Running Black (Eshu International Book 1)

by Patrick Todoroff

  “What is?”

  “Religion. The Bible.”

  “‘Dangerous’ is a strong word.”

  “Yeah well, dangerous is the right word. Life’s a ten-ton bitch that’ll run you over first chance it gets. Fables and wishful thinking only set people up to be blindsided.”

  “Tam, you’ve turned cynical in your old age,” Alejo said.

  “Very funny. Turned realistic is what I’ve done.” Tam shook his head. “Look… Carmen can read Gibson all the Bible stories she wants, but it won’t change anything. The sooner he figures that out, the better chance he has with whatever shit APAC or D-H throws at him.”

  “If he lives through whatever’s inside him.”

  “Yeah well, Ibram’s got some ideas on that front,” Tam replied.

  “Of course. After all, you can’t sell damaged goods.”

  “Now who’s being cynical?”

  “I’m being nostalgic,” Alejo said. “Remembering how things work in the real world.”

  “So what would you have me do here, Al?” Tam snapped. “Risk my life and my team for a clone? They’d just grow another one.”

  “Tell me, what do you think would have happened to the Triplets back in Africa if we’d left them, eh?” Alejo asked quietly. “Did you see tools you could use? The bounties for turning them in? Or did you see three cornered, starving human beings?”

  Poet and I both felt that question hit. I didn’t look at Tam, but I heard him after a minute. “Al, you and Carmen have always taken care of us, from back in Libya.” He laughed softly. “I swear to God—if He’s really up there—there’s no one I trust more in this world. But I’m not going to lose everything I’ve worked for, bled for, fought for, hoping Jesus will reach out of the sky and give me a ‘happily ever after’. I’m doing this the only way I know how. It’s a foregone conclusion.”

  Alejo held Tam’s gaze for a several seconds. “Sometimes a conclusion is just a place where you stop thinking,” he said at last.

  -----------------

  Barcelona Metro Zone, Sant Adrià de Besòs district. 6:40 p.m. Day Four.

  It started with the sound of broken glass.

  Major Eames was handing a data pad back to one of the section leaders when a window shattered somewhere behind her. Just a minor key jangle that floated down out of the maze on tenements on the thick air: a fleeting high note to the chorus of yelling troopers, the bass growl of truck engines, fading wails of faraway sirens, and the running babble of the crowd. She barely heard it.

  “Finish that last section, buildings seventeen through twenty-one. Drag the people out if you have to. And make sure the sniffer teams go over every inch of this place. I want definite readings.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The young sergeant saluted then ran off.

  As he disappeared, she turned towards this latest congestion of grimy concrete apartments, her face creased and as hard as a clenched fist. Just another sprawl neighborhood, she thought, more filthy than usual, if that were even possible.

  Her eyes flicked everywhere, double-checking the operation as it played out in what was now almost tedious repetition. The Guardia Civil units herded lines of scrawny, dirty civilians away from the buildings while the techies with security details moved in to systematically ransack their homes. Same shit, different district.

  She couldn’t help wondering for the hundredth time what the hell was going on.

  It wasn’t like she had a problem inflicting blunt trauma, but going after one person in the sprawl was like trying to find spit in the ocean. Sledgehammer ops never finesse well, but at this point, she and her men were generating nothing from the population but sullen hostility. Why in Christ’s name did London keep her kicking down doors and making a big scene rousting Barcelona’s sprawl scabs? Orders are orders, but this was morphing into a major cluster.

  She looked over the crowd, picking out the small round faces of children sleeping in their parents’ arms.

  This asset, a boy… Didn’t all corporate personnel have an RFID implant? So, if old man MacKinnon and the rest of her bosses thought he was so goddamn important, why not just turn on his chip and triangulate? Satellite imagery and a scalpel of ninja boys would double-tap the baddies and have him back inside ten minutes.

  On the other hand, if the kid wasn’t chipped—why not? Major breech in basic security, right there. Somebody could go up against the wall for that screw up.

