Callsign: Bishop (Erik Somers) (Chesspocalypse #5)

CJ started the plane. The engine came to life right away, and to Bishop’s surprise, it was smooth and quiet. He’d been expecting backfires and heavy vibration, but the plane eased out of the hangar without a single hiccup.

CJ must have noticed the expression on his face, because he turned to Bishop and nodded toward the engine. “Told you. I installed a brand new engine last year. Less than a hundred hours on this one. And it’s an upgrade over the stock setup. 210 hp instead of the normal 180, although the original engine only had 145. This thing is updated where it counts, B. It’ll get us where we need to go.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Bishop replied. “A plane’s a plane.”

“You were thinking it,” CJ said.

CJ steered the plane onto a grass runway and gave it some gas. The plane bumped along the runway but soon lifted into the air. “What’d I tell you? Smooth as silk.”

Bishop nodded. “Good.” He looked through the window at the ground below, watching as it fell away. Whenever he flew in the Crescent, he was always in the back where there were no windows, so this was something new. As the ground got farther and farther away, he thought about his former regenerative abilities. A gift from Richard Ridley, he’d been able to march into just about anything without fear of being hurt. Those days were gone, now. Ridley had taken the ability away as easily as he’d given it. He would have to learn to be careful again.

“You all right, B?” CJ asked. “You’re awful quiet.”

“I’m always quiet,” Bishop replied. His thoughts turned to the Manifold facility. He knew from experience that anything could be waiting for them—living, dead, reanimated or mechanical. He looked at CJ and wondered if the man had any idea what kind of shit might be waiting for them.

***

The desk clerk at the Evin was reluctant to talk until Massai offered him a few thousand rial. After that he told them everything they wanted to know. Not that the man had much information to offer. Yes, a man named Erik Somers had a reservation at the Evin. No, he hadn’t checked in or called to cancel. No, he hadn’t sent any luggage ahead. Yes, the room was still reserved for him.

That was all they could get. Even after a quick search of the room, they had nothing.

“What do we do now?” Ahmad asked.

Massai was just about to answer when his phone beeped. He pulled it out of his pocket, cast a worried look at Ahmad, and unfolded it.

“Massai, here… You have? Where is… Are you sure? Of course, I… Yes. Yes, we will do so right away.” Massai closed the phone and stuck it back in his pocket.

“What was that about?” Ahmad asked.

“That was Shahid,” he replied. “They found Somers. A traffic camera caught an image of him leaving Tehran on Freeway 7.”

“Qom?”

“Unlikely. The camera also caught an image of the driver.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“He is with them,” Massai interrupted, emphasizing the last word. “The one called Joker was driving.”

Ahmad winced. “Already? How did they know he was coming?”

“The same way we knew, I presume.” Massai shook his head. His job had just gotten a lot more difficult. Still, there was one bright side to the latest news. “At least we know where they are going,” he said.

Ahmad nodded. “We should hurry.”

“Soon enough,” Massai said. “But first we should go to the warehouse.”

Ahmad nodded again.

The warehouse was where Massai’s people stored their weapons. To get into the airport, it had been necessary to go in without a gun or even a knife. But if Somers was truly with Joker and his people, Massai and Ahmad would need to arm themselves before going after them.

Secretly, Massai was thrilled at the prospect of seeing Joker again. Nothing would make his day better than to put a bullet in that man’s head.





6.



Hassi turned out to be more a gathering of houses than an actual village, at least that’s what it looked like from the air. When CJ pointed to the speck on the horizon, Bishop at first thought he was pointing to a single building. As they grew closer, he spotted the individual structures that made up the village, including a rickety water tower and a squat, unadorned mosque. A few buildings he recognized as small businesses, but most of them looked like single-family houses, and many of those were spaced far apart. If there were more than five hundred people living in Hassi, he would be very surprised.

“What do these people do for work?” he asked.

“Most of them worked in the fields to the north,” CJ replied. He pointed.

Bishop saw a huge swath of scorched earth sandwiched between the village and the foothills of the Alborz Mountains. Here and there, a few crops poked their way out of the soil, but most of the area looked burned and desolate.

“The jihadists,” CJ said. “They came through and put just about everything to the torch.”