by Declan Finn
He pointed at Mira. “I don’t want you firing your gun at all. Hold onto the kid. Please, surprise me and do what I ask.”
Inna reached out and grabbed him. “What are you going to do, open fire and draw them away? That’s—”
“Insane? So what else is new? No, I intend to have them try and find me.”
He twisted the staff and separated it into two pieces. He tipped over one section, and a three-foot cane slid out. He grabbed it and flicked it; a second section slid out of the first, turning it into a fighting pike about the length of his telescoping staff. The other end opened to reveal a straight katana blade, a third of its length tucked into the handle. He took the handle and flicked his wrist, throwing the blade to its full length.
He smiled. “Then again, I could find them.” He patted the sword dangling at his hip. “I also have this. So I’m covered.”
Mira eyed the staff. “Could I take that?”
Ryan cocked his head and furrowed his brows. “Why?”
“Don’t you watch Heavens Above? I was trained with it.”
Ryan frowned. “You weren’t taught to kill, were you?”
“Of course I was; how else would I know how to avoid hurting someone by accident unless I knew how to hurt them on purpose? It’s hard to avoid injuring someone unless one knows what would cause injury.”
He nodded and handed over the staff. “Point taken.”
Mira gave Marko to Inna. He stirred, annoyed at the disturbance. He wanted to get some sleep, and all of these big people were starting to annoy him with their jostling.
“What’s the highest ranking Red Beret you know? Frenki’s boys.”
Mira looked at him strangely. “Andre, I believe… Remember the reporters I didn’t get along with? He was one; he’d been arrested for accidentally firebombing the wrong business—it belonged to a Serb. He volunteered for the ‘Red Berets,’ as you call them, to get out of prison. He was amazingly good at slaughter. Last I heard, he was a Captain.”
Ryan sighed. He reassembled the staff and listened carefully for the sounds of approach, then slid out into the woods of Rockycreek.
***
Batman slid through the woods, his costume blending badly. Had he given it slightly more thought, he would have gotten a brown Ranger costume, like the bodyguard now had. The cloak would most certainly have merged better with the wood. But it could have been worse; he could have gotten a bright yellow spandex costume.
Batman held in his right hand a razor-edged bat-a-rang; he had tested it on tree branches inches thick, and made sure he had sharpened it again after each test throw. He had enough throwing knives on him to complete the job, should even the bat-a-rang miss.
A twig snapped in the forest, and leaves rustled off to his right. Batman wheeled around the tree he’d being using for cover and threw before looking. The bat-a-rang buried itself deep into the trunk of a tree. He had barely missed a tall wizard’s staff. He turned, already reaching for a throwing knife. He tossed the blade off into the woods.
A hand grabbed his wrist. Ryan stepped forward and jammed a fist behind the man’s right ear. Batman would have passed out immediately even if his head hadn’t slammed into the tree he’d been hiding behind.
Ryan smiled and reached down, confiscating all of the wonderful toys Batman had on hand: three more throwing knives and an actual grappling gun.
These toys belong to me. Thank you, sir, for making this easy; I know how to use your own weapons against you, because they were all designed for me.
***
“Dare-Demon,” alias David Olin, ran through the woods toward the grunting sound. He had, from a very young age, been able to tell the differences between the grunts of individual people. The noises had their own unique qualities to each person, and he knew Batman had been felled. He flicked his dark-red collapsible kendo open, listening for his prey.
A moment later, he found Batman, out cold, bound with plastic peace bonds around his hands and feet. He noted a wizard’s staff only three yards away. He closed his eyes and listened to the woodland silence.
More than thirty feet above him, a grappling hook was buried deep into the trunk of one tree. The cord it was attached to was wrapped around a knife driven into another tree fifteen feet away. Ryan had used the grapple gun to bring him up, and leapt from one tree to another so he could tie it around said knife. At the moment, he hung from the stretched-out cord, trying to hang squarely over Olin’s body. He bent his knees slightly, using his crotch as a targeting sight, and Olin’s head the bull’s eye. He hovered a moment, making sure his target would be stationary for another moment.
