by Blake Banner
“I know. He’s a big shot. So what?”
“So when he has meetings with people like that, people who need high level security, he meets them at the vineyard.”
“You take care of that security?”
He shrugged. “It depends. If it’s a high profile politician they will often have their own security. Sometimes it’s arranged by the Secret Service. In cases like that we collaborate. Other times we arrange it in house.”
“So if he went to the vineyard tomorrow and wanted to lay on security…”
“That would be me. I would arrange that.”
I stared into my whiskey, chewing my lip and wondering how easy this guy would be to buy. So far it all felt a little too easy, and I was damned sure you didn’t get to oversee Epsilon’s security by being disloyal or easy to bribe.
“But in your opinion,” I said half to myself, “He’ll be following his usual routine…”
I glanced at him, making it a question, and saw he was watching me. There was something dangerous in his eyes. He said, “How about you show me the color of your money before this conversation goes any further?”
I nodded. “Sure. Let’s go.”
You can get it right a million times, but to really fuck up, you only need to fuck up once. I should have been expecting it. Maybe I was tired, maybe I was over-confident, maybe it was just my time to make a mistake. Whatever the cause, I had expected him to be curious enough to come to the car and see if I had the money, and what else I had to say, but I misjudged him. I misjudged him badly.
He got up, led the way through the bar, making sure to stay ahead of me where I could see him, giving me a false sense of security. He opened the door and stepped out into the lamp-lit forecourt, went down the steps onto the concrete. There he stopped and turned to face me. He said, “Where’s your car?”
And then my head exploded with pain.
* * *
There are many places and many ways you don’t want to wake up. You don’t want to wake up with a hangover in a strange bed with your best friend’s wife lying next to you; or your wife’s best friend. You don’t want to wake up on your wedding morning on a train at the Mexican border, when your wedding is in Boston or Seattle. You don’t want to wake up in Jeffrey Dhamer’s kitchen with paper frills on your wrists and an apple in your mouth. But most of all, you don’t want to wake up in a very dark, confined space, with a really bad headache, nylon rope biting into your wrists and ankles, and the sound of an internal combustion engine in your ears. When you wake up like that, you know you have a big problem. You’re on a one-way trip to a six foot holiday.
That was exactly how I woke up after the Mercenary’s guy had smashed a steel girder into my head. I lay and groaned for a moment, trying to get a hold of my thoughts. They were not good thoughts. The consequences of my lapse of judgment, for want of a better word, were almost endless, and exclusively bad. Really bad. So bad that after a moment I decided there was no point in thinking about them at all. What I needed to do instead was think about how the hell I was going to cut my bonds and get out of the trunk.
I was pretty certain they had taken my Sig and my knife, and the ropes were biting tight enough that it would be impossible for me to pull my hands or my feet free. So unless I could find some kind of cutting edge in the trunk, I was not going to get free before they pulled me out. So anything I tried would have to wait till we arrived.
And that led me to the next question. Where were they taking me? Like I said before, L.A. is a massive grid. When you drive through L.A. you drive in straight lines with an occasional right angle to your right or left. But the motion of the car, as we moved along, was more of a gentle weaving motion, like long curves from right to left and back again, and the angle of the car, with the front slightly raised, suggested we were climbing up a steep incline. There wasn’t much doubt, we were going to the vineyard in Topanga: Bodegas Fenninger.
I didn’t know how long I’d been out, but it was obviously long enough to get out of the city, say fifteen or twenty minutes. I set my mental clock to counting seconds and minutes and began to explore the darkness for some kind of tool or weapon with which to cut my bonds. I didn’t find anything, but about twenty minutes later the corners became more frequent and we began to slow.
Finally we stopped. I told myself they either wanted to execute me where they could hide my body, or they wanted to interrogate me. If they wanted to execute me, it was beginning to look like the end of the line. I was pretty much out of options.
