Bull's Eye Sniper Chronicles Collection (The Second Cycle of the Betrayed Series) Read online

  Stark cataloged them all for future reference.

  “Hands up,” Levont barked.

  “There is no need for such inhospitality,” the man said. “We are here for the same purpose.”

  Stark seriously doubted it. He ran the man through facial recognition, however, at no great surprise the search came up empty. He would have thought he would have remembered that face if it came over on an Interpol watch list.

  “Dysregulation,” his mother whispered. Basically cloning was a rather inexact science, and especially so when this man must have been created. The usual error came from the primary transfer of the nuclear material into the host cell. Genes could get mangled during the process. So much so that most embryos barely made it through a few divisions before they failed.

  Occasionally you would get a greatly damaged embryo that somehow came to term. They had the perfect example standing in front of them.

  “Where are your two other men?” Lopez asked.

  “Around,” the man answered. “Waiting for my order.”

  Stark switched frequencies and scanned the surrounding building. “They are two doors down to the left,” he reported.

  His mother threw a questioning eyebrow up.

  “Look at the body mass of everyone else,” Stark stated. “Those two are fatties compared to the Haitian natives.”

  His mother smiled and patted his arm. “Great lateral thinking,” his mother praised. Stark wasn’t too macho not to be pleased he’d impressed his mother.

  Now to figure out what the Righteous wanted and if they were going to survive it.

  * * *

  Lopez and Malvern lowered Liza next to Bunny. She stepped forward.

  “And you are?”

  The man’s mangled lips spread in what Bunny assumed was a smile. “Baasha, fourth generation, half diploid, crimson pledge.

  Bunny didn’t even bother to think about what that might mean. She was certain that Stark would be buzzing in her ear at any moment with some explanation. “And you want Liza because…?”

  The man tilted his head, accentuating his deformity even more.

  “I think you know why…”

  “To perform an exorcism?” Bunny asked.

  The man appeared to chuckle although it sounded more closely to a choke or gargle. “That would imply she was possessed by an evil spirit or demon, I can assure you that is not the case, however I had hoped you would be slightly more informed.”

  Bunny smiled fully. “Please, enlighten me.”

  “Okay,” Stark said in her ear. “I’ve correlated everything that the CIA, Interpol and MI-6 have on the Righteous. In theory he is a clone of unknown male origin, but of a Jewish mother. The crimson designates he is high up in the ranks. Sorry, that’s all I’ve got.”

  Baasha sat down again. “Liza was a highly spiritual girl. We seldom take in non-haploid followers, but she was so close to God, we could not help ourselves.”

  Bunny waited, listening for Stark.

  “That may have been true when she was a teen, but she came back to her mother in her twenties.”

  “If she was so loved, why did she come back to the states?”

  Baasha “smiled” again. “Just as all youth do at one point or another, she lost her way. Until she began having the visions a few months ago, then she contacted us to return. She was coming back to us when she was captured by the pirates.”

  Bunny looked to Liza who licked her lips and nodded. So Liza was going back to the Righteous’ fold after all.

  “I need it out,” Liza croaked.

  “What?” Bunny asked.

  “The Holy Spirit.”

  * * *

  Davidson stiffened. He’s lived his life in a religious cult. He’d heard enough sermons to last fifteen lifetimes. Most of the people who had turned out to be the cruelest and most malicious had seemed the most devout.

  He immediately questioned anyone’s motives when they spoke of how much closer to God they were than the rest of the world. It had always boded poorly. For both them and Davidson.

  “The Holy Spirit?” Prenner asked for clarification.

  Liza nodded, then seemed to run out of energy and her head flopped back down onto the gurney.

  He turned to Baasha. “And how does that work exactly?”

  “As I said, Liza is special and has a connection to God that even the most Righteous envy. We must know what she knows.”

  “So that you can figure out if you are going to blow up the world tomorrow?” Lopez asked. Always so tactful.

  “Yes,” Baasha answered coolly.

