Judgment Night [BUREAU 13 Book One]

by Nick Pollotta

  "He's fine,” Jess breathed, wiping vomit from her mouth. “As a precaution, Abduhl turned on the auto-pilot just before we entered."

  "Wise move,” Richard said, staring motionless at the ceiling.

  "That's why I get the big money,” croaked the PA system.

  In a truly Herculean effort, George lifted himself from the passenger seat, then dropped out of sight with a thump. “See the island yet?” his voice asked from the deck.

  "No way, Jose,” replied the PA, in one of my least favorite phrases. “We're still in the cloud."

  Weakly, Mindy asked, “But we're through the worst of it?"

  "Hell, no! The automatic defensive systems on this ship are going crazy! I have a dozen gauges in the red and we're on emergency power."

  "Recommendations?” I requested.

  "Prayer,” came the curt reply. “The ship does the rest of the fighting for us from here onward. Either it succeeds, or we die."

  Prudently, I let the gang rest for a few minutes and then started cleaning operations. Sponging our fatigues off and using towels to mop up the worst of the mess on the deck. I knew that Richard could cast a spell that would make us and the place spotless. But I had no intention of having my only mage waste precious energy on housekeeping in the midst of a fight.

  Because this was war. Machine against nature in a battle royale. A struggle of wits between the gang at Technical Services and whatever was on the island. I don't know about the rest of the group, but I hated this passive acceptance. I would have felt enormously better if there was someway to help Captain Hassan. Even a flock of flying monsters would at least give us something to do.

  "Alert!” barked the wall speaker. “There's some leakage coming through!"

  Mindy was on her feet, sword drawn. “What does that mean?” she demanded. But there was no answer and none of us felt inclined to knock on the closed door that led to the cockpit.

  "Conference!” I called, and the gang gathered round. “Okay, if the first layer of the cloud attacks the people, then the next should attack the vehicle."

  "Sounds reasonable,” Donaher said. “What can we expect?"

  "Eddy currents in the metal?” George suggested.

  I snorted. “For what purpose?"

  "Enough of them would induce sufficient heat to melt the plane."

  "Too damn fancy,” Mindy retorted, adjusting her grip on the sword. “It would only work on things made of conductive metals. A wooden rowboat, or stealth missile would get right through."

  "Agreed,” Jess said, sweeping back her hair. “The longer we're in the cloud, the greater the danger, so it will probably be something to slow us down.” She then repeated the words, as her breath was visible mist.

  "Cold. How simple,” Richard noted, buttoning up his uniform.

  "Depends upon how cold it gets,” Donaher observed, pulling spare blankets out of seat locker.

  Rapidly the atmosphere became cool, chilly, uncomfortable, freezing. Quartz heaters built into the hull started to glow, trying to relieve the bitter cold, but soon we were wearing every piece of our clothing and gathered into a huddle, the outer members draping blankets round themselves.

  "W-what b-bout, H-hassan?” George stammered past chattering teeth.

  "L-lectric flyingsuit,” Jessica mumbled, from with her wool cocoon.

  "And t-the engines?"

  Mindy lowered a blanket and cocked an ear. “S-sound f-fine to me."

  A loud crack made us jump. It was followed by another, and then a regular pounding came from the outside. Hail the size of baseballs, the pilot informed us briefly. Now I understood why this craft was so heavy. Must be armor plated.

  "Cold to make you hold still, then hail to pound holes through you and the hull,” George said shivering. “Death by drowning. Primitive, but clever."

  "Useless against this plane,” Donaher boasted.

  The muscles in my shoulders relaxed a bit with the knowledge that the statement was true. We had a good inch of military grade, steel alloy protecting us from the ravages of the cloud.

  Then the left wall near the camping supplies exploded and the plane jerked as a piece of hail punched its way through. With a screaming whistle, wisps of the fog entered the compartment. The huddle broke fast. I grabbed a blanket to stuff in the hole, but Donaher stood and sprayed the ragged puncture with the flamethrower, the chemical fire annihilating every trace of the vile fumes.

