Henchmen (5 page)

“Right through there,” the guard tells me, pointing to the left.  She’s 300 pounds of surly TSA agent sacked in a chair and couldn’t give a rat’s ass if I live or die just so long as I leave her alone.

“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” I say and head toward McCarran’s tram system.  I’m running late, as usual, and the plane to Albuquerque leaves from the furthest possible gate from here.

“No running,” she calls after me, but doesn’t actually get her ass out of the chair to enforce it.

Frank, Jean and Jacob drove back to Albuquerque since there’s no easy way to smuggle stolen body armor onto a plane.  It’s not a terrible drive, ten hours or so, but it is ten hours in a car with those three and I’d rather stick my hand in a blender than listen to Jacob and Frank bicker about music for ten hours.

Even without the constant threat of terrorism, flying is still an enormous headache, especially when you’re trying to smuggle someone out of Las Vegas without anyone knowing who she is.  Normally, Jean and Frank could whip up some fake documents, or Jacob could get one of his gun-dealing buds to hook us up, but time is not on our side.  Fortunately, we’re in Vegas - where, as I said earlier, you can get anything with enough cash.

This is no longer really a Mafia town, but La Cosa Nostra still maintains offices here. Jacob has dealt with them before.  A righteous hack by Jean to find an informant gets us new travel papers for Jessica, made while we wait.  They won’t hold up to any really intense scrutiny, but they work to fool the bored government drones who know all they have to do is not seriously fuck up and they can keep their jobs forever.  We’ll work up a new identity for her when we get back.

Eve went through the line first, about fifteen or twenty people ahead of Jessica.  The tall blonde breezed through security easily.

I have a brief moment of panic when the guy checking IDs looks a little too hard and little too long at Jessica’s new license.  Maybe she just doesn’t look like a Frieda, but honestly, who does?  When he called his supervisor over I started planning ways to get the heck out of Dodge.  Captain America, protector of life, liberty and cute little puppies, shows his supervisor her ID and points at something.  His supervisor, a tired-looking man whose tie tip only makes it to his navel, sighs and adjusts his glasses and peers at her license.  He shakes his head and motions to let it go and keep the line moving.

I breathe a sigh of relief, and get my less-than-real ID ready for checking.  My fake identity is a little better established than Jessica’s.  It’s a necessity for me.  My real self is less than popular with the authorities.

“How was your stay in fabulous Las Vegas?” the agent scanning boarding passes asks.

“I lost about a grand and picked up something that eats penicillin for breakfast,” I tell him with a huge smile.  “How’s your day?”

“Same as ever, man.  Endless lines of people.  This is my personal Hell, Mr. Sigmon.”

The name on my ID is Zachariah Sigmon.  I’m a day trader with a tiny group in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“Hell is other people, bud,” I tell him.  Treat these guys like humans and you’d be amazed at how easy it is to get through security.

“Indeed it is,” he tells me.  He circles something on my boarding pass, jots a note, and waves me through.

Eve is going through the scanners when I get in line behind about four thousand people.  Shoes off, belt off, watch off, phone out, blah, blah, blah.  Eve has to duck to go through the security scanners. 

In short order we all make it through the initial checks, the scanners, the metal detectors and all the layered security that will do absolutely nothing to stop a determined attacker and wander to the departure lounge.  We don’t sit together, and we don’t interact.

Wait, what?  Why would we act like we don’t know each other?  Why all the secrecy?  We’ve got an ace computer hacker, an epic building hacker, a guy who can lay hands on almost any weapon, a minor goddess and a relatively young woman with a propensity for violence.  We’re a tough bunch of mean motherfuckers who are deadly serious about what we do. What are we worried about?

Back during the Revolutionary War George Washington said
"Even minutiae should have a place in our collection, for things of a seemingly trifling nature, when enjoined with others of a more serious cast, may lead to valuable conclusion."
It’s a fancy way of saying “watch what you talk about, because even a minor detail can give away the whole game.”  Nathan Hale of the “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country” fame - a spy during the Revolutionary War - could probably give you a first-hand account of what happens when the game gets given away.  Hale thought he was a good spy, but wound up telling a British agent about his mission and was hanged for his treason.  I still find it amusing that people hold up Hale’s quote as if he’s an example of a great American patriot.  Fuck that.  If he was a great American patriot, he would have known to keep his mouth shut.

No matter what you see in the movies, no matter how powerful the bad guys are, if it comes down to a fight, there are a hell of lot of people trying to stop you.  The whole “you against the world” thing sounds romantic, but the world will stomp you into oblivion in fairly short order.  If you want to win this game, you hide your pieces - you hide the fact that you’re even in the game.  I remember watching The Avengers, with all those good-looking people dressed up in fancy tight outfits. Good movie, but in the end? When the aliens attack and there are only six people who can stop the invaders?  The US military would’ve smashed that invasion.  Just like they’ll crush my little group if they figure out what we’re up to.  Hence, the secrecy.  We’re in this game to finish it, and would prefer to do it completely under the radar.

The flight back is uneventful. An hour and some change. Some ginger ale and some peanuts.  I’m toward the middle of the plane, Jessica’s somewhere in the back, and Eve is toward the front.  When we’re taking off a baby starts crying.  Eve makes funny faces at her until the baby calms down. The baby’s young parents are too grateful to be scared that a seven-foot-tall woman is attempting to play with their baby.

Mostly I keep my headphones on, and listen to 16 Horsepower, and zone out.

