Lex Talionis

by Peter Nealen

  “In the most salutary way,” The Broker said from the shadows.

  Ten guns were immediately leveled at the sound of his voice, even Stahl drawing a 1911 and bracing his gun hand with the flashlight.

  “No need for any violence, gentlemen,” the man who apparently was born Ryan Bates said as he stepped deeper into the room. “I’m alone, and have no hostile intentions toward any of you.”

  “How the hell did you get in here?” Stewart demanded.

  “There’s a tunnel leading into the yard,” Bates explained calmly, that same vague half-smile on his lips. “It’s not the most pleasant avenue of approach, but it has the advantage of being well-shielded from view.” He looked around at all of us. “Well, are we going to talk business, or are you going to shoot me and get it over with?”

  Stahl lowered his gun first. “What kind of business?”

  “My kind of business,” Bates answered. “Information, resources, penetration of networks. As Clancy said, I’ve spent the last eighteen years worming my way into the global underground. I wouldn’t have been nearly as helpful with the El Duque business otherwise.”

  I had never known Renton’s first name. Now that I found out it was Clancy, I understood why not.

  “Are you offering your services?” Stahl asked. “Because, given what little Renton has told me, I’m not entirely sure I trust you.”

  “And in your position, that is entirely reasonable,” Bates replied smoothly. “I am, after all, a transnational criminal. But I am also more than that. As Mr. Stone can attest, when I offer information, it is good, and I have aided him and his company a great deal both materially and informationally.” He smiled somewhat more widely. “I’m not asking you to make me one of your staff, General. I’m simply offering my network to help achieve your goals.”

  “Why?” Stahl asked, his eyes hard glints through the cigar smoke.

  “Because I am still an American,” Bates said gravely. “And I can see what is happening, perhaps more clearly than you can.” He pinned Renton with a stare. “What I was warning about eighteen years ago is happening, only it’s far more distributed and chaotic than I expected it to be.” He turned back to Stahl. “The factions which are your primary concern are only a part of the problem. The chaos they have set in motion will not be easy to reverse, and will be used by other powers that they haven’t even considered in their short-sightedness. I can tell you with certainty that there are agents of multiple foreign powers, powers inimical to the United States, presently within our borders and already taking steps to take advantage of the unrest and violence that is happening across the country. If we want to have anything left when the dust settles, you are going to need my resources and the information that I can provide, General.”

  Stahl studied him for a long moment, his eyes narrowed. Then he turned to me, the glowing coal of his cigar like a red spotlight. “What do you think, Stone?” he asked. “You’ve apparently worked with him before.”

  I studied Bates’ calm, composed face for a moment. “I don’t trust him,” I began, “but that doesn’t say too much; I don’t even trust you all that far, sir.” Renton looked like he was going to protest, but I saw Stahl’s face tighten into a brief, fierce grin, that of a tough father proud of his equally scrappy son. I took a deep breath, then plunged onward. “He hasn’t played us false, he’s telling that much of the truth. And our asses would be in a hell of a sling if not for him. Hell, we’d probably all be dead in Mexico or Honduras if he hadn’t intervened. And if he hadn’t gotten involved more recently, we’d have been rolled up by those ‘Marius’ assholes weeks before you could bring Joe Ventner in to relieve us.”

  I narrowed my own eyes as I studied Bates, who returned my gaze with guileless eyes. “He called it his ‘business,’” I pointed out. “And from what Renton told us when I first asked about The Broker, he said that The Broker had a reputation for being purely mercenary. He’s a businessman, whatever else he is. Even if his pitch about being an American first and foremost is bullshit, I think that it’s in his best interest as a businessman to maintain that reputation and be sure that his information is reliable, at least.”

  Stahl holstered his pistol and folded his arms across his chest, looking from me to Bates, shifting the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. I could see the wheels turning; for all his bluff, tough-guy demeanor, I knew “Mars” was a thinker, more than he usually let his subordinates know.

