Codename: Winterborn (The Last Survivors Book 1)

by Allan Yoskowitz

  Mandy casually swatted the man in the back of the head with a closed fist as she passed by. “Prick,” she muttered. She didn't stop until she had gotten into the security booth.

  “Play back that last scene,” she demanded. One of the guards was going to argue the matter when he looked down the barrel of her gun. She used the other hand to open her jacket, revealing her black Mercenary Guild uniform. “Play back the jumper, slow motion, now! Before you’re transferred to the deepest, darkest corner of the District.”

  The guard snapped to it. Mandy took a deep breath, and realized she had been breathing hard. What was the problem? She had killed people before, dozens of them, and had seen her fair share of suicides. They had never fazed her. Why should this be any different?

  Then again, I never liked any of those buggers before, she thought suddenly. Lord only knows where that came from... After a moment, she did know. She did like Anderson; he was interesting. Damnit, that wasn't supposed to happen. I just hope that the major didn't see it.

  The security guard stopped the video, and then hit the playback. There was Anderson's third-rail act. And then—“Replay that last clip, and slow it down further.”

  The guard did. Anderson had not been hit by the train. Of course not, that would have been too easy. He had leapt out of the way of the train at the last possible moment. He had pushed off, making certain that both feet left the rail at the same time, and landed in the space between the wall and the train.

  It's a good thing that I didn't try hunting for him on the track. Otherwise, he would have gotten me.

  *

  Kevin Anderson stalked back and forth along the hotel room he had bought with his wife's credit card. Understatement would be the only way to categorize someone saying that Moira's death hurt him. But, he was still a spy, and a survivor—while he really did want the mercenary named Mandy to make certain Moira was buried, he also wanted the other side to have proof that Moira was dead, so that they wouldn't look for any of her active information.

  Most people would have wondered why he was in the luxury suite of the hotel. It was only one step down from a Presidential, and maybe half a step down from a honeymoon suite, and filled with such lush accommodations that it was practically sinful to even look at them. But even that was for a purpose—no one would look for a spy, or a lone male, in that type of room.

  He still wore his leather jacket and his clothes from outside. He knew that he should clean them. The bloodstains had dried long ago, and they had settled in, and getting blood out of leather wasn't a prospect he was familiar with.

  Nah… That could happen later. He needed to work on a few things. Like how to kill fourteen of some of the best-protected government officials on the planet. They were in charge of all the secrets of the intelligence world. And now he had fourteen of them to kill.

  This would be...challenging.

  Normally, the hard part would be getting the job done. Normally, he didn't care much if he lived or died, but he did now—because he had to get them all. Well, not true—he had to survive killing thirteen of them. He didn't need to live past number fourteen. He wasn't suicidal. But apathetic as all hell? Damn straight. But how to do it… That was the trick.

  A direct assault wasn't only insane, it was also stupid—he’d stipulate to being the former, but the latter would have to wait. Washington DC, of course, would be the battleground, for the most part. Congress was in season—shhh, be vewy, vewy quiet, I'm hunting senatahs, came unbidden to his mind—and most of them would be staying close by.

  Who would be first? Kennedy? Friedman? Bauer? Carter? Reed? So many to choose from, with so many dirty little secrets among them.

  He stopped at one of them, and blinked.

  That would be too easy. And the best part was Kevin would have nothing to do with it.

  *

  Dennis Kennedy, Senator from Massachusetts, was a rapist and a murderer. In his family, that was a two-for-one in a dynasty that usually allowed one vice per family member: bootleggers, pirates, murderers, rapists, simple womanizers, drunks… the list went on.

  Of course, he didn't look the villain. He was handsome and dashing, and all of the things one would expect out of a good resculpt artist: Curly black hair, cornflower-blue eyes, good skin and a long, elegant stride. The stride had been helpful in outrunning his sister all those years ago—he never needed to be faster than those dogs he'd starved, just her. Then again, if she'd only kept her mouth shut about their "private time," well, it wouldn't have been so bad. For her, anyway.

