It was past two in the morning when JTS1 landed on the tarmac of Bozeman Airport with a slight jolt. The aircraft taxied to its private hangar, where the ground crew waited to take over.
The hangar doors were open, and the crew, in JTS jumpsuits, stood at attention. A jacked-up white 4X4, one of Pastor Tony’s Boys fleet, sat askance, light flurries of snow drifting through its headlights.
The door to Taylor’s office opened, and Tim rose to his feet.
“I hope you had a nice flight, sir.”
“Yes, Tim. I was able to do some work and get a couple hours of sleep in. I have a meeting with that truck out there.”
“I’ll see to it, sir,” said Tim.
Taylor went back into his office.
“Hope you get some sleep before the sun’s up,” said a woman’s voice. He turned to see the pilot, Lindsey, standing at the curtain that separated the galley from the passenger cabin.
“If I’m lucky,” he responded.
Holding the curtain in one hand, she said, “You can always crash at my place. I got the room. You should see what I’ve done with the basement.” She bit her bottom lip and caressed the top button on her uniform.
He blushed. “Duty. I need to get Taylor back to the ranch.”
“Well,” she said, a twinkle in her eye, “the offer stands. Good night, Tim.”
He watched her shapely figure descend the stairs. A year ago, Lindsay had purchased the Kleimer Building on Bozeman’s Main Street and began renovating it into her private residence. Her move did not go unnoticed by the local newspaper:
JTS Employee Buys Historic Building.
A half-hearted protest ensued for an afternoon with wealthy, rather pasty hippies brandishing signs about preserving Montana’s history for everyone. Taylor had dispatched Tim and a few lads, just to piss off the snowflakes in the mayor’s office. By evening, everyone was drinking red wine up the street at the jazz club.
He pulled on his jacket and climbed down to ground level. The crew stood in formation. The frigid wind nipped at their faces.
He stopped at an older man with a mustache that curled at the ends. “Sorry to get you boys out of bed so early,” he said.
“Welcome back, Mr. Boothe. It’s no problem at all.”
“Ben, how long have we known each other?”
The man investigated the night as he counted. “Maybe five years, sir.”
“Call me Tim.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Tim.”
“Alright. Taylor has a meeting. I’ll let you know when it’s done. Can you get the Air Quad warmed up and set a flight plan for the ranch?”
“Yes, sir.” Ben barked orders to his crew as Tim signaled the imposing truck.
At the bottom of the boarding stairs, he ran his portable metal detector over the two clergymen. When they remained silent, he frisked them. They wore black robes, full beards, and their heads shaved clean. Bizarre crosses of shiny circuit boards hung from their necks. Their muscles bulged full and hard from the steroids and human growth hormones. They were unarmed. He let them climb into the jet where the senator waited.
A lawyer, a man in his late sixties with glasses and perfectly quaffed silver hair, wore an expensive suit. “I have a shoulder holster,” he said, and lifted his arms.
Tim removed the snub Derringer from beneath his left arm and slipped it into his pocket. He then searched him thoroughly, starting at his ankles and moving to his calves, crotch, back, and arms.
“Go on up,” he said.
During his wait, he sat on the sofa and inspected the weapon. It was short and stout with a black grip and smoke-chrome barrel. A cylinder held three .45 caliber rounds, a compact and powerful tool for persuasion or dissuasion, depending on the line of work. Should a lawyer carry a gun? Truth was, lots of people carried guns these days, moms going to yoga, grandmothers at grocery stores. America had never been so locked and loaded and ready for a fight.
When the meeting concluded, he and Taylor sat in the Air Quad as it hovered ten feet off the tarmac. He glanced down to see Ben and his crew hauling cleaning equipment up the aluminum stairs into the jet’s cabin.
“Grid sync successful. Prepare for altitude,” announced the computer.
The craft ascended swiftly, and the JTS hangar fell away. The entire airport shrank to the size of a model with toy airplanes, helicopters, and ground traffic going about its purposeful business.
Beyond the airport were the sprawling suburbs of the greater Bozeman area, the veins of intertwining roads outlined by streetlights, and the main artery of Interstate 90 crawling with ant-sized headlights. From this height, neighborhoods took on a logical pattern of grids, including the floral designs of roundabouts and cul-de-sacs. In the distance, the university town of Bozeman proper was lit up like a raucous frat party.
