Demon (3 page)

The shaking stopped.

Mike set the glass down and buried his face in his hands.

“It's killing and it's what you're good at.”
The words rang in his head again and again. They were the same ones Glenn had said when he'd first proposed the job. They were the ones he said every time Mike started to show signs of regret for taking his current assignment.

“I want you to be the right hand of God,” Glenn had said in his office in Langley, Virginia, three months before.

“And who's God?” Mike had said.

“I am as far as you're concerned.”

Mike had chuckled, but Glenn only fixed him with dark brown eyes that appeared almost black. The dead eyes, as they were known around the agency.

“Well, what the hell does that mean, Glenn?”

“It's a violent world, and I hate bureaucracy. Station chiefs are necessary, but a lot of them are looking out for themselves politically. You know, they want to climb the ladder, get a job like mine. But I'm looking for results. So, I want an operator who reports to me and me only. One who performs special tasks as necessary. You up for it?”

“You mean real case work?” Mike had been a company man for over fourteen years and in the field for thirteen. Most of that time, he'd done muscle work. Never had he worked a case or real contact on his own. He'd never been a spy. “Stuff I can run to ground, cut out the red tape?”

Now Glenn chuckled. “No, Mike, you're a cleaner. And there are a lot of messes out there that need a good dose of bleach and disinfectant.”

Mike focused on his shoes.

“You're a killer, Mike.” Glenn held up a thick file. “Years of it. A specialist. That's what I need right now, and that's what you're good at. Take it or I'll put you behind a desk the rest of your career.”

“You want me to be your hit man.”

Glenn had responded with a smile. Mike didn't say any more and accepted because he knew he was good at it. And he'd forgotten how to do anything else lives ago.

He went into deep covert mode soon after. Off-the-reservation mode. The only one in the CIA who knew he was in Iraq was Glenn. Making sure he kept his identity under wraps and the station chief in Baghdad in the dark was a major concern for Mike. If his cover got blown, he'd quickly find himself with a one-way ticket out of Iraq and into a federal prison awaiting trial for being an illegally sanctioned assassin. Glenn would be right next to him, treading water in shit's creek, after his hearing before Congress.

Mike smirked. Thinking about it now, it didn't sound like such a bad fate.

He downed a bottle of water and then called Glenn over his encrypted cell phone.

“It's done,” Mike said.

“Good. Any issues?”

“None. It went smoothly.”

“The Brits will be pleased.”

Mike eyed what remained in the bottle on the nightstand. “I'm going to lay low for a few days.”

Mike lifted the bottle and started to pour.

“Not so fast.”

Mike winced.
Just a day,
he thought. The mouth of the bottle hovered over the glass. He hadn't poured a drop yet.

“Yes?” Mike said.

“Something's happened at a construction site outside An Nasiriyah. A bunch of people are dead.”

“Sounds like work for the military and national police.”

“I want you there.”

Mike rubbed his forehead. A mammoth skull splitter lit off its engines. “Why?”

“Because there are some interesting reports coming in over the military traffic, but one doesn't jibe with the next. From the way it sounds, though, could be IRG. So I want firsthand intel in case the Iranians are operating that far in-country. Since you're within driving distance, get your butt up there and take a look.”

“You want me to do actual work, Glenn?” Mike set the bottle down and screwed the cap back on. “No one to kill up there? I'm shocked.”

“Keep running your smart-ass mouth and I'll see what I can arrange to disappoint you.”

Stupid,
Mike thought and bit his tongue.
You've got a chance here; don't ruin it.

“I'll need to be official for them to let me on-site,” Mike said after a few seconds.

“Use the alias. The troops on-site won't screen the ID with Baghdad Station. Especially if you wave it around like you're important.”

He'd almost forgotten about the alias Glenn had given him: a full set of papers and identification for Jeremiah Hosselkus, a fake CIA field agent. So Mike would be a CIA operative pretending to be a CIA operative. He'd thought it silly at the time. After all, why would you impersonate something you already were?

