I clamped my jaw shut tight as the fleeting sensation of a screaming parade of lunatics running through my brain quieted after what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds, ignoring the sudden, clammy feeling that was sending cold sweats down my scalp. I hadn’t even realized that my hair had been doused and was back to tickling my shoulders and neck, but there it was, fire out, and I was left staring up at Greg Vansen, who was looking down at me from his helicopter perch of death.
And I could see myself through his eyes.
There was a board before him, at his fingertips. He knew how to pilot, and he’d done it so much it was instinctive, so thoroughly practiced that he didn’t even have to give it much conscious thought anymore. Which freed him up to concentrate entirely on me, and, to a lesser degree, Friday, who was still lying in a heap with a lot of little superficial wounds spread over his upper body, going on about the time he got caught “accidentally” pulling his taffy in the girls’ room at school, to Greg’s rising disgust.
I sat there for less than a second, and it occurred to me that his brain was basically on autopilot when it came to the piloting, because his attention was almost entirely on me and the increasingly horrifying confession taking place in front of him.
Yes, Harmon said. You see it.
Well, yeah, I said. He’s watching us …
And meanwhile, I was watching him from the inside. Which meant …
I could feel the collective, the stick that he used to pilot the Comanche. His grip on it was solid, if a little sweaty, as he started to run out of patience with Friday’s recollection of horrors past. Time was slowed, thick as jelly, moving at a glacial pace. I snapped back to my own eyes for just a second, to check if what I remembered about the position of the helo was right …
It was. His tail rotor was less than ten feet from a copse of pine trees, the ones he’d miraculously appeared through.
Zipping back into his head, I tested my control by yanking back on the collective with all his arm’s strength and metahuman speed.
I could feel Vansen’s alarm a quarter second after I did it, that sensation of pure freakout that comes when the solid ground beneath you—or in this case, the steady helicopter—suddenly drops. The Comanche bucked radically as the top rotor spun up, hard, the RPMs raging and causing it to show us its belly instead of the fierce, deadly nose.
Popping back into my own head, I raised a hand and blasted at him with a fireball to each of the wings as the helo started to fall backward, inverting. The tail rotor, that vital component to the operation of any helicopter, slammed into the trees behind him. The whine of engines straining against resistance was almost lost under the whooshing noise of the main rotor railing at full power. Then that, too, hit the trees and the sound of splitting metal got even louder.
The four helicopter blades suddenly blew off, explosive bolts launching them in all directions. The top canopy of the helicopter was buffeted by a small series of explosions, and then the entire cockpit launched off over the trees, successfully ejected as the Comanche spun in and exploded, its fuel tanks combusting as it crashed to the earth down the slope.
“Wow!” Friday shouted, pumping his fist. “That was awesome!” He looked straight at me. “We really kicked his ass.”
“‘We’?” I gave him some crazy eye.
“Yeah, I totally distracted him,” Friday said, “you know with all that, uh … blatantly made-up stuff that totally never happened to me.”
“Whatever,” I said, “I need to go confirm the kill.”
“Oh, yeah.” He popped up, fresh as a daisy and hulked out, little shards of metal popping out of his wounds as his muscles swelled, the red, crisscrossing cuts healing right there before my eyes and leaving nothing but faint traces of crimson like tiny scars across his skin. “Let’s do it!”
It didn’t take us long to find the ejected cockpit, since it was caught in the top branches of a tree. I was surprised a tree would support it, since it looked to be at least a half ton of metal and equipment, but there it was, cradled in the boughs of a big pine, parachute only half deployed and the canopy still down. I dropped Friday in a nearby tree with an admonishment to, “Shut the hell up and stay here!” because I was kinda done with politeness, and then readied my approach.
I zoomed right up to it and lit up my hand, ready to saturate the entire area with fire the moment I opened the cockpit. Then I reached down and ripped it open, prepared to burn everything to ash.
Of course … there was no one in the cockpit.
