by Blake Banner
I pointed toward Turret. “Half a mile that way you’ll find a phone. If I ever see you again, and you are working for Omega, I’ll kill you. Get another job.”
He nodded, turned and started walking. I climbed in the chopper and took off, turning it back toward Salida, my father and Marni.
Twenty Two
I came in low and set the chopper down on the far side of the woods where I had left the Zombie the day before. I jumped out and ran, dodging through the trees, ignoring the pain that still lingered in my ribs from the beating I’d received at the farm, until I came to my car. I yanked open the trunk and pulled out my now practically empty kit bag. From it, I took the Smith & Wesson 500 cannon. Something told me I was going to need it. I slung the field glasses around my neck and set off at a jog toward the ranch.
I stopped at the tree-line to observe the house. I could see one guy on the porch, smoking. He had an assault rifle. On the terrace above the porch I could see my father, Tau and Rho sitting at the table. I glanced at my watch. It was twelve-thirty. They were probably about to have lunch. There was another guard with them, standing at the far corner. He also had an assault rifle. I paused for a moment to think. There could not be that many guards left. Doing a quick mental recount I figured there could not be more than five or six. And the remaining three or four had to be on the inside. One at least would be guarding the entrance to the cellar, where they had Marni. The other two would be in the drawing room and on the stairs. That’s where I would put them.
The night before I had noticed a building not far from the back of the house. I now saw it was a garage. It was open and there was a guy in shirtsleeves washing a black Porsche 911 just outside the entrance. Beyond it I could see a Bentley and a Buick Regal. I crouch-ran through the trees till I came up behind the building. Then I sprinted the few yards to the garage and flattened myself against the wall. I couldn’t use Tony’s automatic because it had no silencer. It would have to be a manual job. I pulled my fighting knife from my boot and slipped up to the corner. He had his back to me and was polishing the glass in the windows.
There is something unpleasant about stabbing a guy—any guy—in the back. There is something ugly and unfair about it. Fortunately, I am not sentimental. I took two noiseless strides, clamped my left hand over his nose and mouth and rammed the razor-sharp blade into the side of his neck, slicing outward as it went through. He bled out in a couple of seconds, spraying blood over the car, then sagged to the ground. He’d made a mess of the window. That would have to be cleaned again.
I felt in his pockets for the car keys, wiped my knife on his pants and sprinted to the kitchen door. I didn’t pause. At this stage there was nothing to be gained from caution. I opened the door and stepped in. My calculation was right. There was one guy sitting at the kitchen table reading the National Enquirer. He had a mug of coffee and he was smoking a cigarette. The manservant who had tended the table the night before was at the cooker, making lunch.
I didn’t break step. I threw the knife and it thudded home through the cook’s fourth and fifth intercostals to the left of his spine. He wheezed and quivered. The guy reading the tabloid looked up in astonishment as the chef collapsed. By then I was behind him. He tried to get to his feet, but my arm was around his neck. I squeezed hard, lifted and twisted. When I felt his vertebrae crack I let him drop back into his chair and pulled my knife from the manservant’s back.
I unlocked the cellar door and slipped down the concrete stairs. Marni was tied to the same chair where they had put me. She saw the knife in my hand and looked at my face. She was scared. I put my finger to my lips and walked behind her.
“Lacklan, you have to listen to me…”
“Shut up.”
She hissed in a whisper. “No, listen to me. You were not supposed to come here. This was not the plan.”
I cut the zip-ties from her wrists and her ankles.
“Whose plan?”
She stood. “That does not concern you.”
I grabbed her shoulders and turned her savagely to face me. “When I am laying my life on the line, killing people, it concerns me!”
“You don’t understand. You can’t understand!”
“I understand that I have been used! And I understand it feels a hell of a lot like I have been betrayed!”
“You know that’s not true!”
“Do I?”
“Lacklan…”
“What was that talk on the terrace last night? What was the fucking talk in the drawing room this morning?”
