The Red Menace #5 Read online

  Red on the Menu

  The Red Menace #5

  James Mullaney

  Bold Venture Press

  Copyright / Credits

  Red Menace 5: Red on the Menu

  By James Mullaney

  Copyright © 2022 James Mullaney. All Rights Reserved.

  “THE RED MENACE” TM & © James Mullaney. All Rights Reserved.

  Cover by Mark Maddox

  Editor: Donna Courtois

  James Mullaney Books, June 2022

  Available in paperback from Bold Venture Press

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior express written consent of the publisher and the copyright holder.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Red on the Menu

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  A Note From Jim

  About the author

  Other books by Jim Mullaney

  For Mr. and Mrs. Harriman

  Red on the Menu

  1

  There was no moon.

  The sun had not yet begun its agonizingly slow crawl over the arid horizon, yet in the east the lightening of black to gray offered a hint of its reemergence, like a ham-fisted Vaudeville magician who couldn’t keep from inadvertently tipping off the audience every time he was about to pull a mangy rabbit out of his shabby top hat.

  The swollen stars were low-hanging fruit, all the brighter for the lack of ambient light from the ground below.

  The only intact human structures sat off in the distance. A large, ominous factory building dominated a series of smaller buildings that huddled around it like suckling pigs clawing around a silent, sleeping sow.

  The chemical plant was ordinarily a twenty-four hour affair, and had been so for the decade since it had been summoned into existence in a flurry of industrious magic from the burned earth and withered scrub brush in the desert outside Tijuana.

  Every night since the plant had opened, bright lights had brutally illuminated the small figures of sweating men as they hustled from building to building. Harsh beams from floodlights attached to buildings, as well as to lamps positioned high on parking lot poles had nightly shone down on the endless stream of trucks that regularly entered and left through the main gate in a chain link fence which formed an arc across the front of the property.

  No trucks arrived this night. Those few that remained on the premises were silent and dark. Only the reflection of starlight on the windshields occasionally gave the false impression of a human presence in the whole vastness of the Mexican desert, and then only at certain angles, as if men hidden within the cabs of the eighteen wheelers continually attempted to ignite the tips of damp cigarettes with faulty dashboard lighters.

  One bright flash from the cab of a truck parked inside a gated and locked lot caught the attention of the single set of eyes that raced across the desert from the north.

  The figure was indiscernible against the desert backdrop through which he flew. The mask that was drawn over his face and the cloak wrapped around his upper body absorbed and consumed utterly the bluish-white suffusion of celestial light that bathed the landscape in a soft, otherworldly glow.

  The Red Menace kept a wary eye directed at the cab of the parked truck even as he tore away from the vehicle.

  The light did not originate from inside the cab of the eighteen-wheeler, but from light years away, in the icy depths of distant space. The reflection of the North Star grew very bright for an instant, nearly blinding him, before it suddenly winked out.

  The masked man hunkered down and tightened his grip on the throttle.

  The motorcycle was nearly completely silent, but for a soft purr that echoed as a steady vibration throughout his body. The crunch of gravel underneath the speeding tires was like thunder compared to the silence of the engine. Small stones launched in his wake as he tore up the road at speeds in excess of ninety miles an hour. He raced away from the factory and into the dead zone at the far end of a road to nowhere.

  Not quite to nowhere, he corrected himself.

  He had seen the images taken by the high-altitude reconnaissance plane. The homing signal had led them to search this area of Mexican desert, and the plane had zeroed in on a spot at the end of the road down which the Red Menace now sped.

  The location had been confirmed once it was determined who it was that owned the deserted factory.

  The complex had been bustling with activity when the photos had been taken less than twelve hours before. It hadn’t taken any time at all for Claudius Long to shut down the plant and abandon the property. The poor wage slaves who worked for pennies had been sent packing, left with the terrifying uncertainly of not knowing if their jobs were finished only for the day or forever.

  The Red Menace knew precisely whom he wanted to end for all eternity.

  The little shack reared up out of the desert night more quickly than he’d expected, and he overshot the mark, zooming straight past the tumbledown building. He throttled back and took a wide circle through the desert, bumping through ruts and over rocks as he completed a ring around the structure and wound up back out on the empty, desolate dead-end road. He slipped off the bike and paused, getting the feel of the neighborhood.

  All that remained of the little building at the end of the road was its skeleton. A few hunks of upright wood, a couple of crossbeams, and some twisted chunks of the corrugated metal that had once formed its skin. A window frame remained intact, but the glass had been blown out in the dirt that was a comical front yard between the main wall and the straight stretch of cold blacktop. Starlight danced among the many little shards of shattered glass, forming miniature earthly constellations that vanished, reappeared and reformed as the Red Menace stepped cautiously along the road.

