Dead Six

Chapter 9:

The To-Do List

VALENTINE

Fort Saradia National Historical Site

April 16

0900

I opened my eyes to the sound of someone pounding on my door. My head throbbed with each blow. Using the wall to prop myself up, I struggled to my feet and answered the knock.

It was Conrad, Hunter’s security man. Next to him was another guy I’d seen before but whose name I didn’t recall. They were dressed like twins in 5.11 vests and Oakley sunglasses. “Valentine, come with us,” Conrad said bluntly.

I looked at my watch. “What’s happening?”

“Just come with us.” Conrad put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me out of the room.

“Hey!” I protested, groggily. My left hand reflexively reached for my S&W .44; it was still in its holster.

“Hold it right there!” Conrad’s partner shouted, immediately producing a pistol from under his vest. He held the Sig 220 in a tight two-handed grip, pointed at my right ear.

“Whoa whoa whoa!” I said, raising my hands, head pounding with each word. “Everybody calm down! What the hell’s going on here?”

“Put your hands behind your head!” Conrad’s partner demanded.

“Do it,” Conrad said. He yanked my .44 out of its holster and stuffed it into his waistband. I had little choice; I slowly laced my fingers behind my head. Conrad then shoved my face into the concrete wall. Pain shot through my skull at the impact. They kept me pinned as my hands were pulled behind my back and roughly zip-tied together. Conrad spun me around, and his partner punched me in the stomach, hard.

I doubled over, gasping for air. Conrad was holding my zip-tied hands and wouldn’t let me fall. “Hunter is waiting for you,” he said. The two men shoved me toward the stairs and marched me across the compound. Conrad had his hand on my shoulder while his partner stayed a few paces away, ready to shoot me if I ran.

It had been a long time since I’d been that hung over, and I wasn’t handling it well. The morning heat was oppressive. Once we cleared the shade of the covered hallway, it felt like the sun would burn my hair off. I squinted in the light, and my head ached with each step.

Other Dead Six personnel watched quietly as I was paraded across Fort Saradia. I was furious. Beyond that, a small pit was forming in my stomach. As we grew nearer and nearer to the admin building, I began to wonder if Hunter was going to have me shot.

“Wait, wait, we gotta stop.” I leaned forward and threw up.

“Heh, looks like our boy doesn’t feel so good,” one of the security men said. Conrad and his partner had a good laugh at my expense before dragging me along again.

As we approached the administrative building, Sarah stepped out into the morning sun, putting on sunglasses as she cleared the door. She froze when she saw me being pushed along by Hunter’s men, blood trickling down the side of my head, hands tied behind my back. Her mouth opened, but she didn’t say anything. I just looked at the ground.

A few minutes later, I was sitting outside of Hunter’s office, being watched by one security guy while Conrad was inside talking to the colonel. After a short time I was marched in and pushed into a chair in front of Hunter’s desk.

Looking around, I realized I’d never actually been in the office before. It had once belonged to Fort Saradia’s commanding officer. It was under new management now. Several screens were mounted in various places, and bundles of wires were strung along the floor and ceiling. Maps of the city, of the CGEZ, and of the entire Middle East were hung on the walls. The air stank of cigar smoke. The two security men loomed over me as I sat there.

Hunter regarded me quietly. His gaze was hard and unsettling. He had only one eye, but it could look at you twice as hard.

“Colonel?” I began, choosing my words carefully. “What did I do?” I struggled to think clearly; my head felt like it was full of peanut butter.

“Gentlemen, take a walk,” Hunter said, dismissing his two men. As they left the room, he turned his attention to me. “Miss McAllister informed me that you were drunk off your ass last night and seemed unstable. And now Conrad tells me you went for your weapon when they woke you.”

Hunter paused for effect. “Mr. Valentine, we’re having this little chat to determine if you’re still fit to go on missions. So tell me, son, what the hell is your problem?”

“It was . . . bad . . . last night, sir. I did things I regret. I was under a lot of stress. I took it out on Sarah, and I shouldn’t have. But I don’t understand why I got dragged in here at gunpoint.”

