Prisoners of War

by Rick Partlow

  “Thanks for the food,” he said, trying not to sound grudging. He opened the water bottle and chugged it down, giving her the option to continue the conversation. She said nothing.

  Nate shrugged. Maybe she was just here to observe. He tossed the bottle on the tray and shoved it toward the slot at the bottom of the door with his foot.

  “You know who Helen of Troy is?” he asked. No response. All right, be that way. “She was a queen back in ancient Greece, married to a king named Menelaus of Sparta. The legend goes, she was incredibly beautiful, so beautiful she attracted the eye of Prince Paris of Troy and they ran away together. Menelaus gathered all the armies of all the Greek city-states together to go to war with Troy to get her back.”

  He leaned against the wall beside the door. “Now, the story makes it sound like she was kidnapped, that she had no agency in the matter. I’ve always thought that was a bit sexist. I don’t believe for a second she didn’t know exactly what she was doing. She hated her husband and her arranged marriage and the world that made her into a trophy for a man, and she used the only weapons she had to get revenge.”

  He took an angle toward the door that gave him a good look at her eyes, at the glimmer of sunlight reflecting off of them.

  “What do you think?” he asked her.

  “I think revenge is a waste of effort,” she said, finally, her accent not thick but noticeable. “It leads to chaos and discord and never gives you what you want. Killing is business. Business should be conducted by professionals.”

  “So, all this is business, then? Nothing personal?”

  “Not to me.”

  “What about Bob? Is it personal to him?” Now there was an edge to his tone, one he couldn’t quite control. “How the hell is he still alive, and what does he want with me?”

  “He is obviously a genetic duplicate, Captain Stout.” She sounded disappointed he hadn’t already thought of it. “The same as you. As far as anyone knows, it is the only afterlife we can verify scientifically, and certainly the only one Robert Franklin believes in.”

  “Is that what all this is about?” Nate’s expression twisted in a scowl of disbelief. “Some half-assed scheme for eternal life, twelve years at a time, one dupe after another?”

  “This is about many things, Nathan. One of them is an attempt to end that twelve-year cycle, for him and for you. And yes, I would say for him, this is personal.” She paused, as if letting it sink in. “He cares about you, Nathan. In many ways, you are the only friend he has left.”

  “Then why keep me in here?” Nate demanded. “Why not just come to me and explain himself?”

  “You are, perhaps, blessed, Nathan Stout.” She was close now, very close to the window. “You’ve only been allowed to remember what is important to you. You do not have to recall the disappointments, the heartbreaks. You do not have to relive every second of how your marriage fell apart and your wife left you and went home to Kansas without so much as a note.”

  Nate grunted as if he’d been gut-punched. He had vague memories of the Prime’s wife, a sort of general warmth and a feeling of emptiness from her absence. She’d been something he could hold onto, a totem from the distant past. She was probably dead now.

  “Mr. Franklin had no such luxury. He arranged his own duplication and thus preserved every single memory of a life stretching over a century now. Every memory from his Prime and from every dupe, every betrayal, every disappointment, every knife to his back. Is it so hard to believe a man such as this might not be hesitant to trust?”

  “But he trusts you.” He was close to her now. Close enough he could have reached through the window, grabbed her by the hair and smashed her face against the door.

  And then what? I don’t even know she has the key to this door, even if I could reach it.

  “He trusts me as far as he trusts me,” she allowed. “And how far that is, I am free to guess. But he trusts no one with his life, with his fate, except himself. Time and painful experience have taught him this much.”

  “Why are you here?” he demanded. It might not have been smart, particularly if he wanted more hot meals, but he had to ask. “Why did you come here to talk to me in person?”

  “Killing is business, Captain Stout. Compassion is a luxury.” Her smile was thin, barely visible, more a shifting of her head than any expression he could see. “And yet, what good is it to be the victor if we can’t afford luxuries. What is going to come next may not be pleasant for you, I fear.”

  A cold trickle of fear went down his back, along with trite old phrases he’d read about fates worse than death.

  “What’s he going to do with me?”

  “A good thing,” she assured him, beginning to slide the window closed. “But nothing good comes without sacrifice.”

  5

  Night in the Fry always felt like another world to Roach. The destruction was there, the signs of the wasteland encroaching around what had been Norfolk, Virginia, but the Fry district seemed to be a little slice of the past stubbornly clinging to this new, chaotic reality. People went out to eat and sat down to drink and listened to live music and pretended everything was normal.

  It was proof that life goes on and part of her found it oddly hopeful. The other part, the sensible part, realized the Fry was also full of the dregs of society, men and women who’d survived by preying on others. She touched the handle of her pistol where it hung beneath her left armpit under her BAMF jacket, feeling the strength coming from it like a totem. It was a modern weapon, an Army-issue M20 .40, not the damn antique Glock Nate had carried. She’d pulled it from the portable locker where they kept their issue weapons, the ones the DoD had handed over with their mechs and their contract money. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to have a key, but Nate had given her one after Dix died.

  “Why couldn’t I have a gun?” Ramirez murmured, eyes dancing around the Friday-night crowd, staring down every face as if he thought they were all Russian spies.

