Tex's Revenge: Military Discipline, Book Two

by Loki Renard

  Chapter Twelve

  Savage was not long off a flight from Bahrain when his phone rang. He'd almost forgotten about the slim newfangled device that came packed in his gear as a standard add on. Pulling it out of his bag, he briefly considered drowning it in the beer he was midway through imbibing.

  Tempting at it was, he decided against it. If nothing else it was a waste of beer. He answered the small shrieking device with a resigned wariness, knowing in advance that the conversation he was about to have would not be pleasant. Sure enough, the voice on the other end was as tense as it was terse. “You're off profile, agent.”

  Savage's expression betrayed no emotion, nor did his voice. It stayed steady, almost flat as he replied. “You failed to hold up your end of the bargain.”

  There was a pause, as if the speaker was trying to decide between threatening or luring him back. Tex settled on a question. “What do you intend to do?”

  “I intend to fix it.”

  “How...”

  Savage snapped the phone shut. He was not in the mood to engage in discussions with his employer or to explain himself or his methods. He was only interested in doing one thing: eliminating the last remaining threat against Zora Matthews. He did not anticipate any great difficulty in doing so, it was easy when you knew precisely who you were looking for and it was easier still when you'd taught that person everything they knew.

  * * *

  “We need three more of these analyzed by morning.” Three slim silver disks in plastic cases were slid onto Zora's workstation, adding to an existing pile so tall it was threatening to topple over. The agent delivering the discs made no comment, but it was obvious even to the most casual of observers that Zora was behind on her work.

  The source of the retarded productivity was not difficult to find, instead of being glued to her monitor, or even glancing at it vaguely, Zora had several empty cases stacked in front of her in the style of a house of cards. There were seven triangles on the base, six stacked above them and five above them, making for a total of thirty two cases being misappropriated. Several more were on their way to being added to the third tier of the pyramid.

  She had expected some kind of retaliation after Savage failed to return on schedule, but to her surprise Tex did not take Savage's absence out on her. Instead she had been given busy work to do, the sort of work that numbed the brain and dulled the spirit. It was the same sort of work the military had assigned her in the latter days of her incarceration at their underground complex. It gave her a new source of desperation – boredom.

  Her leg had pretty much healed, but it didn't make any difference. She was no longer allowed to leave. Tex had revoked that particular privilege and her picture sat in the guard house at the gates, a constant reminder to all on duty that she was not to be allowed out under any circumstances. She was a prisoner once more.

  There was a lot of work on, but all of it bored her. Instead of ploughing through yet another late night of tiresome tasks that seemed to almost have been designed to tire her out, she abandoned her tower of translucent plastic, went outside and sat beneath the stars, leaving reports unwritten, footage unseen.

  It was pleasantly cool and peaceful outside. That far from civilization there was no background noise to drone in her subconscious, no light pollution to block out the stars above. Zora sighed and leaned back against the wall. The concrete felt good against her back, radiating the heat it had stored throughout the day. Looking up at the stars, it occurred to her that the whole world was a prison in one sense or another. She could not free herself from the bonds of the earth for very long and she certainly could not survive in the cold reaches of space. Travel as she liked she would achieve nothing. Perhaps freedom itself was an illusion she mused whilst Orion hung overhead, the silent hunter forever trapped in the obsidian sky.

  “What are you doing?” Johnny emerged from the night. His arrival did not startle her. He was always nearby. Always watching. At first it had weirded her out but now she was accustomed to it, though she still did not know if he was a guardian angel or a stalker or some combination of the two.

  “Nothing. Just thinking.” She smiled at him, but there was no answering smile. His usually jovial expression was dulled by some heavy burden that made the corners of his mouth droop.

  He stood in front of her, managing to loom. “You should be working. You've already missed three deadlines this week.”

  She frowned at him. “Are you my supervisor now?”

  “No, I'm your friend, and I don't want to see you sanctioned.”

