A half dozen NSA field agents sat nearby and stared at me is if trying to crack a suspect. Nice try.
The rest of the attendees were mostly composed of the top echelon from the State Police, Chicago city police, Sheriff's office and Federal Sky Marshals. Although, I do believe there was a smattering of National Guard officers and Coast Guard captains.
Lounging in a corner was as disreputable a collection of scum and assorted miscreants as it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. Bums, bag ladies, whores and pimps, they even had a small runny-nose child with them to complete that nice Amish family ensemble. I could almost smell the filth on their bodies, and started to scratch at imaginary fleas.
Of course, the impression was totally wrong. Half of them were undercover DEA agents and the rest were volunteer members of the CTA's elite transit police: code-named: CATs—Criminal Attack Team. These folk loitered about in sewers and alleyways, and the instant they saw a crime starting to be committed they jumped the perp. CATs were more interested in stopping the occurrence of a crime than bagging collars and looking good to the chief so they get promoted out of the CAT squad. Hell, you had to wait on a list and pass tests to get into it! And the child was actually a midget who held black belts in enough different styles of the martial arts to give Mindy a good fight.
That's when I noticed ... him.
Standing along by the door was a solitary figure in a rumpled blue outfit. He was unshaven, smoking a cigar and radiated power and authority. This guy probably was carrying enough weapons to level a small town, but I was damned if I could identify what branch of the Justice Department he came from. TLF? Treasury Department? Another covert agency like our own? I went for the gold.
"Who are you?” I demanded.
The big man removed the cigar from his mouth and gazed at the glowing tip before answering, obviously marshalling his collection of responses for the correct reply.
"Janitor,” he said at last. “Youse giot nuff cha'rs?"
I nodded yes and shooed him away. Mentally, I made a personal note to burn my private investigation license when I got home. Oops, too late.
Finished shuffling my papers into the correct order, I turned around. On the wall behind me was a huge pull-down map of Chicago and its suburbs. Yanking on the bottom bar, I eased the map upwards to expose the words ‘four million’ which Mindy carved into the cinderblocks with her amazing sword. Involuntarily, I glanced at my hands. Boy was that thing sharp.
"Four million,” I boomed over the loudspeaker system, “That number is precisely why we are here. The four million residents of greater Chicagoland.” Which is what we locals called the whole damn shebang of our mighty metropolis. Had to let the gang know I was not some 30-day-wonder from DC here to steal the glory. I was a Looper, with family and friends only blocks away.
A small hand was raised for a question. I hate such formality, but in this situation it seemed the only way to control the possible pandemonium. I gestured at the child.
"How come you're in disguise,” the CAT officer asked, squinting suspiciously.
Whew, these cops were good. Time for evasive maneuvers.
"Now that's a damn fool question, don't you think?” I growled at him in my best impersonation of Horace Gordon.
Chuckles sounded from everybody but the military.
"Yeah, I guess,” he relented.
Close one. Buying time, I cleared my throat. “Firstly, as of twenty one hundred this day, the President of the United States, in conjunction with Congress and the governor of Illinois, has placed the city of Chicago under martial law."
Shocked murmurs even came from the military with that announcement. Except for the Special Forces gang. Ice.
"However,” I recanted, “this ploy is only a political move to legally save our butts if we screw-up big time. Should this deal come off as planned, nobody is the wiser and the media never finds out."
Pensive faces. Hushed conversations. Grudging acceptance.
From the attaché case, I slid a piece of paper into a slot on the podium. “The enemy calls itself the SSD,” I began. The Scion of the Silver Dagger, I thought was a bit too far out for even this veteran group to handle in a single dose.
"Okay, we call’ em Sid,” a DEA agent stated.
I nodded. Give the enemy a silly name and you remove half of their power to frighten. God, I love professionals. “Sid has sworn to destroy Chicago at midnight tonight."
A State Police captain raised her hand.
"Yes, they're serious,” I cut her off. “And competent enough to do it. They have already annihilated a small town in West Virginia just to test their equipment!” What's a lie among friends?
