The Minus Faction, Episode One: Breakout (11 page)

Six guys, all armed, armored, and ready to shoot. And without getting the lieutenant hurt. Or the doc. Or himself.

That's a challenge.

As the men dragged his body toward the SUV, as raised rifles crept toward the lieutenant, closing in for the takedown, Regent took a deep breath with the young officer's lungs. He closed his eyes and let everything fall away. He focused. He saw the old woman in the pit. He remembered her patient reprimands and the strange and dirty symbols on her robes. He saw light and scenes from his whole life clear as day.

John Regent didn't have a wife. He didn't have kids he was trying to put through college. He didn't have a home. He didn't have belongings. He dreaded downtime the way corporate stiffs dread the Monday after a vacation. Downtime only settled his mind, and a settled mind only raised the demons of his past: faces of the people he'd killed, the friends he'd lost, his family. Doubts appeared from every shadow like whooping ghosts.

For John, there was only the next workout, the next training op, the next mission. He didn't know anything else. Ethan, Dr. Zabora, his friends at the VA had all taken a risk for him, given him a shot. One single chance to get away. He wouldn't get another.

He'd have to do something he'd never done before. He'd have to wrestle the raging bull of a
conscious
mind. He'd have to keep one man down with half his thoughts and still have enough focus to fight off five more, and he'd have to do it without killing them. Or letting them kill anyone else.

Probably impossible,
he thought. But then losing wasn't an option. This wasn't for him anymore. This was for his friends.

John ran it through in his head.

Eight seconds.

§ § §

Dr. Amarta Zabora was face-down on the concrete with a gun pointed at her head. She felt tears and running eyeliner. "John," she whispered to herself.

The agents were screaming. They moved forward, rifles pointed. They had him.

The lieutenant closed his eyes and Amarta figured the captain was letting him go. John had been right. It really was over. She watched the lieutenant's body slump and fall. She could see under the car as it hit the ground like a limp doll.

The doctor moved her eyes to her friend. Two agents were dragging him toward the white SUV. She wanted to see his face. She wanted him to see hers. But the captain was still unconscious. His head rolled about. There was nothing.

Amarta scowled.

The guard over her made a little clicking sound. She glanced up at his face. He smiled at her and winked. Then he turned toward the others. They were all focused on their quarry. They weren't looking at the man at the back. Amarta watched in silence.

It was ballet. Three moments of fearless, violent, coordinated ballet.

A shove. The knock of a gun. The sound of a shot thrown wide. A crack to the head. A twist and a pull to the arm. A pop to the throat. A kick off the side of a car to launch a powerful aerial punch. A drop and sweep of the feet. Another deflection at close range. Glass shattering. A twist and elbow to the nose. The snap of a knee. The grab of a gun. Two shots, center mass—crack, crack—right in the armor. A gun-butt to the face: once, twice, down. Two more shots. Boom. Boom.

The sounds echoed through the concrete structure.

Amarta was pressed to the floor. She didn't move. She had goosebumps. "Wow . . ."

She knew she'd never be able to tell anyone what she'd just witnessed, which was just as well. She'd never do it justice. She remembered her abysmal surgery rotation, her hands shaking the scalpel like an unbalanced washing machine, her decision later to go into psychiatry. She'd seen surgeons make swift, deft cuts in a patient's brain with less room for error than the width of hanger wire, just like how artists wave their arms across a canvas and, in one sweep of the brush, bring shape to life.

That's what John was. An artist in combat.

In seconds, five agents were on the ground, immobile or gasping for breath, put there by the sixth. Some had taken blows to the head. Others had been shot. Their armor held, but a couple rifle bullets to the chest will knock you down and take the wind and the will to fight right out of you. They writhed.

Ayn was right. Whatever else one could say about her, however much she was a liar and a manipulator, she had definitely been right about one thing.

John Regent was a weapon.

And now, Amarta realized, John could turn anyone else into a weapon as well.

John swung the semi-automatic in an arc, his eyes focused down the sight, making sure the area was clear.

"Doc? You okay?" It was the agent's voice, but it had John's cadence.

Amarta nodded and climbed to her feet. "I thought you said they had to be unconscious."

"No, I said I hadn't figured that part out yet." John took off the agent's helmet and walked over to the lieutenant, who was still slumped on the concrete.

The doc wiped her grimy hands on her skirt. "So what happened?"

"I was highly motivated." He pointed. "Get behind the wheel."

Dr. Zabora scurried around the car to the driver's seat as John hefted the lieutenant's heavy body into the back.

"Damn," Regent grunted. "He's even bigger than me."

The agent shoved the man's legs in as the doctor started the engine.

"Pop the trunk." John took his wheelchair out and slammed the trunk shut. His body rested motionless by the white SUV. He walked to the front of the car. "Do me a favor, Doc?"

Dr. Zabora sat in front of the steering wheel pumping adrenaline like never before. She was starting to understand why the captain liked his job. She was shaking, stunned. It had all happened so fast. She looked up.

"Drive. Drive out of here as fast and as crazy as you can."

"What about you?"

"Don't worry about me." John tapped the agent's radio strapped to his arm. Until they figured out it was missing and changed the encryption key, John would be able to hear their every move. With the mobile unit down, they'd have to rely on aerial surveillance, follow a single target. If they took the doctor as bait, John could slip through the gaps and slink away. "Get to the highway. Head south. Get as far as you can." He walked toward his body.

Amarta put one foot out of the car. "Captain."

"We have to hurr--"

"You were right. You're not a threat to anyone. At least--" the doctor looked at the men on the ground-- "not to anyone who doesn't deserve it. What you can do . . ."

