Читать книгу The Book Of Schemes - Marcus Calvert - Страница 10

Father Edgar Jaisalu slowly regained consciousness. The kind, aging Nigerian was in his early 60’s. He felt nauseous, as though one of the hangovers from his wilder youth had returned to haunt him. Short, white-haired and balding, he was very shortsighted. But even without his glasses, Jaisalu was able to sense that he was tied to a metal chair in a frigid, dark room with a solid concrete floor. He also noted that his kidnapper(s) left him in his black-and-gold Pittsburgh Steelers pajamas with nothing on his wrinkled feet. A light switch was flicked behind him and fluorescent overheads hummed to slow life.

“Hello?” Jaisalu asked, his mild accent laced with fear. “Who’s there?”

“Hello, Father Jaisalu.”

Jaisalu didn’t recognize the voice but could guess (by the accent) that he was dealing with an American. A freckle-faced, red-haired man in his late 40’s walked into Jaisalu’s line of view. He had a hard face and a short, compact build. In his right hand was a white mug of steaming hot coffee. In his left was a high-standing wooden stool. He wore thick olive-drab trousers, a black turtleneck, and a brown bomber jacket. Most of all, the Jesuit noted his captor’s black Desert Eagle .50 handgun, which hung heavily in its right hip holster.

“My name’s Benjamin Truitt,” the man said as he set the stool down and gave him a guilty smile. “Please let me start by apologizing for bringing you here like this.”

“Uh … that’s quite all right,” Jaisalu anxiously replied. The last thing he had remembered was having a glass of goat’s milk while grading a stack of papers in his bed. They must have drugged him. It would explain why he felt so –

“You’re probably curious about why you’re here,” Truitt’s words interrupted Jaisalu’s thoughts.

“You could say that.”

Truitt set his cup on the stool, pulled Jaisalu’s thick glasses from inside of his jacket and then gently affixed them to the priest’s face.

“Better?”

“Much,” Jaisalu nodded as he blinked rapidly and took in his surroundings with a clearer gaze. The place had the feel of a storage room, with no windows or signs to indicate where he was. Truitt picked up his cup and sat down.

“I’m here about a small tribe called the Mikutu,” Truitt stated as he first blew on the hot brew and then took a long sip of coffee. “I’m sure that you remember it, yes?”

Were Father Jaisalu white, he would’ve gone pale.

Mikutu was a small, remote village in the Horn of Africa, which had been the scene of a brutal massacre over twenty years ago. Almost every man, woman, and child had been systematically slaughtered. Of the 164 villagers, only three of them survived. Jaisalu had been delivering books to a nearby school when the trio stumbled out in front of his jeep – a man (with a leg wound) being helped along by his wife and eight-year-old son. They begged him for a ride. Naturally, Jaisalu gave them a lift.

He drove them to the nearest clinic and contacted the authorities. By the time the local police arrived at the village, a full day had passed. All of the other villagers’ bodies had been piled into a mass grave and burned beyond recognition. The perpetrators of the massacre left few clues behind – only the three surviving witnesses. When asked about the crime, none of the three villagers dared to say anything, terrified of retribution. After the man could safely travel, they fled.

Their whereabouts were unknown.

Eventually, the land was purchased by an American company called Randallson Oil. Soon after that, the corporation started drilling and “just happened” to discover oil there. An oil refinery was built on the Mikutu’s tribal lands and ended up becoming the source point of a lucrative pipeline. When Jaisalu contacted the Vatican about this horrid transgression, the Pope became personally involved.

The villagers of Mikutu had converted to Catholicism about thirty years ago. While the government didn’t seem to care about punishing those responsible, the Catholic Church was. In time, what little evidence could be gathered pointed toward Randallson as being behind the massacre and that officials in the national government had been bribed to look the other way. However, their corporate lawyers successfully thwarted all attempts to bring forth criminal charges, especially without any witnesses to testify.

In time, the case was closed and life went on.

“You work for them? For Randallson?” Jaisalu asked.

Truitt nodded.

“What is this about?”

“Eighteen years ago, someone began killing off Randallson employees. Each of the murders was … ‘unique,’ bloody, and perpetrated by the same individual.”

“How many?”

“One hundred and five,” Truitt stated.

Jaisalu’s jaw dropped at the number.

“You’re saying that one person killed all of those people?”

