Hero's Curse (35 page)

“Harley.” My bike appeared behind me. It took a few minutes to get to the bookstore. I had gotten some coffee and a bunch of books on Norse mythology when I got a text message back letting me know he’d meet me in two hours.

I have a system when I’m trying to learn a new subject quickly. Every discipline and subject has its own language. If I go through the tedium of learning the vocabulary of a new subject, it’s a lot easier to grasp the concepts and nuances of that subject. To accomplish this, I skim through each book until I find a word whose meaning I don’t know and then memorize the definition of that word. It’s brutally boring to go through a bunch of books and look up new words. But if I invest the time to do this, I learn which book is the best of the bunch and when I finally actually read that book, I truly understand and retain the information.

I memorized the names of nine worlds of Norse Mythology, Asgard, home of the Norse gods, Vanaheim, home of the Vanir, Alfheim, the home of the Light Elves, Jotunheim, the home of giants and trolls, Svartalfheim, the home of the Dark Elves, Nidavellir, the home of Dwarves, and finally, Midgard or Earth.

I looked up the name of every known magical weapon in Norse mythology. Gungnir was Odin’s magical spear that never missed and always killed its mark. Mjolnir was Thor’s hammer that could knock down mountains and always returned to his hand. Thor also had a magic belt called Megingjord that increased his strength. There were a couple other magic swords, Dainsleif, Hofund, and Laevateinn owned by various other gods.

Zen monks will focus on a dripping faucet or repeat the same nonsense koan over and over to escape their conscious minds. Studying like this helped me do the same. For a time, I forgot about Mina, Jotunn, and Joey and lost myself in pure research. It was what my mind needed.

I was in the process of researching Idunn and her apples when Drew walked in. I had last seen him eight years ago. His head was shaved and he was a little thicker around the middle, but he was still mostly muscle; six one and about two hundred pounds. At fifty-one, he was past his prime but he was still extremely dangerous. My new senses revealed that Drew had some angel genes, and that he had roughly half the magical potential Tim did.

I watched his intense blue eyes pass over me and then return. His brows lifted in surprise. He walked up to my table and sat down. “Very pretty. I never thought you’d be the type for cosmetic surgery.”

“I’m not.”

He grinned, “So you found the fountain of youth?”

My face was expressionless when I answered, “Kind of.”

He lost his grin. “You’re serious.”

Human beings are herd animals. Drew never had the herd scent. He was always noticeably different. Nowadays, he would have been diagnosed as having ADD and Asperger’s Syndrome. Back at the orphanage, he was just an odd duck with no social skills who couldn’t be bothered to finish any assignment or task he was given.

Drew is four years older than me, and when you’re a kid that’s a huge age difference. We didn’t become friends until we killed a man together; you could say it was a bonding experience. They never found the body, but the nuns and police were suspicious. Seventeen-year-old Drew was encouraged to join the military. They couldn’t do anything to me because I was only thirteen, but then I crippled an adult who touched me—that got me a one way ticket to juvie.

Say ‘Attention Deficit Disorder’ and most people think of a hyperactive kid bouncing off the walls. This wasn’t Drew; he had the opposite problem. He was intelligent and coordinated, but couldn’t focus long enough to take full advantage of either trait.

The Army changed that. Since WWII, the US military has been giving sleep deprived soldiers stimulants. Amphetamines changed Drew’s life: for the first time, he was able to focus and he discovered something he wanted to focus on.

A bullet in flight corkscrews through the air. Distance, gravity, muzzle velocity, bullet weight and shape, air density, and wind all affect a bullet’s trajectory. There are people who instinctively understand this—Drew wasn’t one of them. He devoted himself to studying ballistics with a single-minded intensity, and spent thousands of hours practicing on the range. He became extremely good at killing things from far away. Once he’d learned everything the army could teach him, he went into business for himself as an independent contractor.

In juvie, I learned how to be an enforcer, steal identities, fence goods, and launder money. Every once in a while, even loners need someone they can trust, so we kept in touch. If the nuns could see us now, they’d probably say we’d never overcome our socialization issues—they would be right.

“Do you want to see a troll?”

