by Nick Pollota
The slaughter of ‘87, I called it. A bloodbath when over eighty percent of the total Bureau personnel were killed within a four hour period. To this day we still had no exact knowledge of who, or how, it was done. But we were still looking and would do so forever.
Brushing back his wild crop of hair, Richard licked dry lips. “So where is it?” he asked excitedly.
“Manhattan, New York,” I announced. “Thirty-third Street and Third Avenue. The Gunderson Building. We're to get there ASAP, pronto and fast.”
“Why?” Donaher asked, getting to the heart of the matter.
Already behind the wheel, George was starting the engines and doing a systems check. This was a time I didn't mind having Mr. Speed-Limits-Are-Only-a-Suggestion-and-Not-The-Law doing the driving.
“Don't know,” I said truthfully, buckling in tight. “They'll tell us when we get there.”
Without further discussion, the group started strapping on seat belts and George backed out of our parking space at 90 mph.
* * * *
We were an hour outside Pineville on Route 95 south when flashing lights and sirens sounded from behind us. George paid them no attention and maintained speed. As the police car pulled alongside, I gave the officers a fast scan with my Kirlian sunglasses.
“Human,” I announced.
From inside the other car, an angry police officer motioned us to pull over. Jessica started twisting dials on the radio until she found their frequency. Should have seen their faces when we broke into their conversation with the local police station. We identified ourselves as FBI agents on a priority mission, with absolutely no time to spare. Through the window, I showed them a fistful of federal ID badges. The station was loath to accept this, but the patrol bought the story, slowed and let us pass.
A Bureau 13 deluxe model, the radio was equipped to work on nigh every frequency in the spectrum. Including a couple of military channels. But none of the top secret frequencies, of course. That would be illegal. Only the NSA was chartered for such activity. In fact, my team could chant in unison: “No, sir, we did not have access to any top secret military channels. Uh-uh.”
A few hours later, George spotted some hitchhikers standing on the berm, looking forlorn and waggling thumbs. Both of the women were amazingly beautiful, with ample young breasts almost bursting out of those skimpy halter tops, and cut-off jeans that only accented the sort of legs that made a man drop to his knees and thank God for his Y chromosome. Not that Mindy and Jessica were lacking anything in aesthetic quality. Ms. Jennings was nicely attractive, in a muscular sort of way, and Jess a total fox. Hubba hubba. But these two buxom babes were outstanding.
As we came near, I checked them over with my sunglasses and got nominal readings. The human aura of the women meant nothing in this business. They could be brainwashed assassins, or artificial constructs, just about anything. Then again, maybe they were exactly what they seemed to be, two women lost in upstate New York needing a ride back to civilization.
Only where was a broken car, camping gear, roller skates, or parachutes? Just how did a couple of dainty beach bunnies reach this glorious middle of nowhere? Walk? Yeah, right.
Now suspicious as hell, I drew my trusty S&W .357 Magnum and clicked back the hammer while dialing for computer enhancement on my Bureau sunglasses. Ya never know, ya know? Suddenly the magical illusion of the sexy human females faded away to reveal a stack of crates bearing the military designation for C4, high explosive plastique.
Oh crap. “It's a trap!” I shouted, over the roar of our racing engines.
Savagely twisting the steering wheel, George tried to swerve away from the hellspawn centerfolds just as the crates violently detonated.
Thunder filled the universe, the RV was thrown off the road and went flying into the sky over the median. Encased in boiling fire, my team could only hang on for dear life as we went ass over teakettle, every loose item in the vehicle went shotgunning from side to side, as we rolled over and over. It felt as if we were airborne forever before the van finally slammed into the pavement with a bone-jarring crash. The windows cracked, airbags punched us against our seats, the fire alarm went off, Amigo dropped from the ceiling, the lockers erupted supplies onto the floor, the radio switched to AM, and our spare tire went rolling by outside.
Steadily cursing, George used a combat knife hidden in his boot to stab himself free from the airbag, noisily sneezing at the powdery discharge from inside the safety balloons, then shifted gears, gunned the engines, and the van roared away on smoking tires. Ha ha! Alive and still kicking! Although our little armored chariot was now shaking so badly it made the bullets in my gun rattle.
