by Seeley James
“Fine. Write up a plan and submit it to HR.”
“They’re useless.” Tania shoved her hands in her pockets. “They throw out all my ideas. Want me to take a class on sensitivity.”
Pia slowed to a stop and surveyed the carnage outside the squire’s house. “Is that Carlos?”
Jacob strolled up and stood with them. “He kept the apocalypse from coming up our backside.”
“I’ll get something to cover his body.” Tania took off.
Pia faced Jacob and watched his clouds of breath in the cold. “Thanks for that intervention with Dad.”
“Didn’t get anywhere, but it’s a start.” He appraised her. “I don’t suppose you’re ready to tell me why you left the National Team.”
“No.” She looked back at Carlos.
“How about Carlos?” he asked. “He told me you two had a deal of some kind. Want to explain that one?”
She took a moment to toe the snow with her boot. “You know that voice you listen to? My voice told me Carlos was going to sacrifice his life to save mine. The next day he sent me a letter. He dreamed he would die in Germany and that somehow I was involved. We made a deal. He came to work here, and if his premonition came true, I promised to put his son through college.”
“I don’t know who he was in the rest of his life,” Jacob said. “But he was a damn good man in the end.”
They watched the sun claw to the horizon, piercing their world with cold yellow.
“What do you think of what my father didn’t say?” Pia asked.
“To be honest, every time you asked me to dig into the story, I was annoyed. Who am I to get involved? He adopted you the day your parents were murdered—which damn few single grad students would’ve done—and you wanted me to dig into his story? That was awkward and uncomfortable to say the least. But after today, I understand where you’re coming from. I’ll keep working on him.”
She put her arm around him and gave him a squeeze.
“One thing I should clear up for you,” she said. “The day my parents were murdered was the first time I heard the voice in my head. She told me exactly where to stab the killer. Said she was a hunter and knew about those things. She kept saying, ‘harder next time, to the right, again.’ She’s been driving me like that ever since.”
Miguel’s voice crackled over her earbud. “Seyton and Hyde made it through the main gates. Want me to shoot them?”
Pia stayed their execution and raced to join him.
A twenty-foot wooden gate stood open at a slight angle, leaving enough room for a person to walk between wood and wall. Pia was the first through the opening. She stopped just outside.
A hundred yards downhill, two men walked toward a news van parked on the side of the road.
Tania pulled up next to her and raised field glasses. She said, “It’s Katy Hellman and the Three Blondes. Hyde’s asking for help with the vests.”
With a good deal of caution, Pia headed their way and hailed them from a distance.
“Those are very dangerous,” she said. “I have a demolitions expert on my team.”
A reporter and a cameraman cut her off halfway. The blonde stuck a microphone in Pia’s face. “We’re live from Germany where Sabel Security agents just slaughtered more than thirty competitors. Ms. Sabel, why did you kill all those men?”
“They kidnapped my dad.” Pia pushed the woman aside and pointed to Seyton and Hyde. “Let my people disarm those bombs.”
The reporter turned to follow her gesture. The cameraman looked over his shoulder-cam.
Down the hill, next to the two men in suicide vests, Katy Hellman fisted her hips and stuck out her jaw. “Stay away from us, you bloody bitch. You’ve ruined everything.”
The reporter ran back to her boss. The cameraman turned to follow.
Pia grabbed his elbow. “Are you a contract worker or full-time with them?”
He frowned at her. “Contracted this morning.”
She pulled him. “Quick, follow me.”
She ran up the incline to the thick wooden gate. The cameraman hesitated, then followed her.
The blast threw him and his camera through the narrow opening. His lenses shattered on the cobblestones and skittered five yards from his outstretched fingers.
Miguel and Jacob helped him to his feet. His backside singed, he rose with his arms around her agents’ shoulders.
He looked up at Pia and asked, “What was that?”
She peered past him at the burning wreckage. “Justice.”
CHAPTER 49
I stood among the folding chairs and looked around at twenty or so people gathered in the church basement. “Uh, my name is Jacob and I’m not an alcoholic. Um. That might not be entirely true. Maybe I am … but that’s not why I came here.”
The middle-aged guy in the two-thousand-dollar suit looked up from his phone. A pretty girl with flowers in her hair, way at the back, sat up and smiled at me with a big grin. The front-row group, the regulars who sit together, waited with the patience of Job.
“See, I have a problem. Oh, not a problem—that’s not the right thing to call it. Um. I have a voice.”
Mercury leaned against a pillar at the back, his toga soaking wet from another misguided ritual bath. He smiled and waved me on.
I would rather pick up a rifle and charge into an al-Qaeda training camp than be here.
But a deal is a deal.
“I wasn’t sure who to turn to, but I figured you folks would hear me out and maybe not get pissed off.” I fidgeted with my jacket’s zipper until I felt all those eyes on me and realized I’d been silent for several seconds.
I looked up. “I talk to god.”
Everyone nodded as if this is a normal state of affairs. The housewife in the too-tight-for-common-sense spandex, the guy with the yellow BestBuy nametag on a bright blue pullover, the older woman in the tennis outfit all give me a sympathetic look. Maybe it was one of the twelve steps or something, I didn’t know.
