Conspiracy of Angels Read online

  Mitch looked up. Arthur was enjoying this.

  “They’re the names of three angels. You know the Garden of Eden? Adam and Eve get tossed out of Paradise, God puts this angel with a flaming sword at the gates. Michael, the archangel.” Arthur sat back down and jabbed a thick finger at the photos. “There’s your conspiracy, Mitch. Right there. A conspiracy of angels.”

  Mitch swallowed. “I don’t think they’re coming after Geneva anymore.”

  “You think they’re the only ones looking for her right now?” Arthur collected the photos into the folder and dropped it in the file cabinet, which he locked again. “Think about it, Mitch. But don’t take too long. That little sweetheart doesn’t have a whole lot of time left. Sooner or later, someone’s going to find her.” He got up, walked to the end of the room, and knocked twice. “Or something will. Who do you want it to be? The good guys? Or that thing?”

  The door opened. Two guys in suits stood outside, with automatic weapons strapped over their shoulders. They shut the door after Arthur and locked it.

  Alone, Mitch slumped back into the chair and let out a long breath. His entire body felt like it had been beaten into the ground. Even his eyes hurt. He rubbed them with the heels of his hands.

  He stayed that way for a long time, trying to sort things out. Hell, he didn’t know what to believe. The shoot-out in the parking lot. The Russian flag behind Michael’s school photo. The black box wrapped up in stealth mesh. The shimmering form of the Archangel, with its claws that cut through steel.

  “Mitch,” somebody whispered.

  His head snapped up. The door was still locked. No one around.

  “Mitch.”

  He stood up, tensing. “Who’s there?”

  “They want her dead. You know that. They’ll do anything to protect their secret.”

  Mitch recognized the voice. Michael.

  He looked around, spotted a small air vent in the middle of the ceiling. He climbed up onto the table, put his face near the vent. It hummed softly. “Michael. You there?”

  “Can’t feel my legs.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m on holiday,” Michael said, his voice slurred. Sounded like he was doped up. He laughed softly. “How about you?”

  “They drugged you? What’d you tell them?”

  “Ask Genie, that’s what I told them. She’s got the black box. They know that. Didn’t mean to shoot her. I didn’t. Meant to hit you.”

  “Yeah? Well, you missed.”

  “Pity that. Bit out of practice.” Michael coughed. “She all right?”

  “Aside from the goddamn hole in her arm. And the fact she almost bled to death.”

  Michael was silent for so long after that, Mitch thought he was gone. Then he spoke again, softer. “She’s a good girl. But too trusting. Believes what anyone tells her. Even you, apparently.”

  “That’s funny, coming from you.”

  “Heh.” Michael sniffed. “We had this bastard, Arthur, in our hands. Right in our hands. And the black box, too. I got Arthur to open the thumbprint lock. It was all perfect. Perfect.” Michael drew in a ragged breath. “And then Genie shot it all to hell.”

  “Now what?”

  “Now we die,” Michael said. “They win. And the Archangel escapes. This is it.” Michael coughed. “This is how the world ends.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  The sky turned pale over the flat eastern plains as Geneva drove back into town. She’d slipped off the highway as soon as she could, headed south, and then crept through the endless suburbs of Aurora until she was back in Denver.

  She pulled over at an empty Phillips 66 station and eased into the spot farthest from the brightly lit front door. When she shut off the engine, the silence settled on her like a prayer, no sounds except the traffic whispering past outside, and her keys swinging back and forth in the ignition. She pulled them out and sank back into the seat. The leather creaked.

  She saw a pulser lying on the floorboard, and her breath caught in her throat. She thought she’d left it in the motel room.

  She bent down and picked it up. This was Raph’s gun, she realized. The one Mitch had grabbed in the alley. She’d forgotten about it.

  When she hit the charge key, the light flickered green and stayed lit. Tears welled up in her eyes. She’d had this gun here in the car all along. She could have used it. She could have saved Mitch.

  She took a deep breath, turned off the pulser and hid it.

