The Price of Freedom

by Chris Kennedy

“And you just let it happen?”

  “How can we not, Señor? It will be the death of all of us if we do not.” He looked at my hand. “Please, Señor, I must go, or he will be angry.”

  I let him go and followed him out. The pilot was just finishing filling up the plane with gas from a nearby truck. I grabbed the man again. “You said not to do anything to him here, correct?”

  “Please, Señor, do not.”

  I nodded with a grim smile. “I will not.” I walked over to where the pilot was stowing the hose on the fuel truck. “Can I talk to you a second?” I asked, indicating the other side of the truck where it would be quieter.

  “I would like to take your place for this flight,” I said, once we were out of sight of the plane.

  His eyebrows knit. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “I mean, I want you to stay here, and I’ll fly the plane.”

  He laughed for a second, then looked at me. “Wait—you are serious? I cannot do that; I would lose my job.”

  “If you do not, you will lose your life.”

  He looked at me, sizing me up. I guess he decided I wouldn’t—or couldn’t—kill him, because he turned to go. I grabbed him by his shoulder and spun him toward me. Before he could say anything, I punched him in the stomach, and as he doubled over, once more in the temple. I could have broken his neck, but I didn’t really have anything against him; he was just doing his job…for a very bad man.

  I quickly stripped off his pilot’s jacket and cap and hurried back to the plane.

  “Hurry up!” the minion yelled. “The boss is ready to go!”

  The pilot and I were about the same height, so I kept my head down and ran. I sneaked a glance up, but the minion was looking at the boss, who was probably furious at my delay.

  “I will put up the steps,” the minion said, still looking at the back of the plane. “Get the plane started.”

  The boss never looked up from the girl he was with. He had her top off, and I could see she was even younger than I had originally thought. I bit down on my anger and went to the cockpit. I’d flown a number of aircraft in previous missions and had no problems starting the plane after familiarizing myself with the instrumentation.

  After a couple of minutes, we were taxiing, then airborne. I climbed as quickly as I could to 6,000 feet, then turned on the autopilot and unstrapped.

  “What are you doing?” the minion asked as I came into the back. “Get back in the—wait! It’s you!” he screeched. He fumbled for the pistol he had in a shoulder holster, but I knocked it out of his hand and proceeded to run him face-first into the bulkhead several times. When he went limp, I dragged him to the door one-handed, opened it, and threw him out.

  I turned and found the boss holding one of the girls, a knife to her throat. She was completely naked, as was the other girl, who lay unmoving on one of the seats. “Get back in the cockpit and fly the plane,” he said, “or I will kill this girl.”

  I boosted and raced to him before he could make good on his threat. His arm tensed to cut her throat, but I latched onto his wrist with one hand and his throat with the other. I pulled the knife away from her, and she dropped to the floor as he reached for the hand clamped around his throat. The girl moved clear, so I began backing toward the door. As we approached the yawning emptiness, the boss struggled, although I couldn’t tell if it was because of air rushing through the open door or because he hadn’t been able to breath in 15 seconds.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You’re one of the JalCom corporate heads, aren’t you?” I asked.

  He nodded, his eyes wide with fear.

  “You’d probably give me anything, right now, if I don’t kill you, wouldn’t you?”

  He nodded as vigorously as he could, while coughing as he tried to breathe. I relaxed my grip a little so he could get a breath, then I tightened it again so he couldn’t move and began pushing his knife hand back toward him. I had thought his eyes were big before. As I directed the point of the knife toward one of them, they got really big.

  At this point, he realized he was the one holding the knife, so he did the only thing he could; he dropped it. I caught it by the handle before it had fallen six inches and returned the point to a spot about three inches from his left eye.

  “Not as much fun when someone’s pointing a knife at you as it was when you were doing it to women and little girls, is it?”

  He tried to shake his head slightly so his eye didn’t get any closer to the knife.

  “So,” I said. “You’ll give me anything I want?”

  “Yes,” he choked out.

  “Good,” I replied. “I want you to die.”

  His eyes grew wide again, and in a fluid motion I stuck the knife through one as I pitched him overboard. I didn’t feel any sort of joy over killing him; it had been nothing more than throwing out the trash. Literally. I smiled at the analogy.

  I looked toward the back of the plane. The girl had revived the other hostage, and both were looking at me fearfully. “Get dressed,” I said. “I’ll have you home shortly.” I headed back to the cockpit.

  No matter how much trash you throw out, there’s always going to be more in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty

  Both terminal workers, the plane’s pilot, and the group of men from the back office were waiting by the ramp when I returned with the plane. They opened the door as I shutdown the engines, and the two girls went running off. Hopefully to a counselor, if such a thing existed in post-World War III Colombia.

  The pilot stuck his head into the plane. “Looks like I’m out of a job,” he said with a sigh. “They’re going to kill me.”

  “You’re not out of a job,” I replied. “I have something for you. Besides, JalCom is going to have a total makeover of its Corporate Board. I think you’ll be forgotten in the ruckus.”

