I was answered by the sound of trees shaken by gusts of wind. The air was chilled in the shade of the barn and I detected the faint odor of rotten food, mildewing and falling apart. On either side of that one-room barn with its rusting roof and broken planks of wood was the trash of many years, blessedly covered by blackberry bushes. The tracks of the struggle had led me this far and now I just needed to go a little farther. With my fingers firmly on the grip of my handgun, I made my way closer to the barn, careful not to be seen. However, I would have felt more comfortable with a tactical shot like a Mossberg 500 shotgun. I used to carry that in my truck when I was still a cop. But my Smith & Wesson would have to do on that night.
This place gives me the creeps, I thought. So-called ‘cow farm’. I remembered reading about this area. Supposedly this place used to be a farm where a small company raised cattle for several years.
What was once an active beef farm was now particularly eerie and otherworldly. Intimidating really. It fucking creeped me out. There was almost no visible evidence that any human had ever lived out here. Still, there they were. Was this the shelter of the vampires that had always been hiding out here? Or had they simply stumbled across it in recent years?
Green ferns and ivy had grown up to the level of my chin. Red and green oaks, pines, and few other trees I did not know stood tall and mature where a prosperous farm had once been. But the farm itself had disappeared, almost consumed by nature.
I felt a cold spot at the center of my chest. Was this the bad place that I had always feared? The place where I would meet my end? Could I be near the house of my pain? The pain of losing someone that I cared about? I tried to push these thoughts out of my head and focus on the present situation.
I worked my way closer and closer. I wasn’t too far from the entrance now and could hear muffled voices coming from inside the barn. I wished I had backup. SWAT would have been nice.
No point in being subtle, I thought. I checked my weapon. The firing pin was primed and ready to strike. I held my gun with the barrel down, not pointed at anyone. The nest of vampires didn’t appear to be armed but they were more dangerous without weapons. They were weapons, I told myself.
It had gotten much cooler and my body was feeling stiff. I was insanely tired. The wind whistled through the trees. Whistled and sometimes roared. It felt as if it was blowing right into my blood, turning me cold.
“Hang in there, Kenny,” I said under my breath. I said it so low I could just barely hear it myself, but for some reason… somehow… they could. Suddenly all eyes turned in my direction.
I was up in a flash and sprinting toward the barn. I reached the large, open door and went in with my gun drawn.
“Police!” I yelled. I didn’t care if it was no longer true. It felt true.
“Hands in the air!”
I was just barely inside when all hell broke loose. Screams were rising up around me and rounds were erupting from the barrel of my gun. Two women were screaming as they ran out the rear barn door. I was unsure if they were, in fact, vampires or prisoners taken by the nest. I saw a man stretched out face down in the dirt floor. He was dripping with blood, but I recognized his clothes from Harvey’s video. Tommy Collins lay motionless. There were splatters of blood on the wall behind his body. He was dead.
Shadows came alive and seemed to move faster than I could react. Bullets tore through wood and hay as ex-vampires dove for shelter. I caught sight of Kenny lying next to an old, rundown tractor. He was unconscious, but alive.
Three vampires bolted out the back door and others moved on us to cover their retreat. Powder and primer ignited over and over again in a rapid rhythm. Blooms of firing light illuminated the attacking faces of what seemed to be close to twenty furious vampires. Pain raced throughout my torso as powerful hands and feet came down on top of me. I screamed out in frustration again and again. Then all at once the roaring of rage and murderous intentions halted. The structure of the barn door exploded off of the hinges and rained down in splinters of smoldering wood. I looked out into the fading light through the open doorway. Her hair—black as night—seemed as beautiful as when I first met her. Fabiana stood like a majestic goddess in the cold of the barn. She made no physical attempt to move against them. But her mind, her powerful mind, was working faster than I had ever thought possible.
Flames suddenly came to life around me. Hay and wood cracked and popped as the cold of the night raced away in a blaze of heat and light. It seemed as if I was stuck in slow motion and I could do nothing but watch. Nameless vampires were thrown from me as fire consumed the framework of the old barn. Long, licking fingers of fire worked over the old dry wood. Black smoke rose up as the inferno consumed the decrepit structure and the darkness of the night no longer existed, replaced by a hot yellow and orange glow.
It was awfully quiet all of a sudden, except for the cracking of wood and a few distant cries far away. It was almost as if nothing had happened. As if we were alone in the barn. I could hear the distant roar of the river and the fading sounds of retreating legs pushing through the brush.
Otherwise, nothing moved. Not even Kenny. Not that I could see anyway through the blaze around me. It was eerie as hell. I had a really bad feeling again that this was a trap for me. They knew I would come for Kenny and come after them, didn’t they? This was their turf, not mine. But Fabiana had changed all that. The nest had been laid to waste. Half of them were dead on the dirt floor of that barn and the rest, at that moment, were fleeing. Even in her human form, Fabiana was unstoppable and they all knew it. They were smart to fear her, for she would kill them all and not think twice about doing it.
She had saved me once more and I loved her for it.