As “Dare-Demon” listened, he remained completely still. He only heard a slight whistling of the wind as Sean fell from the sky. Ryan landed on his shoulders and immediately scissored his legs back. He didn’t even hear the neck snap that killed him.
Ryan landed in a pile of dead leaves still left over from the previous fall, crackling from the sudden pressure of bodies. Crud!
He rolled out from the leaves and ran for the staff, grabbing it along the way. He ran behind a tree, plucking the katana from the ground as he moved, trying to put a little distance between him and his pursuers.
***
At the flank of the line of attack, a man dressed in a bright-red Trek security uniform stood watch. In his hand, he held a Dust Buster-shaped weapon. Inside it, Mitchell Scholl had installed a tazer gun.
“Excuse me, lad, but what might you think you’re doing?”
He turned, looking at one tall, brown-haired man with thick cheekbones, and a blond male with horn-rimmed glasses. “Just a little search, nothing to worry about.”
Dennis Boyle shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think you might be trying to kill a friend of ours, not to mention an actress Francis has a fancy for.”
O’Riordan pushed the glasses up his nose. “I think that, too. I think she’s quite a pleasant lady, and I wouldn’t want you to try anything.”
Boyle nodded. “So, if you leave now, I’ll make sure Francis doesn’t hurt you.”
The security guard sighed and turned his back on both of them, as though he was about to ignore the past ten seconds. He grabbed the tazer, whirled, and fired.
Unfortunately, his wrist was in the clutches of Francis O’Riordan.
Five seconds, a busted wrist, a broken nose, and a kick to the face later, the blonde IRA man picked up the tazer and emptied the batteries onto the ground. “Don’t you just hate the gun laws in this country?”
***
One of the men, dressed like a Matrix character, passively observed his surroundings through dark shades. “Dare-Demon” was on the ground, neck broken, his solid metal baton beside him. “Matrix,” better known as Private Zoran Djukanovic picked up the weapon and padded his way through the trees, making no sound as he went.
A streak of silver flashed before his eyes, making Zoran jerk back. His gaze followed the path of the projectile until he saw a katana sticking out of a tree.
He heard an object slice through the air and he spun, raising his baton over his head to catch the staff in mid-arc.
Sean arched his brows, nodding in appreciation. “Nice.”
Ryan swung the staff from the other end, hoping to catch Zoran’s left ribcage. Zoran slid the baton down as though he were sliding a sword into a scabbard, again catching the pike. Sean fired another shot from the opposite side, and Zoran swung the baton, intercepting it. Zoran raised the baton over his head and brought it down. Sean caught it on the center of the staff and used it as a pivot point to wheel around and club Djukanovic across the face. He dropped to the ground with a hard thud.
“You should have dressed like Fishburn; you can never go wrong with Shakespearean actors.”
***
“The Wolverine” moved through the woods, half-hunched over, his eyes moving all around him at all times.
To his left, a Zippo flicked on. The Serb whirled, ready to launch himself forward instantly. In
stead of finding Ryan or Mira, he found a man dressed in a light, gray raincoat, lighting a cigarette. He tucked the lighter away and casually observed the killer with dispassionate, disapproving, blue eyes.
“You really should be ashamed of yourself. You let the man get off a shot. Now everyone who knows what a gun sounds like will be coming for you. And there are some real New York cops around; you wouldn’t want to deal with them.” He sighed. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. Everyone makes mistakes, and I assume this is your first real assassination attempt. So take some advice from an old pro—you lost as soon as he got away. Regroup, try again later, or disappear under whatever rock you came from.”
He narrowed his eyes. “And who are you?”
“Eric Gresham. Does the name mean anything to you?”
He shrugged.
Gresham sighed. “I use so many damn aliases it’s hard to collect a proper resume. Trust me: leave now before it’s too late.”
The Serb merely glared at him with disdain. Gresham sighed. “Too bad.”
