Jason Frost - Warlord 04 - Prisonland (20 page)

“Go, Eric,” D.B. urged.

He was only a couple feet from the edge of the dock when he heard the shot that brought a scream from her throat. She grabbed at her chest in the same instant she somersaulted backward out of the boat. The dim moonlight glinted off her choke collar as she sank beneath the dark water.

“
Noooo
!” Eric dove off the dock into the icy water. The cold squeezed his body like a fist, but he kept swimming, arms digging into the water as if trying to empty the ocean. Vaguely he heard the shots behind him, heard the plop of bullets and arrows diving around him. He ignored them, concentrating on reaching the boat.

When his hands finally bumped the weathered wood of the boat, he bobbed up and searched the water’s surface for D.B. He called her name.

Nothing.

Despite the heavy footsteps of the three women and two men guards pounding the wooden dock as they ran closer, Eric continued to dive, searching for D.B.

Nothing.

He clung to the side of the boat to catch his breath. An arrow dug into the wood hull a foot from his arm. No use. D.B. was gone. Eric swung his body up over the gunwale and sprawled into the boat, striking his head against the seat in the stern. A bullet bit a hole in the bow and water spouted in. Eric planted himself on the rowing thwart, gripped the oars, and leaned his back into the hard work of rowing. The fog was thick enough to offer some cover as he muscled the boat through the bay, his bad tooth aching from the shock of the cold water. Even as he rowed and the bullets and arrows stopped coming, he kept glancing back over his shoulder, searching the water for D.B., expecting to see her treading water, waving at him.

Eric’s body shivered from the dampness and the cold fog. He rowed harder, trying to generate some warmth. But his face remained wet and salty, and he could no longer tell if it was from the sea water, the sweat, or tears.

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.

Joseph Conrad

“Look at this, would ya. Shit, I guess prayers are answered.”

Eric stood up. Hanks shoved him back to the ground. Eric stayed there, looking up into the barrel of Hanks’s Winchester.

“Fucker killed Grub,” Hanks said to the three Asgard guards who’d captured Eric. “Snapped the poor bastard’s neck like he was some kinda dumb chicken or something.”

One of the guards laughed. “Grub was as dumb as a chicken.”

Hanks gave the guard a furious look, then slowly grinned. “Come to think of it, he was. Me and Grub done five years together at Q and I’ve seen hard-boiled eggs with more brains.”

The four of them laughed, but Hanks’s eyes were still boring into Eric’s.

“Get him up,” Hanks said and two of the guards yanked Eric roughly to his feet. Hanks jabbed the Winchester against Eric’s sternum. “Bad mistake coming back here, putz. We been waiting for you, hoping you’d return. Left a little description of you at all the posts.” He poked the gun against Eric’s cheek and traced the white scar with the metal barrel. “Hard to miss this little beauty mark.” He stopped, his face rigid with anger. For a moment, Eric thought he was going to pull the trigger. He looked like he wanted to. But something was stopping him. “Let’s go, asshole. Thor wants to see you.” He chuckled as he shoved Eric ahead of him. “When he’s done with you, you’ll wish I’d just pulled the fucking trigger.”

Eric marched through the early morning settlement of Asgard, his clothing damp and stiff from the long row across the bay. Leaks from the bullet holes in the hull had forced him to constantly stop and bail water out of the boat. His shoulders and arms were still thick and knotted from the exercises, and the drying salt water that had soaked his pants made his skin itch.

They’d been waiting for him. Not him exactly, but anyone spotted in a boat coming toward shore. The three guards who’d held him for Hanks had been sailing the shoreline in a Vancouver 25. When they saw Eric’s rowboat, they swooped down on him with rifles and tugged him ashore.

Eric didn’t mind. He could have taken a longer route around, found some way to sneak into Asgard. But he was in a hurry. Dodd would know Eric would be coming back and probably wouldn’t stick around for their happy reunion.

“Move it, asshole,” Hanks said, stabbing Eric’s spine with the Winchester.

The jolt sent a dull pain up Eric’s back. He controlled his anger. Sure, it would be easy to take the gun away from Hanks and kill him, but that wouldn’t get him any closer to Dodd. Best to wait and see. Find out what the infamous Thor wanted.

Eric tried not to think about D.B., but found himself absently humming songs she’d sung for him during their travels. When he pictured her face, it was always laughing, the too-dark sunglasses lowered on her nose, the stupid choke collar clinking as she walked. He fought off the guilt as best he could—after all, she knew the risks of stealing a boat—but still he felt that awful gnawing in his stomach, hot lead swirling through his intestines.

Except for a few men wandering here and there, the streets of Asgard were deserted to the early morning fog. A few fire pits were going and men gathered around trying to burn off the brisk chill. Water was being boiled over one fire and the five men huddling around it with chipped mugs were passing a single tea bag around.

“Hi ho, hi ho,” Hanks grinned as they climbed the steps to the courtyard of Ghiradelli Square.

“Is there where Thor lives?” Eric asked.