He mulled over my question. There was no humor in his voice—only interest—when he asked, “The cute-ugly kind with multicolored hair, or the ones that live under bridges?”

“The kind from Norse Mythology that turn into stone when exposed to sunlight.”

“Yeah, I’d like to see one of those.”

“Let’s go. We’ll take your car.” We walked out to Drew’s Chrysler minivan. “You still driving a mom-mobile?”

Drew got into the driver’s seat. “Don’t knock it. Pound for pound, the most dangerous drivers in the world drive minivans. Where we going?”

I gave him directions to the Swenson’s house. “So, did you bring an M-2 like I asked?”

As we took off into traffic, he shook his head. “An M85C. I’ve got it disassembled and packed in a crate in the back. I also brought two M72 LAW rockets.

It figured. Shit!

He glanced over at me and grinned. “I know that look. I’ve used the M85. If you can keep it absolutely clean and inspect the ammo carefully—which admittedly is hard to do in a combat environment—it’s reliable enough. Besides, it was the only thing I could find in the time frame you needed; it was either an M85 or nothing.” He gave a shrug. “Just so you know, I don’t usually keep anti-material weapons ready at hand. It was sheer luck I was able to get the M85 and the two LAW rockets. They’re the M72E9s, the latest version with the improved warhead. They’re out of the packaging, but they’re still sealed so they should be good. By the way, you owe me five grand each for the rockets. I’m not going to charge you for the M85 because I’m going to keep it.”

The M-2 .50 caliber Browning Machine Gun was John M. Browning’s magnum opus. Developed at the close of World War One, it was originally designed to shoot down aircraft. It was equally good at shooting down almost everything else, including most armored vehicles, reinforced concrete walls, and hopefully, Jotunn. There’ve been a few improvements made over the years, but basically, it’s the same reliable weapon as originally designed. The M-2 has been in continuous use by the US Military for almost a hundred years.

Instead of one of the best anti-vehicle weapons in the world, Drew had brought me the New Coke of heavy machine guns.

Granted, the M85C was smaller and lighter than the M-2. It had a selectable rate of fire, and it was supposed to be the modern, new and improved replacement for the M-2. Unfortunately, it was picky, delicate, complicated, and a bitch to maintain. Even worse, instead of using the same pull-out link ammo belt as the M-2, the M85C used a special push-through link which jammed all the time. After years of trying to get New Coke to work, the US Military went back to the M-2.

I had about three hours of practice time on the M-2. I had never the opportunity to try the M85C but I’d read a lot of bad press. I knew I had no other options; it wasn’t like I could go to a local gun shop and just pick up an M-2. I trusted Drew. If he said he could keep it working, I believed him

I was not happy about the M85. The LAWs were another story. I’d taken down a Jotunn with buckshot in the face; a LAW might be a tad excessive, but as every soldier knows, ‘overkill isn’t’. Even at five grand apiece, I was fine with Drew buying them. If we didn’t use them, I could always sell them to someone else.

I switched topics, “Were you able to hire some mercs?”

Drew nodded. “My contact’s name is Yuri Petrov. He’s a former Colonel with the Russian Federal Security Service, fought in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Georgia. He started off in Department V. During the Cold War, all of the KGB assassins came from Department V.” He became silent for moment as he reviewed what he wanted to tell me. “Oh yeah, as soon as you wire a half a million US into his account he’ll head this way. He said it’ll take three days to prepare his gear and another three weeks to get here. He wants another half million when he gets here and one million when we’re done. He says he can bring a team of thirty.”

“You trust him?”

“I’ve worked with him before.” Drew shrugged. “He’s as trustworthy as anyone else in the business. It’s not like we have a lot of choices. There aren’t that many competent, experienced guys willing to get dirty in the CONUS.”

“Where’s he coming from?”

“Didn’t ask. If I had, he wouldn’t have told me.”

“What kind of gear is he bringing?”

“I told him we have to take out the equivalent of nineteen armored troop carriers inside a US city. He claims he has the gear to accomplish the mission. I didn’t get the details. Oh yeah, he expects us to have a demobilization and exfiltration plan in place for him and his people. If he doesn’t like it, he’ll walk and the five hundred K deposit goes with him.” 

