“Alexandra Bourque was a friend,” he said, his voice soft again, mellowed by his tears. “She was a comrade I was proud to serve and fight alongside, and rewarded to command.
“But above all else, she was a cop. A protector. A guardian of our people, sworn to serve and protect.
“Do not forget her choice,” he begged them. “She is no longer with us, and I mourn that, but I know that she is pleased, wherever she has gone. Alexandra made a difference. None of us can ask for more than that.
“Thank you,” he said finally, softly. He turned to face the coffin—a closed coffin, just in case. Her wounds, and the injuries inflicted as they tried to save her, were coverable but still ugly. It was safer this way.
Firmly and slowly, Michael O’Brien gave Alexandra Bourque one last pristine salute.
#
While ONSET personnel mostly ate in their apartments or their dorm common rooms, today many of them gathered in a mess hall. ONSET Nine had occupied an entire table, and ONSET Thirteen, David’s new team, took over the next one.
Bourque had once served on Thirteen, though only McDermott and Pell had known her. The rest of the team had cycled through since then. Between casualties and transfers, ONSET units often changed up rapidly.
It was a silent, somber gathering. While no more complete teams were present, a scattering of agents and admin personnel who’d worked closely with Alexandra Bourque were gathered in the Spartan hall. The chairs were uncomfortable, the tables cheap and quickly empty of food, but they stayed regardless.
No one was sure what they were holding vigil for, least of all David, who sat with McDermott at the end of ONSET Thirteen’s table. But they held the vigil nonetheless, and he, unlike the others, knew that they were actually waiting for something. No Sight would tell him what, though.
It was almost ten o’clock at night when the answer came. The door to the mess hall swung open and Major Warner stepped in. She was wearing a rumpled gray skirted suit and looked like she’d been traveling. In both hands she held a black briefcase, and two men in black civilian suits followed her through the door.
The gathered men and women eyed her carefully. Those who had noticed—like David—had been surprised that the Major had missed Alexandra’s funeral.
“They told me you would all be here,” she said quietly, and even without volume, her voice carried through the silent hall.
“I am sorry I missed Alexandra’s funeral,” she continued. “I wish with all my heart I could have been, but even that must give way before the wishes of the President of the United States.”
The President? David wondered what was going on, and given the rustling around him, he didn’t think he was alone.
“I, and Colonel Ardent, have spent most of the last two days closeted with either the Committee of Thirteen or the President,” Warner told them in explanation of her absence. “We were reviewing with them the evidence we extracted from the Church of the Black Sun’s lodge.”
The sound that ran through the crowd of mourners was not questioning this time. It was hungry, and David felt that hunger in himself. The Church had killed one of their own—several, actually, but there was more distance from the two Anti-Paranormal men who’d died than there was with Alexandra.
“It was a gold mine, people,” she told them quietly. “Financial records, membership lists, everything we needed to know exactly where they were, who they were and what they were doing.
“We took all of that and the footage of the demon-summoning to the President,” she continued. “Colonel Ardent pressed for the Committee to declare them a demon cult, removing religious protections.”
They can do that? David questioned in amazement. It was one hell of a violation of civil rights, but given the circumstances, he could understand that.
“The Committee felt that the situation was more dire than that, based off of OSPI’s recommendations, and took it to the President himself.”
Scuttlebutt that David had heard suggested that the President had major issues with Omicron’s very existence and found the whole affair highly uncomfortable. He couldn’t have been happy about being dragged into this.
“As of an hour ago, the President issued, and the Committee confirmed for Congress, Executive Order Omicron Ninety-One,” Warner told them grimly, removing a sheet of paper from her briefcase.
“As per the terms of this Order, the so-called Church of the Black Sun is now classified as both a demon cult and a terrorist organization,” she read from the paper. “As such, it is a threat to the national security of the United States and the President has ordered extraordinary measures.
“All religious protections awarded to the Church have been revoked,” she continued to read, her voice formal. “All rights of religious freedom related to the Church have been revoked. All financial and physical assets of the Church are to be frozen and confiscated.
“All known members of the Church of the Black Sun are temporarily stripped of the following civil rights: the right to assembly, the right to free speech, the right against self-incrimination, the right to habeas corpus and the right to freedom of religion.” Warner’s reading of the list continued into dead silence, each suspended right hitting the silent air like a falling tombstone.
“Per this order, all known members of the Church of the Black Sun are to be detained immediately. Interrogations under truth magic will determine the innocent and the guilty.
“These orders of seizure and detainment will be carried out by the Office of the National Supernatural Enforcement Teams and the Office of Supernatural Policing and Investigation as soon as reasonably possible.”
Warner lowered the paper and looked at all of them. David was frozen in shock, and he doubted he was the only one. They had that kind of authority? Morgen had filled them in on some of the information they’d learned about the Church. It was a nationwide organization, with over a hundred chapter houses and other properties. They’d just been ordered to arrest over five thousand people—and many of the rights those people assumed they possessed had just been stripped away.
