by Seeley James
All I needed was a plan.
We made our way out of the airport’s labyrinth customs area when someone called my name. I looked up to see three Virginia state troopers, along with detectives Czajkowski and Lovett, waiting for me with Dr. Harrison on the sidelines.
Carlos trotted on one side of me.
On the other, Mercury dragged a comatose Seven-Death by the collar as if he were roller luggage.
Mercury said, Dude, don’t talk to those guys. Back to the terminal. Quick, follow me.
I said, I don’t have any outstanding tickets. Let’s see what they want.
Mercury said, Remember when I told you not to talk to that cray-cray doctor? This is why.
I walked up to the group. “What’s up guys? Find the Gottleib killer yet?”
One of the Virginians had me on the ground and cuffed quicker than a calf-roper in a rodeo. I waited for someone to call out his time in seconds.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked nicely.
“This is a 10-622, I’m having you committed,” Dr. Harrison said. “You’re a danger to the community.”
Carlos, standing behind the cops, pulled a knife that should never have gotten to Tokyo, much less there and back. I shook my head at him. “Call the Major, have her get my lawyer.”
Carlos gritted his teeth and hid the knife behind his leg when the cops faced him. He walked away.
They dragged me to the airport police station and discussed extradition options. I opted for going to Maryland as soon as possible in the hopes of getting this over with. Half an hour later, Czajkowski and Lovett processed me into the county detention center.
Lovett, taking personal pride in my arrest, smirked when he closed the holding cell. “Told you I’d get you. Now we have you linked to two weapons used in two murders in two countries and a doctor who says you talk to God. You know what the best part is? I’m going to get your Army records out of this. You’re as looney as they come, Stearne.”
My head ached so hard I could barely think. After he left and slammed the outer door, I managed to shout a snappy comeback. “If you won’t leave me alone, I’ll find someone who will.”
Mercury sat in the corner, his head in his hands. This is so lame, homie. We don’t belong in here, ya feel me? We’re used to being gods to the rich and powerful. This sucks.
He rose and paced the wide, empty cell with a hard scowl.
Seven-Death curled up like a snail in the corner under a metal bench and groaned in pain.
Mercury said, This is why Jesus is going bald, dude. Elijah and Muhammad too. ’Cause you damn mortals never listen to us. I mean really, when a god speaks to you, why not just listen to—
I said, Leave me alone. I’ve got to figure a way out of this. Flip Zola’s life hangs in the balance.
Mercury said, I told you everything you need to know about this shrink, fool. I walked you through everything. There’s a solution to this problem in there, all ya gotta do is think. If you can manage that anymore.
Since my case wouldn’t come up until morning, I settled in for a long night. From time to time, drunks were tossed in, puked their guts out, and bellowed about the injustices they’d suffered. My favorite Mayan patted them on the back, empathizing with their pain.
In the morning, my fat, expensive lawyer managed to get my arraignment moved up to number one on the docket and, after a breakfast of cardboard pancakes, I stood in front of the judge. My pre-court consultation with my attorney consisted of me listening to his side of a phone call to someone higher up the socioeconomic food chain than I. At least he brought the week-old newspaper I requested. I could handle the rest without him.
The process began with a prosecutor who knew little about my case other than what was on a sheet of paper in front of him. He rattled off a request to commit me to an insane asylum with all the enthusiasm of a ninth grade boy reciting Elizabeth Barrett Browning in class. How do I love thee? Let me count…
I waved at the judge. “Your honor, if you’ll allow me to play a ten-second recording of Dr. Harrison, I guarantee you’ll throw out the charges.”
My attorney tugged my arm to scold me. I shook him off and stared down the judge. He nodded at the bailiff. I borrowed my counselor’s phone to pull up my cloud drive. I accessed the recording—the one Mercury insisted I make during my last session—and plugged it into the court’s sound system:
“What’s the career path for a psychiatrist?” I asked.
