She was taking up a lot of my headspace, and even more worryingly, heart-space….something I hadn’t thought I even possessed. Yet she was digging in there and rearranging all my ideas, setting up shop somewhere inside my chest.
I just had to keep us both alive long enough to figure this shit out.
* * *
We reached Harris’s compound two and a half hours later. The main gate was closed, as always, but there was a keypad, and every A1S employee had a personal keycode. The gate was a good ten feet high, made of solid black iron, connected to an eight foot high stone wall extending to either side into the thick stand of pine trees surrounding the compound. You couldn’t see the buildings from the gate, and the stone wall continued a good hundred feet into the woods in both directions, where it transitioned from there to a fifteen foot high steel prison fence topped with razor wire. The entire compound was surrounded by fencing, with the gate as the only way in and the only way out, and it was heavily fortified, electrified, monitored, and alarmed.
Beyond the gate, the narrow dirt road wound away out of view, disappearing into the trees. Eventually the woods gave way to open space around the house and various other buildings of the compound, but even that was under constant watch. The compound encompassed a good portion of the foothills in which this place was nestled, and from several points in those hills a sniper could settle in and keep a hawkish eye on the whole compound—which I knew for a fact was something Anselm often took upon himself to do quite frequently, his big old Barrett fifty cal rifle in hand.
But I was nervous. This wasn’t my car, which meant Anselm was likely to shoot first and worry about wondering how I got past that gate later; Anselm didn’t take well to unannounced visitors.
I took a deep breath and hoped for the best, then entered my keycode. The gate swung open on silent hinges admitting the Jeep, and then closed again seconds after I was through. The cameras didn’t follow me, I noticed, which meant they were recording but were not necessarily being actively monitored—not good news, because someone watching the camera would see me and alert Anselm not to send a fifty caliber slug through my skull.
I pulled carefully through the woods, emerging into the opening holding my breath. I made it twenty feet, fifty…a hundred…
And then a fountain of dirt exploded ten feet in front of the hood, and second five feet away—a clear message to halt. Those bursts of dirt were HUGE, and definitely from Anselm’s Barrett. A fifty caliber slug from a Barrett would go straight through the engine block like a hot knife through melted butter from a thousand yards; I’ve seen what it does to a human, and that’s a nasty, nauseating image I know I’ll never forget. I tapped the brakes to stop the Jeep, exited the Jeep slowly, hands up, standing in the open door where I’d be visible.
“It’s me, numbnuts!” I shouted.
I heard a distant, shrill, two-note whistle, an acknowledgment from Anselm. Thank fuck. I got back behind the wheel and pulled forward again, Temple still snoring. Five minutes later, I was braking outside Harris and Layla’s house. It was a sprawling, custom-built ranch, single story, and it looked deceptively ordinary. It wasn’t ordinary, though, at all—Harris didn’t do anything in half measures. The main, visible level consisted of maybe three thousand square feet, enough to be roomy yet small enough to be cozy, considering it was just the two of them. Really, the house looked like any old Colorado ranch home, and the main level supported that illusion. It was what was hidden underneath that was unusual: a massive underground bunker, literally fortified against nuclear warfare, coded to Harris and Layla’s palm and voiceprints alone. The bunker contained enough weapons and ammo to take on a medium-sized third world country’s army, plus extra living quarters and enough rations to last seven or eight people for a year. Outside the house, there was a huge, custom-built barn.
Well…barn is a misleading term. We called it a barn but it was, in fact, an airplane hangar capable of housing several full-sized aircraft, and it usually housed at least one plane in it at any given time. Aircraft were Harris’s hobby and, like everything else, he didn’t do it half-assed. He had WWI biplanes, WWII fighters, a MiG, an F-4 Phantom, and a Huey all from the Vietnam era, and several generic, less exciting single and double engine private prop planes, plus his six-person Gulfstream.
Some guys restored hot rods or bought vacation properties; Nick Harris restored fighter jets and bought heavy weaponry.
