Lex Talionis

by Peter Nealen

  Albert Eddings wasn’t a politician, in the strictest sense of the word. He’d never run for or held public office. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be a bad thing, at least not to me, but the thing was, he didn’t let that stop him from meddling.

  Eddings didn’t have a profession, not as such. He’d made a few billion in the stock market, back before the bottom had dropped out and the Greater Depression had hit. He’d also carefully diversified so that, once the global economy really had gone to hell, he’d weathered the storm better than most. That mean he had plenty of money at a time when nobody else had enough.

  Now, up to that point, that just made him smart. It was what he did with the opportunity his money presented that turned matters…unpleasant.

  While his public profile was generally that of a cheerful playboy who hobnobbed with politicians and celebrities, the Cicero Group’s intel showed a darker side. He’d faced at least four serious felony charges, including assault and battery, complicity in human trafficking, bribery, and grand larceny. Every charge had been dismissed before even getting close to trial. Certain meetings and known connections suggested to the Group’s analysts that he had financial arrangements with the judges involved.

  It only got worse from there. Eddings had so much money that he’d been able to do various licit and illicit “favors” for at least half a dozen Congresscritters and a couple of Senators. Not only was he untouchable, but he had the ears of some very important people.

  One of those he didn’t own, but was still apparently close friends with, was one Mason Van Damme. Like Concri, Van Damme was an old hand, a retired politician and former Secretary of State. He was one of the centers of gravity around which the “Marius” network revolved, another man for whom laws and ethics were as malleable as the circumstances and the amount of money and power that could be brought to bear dictated. The Group had hundreds of gigabytes of video and photos of Eddings hobnobbing with Van Damme, and some of the video came with audio tracks that were pretty damning.

  At 0300, two boats worked their way up the Colorado river, keeping close to the steep cliff on the west shore. Thick brush and trees overhung the water, lending plenty of shadow from the city lights and the half-moon in the clear sky above. It was chilly, since it was the middle of the night in early December, but since it was also Texas, it was still above freezing.

  We couldn’t see the top of the cliff; there was too much vegetation. But the southernmost point of Red Bud Island, sitting in the middle of the river, was clearly visible in the moonlight, and provided a perfect reference point. As soon as we were even with the point of the island, we were where we needed to be.

  The trolling motors on the boats weren’t very powerful, which was why we’d taken almost three hours to make our way up the river from where we’d launched, only about a mile and a quarter away. But they were quiet, and quiet was what we needed. We’d waited to gear up and draw out the weapons until we were well away from the launch point, and drawing any attention after that could be a problem. Two boats full of men in camouflage paint, chest rigs, and rifles weren’t regular sights on the Colorado, even with the amount of violence that was already tearing Austin apart.

  It was easy enough to anchor the boats; the branches of the trees hung down low enough over the water that it only took a couple of ropes and quick hitches thrown over a couple of the thicker branches. Getting up through that thicket was going to be something else.

  We had a collapsible caving/maritime boarding ladder, that amounted to little more than a telescoping pole with nubs on the sides that were barely wide enough for a man’s boot. But getting it through the tangle of branches was going to be tough. Eric started carefully pushing it up through the vegetation anyway. If we sat there studying it and trying to find the perfect route, this was going to take too long.

  Once he got it somewhat stable against the side of the cliff, though there was still enough spring in it to suggest it was actually leaning against some of the branches instead of solid earth, Jack mounted the ladder and started up, pulling a climbing rope with him.

  There was a lot of rustling and cracking going on as Jack disappeared into the shadows and branches above, and there was more coming from the rear boat. It was noisy, but unavoidable. Anyone who’s ever humped a ruck through thick brush on a recon patrol can attest that part of the reason recon patrols try to stay away from people is that five to six guys with close to a hundred pounds of gear a piece sound like a herd of elephants going through the bush.

  Of course, there was still enough loud music coming from Eddings’ pool deck above that we probably weren’t going to be compromised by a few rustling and cracking branches. Most of the rest of Austin might be hunkered down in their homes, hoping to go unnoticed as the gangs, militias, and increasingly heavily-armed, armored, and paranoid cops roved the streets, but Eddings and his hangers-on didn’t give a shit. They were untouchable, after all.

