Mercury Revolts (8 page)

InsideDope1776
: recd tip on brimstone pkg heading
east tmrw nite

Nisroc001
: hi insdiedope welcome back
wats
brimstone

InsideDope1776
: google

Nisroc001
: brimstone = google??

InsideDope1776
: no, google it

Nisroc001
: “Brimstone is an alternative name
for sulfur.
” ???

InsideDope1776
: google brimstone project

Nisroc001
: wat is pkg

InsideDope1776
: package

Nisroc001
: wat is package

InsideDope1776
: results of brimstone/wormwood
project

Nisroc001
: wat is wormwood

InsideDope1776
: google wormwood

Nisroc001
: “Wormwood is a shrubby perennial
plant
” ???

InsideDope1776
: google WORMWOOD PROJECT

Nisroc001
: oh!
nuclear
bomb!

Nisroc001
: O.o

InsideDope1776
: …

Nisroc001
: we r busy tmrw nite

InsideDope1776
: srsly?

Nisroc001
: no jk :) we can hijak bomb

InsideDope1776
: advise verbal discretion :(

Nisroc001
: sorry we can hijack bomb

InsideDope1776
: advise STOP SAYING B*MB

Nisroc001
: sorry we can hijack nuclear device

InsideDope1776
: jfc

Nisroc001
: wat is jfc?

It took nearly forty-five minutes for Zion Johnson to
communicate the critical details: that a truck transporting a small nuclear
bomb would be passing Fernley, Nevada at 3am the next evening, traveling east.
The at large members of Chaos Faction were to descend upon the truck just after
it had passed Fernley and steal the bomb. As Zion Johnson watched the Fernley
exit recede in his rearview mirror, he found himself hoping that the members of
Chaos Faction weren’t all as stupid as the one he had chatted with online the
previous day.

As it turned out, they weren’t, but only by a slim margin.
The one called Izbazel landed with a loud thump on the truck’s hood, making
Zion Johnson glad he’d taken his blood pressure medication that morning. “Sorry
we’re late!” yelled Izbazel. “We stopped by Reno and Nisroc was on a bit of a
lucky–”

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

Izbazel’s speech was cut short as he was riddled with
bullets. The man sitting next to Zion Johnson, whose job was to protect the
package in the back of the truck, had pulled his firearm and managed to get
eight rounds into Izbazel’s midsection before Izbazel fell backward onto the
road and was promptly run over by the truck.

“We’re under attack!” yelled the man next to Zion Johnson to
the six men in the truck behind him, who were guarding the bomb. He slid the
partially spent magazine out of his gun, grabbed another, and turned to Zion
Johnson. “Did that guy apologize for being late before I shot him?”

Zion Johnson sighed. This was not how it was supposed to go
down. He pulled the wheel to the right, driving off the road, and slammed on
the brakes, bringing the truck to a halt in a cloud of dust. “Yeah, he did,”
said Zion Johnson. “And I know it doesn’t help, but I’m sorry too, Dave.” With
that, Zion Johnson shot Dave three times in the head.

“What the hell was that?” yelled one of the men in the back.

“Everything’s under control,” said Zion Johnson, grabbing
Dave’s gun. “Stand down.”

“Sir?” said one of the men in the back. Then: “Hey, back
away from the truck!”

The sound of automatic weapon fire and incomprehensible
shouts came from the back of the truck. After a few seconds, all was silent.

A figure dropped to the ground in the headlights of the
truck and walked around to the driver’s side door: Izbazel. He was covered in
blood.

“Could have told me they were going to shoot at us,” Izbazel
said.

“You’re stealing a nuclear bomb!” yelled Zion Johnson. “You
didn’t expect it to be guarded?” He got out of the truck and walked around to
the back. Three unarmed men were standing at the rear of the truck. The back
was open, and inside was a grisly scene. It appeared that the men had opened
fire on each other, leaving no one alive. In the middle of the six corpses was
an unmarked steel crate.

