He moved from the stoop in regular motion, blending with the night. The killers were still standing in front of the bar, inspecting the weather, struggling to light cigarettes in the wind.
Bane stopped six feet away from them.
“This is for George Bane,” he said simply and started firing.
The drunk one went fast. The bullets slammed him hard against the building and he slumped down already dead.
The sober one was another matter. He charged forward with two slugs in his gut and kept coming when Bane pumped a third one home. The man was on him before he could get a fourth off and his grasp, born of death and desperation, was the strongest Bane had ever felt. Bane lost his gun, tried to sidestep, failed, and felt the man’s fingers rising for his throat. The thumbs got there first, and it wasn’t until the first of his air had been choked off that all of Bane’s night training with the King came back and instinct took over. He shifted his body to the side and broke the choke hold with a wrist lock. When the man tried to regain his grasp, Bane came up and around, grabbing the man’s head with a hand on either side and twisting violently. The snap came as loud as any of the gunshots. The man stiffened, crumbled.
A black car screeched to a halt. The passenger door swung open. Bane jumped in.
“Not bad, white boy,” the King complimented, tearing away. “Not bad at all. You handled yourself real good.”
Bane almost asked the King why he hadn’t intervened when things looked bad but didn’t because he knew why, knew that this had been his battle to win or lose on his own. That was the way he had wanted it, a code the King understood and wasn’t about to break.
Bane sat back in the car and said nothing at all. He felt no guilt, nor did he feel any joy. He felt only an empty sort of relief and a strange certainty from deep within that there would be more killing, much more. Somewhere, someday.
That rainy night, Bane guessed, contained the actual birth of the Winter Man.
And now, more than twenty years later, that memory brought a thin smile to his face as he climbed into his workout gear and looked across at the giant who had started it all.
“What you smilin’ at, Josh boy?”
“The old days, King.”
“Yeah, remember ’em well. They turned me down for Nam, you know. Said I was too damn old. A couple years past thirty wasn’t too old if you ask me, ’specially after the way I laid out those Gooks in Korea. And all I got to show for that is a dishonorable discharge ’cause I knocked out some MP who had no business bein’ where he was. I’ll tell ya, Josh boy, I coulda had the GI Bill, a nice sweet pension, free doctorin’, and a host of other shit. But one punch that broke some shithead’s jaw took it all away and I was lucky to stay out of the stockade.” The King ran his eyes around the locker room, then cocked his head toward the door. “All I got’s this place and only ’cause of you.” The King’s eyes found Bane again, suddenly warm. “I owe ya, Josh boy.”
“Not as much as I owe you.”
“Bullshit! I bought this place with your greens.”
“Which I made in Vietnam where I stayed alive thanks to what you taught me.”
“They paid you well over in that hellhole.”
“Money was never the object.”
“You know, I mighta even made a pretty fair Winter Man myself, ’cept I ain’t exactly got the color for it.” The King paused and held Bane’s stare. “The Winter Man wouldn’ta let me beat him back there on the street.”
“The Winter Man’s not around much anymore.”
“He’s there,” the King said surely. “When you need him he’ll be there.” His hands tightened around his bench. The wood seemed to creak from the pressure. “You and me, Josh boy, we got a lot in common. Both of us in lotsa ways don’t belong in this kinda world, me ‘specially. Wasn’t too long ago a man in these parts could carry himself with his fists. Today twelve-year-old kids are carryin’ heaters and ten weeks allowance’ll get ya a machine gun. You mind explainin’ that to me?”
“Wish I could, King, wish I could.”
Chapter Four
Col. Walter Chilgers sat leisurely in the back seat of his limousine as his driver maneuvered through early evening San Diego traffic. As director of COBRA, Control for Operational Ballistic Research and Activation, it was sometimes necessary for him to play the role of politician by meeting with major civic leaders and kowtowing just enough to provide the impression that he gave a shit about what they thought. Such had been the case today, except it had been more ho-hum than usual. Something about the city wanting COBRA to open its doors for a tour by local businessmen. Chilgers hadn’t paid much attention.
COBRA sat in a wide expanse of fenced-in land just off the San Diego freeway in virtual spitting distance from the Pacific Ocean. The huge complex of interconnected buildings rose five stories above the ground in some places, four in others. And it would be within these where the tour would take place. Beneath them, meanwhile, in five full underground layers, the real work of COBRA would proceed as usual.
Chilgers checked his watch, found it was 6:10. He had a 6:30 meeting with his two top department heads and he dreaded being late. He prided himself on being punctual and precise and expected the same of any man or woman who served under him. Being late for a meeting was clearly a rebellion against authority, and to Chilgers rebellion in a company that demanded allegiance was grounds for dismissal. Accordingly, employees made doubly sure to reset their standard issue digital watches each and every morning, usually setting them five minutes ahead.
Chilgers leaned forward and looked ahead out the limousine’s windshield. An accident up the road had snarled traffic. His flesh started to crawl. He had no tolerance for anyone who couldn’t execute a simple right turn without taking someone else’s fender with him. People didn’t pay attention to anything anymore; that was the problem. But he had weeded them out at COBRA. If the time schedule was strict, the dress code was even stricter. Men were expressly forbidden to work in shirt sleeves even in the confines of their own offices. A woman caught wearing pants to the office would arbitrarily be given two weeks notice if she was fortunate and fired on the spot if she wasn’t. Long ago Chilgers had been an officer in the Air Force, and he believed strongly that effectiveness began with discipline.
For himself, Chilgers maintained a stable of three-piece suits he rotated regularly: green on Monday, blue on Tuesday, gray on Wednesday, black on Thursday, and brown on Friday with white and beige saved for weekend duty. The routine never varied. Chilgers wore his suits as stiffly as he’d worn his Air Force uniforms years back, and often when entering the building housing COBRA’s facilities he had to fight back an urge to raise his hand in salute to those he passed. His silver hair was trimmed every Friday at 11:45 which left him enough time for a hurried lunch before the start of his weekly staff meetings.
The driver had caught up with the traffic jam. Chilgers’ watch told him it was 6:14. No way they could make it at this rate.
“The curb,” he said, tapping his driver on the shoulder. “Drive up on the curb, the sidewalk. Get me the hell out of here.”
The driver started the wheel to the right. The limousine lurched atop the sidewalk, straddling the curb. Horns honked in protest. Terrified pedestrians dived to the pavement. If any of this bothered Chilgers, he didn’t show it. He merely eased his shoulders back and relaxed. He’d make the meeting easily now.