Warmongers (Peacemaker Origins Book 2)

by Sean Michael O'Dea

  Amber Rose looked at all of them. “Oh, all right. Fine.”

  Roosevelt handed out the other three envelopes, each of them with the Peacemakers’ insignia on it—a red skull surrounded by a triangle of silhouetted, single-action revolvers. He said, “Everyone, listen up. While Amber Rose and I are dealing with the Illuminati, all of you will be starting missions of your own. Inside these envelopes, you’ll find your orders. There is so much to accomplish that we will need to divide and conquer. That being said, I have decided to split the team into groups of two and have personally chosen the teams so we can start to build a healthy rapport with one another.”

  Mink opened her envelope and peered through the documents. “You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me,” she said. “You want me to kidnap my sister’s fiancé?” Wage snickered again.

  “Morris Randolph is a high-ranking member of The Hand, but his actions as of late have been contrary to their normal operations. He seems to be assembling some kind of crime syndicate here in the city, and I want to know why. I also want to know if he has any information on why those fellas in Boston robbed that bank. So go get him, bring him here, and I will make his blood boil until he tells me what I want to know.”

  “Good luck with that, Mink,” Wage said in amusement.

  “Best wish yourself luck, Wage, ‘cause you’re comin’ with me,” Mink replied. “And why didn’t anyone tell me my sister was wrapped up in all this?”

  “Technically, she isn’t,” Roosevelt said. “I believe she is just a part of the growing facade for Morris Randolph’s more sinister dealings. So far, I have every reason to believe she is innocent.”

  Wage laughed. “Andromeda is many things, but innocent ain’t one of them.”

  Mink punched Wage on the shoulder hard enough to make him wince. “We better start planning, Major,” she said through gritted teeth.

  Dominic DeFelice opened his envelope. “Hey, Simon. Looks like you and I are going to Santa Fe!”

  Roosevelt looked at the team’s detective. “I’ve arranged for a plane to be available for you in Pueblo, Colorado. From there, Dom will shuttle you to Santa Fe. I want you to find this Mr. Lou character. See if we can’t pick up that bastard Delacroix’s trail again.”

  Simon nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Quincey held his envelope. He looked at Tesla, than Pani. One of them would be his partner, and he wasn’t sure who to wish for. He opened his folder. “Haiti? You want me to go to Haiti?” He read further. “You want me to take her?” he asked, nodding toward Pani.

  “A friend of mine, Smedley Butler, he led a small detachment of Marines down there a few months back at the behest of President Wilson,” Roosevelt answered. “Major Butler’s mission is to maintain peaceful transition of power in Haiti—and of course, to protect American interests there.”

  “Is there a reason it’s not so peaceful there now?” Quincey asked.

  “Well, it seems as though folks down there got upset with their own president after he executed the majority of his political rivals. The good people ended up dragging their president into the streets and ripping him apart with their bare hands, or so the report details. Nasty stuff, really, but sadly, well within the scope of human nature. Now the country has been plunged into a civil war.”

  “I don’t get it,” Wage said. “What are Quincey and Pani gonna do that a bunch of Marines can’t?”

  “A letter from Smedley arrived last week. Apparently one of his lieutenants has passed away from … mysterious circumstances. They think he was poisoned, and I have a hunch it was The Hand. If you ask me, this has the Witchdoctor’s signature all over it. Anyways, Major Butler personally asked me for help. And so I am sending you two. The major will brief you when you arrive. Your train south leaves the day after tomorrow, and I’ve arranged for you to hitch a ride on the USS Connecticut out of Miami. It will to take you down to Port-au-Prince. Let me know of your findings. If you need help, you can also contact Simon.”

  Quincey looked at Roosevelt with confusion.

  “Sir,” Simon Hum said. “How exactly are we going to contact each other in such a manner that I can provide assistance?”

  “Glad you asked,” Roosevelt belted. “Nikki?”

