Jason Frost - Warlord 05 - Terminal Island (9 page)

One trembles to think of that mysterious thing in the soul, which seems to acknowledge no human jurisdiction . . .

Herman Melville

Dirk Fallows tapped the pocket watch with the tip of his knife. He smiled. “ ‘Saint-seducing gold.’ ”

The man who had given him the watch nodded nervously. “Solid gold, Colonel.”

Fallows laughed. “ ‘Saint-seducing gold.’ That’s a line from
Romeo and Juliet
. Are you familiar with the work?”

“Sure,” the man shrugged. “Like
The West Side Story
, only no music.”

“
Close
enough,”
Fallows
said and continued examining the watch. He sat at a small folding card table on the northern outskirts of San Diego, the best central location for those who would come to sell gold.

The line of sellers stretched fifty yards long, wrapping around one of the supply tents. Each vendor carried an item of gold. Some had silver or precious stones. These were not worth as much, but word was out that Fallows would accept them. The campsite was run like a military operation, with Fallows’ armed men stationed around the supply tent.

Fallows himself sat alone at the table, a box to the left with the valuables he’d purchased: silverware, jewelry, gold picture frames. He had no gun on the table. It was as if he couldn’t comprehend someone trying to defy him.

Gordon Hamilton, the man with the pocket watch, waited while Fallows turned the watch over and over in his hand. For twenty-three of his forty-five years Gordon had been a custodian at Crescent Hills High School, a school whose only claim to fame was a championship chess team, which made them the laughing stock of the rest of the schools. Gordon had swept the gym a lot of times (4,140 times unofficially), listening to the same old pep talks from coach after coach, to team after team. The results were always the same. Basketball, last place. Football, third from last place. Volleyball, last place.

The quakes had torn Crescent Hills High School in half, ripping the gymnasium right along the half-court line. It had happened in the middle of cheer-leading practice, which was no great loss since their cheerleaders were uglier than their football team.

Gordon’s watch had been a gift from the school district for twenty years of service. Solid 24-k gold, the principal had said at the luncheon (dinners were reserved for teachers and administrators), then pretended to bite on it like an old prospector. Everyone had laughed, including Gordon.

Dirk Fallows was staring at him and Gordon swallowed nervously. The saliva felt like a lump of cement scraping down his throat. Fallows’ stare reminded Gordon of the way some lizards look at you, their eyes kind of dead but hungry, their leathery mouths upturned, almost a smile, like they know they’re going to eat you and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it.

Gordon felt sweat dripping down his forehead but he didn’t wipe it away. He didn’t want to appear as nervous as he was. Others in the line were jostling impatiently, anxious to trade whatever trinket they had for some canned corned beef hash, Campbells soup, packs of cigarettes.

“Shut up back there,” Fallows said. The line immediately settled down. Fallows looked up from the watch and stared at Gordon. There was that lizard grin, Gordon thought. That and the long V-shaped face, all bone and angles, made him look like a face stamped on some ancient Roman coin. The short, bristly white hair, premature for a guy in his mid-forties, looked like a shiny helmet. A gladiator, Gordon decided, that’s what he looks like. A guy who can’t wait to go back into the arena again.

Gordon was avoiding Fallows’ stare when he saw someone approach. A tall lanky kid in his late teens, but no, as the kid got closer he could see the boy was only about fifteen or sixteen. Gordon had been around kids this age for more than twenty years and was pretty good at guessing ages. Lots of kids these days were tall for their ages. This one was just a couple inches short of Gordon’s own six-foot two inches. But this kid was not just tall, he was remarkably muscled. His chest stretched the green t-shirt. The waist was narrow, but flared over hard sinewy thighs. The arms were lumpy and veined.

But it was the face that shocked Gordon. It was a child’s face all right, but the expression wasn’t a child’s. It was blank, withdrawn. Yet beneath the controlled facial muscles, the eyes were dark and brooding. Gordon had seen eyes like that on the kids at school who had been expelled, arrested, sent to hospitals.

“Tim,” Fallows said, handing him the watch as he approached. “What do you think?”

Tim silently examined the watch.

“Gold,” Fallows said to Gordon. “A remarkable substance. One ounce can be beaten out to three hundred square feet. When it’s that thin it would transmit a greenish light, like the eyes of some women I’ve known. About sixty percent of the mined gold in the world is in the hands of governments and central banks. Did you know that?”

