GodMode

by O. K. Mills

  “Uniform or plain clothes?” asked Cole.

  “Plain. Text says he just got on the Red Line headed to Glenmont.”

  “Cool Disco Dan country,” said Cole.

  “Sir?”

  “It’s a DC thing, Asha. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Speaking of DC, we’re going to get some jurisdiction questions, sir.”

  “That’s funny; jurisdiction is what I scratch my balls with.” Cole said.

  “Noted, sir,” Asha chuckled.

  “Have them delay that train, Asha, and get in touch with Cathy’s office. Let them know we need a perimeter between Union Station and Rhode Island Avenue,” ordered Cole.

  Spade checked the Metrorail map and mentally counted the number of stops to Silver Spring. What he had not counted were the number of plain-clothes police officers who had made their way onto the subway car at each stop. Little did he know, five officers were present: two at the far end of the car, one seated directly across from them, and two others sitting in opposite nearby corners.

  Before long the train reached Takoma station, the one before Silver Spring, which prompted Spade to get up and walk over to the sliding car doors. He looked at Brynn and motioned for her to follow.

  Suddenly, the subway car slowed to halt in-between stations. The conductor mentioned something about another train being ahead of them and that they would move forward shortly. In the back, the last handful of passengers was escorted to a connecting car. When the remaining riders walked toward him and revealed their police badges, the obvious finally dawned on him.

  Spade evened his breathing and kept Brynn behind him.

  “Mr. Spade, we need for you to release the girl into our custody and take a seat,” one of the officers said.

  Brynn grabbed Spade’s hand.

  “Am I under arrest?” Spade asked.

  “Not if you cooperate.”

  Spade didn’t say anything further.

  “Mr. Spade, we don’t want to hurt you.”

  One of the officers reached for Spade’s wrist, and faster than a blink, Spade slapped his hand away and dropped the man with an upward palm thrust.

  SWING!

  Spade ducked to avoid a fist that came out of nowhere and responded with a tiger mouth strike to the throat of the attacker. The officer gasped and fell to his knees.

  WHAM!

  Clubbed in the back by the butt end of a Glock 9mm, Spade fell forward, but rolled up back to his feet. The officer that clubbed him went to grab Brynn, but a side kick from Spade sent him barreling backwards.

  The last two officers rushed Spade, tackling him to the floor of the subway car and beat him across the head and neck with their fists. Spade did all he could to cover up, but found himself taking strike after strike. It wasn’t long before he tasted his own blood.

  Brynn ran to help him, hitting the officers as best she could. One of the officers shoved her backwards, and she fell hard into one of the steel hand railings.

  Spade snapped. His anger became unmitigated rage as he shook off the pain and jammed his index and middle fingers violently into the eyes of the officer on his left. The man recoiled in horror, screaming and flailing in pain.

  SLAP!

  Spade clapped his hands on the remaining officer’s ears. The other officer continued writhing in agony. Spade rose to his feet, grabbed the officer he had deafened, and punched his torso repeatedly. Before long the officer was spitting up blood. Spade continued until he felt the touch of a child on his back.

  Brynn rubbed his back in a circular motion, her eyes glowing bright white. She held her finger to her lips to simulate “shush,” as she calmed him the way a parent would calm a wailing infant. It took several moments, but eventually Spade relaxed and slid backwards onto the wall of the subway car. Brynn looked him in his eyes and smiled. She pointed at him, then held her thumb up with her eyebrows raised as if to ask, “Are you okay?”

  Spade nodded as his breathing eased. For the second time today, he had broken his promise of non-violence to God, and the afternoon was still young.

  Leaving him, Brynn walked over to the blinded officer first, her eyes still glowing white and pupil-less. She covered the man’s eyes with her hands, and when she removed them, his sight was completely restored. He stopped screaming and backed away in fear.

