INHUMANUM: A THRILLER (Law of Retaliation Book 1)

by Bradley Ernst

  He allowed his eyes to rest solidly on the girl’s bosom. He saw her mouth moving. He knew she was angry, but his tongue would take care of it.

  He could relax.

  His tongue spoke: “What are you a doctor of, lass?” A momentary trouble rested in his mind’s periphery, but the tongue was quick. It would get rid of the pest. He watched his hands pour another drink into the glass from the decanter. The hands served him well, and he smiled at them in thanks.

  Old friends—each little part of him. All was fine when he bathed his brain in enough scotch.

  “If you’re seeking a way to minimize my title, you won’t find one, you pompous drunk.” Doctor Maxwell stood. She plucked a card from his gleaming desk and was gone.

  He could rely on his tongue. It always helped him. It always knew just what to say.

  Once outside, Henna began to shake. She had to walk. She needed Stephan, but not the new Stephan—she needed the old Stephan.

  The whole Stephan. Stop—that was wrong—Stephan needed her. For the first time, he needed her. She wouldn’t let him down.

  It was time to stop asking herself what Stephan would do—

  Stephan DID.

  Henna convinced the owner of the cabaret to show her the tape. It was horrible—the men with hammers rolled in like a tide and started swinging. Stephan managed to take about six of the forty-four out before they had him on the ground. They swung the hammers at his face—they held down his arms and crushed those capable, loving hands. Stephan fought like no one she’d ever seen, but they still got him. Henna walked. She ruminated. Soon she stood in the graveyard she’d shown Bonn. She held the phone to her ear. Even as she did, she couldn’t remember who she had dialed. She could hear her heartbeat and paced.

  “Hi, honey—are you calling to check on my weight? I’m trying to limit myself to one pie a day.”

  Alvar.

  Henna breathed into the phone. She didn’t know what she needed—she didn’t know what to do. “Are you there, Henna? Can you hear me? I hear you breathing, I think. Are you OK?” Henna found her voice.

  “No, Grandpa—I’m not.”

  “What’s going on? Do you need to come home?” Henna sat on an old stone bench and tried to calm herself. The bench faced a large headstone over two hundred years old.

  A girl. Twelve years old—the perspective was just what she needed.

  “I need some advice, Grandpa.”

  Perhaps Alvar sensed the distress in her voice?

  “I’ve managed to get quite old. I might have something useful to say.”

  What had Abernathy said? Oh yes. I heard some talk about you meddling with an ongoing investigation. They could have her phone tapped. She wouldn’t be able to flesh out any details for Alvar, but she probably didn’t need to.

  “I’ve never asked you about the war, Grandpa. I’ve been afraid to ask. I’m certain you witnessed horrible things. I can’t imagine the injustices you endured.” Alvar was quiet. She pictured him leaning forward, like he did, intent to glean a salient meaning from her jumbled words.

  “Injustices are a part of everyday life on different scales, dear, but yes—wartime brings out the worst in people—not all people, though. It brings out good qualities buried deep inside others.”

  “How did you make it? Out, I mean, and with your decency? Oh, Grandpa—I don’t even know what I’m asking you.”

  Should she just tell him what was going on?

  She was suddenly reminded of Mortimer—the day he broke the window to kill wolves.

  “How did I make it?” Alvar became deathly quiet. Henna pictured him back in a trench, a burning rag tied around a wine bottle filled with petrol and soap—perhaps the first of many he’d throw at tanks, but this was the very first anyone threw—since he designed it, he threw it. Was he fighting injustice? Nothing about war was just. At a certain point justice is no longer expected. Even the idea of it feels like a trap, somehow built to trick you into the ideal, but what mattered? What could Alvar distill to tell her about resolve? Was she asking for advice?

  Or permission …

  “When you’re at war, it’s important to fight. If you’re committed, you aren’t fighting for yourself, you’re fighting for everything that comes after you—” Henna focused on the young girl’s headstone. She nodded into the receiver. “—and once you start to fight, or fight back—once you’ve made the decision, you tear a hole in Hell, make what escapes work for you. Don’t stop until it’s done. And Henna? If what you’ve done isn’t enough, tear a bigger damned hole. Invite every last devil. Point the beasts in the right direction and light their tails on fire.” Henna breathed a sigh of relief. She’d received his blessing. Of course leveraging a corrupt legal system wouldn’t work—

  She would kill them all herself.

