Codename: Winterborn (The Last Survivors Book 1)

by Allan Yoskowitz

  Friedman smiled and shook his head. “Sorry, I guess you're right, officer. I'm being paranoid. I suppose it comes from all those reports I read on crime. Do you think we can do more for preventing crime in DC, officer?”

  The cop smiled. “Sure. Let the citizens have guns. That way we can clean up the bad guys for a change.”

  Friedman frowned. “We don't approve of such things, you know. We prefer that all criminals have their day in court, and a chance at rehab—”

  The officer held up a hand. “Sorry, Senator, I have to be somewhere...else.”

  Chapter 6: Killing Time

  Mandy stared at Major Antonio Rohaz in shock. The CEO of the Mercenary's guild lacked his normal suit and tie, and he was back in the outfit he felt the most comfortable in—Battle Dress Fatigues. The cigar had disappeared, replaced by a gun he was cleaning.

  “He did what?” she asked.

  Rohaz smiled. “He killed both Beedon and Reed in the Senate Club.”

  Mandy blinked. She couldn't believe it. “Two in one day?”

  “He's decompensating,” Rohaz said calmly. “He's spiraling out of control, and he still has eleven more people to go.”

  Mandy blinked at the number. “He’s killed four. They’re always referred to as the gang of fourteen. Where’d the fifteenth come from?”

  He sighed. “Simple rules of the Senate—the committees are always an odd number, but the media likes the phrase, so they keep ignoring the supposedly neutral ‘Intelligence Czar.’”

  “Isn’t that a Presidential post? The President was in on splashing Anderson’s team?”

  Major Rohaz shook his head. “The Czar is technically appointed by the President, but the Senate has turned the position into their own personal puppet for years. Since the April Fool's War.”

  Mandy nodded, then shook her head. “Problem—decompensation is for serial killers.”

  “You’re telling me he’s not?” Rohaz asked, curious. “He’s killing a list of people, in order of preference, with a specific signature—that they all look like death by other means, for example. He may be a serial killer with a small list, but it’s a list, nevertheless. And he’s gone from meticulous planning of individuals to two in one day. That’s enough for me.”

  Mandy took in his various tools of the trade. “Going into the field?”

  “Yes, actually,” Rohaz answered. “The senators are worried. They’re not sure of what just yet, but some reptilian part of their brain has informed them that something is very, very wrong. And, one of the reasons I suspect that your friend has started to spiral down the tubes, they are all going on vacation. The session is over, and they are adjourning for the next four months. This was his last chance to get at them within a small target area. From tomorrow on, they’ll be scattered. And I will personally oversee each and every one of their security arrangements, just in case your masked man starts calling. I even intend to put in a few shifts myself, and make certain everything is in top form from the inside.”

  Mandy blinked. “But da…darn it Major, you can’t! Anderson…he’s really good, and you could get hurt.”

  Major Rohaz looked at her with fatherly affection. “I am touched by your concern, Amanda, but there is nothing for it. I want to make sure this man is as good as you say he is.”

  “He is. Just don’t get killed. He’ll kill anyone in his way—that’s why I’m chasing after him, so I get him from behind. But I don’t think he’s going crazy, Major. I’m certain he is as calm and as rational now as the day I first met him.”

  *

  Kevin’s heart pounded. He was surprised that he had felt so...darned angry. He hadn't felt like this with Kennedy and Zalak. Then again, he hadn't killed them personally. He had some sense of professional detachment from all of it that way, he guessed.

  The personal approach was certainly more...involved.

  Kevin felt his heart against his chest, and he felt...energized. Powerful. Ready to kill all the others in his way. That couldn’t have been a good idea, could it? Being this…pissed?

  He strode down the boulevard in front of the White House, leading away from the grand building. He kept walking, and didn’t even pay attention to where he was. He had walked out of the club and didn’t stop for anyone. The waiter’s jacket had been exchanged for his leather one, and the security cameras didn’t even notice him—because if there was one thing senators didn’t want, it was security camera footage of what they did with their recreational time. Or, even worse, how much recreational time they had.

