CAPA [An original thriller]

[Scorched]

Chapter 22

The jet had opulent lounge seats instead of the usual crammed and jammed up seats rowed against each other.

And there were just four of them, really, really large, and Alfred was sitting in one of them, with his legs crossed,

gentleman-like, reading glasses on, and reading a glossy magazine which seemed to be the latest GQ. Alfred was sitting at back.

The other three were just spread, with plenty of open space in between, one couple of feet, which felt like meters due to some design optical illusion, right of Alfred, which the stewardess pointed out to me.

'That one is yours.'

'All mine?' I said. And I just looked at her, like I do. Like the Geoff does. All swagger and confidence. Wondering if those two aren't the same.

'All yours,' she said, with a significant pause between the words, 'I'll join you soon.'

I smirked, and she went left, and left for a moment, probably to see the pilot of the luxurious bird. Carmine, you dog, you did made it, you did what you set out to do. Got all filthy rich.

As the stewardess left and my eyes trailed her wake, Alfred looked up from his reading, peering over his glasses, and just shook his head, brisk, and then went straight back to reading about the latest vintage shit, and this and that.

I smirked again and shrugged and went to my seat and instantly looked for the on-board mini-bar these things always have.

'Looking for the bar,' Alfred said, without looking up.

I said I was. And added, 'You forgot.'

He said while smiling sardonically, 'Right. Master Wayne, fancy a drink, some liquid courage.'

'Check. But don't need courage. Not extra at least. I got that. In spades, as a matter of fact.'

Alfred didn't look up, but said, 'It's behind that panel over there, integrated in that console.'

I looked left, in between seat three and me, and saw this very modern design piece which I thought was just a random piece of art someone had flung on the velvety-looking carpet which of course wasn't velvet since that is not rich enough, not enough for Carmine.

This thing, although artsy, looked very alien, like it didn't belong. It and me had an instant connection. Very warm.

I looked it down, from top to bottom, from its shiny edge to the other, and then did nothing. It looked like it could break just by sneezing.

Eventually, Alfred said, 'Sire, tap it twice, with care, just beside the right beveled opaque corner.'

A lot of questions burst in. What is care? What is beveled? What is opaque?

And I tapped the corner, with care, and the thing bleeped, and a compartment, white, yet opaque, shot out. Without a sound. Very modern, and filthy-rich like.

The compartment was deep, and gave a chill, and contained multiple bottled heavens. Of bourbon.

Immediately I swiveled my head to Alfred who at that moment struck me as looking like Johnny, and said, 'How?'

'How did I know? Master Wayne, it's Alfred's job to know, to know these things.'

'Check,' I said, 'and by any chance, is your name by chance to be Johnny?'

He shook his head as if he just changed diapers. 'Please, sir, don't ruin it. The moment.'

I gave him a lopsided grin which he didn't spot as he was too engaged in tunnel-visioning the shit out of the letters of the booklet, and as I got up and dug my hand in the chilly alien piece of art for glassed bliss and bourbon, the stewardess came back.

'All set?' I shot at her.

'For?' she said, coy, and exposed her neck. Touching her angular chin, pensively, but hot.

'To get shit faced. Of course.'

She giggled. 'Ah, right, copy that.'

'You mocking me?'

'How dare I? I never would. Plus, everybody can smell and tell you've served, as is also rumored for Mr. Carmine.'

'You call him that.' I laughed. And she nodded. And then I introduced myself. 'The name is Geoff. But the buddies call me Furry. You can call me 'Sweety, and I'll promise to call you Honey. Honey.'

She giggled. Stopped. And then with the energy of laughter she said, 'Hi, I'm Cindy, pleasure to meet you.'

Hmm. Southern manners. Good parents, and probably not only child.

I said, 'Oh, hi there, Cindy, didn't see you there. Fancy a bourbon?'

And as Alfred shook his head and she said yes and I grabbed a bottle of Old Forrester, the plane rolled out, out of the hanger, preparing to take off, taxing to the tarmac, and accelerated, and eventually the wheels said goodbye to its contact with the asphalt and we were airborne. And I just knew Cindy and me would have a blast of a time, and bourbon, too.

