with your fat government salary."
His ma.s.sive hand flew around faster than I could react. Anders" fingers clamped around my throat, and he slammed me back into one of the beams. He glared at me, not saying a word, breathing hard through his nose.
"Valentine was working on his own, you stupid f.u.c.k," I grunted as he threatened to crush my trachea. I could see the turmoil on his face as he realized that I was telling the truth. He had thrown away his life for nothing. His nostrils kept flaring, like the bellows on some giant furnace. I spotted something on his forearm, a little tattoo with a trident and the number four, and made a mental note of it for later. He let go. His fingers left indents in my flesh.
Anders slumped back against the rail with a sigh. The guard approached, seeing if he needed to pump some rounds into me. Anders waved him away, seemingly calm again. "Well, wish I had known that . . ." he muttered. "Too late now."
"All those steroids make you dumb." I rubbed my throat. If he tried that again, we were both going to take a dive off this roof.
"When a Dead Six operative got picked up at Gordon house I figured they"d ordered the hit." He snap punched the railing hard enough to break most normal men"s hands. The metal let out a harsh clang. "I was in F-" He stopped himself. "I was on an operation at the time, when I heard about Gordon. I made it look like I"d been killed by Illuminati and took off. I figured they"d be sending their best after me, that son of a b.i.t.c.h Underhill."
"Buddy of yours?"
"Underhill"s the most dangerous man I"ve ever met," Anders stated flatly. "Old-school operative, came up through the ranks with Hunter. He"s killed more people than cancer." Any man that put that kind of unease on a mutant like Anders was n.o.body I ever wanted to tangle with.
"What"s done is done. Tell me the rest of your story."
"Gordon had a good thing going on the side with the Montalbans, so I hooked up with Katarina. We knew each other from a prior . . . business arrangement. I"ve been here ever since."
"My brother knew to look for you here. Why?"
"My part in Blue required me to make a deal with Sala Jihan. I was the one who had the technical expertise necessary. Bob must have found out something about that. I"ve got to admit, I was surprised to find out he was here."
"You knew Bob?" I asked, suspicious as always.
"From the FBI." Anders paused, knowing he"d said too much. "h.e.l.l with it. He was a field agent when I was HRT, Hostage Rescue Team, before being recruited by Majestic, at least. I"d heard about his meddling in Majestic"s business, lots of us had. So I figured why he was here right away. That optimistic b.a.s.t.a.r.d probably thought he could flip me. Offer witness protection." Anders gave a bitter laugh. "But his poking around spooked Jihan. The Pale Man"s soldiers took him before we could meet."
"And you were going to tell him about Blue? Let him expose Majestic?"
"Why not? I figured they wanted me dead," Anders stated flatly. "f.u.c.k "em."
"So what is Blue?"
He took forever to respond, weighing his response first. "I was going to tell you, but now things have changed."
So the nature of Blue was to remain a mystery. Fine. That was Bob"s deal, not mine. "I"m a.s.suming there"s a reason I"m here . . ."
"We share a common goal."
"And why should I believe that?"
"Because we have a mutual enemy in Sala Jihan." Katarina"s voice echoed across the open s.p.a.ce. I didn"t hear her join us on the balcony. She still moved like a ninja. Kat had wrapped a giant fur coat around her earlier skimpy outfit. She didn"t look particularly happy, which told me that Jill was still alive. Kat smiled. If a cobra could smile, that"s what it"d look like, and I wasn"t falling for it. "The Montalban brothers are dead, the easternmost Illuminati family is in shambles. The remains of their kingdom picked over by scavengers like me, while the other twelve divide up their international spoils. The only thing that stands in the way of me taking back their old glory is control of this place, which means Sala Jihan must die."
"Not my fight, Kat. I"m done with the whole crime war thing. Congrats on the criminal empire, though. You always were better at this stuff than I was."
"Au contraire. This is your fight. Jihan has your brother, so by your own admission, you plan on killing him. My spies know all about Exodus. They also want to see Jihan dead, but they would never work with me."
"And I can"t rightly say that I blame them."
