Jason Frost - Warlord 05 - Terminal Island (19 page)

It wasn’t in Vietnam, but in Miami Beach, just south of the city of Miami. Fallows had led the Night Shift trainees through the Everglades on a survival tour. That night they had gone into town for recreation. Private Charles Kupcek, recruited to Night Shift from a stockade for striking an officer, started picking a fight with Eric. Didn’t like Indians, he’d said, poking the Hopi necklace Big Bill had made for Eric as a going-away gift. Eric didn’t explain that he wasn’t an Indian. He merely grabbed Kupcek’s thumb and bent it back until the bigger man dropped to his knees and wailed in pain. Then he let go, said no hard feelings, and offered to shake. Kupcek stormed out of the bar. Fallows had sat at his corner table huddled with a buxom woman, never looking over at the fracas. But Eric knew he’d been watching.

That night the overpowering smell of stale beer had wakened Eric seconds before Kupcek was about to plunge a knife through Eric’s chest. After a brief scuffle that awakened the others in the barracks, Kupcek lay dead on the floor, his knife planted neatly in his chest.

In the back of the barracks, Colonel Dirk Fallows sat on the edge of his bunk and smiled. Eric had the feeling that Fallows had been watching everything from the moment Kupcek had entered the barracks. Watching to see the outcome.

The way he was watching now.

“Well, Tim,” Fallows prompted. “No father-son embraces? No pecks on the cheek? Hearty handshakes?”

Tim turned away and walked back to his tent, not hurrying, not emotional. Just slow deliberate steps.

“He’s shy,” Fallows whispered. “And modest. He cored Judd like a rotten apple. Saved me the trouble. He’s become quite the team player. Not a showboat like you, Eric.”

Eric looked at Fallows, controlling the hate that flowed as thick as lust. It would do no good to attack Fallows now and get killed all the quicker. As long as he was alive there was a chance for Tim, a chance to turn him around.

Fallows nodded appreciatively, as if he could read Eric’s thoughts. “Smart, Eric. Very smart. Stay cool and live a little longer. You know that I can’t end it all with a quick kill. Too much has happened between us for that. Still, I might indulge myself a little.” He lashed out his foot, kicking Eric squarely in the crotch.

Eric doubled over, flopping in the dirt, his hands still cuffed behind him. He choked down the dizzying pain, gasped for air. He lifted his head from the dirt, caught a glimpse of Tim turning around. Tim’s blank eyes took in the scene with no expression. Then he ducked into his tent.

“Children,” Fallows said philosophically. “Break your hearts.” Fallows snapped his fingers and two of his soldiers pulled Eric to his feet. “Well, General Nhu, perhaps it’s time we shared our little scheme with our old pal Eric?”

General Nhu’s voice was firm, almost angry. “I see no reason to. If you wish to kill this man, do so.”

“You never really got the California spirit, General. Mellow out a little.” Fallows waved for one of his men. “We’re going down to see the admiral. If we aren’t back in two hours, kill the boy.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fallows looked at Eric. “That should keep you calm.”

“Mellow,” Eric said.

Fallows laughed. “See, General, that’s why you’ll never be a real Californian. Even with all this going on, Eric still keeps his head.”

The three of them started down the slope toward San Diego.

“You’re going to love this,” Fallows said. “The sweetest deal I’ve ever been in on. And if everything goes right, Tim and the general and I will be off this island in two days. Forever.”

“That’s him,” Fallows said. He pointed to the lone man wearing nothing but shorts and running shoes who was jogging along the beach. Keeping pace twenty feet behind the runner were four uniformed men carrying Colt Commando assault rifles. They were barefoot. The lone runner loped gracefully across the sand, barely touching the ground before launching ahead again. The men following him ran hard and heavy, their feet chewing up the sand like a giant tractor.

“He will not like this,” Nhu said.

Fallows gave Nhu a cold stare. “Who cares?”

The three of them started down the sandy slope. Unlike northern San Diego, this part of the city had not been drowned under an encroaching ocean. Instead, the land had buckled slightly, like a blanket kicked down to the bottom of the bed, lifting it a little higher out of the water.

The San Diego Bay used to separate the city from Coronado, the small island that held the U.S. Naval Air Station and the U.S. Navy Amphibious Base. But the quakes had hoisted Coronado, bumping the two land masses together. The San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge lay in a twisted metal heap on the ground. Water still filled in the south part of the island, completely washing away Silver Strand Blvd. The city itself had been hit by a few hefty tidal waves, but most of the destruction and deaths came from the ensuing fires. The three of them had hiked along the 94 Freeway watching occasional raggedy gangs of bony people scurrying through the streets with clubs and spears and hammers. To Eric they looked like concentration camp survivors, their bodies so skinny and waxen that it was hard to tell the men from the women.

Whatever they were, they stayed away from Fallows and Nhu, who aside from handguns, also each carried new Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine guns they’d liberated from the marine recruits who’d taken them from Marine Training Center down the street. Fallows and his men had sneaked in one night and slit the youngsters’ throats. No bargaining.

