I, Weapon

by Vaughn Heppner

Bannon stepped over her to the front of the van. The key was in the ignition. He sat in the driver’s seat and twisted the key, listening to the engine come to life. Then he put the van into drive, turning the wheel as he drove onto the road. If he was going to save her, he was going to have to hurry.

  -29-

  Across the country in Washington DC, Henry Griffith massaged his forehead as he sat in his office. It was nearly 9:00 in the morning, making it just before 6:00 Pacific Time.

  It appeared now that Bannon had escaped from 17-Mile Drive. Griffith picked up his cell phone and reread the text message Max had sent. Bannon had likely escaped in an ATS van, taking Susan Bither with him. When Griffith had told his people here about that, they discovered that Bannon must have disabled the GPS tracker in the van, as they couldn’t find it. Max had found the van agents’ bodies and put them out of sight.

  There were other bad tidings. The netbook in Karl’s BMW didn’t have anything on it. Standard ATS operating procedure meant that either the case officer or his assistant had a memory stick with the needed video. Why hadn’t they transmitted the information? What would have caused them to forget such a critical procedure?

  Max hadn’t found anything on Karl’s corpse. It meant Susan must have the memory stick or Bannon did. The CHP had the van’s license plate number and were on the lookout for it. Griffith didn’t understand why his network of street and freeway cameras hadn’t spotted the van by now. He scowled. Of course, Bannon must have already switched vehicles.

  The assassin was staying one step ahead of them.

  It was time for some deep thinking. He had to outwit Bannon. What would the man want? That entirely depended on what Bannon remembered. That he had killed Karl and Scorpion, captured Susan and killed the team in the lookout van… Bannon must realize the others had used him for years. Had those been revenge killings?

  Griffith rubbed his forehead. He hated thinking about this, hated remembering what had happened. A headache began, one that would take a long time going away.

  After the highway accident, Parker had molded Bannon, using the memory of his dead wife, Griffith’s stepdaughter.

  The headache intensified. Had the original Bannon known remorse for the accident that had killed Jocelyn? That didn’t matter. The point…yes, if Bannon had slain the others out of a desire for revenge, he might logically go after Parker, his daughter, next. Is that why Bannon kept Susan? Would the ATS agent betray Parker to Bannon?

  It was a possibility. He never should have agreed to let the Department of Defense try their reaction-time modifications on Bannon. Griffith remembered watching the videos of some of the operations.

  Doctors had wired a naked Bannon from head to toe. They had lowered him into a special, gel-like solution. Then the doctors had allowed electricity to pour through his carefully-prepared body. The man had roared in agony. He had arched his back as his muscles flexed rigidly. Afterward, the doctors operated and continued to modify his neural impulses. The pain Bannon had endured…

  Griffith remembered thinking it was punishment for losing Jocelyn. Let the man suffer for it. After the DoD doctors had finished with their games, Parker erased those memories. No. That wasn’t exactly true. She had placed the memories in a special persona. Then she had sunk the persona deep in Bannon’s id or ego, he could never remember which.

  Imagine Bannon’s rage if he remembered the experiments. Whom would he target then?

  Despite the headache, Griffith called on his cell phone. Soon, his tired daughter Parker answered.

  “Daddy?” she asked sleepily.

  “Do you know that Bannon is on the loose?”

  “I hadn’t heard, no.”

  Griffith told her what had happened at 17-Mile Drive. “Now listen, honey. I want you out of Santa Clara.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but I have matters that need attending too. Let your goons deal with Bannon.”

  “Don’t you realize you might be one of his prime targets?”

  “I don’t see why,” she said.

  “I want you gone, my dear. I want you back in DC.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m not leaving. I have important things to look after.”

  “What specifically?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry. If Bannon is loose, there are things I must do.”

  “Go to the Institute at once.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “You’ll go there? You promise?”

  “We are talking about Bannon. Hmm, how safe will I be there?”

  “You’re right. I’m ordering you to DC. I want you on the next flight here.”

