Chronicles of War
Part 1: Way of the Storm
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Do not fight dragons too long, lest you become one."
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 24: Fait Accompli
------------------------------------------------------------------------
James dashed into the open area of the expo hall, feeling like a rat
stuck in a maze. A maze constructed of fishing and hunting supplies. Was
this another bad dream?
He stopped before the giant fish tank, and even before his eyes took in
the scene, he knew the entire plan had been fucked up beyond all hope of
repair. The more men charged him from the direction of the tank. He
reacted on instinct, his body flying through martial arts moves
automatically, while his mind hung like a scratched record on one
question.
Why aren't Ed and Kat shooting people?
He dodged a wild Muy Thai elbow and countered with one of his own that
nearly tore out his opponent's eyeball, then glanced at the table his
friends should have been hiding behind.
There they were.
Being held at gunpoint.
James parried a string of punches by touch, noting that his eyes could
see nothing more than indistinct blurs where fists should have been, and
took a step backward. As his opponent moved to follow, he exploded into
a lunging punch that caught the man flat-footed.
He saw a flash of black hair and flying limbs, and his eyes were back on
his friends as the first soldier shouted, "STOP!"
Even as he spoke, James dropped into a low karate stance. The gang from
inside the expo area flowed out and encircled him like an oil slick.
"Maybe," James said gamely.
"Move and they die," the black-clad soldier offered.
James replied with a casual air. "If I came here with them, do you think
I'd care?"
"What?!" Kat shouted.
James continued conversationally, "If they were important to me, they'd
be under guard. Kill them if you want; it won't slow me down."
Ed's heart seemed to stop beating at James looked at them. His face was
as calm as a banker marking off debts on his ledger. It was all over.
"NO!" Kat screamed. The cry was cut short as the butt of an assault
rifle slammed into the top of her head.
"Wait! I give up!" James shouted, throwing his hands into the air.
The soldier didn't hesitate. "GET HIM!" he bellowed.
James stood still, hands held stiffly in the air. Ed watched him, found
his eyes, and wondered 'why?'
The soldiers engulfed James like a tidal wave hitting a sand castle. One
second he was standing there, the next there was just a tangle of limbs
and blunt weapons.
----------
Kat felt a warm river of blood running down her face, but couldn't feel
the spot it was coming from--literally. There was just a numb space were
she knew the impact had left a shallow gash at the top of her forehead,
probably a little bit into her hairline.
That hit had scrambled her brains somewhat. She heard people shouting
things, and she could make out the words, but the meanings and order of
them were a mystery. It was worse than not understanding anything. She
knew important things were happening, but through the bowl of molasses
that had replaced her brain, she couldn't bring herself to care.
"GET HIM!"
Yeah, that was grand. Which way was up again?
James.
The thought went through her like a bolt of lightning. James was going
to get them killed. Him. James was him. Someone was after James. She
couldn't remember why, but she had to fight. She had to fight for
something. She need to know what was going on.
The world obligingly swirled back into focus. Five armed men, that she
could see. Blood on her hands. On her. Ed's face taunt, his eyes burning
with impotent rage, like a pit bull at the end of it's chain.
Back to the armed men. The floor rolled and shifted under her feet, but
she managed to stand anyway.
"Hey!"
The shout was close, and when a strong arm coiled around her, training
kicked in. As she kicked her attacker squarely between the legs, her
teacher's words seemed to float through her head. 'Follow up with a
stunning move, then run.'
Good advice. It was a shame she couldn't take it.
She watched, detached, as a gun was leveled at her head. Out of the
corner of her eye, she saw Ed kick aside another soldier who was
reaching for her. He stopped when another gun was put to his nose,
though he looked ready to chance attacking the holder.
She was about to tell him that she would be fine when a small truck
impacted with the back of her skull and the floor went all slippery
again.
As she fell, she noticed Ed taking down another one of the bastards.
Just before she hit the floor she remembered James saying he didn't care
about either of them. Her brain asked the inevitable question--was that
true?
Then darkness claimed her, and for an infinitely long moment, she
thought of nothing at all.
----------
It was impossible to tell where they ended and he began. He would throw
a punch and one would hit him. He'd kick and foot would wind up in his
face. He thrashed his entire body, feeling like a worm on a hook, and
everything around him, everything in sight, and everything he could
feel, just thrashed back.
