Smith's Monthly #10 Page 20

  “Food instead of sex?” he asked.

  “Oh, no chance of that,” she said. “Just food before sex.”

  “In that case,” he said. “I am hungry.”

  He hugged her and then kissed her and for a moment she had second thoughts on the order of importance. Then he pulled away and stretched before going for his clothes where he had taken them off near the bathroom. A lot of men didn’t look that good without clothes on. He looked more like a Greek god statue. She could stare at that body for a very long time, of that she had no doubt.

  As they got dressed, they ran over the plan they had for saving the senator tomorrow. They had worked it out in detail at the hospital and on the way back.

  “So we meet the senator at the airport when his plane lands,” she said.

  Tommy nodded, then pulled on his shirt. “I jump inside the senator, but don’t control him in any fashion, just ride along through his day while you follow and watch for Brigade members.”

  “Exactly,” Jewel said, slipping into her running shoes. She was going to dinner in her jeans and WSU sweatshirt. Tommy was wearing jeans and a dress shirt and tennis shoes as well.

  “So when the senator is done and thinking about going back to his room,” Tommy said, “I’ll get him to sit down in a poker game and help him do some winning and really enjoy himself.”

  “That’s when the Brigade will try to take him over,” Jewel said, to get him to go to his room.”

  “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” Tommy said.

  “You know, about a thousand things could go wrong with this plan,” she said.

  “We wing it if it does,” he said, smiling at her.

  In medicine, a doctor sometimes had to just make due with what was at hand. She knew that. It was one of the many things that attracted her to being a GP.

  But winging on this mission just seemed really, really dangerous. And since she and Tommy had no idea about this Brigade, she felt unprepared and somewhat helpless.

  And she hated that feeling.

  “We need one more talk with K.J.,” she said.

  “I was just thinking that,” Tommy said.

  “But let’s get some food first, then call him,” she said as her stomach rumbled again.

  “And with that I also agree,” he said.

  They went through the door to the suite and out into the hallway when two men came around the corner from the elevators.

  Both looked like they hadn’t shaved in months, both wore bib overalls, and both carried what looked like military-style machine guns.

  Jewel knew that they hadn’t been seen, so she shoved Tommy through the hotel room door they were passing and went after him.

  He started to say something, but she put her finger to her lips, then whispered, “Brigade.”

  He nodded and eased toward the wall, keeping his eyes open and kneeling so that his face was near the bottom of the wall near the door. Then he eased through.

  After a moment he pulled back and stood. He whispered, “They got their guns ready and went into our room.”

  “How did they know we were here?” Jewel asked in a hushed voice.

  Tommy shook his head and indicated that she should follow him.

  The hotel was a standard room, not one of the big suites like theirs. And no one had checked into the suite yet.

  Tommy led her through the wall and into yet another identical room, also unoccupied.

  Behind her, she heard gunfire, but it sounded off, like it was muffled in some fashion.

  At the sound of the gunfire, Tommy picked up speed, moving through one room after another toward the elevators and the center stairwell, Jewel right with him.

  They got to the stairwell and headed down at top speed, not slowing until they were five or six floors down.

  Then Tommy stopped them.

  Jewel was breathing slightly harder than normal. Luckily she was in such good shape or that would have been painful. Tommy didn’t look like he was even bothered.

  “K.J., need your help,” Tommy said.

  A few seconds later K.J. appeared with only a towel around his waist. His make-up was smeared and he looked more like a character out of Rocky Horror Picture Show than The Wizard of OZ.

  K.J. looked around, then at them. “What happened?”

  “Two men with machine guns went into our room and started firing,” Tommy said.

  “We were headed to dinner and saw them coming, so they didn’t see us escape,” Jewel said.

  “Damn,” K.J. said.

  The next moment K.J. jumped them to a booth in the back of the buffet. Jewel found herself sitting across from Tommy and K.J. was standing there by the booth like a naked waiter.

