Heirs of Cain (15 page)

Buffoon
.

Fuck Karl.

Simon went into the bathroom, filled a glass with cold water, gulped it down. The liquid cooled his throat but not the fire that burned within, or the stinging resentment he felt for Karl. Nothing could quench that.

Karl. What rock did he slither out from under? What hole? It bothered Simon that he knew so little about the man. In all the years, through all the jobs he had performed, Simon had never so much as heard Karl’s name mentioned, not even in passing, until three months ago. Until then, for all Simon knew, the man didn’t exist. Then, like some fiery meteor, Karl appeared, a king barking orders and treating a loyal warrior like some second-class citizen.

It wasn’t right. It had to stop.

Simon fell back onto the bed and closed his eyes. The weariness he felt was overwhelming, almost painful, yet any thought of sleep was out of the question.

Karl’s words kept getting in the way.

After tossing and turning for another two hours, Simon swung around and sat on the edge of the bed. He looked at his watch: 8:30. Three hours until his flight departed. He looked out the window. The sun, now clear of the horizon, made its steady climb upward. The day held great promise.

At that moment, Simon made his own promise. He would see that Karl paid dearly for his disrespect, for saying those hateful words that refused to go away.

The morning dawned much differently in Sarasota, Florida, than it did in the nation’s capitol. A midnight storm, the last remnants of a major hurricane south of Cuba, had drenched the area and sent the temperatures tumbling nearly twenty degrees. By mid-morning, little had changed. A steady drizzle fell, and thick, gray clouds kept the chill in the air. Florida weather forecasters were promising a less-than-beautiful weekend.

Hannah Buckman awoke to the sound of waves slapping against the sides of the yacht. She lay on her back, eyes closed, and listened as the rain assaulted the deck with increasing intensity. It was a sound she loved: the rain. So romantic. She also loved the rocking of the yacht, the peaceful swaying back and forth. It was so soothing, like being in a hammock gently caressed by the breeze. But those weren’t her feelings this morning. Today, she felt anything but peaceful. She had consumed too much alcohol last night at the Old Salty Dog on Siesta Key, and now she was paying the price. Her stomach was angrier than a live volcano, her eyes sandy as the desert. Probably, she was going to throw up, no matter how hard she fought it. For the moment, until the inevitable occurred, she decided remaining perfectly still was the best course of action to take.

It wasn’t until she dozed off and awakened again nearly an hour later that the volcano erupted. She dashed for the bathroom, making it just in time. Throwing up was bad enough; the dry heaves were worse.

After splashing cold water on her face, Hannah lifted her head and looked in the mirror. And flinched. The face staring back was virtually unrecognizable. A horror movie queen in full makeup. A trickle of dried blood curled from the corner of her mouth to the bottom of her chin, a narrow thread giving her mouth a slanted, lopsided look. Both lips were noticeably swollen; there was puffiness under her left eye and a series of bite marks beneath her right ear. Even more prominent were the bite marks on her neck and breasts. Several were ringed with dried blood; all had left deep bruises. She closed the bathroom door, removed her robe and examined her body in the full-length mirror. What she saw repulsed her, caused her to shake with fear. Her flesh, from shoulder to ankle, front and back, was a mass of purple bruises, bites, and welts. Nearly every inch of her skin had been battered mercilessly.

Hannah struggled to remember. Had there been an accident? Had she slipped and fallen? Had she…? She couldn’t remember. She shook her head, blinked her eyes, as if that would somehow lift the alcohol haze and allow her to remember. But it didn’t help. Last night was a million years ago, distant, unreachable.

Jesus, what happened to me
?

She waded into that haze again, pushing hard to break through. It lifted, briefly, revealing fleeting impressions, grainy, flickering newsreel scenes that lingered teasingly, then faded. One image—the Indian, dark eyes burning like hot cinders, his skin hard, smooth. A second image came, then disappeared as quickly—hands around her throat, contracting, suffocating.

Finally, the dam broke, releasing a wave of images, faster, each one clearer, longer. His mouth covering her breasts, teeth biting into her nipples. Her hands and legs tied to the bedposts, spread-eagle, helpless. The long knife blade, glistening as it trailed across her body. The numbing fear she felt when the Indian guided the blade from her sternum to the top of her pubic area. Through the rapidly disappearing haze, she heard the grunting sound he made when he entered her. She felt his savage thrusts, the strange, yet exquisite pleasure she experienced as he drove deeper inside her. Pleasure mixed with pain and fear. She felt his climax, heard his deep, guttural groan, the most primitive sound she’d ever heard. She remembered being untied, flipped onto her stomach. She could see him take the long strap of soft leather, feel him flog her, softly at first, then with frenzied enthusiasm. She tried to scream, but he silenced her by covering her mouth with a scarf. And always the knife in plain view promising pain, maybe even death. He entered her again, stayed inside for what seemed like an eternity, climaxed, his breath coming fast. Then he slept, his body covering hers, a deep, peaceful sleep. An animal fully sated. Sometime during the night, her pain and fear dulled by the alcohol, she too found sleep.

Hannah leaned over the sink, retching. For ten minutes, her body tried to purge the alcohol and the memory and the terror of last night. When there was nothing left inside her, she covered herself with the robe and returned to bed.

She closed her eyes, softly whispered the Indian’s name, then drifted off to a troubled sleep.