  Surprise, asshole.

  The rope jerked, then jerked again. Jack had reached the top and secured it. I slung my rifle, grabbed hold, and started to climb. I got wet in the process; there was no way to avoid going in the water at least a little on getting out of the boat.

  It was a fight getting up that cliff, regardless of what Jack had already done to clear the way. Branches grabbed at my kit or just got in the way. I had to get over a couple that were too far out from the cliff face to just step over, but too close to go under. It was a bitch.

  Larry had to be having a hell of a time. He was the biggest of us by far.

  I finally got to the top, where Jack had the rope securely hitched to a tree trunk that was hanging out over the edge of the cliff. Jack didn’t help me over, since he was on a knee behind a bush, his rifle up, watching the yard.

  We were on the edge of the property itself, though there was still plenty of landscaping casting deep enough shadows for us to hide in.

  The music was coming from the brightly-lit pool, a few yards uphill from where we crouched. There was no one else in sight, at least not at first. The yard was empty, the firepit abandoned.

  As I watched, though, a pair of young men came into view, pacing along the property line. They were dressed in dark fatigues and windbreakers, with glorified police belts bearing Glocks, extra mags, flashlights, and batons. As expected, Eddings had security patrolling his perimeter. There would be more inside, probably less overtly armed, discreetly ignoring the bacchanalia going on.

  Eric struggled up the rope behind me, even as I got eyes on Larry, Nick, and Bryan, farther down the cliff edge. Everybody was here. We’d wait until the guards went past, then move.

  But we were out of time. My earpiece crackled. “Where are you?” Eddie asked.

  I hated throat mikes, but for this, we’d gone ahead and used them. With the Cicero Group once again picking up the tab, we were able to get a little fancier, gear-wise, than we had been going up against the Task Force. I pressed the mike to my larynx and murmured, “On attack pos.”

  “Well, you’d better move quick, then,” he said. Eddie was sitting in a van down the street, there for support if we needed it, so he didn’t have to worry about being as quiet as we did. “It looks like you’ve got company arriving. We’re moving on them, but you’d better get in there and secure Albert quick, before they do.”

  Fuck.

  Our second target in Austin wasn’t technically part of either “Marius” or “Sulla.” They were Mexicans, a hit squad known only as Los Lobos Rabiosos. They had been Mexican Marines, deserted en masse, and had worked for the highest bidder in the cartel wars ever since. They really didn’t give a shit who was paying them, so long as they got paid. They’d reportedly worked for Los Zetas, the Guzman-Loera Federation, CJNG, and the Mexican government. The story went that they’d been stiffed once. They’d been hired by a small splinter cartel that had taken a bit of the Tijuana cartel after the Arellano-Felix brothers had wound up in prison, only after they’d done the job, the cartel didn’t want to pay t
hem. The hit squad had wreaked such bloody vengeance on the splinter cartel that there were rumors that the Arellano-Felix brothers wanted to offer them a reward.

  We’d gotten word that Los Lobos Rabiosos were in Austin, on “Sulla’s” payroll, and they were gunning for Eddings. In an echo of the Denver mission, Eddings was so dirty that it was sorely tempting just to let the mad dogs have him. But Eddings knew things, and he knew people, and Renton wanted to pick his brain.

  And however much of a shitty human being he was, I wasn’t willing to hand anybody over to animals like Los Lobos Rabiosos. I’d been in Mexico. I knew what they’d do to everybody in that mansion. While I wouldn’t classify any of them as “innocent,” that didn’t mean I’d let them be raped, tortured, and murdered, which was what they’d get at the hands of that hit squad.

  “Roger,” was all I sent. Looking over at Larry, I got a thumbs-up; he’d heard it, as well. I returned the signal, then turned my attention to the target building and lifted my rifle. The time for stealth was about over. We just didn’t have the time, not if Los Lobos Rabiosos were about to kick in the front door.

