Carl glanced from the APC to the commander and calmly said, “Three, kill that APC. Twelve, kill that chopper.”
The commander narrowed his eyes.
Before Carl had finished uttering the commands, a swoosh had accompanied a flash overhead and an armor-piercing RPG had slammed into the APC with a tremendous fireball. The deep boom-boom-boom of Merc Twelve’s antiaircraft fifty-cal echoed down into the street as the merc stitched the chopper with explosive-tipped rounds. One round blasted the main rotor clean from the top of the cabin, and the dead aircraft fell right on top of the burning APC.
“Yes,” Carl said, “I was saying.”
The police commander reminded him of the last Triad leader. He held the same look of defiance in his eyes, like he still had some leverage, like he was still in command. This was the kind of man responsible for all the chaos of the past eight months. This was the kind of man responsible for Mark’s death. Carl pulled the trigger.
“Carl!” Agent Palmer said.
The defiant commander howled in pain, and the cop behind him yelped as Carl’s bullet blasted through the front of the commander’s armored vest, then through his thick chest, then through the back of his vest, and embedded itself in the other cop’s arm. Both officers fell to the street, the commander mortally wounded. Two of his fellow officers rushed to attend to him, peeling his vest off to get to his wound.
Carl pointed his assault rifle at the fallen commander and said, “You men should probably step away from him.”
Palmer’s voice sounded cautious. “Carl, get control of yourself! This isn’t Mexico.”
Another officer’s voice boomed, “Hold your fire! Everybody, hold your fire. Please.” The black-armored man stepped forward, removed his Kevlar helmet and anti-flash goggles, and tossed them aside, then stood with his hands spread wide at his sides. Like the fallen commander, he was a big man, thick in body and neck, and wore buzz-cut gray hair. “You’re in control, Mister. What do you want?”
Carl wasn’t about to start negotiating with the man. Besides, he knew control given was not the same as control taken. “Hands up.”
The cop complied.
With that simple gesture of surrender, Carl now had complete control over all the cops. “Remove your body armor,” he said looking across the crowd of officers.
The new commanding officer tented his eyebrows. “You can’t be serious.”
Carl pointed the business end of his PDW at the fallen commander’s head. The new leader looked around and nodded, and he and all his men peeled off their body armor.
“Your uniforms too,” Carl said. “Everyone, down to your undies and T-shirts.”
“Zero, you don’t have time for this.” Palmer’s voice sounded urgent.
The police complied, and inside of a minute, three dozen men stood barefoot, mostly in white undies with a few oddball-colored boxers or briefs mixed in.
“On your knees, hands behind your heads.”
With the surrender complete, Merc Twelve said, “You have a young woman approaching your four o’clock position; threat-negative.”
Merc Three added, “I have her covered.”
Carl turned his head toward the person approaching from his right, slightly behind him. It was a brown-skinned slender man, not a woman. He wore a spaghetti-strap cream-colored blouse, tight white pants, and lots of makeup. The young man didn’t look like a girl. He looked like a boy with a lot of makeup. At the sight of the young man, Carl suddenly knew exactly who was behind the mystery that Tavares had uncovered.
“Speak,” Carl said.
The camera crew and the reporter had taken refuge in a recessed store entrance, and now they eased closer along the sidewalk to Carl’s right.
The young man’s voice was soft and timid. “Malik Tavares was my boyfriend. I know why he was killed. He was doing an investigation and was going to publish an article on the internet.”
Carl nodded, then squatted in front of the cop who had assumed command. He looked into the cop’s blue eyes as the man knelt with his hands clasped behind his head. He looked mid-forties with severe crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and he had a narrow nose.
Seeing the police on their knees in surrender filled Carl with a burning rush of anger he’d been carrying for almost eight years since his first throw-down by cops in downtown Albuquerque. His arrest by FBI and Homeland late last year for a crime he didn’t commit had only served to reignite the flames of anger and humiliation that had never really faded. He felt those emotions course through him again. He felt contempt for the unjust system that protected cops but not citizens.
