Swords Of Exodus Part 23

I had loved her once, to say otherwise would be a lie, but she was broken inside. There was something wrong with Katarina, deep down, just plain abhorrent. She never talked about her past, and all I really knew about her was what she had chosen to reveal to me, and that wasn't much, and over the last few months I'd decided that she had fabricated most of that too. Not that I was somebody that could say much about that.

"Wait!" Her voice was plaintive. I paused, just for a moment, weak. "You can't leave me, Lorenzo. Not like this."

It had been great at first. For the first time in my life I had found someone who was just as conniving and malicious as I was. Ambitious, smart, and for a man like me, who lived his life on the ragged edge of law and probability, she had actually been fun. But that had changed over time.

It was like she was several different people, wrapped into one beautiful, fragile sh.e.l.l. The one that I fell for was a relatively decent human being who had endured a difficult life, a scared girl with a good heart. The next minute she could turn into a cold-blooded murderer, all calculation and ruthlessness, her body a weapon in more ways than one, and when she was off her meds, she turned into a screaming psychopath, flying off in a rage at the slightest provocation. She popped pills like crazy. Not so many at first, but the more jobs we pulled for Big Eddie, the more she had taken. Which Kat you ended up with depended greatly on which personality was running the show that day.

Working for Big Eddie was bad for her. I could see it. No sane person could exist in his world for long without being corrupted, and Kat was now his favorite intermediary. I was never allowed to meet the man. I had tried to get her to leave, but she had refused. Her future was with the Montalbans. That ambition that I had been so infatuated with had required her to turn totally into the cold Kat, with occasional outbursts from the crazy Kat. I was certain that the good Kat was still in there somewhere, but that side of her was weak, so she had locked it away in her cage made of drugs and hate.

Yes, I had loved her, but not anymore.

"Don't walk away from me! Lorenzo!" she shrieked. "d.a.m.n you! Don't you leave me! Not like this!" She grabbed onto arm, her nails tearing into my skin. And just like that, she lost it entirely. Kat attacked me, clawing at my eyes, ripping my s.h.i.+rt, her spit hitting me in the face. She was a trained fighter, but when she flew into one of her rages, there was no skill, just savagery. I bore it for a moment, waiting for her to do something stupid like actually start fighting, or to go for a weapon. Finally, I put one hand on her chest and shoved her violently to the ground.

She curled into a ball in the wet Malaysian gra.s.s and began to sob. "But . . . But I . . . I need you."

"Goodbye," I said simply and turned back to the house. Carl was watching from the front door. He nodded once and left to get Reaper, Train, and the car. We were out of there. Kat could stay and deal with Eddie all she wanted. A small part of me expected a bullet in the spine, but none came. Apparently she had taken at least some of her medications today.

"You'll pay for this, Lorenzo, I swear to G.o.d!" She screamed, cursed, and cried as I walked away. I didn't look back.

"So, what brings you to my neck of the woods?" Katarina asked innocently.

"General thievery. You know how it is. Boring stuff," I answered mechanically.

She and Anders were sitting across from us. Jill was sitting on my right, and Reaper on my left. There was a submachine-toting guard standing at each end of the room. Jill was brooding, her face a mask, barely concealing her emotions. I could understand what she was going through, but thank goodness she was smart enough to let me do the talking. Whatever Katarina was, she was dangerous, and she was also our captor, so Jill was better off holding her rage in for now. I just hoped she would believe me when I had a chance to explain that I was innocent, a.s.suming of course, that they just didn't drag us all out back and put a bullet in us first.

"How did you know I was here?"

"I was very surprised to hear that a Spanish businesswoman named Maria Consuela Garcia was coming to The Crossroads to do business with Sala Jihan. The coincidence was striking, considering that ident.i.ty had originally been prepared for my use. I'm such a fan of irony, that I felt I needed to meet this person."

"Whoops."

Breakfast had been brought in by servants and sat steaming before us. I had to admit that the bacon smelled really good. A plate was put before Kat first. The boss got a steak so rare it still had feelings. "I had heard you were retired. That was the word on the street."

"This is just a temporary thing I've got to take care of, then back to the old folks home."

"Decent fieldcraft for somebody retired," Anders stated as he helped himself to a heaping pile of pig meat. "By the way . . ." He paused, pulled something out of his pocket, and tossed it across the table. It was a badly crumpled twenty dollar bill. "I always pay my debts."

"So you're out of the business, and you're no concern of ours, but here you are, in our backyard, with a . . ." Katarina sniffed. "Crew. Skyler, it's good to see that you're still alive."

"Uh-huh," Reaper muttered as he chewed, keeping his head down. He had always despised Katarina. "And it's Reaper."