Yet James was slowly winning. Years of the harshest training he could
imagine had crafted his body into magnificent weapon, unequaled in power
and resilience. He couldn't remember the last time he'd even been sick.
He could punch holes in concrete. Few people in the entire world could
match his skill, and he knew it. So he kept thrashing. He kept hitting
and taking hits. Even outnumbered eight to one, he was gaining ground on
them; it wasn't a fair fight at all.
Finally a foot came loose. Someone's head got in the way, and he kept
kicking until it wasn't in the way anymore. Then something was against
his knee, then a hand was free and a throat within reach. Two seconds
after the opening was made, James stood on the ground surrounded by more
than a half-dozen bodies. Very few of them were moving. All of them were
bleeding.
His lungs worked like they had never worked before. His heartbeat was a
stampede in his ears. His eyes zipped from location to location, from
target to target, trying to see everything. There were another six guys
behind Kat, who was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. One man was
drawing his gun, pointing it at her head.
James took cursory note of Ed's location amongst the group, and grabbing
hold of reserves he didn't know he had, charged.
Two of the men, short guys with short hair and thick stubble that made
them look like a pair of shaved apes, actually raised their MP5's to
track James. Navy SEALs, he noted idly. A single kick blocked both
shots. He blindly delivered a fist to somebody's face and took out
another man's leg with another kick.
Ed kicked away the gun lining up with Kat's skull, and snapped a knee
into its owner's stomach. He followed up by slamming an open palm
against one of the man's ears while he pushed another pistol out of his
face.
Too many, James' mind noted as he spun around the man he'd nailed in the
face. One arm automatically went around the guy's throat, and the other
drew the soldier's pistol. Two shots took down the SEALs, and a third
blew the gun out of another soldier's hands. Ed had taken a kick to the
gut and was going down. James forced his human shield around and shot
one of the men in the face.
Three down. One man stood on his only good leg, clutching a bloody hand.
Another was barely on his feet, bent over and gasping for breath.
The last one was pointing his own MP5 at James' shield.
James pointed the stolen pistol at his hostage's head. "Stalemate," he
said between deep breaths, "Give up now and I might let you live."
"Wrong on both counts," the soldier answered.
He was right about that, James thought as he pulled the trigger.
Now came the hard part. He let his legs fold and grabbed the edge of the
table he'd jumped over on arrival, jerk it towards him, him towards it.
He slid under the table, kicking it as he passed. The table hit soldier
in the hip, jarring him momentarily and letting Ed tackle him from
behind.
Ed wasn't looking at him, though. He wasn't looking at the soldier.
He was looking at the three remaining threats.
----------
Ed raked his hands down the soldier's ears, hoping to rip at least one
of them off. A piece of one came off in his hand, and he considered that
worth his trouble. A well-placed elbow dropped the man for good. He
scooped up the automatic, and shot the last soldier as he dropped to the
floor beside Kat.
She was stirring, breathing regularly, and cursing.
"Stay there," Ed said as soothingly as he could. He dropped the gun and
ripped off a piece of his sleeve, starting where the seam around the
cuff was starting to unravel. He gently rolled her over, and put the
cloth at her hairline when she silently gestured to it.
Then he looked over the table to see how James was doing.
James was flying up the ladder against the end of the tank. At the top
was a tiny platform with barely room enough for one person. Two soldiers
were perched on, drawing guns. Ed half-expected James' head to appear
with a knife held between his teeth and a patch over one eye. Shaking
off such silly notions, he paid close attention when James made the
platform and tore into the two men like a pit bull hitting chickens.
Bullets were fired in random directions, and within two seconds the
first man sailed into the tank trailing a gout of blood. The second man
fared no better. James batted his arms away like he was swatting down
flies. The man's gun went in one direction, his hands in another, then
James wrapped his arm around the man's neck, tackling him right off of
the platform, following him into the tank.
Just like that. No hesitation, no fear, no weird battle cries, no
elaborate plans. He climbed a ladder and took out two armed men without
taking a hit. He killed one outright, then went down with the next, so
determined to murder the man, that the very real possibility of drowning
hadn't even occurred to him. Ed had seen him gasping for breath. James
couldn't out-last the soldier under water. He had to be running on
nothing but adrenaline the minute he mounted that ladder. But why?
Why throw it all away?
