by Marv Wolfman
Flag ran after him. “Gonna kill me?” Lawton asked. “If so, can you do me a big favor and wait until after my first drink? I think I earned that much.”
“Deadshot, I need your help.”
Lawton paused. “No. You need a miracle.” He broke the lock, headed into the bar, and checked out the bottles behind the counter. “Not bad,” he said as Boomer followed him inside. “I expected all this would have been stolen or destroyed, depending on who got here first.”
Diablo and Croc entered behind them and sat down at the bar. A moment later Harley entered. She paused at the door, sashayed back and forth, turned and saw Flag still outside. She flipped him off, gave a curtsy then headed in to join Deadshot behind the bar.
“Sit down, big guy,” she said, reaching for a bottle of bourbon. “Used to tend bar during grad school.” She poured him the drink and eased it over to him.
“Keep a tab going,” he said. “I’m going to need more than one.”
“You got it, pal. So let’s see if I can figure out everyone’s drink o’ choice.” She sidled up to Boomer and fluttered her eyes at him.
“You know what I like, sugar.”
“That you don’t get, mate. I belong to my Puddin’ and nobody else,” Harley laughed. “So let’s see. You’re an Aussie. Well, I don’t see a Darwin Stubby or a VB anywhere on these shelves, but you probably like a good Black and Tan. Am I close?”
“Not even, sweet cheeks. I’m a Gurgle’s Ale mate. So, were you any good pouring drinks?”
“Never had to take out a student loan.”
Next Harley walked over to Croc and studied him. “You’re a hard one to read, KC.” She sniffed him and made a face. “Hard to tell your beverage of choice when all I smell is five-day-old sewer.”
Deadshot took a sip and joined the fun.
“I’m betting he’s a Bloody Mary man. Emphasis on the blood, and a whole side of Mary.”
Croc shook his head. “Nothing for me. Drink dulls the mind.”
“Precisely, my giant alligator pal,” Deadshot said, gesturing for Harley to fill his glass up again. “You really want a sharp mind going after those things we saw? The duller the better for me.”
Croc stared at him, then shrugged. “Okay. Beer.”
Boomer clapped his hands and gave a whoop. “There he is. A man after my own heart. Don’t take that literally. Sweet-lips, pour the big guy a Gurgle’s. No. Make that five.”
Harley turned to Diablo. He interrupted her before she got a chance to guess.
“Water.”
“Says the man who can set the world on fire. Good idea, honey.”
She poured it from the tap and handed it over. Deadshot raised his shot glass.
“Here’s to honor among thieves,” he said merrily as they clinked glasses.
“No. Not thieves,” Boomer said, raising his glass again. “Asset relocation specialists.”
“I like that,” Harley said, carefully fitting a handful of tiny cocktail umbrellas into some God-knows-what blue tropical drink.
Deadshot swirled his drink hypnotically. “We almost pulled it off. Despite what everyone thought.”
“We weren’t picked to succeed,” Diablo interrupted. “We were chosen to fail.”
“Think I don’t know that?” Deadshot laughed and poured himself a third bourbon. “They’ll blame us for what went down here. They don’t need no one knowin’ the truth. We’re the cover-up. The patsies. The bad guys.”
Croc raised his glass. “To the bad guys. You know, I never think of myself as a bad guy. I just got needs that others don’t always agree with.”
“That is so true,” Harley added. “It’s all perspective. Say you got people attacking the government, they’ll be treated like terrorists. Unless you’re the American revolution, and suddenly you’re rag-tag patriots.”
Croc agreed. “Or you’re in Star Wars and you’re the rebel alliance.”
“You got it, Wally Gator,” Harley added. “Good and bad, they change depending on who’s writing the history books. So what did Flag promise you?” she asked Lawton. “What were you gonna get outta this?”
“Same thing Waller offered me to kill you, sweetie. A shot at being a father. Life outside the suburbs.”