  Or was it intentional? Were the suits hiding him for some reason?

  Suspicion twitched at the edge of her mind, but her radio beeped and the thought skittered away before she could get a good grip on it.

  “Yes?”

  “Team B reporting in, Major. Building sixteen is negative.”

  “Sixteen clear, acknowledged. Hurry it up and move to seventeen. We’re running out of daylight. Command out.”

  Clear. What the hell else is new? It’ll take a million years to find the kid like this. As she rubbed her forehead, someone in the apartments in front of her started yelling a Spanish phrase over and over again.

  “Van a matarnos. Ayuda! Ayuda! Van a matarnos.”

  Her instinct picked up and suddenly the radio squawked again.

  “—ninth floor. Guy threw a brick a minute ago, and now he’s running. We’re in pursuit. He disappeared into seventeen. Toward the roof. Repeat: Roof of building seventeen.”

  Major Eames snatched up the mike. “This is Command. Take him alive. Non-lethal, soldier. I want a fast and quiet takedown. Repeat: non-lethal. I don’t want a panic down here. Do you copy?”

  The radio chattered terse and harried with several soldiers’ voices, but the team leader rang out over them, “—opy that Command. Scab bastard’s fast, but we’re on him. We got him now!” She heard the heavy breathing, the triumph in his voice just before the radio cut off in the density of concrete landscape. They’ll corner him, she thought. Probably some creepy meth dealer bolting out of his dingy kitchen lab; the troopers’ll beat the living—

  A single gunshot rang out, its magnum echo running once around the buildings before it fell onto the street. As the thunder faded, like a single living creature, the crowd turned around and looked up toward building seventeen. Then on cue came a scream. A young girl’s scream: long, piercing, terrified, fluttering high in the air like a nervous bird. Ice hit Major Eames’ veins, and she looked up.

  “Son matanza nosotros. Ayúdeme!” They’re killing us. Help me.

  A second gunshot rang out, answered this time by the clatter of military assault rifles. Major Eames looked over in time to see the cordon of Spanish policía step back several paces, uncertain. She opened her mouth to yell, but the command was drowned out by a worried groan that rose from the civilians massed on the plaza. As the sound grew louder, the crowd turned toward the thin line of police, a thousand faces tensed in the headlights of her command track.

  The sound stopped abruptly, as if everyone paused to draw a collective breath. Major Eames reached down and felt for her side holster, but as she tore the velcro flap, the moment tipped over. Someone in the mob reached out and grabbed one of the police officers. He jerked back and stumbled into one of his fellow troopers. Riot batons came up, the mob heaved forward, and the pressure snapped like a storm front.

  Major Eames found her voice. “Hold your ground! Control them! Control them! Put your guns down. Guns down, God damn it! No shooting!”

  She watched in growing horror as the mass of people surged like a wave, roaring rage and fear. At first, they recoiled when they struck the thin line of lexan shields. The piston steady truncheon blows and the blue sparking arcs of shock sticks crumpling the leading edge. Bodies started piling up, trampled or dragged back, but the dark front of frenzied arms and legs kept coming, kicking, punching, pulling, clawing. Major Eames watched as the uniforms were driven back step by ragged step.

  Merging with the bedlam, every police radio erupted with frantic babble as troopers began pleading for orders, direction, back-up. Each
of the armored police tracks began broadcasting rapid-fire commands at the crowd, six different loudspeakers blaring out distorted noise, as if their sheer volume could contain the mob.

  Heedless, she sprang up onto her command vehicle and started shouting on the radio, struggling to prevail over the chaos and confusion. She saw the first of the troopers get pulled down by the crowd. Then another. She shook the mike in her fist, furious.

  “Hold the line! Stay together! Control them! Control them!”

  Someone on the police channels was screaming for permission to fire. Major Eames watched a dozen rifles come up.

  “No! Do not fire! Secure those weapons, God damn it! I repeat: do not fire!”

  A volley of litter flew through the air. Several troopers fell, others were pulled down by the crowd. G.C. policía started falling back in clumps.

