“This is O’Brien, Narita,” Michael said on the channel, relayed to David’s helmet as well. All of O’Brien’s channels were being mirrored to both David and Kate Mason, actually, just in case something happened to the operations Commander.
“What’s the status on the ground?” the operations Commander asked.
“We’ve managed to find an in-the-know Homeland Security liaison to coordinate between us and the NYPD,” Narita, who had helped ONSET Nine and SSTTR capture Ekhmez in the first place, told them. “The NYPD has been told we have a terrorist with a mini-nuke, and have evacuated a rapidly expanding zone around the building.”
“Not a bad idea,” O’Brien said calmly. “If we fail, this could be worse than a nuke. What about the building?”
“Judas Protocol is in complete effect,” Narita confirmed. “All windows and doors have been sealed. The outside of the building is now brick and metal. Nobody gets out, but I have no idea how you’re getting in.”
“Explosives,” David suggested. To his mind, the nuke warning was pretty relevant. After all, if they failed, a nuke was exactly what was going to be hitting the area.
“It may come to that,” Michael agreed. “We’re going to try the roof, but if you can have one of your demo teams that did so well in Montana on standby, just in case…”
“Consider it done,” the Captain confirmed. “We have you on Newark’s air traffic control. Homeland Security has cleared you all the way in.” The Anti-Paranormal officer paused for a moment. “My demo team will be standing by, but there’s not much else for me to do unless it all comes apart. It’s up to you boys now. Good luck!”
The channel cut to silence, and David focused out the front window as the helicopter began to drop toward the towering skyscrapers below. Figures and numbers flashed across the screens and dials in front of David, none of which he understood.
“There,” Pell said softly, pointing to a brown stone building. They were barely skimming the top of the buildings now, only a mile or so from the target.
Then a light on the board flashed red, and David’s enhanced sight spotted a burst of flame and smoke from the roof of the OSPI building.
“Missile!” he snapped, but Pell was already reacting. He did something, and the helicopter dropped like a stone.
The missile continued to head directly toward the ONSET helicopter, and David felt Michael grab onto the back of the copilot’s chair as Pell, totally focused on the aircraft now, worked the controls.
The helicopter continued to drop, but now it was heading sideways. David’s eyes were locked to the closing missile, and then it was gone. A massive metal-and-glass building had swung between them and the missile, and moments later, David’s enhanced hearing picked up the sound of an explosion.
“Please tell me that building was evacuated,” Michael said quietly.
“It should be. We’re inside the AP’s secured zone,” Pell replied. “I’m bringing us in lower and setting us down by Narita’s HQ—I doubt that was the only missile they’ve got.”
The pilot glanced quickly back at the two team leaders.
“The roof is not an option.”
Chapter 45
The Pendragon set down next to a neat circle of green Army trucks, lit by headlights and a pair of large ugly halogen floodlights on extendable stands. Four men in urban camouflage met David and Michael as they exited the chopper ahead of the combined team.
Three bore assault rifles identical to those in the ONSET men’s hands, and the fourth wore a familiarly styled pistol and long knife on his belt. He was a familiar scarred Asian man with Captain’s insignia on his fatigues.
“Michael, David,” Narita greeted the two ONSET officers. “We saw the missile and worried that they’d shot you down.”
“Not this time,” Michael grunted back. “You have that demo team standing by?”
“Yes, sir,” the scarred captain replied. He gestured to one of the gray-clad men with him. “Sergeant Buck, you’re with these men.”
“Yes, sir!” the demolition team Commander, a stocky redheaded man a bit shorter and wider than David himself, replied smartly. “My team has prepped shaped charges for the front doors, but there are issues,” he told the ONSET men.
“What’s that?” David asked, as he and Michael followed the demo team leader toward his men as their own people exited the chopper behind them.
“We’ll need covering fire to get to the doors,” Buck replied simply. There’s almost certainly snipers up with those missiles launchers.
“Once you’re in, the front hallway is a killing zone,” he continued. “Silver-loaded claymores, Ag-nitrate gas mines, the works—all of it triggered by infrared lasers. It won’t be easy to get through. My boys can clear it, but it will take time.”
“We don’t have a choice anymore,” Michael said grimly, waving the two ONSET teams over to join the Anti-Paranormal demo squad. “We’ll spend the time.”
“Understood,” the sergeant said simply, then turned to his own people. “Load up the shaped charges and the clearing gear,” he ordered. “Let’s go blow a hole in Federal property.”
#
The trip through the Manhattan streets was eerie. The seven ONSET agents were outnumbered by the ten-man demo team escorting them, driving home the point that the two teams were at barely half strength.
No one spoke except for quiet directions given over the radio, and the streets were empty. The streetlights hadn’t been turned off, so they shone over the famous streets most of the small force had only seen in movies.
Even at night, Manhattan tended to be envisaged as full of people, and the complete emptiness of the evacuated skyscrapers was creepy. There were still some cars parked in the street, but the NYPD had been surprisingly successful at evacuating the area.
David recognized the streets from his previous visit to the OSPI headquarters, so he knew when they turned a corner onto the street it was on. Buck told everyone over the radio anyway, though no one had to point out the brick building with all of its windows and doors covered in sheet metal.
