The Clone Assassin

by Steven L. Kent

  Not hiding her lack of enthusiasm about his dropping in, she said, “Hi, Travis. Do you want to come in?”

  She reminded him of a mural on a crumbling wall—beautiful and disintegrating right before his eyes.

  He asked, “Would that be okay?”

  She stepped out of his way. “You want some coffee? I could brew some.”

  “No. I’m fine,” he said, as she shut the door behind him. The apartment had the heavy atmosphere of a funeral home. Watson could feel the sense of grieving in the air.

  Sunny’s apartment faced west, giving her a panoramic view of George Washington University, the Potomac, and the afternoon sun. She generally kept the curtains open, bathing her apartment in daylight. On this day, she had the curtains drawn and most of the lights turned out.

  What is it about people in mourning? Watson wondered. What do they have against the sun?

  Three minibottles of whiskey or rum sat on the coffee table in the living room. There was an empty wine bottle on a nearby end table. Watson spotted more bottles and wineglasses in the dining room.

  Harris and Sunny had never been particularly affectionate, not that Watson could recall. He’d never seen them holding hands or kissing. Watson couldn’t imagine Harris kissing a girl out of simple affection.

  Sunny surprised Watson. He’d expected her to ask him for an update, but she didn’t. He decided to answer the unasked question just the same. He started by repeating what he had told her before, that Harris’s status was classified, then he said, “We still haven’t heard anything.”

  “Did you expect to?” she asked, suddenly sounding cross. “What did you think, that you’d find him sunning on the beach?”

  He let the moment pass, then said in a soft voice, “It looks like he’s missing, not dead.”

  She stared at him, her liquid blue eyes boring into his. “He said this would happen. Right from the start he said he had enemies. He was such an idiot.

  “No. No, I was the idiot! Everybody warned me about him. You did. Do you remember? You told me he always has to be in the middle of all the action, that’s what you said. You said something about how he always puts himself on point.”

  Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes, but they didn’t fall. She said, “I’ve never approved of wars and armies, never. So who do I end up dating, a clone . . . not just a clone, a Liberator, and a general in the Marines. He wasn’t even in our Marines. He was in the Marines that conquered Earth!

  “There was just something . . .” She sighed and stared down at her lap. When she looked up again, she seemed resigned. She asked, “Does Admiral Cutter know about it? What does he have to say? Has he sent people down to investigate?”

  Watson said, “The local police are investigating. The Pentagon is sending men down as well. Look, Sunny, I’ve known Wayson for a couple of years now. The man is practically indestructible. If . . .”

  Sunny cut him off, shouting, “Really? I’ve only known him for a couple of months, and this is the second time he’s been given up for dead. The last time, some bastard shot him in the back with a shotgun.”

  “Yeah,” was the only thing Watson could think to say. She had exaggerated. No one had given Harris up for dead when he was shot on Mars. Harris had been healed and walking by the time he started dating Sunny.

  “Was he on point when he got shot?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there,” Watson answered, very aware that he no longer had control of the conversation. He said, “Look, Sunny, if he’s alive, we’ll find him. I don’t know what else I can tell you.” He had a headache; his heart raced; he wanted to get away from Sunny.

  Sunny was a Harvard-trained lawyer. Watson was a lawyer, too, but he’d gone to a less expensive, less prestigious school. He thought he might be able to keep up with her in a legal setting, but not here, not when she was the grieving lover. He felt obligated to extend her every courtesy, but he wanted to get away from her as quickly as he could.

  She said, “I forgot your coffee.”

  He waved it off, saying, “I’m fine. It’s a nice day outside. You should go for a walk, the fresh air could do you good.”

  She furrowed her brow, her blue eyes still piercing his. “What is happening at the Pentagon?”

  “You mean the attack?” he asked.

  “The bomber. I heard they got him before he could do anything.”

  “He killed himself,” said Watson. “Blew himself up with a hand grenade. He took the air-conditioning system with him. It gets so hot in that building that I don’t need to go to the gym; I just go to work and sweat off the pounds.”

