Gateways (43 page)

While Jason was watching, a camera flash went off in the tent. Then another. Mellors taking photographs of the scene to back up whatever story he offered later.

Mellors would be there awhile but Jason didn’t want the two Arabs to show up as reinforcements. He walked quietly down to the beach where the Arabs would be playing at being guards. It was a training exercise—how many times had he practiced it in the camps? Sneak up on the enemy encampment but take care of the guards first.

He kept to the shadows of the old pier, watching the beach as brief patches of moonlight moved along it. He paused when he saw a darker shadow sitting on a driftwood log, staring out at the ocean.

Jason swung up to the top of the pier and inched his way toward the end. He wondered if he knew the guard, if they had met at the camps. Maybe they had been friends—except nobody at the camps had any friends. They came from different countries, spoke different languages, had their own interpretation of the Qur’an.

The guard was a few yards from the end of the rotting pier and Jason hid in the shadows as he crept along. When he ran out of pier, he loosened the roll of nylon twine from around his wrist and cupped the pebbles he’d picked up in his other hand.

Another patch of moonlight and he tossed a pebble so it landed between the pier and the guard. The Arab lurched to his feet and turned to face the shadowy pier. He took his long knife out of its sheath and warily approached the rotting wooden supports, crying “Who is there?” in broken English.

Jason froze as the guard poked around the garbage and the driftwood below. Just in time he stretched on his side along one of the pier’s surface planks when the guard flashed his lantern at the pier bottom. After a few moments, the guard grunted and turned to leave.

Now!

Jason stood up and dropped a noose of nylon cord around the Arab’s neck, threw another loop around what was left of a nearby bollard, and yanked.

The guard’s feet flew out from under him and he dropped his lantern and knife to try and pull the noose away from his throat. He kicked at the air and tried to scream but the fine twine had already cut halfway through his windpipe.

Jason gave a final yank and twisted the line tight around the bollard. In a moment the guard was dangling there, his feet free of the sand, still staring at the ocean.

Jason slipped down from the pier just as a patch of moonlight lit the Arab’s face. The executioner’s apprentice, the one who wielded the sword in the beheadings that were filmed at the camps. There was a fading light of recognition in his eyes and Jason said, “Good-bye, Selim,” and continued down the beach.

One down, two to go.

The other Arab was taking his job seriously, holding his lantern with one hand and his knife with the other, turning to the north for a minute, then looking south, and finally staring up toward the road to catch anybody walking down to the beach.

Jason could see patches of moonlight coming and when they got closer, flattened himself on the sand. What you looked for was movement, when a rock that had been forty feet away was now only twenty.

The moment came almost as quick as Jason thought about it. He caught a frown on the Arab’s face, then was caught in the dazzling beam of light from his lantern. Jason was already on his feet. He ran toward the Arab, hit him in the midsection, and both knife and lantern went flying. The Arab tried to shout for help, then started coughing when Jason threw a handful of sand in his face.

Jason grabbed the Arab around the waist to throw him down on the sand and realized his mistake as soon as he attempted it. The Arab was a stocky man, with thick strong legs. He wasn’t going to go down easily.

Jason slid down his thighs and grabbed his ankles and rolled. Another mistake. The Arab fell on top of him and momentarily had the advantage. Jason buried a stiff two fingers in the Arab’s stomach and twisted and the man grunted and let go, then tried to run up the sand toward the tent. There was a small sewer stream running from the road down to the ocean; the Arab didn’t see it, slipped on a rock and Jason leaped on top of him.

The holds he’d learned in wrestling came back with a rush. He hooked an arm behind the Arab’s right arm and cupped his hand around the head
and straightened up. You could break a neck that way but again, too thick a neck.

The Arab broke the grip, staggered back a foot, and Jason hit him in the stomach with his shoulder. The Arab went down, landing in the stream. Jason flipped him in the water, wrapping his legs around the Arab’s waist and holding him facedown in the sewage.

The Arab swallowed and water flooded his lungs. He heaved convulsively and in a moment was still, facedown in the water.

