Last Man Standing

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

Kinimaka didn’t have to work hard to show his prisoner that he was a tad unhappy. Leaving Hayden alone — she actually had a CIA honor guard outside her room — the rest of his team in peril; the recent deaths and fighting the man-monster earlier that day, had all left him feeling more than a little edgy.

“I’m gonna ask you once,” he growled, for once having a reason to make his bulk as large and intimidating as possible. “Why are you here? Who do you work for?”

The merc didn’t even try to resist. Broken and reset bones were murder in his game. They slowed you down and got you killed. “Dudes’ just recruited me,” he blabbed. “Through some friend of a friend. No real IDs shown on either side. Man, it was real hush-hush, you know, but paid a boatload. All I know is I work for a group called the Pythians and they’re bad shit, man. Real bad.”

Kinimaka stared at him. This group, the Pythians, had been flagging up a lot recently. Of course, they wouldn’t advertise their name if they didn’t want people to know it. In warfare, you were always going to lose men to seizure and subsequent interrogation.

So what did that tell him?

“The guys in my unit talked a lot. Said they were a new group but big. Nobody knows who they are. Y’know, like the fuckin’ Templars, or something. Wanna rule the world, you know?”

“I know the type,” Kinimaka said with a touch of dry sarcasm. “What do these Pythians want?”

“Who knows, man? World peace? Civil war? Cats in space? Fuckin’ fruit bats the lot of them. The guys told stories of Pandora’s Box, the Lionheart and some mega-dude called Saint German, or something. All sorts of secrets, myths and crap. This Saint German guy is involved in the greatest mystery of all time.” The merc spat. “Like I said — fruit bats the lots of them.”

Kinimaka knew the man was blabbing without giving a single thing away. “And here?” he asked. “What exactly did you come for?”

Now the man’s eyes dropped, the shoulders tensed. All the telltale signs of resistance. Kinimaka said nothing, but moved one step forward and planted his enormous boot on an outstretched hand.

“Hey. Hey! Wait, I’ll talk. It’s my first mission. I don’t owe these bastards crap. The objective was the hard drives but one in particular. The bosses — they wanted the one that the Secretary of Defense used. You know, Jonathan Gates?”

“Yes. I know.”

“No clue why. I kinda liked the dude myself.”

Kinimaka removed his boot. “Keep talking.”

The eyes dropped again. “I don’t know any more, man!”

“Do you want to hear the sound of your own bones breaking? Is that what you want?

“All right, all right. The op wasn’t a smash and grab, it was an information steal, you know? A download. They wanted us to grab everything on Gates’ computer that related to Stone.”

Kinimaka squinted. “Who?”

“Bill Stone. General Bill Stone. The army guy.”

Kinimaka stared at the merc. The army guy. The very man Gates had suspected to be involved in the hijacking of the original Odin doomsday weapon before it got blown sky high; the man Gates believed was traitorous in some if not all ways.

The man Lauren Fox had been about to work her own particular brand of magic on.

“What else?”

“That’s it, dude. I swear. Christ, isn’t that enough?”

Kinimaka moved away to confer with Smyth, both men tying the hands and feet of their captives before retreating. A quick discussion revealed their men spoke similar tales, probably with the odd tequila-induced embellishment.

Smyth tapped his weapon on the floor, handle first. “So what now? We can’t exactly take this to the new Secretary. Our first act shouldn’t be to accuse a General of treason.”

Kinimaka indicated the pile of hard drives. “These idiots did our job for us. We take the drives. Let’s see what Jonathan compiled first. And maybe…” He paused and tapped at his phone.

Smyth narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“Give me a minute. Hi, this is Agent Kinimaka.” He reeled off a set of security codes, finally being put through to an inner switchboard. “Find Lauren Fox on a secure line for me,” he said.

Smyth looked interested. “The hooker?”

“She’s not a hooker.” Kinimaka said without thinking, then clicked his tongue loudly. “Well she is a hooker. But she’s our hooker. Ergo — she’s not a hooker.”

“Fuck me. I have no idea what you just said. Is that a Hawaiian proverb, man?”

Kinimaka blinked, remembering Hayden asking him the same thing once before during their original encounter with the Blood King. “I don’t do proverbs, Smyth. I’m saying Lauren is part of the team so leave her alone.”

“Oh, right. Well, next time just spit it out, okay?”

Kinimaka tuned him out as Lauren came on the line. “Listen,” he said quickly. “We’re secure, so speak freely. Jonathan once asked you to spy on… somebody. You didn’t do it. Is the window still open?”

He knew the line was secure, but this was a source currently inside the Pentagon he was calling, after all.

Lauren didn’t reply for a while. Kinimaka could hear her breathing. “I think so,” she said at length. “At the time I thought not. But he hasn’t stopped calling, trying to set something up. I’m pretty confident that my cover wasn’t blown.”

“Pretty confident?” Kinimaka said doubtfully.

“That’s what I said.”

“You believe you can set something up?”

“You mean — set him up?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“Hey, I’m a New York girl. I got confidence coming outta my ears, Mano. Come by the Pentagon sometime. We’ll talk.”

“Sounds good.”

Kinimaka punched the end button and surveyed the room. “Let’s get this thing started.”