  She turned to open the door. Pain shot through her left arm. She cradled it close to her chest, gritting her teeth until the throbbing subsided. As soon as she dared, she peeked beneath the bandage. It was ugly. Scabbed up, held closed with X-shaped stitches of black thread. The skin around it was pinched.

  She looked away. Looked through the windshield at the matte black surface of the hood. Past that, to the bright lights inside the store, with racks of potato chips and magazines. She was so thirsty, she realized.

  The door squeaked when she opened it. She’d have to grease the hinge. She got out and stood there, staring at the hinge, the gray dirt on it. Not feeling anything.

  She’d left Mitch behind. Left him to die.

  In her mind, she saw a flash of Mitch being dragged down by agents in business suits. Kicking out behind him, knocking one of them down. His stubbled, rocky face and haunted eyes. His mouth moving, telling her to go.

  Go.

  She closed her eyes. Held onto the door tightly with her right hand. Felt the cold, smooth metal beneath her fingers. This was real. This was hers.

  This was all she had left.

  She breathed in, smelling gasoline from the pumps, and fresh-baked bread from somewhere down the street. Breathed out, trying to get the muscles in her shoulders to relax. Her left arm throbbed.

  Michael shot me. He fucking shot me.

  The thought echoed around inside her head, repeating itself over and over. He shot me.

  Shot me.

  She used to think she loved him. She tried to figure out what she felt now. Hate? No. She wasn’t sure she felt anything.

  A cold wind picked up, raising goose bumps on her arms. God, she was thirsty. And cold.

  She opened the trunk. The bundle of mesh, with the black box inside, was still tucked snugly into the corner of the trunk. It struck her as surreal that people were trying to kill her over a mysterious box she had stashed in the back of her car, and she didn’t even know what it was. The puzzle was all right there in front of her, she knew, but she couldn’t put it all together. No matter how hard she tried, it just wouldn’t click.

  She got out the jacket Mitch had bought her. Pulled it on, felt the smooth cold fabric against her skin. She was careful about her left arm, but the cloth warmed up quickly. The tags hung down from the sleeve, tickling her hand as she slammed the trunk lid.

  Brutus’s rear quarter was dented where the Conspiracy bastard had rammed her. The black stealth fabric was ripped loose, little shreds of it fluttering in the wind. Underneath, the light green paint was creased and streaked with brown.

  She tried to piece the torn fabric back together, but a chunk the size of her hand was missing. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for the Archangel to see. She frowned down at it. There was nothing she could do here. Her stomach growled.

  She went into the store, picked up some beef jerky, some pretzels, aspirin, and a big bottle of Gatorade. Arms full, she brought it all up to the counter. The cashier was a skinny Hispanic guy with earrings. The cash register beeped as he scanned her stuff.

  She grabbed an orange package of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups from the rack underneath the register. Beep.

  The total came up on the register. $13.36 in glowing blue numbers.

  She dug into her pockets. They were empty. Her cash was in her leather jacket, back at the motel.

  The guy looked at her, waiting. “Thirteen thirty-six.”

  She looked at the Gatorade. Swallowed. Her mouth was dry.

&n
bsp; She thought about opening it, taking a drink, and then leaving it there. What was he going to do? Or maybe she’d just grab it all and walk out. But she didn’t have the energy for it. For anything. All she wanted to do was curl up on the hard tile floor and go to sleep, never wake up again. She thought about it.

  “Screw this,” she said, and walked out, leaving everything on the counter.

  Underneath the pay phone outside hung the scrappy remains of a phone book. She opened the wrinkled white pages, propped it up with her knee. Let her left arm hang at her side, aching, while she thumbed through the “L” section, until she found Lanny’s Restaurant. Got the address.

  Got back behind the wheel and fired Brutus up.

  *

  Golden sunlight touched the tops of the downtown buildings, but it didn’t reach down to the ground, where Geneva drove through the darkness and pale streetlights. The parking lot behind the restaurant was empty except for a big old Bronco with knobby tires and flaking blue paint.

  She parked, turned off the ignition and the lights. Heard Brutus’s headlight covers thunk closed.

