37. EXPENDABLE
HOWIE:
IT HAD BEEN ALMOST FOUR DAYS SINCE THEY LEFT ME on that rooftop. As I sat in the pitch black closet sized cell that The Strangers kept me in, I had to keep reminding myself that Reaper had made the only logical decision that he could have at the time. If he had moved against Charlie, Charlie would have shot me in the head. I knew he had made the right decision, but I still couldn’t help but wonder why they hadn’t come for me yet.
I was sure that Reaper’s density would allow him to survive the fall after he leapt from the rooftop; so where were they? Did he truly save Jason instead of me because it was the right decision, or was it because I was expendable?
“Snap out of it, you idiot,” I muttered, surprised at how feeble and dry my voice sounded. The Strangers were only providing me with food and water approximately once every 36 hours so I had grown quite weak by that point. I expected them to kill me, but instead I was whisked away and immediately thrown into that forsaken place. In the beginning I was hopeful, but as I withered away, inundated by the darkness within that cankered cell, the last few remnants of my hope finally gave way to my despair.
In the movies, the clever heroes always figured out some ingenious way to escape. Unfortunately, for me it didn’t always happen that way in real life. The only purpose my 229 IQ served was to help me come to grips with how desperately hopeless my situation truly was. I was running out of time and I had no idea if my savior was even coming for me. To make matters worse…I didn’t even know if he thought I was worth saving.
38. MASTERMIND
THE SUSPECT:
I NEVER EXPECTED THEM TO GET AS FAR AS THEY DID. Then again, even I couldn’t have anticipated the Reaper variable. Who is he and why is he able to do the things that he can do? And most of all, why was he working with Howard Vargas?
I had to know. I had come too far to let some high school kid and a freak of nature derail my progress. The night vision equipped camera in the corner of Howard Vargas’ cell allowed me to watch him squirm in the darkness that beset him. He, like many before him, expected physical torture followed by a swift death, but my choice method of torture was always that of a psychological nature.
Tango, my most skilled operative, watched me in silence from across the dark control room in which we sat. It was he who I had to thank for the apprehension of the prisoner. I had my doubts when The Righteous chose him as my second in command, but his presence had certainly paid its dividends.
I was smarter than all of them, but I lacked the physical might to keep them in check forever. Without Tango, one of them was bound to challenge my rule at some point. With him at my side, my dominion over The Strangers went unquestioned.
Of course, I had considered the possibility of Tango making a play for my seat. At the end of the day, he was irrevocably a mercenary. His only true allegiance was to money and power. Sure, he was content for the moment due to the millions of dollars that The Righteous was paying him to serve as my second in command, but I could tell that he enjoyed power just as much as money. The Strangers were becoming more powerful by the day and I am certain he realized that.
I glanced at Tango, then back to the monitor. Fortunately for me, I knew his weakness. The Reaper and his partner were not quick enough to spot it, but I figured it out the moment I saw him. He was a thousand times more deadly than I, but if it came down to it, I knew exactly what to do to take him down.
39. LET HIM COME
HOWIE:
“GOOD MORNING HOWARD.” THE ELECRONICALLY DISTORTED voice rang out from the darkness above me as I lay still on the cold stone floor of my cell. There must be an intercom in the ceiling, I thought, as I pulled myself into the back corner of the tiny cell. I hadn’t eaten in a little over a day so I was far too exhausted to attempt to stand.
“It’s afternoon; not morning,” I finally replied as I rested my head against the wall. Minutes went by with no response. For a moment, I thought that I had possibly imagined the voice.
“Impressive internal clock, Howard,” the mysterious person finally replied over the intercom. After a moment, I realized that this was more than likely The Suspect.
“Did you think I would lose track of time?” I asked, forcing myself to laugh. “Perhaps you were hoping I would become more desperate when you inevitably lied and told me how long I had been imprisoned here?” I asked.
“You look plenty desperate to me.”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“It’s been five days, Howard. You know they’re not coming for you.”
