Agent in the Dark (The Agents for Good) (4 page)

Chantry glanced to the side at Maria seated beside him, who was fixatedly staring out her window. She’d never once looked at him unless she’d had to.

“All right Maria this isn’t going to work. Speak what’s on your mind. You’re angry with me?”

Maria nodded, but didn’t say anything. Chantry sighed and waited for her to relinquish her silence.

“I can’t believe you set that girl up like that.” Maria said softly, still staring out her window.

Chantry nodded, but didn’t say anything.

Maria turned from the window to stare at him directly in the eye. “Would you sell me out like that?”

“If the fate of billions rested on the situation then yes I would entertain the risk of any of my agents, but they would know the stakes going in. What happened to Logan was different, and completely unexpected. I’ve gone through great pains to see that it never happens again.”

“What happens again?” Maria pressed.

Chantry just shook his head negatively in denial of answering the question.

“I want to understand Chantry! I need to understand! It defies everything I know about you to treat what happens to another innocent individual so callously!”

Chantry craned around in his seat to see if Flint was asleep, he was. Temple was busy flying the large chopper and out of hearing range. Chantry kept his voice low, “I tell you this on the strictest confidence Maria! Logan has as much integrity of character as his brother does!”

Maria glanced back at the sleeping Flint incredulously, “I don’t believe you!” Maria said, thinking back over how L
ogan had looked at her and the things that he had said.

“Didn’t you hear what he said to me or the way he looked at me?” She asked.

“That’s your problem. You listen too much to what was said. Some people are far more cagey with disguising their hearts and motives than you could imagine Maria.”

“You’re saying that this Asia is as safe with Logan, as if she was being escorted by Flint?”

Chantry shook his head no, “As you saw Logan is a very passionate man and I can’t say that nothing will happen between the two, but I very much doubt that it will be rape.”

Maria looked completely befuddled, “You said he raped a fellow agent and then killed her!”

“Oh it goes much deeper than that. You see Logan and Temple were once best friends. Logan and Lori were engaged to be married. All three of them made up one special close knit team.”

Maria was speechless for a moment, “Why would he do that to his own fiancée and best friend?” Maria exclaimed, in a hushed whisper.

“Why indeed!” Chantry intoned offering nothing further on the subject.

Two rows back Flint’s eyes opened to view the back of Chantry’s head in contemplative silence for a moment b
efore they closed again.

C
hapter Four

Time to
go a’Viking

I woke the next morning my headache and the ordeal it always entailed over and done with. I
packed mostly weapons and food. My fingers traced the curved patterns of my sword’s handle. It was a bit bulky not to mention old-fashioned to take along and I decided to leave it behind. I turned away, but then turned back and picked it up.

Old-fashioned or not a sword was likely to be a handy thing to have around in an apocalyptic typesetting such as the US had fallen into. My pack ready I gave my little home one final glance.
Time to go and get a woman.

I had to admit to a certain amount of pleasurable excit
ement at the prospect of bringing a woman back to my island. She was likely to be more trouble than she was worth, but I was committed to the task regardless now.

I ducked under the camouflage netting I had woven over a small jetty along the shore and tossed my pack into my small, but sturdily built sail craft. I hopped in and threw off the mooring lines and pulled out the oars, as I began to back slice my craft out from the shoreline into the more turbulent waters of the breakers ahead.

It was a bit of a struggle, but I made it eventually out into more open waters. It wasn’t the first time I had gone out in my boat. I’d explored the other islands near to me and I’d done a good bit of deep-sea fishing in order to add variety to my diet and for lack of have anything else better to do.

The breeze was in my favor so I stored the oars away and let out the sail. The sale was constructed of the parachute material from when I had been dumped on the island five years previous and the care packages that I had received for three years. It was a little tattered, but it would still do for a few sails yet.

I stepped back into the tail of the boat and manned the rudder, as the sails slapped and caught the breeze. The boat took off at a good clip and I sat back against the stern smi
ling to myself, as I caught sight of my sword strapped to my pack. Time to go a’ Viking and rescue a damsel in distress.

My ocean voyage was an uneventful one, which I was grateful to experience, in these often turbulent waters. I put ashore just north of Vancouver by my calculations. It was eerie not seeing any lights at all along the coastline.

