Reign of Evil

Paul was getting brassed off. He didn’t know who it was. It could be someone on drugs or—he thought quickly. Did Megan have a husband? He hadn’t seen a wedding band and she sure didn’t mention it.

The door suddenly exploded inward. Splinters from the doorjamb flew past him as the door landed on the floor. An immense black man in black fatigues was putting his foot back on the ground.

“Knock knock, Avon calling.” The man strode into the room. “Are you the pilot?”

All Paul could do was nod dumbly. Although he never took his eyes off the man’s face, Paul knew he wore some sort of body armor, had a pistol, a knife and a machete, and a rifle slung across his back. If Megan had an African-American soldier husband and she never told him about it, then he was as good as dead.

The man poked him in the chest. It was a simple move, but it hurt tremendously and woke him from his stupor. “Chop-chop. Get some clothes on. We need to get the plane in the air.”

Paul stood there, waiting for the man to leave, but the man merely crossed his arms. His eyes narrowed and it looked like he might have been getting ready for a growl. Paul sprang into motion. He grabbed pants and a shirt and ran into the bathroom. After doing what he needed, he exited and grabbed some socks and boots and a jacket.

“You have the whitest skin of any white guy I have ever seen,” the man said. “Do you get out much?”

Paul didn’t dare answer. He grabbed a set of keys and headed for the door. The man fell in behind Paul. They marched across the tarmac from his trailer to his own private hangar on the south end of Redfield Airport. He was fumbling with his keys when he noticed that the lock on the door had been wrenched away. He entered the hangar to find utter chaos. His cabinets had all been broken open and their contents removed. Odds and ends were in one pile while another pile held nothing but packed parachutes and a group of people dressed in black were sifting through them.

“Are… are you robbing me?”

Four other men and a woman stopped what they were doing to regard him. One man looked like he was cut from a solid block of stone. Another was tall and blond with a wide smile. Another was a short Arab with a robotic arm. Then there was a regular-looking blond guy. The woman was older, but beautiful in an intimidating sort of way.

The man with the chiseled face approached Paul. “You’re not being robbed. And we’re sorry for all of this, but we need your plane and your parachutes ASAP. We also need you to fly us.”

“I—I can’t just fly. I have to file a flight plan and—”

“You don’t get it. You’re going to do this and when it’s all over you can come back and get shit faced at the pub. Now, where are your other parachutes? There’s only four here and we need two tandems.”

“Why—are we—”

A dog with body armor padded by, giving him a look.

“For god’s sake.” The angry black man grabbed him by a shoulder. “This is a matter of national security. We’re trying to help England.”

“But you’re American?”

“Well, look at Captain Obvious. Haven’t you heard of our exchange program? We get Anthony Hopkins and Michael Caine and you get us?”

The tall one spoke in a husky voice. “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”

Paul felt himself begin to tremble.

Then the woman approached him. She put her hand on his arm. “It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine.” She stared into his eyes. “Say it.”

“Everything’s going to be fine.”

“Say it again.”

“Everything’s going to be fine.”

“Good boy. Now tell us where the other parachutes are.”

He pointed toward the back of the room, where a large industrial-sized box sat. “In there. But they haven’t been recovered yet.”

Four of the men, minus the angry black man, headed toward the container.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Then to the black man she added, “Brutes. Think he’ll be able to fly the plane if he’s too busy peeing his pants?”

Paul thought it was odd that she would say that. Because he knew that if he could possibly produce any urine at this moment then he’d be well into peeing his pants.

CHAPTER 42

IN DARKNESS SOMEWHERE NEAR GLASTONBURY TOR. 0750 HOURS.

Darkness and pain. He knew he was outside because of the cold that had long ago seeped into his bones. At first his body had rebelled, whatever nerve endings that hadn’t been broken by the beating screaming for him to get them warm. But the longer he’d remained outside, the softer their cries became, until now they were silent, relegated to the reality that the numbness masked the pain that had taken permanent residence in his body.