Devils in Exile

The Bog

Maven crept toward the farmhouse through the flooded cranberry bog. A late-afternoon fog rolling in from the surrounding trees, smoking the surface of the eight-inch-deep water, helped obscure him.

The slow drag through an acre of floating berries gave him time to think. About this, their last job; about the chill in the early-fall air; about all the changes the coming weeks would bring. He and Royce had had a reconciliation of sorts during the weapons check back at the pad, Royce admitting that Maven had been correct to question the Black Falcon job. Maven was more optimistic about the prospects for an honorable separation, with no bad feelings. This whole thing might end with handshakes and respect, as it should.

Closing in on the house, Maven saw vehicles parked at the end of the long dirt driveway in front, angled in from the country road. No movement anywhere: no birds, nothing. He reached the edge of the bed and slithered onto the muddy field. He crawled behind a large piece of harvesting equipment, stopping there to undo the strap on his wet bag. As Maven pulled out a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun and three full magazines, Glade emerged from the bog, ruby traces of water streaking his vest and mask like blood. Suarez came out last, wide right, setting up with Glade behind irrigation equipment and fitting in his earpiece.

Termino was the point. Maven checked his Oris watch, waiting one minute past go time, squatting there, shivering in the mud. Then he turned on his radio. They were conservative about unsecured broadcasts.

Maven said, “Big Dog, read? Over.”

Nothing.

“Big Dog, do you read? Over.”

Nothing. Not a click.

Suarez said, “No one out in front.”

Glade said, “Fuckin’ freezing here.”

Maven said, “I’ll go around front. Wait for my go.”

Maven curled out. The lawn up to the house was on a slight grade. He rushed to the underside of the wraparound farmer’s porch, along a cord of stacked wood. The closer he was to the structure, the better.

Three vehicles out in front: a boxy blue Honda SUV, a small, white conversion van, and Bellson’s silver Saab 9–3 convertible. The rear of the backed-in van was windowless, so Maven came up on the blind side, using the mirror to check the cab, make sure it was empty. The SUV had plenty of glass and was also empty. Maven came up low and fast on the front seat of the Saab, also unoccupied.

He scanned the trees, watching for some sign of Termino. Could be that he was inside already, forced to take a different position. Could be a radio malfunction, a broken watch.

It could have been any of those things, but it wasn’t. As Maven turned back to the farmhouse, he noticed something on the floor in the back of the Saab. A curled-up body, facedown, with Bellson’s telltale Dr. Who scarf wound around its neck.

Maven dropped low again, scanning the trees. He retreated to the broad side of the van, checking the house, then going to the back of the vehicle, trying the door.

It opened on three dead bodies facedown in a slick of blood.

Maven started running. Up the stairs to the front door. He didn’t bother with the radio. He was yelling, “Get out! GET OUT!”

A volley of gunshots. An abrupt yell in Maven’s ear.

Then return gunfire, and a howl.

Maven’s heel crushed the frame plate, the front door cracking inward.

One time, back in Eden, while on patrol at a traffic-control point in urban Samarra, a buddy of Maven’s loaned him his new Oakleys. The sunglasses had a built-in music player, making Maven’s headspace an oasis in that desert hell. Maven was giving Cal, his buddy, some shit for listening to opera when a sniper round ripped through Cal’s neck. Cal dropped to the sidewalk, dead before he hit the ground.

Maven spotted two fedayeen hustling away from an idling Opal, tucking something under their robes. With Verdi soaring in his head, he chased them through a curtain of smoke, into and out of a marketplace slaughterhouse, ending in a close-quarters firefight in a courtyard.

He heard that same music now as he crashed inside the farmhouse. Time sped up, became fractured into gunfirelike bursts.

Splintering rounds spun him back from the bottom of the stairs. He raced down a narrow hallway, elbows bouncing off the walls.

Glade lay on the kitchen floor, straight out. Head shot.

A barrage from his left drove Maven back into the hall. He returned fire blindly, rounds pummeling his armor like iron knuckles.

