part0050

A nderson stepped out of the apartment and onto the terrace overlooking the city of Philadelphia. It was a clear night—something common during the fall, he was told—and the nightlife was booming.

Thankfully, the accommodation provided by Pegasus was well elevated so all he could really hear was the occasional honk of a horn above the veritable white noise machine a city became at night.

Even though it wasn’t their apartment, he knew Ivy would have an issue with him smoking inside the house. It apparently had something to do with their son learning bad habits despite the fact that he didn’t smoke that often, and when he did, it was only cigars. They’d discussed it a few times and disagreed each time, but he didn’t feel like having the conversation with her again. It had been a nice night, they’d both had a good time, and he didn’t want to shadow things with a pointless debate.

For tonight, she won, and he had his cigar out on the terrace where he blew lazy smoke rings into the quickly chilling evening air. Once winter arrived, he wouldn’t smoke outside anymore, he knew that. One way or another, he’d find a way around the restriction.

He sighed and took in the sights and the sounds of the city below him. Despite the metropolis ambiance, it was peaceful. He was almost a quarter of the way through the cigar when the door to the terrace opened.

“Come on. I’m smoking outside—what else do you want?” he demanded. He glanced toward the door, ready to have the argument again, but it wasn’t Ivy.

Mixon carried himself well, a tall man and lean and lanky, with his blond hair cut to the pristine one inch demanded by anyone in a military march. He was at least dressed in civilian clothes, which was a plus, except they weren’t the same ones he’d seen the man wearing when he kept an eye on Damon in school. That observation was faintly alarming.

“I keep myself free from most vices these days, but I don’t expect the same level of restraint in everyone else,” the operative said with a small, bemused smile. “By all means, smoke away. Although maybe avoid it in front of your son?”

“He’s eight. He’ll understand that it comes with special occasions.” Anderson shook his head. “No, you’re right. I’m merely imagining having this debate with my wife. It’s complicated.”

“It usually is.”

“In the interests of wildly changing the subject…” The colonel moved closer to his visitor but puffed a lungful of scented smoke away from him. “Did anything happen at the restaurant that you think warrants my attention?”

“At the restaurant proper?” Mixon asked with a shrug. “Nothing at all. But outside the place though… I really thought I’d kept it as subtle as possible. I didn’t want to disturb what looked like a happy moment with the people you love.”

Anderson nodded. “I appreciate that. And it was—unless you know what you’re looking for. To me, an SUV arriving at the same moment we order the check is a little suspicious. I saw you walk around it twice, kick it, and jump in with one of the occupants.”

“Right.” He chuckled ruefully. “Well, they were armed and ready for a fight—one they didn’t expect from me. I disposed of them and alerted the authorities afterward. The police scanner app I have on my phone said five bodies were found in the car, stabbed to death using a knife or some other sharp instrument. The officers on the scene said that it looked like a savage gangland hit.”

The ex-colonel smirked, took another hit from his cigar, and exhaled the smoke away carefully. “Honestly, that does sound like something Savage would do. I do appreciate you taking care of me and my family like that.”

“I’m simply looking after you, boss,” Mixon said with a chuckle. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll turn in now.”

“You do that.” He patted the operative gently on the shoulder. “Get some rest, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Will do, Colonel.”

“Don’t call me that,” he said as the other man turned away.

The sniper swung to look at him. “I thought you Marines had this thing—once a Marine, always a Marine, right?”

“I’ll always be a Marine, no doubts about that. But I was never cut out to be a colonel.”

“Whatever you say, boss.” It was better than Colonel, Anderson mused, but not by much. Either way, he let the man go about his business. They would see a lot more of each other, at least until Savage returned from his little vacation to Mexico. From that point forward, things would be far more interesting.

He’d assumed that Anja would have been in touch by now, and the fact that Courtney hadn’t called him once all day told him that she had. For some reason, he’d been kept out of the loop. That would change, though, once Savage arrived.

By virtue of his previous rank, all the military people assumed he was the one in charge of this operation. He was a ranking member, of course, but that didn’t mean that he was in charge. Thank God, he was a little lower down the pole than that.

He took a deep drag of his cigar, closed his eyes until he could feel his lungs burning, and released it into the air.

