Swords Of Exodus Part 18

"I'm so sorry." She squeezed my shoulder more tightly.

"For a long time, I felt like I was supposed to have died there. I told her I'd stay with her until the end. I promised her. I couldn't keep her safe, I couldn't protect her, but I promised her that much. I was supposed to die in the mud at Fort Saradia, next to her."

There was a fierce light in my young companion's eyes, reflected firelight. "No, you weren't! I already told you. It wasn't your time. You need to listen better, d.a.m.n it!" She punched me in the shoulder.

"Ow! Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I was just saying. For a long time that's how I felt. I resented Lorenzo for saving me. I resented him because I owed him a favor and he's a giant a.s.shole, and I resented him because I felt like I broke my promise to Sarah."

"But you didn't, did you?"

"No . . . no I guess I didn't." I thought back, again, to the frighteningly real dream I had. In that dream, Sarah's eyes s.h.i.+ned like Ariel's sometimes seemed to. It was so vivid, so intense, that I wanted it to be real, even though I knew it was just a drug-induced hallucination. I shook my head. "It's still hard. I miss her every day."

"Things will get better for you," Ariel said quietly. "I just know it. Please be strong, Michael. Please don't give up. You saved me. You're my knight too." She hugged me tightly, tears in her eyes. I awkwardly patted her on the shoulder, worried that someone was going to walk in and get the wrong idea.

I grabbed the mouse and kept scrolling. "Don't worry, kiddo," I said, trying to sound comforting. "I'm stubborn. I'll be okay."

"I wish you didn't have to go to The Crossroads," Ariel whispered. "I'm scared. I have a bad feeling."

I smiled. "I thought you said things were going to get better for me?"

"I've been wrong before," she said ominously.

I stopped scrolling when a very familiar face appeared on the screen. It, too, was an old picture. From my last DOD ID card, if I remembered right. Valentine, Constantine Michael. Fmr. US Air Force. KIA in Zubara.

Before handing over Colonel Hunter's flash drive to Bob Lorenzo, I changed my own status from "MIA" to "confirmed KIA." I figured if they thought I was already dead, it'd give me a better chance of staying off the radar. A good theory, and one that might've worked if I hadn't gotten my stupid a.s.s captured.

I nodded at the picture. "Ever feel like someone just walked over your grave?"

Ariel sat up and wiped her eyes, but didn't say anything. I closed out the report and asked her if she was okay.

"I actually came down here to tell you something, Michael," she said. The tone of her voice was subtlety different. "Majestic doesn't know where you are right now, and they're panicking. You're dangerous to them, because of what you know, because of the scars they left on you, and because you escaped. You're safe for now, I think, but they will never stop hunting you. You have to find Mr. Lorenzo's brother. The two of you might be able to end this. Maybe."

"Don't you worry. If Bob Lorenzo's at The Crossroads, I'll find him and we'll find a way clear of all this." Another good theory.

"There is one more thing. Promise me you'll watch over Ling."

"Ling can take care of herself, I think."

"Promise me! She's the closest thing to family I have. Please."

"Okay, honey. I'll do everything I can to bring her home safe. I'll stick with her through the whole thing."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Ariel seemed content with that answer, and smiled.

Chapter 11: Tourists.

LORENZO.

Altay Mountains, Russia March 10th The train wheels beat rhythmically on the steel tracks. Our private pa.s.senger compartment was old-school comfortable, with thick couches, real wood paneling, and an actual bearskin rug on the floor. The bar was stocked with expensive vodka and caviar. As wealthy western businessmen, we rode first cla.s.s. I had scouted the other pa.s.senger cars, and they were typical Russian, the middle cars were run-down utilitarian things housing ethnic Russians and some replacement soldiers for their outpost, and the cars at the end of the train were pure third world, unheated splintery wood, almost cattle cars that were packed with Kyrgyz and Uzbek workers.

The ma.s.sive diesel engine labored to get us through the mountain pa.s.s. Jill tugged on the bottom of the black window curtain. It rolled up with a snap, revealing a glorious view. We were 6,000 feet above sea level and climbing. The peaks of the Golden Mountains towered far higher around us, and my lungs ached from the lack of air. North Gap, Montana had been pleasant in comparison. I knew I had better get used to it though. The Crossroads itself was at 8,000 feet.

"It's so pretty," Jill said. "All that snow . . ."

I looked past her. Huge white drifts covered miles of black rock. Giant angled sheets of ice reflected the sunlight so clean and white and brilliant that it made my eyes hurt. Behind those black rock walls were mile after mile of glaciers, one of the greatest reserves of fresh water on Earth. Miles of pristine evergreens were inters.p.a.ced with sluggish glacial springs.