Eric gave one sharp blow on the cigarette. In between the millimeter of tobacco and the cigarette filter was a slender dart of curare poison, which promptly scattered the front of tobacco camouflage and into the Serb’s back. The drug neutralized any of the signals that traveled down the man’s nervous system, and he fell flat on his face.
Gresham lit another, real cigarette. “Kids. Won’t listen to their elders.”
***
Nicolas Turgenev stared hard into the woods. He was dressed in a gray security uniform, and he had a real pistol inside his prop gun. He raised it in front of him, looking for anything remotely human.
A shadow flashed through the woods. He fired twice, shattering splinters into the air. He saw another dark streak to his right, turned, and fired again. He double-tapped a tree, then empty air.
“You need lessons, laddy.”
Turgenev spun and pulled the trigger, only to here a definitive click of an empty gun. He looked at the girl in front of him and wondered why he bothered with the gun. She was sexy, slender, with pale skin, nice tits, long black hair, and green eyes to kill for.
Well, if she doesn’t fight too hard, maybe I won’t kill her after I’m finished.
“Would you like to come along quietly now, or do you want it to be painful?”
He grinned. “I hoped it wouldn’t be too painful…for you, anyway.”
She gave him a coy smile. “It won’t be, I promise you.”
Nicholas rushed her. She sidestepped his charge, stomped on his kneecap as he flew by, and pushed him, adding her impetus to his own as he slammed into a tree.
Maureen McGrail shook her head and walked away.
***
Two attackers were lucky. One of them was dressed in a deep purple cloth, fortified by armored calf and forearm plates, each of them covered with sharp metal protrusions capable of shredding through flesh and bone. The other was dressed in a Dash costume. Both stood only feet away from Mira Nikolic and Inna Petraro. Inna had already slid the water bottle over the muzzle of her gun. She had hoped to get a lone idiot because, while the “silenced” pistol wouldn’t attract the attention of an awful lot of people, the gun’s noise would definitely give away her position to the other one, and she didn’t want to fire too often, lest her “suppressor” fail too soon.
Marko stirred against her and mewed. The Dash turned, looking directly at her through the bushes. Wow, impressive hearing; I barely heard it, and I’m holding him.
The Dash approached her, leaving his partner to veer off to her right. She glanced right, met Mira’s gaze, then nodded in the direction he was heading.
The Dash skulked toward them and was about to kick through the bushes when he heard the faint rip of plastic. He never even felt the bullet impact under his chin.
The Dash’s partner whirled, seeing his partner tumble over. Mira had used her staff like a pool cue and rammed the end directly between the eyes.
***
One Serb, dressed in “FBI Casual”, better known as a black, three-piece suit with dark sunglasses, ran headlong through the woods, hoping to bowl over anyone coming at him. He constantly looked about him for danger, fully prepared to kill anyone who blocked his path.
Unfortunately, with sunglasses on, he was unable to notice a brown, wooden staff next to a brown tree, and tripped over the staff, running headlong into the ground.
Ryan stepped into the open and shook his head as he bent down and used the plastic peace bonds to tie him up. “Is this what they call a professional nowadays? Pathetic.”
“Yes, aren’t they?”
Sean whirled, his katana raised high.
Eric Gresham merely smiled. “Hell, you’re more professional. Frankly, had they been smart, they would’ve hired me.”
Sean slowly lowered the weapon. “What brought you here?”
“Anyone who knows what a gun sounds like certainly knew what was going on,” the mercenary told him. “Besides, I went to see Mira speak at the ‘alternate location’. When she didn’t show up, I stopped by where it was originally scheduled.”
“Do you know if anyone phoned the police? Waldemar Janowitz?”
Gresham smiled. “Don’t know. Personally, I would have removed him; as you can see, they’re obviously not me, because you’d be dead by now.”
“Right,” Sean drawled. “Either you’re for real, or you’re the best liar I’ve seen in years.”