After a second, the guy in the suit looked around. He looked skeptical. “Does He talk to you?”
“Oh, yeah. All the time. Too much. But, um, that’s not the problem.”
Everyone leaned forward. My response had been too quiet.
The woman in the tennis outfit rolled her hand. “If God talks to you, you’re one of the lucky ones. What does He say?”
I raised my voice. “Mostly he tells me who to kill.”
Wow.
Some sentences just don’t sound the same outside your head.
They all leaned back—way back—as if I might explode. A certain amount of shock colored their expressions and fear widened their eyes.
“No, no.” I waved my hands. “That’s not what I mean. I…”
The big construction worker, halfway down the aisle, planted his feet, ready to jump up and rip my head off if I pulled a gun on them.
“I’m a veteran, y’know? Five tours in Afghanistan and three in Iraq. Anyway, he started talking to me in the wars. He watched over me, and made sure I had everything I needed. He pointed out the soft places where I could lie down. And helped me find water in the desert. He led me on all the right paths—”
The suit-guy raised a hand. “Are you going to paraphrase the whole 23rd Psalm?”
Damn, I knew it sounded familiar.
Several of the others glanced at each other with knowing nods. They were going to tell me to sit down and shut up.
“You’ve been chosen by God.” The girl in back, with the flowers in her hair, stood up. She wasn’t hard to look at. A nice, clingy gray dress showed off her curves better than Saran Wrap. She spread her bright red lips into a wide smile.
Everyone else in the room ignored her as if she wasn’t there.
“Yeah, well, the God part of it is, um…” I had no idea what to say next. I wanted to run. The construction worker and the suit-guy were off the charts on the not-happy scale. The tennis lady soured. The regulars up front were the only ones still interested. “
I have a different god.”
“Jews are welcome here too.” The voice came from behind me. “I’m Jewish.”
“Oh. Thanks. But. No, I’m not—”
“Muslim, Hindu, anything that keeps you sober is fine with us.”
The people muttered among themselves. Their voices grew louder. I was losing them.
“His name is Mercury. He’s the winged messenger of the Roman gods.” My voice echoed in the dead silence that followed. “He was the god of commerce and messages, and a member of the Dii Concentes, the twelve big-time deities. He calls it the ‘Board of Directors for gods.’ Heh. Well. He thinks it’s funny. Anyway. His first temple was built in 495 BCE in the Circus Maximus. He was the most popular of the Roman gods. The English and French revered him too—after they were conquered but before the spread of Christianity. Oh, and his festival day is the ides of May.”
No one moved. No one closed an open mouth.
Finally, the construction guy crossed his arms. “You need professional help.”
Suit-guy nodded and jumped a thousand socio-economic barriers to mimic his working-class friend’s crossed arms. “Yeah, you’re fucking nuts.”
“I think it’s wonderful.” The woman in back threw her hands in the air.
The guy who led the opening prayer stood up and motioned for me to sit down, which I did. Quickly.
He closed the session with a prayer, wisely leaving Mercury out of it. We began shuffling out.
The lady in the tennis outfit came up to me. She wore half a pound of diamonds around her neck and wrists. She reached in her purse, retrieved a card, and extended it in her fingers. “You should give this man a call. He’s the best with problems like yours. He committed my husband when I couldn’t get anyone else to do it.”
I gave her a polite nod. She turned up her nose and strode out.
I looked at the card. Dr. Harrison.
Lovely.
I shoved it in my pocket.
The suit-guy came next. “If you need any help getting into a permanent institution, please, let me know. I’ll do anything to keep you off the streets.”
With a quiet thank-you, I pocketed his card and made my way to the last row where the curvy girl with flowers in her hair waited for me. She grabbed me and gave me a big hug.
I’ve had worse things pressed against my chest.
She pulled back, found her balance on the stiletto heels, and grabbed my shoulders. “Oooh. I just love a good prophet. I’m part of a fun group you’d like. It’s a Bacchus group. You know what I mean?”
I dragged my eyes off the floor, up her thigh, around her hips twice, over her boobs, and all the way up to her face. She appreciated the way I appreciated her with a giggle. She was a platinum blond with green eyes and the flowers were fresh.
I couldn’t think, much less speak. “Uh, group?”
“Olivia, Aletta, Terry, Nannette, Sandrine, Tony, oh, they’ll just love you to death.” She gave me an inch of space. “Tony’s a fun old goat, you’d like him.”
Her eyes drilled mine for clues to my reaction.
Mercury stood behind her beaming a Cheshire-cat smile. Dawg, you are in! High five me bro! You’ve hit the jackpot here. Whoo-ee!
I said, I don’t get it. What’s a Bacchus group?
Mercury’s expression changed as if I’d just shot Vesta. Bacchus was the god of—?
I said, Wine?
Mercury rolled his eyes. Yes, and since you’re in an AA meeting, that’s probably not the part of the Bacchus ministry she’s focused on. So, he was also into—?
I said, Music and blissful dance?
