Made in the U.S.A.: The 10th Anniversary Edition

by Jack X. McCallum

  “Go pull on your dick,” Betty said.

  Bonnie smiled.

  “Look,” Will said in a hollow voice, approaching Bonnie and Betty, “I know why they send women out on these operations. There’s always a time when a little femininity comes in handy. Most people will think twice before hurting a woman. It’s instinct and societal conditioning.” He slipped his automatic into the holster and leaned close. “I’m not like that, and my way of doing things can get ugly.” He grabbed Betty’s wrist, raising her right hand, and gripped her ring and pinky fingers. With a savage twist he bent the fingers backward until the clear lacquered nails touched the back of her hand.

  Betty cried out. Jeannie turned away.

  “If you have anything to say,” Will said, “Say it now, because I’ve got plenty of time and you ladies only have so many fingers.”

  Betty shrieked, “Fuck you!” With her left hand she made a clumsy grab for a butter knife from the place setting on the table and raised the knife to strike.

  Carlos watched Will defend himself. It made his nuts creep when he saw the guy draw the gun from the holster.

  Will’s hand moved so fast it was scary. He didn’t take a deep breath, exhale, pause, or say anything. He didn’t even blink as he fired the gun two feet from Betty’s head. The bullet caved in her right eye and opened the back of her head like a door. Her brains slapped the vinyl seat behind her like cottage cheese.

  Now it was Carlos’ turn to look away.

  Jeannie was staring at Will in horror. She expected him to turn and point the gun at her and say You’re the one I’m really after. You’re the one I want. I’m taking you back. Back to Eicher’s people.

  Will did nothing like that. He elbowed Betty’s body out of the way and grabbed Bonnie’s hair. He drew her close, pressing the barrel of the gun against her head, at the edge of her left eye. Then he whispered in her ear. Letting his ghosts speak through him and venting a little of their madness.

  “I’m going to ask you some questions. Short questions that only need short answers.”

  Bonnie tried to shake her head. Will wrapped his fingers deeper in her hair and twisted, making her eyes water. He drew her head back so she could look into his eyes. His voice was gentle, but his eyes were dead.

  “If you don’t answer my questions I’m going to put a bullet through the front of your skull. The shot will make your eyes explode. Aside from some structural damage to your eye sockets, you’ll live if you don’t bleed out. And then we can play some more. Do you want me to do that?”

  Bonnie shook her head even though it caused her pain.

  “Good.” Will whispered, his mouth still inches from her ear.

  Carlos went behind the counter and got a glass of water to settle his stomach. He looked at Jeannie huddled on the stool and asked, “What’s going on here?” She didn’t answer. But she looked guilty ... of something. This made him feel angry and confused.

  “Why are you here?” Will breathed into Bonnie’s ear, holding the barrel of the pistol rock-steady against her eye. “Are you here for me?”

  “No,” Bonnie said.

  “Who, then?”

  “The waitress.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Peter ... the dead one on the floor over there, said, ‘the doctor is interested in her.’ I don’t know what doctor and I don’t know why he wants her. We’re just trackers. We had pictures of her and physical stats but that’s it. We only need to know—”

  “What you need to know,” Will said. “Yeah. I’ve heard it before.”

  He was about to ask Bonnie another question when an electronic bleating came from within Peter Paul’s blood-soaked jacket. Another cell phone. Christ, he hated those things, never a moment’s peace. He looked Bonnie in the eye. “I take it the chances are slim that the caller is going to try to sell us a subscription to Time Magazine?” She blinked rapidly. “Just somebody checking in?” She nodded. “Any code words or passwords they want to hear?”

  “I don’t know,” Bonnie said.

  “My face could be the last thing you ever see,” Will said.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Bonnie whispered urgently. “Only Peter knew. You’re the guys who fucked things up by killing him.”

  Will nodded to Carlos. “Answer it. Just say ‘yeah.’ See what happens.”

