Chapter 22

 

Hunt the Hunter

 

When Frank finally walked into General Hartmann’s office at two fifteen that afternoon, Cal’s expression was as dark as a thundercloud. He tapped his watch and grated; “Eleven o’clock, Frank – I said eleven o’clock.”

“I’m sorry sir – I witnessed a fatal car accident – I had to sign a statement.”

Cal frowned at the expression on Frank’s face. He didn’t look like someone who’d witnessed a fatal car accident. He looked almost … elated. However he refrained from looking into Frank’s mind. Maybe later, when he had a bit more time on his hands.

Frank settled himself in a chair and lit up.

“Those things will kill you.”

“I doubt it. So why’d I have to burn rubber to get back here?”

“I have a job for you that requires your … singular talents.” He gestured towards a typed report on his desk, which had Dr Carrington’s name written on the front.

“Already?” Frank was amazed.

“I’ve been waiting for a psychokinetic of your power level for a long time, Frank. PsiForce is already comprised of some very diverse talents, but so far none of them come even remotely close to yours. You have within you the power to be the perfect assassin.”

Frank met Cal’s excited gaze. He’d never seen such passion in the man’s eyes before, like he’d just struck gold. He’d already pondered the applications of his powers, but he hadn’t thought the general would be so quick to pick up on them, after having only read Dr Carrington’s draft report. “I thought I already was the perfect assassin.”

Cal laughed, a little too long and a little too hard. Frank could see he was nervous. But what about? “Very funny, Frank.” He took a deep breath. “You were an excellent operative before your visit to Colombia, but nothing special. You’d reached the pinnacle of your career, and I doubt you would have made it much further up the military ladder. But now, with your new psionic abilities, your potential is ... limitless.”

Frank could take mountains of praise as well as the next man, but this was starting to get a bit thick. He took another drag on his cigarette and cleared his throat. “So what’s this job you’ve got for me?”

Cal looked almost relieved. “Have you heard of the Hunter?”

Frank scratched behind his ear. “I’ve heard rumours. Isn’t he supposed to be a really sneaky top-notch assassin? Who can slip in and out of places like a ghost?”

Cal nodded.

“I’ve heard that he does jobs for whoever can pay. Supposedly he’s even done work for the Company. Yet no-one’s ever seen him.”

“Yes. But you’re wrong on the last point, Frank. People have seen him. We even have his picture on file.”

“So he really does exist?”

“Oh yes. We believe he’s a very powerful psyker who learned on his own how to use his powers to their full potential.”

Frank stared.

Cal smiled thinly. “I understand your surprise, Frank, but let me tell you that this will only be the first of many more such shocks to come. PsiForce has several major secrets under its belt already.”

“Major secrets? What’re you talkin’ about, Cal?”

“All in good time, Frank. Let’s focus on the Hunter.” Coughing from the stench of Frank’s Marlboro Blacks, Cal got up and closed the blinds, plunging his roomy office into semi-darkness. He pulled down a large projection-screen, then produced a small projector from a cupboard beside it. It only took him a few minutes to set everything up. Frank watched as he knelt down beside a safe and dialled in a combination. Inside was a filing cabinet stuffed with files. Cal reached in, pulling out a thick volume with a bright red cover. “This is the Hunter’s top secret file.” He thumped it onto the desk in front of him. “It contains everything we have on him.” From the inside front cover he drew out a plastic sleeve with a handful of slides inside, and shook its contents out into his hand. “You are about to look upon the face of a man whom only a very select few have ever seen.”

He slotted the slides into the viewer and switched the machine on. Cal clicked forward to the first picture, and the ethereally handsome face of a young man appeared. He looked no more than eighteen. He had soft blonde hair, worn cut short and sticking up in spikes above his forehead. He reminded Frank of Lewis Farnon. But it was the Hunter’s eyes that transfixed him. They were dark, brooding, full of unholy secrets. He had the thousand-yard stare of someone who had lived too long and seen too much. How could such expressive eyes belong to a mere eighteen year old?

“He’s … just a kid,” Frank managed. Like that bastard who shot me, he thought darkly.

Cal shook his head. “That’s how he’s managed to elude everyone for so long. No-one’s looking for a child. But believe me, that’s the Hunter. And he’s been creeping around killing for at least forty years.” He clicked to the next slide, which depicted a shadowy figure sprinting along a brightly lit corridor. Frank could just make out the shine of his blonde hair. “A high-speed security camera snapped this one. We figure the Hunter was moving at around two hundred miles per hour down this passage.”