  She tucked the pulser inside her jacket and tried the back door. It was locked. The door looked brand-new, not a scratch on it, as if it had just been installed the day before. She hammered on it with her fist.

  No answer. An old paper Wendy’s cup rolled across the parking lot, pushed by the wind. It hit a chunk of loose concrete and stopped.

  The lock snapped back and the door opened a crack. A skinny black guy huddled in the darkness inside. The chromed Desert Eagle he pointed at her was too big for his hands. It caught the yellow glow of a streetlight.

  “I’m a friend of Mitch’s,” she said.

  *

  Funny, Lanny realized, with all this going on, he’d barely even looked at the restaurant’s remodel job. Brand-new chairs sat upside down on the tables, some of them with little plastic cups still on their feet. The sushi bar was surgically clean, untouched, shiny stools lined up in front of it. Giant abstract oil paintings lit up the walls, looking like explosions of color and energy. They’d cost him a fortune. But he’d needed a place to sink the cash from his side jobs, the ones Uncle Sam didn’t need to know about.

  The week before, Lanny’s biggest worry was how to clean his money before tax time. Now, somehow, just staying alive was an accomplishment.

  Lanny went around behind the bar and popped open two cold beers. He slid one across to the beat-up girl sitting on the stool, who was watching his every move.

  Geneva looked down at the beer and then back at Lanny. “You got any Gatorade?”

  Lanny stared at her for a second, then took the beer back. He dug around in the mixers in the cooler, found a little plastic bottle of bright red Gatorade. “Don’t even know what you make with this,” he said, and slid it across the bar to her.

  She twisted the cap off and drank, tilting her head back as if she was dying of thirst. Her throat worked as she chugged the Gatorade, bubbles rolling up through the red liquid until it was gone. She slammed it down on the counter and worked her lips, swallowed again.

  “Damn. You’re just a kid.” Lanny sipped his beer. “How you get in this much trouble?”

  “I’m still working that out myself.”

  “And you think Mitch is still alive?”

  “I know he is. What he knows makes him more valuable alive than dead. But once they get that out of him, there’s no telling.”

  “You mean they gonna kill him.”

  She folded her arms. “What do you think?”

  Lanny shrugged. “Girl, I don’t even know you.”

  The bar phone rang, loud in the dim bar. Lanny jumped.

  “Don’t answer it,” Geneva said.

  Lanny picked it up, but didn’t say anything, just listened hard. A TV echoed in the background. Sounded like a football game.

  “Baby?” Raylene’s voice, sounding worried.

  “Yeah, baby, I’m here.”

  Raylene breathed a sigh of relief into the phone. “Clean’s gonna be fine, baby. He’s wore out, but I got him all fixed up. He gonna be fine.”

  Something like a laugh broke loose in Lanny’s chest, but it wasn’t a laugh. He covered his mouth with his fist, turned his back on Geneva so she couldn’t see his face. “That’s good, baby. That’s good.”

  “I gave him the meds I had. I’ll get him some more at the clinic tomorrow. You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Lanny cleared his throat. “Just a lot goin’ on. You see any heat?”

  Raylene’s tone dropped to a hush. “I tried to go back to Clean’s place for some clothes for him. But there’s cars parked out front I don’t recognize. So I jus’ kept on goin’.”

  “Good. Stay out of sight. Listen, anybody catches up with you, zip it. Even if they say they Feds, you and Clean don’t know a damn thing, baby. Got to keep it like that,” Lanny said. “Get me?”

  “For real, he don’t know nothin’?”

  “For real. And best keep it that way. Where you at now?”

  “My sister’s. She’s out of town. Clean’s watching the game.” She paused. “I think he fell asleep.”

  “Good. You go on, get out of there. You need any cash for anything, you know where to get it.”

  “I ain’t goin’ nowhere, baby. Clean’s got no one to take care of him. I’m gonna stay right here. Called in to work already.”

  Lanny smiled. “You’re sweet, you know that?”

  “Yeah. I know that.” He could hear her smiling back.

  “Got some business I got to take care of. Be out of touch for a while. Friend of mine’s in deep.”

