Hell To Pay

by Andrik Rovson

  They were all gone, leaving the villagers to sort out the dead and begin caring for the wounded, using one of their bundles, full of medical supplies, including gallons of plasma and nearly a hundred pounds of sterile dressings and tape. It was barely enough but most of the people who had a chance were patched up quickly, within the hour.

  Jabo had lost three men, none of whom he'd known, other than their hurried introductions in the hangar at the base before they flew off. They called in for evac and the officer who eventually answered asked who the hell they were and more importantly, who'd authorized this mission. Jabo recited the Colonel's name, and the Captain with him, describing them both. Nobody had any record of who they were and where they'd gone, and worse – what authority had authorized their mission?

  Some major strings had been pulled, they were used to correct a some spook's mistake. He'd used him and his men for their personal war against Asif. Had he been their asset, a secret ally or spy, gone rogue? Jabo didn't care, only that this had cost three men's lives and had torn up five more, enough their war was over, facing months of recovery and rehab, one would lose his lower leg. For what? A batch of old Russian gas rounds that had been found or handed over to the wrong man. Or had Asif been told where they were, ordered to find them and bring them in, for analysis? The initial apprehension Jabo had felt about the entire mission had been right, but that feeling was useless now.

  Impossible to know and after the debriefing from hell, Jabo and the entire Special Forces Team had been told to keep it to themselves, Top Secret, jail time if they ever mentioned what happened. A cover-up – hell yes. Who knows? But Jabo's trust in the system had been shaken and he'd never quite believe as completely as he had before.

  “You short?” the officer back in temporary Officer quarters noticed his slight limp, a twisted ankle from the last hard rush to scatter the men into the fields, breaking the last bit of resistance. He whooped and yelled at them to keep the Taliban running, nearly distraught he couldn't join them, chasing the defeated fighters like rabbits, cutting them down along with the victorious villagers. They would have done the same thing, or worse. It was a vicious war he was trying to forget as fast as he could, like the many soldiers before him, from the Revolutionary fight for freedom that began his country's unique experiment in human dignity and freedom until yesterday's winning fiasco. That summed up this entire exercise.

  “Yeah, three days, or less, priorities, you know.”

  “Oh hell yes, they made me stay a damned week, needed a mess officer, can you imagine? Pissed me off, you too?”

  “Yeah, filling out paperwork this high,” which was true. The after action report seemed to keep expanding as he tried to get it all down before it faded, the details, how he'd managed the initial attack, responded, the turned it around, something the higher ups, who badgered him for more and more details, still didn't believe. But his men had backed him up. Just another day at the office.

  “What you gonna do, when you get back?”

  “Anything but this shit.” They high fived each other.

  “Amen brother. Beer, barbecue and babes, that's on my list, you too?”

  “Babe, just one, a very special lady.”

  Chapter One

  Homecoming is never easy

  Odysseus

  He'd dropped the cheap rental car in a motel parking lot where it would be found, eventually. The fate of the car was nothing to bother with. Where he was going might require a truck, not the small sedan that was useless in the desert. He didn't want to be tied to paved roads when his job was done.

  Vladimir stalked down the street, his eyes moving sharply side to side. They clicked precisely like a mechanical doll simulating a curious human, striding down the avenue washed by bright neon lights that painted his body. He moved quickly, almost jogging, drawing his long woolen coat out to flap behind him. His light step gave the impression of a dancer about to spin on a stage.

  Nobody saw him, strangely invisible in the dropping light of dusk, just past the half light that makes everything magical for a few minutes. He blended with his background, then vanished, a shadow that had detached itself from a human. Vladimir didn't wander, he moved in a straight line, his eyes registering one perception to the next, supervised by his vast, calculating consciousness. A woman, stepping out of a store felt a slight movement in the air, but never saw him, like he'd willed her to ignore him, tore the perception from her mind. All she noticed was a queasy dread in her stomach, which hurried her to her car.

  Walking up to an office, small and garishly colored to make it easy to spot in the large parking lot full of used cars and trucks, he leaned his forehead against the cool glass to peek in the window. Feeling exposed by the lines of glaring lights strung on poles around the lot, left on to advertise the ranks of highly polished machines, he looked over his shoulder, staring through the brightness that killed his night vision completely. It took a second to calculate the risk/reward. Turning back to the door with a glass pane in the center, hand painted – 'Uncle Jimmie's Used Cars' – he tapped the large pane with a small metal point that rose from one of his rings.

  If anyone had actually seen him, the rings worn outside his black leather gloves would have seemed peculiar, but then everything about Vladimir was strange if not downright eerie. He was tall and thin, an archetype from another time, gaunt like Lincoln or Ichabod Crane. Proud, he always stood straight even when he was bent over, as he was now, stepping carefully through the sharp teeth of broken glass remaining in the door's glass panel – a challenge to creep through without touching any of them. His quick success provided what passed for amusement to him. Normal didn't apply to anything about Vladimir, yet he looked like everyone else, a nobody but unique and very special in his world of deadly assassins.

