Dues of Mortality (43 page)

“
What
does it do?”

“
It
interrupts the signal Wallace uses to remotely control the implant,
effectively shutting the clone down.”

“
And
when that happens?” Xavier asked.

“
The
clone would revert to the original mindless drone it was constructed
as. It’s all assuming Wallace would still be using that method
and not letting the clones run unchecked on their own, which I doubt.
S...s...s...something’s emitting a signal around here. It's
probably having a hard time breaking through the interference from
the lab equipment, but it's still trying...and the device is picking
up on it.”

“
This
is ridiculous,” Pedro said. He reset his night-vision goggles
on his forehead. “These people aren’t pros and I can’t
make out any type of added security. Let’s go!”

“
Alright,”
Bonaparte answered. “You’ve made your point. You go cover
the back and I'll head up front.”

“
Done.”

Bonaparte
pulled down his own night-vision and watched Pedro cut across the
fifty or so yards of open lawn to the rear of the house. When Pedro
disappeared behind the house, Bonaparte reset the goggles to his
forehead. For all the advantage they gave him, the goggles still
manifested blind spots on either side and he preferred to have his
peripheral vision in tact in the majority of situations.

When
he was satisfied Pedro hadn't been seen, Bonaparte made his run to
the north end, never taking his eyes off the windows that faced his
position. Somehow, he felt himself being watched the whole way. It
wasn't until he took point at the front door, that he dismissed the
notion entirely. It was one thing to stay on your toes, but another
to drive yourself crazy. Bonaparte cracked the door's lock in less
than thirty seconds. Lock picking was an invaluable skill in his
business. He'd mastered it years before his first kill, but had never
used it more than after he'd started taking contracts. He opened the
door and then entered, sweeping his gun from side to side,
anticipating the reveal of targets.

Pedro
circled around the south end of the house with a depraved spring in
his step. He drew his silenced, semi-automatic Zamorana pistol from
his shoulder holster, and kissed the barrel for good luck.
Screw
those MAGs
, he thought. The damn things were just too
unpredictable. And this little black beauty had done the trick more
times than he could remember. In fact, Pedro didn’t even own a
gun with a powered clip. He was
taught
with automatic and semi-automatic pistols, and
por
Dios
, they
were good enough to kill with. They were also—hello,
Bonaparte—“cleaner” than the average MAG, which is
what tonight's job called for. Pedro did appreciate the Zamorana's
biometric lock upgrade though. That was an easy addition. He could
imagine lots of scenarios where it could save his ass, but not a
single one where it would burn him.
Mierda
,
if it ever came to that, then chances are he was fucked anyway.

As
Pedro prepared to circumvent the backdoor lock, a shadowed figure
charged from his right side and disappeared behind the house like a
puff of black smoke. Pedro had barely seen it, but heard the
movements clearly. He waist-lined his gun and stepped quickly, but
cautiously, to the point where the figure had vanished. He then reset
his night-vision goggles atop his forehead. He likely wouldn't need
them if the target was this close and, like Bonaparte, he didn't want
his periphery hosed. He edged the corner, tightening his grip on the
Zamorana. With a swift, smooth pivot, Pedro rounded the corner and
spied a bipedal shadow running, like a shot, for the surrounding
trees. Pedro was sure he or she had something strapped to their body
and may have been gripping an object close to their chest like an NFL
player racing toward the end zone. He threw down his goggles and let
off three quick shots. Pieces of bark and wood went flying from the
nearby trees as what Pedro was now convinced was a man, picked up
speed toward the towering black shafts in a zigzag pattern. Pedro
pressed his earbud.

“
Bona,
I got one,” he said. “He ran into the woods.”

“
On
my way,” Bonaparte answered.

“
No,
stupido. I said only one. There are supposed to be three. He might be
trying to lead us away so the others can escape. You find
them
.
I'm going after this one.”