Then the world around them grew misty, the glass shell covered by moisture, and the ground blurred before it vanished as they lifted through the cloud ceiling. There were a few moments of darkness and then a field of glittering stars. He scanned for the Dippers; Eric had taught him once when they’d gone fishing on public lands and slept out in the summer to fish again in the morning.
Low in the west, the silver shell of a waxing gibbous moon reflected off the surface of the clouds as off an ocean. A meteorite streaked overhead, flashing the clouds with a bright green glow before disappearing.
Taylor reclined in his chair, eyes shut, possibly sleeping.
“Ten thousand feet altitude achieved. Commencing travel,” said the computer. “ETA in sixteen minutes.”
He felt the inertia push him back into his seat as they canted south of Sacajawea Peak. The mountain, cutting through the clouds was crusted in white, reflecting the moon like an ivory breast.
Far in the distance, the red and white flash of another Air Quad blinked in and out. According to the radar, it was stationary. Stargazers smoking a bowl, most likely a date night. If you had money—and many people in Bozeman did—Air Quads made for a good time on a night like this.
He glanced at Taylor. Eyes still closed.
He was having trouble shaking the surreal experience on the bridge. The way his boss had taken the gun and, without hesitation, ended that old woman’s existence. How those lights had faded. What wondrous lights! The bridge had shaken, vibrating through his legs. The masked motorcycle gang tearing by. That boy, running for his life. The thing, the shadow creature, jumping on him, ending him.
It shouldn’t surprise him that his boss was a killer. Hell, he knew he was a killer. JTS killed. They employed people around the world who engaged in all manner of combat. Tim himself had studied the craft of killing and had trained others to kill. Like Taylor, he was a mercenary. They were in the business of death. Killing was the daily bread.
He should forget these things.
It was snowing heavily in the mountains when they landed softly on the Air Quad pad. A small crew of two men and a woman received them.
As was his custom when exhausted, the senator went to his personal elevator without a word of goodnight and vanished into the depths of his mansion.
Tim thanked the crew and took the service lift to the subterranean garage, climbed into one of the SnowTracks, and drove himself without the aid of navigation up the mountain to his cabin, leaving the machine out front to be buried in snow.
At the door, he tore his clothes off and went to his kitchen in the dark to pour a whisky. The spirit burned his throat. He poured another. Then, in the darkness, he took himself to bed and slept. His slumber consisted of a nightmare on the bridge, which he could not shake in the morning when he roused himself. Like the perfume of a skunk, the crime clung to him.
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The snow had stopped. The sky was clear and predawn violet, except for high wisps of cirrus clouds.
He did not work for the rest of the week. Before coffee, he skied five miles along the ridge, stopping to watched the sun rise and turn the powder to diamonds. He saw the fresh tracks of the lone grizzly that hunted there in the summer. He knew it to be a large male that preferred not to be seen. A bald eagle soared the updraft of the canyon, flew over him, and piped softly down.
He climbed until he reached the peak, then veered left and dropped down the steep slope, hitting the moguls of rock and bush. The explosions of his impact blasted up glittering powder that he breathed into his lungs like cold smoke. The drops turned into slopes, and then he was in the tree line of the alpine forest on a trail that Taylor’s guests liked to use because it was easy and beautiful.
He emerged from the forest into the compound of the ranch, where the massive multi-tiered mansion was connected by a glass skywalk to the steaming, sulfuric hot tubs and swimming pools. Beyond these, there was a small village of private residences, among which the highest and most secluded one was his… home for the last seven years.
It was a two-level, ultra-modern design with large picture windows on the south side that gave out onto the mountain range and captured both sunset and sunrise. It contained a living room with a television that monopolized an entire wall and a sofa where he often fell asleep watching old movies from his boyhood; a fully stocked kitchen with restaurant-quality equipment where he’d been practicing sushi techniques with an AI sensei; a gym with all the necessities; and the ranch’s signature walk-in steam shower (also with a window-wall), which was where he stood, absorbing the heat, sweating, and watching the sea-blue sky above the dove-white snow.
