“Hello Martin, don’t hang up. You know who this is. We have your little friends. If you want to see them alive again you will do exactly as I say. Bring those bullet fragments you stole along with your laptop and all the data you’ve accumulated to 352 Knox Avenue. You have forty-five minutes. That leaves you just enough time to deal with afternoon traffic but not enough to do anything else stupid. If you are late, your students will die. If you are not alone, your students will die. If you try to call or alert anyone, your students will die. You are being watched. You are being monitored. All police bands are monitored. All Hero bands… you should get it by now. You know what we can do. You know we are not bluffing. Your clock starts… now. See you soon, Martin.”
That was forty-four minutes ago. Druce had cut things very close, but he believed he’d done everything he could for his students. Had he put more of them in danger? Perhaps. But this time he’d made sure they knew exactly what they were dealing with and that they fully understood the stakes.
Sung had no intention of letting anyone walk away from this.
Knox Avenue was in that particularly dingy part of Brickstown sometimes referred to as The Chasm. Martin had to fight his way through hordes of shift-changing factory workers to find #352. It looked like a moderately-sized manufacturing facility, rendered obsolete by the new technologies of the digital age. There was a ‘Space for rent’ sign on the fence outside and a general look of abandonment to the whole structure.
The front door was unlocked. Druce walked right in. There was no time for reconnaissance, nor any need for it. He knew exactly what was waiting for him inside, and there was only one way he wanted to face it.
“Just in time, Druce,” came a greeting from a darkened corner of the lobby. Agent McCormick was wearing full body armor and carrying a G3 assault rifle. Martin figured they hadn’t entirely trusted him not to show up with help and assault the place. It’s what they would have done. Sacrificing three kids in order to take out an enemy leader was simply good math in their books. Not in his.
“Which way?” he asked in a clear voice without inflection. He had no interest in bantering with these people.
“Left, then straight through to the big room. You can’t miss it. She’s waiting for you.” McCormick answered in kind. He fancied himself a professional. Nine years ago Druce had saved his life during the first Rikti War. If any feelings remained from those days, they weren’t on display now.
Martin followed the directions easily, occasionally passing armed and masked men in military-style fatigues. If he had chosen to come in fighting, it would have been a serious battle. He was surprised at how much manpower Sung was committing. He consoled himself with the thought that more men here meant fewer men watching the hostages.
The main assembly room of the old factory was cluttered, dark, and smelled of stale urine. Druce could just make out the faint silhouettes of armed guards poised on raised balconies to his left and right. Directly ahead, standing in front of a rusted treadmill stood his nemesis.
They say looks can be deceiving and Helen Sung was a textbook example of that. The barely five-foot tall woman looked like nothing so much as a kindly grandmother, even in her black on black business suit and dark glasses. To a casual glance she appeared to be at least fifty years old and Druce had reason to believe she was much older than that. Her mannerisms were deceiving too. She was quick with a smile and was capable of speaking with incredible warmth. She treated all of her people with a mother’s love and was famous for her banana nut muffins.
She was minutes away from ordering the death of three innocent teenagers.
“Senior Agent Sung,” he said crisply by way of greeting.
“Dear Martin,” she said with in a sad voice, “I’m so sorry that it’s come to this.” She shook her head and gave every appearance of genuine regret. Druce knew her too well to buy it. He’d seen the monster within.
“It’s all your own doing,” he replied without emotion. He didn’t even have to fake that. He truly felt nothing. “You and your group are out of control. Have been for years. You can’t protect the ideals of our nation by subverting them at every turn.”
Druce scanned the room as he spoke, his eyes adjusting to the darkness as he fed them tiny increments of energy. There were at least twelve guards on the runways, all with night-vision goggles and full military kit. Probably were military. He made out another eight on ground level to his right and six to his left. Four more had moved in behind him to block the exit. Agent Hardcastle was with them, equipped with body armor and G3 much like his partner out front. There was no sign of Agent Loud and he was grateful for that. He prayed she wasn’t with the hostages, still holding out hope that she wasn’t far enough gone to murder innocents in cold blood. But maybe he was being…
“You’re so naïve, Martin,” Sung cut off his thoughts with another shake of her head. “I held high hopes for you once, but clearly you’ve never outgrown that idealistic mindset your hippie mentors gave you.”