"That was such a silly name for a young boy."

"Well, I'm no kid anymore."

"Where are Carl and Train? Oh, wait. That's right. My predecessor here had them both killed. How about that?" Katarina turned to Jill. "And this must be my replacement. Lorenzo always believed in having a pretty young thing on his team. You can get into places that a male thief could only dream of. Oh, but Lorenzo always was quite the lady's man back in the day. You have no idea how many times he seduced some poor girl during our scams, whatever it took to finish the job. He could pretend to be anything, for anyone. Quite the heartbreaker, our Lorenzo, but he always came back to his crew."

Katarina was baiting Jill, testing her, and sadly, Jill fell for it. The mask fell away, and her temper s.h.i.+ned through. "He's my boyfriend, you b.i.t.c.h. We live together."

"Lorenzo settled down? With you?" Katarina laughed as she used a knife to cut her breakfast steak. "What are you, twenty?"

"Twenty-six," Jill answered defiantly. I had a feeling that if it wasn't for the two guards with P90s, she would have gone across the table and twisted Katarina's head off. "What're you, fifty?"

Katarina's eyebrows narrowed. "I'm younger than your boyfriend." I had seen that look before, kind of like how she had looked right before shooting Datuk Keng in the head. She turned her icy blue eyes back toward me. "So, when did you start robbing the cradle?"

I was fourteen years older than Jill. "I make up for it by being immature. It averages out."

"Well, he dumped your s.k.a.n.k a.s.s, and he comes home with me. Speaking of which, I would appreciate it if you kept your tentacles off my man," Jill said calmly as she scooped herself some breakfast. "Or we'll have us a problem, puta."

Reaper looked over at me, raised an eyebrow, as if asking if it was okay to watch the catfight. I shook my head in the negative, and then nodded toward the guards. "Jill, machine guns." My ex was not the person to provoke.

Katarina pushed her plate away. "It's Jill, right? Well, listen to me carefully, Jill. I have been killing people professionally for the world's most dangerous criminal syndicate since you were wearing a training bra. I clawed my way to the top of this organization by pure ruthlessness. And then, when Big Eddie died, I had to fight every other one of his lieutenants for the sc.r.a.ps. They died. I didn't. So I won." Suddenly she reached across the table, faster than I could react, and stabbed her steak knife into the wood directly in front of Jill. The handle vibrated slightly. I had forgotten how fast Kat was. "So don't think you can come into my house and disrespect me in front of my men. Another word, and I bury you . . . Now the grownups need to have a conversation."

Jill started to say something, but I reached over and grabbed her hand under the table. She glanced at me, anger flas.h.i.+ng in her dark eyes. I shook my head. Jill had no idea what Katarina was capable of, so hopefully the look I gave her conveyed the danger we were in. Anders glanced around, shrugged, and went back to shoveling food in his face.

"Good. Now where was I?" Katarina smiled, and pulled her plate back. Another knife appeared out of her kimono sleeve, one of those fancy, expensive t.i.tanium folders. It was razor sharp and zipped through the meat like it was made of air. "Oh, that's right. You were about to tell me why you had the audacity to bring a crew onto my territory to perform a job without my permission."

"Better to ask for forgiveness than permission," I tried to joke. She didn't go for it There was no laughter when Ruthless Kat was in charge. "If I had known it was you, believe me, I would have asked. I didn't exactly leave the Exchange under the best terms." I was praying that she didn't know that I was the one that had killed Eddie.

"Why are you here?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Very well." Katarina didn't bother to look up from her food. "Diego, kill the girl."

One of the guards lifted his subgun. Jill gasped. "Okay! Okay!" I raised my hands. "Don't shoot. I'll tell you everything." The guard lowered the gun, and waited for further instructions.

Katarina smiled as she popped a piece of ultra rare in her mouth. She chewed with her mouth open, a disgusting habit that had always annoyed me. "Your softness surprises me. You're certainly not the man you used to be. Talk."

"I'm here looking for a man, an American FBI agent. He came to The Crossroads to investigate Sala Jihan. He was kidnapped. If he's alive, then I will rescue him."

"And if he's not?"

"Then I'll kill the people that took him," I stated simply. "Then I'll go home."

"Just like that?" Katarina quipped.

"Just like that."