 

[Scorched]

Chapter 23

The safe house was situated between a row of other old crappy compounds, also made of wood and dust and plastered walls and with lots of abandonment mixed in.

The row of buildings was jammed in between two of the three main streets of Houston. Between street #2 and #3. Which located the safe house on the lower right quadrant of Houston if one were to look at it from above.

Houston had six main streets, very dull-like named #1 till 6. Two rows of buildings faces each road, so our safe house for example wedged in street #3 with help of another structure across the street.

All six streets lead to the square, where most of the 'official' buildings were placed, after Houston was created. Where the courthouse was located, too. Which also served as the throne room, for his majesty.

Which was one of the most heavily guarded places in Houston, or Colorado for that matter.

Which Carmine went to. He knew better, but still, he considered this to be the only option. The only way to get the militia, and bullshit-military police patrolling the streets of Houston, of our backs, the A-team. The city was under full lock down, and control of the Major.

So Carmine just put two and two together, and came up with something simple. Just go to the leader of the mob, and the mob stays of your back, or in this case, ours.

Really, the principles of the Mafia, consiglieris, and gangs, have not changed over the course of the last hundred years.

Our safe house had a cover, a front, and served as a bistro-restaurant for people streaming in and out of Houston.

Pots and pans.

It did really serve food though, but just stowed away rebels, general runaways, and people the Major, or AKA majesty, looked for and were wanted. The safe house had three storeys and a basement which served as the garage and the real armory which I helped set up. And the 'residents' stayed safely hidden on the third and second. Behind closed windows.

The first floor was the canteen, mess hall, or for the goons of Major, the restaurant.

From time to time, routine checks would come up, and the thugs would check if there were 'residents'. Which is why the secret corridor existed, the hall which Dew and I were trailing through right now.

What it did was just gave access to the restaurant via a seeming dead-end behind the kitchen.

And we reached the sturdy steel door, with hinges.

The slot up high slid open.

Then, 'Passwort!'

'Let me in,' I said.

The voice acted up again but I jammed in. 'I came up with the word 'passwort', with a 't' at end, with fake german accent. You know mocking the Nazi.'

'Ah, Furry.'

'People call you that?' Dew said.

I shrugged and said to the voice behind the steel, 'So you know, what you did was Stasi, not Nazi.'

A pause, as if the guy was checking himself, and running it over in his mind, replaying the phrase, with accent.

And I waited, but when his voice acted up, we said together, 'Stasi, Nazi. Big difference.'

And we laughed, but not Dew. In her defense, the joke did come up a few minutes ago, upstairs.

The lock clicked, and something slid, lower this time, and the slot closed and the eyes disappeared, and the steel door rolled open. Like a door of a van.

It was Auggie, the sous-chef. Yeah, they had to cook, and did good, to appear to run a legit business.

Auggie said, 'They out back, in your favorite spot.'

Auggie was fat. Maybe two-O-five, slopping wet, not tall, making him fatter. And he had dark eyes, a short crew cut, very chef-like, and glasses, very round, just like a noirish cop in the fifties would wear, or a writer.

He was wearing a sloppy apron, and boots, you know, just in case, when shit hit the fan, and retaliation and action was necessitated.

As I slid past, and Dew just nodded, Auggie gave us a kind flash on his face, fat but friendly. One of the best.

The second war had taken his daughter. Right about the time Soof's dad died on me, while we were on an away-mission and she blamed the shit out of me.

The kitchen looked alive, and pots were being heated, and sauces were being stirred, but I just ignored them, since I was starving and had to debrief, get that over, and than forge a plan to deal with the whole Carmine-Major sitch.

Out of the kitchen, and into the mess hall, I spotted two irregulars, funny looking, but hard and tough, but Josh sat behind those two at back, in my favorite spot, with the wall against their backs, giving them the Sicilian advantage, and I slithered through tables and peoples and waiters as the outside light sprinkled on me through the window, and I sat down.

'Debrief,' I said, 'now.'

Josh and Dew and Mouse just said nothing.

 

[Scorched]

Chapter 24

Again the journey, the flight, was short, too short, and it started to feel like a theme.

First the Aston, now the jet which probably had some fancy-shmancy name I didn't know.