“You guys are bastards,” said Zion Johnson.

“They were shooting at us,” said one of the men. “I just
redirected the bullets a little.” It was hard to tell in the dim light, but
Zion Johnson thought it was the one called Nisroc.

“Yeah, I see that,” said Zion Johnson. He shook his head. He
had hoped this could be done without bloodshed, but Chaos Faction obviously wasn’t
capable of that sort of finesse.

Izbazel walked up next to him.
“Alright,
what now?”

“First,” said Zion Johnson, “get those guys out of the
truck.”

The three men hopped into the truck and began tossing the corpses
onto the ground. Zion Johnson wanted to tell them to show a little respect, but
it would be more convincing if it looked like the bodies had been carelessly
thrown on the dirt. If all went as planned, there wouldn’t be any
investigation; the official story was going to be that the Wormwood bomb had
been stolen years earlier, on Travis Babcock’s watch. But Zion Johnson believed
in being thorough, and that meant covering his tracks.

When the corpses had all been removed from the truck, Zion
Johnson handed Dave’s gun to Izbazel. “OK,” he said. “Now shoot me in the leg.”

“Really?” asked Izbazel.

“Yeah,” said Zion Johnson. “And be quick about it. I see
headlights up ahead. Try not to hit the—”

BAM!

Zion Johnson fell to the ground, clutching his leg. He had
been about to say “artery,” but now he was wishing he had said “kneecap.”

“Jesus Christ, that hurts,” he groaned.

“You want me to fix it?” asked the one called Nisroc. “I can
just—”

“No!” growled Zion Johnson. “Just go! Take the bomb and go!”

Nisroc shrugged. Izbazel tossed the gun on the ground near
Zion Johnson and then got into the driver’s seat of the truck. Nisroc got in
the passenger seat and the other two climbed into the back. The truck pulled
away, leaving Zion Johnson lying in the dirt on the side of the highway.

“Superior attitude, superior state of mind,” said Zion
Johnson, and then passed out.

Chapter Seven
                
 

Milhaus, Texas; August 2016

Mercury sat hunched over at the bar,
nursing a Guinness and shaking his head. “Just when I thought I was out,” he
muttered, “they pull me back in.”

“
Godfather
,” grunted a beefy trucker sitting next to
him.

Mercury turned to look at the man, who smiled sheepishly
back at him. Mercury slowly leaned over, looking the man in the eye, and said,
in a low, gravelly tone, “We’ve known each other many years, but this is the
first time you ever came to me for counsel or for help. I can’t remember the
last time that you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my
wife is godmother to your only child. But let’s be frank here. You never wanted
my friendship. And you were afraid to be in my debt.”

The trucker’s eyes widened and he leaned away from Mercury.
“Wha…?” he started.

“I understand,” Mercury continued, gesturing wildly with his
right hand while leaning on the bar with his left. “You found paradise in
America, you had a good trade,
you
made a good living.
The police protected you and there were courts of law. You didn’t need a friend
like me. But, now you come to me, and you say: ‘Don Corleone, give me justice.’
But you don’t ask with respect. You don’t offer friendship. You don’t even
think to call me Godfather. Instead, you come into my house on the day my
daughter is to be married, and you ask me to do murder for money.”

“Oh, I get it,” said the trucker. “That’s pretty good.
You’re doing the—”

Mercury shook his head ruefully, wagging his hand at the
man. “
Bonasera
,
Bonasera
. What have I ever done to make you treat
me so disrespectfully? If you’d come to me in friendship, then this scum that
wounded your daughter would be suffering this very day. And if by chance an
honest man like
yourself
should make enemies, then
they would become my enemies. And then they would fear you.”

The man got up, downed the rest of his beer, and backed
away.

“Someday!”
Mercury called after the
man, “And thatdaymaynevercome!” He paused for effect. “I’ll call upon you to do
a service for me. But until that day, accept this justice as a gift! On! My
daughter’s wedding day!” He let out a loud belch, and the patrons scattered
about the bar laughed nervously, as if they weren’t certain whether this was
the end of the performance or the beginning of something far worse.