Harley raised her glass. “I owe you one,” she said as she downed the cab.
“No, you don’t. I trusted Flag. I was a jerk.”
Diablo slammed down his glass. “Flag had you chasing a carrot on a stick. You played yourself.”
They all nodded, agreeing. “There’s some real truth in that,” Harley said as she sidled up next to him. She put an arm around him and held up her cell phone with the other. “I love this guy,” she said. “Smile for the selfie, hot stuff.”
Diablo looked at her. “This is me smiling,” he said as she snapped the picture.
“We’ll work on that later.”
Deadshot chugged his drink, then slammed the glass down on the bar. The bottle in front of him was empty. “Maybe I played myself, but right now I’m having a drink, and for two seconds I had hope.”
Diablo shook his head. “Hope don’t stop the wheel from turning, my brother. It’s coming back around for you. So, how many people you killed?” Deadshot stared at him, then turned to Harley and raised his glass again.
“Hey, Craziness, you got any more back there?” She rummaged through the bottles and found a bourbon in the back, behind the ryes and Scotches.
“The last one,” she announced. “Savor it, honey.” He nodded and turned back to Diablo.
“You’re a street guy. You know you don’t ask that crap.”
“You never whacked no women or kids?”
Deadshot held up his glass, but just stared at it. “Naw, man. I do not kill women and children.”
Diablo leaned in close, whispering, but loud enough for them all to hear.
“I do.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
They could hear a pin drop.
Diablo turned his hands palms-up, and a flaming figure of a woman appeared between them, swaying back and forth. It was his wife, only she was alive and laughing.
“I was born with the devil’s gift,” he said. “Kept it hidden most of my life, but the older I got, the stronger it got. So I started using it for business.”
The flames were still dancing. He was creating pictures with them that demanded everyone stop what they were doing and watch. Diablo’s show was magical. Hypnotic, and frightening.
They saw a house in East Los Angeles. It looked like every other house on the block, but then it seemed to explode in fire and sparks. Diablo calmly opened the burning door, and just as calmly walked through the fire out to the street. He was holding a bottle of tequila, and he was smiling, and there was evil in his eyes.
He paused on the walkway and looked back to the house that was being reduced to ash. He noticed that his shirt was on fire, stripped it off, and tossed it back into the inferno. He took another gulp of tequila, crawled inside a waiting car, and drove off.
The woman stopped dancing. Deadshot, Harley, Croc, and Boomer were staring at him.
“The more power I got on the street, the more firepower I got. Like it went together. The world was mine for the taking. After a minute, no one dared tell me no.”
Boomer laughed. “Money. Power. Obedience. Yeah, I can see why you’re so damned morose all the time. What a hard-knock life you’ve led.”
“You’d think so,” Diablo said, his voice soft, barely above a whisper. “But you know what they say about appearances being deceiving.”
His hands ignited again and the flames continued to tell their story. He was in that house before he burned it to the ground. He was sitting at the dinner table, eating breakfast. His wife, Grace, angrily tossed the LA Times on the table. Its headline read, “Six Die In Arson Fire.”
“Yeah, nobody dared say no to me. Except my lady. She prayed for me. Even when I didn’t want it. God didn’t give me this. Why should he take it away?”
&n
bsp; Grace stared at the newspaper then back at him. She looked deep into his eyes, desperate to find his soul, wondering if there was any good left in him at all.
Then more flames appeared and took on the shape of two children, a boy and a girl, both sitting at the table, both watching their parents. They were laughing and thinking their mother was being funny as she emptied a box filled with money on the table. She tossed thousands of dollars in front of her husband, then brought out another box, this one filled with handguns, and emptied it for their children to see.
“Our kids sleep here!” she shouted at him.
The Squad watched him mouth the words, but it sounded as if she was the one speaking. “What if they found these? This is our home. Whatever you’re doing on the street stays on the street.”
Diablo let the flames die and he looked at the others. His eyes were empty and lost.
