by Nick Pollota
Together, we entered a bar on 175th Street and separated throughout the establishment, within minutes each pair departed via the bathroom windows, back door, or cellar. Dressed as gothic punks, Donaher and I strolled out of the garbage strewn alley and hailed a cab. Paying the driver early, we jumped out halfway to the ordered destination and took off zigzagging through a weed infested empty lot. Thirty minutes later, two bearded police officers boldly strolled into the George Washington Bridge Port Authority Terminal. In a utility closet, I became a rastafarian and openly bought a ticket for Philadelphia. Across the concourse, I spotted Donaher hobbling out of the lavatory as a naval lieutenant with only one leg. How did he do that? As the priest headed for the subway platforms, I adjusted the brim of my cap to disguise a wave and the naval officer scratched his nose, then brushed some lint off his stomach, left and right shoulders, giving me a brief benediction. Every little bit helps.
At the Meadowlands Arena in north New Jersey, I left early again with a bunch of yowling sports fans, stole a car from the parking lot and drove south on the Jersey Turnpike to the Lincoln Tunnel and then back into New York City. Pulling into a sleazy motel on 10th Street, I dodged an army of ugly hookers and took the service elevator to the basement, raided a locker and exited as a cigar smoking African janitor.
* * * *
A few hours later, I was leaning against the mouth of the alley at Thirty Second Street.
Belching loudly at the passing crowds, I took another sip from the empty whiskey bottle concealed within a rumpled paper bag. Ninety-nine per cent of the whiskey had been poured over my tattered, filthy clothes, the other one percent sloshed about in my mouth to flavor my breath. Maybe a random sip had accidentally flowed down my throat, but no more than a sip. Singing an obscene song about sheep, I scratched at pretend fleas and waited for the rest of my team to show.
George was the first to arrive, hopping out of the trunk of a moving cab as the vehicle turned a corner. This being Manhattan, nobody paid the incident the slightest attention. Dressed as a yuppie, he took a position near the hotdog cart on the corner and that was when I realized the redheaded vendor wearing the dark glasses was Jessica. She sent a telepathic laugh my way and I tipped a mental hat in appreciation of a job well done. Damn she was good.
Thanks!
In the street, a manhole cover nosily slid aside and out of the sewer crawled a skinny utility worker in grimy overalls. Richard clicked off the light on his hardhat and joined us cool as could be. Didn't know the mage had it in him.
With a sputtering roar, a huge motorcycle pulled to the curb. The driver was an amazingly buxom blonde whose physical charms many porno magazines would have considered overwhelming. She was dressed in black latex body suit cut down to the ohmigod level, fishnet stockings, boots, and a slick black leather jacket. She sure looked familiar. Maybe I saw her on the internet.
Climbing down from behind her, was Father Donaher, bare chested, in a chainmail vest, studded denims and sandals. He gave her a complicated hand shake, and whispered something too soft to hear.
She beamed a smile, and gunning the big 1700cc engine, popped a wheely to roar off into Manhattan traffic.
As the motorcycle departed, a stretch limousine parked in its place. I watched the rear door, but instead, Mindy stepped out from the front in chauffeurs livery. We formed a ragged line at hot dog cart, munching the fare in sincere appreciation, each paying no attention to the others.
The clock in the window of a local restaurant caught my attention, so I nudged Jess and she made telepathic contact.
Everybody here? I asked her inside my head.
No, came the soft reply. Her voice always felt soft to me.
Who's missing?
Raul.
Check the bystanders, I suggested, squirting mustard on my dog and getting my sleeve in the process. After all, I was playing a drunk.
Jessica made change for Mindy. Already did. Not here.
Parked cars? Alley ways?
I said, he is not here.
Which meant Jessica had done a total sweep of the area to the maximum range of her abilities. I didn't like this. The mage was late, but only by a few minutes. Jess, please ask George what was his last move?
A few ticks later, she reported, When last seen, he was disguised as a rabbi, heading for Brooklyn on the M19 bus.