Chapter 40
6:40 p.m., May 6
Joe entered the coffee shop at just before seven at night. A true connoisseur, he paused at the opening of the door to appreciate the aroma. Steam hissed as the large coffee contraption worked on a line of orders. Keys clacked as laptops and iPads glowed around the tables and counters of the cyber café and Joe took a seat at the back of the darkly lit coffee shop in Ballard. He had ditched the conspicuous van back at the freeway exit in the U-District and was able to make it this far without attracting too much attention. Now he needed to look into his problem and think. He pulled out a smartphone and brought up the news feeds.
How horrible it was. Who had done it? The question had a cursory answer. The television reporters, with little else to do it seemed, kept telling their cameras to look at the crime scene where Joe had killed the agent and taken his gun. He remembered how it felt well enough. But after all, the man was there to take his life. So all in all, Joe didn’t feel too bad about it. It was a means to an end, nothing more.
Long ago, Joe had participated in an operation that had gotten noticed by the Organization. He had taken a man’s life then as well. And it seemed, as Joe thought about it, that he couldn’t remember a time before that when he hadn’t been asked, at one point or another, to take lives. Be it for his country or for the Organization. Joe almost regretted it now, but fear prevented him from focusing on remorse. He feared he would no longer know who he was if he started questioning his past motives. It was a matter of skill as the Organization’s foremost military operative. He used the word skill within his own mind, and in that private place he relished and despised that part of who he was.
It was his most dominant talent—taking lives—though he couldn’t use it elsewhere. Shouldn’t use it outside of the Organization. Such an event that had taken place on that day should never have occurred. Maybe he ought to be recycled, Joe wondered.
A few years ago a city cop never would have gotten the better of Agent Tango. And no one knew that better than Joe. It was supposed to be the work of a professional, not the work of some amateur. The irony was striking pinpricks of pain to his pride. Since puberty, Joe had devoted himself to the study and practice of martial arts, and then later, obscure military tactics. When he came of age he joined
the 1 Infantry Division and then the 75 Rangers.
Joe was dedicated to the development of his mind as well as his body and practiced political violence, studying the psychology of the mind and anything else he could learn about the minds of those that would oppose him. Joe had planned and executed his orders, first as a soldier for the United States Army and then as a covert operative for the Organization. Now what? What was Joe now? Mercenary fighter? Killer for hire? Fugitive? None of that sounded appealing to him.
Joe looked at his phone again and navigated away from the continuing news feed, opening a new browser. He knew better than to log onto the CIA server at Langley. Any such move would be flagged and would trigger attention to him in an instant. Fortunately, Joe knew people that could grant him access to certain information. People who would be willing to help him. If only he could find them.
Joe worked on his phone for several minutes, at the same time looking up at his surroundings, never taking his eyes of the front door for long. Then Joe sent a message out to an unlisted number. One of his contacts.
“I have personal and confidential business to discuss,” Joe’s text message read. He knew it was a risk. All text and instant messages were easy to find and the CIA could effortlessly grab them. However, this was a risky time and Joe needed to make contact.
“Is this who I think it is?” the message came back almost at once. Joe paused for a moment, unsure if he should respond. What if it was a trap? Then he looked at the tag on the message. It read 63/22/11. Joe recognized right off what the numbers meant. 1963 was the year and on the 22 of the 11 month, John F. Kennedy was killed. Many agents, including Joe’s secret contact, used significant dates to identify themselves. This particular individual specialized in government conspiracies and Joe was confident he had reached the right man.
“Yes, I have locked myself out of my car.” Joe sent his code for help.
“8:30.” The message came back.
Joe’s trained mind saw the hidden response in the message at once, for it was a code.
His mind ran over the possibilities of an attack and the analysis of the area came rapidly. A single man. Perhaps two. More likely two. As it always was, he thought with a motionless glance at his surroundings.
There was always one man willing to die, to sacrifice himself for the hunter. The hunter being the man at the front door. These men served a cause, whatever cause that might be important at that particular moment. Money was the most likely suspect behind their motives.
Joe wondered as he looked at the men, the guns for hire standing at the front door of the café. They stood motionless for a moment, their eyes flooding over their surroundings. He had seen men like them in the past. They were ex-soldiers, no longer fighting for king and country. Now the only flag they followed was that of the almighty dollar. Joe knew because he was just like them. They had the same master.
He knew these two men could be more formidable than an army. In any case, what was the line again…? An army of one. They would definitely possess special skills and have access to special means of destruction. Both of which Joe was sure had served them well in the past, otherwise they would not have made it this far.
That was Joe’s luck, it seemed. It was easy for a single man to go unseen. But two men? That was dumb—might as well be the 3 Brigade. And that made Joe smile a bit. The really hard part was going to be finding a way to neutralize the two hostiles without anyone else getting hurt. Because that was one thing Joe always told himself. No more innocents would be harmed.