The glare of the orange sun filtering through the Halo made Eric squint. Still, he could see across the beach to Coronado, the flurry of activity of men in U.S. Navy uniforms busily constructing something in the wreckage of the U.S. Naval Air Station. He could also see that the fences surrounding the base were being repaired and made thicker and higher. Outside the fence, a squad of men were carefully digging holes and planting land mines.

“They look like farmers, don’t they,” Fallows said of the men hunched over the mines, shoveling dirt on them.

“Not much,” Eric said.

“Sure they do. Getting ready to serve up a shrapnel salad. Low calorie. Step on one of them and you’ll lose weight real fast.”

The three of them walked across the beach, intercepting the lone runner. The man didn’t look at them although they stood directly in his path, less than twenty yards away. Eric wondered if he would just dodge around them and keep running. His men didn’t seem to know, either. A couple slowed, hoisted their guns. The others kept pace, ignoring Fallows.

The runner finally looked at Fallows. An annoyed expression came over his face but he slowed to a trot and then to a stop. His appearance surprised Eric. The man was as thin as some of the scavengers they’d seen skittering through the city. Each rib strained against his pale doughy skin like a relief map. The legs were long and coltish, just bones wrapped in sinewy muscle. The fingers were so long and thin they seemed clawlike, talons of a falcon. In contrast, his head seemed too big, too handsome for the freeze-dried body. He had a wide square jaw and dark eyes that rarely blinked. He was about forty-five, Fallows’ age.

“Hello, Admiral,” Fallows said, smiling broadly.

The admiral didn’t answer. He looked at Eric, the handcuffs. He obviously did not like what he saw.

“What is he doing here?” the admiral asked. There was no accent, but the formality of his speech indicated English as a second language.

“Admiral Jones, this is — ”

Admiral Jones held up his hand. “I don’t want to know who this is. What is he doing here? He is not part of our arrangement.”

Fallows’ smile never wavered. “Our arrangement is for me to provide protection while you and your men complete your project. Plus that other little item we discussed.”

Admiral Jones looked nervously over his shoulder at his men. He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “We will discuss that later.”

“Fine. I just thought you might like to know that those two men of yours that were missing didn’t go AWOL. They were killed. By this man.” He nudged Eric with his gun.

Eric didn’t bother denying or explaining. It wouldn’t do any good.

Admiral Jones waved at his men and pointed to Eric. “Kill this man. Now.”

“Whoa there, Admiral,” Fallows said. “This man is my prisoner.”

“He killed my men.”

“He’s killed some of mine too. Look at this uniform he’s wearing. Used to belong to Driscol, one of my best men. He will be killed, I promise. I’ll do it myself.”

Admiral Jones looked skeptically at Fallows. “I am beginning to worry about you, Colonel. I hope I didn’t make a mistake about you.”

“You hired me to protect your men. That’s what I’ve done.”

“I’m beginning to wonder if I really need you after all.”

Fallows shrugged. “Well, of course that’s up to you. I offer a service, but this is still America. You don’t have to avail yourself of it.” Fallows’ smile became thin and wolfish, his voice slick but threatening. “Who knows how many gangs of roaming banditos might see what you’re up to over there and start sneaking up on you at night, cutting throats and such. Could put your whole project in jeopardy. Not everybody here is as mellow as my men and I.”

Admiral Jones pondered the implied threat while his men anxiously fingered their guns. Eric watched Fallows and Nhu, who held their guns casually, almost as if they forgot they were even carrying them. If it came to a fight though, Eric knew the Russians would be all be dead within three seconds. Chances are, however, Eric would also be dead.

“I’ve got to whiz,” Eric said.

The admiral looked confused. “What?”

“Piss,” Fallows explained. “Don’t they keep you up to date on your American slang when they send you on these missions? Christ, they go through all this trouble of dressing you up like Americans, giving you American names and phony ID right down to letters from girlfriends in Kansas and such, and you guys don’t even know what a whiz is.”

Eric nodded at the admiral’s Nike running shorts and shoes. “I see by your outfit that you are a runner.”

The admiral, embarrassed by his not knowing the slang, was happy to change the subject. “Marathoner,” he said proudly. “You?”

“Twice. A few half-marathons. Not so much anymore.” Eric turned his handcuffed wrists to Fallows. “I still gotta go.”

Fallows stared at Eric, then grinned. He fished the key from his pocket and unlocked the cuffs. “You wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything, would you, Eric?”

“I just want to take a leak.” He gently massaged his wrists, the skin hanging in shredded flaps, bleeding. He turned his back to the group of men and walked a few paces away. He unzipped his fly. Eric heard the sound of the safety of Fallows’ SMG clicking off.

“I know my men searched you, Eric. But just in case, when your hand comes out of your fly, it better have nothing in it but your dick.”

Eric shrugged. “Don’t worry. It’s not lethal.”

From behind him they could see the yellow stream of urine splashing into the sand.

“You see, Admiral,” Eric said over his shoulder as he continued to piss. “You’d be making a big mistake underestimating Colonel Fallows here. The man is a pig with no morality whatsoever.”