Hunter studied me for a moment before speaking. “I know all about you and McAllister, by the way. I know you’ve been diddling each other like a couple of high-school kids. I don’t give a damn about that. I’m only telling you so you’re not under the impression that anything happens around here without my knowledge. What I do give a damn about is one of my best men trying to drink himself stupid after a mission, especially given the operational tempo we’re dealing with. I seem to recall telling you no alcohol until further notice. As a matter of fact, you’re supposed to go out again tonight.”

“But sir!” I protested. “I’m—”

“Hung over?” Hunter interjected. “I can see that. You look like hell, Mr. Valentine. You reek of alcohol. What the hell were you drinking, Av-Gas?”

“I . . . don’t really know, sir. I don’t remember much.”

“I bet,” Hunter said. “I’m asking you again, now, what’s your problem?”

“There were some things we left out of our report, sir,” I said quietly. “About what we found in Umm Bab.”

“Oh?” Hunter asked, raising the eyebrow above his eye patch. I spent the next few minutes recapping the grisly scene we discovered in Adar’s bedroom. My voice broke a few times as I talked about the mutilated girl.

Hunter quietly let me finish. “Well, that makes sense now,” he said at last. He thought about it for a long, uncomfortable moment. “I guess you’re lucky.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. My first inclination was to throw you in the brig for a couple weeks. Unfortunately, we don’t have time for that, and we’re too short on personnel. You will not jeopardize this mission. Another episode and I’ll send you home.”

I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. “Send me home?”

“Well, I’ll send you back to Gordon Willis. He’ll probably make you disappear. I doubt you’ll end up back wherever it is you came from. I’ve only sent one person back so far, and I don’t know what happened to him. If you follow orders until the project is over, you won’t have to find out. Am I making myself clear, Mr. Valentine?”

“Perfectly, sir,” I replied.

“Outstanding,” Hunter said.

“Sir, can you untie me now?”

“In a minute. Listen up. Your next mission is very important. So far, the project has been going well. Very well. We have the enemy running scared, and the rumors are flying. Many suspect Americans, but we’re too aggressive. Most think it’s the Israelis, or the emir’s secret police. The nice thing about shaking the bushes like that is that once in a while something good comes running out.”

“I’m not sure I follow you, sir.”

“We’ve been approached by a contact that wants to make a deal. She’s willing to exchange information for protection. We’re working on setting up the meeting now. The name she gave us is Asra Elnadi. We believe she’s a former partner of one of the local arms dealers, Jalal Hosani.”

“I’ve heard that name before.”

“Mr. Hosani is on our to-do list. He’s been running guns to anyone in the region with the cash to buy them. As a matter of fact, we think he provided most of the weapons you torched in Ash Shamal. But he’s not the issue right now. Our contact says she left Hosani to go work with one of his competitors, a Russian syndicate run by one Anatoly Federov. He’s on the list, too, and he’s higher up on it than Hosani. He’s not only running guns but is providing explosives and advisers. The training he offers is a lot better than the Iranians.”

“So what’s the deal?”

“It’s simple, really. She wants to meet with our people. She’ll divulge everything she knows about both Federov and Hosani if we get her out of the country.”

“Do you think she’s worth the trouble?”

“I do. So here’s what’s going to happen.” Colonel Hunter spent the next few minutes giving me a brief rundown of his mission plan. I listened intently, despite being in pain and having my hands tied behind my back.

It was simple enough. One of our people would meet Asra at a predetermined location. We’d screen her, make sure she checked out, and would then bring her to one of our safe houses. If she was legit, we’d get her out of the country. Hunter seemed reasonably confident that things would go smoothly, but operational experience had dulled my optimism somewhat.

Half an hour later, I left Hunter’s office and headed down the hall to the security office, rubbing the raw spots on my wrists where the zip ties had been. My head still ached, and all I wanted to do was crawl back into bed.

