Dues of Mortality

by Jason Austin

  Simonton looked past Xavier as if he were watching his pride leap out the nearest window. “I put it in one of the salt bins in case I was tracked here.”

  Xavier waited. This idiot was not going to make him ask again.

  “The middle stack outside, fourth row from the bottom, third from the right,” Simonton said. “The bin has a divot near the top shaped like a lighting bolt.”

  ****

  Xavier realigned the safety on his MAG and stuck it in the rear of his waistband. The first few bins of the fourth row had no others stacked on top, so he would be able to reach right in and retrieve the key. It's over, he thought. Once he got the key it would all be over. He and Glenda would take the evidence to the feds and they'd be in the clear.

  But then what about Simonton? he thought.

  The craven coward would most certainly put up a fight if Xavier tried to haul him in. And he wanted that asshole present and accounted for if the evidence didn't pan out. I'll just have to...A sudden draft of air gave Xavier pause as it skimmed over his right side. They were at the Lake Erie shoreline, he thought; a brisk and sudden breeze was no surprise; although it did require an open window. Or perhaps an open door.

  ****

  “I understand you not wanting Mr. Bad-ass Tough Guy out there to think less of you, but just say yes,” Simonton pined. “Say yes, Glen, and we can be on the first plane out of here. We can leave all this behind.”

  “You don’t understand, Peter,” Glenda said. “This isn’t about me being afraid of what other people think of me. It’s about what I think of me. The reason I broke it off was because I didn’t like who I was becoming with you.”

  Simonton frowned like he’d taken a swallow of year-old milk. “What’s that supposed to mean? Didn’t I do everything for you? Didn’t you always want to feel like a queen?”

  “That’s exactly my point, Peter,” she said, offended. “I never should have needed anything from you. I should have been able to feel like a queen because of me, not because of you.” She calmed, realizing that there was truly no victim in their relationship—there never had been. “I was wrong, Peter. Wrong for getting involved with you, no matter how strained your marriage was. Wrong for letting myself get lost in being valued by someone in a way that wasn’t real, and wrong for letting it continue as long as it did.” She paused, squaring her chest. “I guess I’m the one who should be apologizing, Peter. I never was the woman I allowed you to believe I was. Never.”

  Simonton suddenly didn’t look sad, anymore. Sad wouldn’t have covered it. The whole world, his world, was now bleaker than he’d ever imagined. He might as well have stayed in the Cayman’s where he could let the sun bake him to dust and sweep him out to sea with the sands. “It looks like I should’ve stayed dead, huh? Ian was right. I shouldn’t have come back.”

  Glenda looked at him, piqued. “Someone else knows you’re here?”

  ****

  If Xavier weren’t standing outside the shadows, he would have never seen that club hammering down at him. It caught a piece of his coat just before it thronged into the salt bins. He reached for his gun, but before he could get it anywhere near perpendicular, he’d caught the next swing in his right arm. His gun was knocked to the ground and the pipe smashed into it. The gun sparked and crackled as the shattered power supply surged through the leads, rendering it useless. A drawback of MAG guns was that their more intricate design made them slightly more fragile than old-fashioned firearms. The extra parts meant there was more to break.

  Xavier backed away from one swing after another. Head, gut, head, gut. The guy was big, but slow. Xavier waited for another swing, and then dove for the big man’s mid-section. The attacker absorbed Xavier's flimsy 170 pounds and spun him to the ground. He then dropped to one knee, drew up the pipe and thrust it at Xavier’s head like a stake. Xavier turned at the neck and it missed him by millimeters. With the pipe’s ends plumb beside both their heads, Xavier gripped the end by his own head and thrust his other hand, hard as he could, against the top of the pipe. The other end smacked the goon square on the temple. The goon reflexively loosed the pipe and Xavier took reign of it. In one fluid motion, Xavier thrust upward, and smashed it across the goon’s nose. Trumpets of pain thrummed throughout the dusty loft. Xavier was ecstatic. The big ones always screamed like little girls when you hit their soft spots. Xavier then dealt out an uppercut and the goon's oversized, uncoordinated ass fell aside, allowing Xavier to hustle to his feet. Once he was up, Xavier went street-style on the goon, stomping the holy hell out of him. As Xavier raised the pipe for a fitting finish, he heard a scream from the direction of the office that could have only been Glenda. He then sprinted for the office hoping to find his gun on the way.