The nightmare had been of the boys playing with a fiery football on the shores of a strange land, safe in the proximity of family, music, and a wedding. Even those who had fled the ravages of war and the destruction of the environment harbored the desire to build unions, bring bloodlines together, and make babies. It was a messy dream. As dreams do, one of the boys had been him, and the other was Eric. They were running from monsters when the ground turned to mud and their legs to sap.
“God, Eric, I miss you, man,” he spoke into the steam.
Eric, his cousin, used to call him Tadpole. He had practically raised Tim in that government unit on the mean streets of Billings’s Southside, where Asiatown dappled its overflow ghettos into the hood.
Eric had kept him out of the gangs, out of the militias, kept him in school, kept him fed when his mom ran off, kept him off drugs, off Escape. He taught him how to wrestle, how to fight, how to hunt and fish and skin a deer, how to butcher and freeze the meat so there’d be food all year. And how to be good to girls.
“Chivalry is dead, old chap,” he’d say in some fake accent, throwing him the book he’d just finished, saying, “Read that, Tadpole.”
“What’s it about?”
“About a man in a war. Gets laid a lot. It’s about the good guys.”
Eric, who let him watch the scariest of movies because they were just stories, let him watch porn, hid him in the closet the night he brought Kaylee Kobylinski home from prom so he could see the way a guy ought to fuck a girl. He turned her into a moaning, sobbing mess, and by the time they were done, she was begging him not to join the army, to stay and marry her, and she would always be his.
Eric, who was there when they found his mom’s body, told him it was okay to cry. But he didn’t cry. Not for her. Not that night, nor any since.
Eric, who beat the old man when he returned drunk and broke, wanting to take it out on Tim. He beat him so severely that he needed to be carried off in an ambulance. Beat him so bad he never came back.
Eric, who took him to the airport when he deployed. “All my paychecks are going right into the account. That’s for you, Tadpole. Be careful with your money, be good, don’t let anyone fuck with you. You better take States. I know you got it in ya. I’ll be watching.”
Tim hugged him. Buried his face and felt his eyes burning to the smell of Old Spice. Then he stepped back, and they’d saluted, and he didn’t cry.
A paycheck came, then another, then a letter from Eric.
Hey Tadpole,
Gets fucking cold here in the winter. Not as cold as Montana. Different kind of cold. Been in this city for a month now, fighting over the same street for weeks. Don’t know who’s who. FEEN dresses just like the locals. Been keeping warm. Met a girl. Her dad’s a baker, so I get fresh bread now and then. ;) Hope you’re keeping out of trouble. Keep your grades up. Championship is soon. I’ll be watching. I expect to see you there. I expect to see you win. Well, I better go. Love ya.
Then another paycheck. When the paychecks came, he saved all the money except for a few dollars he’d use to get a pizza and Coke and watch one of Eric’s old movies.
Then another letter came, a formal one printed on heavy paper.
Dear Timothy Boothe:
With my deepest regrets and sadness, it is my duty to report that Private First Class Eric C. Boothe was killed in action defending freedom and America on the Eastern Front. As his commanding officer, I would like to send my condolences. Boothe was a great soldier and saved many lives. He fought bravely and valiantly and was a model to his brothers in arms. Sadly, he gave his all when a sniper of the Federation of Eastern European Nations…
Time passed, and he forgot Eric’s face; even in the dream, it was obscured. It was the face of every boy, a palimpsest of guys he’d known throughout his life, but his soul was there. It was Eric who the monster fell on, and the beast was that FEEN sniper lying in wait.
Tim Boothe was a bodyguard—he’d been one since John Taylor had recruited him in his last month of high school.
He had just defeated the best grappler in Montana and had taken the state title, for what it was worth. It was the last achievement of a young athletic career that would not blossom into a college scholarship—most universities had stopped doing athletics before he was born. Too many politics and lawsuits. He wasn’t university material anyway.
It was his junior year of high school. He was sixteen and dropping out. At the end of the school year, he was set to fly to basic training with the romantic dream of getting into the special force. But he probably would have ended up going to the front and fighting FEEN like Eric and so many other kids in his socio-economic position. With unemployment and prices skyrocketing, the military represented a job and stability.