Bonaparte
agreed and returned to his own hunt inside the house. He had barely
been inside a minute, but was amazed at how quickly his impatience
accumulated without something to shoot. There were certain time
constraints with this particular job—enough for Gabriel to
offer a bonus if he and Pedro came in under schedule. Bonaparte saw
that bonus getting shaved away with every empty room. Gabriel had
better not try to screw them if they missed the deadline by a couple
minutes, he thought, or Bonaparte wouldn't stop Pedro from collecting
that genetically restored scalp as compensation.

As
he proceeded toward the south wing, a constant earthbound humming
began to tug at Bonaparte's ear and he was able to follow it to a
large closet at the end of the hall. He stopped, listened closely for
a second then raised his MAG. Bonaparte had seen targets hide in
dumber places so it wouldn't surprise him at all if he was making
short work of the evening. He blasted a full bar of rounds through
the doors at varying angles, practically cremating them. When he was
done, he reloaded and listened carefully. No moaning, no screaming,
no cries for mercy; completely meaningless, of course, if he had done
his job. He used one hand to open the closet and maintained his aim
with the other.

Empty.

And
not just of blood and or bodies, but
really
empty; as in
nothing. No clothes or boxes or even hangers. Just shelves and
carpeting. And now, holes. His attention was immediately drawn to the
pockmarked mess at the rear of the closet. Trickles of light poured
through them speckling whatever they touched. He peeped through one
of the holes and was amazed. He started inspecting the closet-space
forthwith. If Bonaparte couldn't find the switch, then he'd just
shoot his way through.

Smelling
fear was never just a metaphor to Pedro. He always swore, to his
partner, the scent was unique, like perfume. Why it hadn’t
appeared to always help him sniff out the prey was a criticism
Bonaparte kept to himself. Pedro breathed deeply, searching for the
scent as he entered the woods. The damp underbrush made a soft racket
beneath his feet. He stepped deliberately forward, then angled, and
went forward again. Not much need to wait for the shadowy figure to
reappear and make the first move. The fact that
the
target
had never returned fire was reason enough for that.
When something leapt wistfully from the darkness and dipped behind a
tree in the distance, Pedro fired two quick shots in its vicinity. He
then jetted over to the area, but found no one. A good dozen or so
yards to Pedro's left, and stiffened against a wise old maple, Xavier
Hawkins stood as quiet as the proverbial church mouse.

****

There was really no way to safely
enter a potential threat-zone from an enclosed cubicle with only one
exit. What Bonaparte wouldn't give for a flashbang or other
distracting/disabling device he could just pitch out from cover. He
could have looked for another way down, assuming there was one—a
stairway perhaps—but that would only take up more time and it
only made sense to figure
any
point of ingress would be nearly as risky.

The
second the door slid open, Bonaparte raised his gun and fired two
quick shots, out and across, from his cover position on the right
side of the lift. He then swat-turned to the left side of the lift
and repeated the technique. The idea was to keep shooting if he
glimpsed the slightest movement as he switched angles. He saw none.

What
Bonaparte did see, was the source of the consistent humming that had
lured him: an underground laboratory with a huge, fucking...
something
plumb against the wall and droning like a power plant. It was also
the only source of light in the lab, which left him having to use his
night-vision.
Look at all this
crap
, he thought.
There
must be dozens of places for a person to hide in here
. In
a fit of frustration, Bonaparte toppled some of the shelves and
cabinets closest to him, ready to kill anything that moved.
He
second-guessed the strategy when several glass containers filled with
both powdery and liquid substances broke open onto the floor. For all
Bonaparte knew, this jackhole of a scientist could have measles or
nitroglycerin being stored on one of these shelves like a jar of
peanut butter.
He backed away from the mess, nearly tripping
over one of the padded wooden stools posted throughout the lab. He
grit his teeth in distaste and continued to search the lab with
renewed care. He poked his gun into every corner and crevice that
looked large enough to hold a human being. When Bonaparte's eyes
eventually fell onto the large door marked CAUTION, he walked toward
it sneering. Would the targets figure him to be
intimidated
by a hulking door with a CAUTION sign?
Maybe
,
he thought. Either way, he wasn't leaving until he'd searched
everywhere. Bonaparte approached the door with his gun aimed directly
at it from chest level. When he reached for its handled lock,
something at his feet gave off the sound of breaking glass and a
billow of dense white smoke expanded throughout his field of vision
in seconds.

