The Perfect Weapon

by Christopher Metcalf

  Running full steam like this with Lance bouncing around up at the building tops and a power pop song from the 80's by the British band The Outfield playing in his ears, Preacher considered his career. He had the choice to leave, to quit a couple of years ago. Could have walked away six months ago after that incident with Fuchs. He didn’t need to develop into what he had become. He had become what Seibel wanted him to be. Preacher ate, drank, slept and dreamed bombs. He was a friggin' terrorist.

  But looking back, he never doubted the choice. He knew soon after meeting Geoffrey Seibel that there is a necessary place for people who do bad deeds. Necessary bad deeds.

  The means by which he performed his professional duties, that was the thing that caused him to take note on certain occasions. He was a killer. Lance was a killer. Marta, Fuchs and Seibel were killers. All of them had taken lives. But the inverse result of taking, ending lives, was giving others the right, freedom and peace to live theirs. Hell of a trade off.

  Preacher smiled at this little philosophical soliloquy taking place in his messed up brain while sloshing through snow on the mean streets of Detroit on this bitterly cold January day. Lance smiled down as well. He enjoyed the debate, not the song so much, but the conversation going on in his earthly body’s brain was interesting, fun even. Lance decided to move up to about 1,000 feet so he could see the streets moving out in all directions. From up there, Detroit didn’t look so tough.

  This guy they were chasing was a member of a cell that had come together in Detroit over the last three years. Three of the five members of the group had, a one point, worked in some capacity with Anwar. Two of them trained with him. Preacher had just seen a coded bomb-making manual written by Anwar lying on a bedside table in the apartment. Preacher shot two men in the legs. Marta put two others down with shots to the extremities. They left seven FBI agents in the apartment to clean up, cuff and transport the men. The runner, who got away by jumping out of a second-story window into a snow bank, was now about 70 yards in front of Preacher. The dude was keeping up a very impressive pace for the wet, slushy conditions.

  Marta had stepped out the front of the building and taken another route to head him off. The two of them worked together like a team that had been side-by-side for years. They didn’t need to talk into their radio headsets to communicate next moves. He knew she was two streets over to the north running perpendicular to the route he was on. She assumed the rabbit would jog that way instead of to the south when he reached the next major intersection.

  Traffic was light. A few cars and trucks, almost all of them American-made gas guzzlers, slogged along six-inch deep snow-covered boulevards. Up ahead, Marta’s assumption came to pass. The runner turned right and left Preacher’s view for a few seconds. When he came around the corner, he slowed to a walk. In the snow, face down and now a little bloody, the man lay, a hand held to his head. Marta stood a few feet away holding her gun. The two of them looked at each other. He loved this ruthless killing machine, and for some reason, she loved him. They only had a few minutes before FBI anti-terrorist operatives caught up with them.

  Preacher bent down and lifted the man to his feet and pushed him into an alley. Marta looked back and then in all directions to see if they were being watched. They weren't. It seemed people running through the streets was nothing too exciting in this neighborhood.

  A few steps into the alleyway, Preacher pushed the man up against the wall and stepped back. He recognized him right away. It was Abu Jamal Nosar. He was one of the two who had trained with Anwar in the high mountains of Afghanistan six years earlier. He was allegedly one of the bombers from a Malaysian blast that killed 16 four years ago. This man was in America to kill, plain and simple.

  “Brother, do you recognize me?” Preacher asked the winded and bloodied man. Marta had evidently wrapped him on the head as he ran past her. A gash on his forehead had blood running down into his right eye.

  “No, I do not.” Nosar had an accent from the Emirates. He wasn’t from Syria as his records indicated. Preacher guessed Kuwait, maybe Yemen.

  “I have been looking for you for some time. It is good to finally meet you.”

  “Who are you?” Nosar was matter of fact in between breaths. He looked from Preacher to Marta, standing at the mouth of the alley 20 feet away.

  “Are you sure you don’t recognize me?” Preacher smiled.

