CHAPTER 1
The next morning, there were two men waiting when I opened. They were clean cut, well-dressed, and didn’t register as a threat.
“Gentlemen,” I nodded.
One replied, “Hello. You are Andre?”
“I am.”
He brought out ID and I choked.
Naumann, Alan D., Marshal, Freehold Military Forces. Image. Code.
I looked up, and he said, “I’m discreetly trying to locate a certain veteran, going by the name of Dan, who was here yesterday.”
I took a deep breath.
“Well, sir,” I said, “with respect to you, that’s not something I’m at liberty to discuss.”
I waited for a nuke.
Instead, he said, “Fair enough. May we purchase food, and wait?”
“By all means,” I said, completely blindsided.
Okay, so the number one man in our military, who was responsible for us surviving and winning the war, wanted to talk to a friend of mine, who apparently was the reason half of Earth blew up, who had then disappeared for a decade. For some reason, I didn’t want to be in the middle of this meeting.
Naumann and the man I presumed was his bodyguard sat down in a booth where they could see the door but not be seen easily, selected easy-to-prepare stuff—a grilled salami sandwich and an anchovy focaccia—and sat. They ate slowly and seemed completely at ease.
They talked little. They were there when the lunch crowd started filling the place, and requested juice shakes after a while.
I clicked my phone on, and I know they saw me do it, but they didn’t seem disposed to any kind of action. Dan answered on the second buzz.
“Dan’s Machine and Tool.”
“This is Andre. There’s someone waiting here to meet you.”
“. . . yes?”
“The Marshal.”
I heard him sigh, before he said, “Thanks.” He disconnected before I could say anything.
I was pretty sure he didn’t want to make this meeting.
***
I really didn’t want to make that meeting.
It had been a decade since I came home, as much home as any place could be, and I wanted nothing to do with the military at all. Especially not with that rat-faced dogfucker who’d used me as a lead pipe.
But, my good deed of yesterday, if it could be called that, had left three dumb bastards dead, and my cover fragmented into orbit.
It was my fault. If Chelsea hadn’t been there, I’d probably have sat back and ignored it. Andre has insurance, and it’s not as if they’d have made it far anyway. But when that gun swept my daughter, I went into combat mode.
Still, there wasn’t much else to do, except go face Naumann and tell him what I thought. It’s not as if he could actually do anything to me.
I’d be damned if I was going to dress up, though. I did the courtesy of washing the assorted coolant, solvent and grease off my hands, and headed across the street in work pants and a shirt. I did check my gun first. Not that I thought it would do me any good.
Traffic control in this area is supposed to be managed by the city’s system. They’ve set it to stop-and-go traffic, to improve stop-by business, so the theory goes. No one really wants to stop in an industrial area near the port, unless they already have business. But it meant I was across the street fast, just under some clown who decided to go airborne in lieu of waiting for a signal.
I hadn’t formulated any kind of response before I was walking into Andre’s place. The usual lunch crowd was there. A couple of them nodded to me, and I nodded back, perfectly relaxed on the outside. Acting is part of my job. Was.
I stepped over and slid into the booth. Yes, it was Naumann. A little older, but remarkably well kept. Killing billions of people didn’t really bother someone like him.
“You wanted to see me,” I said.
“I’d prefer to discuss business in private.”
Well, that was direct.
“Follow me,” I said.
I stood, faced them and started talking about nothing. I turned, indicated the door, and walked ahead. Outside, we spread slightly, and they followed me across traffic. I glanced about for any obvious tails, and noticed they did the same.
Then I gritted my teeth. It was frightening how automatic that training was. I kept situational awareness for myself, certainly, but here I was falling back into team mentality, for someone I despised beyond loathing.
The door recognized me and opened, and the sign blinked from “LUNCH” to “OPERATING.” I left it like that, not that I expected a lot of traffic on a Berday afternoon.
I knew the bastard wanted something military. If he wanted my remaining contract time he could get pronged. I didn’t think he’d make a public issue of it, for security reasons. If he wanted debriefed, I’d done that via post, and had nothing more to add. Whatever he was here for, I wanted to get it over with. That part of my life wasn’t one I cared for.
