Men of Truth (The Wasteland Soldier #4)

Timo wound her long hair in his fist, jerked her head back and slapped her until she roused.

Cali mumbled. “Asshole.”

He let go of her hair, stepped back. She coughed, spat, looked around.

The shape of the fire-lit room came into horrible focus. A dusty floor, grimy walls, boarded windows.

“Who the fuck …?”

She tried to move but she was tied to a chair. She raised her dark eyes. It was the man who’d attacked her at the compound. There was a square adhesive taped to his chin.

“Cocksucker.”

He slapped her.

“Give me the name and location of the man missing from the list.”

Her head throbbed. She could feel something sticky in her hair. She was guessing it was blood. On the street she had all the moves, Kiven was a playground for her, but this wasn’t the stoop or the corner, this was as nasty as it got. His voice was an ugly rattle. He looked into her face and the words flowed angry and blocky and bunched together and it was scaring the shit out of her because she couldn’t understand any of them.

Was he brain-damaged?

Was she?

Cali strained against the ropes holding her to the chair. She rocked from side to side, pulled and thrashed until her skin burned.

Timo watched her curiously as her efforts amounted to nothing.

But Cali still had one more play, one more weapon; her mouth. She ran at him with it, spewing endless hate, one insult following the other, calling him every name under the sun, making threats on him and the bitch lurking in the other room and promising that they’d pay for this and die horrible …

Timo slapped her back handed. It was brutal hit. Cali’s tongue went silent. Blood dribbled over her busted lips.

“We do this all night,” he said.

She still couldn’t understand him. Her second captor, the hard-eyed woman with a scarred face and dark hair, leaned in the doorway, arms folded, watching and listening.

“All night,” he said.

There was a nasty shine in his eyes.

He hit her again.

“What is his name?”

And again.

“What is his location?”

He punched her in the stomach. It was a hammer blow. She struggled to breathe as the wind was pushed out of her.

“Tell me.”

The floor surged quickly toward her as the chair toppled over. He dragged her up by her hair.

She wailed. He yelled.

“Who is the sixteenth man?”

“I don’t understand you. Please, stop. What are you saying? Why are you doing this to me?”

The man looked at the woman. In a moment of clarity it dawned on Cali that not only did she not understand him - he did not understand her.

The man waited. The woman shook her head. Cali saw the knife in his hand. She understood that clear enough. It was time for payback. Greasy fear washed over her and took control.

Her stomach churned, her pulse raced, and sweat poured down her face. The pain came, sudden and worse than anything she had ever experienced in her life. It seared white hot across her face. Blood pulsed, rolled toward her jaw line.

Cali screamed.

He put the knife down beside the fire, pushing the blade into the flames. She turned her head, tears misting her vision.

Cigarette smoke tickled her nose; the bastard was taking a casual smoke break. She saw a pump-action shotgun propped against the wall, out of reach. There was a stack of items beside it; a knitted doll, a small decorative tin and …

“They are all dead,” he said.

He snapped her head back.

“All dead except the man who was not on the list. Who is he? Where is he? Answer me.”

He let out a stream of smoke. Cali whimpered.

“What are you saying?” she gasped. “I don’t understand your words. Please, oh, fuck, it hurts, it hurts so bad.”

Timo picked up the knife.

The tip of the blade glowed.

“No, please, I’m begging you, what do you want? What do you want?”

“Wait,” said Pavla. “She does not recognise your tongue, Timo. I am certain now.”

The man stepped back, lowering the blade. Cali held her breath. The woman came into the room.

“Do you understand me?”

The words were broken and spoken fast but Cali nodded.

“Timo,” said Pavla, reverting to her garbled native tongue. “She does not have our language.”

“It is a trick,” said Timo. “Like the one before. Pretending he could not understand us.”

“Not this time,” said Pavla. “Look into her eyes. You have already broken her. She does not understand you.”

He looked and saw fear and confusion.

He nodded, stepped back.

“My name is Pavla,” she said, taking a seat opposite. “I will ask questions and you will answer. If you do not answer then Timo will hurt you. Do you understand?”

Cali nodded.

“Where is Cartwright?”

“He was murdered.”

“By the men with the three knives?” said Timo.

Cali flinched at the sound of his voice, even though she didn’t understand his words.

“Be silent, Timo.”

Pavla turned to Cali.

“Was it the men with the three knife symbol?”

“Triple Death.” She nodded, repeatedly. “Triple Death. They’re from Kiven.”

“Why did they kill him? Are they looking for it?”

“They’re after the money we stole.”

Pavla hesitated. “What money? What are you talking about?”

“Triple Death is a drug gang. We robbed their HQ. Took their money. That’s why they came after us and killed Jeremiah.”

Pavla eased back in her chair.

“I do not understand. Why did you rob them?”

“We just did,” said Cali, averting her eyes.

“I do not ask twice.”

She nodded at Timo. He lumbered forward and clamped a hand over Cali’s mouth. The chair rocked from side to side as he pressed the tip of the heated blade against her hand.

“Enough,” said Pavla.

“What … what do you want me to say?” said Cali. “Tell me what you want me to say.”

Timo covered her mouth a second time, burning her other hand with sharp jabs.

Once more, Pavla called for him to stop.