He’d personally restored each one of the vintage aircraft, and was licensed to fly anything that would go up in the air, from passenger jets to fighter jets, from helos to prop planes. Not only licensed, but one of the most talented pilots I’ve ever met. A little known fact about those fighters he owned: he’d procured, somehow, machine gun ammunition and rockets for all them. As in, if he wanted to, he could carry out his own goddamn airstrike. I wasn’t sure even Layla knew he had another bunker underneath the larger, more nondescript hangar by the runway, which contained his stock of heavy duty ordinance—rockets, grenades, fifty and thirty-eight caliber machine gun ammo, a few crates of SAMs, and that was just what I’d personally inventoried.
The man was legitimately ready for war.
I kicked open the door of the Jeep, checked to see that Temple was still out, and decided to leave her be for the moment. Let her sleep, she needed it. I had a feeling shit was about to get seriously wicked.
I expected Layla to burst out the front door and holler some funny shit at me from the wraparound porch, and I even had a few good comebacks chambered, but she never appeared.
“What the hell?” I muttered to myself. “Layla! Where you at, bitch?” I bellowed.
The buzzing rattle of a powerful dirt bike echoed up in the hills, the noise getting louder as it approached. I assumed it was Anselm, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. I fetched one of the rifles from the backseat, tracking the incoming dirt bike from across the hood of the Jeep. It appeared after a minute or two, and even though the figure on the bike was wearing all black BDUs and a full-coverage helmet, I knew it was Anselm by the sight of the fucking enormous rifle strapped across his back.
He braked to a dramatic, arcing rear-tire skid, planted one boot in the dirt and stood up to let the dirt bike lean against his thigh. Tugging off the helmet, he passed a hand through his messy brownish blond hair, smoothing it back across his scalp.
“Everyone has been searching for you, Duke,” Anselm said, by way of greeting. He spoke English more fluently than I did, though he spoke it with a thick German accent, and sometimes he rearranged the grammar in quirky ways.
“Yeah, well, I ran into some trouble.”
He peered into the passenger window. “And still managed to procure a lady friend.”
“She’s not my usual brand of lady friend,” I said, tossing the barrel of the rifle onto my shoulder. “And she’s part of the trouble.”
Anselm’s eyebrow lifted upward which was, for him, kind of like shouting a question. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, someone whacked me across the back of the head, shot me full of sleepy time drugs, and stuffed me in some shitty ghetto basement in the Denver suburbs. I’d been about to chat up this chick outside the bar, so I guess they decided to not take any chances and just grabbed her too.”
Anselm nodded. “I have much to fill you in with, and we must also call our mutual employer. Thresh is rather worried about you, I should mention.”
“You know what’s going on?” I asked.
“To a degree,” he answered. “Cain is making a play for his vengeance.”
“I thought Harris said Cain was a low-level kingpin with more ambition than sense or some shit like that?” I lifted the rifle. “The guys I’ve been cleaning out haven’t been amateurs, man. The last bunch were pro mercs, eight of ‘em, well armed and decently trained.”
“They chased Thresh and a…a friend of his all the way into the Everglades, and he barely made it out alive himself. Puck had a run-in of his own, and Lear is hiding somewhere digging for
information. We are scattered, my friend. It seems Harris greatly underestimated this Cain individual.”
“Yeah, I talked to Lear, and he hung up on me.” What he’d said about Thresh registered, then, belatedly. “Is Thresh okay?”
“He was wounded in one arm, but nothing life-threatening.”
“But this is serious.”
Anselm nodded. “Ja. Very serious, in my estimation.”
I circled the Jeep to stand nearer Anselm, leaning back against the hood. “I tried questioning one of the mercs but he wouldn’t tell me shit, except that Cain isn’t what we thought, that we don’t know anything and we can’t get away. He said Cain will find us. Normally I’d have made him talk, but with Temple watching…?” I shrugged. “Chicks don’t dig watching torture, yeah?”
Anselm chuckled. “No, indeed not.”
“What worries me is how they keep finding us. These guys just…show up, like they know where we are.”
Anselm’s features tightened. “That is worrying. You are not ignorant in the art of throwing a shadow.”