Conrad was sitting at a desk, clicking away at a laptop when I walked in. I spotted my .44 sitting on a shelf behind his desk. “I’m here for my gun,” I said simply. I really didn’t feel like having another conversation with this asshole.

Conrad didn’t look up from his screen. “Well, if it isn’t Doc Holliday looking for his big shootin’ iron.”

My head still throbbed, and I felt a surge of anger shoot through me. “Just give me my gun so I can go,” I said, stepping closer to Conrad’s desk.

“The colonel thinks you’re hot shit. That’s the only reason you didn’t end up in the Gulf,” Conrad said, grabbing my revolver from his shelf. “You know what I think?”

“I don’t really care,” I stated. “Just give me my gun.”

“I think you’re just a dumb kid who’s in way over his head,” Conrad said, pretending to examine my revolver. He then set it down on his desk with a clunk.

The muzzle was facing toward me as I grabbed the .44. As I stood up, I flipped the gun around in my hand and extended my arm. I aligned the sights on the bridge of Conrad’s nose. I’d had enough of these people.

I pulled the trigger.

Click! Conrad raised an eyebrow as the revolver’s hammer fell on an empty chamber. I pulled the gun in close to my chest and hit the cylinder release. The security man had unloaded it before giving it back to me. I could tell the moment I picked it up. Smart move on his part.

He put his hand on the butt of his gun. “You trying to scare me or something? I’m with the organization,” he sputtered, like I knew what he was talking about. “You’re a fucking temp. You’re nothing.”

“I’ll see you later, asshole,” I said. I holstered my gun, turned on a heel, and left the office.

I made my way downstairs and out the front door, almost crashing into Sarah as I stepped back into the heat. “Michael!” she said, seemingly unsure of what to say. “What happened to you?”

I almost laughed. “What happened? Hunter was ready to shoot me, that’s what happened!”

“Michael, I didn’t mean for—”

I cut her off. “No. Just stop. I learned a long time ago not to fish out of the company pond, and this is why. As soon as I piss you off, you run to the boss, and I get the shit kicked out of me. So just stay away from me, alright? I got a mission to plan.” I stepped around her and walked away, not looking back.

It took me a few minutes to get back up to my room. Sweat was trickling down my face by the time I made it to the third floor of the dorms, and I thought I was going to pass out. I locked the door behind me, cranked the air conditioner up, and sat down on my bed.

I noticed something shiny on the floor by the bathroom door. It had fallen out of the old Arabian puzzle box. The object was silver in color and had a silver chain attached to one end. I grabbed the chain and picked the trinket up.

It was roughly cylindrical, a few inches long and maybe as big around as a ballpoint pen. Surprisingly heavy, the object was intricately carved and looked as it if had many moving parts. It also looked very old. The top of the object, where the chain was attached, appeared to be a knob. I gently tried to rotate it to see if anything would happen.

To my surprise, the thing audibly clicked and more than a dozen tiny metal pins of varying lengths popped out of the shaft. Rotating the knob the other way caused the pins to disappear again.

I sat back down on my bed, playing with the trinket, wondering what it was. It seemed like a key of some kind, but that was only a guess on my part. Whatever the object was, it was still in my hand when I fell asleep.

I told myself it was a coincidence, but I had the most macabre, horrifying nightmares of my entire life.

LORENZO

April 16

I was wandering the local market when my cell phone buzzed. It was secure, encrypted, and not very many people had my number. Caller unknown. Glancing around, there was nobody close enough to eavesdrop, and there was enough background hum from the various vendors and customers that listening in would be difficult. Half the Arab world was on a cell phone at any given time anyway.

“I heard you were looking for me,” Jalal Hosani said, cutting right to the point. I had been trying to reach him all week. If anybody knew what was really going on, it would be the local neighborhood arms smuggler.

“I need some information.”

“As do I.” There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Are you involved in what has been happening?”

“Not my style. You know that.” I had the professional reputation of being a man of subtlety. “I was actually going to ask you the same question.”

Jalal actually laughed. “Are you serious? I’ve been afraid to stick my head out in public for fear of losing it to these men leaving the playing cards.”