  She laughed, but it was not a happy laugh. “All he got was the air conditioner?” Sunny asked, the look of passing amusement softening her eyes.

  “Yeah; now it’s like an oven in there.”

  “Are they going to fix it?” she asked.

  He shook his head, and said, “They’d better.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  “We’ll fix their air-conditioning,” mumbled Franklin Nailor, hiding in the back room, listening carefully to everything Travis Watson and Sunny Ferris said. He had a gun, a small pistol, but he wouldn’t have used it. He’d nearly beaten Watson to death three months earlier, having purposely kept the big slug alive as a message for Harris. Nailor had taken his message to Harris directly as well, shooting him from behind with a shotgun.

  He would have liked to have killed them, but the choice wasn’t his. Watson had been a little fish at the time, maybe he still was, and worth more as a message than as a martyr. And Harris . . . Franklin Nailor would have given anything for the pleasure of killing him, but U.A. Special Operations had spent a lot of time and effort reprogramming the bastard (an utter failure) and controlling him (a modest success).

  With Sunny in place, the Unifieds knew when and where Harris was going before he boarded his transport. They knew his tactics. They knew his penchant for leading battles in person. Wayson Harris was a devil they not only knew, but whom they could manipulate. Screw food, the fastest way to a man’s heart was through his crotch, and Sunny had that down pat.

  Nailor remained in the bedroom, listening carefully, admiring the way Sunny fleeced Watson for information. She manipulated the big stiff with such grace. One moment she played the grieving girlfriend, and the next she glided into her sultry, almost angry, persona. She drew sympathy from Watson, all the while subtly jabbing at his confidence. When he left the apartment, he’d feel that he’d acted foolishly, but he wouldn’t know what mistakes he had made.

  She had a knack for making herself unpleasant in indistinct ways, ways that honest people couldn’t quite identify. When Watson stepped out the door, he would dislike the bitch without knowing why, and he would berate himself for being unfair to her.

  Watson said, “Oh, well, Sunny, it’s already been a long day, and . . .”

  “I could still brew some coffee.”

  Nailor smiled. Seeing that Watson wanted to leave, Sunny reeled him in for another swipe. First she grumbled about letting him in, then she flashed her anger, and now, as he prepared to leave, she offered him coffee. Brilliant bitch, thought Nailor.

  He thought about the time he had attacked Watson. Watson was tall, six-five, a full foot taller than Nailor, but he’d been awkward, frightened, and unprepared. He’d tried to protect himself as Nailor had blackened both his eyes, broken his ribs and nose, and shattered his jaw. The fool didn’t know how to defend himself. Now here he was with Sunny, still unable to defend himself. Fool.

  Harris hadn’t been as easy. He wasn’t supposed to shoot Harris, but when it came to violence, Nailor had trouble saying, “No.” For him, violence was the highest form of comedy, and murder was only mischief.

  Peering through a crack in the doorway, he saw Watson hug Sunny.

  What an ass, he thought. They all believe her. They all think she is so specking sincere. He smiled. He liked the way she hugged Watson, her back stiff as she maintained space be
tween them, the way you hug a smelly child or an adult with a contagious cold.

  Nailor was both homicidal and bitter. He had played an important role in the operation when they captured the clones and ran experiments on them. He had drugged them, tested chemical programming sequences on them, and watched dozens of them die when glitches in their neural programming caused them to have death reflexes.

  He’d enjoyed watching the clones die. He got a kick out of the way they stiffened and collapsed. Seeing blood pool in their ears amused him.

  Harris had been different. With him, Sunny and Franklin had resorted to classical brainwashing with a few chemical enhancements.

  They’d put on a show for Harris. Nailor had tortured Harris physically and emotionally. Sunny had seduced him, pretended to protect him, and staged her own death. Once they had indelibly imprinted fear and attraction into his psyche, they rebooted his brain, wiping the memories from his mind, leaving stray impulses in their place.

  The first time the recently released Harris saw Sunny, he fell in love with her without ever wondering why. Harris showed signs of stress whenever the name “Nailor” entered into the conversation.