  The two guards had already passed us. They didn’t seem all that alert, and were bitching and complaining about all the pussy they weren’t getting, out there on perimeter patrol. I gathered that there were a lot of naked girls running around the grounds.

  I stepped out of the bushes, training the muzzle of my rifle on the first guard. Eric and Jack were with me, and Larry and the rest were closing from our left. “Hsst!” I hissed.

  They turned around lazily, one of them rolling his eyes. A few of the partiers must have tried to fuck with them already that night, and they thought that was all that was going on. After all, this was Albert Eddings’ place. Who would be stupid enough to fuck with Albert Eddings?

  “Very funny, Charity,” one of them started to say, but as he looked back, he saw that it wasn’t Charity, whom I presumed was a stripper, or a hooker, or both, but three large men in camouflage, all pointing battle rifles at him. His eyes went wide, and his mouth started to open.

  “Not a sound,” Jack hissed. The guard’s mouth closed with an audible clop. He spread his hands away from his belt. The other one followed suit as soon as he saw what was happening.

  “Down on your faces, fast!” I snarled. We didn’t have time to fuck around with these guys. When the second one dawdled a little, I stepped forward, intending to knock him the fuck out with my rifle butt if I had to. He got the message though, and dropped to his face faster than a recruit getting bellowed at by a drill instructor.

  It was a short business to zip-tie their hands and feet, gag them, and chuck their pistols into the bushes. Then we were moving again.

  We split into two elements to flow around the pool. For all the noise, the pool itself was all but abandoned, with only a few naked girls passed out on pool chairs and a couple enthusiastically going at it on another one. The chick screamed as we came into the light, but then the shooting started out front, and fucking everybody started screaming.

  I broke into a run, sprinting for the veranda. I had to hurdle a gray-haired, pot-bellied man in a speedo, passed out in a puddle of his own vomit, to get to the door.

  Fortunately, the mostly-glass door was already open. We went into the entryway and cleared it quickly, weapons tracking wherever eyeballs went, before moving deeper into the house. We had a rough floor plan, and a decent idea of where Eddings was going to be.

  The volume of fire up front was intensifying. Eddie had hit Los Lobos Rabiosos hard, but they weren’t the type to go down easily. It sounded like they were making a hell of a fight of it.

  The mansion was an imitation Mediterranean villa, with everything in marble, white plaster, light-colored stone, and dark wood. The grand room’s ceiling was three stories above the floor, and as big as it was, it was cluttered with expensive furniture, some of it draped with equally expensive women and rich men, many of whom had to have imbibed a lot of very expensive drugs, given that they weren’t making like everyone else and running for the back, screaming.

  I didn’t give a shit about most of those people. They weren’t the target. I’d identify hands, make sure there wasn’t a weapon being pointed at us, and then shove them out of the way if they were blocking my path. Other than that, as long as they kept their distance—and most of them did, once our own weapons registered through their chemical haze—we let them be. We’d still do our damnedest to kill the hit squad, thus hopefully sparing their lives, but that was about it.

  I got to the spiral staircase and pointed my muzzle up, clearing the landing above, while the rest of the team covered the other three entrances to the grand hall. Then, barking, “On me!” I started up.

  One of the security guards leaned over the landing and fired a shotgun at us. I felt the shot pattern go past and blast chips out of the step in front of me. Stinging bits of shattered marble drew blood from my shins, through my trousers. Fortunately, he hadn’t really aimed; he’d just kind of pointed the shotgun over the landing and blasted.

  I, on the other hand, aimed. While I had nothing in particular against whatever poor saps were working for Eddings, you shoot at me and mine, you die. It’s a simple equation. I leaned up, twisting my torso to get my rifle on-line, and put a bullet through his skull from six feet away, before he could fire again. He pitched backward and hit the landing with a thud.

  I hurried up the rest of the steps, my rifle trained on the landing, the others right behind me. In seconds, we had three guns on the upstairs hallway, which was, fortunately, empty. I didn’t know why the guard had been there by himself, but it was too late to ask him. Getting my bearings, I headed for where we were pretty sure the master bedroom was located.

  The white-painted double doors yielded easily to a heavy boot, and we poured into the room, guns up and looking for targets.