Gordon shook his head. What was taking so long? He just wanted a few cans of food, maybe some of those canned spaghettis. The kid, Tim, was digging at the watch with his thumbnail.

Fallows continued. “Now most gold in jewelry has some silver in it, or paladium, or platinum. Alloys like that can be twelve, fourteen, sixteen, on up to twenty-four karats. Twelve is only fifty percent gold. Twenty-four is pure gold. I asked only for the pure stuff because I don’t have the time or manpower to fuck around with junk. Right?”

Gordon and everyone else in line nodded.

Fallows smiled. “Good. As long as we understand each other.” He looked up at Tim. “Well? What’s the verdict?”

Tim set the watch on the table. “Twelve karats.”

“Oops. You sure? This man tells me it’s twenty-four.”

Tim shrugged. “Twelve.”

Fallows returned his gaze to Gordon. Gordon instinctively took a step back.

“It’s gotta be more. They told me it was solid gold. A solid gold watch, they said, for twenty years of solid gold service. I swear.”

Fallows chuckled. “Perhaps your service was only gold-plated.” He tossed the watch to Gordon. “Get out.”

Gordon hesitated, looked pleadingly at Tim. Tim stared back with cold indifference. Like I’m a bug, Gordon thought, like a bug squashed on a windshield. Someone i behind him nudged him out of the way, dumping a handful of rings and earrings on the table.

“Got ’em out of some Beverly Hills mansion,” the man said. “They was locked in a safe, only the quakes had shook that safe clean outta the wall. Cracked open like an egg shell. These was inside.”

Gordon wandered to the side of the line. A few looked at him with sympathy, but most with contempt. He wasn’t sure which he loathed more, the sympathy or the contempt. They all knew now, knew that his gold watch for twenty years of service with the fucking school district had only been worth a cheap watch. Worse, they thought him so dumb they even lied to him about it. For the last three years of working there he’d carried the watch at school, having even bought a vest to keep it in, the gold (12 karat) chain dangling down. He’d worn it proudly, something to show for all the gum he’d scraped off desks, the cigarettes students had bummed from him in the restroom. The toilets he’d unclogged from girls flushing tampons.

“Tim?” Fallows said.

Tim bent over and pawed through the jewelry. He held a couple of rings up to the light, scratched the surface of the earrings. “These two rings are good. All the earrings are.”

“Very good,” Fallows said. “My assessment exactly.” Fallows took the good ones and flung the bad ones into the bushes. The man’s eyes followed them but he stifled an urge to go after them. Fallows brushed the jewelry into one hand and dumped it in the cardboard box at his side. “Go over to the supply tent and help yourself to six cans of anything.”

“You got bourbon?” the man asked.

“One bottle’s all you get.”

“Hell, I’ll take it.” He jogged over to the tent where two armed men escorted him inside.

Gordon Hamilton sulked off, walking slow and shuffling his feet in the dirt. He kicked at a stone like a little boy. He felt like a little boy. A boy who’d been cheated and now humiliated. All my life, he thought, it’s been like that, someone in charge making me do stuff. All my life. What a phrase. When you started saying that, your life was about over. He felt the anger welling in him, a dark surge of heat rushing up his stomach and spreading over his chest. He was shaking. He thought about the luncheon, about the watch, about Fallows, about the kid, Tim. The months of scratching for survival, the whole time keeping that watch no matter what because it was a symbol, a symbol of what he’d meant before. That what he’d done had had some value, that he’d counted. Twelve fucking karats! His anger and hatred boiled up through his head. Even his eyeballs felt dry. His head ached.

He reached inside his jacket for his gun.

Even as he did, he knew he was being foolish.

Worse, suicidal.

But he couldn’t stop himself.

It was like breathing.

He removed the gun with its two .22 bullets in it. He turned.

As he raised the gun and cocked the hammer, he saw Fallows reach for his own gun. Gordon smiled knowing it would be too late. He was already squeezing the trigger. Fallows hand was barely on the grip. His men were too startled to react. They fumbled with their fancy rifles.

Gordon fired. The sound of the explosion was like a release. All his hatred and anger whoosed out of his body behind the bullet.