  Kevin marched down in a red haze, the kill fresh in his mind. It was unlike anything he had ever felt. Another, detached part of himself asked if this was his grief being sublimated into anger; maybe he was just making his grief useful …

  He crossed over from the upscale, government portion of the city into the residential neighborhood, patrolled by overworked, underpaid police officers instead of by the FBI, Secret Service, and God knew who else.

  Until Kevin ran into a brick wall. He stopped, blinked, and looked up. A large, mountain-like fellow stood in front of him, with several men flanking him. The mountain held a knife the size of Kevin’s forearm, and glared like he had offended his parentage.

  “Did you hear what I said, pal? Gimme your wallet.”

  Kevin smiled. Now this really was too good to be true. “Sure, you guys can have it.” Kevin pulled it out and tossed it to the leader, smiled, waved, and started to step around them.

  “Hey, there’s no cash here!”

  Kevin kept walking.

  “Hey, jerk, where’s the money?”

  He glanced over his shoulder. The temporary flash of amusement had already faded, leaving him once more with nothing but rage. “I don’t carry cash. You wanted my wallet, you have my wallet. Good day.”

  Kevin moved on, hoping that they’d take the wallet and leave him be. He didn’t want them. There was no need for them.

  A hand clamped down on his shoulder.

  The red haze was now everything.

  He grabbed the hand, sidestepped, and twisted around, facing the assailant, and twisted the arm with him. The arm twisted so hard that it broke in two places in a spiral fracture. The attacker doubled over, and Kevin grabbed the man’s head and held it down as he drove a knee straight up into the man’s nose, sending the cartilage directly into his brain. Before the mugger fell, Kevin reached into the man’s jacket and pulled out a knife. He let the body fall and tossed the blade, underhanded, into the throat of the first one to try drawing down on him.

  The second gunman had gotten his weapon out as Kevin leapt and rolled to one knee in front of the gunman. Kevin caught the weapon by the barrel, twisted it inward, towards the man’s own chest, and pulled it out of his grip. He shot the gunman in the chest, the next man under the chin and shot another in the ankle.

  Kevin came to his feet and looked at the last man alive. The gun felt good in his hand. And he was…upset. And here was a worthless, scumbag practice dummy to vent himself on.

  Kevin bent over, picked up his wallet, and stood over the wounded mugger. “Are you going to be a problem?”

  The mugger blinked. “No, sir.”

  “Don’t go to a hospital. They report gunshot wounds, and I don’t think you want that. You have a gun?” Kevin casually pointed the gun at the man’s head. “Just put it out on the street. Toss it a little. Move slowly.”

  The mugger complied…slowly. He pulled it out with two fingers, and tossed it with a flick of his wrist. Kevin nodded, pulled out a handkerchief, wiped his own gun clean, ejected the ammunition, cleared the chamber, and tossed the gun down the nearest sewer grate. He pulled out two leather gloves, put them on, and grabbed the other pistol.

  He raised the man’s own gun to point at him. “Have you ever used it before?”

  “Three or four times.”

  “Thank you. That will help.” He tossed the man his wallet. “You win the wallet by virtue of being alive. Wire yourself the money. That way yo
u can pay cash.”

  *

  Mandy heard the knock at her door, so her reflexes didn’t kick in. She let go of the gun and got out of bed. For some reason, her private room at the DC Merc’s HQ was more like a walk-in closet with a cot.

  The Mercenary’s Guild ran like an army, with everything that that implied. However, unlike most armies, the discipline wasn’t as rigorous. You got an order, you were mostly obliged to follow it. But most people only followed it if it were clearly a necessary order. Most of the orders, therefore, were almost always strictly necessary—move to that ridge, take that house, kill those bogies. More than half of the men and women within their ranks had been former military. They were trained killers, all of whom wanted a better price for their skills than their governments were willing to pay. They were the ones who could be counted on to follow almost every order, as long as it wasn’t clearly brain-dead stupid.

