Dead Six

The balcony was where I came to contemplate. Every wall inside our hideout had something mission related tacked up, as I had to memorize a lot of facts and faces, but that could get obnoxious after a while. I had brought the manila folder from Thailand with me and had been absently flipping through the photos. It had been a long time since I had seen most of those people, and I had never met any of the kids, and now they were all going to die if I didn’t play my cards right.

Over the last few weeks there had been shootings, bombings, and all manner of craziness. Normally Zubara was a quiet place, but now there were blue uniformed SF troops on every corner, and random checkpoints set up by the secret police. There was a war going on, and it was making life difficult for us honest criminals.

I suppose I could call myself an honest criminal. I had tried being a regular criminal, but I found that I didn’t have the stomach to lie to and steal from normal folks. Terrorists on the other hand had lots of money, were fun to lie to, and nobody seemed to mind when I occasionally killed them. And it was easier to sleep at night since I was able to convince myself that I used my sociopathic tendencies for good. Mostly.

The local news was full of stories about random murders and disappearances. Somebody was going down a checklist of the Zoob’s terrorist underworld like a bad issue of The Punisher, and the worst part was that we had no idea who it was. The word on the street was that it was the emir’s secret police killing men loyal to General Sabah, but from what I had seen, this was too professional for those thugs. My money was on the Israelis, but even that didn’t make any sense. The hits were stirring up the fundies and talk of revolution was becoming more and more common. If the emir lost power, then the Izzies would have yet another oil-rich country hating them and funding Hezbollah and that struck me as a bad thing, but then again, I had never been the diplomat type.

So if it wasn’t the emir, and it wasn’t Mossad, who was raising so much hell in the area? It couldn’t be the CIA, as they were way too obvious. I had no evidence, but I was sure that whoever had blown Falah’s heart out was one of them. Having some sort of hit squad mowing down the people that I was supposed to be infiltrating was definitely screwing with my work. It didn’t really matter, though. I just had to keep a low profile until I could get to Adar. Piece of cake.

The sliding door opened and Reaper appeared, gangly and squinting at the sudden brightness. The boy really needed to get more sun, but that would take him away from his precious computers and high-speed Internet.

Reaper was an interesting case. He’d been one of those super-genius kids, awkward and goofy as hell I was sure, and he’d been attending MIT when he was fourteen. When I’d met him six years ago he’d been on the run from the law. Ironically enough, he had the most serious criminal record of my crew. My rap sheet only showed a handful of juvenile offenses whereas Reaper, the child prodigy, had been an overachiever and been indicted for several hundred counts of felony fraud, hacking, and embezzlement before he was old enough to drive.

Time magazine had written a cover story about him. Reaper had used that as his resume when he’d asked to join my crew.

He shuddered. “Man, it’s hot.”

I chuckled. “Wait until summer. It’s barely ninety. How’s your machine thingy coming?”

He shrugged. He’d been working on the device for Phase Three for weeks now. His room was covered in bits and pieces of the complicated gizmo. “I thought about going with a low-inductance capacitor bank discharge, but I said hell with it, the explosive pumped flux compression generator will be so much cooler.”

“You know, I dropped out of high school specifically so I wouldn’t have to know what any of those words meant.”

“I thought you dropped out to commit a triple homicide.”

“Quadruple,” I corrected him. “All I need to know is will it work and will it be ready in time?”

I knew it would be. Reaper had an IQ that was off the charts. He could process data like I could languages. “Starfish will be good to go, but we’ll need a couple of test runs out in the desert, just to make sure.”

“You named it Starfish?” It didn’t resemble a starfish, it looked like a big tube in an aluminum housing. “That’s cheesy.”

“Cheesy awesome,” he answered with pride. I’m sure the name had some sort of geeky historical reference. Reaper changed the subject and pointed at the folder in my hand. “You been thinking about your family?”

I shrugged. “A little, you know . . .” In actuality, I was terrified a bunch of my nieces and nephews were going to get shot in the head for something that they didn’t even know about, but I couldn’t let that show to the kid. He needed me to be sure, indomitable, fearless, all that leadership crap.

Reaper looked slightly embarrassed. “You worried about them?”

“Only if we fail.” The rest went unsaid. We both knew what would happen then: Eddie would kill everyone that had ever mattered to us just out of principle. But he hadn’t come out here to talk about that. “What’ve you got?”

“Adar bought the spoofed e-mails. He just wrote back. He’s leaving Iraq today. He’ll be back in a couple of days.”

I nodded. As long as he had the box, everything would be fine, but from everything I had learned, he always had the box. It was his prized possession and life-insurance policy. “Good. We’ll intercept him at his safe house outside of town.”

“You think he’s as scary as the rumors make him out to be?” Reaper asked. The word on Adar made him sound like some sort of jihadi Jack the Ripper. If Adar had been born into some other society, he probably would have been a serial killer. But luckily for the young murderer from Riyadh, Falah had recruited him and put his natural talents for cruelty to good use for their cause. “I mean, come on, we’ve dealt with some crazies, but this guy takes the cake. Dude, he like eats people and stuff.”

“No big deal.” I clapped my young associate on the back. “So he’s bug-nuts crazy and I get to kill him. I told you this job has some perks.”

“There’s more,” Reaper said. “I just heard on the news, they’re evacuating the American embassy. There’s a big mob protesting in front of it. The State Department said that all Americans need to leave Zubara right away.” His grin exposed a bank of grossly crooked teeth. “I’m guessing that doesn’t apply to us.”

I hadn’t been back in my home country in forever—too many laws, too much order. Life out on the fringe was much more to my liking. “It looks like the Zoob’s heating up. Don’t worry, we’ll be out of here before the place totally melts down.”

“I don’t know, chief,” Reaper said slowly, like he was the one with all the experience. “This shitty little country is important to a lot of powerful folks, shadowy, scary, secret government crazy shit. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a bunch of stuff going down.”

Oh, not again. I rolled my eyes. “You’ve been listening to that conspiracy theory talk-radio show again, haven’t you?”

“From Sea to Shining Sea?” Reaper shrugged. “You know, it isn’t always just space aliens and Reptoids of the Hollow Earth. Their political analysis is awesome. Way better than the propaganda you get from the regular news. You really should listen. I’ve got it streaming right now if you want.”

I snorted. “If I’m ever commissioned to rob Atlantis, I’ll tune in. In the meantime, you worry too much.”

“I’m just saying, I got a bad feeling about this is all.”

VALENTINE

Fort Saradia National Historical Site

April 11

1230

“Cover me, goddamn it!” Tailor snarled as fire poured onto his position.

“Hang on, hang on,” I said. I had a situation of my own to deal with. There were at least four bad guys coming up on my left.

“I need help now or I’m gonna die! Shit. I’m hit!”

I could see where Tailor went down. I started for him, but the distraction cost me. I didn’t see the guy with