“Correct,” Truitt grimly nodded. “Eighty of them had a military background. Most of them were warned to watch their backs. Some even hired bodyguards to protect them. But they kept dying.”

“What about the other twenty-five victims?”

“All high-level members of Randallson Oil: including the board of directors.”

The lone Mikutu eyed the target area through the night vision scope of a suppressor-capped Dragunov sniper rifle from within the cover of a leafy tree. A plastic camouflaged mask concealed the Mikutu’s deep-brown skin as he counted the number of Truitt’s guards. His clothes were also camouflage-patterned. In addition, he wore an assortment of explosives, bladed weaponry, and infiltration gear.

Three hundred yards away, there was a small refrigeration plant where Truitt had taken refuge. One of the complex’s four buildings was a small storage warehouse. The largest building used to manufacture cheap, compact refrigerators. A three-story building, designed much like a motel, housed Truitt’s mercenaries. Covered with broken windows, the one-story, U-shaped office buildings had seen better days. Less than a month ago, Truitt had purchased the remote Nigerian facility and had secured it with best security systems money could buy.

The Mikutu saw twelve exterior guards, five of whom were accompanied by leashed Dobermans.

“Go inside,” the Mikutu commanded in a low voice, in the tongue of his dead tribe. “Tell me where the priest is.”

The underbrush below him parted, as if an invisible being was running off to comply with the Mikutu’s order. He waited patiently. When one of the Dobermans stopped and began to bark, the Mikutu knew that his spy had crossed over onto the complex. The Doberman’s handler stopped, raised his submachine gun, and looked around. Dressed in sand-colored fatigues, the white mercenary carried a light assortment of weapons and op tech. He looked competent and dangerous. It didn’t matter, though. As far as the lone Mikutu was concerned, this mercenary would die tonight, as well any of his comrades … and especially Truitt.

But the priest had to be accounted for first.

Jaisalu had tried to see justice done for the slaughtered Mikutu and had thus earned mercy. When the old Jesuit was safe, he could complete his blood vengeance.

“Those murdered Randallson employees were behind the massacre of the Mikutu, weren’t they?” Jaisalu asked with open contempt.

“Yes,” Truitt regretfully sighed.

“How many of you are left?”

“Just me,” Truitt replied. “I was one of the mercs who torched the village. I was just 23 at the time. Our orders were to hit the place from all sides and quickly eliminate everyone. I’m amazed those three villagers slipped past us.”

“Oh God!” Jaisalu whispered with abrupt realization. “You think the boy is behind this?”

Truitt nodded.

“And you’re going to tell me where he is, Father. After that, my men will deliver you home safe and sound. You have my word.”

“Seeing as I know your face, your name, and the crimes you’ve done,” Jaisalu countered, “I doubt you’re going to let me live.”

“What you know isn’t important, Father. What you can prove is. If I’ve learned anything, after working for Randallson all this time, it’s that. You won’t be able to prove that you were kidnapped. And, frankly, you’re smart enough to know what’ll happen to you if you try.”

Jaisalu glanced down at Truitt’s Desert Eagle and made his decision with a clarity that surprised him.

“I don’t know where the villagers fled to,” he said defiantly. “Even the Vatican couldn’t find them. And if I did know where they were, I’d never tell you.”

Truitt eyed the old priest for a moment

“This guy’s coming to kill me, Father. I’ve got sixteen men watching this place. He’ll kill them, too. I don’t doubt it at all. You can prevent this.”

“Why?” Jaisalu said with a sneer. “So you and your thugs can get back into the genocide business, without having to watch your backs? You sowed this, Mr. Truitt. Now reap it.”

“Last chance, Father. Then I have to sit here and watch one of my guys work on you. He’s something of an artist when causing people extreme pain.”

Jaisalu stared ahead with a resolute silence.

Truitt pulled a small hand radio from his jacket.

“Send Hiers in here,” Truitt commanded.

“Copy that,” a male voice replied.

Truitt put his hand radio away and suddenly stiffened. He dropped his coffee cup and spun about, gun drawn before the cup could smash against the cold floor. Jaisalu looked past Truitt and saw nothing. The mercenary’s instincts screamed that they were being watched.

The Mikutu knelt at the base of the tree and shined a pen light on a patch of dark soil. An invisible finger drew out the layout of the facility – from the position of the interior guards to the room where Jaisalu was being held. The Mikutu committed this diagram to memory and then turned off the pen light.

