When the Man Comes Around part 1

The blood from his lip dripped into the puddle below, creating a small whirlpool. The cold rain washed over his back as the boy dragged himself with the palms of his hands. His arms were weak, his legs immobile. He had to keep crawling. No one else would help regardless of his young age. He was nameless. He was homeless. He was nobody.

Nadie’s eyes opened and he stared up at a ceiling that belonged to a lavish bedroom in an expensive villa on the coast. His head rested on a pillow that was exorbitant and highly comfortable, as was the blanket that lay across him. Even after so many years, it was surreal to wake up in such a place. There was a time when he would wake up to a crowded dormitory in an orphanage. He remembered the ceiling had a water stain from a barely-patched leak that he would stare at every morning while he gathered strength. He remembered waking up in pain every morning because his pillow and mattress were unsuitable for a boy with his condition, but the nuns couldn’t afford anything better. While he never said it aloud, he often felt guilty that he woke to such luxuries as an old man.

His care-workers entered to help massage his limbs to stop them from aching. Then they helped him bathe and get dressed. After he was placed in his wheelchair, he was taken downstairs where his kitchen staff waited with breakfast. If he passed the cleaning staff, he’d often thank them. There were many employees in his home. He knew their names and spoke to them, often asking about their children or their hobbies. On their birthdays, he bought their favorite cake.

Mano would usually show up after breakfast and go over the details of the day. On that particular day, he attended mass. The children at the cathedral called him “uncle” and he’d usually have candy to give them. They never noticed the entourage of men and cars following him. A few senators attending mass greeted him respectively and promised they would be “making the appropriate votes in the next session” and he nodded in approval.

After mass, Mano whispered into his ear and he was taken back to his villa and sat in front of a screen in his office. On the screen, he saw two men tied to chairs, their faces purple and swollen with bruises, their shirts stained with blood. Some of his men stood behind them, ready for orders.

“You were meant to oversee product going to Ecuador,” Nadie began coldly, “Can you explain why you stole 20% of that product over the course of the past 8 months and sold it in the streets… here in Costa Triste no less?”

“We meant no disrespect,” one of the men croaked.

“You understood the rules and deliberately disobeyed them. Showing a blatant disregard for those rules is quite disrespectful.”

“We’re sorry.”

“No, you only regret being caught,” Nadie pointed a finger at the screen, “Kill the one in the white shirt.”

Without hesitation, one of the men standing behind them ran a blade across the throat of the man with the white shirt. The man gurgled and bleed out in seconds while the second man quietly prayed to himself.

“The money you earned from your dealings…,” Nadie continued, “It wasn’t only for yourselves, was it? Who else got a cut?”

The man looked at his dead friend and then stared at the floor before quietly saying, “La Respuesta.”

“Thank you.”

There was a gunshot from off-camera and the man was shot in the head quickly. It was painless. It was mercy. After that, the camera was shut off and Nadie went about his business.

Elsewhere, a black hovercraft zipped over waves; the Dragon had been on autopilot for some time. The flight was a little over two hours and Michael Hawkwood had decided to take a quick nap to conserve energy. The hovercraft could fly low enough to avoid air-traffic and radar, but was high enough to clear anything in the water that could obstruct his path.

He gave Nadie a warning some time ago. He told him that any further attacks on New York would result in a direct visit. It was not an empty threat. The Cavalier first came across Nadie on his first mission when he went after the drug dealer calling himself Big Fun. The second encounter involved Nadie killing the gang known as the Laughing Boys, earning money and allegiance from New York’s underworld. Then, after the Resurgence, Nadie bombed New York’s City Hall and orchestrated an intricate drug ring based on subterfuge. This was when he threatened to go to Costa Triste himself if he attacked the city again. At the same time, Mano was captured by the FBI and pursued by the vigilante known as the Horseman. Nadie soon hatched a plan to help Mano escape the US by placing a hit on the Cavalier and his allies, keeping them occupied until Mano escaped the country. It was the last straw for the Cavalier and he prepared for a visit.

As the Dragon approached the Costa Tristen shores, a chime alerted him and he stirred awake before taking the controls. The Coast Guard had been placed on high-alert with binoculars and drones for the past week, sure to be on the lookout for unidentified aircraft entering the country, particularly along the coast that faced the US. When they spotted the Dragon, Coast Guards radioed their supervisors and they alerted the Air Force. Soon, two jets were launched to intercept.

