Dead Sky

by Weston Ochse

  “They’re monitoring Noaks’s computers and phones,” Poe said.

  Boy Scout tapped the side of his head with his forefinger as he thought about the best way to approach this. “Fire off a simple message to Noaks that says I need to get some supplies at Del Amo Mall and we’ll meet him at the Goodyear Blimp Air Base at 1500. Make sure you get him clearance to land. Use all of your Special Unit 77 mummery. National security, counter terrorism, whatever you need.”

  Poe raised an eyebrow. “You do realize that you’re not in charge. We’re partners.”

  McQueen sat back and crossed his arms. He might have been smiling beneath his bushy Fu Manchu but no one would ever know.

  Preacher’s Daughter shook her head.

  Boy Scout turned and directed his gaze on the lieutenant. “What did you say to me?”

  Poe paused, then chuckled. “I said, you do realize that you aren’t in charge.”

  “How do you know what I realize?” Boy Scout said. “I’ve run a VIP and diplomatic security detail in the harshest environment on the planet for over three years. This is what we do. We investigate and get information. We get people to talk. We get what we need to protect, and then we do just that. You’re my fucking IT department. You’re my financial advisor. You provide what we need and the mission gets done. You start wishing you’re in charge, the whole plan gets derailed while we stroke your ego like the ears of a cat.”

  Poe opened his mouth to say something, but Boy Scout cut him off. “I’m not done. These are my people. They trust me to keep them alive. We don’t know you, Poe. In fact, I have a hard time trusting damned near everyone on the planet except these two right here. You want to be in charge? You want to be the big boss man and run your own operation? Then prove you’re capable.”

  Boy Scout paused, then added, “Now you can talk.” During the entire monologue, he’d never raised his voice and he’d never gotten heated. Just like the best sergeants he’d had in Ranger School, it was those who weren’t yelling who’d made the greatest impact.

  “I did save you,” Poe said.

  “From what? We saved ourselves from the monastery. All you did was take us from China Lake to Pendleton. Thanks for the ride.”

  “I have assets that can be—”

  “Then we’ll use them. If anytime during a mission briefing you have a better idea on how to accomplish it, or if you have assets you believe can assist, by all means bring it up. Both Preacher’s Daughter and McQueen know they can provide operational advice. Now, can we get on with it?”

  Poe stared at Boy Scout for a moment, his mouth tight, the rest of his face implacable. Then he nodded sharply. “We’ll discuss this later,” he said.

  Boy Scout glared at him for a moment, realizing that much of his anger was misplaced, then turned back to the room in general, releasing the young lieutenant from his gaze. “Where were we?”

  McQueen was the first to speak. “You and me were going shopping at the mall and Preacher’s Daughter and the lieutenant were going to go pay off some loans and make one woman happy enough to want to give us the information we’ll need to go in and capture a supernatural being held hostage.”

  “Right. We’re also going to need an assault team for tomorrow.” Boy Scout looked at the three in the room.

  McQueen said, “Don’t look at me. I’m a bouncer at a gay bar. If you want a bunch of queens to throw their shoes, I know where to find them.”

  Preacher’s Daughter shook her head. “I keep to myself. You know that.”

  Boy Scout looked once again at Poe, this time his gaze softer, eyebrows raised expectantly.

  “I suppose I can round up some of my assets,” he said, with emphasis on the last word. “They going to see actual action, or are they decoys?”

  “Decoys, I think.”

  “That makes it easier. I’ll have something ready.”

  “Good. Then let’s rendezvous back here at 1900 hours.”

  Poe went to the door and held it.

  Preacher’s Daughter stood and shook her head at Boy Scout and McQueen. “Don’t you boys go and get yourselves in trouble.”

  “We’ll be fine, sister,” McQueen said. “Go and make that woman’s day.”

  Preacher’s Daughter: “Feeling like Ed McMahon all day long.”

  “No one is going to get a reference from a guy who hasn’t been on television for twenty years,” McQueen said.

  She stuck her tongue out. “You did.” Then she skipped out the door.