Now that he thought about it, maybe Ivy was right. Besides, smoking outside gave him a sense of freedom that didn’t come when he did it inside.

A lot of complaints had come from closing the street off, mostly from the owners of the local businesses that were interestingly high-end. You didn’t get stuff like this in the more gentrified neighborhoods these days, which made it all the more satisfying when he told the pompous asses who talked about how many calls the commissioner would receive about this in the morning that they could shove it.

Sure, it would probably be his ass and his badge the next day. No longer would they call him Officer Angelo Cruz a week from now. It would be worth it, though. More than worth it.

Seeing their faces when he told them there was no way he would open the street to let a bunch of pompous rich folk trample all over his crime scene was all he needed to justify his decision.

Of course, the commissioner wouldn’t see if that way, especially when the news came that no evidence could be found at the scene of the crime.

Make that a terrifying lack of it. They would need a DNA swab to determine that, but there were many guns in the car, although no shots fired. There was also a lot of blood, but the knives he found on the scene were all left clean. The men were all killed wearing body-armor-infused suits that had to be a lot more expensive than anything a cop would ever see, and yet they all drove in a cut-rate SUV with stolen plates and no serial number attached.

“So, what do you think?” Detective Soza, one of his oldest friends, asked as he walked over to where Cruz had a sip of his neglected coffee.

“Would you believe me if I said it was gang-on-gang violence?” he asked, finished the lukewarm liquid, and winced as it went down.

“No, I don’t think anyone has bought that particular pile of bullshit,” the other man said with a chuckle. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and tapped one out. After a moment of thought, he offered one to Cruz, who shook his head.

“Six months without touching one of those cancer cylinders,” Cruz said with a chuckle. “But thanks.”

“Six months, huh?” Soza looked impressed. “I’m proud of you, man. I know how long you’ve tried to kick the habit.”

“Thanks. So, if it’s not gang-on-gang violence, what the hell are we looking at? I sure as fuck can’t tell.”

“Well, unless we’re looking at a gang war between Calvin Klein and Armani, I think we can rule a gang hit out,” Soza said and shook his head vehemently. “Beyond that, though, I draw a blank. Maybe the forensics team will have better luck finding something.”

The warehouse sprawled in the early morning light, apparently as deserted as ever. Of course, he knew better. Anderson stepped out of his car and studied the structure with a scowl. On that particular morning, he questioned why he’d bothered to get up this early. For some reason, people were keeping him out of the loop and the irritation that caused wasn’t only precipitated by his constantly lurking paranoia.

When he’d all but made up his mind to confront everyone, Courtney had given him a call after he’d dropped Damon off at school. Apparently, she wouldn’t be back in town for a while and she wanted him to pass equipment along to their little team of outcasts.

The soldier in him had immediately responded with a surge of satisfaction. The conflict they faced and the formidable adversaries ranged against them demanded that they push forward with the group. That would only be achieved by equipping them with superior advantages rather than those provided by the questionable arsenal Savage had managed to pull from only God knew where.

Thus far, the results were promising, and Courtney’s supplies would only push them to a higher level. Yet, despite his icy conviction that he would do whatever it took to crush those who’d declared war on them, the tiny tendril of paranoia niggled constantly below the surface. What was there to keep the newcomers from simply absconding with the weapons and the money they already had and dropping off the face of the earth?

Or worse, the insidious little voice suggested, teaming up with someone who might pay them a lot more than they did?

He sighed and engaged his dark, secret enemy to push it back down where he knew it wouldn’t stay. His gaze swept the building and he tried to determine if anyone was actually there. Their team had been hired partly because they were good at keeping themselves hidden. Would he really be able to tell if they were around if they didn’t want him to know?

Which, of course, reminded him of his real source of irritation. He hated not being in the know. About more things than this, obviously, but it was easier to focus on what was in front of him. He sighed and circled his car to drag a couple of heavy bags from the trunk. It seemed petty to complain that he’d have to lug both of them to the warehouse, but the damn things were heavy, and he really wasn’t in the mood.

He leaned down to grasp one of them when it slid a few feet away. His startled gaze settled on Savage who stopped him, grinning like an idiot.

“Hey,” the man said. “How was the family dinner? Did Mixon do his work?”

