Pulling The Dragon's Tail (38 page)

But Sheridan was no longer there.

“How do you know who I am?” Herschel Hatton
demanded to the stranger at the other end of the phone line. The
call had come just after Herschel had fallen asleep in the late
evening after a hard day of farm work. His house sat on the western
edge of his hydroponics farm. To the east, a half-moon rose over
County Road 642.

The man on the other end spoke with a slight
southern accent. “Can’t tell you that until we are face to
face.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that or
I’m hanging up on you.”

There was a brief pause before the stranger
continued. “I know you’ve killed William and Wakely. You’ve just
returned from South Africa where you strangled Kasai. I also know
you keep missing Nate Kristopher.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,”
replied Herschel coldly.
Skip is as dead as a doornail,
he
thought, and
he missed my conquest of Kalpana
. B
ut how
does-

“Mr. Hatton,” the mystery man asserted boldly,
“Nate Kristopher is
very
much alive. I can make your job far
easier, so I propose a joint effort; I help you with your
objectives, you help me with mine.”

“How do you know who I am?” asked Herschel, now
growing more afraid.

“Let’s just say I’ve recently acquired this
information.”

Herschel’s fascination and curiosity was
overcome by his fear of exposure. He hung up and immediately
checked his security protocols.

Sleep eluded him for the rest of the night.
Herschel’s Gideon’s Army contact assured him there had been no
security breaches. A day later, he was still dogged with questions
about this stranger. However, searching for the origination of the
call had been fruitless.

The next evening he stepped outside under the
nighttime Kansas sky. The half-moon again rose in the east.
Thousands of star twinkled. “Dear Lord, keep me safe. Help me to do
Your Will.”

Herschel circled his warehouses, gun at the
ready. Too tired to go back to his house, he fell asleep in a
pullout couch in the hub of one his spokes warehouses. He fell into
a deep sleep filled with bizarre and intense dreams. He met a
beautiful woman.
I’m in love with you
, she said.
No,
you’re not
, he replied.
Yes, I am
, she insisted.
You
can’t be in love with me,
he said.
But I am
, she
insisted.

She embraced him. He felt her soft lips as she
kissed him; felt the smooth contours of her breasts against his
beating chest. His arousal grew stronger. His tongue probed her
voluptuous lips, stroked her cheeks, and tasted her ears and
neck.

With pulse pounding furiously, his hands reached
lower. She climbed on top of him. He stroked her back with his
hands. Her tongue reached his.

But something was wrong! What was it? Herschel
tossed and turned on the bed. He reached for the woman’s breasts,
but they had disappeared.

“No!” he moaned. “Not again. I want her
back!”

He opened his eyes. “Ahhh!” he screamed.

A stranger peered over him. “Mr. Hatton, I’ve
come to talk with you.”

Instinctively, Herschel reached for the gun
concealed beneath his waist. He cursed the fact he slept out in the
spoke hub at his farm headquarters instead of the secure house.

The stranger backed away slowly, standing next
to the door. His eyes never left the powerfully-built farmer. “I’m
only here to help you.”

“Yeah. Right.” Herschel sat up on the sofa bed.
“By breaking into my place?”

“You gave me no choice when you hung up on me
yesterday.”

“You?” His hands reached closer to his
weapon.

“Yes,” said the stranger, studying the stealthy
movements of Herschel’s hand.

“Please don’t reach for your weapon.”

“Weapon?”

“Puh-lease! Any member of Gideon’s Army’s always
armed to the teeth. I come to you unarmed.”

“Really?” asked Herschel, incredulously. His
hand grasped the weapon.

“Yeah. Let’s just say my offer to help you kill
Nate Kristopher is my best weapon.”

“Oh—I’ll have no difficulty killing you if I
find your offer’s bogus.”

“And,” said the stranger, “if you kill me,
you’ll lose your best chance to get him. But,” and he eyed the gun
that Herschel produced, “you’ve already left your calling card with
several Alpha Group members.”

Herschel detected a bit of hesitation in the
stranger’s voice. He felt the trigger with his finger. “It’d be a
shame to splatter your blood all over these windows.”