  Poe followed behind her.

  McQueen and Boy Scout sat for a time in silence, neither moving.

  Finally, McQueen said, “What’s going on, boss?”

  “Why do you think something’s going on?”

  “You’ve lost a spark or something. Dunno how, but I just know. You told us to let you know if you changed. Let me just say you’ve changed.”

  “I lost my spark when the dervishes took us. I lost my spark when Narco and Bully and Criminal were killed. I haven’t had my spark for some time.”

  “No. There’s something more. There’s also a sadness about you—something new.”

  Boy Scout looked at McQueen. He’d led the man into so many bad situations he couldn’t count them all. He and Preacher’s Daughter were really all that were left of those he truly loved. They were his family. And McQueen knew more secrets about Boy Scout than anyone. Like the fact he’d actually murdered an Afghan lieutenant colonel because the man was hiding behind an old Pashtun custom and forcing himself on a little wheelchair-bound boy. Boy Scout knew that he’d do it again in a heartbeat, but it didn’t stop him from realizing that he’d murdered—the right or wrong of it couldn’t undo the stain on his soul.

  McQueen had also told Boy Scout about the terrible thing he’d done to a man who’d made fun of him, how he’d lost it, thinking that one act of rage would get back at the man for what he’d done. Instead, the deed had wrapped itself around McQueen’s heart like a length of barbed wire and would squeeze it forever.

  “What was his name?” Boy Scout had asked, when McQueen had finally unleveraged his heart in the ancient complex of cisterns in northern Afghanistan.

  “Why do you want to know?” McQueen had asked, fighting back tears.

  “I think it’s important that you say it out loud.”

  “Is this a form of therapy?”

  “Maybe.” Boy Scout had leaned forward. “Maybe I just want to know. You know, a detail. Like the red house or the nasty smell. A detail.”

  McQueen exhaled. He’d glanced at Boy Scout several times before he spoke. “His name was Billy Picket and he’d been my best friend until he found out I was gay.” Then McQueen slammed his face into his hands and bawled.

  Details.

  Cleaning out the closet.

  And to discover that the man McQueen had raped had been his best friend.

  Neither Boy Scout nor McQueen were model human beings.

  Neither wanted their worst deeds known to the universe.

  For all the good they’d done in their lives, he wasn’t sure that they’d made a difference in the face of those two acts. And now the boy suicide bomber. That the kid had murdered people was beside the point. Boy Scout could still taste the innocence and the longing the boy had had at his core. Did the boy know he’d killed others? Probably not. He was merely avenging the death of his mother and the universe would probably treat him with more favor than it would ever give Boy Scout or McQueen.

  So, Boy Scout told McQueen what happened.

  When it was over, McQueen cupped his cheek and said, “My friend, even when you’re the worst, you are the best of us.”

  Boy Scout needed to hear someone else say this, but each word was still a nail in the coffin of his self-respect.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sunnyvale

  THOSE FROM LOS Angeles tend to geographically separate the city into three districts: everything north of the 10, everything east of the 405, and everything west of the 405.

&
nbsp; North of the 10 was LA City proper, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Glendale, Burbank, Eagle Rock and points north.

  East of the 405 was Compton, Inglewood, Gardena, Hawthorn, Downey, Lakewood, Bell Gardens and points east.

  West of the 405 was where many wanted to be. The 405 itself rose out of the land like a great wall, separating populations by class, race, ethnicity and weather as the raised highway propelled traffic from south to north, around the great curve and lost itself somewhere north of the 10. West of the 405 the weather was often ten to fifteen degrees cooler because of the onshore breezes offered by the Pacific Ocean. The towns of Malibu, Santa Monica, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Torrance and Rancho Palos Verdes had homes that gradually shrank in square footage as they increased in value with each block west towards the Pacific, until those along the beach, which looked like any other condo complex in the world, were the homes of those who’d been able to bite off a piece or two of LA’s golden apple.