Yet here I am, being told to do exactly that,
he thought.
Because I'm a rogue fucking killer.

“I'll leave within the hour,” Mike said.

CHAPTER THREE

B
lood and phlegm coated the bench seat of the truck. Barely a minute would pass without Hank hacking. With the exertion and loss of fluid came the heavy toll of fatigue and dizziness, scourging his mind like a Roman centurion. He couldn't drive faster than forty kilometers an hour without losing focus completely and his surroundings blurring into one massive beige smear. He fought to keep his eyes open and barely managed anything wider than mere slits. Fragmented thoughts of pulling over and waiting until help drove by bounced around his skull.

But every time he started to brake, he remembered the tomb and what had escaped it, the devastation it had wrought, and eased his foot back onto the accelerator. Had to be a chemical weapon, some kind of nerve agent, airborne and, based on the wind, possibly blowing in the same direction he drove. No, stopping didn't feel like a good idea at all.

Calling someone, however, did. He'd tried both the company's headquarters and the local coalitional authority with the cell but failed to maintain a signal long enough. Switching to roaming hadn't worked either.

Maybe everyone else was dead. Maybe they'd all killed each other and he was the last man alive: the Omega Man sprinting at a low speed away from an invisible cloud of doom. The daydream made him chuckle until he shot another mouthful of gore onto the seat.

Just keep driving, he thought. You're not the last one on earth. Just the last poor bastard from the site. You'll get a cell signal soon. Stay ahead of the cloud.

Besides, he couldn't risk pulling over and exposing some innocent civilian. Enough had died already. The military, at the very least, would be able to quarantine him and hopefully treat him for infection. They had antidotes for fighting off chemical agents, he knew.

Get to the base,
Hank thought and coughed more. Don't stop. You're lucky you're not like the others. They died fast. Whatever it is has given you time. A chance. Keep pushing.

What he couldn't figure out was why he hadn't gone crazy.

Maybe I'm immune.

Hank had taken a cocktail of vaccines, as was required by his company, before leaving for Iraq. Maybe all those shots had worked together to ward off whatever it was driving people to kill each other. Maybe they had acted as a shield to stop it from seizing his mind, or at least slowed it enough to just poison him.

Maybe.

Up ahead something moved on the side of the road. Some things. It was just after sunrise halfway between An Nasiriyah and Basra, and all he could make out were dark smudges. As he closed the distance, he realized they were two people. Bedouin. Heading south with two loaded camels.

He didn't slow down when he passed them. Not the help he was hoping for. He even swerved into the next lane to widen the distance. Just in case. He doubted they'd catch anything since the windows were rolled up, but better to be safe than a murderer. Once past, he glanced in the rearview. Then he slammed on the brakes and stared.

The nomads who had trekked together a moment before were now locked in combat. They slashed at each other with knives until one tackled the other. The camels were even affected, whipping their necks and smacking heads. He wasn't more than ten feet away and watched as one Bedouin killed the other, the two camels, and then himself, all with a knife to the throat.

“Get moving,” he said, the sound of his raw, rasping voice calming him a little. “Before anyone else shows up.”

Hank's hands tightened around the steering wheel as he accelerated, the dead figures becoming shadows in the rearview. First the dig site and now here.

I'm not immune,
Hank thought.
I'm a carrier. Which means no help for me
.

He swallowed bile. Whatever had caused his workers and then the two Bedouin to kill emanated from him, like a stench.

It's in me. That's what hit me like a Mack truck after the T section fell in.

Hank coughed again and spit blood and chunks of tissue onto the seat.
Can't think that way. It's not you. It's the wind carrying the agent. Need to drive fast to stay ahead of it.

Whatever it is,
he thought,
it's eating me from the inside out.

Hank would have cried, but he'd lost so much water all he could do was blink dry eyes. His head ached and chills rippled over his skin. His vision alternated between focused and blurred as vertigo swirled through his mind. The truck swerved sharply to the right. Hank caught it and was able to straighten back up instead of running off the road.

