Just Cause: Revised & Expanded Edition

by Ian Thomas Healy

  “That’s right, I don’t. And it’s kept me alive this long!” Flicker teleported suddenly right in front of Flashpoint, who started but refrained from further provocation.

  “That’s enough, John. If we’re going to fight amongst ourselves, we might as well let the Nazis win.” Strongman glided in between the two of them, gently pushing Flicker away from the black man.

  “Nazis?” Adrian asked. “I thought that show was over a few years ago.”

  “The buyers are a group of Nazi officers that escaped prosecution and relocated to South America. Specifically, Brazil,” said Strongman. “I don’t think I have to tell you why they’re purchasing uranium.”

  “To build an atomic bomb,” said Adrian, his voice grim.

  “Or a reactor,” said Flashpoint.

  “What’s a reactor?” The term was unfamiliar to Adrian.

  “It’s a device that creates power through a controlled atomic reaction. We encountered a prototype in Germany. It’s why we wear masks.” Strongman’s voice took on a note of sadness.

  “All right. So we’ve got the Mob selling uranium to the Nazis. Sounds tailor-made for people like us.” Adrian twanged his bowstring for emphasis.

  “Us, maybe.” Flicker’s voice took on a nastier quality than it had before, something Adrian wouldn’t have believed possible. “Nobody said nothin’ about you.”

  Strongman sighed. “Well I’m saying it now, or do I have to make it an order, Corporal?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” grunted the black-garbed man.

  “They brought a truck in a few minutes ago,” said Adrian. “The whole building’s already reading hot on my counter. If they’re going to do the deal tonight, it’s probably going down soon, if not now. Any idea how the Nazis are going to move out the ore?”

  “I’m sure they’ll use a boat. They just need time to load it and make their getaway.” Colt was quivering like her namesake, anticipating battle.

  “All right then, what’s the plan and how can I help?” Adrian asked.

  “He’s the tactician,” said Strongman, pointing to Flashpoint.

  “Three-pronged attack,” said the colored man. “Strongman goes in through the roof. His objective is to draw fire and cause mayhem. Flicker ‘ports in and handles outlying sentries. Colt and Gray work the guys on the floor, herding them away from the ore towards me, where I can incapacitate them. You…” He pointed to Adrian. “Hang around in the rafters and take opportunity shots. Make sure nobody gets away with any ore. Our primary objective is to keep the ore from leaving the warehouse, not to pursue the bad guys. Questions?”

  Adrian glanced around at the others. They seemed confident in the plan, apparently trusting Flashpoint’s ability to formulate strategies.

  “Move out,” said Strongman. “John, you and Dr. Danger are with me. The rest of you have two minutes to get to your positions, then we enter the building.” Colt, Flashpoint, and the wolf slipped away, heading down the fire escape toward the alley below.

  “How are you going to go through the roof?” Adrian asked Strongman.

  “Just smash through it, I suppose. It can’t be that sturdy. It’s just a big box. Why?”

  Adrian pulled an explosive arrow from his quiver, putting it to the string. “This is loaded with gelignite. The impact on the head will detonate it. It ought to weaken the roof considerably.”

  “A grenade, huh? Maybe you ain’t so bad after all.” Flicker’s eyes glinted behind his mask. “Where do you buy ‘em?”

  “Make them myself,” said Adrian. “Where do you want it, Strongman?”

  The bronze-costumed man flew into the air, drifting toward the center of the warehouse roof. “Think you can hit right here?”

  Dr. Danger smiled. “Give me a ten second countdown.”

  Strongman pulled back his sleeve and checked a slim wristwatch. “Okay. Ten… nine… eight…” Strongman rose higher into the air, inverting himself in preparation for smashing through the warehouse roof.

  At four seconds, Adrian released the arrow. It arced up into the night sky. Four seconds later, it dropped and struck the precise spot that Strongman had marked. The explosive charge shook the roof of the building and a burst of flame and smoke rent the sky.

  Strongman lunged downward, heedless of the fiery cloud of the explosion, hitting the roof like a missile. The rooftop, overstressed and weakened by the gelignite arrow, split open like an overripe fruit, sending a cloud of dust and debris high into the sky. Flicker chuckled behind his mask. “Nicely done, Doc. That’ll get their attention for sure.” He teleported to the edge of the gaping hole, looking inside for his first target, then gave a whoop of pure joy and vanished.

