The Mercenary

by Dan Hampton

  Knife. It was a big hunting knife with a serrated back edge. It wasn’t really shiny though, since it was covered with blood. Then he saw the other hand. It slowly opened and Fowler stared dumbly, trying to process the contents.

  No . . .

  NO!!

  His shocked brain screamed but no sound came from his taped mouth and shattered jaws. Eyes bulging in horror, Fowler threw his head back and strained against the bonds holding him to the bed and chair. As a hand gripped him around the throat, the general tried to lean forward but felt his head forced even further back. He could do nothing but wriggle—the hand was horribly powerful and it was squeezing harder . . . and harder.

  “After you’re dead,” a calm voice whispered in his ear, “I’m going to kill your wife, too.”

  With everything he had left, Fowler convulsed and tried to break the hold around his neck.

  He couldn’t do it. The other man was much too strong.

  His view of the room began to fade. The edges grayed out and turned to black. Breathing stopped. He felt light-headed and strangely euphoric. In his narrowing tunnel of vision the other hand suddenly appeared. S. Herbert Fowler’s euphoria vanished and the last emotion he had was the horror. The last sight he had was his severed penis and testicles swinging back and forth as his eyes glazed over and went opaque in death.

  For a full five minutes the Sandman kept the same pressure around Fowler’s neck. Finally, satisfied that the man was dead, he removed his hand and stared down at the mangled body. Removing the tape, he propped the general’s head back so his lifeless eyes were focused on the ceiling. Shoving the bloody penis in Fowler’s mouth, he dropped the testicles on the floor and stepped back.

  One more set of sins paid for.

  Satisfied, he flipped the big hunting knife into the floorboards, left the TV on and pulled the pocket doors leading into the bedroom shut. Standing at the entry door, he put his cap back on, pulled the curtain back an inch and listened. After a minute of perfect silence, he opened the door, locked it from the inside and slipped out into the shadows of the verandah.

  Now for the others.

  Stumbling as she stepped out of the Officer’s Club, Heidi Smith swore under her breath. Regaining her balance, she smoothed the tight skirt back down over her thighs, ruefully noting that her bulges had grown.

  Inhaling the sultry Texas air, she sighed and remembered a time when it hadn’t been like that. Twenty-five years ago, she wouldn’t have had to wear skirts that stretched, nor have had to buy her own drinks. Most of all, she wouldn’t have been walking out of here alone. Steadying herself against a pillar, she stared blearily across the parking lot and tried to focus on her car. It should’ve been easy to find—right there in all the other spaces that had the blue sign with a white eagle. When she’d married a young lieutenant who’d eventually become a colonel, Heidi thought she’d finally have the status and attention she so craved.

  Well, that was certainly the miscalculation of my life, she thought, hiccupping gently. He’d grown fatter with each passing year behind a desk, losing his hair and gaining glasses somewhere along the way. She could’ve dealt with that, and his backwater assignments. Her mistake had been in not marrying an officer who was already a pilot. Joseph Smith was on his way to becoming a pilot when they’d married, and he hadn’t lasted through the basic T-37 phase of flight training.

  Turned out, she’d picked a man who got airsick and was mortally afraid of flying. So instead of finding herself living around the world in exotic locations, proud of a man wearing pilot’s wings, she found herself in Offutt, Nebraska; Tinker, Oklahoma; Minot, North Dakota, and a half dozen other garden spots. Joe Smith had become a support officer and slowly rose to command all of the paper clips, toilet paper, and telephone operators at any given base. She tried to bravely convince herself that whatever it was he did was just as important as the men who flew the jets.

  But after four years of marriage she’d discovered that the men in flight suits at the O’Club didn’t care what her husband did or even that she was married. She was young and skinny then and began to take advantage of her husband’s frequent trips away. Over the years she’d had probably twenty affairs, some she could remember and some not. But it had gotten more difficult as she’d gotten older while Joe Smith slowly inched his way up the ladder. Now, as a full colonel’s wife, she had to be much more careful. Still—she smiled a little—opportunities did come around. Though not tonight.