“Dammit,” I muttered, and then lit it on fire anyway, figuring better safe than sorry. I made my turnaround sweep and picked up Friday, who had been hanging off a branch like a gorilla. It was a good look for him. “Let’s get out of here.”
He jerked a little in my arms as his weight settled and he started to shrink back down to normal human size. “What happened?”
“He was already gone,” I said, heading high into the sky in hopes of avoiding Greg appearing again with—hell, I don’t know. An aircraft carrier, probably. Maybe a helicarrier.
“Wow. See, he really is a magician,” Friday said with not even grudging admiration. It was obvious, blatant, bordering on lusty admiration for the guy trying to kill him.
“Yeah,” I said, without nearly so much appreciation for the magic since I was the one tasked with defending Friday against it. “Any idea how he’s doing it?”
“Nope,” Friday said with a surprisingly happy demeanor—you know, for someone targeted for death by a magician who could seemingly appear at will with billion-dollar military killing machines. “He always used to pull these sorts of miracles when we were working together, too. Everyone thought it was awesome.”
“If you keep calling everything ‘awesome,’ I’m going to reach into your brain and rip that word out, replacing it with, ‘kittens.’”
“That would be totally kittens!” Friday said with immediate enthusiasm, his face all lit up like I’d just given him the bestest Christmas present ever. “I love it! I’m gonna start saying it all the time now.”
I held in the agonized scream that threatened to burst out of me because, honestly, what was the point?
Look at all the fun you’re having, Gerry Harmon said with rich amusement. Isn’t this so much better than lifting the same weight over and over again a million times a day?
Yes, so much fun, I said. Sedative-free limb amputation couldn’t be any funner.
Shame you didn’t get to see how Greg Vansen was managing his little disappearing act while you were in his head, Harmon said, oh so smug. If he still had a face, I would have reduced it to a fine jelly with a single punch right then.
I don’t suppose you’d be willing to—
Nope, Harmon said with a smile. Figuring it out is the point of the case. Telling you would be taking out the mystery, and thus, the joy.
Oh, I’m feeling the joy, I said. Anyone else ever seen anything like this? Wolfe? You’ve seen everything. What am I dealing with?
For the first time ever, Wolfe actually sounded uncomfortable. You need to work this out for yourself, Sienna.
Seriously, you guys? Zack? I searched for support.
No can do, he said. I don’t know what this guy is, but … if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. He smiled wanly. You need this.
I need Friday like I need a case of flaming hemorrhoids, you guys. Seriously. Help a sista out.
This is the work that fulfills you, Sienna, Gavrikov said with all the Russian solemnity he could muster. For us to spoil the—
The hunt, Wolfe said.
—It would be wrong, Gavrikov said. It would cheapen this. You need the fulfillment, and a shortcut … it would not end this thing in a satisfying way.
You’re all conspiring against me, you bastards. I would have shaken my fist at them, but unfortunately, they were in my head. Also, shaking my fist would have meant dropping Friday, probably. So … aces all the way around, then.
Work it out fo
r yourself, Sienna, Harmon said, but with much less smugness this time. Take the chance while it’s here. You may not get another case anytime soon.
Fine, I said with grudging acceptance. I took a long breath, and listened because over the whistling of the wind around us, I could hear another kind of whistling—it was Friday, singing … “Hungry Like the Wolf”?
“What the hell? Friday,” I said, and he stopped, blessedly. “Can you think of anyone else who might know why Greg would want to kill you?”
“Theo might.” Friday’s empty, expressive face seemed to sink into thought, his eyes staring off into the distance above as we passed into a cloud. Fortunately, I could still see him, and the slow nod as he started to speak again. “See, there was this one time …”
22.
Friday
Baghdad, Iraq
February 20, 1991
Sienna note: Do I even need to remind you that this is probably 100% bullshit?
It was hot and heavy, right at the tail end of OPERATION: DESERT STORM, and we were flying the flag of aweso—err, I mean—BADASS KITTENS! And America! And doing badass stuff behind the lines! And—
Get to the point already, before I drop you.
