by Dale Brown
Pavel Kazakov smiled, then raised his hands in surrender. "Well, well, so you really do exist," the gangster said in English. "And there is a little army of you people, I see. Very impressive, although you appear to be the shortest in stature of the
group. Americans, I assume. Special operations? Delta Force9 Navy SEALs?" No response. "How did you find me?"
"Fursenko," the commando said.
"Indeed? The good doctor is still alive? Good for him. I'll take great pleasure in plucking off his gonads myself and stuffing them into his empty eye sockets.
So. Are you going to shock me into oblivion, too?" No response. "Well, it was certainly nice chatting with you." But as he turned to leave, Kazakov felt sharp snaps and pings of electricity all around him, like an invisible electrical fence, hemming him in.
"Damn you, what do you want?" Kazakov screamed. "Take off that armor and tell me to my face, you cowardly bastard!" No response. "What is it? Money? Do you want money?" "Yes," the figure said.
"Aha. Now we are getting somewhere," Kazakov said, an evil smile creeping across his face. "Money in exchange for my freedom."
"Money ... in exchange for your life," the commando said. "That is hardly fair. I'm sure we can ... ouch!" Another crackle of electricity jolted his head and made it feel as if a million ants were crawling all over his body. "You son of a diseased whore! You are robbing me? Is this a stickup? You are actually robbing me? My money or my life? How dare you?" He was answered by another crack of electricity that this time sent him to his knees. "All right, all right, you win!" He got to his feet, then made a pantomime of searching his pockets. "Oh, sorry, I seem to have forgotten my wallet. Maybe you'll take my, how do you say, IOUT'
The commando reached into his utility belt, withdrew a handheld satellite telephone, and tossed it to the Russian gangster. When Kazakov opened it, he found a card with account numbers and Interbank address codes on it. As he dialed a number, he said, "I suppose we should agree on an amount, no?'9
"One-half billion dollars," the commando said.
Kazakov laughed. "Whatever you have heard about me, my friend, it is obviously wrong. I do not have-" He was cut off by another bolt of energy that knocked him backward onto his
ass. "Hey! I am telling you the truth, bastard boy! I do not have a half a billion dollars!"
"Then you will die," the electronic voice said.
"I mean to say, I have it, but I cannot get it with just a phone call-" He was silenced by another bolt of energy, this one deep enough to cause substantially more pain, but not enough to render him unconscious. "You scum-sucking bastard! I will kill you for this, I promise! You and your friends are dead! You understand me? Dead!"
"One-half billion dollars, confirmed in five minutes, or you die," the futuristic commando said.
Kazakov redialed the telephone. To come up with the money, his comptroller at Metyorgaz had to liquidate all of his boss's personal holdings in the company, along with several other asset accounts under his direct control-including the loans from his international "investors," the crime bosses and drug lords trying to launder money through Metyorgaz from all over the world-but in just a few minutes, the money was transferred. The commando pocketed the phone. Kazakov could hear him talking inside his helmet, apparently on a helmet-mounted communications network.
"Now you let me go, eh?" Kazakov asked. "Now you come with me," the commando said. "A deal is a deal! You said you would let me go!"
"I said I would let you live," the figure said. Three more armored commandos appeared, along with a man in a green battle-dress uniform and helmet-wearing the insignia of the Turkish Jandarma, the Turkish National Police. "But there are warrants for your arrest issued by nine different nations, and as a member of Interpol, this man is authorized by the Romanian government to make an arrest here." The Jandarma agent snapped handcuffs on Kazakov, then searched him carefully, blindfolded him, and led him away to a nearby waiting helicopter. Kazakov was screaming his innocence, screaming about the money he just paid, screaming about revenge, all the way until the door was closed on the helicopter that had come to take him away.
After the police helicopter was gone, Patrick McLanahan collapsed to one knee on the ground and removed his helmet.
His head was sweaty and his hair matted, despite the suit's excellent air-conditioning system. The other armored commandos surrounded him, wordlessly waiting to lend any support they could. After several long moments, Patrick's brother
Paul finally asked, "You okay, Patrick?"