"Looks cold." I was feeling disagreeable. We were behind schedule. A late snowstorm had held us up in Volgostadorsk. We were supposed to have flown in, but reports said that it was going to take some time to clear the runways with that typical Russian enthusiasm and efficiency. In other words, the one plow was broken down, and the guy that could fix it had to sober up first. The delay had put me in a foul mood. Well, fouler than normal.

"I think it's the most beautiful place I've ever seen," Jill said. Reaper looked up from his laptop, squinted at the bright light, grunted, and returned to his files. Reaper didn't appreciate any beauty that wasn't pixilated. Well, unless you count strippers. Jill shook her head sadly. "You guys have no appreciation for nature."

"Nature's an evil wh.o.r.e who'll kill you in a heartbeat," I replied. Even though I didn't like people, I liked being surrounded by them. The wilderness made me uncomfortable. In a crowd, I can fade away. In the woods, I was pretty much clueless.

"It's supposed to be spring, but when the sun goes down tonight, it'll be ten degrees below zero. A blizzard here can kill you in a manner of minutes. There are packs of wolves in that forest where the males weigh a hundred and fifty f.u.c.king pounds and eat their body weight in meat every few days," Reaper said. He looked up from his computer. I raised an eyebrow. "Wikipedia," he explained.

This territory held the intersection of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. Only Russia and China officially touched, with the Kazakhs and Mongols being separated by about twenty miles. Historically this area had been a crossroads of the ancient world, and the birthplace of the Turkic people. For most of the last couple centuries it had been a kind of no man's land, populated by small villages and ethnic minorities. Over the last fifty years there had been a few border skirmishes, and one really unlucky Russian military disaster, but mostly this area had been ignored. It was steep, cold, hard to get to, and generally considered the a.s.s end of the universe by everyone involved.

That had all changed about twenty years ago, beginning with a natural gas pipeline from southern Siberia into North China, and that had led to the construction of the rail line through the mountains. Then an oil pipeline had crossed it from Kazakhstan through Mongolia which had brought its own railroad. These lines had intersected in a mountain valley that at the time had held nothing but an abandoned Soviet military base and the ancient ruins of some people that had long since been forgotten, and a small town had sprung up at this new intersection.

Then an enterprising businessman known as Big Eddie had decided that this little crossroads was a superb hub for trafficking in all sorts of illicit goods. Afghan and Kazakh opium heading east, north, and south, the Russian Army selling off everything that wasn't nailed down, and Chinese military hardware heading every which way. The Crossroads became a kind of international super-flea market of illicit goods. Soon every criminal, terrorist, and wannabe warlord converged on it, looking to buy and sell. People like that needed neutral places to meet and conduct business, and Big Eddie kept the peace. That mountain village had turned into a boomtown of the criminal underworld, and the boom had brought the deals and the money. Every faction on Earth wanted a piece of the action.

But The Crossroads wasn't all fun and profit. Criminal factions tend to solve their problems with violence, and old grudges die hard. The factions needed muscle, and this attracted the mercenaries, Muslims run out of Chechnya, Mongols hungry for work, Uyghur, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Han, and every other group you could think of. If a rough man needed work, there was no better place to find it than The Crossroads.

Once it was found that the surrounding mountains held huge stores of gold, silver, copper, and zinc, all in a place where there was no government interference or regulations on how to get at that wealth, legitimate business had flocked to The Crossroads, and the area exploded. After a few years the town had swelled to almost twenty thousand people. And it was a tough town. All four of the legitimate governments that bordered The Crossroads were happy to look away from the bad things that happened there, as long as they got paid.

It had been the crown jewel in Big Eddie's empire. Of course, none of the residents and visitors to The Crossroads knew who he really was, only that he ran the show with an iron fist, and he always got a cut of the action. Apparently that had changed rather drastically when I had shot that poodle-petting freak out of the sky, but nature abhors a vacuum, so now there was someone new at the top of the food-chain.

That's where we came in.

"We'll be in The Crossroads in a matter of hours. From here on out, we're in character. Get used to it. I don't want any-" There was a knock at the cabin door. "Hang on. I got it."

A waiter was in the hall, pus.h.i.+ng a steam cart. The terrain flashed by behind him through the opposite bank of windows. We were entering a valley. He was a young ethnic Uzbek, and spoke in poorly accented Russian. "Good afternoon, sir. Lunch is served," he lifted the cover and displayed his wares. "Today, fresh salmon from Katun River, with potatoes in lamb bone marrow pudding." It actually looked really good, but I had eclectic tastes.