I paused in front of one of the carts. They actually had good-looking chili peppers, and I was a bit of a connoisseur. Even the smell was hot. I gestured for them to fill a bag. “So, how’s business treating you?” I asked as I passed over a few riyals to the eager vendor and put the peppers with the rest of the supplies I’d purchased.

“Well, half my customer base is dead or hiding, but the other half has been stocking up on guns in response, so overall it has been good. At this rate we’ll be in full-fledged revolution in a matter of months.” Jalal said that like it was a good thing, simply a business opportunity. “Why are you curious? I thought a patriot such as yourself would be glad to see such enemies of your homeland eliminated.”

I wasn’t going to lie. If it wasn’t for Dead Six having my box, they could burn the entire city down and I wouldn’t give a damn. “They took something that belongs to me. I need to find them.”

“Not that I know where they are, but if I were to find such a thing, that information would be incredibly valuable to many people. I’m sure General Al Sabah, for instance, would be willing to pay a fortune.”

“So would Big Eddie,” I responded as I stopped in front of another booth featuring camel, the other, other white meat. Yum. “He’s got deeper pockets than the general, but you know how he feels about being exclusive,” I bluffed. I didn’t have access to Eddie’s resources, but I would cross that bridge when I came to it. “Does the name Dead Six mean anything to you?”

“Perhaps,” Jalal responded after a moment of thought. “I will be in touch.” The call ended.

I shook my head. Hopefully Jalal would come up with something. That man had his finger on the pulse of the city’s criminal heart. Now I was just going to have to work my sources until I found something about Dead Six that I could use. Well, why the hell not? I ordered a pound of camel. You only live once.

The short walk back to the apartment compound gave me a chance to think. I had one weapon I could use against Dead Six to get them in the open, young Jill Del Toro, but I was hesitant to utilize her. The idea made me uncomfortable. Carl had been right. I used people. That’s what I did. It didn’t mean I had to like it.

Carl had said that he was surprised that I was sticking my neck out for my family. They weren’t even my blood relations, but they had taken me in. They were the only people who’d ever been good to me. I had grown up on the streets, son of a drug-addled whore and a homicidal beast of a man. I’d been put to work stealing as soon as I was old enough not to get caught, and I had been an overachiever in that respect. By the time I was ten, there wasn’t a lock I couldn’t pick, no pocket I couldn’t get into undetected. I had been a tiny shrimp of a kid, and though that had been handy for fitting through various unsecured windows, it had made me look like an easy target for the other predators. I had solved that by developing a reputation for savage violence. Pipe, knife, chain, brick, it didn’t matter. I never fought fair. Cross me and I kill you.

I had kept that attitude into adulthood, and it had served me well. There had only been one point in my life where I hadn’t had to fight to survive. It had been brief, but I had appreciated it. The people in that manila folder were responsible for that, and I would be damned if I was going to let Big Eddie hurt them for it.

If that meant I had to hurt some other seemingly decent person . . . so be it. In the end it was all just an equation. Whatever I had to do to reach my goals was what was going to happen.

So why did I feel like such an asshole? I sighed as I ascended the steps to our apartment, bags in hand. This was why I stuck to robbing criminals, terrorists, and scumbags. The unfortunate downside of my time with a real family was that I had developed a finely tuned sense of guilt, damn Gideon and all his morals. I had managed to utterly squash my conscience for years, but it was bugging me now.

The apartment smelled . . . really good. “Okay, we’re in a Muslim country, where did you guys find bacon?”

Carl poked his head around the corner from the kitchen. “Same place I find beer. Whenever you buy groceries, everything is too hot or weird with tentacles and eyeballs and shit.”

“You do realize that the greatest thing your explorer ancestors ever accomplished was introducing the chili pepper to Thailand? That was awesome. That whole slave-trade thing . . . not so good.” I tossed my headdress on the couch and followed the smell of pig. Carl was cooking and Reaper was sitting at the table, listening to his conspiracy-theory radio.

Carl looked at my bags as I started unpacking. “You bought camel? Fucking camel? See? What did I just say?”