"Sure." "Good work, Patrick," they all heard former President Kevin Martindale say via their subcutaneous satellite transceivers. "The funds are already being redistributed out of the phantom holding account. International and private relief agencies based in Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Turkey will get most of it to pay reparations for what Kazakov has done to their people. Some of the rest will go to pay for a private security force to make sure Kazakov stands trial-I hate to say it, but even Turkey's government pollce agencies probably have some of Kazakov's men working deep in them."
"But we keep the rest of the money, right, Mr. President?" Patrick asked angrily.
"What we do, what we're going to do, isn't cheap," Martindale said.
"Then what makes us so different from bastards like Kazakov?" Patrick asked bitterly. "We steal, we attack, we raid for money."
"The difference? The difference is you, Patrick, you and everyone who wears that Tin Man battle an-nor, flies the robot planes, launches the missiles, and everyone who decides to join us," Martindale replied. "Yes, we are going to help ourselves to blood money. We are going to distribute it to those we feel will benefit from it the most, especially the victims of the criminals we hunt down, but we are going to help ourselves to t as well."
11 We're criminals!" Patrick shouted. "Stealing money, even from human crap like Kazakov, is still a crime!"
"No, it isn't, sir," Wohl said. "It's justice."
"Whose ustice?" Patrick grabbed Wohl's gauntlets. "The i
justice of the most powerful? Whoever has the strongest armor or the biggest gun?"
"It's not how justice is dispensed, Patrick, but how justice
benefits society," Paul said. "The money you got from Kazakov will help a lot of lives. That's justice."
"Then let's take off this armor and stand up in front of the same judges that Kazakov will face and tell them that," Patrick retorted. "Will they tel I us it's all right to invent our own definition of justice? Will they allow us to do whatever we like, attack whoever we wish, in the name of our own brand of so-called justice? Let's see what their answer will be!"
"We are not lawmen, Patrick," Kevin Martindale said, through their ethereal electronic bond. "I didn't make you swear an oath to uphold or defend anything when you agreed to join me. We don't serve any government, any court, or any set of laws. We are not soldiers, lawyers, or politicians. We are warriors."
:'What in hell does that mean, sir?"
'It means we fight not for country, not for law, not for money, but for right," Martindale replied. "I believe we know what is right, what is just. Your brother Paul knows the law. You, Hal, and Chris are soldiers. We all came from different backgrounds, different perspectives, and different experiences. But we're all standing here, together, right now. There's a reason for that. Whatever shaped us, whatever we were, and whatever we are, I believe we are warriors. Members of the warrior class. No rank, no flag, no master. We fight for what is right."
"And sometimes you have to fight on their level, Muck," Paul McLanahan added. "You taught me that when you first put on this armor back in Sacramento. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't nice, but it worked. You taught me we can do some good with it."
"And you know something else? I didn'tforce you to make Kazakov pay you," Martindale added. "I suggested you squeeze him so we could help some of his victims, but I didn't come up with this numbered bank account or satellite phone idea-you did. You could have turned him over to the Janda
rma without making him do anything. But you did it because you don't think Kazakov will ever stand trial, and even if he does go to prison, he won't suffer and he won't be in long. You believe the only way to hurt him is to take what he loves, and that's money. I agree."
"We all agree, Muck," Hal Briggs said.
"Affirmative," Chris Wohl agreed.
"So stand tall and be proud of what you did, and don't concern yourself about
squeezing a bug like Pavel Kazakov," Martindale said. "But if it bothers you so much, if you think what you did and what I suggest we all do together is wrong or illegal or immoral, you can take off that armor and go home and live peacefully in retirement. You've earned it. Those of us who want to stay will continue the fight, however we decide to do it, for as long as we want to do it. Either way, you have the thanks and best wishes of us all, General McLanahan."
Patrick said nothing. He stood, handed his helmet to his brother with his head bowed, and walked slowly toward the tilt-rotor aircraft that would take him home.