“It’s been four days. And yes, they are,” I snapped. The room fell silent. His sporadic silence bothered me, but I refused to let him know his psychological game was working.
“You might as well get it over with because you won’t get a word out of me. I know you’re only keeping me alive because you want to know why we came after you,” I said.
A few more minutes of silence passed before he responded.
“I have kept you alive simply because I haven’t determined the most satisfying way to kill you. Do not delude yourself into thinking that you are of any importance to me.”
“You know I’ve always wanted to try the firing squad. How’s that sound?” I chuckled.
“I was thinking more along the lines of starvation,” he hissed. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve systematically decreased the frequency in which we bring you food and water. The slice of bread you ate yesterday will likely be the last thing you’ll ever eat.”
I didn’t reply. My stomach growled as if signifying the gravity of his diabolical words.
“After you burn through your remaining body fat, your body will start to break down your muscles and use them for energy to keep your heart and nervous system functioning for a few more days. Good luck with the severe case of diarrhea that follows. You can’t exactly crack a window in that cell.”
He was a mad man. An absolutely, certifiable, mad man. It wasn’t supposed to end like this, I thought. I was supposed to be out there making a difference, saving the world alongside Jason and Adam, not wasting away in a matchbox of a cell waiting for my body to eat itself.
“In the end, you are left with two choices, Howard. You can resist and die face down in a pile of your own feces, or you tell me what I want to know and be granted a swift end.”
“What do you want from me?” I grumbled.
“Why did you attack my facility?”
“It wasn’t an attack. It was a rescue mission. We came for the girl but we didn’t know that she had joined The Strangers. The media gave the impression that she was kidnapped.”
“Of course, they did. They can’t have the world knowing that the daughter of a prominent Senator joined what they believe to be a terrorist organization.”
“We don’t simply believe that you’re terrorists. You are terrorists!”
“Then what of the people’s say? To them, we’re heroes. To them, our work is righteous.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re no hero. You’re just a puppet and there’s no difference between you and any other megalomaniacal failure from the past. I’ve watched you sow your insidious seeds of deceit while claiming to serve a righteous cause since the first day you logged on to that chat room three years ago. You may have fooled the public, but you’ll never fool me. I know a terrorist when I see one.”
“Then what does that make you, Howard Vargas? It’s your program that we used to disable the cellular grid during the Fox Valley State operation. In fact, your program is the very reason we were able to move forward with my plans to go militant. In short, you are just as responsible for the lives that we have taken as I am.”
“I didn’t know that people would die! You never said anything about that!” I yelled.
“Spare me the worthless, plausible deniability defense, will you? You had to have known! That’s why you left us, remember? You went from being a full time contributor to contracting once I began my movement because you weren
’t willing to sully your pretty little hands. But that didn’t stop you from taking the contract to create that program, did it?”
“I needed the money! My family needed the money!” I shouted.
“Was that money so much more important to you than the lives of the people you knew we would kill? And you call me the bad guy? I do what I do out of a sense of purpose and servitude. I kill in order to set the example for those who dare to repeat the mistakes of the ones that we chose to sacrifice. You kill in order to score a cheap buck!”
“It’s not true! I am not the same as you,” I sobbed. But it was true. I had taken a contract from one of my former Stranger contacts about a year before the first attack. He wanted me to create a program that could temporarily disable cell phone towers and land lines within a fifty-mile radius. At the time, I truly didn’t consider what they could have been planning to use it for, but now I knew that there was no way they could have executed their attacks without my program. The Suspect was right. I was responsible for every life that they had taken, even Adam’s older brother, PJ. I was far too dehydrated to produce tears as I continued to sob, but my despair was no less potent.
“Who is The Reaper?” The Suspect demanded.
“He’s your worst nightmare,” I growled. I was light-headed and my body felt like it was about to shut down again, but I fought hard to stay conscious.