The long way, eh? We'll give him an extra ten minutes.
Sounds good.
But he still did not appear. The team waited as long as we dared, a full half-hour, but Raul never showed. Finally, we had to move and with a heavy heart I counted our friend dead. My only hope was that he took a bunch of the bastards with him to the grave. In our next fight, if any of the enemy was wounded, I'd chalk it up to last licks from Raul Horta. Then taking a breath, I forced the matter aside. Mourning for a fallen comrade could come later. We still had a job to do.
Reaching 33rd Street, we walked round the corner to third Avenue expecting anything but what we saw. The sidewalks were blocked with wooden saw horses, the street filled with heavily armed soldiers and concrete tripods. Tank traps, George identified. Army helicopters hovered above a ten story building and the roof was lined with more armed troops.
On the corner was a film production crew, with cameras, boom mikes, huge arc lights, cue card girls, best boys, gaffers, dozens of extras and a young wag in riding breeches sitting in a director's chair, shouting orders to everybody and not liking the answers.
My team bobbed their heads in approval. This was a gag the Bureau used often. The organization actually owned a motion picture production company in Los Angeles. Filming a movie was a great cover. Anything strange would simply be chalked up to special effects. Many new agents were shocked to discover how many famous monster movies were actually live footage of Bureau 13 battles. It sure saved money on costumes and make-up. Plus, since movies sometimes take years to be released, most of the idle curious would have forgotten about the incident, or attribute it to the vagaries of Hollywood. We had used something similar ourselves once. Pretended to be a TV news team to gain entrance to a ghoul infested yacht race in Malibu Beach. Nasty job. Crack addict ghouls, that was about as bad as it got.
At the barricade, our disreputable dress caused a commotion among the soldiers until we showed our FBI cards to a corporal. As she inspected them, the rifles of her companions never wavered from our direction. It was nice to see professionals at work.
Finally, the corporal summoned a sergeant, who ignored our identification cards and asked what our favorite food was. I leaned close and whispered into his ear, “Tunafish.”
Grudgingly, he accepted that and walked us past the multiple defense rings to the front revolving door of the building. We couldn't see through the glass panels as heavy cloth had been taped over the windows. One at a time, we were placed inside a section of the door. It would revolve halfway, stop, and a brilliant yellow light flooded the area, seeming to illuminate us from the bones out.
“I've heard about those,” Richard said on the sly. “Its a molecular scanner. They now know everything we're carrying, what we had for lunch and probably the color of our underwear.”
Jess started to toss off a snappy remark, but stopped and frowned. I understood. We could all feel the emptiness in our midst. That terrible vacant space between Richard and Mindy. Lord knows humor has its place, but a joke now would have been more than inappropriate. It would have been vulgar.
Once inside, we were frisked and our weapons taken. A lieutenant informed us the assorted devices would be returned later. The unspoken message being they didn't quite trust us yet. If these people had any working knowledge of Bureau agents, they'd never trust us. In our hands, paperclips and napkins are deadly weapons.
The foyer was a zigzag maze of sandbags topped with concertina wire. The next generation of barbed wire, it was nothing more than an endless coiled razor blade. The steel band could slice through leather gloves as if they were made of toilet tissue.
Walk
ing slowly, we reached the receptionist desk—which was now a machine gun nest, boasting a huge electric driven .50 Vulcan Mini-Gun. Our Bureau cards were asked for this time, and we complied. The blank plastic rectangles were a mixture of technology and magic. Only in our willing presence would they show our picture, thumb print, ID number and real name. Very rarely did we ever have to use them. The lieutenant in charge placed them on a glowing sheet of glass set in a black metal box.
As we waited, I casually checked the place over. So this was our HQ, eh? Steel bars lined with electrical conductors closed off the side corridors. A pair of siege arbalists, giant six foot wide crossbows carrying ten foot long, 200 lb. arrows, protected the main corridor from unauthorized passage. Surreptitiously, I did a quick check through my one lens, and spotted an invisible something holding a bazooka over by the broom closet. Whew. If I ever got an assignment to invade this place, I'd quit.
