Chronicles of War
Part 1: Way of the Storm
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"Insert witty philosophical banter here."
- James Rahn.
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Chapter 6: Ironic Turns
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Kat put a lock of free hair behind her ear absently; a nervous habit she
had never broke herself of, even after years of vowing to do so.
She was worried; it was as simple as that.
Okay, maybe it wasn't so simple. She was worried, yes, and scared, but
she was also hopeful and just... nervous.
The gunshot landed on her ears like a bolt of lightning.
This time, only raw fear gripped her soul. "What was that?"
The Marine from before, the one with the hard black eyes who's name she
could not recall, took a tentative step towards the entrance, listening.
"Sounds like gunfire...."
"There sure is a lot of it." Kat said. This was insane, absolutely
insane. When he pulled that pistol out, reality had sort of become...
less real, like a chunk of her world had simply been... removed. Now she
could hear him using it, not far away. "Wait a minute, that's not a
handgun, that's a damn machine gun."
"Sub machine gun I would say."
"Same difference." She said.
"Not really, a sub machine gun is a hand-held weapon, a machine gun
requires a mounted position or a tripod to be used, it's too big for one
person to handle. Besides, a machine gun wouldn't be firing so
sporadically."
His calm, almost flippant attitude was beginning to unnerve her. "So we
just sit here and wait?"
The gunfire stopped. Kat felt like she was about to have a heart attack.
Carl half turned to look at her, appraising her form with a blank stare.
"Yes. We stay right here."
At least he didn't ask if she was feeling okay, that would have only
made things worse. Trying to comfort her could only remind her of how
she was acting. She hated being scared, but she hated it even more when
people _knew_ she was scared.
"So, you seem to know this James guy pretty well." Carl finally said. He
walked up to the counter in a kind of patient ambling straight from a
cheesy western movie.
"I knew him back in high school." Kat said. Wait, she'd already
mentioned that. "He was different back then. I can't put my finger on
what, but something seems really off now."
Carl leaned against the counter and looked at the map James had hastily
drawn up like he had all the time in the world. "Indulge me?"
Jimmy was sitting quietly on his stool, eyes following them.
"I once knew this nice guy with good morals and a little weird streak in
him. He was nice and funny and... oh, he was sometimes such a moron, but
usually he was pretty smart. He used to try and set up elaborate pranks,
but he never had the patience to finish them. That kid was James... That
James, that kid I knew, is dead and gone. I'm not quite sure who or what
inhabits this character that showed up. He's a _little_ like James. He's
got some of the same mannerisms, but other than that... he's a
completley different person. Something happened to him, and I'm honestly
afraid to find out what it was."
*I'm rambling.* She thought. "He's so _cold_."
"That's a man who's been to war." Carl said solemnly.
Kat did a double-take. "What? James in a war? _That_ scares me."
"They say that look usually comes from real combat experience. Well,
combat can really change a man."
"They?"
"You know, soldiers. People who have actually been through it." Carl
said.
"Yeah, I guess. You either put it away 'til later, go insane, or somehow
survive and become stronger." Kat said thoughtfully.
Carl looked at her with new respect. Kat was a lot smarter than he'd
originally given her credit for. "Yeah, I think that's it exactly. You
knew him when he was a kid?"
"Not when he was younger. Just in high school. He hung out with a bunch
of weirdos though. A little out there, but generally nice guys. James
made them all look like perfectly normal, upstanding members of
society. Of course, James had a few quirks of his own...."
"He must have had his own problems back then."
"You have _no_ idea. Yes, in his own way, James was a loon, but he was
just a minor loon until his senior year."
"What happened then?"
It was a long time ago, and something too muddled for Kat
Kat looked at Carl for a moment, searching his dark brown eyes.
"Just asking." He said tentatively.
She decided to flaunt her suspicions.
She smiled a mysterious smile. "I don't mind. Maybe I should finally get
this out. It's been--what, six years?--six years."
"Well, I don't mind. And since I have nothing better to do." He grinned.
It wasn't a really happy grin, it was underlaid with a deep under-
standing of pain and suffering, a human gesture just to remind her that
somewhere on the other side this... _this_, everything was okay and she
had a home to go back to afterwards. After this... war. War, yeah... he
liked the way that sounded. A hostage situation wasn't usually like a
war, but that's what this felt like, the opening rounds between a pair
of titans, a stirring of evil wind... uh-oh, she was talking.
"Yes, neither do I... until he gets back." Kat said, referring to James.
"We were... well, 'sweethearts' isn't the word. We knew of each other,
talked a bit, had a few classes together. When we were juniors, he sort
of invited me to Home Coming, even though he was already going with
someone else. Heh. I should've seen that one coming. He wasn't like a
flake, but he was absent-minded about the strangest things, almost like
he'd been trained to forget them.
"Well, we both went, but not together. I thought that after Home Coming,
things would settle down, but with James, it's never that simple. You
see, I wanted to go out with him, but I couldn't ask, you understand."