“This is where Thor decides whether
you
live.”

“Warlord, huh?”

“I’ve been called that,” Eric said.

Thor nodded, a smile on his lips. “I like it. Has a nice sound. If I’d have thought of it, maybe I’d have picked it for my name rather than Thor.”

“You’re welcome to it.”

Thor thought that over, then shook his head. “Wouldn’t be the same. You’ve already made a rep under that name.”

“You haven’t done badly as Thor.”

“Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Still, it’s a little obscure to most of these guys.” He stared at Eric. “Question now is, what to do about you?”

Eric waited for Thor to answer his own question. They were sitting in the front row of the little movie theater in the bottom level of Ghiradelli Square. A dozen armed men were scattered throughout the auditorium, most in the seats listening and watching, their feet hooked over the seats in front of them. A couple guys sat on the floor playing backgammon, their backs leaning against the screen. Hanks sat three rows behind them, waiting.

Thor had been a surprise to Eric. Considering the intense fear and respect his name invoked from everyone in Asgard and on Alcatraz, he’d expected some slobbering hulk of a man who snarled and spat. What he got instead was in some ways even more frightening: a man in a buttoned-down shirt and maroon knit tie. An
ironed
shirt.

Like most of the other men in Asgard, he had long hair that hung to the shoulder blades, though his was streaked blond by the sun. He combed it straight back from his head like a Viking warrior. Unlike most of the other men, though, he was clean shaven, a concession to his youthful good looks. Not much older than thirty, he had an easy grin and watery blue eyes that gave him more the look of a con man than the convicted murderer he was. His face was unmarked by scars or tattoos or blemishes. Sitting there in the posh little theater in his pressed shirt and knit tie, his long hair combed straight back, he looked like a hip movie producer about to run his latest film. The only thing that belied that image was what was dangling from his right hand.

The hammer.

A sledge hammer once, the handle had been sawed down to about sixteen inches to make it more portable. The heavy black head was square and blunt. The leather strap around Thor’s wrist kept the hammer from tipping over as he rocked it back and forth while he spoke, almost like he were easing a child into sleep. Thor wasn’t an overly muscular man, but he was tall and lean with the rangy look of an outdoor sman. A hammer that heavy would be a problem for most men to wield; it looked as if it would be no problem for Thor.

“Like the shirt, huh?” Thor said, noticing Eric’s gaze.

“Like your laundry service.”

Thor chuckled. “Yeah. Petey does a good job. You know how hard it is to iron clothes without electricity?”

“I can imagine.”

“Son of a bitch has to heat the whole damn iron up over a fire, then go over the shirt or pants or whatever, then heat it up again after only a few wrinkles. Tough job.”

“But worth it. You’re the best dresser in Asgard.”

“Probably in all California.”

“Probably.”

Thor leaned closer to Eric, not really whispering, but giving the impression of conspiracy. “Tell you the truth, Ravensmith, I don’t give a fuck about having my clothes ironed. Wrinkled or ironed, I’m happy either way. Thing is, I’m the leader around here. I run this place. And these guys aren’t exactly Boy Scouts, you follow me?”

“Yes.”

“They’re fucking killers.” He said it as if it were something he’d only just found out and the information amused him. “I mean, they’d cut off your grandmother’s head with a butter knife, then hump the severed head for fun. You know the kind of guys I’m talking about?”

“I get the picture.”

“Good. Because they aren’t the kind of guys easily impressed. Yeah, okay, I was in the joint for murder, but so were a lot of guys. Thing is, I wasn’t crazy like some of these others who chopped up their dogs, cats, and kids at halftime of the NFL game of the week. I killed for profit. I’m not talking a lousy couple grand to knock off your Uncle Harry so’s you can collect his veteran’s insurance. I’m talking big time.”

“Hit man.”

Thor grinned, made a gun out of his finger and thumb. “Pow. Right on target. Got caught the last time because the car I rented broke down. I pop the mark in the men’s room at LAX, some hot shit exec on his way to New York to make some deal my clients don’t want to go down, and I’m driving the fuck out of there when the goddamn Mustang blows a hose. A Mustang, for Chrissakes. I mean, I used to drive a Mustang when I was a kid copping feels at the school hop.”

“The shirts,” Eric reminded him.

“Yeah, right. How come I make some poor asshole go through all that trouble of ironing my shirts and everything?” He smiled. “Because I can. That’s it right there. I can. I can make anybody around here do anything. That’s the whole point of power. But the thing is, once you’ve got that power you’ve got to constantly use it. It’s like a muscle, man, you don’t use it and it gets weak. People around here, they expect me to make them do things, even dumb things. They expect me to be tough. That’s what they want from me, someone with the power to punish them. I don’t do that, then they’ll find someone who can. Kind of complicated psychologically, huh?”

Eric nodded. He was amazed at Thor’s grasp of the situation, his understanding of the men of Asgard.

“Now, my men want pussy, we’re going to go over to Alcatraz and get pussy. My men want drugs, we’re going to get drugs. Which brings me back to you.”