Judgement Night: Bureau 13 Book 1

by Nick Pollota

  The building shook again just then and the lights dimmed, returned, then died away completely leaving us in pitch black.

  “Time to go,” I announced, clicking on a flashlight. The brilliant white beam illuminating half the team and only a chunk of the piled supplies. More flashlights came to life brightening the darkness. On the floor, a series of pale yellow arrows flickered into life indicating the direction of the elevator.

  “And how do we find the transport tube,” Mindy asked, coming closer. As she spoke those words, the arrows changed direction and pointed towards a different wall.

  “Come on,” I said glancing at my new watch. “The plane leaves in fifteen minutes. Let's skidaddle.”

  Richard had done a fine job of balancing the loads on the carts, and it was relatively easy for us to push the wheeled mountains along the path of the arrows. After about a hundred feet, they ended at a blank cinder block wall. Searching about, Jess found a card slot in the wall and tried inserting her FBI card. There was a hum, a click and a section of the wall disengaged and swung away on hidden hinges.

  Inside was a well-lit cubicle of burnished metal, just barely large enough to take us and the piles of stuff. We had to hoist Mindy on top of a cart to make room, but the gang made it inside and I pushed the sole button on the wall. The doors closed with a soft hush and locked tight.

  A steady rumble started below us and then suddenly we were floating in the air, the floor of the lift inches below our feet. There was an odd feeling in my stomach, and George looked as if he might toss lunch. Stretching an arm, Richard touched him on the head and the fat man visibly calmed, color returning to his cheeks.

  “Thanks,” he croaked.

  “No problem,” the mage smiled.

  The rushing, falling, sensation continued and after a minute our feet returned to the floor in time for it to tilt slightly on an angle. Ugh. Now we were going sideways.

  “Hey, this must be a pneumatic tube,” Richard exclaimed with a broad grin.

  “Wow! Neat!” Mindy added, obviously enjoying the ride.

  “Swell,” I contributed, meaning every word.

  “Ed, I just realized something,” Donaher said, sounding very serious.

  I swallowed lunch and focused my eyes on him. “What?”

  “At present, we don't have a single functional weapon or defense prepared. Better do something about that.”

  Words of wisdom, indeed. In frantic haste, the 10mm pistols were retrieved and loaded. As we thumbed off safeties, Richard pulled a long, curved knife from out of the air. Our swift journey continued, and just as I was beginning to swear off food forever, the transport leveled, then slowed and finally started to rise upward like a proper elevator. Thank god. After a minute, the cubicle came to a gentle stop, the door separated and we stumbled into a dank, smelly garage, a horde of very startled rats scampering for safety away from the harsh light of the transport.

  Fanning out in a standard pattern, we did a fast sweep of the place to secure the perimeter. It was clean, or rather the dump contained nothing more dangerous than rabid rats, broken glass and old copies of the New York Post.

  Wiping the dirt off a window, I saw that the garage was situated on the waterfront, a battered wooden dock directly in front. Moored at the pylons, was an ordinary DC-3, twin prop, sea plane. Lounging by her side, smoking a cigarette, was a dark skinned man of average height and black hair. He was dressed in tan slacks, deck shoes and a white shirt that had been painted on by a close friend.

  “Nice,” Mindy purred in frank appraisal.

  “Yeah,” George agreed happily. “The DC-3 is a classic.”

  Donaher and I exchanged glances and sighed. Sometimes, our Mr. Renault was a bit of a muttonhead.

  There were four doors leading from the place. Three were bricked closed, the fourth lined with steel plating and bolted shut. Trust Gordon to think of everything. Undoing the lock, the garage door swung noiselessly aside and we moved to the loading platform. An inclined cement ramp led to the dock and we forcibly pushed, pulled, and dragged our semi-portable department store of survival supplies to the waiting airship.

  In the distance, the horizon was a featureless expanse of gray fog. But it behooved nobody to mention that.

  As we approached the plane, the pilot ambled towards us, a hand dangerously near a holstered Wesley .44 revolver that I hadn't noticed before.

  “Ah, raincloud,” I said hopefully.