Ooh, okay. We were crammed in the body of the Concorde like sardines, Greg had blacked out all the windows, and the pressure was so intense it was like—like being in a popcan before it’s ready to explode! The five of us were huddled in together, not meeting each other’s eyes. The pressure was intense, like being at the bottom of the ocean without a submarine to protect you from the … uh, the pressure. And the eels! And sharks! And uh … anyway, it was intense, like looking into the sun. But without the blindness.
“Gonna be glad when this is over,” Theo said. You could always tell who Theo was because he was our black guy.
I would facepalm right now if it didn’t mean dropping you. Hell, I might anyway.
But—but he was really good at what he did! I’m not a racist, I swear!
If the only characteristic you remember about him is that he was black, then yes, that literally does make you a racist. What did Theo do for the team?
I don’t remember. Something. Anyway, Chase spoke next. She was our girl, our resident chick, and a badass. She was totally KITTENS and totally hot for me. We were boyfriend and girlfriend—
This poor girl, not even here to defend this casual defamation of her character.
—and had been HOT AND HEAVY IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN *wink wink*—
Sienna note: He actually turned his head to look up at me and winked here.
—for six months, ever since she’d gotten on the squad. It had been all killing and sexytimes and more killing since we’d come to the desert, and it was all joy from my end.
But tonight … tonight was the finale, and here we were, in a blacked-out plane, with Greg locked in the cockpit and the rest of us without a clue where we were going … except to know that DANGER WAS AROUND EVERY CORNER!!!
… There are no corners when you’re flying a plane high in the sky …
Muh flow! Knock it off! Anyway, the Concorde shuddered as Greg steered her low. I had no idea what was going on in the cockpit, only that we were heading into the most dangerous danger we had ever faced! The most perilous peril—
I want to drain your brain of all adjectives.
What’s an adjective? Never mind, no one cares. This would go a lot smoother if you would just stop talking.
I’ll take, “Things Hookers Say to You for $1,000, Alex.”
Not listening to you anymore. This is all super important. And awesome. I mean KITTENS.
Greg got on the overhead speakers. “In precisely five minutes, we’ll deploy.” Then he clicked it off.
“That guy is not one to mince a lot of words, is he?” Chase asked, looking nervously at the ceiling, as though she could see him instead of the speakers he’d just spoken through.
“It’s okay, baby,” I said, threading my arm around her. “I’ll protect you.”
“Oh, my big sexy sugarbear—”
*vomit* Oh, sorry, couldn’t contain it in my mouth any longer. My bad.
Ignoring you, because you totally didn’t really throw up, you just made the sound to distract me. Anyway, five minutes passed like an eternity. Jon laced up his sneakers and strapped on his board. I readied my fifty cals—wait, what was the thing Greg was carrying earlier?
A Browning M2 machine gun.
Yeah, I was totally carrying two of those, one cradled in each arm like kittens. I was swole, had been working out for months, and these GAINZZZZ made me look totally awesome.
“You look so sexy right now,” Chase whispered. “I totally want to have your babies and stuff when we get back.”
If you don’t knock this shit off, I’m going to throw up on your head for real next time. Stick to the story. What happened next that is actually relevant to us finding out why Greg is trying to kill you? No more of this sexual fantasy bullshit you’re concocting in your head.
Fine. Ruin everything.
Greg came on the speakers again, “We are on final approach. Prepare to deploy in sixty seconds.” We waited in silence, the tension eating us alive like kittens eating mice. “Thirty seconds,” Greg said coolly.
“Fifteen seconds,” he said, and this time, I swear, he sounded a little tense. “I will open the boarding door in just a moment, and we’ll deploy.
“Blindfolded.”
“What?” I asked as the cockpit door opened and Greg came out, sauntering his short ass down the aisle like a stewardess, holding blindfolds instead of my in-flight peanuts. “What the shit?” I asked as he extended one to me.
“Put it on,” he said, and when I didn’t, he reached up and put it on me—
Wait. Friday, he’s like my height, five foot four. How did he reach the top of your head to put it on if you were ‘swole’ enough to hold big guns like a Browning?
