by James Grady
There’s the wall with doors to the bathrooms. There’s that stupid plaque.
‘Good as Bruce Lee, he stomped his discount store black sneaker out to his side, a kick that smacked the circular aluminum door opener pressure plate and like the yawn this place was—used to be, had been until me—the doors gaped open for him.
My turn.
He slid through the open doors like ninja. Blasted buckshot into the Gift Shop where the old Korean lady behind the counter, yeah, she’d ducked somewhere already. Stay down, Honey, I’ll be back. Pirouetted a slo-mo circle until the food court filled his vision BOOM! Buckshot tore through air that smelled like coffee and burnt hamburgers. Like in Slaughter Soldier 2 for Xbox, he grabbed a grenade from the pouch on his hip, pulled the pin with his teeth and made a left handed throw, landed it on the tiles by the health food rip-off place BOOM! Purple smoke mushroomed through the food court.
Hope it won’t hide too much from security cameras mounted in the ceiling.
He combat jumped into the MENS room—looked empty, closed aluminum stalls.
Can’t fool me with that shit. He switched the shotgun for his pistol, punched two bullets through the wall of the nearest stall.
A man screamed and fell off the toilet where he’d been crouched.
WOMENS room. Suburban mom sobbing and pleading, holding up her hands.
Mom got shot right through her palm in front of her crybaby face.
From the entrance to the food court he surveyed his kingdom of Hell.
Purple smoke thicker at the far end where red letters glowed EXIT and that was a lie, nowhere to go, suckers. BOOM he shot that cloud. Some guy charged him throwing coins, made the shooter flinch BOOM cut down that coin-thrower with a shotgun blast that also shattered a window facing the front parking lot.
Crashing glass: he liked the sound so much he blasted out three more windows.
Cool air and sunlight streamed into the purple-smoked debris of the food court.
He wondered who’d discovered that he’d chained the rear doors shut.
Ringing: a smoke detector in BURGER BONAZA as the meat abandoned on the hot grill crackled out black smoke. Theme music as he surveyed the food court.
Moms draped over their kids. Travelers cowered behind metal tables. Dead guy on the floor—must be a bonus score from the first burst sent through the windows. Pools and dribbles of darkness on the red floor tiles, blood from somebody who’d crawled or been carried away, he’d find them in good time.
For a moment he thought about swinging up his wireless tablet to set off the other bombs he’d planted by the roads in and out of this rest stop so he could watch the judging-eyes people in here scramble and scream and break cover trying to escape.
Naw, stick to the plan.
Save the bombs for the wanna-be heroes, cops and firemen who figure a way around the traffic back ups and road spikes for their red lights and sirens.
You gotta do the walk, man.
He switched from the could-be-empty shotgun—in all the excitement, he kind of lost count of his shots. Slapped a fresh magazine into the assault rifle.
Stepped out among them, knowing their desperate hopes that he was looking for someone in particular, specific, for somebody who was the why, for someone not me.
Everybody thinking: I don’t deserve this!
Walk your purple smoke ringing glory and what do you see.
A cash flow corridor of factory food for cubicle fools awaiting coffins.
TVs by the ceiling show talking heads who never say your name.
A lotto screen displays winning numbers for luck you never get.
An ATM machine holds money it won’t ever give you.
Two guys hide behind a condiments counter, not so high school cool now.
Bald guy, white shirt, tie, nametag, hands in the air, so who’s the boss?
College girl, on the floor like a dog, yeah, what do you got to say now, bitch?
Black leather biker with a gut wound by the wall, who’s scared today?
Somebody praying to the big empty that never cares.
So who gets to play this next round of—
“YOU’RE A BIG BOOGER-HEAD!”
He heard it above the smoke detector ringing.
From outside. Through the shot-out windows. The parking lot. A…a kid.
“YOU’RE A SCARED MEANIE!”
Some little girl. Off the bus. Out there hiding amidst the parked cars.
“NOBODY WANTS TO FUCK YOU!”
The shooter cocked his head.
“NOBODY KNOWS WHO YOU ARE!”
He faced that new whine in his skull.
“YOU’RE A TEENY TINY NOBODY!”
Nothing. Just nothing. Just a snotty kid little bitch girl doesn’t know nothing.
“AND YOU’RE WHO DOESN’T KNOW WHAT FUCK IS!”
He squeezed a burst out the window toward that sound in the parking lot.