“SSttoopp tthhee vvaann!!” I ordered as my glasses headed south for Miami.
“NNoo wwaayy,” George replied, fighting the madly bucking steeringwheel. “MMaayybbee mmoorree!!”
That was true enough. But this could not go on for long before we started breaking things not already damaged by the blast. Such as our internal organs, and other non-essentials. Tightening my seat belt, I killed the alarm and motioned for Raul to come up front. After an aborted attempt to walk, he resorted to crawling on hands and knees. Flying was seriously of the question, what with the floor and the ceiling attempting to touch each other at the present moment.
“AAnnyy rruubbbbeerr ssttiillll oonn ttiirree??” I asked all nine of him.
Raul touched the interior wheelwell and furrowed his brow. After a minute, he nodded yes. A wizard's “inner sight” lets him see through a lot of things. Quite handy on a mission, but reason number one why you never play poker with a mage.
“FFiixx iitt,” I ordered, cheeks wabbling madly.
Brandishing his wand, Raul touched the metal rod to the wheelwell, but it kept bouncing off. Gritting his teeth, the wizard held it in place with his other hand and starting harshly muttering. A thin stream of sparkles flowed from the tip of the wand and seeped into the floor. Immediately our ride began to smooth and soon we were running straight and even.
Doing ninety plus on the wrong side of the highway.
George corrected that by bouncing over the median again. The sharp jostles a mere waltz after our recent slam dance.
“Whew,” Raul sighed, slumping in a chair, the auto-massage refusing to function for the mage as usual. “I've fixed flat tires before, but never on a moving vehicle.”
“Cup of tea?” Mindy asked, moving to the kitchenette.
“Make it a brandy.”
She glanced at me and I gave a hesitant okay. Raul had a possible problem in that area and we kept a watch on his drinking. On the other hand...
“Make that two,” I said, licking my lips.
* * * *
A short while later, we entered a “Falling Rock” zone, a towering cliff of veined granite edging the highway on our side. I was driving at the time and on a hunch hit the nitrous oxide injector.
In a roar, the engine revved to overload, the dashboard meters hit the red and we rocketed through the area at 150 mph with flame coming out of our twin tail pipes. Nothing else happened, but it was always smart to play it safe.
* * * *
Six hours later, I knew we were in New York City before reading the sign, because we were slammed to halt reaching bumper-to-bumper traffic.
“Parade?” Richard asked, craning his neck for a better view.
In the passenger seat, Donaher scowled from under his fishing hat. “No, just rush hour.”
“Rush hour on a weekend?”
A shrug. “Welcome to New York.”
Not amused, I watched as a snail raced by on the berm. Some of our fellow prisoners were starting to read books, or begin jigsaw puzzles. Guess this was old hat to them. Then an odd movement amid the traffic caught my attention. A gasoline truck was starting down the up ramp of the expressway, forcing cars out of its way to reach the motionless river of vehicles.
“Drunk driver?” Mindy asked, gesturing in that direction.
“Just a New Yorker,”
Raul said grumpily, polishing his wand with a chamois cloth.
My sunglasses had broken during our recent sojourn, so all I had now was a single lens to peer through. As I dialed for enhancement, I could see the driver had a human aura, but on his forehead was clearly visible the tattoo of a silver knife stabbing through the moon. Hoo boy. That was the symbol of the Scion of the Silver Dagger, a lunatic group dedicated to the destruction of the world for no particular reason that the Bureau could ever discover.
“It's the Scion!” I shouted, drawing my Magnum.
Everybody grabbed weapons, George even flipped the switch arming our missile pod before remembering it was empty. “Shit,” he growled, glaring at the roof.
Rolling down a window, Richard gestured with his staff and a low stone wall appeared directly in front of the truck. A split second later, the tanker smashed through the barrier as if it was paper mache.
“Looks bad,” Raul said grimly, his wand glowing with power.
“Its worse!” Jessica added, staring to our left.