  Across the hall, Watson assured Sunny that he would look in on her. She thanked him for “being so thoughtful.” He told her he would let her know the moment he heard anything. She told him he was “wonderful.”

  She played him.

  Sunny walked Watson to the door, gave him another lifeless hug, then locked the door behind him as he left. She said, “He’s gone.”

  Nailor stepped out from the bedroom.

  At five-foot-five, he was slightly shorter than Sunny. He had movie-idol looks except for the perfectly round scar in the center of his forehead. The scar had come complements of Harris. They had staged an escape, planning for Harris to run from his cell and find Sunny’s dead body. Harris had specked the entire show. He attacked when Nailor expected him to run. He had found a jagged pipe and driven it into Nailor’s forehead.

  Vain by nature, Nailor hated Harris for ruining his looks. He’d hated Harris before the escape, hated him because he was less than human. Killing Harris wouldn’t satisfy the grudge; he wanted to make Harris suffer and beg.

  He said, “Why didn’t you ask if Freeman is in the New Olympian Territories?”

  Sunny said, “That wouldn’t be very smart. I’ve never met Ray Freeman. And how would I go about bringing that up? ‘Oh, hey, Travis, how was the weather? Did you eat any good meals while you were there? Oh, and by the way, did you happen to run into Ray Freeman while you were there?’”

  Nailor didn’t enjoy receiving the same treatment he’d just seen Sunny lay on Watson. He pushed past Sunny, walked to the kitchen, and helped himself to her refrigerator.

  She said, “You know, Franklin, I get the feeling that you’re scared of Freeman.”

  Nailor, who had a pitcher in one hand and an apple in the other, went to a counter. He emptied his hands, and said in a voice so calm it could only have come from a lunatic, “Of course I’m scared of Ray Freeman. I’m scared of your boyfriend, too. Either one of them would kill me in a fair fight, that’s why the odds are never even.

  “I hope he scares you, too. Girls get hurt when they get comfortable.”

  “Scared of whom, Freeman or Wayson?”

  “Both of them.”

  Sunny said, “Oh, don’t worry about Wayson. If he scares you so much, I can fix it. That’s why I keep that magic cartridge in my air vents.” She walked over to the thermostat on the wall and tapped it. “If things go bad with Harris, I’ll make sure he never wakes up again.”

  “Assuming he’s alive enough for you to kill him,” said Franklin.

  “There is that,” she conceded.

  Franklin bit the apple. He smiled as he chewed. “What the speck happened down there? If it’s one of ours who did that . . .”

  “Gee, Franklin, that’s touching,” Sunny said, sounding impressed. “You almost sound concerned about him.”

  “We need your boy alive for now. Enemies become valuable assets once you’ve been inside their heads.”

  Sunny’s eyes softened, and her face slipped into a sympathetic expression. She touched a finger to the scar on Franklin’s forehead, and said, “You don’t always know what he’s planning.”

  “I got sloppy,” he said. “I underestimated the bastard. Just you don’t make the same mistake.”

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  Location: Mazatlán, New Olympian Territories

  Brandon Pugh woke up to find something dirty in his mouth and a knife pointed at his throat. He said, “Better watch your back, Freeman. One way or another, you’re going to pay for this.” The words came out soft and garbled. Whatever Freeman had stuffed into his mouth, he’d rammed it back so far that some of it ran down the gangster’s throat.

  Freeman said, “Let’s talk.”

  Pugh’s hands were tied behind his back. He lay on the cot in his shirt and his underwear. Freeman had removed his pants. His feet were bare and tied to the bed.

  For the first time in his adult life, “Big” Brandon Pugh felt panic setting in. He tried to look Freeman in the eyes but found himself unable. Freeman’s eyes were spaced far apart and showed nothing resembling sympathy or mercy.

  His face was pocked with small scars, possibly burns, nearly erased using a laser. The man’s pores were as wide as pencil leads.

  “Are you going to pull out the gag?” asked Pugh.

  The words came out like choking sounds, but Freeman understood them. He said, “Not yet. Right now, I am going to do the talking.”