“It’s too complicated.”
“Whose plan?”
She hesitated. “Mine…”
“What is your plan?”
“I can’t…”
I shook her and spat the words at her. “Listen to me! I will not be used and then thrown aside! I should cut your damn throat right where you stand for what you have done to me!”
“Lacklan!”
“What the fuck is going on?”
“I…”
“If you want me to trust you, you had better come clean with me, or I swear, if you have used and betrayed me, I will bring bloody hell raining down on you, Marni…”
There were tears in her eyes. “No, Lacklan… I would never do that. But there is no time… no time to explain now.”
I put the keys to the Porsche in her hand and said, “It’s parked outside the garage. Go. Contact me when you’re safe. But, Marni, you had better have a damn good explanation for what I have seen and heard since last night.”
She nodded. “I thought you trusted me…”
“So did I.”
I moved toward the stairs. Her voice stopped me.
“Lacklan…”
I turned. “What?”
“Is it true? Is it true that he killed my father?”
I nodded. “That’s what he told me. He was ordered to by Omega, because of the research he was doing. The research that cost him his life, and which you now want to trade for money and power.”
There was a spasm of anger behind the tears in her eyes.
“You have to know that isn’t true, Lacklan.”
“All I know is what I have heard and what I have seen. If that is wrong, then show me something different.” We stared at each other for a long moment. When I realized she wasn’t going to speak, I gave a laugh. It sounded harsh and bitter in my ears. “This is the last time I play the schmuck for you, Marni.” I turned back toward the stairs. “Now go! I’ll keep them busy while you get away.”
I ran up the stairs. She followed. In the kitchen she grabbed me and stared into my face, like she was trying to communicate telepathically with me. I shoved her out the back door and closed it in her face.
I slipped into the hall, moved quickly to the bottom of the stairs and peered through the banisters. The guy was sitting there staring at his cell phone and smiling.
I made it to the fourth step before he looked up. At that distance it was an easy throw. The long, broad blade severed his windpipe and his vocal cords, so the only sound he could make was a slight, bubbling hiss. I took hold of the handle and sliced sideways. It was a strange place to die, sitting on a chair on a landing half way up the stairs.
That left three. One was on the porch and he was my first priority, because any minute now Marni was going to go roaring past in the Porsche. He had an assault rifle and he could riddle the car with bullets in seconds.
I was across the hall in three strides. I ripped open the door and lunged at him. His reflexes were good. He dodged the knife and tried to bring the rifle around. I couldn’t let him fire. That would alert the remaining guards. I grabbed the barrel and in the same movement I slashed up through the tendons in his wrist. He gasped and goggled at the half-amputated stump. Before he could scream I smashed my elbow into his jaw and rammed the knife into his solar plexus. As he suffocated I eased him to the floor and put him out of his misery by severing the spinal cord in his neck.
Now that left two. One directl
y above me on the terrace, and the other I figured was in the drawing room. I fancied the odds. The time for fighting in the shadows was over. I pulled the Smith & Wesson from my belt and stormed up the stairs.
He obviously assumed it was one of his pals coming up, because I found him standing in the doorway, frowning. His weapon was hanging behind him. When he saw who it was charging toward him, he gaped and reached for the rifle. He was too slow. I braced myself, aimed in the general direction of his thorax, and pulled the trigger. The noise was deafening. An S&W 500 will punch a hole clean through a two-inch steel girder. It punched a hole the size of a tennis ball in his chest, tore out the back of his rib cage, and threw him ten feet into the room.
I ran. I could see my father staring at me with absolutely no expression. Tau, Bob and Rho were goggling. The last remaining guard was running around the table toward me. He couldn’t shoot yet, because the spray of bullets might hit his bosses. That was too bad for him. I lined him up and blew his neck from his shoulders. His head spun six feet into the air before dropping and rolling toward the balustrade. It bumped against a potted palm before his body folded and fell.