After we left San Diego International we headed east, towards Hawaii, the constellation of isles.

To the Ko'olau mountain area, and specifically, to Nuʻuanu Pali. A section of the windward cliff, pali in Hawaiian, located at the head of Nuʻuanu Valley on the island of O'ahu.

What I heard, just a lot of green.

But what the kicker was, it was a cliff. One of the last place in the US which defined as a cliff. According to Alfred's pedantic encyclopedic knowledge he provided, from time to time, as he peered up and then back down to his magazine.

And Carmine always said his mansion would come with a cliff, or the other way around. And he got it. That dog, bastard.

He puts his money where his mouth his. Walks the talk, backs it up. Good boy.

After we touched down at Honolulu International, another private, but smaller, jet awaited us.

This one didn't have a mini-bar alien, all modern and sleek, or a VIP room which Cindy could 'show' me around in while Alfred shook his head, disapprovingly, as she led me in, leading, and her hand stretched out and back like in those youtube clips with the hot girl and beach and sand and sun and bullshit dreams.

After Alfred managed to drag me in the new jet, after I 'befriended' old Forrester over and over again, after Cindy and I got to know each other really well, I was lunged in a comfy velvety red lounge seat, not as big as before, but satisfying. And I crashed into that haze of welcoming sleep.

At Carmine's private LZ, landing zone, Alfred slapped the shit out of me, which was not the first time I was slapped by a grown man and I believed would not be the last, and he shouldered me, feet dragging, and Cindy kept her distance a bit.

A quirky, but slightly awkward smile on her face. The Geoff. Up-close. Whiskey, that is with 'e', laden.

And the green and the simmering thick vibrant summer of the mountain air embrace me. Dampened me in an instant, and made me sweat, and made me feel at home, strangely enough, and yet also expected.

As I was peering down the Ko'olau range, the houses, and the vegetation, and evergreen, massive fields spanning all the way to the sea. And the blue. And the soft pastel horizon. Almost saying to me, 'Everything is okay here, Geoff.'

Like a sign on the road that signals your home, after a long and weary journey.

And I saw an impeccably dressed gentleman, up ahead beside, a Ford, a Mustang I believe, and beside that Charlotte, a Thunderbird, V8. And beside and behind that a shit load of other cars I couldn't make it.

Just color and steel, from where I was standing.

Behind the old laughing boy in tux and shit, all dapper and all, was that thing. The mansion. All white. And I thought of Josh, and Alfred slapped me again as Cindy joined in under me, too, and hugged me, and supported me and I strolled through the lane. As birds chirped, and ambient light hugged me, too, and palm trees waved in the soft slow air.

 

[Scorched]

Chapter 25

The first thing Josh did was put down a sketchy map of the region as soon as I sat down beside him back against the wall. Across me sat Dew, and beside her, Mouse.

I noticed the two dodgy-looking fellows in the corner again, scanning.

I shrugged. 'From the top, I guess.'

Mouse nodded, and Dew said nothing, and Josh said, 'Long, long overdue.'

I first explained what I had done at the hill with the mud and corpses, and then where I met Carmine and that everything went exactly according to plan.

And then told them what didn't go according to plan.

I basically rehashed what Carmine had said.

The plan was for him to steal the antidote, which first off turned out to be real, since it was just a whisper in the grapevine at first, but what didn't go smoothly was that he had to smuggle it out of there. Inside him, in his blood.

Eventually, he destroyed the joint, the last medical center in Colorado, and left no trace of any evidence whatsoever. Except himself.

So. Cure real. Check. Carmine. Check.

And then, the guys rehashed what happened in the cave, and outside of it. And how I nearly died.

I wondered what the poison was, again.

And they told me briefly again about the Wookie being Stasi, and the feud, between them and the Nazi. Big difference, there.

And how Silk proved his worth again by sitting down a few guys on horseback with arrows to their windpipes.

Josh drew a few lines on the map and some crosses and circles.

He first drew a big rectangle, with a square in it, the plaza. This was Houston.

Further down south, couple of miles out, he drew a cross. This was where the CDC was, with the cure, and which Carmine blew to kingdom come.

Then between those two things he drew a stiff line, the highway we flanked, almost tearing the map. 'Sorry.'

