The Minus Faction, Episode One: Breakout (12 page)

He felt the package. It was hard. There was something thin and metal inside, probably a portable electronic device. And there was something else, another bundle. Papers maybe. Unlikely to be dangerous.

Still . . .

Fuck it. Regent tore open the top and pulled out a tablet PC. He turned it over. No markings. Looked new. He tossed it on the purple-and-orange comforter and looked into the envelope.

It was full of cash. Lots of cash. A bribe? Or a helping hand?

The tablet's screen lit up from the bed. A voice came through the speakers.

"
H
e
L
L
o
,
C
a
P
T
a
i
N." It was deep. Garbled. A roller coaster of tones.

Vocal scrambler,
John thought. Could be anyone. Anyone at all.

"
m
y
n
A
M
e
I
s
P
R
o
p
H
e
T
."

There was no way to tell the age of the speaker, or even if it was a man or a woman. Regent squinted at the machine, but he didn't speak. There was no reason to. Asking questions only revealed what he didn't know.

After several moments of silence, the tablet went dark. When it was clear John wasn't in a talking mood, the screen lit up again. Images appeared: stills from newspapers of people John didn't recognize, an internet warning from a hacker group, a seven-foot woman, footage of the Asian nuclear disaster, the flash of a countdown—forty-nine days and change. The seconds ticked away.

23 . . .

22 . . .

21 . . .

20 . . .

And then the symbol. The one on the tech in Siberia. The one Ayn had asked about. Three circles connected in the center by three lines. Someone had spray-painted it on a brick wall in a dirty part of the world. The red had run in dribbles at the edges, like blood from a sharp cut.

John stared at it. No one had any clue what it meant, at least no one he could find. Two obscure internet forums mentioned it. Both threads were later erased. Whatever it meant, clearly someone didn't want a discussion.

After a moment, the screen changed again. It was a video from the local network news affiliate. An attractive bleached-blonde told her audience about Alvin Millard, the brave army sergeant who woke up from a coma and saved a baby from a gang of drug dealers.

Regent scowled. Whatever.

The voice came through the speakers again. "
Y
O
u
H
a
v
E
a
N
e
x
C
E
p
T
i
O
N
a
l
T
a
l
E
N
t
."

The screen flickered and John saw credit card receipts, then recorded eyewitness tips, then doctored security footage of him in a supermarket, some place he'd never been, rolling down the cereal aisle in his electric chair.

"
w
E
m
a
N
a
G
E
d
T
o
g
E
T
T
h
e
M
O
F
f
y
o
U
r
T
R
a
i
l.
F
o
R
n
O
W."

That's why they hadn't burst through the door yet. They were busy chasing a ghost. That was big. Huge. That meant he had more time than he thought. Twenty-four, maybe thirty-six hours, if he was careful. More time meant more options. Maybe he could keep his promise to the doc after all. But he was too tired to think.

Regent took a long, slow, deep breath. Up first, a solid two hours of sleep. He looked at his shaking hands.

The scrambled voice filled the quiet, musty motel room. "W
E
'd
L
I
k
e
t
O
M
a
k
E
Y
o
U
a
P
r
O
p
o
S
a
l."

Who's we,
John thought. He didn't ask. He waited a moment. "I'm listening."

"
H
O
W
w
O
U
L
d
y
O
u
L
I
k
E
T
o
W
a
L
k
A
G
A
i
N?"

[
end
]

The Sooperseekrit

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And now, the sneak preview of
Episode Two: Crossfire
!

Preview Episode 2: Crossfire

T Minus: 038 Days 18 Hours 24 Minutes 51 Seconds

The Disemboweler stroked the child's head and smiled from under his severed mask. He had cut it in an arc under the cheeks to reveal his mouth and the tip of his nose. It obscured everything else but his eyes, which were black and soulless. Like a shark's.

The mask was reptilian—once a crocodile or snake—but its painted green scales were dirty and scuffed at the ridges. Like its owner, it was disfigured beyond recognition. It was a horror strapped to the man's head by a cracked and frayed leather belt.