"Even if he implied he wanted to go out with you? Conflict. That's
conflict between the heart and the head."
"Yep. I didn't want to ruin his date because I sorta knew her to, but it
was practically a blind date for him." She smirked fondly at her
naive... well, James' naive days. "It was also his first date."
"Ouch."
"That's what she thought. He made a point of finding out if I intended
to ask him out. I don't know how he found--I still think Trey blabbed to
him--but he pried and pried and pried until I finally just broke down
and told him. I didn't... didn't notice this at the time, but it was
almost scary. Normally, nothing like this bothers him and he just
bounces to something else. He'd do stupid things like study some
programming for three weeks, show off something cool in class, then read
dry research stuff on Japan--for FUN. This time he was... persistent is
not the word. He was obsessing. He couldn't let it out of his mind, it
was driving him crazy, I'm sure, because he liked me too. But it was
unreal how much energy he could put into conversation. Thinking about it
later, I learned just how damn smart he was."
"James, a smart guy?" Carl said seriously.
"He was a nerd in school. Come to think of it, he still is a nerd.
Anyway, he could pick up the smallest things and hone in on them. He
could focus intently on class, answer every question the teacher asked,
write like his hand was on fire all while staring me down, just turning
over everything I said in his head."
"Sounds like a freaky guy."
Kat chuckled a mirthless chuckle. "You have NO idea. James may have been
absent minded, but he still had incredible mental resources to draw on.
Physically, he wasn't intimidating, but wasn't afraid of anything--
except his emotions, maybe. He wasn't afraid of anything I could say or
do, no matter how badly it hurt him. He didn't know when to stop
fighting, except for someone else's sake." Kat wiped a drop of water
from her cheek. It must've started raining, a little water leaking
through the roof or something equally simple. She couldn't be crying,
there was nothing left to cry over.
Carl thought silently about what she'd said. Without looking too closely
at him, Kat could tell he was putting things in place, hanging onto but
not bothering with the material that didn't make sense. He was trying to
paint a picture of James, the man who'd left in a huff to 'save' them a
few minutes ago.
She could already imagine his conclusion--much the same as hers. James
was no longer afraid of anything. Guns didn't even phase him. Terrorist
in his home town apparently didn't even rate a raised eyebrow. If she
had to tell him... she wouldn't, but if it somehow came to it, she
didn't think he'd be at all surprised.
An enigma, that's what James was, she realized. He just danced around
every attempt to categorize and analyze. Well, may this time she'd see
his mask ripped away and see the real James. The question was, did she
want to?
----------
"Ingenious. I don't know what worries me more though, technique... or
volume." James said, a thumb stroking his chin in deep thought.
"What do you mean? This is part of it, isn't it?" Ed said, gesturing.
"Yes, but that means all the columns are rigged." James said.
"Duh." Ed remarked tersely. "We can't take out the trigger?"
"Even if it was possible, I don't want to try it. The problem here is
that he's used probably three pounds of explosives in this thing."
Ed blinked. "You said that he said each bomb had only ten pounds of
C-4."
"Bingo. Skillfully placed, sixty pounds _could_ bring down the mall, but
it's not a sure thing. Knocking the building over wasn't what worried me
anyway. I've been keeping an eye out for napalm and kerosene--he doesn't
need to collapse the mall to kill everyone inside." James said gravely.
"Yet he plants an excessive amount of explosives on each pillar...." Ed
said, half to himself.
"Of which, I'm betting there are quite a few." James said.
"I'd say there's not three of these boxes in here," Ed said thought-
fully, "but more like thirty."
James nodded. "Right. Which means we aren't stopping sixty pounds of
C-4, but six hundred."
The pair looked at the scene before them. The large columns that held
the immense roof aloft could not be surrounded by flammable material--
that was enforced by a simple written law, James knew. However, each
pillar in Sears was sporting wooden signs advertising the local hunting
and fishing show that would occur in the new wing--still unfinished, but
since there was a hockey game in the local event hall, there was no
other place big enough for such an event. James guessed that since the
place was more or less finished and the theater wouldn't be installed
right away, it was structurally sound.
He had found a chunk of the floor with an unusual gap in the tile and
found a box that had somehow been hidden in a the carved-out under
flooring. It was very strange, as the ceiling would make a more
inaccessible and easier hiding place, but then again, no one would
bother looking under the walking surface of the floor. This particular
floor _was_ supposed to be solid concrete... which meant that these
boxes could be anywhere.
Once the signs about the pillars had been pealed away, the other shoe
dropped.
The pillars were wrapped in blocks of C4 with detonators in them. Each
detonator was outfitted with a conductivity and motion sensor. None
could be removed without blowing the rest of the block sky-high. And
even James wasn't fast enough to pull them all out without torching the
entire mall. It was a lucky thing that simply removing the signs hadn't
blown them clear into next week.
"That floor still bugs me, Ed."
"You're referring to the mystery of how someone carved several dozen
pounds of concrete out of the floor and planted a box of precision
electronics down there without anyone noticing?"