“Two hundred miles per hour?” Frank exploded.

“Give or take about ten. That’s why we believe he’s a psyker. No other person could move so fast.”

“Jesus.” Frank massaged his forehead.

Cal showed him more slides, each of which depicted a shadowy figure caught by a high-speed camera. Frank lit up another smoke and wished for a cup of coffee, a really strong spoon-bending one. “The Hunter used to be a neutral we could rely on,” Cal continued as Frank watched the slide sequence. “But recent intelligence tells us that he’s been compromised.”

“Compromised? How so?” Frank queried.

The short slide-show finished, and Cal clicked off the projector and switched on the overhead light. “A few months ago, a famous geneticist named Dr Daniel Karlberg went missing. It is now presumed he was murdered. He was an active member of the Nethermind.”

An icy shiver raced down Frank’s spine as once again he recalled the handsome Indian boy with his cold, killer’s eyes.

“Our sources now tell us he was trying to undo the Nethermind from the inside, and the Hunter killed him to shut him up. Thus we have every reason to believe the Hunter is now a member of the Nethermind.”

Frank cursed again. This was going from bad to worse.

Cal picked up the receiver of his phone. “Allow me to introduce you to a friend of ours.” He punched in a number. “Dr Browne? We’re ready for you now.”

“’Bout time,” a slurred voice answered. “Be there in ten minutes.” The phone went dead.

Cal sat back down, folding his hands together in front of him. “Dr Martin Browne is a brilliant freelance intelligence agent, who’s done jobs for the FBI, the CIA and the NSA. He might look a little eccentric, but believe me, he’s the best there is.”

A few minutes later there was a knock at the door, and a captain showed into Cal’s office a small, wasted man slumped in an electric wheelchair. Frank could not place his age, although he suspected the guy wasn’t particularly old. He wore thick glasses perched on his thin, beaky nose and his curly mouse-coloured hair scraped back in an untidy pony-tail at the nape of his neck. A patchy, five-day growth of beard graced his chin and parts of his jaw. His forehead, nose and chin were spotted with acne scars.

As soon as he saw Frank one side of his mouth lifted in a lopsided smile. “I thought I was ugly, but you take the cake!” he declared in a slurred voice.

This is gonna go well, Frank thought blackly.

“Whoa! If looks could kill! Although in your case, they probably can!” Dr Browne continued.

“That’s enough, Doctor,” Cal interjected. “We have very important business to discuss.”

Dr Browne chuckled, still smiling his lunatic half-smile. Frank glared at him, wondering how such an idiot had managed to insinuate himself so deeply into the military’s most secret agency. He talked like he was retarded or something. “Okay, this is situation so far,” Dr Browne began. “Basically the Hunter has joined the Nethermind. Any move he makes from now on will be on their behalf. He can’t be trusted any more. That’s why you have to kill him, Colonel.”

“What?” Frank gasped, spitting out his cigarette.

“With your special talents you can defeat this psyker and destroy his body,” Cal explained. “You have the pyrokinetic power to incinerate him and scatter his ashes to the four winds. Quick, quiet, and most importantly, untraceable.”

“Jesus.” Frank rubbed the back of his head.

“After all, it’s what you were trained for.”

“Yeah, but I’ve never actually used my powers to kill.” Save for those idiots in the van, he thought.

Cal grinned. “Well, now’s your chance!”

“Everything will be set up perfectly for the kill,” Dr Browne explained in his slow, slurred voice. “In fact I’ve already arranged the preliminaries.”

“What kinda preliminaries?” Just who the fuck was this guy? He seemed to have his fingers in all sorts of dirty little pies.

“The Hunter considers me one of his contacts. I’ve procured jobs for him in the past, and he trusts me. I’ve set up a nice, simple hit for him, on Manhattan Island under the Williamsburg Bridge, where all the bums and beggars spend their nights. The Hunter’s job is to kill four gangsters known as the Carbucci gang. Apparently they split off from their boss, Don Sabatelli, and want to form their own family with Franco Carbucci as the leader. Anyway, after the Hunter’s killed the Carbuccis, it’s your turn, Colonel.” Dr Browne gestured towards Frank. “You move in and kill the Hunter.”

“Okay … I can do that.”

“The Hunter’s a pretty slippery customer,” Dr Browne continued. “Let me have a look at that file.” He held out a bony hand that was quivering quite visibly. Without question, Cal handed over the big red Top Secret Hunter file. The doctor whistled. “Thing’s a bit heavier since last time!”