At a base far away, Colonel Esteban Barca received word of the small invasion. He was a large, mustached man and the highest ranking military officer in the country. “The president’s orders have been clear,” he responded over radio, “That aircraft is to be shot down on site and the remains are to be collected.” The orders, of course, only came from the president on paper. He knew very well that Nadie was in control.

The Cavalier picked up swiftly approaching aircrafts and deduced they were fighter jets. The Dragon flew in low to avoid radar, but it was far from invisible. Furthermore, as fast as the Dragon was, it couldn’t outrun fighter jets. Through the windshield, he witnessed two shapes shoot out from the horizon and pass overhead before disappearing behind him. He hoped the two jets didn’t see him, but his sensors, however, indicated they were in the process of turning back around.

The Dragon might not have been as fast, but it had more maneuverability than standard military aircraft. Cavalier spun it around to face the two jets. He noticed bursts of artillery and strafed to the left as more streaks flew by and the jets darted past. He looped around again, dipping toward a beach with a small fishing village. He buzzed some startled fisherman and flew over the houses, hoping he lost them. A short time later, his scanners detected another approaching object. This time, it was much smaller, indicating that one of the jets caught up to him and fired a missile. The Cavalier dipped down just before the missile sailed overhead. A short distance later, it exploded, sending flares his way. The fire and debris hit the Dragon and while it did no serious damage, it blinded Cavalier briefly. When he emerged from the flames, he saw that he was headed straight for stacked houses. He took a sharp turn, rolling the aircraft and narrowly avoiding a roof. He looped into the air and tried his best to slow down as he sailed into a thick forest. Branches and leaves bounced off, but Cavalier wasn’t sure about the tall trunk up ahead; he ignited a burst from the Dragon’s Breath. Flames shot out, weakening the next tree just in time for the Dragon to snap it in half. It fell lower until it hit grass and dragged along a field, digging a trench in its wake before it finally came to a stop in a giant mound of dirt.

“Welcome to Costa Triste,” he said to himself. He turned on the rear thrusters and backed out of the ditch. Then he flew quickly out if the area. He made it into the country despite the crash. Now it was time to begin the next phase.

Soon after, a military convoy drove onto the field to inspect the area. A long line of humvees and armored trucks circled around before a platoon hopped out to investigate. Once again, they radioed their superiors and word got back to Barca.

“There’s no sign of the aircraft, although we saw where it fell,” Barca reported to Nadie, “The images we got from our drones show it was likely the Cavalier’s hovercraft.”

“He’s in the country,” Nadie responded, “It’s no matter. We know the closest city he’ll likely reside in. It’s a simple matter of drawing him out.”

****

“The Body of Christ”

The small boy reached up, placing the black berry between the lips of the slightly older boy in a wheelchair. He wasn’t being blasphemous. He saw the priest performing the Eucharist many times at mass and mimicked it in the way that small children often parrot what they see. “Thank you,” the boy in the wheelchair chewed the berry happily and watched as the fruit was given to the rest of the orphans playing outside.

The berries only grew in Costa Triste, particularly the Northern part. Largely found near a church called La Basílica de la Paz Armónica and its orphanage, the berries were highly toxic, capable of killing a man in under a minute. As expected, the nuns and priests tried to keep people away from the berries. Unfortunately, the vines proved impossible to eradicate completely. In fact, when Spanish conquistadores first landed on the island, many of them reportedly feasted on the berries growing near a beautiful coast and died shortly after, which was supposedly what earned the nation the name, “Sad Coast”.

The peculiar part about the fruit was that local children and the orphans living next to the Paz Armónica Basilica often ate it. The berries didn’t harm children when eaten in small quantities, resulting in an immunity to the toxins well into adulthood. The nuns referred to the fruit as La Fe Del Niño (Child’s Faith), in that those who eat and live must have childlike faith, referencing Matthew 18:3.