  A smirk sprang to her lips. “What? They won't let me trade oil with Russia?”

  “Something like that.” He manged a weak smile “What's eating you so badly? Why aren't you doing your job? Do you want to get into trouble?”

  Zora tried to gather her thoughts but there were too many and they kept slipping through her mental fingers. It took some effort to get close to what was bothering her. “Tex engineered everything with Savage to get me. To. Get. Me,” she emphasized the point by stubbing her finger into the seat. “Now he has me he doesn't even want me. He wastes my time with these stupid little assignments that aren't of any use to anyone. It's insulting, that's what it is.”

  “You're starting to sound like a slighted woman,” Johnny observed. “Was there something between you two?”

  “Between me and Tex? No,” Zora sneered. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because you're whining like a little bitch.”

  Zora looked at him wide eyed, then laughed from shock. “That's not nice.”

  “At least it made you smile.” He smiled a little himself, though the expression failed to get anywhere near his eyes.

  Her scowl returned in force. “And now Savage is missing. Again. All he does is go missing. And that's making Tex pissed, which is making him mean. You know he revoked my leave again?”

  “I heard.” The seat creaked as Johnny sat next to her. “You need to think about who you're hooking up with.”

  “You're just full of good ideas aren't you?” She laced the sentence heavily with sarcasm.

  Johnny shook his head. “I worry about you sometimes.”

  “Don't worry about me.”

  “Someone has to. You're not nearly worried enough.”

  “You think I should be crying in a corner somewhere?”

  “I think you should be paying more attention to your work.”

  “Ugh,” she rubbed her eyes, having nothing better to say. She was starting to think that Johnny was less of a friend and more of a handler.

  As if to accompany the thought, he slipped her yet another disk between his thumb and forefinger. “We pulled this off a foreign satellite. You need to analyze the footage and grab the codes on the displays. Reverse engineer the data to work out what systems they're using and how they can be cracked.”

  She took the disc and tossed it onto the grass. “Boring.”

  “Zora, quit being a pain in the ass.” The seat creaked as he got up to retrieve her missile. He handed it back to her, or rather tried to. She refused to take it, so he dropped it into her lap. “Anyway, Tex wants to see you.”

  Her brows rose. “He wants to see me now? In the middle of the night?”

  Johnny shrugged, playing it off nonchalantly. “He works late I guess.”

  Sure he worked late. He worked all the time, as far as she could tell there was no boundary between work and personal life for Tex, work was his personal life. Tucking the disc into her pocket, she got up and made her way to his office slowly. Past experience had made her wary of visiting him in his lair, as she mentally dubbed the room that was fast becoming her personal Waterloo. A little worm of guilt or something like it started twisting in her tummy as she knocked on the door.

  “Come.”

  He was behind his desk when she entered the room. She was glad for that. A little part of her had been afraid he would seize her the moment she walked in and start smacking her for her misdeeds. As alwa
ys a tingle zipped down her spine when she first laid eyes on him. He was dressed in a dark brown suit cut to perfection and she couldn't help but notice his broad shoulders and the powerful torso beneath. The worm of guilt began twisting and turning faster as she caught herself ogling the man who was not Savage. There was no smile, nor greeting when Tex looked up at her and bade her sit. “You know why you're here I imagine.”

  “No idea.” She lowered herself into a chair, glad for the protection of the padding and wood. Sitting was a safe position around Tex.

  He fixed her with a stern look. “You're behind schedule on your work and I know your schedule is light, which means you may as well not be doing anything at all.”

  Zora shrugged. “Maybe the work is harder than you think it is. Maybe there's more of it than you think there is. Maybe it's more complicated than you imagine, maybe...”

  “Maybe you're getting yourself into trouble for the sake of it,” he cut her off with a curt interruption.

