Hostiles

by Ethan Johnson

  “We’ve got action up on three. Farris, back me up!” The shadow whisked away. Diane heard heavy footsteps pounding in the direction of the building’s side entrance. The SUV’s engine fired, and the vehicle drove urgently away. Diane stayed hidden in the back seat until she was certain the SUV was clear of the responding officers.

  Diane sat upright and ran her fingers through her hair. She looked over her shoulder and didn’t see any police cruisers following her. She clutched her rifle for reassurance as the sleek black SUV carried her off into the dazzling lights of downtown.

  The SUV pulled into a brightly lit garage bay in the service department of an ARCTURUS car dealership. It rolled slowly onto a hydraulic lift, then shifted out of gear and killed its engine. Diane heard a loud clunk followed by a hissing sound. The vehicle rocked slightly as the lift began to carry it to its destination. To Diane’s surprise, the SUV wasn’t rising. It sank through a thick band of concrete and touched down in a dimly lit corridor. The SUV’s engine fired once more, and the vehicle drove steadily through a long tunnel to a large enclosure. The SUV turned itself off and the rear passenger door opened automatically. Diane took her cue to exit the vehicle, still clutching her spent rifle.

  The Masked Man stepped forward from the shadows, flanked by two agents in full body armor and impenetrable helmets, each bearing attack rifles. Diane felt a chill at the sight of them. One agent stepped forward on the Masked Man’s signal and pointed his rifle at Diane’s exposed head. The Masked Man wiggled his gloved fingers at her. “You have no further use for your rifle this evening. Give it to me,” he said coldly.

  Diane clutched her rifle tighter and shook her head. “It needs to be cleaned and oiled. I’ll take care of it.”

  The Masked Man gestured to the second agent, who trained his rifle’s laser sight on her forehead. “This is not negotiable. Do as you are told.”

  Diane huffed and thrusted the rifle at him. “Not a scratch on it, or I swear—”

  The Masked Man calmly handed the rifle to a third agent who stepped forward to take it from him. The Masked Man turned to Diane and struck her sharply across the face with the back of his left hand. Pain screamed through her jaw as her head snapped back from the blow. She managed to remain upright and rubbed her cheek. “—The hell, man?”

  “Once more, you have been given a simple assignment, and once more, you disappoint me,” he replied. “Perhaps you are not the efficient killer we thought you were. Perhaps our investments should be made elsewhere.”

  Diane felt her ears redden. Fury rose from deep within her. She fought to keep it in check, especially with two attack rifles aimed at her head. She gritted her teeth and jutted her chin at the Masked Man defiantly. “Rohrbach is dead. One shot, no witnesses, like you asked. How in the name of holy hell can you say I wasn’t—” She choked back the venom she wanted so desperately to spew in that moment. She straightened her posture and gave him a thin smile. “The target was eliminated, sir. Mission success: total.”

  The Masked Man waved off his agents. They lowered their rifles and stepped backward into the shadows. The Masked Man reached out his right arm and rested his gloved hand on Diane’s armored shoulder. His tone softened. “Your generous self-assessment, while understandably your view, falls short of reality. Yes, the target was eliminated, and for that, we are grateful. But the risks you took fell well outside of acceptable parameters. Exposure. Discovery. Engagement. All of these should be anathemas to you, Miss Pembrook, as they are to any assassin. We require certain assurances that such mistakes will not be repeated.”

  Diane rubbed her sore cheek and glared at him. Engagement? Since when did I engage with… Her thoughts were interrupted by the memory of the police officer that approached her getaway vehicle. Oh, she thought. Right. Him.

  Diane nodded. “I will not fail you again, sir.”

  The Masked Man lifted his hand and brushed her left cheek tenderly. Diane got the creeps at his touch but tolerated it for fear of what he might do if she pulled away. “You will fail me again, Miss Pembrook. But you will do it differently. And in so doing, you will learn and become the asset we require you to be. You are released for the evening. You will be collected at 1800 hours tomorrow and given a new assignment. That is all.”