  ~The Act

  Bonn showered and dressed.

  Tonight, he would be—an artist.

  A scene from a movie had struck a chord with him. The main character had a prosthetic third arm. In the scene he rested the arm on the bar and had a philosophical conversation with the bartender. He paid the man for information. Despite having superior skill, he took no chances. Out of sight, the man’s real hand held a pistol leveled at the barkeep. The scene was comical, yet there was some utility there. Bonn took the idea to an extreme. He brushed his teeth with his left hand before reviewing his gear. Though right handed, he’d used his left hand for everything for several days. He’d adapted quickly. His dexterity improved. He could pass for a left-handed man now. Bonn looked at himself in the mirror. A prosthetic right arm held a large artist’s portfolio bag. It was a believable arm. It appeared to articulate naturally out of his shoulder, which was the biggest trick. A loose fitting car coat allowed the illusion. He could pass for an architect or a graphic designer. His real arm rested inside the portfolio. It held a suppressed bullpup rifle with a fifty-round magazine. It was ideal for the bag: the brass dropped from the bottom of the stock as each round was fired, and it never jammed. The cartridge contained a fast moving round. It wasn’t as quiet as he’d like, but the bag itself muffled much of the operating noise. Only a half-inch of the suppressor was visible outside the long flat black portfolio case, but since the suppressor was also black, it wasn’t noticeable.

  Bonn used a bore-sighting laser while he practiced.

  The bullets would go where the laser shone.

  He’d practiced for hours each day, checking his aim by dry firing the trigger on the laser device in the chamber. Practice truly did make perfect—though essentially shooting from the hip, he now felt confident to engage targets out to twenty meters. Bonn removed the costume. He field stripped the rifle down to the firing pin, lubricated all metal parts that touched other metal parts, and then re-assembled the rifle with a new firing pin. He cycled a dummy round into the chamber and squeezed the trigger to check the primer strike. Next, he slipped on a ballistic vest and a light sweater then put on the coat. He arranged the prosthetic arm—a lightweight glove was stretched over the faux hand. Even the finger joints on the hand moved. Bonn walked back to the mirror and adjusted the hand to hold the strap of the bag. Bonn finished the outfit with a porkpie hat, which he sat at a jaunty angle. The hat was black with a small red and yellow feather. He sought to appear a likely victim. The feather reminded the vigilante of a lure. He entered the park tentatively and walked without confidence. Without purpose. He made his way meekly through the park and avoided eye contact. A skateboarder passed him from behind and he jumped, startled. Bonn ambled for twenty minutes. He shrank from joggers. He held a large paper coffee cup in his left hand and pretended it was full. His body language declared he couldn’t bear to spill even a drop of precious coffee. Bonn trained the bullpup at each passerby. It felt natural. He startled frequently. It was an important part of the role, but he wondered how believable the act was.

  The fish weren’t biting.

  Was the hat too much? Generally people steered clear of crazy. Had he overdone th
e outfit? Maybe he’d jumped meek and nailed schizophrenic? Bonn challenged himself to stay in character even when no one observed him.

  Discipline. Patience.

  Two uniformed policemen on mountain bikes nodded in passing. Bonn stood aside. He appeared to toast the officers with his coffee.

  Movement on the left.

  Something rustled in the bushes. Pivoting slightly, he leveled the cup at the figure as it broke cover—a coyote—after a feral cat. Many coyotes lived in the city. The canid dodged at right angles, but the cat made it to a tree in the nick of time and clawed up to a fork. It rested for a few heartbeats, then hissed loudly at the predator. Two women approached. A third figure, a man, sat on a bench near a pond thirty meters off. One of the women held a phone to her ear. The man on the bench sat angled to watch.

  “Sweet hat,” offered one of the women. Bonn tipped the cup in silent thanks.

  She was about eighteen—and dressed like a runaway.

  The girl seemed committed to engage him. She was thin and pale. She stunk. She had sores around her mouth and was missing teeth. “Where you from?”

