FUSED: iSEAL OMNIBUS EDITION (A Military Technothriller)

by Jude Hardin

  At least she had a blanket now. She covered herself, rested her head on her hands, and closed her eyes.

  It didn’t take long for her to fall asleep, and as soon as she did she went spinning into a dream, a surreal and inaccurate version of the day her brother and sister were hit by a car.

  In her dream, one that had recurred often through the years, Gwendolyn and Jason had made it to the community pool. When Nika got there and looked over the fence, they were laughing and splashing down at the shallow end. They were having a great time, but Nika was furious at them for leaving the house without permission.

  “Get out!” she shouted. “Get out of that pool right now!”

  But Gwendolyn and Jason didn’t get out of the pool. In fact, they didn’t even acknowledge Nika’s presence. It was as if she didn’t exist. The kids continued splashing and playing and ignoring her until she climbed over the fence and ran to them and pulled them out of the water. They stood there dripping and shivering, only they weren’t children anymore. Jason was a full grown man, and Gwendolyn a full grown woman, and the two of them glared at Nika and said, in unison, “You’re not the boss of me!”

  And that’s where the dream ended. Nika woke up, wishing that it had really happened that way.

  But it didn’t. Those babies were gone, and it was all Nika’s fault.

  And she would never forgive herself for as long as she lived.

  6

  Blake Howitzer lived in a nice little cottage half a mile from the beach in St. Augustine, Florida. Despite a lifelong love of gambling—everything from blackjack at the casinos to greyhounds at the tracks—he’d managed to keep the house, along with enough money in offshore accounts to maintain a comfortable lifestyle.

  No longer the high roller he used to be, he now limited himself to scratch-off lottery tickets, major sporting events, and friendly weekend poker games. He was doing all right, and he hadn’t planned on ever having to work again.

  But ten million dollars was too much to pass up. It was the biggest score of his life, and it would enable him to do some of the traveling he’d been thinking about and to buy a place closer to the ocean. In fact, it would enable him to buy a place on the ocean, something he’d been dreaming about since he was a kid.

  All he had to do was find a guy and kill him. Piece of cake. He’d done it a hundred times before. It was his talent. It was the reason he’d been able to retire at the age of thirty-four.

  Blake Howitzer was a professional hit man, and he was very good at what he did.

  This job was a little different, in that his client wanted the head delivered intact, but it was nothing Blake couldn’t handle. There were dozens of ways to discreetly kill a person, and he looked forward to being back in the game one more time. Like an aging superstar quarterback, past his prime but still better than anyone else on the field.

  And this time it was for the winning touchdown at the Super Bowl.

  A few hours after Fennel’s initial call, Blake’s chartered Learjet 85 landed smoothly at the Memphis International Airport, made a few turns and taxied to a stop. Blake told the pilot thanks, grabbed his suitcase, and climbed out of the airplane. There was a car waiting for him on the tarmac. The chauffeur helped him with his bag, and then drove him to one of the nicer downtown hotels. Blake checked in with a set of fake credentials.

  “Enjoy your stay in Memphis,” the clerk said. “And let us know if there’s anything you need.”

  “Thanks.”

  Blake went up to his room on the sixteenth floor and watched television for a while. He preferred the old shows from the sixties and seventies, comedies mostly, and heartwarming dramas like The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie. The newer shows had too much sex and violence for Blake’s taste. He found a Leave it to Beaver marathon and chuckled his way through four episodes in a row.

  After he’d had his fill of Wally and the Beave and June and Ward and Lumpy Rutherford and Eddie Haskell, he grabbed his briefcase, took the elevator down to the lobby, and walked out to the street.

  The man he was looking for was named Mike. No last name, just Mike. Three days ago, Mike had suffered a gunshot wound near the Shell station at 3rd and Biscayne, and several news agencies had published digital photographs of the event. Pictures sent in from bystanders. Mike had been wearing a disguise at the time, but Blake also had some pictures of him without the hat and sunglasses and fake mustache, images sent by Oliver Fennel via email. Blake had made prints of all the photographs, and they were in his briefcase now, along with some other things.

  A line of taxis waited for fares outside the hotel. Blake chose one at random, made sure the driver was available, and then climbed into the back seat.

  “Where to?” the driver said.

  Blake opened his briefcase and pulled out two eight-by-ten glossies, one of Mike with the disguise on, and one of him without it on.

  “You seen this guy?” he said.

  The cabbie studied the photographs. “These are both the same person?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This one where he has a mustache, I saw it on TV.”

  “Okay, but have you seen the man around town anywhere?”

  “Nope. I know the cops are looking for him, though. You a cop?”

  “Private investigator,” Blake said. “Where would a guy on the lam go to have a bullet taken out of his arm?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you do know. Maybe you just forgot. Would this help refresh your memory?”

  Blake held up a one hundred dollar bill.

  “I might know a place,” the cabbie said.

  He steered away from the curb. Ten minutes later, he parked across the street from a boarded-up building with a sign in front that said Thornton’s Drugs.

  “This is it?” Blake said.

  “Yeah. Go around back and ring the bell four times.”