He bowed. “Why, thank you. By the way, I wouldn’t worry about the rest. While you and the others were busy disposing of this Euro-trash, I made a search of the area. I didn’t find anyone else, but there could still be more on the way.”
Sean cursed. “How many of these guys are there?”
Gresham shrugged, and casually lit a cigarette. “Well, there’s at least two more in the sports center—I saw them lugging Mira’s husband inside. He looked like hell, but alive. They’ll probably keep him that way as long as they think she’ll come and exchange herself for him.”
Ryan cocked his head, blinking. “Wait. What others?”
“I suspect he means me,” answered a sweet brogue. Maureen McGrail slid out of the shadows. “I only disposed of one, the rest were too far.”
Sean looked from one to the other. “Where do you people come from?”
A stream of automatic fire chewed up the ground at their feet, and they all broke for cover in three different directions. “What’d you say about the area being clear?” Sean yelled.
A burst of fire kept Gresham back. “That’s not a Stechkin, those are ARs.”
Sean blinked. “Assault rifles? Who the—”
A burst of gunfire came from the other direction. McGrail nearly flinched. “Those are Stechkins.”
Ryan glanced in front and behind. The Stechkin wielders were wearing the usual mishmash of convention attire, and the ones with the assault rifles were wearing… “Am I seeing things, or are those guys wearing the white robes of suicide bombers?”
Eric muttered. “Nuts, I hate these guys. They’re awful to work with.”
Ryan thought a moment. Why would he just happen to run into this small army, just at this point? Answer, Sean – because you went to hide in the deepest, darkest parts of the woods, which is big enough to hide and army. So why are you surprised that they use it to hide a small army?
“Serbs at one end, Muslims at the other…” He smiled, whirled out, fired three rounds at the men in white, killing two of them, and then wheeled around, firing another three at the Serbs. “Come and get me!” he screamed.
Sean ran out into the woods, firing two more rounds at either side, hoping they would notice him. He stopped after the first hundred strides and waited…
Luan Mulliqi looked on in shock. The Serbs! He knew them by their wretched stench—why did he have to be upwind of them?
He smiled, took aim at his older enemy, and fired. His brigade would finish these Serbs first, and then, then, the actress, and her little bodyguard, to
o.
The Serbs immediately noted the ghostly figures in white ahead of them, and ignored the petty bodyguard. They had a target they wanted more.
And Sean ducked.
***
Mira and Inna looked at the chaos break out only meters in front of them, and they both smiled. “Sean has to be alive,” Inna said.
Mira smiled at Marko, trying to keep him calm, and pleasantly said, “Only he could make people kill each other like this.”
Inna nodded. “I wonder if we could support him without giving our position away.” She blinked a moment. “Mira, find some rocks, I need to do something.”
When Mira was done, she turned to find Inna holding a hot pink thong. She cocked her head, wondering where that had come from, and said, “Your zipper?”
Inna refastened her jeans and took a rock, loading it into the front of the thong. She grabbed the thinner end, and whirled it above her head like a slingshot, and then let the rock fly. It impacted against a terrorist’s head with a satisfying crack.
Inna ducked down again and grabbed another rock. Mira nodded in appreciation.
Meanwhile, the shooters did not even notice a comrade felled by a rock instead of a bullet. The woods were full of gunmen who had come from God knows where, and they were too focused on their natural enemy to notice their own casualties, never mind one falling from a rock to the head.
Luan himself attacked cautiously. He fired in disciplined bursts, then wheeled back behind a tree.
And then a rock hit the tree next to him. He ducked. Where did that come from?
He glanced down at the rock, then up to where it had broken the bark of the tree, and then he dove for cover, vectoring away from both the rock and the bullets. Let them try to apprehend me now!
A katana slashed through the barrel of the AK47, then ripped open his forehead, spilling blood into his eyes. Another slash ripped across his chest, and the pommel of a handle smashed against his sternum, slamming him against the tree. Luan cleared his eyes. That bodyguard! He whipped open his robes and pulled out his scimitar.
