The Infiltrators Read online

  A long series of reversals followed, every one of them masterfully acted by Halder, whose grimacing face suggested he was fighting for his life. Righty had to do little faking, as even this new version of Halder was leaving him gasping for air and feeling like he was going to throw up at any second, due to the tremendous exertion. He tried to perform every counter he could that Pitkins had taught him, as Halder assailed him with a flurry of grappling attacks, every one seeming to fail by a hair.

  When the time for the match expired, Righty surprised Halder by grabbing his arm and lifting it, announcing him as the victor.

  “This man has made it into Ranch Guard. Tim, I’ve seen some good fighting today. You pick whichever are the best nine after Halder,” realizing the best nine probably wouldn’t be able to take Halder at the same time.

  “Yes, sir,” Tim said quickly.

  “This way,” Righty said to Halder, and they began walking towards Righty’s cabin.

  Chapter 7

  “We almost there, Sonny?”

  “Over this way,” Sonny said.

  Sonny was a son of a whore, but that was no epithet. His mother was Rosie Culvendale, and she had worked both the streets and bordellos of some of Sivingdel’s roughest areas. When he was born, she named him Chris, but the ubiquitous sight of the young tike running around the bordello playing with toys while other kids his age were at home playing with their siblings became quite a sight.

  Who is he? many would ask.

  Oh, the son of some whore . . . Rosie, I think her name is.

  As Chris got old enough to go to school it didn’t take too long for the little secret to reach the ears of his classmates, but it wasn’t until middle school that Son of a Whore practically became his proper name.

  Those were sad years. Many lonely lunches, many black eyes, and many nights full of brooding.

  Chris left school at age twelve, thinking he could outrun his past. He found odd jobs pickpocketing and serving as lookout for some of the town’s more nefarious bandits while they entered businesses and even private homes. Somehow, the past caught up with him, and though he did good enough work that most of his bosses wouldn’t say it to his face, he would hear them chuckling and saying it behind his back.

  But the real problem was with his peers. They said it to his face all day long, but oddly enough, not always in a mean way. It seemed as if they wanted him to accept that name and not take it personally.

  The first time Chris drew blood was when he was fifteen, and he had spent that entire night chanting aloud that he would either kill the next person he heard call him that or he would kill himself if he lost the nerve.

  The next day, as if fate were testing him, Freddie Big Ears, greeted him with a warm clap on the back and a “Good Morning, Son of a Whore!”

  No sooner had Freddie turned his back than Chris let a butcher knife slip from his sleeve—a move he had practiced in unison with his chanting—and then plunged it somewhere in between the spine and the shoulder blades, and Freddie let out a howl that could have been confused with a wolf’s.

  Once he crossed that line, there was no turning back, and Chris began hacking and slashing away in a frenzy and then finally caught Fred right in the throat with a poke. Around that point, Joshua Evans had said, “Sonny . . . calm down, man!”

  Like a beast calmed by some magical incantation, Chris’s countenance immediately lost its ferocity. He put the knife back inside his sleeve after a quick couple of wipes against his boot, and looked menacingly at everyone as it went up his sleeve, as if saying, I can just as easily pull it back out.

  The effect of the sound of “Sonny” on Chris had not been lost on the other two hooligans together with them that day, and within a day or two more and more people began testing it out on him.

  Over the next several years, Sonny had to reinforce his preference for the abbreviated form of his name by attacks even more vicious than the one against Freddie, but as of the present moment, it had been a good five years since the last reminder had been necessary.

  Sonny was no tough guy in a fair fight, but he had an uncanny ability to ambush. Ryan Sims, the next man after Fred to call him “Son of a Whore” to his face, had found this out the hard way.

  After saying it to him, he had stood on guard, staring Sonny down.

  Sonny seemed as calm as a blade of grass on a windless day. Fifteen minutes later, however, when Ryan turned his back just slightly to demonstrate how he had climbed into a window the prior day, the knife had fallen into Sonny’s hand too quick for anyone’s notice, and a half second later he jabbed it halfway to the hilt into Ryan’s armpit. The scream he emitted passed into legend, but it was short-lived.

  There was no wild hack and slash attack this time. The knife had been pulled out and traveled the full distance of Ryan’s throat in less than a blink.

  Sonny was pondering these happy memories while he strode down the street with Jack Hillmeyer, the man in charge of five blocks of Sivingdel street corner real estate, and he aimed to put on a good showing today. Being around Jack was kind of like being in the light of the brilliant sun after a few days cooped up inside the house with the flu.