“They taught me to question and keep an open mind. That’s how I saw through your bullshit, Sung.” The words were harsh, but inside Martin still felt nothing. Emotionally or physically. Even the tear in his shoulder had failed to flare up at the sight of the woman responsible for it.
“If you’re not going to be civil then there’s no reason to continue talking.” The regretful voice was gone. Now she was all business. “Put down your briefcase and computer bag and take three steps forward.”
Druce complied with her instructions. He’d never even considered failing to bring what she’d asked for. If he hadn’t been openly carrying them they’d have shot him at the entrance and his three students would already be dead. Once he stopped moving, Hardcastle stepped forward and picked up both items. He tested them for weight to make sure they weren’t empty and then made his way around Druce to deliver them to Sung.
“I hope you haven’t done anything stupid, Martin,” she said as Hardcastle extracted the laptop from the bag for her. “We’ll just make sure you’ve brought everything we asked and then I’ll arrange for the release of your little friends.” Martin didn’t bother calling her out on the obvious lie. He’d bought his students as much time as he could and now there was nothing left but to steel himself for the end.
Sung set the laptop down on the nearest piece of machinery and flipped open the monitor. “What was that?” she asked sharply when the computer beeped twice after booting. Hardcastle paused in the act of pulling the evidence jar from the briefcase to ready his weapon.
“No idea,” Druce shrugged. “It started doing that a few weeks ago. I’ve been meaning to have it serviced but I’ve been busy.” Sung stared at him hard, trying to detect a lie. She hadn’t survived so long by ignoring strange things, but she was also fully aware of the foibles of modern electronics.
“Search him for wires,” she said finally. Hardcastle nodded then gestured for two of the guards to back him up while he moved in to carry out the order. Druce raised his arms to the sides to show he was prepared to comply. The guards raised their rifles and pointed them at his head. Hardcastle reached out with his left hand to begin the search.
Druce fed a surge of energy into his left fist and punched him in the side of the head.
Crime and Punishment
-
Mister Druce
- Posts:51
- Joined:Mon May 02, 2011 12:27 am
Re: Crime and Punishment
The guards opened fire before Hardcastle even hit the ground but Druce was already gone. A burst of supercharged speed brought him to the right side of the room where he laid out a pair of troopers with quick punches before dropping behind a large metal crate to avoid the steady stream of incoming fire.
There was no need to conserve energy so Martin went ahead and charged up his entire body. Blue and gold sparks flashed around him while similarly colored spheres of energy surrounded his fists. He normally didn’t like to make such an obvious target of himself but with the enemy using low-light goggles the brightness could be an advantage. He rolled out from behind the crate and sent a wave of golden energy towards the guards by the doorway. They immediately dropped their weapons and clutched their faces as their visual sensors overloaded. He continued the roll to put himself behind another crate closer to the now unguarded exit.
“Don’t let him escape!” he heard Sung call out, directing her troops attention towards the open doorway. She hadn’t realized yet that he had no intention of escaping. With his speed still enhanced he broke back towards the rear right of the room, straight into a second wave of reinforcing guards. Druce took no chances, dropping each of them with solid energy punches before they could react. He knew that Sung had been part of the team that trained the original Vigilance unit back in ’95 and there was no doubt that any men under her command would be well-versed in anti-meta tactics.
But tactics were only of so much use when you were outmatched in speed and power, and as long as Druce continued to feed energy into his mutant body he was well equipped with both. Back and forth he shot across the room, dodging gunfire and dropping troopers with power punches and electrical blasts.
He could still hear an occasional beeping from his laptop which he used to keep track of Sung’s position. As soon as he felt his energy levels start to wane he knew it was time to end it. He blasted the guard closest to the exit to suggest he was going to break for it, then spun and charged full speed towards the beeping sound.
The laptop was sitting on the floor unattended.
Agent Sung came up behind Druce and drove an energy sheathed fist of her own into the base of his spine. The blow sent shockwaves of pain throughout his body despite his defensive shields fields absorbing most of the energy. He turned to face her just in time to take a double uppercut to the jaw. The impact sent him flying across the room. He slammed head first into the far wall and was lucky to be only dazed. Without his energy fields his neck would have snapped like a twig.
