The nine, p.15
The Nine, page 15
Hands raised over his head, Abe cut through to the front of the line, which allowed him to.
They always let Abe through. It never fails.
“I’ll pose for selfies for ten dollars each while the purveyors of this fine attraction, the SkyDrop ThrillThingy, strap me into my harness. Please form an orderly line.”
Hypnotized by Abe’s orating powers, several people crowded around him, holding cash, while the ride runners shrugged and grinned and put Abe into a jump harness.
As the selfies commenced, Tom watched peripherally as one of the Tonys sidled up to him.
“Your boyfriend has a big mouth.” He sounded exactly like a guy from the Tony Mafia would sound, as if he were auditioning to be an extra on The Sopranos.
“We’re not dating,” Tom said. “It’s platonic.”
“Funny guy. You a cop?”
“Yeah.”
“Not from around here. We own all the cops around here.”
“My partner and I are new.”
“So you must know we own this hotel.”
Tom didn’t know that. It made the situation a lot worse.
“You want to cause a scene in your hotel?” Tom tried. “Not good for business.”
“What’s your interest in Abe?”
“Abe who?”
“Abe who owes us money.”
“I’m sure that can be worked out without resorting to violence.”
“How about you show me your badge, Officer?”
Tom thought fast. “I’m undercover.”
“Is that so?”
Tom felt something hard press into his ribs. He glanced down.
A semi-automatic. Standard metal, not 3D printed plastic as Abe had suggested.
I guess metal detectors need not apply when you own the building.
Good plan, Abe.
Fear tickled up Tom’s back like a centipede, making him shiver.
Having a gun pointed at you is always terrifying.
Having a gun shoved into your side is even worse.
Tom couldn’t help but imagine the path the bullet would take based on the angle of the barrel, punching through his ribs and lungs.
The Tony patted Tom down. “No badge. No gun, neither. Maybe you ain’t a cop.”
I’m getting really scared.
That sick, helpless feeling, of being at the mercy of someone without mercy.
Knowing pain is coming.
Knowing death is coming.
Sweat broke out on Tom’s body everywhere at once, and his mouth turned into cotton.
Maybe this is PTSD. Maybe I’m broken.
Broken, failing in life, failing in marriage, worthless, powerless, about to die on top of a giant phallic symbol and unable to do anything about it.
Fighting the encroaching panic, Tom glanced at Roy.
Roy also had a Tony on him, and a gun in his back.
And since everyone was paying attention to Abe, no one noticed.
“Tell your buddy to take off the harness and come over here, or I’ll shoot your spine in half.”
“In front of all these witnesses?” Tom sounded squeaky, like a rusty hinge.
“It’s touching that you’re concerned about me getting into legal difficulties, but you need to be concerned about your spine. Tell him to come here.”
I can’t lose it. Not here. Not now.
Once upon a time, I could cope with extreme stress. I could be brave.
But Tom felt all out of bravery. Like he’d used his full lifetime allotment, plus all of his available credit.
Maybe I can fake it.
“You’re full of shit. Is that who you are? Tony Full of Shit?”
“I’m Tony Paralyze Your Ass On The SkyTower unless you get Abe over here.”
Tom swallowed the dry lump in his throat. “No. There’s no way you can make me or my partner do that. It’ll never happen in a million years.”
“Yo, Abe!” Roy yelled. “Get your ass off that ledge and come over here!”
So much for Cop Rules 101…
What now?
Abe, predictably, ignored Roy.
“I don’t want to sound cliché—” the Tony began.
“Nobody wants that.”
“—but I’m gonna count to three.”
Shit.
Shit shit shit.
“One…”
Will this guy actually risk shooting me in front of all these people?
Everyone is looking at Abe.
And the winds are fierce and loud.
And the Tony Mafia owns the place.
And I’m going to be a father.
“Two…”
I don’t know what to do.
So Tom winged it.
“I’ll get him,” Tom declared, giving Roy a pointed look. “Let’s grab our boy.”
Roy nodded, and they pushed through the crowd toward Abe, each with a Tony right behind.
“So we’re giving up Abe?” Roy leaned in and whispered.
Is that what we’re doing? Handing our friend over to the mob?
“I was hoping you had a plan.”
“That’s your thing. You’re the brains, I’m the eye-candy.”
And then they walked close enough to see over the edge of the SkyTower, and Tom’s breath caught in his throat.
We’re so high up, it’s ridiculous.
A wave of vertigo hit hard, causing Tom to teeter sideways. Looking out into the sun-bright Vegas Strip from that height, Tom swore he could see all the way to the Hoover Dam.
He froze.
How long would it take to hit the ground if I fell? Eight seconds? Ten?
Ten seconds of pants-shitting terror.
