The Deadliest Earthling Page 15

  He lay down along the roof, sweat dripping down his temple. He raised the walkie-talkie to his head. The sun was a laser frying his entire body when words formed in his ear. Garbled, but audible. Kandrazi militia broadcast. Plenty of pigs flying in the air today. Hassan is ordering a cease-fire to all resistance against the Anunnaki. All civilians are to evacuate.

  Dagos mentioned a Hassan. That was who Johnny needed to see. His impulse was to respond immediately, asking for help. Only, if he did, it would be a dead giveaway for any Anunnaki listening in. Plenty of pigs flying in the air today. Obviously a code for something else. Watcher code speak. Probably a localized phrase, because he didn’t recognize it.

  Judging by the fact that the militia could still broadcast, the Anunnaki weren’t bothering to cut off their signals. They probably wanted the cease-fire message spread.

  In any case, he could talk. But if he announced that he was the deadliest earthling, that would only get him captured.

  He pressed down on the talk button, trying to flush the uncertainty from his voice. “I’ve got a bad fever. I keep thinking about my bed at home. Wish I was there.”

  An older code, but it would do. It generally meant the speaker was lost and needed somewhere to hide from the Anunnaki. The fever part clarified that he was a soldier. A fever for one who engaged in firefights.

  He waited, imagining whoever picked it up debating whether or not to respond.

  Finally, a cold voice said, “GL.”

  He wasn’t wishing Johnny good luck. Again, it was Watcher code. An encrypted radio channel invite. All Johnny needed to do was count the letters from G and L. Five.

  He switched the walkie-talkie channel to 5.

  “I’m here,” Johnny said. From this point on he needed to choose his words carefully if he wanted the local militia to believe he was one of their soldiers.

  “Name?”

  Ever since the Shroud War, a lot of people named their children after the Eagle. Her first name was Amelia. He gave the boy’s version, which was pretty common.

  “Amelio,” he said, hoping they didn’t ask him for a last name.

  The man gave a contemplative hum. “What are you doing out there, Amelio?”

  “Got back from a patrol. I’m stuck. No weapons. Lots of flickers all around. Can you send an escort?”

  “Where are you?”

  Johnny looked around. A few shops lined the street below. Mostly Arabic, but one showed a white sign with a red cross and the name Aziz Al-Haq.

  “Near Aziz Al-Haq’s infirmary.”

  “Look for a blue two-story building with a yellow car on the next street over.”

  “I see it,” Johnny said, noting the Anunnaki patrolling that same street. He counted at least seven within a hundred-foot stretch. Some with visors activated.

  “Inside. Second room on the left. Good luck.”

  Clearly that ended their conversation. An air of annoyance guided out an exasperated breath as Johnny set the walkie-talkie on the roof. For all the good it did him, the man might as well have told him nothing.

  He composed himself, slipped back into the bedroom, and explained the situation to Morris.

  “There’s got to be more weapons around this house,” he said much to Johnny’s surprise and cupping his chin with one hand.

  “Even I couldn’t kill that many Anunnaki,” Johnny said. “Not unless I had a bomb maybe.”

  “What would you need to make a bomb?”

  Johnny eyed the walkie-talkie. It could serve as an igniter. Still, they lacked a trigger. But aside from that, maybe not all that much was required. He bet they could find a bottle, and they already had cloth. He bit his lip.

  “If we could find some kerosene and little metal scraps.”

  It wouldn’t be a huge explosive, but he reminded himself they didn’t necessarily have to kill Anunnaki. Sometimes fear is more effective than a bullet, his mom once said. They only needed to scare them off the nearby street for a minute or two. Long enough for him and Morris to run into the building the man denoted.

  After ten minutes, Johnny wrangled together a kerosene lamp, a glass bottle that still smelled like alcohol, and a bundle of bolts and screws they’d gathered from all around the house.

  He dismantled the kerosene lamp and poured the oil into the bottle. It only topped an inch. They’d have to add a filler to make it threatening.

  “Go find some water,” Johnny said.