“If you don’t tell me what I want to know your, home and your school will be the next places that we attack. I invite you to consider the hundreds of lives you will be sacrificing in order to protect one man.”
“You should prepare yourself. I don’t know if he’s coming for me or not, but I know for a fact that he’s coming for you,” I said as I collapsed to the cold concrete floor and slipped out of consciousness.
“Let him come,” The Suspect replied, just before my world faded to black.
40. WELL I’LL BE…
CHARLIE:
TANGO AND I HAD WORKED TOGETHER ON A LOT OF JOBS in the past, but this one definitely took the cake. The whole Stranger business had turned out to be a lot more fun than I thought it would be when Tango first brought me on board. As far as pay was concerned, I wasn’t pulling down as much scratch as my buddy Tango, but my share was definitely nothing to sneeze at.
Before then, I had never exclusively committed my talents to just one outfit, but between how much fun I was having and how much money I was makin’, I didn’t see a reason to go anywhere else any time soon. Heck, I had gotten so used to wearing that red Comedy mask on my face that half the time I didn’t even realize I had it on. I always thought it was funny how the more you do something, the more numb you become to it.
I suppose that’s why I didn’t notice him at first. I had done so much surveillance without ever getting’ any action that sometimes I just plumb forgot to actually look.
You planning on sitting there in the shadows all night, Hoss? I thought to myself as I slowly placed my favorite black cowboy hat on my head and continued to stare at the computer screen in front of me. I kept my back turned and pretended not to notice when a dark figure dressed in all-black emerged from the shadows behind me.
I slid my right hand down to the .44 magnum revolver holstered on my right hip as the intruder stealthily made his way across the dimly lit control room.
Not one for jaw jackin’ I see, I thought as the cold steel on my hip called out to my hand. My trigger finger was home at last as I swiftly pulled the pistol from my hip and squeezed the trigger, ripping a bullet over my shoulder without even bothering to look behind me. The room fell completely dark as the bullet shattered the light above us.
I whipped around and brandished my steel just as the mysterious figure pounced at me. I smiled as I recognized the Spade painted over his mask.
“Well I’ll be... Nice to see ya again, Hoss,” I chimed as I squeezed the trigger.
41. GODSEND
HOWIE:
A SOFT THUD FROM BEYOND THE DARKNESS PULLED ME back into consciousness. I frantically looked around, searching for an indication of where I was. It all slowly came back to me as I peered into the blackness before me.
I could tell that I had been unconscious for several hours as I attempted to stand. Another thud from beyond the walls of my personal prison stopped me in my tracks. I had been held captive there for nearly five days by that point and in that timeframe, there was never so much as a peep from beyond the walls of my cell.
I placed my hands alongside the walls and felt my way over to the locked exit. I pressed my ear against the solid steel door and listened. To my surprise, the cold steel was actually quite soothing to the hunger headache that I had developed.
The next thud was much closer than the others. What’s going on out there? I wondered as I continued to listen. As if to answer my question, the sound of automatic gunfire suddenly rang out. I hurriedly backed away from the door as the lights flickered on just outside of my cell. My eyes had not seen a single photon of light in almost a week by that point. Therefore, the bits of light that seeped in through the corners of the door were absolutely blinding.
“Stand your ground, men! We can’t let him near the prisoner!” someone shouted from just beyond my cell. My heart throbbed frenetically as I realized that my team had come for me at last.
“Here he comes!” someone yelled and I heard a barrage of gunfire and other commotion ring out as my cell started to violently shake as if it was suddenly thrust into the middle of an earthquake.
I pressed my body against the back wall as something large suddenly slammed against the door of my cell. I sank deeper into the back of the room as another thundering impact shook the entire cell and caved the door in.
A wave of blinding light poured into the cell as the door was suddenly ripped from its hinges. I squinted and stared at the dark figure standing before me, immersed in a blanket of brilliant white light like an angel emerging from the heavens surrounded by its holy aura.