“Truitt’s having the priest tortured,” the spy said with a slow, hissing voice.

“Get the others,” the Mikutu commanded. “I’ll be inside shortly.”

Jaisalu screamed.

Hiers had knelt down in front of the priest and slowly – very slowly – cut through the flesh and bone of his left big toe with a small, hacksaw-shaped apparatus. The large Dutch mercenary was dressed like Truitt (minus the bomber jacket), with a Browning 9mm pistol in his left shoulder holster. A bag of torture implements rested on the floor. As the priest’s blood spurted onto Hiers’ thick hands, he completed the amputation. Even Truitt was a bit disgusted as the large mercenary picked up the bloody piece of Father Jaisalu and held it up for the priest to see.

“You should take better care of your feet,” Hiers declared with a thick accent and a sick smile

Truitt turned away from the screaming priest, lit himself a cigarette, and checked his watch. With a muttered profanity, the aging merc pulled out his radio.

“Perimeter teams, you’re overdue. Report.”

The only response was static. Hiers looked up as Truitt nervously drew the Desert Eagle again.

“Perimeter teams … report!” Truitt bellowed.

Again, nothing.

“Interior team – we’ve been breached. Fall back to my location. Do you copy?”

More static.

The door to the room was blown open. Jaisalu wasn’t knocked back because his chair was bolted to the floor. Hiers wasn’t so lucky. He half-drew his handgun before the blast knocked him sideways. As the weapon skidded from his fingers, the Mikutu rushed in with a pair of throwing knives and sank them into Hiers’ throat with a one-handed throw. From his crouched perch in the corner, Truitt knew that the Mikutu hadn’t seen him yet.

“To your right!” Jaisalu shouted.

The Mikutu spun toward Truitt, another blade ready to throw, just in time to get shot in the chest. While the killer had body armor on, it couldn’t stop a fifty-caliber round. As he lay gasping for air, Truitt cautiously crept up to the door with a two-handed grip on his weapon. He glanced through the empty doorway, saw that the Mikutu was alone, and then relaxed.

After all, he had won.

“Finally got you, you sonuvabitch!”

An eager relief filled Truitt as walked over to his victim, aimed for his torso, and emptied the clip. By the time the last shot echoed through the small room, the Mikutu lay dead at his feet.

Truitt knelt, triumphantly pulled the mask off, and blinked in surprise. The corpse was not that of the village boy, who would’ve been in his late 20’s by now. The dead face he gazed upon belonged to a man in his early 40’s. His face was covered with wrinkles and old scars. Even in death, it held a quiet dignity. Truitt looked up at Jaisalu. But, judging from the old Jesuit’s equally-confused expression, he figured that the priest didn’t know him either.

Suddenly, Truitt was knocked to the floor.

A pair of strong hands grabbed him by the waist, from behind. Another pair grabbed his left arm. Another pair grabbed him by the right arm and disarmed him. A fourth pair seized his legs. Jaisalu couldn’t see them at first. But then they appeared before him – a roomful of transparent ghosts who looked like black African villagers. Some wore Western-style clothing. Others wore their tribal garb. Truitt found himself in the grip of eight male ghosts, who quickly lifted him over their heads. The mercenary looked down at them and screamed hysterically as he recognized some of their stern faces.

“No! We killed you!” Truitt yelled with a trembling voice. “I remember your faces! We fucking killed you!”

Without a word, the ghosts marched Truitt out of the room. A few more walked over to Hiers’ bag, grimly pulled out assorted sharp objects, and followed Truitt. Some of the other ghosts surrounded their fallen avenger and regarded him sadly. Four more male ghosts reverently carried him out of the room.

A young girl picked up Hiers’ blood-covered saw and severed Jaisalu’s bonds.

“You’re all Mikutu?” Jaisalu winced as he took off his pajama top and started to rip it apart to bandage his foot.

One of the village elders approached. The old male ghost gave Jaisalu a kind smile.

“Yes,” the ghost replied in broken English. “We came for our revenge.”

“And that man was a Mikutu?”

“Yes,” the ghost replied. “Omambu left the village when we converted to Catholicism. He believed in the Old Ways. When he heard what happened, he awakened our spirits. We helped him kill those responsible.”

“What about the three villagers who got away?” Jaisalu asked, curious about their fate. “Where are they?”

The old ghost laughed and shrugged.