Chapter 21B

Gunny was the first to recover, once The Dragon was safely back in her cage.

"Holy shit! It's you! I mean, you're her!"

"You saw the video with the tank?" I asked him.

"Yeah, man! That was outrageous. Of course, it had to be fake, right?"

"No."

Gunny looked to Brock for guidance on this.

The Colonel shook his head, "She's for real. What do you think happened to the conference table? Two inch thick slab of solid mahogany. Snap!"

"Jeez!" Max said. "Real. Damn."

After that, Gunny and Max got very quiet. I succeeded in making them take us seriously, but now they seemed too uncomfortable to talk to us. Great. I wondered if I should try to undo what I had done or if it would be better to leave things alone before I made them any worse.

"Sorry," I said, casually. "It's better if you see that now, rather than later."

Mr. Solomon came back from the cockpit about then. I assumed he had been on the radio, making arrangements for our arrival.

"Why do that at all?" Brock asked, when Solomon had gone past him and taken a seat.

I gave him the benefit of assuming his question came from a professional, rather than personal point of view. His expression had gone back to normal, but he was blinking more, like he wanted to get the image out of his eyes.

"Shock value," I said. "I try to be as sneaky as possible, but sometimes you have to jump out at people. It helps a lot if they spend a couple of seconds nailed to the spot and staring."

Brock and his men nodded at my explanation. They all understood the value of a tactical advantage.

"Sort of like the flash-bangs we used in the SEALs," Max said. "But more selective."

"Quieter, too," Gunny added. He sounded like he had used a few of the things himself.

All three men seemed more at ease now that we were talking shop. Brock even tried to bring Neeka into the conversation.

"So what's your job?" he asked her; somewhat bluntly I thought, but that seemed to be his style.

"Transport, communication and backup," she said. "I drive the bike, keep tabs on her situation and help kick ass when necessary."

"What kind of comm system do you use? We'll want to coordinate frequencies and encryption." Brock asked.

We hadn't gone into detail about this earlier and I thought another demonstration was in order.

"Mr. Solomon, do you have a business card on you?" I asked. I guessed that the Sigma 7 team would be unlikely to carry such things, but that a bureaucrat would, especially one with a long title.

Solomon produced a card from a little gold box and Brock passed it over to me. I looked at it and Neeka read aloud Solomon's name, title, office address, phone number, fax number, and email address. I handed the card back to Brock, who glanced at it as if he suspected some sort of trick.

"Can your comm system do that?" I asked.

"What about range?" Brock asked, ignoring my rhetorical question.

"We're not sure," I said.

"A mile," Neeka continued.

"At least," I said.

"But maybe more," Neeka finished. We had spoken without pausing, so our answer sounded seamless, like it came from one mouth.

"But you can only hear strong emotions from someone else?" Solomon asked. He seemed to be thinking of other uses for our ability.

"That's right," I said. "It's like a far off AM radio station. It has to be a loud song for me to pick it out of the background."

Solomon got quiet then. He looked like he was thinking, and seeing that expression made me uncomfortable. I wondered if I should be worrying about what he might think.

The plane started to sink toward the ground then, and we all fastened our seat-belts. I started to smile when I saw the three macho types tightening theirs, but the humor I found drained away when I remembered that they had probably been through a lot more landings than I ever would and if they weren't shy about buckling up then there was probably a good reason for it.

We landed at a small private field rather than a big airport. The plane taxied up to a hanger and as soon as the steps were down, we rushed out and into the big building through a small door.

Inside the hanger were two large vans, parked side by side. One was a familiar dark brown with a package delivery service company logo on the side. The other was a filthy green thing that said Grimaldi Septic Tank Cleaning on it. Solomon climbed into the back of the dirty one. He had been doing some smart thinking. One van could drive down every street in town without attracting attention, and the other could park at a curb for hours without anyone wanting to get close.

