Jennifer Paige was another person I considered to be a good friend. She was bulkier than most women but that was the result of the genetic enhancements she’d received along with the rest of us.
“What about you, Captain?” a Korean American named David asked to my side. He was a very good-looking man, which is why we called him Handsome Dave. He was also possibly the best shot in the U.S. Army as far as I was concerned.
“I have a family, too,” I said, shrugging. “They come first.”
“Same here,” David said, smiling. “Not that I won’t spend some of it foolishly.”
The fifth member of our little group, a small redheaded woman with freckles, of mixed Asian and European descent, looked up. Mary Tammwood was the group’s medic and a quiet girl. She was having an affair with Handsome Dave despite having a husband back home. It was against regulations, but we weren’t exactly on-the-books.
I remembered, now, we were Task Force-22, which was some sort of taskforce that dealt with problems for the Center. The knowledge there was another covert organization of killers answering to a nebulously defined organization would have been infuriating if not for the fact that there were a hundred other more important things occupying my attention. We were officially nonexistent and paid extensively for our missions. Today, however, was a payday like no other, with a million dollars each promised to us for successful completion.
It was suspicious.
“All right, let’s go over our mission parameters just to be safe,” I said, looking between them. “We have an HVI in the location, Arabic male, mid-sixties, who has to be taken alive. Everyone else in the compound is expendable. Expect heavy resistance from his guards. Try to minimize civilian casualties, but we have the go-ahead to use whatever force is necessary to take this guy down.”
“Who is he, anyway?” Stanley asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Just bag him and tag him for transport out.” I transferred a picture of the man to their holographic displays.
In truth, the man’s name was Ali Karim and he was an arms trafficker for the United States and several other parties. He had three children, two of which had been killed in the Iraq War, and a third who was presently selling guns in Africa. I had a separate mission from the others in that I was to get to his computers and download all of his data before destroying the hard drives. It was very likely the Center was covering their tracks before the United States military sent someone to look at Ali’s hideout, but that wasn’t my concern.
All I was concerned about was finishing my contract.
“All right,” Jennifer said, shrugging. “Whatever you say, Boss.”
“Trust me,” I said, smiling.
I didn’t like the smile I gave.
It felt… wrong.
I began twisting and thrashing in my chair, trying to reject the memories being downloaded into my mind. In a very real sense, I knew this was not who I was. Yet despite my best efforts, I could not help but remember the parachuting down onto the compound.
The gunfights.
The execution of surrendering soldiers and Karim’s staff.
Taking down Karim himself as he begged for mercy.
The order that came in to kill the other members of my team.
“No!” I shouted. “GET THIS FUCKING THING OFF ME!”
That was when things got genuinely surreal as the Memorize was removed from my head—not in the present, but the past. A frizzy-haired black woman about twice my age was standing over me. She was wearing a Doctor’s coat over a conservative pantsuit. She was pretty but past her prime. We were in a laboratory with the Karma Corp logo stamped on the side of the wall.
“It needs to be done, Daniel,” the woman said.
I took a deep breath, looking up at the woman. “I’m not him.”
The woman put her hand on my face. “They want to make you not him, but you’re as close to him as will ever exist.”
I stared at her. “Why are you doing this?”
“We’ve all suffered losses. We’ve all suffered pain. Black Technology offers us the chance to regain what previously would have been impossible.”
“I’m supposed to be a killer.”
The woman put her hand on my shoulder. “You’re my son, no matter what.”
I was confused. “All right.”
“Now we’re going to put the helmet on again.”
Reluctantly, I let her slip the visor on my face again. It was a complete mind-screw and left me utterly confused as to what was going on or when this was all happening. That was when there was a gunshot and I threw my head to one side, throwing the Memorize off my head and revealing the room where Marissa had shot Mario in the throat. The figure was bleeding to death on the ground, a pool of blood appearing on his face.
The guard holding me down let me go and grabbed his pistol. I used the opportunity to wrap my handcuffs around his throat and throttle him. The guard struggled in my grip for several seconds, before I snapped his neck in one clean motion. The guard’s body crumbled before me and I was left with Marissa, who was holding her pistol in front of her. The weapon had a silencer on it, but as anyone who dealt with suppressors could say, they didn’t work nearly as well as Hollywood said.
At least non-Karma Corp ones.
Marissa aimed the gun at my chest. “Hi, G.”
I almost corrected her and asked to be called Daniel Gordon, but that name didn’t have any meaning for me. “Hi.” I paused. “How are you?”
In that moment, it was clear she was considering killing me. I was a loose end and someone who posed a significant security risk. Not only did I know about her treason, but also, knowing about her betrayal, I was disinclined to let her go. If I escaped—a big if—I would probably hunt her down and kill her. That wasn’t including what would happen if the Caesar knew she’d let me go. Indeed, there weren’t really that many reasons to keep me alive other than sentimentality, and for all I knew, she’d been disgusted with me the entirety of our relationship. I could see all of those wheels turning in her head
Marissa then reached down to Mario’s body, picked up the keys for the handcuffs, went to my back, and unlocked my wrists, then my feet. “Don’t say I never did anything for you, G-man.”
Rubbing my wrists, I turned to her. “Why?”
“That is a very good question.”
I gave a snort, then looked at her. “Who are you? Really?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
I stared at her. “Yeah, you can.”
Marissa and I locked eyes for several seconds. They weren’t the eyes of a brainwashed Pollyanna in the service of the group that enslaved her or the eyes of an anarchist hacker turned rebel. Instead, they were the clear and cold eyes of a soldier. “Amanda Garcia. I’m with the National Security Agency.”
“You’re working for the President.”
“Yes. The Society is a threat to national security.”
I snorted.
Marissa gave a half-smile. “You’d be surprised, but not all of our nation’s leaders are OK with a highly funded, technologically advanced secret death squad in the employ of the highest bidder.”
“I’d be very surprised, indeed. It’s also not my nation.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes. Do you want to know?”
I took a deep breath. “Not from you.”
Marissa looked away for a second and I could have taken the gun in that moment. I decided not to.
Marissa then did something very stupid and turned the gun over to me, handle first. “You know how to use this better than I do. I also have a spare.”
I took it and debated shooting her before deciding no, I wasn’t that person. “Why are you doing this?”
“Keeping Black Technology from the open market is a bigger issue than the elimination of the Society. Getting close to the Caesar, executing him, and recovering Doctor Gordon before he does something stupid is my pri
mary mission now. Can you fight?”
“For you?”
Marissa frowned. “Yes.”
I took a deep breath and made a choice. “Yes. I’m very good at recovering from beatings. It’s the way I was made.”
Marissa twitched before looking over her shoulder. “If you’ll help me, I’ll see you can get five minutes alone with Doctor Gordon to ask whatever questions you need. He knows the answers you seek. I wasn’t lying about that.”
“Just everything else.”
“Is this going to be a problem?”
I stood up and looked down at her before looking to the exits. “No, no it’s not. We have to do one thing first, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Get Lucita.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Really?” Marissa asked, shaking her head. “Italian Barbie made that much of an impression?”
I shrugged. “I’m not working for the International Refugee Society anymore, so why the hell not?”
“She’s a psychopathic killer?”
“Maybe it’ll make the Caesar’s day a little more painful before I kill him. Do you want my help or not?”
Marissa looked away. “Fine, but if she makes a move I’m dropping her.”
“If she makes a move, I’ll do it.”
“You’re not the only killer here, G. Just be sure you have your head on straight.”
“I always do.”
Truth be told, I didn’t know why I was going after Lucita, so she was right be concerned. It wasn’t for moral reasons. I was pretty sure, karmically speaking, rescuing a professional assassin from being tortured to death wasn’t going to improve the world. I wasn’t in love with her, we’d known each other a day, and half her actions repulsed me.
Maybe it was because, at the end of the day, I understood her. We were both products of systems designed to create the perfect killer. If I was going to spend the rest of my life trying to untangle myself from the web of lies I’d found myself trapped in, I figured I might as well remove myself from it.
Maybe I just felt guilt. Some Letter I was. They were right to burn me.
I checked the bodies on the ground for any additional weapons before removing my clothes and replacing them with the late Mario’s. The other guard had a balaclava, which I slipped on and hoped would buy me a few seconds’ hesitation from anyone who spotted me moving around the meat processing plant.
I still wasn’t sure about Marissa’s loyalties and didn’t believe for a second she’d done this out of love. Still, I hoped I could trust her enough to get me close to Gordon. I was going to complete my contract, even if the Society no longer wanted my services.
It was the principle of the thing.
“You realize if you rescue her, you’re probably going to have to kill her anyway, right? She knows about your betrayal.”
I shrugged. “We’ll burn that bridge when we cross it… Amanda.”
“Marissa is fine. I’ve lived in it longer than most of my identities. The story I told you on the plane was true, so I have precious little attachment to Amanda’s life.”
“What a good little spy you are.”
Marissa snorted. “Don’t look at me like that, G. How many people have you lied to and destroyed?”
“I don’t expect my victims to like me, either.”
Marissa looked down. “I will do anything to protect my country.”
“I don’t have a country.”
It was strange, but searching my feelings, I couldn’t grasp the intense devotion I’d once felt for her. The love I’d felt, if love it was, had shattered with the revelation that it had been for a woman who’d never really existed.
“You could.”
I was appalled she was still trying to win me over. “Is that the pitch now? Help me, G, and I’ll give you immunity? Protect you from the big bad Society? Set you up with a new life?”
Marissa looked away. “Maybe it is.”
“Don’t make me laugh. I’ve killed more people, powerful people, than three wildly prolific serial killers. Even if I helped you against them, it’d just make me an inconvenience for your employers.”