Mercury said, Yeah. OK bro, and liberated spirits and nymphs and satyrs. Now for the extra-credit question: blissful dance is a euphemism for—?”
I said, Orgies?
Mercury said, Thank Jupiter, you’re not as dumb as you look. We are in, bay-bay! I told you proselytizing would pay off, didn’t I? See what happens when you listen to your favorite god?
She saw the light bulb go off over my head. She bumped her forehead against mine. “Let’s go back to my place and call a meeting of the Bacchus group. You can channel your god—and make us do whatever you want.”
My mind spun in circles. A hundred questions poured into my head. Were her friends as gorgeous as she? Did I care? Should I ruin the moment by asking her name? How fast could we get to her place? Would I have time to stop for protection?
“Great job, Jacob.” Ms. Sabel’s voice splashed in my ear like a bucket of ice water.
I turned slightly to face the sound of her voice, my vision still cloudy. “You came?”
“Hope you don’t mind.” She glanced in the direction of curvy-girl, then back. “You were quite brave. Maybe not as prepared as you could’ve been, but you were brave. I’ve never told anyone about my, um, voice. Not completely.”
She waited for me to say something.
The only thing on my mind was getting to my first Bacchus group meeting. There’s no such thing as fashionably late where orgies are concerned. Not that I had any expertise in that area.
“We all make choices in life,” Ms. Sabel said. “We can choose to allow our delusions to cloud our vision or we can take a hard look at reality. You chose to get real about your, ehm, condition. I’m here to support your decision.”
I looked at my blonde. She was already swiveling her hips around the wrong way, turning her back to me.
Mercury slipped his arm around her waist. They leaned into each other and they walked away.
Ms. Sabel put her hand into the crook of my elbow and tugged. “There’s a woman who showed up at the Gardens just before I left. I forgot her name. She’s a detective. Said she met you in Tokyo.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Do you think I make things up?”
I felt my feet walking with Ms. Sabel while my heart and several other organs tried to follow the blonde. “Oh, she must have questions about the Zola case.”
Ms. Sabel laughed. “Trust me, Jacob, when a beautiful woman flies all the way from Tokyo, it isn’t to talk about the Zola case.”
The End
TO YOU FROM SEELEY JAMES
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EXCERPTS FROM SABEL SECURITY SERIES:
Element 42, Sabel Security #1
The voice in my head returned when I stopped taking my meds. My caseworker said the voice was part of my condition—PTSD-induced schizophrenia—but I call him Mercury, the winged messenger of the gods, and a damn good friend. For years, he was my biggest ally in combat and helped me predict the future. I’m not talking about very far into the future. Sometimes minutes, sometimes seconds, and sometimes just enough to see it coming.
Death and Dark Money, Sabel Security #2
Sixteen minutes before David Gottleib died, I was alarmed that a nearly-naked black man leaned against my refrigerator with a casual grin. It wasn’t because he was tall with supernaturally chiseled muscles. Nor was it the lone fig leaf he sported over his substantial manhood. It wasn’t the leather sandals or the bronze helmet with small bronze wings either. What alarmed me was that I could see him at all.
No one can see a god.
At least, no one with a shred of sanity left.
Death and the Damned, Sabel Security #3
Who to trust is the scariest decision we make in life. I grabbed him by the hair, pulled his head back,
and, cheek-to-cheek, we contemplated the sparkling stars dotting the moonless Syrian sky. I sensed his eyeballs strain all the way to the right to look at me. His fingernails dug into my forearm. Anxiety caused him to miss the grandeur of the moment. Too bad. It was stunningly beautiful. You don’t see that many stars from over-lit American cities. But I tired of our two-second relationship and drew my blade across his throat, severing his carotid artery and larynx before he could scream a warning to the others. I dropped his carcass on the other jihadi at my feet. He trusted me because I speak Arabic. Bad idea.
Death and Treason, Sabel Security #4
The president, a billionaire, and a disgraced FBI agent were talking about disrupting democracy with the casual air you and I might use to pick a movie. It made my blood boil. Back when I was an overconfident, pimply-faced teenager, I joined the Rangers and swore to protect the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. That commitment still anchors my soul. My outrage nearly caused me to miss the conspirators’ after-thought scheme to kill my boss, Pia Sabel.
Death and Secrets, Sabel Security #5
A voice in a dream said, “Do you remember who shot you?”
Someone tugged me through a murky world. When the gray globs in my vision thinned, I recognized my sister. She kneaded my right hand and said something underwater. I blinked. Tubes hung down around me, metal rails on either side. A rack of machines with flashing lights towered over my shoulder. On my left stood a man in a white lab coat with the educated gaze of a doctor.
Death and Vengeance, Sabel Security #6
Annie Wilkes had been expecting to spend the rest of the day in emergency calls about the bombing. That changed when she stepped out of the ladies’ room. A pistol peeked from under an overcoat draped over a stranger’s arm. She scanned the Mumbai Hilton’s lobby for her security detail. Five yards away, her lieutenant lay face down on the floor. Farther away, her chief of staff struggled against restraints and a gag, his arms held in check by two men in business suits.