"Tell me, why on earth would you, of all people, be trying to help an American policeman? Ahh . . . yes. Your brother was FBI, wasn't he? You mentioned that once. Oh, and you were even foolish enough to take on your adopted family's name as your cover." Katarina snapped her fingers, and one of the guards quickly brought her an iPad. He placed it into her waiting hand, then retreated back to his station. She began to read. "Special Agent Robert T. Lorenzo. Disgraced, paranoid, delusional, conspiracy theorist, fired for revealing cla.s.sified information, disappears from the US, only to arrive in The Crossroads, to immediately stir up trouble by hara.s.sing Sala Jihan, which, by the way, is never wise. He's a nosy, self-righteous, goody-two-shoes, law-and-order pig, who meddles in affairs he does not understand, and pays the price."

"So, you've met Bob. Where is he?"

"Sala Jihan has him," Anders spoke up. "By the time I found out, there was nothing I could do."

I turned my attention from Katarina to Anders. "Why would you do anything?"

Anders wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He pushed his chair away from the table and stood. "Because Bob Lorenzo came here to find me."

"I don't understand."

The giant shook his head. "I'm the Fourth Operative."

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I didn't know what to say. Bob had been right all along. "You're the man that knows about Project Blue?"

Anders dropped his fork on his empty plate. "Take a walk with me, Lorenzo. There are some things you need to know."

Chapter 15: Old Friends.

VALENTINE.

Crossroads City March 15th Our breath smoldered in the frigid air as Ling and I stepped out into daylight. Though the sun only occasionally peeked through the heavy layer of gray clouds, the snow amplified the brightness enough that I put on a pair of tinted goggles. These had the added benefit of helping to conceal my ident.i.ty. We were dressed in what pa.s.sed for street clothes in The Crossroads: heavy jackets, knit caps, and thick gloves, most of it either North Chinese or Russian military surplus. All of the high-end cold weather gear I'd been issued might have drawn more attention.

Our armament was limited to what handguns we could conceal. My custom Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum revolver was in its usual place on my left hip, but it was buried beneath several layers of clothing. I could get to it, but it wouldn't be a fast draw by any means. So I'd asked my Exodus compatriots for something smaller, that I could stash in the pocket of my coat. I was graciously offered several compact handguns. I picked a Taurus Protector Poly, a hideous .357 Magnum snubby with a polymer frame. Ugliness notwithstanding, it fit into the hand-warmer pockets of my jacket perfectly. Being a revolver, it could be fired from the pocket without malfunctioning, and I shoot revolvers better than automatics anyway.

Together, Ling and I made our way across the cluttered, crowded mess that was Crossroads City. Shops and stores of every sort lined the winding street, and where there weren't shops there were ramshackle carts or people selling goods out of the backs of trucks. The air stunk of diesel and burning trash.

At the heart of the town was the literal crossroads from which the settlement had gotten its name. The east-west road from Kazakhstan to Mongolia intersected with a north-south road that ran from Russia into North China. Railroad tracks ran parallel to the north-south road. A bustling train station sat just south of the intersection and seemed to be the center of activity. Scores of people crowded the platform as more boarded and disembarked a stopped train. The station itself had once been very ornate, decorated in old Soviet art-deco style. Much of it had been vandalized, stolen, shot up, or crumbled from decades of neglect.

Twin statues of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong flanked the main entrance to the station. Each had their arms uplifted in the air, like something off of an old propaganda poster. Only, Stalin's arm had been missing for many years and Mao had been spray painted with graffiti. His arm was being used to hold up a line of Christmas lights strung up over a noodle stand.

Ling and I had volunteered to go looking for Lorenzo. Even though the picture I'd been shown was blurry, there was no mistaking Anders. I had a score to settle with that son of a b.i.t.c.h and was eager to put a .44 slug through him. I didn't tell Ling this, of course. Revenge might seem unprofessional, and I really didn't want to get left at the safe house. I was sick of being cooped up. I'd been locked in a dingy old building for a long time, and I'd had my fill of it.

We didn't bother going to the Arena. It was public and we knew he'd been carried away. That left us with only one place that was worth checking: the Glorious Cloud Hotel. That was where Lorenzo, Jill, and Reaper were staying under their a.s.sumed ident.i.ties. An Exodus informant worked the desk there and Ling wanted to question her. A pair of Exodus operatives, from a different safe house, were supposed to meet us there.

The Glorious Cloud didn't look glorious from the outside, but given the surroundings it was actually pretty nice. It was very quiet inside, decorated sort of like a P.F. Chang's restaurant. Ling told me to wait by the door and stand watch as she approached the desk clerk, an elderly Chinese woman with a hard gleam in her eye.

People, mostly Westerners, came and went as if The Crossroads was just another tourist destination. Just by looking at the folks inside the Glorious Cloud, one might not get the impression that The Crossroads was as nasty a place as it actually was. I could only wonder what criminal business brought most of the guests to this G.o.dforsaken corner of the globe.