It took only a few seconds for Martin’s head to clear but that was long enough to doom him. When he looked up Agent Sung was standing ten feet away flanked by a pair of troopers with sapper guns. He tried to run but the accursed blue fields reached out and caught him midstride. The pain was incredible, like a million needles stabbing every cell in his body simultaneously. Druce fell to his knees coughing blood. They gave him another dose to be sure.
While he lay on the ground helpless, Agent Sung calmly retrieved the laptop and placed herself where he could see her. The computer beeped again causing her to frown briefly. She still wasn’t sure if it was something to be concerned about. She shrugged and set the machine down before returning her attention to her fallen enemy.
“Agent Druce,” she began in a patronizing tone, “was all that violence really necessary?”
He could barely breathe, let alone talk, but he managed to choke out a response. “Felt… good…” He forced himself to smile.
“I hope that’s some small consolation to you then. For our part, we got everything we wanted right here.” She pointed towards Druce’s laptop and smiled smugly.
He looked at her in confusion. He knew she wanted his investigation stopped, but taking him out of the picture wasn’t a big enough deal to warrant that kind of satisfaction. For that matter, didn’t his defeat render the notes on his laptop rather meaningless?
“Oh, you don’t know what this is really about, do you?” she explained. “You see, we wanted the design specs for the Mark XIV Combat Drone. You have a copy on your hard drive.” Druce gaped, his brain trying to process this unexpected development. “We have a buyer lined up,” she continued, “but of course we’re not authorized to sell that kind of advanced hardware to foreign markets. But if ten million dollars were to suddenly appear in your bank account? Well, no one would be asking us any questions about who sold them the tech. Do you see?”
Martin fought back the sick feeling welling up in his stomach and wondered if he had enough energy to spit at her. They were going to sell advanced weapon systems to ruthless dictators to help finance their operations, most of which would lead to even more international destabilization. It was how they thought they could keep America strong. In practice, it simply led to more bloodshed and hatred throughout the third world.
The computer beeped again.
“Get a tech in here,” Sung barked at one of her subordinates. “I want that stopped.” Then she turned back to Druce who had begun laughing, although it soon turned into a series of painful sounding coughs. “What are you laughing at?” she sneered.
“It’s been… fourteen minutes…” he croaked out.
Sung frowned, then turned to another trooper wearing a headset and said “Call Sanford and give him the kill order. It’s time to clean this operation from top to bottom.” The comtech nodded and began speaking into his mic. A few seconds later he frowned and repeated his call. Martin continued to laugh. Concern began to register on Sung’s face. The comtech repeated the call again but was looking at his leader and shaking his head.
“What’s going on?” she screamed at him. Then she turned to Druce and repeated the question. “Why are you laughing you damned fool?”
Special Agent Martin Druce waited as long as he dared before pushing himself up, staring her straight in the face, and saying “I’ll see you in hell, bitch.”
The laptop beeped for the last time.
“Yippee ki yay, mothe-“
There was no need to conserve energy so Martin went ahead and charged up his entire body. Blue and gold sparks flashed around him while similarly colored spheres of energy surrounded his fists. He normally didn’t like to make such an obvious target of himself but with the enemy using low-light goggles the brightness could be an advantage. He rolled out from behind the crate and sent a wave of golden energy towards the guards by the doorway. They immediately dropped their weapons and clutched their faces as their visual sensors overloaded. He continued the roll to put himself behind another crate closer to the now unguarded exit.
“Don’t let him escape!” he heard Sung call out, directing her troops attention towards the open doorway. She hadn’t realized yet that he had no intention of escaping. With his speed still enhanced he broke back towards the rear right of the room, straight into a second wave of reinforcing guards. Druce took no chances, dropping each of them with solid energy punches before they could react. He knew that Sung had been part of the team that trained the original Vigilance unit back in ’95 and there was no doubt that any men under her command would be well-versed in anti-meta tactics.
