Carmen captured?
My mouth went dry. My fingers started to tremble and I forced them to keep still. “This is a trick.”
A dozen men in black uniforms appeared from behind the trees and bushes. They pointed submachine guns and assault rifles. My fingers trembled again. I’d come here thinking I was the tough guy and instead I stumbled into their trap.
My thoughts careened into one another.
Everything in this case had been about the darkest of conspiracies and the confluence of cold-blooded human cunning and alien murder. What was the Araneum warning? That I not allow one of us vampires to get compromised.
But I had. Worse, it was a good friend, someone who had saved me.
The trail leading here began with the death of one alien, so were other aliens involved in her capture? I didn’t know, but how else could Goodman have managed to snag Carmen?
Another golf cart rounded the corner past a stand of live oaks and palms. The cart drew closer and I saw Krandall driving, Peltier by his side. Both wore matching dark uniforms and equipment harnesses. At the party, these two looked like pampered yuppies; now they had the menacing presence of wolverines. An HK submachine gun with a silencer rested on Peltier’s lap. Make that armed wolverines.
Carmen had gone to see them for a session of casual sex. So these two had set her up. How? They and Goodman had to know more about us than I could imagine. What device-alien or otherwise-had they used to capture her? Carmen? Mice subduing a tiger made more sense. My kundalini noir tightened in confusion.
Goodman would tell me. Quick as a thunderbolt, I seized him by the neck. I whirled him around to use as a shield. If the guards opened fire, Goodman would be the first to die. Movement rippled through the security detail as they steadied their weapons to shoot.
Goodman waved his arms. He coughed twice and pulled at my fingers. “I’m okay.”
Peltier and Krandall cupped their earpieces and shouted into the microphones clipped to their harnesses. “Check fire. Check fire.”
My talons pressed into his throat. “Where is Carmen?”
Goodman squirmed from the pain. He turned to look at me. The arrogant smile of his was long gone, replaced by a grim, hateful stare. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
“One of them, who?”
“The alien Gilbert Odin.”
Goodman knew about aliens and had me mistaken for one of them. A little bit of good news.
Unfortunately, I was surrounded by bad news. If the guards opened fire, I would kill Goodman first and then leap at Krandall and Peltier and slash their throats. After that?
“Easy now,” Goodman said. “Don’t forget about your friend.”
He didn’t need to repeat the threat. What were my options? Only one.
“I’m not leaving without Carmen.”
More armed men crept out from the surrounding trees and brush.
“I knew you’d say that.” Goodman couldn’t keep from gloating.
I gave him a fresh taste of my talons. “If you think you’ll survive this, think again. I’m going to tear that smile off your face before this is over.”
Goodman’s face turned red from the pain. He gasped, “You want Carmen? Then let up and you’ll find out what I want from you.”
What could he possibly want? I relaxed my hold.
Goodman’s color faded and he stumbled and coughed. He turned his attention toward Krandall and Peltier. “Tell everyone to stay cool. We’re going inside. Pass the word.”
“Inside where?” I poked my talons into Goodman’s neck.
He winced and grabbed my wrist. The guards steadied their aim.
“Somebody wants to talk to you.”
“Who?” My kundalini noir coiled in alarm.
“Mr. Big.”
“You’ve lost me.” I gave Goodman’s neck another squeeze.
He choked and clutched at my fingers. “You want to talk to the one in charge, let’s go.”
My kundalini noir coiled tighter.
That arrogant glint hovered in Goodman’s eyes. “You don’t have a choice. Carmen, remember?”
I thought I had come here to bully Goodman. Instead I was the one with my back against the wall.
Goodman clasped my hand. “Mr. Big wants to talk. He’s got questions about you and your friend.”
“Who is this Mr. Big?”
“Does it matter? You don’t think you can handle him? I thought you wanted your friend back. No? Then stay out here and pick your nose.” He gestured toward the guards. “They need something to do.”
I had Goodman by the neck but he had me by the balls. I let go. “What kind of questions?”
“That’s between you and him.”
I looked back at Krandall and Peltier. She was touching her earpiece.
I warned them: “There isn’t a bullet fast enough to kill me before I can rip the heart out of your boss. Either one of you want to bet that I couldn’t kill you now?”
I expected Peltier to flinch in horror. Instead she put a hand on her submachine gun and flicked the safety to the fire position.
I pushed Goodman into his golf cart. “You drive. Don’t want to keep your Mr. Big waiting.”
He got behind the wheel and I sat next to him. I rested my hand on his shoulder. “Goodman, if I detect anything suspicious…”
Goodman massaged the red marks I’d left on his neck. “You mean more suspicious than being escorted by a platoon of armed guards through a golf course?”