Why casually toss away his life for...
He looked at the blood-soaked cloth in his hands and the woman pressed
against it.
His brain snapped back into gear. "James is in the tank!"
"Good for him," Kat said in slow motion.
"No, seriously. He's out of breath, he's going to drown in there." Ed
felt a little short of breath himself. He had to do something, but if he
left cover, left her, would she be all right?
The matter was made moot as she grabbed a pistol--from where, he
couldn't see--and shot the side of the tank.
As Ed saw the miniature tidal wave rush towards him, he screamed. He had
time to say only one thing, and even if it didn't make sense, it sure
felt right. "I'm surrounded by insane people!"
----------
James ignored the black and white flashes in his vision and tried to get
his lungs to work properly. His heart wasn't being particularly kind to
him either; threatening to beat its way clean out of his chest. When his
inner ear came back on line and his limbs informed him that his hands
and knees were against something solid, he opened his eyes.
Blood everywhere.
He closed his eyes, and heard footsteps approach carefully, cautiously.
Their owners were dripping wet. Dripping audibly.
He cracked an eye open. Water everywhere. Just ordinary water this time.
And shoes he recognized.
"Are you okay, dude?" That would be Ed.
"I'll live," James gasped. Another body-quaking cough and he spit the
last of the coppery water out of his mouth.
"You lied!" Kat shrieked.
He thought those other shoes looked familiar. He bent his head back and
saw Kat holding a red rag to her forehead, hair plastered to her scalp.
She looked like she'd dived into the tank after him. Ed was holding her
by the arm. Supporting her. Holding her up.
"You fucking lied to us!" she repeated, tears climbing the corners of
her eyes.
"And to them!" James said quietly.
"You don't care about anything!" She insisted, fury sharpening her
features into a mask of hate.
"I care about people," he insisted. He did, he really did. He just...did
horrible things sometimes. Shit happened.
"YOU FUCKING LIAR!"
Right. James stood, a familiar and comforting calm settling over him.
Suddenly, this didn't matter. Well, it did, but Kat was just expressing
her feelings. She wasn't doing anything wrong. He fought down a smile he
knew would be inappropriate, and looked at her. "They needed to believe
it. They did, just enough to slow them down, just enough to confuse them
so they wouldn't kill you. I can't let them..."
"You..." Kat rasped.
Ed looked like he'd just watched Santa Claus take out his parents with a
shotgun.
James looked at the floor and the soaking surroundings again. This
wasn't so bad.
How many times had he told himself that. Did he even believe those words
anymore? His mouth began moving, and he listened in amazement to his
voice as it said: "Yes, I lied. I lied to them and I lied to you and if
you want to kill me, I won't stop you. I had a plan, and it hurt you,
and for that I apologize. I did what I had to do."
He knelt before her.
She watched him.
Ed cleared his throat, did it again when no one responded. "Can we get
out of here? She needs medical attention."
James was on his feet in the next breath. "Where?" he asked, his voice
thick with worry.
Kat waved him off. "It's nothing, nothing. Get back! I'm fine!"
"You could have a concussion."
"I probably DO have a concussion, thanks for your concern."
"We have to get out of here," James announced.
"We were going to anyway, we--"
"NOW," James said, already moving, stripping guns off of corpses.
----------
The cut in Kat's forehead proved a trivial problem. The water had washed
much of the blood out of her clothes and from her face, so the trio
looked at least marginally presentable--if half-drowned--when they
returned to the music store.
James greeted the waiting crowd and wide-eyed stares with a jaunty
politician's wave, then directed people around until Ed was watching the
entrance with a stout man wearing horn-rimmed glasses, and Carl and
Jimmy were gathered at his elbow. Kat had put the music on, insisting
she go into the back room alone while giving Terry and Zak the evil eye.
James had shrugged then, and once the music was on, bent down and began
to whisper conspiratorially to the two Marines.
A few minutes later, their huddle was broken, and James planted himself
squarely before the entrance to the store. He didn't even need to clear
his throat to get everyone's attention. If not for the music, the
silence would have been deafening.