The glass front and doors that David recalled had vanished behind a solid plane of steel that had dropped from the slot he’d noticed before. Streetlights shone upon the metal, and the ex-cop understood why they needed a demo team. While the team’s Mages could probably get through the barrier, it would drain energy they would need later.
“Lyons, Desmond,” Buck snapped. “Set up the charge. Everyone else, watch for snipers!”
Michael moved forward to keep an eye on the shaped charge, while David stayed back with the team.
There wasn’t much cover here, but the covering team used what they could find, watching the roofs of the buildings and sweeping the upper floors with thermal goggles.
No one saw anything, but before the werewolf Commander and the demolition men had made it within twenty meters of the building, a gunshot rang out across the dead silence of the street and Lyons, the smaller of the two demo men, stopped in his tracks and simply crumpled to the ground.
“Shit! Find that sniper!” Michael ordered, and began to move to pull the other demo man down.
Before David could do anything other than start back-tracking the gunfire, another shot rang out and the massive werewolf Commander out front stopped in mid-movement.
David watched as Michael turned back to face him but couldn’t see the other man’s face through the Plexiglas of the helmet. Somehow, though, he knew he was meeting his old Commander’s gaze, and then the werewolf collapsed.
This time the fire inside David rose without searching, without the bone-deep terror that normally triggered it. He reached for it and grabbed it, dragging it out without a moment’s hesitation. His enhanced senses told him the shots were coming from above, and he scanned upward, his rifle barrel following his sightline. The team’s networked computers were back-tracking the shots,
A third shot rang out, and Desmond, halfway back to the rest of the team, pitching forward as the
front of his face exploded outward, gore spraying across the pavement as the sniper took him out.
Then David spotted them. The computers were struggling with distance and vectors, but David’s Sight of the future and enhanced senses picked out the men. The snipers—there were two, one likely a spotter—were human, men dressed in the uniforms of OSPI Security.
If they shot him, he was likely as dead as the two Demo men. But a sniper would need time to set up a shot, and they wouldn’t be expecting counter-fire at this distance.
With a deep breath, the Empowered police officer stepped out of his cover and fired a burst, relying on his Sight to let him aim quickly. A moment later, he adjusted for recoil and fired again. He knew, without even looking, that he’d just crippled both men. His bullets ripped into their knees and lower legs, disabling them without killing them.
“We need medevac,” he said into his radio, and his voice seemed so distant and slow. “On the ground for three, and on the roof for two.”
“The roof?!” Pell’s voice replied in an achingly slow drawl.
“They’re our people too,” David reminded him. “Under Ekhmez’s control—and they should live if they get medical attention soon.”
Mason had already made it to Michael and Lyons’ bodies, passing the clearly dead form of Private Desmond.
“Michael’s alive,” the Mage reported grimly. “They were firing Ag Injector rounds. I don’t know if Lyons will make it, and Michael is down for the count. Too much silver in his system for me to do anything.” Her voice pitched higher with the last sentence, panic cutting into it.
“Understood,” David snapped, and turned to Buck. For a long moment, he almost accepted that the mission was doomed, and they’d have to nuke the building.
Unless…it was possible, remotely possible, that he could do it. If he was fast—if he was lucky—he could make it through—but he was the only one.
“Blow the door,” he ordered. “I’ll worry about the mines.”
“You’ll what?” the demo sergeant demanded.
“Just do it,” the ONSET Commander ordered, then turned to his Mages. “Hellet, Mason, Dilsner,” he snapped. “Ready your strongest knockout spells and sweep the building with them.”
Kate Mason’s helmet was frozen as she stared at him, and he returned her gaze levelly as Morgen and Hellet gathered around him.
“Between the three of you, you should be able to knock out everyone in the building from here, correct?” he asked, and his voice sounded slow to him, and he was sure it sounded distant to them. He could feel the fire burning within him, fueling his strength and speed. The demo team stared at him in complete shock until Buck chivvied them into getting the shaped charges back from Lyons and Desmond.
“Yes,” Hellet said firmly, her hand now gripping Kate’s shoulder. “But it will only affect mundanes, and some strong-willed mundanes may be able to shrug it off.”
“Anyone left in that building who can withstand your spell is probably not under Ekhmez’s control,” David replied. “That means they either won’t get in my way or are there voluntarily. That’s a very different problem. My problem.”
“Your problem?” Mason demanded. “What exactly are you planning to do?!”
“You put the building to sleep, Buck blows the door, and Walsh keeps Michael and Lyons alive,” David said quietly as the plant Mage knelt by the wounded AP man and began to examine his wounds in more detail. “I kill Ekhmez.”
“We’re ready,” Buck reported, joining the cluster around David.
The newly blooded ONSET Commander looked at his three Mages.
“Do it,” he ordered.
#
Buck’s shaped charges detonated in a thunder crash of violence that tore apart the inch-thick steel like paper. David moved before the sound of the explosion had faded, charging forward into the debris cloud.
He dove through the door, moving with a speed he’d never used before. Even knowing he was the fastest he’d ever been, David reached for more speed, sending every ounce of the now-familiar heat to his legs.