"Any survivors?” a Secret Service agent asked.
I gave them a full eight-second dramatic pause. “No."
The room filled with furrowed brows and grimly set jaws. I could see the thought process in their faces. First blood went to the enemy. The Scion was just elevated to a real threat. But that wasn't enough. Time to drive the stake home.
"In point of fact,” I continued. “Sid is so competent that the military has already invaded Chi with hundreds of plainclothes soldiers, plus, the President of the Untied States has ordered the Pentagon to activate the North America defense grid, placing NORAD and SAC on DefCon Three.” That sobered the lot of them.
A beefy US Marshal whistled. “One step from war."
"Now you're starting to get the picture,” I informed them. “Sid is as dangerous as terrorists come. Smart, ruthless and very well trained. With more equipment than we like to think about."
"Where did they get it?” a Coast Guard commander asked.
"Handled already,” I snapped. Didn't want them trying to ferret out the Scion by backtracking their equipment. They might discover the Bureau!
"How do they plan to destroy Chicago?” an Air Force Intelligence operative asked. “A nuclear device?"
Device. Didn't anybody say bomb anymore? “Unknown,” I replied honestly. “But if they've got one, they will use it. Even if a hundred of their own people are within the main fireball."
"Ah, loonies,” a Chicago street cop noted clinically.
"Fanatics,” I corrected. “Doped on combat drugs which gives them twice normal human strength for this one night, then they die.” How else was I to explain paranormal strength? Say they visited the health spa regularly? Watched Arnold Swartzenegger movies?
The military was remarkably complacent during this, but I did notice a few generals dictating notes into pocket recorders. Futile. Any recording leaving this room would be instantly erased. Even if they had some secret lab invent the drug, we'd only steal it again like we did the last four times.
"Plus, Sid has special body armor that regulation police rounds will not penetrate,” I went on.
A few rueful smiles appeared.
"Nor will those illegal dum-dum rounds, or those 10mm Teflon-coated European bullets do shit to these guys."
The smiles abruptly melted.
I jerked a thumb towards the boxes of ammunition stacked along the wall. “However, over there are a few thousand rounds of Top Secret plasma bullets. They're steel-jacketed, hollow points with a liquid silver metal core. The rounds will easily go through the flak jackets and then explode."
"No shit?” a CIA agent asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No shit,” I informed her steadfast.
The DEA wino chuckled. “Cops with silver bullets. Hi-ho, Tonto! Away..."
Well at least they were thinking Lone Ranger and not werewolves. “How very amusing,” I said, in a voice guaranteed to tell them it was anything but funny.
"What's the timetable?” an FBI agent demanded, making notes in a pocket computer. “How long do we have to prepare before they attack?"
Although wearing a watch, I purposely glanced at the clock on the wall. “Roughly two hours, twenty minutes. They strike at midnight."
Eyes went wide, but only silence greeted my outrageous statement. My respect grew
. In their faces, I could see the crowd weigh options and discard useless procedures. Evacuating the city was a laugh. The Bureau had tried that once when New York was in serious danger and more people died in the exodus than from the enemy.
"And this is the earliest you could inform us?” a National Guard colonel admonished furiously.
This time, I gave them a four-second pause. “Yes."
"This midnight deadline,” one of the CATs asked, “is it a lock?"
"Dead certain."
The US Army Intelligence operative smiled knowingly. “Sir, why don't we let them know that we know and maybe that'll scare ‘em off, or at least slow the bastards down a bit."
"Nice try,” I acknowledged. “But Sid does know that we know and doesn't give a good goddamn."
"They really think they can pull it off,” the Naval Intelligence operative said slowly. Her uniform proclaimed she was in the submarine corp. “Destroy all of Chicago?"
"To the ground,” I reiterated as firmly as possible.
A Green Beret colonel scratched his dimpled chin. “Or from the ground up,” he murmured thoughtfully.
That was an interesting idea.