The trunk opened and I found myself looking up at an awful lot of stars strewn across a dark turquoise sky. In the foreground there was an inky silhouette who was blocking about half of them out. It reached down with a massive hand, hauled me out and dumped me in the cool dust. Something told me this was the same guy who had put my lights out. I was expecting a kick, but it didn’t come. Instead the Mercenary squatted down next to me and grabbed my hair in his fist.
“You’re a piece of shit, SAS. Let me tell you something. Let me tell you what comes above loyalty. Nothing. They call me Mercenary, that suits my image down there, but I ain’t no fuckin’ mercenary, boy. There ain’t nothing for sale here. I made my pledge to the flag, and I am loyal to the stars and stripes. I don’t need to tell you what I think of an American who fights for another flag. Git up!”
The big guy who’d dragged me out of the trunk hauled me to my feet and his boss covered me with a revolver while the big guy cut the rope from my ankles. Then the Mercenary who wasn’t a mercenary came close and snarled in my face, “I am just praying you’re going to make a run for it. Just give me an excuse.”
I nodded. He’d answered one of my doubts. Somebody superior to him wanted me alive, for now at least. I said, “Maybe later.”
I had a quick look around. We were on what appeared to be some kind of ranch. A black stencil of trees formed the northern horizon. Before that there were fields that were cloaked in shadow, but I figured they were vineyards. Ahead of me, beyond the Mercenary, there was a sprawling, two story Spanish villa with sloping, red-tiled roofs.
He said, “Get going,” and shoved me toward the house.
I started to walk and asked over my shoulder, “What’s your rank? I don’t want to call you Mercenary if you’re not one.”
“Captain. What are we, old pals now?”
“No,” I shook my head. “And I will kill you, if not tonight, soon. But I respect your loyalty.”
He didn’t answer.
I added, “My mother is English.”
After a moment he said, “Don’t tell me your fucking life story, soldier. The only person who’s going to die here tonight is you.”
We had reached a low flight of four broad steps that led up through an arbor draped with Russian vine, to a veranda and a fake medieval oak door. As I climbed the steps a light came on and the Hulk went ahead of me to unlock the massive door with a small Yale key that looked ridiculous.
In the brighter light I got a better look at him. He was about six four, with a barrel chest and a bald head. He had fists like boulders and legs like tree trunks. I heard the captain’s voice behind me. “He’s fast and smart too. He has a third dan in shotokan, fifth dan in tae kwon do and a black belt in judo.”
“But what really drew you to him was his scintillating conversation, am I right?”
“Get inside.”
The Hulk stepped back and watched me go past. His eyes were almost black and devoid of any expression. I walked through the huge double oak doors and found myself in a large, internal patio with an elaborate fountain at the center, surrounded by orange trees and potted plants. The floor was tiled in terracotta and a wooden staircase rose on the right to a galleried landing on the second floor. I could see no lights in any of the windows, most of which were covered by green wooden blinds. Across from us, on the opposite side of the patio, two tall French doors stood open onto a darkened room. A hand shoved me from behind and the captain said, “Walk!”
&
nbsp; I crossed among the potted plants. Somewhere in the night I could hear frogs sawing incessantly. The Hulk moved ahead of me and went through the French doors, in among the shadows. Then a light snapped on and I saw that the room was a long dining room. The walls were tiled halfway up in blue and white. Above that they were whitewashed and sported the heads of dead animals, hunting trophies from Man’s favorite activity: killing. Heavy wooden rafters supported the roof and a massive, circular iron chandelier hung from a chain above a rough-hewn wooden table with twelve chairs.
I turned to look at the Captain. “Now what, we eat?”
He didn’t pause. He stepped up to me and smashed me in the mouth with his fist. He was strong and threw me reeling back into the table, sending two chairs flying. I couldn’t support myself with my hands tied behind my back, and I slipped and fell, sprawling on the tiled floor.
I lay a moment, waiting again for the kicking to start, but again it didn’t. I looked up at him, tasted blood and swallowed it. “You want to try that again without my hands tied, Captain?”