  Bonn kept the cup pointed at her face, but looked at his shoes. He shook his head and backed up a few steps.

  “I do not want to seem rude, but I am married. I am not looking for company.”

  The girl on the phone laughed. “Don’t got any spare change for a runaway?”

  They were digging in.

  The man on the bench stood. He glanced around, then strutted toward them. “Oh hey—I wish I could help. Listen, my church lets people crash in the basement—are you girls all right? Are you really runaways?”

  The girls are the distraction—the man plans to mug me.

  “Oh—that’s so sweet, Captain Save-A-Ho. Thanks, though—we got a place to sleep. How about twenty bucks—can you kick in a little if we do?” One of the girls tried to slide to Bonn’s left, but Bonn stepped back to keep everyone in sight.

  The guy was within range.

  Bonn aimed the bullpup at the man’s nose, but kept the small can of cholinergic agent inside the coffee cup aimed toward the girls. The hand holding the cup was also a prosthetic—his actual hand was balled inside the cup, aiming the nozzle attached to the can of aerosolized poison. “What about it, honey? You got some change? Or a smoke?”

  There.

  The approaching man pulled a revolver from his jacket pocket and brought it up.

  TCHISSS. TCHISSS.

  Bonn put two bullets in the man’s brain. He spun toward the girls. The girl to his far left held a cheap .380 and gaped at the fallen man. Bonn didn’t hesitate. The jet of cholinergic hit the girl in the face. She dropped the gun, but her hands reacted too slowly to block the aerosol. She fell. She foamed and convulsed, as though seizing.

  “What did you do?” Bonn asked the remaining runaway—he hoped his voice sounded frightened.

  She may be a victim here.

  The girl seemed frozen. She held her arms stiffly to her sides and let the phone drop from her fingers.

  Was she new to the ruse?

  She might be a runaway—it would be easy to fall into the wrong crowd when you’re trying to live on the streets. “No, retard—what did YOU do?”

  He wasn’t very good at reading people.

  Bonn sprayed a metered blast at her chest—she looked down for a moment, glared back at Bonn and then started to leak.

  Everywhere.

  She coughed foam. Her eyes ran like faucets. She lost function of her bowels and bladder. Although the spray hadn’t hit her mucosa directly, it killed her in seconds. Her eyes ran even as her pupils bloomed open to indicate brain death. Bonn reached for the stopwatch inside the portfolio and started the clock. He stood in the midst of the melee for a moment. He panned for possible witnesses. He wouldn’t kill witnesses, but they’d affect what he did next. Seeing none, Bonn turned on his heels and walked back the way he’d come. He worked his hand free from the paper cup and placed it in a zip lock bag inside the portfolio. Ninety seconds passed before he came across the first pedestrians. A young couple—dizzy in love. They stopped to kiss often. It would take them awhile to reach the bodies. Bonn sped up. At thirteen minutes he reached the garage entrance to his building. Once inside, Bonn stripped off the portfolio bag, the coat, and prosthetics. He tossed the porkpie hat and replaced it with a bicycle helmet with a rearview mirror coming off of the brim. He kicked off his Chelsea boots and ratcheted on some expensive road bike shoes. He tucked a pant leg into his sock, slung a trendy messenger bag over his shoulder, and scanned the door open.

  Presto—I’m a bike messenger.

  The bike was a “fixie.” No brakes, one speed—only serious cyclists rode them. If he were searched for any reason, police would find an NYU ID. “Steve Thompson” carried two energy drinks, a thin book on economics, a cheap blue plastic calculator, and some highlighted class notes in his bag. Bonn stopped at a light and glanced at the stopwatch.

  Twenty-eight minutes.

  Sirens could be heard in the distance, but that was normal. Park police would be on scene now. The homicide detectives would be there soon.

  They were who interested him. That’s why he’d gone hunting tonight.

  He pedaled into the park. He took paths that swung wide of the crime scene. He reached forward to activate a light on his handlebars, then another button to make the red light pulse under the seat.

  Safety first.

  Thirty-seven minutes. They should be there now. Bonn headed for the crime scene. Around a bend an officer spoke with someone in a sedan then moved aside a temporary traffic barrier.