  He looked confused, but before he could say anything else, the terminal worker from today said, “You’re just out of a job; he’s killed this whole city.”

  “Far from it,” I said. “Who can prove he was here? When the pilot flies the plane out of here, there won’t be any evidence they were here. Perhaps they had aircraft problems and never made it? Who knows? Also, as far as anyone will know, this was part of the corporate restructuring that is about to take place. When I’m done, no one will ever notice your guy didn’t return.”

  “How is that to be?”

  “I’m going to kill the JalCom Board of Directors in Puerto Colombia. No one will notice there is one body missing.”

  “But how are we going to get gas? Without it, our fishing fleet can’t run, and we’ll starve.”

  “It has been my experience that underlings will continue to do the things they’re supposed to until they’re told to stop. Without someone to say, “Stop the flow,” oil will continue to be extracted, refined, and distributed. It makes the company money, and things that make the company money will continue to occur with very little oversight.”

  “What if the next people who come are worse than that guy?” the terminal guy asked, nodding at the aircraft.

  “Then you make them disappear, too. Eventually, people will get the message.” I cocked my head and looked at him. “You sure are full of negativity. Why don’t you try a more positive approach? You just got two girls back who you thought were dead. That’s gotta be worth something, right?”

  “One of them was my brother’s daughter,” one of the other men said. “I, for one, am happy you brought her back.”

  “So, tell me about this new job,” the pilot said.

  You’ve got to be pragmatic in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Here you go,” I said, dropping a note onto the vacant co-pilot’s seat. It was the pilot’s introduction letter from me to Director Calderon in Panama City. I didn’t know for sure whether the director would hire him—I had sort of left on strained terms—but most directors took adv
ice given by Specialists. I guess we’re kind of special that way.

  “Thanks,” the pilot, Fred Ward, replied. He glanced over, then refocused on the instruments. We were flying at 5,000 feet, without lights, over the water, and Fred was about as uncomfortable as I’ve ever seen a pilot. He’d flown plenty at night, but that had been before the war, when he had all of the niceties like navigation aids and air traffic control. Night vision goggles, alone, would have been a big help…if we’d had them.

  “There it is,” he said a couple of minutes later. I looked out and saw a single point of light—the light at the end of the Puerto Colombia pier. It wasn’t much to go off of, but he didn’t want to be seen; he just wanted to vanish into the night. He snuggled closer to the shore, and we could see the limited moonlight reflecting off the sand.

  “One minute to jump,” he noted.

  I checked all my connections; all set. My gear bag hung at my side, out of the way. The plane had two parachutes that had been packed by someone with the initials MJW. Hopefully, they’d known what they were doing. “I’m ready.”

  He put the plane on autopilot, and we went to the back. He wasn’t a fan of opening the door—and had a deathly fear of falling out—so he had put on a harness that he could tether to the plane. I was fine with opening the door again—my intention was to exit the plane, after all—so I opened it, waved to Fred, and jumped out.

  After getting into position, I deployed the parachute, then said a silent thank you to MJW, whoever that was; he or she had packed a good chute. It deployed as it was supposed to, and I rode it down to the beach. It wasn’t the best chute I’d ever had for maneuverability, but it was good enough; my feet hit sand when I touched down.

  I gathered up the chute and set off at a light jog. As I reached the first of the tourist beaches—obvious because of the cabanas set up to rent—I chucked the chute into a garbage can. They could figure that out tomorrow, if anyone cared.

  After that, it was only another mile to the beach where the bosses lived. The line of demarcation was easy to spot—the beach went from black sand to yellow. If that wasn’t enough, it was fenced off with signs noting it was a private beach.

  Fred had told me the bosses had taken over the premier tourist hotel after the war. They had originally lived in a gated community about five miles outside of town, but now they were grouped together in the hotel. Doing so allowed them to concentrate their security personnel, giving them lots of protection.

  That made it both easier and more difficult for me. Easier, in that I could find them all in a single spot, but more difficult for me to get to them because of the concentrated security.

  I went inland as I approached the hotel—it was a 20-story affair, and each of the directors had one floor. The first 11 floors were used for housing personnel and dependents, offices, and storage; the top nine were for the directors. As I passed the hotel, I glanced at it, taking in all the details. Four security personnel were at the front, just as Fred had said. There should also be four at the back.

  I continued on for another block then looped back to find what I was looking for—the entrance into the kitchen. This was also where the employees’ smoking tent was. The bosses, of course, could smoke wherever the hell they wanted to; everyone else came out the side door to the smoke pit. As there were people coming and going here at all times of day and night, they had turned off the door’s alarm. I watched it for a short while from across the street, hidden behind some shrubbery. Everything seemed pretty much the way Fred had described it. There was one camera I would have to skirt, but someone in management had turned it to face the area where the employees were smoking rather than the door.

  Apparently, it was more important to know who was slacking off than who was sneaking in. But really, though, who—besides me, of course—was going to show up unannounced? It was the right decision, for any night but this one.