  He looked at his watch, and compared it to his appointment book—both were in the same device. He had another five minutes to get to his wench's home. She had aborted child number three last week; it was time for him to start on number four. A tingle went down his spine. The frisson of pleasure had not abated since the first time. In fact, with each successive act, it only grew better. Maybe it was the time and deliberation he had put into manipulating her into the pregnancy and the final solution. The more difficult the task, the better the thrill became. And unlike the last woman, this one was mostly likely not going to break down and threaten him with exposure. That one had become part of the Washington Monument restoration project.

  Kennedy turned a corner around a brownstone. Most of the time, after a while, they all looked alike, but he had learned his way around by now. This part of town had been kept in its place, at least. Everyone knew where they belonged, and they all knew that he was not to be crossed. He had several of his men come in just last week to prove that point to them, again. He wouldn't even need bodyguards for several more months, and then—

  Dennis's knee broke with a resounding CRACK, and he went down like a wounded deer. As he looked up to discover what was wrong, he had only a moment to see the aluminum bat heading toward his face. He feebly raised an arm to ward off the blow, but it did no more good for his face than it did his arm. His kidneys screamed as a spiked boot stomped into his lower back. He arched, screaming, mouth open far enough to allow another boot to fill it full of shoe leather. He fell to the ground, dazed and confused, his vision blurring from the pain. Was someone mugging him? If so, why weren't they asking for money, or taking it?

  “Wait,” he choked out, spitting blood, “I can pay you...” He coughed, more blood coming out of his mouth. “A lot.”

  One of the men bent down. A white man! He shouldn't be in this neighborhood. Really he shouldn't. What was he doing here? The other two were... black? And there were two Asians. Gangs weren't multicultural… a report brief he had read some time back had said that…well, his aide had read it to him, but that counted.

  “We don't want your money, Dennis,” said the strangely familiar voice. “We want you dead, you little punk.”

  “You don't recognize us?” one of the others asked.

  “We're the brothers, the fathers, the sons, of your victims,” said a third.

  Dennis gave a bloody smirk. “There shouldn't be this many.”

  “You're right... there are others. They're prepping the power tools.”

  Dennis tried to scream. No one heard him. No one wanted to.

  A week later, what was left of Dennis surfaced in the Potomac. Nothing was certain about his death, except that multiple assailants had brutalized him.

  *

  Maj. Antonio Rohaz sat back in his office chair and gave a hard look over the edge of his newspaper at Mandy. “Amanda, if you are going to let this man go about killing people, then tell the damned committee members and be done with it. But if you're going to kill him, kill him!”

  Mandy frowned at him, and then straightened her battle-dress fatigues … she had figured that it would make a good impression if she didn't look like she came off of a battlefield. “But … Major, damnit, he isn't just some mark! He's really good at what he does, which happens to be staying alive. If the French didn't use a missile strike, they wouldn't have gotten his team in the first place—and you wouldn't be yelling at me right now because I'd b
e dead, as would the next three sorry sods we sent out after him!”

  Rohaz flinched, almost stricken at the prospect. Whether it was that Anderson's training, and his team, had been that good, or at the idea of the spy being able to beat her, or even at her own admission to his skill, she couldn't tell. “I somehow doubt it, Amanda.”

  “Don't second-guess me, Major. I don't have your rank, age, or experience, but we both know I'm the highest-paid solo operator for a reason. It's not because of who my father is. You made certain it wasn't. Hell, I think there are days you took it harder on me because of it.”

  The Major slowly lowered the paper, picked up a cigar and calmly lit it. He took several puffs before saying, “Maybe. But that's probably helped you become a better merc.” He sighed, looked at the mess again, and added, “Do they know it’s Anderson yet?”

  She shook her head. “They shouldn't. There's no reason to suspect Anderson's involvement. The prick had it coming; we know it.”

  Rohaz let his look linger on her a moment longer, gazing at her through his cigar smoke. “You're not going to let him go on killing them until he comes upon someone who you don't find distasteful, are you?”