“When I get mad… When I got mad, I lost control. I blacked out, and I never knew what I did. Not until it was done and I woke up.” The flames on his hands ignited again. In them, Diablo was standing in front of his wife.
Crying, he reached out to apologize to Grace, but as he held her his body ignited. They were both engulfed in flames. He roared in horror as he held her, unable to let her go. He was screaming to God to protect her, to save her from him, but if God had heard him, he certainly didn’t interfere.
He held his wife as she crumbled to ash in his arms. He saw his kids staring at him in horror. He unleashed a howl of utter anguish as his flames filled the room and consumed everything.
Everything.
The flames dancing between his hands looked like the woman trying to run away but then her image disappeared. Diablo had placed his water glass upside down over the flames and watched them fade as the air was used up. He was back in The Golden Tree, staring at what had been his wife. Then he looked at the others. All bad people, he knew, but none of them nearly as bad as he.
“And the kids?” Boomer asked, still in shock, not quite understanding what he’d seen. Diablo’s look answered his question.
“You killed them. Didn’t you?” Harley said.
Diablo looked at her, his eyes wet and red with grief. “I lost them to my own hands.”
Harley leaned close to Diablo and put her hand on his.
“You have to own that stuff,” she said emphatically. “Own it.”
Diablo looked away.
“I own it with every breath,” he finally said.
Harley didn’t step away. She leaned in even closer. For a moment the others could see the psychiatrist she had once been.
“What’d you think would happen? You could have a happy family and coach little league and make car payments? Normal’s a setting on a dryer. People like us, we don’t get normal.”
Boomer stared at her. “Why’s it a knife fight every time you open your mouth? Outside, you’re amazing. Inside, you’re… ugly.”
“We all are,” she said, then turned to Croc. “Except him. He’s ugly on the outside, too.”
They heard the door open and turned toward it. Flag was entering the bar.
He didn’t say a word. He saw Deadshot standing behind the bar and sat down across from him. Deadshot poured him a whiskey. Flag chugged it then put it down for another. Deadshot complied.
There was no pretense here. No bravado. Just weary honesty.
He took another swig then held the shot glass with both hands and stared into it, swirling the amber back and forth.
“Get to the part in that binder saying I was sleeping with her?”
Deadshot nodded. “I did. That’s why they come after you, isn’t it? Those things. You got a connection with part of her. ’Cause’a that, the witch is scared of you.”
Flag took another sip. “The only woman I’ve ever loved is trapped inside her. If I can wake her up, I can end this. We don’t stop the witch, it’s over. Everything is over.”
“So what’s your plan now?”
“Plan? Hell, I’m low on ammo and shooters, but I’m seeing it through. Me and the boys. Who better to die with. My tribe. My family.” He stared at his drink, then finished it off.
* * *
Deadshot watched Flag put down the glass. There was a spark in his eyes. He had shambled into the Tree looking half dead and praying for the other half to take him, but now he was somehow gathering whatever the hell strength he needed to finish his job.
Lawton recognized that Flag was a very different creature than he. Flag was a soldier. When he was weak, he rallied. A man of honor. Of duty. He stared at his Squad and wondered if any of those things were in their hearts.
Somehow he knew every one of them was wondering the same thing.
Flag pulled the detonator out of his pocket. They panicked as he lightly tapped the screen. A moment later all their arming lights tuned green. Then he twisted the device and broke it into pieces.
“You’re free now. Do what you want.”
Realization instantly clicked with Boomerang. As fast as he could he ran out of the Tree. Deadshot watched Harkness disappear and shook his head, but he understood where Boomer was coming from.
Every man for himself.
Flag reached into his backpack and set a thick wad of letters on the bar. They were all addressed to Floyd Lawton. The return address on all of them said they came from Zoe Lawton.
“I was going to give you these anyway, no matter what happened. Might as well do it now.” Lawton flipped through the envelopes. “She wrote to you every day, Lawton. Every. Single. Day. The rest are waiting for you at the office.”