Agent Joe Tango was always smarter and farther seeing than his counterparts. He himself had faced the necessity of operational command. He had a sense of structure that he had always depended on, but now it was gone from him. Joe had steel in his soul to do what was needed to be done in those times when he relied on Operational support but got none. He was not the type that would sink if abandoned. No, Joe would find his own way and be stronger in the process. As he thought back on those violent and feverish times, Joe knew now that he didn’t crave repeating them. It was too dangerous. After all, it wasn’t that he feared the consequences of his actions—he was now a recycled soldier, dead and gone from all record. He was disavowed and so had officially ‘gone black’.
Joe watched the men without it looking like he had even noticed them. His skills in that respect were always above the expectations of everyone who had ever known him. He excused himself to the restroom and made sure he was noticed. It only took a moment. Joe was at the sink washing his hands when the man came in. He was tall and looked nondescript in a dark colored coat and sported black hair cropped short to his head. Definitely ex-military. Joe gave the man a non-threatening glance and stepped out of his way.
“Excuse me, sir,” Joe said and walked behind his target. And that was precisely what the man was to Joe—a big, Organization-issued target.
Joe grabbed the man in front of him now, his left arm around the man’s throat, his right hand tearing at the man’s ear.
“How many?” Joe asked, grunting the words between his teeth as the man struggled. “Where are they?”
“Fuck you, Tango.”
Joe was halfway in the bathroom stall now. He angled the man’s face down, ripping his ear half off of him, smashing the man’s face through a tiled wall. The man attempted to scream out, but Joe had a hand over his mouth. Then his target sank to the floor. Joe rammed his foot in the ribs of the man’s chest and could feel the gun strapped to his body. He reached down and yanked the short automatic pistol free. For an instant, it occurred to Joe that someone may have heard his commotion with the assassin. He jammed the gun into the man’s open mouth.
“Tell me how many or I’ll do it,” Joe told him slowly, as if talking to a small child. The man choked and gagged for a moment before Joe withdrew the weapon and placed the muzzle against the man’s flustered face.
“Two. One outside and one by the door.”
“The man by the door, what is he wearing?”
“I don’t know.”
Joe cracked the gun across the man’s temple. “I think you might want to try again.”
“A black coat!”
“Good,” Joe told him.
The door to the restroom opened. Joe stepped out, his eyes finding the man at the door at once. To the left, a man in a dark raincoat wearing an odd looking pair of sunglasses stepped forward with his hand drifting to a hidden gun under his jacket. The eyes behind his dark sunglasses recognized Joe at once. The man was raising an unseen hand hidden in the pocket of his coat and the silenced barrel of his gun showed itself to Joe. They held a gaze in that long, tense moment and Joe stepped closer to him, the whole time calculating his next move.
Not a word passed between them but their eyes spoke volumes. Joe suddenly lunged forward and propelled the man in front of him through the glass door. A few rapid spits came from the barrel of the man’s weapon, but not soon enough to stop the shower of glass that was now raining down over the evening sidewalk of Ballard. The man shouted, his arms covering his face. He arched his back in pain as he attempted to climb back to his feet but could not.
Bystanders were screaming in confusion as Joe ran into the cover of the darkness of an alleyway. Soon Ballard would be crawling with agents. He knew he needed to be gone, and fast.
Chapter 41
6:55 p.m., May 6
It was just before evening in the city of Seattle. Agent Trent Void (User319) was landing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a military facility about ten miles southwest of Tacoma. His peripheral vision took note of the vast barracks and homes on the base’s outer communities, and he wondered how many of those men never came home to their waiting wives and children who were at that moment asleep or eating dinner in their bedrooms and kitchens. Trent had not been to Washington State since his early days in the service, when two or three naval aviators would share a hotel room in Seattle in order to save money for alcohol and strip clubs. They always wanted to impress the locals with their large m
ilitary bankrolls and worldly panache. It seemed like a long time ago.
The C-17 turned right onto the taxiway.
“C-17 five –zero –zero, continue down to the end.”
Trent could hear the calls coming as the plane slowed to a stop and he climbed to his feet with the men of the 104 reserve infantry division. Trent was just along for the ride and several soldiers shifted in their seats, their eyes finding him and then returning back to one another with a questioning glance.
Trent’s muscles felt like they were made of painfully heavy lead. How could all feeling be gone yet there still was pain? he thought. You’re too old, was how his mind answered the question. Then his leg made its presence known. Arthritis, damnit. He’d have to make it out of the plane without looking too suspicious and limping off like some old cripple. It would not be the smooth exit he had been hoping for. As he was leaving he recalled the good old days. Trent had flown over half the world in a fighter jet at one time or another. He was most comfortable with a stick in his hands. It was in making decisions on the ground where Agent Void seemed to make his worst mistakes.
Minutes later Trent was gone, out of sight and making his way off the base. His military ID got him past all the checkpoints well enough. Soon he had his iPhone out and was tapped into the police feed. The cameras had been slow in setting up for a newscast at one of the scenes downtown but they were there now. He saw the screen of his phone telling him the whole tale in brilliant blue and grey. The little cameras were portable ones—Japanese-made, all of them, he noted with a sigh. This was getting out of hand fast and soon they would come for him as well as Joe. Trent knew he needed to make arrangements sooner rather than later to get Agent Tango out of this mess.
The Blood Born Tales (Book 2): Blood Dream Page 20