Dr. Harrison responded, “Doing good is my reward. Maybe a published book about an extraordinary patient would cap off a career nicely.”
“How about a patient who talks to a god? Would that help you write a book?”
“That would be perfect!” Harrison laughed.
I clicked off and held up the newspaper with Dr. Harrison’s picture beneath the headline, MY PATIENT SPEAKS TO GOD. I faced the prosecutor, held the paper high and underlined the article with my hand.
Everyone in the room was dumbstruck.
“Draw your own conclusions, your honor.” I sat.
The judge was trying hard not to laugh.
My attorney turned to Dr. Harrison. “We’re suing for breach of confidentiality!”
The judge pulled the attorneys in for a chat at the bench. After some shrugs, they came back to their respective tables.
“Mr. Stearne,” the judge said in a classic courtroom voice, “do you speak to God?”
I stood. “Yes, sir. Every day. His name is Mercury, son of Jupiter and Maia, husband of Venus, cuckolded by Mars. He’s the winged messenger of the Roman gods and an eternal member of the Dii Consentes.”
I tilted my head and gave him a shit-eating grin.
The judge slapped his desk and roared with laughter. “I don’t know why you’re antagonizing this naïve doctor, but you sure have your shtick down. Go on, get out of here.”
When my attorney pointed the way, I all but ran out of the building.
Mercury caught up with me, Seven-Death stumbling in front of him on the slow mend.
Mercury said, Hey, great job in there! You came right out and said it all. We still have a long way to go on your presentation. But—did you have to bring up that crap about my cheating wife and that son of a bitch Mars?
I said, Who put him up to it?
Mercury said, Depends on who you ask. She said Mars seduced her but he claims—
I said, No, who put Harrison up to this crap?
Mercury said, Oh yeah, it’s all about you, I forgot. Hey, bro, you know I’d tell you if I could, but that’s like giving out lottery numbers. No can do.
Carlos caught up with me at Sabel Gardens. We spent the day with Bianca and the Major working out where the exchange might take place and how they would try to double-cross us. We kept the news blocked on our phones to avoid even looking at the headlines. According to some news sources, I executed several off-duty cops in Japan while Ms. Sabel did the same in Dubai. Ours were coordinated attacks reminiscent of al Qaeda, they said. No mention of LOCI or cops gone bad.
We worked until night fell and everyone headed home.
I walked out to the car barn on the south side and sensed Carlos loping after me.
“Go home,” I said. “Get some sleep. I’ve got a couple errands to run.”
“You and I have something in common, ése.” He patted my shoulder. “We don’t watch TV for excitement, we go out and find it. You’re about to do something, I don’t know what, but I want in.”
I stopped and looked him over. “Back in the ’hood, did you have a nickname?”
“They called me the Colonel.”
“I was expecting something in Spanish like, combate loco.” Crazy fighter.
“So were the cops.” He smiled in the dark. “Let’s go.”
It was hard to turn down his brand of cold enthusiasm.
At the barn, I asked Cousin Elmer for something fast and quiet. He handed me the keys to a dark blue Tesla P90D with the Ludicrous Speed mode. Seats four, just
short of seven hundred horsepower, faster than a Lamborghini, and doesn’t roar, it hums.
We parked four houses down in a nice, tree-lined neighborhood in Chevy Chase. A casual stroll up the street and a duck between shrubberies took us into the backyard of our target. No cameras, only a wired entry alarm. My magnetic circuit-killer kept it from blowing the klaxon while Carlos slipped the lock open with his blade. We stepped into the ground-floor office.
We proceeded to the next room, where a middle-aged woman cleaned the kitchen.
Carlos hung back, watching me.
I crossed to the woman. “Mrs. Harrison, why would you serve red meat to a man of his age?”
She spun around, too scared to scream. She grabbed a knife from the block behind her and held it between us.
I faked a left jab. When she slashed at it, I grabbed the back of her wrist, twisted, and dropped the knife into my hand. “If I wanted to hurt you, you’d be crying. So chill with the knives. I have to speak to you and your husband about some urgent business. Call him, please.”