  As he rounded the corner of the pyramid, Xavier saw that two other men had joined the party and were leading Glenda and Simonton out into the warehouse. In front, was an arrogant-looking prick in a trench coat. The other a mean-looking watchdog, standing behind Glenda and Simonton aiming a MAG at their spines.

  “You didn’t,” said the trench coat. The big goony one's absence addled him. When a bestial groan wafted from somewhere behind the bins, he nearly pulled his jaw out of place with one hand. “Let’s not make this difficult. I couldn’t stand to see something happen to such an attractive woman. Waste not, want not.”

  Xavier looked at Glenda, his eyes percolating with the acrid awareness of failure.

  In a comically non-precise move—and probably not without motivation to impress Glenda as well as save his ass—Simonton threw himself backward at the little watchdog, catching him off guard. The watchdog collapsed backward and his gun hand cracked against a stack of pallets. The MAG fell to the floor and slid off into the shadows.

  Playing to Simonton’s poorly devised cue, Xavier dead-aimed the trench coat and tackled him under the cloak of distraction. They both went to the floor trading body shots.

  Glenda watched in panic as the dual fights played out in the dim light of the warehouse. The gun, she thought instantly. She hadn’t seen where the watchdog lost it, but it had to be around somewhere. She quickly began fumbling around in the shadows, almost giddy with the notion of getting the drop on somebody else for a change.

  Off in another corner, Peter Simonton was getting mopped. The watchdog slugged him hard in the face, knocking him backwards into a pile of splintered pallets. Simonton recovered quickly and then grabbed one of the larger shards, pulling it into batting fashion. The watchdog was now back on his feet, but was bent over and away from Simonton, with his head in the shadows. Simonton held the wooden club aloft and galloped toward the man full throttle. His eyes went wide just a nanosecond before the henchman fired. The watchdog had retrieved his gun, just short of Glenda’s reach, then spun and blasted Simonton, center mass. Simonton slid into a corner, oozing blood and entrails all over the salt-stained floor. Glenda’s screams ripped through the warehouse and the watchdog enjoyed knocking her unconscious.

  Xavier had just gotten the best of Miles Gabriel when Simonton was practically blasted in half. For a split second, Xavier thought Glenda’s screams meant that she had been hit. He turned only to see her get punched out. She writhed on the floor, dazed but still alive. Simonton, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. Xavier took one look at him and waxed nauseous. A flashing green orb then danced across Xavier's field of vision. He stood frozen as the targeting reticule rested on his forehead.

  Gabriel pushed Xavier off him and got up, pointlessly brushing the salt and dust residue from his coat. The sight of Simonton’s partially severed corpse made Gabriel livid.

  “Goddammit,” he shouted to the henchman. “You idiot!”

  “He was coming at me with that,” the henchman replied and motioned to the large chunk of wood inches from the body. “It was either me or him.”

  Gabriel gave the henchman a daggered look. “Why did you have that damn thing charged so high? I told you we needed him alive! Look at him; does that look like alive to you?”
<
br />   The henchman had nothing to say.

  Gabriel clenched his fists, making his knuckles shine like pearls through his expensive artificial tan. He turned toward Xavier and drew his lips across his teeth. The heels of his shoes sang hatred in every step as he approached him. He felt his expensive shirt rip in the armpit when his calculated right cross knocked Xavier’s lights out.

  Chapter 53

  I’m drowning! Xavier thought. That’s what it felt like when the water went up his nose. A whole pitcher full had been thrown in his face to revive him. He gulped and shook it off hurriedly like a wet dog. Reality phased in and he immediately felt his throbbing cheek and eye that now bore a swollen legacy where Gabriel had clocked him. He also felt the pull of his makeshift restraints.

