by Ryan Horvath
Jack laughed at him. “Well, not exactly. I want to get supplies: food, water. Geez, and gasoline and batteries. More ammo as well. We won’t be able to get anymore hand guns right now but we could get another shot gun or two. There’s other things we can get too that we can use for protection that don’t require a waiting period. How much money do you have?”
Brian was finally coming around. “Quite a bit actually. This job has been good to me. Plus I got so used to living on the cheap in college that it’s been easy to save money. I’ve got about $40,000 in the bank.”
“Perfect. I’ve got about $20,000. That should be more than enough to get us started,” Jack stated.
Jack returned the Walther to his nightstand and propped the Mossberg in the corner.
“C’mon, let’s go get our friends. Hopefully Ian won’t be as hard to convince as you were.” Jack smiled, put his arm around Brian’s shoulders and led him from the bedroom.
35
ART
Early Thursday morning, Art Spektor’s internal alarm clock woke him up at 2:45 AM. He’d slept almost four hours and he felt refreshed and alert and ready for his assignment. He dressed quickly in black socks, black briefs, black pants and a long sleeve black T-shirt. Over the T-shirt he added a light tan blazer; something that was removable should it need to be but also something to break up his cat burglar like appearance. With his regressed youth, new muscle mass, blonde hair, and emerald green eyes, he looked almost Nazi-like in just the black and that would draw eyes from the TSA agents surrounding the security checkpoints. Entering the airport and dealing with security was always tricky and as he’d be purchasing a ticket so short before his fake departure, that made him even more of a potential red flag. The fake identification he would be using would show a moral upstanding American citizen with no criminal record so that should work in his favor.
Should he get Shepherd’s blood on the blazer during the killing, which he was pretty sure would happen, he’d simply discard it and exit the airport in the full black ensemble. No one cared what you looked like leaving the airport.
Once dressed, he went into the bathroom and checked himself in the mirror. He loved seeing his youthful self looking back at him and a wide smile came across his face. Whatever had happened to him, he liked it very much.
Art left the bathroom and headed for the kitchen. There, he grabbed some food from the cabinet and fruit bowl: three Powerbars, and a banana that was on its last leg. He carried this food back to the second bedroom of the apartment, which Art used as an operations office. Of all of his facilities around the world, only his office at his DC residence held more equipment than this one.
Seated at one of the computers and munching on one of the Powerbars he pulled up Expedia.com and looked for a flight he could use to get his way past TSA checkpoints. He searched one way flights and came up with a fare to Chicago for forty-nine dollars due to leave Minneapolis/St Paul International at 6:00 AM. This would be perfect for his 4:00 AM arrival at the airport.
Art selected the flight, booked it, and paid for it using a credit card under the same name of the fake ID he would be using. The credit card was real enough, as were all the credit cards under his various aliases. Art used the cards and benefited from what he used them to purchase but he never paid a dime to the credit card companies. Years back, Art came across a brilliant mercenary who he knew only as Jabu. The two killers had joined for an assassination of a foreign dignitary who was exceptionally difficult to draw out and dispose of. During and after their job the two assassins became quite fond of each other, admiring each other’s skill, cunning, and ruthlessness. At the end of their mission, Jabu asked Art what he would do if he didn’t have to worry about his aliases financial issues ever again. Art said he’d be happier than Hell; that he’d even imagined the possibility. Jabu offered Art a service he used himself. Art had never asked if Jabu administrated the service or someone else did and he didn’t care. Jabu said for $1,500 a month all of Art’s aliases’ credit cards would be scrubbed, that is all the transactions would be erased minutes after they were approved, removing every record from the seller’s database, supposedly only leaving them short in the inventory.
So Art had enjoyed an expense free life since then, except that monthly fee that is, but it was totally worth it. There were some months where Art’s credit card charges reached into the high five digits.
After the transaction for the airfare was final, Art quickly checked in for the flight and printed a boarding pass. Slick and easy. That’s how he liked things. He closed up the internet software and shut down the computer. He peeled and ate the banana in three quick bites. The remaining Powerbars followed it.
At 3:10 AM, Art took stock of himself. He was appropriately dressed, aside from slipping on his shoes on the way out the door. He had his ID and boarding pass. And he was unarmed. He planned to squeeze the life out of Shepherd and he wouldn’t need a weapon for that. Art “The Mist” was the weapon.
At 3:20 AM, Art left his apartment and rode the elevator down to the lobby. He crossed the lobby and exited his apartment building.
He walked around the block and caught a taxi from the cab stand in front of the Hyatt hotel. He directed the cabbie to the airport and settled back in his seat. It was 3:30 AM.
Traffic at this hour was extremely light but they did hit a snarl up at the Highway 62 exit off of Interstate 35W and the taxi cab pulled up to ticketing/check in drop off door number two at 3:52 AM. He swiped his credit card in the reader, tipped and signed the false signature that would turn into a ghost very soon. He opened the door and stepped out of the cab. In front of door number two was something he didn’t want to see.