He tumbled into a side room and sat back against the dividing wall. The MP5 was hot, smoking. Not empty, but he reloaded anyway, needing a full whack.

He listened. An old house, full of creaks. One loose floorboard groaned on the other side of the wall.

Maven pushed off and spun, firing through the old plaster and wood. He heard a cry and a heavy fall. Return fire rained splinters and dust into the room, and Maven covered his head and ran for the other door. More rounds pelted his back — one penetrating the armor, a hot needle thrust under his shoulder.

Suarez. Termino.

Maven cut out from the wall, riding his open gun across the hallway, galumphing up the carpeted stairs. His left foot was better than his right.

He came upon Suarez at the top landing — slumped against the corner, talking blood.

Rounds stitched Maven’s back, pitching him forward. He turned and fired back down the stairs, clearing some room. From the floor, he ejected his empty and reloaded, grabbing Suarez’s semiauto and slinging it over his shoulder.

Suarez’s eyes followed him. “Get ’em,” he gurgled. “Get ’em.”

With a rush of energy, Maven slid headfirst down the stairs, firing off his right shoulder through the banister. He hit the bottom landing and tumbled away. His gun clicked empty and he reached for his third clip, but it was gone, so he tossed away the MP5 and readied Suarez’s. He could feel warm blood pulsing from his side, running into his underwear. With his free hand, he pushed himself up onto one leg and lurched through the room, firing, circling back to the kitchen.

He looked for Glade’s weapon but it was gone. Another volley erupted, and Maven spun and fired, yelling, slowed by pain. Suarez’s gun jammed, and he dumped it and went into a one-legged run-crawl — hitting the door, finding himself outside on the side porch. Not where he wanted to be.

He dragged his right leg, bumping past an old-fashioned porch swing to the rear. Beyond the railing and the short yard lay the acre of bog shrouded under fog. No way he could make it to the trees, but he had to try.

He pitched himself over the porch railing, dropping to the ground. From his leg strap, he drew his backup, a 9 mm Sig Sauer, and waited.

Blood dripped down the heel of his hand over the textured grip. His right leg was going cold.

Termino carried the out phone for calling Royce. Maven’s only hope. But where was Termino?

One stepped onto the porch. Coming out in a crouch. Maven balanced on his good leg.

Two shots turned the gunman around. Two more shots finished him.

Maven dropped back, counting rounds. Four down, eleven to go. Thinking, Save one for me.

Another gunman edged around the corner, behind the slow-moving porch swing. Maven fired through the railing, pushing him back.

Then two more shots cracked out of a window, and Maven had to retreat.

He dragged himself to the harvesting equipment, stopping behind it, where he had left his empty wet bag. He fell back, dizzy. Too much pain, but he kept going.

He splashed into the bog. He had the crazy idea of submerging himself under the berries, but it was too shallow to hide him. He frogged it out a few yards before falling over.

He turned and saw the gunmen coming for him. His pistol against two full auto fire-barkers.

Maven turned back toward the trees, the floating acre of undulating berries and fog. Looking out at that dreamscape in this last moment, his thoughts went to Danielle. It had all been worth it. Every minute.

He pulled his gun hand from the water, the 9 mm dripping as he pressed it to his temple and squeezed the trigger.

The pistol clicked. Nothing happened. He shook out the wet gun and tried again.

Nothing. He slumped and dropped the weapon into the bog. He turned back to face them as the gunmen advanced to the berm at the edge of the water.

For a moment they hesitated, unsure which one should take the kill.

They looked like soldiers. They looked like him.

Then, an explosion of gunfire, but not from them. From the side of the house, ripping into them from behind. Shredding them before they could even fire back. The gunmen pitched forward, dead.

Maven’s first thought was Termino. But two men came swimming into his vision, advancing to the berm.

Men in street clothes. Two new killers.

Maven slipped back, below the surface of the water. Berries clouded in over his murky vision — then darkness.