Part of him insisted that this was wrong, but the rest accepted that this was necessary. These people had already summoned one demon. If they weren’t stopped, who knew what they could unleash upon America? Upon the world?
“The order is signed by the President himself, and counter-signed by all three Justices of the Omicron Court,” Warner said softly, as if she knew what David was thinking. He half-expected that she suspected—too many people in the room would be thinking the same thing. “It is fully legal, and we will carry out these orders as soon as possible.
“An operations plan is being prepared by OSPI, and this operation will almost certainly require the combined strength of our ONSET teams and OSPI’s personnel,” she continued. “You will all be briefed on your individual team roles in the morning. This will be the largest operation the Omicron branch of the US Government has undertaken since the Provisional Force took on the Montana Incursion.
“This threat to the safety of our people will not be tolerated. Get some rest, people,” she ordered. “Tomorrow, you’ll need it.”
Chapter 38
The morning came with a renewed sense of purpose. David dressed simply, knowing that he’d be changing into combat gear soon enough, and descended down to ONSET Thirteen’s common room.
He wasn’t the last one down, but Stone and Hellet were already there. Hellet was reading a ridiculously thick hardcover book at the circle of tables, and Stone was busy watching television on the couch. Both of them looked up as David entered. Hellet bookmarked her page and lowered her book, but Stone gave an oddly pitched grunt and turned back to the television.
The ex-teacher gestured for David to join her, and he did so gladly, taking the chance to look at the book. It was some sort of encyclopedia of western European mythology.
“Some light reading for the morning?” he asked as he pulled a chair out and joined her at the table.
“I lik
e to research the myths from around the world,” she replied, patting the book affectionately. “Every so often, I compare it to the supernatural creatures and people we have encountered and see how accurate the myth was.”
“And?” he queried. He’d heard the rough rundown on a few of the myths—mainly werewolves and vampires—compared to reality, but he hadn’t really looked too much at it himself.
“Some of them are very accurate,” she replied. “Werewolves, for example. An untrained werewolf only shifts under the moon, silver hurts them, et cetera, et cetera. Others, like vampires, are dangerous to believe. Crosses and stakes don’t bother vampires much, and believing that they will can get you killed.”
David nodded, remembering his reading. Vampires were vulnerable to sunlight, but it was more painfully crippling than fatal. Silver was the best weapon against them, like against most supernaturals. Staking one through the heart might kill it, but it was no magic bullet.
“Then we have the grab bag the ‘scientists’ like to call Empowered, like yourself,” she continued. “You, to all intents and purposes, are the walking vision of a Greek hero or a modern four-color superhero. Others in the category, like Pell or Stone over there, are harder to identify.”
“What about Commander McDermott?” David asked. He figured that was a safe way to find out just what a Selkie really was. All he knew was that they were seal shapeshifters.
“Lorne is a Selkie,” Hellet said aloud, thoughtfully. “They’re an odd bunch, both in myth and reality. Myth talks about their sealskin, required for them to transform. Steal it away, and they’re locked in human form.
“In practice, that’s not as good an idea as you might think,” she said dryly. “Some are relatively helpless in that form, but it depends on the kind of seal. Lorne is a leopard seal Selkie—think several hundred pounds of solid-muscle fury. Even in human form, he is a powerfully strong man, and, like most shapeshifters, he regenerates almost any injury.”
David considered that, noting as Pell and Lynch came down the stairs. Pell joined David and Hellet with a nod to them both, while Lynch nodded in the pair’s general direction and joined Stone on the couches before the TV.
“The sealskin part of the myth isn’t true,” Hellet continued, and then glanced over at Pell. “I’m giving David a lecture on comparative myth and reality on Selkies,” she told him. “Feel free to be bored.”
The dwarfish man grinned. “Nah, I’m always good to listen to someone talk about the boss,” he told them.
“Like I said,” she said in response, “the sealskin part of the myth isn’t entirely true. The Commander doesn’t keep an actual sealskin under his uniform or anything so dramatic. However, all Selkies apparently have some token required for them to complete the change.”
“And absolutely none of us like having the fact, or the nature of said token, advertised,” a dry voice interjected. David looked up to find McDermott standing at the entrance to the dormitory, only about five feet from where they were sitting.
The three at the tables scrambled to stand and salute; but the Commander waved them back down to their seats about halfway up.
“Of course,” he continued in the same dry voice, “none of you know what my token is. So, I’m probably safe.” And he winked. David relaxed slightly as the Selkie smiled at his team.
“Are we all here?” he asked, and David glanced around the room. As if conjured by the question, Walsh, the last member of the team, appeared at the top of the stairs.
“All right,” McDermott continued. He crossed to the flatscreen set into the wall and opened the computer console. “Sorry, Stone, I’m taking over the screen,” he told the Empowered.
“Go for it, sir,” the hulking man said quietly, pushing his entire couch slightly back so the rest of the team could gather around.
The television screen faded, replaced by the lightning-crossed O and police badge of the Omicron Branch, and the subtitle CLASSIFIED: TOP SECRET OMICRON-DELTA.
