Monday I reluctantly fly off to Kona, the gorgeous August weather there not enough to brighten my mood, however, my depression makes for better smashing action in Mexico. Nothing like trashing a half dozen drug cartel compounds to get the blood flowing.
Tuesday I start with a trip to Columbia once I get back to LA, undoing the work that Mr. Juarez had done to start the reconstruction of his compound and office buildings, before returning to Mexican destruction.
They did find out from his laptop that it was in fact he who orchestrated the bombing of the LAPD officers at LAX that nearly killed Perez, so I am never giving up on making his life miserable. Perez knew but didn't tell me, it was Flaherty who let it slip while we were walking around, bored, checking license plates.
I'm done when I head home, five nights instead of my predicted four, but ready to turn my attention to my own backyard.
It's a beautiful morning to go running, a sleepy Perez promising pancakes on my return, so I plan on another double loop as I head out, this time warning my tail to prepare himself. He's Brooks Powell, one of the more senior agents who always makes a point of being on duty for Sunday at the Packer's. He does love my mom's cooking.
We're part way down the beach, nearing the seaport village and hotel district, when my head suddenly moves to the left. Not because I did anything, not because the earth shifted or I hit some undetected dent in the beach, because the light decided it needed to happen.
Thwap. That's how it sounded. Thwap. Right past my right ear, might have been right between my ears if I had stayed vertical. My eyes, even my normal human eyes, see him, dark haired, standing on the observation deck, sniper rifle pointed my way.
And as suddenly as the thwap happened, a woman and her two kids are there, behind the man, all three screaming, mom because of what she sees, the kids probably because of mom. I am already running, running with a light in my inner hand, running possibly with those three lives in my flesh and blood hands.
The shooter bolts, at least it seems that way to me as I go under the deck and cut toward the stairs. Four at a time this time, really not human but the only person who might see is Brooks, and he's not fast enough to be there yet. I have my SIG out as I reach the top of the stairs, my badge wrapped around it.
There's a man reaching for the sniper rifle, but not
the
man, frakkin' tourist.
"LAPD, get away from that!" I have actually "barked" twice now, almost like a real law enforcement officer.
He moves back, helps the woman and kids out of the way, maybe they're his.
I get to the wall, see my shooter well up the hill, running faster than Hammels did. A stupid thought occurs to me. Reaching down, I pick up what I told the other man to drop.
My shoulder goes against the wall to stabilize me, the rifle, a TAC-50, is a little heavier than the Remington 700 I trained on, but not dramatically so, though we didn't get to use a suppressor like this one has.
I get my target in the sights, hold my breath, concentrate, let the light help a little, and squeeze the trigger as gently as I can. There's a thwap, then a red splotch where the shooter's knee used to be.
Brooks is on the platform, staring at me, then at the shooter. He manages to break that way before me, and I have to hustle to catch him, carrying the rifle. We're still 50 yards from the shooter when there's a cough, metallic, and a spray of what can only be blood. Whoever the shooter was, we're not taking him in.
It's Mike Palmer, the front of his head intact, the back completely missing. Brooks is on the phone, calling for assistance. I'm shaking my head.
"It doesn't make any sense," I say as soon as the phone's away from his ear, "Same place, too public, it makes no sense."
He looks at me. "Unless it's just a distraction."
I understand. The street is faster than the beach, and I am behind the hotel and running with everything I've got toward home. I'll trust that Brooks has asked for help there too. Takes me two minutes, maybe less, before I get to my building, and round the outside.
Special Agent Jim Dempsey is slumped over in the passenger seat of his car. No need for me to check and see, the inside of the windshield is painted over with his blood.
I rip open the door to the building, ignore the elevator, and run the stairs, 10 floors. At the top, it occurs to me that I should have changed at the bottom and jumped them, but I'm a dumbass. The stairwell door faces my apartment door, which is wide open, taunting me.
Weapon out, I run through it, ignoring every bit of training I have. I can see the entire apartment from there, no where to hide except the bathtub.
No damage to the doorframe, she must have opened it, at least partially, for them. Maybe four of them and one of her, but she didn't go quietly. My lumpy bed is unsleepable, somebody took a serious hit on it's frame. The table is on its side, two chairs obviously used as weapons flung across the room, papers everywhere. Pancakes burning on the stove. A couple drops of blood on the linoleum when I go to put out the kitchen fire. No way to tell whose they are. I could check the video in the cupboard, but that thought only occurs to me later.
Halloween is sitting in the far corner of the kitchen, walks over to me at the stove. I pick her up and she gives me a mournful mew.
"Nothing you could have done, girl," I tell her, "Perez is coming home soon, I promise."
My cel buzzes, it's Flaherty saying she's on the way. I tell her Perez is gone. I tell her Dempsey is dead. She uses one of my favorite words. Tells me to stay put. I want to fly out the window and start ripping the town down building by building until I find Kiana, but I do the "right" thing and do as I'm told.
Ten minutes later Flaherty is standing in my place, surveying the damage. Her forensics team is a few minutes behind her, and I tell them they can swab the blood then get the fuck out. Flaherty nods agreement. One comes back 15 minutes later to say it's not her type. Doesn't really help me.
Flaherty tells me to follow her, we lock up, grab one of her agents, and she makes me follow my path backwards to the observation deck, explaining as I go. Brooks catches up at the shooting site and adds what he can.
She leaves him in charge of the scene, walks me to her car and we caravan with some of the other agents up to their office. There, she releases four pictures to all area law enforcement agencies and transportation hubs. Armed and dangerous.