Eying the gun, the stranger continued. “But you
won’t do it. You’re too curious. Who am I? How do I know this
information about you, the Alpha Group, and Nate Kristopher?”

“What’s your fucking agenda?” demanded Herschel.
“You break into my property, then claim insider status and
knowledge. You’ve gone to a great deal of effort. Maybe you’re here
for my benefit, but no doubt for yours too.”

“A mutual gain, as I’ve already stated. Look,
will you just frisk me?” he said with a bit of impatience.

Herschel did so. He put his gun back in the
holster.

“Satisfied?” asked the stranger, who then took a
seat in a nearby chair.

“Oh, yes.” Herschel backed away until he found a
drawer in a nearby console. Opening it, he grabbed an item and then
invited the stranger to stay for a while.

The stranger finally felt at ease.

But instead of sitting down next to him,
Herschel aimed the item, a tiny dart gun, and fired.

The stranger grabbed his leg. “What’d you do?
I—I can’t feel my foot! What are you doing?” He looked up at
Herschel just as he fired at the other leg.

He tried to stand up, but immediately fell over.
He frantically grabbed at both feet. “Why can’t I feel them? I mean
you no harm!” he screamed.

A smug Herschel stood over him, just out of
arm’s reach. “Now I’ll find out for sure if your intentions are
sincere. The poison works its way up. In about fifteen minutes it
will reach your lungs. Another five minutes after that you’ll
choke.”

The stranger grew wide-eyed and panicked. “You
can’t do this!”

“I can. I did. Now you have to deal with it. You
have fifteen minutes to make your case. So stop wasting your
breath. Convince me of the mutual benefit of a partnership, or
you’ll die.”

Still in shock, he felt his feet again. “It’s up
a bit higher!”

“Like I said,” reminded Herschel, “you have
fifteen minutes. Should I just leave you here to die?”

“No! No! Please!” he screamed, scooting back
against the wall. He struggled to take some deep breaths and calm
down. “Okay. All right. My name is Beckett Reese. I am the cloned
offspring of Dr. Mitchell Hilliard.”

Herschel looked him over. “You do resemble him.
When were you born?”

“2028.”

“Okay, sounds reasonable enough. Technology’s
available. I’ll accept that as truth. So tell me how you know what
I’ve done?”

“Mitchell Hilliard began an organization that
would succeed him in death to monitor Alpha Group members.”

“Monitored?” bellowed Herschel.

“Yes.”

“I’ve been followed?”

“All of you—over the years, with all available
technology.”

“And you’ve known this all along, you’re entire
life?”

“No,” replied Beckett. “Oh, God, it’s coming up
to my knees. How are you going to stop the poison?”

“I have the antidote right here.” He tossed the
vial up in the air and caught it. “However if it breaks, you’re
done for. Trust me.”

Eyeing the vial, Beckett swallowed hard and
continued. “I’ve only come across this information recently. I’ve
been kept in the dark,” he said with bitterness in his voice.

“That’s too bad,” said an unfeeling Herschel.
“But why do I need your help? I just got the big kahuna, Skip.”

“If you mean Kristopher, you’re mistaken. He
escaped.”

“You lie!” bellowed an enraged Herschel.

“No,” responded Beckett matter-of-factly. “If
you’ll check the police reports, you’ll find only one died in the
plane crash, identified as Chad Delavan.”

Herschel’s furtive online search confirmed
Beckett’s assertions. “How can that be?” he muttered.

“Please! This only proves my contention. My
knowledge can help you get Kristopher. And not just him, but
everyone else too.”

“I see. You have or can access intimate
details?” he said with a hard set jaw of determination.

“Yes, up to the minute.”

Herschel smiled and looked up, thinking. Then he
frowned. “Hmmph. If you only recently got this information, it
means you’re not in the top leadership. Do the real important
people know that you know? Why would such an organization, so
dedicated to secrecy, tolerate you getting out of line? Even
assuming all of this is true, are you suggesting—”

“Please let me finish!” Beckett spoke swiftly,
with panic in his voice. For weeks he had rehearsed just what he
would say to Herschel, calculating the exact words to give the
maximum information with minimal damage. He was trained to give
only what was necessary. But would that rule of parsimony backfire
now? He sensed the poison creep up higher.