  His cousin disappeared into the kitchen and Johnny tossed in the bolts and screws. Tearing apart the walkie-talkie proved the hardest decision. Once it was broken, it wouldn’t be easy to fix, if they could fix it at all. But no other detonator would work or even look dangerous. They could make a Molotov cocktail, but that posed no real threat to all the Anunnaki on the street.

  Snapping the walkie-talkie down the middle, he clipped the wires with his knife. Then he tied the mangled walkie-talkie to the side of the bottle with a strand of thread from their supplies.

  “Here,” Morris said.

  Johnny topped the bottle off and dipped in a shred of cloth that dangled over the water.

  Johnny stepped back and looked at it from an angle.

  “I think we’ve got a bomb.”

  Chapter 37

  A sirrush passed the blue two-story building with the yellow car and disappeared into a random alley. Johnny peered out the window. The building in question sat maybe twenty or thirty feet across the road. At a corner not much farther from them, two Anunnaki stood, their heads scanning back and forth. One with visors active, the other relying on its own eyes.

  “We’ve only got this shot to get over there, so make sure you’re limber,” Johnny said, wishing he was back in his combat clothes. His thobe wasn’t thick, but it didn’t encourage running.

  They crouched by the door. Slowly, Johnny removed a peg from it and pulled it open. Holding the rucksack with the bomb in between his hands, he crawled out. His elbows propelled him most of the way, but he could feel the drag on the bottom of his thobe. Every second he felt like it was either going to tear or snag and pull back his arm.

  But it didn’t, allowing his eyes stay locked on the Anunnaki. One froze and muttered something. It had spotted him.

  Johnny sprang forward a few feet, half stumbling over the thobe.

  “Stop,” the Anunnaki said. And he did, but not before whipping out the bomb for them to see.

  The Anunnaki shrieked. A warning to the other Anunnaki. And they stepped back, hands leveled at him.

  “Shoot me and I’ll blow us all up,” Johnny said, shaking the bottle so that the nuts and bolts swirled around.

  The Anunnaki lowered their palms an inch and bolted behind a wall.

  “Now,” Johnny snapped. He launched the bomb into the air and darted in the direction of the yellow car. It wasn’t lit, but even the crack of the bottle would make the Anunnaki flinch. Bombs like these weren’t bad because they killed Anunnaki. Worse, they maimed them, leaving them horrifically scarred for life. So these Anunnaki would stay back until a sirrush or other mobile response unit confirmed the area’s safety.

  Heart throbbing in his ears, a mad rushing sensation in his gut slowed time down. His every footstep, the pumping of his arms, and expanding of his lungs rocketed him onward. The bouncing of his Conifer against his chest stimulated him to make it safely to the door.

  The only question was Morris. He wanted to call out to him. To confirm he was okay too. But the Anunnaki would hear. They’d know where he was heading.

  The rectangular green slab of wood he’d been staring at blossomed into a door. He wrenched it open, hopped in, and turned over his shoulder. Morris burst through and he shut it.

  “Holy…” Morris groaned, slumping forward. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

  “You did good,” Johnny breathed, checking for Orun’s earring in his pocket.

  They strolled to the second room, uncloaked.

  Two men stood with rifles.

  “So you’re t
he Kandrazi militia, huh?” Johnny said.

  Immediately the men brought up their rifles, a bright light whiting out his vision.

  “I’m a Watcher,” Johnny cried, crashing into a dresser. Their hands seized him at the elbows, but he managed to swing his fist. It thudded against someone’s ear.

  The next thing he knew, a cloth sealed his mouth, a bag covered his head, and cable ties bound his wrists. The Conifer chain lifted from his neck before he could hide it. One man padded down his pocket and tore out Orun’s earring too.

  Through the cloth he mumbled, “I’m a Watcher, you—”

  A hard blow to his jaw made Johnny think twice about opening his mouth again. A rifle barrel dug in between his shoulder blades, prompting him into a floor tunnel entrance.

  He couldn’t help but see the irony of them taking him underground after all.