  Mandy laughed. “'Course not, Major. If I did, there'd be no one to authorize my fee.”

  He frowned in distaste. “True. They are not exactly a shining example of how good politicians should be. In fact, I'm certain that the cemetery vote has kept at least three of them in office … one of them is from Chicago, after all.”

  “Exactly,” she agreed. “Besides, if I gave up every distasteful client, I'd never work.”

  “Will you, by any chance, inform your clients that Anderson is behind this?”

  “No. Think about it. There's no evidence. Nothing that says 'the guy you screwed did this.' Nothing that we can prove, either... No. Let them reach their own conclusions.”

  *

  Harold Reed looked at James Friedman and chuckled. The obese, blob-like Senator from Chicago had a laugh like a gurgling sewer pipe, but James Friedman’s tolerance for annoyances was legendary. He leaned back in his lounge chair and looked around the grand smoking room. The club had been catering to senators for years—it was nice to belong to a club with only a hundred members, and you know each and every one of them...things were more intimate now that there were only over a dozen fewer senators.

  Friedman ran a hand through his hair—what was left of it. His hairline had been fighting a war with his hair since he was twenty-eight, and by now, it was starting to win. He had known it was coming, which was why he had a short-cropped beard on his sharp chin, in order to compensate. With his nebbishy appearance and wire-framed glasses, he looked virtually harmless, which was why he kept getting reelected from West Virginia with a name like Friedman.

  James Friedman leaned forward, smoking cigar in one hand, scotch in the other, “Harold, it's not nice to laugh at someone else's misfortune.”

  Reed gurgled again. “Oh, come off it, Jimmy. Denny got exactly what he asked for his entire life. He got noticed. He got everything that was coming to him.”

  Friedman smiled. “True, but I suppose that this was not what Dennis had in mind.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Ah well, 'tis a pity, and after we had made so much money off of the Paris investment.”

  Harold harrumphed good-naturedly before swigging down three of his five fingers of bourbon. “Had to happen sooner or later. Had to happen. Couldn't be avoided. Besides, with the number of our 'investments,' he was bound to get it before, during or after one of them. If it were blowback from our investment, then we'd have something to worry about.”

  Friedman nodded. “Perfectly correct, Harold. Ah well, I suppose it's time to get back to work. So many investments, so little time.”

  Chapter 5: Applications of Terror

  February 14th, 2093

  Senator Zalak Patel of Michigan loved his girlfriend, and his wife, in his fashion. He loved each of them, as long as he needed them. He needed his wife for the dance every other politician had to go through during his career—the social functions, the parties, and the press conferences. His wife needed him for the political power games she enjoyed so much. They had met at Yale Law, and they had been inseparable in their symbiotic relationship ever since…though some had said it was more parasitic. And his girlfriend was sweet and lovely and addicted to the drugs he supplied her. WKD-60 had some unappealing cosmetic side effects, but that was easily cleared up—with the other drugs he supplied her.

  Zalak grinned as he climbed up the stairs of the Baltimore apartment building. It didn't look good, but it would do. He opened the front door, and was slapped, twice. He stepped back into the hallway, blinking. Somehow, his wife was in the room. What was she doing there?

  Michelle Patel threw a set of photos on the floor. Photos of him with Helen. How had Michelle gotten them? And why wasn't he feeling that good?

  “We could have had everything,” she screamed at him. “And you threw it away for a whore like this? Some dirty 'Sixty tramp!”

  Patel felt something on his face. He reached up and touched his cheek where she slapped him. A patch? He peeled it away and blinked. It was a transdermal patch for WKD-60. She had just drugged him. Zalak felt his face—she had slapped two patches on each cheek, two per slap. Oh, this was bad … this was very... Oh dear.

  Zalak fell over, dying from the overdose of WKD-60. He could barely hear the sound of sirens in the background.