"There, there," he told the little girl.

Her white eyes shone up at him. Her skin was jet black. She clutched a striped short-haired cat.

"See? No need to be scared." The big man squatted next to the pigtailed child. He held her arm with one hand and took the cat with the other. He lifted it and the two beasts stared at each other. "What's his name?"

The girl didn't answer. She was terrified, as were all the residents of Figtree Cove. They stared in silence from under the bagassa trees or fanned themselves under the equatorial sun. Only the insects chattered. Boraro the Disemboweler had earned his epithet thrice-over—at least—and no one dared challenge him, not even to spare an innocent.

Boraro, still squatting, stroked the cat and addressed the dozen or so members of his audience. "We are looking for Xana Jace."

Everyone knew "we" meant Mama Enecio, almost certainly watching from behind the tinted glass of the Mercedes idling on the dirt road. Mama was a big woman and kept to air conditioning. Three more of her men stood around the car. They held machetes and stakes.

No one spoke.

Boraro smiled again at the child. His dark eyes danced under the mask as he stroked her best friend. "Do you know Xana?"

The child nodded.

"Do you know where she is?"

The girl shook her head. She stared at her purring pet and looked as though she were about to cry.

Boraro scowled. He disliked children. They were loud and unreasonable. Only good for one thing. And it wasn't time for that.

Yet.

He waved his hand for her to leave and she ran across the dirt and grass to her mother, who waited in front of their dilapidated shack. Of the seven so-called houses that rimmed the cove, two were leaning so heavily as to be uninhabitable. The water behind them filled a deep depression in the ground, runoff gathered from a tributary of the Demerara River. Figtree Cove was nearly dry for three months of the year, a muddy depression that fed flies and mosquitoes. The rest of the time it served as bath, fishing hole, and irrigation well for the tiny community.

Boraro stood tall in the sun still holding the lazy feline. The man's dry, scaly brown skin was covered in fine black hairs. He wore a plain t-shirt and work pants. His long legs ended in mud-caked boots. His heavy arms sprouted from his shoulders and bulged like twisted-steel cables. His hands made fists like club heads.

"I have a message. I want you to give it to the freak Xana." He rubbed his fingers back and forth over the cat's ears. The animal closed its eyes. "Tell her I will face her tomorrow under the noon sun. One on one. In the junkyard by the Dutch market. Tell her, if she does not come . . ." He swept his hand across the scene. "We will burn every one of these houses to the ground."

The crowd stayed silent.

"Tell her she cannot run. Tell her." The Disemboweler grabbed the cat's head and twisted. The animal squealed and went silent. The crowd gasped. The little girl hid her face in her mother's faded dress. The woman put a hand on her daughter but said nothing.

Boraro ripped the cat's skull from its body. Strips of torn skin stretched like taffy. He tipped the head over his open mouth as if drinking from a coconut. He swallowed blood. A dribble ran down his throat. He tossed the head to the dust and yanked the cat's fur to reveal its muscle-covered ribcage. Boraro cracked it with bulging arms and pulled out the animal's heart. It looked like a juicy plum in his fat fingers. He tossed the carcass to the ground and took a bite from the organ. Red liquid squirted and drained over his fingers like juice. Many in the crowd turned away.

The masked man chewed. His reptilian cowl moved up and down with each clench of his jaw. Then he motioned his men forward. They walked toward the closest shack and everyone saw. Those weren't stakes in their hands. They were torches.

"No!" A skinny, shirtless man stepped forward.

One of Mama Enecio's thugs knocked him down and kicked him as another lit a gasoline-soaked torch with his Zippo and tossed it into the closest shack.

The skinny man put his face in the dirt and covered his head to hide the sobs. Everyone else watched as flames rose and surrounded the door frame.

Boraro swallowed the last of the heart and wiped his hands back and forth on his pants. He watched the flames grow. Dry, sun-baked wood crackled and snapped. In moments, the shack was an inferno.

"Noon," the Disemboweler repeated. "Or I will come back hungry." He waved to the little girl. Then he turned with the others, walked to the car, and drove away.