Bell nodded in quiet approval. “8.2 seconds, with a cross-body draw.”
“Nice for a bar trick,” Von Shrakenberg grunted. “But he won’t be accurate for shit.”
“Heh,” Bell said. He reached into his pocket and produced two crisp hundred dollar bills. “Usual rules?”
“Deal.”
The two men stepped out of the booth and walked down to lane twelve. Jackson was standing there, eying his target thoughtfully. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, without turning his attention from the target. “I think I pulled my left hand between the fourth and fifth shots.”
Bell smirked, then produced a silver dollar from his uniform blouse, placing it over the neat grouping of holes. All five fell within the dollar, though the fifth was right on the edge.
“A damned good grouping,” he said.
“Still missing a shot,” Von Shrakenberg muttered.
“The chamber only holds five,” Jackson said, holding up the revolver.
Bell snickered. Von Shrakenberg glared at him, then fished two bills out of his wallet and paid up, glaring at Jackson all the time.
“Thank you,” Bell said, his smirk growing wider.
Von Shrakenberg gave him a nasty look, then shrugged. “How long has he been doing this?”
“Since Chicago,” Bell said. “Asked me some questions, then started experimenting and moved on up from there.”
Von Shrakenberg nodded, then looked at Jackson. “You feel comfortable carrying it? Concealed?”
“Yes and yes, Sergeant,” Jackson said.
“You have completed the close-protection course?”
***
Jackson took a breath. Von Shrakenberg wasn't asking for fun.
“Yes,” he said. Team Omega’s close-protection course involved defending principals from superhumans—and was very pessimistic. They could do everything right and still see the person they were supposed to defend having his head torn off. “I can forward you the records if you wish...”
“Don’t ever think that we don't watch you carefully,” the Sergeant growled. “You will remember Mr. Harrison, of course. He will be going into the city later this day and you will be going with him, temporarily seconded to him as driver and bodyguard. We have some reason to believe that he may be going somewhere dangerous.”
Jackson blinked in surprise. “Why me?”
“Because you need to broaden your experience, and because we need to keep one of the few good political ass-kissers safe,” the Sergeant said, tightly. “Draw one of the civilian cars from the garage, check everything from the gas to the emergency supplies, and then wait for his arrival. Consider yourself on detached duty unless we need to deploy Team One.”
Jackson nodded. Team One was currently on the rest and exercise part of the deployment cycle, while Team Three and Team Four were ready to respond to any superhuman crisis across the nation. It had sometimes struck him that they were badly overstretched if they had to respond to more than one crisis at once, but the Sergeant had pointed out that politics mandated against giving anti-superhuman training to police SWAT teams, even if they desperately needed it.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Ah...civilian clothes?”
“Make sure you look smart and respectable, but not military,” the Sergeant ordered. “The garage is expecting you. Go.”
Jackson tossed him a salute and walked out of the building, towards the compound storing a handful of civilian vehicles. Team One normally used anonymous vans, but there was a small number of cars for covert operations, all modified in the FBI’s motor pool before being forwarded to Team Omega. Jackson picked one of the larger cars at random—he had no idea what Harrison might want as his personal vehicle—and ran through the basic checks. The FBI had supercharged the engine, worked additional armour and bulletproof glass into the bodywork and adjusted the licence plates so they could be altered at the touch of a button. Jackson had to admit that they’d been very ingenious, but a single Level 4 superhuman could probably tear the vehicle apart with ease. Superhumans made a mockery out of most protective vehicles, even tanks. Rumour had it that the President’s personal transport actually was something not too dissimilar to a tank.
He picked up the keys, drove the car over to the main block, and parked it while he walked inside to change. The Sergeant had stipulated looking smart, so he donned a basic business suit, one with a roomy enough jacket to conceal a pistol, his knife and a handful of other devices issued to all Team Omega operatives. Something else that had never occurred to him before becoming an operator was how best to disguise himself. Team Omega’s training courses included passing for a civilian, a foreign soldier or even a low-powered superhuman. His sister, who had had dreams of going to Hollywood and learning how to act, would have loved pretending to be something she wasn't. Jackson himself wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
And we walk around like slobs, he thought, wryly. The Drill Instructors would cry if they saw us.
Mr. Harrison appeared twenty minutes later, from the direction of the base’s administration block. Jackson wondered how he’d gotten onto the base before dismissing the whole question as silly. The man who was the link between Team Omega and the President presumably had the clearance to walk onto any military base he chose, even Area 51. He smiled at the thought. There were rumours that Area 51 had been involved in genetic experimentation that had produced the first superhumans, working from alien DNA recovered from the UFO that had crashed at Roswell. It was as good a theory as any other; no one, even thirty years after the first superhuman had appeared in Africa, had managed to explain what created superhumans, or why. There were even crazier theories out on the internet.