Food court fading echo of gunshots ringing smoke detector and STILL he heard:
“NA-NANA-NA-NA YOU CAN’T SHOOT NOTHING!”
The shooter thumbed his assault rifle to Select Fire.
Squeezed three shots in a sweep over the visible car roofs.
“YOU CAN’T GET ME!”
Not from in here.
The black robot whirled left, whirled right.
Fifty-fifty choice.
Either the side EXIT on the left and out alongside the building with its purple smoke cloud still so thick the scavenging seagulls floating overhead couldn’t see what they smelled sprawled on the black pavement.
Or back through the main doors to the flat cement slab entryway that would give him a 180 degree-plus field of fire from the purple smoked zone, up to the white gazebo, then the easy sweep all over the whole front parking lot, then toward the right to the distant gas pumps that were destined to be awesome pillars of fire.
Main doors.
He’s there. Elbows the shiny steel plate automatic door opener. Rifle up, alert position, gun butt by his shoulder. Just like SWAT guys on TV. Staring over the barrel. Focused. Sliding past the heap of dead men blocking his way down one ramp. Past the Army jacketed meat slumped in a wheelchair nearly blocking the stairs by the top of the second ramp where the shooter had pushed it.
Stairs are tricky while aiming over an assault rifle, so he SWAT glides down the second ramp to the heap of bodies, women on top fucking bitches.
“YOU CAN’T FUCK!”
Two quick shots at that in the parking lot sound.
The shooter lowered his rifle, the better to see.
Gunshots ringing in his ears, the ringing smoke detector back in the food court: he doesn’t hear the whirr of rubber tires on cement as coming behind him, the wheelchair bearing Army-jacketed meat rolls rushes down the ramp.
Splashing hits his left side and back, head, stings his eyes. That splash hit him from off the ground and the heap of dead women.
Stinks, what—
SMACKED in his face with an empty plastic orange bucket pumpkin.
Eyes burning, the blur of some woman swinging a pumpkin to hit him again/feint, he knew that was a feint, blocked her true attack kick with the assault rifle and knocked her down Why do I smell? His gun barrel sought the her to kill.
In the shooter’s new behind him:
Warren’s blood smeared on his forehead.
Warren’s Army jacket worn for Trick Or Treat.
Condor launched himself from the rolling wheelchair.
Yelled so the shooter whirled.
Tossed the ‘bucks cup full of wet into the shooter’s face.
Tripped with inertia from his wheelchair leap.
Condor crashed to his knees, heard the falling on concrete of that cup.
That paper cup he’d stuck into the stream spewing out of the bullet-punctured steel tank under a car that sheltered him and Malati and a child who wanted to be called Punkin and nodded all the way down into her bones that she could she would she’d do what she ha
d to do even if she wasn’t ‘posed to.
The ‘bucks cup he’d used to bail that spewing stream into Punkin’s pumpkin bucket. Bucket full, he filled the cup to carry with him. Crouched low so the robot shooting inside the rest stop facility couldn’t see him as like in some don’t spill Fourth of July picnic contest, he frog-ran to the level concrete right outside the main doors. Purple smoke mushroomed inside the food court. Condor set the cup down. Don’t spill! He pulled the Army jacket off Warren. Got his black leather jacket on the dead vet. Smeared blood from Warren’s third eye on his own forehead. Grunted the body onto the heap of corpses blocking the other ramp. Plunked himself into the wheelchair.
Malati, careful not to spill the liquid from the pumpkin she carried, fumbled where Condor’d told her, the throat-shot bus driver’s shirt pocket—Got it!
Tossed a tumbling glint of silver to the man in the wheelchair.
Malati draped herself over the murdered teachers.
Punkin yelled like she was ‘posed to.
Death stalked down the ramp.
Got ambush doused with gasoline.
That stinking wet killer jerked Condor off his knees.
Condor pushed the bus driver’s open silver cigarette lighter against the shooter and thumbed the wheel.
WHUMP! A fountain of fire engulfed the man who’d come to kill and die BUT NOT LIKE THIS!
Screaming. A human torch blazed the morning.
Dropped between the burning man’s wobbling feet, Condor jerked the combat knife from its ankle sheath—slammed the blade up into the crease of shooter’s groin.
Blood sprayed Condor, wiped on the Army jacket as he scrambled away.
The burning man staggered.
Collapsed in a flaming heap.
Sickening sweet stench of baking crackling flesh and gasoline.
Condor, hands and knees scrambling up the ramp past the overturned wheelchair to where his black leather jacket clad the body of Warren.