"Two hours doesn't give us much time,” the CAT midget cop observed, lighting a pipe. “It's going to be a bitch following standard police procedure."
Knowing how cops think, I was prepared for this. “Fuck procedure,” I said bluntly. “Blow your covers, strong-arm suspects, enter houses without warrants, do whatever you have to."
The clock on the wall loudly clicked forward another minute.
"Because we're rapidly running out of time. And there are four million innocent people who have placed their trust and their lives in our hands."
"And when we find Sid?” the bag lady asked, checking the clip in her Glock 10mm automatic pistol. A callused thumb started ejecting rounds as a prelude to reloading.
This was no time to mince words. Not only might it get in the way, but being diplomatic could very seriously lower the high intensity of feeling I desperately needed to instill into this group. Especially that particular team of police officers. When the CATs prowled the city, street crime dropped like a rock.
"If you find them,” I said coldly, “blow their frigging brains out. We neither want, nor need prisoners.” Besides, I wasn't sure we could handle any.
A major in the Air Force Rangers stood up. “I am not thrilled by the concept of armed personnel running amuck in a major city with a government license to kill randomly."
You and me both, brother, so I spoke from the heart. “If you blow away some poor slob by accident, it will be a terrible shame. But accidents happen. However, if anybody, repeat, anybody uses this emergency as an opportunity to take a little personal vengeance they will answer to me and my people, who do not legally exist and have no board of inquiry to explain their actions to."
Bodies relaxed. They now understood that this was not to be a free-for-all, but a deadly serious gambit to save a city from extinction. Step One: save Chicago. Step Two would be to justify our actions to a population still sucking in air.
"Alert,” a Secret Service agent said, touching his ear. “There has just been an attempt to seize control of the USS: Idaho while on a training cruise in Lake Michigan."
"The Idaho?” an NSA field agent snapped. “That's an antique!"
The CIA operative frowned. “But secretly armed with Tomahawk nuclear missiles."
Shocked murmurs engulfed the room.
"You know about that, huh?” the Navy admiral asked.
The master spy gave a grim nod.
"As of five minutes ago, a squadron of Apache helicopters in a joint operation with Air Force Blackbird stealth bombers has sunk the Idaho with concentrated missile fire,” the Secret Service agent continued. “Rescue operations by the Coast Guard are proceeding for the crew."
The Navy SEAL touched his ear. “The warheads are safe. My people have them."
A SWAT captain crossed himself. The CIA took the bottle of whiskey from the DEA wino and downed a healthy shot. I agreed with the sentiment. Dear God, oh dear loving God, the fight for Chicago had already begun hours ahead of schedule.
[Back to Table of Contents]
CHAPTER TWELVE
Two seconds later, the meeting was over, with everybody politely and nicely filing out of the room so that they could start unleashing their hordes of destruction. When I was alone, I touched the shiny new bracelet on my wrist and Jumped to the top floor of the Sears Tower, or whatever they were calling it this week. The building changed it's name more often than a professional gold-digger.
In a lemon scented flash, I appeared inside a pentagram made of yellow marking tape on the carpeted floor. On every side I was banked by sandbag walls bristling with machine guns, arbalists, microwave beamers and other assorted deathdealers.
Feather plume flying, a medieval knight in full armor holding a Glock .45 pistol lowered her weapon. “Hey, its Ed!” she said in relief.
In a chainmail bikini, a wizard with an acid filled waterpistol clicked off a safety. “It only looks like Ed,” he growled. “Password or die!"
"Horatio,” I said fast.
He scowled. “Cerberus."
"Balder."
"Right,” I said finishing the litany of famous guards.
A section of the sandbags moved backwards on hidden rollers and I scooted free. I shook hands with some folk I knew and was given a Kirlian security badge. It visibly glowed with my normally hidden aura. Also had my name and thumbprint.
Following the markers on the floor, I moved through the bustling crowd of humans and supernaturals, nearly getting trampled by Claremont the gorgon and his lovely wife, Boom.