Cali sobbed. “It was Jeremiah’s plan.”

Her nostrils flared with the smell of singed flesh. She thought of her notebook, her precious notebook, her stupid notebook, and all those precious and stupid drawings. What did they mean now? Her vision of life on street corners? No, her vision of nothing. This was reality. This dank smelling room and the giant with the burning knife. She looked at her hands. She was nineteen years old. She would never reach twenty. Jeremiah had promised her. Stone had promised her. They were not men of truth. Pain was the only truth. She cried, she cried hard.

It would be a slow crawl toward death. She feared it and craved it. She should have told Stone. He would have made it. He would have been strong enough. It lodged in her throat, indigestible, and unwound in her stomach. She was exposed, the bravado had crumbled. She was a girl who liked to paint her face and dance. She was a girl who wanted to be held. She was a girl who needed kind words. It was trickling away, all of it, grains of sand through her fingers, like the hourglass Travis had persuaded Yuan to accept, turning it over, one way and then the other, trickle, trickle, that big dummy, that big good-looking dummy. Death was close. She wept and pleaded and told them of her life and her Grandma and begged them to untie her. She wouldn’t tell anyone. She wouldn’t identify them. They could trust her to say nothing. They could trust her to tell no one. It would be a secret, their secret.

She would disappear and have nothing more to do with any of it.

There was a hush in the community. They’d all heard the words.

You get your hostages in exchange for the bastard who killed my boys.

Stone checked his revolver, glared at Shen. “I’ll make the decision for you.”

“No,” said Yuan. “You can’t go out there.”

“Joe,” sobbed the woman. “Bring my boy back.”

“This is the price of violence,” said Shen, in a lecturing tone. “What you did this morning caused all of this.”

He rattled his walking-cane. There were a few nods in the crowd.

But Yuan rounded on her father. “What you didn’t do caused this. I blame you for all this trouble.”

Stone stepped around the gate and walked into the dark and cold street, revolver loose at his side.

There was Reardon and Gerry and he could see a third man lurking at the back with a rifle.

He couldn’t see any other gunmen.

“We keep to our areas,” said Reardon. “Aye, and no one bothers no one. It has always been this way, so it has.”

Stone calmly stepped over the body of Connor, the fire starter, lying prone in a pool of blood.

“His name was Connor McLaughlin. He was my friend, you bastard. You’ll fucking pay for him as well.”

Stone said nothing, kept walking.

“Get fucking rid, Gerry,” said Reardon.

Gerry shoved the hostages forward.

They began to shuffle, chained feet bare in the snow.

The girl shook.

The boy wept.

“You got a name, bastard?” said Reardon.

Stone said nothing, kept walking.

“Real big man we got here, boys,” said Reardon. “Like the old days. I’m gonna enjoy taking you down.”

Gerry sniggered and began to edge sideways, shifting to his right, eyes never leaving Stone. His finger slid off the trigger guard on the shotgun and slowly curled around the trigger. Reardon gripped tightly at the reins of his horse, the arms of his sons dangling toward the ground. He gently began to steer the beast, measuring his steps, inching backward, creating a wall of cover, his right hand flexing, moving toward his open coat where Stone guessed his weapon was holstered.

The hostages went past Stone. He didn’t look at them. He could hear gasps and cries from behind him.

Stone whipped his revolver off his hip and squeezed the trigger. Reardon jerked his head. A jet of blood spurted from his ear. He swore. A pistol came from beneath his coat, concealed in a shoulder-holster, and he began firing. Stone shifted onto his right foot, dropped his shoulder and shaped his body as the shotgun boomed. He swung his revolver and buried two rounds in Gerry’s chest. The man staggered, his legs folded, and he went down, firing off the second barrel.

Stone darted to his right, racing for the cover of the ruined buildings, his revolver bucking, bullets streaking toward Reardon, smacking into the bodies of Bobby and Chuck.

Reardon’s horse had had enough; it kicked and scattered. The grey-haired gunman sprinted for cover, gun blazing, left hand cupped around his bleeding ear.

The third gunman picked at Stone with his rifle, taking his time with each bullet, looking for the killing shot.

Stone threw himself into a building. He rolled across a rubble strewn floor and coughed dust from his lungs. He saw blood trickling down his arm. Gunfire raked the doorway. Slugs peppered the building. There was shouting and the clatter of hooves as the remaining two men gathered up the horses.

The bastards weren’t getting away from him.

He pushed through the building, vaulting collapsed walls, grimacing at the pain in his arm and head. The snow-covered street flashed past him on his left. He dropped in fresh bullets as he ran and snapped back the chamber of his revolver with a violent flick of the wrist.

He edged around a doorway, sighted them and opened fire, blasting round after round into the gloom.

Both men twisted in their saddles to return fire and Stone recoiled into the building as bullets pinged all around him.

He leaned out, putting down fire until the hammer of his revolver clicked empty.

The horses faded into the darkness.

He went into the street, gun loose, and shook his head.

Yuan and Travis were waiting for him. He was carrying his coat and Gerry’s shotgun.

She saw a strip of cloth binding his left arm. “You are wounded again.”

Stone ignored her, turned to Travis.

“Did you find Cali?”

“I found these.”

He held out a pistol and a blood-stained knife.