But tactics were only of so much use when you were outmatched in speed and power, and as long as Druce continued to feed energy into his mutant body he was well equipped with both. Back and forth he shot across the room, dodging gunfire and dropping troopers with power punches and electrical blasts.
He could still hear an occasional beeping from his laptop which he used to keep track of Sung’s position. As soon as he felt his energy levels start to wane he knew it was time to end it. He blasted the guard closest to the exit to suggest he was going to break for it, then spun and charged full speed towards the beeping sound.
The laptop was sitting on the floor unattended.
Agent Sung came up behind Druce and drove an energy sheathed fist of her own into the base of his spine. The blow sent shockwaves of pain throughout his body despite his defensive shields fields absorbing most of the energy. He turned to face her just in time to take a double uppercut to the jaw. The impact sent him flying across the room. He slammed head first into the far wall and was lucky to be only dazed. Without his energy fields his neck would have snapped like a twig.
It took only a few seconds for Martin’s head to clear but that was long enough to doom him. When he looked up Agent Sung was standing ten feet away flanked by a pair of troopers with sapper guns. He tried to run but the accursed blue fields reached out and caught him midstride. The pain was incredible, like a million needles stabbing every cell in his body simultaneously. Druce fell to his knees coughing blood. They gave him another dose to be sure.
While he lay on the ground helpless, Agent Sung calmly retrieved the laptop and placed herself where he could see her. The computer beeped again causing her to frown briefly. She still wasn’t sure if it was something to be concerned about. She shrugged and set the machine down before returning her attention to her fallen enemy.
“Agent Druce,” she began in a patronizing tone, “was all that violence really necessary?”
He could barely breathe, let alone talk, but he managed to choke out a response. “Felt… good…” He forced himself to smile.
“I hope that’s some small consolation to you then. For our part, we got everything we wanted right here.” She pointed towards Druce’s laptop and smiled smugly.
He looked at her in confusion. He knew she wanted his investigation stopped, but taking him out of the picture wasn’t a big enough deal to warrant that kind of satisfaction. For that matter, didn’t his defeat render the notes on his laptop rather meaningless?
“Oh, you don’t know what this is really about, do you?” she explained. “You see, we wanted the design specs for the Mark XIV Combat Drone. You have a copy on your hard drive.” Druce gaped, his brain trying to process this unexpected development. “We have a buyer lined up,” she continued, “but of course we’re not authorized to sell that kind of advanced hardware to foreign markets. But if ten million dollars were to suddenly appear in your bank account? Well, no one would be asking us any questions about who sold them the tech. Do you see?”
Martin fought back the sick feeling welling up in his stomach and wondered if he had enough energy to spit at her. They were going to sell advanced weapon systems to ruthless dictators to help finance their operations, most of which would lead to even more international destabilization. It was how they thought they could keep America strong. In practice, it simply led to more bloodshed and hatred throughout the third world.
The computer beeped again.
“Get a tech in here,” Sung barked at one of her subordinates. “I want that stopped.” Then she turned back to Druce who had begun laughing, although it soon turned into a series of painful sounding coughs. “What are you laughing at?” she sneered.
“It’s been… fourteen minutes…” he croaked out.
Sung frowned, then turned to another trooper wearing a headset and said “Call Sanford and give him the kill order. It’s time to clean this operation from top to bottom.” The comtech nodded and began speaking into his mic. A few seconds later he frowned and repeated his call. Martin continued to laugh. Concern began to register on Sung’s face. The comtech repeated the call again but was looking at his leader and shaking his head.
“What’s going on?” she screamed at him. Then she turned to Druce and repeated the question. “Why are you laughing you damned fool?”
Special Agent Martin Druce waited as long as he dared before pushing himself up, staring her straight in the face, and saying “I’ll see you in hell, bitch.”
The laptop beeped for the last time.
“Yippee ki yay, mothe-“
-
Mister Druce
- Posts:51
- Joined:Mon May 02, 2011 12:27 am
Re: Crime and Punishment
Senior Special Agent Lindsay Wong realized she’d been reading the same sentence for the last ten minutes and put down the budget report in disgust. Catching up on paperwork was supposed to keep her mind off of recent events but so far it didn’t seem to be working. She’d spent the better part of the weekend picking through shredded machine parts in Brickstown until the Assistant Director had finally banished her from the crime scene and told her to leave the investigation to Senior Agent Cooling.