“All in good time, soldier.”
I sat up, then levered myself to my feet. “I’m not a soldier, Captain. I was honorably discharged after ten years, with the rank of captain. I fought alongside the Seals in Afghanistan. Why the brutality?”
“This is an interrogation.” He turned to the hulk. “Tie him to a chair.”
I shook my head. “Why don’t you just ask what you want to know? I have no quarrel with you. We work for the same people.”
He squinted at me. “What are you talking about?”
I heard the hulk drag up a chair behind me. His massive hands grabbed my shoulders and forced me down. Then he was tying my ankles to the legs of the chair. I was in trouble. I was in quicksand and sinking fast. I kept my cool and kept talking, making it up as I went along, building on the lies I’d been telling Ahmed and his partners.
“I’m happy to tell you whatever you need to know. You, me and Fenninger, we all work for the same organization. But your boss has upset some people in high places.”
He stared at me without speaking while the hulk tied my arms to the back of the chair. I went on. “I have no secrets from you. What do you want to know? As long as it’s not classified, I’ll tell you.”
Whatever he was expecting, this wasn’t it. Maybe I had bought myself some time, if nothing else. He pulled up a chair and sat facing me, frowning. “What do you mean, my employer, your employer and Fenninger’s employer? Fenninger is my employer!”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I assumed you knew. Whatever Fenninger has told you, you are employed by the same people who employ me and the same people who employ him: Omega.”
Ten
The name hung in the air. I wondered if he would recognize it. I glanced from him to the Hulk and back again. They just squinted at me, and the captain curled his lip.
“Who?”
“Omega. They operate out of the Pentagon. They used Fenninger to set up IIC—Intelligent Imaging Consultants…” I hesitated. “You do know about Intelligent Imaging Consultants…?”
He nodded a few times, slowly. “Ernst and Young Plaza.”
I nodded back, then shrugged. “He fucked up. They were supposed to be creating propaganda to sway public opinion in favor of our military operations abroad. Instead the media is full of bleeding hearts shit about how Islam is a religion of peace and we should be giving citizenship to Mexican illegals and taking in more Muslim immigrants.” I shrugged. “He fucked up, but his project was making a small fortune laundering drugs money from Mexico and investing embezzled funds on the strength of insider information. Did you happen to notice the senior partner at the Board?” He shook his head. “One Ahmed Musa. So Omega—the Pentagon—entrusts Aaron Fenninger with the task of creating propaganda to support our boys fighting radical Islam, and he entrusts the task to a guy called Ahmed Musa. Sweet. Did you notice his second in command?”
Again he shook his head. I smiled. “Elena Sanchez, a Mexican. She was the Financial Director. So it’s no great surprise the company winds up laundering money for the Sinaloa cartel, right? When I went to see you I had just got through talking to all four of them. The whole operation was a front for these guys to get rich quick, including him. I’m telling you, he fucked up, big time.” I paused, then added, “And that carries a price.”
“So you’re a hired assassin. A Spook.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m a cop. But I don’t work for any PD. I work for the flag you hold so dear. I work for the Omega Department, and when people step out of line, they dispatch me to put them straight. Sometimes that requires terminating somebody, but that only happens where there is treason involved.”
“You tell quite a story.”
I snorted. “If I could make this kind of stuff up I wouldn’t be putting my life on the line to bring a shit like Fenninger to justice. I’d be writing thrillers and making a fortune.” I stared at him. He wanted to believe me. He wanted to believe me for the same reason Ahmed and his partners had wanted to believe me, because it fit with his idea of how things ought to be. I said, “So he employed you how? Through a security firm?”
“I was assigned to him. Trojan Security. Pretty much everybody in Malibu uses them. He wanted something more… personal.”
I nodded. “A minder who could take care of business when necessary. We do the same job. You do it for Fenninger, I do it for Uncle Sam.” I sighed. “But, Captain, though I can’t fault your loyalty or your efficiency, you made a mistake. Your employer is not Fenninger, and it’s not Trojan Security. You are employed by the Pentagon, more specifically, the Omega Department, and they need Fenninger neutralized.”