I turned to the three men sitting around the table. The fourth, my brother, was on his feet, retching over the side of the terrace. My father was looking at his hands and shaking his head. Rho and Tau were staring at me, their eyes wide with terror. I was wondering why I hadn’t heard the Porsche yet.
“I have three rounds left,” I said, “Let’s talk about what I do with them.”
Twenty Three
I pulled out a chair with my foot and sat on it. I kept them covered with the Smith & Wesson and with my left hand I pulled a pack of Camels from my pocket. I fished one out and lit it. I inhaled all the way down and let the smoke out slow.
My father still hadn’t looked at me. He spoke to his hands.
“What have you done, Lacklan?”
“I have been killing. It has been a very busy morning.”
My father grunted. Tau stood, like he was going to do something, but just stared at me, and then at my father. Rho buried his face in his hands and Bob turned back to the table, leaning on the back of a chair. “You…” he pointed at the body. “You decapitated…”
My father interrupted him. “Jim?”
“He’s dead. So are Ape Man and Tony.”
Tau blurted out, “What about the pilot?”
I looked him in the eye and lied. “Dead.”
“Where’s the chopper?”
I smiled. “Why don’t you have a walk around the house, Tau? You’ll see them all. They are all dead. Each and every one of them. Even the guy you had cleaning your Porsche.”
My father looked worried and raised his eyes from his hands to try and read my face. “What about Marni?”
I laughed. “What do you think, Dad? You still think I’m a loser? You still think everything I do winds up being a fucking disaster? You want to depopulate the fucking planet. I’m doing my part.” I looked up at Tau. He was trembling. I snarled, “Sit down before you piss your pants, Tau.”
He sat. Bob sat too, like he didn’t want to be left out and ignored. “What do you want, Lacklan?”
I laughed again. “You guys. You lurch…” I looked at each of them in turn. Rho still had his head in his hands. My father was still watching me, trying to read me, and Tau still looked like he was going to burst into tears. My brother was pale gray and his mouth was sagging open. “…You lurch from sneering and blustering about your power and your wealth, to falling on your knees, begging, offering your riches in exchange for pity; in exchange for your worthless, parasitical lives. You think of yourselves as lords of the Earth, but you have no idea what power really is.”
My father looked impatient. “What have you done with Marni?”
Maybe she had taken off across the fields on foot. There was no sign of the Porsche. I stuck the cigarette in my mouth and leaned forward. I pulled back the hammer on the Smith & Wesson and pointed it at Tau’s head. “You know what power is, Tau?”
He was sweating and his teeth were starting to chatter. “No, please don’t. Just say what you want…”
“Power is not money and power is not influence. Power is the ability to inflict violence. And the more violence you are capable of inflicting, the more power you have.” I swung the gun round and aimed it at my father. He didn’t flinch. “What do you say, Daddy, am I right? That is the lesson you have been teaching me since the day I was born. Violence is the source of power. Violence, and above all, the willingness to use it. Isn’t that right, Pop?”
“I am going to ask you one more time, Lacklan. What have you done with Marni?”
I ignored him and turned the cannon on Rho. “Ability to inflict violence, and willingness to inflict violence. I guess that makes me the most powerful man at this table.” I turned to meet my father’s gaze. I narrowed my eyes and shook my head. “You’re like kids, with your names from the Greek alphabet and your Marvel Comic experiments in mind control. But there’s not a fucking man among you.” I paused, then said in a flat voice, “I killed her.”
He closed his eyes and went pale. “No, Lacklan…”
I narrowed my eyes. “What did you think? That you could use me like some sap? That you could get me to do your dirty work for you, find the girl, and then you and she and Bob could wander off into the sunset to become fucking billionaires together, while you all laugh at how fucking stupid I am?”
He opened his eyes again and tears spilled onto his cheeks. “You have no idea what you have done.”
“Wrong again, old man. I know exactly what I have done. But I am just wondering what it is I need to do to make you wake up to the fact that I know exactly what I am doing.”