With difficulty, Beckett continued. “Hilliard’s
headquarters are located on a floating city off the southern coast
of Bermuda.”

Herschel, with unfolded, unyielding arms,
returned a steely glare.

“Look,” Beckett pleaded, “I asked for more
power. They had me doing fruitless experiments on aging that were
sure dead ends. I wasn’t allowed to have a bigger role. Their pet
phrase was ‘you’re just Hilliard’s rebellious son.’ I hate that
term: son.”

“Do they know you’re here?”

“No.”

“Prove it.”

“Prove it! I’ve been trying to do just
that!”

“No, I need more than just talk,” responded a
surly Herschel. “If you can
prove
that you are here without
them detecting you, I’ll reach two conclusions. One, you’re this
rebellious son. And two, you may just have the power and motive to
deliver on your promises.”

“Why can’t you just believe me? Look, you and I
can hack into the system by working together, catch them by
surprise. At the very least I can provide you with up to the minute
information of the Alpha Group.”

“That’s no proof!” yelled Herschel. “I need
more!”

“Oh God, I can’t feel my ribs!” Beckett breathed
heavily, struggling to get enough oxygen.

Unrelenting, Herschel said, “Give me more Mr.
Reese!”

“It’s not enough that I know about Keagan’s
attempt to kill Nate with a dirty bomb in Manhattan? It’s not
enough that I know you befriended Kasai in South Africa, wined and
dined her for three days before shooting her in the back of the
head? It’s not enough that I know about your trips to gay
bars.”

“Enough! Do not dare speak of that! But you’re
getting closer.”

With his hands on his chest, Beckett blurted
out, “To living or dying?”

“To dying!” bellowed Herschel. “How dare you
mention the bars!”

“I was just trying to prove to you how much I
know and—”

“Come on! What else you got, Mr. Reese, or
you’re a dead man!”

Okay,
thought Beckett,
time to play my
last trick. I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this
. Beckett tried
to reach into his shirt pocket. “Ah, I can’t get my fingers to
work!”

“What’s in there?” asked a wary Herschel.

“A video chip. Please play it.”

Herschel cautiously reached in and extracted it.
He put it in to the minicomputer console on the desk. It downloaded
in seconds. For a brief moment, Herschel panicked.
What if I
need Reese’s help to sort through the passwords and
security?

He glanced over to the slow breathing Beckett
Reese, lying propped up against the chair. The video sprang to
life. Meetings. Old video of the Alpha Group. A man’s misshapen
head appeared with a type of helmet holding wires and implants
.
Kind of gross
, he thought.

Then he heard this man speak. “Beckett! Your
mission to deal with Browning Watts/Herschel Hatton is extremely
important to the organization; the culmination of years of trying
to locate him once again. I don’t understand why you didn’t wait
for backup. Call me, please, about an important update over this
mission. Don’t mess this one up.” The call had been placed twelve
hours earlier.

Herschel was startled. “That voice! It can’t
be!”

Beckett Reese slowly reached for his throat. His
eyes met those of Herschel. His mouth tried to open. He saw a pair
of hands. A second later he felt a sharp pinprick against his
neck.

An old-fashioned rifle barrel stared at
Campbell, Nate, Es, Thatcher and Dugan. The tall, imposing man
behind it stood three meters away. Dressed quaintly in a red
flannel long-sleeved shirt, the man’s sleeves had been folded
neatly back halfway to his elbows. Thick hair encased his arms,
while his large hands tightly grasped the rifle. His index finger
bounced up and down on the trigger.

The man appeared to be about fifty years old.
Faded blue jeans filled out his long frame and were met at the
bottom by boots. Boots large enough, observed Nate, to kill a small
animal.

And then, to top it off, was the hat. It was a
bushwalker, light brown in color, dirty and well-worn.
It’s Paul
Bunyan
, thought Nate.

Nate and his companions warily eyed this strange
man. They could scarcely fathom how this size of a man could have
moved so quickly and outwitted their security.

“You’re not with the McVeigh Territory people,
not even you,” the man said, waving the barrel of the gun towards
Es.