On a long table running down one side of the hanger was a row of aluminum equipment cases. Max and Gunny went right to those and started unsnapping latches. From some, they took black guns that looked like the big brothers to the ones they carried in their briefcases, from others they produced radios with headsets, and from others, the black SWAT-style uniforms that Grogan's unit wore, except that these had "Federal Agent" stenciled on the back in yellow capital letters.

Without saying a word, they threw off their coats and ties and started changing clothes. Neeka unzipped her garment bag and I opened my fanny pack. I had my flats off and my blouse unbuttoned before Brock spoke up.

"I guess you can go in the office there to change if you..." He trailed off when I pulled the white cotton blouse off my shoulders and folded it before laying it on the table.

"... if you... ah," he rambled as I stepped out of my skirt. It was nice to know he still had the same hormones as a normal guy. Maybe my fantasies about getting to know the Colonel better weren't all that far-fetched.

Down the table, I saw that Max and Gunny were equally unembarrassed about changing in a group, but then, neither of them had looked in our direction. I did learn that the expression 'going commando' was for real. Neither of them wore underwear.

Brock decided to shut up and soldier. He pulled off his coat and started to change.

I stepped into my colorless cat-suit and was working my arms into the sleeves when I heard Gunny say, "Damn!" followed by the crash of an equipment box hitting the floor. I didn't react, because I didn't want to embarrass anyone whose professionalism might have slipped a bit when he noticed the show going on down the line.

I was ready first, then Neeka. I was feeling smug until I saw that the Sigma 7 guys were strapping on enough weapons and bits of equipment to fight a small war. In addition to their machine guns, they each had a radio, headset, flashlight, grenades, handcuffs, ammunition pouches, map cases, GPS units, and some packages of stuff I assumed were explosives. I settled my fanny pack on my hips and thanked my lucky starts that I didn't have to lug all that stuff around. No wonder these guys were in such great physical shape if this was what they carried with them.

Max finished loading up and saw me staring.

"Yeah, this is way more that we usually carry," he told me. "But our cover this time is a Federal Hostage Rescue Team, and this is their standard load-out."

"I've worked with the local SWAT guys," I said. "They have some of the same stuff."

"Bet they don't have these," Max said, showing me his weapon with its thick barrel. "Heckler and Koch MP5SD. Selective fire — single, two round burst and full-auto. 30 round clip. Suppressor could be better, but it fires mil-spec 9mm ammo, not the subsonic stuff."

"Boys and their toys," I thought, until I remembered that Mr. Solomon had described these as 'experienced' men, meaning that they had almost certainly killed with toys like these. It was a sobering thought.

When Colonel Brock was ready, he went into the green truck to talk with Solomon for a minute. When he came out, he walked over to us and spoke to Neeka.

"Since you won't be driving today, and we'd prefer if you left the shooting to us, would you like to ride in the command vehicle with Mr. Solomon?"

It wasn't really a question, he was just being polite. Remarkably so, in fact. I was jealous until I realized that that meant I would be riding with the hunks while she was stuck with the smart-boy bureaucrat.

"No problem," she said and carefully climbed into the nasty van while trying not to touch it.

"Listen up," Brock said. "We have intel on the subjects that place them inside a five-block radius. We're going to cruise through all quiet-like and see if Miss... Sam here can locate them for us."

"And then?" I asked, probably blowing my credibility as a bad-ass.

"And then we do what we get paid to do," Brock said with finality.

For such a vague statement, he couldn't have been clearer, but he thought he had to make sure there were no misunderstandings.

"This is a rescue operation. Period. We aren't the police. We don't arrest people."

"I get it," I said. I did. But I was uncomfortable about the assumption that the kidnappers were expendable. I promised myself that I would do what I had to, but no more than I needed to. As fuzzy as that sounds, I meant it.

The trucks moved out as soon as we were aboard. I noticed that our driver was wearing the right uniform and even had a package on the seat next to him. Solomon was a pretty good 'detail' man. My originally low opinion of him went up another couple of notches. He wasn't simply someone's gofer. I thought it was likely that he was the best person for his job. I just wished I knew where his job ended.