  When people say Los Angeles, most think of one sprawling metropolis of strip malls, corner stores, fast food, joints and homes. Sure, there’s the iconic palm trees, the Hollywood sign, the Santa Monica Pier and others, but for all intents the idea of Los Angeles was, and will always be, inspired by the television shows set there.

  NCIS: Los Angeles.

  CHIPS.

  Curb Your Enthusiasm.

  Californication, one of Boy Scout’s favorite shows.

  Entourage.

  And Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

  Buffy the Vampire Slayer was filmed in Torrance, where they were heading. Just like the streets of San Pedro had been transformed into the streets of San Francisco for the TV show Charmed, Torrance had been transformed into the mythical city of Sunnyvale. With its tree-lined streets of Craftsman model homes behind wide lawns, it didn’t embody the concrete and hopelessness felt by much of the locals east and north. For LA residents, except those west of the 405, Torrance didn’t feel like LA. It felt like Sunnyvale, which was why Buffy’s house lay on one of those tree-lined streets, and Torrance High School became her high school, as well as that of the cool kids in 90210. It was why director and creator Joss Whedon chose that location. Not only did he need somewhere people could relate to, he needed a place near enough where he could film Buffy on the cheap. After all, who was going to watch a show about a vampire slayer who had to go to high school before saving the world.

  As it turned out, pretty much everyone.

  Boy Scout remembered binging all the seasons during a particularly boring six-month tour in Iraq where they’d been kept locked away on the FOB. Of all the characters on the show, Boy Scout had been most interested in Giles. The idea that there was a larger organization watching over the events and that the fate of the world wasn’t solely resting on the sloped shoulders of a pretty blonde high school girl made him feel better. On the drive to the mall, he reflected that Special Unit 77 was a similar unit. So far all he knew of it was from Poe, but he hoped somewhere there was some adult supervision over the event that had made Boy Scout and his team accidentally unleash a squadron of daeva on Los Angeles—something like the Watchers Council.

  McQueen drove a white Ford Explorer they’d signed out of the USMC motor pool, tapping the wheel as he listened to Nicki Minaj on the radio.

  Something occurred to Boy Scout as he thought about Torrance and Buffy and the mall. Something that on the surface sounded ludicrous but could possibly be of serious help. If he couldn’t share his thoughts with McQueen, then who could he share them with? Knowing he might be made fun of, he decided he might as well ask anyway.

  “Mind if I ask you a question?” he asked McQueen, reaching to turn down the radio.

  “Sure.”

  “You ever watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”

  McQueen gave him a quick glance. “That’s not what I expected you to ask.”

  “I guess not. Still, it’s on all the time. It had a seven-year run. The show influenced a generation.”

  “You taking a general poll or is there a reason for the question?”

  “You know that Buffy was filmed in Torrance, right?”

  McQueen shook his head slightly. “Only the first three years, then except for B-roll, they got the backing they needed from the studio.”

  Boy Scout turned in his seat and appraised McQueen. “So, you are aware of the show.”

  “Aware is not the correct word,” McQueen said, grinning. “I saw all the shows repeatedly. I read all the comic books. I used to own a lot of the merch. I even read the spinoffs. Christopher Golden’s and Nancy Holder’s books were terrific, but I absolutely loved Yvonne Navarro’s take. I thought she hit it out of the park when she had Buffy and dinosaurs. I mean, who does that? But when she took that part where Willow turned evil and then was good again and turned it on its head, that was a moment of literary genius. Navarro’s three books on Evil Willow were the absolute best of the lot. I still have them somewhere. Took them on two tours to Iraq and one to Somalia.”

  Boy Scout realized his jaw had fallen open and closed it. “You’d consider yourself a Buffy expert, then?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t think of me as an expert,” he answered. “But I wouldn’t bet against me in a Buffy trivia game. Why the interest? What’s so important about Buffy that it relates to what we’re doing?”

  “It might sound crazy, but I was thinking TTPs.”

  “Techniques, tactics and procedures? Are you feeling well, boss?”

  “Listen, I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out. If I want to get an infantry squad and take a hill, where would I learn how to do that?”