Time, Albert Einstein observed, is not a constant. The longest year of my life is the 10 hours between Kiana going missing and the FBI letting me go home. During that time we send teams out to investigate every single reported sighting, two dozen in all, but none gain us any actionable information. I am confined to the office, then followed home by no less than six agents, two of whom are sitting outside my apartment door. I tell them if they knock, I will shoot first and ask for their identification afterwards.
Then I change, trust the light to let me know when it's safe, and blast out my sliding glass door at warp speed. I did open it first, but only to keep the noise of it breaking from attracting the attention of the feds.
I don't have to search for her, I know someone who knows, or should know. He's in a cell on the 18th floor of the FBI building, with a nice view of downtown and LAX.
I barely slow down as I reach the wall, trashing it completely, not worried if I damage him too much in the process. His bright orange jump suit makes a convenient handhold, and I am quickly airborne again, rocketing a couple thousand feet up. I have two hands on his suit, one on each side of the zipper, six inches below his neck. My face is six inches in front of his.
"Where is she?" I'm pretty sure this situation is intimidating, but you never know.
"Who?"
I drop us both a couple hundred feet. His face goes from confident to pale white. You may be prepared to die, but hanging by a piece of cloth in mid-air is probably not how you think it will happen.
He manages not to say anything. Then his jumpsuit helps me out. The bottom tears, just a little bit, and while my hands don't move, his chin is now resting on them.
"I'm not asking again." Actually, I probably will, but that's what came out, me and my mouth only loosely connected.
"I don't know." He must have sensed I was about to drop him, because he very quickly added some more. "This is about getting you out in the open, she's just bait. Jack and Jeff are gone by now, out of town where it's safe. If you find her, they'll kill you both. If you don't, she's still dead."
My brain, that lumpy thing that normally doesn't work, suddenly knows where the Ali boys are hiding, and they certainly know where Perez is. Instead of dropping him, I dive toward his cell, him screaming, my revenge, then drop him off, still in one piece, but in desperate need of a new suit. Two guards are standing in his cell when we get there. I hit the thrusters instantly upon landing, leaving him to their care.
I am quickly hypersonic, not at all worried about how many windows are no more, heading north and east across the desert. I slow down some as I get to Sin City, not wanting to alert the assholes that I am on my way.
Unlike mine, I don't bother to open the sliding glass door on the 32nd floor condo, just fly through it. Two young Ali's are standing there, staring at me, way more surprised than they should be.
"What did you do with her?" I'm floating six inches off the ground, not very intimidating, but as high as I can get comfortably under the eight foot ceilings.
One of them has the stupidity to laugh. "We were sure you'd figure it out. When you do, you're dead. She will get to see you die, then join you, the bitch."
The world becomes a stop motion picture sequence. I have a near photographic mental image of one of my hands on each of their necks. Another of me with those hands flipped backwards, now empty, pointing toward the broken glass door. Another of the two of them sailing through it. Nothing in between, no sense that I moved, no emotion, no connections between the dots.
Then I'm flying out the window, looking down, two screams registering, but a choice made. I could still catch them, they are not even half way to the ground. Instead, I blast toward LA and Perez.
She's on the 27th floor of the Marquis. Superdumbass should have realized that a long time ago, but I clearly have a lot of Neanderthal DNA in my genome. There are two missing persons from our original six, and I have no doubt they made sure no human being can save her. Simon Packer could get into the Marquis, but he cannot save his girlfriend once there.
Somewhere out there is a nuclear warhead, and the only way to save Perez is to find it and neutralize it, something only a superhuman has the chance to do. According to a reliable FBI source, all humans within a mile of detonation won't live to see much more than a flash, which gives us too much area for a normal person to search. I have to get to ground without them knowing it.
The Colonel will have a picket line up, all four of his drones, plus who knows what else to make sure he can find me. The bomb could be in the Marquis, but it also could be in one of the neighboring buildings, or in one of the numerous parking garages around, some underground.
I come in low and fast from Ontario, following the 60 inbound toward downtown, but quickly know that's not going to work. I'm barely past Mountain when the light tells me to pull up, we've been spotted. How the frak, I don't know, but I know to trust.
Back out and around, I retry from the south over Colton, and then from the ocean near Beverly Hills, none of which gets me within 10 miles of downtown. The bad guys have to be patient and careful. If I'm not in the bomb radius, they've wasted their one shot. I cannot afford to wait, at some point they'll decide they don't need live bait and kill Perez. They're the cat, I'm the little rodent.
I settle off Laguna Beach, then come barreling in 10 feet off the ground at Mach speed, and still they spot me, barely into Anaheim. It makes no sense. I circle, looking for drones, but there are simply not enough to be everywhere.
Then I get lucky, or maybe not lucky, but I figure it out. I stop to hover near the Hilton, obviously being watched, looking for drone sign, then loop out over the Anaheim Convention Center heading back to cover when I see him, all dressed in black, big binoculars, standing on top of the Marriott, watching me.
I am too far to really see his face, but he's looking straight at me with 50 power lenses, and I am looking straight at him, pretty pissed off. He drops the binocs and is very earnestly talking into his radio. I'm betting he's asking to be dismissed, and someone is ordering him to stand fast.
I get it. The Colonel has ordered lots and lots of his own men to stand on rooftops to observe me, not knowing that he is about to nuke them. Bastard. Not going to let that happen. Only not any closer to figuring out how.
Squish some molecules and get back out over the Pacific, out of sight range. Out of sight range. It's night, I'm in my black underwear. Hardly any moon. I rocket up several miles into the sky and jam in toward downtown, sensors sensing.