  “You should be proud of yourself,” a jagged voice said, sawing through the residual haziness. Jerome Wallace had his pale ass pressed against a metal table sneering at Xavier like a snotty school teacher. “You actually moved Mr. Gabriel here to physical violence. That’s no small task. He considers it beneath him.” Wallace watched, with a perverted pleasure, the formerly ever-cool Miles Gabriel, off to the side, pacing like a caged wolf. For once, there wasn't an ounce of that acclaimed and thoroughly contemptible composure left in the man. It's about time, Wallace thought. He'd had enough of shitting bricks all by himself. Gabriel must have finally realized just how much they stood to lose if this whole thing continued to go south.

  Xavier cocked his head sideways and looked Wallace over. “Anybody ever tell you...you look a lot like Ronald Reagan?”

  Wallace smiled openly and punched Xavier dead in the mouth. “I see what you mean,” he said to Gabriel. “He does make you want to hit him.”

  “Where is she?” Xavier asked. He tasted blood, but refused to give Wallace the satisfaction of thinking him hurt.

  Wallace folded his arms and glared down at him. “She’s alive, if that’s what you’re wondering. If you'd prefer she stay that way then your task is simple.”

  Xavier swiveled his head, taking inventory. The room was nothing more than a cold, dim box, maybe an unfinished office or storage area. The only amenities were the broad metal table Wallace sat on and the metal chair to which Xavier was strapped—typical interrogation room setting. A grating echo bounced around with every sound, making Gabriel's clacking heels omnipresent.

  “Tell that to Peter Simonton,” Xavier said.

  Wallace glanced again, in Gabriel’s direction. “Yes, that was a most unfortunate miscommunication. It wasn’t my intention for Peter Simonton to be killed. He had some very important information for me.”

  “Yeah, yeah, the datapins.”

  Gabriel halted. He stared so intently at the side of their prisoner's head that Xavier could almost feel the heat.

  “So he did tell you,” Wallace gleamed.

  “Are you kidding? The guy never shut up.”

  “It was one of his more annoying qualities.”

  “He told us what you wanted to know, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Xavier enjoyed throwing the phrase back at Wallace. “Considering the fact I’m still here, you must be.”

  “Yes. Simonton was supposed to pass along the location of the data once his little blow-up doll was received. Needless to say, I never got it. I’m itching to find out what’s on them.”

  “Well, that’s what happens when people get trigger happy; things get complicated.”

  Wallace paused to let his presence loom for a moment then said, “You’re a fascinating man, Mr. Hawkins.”

  ****

  Where is that smell coming from? Glenda asked herself. The odor was faint, but still unpleasant, like the geriatric ward of a hospital. She turned and eyed the steel reinforced door at the back of the room. It was hermetically sealed and fitted with a series of sophisticated biometric locks. It might as well have been a vault in the basement of a Swiss bank.

  From the opposite side of the room, a man in a gray and black uniform, reminiscent of a security guard's, assaulted her with a perpetual scowl that probably couldn’t be blown off with a shotgun. All six-foot-whatever-inches of him, stood next to the only other door, tracing Glenda's every move with cold, flat eyes. He sported a gun-belt armed with the kind of toys one would see on a cop or bank guard, right down to the handcuffs and taser. The gun he was wearing appeared to be one of those MAG things just like the one that had killed Peter and the kind her father had certainly never taught her to use. Still, if she could just get hold of it or...Oh shit, what was she thinking? This wasn't a movie. She wasn't Wonder Woman and she sure as hell wasn't going to lull this hideous freak into submission with a striptease. She did, however, feel a whisper of pride that escape and not fear dominated her thoughts. Yet, even if escape was possible, she wouldn’t be sure where to go. She was unconscious most of the way here—wherever here was—and had woken up with a hood draped over her head. God only knew if she and Xavier were even in the same place.

  “I don't suppose you'll tell me where we are?” she asked Big And Ugly.

  He answered her with a distasteful twitch of his eyelid.

