Nomad

by Matthew Mather

  “I see what you mean,” Jess admitted.

  “Just weeks ago,” Giovanni added, “many people wouldn’t believe scientists who said we were destroying the Earth with global warming. Now they believe these same scientists who say that the Earth is about to be destroyed by some invisible object, some speck in space that they can’t even see yet—and they scream in panic because it is their lives that may be ending, not the lives of their children.”

  “And what do you believe?”

  “I believe in the primacy of action.” Giovanni thumped his chest, taking his eyes off the house. “I am here! I believe in living in the moment, in living life to its fullest, even to the end.” He looked her in the eye.

  In the twilight darkness, Jess stared into Giovanni’s eyes. She held his gaze, felt his warmth beside her on the mattress. This might be the last time she ever saw a man look at her like that. A sense of urgency rushed through her; all the fear she’d been holding in rippled up her back, tingling her scalp. I am here, she repeated in her head. I am alive.

  She reached around Giovanni and pulled him to her, kissed him hard on the mouth. She slid on top of him, kissing his eyes, his forehead, his neck while she unbuttoned his shirt.

  Above them, the first stars of the last night glittered.

  29

  VACA, ITALY

  LEANING AGAINST THE cool concrete of the balcony enclosure, Jess pulled her jeans back on and stared up at the stars. No shimmering light, nothing unusual. Just the sliver of a crescent moon rising.

  The pain of living, the fear of dying—their lovemaking was desperate, almost violent, but also quiet. Tendons and muscles strained in near silence. They both listened for any crackle of the walkie-talkie that might signal something happening at the house. Now that it was over, Jess retreated and pulled her limbs into herself, curling into a ball.

  Giovanni was still undressed, lying naked on the mattress, his chin flat to the ground, straining to see through the drain gap. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his slacks, rumpled on the floor beside him, and lit one with a gold lighter he produced from the same pocket. The concrete enclosure of the balcony provided shielding so that nobody across the street would see it.

  Jess smiled at him. She’d seen him smoking before, at the castle. “You didn’t strike me as the type that smoked.”

  Giovanni returned her smile. “You think these might kill me?” Leaning down, he glanced through the drain gap again. “I quit, years ago, but...”

  “Give me one.”

  Shrugging, Giovanni handed her his cigarette and reached to take another from the pack.

  Jess took the cigarette and lifted it to her lips, taking a deep drag. The smoke burned her throat, her lungs, and she coughed. She hadn’t smoked since she was a teenager, and even then only to rebel. Coughing again, she frowned at the cigarette, then stubbed it out against the concrete wall. “That’s gross.”

  Giovanni looked at the cigarette he just took from the pack and nodded. “You’re right.”

  “Zio,” the walkie-talkie crackled.

  Dropping the cigarette, Giovanni grabbed the walkie-talkie. “Si.”

  “Alla ingressa.”

  They both flopped onto the mattress and looked through the drain gap. The front door to the house opened, illuminating the gravel walkway. Two men stepped out, followed by Enzo. They stopped, exchanged a few words, and Enzo retreated and closed the door behind them.

  “It’s them,” Jess hissed. “The men that attacked me in Rome.” It was unmistakable. The tall man had his arm in a sling, the same arm Jess had twisted. She hoped it was broken.

  Walking through the front gate and down the sidewalk to a car, the men drove off.

  “This is it,” Jess whispered. “This is our chance.”

  She stood and limped to the couch inside the apartment. They kept the lights off. Grabbing a headlamp from the coffee table, she clicked it on and scribbled on a notepad.

  Giovanni grabbed his clothes, and, hunched over, walked to the couch while he pulled his slacks and shirt on. “Now? We go now? I thought you said we should wait until after midnight?”

  “This changes everything. Two of them just left, and I doubt he has more than two other men in there with him.” She pointed at her drawing on the notepad. “Your security guys say there is one large living room in the back, right?”

  Giovanni nodded.

  “And I bet there is a kitchen off that.” She scribbled again. “A bathroom somewhere in the middle, and two bedrooms off to one side. That right side room, the light hasn’t gone on since we saw them go in with Hector?”