Finally, the box beeped and the expression on her face said we could live. For awhile, anyway. We were given our cards back and under armed guard the team was escorted to an elevator with a small machine gun nest filling the rear and taken to the fifth floor. The elevator doors separated with a musical ding to display a squad of people in radiation suits holding something that resembled a common leaf blower. I had no desire to ask what it was. They might show me.
Flashing something in her palm to the squad, they saluted as we passed and the lieutenant directed us to a door marked Conference Room #1. My team entered and the doors closed, then automatically locked behind us. As the lights came on, we glanced around. It was a curved room, with three sections of theater-style seats facing in towards the center stage. A lecture podium was there, behind which stood a beefy, white haired man. He was dressed in combat fatigues, the insignia sporting the rank of brigadier general. An oddly built pistol was strapped to his left hip, a gold wizard's wand in a holster on the right. We could read the name badge on his breast pocket, but it wasn't necessary. Only one person we knew of fit this description.
“Horace Gordon,” George whispered in unabashed reverence.
Mindy arched an eyebrow, Richard stood at attention and Father Donaher crossed himself. It was the first time any of us had ever seen the chief of Bureau 13. He was an elusive individual, more famous than J.P. Withers, the very first Bureau agent from 1880, who supposedly was still in service as an immortal werewolf. But then, you know how company legends grow. Yes, I had gotten drunk at the last Christmas party, but I did not email a jpeg of my ass to the Kremlin. Lies, it was all lies.
“Hello, sir. What's the problem?” I asked taking a seat in the front row.
“The end of the world,” Gordon said, in the deep gravelly voice we knew so well from our wristwatches.
“Or rather, the end of the world as we know it,” he added after a moments hesitation.
FOUR
As we reacted to that news in various ways, Gordon slit open a manila envelope and pulled out a blank sheet of paper. As he held it for a moment words slowly appeared. I was impressed. That was technology, not magic, usually only reserved for security level 10 Top Secret documents.
“Edwardo Alvarez Jr.,” Gordon read aloud from the paper. “Mindy Jennings, Jessica Taylor, Richard Anderson, George Renault, Father Michael Xavier Donaher.” He looked at us, patiently sitting and listening. “A private investigator, a martial artist, a telepath, a wizard, a weapons expert and a priest.”
“That's a good mix. Nicely balanced.” He paused. “My condolences about Raul Horta. He was a good agent.”
“Thanks,” I said, crossing my legs at the knees. “Come on, chief, the only reason we're not out there searching for him is the priority summons. Just tell us what's happening, so we can get on with it.”
Horace seemed to appreciate the bluntness. “At approximately 0600 Tuesday morning, just twenty hours ago, a dense fog formed at sea, about 100 miles outside New York. Normal shipping operations were seriously disrupted and a state of emergency declared.”
We waited patiently as a three dimensional map appeared floating in the air behind him. A weird fog at sea was nothing for us to get excited about, there must be more. The map showed the greater eastern seaboard of America with a rather large swirling airmass about fifty miles off the coast of New York state, stretching from Mystic, Connecticut to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, with Manhattan right in the middle. Ominous.
His head haloed by the map, Gordon went on, “As you can see it is getting closer, fast. And since the appearance of the cloud, there has been an unprecedented surge of paranormal activity across the country. Mass attacks of werewolves in Los Angeles, vampires in New Orleans, ghouls in Miami, dragons in Chicago, gargoyles in Boston and countless single encounters of everything from ancient astronauts to zombies. Apparently, its an all out attack on Bureau 13 agents, aided and abetted by every nutcase group and organization of evil that we know of and maybe a few that we don't.”
He rolled a hand. “The New American Thugee Cult, The Sixth Reich, the Project, Brotherhood of Darkness, you name it.”