I stood suddenly and stepped behind Rho. With sickening violence, I grabbed his hair in my fist and slammed his face down onto the table. He cried out and I rammed the barrel of the cannon onto the back of his neck. I pulled back the hammer with a loud click.
Tau was on his feet squealing, “No!” My brother covered his face with his hands.
Rho was sobbing. My father looked away. “Please son, sit down. We understand what you are capable of.”
I was staring at Bob. “What’s the matter, Bobby? You were happy to see my fingers cut off, but you can’t bear to see this guy’s head blown in?” I turned to my father, Gamma. “How many people,” I asked him, “do I have to kill to make you listen to me?”
“I am listening. Please, sit down and stop this. What do you want?”
Rho was still whimpering, “God, please, don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me.”
I said, “I want in.”
Tau glanced at my father. He kept swallowing. “We can do that, right? That is not a problem.”
“Shut up, Tau. I know my Greek alphabet. You’re the rookie at this table. My brother is nothing.” I pointed the revolver at Rho. “The guy pissing his knickers here is a middle manager.” I looked at my father. “But above you, old man, there are only Beta and Alpha. So if anybody is going to make it happen, it’s you. Right, Dad?”
He nodded. “I can make it happen.”
“Who is Alpha?”
He shook his head. “You don’t know him. He is not a public figure.”
“What’s his name?”
“Kill me if you want to. I will not tell you.”
I stood. “Rockefeller, Rothschild, Gates…”
He smiled without humor. “No, no one so obvious. I will arrange for you to meet them.”
“Them?”
“Alpha, Beta, Delta and Epsilon. We are the five, the cabal. I will arrange a meeting. Now please, let us stop this. What have you done with Marni’s research?”
“I mailed it from Colorado Springs to an attorney in New York with instructions to put it into a safety deposit box in a bank. You can guess the rest.”
He sighed. “What attorney? What bank?”
“Fuck you.”
“How do I know…?”
�
��Seriously? Seriously?”
He held up his hands. “All right.”
But it was too late. Suddenly, I’d had too much. Too much stupidity, too much madness, too much cruelty, too much of these gutless parasites who believed they were entitled to piss on the world and be thanked for it. Above all, too much betrayal. I looked at my brother. In my mind I could see him gloating, holding my hand open so that Tony could take off my finger. I screamed, “Seriously?”
And then I was on my feet, driven by a force that terrified even me. I walked behind Tau and he cringed away. But I wasn’t after him. I went past him and grabbed Bob by his hair. My father was crying out, “Lacklan, no! Wait!” But the rage was stronger than I was. I dragged him to the balustrade, grabbed the seat of his Armani pants and tipped him over. There was a brief, twisted shout and a sickening thud.
Tau and Rho were transfixed, goggling at me. My father was staring, with soaking cheeks, at the empty space over the balustrade where, a second earlier, his eldest and favorite son had been. I spoke very quietly.
“You want to ask me again how you can be sure I am telling the truth?”
He shook his head. “Please stop now, Lacklan.”
“What happens to this mind control operation now?”
“It depends…” He was still weeping silently, staring at the balustrade.
“On what?”
“On whether any of the sun beetles survived.” He stood slowly and went to look over the side at the broken form of his son. His face seemed to fold in on itself. “Bob…”
I felt a twist of pain and grief in my gut. But I choked it off and said, “You get me in. I want Kappa or above. You understand me? And I want control of that program. Or I’ll bring down such hell on you that the last twenty four hours will look like a picnic with the girl scouts. Am I clear?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
He sat back down in his chair, covered his face and started to sob like a child. Tau and Rho looked uncomfortable. I returned to my chair and fished out a cigarette, wondering what the hell I was going to do next. That was when things started to go seriously wrong. It started when I heard Marni’s voice, speaking from the sliding doors to the terrace. She said, “You killed my father, Robert. And you have to pay for that.”