I don’t know, he just did—
Did he jump?
No. He just reached up and blindfolded me while I whined—err, I mean … while I told him what I thought of that bullshit—
Yeah, I think you accidentally got it right the first time.
Anyway, he blindfolded Jon, Theo and Chase, and then shoved us down the aisle to the boarding door. I was like, wtf is this shit all about?! But I didn’t say it, because I was blindfolded, obviously.
And that interferes with your mouth how? Hell, I wonder if a ball gag could shut you up at this point.
He opened the door and we waited, all stacked up. Chase was pressed against me, all frightened, and I—
Death.
Anyway, the wind was whipping through, and he pushed us out the door. Theo screamed like a girl. So did Jon. Chase held tight to me, and I to her. “If these are going to be our last moments,” I said, “I think we should be together—one last time—in the air—while the world spins around us and the metal chorus plays.” And the electric guitars started up right then, on cue, playing my favorite Metallica song, and we—
STICK TO THE STORY, FRIDAY.
Suddenly our feet hit solid ground, which was weird, because we weren’t wearing parachutes. It happened fast, too, like we were only five feet off the ground when we jumped or something.
… So there really wasn’t time for an amazing, mid-air lovemaking to a pulsating Metallica tune, was there?
What, no, there totally was!
Only you could pull that off on a five-foot jump, Friday.
Thank you!
… That really wasn’t a compliment …
Sure it was.
… Endurance champ …
Whut? Never mind. Doesn’t matter. We landed, and Greg disappeared the blindfolds from our eyes. And we were in a corridor, like he’d tossed us out of the plane and we’d teleported right into this dark, concrete block construction corridor, with electrical piping overhead and metal doors like you find on a ship.
“Where the hell are we?” Chase asked, looking around as she a
djusted her camo tank top sexily.
Greg stood there behind us, and I looked back to see him fiddling in his coat pocket for a second before he replied. “We’re in the bunker of Saddam Hussein.”
“This is so kittens,” I said, my two giant machine guns held in my arms. “Let’s kill this mofo!”
“We need to—” Greg started to say, but then, without warning, fifteen bad guys poured around the corners on either side of us.
“NOOOOOOO!” Jon shouted as he was gunned down horribly in a blaze of bullets, blood squirting everywhere as he fell down. I grabbed him as he dropped. “Bruce …” he whispered. “I’m so sad … I’m not going home … and I never got to tell you the thing I’ve wanted to tell you all this time …”
“What is it, Jon?” I asked, holding him tight, trying to give him solace in his final moments.
“That you were always my hero …” he choked out, and then went limp, dead in my arms, tongue hanging out of his mouth like a roadkill dog. Dead. Super dead. Dead dead dead. So sad.
What the …? WE LITERALLY JUST SAW HIM ALIVE. He did not die in Desert Storm, you brain-damaged idiot!
Oh. Right. Well, I mean—Jon sprang back to life. “Flesh wound!” he shouted, pulling his Uzis and mowing down the enemy as they came down the corridor, full of confidence that they were soon to lose!
“Yeah!” I shouted, and “Enter Sandman” mixed with the “Star-Spangled Banner” was playing, and it was the most diesel awesome KITTENS song you’ve ever heard as I added to the chorus with my M2s lighting up the place. Muzzle flash was going like strobes and fifty cal cartridges were filling the ground at my feet. Iraqi soldiers were dying like crazy, heads exploding, chests exploding, legs, feet and arms exploding and flying off as I doused them with crazy amounts of bullets, the big belts of ammo rolling across me as the Browning sucked them up like Chase on—
STOP.
What? She liked cherry sodas. In a bottle. With a straw.
… Whew.
But seriously, we were killing them all. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers died in that corridor, my machine guns going off like car alarms in a parking lot where a twelve-year-old mischief maker is going nuts with a baseball bat.
Small Things (Out of the Box Book 14) Page 10