"Jill and Reaper were taken from here late last night," Ling said, speaking very softly. "Four armed men, Europeans, came into the hotel, went up to the top floor, where Mr. Lorenzo was staying, and returned a few minutes later, leading them out the door."

"No one said anything?"

"This is The Crossroads, Michael. She also told me that if other Exodus members are here, they didn't identify themselves to her."

"We should check Lorenzo's room."

"Yes. She gave me the key. Come on."

The top floor of the hotel was quiet. There were only a few rooms on the fifth floor, and they were the most expensive ones available. The entire level was designed to minimize noise and dampen sound. Our footsteps barely made any noise on the carpet. An ornate fountain babbled quietly along one wall. The walls were made of red wood and had beautiful tapestries hung on them.

Ling unzipped her jacket. "That's the room up ahead." I nodded and unzipped my own jacket so I could get to my .44. Upon reaching the door, she tried the handle. The room was unlocked. The Exodus operative looked back at me as she pulled an engraved Browning Hi-Power pistol from a holster on her belt and swiped the safety off. I nodded again and drew my .44, holding it close to my chest, muzzle-down.

Ling quietly opened the door. Somebody was talking inside. We entered the suite as quietly as we could. Ling moved like a cat, graceful and silent. Lorenzo had himself a nice setup there, a multi-room suite. The entrance room was a small foyer that led to a central common room. The voices were coming from there.

We swept into the room, guns raised. There were two men in the room. They were armed too, and startled. I had one, a thin man with a brown complexion and dark hair, in my sights. Ling held up her left hand, "Hold on," so I didn't fire. His eyes were big and white as he stared at my revolver. The Glock 19 in his hands was shaking. He must be new at this.

"Diamond," Ling said cryptically.

"Sapphire," the other man responded. Ling lowered her pistol, and so did they. I let my .44 linger on my target for just a moment before pulling the big gun back to my chest.

"Michael, this is the other team that was sent to the hotel," Ling said. "They are from Ibrahim's sword."

"Michael?" the other Exodus operative asked. He was a short man, dressed in dark clothes, his face hidden under a watch cap, Oakley sungla.s.ses, and a scarf. His voice sounded familiar. "Val?" Very familiar. He pulled down the scarf.

I blinked hard. "Skunky?"

"Hey bro," he said sheepishly, holstering the two-tone Beretta 9mm he carried. "Long time no see."

"Jesus tapdancing Christ," I blasphemed. "What the f.u.c.k are you doing here? I haven't seen you since . . ."

He smiled. "Since Mexico? Yeah. I know. Sorry about that." He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me in an awkward man-hug, slapping me on the back as he did so.

"Friend of yours?" the other Exodus man asked Skunky.

"We were in Vanguard together."

Skunky's real name was Jeff Long. He'd grown up in California, the son of Chinese immigrants. About a year before Vanguard had landed the Mexico contract, he was a.s.signed to my team, Switchblade 4. He had been there on our last mission, acting as our team's designated marksman, when our chopper was shot down. The last I'd heard, Tailor had tried to recruit Skunky, just like he had for me, for Project Heartbreaker. Now I knew why he'd declined. "You're working for Exodus? How? Why?"

"I could ask you the same thing." He grinned.

"I recruited him the same time I tried to recruit you," Ling said. "You were both instrumental in saving Ariel."

Me, Skunky, and Tailor had been the only survivors of Switchblade 4's disastrous operation in Mexico. "h.e.l.l, did you try to recruit Tailor too?"

"He wasn't Exodus material." She didn't explain what Exodus material meant, but Tailor was a lunatic.

Skunky laughed. "Tailor was one cigarette being put out on his skin as a kid away from being a serial killer."

"He had my back in Zubara."

"Yeah, I heard that went south . . ."

Ling turned her attention back to Skunky. "You two can catch up later. What have you found here?"

"There is some sign of a struggle," he said, indicating for us to follow him into one of the rooms. "The door wasn't kicked in, but there was definitely a struggle."

A laptop sat on the desk in one of the rooms, a screen saver displayed on its monitor. It was connected to a pair of external hard drives. Another cable ran from a USB port to what looked like a modem of some kind. A cable from that ran out onto the balcony, where a compact satellite dish was set up. A pair of headphones was plugged into the machine, still playing heavy metal. The chair was knocked over. Half a dozen empty cans of Monster energy drink were scattered across the room. Reaper struck me as messy. What gave it away was that a half-full can of Monster had spilled on the desk, around the laptop, and hadn't been wiped up. Messy or not, that boy would never let anything like that happen to his equipment.

"This is Reaper's room alright," I told Ling. "So Anders has got Lorenzo, Jill, and Reaper."