Chronicles of War
Part 1: Way of the Storm
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"Kill one person to frighten a hundred people."
- Chinese Proverb
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Chapter 17: Wasted Memories
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When Ed walked back into the music store, Kat was watching. Her
attention was drawn primarily to the two M16 assault rifles he held, but
the way he walked, the way he carried himself, could not be ignored. He
moved as if the guns in his hands had grown right out of his arms. His
white shirt had gray streaks of dirt on it now. What was really
different though, was how he seemed to exude authority like she had
never seen out of the man.
As he drew to within a few paces of the store entrance, what little
conversation had flickered into existence during his absence died away
instantly. As the silence washed over, Kat's mind crystallized on the
one thing about Ed she had missed on her first visual inspection; James
wasn't with him.
He came inside gingerly, absently setting the rifles on the counter. A
massive canvas bag, large enough to hold a car, surely, hit the floor
next. She hadn't even realized that he was carrying the thing. Then the
question of James' location and condition flashed through her mind even
as he answered it.
"James should be along in a few minutes," Ed said.
She leveled her best reporter stare at him and waited for him to sweat.
After a moment of looking at the map scrawled across the glass counter
top, he looked at her nervously. She put her hands on her hips and let
her words come out low and deliberate. "You mean to tell me he's out
there, alone?"
"He's got plenty of guns," Ed said defensively.
She put a little sarcasm into her voice. "That makes me feel a whole lot
better."
All hesitation evaporated instantly. Ed's intense brown eyes locked onto
her green ones. "Kat, you didn't see him back there. He was--"
"Busy being taken hostage," said the assassin from the doorway. He had
arms stretched out like he was giving away free hugs.
Kat screamed. Not shrieked--that would have been undignified.
Ed drew a gun, then stared at James.
Everybody else did a double-take. James wasn't wearing his flannel, but
a black tee shirt with layers of white dust on it, rendering the garment
mostly gray. His clothes weren't the only things that had taken abuse;
his right hand had a length of black cloth wrapped around it, and blood
dripped from it freely. He was developing a nice shiner around his right
eye, and the shoulder of his shirt was wet. It took Kat maybe a tenth of
a second to spot an ugly bruise rising around a shallow gash at the
source.
"Some crowd," James grumbled. He dropped his arms. "There I was,
fighting for my life and freedom, all alone--"
"Why didn't you let me help you?" Ed interrupted as he put his weapon
down.
"Put simply, there was a slimy soldier with a gun to my head at the
time." He held up his hands placatingly at the gasps that swept through
the crowd. "Don't worry, I took care of him."
"Your hand is bleeding." Kat pointed out.
"Yeah, a plate kinda blew up. While I was holding it. Bullet." The other
two stared. He smiled back. "Anyway, we have a few things to square
away."
"Where's a first aid kit? Zak? Zak, front and center!" Kat snapped her
fingers like royalty summoning the servants.
"I got it," The kid promised, walking quickly behind the main counter
with the air of a person who's lost their way but won't admit it.
"Kat," James pleaded, "I'm fine. It's just a few scratches. We have to
call--"
"Nonsense," Kat snapped. "It's important that you're in top form," she
insisted.
James waved Ed to his side while he laid his hand on the counter next to
the map drawn in permanent marker. After looking at it for a minute, he
grabbed the marker with his good hand and began making notes. Kat
unwrapped the make-shift bandage while he wrote, cleaning the series of
shallow cuts that ran across his palm. Ed stood silently nearby, a stoic
sentry from a story that Kat couldn't fully recall. She chose to ignore
him for a minute.
"What's that?" She asked, pointing at the list James was writing. "We
already have a list of possible places."
"These are the places I've found the bombs," he said simply.
Kat pressed the last bandage into place, and looked carefully at James'
face. "You look like hell."
"Thanks," James said with a smirk.
"No problem. Let me look at your shoulder."