  Next, she touched the ears of the other officer to heal him as well. Finally, she looked at Spade. A gesture made his bruises fade from his face. She seemed exhausted afterward, but just for a few moments. She took a seat next to Spade as her pupils returned and the glow left her eyes.

  “Thank you,” Spade said.

  She just smiled and pointed to her wrist.

  “You’re right. Let’s move.”

  Spade handcuffed the officers to various parts of the subway car with their own cuffs, collected their weapons—removing the clips from all but one—and then put the last one in his waistband. He took Brynn by the hand and led her toward the conductor’s booth. There, he tapped the glass with the gun and pointed to the controls of the train. The conductor’s eyes went wide, and she got the train moving. Before long they arrived at Silver Spring station and went out.

  Once they got to 16th street, a hard top Jeep Wrangler pulled up beside them and lowered the passenger window.

  “Get in.”

  Spade smiled.

  “I knew I could count on you, Bear.”

  After Spade lifted Brynn into the vehicle and sat down, the Jeep sped away.

  5: Bear

  CLICK.

  “What the hell are you doing, Bear?”

  “You, whoever you are, Spade would never call me from an unsecure cell phone. You have exactly five seconds to prove yourself, or I will paint the passenger door with whatever you ate for lunch.”

  They sat idling in the middle of the street, while several drivers behind them leaned on their horns. Feeling the nozzle of a weapon piercing his side, Spade knew he only had mere moments to convince Bear Bowden that he was the genuine article. Bear wasn’t known for his prowess with a gun, but even the worst shooter in the world can kill you at point blank range.

  “Three seconds,” Bear threatened.

  “My unit tattoo!” Spade yelled out. That got Bear’s attention. He motioned for Spade to roll up his shirt sleeve.

  Spade slowly did so to reveal a military tattoo on his shoulder that depicted a modified MARSOC symbol. Each member of his or her unit that got recruited into the United States Marine Corp Forces Special Operations Command had a similar and yet slightly individualized tattoo. Spades’ tattoo, largely because the actual MARSOC logo featured what looked like a spade symbol anyway, modified his to appear similar, substituting the standard Marine Corp anchor with the face of a skull.

  Bear admired the work, but suddenly pressed the nozzle of his weapon more forcefully into Spade’s side.

  “Not good enough,” he said.

  “Wait, ask me a question. Ask me anything that you know that only you and I would know.”

  Bear pondered this for a moment, while others on the road continuously blew their horns at them, before finally posing his question.

  “Which is better: In and Out Burger or Five Guys?”

  Spade shot him a look.

  “This again?”

  “You have two seconds,” said Bear.

  Spade glanced down his side to check out the weapon Bear had on him. When he noticed his shirt was turning brown at the spot where Bear’s hand was, he got suspicious.

  “Bear, this gun isn’t real.”

  Bear’s face became bright red, and as they pulled forward, he removed his hand from Spade’s side to reveal that it had actually been a gun made entirely out of chocolate.

  Spade looked at Bear.

  “A chocolate gun? Seriously? Come on, man! I could’ve killed you! I’m running for my life, and you’re out here playing! And look at my shirt!”

  “Stop crying like a baby. I was just messing with you. How many times have I told yo
u to never call me from an unsecure phone? You’re lucky I didn’t blast you for real or that I came to get you at all,” said Bear, chuckling.

  “You would have found a way to miss me,” Spade laughed, still annoyed, but calming down. “But what if it hadn’t been me, man? Then what? What was a chocolate gun going to do? Where’d you even get that thing?”

  “SexualChocolate.com,” said Bear, without even the slightest hint of shame or embarrassment. “And it’s dark chocolate,” Bear added, taking a sizeable bite out of the weapons’ nozzle before wiping his mouth with his shirt sleeve.

  Spade rubbed the chocolate residue from his hands onto Bear’s face, sighed and slapped his friend upside the back of the head.