  Of the rest, maybe about a quarter of the thousands of people within the organization, were scary. They were troublemakers, criminals, and killers with less formal training. Some of them couldn’t get any other job, some of them needed a second chance, and some of them just liked killing. These were the ones that were quickly disposed of, and just as quickly replaced. The turnover rate in that percentile was high, but the numbers never actually diminished.

  “Come in,” Mandy said.

  The door cracked open. One of the clerks said, “We have a lead on your man Anderson. We’ve sent two guys to pick him up, stake him out for a bit until you get there.”

  Mandy blinked sleep clear from her eyes. “How?”

  A slip of paper was stuck in through the open door. “He used his credit card.”

  She blinked again. “No he didn’t.” Mandy took the report and looked at it. “Tell whatever Frick and Frack you sent out to engage the guy, but bring him in. Alive. Routine interrogation and then let him go. He’s not Anderson. He's probably some schlub who stole or found the wallet.”

  “How can you tell?” the clerk asked. “Wiring the money to himself would be a good step before shredding the cards.”

  Mandy shook her head. “He would have wired it to himself at least one place per card. He wouldn’t just send one giant lump sum to one place. If he didn’t send it to himself at different banks in DC, he would have sent it to places to the four corners of the lower twenty-four states. Maybe even to Alaska, if he could get there. But last time I checked, no one on the committee is from Alaska. He’d give us the run around. So, it's not Anderson. My only question becomes, where is Anderson, and what’s he really doing?”

  *

  Victor Schuman wasn't scared of a darn thing. After all, he had two of the biggest, ugliest, meanest Mercenaries he could afford, and he could afford the toughest of them all. This would probably also have to do with the fact that he was in Delaware, farthest from anything that could be remotely considered a rough neighborhood.

  So, as he jogged through the park at six in the morning, on his own private jogging path (one bought and paid for in exchange for numerous favors for the Mayor and the governor), he was feeling exceptionally joyous.

  He was jarred out of this reverie by an explosion. He dropped to the ground, and caused his bodyguards to literally trip over him. He looked up, between the two bodies on top of him, and saw a plain-looking man in a leather jacket, holding a gun in both hands, calm and level.

  “Give me your cash, your wallet, watches, and anything else that's of remote value.”

  The bodyguards rolled away from each other, and their client, making them a visible, moving target. There were five shots, deliberately scattered between the two Mercenaries, catching shoulders, hands, and both heads. Three more shots missed completely, striking the dirt and tossing up plumes of dust.

  Kevin narrowed his eyes. “Get up, Senator.”

  Schuman looked up, and Anderson could see him clearly. He was a handsome, six-foot blond male with an athletic build. The Senator looked through the dirt with eyes that had magnetized any voter who met them. Victor pushed off the ground to his feet, certain that his natural charisma could get him through this. “Not a problem, friend.”

  He spread his arms, his gray jogging suit only a little dirty. He brushed himself off, and smiled. “So, what can I do for you?”

  “I want you to kick me the guns from the Mercenaries, then give me all of your valuables. Just assume that I know about all of them, and don't make me do a cavity search on you. That will only make me cranky. And believe me when I tell you, Senator, you wouldn't like me when I'm cranky.”

  Schuman nodded, and grinned. He casually did everything Anderson told him to. It was easy, it was quiet, and he did it in a matter of minutes. He shrugged. “Will that be all?”

  “Almost.” Anderson adjusted his grip on the gun. “First of all, you're partially responsible for national security, and not only do you keep to an absurdly constant schedule, you know nothing about the basics. For example, you don't tell anyone where you're going to be in advance.” He jerked his head toward the sign on the fence along the jogging path. The sign was repeated every hundred feet—PRIVATE JOGGING PATH, SEN. VICTOR SCHUMAN. TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT.