“We’ve ‘borrowed’ information from other departments,” Cal elaborated, or rather failed to. Frank’s head was spinning. Did Cal use his telepathy to steal intelligence?

Dr Browne opened the enormous file on his bony knees and began riffling through it, muttering under his breath as he sped-read certain sections. Frank noticed a thin line of drool trickling from the slack corner of his mouth. At least I’m not the only one, he thought. “What’s the deal with Stephen Hawking here?” he asked Cal in a whisper.

“Cerebral palsy. But don’t let his slurred speech and shakes deceive you. He has an IQ upwards of two hundred and twenty, and four university degrees under his belt. There’s practically nothing he can’t do with a computer.”

“How old is he?”

“Twenty four.”

Frank whistled, and directed his attention back to Dr Browne.

“Actually I’m twenty three,” Dr Browne corrected without looking up, without even stopping his frenetic reading. He continued to flip pages like a demon, scanning a few words here, a paragraph there. “Ah – that’s about it.” He slapped the file closed. “What I need is an eidetic memory. Okay Colonel – here’s what we know about the Hunter’s special powers so far. He must be in his fifties at least, but has somehow managed to keep his youthful appearance. He can move faster than any other human alive – he’s been clocked at speeds over two hundred miles an hour. He’s pretty strong, but we’re not sure how strong, and he’s been known to jump several stories and keep running as though nothing happened. We also think he has regenerative abilities, but we’re not sure. He can see in the dark and disappear into darkness like he becomes a part of it. You’ll need all your wits about you just to find the slippery little bastard.”

“I don’t have any special abilities in the ESP area,” Frank drawled.

“That’s why we’ve taken great pains to set this hit up so you’ll have an excellent chance of spotting the Hunter.” Dr Browne directed his gaze at the general, and Cal nodded. He drew a rolled up map from a desk drawer and spread it out on his desk.

“This is where the Carbuccis and Don Sabatelli’s second, Nick Santini, will be meeting,” Cal explained, pointing out the exact place on the detailed map of Manhattan Island. “Nick Santini knows the Hunter will be targeting the Carbuccis, so he will draw them out into the most open area, right here.” He stabbed the map again. “Which makes the best spot for the Hunter right here.” He drew his finger across the map.

“That’s a good three hundred yards away!” Frank exclaimed.

“The Hunter has been known to knock off targets from over a mile away, hitting them in the base of the skull, the medulla oblongata, each time. He’s a dead shot, Frank, at least as good as you. Three hundred yards is nothing to him. He’s had years and years to build up his expertise.”

Frank experienced a sudden flare of jealousy as he realised the Hunter was probably a better assassin than he was. Then he remembered his own abilities and almost laughed out loud. He didn’t need a gun to kill any more.

“Anyway, you don’t need to worry, Frank – you’ll have the very latest in IR goggles,” Cal declared. “This will be your first mission for PsiForce. Are you ready for it?”

Frank wasn’t sure, but he nodded anyway. “There’s gotta be a first time. It might as well be now.”

“Is there anything else I can be of help with, General?” Dr Browne asked.

“No Doctor, that’s it for now. But stay within touch.”

“Sure thing.” Dr Browne flicked off a bad salute and rolled out of the room. Frank watched him leave.

“He’s an amazing man, isn’t he?” Cal asked when he’d gone. Frank nodded.

“When he first came in, I thought he was an idiot.”

“Appearances can be deceptive. That’s why he’s such a good operative. No-one ever suspects the drooling, slack-jawed paraplegic lurking in the corner to actually be listening in on their conversations and taking mental notes.” Cal folded himself back into his chair and laced his elegant hands together. “Do you have any more questions about the mission, Frank?”

“When do I have to carry it out?”

“Monday night.”

Frank whistled. “Okay.” He was pretty confident with his new abilities, but would he be able to cut it in a combat situation? With a proficient psyker like the Hunter who had been creeping around for fifty years? “Well, now I’m back, have I actually got a place to stay?”

“Yes. I’ve managed to procure you a unit right here in Washington. While you were up in New York, I arranged for all your belongings to be transported from Fort Wilson. They’re waiting for you in your unit.”

“Excellent. Thank you, Cal.” Frank’s stomach rumbled, and Cal heard it.