  He finally faced Bates. “Well, Mr. Bates,” he said, “I’m going to take you up on your offer. Mainly because if your resources are half as extensive as what you say, I can definitely use them. But also because Stone here vouched for you. He doesn’t really know me, except by reputation; I was his distant commander half a country away, and that was a lot of years ago. But I know enough about him to trust his judgment, and the fact that you helped him out tends to make me somewhat more kindly disposed toward you.”

  He held out a hand, and Bates stepped forward and shook it. “You won’t regret this, General,” he said. “But right now, I suggest that we make ourselves scarce. There are people looking intently for you and for Mr. Stone and his associates, and having all of us in one place for an extended period of time would be unwise.” I don’t know if he knew he was echoing Stahl’s earlier comment or not, but I suspected he did. He was spooky that way.

  “We have a great deal of work to do,” he said, stepping back toward the side door he’d entered through. “Mr. Stone knows how to contact me, and I know how to contact the rest of you. I’ll be in touch.”

  Then he was gone.

  Chapter 22

  Denver was a wreck.

  We could see the smoke from the fires on our way down I-25. A great, gray and black pall hung over the city, visible even before the skyline itself rose above the relatively flat plateau.

  “Fucking hell,” Bryan said next to me. He was originally from Colorado, and had lived there for a little while after he’d gotten out of the military. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

  “I thought you didn’t cry,” I pointed out dryly. “Least of all for a bunch of Denver hippies.”

  “Nah, I don’t give a shit about them,” he replied. “Most of ‘em are the same idiots who decided to Californicate the whole fucking state. I got Mom and Dad out of here years ago. Fuck ‘em. Let ‘em tear each other apart. No, I’m just not looking forward to going into that.”

  “Well, we’re not going into the thick of it right away,” I pointed out. I checked the directions Raoul had sent against the map. I wasn’t going to use electronic navigation any more than I absolutely had to. Knowing the kinds of resources either of the factions could call upon, I was paranoid as shit about electronic eavesdropping. “If we get off the 25 in Thornton, we should be able to get around to the safehouse without running into any of the mobs.”

  “What?” he protested. “You didn’t say anything about avoiding the trouble spots! That’s where the action is! How am I ever going to get on top of you and Larry on the scorecard if I don’t get to run some rioters over? I even picked the truck with the reinforced bumper just for this!”

  I glared at him. He kept his eyes on the road, but couldn’t keep a straight face. The corner of his mouth was raised in a faint smirk.

  “Funny,” I growled. “Just stick to the fucking route.”

  “Come on, admit it,” he said, “I had you going for a second.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Just for a second?” He was flat-out grinning now, though he still kept his eyes on the road. “Come on, don’t tread on my dreams.”

  “I’ve known you too damned long,” I said. “I always know your fucked-up sense of humor, even when you think you’re hiding it.”

  “Damn it,” he said, mock-angrily, even as he turned onto the Thornton exit.

  I ignored him. It was an old, old game. Bryan liked to think up the most outrageous shit he could, just to see if I’d buy it, even for a second. This was ac
tually pretty tame, by his standards, but then, we were all a little ragged by that point. He could hardly be expected to be on top of his game.

  I considered saying something to that effect, as we went over the overpass and headed east. He’d be dramatically offended, and turn his considerable mind to coming up with something that he hoped would break my brain. It would be amusing, if slightly annoying, but I had been sitting in the truck with him for hours already, and was a little too punchy to really want to play the game anymore. I held my peace.

  I kept an eye out, one hand never all that far from the rifle next to my leg. As far as we knew, Thornton was a relatively safe area, affluent enough and far enough away from the major metropolitan area of Denver to have, so far, avoided the rioters’ attention. But you never knew, so I kept my eyes peeled and watched our surroundings carefully for any signs of impending trouble.