A woman, clearly overstretched by the seven children of various ages in her tow was currently using door number two. The woman looked exhausted. Some of the children were wailing, others had their fingers up their noses. The woman’s male companion was following behind with what must have been the whole family’s luggage. No, Art did not want to wait behind this brood, for fear he would bash the man’s brains in and then do the same to the woman for bringing so many children into the world. And even though it was early in the morning, there were more than enough witnesses.
At 3:53 AM, Art looked to his right toward entrance door number one twenty yards away and he quickly walked toward it.
At 3:55 AM, Art entered door number one precisely as his quarry was swiftly exiting past the family of nine in door number two.
Once inside the airport, Art headed immediately for the security checkpoint lines which were not crowded at this time and moving quickly. Art was through without a second glance from the TSA by 4:15 AM, even though he looked quite a bit younger than the photo on his ID. He went to the arrival/departure board and quickly found Shepherd’s flight gate and status. The gate was in the C concourse to Art’s four o’clock and the flight was expected on time. Art secured a wheelchair after checking the board. He planned to go sit at the gate and when Shepherd got off the plane, Art would follow him and sneak up behind him with the wheelchair between them. Art knew how to bring a man into unconsciousness by grabbing a certain nerve in the neck correctly and he would do just that to Shepherd. Art would then use his strength to easily and gently guide the unconscious man into the wheelchair. He would then wheel him into the handicapped stall of the closest men’s room. If anyone was in there it would just look like Art was an attendant helping a disabled man. Then, when the coast was clear, Art would throttle the man and break his neck. Dr. Shepherd would never know what happened. Art didn’t exactly like to kill this way but the airport setting warranted it.
After the pesky doctor was extinguished, Art would take whatever the man was using for a computer bag, make sure the laptop was in it and then he would again make sure the coast was clear and slide out of the locked stall from the bottom.
At 4:30 AM, Art sat patiently waiting for the arriving flight from LAX.
It landed at 4:50 AM, a little ahead of schedule.
What the hell? Art thought. Where the fuck did the little shit go?
Art approached the gate agent. “Excuse me, sir. Is that all the passengers on this flight?” he asked as nicely as possible.
“Yes,” the agent answered. “That’s everyone.”
“I’m supposed to be meeting someone from this flight. He never got off the plane,” Art indicated the wheelchair and tried to sound worried.
“What was the name?” the agent asked him.
“Simon Shepherd. Doctor Simon Shepherd,” Art replied.
The agent’s hands flew across the keyboard.
“Your friend didn’t get off the flight, sir,” the agent began, “because he never got on the flight. His boarding pass was not scanned in at LAX.”
Son of a bitch Art thought. The puny shit got away.
“Well, did he take another flight?” Art asked.
The agent looked uneasy. “I’m sorry, sir, we really can’t give out that information. Besides, I only have access to my airline’s records. If your friend switched carriers I would not be able to look at their manifests.”
Art resisted the urge to throw the man through the glass wall behind him and onto the tarmac below; both for the agent not giving Art information and because the agent was calling Shepherd Art’s friend.
Instead of murdering the agent, Art said “Thank you,” through gritted teeth and backed away from the counter. He withdrew his smart phone from his pocket and sent a text message to the man who had contracted him to kill Dr. Shepherd. The text advised his contact of the development and asked for assistance in tracking the troublesome doctor down.
It wasn’t long before he received a response. It read:
IT SEEMS TARGET HAS SLIPPED BELOW RADAR. TRACKING NOW. STAND BY.
Art exited the airport and caught a cab back to his apartment downtown. He was only slightly fuming.
36
JACK, BRIAN, IAN, AND RIVER
“Guns and ammo? Supplies? What for? Are we going hunting, or well, I guess poaching given the time of year?” Ian asked. He was sitting on the sofa in the den of Jack’s townhouse. He paused the movie he and River were watching and turned to face his friends. River sat perched on the plush arm of the sofa.
“Jack here seems to think we should arm ourselves up,” Brian said before Jack could say anything. There was a slight tone of incredulousness in his voice.
Ian looked back and forth between his friends for a few seconds before finally asking, “Uh, is- is there a war coming?”
“No, not a war. At least I don’t think so,” Jack replied.
“Guys? What’s going on?” Ian asked, cocking an eyebrow at them as if they were crazy.
“Jack thinks something bad is going to happen after the eclipse on Friday. He’s got a feeling. He’s pretty sure of it, as a matter of fact,” Brian answered, sounding a little condescending, but Ian detected fear in his friend’s voice.
“I think Jack is right,” River chimed in. The three men looked at her in disbelief. “I’ve had a funny feeling I couldn’t quite put my paw on but now that you’ve said it, it seems correct,” she continued.
Ian stood up. “So what do we need guns and supplies for? What do you mean by ‘bad’, you two?” He looked between Jack and River.
“I think… catastrophic,” Jack said quietly, trying to avoid looking directly at Ian.
River nodded as best as a cat could and mewed, “I agree.”
“Jack wants to arm up and get out of the city. He says we should not plan on going home this weekend,” Brian reported.
“You’re serious?” Ian asked and threw Jack a puzzled look.