  Adrian was already running for the edge of the hole as he heard gunfire erupt inside the building. Inside the base of his quiver was a coiled silk rope and a grappling hook. Spying a metal pole protruding from the roof, he looped the hook around it and lowered himself into the hole.

  Below him, he saw Colt and Gray running amid a large group of men, all armed, who were trying unsuccessfully to hit any of the heroes. There was no sign of Flicker or Flashpoint, but Strongman had just picked up a shipping crate and was preparing to hurl it at a group of men peppering him with their Tommy guns. Glancing around, Adrian saw a wide horizontal beam that should fit his needs. He kicked his legs, swinging on the rope, hoping that it wouldn’t tear on the jagged edges of the ripped roof.

  As Strongman threw the heavy shipping crate, sending the men flying, Adrian released the rope and flew across the intervening space to catch himself on the beam. In a moment he had clambered up to straddle it. He unlimbered his bow again, seeing a bright flash like a magnesium flare out of the corner of his vision. Blinking away the spots, he began looking for opportune targets.

  The first arrow he fired was a ball-tip at a man carrying one of the ugly-but-efficient German submachine guns. The man was stitching bullets across the floor toward Gray, who was mauling another gunman’s hand. The ball-tip smashed into the man’s wrist, shattering it and causing him to drop the gun. He let out a yell audible even over the sounds of guns and combat. A second ball-tip silenced him, catching him across the temple.

  Colt dashed underneath him, holding her horseshoes like they were boxing gloves. A 60-MPH punch sent a gunman flying in an explosion of tooth fragments. Adrian sent a shower of arrows in her wake, now using pointed arrows to pierce the arms and legs of the gunmen. A new, heavy chatter filled the air as two men raised an air-cooled belt-fed machine gun from the trunk of the Hudson and fired at Strongman. The heavy caliber bullets didn’t penetrate his flesh, but their kinetic impacts knocked him into a support beam for the warehouse. Already overstressed by the weakened roof, the beam buckled and Adrian’s perch bent almost ninety degrees, dropping him toward the floor.

  He knew he was going to land badly. The floor below was covered with splintered shipping crates and debris from Strongman’s actions. He tried to twist himself in midair, the way he’d been taught by a French acrobat. A dark red blur smashed into him as he fell, the impact knocking him flying laterally to smash into a stack of cardboard boxes. The empty boxes absorbed much of the force of his landing. He shook his head to clear it as he realized that Colt was lying on top of him. She had deflected his fall into the boxes. She was breathing heavily, her face flushed. Their eyes locked and in that moment, Adrian was hooked.

  Her hand, trembling slightly, brushed against his cheek and the edge of his mask, as if she would gently lift it away from his face. Thoughts of preserving his identity were far away in Adrian’s mind, and it felt like time itself had ground to a halt.

  The feeling only lasted for a fraction of a second, though, because a stream of fifty-caliber bullets tore through the boxes. Adrian jumped one way and Colt the other to get clear. He spotted his bow where it had fallen and dove for it, yanking one of the Japanese frog-crotch arrows from his quiver. The man firing the machine gun by the Hudson had a terrible grin on his face as he swept the barrel this w
ay and that, driving Strongman back into the warehouse walls. In one smooth, sweeping motion, Adrian grasped his bow, drew the arrow back, and let fly.

  The forked arrow sliced neatly through the belt feed of the machine gun and in a moment the thunderous fire halted. That gave Gray and Flashpoint an opening. The wolf leaped across the Hudson, his claws scrabbling on the shiny black paint, and came down hard on the man who’d been feeding the chain to the machine gun. The man’s scream turned into a gurgle as Gray clamped his jaws down on the man’s throat, tearing it out as neatly as a sculptor removing a lump of clay. The man who’d been firing the gun staggered as a dark third eye appeared in the center of his forehead. He crumpled to the floor. Beyond him, Flashpoint lowered one of his smoking pistols and winked at Adrian.