On the other side of the expressway, another tanker marked “Liquid Hydrogen” was proceeding down that ramp. A dozen plans flipped through my mind, each critically flawed by the fact we could not move the van an inch. Only one thing left to do.
“Abandon ship!” I yelled and kicked open the door. There was only a slim chance for escape, but we had to try. I hit the ground running and slammed directly into a green wall.
Turning about, I saw that the van was now surround by a shimmering green ball of force that encased us completely. I had seen its like before, but never on this grand a scale. Damn thing must be thirty feet in diameter! Tingling with an adrenaline rush, I hesitantly climbed back inside. We exchanged nervous glances. What was happening outside the sphere around us was impossible to say. This spell blocked all vision, noise, vibrations, everything short of a nuclear bomb.
Think they have one? Jessica sent nervously.
I shrugged. With the Scion, it was anybody's guess.
On the couch in the back, the two wizards were holding their wands in clenched hands, eyes closed, muscles tightened and sweat pouring off their bodies. I could almost feel the ethereal vibrations in the air.
“How long can they hold the shield?” I whispered, fearful of breaking their concentration. This was not an easy spell to conjure, I knew that from past experience.
“Uncertain,” Donaher said softly, mopping their brows with a soft cloth. “They are both pretty fresh, but this shield is huge. Biggest I've ever seen.”
As we waited in green silence, faint age lines began to appear around the eyes of Raul, and Richard's hair began to gray at the temples. Minutes passed and we started to fear for their lives, when the wizards broke apart gasping for breath. They limply slumped to the floor, wands still tight in their grips. As Donaher and Jessica moved in with oxygen masks, I went to a window bursting with the desire to know what the hell had happened.
The RV was sitting in a clear patch of floor, surrounded by a pile of brick and plasterboard that filled the room to the ceiling and spilled through the side doorway and down the stairs. In front of us, was a ragged tunnel the size of the van leading through a series of smashed walls. With sudden understanding, I realized that the blast resulting from the colliding trucks must have thrown us off the highway and inside an apartment building. And from the dilapidated condition of the room about us, obviously an abandoned one. Nothing unusual there. The Bronx was full of vacant buildings. Hundreds of them waiting for a promised renovation that would never come.
Pushing open the door, I wadded through the wreckage to reach a section of clear floor and proceeded down the tunnel. It ended in a crumbling hole through the outer brick wall of the building. Watching my step, I took a position near the edge of the floor and trained a pair of inflatable binoculars on the distant elevated highway. Looking through the cool glass, I actually felt my heart stop.
The field of debris stretched as far as I could see, the twisted burning wrecks were strewn everywhere. It would take a forensic team months to determine how many died in the titanic blast. Nothing visible was larger than a smoking tire; cars and people included. As I relayed this information via my watch, I did not need Jessica's talent to read the minds of my companions. Somebody was going to pay dearly for this senseless massacre. Attacking us was expected, just part of the job, but this kind of wholesale slaughter of civilians was intolerable.
Supporting the pale wizards, the rest of the team joined me at the rim of the hole. Mindy kicked a chunk of brick off and watched it drop to the garbage strewn lot below. “How are we going to get down?”
“The stairs,” I said, tossing the binoculars to Donaher.
Mindy gestured. “But the van...”
“Stays here,” I interrupted.
This statement raised a flurry of comments and I saw an explanation was necessary. “We have been tracked and pursued since the lake. We've managed to stay one jump ahead of our faceless enemy, but they're using the big guns now and there isn't enough clearance. Civilians are getting murdered.”
“But I thought the van could scramble any electronic surveillance,” Raul stated weakly, his face almost white in color. He looked years older and reeked of sour sweat.
“Correct.”
Trembling, Richard gestured in the air, his fingers leaving trails of light behind. “There are no magical tracers on us,” he announced.
Jessica tilted her head. “Psyonics, clear.”
I scowled darkly. “Goddamn it, you're forgetting the obvious.”
Crossing her arms, Mindy asked, “Visual tracking?”
“Why not?”
“So what do we do?” George asked, tapping a finger on the long vented barrel of his machine gun.
“Take advantage of a golden opportunity,” I stated. “The blast that hurled the van here, also masked our escape. If we play this quiet, our enemy will never know we survived until its too late.”