Eduard sat outside the orphanage, contently watching the other children playing and eating the berries that had been picked from a small vine. As a baby, the boy was abandoned on the front steps of the basilica in Villa de los Venti Santos, the largest city in Costa Triste (often shortened to “Venti Santos”). He was quite small and a paraplegic, likely due to suffering trauma during birth. As was the law at the time, there would be no legal names for orphans until they were adopted. Nonetheless, the nuns would often give them unofficial names and this particular boy was called Eduard. The nun who named him was Sister Mary Catalina who nursed him as an infant and had a great deal of sympathy for orphans, particularly ones who had special needs.

She noticed the boy was exceptionally intelligent, quickly gaining the ability to speak faster than most of the orphans and, despite the lack of funding for education resulting in overcrowded classrooms and few textbooks, he was able to pick up reading and writing very well. He had a natural gift in arithmetics and was always respectful and aware of the feelings of others. She wasn’t meant to have favorites, but he was hers.

The boy would often raise money for the church by traveling to the city where he would spend the day asking for donations at a busy corner. “You are doing the Lord’s work,” Mary Catalina would tell him, “He will bless you one day. He’ll give you riches and you’ll use it to save this country and its children.” He believed her. Costa Triste lived up to its name. Despite hosting gorgeous beaches, it was a third world country afflicted by poverty, corruption, and crime. Cartels ruled some sections of the country and some police and politicians allowed it so long as they received something in return. It wasn’t safe for the boy to be alone, but he felt God’s protection.

He sat in his wheelchair at the street corner with a donation box displaying the Virgin Mary. It wasn’t far from a shopping mall where local teens often hung out. One such group were street kids, orphans like him, but they never even had the luxury of having a church take care of them. They were pickpockets and brawlers and Eduard was wise enough not to go behind the mall where they congregated.

The other person Eduard stayed away from was Santiago Gonzalez, a local drunk and gambler. He was known to cause problems around the neighborhood, often getting into fights and stealing from anyone who couldn’t defend themselves. The local police did little about him. After all, if they were one of the few uncorrupt officers, they were likely too busy going after cartels.

“Be careful today,” Sister Mary Catalina would tell him. “God protects all orphans,” he would respond confidently and then take himself down the dirt path and into the city. Some days were better than others, but he would normally come back to the orphanage with something. Even if all he received was a single peso, he was content to share it with the only family he knew.

Then came the day that changed everything.

He was at his usual spot, asking for money. Dark clouds were forming in the sky, but as he had raised five thousand pesos that day, he was in high spirits. Then Santiago showed up.

Santiago being drunk and belligerent wasn’t abnormal, but he usually didn’t say much to Eduard. On that day, as he came down the sidewalk, he made eye contact, which told Esuard he was in danger. He looked down at the cracks in the pavement, hoping that if he averted his gaze, he’d be left alone. A shadow fell and Santiago stood over him, the dark clouds forming above like an omen.

“How much you got?” Santiago slurred.

“What?”

“I need eight thousand pesos.”

“I-I don’t have anything.”

Santiago shoved a finger at the box, “How much in there?”

“It’s not for you,” his tiny arms clutched the box tightly against his chest.

“I’ll pay ya back, so what’re you worried about.”

“No, you can’t have it!”

“I got a debt to pay off. You understand?”

“It’s not for you!” he repeated himself, but spoke louder.

“Just give it!”

Santiago reached out and took the box in his massive hands. Ripping the box from the boy’s grip was easy enough, but in his stupor, he lost his temper and delivered a slap across his cheek. The boy fell over, bringing his wheelchair along with him. As it clattered to the ground, a low thunder rolled. “Look what you…,” Santiago staggered around, trying to make sense of what was going on. People stopped to stare, but they were far too scared of Santiago to do anything. The boy stirred on the ground and dabbed at the cut on his lip. “Shit,” Santiago mumbled to himself and removed the money, stuffing it in his pockets before dropping the box next to the boy. He quickly left the scene as the rain began to pour.

The blood from his lip dripped into the puddle below, creating a small whirlpool. The cold rain washed over his back as the boy dragged himself with the palms of his hands. His arms were weak, his legs immobile. He had to keep crawling. No one else would help and it didn’t matter that he was a child. He was nameless. He was homeless. He was nobody.

His fingers clutched and tears welled up in his eyes. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t anger. It was hate. And that hate manifested into a primal scream.

Continued…