Everything changed after that last match. He was in the locker room, about ready to strip, his kit hanging off his hips, when the door banged open, and three men in suits barged in, checking all the corners to ensure the room was clear. Then in walked John Taylor, military haircut and perfect posture. Tim remembered him as huge and powerful. He wore black slacks and a black t-shirt that displayed his cut physique. He knew he was somebody back then, but he didn’t know or care exactly who.
The tall man came right up to him and picked up the championship trophy that sat unceremoniously on the bench.
“You destroyed that guy,” Taylor said. Like the man, the voice was imbued with authority and position.
Tim shrugged.
“He was bigger than you. I know for a fact he’s all juiced up. I had a little word with his coach.”
The high school athletic association had stopped testing for steroids two years prior because of funding issues. A lot of kids were pinning and spinning the Escape to get the physical advantage—insanity would come later.
“By all rights, he should have had you, but you finished him, clean and simple. That’s what caught my eye. You move like a dancer.”
“Doesn’t much matter. Wrestling’s out next year. I just want to go home and watch TV.” Tim eyed the three men suspiciously. In their dark AR glasses, they watched without watching, saw without seeing.
Taylor set down the trophy. “What are your plans after high school? College?”
“Nah, basic training.”
“Army?”
“Navy, I want to be a SEAL.”
“From what I saw tonight, you’re going to make it. You want to go see Eastern Europe, huh? Your cousin died over there, right?”
He felt his eyes sting. He knew? Why did he care? Tim shrugged again. Nobody wanted to go there, but that was where they ended up.
The man reached out and felt his bicep, ran his thumb across the dent of his chest, and nodded.
“Let me make a proposal. It would be a real shame to put this body of yours through that hamburger factory. I need good men. Come work for me. I’ll make sure you can buy a house by the time you’re twenty.”
“What work?” He suddenly felt the draft of the room against his exposed skin. He wondered if the bodyguards were filming him. He lifted his kit above his trenches.
“You know John Taylor Security?”
“JTS? Sure. Who doesn’t?”
The men in black with high-tech gear and machine guns who guarded everything from ATM machines to McDonald’s parking lots.
The man grinned wide. “I created JTS. Go to this address at noon tomorrow.” He held out a card. “Not all my guys guard coffee shops. I have an elite unit. There’s money. No drugs, but pussy when you want it—or cock. I can get you whatever you like. No questions. You’ll have better training and better funding than you’ll ever get in the military. That is, if you can make the cut. You think you got it in you?”
The man locked his eyes without blinking. Tim felt his chest grow tight. He was a virgin. He’d never gone to the comfort rooms of the BAT like the other boys.
John Taylor didn’t wait for the answer. He did an about-face and walked out of the room. The men in suits waited for a moment before following him.
Tim was alone, holding the card.
The senator had been a powerful man before Tim went to the address on that card, but he had seen him rise to the very top, and with that tide, he himself had risen in the world of JTS. Not only had he purchased that little place on Flathead Lake, which was well-known and vetted by the JTS intelligence apparatus, but he’d used what he learned in the security industry and built an anonymous safety net off the books: a sailboat docked in the Gulf of Mexico, a floor in a New York high-rise, a majority share in a small but growing chain of milk tea shops in various Asiatowns around the world. The money was all funneled into crypto held in an alias account that was administered by a dark web agent that was only accessible at the utterance of a password—a password only one other person on the face of the planet knew.
He stepped into the hot spray of the shower, soaped, rinsed, and then walked into his living room to dry in the greenhouse effect of the sun blasting through the windows.
“Computer, call Z-dawg.”
“Z-dawg is online. Calling,” said the AI.
Z-dawg was short for Zombie Dawg. Z because, like a zombie, he felt no pain or fear. Dawg because he was dogged and didn’t stop until the job was done.
“Hey, boss, what’s up?” Z-dawg’s face filled the screen. “And you’re naked.”
“You and Scarlet want to hang tonight, drink something strong?” It was a code for we need to talk now, off the JTS logs.
“Sure, sounds good. I could use a drink. Should I dress up?” Will I need a gun?
“No, I’m buying. How about 9 PM at the lounge?” No gun. But there are things you need to know.
“Be there or be nowhere.” If I don’t make it, it means I’m dead.