  William “Bear” Bowden was about 6 feet 5 inches tall (depending on the shoes he was wearing) and weighed around 280 pounds. To say that Bear had been anything other than decisively terrible during his time in basic training would actually be an insult to anything that had ever been understated in the history of linguistics. Bear should have excelled in any activities involving brute strength. And yet, on his best day, he managed maybe five straight pull-ups.

  Anything Bear had succeeded in during boot camp that required martial skills was most likely due to luck or the result of Spade spending hours of his own time coaching Bear through. He was often the butt of jokes and tended to isolate himself during that time because he didn’t fit the expected mold of someone of his size and expected talents.

  Bear grew up on a farm in Kansas, and oddly enough, he knew next to nothing about farming. But he would be the first person to correct you if you said that the pasteurization process sterilizes milk, for example. Pasteurization actually reduces the number of pathogens in milk so that milk doesn’t cause disease, he would say.

  Bear was one of the five smartest people that a young sensitive kid who grew up being teased because his first name was “Jaysiel” had ever known. And so the two of them helped each other get through basic training, a situation that neither actually wanted to be in, but had no other viable options.

  Spade had lost count as far as who was ahead in terms of saving the other one’s life. For the moment, Bear was in the lead.

  “Thank you for being there, man. I am in a real fix,” Spade said.

  “You had me at ‘code red,’ brother. What’s going on?”

  “Mike is dead.”

  “Wait, what?” Bear asked incredulously.

  “Some guy with one of those tats we saw in Iraq; you remember, the clover with the faces looking east and west. One of those guys shot Mike.”

  “You saw a January mercenary? Never mind; what happened? I thought you were in Africa building canoes for the homeless or something?”

  “I just flew home today,” responded Spade. “Mike picked me up from Dulles, and as we were headed to his precinct, we got a call from dispatch. We get there, and Mike gets gunned down.”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m still in shock, to be honest.”

  “So what happened after that?”

  “I went in to try and help, almost getting myself killed in the process. This little girl here saved my life,” Spade said gesturing to Brynn in the back seat. “There was a lady there, maybe her mom or an aunt? Anyway, her dying wish was for me to look after Brynn. She told me to not trust anyone, said that somebody was coming for her. Brynn and I have been on the run ever since.”

  Bear turned to look at the young girl in the back seat. His jaw dropped, and he almost lost control of the car.

  “Spade … do you know who this is?”

  “That’s Brynn James. Brynn, this is Bear Bowden, an old Marine buddy of mine.”

  Brynn smiled, adjusted her glasses and waved to Bear.

  Bear remained speechless with his jaw agape.

  “She doesn’t talk. She smiles a lot. Not sure why. She’s got some talents though, stuff you wouldn’t believe if…”

  Bear suddenly grabbed Spade by the head and pushed it down, his face pale with fear and his tone turning deadly serious.

  “Spade, you’ve got to keep your head down! We need to get her off the street. Why didn’t you tell me you had Brynn James with you when you got in the car?”

  “How was I supposed to … wait, you know her?”

  “I’ll explain, just stay down. We’re too exposed. It’s a wonder you made it to me in one piece.”

  Spade remained crouched and motioned for Brynn to do the same.

  “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, do you?”

  Cole stood eyeing the five Metro police officers that Spade had just eluded. Flanking him were his team of detectives and Officers Walker and Sweeney.

  “Let me get this straight, gentlemen. One unarmed man and a nine-year-old girl outwitted the five of you?”

  “The assailant wasn’t actually unarmed, sir.” said one of the Metro officers.

  “I was being facetious, idiot. I know Spade took your gun. But didn’t the rest of you have guns?”

  They nodded.

  “And none of y’all thought about bussing a cap in the man?” Cole asked.

  “We felt it would have been excessive, sir. As you said, he was initially unarmed.”

  “Well, the bastard has a gun now, don’t he? You clowns do realize that this man has already killed children today, right?” asked Cole.

  “Allegedly; we have no proof,” said Walker.

