by Blake Banner
He said, “Get going,” and shoved me toward the house.
I started to walk and asked over my shoulder, “What’s your rank? I don’t want to call you Mercenary if you’re not one.”
“Captain. What are we, old pals now?”
“No,” I shook my head. “And I will kill you, if not tonight, soon. But I respect your loyalty.”
He didn’t answer.
I added, “My mother is English.”
After a moment he said, “Don’t tell me your fucking life story, soldier. The only person who’s going to die here tonight is you.”
We had reached a low flight of four broad steps that led up through an arbor draped with Russian vine, to a veranda and a fake medieval oak door. As I climbed the steps a light came on and the Hulk went ahead of me to unlock the massive door with a small Yale key that looked ridiculous.
In the brighter light I got a better look at him. He was about six four, with a barrel chest and a bald head. He had fists like boulders and legs like tree trunks. I heard the captain’s voice behind me. “He’s fast and smart too. He has a third dan in shotokan, fifth dan in tae kwon do and a black belt in judo.”
“But what really drew you to him was his scintillating conversation, am I right?”
“Get inside.”
The Hulk stepped back and watched me go past. His eyes were almost black and devoid of any expression. I walked through the huge double oak doors and found myself in a large, internal patio with an elaborate fountain at the center, surrounded by orange trees and potted plants. The floor was tiled in terracotta and a wooden staircase rose on the right to a galleried landing on the second floor. I could see no lights in any of the windows, most of which were covered by green wooden blinds. Across from us, on the opposite side of the patio, two tall French doors stood open onto a darkened room. A hand shoved me from behind and the captain said, “Walk!”
I crossed among the potted plants. Somewhere in the night I could hear frogs sawing incessantly. The Hulk moved ahead of me and went through the French doors, in among the shadows. Then a light snapped on and I saw that the room was a long dining room. The walls were tiled halfway up in blue and white. Above that they were whitewashed and sported the heads of dead animals, hunting trophies from Man’s favorite activity: killing. Heavy wooden rafters supported the roof and a massive, circular iron chandelier hung from a chain above a rough-hewn wooden table with twelve chairs.
I turned to look at the Captain. “Now what, we eat?”
He didn’t pause. He stepped up to me and smashed me in the mouth with his fist. He was strong and threw me reeling back into the table, sending two chairs flying. I couldn’t support myself with my hands tied behind my back, and I slipped and fell, sprawling on the tiled floor.
I lay a moment, waiting again for the kicking to start, but again it didn’t. I looked up at him, tasted blood and swallowed it. “You want to try that again without my hands tied, Captain?”
“All in good time, soldier.”
I sat up, then levered myself to my feet. “I’m not a soldier, Captain. I was honorably discharged after ten years, with the rank of captain. I fought alongside the Seals in Afghanistan. Why the brutality?”
“This is an interrogation.” He turned to the hulk. “Tie him to a chair.”
I shook my head. “Why don’t you just ask what you want to know? I have no quarrel with you. We work for the same people.”
He squinted at me. “What are you talking about?”
I heard the hulk drag up a chair behind me. His massive hands grabbed my shoulders and forced me down. Then he was tying my ankles to the legs of the chair. I was in trouble. I was in quicksand and sinking fast. I kept my cool and kept talking, making it up as I went along, building on the lies I’d been telling Ahmed and his partners.
“I’m happy to tell you whatever you need to know. You, me and Fenninger, we all work for the same organization. But your boss has upset some people in high places.”
He stared at me without speaking while the hulk tied my arms to the back of the chair. I went on. “I have no secrets from you. What do you want to know? As long as it’s not classified, I’ll tell you.”
Whatever he was expecting, this wasn’t it. Maybe I had bought myself some time, if nothing else. He pulled up a chair and sat facing me, frowning. “What do you mean, my employer, your employer and Fenninger’s employer? Fenninger is my employer!”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I assumed you knew. Whatever Fenninger has told you, you are employed by the same people who employ me and the same people who employ him: Omega.”