Sitting at a booth in an Indiana truck stop, a half-empty cup of cold coffee in front of him, Collins stared absently at the television set perched high above the counter. His brooding eyes saw the pictures, his ears heard the words, but nothing registered. He was tired, drained. The television images and sounds flew by like a hurried dream.

The History Channel—what else at this hour?—was replaying a special on the current war in Iraq. Collins listened with growing interest as various personalities, some military, some civilian, all with proper credentials and speaking with absolute authority, dissected the reasons for our second incursion into that faraway country in a little more than a decade. And there was no shortage of reasons. Eliminate Saddam, regime change, locate and destroy weapons of mass destruction, spread democracy and democratic ideals in that region of the world. Take your pick.

There is, Collins knew, never a shortage of reasons for going to war. Some real, some imagined, some manufactured. In this particular case, the one that mattered most was seldom mentioned—oil. No matter what the so-called experts said, if Iraq had no oil, the United States would have no interest.

But Iraq did have oil, so young Americans were once again put in harm’s way for questionable reasons.
No
, Collins reminded himself,
that doesn’t even rank as a questionable reason
. Blood for oil is a devil’s bargain in every respect.

“Victory in Baghdad” was the cheesy B movie title they’d tagged it with. An entire war condensed into a neat, one-hour package. With plenty of commercials, of course. Leave it to the media to trivialize something as deadly and ugly and horrific as war, presenting it as though it were nothing more than a glorified video game. War must never be taken lightly, and no one knew this better than Collins.
Shock and awe
may have a nice ring to it, but it translates to death and destruction. Soldiers on both sides fight and die. The dead come home in flag-draped coffins. Families are shattered, cities and villages torn apart. Blood is spilled. That’s the reality.

War is the ultimate truth, and to portray it in such a clean and antiseptic manner is a lie. The dead and wounded deserve better. The country deserves better.

Collins was convinced that if politicians worldwide were forced to spend fifteen minutes in actual combat, war would become a thing of the past. That was an observation he once shared with Lucas many years ago.

“That’s a wonderful sentiment, my boy,” Lucas responded. “Wonderful, but inaccurate. Money is the engine that drives warfare. Politicians are only puppets on a string. So long as billions of dollars can be made, wars will continue to flourish. Never allow yourself to think otherwise.”

Staring up at the TV screen, Collins wondered how long it would take before the History Channel aired the sequel to this ongoing military entanglement, which would include Iraq, part two, and the war in Afghanistan. No doubt it was already in the works.

“We have kicked the Vietnam Syndrome,” commentators and politicians proclaimed after the first Gulf War. “America can feel good about itself once again.”

Hearing that, Collins could only wonder how many future war syndromes lay in store for the country.

That haunting question only added to Collins’s already heavy mood. What did it mean, anyway, kicking a war syndrome, be it Vietnam or Iraq? Nothing. They were only words spoken by a cheerleader with short-term memory and a long eye on popularity. Taken seriously, the statement was yet another slam at the veterans and the job they performed in shit-hole countries thousands of miles away. Men and women sent into combat with hands too often tied behind their backs, with shabby equipment, and for the most tenuous reasons. Soldiers fighting despite an appalling lack of support from the folks back home. It pissed him off to hear shit about how we “lost” in Vietnam. We didn’t lose in Vietnam. No way did we fuckin’ lose. And we won’t lose in Iraq. What will eventually happen is there will be a replay of what happened in Nam: our leaders, “the best and the brightest,” will one day simply decide to take the ball and go home. We won’t lose; we’ll quit.

Then we’ll be left to wonder why. To ask ourselves what it was all about and whether or not the results were worth the price we paid. All the while, as we seek answers to those questions, our next generation of the “best and brightest” will be looking around for the next war.

“We sure kicked ass big-time, didn’t we, Sally?”

Collins initially thought the question came from one of the History Channel commentators. It was only when he looked up that he realized the speaker was a man sitting alone at the counter. Tall—maybe six-five—and thin, he wore tight jeans, a tank top, leather cowboy boots, and a black Peterbilt cap. There was a tattoo on his left shoulder: a cross, under which was written, “Glory to Jesus.”

“I’d say you’re right,” Sally agreed, placing a cup of coffee in front of him.

The man wheeled on his stool, coffee cup in hand.

“We kicked old Saddam’s ass, didn’t we, partner?” he said to Collins.

Collins smiled, indifferent to the man and the question.

“Well, you do agree with me, don’t you, partner?” the man insisted, sipping coffee.

“Wrong enemy, wrong war,” Collins replied. “Bin Laden is the guy we want.”

“Yeah, whatever. But you gotta agree; taking out old Saddam was easy as takin’ candy from a baby.”

“Kicking ass is never easy,” Collins said.

“I don’t buy that,” the man said. “And I don’t imagine Saddam did either, especially when he was standing on the gallows with a rope around his neck.”

“You ever been in a war?”

“Nah, but I’d dearly love to have been in that first one. Or the one we’re in now. I’d like nothing better than to hunt down that coward bin Laden.”

“It’s an all-volunteer army.”

“Believe me, I gave plenty of thought to joining. Talked to the recruiter about it a couple of times. But I doubt they’d have me. See, my blood pressure tends to run a little high.” The man paused to stir his coffee. “But, hell, they don’t need me. Those boys did just fine. Women, too, although I have to admit I’m not all that keen on sending females into a war zone. But, shit, old Saddam didn’t know who he was messin’ with. Neither will Osama. We’ll blast him out of those caves. Wait and see. Before all is said and done, that Muslim lunatic will regret the day he decided to go against us.”