“Pleased to meet you again,” Harrison said, as Jackson escorted him out to the car. “Are you enjoying your time with Team Omega?”
“Yes, sir,” Jackson said. He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. “Where exactly are we going?”
“Downtown New York,” Harrison said. He reached into his wallet and passed Jackson a card with an address written on it. “Try to forget that you saw that address afterwards. It is something of a state secret.”
Jackson nodded, inwardly convinced that made no sense. A CIA safe house, perhaps, or something belonging to the SDI? New York was pretty much the superhuman capital of the world, even if the entire city had nearly exploded in violence a couple of years ago. No one was quite sure what had happened—Jackson had only heard rumours, none of them very convincing—but the love affair between New York and superheroes had cooled noticeably.
He drove out of the base and onto the road that led towards New York. It would take at least four hours to reach the city, perhaps longer if they ran into heavy traffic. They did have authority to pose as policemen if necessary, using the federal plates the FBI had added to the car, but that might have attracted attention. Besides, no one had said anything about them being in a hurry. If Harrison had wanted to be there quicker, he could have taken a military aircraft and flown to the city.
Harrison spent most of the trip reading papers he'd taken from his briefcase. Jackson hoped they weren't top secret documents, as they would cause a major problem if they were lost and found by a random civilian. He'd been warned in no uncertain terms that briefing papers were not to be taken off-base without special permission; when they were taken off-base, they were to be secured carefully. It was a great deal safer to use USB sticks that the NSA had designed to be inaccessible to anything but government-issue computers.
Jackson glanced at him from time to time, before looking back at the road. Traffic was worse close to New York, the roads heavily congested; the car slowed almost to a crawl. There was no reason to believe they were being hunted, but some of the scenarios Team Omega had worked through in the Shooting House ran through his head. Slowing a targeted car was often the first step in an ambush.
“You’ve had nearly seven weeks on the job now,” Harrison said, suddenly. “What do you think of Team Omega
?”
Jackson hesitated, remembering the Sergeant’s droll warning. Anything they said or did would be recorded—and probably used against them by Grimes and his fellow psychologists, when they weren't drawing up useless psychological profiles on dangerous superhumans. But Harrison was, technically, a superior officer and deserved an answer.
“I enjoy it,” he said. He wouldn't have become a Marine if he hadn't wanted to test himself—and Team Omega took that to a whole new level. Besides, they were kept so busy that he didn't have time to get into trouble. “It’s very challenging—and sometimes it’s disconcerting.”
Harrison smiled. “Disconcerting?”
Jackson had never been a great wordsmith. Now he found himself struggling to put it into words. “It’s a military operation, but at times it seems to be...odd,” he said. “Like we’re a cross between a military and police unit; spies and cops as well as soldiers. And most of our enemies don’t really look like enemies.”
“That’s been a problem before,” Harrison said. Jackson looked at him, wondering just how long Team Omega had been in existence. The files seemed to go back almost ten years, but some of the earlier files had been scrubbed, with all time and date information removed. It was hard to tell, yet reading between the lines he suspected that whoever had fought those battles hadn't really been part of Team Omega. “Just keep reminding yourself that most of them can take your head off with a single punch.”
Jackson chuckled - Von Shrakenberg had said the same thing - and then shook his head. “How did you get involved in Team Omega?”
Harrison laughed. “You mean how did a civilian like me wind up in charge of a very military operation?”
Jackson flushed bright red. There were commanders who would have reacted very badly to any hint of questioning from their subordinates.
Harrison shrugged. “President Cheney needed someone who could keep it out of the media—and someone who could take the blame if everything went wrong. You know how the average person regards superheroes. One hint of an operation intended to kill superheroes, and the President’s political ratings would fall sharply.”
Jackson nodded. It made sense—and seemed to fit in with the cutthroat nature of Washington politics. Superheroes were big business, even ones as unpleasant as the Young Stars; their licensed merchandise probably accounted for a sizable chunk of the country’s GNP. Charging a superhero with a crime would be like trying to charge Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley, with the added problem that their friends and allies were walking atomic bombs. From the files he’d read, it was obvious that the local police preferred not to charge any superhero unless there was clear proof, enough to satisfy anyone. And even then, they tended to be absurdly solicitous of their famous prisoners.
Superheroes seemed to have a lifestyle that the Emperor Nero would envy, as far as he could tell. The most powerful and famous were millionaires, with everything they could want at hand whenever they wanted it. Some were surrounded by young female groupies who were willing to do anything for them; at least one, according to the surveillance reports Jackson had seen, slept with a different girl each night. Jackson wasn't sure if he disliked that because he envied it, or because the superhero took advantage of young girls and then pushed them out of his life. It was a minor miracle that he hadn't been hit with hundreds of paternity suits.