I realized the shower was running. “Where’s the girl?” I asked suspiciously.

“Jill’s in the bathroom,” Reaper replied dismissively.

I thought about it a second. “How long?” I snapped.

Reaper looked up, stringy hair in his face, disheveled as usual. He tended to keep weird nocturnal hours, fueled by sugar and energy drinks. “Uh . . . ten minutes?”

“There’s a window in there.” If she ran, it could ruin everything. I was across the apartment in an instant and jerked open the bathroom door. The room was fogged with steam. Jill was just stepping out of the shower, naked, absolutely gorgeous, and reaching for a towel. I froze.

“Hey!” she shouted as she quickly covered herself. “You mind?”

I backed out and closed the door.

Carl was waiting for me as I returned. “Thought of that. Window’s too small, and it’s a twenty-foot drop onto asphalt.” He shoved me a plate. “Jackass.”

Reaper was looking at me in awe. “So . . .”

I nodded. I was guessing that Jill worked out. A lot. “Smoking hot.”

“I knew it,” he sputtered, then grinned. “You know, we haven’t had a girl on the team since Kat—”

“She’s not on the team,” I snapped. “Don’t get too attached. Got it?”

Reaper looked down. “I just meant . . . never mind.” He stuck his earpieces back in. Carl studied me for a moment. I gave him a look just daring him to respond. He went back to his bacon.

Jill joined us for breakfast a minute later. Apparently Reaper had decided to help out and had loaned her a Rammstein T-shirt. She accepted the offered plate and sat down across from me, looking a bit indignant. “Next time you should knock.”

I took my time and finished chewing. “Next time you shouldn’t get kidnapped by terrorists.”

“Touché,” she replied. “Fair enough. But just so you know, I’m not going to try and escape, I promise. Who am I going to run to? The cops? That worked real good last time. So . . . mind if I ask a few questions?” When I didn’t respond, she must have taken that as a yes. “What kind of criminals are you?”

The other two looked to me and waited, as if saying, this should be interesting. “The strong silent type that doesn’t talk about their work in polite company,” I replied slowly. “As in, it’s none of your business.”

“Okay, fine. How about, what do we do now?”

Pausing, I wiped my mouth with a napkin. It wasn’t like I could just tell her I was waiting for some sort of contact so I could trade her for the box. I took a moment to compose my response. “You’re going to lay low. We’re going to find Dead Six.”

“Well, I know why I don’t like them, but what’s in it for you?” She was suspicious of my motives, which meant she wasn’t stupid.

“Let’s just say that they have something I want and leave it at that.”

“When you find them, are you going to . . . kill them?” she asked.

“That’s a definite possibility. Does that offend you?”

“No. I just wanted to see if you needed any help.” Jill actually smiled. “It’s still kind of sinking in, but these people ruined my life. As long as they’re out there, I can’t go home.”

I don’t think she realized yet that she could never go home. Once you’ve witnessed a rogue government operation murder US citizens and they’d already reported you as KIA, it was time to just walk away and get a new name. She was now on the official to-do-list. “This isn’t amateur hour. We’re highly trained professionals. What exactly are you bringing to the table?”

“I can take care of myself,” Jill responded.

“No kidding,” Reaper said. His face was still swollen. “Where’d you learn to fight like that? Not that I couldn’t have, you know . . . taken you out, but you surprised me is all.” Carl and I both openly scoffed at him. Reaper couldn’t fight his way out of a cardboard box. “Whatever.”

“My dad owned a martial-arts studio. He taught us how to defend ourselves. I grew up in kind of a rough neighborhood, so it came in handy a couple times. Dad was a good teacher, used to fight professionally even.”

Carl scowled. His favorite thing in the world, other than chain-smoking and complaining, was to watch people beat each other bloody senseless on TV. There wasn’t a lot of televised bullfighting, I suppose. “Del Toro . . . Tony ‘the Demon’ Del Toro?” he asked. Jill nodded in the affirmative. That must have been impressive or something from the approving look Carl gave her. “Like ten years ago, I watched him on pay-per-view almost tear this guy’s arm off. I hate those Brazilian jujitsu guys. Guy needed his arm tore off, cocky fodas, so I remember the Demon.”