Good point. “Despite what you think,” I replied, “the odds aren’t in your favor.”
“Don’t get too cocky, my weird friend.” Goodman’s demeanor frosted. “I’ve made a career of beating the odds.”
“So have I.”
Goodman pursed his lips in contempt before giving a rude smile. He pressed the accelerator pedal and the cart rolled forward. He drove on the asphalt cart path toward the hotel. I counted more than thirty guards along the way. Hotel guests gathered a safe distance from the display of firepower and gawked at the spectacle.
My sixth sense buzzed constantly, from what, specifically, I couldn’t tell. Despite the fact that he was but one short second from decapitation, Goodman seemed at ease; then again, he was a professional assassin. A squad of snipers could be aiming for my head, or the cushion under me could be hiding a Claymore mine.
I thought about what got me started on this case. “You murdered Odin, didn’t you?”
Goodman sneered. “You can only murder humans.”
“What about Marissa? She was human.”
“I had to.”
“Why?”
Goodman kept quiet.
I poked a talon against his ribs. “You don’t have to talk. You don’t have to live, either.”
Goodman said, “Sure you want to do that? It would make your job harder.”
“Why would you care? You’ll be dead.”
Goodman must have thought about that, because he offered, “The nosy bitch knew too much.”
“About whom?” I asked. “Naomi Peyton?”
The color receded from Goodman’s ruddy cheeks. “You know too much.”
“Not enough. What about Vanessa Tico and Janice Wyndersook? Where are they? Or did you kill them too?”
“They’re still alive.”
Where? Why? Are they with Carmen? “Why are you telling me this?”
“To make you aware of the stakes involved. You make a wrong move and it’ll be more than your friend Carmen who gets popped for good.”
I snatched Goodman by the throat. He grunted like he was passing a stone. “Don’t put their murders on my head.” Droplets of my spit sprayed into his face.
The cart shuffled to a halt. I wanted to squeeze his neck until his eyeballs popped out.
“You caused their commuter plane to crash, didn’t you? And murdered seventeen more innocent people.”
“It’s called collateral damage.”
Collateral damage? “What about Karen Beck? More collateral damage?”
Luminous red spots the size of peas floated on my arms. A couple of the dots hovered on my nose and dazzled my eyes. The guards were painting me with the laser pointers on their rifles.
Goodman’s eyes traced the laser dots dancing on my face. “Go ahead and play the angry macho man. See where that gets you.”
It would finish me off and Carmen would remain a prisoner. I let go. The laser dots disappeared.
Goodman took a deep breath. “I did what I had to do.”
“What you’ve done is mass murder,” I said. “And you’re admitting it?”
“What are you going to do about it? Tell the world? You’re a fucking alien.”
Alien? By using the word, Goodman admitted he knew about the extraterrestrials. I wanted to shout my questions at him, then pick him up by the ankles to shake the answers loose. But if I asked him, then I’d be giving away what I knew or didn’t know. Let him think I was an alien.
“What do you care?” he said.
I grabbed his collar. “I care about Carmen. Why did you do it? Why did you murder all those people? To cover up the kidnapping of Tico and Wyndersook? To kidnap Carmen?”
Goodman tensed his arms as he put a death grip on the steering wheel. His knuckles turned white. “Ever try making people disappear? Pretty soon the numbers add up and the goddamn noise about what happened to all these broads can get fucking deafening.”
“You like being a murderer on the government’s payroll?”
Goodman stared, and his expression grew ever more hateful. “Do me a goddamn favor, Felix. Don’t patronize me. I know I’m a henchman for this kleptocracy we call a democratic republic. I’ve always been a soldier. I still am. They give me my orders and I say, yes sir, three bags full.”
“Only following orders? You sound like a Nazi.”
Goodman stepped on the accelerator. The cart lurched forward. “Read your history books.” Goodman added a dismissive look. “We didn’t beat the Nazis by being pussies.”
“These are innocent women, not Nazis.”
“Orders are orders.”
“If you ever met Mother Teresa,” I said, “I’m sure she’d shoot you.”
“Not if I shot her first.”
“What happened to the blaster you used on Marissa and Odin?”
“I gave it back to Mr. Big.”
Was Mr. Big an alien? Why had he ordered the hit on Gilbert Odin? What did Mr. Big have to do with the disappearance of the women? Was this the threat the Araneum wanted me to investigate? Every question was like a box with another question inside.
We passed through a cordon of guards. Goodman nodded at them and they nodded back.
“Think you’ve seen everything?”
“Why do you ask?” I replied.
“Because if you think you’ve seen everything, guess again, wise guy.” Goodman smirked. “Compared to what’s coming up, you haven’t seen shit.”