His guard was just far enough back to give an indication of téte a téte, but with a hint of thug if anything happened. Not that I planned on anything, but I assessed him. He was like me a decade ago. I could probably take him if I had to, but I couldn’t take both. Unless I was suicidal.
He probably shouldn’t test that, so I confirmed mentally that this was a peaceful meeting, and leaned against a stock rack.
“So what do you want, Naumann?” I deliberately didn’t use his rank.
He looked a little dazed as he spoke.
“I need you to track down Kimbo Randall, your man from the Earth mission.”
Uh? “He’s dead. They all died.”
He shook his head. “No, he’s alive. So are twenty-two others.”
For some reason I didn’t find that to be good news.
“How?”
“The same way you did, only most of them IDed themselves when they came back.”
Damn. I felt . . . mixed. Twenty-three alive. But one hundred seventy-six dead. Our system saved with only a few million casualties. Earth destroyed as a power with six billion dead. All the anguish and soul searching came back and I had to fight it. I’d done it. My plan, my orders, my implementation. I’d killed more people than any monster in history.
The HQ got attacked while I was out doing recon, though . . . or at least I call it recon. I was out going insane and trying to force myself to come to terms with it, when the UN forces attacked and killed my element . . .
I said, “I saw corpses come out, but didn’t know which were which.”
He nodded. “Randall survived. So did others. Most of them retired quietly when offered the choice. A couple served out their terms. Randall reported in, debriefed, took his back pay and disappeared.”
He looked uncomfortable as he continued, “He’s been conducting assassinations. We only knew it was one of ours, not who, until we got a tiny scrape of DNA. I should say we stole it. Novaja Rossia doesn’t know.”
“He’s been killing people for ten years?”
“About eight, and he’s picked up the pace. About one a month. You trained him, you can stop him. I don’t know that anyone else can.”
I didn’t want to have this conversation.
“I trained him to wipe out cities. Assassination is your problem.”
“I need you,” he said. He wasn’t pleading, he was stating a fact.
“To fix another mess for you.”
He shrugged. “If you want to look at it that way, I don’t mind.”
I remembered this. He was the fucking sociopath. He could blithely demand a city be wiped out and not be bothered by it. He manipulated people, used people, and he got away with it because he used them effectively and sparingly. Completely, coldheartedly logical, without any compassion in him. He rewarded people not because he cared, but because it created the mindset he wanted in them.
I’d mulled all this over years before. Why me?
Because I’m a nice guy. I don’t even step on spiders. He groomed me and polished me to be his tool. You don’t send a sociopath to kill, because he will enjoy it. You don’t send one to infiltrate, because you won’t have any hold over him if he goes native, and he just might, if he thinks he can get ahead better. Earth had the oldest, most corrupt government in humanity. A sociopath could have gotten along with bribes and threats, and might either have not followed through, or followed through too gleefully and blown it all.
So he sent a nice guy, knowing and accepting it would ruin me when I finally stopped thinking about it as a project and considered the human beings behind it.
That, and he knew I’d have that focus, because I have narcissistic tendencies. I like being that good, and I don’t really think about other people. I took pity on them, because I thought I was better. Hell, I am better, but why does that matter? It’s entirely subjective.
At least, I had been narcissistic. I thought about them a lot more now I had to interact with them, and I always cared, when I bothered to think.
I can think of better strategies than what we used. They might have involved more casualties for us. They would definitely have meant fewer casualties for Earth.
But he wanted casualties. He and I had tried that on Mtali and I hated myself, and then I’d fallen right back into the same self-absorption and done it a second time.
This dogfucker could scale up mentally and emotionlessly to an entire fucking planet. He wanted them all to hate us, and fear us, and he’d gotten that. I despised him for that, and I hated myself for falling for it.
It took me a second to remember all that and burn over it again, then I said, “Why me?”
“Because you’re the best we’ve got. Hell, we’ve been looking for a decade and didn’t find you, right here in the Capital. You stayed hid, calm, solid.”
“So? There are others who can do that.”
I was forcing him to be honest and open, and he hated it.
“You, because, it’s got to be utterly silent. He certainly has friends back here, so anything we plan will be compromised. You can do it with cash and never be seen. No one knows you exist.”