  For a brief moment, all gunfire in the warehouse stopped and Adrian thought that perhaps they’d won. Suddenly four figures in gray overcoats and helmets rushed in from the dockside entrance. Almost in unison, they each tossed a handled grenade in a carefully-planned dispersal pattern. Two of them impacted right where Strongman was digging his way out from under a collapsed wall. The resulting explosion demolished the remains of that corner of the warehouse, burying him under several tons of debris.

  The four newcomers raised their rifles, advancing into the warehouse, which was starting to burn from the various detonations. A black blur appeared among them, swinging a bloodstained sword. A surprised head parted from its shoulders in a spray of blood. The other three reacted with impressive speed, firing toward the teleport. Adrian thought he saw Flicker stagger even as he teleported away.

  Flashpoint popped off three flashes in rapid succession, bringing his pistols to bear on the three remaining overcoats. Gray yelped as a burning crate exploded, scattering fiery splinters across his coat. Even though he had to be seeing nothing but spots from Flashpoint’s powers, one of the men snapped his rifle around and fired at the sound of the wolf.

  Adrian, realizing at last that this engagement would require him to cross the line he’d set for himself, drew a broad-tipped hunting arrow and put it through the throat of one of the three men. The remaining two fired back, taking cover behind a forklift.

  Colt was frantically trying to pull flaming debris away from the pile that had trapped Strongman. Even though he couldn’t be hurt by the crushing weight, he could still be burned or suffocated. She was moving faster than she ever had before.

  “Danger, help Gray!” Flashpoint called as he crouched behind a packing case and reloaded his pistols.

  Adrian looked around and saw the wolf was pulling Flicker across the floor by his good arm, a trail of blood streaks in his wake. He lunged for the wounded man, helping to get him behind some cover just as the two overcoats opened up again.

  “Who the hell are those guys?” Adrian shouted over the din.

  “SS,” coughed Flicker, pulling his mask off. Adrian started with revulsion, realizing why the man wore a mask. His face was terribly scarred, as if he’d been burned. Blood trickled from a corner of his mouth. “Got a… real good look… at the guy I cut.”

  “SS?”

  “Yeah… Schutzstaffel… I really hate… those assholes.” Flicker grimaced from the pain of his wounds. He’d been shot in the torso and abdomen. “Can’t feel… my legs.”

  Colt appeared beside them, her costume blackened and smoke still rising from it in places. “I can’t get him out! I can’t even tell if he’s alive under there!”

  More gunfire came from the SS troopers, providing cover for four other men to grab a pair of heavy strongboxes and head for the dockside entrance. The entire front wall of the warehouse was burning.

  “That’s the uranium!” Flashpoint shouted.

  A voice outside the warehouse urged the men to hurry in German.

  “They’ve got to have a boat,” said Adrian. “If they get to it, we’ll never stop them. We need a diversion so we can get past those troopers!”

  Flicker coughed, spattering blood flecks. “I can… still do that…”

  “No!” cried Colt as the teleport vanished.

  He reappeared in midair, several feet over the Schutzstaffel who were firing from behind the forklift. He tumbled down on top of them like a giant rag doll, swinging his sword at them as he fell.

  Adrian was already up and running, reaching for another hunting tip. Gray was even faster, closing on the men carrying the strongboxes. Behind them, Flashpoint used his powers again to try and blind anyone trying to draw a bead on them.

  The two SS troopers made short work of Flicker. They raised their rifles again, preparing to fire at Adrian and Gray. Suddenly Colt whipped past from behind them. As she dashed past Adrian she hung something on the arrow he was about to release.

  Arming pins.

  The troopers blew up.

  A furry gray body staggered away from the explosion to collapse on the warehouse floor. The wolf transformed partway into a man but then froze before completion. A pool of blood spread out beneath him. “Gray!” cried Colt. “I didn’t see him there!”

  “He’s gone,” said Adrian. “I’m sorry.”

  “No time for that now,” said Flashpoint. “Get after the uranium. Don’t wait for me.” Adrian realized that the colored man had been shot and was holding a bloody rag against his leg.