  “No…not just yet,” she said. “I have—”

  “Matters to attend to, I heard you the first time. I’m sending Max to you, and I’m calling Snow.”

  “Using the best, Daddy?”

  “This is extremely serious.”

  “I think I’m more aware of that than anyone. Don’t worry about me. I know how to take care of Bannon.”

  “As a subject under Day Tripper 7, yes, I believe you do know. But as a savage assassin, there is no one more dangerous than he. You must leave Santa Clara at once.”

  “Good-bye,” she said, “and good luck with your hunt.”

  Griffith lowered the cell. It soothed him to hear his daughter’s voice. It helped weaken the headache. He grew thoughtful. His daughter was too willful, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on it. She could take care of herself. He’d seen to that. He now pressed another button, waiting only one ring this time.

  “Sir,” Max said.

  “It is critical you understand me. You must kill Bannon before he reaches Dr. Parker.”

  “May I ask a question, sir?”

  “I know he’s going to try for her because it is the logical move. She will continue her regular duties, acting as bait. She doesn’t know enough to fear for her life. But you know enough, don’t you, Max?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “Bannon is the deadliest assassin we have, and it’s likely he’s operating with full capabilities now.”

  “I can kill him, sir.”

  “I’m counting on that. Kill him and search him for the memory stick. All our futures may well rest on its recovery.”

  Griffith hung up and leaned back in his wheelchair. Why had Bannon kidnapped Susan and where were they now? What had happened that the assassin had survived Blake’s house? Not even Bannon should have been able to survive the explosion.

  He rubbed his forehead. He needed some aspirins. And Parker—Dr. Parker—he hoped his daughter knew what she was doing.

  ***

  Bannon parked on a street beside Santa Cruz Memorial Hospital. He’d stolen a Nissan Murano in Monterey, leaving the ATS van in a Denny’s parking lot. He put his gun under the Nissan’s front seat.

  He climbed out, opened the back and checked Susan’s pulse. It was stronger than before, but she was burning hot. He ran into Emergency, grabbed a wheelchair and hurried back to the car. He lifted Susan, putting her in the chair. He wheeled her to the emergency room’s front doors.

  “We’re here,” he said. “We’re at the hospital.”

  With her head lowered, Susan panted and her color was a sickly white.

  “Your wallet is with you.” Bannon hesitated before saying, “For what it’s worth, I always liked your singing.” Then he strode away, leaving her for the medical staff to find.

  ***

  In Washington DC, at ATS Central, an analyst raised his head from where he searched the internet. There were many such computer stations with a quiet air of intense effort.

  “Sir!” the analyst shouted. “I have Susan Bither in Santa Cruz Memorial Hospital. Gunshot wound. She was admitted five minutes ago.”

  From the dais where he watched his personnel, Griffith spoke with icy calm. “Patch me through to the ER receiving nurse.”

  The analyst worked fast, and thirty seconds later, he said, “The phone’s ringing, sir.”

  Griffith
wore a receiver in his ear, one with a small microphone jutting from it to his mouth.

  “Santa Cruz Memorial ER,” a woman with a Hispanic accent said.

  “Who am I talking to?” Griffith asked crisply.

  “Anna Garcia. Who is this?”

  “Anna, this is Homeland Security, chief of operations of the active branch. You just put critical information into the system. I’m referring to Susan Bither, a gunshot victim.”

  “My goodness,” she said. “I just typed that in a second ago.”

  “Yes. We’re efficient here, but more importantly, our analysts have been searching for her. Anna, this is a national emergency, and by the authority of the President of the United States, I need your full cooperation.”

  “I understand,” she whispered.

  “We have your file in our computers,” Griffith said. “You may not know this, but it has a high loyalty rating.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We are thorough, Anna. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  “I need truthful answers. This is vitally important to the national security of our country.”

  “Thank you,” she said nervously. “I’ll do my best.”

  “We know that, Anna. Now tell me, who helped Susan Bither into emergency?”

  “A man rushed in and grabbed a wheelchair. He left her outside the door and never returned.”

  “I see,” Griffith said. “Please describe this man to me.”

  “Ah…medium-sized, with blue eyes I think and an alert way about him, kind of like a desert coyote. He seemed to favor his left arm.”

  “You’re doing well, Anna. The man is a criminal. Do you know where he went?”

  “No. He left, as I said.”

  “What kind of vehicle was he driving?”

  “I didn’t see.”

  “Would it be on the security cameras?”

  “Let me check.” She was gone over ninety seconds. “I’m sorry, sir. He appeared on the security cameras but his car did not. He must have parked on the street.”

  “Thank you, Anna. Your country thanks you for your help.”

  Griffith cut the connection, and he turned to the analyst. “Get me the Santa Cruz Chief of Police. I need to speak to him now!”

  -30-

  The roar of a helicopter’s rotors made speech difficult within the craft. The coastal dawn landscape spread out below Max through an open bay door. A highway wound through the mountains, with trees everywhere like a blanket.

  Max watched as LeBron picked up comm-gear. The big black man turned to him.

  “It’s for you,” LeBron shouted. “HQ.”

  Max accepted a communications headset, slipping it over his ears. “Yes, sir?”

  “Susan is at Santa Cruz Memorial Hospital,” the Controller said. “She’s been shot. I want you to talk with her. Find out what happened.”

  “How did she get there?”

  “Have you already rerouted to Santa Cruz Memorial Hospital?”

  Max shouted to the pilot, giving him instructions. The helicopter banked toward the ocean as it turned around, heading back to the coastal city.

  “We’re headed there now,” Max said.

  “The police will be setting up checkpoints between Santa Cruz and San Jose. They will be disguised as sobriety checkpoints, but SWAT members at each one will have a picture of Bannon and are to apprehend or kill him if necessary.”

  “He’s heading for Dr. Parker?”

  “Talk to Susan, discover what happened and find out if she made a memory stick of the surveillance and if so, find out where it is. That is imperative.”

  “Yes, sir,” Max said.

  “Find out what kind of vehicle Bannon is driving and anything he said to her.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “I want him. It is the priority.”

  “If I see him, he’s dead.”

  “I’m counting on you, Max. Do not disappoint me.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it, sir.”

  The Controller cut the connection.

  Max tore off the headset. Santa Cruz appeared in the distance, a Californian beach town. In his humble opinion, the checkpoints weren’t going to catch Bannon. It would take another hunter who could think like the assassin. Fight fire with fire and hunt a hunter with a better hunter, namely, himself.

  “We almost had him in the forest,” Max shouted to LeBron and Jim. “Now we’re going urban guerilla and paying him back for Scorpion.”

  “What are you talking about?” shouted LeBron.

  He was a large black man with an ugly scar across his forehead. He’d gotten that in Iraq from one of Saddam’s bad boys. The Iraqi had been a knife-fighter, and his machete of a blade had almost taken off the top of LeBron’s head. LeBron had used piano wire on the man, getting behind him and choking the muscle-bound killer to death. LeBron had whispered to the Iraqi the entire time, even as blood dripped down LeBron’s face. The commando had the grace of a jungle cat and the hunting instincts of one, too.

  Max judged LeBron as the deadliest man he knew, after himself, of course. They had never gone man-to-man. LeBron had suggested several times they try the boxing ring. But there was no way Max could outbox LeBron. The black man had reach and speed on him, and he was forty pounds heavier and much stronger. In hand-to-hand, LeBron had no peers that Max had ever seen. What made him—Max—better, was his gift as a dead shot and a killer instinct that would have frightened the toughest linebacker in the NFL. That, at least, was Max’s belief and he’d never found anyone to show him otherwise.

  This Bannon…Max wanted him as a trophy. After all these months of babysitting and after what had happened tonight, this was personal. The assassin had fooled them in the forest, killed Karl, captured Susan and run the gauntlet of sniper-fire.

  “What’s wrong?” shouted LeBron. “It ain’t like you to brood.”