  At that, the fellow relaxed and offered his hand. We shook. “Mr. Alvarez? Captain Hassan, awaiting your orders.”

  “Howdy-do. Open the cargo hatch, and let's boogie.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Glancing at the team, he started for the front of the plane when he saw Mindy and gasped. “Good lord miss, are you okay?” he asked in concern.

  Puzzled, Mindy looked at the guy as if he was crazy, but then noticed her ripped shirt and the amount of skin showing. He probably thought she had been saved from a fate worse than death. The white, seamless, sports bra only served to accentuate her trim figure.

  “Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks. Did it myself.” Openly, she looked over the man's square jaw, piercing black eyes and muscular build. Then she dimpled in a manner that almost made me jealous.

  “But your concern is most appreciated,” Mindy smiled daintily.

  He stepped closer. “My pleasure.”

  She stepped closer. “That can be arranged. Jennings.”

  The man blinked. “What?”

  “Mindy Jennings.”

  A toothy smile. “Abduhl Benny Hassan.”

  “Hump later, work now,” I said from the end of the dock heaving a box of grenades towards them.

  Mindy turned in time to catch the box and carried it inside the plane. The pilot went off to the cockpit and we got to work. Briefly, I wondered how she did things like that? Hear the air currents moving around the box, or what?

  “Yes,” Jessica said, loosening a knot.

  “Stop reading my mind,” I snarled.

  “Old habit,” she replied casually. “And I accept your earlier proposal of marriage.”

  I dropped a crate of canned goods on my foot. “Now wait a damn minute...”

  “Alert!” Donaher shouted, his HK 10mm pistol doing a steady pattern of barking discharges. “Incoming, three o'clock!”

  Everybody turned to the right with a weapon in hand. I did also, but then nearly dropped mine. The water tower on top of the garage had broken free and was presently climbing down off the building to walk our way.

  “A water tower?” Jessica squeaked. “What the hell can that do?”

  Richard frowned. “You wanna find out?”

  “Ignore the water tower and load the plane!” I commanded in my patented top sergeant voice. “Don't bother to stack the stuff anymore, just sling it in fast.” Personally, I hoped nothing broke and blew us out of the water before we even left the dock.

  “George?” I barked.

  “Ed?” he replied calmly.

  “Kill that thing!”

  Coolly, the chubby soldier spun about on the balls of his feet, the squat rifle in his hands spitting flame in a stuttering series of soft chugs, nowhere near as loud as his old M60. But the metal pipe legs of the water tank were torn apart in a near continuous series of sharp explosions and it collapsed sideways into an alley. Not satisfied, George kept up the barrage, the discharge of his weapon ripping the structure to pieces until it fell apart in a great gush of water.

  “Anything else you want killed?” he asked smugly, the flow of liquid from the tank stretching out towards the dock, but only succeeding in drowning a rat or two.

  I thought fast. “My IRS agent.”

  George took a firing stance. “Name the bastard.”

  “Hey!” Donaher snapped from the cargo hatch. “Help load the plane, ya bums.”

  We joined the busy work force. In a matter of minutes, the carts were empty and the hatch closed. Hassan cast off the mooring lines from inside the plane. The h
uge prop motors started with a growl and we pulled away from the dock, taxiing for takeoff.

  In the style of a troop transport, the seats lined the walls, leaving the center clear. Sitting down, I put my feet up on crate of canned goods and breathed a sigh of relief. “Time for a ten minute break.”

  “Guess again, chief,” George contradicted, his face pressed against the glass of a window.

  Joining him, I could see half a dozen transparent blue speedboats behind us. Apparently made of ice, the boats were rising from the water of the bay. Steering each craft was a robed figure clutching the wheel with bony blue hands. Checking them with my replacement sunglasses, these guys registered so black that I couldn't even discern details.

  “Lock and load, people,” I announced, grabbing an assault rifle from a stack and rummaging for ammunition.

  “Whatever happened to the good old days of talk first, shoot later?” Richard asked petulantly, sliding a copper bracelet onto his wrist. “When we were more of an investigation unit, than a SWAT team?”