That wasn’t everything the Assistant Director had said. “We’ll have a talk later” was probably meant to sound reassuring, but Lindsay knew that talk was going to include phrases like “stay on top of developing situations” and “maintain control of your people”. She’d always believed in giving her subordinates a free hand and now she was going to pay for it. Buzz around the office was that Senior Special Agent Hutchison was being transferred in from the Galaxy City office. Hutch was very senior to her. The implications were obvious.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a call from reception informing her that she had a visitor. Grateful for any kind of distraction she said to send them up without even bothering to ask who it was. A few minutes later she was welcoming a lean, middle-aged but still fit-looking Hispanic man into her office. He wore a dark suit and was carrying a small brown package.
“You are Senior Special Agent Lindsay Wong?” he asked politely but with a certain seriousness.
“That’s me,” she replied with the best smile she could muster. “Have a seat, Mister…?”
“My name is Louis Herrera,” he answered after taking the offered chair. “I am the headmaster of the Westbrook Academy.” He remained well-mannered, but the agent sensed he was making an effort to conceal some kind of strong emotion.
“Of course, Mister Herrera, I’ve heard a lot about you.” She’d heard nothing but good of the man, both as an educator and a former Hero. “How are your students?” she asked with genuine concern.
“The last one was released from medical care this morning. All of them are fine, thank you.” He relaxed a tiny bit, perhaps in response to the sincerity in her voice. “I’m still waiting for any kind of explanation. None of the agents I’ve spoken to, from your agency or the others, has told me anything.”
“They don’t know anything, I’m afraid,” she said with a shrug. “Nothing that happened was officially authorized or documented in any way. We’re still trying to piece things together.”
“Has there been any sign of Ma… of Agent Druce?” he asked, letting a little of his emotion escape. Lindsay knew the two men had become friends or something close to it. Herrera was not only angry but probably felt betrayed as well.
“I’m not authorized to discuss details of an ongoing investigation.” She felt like a coward for hiding behind procedure but it was an uncomfortable subject for her as well.
“I have a right to know,” he raised his voice in response, going so far as to lean forward in his chair. “Three of my students were put in danger and I need to know why. Not just for myself. I have to answer to their parents.” Then his tone softened and he added “Please…”
“Alright,” she said, unable to disagree with him. “I’ll tell you what I know, which isn’t a lot. Special Agent Druce’s medibadge was activated early Friday evening but he never arrived at the hospital. The mediport system failed to get an acceptable lock and aborted the transfer.”
“So he’s…?” he hesitated, unable to finish the thought.
“Missing,” she finished for him. “There were several bodies at the scene, but so far none have been identified as his.” Lindsay had seen them all. She didn’t believe any of them were Martin but that might be wishful thinking.
Herrera put aside the thought of bodies that couldn’t be identified after three days and asked another question. “So what actually happened? What killed them? Were metas involved?”
“Preliminary forensics suggest there was an explosion, or rather a series of explosions. There were at least four detonations.” She didn’t mention that one of the blasts appeared to have originated from Martin’s briefcase. She wished she didn’t know that herself. “We don’t know yet if any metas were involved. Besides Special Agent Druce himself, of course.”
“You’ll let me know if you find him, won’t you?” Herrera’s anger had subsided, replaced by the natural concern one has for any person’s safety regardless of how one currently feels about them.
“I will, but to be honest, I’m not involved with the investigation. You’ll have to speak to Senior Special Agent Cooling or someone from the FBI or the NSA if you want the latest information.” Despite her personal stake in the matter, she wasn’t entirely disappointed to be off the case. It was shaping up as a classic inter-agency nightmare.
“I don’t expect they’ll be as helpful as you’ve been,” he gave her a grateful nod, “but I’ll do that. Of course, that’s not the only reason I came to see you today.”
“Oh?” she asked, eyeing the package sitting on his lap with curiosity. Herrera promptly stood up and quietly placed it on the desk in front of her. It was rectangular and roughly half the size of a shoe box, wrapped in brown paper with her name and office address written clearly on the top in what appeared to be Agent Druce’s handwriting.