  The next few minutes were a blur of contradictions. Johnny felt both the familiar heat of the streets and the cooler air of the deep down. The ascending and the descending of stairs. More twists and turns than he could keep track of, leaving him with only the vaguest sense of the direction they were heading.

  He was sweating under the bag by the time they stopped. One of the soldiers knocked on a door and said, “The Watchers will live forever.”

  The door opened and thick hands frisked Johnny from head to toe.

  They moved on, and the crackle of fire met his ears. Women were singing lullabies while a man offered blankets and rations. Johnny imagined families huddled together in what must’ve been a miserable underground community.

  “What did you find today, Frank?” asked a small child in a hoarse voice.

  “A couple of troublemakers. But they may still help us.”

  Help them, Johnny thought. Yeah right. He had no intention of cooperating. They might have taken him and Morris out of danger, but they weren’t exactly saving them.

  They escorted him and Morris down a set of stairs into a passage that stank of foul human odors. Finally the hood came off his head. A single kerosene lamp hung from the ceiling, revealing six detention cells, separated by chain-link fence walls and doors.

  His insides twisted at the familiar whiff of sewage. He wasn’t spending another minute breathing this in.

  As soon as they clipped his zip ties, he yanked off the cloth around his mouth. Threats and hatred wouldn’t get him anywhere. So he tried something a little different.

  “Hey, I’m the one who set up all those flash-bangs last week. I’m the deadliest earthling. I need you to take me to your leader.”

  The men paused, then shut the door, leaving Johnny and Morris in the dark, dank chamber.

  Morris folded his arms. “A lot of people in the Bible were put into prison unfairly too.”

  “Alright.” Johnny’s forehead creased. He didn’t know if his cousin meant to encourage hope or discourage it. And he didn’t care.

  They sat on opposite sides of the cell, hands hanging over their knees. Then Morris pulled something out of his pocket.

  “Here.”

  He tossed a deck of cards to Johnny.

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “I found it in the house. When you were asleep,” Morris said.

  It was an invitation to stack cards, and Johnny accepted. Fifteen minutes later, they’d stacked three solid tiers of cards. Only a few cards remained in the deck.

  “What do you say we try pulling one out now?” Johnny asked. That had always been the aim of card stacking for him and Hamiad.

  It all started as a prank. Card stacking was a popular hobby to pass time in New Bagram, so he and Hamiad would go around sometimes and find classmates or neighbors who’d stacked a lot of cards. A single cough or “accidental” quick movement would topple them. Once, though, Hamiad pulled a card out of Krem and Skunk’s stack, hoping to demolish it. Instead, the pyramid of cards stayed standing. He and Johnny marveled at that and shared a good laugh. And from that point on, card stacking became a hobby. All so they could enjoy that crazy moment when they extracted a single card from the stack without it imploding.

  “You go first,” Morris said.

  Footsteps pounded down from the stairs. In an instant, the cards fell flat to the floor.

  Johnny cursed as the two men reappeared. One unlocked the cell door and he saw their uniform tags. Frank and Skip.

  “You better be the deadliest earthling. Our leader really wants to meet a celebrity,” Frank said.

  “Right.” Johnny stretched out the word. He wasn’t even sure he knew what celebrity meant.

  “Walk straight ahead of us. No sudden movements, or we shoot,” Frank said.

  Back in the main hallway, a single soldier weaved past them dressed in a blue shirt with the eyeball-in-a-circle Watcher symbol on the shoulder. Still, Johnny didn’t know what sort of Watchers locked up other Watchers.

  They walked by a few doors to one guarded by two men almost as big as Anunnaki.

  Johnny’s handlers removed their rifles and set them on the floor. The big men patted them down, then opened the door. Lamplight revealed an Anunnaki standing in the corner. Johnny lurched back.

  “At ease, there. I swear, you younger generation have no concept of trophy kills,” came a gruff voice.

  Frank and Skip saluted the tall, dark-skinned man sitting behind a heavy-looking desk. The Conifer and gleaming earring rested upon it. Grey conquered his hair, but age probably affected this man as little as it did Dagos.