  It’s a weird thing, to see the smoke from a city tearing its guts out on the horizon while driving past immaculately groomed parks and seeing people coming and going about their business as if everything was normal. It was even weirder to see it Stateside. The Middle East and even Mexico had had time to develop a sick sort of new normal, where people went about their lives and jobs in spite of the violence and chaos around them, but somehow that seemed less freaky in countries that were already Third World shitholes, like Iraq. There was a creeping sense of unreality to seeing it at home. It was like a particularly eerie nightmare.

  In a matter of minutes, we were out of town and among the farms again, the looming pall of smoke still on the horizon to the south. If not for that, there wouldn’t have been any sign that anything bad was going on at all.

  The same eerie calm continued all the way down to the suburbs of Denver, even though the pall of smoke got thicker, and it became more evident that it was rising from several different places. We were going to have to do some careful reconnaissance to make sure that we didn’t get tangled in one of the real trouble spots.

  Some of the illusion of normality began to dissipate as we entered the suburbs. Oh, there weren’t blockades set up, or mobs walking the streets. The ticky-tack houses were still fronted by impeccably groomed landscaping, and nice cars still sat on the street or in driveways. But the neighborhood watch organizations were out in force, or what passed for force in suburban Colorado, anyway.

  It hadn’t been obvious at first. But after we’d gotten to the safehouse, a kind of bland, gray-and-white two-story residential home that Raoul had rented for us, we noticed we were getting some looks. And when the same expensive SUV with a group of three men and a woman rolled past us for the third time, it was obvious they were trying to patrol.

  “What the fuck are these idiots doing?” Bryan asked, as he pulled the duffel full of his gear and weapons out of the back of the truck.

  “They’re protecting their neighborhood, of course,” I said. I might have been a bit more sarcastic than I perhaps should have, but it was hard not to be, when you’re looking at a bunch of wide-eyed yuppies trying to play neighborhood militia.

  “With what?” he said incredulously. “Baseball bats and tennis rackets?”

  “Don’t forget golf clubs,” I pointed out, following him inside as Raoul opened the door. “Neighborhood like this, you know there’s got to be ten golfers per block.”

  He snorted derisively as he looked for a spot for the duffel.

  Of course these people were scared and worried. Their entire world was threatening to come unraveled. Most of them probably cared so much about the plight of the “oppressed” that they’d “understood” the first riots. But now the inevitable loss of control was threatening their precious lifestyles. I couldn’t be too sympathetic, especially given how many of the same people who were watching us suspiciously would probably get a case of the vapors if they saw the kind of firepower we were toting inside. And Bryan and I didn’t even have any of the belt-feds.

  The living room was dark, as Raoul had the blinds drawn to keep curious eyes away. The floor was presently crammed with gear bags, ammo cans, rifles, shotguns, scratchbuilt submachine guns, a couple of medium machine guns, explosives, comms, surveillance gear, urban hide kits, and personal gear. It looked like a complete gear bomb, but there was actually some order to it, once you looked a little more closely.

  Bryan and I found spots for our shit, and started our own setup, but I was interrupted by Raoul. “Hey, Jeff?” he called from the kitchen, “can you come in here a minute?”

  I left my rifle and kit behind and followed him in. The kitchen was cheap but bright, with most everything made of white plastic or enamel. The white veneer on the cabinets had been worn away in a few places, showing the crumbling particle board underneath. Like the rest of the house, it was unfurnished; we didn’t plan on staying long enough to need furniture.

  A young Hispanic man with a shaved head and pencil mustache was waiting in the kitchen. He was short and wiry, and could easily have passed for a gang-banger, except that he was presently dressed in a dark gray t-shirt with an American flag on the sleeve, cargo pants, and a rigger’s belt. I pegged him for a grunt, and Raoul quickly confirmed my impression.

  “Jeff, this is Gabriel,” he said. “We were squadmates in the infantry, long time ago. He moved up here, and he’s been getting me up to speed on what’s been going on.”

  Gabriel stuck out his hand, and I shook it. He shook his head. “Never thought I’d see this shit here, man,” he said. “Grew up in Chihuahua, then went to Libya. This is fucking Denver, man. This fucking place ain’t supposed to be a war zone.”