  “No. I’ve never seen you before.”

  “Ah, but you have. You were on a small island in the Philippines a year and a half ago. I missed you by that much.” Preacher stepped closer. He was sure now that Nosar was one of the three who escaped that morning. He had those three faces locked in his mind. Problem was, they all operated under other names out in the world and it took seeing them to recognize them. “You were very lucky that morning. You and Anwar and one other.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never been to the Philippines.”

  Preacher stepped in close and grabbed Nosar’s hands and brought them up. He sniffed the fingers and closely examined them. “Burns.” He turned to Marta. “His fingers are burned by chemicals. I can smell nitrate just like in the apartment. He has been working on a little fun today even.” Preacher stepped back again and brought his hands down to his sides and turned to Marta, very calm, unthreatening. “Go get the car please.”

  He returned to Nosar. “So our little detective work proved effective. You were getting ready to place a bomb here in Detroit. Such a strange choice, but the home of America’s beloved auto industry. Home of several large bridges and Motown Records. I’ll bet you don’t want to tell me what you were planning to blow up do you?” He got no reply. Time was running out. An FBI sedan would come down the street in a minute.

  “I am supposed to hand you over to the authorities, but now I think I need to spend a little more time with you.”

  “I don’t know anything. I don’t know what you are talking about.” The terrorist was committed to his façade. But then he dropped his head and reached down to his belt.

  "Don't." Preacher whispered. Both he and Lance could see the simple physiology in the man's movement. The rise of the right shoulder by a quarter inch, the bending of the right elbow. Even with the layers of clothing, Preacher and his ghost watched in slow motion the man's human anatomy at work. The cognition evident in the eyes, the command sent from brain through the nervous system to arm, hand. The nostrils flared to allow the intake of oxygen before an explosive movement. Humans are so interesting.

  Nosar pulled out a knife. He undoubtedly thought with Marta's departure to bring the car around, he could take this opportunity and kill this one FBI agent standing in front of him.

  Preacher just shook his head. One thing he had learned about himself in his 26 years was a severe dislike of having a knife pulled on him. It had happened three times before. The first was at a lakeside party in Oklahoma. A drunken young man pulled out the blade when someone insulted him. The second was a ticked off Australian secret agent training at Harvey Point. The third was al Bakr back in Jeddah. All three men paid dearly for bringing a knife to a fight with Lance Priest. A broken collarbone, shattered femur and amputation by way of white-hot flame were the results.

  His reaction to Nosar pulling the blade from a holster on his belt was immediate and nasty. Before the blade could be brought up for an initial thrust, Preacher stepped in and fired a vicious punch into the terrorist's throat, his Adam's apple. The look on the guy's face made Lance crack up from 15 feet in the air. The knife dropped to the snow below. Nosar collapsed to his knees.

  But the thing was, Preacher wasn't done. Knives just get him going. He bent and picked up the blade. “Very well. The question then, do you want your nose or your ears cut off? I’ll give you five seconds to choose. One, two,”

  “No.” Nosar sputtered. It was all he got out.

  “Three, four,”

  “No. Don’t.” He whispered.

  “Five. Quickly now. There is no time. Or do I ch
oose for you?”

  “No, please.”

  Preacher moved in. His actions were cat-like, lightning fast and smooth, even in the snow.

  “No, please. I’ll tell you.”

  “Too late.” Preacher brought the blade up and sliced off the man’s left ear. The blow to his throat kept him from screaming in pain. Nosar brought his hand up to where his left ear had been. In the next moment, Preacher brought the blade down and sliced off the man’s right ear. The brutal, barbaric act took four seconds. Treatment one might expect in the Middle East or maybe the mountains of Afghanistan.

  He stepped back as the man grabbed his head on both sides and crumbled to the snow below. Blood mixed with the white crystals to make a pink hue. Preacher bent and wiped the knife through the snow to clean it. This war, that most Americans didn’t know was even being fought, was not between good and evil. It was a war between life and death. This killer, who had placed a bomb under a walkway in a pedestrian mall in Kuala Lumpur, meant to kill many more here in the U.S.