James took a moment to remove two pistols and compact submachine gun
clipped to his belt, then carefully pulled off his shirt. Kat gasped. A
mass of bruises ran up the sides of his stomach, ending in several odd
long bruises--perfectly straight lines--that crisscrossed his chest. His
left shoulder had the red and purple imprint of a boot's cleats, and his
right was bleeding from an oddly straight cut in the center of another
oval bruise.
Kat took a minute to clean the wound, throw on some gauze, and tape the
mess down. Then she stood back and took stock of her once-boyfriend.
Life hadn't been kind to him. The bruises around his stomach were deep
and ugly. Tomorrow he would be a mass of yellow and black, like a
walking, decaying corpse. Beneath the bruises, a network of scars ran
over rock-hard muscle. She wondered dimly when he took up weightlifting.
The James she remembered was a quick, wiry boy with awesome reach and
speed. The man before her now had lost none of that, apparently, but
gained a physique that looked like it could shatter stone.
She heaved a mental sigh of relief when she realized that she felt no
attraction towards him whatsoever. The feeling seemed mutual, as James
was looking at her like a five-year-old scared of the mean old nurse.
She elected to play her part to the hilt. "Okay, you'll live. Now put
your shirt back on and tell me where you got those bruises, young man."
He stuck his tongue out at her, but complied. "Fighting," was his
answer.
"With an army of pinch hitters?" She retorted.
"No, just someone aiming to incapacitate me." He looked to his big
friend. "Ed what's going on down in that area with the construction?"
"I told you earlier, they're holding a sporting convention thing there.
Fishing lures, hunting equipment, winter clothes, so on and so forth. It
sounds like the kind of place you could easily hide a bomb since most of
the walls are only partially done."
"Plastic over spray-on insulation?" James asked.
Ed blinked and processed that one. "Yeah," he said slowly.
James scratched his chin, deep in thought, then pulled out his phone.
Kat put a hand on his arm to halt him. "What happened to your flannel?"
"I left it in the coffee store."
"Why?" She asked.
"To see if these guys would make it disappear like they want me to."
----------
He dialed and put the phone to his ear. "Hello?"
The familiar voice, distorted by modern technology, answered
immediately. "Hello again, Rick. How are things going?"
James put a metric ton of sugar into his voice. "Who the fuck made you
God?"
"I'm just doing my duty to God and country."
"I care for neither." James said acidly.
"How are the guns?" The voice said with mock pleasantness.
James stared at the counter, hard. "Could use more salt."
"I'll keep that in mind.
"I've got a question, mister whoever. Are you willing to answer it?"
James asked carefully.
"Sure thing, Rick."
"Where do you want to be buried?"
"Funny." The voice said flatly.
"I've got that comedian license, remember?" James smiled.
"Shall I bury you with the rest of the traitors?"
"I suppose you're refering to the brave who fought for a freedom you
endeavor to crush."
The voice was harsh. "You may call them whatever you wish. They are
traitors."
"Only to state terrorism, fascism, and mass murderers." James said
lightly.
"Oh, your people, then."
"Yeah, I turn on everyone who lies to me." James said, smiling.
"Rick, I look forward to the day we meet face-to-face."
"I look forward to the day I get meet this Rick guy."
"You're a riot."
"No, I'm Batman."
"I'll have your head mounted on my wall for this." The voice promised.
James smirked. "You'd better have central air. My scalp sweats like
nothing else."
An electronic click issued from the speaker.
"Was it wise to piss him off?" Kat asked, apparently following along.
"He's not going to give us anything," James said. "He's too smart for
that. It's in our best interest to distract him through whatever
channels of communication we have. If we piss him off enough, he _might_
let something slip. Sadly, I doubt he will. If he's the brains and not
just the voice for the brains, he's got some brass balls talking to me
over and open line."
"That reminds me, how often do you polish yours?" Ed asked with a smirk.
Kat rested her forehead in her hands. "Men!"
