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By Phil Ward, 2 Jan 2001
I
"I was afraid this would happen" said Lepus as he hauled his other weapon out from under his rain coat. The thing that used to be Lee Burroughs looked back at him. He was covered in blood and gore. The naked body of a young woman lay discarded to one side of the alley, and at his feet slumped a wino.
He had the settings ready, when he realised that Lee had gone out the window. Without opening it. The others were still a block or two behind him, hopefully far enough to avoid the effects of the weapon. Lee leapt towards him, blindingly fast, hands stretched out, open-palmed. Lepus pushed the button.
Bright yellow light filled the alleyway, enveloped all of them, stole their senses away.
When Bobby and Harvey arrived, panting, looking for all the word like a courting couple interrupted, clothes disarrayed, hair and faces mussed up, they found Adolph Lepus kneeling by the wino, checking his pulse. Before they could stop him, he pressed the muzzle of his Glock against the bum's temple, stroked the trigger once.
"Lets get out of here before the cops arrive."
II
Hardigan was shoved though the side door of the helicopter and into one of the cramped military seats. One soldier covered him with a black, american rife whilst another buckled him in, making sure he stayed clear of the gun.
Hardigan didn't have the will to resist. More soldiers climbed in and prepared themselves for the ride. They wore white camouflage suits, insulated from the cold, probably layered with body armor for protection against bullets and the cold. There was no rank insignia. No unit patches. No names written over their breast-pockets.
An army of nobodies.
The soldier opposite him grunted, motioned for Hardigan's attention. He leaned forward to catch what the man had said. The grunt to his right hit him behind the ear with a pistol butt.
_______________
Jacoby watched the first helicopter lift off, taking the poor bastards away. He hated cleaning up after incidents like this. His team looked to him for orders.
"You heard the man, plant the thermite, bury this thing," Gesturing at the plane. "I want it ten feet under by the next snowfall."
A Pink slush trail led to where two of the men had dragged the corpses. The body of a pretty air-stewardess had joined them, she had two smiles. Jacoby waved them off and then spoke into his radio. A minute later he was joined by a pair of NBC-suited men with heavy gas masks poking out of protective poncho's. They carried heavy cylinders on their back, connected by a metallic hose to a bulbous rifle-like object cradled in their arms. They looked like World War II Flammenwerfers.
He nodded to them, and then to the bodies.
They checked each other's backpacks, signalling readiness with a thump on the shoulder, pointed their weapons at the corpses, and waited. A high-pitched hum came from their packs, settling down into a lower-pitch, it stuttered like a slow dentists drill butting up against a healthy tooth.
A yellow beam washed over the bodies, raising steam where it touched. One of the bodies started to twitch and moan as the beam played over it. The bullet hadn't penetrated a particularly thick skull. Jacoby turned away.
After a few minutes it as finished, the snow an ice turned to water then steam and the bodies sank down into the slush. As the beams were shot off, the water froze again rapidly, heat leeching into the air. And the bodies were ten feet down where no-one would find them. Now had already began to fleck the surface of their tomb. Jacoby thought he could see gaps in the ice around the meat that was still twitching.
He stood and waited for the transports to return for him and his heavy weapons operators. He tried not to see through the thick lenses of the gas-masks, tried not to think about how the weapons had changed them.
III
Mycroft/Lee swam back to consciousness slowly, before opening his eyes and changing his breathing patterns, he catalogued what his senses were telling him. He was on a bed, face down, he had been tied up, it felt like cable-ties digging into his flesh. His hands were numb. He was covered in dried blood and faeces, and it would appear that he had had a wet dream whilst he was out.
He could hear the movements of three other people, who appeared to be quite agitated. They were in a small room. Traffic noises. Sweat and fear. He could smell blood, death and disinfectant from another room. Bodies in a bathroom?
He dug down into himself looking for the others. They were hard to find, he'd never felt this alone in his brief life. They were busy, holding down Red Thomas, and.. something else. Mycroft suddenly felt an overwhelming fear rising up in him, it had come back. And the others couldn't hold it for long. He started to shake in his bonds, a trickle of blood, his own, ran down his wrist.
"He's awake, good." Said Lepus, looking over at Lee.
"You didn't have to shoot the wino, " Bobbi thundered "We're supposed to be protecting the people, even them. You're just a government Nazi."
Lepus stepped into her face voice raised, angrier than they'd ever seen him.
"Listen, girl, My job is to protect the citizens of the United States, not scum like that. We couldn't take him with us, and he couldn't tell what he'd seen. End of sports."
"You ever, call me a Nazi again, and I'll kill you where you stand. I hate those fucks. You ever mention my name in the same sentence as them, I'll have my men break your new body in then hand you over for experimentation."
He stepped away from Bobbi, watched her shaking with anger. Face White.
"Fuck." She stuffed her hand inside her jacket, to the shoulder holster where she kept her own compact. It would have been a fast draw, but her hand closed on air.
"Looking for this?" It was in Lepus left hand, his own Glock was in his right, aimed at Harvey who had started to move towards him. "That bum was dead before he hit the floor, one way or another, I probably saved him from an unpleasant death or a life in the loony-bin."
Nobody blinked, time stretched, Lepus flicked from one sight-picture to the other.
"Ahem, this testosterone-fuelled stand-off is all very good, but we have visitors outside, by the smells and noise, I'd say it was a woman with way too much perfume, and a large dog. Would anyone like to open the door before she kicks it in?"
IV
Torsten was in a better state than most of the passengers, he was rested, and he was on the other and of the hijack-experience. Still, he was scared, very scared. Something was boiling up out of the tunnel ahead, something that was tearing the Mensch limb from limb. Feasting on the remains.
They had no fear of him now, they rushed into him, forcing him backwards. He beat the first two down with his bare fists, then the weight of the others pushed him to the floor. He curled up into a ball, arms protecting his head from the feet of the throng.
It saved his life.
A stutter of gunfire, and a few more bodies joined him on the floor. The mob ebbed, unsure what to do, at the back more were dragged down, screaming and sobbing. A pair of white cargo-pants passed through his vision, blood splattered down one leg.
Then an American voice, showing no fear, only anger;
"For your sake, Baur you had better be worth the loss of my man." Hands grabbed him roughly.
V
Hardigan had been alone in the small room for some time. There were two doors, both locked. A slab of plastic supported by breeze blocks served as a desk, or perhaps a jail-bed. A single strip-light was the only source of heat in the room. His breath was still freezing in the air. He sat in a corner, to conserve heat, and started shivering again.
After a while the door opened and a figure was shoved in. The hijacker Torsten. The door was shut as soon as he hit the floor.
Torsten crawled between the breeze-blocks and hugged his knee's to his chest. He was covered in blood, his eyes were wide, he was breathing too fast, hyper-ventilating. His pants were soaked, front and back.
The other door opened, light and heat poured into the room. Blocking the doorway was a man, an enormous man, a huge chest with two powerful arms folded over it. He was dressed in a tight black t-shirt and cargo pants. There was no insignia, but he wore it like a uniform. Strapped to his right thigh was a drop-holster with a hand-cannon in it. A cloud of cigar smoke blurred the strong features of his face topped by a close-cropped military haircut.
"Guten Abend Gentlemen, My name is Axl Gotterdammerung, and you have one minute to convince me of your worth."
"Holy shit, it's the Bishop." said Torsten.
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