  He oozed energy, confidence, and charisma in a way that made everyone standing around him feel a few inches taller. Sonny hadn’t exactly held too much love in his heart for his slain compatriots, and he was hoping that with a good performance today Jack just might put him in charge of the next crew.

  “We’re close,” Sonny said in a half-whisper.

  Jack stopped and spun around to look at him.

  “Here’s the deal,” he said with those powerful eyes boring into Sonny’s skull—“You make it quick—wham, bam!!” he finished, his lips smacking together in a way that made it unnecessary to drive the point home by clapping, one of Jack’s favorite tools of emphasis.

  There was no need to go over the finer points of the setup. They had drilled it to the point of agony last night, and if Sonny didn’t have it down by now, he never would.

  Sonny gulped and began walking in the lead position, Jack just inches behind, and several other toughs behind them, sundry weapons barely concealed within their long coats.

  It was around 9 p.m., but the lights of the surrounding businesses—most of which were of a nocturnal nature—prevented the men from being shrouded in complete darkness.

  “Mr. Sonny,” a calm voice exclaimed.

  Sonny turned around quicker than a cat.

  Zelven was there, just finishing the task of lighting an unusually long cigar, his back resting lazily against a building, his eyes full of energy.

  “Mr. Ritmer,” Sonny replied uneasily.

  “You’ve brought some colleagues, perhaps even your wholesaler. Fantastic. If he can beat my buying prices, I’ll gladly become his retailer. If I can beat his buying prices, I hope he’ll see reason and become my buyer.”

  Zelven blew a large, perfectly shaped circle of smoke towards Sonny, and as it passed his head, he couldn’t help but feel he was seeing a noose approach and wrap around his neck.

  “Well, won’t you introduce your friends?” Zelven asked. “I see you are rather popular.”

  The men had stretched out in a line long enough to block most of the alleyway.

  Sonny’s heart was beating so loudly, he almost wanted to yell at it to shut the heck up because he was sure Mr. Ritmer could hear it thundering inside his chest.

  Without even intending to actually drop the knife into his palm, he made the slightest twitch with his right fingers, as if wanting to make sure they had not gone numb and lost their ability to do their deed. A hundred witnesses scrutinizing Sonny would have seen nothing, but no sooner had they moved than Mr. Ritmer said, his eyes never having left Sonny’s, “Ohhhh, you don’t want to do that now, do you?”

  A twinkle danced in his eye. Sonny felt like he was about to throw up.

  “Oh, just do it, would ya?!” Jack said. “He’s alone for Kasani’s sake!”

  Somehow, Jack�
�s contempt overrode Sonny’s fear, causing the knife to drop into his palm.

  No sooner had it dropped, than he felt a sharp sting in his eye. Jack, standing next to him, heard a slight “whoosh,” but what caught his notice more than anything was the sudden spurt of blood that went flying out of Sonny’s right eye and his quickly crumpling body.

  Jack prepared to yell and then charge but immediately felt a sharp sting in his throat. The words didn’t come out. He brought his hands up to his throat, and they were immediately showered with spurts of blood.

  WHOOT! WHOOT! WHOOT! WHOOT!

  The sounds came out in quick succession, and one by one the line of men began to crumple over, blood jetting from their eyes or throats.

  A minute later, a wagon filled with hay came by. The driver got out and began to inspect one of his horses’ hooves, while three men slid out from underneath the hay, picked up the bodies, shoved them under the hay, and then hid themselves back under the hay. A few people took notice, but paid little attention, as the nonchalant nature of the men’s movements seemed so natural despite their abnormal actions.

  Zelven extinguished his cigar and put it carefully into a coat pocket. He had sold quite a few pounds of Smokeless Green tonight, and at the prices he was selling, he knew his corner was going to become very popular quickly.

  This would no doubt lead to another visit. Perhaps the next one would be with more reasonable people. There were ways of dealing with those who preferred violence to negotiation.

  Chapter 8

  Righty felt an odd sense of anticipation as he and Halder neared the cabin. He was worried by the fact it seemed his curiosity was greater than his fear of his overly capable guest, thinking perhaps he was little more than a moth being drawn to the flame.

  He breathed a sigh of relief as to Halder’s intentions when he offered no qualms about being the first to walk through the door which Righty now held open for him, though another part of him wondered if he had not made a fatal error by declining to send a coded message to Harold to have this man taken out during their stroll over here.

  He made a mental note that following this meeting, should he survive it, Harold would be given a code word for precisely such an attack.

  Halder readily sat in the chair that Righty pulled out for him, and Righty walked quickly to the chair seated across from Halder, barely suppressing the urge to run over to it.

  He sat down and looked Halder squarely in the eye. Halder’s gaze was as calm and impenetrable as before. No twinkle, no sneering glare of triumph; just calm, indecipherable energy.