They murmured hesitant approval. I went on. “We leave the van here and split up. First into groups of two, then individually. The plan is to scatter and converge. That way, at least some of us will get to Bureau headquarters.”
“On 33rd and 3rd,” Raul said grimly. He sounded stronger by the minute, but mages were known to be fast healers. Already there was a faint aroma of Old Spice aftershave around the man.
“As far as we know, that is the place,” I agreed.
Returning to the van, I opened a small safe under the drivers seat and pulled out a wad of money. It was a bit dusty, but still serviceable. “Here's five thousand for each of you. Remember, use cash only, no credit cards. Sign nothing and never give your real name.”
“What about you?” asked Jessica asked in concern. “How will you operate without funds?”
I patted her hand. It was nice to know there were some thing she couldn't read. “Thanks for the concern. But if I need more than fifty bucks to get from here to there, I've lost my touch.”
“Special private eye training?” Richard asked curiously.
“Nope,” I lied. “Just cheap.”
Climbing into the swivel chair before the console, Jessica got busy with the document forger. A fantastic device built by Dr. Roberston, the Bureau's pet genius. The compact machine was a combination computer, printer, embosser with the precise details of over 20,000 government documents in storage; passports, library cards, federal weapon permits, security passes, military ID, arrest warrants, drivers licenses, tax stamps, diplomas, writs of habeas corpus, stays of execution, season Yankee tickets, you-name-it. In short order, she made an assortment of documents and identification cards for each member of the team, ending with a new drivers license for me under the name of Joe Smith. I like a challenge.
“What about Amigo?” Raul asked, swiveling his chair around. The lizard waddled closer and he ran a finger over the scaly head of our tiny guardian who rumbled in pleasure.
“Take him with you,” I suggested, cleaning my wallet of unwan
ted material. I fed the cards into the ash tray where they burst into ash. “We can't leave him here, or let him loose.”
“Fair enough.” Smiling, Raul slipped the lizard into a side jacket pocket. Amigo poked his head out and flicked his forked tongue as if to say goodbye, then withdrew and began squirming about to get comfortable. Mindy handed the mage a matchbox of chirping crickets.
After a brief dissertation on the practical uses of greasepaint, our disguise trunk was emptied of supplies and everybody changed their hair color, donned glasses and/or moustaches and stuffed clothing packs into pockets. In deadly silence, Donaher shaved his moustache off, his only consolation was the near weeping of George as he left his M60/Banjo on the floorboards. There was nothing silly about it. Took a soldier a long time to know the particular idiosyncrasies of a favored weapon. George was consoled with a MAC 10 assault pistol with infra-red laser spotter, flip-clips and Mark IV Glaser Sure-Kill Safety Slugs. The rest of us were satisfied with less exotic weaponry.
Each team member departed when they were ready. Deliberately stalling, I was the last to leave. Setting the van's self-destruct mechanism for fifteen minutes, I hurried out of the ruins. Sensors had shown the building empty of human life, so the maneuver was a safe act. There was too much important information and valuable weapons in the vehicle to chance letting it fall into enemy hands. Or worse, the hated press. The forty five pounds of strategically placed thermite charges would reduce the van to a memory in exactly 2.4 seconds. And I knew that for a solid fact. This was our third van.
Taking the rat-dropping covered stairs, we soon reached ground level. Removing the boards covering the front door, the group raced into the courtyard when came was a mighty whump above us and long tongues of flame gushed from the windows of the ninth, tenth and eleventh stories.
“So long number three,” Raul said, giving a brief salute.
Leaving the growing conflagration behind, we crossed the street, pushing our way through the crowd of people staring at the distant highway. Faintly, we could hear the wail of ambulances. Father Donaher said a quick prayer for the dead, and we moved past the crumbling overpass. Down here on the street level, larger wreckage dotted the sidewalk; a melted car door, an intact engine, the charred husk of something small, but we paid it no attention and moved steadily on. I think Mindy wiped a tear from her eye, but I couldn't be sure, as something was blurring my own vision. Dust perhaps. Yeah, dust.