  *

  Kevin chuckled and shook his head, lowering his binoculars. Most people would have problems wondering what a man, dressed in black atop of a roof, would find funny.

  Not in a dozen years could he have predicted this. When he had sent photos to the man's wife, he figured that she would be a good potential suspect while he killed Zalak Patel. That she would go postal and kill both him and his mistress was something Kevin couldn't have imagined.

  He guessed it was a good thing that he phoned in the double homicide after Zalak arrived. His wife would literally be caught red-handed, with the bodies still warm. It wasn't the plan, but Kevin would take it.

  Kevin frowned. But, still, the mistress wasn't part of the plan. He didn't like collateral damage on his missions. He figured that this was going to hurt. After his pain and anger had left him, he would feel the death of the poor, drug-addled girl in the apartment as keenly as he knew he should have. Surely, those things happened in war, but not in the course for justice. Bombing a target to clear out a bunch of terrorists might kill a few civilians, but that was a matter of what ethics professors call double effect – killing the enemy resulted in the death of others.

  Kevin knew he could come up with endless justifications and excuses. True, she was an addict, and she knew what sort of person she was involved with. And Kevin didn't intend for her to get in the crossfire, so double-effect applied. But he wouldn't have accepted these excuses from someone under his command, and he wouldn't accept them from himself, either. All of those were good, solid reasons for exempting himself, morally, from the girl's death. But that wouldn't make her death any easier on him in the long run.

  I'm going to have to be more careful.

  Kevin bent down to put the binoculars away, and heard the whiz of a bullet snapping by his head. He dove and rolled across the roof, landing behind a ventilation system as bullet strikes dotted the ground around him, and bounced off of his armored black combat jacket.

  He blinked. If I hadn't dropped when I did, I'd be dead. He cleared his throat. “Mandy, can I help you with something?”

  Kevin heard a light, musical bit of laughter. It was light and bubbly, like Mozart's music...though in this case, Kevin would have sworn the piece was from the Requiem. “You can stand still a moment and let me play a little William Tell.”

  “Sorry, fresh out of apples.”

  “I'm sure we can figure something out,” she called back.

  Kevin frowned with thought. “This is all for your bottom line?”

  “
And when they figure out that you're after them, my price will skyrocket.”

  He blinked. “You mean they don't know already? And you didn't tell them? Mandy, no offense, but what the hell do you think you're doing?”

  There was a pause. He didn't waste too much time trying to figure out why she hesitated, but God, was he curious. If she told the senators, she could become rich. The down payment on the contract would double. Triple, eventually—by the time he whittled away enough of the senators, the cheapskates might even begin calculating geometrically.

  The rest of his mental faculties were focused on the HVAC unit in front of him, pushing off pulses of heat at his face. He cocked his head at it, staring for a moment, then smiled, pulled out his combat knife, and then slowly pushed it into the head of the screw. He twisted it slowly at first, and once he realized it wasn't making noise, he went faster.

  “As long as you keep killing off the ones that deserve it, I'm not in any hurry to warn them,” she answered. “But I'm quite happy to take you out when the opportunity presents itself.”

  Kevin had one screw out, time for the next one. He was certain that she was using the time to circle around him, and he didn't bring a gun with him. “I didn't know you were into public service homicides, Mandy.”

  “Who do you think most of my targets are? Choir boys?”

  Another screw hit the roof. “And me? My team?”

  “I thought the damn French would get the job done and I wouldn't need to get my hands dirty,” she told him. “Besides, there are some of the guys in your line of work who make serial killers look good. How was I supposed to know you weren't one of them? From a file that says you like killing everyone yourself?”

  Henry always thought I enjoyed my job too much. Why am I surprised she saw the same thing? The third screw hit the ground, and the panel swung down, the corner hitting the roof. Kevin thought a curse as he heard Mandy step closer. He grabbed the panel with both hands and tore at it, ripping it free from the last screw. He jumped to one side and hurled the metal panel at Mandy like a giant shuriken. The Merc ducked and fired, narrowly missing his skull.