There would be a delay between his tripping the lasers and the mines detonating. If he was fast enough, he could make it through. If he wasn’t, he would die. If he died, Manhattan would die.
With his senses, he knew when he hit the first set of laser beams, and moments later felt the explosion behind him as he burst through the second, gaining even more speed as he went.
Then he spotted the desk at the end of the room. A single door beside it, and the reception desk that kept people who had no idea what this building really was out of it.
Behind it was the same grizzled older woman who’d been here before, and she was unconscious—an ugly bruise on her head suggested it had nothing to do with his people’s spell. David might be able outrun the mines, but she wasn’t even awake to know she needed to escape.
If he grabbed her, they’d both die. He wasn’t sure he could make it out on his own, and yet…
All of this passed through his mind between the fourth and fifth tripwires, and he was halfway across the room when he changed angles. He fired his assault rifle without even thinking about it. The hail of bullets that demolished the wood around the lock on the door with a lethal precision, he barely noticed.
At the eighth beam, he dropped the encumbering rifle, and the fourth line of mines detonated as he crossed the ninth and last set of laser beams and dove over the reception desk.
The fifth line of mines detonated as David stopped, and the sixth as he scooped up the receptionist, cradling her neck carefully to minimize the inevitable damage. The seventh detonated as he rolled out from behind the desk with her, and the eighth sprayed ball bearings toward him as he body-checked the shattered door open.
Silver from the stray bearings seared his back as he rolled out of the doorway as the ninth set of mines detonated and a spray of silver mist and ball bearings emerged from the door.
The shock of the explosions bought David enough time to drop the woman whose life he’d saved before a pair of creatures charged toward him. These weren’t the mostly human demons he’d seen before. They were vaguely humanoid, but unclothed and green-skinned, they looked more like giant frogs than people.
Human-looking or not, the large swords they were carrying looked perfectly functional, and David sprang sideways, out of their swings. The toad demons might be slower than him, but they were still far faster than any human, forcing him to dodge away as he drew the silver-loaded caseless automatic from his shoulder holster.
The swords slashed at him again as he flicked the pistol from safe to a setting he’d thought he’d never use—burst. Grabbing the pistol with both hands, he pulled the trigger and emptied three .45 caliber silver rounds into the torso of the closer of the two demons.
The creature barely had time to hiss in pain before it collapsed into a pool of black ichor. Even as it collapsed, the other sliced at David, who ducked under the blade and grabbed the creature by its wrist. A huge tongue shot out with speed astonishing even to David, wrapping around him and yanking him right up to the disgusting demon.
Dragging him allowed him to slam the Omicron Silver pistol into the demon’s chest and pull the trigger.
Three more heavy bullets ripped the demon’s heart apart, and it collapsed into ichor all over David, its tongue leaving a smeared trail across his clothes. He straightened, ignoring the shining black goo all over him, and looked around the richly decorated interior reception hall.
The two human receptionists at the desk were unconscious, victims of the sleep spell that his Sight told him was still sweeping the building. Other than them, the unconscious woman he’d saved and the two pools of ichor that had been demons, the reception was empty.
“This is Thirteen Actual,” he said into his radio, on a channel linked to ONSET Campus as well as Narita and his own teams. “I’m in and secure. I don’t think Ekhmez has triggered an Incursion yet,” he continued, “but there are definitely demons loose i
n the building. Two are down.”
“David, this is Warner,” Major Warner’s voice announced over the radio. “We’ve finally managed to override the security protocols on the building and get into the security cameras.”
“Thank you,” he said fervently, feeling his heart beat like a wire drum as his body continued to function at several times normal speed. He couldn’t release his gift, in case he was surprised…and in case it didn’t come back immediately if he let it go. “Where is our demonic bastard?”
“The security control room,” his superior told him grimly. “Three floors up, in the center of the building. David…” She trailed off.
“Yes, ma’am?” he asked, already setting off for the stairs.
“It took four Class One Supernaturals to take down the last high court demon we encountered,” she said softly. “You’re on your own. You need backup.”
“If there are already demons here, he’s well on his way to an Incursion,” David replied calmly. “We have, at most, hours. How long would it take to gather three more Class Ones?”
“Days,” Warner replied quietly, her voice sad.
“Then I will have to be enough,” David told her simply. “Because I’m all that’s here. If I fail…” He trailed off and knew that Warner understood. If he failed, there was always the bomber and its deadly cargo. Better a nuke than a supernatural invasion in New York.
The radio was silent as David kicked down the door to the stairwell and started for the third floor.
Chapter 46
By the time David had reached the third floor, someone at Campus HQ—probably Charles or one of the other computer people—had sent over a floor plan of the OSPI building. His helmet visor had helpfully popped it up in a screen in the corner of his view, hopefully allowing him to find his way to the security center.
When he stepped out onto the third floor, it felt like stepping onto the scene of an action movie after the hero had shot his way through the villain’s front entrance. The room the stairs and elevators opened onto had been well decorated, with the neat carved pillars and sunburst-marked blue carpet of the rest of OSPI HQ.
ONSET: To Serve and Protect Page 36