  Blake handed him the money for the fare, plus the big tip. “Another hundred if you can wait right here for a few minutes.”

  “Not a problem,” the cabbie said.

  Blake got out of the cab and walked around to the back of the building. He rang the bell four times, and a minute or so later the deadbolt clicked open and the heavy wooden inside door slowly creaked away from the jamb. A woman with brown skin and long black hair spoke to Blake through a hazy Plexiglas storm door that was probably fifty years old.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  “Are you the doctor?”

  “What is it that you want, sir?”

  “There’s a cut on my leg,” Blake said. “I think it might be infected.”

  “It’s almost eleven o’clock. I don’t usually take patients this late.”

  “But you will this time, right?”

  “Five hundred dollars,” the woman said.

  “For a cut?”

  “Go to the emergency room. My fee is not negotiable.”

  She started to close the inside door.

  “All right, all right,” Blake said. “Five hundred.”

  “I require payment in advance.”

  Blake pulled his bankroll out of his pocket, counted out five crisp one hundred dollar bills. The woman opened the storm door, and Blake handed her the money.

  “I appreciate your help,” he said. “I can’t go to the ER.”

  “This way.”

  Blake stepped inside and followed her down a long dark hallway.

  “Kind of gloomy in here,” Blake said. “Not that I’m complaining.”

  She opened a door with a key and led Blake down another corridor to an examination room. Unlike the rest of the house, it was sparkling clean and looked as though it might have been built yesterday. Gleaming stainless steel cabinets, glass canisters filled with gauze pads and cotton-tipped swabs. There was an electronic vital signs monitor, and one of those things you clip on your finger to check the oxygenation level of your blood. Blake had known the name of the device at one time, but he couldn’t think of it at the momen
t.

  “Take your pants off and climb up on the table,” the doctor said.

  She walked to the sink and started washing her hands. Blake set the briefcase on the examination table, popped it open, and pulled out his Ruger 9mm semi-automatic pistol. He screwed the suppressor on.

  The doctor finished scrubbing up, yanked some paper towels from the dispenser on the wall, turned and faced her patient.

  Blake pointed the gun at her chest. “I think I’ll leave my pants on for now,” he said.

  “What do you want?”

  He showed her the pictures.

  “I have reason to believe this man came to see you a few days ago. Friday night, to be exact. You recognize him?”

  “There’s an unwritten contract for the people who come to my office, an implied guarantee of anonymity. That’s the way it works, and I have no intention of—”

  Blake squeezed the trigger, and the sound-suppressed lead projectile barked out and tore its way into the doctor’s right thigh. Those beautiful brown eyes of hers nearly bulged out of their sockets, and the tendons in her lovely neck flared like choked fire hoses as she gasped at the sudden onset of excruciating pain. In a total state of shock, unable to shout or scream or even speak, she fell to the floor gripping her leg and writhing in agony.

  Blake stood over her and aimed the gun at her head.

  “Let’s start over, doc. You recognize that guy or not.”

  She nodded, the hot pool of blood beneath her spreading like a paint spill. She coughed, swallowed, finally managed to force out a few words.

  “He was here,” she said. “He’d been shot in the arm.”

  “Where did he go when he left your office?”

  “I don’t know. He was weak. He’d almost bled to death. I sedated him and gave him some IV fluids, and he said some things while I was extracting the bullet, but it wasn’t anything that made any sense to me.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Something about a man named Oberwand. I got the impression that this man was responsible for the gunshot wound. Then he started talking about a game of hide-and-seek with someone named Becky.”

  “What else?”

  “He kept saying something about a dental appointment. He was supposed to have had a tooth filled, and he’d forgotten to take care of it before signing up for the study. Or something like that. I didn’t know the significance of any of it, and I didn’t care.”

  “You’ve been very helpful, doctor. Thank you.”

  “Please don’t kill me.”

  Blake still couldn’t remember the name of the thing that was used to measure blood oxygen levels. He stepped over to the counter, pulled the device from its electrical charger, turned it on and clipped the sensor on his finger. The digital readout said 98 %.

  “What’s this thing called?” Blake said.

  The doctor looked up. “It’s a pulse oximeter,” she said.

  “Ah, that’s it. Pulse oximeter.”

  Blake aimed and fired and blew the doctor’s brains all over the shiny tile floor.

  7

  Mike woke up and used the bathroom and got a drink of water, and then he went back to bed. The next time he opened his eyes, it was four o’clock in the morning.

  He reached over to the nightstand and switched on the lamp.

  Curled at the foot of the bed, Slick looked up and squinted at Mike uncomprehendingly.

  “We have to get out of here,” Mike said.

  “Meow.”

  Mike let the cat out, and then he took a shower and had a Twinkie and some flat Pepsi for breakfast. He got his things together, coaxed Slick into the backpack, walked around to the back of the lot and performed another record-setting high jump over the fence. It was easier this time. It was in his programming now. He could have jumped back and forth until sunrise if he’d wanted to.

  He followed the fence to the other side of the property, where a man in work clothes was waiting at the gate.

  “You beat me,” Mike said. “I thought I was going to be the first one here this morning.”