  “It’s Mitch, ain’t it?” Raylene said. “Clean told me he was out. You watch your back. That old boy’s gonna get you killed.”

  “Hah. Don’t worry, I’m coming back for you.”

  “You better, baby.” She hung up.

  Lanny gently placed the phone in the cradle and stood there, thinking. Exactly how far was this thing going to go?

  Geneva answered that question. “Hey. I have a feeling I know where they took Mitch. But if we’re going to get inside, we need to get our hands on some real hardware.”

  “Like?”

  “Like grenades. Automatic weapons. Serious black-market stuff. And we need it, like, yesterday.”

  He studied this little girl at the bar with the dyed black hair and the Cleopatra-style eyeliner. “You know how to handle that junk?”

  “You know how to get it?”

  Lanny glanced at the phone. Raylene was right. Mitch was going to get him killed.

  But as much as he tried to convince himself, there was no way he could sit this one out. He’d never be able to live with himself. It wasn’t just the stretch Mitch had done for him. It was everything, over the years. Everything. Lanny couldn’t just let that go.

  It was karma, he’d told Mitch. What the hell did he know about karma?

  He let out a long sigh and picked up the phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Girl,” Lanny said, dialing. “Someday you’re gonna figure out it ain’t what you know. It’s who.”

  The phone rang twice and picked up. “Da.”

  “Yo, comrade,” Lanny said, putting on his business smile. “Let me talk to Kutuzov.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Jimi Hendrix blasted out of the box speakers in the back of the old Bronco. Lanny nodded his way along, tapping his fingers on the cracked black steering wheel. Geneva sat in the back, with the blond-headed Ukrainian, trying to listen past the music and the creaks and rattles of the truck.

  His name was Val, she found out, short for Valentin. He was a big guy, with a constant smile. She couldn’t figure out his age, exactly. He had a body that put him in his twenties, but the creases around his eyes looked older. Underneath his black leather jacket, he wore a T-shirt that said, in big pink letters, SURF NAKED.

  “Don’t mind my friend Feliks,” Val said over the music, clapping a big hand on the dark-haired
Ukrainian in the front passenger seat. “He is very moody, always. It is the artist in him.”

  Feliks scowled over his shoulder and said, “Malchitye.”

  Geneva knew that one. Shut up. But then he went on to say something longer, and Geneva couldn’t follow it.

  Val grinned and turned back to Geneva. “He say I should be driving, not sitting in back and, what you say. Talk with pretty young lady.”

  Geneva nodded once, not sure how to react. She scooted her backpack between her feet and kept it planted. She’d debated on keeping the black box in Brutus’s trunk, but she didn’t want to leave it unguarded. After going back and forth about it, she’d finally stuffed the whole bundle of mesh into a backpack and taken it with her. Neither of the Ukrainians paid any attention to it.

  Val settled back, seemed to spread out to fill the space around him. “I don’t mind. Is good to take a break sometime. You know something? This is my truck. But not anymore. I sell to your friend, to pay off debt. But still, I miss this truck, after everything I doing to it. Been very good to me.”

  Geneva looked around at the stained brown carpet, the cracked window. Apparently, “good” was a relative term. “You do a lot of work on it?”

  “Oh, yes. I get from junkyard, only hundred dollar. No engine. No transmission. Very bad shape. So I just say, ‘Hey, what is missing?’” He cocked his head to the side. “And I put back in, one at a time. Pull engine from different truck. New carburetor. Radiator. All these things. Feliks help me, although, I think, he still does not forgive me for broken fingers.” He patted Feliks on the shoulder again.

  Feliks turned around in the seat, still frowning, and seemed to notice the bandage on Geneva’s arm for the first time. He pointed. “How you are hurt?”

  “Shot,” she said.

  The Ukrainians looked impressed. Feliks said, “Val was shot, too. Long time ago. Very bad.”

  Val pulled up his pink SURF NAKED shirt and showed her an ugly round scar just below his rib cage. He flexed his shaved abs, making a little six-pack of muscles under the skin.