James ignored her and turned to Ed. "He knows about the bag."
"What?" Ed said, shocked. "He knows?"
"He's been watching us, Ed. Didn't you get that fax?"
Carl came up behind James. "James, there's one thing I don't
understand."
"Join the club." James sighed.
"Are these guys really soldiers?"
James looked at the Marine for moment, sizing him up, then answered.
"They were trained as soldiers. By any legal definition, their actions
make them terrorists, but that doesn't mean they aren't still soldiers.
Some governments hire professional soldiers commit acts of terrorism.
You want the best, you hire the best."
"That's sick. I can understand--"
James whirled on the Marine, jabbing a finger into his chest. "No you
don't understand. You can't understand something you know nothing about.
You haven't been out there, taking orders and killing people. You
haven't been there, negotiating, dealing, closing up loose ends,
wrecking cars, catching hell from your best friends for wrecking their
houses, getting stuck with the ice cream duty...I did this shit for a
living--in case you forgot--and I will never, never forget." James eyes
were boring into Carl's. "Remember one fact, if you remember nothing
else. The US government regularly commands its Army to destroy civilian
targets under the guise of police actions in selected regions. The sole
purpose of these attacks are to provoke acts of retaliation in the form
of desperate protest and violent responses. Said protests are used as a
reason to label these regions as 'unstable,' and invade. Then the
military sets up puppet government, the commercial interests rape the
country of its natural resources, and lather, deny, rinse, reelect,
repeat."
Carl's mouth jerked like the words he was holding inside had started
fighting. Finally he swallowed them and held James' gaze silently.
"Don't ask me about it again," James said levelly.
"But--"
"I said forget about it."
Carl's mouth dropped open. "You..."
"Have seen things that would send you screaming all the way back to your
bed, which you would then hide under."
Ed chuckled nervously, and punched James in the shoulder weakly. "You're
such a kidder."
The assassin sighed and stared pensively at the counter.
"So the guy on the phone, the one that called you here, he's the leader
of the entire group inside this place?" Kat quietly asked.
James didn't look up as he answered. "Yeah."
"Do you hate him?"
"No, not really," he said.
"Then why needle him like that?" Kat pressed.
"He started it," James answered. Kat glared at him. James threw his
hands in the air. "He's just trying to wear me down. This is all one big
psychological game to him. He's baiting me, letting me subtly know that
I have no chance in hell of winning. When he does this, he has to give
away some information, something to inflict psychological pain on me.
But therein lies his weakness--on the battlefield, information is gold."
"So he gave something away?" Kat asked.
"He knew about the bag I snatched." James pointed at the bag Ed had come
in with.
"He's keeping up with current events," Ed remarked.
"You took that bag from the terrorists?" Carl asked.
"Yeah," Ed answered, "James snatched it from..."
"It was inside of Dairy Queen." James added.
"Dairy Queen." Kat echoed, running hand through her hair. Her looked
like they were staring at another world.
"How'd he know?" Carl asked aloud.
Kat spoke in a daze. "Cameras. The security cameras."
"Son of a bitch!" Ed shouted, pointing at Kat. "The security cameras!"
"I suspected as much." James said, calmly leaning against the counter.
The stereo, Carl was about to shout. He kept his mouth shut; there was
more to this man than there appeared to be at first glance.
"I don't get it," the guard said.
"Don't get what, Ed?" James said, looking like a wounded fish as he
tried to lounge against the counter.
"Why don't these guys just use some knockout gas on you? Except for the
intimidation factor, why bother with hostages and bombs?"
