Shadow Ops 3: Breach Zone (4 page)

Harlequin took the phone from Crucible, hovered his thumb over the
PLAY
button.

‘When you say “they” want me to lock it down . . .’ Harlequin began.

‘“They” is actually “he”,’ Crucible said. ‘President Porter. He asked for you personally.’

‘It’s got to be a hell of a thing to make that happen.’

‘It is.’ Crucible gestured at the phone.

Harlequin pushed
PLAY
. The video was slightly grainy, the digital zoom making the colors run together, the gray and white of the stone and asphalt blending. But it wasn’t so fuzzy that Harlequin couldn’t make out the shimmering curtain, the ranks of monsters marching through it.

Harlequin showed no reaction, and Crucible watched him, arms folded, until the video finally stopped, leaving the image frozen on a woman, arms spread, smiling up at the widening gate. Around her, tall ebony shapes spread out, white cuts for mouths grinning along with her.

Harlequin lowered the phone. ‘That’s her, isn’t it?’

The picture was too distorted to make out her face, but he recognized her anyway.

Harlequin searched Crucible’s face for an accusation, found none. Relief mingled with guilt. If she was involved with anything, he was to blame.
No. Oscar Britton is to blame. If it went your way, she’d still be rotting in the hole and FOB Frontier would still be standing.

‘It’s her,’ Crucible said. ‘We ran the image through facial-recognition software just to be double sure.’

‘Jesus,’ Harlequin said, resisting Crucible’s attempt to retrieve his phone, his eyes returning to the picture.

Crucible nodded. ‘It’s not just
Gahe
. There are goblins. Rocs. Giants. Everything we faced at FOB Frontier.’

‘What do they want me for?’

‘The president is declaring this to be a national-security incident. He wants you as his incident commander on scene. You’ll be back in New York, just like old times,’ Crucible said, ‘except I won’t be there, and you’ll be commanding the defense instead of liaising with the NYPD.’

Harlequin finally let the phone go. ‘So, in other words, nothing like old times.’

‘They know who that is, Jan. You . . . know her. You’ve fought the
Gahe
before. You want out of this pasture they’ve put you in? You want to show them you’re a team player? This is your chance.’

Harlequin thought of the slim shape between the
Gahe
and felt his stomach do somersaults. She was easily the most dangerous Selfer in the world, the woman who’d single-handedly slaughtered hundreds and left FOB Frontier bared to its enemies. She called herself Scylla.

Once, he’d known her by another name.

Interlude One

Pariah

I feel bad for them, I do. I feel bad for people with infectious diseases. I feel bad for people whose mental illness inclines them toward violence. I am not blind to how tough that is on them and their families. But if you think for a second that means I’m going to let them hurt anyone else, you’re out of your mind. We don’t quarantine in an epidemic because we think it’s fun. We do it to protect the larger population. It’s no different for Selfers. I raised my right hand and swore to protect the people who elected me to office, and God as my witness, I’m going to do it.

Senator John McGauer
Debating the McGauer-Linden Act on the Senate floor

Six Years Earlier

‘I’ve got it,’ Lieutenant Jan Thorsson said.

Sergeant Ward looked doubtful, but he waved to the NYPD cops crouching behind the cruiser. ‘Stay put!’

He turned back to Thorsson. The flames had singed Ward’s moustache. The black, crisped hair stank. Thorsson could only imagine how bad it must be for Ward.

‘You sure?’ Ward sounded relieved. He didn’t want to go in there, and Thorsson doubted he would do any good even if he did.

Thorsson nodded. ‘You’ve got the other exit covered?’

Ward nodded. ‘We see her . . .’

Thorsson nodded to the building in front of them, constituting the L-shaped corridor that trapped the Selfer inside. ‘You shoot her. She’s either coming out with me, or she’s not coming out.’

Ward’s expression went pinched. ‘Harlequin, she’s got kids.’

Ward referred to him by his SOC call sign, yet another layer of distance between non-Latents and the SOC. He’d gotten the call sign during his favorite assignment, training navy pilots to combat Aeromancers. They gave him his call sign when he left, a parting gift and a tongue-in-cheek reference to his ‘clowning’ them in the air.

Harlequin stabbed an angry finger at the building, drew a line from it down to the row of fire trucks and ambulances pulled up outside. EMTs were still running gurneys out, working on the victims strapped to them as they went. ‘How many kids are in that building?’

They were always mothers. Or confused. Or kids. Or a pillar of the community. There was always a reason why they ran, why they couldn’t be bothered to do the right thing, turn themselves in and comply with the McGauer-Linden Act. Harlequin knew that this Bronx housing project had been part of Ward’s beat for his entire career. He knew the Selfer, like he knew everyone else on the block. That bone-deep knowledge, that familiarity made Ward a great cop. But it also made him waver.