There were smoked-plastic panels in the side of the truck, so we could see out. We drove quickly, but not illegally, to an older industrial area close to the waterfront. The buildings were large, close together, and mostly run down. They all had broken windows and trash piling up like tumbleweeds against fences that sagged like they were tired of keeping people out of a place where there was nothing left to steal. A few of the buildings showed signs of still being used, or maybe it was just squatters who had taken over.

The search plan was simple. The green truck would stop near an intersection while the brown truck drove down the long blocks, over a block, and back again, zig-zagging through the streets as though looking for an address it couldn't locate. Inside, the Sigma 7 guys scanned radio frequencies and watched high and low for any sign of a lookout, while I listened to my mental radio for a channel broadcasting terror.

At first, nothing happened. We went through the routine over several blocks and saw and heard nothing. I was beginning to think that we were either in the wrong place or the kidnapping had been a ruse of some kind. I was about to make a comment to that effect when I suddenly felt something. It must have showed on my face, because Brock was there instantly.

"What?" He asked.

I shook my head. It had been weak and might have been only the cafeteria food haunting me.

"Curt, go a block west at the next corner," he said into his radio.

The driver obeyed and halfway back up the next block I picked it up again.

"That way," I said, pointing in the general direction.

Brock took a map out of his pocket and looked at it.

"Curt, go three blocks west," he said, then he started watching me with the same intensity as when we were back in the conference room. I was his radar and he didn't want to miss the blip.

A few minutes later I was sure I had something. The direction had changed and it started to fluctuate, like someone sobbing. We turned south and it got much stronger. It was very strong when Gunny called out, "Movement on the roof, Colonel!"

"Curt, go south and get us out of sight as quick as you can," Brock barked, after taking a look for himself. "Mr. Solomon, we have a possible."

He gave a map coordinate that meant nothing to me and he listened to the reply.

"Check it out," Neeka said to me, echoing Solomon's instruction to Brock.

"Right," Brock and I said at the same time. Brock gave me a sharp look, but said nothing.

The driver pulled the truck into an alley running through the same block as the building where Gunny had seen someone. According to Brock's map, it ran parallel to the wall of that building, so no one could look down it and see us coming. We still had to get from where we were, past another smaller building, and into the one with the guard on top. That is, if the person Gunny saw was really a guard, not just a squatter or a member of a local gang acting as lookout for some reason not connected with the kidnappers.

Whatever sense it was that picked up people's emotions was screaming in my ear that someone close by was in trouble, so I was inclined to think we were in the right place. However, I didn't want to be the one who, after we had barged in with guns blazing, had to explain that she made a mistake, so I was down with the 'check it out' order.

Brock laid the map out on a fold-down table and we all crowded around as he went over the planned approach. It was pretty basic, kind of just 'go down here and hang a left through the alley', but even I — the newbie — felt the comfort of having a plan laid out before we got out of the truck.

Once we were on the ground, or the concrete in this case, the Sigma 7 guys moved with a purpose. I hate to use the cliché 'well-oiled machine' but the way they leapfrogged positions and went into covering stances for each other at blazingly fast speed told me that they had spent a lot of time doing this. I did my best to keep up and not get underfoot. I hoped I didn't embarrass myself with how clumsy I was.

One thing I thought I did better than them was sneak. They had on so much junk that whenever one of them would run, it would all shift and rustle around. Their stuff was made so nothing clanked or clattered, but my sneakers and skin-tight suit were almost totally silent, while they sounded like they were wearing corduroy slacks.

Everything went fine until we got beside the building next door to the one we thought the kidnappers were in. Then we were stopped by a tall chain-link fence that hadn't been on the map.

"Cut it," Brock snapped, and Max reached in his pocket for a tool.

"Wait," I said, and squatted down to grab the bottom row of links. I pulled in a slow curl to keep the noise down and made a three-foot gap between the fence and the ground. The fingers of my new gloves hardened under the pressure and kept my hands from getting bruised.