I did my best to camouflage the boat in the darkness, but I couldn’t help but think that my efforts were inadequate at best. I left the boat and headed in land and away from the rocky cliffsided beach.

The night was still, as I stepped onto the cliff top highway now littered with cars rusting in the sea breeze. The moonlight was enough to travel by and I started down the road. I saw and sensed others of my own kind on several occasions, as they huddled back in the bushes away from the stalled out cars.

Whether they were fellow sojourners or foes they left me alone, perhaps sensing that I was a bigger predator than they wanted to deal with in the dark of the night. Something shone white in the middle the road up ahead and I brought my sword from off my shoulder in preparation of an attack of some kind.

It was a human body now no more than a bleached skeleton, left to rot in the middle of the road like common roadkill. I stopped and looked around at the moonlit landscape. My how things had changed in my absence!

I left the road not liking what I had found there and hea
ded across country using the stars to navigate by. As the sun came up I made my way more cautiously. I saw little game, no doubt a result of the voracious appetites of a population that no longer had supermarkets stocked to the gills with everything one could imagine.

I skirted by a small town in the late morning. It looked uni
nhabited and there were suspicious lumps lying around on the streets and among the broken windowed stores. I didn’t want to know. It became clear to me that in many ways being on my island for the past two years had been a blessing in comparison to the harsh wake-up call that the rest of this once proud nation had experienced, when the lights had gone off.

By the next day I left all signs of settlement gratefully behind, as I headed out into the wilds of British Columbia. I found a good many traces of man, but I saw no one. Once, I narrowly avoided a nasty snare meant for bigger game. As much as I wanted to believe that the trap had been meant for a deer or wild boar or perhaps even a bear I couldn’t acknowledge it. Most likely the trap had been set for both beast and man alike.

Cannibalism was one of those sins that mankind pulled out of the closet when the circumstances became dire enough. It had been around for a long time, since the colon
ization of North America by the supposedly enlightened non-savage Europeans. There was historical documentation that Jamestown, one of the very first settlements in the New World, had survived through the early harsh winters as a cannibalistic society.

It had been stated in the journal, of one early town foun
der, that while it remained illegal to kill and eat those still living, it was permissible to eat those who died from natural causes, even those long since buried in the ground. Personally, if things got that bad I’d cut my own throat. Humanity sometimes went way too far overboard in the quest to survive.

Some things just weren’t worth doing, in order to survive, in the quest to retain one’s mortality for a little longer. A queasy thought went through me. Had my little Asian chick turned man-eater on me?

That was a disturbing thought! If that was the case I would be finding a different island to live on, while she spent the year cracking the Code on my former island. I’d toss a fish onto shore for her from time to time that would be about the only interaction I would have with her.

My entire mood soured at the prospect that my playmate to be might already be untouchable. Why had I gone and spoiled everything with that likely scenario? Here I was rushing off to rescue a damsel in distress and instead of a look of yearning for something more intimate between us, she might be yearning to see and experience me Delmonico steak style. Life really sucked right now! I should’ve stuck with the Eskimo girl idea. About the most socially unrequitable things on their menu and attire were cute little fluffy polar bear steaks and baby sealskin boots.

Two days later in a remote valley I found the bush pilots airfield. Everything was as specified. No one seemed to have found this little hamlet in a forgotten valley of the wilde
rness. The plane had been out rigged with extra fuel tanks and hopefully it would be enough to both get there and back. I fired up the engines and build up RPMs, as I taxied to the slightly overgrown runway of weedy grass.

I saw three men run out of the cover of the surrounding forest with little more to their name than spears. They didn’t look too friendly and in some ways they seemed more beast-like than human. They apparently had been tracking me.

I let the plane lunge forward down the runway away from the charging men, “Asta lovista losers!”

One thing was for sure, I wouldn’t be landing here again. I’d crash land in the sea first. I stayed low over the land in an attempt to dodge any radar that the Code may have in play. There was no point in alerting them to my presence. All na
vigation and beacon type equipment had been deactivated and I was largely flying blind except for my own handwritten chart plotting.

If the wilds of British Columbia could be this bad I could only imagine what it was like further south in the big cities.

Chapter Five

Tough to Swallow

Asia hugged herself for warmth, in the early morning darkness, as she huddled beside her tiny fire. She stared in revulsion at what lay transfixed on a stick over her tiny blaze. How had it come to this?