"The time has come to leave," he said simply. "We are all leaving, right
after I give you your instructions. You are going to run to JC Penny,
and stay there while I take care of something in the Bon Marche. I won't
be a minute. When I get back, I'll take point. Ed will cover the rear,
and Jimmy and Carl here will cover our flanks. Kat will be right with
you guys. When I say 'go,' you go. You run. You don't stop until your
past the police line outside. If we're attacked, if people start
shooting and you guys, KEEP RUNNING! We've got one chance at this. Let's
not waste it."
Murmuring spread through the crowd like fire.
"We going to be taking out the resistance?" Jimmy said, his words
wavering between question and statement like smoke in a bar.
"We may very well be signing our own death warrants here," James said
soberly. "Just remember...we're all dead if we don't do something
anyway. We've got nothing to loose."
"What about the bombs! Can't you disarm them?" One man shouted.
James didn't bother to even identify the speaker, even as several people
shouted in agreement.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry to have to break this to you." James
took a deep breath and seemed to steady himself. "The bombs were just a
distraction. There is no complicated keys or method to disarming them.
They are set on remote detonation and they were meant to be used to kill
you all and get rid of the evidence of what's happened here. They were a
stalling tactic."
"That's ridiculous!" the man shouted.
"Is it?" James asked, in a reasonable and sane voice that such a man had
no right using. "I should be dead about twenty times over if they were
here to kill me."
"We don't have time to argue about this!" Carl barked. "If you want to
stay here, stay here. We leave now."
Carl nodded to James, who mouthed a 'thanks' back before he faced the
doors. "I'll see you guys in a minute."
Then he sprinted away.
Ed and Kat watched, their faces slack, mouths resting somewhere around
their ankles.
"What?" Jimmy asked.
"He...he was completely exhausted when we left the expo hall. I'm amazed
he can walk under his own power, let alone zoom off like an Olympic
sprinter."
"He's got spunk," growled Carl. "Let's break it up now--we've got to get
these people moving."
----------
James made his way back to the Bon Marche with little trouble. The wind
rushed in his ears as his emotions chorused through his mind in rivers
of chaos. But this was a chaos he commanded and controlled, danced with
and submitted to. It seemed to beat a mad rhythm with his heart, helping
it force the blood through his veins as all need for complicated thought
fell away.
He scaled the ducting in the Bon Marche like a salmon jumping
waterfalls. The obstructions on the roof made for little more than a
distraction. He had the ventilation unit's cover off and was ahead of
schedule when he found that he had a problem.
The fan was enclosed in a steel sheath. Getting through that with tools
would take too long. Far too long. Maybe a chainsaw? Probably not. James
cursed. Shooting would give away his position and his plan. Would give
everything away.
Luckily, he didn't have the time to worry about getting caught. He
pulled out his lone weapon, an MP5 with only a single clip of
ammunition. It was all up to luck now.
Fuck the plan.
He pulled the trigger.
----------
Ed walked through the store slowly, his frayed nerves commanding senses
that could barely tell up from down. He had a vague sense that something
was wrong. He could find no reason for his unease, could not explain it,
even to himself, in a way that made sense. Yet there it was, doggedly
trying to tell him something. The only thing did come to mind simply
didn't strike him as being relevant.
He was watching a movie one time. There was a sniper in the film,
hunting down a particularly cunning soldier that had eluded his grasp
one too many times. The old sniper was waiting, waiting as the soldier
fought on, closing in on the sniper with the intent to kill. The sniper
watched his enemy get wounded again and again, saw opportunity after
opportunity flash by until it seemed to late to strike back against his
foe.
It was then, of course, that the sniper delivered the killing blow;
right when his adversary had seen the light of victory and reached so
boldly, recklessly for it.
Where they making the same mistake? Was James about to push them blindly
into a trap designed to catch an amateur?
Was James an amateur?
Was that...gunfire?
"Hold it." Ed put up a hand, then frantically tried to wave everyone
behind cover.
"What is it?" Jimmy said, almost conversationally.
"I thought I heard gunfire."
The hostages slowly came to a stop, nervous eyes watching every corner
of the store like a herd of zebras surrounded by lions. But where were
the lions?
Ed's grip tightened on his gun. He silently urged James to quit enjoying
the fresh air and hurry the hell up.
----------
The gun ran dry. James dropped it, and was already moving towards the
shredded fan casing, when a small meteor hit him in the back of the
head. His vision went completely back and he sprawled across the jagged
metal of the fan's sheath. His right hand felt like it was cut clean in
half. Even as he gasped from the pain, still blind, he sprung off the
metal and launched his counter attack. He met a string of punches from
fists the size of small dogs, barely keeping up something vaguely
resembling a defense, while a liquid of some kind kept splashing him in
the face.