"After you," I said, backing to one side.

Max grinned at me and ducked through the hole, followed by Brock and Gunny. I crawled through last and had to run to catch up as they flattened against the corner of the building.

Gunny stuck his head out slowly and took a good look around. He pulled it back and shook his head.

Brock took a look, then we backed up to the fence to talk it over.

"Three stories. No doors or windows on this side. Gate at the end of the alley. No one in sight," Brock said in a loud whisper. "I wish we had an overlook position. We need to know the story on that guard."

"Radio, weapons, that sort of thing?" I asked.

"Affirmative," Brock said. "And if there is more than one, where they are and where they're looking. No stairs or fire escape, though. Not even a damn drain pipe. We may have to try another route."

He wasn't asking me for help, he was stating a need on behalf of the team. I had a way to get what he wanted. I wasn't happy about it, but I figured I could do it. I pulled up my hood, balled my hands into fists and turned on The Dragon.

"Wait here," I said, as Brock did another of his half-millimeter flinches.

I trotted back toward the larger building, charging up my adrenalin with each step and crossing my fingers that I wasn't about to pull a really dumb stunt.

When I got halfway there, I broke into a run. Ten yards away, I jumped into the air and let my momentum carry me toward the roof of the building. I planned to land in a crouch, roll and get behind cover as quickly as possible. Like many of my plans it didn't work out that way.

I was halfway there when I realized that I wasn't going to make the roof. I had been so afraid of overshooting my trajectory that I just hadn't put enough into the jump.

For a nasty second, I thought I was going to smack into the blank wall of the building, but I managed to hook my fingers over the edge just as I hit. I still banged into the wall with a good bit of force, and it knocked some of the wind out of me in a 'whoosh'.

"Shit!" I hissed. I was pissed at screwing up, pissed at getting hurt, and pissed because I imagined the professionals on the ground laughing at me up there, hanging by my hands until I could catch my breath.

I had recovered enough wind to pull my ass up onto the roof when I heard the scrunch of someone walking around. I was about to peek over the edge when a face appeared.

He said something I didn't understand, and the barrel of a rifle appeared next to the head.

I reached up and grabbed the guy by his collar with one hand and the barrel of the gun with the other, squeezed hard and yanked with both, pushing off with my feet at the same time.

In hindsight, it wasn't the best thing I could have done. I just reacted in the heat of the moment and because I was mad at looking like a fool in front of the real pros. I didn't think about what would happen when gravity asserted itself, not that I really had the time.

What did happen was that both of us started falling back the way I had come. Me with the flailing guard in one hand and his rifle in the other; both of us slowly turning through the air, heading for a quick stop at the end of a short flight. The guard made a high-pitched squeal and windmilled his arms like he was trying to fly. I held onto him tightly at arm's length to keep from getting swatted.

We were badly positioned for a twisting back-flip, but I did the best I could. I managed to get my feet pointed down, at least. I didn't need to worry about my Power level, I was as juiced as I think I had ever been, from the fear, the shame, and the mad. I hung on tight and managed to land in a crouch while keeping both the guard's head and his rifle from hitting the concrete.

When I didn't fall flat on my face, I logged it as a 'good landing' and I ran back to Brock with my luggage. I dropped the guard at his feet and handed him the rifle.

"AK-47," Neeka informed me.

"AK-47," I repeated to Brock.

Gunny and Max dragged the guard out of sight while Brock took the rifle and studied it.

"Czechoslovakian," he said. "Millions of these all over the world. Could have got it anywhere. Still, it's not the sort of thing a street-gang would use. I think we're at the right place."

"Good," I said.

Max and Gunny seemed to be taking a long time getting the guard out of sight. And Brock's academic interest in the origin of the assault rifle was a bit out of place for where we were and what we were doing. I figured they were taking him back to the van to tie him up so they could talk to him later.

"Did you see any more guards up there?" Brock asked.

"I'll check."

