Capes

by Drabble, Matt

  “Well…, yes.”

  “So then you’re going to make up the shortfall on this quarter’s advertising revenues, right? You’ve got a spare three million quid to throw around when we get scooped by every other network in the country and they bury us while we all sit on our asses?”

  “No, of course not… It just… well, it just doesn’t seem very fair or honest.”

  “Kid.” She laughed, addressing him patronisingly even though the man was actually a couple of years older than her. “You’ve got a hell of a lot to learn about presenting a TV news show.”

  ----------

  When the lights went out inside the facility, Buckley watched on his monitor as his team blew a large hole in the rear side of the building and breached.

  The cameras switched to night vision and the scene went green on the screen as the soldiers’ eyes went bright white.

  The communications had been cut from the building and all outgoing signals were jammed.

  The equipment that he had at his disposal was the best that money could buy, especially when men like Fontaine were footing the bill, or, as it would appear in this case, the soon-to-be Mrs Fontaine.

  He watched on as his team moved with perfect precision, sweeping in through the hole, weapons hot and heads on swivels ready to rock and roll.

  The pitch blackness gave way to an eerie red glow as the emergency lighting kicked in.

  Buckley kept his monitor switched to his team leader’s camera now as the man led the way.

  The team moved further into the base, edging along a long corridor. A door opened and two lab techs wandered out. It was clear from their faces that they were having a hard time seeing in the gloom, but when they got close enough, they recognised the soldiers and their weaponry.

  The two women raised their hands in terrified surrender and to show that they were unarmed, but their expressions quickly relaxed when they recognised the police combat outfits.

  Two silenced Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns spat around each with expert marksmen, and the two women dropped as the soldiers stepped over the fallen bodies without emotion and continued.

  His six men now split into three groups of two and headed off in different directions. They were well trained, well drilled, and they knew the facility layout off by heart thanks to the detailed plans given to him by Fontaine’s fiancée.

  The base had limited security, but after the Queen’s Guard unit had been largely disbanded, it had been relegated to a research facility. As such, it was not deemed to be a high-level target.

  Buckley switched the channel to his Tact Two unit.

  “Control for Tact Two,” Buckley spoke into the mic.

  On the screen in front of him, one of the soldiers immediately raised a clenched fist to his comrade and both men stopped instantly.

  “Go for Tact Two,” the man answered.

  “Target 20 yards on your right.”

  “Roger that.”

  Buckley knew that the man didn’t need his interference but he did it mainly to exercise his own sense of control over the operation and his men.

  Tact Two reached the door and one man covered while the other picked the lock before they both entered.

  He changed channel to Tact Three which now showed two of his men quickly dealing with more unarmed workers, cutting through them with efficient ease before sweeping onto the next target.

  He switched to Tact One and saw that they had hit a snag as an armed security guard was covered in a concealed position. His men were hidden around a corner and occasionally shooting a few rounds to keep the man returning fire, waiting for him to run out of ammunition.

  Eventually, the guard’s revolver ran dry and he made the mistake of running. One member of Tact One stepped out and put a single round in the running man, dropping him instantly.

  “Command to Tact Two, status report,” Buckley demanded as he switched to their channel.

  “Tact Two to Command. Four down, approaching East Side entrance on schedule,” came the reply as the monitor showed the two men sweeping through the base.

  Buckley switched back to the third channel, but this time it only showed a snowy white blizzard.

  “Command to Tact Three, report,” Buckley spat quickly into the mic.

  There was no reply and he couldn’t help himself but reach out and bang the monitor, despite knowing that would achieve nothing.

  “Tact Three? Tact Three, come in?” But again there was no answer.

  “Command to Tact One, have you got eyes on Tact Three?”

  “Negative, Command,” Tact One came back.

  “Command to Tact Two?”

  “Negative, Command.”

  “Delivery status?”

  “Package delivered, Command, but no eyes on Tact Three.”

  “Dammit,” Buckley breathed as he muted the mic. It was never a good sign to show his men that he was not in total control.

  “Tact Three?” he tried one last time, and this time the mic on the end opened and he could hear breathing down the line. “Tact Three? That you, Benny?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, but Benny can’t come to phone right now. He’s a little busy being dead,” Crimson replied, and Buckley could almost hear the man’s smile.

  ----------

  Crimson had started to move before anyone else. The world around them was plunged into darkness, but he lived in the dark – it was always where he felt the most at home.

  He left the others to their fear while he went to dish out a little of his own.

  His eyes worked like a cat’s in the blackness, and he moved with a predator’s stealth. His mask was on without him even realising that he’d put it on. It was his face… it was Crimson’s face.

  The breaching explosion came as he’d expected, and he stood rock still for a moment in order to concentrate and pinpoint the exact direction before heading for it.

  When he drew closer, he could now hear six sets of boots on the ground as they entered in standard military two-by-two formation.

  By the time that the emergency lighting came on, the one group of six had become three groups of two.