“Seen that movie three hundred times,” said Mercury to the
bartender.

“Congratulations,” said the bartender, a dour old man.
“Sounds like you’ve led a full fucking life.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” said Mercury.
“The half of it.”
He paused, mouthing the words to himself.
“Is that right? It doesn’t sound right.
The half of it.
Thehalfofit.
Thehaffuvit.”

“Jesus Christ, will you shut up?” growled a man further down
the bar. “I’m trying to watch this.” His eyes were on the TV screen overhead,
which was displaying a news report.

A haggard, bearded man’s face filled the screen. “…spent
most of his years in a remote cabin in Idaho…” the newscaster was saying.

“What’s this show about?” Mercury murmured to himself. Then
louder, to the man down the bar, “Hey, what’s this show about anyhow?”

“It’s the news, you idiot,” the man replied. “They’re
talking about Chris Finlan.”

“Who?” asked
Mercury.

“Shit, man, where have you been for the past six months?”
asked the bartender incredulously.

Mercury shrugged. “Out of town?” he offered.

“Off your ass, more like,” grumbled the man down the bar.

“Chris Finlan,” said the bartender.
“The
guy that sent all those letter bombs.
They tracked him down to some
cabin in Idaho.
Crazy motherfucker.”

Mercury studied the leathery, hirsute image on the screen.
“Crazy motherfucker,” he repeated.

The bartender handed a beer to the man down the bar. “Do you
think he was nuts before he moved to that cabin,” the bartender asked, “or do
you think being alone up there all the time drove him crazy?”

“One of them chicken/egg things,” said the man.

“Hm,” grunted the bartender.

“So,” Mercury said thoughtfully, “this guy was all alone in
a cabin, hundreds of miles from civilization?”

“Yep,” said the bartender. “Can you imagine?”

“Yeah,” said Mercury, nodding. “What did he do the whole
time?”

“I guess he was working on some kind of book. He called it a
mephisto.”

Mercury frowned.
“Why’d he name it after that asshole?”

“Huh?” replied the
man.

“He means
‘manifesto,’” said the bartender.

“Oh,” said Mercury relieved. “That’s good. Mephisto still
owes me a hundred bucks on a bet we made about the lyrics of Pearl Jam’s
‘Yellow Ledbetter.’ He said it was ‘I don’t know why I waited for a boxer or a
bag,’ but
I
said…” He trailed off, realizing nobody was listening to
him. “So what was the manifesto about?”

“Who knows?” said the man. “Global warming or Communism or
some shit.
Sounds like he was pissed off about just about
everything.
He’s a nutcase.”

“Yeah,” Mercury said, with a nervous laugh. “Sounds like it.
So he just hung out in his cabin all day, writing crazy shit and making bombs?”

“I guess so,” said the man.

“I suppose he probably read a lot,” said Mercury. “You know,
like all of those Charlie Nyx books.”

“The kids’ books?” the bartender asked, confused.

“Young adult fantasy,” corrected Mercury. “Lots of grownups
read them. Not just crazy people. Do you think he had beer? He must have,
right? You don’t go hang out in a cabin for six months without beer.
And Rice Krispies.
No reason you couldn’t just order an
assload of Rice Krispies. Maybe get them delivered right to the cabin.”

The two men were now staring dumbly at Mercury.

“Son,” the bartender said, “what in blazes
are
you talking about?”

“I’m just… you know, theorizing,” said Mercury. “Like those
FBI profilers.
Trying to get into the mind of a madman.”

“Uh huh,” said the bartender.

On the screen, the bearded man was being led away from the
cabin in handcuffs.

“So that cabin,” Mercury went on. “I suppose it’s on the
market now?”

The bartender stared at Mercury. “You want to buy that
lunatic’s cabin?”

“Sure, why not?” asked Mercury.

“How the hell are you going to do that?”

Mercury grinned. “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t
refuse.”