I really hadn't had a chance to do a good job of reconnoitering the roof on my first trip and I felt a pang of guilt at having failed that part of my assignment. As I ran back toward the building and launched myself into the air once more, I resolved not to screw-up again. This time I overshot slightly and sailed over the edge of the building with a few feet to spare.

"I'll never learn to enjoy this," I thought as I reached the top of my arc. If there had been someone else on that roof, he could have cut me in half with his gun before I touched down. High-jumping was a kick, but doing it when there were bad-guys around was dumb. We had studied some basic ballistics in physics and now I knew too much to feel safe flying through the air.

There was no one else on the roof. I peeked around all the metal boxes and vents to be sure. While skulking around, I found a small radio next to a half-full bottle of water and an empty paper bag with a greasy, wadded-up paper napkin inside.

I left the remains of the guard's lunch and took the radio to give to Brock. I was about to jump off the edge when a voice came out of it. It was no language I had ever heard before, but the tone was unmistakably aggravated. Apparently the guard had failed to check in and someone was calling for him.

"What will they do if he doesn't answer?" I asked myself. "Come and look for him?"

That sounded like an excellent idea, both for them, and for me. Anything that would cut down on the number of kidnappers we had to deal with without endangering the victims sounded like a freebie.

I asked Neeka to pass my plan along to Brock. Seconds later, she said, "He says go for it, but try to be quiet."

The door to the stairs either wasn't locked or had its lock broken, because it opened easily when I pulled on it. I opened it a crack and listened. Footsteps echoed in the stairwell. They were very close. Someone was coming to have harsh words with the guard.

I grinned as I jumped and climbed onto the roof of the top of the stairwell. Someone was going to get a surprise and it wasn't going to be stern language.

I waited with a fist ready and when the door opened I leaned down and popped the kidnapper on the top of the head. He went limp and fell face down on the roof.

I was elated until I heard someone else climbing the metal steps. There wasn't enough time to move the guy I had clobbered and I couldn't think of anything to do before the second guy ran out of the door and stumbled over his buddy. I cringed back, hugging the roof of the stairwell, trying to come up with a plan — any plan — for this, but nothing came to mind until I heard the clatter of a rifle being dropped and the scrape of a body being dragged.

I peeked over the edge to see guy number two trying to pull guy number one into the building. To make it easier, he had put down his rifle and radio.

"OK, another gimme," I thought.

I dropped down to land between guy number two and his weapon. He looked up from dragging his friend and when he saw my face, he lost his grip and started to fall backward down the stairs.

I'd like to say that I thought about the racket that would have made, but the truth is, I didn't think of anything, I just reached out and grabbed the guy and pulled him out of the doorway. I pulled a touch too hard and he went flying past me and rolled a few feet away.

The gun was between us now, and I thought he might try to grab it, so I tried to close the gap between us before he could get to it. Instead of going for the gun though, he turned and ran away from me as fast as he could. I had to chase him, if only to keep him from making so much noise that anyone inside would know something was up.

I tried to get to him quickly, but he had a good head start. By the time I was almost close enough to grab, he jumped away, right off the edge of the building and into the air.

He gave a high-pitched scream that wasn't very loud and landed with a sound between a thud and a plop in the middle of the alley. I was looking down, trying to keep the cafeteria food in my stomach when Brock looked around the corner to see what was going on. He took one look at the body in the alley and gave me the thumbs-up sign.

"Bloodthirsty SOB," I thought. Then I remembered that this was a game with very simple scoring. Bad-guy dead; good. Good-guy dead; bad. Me dead; game over. I wished things could have been different, but I didn't have a lamp to rub and no Djinn to pop out and make my wish come true.

"Suck it up, Sam," I told myself. You can deal with this. Deal with it now!"

I dealt with it by getting mad. Mad at the situation and mad at the people who had created the situation. I almost stomped back to where guy number one lay half in and half out of the doorway.