  Nikola Tesla

  January 2, 1915

  Gartrell Taxidermy

  New York, New York

  “I don’t like being called that. My name is Nikola,” the enormously tall man said, rising from his chair. He picked up the dilapidated table and set it in front of the chalkboard, in front of the entire team. He then walked back to retrieve a large suitcase and placed it on the table. He opened it. He now looked like a cross between a stage magician and a traveling salesman. He withdrew what looked like a small snow globe on a metal base. The globe swirled with blue and purple vapors. The base had a small speaker with two small knobs and few buttons on it.

  “I once developed a transglobal cosmo-reflecting audiovisual receiving device for pertinent and imperative correspondences,” Tesla said. “The Hand used this technology for its communication.”

  “Ah, what?” Wage asked.

  “A handheld communication apparatus that used Wardenclyffe Tower as an amplifier and relay to bounce signals off the ionosphere. It had the ability to send a signal all over the world. Wardenclyffe, however, has since been abandoned, and fallen into disrepair.”

  “Why did they do that? Abandon their communications?” Wage asked.

  “We don’t know that, either,” Roosevelt chimed in. “I’ve personally been down there. It’s a ghost town, and most of the equipment has been removed.”

  “It stands to reason that they either moved their operation, or perhaps, found a new, better way to communicate. Those would be the most probable scenarios without more evidence,” Simon said.

  “They have not found a better way to communicate,” Tesla said.

  “How do you know?” Wage pressed.

  “Because I have the only better way to communicate,” he replied, holding up the small globe. “The handheld portable transglobal cosmo-reflecting bilateral audio communication globe.”

  Wage walked forward and looked into the globe. “How does the uh … comglobe thingy work?”

  Roosevelt also walked over and grabbed another globe from the suitcase. He threw it to Dominic, who barely reacted in time to catch it.

  “Please do not throw them,” Tesla said stoically.

  “Dom, I want you to go outside and around the corner,” Roosevelt ordered. “Toggle the globe to the “on” position and wait.” Dominic inspected the curious globe for a moment. He shook it, then held it up to his ear. Despite being a high school dropout, Roosevelt had hand-picked Dominic for this team because of the young man’s natural ability to understand anything with an engine or gears. Last year, at the age of 18, he had nearly won the Indianapolis 500, but a blown tire on the final lap forced him and his mechanic to push the car in for an official last-place finish.

  Dominic now cradled the globe and quickly threw open the receiving door about a quarter way. He ducked under it and jogged out of sight.

  “Nikki!” Roosevelt called.

  “I don’t like being called that,” Tesla repeated.

  “Dial it in,” Roosevelt continued, ignoring him.

  Tesla toggled the device he held. Small blue sparks intermittently streaked within the tiny purple world he held in his hands. Tesla walked over to Wage in two long, quick strides. “Hold this button with your thumb and talk into the speaker.”

  Wage looked as though he had just been transported into an H.G. Wells novel. He pressed the button and, hesitantly, spoke into the speaker. “Um … hello?” Blue sparks pulsated through the swirling, velvet-like clouds in the tiny sphere as Wage’s words were transmitted.

  “Holy shit,” the globe said back to them, pulsating with every syllable. Everyone could tell that it was Dom speaking—not because his voice was clear, but rather, they detected the cadence and inflection of his words. Dom’s transmitted voice s
ounded like he was talking through a harmonica tuned to a lower key.

  “Holy shit!” they heard again.

  Simon Hum reached over with his natural arm and grabbed the globe from a dumbfounded Wage. Simon keyed the globe. “Dominic. It’s Simon.” Static jumped around the globe with the same intensity of his voice. “Please cease your infernal language immediately and keep your correspondences professional and concise. Do you read me?”

  “Hell yeah, I read you. This thing is the damn bee's knees,” Dominic replied loudly, nearly lighting up the entire globe with blue light.

  Wage snatched the globe back from Simon. “Gimmie that thing.” Wage keyed the globe. “Dominic, get your ass back here.” Simon shot Wage a condemning look.

  Moments later, Dominic ducked underneath the receiving door, panting and smiling. He tossed the globe back to Roosevelt, who caught it nonchalantly with one hand. “Please don’t throw them,” Tesla reiterated.