“I believe that’s the signal for us to adjourn this meeting and have some lunch. Care to join me?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

 

Frank exercised his new telekinetic abilities inside his new unit, moving the haphazardly placed furniture into position and unpacking the numerous boxes piled up against the walls in various rooms. He’d never liked moving before, but now he found he was enjoying himself, levitating plates into cupboards, books into shelves, and clothes into closets. Because he could accomplish the whole onerous job without moving from his chair, he finished it in only a few hours, and was refreshed enough to go out for dinner. When he returned he spent a couple more hours in his home gym, exercising the muscles he’d neglected during the move.

On Sunday Cal called him and asked him if he had any more questions about Monday night. Frank did have a few queries, so they met for lunch. He wondered if the general showed so much personal interest in the other members of PsiForce. Somehow he doubted it. None of them had his power. Cal seemed to delight in basking in it, like a lizard delighted in basking in the sun. When they met, Cal’s tanned, handsome face split into a grin like he was greeting his best friend.

Not that Frank minded the attention. It certainly beat the horrified stares he normally received.

They spent a few hours together, discussing a few of the mission’s finer points. Frank asked if he could have a picture of the Hunter to study for a few hours. Cal agreed, then he changed the subject.

“You remember young Lewis Farnon, don’t you?”

Frank stared in surprise. “Er, he was the son of my next door neighbour.”

“Oh, he was a quite bit more than that, but we don’t need to go into detail right now.” Cal smiled at Frank’s distress. “I’m sorry, but putting your mind back together was like sticking the pages back into a book that someone had torn up. I mightn’t have needed to read every word, but I certainly had to scan every page.”

Frank dropped his head into his hands. Why did Cal have to bring this up now?

Cal reached across, patting Frank on a shoulder. “It’s okay – what I told you before still stands.” He lowered his voice and added, “even though the boy was underage. I didn’t bring him up to upset you. I just want you to know that when my removalists came to get your things, he thought that meant you had died on your last mission. He was very upset, and went up to the army base to pester the men there. No-one could tell him anything about your whereabouts, or even if you were still alive.”

Frank looked up. Just when he started to relax around the general, Cal said something from far left field just to keep him on his toes. How the Hell was he supposed to react to this fly-ball? “Lewis … thinks I’m dead?” he heard himself say.

Cal nodded.

“What d’you think I oughta do, Cal?”

“Write him a letter. Let him know you’re okay. Don’t tell him what happened to you of course, but give him a story to keep him happy.”

Frank thought it was a good idea, and nodded. “Yeah, but why are you so concerned about the kid’s welfare, if you don’t mind me asking? I thought you’d want to let Lewis continue thinkin’ I’m dead!”

“He was very upset, Frank. He could do something drastic – like make public what happened between you two. The tabloids would have a field day.”

“Ah.” Now Frank understood. But something told him that he hadn’t figured out all of General Cal Hartmann’s motives in this matter. The guy seemed to have more layers than a wedding cake.

 

On Monday afternoon, Frank was driven back to New York. Seated in the back of the truck, concealed from prying eyes by the tarp, he examined General Hartmann’s map, and spent an hour and a half just staring at a small image-enhanced photograph of the Hunter’s smooth, youthful face with its killer’s eyes. They were a pale ice blue, almost fathomless, shadowed by a prominent brow ridge. His eyebrows were as light as his hair, and they should have given him an innocent expression of surprise. Instead they made him look sinister. An icy shiver ran down Frank’s spine as he recalled all he’d been told about the Hunter’s strange powers.

He was in position at eight o’clock sharp, a full two hours before the Carbuccis were supposed to show up. He spent the time carefully examining his surroundings through his IR binoculars, going over every inch of landscape. He crouched behind a low concrete wall near a bridge pylon, protected by the heavy shadows of the Williamsburg Bridge as it arced across the East River to Brooklyn. Frank counted at least five car wrecks, stripped and burnt out by the locals. Cardboard boxes, old newspapers, drug fixings and filthy mattresses littered the concrete under the bridge, but no-one was camped there now. It was as though the local homeless could sense the carnage about to unfold. So far the area was deserted. Frank could not make out any bright sparks of human heat at all, not even where the Hunter was supposed to be waiting, behind a cracked, fallen concrete pylon.

Just like he had during missions of old, Frank had stripped himself of his identity, donning foreign-made urban camouflage and utilising the very latest in German IR binoculars. Though his distinctive face probably made all these precautions redundant. He continued to check his surroundings, becoming a little concerned that the Hunter hadn’t shown up yet. Time had slipped by to half-past nine, and Frank was still alone in the humid darkness.