  He saw no one hiding behind the twisted remains of the building. He did see a large square shape sitting on the floor inside, its door hanging open.

  A gust of wind suddenly pushed down from a small mountain to the south, blowing open his cape. The accompanying chill that forced icy tendrils inside every gap in his clothing was a reminder of the desolation of the location, and of the fact that he was wide open to an enemy who knew what to look for. Although the Red Menace felt like the last man on Earth, he was definitely not alone.

  He pressed the tips of his gloves to a spot on the side of his mask.

  “I found it,” he said softly. The narrowed eyes within his mask peered at the dark box at the center of the ruined shed, yet he took not a step for the building.

  “Watch out for trip wires, trapdoors, any kind of booby trap.”

  The stern voice was heard only by the Red Menace, on a tiny speaker hidden inside the lining of his mask.

  “I don’t think they had time to booby it up,” the Red Menace replied. “They would have had to get out of here in a hurry, thanks to you.”

  Only a grunt issued from the speaker in his mask, and demonstrated with that all-too familiar, utterly disdainful sound precisely what the other man thought of the Menace’s assumptions. The man on the other end of the line did not approve of guesses unless he was the one doing the guessing.

  “Someone’s been barbecuing,” the Menace commented, his soft voice nearly inaudible on a sudden gust of desert wind.

  The Red Menace’s nostrils detected the sharp tang of a recent fire. The odor came and went with the whim of the chilly early morning breeze that blew down the rock-strewn face of the nearby mountain.

  The solitary mountain was barely more than a rocky hill, pushed up from beneath the desert by ancient geological forces too lethargic to birth a more intimidating peak. There was no range, just a couple of bumps out across the desert that couldn’t even be called proper foothills. One mountain, small. The Menace would have been able to climb to the flat top in less than half an hour.

  They had spotted nothing out of the ordinary about the mountain in the spy plane photos. Just a mesa next to the exploded shed that was their primary spot of interest.

  Although yawning distances separated the Red Menace from the ominous dark mountain to the south and the dead factory to the north, he had the distinct sense that he’d been deliberately corralled in between one natural and one manmade wall, and that the two were about to close in with him pressed between them.

  He treaded lightly as he stepped off the road.

  Patches of burned
scrub brush were like daubs of black paint on the gray land. In the bright starlight he saw no one hiding behind low, broken walls; none of the attackers he’d anticipated would be ready to leap out with gun, knife or fist.

  There was a stink of rotting meat that had been left out in the sun. The cool overnight hours had dulled the stench, but it lingered. The gobs of meat that decorated the remains of the walls had attracted desert dwelling animals. Immediately around the building were many paw prints, which the Red Menace assumed belonged to coyotes. No sooner did he see the animal prints in the earth than he heard a single, forlorn howl.

  The coyote was too close for comfort. He would not have been concerned for one animal, but it was clear that a pack had recently used the area around the building as a buffet. He hoped their newfound taste for human flesh didn’t embolden the animals, even as he slipped his hand beneath his cloak. An oddly shaped gun appeared in his glove as he stepped cautiously for what had been the main entrance to the small building, now no more than a frame nailed to blasted-apart wood and a few scraps of twisted metal.

  The door was missing from the little shack. He’d seen it across the road, blown off by the explosion.

  More evidence inside of the coyote pack. He took the risk of lighting a small pocket flashlight, and found scratches on the remaining walls where the animals had clawed and hopped to grab out-of-reach chunks of meat.

  The white beam flashed across a few gooey slabs that were too high for the hungry coyotes to get to. The Red Menace knew it was too much to hope that the remains were those of a recent adversary, yet he couldn’t help but make a silent wish.

  He snapped off the light and the shed was plunged into abrupt, inky darkness. It took a moment for his eyes to readjust to the lack of artificial light, but soon the starlight was streaming through the exposed ceiling beams and he was once more able to make his way around the small interior with certainty.

  There was nothing to fear inside the building, and he grew more confident as he circled the square object inside one time before making his way back outside.

  He followed what he guessed was the path the door had taken to the road, and he found traces of where it had scraped to a stop.

  A car had been parked nearby. He saw the tire marks in the dirt. He also saw footprints and what he knew to be the heels of a body that had been dragged into the car, which had sped away in haste judging by the deep impressions in the disturbed sand.

  The Red Menace returned to the door, and upon closer examination he found patches of a dried substance on the surface. He pulled off his glove and rubbed his fingertips in the flaking material, holding it up to his nose.

  “Blood,” he said.