  Carlos grimaced. Using only the tips of his fingers in an unintentionally prissy way Carlos opened the man’s jacket. It was wet and heavy with absorbed blood. He retrieved the phone. It was slick and warm. It rang again and Carlos nearly dropped it. He flipped it open, getting blood on his hands, and said, “Yeah?”

  “What is your status?” a woman’s voice asked.

  Carlos hit the mute button. “Some woman just asked what’s going on. What do I say?”

  Will shrugged.

  The connection was broken.

  “Hang on to that,” Will said.

  Carlos stood up and wiped the blood off the phone and his hands with a rag from behind the counter.

  Will let Bonnie fall back against the seat.

  “Either of you own that pickup out front?” he asked the waitress and the cook. Carlos nodded. “Let’s go,” Will said. “Now. Move. We’re already too late.”

  Even though he was now completely unnerved, Carlos didn’t want to fuck around if there were more people with guns on the way. He grabbed Jeannie by the arm and led her to the door. Then he paused. “Hey man,” he said, gesturing to Bonnie and Duncan. “What about them?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Will said. He turned and fired one bullet between Bonnie’s perfect breasts, the bullet entering an inch to the left of her breastbone. He squatted and fired another shot into the unconscious Duncan’s head. “Let’s go.”

  Will stepped outside. Carlos had to lead Jeannie by the hand. She was staring at the people Will had killed, her eyes wide and frightened.

  “Don’t think about it,” Carlos said. “We could be dead now.”

  Outside, they looked down the road. There was nothing coming from the east. To the west, sunlight glinted off of a windshield. “Could be tourists,” Carlos offered.

  Will shrugged. “You want to risk it?”

  Carlos opened his door, got behind the wheel of the pickup and started the engine.

  Will opened the passenger door, stripping off his shirt. He sniffed it and threw it away. “You first, nice and snug in the middle,” he said to Jeannie, climbing in after her.

  “I forgot my purse,” Jeannie said. She had stuffed the pistol into one pocket of her uniform, and Will felt it pressing against his leg.

  “Anything in it you really need?”

  She thought of the fake ID, nineteen dollars in cash and change, and the key to a nearly empty apartment. “No, not really.”

  Carlos sat behind the wheel, staring at the diner. “Shit man. I killed a guy. With a cleaver. I guess I’m out of a job.”

  “Could have been worse,” Will said. “You could have been out of a life.”

  “True that,” Carlos said. He put the truck in gear and pulled out onto the road.

  A Page from the Past

  The Compound (outside Vienna, Virginia), October 27, 1961

  Lionel Eicher was ecstatic.

  The two most joyous events of his life had just occurred within hours of each other.

  First, at eight o’clock this morning, Herr Doctor Edmund Stern had suffered a crippling stroke. The old man might eventually be able to walk again, but his face was frozen in a horrible rictus which made his speech almost unintelligible and his hands were twisted into nearly useless claws. He was now as helpless as the little brat he had let live after its resurrection a year ago. Nurse Garvin would have her hands full, with two sets of diapers to change. All the wonder and terror which could have sprung from Stern’s brain was likely trapped there forever. Now Eicher was in charge of their research and Stern would be retired, still living in the Compound in case his advice was needed.

  Second,
at noon Eicher had been invited to the White House for a brief but inspiring meeting with the President. Eicher had been awestruck. Here was a man he could understand! The charisma and power of the man Kennedy had been impressive indeed, and Lionel had been thrilled when the President informed him that from now on he would be in charge of genetic research at the Compound.

  Eicher had also met the student who would become his new assistant. James Madison Zane was an American biochemist not yet thirty years old. Eicher recognized much of himself in the intense young man.

  Lionel would have been crushed if he had known Kennedy had deliberately allotted only a half-hour for the meeting because the President found Eicher to be an irritating toad with a distracting comb-over. Eicher may have been a brilliant scientist whose pioneering work on the human genome was like something out of an issue of Amazing Stories but Jack Kennedy knew a megalomaniac when he saw one and Lionel Eicher was one of the worst. After the meeting Kennedy made sure any future information coming from the Compound should come from Zane instead. He had enough to worry about without hearing how the Eicher planned to piss away hundreds of thousands in federal funding.