He went over the Hunter’s hiding place for the umpteenth time, but the spot behind the fallen pylon was still empty. He must have found a better site, Frank thought gloomily. He was just about to pan across to another area when he noticed a flicker of movement out of the corner of his field of vision. He shifted focus back to the Hunter’s hiding place.

This time he saw the vaguely human-shaped figure, and the metal barrel of a silenced rifle as it was lifted up into position on a shoulder. Frank blinked, sure he was mistaken. But the grey shape remained. Jesus, was that him?

There was no heat coming from him! At least nothing near the normal level for a human being! But that was an unmistakable human figure, and it was pointing a gun down at the bare spot where the Carbuccis were supposed to arrive. Had he not moved Frank would have missed him. He nearly blended in with his grey-blue surroundings. When Frank lowered the IR goggles, he vanished into the darkness.

“Jesus,” the soldier whispered. They never told me about that special ability.

Thankfully the Hunter hadn’t noticed him. When Frank directed his attention back down below, he noticed a shadowy figure in a dark suit approaching the killing-site. He walked with his head down, and Frank could see distant streetlights reflecting off his shiny bald head. He was a perfect target, but he wasn’t one of the Hunter’s marks.

That must be Nick Santini, Frank thought, Don Sabatelli’s man.

The bald man stopped at the designated spot and waited, hands in pockets, foot tapping impatiently. He glanced up towards the Hunter’s hiding place, but of course he couldn’t see anything. Then he whirled around, focussing his attention back in the direction he’d come. Frank lifted his binoculars and spotted four large black shapes marching down towards the river. They all wore trilbies and long trench-coats. The Carbuccis, all of them about to meet their maker.

The four men surrounded Nick Santini, and he started speaking to one of them, probably the leader. Before he’d gotten five words out, Franco Carbucci interrupted, vehemently prodding Santini in the chest with a finger.

Then the Carbucci leader spun around like a ballerina and collapsed. Frank glanced over at the Hunter’s hiding place as the Hunter shifted targets and cut the rest of the Carbuccis down. He had never seen anyone move so damn fast. All four were down within four seconds, shot through the head. Nick Santini was off like a rabbit with a burning ass before the bodies even stopped twitching. Frank experienced a flare of panic, then reached out with his TK, enclosing the shadowy Hunter-figure in a gigantic invisible hand. Now he could lower his IR binoculars. Even though he couldn’t see the Hunter any more, he could feel his every move.

The Hunter lifted his gun and shouldered it. He turned as though to leave, then he paused, sniffing the air.

This is it, Frank thought. He picked up one of the burnt-out cars with his TK and tossed it at the Hunter. He intended to hold him in place while he crushed him with the car, but the Hunter somehow managed to slip through the fingers of Frank’s giant TK hand. He dived out of the way, and the wreck crashed into the ground, doors and bumpers flying off. The Hunter picked himself up and bolted for cover. Frank scooped up a handful of rocks with his TK and lobbed them at him. They flew so fast they exploded into tiny, deadly missiles of stone as they struck the walls, pylons and the ground. But the Hunter ducked and weaved like a cat, dodging them, and hurled himself over a low stone wall. Frank tried to catch him again, but the little bastard was as slippery as an eel. What ability did he have that made him so hard to grab?

By now the sweat was pouring down Frank’s face, and he was convinced the Hunter had escaped his clutches.

But the Hunter hadn’t wriggled off. Frank saw his blonde head poke up over the wall, searching for him. Then, somehow, miraculously, the Hunter spotted him. His pale eyes locked with Frank’s. He reached into his jacket, drawing a silenced pistol. Frank tried to grab him again, this time envisaging two halves of a giant ball, closing around him and scooping him up off the ground.

It worked. It was like holding jelly in two hands, but Frank managed to lift the wriggling, squirming Hunter up off the ground. He experienced a flare of satisfaction at the Hunter’s surprised expression as he lifted him high above the rubble-littered concrete and carried him to a smooth, empty place. From about a hundred feet above the ground, he didn’t just let him go, he hurled him into the ground. The assassin’s thin, fragile-looking body slammed with a bone-shattering crash into the concrete, and Frank knew no normal human could have survived such a fall. Blood sprayed from his crumpled body, streaming along the cracks his fall had created.

Frank was about to leave, considering his job done, when something made him stop and about-face. He watched in horror as the Hunter lifted the upper half of his body up off the ground with a horrible wet peeling sound, accompanied by the unmistakable pop of broken bones jumping back into place. The back of his head was bashed in like an egg – Frank could clearly see the bloody, flattened circle from which dark cracks radiated.