Passing another checkpoint, I was scanned by a team of folk holding a machine that resembled a leaf blower and was finally admitted into the main conference hall of the Tower which was now temporarily converted into our War Room.
Going through the double sets of sliding doors, I stepped into Madhouse Central. Dimly illuminated, the four walls of the big room displayed vector graphics of the different sections of Chicago. Moving colored dots, triangles and other assorted geometric figures indicated police, possible monster attacks and Bureau Teams.
Clustered on the floor were banks of control boards filled with radar screens, thermographs from orbital Keyhole satellites, rainbow swirls of chemical readouts and the dancing light show of Kirlian television. A very recent invention, it had already stopped two transdimensional invasions and gotten four talk show hosts fired and/or jailed.
Far against the back wall, an assortment of staggeringly beautiful women were busy stripping off their street clothes. Two busty women with flmaing redhair were yanking off evening gowns, a buxom Latina was removing a cop uniform, and an Oriental goddess was peeling off a lacy nurse outfit. As each item came away, a hidden arsenal of miniature weapons was exposed taped to the satiny acres of skin.
Quickly, the buck-naked bevy of babes squeezed into patent-leather commando jumpsuits which couldn't possible show more anatomical details if they had been made of thin air. Now dressed for combat, the female warriors yanked open a trunk and pulled out even more tiny weapons, along with clip-feed bazookas, spiked magic wands, chainsaw-garrotes, exploding bolos and vampire boomerangs. These ladies did have a taste for the strange and unusual. They were the ThunderBunnies, the sole Bureau 13 team for the entire state of Texas. Yee to the haw.
The whole staff of a Houston brothel had been violently introduced to the world of the supernatural when a client had turned out to be an incubus, a sex vampire, and these ladies of the evening had to become the impromptu defenders of a sleeping town and save the population from being ... ah, enjoyed to death, by him and his female counterpart, a lesbian succubus. The battle of the sexes raged until dawn, and by sunrise the Bureau had a new team, battered and bruised, but victorious. Now that was a story worth telling and re-telling around the fireplace at yawn AM in the morning. Just send the kids to bed first.
Near them was a somber crowd of men and women in neat black suits, and black hats, the combat rabbis of Team Macabee. Some of the older men had beards and long sideburns with the fringe at the belt. A lot of the women wore yarmulkes, those brimless skullcaps. But tonight each was armed with an Uzi machine pistol and draped with bandoleers of ammunition clips, including the cabalistic mage. Unable to use the weapon because of his magic, the mage carried the Uzi merely to fool the opposition and as a spare for the fighters. Good thinking, actually. The Bureau jokingly referred to them as the American Mossad. Their information gathering system on the supernatural was so efficient that sometimes they informed HQ about a coming problem, instead of vice-versa. Also, although they didn't like it, Macabees would work on the Sabbath. What could be more holy than saving lives?
The sad expressions on the team tonight was directly attributable to their missing telepathic leader who died with the rest of the mentalists when the Hadleyville Hotel detonated.
Off by themselves as always, bandaging wounds and drinking Healing potions was our infamous gang of bad boys, Roger's Rangers. The Boston team broke rules that hadn't even been written yet, but they always got their monsters. However, civilians had this nasty habit of getting dead by standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing the Ranger's did had any effect on this constantly happening. Some agents believed them to be cursed.
"Hey, Rangers!” I called out in passing.
The group pivoted with weapons at the ready, then relaxed when they saw it was only me.
"The Idaho?” I asked.
Wet and bloody, they nodded.
"Good job."
The eight Rangers shrugged.
Next came the Los Angeles based Team Angel. Their leader was a wild haired man named Damon who posed as a science fiction author. His lieutenant was a dashingly handsome computer journalist only known as Aki. Finnish, I think. I waved hi to a beautiful woman in a low cut gypsy gown of a thousand colors. Pat smiled in return and touched her nose. We both grinned at the private joke.
Full Moonster [BUREAU 13 Book Three] Page 13