Dew looked nervous for some reason. Saw sweat in the nape of her neck.

The air was heating up. And there was something I couldn't place. Something off.

And then Mouse shrugged and I said, 'Go on.'

Halfway the line he drew a smaller cross. The cave.

And a few kliks east he drew a circle. Stasi.

South from that small circle, he drew another. Nazi-town.

Our temporary HQ wasn't on the map since it was south from the CDC, far away from our target. And that's why we decided to meet up at the cave after the cutoff at the highway with Carmine's convoy.

And then he completed the map by drawing two final things. From the cave, the meeting point, he draw a curvy line around the Stasi-Nazi compounds, headed northeast and stopped. And he marked that spot with a final X marks the spot. 'The target.'

The thing was, the cure was just one vile. And of course to cure the world you need more. The CDC where Carmine got the antidote itself was just a storage space and place of research, for budding new chemicals and medicines.

But for mass production, of anything, any drug, any liquid, anything, there was a massive factory northeast, near the Stasi-Nazi region.

They call it the Forge.

Which was cheesy, but apt.

And this zone was as hot as it could be, filled with goons. And was owned by none other than the Major, his majesty, himself.

And this was our target. Where we needed to go actually. To get the cure there, and mass-produce it. To get enough, and cure the world. And rid the vileness of the lost one, to create the new. The new world.

 

[Scorched]

Chapter 26

Another slap crackled across my left cheek, like a white hot streak, starting somewhere left and high, then travelling diagonally, and ending low and right.

It was Carmine, and white driver's gloves. 'Snap out of it, man.'

I slurred something obnoxiously inaudible. Geoff. Ladies, and other ladies.

'Alfred, what you do to him?' Carmine asked, not concerned, at all, standing beside Charlotte in front of the mansion. Everything seemed white.

Mansion. Gloves. My vision. Carmine's tux. Boy, people love white. I was half-expecting Josh to bump out of a white trash can to tell me I went to far down the rabbit hole and telling me I was late-late. With his hat on, of course, and reversed.

'Sir, that's not my name.'

'Sure, Johnny it isn't, but I heard Geoff call you that when I phoned you on the plane to check if you were inbound already.'

Johnny shrugged. The coincidence was uncanny, the bar tender that left because of me had same name. Strange, so strange in fact, only fiction could have it.

I mumbled again.

Cindy and John boy ignored me. 'Huh?' one of them inquired.

'He said he knew a tender, and he left because of him, outright quit his job.'

Carmine laughed.

Cindy said, 'Wait, how did you know what he was rambling on about?'

'This isn't my first rodeo. This isn't the first time old Furry got shit-faced. In fact, I counted on that, wistfully, i have closets filled with more nectar of his liquid Gods.'

Cindy forced a smile, and Johnny was stoic. He reminded me of Mouse, less sense of lethality, but still silent, and comfy in his skin. But severely less lethal looking. Severely.

I forced a sound.

Johnny looked at Carmine, raised his eyebrows.

'Just saying he's pleased with the nectar, and seeing me and Charlotte, and that I'm doing so fine for myself, and that he loves my gloves, and white leather boots I bought near Oxford with the Missus.'

Johnny gave a curt, but respectful nod to Carmine, and slithered inside to prepare the ongoing festivities, as Carmine would call them later.'

'He didn't say any of that, did he?' Cindy said.

Carmine said, 'Well, he approved the whiskey, with an 'e', big difference there, we don't want to step on people's toes now would we.'

I groaned. Cindy smiled. The dynamic duo was back, and on fire, and people can't help but warm up to that.

'But,' Carmine added, 'he didn't say anything about the exquisite taste I have in selecting my garments.'

'Yeah,' I said, forcefully, like talking with sand in my mouth.

Cindy giggled. I felt warm and hot and at ease. Could have been the tropical simmering of Hawaii, but it was more than that. I had met the first real other persons, besides Johnny, the other Johnny and Alfred-Johnny, in months.

I was slowly reintegrating back in the civilian world. And it was good. Life felt on my side, and good.

Carmine waved us in. Looked at Charlotte, approached her, and tapped her hood, black, twice.

And then said, 'Let the ongoing festivities continue.'