Jason started to walk away, then noticed a lump in the Arab’s rear pocket. A tiny gun, useless at any distance but deadly for short range. The USDC had failed to check its mercenaries for small arms. Jason held the gun in one hand, the Arab’s battery lantern, turned off, in the other and started up the sand.

There was no longer a light inside the tent.

Mellors was through taking photographs but Jason had heard no car start from the road above. Mellors had probably left his camera equipment behind and walked down to the beach to get his Arabs.

Jason slipped into the tent, shielding the light from his lantern with a jacket hanging from the tent pole. Mellors hadn’t moved the bodies nor bothered to cover their faces. A look of despair was etched on Emmy’s, fear on Willow’s and Dot’s.

Jason killed the lantern and started walking down the sandy slope outside. Both he and Mellors had to be on the same stretch of sand between the ocean and the tent. Bad news, Jason thought, but not for him. His time in the camps had taught him how to maneuver in complete darkness.

He stood stock-still and listened for minutes, figuring that Mellors was doing the same. But he could stand like that until morning and he was willing to bet that Mellors couldn’t.

It was half an hour before he picked up the sound of feet trying to shuffle noiselessly through the sand. Not that far away and to his left.

Jason abruptly turned on his lantern and lobbed it to his right at shoulder height. It never hit the ground. Mellors shot at it several times, then flicked on his own lantern to see what he’d hit.

Jason shot him then, once in the arm so he couldn’t fire his automatic again, and once in his lower leg so he couldn’t run. Mellors dropped his lantern and Jason walked over and picked it up, kicking Mellors’s hand away when he grabbed at him. He turned the lantern on so it shone directly into Mellors’s eyes.

“You’re blinding me,” Mellors said.

“The better to see you with,” Jason said. Then: “How much did they pay you?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” Mellors said, his eyes following Jason, looking for an opening if only he could move.

Jason took his knife and slit Mellors’s shirt, leaving a thin red line on his chest.

“I’m curious,” Jason said.

Mellors hesitated and Jason waved his bread knife again, now lightly streaked wiith blood.

“Five million,” Mellors grunted. “In euros.”

One and a quarter million euros each for Noah and Emmy, Willow and Dot.

Jason glanced at the ocean. It would be easy to wash up.

He looked back at Mellors and thought of the Scovills, Jasper, and Paul—his best friend from Reno, when he had finally left Hillcrest. Paul had gone to fight in Iraq and came back a month later in a pine box. Then of Valerie and the needle-stick injury that had killed her. She had been going to blow the whistle on Blake Pharmaceutical, to warn the world. He’d wanted to tell her she was too smart to be that naïve.

He had wanted to give up the bargain when he’d met Noah and Emmy, Willow and Dot. But two hours after meeting them, he knew it would have been a mistake. His life had been full of lessons. That was the last one.

He took a step toward Mellors, holding the bread knife out and to his right.

“This won’t be quick,” he said.

He was still human enough to take pleasure in revenge.

It was a warm Sunday morning in Hillcrest and Jason had chosen a spot on the wooden bench where the sunlight would hit his face. He was wearing shades and had on his backpack; he doubted anybody would recognize him. He ran a hand over the cloth of the pack and could feel the small vial that Valerie had given him. She had been very angry—her life for the world’s, she’d said.

He hooked his arms over the back of the bench and watched the congregation as it straggled into the white-steepled church. The parishoners were mostly middle-aged and older, many with children—he was sorry about that. There were very few young singles.

It was a wealthy congregation, the kind that went to white steepled churches in this country and huge granite monuments overseas. The men wore linen suits and you could see your face in their shoes. The women favored print dresses with high necklines. They would smell of various lotions and perfumes—one of the many things that set them apart from other animals. The kids were dressed to the nines, the boys in miniature suits, the girls in starched dresses and white shoes. All of them looked uncomfortable and probably wished they were somewhere else.

Those who had showed up for the services would sit well forward and most of the pews in back would be empty—it was a beautiful summer day and God had too much competition. Who wanted to listen to somebody’s droning interpretation of the Bible when they could be at a picnic or playing tennis or swimming at the beach?

Something was tugging at his pants leg and he glanced down. A squirrel was chittering up at him. He draped his jacket over his arm and the squirrel ran up it and sat on his shoulder, nuzzling against his neck.