  Slamming a clip into my M16, I pulled the bolt. “Its the way of the world, my friend. Some people make garbage, some cart it away.”

  “Want me to take care of them?” George asked, hefting his bizarre rifle cannon.

  I shook my head. “Naw, shouldn't need any heavy artillery to take out a couple of speedboats. Auras are black, but don't look very powerful.”

  He shrugged. “If you say so.”

  Forcing the hatch open against the wind, I hooked an arm around a stanchion and let the lead boat have a full clip, putting a line of holes along the craft at the water line. But the vessel neither sank, nor slowed.

  “Interesting. Do you think its too late to try diplomacy?” Mindy asked, extending the tube on a LAW as a preparation for launch.

  Before I could answer, she leaned out the hatch and fired. Smoke erupted from the aft end of the tube and a finger of flame stretched from the front to impact directly on a robed figure. In a thunderclap, it disappeared in a ball of rolling flame. But as the smoke cleared, the pilotless boat was still plowing on towards us, steadily increasing in speed.

  Both of the wing motors of the DC-3 roared with power and the plane skimmed along the water, hopping from wave crest to wave crest, but never truly becoming airborne.

  Father Donaher was praying. Richard and Mindy were head to head conferring. Jessica was sitting crosslegged on the floor, knuckles to her temples. George waited for orders and I thought like crazy while the water boats zoomed ever closer.

  “Hassan!” I yelled up the aisle of the plane.

  “What?” he answered from the cockpit.

  “Take off, now!”

  “Can't!”

  “Why?”

  “Too heavily loaded,” Abduhl cried. “I can't get enough speed!”

  I moved to the hatch. “Okay, what can we throw out?”

  “Wait,” Richard cried, blocking my way. “Captain Hassan, would lightening the plane by a couple of hundred pounds be sufficient?”

  “Maybe,” he relented. “Whacha got in mind?”

  Richard scrunched his face in that secret wizard way and nodded. Pulling his wand, the mage got a good grip, muttered something and he floated off the deck into the air. Instantly, the engines increased their noise and the plane left the water rising smoothly into the sky.

  Watching from a window, porthole, or whatever the hell it is they call the thing, I saw the six boats converge on our last position, to collide and violently explode, a geyser of water reaching towards the sky and just missing our tail section.

  “Whew,” Mindy exhaled, wiping imaginary sweat off her brow. “Close one.”

  Smiling broadly, Richard agreed. “Safe, at last.”

  Furious, George turned on them. “Bullshit!” he bellowed, spittle spraying from his mouth. “They found us again! After all the security precautions of headquarters itself. They found us again!”

  The mage looked chastised, but Mindy rallied. “Yeah, well—”

  George interrupted. “Yeah, well, if it isn't science, magic, psyonics or plain old fashioned tracking. Then what does that leave, eh? What? You damn well know what!”

  What remained was something almost too unpleasant to contemplate.

  “A traitor?” Father Donaher asked softly, his Irish green eyes round with disbelief.

  Jessica dismissed the idea with a haughty hrumph. “There are no traitors in our group,” she announced.

  “That you know of,” George countered grimly.

  “I know,” Jess said, poking herself in the chest with a finger, the tone of voice daring anybody to challenge her statement.

  Graciously, George relented. “Okay, then tell me how. How?”

  Unfortunately, that was a question nobody could answer. Yet.

  SIX

  Breaking the debate, I got the group hustling. We had thirty minutes before entering the cloud and a lot of work to get done. Question & Answer time could come later.

  Reluctantly, the team members busied themselves sorting and doing inventory on the equipment. Had to move fast, as Richard was determined to stay afloat wasting power until we thinned down the cargo and tossed enough overboard to guarantee flight. I damn well knew that we couldn't heave anything away after reaching the cloud, because opening a window would probably reduce us to smoking skeletons. Which would seriously hinder our fighting abilities.

  The culling went smoothly, with only a few oddball items needing a group vote or an executive override, like the electric wok—which went, and the pocket encyclopedia—which stayed, until I encountered a prize.

  “What the hell are these?” I asked, raising the molded metal casting into view. “Silver-plated brass knuckles in case we have to punch a werewolf to death?”