  The corridors were relatively narrow, but far too narrow for him to attempt a full-frontal assault with heavily armed assailants. He needed space to move and room to stay hidden to be at his most effective.

  He headed up into the large air-conditioning tunnels that ran through the ceiling space above. He moved with silence even suspended above the ground in a metallic echo chamber.

  He watched on from his vantage point as the various sets of men made their way through the base. He could tell immediately that they were military. Despite their SCO19 police combat outfits, these were wolves in… well, in a different type of wolf’s clothing.

  Several unarmed facility staff were dispatched quickly and efficiently and with no hesitation as the men swept their way through the outer workings of the base and no doubt towards the centre and their true targets.

  Crimson couldn’t help but wonder just what CJ was waiting for. People were being murdered out here, and yet the alien wasn’t bursting into action despite all of his undoubted power.

  He crept forwards, keeping overhead of two men below as they marched confidently through the base, weapons held up and safeties off.

  They shot dead a young woman who had wandered out of an office and shrieked at them that she was a government employee and not who they were looking for, not realising just why these men were here.

  Anyone watching on probably would have assumed that he was hunting their attackers, that he was defending their home, but in truth, he was actually saving his own skin and heading out looking for an exit.

  He had no desire to die here with the rest of them. CJ could teleport out and maybe take some of the others, including Jamie-Lyn, with him.

  Jesus was a highly trained government agent who could take care of himself, and Doc could simply make herself invisible and walk on out without being seen.

  In short, the
y could all look after themselves. The incursion team may have been a deadly unit, but they were still just men, ordinary men against an enemy that was far from such.

  The thing was, however, that when the woman below him was unceremoniously executed, he’d felt a small stab of emotion and it troubled him. Normally, he didn’t feel much of anything and it took him a moment to process what it was. Unbelievably, it was empathy.

  He’d sat in his hidden position for several moments, trying to understand why he’d care, and couldn’t come up with a single reason. He didn’t recognise the woman who’d just died. He’d never met her and he had no idea who the hell she was, and yet he’d stopped; he’d stopped because she had made him think of Jenny.

  He was far from a stupid man. He knew that Doc was right. All of those long-drawn-out conversations with Jenny had been one-sided and none of them real. He had watched her from afar and built up a relationship inside his own head, watching the playback like a movie playing inside his own mind. The thing was that none of that mattered. It had been real, or at least real to him.

  A rage built up in him, one that while familiar, didn’t seem appropriate in this particular situation. While he couldn’t process why he was feeling what he was feeling, he couldn’t deny that he felt it. In the end, he simply reacted. He was a jungle cat, a predator; he was Crimson, and he did what he did.

  He reached a T-section in the ducts and changed his direction from heading straight out of the base to keeping the men below him as they took a right turn.

  “Hey! Over here!” A security worker called out and waved the men over to him. “In here, in here!” He motioned as he ducked back into a room.

  The two men in police combat gear hustled over to the man who had his own revolver drawn and up.

  “Man, am I glad to see you guys,” the guard said, relieved as they entered the office. “What the hell’s going on out there?”

  “Security breach,” one of the men said.

  Crimson moved stealthily overhead, dropping down out of the air-conditioning duct. He lowered himself carefully down onto the wooden struts that held the ceiling tiles of the office below, twisting himself into an excruciating yoga pose as he balanced there while the three men below talked.

  “I managed to get a few shots off at some guys in black,” the security guard gasped as he stood doubled over, his hands on his knees. “They were gunning down employees. I… I couldn’t help. I…, ran…,” the guard said, his voice breaking.

  “That loaded?” One of the men nodded at the weapon the guard held.

  “No, I’m out,” the guard replied.

  “Good,” the man answered and shot the guard in the face.

  “Ah, shit, brother! You got him all over me!” the second man cried out in disgust as he started to wipe away the blood splatter on his mask, pulling it off.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” the first man replied, laughing and pulling down his own mask. “Besides, I owed you for Budapest.”

  “Budapest? You still holding that grudge?”

  “Grudge? You exploded a goddamn toilet over me! I had to burn that bloody outfit. I’m still sure I can smell it on hot days.”

  The two men shared a laugh and Crimson moved as their defences momentarily lowered.

  He dropped his weight off of the beams and crashed down through the ceiling tiles, landing on one of the men.

  As he fell, he was in full control of his body and his movement. He linked an arm around the soldier’s neck as he fell, clinching his grip with full strength and using his momentum to break the man’s neck as Crimson’s boots hit the ground. The snap was loud and death was instant, and he dropped the man’s weight from his grasp, stamping down on the man’s body cam to silence it.

  The second soldier, to his credit, had reflexes fast enough to respond, but he was slower in this instance than the enhanced Crimson.

  The submachine gun swung open and even spat a few rounds before Crimson snatched the barrel and twisted it out of the man’s grip, turning it over before yanking it free and throwing it aside.

  “What the…?” the man managed before Crimson hit him with a side kick hard enough to send him staggering backwards before collapsing to the floor clutching his midriff.