“
Oh,
shit,” Bonaparte said and then felt the crack of something
heavy across his upper back. One of those stools, he imagined, after
he fell on his face. Part of it had struck the back of his skull and
he damn sure knew the feeling of wood going upside his head. Lucky to
still be conscious, Bonaparte turned and fired several shots into the
smoke in an arcing pattern. He then braced to hear a scream or, even
better, the thud of a body hitting the floor. But all he reckoned
were footfalls scampering away from his position and the eventual
sound of the lift in operation.

****

“
Where are you going?”
Kelmer asked. He had intended to lead Glenda to safer spot on the
second floor, but she had pulled away from him once they were
upstairs.

“
To
find Xavier,” she answered. “He’s out there
somewhere with that killer.”

“
But
h...h...he told you to find...a...a hiding spot and wait! You could
get hurt!”

Glenda
looked defiant. “Listen to me; he’s already saved my life
twice and I’m not going to just leave him out there by himself
against that murderer! I don’t give a damn how much it hurts
his ego!”

“
Ego
d...d...doesn’t have anything to do with it! He wants you to
stay safe! He can take...care of himself!”

“
Well,
so can I! I’ve been getting a lot of practice lately!”

Kelmer
balled his fists furious with himself. It was no surprise Glenda
would rather risk getting shot than stay with him. After they
detected the signal, the first thing Hawkins had asked him was if he
had any bullets for his Beretta. Kelmer just shook his head, feeling
like a total idiot. He could whip up a tube of sulfur and potassium
nitrate on the spot, but he couldn't remember to stock up on ammo.

“
I
saw motion detectors upstairs,” Xavier then asked. “What
other security does this place have?”

“
None
really,” Kelmer answered. “I jury-rigged the motion
sensors from old equipment parts.” He looked away, ashamed.
From the moment he'd arrived at the house, he'd relished the illusion
of safety. So much so that he'd cast off the notion of leaving it
even for a second just to procure additional equipment that probably
wouldn't save him anyway.

“
You're
thinking we can use something here to find where he's transmitting
from, get the drop on him?” Glenda had asked Xavier.

“
No,”
he'd answered. “Whoever it is probably isn't trying to call out
with a phone. It's like Yosemite out there; the trees would play
havoc with the transmission.” He looked at Kelmer. “Doc,
I assume your jammer is sensitive to radio service frequencies?”

“
Yes,”
Kelmer had said.

“
What
does that mean?” Glenda asked.

Xavier
looked her in the eye even more serious, if that was possible. “It
means two-way radios. Whoever is out there there's more than one of
them.”

****

Whenever Pedro sweated, it wasn’t
good. He wasn’t a sweater. He always kept his cool and smelled
nice. It was something that made him attractive to Bonaparte. As he
crept softly through the trees his black knit shirt grew spongy. He
realized this shadow-man, this Hombre de Sombra hadn't simply been
running for the hills, trying to escape. It had
lured
Pedro into the forest on purpose, thinking to use the trees and
darkness as a weapon. Pedro grimaced at his thoughtlessness. As much
as he loved the thrill of the hunt, he couldn't imagine there was
enough fun in the world to make up for getting your throat cut and
being left for the bobcats.
But
that won't happen
, he
thought to himself.
The target would have no choice but to
continue to move as Pedro did. Eventually, Pedro would bag him or at
least incapacitate him. And then the
real
fun would begin.