I’d probably splat, like a big tomato.
They’d have to bury me in a pizza box. I wouldn’t need pallbearers. Just a delivery guy.
“Tommy? Plan?”
Plan?
Tom only saw one way to survive this. He couldn’t emotionally grasp being murdered, so there was no other alternative.
“We jump on Abe on hold him on the way down.”
“Are you kidding? This isn’t a Lethal Weapon film.”
“On three we rush at Abe and grab him tight.”
“Hell fuck no. I ain’t dying on no damn side quest.”
Tom thought about being shot.
Then he thought about Joan. About their baby.
Then, as quickly as he could speak so he didn’t lose the nerve, he yelled, “One-two-three!”
BERT
The Tumbleweed Motel – New Mexico
Peeking through the threadbare curtains, Bert’s eyes fell upon a woman in her late forties or early fifties, brown hair and eyes, average height with a strong build, wearing jeans and an expensive-looking blazer.
Under her jacket, a shoulder holster.
That should have been a cause for alarm, except she looked familiar.
There’s a picture of this lady in Tom’s office.
Bert, with his perfect photographic memory, recalled a perfect memory of the photograph. Roy and Tom, wearing their police dress blues, at a ceremony where they were presented medals, and this tough-looking woman, dressed to the nines, shaking Tom’s hand with the same intense glare she now wore, minus ten or fifteen years of age lines.
The woman knocked, and Sara raised her gun. Bert went to her, placing his hand on Sara’s wrist.
“It’s okay. She’s one of the good guys.”
Sara hesitated, then returned the pistol to her belt, and Bert opened the door.
“I’m Jack,” the woman said. “A friend of Tom’s. You’re Bert?”
Bert nodded.
Jack’s eyes scanned the room behind him. “And you’re Frank and Sara. And that’s—” Jack squinted. “A toucan on steroids.”
“That’s Stosh,” Bert offered his hand. “Lieutenant Jack Daniels, it’s a pleasure. Tom has told me a lot about you.”
They shook, her grip firm and cool.
“He told me me me about you too.” Frank also shook her hand. “Why didn’t you or Tom call to tell us?”
“My past is… complicated. I haven’t been a cop for years, but the Job doesn’t ever seem to let go. The fewer people that know I’m here, the better.”
“How did you find us?” Sara was next in line for a handshake.
“There’s a guy named Harry. He called me. I don’t live too far away, and owe Tom a favor, so I came by to help.”
“We appreciate it.” And Bert really did appreciate it.
“Your friends have been taken,” Jack told him. “Anyone with means can track a cell phone. If they gave up your number, your phone is compromised. Did you try to call them?”
“A few times. Right to voice mail. I didn’t leave a message.”
“I assume they haven’t called you?”
“No. I’ve been checking constantly.”
“Turn your phone off.”
“What if they try to call?”
Jack appeared to chew on that question. “Keep it off and check your messages once every half an hour. Don’t leave it on any longer than necessary.”
Bert thought about Weejy. “They didn’t give up my number.”
“Everybody breaks, Bert. It’s a matter of when, not if. But even if your friends can keep mum, they could find you other ways. The vehicle you crashed—”
“I burned off the VIN number. The plates are from a junk yard.”
“We we we did the same thing!” Frank grinned. “I also etched off my fingerprints with acid and had four teeth replaced.”
“How clever of you,” Jack deadpanned. Then her eyes shifted to Stosh. “Is that… a dodo bird?”
“Dooooo!” Stosh replied.
Bert nodded. “I cloned him. Did Tom fill you in about the whole clone thing?”
Jack’s face remained expressionless.
“Come in,” Bert told her. “We have a lot to talk about.”
They talked for an hour. Bert, and Frank, and Sara, with Jack asking occasional questions.
Bert found it cathartic to explain secret details of his history, to both Jack and his new friends. He also noted that Jack revealed next to nothing about herself, except for moving to a new house.
“That’s a lot to unpack,” Jack said when the stories were over.
No shit. I thought my story was unbelievable. Sara’s was horror-movie awful, and Frank seemingly stepped out of a Michael Crichton book.
“So what’s the plan?” Frank asked.
Jack gave the smallest of shrugs. “I’m not ex-military, I’m ex-cop. Different methodology. There are others more capable than me at plotting a search and rescue. But the least I know is we wait for the others to show up, reconnoiter, and then infiltrate. I take it from your previous adventures that none of you think it’s wise to involve any kind of authorities?”
“I don’t don’t don’t trust anyone. Present company excepted.”
Bert agreed. “I’m with Frank. As far as we know, the authorities are the ones running Project Esbat.”
Sara frowned. “I’m used to not having any help. Just knowing we’ll have a team on our side is a novelty for me. And it seems like it will be quite a team.”