  “Get something to eat,” K.J. said, “one of you watching, the other getting food. I’ll get dressed and be right back.”

  He vanished without a single word of humor or a single joke.

  And that bothered Jewel more than she wanted to admit.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  TOMMY INSISTED THAT he stand guard first and Jewel quickly filled a plate of food, even though she wasn’t that hungry anymore. She knew she needed to eat.

  Then she sat facing the crowded area outside the buffet while Tommy got some food.

  They were both eating when K.J. appeared, now clearly showered and all make-up gone. He was dressed in what must have passed for San Francisco casual. Loafers, dark slacks, a light pink shirt, and a matching dark blazer with a rose in the pocket. His hair was still wet and combed back.

  “What did these two look like?” K.J. asked, making Jewel slide over so that he could sit beside her and see the restaurant.

  “Dirty coveralls without shirts,” Jewel said, remembering them very clearly. “Black hair, dirty faces, work boots, and machine guns.”

  “Standard low-level Brigade men,” K.J. said, shaking his head.

  “How did they know we were there?” Tommy asked a fraction of a second before Jewel could.

  “I honestly don’t know that,” K.J. said. “People above all three of us are working on that right now.”

  That was not the answer Jewel wanted, so she asked the next question that had her scared to death. “If we had still been sleeping and they shot us, what would have happened?”

  “You would have woken up a couple days from now,” K.J. said, “in pain, and it would have taken about a week to recover fully. Not fun.”

  “So they wouldn’t have killed us,” Tommy said.

  K.J. frowned at Tommy and stuck his hand through the table and then brought it back up. “You’re already dead, remember. You can be stopped with ghost bullets for a time, but you can’t be killed. Painful though, so avoid getting shot if you can.”

  “Always thought that good advice when alive,” Tommy said. “Sure can’t imagine altering the thinking now.”

  K.J. nodded, still looking far too serious for Jewel’s tastes.

  “And you are saying that we can’t fight back in any way?” Tommy asked.

  “Well, I didn’t exactly say that,” K.J. said. “I just said we don’t use guns.”

  “So I’m faced with one of those Brigade men in a hallway, what do I do?” Tommy asked.

  Jewel really, really wanted to know the answer to that question.

  “What you did,” K.J. said. “Run, outthink them. I once had one lumbering after me and I got him to run right off an edge of a building. We may all be dead, but none of us can fly.”

  “You seem to be able to,” Jewel said. “At least transport.”

  “They can’t,” K.J. said. “None of them can.”

  “Will we learn how?” Tommy asked. “Sure would help in tight situations.”

  “Given time, yes,” K.J. said, nodding. “It’s only been three days since you died, remember?”

  Jewel was very glad to hear that eventually they would be able to just flick in and out, but she needed some larger answers.

  “So tomorrow we’re going to risk a lot of pain to save a se
nator some embarrassment,” Jewel said. “Correct?”

  K.J. nodded.

  “Why?” Jewel asked. “I know you told us, but fill us in more on all the reasons we are risking a lot of pain for this.”

  K.J., still not joking at all, nodded. “There are two sides fighting in this realm we find ourselves in, this real world, but not-real world.”

  “Got that,” Tommy said. “And we have been picked and saved from the white tunnel by your side. We got that. But who is our side, really? Who is the big boss?”

  K.J. sighed and then looked around. Then he said simply, “Ghost of a Chance agents work ultimately for old man time himself. Father Time, whatever you want to call him.”

  For some reason, that was not at all what Jewel was expecting.

  “The guy with the long beard and a staff?” Tommy asked.

  “Actually,” K.J. said, shaking his head, “he looks like any rich businessman, with light gray hair always kept perfectly, and expensive silk suits tailored to him. I always wanted to know who his suit maker was, but he won’t tell me, just makes me squirm. He now calls himself Charles Aeon actually lives here in a gated community on the edge of town and has corporate offices all over the world.”

