The Infiltrators (6 page)

“Hey, man, suck it up and get up, you
feel me?!” the man said hunching over his friend, now appearing to
express some genuine concern.

As the two huddled over their fallen,
writhing compatriot, a now well-dressed Zelven slipped behind them
and into the building.

Kyle was now beginning to writhe in a
manner that seemed exaggerated even for having been kicked by Big
Gary. Sure, Big Gary had killed men before with a kick to the ribs,
but those were normal-sized men, not muscle-bound sycamore trees
like Kyle.

“F---, Gary. I think you wasted him,
hommie!”

“Naw, man. Yo, Kyle! KYLE!!”

Quite a few heads began to turn. Even
for a seedy part of town, this could count as a
spectacle.

“Sh--, man. We gotta bring him inside,
fool.”

Kyle began writhing far worse as they
dragged him towards the doorway, blood spurting out of his nose and
eyes, and he began vomiting uncontrollably.

He breathed his last at the very moment
he crossed the threshold. He only beat his compatriot Jerry to the
afterlife by a couple of seconds. As soon as Jerry crossed the
threshold, a knife punched into the back of his right lung up to
the hilt and then slit his throat from ear to ear with so much
speed Big Gary didn’t even see the attack.

By the time Big Gary turned to see his
friend falling to the ground in a shuddering heap with blood
gushing out of his neck he felt a small noose enclose around his
neck and the tip of some sharp weapon poke against his
ribs.

“There will be plenty of time for
crying and mourning later, young fella.”

Gary started to turn towards his
attacker, but the noose around his neck immediately tightened to
the point he could feel blood trickling down his neck.

“Easy there, fella. This ain’t a noose
like one you’ve ever seen. One more squeeze with this lever I’ve
got in my hand, and you’ll be with your two friends there in less
than a blink.”

Gary fumed, and tears strode down his
face. Kyle and Jerry were his best friends. Perhaps he ought to
join them.

The unpleasant poke of the dagger
convinced him life might be worth living after all.

“Now show me where your boss is. The
one who doesn’t believe in free markets.”

“He’ll, he’ll, he’ll KILL you, man!”
Gary said, struggling against the noose.

“Do I seem like the risk-averse sort to
ya?” Zelven asked in a singsong accent he sometimes
used.

Zelven gave another squeeze. He heard
the gag reflex and released the noose just enough to let Gary vomit
out a couple eruptions before warning him with a few tight squeezes
to wrap that business up or choke on his own vomit.

As soon as Zelven was convinced Gary
had sufficiently cleared his airways, he resumed the pressure with
the noose, lest he do something foolish like cry out.

“March me to them, mate, or I’ll kill
you right now,” Zelven said without any bluff, sticking the knife a
full inch into Gary’s back, just shy of any vitals.

Gary answered with his footsteps, which
began moving quickly forward.

Zelven heard a peculiar, but very
familiar, rapping sound. He turned around slightly and noted with
approval as he saw ten men spilling into the room from the street
outside. He had no concerns about whipping a few punks inside, but
the contents of this particular building had not been previously
reconnoitered, and Varco training demanded preparation for the
worst-case scenario.

“Let’s get going,” Zelven told Gary.
“If you’re no good to me as a guide, I’ll send you to join your
departed friends.”

Gary paused only the briefest of
moments to consider his options before moving his large frame
forward reluctantly like a stubborn plow horse that realizes its
owner will cave its skull in if it refuses to budge.

“Don’t even think about sneaky
warnings,” Zelven instructed. “Whistles, knuckle-cracking,
signature footsteps—they’re all plain language in highlighted bold
caps to me, son.”

Zelven thought he could see Gary’s
bull-like neck turn a couple shades redder and almost feel the heat
rising off of it.

They continued walking up the stairs
until Gary stopped and lightly rasped something.

Zelven released the noose just enough
to let him speak in a whisper: “The men you want to see are on the
top floor. There are guards on every floor until the top, starting
with the third floor. It’s because we keep a lot of . . . stuff
here.”

“Thank you, friend. You would only be a
burden from here on out.”

Zelven clamped down on the device
holding the wire noose around Gary’s neck. It penetrated through
the voice box almost instantly, severed a couple major arteries,
and sent the large statue of a man tumbling towards the
ground.

With catlike reflexes, Zelven squatted
down and slowed the man’s fall, permitting almost no sound to issue
from the hulk’s demise.

Zelven immediately gestured to his
compatriots that the target was on the top floor and that every
floor hereafter had guards.

Zelven took out what looked like a
flimsy rag but that fitted perfectly to the contours of his shoes,
providing him with excellent grip and a very soft step. He led the
way down the hall, and as he neared the end, he pulled out a
reflection-free periscope and sought out his adversary.

Atop the steps slouched a young man,
dozing off with a half-finished bottle of whisky next to him.
Zelven extracted a cigar, put it to his mouth, and blew. What could
have passed for a sewing needle while stationary expanded
substantially at the tip as it sailed through the air, two
razor-sharp wings unfolding, before the missile buried itself in
the drunkard’s throat.

As Zelven approached the fourth floor,
he wasn’t particularly surprised to see several guards through his
periscope.

The closer to the target,
the meaner the obstacles.

He signaled appropriately to his
assistants to inform them of the situation and announce a
countdown.

