Brimstone Hustle (Brimstone Cycle Book 1)

by Robert McKinney

  I think of cookies burning inside the shattered ruin of my house and my dead contacts, but mostly of Mary.

  “Not a problem.” I say, again through gritted teeth. He tells me the code. I thank him, flick my lighter, and leave.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I land near a random Starbucks in Portland, Oregon because I need a place that’s low profile while still having anonymous internet. I’m not kidding when I say random Starbucks, either. Like I said, drops are only as specific as you make them, and I hadn’t been picky when making my landing.

  This particular Starbucks sits across the street from another green and white painted caffeine supplier, and within eyesight of another, larger and dual lane drive through equipped Starbucks a block down the street. The placement seems stupidly redundant until I notice a small mom and pop coffee shop without wifi or cookies sharing the block with all three. Say what you will about Portland, it’s the only place that I know of where even a titan like Starbucks has trouble muscling out the little guy.

  It’s also one of the few places in the country where my current state will attract, at most, a handful of stares. I confirm this by walking into the mom and pop coffee shop. There’s no one inside save for a barista at the counter and two college students bobbing their heads to the soft music filling the place. All three of them look up as I enter the building, and all three go back to their business, unbothered, the moment they see me pull my smartphone from my pocket. My uncombed hair, bad ankle, and brimstone smudged jeans make me look like a hobo in most parts of the country, but here? I’m just another post-millennial trying to get coffee.

  I order a chai latte and join the other patrons in bobbing my head to the music overhead while I wait. I don’t really need to add the caffeine to my nerves, but the traditions of coffee patrons must be obeyed, even by me.

  Every part of me wants to make this visit as short as possible, but I’m realistic and know that’s not what need. I’ve been sprinting headfirst through this whole mess since it started, and haven’t taken the time needed to assess the disasters that have happened, or how they’ve affected me.

  A barista calls my name out, and after picking up my cup, I claim a table for myself in one of the room’s corners. My leg tries to stiffen up on me once I sit down, so I prop it up on a free chair that’s nearby. That devil’s grip had done a number on me. For a second, I’m tempted to pull up my pants leg to check out the damage, but something tells me that inspection will just hurt more, and won’t help anything.

  I sip my chai and lean back into my chair, closing my eyes as I feel the caffeine start to hit home. Jesus, I’d fucked up our home. I’d always tried to look out for her and taken whatever hits that I could when they were aimed her way. Sometimes that meant getting between her and dad. Once, between her and a scumbag that needed killing. The devil I’d bargained with not long after that one had praised me for taking care of him so messily. Like most things that devil had praised, it hadn’t been something to be proud about. But I didn’t feel guilty about doing it, either.

  Getting Mary caught up in all of this shit was another thing. I like to tell myself that I’d done all of it for her. That I stole guns from soldiers who needed them for protection, and sold them to whoever had enough money to cover my mortgage, bills, and secretary’s fees because it was the only way for Mary not to end up like the other farmgirls we’d grown up with. Tired, hopeless, drug addicted - or all three. That was part of it, definitely.

  The larger part, though, was that I did it for me.

  I’m good at this job. Good enough that I’d still be a good deal more than decent at it if I’d somehow stumbled upon it even without the dropping through hell. I know my way around guns, don’t draw undue attention, and most importantly, have a good gut for how this fucked up market thinks. I’m good at this job. I’ve never been good at anything, other than protecting Mary.

  She’s out there, somewhere. Possibly hurt, definitely scared. She’s waiting for me, and I won’t be able to find her until I know who I’m dealing with. So with that thought in my head, I finish my chai, and start rummaging through the documents in the briefcase sheet by sheet.

  They’re eye openers, to say the least. While my secretary is generally tight lipped when it comes to telling me details about potential buyers for security reasons, he has been a busy beaver when to comes to tracking his employers. The briefcase is a trove of record keeping, complete with formulae and languages I don’t understand crammed alongside pie charts and tables listing high volume trades. The folders detailing me contain more or less my life’s history, with the last portion containing a reminder to look into how I fill orders so damn fast.

  The information he has on the men who’ve been ruining my day doesn’t disappoint. From what my secretary can tell, they’re a mercenary shop based not too far away from the camps holding refugees fleeing all the hurricanes that climate change has created in Florida. They’re a diverse company, and seem to work with politicians, aid workers and spy agencies alike.

  After the day I’ve had, none of this really surprises me. The guys who took my sister took out my newest buyer so fast I hadn’t been able to catch them with a drop. They’d also managed to kill more than a half dozen of the toughest allies that I have and get a team on site at my secretary’s place, all within the space of an hour and a half. Pretty much everyone who’s had recent contact with me have been hunted with the kind of professionalism rarely found outside of special ops teams. It’s the same level of skill sometimes found in the more expensive reaches of the private sector.

  A watermark at the top of several of the pages says “ESR Services” alongside a little logo of a dog covered in flames. A quick search through the suitcase confirms that as the name of the mercenary outfit. It’s run by a husband, Tom Angler, and his wife, Patricia Angler (neé Sanderson,) who are almost never found at the headquarters of their shared private military company.