McDermott entered a code into the keyboard, and the seal faded to background as a different title blazed onto the screen: Operation Sun Net.
“This is the operation plan we got out of OSPI’s analysis department last night,” the team Commander told his people. “I’ve looked at the numbers, and it’s a scarily large number of our people.
“All in all, we are committing twenty ONSET Strike Teams and almost every OSPI Tactical Team. That’s just over a hundred supernaturals with the ONSET teams and just under two thousand OSPI Tactical Police. Call it twenty-one hundred sets of boots on the ground.”
“That’s a lot of people, boss,” Lynch interjected. “What the hell do they think we need that for? And if we’re throwing that many folks around, where’s Stutter? Those boys aren’t up to our level, but they’re still a full platoon of supernaturals!”
The numbers, David realized looking at the map, left the entire Omicron branch drastically short of people to do anything else. With that much of ONSET and basically every tactical team OSPI had tied up, it left the country very vulnerable. And Lynch’s point about SSTTR rang true as well. They were the ones who’d grabbed Ekhmez at the end, why weren’t they involved in this?
“The Stutter team,” their Commander told them, “was already tied up in an internal affair over at OSPI when we broke this information. As for the total numbers,” McDermott said grimly, “that is a minimal strike force at each target location. We are looking at an average of two sites per state, including Alaska and Hawaii. That, for those of us who don’t like math or lost count of the states, is over a hundred target sites. We know how vulnerable this makes us, people,” he told them. “But we want to hit them all.
“We estimate between twenty and fifty targets on site at each location, and an average of fifteen to thirty targets we will have to sweep up individually afterwards.
“Last number I heard,” he elaborated, “was that we have a list of over six thousand individual names that warrants have been issued for. We expect to grab between sixty and seventy percent of those people at the target sites.”
“All respect to OSPI’s analysts, but how do we expect that?” Pell asked. “These people could be anywhere.”
“We don’t have addresses for all of those names yet,” McDermott admitted. “Once we do, those of anyone we miss in Sun Net will be passed to local police departments. However, we also have the worship schedule of the church. Tonight, at six PM in their local times, they will be opening services. The services and socials will run to around eleven.
“We will move in at six thirty Pacific Standard Time,” he continued, bringing up a map of the continental United States with time zones marked and tiny red dots for target zones. “This means that even in the Eastern Time Zone, most of them will still be in the target zone.”
David eyed the map. “What about Hawaii?” he asked.
“The Hawaii operation is somewhat more complex, but I’m assured it will still go down at our target time,” McDermott told him. “All operations are intended to go down simultaneously to make sure no target gets prior warning.” He checked his watch. “That is in just under thirteen hours from now.”
“What’s our role?” Stone asked.
“Good question,” the Commander replied. “We can’t really influence the result of any other operation but our own. This is our target.”
The screen changed again, to an overhead view of a building set along a river. An attractive Victorian-style hotel stood on the shore of a meager river, with a boathouse attached to the hotel embracing a small natural inlet.
“This is the Solis Niger building,” McDermott told them. “It was the Salinas River Hotel till about two years ago, when the Solis Niger Corporation bought it and closed it for their uses. Solis Niger—Latin for Black Sun, for those of you lacking a classical education—is a shell company for the Church of the Black Sun.”
“So, it’s a Black Sun site,” Lynch said softly. “A church of sorts?”
“Exactly,” th
e Selkie officer told them. “It’s situated about ten miles inland, along the Salinas River, from Salinas. It’s about two hours away from here by Pendragon.
“We’ve been given this target due to the availability of a water approach,” he continued. “It’s been assigned to an ONSET team, as we think they’ve been using this building as an armory and training center, and it’s isolated enough and has enough living space that we think they may have supernaturals there. Possibly even some minor demons.”
“Damn,” Stone growled. “Sounds like fun.”
“Or something like that,” Walsh said grimly. “What’s our approach?”
“We split into two elements,” McDermott replied, bringing up a series of screens illustrating his words as he spoke. “Mary and I”—he nodded to the team’s water elementalist—“will approach through the river and infiltrate through the boathouse. David”—he nodded to David—“will command our second element, which will consist of him, Stone, Kate and Kelly. You four will approach from our joint drop-off point to the north, through this copse of trees.” He touched a small clustering of trees that David, a New England boy, wouldn’t have honored with that description.
“Pell will provide air cover from the Pendragon and make sure anyone who tries to escape by vehicle comes right back to us,” the Commander continued. “Remember, people, our orders are to take prisoners. We are sanctioned for whatever force is necessary, but we want these people alive. We don’t go in shooting,” he ordered bluntly, his gaze on Stone.
“Understood,” the big man whispered.
“Is everyone clear?” McDermott asked, looking around. His gaze met David’s, and the Agent returned it levelly. This would be David’s first time in command of ONSET Agents, and the thought made him nervous.
Nonetheless, he fully intended to do his job.
“Then that’s it,” he said softly. “We will suit up at four this afternoon. Be ready.”
ONSET: To Serve and Protect Page 31