  “Then why exactly would I let you do anything to her?” Malvern asked.

  “Because if we do not free the Spirit, she will die. The human brain was not meant to hold so much holiness within its confines.”

  Davidson looked down at Liza. She did look like hell. Whether it was truly the Holy Spirit or just her belief that it was, it was kicking her ass.

  “Mom just looked it up,” Stark said. “In cases like these, even without belief in a higher power, we look to the placebo effect. If Liza believes she is free of the spirit, it may cure her, at least temporarily.”

  “If we allow you to do this, will you tell us your plans for tomorrow?” Davidson asked. He wasn’t about to give Baasha something without getting something back.

  “Oh, I will tell you our plans without you doing a thing,” the man replied, his left, larger eye rotating clockwise. “We have a satellite that has missiles aimed at Russia, China, and Pakistan. The angle we are going to be launching from, the attacks are going to look like they came from the US, so it should start a nice, robust nuclear war.”

  “Nice to know,” Lopez grunted.

  Davidson frowned. From most people, that statement would sound completely ludicrous. However in this dark, brooding room with its shelves lined with venomous snakes and tarantulas, the plan sounded pretty darned solid.

  Unfortunately.

  “Where exactly is this satellite?” Malvern asked.

  “Oh, I can give you the exact coordinates and even the access code, however none of it will help you. It is programmed to only receive the launch code. There is no hacking it or turning it off.”

  * * *

  “We’ll see about that,” Stark’s mother grumbled as they took down the information. Baasha was spot on in regards to the satellite’s position and access codes.

  They could get any information they wanted. Latitude, longitude, altitude. Anything except how to control it.

  “This is not happening,” his mother hissed as her fingers flew over the keyboard. “We’ve got to find an entry point.”

  But even between the two of them, the satellite stood impervious to their ministrations.

  “Guys, he might be right,” Stark had to admit.

  Surprisingly, Lopez nodded. “Go for it,” he instructed Baasha.

  The man addressed the older woman in what Stark assumed was Nigerian. The woman answered back in a deep, husky voice and waved for the men to bring Liza to the center of the room.

  Bunny stopped them though. “Liza, are you sure this is what you want?”

  “Yes, please, please, let them continue.”

  Bunny finally nodded and backed out of the way.

  The man lay the stretcher down on a dry patch of dirt.

  Before anyone could say anything else, the woman thrust her hand inside one of the snake tanks and pulled out a striped snake, its mouth gaping, trying to strike.

  CHAPTER 8

  Bunny cringed back. She wasn’t phobic of snakes, she just didn’t like them. Kind of like most people. Snakes were creepy on a regular day, but down in this dank, earthen basement with the woman, chanting some kind of ritual, that snake was downright horrific.

  And she had no doubt it was poisonous. Didn’t poisonous snakes have bright colors to tell everyone, “don’t mess with me, I’m poisonous?” What about if the snake got out? What then?

  And all of this was somehow suppose
d to help Liza?

  Bunny had been to enough dubious religious ceremonies to not be taken in hook line and sinker by this show.

  She was a rationalist. Often Lochum and she would be invited by an occult debunker to ceremonies like this claiming to exorcise demons or herpes or something or other.

  They all held the same components. Low, moody lighting. Many times held underground, enhancing the sense of claustrophobia. The speaking of a foreign or ancient tongue to keep the actual words mysterious. If you translated most of them they were just “Be out,” or “be gone.” Not very scary at all.

  Yet with all of her reasoning, Bunny couldn’t help but notice that the hairs on the back of her neck were up. That her stomach felt like there was a giant pit in it, gnawing away at her inside.

  The woman waved the snake over Liza as the younger woman trembled, tears streaking down her face. Then the woman lifted the snake up and buried its teeth deep into her own arm.

  Bunny hadn’t expected that. Neither had the men around her, who jumped to attention, aiming their guns.