  Jewel just opened her mouth, then shut it. She had no idea what to ask next.

  “Is he dead like us?” Tommy asked.

  “Oh, heavens no,” K.J. said, laughing. “He’s one of the thousands of gods that roam all over the place. And that’s not saying anything about all the superheroes working for the gods. Never know who’s a god and who’s a superhero. Being an agent is so much easier. There aren’t that many of us. And we all work for Aeon. We got immediate bosses up the ladder, but it all ends at Aeon.”

  Jewel started to open her mouth and K.J. held his hand up. “More than enough time for questions about all the world of gods, superheroes and agents. You need to focus on tomorrow.”

  Jewel nodded and took a breath and asked the next logical question. “I understand we need to focus, but we need some reason to fight. If Father Time is the powerful old god, whom is he fighting? Who is trying to alter the future and who but him can even see it?”

  “One of his own kids,” K.J. said. “The kid holds a grudge because when he was born, Dad ate him.”

  “He did what?” Tommy asked, stunned.

  “He spit him out later from what I understand,” K.J. said, shuddering. “Sort of grosses me out, to be honest, and there’s not a lot of things that gross me out.”

  Then Jewel saw a look of slight panic in K.J.’s eyes.

  “If you ever meet the old guy,” K.J. said, “don’t mention it.”

  Jewel knew whom K.J. was talking about since she had studied mythology in undergraduate. She just never expected to die and find out it was all real, in some form or another.

  She looked at Tommy, the man she was falling for more every moment, who looked very puzzled. “We’re fighting the forces of Hades,” Jewel said to Tommy. “The brother of Zeus, the son of Kronos.”

  “Yeah, all that,” K.J. said, “Zeus runs everything now, the top dog, but they don’t go by those names anymore.”

  Tommy shook his head. “If I wasn’t dead and sitting here enjoying ghost food, I wouldn’t believe a word of this. And honestly, I’m still having troubles.”

  Jewel understood Tommy’s point exactly. “How long has this fight between father and son been going on?”

  K.J. shrugged. “More centuries than I want to think about. Zeus forgave his father after the brothers defeated the old guy and the other Titans, from what I understand. But Hades never really did.”

  “So Hades wants to have the future be one way, Charles wants it another?” Tommy asked.

  K.J. nodded. “Just like it was in your life, Tommy. You had rules and wanted them followed, others, like those two men you did a number on in the diner thought the world should be a darker and nastier place. Same fight. Just slightly different rules.”

  Now that was something Jewel understood. And from the way Tommy was nodding, he did too.

  “So it’s against the rules that we hurt the Brigade members?” Jewel asked.

  K.J. laughed. “Heaven’s no. We just don’t carry guns. But you can sneak up behind one of them and hit them with a pan or bat if you want. I’ve done that a few times. Pans make such a wonderful sound.”

  Jewel glanced up and saw two members of the Brigade walking by. “We have company,” she said.

  “Let’s follow them and see where they are going,” K.J. said, standing.

  “We’re going to follow them?” Jewel asked, shocked.

  “Sure,” K.J. said. “Do they look like ghosts?”

  “No,” Jewel said, watching the two men as they headed for the lobby. They just looked like dirty construction workers carrying guns.

  “To them, we don’t look like ghosts either,” K.J. said. “So just take his arm and walk like a couple enjoying the night in Las Vegas. I’ll be close.”

  With that K.J. vanished.

  Quickly she and Tommy headed out of the restaurant and got into a pace about forty steps behind the two men that had tried to shoot them with the machine guns they now carried slung over their shoulders.

  Both men just walked through people, not even noticing. She wondered if the people felt anything.

  She and Tommy moved around people, as if they were actually alive.

  She had no idea where the two were headed.

  But she had a hunch it wasn’t anywhere classy.

  THIRTY-SIX

  TOMMY FELT GOOD that they were following the two Brigade members. It felt good to be doing something, and even better to understand a little more about what they were fighting for.