Helicopters.
Chopping the air, racing in low, fast and hard to kill or capture who’s crazy.
Whoever’s crazy.
“Remember,” the soldier who’d had a gun and was named Doug had said: “We can do anything we want as long as nobody ever knows who we are.”
From his knees, Condor yelled: “Punkin!”
Trashed his way free of the bloody Army jacket.
“Punkin! All clear! FREE BIRD! FREE BIRD!”
There! Running toward the main entrance from between parked cars.
Her face not gonna cry and gonna run, run, RUN!
Condor—Vin, my name is Vin—wiped his face with Warren’s jacket, saw the smear of blood, hoped he looked close to whatever survivor’s normal was.
The seven-year-old girl with curly brown hair and red-white-and-blue clothes ran toward the silver-haired man who’d revolutionized her ’posed to’s.
Condor pulled his black leather jacket off Warren.
Maneuvered that dead vet’s arms and body enough so Warren wore the gas and blood-stained Army jacket he’d died in.
Shrugged himself into his own black leather jacket with its weight of legends.
Collided with and swept a little girl into his arms.
Swooping roar over them as helicopters flew a draw-fire pass.
Malati stumbled toward them.
The package, her responsibility, his arms wrapped tight around the don’t you dare call her a little girl, that silver-haired Condor told Malati: “You spy, you lie.”
Then he held the seven-year-old so they stared into each other’s eyes.
“Punkin, I’m so proud of you! You did it! You did everything right! You saved so many people and us, you saved you and me and Malati. You’re so great! But Punkin: there’s one more giant big ‘posed to.”
She nodded with all her heart.
“You can’t tell the whole truth. The real truth. You gotta tell the good truth. The guy who you helped, the man who saved you, the guy who got the gas from the shot-up car, rolled over there and did it, the guy who burned and stabbed the bad guy…
“It was him.” Condor nodded to Warren’s body. “The guy in the Army jacket. That’s the most anybody else probably saw. That’s all you say or tell anybody ever. He did it. Got the gas. Tossed it, lit the monster on fire. He rolled his wheelchair away to escape, that bad guy squeezed off a wild shot. Must have hit the Army jacket guy, you don’t know. You only know you made it and you did what you were ‘posed to.”
Every good lie needs a why.
“Punkin,” said the silver-haired man, “me, Malati, we’re spies. No matter what, we’ve got to be a super secret that nobody but you ever knows. You can only say that we were here with you. Just people who ran and hid and didn’t get shot. We’re all telling the same story with the true part being what you did. But with the wheelchair guy. You, her, me: we’re a cross our hearts forever secret.”
Punkin nodded her solemn vow.
Must stay secret spies in that rampage of her life made as much sense as anything else anyone ever told her.
She hurled herself back into Condor’s arms. He got held tight.
This, he prayed to the meds: Let me remember this, this.
Helicopters vibrated the world.
Burnt flesh stench. Shattered glass. Purple smoke swirls. Megaphone commands.
When the three of them sprawled on the sidewalk in front of the shot-to-shit rest stop, before she cell phoned the Panic Line and like a pro triggered the make sure it holds cover story of them as random survivors not identified in official police reports, named in newspapers or broadcast by television crews who showed up on their own helicopters while flying ambulances were ferrying out the sobbing wounded, before all that, her face pressed against asphalt, Malati whispered to the silver-haired man laying beside her:
“Is it always like this?”
And he said yes.
for Harlan Ellison
Find out what happens next in the first Condor novel since Watergate,
Last Days of the Condor
Available in February 2015 by Tom Doherty Associates
JAMES GRADY is the New York Times bestselling author of Six Days of the Condor, which became the Robert Redford movie, Three Days of the Condor. Besides working as a screenwriter for CBS, FX, HBO, and major studios, Grady’s journalism includes time as a muckraker for political columnist Jack Anderson and writing a cultural column for AOL’s PoliticsDaily.com. His short fiction has won two Regardies Magazine awards, been nominated for an Edgar, and appears in several “Best Of” anthologies. Born and raised in Montana, Grady and his wife, writer Bonnie Goldstein, live inside DC’s Beltway.
Special thanks to Joshua Wolff and Loki Films.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
NEXT DAY OF THE CONDOR
Copyright © 2015 by James Grady
Photography by Joshua Wolff
All rights reserved.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eISBN: 978-1-4668-8952-1
CIP DATA— TK
First Edition: February 2015
Printed in the United States of America
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