  “Preaching to the choir,” I told him. “Any sign of our targets?”

  He shook his head again. “They’re laying low for now, if they’re even here,” he said. “There’s certainly enough chaos going on to hide them. Entire sections of the city are no-go zones if you’re the wrong color, or not wearing the right colors. If the Aztlanistas and the Black Supremacy types don’t go after you, the Black Bloc fucks will. Unless you’re in one of the gang neighborhoods, where they’ve pretty much taken over, and even a lot of the radicals won’t go there.”

  “Daggett and his hitters probably won’t blend in to that bunch very well,” I mused, scratching my beard. “If Daggett’s still the same cocky asshole he used to be, he won’t want to lower himself to blend in with gangbangers and anarchist rioters.”

  It hadn’t entirely surprised me to see Kevin Daggett on the target deck. I’d known the former SEAL a long time ago, during my first ventures into the contracting world before Alek, Larry, Mike, and I had started Praetorian. He was an arrogant prick who saw the world in black and white, but not the same way some of us did. We saw good guys and bad guys. He saw strong and weak. He was in it for the money and the thrills. It only made sense that he’d go to work for a group like “Marius.” A chance to kill people and get paid? Sign him up. If anything, I was sure he would be pissed at having missed out on The Project. Those guys had to have gotten some serious violence on in Iraq and Syria.

  According to The Broker—Bates, rather; I was going to have to get used to thinking of him by his real name—Daggett and company were working as a hit squad for “Marius,” going after their political enemies Stateside now that the riots had kicked off this little shadow civil war. And we were in Denver to go after them.

  Of course, as much as I didn’t expect Daggett to bother trying to infiltrate the POCRF mobs or the anarchist Black Bloc, that didn’t mean he wasn’t as good at clandestine movement as we were. I might hate the guy’s guts for the amoral predator he was, but I wasn’t going to make the mistake of underestimating his prowess because of it. If he was in Denver, he was keeping his head down, carefully surveilling his targets, and getting ready to move while all eyes were focused on the riots.

  “He’s here,” Raoul said. “We know that much. Derek and the intel cell have picked up some hits that confirm it, comms back to his bosses. Well, his middlemen, anyway.” The factions were far too decentralized and com
partmented for operational orders to come from anyone who was really calling the shots.

  “It’s a hell of a big city to search, though,” Gabriel said, “especially with all these assholes running around ready to bust heads just for the hell of it.”

  I thought for a moment. “We don’t look for Daggett,” I said after a long pause. The idea was slowly coalescing in my head, but it made sense. “We look for his target.”

  Raoul was nodding, already reaching for the laptop that we kept as isolated and secure as possible to review the intel data we’d copied from Chu’s stash on it. “Of course,” he said. “We can probably narrow down the list of possibilities.” He opened the laptop, then stared at the screen for a moment. “That’s still going to be a pretty long list.”

  But I was still thinking, the gears still turning. “They wouldn’t have sent Daggett for just any old hit,” I said. “He’s a prick, but he’s an asset. They’ve got lots of low-level thugs they can contract for the little hits, the functionaries and the go-betweens that they’ve been hitting so far.” I’d seen the lists of murders, and the analysis of their significance. Most of the victims had been relative small fry, at least going by what we had in the way of network maps for both factions. The assassinations were more pinpricks; little, lethal “Fuck You”s to the opposing faction. It seemed as if, as much as their machinations were already beginning to spiral out of control, they were still avoiding all-out war with each other.

  They were just content to let the little people tear each other to pieces while they dithered, unsure whether they should fully commit to the war they’d started.

  “If Daggett’s here,” I continued, my eyes a little unfocused as I let the wheels turn, “then they’ve got to have their eyes on a harder target than the usual little people who’ve been getting squashed. That should narrow the list down some more.”

  Raoul had been scrolling through lists as I’d been talking. “This is still going to take a while,” he commented. But it didn’t take all that long before he frowned and leaned in closer to the screen.