  Managing to find the car, she carefully and slowly navigated Military Plaza circle around the Officer’s Club and turned right on Park Road. A hundred yards farther, she turned right again on Inner Octagon and made another immediate right into the first tree-lined driveway. Bumping over the brick border lining the flower beds she lurched to a stop and stared at the house. It was larger than most, as befitted a colonel, but what she really wanted was one of the big general-officer homes along Military Plaza. Sighing again, she heaved herself out of the car and leaned against the hood, thinking about her story for the night. Not that Joe would believe her, but they’d both gotten used to going through the motions.

  The front door was unlocked as always on a military base and she stepped in. Dropping her purse on console table, Heidi took a deep breath. “Joe! I’m back . . .” She managed to sound breezy and cheerful. Shrugging at the silence, she unsteadily made her way to the bar in the living room. Looking through the kitchen, she saw the top of his head silhouetted against the television’s blue glow.

  “Jo—hic . . . Joe . . . you wanna drink, babe?”

  Nothing.

  She shrugged again. Fuck ’im. Pouring a big triple shot of Wild Turkey, she skipped the water and took a big slug. If it was a fight he wanted, then he’d get it.

  “C’mon—hic . . . C’mon Joe . . . nah like we ever drin’ too much ’round here . . . huh?”

  She walked slowly through the kitchen. “Whaddya got the drapes down for . . . itsa turrific-lookin’ night . . . c’mon ouside wi’ me.”

  Maybe if she finished this drink she could forget how he looked. She could close her eyes and think of —

  Something slid across her neck from the right side and jerked her backward. The glass crashed to the floor and Heidi’s hands instinctively flew up to grab at it. As the scream was choked off in her windpipe, she pawed at the muscular forearm locked across her throat. Another arm appeared across her waist and she felt herself lifted up and pinned against a powerful male body.

  “Stop it,” a voice hissed.

  She whimpered with fear. Why did Joe just sit there? He was a sound sleeper but how could he not hear this?

  “Stop it and you’ll live.”

  She was completely helpless and breathing heavily. Managing a nod, she was lowered to the ground and the arm around her throat relaxed a bit. Sobering quickly, she swallowed hard and said, “Wh . . . what d’ya want?”

  “Nothing.” The man’s voice was deep and pleasing. She could feel a big, hard chest against her back. Maybe he wanted her. Her breathing quickened. Could that be it? Maybe if Joe was asleep . . .

  “Then lemme go . . . we can work it out. I won’t scream.”

  She heard a dry chuckle and relief washed over her. Then this was just about sex.

  “Same Heidi I remember.” The man’s lips brushed her ear and she shivered. Someone from her past. How marvelous. But who?

  “Think back to a night six years ago. Same O’Club, same Heidi. You made a play for a pilot . . . remember?’

  Six years? Who remembers that? She shook her head . . . there’d been so many men.

  “A lieutenant colonel in a desert flight suit. He was watching a pretty woman dance on the stage with a friend and you said, ‘She ain’t half the woman I am.’ ”

  That night . . . She swallowed again. That night. “What . . . what’sat matter . . . to you?”

  The chuckle again.
“Because I looked right at you and said, ‘Only by weight.’’ ”

  Him!

  She remembered him. Sunburned and broad shouldered, she’d seem him immediately. He’d shown no interest in her whatsoever and, after four drinks, her irritation bubbled up as she watched him watch the other woman.

  “That’s right.” The voice was low and dangerous. “You do remember.”

  She’d made a scene. She’d used her position as the Mission Support Group commander’s wife to summon the Security Police. Never mind that there’d been nights when people had sex in the bushes and panties flew over that very dance floor. She’d insisted that the woman and her dance partner be thrown out at once. The woman had actually turned out to be the pilot’s wife, just dancing with a friend.. As the man stepped between the angry women, Heidi, in a fit of jealousy, purposely bumped into him, then screamed, “He hit me! He hit me!”