“Being able to punch out Reaper is great and all, but we’re talking about a team of assassins who’ve been ripping through fundamentalist murderers like it’s nothing,” I said coldly. “Do you even know how to shoot?”

“Dad taught me how to use a gun,” Jill said defensively. That alone meant nothing. There were lots of people that thought they knew how to shoot. Usually if they could hit anything, they were too slow, or if they were fast, then they couldn’t get reliable hits under stress. The kind of shooting I was good at was all about putting a bunch of bullets into my opponent before they could do it to me, and that was not how most recreational types did it.

“Uh-huh. Do you speak Arabic? Can you pass for a local?” In fairness, I already knew the answer to those. And with a little bit of coaching, I could easily get her to pass for one of the local imported Filipina workers: she had the features. Worst-case scenario, the women in the old part of town all wore hoods, and in the most traditional didn’t even let their eyes show. “Can you not stick out like a tourist?”

“Well . . . no.”

“Ever killed anybody?”

She shook her head.

“Thought so. You’re going to stay here, keep your head down, and do exactly what I tell you to. When we come up against Dead Six, they won’t hesitate. You run into that guy with the .44 magnum from the video and he’ll eat you.”

“Phrasing!” Reaper injected. Jill scowled at him.

“So to speak,” I corrected.

“Your old man retired now?” Carl asked, trying to return the conversation to something more interesting to him. “Haven’t seen him fight in forever.”

“Passed away,” she said. “I lost both my parents in a car accident. My brother was a Marine, just like dad had been, but he was killed in the war a couple years ago. I’ve got no close family left. So there won’t be anybody demanding to see my supposedly dead body, either.”

“They burned the embassy car anyway. If these guys are as professional as they seem, they probably found another girl to stick in the car before they lit it up. Nobody is going to recognize that body anyway,” I said. “Hell, that’s probably why they burned the car. They wouldn’t have bothered if they’d nailed all of you.” I didn’t add that that was how I would have done it.

“And if I was missing, presumed taken by the terrorists, then that would have forced a big response from the government,” Jill added. She caught on quick. Dead Six was running quiet. I’m guessing having the American populace watching the news and demanding a rescue mission was not on their itinerary.

Reaper chimed in. “There won’t be an official investigation anyway. These black ops always squash that. There won’t ever be an autopsy to show it isn’t really you, either. Dental records won’t matter. I bet you ten bucks they already cremated them all!”

Reaper was talking out of his ass. “When did you become such an expert on secret government operations?”

“I tell you, man, you really need to listen more. The truth is out there.” He was getting defensive. “Roger Geonoy had an expert on Sea to Shining Sea last night. See, there’s an Illuminati plot to control the world’s oil supply, but that’s just the beginning.“

“Oh, not again,” Carl muttered.

“Seriously,” Reaper said, wide-eyed. “A cabal of powerful European bankers and stuff, it all makes sense. Did you know that the US government couldn’t account for billions of dollars last year? Where do you think it all goes, man? It’s for the secret war against the Illuminati.”

“And they’re going to release Loch Ness Monsters into the Gulf to disrupt the tankers,” I added. “How nefarious.”

“Only if the aliens from Roswell he’s always talking about say so,” Carl said. “Shut up already, Reaper.”

“What is it that he does for you . . . exactly?” Jill asked.

“He’s the brains of the operation.”

But the kid wasn’t going to be deterred. “Okay, so you don’t believe in my conspiracy theories, but we’re conspiring to break into a thousand-year-old secret vault for a mythical crime lord, so we’re trying to track down a secret government death squad that kills witnesses, and there’s apparently a conspiracy to overthrow the emir, but the second I say Illuminati, I’m the crazy one.”

“Yes,” I answered without hesitation.

Jill looked around the table. “Maybe I was better off with the terrorists.”