  I rushed forward, hopped over the six-foot fence—easily clearing the concertina wire on top—and raced to the door. Sure enough, it was open, as it had been for the others who’d come and gone while I was watching. The key was staying unobserved, as long as possible. I made it to the access stairwell before I saw the first person. I launched myself onto him and broke his neck before he knew I was there, then I carried him to the first landing and dropped him down the stairs. Anyone who found him would think he had an accident and—as a minion—I didn’t think they’d make a big deal about it. They would handle it quietly and not disturb the bosses’ beauty sleep.

  That’s what I thought, anyway. What actually happened, though, was nothing like what I expected. If I’d known they were going to set off a horn, the likes of which I hadn’t heard since Portland’s Teledyne headquarters, I’d have carried the body up the 11 flights of stairs.

  I had just reached the 12th floor, and I was sneaking up on the guard in the doorway when the horn went off. We both jumped. As I could jump a lot higher, it took me longer to come back down, and he was already turning toward me when I got to him. Apparently, he was walking around with the safety on his gun disengaged and his finger near the trigger, because when I snatched it from him, it went off. JalCom needed to teach better trigger discipline.

  Once I had his rifle, the bloodletting began. Every security person in the building, and all the personnel JalCom’s management could call in from nearby, decided I needed to shoot them. I didn’t really want to, and I got tired of it by the time I reached the 18th floor. Because of this, I’m sure more of JalCom’s management survived than had been my original intention. Sue me. Most didn’t, and they would be a long time rebuilding their security force. When they armed and threw the maintenance force at me, I finally called it a night. I know some people who like slaughter for slaughter’s sake, but that wasn’t me. I finally tied some sheets together and went out a window, down two levels, then back in to elude them.

  Sometimes, there’s just too much killing in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  By this point, the police force was working to surround the hotel. JalCom had to bring in somebody else, I guessed; they were out of security personnel. I raced down the stairs and out the kitchen door, only to run into two of the local police in full riot gear. As it turns out, you can hit people wearing helmets hard enough to knock them out. Sometimes you have to hit them twice. I’m sure the policemen would have concussions, but at least they’d be alive in the morning, so they had that going for them. I vaulted the wall again, although I was so tired I almost snagged the concertina wire on top and had to bend my knees to avoid it.

  A quick sprint across the beach, and I was in the water. I don’t know how it hadn’t picked up a stray bullet or knife along the way, but my waterproof bag made a much better flotation device than some life preservers—I hadn’t thought to purge it of air, and no water in meant no air out—and it kept me from immediately going underwater to swim away. Happily, no one came to look in the water for some time, and by then, I was well offshore and had gotten the air out of the bag.

  I rested for a bit, allowing the current to carry me down the beach, and the nanobots to close my wounds. I had picked up a number of cuts and holes during the various battles, and a couple of them would make impressive additions to my scar collection. I went past the giant Muelle de Puerto Colombia, but unfortunately my getaway vehicle—a giant tanker of some sort—wasn’t tied up to it. There were a couple of cargo ships, but no tankers of any size.

  If I’d had time to plan the hit on JalCom, I would have researched when the right ships would be in port, their intended routes, and a number of other things. I would also have had a better overall plan for the evening, but the time constraint had kept me from planning, and it had almost gotten me killed. All for something that was off-mission and had forever more alienated me with JalCom. I leaned back and sighed; there was nothing I could do about it now.

  Once I passed the pier, I made my way back to shore. I’d floated past the end of t
own, so I walked along the beach a bit until I found an access path that led away from the ocean. The path led to a neighborhood of five small houses. They weren’t much to look at, just adobe and brick with sheet metal roofs, but they represented shelter and what I needed most—food. After all the work my nanobots had done, I was starving!

  Four of the houses looked lived in; the fifth looked like its owner had been gone a while. Not wanting to chance more fighting, I decided to start there. Like the rest of the houses, it had an outer door made of iron bars that, although they appeared to be painted white in the moonlight, looked like something from a prison cell. I focused, yanked with all my strength, and pulled the locking mechanism out of the brick. It wasn’t completely without noise, and I heard a dog start barking from a house nearby.

  I knew I didn’t have much time, so I placed my palm on the door and pushed. The interior lock ripped off, and the door sprang open. The dog next door started barking louder, and a light went on. I quickly stepped inside, pulled the exterior door shut, and closed the inside door. From the window, I saw someone walk out of the house next door. He looked around, then flipped on a small flashlight. He glanced quickly around the neighborhood before going back inside. The dog had calmed down, so I guess he figured whatever had spooked the dog had left.

  After a quick search of the house to determine if it was vacant—it was—I ransacked the cabinets in the kitchen. The house gave every indication that it was occupied, but that its owner had been gone a while. A light layer of dust covered everything, except where it had been disturbed by my passing. The cabinets yielded a variety of processed foods, which I ate until I was full, then I went to the bedroom and passed out.

  It was nice to have a bed, for once, in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *