Delta Green: Strange Authorities

by John Scott Tynes

  “Yeah.”

  Frank threw his head forward, cracking the Aryan right above the eyes. The man staggered back, dazed, then the rest of his crew leapt into the fray. Black on white, white on black, they fell on each other like jackals, fists flying and blood spattering the walls.

  Inside the storeroom, Bounds wasn’t doing well. His face was covered in blood, which was streaming out his nostrils from a broken nose. Several ribs were busted, as were several fingers. James stood over him, kicking him in the guts again and again, one arm windmilling like DeNiro in a gangster flick. Bounds was squealing and sobbing. Finally James relented.

  He knelt down and took the gag off. Bounds gasped for air, his face contorted from more pain than he’d ever known.

  “J—Joey!” he wailed, delirious. “Joey! Help me!”

  “Who’s your partner, Bounds?” James asked, his voice cold. “Who is he?”

  “Joey!”

  “Joey who?”

  “Joey! Joey Carmichael! Joey! He said this wouldn’t happen! He said it’d be okay! He said we wouldn’t get caught! Joey!” He trailed this last word out into a wail.

  “Where are the bodies, Bounds? What did you do with the bodies?”

  Bounds panted. James put his massive hand on Bounds’ throat and squeezed.

  “Ahhhk! The range! We dumped ’em on the artillery range!”

  James raised one eyebrow. These guys would have to be crazy to have ventured onto the Fort Benning artillery range, which was littered with spent shells and unexploded munitions; it was virtually a minefield. But on the other hand, no one would go looking for bodies there, either—assuming the bodies hadn’t been blown to bits by the shelling. For a psycho, Bounds was pretty clever. Or else this Joey was.

  James grabbed Bounds by the back of the neck and pulled him up to his face. Bounds whined, his busted ribs grinding away at his innards. James looked into his eyes.

  “You’re not lying to me, are you Bounds?”

  Bounds stared back, his eyes open doorways into his fearful dark soul. What little truth he had in him was spent.

  James nodded. “I believe you.” He let go of Bounds, who dropped to the floor and conked his head on the cement. James stood up and went to the door. The sounds of fighting outside had abated. He opened it, ready for anything.

  Frank Barnes turned around and grinned. He was missing a tooth, and his face was bloody. “You done in there?” he said, breathing heavily. Four Aryans were piled on the floor, beaten and bleeding. The other three had fled. One Muslim was out cold. Little Jesse, who’d stuck to the sidelines, was dabbing the man’s broken nose with a handkerchief.

  “All done.”

  “Then let’s go. Allah be praised! It’s a glorious day.”

  Six hours later, Captain Forrest James was in shackles on a military transport plane to Fort Benning, Georgia.

  The MPs led him off the plane at dusk. They were greeted by the Provost Marshal, four CIC investigators, two detectives from Columbus Homicide, and two FBI agents. One of them was Agent Adam.

  They led James to the Marshal’s office and took him into an interrogation room. A stenographer was there for his deposition. It took two hours. Afterwards, Adam led James to the mess hall with a couple of MPs following them.

  “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” Adam said.

  “Nope.”

  “Assuming any of this checks out, you’ve got your week of R&R. I’ll be your chaperone. I can’t vouch for the weather here, but we’ll get you out and about. You like golf?”

  “Can’t stand it.”

  “Well, we’ll find something to do.”

  “How’s Alphonse?”

  “He’s okay. He’ll be in the Georgetown hospital for a while, but he pulled through.”

  “Any word from Puerto Rico?”

  “They’re gone, Forrest. I’m sorry.” He paused. “You know better than to try anything, don’t you? If you’ve got something planned, you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were.”

  “I just wanted out of that damn place for a while.”

  Adam nodded. “Okay. I trust you. But I can’t say I have much hope for you when we ship you back to Leavenworth. The Aryans are going to want revenge.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Sure you can.” They were outside the mess hall now. “Here we are. I hope you like chipped beef.”

  James spent the night in a cell. In the morning, Adam showed up. He brought breakfast, a big Southern meal he’d picked up at a restaurant off base. The MPs let him into the cell and James rubbed his face, feeling grimy. The MPs left and shut the door.

  “Lieutenant Joey Carmichael went AWOL last night just before you got here,” Adam said as he sat down on the opposite bunk. “I think someone called him from Leavenworth. We’ll get him, though.”

  “You been to his house?”

  “Last night. He kept trophies.”

  “Stop. I’m eating.” To James, the food tasted like freedom.

  “They’re going to start checking out the range today. It’ll take a while. But you’re Benning’s new golden boy. The Provost Marshal wants you at his house tonight for dinner. What do you want to do until then?”

  James swallowed a mouthful of buttery grits. “I want to get the fuck off this base. I want grass and trees and dirt.”

  Adam nodded. “Roosevelt State Park is an hour north. I’ll get a couple MPs and we’ll make a day of it.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “You earned it, you stubborn son of a bitch.”

  James smiled and took a gulp of coffee. “Just doing my duty, sir.”

  A couple hours later, they reached the park in a Fort Benning MP sedan. James was shackled and had a tracer on his ankle, but as he stepped out of the vehicle and into the parking lot, surrounded by trees, he felt like a free man.

  The two MPs had chatted him up on the drive out. Word had gotten around that Dennis Bounds was in intensive care from the beating he’d gotten, and they wanted to hear the story. James left the Muslims out, referring to them only as “some associates,” but besides that he spared no detail. His mimicry of Bounds’ whining had them in stitches. Adam kept his mouth shut but couldn’t help a smile. He knew that Fort Benning had been badly shamed by Bounds and his accomplice, and across the base men were laughing and telling outrageous stories about this badass Navy SEAL doing ten in the Castle who’d done them all a solid. The MPs who’d pulled this excursion detail knew their buddies would be buying the beer tonight, hot to hear the latest.

  The first shot caught the MP square in the face, splattering the back of his head across the hood of the car. The second and third jerked his partner against the vehicle, striking him in the chest, blood pumping from the wounds. Adam whipped out his sidearm and clicked off the safety just as a fourth shot punched through him. He dropped to his knees on the concrete and wheezed, gun tumbling to the cement.

  James looked around, frantic. There were a dozen vehicles in the parking lot. He made the shooters, two men sitting inside a big panel van, the door open, rifles pointing. James hit the ground and fumbled through his chains to reach Adam’s gun.

  A tall man in a jogging suit and black leather gloves ran over from a different direction and kicked the gun away. James looked up.

  “Alzis sent us,” the man said in a clipped German accent. He was as big as James was, maybe more so, with short-cropped blond hair and harsh Aryan features. “Get up.” He pulled James up with one thick hand as the two shooters and a third man rushed over from the van.

  Adam tried to sit up and coughed blood. “You fuck!” he screamed. “How could you fucking do this!”

  James looked down at Adam, incredulous. “I didn’t know!” he yelled. “I didn’t think it would be like this!”

  The blond man drew a Luger and pulled Adam up, gun held against his bleeding chest. “You will have to die,” he said. “But I will give you a present first.” He nodded at the two shooters, who immediately sei
zed the third man by the arms. The man wriggled. “Hey! What the fuck!”

  The German pushed Adam against the car, where he stood, supporting himself on one elbow. Then the man picked up Adam’s sidearm, a Colt Delta Elite, and put his Luger away. He ejected the magazine from the Colt and checked the action to make sure there wasn’t one in the pipe. One by one, he popped the bullets out of the magazine until only one was left, then slid the magazine back into the gun and chambered the round. He took his Luger out again and held the Colt’s handle towards Adam.

  “This man is Joseph Carmichael. If you like, you may kill him. But you only get one shot.”

  “Galt!” Joey screamed. “You son of a bitch! What the fuck are you doing!”

  Adam took a ragged, panting breath and glared at the German called Galt, then at James. His eyes were furious with anger.

  “Well?”

  “Fine,” Adam spat. The two shooters dragged Joey over, kicking and screaming, and forced him to his knees. Galt handed Adam the Colt, pressing the Luger against his temple.

  Joey wailed. Adam blew his brains across the pavement.

  “That felt good, yes?” Galt said, smiling. “Now he will precede your soul into Hell and serve you in the afterlife.” The shooters trained their rifles on James.

  Adam fixed James with a terrible stare. “Make this right,” he said, trembling, blood pouring from his lips. “Make this right you son of a bitch!”

  James looked back, speechless, his face pale. Galt pulled the trigger.

  They took the van to a private airfield and hustled James on board a small jet. The plane landed in New York State hours before dawn. Not a word was exchanged during the flight. Galt smoked Turkish cigarettes and read Entertainment Weekly.

  The Teese Building stood in the Upper East Side of Manhattan at the intersection of E. 98th and Lexington. It was a huge office building, the headquarters of an international paper-products company. Off to one side, in an alley, was a stairwell that descended thirty-one steps below street level to a pair of unmarked blue-steel doors. The nearby street was full of cars, Monday morning commuters rushing to work. The sidewalk was crowded with pedestrians.

  A panel van pulled into the alley. Two men got out of the front seats and opened the big sliding door. Galt stepped out, then the trio took James out by his arms. He was still shackled, but the ankle tracer was gone—they’d destroyed it at the airfield upstate. A few people on the sidewalk gave them funny looks, but this was New York, after all. Anything could happen here.

  They led James down the stairs. A slim young blond man in a perfectly tailored gray suit opened one of the doors from inside, and they stepped into Club Apocalypse.

  The first room was a small foyer, done up in red velvet with a coat-check counter, presently unstaffed. The blond man led the newcomers through the foyer and into the main room. It was done up in classical style, red velvet and earth tones and subtle lighting, with a row of booths running down one wall. A young redheaded woman in a formal white shirt and black tie stood behind the long mahogany bar opposite the booths, smoking a cigarette.

  The procession came to a halt at the bar. “Drinks?” the blond man said.

  “Nein,” Galt replied. “Where is Alzis?”

  “He won’t be joining us. But I have the item.”

  He nodded at the woman, who reached under the bar and removed a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with black string. The man took it and handed it over to Galt.

  “Danke . . .” Galt said with a leer. “. . . Hauptscharfuhrer Scheel.”

  The man glowered. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about. The door’s over there,” he added, nodding.

  Galt gave a crisp nod and walked out, trailed by his two associates.

  “Well,” the man said, turning his attention to James. “A pleasure to meet you, Captain.”

  James spat in his face.

  The man slapped him, hard, but quickly stepped back. He pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his face.

  “That was hardly necessary, Captain. I’m Belial. Welcome to my club.”

  “What are you? Alzis’s funny sidekick?”

  “Hardly. Stephen Alzis is my business associate.”

  “So where is he?”

  Belial turned to look at a doorway filled with a red velvet curtain. Stephen Alzis stepped through jauntily, smiling.

  “Hello again, Captain,” he called as he strode across the dim room. “I trust you are well?”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  Alzis tsk-tsked and leaned against the bar. “Gin and tonic, my dear,” he said to the woman. Alzis was a short, trim Arab in his thirties with black hair, the bangs hanging down over his eyes. He wore a clean, attractive white suit that looked to be of several decades’ vintage.

  “Why did you kill those men? That wasn’t part of the agreement.”

  “I have no idea what you mean, Captain. I sent someone to get you out, just as you asked. How they achieved that goal was their business. I don’t do details.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Alzis. You could have snapped your fingers or waved your magic wand or something.”

  Alzis sipped his drink. Belial arched an eyebrow and gave a thin smile. “Are you fond of magic wands, Captain?”

  James ignored him. “So what now?”

  “Now?” Alzis said pleasantly, still smiling. “You’re a free man. You can do what you want. I just wanted to make sure you were well. Galt can be a little ferocious.”

  “He killed a friend of mine.”

  “That’s not my concern. He doesn’t work for me. We had a simple agreement, much as you and I do. If you’re displeased, take it up with Galt.”

  “I will.”

  “Those chains don’t really become you, Captain. Take them off.”

  James looked down at his shackles. They were unlocked—a moment ago they’d been fastened tight. He took them off angrily and threw the chains on the floor.

  “Quit fucking with me, Alzis. What do you want?”

  “I want the same thing you do, Captain. I want you to go to Vieques Island and find your friends. I want you to rescue David Nells. Surely you can’t argue with that.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. Go play the hero and we’ll be even.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “That’s none of my affair. Believe what you want.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s none of your affair.” Alzis reached in his jacket and removed an envelope. He handed it to James, who looked inside. It was bulging with new hundred-dollar bills.

  “I’d suggest you make a tailor your first stop. You could use a change of clothes.”

  “And a shower,” Belial added pointedly.

  “Goodbye, Captain.”

  James looked at them both and started to say something, but thought better of it. He turned and walked swiftly out of the club.

  “Vaya con dios,” Alzis called after him.

  Manhattan was oppressively intimidating and noisy as hell. James had only been to New York a handful of times, and he’d never liked it much. He liked it even less now. Standing on the corner at Teese Plaza, he looked around, lost. Alzis was right about one thing: he needed clothes. The brown uniform of the USDB looked decidedly odd in this place.

  He spotted a men’s store up the street and strode forward through the crowds. Inside he got a shirt, slacks, loafers, and a heavy overcoat. That ran him four hundred dollars. He had about a thousand left from the money Alzis gave him. Without any form of identification, he couldn’t get a flight or rent a car. Hailing a cab, he decided to go Greyhound.

  It took him seven hours to reach Georgetown. From the bus terminal he fed coins into a pay phone, calling hospitals, until he found the one Joseph Camp was in. He grabbed a taxi and was there in twenty minutes.

  Joe was watching TV in a private room. The remains of dinner sat on a cart next to the bed. He was bundled up under blankets, his
thick, pale face barely protruding to lie against the pillow. He looked very old. James entered quietly and Joe turned to look at him.

  “You son of a bitch,” he said groggily. “You’ve got a lot of damn nerve coming here.”

  James walked up and stood over the bed. “Hello, Joe,” he said guardedly.

  “You here to kill me, too?”

  James closed his eyes. “I didn’t kill Adam.”

  “Fool,” Joe said bitterly. “You made a call, didn’t you? You picked up the phone and you called PARIAH to get you out of jail. And you got Adam killed.”

  He opened his eyes again. “I didn’t know, Joe. I didn’t think anyone would get hurt.”

  Joe snorted. “You didn’t think anyone would get hurt?” He was furious now. “What part of selling your soul to the devil do you not understand?”

  “I know. I fucked up. I’m sorry. I feel like shit.”

  “You are shit. How could you do this?”

  James was quiet for a moment. “I love her, sir. I couldn’t just sit there and let her fall into their hands. I had to do something.”

  Joe stared at him. “Well. So you’re a fool for love. I should have guessed. This organization is positively riddled with doomed romantics.”

  “Do you know anything, sir? About Puerto Rico?”

  “Not much. They went down there without permission. Lepus called to say he had them and we wouldn’t be seeing them again.”

  James was surprised. “Why did Lepus call?”

  Joe exhaled slowly. “Things have been very dangerous of late. The truce was holding until I got shot. Everyone thought it was them. That’s why Cell T went to Puerto Rico, for revenge. But they were wrong.”

  “Who shot you?”

  “Sarah Nells. David’s mother. She . . . well, let’s just say that I don’t blame her.”

  “So why did Lepus call?”

  “Adam warned him. Cell T was incommunicado. We couldn’t get in touch. We had to preserve the truce, had to warn Lepus that Cell T was on its way and that they were acting on their own. Agent Nancy knew what they were planning. Adam told Lepus and hoped they’d just beef up security and Cell T would come home empty-handed, or check in with us so we could bring them back.”

  James shook his head, disgusted. “You bastards.”