  In essence, he was a cop fighting for light and a good future, the bad guys wanted the world to be dark and nasty. Simple, he knew that, but for the moment, until they got a lot more explanation, it worked for him.

  Good vs. bad. Got it. More than likely, as with anything, there were a thousand shades of gray between it all. He’d learn all that later.

  One of the Brigade men merged with a guy getting into a taxi and the other Brigade man got into the cab as well.

  Tommy pretended he had a communications link of some sort, like he used to have with the sheriff back in Buffalo Jump, and said simply into the air as they headed for an open cab. “K.J. stay with them. We’ll follow along in a cab, but we might lose them.”

  “Got it,” K.J.’s voice came back clearly. “They had the guy tell the driver to go to the airport.”

  “On our way,” Tommy said.

  Tommy climbed through the driver’s door of a waiting cab and merged into the cab driver sitting behind the wheel, a single man named Parks from Indiana who was out trying to make a living in the sports book and driving cab in off hours. Tommy instantly knew the guy lived alone in a dive apartment out off the old Boulder Highway, dressed in suits and ties to go to what he called “the office” when in the MGM Grand sports book, but also liked wearing jeans and a t-shirt and driving cab and talking with people.

  He had an ex-wife back in Indiana and a young daughter he saw every month when he flew back there and sent lots of money to and missed a great deal.

  Parks had actually been doing pretty well at sports betting and had about a half million in a number of accounts. He really liked his life and driving cab, except for missing his daughter.

  Tommy liked Parks and liked his attitude.

  Jewel climbed into the front seat. Tommy got them moving toward the airport, using a fairly quick route that Parks knew and only took favorite customers. There was no way in the traffic to actually follow the other cab, so Tommy figured they might as well get there ahead of the Brigade men.

  They rode in silence all the way to the airport and Tommy had Park just pull into the cab waiting area for pick-ups and left him with the feeling that it was too slow on The Strip so he had come out here to get a fare.

  They slid out and both walked quickly toward the arri
vals area.

  They had just gotten there when K.J. said out of the air, “They are pulling up at the Southwest Airlines area.”

  “The Senator is coming in on Southwest tomorrow morning at seven,” Jewel said. “I learned that from the information at the hotel desk.”

  Tommy just shook his head. “It looks like the fight for control of the Senator is going to be here, tonight, instead of in the poker room tomorrow night.”

  “K.J.,” Jewel said into the air as they entered the terminal near the Southwest ticket counters. “On missions of this nature, how many of the Brigade do they normally send?”

  “Two,” K.J. said. “They honestly don’t have that many soldiers, as the Brigade men like to think of themselves, around the world. As soon as you get settled with them in sight, I’ll do some scouting, see if there are more in the area.”

  Tommy liked the sound of that a lot.

  They moved over quickly to a couch area so that they could see the doors and sat down.

  Tommy caught a glimpse of the men coming in the closest door and leaned over and hugged Jewel and kissed her, saying softly, “They are going to be close.”

  He kept his eyes in slits so that he could see around, but not look like he was doing anything but kissing Jewel, who was kissing him back in a very distracting way.

  The two men with machine guns walked right past them, headed for the gates.

  He pushed away and looked at her. “You weren’t helping,” he said, smiling.

  “I was helping myself,” she said, laughing, then turned to see where the poorly dressed men with guns were headed.

  “Let’s tail them,” Tommy said, taking her hand and walking about sixty paces behind the two.

  The Brigade men walked right through security, but Tommy felt that he and Jewel needed to act like live people, so he grabbed a couple ghost tickets from a nearby passenger, handed one to Jewel, and they went through security looking normal, but not waiting in any lines.

  Tommy half expected the x-ray scanner to see him, but he didn’t even cause a beep.

  The two men went to a gate and sat down with their backs to a wall and out of the way of traffic.