  He looked over the keys through the small glass panel he'd spotted, hung on the wall. It was secured with an absurdly tiny, useless padlock on the side. The terrible security meant he could drive off with any vehicle he wanted. Wrenching the lock off with his hand, he took the key he wanted and left. Returning to the door of the small building, he picked up a brick used to prop it open on windy, cool days in the Spring, a month away, how they enjoyed the last dregs of winter's relief before they'd fire up the air conditioner.

  He broke out the remaining shards of glass, tapping each one to make it snap off into his gloved hand so he could carefully drop it on the small patch of dead grass and dirt beside the door. Done, he looked at his work, making sure he hadn't missed any pieces that would catch the sea of lights in the car lot. The empty frame would work to hide his break-in. Nodding his head, happy at this short delay in his relentless movement toward his target, his stony face expressed pleasure at a simple job done well, something he normally would never reveal.

  He surveyed the lot, then pressed the unlock button built into the base of the key. A newer truck flashed it's light, telling him where to go. Walking up, he opened the door and stepped inside, looking out of the windshield, happy it was just off the street, only a rope with a line of flags between him and the wide sidewalk that merged into the curb. The big engine fired up and he resisted the urge to tap the gas, to make it growl like a bear, facing a foe or a hunter popping up in its path. That's what Vladimir felt like, a roused animal, a force of nature, not cruel or vicious. His relentless, murderous nature was how he was built inside – tight, tuned and beautifully ruthless – if you looked at him from the right angle, if you could see him.

  Selecting drive, he moved out slowly, to be sure the wheels were pointing forward, always aware how things could go wrong when you weren't attending to details. The rope caught on the metal framework on the front of the truck, a heavy metal guard most pickups in this area had in some form, so they could bash their way across the desert, knocking back the brush and smaller trees, making their own path over the cracked, pale pink/brown land.

  The rope snapped with a satisfying pop as he pulled out, cautious, like he'd bought the truck earlier and wa
s just now picking it up to drive it home. Even in the late model pickupu he merged with the plush interior, a chisel faced no nonsense farmer in his pickup – what you'd expect. He disappeared, driving down the deserted main street past a lone police car, the cop's glowing face buried in his onboard computer screen.

  It didn't register, to either of them. The cop checked his phone that had just beeped, reading a text from a lonely woman ten years younger than him, widowed when her soldier husband had blown up on a dirt road, going somewhere with a purpose that wasn't worth his life and future – scouting they'd said – a nothing task in an endless war.

  Vladimir let go of his pistol, the bigger one with a longish barrel that let him make a five inch group at fifty meters, half the distance to the police car and the head he spied, squinting one eye to make it a target. There was no reaction from the policeman, no response to the truck stolen only two blocks away. Vladimir turned his eyes front, possible death averted, a life saved. He was invisible and the cop distracted by his swelling manhood, ready to clock out early. Two men, two lives, two paths, diverging.

  The map on Vladimir's phone showed the exact directions required to go to the address he'd uncovered days ago. This final task was too easy, turning Vladimir's stomach slightly. Anybody could do this, find an exposed target, even one as well hidden as this man and his family had once been. The search for him had been enjoyable, working through the layers of security, tracking down a well hidden person so he could pierce that final veil. It was like a virgin's hymen to him, drawing an erotic sigh, rapturous when at last the information flowed out to cover his computer screen, thanks to the password that had cost him, his employer really, a cool twenty thousand dollars. Someone always talked, given the right motivation.

  Loyalty and integrity were a dollar amount, for everyone he'd ever met. The more they bleated about their sincerity the higher the amount would be. Everyone turned when that final number was offered and given. It made sense to him, confirmed his model of how the world worked and the humans in it. Only fools died for nothing – a flag, an ideal, a slogan. Those were the truly dangerous, for nothing would stop them if they caught his scent and chased after him. A truly honest man was his only terror.

  It forced him to practice invisibility. He'd made it an art, a way of life, like designer fashions for some. He wore nothing special and made it look.... Well that was it, you couldn't see him if he was standing in front of you.

  The phone's navigator voice announced a turn off this long winding road through nothingness. The scenery in West Texas was like the hills that dimpled the South Kuban as you approached the dreary, now deadly Caucasus. The Chechens were such bleary, self righteous assholes, all puffed up with themselves and easy to kill. You told them they were cowards, spit on their manhood and they stood there, cursing as you shot them down, bang, bang, bang.

  Vladimir loved going there. Everyone else in his trade was so afraid of their bluster and reputations he charged triple his normal price. It enhanced the legend that grew around his name.. Nothing like a crazy Chechen warlord to buff his repute, not that he had an ounce of honor or morality. Vladimir knew what he was, a mercenary – and at the moment, bored. Only killing someone fierce, or actually dangerous got him up in the morning. He was the ideal combination of extremely high IQ and drive to succeed, taking no prisoners, leaving no survivors – he always killed everyone he ran into on the job, protecting his anonymity.

  “You are here,” the voice would next read out the address, so he turned off the program on his phone, going to the weather icon to make sure mother nature wasn't going to throw a fast one his way. Good, nothing for three days, his back was clear, time to play.