  Giovanni spoke into the walkie-talkie softly, asking a question. It crackled a response. “No, it hasn’t,” he confirmed.

  “So I bet that’s where Hector is. Right now is our best chance. You and I go in through the front door, your two security men in through the rear. We get Hector while they surprise Enzo and his guys in the back.”

  Nodding, Giovanni smoothed his pant legs. “Good, good, so we go?”

  “We need a way to coordinate going in.” Jess looked at Giovanni. “Synchronize our watches or something?”

  “Why don’t I just give them a signal on the walkie-talkie?”

  Jess stared at him for a second. Yeah, that was a better idea. “Perfect.”

  “So we go now?”

  “The sooner, the better, while those guys are gone. Can you explain to your men?”

  Nodding, Giovanni walked to the back of the apartment, next to the door. While he explained the plan over the walkie-talkie, Jess grabbed a bullet proof vest—a benefit of the Ruspoli armory—from the couch and secured it around her torso, gripping and pulling the Velcro tabs tight. Nomad might be coming tomorrow night, but this night she intended to live through. Giovanni walked back from the door, stooping to pick up his own vest.

  “So we’re all set?” Jess grabbed the AK assault rifle.

  “The guards are going around the back right now. When I give the signal, ‘Ora,’ they’ll crash the rear entrance.” He looked at Jess inspecting the AK as he secured the straps on his vest, then he picked up his Beretta from the table.

  “Ora?” Jess grabbed another Beretta from the table and secured it in the small of her back. “What does that mean?”

  Giovanni smiled at her. “Now, it means now.”

  Jess followed him to the apartment’s door. They made their way down the interior stairs, and then out the back of the complex onto a street that faced a park. Palm trees, dimly lit by the crescent moon, swayed in the ocean breeze. A thick carpet of stars hung overhead. No shimmering lights. Jess smelled the oil of her rifle and the new plastic of the ballistic vest tight around her chest.

  Tapping her shoulder, Giovanni nodded and they walked to the corner. She hid the rifle behind her back with one hand.

  Holding hands, they walked across the street slowly like a couple on a stroll, until they reached the cover of the shrubs on the other side. They hugged the bushes and stopped at the gate of the house. Jess wanted to go first, but Giovanni had insisted that he lead.

  She could have insisted that she go in first, but the truth was, she was scared.

  Jess might have been in the Marines, but for all her bravado, while she’d technically been in ‘combat’, she’d never been in a firefight. For the first month of her rotation in Afghanistan, she was consigned inside the wire of Camp Rhino in Registan Desert, the first base that US troops established. It was on her very first mission, a low risk pickup of field reporters, that her Humvee had hit an IED. The blast destroyed the entire left side of the truck, and taken her left leg with it. She was sent home in pieces. In a life filled with half-finished business, she never even managed to finish a tour of duty with the Marines.

  Her heart in her throat, Jess waited as Giovanni leaned forward to slide the gate open. They jogged to the front door, keeping low. Giovanni glanced at her, his hand holding the Beretta shaking.

  “Take a deep breath,” Jess
whispered as much to him as herself. “We go in, straight to the right. You get Hector, I’ll cover you.”

  Crickets chirped in the silence. Nodding, Giovanni took a step back and held the walkie-talkie to his mouth. “ORA!” he said loudly, standing up straight.

  He lifted one leg and crashed it into the door.

  It barely budged.

  The smashing of glass echoed from the other side of the building, the quick pops of gunfire erupting amid yelling.

  Swearing, Giovanni kicked the door again, then heaved himself forward to slam into it with his shoulder. It gave way, splintering, and Giovanni fell inward, tripping over his feet to ram his head into the hallway wall. Jess jumped in behind him, bringing her weapon up, and stepped over Giovanni. She glanced down the hallway to the right. More screaming from the other side of the house, the crack of gunfire. Striding three big paces down the hallway, Jess tried the door handle. It swung open.