He still hadn't moved. I knelt down and checked for a pulse. I checked several times, but there wasn't one. I listened for breathing too. He was dead. And this one, I had killed. I hadn't meant to, but he was dead anyway. I had actually done it. I had taken a life. I had actually turned a living, breathing human being into meat.

I was numb. I tried to feel something, but nothing came but more anger. No guilt, no remorse, no sadness. Just mad.

"You bastard! You made me do that! You made me kill you!" I told the dead guy on the roof.

He hadn't though. Not really. I had done it. Not by choice. Not by intent. But I had taken a life and I didn't know how I could fix that with my conscience.

I was so pissed that I had to do something, so I grabbed the body and carried it to the edge of the building, where I threw it into the alley with the other one. It landed with the same ugly sound, but this time much further away, almost to the corner of the building next door where Brock and his men were waiting.

"Waiting on me," I thought. "Time to get back to work."

I turned away before Brock looked around the corner to see I had left him another grisly present. I went back to the stairs and down inside the building without listening to see if someone else was coming up. The mood I was in, God help anyone I ran into. I had killed once already, doing it again would be easy. I was almost looking forward to it. First, I had become The Dragon. Now, I had become Death.

The metal stairs ended at the third floor landing. There was a door there with a small glass window in it. The glass was crisscrossed with wires and translucent with grime. I had to stand on my toes to get high enough to see through it and what I saw was a lot of empty space and a few desks and file-cabinets that looked too beat-up to be worth stealing. Just to be sure, I carefully opened the door and stuck my head in. Nothing moved and there was no sign of life. There was a thick layer of dust all over that would surely have been disturbed if anyone had been messing around in there, so I went back to the stairwell.

A set of concrete stairs continued down from there, going back and forth twice more before they ended on the ground floor. I peered down the shaft and listened. I could hear voices coming from somewhere below, but they were muffled and certainly not in the stairwell. The 'sound' of fear had dropped to a dull ache in my head, but it was still strong. I could only have been a few yards from the victims.

As quietly as I could, I crept down the stairs. I winced every time some bit of grit crunched under my feet, but I was probably the only person who could hear that. At the second floor landing, I was about to hop to try and peek through the window in the fire-door, when a shadow passed over the other side of the glass. I really wanted to see what was on the other side of that door, but the voices I heard didn't sounded urgent or alarmed, so the remaining kidnappers were probably still unaware that their hideout had been discovered.

As much as I wanted to kick that door in, I figured I should go for the rest of the team before they decided I had got lost somewhere and tried to find their own way in, so I tip-toed on down the steps to the ground floor.

The ground-floor door into the stairwell stood propped open by a folding chair. On the floor next to it was another paper bag, just like the one on the roof. I could just make out the word 'Deli' on the greasy paper.

"This kidnapping has been catered," I thought, perversely.

I looked around quickly. There was no one there. Apparently when I took out the guard on the roof, the ground floor guards had gone up to investigate and now no one was left at their post.

I went back into the stairwell and pushed the bar to open the door to the outside. Crouched next to the door were Brock, Max, and Gunny, all of whom had their guns pointed at me; or anyone who might come out that door.

"Happy to see you, too," I said softly. "I got rid of the guards. The rest are on the second floor."

Gunny and Max searched the ground floor anyway. When they found nothing but the kidnappers' trash, they came back.

Brock went up the stairs with a device that looked a lot like the thing Dr. Bonner had used to explore my uterus. It had the same flexible plastic cable coming out of the top, and a small screen like they put on digital cameras. He carefully poked the cable under the door and stared at the screen for several second before coming back down.

"The hostages are tied to a column about thirty feet from the door," he said. "I saw two targets armed with AK-47s and another with a pistol in his belt."

"I saw one walk in front of the door," I added. "I think they have a guard on it."

"OK, that's at least three, possibly four targets to take down," Brock said. "The power is off, so the elevator isn't working. That means this is the only way out, unless they are set to rappel out a window. The bad news is, this is also the only way in so, once we open it, they can concentrate all their fire on that door."

"Diversion?" I suggested. "Break a window on the far side of the building?"