  The woman convulsed, frothing at the mouth, but never dropped the snake. It finally released her and slithered back into its cage. The older woman dropped to her knees, her lips moving frantically but no words coming out.

  “Shouldn’t we call for an ambulance or something?” Stark asked in Bunny’s ear.

  First off, no ambulance could get here quickly enough and secondly the ambulances didn’t run into the slum at all even if they wanted to call one.

  Then the woman lifted her arm and dripped blood and venom onto Liza’s lips. The young woman licked her lips, drinking in the toxic mixture.

  Liza’s hand reached out and Bunny grabbed it on instinct even though the only thing she wanted was to get the hell out of this basement.

  The young woman gripped her hand tightly, seeming to gain strength from the touch.

  Head thrown back, Liza moaned a moan that did seem to come from her soul. The sound was low and menacing. She could see Lopez especially tighten and loosen his hold on his gun.

  Okay, so this was way freakier than any ceremony Bunny had ever seen.

  Liza’s eyes rolled back and forth in the most unnatural way possible. They looked like China doll eyes that had come loose of their doll.

  The old woman’s chant filled the room as she dusted Liza’s body with herbs and a pungent dust.

  Bunny felt Liza’s muscles stiffen, until her entire body was straightened like a board. Her teeth chattered as her jaw clenched then unclenched in rhythm with the old woman’s chanting.

  A howling started low and distant then swept into the room filling it. Bunny tried to remind herself this was all a show. All an elaborate hoax.

  But it didn’t feel like a hoax. Bunny could feel the moan in her own gut. She wanted to cry out, run, flee this horrible, horrible place.

  Across the room Bunny noticed that Baasha seemed to only watch with curious eyes. His face showed none of the same revulsion as the other men. He would cock his head from side to side, like a cat might at a squirming mouse.

  Bunny nearly fell back as Liza opened her mouth and screamed. A strange plume of red burst from her throat as the sound threatened to deafen Bunny. Then all of the enclosure shattered. The snake cages. The tarantula cages. The Gila monster cages.

  All just shards of glass now. The creatures took to their freedom, slithering, running between them all, heading for the stairs.

  The older woman held her hands up. “No one move!”

  That was a little hard when a spider the size of her hand was crawling over her boot.

  And Liza kept screaming and screaming and screaming. Damn, didn’t the woman have to take a breath?

  Although her screams seemed to be chasing all of the poisonous baddies out the door.

  Finally Liza’s scream finished and she collapsed back down on the bed, limp. Bunny had to check her pulse to make sure she was alive. Luckily Liza was still as one of the last snakes, slithered past Bunny and slunk up the stairs.

  Liza’s eyes flew open, showing the whites of her eyes. She jerked upright in bed to a sitting position. Although her eyes were open, her stare seemed far, far off.

  “The time is right. The horsemen are already here. The seals are broken,” Liza stated in that deep, creepy voice of hers. “The end of days are at hand unless the one is not the one and the many are not the many.”

  With that she fell back to the bed, her breathing slow and steady.

  * * *

  Davidson wasn’t impressed. He’d been raised on Apocalyptic rhetoric. Every cult wanted to believe they were the epicenter of something as meaningful as the end of days. That didn’t mean they were the end of days.

  The only problem was, if a cult believed it enough, they might do something to help it along, which is what it appeared was happening with Baasha and the Righteous.

  The deformed man nodded his head. “We have our orders.”

  Levont snorted. “Like I’m going to let you out of here with that news.”

  Baasha opened his jacket to reveal a vest packed with C4. “This is enough not to just bring down this block, but if this neighborhood goes, the entire slum goes…” Baasha angled his head to stare at Lopez with his large eye. “Half a million souls are in your hands, corporal.”

  Lopez looked to Prenner who nodded. Baasha didn’t seem to be bluffing. The slums were built precariously enough. Shanty rooms built and supported by other shanty buildings. The whole thing could come down like a house of cards. And given the lack of any emergency services to the area, the residents would burn up before a single fire truck found its way here.