“I found this in my inbox this morning,” Herrera explained. “I admit I considered opening it myself, but I… well, it’s evidence, isn’t it?”
“You did the right thing,” Lindsay said as she carefully removed the wrapping. Inside was a box that had once contained pencils, no doubt taken from a supply cabinet at the Academy. She opened the box to find three USB flash drives inside.
Herrera waited patiently, still standing, while the agent inserted one of the drives into her computer and began skimming through the massive amount of data. After a few minutes she removed the drive and inserted another. The third soon followed.
What Lindsay was looking at were the accumulated notes of almost eight years of private investigation into the activities of a secret NSA team known as Operations Group Tango. They were allegedly responsible for brokering arms deals and either propping up or destabilizing governments throughout the developing world, all in the name of promoting American interests. The sheer volume of documented incidents painted a compelling picture, but each report ended with a note that actual evidence connecting the group to the specified activity was impossible to obtain.
Was this for real, or just a paranoid witch-hunt by a man who couldn’t accept his new status as a desk jockey? She did know he’d at least managed to rattle some highly-placed cages. Last week’s pointed call from the Assistant Director in Charge for the bureau’s Paragon City operation had proved that. She’d been told to “get him under control”. How much of what happened Friday was her responsibility for not doing that?
And what was she to do with all this data? Eight years of a man’s life. Eight years of hard work with no payoff in sight. There was no doubt in her mind that if she passed this along to her superiors it would all get filed, or more likely buried, and then forgotten. This might be a collection of paranoid ravings, but it might also be her only chance of discovering what had really happened in Brickstown that night and why one of her people was missing and presumed dead.
She looked up at Herrera who was still waiting patiently. “Does anyone else know about this?” she asked, holding up the pencil box.
“No,” he replied with a hint of curiosity, “I didn’t mention it to anyone.”
“Good,” she replied and gave him a smile. “You keep this to yourself, and I’ll make sure you know everything I do about what happened last week. Do we have a deal?”
Herrera didn’t hesitate a moment, simply nodding and holding out his hand. “Agent Wong, we have an understanding.”
“Please, call me Lindsay.”
That wasn’t everything the Assistant Director had said. “We’ll have a talk later” was probably meant to sound reassuring, but Lindsay knew that talk was going to include phrases like “stay on top of developing situations” and “maintain control of your people”. She’d always believed in giving her subordinates a free hand and now she was going to pay for it. Buzz around the office was that Senior Special Agent Hutchison was being transferred in from the Galaxy City office. Hutch was very senior to her. The implications were obvious.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a call from reception informing her that she had a visitor. Grateful for any kind of distraction she said to send them up without even bothering to ask who it was. A few minutes later she was welcoming a lean, middle-aged but still fit-looking Hispanic man into her office. He wore a dark suit and was carrying a small brown package.
“You are Senior Special Agent Lindsay Wong?” he asked politely but with a certain seriousness.
“That’s me,” she replied with the best smile she could muster. “Have a seat, Mister…?”
“My name is Louis Herrera,” he answered after taking the offered chair. “I am the headmaster of the Westbrook Academy.” He remained well-mannered, but the agent sensed he was making an effort to conceal some kind of strong emotion.
“Of course, Mister Herrera, I’ve heard a lot about you.” She’d heard nothing but good of the man, both as an educator and a former Hero. “How are your students?” she asked with genuine concern.
“The last one was released from medical care this morning. All of them are fine, thank you.” He relaxed a tiny bit, perhaps in response to the sincerity in her voice. “I’m still waiting for any kind of explanation. None of the agents I’ve spoken to, from your agency or the others, has told me anything.”
“They don’t know anything, I’m afraid,” she said with a shrug. “Nothing that happened was officially authorized or documented in any way. We’re still trying to piece things together.”
“Has there been any sign of Ma… of Agent Druce?” he asked, letting a little of his emotion escape. Lindsay knew the two men had become friends or something close to it. Herrera was not only angry but probably felt betrayed as well.
“I’m not authorized to discuss details of an ongoing investigation.” She felt like a coward for hiding behind procedure but it was an uncomfortable subject for her as well.