Five seconds later, in a move that some
observers may have confused with top-level synchronized dancing,
eleven Varco agents rolled across the ground in unison. Perhaps an
artistically minded bystander would have expected the man in the
center to stand up, send a ripple through his body in pantomime
fashion, and then be joined by his cohorts in a well-rehearsed
display of spins and acrobatics. But any such expectations were
dashed when the men, crouched low to the ground, fired darts in
unison at their preselected targets with a lethality that mimicked
dance only by its impeccable timing and accuracy.

Each guard got a dart in the throat and
at least one other vital area, but in spite of this synchronized
kill there was no way to avoid the sound of several large men
crashing to the ground.

Yet, no sooner had the Varco fired
their darts than they sprinted up the stairs to where Zelven, after
a quick peek through his periscope, led them onward.

Coming down from the fifth floor was a
skinny runt to check on the noise he thought he had heard. A dart
through the throat prevented a scream, and Zelven caught his body
as it stumbled towards him.

Zelven hopped up the next several steps
like a rabbit, and just as he was putting his periscope to the
corner, it got knocked out of his hands by a vicious kick. It went
rattling against the ground and made more noise than any of the
late guards combined had been able to.

Zelven grabbed the man’s foot before he
could retract it and sliced the tendon behind the heel. Zelven
immediately regretted it, as the man let out a howl of pain that
made the recent racket with the periscope sound like a feather
landing on silk.

Zelven quickly threw his knife into the
man’s throat, but just barely missed the voice box. He was gurgling
blood but managed to let out a couple more howls before falling
into shock.

There was no need for Zelven to give
any instructions to his agents this time. This scenario was dealt
with exhaustively in Varco training. Any time a stealth mission
with a known target lost its element of surprise, there were only
two options—abort or race ahead every man for himself.

Zelven decided for them when he moved
ahead. As soon as he reached the fifth floor, a bat came hurtling
towards his face. He wasn’t sure what tipped him off—a sudden
blurry movement or perhaps the breeze from the swing—but some
instinct took over, and he let his body drop to the ground
immediately.

The bat missed his head by two inches
as he plummeted to the ground. A brute of a man stood before him
and raised the bat with a grin on his face that suggested he was
already visualizing the geyser-like eruption of Zelven’s
brains.

Zelven smacked his feet together hard,
causing a knife blade to come out the tip of each shoe. He arched
backwards and sent his right foot directly into the man’s
groin.

He yelled like an enraged bear, but, to
Zelven’s dismay, he appeared not to be dissuaded by this injury
from continuing with his geyser show.

As the bat prepared its descent, Zelven
saw the tell-tale redness around the man’s nose that bespoke
frequent Smokeless Green usage, and he had no doubt the man had had
a grown-up’s dose sometime recently.

Zelven rolled to the side a half blink
before the bat buried itself into the floorboards, sending
splinters flying.

Zelven stood to kick the man in the
throat, but—almost to his disappointment—saw his agents finish the
man off with a quick series of slashes that made the most seasoned
butcher appear slow and sloppy.

“SHUT THE HELL UP DOWN THERE, MOOSE!!
THAT’S THE SECOND TIME YOU’VE GOTTEN HIGH TONIGHT!”

Zelven wasn’t sure if it was a ruse,
but his spirits leaped at the prospect of paying a surprise visit
to his target after all.

He quickly motioned to his men that
they were back in stealth mode and to follow his lead.

Zelven was surprised when the peek
through his periscope on the sixth floor revealed no one. With
quick motions, he communicated to kill only when necessary, as he
wished to speak to whomever they could restrain.

Zelven turned left, five men following
quickly behind him, and the other five veering off towards the
right.

He had only taken a few steps when he
heard laughter.

“You really shut Moose up, now didn’t
ya, hahahaha?!!”

“If Moose was any dumber, I’d cut his
head off and attach it to a club. It would be more
useful.”

Someone howled at that response, and
the unmistakable sound of a glass being filled with liquid emanated
from the room. A couple more steps, and the tell-tale smell of
alcohol permeated Zelven’s nostrils, letting him know he was going
to be crashing one hell of a party.

“HEY! Go check that there telescope,
now won’t ya? I like to know about myyy . . . competition,” a man
said, appearing to have struggled to put together the
sentence.

“He’s gone, I told ya!”

A loud sound like a slap across the
face echoed, followed by, “HEY! Who’s the boss here,
anyway?”

A sigh was emitted, and the sound of
more liquid being poured sounded somewhat like a bubbling
brook.

“He’s
gone
, Lefty! Sheeesh!”

“What did I tell ya? Did it work, or
din’t it? You ain’t always got to use violence to win the
game!”

“I know, Lefty. It’s like you said. If
there ain’t no fish in the pond, ain’t no one gonna stick around
too long.”

“Yep,” came the reply with the
satisfaction of a teacher whose dumbest student has finally grasped
a basic concept.

Zelven could tell based upon the voices
roughly where each man was situated, but he was suspicious about
there being only two voices. He quickly signaled for the other team
of Varco agents to kill everyone they came across. He had already
decided which one man would survive in this room.

He motioned to his nearby Varco agents
which man was to be spared, and on the count of three they burst
into the room.

Zelven sent a small throwing knife
spinning through the air and buried it cleanly in Lefty’s neck as
he downed the last glass of hard liquor he would ever enjoy on this
side of eternity.