"That's damn well part of it." Snapped James.
"Well, you haven't been here lately, but there's a lot of construction
been going on, and...."
"Fuck. FUCK!"
"What?"
James raised his fists to the heavens and screamed, his voice like the
wailing of a demented soul. "FUUUUUUCK!!!"
----------
James entered the music store with a snarl. His hands were stained with
marks of blood. His fat lip instantly became the least interesting
subject of potential conversation. The black, compact assault rifle he'd
taken from the mercenaries was hanging from his shoulder by its carrying
strap.
Ed walked in right behind James, giving the first man a wide berth. He
was carrying a second MP5 in his hands. "Are you sure that leg's gonna
be okay?"
"Barely a scratch, Ed. I think I'll live." James said tersely. He set an
arm on the counter and sighed.
"What--" Kat started as she came up to James.
James pointed wordlessly at the hole in his slacks.
"Holy shit... are you okay?"
"For the last fucking time, I'M JUST FINE." James set both of his guns
on the counter. They clattered onto the plastic cover loudly, drawing
every eye in the store to him. He then walked behind the counter, his
movements all but silent.
Ed stomped up to the counter and set his newly appropriated weapon upon
it as well. A small bag was pulled from his shoulder to complete the
pile. It was a black canvas bag with the words "PROPERTY OF U.S.
GOVERNMENT" stenciled into the side in faded green.
"Good haul?" Asked Carl from behind the counter. He started to smile,
the corners of his mouth just starting to curve up. James glared at him.
The smile died like a spider dropped in the path of a flamethrower.
"I would have preferred to bring back the bodies." James said, his voice
dripping with venom. There was an almost supernatural intensity to James
look as he virtually pinned Carl to the wall with his glare.
"Which bodies? Who?" Jimmy said from behind James.
Ed wasn't looking up, his eyes fixed on the small pile of arms he was
checking thoroughly. Kat remained rooted to the floor next to him,
watching James behind the counter. The space between them didn't make
her feel any safer, but at least she had that pretense.
"Several mercenaries attacked me inside that store. I managed to kill
them, but after I searched the rest of the place, their bodies just
disappeared."
"What'd you find?" He asked again.
"You mean in relation to the explosives?" James asked.
"Yeah. Are there bombs there?" Jimmy persisted.
"There's about a hundred pounds of high explosive and a trigger
mechanism so complex that it makes building the space shuttle look like
a weekend project by comparison." James said flatly. "Care to know
anything else?"
Jimmy was muttering under his breath. "Dead bodies, gone?"
"Yes. Gone." James said, loudly enough for everyone in the store to hear
him before turning away. "If you'll excuse me." He pulled the cell phone
from his belt and hit the first speed dial.
The conversation went something like this: "Hello. Good to hear from
you.... No, no, I am _quite_ alive.... Uh huh... yes. Just curious....
Well why there was a squad of armed killers trying to take me down
hiding in the mall with us.... Oh.... Oh yes, that makes sense." Click.
"What'd he say." Kat asked, apparently chosen as the spokeswoman.
"He said..." James began slowly. "That it was intended to make things
more... interesting."
Jimmy shook his head. "Wow... I mean, just... wow.... What do you say to
something like that?"
"I'll think of a comeback once I get my hands on a thesaurus." Everyone
in the store stared for a second, then tried to pretend they
understood--even made sense of--what James was saying, nodding politely
as people often do when they encounter something too bizarre to
comprehend in one glance.
Ed put his hand up in a hurry. "I think threatening bodily harm would be
a good start."
James glared at his friend. The hand slowly lowered. No one said a word.
"I think... we need to change this plan to one of attack." James finally
said, cutting through the silence.
"One of attack?" Kat asked. "Marching through a store with _guns_ wasn't
violent enough for you?" She ignored the indignant stare Ed was giving
her, a stare that seemed to say 'what? Of COURSE we didn't have enough!'
"A matter of poise, Kat." He said crisply. "We were out-gunned, but if
we're vicious enough, one or two guns won't make much of a difference."
"I don't know about that," Jimmy began. "I--"
"You." James pointed. "Shut. Up."
"Eh... right." Jimmy said.
"Kat, a cigarette if you please." James asked.
"What cigarettes?" She said, a little too quickly.
"I can smell those Marlboros from here. Pull one out; I need a hit."
The two Marines exchanged glances and Ed looked on curiously as Kat
pulled a pack of Marlboro cigarettes from her purse. The pack was
contained within a plastic bag. "It keeps them from smelling up all my
stuff." She said to a few random stares.
"How did he... uh...." Ed wondered in amazement.
Presently, James got his cancer stick aflame and took a long draw,
joined quickly by Kat.
"It's good to be back." He said, a cloud of poison billowing about
before his face.
The assembled casted glances at him. Kat posed the question, again
seeming to act as the spokeswoman. "Back to what?"
James just smiled a mysterious smile.
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