  And there was Hector, sitting up in bed in Spider-Man pajamas, his eyes wide.

  Jess smiled and took a step back into the corridor, swinging her weapon around. “Get him,” she said to Giovanni, who was back on his feet.

  He stepped past her and scooped Hector into his arms.

  “Li abbiano!” yelled a voice down the corridor.

  Giovanni looked at Jess. “That’s Vlad, one of my guys. He says they have them.” He held Hector tight, his little face mashed into Giovanni’s chest.

  “Wait here.” Jess inched down the corridor, her back to the wall.

  Stopping at the end, she crouched, then stole a quick look around the corner. She saw Enzo and the two men she’d seen outside on their knees, Giovanni’s two security men standing over them. She looked back at Giovanni. “It’s good.”

  Giovanni stared at her, gripping Hector with both arms, the Beretta in one hand. He nodded at the front door. “Let’s just go, get out of here.”

  Jess shook her head. “No, let’s make sure. We don’t want to be followed.”

  His chest heaving in and out with each breath, Giovanni brought a shaking hand up to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He stared hard at Jess, then called out, “E sicuro?”

  “Si,” replied the same voice, Vlad.

  The truth was, they could have just left, and Jess knew it. Giovanni’s security men could have tied up Enzo, made sure they couldn’t leave. Their car was just on the next block. In less than an hour they would be secure inside the castle. Safe. Or at least, safe until Nomad tore the world apart.

  But Jess wanted to see Enzo’s face, wanted to see him squirm when he looked at her. She wanted recognition of what he did to her. Thoughts flashed through her mind. Maybe she could tie him up outside, leave him a front row seat to watch the heavens.

  Coming around the corner, she glared at Enzo. “So you thought you could get away with it?”

  Enzo smiled, his hands behind his head, kneeling before the two security agents. “I see you have a new leg.”

  Jess took two quick paces to him. “So it was you.”

  Giovanni came up behind Jess, shielding Hector. “Come on, let’s go. They can handle this.”

  But Jess couldn’t resist. She slapped Enzo across the face, knocking his pork pie hat off his head, almost knocking him over. “You should be more careful who you pick on.”

  Enzo steadied himself with one hand, his eyes closed, a red welt rising on his cheek. He opened his eyes and righted himself, staring up at Jess. “No, actually, I think it is you who should be more careful.”

  Laughing, she pointed her AK at his head. “Oh yeah, and why is that?”

  Something cold pressed into Jess’s neck. She turned to see what it was when someone tried to grab the rifle from her hand. She held on, turning her head. “Hey, what the hell?”

  Vlad, Giovanni’s security guard, smiled a menacing grin at Jess. The cold in her neck was the muzzle of Vlad’s AK. Glancing left, she saw the other security guard pointing his weapon at Giovanni.

  “You should choose who you work with more carefully,” Enzo said as he stood, pulling a rifle from behind his back with one hand.

  “Hey—" was all Jess could say before something crunched into the side of her face.

  NOMAD

  Survivor testimony #AR34;

  Event +92hrs;

  Survivor name: Andrei Zasekin;

  Reported location: Gobi Desert;

  We knew they lied to us when the skies lit up. I am Corporal Zasekin of the Russian Border Patrol, my English is good, yes? I lived in Canada for three years, in Montreal, when I studied abroad before returning to the army. So. We were stationed near Irkutsk, near the border of Mongolia. Nikolai was just coming back from a night of drinking when he saw the lights eating the skies. About seven in the morning. I woke everyone and told them to pack their gear. The day was overcast, but even through the clouds we saw the fingers of fire burning around the sun. At noon the first tremors shook the ground, tearing the streets, and it seemed God pulled a plug from the bottom of Lake Baikal. The water just disappeared. A few minutes later eruptions started. Clouds of steam shooting into the sky. I loaded my men into our Czilim hovercraft as the streets of Irkutsk flooded with blistering water. The northern end of Baikal opened up, a tremendous explosion throwing blackness into the sky. For hours we drove south, blind, seeing not more than twenty feet in front of the hovercraft as we skidded across snow and ash. Finally we descended into the Gobi, but the skies are now black, ash falling endlessly while Baikal roars behind us in the darkness. We have stopped to clean the hovercraft manifold and intakes. GPS is down, all computers not functional, but we are sure we are just north of Ulan Bator…

  Transmission ended ionization static. Freq. 5144 kHz/USB.