  Lopez shrugged. “Fine. Go find your goons and get out of here.”

  “Corporal?” Malvern questioned.

  “Hey, I thought we were working on those trust issues?” Lopez shot back.

  The colonel took a step back. “You’re right.”

  Baasha looked from one man to the other as if wondering why it was so easy? Davidson kind of wondered the same thing, but trusted Lopez implicitly. Plus they had completed this portion of the mission. They had wanted to get Liza out of danger. Both physical and spiritual.

  Whether or not she actually had a religious epiphany or just thought she did, Liza looked far better. Her cheeks were pink again and there was color to her lips. Conversely, the old woman didn’t look too hot. She had sagged against the wall, sliding down to sit, splay-legged on the dirt floor. A scorpion danced along her leg.

  Her breaths came in fits and starts as her head lolled to the side. Lopez crouched next to her, trying to put a gauze square over the snakebite wounds, but the old woman pushed him away. “ite m an repo Bondye.”

  “Leave me to God,” Baasha translated.

  “Yah, well, I’m not sure I can do anything else,” Lopez said, standing back up as the woman used the last of her strength to push him away.

  “She has inoculated herself for years with that venom,” Baasha explained. “It will be a difficult recovery, but she should recover.”

  “Unlike you, if you don’t get going,” Lopez grumbled.

  Baasha nodded his malformed head and climbed the stairs without another word.

  Once the man was gone from sight, Levont turned to Lopez. “Care to explain?”

  “What?” Lopez asked. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  Davidson looked around the room to find blank expressions. “Apparently not,” he commented.

  “Um, we’ve got a rogue satellite that we can only take out from space…So…” Lopez seemed to think they should all jump to the same conclusion as he.

  “So?” Malvern asked.

  “Well, duh, we steal a space shuttle.”

  * * *

  Stark listened as confusion, cursing and condemnation broke out over the com. Through all the raised voices it was impossible to follow any one argument, however it appeared that over the general consensus was that Lopez was downright crazy. An opinion that Stark happened to agree with.
>
  However his mother was shaking her head, grinning as she jumped back and forth between to keyboards. “You know what? It might just be doable.”

  “You have got to be joking,” Stark chuckled then his mother gave him that look. Like if he ever wanted another chocolate chip cookie, he’d better straighten out his attitude. “How?” he asked much more respectfully. He could not jeopardize his cookie privileges.

  However it was Lopez who spoke over the crowd to explain. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys, listen up,” he said. “Yes, the space shuttles have been retired, but that doesn’t mean that some of them aren’t still functional. Back me up, Stark.”

  “Actually this is Stark’s mom,” she said still typing frantically next to him. “The Atlantis is fully refurbished and on display at the Kennedy Space Center.

  On the video feed, Stark watched as Lopez nodded vigorously. “And it is even mated to its Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Like all we have to do is steal it and we are good to go.”

  “You are out of your mind,” Bunny blurted.

  Stark could feel his mother stiffen. Those two did not get along well and then Bunny had to diss a plan of hers? Yah, if Bunny and he ever did hook up, those were going to be some pretty awkward Thanksgivings.

  “No, he is thinking outside of the box, as we all should be,” his mother stated bluntly. “There are a thousand hurdles to cross, however they are crossable, because after all, aren’t we talking about saving the world? What’s a few hurdles to that?”

  * * *

  Yes, ever so easy to say when you are safely holed up in your attic in DC, Bunny thought but certainly didn’t say. To be honest Stark’s mom kind of scared her. Like her mean old 1st grade teacher that only called Bunny, “that ginger girl” her entire school year.

  Luckily there were more than enough people who disagreed in the room to fill in the gap that Bunny left.

  Malvern lifted his hands up to quiet everyone. “One at a time, people, one at a time.”

  That settled the room a bit. Bunny took in a few deep breaths, even though she was fairly certain she was going to acquire some kind of fungal disease with each inhale.