  “Is this leading up to you hitting me again?” The question came out sounding sarcastic and catty. It was a genuine one however. Though she had not been spanked since Savage left, the memory of the event was indelibly written in her mind. Being back in the room in which it had occurred left her feeling just a little light headed.

  Tex paused a moment and looked at her steadily. “Zora, why are you here?”

  The question caught her off guard. It didn't seem to have any context in the conversation they'd been having, but from the way he asked it she knew it was important. She answered it straight and simple, though she was sure it was the wrong answer. “Because you told Johnny to tell me to come here.”

  His eyes bored into hers. “No, I mean why are you here. In this place.”

  She tried to match his look and failed. “Because you ordered me to stay.”

  He smirked and shook his head. “We both know you could be gone if you wanted to. You think I don't know about the keys you have stuck to almost every inch of the car? You could walk out of here at any time. The only thing really keeping you here is my order that you stay.”

  “And you're bitching about that?” Her response was sharper and ruder than was absolutely wise, but he was creeping close to a nerve she did not want touched.

  Her attempt to throw him off the line of conversation failed. “Merely observing, Miss Matthews.”

  “Observing what?” She raised her chin, challenging him to put words to the elephant in the room.

  “That you like it here.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Shut up.”

  He let the rudeness pass in favor of making his point. “Just the other day you had my gun in your hand. You could have shot me. You didn't.” His smile became thinner. “You love to protest against me, but I am the only constant in your world.”

  “Because you sent Brett away.” She was glad to have that defense. It made Tex the bad guy and took the heat off her wandering mind.

  Tex tutted. “I sent him on a mission he did not return from by his own choice. He could be here, you know, there is nothing stopping him from returning. He chooses not to.”

  “You're lying.” Her voice stretched thin over emotion that was refusing to stay hidden. She hated letting Tex see she was upset. She always ended up regretting it.

  “I am not lying and you know it. You feel it is true because it is consistent with what you know of him.” Tex spoke with a stilted certainty that made her hate him. It was as if he knew what she thought, what she felt. Somehow she had no privacy from the man.

  “You're playing games.” The accusation was weak.

  “I'm not. Actually your Savage is the one who is playing games, and he is apparently playing them at the risk of your life – and his.”

  A small ray of hope broke through the clouds of torment. “You know where he is then?”

  “I don't know where he is. I do know what he is doing. He's looking for this Anja.”

  Zora's eyes widened unconsciously. “He's with Anja?”

  Tex's smirk held more than a little triumph. “I didn't say that. Interesting that you did. I looked up her file. This Anja is not unattractive.”

  Zora did not reply to that. The insinuation was clear. Tex wanted her to think that Brett had run off with Anja. She wasn't going to fall for that though. “So he's trying to stop the person who shot me and you want me to be mad at him for that?” It was her turn to feel triumphant. “Stop trying to mindfuck me Tex, you're not good at it.”

  “It doesn't take this long to get rid of someone, Zora. They're out there somewhere, they're probably together. And you're defending him.” Tex settled back in his chair and regarded her through narrowed lids. “I suppose I'm not as good at mindfucks as he is. I've never been able to destroy a woman's life then walk back into it at will and have her as I please.”

  A deep blush rose on Zora's face as humiliation and rage warrred for top emotional billing. “Fuck you, Tex.”

  He stood up, unfolding his frame from the chair with a smooth movement that spoke to a sinuous athleticism. A glimmer of a smile played around his lips and around his eyes. “Maybe that's what you need.”

  It was a crude attempt to come onto her. She found it easy to refuse it. “I wouldn't fuck you if you were the last man on earth,” she spat, angrily pushing up from her chair and backing away from him as he stalked towards her with a predatory gait.

  “Now we both know you're lying.”

  “I am not lying.”

  “You are. You're a terrible liar Zora Matthews. You lie to everyone you know. Worse still, you lie to yourself.” He closed the distance between them and stood a foot away from her as she pushed herself back against the wall. “I've been patient with you, very patient.”