We land, trudge through the Sunport (the happiest little International Airport in New Mexico), hoping to hell no one’s lost our luggage (they hadn’t), grab the bus back to the Airport Parking, get the car (Honda Accord) and hop I-25 to I-40 and head for our little gang’s house on the hill.

I can tell Jessica’s disappointed when she sees the house.  The place has two floors, 4,000 square feet, a full two acres of land, a guest house, a garage, and a workshop. It’s not palatial, but it’s got what we need.

“So, this is the evil lair,” Jessica says, probably wondering what the hell she’s gotten herself into.

“Well, I keep my eyes on
Villain Supply
, but I keep getting outbid on the really good lairs, and it’s always by some asshole that waits until two seconds before the auction closes who bids and wins,” Eve says, completely straight-faced.

“Let’s be realistic,” I say.  “You want to draw attention to yourself? Hire a bang-up architect to design a top of the line base and get an army of contractors to build it.  Here, no one will notice what’s going on, let alone care.”

She’s not entirely convinced, I can tell. I wasn’t the first time I came out here, either.

“I think Jacob’s grilling tonight, if anyone’s hungry.  Let’s get Jessica settled and shown around and get some break time.  We’ll eat around 7,” Eve tell us as she’s getting out of the car.

* * * *

An evening of grilled green chile cheeseburgers and Alien Imperial Stout can make everything better.  If you’ve just been party to a mass murder, and executed a Japanese gang member, it may take more than one Alien Imperial Stout. But when you’re looking up at the stars, and down on the lights of the city, a couple of good beers can make anything better.

“So, Jessica,” Frank asks, popping a fry into his mouth, “what did you study at UNLV?”

She’s kind of staring off into the distance, swirling her beer.  “I was at the Institute for Security Studies.  Homeland security, stuff like that.”

“You went to Las Vegas to study national security?” I ask. “I thought everyone went to the University of Missouri for that.”

“How the hell do people know this stuff?  Why do you know that?” Jacob asks.

“I used to work for the Department of Homeland Security, first as a Computer Security Specialist, then working in Intelligence.  We used to look for resumes from University of Missouri,” I tell him.

Jessica looks up, stunned that anyone would know anything about her studies.  “No,” she says, “the DSS program at U of M is more focused on international policy, more large-scale.  Homeland security focuses more on the local side of things: terrorism, medical response, things like that.”

“Does that explain where you learned to fight?” asks Jacob.  “Because I’ve never seen anyone breaks a guy’s wrist with a kick before - outside of the movies, anyway.”

“It was Savate,” she says.  ”I studied it in California, in High School.  It’s French kickboxing.”

“French?  Kickboxing?  What do they teach, surrender?”

Jessica grimaces and sighs.  “Ever heard of Gilles Le Duigou?  The Savateur that fought Ishima in Japan?”

“Never heard of either of them,” Jacob snorts derisively.

“Gilles Le Duigou and Ishima had a full contact kickboxing bout back in the ‘80s in Japan.  Both of them were damn good fighters, but Gilles was tough as nails,” I say.

“Yeah,” Jessica says, “late in the fight Ishima breaks one of Gilles’ forearms. They stop the fight and Gilles tells his corner to tape up his arm, because he’s going back in.  He goes back in and BAM, Ishima fractures the other forearm.  Le Duigou keeps fighting, with two broken arms taped to his sides, and wins with nothing but kicks.  KO’s Ishima.”

Jacob’s not a martial arts geek. He just likes smashing heads together.  He knows what a rear naked chokehold is, but would probably never do it, because he didn’t want anyone to think he was into guys.  Old school to the bone.  (Not that bone.)

“Is that why you study Savate?” I ask her.

“Nah, the school was close to my house.  Convenience was a huge thing since my mom wouldn’t drive me. I had to find a place I could walk to.  Plus, I thought France was just amazingly romantic, so it kind of carried over.”

“Where’d you grow up?” asks Eve.

“Southern Cali.  It wasn’t the nicest neighborhood, but it was fine,” Jessica says.

“France,” Jacob says with a huff.  “You shoulda just found a tough guy like me.”

“Girl’s got to learn to take care of herself,” Jessica replies.  “I saw a friend of mine get her ass handed to her when we were freshmen.  Her boyfriend was one of the football players.  That whole team was on steroids and would fight at the drop of a hat.  He beat her ass one day because she asked him a sarcastic question about football.  She finished the year in the hospital, and he had to sit out a couple of games.  I saw that, and decided it was not going to happen to me. So I started working out and learning to fight.”

“Ever use it?” I ask.  I’m always curious.  I studied Kenpo and never really had to use it.  I’m not a small guy, though, and most people just decide it’s not worth the effort.

“When my Japanese friends jumped me six months, ago I put a couple of them in the hospital.  Got an extra beating for that.  After that, the only time I needed it was when I finally got a chance to beat that fucker down.  By the way, thanks for letting me stick a knife in him.”

They say vengeance never solves anything, but in my case it made me feel a whole hell of a lot better.  Didn’t actually bring anyone back, but I did feel like I’d fixed something.

The night winds on until everyone starts slowing down.  At around 1am Jacob is passed out in a chaise lounge, Frank and Jean have gone off to bed and it’s down to just Eve, myself and Jessica.

Jessica stares out at the sky.  “I’ve never really seen the stars before.  Southern California wasn’t dark and Las Vegas was nothing but lights.  They’re amazing.”

Eve looks at her, totally confused.  “What do you mean you’ve never seen the stars?”

“I told you, too much light where I lived.  You could see, like 10 stars, tops, and I think at least a couple of them were satellites.”