"First off, you're going about this all wrong. Secondly, 'knockout gas'
is pure Hollywood bullshit. You know how long it takes to come to from
something that powerful? Think eight hours. Time is obviously of the
essence here. They want to question this Rick guy, and what he knows is
time-sensitive. They can't wait around to bring him--or me, in this
case--out of it. Why not shove a gun in my face and start shouting
questions? Even holding me down and threatening to break an arm is worth
a try. Knocking me out? Very dangerous. The general rule is that if you
have to knock out or stun somebody one way, you'd better have a second
method planned out in advance if you need to do it again. If I thumped
you in the head to knock you out once, I'd give you a concussion if I
hit you in the same spot a second time. Even something general, like a
Taser, can do serious damage if used too many times within a specific
time period. By 'time period' I mean days. And don't get me started on
the possible adverse reactions some people have to 'knockout gas.' So,
we can safely say it's damn important to these guys that they get their
information quickly, and they're going about it the best way their
military training tells them to. Ergo, they obviously intend to kidnap
me. The handcuffs were a dead giveaway, but everything else we know
about this fits too good to be coincidence. Are they trying to kill me?
Probably not. There are more effective ways to do me in. Does that
answer your question?"
"Are you speaking from experience?" Kat asked.
James did a double-take. Yes, she was taking notes. "Let's just say I've
read some books and leave it at that."
"Military handbooks on chemical weapons?" Carl asked. The question was
posed so quietly, he may have been asking himself. He could have been
asking half in jest. James fixed a look on the Marine that could have
eaten through steel.
"Subject change," Kat offered. "How do you know what branch of the
military these guys are from?"
James scratched his chin. "Well, mostly from their fighting style."
"They all shot at you," Kat pointed out.
"Not quite. Mostly they've been aiming to miss--pardon the oxymoron--and
more than a few have tried to take me on in hand to hand combat."
"And yet you're still standing. Interesting." Carl leaned in and peered
at James as though looking through a magnifying glass.
James brushed some of the dust from his shirt, which did nothing to
restore its original color. "I've studied the milmart styles
extensively. I'm aware of all of their strengths and weaknesses."
"Really?" Ed asked eagerly, then followed up, "What's a milmart?"
"It's short for Military Martial Arts. A...coworker of mine coined the
term."
"You mean another assassin," Kat stated.
James put his glare on her and repeated, "A coworker of mine."
"Fine, fine. I heard you the first time."
"Any way, it refers to the dogmatic unarmed fighting systems employed by
the militaries of the world."
"Wow. That's a lot of ass-kicking," Ed said with a grin.
"Yes it is, Ed. Yes it is," James said with a matching grin.
"But if you're in a life-or-death struggle, there's no time for fancy
techniques," Carl offered.
"You're absolutely right, but some things do come through, if you
practice them enough. I've practiced my fighting forms for two hours a
day, seven days, for five years. Even when I've lost ninety percent of
rational thought, my body is going to remember those moves and use them.
If you've been taught H2H techniques, you will use them under stress.
Your training will take over."
"And you have the time and presence of mind to analyze your opponent's
fighting style in the middle of combat?" Carl pressed.
"That's why I'm number one." James said as if it were the most obvious
thing in the world. "You how to defeat your enemy, and your job becomes
remarkably simplified."
His reply was perfect silence.
James fished half of a shredded cigarette out of random pocket and
looked at the tobacco remains balefully. "Well, that was expected." Then
he noticed how the others were looking at him. "What?"
"You...are number one?" Ed asked, heaping mountains of meaning onto the
second word in his sentence.
"Yeah. Anyway, on to the plan at hand. I propose we use them to spy on
our friends. Spy on the spies, if you will. This will give us the
advantage we need to quickly eliminate the resistance. Once they're out
of the way, we can deal with the bombs."
Carl gave Jimmy a nod.
Kat blew through his tirade with three words fused into once knockout
question. "Number one what?"
"Can I bum another cigarette off of you?" James asked obliviously.
Kat clawed at the air around his face, then realized that she was just
clawing some very not-near-James air. She looked around to find the
assassin looking through her purse with the intense gaze of a nicotine
addict searching for their next fix. She snatched the purse back
angrily.
James showed her his empty hands. "Don't get stingy with the loot,
girl."