  Brutality was the language of this war. Terror was its currency. Most people, most Americans, would find what Preacher had just done reprehensible. Most Americans had not seen the remnants of human beings splattered on walls and trains and hillsides. Preacher looked over at the FBI team pulling up in their Ford. They would be pissed at the mess Preacher had created. But they also knew that only certain people could do what he’d done. It was his gift. A gift he shared with select others. Preacher turned back to Nosar struggling for breath on the bloody snow. Killing this bastard would have been a reward. He’d be a martyr, a glorious servant. No, he needed to pay.

  Preacher is unpredictable, much more so than Lance. So even Lance was surprised by what his alter ego did next. Preacher shot down to his knees in front of Nosar and pulled the blade back up. He reached down to the red and pink snow to pick up two bloody items. He then put the blade to the bomb maker’s mouth and pried his teeth open. Into the hole he stuffed the man’s bloody ears.

  “Don’t make a sound. Think about running, and think about losing all your toes, one by one.”

  “Damn. That was sick, really sick.” Lance shook his head from about 20 feet in the air. “Gross stuff, man.”

  “Be quiet. I’m working.” Preacher said to himself up there.

  Preacher walked to the alley’s opening to greet the two men who jumped out of their car. Each had their hand on a holstered weapon. Preacher stepped up to stop both of them from entering. His positioning was slightly menacing and the two men noticed right away.

  “Holman, what did you do?” It was Ayers. Preacher, using the fake FBI identification of Matt Holman, had worked with Ayers twice before. He gestured at the crumpled, bleeding mass of humanity down the alley.

  “Damn.” Scarfino added after seeing what Ayers had spied. Preacher had only been with Scarfino once before, in Philadelphia.

  Preacher looked from one man to the other. One thing both these men knew was that this guy was not quite right. They, of course, had no idea. “Gentlemen, I am going to have to ask for a favor.” He was calm, in supreme control.

  Ayers took his hand off his gun. “What?”

  “I need both of you to forget about perp number five here. Your report needs to mention only the four men in the apartment. They are good collars, quality intel will come from them. But number five is going to disappear in a couple of minutes, and will never be seen again.”

  “You’re serious.” Scarfino half-smiled but kept his hand on his gun holstered under his left armpit. “What are you saying? We just walk away. That’s not going to happen.” Scarfino was thick, with powerful legs. He looked like the wrestler he had been in college, the decorated Marine he was after that. He turned to capture Ayers’s reaction.

  Preacher continued. “We only have a minute. I need to be very clear. Listen carefully. This piece of human trash has vital information that cannot be extracted through legal means. He will be removed from this location, and within 12 minutes, he will be out of this country and on a plane to a secret location within hours. Before he steps on that plane, he will tell me where the bomb he has constructed can be found. Ayers, please have that hulking mass of a cell phone ready and I’ll call you with the location.” Preacher turned, Marta had entered the other end of the alley driving their vehicle.

  “This is crazy. No way, no friggin' way you take that individual away from here.” Scarfino moved to spread his legs to strengthen his first move.

  “Why are you doing this? You know we can’t allow you to take him.” Ayers was definitely the more calm of the two. “We need to turn him over to proper authorities for debriefing. He has valuable information for the taskforce.”

  Marta pulled up beside Nosar. Both Ayers and Scarfino were on edge. Preacher needed to go, now.

  He looked at both men, from his eyes and Lance’s about 12 feet up. He could see the tension in their jaws, Scarfino’s twitching left foot, his hand gripped tightly on the handle of his FBI-issue sidearm.

  “I’m sorry to do this to you, both of you. Steve, you don’t want to try to stop me. I don’t want anything to happen to you that would keep you from going home to Patricia and Shelley and Bryan.” He turned to Scarfino, “Richard, I know this is hard for you. But you can’t stop me. Again, I don’t want anything to keep you from returning home tomorrow to Allie and Rog and Brittany.”