"You are to be our introduction to Exodus. They will not trust me, but you, they respect for some reason. I want you to act as our intermediary. Alone, he is too strong for any of us to take. Between all of us, Jihan will fall. Exodus frees their slaves. You get your brother back. And I control The Crossroads."
"Sounds like a win-win situation," Anders stated.
Kat gave me her most innocent look. "An introduction. That is all I ask."
"The only word I have about who really took Bob is from you and Exodus, and frankly, you"re both less trustworthy than the crabs on a five-dollar hooker."
Anders glanced at Katarina. She nodded, giving him the go ahead. He turned toward me. "There"s a work crew of slaves here in town. They serve Jihan"s garrison and the Brothers. If we were to free them, I know for a fact that one of them would be able to confirm that Bob was present in Jihan"s prison cells." Anders pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it to me.
I caught it. It was a large coin, one of those military challenge coins that soldiers carried with their unit insignias and slogans on it. This one had been partially smashed, as if by a hammer. The first side was the Army Special Forces logo, 1st battalion, 19th group, with De Oppresso Liber, To Free the Oppressed, underneath. The other side was an ODA number that started with 92, but the last number had been crushed. It didn"t matter, I knew it. I had seen that same logo on one of the plaques in Bob"s bas.e.m.e.nt, from my brother"s old National Guard unit.
"That came from one of the slaves at the garrison. Dumb s.h.i.t tried to spend it at a local shop after the Brothers sent him on an errand. You get one guess where he got it from." Anders said.
I was quiet while the deadly duo studied me. I absently bounced the coin in my palm. This was the first indication that I was on the right path.
"Partners again?" Kat asked.
No way in h.e.l.l. But unless Ibrahim had an army, I didn"t see how were going to get into Jihan"s compound. We were going to need every bit of firepower we could muster. However, I needed to find out if they were telling me the truth, because I was mighty sick of being lied to. I spun the coin between my fingers before dropping it in my pocket. "Let"s go free us a slave."
LORENZO.
"You were kissing her!" Jill shouted.
"No." I held up my hands, partially to look innocent, partly to block anything she might throw at me. "She kissed me. I was an unwilling partic.i.p.ant."
Jill"s dark eyes narrowed dangerously. "Yeah, real unwilling!"
We were in the Montalbans" guest quarters. The room was actually nicer than our accommodations at the Glorious Cloud, but there were no windows, and the only exit led into a long hallway with guards posted on each end. We were only guests in the loosest interpretation of the word.
"I just sat there," I answered, keeping my voice level. "I told you what happened. Okay, d.a.m.n it, what should I have done then? And give me an honest answer, that doesn"t involve her skinning us alive."
Jill folded her arms tightly across her chest and scowled at me. She had a fiery temper, but she also knew that I was right. "I don"t know!"
"Well, why are you still yelling at me?" I pleaded.
"Because you suck," she answered.
I clenched my teeth to keep from saying something stupid. I gave it a moment before trying again. "Okay, then, as long as you"re being rational about it . . ."
Jill sat on the bed, deflated, or just tired of being mad. "I don"t trust her."
"No kidding? Jill, listen to me. There is nothing that Katarina won"t do. She"s a bona-fide sociopath. Trust her? Of course not. But I"m not seeing much choice. Either we work with them, or they kill us." I put my finger over my lips, and pointed toward the ceiling, to indicate that it was possible our room was bugged. Jill nodded. She knew there were other choices, but nothing that I wanted Kat to know I was pondering on. "I"m going with Anders to grab this slave. If I get confirmation that Bob is, or was, in that brig, then I"ll arrange a meeting with Exodus."
Jill stood awkwardly, and hugged me close. "Sorry."
"No, I"m sorry. You shouldn"t have come."
"Don"t be stupid," she answered, before leaning in, and whispering into my good ear. "Did you love her?"
I paused, uncomfortable, with the love of my life in my arms. Best to tell the truth. "Yes . . . once."
"But not anymore?"
"No."
"Why?"
I thought about it for a moment. "Because she brought out the worst in me." And I thought of a nightmare with an old Malaysian woman screaming murderer over and over while her crone finger stabbed through my heart. I kissed Jill softly. "You bring out my best." I pushed a note into her hand. It was information for her to sneak to Reaper.
There was a heavy knock at the door. It was time.