“You smell that?”
“Smell what?”
Keo looked down at his clothes. His dirty clothes.
Sonofabitch.
He launched up from the ground and took the remaining ten meters at a dead run, the crunch-crunch of his boots exploding loudly under him, and this time he didn’t even try to pretend it was just his imagination.
Can you hear me now? he thought, almost laughing out loud.
The first head that popped up in front of him was balding and had what looked like a rash over his right cheek. He was in his forties and wearing nondescript camo clothing, and though Keo couldn’t see the rest of his body, the man looked in reasonably good shape. Fading white wires (earbuds?) dangled from his ears and connected to a small device in his hand. He turned his head, saw Keo, and his eyes went white and round like baseballs.
Keo snapped off a shot at five meters — close enough that he barely had to aim — and blew the man’s brains out.
The gunshot boomed and was just starting its echo across the landscape when the second head popped up.
Younger, with some kind of military buzz cut, was in the process of standing up when the older man collapsed next to him. Instead of reaching for his weapon, the man held up his hands and shouted, “Wait—”
But Keo didn’t wait. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to. He was moving too fast, the surge of adrenaline driving him forward with a full head of steam. He swung the AR-15 and connected solidly with the stock of his rifle. His victim dropped to the ground back onto the already bent stalks of grass where he and his now-dead friend had been sitting.
Keo sucked in a deep breath and spun around in a complete circle, searching for more targets among the wavy blades of grass and the sporadic lines of trees circling him. The gunshot. Someone would have heard that gunshot. It was simply impossible not to these days with the deadness of the world.
So where were they?
Was it possible there were only two in the entire area? Could he be that lucky?
First time for everything.
Satisfied there was no one else out there — or at least no one dumb enough to show themselves — Keo dropped down behind the makeshift wall of grass.
Mercer’s man — and he had to be one of Mercer’s men, because who else would be out here this close to Lochlyn? — was rolling around on the ground, both hands cupping his shattered nose. Blood oozed through his fingers, and the man’s eyes, soft blue, blinked erratically up at Keo.
“Relax; you’ll make it,” Keo said.
The man’s eyes dropped down to the holstered sidearm at his hip. It looked like a Sig Sauer, similar to the one Keo was carrying.
“Sure, why not?” Keo said, and grinned at him.
The man stopped rolling and wisely didn’t reach for his weapon.
“Are there more of you around?” Keo asked.
The man didn’t answer right away. Maybe he was trying to decide how much he should tell, if anything.
“Hey, what’s that?” Keo said, and pointed at a random spot on the ground.
The man predictably turned his head to look, and when he did, Keo punched him in the face. Of course, he wasn’t instantly knocked unconscious; he simply groaned against Keo’s fist, but before he could hold out his hands to ward off further attacks, Keo punched him again, and again…
“Who are you? What do you want?” the man asked, though it came out more like “Whaphuduuwhump?” because of the broken nose and busted lip. His face was an odd shade of purple and brown, which was a little hard to see in the darkened second floor of the barn where Keo had brought the man, about a hundred meters (give or take) from the field where they had clashed.
Keo could see the exact spot from one of the open doors; he had been staring at it for the last forty minutes, convinced more of Mercer’s men would be responding to the sound of his gunshot. That had been stupid. He’d fired without thinking of the consequences. He couldn’t even blame it on the dead man for popping up right in front of him like something out of a bad horror flick. He didn’t bother with the lie. He’d shot Deep Voice because he wanted to. After the week he’d had, he just wanted to kill someone.
“You got a name?” Keo asked.
“Davis,” the man said.
“What about your friend?”
“Butch.”
Keo chuckled. Davis and Butch. It sounded like a bad Hollywood Western.
“Where’s Mercer, Davis?” Keo asked, looking back at Davis, who was sitting behind him on an old block of hay.
The building around them smelled of year-old animal feces and mold. It was at least ten, maybe twenty times worse than the last barn he had been in (with Jordan) in terms of smell, but was still in relatively good shape. This building, along with the farmhouse next door, was going to outlive him; not that that was saying very much.
If it’s still here after this week, it might outlast me…
“Mercer?” Davis said.
“Your fearless leader.”
“What do you want with him?” Davis was still having difficulty speaking, especially when he had to string more than a few words together. It took Keo a few seconds to understand everything he said.
“Is he in Lochlyn?” Keo asked.
Davis didn’t answer. His hands and ankles were presently bound with duct tape, and Keo hadn’t been too worried about the man fleeing as they made their way here, then up to the second floor. Davis was in no shape to run, and certainly not while Keo had the AR. Out there, with wide-open spaces for hundreds of meters at a time, there weren’t a whole lot of places to hide. That was the only reason Keo felt comfortable enough to stop and wait for Mercer’s men.
Or, at least, that’s what he told himself.
Give me a break. You’re still here because you want them to show up. You can taste it, can’t you? You want this. Admit it.
Yes, he thought. I want this. It’s what I’m good at…
When Davis still hadn’t answered, Keo said, “Lochlyn. Mercer. Is he there?”
Davis finally shook his head.
“Where is he?” Keo asked.
“I don’t know.”
Keo casually took his hand off the barrel of the slung rifle and rested it on the butt of the Sig Sauer he’d taken from Davis earlier and had stuffed into his front waistband. Davis’s eyes — or his left, anyway, because the right was black and blue and puffy like a blowfish — were drawn to the not-so-subtle movement before snapping back up to Keo’s face.
“I don’t know where he is,” Davis said.
Keo didn’t take his hand off the gun. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“Back at The Ranch.”
“‘The ranch?’” Keo repeated, just in case he hadn’t made the words out correctly given Davis’s situation. Hadn’t the dead Butch said something about a “ranch” too, before Keo shot him?
“Home base,” Davis said. “That’s what we call it.”
“Where is home base?”
Davis shook his head.
“You don’t know?” Keo asked.
“I know. I’m just not telling you.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Davis nodded with something that could almost be mistaken for conviction, which if true was impressive given his current state. Even though both of them were mostly hidden in the darker corners of the barn, Keo could easily make out Davis’s injuries.
“What do you want with him?” Davis asked.
“I want to put a bullet between his eyes.”