Why don't you just lose control?
Hank thought.
You're as good as dead. No one is going to help you. No one can.

Hank shook his head. He had a family to think of. A wife. A son and two daughters. God, just the thought of them stabbed him in the chest. No, he had to push on. Had to get better.

He glanced at all of the blood and bile and tissue on the seat and dashboard. His insides. Was there a way to get better? Maybe he wasn't fighting off some nerve agent. Maybe whatever was in Hank was fighting him off, puking him out until he didn't exist anymore. Until he wasn't making it sick.

Hank wiped his mouth and wondered if it could be that simple. If there was a chemical agent inside him, feasting on his insides, killing him slowly while the others who were exposed met faster deaths.

In the distance, a bunch of blurry images headed toward him. Semis driving out of a mirage, heading away from Basra.
Probably a truck convoy,
he thought.
Need to stop them. Can't let them drive into the chemical cloud.

But how?

Hank slowed down even more, not wanting to risk swerving into a head-on collision. He honked and flashed his lights. They showed no signs of slowing down. Then he threw up more blood, wiped his mouth, and gripped the steering wheel tight, waiting for the trucks to pass.

The lead vehicle, a Toyota Land Cruiser, raced by filled with armed contractors carrying assault rifles. Then the semis, four in all, passed, with another Land Cruiser taking up the rear guard. Hank fought the steering wheel as the wake hit him from across the median, the truck swerving right then left, and braked to keep from running off the road. He'd been going at a snail's pace and the wake hadn't been that strong and still he barely had the strength to maintain control.

Gunfire erupted behind him.

Hank glanced in the rearview and wasn't surprised. At the site, he'd been terrified. The Bedouin had shocked him. Now, though, he was impassive, watching the death dance unfold thirty feet away.

The lead Land Cruiser had swerved off the road. The contractors were out on foot and unloading their rifles. They didn't kneel or use the car as cover. Instead, they marched toward one another, rifles level, the barrels exhaling flames. The bullets shredded. Clothing and blood flew.

The first semi slammed on its brakes and managed to avoid the Land Cruiser, but the semi behind it rammed the first's trailer. Grain exploded from the sides. The sickening sound of metal crunching and folding echoed around Hank's head. The drivers from the first truck jumped out and ran toward the second only to be gunned down by the surviving contractor from the Land Cruiser.

Hank was unable to tear his gaze away from the carnage. He looked away from the rearview and over his shoulder out the back window. The third semi in the convoy had jackknifed; the fourth T-boned it. Grain flooded the highway. The contractors from the rear Land Cruiser were on foot and firing at each other and whatever survivors remained.

Hank turned away, refusing to watch anymore. He coughed again and pulled his wallet from his back pocket. Flipping through his credit cards, he found what he wanted. A picture of his wife and kids. All smiling up at him. The last sane thing in his life now.

I'm never going to see them again,
he thought.

He glanced back up in the rearview. Only one man still stood: a contractor with an assault rifle. Then the victor turned the gun on himself, sticking the barrel in his mouth and pulling the trigger.

Hank closed his eyes and shook his head.
Jesus. I might as well kill myself, too.

He'd earlier eliminated suicide as an option, but now he wondered if it were the only solution. Going anywhere with any kind of population would be disastrous, especially a city like Basra. His conscience was already heavy with the lives of over fifty people. If Hank drove to Camp Bucca or into Basra, the number would quadruple in an instant. He would not watch any more people destroy themselves.

Thank God I didn't go to An Nasiriyah.

Hank looked back down at the picture. He'd taken the job for them. Over here, he'd make double the money he could stateside. Now look what it bought him.

Another round of coughing. His lungs, what remained of them, burned like a thousand hot razors shredded his chest.

Just sit here and die,
Hank thought. But then anyone who passed would meet the same fate as the convoy behind him.

No, need to drive somewhere empty. Farther away from the road. In the desert more.