Her eyes, big as the dinner plates in her sink, began to narrow to near-normal. After a couple soundless attempts, she managed to shriek out his name in a voice she borrowed from Dawn of the Dead.
We heard him fumble around upstairs, then tramp down, loud and clumsy. He staggered into the kitchen with a revolver in his shaking hands. The barrel wobbled in my direction.
“Did you join the Taliban?” I asked.
He shook his head and squinted down the sights with one eye.
“No wonder you don’t scare me.” I held up my palms. “Who’s the one menacing society, doc? I came here to ask you a couple questions. What kind of reception do I get? Your wife tries to stab me and you wave a gun at me. It’s a good thing Carlos isn’t the jumpy type or he’d have split your head open.”
Dr. Harrison saw Carlos for the first time.
I said, “Here’s a statistic for you, Doc: twenty-two to one. For every intentional gunshot victim brought into emergency rooms in this country, there are twenty-two accidental victims. Put the revolver down before you turn your wife into a statistic.”
“What do you want?” His voice trembled like a tenor at the opera.
Carlos took two steps, grabbed his wrist, squeezed the weapon loose, lowered the hammer, laid it on the cooking island, and returned to his spot by the refrigerator.
Harrison stared at him the whole time.
“What do I want? You tried to have me committed when you know I’m fine.” I snapped my fingers in front of his nose to bring his attention back to me. “You told someone about my Army psych evaluations. I want to know who and why.”
His head moved side to side but no words came out of his flapping mouth.
“You sold me out, Doc. I have it on good authority that someone held a knife to your throat the first time. You told that person things that should’ve remained confidential. But then he or she came back and threatened you again. Who was it?”
“How do you know that?” he squeaked. His face flattened. “It was God, wasn’t it? It’s true, you really do talk to God.”
“Doc, get a grip.” I closed in on him. “Who was it?”
“We don’t know.” His wife grabbed my shoulder. “Like you said, it was a guy with a knife the first time. There were three of them the second. They said—”
“Julie!” Harrison shouted. “They said they’d kill us.”
Carlos did a quick glance at the street-facing windows, then around the room, and stepped between the glass and us. He waved his arms as if shooing cattle into the hall. It was a good call on his part; if someone was watching from the street, the shooting could start any second.
I followed the doctor. He stuck his head into the TV room and pointed to a lipstick camera resting above a portrait of some old guy.
I clicked my link to Sabel Security HQ, “Get me five agents over here right now.”
The front door caved in and three black-clad hostiles charged through the opening. Carlos popped one of them in the head before he crossed the mini-foyer. I pushed the Harrisons into the windowless TV room and dropped to the floor. The second guy came around the corner, firing high—like a noob. I popped two rounds in his thigh. He went down cursing. I grabbed the assault rifle out of his hands and slammed the butt into his face. He was out.
“Where’d the other guy go?” Carlos asked from around the corner.
“Not in here.” I tiptoed to the edge of the hall and on to the kitchen archway.
Three shots rang out from the kitchen. I listened but didn’t hear anything. Not Carlos in pain, which was good; nor the bad guy, which was not good. Nor did I hear any footsteps to give me a position.
I rolled onto the kitchen floor and found no one at the sink.
No one stood at the fridge, or at the cutting board, or in the pantry.
Looking up, I aimed just as the guy standing on the cooking island swirled around on his heel and brought his barrel up.
I’ve played this game too many times: First guy to the trigger lives.
My opponent did not understand how the game worked and took the time to aim. My finger was halfway through the trigger’s travel when he realized this was pass/fail. The only way to improve your skill is to win every round.
I’d won every round from Mosul to Kabul.
He crashed to the floor with a heavy thud.
I ran back to where the Harrisons cowered in the TV room. “Call the cops. Get them to send Lovett and CJ. Tell them what happened here. I gotta run—”
Dr. Harrison looked up with tear-filled eyes from the floor where his wife lay bleeding. She was breathing and conscious, but white and clammy. Her eyes darted left to right, like a speed reader.