“The President is a very good friend to have, G. You’d be surprised what she’s willing to overlook in the name of justice.”
I tried not to roll my eyes at her unironic use of the term. “Justice doesn’t exist, only results.”
Finishing dressing, I noticed there was a black plastic body bag by the computer monitors. Taking it, I pushed Mario’s body into it and zipped it up. We didn’t have the time or the location to dispose of the other guard’s form, but this would hopefully contribute to hesitation on the part of the other guards. I didn’t know how many were present in the plant, but hopefully Marissa would provide me with any useful operational intel I needed.
Just like old times.
“Maybe you’ll feel differently when you know who you are.” Marissa checked her cellphone. It was almost midnight.
I paused, remembering the disturbing session with the Memorize. “I’m not sure that I want to know who I was anymore.”
Marissa did a double take. “That bad, huh?”
“You know who I was.” It was more an accusation than a question.
“I also know who you weren’t. We are what we do.”
“Then that makes me even worse.”
Marissa pulled out her gun, a hand-held collapsible A7 pocket pistol. “Suit yourself, G. If you want to wallow in self-pity, that’s your own business. But know what we shared wasn’t just smoke and mirrors. I felt more—”
“Don’t try and work me anymore. I know the playbook. You were different. What we experienced was real. That everything you’ve told me isn’t a lie. Let me preserve my fantasy for as long as possible.”
“Is that so wrong?”
“Yes. The truth shall set me free.”
Marissa looked down. “If you say so.”
Picking up Mario’s body and tossing it over one shoulder, I asked, “How many hostiles are we talking about in the building?”
“Counting Caesar, there’s seven left. All of them are low-level muscle or new recruits. That doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous, though. The Carnevale had its pick of European and South American Special Forces for its members. He’s got a helicopter prepared outside for his evacuation back to the Palace of Miracles. He thinks the government is going to attack in the morning due to false intelligence I gave him. They’re not. We’ve got a little less than an hour to get there, get Gordon, and get out. That’s basically Lucio’s plan, though he’s going to leave his surviving soldiers to cover up his organization’s destruction.”
“Fun guy.”
“There is no honor among assassins.”
“You would know.”
Adjusting the shoulder strap of the S515 machine gun in front of me, I prepared to turn it on Marissa, depending on her reaction. “You realize I warned the home office about your little plan to attack. They’ve undoubtedly cleaned the place out by now and will probably set up shop someplace you’ll never find them again.”
Marissa’s gun hand twitched and for a second I thought I was going to have to put her down. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Maybe I thought they deserved to be warned.”
“They don’t.”
“Did you hate them, that much?”
“You’re a wonderfully charming collection of sociopaths.”
OK, that was a fair cop. Heading to the door, I opened it slightly to check to see if there was anyone outside. The door opened to a staircase leading down to the ground floor of the plant and had an excellent view of several large machines that were running loudly.
A pair of guards was standing at the bottom of the steps, but I doubted they could hear anything from our position. There were security cameras watching the walls, and I saw the security room not too far away. It was separate from the rest of the processing plant. Two more guards were inside it, visible through the w
indow.
Not good.
Closing the door, I shook my head. “Not my preferred method of egress.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Yeah,” I said, taking a deep breath. “What happens after you take me to Doctor Gordon?”
“I either let you go or you come with me to Fort Meade.”
Fort Meade, Maryland, was the headquarters for the National Security Agency and about the last place on Earth I wanted to go. I’d infiltrated that location once and it had been, easily, the hardest mission of my life. The National Security Agency were code-breakers and data-crunchers, not agents, so Marissa was overstepping her authority by working against the International Refugee Society, but I was hardly in a place to throw stones.
Anger bubbled up within me and I turned back to her with a look of barely concealed outrage. “Why the hell would I want to do that?”
I was getting sick of Marissa feeling like she could just wallpaper over this. She’d saved my life, yes, but I’d been played as a fool, and that was not something I was going to get over. A part of me did want to kill her, shoot her in the chest, or throttle her to death, while the rest of me was horrified at the prospect.
I needed focus right now, and all I could see was red.
Marissa didn’t seem intimidated by my barely concealed rage. Which was impressive. I didn’t get mad often but when I did, I’d been called “like Tom Hardy as Bane.” Looking up at me, she said, “Because I think you’ll have even more questions about what and who you are after your talk with Doctor Gor—”
“Enough with the enigmatic bullshit. Tell me what you know.”
Marissa looked away. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Listen here—”
The door started to open. “Hey, what’s the situation? The boss is getting impatient.”
“It’s done, come on in,” I said, muffling my voice a bit.
I dropped the body on the ground and stepped behind the door before letting the two guards in. They reacted with shock at the sight of the second body in the room but I proceeded to shoot both in the back of the head with my machine gun, having set it to a three-round burst that led to their heads getting blown out through their fronts.
Agent G: Infiltrator Page 17
