Son of Tesla

SON OF TESLA: Chapter 37

"YOU'VE MADE A REAL mess of things this time, Samil."

Bill Brodham strode angrily up to the glowering man. He looked like he wanted to punch him. Might have, if Vickers wasn't hurrying up beside him like a puppy after his master. The two agents wove through the Humvees and transports filled with troops that were clogging the Fairfield Inn's parking lots. A dark green helicopter made wide circles around the property. Samil couldn't understand how the fugitive had bested his men, but he did know one thing: He would find him, and he would extract every ounce of technology the man had to offer. Even if it meant cutting it out of his skin.

"What in God's name is all this?" Vickers shouted.

"That's General Samil to you, Bill," Samil said, ignoring Vickers. He didn't like African-Americans. "And you're out of your jurisdiction. This is a military operation now, so put a leash on your negro lap dog and get out of my sight."

Vickers punched him before Brodham had a chance to.

Samil touched a finger to his lip, looked at the drop of blood calmly, then trained his eyes on Vickers.

"That was a mistake," he hissed. "I hope you liked working for the CIA. Arrest these men." The last was directed to a nearby soldier.

The man drew his rifle and leveled it at Brodham and Vickers. "Hands in the air," he shouted.

"This is a farce, Samil," Brodham said, ignoring the soldier. "You might have just jeopardized the entire country with your stupid black ops crap."

"I said hands in the air!" The soldier repeated.

"You don't know the half of it, Bill," sneered Samil. He enjoyed messing with the agency, and Bill Brodham in particular. He thought of the time Brodham had taken a suspected terrorist from him, claiming agency immunity, and he was struck by an urge to grind the man into the dirt with his little finger. The guy was a fool; he deserved to be strung on a spit and roasted alive for being such a self-righteous prick. "Let me guess," Samil said to Brodham, "the fugitive fed you the other dimension line. Tesla, the fate of the world, all of it. And you bit, hook, line, and sinker."

Brodham's eyes narrowed. It made him look like a fat piglet, thought Samil. The years weren't being kind.

"You know..." began Brodham.

"I said hands in the air."

"Shut up!" Brodham shouted at the soldier without taking his eyes off Samil's. "He came to you first," he said to Samil. "Of course he did. I wonder who else. UN? China?"

"You poor, sad man," Samil smirked. "You realize you're over your head in this, don't you? Whatever you know, I already knew a week ago. We have-"

"Do you want me to arrest these men, sir?" the soldier cut in.

"Shut up," Samil snapped. He memorized the soldier's name tag for later. He didn't like being interrupted. He always kept a mental record of people who messed with his authority. Sooner or later, they got what was coming to them. Usually, at his word. He'd been a general for a long time, but he never forgot the work that got him there. The favors and the political sweet-talk. The backstabbing. The bodies. And now that he was in a position of power, he'd be damned if he was going to lose even an iota of it.

"You have what?" Vickers asked.

"I hear yapping," Samil said to Brodham. "Muzzle it for me."

"You're going to get a hard bite in the ass from karma one of these days, Samil," Brodham said. "And when it comes, all the people you stepped on to reach your pedestal are going to come back for you. People don't forget a traitor."

Samil's eyes turned dark. He felt a headache coming on. He knew Brodham's words were empty. Hollow. But he didn't need to stand here and listen to them. And nobody, nobody called him a traitor. He'd remember it for later. He wondered how Brodham would look with his neck slit open. The thought made the headache worsen.

"Get this scum off my lawn," Samil said to the waiting soldier, then turned and walked away.

He strode across the bustling parking lot with his head down. Soldiers and civilians alike made way for his passing. He walked up to a white medical tent at the edge of the lot and stepped inside.

David "Tico" Ramirez was lying shirtless on a portable hospital stretcher while a female attendant slathered some kind of cream on his burned chest. A thick white bandage covered his nose and he was trying to flirt with the attendant, who suffered his advances with barely constrained annoyance. They both looked up at Samil's footfalls.

"General," Tico saluted.

"Give us a moment, miss," Samil said to the nurse. She hurried out of the room and Samil walked up to Tico's bedside. His face was a stormcloud. The headache was worse now; it throbbed at his temples. Tico avoided his eyes.

"I'm a little confused," Samil began. He was happy to see Tico flinch slightly at his voice. "When I sent a three-man team to pick up a single guy, I was under the impression that the man would be delivered to me. Instead, I find my three best ops picking themselves off the floor while the building practically burns to the ground around them." In reality, the fire had only spread to the edge of one bed before the hotel manager showed up with a little red fire extinguisher, but Samil often liked his own version of events better than reality. "So now I have a question nagging at my mind, and it's this: What in the almighty devil happened in there?"

Tico tried to sit up, then clutched his chest and sank back to the thin mattress.

"The guy had some kind of weird weapon, man. It was freaky. Like, first it was a flamethrower, then like a Taser or something, and we didn't even see the thing, you know? Like it wasn't there."

Samil was intrigued. This sounded like something he could use. The headache let up a little; he liked good news.

"Describe it for me. This weapon."

"I said, man, it wasn't even there. Like it was part of his hand or something."

"Part of his hand..." Samil trailed off in thought. An implant, then. The Department of Defense would pay big money for a weaponized implant. Especially if it could be hidden so effectively until it needed to be used. Of course, they'd pay more if it was lethal, which he would of course say it was, but the proof he needed wasn't exactly sitting in front of him.

Yet.

Besides, he reasoned, the DoD had been riding him lately about his little "errand" out here in Maryland, and so far he hadn't brought anything back to light a fire under their chairs to get behind him on it. This was a good plan, he knew. As if in affirmation, the pounding throb behind his temples reached farther back into his brain. It was too bad, really. He liked Tico, and he was a good operative. But some things had to be done.

"You did good, Tico," he said warmly, reaching down to his boot.

Tico released his breath in a whoosh. He looked relieved.

"Thank you, sir. We'll get hi–mmrrhh."

Samil covered Tico's mouth with one hand and used the other to drive a thin blade deep into Tico's chest, right in the center of the red, blistered burn mark. Tico thrashed, but Samil held his grip on the knife, digging it in up to the hilt and twisting. A thin spray of bright red blood shot up to Samil's face, tickling him with tiny droplets. Slowly, Tico stopped struggling. A glaze came over his eyes and he slumped to the bed.

"A sacrifice for a new god," Samil whispered, then stood and grabbed a medical rag from a nearby table. He wiped Tico's blood off his face, then used the rag to wipe the blade clean. He dropped the rag on Tico's chest and stuck the knife back into its sheath under his boot, then strode out of the tent.

Thanks for reading my story! Please VOTE and let me know what you think of it so far, then check out Chapter 38!