X-Squad Pawn City

by Hannibal Adofo

  X-Squad

  Pawn City

  Hannibal Adofo

  Book Two of the Mods and Mayhem Series

  Contents

  Pawn City

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  About the Author

  X-Squad Pawn City

  by Hannibal Adofo

  www.hannibaladofo.com

  Copyright © 2017 Hannibal Adofo

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Pawn City

  When the first Wind and Sun cities were built in vast areas across the desert, they were described as models of efficiency. Massive climate-controlled domes shielded the residents from the sun’s intense heat, while harnessing the sun’s rays to charge the grids that powered the city.

  The domes were dedicated to the industry of metal and might, blue-collar workers, manufacturing, construction, and the like. The business of parts and hard labor was the thing.

  People by the hundreds flocked to the domes looking for work. They were drawn by the idea of endless nice days in a world where extreme weather had simply become the norm.

  There were plenty of jobs and therefore plenty of cash, more than enough to go around.

  But in an age of technology and rapidly moving advancements, the business of hard labor took a turn for the worse. Warehouses and manufacturing plants closed in a matter of months. And a once-thriving city of the lower middle class became poor and destitute in less than a year.

  The tide was turning for the Wind and Sun Cities, and despite major efforts for reform, nothing could be done to change it.

  Corporations moved on as steel became obsolete. Massive workforces were a thing of the past, to be replaced more efficient automation.

  Human beings became more or less useless, as far as labor was concerned, replaced by AI, autonomous robots, and tireless machines that didn’t sleep or eat. And most of all, they didn’t need to be paid.

  Days became too hot for most of the citizens to survive, and the cold days were at best still miserably warm. Systems overloaded, and old parts melted away. The wind increased to speeds where turbines would burn out and die, like dinosaur relics from a prehistoric age, destined to make a way for something new.

  The Wind and Sun cities were abandoned by most, while others, although few, had chosen to stay. Their hope was that the glory of the cities would return. They had faith in a place that had been forsaken.

  1

  Whistler Reid was willing to do whatever it takes, as long as it would make him plenty of money.

  He stood six feet tall—that was the lie he would tell, but really, he was five foot eleven more accurately five ten and a half.

  He was a handsome man with a head full of hair that was often covered by a stone color Stetson.

  He was a cowboy in a place where cows no longer existed—if not just for the expenditure of oxygen alone, there simply wasn’t available space.

  Whistler was a former executive who had shunned his corporate ways before he decided to go into business for himself. His new business didn’t fall at the mercy of the latest technological trends. In fact, he had no specific product at all, at least none he could claim as his own.

  Instead, Whistler moved things people wanted and desired, but couldn’t acquire through legal means or normal channels.

  Whistler procured various items, whether stolen or legitimate, and turned them into a profit for pennies on the dollar. He found this to be a sustainable, lucrative business over the years. He also founded a dome and called it Pawn City.

  With its fully functional airport, Pawn City was a perfect place for smugglers to drop off stolen goods they’d procured from the rich, through robbing delivery trucks or from corporate districts.

  Today, a small group of enterprising thieves were bringing in a load of stored fuel cells and multiuse batteries in order to be paid off or traded. They would land their aircraft and wait for smugglers from the north who had made arrangements to make the exchange.

  Whistler would receive a percentage of the cut both for his discretion and the use of his city. That was the deal he’s always brokered.

  The buyers, however, never made the scheduled drop. They were fired on by weapons from somewhere on the surface, and in reaction to that, they aborted the drop and reneged on the exchange.

  Whistler, at the time, was monitoring an underground news feed, interacting with a hologram while working with another. When a report from the feed caught his attention.

  “An unprecedented prisoner escape from Vault 2150 has been registered from the People’s Republic of the Congo.”

  The report was completely audio, with no visuals in the feed. And although the voice was altered to protect the reporter’s identity, he could tell it was a woman by the cadence of her voice.

  “The names of the fugitives have been withheld due to an ongoing peacekeeper investigation. However, we’ve been given exclusive access to a probable list due to in-depth inquiries by a collection of independent journalists and on-site witness testimony. The fugitive’s names are as follows…”

  Whistler recognized a couple of names as they were listed by the reporter along with the crimes that they’d committed.

  Some were simply heinous or so reported.

  The two prisoners that stood out were the sons of a man he had done business with in the past. The notorious black-market trader and thief Silas Lister.

  He hadn’t heard much about Silas’ sons, and he didn’t have much knowledge of their comings and goings—he only knew that they existed, and that was it.