  “Because you can’t shoot for shit,” she told him. “Now shut up and take me to this bar you were talking about.”

  “It’s on the right.” He pointed up ahead. “Just at the end of this street.”

  Almost none of the establishments in the Fry bothered with signs. Everyone local knew what they were and what they offered, and if you weren’t local, you could ask someone who was. There was only one exception, one of the luckier businesses who’d happened upon a building that wasn’t about to topple over, that hadn’t been burned in one of the dozens of fires that had swept through the downtown area with depressing regularity.

  It hadn’t been a favorite of Nate’s because he thought it was too pretentious and overpriced, but it was the preferred hangout of those who’d flourished in the burgeoning black and grey markets of the ruined city…and of those who wanted people to think they had. The sign hung over the open entrance, cracked and faded and taunting the denizens of what was left of the city with its memories of lost opulence.

  “Chartreuse” was what everyone called it, though there’d been a second word after it on the sign once upon a time, before a shotgun blast had erased it. What it had served when Norfolk had been a thriving military town was a mystery as no menus had survived, but now it was renowned for the best steaks in the city, and likely the only ones which came from actual cows.

  Where the hell do they keep the cows? They must have twenty-four-hour security for them.

  The restaurant itself had ample protection in the form of four large, professional-looking gentlemen in dark suits, their weapons much like gravity, not visible but certainly present. No metal detectors, so she walked in unmolested. The clientele was as well dressed as the bouncers, generally. Suits or at the very least clean and well-kept work clothes were the norm, with one military uniform or another a distant second. She kept an eye on those as she followed their server to a table, noting the insignias on chests and sleeves.

  Priority Outcomes, The Art of the Possible, Armored Core…she’d heard o
f them, though never come across them in the field. Norfolk was rife with mercenaries. The whole eastern seaboard was their stomping ground, an intermittent battlefield between the hired guns of a distant United States and the janissaries of a distant Russia. The men and women of the other mercenary companies were a rough lot, more ragged at the edges than the business types, and quicker to throw their money around.

  Maybe because they don’t expect to live long enough to save for the future. Well, hell, who thinks about the future much anyway, the way things are going?

  “Why didn’t we sit at the bar?” Ramirez whispered as they sat in a booth upholstered with stained and cracked plastic.

  “You know a whisper carries further than just speaking in a normal, low voice,” she told him, trying to keep the scorn out of her tone. Hector Ramirez hadn’t served in the military and hadn’t had the benefit of a Marine father as she had. “We’re not sitting at the bar because I want to be able to check out the other people sitting at the bar without making it obvious.”

  The waitress sauntered up to her table, young and attractive for someone in this town and wearing far too little clothing.

  She’s pushing more than overpriced food and drink.

  It was common here, the servers pushing drugs or sex just to stay alive. The only difference between Chartreuse and the lesser venues was the quality of both. And she was hot, though Roach’s interest was only clinical. She liked men, though none recently.

  “What can I get you to drink?” she asked. “There’s a two-drink minimum unless you order food.”

  “I want a steak,” she said. She didn’t bother to specify what cut because they gave you what they had. “Medium. Baked potato, greens and a beer.” Which would cost her most of a month’s pay, but did it really matter? She could probably get away with drawing the money from BAMF’s expense account since she was the one controlling it. She wasn’t about to tell Ramirez that, or he’d order the damned lobster.

  “Can I have the chicken sandwich?” he asked, still ogling the woman’s legs. “And do you have milk?”

  “Milk?” Roach repeated, cocking an eyebrow skeptically.

  “I like milk,” he protested, raising his hands up defensively. “Not like we ever get it out here.”

  “Yes, we do have fresh milk,” the blond told him, smiling and leaning over the table to show a bit more of her cleavage. “Very fresh.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus, lady,” Roach moaned, covering her face with her hand. “You’re wasting your time unless you give a military discount.”

  The woman shrugged, favoring Ramirez with a smile as she walked away. She didn’t write the order down, but presumably she had a good memory in her line of work.

  “You don’t need to be rude,” Ramirez hissed at her.

  “Business, Hector,” she reminded him, nodding toward the bar. “Do you see the guy here or not?”

  Ramirez looked down the line of mercs at the bar, men and women in their prime, wearing their colors proudly, and shook his head.

  “I don’t see him. But it’s kind of early.”

  “We got plenty of time,” she judged, “given how long it’s going to take them to bake a potato.”

  “That patch supposed to be some kind of joke?”

  Roach had been so busy watching the bar, she hadn’t noticed the older man approaching from one of the other tables, and she made an instinctive move toward her gun.

  “Whoa there, missy!” he said, raising his hands palms-up in surrender. “Just askin’ a question is all.”

  He had one of those weathered, cracked faces that could have been anywhere between forty and sixty, with skin the color of old, faded teak and hair cut short into tight, black curls with a fringe of grey near his ears. His mustache was a wire brush across his upper lip, wild and bristling. His smile was charming in an oily sort of way, but she saw something deeper behind his dark brown eyes, something analytical. He wasn’t wearing any sort of uniform, his clothes simple and workmanlike but well made, giving no clue as to what he did for a living.