My eyes had not yet adjusted to the point where I could focus well, but I knew it was Adam. I knew that The Reaper had come for me.
42. ALPHA MALE
REAPER:
I TOSSED THE CRUMPLED DOOR ASIDE AND STARED DOWN at Howie. It hurt to see how terrible he looked. As I peered at him through the tinted visor of my Reaper gasmask, I could tell that he hadn’t showered in days and his lips were completely dry and cracking as he attempted to speak.
I kneeled beside him and placed my hand on his right shoulder. “It’s okay, Howie. You’re safe now,” I said as I hugged him. He attempted to return my embrace with his right arm but didn’t appear to have enough energy, as his arm fell to the floor.
“I’m sorry, Howie,” I muttered, holding back tears, “I shouldn’t have left you.”
“It’s okay,” he whispered, his voice barely audible.
“I’ll make them pay for this, Howie. I swear to God I’ll make them pay!”
“Just get me out of here,” he said as he began to shiver.
“Absolutely,” I replied. I heard several footsteps behind me as I took off my long black trench coat and placed it around Howie’s shoulders in order to keep him warm.
I had nearly demolished the entire room beyond Howie’s cell when I ambushed The Strangers that were guarding him. As I peered over my shoulder, I saw that amongst the rubble and unconscious bodies now stood four more Strangers. Three of them had M16s aimed at us, but they weren’t the ones that I was worried about. The fourth Stranger was gigantic. He stood nearly seven feet tall and had to weigh over 400 pounds. Despite his size, he didn’t appear to have an ounce of fat on him. I knew who he was. Howie had shown Jason and I profiles on all of the Stranger officers during the preparation for our last mission. This mountain of muscle was the Stranger officer known as Alpha. He wore the same black body armor and expressionless white mask as the other Strangers, but he was almost three times their size.
“This doesn’t end well, Reaper,” Alpha grumbled in an incredibly deep voice, “Stan
d down or my men will shoot.”
“You’ve got one chance to get the heck outta my way. I’m not gonna ask again,” I growled as I balled my gloved hands into tight fists.
“We have you dead to rights, Reaper. There’s no way you can win this!” Alpha barked.
“I want you to remember something, Alpha. When they’re lying on the floor, crippled and pissing blood and you’re crouching in the corner praying that the same thing doesn’t happen to you…just remember that I gave you a chance to walk away.”
“Alright then,” Alpha said darkly as he looked to his gunmen. “Kill them both.”
In a blur, I grabbed the crumpled metal door from the floor and held it before me, shielding Howie and me from the onslaught of automatic gunfire.
“I’ve located the package, Ace! But I’ve got my hands full at the moment. I may be a few minutes late!” I yelled as the bullets continued to ricochet off the steel door.
“10-4! Same here!” I heard Jason shout through my earpiece. He sounded like he was under duress, but I couldn’t worry about him at that moment. Saving Howie was my number one priority.
With the battered door still held before me, I planted my feet and launched myself toward my attackers. Alpha dove out of the way as I slammed into the smaller Strangers and knocked them unconscious. Alpha and I wrestled for control of the door before I yanked it away from his grasp and tossed it aside.
As I glared up at him, I realized that he looked even bigger up close. He was easily three times my size in terms of volume, but technically I outweighed him by about 400 pounds. I held my fists ready as he rotated his head and stretched his bulging neck muscles. My heart rate increased as he pulled his tree trunk sized arms in front of him and struck an aggressive stance.
We leapt at each other in unison, but he pulled his head slightly to the right, causing my fist to zoom by without hitting its mark. He jabbed me hard in the stomach before I could get my guard up. I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready at all. If I had been holding my stomach tighter, I could have easily taken the blow, but I was so focused on knocking him out with one punch that I left myself completely open to his counterattack. Alpha was easily capable of generating well over 2000 pounds of force with his punches, so even with my dense molecular composition, I was vulnerable if I wasn’t tightening my stomach.
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