  “Hold that line for Christ’s sake!”

  More junk, bottles and stones this time, arced in. The police line was breaking. People started running towards her and the row of tracked carriers. Major Eames was still shouting into her mike when an assault rifle buzzed and the first swath of civilians was cut down. The rest of the Spanish troopers opened up a second later.

  The man called Hester looked on the growing madness for several minutes, then clambered down the rear fire escape of building seventeen.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: OUT FOR BLOOD

  Barcelona Port Complex, Asian Pacific Consortium Trade Offices, Bureau D. South Dock, Level Five. 8:05 p.m. Day Four.

  Colonel Otsu stared over his desk out of the narrow office window. The day had faded hours ago and taken his hope with it. Earlier that morning, Executive Hsiang had granted unconditional authority to three untested, psychopathic clones who had then demanded what amounted to an act of war with one of the largest financial entities on the planet.

  Communication networks were the most common targets of cyber attacks and corporate espionage; consequently, they were the most heavily guarded. The Dawson-Hull Conglomerate maintained round-the-clock surveillance on their electronic infrastructure, and he doubted they’d have even one full day before their countermeasures detected a ‘pry and spy’ penetration. Yet here in the Legation’s Command Center, Asian Pacific technicians were working feverishly to effect just such an intrusion.

  The situation was crumbling under his hand like rotted silk, and he was powerless to do anything but watch.

  His office doors slid open and his secretary entered. “How much longer?” he asked without looking up.

  “Ten hours. Twelve at most. Overnight trade and transactions will be cut to a bare minimum. Decryption is pulling most of the system’s capacity.”

  “It doesn’t matter, when this is discovered, every Asian Pacific venture around the globe will be suspect. Trade will come to a screeching halt.”

  “Perhaps the cell will get the information they need before we’re detected,” she suggested.

  “They’d have to know exactly what they’re looking for, and know precisely when that information is being transmitted.” Colonel Otsu rose to his feet. “No, the clones will sift signals until they get what they need. And then it will be far too late. London and Madrid will be out for blood.”

  “What are you going to do?” his secretary asked.

  “I have half a mind to commit seppuku.”

  She frowned. “You’re not serious.”

  “That was a joke.” The colonel tried to smile, but despair clung to him like a wet blanket. The only thing worse at this moment would be if Avery Hsiang called for yet another update. On cue, the corporate link chimed and the desk monitor slid up into view, an executive icon flashing.

  “Fantastic,” he muttered. “Come back in an hour with a status report,” he ordered his secretary.

  Returning to his desk, Colonel Otsu steeled himself and accepted the call. The screen brightened and he was sat back, startled.

  “Colonel Otsu, what is going on in Barcelona?” Director Tetsuo asked.

  ---------------

  Barcelona Metro Zone, Spain. New European Union. 11:25 p.m. Day Four.

  “How the hell should I know what’s going on?” Major Eames waved the communiqué at Colonel Estevana. “All it really says is ‘keep looking’.”

  She’d got the final count an hour before: 278 civilian dead, ninety-three wounded, most of them in critical condition. Five square blocks cordoned off, her troops stunned and confined nearby, Jessa Eames’ world was in chaos.

  The newsnets had dropped the mosque story like a hot rock and were streaming video from the plaza: the bodies torn and scattered like shreds of clothing around the reporters, the sightless staring faces of children awaiting identification, fire trucks hosing blood down the street drains, the mingled scent of blood, shit, and outrage. Scab bloggers had already picked up the riot, labeling her “El Carnicero de Barcelona”, the Butcher of Barcelona, and no less than a dozen government ministers in Madrid were screaming for her head on a stake right now. Suffering Christ, she realized, this’ll rank up there with Las Tres Vergüenzas. I’ve made history.

  She read the end of the statement again: “…a thorough investigation pending, but while the Board considers the incident shocking and deeply regrettable, even so, all members deem the matter secondary to the critical objective of recovering the personnel asset. As such, you are hereby assured of the full and continued support of all corporate resources in the unremitting pursuit of said objective.”