First cla.s.s so totally rocks. "Wonderful," I reached into my pocket for a tip. The train lurched as the brakes were forcefully applied. I stumbled and caught myself on the doorframe. The screech of metal on metal echoed up through the carpeted floor. The waiter braced himself and kept his cart from spilling. "What's going on?"

"I not know," he answered, looking bewildered. "No stop here."

"Giant wolf on the track," Reaper suggested from behind me.

"No." I saw the pillars of black smoke out the window. There was, or had been, a small village here. The homes had been tiny wooden things with thatch roofs, and there had only been five or six of them at the most. All of them were burning now. There were bodies strewn around in the b.l.o.o.d.y snow, none of them were moving. The train finally came to a full stop, with our car looking right at the remains.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Reaper said as he looked over my shoulder. "Whoa." Jill pushed past me and into the hall and stared out the window. Other first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers left their cabins and joined us, staring at the scene. There was muttering and gasping.

A blast of freezing cold and the smell of smoke flowed through the hall when the rear door opened. "Make way! Move aside!" The soldiers from the next car were pus.h.i.+ng their way forward, in their greatcoats with AK74s in their hands.

"What is this?" asked a large man with a Ukrainian accent, gesturing at the carnage. "What happened?"

"Sala Jihan happened," muttered a wizened old Uyghur man who was now standing next to Jill. She was frozen in shock. I don't think she had seen anything like this before. I had warned her about this part of the world. It was no place for the good. "The Pale Man sends a message to these people."

The lead soldier grabbed the waiter by the shoulders and shook him. "Go forward and tell the engineer to get this thing moving. He should not have stopped. Go! Now!" The waiter ran from the car in the direction of the engine.

"Aren't you going to help those people?" the Ukrainian businessman asked.

The old Russian soldier had a master sergeant's insignia on his great coat, and he looked like he had been around this rodeo a few times. "They are beyond help, Comrade . . ." Yep, he was old guard . . . "This is not our affair. There's no use in getting involved."

"But we are still in Altay! This is your jurisdiction!" The Ukrainian demanded. The train lurched forward with a chug chug noise as we restarted our journey.

"We may still be in Russia, according to the map," the soldier said with some resignation. "But it is not our jurisdiction anymore." The Ukrainian began to bl.u.s.ter. Some of the other pa.s.sengers began to shout. The younger soldiers looked jumpy with their Kalashnikovs as the train car rolled forward. I grabbed Jill by the arm and tugged her back toward me. She was still transfixed on the village.

Then it was suddenly silent. Every one of us was looking out the window, without the words, as our train slowly moved past the things only a few feet outside the window. Some villagers had been left as an example. They had been impaled on stakes along the tracks. Even after all of the horrible things that I had seen in Chechnya, Bosnia, and Africa, I couldn't accurately describe what had been done to these people, flayed, burned, tortured, exposed muscle and dangling skin, white teeth and open eye sockets, and things I couldn't really understand.

I pulled Jill closer, and forced her eyes down. I shouldn't have let her come. The crowd tracked on the examples, heads moving as one as if in slow motion, as the train built up momentum and left them behind. Finally, the Ukrainian spoke, his voice quivering and higher pitched, like a child that had just woken up from a nightmare. "What manner of man could do something like that?"

The old Uyghur spoke again. "Is not man." He spat on the floor. "Is demon."

We all went back into our cabins and closed the doors, lunch forgotten.

LORENZO.

Crossroads City March 10th "Welcome to the wild-wild-middle," Reaper said as he stepped from the raised platform of the train station and into the slush and mud covered street. The air smelled like cooking smoke, diesel fumes, and unwashed people. It was remarkably cold, but the street was crowded with busy people from every culture you could think of. The music of twenty languages bombarded my ears.

The surrounding mountains around us had been stripped of all their trees, and the amount of growth that had occurred here since my last visit was positively shocking. I grunted as I lifted my bags, marveling at the sprawling development that had seemingly sprung up overnight. The Crossroads had exploded.

The three of us were dressed in Mountain Yuppiflage, brightly colored, Gore-Tex parkas and snow pants. We looked like typical Europeans or Americans at a ski-resort. I hated wearing anything colorful, but we had a cover to keep up. My coat was puffy, green with big black stripes. I was wearing a black neoprene skull cap and Bolle sungla.s.ses. I hadn't shaved for the last few weeks and had a pretty decent beard going. Then again, I was one of those guys with a Homer Simpson face who could grow a goatee in forty-eight hours. The last time I'd been in The Crossroads I had been clean shaven with long hair, and that had been seven years ago, so hopefully I wouldn't run into anyone who would recognize me.