“Well, yes, obviously.” Anderson chuckled. “How’s Mexico this time of year? They don’t exactly have fall or winter there, so I assume the sun was shining? Birds chirping?”

“Oh, it was all right.” Savage rumbled a laugh. “There was a lot of gang violence there, though. It really got in the way of me enjoying my time there. Actually, it made us cut the visit short.”

“No shit?” The two men stepped inside the warehouse. “There’s been a rise in gang violence around here too. People dying and getting knifed and shot all over the damn place.”

“That’s the condition of the world these days.” Savage tried for wise and regretful, but it fell short at sarcastic.

Davis was already there, waiting for them with a box of doughnuts and a thermos of coffee.

“You look like shit,” he observed as he filled a plastic cup with coffee and took one of the pastries. This was breakfast for them, mostly because neither had the time or the supplies to make the toast, egg, and bacon breakfast Anderson had enjoyed.

He was lucky to have Ivy, he realized as he sat on the table between the two of them.

“We’re waiting for Mixon to show his face before we get started.” He felt sorely tempted to try one of the doughnuts. They looked freshly baked, coated in glaze, chocolate, or sprinkles—or some ungodly mixtures of the above, which still looked delicious in the way only junk food could.

The sniper arrived before his temptation proved irresistible.

“How’s it going?” Savage asked after a sip of coffee.

“Well, I dropped a kiddo off at school this morning,” he responded. “Then followed the mother to make sure no one tried to make an attempt on her life before I came here.”

“Did anyone notice how he didn’t answer the question there?” Sam asked and raised an eyebrow at the others.

“No. No, he did,” Savage said with a grin. “He simply wants us to infer what he meant by it. I’ll go with grumpy about having to do a school run when you don’t have any kids. Oh! I think he wants to drive Ivy and Damon to school instead of following them.”

Mixon scowled as Davis laughed. Anderson shook his head with a chuckle.

“I don’t think Ivy would like having a driver like we’re suddenly rich people who can’t stand to do any physical labor on our own,” the ex-colonel commented wryly.

“Wait, who’s Ivy?” Davis asked.

“My wife.” Anderson raised his hand. “And Damon’s my son.”

“Oh, nice.” The woman immediately lost interest in the topic of conversation and focused on the doughnut in her hand

“Anyway,” their boss said and brought their attention back to him. “I was sent some equipment I think will give you an edge on the people you’ve gone up against.”

“All three of us?” Savage straightened. “Was there any action around here? Monroe didn’t fill me in. Neither did Anja, for that matter?”

“Who’s Anja?” Mixon asked.

“That’s…complicated.” He wondered how he would explain a Russian woman feeding him all the vital intel for his missions. “What happened while I was gone?”

“Oh, five guys tried to jump Anderson and his family while they were out to dinner,” the sniper said. “I handled them.”

“Right, good work.” Savage nodded, his expression a little smug like he’d been proved right and liked it. “Anderson, carry on.”

“Thank you. Anyway, Pegasus has run considerable weapons and armor testing for the open market in the Zoo, and while their methods were brutal, we can’t argue with the results. I’ve brought some of those for you to try.”

He hauled one of the bags onto the table, unzipped it, and removed a few weapons, which the team studied with real interest. They seemed roughly based on existing weapons, but also…not. Savage focused on a pistol that lay on the table and opened the case it was stored in. It looked like a revolver but with a long, heavy barrel.

“That prototype was developed in that North Carolina testing site, actually,” Anderson said as the operative examined one of the magazines, rounded and shaped like a cylinder but with no place for the new rounds.

“They called it the beast in the files I saw,” their superior went on to explain. “The rounds are very thin, magnetically-charged nickel alloy needles. The long barrel is made from a magnetic charging station that activates when you pull the trigger. It’s virtually silent when fired because of the suppression built into the long barrel that mutes the usual crack when the needles break the sound barrier. And these little strips here”—he displayed a long strip of tiny little needles all strung together—“have about a hundred rounds in them before you need to reload. That simply requires fitting another strip of these inside. We only have five reloads made thus far, but I assume none of you will need to fire a gun five hundred times?”

Savage picked the weapon up, loaded, and flicked the safety off before he fired it down the range. True to form, the rounds rocketed ahead with little more than a whoosh and punched hard into the chest of the dummy. On impact, they left holes in the Nirvana shirt Savage had put on the mannequin but didn’t seem to faze the plastic minion.