  "Saints above, get a blessed patch!” the priest shouted over the roaring stream, the light of the flamethrower turning the interior of the plane blood red.

  Quickly, Mindy used her sword to carve a metal square from the steel lining of a seat and Richard levitated it into position on the hull under the stream of flame. Took us only a minute to weld the patch down with a small acetylene torch and Donaher cut the big weapon off. The place stunk horribly of jellied gasoline fumes, but we were alive and I made a note to put the good Father in for a raise.

  "That was almost too easy,” Richard said suspiciously, brushing some frost off his carnation. It was pink now.

  "However, it is warmer,” Jessica noted positively.

  True enough. The plane was nowhere near as cold.

  "Heat is next,” George deduced, loosening the front of his khaki jumpsuit. “Logical. Make the weak faint, set fire to wood, maybe even explode our fuel supplies."

  Doffing the parka over her rain coat, Mindy snorted. “Thank you, Sister Mary Sunshine."

  Soon the temperature was quite comfortable. But the heat built and we realized George had been correct and heat was the next phase. Steadily, it rose from balmy, to toasty, past warm, through uncomfortable and settled in for keeps at hot. We stripped to our underwear, sweat pouring off our glistening bodies. A small box bolted to the ceiling blew cool air into the cabin, and we used half our water supply splashing each other. There was quite a bit of flesh showing, and not all of it attractive. Standing on a haversack to protect my naked feet from the scalding deck, I was down to boxer shorts and shoulder holster, with the boxer shorts going next, but the temperature thankfully held at medium broil. It was pretty bad, but a summer picnic in comparison to the initial boundary effect.

  "Is this the best they can do?” George scoffed, tying a camouflage bandana about his head. In only briefs and boots, you could see the hard muscle beneath the flab on the man.

  "What a bunch of amateurs,” Jess agreed, sloshing some water from a canteen over her trim figure. “No hard radiation, or ultra-sonics. Reality hasn't altered, and nothing polymorphed."

  Damp with moisture, her bra and panties were becoming transparent. Suddenly, I had to face the outer wall and think about baseball, no, doing my taxes, professional golf!

  "Remember, this is not the brunt of the attack,” stated the stark naked Richard, skinny arms folded across his perfectly tanned chest. He was displaying some curious tattoos in very odd places, and we struggled to keep from directly staring. “Only some minor leakage past our material and magical shields."

  Father Donaher nodded. In only briefs and rosary, his great hairy form dripped sweat. “True enough. In an open ship, we would all be dead by now. But so far, this has been a cake walk."

  As if on cue, every primed weapon we had discharged.

  Bullets flew everywhere, the shotgun blew a seat to shreds, and the flamethrower incinerated the sleeping bags. Ricochets rattled off the metal walls, striking Mindy in the arm and grazed me in the chest, the force of the slug knocked me flat. No serious damage was done to anything important though, as neither the LAW rockets, the satchel charge, or my briefcase had been armed yet.

  "Thank god,” Jessica said, and Father Donaher did.

  With Richard's assistance, Mindy and I were healed in no time, and settled down to wait for new developments. Slowly, the temperature cooled to a reasonable level and we gratefully donned our body armor and fatigues. Being naked can be lots of fun, but not in battle.

  In time, the noise of the jets eased in volume and the th
robbing power of the propeller engines replaced their smooth humming. Quiet reigned for awhile, when the shutters on the windows raised and security door to the cockpit flew open. There stood a bedraggled Captain Hassan, showing us exactly how many teeth he had and their excellent condition.

  "We're through!” he cried joyously.

  The team didn't cheer, we ran to the windows. There was a minor traffic jam of bodies, so I claimed executive privilege and went to join our pilot at the front of the plane.

  The cockpit possessed twice as many controls as a plane of this size should have, a lot of them unfamiliar to me. The chart locker was blackened by fire, the co-pilot's seat was gone—ripped from the deck apparently and there were numerous spent .45 shells littering the floor. Obviously, the good captain had seen a bit of action himself. But more importantly there was a beautifully undamaged windshield which gave me a panoramic view of our goal, the island.