  The man gave Mike the once-over. “This your first time?”

  “Yeah. My name’s Mike.”

  “Wade Hoffman.”

  The men shook hands.

  “What kind of work you looking for?” Mike said.

  “The kind that pays money. You?”

  “Same. Anything I can find.”

  “I’m hoping to get on with the outfit I was with yesterday. Fence company. Pretty easy work, and they paid for my lunch.”

  “Meow.”

  Mike shrugged the backpack off his shoulder, zipped it open. Slick darted out and disappeared into the shadows.

  “What are you going to do with that pussycat when you go to work?” Wade said.

  “I guess I’m going to bring him with me.”

  “That could be a problem.”

  “I don’t think so,” Mike said. “I’ll just let him out of the backpack, and he can go do what cats do all day. Sleep and stalk rodents or whatever.”

  “What if you can’t find him at quitting time?”

  “He’ll find me. He always does. I’m his bread and butter. Not that I really own him or anything. He’s free to go anytime he wants to.”

  Wade nodded. “Nice arrangement. I wonder if my girlfriend would go for something like that.”

  Mike thought about Nika. He wanted to find her more than anything, but it was practically impossible without money.

  Mike was permitted to steal if his survival absolutely depended on it. Otherwise, his programming wouldn’t allow it. The only way for him to make money was to earn it, and the labor pool seemed like the best bet at the moment. If it didn’t work out, he would try something else.

  The two men stood there in silence for a while. Wade lit a cigarette, sat on the gravel and rested against the fence.

  “A cup of coffee would be nice,” Mike said. His tooth was hurting, and he thought the warm liquid might help.

  “I’ll buy you a cup if you want to walk over to the store,” Wade said.

  “I don’t want to lose my place in line.”

  “I’ll save your spot.”

  “All right.”

  Wade pulled three crinkled one dollar bills out of his pocket, handed them to Mike.

  “I take mine with cream and sugar,” he said.

  Mike walked up to the strip mall, crossed the street to the convenience store. He’d shaved his head since any photographs had been taken, so he wasn’t too worried about being recognized. Still, he put his sunglasses on before stepping inside.

  A skinny guy with glasses and an immature beard that didn’t quite hide his acne scars stood behind the counter.

  “Good morning, sir,” the clerk said.

  “Good morning.”

  Mike walked over to the self-service coffee setup, filled two large cups, stuffed some packets of sugar and tubs of creamer into one of his windbreaker pockets. It was only 5:12, and the morning rush hadn’t started yet. Mike was the only customer in the store.

  He stepped up to the counter.

  “Anything else?” the clerk said.

  “How much are those little packets of pain killers?”

  “Dollar seventy-nine.”

  “Just the coffee.”

  The clerk rang it up. Mike paid, started to walk away.

  “You hurting?” the clerk said.

  “I have a toothache. It’s annoying.”

  “You a cop?”

  “No,” Mike said. “I’m not a cop.”

  “I have something that’ll fix you right up. It’s twenty-five dollars a pop, but it’ll last you all day.”

  “I can’t even afford the aspirin, man. But thanks anyway.”

  “All right. You know where to find me.”

  Mike grabbed the coffee and left the store. When he got back to Sidney’s gate, there were ten more men standing there waiting. He walked to the front of the line and handed Wade his coffee, along with two dimes and
four pennies.

  “You remember the cream and sugar?”

  “Yeah. Here you go.”

  Mike pulled the packets and tubs out of his pocket and handed them to Wade.

  “Thanks.”

  A pair of headlights rounded the bend and approached the gate. Mike guessed it was Sidney, although he’d never actually seen the man. He climbed out of his pickup truck and started dialing in the combination to the padlock.

  “I’ll be with you fellows in just a few minutes,” he said.

  Definitely Sidney. Mike recognized the voice. He got back in his truck and gunned it through the gate. Mike and all the other men followed the cloud of dust to the trailer, keeping their places in line as they sauntered up to the front steps.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” the man behind Mike said. He was about six-five, and he probably weighed three hundred pounds. Maybe more. He wore jeans and a flannel shirt and a red bandana, along with a pair of leather work boots that could have doubled as tugboats.

  “Excuse me?” Mike said.

  “Line forms at the rear.”

  “I’ve been at the gate since a little after five,” Mike said. “I went to get some coffee, and my friend Wade here was kind enough to hold my place for me.”

  “That’s right,” Wade said. “He was here already.”

  “Don’t matter,” the big man said. “You walk away, you lose your spot.”

  Wade got in his face, apparently undaunted by the gross mismatch in size. The man was enormous.

  “Since when?” Wade said.

  “Since always. That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it’s always going to be. Don’t make me hurt you, man.”

  “It’s all right,” Mike said. “I’ll go to the back of the line.”

  “No you won’t,” Wade said, grabbing him by the shoulder as he started to walk away. “I been coming here a lot longer than this bum, and that ain’t no rule I ever heard of. You just stay right where you are.”

  The linebacker stepped forward and threw a punch at Wade, but Mike caught the man’s fist in his hand and applied enough pressure to rupture a million or so capillaries.