Once she had dined out on the most expensive and finest cuisine the world could offer, but now she was reduced down to this impoverished and disgusting act of making a meal out of a rat. One by one her safe spots had fallen all over the city and with them her catches of food. She’d made the mistake of trusting too many people.

They weren’t bad people, as they were just looking out for their own good, but the betrayal hurt. What hurt worse was the fate of those who hadn’t betrayed her. In some ways she wished they had betrayed her. What had happened to them was beyond horrible.

In some ways it seemed like everyone had gone mad with the need to survive and that she alone had been left sane of the whole bunch. Yes she was fighting hard to survive, pe
rhaps even harder than anyone else left in the city, but it wasn’t just so she could go on living one more day. She had to survive to break the Code!

Armed with that reaffirmation of purpose she picked up the stick and bit into the rat. It really wasn’t bad tasting, but the reality of what she was doing proved too overwhelming and she fell over to the side retching out what little was left in her stomach. She curled up in a ball on the rooftop crying.

“I can’t do this daddy! It’s too much!” She whispered out, as bitter tears fell down the sides of her face.

She had to though, as there was no one else. She sat back up stiffly. Weakened by lack of food and exposure to the elements she could feel herself growing sick. How was she to continue on surviving? She was hunted all day and night without stop.

She had heard the planes and then saw the evidence of their offspring the next day in the form of Code people shipped in to organize the city in its hunt for her. She hugged her knees to herself, as she tried to stifle a cough. She succeeded in that, but she couldn’t stop shivering. Forlornly her gaze fell onto the half eaten rat. She picked the stick up again.

“You have no idea how glad I am to see you eating that in place of something else, but please try this bear meat I have here, in place of our departed little friend there. I think you’ll like it better.”

Asia was on her feet backing away from me her dark ci
rcled eyes wide in a mixture of alarm and fear. She was pretty far gone nerve wise and it was no small wonder why. I’d been fighting to survive myself for the past week in the city, as I had hunted for her.

It seemed as if everyone else was hunting her too, but for an entirely different reason. She was the most elusive prey I had ever stalked and my respect for her knew no bounds. I chose my words carefully, “Here take the meat. You need it. I guess you’re probably wondering who I am.”

Something occurred to me then, “You do speak English don’t you?”

She didn’t answer, but I did for myself. Of course she did you dolt, she’d gone to college here in this very city.

“All right that was a stupid question. In the spirit of true disclosure I will admit that I’ve been hunting you, but not for the same reasons as them.” I said gesturing widely to the city around us.

I could see how little she trusted my words. Poor girl had likely been betrayed by so many people already that she was paranoid of trusting anyone further. It wasn’t necessar
ily a bad way to be. The old adage, ‘only the paranoids survive’ was true, but in this case it wasn’t good.

I’d likely have to tie her up to get her to behave, which somewhat appealed to me I had to admit. She’d been glan
cing around the building’s rooftop looking to see if there were others with me, as we circled each other. I saw the exact moment, when the thought came into her eyes. The thought to kill me.

I was alone, I had food, and weapons which she had need of and if she left me alive than I would be free to report on her position to the others.

“Whoa sister!
Don’t even go there! I don’t want to hurt you, but so help me I will if I have to!” She wasn’t listening to me.

She couldn’t weigh much more than 100 pounds soaking wet and I weighed that plus 150 more. It didn’t seem to ma
tter to her, as she came at me in a speed rush. The girl had courage for sure. Moments later, as I gasped for air, I acknowledged to myself that she could kick too.

I was hard pressed for several furious minutes of close action, as she spun and swerved around me giving me ever
ything she had. What moves I didn’t block I was strong enough to absorb, as if they hadn’t even landed. She was using at least six different fighting styles against me in a harmonious fight action that was all her own. Someone had taught her extremely well. Speed was her biggest weapon, but she was tiring quickly and beginning to telegraph her move combinations to me.

Not once had I hit out at her, and she sensed her imm
inent loss, if I were to. She set me up for a big hit meant to end it all in her panic to end the fight and I left myself open for it, but I tensed hard in preparation.

As her double kick landed it collided with my forced te
nsion, which was the greater of the strengths involved. The force of her kick vibrated back into her and she fell hard to the roof with a cry of pain. I saw her face briefly, as she rolled away and it reflected nothing but pain and misery of defeat.

