65. Government Guy
Government Guy
The pounding between my temples intensifies.
“Sir?”
I drop my hands from my head and stare at the lackey sitting across the conference table. “What?”
“The feed, they’re ready.”
“Fine. Play it.”
He goes to work on his laptop, and I get up and go to the liquor cabinet along the back wall.
One call. I missed one fucking phone call. And what should’ve been a simple surveillance assignment turned into a massacre.
I uncap the bottle of whiskey and, not seeing a proper fucking glass, I pour two fingers into a coffee mug.
I’d been on the toilet, fighting for my life against food poisoning, missed one fucking phone call, and then the watcher called Johnson.
I set the bottle on the table. “How did Johnson even get on the fucking call list?”
The lackey looks at me. At the empty room. Then back to me. “Uh, I’m not sure. Sir.”
I grit my teeth.
I know he doesn’t know.
That was a rhetorical fucking question.
Fucking fuck. I’m surrounded by fucking idiots.
Lifting the mug, I knock back half the whiskey.
Breakfast of winners.
The large TV screen on the wall comes to life with a video streaming from someone’s eyeglasses.
I lift the mug and swallow the rest.
The view is of a quaint downtown street, lined with colorful old houses that have mostly been turned into businesses.
I recognize it from the file currently being compiled on Rune Destin.
A file for a case I’m supposed to be in charge of.
But one call. One motherfucking phone call and it’s all gone to shit.
The man wearing the camera glasses is standing in the center of the road. To his left is a blue house, Rune’s residence. And to the right is a swarm of people bent over what I assume are the dead men.
Straight ahead is a ten-foot-tall white barrier that spreads the width of the road, blocking any potential onlookers. And there will be an identical barrier behind the glasses wearer. But with how commonplace civilian drones are, we need to start employing aerial coverage as well.
“He can hear me?” I ask the lackey.
The view on screen bobs, and a voice sounds through the TV, answering me. “I can hear you, sir.”
“Good,” I grunt. “Go to the bodies.”
Eight dead. That’s all the information I have.
Eight special ops assholes.
Johnson’s own personal squad of killers. Eliminated.
“They’re in two spots.”
I roll my eyes. “Just show me.”
The view wobbles as the man turns toward Rune’s building.
“That’s the girl’s apartment.” A hand lifts to point at a gaping hole in the upper level of the old home. “Below is The Gallery, and that’s where two of the bodies were found.”
“They were killed in the shop?” I step closer to the TV, looking for damage but seeing none to the front of the shop.
“I can’t say for sure what exactly killed them, but it appears as though they were… uh, forced through the floor.”
“Say that again.”
“There are two man-sized holes in the floor of the apartment, over where the bodies were found in the shop. Like they were thrown through the floor.”
I set my mug down and trade it for the whiskey bottle. “So when you said you don’t know what part killed them….”
“The vampire. The layers of the floor. The display below. Whatever the proximate cause of death, the result is a body with no bones left.”
“No bones?”
The angle shifts, like he’s shrugging. “None intact.”
The lackey makes a sound like he’s trying not to gag.
I keep my eyes on the screen but point the bottle at him. “If you puke in my conference room, I’m going to have you transferred.”
“Understood, sir.” His voice is almost steady.
The camera man clears his throat, and I suspect he’s covering a laugh.
Surrounded by idiots and psychos. Perfect.
“We can come back to these two,” I tell the camera man. “Go to the others.”
The view bumps as he turns back to the activity on the sidewalk opposite Rune’s home.
A few people in full hazmat walk past carrying a stack of folded body bags, and something metallic bounces across the pavement with his step.
I narrow my eyes as he approaches the activity. “This the other six?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What happened to them? Every bone broken?”
“Not exactly…” He steps to the body at the end of the row and angles his head down.
“Is that…” My brows lift. “A pair of legs?”
“Yup.” The camera man turns his head, changing the view. “That’s the top half.”
The lackey groans and drops his forehead to the table.
I take the top back off the whiskey bottle. “The other five?”
The camera pans slowly, showing the row of bodies. All sliced in half at the waist.
“What the hell were they cut with?”
“Not a clue. They’re starting to bag ’em up for the lab.” The camera man, who is apparently not grossed out by anything, crouches. “If you look closely, you can see some burn marks.”