Frank cursed and directed his attention to the cracked, fallen pylon where the Hunter had first set himself up. He grabbed it with his TK and lifted it easily, even though it was many times heavier than anything he had previously lifted. His psychokinetic grip didn’t slip once as he carried it up over the Hunter and flung it down on him. Unfortunately his aim was a little off. He missed the Hunter’s head and shoulders, crushing only the lower two thirds of his body.

But he couldn’t possibly be still alive after that, could he?

However as Frank watched, the Hunter lifted his arms, still twisted and broken, and stretched them back into shape with another popping-corn sound.

It looked like Frank would have to ash the resilient little bastard alive. He levitated out of his hiding place, soared over the bloody battlefield, and dropped on top of the fallen column. Looking down at the Hunter, he realised the assassin looked much older than the youthful boy from the photograph. Either that or the light was playing tricks on him. He had the same ice-blue killer’s eyes, and they were staring up at him in surprise. He could not see any pain in them whatsoever. Perhaps the Hunter was beyond pain by now, considering he was a fucking pancake!

“Howdy,” Frank said, and reached into his top pocket for his cigarettes. The little creep certainly wasn’t going anywhere now, so he might as well have some fun with him before his fried his ass.

The Hunter mouthed something. It sounded like “Oh boy.” A trickle of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. It looked almost black in this light.

Frank lit up with his pyrokinesis and took a drag. “You’ve certainly given me a run for my money. Just what the fuck are you?”

The Hunter’s lungs must have been crushed by the stone pylon, but he still managed to speak. “Should be … asking you the same question!” he rasped. He looked even older now, new lines and wrinkles racing across his face as Frank watched.

“I don’t have to tell you anything, Nethermind scum. Now, tell me what exactly you are, and I promise I’ll make it quick.”

“I … I’m not part of the Nethermind,” the Hunter slurred.

Would a fanatical Nethermind employee deny his involvement? Frank wasn’t sure. “Bullshit. You killed Dr Karlberg for them.” Frank aimed his cigarette over the edge of the pillar and tapped ash so it fell onto the trapped Hunter’s face. It struck his forehead and sizzled. The Hunter yowled in pain – the first such emotion Frank had seen from him – and frantically slapped at the smoking burn with his gloved hands. Frank smiled, realising he had found the Hunter’s ultimate weakness. “Don’t like fire, do you?”

“Look, I have nothing to do with the Nethermind,” the Hunter gasped. “Sure I did some work for them, but I’m completely independent. They don’t control me.”

That didn’t gel with everything Frank had been told. He took a deep breath. “The Nethermind controls everyone who becomes involved with them. Now burn.” He focussed on what he could see of the Hunter and visualised flames bursting into life deep inside that crushed, broken body.

The Hunter gaped in horror as he realised what was happening.

Then something struck Frank in the back like a punch from a heavyweight boxer, once, twice, three times. He heard the crack of the bullets as he pitched off the broken column and sprawled on the concrete not far from the Hunter’s body. He could feel the bullets deep inside him. One lung collapsed like a bad soufflé and filled with blood. His heart spluttered and died, blood gushing from a ruptured aorta into surrounding body cavities. A broken rib poked like a sword into his stomach.

Even now he managed to section off his pain so it couldn’t reach him, and slip into the quiet place he’d discovered, so many years earlier. He greyed out, only dimly aware of his surroundings. He heard a heavy scrape of stone against stone, a thunderous crack, followed by the sound of wet clothing ripping and more snapping and crackling, like burning twigs. He felt the bullets moving inside him, being forced through his flesh into his stomach. He actually felt them plop into the acid.

A high pitched whine, growing steadily louder, eventually brought him back to reality. The police were coming. Frank drew his legs up and pushed himself up onto his arms. He expected pain from his wounds, but received none. Sitting up he reached around his back. His groping fingers found the bullet-holes in his shirt, but only small round scars beneath. He pressed a hand against his chest and felt his heart beat strongly. Both his lungs appeared to be inflating and deflating normally as he breathed. A broken rib did not pierce his stomach. Again he’d survived fatal wounds.

A police car screeched to a stop only a few yards from where the Carbuccis lay.

Twisting around, Frank realised the broken column had been moved, and the Hunter was gone. Only his bloodstain and the dent he’d made in the concrete remained. I fucked up, he thought. I didn’t check for an accomplice. Better get out of here.