“It doesn’t look like it has much stopping power,” Savage noted with an expression of disappointment.

“Oh…right, there was something about that,” Anderson said. He dug in the bag to retrieve what looked suspiciously like a manual. “Here it is. The brittle texture of the round will drive it through armor and clothes—and even walls—better than armor-piercing rounds, but when it encounters soft materials like human flesh, there is a power…uh, absorption. It says here the needle splinters and transfers all the power into the body.”

“And turns Gussie’s insides into Swiss cheese,” Jeremiah said and studied the weapon with renewed approbation. “Or would if he had any insides. Anyways, dibs.”

“Why do you get dibs?” Davis protested.

“I called dibs, that’s why.” He grinned, replaced the weapon in the case, closed it, and drew it closer. “What else do you have, Anderson?”

A few long hours of show and tell came and went during which they tested a variety of weapons and pieces of armor. Nirvana Gussie was put through his paces and eventually had to be replaced by his friend Nessie when he was too damaged for continued use.

Each of the three operatives selected the weapons they preferred and fitted themselves with the new body armor Pegasus had developed. Although lighter and more agile, the display on Gussie and Nessie proved capable of keeping damage from most of the weapons to a minimum. Of course, the sniper rifles the two newer team members wielded proved to be more than a match.

In the end, Mixon had to leave to pick Damon and Ivy up and bring them to the warehouse as it was time for her shooting lesson.

The new weapons and armor were packed away quickly, and Savage was there to help her take her pistol apart.

“Let me help you with that, ma’am,” the sniper said and stepped in from behind to take the weapon from Savage’s hands to make his own inspection. “Consider it part of your package deal—to teach you how to defend yourself. As you know, I’ve been tasked with keeping you, your husband, and your kid safe from harm for the duration of this… Well, for the duration.”

“Right,” Ivy said and narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you think?”

“Well, you might want to improve your time.” Terry smiled to take the sting out of the words and handed the pistol to her. “But the form is impeccable. Practice to improve your time should do the trick.”

“Yeah, you’re teaching how you lot have been taught to fire,” Davis said with a chuckle and strolled toward the group. “Which isn’t too bad, but as a girl, you need someone closer to your particular measurements to give you finer tuning. Come on, lads, git. We need girl time here.”

Savage looked at the two men and two women around him and shrugged. He wasn’t paid enough to have to deal with this many people all at the same time. Sometimes, it was best to simply leave others to get on with it. He walked away from the range and to his so-called office where he poured himself another cup of coffee.

The other two men conceded defeat and left the women to get acquainted. They joined Savage at the desk.

“Davis is telling her how the isosceles isn’t a good stance for a woman who lacks upper body strength to absorb the kick of the pistol,” the ex-colonel said and frowned as he watched the two women working.

“She has a point,” Mixon ventured as he poured himself a cup of the coffee. “Weaver helps you keep your balance better, and if you fit her with the new armor you have over there, you won’t need to worry about leaving your side open to gunfire.”

“I never liked Weaver, myself,” Savage grumbled.

“You look like one of those guys who’s CAR or bust, eh?” The sniper laughed.

“When it comes to my style of shooting, balance and precision aren’t really something to worry about.” His grin said it all. “It’s about how many bullets you can get into the air as quickly as possible. Hell yeah, CAR or bust.”

Anderson chuckled softly and winced as the firing started on the range. “I think I’ll head home now. I have nothing to do at work and nothing to do here.”

“Just a heads up, but I think I’ll let Davis give your wife shooting lessons from now on.” Jeremiah pushed out of his seat and stretched.

“They do seem to be getting along like the proverbial house on fire. I’ll call you tomorrow. Courtney said she’ll have work for us by then.”

“Looking forward to it, Colonel.”

Anderson shook his head and walked away. There wasn’t any point in correcting them. And, if the truth be told, he rather liked the title—or the genuine respect that it embodied amongst those who really didn’t have to use it. He’d tried to convince himself that he was someone else now that the military was behind him, but…well, once a Marine, always a Marine. No matter where he was, he’d been shaped to command, no matter what they called him, and damned if that wasn’t exactly what he’d do.