  Overgrown troglodyte. He probably hadn't understood a word she'd said. She regarded, again that massive steel door to the rear. She noticed view screens embedded in the walls above it and that its locks appeared to be sophisticated biometric devices. What is this place? And where is Xavier? What are they doing to him? She bore down, trying to call up the events in the warehouse. She was dazed at the time, but recalled that the guy in the expensive suit seemed angry when Peter got killed—obviously unintended. Peter hadn’t given them the information on Beaumont yet and she bet they had no notion of the deposit box or its key. They'll have no choice but to hope Peter had spilled the beans to one or both of us. So unless he tried something stupid—which she wasn't too confident about—Xavier should still be alive. But would they risk killing him if he didn’t cooperate? Had they already? Glenda's imagination was sending her under. Stay cool girl, like Xavier taught you. Stay cool.

  ****

  Agent Brisby picked up the call through his comwatch and flicked down his earpiece.

  “Brisby,” he said, answering. After half a minute, he verified the trace and made tracks for the briefing room. All he knew was that the caller had mentioned Millenitech and a kidnapping and the new receptionist should get a raise for knowing exactly where to transfer the call.

  In an adjacent office, Marcel McCutcheon was going over the details of what had been found on the body at the latest crime scene. He and another agent were staring at a holographic map projection with a number of red reticule-style icons marking several locations from Cleveland to Washington D.C.. McCutcheon looked ready to call it quits for the day when Brisby walked in on them with his hair on fire.

  “Boss, you better take this,” Brisby said.

  McCutcheon put the call through on his own earpiece, leaving Brisby on the line. “This is ASAC McCutcheon,” he said. He listened carefully to the voice on the other end. In just the first few seconds, his face must have translated half a dozen reactions, not a one of them good for his blood pressure. “Who is this?”

  The man on the other end sounded intense, wired, like he was about to be pushed out of an airplane at thirty-thousand feet. He kept talking, cutting through McCutcheon’s inquiries like he was recording a voicemail and giving only the information he was told to give.

  “Can you, at least, tell me who you are?”

  The line went silent.

  “Hello? Hello? Shit!”

  “He’s still transmitting,” Brisby pointed out.

  McCutcheon paused no longer than a blink. “Send the location to HAZMAT, tell them to meet us there.” He then turned to the other agent he’d been conferring with. “Round up a fire-team and get to the helipad. I want to be airborne in five minutes!”

  ****

  The guard at the front gate of the Upstate Facilitated Octahedron sat in his kiosk, absorbed in the television squeezed in his sweaty mitt. The Browns
were up fourteen to seven against Pittsburgh. There were three minutes to go in the fourth quarter and he could practically smell the two hundred bucks from the football pool. As he watched the play-clock tick its way to a win, a slender unassuming figure emerged from the darkened dirt road and approached the kiosk practically unnoticed. The shadows of the hulking complex's arrowhead fences fell diagonally across his body and he looked like something out of ancient film noir. Mystified, the guard immediately flipped the television closed and stuffed it into his pocket. He stepped out of his kiosk and sauntered up to the gate, a hand on his holster.

  “Hold it!” he shouted at the stranger.

  The visitor stopped in his tracks.

  “Who are you?”

  “I work here,” the visitor answered.

  “Employees usually don’t enter here unless they’re driving. Besides, the night shifters should already be in.”

  “I need to see Mr. Wallace.”

  The entrance was fairly well lit, but the stranger was still standing in a small pocket of shadow. The guard maneuvered a bit to get a better look at the man’s face. “Mr. Wallace doesn’t take visitors, especially ones that wander up out of nowhere.”

  “H...He’s expecting me.”

  The guard went quirky at the sound of the familiar stammer. “Holy shit.”

  ****

  “Xavier C. Hawkins,” Wallace stated, “former military police officer, dishonorable discharge following a court martial for dereliction of duty resulting in the death of one Elana Hatten. Mother was Madeline Hawkins (deceased), brother is Dr. Bennet Hawkins, married two years to his wife Cassandra. They’re expecting their first child in six months.”