I pulled out my phone as Drew turned into the driveway. Three weeks and three days was cutting it close. I transferred five hundred thousand dollars into Petrov’s account. Afterwards, I turned to Drew, “Let’s go see a troll.”

When we were in the house, I could hear Mina upstairs in her bedroom. I called up, “Mina” from the bottom of the stairs. As she came down the stairs, I could see that she wasn’t pleased I’d snuck out earlier. “I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Drew MacDonald. Drew, this is Mina Swenson.” I like living dangerously so I added with a smile, “Mina is my lovely land lady.”

She rolled her eyes at me, turned to Drew and put out her hand, “Hi, Drew. Nice to meet you.”

When I first met Drew, he had no social skills, but he was intelligent and had the instincts of a scientist. I remember watching him observe the social interactions in the orphanage, especially those involving attractive girls. He did this with the intensity of a biologist whose grant money depended on the results of his research on the secret lives of rats. When he discovered women liked being complimented, he proceeded to assault every girl in range with a carefully prepared list of pre-made, one-size-fits-all compliments starting with their hair, and going down to their shoes. It had been hilarious watching the horror grow in those girls’ eyes.

In the last thirty-four years, through much trial and considerably more error, he’d learned a few things. He gave a broad, friendly, appreciative smile, shook Mina’s hand, made eye contact, and with a visible effort did not look at her cleavage. I had to grin. He had the same reaction to her breasts as I did when I first met her. “I’m glad to meet you.”

Mina gave him points for effort, and her polite smile turned into a grin, “So Drew, how do you know Victor?”

Drew shot me a glance. When he saw my slight nod, he turned back to Mina. “I’ve known Vic since we were kids.”

I saw Mina’s brows rise in surprise by our exchange and at this comment. Drew looked thirty years older than me. When our souls touched, I had caught glimpses of the most important events of her life, but I didn’t get the context behind those images. I knew who she was emotionally but I didn’t know the details of her life. I was sure she’d had the same experience. She knew how I felt and thought, but she probably had no idea how old I was. We didn’t have time to get into that now. I asked, “Mina, I’m taking Drew downstairs to look at the troll. Want to come?”

She hesitated and then shrugged. “Sure.”

Aidan and Tim were in the basement. “Victor my lad, we’ve just finished securing the Jotunn.” They’d been busy. They’d built a Jotunn-sized table out of plywood and four by eights. Aidan and Tim had removed the duct tape and platinum wire, and secured the troll with oversized manacles at neck, wrists, and ankles. Then they’d wrapped him in logging chain.

I snorted with surprised laughter. Other than the fact that Aidan’s hair wasn’t standing up, Tim wasn’t a hunchback, and the Jotunn was wearing a huge Depends diaper, it looked like a scene from Young Frankenstein.

By the way Tim was cackling and rubbing his hands together, I got the sense he had the same thought. His Igor imitation was subtle enough that no one else seemed to notice. He didn’t overtly seek attention, and seemed to enjoy projecting a lightweight, goofy image. It made me wonder how much of his annoying persona was an act—his idea of a joke. When he rubbed his snot on my chest, had he been fucking with me?

Tim noticed my questioning look. He gave me a big, open, innocent smile.

“We have platinum wire under the manacles.” Aidan explained with pride. “If he breaks his bindings, he’ll auto-amputate himself.”

“Aidan, Tim, this is my friend Drew. He’ll be helping us with the Jotunn. I wanted to show him the Jotunn we captured. Drew, Aidan is my armorer. Tim is his apprentice.” Drew didn’t even pretend to greet Aidan and Tim. When he saw the seven foot tall green troll, he no longer had any mental energy to waste on social interactions. He knelt by the Jotunn with the intense focus of a kid opening Christmas presents.

Drew and I had a friendship based on trust. We’d gone through enough together to know we’d always have each others’ backs. Our friendship didn’t depend on us hanging out and talking. Drew started firing questions off at Aidan and Tim. I knew he’d keep them occupied for hours and that Aidan and Tim would be thrilled to be occupied.