by John Arduini
Episode One
Sickly Are The Saved
And that was how it ended. One distant phone call at the urging of her mother put Sadie forever out of his reach. No more storms of break-up chaos, no more surges of make-up sex, just a click, quiet, and all the free time in the universe.
Caleb felt the breath leave his lungs.
“Why so grim, tough guy?”
Marc spoke in a language all his own. To anyone else the question sounded innocent enough, but Caleb heard what was really said. Don’t you dare bitch out on me, Cal. I’ll cut you open and leave you here.
“No reason,” Caleb replied. “Just a whole lot’a dry dick on the horizon.”
He lit up a cigarette like Sadie had taught him back in high school, with a wooden match burned halfway down so that it singed his fingers before a flick of the wrist put it out. She was all style, that girl.
“She’s a cunt, anyway,” Marc said, which of course meant: Keep it together, man. You know what Volo’s gonna do to us if we fuck this up?
Caleb tossed the blackened match into the tangle of weeds that overran the old Metra railway. They had walked for miles with no sign of anyone, and a late winter’s chill came off Lake Michigan with a merciless bite.
“You think we missed him?” Caleb asked.
Marc just kept right on trudging through the gravel, negotiating the rotten wood planks and scattered rail ties.
Caleb knew that silence. It was the same blind focus, the unwillingness even to consider failure, that kept them alive through the worst of it in Karbala. Caleb wondered if there was a place for that silence back here in the world of details, the world of consequences.
There was a shifting sound in the darkness ahead. Caleb stopped. His hand found it’s way to the grip of his Colt.
Marc took slow, silent steps toward the sound. He drew his beretta without even the slightest noise. Caleb marveled at him. Quiet, confident, unflinching. It was always Marc that led, and Caleb that followed. From grammar school to The Army and now here.
They closed on the source of the sound and discovered a man sprawled across the tracks, wearing a gray suit, white shirt, and black tie. There was a burlap bag over his head and his hands and feet were zip tied to opposing rails. He didn’t scream or moan, just shifted in the gravel, pinned in a stress position. It was like a scene out of some silent western… with an executive damsel.
“Right on schedule,” Marc said.
“What do we know about this guy?”
“As much as we ever know,” Mark said. He leveled his weapon at the damsel.
Caleb flicked his cigarette into the gravel. “Maybe that’s not enough.”
Marc cocked his head and let the point of his nine millimeter drop toward the ground. “Excuse me?”
“Look, I just wonder sometimes. Where do these orders come from?”
Marc holstered his sidearm and turned to face Caleb with a fatherly air of impatience. “They come from Volo.”
“And where does he get ‘em?”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Cal?”
Marc closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “You’re having a crisis of conscience? How many confirmed kills you got?”
Caleb lit up another cigarette. He let his fingertips burn a bit more this time. “Six.”
“Did you ask where the orders came from before you shot up them sand niggers?”
The smoke thickened in Caleb’s lungs as he inhaled. “That was different. There was accountability.”
“Man, sometimes I wonder if we fought the same war.”
Caleb shrugged. It was a gesture that meant: convince me.
Marc ground his teeth. He turned back in the direction of the damsel and dropped to his knees, patting him down. “Tell ya what, Cal. Let’s see who we’re dealing with.”
He produced a black bi-fold wallet from the damsel’s back pocket. “A few hundred cash,” Mark said as he fingered through it. “The ones that dropped him here weren’t interested in a score.”
He slipped an I.D. from the inner sleeve. “Peter Laughlin, Senior V.P. Of R n D at Sans Monaco Incorporated. He’s a suit with a bag on his head. Happy now?”
“No. I’m not. I wanna ask him some questions.”
Marc grimaced. “Fuck that. These are not the kind of people you cross, Cal.” He ripped his beretta from it’s holster with his usual uncanny quiet and jammed it into the damsel’s neck.
Caleb drew his .45 just as quickly and aimed it squarely at the spot between Marc’s shoulder blades. “I’m not the kind of people you cross either.”
Marc paused. He shook his head without turning around. “You gonna shoot me with that antique? You gonna shoot your best friend in the back because some skank put you on ice and you don’t have the sense to stow it?”
There was a long silence. Caleb’s hands shook, numbed by the midwestern cold.
“Did you fuck her?” He asked at last.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Answer the question.”
Marc stood and turned, eyes flitting between Caleb and the Colt in his jittery hands. “You’re not gonna shoot me Cal. I’m gonna kill this fucking suit and then I’m gonna beat your ass for pointing a Goddamn gun at me.”
But Caleb didn’t see the same nonchalant honesty he had come to expect from his old friend. He saw searching eyes. He saw damage control.
Caleb put a slug in Marc’s shoulder. The force of the large caliber bullet threw Marc to the ground and sent his beretta clattering off into the darkness.
Caleb’s hand stung badly from the kick.
“You shouldn’t have slept with her, Marc. You should have turned her down because I’m your friend and some things mean more than a piece of tail.”
Marc howled in agony. “Christ, you asshole! You shot me!”
“And now I’m gonna kill you.”
Marc held up his good hand, fear dancing in his eyes as he frantically waved Caleb off. “W-wait. Wait! You can’t do this! How many times have I saved your ass?”
Caleb leveled his .45 square at Marc’s forehead. “You may have saved my ass, but Sadie saved my life. I wouldn’t expect you to see the difference.”
The second shot caved in most of Marc’s face and left his lifeless body twitching in the gravel.
Caleb holstered his weapon and knelt down to wrestle the bag off of Laughlin’s head. Wide eyes bulged out above a hasty duct tape gag. Caleb ripped it free and Laughlin let out a powerful exhale.
“Are you gonna let me go?”
Caleb stared at him, trying to discern the threat this man could possibly pose to anyone. He produced a Leatherman utility knife from his pocket and cut away the zip ties that pinned Laughlin down. “Why would someone want you dead, Mr. Laughlin?”
“I— I don’t know, I’m just an engineer.”
Caleb scratched his temple. “I want you to run home, Mr. Laughlin. I want you to call the cops and I want you to give them a name. I want you to tell them that Volo is the man who tried to have you killed. Can you do that for me?”
Laughlin nodded frantically.
“Say it,” Caleb said.
“Volo,” Laughlin choked out.
“Run.”
Laughlin leapt to his feet without another word and ran off into the dark.
Caleb stood and watched after him for a moment before turning his gaze to the dead flesh that laid on the tracks. He had always relied on Marc, always looked to him to make the hard decisions, but now Caleb was alone.
Back here in the world of civility, the world of restraint, Caleb readied himself for a new war. His war.
And that was how it started.
