by Gary Jonas
She turned to face me. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you about what happened before the stormtroopers showed up.”
“We have time now,” I said.
“While you were in the house, I reached out to Hitler’s spirit,” she said, gazing down the street as if willing the bus to show up.
“And?”
“And I think he was at a place called the Imalco House.”
“And that is?”
“A massive estate on an island in Lake Nahuel Huapi. It’s near Bariloche.”
“I’ll Google it when we get back to the Airbnb, but I think that’s the one the old man told me about.”
“Hitler might have died there.”
“At the Airbnb?” I asked with a grin.
She swatted at me. “The Imalco House.”
“I guess that means more travel.”
She studied me. “Those stormtroopers killed Carl and Curtis. They tried to kill you.”
I nodded.
She hesitated a moment, then said, “You don’t seem to be bothered by it.”
“It bothers me that Carl and Curtis died,” I said.
“But it doesn’t bother you that those men tried to shoot you.”
“It’s not my first rodeo.”
Her face clouded and she frowned.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She nodded and ran a hand under her nose. She sniffed and took a few deep breaths to steady herself.
“You sure?” I asked.
Again, she nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Carl and Curtis have been guarding me for many years. They were more than bodyguards. They were friends.”
I wasn’t sure if I should put an arm around her. I didn’t know her well, and she was a strong woman who’d lived more than a century without any help from me. I decided to just sit there. If she wanted anything more, she could move closer.
She didn’t.
Instead, she ran her hands through her hair and sighed. “You’d think I’d get used to losing friends.”
“You never get used to that,” I said.
She dabbed at her eyes, and turned away. “Give me a moment,” she said.
“Take all the time you need.”
Presently, she got her emotions under control. She turned back to me. “You have men shoot at you often?” she asked, trying to give me a slight smile.
“Only on Tuesdays.”
She put a hand on my arm. “Today is Thursday.”
“So they were two days late and ten thousand bullets short.”
“There were bullet holes in Kelly’s shirt.”
Maria’s hand was still on my arm. I didn’t mind. The physical contact felt good.
“Bullet hole clothing is all the rage in fashion these days,” I said.
“Is she from Tibet?”
“She’s Chinese,” I said.
“China claims Tibet is part of China,” Maria said.
“The Tibetans disagree.”
“Where was she born?”
“Why do you ask?”
She removed her hand and reached to scratch her back. “Himmler sent a team of scientists to Tibet in 1938 because he believed the Aryan race might have originated there.”
“I always pictured the Aryan race as blond hair and blue eyes,” I said.
“Mostly. Do you think Kelly has ancestors from Tibet.”
“No.”
“But bullets can’t stop her.”
I laughed. “She’d love to see that on a movie poster.” I gave her my best deep movie trailer voice. “Bullets can’t stop her. No man can conquer her. She is Kelly, Queen of the Amazons!”
“Don’t you mean Queen of the Sekutar Warriors?”
“You know about the Sekutar?”
“Magically engineered assassins. Sure. But why is she with you?”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I didn’t mean it as an insult. It’s just that they were created by the wizards at Dragon Gate Industries, and supposedly destroyed. Everyone knows they started the program again, but the warriors have never worked for someone else.”
“Tell me about the reports.”
“They’re nothing special. I wanted to know about you, so I had Cole hack into DGI to pull some files. Wizards too often forget to protect against technology.”
“I’d like to know what they had to say.”
“The files? Not much. Just that you were a private contractor. You work with an operative named Kelly Chan, and you were involved in a few kerfuffles. One of those cost DGI an agent named Brenda Slaughter.”
Hearing Brenda’s name was like a knife in my heart. It must have shown on my face.
“She was special to you?” Maria asked.
I nodded. “Yes, she was.”
Maria studied me for a moment. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Shade.”
So we were still just business associates. A few near death experiences meant nothing anymore. What was the world coming to?
“Thank you, Ms. Merchant.”
Esther popped into view. “Someone’s coming,” Esther said. “Man in a suit.”
I picked up the G36, and rested my finger on the safety.
A middle-aged man in a gray suit cleared his throat. “Con permiso, señor,” he said.
I got to my feet. He saw the machine gun and his eyes went wide. He adjusted his tie.
“Can I help you with something?” I asked.
He held up his hands. “Lo siento,” he said, backing up.
“It’s all good,” I said.
“He’s going to call the police,” Maria said.
“That’s all right. Our bus is here.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I do not wish to offend you,” the bus driver said. “I just want to get this job finished without upsetting any more ghosts.” As he spoke to me, he pointed at the machine gun. “I hate to say this, but we do not allow firearms aboard our transports.”
“Well, I can’t just leave it here,” I said. “Children might find it.”
“Allow me,” he said, holding out his hands.
I stepped back from him. I wasn’t just going to hand a loaded weapon to a relative stranger.
He laughed. “My apologies, sir,” he said. “If you’ll step down, we have a cargo compartment where you can store the weapon. I will give the gun back to you when we reach your destination.”