Carlos knelt next to her and pulled a shoulder up while I looked under. The entry wound was typical of a small caliber, but her exit wound was the size of a fist. I grabbed the rifle off the floor and ejected a bullet. Definitely a 5.56 NATO round. Originally developed by the USA for the M16, NATO adopted it for automatic weapons because you could pack a lot of them into a smaller space and, despite their small diameter, they traveled at high velocity and tumbled in soft tissue, causing maximum damage.
The casing had a thirteen-digit NATO Stock Number. I didn’t have the tables for reference, but the 01 designation for the USA was in the right place and the 74 designation meant it had been shipped to Pakistan. I’d fired many rounds with those identifiers in Afghanistan, which is where this bullet was meant to be. The third identifier made me sick. They weren’t sold as Army surplus. They were built with extra care and precision to ensure fewer gun jams and misfires. They were made for American Special Forces, specifically the Rangers.
A couple million rounds had been stolen from an armory at the end of the Afghan entanglement. Stinger missiles, rocket propelled grenades, and plenty of SMG-PKs had been taken in the heist as well.
I took a quick look at the identifiers on the MP5. It was a POF SMG-PK.
The Pentagon had always blamed corrupt officials for the missing ordnance. I suspected the mastermind behind the robbery was the founder of Velox Deployment, Shane Diabulus.
What the hell did he want with my psycho?
Carlos called 911 while I squeezed the doc’s shoulder. “I’ve seen worse on the battlefield, Harrison. She’s going to make it. Now listen to me. When Lovett and CJ get here, tell them the truth. Tell them the whole story about being threatened.”
“Where’re you going?”
“They’re about to kill an innocent boy.”
“But they’ll kill me.” He turned his gaze to his wife.
Her eyes fluttered.
“They threatened to kill you to keep a secret,” I said. “If you put the secret out there, killing you only increases their chances of getting caught. Be brave, stand up to the criminals and talk to the detectives.”
“You did this!” Harrison turned red and scrunched his face. “It’s your fault.”
“Who breached confide
ntiality, Doc?”
“They threatened me.”
My blood boiled. The stress of the last few days snapped me. I shoved a finger in his chest. “I’ve seen soldiers fight and die for twenty grand a year to protect your freedom and you cave at the first guy who shows up with knife? Grow some balls, Doc.”
Harrison cradled his wife in his arms and cried.
A car screeched to a halt in the street. Five doors slammed: four passengers and a tailgate.
Carlos poked his head around the corner and nodded at the backdoor. “Not our guys. Not cops.”
I nodded and turned back to Harrison. “Gotta go, doc. Tell the cops the truth.”
He looked at me like a sad puppy.
I handed him the assault rifle, set it to full-auto, and flipped the safety off. “Try not to be a statistic.”
Carlos had the back yard cleared when I caught up with him.
Sirens filled the frozen night.
We leaped a hedge, crossed a neighbor’s yard and ran down an alley that would come out near the Tesla.
Seven-Death, his health restored and back in furious-god mode, popped out of the bushes and knocked me down. He stood over me, waving his obsidian blade, shaking his death stick, and ranting in Mayan with his trademark bug-eyed scowl.
Mercury stepped out of the bushes behind him. You’re not leaving the good doctor behind, are you? That’s not your style, dawg.
I said, Why should I care about that coward?
Mercury said, Cuz he’s a convert and we’re a little short right now. Besides, he went to Harvard.
I said, “If he’s so smart, let him talk his way out of it.”
Carlos said, “You mean Harrison?”
Muffled gunfire raked Harrison’s house from inside.
CHAPTER 30
Pia leaned as the chopper swerved around the Burj Khalifa, her conversation insulated from the thundering engines by the thick headset. After one more evasive maneuver tossing them left, the pilot flew toward the overflow parking lot for private jets at Dubai’s airport.