The lackey groans again.
I step closer to the screen, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.
It’s a smooth cut. Nothing serrated. Not a chainsaw.
I lift the bottle to my lips.
It looks like something a sword would do.
A very sharp blade, wielded by a very strong man.
I swallow a mouthful of whiskey.
The charred bits of flesh are curious. Whatever it was wasn’t hot enough to solder the wounds. There’s too much gore pooled on the sidewalk for that to be true. But whatever the weapon was, it was hot enough to leave burn marks. Even though it had to have been traveling at a very high speed.
The camera man stands. “There’s not much more—” His head turns back toward Rune’s house, where someone is standing with their hand in the air. “Hold that thought. They found something.”
He strides in that direction, getting across the street the same time as several other people.
Everyone leans in.
Camera man crouches.
“What am I looking at?”
The screen zooms in.
I glance over at the lackey.
He’s sitting up, one hand over his eyes, fingers spread so he can only see through a sliver, while his other hand does something on the keyboard.
The image sharpens.
And I grimace. “It’s a pair of hands.”
“You sure?” Camera man finally has a bit of disgust in his voice.
“Unless this guy had fingernails growin’ somewhere else.”
The lackey taps some buttons, the view zooms out, and he lays his head back on the table.
“Which guy is missing their hands?”
Camera man turns to the row of bodies, showing a pair in lab gear walking down the row, presumably checking the corpses for hands.
The pair reaches the end and shakes their heads.
Camera man turns to The Gallery, where a different agent is stepping out of the front door.
He also shakes his head.
I blink at the screen. “Who’s fucking hands are those?”
“Uh…” Camera man turns back and forth, but everyone is just looking at each other.
“That him?” A cigarette-scratched voice booms from the speakers.
Johnson steps in front of my camera man, hand raised as he points at the glasses, saying my name.
Virginia, DC, New York. No matter where he was coming from, he shouldn’t have been close enough to be there. This altercation happened an hour ago. Max. His appearance, and the presence of a full field team, confirms that Johnson was already close. That this hit was planned.
I think back to the missed phone call, wondering if it’s possible that Johnson is responsible for my food poisoning.
I grit my teeth at the sight of the ugly bastard. Of course it’s possible. “Confirm it’s me.”
The camera man nods. And Johnson, being the destructive buffalo that he is, reaches up and pulls the glasses off.
The view spins, then stills as the glasses settle on a new face.
I might have to talk to Johnson, but at least I won’t have to look at him.
“Were those dead boys armed with prototypes?” I start before he can.
The view vibrates with his words. “Of course not.”
“There’s nothing missing from tech?”
“The fuck are you talking about? I didn’t have them steal any gear.” Johnson snaps.
“Clearly!” I drop any pretense of calm. “Where have you fucking been? You can’t shoot vampires, Johnson.” I enunciate his name.
“Shooting was a last resort. They were—”
“Look down.”
“The objective was to bring the unsub in—”
“Look. Down.” I raise my voice.
Johnson curses at me but lowers his gaze to the surface of the road.
To the dozens and dozens of empty casings and flattened bullets.
“Looks to me like they started with your last resort.”
Johnson lifts his gaze. “The vampire had the option to go with them willingly.”
I scoff, catching sight of a torso being zipped up in a body bag. “You’re not gonna get him to just surrender.”
“You know who we’re dealing with, don’t you?” Johnson whispers so the people around him don’t hear.
Rumors.
Campfire stores.
Tales of blood and vengeance.
“I don’t know shit.” The bottle doesn’t tremble as much as I expect it to when I lift it to my lips and take a pull.
“Bullshit. You know something.”
“I know that we don’t have any photos. No eye witnesses.
Nothing but a bunch of pieces of men. Body parts because you wanted to be the one to snatch an unknown Alt.
” Disgust and anger and terror mix with the alcohol in my stomach.
“You wanted this case so bad, it’s yours.
” I hold up my middle finger, even though he can’t see it. “Good luck in your Trial.”
The view shakes with Johnson’s rage. “You fuckin—”
The screen goes black.
I glance over to see my new favorite lackey shutting the lid of his laptop.
I pass him the bottle.