Saul of Sodom: The Last Prophet (26 page)

  
“Fatigue … She is prone to illness.  She needs her medicine.”

 
 He had been trying to wean her off over the last month, but it appeared she
was more vulnerable than he had first thought.  He was anxious to get her home.

 
 They descended from the highlands and were soon back on the main route to the
inner metropolis and re-entering the checkpoint tunnels.  Three green flashes
and the automatic voice came over the intercom:

  
“A
ttention:  Please proceed to
…”

  
“Ah, bugger off!” Duke slammed his fist on the speaker.  “Here we go again,” he
grunted.

  
The truck veered left down into the security deviation and they were back at
the security gates.  The guard lights flashed again and they stopped before the
red-light gates.  Duke was about to unbuckle his seat belt…

  
“Wait here,” said Saul.  “I will go.”

 
 He thrust the door open and shut.

  
“This vehicle checked out less than two hours ago,” said one of the awaiting SGs.

  
“Short commute,” he said, striking the switch on the side of the truck.

 
 The SGs climbed onto the carriage as the shutter was still rising, torchlights
on. 

  
He crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the edge of the truck rear,
making his best efforts to seem casual.  His eyes dawdled from corner to
corner.  Rush hour was in full swing and the traffic was mounting at the
checkpoints.  Two juggernaut transporters carrying a fresh consignment in from
some neighbouring metropolis rolled into the gates on either side.  SG teams
got to work straightway scanning martial IDs.  Each gate got through a vehicle
a minute and the clamour resonated throughout the cavernous space, setting him
on edge.  He lit a cigarette. 

  
Five minutes passed.  What was taking so long?

  
He inched his line of sight over the corner of the open rear, peering over his
shoulder back into the carriage.  When the torch lights passed over the
mannequins, it elicited the same interest as before, but it quickly subsided,
much to his relief.  Then, one of the SGs suddenly stopped.  The circle of
torchlight was over the heavy crates at the far back. 

  
“What’s in the boxes?” he heard one voice speak

  
“Looks like more of the same,” replied the other.

  
“Get them open.”

  
He could just about see them, deep inside the hold, inches away from where the
prostate mannequins were stacked on top of each other, partially concealed by
bedding.  The SGs were conversing, but the interfering noise made it impossible
to hear.  Then his pulse soared when a trailing step brushed against the
bedding draped over the mannequin torsos.  The container shutter clanked open
and kicked up a smog.  Their lights flashed over the inside of the boxes.

  
“Looks clean…”

  
The torch lights went out and his racing heart yielded when the SGs turned to
make their way back out.  Then, just as he was about to breathe a final sigh of
relief…

  
“…Wait.”

  
One of the SGs halted just before the lip of the deck. 

  
“What is it?”

  
“You hear that?”

  
“Hear what?”

  
That’s what he wanted to know.  He shut his eyes and listened closely, and a
few seconds later … he heard it.  The fateful sound was just loud enough to
creep through the clamour.  His eyes flared wide.

  
Coughs – constant and irrepressible coughs. 

  
“Get back here.”

  
When he heard the order, he turned at once and looked back into the carriage
and the lights flashing about the back of the cargo hold. 

  
Naomi!

  
“Wait right there,” said one of the Guards.

  
The one who gave the order immediately started shifting through the cargo
whilst the other hung back with his back turned, gun ready.

 
 It was all happening fast.  Too fast.  One mannequin hurled across the
carriage and then another and another, leaving no time to deliberate. His
judgments swirled in a maelstrom of panic and instinct took over.  He noted the
line of sight of the surveillance cameras and glanced down both sides of the
truck.  A current pumped into his limbs and all the emotion allayed to a
deathly calm

 
 He quietly lifted himself onto the deck.  The blade slipped out of his coat
and he snaked forward, body low.

 
 When the first Guard was roused by a presence, he turned and looked up just in
time to see the blade shimmer.  A short, sharp convulsing noise came out from
the amp the instant before the blade ripped through his gear.  The blood poured
from the vents in the mask, blade hilt-deep in the throat, he pulled the Guard
toward him in a death embrace, wrapped his other arm around the back of the
head and pulled back with such force that the whole body followed the skull in
a snapping twist and the first body fell, dead and silent.

  
In the midst of the surrounding clamor, the second Guard had no idea what had
befallen his comrade until he pulled the bed sheet off the stack of mannequins,
and one of the little pale figures was lying on its back, staring right back up
at him – alive.

  
“It’s a girl,” the SG gasped and turned.  “It’s a…”

  
Before he could reach for his gun, he was flattened against the walls of the
cargo hold: lungs locked, the shaft of the blade clean through his spine, and
out the back of the neck.  His body went limp, his hands drooped off the arms of
his killer and what little light there was a second ago disappeared forever.

  
Saul looked down, and Naomi’s eyes gaped back at him in the light of the fallen
torch. 

  
“Look away!” he growled. 

  
She buried her head in the bedding just as the blade pulled out and the blood
sprayed all over him and the carriage floor, seeping through the bedding in
thick blotches.  The corpse fell almost automatically in his arms and he
dragged the body behind the stacks of cargo at once and laid it down.  He
dragged the second body out of sight before anyone on the outside could see.  He
stood, panting in shock as the rush after the kill came back in a flood.

 
 When the brief aftermath passed, his attention shifted immediately.  He rushed
over to the shaking mound underneath the bedding.  His bloody hands shook over
her.  He could feel her quivering beneath the sheets and when the blood dripped
from his hands onto her, he withdrew.  He heard her whimper and shake.  The
blood seeped through the covers.