"Don't," Kat jammed a finger into his personal space, "call me that."
"Number one what?" Ed asked, realizing that James was trying to distract
Kat.
James folded his arms over his chest. "Radio Shack will be our next
target. With a few choice items, I can tap into most of the video
systems throughout the mall. The problem, of course, is that they will
either guess where we are headed, or will stage an ambush on us once we
are there. Since Kat is being so nice to me today," he smiled at her
purse, "she gets to come with."
"Number one what?" Carl echoed.
"We should make haste," James declared in a booming voice.
Kat pulled out a cigarette and held it close to her chest. "Tell us and
you can have it."
James sighed, then pulled an MP5 out of the huge bag and held it up for
Kat to see. He then pointed to and operated the various mechanisms on
the weapon. "Safety, trigger, action, clip. Slide this in. Pull this
back and release it. Flick this, point, and gently pull this. When it
clicks instead of bangs, and you do this, and repeat." He handed the
weapon to Kat and faced the entrance to the store, squaring his
shoulders and setting his jaw. The three people behind him waited.
"Number one assassin in the world," he said.
----------
Halfway to the store, while picking their way through wreckage that
crossed the hallway like a handful of stone thrown by a careless child,
Kat asked James, "What am I supposed to do once we get there?"
"Watch my back," James replied.
"How will I do that?" Kat persisted.
James sounded annoyed as he answered, "If someone shows up without
radioing ahead, kill them."
Kat looked carefully at the gun in her hands. "I don't know if I can do
that."
James stopped at faced her. "Earth to Kat. We are up against soldiers
who have spent hundreds of hours specifically being trained to kill.
It's a mental thing. If you aren't willing to pull the trigger, the
biggest gun in the world won't help you."
Kat hoped she matched his vicious look. "You want me to shoot first?"
"Kat, let me give you the best advice I can. If a two-hundred and eighty
pound killing machine with an automatic rifle and murder in his eyes
comes after you, you only have to do one thing."
She dared to blink before she asked, "What?"
"Get angry. Get very, very angry. Get so angry you won't care if you
murder somebody in cold blood, and you might survive."
Get angry. They were simple words, with a meaning Kat could relate to.
When James said them, they became like wild beasts--savage and
unpredictable. When he said them, she could picture herself being the
very personification of savage, a towering visage of rage, a hurricane
of violence with a soul drenched in blood.
And that made sense. That was how you did the most horrible things
imaginable, and made them sound right in your mind when you were doing
them. "Is that how you did it?" His eyes narrowed. "Kill people, I
mean?"
"The secret's out," he said simply, and turned away.
Kat followed as he moved swiftly across the hallway, between shattered
chairs and broken bits of wooden tables. They moved down the eastern
side of the food court rapidly, and Kat saw that two of the stores
flanking the court had been gutted by explosives. They passed one of the
smoldering stores, and Kat saw streaks of blood and soot on the floor.
She resolutely didn't think of what body parts some grim-faced nineteen
year old soldier had dragged out of that disaster.
James came to a stop a few feet from the edge of Radio Shack's entrance,
his right shoulder an inch away from the wall. The white gauze under his
shirt was sticking out of the gash in the cloth like an eyeball watching
the wall.
From her position, Kat could see nothing of the interior except. A
hideous red sign that hung over the entrance like a banner announcing
her arrival in Hell. Annoyed, she noticed that James' large shoulders
blocked most of her view.
That moment would be forever burned into her memory, because right then
her heart rate doubled as two massive men in futuristic body armor
charged them from out of absolutely nowhere and shoved huge guns in
their faces.
They looked ready, and more than eager, to spray James' brains across
the wall if certain people didn't drop certain firearms immediately.
James dropped his gun without a hint of hesitation, and raised his hands
eagerly into the air.
With an absurd, fake European accent, he said, "Take me to your leader."
Kat hated him sometimes. She really did.
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