“Got nothing for you, little beast—left all the nuts at home.” He touched it lightly behind the ears, then under the chin. It preened up at him, rolling over so he could stroke its belly.

“Same to you, little brother.”

Several pigeons fluttered overhead, finally sitting on the top of the bench next to him.

Some of the parishoners looked at him, curious, then continued into the church. The minister had been greeting them at the door and occasionally glanced his way. When everybody was inside, he walked over and smiled at Jason.

“You coming in, son?”

“Maybe a little later.”

The minister looked disappointed but managed another smile. “I’ve never seen any of the squirrels so friendly before. You’re a regular Saint Francis of Assisi, aren’t you?”

“Never met the man,” Jason said.

The minister’s smile faded. He turned and continued into the church. The doors closed behind him and a moment later Jason heard the swelling tones of the organ and the congregation singing the doxology. He muttered the words to himself and shook his head in wonder. In a few weeks it would all be over but none of them would be able to figure out why it was happening. Perhaps a few of the truly religious would connect the dots but it was much too late to do anything about it. Generations too late.

An hour slowly passed. The occasional bird landed on Jason’s shoulder,
pecked at his ear, then flew off. Inside the church there was the subdued murmur of the minister’s voice and from time to time the response of the congregation. After the final “hallelujah” the doors swung open and people started to leave. Most of them paused to shake the hand of the minister, who had stationed himself just outside the door, and tell him what a wonderful sermon he’d given. Jason wondered how many of them had slept through it.

The minister looked his way once, went back inside and the doors were closed. They wouldn’t be locked, Jason thought. There were always those who wanted to stay and pray in solitude. He gave the squirrel a final stroke and stood up. It was time.

The inside of the church looked like a small, decorated cave. The high vaulted ceiling, the wooden pews with hymnals stuck in the railings in back, the carpet down the center aisle . . . He liked the silence, the emptiness, the aloneness. There was even the standard old lady close to the front and a middle-aged couple halfway back, on their knees in the pew and praying quietly.

Jason walked up the center aisle until he stood in front of the altar and a large statue of Jesus on the cross. He looked at it for a long time. Jesus had been the first of the errand boys, followed by a steady stream of saints and prophets.

He would be the last one.

He stared a moment longer at the wooden Jesus, then turned to leave.
Now it’s my turn.

Author’s note: This story, extensively rewritten, is based on material in an unpublished novel with the same title—
The Errand Boy.

Freddy Pohl was my first agent and sold my first dozen or so short stories, cementing my opinion of myself as a “writer.” (Excuse the affectionate diminutive but we go back more than fifty years and I think I’m entitled. He can call me “Frankie” any time he wants to.)

Fond memories include the time at a convention when Fred, who
owed me for a story, pulled out two hundred-dollar bills from his wallet. It was the very first time I had ever seen a Franklin. Another fond memory is when I brainstormed a story for Bill Hamling, then editor of
Amazing Stories
. Knowing the editors there always changed the titles of stories they bought, I simply called it “Untitled Story” and let it go at that.

Some time later, on leave from the navy, I picked up the latest issue of
Astounding
and there it was—“Untitled Story.” (John W. Campbell Jr., the editor, hadn’t bothered to change the title either.) Campbell had needed a twelve-thousand-word short badly and Fred saw the hole and promptly filled it—at three times what
Amazing
would have paid.

But my memories and respect for Fred go far beyond the commercial. At the age of twenty-one, he became the editor of
Astonishing Stories
and
Super Science
, the youngest editor in the science fiction field since Charles D. Hornig ascended to the throne at
Wonder Stories
at the age of seventeen. After the war, Fred edited several other science fiction magazines (
Galaxy, Worlds of If
, et cetera), collaborated with almost every science fiction writer of the period, including his friend Cyril Kornbluth (
Gravy Planet
, et cetera) and Jack Williamson (
Undersea Quest
and other juveniles) and hit the really big time with his solo efforts of the Heechee novels, the first of which—
Gateway
—won the Hugo, the Nebula, and the John W. Campbell Memorial (thus tying Lance Black for his screenplay for
Milk
, which won every award out there).