He looked at the Hulk and they both stared into each other’s faces for a long moment, and they both looked troubled. Finally the captain looked back at me and said, “Can you prove any of this?”
I laughed. “Not tied to a dining chair, no. But is Fenninger on his way?”
He nodded.
“Then it’s easy. When he gets here, ask him point blank. Does he work for Omega? Ask him if Omega ordered Intelligent Imaging Consultants terminated. Hell!” I laughed again. “Find a TV and turn on the news channel. It’s probably being reported right now.”
He glanced at the Hulk and nodded once. The Hulk left the room. I narrowed my eyes at the captain. “What exactly did he tell you about me?”
He didn’t answer.
I went on. “He didn’t tell you anything. He just said that Ted Wallace and I were a threat to him and his family, am I right?”
He nodded.
I snorted a humorless laugh. “Ted Wallace was an ex-cop, a family man. I employed him to watch Fenninger. He was so straight he wouldn’t take the job until I had convinced him that what I was doing was not illegal. Ted Wallace was a good, decent American. And I am working for the American government. As are you, Captain. Fenninger ordered you to get rid of Ted Wallace and me, because he knew that the Omega Department was coming after him for treason, money laundering and giving succor to an enemy of the state.”
“Shut up!”
He stood and walked to the door and stood staring out. I could just make out the murmur of a TV. I knew I was pressing the right buttons. I knew I was getting to him, I just didn’t know if I was going to have time to finish the job. Fenninger could not be very far away.
After a couple of minutes the Hulk came back into the dining room and stood staring at the captain. After a moment he nodded once and the captain turned to stare at me. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he said.
I laughed again. “Oh, sure, it’s the most common crime in the world, second only to street muggings. You dress up in a thousand dollar suit, pick a multi-million dollar business in a major city and go and kill the board of directors, remove its funds and make the whole thing look like an inexplicable suicide. Every disturbed teenage kid in the country is doing it.”
He was in an agony of indecision. He turned to the Hulk. “Is that w
hat happened?”
The Hulk nodded and I added, “And those facts, Captain, were not known when I went to you in the Chupacabras. The only way I could have known that, is if I had done it.”
“Why? Why would you do that?”
“That is the right question, Captain. That is the point I am trying to make! Why would I do that? Now, do yourself a favor and answer that question in the only way it can be answered; the only way it makes any sense.”
He swallowed, hesitated.
I pressed on, “Do I look insane to you? No? That’s because I am not. The only reason I would do that to Intelligent Imaging Consultants is if I was employed to do it.” I sighed. I was running out of time. “Let me ask you a question, Captain. You were ordered to have me killed. Instead of killing me in the parking lot at the bar, you bundled me in the trunk, called Fenninger, and brought me here. Why did you do that instead of killing me?”
“Because I wanted to know what you were about, why you had such an elaborate story. I wanted Fenninger to see you and talk to you.”
“And you know exactly what Fenninger is going to do when he gets here. He is going to tell you to kill me. He’ll make up some crazy story and tell you to kill me.”
“Like the story you’re telling me isn’t crazy?”
“Come on, Captain! You’ve done black ops! You know how the top brass operate. You know how the Company operates. You know there are more departments in the Pentagon than the ones officially listed. How crazy is my story? Really?”
He advanced on me, getting angry. “Yeah? So what happened to all the bullshit about being a professional assassin who could make a packet if I stopped working on a retainer?”
I shouted at him like he was being deliberately stupid. “Omega is a secret department, Captain! Of course I lied to you! I needed your cooperation so I spun you a line!” I paused and we glared at each other, then I shouted at him again, not in despair, but like an officer shouting at a grunt. “But you are now in possession of the facts, Captain! And you had better think very carefully about what you do next! Because you are one step—one step, captain—from willfully committing treason!”