But as he climbed to his feet, he saw two police officers came running towards him with their pistols drawn. He considered flinging up a psychokinetic shield and running, but he’d never tried deflecting bullets before. He didn’t feel like healing more bullet wounds. He would just have to attempt an escape later, when their guards were down.

“Freeze!” one of the cops shouted. “Hands behind your head!”

Frank obeyed, linking his hands together.

“Now turn around.”

He did so.

Both officers baulked at the sight of his face, and one actually laughed. “Jesus buddy! You look like a freakin’ road accident!”

Frank saw red. After botching the mission and getting caught by the cops, that was the absolute last straw. With his TK he grabbed the arms of the cop who’d insulted him and spun him ninety degrees so his revolver was pointing at the temple of the guy beside him. Then he made him pull the trigger. The .38 Police Special kicked back and a neat round hole appeared in the skull of the surprised officer. Still with the same shocked expression on his face, he collapsed into a puddle of his own brains.

The policeman’s eyes widened in horror as he realised what he’d done. But Frank hadn’t finished with him yet. Still holding him with his TK, he bent the guy’s arm as easily as a pipe-cleaner despite the fact he was struggling with every fibre of his being, and made him point his pistol at his own head. The cop started to scream. Then he shot himself.

Or so it would seem to the next lot of cops that Frank could already hear approaching. He levitated and took off into the night, psychokinesis aiding his flight.

 

When General Cal Hartmann arrived at his office the next morning, he found it was already occupied by a dishevelled figure in bloodstained fatigues. The general had a newspaper under one arm, a cheese Danish in one hand, and a mug of coffee in the other. When he realised Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Cassidy was sitting in his chair, he almost dropped everything.

“Jesus Christ Frank, you almost scared six months’ worth of growth out of me!” he swore. Coffee sloshed over the rim of his mug as he deposited it onto his desk. “What the Hell are you doing here?”

“I’m here to file my report.”

Cal yanked the newspaper out from under his arm. Its 72 point bold headline shrieked “SIX SLAIN IN HORRIFIC MASSACRE”. “This should be interesting. Not only are the four Carbucci brothers dead, but so are two police officers, in an apparent murder-suicide. Did you actually kill the Hunter?” His blue eyes were cold and steely.

Frank took a deep breath. “No. He escaped.”

Cal’s eyes darkened still further. “Get out of my chair and explain yourself.” Once again he was the cold, aloof general who’d sent a scruffy, unshaven major to Colombia. Realising that he’d gone too far, Frank vacated his seat.

As Cal sipped his coffee, Frank detailed the whole debacle. He noticed as he spoke the expression on Cal’s face alter, from dark disapproval to curiosity. Whenever he described how he used his powers, Cal’s interest picked up, and he became almost breathless with excitement. He kept prompting; “What did you do next?”

Frank took a deep breath. “I almost had him. I was just about to incinerate him with my pyrokinesis when someone shot me from behind. Three times in the back. As you can see I recovered. But by the time I came to, the Hunter and his accomplice were gone, and the police were on their way.”

“This is indeed a disturbing development. The Hunter’s never had an accomplice before.”

“Could have been another Nethermind operative.”

Cal frowned, his previous excitement vanishing as cold efficiency took over once more. “Okay. So, what do you know about the murder-suicide of the two police officers?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me, Frank.”

Frank sighed. “Are you inside my head, Cal?”

“No, but I don’t need to be. I now know you well enough to tell when you’re lying. You do know something, and rest assured whatever you tell me will not pass outside these walls.”

So Frank took a deep breath and told him that the cops had arrived on the scene while he was picking himself up and gotten a good look at his face. “I had to silence them. I may’ve been able to escape from their custody, but by then my unmistakable mug’d be on every police file from here to LA. I’d be ruined as a PsiForce officer.”

“I see.”

Frank peered into Cal’s eyes, trying to gauge his reaction. Instead of the frowning disapproval he expected, he saw a gleam of the same strange curious excitement from before. “I’m sorry sir. I’ll take whatever punishment you’re willing to deal out.”

“How did you kill them?” Cal asked suddenly.

Frank was flummoxed. “What?”

“How did you kill them?” Cal repeated. That bizarre gleam in his cold blue eyes was stronger now. “The paper said only that their deaths were being treated as a murder-suicide.”