“You really know how to fuck a guy.” Once again, I was the only tool who could do the job, and it was my duty, etc.
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need it. He killed one tracker already.”
“Really. Anyone I know? Anyone I should care about?”
This wasn’t going how he wanted it to. I’d changed, and he had no hold on me anymore. He actually said, “Please—”
I cut him off. “Resources?”
“Cash. The rest I don’t want to know about.”
I leaned back and casually said, “So, I can nuke a city to get him?
“You know better than that.” He actually grinned. I was so furious I wanted to kill him right there.
“You better spell it out.”
“Yes, I want you to kill him. Be certain he’s dead. Minimize casualties.”
“Not bring him in alive?”
“Do you think you can?”
“Not if he doesn’t want to, no.”
“We can’t trust his word, he has to be an object lesson.”
“Yeah, you’re fond of those. Have you noticed yet that they’re not working? Not Mtali. Earth just hates us and is still arguing to incorporate us. Think this’ll stop anyone who really wants to freelance?”
My voice was getting loud.
There wasn’t much he could say, so he didn’t. He was right this time, though. I hoped.
I asked, “No support at all?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I need Special Projects support—ID, devices, et cetera.”
“I can’t spare a team. It would be too obvious to pull one.”
I shook my head. “I want one person only. Preferably female so we look like a nondescript couple.” Why did that disturb me? “Must be good at ID, weapons, electronics. Very good. If I’m doing this alone, I’ll need lots of gear fast.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“I haven’t agreed to do it yet.” It made sense. But he was involved. That made me leery.
“We need you. This guy has killed thirty-seven people on a bunch of planets, and sooner or later his background will come out. That risks our other troops.”
Yeah, that was the assessment I had. Eventually, we’d all get slimed.
“You knew that would get me. Asshole.”
“Yes, I am. But I need it done and you’re the only one who can handle it.”
My tactical brain already knew how to run it. I wanted to make him reconsider, though. Both agenda overlapped.
“I want five mil in cash up front.”
“Done,” he said with a nod.
Asshole. So I ended the interview.
“Then get out of here and don’t come back.”
He placed a card down on my desk, turned and left. He was really serious about needing me.
As he reached the door, I called, “Naumann.”
He turned.
I knew the answer, but I had to ask. “Did Deni . . . ?”
He did sound gentle when he said, “I’m very sorry. No, she did not survive the attack on your safehouse.”
I’d known that was the case, but I still winced. I wondered how long he’d practiced for that, too.
“I’ll have her personal effects delivered.”
He gave me a moment to refuse, and I didn’t. He turned and left.
In the decade since the War, I’d tried hard not to think about it. Now it all came back in a cascading storm of emotion and pain.
Most of my friends were dead. Lots of innocent Earthies were dead. So were a few guilty ones. I’d watched entire cities burn, first from my instigation, then from the frightened animal instincts of the residents. They lost power, communication, supply, the things that kept industrial creatures human. Then they beat, raped, burned, killed, trashed their own cities.
When I was young, I could convince myself I was “better.” But that all depends on context. I was faster, stronger, much better at problem solving, but when it comes down to it, my contribution to my species is my daughter. My contribution to my society is its continued existence, and a good many millions of other troops and civilians did as much, in their own way.
I’d reread my journal once. I noticed it had little mention of other troops. Part of that was because I didn’t want to dwell on dead friends, but part was also because I was an asocial little fuck. Then I’d been forced to watch the repercussions of my actions, and realized I deserved to die. Even if the attack was justified, and I could argue that both ways, for me to survive wasn’t moral. I was too dangerous to be allowed to live, and the burning hatred I feel when I remember is more than anyone should stand. If I’d been tried as a war criminal, I’d have demanded they kill me, to be merciful.
I don’t want to remember any of it, but I don’t have a choice. Even if I didn’t have a near eidetic memory, it was the kind of thing one never forgets.
The reason I was alive? My daughter. An accident borne and born of a huge error on my part. I was still alive because she was innocent and needed the best protection possible. As she got older, the old self-hatred got to me more and more.
That’s why I’d changed my name, I realized. Ken Chinran never came back from Earth. He died with the rest.
Now he had to be reborn.
Perhaps he could end with an honorable death.