  Trying to mask his fear, Pugh said, “Get specked.” It sounded like, “Whiff whecked.”

  Pugh couldn’t tell if Freeman understood. The man’s face showed no emotion. He leaned forward, as if preparing to untie Pugh or possibly to pull out the gag. Instead, he pinched Pugh’s earlobe between his thumb and forefinger, flattening it against the knuckle.

  Blazing pain filled Pugh’s brain. He tried to scream and inhaled the gag deeper into his throat.

  He screamed, “Son of a bitch! You motherspecking son of a bitch!” It came out, “Sum sum a bip. Ya muvaspepping sum sum a bip!”

  Freeman squeezed the earlobe even harder. Pugh felt tears come to his eyes. He didn’t know if they had been caused by the pain or the frustration. Even when he screamed his loudest, the gag muffled the sound, and now he could barely breathe.

  Freeman released Pugh’s earlobe, and said, “Three clones entered Harris’s apartment. There was a girl in the apartment. They didn’t kill her, and she didn’t try to warn Harris.”

  First, Pugh struggled to breathe, then he inhaled through his nose, and screamed, “I don’t know what you are talking about!” He was scared. Nothing and no one had ever scared him like this.

  The words came out emphatic but indistinguishable.

  Freeman said, “Here’s my explanation. Tell me what you think.

  “The way I see it, the reason the clones didn’t kill the girl is because she was working for you, and you were working for the clones. Does that sound right?”

  His head spinning, panicked by the difficulty of breathing and by the pain, Pugh said, “She doesn’t work for me. She’s my niece.” Pugh could barely understand himself, but Freeman asked, “The girl in Harris’s room was your niece?”

  Pugh nodded. He hated himself for giving in. He hated Freeman and wanted to kill him. He felt ashamed of himself for being a coward.

  Freeman recognized the signs of a broken man. Without warning Pugh about what would happen next or threatening him with consequences if he called for help, Freeman pulled the gag out of the gangster’s mouth.

  When he realized what Freeman had done, Pugh’s feelings of fear and anger and shame increased. His mouth was so dry it hurt, and the gag had scratched his throat. He wanted to threaten Freeman, but he didn’t dare. He wanted to swear at him. He wanted to scream in frustration. His throat would not obey him. His brain had
divided. A very small part of it wanted to fight, but the rest of his psyche admitted defeat.

  “How does Harris know your niece?” Freeman still held the knife, a large, serrated dagger that Pugh had kept strapped to one calf.

  Pugh gulped in air. He said, “She met him before all this happened, before the civil war and the aliens and Mars space station. They met like ten years ago, back when Harris was still a private or a sergeant.”

  “Does she have a name?” asked Freeman.

  Pugh tilted his head back so that his chin stuck up in the air. Had he been standing, the gesture would have shown defiance. With him lying on his back, it went unnoticed. He said, “Her name is Kasara.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  The dormitory walls were prefabricated and flimsy, with doors so thin that Freeman could hear people breathe as well as talk. He looked at Pugh, and whispered, “Get rid of him.”

  Pugh said, “Look, Freeman, you already have a problem with Story and the police. Now you got a problem with me. You let me go now, and maybe you get out of this mess alive.”

  There was another knock. “Brandon, you in there?”

  Pugh asked, “So why don’t you do us all a favor and let me up?”

  Freeman continued to point the knife at Pugh’s throat. Without speaking, he raised his M27 and pointed it at the door.

  Seeing that the mercenary would not release him, Pugh said softly, “I bet you don’t know what to do with yourself when you’re not fighting a war.” Then he shouted, “Hey, Leon, we’re having a private conversation here. Can it, will you?”

  The man at the door said, “Sorry, it’s just that the cops are here. They’re looking for you.”

  “Who is it, Story?”

  “Yeah, Story and a couple of peons.”

  “See that, Freeman, you got all of your enemies in the same place. Convenient, eh?”

  Ignoring all the distractions, Freeman asked, “Why didn’t the clones kill your niece?”

  Pugh didn’t answer.