  “Everyone will be issued one, including myself, and we will all be able to communicate henceforth, no matter where we are. Nikki will give you further instructions on how to keep it charged.”

  “Hell yeah,” Dominic said, cutting off Tesla as he was about to speak.

  “All right, everyone,” Roosevelt continued. “Simon, come on up here, son, front and center.”

  Simon stood next to Roosevelt. “Now,” Roosevelt said when everyone quieted down. “After your little incident in Mexico, I ordered Nikki … err … Nikola, sorry, to create something not so … lethal. Simon.”

  Simon displayed his new wonderarm. It was sleek metal, slightly polished. The bulky scaffolding that once encased his arm had been replaced with what seemed like a massive steel sleeve and glove. Simon flexed his fingers and, with the aid of hidden electrodes and tiny motors, his larger-than-normal hand made a fist, then opened again. The new wonderarm would still require a custom-tailored coat with either a breakaway sleeve or a rolled sleeve, but it definitely looked more like a natural arm. Just bigger. Wider. And metal.

  Simon’s arm twitched, and a compartment on the top of his wrist sprung open. A 4½-inch barrel and revolving cylinder slid out with a whiz and a whirl. With the right movements, Simon could fire six rounds in just over a second with extreme precision.

  “Fancy,” Quincey muttered.

  “Simon here has been equipped with a more efficient weapons deployment system. This is the lethal option. He also has a ...” Simon’s revolver disappeared into his arm, and another compartment on the outside of his forearm opened. A wider barrel fell out with a click and clack. “… single-shot mortar launcher that has a blast radius of 12 feet,” Roosevelt added. “But what I really wanted you to see was this …”

  Simon’s mortar launcher disappeared, and a small metal wand with a bulbous tip sprung from the underside of his wrist. It crackled with blue sparks as it deployed. He aimed the electric wand at the huge gryphon suspended from the ceiling. With a clench of his fist, Simon shot an arc of white-blue lighting across the room over everyone’s head. The gryphon’s golden lion hide started to smoke, filling the room with the smell of burnt hair and electricity.

  “Jesus! Hey! Come On!” Quincey yelled as the lighting strike subsided. Charred black stripes had appeared on the stuffed creature, making the lion hide look more like a tiger.

  “Not to worry, Quincey, it’s already dead,” Roosevelt reassured him. “Nikola invented this little gem at my request. It will be your nonlethal option going forward. He will be fabricating handheld versions as soon as possible.”

  “Nonlethal?” Wage interjected.

  “Seems pretty damn lethal to me,” Dominic added.

  “Language, please,” Simon warned.

  “The voltage isn’t enough to kill,” Tesla replied. “Just enough to temporarily incapacitate. It interferes with the brain’s signal to its voluntary muscle systems. I call it the voltage propagating incapacitation device for short.”

  Wage pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can we just call it something simple. Like a sparker, or something?”

  “Wow,” exclaimed Dom, craning his neck to stare at the smoldering gryphon, “Ain’t that some shit,”

  Simon snapped his arm at the young man. A stream of light cracked across the briefing room and hit Dominic in the chest. The blast knocked Dominic back six feet before he fell to the ground, convulsing until the flow of electricity stopped. Dominic groaned and took a fetal position on the smooth concrete floor. “As the Colonel said,” Simon said. “Nonlethal.”

  “Any questions?” Roosevelt asked with a smile.

  Colonel Roosevelt

  January 4, 1915

  Laboratory of Thomas Edison

  West Orange, New Jersey

  At first glance, the grounds of Edison’s laboratory looked like a small college campus, with a medley of red-brick buildings crowned with matching roofs the color of rusty cobalt. A main laboratory complex, three stories high, made up one side of the grounds. The rest of the buildings were machine shops, a glass-blowing studio, a dining hall, and dormitories. A power plant, water collectors, a water tower and a large garden were also located on the grounds. It was everything Edison required for a self-sufficient compound. All of it was paid for by the innovations and inventions Edison and his subordinates thought up, designed, assembled, tested, mass-produced, and sold.