Jill's coat was yellow and Reaper's was red. With his hair pulled back in a ponytail and the facial piercings gone, Reaper actually could be pretty convincing as a professional techie type. He carried a briefcase filled with information about our make-believe mining concern. Jill was going to play the part of our young go-getter junior executive in search of cheap ore.

"Which way to our hotel?" Jill asked in Spanish. Her breath formed a steam halo around her face. We would be in character from here on out. "You, find out where the hotel is, and then get my luggage."

"Yes, ma'am," I answered humbly. For somebody with no criminal past, Jill had no problem playing pretend, either that or she just really liked ordering me around. I examined the crowd, looking for a potential guide that wouldn't just rip us off or lead us down some alley to get robbed and murdered. The throng of people was pus.h.i.+ng and shoving, unloading cargo from the train, yelling in a dozen different language, and just taking care of random bits of business. They were dressed in everything from expensive Western clothing like us, to Russian-style long coats and fur hats, to traditional robes and fur coats. Almost everyone appeared to be armed. The people who weren't, were either too poor to afford a gun or too rich to bother and those guys were obviously flanked by armed henchmen.

I picked out a kid, probably eight years old, who was begging by the entrance to the first-cla.s.s car. He held out his hands as I approached. I wasn't quite sure what he was, so I started with Russian. "Do you know where the Glorious Cloud is?" He c.o.c.ked his head, so I asked him the same thing in Chinese. My Chinese wasn't as good as my Russian, but apparently he understood and replied with some rapid-fire chatter in a dialect that I barely understood. I held up some cash. We had a guide.

The boy led us through the streets of Crossroad City. The main road from the train station was asphalt and I think the side streets were gravel. There was so much snow and mud slush that it was hard to tell. I saw a few motor vehicles, usually bigger trucks, Russian 4x4s, a few horses and yaks, and surprisingly enough, bicycles. I wasn't sure how the riders managed to stay upright riding through ice, but they did. There were a few waiting rickshaw drivers who shouted for our business, but Ling had told me the Exodus meetingplace was near the train station. Being on foot gives you a better feel for a place anyway.

The buildings were of every sort imaginable, from concrete bunkers, to mud walled compounds, to wood frame buildings that would look normal in suburban America. The streets didn't even vaguely resemble straight lines. There was no rhyme or reason to how Crossroads City was laid out. There was no zoning here. h.e.l.l, there was no law whatsoever. People built whatever they felt like.

I watched the people. Business was being conducted on every corner. There was no central marketplace because the entire town was the marketplace. You could go to any street here, buy three machine guns, a sack of opium, and a chicken, and have change left over. One man handed over a small stack of currency to a street vendor, and the vendor pa.s.sed back an RPG rocket.

"Gift wrap that for you, sir?" Jill giggled.

"Quiet." I could feel eyes on us. Everyone was watched here. Every worker, every peasant, and every hired tough was a potential spy.

The nicer buildings had sign posts in front of them. There usually wasn't anything actually written, just carved symbols, but I recognized a lot of them, Red Dragon Triad, Luminous Path, Chechen Brotherhood, Russian mob, Al Qaeda, Yakuza, heck, even the Sicilians had a rather nice brick rambler. Since I had left, The Crossroads had grown into a super criminal United Nations. If a mob boss six thousand miles away might need to get some particular bit of rare merchandise, or place an order for a huge amount of product, or even just have his emissaries sit down across the table from their rivals, this was the place.

Each faction had some toughs hanging out by their front entrance. Normally I would expect all sorts of posturing between the groups, but they seemed to ignore each other. All of them glared at us legitimate businessmen. As we pa.s.sed in front of the sprawling Russian compound, one of the drunker Russians shouted something profane at my girlfriend while simulating something really nasty with his AK. Cla.s.sy bunch.

We had to step aside to keep from being run over by a giant septic-pumper truck. "Well, at least they don't just throw it in the street, like most of the places we've worked," Reaper muttered. "Though they're probably gonna go dump it in the water supply."

This was Reaper's first time here. He'd probably be surprised that even criminal sc.u.mbags didn't want nasty water. "You had your shots."

"Stop, thief!" one of the street vendors shouted in Chinese. Ironically, three quarters of the people on the street looked up to see if they were the one being talked about. A young man in a fur robe crashed past me, pus.h.i.+ng his way through the crowd and past the Russian compound, a bag of grain thrown over one shoulder. The various factions' toughs laughed and pointed.