“I am. Even more so now knowing that River has the same feeling. I think we need to get a couple more guns, more ammo, some food, gas, water and any other survival supplies we can think of. We should load up my SUV and its trailer and leave. We don’t necessarily need to go far. Just out of the city and the suburbs. Somewhere where there are less people. At least until we see how things play out,” Jack said.
“Where do you want to go?” Ian asked.
“I don’t know.” Jack sighed. “Somewhere that is preferably abandoned or at least vacant, remote, and easy to defend and fortify if we need to. We can start by going west. There’s all that farmland out there not far past the bypass,” Jack replied.
Ian turned around and walked to the room’s only window and peered out. Brian looked inquisitively at Jack and Jack shrugged his shoulders in response.
After over a minute of silence, Ian finally said, “Okay. I trust you Jack-Of-All-Trades. I always have. You’ve never given me any reason not to. Where and when do you want to start? Can we at least finish our movie?” He turned back to face his three friends with a wry grin on his face.
Jack laughed heartily at this. He was relieved Ian had believed him and come on board much easier than Brian had.
“Well, since we know the eclipse isn’t for another two days, why don’t we take the night off?” Jack thought this might be one of the last, if not the very last, nights they could spend together in a relaxed and safe setting. “You can finish your movie and then we can eat and drink and rest and then tomorrow we can start. We’ll take the day to stock up and just break for meals. Anything we forget about, we can take care of Friday morning and get the heck out of Dodge after that. How does that sound?” Jack said and looked from Ian to Brian to River.
“It sounds good, Jack,” River meowed. “Ian, let’s finish watching.” She motioned her head toward the television.
Jack and Ian smiled at this and Brian stifled a laugh. Ian walked back over to the sofa and sat back down and resumed the movie. Jack walked out of the room and headed for the kitchen. Brian followed.
Once in the kitchen, Brian asked, “You are sure about this, Jack?”
“Yeah, Bri. I am. And when River said she felt something too, that made it that much more solid for me. It’s gotta mean something,” Jack responded. He turned and looked at Brian and his face became awash with concern. “Brian, what is it?”
Brian was visibly shaking. “I’m scared,” he said quietly and shamefully.
Jack approached Brian and gave him a strong and brief embrace. When he pulled away he still held on to Brian’s upper arms. He locked eyes with Brian and said, “Hey, it’s okay. Calm down. I’m scared too. I think we all are.”
“Ian doesn’t seem scared,” Brian mumbled.
“Well, when you’ve got skin that repairs itself in the blink of an eye, you probably feel pretty damn invincible,” Jack said with a cocky grin.
Brian shakily laughed at this and his tremors subsided some so Jack let him go.
“We’ve got a jump on this, Brian. I feel that too. We’re gonna beat this but we gotta stay strong and we gotta stick together. I know you can do that, right?” Jack said
“I can do it for you, Jack,” Brian replied after the briefest hesitation.
“Thanks,” Jack said and leaned in and gave Brian a quick kiss.
“I just wish we had some answers is all,” Brian said and sat down in one of the dinette chairs. “You know, why is all this happening?”
“I don’t know, Brian, but we have to make the most of it,” Jack answered. Unbeknownst to him some answers would be coming their way sooner than any of them expected, even though those answers would lead to more questions.
A moment later, Ian and River entered the kitchen.
“That was fast,” Jack said.
“It was almost over when you guys came in. Ending sucked,” Ian said and sat down at the table opposite Brian.
“I c
oncur,” River added.
“Is anyone else getting hungry?” Ian asked.
“I could eat,” Jack said.
River and Brian agreed.
The three men busied themselves preparing dinner. Ian preheated the oven, took large chicken breasts from the refrigerator, washed, and breaded them. He put them in a pan and placed it in the oven. He then microwaved and sliced up a loaf of Italian bread, added some olive oil to a saucer and tossed some dried herbs in the oil. He dipped a piece of the bread in the oil, bit into it and grunted to the other two, indicating the bread was to be their appetizer. Jack made a salad with the last of his tomatoes grown from pots on his deck. He added fresh chopped garlic, pepper, salt, red onion, feta cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and fresh basil, also from his deck. When he finished, he set the table. Brian diced up three large potatoes, seasoned them with garlic powder, savory herb, and parmesan cheese and began sautéing them. While they cooked, he set out water and bottles of Stella Artois in chilling sleeves for each of them. River sat perched on the window sill alternating her gaze from the outdoors to the three young men and taking in all the delicious smells that were coming from the cooking appliances. No one said anything while they prepared this feast but the silence was not at all uncomfortable. Thirty-five minutes later, half the loaf of bread was gone and Ian was using a meat thermometer to take the temperature of the chicken. Jack, Brian, and River, who had moved closer to her three companions and now sat by the oven, looked at him expectantly. After a moment, Ian looked at them and nodded. He pulled the chicken the rest of the way out of the oven and served it on each of their plates. River dashed over to the table and jumped in the chair where there was no table setting. She peered up onto the table and eyed the chicken. Her nostrils were twitching. Jack and Brian set bowls containing the tomato salad and the potatoes on the table and Ian brought the remainder of the bread and set it down. The three men sat down at the remaining chairs not occupied by a feline and dished up potatoes and tomatoes for themselves.