  Below us was a dirty sea, that appeared more polluted than possible, above and to our sides was that damn swirling cloud sealing out the world. But directly before us, was a smooth cliff of tan stone which rose from the churning water to enter the deadly fog high overhead. As far as I could see, there were no beaches, coves, or bays where we might land. Nor any caves, fissures, or ledges on the cliff that even suggested climbing might produce results.

  Keeping one hand on the wheel, Hassan tilted his cap and looked at me. “Suggestions?"

  "Circle around till we see a beach, or bay where we can land. If we don't find a place, well, that's why they gave us a sea plane. We'll park on the water, taxi up the cliff and moor ourselves with pitons and rope."

  "Then what?"

  "Beats me. But we'll think of something."

  The navy pilot curled a lip. “I can do better than that."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Watch,” he said flipping a switch and pressing a few buttons on the dashboard.

  Amid the complex array of controls, a section of the broad separated and a video screen lifted into view. Sluggishly, the screen lit up with a vector graphic of the island. The glowing green outline showed the landmass to be a near perfect circle, but the southern tip was cut flat by a small beach and cove. No details of the interior were discernible, but I was still damn impressed.

  "This is great!” I complemented, patting him on the shoulder. “What is it? Some sort of laser scanner? A relay from a NSA Keyhole satellite in low orbit?"

  "Better,” he replied proudly. “A special device built by your own Technical Services. It combines science and magic into a sort of super-radar."

  I think my eyeballs momentarily left my head before I was able to move and slap the machine off. “Jesus Christ! Didn't you listen to our early conversation?"

  Hassan stared at me blankly. “Not all the time, no. I had work to do. Why, something wrong?"

  "Battle stations!” I cried dashing into the aft compartment searching for the parachutes. But I was still in the short service corridor that separated the two sections when I was nearly deafened by a terrible silence.

  "What the hell happened?” Mindy demanded from the aft compartment, her sword at the ready.

  "Engines died,” Hassan announced, busy flipping switches and adjusting dials.

  Bitterly, I cursed the enemy for their efficiency. “Richard, fix'em!"

  Wordless, the wizard nodded and rose from his seat. But he was back in seconds with a strange expression on his face. “Fix what?” the mage asked, his voice cracking like a nervous schoolboy.

  I grabbed his jacket in a fist. “Explain."

  "There's only black smoking craters where the engines used to be on the wings.” He paused. “Rimmed with teeth marks."

  Hoo boy.

  "We're going in!” Hassan shouted, the words echoing over the PA. “Prepare for a crash!"

  The deck tilted and the plane banked. I lost my footing and flew off into a jumble of noise and pain. Trying to stand, I hit my head on something and lost consciousness. My last vague thought was a valiant try to shout, “Aim for the beach!"

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Swimming through a warm sea of blackest ink, I slowly came awake with somebody tugging at my clothes. Summoning what strength I could muster, I rammed a fist at the dimly seen figure. Somehow, they dodged the expert attack, so I brought my knee up to crush testicles and only succeeded in smacking myself in the jaw. Ow. As my vision focused, I found myself sitting on one of our equipment trunks on a sandy beach, the booming surf spraying me with a mist of salt water.

  "Yo,” I said to the blur.

  "Hi,” Mindy said, offering a canteen. “You always wake up this way?"

  "Always,” I replied after drinking deeply. “Ever since a nasty man stole candy from me as baby."

  "Hmm, that could be dangerous to any intimate associates. Jessica, I suggest you be careful in the future."

  Sitting on top of a nearby rocky outcropping, Jess blushed and I turned red in the face from anger and embarrassment. Was it that obvious?

  "Everybody okay?” I said, trying to stand and succeeding.

  Mindy said, “Just fine. You were the worst injury."

  "Injury?” I repeated shocked, looking over my fatigues. “Where was I hurt?"

  "It was your groin,” she said pointing. “There was something there red and swollen. Looked dangerous. We decided to remove it."

  "Ha. Very funny. You're fired."

  "Oh no! But what about my pension?"

  "Never had one."

  "Well, that was lucky."