  “And all you did was put in some cameras and electrified the fence. Once I got past the guards on the outer perimeter, there was nothing to stop me.”

  Schumann blinked, then looked at his mugger. He wore gloves and rubber-soled shoes. This man had been prepared to climb the electrical fence, and somehow got over the barbed wire. Had he disabled the cameras too?

  “Rich man like yourself should be more careful about where he advertises his presence.”

  Schuman shrugged. “I'm not in charge of such things in a hands-on fashion. Anyway, what’re you interested in?”

  Kevin smiled. “You don't know me, do you? None of you know a damn thing about the missions you handle?” He shook his head and sighed. “You people are incredible.”

  He took a step back. “What do you mean?”

  “First of all, step forward, jackass. If you run, you'll only die tired.”

  The Senator took a step forward. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

  “You killed my team in Paris, what do you think I— ”

  Schuman leapt at Kevin, and the spy was startled for less than half a second. He sidestepped the lunge and fired into Victor, a cluster of five shots.

  Kevin Anderson sighed, shook his head, and bent down to check the man's pulse. Nothing there. He gritted his teeth and kept from screaming. The man was supposed to stay alive a few moments, at least. He wanted to ask just one question. Only one: why! Why had they done all this? He wanted to know for himself, directly from one of them.

  Anderson dropped the gun, fresh with someone else's fingerprints, and collected all the valuables on both men.

  *

  “Argh!” Mandy screamed. “He got another one!” She hurled the newspaper across the bullpen “Damnit!” The other Mercenaries in the office ducked, not knowing what Mandy had thrown, but one generally didn't wait to find out what a Merc threw before hitting the deck.

  Mandy generally looked good when she was angry, or wearing her black stealth outfit, or moving like a panther stalking a kill. Right now, she was all three, and no one even dared to look. The last one who did—either he transferred into a Trappist monastery, or she didn't leave the body in pieces large enough to identify without DNA.

  She moved across the bullpen, the secretaries and harmless office employees staying securely under their fortified desks until she passed. The only sound in the office was a phone ringing, and that lasted only a ring—a secretary had picked it up, said, “Mercenaries Guild, please hold, ” and brought the entire phone down to the floor with him.

  Mandy got to the next door and kicked it open before moving down the stairs.

  Within two minutes, she was in the basement file room. Mercenaries made it a point to keep paper records. Everything filed was listed on computer, but that only referenced the location of
the file.

  The person who ran this den of information was a tough, gray-haired old bird named Mary Patrick. “Mary-Pat” had seen more action on more continents than were currently habitable; she had operated in places in Asia that had been nuked out of existence during the April Fool's Day War of 2090. She had been in Africa and the Middle East before the Israelis had taken over both areas in 2067. In short, Mary-Pat had been everywhere, killed every type of thing, and had lived to a nice old age, into which she was growing rather gracefully.

  Mary-Pat saw the irate Merc coming and smiled sweetly. “What can I do for you, Mandy dear?” Mandy's eyes narrowed and Mary-Pat shook her head. “It'll be one of those days, will it?”

  “I need information on where my clients are.” Mandy growled. “My target is moving faster than I can catch him.” Despite appreciating Anderson's ability, skill, style, and even his looks, she was getting frustrated by his ability to slip away. “I need their itineraries for the next month; where they are at every moment of every day from now until I catch this little—!”

  Mary-Pat shook her head. “Language, dear. Now, what exactly are you looking for?”

  “Shouldn't be too hard to find. They're all being guarded by the Guild.” Mandy paused and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “The entire Senate Intelligence Committee.”

  Mary-Pat turned to the computer, paused, and then looked back to Mandy. “Really, dear?”

  Mandy nodded. She cocked her head to one side, the hair falling gracefully over one shoulder. Mary-Pat actually felt a pang of envy. This young girl was a wonderful killer, a loyal friend, who could kill a small army to get to her target, and would still have lovely hair. Ah, for the days when I could do that.

  “Okay, MP, what's the matter?” she asked.