  “Well, let’s get to it,” Righty said. “I’m not used to sitting across the table from a man more dangerous than myself. I can’t exactly say I like it. But here we are, and I’m dying to know just what in the hell a man with your skills is doing as a ranch hand and not working in the service of some luxurious king who can shower you with riches for your unrivalled services. Just what in the hell do you want with me, stranger?”

  For the first time, a flash of emotion came across Halder’s eyes. It was difficult to interpret, but it seemed like a bolt of lightning breaking the calm of a clear day followed by the arrival of thunder and ominous rain.

  Righty felt more than one hair lift itself just a tad off the back of his neck, and he again questioned the wisdom of not calling for Harold to dispatch this monster while he had the chance.

  Halder leaned forward on the table, his eyes boring into him like a pair of sharp drills.

  “You’re in danger, Mr. Simmers. Real danger.”

  Righty gulped. Somehow he couldn’t muster the false indignation in attempting to tell this man that his real name was Mr. Relder, not some Simmers alias he had used ages ago.

  Lies, it seemed, would be incinerated by this man’s gaze as easily as dry hay by a fiery torch.

  Righty leaned forward, holding the man’s gaze steadily.

  “I know that, Halder,” Righty began, allowing a little derision to adorn his guest’s name so that he did not think this alias was any more believable than Righty’s, which he had so blatantly refused to recognize. “I knew that from the moment I sold my first bag of this stuff, and the lesson has been reinforced many times over. Danger is the very ether surrounding my entire existence. Do you think I don’t realize that everything I have out there could be taken from me at a moment’s notice? Do you think I don’t realize I’m in constant danger from the forces of the state, the agents of rival gangs, or even the treachery of my own men?

  “Are you here to lecture me on the dangers of this business to which I have risen to the top, while you’re no more than a damn ranch hand?!!” Righty thundered.

  “Huuuuuuuu!”

  Air whistled out of Halder’s mouth as though a punch had gotten past one of his catlike blocks and delivered a powerful blow to his solar plexus, knocking the wind right out of him. But the quickly appearing smile on his face immediately showed he had been levelled by some unintended humor.

  “THE TOP?!!” shouted Halder, now standing and looking down at Righty like a schoolmaster with some fool student.

  Righty felt a combination of powerful anger and shame wash over him, as he immediately sensed this man excelled him in all things and that he must somehow kill him right now, even if he had to unabashedly summon the help of Harold and all the konulans to aid him in the process.

  Something—perhaps a sincerity, but Righty couldn’t put his finger on it—in the man’s gaze soothed his anger just enough to prevent an all-out battle from taking place at that moment, but his face and neck still burned red.

  “THE TOP?!” Halder repeated, with as much emphasis as before but less derision.

  Halder leaned forward towards Righty several more inches and told him, “You’re nothing more than a pawn for forces whose power and methods are as unknown to you as their existence!”

  “And I suppose you’re part of those mysterious forces, or otherwise you wouldn’t know, would you?” Righty shot back angrily. “Look, stranger, say what you’ve got to say, or get the hell off my land!!”

  “I could do that,” Halder said calmly, stepping away from the table and sliding the chair underneath it. “I could step outside that door, disappear from sight in minutes, and you’d never hear from me again. Is that your wish?”

  Righty paused. Halder’s matter-of-fact tone convinced Righty he was serious.

  “Your ability to disappear from me isn’t as absolute as you might think, stranger,” Righty said, in a matter-of-fact tone of his own.

  Halder’s gaze seemed incredulous for a moment, but when it was replaced by a certain degree of credulity, Righty felt perhaps he should not have made even a veiled reference to the one ace he held up his sleeve.

  “Sit!” Righty said affirmatively, pointing to the chair, and then he himself resumed his seated posture.

  Halder, studying Righty’s face and eyes in so intent a manner it made his skin crawl, walked back to the chair, pulled it out, and sat.

  “So—what do you say we both cut the crap. You’re a killing machine. No doubt about that. Hand to hand, and perhaps even with weapons, you could take anyone on this ranch, probably myself included. But you want something, and you want it from me. You didn’t just crawl out of some hole and sniff me out in order to spit in my face and move along. There’s something I have that you want, and there must be something significant you think you can offer me in order to obtain it.”

  “Sorry for the drama, Mr. Relder,” he began, inserting no sarcasm into his use of Righty’s alias, instead saying it as naturally as if he had known Mr. Relder by that name for years. “I never feel I’ve fully measured a man until I see him angry. I was pretty sure you were the right man before I ever set foot on this ranch. Now, I have no doubt.”