  My secretary’s notes indicate that the duo in particular plays well with the Chinese, and specialize in off book things like bringing unruly expatriates home. It takes some digging through the suitcase to find the photos that match the names, but eventually I find them.

  Pat Angler is a tall, tan skinned woman with the kind of physique I’ve often seen on those obsessed with hiking trails. I’ve never seen her before, but the husband is significantly more familiar to me. Tom Angler is a man with pale sunburned skin and a smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. On his right hand is a college class ring with a big red jewel set into the center.

  It’s Todd the buyer from earlier. Mr. Money.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Motherfucker. I should have known that it had been him. He’d been the last person I’d talked to before going home to Mary, and despite all the carnage at the hotel, I’d never seen his body. Not up close at least. Planning a ruckus like that would have diverted attention from even the most level headed of people, which I’ll be honest, has never been me.

  I’ve been played, and looking at the photo even I have to admit that I’m in well over my head. To do what he’s done - to kidnap Mary, fake all of that carnage at the ritzy hotel, and then run through my allies as easily as a teenager would mow the lawn - this man has to have to had access to more than an ad hoc network of former shooters and spies. Any corporate CEO with enough stock options and a lack of morals can accumulate that. Using those resources like a hammer one moment, or a scalpel as needed, was a long way away from what your average merc shop could do. There are governments in this world, mine included, which would have trouble tackling people like this.

  There’ll be more than a mere challenge when facing people like this. I may be a devil dog, but I’ll still bleed out just as quickly as anyone else if I’m shot, and my resources are at best a fraction of what this man has to draw on. With his friends in various governments, he can lock down, or even trace, most of the money I’d use to bribe my way into more information on him. That, or have the police the world over o
n the lookout for me. He’ll have all sorts of ways to know where I am. I now know where Tom’s mercenary company is based, but the file says that he’s almost never there. I don’t have time to wait for that to change.

  The only thing that I’ve learned from this entire briefcase is just how well and truly fucked I am. I don’t know where Mary is. I don’t know how I can beat this man. Hell, I don’t even know why this man and his company give a damn about me in the first place.

  As much as I hate to admit it, I’m plain outmatched.

  But I think I may be able to find someone, or rather something, who isn’t.

  Bribes, smuggling, gunplay, tradecraft - all of these are things I’d picked up on the job. The thing that made me so good at arms trafficking, wasn’t a learned skill. I’d learned that from Ole Beeze almost a full decade ago.

  I don’t know the specifics of how it went down on his end, but Ole Beeze had been on the lookout for what he calls “talent” when he found me. I’d been screaming bloody murder at the corpse I’d just made when he’d shown up with a puff of brown smoke and offered me a deal.

  Freedom. The ability to move anywhere, anytime. To never be trapped and scared for myself or Mary again. It didn’t even cost me my soul, according to him.

  The lessons on dropping that followed were short, but close to unthinkably stressful. No matter how much you think it, no one is ready to see the inside of hell. Not the first time, at least. His lessons on surviving were similarly short, and followed a sink or swim approach to learning. I swam. I lived, a good deal longer than most of the others devil dogs that I know he or his brothers and sisters have trained.

  I could look for one of them, maybe, but I don’t know where to start. The last one that I’d met died while making one drop too many in Borneo a few summers back.

  There’s another option, too, though I don’t like thinking about it. It’s been in the back of my head since the moment I lost Mary. A choice of last resort that I’d said I’d never make again.

  Once again, I look down at the photo of Tom Angler, the man I’d been calling Todd in my head. I’ve done bad things to gain freedom and get to where I am in the world. I’ll do a hell of a lot worse if it takes me to Mary.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Ole Beeze is a bastard. Not a loud one, or particularly showy, but he knows how to twist a knife when it suits him. I think that’s why he hasn’t moved from the place where I’d first had a chance to sit down and really speak with him. It’s a wood frame and window AC unit kind of affair, half heartedly converted from a church that didn’t get enough love to keep the bankers away. He’d taken most of the crosses down by the time I’d met him, but the pews give it away.

  I don’t land directly inside of the place. Bastards are rarely kind to uninvited guests. Instead, I plop down on his back porch, and feel the too tall grass and gangly limbed weeds that reach past the rails tickle the back of my thighs.

  Thump. Thump. Thump. I knock three times out of ritual instead of sheer force of habit. Ole Beeze once told me that there’s a sort of magic in threes. Nothing useful, as most people define it, but people, or rather things, like Ole Beeze notice its lack.

  The door opens.

  “Come in.” Says a soft, feminine voice.

  I step through the doorway and follow the voice into shadow. I squint and blink for a moment as my eyes adjust enough to make out a few details. The lamps that stand in corners and fluorescents hanging overhead are all turned off, and the only light in the room comes from narrow, stained glass windows on the opposite wall. The space is small, and only grudgingly accepts the three rows of pews that someone had squeezed through its narrow hallways.

  Ole Beeze sits waiting on one of the pews. He’s wearing someone new today, a young woman with skin dark enough to blend well into shadows. The face is different, but the good natured expression with a hint of mockery is more than familiar. It doesn’t fool me.