  Diane’s eyes widened. She felt a rush of excitement at the prospect of being free to visit Lyssa, but visiting hours ended at 10:00 P.M. and she wasn’t certain if it was too late to stop in. She needed time away from the Masked Man and his secret operations unit. “Respectfully, sir, I have a personal matter I need to take care of. Can we make it 2100 hours?”

  “We cannot, Miss Pembrook. I remind you that you’re on our schedule, as agreed.”

  “But my—” She thought better than to mention her girlfriend. The Masked Man seemed indifferent to Lyssa but she didn’t want to make any waves. “1900 hours, then. I just need a little time.”

  “Request denied. Prepare for extraction at 1745 hours tomorrow. Dismissed.” The Masked Man disappeared through a door in the darkness. A pair of technicians wearing white lab coats approached Diane from behind and escorted her out of the enclosure.

  “This way for de-install,” said one of the men.

  “I know the drill,” Diane said. The drill was threatening to become a grind, she thought darkly.

  Once she was freed from her armor and her commitment to the Masked Man for the night, Diane directed the autonomous vehicle tasked with shuttling her home to instead take her to Trauma One. The navigation system recalibrated itself and set a course for the hospital. Diane peeked at her comm unit. She was surprised the time was only 9:24 P.M. Depending on how quickly the vehicle took her to Trauma One, she believed she had an actual shot at spending time alone with Lyssa.

  Diane rubbed her wrist absent-mindedly as the city streaked past her window. She couldn’t believe the ordeal the Masked Man and his henchmen had put her through. She had been tightly bound, covered with a thick hood, and trapped in a trunk with no means of escape. In the moment, she was certain Sapphire was responsible. Having it be a lesson in situational awareness from the Masked Man wasn’t an improvement, in her view. If anything, Sapphire deciding to eliminate her made sense. Sapphire was ruthless when it suited her, Diane noted.

  Her face contorted into a mask of annoyance and deep contemplation. Doubts began to nag at her. What if Sapphire had told the Masked Man to abduct her, then called off whatever she was planning to do? Maybe it was really a message from Sapphire. Diane figured the best solution was to eliminate Sapphire. She had just killed Francis Rohrbach with a single cartridge. One shot is all it would take to rid the world of Sapphire.

  She just needed her rifle back.

  The autonomous vehicle stopped abruptly in front of the Trauma One main entrance. Diane exited the vehicle and grabbed her comm unit before slamming the door shut behind her. She hurried into the lobby and proceeded directly to the information desk. A clerk looked up from a glowing tablet. “Yes, miss?”

  “Lys—I mean, Dorcas Delaney? Are visiting hours still open?”

  The clerk adjusted her reading glasses and tapped at her tablet a few times. She looked up earnestly and said, “Are you immediate family?”

  Diane winced. She felt like she should be, but as Lyssa’s unwelcome girlfriend in the eyes of Lyssa’s parents, she didn’t risk the lie. “No, I’m her… best friend. Five minutes just to see if she’s okay?”

  The clerk frowned and tapped at the screen two more times. The screen dimmed momentarily, then a red alert message popped up in the center of the screen. Diane knew what it said before the clerk spun the tablet around to show her. “Immediate family only. Her maximum number of visitors is already met. We can’t make exceptions for anyone else.”

  Diane sighed and nodded. “I understand. Rules are rules.”

  The clerk gestured to the waiting area. “You’re welcome to have a seat in case something changes in the next twenty minutes.”

  Diane shook her head and headed fo
r the exit. Nothing would ever change, not if the Delaneys had anything to say about it, she thought bitterly. She wished she could send up another box of poisoned chocolates with their names on it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The following morning, Diane sat with Hathaway in briefing room 1A. She looked at an empty chair that was dedicated to Officer Banks at the front of the room. Some of his fellow officers stopped beside it and muttered prayers or other words of remembrance before taking their seats. Sergeant Addison opened the briefing by acknowledging the empty chair with a wan smile.

  “Officer Danny Banks. Killed in the line of duty. May the rotten sons of bitches who took him down get the devil’s hoof up their asses for all eternity.”

  “Hear hear,” said a voice from the back of the room.