I sighed. “Fine,” I said.
While everyone else boarded the bus, I followed the driver to the side. He opened a door, which could be used to store suitcases and bags. I released the magazine, which I tucked into my coat pocket, then set the gun in the compartment.
“Thank you for your cooperation, sir,” the driver said, and closed the compartment.
I didn’t care because I still had my Glock in my shoulder holster.
We climbed aboard. The driver started the bus while I took a seat behind Maria. Kelly sat in the back seat and Cole rode up front.
Esther sat beside me.
“Our destination is Córdoba,” the driver said. “If that is not your destination, you are on the wrong bus.” He let out a hesitant laugh and grinded the gears as he shifted.
Maria didn’t want to talk, so I yawned and closed my eyes. “Esther,” I said, “wake me up when we get to the apartment.”
“It’s all jake,” she said.
I turned, put my legs through Esther so they hung out into the center aisle, leaned against the window, and tried to relax.
The bumpy ride kept me from actually napping, though the drone of the engine would have taken me into dreamland had the ride been smoother. Buses were just so damn uncomfortable.
A while later, Cole said, “I don’t recognize this street.”
“Short cut,” the driver said. “Saves fifteen minutes because traffic on the main road is bad this time of day.”
Kelly slid into the seat behind me and nudged my arm. “You awake?”
“Mmmm,” I said.
“Something
’s wrong.”
“How do you figure?”
“Open your damn eyes, Jonathan.”
I opened my eyes. She held up her phone. The screen showed a glowing green dot on a map and another green dot moving.
“What am I looking at?”
“This green dot is where we’re staying. We went past the road to get there a few minutes ago.”
“I’ll handle it,” I said. I pulled myself through Esther and moved to the front seat directly behind the driver.
He glanced up at me in the mirror. “We are almost there, sir,” he said.
“No, we passed our destination. You missed the turn.”
He pointed to a GPS mounted to his dash. “We are on target,” he said. “ETA two minutes.”
I squinted to see the address he was heading toward.
“Kelly,” I said, “what’s the address of the Airbnb?”
She rattled off an address, and it didn’t match the destination on the GPS.
“You have the wrong address there,” I said to the driver.
“Are you certain? This is the address I was given. We are nearly there.”
“No,” I said. “You need to turn around.” I gave him our address. “That’s where you picked us up this morning, and it’s where you need to take us right now.”
He shook his head. “That is not the address they gave me.”
“I don’t care what address they gave you,” I said. “It’s wrong.”
“But we are here,” he said and wheeled over to the curb in front of a two story building that ran the length of the block. Across the street was a chain link fence with barbed wire running along the top. It guarded an abandoned train station with empty, rusting cars lined up on old tracks.
“No,” I said. “This isn’t where we’re staying.”
He tugged a lever and the door swished open.
Two men in black uniforms stepped aboard the bus. One was tall, the other average height. Each held a machine gun.
They barked commands first in German, then in English. “Resist and die,” the average man said, putting the machine gun against my head.
“Get off the bus,” the tall man said.
Cole shrugged. “We’d best do as they tell us,” he said. “I can’t dodge bullets. Can you?”
The tall man said something to Maria in German.
“What was that?” I asked.
He repeated his words, but as I couldn’t speak German, I still didn’t understand.
“His message was to her, not you,” the shorter man said. “Now move.”
Cole rose, and the tall German pushed him down. He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “Cuff yourself to him,” the tall guy said, pointing to me.
The shorter guy moved down the aisle. He trained his gun on Maria and tossed a pair of handcuffs to Kelly. “Cuff yourself,” he said.
“To her?” Kelly asked.
“I can control her. Cuff yourself.”
As Cole cuffed himself to me, Kelly cuffed her hands together.
The tall guy pushed me toward the steps. Cole and I got off the bus. The tall guy followed, keeping a gun on us the whole time.
Maria, Kelly, and the shorter man moved down the aisle, and climbed off the bus. Esther popped over to me.
“Can I do anything?”
I shook my head.
The bus doors swished closed, the driver started the engine, and ground the gears as he drove away.
The short guy put up a hand. I knew Kelly wanted to kick him, but I shook my head. The tall guy could easily shoot Maria, or turn and shoot me and Cole.
The short man uncuffed Kelly’s right wrist and slapped the open cuff on my left wrist. It clicked and locked, so I was handcuffed to Kelly on my left and Cole on my right.
If the men didn’t look like they’d shoot me, I’d have hummed Stealer’s Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle with You.” But my survival instinct kicked in and the earworm simply rolled through my head.
The shorter man took the time to frisk us for weapons. He took my Glock, but didn’t bother taking the extra magazines. Without a weapon, they were useless. He was thorough, and when he grabbed my crotch, I wanted to kick him. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want him to shoot us.
He took a gun from Cole, as well as a couple of knives. He grabbed Cole’s crotch, too. Cole didn’t say anything about it either.