  Cole shot him a look.

  “If he could defeat five armed men and get away without killing any of them, wouldn’t that suggest that there is more to this situation than we might think?” asked Walker.

  “He also didn’t shoot the conductor, and he easily could have,” Sweeney chimed in.

  Cole went over to the conductor who was standing off to the side watching him dress down the officers.

  “Why did you move the train?”

  “By the time he’d gotten to me, he had the gun.”

  “And you were sitting behind bulletproof glass and a door that, since 9/11, was designed to keep terrorists like Spade out. All you had to do was duck your pretty little fanny down and hold your position,” chastised Cole.

  “And let an armed man roam around on the train after he just bested five armed officers?”

  Cole grinned.

  “You got brass, young lady. Probably got more than lady parts down there too, I reckon. I stand corrected.”

  The woman made a face that suggested that she wasn’t sure if Cole had complimented or insulted her.

  Cole walked back to his group.

  “I’m open to suggestions, people. Talk to me.”

  “I just got word from our folks on the scene at the gas station where he attacked the man in the knit cap. According to the cashier, Spade was actually stopping a robbery,” informed Asha.

  “Plot just gets thicker, don’t it?” said Walker.

  “He also made repeated calls to a number that, for whatever reason, when our boys traced it, didn’t exist.”

  “What do you mean didn’t exist? Who was he calling? Moses?”

  “We’re burning that and all related bushes, sir. If we find the person Spade called, then we likely find Spade and the girl.”

  “They teach you that at Harvard, Captain Obvious? Canvas the area, interview some passengers. Find out if anybody saw where the hell they went. I want every surveillance camera in this area reviewed. Spade couldn’t have gotten far. Let’s move.”

  Sitting in an idling white Porsche, Marshall Pike kept a close watch on people going in and out of the Silver Spring Metro station. He checked his smartphone repeatedly as if awaiting a call or text, but neither had arrived. If it bothered him, it would have been impossible to deduce by his expression. Seated next to him, playing with a butterfly knife was his partner and girlfriend, Sharon Blake.

  He had not wanted to bring Sharon. Point of fact, he did not want to bring nor date Sharon. He had enjoyed their initial encounter where bed sheets had been involved, but she had proven to be
somewhat clingy since then, and he fancied himself more of a loner.

  That said, he had yet to meet another person as deadly with edged weapons as Sharon, so he tolerated more from her than he normally did from others.

  Sharon was also cerebral, earning her the nickname, “Beautiful Mind.” They had been rivals on previous missions when they met, and he found that she was often one step ahead of him, if not very far behind. He needed her for one reason and one reason only: to take the fall if the mission failed. If things did not go smoothly, Silas was probably going to kill him. Actually, as he pondered it further, Silas was probably planning to kill him anyway once he had delivered the girl. As soon as he had her in his possession, he had some serious decisions to make.

  He would find her soon enough. He simply needed to be patient. If the local news reports weren’t adequate, then the large collection of jet-black, unmarked Police Interceptors parked outside of the station all but confirmed that she had been here.

  But where had she gone? And how had she eluded the police? Was she getting assistance?

  He checked his phone again. No calls. No texts.

  Pike glanced at Sharon who continued to twirl her knife, occasionally stopping to gently caress the blade’s edge. As if she could hear his thoughts, she made an inquiry, ending the silence he had been enjoying.

  “Do you plan to tell me what Silas showed you in my lifetime?”

  He smiled. He was actually impressed that she had contained her curiosity for as long as she had.

  “He showed me seven human beings frozen in large containment tanks, each of them with a unique paranormal ability.”

  “Paranormal? You mean they had super powers? Like the Avengers?”

  He sighed inwardly. Sometimes, Sharon could be so smart, and other times, she was as stupid as her stereotypical blonde locks suggested.

  “Exactly, like the Avengers.”

  “I can’t believe that’s actually real. What were their powers?”