  Adrian wanted to say something, but had no idea what. At first, he thought it was his ears ringing from the explosion, but then he was certain that he heard the sound of an engine from the dock. He ran out of the burning warehouse and saw a motorboat pulling away from the dock with six men on board. He ran to the edge of the dock and released his arrow. A man on the boat tumbled into the water and didn’t surface again.

  Adrian drew back, fired, and sent another Nazi off to sleep with the fishes. Then he lowered his bow before firing any more arrows. “Out of range,” he said to Colt as she ran up beside him. Tears ran down her cheeks.

  “Only temporarily,” said Colt. She pointed to where a small motor launch was moored. In a blur of motion she had the boat untied. Adrian slid into the seat behind the wheel. He thumbed the starter as Colt jumped into the other seat. The engine coughed twice, then rumbled to life. Adrian thrust the throttle all the way forward and locked it into place. The powerful motor roared and the boat’s prow lifted out of the water as it accelerated away from the dock.

  Even though it was late at night, there were still enough lights along the docks reflecting in the water that Adrian could see the path carved by the other boat. “Where do you think they’re going?” He shouted over the din of the boat’s engine.

  “They’ve got to have a bigger ship out there somewhere. Something that will get them back to Brazil,” said Colt.

  An idea occurred to Adrian. “Take the wheel a moment.” Colt slipped in front of him, allowing him to pick up his bow. He reached into his quiver for one of his experimental arrows. He always carried three or four of them, different projects he was developing.

  The arrow he drew forth had a pair of strange bulging packages wrapped around the shaft. He dragged the tip of the arrow along the boat’s gunwale, igniting the phosphorous powder that in turn touched off the fuse. Before the fuse burned down to the flare, he pulled the bowstring back to his cheek and shot the arrow high into the night sky.

  The flare package lit as the arrow ascended, burning magnesium powder to make a bright, white light. So far so good, thought Adrian. As the arrow reached the zenith of its arc, the secondary fuse burned through and the fireproof chute deployed itself. The flare arrow wafted down in the sea breeze, dropping like a star falling in slow motion.

  “Nice,” said Colt. “What else have you got stashed in that quiver?”

  “I wasn’t entirely sure that would work,” Adrian said. Ahead, he could see the other speedboat heading for a tall, dark pillar.

  Colt took one of her hands off the boat’s wheel and pushed her pilot’s goggles up onto her forehead. She squinted into the distance at the other boat’s destination. “What is th
at?”

  “Buoy?”

  Colt shook her head. “No light on it.”

  The other boat slowed and pulled alongside the pillar. The water around it began to bubble and foam as it rose. A narrow, dark hull popped onto the surface, water draining away through dark openings.

  A U-boat.

  As the men on the other boat began to climb aboard the U-boat’s deck, hauling the uranium-filled strongboxes with them, other men flowed out of what Adrian now realized was the conning tower. Some of them assisted the unloading of the boat, while the others unlocked the deck gun and swung it around toward them.

  Colt spun the wheel hard and the boat heaved around a tight corner, nearly swamping itself as the gunners opened up. Adrian nearly fell overboard from the maneuver, only just managing to catch a tie bar. Heavy shells blasted fountains of water into the air, barely missing their boat.

  “I’m not really equipped to take on a submarine.” Adrian struggled back to the front of the boat. “What’s the plan?”

  “Plan?” Colt flashed him a brilliant smile. “You’re the Eagle Scout. I’m just the cabbie.” She whipped the boat around in another tight turn to avoid a trail of shell impacts.

  “Okay, let me think for a second.”

  “No pressure, Doc. They’re only shooting at us.”

  Adrian drew another explosive-tipped arrow from the quiver, which was now the lightest it had ever been in a single foray. “Well, I can do something about the shooting, at least. Can you get us to within fifty yards?”

  “I better get one hell of a tip for this,” said Colt. “Traffic is murder this time of night.” She bounced the boat over a slow breaker and pointed the prow directly at the U-boat. The shells from the deck gun impacted closer and closer.

  The shot would be impossible to aim using any type of conventional technique. The speed and rocking motion of the boat were too much. Fortunately, Adrian didn’t aim so much as he fired instinctively. He always seemed to know exactly the right time, the right direction, and the right amount of pull for a given shot. He knew without conscious thought when to take the shot.