  But when a message from their father came through a secure communications portal, he was set to take the call with his finger on the button when his sensors detected an explosion in the distance. Someone had fired an anti-aircraft missile.

  Whistler wasted no time. He threw on a cooling suit, which controlled his body temperature during the exposure to the heat, along with a helmet in the shape of his Stetson hat. He grabbed his shotgun (fully automatic) and took four of his best men, including his personal guard.

  He climbed inside his climate-controlled jeep, heavily armored with a turret on the roo
f, equipped to fire both missiles and high-caliber bullets—anti-armor, anti-tank, expensive as hell, but worth every penny.

  Before he left, he stuck his head in the control room in the back, which wasn’t much more than a closet and some windows.

  “Sugar?” He was speaking to Darlene. She was the best hacker that he had, and also his woman. She was five six, brown hair, but kept it short. Emerald-green eyes and more athletic than she was shapely.

  He swore she was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. “I’m going to need you to capture the live feed from a surveillance satellite and transfer it to the jeep. I need to find these fuckers in a hurry.”

  Darlene nodded. “No problem, sir.” She smiled, as a promise to say there was more to come when he got home. “I’ll give you everything you need before you need it, and then some.”

  Whistler winked. “That’s my girl.” And then he left.

  …

  When they arrived, they found nothing but a missile launcher at an arroyo.

  Whistler and his bodyguard exited the jeep to see what was going on, while the four other men stood point at the vehicle, staring off to see if they could spot anything unusual.

  His bodyguard was an aging, nameless VP-23.

  The nameless were an elite group of corporate bodyguards, known for their loyalty and dedication as much as their deadly skill. Even after Whistler left the company, VP-23 had stayed with him. Protecting him just like he had before, except seemingly doing it more often nowadays. Whistler was the type to wade in the muck of things quite often.

  The VP stood for vice president, which Whistler had been at the top of his career. In some nameless clans, the number stood for their rank among other nameless; in others it stood for the rank of the executive they were guarding.

  They were approaching the missile launcher toward the deep end of a canyon when they heard the sound of vehicles approaching. They turned to see three heavily armored vehicles line up between a troop transporter and a tank.

  Whistler and VP-23 moved toward the vehicles with weapons in hand. VP held dual handguns in his fists, the weapons preferred by the nameless.

  They watched as a square-jawed, broad-shouldered man with short, greying hair and a head the shape of a bullet emerge from the top of the armored vehicle.

  “One would think a smuggler would know better than to trust a satellite feed,” the man said, as he stepped out from his vehicle on to the desert sand wearing full desert camo and tan boots.

  Whistler stood up with quizzical look on his face, but said nothing.

  “You understand, there was no way you could have known we were coming. We masked our approach. Your instruments would never have detected us. But even so, with your reputation being as it is, getting trapped in a canyon is the last thing I would have expected from you. And it’s rather disappointing.”

  Whistler hated when people got the name wrong.

  “It’s an arroyo… Not a canyon.”

  “It matters? You know what I meant. Now, if you’re thinking of fighting your way out of this, going out in a blaze of glory, feel free to test your luck. My men are posted right up there.” He pointed upward to the rocks. “All around this ‘arroyo,’ such as it is. I guarantee your demise won’t just be pretty; it’ll be goddamn beautiful.”

  A machine gun turret whirled to life and aimed at the jeep. Armed men poured out from the other two armored vehicles and took aim at Whistler and his men.

  They raised their weapons, though they were clearly outgunned, each of them were ready to lay down their lives.

  “Your men are loyal,” the military man said. “It’s a shame I’ll have to kill them.”

  “No one has to die today. This little show of firepower is unnecessary,” Whistler asked.

  “That is entirely up to you, Mr. Reid.”

  “All depends. Are we done with this pissing contest? Because I’d really like to know what the hell this is all about.”

  “Now, Mr. Whistler, that didn’t sound very friendly.”

  “Go to hell! I’m not here to make any friends.”

  “Interesting choice of words, but let’s change that, shall we? You can start by calling me by my name. I am known as General Grieves.”

  “Fine, General Grieves. What do you want?”

  “I want what every man should want, Mr. Reid.”

  “Well, if it’s money, you can go fuck yourself,” Whistler said. “We pay the local army to leave us alone, and we pay our bills on time. So if you lost out on your cut, take it up with the hand that feeds you.”

  “I have no qualms with your assumptions, but the one I serve is a slave to no government, nor is he owned by any corporation. I only answer to a much higher power.”

  “And what higher power is that?”