“Send in the Clones,” Bert mused.
Sara added. “Plus your friend Harry is is is coming?”
“Yeah.” Jack’s turn to frown. “And the ex-military guys, Fabler, Grim, and Presley.”
“Are are are they any good?”
Jack crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. “I don’t know them very well. And I’m guessing they have a backstory as far-out as some of yours. But from everything I’ve observed, Fabler is an extremely competent individual and an expert at what he does.”
FABLER
Somewhere, Somewhen
“You’re losing it, Fabler,” Presley told him.
Fabler’s gun hand shook, and he raised his other hand to steady the tremor, keeping it trained on Presley’s head.
Why am I pointing a weapon at my friend?
“Put it down, Fabler.” Grim’s AR-15 seemed enormous, and Fabler stared into the blackness of the barrel.
Who said that?
What’s with the funky brackets?
WTF is happening?
Fabler heard a noise behind him, and whipped around.
Lori. Riding Sinatra.
How did she get here?
“I’m asleep,” Fabler spoke without opening his mouth. “I’m dreaming.”
Reality-check test. It can’t be real if you can talk with your mouth closed.
I need to wake up.
I don’t know the word inchoate.
“I don’t understand.”
“I need to wake up,” Fabler articulated through tightly sealed lips.
“Do I know you?”
I am thinking about a talking banana.
This has to be a dream. My own mind is controlling this.
Lori began to change, her features melting and morphing into something inhuman. Something demonic.
“You own a giant sloth, you’re on your way to save clones, a banana is speaking to you using diples, and the Devil is standing before you,” Satan told him. “Obviously none of this can be real.”
“Obviously.” Fabler nodded. “I’m dreaming.”
“Doesn’t that mean all of it is a dream? Everything you know? Everything you’ve experienced?”
“How?” Fabler asked.
“Huh?”
“Fabler! Drop the gun!”
Presley seemed upset.
“This is what happens when I go to sleep,” Fabler told her. “Things get all scary and bad.”
He turned the gun away from Presley—
—and placed it in his own mouth.
“I can talk perfectly fine with a gun in my mouth,” Fabler spoke clearly, pleased with himself.
That doesn’t make sense.
“Yeah.”
“Fabler!” Grim yelled. “Put the gun down!”
“Molon labe,” Fabler said into the barrel. The immortal words of Leonidas at the Battle of Thermopylae, when asked to surrender his weapon.
Fabler squeezed the trigger, blowing his mind across the universe, his brain cells dispersing into a hundred billion thoughts.
“Fabler!”
Fabler’s eyes snapped open. Grim, from the passenger seat, stared back at him, his face creased with concern.
“You were having a bad dream, buddy.”
Presley drove. Scenery scrolled past. The stars dotted the night.
“Where are we?”
“New Mexico.” Presley met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “You okay?”
“Fine. How long was I out?”
“A few hours. Feeling better?”
“One hundred percent,” Fabler lied, scratching at the bug bite on his neck.
But he couldn’t find the bite. It had completely healed.
He hunted around the back seat for a bottle of water, and when he was sure his friends weren’t looking he fished a small baggie out of his pocket.
Keep pills in a bag rather than a bottle, because bottles rattle. I brought five with me. That should be enough to get me through the next few days.
Without looking, he placed the bag between his knees and used a shaky hand to break the zip seal.
No more bad dreams for a while.
He tried to dump a single pill onto his palm, but the shakes were so bad they all spilled out, scattering through his fingers and onto the floor of the vehicle.
Shit.
The FDA didn’t approve of the drug. Neither did Grim and Presley.
If I reach for the dropped tablets, they’ll notice, and bust my balls.
But it’s the only thing that stops the nightmares.
I’ll grab them the next time we stop.
Fabler checked his phone, saw a text message from Harry McGlade.
TARGET UNDERGROUND. MAKE A PLAN, MILITARY GUY.
It was followed by some GPS coordinates. Fabler pulled them up on a geographic map app and scanned the terrain.
Middle of goddamn nowhere. They’ll see us coming from kilometers away. Satellites will probably pick us up as soon as we arrive in the nearest town.
That rules out a surprise insertion.
But there are many ways to skin a cat.
The only problem is when the cat fights back.
WEEJY
Area 57 – New Mexico
When the clone of Charles Darwin screamed, Weejy jumped back and raised her fists, expecting Tork to leap at them.
But Tork wasn’t there.
No one was there.
Where are all the guards?
SoJo punched Charles in the shoulder. “Charles, you GD drama queen, you scared the eff out of me.”
“Sorry. I get jumpy sometimes.”
Weejy, still shaking with adrenaline, shot Charles a look. Then she peeked out the elevator doors, breathing in slowly, letting her eyes take it in.