The thief didn't make it far. A black shape materialized from around the corner ahead of the runner, and moved to intercept at an astonis.h.i.+ng rate of speed. There was a sound like a watermelon hitting a bat, and the thief's head snapped back. He did most of a flip before landing in the snow.

The crowd froze. The noise in the immediate area died down to muted whispers. The man in black stood over the twitching thief. The new arrival was short and broad, cloaked from head to toe in some thick, shapeless furs with a large hood. Under the hood was a black mask and round, tinted goggles. The goggles surveyed the crowd, and I swear that even the Yakuza and the Chechens shrank back under that gaze. Canvas bandoleers of rifle ammo crossed his chest in an X, on top of that was a leather necklace strung with wolf teeth. He had an ancient M44 Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifle in his hands, and a single drop of blood fell from the stock from where he had brutally clubbed the runner.

"One of the Brothers!" a nearby street vendor hissed. The black-clad man's head snapped in the direction of the voice, and the vendor fearfully averted his gaze.

The thief moaned, spat out a mouthful of blood, and started to rise, sack of grain spilled open beside him. He rolled over, realized who had taken him down, and immediately began to cry. I didn't know what language it was, but begging for mercy sounds pretty much the same everywhere. Without a word, the man in black flipped out the M44's bayonet and stabbed forward once. The scream turned into gurgling as the spike was twisted. Then the street was quiet again. The man jerked the spike out in a red splash. The tinted goggles surveyed the street once more before he wiped the blood off his bayonet on the thief's pants. He turned and walked away, never having said a word.

A moment later the street came back to life, as if nothing had ever happened.

The crowd was ignoring the dead body, except for a couple of street urchins who were already stealing his shoes and coat. Our guide looked wistful at the missed opportunity. "Who was that?" I asked the kid, putting my forefingers and thumbs in a circle over my eyes like I was wearing goggles. The boy said something I couldn't understand.

"The Brothers are the Pale Man's personal bodyguard. They keep the peace in town," said one of the more sober Russian mafia who had sauntered up behind us. He took a drag on his cigarette and blew it out in a cloud. "They don't ever talk, and they never show their faces. n.o.body smart f.u.c.ks with them."

"I don't think they're so tough," said the drunker Russian that had been offering his sensitive undying love to Jill just a moment before.

"Like I said, n.o.body smart f.u.c.ks with them," said the first. "Shut the f.u.c.k up, Gregor. War between houses and stealing in general is bad for business. The Brothers kill anybody that messes with that, unless they take a liking to you-then they drag you off to the slave mines." I was supposed to be the interpreter, so I quickly translated all this into Spanish for Jill, and the lead Russian took that as an indicator as to who was supposedly the boss. "Welcome to The Crossroads, lady. Should you businessfolk need any a.s.sistance, some of my men are always looking for freelance security work. And most of them are smarter than Gregor here. We're much more reliable than those slant-eyed h.o.m.os.e.xuals." He nodded down the street toward the other faction's houses.

"We'll keep that in mind, thank you," Jill responded politely, glancing nervously toward the dead thief, who was now missing most of his clothing. Even the grain was gone. "Are they just going to leave him there?"

The Russian shrugged. "It serves as a warning. If he's got family, they'll collect him eventually. Or not. The wolves creep into town at night when n.o.body's around, take care of it." He laughed, but I didn't think he was making a joke. "Enjoy your stay here."

I said goodbye to the Russian killers and we continued on.

A minute later our guide pointed at a wooden, three-story building, with a giant porch that circled the entire thing. Surprisingly, it looked rather nice. n.o.body ever said anarchy had to be uncomfortable. There was a sign over the double door written in a few languages. I was able to read the third one down: Glorious Cloud Hotel. A roughly-carved wooden dragon was wrapped around the sign pole, breathing wooden fire. I gave the boy about $20 worth of rubles, and the way his face lit up, I could tell that was a big deal, easily worth pa.s.sing up on looting the dead guy's shoes.

The interior of the Glorious Cloud was immaculately clean, and once the door was closed to the chaos of the street, the hotel lobby was peaceful and smelled like incense. The lady behind the desk was elderly Han, and extremely polite. She took our money, handed us a key, explained the meal schedule, and pointed us up the stairs to our rooms.

I handed her one final coin. "A tip." She took the coin, and rubbed her thumb around the outside edge without thinking. She looked at me curiously when she found that one edge of the coin had been smashed flat.

"Will you be staying until the thaw?" she asked.

"I'm told the forest is beautiful in spring." I completed the Exodus code phrase.

"Thank you, kind sir. Please enjoy your stay at The Crossroads."