  Lionel’s only disappointment came when Kennedy had suggested their experiments might be ethically controversial. The use of information obtained from the Nazis was questionable and if the public ever found out it could hurt the administration. When Eicher pointed out that Stern had been pursuing his work before Hitler came to power and neither of them had any direct connection to the National Socialists, Kennedy simply shrugged.

  This was not a good sign, Eicher had thought. The vote of the Jew and the Negro was of greater importance than the advancement of science?

  Eicher vowed to start work on a clone a good Catholic like Kennedy could not possibly ignore, one that would help the President appreciate the value and potential power of the project. He would use Stern’s cut and paste DNA manipulation techniques, starting with three strands of human hair caught within a shard of splintered, age-blackened wood that had belonged to Stern and was supposedly part of the cross brace of a crux immissa.

  3

  Some Like It Hot

  “Where to?” Carlos asked. He could see a car behind them now, a dark speck on the road.

  “East,” Will said. “Fast.” He adjusted the mirror on the doorframe so he had a clear view of the road behind them. “I know things got a little wild back there, but trust me on this, they are the bad guys. Don’t try pulling your guns on me.” He looked at Jeannie. “I’m on your side.”

  “I know,” she said. She was still afraid of Will and this whole situation was tying her nerves in knots, but at the same time she was aware of Will’s naked torso, tanned and gleaming with sweat. She pulled the gun out of her uniform pocket and set it on the dashboard.

  Will could feel her hip and thigh press against his. “They were carrying Glock twenty-sixes, ten-shot mags,” he said, trying to sound cool. An electric tingle raced across his skin, terminating in his fingers, toes, and testicles.

  While Jeannie watched the road ahead Will studied her. She appeared to be wearing contacts. Almost hidden from sight near her right ear, the roots of her jet-black hair showed a bit of blonde so pale it was almost white. He shook his head.

  He leaned out the window and took a breath of fresh air, reaching back and pulling a ball of crushed cotton out of a rear pants pocket. He took off his holster, shook out his T-shirt and was about to slip it on when Carlos spoke up.

  “I don’t want to be rude, man, but you smell, you know? I got some Handy Wipes. You can wipe some of that crud off.” He fumbled in a door pocket and came up with a plastic container. He handed it to Jeannie, who passed it to Will.

  Their fingers touched. The tingle jolted both of them, and they dropped the Handy Wipes.

  Jesus! What is it about her that’s tripping my alarms? Will bent over and grabbed the plastic container. He started wiping down his chest and arms, pausing to slip one hand into his pocket and touch a frayed length of ribbon hidden there. In his mind he saw a little girl. Her pale blonde hair was shining in the sun, and he heard himself as a boy saying the world might as well end now ... There was something else, but it was lost to him. Man, he thought, that’s a ride in the wayback machine.

  Will cleaned up the best he could, using the entire container of wipes.

  Jeannie sat beside him, hoping he wouldn’t touch her again. For the longest time, forever, actually, she had felt as if her insides were filled with ice. When their fingers had touched it was as if someone had applied a blowtorch to that ice, heating and liquefying at the same time. I should be scared, she thought. I am scared. But that’s not all I am. As she looked at the open spaces of the Mojave, butterflies fluttered in her stomach and then swarmed lower. She bit her bottom lip, pressed her thighs together, and tried to think of anything but the man sitting beside her.

  Carlos was pushing the pickup over seventy mph and hoping they didn’t get pulled over by some irate CHP officer who had the misfortune to be cruising the highway in the heat of mid-day when he saw a black Pontiac coming up behind them. “Holy god,” he whispered. He looked at the speedometer. Seventy-three. He looked in the rearview mirror. The Pontiac was coming up fast. Fast.

  “Who the hell’s driving that thing?” he asked, “John Glenn? It’s a fuckin rocket!”

  Will pulled on the holster and his T-shirt and checked the mirror. Carlos was right. The Pontiac, with a whole goddamn rodeo worth of horsepower under the hood, had to be doing at least a hundred and twenty, straight as an arrow.