  Turning around, I saw that we were on a little half-circle of beach made of fine white sand, so pure it had a silvery sheen to the grains, the kind you only find in movies. Curving about us on three sides, like a tan glass wall, was the cliff. It reached some thirty or forty meters into the ocean before arcing out of sight. Soaring impossibly high above us, the light brown rock of the cliff was indecently smooth, without a single crack or fissure to mar its facade.

  Forming a doming over everything in view was the ever-present cloud, thick and gray as an old man's nightmare. It gave me the feeling of being confined in a bell jar. Personally, I had no doubt this cliff was of artificial construction and not a natural formation. We had seen similar when the team took care of a nasty voodoo problem in the Virgin Islands. However, that brought up a good point. Was it built to keep others out, or something in? We'd have to answer that question the hard way.

  Only a short walk away, the DC-3 had pancaked into the cliff, its nose crushed flat against the stone. Behind the plane, trailing off down the beach, irregular skid marks told the story of a frantic, but successful, battle to bring the aircraft to an emergency halt.

  Favoring my right knee a bit, I ambled over to where the team was busy unloading the plane; bags and backpacks piled about like canvas mountains. The main body of the seaplane seemed okay. But one of the flotation pods was smashed to kindling, and the right wing had a rend in it large enough to stuff Father Donaher through. Which was no exaggeration, as he was standing in the rift studying the inside.

  "Struts are okay,” he announced stooping down and walking away. “But the fuel tanks are empty. Even if we find the engines, she'll never fly."

  "Nonsense,” Richard stated, tossing a duffel bag to the sand. “What a negative attitude. We can always make fuel, and find a replacement engine, from a car or speedboat. My old station wagon had a huge 400 horsepower monster under the hood. I used to joke that with a set of wings she'd fly.” He raised his head. “Hey, Abduhl what kind of engines were they? Six cylinder? Eight cylinder?"

  Glancing at us from the open window of the cockpit, the pilot reversed his cap and spit into the distance. “Two thousand horsepower, supercharged, 24 cylinder, Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp with a top speed of eight hundred miles per hour."

  The wizard slumped. “Okay, we're trapped."

  Mindy slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, Rich. Don't worry about it. We'll probably never leave
alive anyway. Not against combined science and magic."

  "That's the first thing we should do,” Donaher said brusquely. “Shut off any combination stuff still operating in the hold."

  "Check,” Abduhl said, and he did something on the control panel. There was an odd noise from the belly of the plane and a puff of smoke rose into view from around the seam of the external hatch.

  "Fire in the hold!” I yelled dashing forward. Instantly, George was at my heels.

  Undoing the hatch, we climbed into the sub-compartment. Inside, a small fire was burning in the corner of the amassed equipment and the place was stuffed full of every scientific and magical defense I had ever heard of or seen. There were banks of NASA fuel cells powering radar scramblers, pulse generators, field distorters and a collection of sealed black boxes erected in the style of a miniature Stonehenge.

  A huge copper bracelet hung from the ceiling, glowing crystal pyramids dotted the floor and at odd angles, endlessly turning mobius strips were mounted on silver rods. Plus, the walls were lined with crucifixes, Mogen David's, ankhs, pentagrams, astrological signs, a delightful Kathi Somer bikini calendar, dollar bills, horse shoes and rabbit feet. This collection in the cargo hold is obviously what had gotten us through the cloud. TechServ hadn't missed a trick.

  From the top hatch, Hassan passed down some CO[2] extinguishers and we put the blaze out. It had been nothing serious. A short circuit in a relay set fire to a transformer. No magic involved, we were safe.

  Exiting, I dusted off my hands and called for a council. They gathered round. “Mindy, do an inventory. Rich and Jessica, prep our stuff for immediate departure. Abduhl ready the plane for lock down, and see about jerry-rigging a self-destruct. Michael keep guard with the flamethrower. George grab your super rifle. We're going to do a perimeter sweep."

  "Its a Masterson Assault Cannon,” George, replied falling into step alongside. “Mark IV."

  "Lovely,” I nodded. “But I don't care if you call it ‘Tootsie', just make damn sure the thing is loaded."

  "That's good,” he said.

  "What?"