  Dawson-Hull’s official response had come lightning fast, and there was not a word of reprimand. Jackson MacKinnon and the rest of the Board had to be applying seriously heavy leverage to keep the Spanish from lynching her on the spot.

  Who was this kid?

  What was this kid?

  She looked at the paper again, then up into Colonel Estevana’s face. “Our orders stand.”

  “What?”

  “The boy. They still want the boy.”

  “Why?” he cried. “Is he worth that?” His arm swept back toward the plaza.

  In the distance, survivors fell to their knees before the neat rows of bodies, halogen poles creating ghastly halos around the frenzy of their ink-black anguish. Jessa Eames swallowed back something brittle.

  “I’m sorry. I have no idea. But there’s blood in the water and we have to keep moving.” She looked back at the older Spanish soldier. “Tell the men I want them suited, booted, smooth, and strapped in fifteen. Intel finally worked up some solid leads here in the north. We’ve got to finish this.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: SUITABLY DESPERATE

  Barcelona Metro Zone, Sant Adrià de Besòs district. Callejón del Apuro, “Trouble Alley”. 5:58 a.m. Day Five.

  The morning sky was heavy with storm clouds gathering on the last dregs of night. Carmen entered the bedroom quietly, but she hadn’t taken three steps before green eyes were peering up at her.

  “What time is it?” Gibson asked.

  “Still early, pequeño. Go back to sleep. I’ll get you before it’s time to go.”

  He noticed a book in her hand, along with some clothes and an old backpack. “What’s that?”

  “A Bible. I want you to have it. I marked the Psalm you liked so you have something to read on your trip.”

  “OK.” Gibson closed his eyes. “When are we leaving?”

  “We’ll take you to the Docks tonight. Our friend wants to be underway before the worst part of the storm hits.”

  “There’s a storm coming?”

  “Yes, off the hot sands of North Africa. Happens every year. But don’t worry, the ship you’ll be on is different. It’s—”

  “Carmen?”

  “Yes, little one?”

  “Why were you mad last night?”

  “Me?”

  “Last night everyone was yelling and you were mad. Why?”

  “Bah! The foolishness of adults… it’s settled now. Don’t you worry.” She took one of his hands. “Try and go back to sleep. You have a big adventure today, and you’l
l need your strength.” She turned to leave, but he held on to her.

  “Carmen, I think my soul is leaking.”

  “What do you mean? Why do you think that?”

  “Because I can feel it. After the last headache, after I helped Devante… it’s like it’s draining out. But I’m scared because I don’t know where it’s going.”

  Carmen started to speak, but her voice caught, and she knelt on the floor by the bed. “Don’t be frightened. Everything’s going to be OK.”

  “It doesn’t feel OK,” he said in a small voice.

  “It is though. God loves you.” She smiled. “And so do I.”

  “Yeah but where’s it going?”

  “Perhaps God wants to take your soul back to Himself.”

  “He’s taking my soul away?”

  “No, no, not in a bad way. He wants you to be safe with Him.”

  “Why doesn’t He stop the leak and let me stay here?” Gibson pleaded.

  “Maybe He will. The headache will go, and you’ll get all better.” Carmen cupped his face in her hands. “But everybody passes from this life someday, pequeño.”

  “But I don’t want to leave.”

  “I understand, really I do. But that’s not up to us. Each of us gets a turn to walk in God’s purposes, and no more. That’s why life is precious. That’s why your life is precious.”

  “Precious? How am I precious?” Gibson turned his head away. “Dr. Evans said I was the fastest one yet, but what about all the others before me? What about the ones who will come after? I’m like an appliance that’s only valuable if it works right.”

  “Stop that foolishness,” Carmen said. “You are precious. You’re precious to me. You’re precious to God. You risked yourself and saved Devante’s life. So stop.”

  Gibson was silent for a long time. “I didn’t want this,” he finally said in a quiet voice.