"Doc--"

"Promise me you'll do some good with it."

The agent with Regent's eyes nodded. "What about you?"

"Eh." Dr. Zabora shrugged and put her hand on the car door. "After Derek Wilkins, I was never going to make chief of staff anyway. Good luck, Captain."

"Thanks, Doc. For everything."

Amarta teared up as she closed the door. She watched in the rear-view mirror as John lifted his own body into his chair. She knew she'd never see her patient—her friend—again. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands.

This was going to be fun.

T Minus: 049 Days 05 Hours 00 Minutes 00 Seconds

John had been handed a mystery.

"What is this?" He was back in his own body. He took the thick, tan envelope.

The man behind the counter had a turban and a beard and a thick accent. He shrugged, then gave Regent a look like
how the fuck should I know?

The soldier thanked him anyway, turned, and rolled out of the motel office and onto the cracked asphalt parking lot. The place was cheap. Cash only. No Wi-Fi. No questions. John knew it was stupid to stop moving, but his broken body was exhausted and his mind was depleted from his longest and most complicated hitch yet. His hands were shaking. He could barely keep his eyes open. He wouldn't make it another hour. He needed rest.

But personal pains aside, he had to admit . . . it felt great to have a mission again. He owed his friends. Or maybe they were paying him back. It didn't matter. The soldier was alive again, running dark in his own country.

The captain had watched Dr. Zabora—the closest thing to a friend he'd had in years—drive away forever. He waved. He wouldn't—he couldn't—ever see her again. But he vowed to check up on her from time to time and make sure she was okay.

He hot-wired the shittiest vehicle in the garage, a rusted '90s Civic, and left just minutes behind her. He listened to radio chatter for the better part of forty-five minutes before Ayn got smart and changed the encryption. He switched cars at a dollar store, then dropped his body behind an abandoned building not too far from the hospital, a place he knew from his patrols. He drove fifteen miles west, found a gas station with no security cameras, put the car in the wash, and left his host.

It had been a new experience. Regent had felt the agent's mind struggling at first, like a caught fish flapping on the bottom of a boat. The man had no idea what happened to him, and his thoughts flailed in confusion as he lost control of his body. Regent had to keep a mental arm on him, but it had been easier than he thought, and after a while the man stopped fighting.

As John rolled through the crisp night air, he found himself wishing it had been harder, wishing he were still limited to the unconscious, wishing he didn't have to face the temptation of every pair of legs in sight. He focused on his mission and tried not to think about it. He'd spent most of his cash, plus what he had taken from the agent's wallet, on the motel and some snacks from the vending machine. He drank water out of the tap. He had no meds and no next move.

It was a gamble being back so close to the VA, but if he was lucky, they wouldn't expect him to double back. Certainly they'd pin their search radius to the car wash. That would give him a little time. But not much. A six-foot-two black man with horrible burns riding an electric wheelchair was hard to miss.

John had hours. Mere hours.

He rolled across the bumpy asphalt toward his room. He looked at the strange package in his lap. It was lit only by the dim flicker of the broken street lamp overhead. Someone had left it for him. It was a terrible mystery.

Regent stopped his chair. An extended-cab pickup with 4x4 wheels had parked diagonally across the motel's only handicap spot, blocking access to the curb ramp. He looked at the concrete lip. Six inches at least. His chair would never make it. He'd have to get down on the ground and pull it up one-handed.

He scowled. The truck sported a bumper sticker: Support Our Troops.

Asshole.

Regent turned and rolled to the curb directly in front of his room. He had left the door open to clear the musty stench. It was dark and empty inside. He unstrapped his legs and took a deep breath.

"Excuse me?"

John turned his head. A young couple was behind him.

"Sorry. We don't want to be rude, but can we help?" The kid was black, skinny, in his late teens or early twenties. His earlobes were pierced with heavy black disks and his arms were covered in tattoos. He wore a t-shirt and tight-legged jeans. His girlfriend hung back. She was white. Full plastic bags hung from her arms.

They must have gone to the convenience store down the street, John thought. It was late. He was exhausted. He was in pain. He nodded.

The couple smiled. They walked over.

The boy stepped behind the chair, then stopped. "Umm . . . How do you want to do it?"

"Here." John spun and backed his chair to the curb. "If you can just grab the handles and give me a pull, the chair can do the rest."

The young man nodded, and with a heave and a whine of the electronic motor, the big man made it over the concrete lip.

The girlfriend smiled. Her nose was pierced.

John held out his hand. His good hand. "Thanks."

The kid took it with a smile. "No problem, man." He backed up. He waved.

The girlfriend did the same. "We're in 204," she said. "If you need anything. Or whatever." She gave a polite bob of the head and a little wave.

Regent watched them walk to the concrete-and-metal stairs that cut the two-story building in half. There was no judgment in their eyes. No pity. They just saw someone who needed a little help.

There were still good people in the world.

John was done stealing from good folks. He decided. It wasn't much of a sacrifice given that he was unlikely to last the night, but it was resolved all the same. No more taking what wasn't his. He had no idea what he was going to do, but whatever it was, freedom or capture, it would be in his own skin.

He wheeled his chair into the motel room. Leaving the door open hadn't done much for the smell. He turned the lock, closed the blinds, and rolled to the bed. He reminded himself to charge his chair before sleeping.

He held up his mysterious package. Standard padded envelope available at any store. No postal marks. Had to be hand-delivered.

His name and room number had been printed and taped to the front. No handwriting.

Regent stared at the room number. 137. That was interesting. Very damn interesting. He'd only checked in 25 minutes ago. He was almost asleep when he got the call from the front desk.