“I have a right to know,” he raised his voice in response, going so far as to lean forward in his chair. “Three of my students were put in danger and I need to know why. Not just for myself. I have to answer to their parents.” Then his tone softened and he added “Please…”
“Alright,” she said, unable to disagree with him. “I’ll tell you what I know, which isn’t a lot. Special Agent Druce’s medibadge was activated early Friday evening but he never arrived at the hospital. The mediport system failed to get an acceptable lock and aborted the transfer.”
“So he’s…?” he hesitated, unable to finish the thought.
“Missing,” she finished for him. “There were several bodies at the scene, but so far none have been identified as his.” Lindsay had seen them all. She didn’t believe any of them were Martin but that might be wishful thinking.
Herrera put aside the thought of bodies that couldn’t be identified after three days and asked another question. “So what actually happened? What killed them? Were metas involved?”
“Preliminary forensics suggest there was an explosion, or rather a series of explosions. There were at least four detonations.” She didn’t mention that one of the blasts appeared to have originated from Martin’s briefcase. She wished she didn’t know that herself. “We don’t know yet if any metas were involved. Besides Special Agent Druce himself, of course.”
“You’ll let me know if you find him, won’t you?” Herrera’s anger had subsided, replaced by the natural concern one has for any person’s safety regardless of how one currently feels about them.
“I will, but to be honest, I’m not involved with the investigation. You’ll have to speak to Senior Special Agent Cooling or someone from the FBI or the NSA if you want the latest information.” Despite her personal stake in the matter, she wasn’t entirely disappointed to be off the case. It was shaping up as a classic inter-agency nightmare.
“I don’t expect they’ll be as helpful as you’ve been,” he gave her a grateful nod, “but I’ll do that. Of course, that’s not the only reason I came to see you today.”
“Oh?” she asked, eyeing the package sitting on his lap with curiosity. Herrera promptly stood up and quietly placed it on the desk in front of her. It was rectangular and roughly half the size of a shoe box, wrapped in brown paper with her name and office address written clearly on the top in what appeared to be Agent Druce’s handwriting.
“I found this in my inbox this morning,” Herrera explained. “I admit I considered opening it myself, but I… well, it’s evidence, isn’t it?”
“You did the right thing,” Lindsay said as she carefully removed the wrapping. Inside was a box that had once contained pencils, no doubt taken from a supply cabinet at the Academy. She opened the box to find three USB flash drives inside.
Herrera waited patiently, still standing, while the agent inserted one of the drives into her computer and began skimming through the massive amount of data. After a few minutes she removed the drive and inserted another. The third soon followed.
What Lindsay was looking at were the accumulated notes of almost eight years of private investigation into the activities of a secret NSA team known as Operations Group Tango. They were allegedly responsible for brokering arms deals and either propping up or destabilizing governments throughout the developing world, all in the name of promoting American interests. The sheer volume of documented incidents painted a compelling picture, but each report ended with a note that actual evidence connecting the group to the specified activity was impossible to obtain.
Was this for real, or just a paranoid witch-hunt by a man who couldn’t accept his new status as a desk jockey? She did know he’d at least managed to rattle some highly-placed cages. Last week’s pointed call from the Assistant Director in Charge for the bureau’s Paragon City operation had proved that. She’d been told to “get him under control”. How much of what happened Friday was her responsibility for not doing that?
And what was she to do with all this data? Eight years of a man’s life. Eight years of hard work with no payoff in sight. There was no doubt in her mind that if she passed this along to her superiors it would all get filed, or more likely buried, and then forgotten. This might be a collection of paranoid ravings, but it might also be her only chance of discovering what had really happened in Brickstown that night and why one of her people was missing and presumed dead.
She looked up at Herrera who was still waiting patiently. “Does anyone else know about this?” she asked, holding up the pencil box.
“No,” he replied with a hint of curiosity, “I didn’t mention it to anyone.”
“Good,” she replied and gave him a smile. “You keep this to yourself, and I’ll make sure you know everything I do about what happened last week. Do we have a deal?”
Herrera didn’t hesitate a moment, simply nodding and holding out his hand. “Agent Wong, we have an understanding.”
“Please, call me Lindsay.”
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