  The security cops were plainly uncomfortable with the entire thing and knew the officer had done no such thing. They’d even made a special report to that effect, as did a score of witnesses. But a pissed-off colonel’s wife is hard to ignore—especially when her husband was close personal friends with the general in charge of personnel at the Pentagon. Joe had come through for once, happy to stick it to a fighter pilot, and even filed a sexual harassment charge.

  She knew the man’s command had been taken away and that he’d ended up back on a staff somewhere. She’d also been pleased to hear later that his good-looking wife had died in a car accident.

  The forearm tightened around her throat again as he lifted her up. As she started to kick, a fist crashed into her left temple and Heidi went limp. She wasn’t unconscious, but she couldn’t seem to make her body respond. Joe . . . she thought, I have to wake him up somehow . . . I . . .

  “He’s not going to help you . . . not that he could do anything anyway,” the man whispered, reading her thoughts. Very slowly he carried her around to the front of the easy chair and a big hand forced her chin around to stare at her husband’s face.

  The shock of it brought Heidi from her stupor. Joe’s head was tilted back, his eyes wide open and staring blankly at the ceiling. But it was his mouth . . . his mouth was gaping and twin rivers of blood ran down both sides of his chin before dribbling off in a puddle on his chest. She tried to scream but the arm was too tight. Clawing at it with both hands, she began to thrash when the other hand appeared in front of her face, holding something.

  She froze.

  It was a tongue.

  Convulsing mightily, her big, fleshy hips jackknifed and she heaved with all her weight. Heidi didn’t see the tongue drop and the hand move but she did feel it suddenly grab the right side of her chin and, with incredible force, pull her head around and up. The popping snaps behind her ears but didn’t register, and she was still bewildered when her neck broke. Looking at the drapes behind her, her last thought was how dusty they were. The panic faded along with all feeling, all thoughts and memories . . . then there was nothing.

  Wrenching her neck again for good measure, the Sandman was pleased to hear no other bones snap. It was hard to tell sometimes with fleshy people.

  Dropping her body on the sofa facing her husband, he picked up the kitchen knife from the floor beside her. Opening her mouth, he stuck the blade in the back of her mouth, pulled out her tongue and cut it off at the root. Dropping the quivering, bloody flesh on the floor, he flicked the knife into the carpet and stared at the two wide-eyed corpses. A middle-aged slut and a worthless husband who’d sacrificed a man’s career to please his cow of a wife. Two liars who won’t be spreading any more lies. Switching off the television and lights, the mercenary fastened the back bolt. He walked back to the front entryway and slipped out into the darkness, locking the front door behind him.

  Strolling through the trees, the Sandman calmly walked back toward the Officer’s Club, where he’d left the car. Pulling off the bloody surgical gloves, he dropped them in a storm drain by the pool parking lot and slid into the vehicle.

  Driving carefully around the Club, he noticed a security policeman parked in the main parking lot waiting for drunks. Turning right at the first spoke, he took Main Circle to Northeast Drive. Three minutes later he was around the Taj Mahal on Harmon Drive heading for the Main Gate. Two minutes after midnight, the mercenary passed beneath the lights, off of Randolph Air Force Base, and disappeared.

  Chapter 14

  Doug Truax yawned and sipped his airport coffee. A few years back, such stuff had been god-awful—gritty brews served in Styrofoam cups. Now at least the big coffee chains had taken over and a man could get a decent caffeine fix, even in a small place like Virginia’s Patrick Henry Airport.

  “Not too bad, is it?”

  A woman too. Karen Shipman sat down across from him and raised a steamy cup to her lips. Axe blinked and nodded. “Not bad.” They were on their way to Dallas via Atlanta and it was too early on a Saturday morning to be traveling.

  “Rough night?”

  “About usual.”

