James Knapp - The Silent Army

Shrugging out of my wet coat, I let it fall on the carpet and walked back out to the living room with the big TV. There was a big wood cabinet there with a bunch of glasses arranged on top. I opened the doors and saw it was a liquor cabinet, stocked to the hilt. Right up front were four big bottles of ouzo. I grabbed one off the shelf and shut the door, walking with it across the room, toward the couch.

I was going to flop down on the couch and maybe try to figure out how to work the TV when I saw a set of doors on the far wall and I wondered what they went to. I walked past the couch and pulled them open. When I did, cold, damp air blew over me.

“Wow.”

It was a balcony. I was looking out over the city. Still holding the bottle, I walked outside and up to the rail.

“Wow.”

I’d never had a view like that from so high before. It was amazing. The city was all lit up like some giant machine with a billion flashing lights. Down below, traffic flowed like glowing veins. I was in one of the biggest towers in the city. To the left and right the city went off as far as I could see, and in front, a little ways in the distance, some even bigger buildings loomed. Way off in the distance, two of the largest towers in the world sat on the skyline. The wind blew through my hair and mist sprayed my face, but I didn’t care. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

Without even thinking, I cracked the bottle. When you do anything a lot, you get a comfortable sense of where you stand in that situation, and I’d been drinking my whole life. The year or so when I stopped was a footnote. It was an experiment, a mistake. I knew how drinking affected me at every stage, from the first shot to the inevitable blackout. The ouzo was warm going down, trickling down into my belly while I stood out there in the cold. It started to mellow me out, make me feel more comfortable. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I started feeling more at home in my new place. Once I’d had enough to drink, I would begin to accept that what Penny said might be true.

“She’s been searching for that missing element. She’s been searching for you.”

Before it was over, all of my nagging doubts would be erased. That included the offhand warning about not crossing Ai. It also included the fact that if these people were laying any kind of hope, any kind at all, on me, then we were all going to be in for a world of hurt.

I tromped down the hall and banged on Buckster’s door. No one answered, but I heard a guy’s voice.

The JZI picked him up. He was in there. I looked through the front door with the backscatter and saw a shape move past it. I banged on the door again.

“Open up, Chief. It’s me,” I called.

I heard the voice again. He was talking to someone. Either he wasn’t alone or he was on the phone. A fan or something started blowing inside, and I went to bang again when I heard him coming. He opened the door, but not much. He looked out at me, then back over his shoulder.

“What’s your fucking problem?” I asked him.

“Nothing,” he said. “What do you want?”

“Nice.”

“Sorry. It’s not a good time.”

“I came to give you a heads-up,” I said. “I heard through my Fed friend, they’re looking to pick you up.”

“They already did,” he said.

“You got their dicks in a twist, from the sound of it. What the hell did you do?”

He looked up and down the hall, then moved like he meant to grab my arm, but he stopped. He was freaked out.

“What did you hear?” he asked.

“Not out here.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Come on in.”

He opened the door the rest of the way and stepped back. I took the opening and went in. The place was messed up a little. A desk drawer was still out. The old guy looked rattled.

“What did he tell you?” he asked.

“He didn’t tell me anything; I heard your name and tapped his JZI communication.”

“That’s a federal off—”

“Hey, I was watching your back.”

“Why?”

“Because you helped me out. Because you’re a slummer from Bullrich, like me.”

He thought about it, and it looked like he bought it.

“What did you hear?” he asked.

“Not much, sorry. Just that you stirred up a hornets’ nest and they were looking to pick you up. They’re still watching you, you know.”

He nodded. His eyes darted around like he wasn’t sure what to do. That’s when I picked up the jack.

My JZI picked up the signal, and when I locked on, a revivor signature snapped on the scanner. It was somewhere close. Inside the apartment.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“No.” I scanned around. There was a closed door down the hall. It was where the fan noise was coming from. The signal was in there. I caught a whiff of something, a chemical smell that I knew from the grind.

That’s Leichenesser.

“You sure you’re okay, Chief?”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine. You look like you saw a damn ghost.”

“I don’t know,” he said, and shook his head. “Maybe I did. The truth is, I’ve got to take off for a while.”

“A while?”

“I might not be back.”

I looked around, but I didn’t see any bags or anything.

“Where you going?”

“It’s not important. Just do me a favor.”

“Shoot.”

“If your friend asks, you never saw me today.”

“They sicced that red-haired bitch on you, didn’t they?”

That stopped him. I could see it was true. The look, like he saw a ghost, came back.

“What do you know about that?”

“I know her name. It’s Zoe Ott.”

“How do you know her?”

“I saw her when I went to look up Wachalowski at the FBI. Did she get in your head?”

The look on his face said yes. I chanced a look at the closed door and scanned through. The revivor was in there; I could just make it out. That’s where the smell came from. A body had been cleaned up in there.

“You knew?” he asked. I turned the scan on him and saw the gun tucked under his shirt. “How much do you know?”

“I know what she does.”

He nodded. I saw the JZI flicker behind his eyes, and he got quiet for a second.

“The Fed, he’s an old soldier, like you,” I told him. “He got me out of a bind. Whatever his beef with you is, it’s got nothing to do with me. I just want some answers.”

The orange light went out. He sighed.

“Cal, look. You need to get out of here, okay? I’m telling you this for your own good. You need to leave, and so do I. Just …you didn’t see me.”

“I can take you out of here. They won’t be looking for me.”

“Cal …”

“I’m not being tracked. I owe you.”

He thought about that. His hands moved to his hips. His right one was close to the gun.

“What are you going to do?” I asked. “Shoot me?”

His hand didn’t move. He stayed like that too long for my liking, though.

“Wait here,” he said. “I got to make a call.”

He went into the next room and shut the door partway. On the other side, I could hear him rooting around for something. I didn’t hear him talking, but I picked him up on the JZI. I turned the backscatter onto the bathroom door up close and saw the revivor in there. It had a gun in its hand.

Through the walls I could see pipes and wiring. He paced in the next room, then went to a big safe. It was too thick to scan through. I lost him behind it.

I gave him a minute, but he stayed out of sight. The safe was big enough that he could have used it to cover his ass while he went out a window or something.

“Chief?” He didn’t answer.