Ten
The name hung in the air. I wondered if he would recognize it. I glanced from him to the Hulk and back again. They just squinted at me, and the captain curled his lip.
“Who?”
“Omega. They operate out of the Pentagon. They used Fenninger to set up IIC—Intelligent Imaging Consultants…” I hesitated. “You do know about Intelligent Imaging Consultants…?”
He nodded a few times, slowly. “Ernst and Young Plaza.”
I nodded back, then shrugged. “He fucked up. They were supposed to be creating propaganda to sway public opinion in favor of our military operations abroad. Instead the media is full of bleeding hearts shit about how Islam is a religion of peace and we should be giving citizenship to Mexican illegals and taking in more Muslim immigrants.” I shrugged. “He fucked up, but his project was making a small fortune laundering drugs money from Mexico and investing embezzled funds on the strength of insider information. Did you happen to notice the senior partner at the Board?” He shook his head. “One Ahmed Musa. So Omega—the Pentagon—entrusts Aaron Fenninger with the task of creating propaganda to support our boys fighting radical Islam, and he entrusts the task to a guy called Ahmed Musa. Sweet. Did you notice his second in command?”
Again he shook his head. I smiled. “Elena Sanchez, a Mexican. She was the Financial Director. So it’s no great surprise the company winds up laundering money for the Sinaloa cartel, right? When I went to see you I had just got through talking to all four of them. The whole operation was a front for these guys to get rich quick, including him. I’m telling you, he fucked up, big time.” I paused, then added, “And that carries a price.”
“So you’re a hired assassin. A Spook.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m a cop. But I don’t work for any PD. I work for the flag you hold so dear. I work for the Omega Department, and when people step out of line, they dispatch me to put them straight. Sometimes that requires terminating somebody, but that only happens where there is treason involved.”
“You tell quite a story.”
I snorted. “If I could make this kind of stuff up I wouldn’t be putting my life on the line to bring a shit like Fenninger to justice. I’d be writing thrillers and making a fortune.” I stared at him. He wanted to believe me. He wanted to believe me for the same reason Ahmed and his partners had wanted to believe me, because it fit with his idea of how things ought to be. I said, “So he employed you how? Through a security firm?”
“I was assigned to him. Trojan Security. Pretty much everybody in Malibu uses them. He wanted something more… personal.”
I nodded. “A minder who could take care of business when necessary. We do the same job. You do it for Fenninger, I do it for Uncle Sam.” I sighed. “But, Captain, though I can’t fault your loyalty or your efficiency, you made a mistake. Your employer is not Fenninger, and it’s not Trojan Security. You are employed by the Pentagon, more specifically, the Omega Department, and they need Fenninger neutralized.”
He looked at the Hulk and they both stared into each other’s faces for a long moment, and they both looked troubled. Finally the captain looked back at me and said, “Can you prove any of this?”
I laughed. “Not tied to a dining chair, no. But is Fenninger on his way?”
He nodded.
“Then it’s easy. When he gets here, ask him point blank. Does he work for Omega? A
sk him if Omega ordered Intelligent Imaging Consultants terminated. Hell!” I laughed again. “Find a TV and turn on the news channel. It’s probably being reported right now.”
He glanced at the Hulk and nodded once. The Hulk left the room. I narrowed my eyes at the captain. “What exactly did he tell you about me?”
He didn’t answer.
I went on. “He didn’t tell you anything. He just said that Ted Wallace and I were a threat to him and his family, am I right?”
He nodded.
I snorted a humorless laugh. “Ted Wallace was an ex-cop, a family man. I employed him to watch Fenninger. He was so straight he wouldn’t take the job until I had convinced him that what I was doing was not illegal. Ted Wallace was a good, decent American. And I am working for the American government. As are you, Captain. Fenninger ordered you to get rid of Ted Wallace and me, because he knew that the Omega Department was coming after him for treason, money laundering and giving succor to an enemy of the state.”
“Shut up!”
He stood and walked to the door and stood staring out. I could just make out the murmur of a TV. I knew I was pressing the right buttons. I knew I was getting to him, I just didn’t know if I was going to have time to finish the job. Fenninger could not be very far away.