  “Think that’s who called cleaverman?” Carlos asked.

  Will gave him a quick nod, drawing his gun.

  “Carlos, you still got that phone?”

  Carlos pulled the phone from the pocket of his white cook’s pants and handed it to Will. He pressed down on the gas pedal, watching the speedometer needle crawl past eighty. An intermittent knocking sounded deep in the engine every few seconds. He cursed and said, “That’s as much as I can push it.”

  Will flipped open the phone and hit callback on the most recent received call.

  A female voice said, “Speak.”

  “Hey,” Will said, “What can I do for you?”

  “Pull over. You are evading federal authorities. You’ve left the scene of a crime, you’re breaking the posted speed limit on this Interstate highway and you are in possession of a stolen phone. Pull over.”

  “Federal authorities?” Will asked. “Like who? FBI? CIA?”

  “You wouldn’t recognize the name of our agency. Our authority comes from the government of the United States.”

  “With or without the President’s knowledge?”

  “Pull over now.” Whoever this woman was, she sounded as hard as nails.

  Will looked over his shoulder. The Pontiac was a hundred feet behind them. “You’re from the Compound, aren’t you?”

  Carlos was either going to ask Will what the Compound was or ask Jeannie why she looked like she had just received some really bad news when a bullet punched a starry hole in the rear window and ricocheted off the roof support to his left in a spray of hot lead fragments. He cried out, feeling as if a dozen hot pins had been poked into his face. Will automatically reached by Jeannie and placed a steadying hand on the steering wheel as Carlos frantically wiped at his face and neck. Black specks that looked like pepper marked one shoulder of his shirt.

  “Thanks man,” he said, regaining control of the pickup. “That fucking hurt.”

  “Tit for tat time,” Will said. He put the Dodgers cap on, pulling the brim low. There was nothing worse than the sun in your eyes when you were trying to blow somebody’s head off. He climbed halfway out the passenger window, aimed over the roof of the cab and fired a single shot at the Pontiac. He figured any car with that much juice also had bulletproofing. He was right. A tiny white star appeared on the windshield of the pursuing car, but the Pontiac didn’t slow or swerve. Will dropped down inside the truck. Two more shots were fi
red at the pickup, both of which struck the frame of the cab.

  A gaily-painted Winnebago rattled by in the opposite lane. An old couple behind the big windshield watched the exchange of gunplay in wide-eyed fascination.

  “There’s two in front and two in back,” Will said. “It looks like they’re all white, so I doubt we’re being followed by Aunt Jemima or Uncle Ben.”

  There was the boom of a shotgun and buckshot rattled off the truck’s body and inside the cab. Carlos looked at his left-hand mirror. “Fuck,” he said, “That shot poked holes in the gas tank.”

  Will let out a bitter laugh. “How bad?”

  “Well, we didn’t blow up,” Carlos said with a shrug. “But we aren’t gonna get much farther down the road.” His grip on the wheel tightened as he watched the needle on the gas gauge drop toward E.

  Will popped out the window again, braced himself and emptied his clip into the front grill of the pursuing car. Windows and tires could be bulletproofed, but because armor plating acted like insulation the radiator was often left relatively exposed. All it would take was one lucky shot.

  The pickup was slowing. They all noticed it. Will slipped back into his seat, pulled the extra clip from his ankle pouch and slapped it into the automatic.

  Carlos laughed, “Holy shit. Look!”

  Threads of smoke were coming from under the Pontiac’s hood. The smoke thickened and turned black and the car dropped into the distance behind them.

  Carlos cheered. He saw a shiny new Ford Taurus approaching from the east and wondered what they would make of the Pontiac.

  Will watched the Ford draw closer. Carlos clapped him on the shoulder. Will grinned and said, “It was a piece of ...” He saw the faces of the two men in the Taurus. They were peering back intently, their eyes widening when they saw him. The car passed by, and then fell into a screeching bootleg turn. “Shit! The goddamned Kens!”

  Will and the Kens had recognized each other at the same time.