And the innate fear of armored men in black.
And the pain of getting his ass kicked by a gang of armed bullies with badges.
And the helplessness.
And the loss of dignity he could only pretend to have reclaimed despite his power as the world’s most wanted terrorist.
And the fact that if he ever tried to return to being a normal citizen, any cop in any city could steal his dignity again anytime, without cause.
“Zero…status,” Agent Palmer said.
Carl barely heard the words.
Palmer softened her voice. “Carl, are you with us?”
Her voice brought him back to the present and calmed him as she always did. He glanced around, aware he’d been breathing hard and shallow, almost hissing. Without realizing it, he’d aimed his weapon at the new commander’s face. He moved his finger away from the trigger, gave the man a half-smile, and lowered the barrel of the PDW. A small part of him wanted to kill all the surrendered officers just because he could, just to teach a lesson to the unseen men who had commanded the cops to do their dirty deeds. He wanted to punish these police as substitutes for the ones who had arrested and tortured him and gotten his son killed. He had the power and the weapons to get even, but deep inside, he knew the justice system, not these particular cops, was responsible for destroying his previous life. He stuffed his burst of anger back inside, knowing the officer he faced saw it and realized how close he’d come to dying.
“Look at all that,” Carl said.
The cop glanced to his side.
Three dozen sets of body armor, helmets, boots, and black fatigues made a huge pile, and the pile of weaponry was just as large. Each cop’s utility belt held a radio, two metal handcuffs, plastic zip-cuffs, a Taser, a handgun, multiple reload magazines, and pepper spray. The pile also held dozens of automatic and semiautomatic rifles, Glock handguns, acrylic riot shields, shotguns, and carbon-composite batons.
Carl said, “Tell me why you need all that military hardware if you’re not going to war? Why do you need all that for peaceful protesters?”
“You are not peaceful, nor are you protesting.”
“Nice try,” Carl said. “But you didn’t know I was coming to the party. You brought all those weapons to kill unarmed civilians. Why?”
The cop stared silently at Carl, but his eyes flinched, betraying his real fear.
Carl leaned over the cop as he said, “Here, hold this live grenade.” He pushed the device into one of the man’s fists behind his head. “Be careful, though, because my guy on the roof has you in his sight. If any of your people do anything foolish, he’ll shoot you and you’ll drop the grenade and all your people will die.”
His voice low and rumbling, the cop said, “My people need medical attention. How many more have to die before you’re satisfied?”
The man was well trained, but Carl could tell this particular policeman had never seen death up close. He’d only mixed it up with untrained street thugs or domestic bullies where the odds were always ten-to-one or twenty-to-one in favor of the police. He’d never been challenged in a combat situation completely out of his control by someone who could actually kill him.
“You’re missing the point, Officer. This moment right here,” Carl nodded. “The emotions you’re feeling right now…this is why I became a terrorist. This is how your unarmed victims feel when you
terrorize them. And make no mistake, you’re just as much of a terrorist as I am. Except you’re worse than me. You have the law on your side. You say you protect and serve the community, but you really protect and serve the politicians that control you. And you protect and serve the corporations that control the politicians. They give you orders because it fits their agenda, and you don’t care who gets hurt along the way because you don’t have to answer to anyone for your crimes.”
Palmer said, “You have incoming, thirty seconds. Three, Twelve, E-and-E, right now. Get out of there, Carl!”
E and E meant Escape and Evade, but Carl continued addressing the cop. “Right now, you’re feeling a mixture of humiliation, embarrassment, and fear of imminent death, but tonight and tomorrow and for the next ten years, you’ll nurse this anger and this feeling of helplessness like a bad, unending hangover because you’ve been humiliated on national TV. Your dignity has been taken, there’s no recourse to help you get it back, and you can’t punish the ones who’ve done this to you. That’s how your victims feel every day, for years after you beat the crap out of them.”