When he patted Kelly down, he took a selection of shuriken, and a couple of daggers. While he didn’t linger, he didn’t leave an inch of her untouched, including running his hands through her hair. Kelly didn’t complain. She could have easily killed him, but with the tall guy holding a gun on us, the risk was too high.
They marched us to a black door. The tall man used a key to unlock it, then opened the door and motioned for us to enter. He said something in German to Maria, and she nodded. Her eyes met mine before she entered the building. She wasn’t really afraid. She was more concerned.
Kelly leaned close as we entered the building. “Give me a signal,” she whispered.
I glanced at the gun in the tall man’s hands.
Kelly shrugged.
Easy for her to do. She could take the bullets and survive. Cole and I weren’t so lucky.
The shorter man closed the door behind us. He didn’t lock it.
The men in black took us down the hall to a meeting room. A large table filled most of the space. A balding man wearing glasses and a Nazi uniform sat at the head of the table gazing at a television screen mounted to the wall. On the screen, Homer Simpson said something in Spanish to Marge who answered him in kind. The man paused the show, and he turned to gaze at us.
The tall guard shoved us against the wall.
The short guard spoke German as he dumped our weapons on the table.
The man in charge said something to him, and the short guard took our guns and left the room. The daggers, knives, and throwing stars remained on the table.
The tall guard shoved Maria toward one of the chairs at the table.
The man in charge said something in German to Maria, and she sat down. The weapons were all out of reach. The taller man stood off to the side so he could keep his machine gun trained on her while keeping an eye on us, as well.
To us, the man in the Nazi uniform spoke in English. “Be quiet,” he said. “Do not speak unless I speak to you. My name is Heinrich Himmler.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
According to Theodor, Himmler was the Führer these days. He didn’t look much like the old photos I’d seen of him. He looked tougher, stronger, and younger. He took off his glasses and tossed them on the table, while he rubbed at his eyes.
He leaned back in his chair, regarded Maria for a moment, then said something to her in German.
She shrugged. “It might be useful to speak in English so your other guests can understand.”
He grinned, and kept speaking in German instead.
Maria sighed and answered in German.
Esther stepped through the wall. “More damn Nazi bastards,” she said. “The short hood took your guns to a locker in another room.”
I nodded. My nose itched, so I tried to move to scratch it, but the handcuff chain jangled and Cole’s arm didn’t budge.
Himmler glared at me.
I bent, trying to get my nose to my hand. “Dude,” I whispered to Cole.
“Sorry,” he whispered, and moved his hand up so I could scratch the itch.
I met Himmler’s eyes, and shrugged.
He went back to conversing with Maria.
I leaned toward Cole. “What kind of workouts do you do?” I whispered.
“Shh,” Cole said.
“No, seriously. You’re strong as an ox.”
He kicked my ankle.
“Ow,” I said.
Himmler glared at me again.
I went to wave, but Cole’s arm wouldn’t budge, so my hand didn’t go up very high. I wiggled my fingers in a little half-wave, and Himmler frowned.
/> The tall guard aimed his machine gun at me, and asked Himmler something in German.
“Nein,” Himmler said. He said something after that, probably something like, “I’ve got this.”
He pushed his chair away from the table, and the legs scraped on the tile floor like fingernails on a blackboard.
I winced at the sound.
Himmler fumed as he walked toward me.
Maria said something to him in German, but he ignored her.
“Do you find me amusing?” he asked as he stood before me.
I shrugged. From the corner of my eye, I saw Kelly give her head a slight shake.
“Speak, American fool,” he said.
“I’m not John Cougar Mellencamp,” I said. “I like his music, though. That album had ‘Jack and Diane.’ Good song.”
Kelly rolled her eyes. “Shut up,” she said.
Cole kicked my ankle again.
“Cut it out,” I said.
Himmler shoved me against the wall. “You should not interrupt me.”
“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t mean to. My nose itched, and being handcuffed makes it hard to scratch.”
His eyes glowed yellow and orange.
“I kill people for lesser offenses,” he said.
“That’s what the history books say,” I said.
“Stop beating your gums,” Esther said.
“This is my fire,” Himmler said, holding up his hand. Flames danced on his palm. “Would you like to feel it burn?”
“Not especially,” I said. “Look, dude, if you’ll have your goons unlock us, we can get out of your hair. Well, what’s left of your hair.”
He planted his flaming hand on my chest. My shirt smoldered, but it was magic fire, so I didn’t feel any pain.
His eyes widened. “What sorcery is this?” he asked, pulling his hand back. “Who are you?”
“My name is Jonathan.”
My shirt was on fire, so I tried to blow it out.
“Jonathan Shade?” he asked.
“So you’ve heard of me.” The shirt kept burning. At least it was magical fire, so it didn’t hurt.
He grinned. “If the prophecy is correct, I’ll be tasting your blood soon.”
Shit. I hated prophecies. They rarely meant anything, but Himmler knew my name. The way he looked at me, I knew he looked forward to whatever happened.