  “Kids?”

  “No. She took them with her when she left.”

  Karen sighed. “Sorry. Didn’t know.” Changing the subject, she said, “So how likely is it that this ex-Marine is our man?”

  “Not very.”

  “Then why go?”

  Axe exhaled. No quiet cup of coffee this morning. “Two reasons. First, that sort of brotherhood, if you want to call it that, is pretty small. He may know something about someone we haven’t thought of.”

  “You want to chase rumors?”

  Truax shrugged. “That’s all any of this is at the moment. For all we know, the Chinese attacked the damn missile site themselves. Or maybe the Taiwanese air force did it, precisely to get Washington re-energized about their island’s defenses.”

  She looked skeptical. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “No.” He stared out the window at the taxiing airliners. Maybe he should hang it up and drive one of those buses for a living. “No—I think there really is some kind of mercenary roaming around out there, maybe more than one, who’d do this type of thing for an enormous paycheck.” Maybe I should do that instead, he thought. Better than watching the Air Force morph into the unrecognizable collection of politically correct, rear-echelon twits it was fast becoming.

  “I think you’re right.” She surprised him.

  “Why is that?”

  Shifting in her seat, she crossed her legs and Axe noticed her toenails were carefully painted a deep lavender shade that matched her blouse. She was also wearing very chic black slacks accented by a single strand of pearls. She looked very good. Most female military officers lose the knack for dressing well, but evidently Karen Shipman never had.

  “When I worked for the NSA we’d picked up—let’s say ‘leads’—regarding several individuals that did this type of work.”

  “How did you get wrapped up in that?”

  “Token Air Force officer. They thought I would know everything about aircraft just because I wear a blue uniform.”

  “I can’t imagine that.”

  She nodded. “It’s a silly notion.”

  “No—I meant I couldn’t imagine you in those nasty polyester uniforms.”

  If looks could kill, her eyes said he wasn’t worth it. He grinned, and despite her annoyance, she managed a smile in return.

  “And you were going to share this . . . when?” Axe finished the coffee and glanced suspiciously at the bottom of the cup.

  She smiled. “I’m sharing it now. It went like this . . .”

  Rolling out along the slick runway, the Sandman gently touched the brakes and felt the plane begin to skid. Using the rudders th
en, he kept on the wide center stripe and let the aircraft slow down naturally. On a 6,000-foot runway it didn’t matter, and a few seconds later, he felt the brakes take hold. Turning off on the runway abeam the terminal, he unbuckled his harness and switched off all his exterior lights save the taxi light. Not that there was anyone to see him at 6:18 in the morning in Buck Ridge, Missouri.

  Where the shiny concrete turned to light gray, he exited the taxiway and cut across the Razorback Aviation ramp. Opening the clamshell doors, the mercenary taxied slowly behind the long, covered parking area to his left. Next to the taxiway and shielded from the road, were two enclosed hangars. A big black letter B was painted on the closest one and the mercenary grunted, goosed the port engine, and swung the tail around so the plane was facing away from the hangar entrance. Killing the taxi light, he ran his eyes over the other switches, then shut the engines down.

  Immediately sliding out of the cockpit, the Sandman stretched his aching back muscles, then crossed to the hangar doors. The big hangar was actually divided into two smaller ones, marked 1 and 2 respectively. Pulling the travel wallet from under his shirt, the mercenary removed the key that he’d retrieved from the Virginia post office box and held it up in the faint light, staring at the label.

  B-2.

  Opening the side door, he stepped inside. It smelled like dust and old oil but the hangar was clean and empty. Unlocking the big sliding doors, he pushed hard, and very reluctantly one began to move. Muscling the other door back, he stepped back to the SkyMaster, released the parking brake, then carefully rolled the plane back by manhandling the tail booms. When the nose cleared the doors he stopped, reset the brake, and removed his bags from the plane. Locking the cockpit, he shut the hangar main doors and locked them as well before exiting.