The Night Sweeper: A Zombie Conspiracy Novel (The Sweeper Chronicles Book 1) (4 page)

“And when I find him, you want me to kill him?”

“No,” Archer says. “Me and the other interested parties have come to an agreement. None of us are assassins, no matter how bad the situation. Unfortunately, the knowledge of this virus insures Mr. Harbin will need to be put in a safe place for the rest of his life where he can’t be endangered by anyone, and where he likewise can’t endanger anyone else. He has to go away, but we won’t stoop to killing him. The first Virus did far too much of that already.”

“So I need to extract him,” I say, allowing myself a mental sigh of relief, but also noting how much more difficult this will be.

“Right,” Archer says. “And you won’t be going alone.”

He gestures at the girl.

“Cray, this is Mira Winston. She’s your new partner.”

Okay. So now I’m shocked speechless, and I’m sure I have the stupidest look on my face.

“Partner, sir? I don’t need a partner!” I hear my voice rising and make an effort to take a deep breath. Surely from a beauty standpoint, this girl rocks, but now we’re talking about life and death. Not to mention the fact that I’ve never been good with women, and now I’m supposed to be on some top secret extraction party with her? One-on-one? This could be really bad!

Archer looks at me with understanding. “Look, Cray, I know this isn’t the way you usually roll. It’s not how The Organization does things typically either, and I know we’ve always worked hard to keep what we do a solo act.” He doesn’t add that he understands my true reservations. Archer knows me as good as anybody.

“There are certain advantages to being alone for our type of work, but this isn’t just our operation. It’s a joint venture between The Organization and Mr. Eckert’s team,” he says. “It’s an equal partnership. We
are
going to be working together on this, so you need to decide right now if you’re in or not.”

The other business suit catches my eye and I examine him more closely. I’ve ignored him up to this point, but now I notice a smirk on his face like he’s enjoying this, and I decide right away I think he’s a punk.

Eckert pipes up, and I glare at him. My initial reaction of shock is starting to morph into frustration.

“Mr. Cray, I can understand your feelings, but we want one of our own to be a part of this. This is, to say the least, an operation of immense importance. On the other hand, I believe you’ll find Ms. Winston to be of great value in the field. She won’t be a liability. I’ve taken the liberty of stressing the same thing to her about you.”

That rubs me the wrong way. For the moment, my indignation outweighs my shyness.

“You had to convince
her
that
I
won’t be a liability? You’re joking, right?” I look at the girl sitting across from me. Her face remains impassive, like a stone, a gorgeous Michelangelo sculpture to be precise, but this just serves to add to my irritation.

“Maybe you guys are a little slow to catch on to things, and maybe it’s a bit arrogant to say so, but I don’t need or want anybody’s recommendation. I’m twenty-five years old, and I’ve been doing this since I was nineteen. I know….”

“Stow it!” Archer’s voice is authoritative, and I bite my tongue.

He gives me an armor-piercing look, and I damp down my irritation.

“I can personally attest for Ms. Winston,” Archer says. “She’s one of the best operatives I’ve ever seen, and she won’t be a burden. I want you on this Cray, but we don’t have time to argue resumes. We need to act immediately and decisively, and you’re gonna have to lay aside any misgivings you have. This may be the most important thing you ever do.”

I stew for a few moments before speaking again. The stakes are high, and if I’m honest, I can sympathize with Eckert’s position. Archer’s gaze bores into me and he nods his head slightly, encouraging me to trust him on this.

So be it.

“Well, then, when do we start?

Twenty minutes later the meeting wraps up. The plan is for Mira to go with me on patrol tonight so we can have a bit of experience working together. Unfortunately, time is of the essence, and that is all that can be spared. We’ll have a briefing tomorrow morning after the shift to rehash the details.

I’m still perturbed as one of the staff members leads the others out of the conference room, leaving Archer and me alone.

He empties his coffee cup in one big swallow and gives me a serious look.

“Sorry, Arch,” I say. “I guess I lost my head a little.”

“Guess?” He chuckles at me. “Listen, come down with me to my quarters and we’ll talk it over, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

We make our way down a couple of flights of stairs, and emerge onto a mostly unused floor of rooms. A couple of them are kept furnished and stocked for just such an occasion as this.

Archer unlocks the door to his room and we make our way inside, making small talk while he unpacks a duffel bag filled with personal items, charts, and maps. Someone has already laid out breakfast for us on the table – bagels with cream cheese, juice, and a pan of scrambled eggs still steaming.

Archer makes a motion for me to sit, and we both fix a large helping of the food and attack it like we're in a famine.

“It really is good to see you, Cray. I’m sorry it’s been so long,” he says.

“No big deal. You've obviously been busy. Phase two going live. That's awesome.”

“Yeah.” He talks a little faster, like a kid who can't wait to share good news. “It's killing me on the overtime, but it's finally happening. This is what we've been working for kid.”

Archer has always called me kid and still does, even though my kid days are long behind me.

“Did The Council take a lot of convincing?” I say.

“No. They came to me based off the reports from the last year. Said they thought it would be a good time to start the engines.”

“Recruits?”

“We've had an influx. A lot of courageous people are ready to be more proactive with this thing. They want their country back.”

He pauses for a few moments before adding, “I’m sorry to hear about your dad. How are you holding up?”

My dad died two months prior. He worked construction trying to maintain repairs in the city and helping with renovations as necessary. We seldom saw each other and spoke even less. We both knew there was no real love between us.