“It’s really fucking weird, is what it is. We got out of the basement they had us in, and I didn’t leave any survivors. Then they found us at my stash house, which nobody knows about—that shit is under an alias, man, and you know I’m careful about keeping those clean and separate. Four guys came after me, and again, I didn’t leave any survivors. They found us on the open road, Anselm, on the highway heading this way. Middle of nowhere, just fucking…poof, they appeared and knocked us off the road.”
“And you fought off all eight by yourself? Without sustaining any major injuries?”
I shrugged. “Got lucky. It was close though. Couple shots nearly had my number, dude, and that shit is starting to fuck with my head.”
Anselm was staring at me. “That is quite worrying, Duke. They should not be able to just find you no matter where you go.” He toed down the kickstand and sidled toward me. “It seems too sophisticated and high tech for me to believe this, but…it almost seems as if they put into you a tracker.”
“Like…a tracer? Inside me?”
“It would explain how they are able to keep finding you.” He tipped his head to one side. “But that is an expensive proposition. That technology is not so easy to procure, even if you have the requisite funds. And it seems to be a lot of effort to expend merely for revenge. If he could kidnap you, he could have easily put a bullet into your head and be done. The mystery of his tactics worries me. There is something we are missing, I think.”
I hissed. “And now I led them here, to Harris’s compound.”
“It is only conjecture on my part,” Anselm said. “I do not know for a certainty if you have been implanted with this tracker. We should be safe here for a time.”
“Still, we should get contact Harris.”
Anselm nodded. “Perhaps bring your friend into the house.” His action suited his words and he headed inside, where I noticed the front door had a new biometric lock.
In fact, the windows seemed reinforced, and the door looked heavy…
“Hey, Anselm…looks like you’ve been busy up in here.” I opened the passenger door of the Jeep as I shouted to Anselm.
He nodded. “Harris has been wanting to improve the quality of physical security, so I did that while covering the compound.”
I looked down at Temple and shook her gently. “Hey, babe. We’re here.”
She blinked awake, twisting in the reclined seat, peering at me as she stretched. And goddamn, that stretch…arching her back, pushing her tits out, looking sleepy and sexy and fucking temping as hell.
“Where are we?”
“My boss’s compound.” I couldn’t help brushing a flyaway lock of hair out her eyes. “Safe, for now.”
“That’s what you said about your stash house.”
I grimaced. “Yeah, well…this place is fortified. Plus,” I gestured at Anselm, visible through the open doorway of Harris’s house, “now we’ve got some back up.”
“Who’s that?” Temple asked, pulling the seatback forward and yanking her hair out of the ponytail holder to rearrange it.
“That’s Anselm.”
“The scary German dude?”
“That’s him. But he’s on our side, and be glad of that. We should be okay here for a while.”
I grabbed the duffel bag out of the back seat, along with the other rifle and the Mossberg. No sense being caught unarmed, right? Temple and I went into the house, and I closed the door behind us. The lock clunked home, a solid and reassuring sound.
The inside of Harris and Layla’s house was as nice and unassuming as the exterior. Cozy, country, and comfortable, is how I’d describe it. Lots of wood, exposed beam ceilings, hardwood floors with hand-woven rugs on top, and artfully, intentionally mismatched furniture. It had an open central floor plan, with the master bedroom on one side of the house, and a set of guest rooms on the other, and a spacious study for Harris off the living room. I’d only been inside a few times, as the HQ for the crew was housed in a separate building over by the runway and the barn, and that’s where we A1S guys spent the bulk of our time when at the compound. This was Harris and Layla’s personal full-time residence, and thus seemed a little…off-limits, I guess.
“The doorway can withstand a sustained automatic weapons fire,” Anselm said from the foyer area, “and the windows are all bulletproof. Additionally, there are now motion sensors along the perimeter, and extra cameras in key locations. I have installed sniper’s nests in several places up in the hills as well, each with its own rifle, ammunition, and range finder, as well other hideout locations with backup weapons and food.”