  “The cleansing fire is coming, Mr. Reid,” Grieves said. “My men and I have left our foolish ways and our selfish desires to be masters behind to pave the way for the Lord Inferno to return.”

  “Odd uniform you have for a general,” VP-23 said.

  “Says the guy wearing a suit in the middle of the desert. I may care enough to ask. What’s your problem with it?”

  “I don’t see any stars,” VP-23 said.

  “Stars mean nothing to gods. My rank among men is insignificant.”

  “You sound like a fucking lunatic,” VP-23 said. “Your men follow you, the way you talk?”

  “Raise your weapon and you’ll find out exactly how crazy I can be,” Grieves asserted.

  “Okay, look, what do you want?” Whistler sensed a pending confrontation. One they would likely end up losing.

  “I need some very specific items to prepare for the Lord Inferno’s arrival, things you can provide.”

  “You could have just asked. Providing things is what I do. So pointing guns at me is entirely unnecessary.”

  “I don’t ask for anything. I earn, or, if necessary, I take.”

  “So, which is it this time?”

  “This will be in the ‘take’ category,” Grieves said. “Which means when the cargo plane returns, you will relinquish its inventory to me.”

  “You paying for this?” Whistler asked.

  “I hadn’t planned on it.”

  “Yeah, see, that’s not gonna fly. Money is my preferred form of currency, and I’m pretty sure the guys who boosted those fuel cells and brought them all the way out here for an exchange will feel the same way.”

  “You show as sad lack of imagination, Mr. Reid.”

  “It’s likely due to my lack of giving a shit.”

  “And that would be another disappointment. I am offering you the word of the Lord Inferno. Accept his ways and you could be spared during the cleansing.”

  “You say it as if I haven’t heard this Lord Inferno shit before,” Whistler replied.

  “Judging from your attitude, Reid, listening doesn’t seem to be your strong suit,” Grieves said.

  “Perhaps not, but I’m going to need more than a sermon about an imaginary fire god before turning over those fuel cells.”

  “I would advise you to mind your tongue, Mr. Reid. And you’re speaking as if this is a negotiation. You have no choice in the matter: once the plane lands, you will turn the cargo over to me, or I can just blow the plane out of the sky right now. If you die in the process, that’s simply a bonus for me. The only reason why I haven’t killed you and your band of misfits already is because I have no interest in taking over your business.”

  “Giving you shit for free is not much of a business. I assure you my associates will feel the same way.”

  “I will give them my word if they wish. And I will let them live.”

  “Once you get the fuel cells, you’ll leave?”

  “Of course—until I need something else.”

  2

  “X-Squad? Hmmm, I think I like it.” Skip the pilot approached X-1 on the observation deck of the Lionheart executive plane.

  X-1 looked at him without much of an expression before going
back to staring at the sky.

  “We are almost out of fuel,” Skip told him.

  “I am aware,” X-1 said. “The range of this vessel is something I am familiar with.”

  “On our current course, we’ll run dry over the southwest—nothing but desert there. We go that route and we’re toast, literally, since it is hotter than the devil’s asshole out there.”

  “The Lister Twins have a plan to solve our fuel problems,” X-1 said. “Going to the desert is part of that plan.”

  “You trust those crooks?”

  “Do you have a better plan? If so, let’s hear it.”

  “We could go back to Lionheart, do what we supposed to do in the first place,” Skip said. “It feels like we went to all that trouble bringing that kid out of the vault for nothing.”

  “Do you believe sending a living weapon like her back to her mother would constitute a threat to Fox Lionheart?”

  “Yeah, but so does being on the run without a corporate benefactor.”

  “Get between me and protecting my client and I will become an immediate threat to you. So, you need to consider alternatives that keep us alive and out of the hands of the authorities. Any ideas?”

  Skip reluctantly responded, “No.”

  “That makes two of us,” X-1 said.

  “Even so, I don’t like trusting criminals.”

  “We have broken three people out of the vault and killed numerous law enforcement personnel in the process. We are the criminals now. It’s safe to say that we are now public enemy number one.”

  3

  Whistler returned to find his main headquarters diminished to a pile of smoke and ruble. While he was out dealing with Grieves, a small force of men slipped in and had taken his headquarters out.

  He was amazed they took the place out so quickly. The men Whistler left behind were experienced and well-armed and were paid a pretty penny for their services.

  A lone man wearing the same desert camo as Grieves stood tall amongst the wreckage. He smiled with what he could on the one side of his face—the other half was a deep mass of scars showing an odd like expression.