Still, he was my dad, and his death has left something of a hole in my emotions. It’s a feeling of loss, not so much of the man, but of what he could have been to me. What he
should
have been to me. I can’t understand what it would be like to have a son and not want to have anything to do with him. Even an adopted child like myself. What drives someone to that? There will always be a part of me that struggles with that rejection, no matter the cause.

“I’m holding up. Any chance we had at closeness was gone long before he died,” I say bitterly. “Now, at least, I don’t have to worry about running into him on the street. You’ve been more of a dad to me than he ever was.”

A moment of awkward silence hangs in the air, and I clear my throat, feeling uneasy with the intimate turn of the conversation. My relationship with my dad isn't something I want to talk about. Besides, neither I nor Archer are the types to get in touch with our sensitive sides. After The Virus, we don’t have all the talk show hosts accusing us of being too manly.

“Yeah,” he says simply. He lets it drop, and I'm thankful.

We eat in silence for a while, and I watch him as he eats. Archer is a massive guy, thick biceps bulging under his sleeves. He’s a good six inches taller than me, rounding out at an enormous 6’5, and I’ve always thought he looks more like a football player than a Sweeper.

“So you think this thing is for real?” I ask.

“The Council certainly thinks so.” Archer takes a long, hard breath, and blows it out in a huff, his gaze focused past me, deep in thought. “I really wish it weren’t true, Cray. You know I’ve got no love for the government. I mean, I appreciate all they’ve done to rebuild, and they’ve been good to The Organization over the years, but they’re still politicians. I always wonder what the hidden agenda is. And if what we’re hearing is true, we have good reason to think that way.”

There's a dark tension hanging in the air. We both know the repercussions of what we're about to do. Forget the fact that we could be executed for treason if we're caught. This is a critical time for The Organization with the activation of phase two. This could upend all of that and bring The Organization to its knees.

“But I know Eckert, and I know he’s well respected by his peers. He’s a level-headed guy with solid sources. If he says this is going down, I believe him. Eckert was CIA under the pre-Virus government,” Archer says. “He’s been very helpful to The Council over the years with the restructure. He’s about as upstanding as they come. He was actually one of the guys that was there when they found Damian Harbin’s body. I bet that’s an interesting story.”

“What about the other guy? The quiet one?” I ask.

Archer picks absentmindedly at his teeth. “Name’s Avery Johnson. I'm told he's a solid man. Nowhere near as high up the totem as Eckert, but he caught wind of what’s going down and wanted to help. He should be a decent asset.”

“Do you trust him?”

“You know there are few people I
do
trust. But Eckert is one of them, and he says Johnson’s okay. That’s good enough for me to tolerate him.”

That's Archer's nice way of saying no. I don’t like the guy either, but I let it pass for now. Instead, I focus on my next question and try to act nonchalant.

“What about the girl?” I ask, shoveling a mouthful of eggs into my mouth.

Archer smiles at me as if he knows a secret.

“I take it with her this isn't just
professional
curiosity?”

“Please,” I scoff, not wanting to let on that a large portion of it is
not
just professional.

Archer laughs out loud, a deep, throaty sound that makes the walls quiver.

“Come on, kid. I can read you like a book.”

“Hey, can you blame me? The only girls I see these days are like the Fester I killed the other night. Not exactly charmers if you know what I mean.”

He smiles again. “Actually, she’s an interesting case,” he says. “I was being truthful about vouching for her abilities.”

“Is she really that good?”

He doesn't hesitate. “Yeah. She really is.”

Okay. “So what is it she does for the government?”

This time Archer does pause. “Not that anyone's told me, but I think she's the equivalent of a spy.”

I chuckle and wait for him to do the same, but he doesn't. My smile disappears.

“You're serious? Why would the government need a spy these days?”

Archer sets his fork down, leans back in his chair, and crosses his arms. “Given what we just found out about Harbin, and what The Council wants to do with his cure, I would think that would be obvious. Seems relations between countries aren't as stable as the public believes.”

“Yeah, but we're doing light years better than anybody else in terms of recovery,” but I see the flaw in my reasoning as soon as I say it, and Archer is quick to point it out.

“Again,” he raises his hands in a shrug of uncertainty, “so we've been told. Have you been there to see it first hand? For all us little guys know, Canada's gunning for our resources. Anyway, Mira's tied to Eckert. He trusts her.”

“Tied to him?”

“Yeah. She's his daughter.”

That’s a surprise, but one that doesn’t add up.

“Why the different last name?” I ask. “Is she married?” I try not to sound disappointed.

“She's only his daughter in the sense that he raised her. She was actually the daughter of one of his closest friends. Her parents were both infected, and Eckert took her in, raised her as his own. And if you asked me, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been training her for this type of work all her life.”

He takes a sip of coffee and rubs his eyes. He's aged a lot since the last time I saw him. The years haven’t been kind. The stress of running The Organization is taking its toll on him.

He continues. “A couple of months ago I had a meeting with the High Council at Command in Atlanta, and I got to see some of the agents on the shooting range. She was there. I didn’t know who she was at the time, but she made an impression. I saw her put three slugs into the head of a training dummy in rapid succession at twenty yards. There was only one hole.”

“You're saying…”

“Yep. She put all three slugs into the same spot like some kind of modern day Robin Hood. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see them dig all three slugs out with my own eyes.”

I whistle a long, low sound. Now I’m impressed. Apart from myself, I’ve never seen that kind of accuracy. Beauty and talent rolled into one. Maybe she’ll be up to the challenge after all.