Dead Six

Tailor took a moment to finish chewing before he spoke. “I’ve got a job offer for you.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I’m listening.”

“You’d have to leave soon. Like in the next week or so.”

“I’d have to break my lease.”

“Will that be a problem?”

“No, I just won’t get my deposit back. Who’s it with?”

“I don’t know,” Tailor said, flatly.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

Tailor leaned in, his voice hushed. “I think it’s a front for the government. They’re real hush-hush about everything. They just call it The Project. They’re offering twenty-five K a month, plus expenses.”

I almost choked on my Dr. Pepper. “Christ, that’s like three hundred thousand dollars a year!” My annual salary with Vanguard had been about a hundred thousand dollars a year, plus operational bonuses. I only got paid that much because I was on one of the Switchblade teams.

“Tax-exempt,” Tailor added.

“What? From a US company? No Medicare or Social Security?” By US law, if you were out of the United States for three hundred and thirty days of a year, you didn’t have to pay income taxes. This capped out at eighty thousand dollars. Everything above that was taxable income.

“You get paid what you get paid. They told me they’d take care of the IRS aspects of it.”

“And you’re just trusting these people?”

“Val, they’ve already deposited a twenty thousand dollar signing bonus into my bank account. I trust that.”

“Money talks, huh?”

“Money talks.”

“Have you told anyone else about this?”

“I called Skunky,” Tailor replied, sipping his soda.

“Really? How’s he doing, anyway? Haven’t heard from him.”

“He lives in California now.”

“Eew,” I said, making a face.

“I know, right?”

“You know, you’re not the first one to offer me a job,” I said.

“Really? Have you been looking?”

“No. Every couple of months I get an e-mail from Ling. She wants me to sign up with her group.”

“Val, that crazy Chinese bitch ain’t gonna sleep with you.”

“What? That’s not—”

“Oh, the hell it’s not,” he interrupted, grinning. “Come on, Val, I know you. You’ve got a thing for Asians, and I watched you drool all over her from the moment she showed up. The puppy love was cute, Val, it really was.”

“Hey, that crazy bitch saved our lives.”

“Well, we wouldn’t have been there if Exodus hadn’t hired us in the first place. We were expendable. And we paid for it.”

I sighed. “I know. It’s why I haven’t answered. Her group considers me some kind of hero, I think, because I saved that kid we rescued.”

“Val, her group . . . how much do you know about them?”

“I’ve done some research. It’s hard to find much. They’re like global vigilantes. They kill slavers, drug runners . . .”

“That’s just the beginning,” Tailor said. “They’re a very secretive, very well-funded transnational paramilitary organization. They’re like a cult. They go around the world, shooting people and blowing shit up in the name of the greater good or something. The UN considers them a terrorist group.”

“They didn’t think too highly of Vanguard, either, Tailor.”

“Look,” Tailor continued, “I’m saying you might want to think twice before getting involved with some crazy terrorist group because you’re bored and you’re trying to get laid. I mean come on, this is Nevada. If you want to screw an Asian chick so bad, just go to a whorehouse.”

My mouth fell open. “You . . .” I cracked a smile and began to laugh. “You’re a dick, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know,” he said matter-of-factly. “Even still, you shouldn’t rush into something like that when you don’t know anything about it.”

“Says the guy who shows up on my doorstep and tries to get me to take a mysterious job with a mysterious company he doesn’t know anything about,” I said, a wry grin appearing on my face.

“Okay,” Tailor admitted, “but we’ll be there together. If there are any problems, well, we’ll deal with it. We’ve been in bad situations before.”

“The money’s too good, Tailor. Something stinks.”

“I know,” he said again. “I think it’s something to do with the Middle East.”

“As in Afghanistan? I really don’t want to go back to Afghanistan, Tailor.”

“No, I think they’re going to send us someplace that the US ain’t supposed to be. I think that’s why the pay is so good, and that’s why there’s so much secrecy.”

“Huh,” I said. “How’d you find out about this?”

“Friend of a friend got me in touch with this guy named Gordon Willis.”

“Who’s he?”

“I don’t know. He’s pretty cryptic about everything, but he’s obviously got a lot of money behind him. All he’ll say is that he represents the best interests of the United States.”

“That sounds, um, ominous.”

“Right?” Tailor asked. “I know, Val, I know. Like I said, the money’s real good. Everything I’ve seen from these people is on the ball. They pay in advance. And their cars have government plates.”

“You’re really going along with this?” I asked.

“I’m already signed up and everything. I ship next week. That’s why I’m here, Val. I want you to go with me. Whaddaya say?”

I was quiet for a long moment, as our waitress brought us our check. “You know, last night at work I got bitched out by an employee at the facility. She showed up at the south gate at about zero-two-hundred and wanted a temporary badge. The south gate doesn’t open until zero-six. So instead of going to the front gate, she sat there and bitched out the dispatcher on the phone until he sent me down there. Then she bitched me out until I issued her the temporary badge.”

“That’s bullshit,” Tailor said. “You should’ve told her to go to the main gate or sit there all night.”

“I can’t. We’re always getting nasty-grams in the e-mail from the Branch Office, reminding us that serving the client is the number one priority, that we’re there to make things better for them, blah blah blah,” I said, waving my arm theatrically. “Basically, if I enforce the rules I’m supposed to enforce, people complain and I get in trouble. If I don’t enforce them, people complain and I get in trouble.”

“Why don’t you look for a new job?”

“Like I said, it’s hard to get jobs with my skill-set. Normal jobs, anyway. I mean, what am I going to do, sell cars? Flip burgers? And I don’t have anything else going on. I don’t really have any friends here. I don’t have a girlfriend. I mean, I guess I could go out to bars or whatever and try to pick women up, but what am I going to say? Hey, baby, I know I’m emotionally damaged and unstable, and I spent the last five years shooting people for money, and now I’m a security guard and everything, but why don’t you overlook all that and come have sex with me in my crappy little apartment?”

Tailor let out a raucous laugh. “Then come back to work, Val. To hell with it.”

“Yeah . . . yeah. I mean, why not? I can’t possibly hate my life any more than I do now. Screw it, let’s do this. It’ll be good to work with you again.”

“You sure, Val?”

“I’m sure. Hey, what did Skunky say when you called him?”