  “Well, I’ll be damned. This is actually Thomas Edison’s place,” Amber Rose declared, staring at the sign above the modest entrance to the main laboratory building. “I mean, the man who created the light bulb, the phonograph, the—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Colonel Roosevelt interjected. “Listen. I want you to have a look around. If those Illuminati bastards are hidin’ anything, I want to know about it. We were guaranteed a safe visit for today and I intend to make the best use of this opportunity.”

  “What if I run into someone? What should I do? Just ask,” Her voice got deeper, “‘Hey, you fellas hidin’ anything I should know about?’”

  Roosevelt padded her on the shoulder. “Just like that. Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “Darling, in my days at Harvard, I wrote my senior thesis on the need to afford equal rights to women. During my administration, I put forward legislation so that women could vote. Universal suffrage. Do you know why I did that?”

  Amber Rose shook her head and pulled up her heavy coat against the cold.

  “Because in all my years, I’ve never seen a task that only a man could do. But I’ve seen plenty that only a woman could do.” Roosevelt smiled his gap-toothed grin and turned for the door. “Good luck,” he said as he walked into the laboratory.

  The front office was plain and undecorated, with dark floor boards and red brick walls all around. A single door led to what Roosevelt assumed was the heart of Edison’s laboratory, but in front of that door, slightly offset, was a desk attended by a slouching silver man with a blank stare. His mechanical body had two massive holes in the chest that revealed the wires beneath. A single hole rested between his eyes. There was a button next to a candlestick phone on the edge of the desk. The sign by the button had a line drawn through the words “Push for Service.” Below it read “Out of Order. Use Phone.”

  Roosevelt picked up the phone and tapped the hook. After a moment, a gruff voice demanded who it was. “It’s Theodore,” Roosevelt replied.

  The wooden door buzzed and then opened on its own, revealing an ascending staircase.

  When he reached the top of the stairs, Roosevelt walked with purpose down the only unobstructed path in the middle of the laboratory. Despite his bothersome leg, he tried not to let anyone see him limp. As he walked, he took note of all the scientists who toiled around the lab tables, huddling around equipment that bubbled, buzzed, sparked, and oscillated. At the far end of the laboratory, Edison’s executive desk was strewn with papers, most of them crumpled. One particular stack of papers had a curious contraption above it, suspending a pen that barely graced the top page. Roosevelt took a seat a
t one of the creaky wooden chairs in front of the grand, red oak desk.

  Edison stood at the nearby window in a wrinkled grey suit. His hands were folded behind him, and he stared at the overcast sky as it spit snow flurries. A silence ensued that would have made any normal man uncomfortable.

  “Theodore,” Edison finally said.

  “Thomas,” Roosevelt replied.

  “Do you recall the founder of the Illuminati order?” Edison asked.

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” Roosevelt said, kicking up his boots onto Edison’s desk and tipping himself back.

  “Archimedes of Syracuse,” Edison announced.

  “Ah,” Roosevelt said. “You know, when father wanted to move his conservatory from the first floor to the third, he had to figure out how to move his piano up two flights of stairs in our old brownstone.” Roosevelt pointed his finger. “I devised a way to do it for him using schematics from a book I was reading on Archimedes.”

  “Archimedes was, perhaps, the greatest scientist to have ever lived.”

  “Perhaps?” Roosevelt asked.

  “There is someone now who I believe is greater.” Roosevelt heard something in Edison’s voice he had never heard before. It sounded something akin to submission.

  “Is it the boy, you have? Jules?”

  “He may be, eventually. His aptitude is greater than mine, certainly, but his priorities remain suspect,” Edison answered, still staring out the window. “But no. It is the current leader of our order. Recently elected.”

  Roosevelt laughed. “You mean it’s not you? You are trying to tell me you are not running this whole Illuminati show?”

  “No. The man we refer to as One Stone currently leads our order. I am but a torch that carries The Great Flame here in America. Certainly, I was considered for leadership, but I am afraid we scientists use a very empirical process to choose the next Pharos. And I was not selected.”

  “Pharos—as in the Pharos of Alexandria? The famous lighthouse?” Roosevelt asked.