  Sheepishly, George replied yes.

  I tossed them into the discard pile. “Get real.”

  Soon enough the group was pared down to six back packs, seven jumpsuits with sidearms and four trunks holding our secondary equipment. Everything else was jettisoned without ceremony. I roughly figured that over a million bucks of stuff fed the fish that day. Good thing we're covert, or Congress would have shit kittens over the waste.

  As Mindy dogged the hatch shut, Richard tentatively rejoined us on the deck, ready for instant flight. But the plane maintained a level keel and he stood in relief.

  “Flying while flying is a weird sensation,” the mage, said, quickly changing into fatigues. “Sort of like ... um—”

  “Getting drunk while you're stoned?” Jessica offered.

  “Close.”

  “Swimming up a waterfall?” Father Donaher suggested.

  “Closer.”

  George squinted. “Dancing in an earthquake?”

  “Bingo!” Richard cried, and shook the man's hand.

  I whistled. “Now that is weird.”

  Sealing the velcro seam on his Army fatigues, Richard wrapped a white silk ascot about his neck and tucked a violet carnation into the stiff lapel of his uniform. Next, he requested the carved wooden box found in the armory and presented it to us with a flourish. We applauded and then asked what the hell the ugly copper bracelets did?

  He happily explained. The bracelets were ethereal batteries, a brand new Bureau invention. The slim bands not only held enough matrixal power for a medium grade conjure, but also a kind of molecular circuit printed inside to cast the spell for you. Not just mages and wizards could use one of these, anybody could. Simply don the bracelet and when you thought the activation phrase, the spell would conjure.

  In order, the six copper bracelets contained: a Lightning Bolt, Fire Blast, Meld, Invisibility, Flight and Jump Start. The last was our pet name for this healing spell which could snatch you from death's door and put you back on your feet ready, able and totally healed. The limitations were, it could not be done more than twice in your whole lifetime and only worked when you were at the very edge of life. A split second late in activation and you took the big dirt nap. As it says in th
e Bureau manual, nothing could actually bring the dead back to life. And believe me, Technical Services has really tried.

  However, Meld was the real bizarre spell for we had been unaware that anybody had ever gotten the freak conjure to work correctly. In essence, Meld allowed a person to dematerialize and, ghost-like, phase through an object, wall, door, floor. Once you got to the other side, shazam, you were solid flesh again. Limitations were it only lasted for two minutes and god help you if it wore off while you were still inside something. Your molecular structure would then violently intermingle with that of the barrier, each molecule-in-a-molecule tearing itself apart into sub-atomic particles. Such a catastrophe had actually occurred once, but luckily at the nuclear bomb test site in White Sands, New Mexico, so nobody even noticed the blast. Except the Pentagon, and us.

  Excluding Father Donaher, everybody got a bracelet. For perfectly understandable reasons, he did not care to have magical items on his person. Even though we only used white magic, the Catholic Church had decreed that magic was, at best, questionable in origin, and the priest disliked to ever go against the dictates of his religion. The team occasionally sneaked a Heal or Invisibility his way, but we kept it to a minimum, and Donaher would rather die than ask. Literally.

  Sporting the Invisibility bracelet, I showed the wizard the box full of derringers. A modified version of the Belgium 9, the tiny gun possessed four short barrels and one trigger, which fired every barrel at once. Chambered for .22 rounds, the pocket pistol held: a silver bullet, a wooden bullet, a cold iron and a phosphorus tracer round as an incendiary. Sort of a general, stop-anything barrage. For a power-drained mage it would be a perfect last ditch weapon.

  But more importantly, the pistol did not use gunpowder, or fulminating cotton, or any of the standard munition chemicals as a charge that normally refused to work near a mage. So the derringers would work in the hand of a full charged wizard. Richard demanded to know what was this marvelous substance. Having no idea, I told him it was need-to-know data. He accepted the fib, Jessica bit her tongue and everybody tucked the diminutive weapon into a boot holster designed for the pistol.

  Testing the draw on the tiny gun, George glanced at it and his shiny new bracelet. Fire Blast, of course. Nothing subtle about Sgt. Renault.