Frank rubbed his scarred brow. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Where was the bawling out? Was everything just going to be hushed up? Was he really worth that much to the army? He was as thrilled as he was disturbed. He took a deep, shaking breath. “I took control of one of the cops,” he heard himself say, as though the voice was coming from someone else who’d taken up residence inside him. “Not his mind, but his body. I grabbed him with my TK, turned him around, and made him blow his partner’s brains out. Then I made him turn his gun on himself.”

Cal was incredulous. “You can do that?”

Frank nodded. “It was pretty easy, actually. While catching the Hunter was like scooping up handfuls of Jell-O, grabbing the cop was a cinch. He resisted, but he might as well not’ve bothered.” He hazarded another look at Cal’s face, and almost baulked at his expression. He was fascinated, leaning breathlessly forward in his chair. “Is somethin’ wrong, sir?” he asked tentatively.

Cal realised his feelings were showing and slammed down a trapdoor of impassion. “No. I realise it was a difficult mission, especially for someone as new to your powers as you are, but had it not been for the Hunter’s accomplice you would have succeeded. Unfortunately now I have to work out what to do next. The Hunter must die, or at the very least be rendered impotent.”

It seemed everything was going to be hushed up. Frank felt a wave of relief wash over him and he relaxed in his chair. “Is he the only one we know for sure is involved in the Nethermind?”

“Apart from Dr Karlberg.”

“Who is out of the picture.”

“Yes.”

“Well,” Frank rubbed the back of his neck, “instead of trying to kill the Hunter, why can’t we attempt to influence him? Get him to spill his Nethermind secrets to us?”

“I’ve thought about that, but like you said before, trying to catch the Hunter is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. We don’t know his true identity, where he lives, or where he’ll strike next. And he certainly won’t be trusting Dr Browne anymore, so he won’t be of any further help. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens next. The Psychic Investigations Unit at the PSI are doing some research of their own into the Nethermind. Who knows? They might come up with something we can use.”

“Okay. So what happens now?”

Cal checked a pile of messages in his tray. “There is one other thing I wish to discuss with you.” He pulled out a hastily scrawled message, dated and timed the previous afternoon. “While you were down at the PSI, did you visit a Dr Hanna Waters?”

“Yes. Why?”

Cal looked up, once again with a disapproving expression on his face. “And did she take a blood sample from you?”

“Yes. What’s all this about?”

“I understand that you’re curious about all the changes your body has undergone since the onset of your psionic powers. I guess I should have explained to you before you went up to the PSI that where your medical concerns are involved, you are to see a military doctor here.”

Frank gaped. “With all due respect, I hardly think it matters which doctor I see! I only went to Dr Waters because I thought she could fix my face! I never spilled any national secrets to her, Jesus.”

“Your medical history is no joking matter, Frank,” Cal growled, leaning forward across his desk. “Blood samples were taken from you after I rendered you unconscious in the mental institution, and they are currently under analysis by the finest medical minds in the military. I have known some of these scientists for years, and I have never been able to fault their work. But they are completely baffled, Frank. They have no idea what you have become.”

Frank could only stare in horror. “What?”

“They tried to explain their findings to me, but frankly all their scientific mumbo-jumbo didn’t make any sense. When your psionic powers awakened, you transformed into something … different. Your entire physiological makeup is no longer even remotely human.”

“Jesus Christ, it’s too early to be laying this on me.” Frank massaged his forehead again.

“I’m serious. Something happened to you down in Colombia, something so bizarre we can’t even begin to catalogue it. Dr Carrington’s complete report from the PSI only confirms that you’re no ordinary psyker, Frank. Now do you understand why no other doctor can know anything about your physiological makeup? Not even a PSI doctor?”

Frank swore again, shaking his head. “This is too bizarre.”

Cal sighed. “I’ll have to obtain your new medical records from the PSI and ensure their psientists don’t do any more research into your medical history. It won’t be easy, but I have the means.”

Frank looked up. “I need to know what’s happening to me. Can I see my records so far?”

“I can get them for you, but you won’t understand much. I certainly didn’t.” The General leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together behind his head. “It seems we’ll have to conduct tests on you.”

“Medical tests?”

“No. Psionic tests. In her report Dr Carrington stated that you didn’t even come close to reaching your upper limit in any of your disciplines. The PSI did not have the facilities for such testing. Fortunately we do. Tomorrow you and I are flying down to the Nevada desert, and you are going to unleash the full force of your psionic fury.”

“Fair enough, sir,” Frank answered softly.

“What’s with all this ‘sir’ crap? I said you could call me ‘Cal’.”

“Half the time I’m not sure what to call you,” Frank answered ruefully.

 

* * * *