Then a kick as forgiving as a car bumper slammed into his side. For an
instant, he could only tell that he was flying. Then something hard
clipped his side, ripping a line of pain down his bruised ribs, down the
side of his stomach, and nearly tearing off his hip.
He landed on his hands and feet, the world a slew of gray rivers. Hands.
His hands. Two of them, intact. That was good news. He scrambled to his
feet and faced his mountain--err, opponent. Mt. Asshole, James decided
to call him. The heating unit he'd just been pumping lead into came up
to James' shoulders. It looked like it only just cleared Mt. Asshole's
waist, and he'd sent James over that sucker like a place kicker for the
Rams.
Certain he was going to die, James took a second to pull off an
elaborate centering kata, and grinned psychotically at Mt. Asshole. Then
he noticed a piece of sharp metal sticking out of the back of his hand.
Mt. Asshole gave the standard kung fu movie 'come hither' gesture, then
waited patiently, his gorilla arms hanging at his sides.
James obliged by flinging the strip of metal out of his hand at Mt.
Asshole's face. The big man was fast, nearly catching the metal out of
the air, but James' strike hit the soft orb and skewered it like an egg.
He didn't waste time watching his opponent scream and clutch at his
head. Instead, he crouched and charged the enter unit like a linebacker.
The first three hits only hurt his shoulder, but on the fourth, the
massive hunk of metal gave off a shriek. On the fifth it rocked on its
base. On the sixth it tipped.
Mt. Asshole came around the structure, blood shading his face, murder in
his remaining eye. James flew into a complicated spinning kick aiming
for the man's face. Both hands went up to block it as James finished the
spin by flipping nearly up-side down to land two punches to his
attacker's bladder before landing heavily on his shoulder.
Mt. Asshole stumbled back, bent over and groaning like a wounded boar.
James jabbed his thumbs into the man's eyes, both of them this time, and
as the man's hands swiped at the air, his own fists slammed into the
forearms. Mt. Asshole jerked his arms back. James hit him in the throat.
The groaning stopped.
James stood back for a moment, watching the man's mouth work comically.
He felt something warm and slick soaking his shirt and figured he was
due for a nice visit to the local hospital by now. But first, he waited
for Mt. Asshole's face to turn slightly purple. Once it did, he began to
topple. With a timing that came from long practice, James kicked the
heating unit near the top, causing the near side to lift a foot off the
roof.
Mt. Asshole's head landed on the floor under it just before it came
down.
The blow didn't kill him.
James' follow up kicks did.
The assassin huffed to himself, then looked at his hand. So, the wetness
on his face was blood. That figured. "And me without my duct tape," he
lamented to no one.
The wind didn't answer him.
----------
Ed remained crouched on the floor for an eternity and a half, waiting
for the ax to fall. He felt foolish. He was certain he was going to die.
Any second now, one of the bad guys would show their face, bullets would
start flying, and he would die along with the hostages in this stupid,
god-forsaken mall. What a way to go.
"Hey, guys!"
"James?" Ed couldn't believe his ears.
"Yeah, let's go!"
Ed stood, watching Carl and Jimmy do the same. The hostages stood as
well, stunned into silence.
James looked like he'd got into a fight with a lawn mower.
"What happened to you?"
"Those heating and cooling units are dangerous. I didn't follow
OSHA-approved procedures, and, well..." He gestured at his shirt, soaked
through with blood and missing most of the right half. Much of the
T-shirt had been converted to an improvised bandage over what must have
been a huge gash in his side. More cloth was wrapped around his right
hand, and Ed figured he'd fought someone on the roof, breaking open the
cut in his palm again.
"We're ready to move," Carl said, his voice booming and urgent.
"Well don't let me slow you down," James snapped, then faced the
hostages. "Run! What the fuck are you waiting for?" He pointed at the
doors to the outside world, screaming, "RUN!"
Of course, that's when the trap was sprung. Just like Ed knew it would
be.
(
geocities.com/tokyo/subway/1888/txt) (
geocities.com/tokyo/subway/1888) (
geocities.com/tokyo/subway) (
geocities.com/tokyo)