  “I saw what you did,” Crimson snarled. “You killed her.”

  “You gotta be a little more specific, pal,” the soldier said as he climbed back to his feet.

  He was a tall, broad man with a shaved head and a wide, bushy red beard. Black swirl tattoos crept up his neck and beyond his collar. His eyes were hard and clear, and his expression was one of controlled anger.

  “You killed her,” Crimson reiterated.

  “Hey, I killed a lot of people.”

  Crimson felt the rage build up in him again; he let it fill his body and he used it for fuel.

  “You killed her,” he growled.

  “Like I said, I killed a lot of people, sunshine, but I’m always eager for one more.”

  The man was back to a standing position now, and he stared at Crimson across the room.

  The two men watched each other warily, each prepared for the other to make a move to then counter it.

  “Not so easy when you can’t sneak up on a man, is it?” the soldier offered. “Not so easy to kill a man when he can fight back, when he’s staring you in the face.”

  “Doesn’t bother me none,” Crimson replied, his voice low and calm and a smile dancing across his lips under the mask. “You gonna reach for that?” he asked, nodding towards the soldier’s hip.

  The soldier had a semiautomatic pistol in a hip holster, but now he merely drew it out slowly by the butt in an exaggerated manner and threw it aside. “I don’t need it.”

  “Yes, son, yes you do.”

  “So you’re him then? You’re the big bad Crimson. Tell me something. You as tough as they say?” the soldier asked as he drew a long, wicked-looking blade from behind his back. “Because I think I’m better.”

  “Then why don’t you come find out?”

  The soldier answered by suddenly charging across the room with his knife slashing through the air in an arcing motion.

  Crimson saw the attack coming and moved, but he was older now and still healing from the attack in the jungle. As a result, he wasn’t quite fast enough.

  The knife caught him in the side and sliced through his tough leather outfit. The material was old – made over two decades ago, it was now starting to fade in its protection.

  He felt blood spurt from the slash inside his outfit as the soldier ran past before spinning around and launching a second attack.

  This time, Crimson had already adjusted and was ready. The soldier lunged in with a stab before proving that it was a fake out and withdrawing his hand before slashing upwards, aiming for Crimson’s chest.

  The blow missed as Crimson moved like lightning, jerking back out of the way, his hands moving faster than the other man could see, and the blade whistled through empty air.

  The soldier was now up on the balls of his feet, bouncing lightly like a boxer.

  “You ain’t nothing.” The other man laughed gruffly as he circled. “I guess it’s true what they say: never meet your heroes.”

  Crimson now stood still and folded his arms across his chest, a warrior who knew he’d already won the war even if his opponent didn’t.

  The soldier lurched forwards again, but suddenly he stumbled. He looked down at his body with confusion in his eyes, unable to understand why he was sinking to his knees, until he saw the blade hilt sticking out of his chest, a blade he’d never even felt going in, let alone seen.

  “How…?” he whispered before he pitched forward dead.

  “Because there ain’t nobody better,” Crimson whispered back.

  “Command to Tact Three, report,” a voice crackled out of the mic on the dead soldier’s shoulder. “Tact Three? Tact Three, come in?”

  Crimson knelt down and picked the mic up while listening in.

  “Comma
nd to Tact One, have you got eyes on Tract Three?”

  “Negative, Command,” Tact One came back.

  “Command to Tact Two?”

  “Negative, Command.”

  “Delivery status?”

  “Package delivered, Command, but no eyes on Tact Three.”

  “Tact Three?” Command tried one last time, and this time, Crimson pushed the mic button down and breathed down the line.

  “Tact Three? That you, Benny?” the disembodied voice quickly came back.

  “Aren’t you going to answer that?” Doc’s voice suddenly startled him from behind, appearing out of seemingly nowhere. “I know that you’re dying to say some kind of badass line.”

  Crimson wanted to tell her that she was being ridiculous, but of course, as always she was right. She was always right.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, but Benny can’t come to phone right now. He’s a little busy, you know, being dead,” Crimson replied, a little of the fun being taken away by Doc’s presence, but he enjoyed it nevertheless.

  “That was you? In my head earlier? Making me think of Jenny?” he asked.

  “I can’t believe you were going to run,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s low, even for you.”

  He was about to respond when the first soldier with the broken neck fired a shot from the floor. The bullet was aimed at Doc, and Crimson never saw it coming in time to stop it or save her.

  The bullet struck Doc in the centre of her chest but then passed through her without making a mark and kept going until it struck the far wall.

  Crimson threw a small concealed dagger into the downed man’s throat before turning to the unharmed Doc.

  “You’re not even here,” he said, shaking his head.

  “You were concerned,” she said in disbelief.

  “No,” he responded on impulse.

  “Yes you were. Holy crap. You know, I was going to hit you with something else to stop you from leaving, but now I don’t have to, do I?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Oh no, Crimson. Now I know your secret. You do actually care.”