  There weren’t any, unless one counted the half a dozen hookers on the bed and the floor, all in various stages of drug-induced stupor, and a naked Albert Eddings, hiding behind the bed and gibbering in fear.

  Nick and Jack closed in on him, guns leveled, while Eric, Bryan, and Larry secured the rest of the room, and I went to the window. It only opened up onto the grounds and the pool, though, so I couldn’t see any of what was going on out front.

  “Hillbilly, Geek,” Eddie called. “Three of them got past us and went inside. You’ve got company coming.”

  “Roger,” I replied, just as a silhouette appeared in the door.

  The man was wearing a ballcap pulled low over his eyes, and a skull-faced balaclava. He was dressed entirely in black, including his gloves, and had a Gilboa 9mm submachine gun in his hands.

  That was about all I had time to register, before Eric and Bryan each Mozambiqued him at the same time. Suppressed or not, the 7.62 rounds ripped through the air with harsh cracks and sent him crashing to the floor in a welter of blood.

  Eddings was down on the floor, his hands over his ears, screaming, even as the rest of the stack of Mexican killers tried to push into the room. They knew they were dead if they froze; they’d been well-trained. So, they pushed the fight, shooting as they came.

  Whether it was instinct or just great minds thinking alike, we’d all dropped to a low knee as soon as the first guy appeared in the doorway. It saved our lives, too, since the hail of 9mm bullets went close overhead, blasting splinters off the bedposts, smacking holes in the plaster, shattering two of the windows, and shredding the pillows.

  I was already on sights even as I hit rock-bottom, my shooting elbow almost touching the floor, and another black-clad form filled my aperture. I thumped five shots into him, even as the rest opened fire, as well. I think the last two Los Lobos Rabiosos killers caught something like fifteen rounds apiece, minimum. In seconds, it was all over, the bodies slumped in the doorway and leaking blood on the hardwood floor and expensive rugs.

  “Hillbilly, Geek,” Eddie called again. “We’ve secured the front; you might want to leave th
e boats and come with us. There’s lots of company on the way.” That had been expected. With Eddings’ connections, the entire Austin PD would be his QRF, regardless of what other brushfires they had to deal with that night. And we didn’t want to be on-scene when they showed up.

  “Roger,” I replied. “Cargo’s secured, we’re coming down the spiral staircase.” I really did not want to get shot by our own guys, not for the sake of this naked sack of shit that Nick was now propelling in front of him, one arm looped through his zip-tied hands and a hand clamped to the back of his neck.

  I led the way down, yelling, “FRIENDLIES!” at the top of my lungs.

  “Come on!” Eddie shouted back.

  As I came out into the grand entrance hall, I saw about half of Eddie’s team on a knee around the room, covering the entrances and exits.

  The hall was a fucking slaughterhouse. Eddie and his boys might have taken the edge off the Los Lobos Rabiosos assault, but they’d still gone through what had been left of Eddings’ security like a buzz-saw. The scared partiers hadn’t had a chance. There were bodies littering the hall, not all of them clothed. The place stank of gunpowder, blood, shit, and fear.

  We didn’t stick around to take it in. With the way clear, we pushed out the front door, stepping over more bullet-riddled corpses and fallen weapons, past the smoking ruin of the hit squad’s van in the driveway, and onward to Eddie’s van, a fifteen-pack job with the windows painted over from the inside and the seats stripped out. Eddings was propelled, none too gently, into the back, then we all piled in and Sid hit the gas, roaring away from the scene even as we heard the sirens in the distance.

  We wouldn’t stop until we were halfway to San Antonio. Our job in Austin was done.

  It wouldn’t be the last.

  Chapter 26

  Getting to Lucia Sparrow was going to be a bitch.

  The lane where the Congresswoman’s house was situated was presently closed off by two black, armored Suburbans. Men in khaki fatigues, plate carriers, and helmets were standing in front of the Subs, with M4s at the low ready. There were more back in the pines that lined either side of the road, and I was pretty sure there was a M240 or two back there. I could see a couple of lumps that might have been sandbagged defensive positions.