“I see,” he said, finally. New York’s streets were as crammed with traffic as ever, forcing the car to a crawl as they finally reached their destination. It didn't look a very pleasant place for children to grow up, although it did look better than the place where they’d fought the Young Stars. There were a handful of children sitting along the road, watching aimlessly as traffic rolled past. “I’ll have to escort you up the stairs.”
“Don’t come into the apartment,” Harrison said, flatly. “The person I have to see doesn't like company.”
Jackson nodded as he climbed out of the car and opened the rear door. Harrison scrambled out, taking care to ensure that his briefcase was out of sight under the driving seat. A handful of teenagers seemed to be taking an interest in them, cat-calling rudely, until Jackson allowed them to see the gun in his shoulder holster. They backed off sharply, clearly unwilling to risk their lives for the sake of whatever their would-be victims might have in their wallets. Jackson rolled his eyes as they departed. A good six months in boot camp might turn them into something more useful than street thugs.
“We're not too far from Hell’s Kitchen,” Harrison said, as he pressed a buzzer on the side of the apartment. It had been vandalised by someone, probably one of the younger teens, but it was still serviceable. “Every so often, they talk about renovating the area, but it always comes to nothing. The city is damn near bankrupt.”
The door opened and they stepped inside. Jackson wrinkled his nose at the stench of urine; Harrison didn't seem to notice. “Once we get upstairs, you have to wait outside,” Harrison added. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
***
The exterior of the apartment was as grubby and filthy as the rest of the building. Inside, it was warm and cosy, decorated in a Persian style that suggested that the occupant had wealth to spare. Chester had often wondered why she chose to live in such a place when she was easily wealthy enough to move to Yonkers or somewhere else without so many criminals, but perhaps the answer was simple; she didn’t have the nerve to move. Not that it mattered; her friends included people who were more than willing to use deadly force to protect her from harm.
Layla Ibrahim was a slight dark-skinned girl, her hair hidden under a black headscarf that made her look like a mourning widow. Chester knew that she had been abandoned by her family after her superhuman talent—an affinity for computers and technology that made her an inductive genius—had manifested; luckily, the SDI had been willing to take her in and help her learn to focus her gift. She would probably have remained in the covert team if she hadn't developed a form of anthropophobia that made it harder for her to cope with having other people nearby. Instead, she hid herself away in her apartment and worked for pay.
“Thank you for seeing me,” Chester said, as he took a seat at the other end of the room. He’d been around recent rape victims who were less skittish. One of her hands was linked directly into a series of computers that had been taken apart and merged together, forming a whole that was greater than the sum of their parts. “I won’t keep you long.”
Layla’s voice was very soft, still accented with her father’s native Iran. “I know that you won’t,” she said. “I trusted you enough to invite you here.”
Chester nodded. “You have better sources than almost anyone else,” he said. “How is the superhuman community reacting to the Saviours?”
There was a pause as Layla considered her answer. “Mixed feelings,” she said. “Some of them think that the Saviours are right; they did have the power to change what was happening in the Third World, and they did nothing. And some of them have always liked the concept of...well, of might making right. Quite a few of the ones who were uncommitted at the start have decided to join Hope and his band—and hundreds of mutants have already signed up.”
“Yeah,” Chester said, sourly. Mutants got the worst of both worlds; they were unable to pass for human, while rarely being powerful enough to be useful to the SDI. Small wonder that most of them were alienated from human society. Even superhuman teams rarely considered them human, leaving them even more isolated. Hope would have any number of loyal followers if he did manage to build his new paradise. “Who has taken a stand against it?”
“JQ Public is the most prominent dissenter,” Layla admitted. “Outside of the national teams, at least. The problem is that it is very difficult to argue that the warlords should have been left in power, or that the...family Hope killed on live TV didn’t deserve their fate. Even the ones who are shocked at what he did can't argue that he overreacted.”
“When all you have is super-strength, every problem looks like something you can hit,” C
hester said.
Layla nodded.
Chester knew that re-educating the Congo would have taken a lifetime even without having to worry about anything else. The CIA claimed that there would be resistance to the Saviours—all the more after Hope had told them their cultural quirks would no longer be tolerated. Chester wasn't inclined to trust the CIA, but he found it hard to argue with their analysis.
“What is he doing to recruit others?”
“Just asking,” Layla said. “A handful of unregistered superhumans have already gone through Gateway’s portals to the Congo, along with tons of medical and food supplies. New York has clearly decided to support the Saviours even if Washington is still a little unsure of where it will end. Anyone who wants to go is welcome, it seems. They’ve even accepted a bunch of normal human volunteers to serve as doctors or security guards.”
Chester smiled. “How is he paying for them?”
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