This we had already suspected from our own troubles in getting here. It was, however, disheartening to know the fighting was pandemic. Whoever the enemy was, they knew alarming amounts of information about our supposedly supersecret organization.
“In our effort to maintain the peace and protect American citizens, the Bureau has been placed in dire jeopardy of exposure,” Gordon said grimly. “As this is obviously a coordinated effort, we do not consider it a coincidence that the cloud is heading for our New York headquarters.”
We perked up our ears at that.
“So this is our main HQ?” Mindy asked eagerly.
The chief scowled. “That's Need-To-Know information only, Miss. Let's just say this is one of the Bureau headquarters and leave it at that.”
“Any details on the cloud available yet?” I inquired, changing the subject away from the breach of etiquette.
He nodded. “Lots. None of them good. Satellite photos show the area of the fog is some sixty miles in diameter, steadily growing and will reach land in 36 hours. Radar stops dead at the edge of the cloud. As does sonar, CAT scan, X-rays, radio waves, lasers and masers. Some of the fog was trapped in a jar, but it defies chemical analyses. Kirlian photos show the cloud to have a solid black aura, laced with green.”
Evil and magic. Swell.
Turning the page over, words faded away and more replaced them. That was a new trick.
“Scout ships were sent in to investigate and never came out again. They are presumed sunk. An AWAK reconnaissance plane was sent in. It disappeared. Next, an armored jet fighter tried for a penetration and vanished. As did a Blackbird stealth bomber. A submarine nosed in close and was heard of no more. So the Navy tried a stealth sub, one of the best we have, same thing. NASA even dropped an unmanned probe, to the same result. When anything vanishes from normal vision within the cloud, or crosses that line of effect—” Gordon snapped his fingers. “That's it. You're gone.”
“Maybe just rendered temporally inert,” Richard suggested, leaning forward in his chair.
“We thought of a time status and had our people run a chronometric density test.”
“The result?” Jessica prompted.
“Reports show a perfectly normal time flow.”
I was surprised. So far, it was the first normal thing about this cloud. At least it wasn't an invasion of dinosaurs from the past. But then again, maybe it was. Time is a funny thing.
“Sir, has the Bermuda Triangle moved?” George asked.
“We checked that. No.”
“At this point, I would assume the military got tough,” Father Donaher remarked, reclining in his seat. “And decided to have a quote, incident, end quote.”
“Affirmative. SAC was consulted and tried high altitude bombing. No go. They even attempted an air burst using a state-of-the-art multiple ton blockbuster thermite bomb, hoping to disperse the cloud. Then a gas vapor bomb was tried. Both useless. Alerting NORAD, an
ultra-fast, stealth missile was launched. It went into the cloud, and that was that. No explosion, no heat flash, no ... nothing.”
Heroically, I refrained from mentioning the double negative as this was more important than proper grammar. This cloud was really something.
“Naval gun fire? Torpedoes? Rail Guns?” George queried hopefully, his voice plainly stating that military ordinance could not possibly fail to solve the problem.
“Ditto,” Gordon said, resting a hand on the pistol in his belt holster. “After trying everything they could think of, the Pentagon finally reported to the president, who immediately alerted us. But of course, we already knew about the problem.”
“What about nukes?” I asked, not really sure I wanted to hear the answer. But thankfully, the chief said those were being saved as an absolute last resort.
Politely, Richard raised a finger. “How much of this is hearsay and how much confirmed from official sources?”
“Its the truth. Straight from the portrait of Washington.”
Good enough for me.
“What have we tried so far?” I asked, meaning the Bureau, not America. Our techs had a lot of stuff the Pentagon would hemorrhage over if they knew it existed.
“Divination, telepathy, and magical probes. We even tried talking to the local fish. But from flounders to whales, they want nothing to do with the cloud. Scares them silly. Our best telepaths can't even get a glimpse of the cloud, much less see inside. However, for a brief second, our top mage managed to use her crystal ball and penetrate the cloud to see an island in the middle of the fog bank.”
“An island,” Mindy mused thoughtfully.