  They sat him and his cousin onto chairs and shut the door.

  A wooden glass case contained dusty rifles and revolver pistols that could’ve been a hundred years old. Beneath it a bookshelf carried boxes of ammunition and half a dozen gold and silver war medals. A map of the area covered the opposite wall along with a faded flag of red, white, and blue.

  “Eyes up here,” the man said.

  Johnny looked up as if his drill sergeant had told him to.

  “Call me Hassan.”

  “Johnny Aldrin, sir,” he said with a salute.

  “They say you claim to be the deadliest earthling.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then you’re from New Bagram?”

  “Yes.”

  Johnny didn’t know what they had already told Hassan but hoped it was more or less in line with what he was saying. Once these men knew he was trustworthy, they had to give him back the Conifer and Orun’s earring. Maybe even help him get to the bunker.

  “I heard about what happened there, and I’m sorry. I’ve lost a few good men to the Naga in my time.”

  When had Hassan heard about New Bagram? Johnny wondered.

  “Then let me free, and I can help fight them.”

  “And how do you intend to do that? With these?” Hassan gestured to the Conifer and Orun’s earring on the desk.

  Johnny hesitated.

  “You want to explain what they are?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Then tell me how you got into the city. The Naga have set up blockades, and no one saw you until you appeared at our eastern entrance.”

  Johnny needed their trust, but how much did he want them to know?

  “We snuck through a sewage pipe.”

  The man gave a cynical expression. “Where is the opening? Point it out for me.”

  He flattened an already flat map of the city on his desk. Johnny leaned forward. Detailed lines ran all through and over a basic overhead grid of the city in light brown. With only a few splotches and lines in blue, he easily recognized the river running through the map.

  Tracing it, he pointed to a spot that might’ve passed for the one he entered by.

  Hassan watched him as though waiting for something more. “Interesting, and what would an outsider want in Kandrazi? It’s not exactly a paradise.”

  Johnny located the bunker’s hill on the map.

  “I need to get back there.”

  Hassan’s eyes widened. “So the Eagle’s speeches were true? You really think you c
an stop the Anunnaki from capturing her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hassan said. “That hill will be overtaken by three o’clock.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Johnny’s stomach did a somersault. Hassan must’ve been the one who sold the bunker to Dagos.

  “I’ve seen a lot of missteps in my days. One of the biggest is not taking opportunities for peace when they provide themselves. I’d love to help you Johnny. But the Anunnaki made it clear we are not to interfere with their operation.”

  “Made it clear?”

  What was Hassan getting at? Alarm crawled over Johnny like a swarm of hungry locusts. He’d made a deal with them.

  Hassan nodded. “They said if we tried to stop them, they would firestorm us, just like New Bagram. So I can’t have you and your friend helping the Eagle.”

  Johnny clenched his pant legs between his fingers. This was ridiculous.

  “You’re letting yourself get bullied?” he snapped.

  Hassan bit his lip and motioned for Skip and Frank to move in. They engulfed Johnny’s shoulders in their arms.

  “At least let me fight. Like the militiamen.”

  Hassan pressed his hair back. Johnny got the sense the man understood his frustration all too well. “As long as there are enough civilians here, the Anunnaki won’t firestorm the city. There’d be too much backlash. That’s why they’ve been trying to relocate them. Besides that, even the Anunnaki know I can’t control all of my militia. But letting you out there is too big a risk, kid.”

  His intentions were good, but it didn’t matter. Wrenching free of Frank’s grip, Johnny tried to figure out a solution. Letting them imprison him again was not an option. Hassan seemed to value core traits, so honesty was his last chance.

  He cocked his head at the flag on the wall and hoped he didn’t come off sounding like the drunk intellectual version of himself. “Dagos had one of those at Bagram. The flag of a once great nation, I’ve been told. You guys hang it here, so it must be worth something to you. But if you’re not willing to take risks and put everything on the line for it, what does it really mean?”