Carl looked around at the defeated troops. “The weak ones will quit the police force out of fear. You’re strong, though. You’ll hold your anger and fear inside for months or years, pretending you’ve gotten over it. But you never will. You’ll wake up at night screaming and sweating. You’ll break down crying in anger and frustration. Maybe you’ll lose control and beat your wife or kids because you can’t hurt me.” Carl grunted. “Your shrink will call it PTSD and give you some pills.”
Carl stood and drank in the man’s fear and anger. “Or maybe you’re not man enough to suck it up. Maybe you want to rush me and take a bullet—take the easy way out so you don’t have to suffer the humiliation.”
The man opened his mouth to speak, but no words emerged, so Carl ended with, “Welcome to my world. This is my life every day. This is the life of every innocent black, brown, and red man ever assaulted by bullies with a badge.”
It occurred to him that the first two times FBI and police assaulted him—eight years ago and eight months ago—they’d seemed like faceless, larger-than-life men in black armor with all their weapons. Now, looking at them in their white undies, they looked normal. They looked vulnerable just like their victims.
Carl took the gay man by the arm and walked away from the officer. He stopped by the camera crew and pointed at the hostage police, saying, “These are the men that murdered a helpless man, a woman with a camera, and the coffee server who witnessed their illegal deeds. These cops dress in black armor and use military weapons to intimidate citizens. When they strike, they are merely unidentifiable ghosts in black fatigues and black sunglasses, so no one knows who they are. But under that black armor, they’re flesh and blood just like we are. They bleed and they die just like we do. Now you know who they are. You can see their faces. You know their names. And…” Carl paused a beat for effect, “…they know they can be hurt. They know they can’t get away with police brutality anymore. And before the mayor decides to escalate against me, he might want to call the White House and see how that worked out for the FBI and Homeland Security last year.”
He just added that last part as the verbal equivalent of movie special effects because everyone on the planet knew about his war with the US government before he found the kidnapped girl. And it wasn’t strictly those officers who had starred in the now-viral coffee shop video, but Carl was using the media for his own disinformation campaign, same as the government did. Viewers would believe what they saw, whether or not what they saw was the actual truth.
Carl turned his attention to the young fem-man. “You’re with me.” He walked backward toward the shot-up mailing store but kept his assault rifle up and ready. “Stay behind me.”
Pausing at the door, Carl looked to his left and right. The street was a war zone. Raging flames rose from the shell of the APC and the crumpled helicopter on top of it. The disorganized gaggle of cops on their knees looked utterly defeated. The massive pile of body armor and weapons framed the defeat. The wounded moaned and the dead still bled. Red darkened the street. To his right, hundreds of protestors stood in shock and complete silence. They watched him, a figure clad in black armor even more scary than that of the cops, and he imagined every single one of them knew who he was. He wondered if they realized he’d just saved many of them from injury or death.
The camera crew remained focused on him as though they expected him to start shooting again, and the reporter stammered to say something meaningful for the watching world. He gazed at the camera, at the world, and felt absolutely nothing—no remorse, no fear. It was always that way for him after combat. Other people died. He didn’t.
Chapter 15
Carl led the fem-boy through the mail store. “So, what’s your name?”
“Chrissy,” the young man replied. He had short black hair in a girly perm style that was plastered flat against his head. He had dark brown skin and his face had hard features, though it was clear to Carl he used a lot of makeup to make himself look soft and gentle. “Well, it’s Christopher, really, but…” The young man talked through the entire brief trip to the townhouse op center.
Carl saw through his pretense. The man was a killer, an assassin, fem or not. He worked for Rainman.
Carl led the way up the steps to the brownstone porch and took a final look around. He felt invincible, like a medieval knight in black armor. Curiously, all the protective armor plates he wore didn’t make a sound. He moved in almost complete silence. The door was unlocked, so Carl twisted the knob and pushed the door open, then moved them both inside quickly.
He hollered inside. “Wizard, pack it up. We gotta go!”
Agent Palmer’s voice said, “I’ve already—”
Carl said, “And Chrissy, secure that door, please.”