  “What the f-.” Scarfino was ready to pounce. Preacher’s knowledge of their family makeup was unsettling.

  “Let me be clear about the next eight seconds. If you pull that gun, I am going kick your right forearm and then dip and sweep your left leg and bring my right elbow down on the bridge of your nose. And before Steve can reach and pull his gun, I’m going to deliver an open-palm blow to his sternum and follow that with a left elbow to his right temple. If I need to turn back to you, I am going to drop my knee into your chest cracking several ribs and then finish you with a blow to your trachea that will leave you struggling for breath and most likely lead to your incapacitation for up to 12 minutes.”

  The words and processing them caused Scarfino to hesitate. He loosened the grip on his gun. Lance had come down to eight feet and was watching every twitch, every breath Scarfino breathed, every flutter of his pupils.

  “Gentlemen. Your government has entrusted you with protecting the nation and assigned you to the anti-terrorism taskforce. Likewise, your government has chosen to create several extra-legal organizations that function outside the rule and law. The people who work for these entities are chosen for their abilities, both physical and mental, as well as their ability to process and manipulate situations. Basically to lie.

  “If you will look over my shoulder, you will see that my little speech lasting 14 seconds brought your attention to my eyes and took your eyes off of the car and its driver. You can see now the driver has the barrel of her weapon aimed at one of your heads. My guess is it is you Richard. The time it would take her to pull the trigger and move from your forehead to Steve’s would be less than a second. You would both fall to the ground with little splatters of blood and brain and bone spread out behind you.

  “My job is not to please or satisfy people like you or the people you work for. I am in this game to hunt and kill those who would kill Americans by the hundreds or thousands. Your deaths would be regrettable, but excusable, if this individual provides us with information that leads to the kill or capture of Anwar.”

  Scarfino released his grip on his gun. He was done protesting. Ayers dropped his hands to his sides and shook his head a little.

  “You’d kill us, really?” Ayers was shaken by this whole thing.

  “I wouldn’t be happy about it. But killing is what I was hired to do. Keep that in mind if you ever run up against someone or something that the law doesn’t properly address. I’m on your side, but only as long as you stay out of my way. Be ready for that call within two hours.”

  He turned from them and walked back to Nosar to put him in the back of the
car. Marta kept her gun pointed at the two men at the end of the alley.

  The two FBI agents just stood there. Scarfino’s leg had stopped twitching. Ayers just stared. They turned to each other with no expressions. That said it all. That was scary stuff.

  Once Preacher and Nosar were in the back seat, Marta got in and put the small assault rifle next to her on the seat. She closed the door. “I don’t know what you said, but you sure scared the hell out of them. I could see it in their eyes.”

  “I just told them that lovely woman in the car was going to put a beautiful round hole between their eyes.” Preacher smiled at the joke.

  “Lance, I mean Preacher, that’s awful. You know I was only going to put one in their legs. They’re nice guys. I’m not a ruthless killer, you know.” She smiled the smile only for him. She glanced at Nosar in the rearview mirror. The terrorist was scared shitless by their lover’s banter.

  “No, not you.” Preacher smiled back.

  Marta put the car in reverse. But before she backed up, she looked up through the windshield at the sky. It was the fourth time Preacher had seen her do it today.

  “He’s not over there.” Preacher gestured in the direction she had glanced. “He’s right up there.” He pointed back over his left shoulder out the rear window and Lance floating about 80 feet in the air.”

  He had finally told her about Lance, about his ghost. It was a Saturday morning a couple weeks back as they lay in bed. She had taken the news without a bit of surprise. She knew something was up for quite awhile and was actually relieved to learn it was just mild psychosis at work. Marta totally understood insanity.

  She looked up out her side window in the direction Preacher pointed. She saw nothing. One of these times though, she just knew she was going to catch a glimpse of Lance up there. She loved that hovering ghost.

  Chapter 37