  Max cracked his knuckles, taking his time answering. The helicopter swept toward Santa Cruz like a hawk on crack. Somewhere down there in the city, Bannon must have gone to ground. He had to start thinking like an assassin, not just like a hunter/killer sniper. What would he do in Bannon’s place? First, what did Bannon want more than life itself? The Controller believed it was to see Dr. Parker. Yet Max doubted that. Seeing the doctor must be a means to an end.

  What was the end?

  “Are you going to tell us what’s going on?” LeBron shouted. “Or do Jim and me got to beat it out of you?”

  Max scowled. Beat it out of him? How would LeBron like a knife in the guts?

  “Why are we going to Santa Cruz?” LeBron asked.

  “Bannon’s been busy!” Max shouted. “He’s leaving us trails and now we’re going to hunt this sucker down. When we’re done, I’m going to mount his head on a plaque and put it in my trophy room.”

  “You don’t have a trophy room,” LeBron said.

  “I’ll build me one.”

  ***

  Bannon shut off the Nissan in a Safeway parking lot in Santa Cruz. ATS probably knew his location now. They had probably already guessed his trajectory and they would react accordingly.

  There was a cool breeze blowing from the west, from the ocean. Bannon walked four blocks to an Outlet Store, buying a new shirt, jeans, underwear, socks and a daypack, paying with cash. He walked another three blocks to a Gold’s Gym. He paid a lifting fee, went to the locker room, stripped and stood under blasting hot water. That felt good, particularly on his bruised shoulder, the one that had taken most of the blast. He washed his hair, soaped his skin and stood there another five minutes.

  Finished in the shower, he sat in a sauna. It was like hiking through a desert, but here the heat beat at his skin and forced his eyelids lower and lower. He stretched out on the wooden slats, letting every muscle go flaccid.

  He thought about Blake and the other Justices. They had incredible power. In U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton in 1995, the nine robed members had struck down term limit
provisions in 23 states. In a 5-4 decision, they said states couldn’t impose stricter qualifications than the Constitution did for prospective members of the U.S. Congress. The people in those states didn’t want the same rascals going to Washington time after time, but the nine justices had the last say on that.

  After thirty minutes, the sauna timer dinged. Bannon grunted as he sat up. The air was cold as he stepped outside the sauna. Steeling himself, he returned to the shower and turned on cold water. The icy spray made him gasp. His heart hammered and soon he was huffing. In time, it felt good as he became used to the cold. He twisted the handle, shutting off the water, negotiated the slippery tiles and headed back for the sauna.

  For him, this was better than several hours of sleep. It was deeply relaxing and he let his mind go blank.

  Finally, he donned his new clothes, stuffing the old ones into a trashcan. The SIG and knife were in the pack, along with the rest of his cash and a towel.

  He left the gym and walked to a Subway sandwich shop. There he bought a meatball sandwich and three bottled waters, devouring the meal and draining two waters. He left Subway wearing a SF Giants baseball cap and dark sunglasses. He had been trained to make simple disguises that altered his appearance enough to blend in.

  He strolled down Baker Street as traffic passed. He found himself thinking about the Great America amusement park. In his mind’s eye, he could see the Drop Tower: Scream Zone. As he walked around thinking about that, he let his mind wander, seeing where it went.

  He remembered vaguely going to Parker after the Los Zetas attack. In her office, as he’d lain on the couch, she had shown him a green capsule. Like a trusting fool, he’d swallowed it.

  They must have programmed you to come there after a hit.

  “Just like I’m thinking about doing now,” he said under his breath.

  What did that tell him? One: that his mind might still not be under his complete control. There could be markers in his mind, or traps, he supposed, that might cause him…to do what? To turn him docile would be the answer. To make him harmless so they could reprogram him again.

  Before he went barging in to grab Parker, he needed to understand some realities. He didn’t know everything. That meant he operated in the dark. His wife was alive. Parker must know where she was. That meant he was going to have to get the information out of Parker. Yet if she talked to him, speaking certain code words, might that trigger preset responses in him? What would he do in Parker’s position, if he could give assassins any kind of memories that he wanted?