  Parking the truck, he picked up his small satchel, retrieved from the rental car before he'd stolen the truck. It had more weapons, the essentials of his trade, as well as the other equipment that might be needed for this job. His work wasn't anything special – find, kill, leave. No added fluff was required on this one, like making it look accidental. It was a small bother, not hard to do, since everyone assumed 'hit men' like him were a movie plot device, not real and moving around in the world performing their deadly duty, sometimes disguising their grisly job.

  He'd never killed without payment, not a frivolous murderer or one who did it to feed his inner demon that had developed a taste for removing the living fire from his fellow humans. Doing it for free didn't appeal to Vladimir, that was all. Otherwise he didn't have any moral scruples or professional opinion. Others could fill their time, between jobs as they liked, he did, but often not happily, since the diversions and hobbies of others wouldn't touch his icy soul or amuse his lifeless core. Only one thing smoldered inside...

  That possibility, living out his favorite fantasy, added a spring to his step as he approached the front of the house. The target's address indicated a one story residence no different from any of the others in this small suburb. The entire housing complex was out of place, middle America dropped into a parched, near lifeless desert in West Texas. Just before he reached the front porch he stopped, hearing a pack of dogs barking, no not dogs... coyotes? Yes, how charming. He turned his head, radar-like, a machine orienting on the sound, distance measured, approximately three hundred meters, a touch off the azimuth of the rising moon peeking over a nearby mesa, probably their inspiration, beaming out a half light that made everything shades of dull gray, which suited Vladimir more than the burned out rainbow of desert pastels during the day.

  Their yowling stopped, producing a sigh of disappointment. He felt closer to that hungry, rancorous gathering of skinny feral dogs than all the humans in this mundane modernity that ran down the street to end in a single red reflector, warning the driver the wild, the desert, the unknown lay beyond.

  He tried the door, then picked it, in less than a minute, by hand, with shitty tools, something he'd bought off a Chinese website, pure crap that bent as he worked the pick, nearly useless by the time he got the handle to start turning, pissing him off. He left the cheap metal junk in the key slot, a sure sign he hadn't been invited. It would insure no one with a key could enter while he was inside. The local police would probably need an obvious clue like that to figure it out if they were like the regular collection of dolts who normally cleaned up after him.

  He feared a few of them, the very very good ones who'd catch his scent, for a few days, then lose it, like they all did. That made it fun, often watching them record their clues and insights, finding his steps so the trail emerged. If he had time he'd stand among the curious crowd of gawkers, admiring his gory work along with him, the monstrous artist of death. It didn't matter if the police arrived. He always felt safe, like a kid who suddenly appeared to touch home base, leaning against the tree or street light, grinning at the others who'd felt him tap them 'it' then disappear until he showed up, out of reach, invulnerable, taunting them.

  After all these years no one was certain, outside a few in the local Russia Mafia in Moscos, 'who' he was, only what he might look like, where he might live, where he'd come from. His profile was a patchwork of guesses, most poor, a few outlandish, none bothered him in the slightest. His luck and skill prevailed with such regularity he got the choice assignments, what others wished they might be considered for occasionally. Like this one, a traitor, the former employee of a Russian firm operating here in America with a hidden purpose he hadn't asked about when they'd given him the details, guessing they wouldn't say anyway.

  It was always a bad idea to mess with a Russian company, overseas they were universally owned and operated by someone who was a front for the Mafia or the bastards themselves. They were the only people who could get to him, but he was so damned useful they'd protected him, in his country and overseas – for fifteen years – from that first, bloody mistake of a job that had showed him how NOT to do things.

  We all have to start somewhere, screw up and re-assess, then move on, work out the standard model, then improve from there. He had until he was the ideal, the archetyp
e, a myth and fairy tale ogre rolled into one. It was all very Russian, being so stereotyped and utterly evil, in reputation at least. He didn't feel bad at all, just a workman, doing his job with a tip of his hat and I'll see you later to the dead bodies left in his wake. Remove the finality of death he dealt out and he was no different from the smiling man in uniform who unclogged your toilet then handed over his outrageous bill – the hallmark of true professional.

  Inside, he heard a TV going. These Americans, even the Russians who'd emigrated, all surrendered to the entertainment leviathan that was Amerika, like Hitler spelled it, scary and very unhealthy, owned and run by a collection of rich wastrels of questionable heritage – the way of the world. At a minimum TV took all your free time from your limited life span and turned it into what? A slight smile of amusement? To hell with that.

  He turned the corner off the short entryway the led in from the front door, going into the den like they'd summoned him. 'Jeeves, can you get us some more corn chips and dip? There's a good man.'

  “Who are you?” the man was so startled he said it in Russian, obliging Vladimir to reply the same way. “The person who's going to kill you.”

  Their eyes widened but the couple on the couch didn't move an inch. Why was that? It wasn't that uncommon. He would have gone ape, throwing shit at him, trying to find death in the objects around them. That centerpiece could be a great missile or good for a smash to the head. An iPhone thrown on edge could dig one of its corners into a person's skull, aim it at their temple where the bone is thinner. He knew, he'd done it once, neat trick – love that sleek all metal back plate.