Chrissy turned and reached for the deadbolt.
Carl pivoted and kicked him in the side of the head with as much strength as he could muster. Almost.
Had he connected, the boy would have been out like a light, but he must have expected the attack, and all that heavy hard armor slowed Carl. The fem-man got a shoulder up that deflected most of the power behind Carl’s kick.
Still, Chrissy squealed like a girl when he bounced against the wall. “Ow! Motherfucker!”
It was then Carl realized his tactical error. One of the best advantages of his lightweight assault rifle was the ability to maneuver with it in enclosed combat zones like narrow hallways when the stock was folded in. But he’d neglected to fold the stock. Now he was standing too close to the wall and had wasted a precious half-second clearing the weapon. By the time he aimed it, Chrissy had recovered.
The boy kicked out so fast, Carl barely saw him move. The ex-Delta Force killer he’d fought eight months earlier was fast and strong, but this kid moved in a blur. His open-toe shoe kicked the weapon out of Carl’s grip, and then the boy kicked him five more times in the space of a mere two seconds.
Had he not been wearing body armor, Carl would have had a string of broken bones up and down the left side of his body. The last kick really rocked his world, and he heard the impact echo inside his skull as the top of Chrissy’s foot rammed his helmet into the wall.
Then the assassin went for the PDW.
Carl kicked the weapon down the hall and tried to stay in tight proximity with the killer. The first three or four minutes were basically a free-for-all wrestling match between the two. The narrow hallway was barely three feet wide, so Carl quickly learned that if he stayed in the middle of the hallway, his assassin couldn’t use his powerful roundhouse and front snap kicks. Still, the young man was extremely capable with his elbows, feet, and knees, and had Carl not been wearing his body armor, he would have been dead already several times over from the assassin’s strikes.
Even though he had maybe fifty pounds on the slender man, the killer was fast, nimble, and surprisingly strong. He used Carl’s helmet as a weapon, grabbing i
t from behind and trying to use it to strangle Carl. The assassin got behind him and literally rode on his back, legs locked around his torso. Carl rammed them both backward against the wall, but the killer succeeded in twisting the helmet almost off his head, essentially tightening the noose. Unable to breathe, Carl had no choice but to yank the Velcro strap to release the helmet. Then the killer snatched the Kevlar helmet from Carl and literally beat him over the head with it multiple times before Carl could wrestle it away.
Most of the assassin’s strikes bounced harmlessly off Carl’s armored forearm, but the assassin still landed a couple of very painful blows. His combo fist-elbow punch took its toll on Carl—he’d punch with his fist, and instead of pulling back to punch again, he’d follow through with an elbow strike. Each time, Carl had virtually no warning. The boy was just too fast. He kept landing blow after blow against Carl’s darting head until he got lucky.
Carl heard his nose bones crack and immediately felt the warm, sticky flow of blood. He launched a flurry of counterstrikes in return, but wrapped together like they were, he couldn’t get sufficient leverage to land punches hard enough to hurt the assassin.
Carl released him and rolled to his feet. He had the man trapped in the narrow hallway near the door, so the killer didn’t have any maneuvering room. Blood flowing freely from his busted nose, Carl pulled his combat knife and advanced slowly. The weapon had knuckle grips like brass knuckles so he wouldn’t have to worry about dropping it. He held it blade-down in front of him like he’d been taught and held his left arm in front of his head as a guard against the six-inch stiletto the assassin had magically produced from somewhere on his body. The plates of his armor would easily deflect all but a lucky stab into one of the joints, and he could see in his opponent’s eyes that the young man knew this also.
Chrissy wasn’t afraid. His eyes were wide with excitement, and he was smiling. He enjoyed the battle.
Carl knew then the killer had been in life-and-death conflicts many times, and the fact that the young man was there told Carl he’d been victorious in all of his previous confrontations. One thing was certain to Carl. Only one of them would leave the op center alive. The assassin had the advantage in youth and skill, but he wasn’t wearing body armor, and Carl, though older, wasn’t without training.
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