“The team he’s put together is already dangerous enough,” Anderholt replies. “I still remember the first time I saw ‘em all. Shit, they could really put a wrench in things.”
“But they won’t,” Carl says. “We’ve just got to hang on until tonight, and then it’s over, the Reptilians will take charge.”
“Getting to tonight will be the hard part,” Anderholt replies.
“Not if I keep my eye on Ellis, as well as his son,” Carl says, starting to rise. Aaron, sensing that this meeting is over, begins to do the same.
“You do that,” Anderholt says as they move toward the door, and then quickly before they leave, “and Carl…”
“Yes, sir?”
“Don’t fuck this up.”
Carl nods. “No chance, sir.”
Anderholt picks up one of his half-burnt cigar stubs as the men leave and then leans back in his chair. He only wishes that what Carl had just said would turn out to be the truth. He knows full-well that it will not, however. Thankfully he still has Heather.
37 — Blue Lake Redux
Bobbie and Emil race down the hallways of Blue Lake, hoping they can make it to Ellis’s room in time. Bobbie had time-shedded in a short time before, found Chargin’ Charlie and quite a few of the others, and just laid it on ‘em. It hadn’t gone over too well at first, but with persistence Bobbie had convinced them that, yes, the Trifecta was indeed in full swing. After that a quick explanation of what was to come followed, and then Bobbie said he needed one good man. Emil had stepped forward, that ever-present tobacco pipe of his wedged firmly between his teeth and puffing away. Bobbie had nodded, and now both were racing down the hallways, trying to save the Dutchman.
And then they were there, at his door.
“This is it… you ready?” Bobbie asks Emil.
The lieutenant colonel nods and puffs away on that pipe of his while bringing up his Heckler & Koch HK MP5 submachine gun. “The big dog’s always ready to eat.”
Bobbie nods. “Then let’s do this.”
Inside Ellis’s room, Carl begins to chuckle, and then laugh. “Oh, Ellis… scare you?” He laughs again. “We’re not gonna scare you… we’re gonna kill you.”
Ellis’s eyes narrow and his brow furrows. His heart begins to race and pump adrenaline into his system, and as the flight-or-flight response kicks in, Ellis wonders what he’s gotten himself into, and how. Before he can get another question in, however, Carl is reaching into his pants pocket. Ellis’s eyes go wide as his friend pulls out a flash gun.
“I’m sorry, Ellis,” Carl says as he points the weapon at the Dutchman, “you were always a good friend to me.”
Ellis puts his hands up in a ‘wait’ kind of gesture. “Carl, you don’t have to—”
BANG!
Ellis’s eyes jerk to the door as it bangs open, kicked open most likely. Did Carl lock it after he came in? Ellis wonders, but only for a brief moment. As the door bangs open it strikes Carl in the back, sending him flying down to the floor. That’s when the flashgun flies from his hand to skitter across the floor. Ellis watches it slide for a moment, then his eyes shoot back to the door, and the two men coming through it, guns raised.
“Bobbie… Emil!”
“Good to see you too, sir,” Emil says as he comes in, his machine gun leading the way. On the floor before him is Carl, moaning slightly but starting to get up. Emil lowers his machine gun’s muzzle down to the back of Carl’s head.
“No!” Bobbie says loudly, nearly shouting. “We can’t kill him — he’s got to be alive to get killed later, when we rescue Mark.”
“Oh, right,” Emil says, and then instead of firing off a shot like he’d planned, he flips the machine gun around in his hands and slams the butt-end of it down onto the back of Carl’s head. He then backs away from Carl, who’s now laying there unconscious on the floor.
“Rescue Mark?” Ellis says, looking at Bobbie with confusion written all over his face.
Bobbie rolls his eyes. “We don’t have time to explain now,” he says, grabbing Ellis by the arm and heading toward the door, “let’s just say that after Carl killed you — which he did back there, by the way — then he tries to pin the murder on Mark.”
“Pin the murder…?” Ellis begins, trailing-off as Bobbie gets to the door and lets go of him, the better to stick his head out and look both ways down the long hallway.
“Heavy, right?” Emil says from behind Ellis, putting a hand on his back to nudge him forward a bit. “I don’t understand the half of it, myself, but you gotta admit that Carl back there… well…”
“Well what?” Bobbie says from the doorway, looking back in. “Carl was gonna kill you and you know it. Now let’s go while the coast is clear and—”
Bobbie never finishes the sentence. He’s halfway through it — and halfway through the door — when a loud ‘blast’ sounds and from further down the hall. Both Ellis and Emil watch in shocked horror as Bobbie is ripped apart, almost like a sawed-off shotgun hit him and blew most of his chest and throat and even some of his face away.
“Get back!” Ellis shouts without hesitation, putting his arms up backing up.
“Outta the way, sir!” Emil says from behind him, and instead of being shoved out of the way he moves around Ellis and forward, bringing up his machine gun all the while. He glances over his shoulder as he’s past, blowing out a puff of smoke as he does so. “No offense, sir, but I’ve got this,” — he holds up the machine gun — “and you ain’t got diddly-squat!”
Ellis can’t argue with that so he shrugs and cocks his head to one side. Ahead of him Emil nods and turns back to the door, and the mess that remains of Bobbie that’s still visible out in the hallway. He’s halfway there when a figure jumps out, right into the doorway, and with his flash gun aimed right at Emil.
BOOM!
The sound is loud, deafening almost in the close confines of Ellis’s quarters. Emil does a good job getting his gun up and he even gets a shot off, though it hits the wall beside the door. The figure in the doorway’s shot doesn’t miss, however, and slams into Emil with the same force and intensity as it’d slammed into Bobbie, though this time at a much closer range. The shot goes through Emil, leaving most of his chest and stomach on the back wall. Ellis watches it slide down onto his desk for a moment, then looks past Emil’s dead body on the floor — the ever-present pipe still smoking away between his lips — and to the figure in the doorway.
“Harry,” he says with a nod.
“Ellis,” General Harry Anderholt replies.
“Looks like you foiled our escape.”
Anderholt cocks his head to one side, admitting the truth of Ellis’s words. “Not that you had any idea what was going on.”
“What is going on?”
“Oh, I guess now’s the part where I tell you exactly what’s going to happen, is that it?” Anderholt says, then chuckles as he brings up the flash gun.
Ellis frowns. “Harry… why?”
“Oh, Ellis… don’t you know you can’t win? Don’t you know you can’t beat them?”
“So the answer is to join them instead?”
“I would like it if you did, Ellis,” Anderholt says, lowing the flash gun slightly, “I’d like that very much.”
“You already knew the answer to that before you came here — never.”
Anderholt shrugs. “Have it your way.”