  Bodies, freely given, are the payment that Ole Beeze demands for his gifts. He wears them and exchanges them the same way that most rich men wear suits. One morning, a blonde. The next, a brunette.

  One year. That’s how long he’d worn me for. A whole year away from Mary that I’d never get back. I don’t know for sure what he did while controlling my body. I don’t want to know, either. The blood he’d left on my hands and inside of my mouth had told me more that I’d ever have the courage to ask. I try not to think about it, especially when making drops.

  He leans into the pews, his elbows draped over their high, angled backs. One hand is busy twirling a cigarette, while the other rolls a lighter, much like my own, from one delicate knuckle to the other as if it were a coin.

  “Have a seat.” He says in the young woman’s voice.

  I lower myself to a seat and find that the wood grain is hard and unforgiving under my weight. My knotted muscles let out a small squeal of protest, but at least the weight is gone from my ankle. The relief is enough to make me want to sigh, but I stifle the sound when I see a look of disapproval on Ole Beeze’s face.

  “You’re bloodied.” He says, the expression returning to good humor.

  “And then some.” I say. “Sorry to mess the furniture.”

  Ole Beeze snorts and sweeps his hands wide, palms upwards, as if presenting the room to me.

  “Yes, because it would be a shame to besmirch a room so holy as this.”

  I catch the faint smell of wood smoke filling air. When I look for it, I find a dust covered cross on the wall releasing a thin tendril of smoke

  My lip curls a little at that. Just because you take the girl out of the faith doesn’t mean you can take the faith out of the girl. Even with everything that I’ve seen and all that I’ve done, a few remnants of respect are still left in me. I have bigger problems to deal with though, so I school my face back into stillness and turn back to Ole Beeze.

  We sit together in silence for a while. Me not moving, him not even breathing. Finally, he sighs and leans over towards me.

  “Are you going to make me say it?”

  “Yes.” I say, keeping as still as I can. The wooden pew continuing to dig into my back and I manage to hold back a wince.

  “Why?” He asks. I see a flicker of something in his eyes. Irritation, I think. With so many faces, it’s sometimes hard to tell.

  “Because you love games, and frankly, I need you in a good mood.”

  That, at least, brings a glimmer to his eye, and it lasts for longer than its usual moment. I may not have him yet, but I think I have something.

  Ole Beeze spreads his hands, as if waiting for me to lay something heavy in them.

  “Then by all means.” He says, “indulge me.”

  “I’ve got a bargain for you. A small one.” I say.

  The lighter he resumed rolling from knuckle to knuckle falters for a moment before steadying and continuing on smoothly.

  There we go. I see hunger in the devil’s stolen face. He wants this, and while he doesn’t do something so obvious as lick his lips in anticipation, I know him well enough to see that I’m close.

  “What flavor of power are you in need of?” He asks, his voice even.

  “No power, this time. Just information.”

  The lighter freezes in his hand then falls down to the floor.

  “Little imp, no matter how much you like to pretend otherwise, you are not among the rabid dogs that I’ve pulled from the gutters. You understand that knowledge is by far the most dangerous power, so please refrain from acting as if I’m too simple to understand the same.”

  I shut my mouth, hold my breath, and imagine myself small. I’ve just insulted my old teacher, who could drag me screaming downstairs in his wake with not a sliver of effort. Not that he’d leave it at that if truly offended. I still don’t know where Mary is, but I doubt that would stop him if an example had to be made.

  Exhaling slowly, I lower my head.

  “I’m sorry.” I say. “I just need to get what I can. My sister is missing.
She was taken from my house. I know who did it, I think, but not where he is. I need to know that. Please.”

  The lighter goes back to rolling between Ole Beeze’s fingers again, despite my not actually seeing the point where he picked it back up.

  “I want a ride.” Says Ole Beeze. “A long one this time. Three years for the location of who has your sister, payable once you’ve found her, of course.”

  My heart leaps in my chest.

  “You’ll get it.” I say. “But payable after I’ve returned home with her. No offense, Ole Beeze, but I don’t want any confusion, or you showing up for me the moment I lay eyes on her.”

  Ole Beeze inclines his head to me, making the stolen woman’s hair fall in waves in front of his eyes.

  “Fair.” He says. “Confusion really is the bane of a good deal.”

  “OK then. You’ll get another ride.” I say. “For three years, starting after I’ve returned with Mary. No visits to my friends or family while wearing me, either. Hell, no visits to anyone who’s met me before. Drop me off safe and unharmed at home when you’re done.”

  “Nothing is safe, little imp.”

  “Don’t insult me, either, Beeze. No drop offs outside of army barracks in Burma. No surprise endings with swat outside of my door. No immediate danger. For me, that is safe.”

  Ole Beeze nods then rises to his feet.

  “You have me hooked, little imp.” he says, holding out his hand.

  I shake it and he tells me everything that I need.

  “I wish I could give you a ride there.” He says as I prepare to leave. “None of my brothers would molest you while traveling with me.”