  Subject reacquired pgs 34, 109.

  OCTOBER 23rd

  30

  VACA, ITALY

  JESS HATED BEING confined, hated any sense of something tying her down, but she’d never literally been tied up. She twisted and tore at the ropes until her wrists bled; until they kicked her into submission. The coarse black sack pulled over her head smelled like a horse’s ass, and little bits of straw sucked up her nose on every breath. She gagged and coughed, cursed at them to take it off, told them that they didn’t know the danger they were in.

  All she got in return were cruel laughs.

  She’d been dumped in the back of what felt like the bed of a pickup truck. Hitting a bump in the road, Jess tossed to one side, slamming her head into metal. She squirmed to stay upright, her hands bound painfully behind her back.

  Stupid.

  The word circled around and around in her head, beyond the pain and fear.

  She could have been at the castle with her mother and father. So many things she had to say to them. In twenty-four hours it would be too late. Why did she volunteer for this? Just another stupid decision in a life-long list of stupid decisions. Most of them had been to spite her parents, in one way or the other, to prove to them…

  To prove what?

  To prove she wasn’t worth it. She joined the Marines because she loved her country and wanted to serve, but that was only half the story. She also knew it would shock her mother and disappoint her father when she quit college and was shipped off around the world to kill people. She wanted to disappoint them. Not that she didn’t love them, quite the opposite. She wanted to disappoint them to punish herself.

  Groaning, Jess pushed her back against the metal wheel well.

  But at least this time, her misadventure was for something good, to right a wrong. To help someone. That was good, wasn’t it? But really, in her heart, she knew it was driven by a thirst for revenge. If she hadn’t had an opportunity to capture Enzo, to gloat over him and teach him a lesson, would she have come? Maybe. Probably.

  But maybe not.

  The truck roared over another bump in the road, sending her flying. She landed on her left shoulder, her prosthetic leg twisting painfully on her stump, nearly coming off. Jess pushed herself upright again.


  After Giovanni’s men turned on them, they’d bound and gagged Jess, then tied Giovanni to a chair and used him as a punching bag. She pleaded with them, apologized to Enzo for not telling him about Nomad. She said that they had gold and money at the castle, explained that Nomad was coming in a day, that they’d all be killed. Enzo laughed, took a break from pummeling Giovanni, and replied that the castle would be theirs anyway.

  They didn’t believe her story about Nomad. They figured it was a scare tactic.

  And it was a scare tactic.

  Just a true one.

  In the small hours of the morning, under cover of night, they’d pulled the bag over her head and dragged her outside into the back of the truck. She heard Hector crying, begging them, but she couldn’t understand what he said. Something else was dumped into the back of the truck. She shimmied around, felt for what it was: the inert body of Giovanni.

  The truck drove down the road, and Jess felt it take a sharp right onto what she assumed was the main coastal road. It continued on for about fifteen minutes before taking a curving left onto a rough gravel road where she was bumped up and down and thrown around.

  The truck skidded to a stop, the cabin doors opened and slammed closed. The black hood was pulled from Jess’s head and she gulped in a mouthful of air and blinked. Night was over, the sky already blue-gray, the new day beginning. Green hills stretched up on all sides. They were in a small fishing village nestled into the folds of a valley that fell into the sea. As she looked up at the hills, the sun broke over them, bathing Jess in golden light.

  Perhaps the last sunrise she’d ever see.

  “Where are we going?” Jess croaked.

  Enzo stood on the other side of the truck, inspecting Giovanni, whose swollen eyes were open just enough to know he was conscious, his face battered and bloody. Enzo laughed, said, “He knows where we’re going,” and pointed out across the water. “Isola del Gigli.”