  Diane gave Hathaway a sidelong glance. She couldn’t process the speed and accuracy of his shooting. His nickname was Lightning, after all, but still, she felt pangs of jealousy that he had all but wiped the gang that killed Banks from the face of the earth before she could take her first shot. She tried to push down her dark thoughts that he would get special recognition since he was a man. The other male officers were quick to pump each other up, she noticed. They weren’t as vocal about the women. Well, not about their job performance, anyway, she thought, rolling her eyes.

  Sergeant Addison shuffled his papers and cleared his throat. “Anyway, moving on. It’s pretty much the same old, same old out there today. Keep your eyes open and your guns close. We’ve got another academy starting soon which will help us fill in some, uh, gaps…” He gave the empty chair an awkward nod. “But we’ve got to keep our numbers up to make a lick of difference around here. Don’t do anything stupid is what I’m saying, you get me?”

  Hathaway coughed and nodded. Sergeant Addison caught sight of him and looked away. Diane wondered if something had happened between the two of them. Hathaway didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss.

  “Speaking of stupid things, I uh, have to let you all know that Sergeant Parcells has been relieved of active duty pending administrative review. Lieutenant Kenner wants me to tell all of you to keep your noses clean and out of anything that doesn’t pass the smell test. If you have any questions or concerns about anything you see happening here at Panther, you report it to your commanding officer, or right to me, got it? We can take care of business around here without any help from outside.”

  Diane rubbed the tip of her nose and studied her fingers. She didn’t see any dirt or smudges. What was it with clean noses all the sudden?

  Hathaway nudged Diane. He jerked his head at a cluster of officers giving him dirty looks over their shoulders. Gabe was one of them. Diane glared at him, and Gabe immediately snapped his attention back to Sergeant Addison.

  Diane shook her head. Gabe. Why was he still here? He quit the academy, back when the old precinct was trying to pull itself together in the aftermath of Arbor Day. Back when they’d give anybody a gun and a badge to make it seem like the cops were still on the job, what cops there were, anyway. Diane never fully grasped how many police and emergency services people died that day or left their posts for other reasons. She’d pick up stories here and there about officers who died heroically or deserted like cowards, but most of them were just names. And then there was Gabe.

  Gabe didn’t just leave the academy, she recalled darkly; he left her. After risking everything to come pick her up when Arbor Day was happening only to be carjacked on the turnpike, he decided one day to take the lamest opportunity to bail out. She remembered Griggs getting on someone’s nerves—she couldn’t remember his name and wondered if she ever knew it—and that guy storming out. Gabe was right behind him. “Come on, Diana,” his voice echoed in her mind.

  No, Gabe, she thought in response. I fought the entire Stallions gang to save Milton and Pattinson—she shook her head—no, his name was, not that, but close. He was off the force. PTSD, Milton said. Milton was killed in action by Diane’s father. That was high on the list of things she would never forgive him for.

  Either of them.

  Something clicked in Diane’s mind. Back when she was new in town and didn’t know the streets as well as she did now, she had to take Gabe at his word. He claimed the turnpike didn’t have any exits until the Meadowlands. Bull, she said under her breath. There were at least five. Why did he exit there and not sooner, if the turnpike was supposedly so jam-packed during the Arbor Day attacks? In a flash, it hit her.

  He chickened out.

  Diane put her hands to her cheeks and slumped in her chair. “How could I be so stupid?”

  Hathaway nudged her. “You okay, Pembrook? You don’t look so hot.”

  She slid her fingers slowly down her cheeks and took a slow, deep breath. She caught sight of the back of Gabe’s head. He was no hero, she thought. He wasn’t even her boyfriend. Not really. He was just some guy she met on the train to Newark she kissed once. What incentive did he have to rescue her from anything? He probably saw one too many buildings explode and decided she wasn’t worth risking his life for. It was just his tough luck he got carjacked after he got off the turnpike.

  Diane wasn’t sure she believed that anymore either. Sergeant Addison dismissed everyone with his usual sendoff: “Not another Arbor.” Diane snapped out of her fog and filed out of the room, pausing to touch the photo of the old precinct building that hung beside the door.