  “Uh, Fort Benning?”

  “Right. And I’d consult the manual—FM 7 – 8, The Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad. The marines have their own version. If I want to fire a cannon or do tank combat, there are manuals for that. If I want to conduct a counterinsurgency on a country or positively affect their internal defenses, I can go to SOCOM and find an FM or an instruction that tells me what the great military minds have come up with, hopefully based on best practices.”

  “Where does Buffy come into this?” McQueen asked.

  “Tell me this: what manual of instruction or field manual would you go to in the event you needed to fight the supernatural?”

  McQueen clenched his jaw as he nodded to himself. He switched lanes twice, checking the mirrors occasionally for surveillance. When he spoke, his words were measured, but tinged with a thread of sarcasm. “I’d think that Special Unit 77 would have such documents, seeing as they’ve been around for so long.” He sighed, then turned the radio completely off. Until now, Minaj’s lyrical rap about what she was doing with champagne and a man’s genitals was just on the edge of hearing. “But you’re right. There’s nothing out there that we know of. If there was, I’d be eager to read it. The problem is none of the real stuff is currently available to us. Your solution to follow the guidance of a bunch of Hollywood suits who’ve never even held a weapon, much less fired one?”

  Boy Scout agreed, but still pressed on. “My thinking is this: after seven seasons, they’ve sat around enough writing rooms, game-playing how best to take down certain supernatural creatures. They had to do some research.”

  “Or make the shit up.”

  “Or make the shit up… but I can’t help believe there was a lot of research done that shouldn’t go to waste.”

  McQueen gave him a questioning look. “Like I said, your solution is to follow the guidance of a bunch of Hollywood suits who’ve never even held a weapon, much less fired one. You want us to consult The Watcher’s Handbook before each mission.”

  Boy Scout slumped in his seat and stared at the traffic. “You’re right, of course.” After a moment, he shook his head and stared out the side window. “I’m so off my game.”

  “I can see it now,” McQueen said, a big grin taking over his face. “Before every mission we ask ourselves What would Buffy do?”

  Boy Scout closed his eyes, feeling about as uncomfortable as
he’d ever felt.

  “We could even get it tattooed on our forearms—WWBD—to remind us to think of our favorite episodes and what TTPs she used to dust the creature of the day.”

  “You’re not helping.”

  “You do know that back in the day it was five thousand dollars a dust, right? So when two vampires got dusted in one show, that was a big deal. They called it a double duster.”

  “You’re still not helping.”

  McQueen’s voice had raised in pitch as he held himself on the verge of outright laughter. “Or even better. I could find out where the showrunners have gotten to and we could hire one of them as our J2 intel section.”

  “There’s a line and you’ve crossed it.”

  But McQueen was really on a roll. He raised his head and laughed. “Who are we in comparison? I think Preacher’s Daughter is like Anya, the vengeance demon. I’m not sure if she’s Anya before she lost her powers or after, because she can definitely be badass. And what about you?”

  “What about you?” Boy Scout asked, turning the question back on his friend. “Who do you think you are?”

  McQueen cocked his head and scratched his cheek. “It’s hard to say. Not too many big, gay hipsters in the series. I wonder who I’d be. But in all seriousness, if we were like Buffy then she’d be you. You’d be Buffy, boss. Leader of the team and baddest of us all.”

  “I’m not exactly a slayer.”

  “I don’t know about that. I’ve seen you in action.”

  Boy Scout suddenly realized what McQueen was doing. His over-the-top diatribe was designed to bring Boy Scout out of his self-created shell. Jump kick him back to who he should be. Make him angry, then get him past it. Against his own masochistic wishes, it was working.

  McQueen snapped a finger. “Maybe we should change your call sign from Boy Scout to Buffy. What do you think, Bryan?”

  “I think I’ll stick with Boy Scout.”

  “It would also be far easier to call Preacher’s Daughter Anya. A lot less syllables.”

  Boy Scout said nothing.

  “Do you think she’d go for it? Maybe I should call her and ask.”