After a couple of minutes the Hulk came back into the dining room and stood staring at the captain. After a moment he nodded once and the captain turned to stare at me. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he said.
I laughed again. “Oh, sure, it’s the most common crime in the world, second only to street muggings. You dress up in a thousand dollar suit, pick a multi-million dollar business in a major city and go and kill the board of directors, remove its funds and make the whole thing look like an inexplicable suicide. Every disturbed teenage kid in the country is doing it.”
He was in an agony of indecision. He turned to the Hulk. “Is that what happened?”
The Hulk nodded and I added, “And those facts, Captain, were not known when I went to you in the Chupacabras. The only way I could have known that, is if I had done it.”
“Why? Why would you do that?”
“That is the right question, Captain. That is the point I am trying to make! Why would I do that? Now, do yourself a favor and answer that question in the only way it can be answered; the only way it makes any sense.”
He swallowed, hesitated.
I pressed on, “Do I look insane to you? No? That’s because I am not. The only reason I would do that to Intelligent Imaging Consultants is if I was employed to do it.” I sighed. I was running out of time. “Let me ask you a question, Captain. You were ordered to have me killed. Instead of killing me in the parking lot at the bar, you bundled me in the trunk, called Fenninger, and brought me here. Why did you do that instead of killing me?”
“Because I wanted to know what you were about, why you had such an elaborate story. I wanted Fenninger to see you and talk to you.”
“And you know exactly what Fenninger is going to do when he gets here. He is going to tell you to kill me. He’ll make up some crazy story and tell you to kill me.”
“Like the story you’re telling me isn’t crazy?”
“Come on, Captain! You’ve done black ops! You know how the top brass operate. You know how the Company operates. You know there are more departments in the Pentagon than the ones officially listed. How crazy is my story? Really?”
He advanced on me, getting angry. “Yeah? So what happened to all the bullshit about being a professional assassin who could make a packet if I stopped working on a retainer?”
I shouted at him like he was being deliberately stupid. “Omega is a secret department, Captain! Of course I lied to you! I needed your cooperation so I spun you a line!” I paused and we glared at each other, then I shouted at him again, not in despair, but like an officer shouting at a grunt. “But you are now in possession of the facts, Captain! And you had better think very carefully about what you do next! Because you are one step—one step, captain—from willfully committing treason!”
I might have had him right then, but in that very moment the sound of an engine came to us, the crunch of tires on gravel, the slamming of a car door like a gun shot in the night. And then there were feet climbing the stairs, heels walking across the terracotta patio, and a moment later Epsilon was standing in the doorway looking down at me. I held his eye a moment and seized the initiative.
“Hello, Epsilon. It seems as though you have really fucked up this time.”
He went pale, and both the captain and the Hulk saw him go pale. He swallowed hard and said, “Who the hell are you?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Beta told you he was going to talk to Pro Levy, remember? He did, and he talked to the families in New York. Nobody had sent anybody called Franklin to L.A. to talk to Ahmed Musa. It didn’t make any sense that this was one of Gibbons’s operations. It didn’t have his finger prints on it. So Beta got worried and talked to Alpha. And they both talked to me. And we looked at Intelligent Imaging Consultants’s accounts, Epsilon, and you know what we found? You do know what we found, don’t you, Epsilon?”
Fenninger had gone white, but in my peripheral vision I could see the captain. There was real rage in his face, because as far as he was concerned he was seeing the confirmation of everything that I had told him. Fenninger kept trying to speak, but every time he drew breath he just swallowed again. Finally he said, “That’s not possible. It’s just not possible.”
I snarled, “I asked you a question, Epsilon! Do you know what we found when we examined Intelligent Imaging Consultants’ accounts?”
“No! I don’t!”
“You’re lying!” I shouted and he jumped. “Is it or is it not true that it was you who advised Intelligent Imaging Consultants on their investments?”
“Yes!”
“Then how can you not know what we found?”