  “For Milton,” she said.

  Diane rode in silence with Hathaway for a mile or two. She gave him a sidelong glance and caught him giving her a concerned look before playing it off as checking the side mirror before changing lanes. Diane smiled and nodded. “I’m sorry, Hathaway. Just sorting out some personal crap.”

  “Understood and acknowledged, Pembrook, but I’m trusting you to be watching out for whatever the city decides to throw at us today. Do you have your head in the game?”

  Diane nodded. “Yeah, I’m on the job. No threats so far. It’s early yet. Give the thignoid dealers time to finish their coffee.”

  Hathaway chuckled. “Is that how it is? Thignoid dealers have shipments to send out and people to shake down, but all of that can wait until they’ve finished their coffee? That sounds… civilized, actually.” He reached down and took a quick swig from his insulated travel mug.

  “Not wrong, looks like,” Diane said. She scanned the street for threats, then loosened up a little. “Hey, so this ADFT or whatever. Guess Sergeant Addison isn’t a big fan.”

  “ACTF. And, no, apparently not.”

  “I’ve never heard of it. Does it stand for something? Or is it like ‘FBI’?”

  Hathaway gave her a strange look and snorted. “’FBI’ stands for something.”

  Diane wasn’t sure how to react. She had only ever heard the FBI referred to as ‘the FBI’. The InTelNet never called them anything else. Any time they raided a building or arrested somebody, they wore jackets like the ACTF did that said FBI in big white letters. “Like what?”

  “Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he said, and gave her another wary glance.

  Diane rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Do people sometimes call them ‘the Feds’?”

  “Sure, why?”

  Diane thought back to her father. Once, when she was much younger, she waved to three black vehicles driving slowly through the neighborhood. “Getcher ass away from that window, Diana, you’ll bring the Feds!” He decked her across the top of her head and pulled the curtains closed. The next day he rubbed a bar of soap against all the windows and made her crawl everywhere until he finished. A week later they moved to another apartment.

  She never understood why. Now she knew.

  Diane sank slightly in her seat and stared out the side window. “Oh,” she said quietly. “Just curious.”

  After responding to a suspicious vehicle report that turned out to be a new tenant with overly vigilant neighbors, Diane and Hathaway resumed their patrol. Diane settled into her seat and huffed. She hoped to see some action, not settle
petty arguments. She patted her sidearm. There was always tonight for action, she mused, but she was up for more.

  Hathaway seemed distracted. He would inhale to signal the start of a conversation but exhale sharply and drum his fingers on the steering wheel, as if practicing his lines in his head. Diane rolled her eyes and wished he would just say something, no matter how stupid, just to break the uncomfortable silence that grew between them. After a few more breaths he finally delivered his first lines. “I, uh, we aren’t the bad guys, Diane.”

  Diane gave him a sharp glance. “I never said we were, Noah.” She patted her badge to underscore that point.

  “I mean, the ACTF. I’m not sure what you’ve heard, but we’re not here to make any waves. In fact, we’re here to make sure everything runs smoothly.”

  “Good to know,” she said.

  Hathaway scrunched up his face and sighed. “Come on, Pembrook, we’re partners now. We’ve got to be honest with each other if we’re going into battle together. I saw the looks the guys were giving me this morning. The sergeant didn’t make it a big secret what he thought about Sergeant Parcells being put up for administrative review, either. This is how it starts. It never ends well. Spoiler alert.”

  Diane frowned at this. “You’re a spoiler?”

  “No, I mean, this is just my experience. Like back at Buffalo. The ranks stunk to the high heavens until the ACTF came in there and cleaned house. I went from contemplating suicide after seeing how dirty the brass was, to getting a new lease on life when the ACTF recruited me to collect the evidence they needed to root out the bad apples.”

  “Suicide? Really?” Diane had never considered this, no matter what she faced. Her opinion of Hathaway began to diminish at the thought of him taking the cowardly way out rather than facing his problems head-on. Even at her lowest point in solitary confinement, she always clung to the goal of persevering. If Hathaway wasn’t half as tough as her, she thought darkly, he was no better than Gabe, and she had no further use for him.