  
He stood and regarded his hands and his coat, drenched in blood.  The stream of
thought that followed came in a sequence of chilling intuition:  He removed the
coat and wiped his bloody hands off.  He opened a jug of spirit and poured it
out on his hands, splashed it on his face until the jug was emptied, then threw
the coat in a bundle in the corner.  He checked one of the corpses, remembering
the exact location of the activator for the security gate above the left chest
plate of the gear, pressed it.

 
 There were two rapid beeps and the lights over the gate outside went green. 

  
He climbed down from the carriage deck, punched the shutter switch, and as the
shutter was still lowering, he ran the scanner over the registration plates,
then gripped the edge of the plate and pried it off discretely with a sharp tug
and crack, always looking around to make sure no one was looking.  He held the
plate close and concealed, and hugged the side of the truck until he reached
the passenger door.  He pulled the door open, climbed up and slammed it shut. 

  
“Drive,” he ordered immediately.

   
Duke lurched.

  
“Whaur the ‘ell…”  He glared from the registration plate to the blood stains on
his shirt.  “…Whit – the – fuck happen’…”

  
“Drive – NOW.”

  
Duke slammed the truck in gear and the light over the gate flashed red in the
side mirrors as the truck rolled forward and back onto the motorway to inner Sodom. 

  
Nothing was said for a long while, but Duke would tear his eyes away from the
street intermittently to regard him. 

  
“Why the hell ye got blood on ye?” he growled, glaring at the road ahead.  The
shadows of severity formed over his eyes

  
“There are two bodies in the back of the truck…”

  
Duke’s eyes flared up. 

  
“They were going to find her,” he said.

  
“Deid!”

  
“I had no choice.”

  
“Shite, shite, shite.”  The heavy hands beat at the wheel with each curse. “Shite,
shite!”

  
“No one saw anything…”

  
“There’s two bleedin’ SGs in the back of
my
truck…”

  
“They did not scan the vehicle registration,” he continued to explain as Duke
mumbled to himself, “The plates have been removed so city surveillance cannot
trace you.  Hundreds of trucks like this come and go every day.”

  
Duke’s chest began to heave and fall and the muscles of his boxed jaw bulged
above his gritted teeth.  For a moment he slowed the truck down, as if the
thought of stopping had crossed his mind, but there was nothing he could do
except keep driving on.

  
“Leave the truck in a low surveillance area for now,” he instructed.  “We will
figure out what to do with the bodies later.”

  
“…This isna happenin’.”

  
Nothing more was said between them for the rest of the drive.  An angry brood
swelled in the old Duke’s grey eyes each passing minute as he kept his scowl
fixed forward.

  They
broke off from the traffic on Orion Avenue and onto
4
^th
Street.  The truck came to a grinding stop in front of Grove Towers and
reversed roughly into the narrow side alley.  The truck stopped.  The engine
switched off.

  
“Git out”

  
“Call me when it is done…”

  
“Git the gir’l, and
git
–
out
,” Duke rumbled.

  
After a long silence, he complied with a contrite bow of the head.

  
He will call
, he thought,
he has to
.

  
He nudged the passenger door open and exited the truck, shut the door, hit the
shutter switch and climbed up into the carriage.  Naomi was still buried under
the bedding, shaking.  He laid his hand on her shoulder and removed the sheet.

 
 “Come,” he said, as soon as the frightened little face appeared from under the
covers.  “Put your head against me.  Close your eyes.”

  
“Saul…”

  
“Do not look,” he said, pressing her head against his chest. 

  
The corpses had slumped and were lying prostrate in puddles of blood across the
deck between the stacks of cargo.  He stepped over the bodies and gore, picked
up the bloodied, bundled coat and put the dry side over her as he descended
from the deck.  The shutter clanked shut, the engine started up and the truck,
and Duke, were gone.

  
“Keep quiet,” he whispered.

  
Footsteps echoed down the stairwells from below just as they passed the seventh
floor; -- three walkers leaving the building after a night’s work.  When they
reached the top, he put Naomi down, bundled up the coat and pressed his face up
to the iris scanner.  The flash of blue in his right eye was followed by the click
of the unlocking door; he pushed the door open and froze as soon as they crossed
the brink. 

 
“…Hello, Martial Vartanian.”

  
Standing in the middle of the hall was the silhouette of a figure in black,
obscured by the bright morning shine against the backdrop.  The tall, heavy
shapes of four SGs were on either side of him. 

  
He reeled back at once, shielding Naomi on instinct.

  
The obscure figure stepped forward, and the beady gaze and vinyl face emerged
from the shadows … Eastman.

  
“You…” he growled.

  
“S – Saul…” Naomi hugged onto the backs of his legs, peeking out at the five
dark figures.  “Who are they?” she trembled.

 
 He drew the blade and the SGs raised their guns in rapid response.  The long
and silent standoff lasted until the moment Eastman held up his hand, and the
SGs cautiously lowered their guns.  The commissioner took one deliberate step
forward, then stopped and considered him -- silent, motionless, dispassionate,
as one would a wild and cornered animal, his stare drifting calculatingly over
the bloodstains.. The blade gleamed chrome and crimson in the light.  After a
long, guarded silence, the cold, calm, effeminate voice spoke: “Before you make
any rash decisions, you should listen to what I have to say.”

 
 He looked from Eastman to each of the SGs.  There was no way they could know
about what had just happened.  It was too soon.  They had not come for
him
. 

  
“You are here to take her,” he snarled.