It actually hurt me to see such an expression of defeat on one as brave as her. She kept scuttling away from me on the rooftop, as one of her legs appeared injured.

In alarm I saw her objective and dove for her as I yelled, “No!”

But she was gone over the edge of the roof. Desperately I peered over to see her land hard on an old fire escape twenty feet down the side of the building. This chick was nuts and I liked it! With concern I watched her hobble to her feet and start limping down the stairs as fast as she could go.

Wow! She had beauty, but more than that she now had my respect, in a way a woman perhaps had never had before.

“Ready or not honey here I come.” I said, before flipping over the edge after her.

The landing was a hard one, but she was worth it. I star
ted down the stairs after her. As we neared the bottom she fell the last ten feet to the ground, but gamely she popped up and started out in a hobbling run.

Just then forty or more people converged on her from both sides of the street. They knocked her to the ground, as they cried out in glee at their capture of her. Something snapped within me at the sight of what had just happened. At some point she had ceased from being just a dalliance in the pas
sing to being my woman. I reached for the sword behind my back, as I jumped off the platform for the street below with my cry of war sounding loud in my own ears.

Asia made her way down the stairs in a panic knowing that the big man would follow. Every step caused her pain, as she placed weight on her twisted ankle, but it only helped goad her on in her effort to escape. The big man on the rooftop terrified her.

He’d appeared without making a sound and to behold him had been like looking at the heart of something wild and unchained. He’d offered her bear meat! There were no bears in the city! He was a cannibal no doubt and he’d been offe
ring her a chunk of someone he’d butchered to be sure!

She’d attacked him out of desperation only to find hitting him had the effect of colliding with an oaken beam. It hurt. He blocked her attempts with greater skill than she had, which meant that he would likely win any fight between them and the thought of being at the wild man’s mercy had completely freaked her out.

She had been just guessing that there was a fire escape on that side of the building, when she had toppled over the edge. The wild man had even been wearing clothes fashioned out of leather. Where had he gotten so much leather in the city from?

“Oh God!”
She said, as her mind seized up with the awful answer to that thought.

Her pace quickened and she gladly leaped off the pla
tform for the hard street below. Desperation to escape the butcher behind her drove her to her feet into as hard a run as she could muster and then they were upon her kicking and grasping at her. She sank to the ground with a moan of despair. Forget the wild man’s beastly appetites for her flesh, what would the masters of the Code do to her?

She had failed!

Miserably she clutched her pack to her, as if she could protect the priceless information contained within, from the stupid masses gathered around her clamoring for a payout. There were screams and wild yells and then the sound of running. Running?

She glanced up. Everyone was running! Just then a se
vered arm plopped down to the street beside her. She stared at it in horror and then unable to stop herself she rolled onto her back to see what unholy monster had been unleashed upon the city.

It was the wild man and he was coming for her!

Bodies and parts of them lay everywhere. He was covered in blood and the sword in his hands ran red with it, even as the fire in his eyes said he thirsted for more. A shriek of fright erupted from the very core of her being at the sight of him approaching her.

Blindly she turned over and started to scramble along the ground, but a grasp like iron seized her and held her in place. Pressure was applied to particular pressure points and in fear at what he was doing she tried to lunge away, but was hel
plessly restrained still.

“
Shhhhh!”

Was that him trying to calm her, as he forced her to blackout? What kind of a sick monster was he? He most likely planned to rape her in her unconsciousness and then chop her up in pieces and throw her into his stewpot and he wanted her to be calm! She struggled, but it was no use, as the darkness closed in.

“Oh God please have mercy!” She breathed out into the pavement before everything went dark.

She went slack under my hands. Poor girl was petrified of me and looking around I had to admit I could understand why. I wiped my sword off on a dead body and re-sheathed it and then I turned her over.

Her face now reflected the peace of unconsciousness and I had to admit that I had never seen anyone
so captivating as she was. I glanced up at the sounds of shouts from up the street. Time to get her to safety. Possessively I swung her up into my arms. She was a little thing and much too thin from weeks of running and barely getting by.

The hunters that had been brought in would be here soon. I tossed a little present on the ground for the dogs they would have with them. The dogs wouldn’t be a problem soon. I was going to need to move fast though, gently I swung her over my shoulder and I took off running, as the heavens opened up and dumped down rain, which helped to wash away the blood that I was covered in.