  “What the hell kind of question is that?” she demanded, her right hand moving back out of her jacket. “Why would it be a joke?”

  “BAMF,” the older man explained, gesturing at the patch on her arm. He had one of those voices that made you want to clear your throat just listening to it, like he’d been interrupted in the middle of hacking up a lung. “Back when I was in the Marines, that used to mean Bad Ass Mother Fucker.”

  She shrugged acknowledgement.

  “Maybe it’s a play on words,” she admitted. “But it’s an acronym for Broken Arrow Mercenary Force.”

  He snorted a laugh, clearly amused.

  “Well, your head honcho has quite the imagination then, doesn’t he?”

  “What makes you think I’m not the boss?” she asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

  “Because you’re young enough there wasn’t even any Army in these parts when you were old enough to sign up,” he deduced. “And DoD may be desperate, but they ain’t so desperate they’re going to turn over millions of dollars’ worth of military equipment to a twenty-something chica who ain’t even been in the Army.”

  She tried to get angry at the slight, but found she couldn’t. The damned old man was just too likable to snap at. Still, they were here on business.

  “Why the curiosity…,” she trailed off. “Sorry, didn’t catch your name.”

  “The name is James Fuller,” he tipped an imaginary hat to her. “And I’m curious because times being what they are, and the job market being so sparse, I might be up for a gig back in the saddle of a mech.”

  “Back in the saddle?” she repeated. “So, you’re saying you have experience driving a mech?”

  “Oh, you might say that, Sgt. Mata.” That disarming grin again. So distracting she almost hadn’t noticed…

  “How do you know my name?” she demanded, her eyes narrowing. Neither her rank nor her name was on the jacket or her flight suit. You didn’t give the Russians any information they didn’t need to have, in case you got captured.

  “Let’s just say I didn’t wander into the Fry by accident,” he explained. “Y’see, I got this priority call from the Department of Defense ‘bout a week ago telling me they needed someone with experience in the cockpit of a Hellfire. I was down about South Carolina ways, picking up some interesting information and I hightailed it up here as quick as I could.” He gestured at her patch again. “They may have mentioned you’d have that pretentious-ass name on your arm, but they told me to look for an older dude by the name Nathan Stout. Is he around?”

  Roach shared a look with Ramirez and his face screamed at her wordlessly “don’t tell him.” She shrugged.

  “We have a problem,” she admitted. “And we need help.”

  “I figured that by the whole priority call from the DoD thing, miss. Can you be more specific?”

  “Come sit down,” she said, scooting over into the booth and motioning for him to join them. “I’ll buy you a beer and try to explain.”

  “I’d never turn down a beer from a pretty young lady,” Fuller allowed, lowering himself in gingerly. “Though I’d just about kill for a good hamburger, Sgt. Mata.”

  “Roach,” she told him. “Call me Roach.” She nodded to Ramirez. “This is Specialist Hector Ramirez, but we call him Mule.”

  “Roach and Mule, huh?” Fuller snorted. “You guys need to work on your callsign game.”

  “Why?” Ramirez demanded, his tone defensive. “What do they call you, Fucking Old Guy?”

  “No, but that’s still better than Mule.”

  “Order yourself a burger, Fucking Old Guy,” Roach invited, motioning for the waitress. “This is going to take a while.”

  6

  Robert Franklin was a kid in a candy store, as effusive about the equipment being hauled out of the Hemmet as Svetlana had seen him in their entire association.

  “This is excellent,” he enthused. He’d pried the lid off the first of
the crates as it was offloaded and was sifting through the components packed into cut-outs of foam cushion. “First rate.” He turned back to her, grinning, the expression pulling against the scars on his neck he’d never bothered to explain to her. “You can never be sure, dealing with cutouts and middlemen whether they can actually deliver the goods.”

  “This is the duplication gear?” she asked, nodding at the containers. The men hauling them off the truck might as well have been automatons for all the talking they did. She wasn’t even sure if they were American hired help or Russians. Their stares were focused, as if they were determined not to notice anything they saw. Healthy attitude in these times.

  “It is,” he confirmed. “But not the sort I’ve worked with before. What I had stored away was for small-scale, individual replication. This is mass production, much more involved.”

  “Do you have the manpower to run that sort of operation?” She’d seen a grand total of maybe four technicians since they’d arrived, which didn’t seem enough for such a grand enterprise.

  “Not yet,” he admitted. “Those are on the way as well.” His eyebrow arched in her direction. “I trust you’ve made our guest more comfortable.”

  “I still do not understand how you expect this to work,” she said, sitting down on the edge of one of the crates. “Why would you use him? Why try to brainwash him into loyalty instead of finding someone who’s already loyal to you?”

  “Nathan Stout knows more about the Hellfire weapons system than anyone in the world, perhaps including me, and I invented the damned thing. He’s also fearless in battle and loyal as all hell to his friends. If I can get an army of him, nothing the United States military can throw at me would be able to defeat it.”