“You’ve been a busy boy, buddy,” I said, laughing.
Anselm nodded. “I do not enjoy idle time. And I do not ever underestimate my enemy. I am prepared to defend the compound against any who wish to try their luck.” He unslung the mammoth rifle and set it butt-down on the floor, leaning it against the doorframe. “If they wish to take this place, however, they should better be ready to dance with the devil.”
Temple was eyeing the rifle. “Holy shit, that is the biggest gun I’ve ever seen.”
Anselm patted the barrel. “Ja, the Barrett, she is my very best friend.” He held out his hand to shake Temple’s. “I am Anselm See.” He pronounced his last name zay, rhyming with weigh, or hay.
Temple seemed wary. “I’m Temple Kennedy. Nice to meet you.”
Anselm gave a small, but charming grin. “I think Duke has been telling stories again. He and Thresh, they like to make anyone who meets me think I am some kind of Boogie-Man.” It was obvious from his lack of reaction that Anselm hadn’t heard of Temple, which wasn’t surprising; he wasn’t really the pop-culture sort of guy.
“Motherfucker, you are the Boogie-Man,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’re just our Boogie-Man.”
Anselm shrugged one shoulder. “I will accept that.” He shot me a look. “And you know, Duke, you curse more than anyone I’ve ever known. A foul mouth is the sign of a weak mind, my father used to say.”
“Yeah, well, my father used to say people who swear a lot are smarter.”
Anselm cocked his head in confusion. “You did not know your father. I am sure of this.”
“And you don’t have a father,” I retorted.
“Everyone has a father.”
“Except you. I’ve always assumed you were created fully-grown in some super secret spy laboratory.”
“Spies do not work in laboratories,” Anselm said, deadpan serious. “That is scientists.”
I laughed. “You gotta get a sense of humor, my man.” I hesitated, and then figured I’d just ask and see what he said. “Where did you grow up?”
As far as I knew, none of us had ever dared ask him anything about his past, under the assumption he wouldn’t answer, or would get pissed at the invasion of his privacy—and nobody wanted to risk a pissed off Anselm.
Anselm was quiet a long moment. “I was bor
n in Berlin, Germany, April 30th, nineteen seventy-nine.” He hesitated another long moment. “My father was a government official, and my mother was a homemaker. My childhood was unremarkable in every way. It is my adult life which is…more difficult to explain.”
“Well, I hate to interrupt such a riveting conversation,” Temple said, “but I’m hungry. Is there anything I can eat?”
Anselm nodded. “I will fix you something. Do you have any allergies to food?”
“Nope.”
“Well then, I shall see what there is. Please, be at home.” Anselm moseyed into the kitchen, and I heard the sounds of cabinets opening and closing.
We moved into the living room and sat down on the couch, which was a deep, thick leather monstrosity, well worn and stupid comfortable, the kind of couch that liked to eat you and never let you get up. Temple curled up with her feet under her legs, sitting closer to me than I’d assumed she would, after that last conversation we’d had.
When Anselm was busy and out of earshot, Temple eyed me skeptically. “He seems nice. You made me think he was some kind of vicious assassin.”
I laughed. “Oh, he is. He’s also super nice. That’s what makes him scary. He’s never anything but nice and polite and calm. He doesn’t get excited, doesn’t yell, doesn’t curse. I’m not sure he even drinks booze. He’s just…utterly calm, all…the…time. It’s unnerving. We’ll be in the middle of a shootout, bullets flying every which way, people dying, screaming, fucking rockets exploding, and Anselm will be in my earpiece acting all cool and collected, like it’s just a day at the fucking beach. Or whatever it is that freak does for fun. If he even knows what fun is.” I leaned backward over the couch. “Hey, Anselm!”
He was at the island in the kitchen, making sandwiches. “Ja?”
“What do you do for fun?”
He finished one sandwich and started on another, answering without looking up. “Practice at the shooting range. Read books. Track down my enemies and eat their hearts.” He glanced up and winked at Temple. “The usual.”
Duke: Alpha One Security: Book 3 Page 15