  There they are. Homicide.

  An officer waved a flashlight at Bonn to stop him. Bonn pushed a small button on the back of the helmet mirror, which turned on the fish-eye camera hidden in the helmet’s sun visor. He kept the visor pointed at the sedan. “Go back the way you came and take another path. This one’s closed.” Bonn rotated a heel to disengage a shoe from a pedal. He put a foot down for balance. “What’s going on?”

  “Investigation. I’ll need you to exit the park as soon as possible.”

  “I know CPR.” The officer gave him a pained smile that didn’t appear sincere.

  “We’re past that. I need you to move along now.” The detectives got out of the sedan. The man held a can of soda and eyeballed him hard. Bonn kept the camera on the detectives, but glanced down to check his watch. “If you have someone walk me through, can I go this way? I’m going to miss Frasier—my girlfriend will be really mad and I’ve just recently been invited out of the doghouse.” The officer gave a more genuine smile, but pointed Bonn back the way he’d come with the flashlight.

  “Could be worse. Trust me.” Bonn shrugged and clipped back into the pedal.

  He had what he came for.

  He’d get to know the detectives in the sedan. He realized how risky it was to come back, but if things worked out, the video would pay him back in droves.

  Terrence watched the red blinking light fade as the cyclist rode off. For a moment he considered sending a unit to detain and question the guy then thought better of it. No reason to waste time on him. Revisiting a crime scene just as the homicide cops rolled in was simply ridiculous.

  The lack of sleep was getting to him. That was all.

  Stella chatted up a storm. They drove another fifty yards and she swung her swollen ankles out of the sedan. “I miss coffee, Ham. And beer. Oh, little St. Michael, thank you for keeping the bad mommy away from her beer.”

  The crime scene investigators recognized the sedan. The one in charge loped quickly toward them. It was Tuesday. During the morning think tank, Terrence read a transcript from upstate—a couple of bodies washed up in the Finger Lakes. One in Cayuga, one in Seneca.

  Just bodies—no heads. No hands or feet

  What may have been a tattoo on the upper chest of one of the bodies had been skinned off. The abdomens of both men were opened, presumably to sink the bodies, but whoever dumped t
hem forgot to perforate the intestines. Bacteria continue to thrive in a corpse’s gut—that creates gas. Dead people don’t fart, so intestines grow and grow. If they’re in water, you’ve got a nasty gut buoy. Some kids out canoeing came across the flotsam. They towed it aboard to inspect it, then saw a corpse hanging below the surface like a fishing weight. The kids freaked out, capsized the canoe, and swam for shore. Authorities dragged Seneca Lake and found the body. Next day? One shows up in Cayuga Lake. The bodies may have been dumped together. The Finger Lakes were connected through underwater caves. Both had male bone structure, but the fish ate the genitals. Water does a job on a body quick. Terrence had seen a few floaters. They turned soft and black fast. Fish don’t care what they eat.

  Including corpse dick. It threatened to turn him off fish altogether.

  Five weeks before the bodies were found, two lawyers went missing in Ithaca. Hair samples matched. The report spoke to solid police work. He didn’t envy the guys working that case.

  No leads, no known enemies. That’s a cold one.

  “I can’t let you in yet …” The crime scene investigator in charge was blocking their way. “But I’ll give you the rundown so far. Why do you keep showing up so fast? Are you two driving on sidewalks or what? Don’t answer that. I like surprises. First girl there…” the investigator pointed with his pen “…no ID. Several credit cards in her pocket. Different name on each. Cellphone in the grass. Last call in the log placed to the phone of that male corpse…” the man pointed with the pen at a body a few yards away “…who has two in the head. The girl looks like hell. She has pink froth all over her face, pee pants—lost her bowel function, too.” The CSI took a breath and looked to make sure the detectives were following him. They nodded. Terrence gestured to keep the information coming. “Second girl.” The pen pointed at another figure in the grass. “Same thing. Pink froth. Soiled. They may have been sprayed with something.”

  “Bug killer?” Terrance asked.

  “No. Nothing that benign.” Stella looked back and forth between the girls. She had an odd look on her face. The technician who collected evidence from the second girl approached them.