  She looked for an avenue of escape. There was none. “Get away from me.”

  “Why? So you can go back to ignoring your job and pining for the man who has never been there for you?”

  “I don't want you Tex.”

  His chuckle was soft as silk. “Another lie. You forget Zora, I have seen your arousal first hand. I have seen a great deal of you. I liked it very much.” He lowered his head towards hers, his lips close. As he whispered the final words of the sentence he grazed them lightly across her mouth in the barest of kisses.

  “OWWWWWW!” His howl as her knee jutted sharply up catching a sensitive part of his anatomy was heard well down the hall. “Goddamit Zora,” he gasped the words breathlessly as he took a few shaky steps towards the couch. He was trying his best to appear unaffected by the blow, but his eyes were watering and his back was hunched in the manner characteristic of a man who has sustained a solid blow to regions that should never sustain a solid blow.

  Zora let herself out of the room as the security detail rushed in. The conversation was as over as it could possibly be and she had no interest in being in Tex's presence when he recovered from the humiliating strike to both his body and ego.

  * * *

  Miles away, Savage stepped into the deep dark of a lonely night on the outskirts of the city. A few unsavory types lurked here and there but in insufficient numbers to be any real cause for concern. Comprised largely of old factories long since abandoned and run down storage yards providing holding solutions for the dissolute, it was the perfect place to lurk if you didn't want to show on anyone's radar. When cops did patrol the area they were looking for drug pushers and prostitutes, not military trained renegade assassins.

  All in all, Anja had done a decent job of hiding herself, but a few clues had been left behind. They'd lead Savage to the gates of a warehouse in a part of the area that was desolate and abandoned, even by local standards. Looming tall in the night with its curling iron exterior and junk filled surrounds the old wheat and chalk storage barn made for a dramatic yet dilapidated scene.

  A chain link fence showing signs of advanced rust held signs with dire warnings. “TRESSPASSERS WILL BE SHOT.” “CERTAIN DEATH BEYOND THIS POINT.” There was a certain melodrama to the hand painted message
s that might have lulled a less experienced man into a false sense of security, but when he looked into the yards beyond the fence Savage immediately spotted the tips of the teeth of a man trap hidden under what looked like a gravel path. There were tripwires too, barely visible strands of wire tracing back and forth here and there. Death was everywhere too. Little skeletons and the decomposing bodies of small animals littered the place, emitting an odor of death that scented the air.

  Before entering the place, Savage donned a pair of thick protective gloves. He did not wear them in vain. As he had suspected, the first tripwire he came to glistened with a green dew that glowed neon under the wrist light he wore. It wasn't lubrication or an accidental spill, it was a potent neurotoxin derived from the venom of an Inland Taipan. One drop of the stuff on exposed skin and he would be incapacitated within minutes and dead within an hour without treatment.

  He half expected to hear the whiz of bullets as he stepped over the wire, taking great care not to touch it with any part of his anatomy or his clothing. The night stayed quiet but he could hear his heart beating in his chest and his breath sounded hoarse and loud in his ears. He was not scared, he had been in too many dangerous situation to acknowledge fear as anything more than an old comrade, but he was extremely cautious. The layout of the place and the hysteria of the signs suggested an imbalanced mind. If Anja had lost the plot she would be much more dangerous than usual, and she was plenty dangerous on a good day, let alone a day where she decided to litter a civilian location with the sorts of traps that made war zones look tame.

  It was only about thirty feet from the chain link fence to the rusty iron door of the warehouse, but it took more than half an hour for him to make the journey. When he gained the door, he did not rush in. The situation had to be handled with care, if there were hostile parties inside a quick exit would be impossible, several of the traps were still armed and he suspected that there were still more lurking in the darkness. He stood and breathed deeply for a moment or three, gazing out into the depths of the night. There was something chilling about it all, something ever so slightly unhinged about the sheer number and viciousness of the traps.