  “What?” demanded the sharp voice in his ear. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” the Red Menace replied, standing up. He felt a weariness in his bones from crouching, and his knee gave a soft pop like a cracking knuckle. Just one of the dozens of daily reminders that he and the world were no longer young.

  So the remains inside the building were not those of the man the Red Menace had fervently hoped had perished in the explosion. The person to whom the factory and surrounding area belonged wouldn’t have bothered to haul away just any lackey. The full bellies of a nearby pack of coyotes attested to that fact. But if the man who’d surfed away from the blast on the warped door was alive or dead, there was no way of knowing.

  The masked man turned three hundred and sixty degrees, sighing as he took in the vastness of the empty terrain. The coyote howled once more, further away this time. It seemed as though every scavenger, both four- and two-legged, had lost interest in the desolate patch of desert.

  “They’re gone,” the Menace said, more to himself than to the pair of anxious ears at the other end of the miniature communication device. He holstered his gun.

  “Is this the point where I remind you that I already told you he wouldn’t be here?”

  “It might be,” the Red Menace grunted. “If you hadn’t already done it ten times on the trip down. This might be the point where I tell you to cram a sock in it.”

  The words were not spoken with malice. They were uttered wearily to a friend who was equally exhausted, and with the tired resignation of a man who had been prepared for battle and arrived on the field at the appointed time only to discover that the fight had been postponed and the enemy had fled to regroup.

  It had been the longest few days in the lives of both men, but it appeared to finally be over.

  “We’ll have to get him next time,” the Red Menace sighed.

  “If there is a next time,” replied the voice over the microphone near his ear. “He’s one of the wealthiest men on the planet. If he wants to purchase secrecy, he can.”

  Unspoken over the radio was the fact that both men knew the investment portfolio of Claudius Long, the mysterious missing man in question, the man who had fled Mexico rather than face justice, was vastly surpassed by that of the Red Menace’s own alter ego.

  “Long has private planes to fly him to hidden estates that don’t appear on any government’s maps,” said the man in the Menace’s ear. “If he wants the world to swallow him whole for another century, he has the means and the patience to disappear for that long. It was not for no reason that I told you before we came down here that there’s no sense trying to track him down. He’ll find us if and when he wants to.”

  “Everyone leaves a trail,” the Red Menace offered, even though he didn’t feel the certainty he forced into his voice.

  “Not him. He’s gone. You must face the fact that a man who could be anywhere might just as well be nowhere.”

  “Or he could be over the nearest hill,” the Menace replied.

  “That’s essentially what I just said, isn’t it? Or am I once more talking in a vacuum where you only feign as if you give a damn what I say?”

  The Red Menace did not have time to reply. As he spoke, he had been glancing in the direction of the small mountain. He was not generally a fan of irony, and he found that he was even less so the instant his regrettable choice of words passed his lips.

  For a split-second, he thought he was seeing a shooting star. Despite the widening smear of gray to the east, most of the night stars still burned bright. His brain triggered an emergency even before his conscious mind realized that meteorites don’t rise up from the ground on a plume of flame and travel in an ominous arc into the sky.

  The thing that was not a shooting star raced heavenward only briefly before it altered course and left a path of streaking fire across his retinas straight toward the little shed and the miniscule figure who was suddenly a sitting duck in a mask standing on the road beside it.

  “What is that? My God, it’s a missile!” the voice called over his headset.

  The Red Menace didn’t have time to confirm or deny the other man’s conclusion. Before the rocket had even reached its apogee, he had already spun on the heel of one boot and launched himself in a sprint back for his waiting motorcycle.

  His fists pumped, his legs were like rubber. He felt the breath pulling ragged into his lungs with every leaden footfall. Five yards…three…no way of knowing how close the rocket was or if in the next instant he’d wind up nothing more than a hundred lumps of sodden, scattered flesh for the coyotes to feast upon.

  He heard a whoosh. Too close.

  He was at the bike, hopping into the saddle. He flipped on the engine and the customary silent purr of the special motorcycle engine was suddenly a roar.

  No, not the bike. The missile. Screaming down from above. Nearly upon him.

  “Get out of there!” the voice on his headset cried. “No, wait!” it yelled, suddenly laced with deep dread. “It’s tracking…my God, it’s tracking you.”

  “What?” the Menace snapped.

  “Blow something up. God, the building. What’s left of the building. Blow it up! Blow it up now!”

  The Red Menace didn’t hesitate. His gun was up and aimed at the tumbledown heap of rickety, charred wood and broken corrugated tin. He was aware of the missile, all sound and fury on a plume of blinding fire tearing from the sky like some hellish, predatory bird.