But he hadn’t counted on the kid. Tim.

Tim’s expression never changed as he moved, shouldering Fallows out of the way like a football tackle bringing down the quarterback. Fallows tumbled to the ground with Tim on top of him. Gordon’s bullet whizzed by the table and dug itself into the box of gold trinkets. Gordon realized he’d missed, swung the gun around at Fallows.

By now Fallows had his gun out of the holster. He fired three times, each bullet shredding another section of Gordon Hamilton’s chest. Gordon looked down at the leaking holes in his body and smiled. At least he missed the watch. Then he died.

Fallows was on his feet and kneeling next to Gordon’s body, his gun pressed to the dead man’s head as he felt for a pulse. “Son of a bitch is dead,” Fallows said firing a bullet into Gordon’s head. “One to grow on, asshole.”

Fallows got up and looked at the half dozen of his men who were now gathered around the scene, their guns covering the crowd. “Never mind them,” he shouted at them. “Where were you ten seconds ago when this maniac was trying to kill me?” He walked over to Tim who was brushing dirt from his pants. “Hadn’t been for the kid here I’d be dead.”

Fallows’ men didn’t say anything. It wouldn’t do any good to apologize. Fallows did not accept excuses. At any minute he might open fire on them as an example to others. Even armed as they were with six of them against him, none thought their chances of survival against an alerted Fallows was even a remote possibility. They’d all seen him work before.

They waited.

Fallows laughed, threw his arm around Tim’s shoulder. “You’re really learning, Tim. Those are fast reflexes. Faster than me or Eric.”

At the mention of his father’s name, Tim shrugged off Fallows’ arm and walked off toward the woods. He knew Fallows was watching him, but that he wouldn’t follow. Why bother? There was nowhere to go. Tim had tried many times to escape, but each time they’d caught him and brought him back to hours of slow torture by Fallows. The cuts, the burns, the starvation. Eventually Tim stopped trying. Then his food rations were increased. Fallows had stepped up the lessons, expanding them to include all phases of combat and survival. His muscles had grown along with his height. Tim had to admit, he liked his new body, as manly as any of Fallows’ soldiers. If he were still back at school he could be on any junior varsity team he wanted: basketball, volleyball, wrestling.

Tim sat on an uprooted tree trunk. He could name all the plants within sight, knew how to use them to eat, drink, kill. Much of that knowledge Eric had already taught him, or Big Bill Tenderwolf had on their visits, but before it had just been useless information. Now it all made sense. Knowledge was power; power was survival. Fallows had taught him that.

In the evenings they played chess together, just as Tim used to do with his father. Fallows favored the Caro-Kann Defense or Sicilian Attack. Eric’s game had been more patient, flexible. In a match between his father and Fallows he wasn’t sure who would win, any more than he knew who would win this battle between them now. Any more than he knew why he had saved Fallows’ life.

Saved his life. The man who had killed his mother and sister. Who had tortured him. Who was trying to kill his father.

Tim had saved
him
.

Saved Fallows!

Tim felt the tears flood his eyes. He blinked and sent them cascading down his cheeks. Nothing made sense. Where was his father? It had been months since that last rescue attempt. Tim rubbed his leg where Fallows had shot him. The scar was still there, like a white crater pasted on the back of his thigh. Still, it was Fallows who kept him alive now, who taught him things. Eric had had Big Bill Tenderwolf as a teacher; Tim had Fallows. It was Fallows who made sure everyone else treated Tim with respect. Even the other soldiers were a little afraid of Tim because of Fallows. And every village or settlement they marched through, people cowered, gave them anything they wanted. Those who fought always lost. Fallows had no mercy. They had a reputation now. He could see the panic and fear in people’s eyes when they saw Fallows’ men. Tim liked that feeling of power. After all these months of helplessness, it felt good to have some control.

What about his father? What about Eric Ravensmith?

“Tim,” Fallows said.

Tim turned. He hadn’t heard Fallows walk up. No one ever did.

“Thinking?”

Tim nodded.

“A rare exercise around here.”

Tim looked at Fallows. It was something Eric might have said. Did Fallows know that? Was this part of the chess match?

Fallows sat down on the log next to him. “I appreciate what you did back there. You’ve become a first-rate soldier.”