“I don’t know…”
“Do you seriously expect me to believe you did not know that Musa was using Omega money to support ISIS?”
“He was not! I swear he was not!”
I had him. He had stepped right into the trap and confirmed my story. I looked at the captain, then at the Hulk, like a prosecuting counsel who has just proved his case. Then I turned back at Fenninger. “Do you also deny that on your instructions Elena Sanchez was whitewashing Sinaloa money?”
He looked like he might burst into tears. “But we have always done that.”
“So it seems, but believe me, Epsilon, those days are over and Alpha is calling you to account.”
“Why? Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because you fucked up, and you fucked up big time. We are going into Iran and Saudi in a matter of a few months and your research is nowhere near ready, and the R&D company you were supposed to be supervising is bankrupt! You are incompetent! God knows it’s hard enough without Gamma, but with your incompetence and stupidity hampering operations, before long you will have brought Omega One to the verge of ruin!”
His mouth was sagging open and his eyes were bulging. “Who are you?”
I had no idea how to answer him. I held all the cards in that moment. I had them all believing me, but I was still tied up and unarmed. As I had told the Captain only a little earlier, the most expensive commodity on Earth is violence, because violence is the source of all power. At the moment I had them because I had them believing that I controlled, through Omega, more violence than they did. But the true power was still firmly in their hands. What I did and said next would be crucial. If I got it right the captain would cut me free. If I got it wrong, they would torture me and kill me.
An image of the document Gamma had given me just before I killed him flashed into my mind. It had intrigued me at the time. There were five divisions of Omega, each with a geographical jurisdiction, and five members of the cabal overseeing it. But above them all there had been another division, with only three members, and its jurisdiction had been over cities and a cou
ple of states: London, New York, D.C., California… It had been designated Omega Alpha.
I spoke on a sudden inspiration. “I am Ares, the right hand of Omega Alpha. Now, Captain, if you have seen enough, would you kindly untie me? At this point I think you’ll agree that any further delay would be unjustified.”
The Captain pulled my Fairbairn & Sykes from his belt and stepped toward me. I noticed that the Hulk had Fenninger covered with his revolver. Fenninger was staring at me with narrowed eyes. His mind was racing. The captain knelt and cut through the ropes that held my ankles, then stood and walked behind me. Fenninger suddenly snapped, “Wait!”
The captain paused and looked at him. I said, “Cut me loose, Captain. This farce has gone on long enough.”
Fenninger had started to smile. “You’re not Omega. There is no Ares…”
I exploded in anger. It wasn’t hard to simulate. I needed my hands free and Captain America seemed to be sleep walking. “Do you know that for a fact, Epsilon? Are you privy to Omega Alpha? Do you know anything about how we operate?” He hesitated. I snapped, “For crying out loud, Captain! Cut me loose!”
I felt the knife cut through the bonds on my wrists. That left only the rope around my arms holding me to the chair. But Fenninger was shaking his head. “No, no, no, no…” He pointed at me. “I know who you are…” His eyes went wide. His jaw went slack. I felt the captain go very still behind me. The Hulk’s eyes wavered from Fenninger to the captain and back again.
I sneered, “What are you talking about?”
“I have to contact Beta. And Alpha. They won’t believe it. You son of a bitch. We thought there was a truce. You’re that guy, Gamma’s son, Lacklan Walker.”
The captain was like a man watching a ping pong match at high speed. He spluttered, “What the hell is going on here?”
I barked at him, “Wake up, Captain! He’s stalling! Can’t you see he has confirmed everything I said?”
Fenninger turned and pointed at him. “Listen to me! You have no idea what’s going on here, Bob. You are out of your depth. This man is not who he says he is. He is an imposter! I am not going to tell you anything about Omega because we are sworn to secrecy. But I can tell you that if he were who he says he is, he would never in a million years have revealed what he has revealed in front of you! He has murdered the partners at Intelligent Imaging Consultants because he is on a private crusade to destroy us. He will stop at nothing—nothing! to achieve his ends, and believe me, he will not think twice about cutting your throat.”