Deadshot stared at them and crumbled. He clawed at the envelopes, unable to open and read them through his tears. Harley was watching and reached out to grab his arm reassuringly.
Flag finished his drink and turned to leave. Deadshot grabbed him by the vest and spun him around.
“I’m going with you.”
The others stared at him.
“I’ll get you there and you’ll stop this,” Deadshot continued, “and it’s gonna be like a chapter in the Bible. Everyone’s gonna know what we did, and my girl will know her dad… her dad was…”
He didn’t need to finish.
Flag reached out and shook his hand, then turned to leave again, the others still watching. One by one they turned to each other. Harley was the first to stand.
“What? Got something better to do?”
FIFTY-NINE
They rejoined the SEALs and made their way a block south to Neon Street, Midway’s nightclub district. Parties started every night at one minute before midnight and refused to shut down until just before noon the next day. That nightly ritual ended just three days ago, when the EAs appeared, when the electricity went out and the clubs went dark.
The railway station was one street south. They were prepared to fight for those final yards, no matter what was sent against them.
They saw Boomer heading toward them. He glared, but fell back in line.
“I hate you guys,” he said.
“Same here,” Deadshot laughed. “Oh. And welcome back.”
Flag suppressed a smile. “This is it. Ready or not.”
Gripping their weapons tightly, they marched forward.
Together.
* * *
The railway station was diagonally across the street, protected behind a barricade of stacked cars and trucks. Flag gestured for the SEALs to guard the perimeter. They took their positions without another word.
“Something’s glowing. Up there,” Deadshot said, pointing to an otherworldly light emanating from the station windows.
“Lawton, it’s more than just light,” Croc said. “Can you feel it?”
“It?”
“The power. Like electricity in the air. Only stronger. It has an almost bitter smell.”
“Yeah, whatever’s causing that and the light inside, we need to see it.”
GQ followed Flag. “If you’re putting this up for a vote, Colonel, mine is no. Least not yet.”
“Any reason?” Flag asked.
“Our heat sensors are picking up a treasure trove of EAs. We’ll be spotted the second we attempt to breach their barricade. I’m suggesting we scope it out, and don’t invade until we have the full lay of the land.”
“Hey, if we can’t go in,” Boomer interrupted, “will a visual tour do instead?”
“That would certainly help. How?”
Boomer held up a drone boomerang. “Bluetooth-enabled with a camera you can follow on your smart phones.”
Flag was impressed. “Looks to me like it’ll work,” he said to GQ. “’Sides, it’s not like we have a lot of alternatives.” He turned to Boomer. “Do it.”
Boomerang threw the drone, then punched up the video feed on his phone. “I downloaded the app to your phones, too. You all can watch.” The drone silently whooshed toward the railway station roof. Boomerang controlled its pitch and arced it toward one of the shattered glass windows.
“Can you get her inside?” GQ asked.
“This would be a big waste if I couldn’t.”
The drone hovered and scanned the window’s measurements. The first window was too small for it to fit through. It moved over the next one, which proved the right size.
“We got us a bingo,” Boomer said. “We can dot the ‘I’ now.”
The drone slipped through the window and glided into the station.
Flag enlarged the video on his cell. “Can you move it over to the right? About forty-five degrees? I think I see something.”
“Yeah, mate. I’m seeing it, too.” An image of Incubus filled the screen. He was talking to his sister.
“Our big bads,” Deadshot said.
Incubus went still for just a moment then he turned and looked at them. Harley watched as he lifted a hand and pointed at the camera.
“Holy pizza,” she said. “He sees us. He knows we’re watching.” Incubus made a flicking movement with his hand and a pulsing tentacle of light shot from his fingers. A moment later the video turned to static, and died. “Something tells me that is not a technical error.”
Boomer shook his head. “Wish it was, Looney Tunes. But no.”