Harlequin recalled the words of his Stormcraft instructor at Quantico.
We’re sheepdogs, Lieutenant. The problem is, we smell just like the wolves we guard against. The sheep can’t tell the difference.

He refused to think of people as sheep, but he understood the motivation to frame it in those terms.

It was much easier to put down a wolf than kill a human being.

When Harlequin came up Latent, he’d been frightened. He’d seen the path of his old life stop short, known the society that Ward enjoyed, the easy conversation with the man who owned the corner bodega, the Sundays coaching the neighborhood basketball team in the summers, the sense of belonging somewhere, would all be lost to him.

But he’d swallowed it. Because he had to. Distasteful as it was, his instructor’s metaphor worked here. A Latent person had to decide if they were going to be a sheepdog who protected the flock or a wolf who devoured it. He’d made his choice, and he had no sympathy for those who chose otherwise. Ward, for all his law-enforcement training, couldn’t make the hard call.

Harlequin made a fist, let the magic curl over it, felt the lightning sizzle between the tensed knuckles.

Thus always to wolves.

He stepped around the side of the burning building. A ground-level window burst, hot air buffeting him from inside. He summoned a wind to force it back, his anger growing with each step. Ward said the housing project contained fifteen hundred apartments. It cost the city millions. It was the place desperate people had called home for over fifty years.

And now it was gone because a scared old lady couldn’t be bothered to make a simple phone call. To ask for help. To follow clear rules.

Harlequin hoped she resisted.
Give me an excuse.

She crouched by the trash bins, on all fours. Her housedress smoldered, melted to her flabby torso, the pink floral print still visible in patches. Her hair smoked. She shambled on her knuckles, thick thighs quivering. Her eyes glowered, reflecting the firelight as if they glowed from within. She didn’t appear in pain despite the burned dress, which meant she was moderating the temperature around her. She had better control than he’d thought.

Which made her all the more responsible. Ward said she’d told neighbors months ago that she feared she was possessed by the devil. How long had she known she was Latent? Every hour made the crime worse.

Ward said he was unsure of her English. Harlequin shouted in what little Spanish he’d picked up since being assigned here. ‘
Pare! SOC!’

She pawed toward him, growling.

‘
Quieto! No se mueva!
’

She roared and coughed a gout of flame, white hot and billowing, like the breath of a dragon out of myth. Dramatic, undisciplined.

Harlequin didn’t bother to Suppress her. He conjured a wind that blew the flames back in her face. She squinted, rocking back on her haunches and throwing up her arms at the unexpected reversal, her demon’s roar becoming a cry of surprise.

‘That’s enough.’ Harlequin gave up on the Spanish. ‘Quit fucking around. I’m taking you in.’

That meant a Suppressed convoy to Quantico after the NYPD finished booking her. The richest city in the country had long lobbied for its own Suppression/Detention facility, and Harlequin was pleased the SOC had crushed that particular idea’s head before it could breed. Magic was a federal issue. This might be the Bronx, but Selfers like this risked the safety of the entire nation.

She recovered enough to stand. A big-framed woman even without the obesity, Harlequin had to admit she looked like a towering demon, huge and flame-wreathed. But he was unimpressed. For all her power, she lacked discipline.

He reached her in five long strides, blowing off another burst of stylized fire-breathing. It was close enough to singe him this time, his uniform crisping and shrinking as the heat washed over him. He called up his magical current and Bound it across hers.

The flames winked out as her magic rolled back. She shrieked, covering herself as if he had left her naked. Then she screamed, reaching for him.

She was old, but she was a big woman, and Harlequin was in no mood. He ducked her clumsy swipe and punched her hard in the gut. He grabbed her wrist as she doubled over, forcing it around and stepping behind her, immobilizing her elbow and torquing the limb down until she cried out.

‘Stop resisting me!’ he shouted. ‘We’re going to walk back out to the parking lot, nice and easy. Right foot first. If you continue to resist, I’m just going to yank on this arm, and I swear, it’s going to hurt. If you comply, I’ll bring you back to your buddy Sergeant Ward. Now, let’s move. Do it now!’

She whimpered but moved as he pressed his forearm into the flab over her shoulder blades. She reeked of brimstone, dried sweat, and unwashed clothing. He felt her current pulsing against his own, seeking to break through. She was strong, he’d give her that, but nowhere near strong enough to throw off Suppression.

They rounded the corner of the building, Harlequin leaning far to see around the Selfer’s bulk. Ward was stepping slowly around the open door of his cruiser, pistol pointed at the ground. ‘She okay?’ he called.

I’m fine, thanks for asking
, Harlequin thought. ‘She’s fine! She just . . .’

The big woman twisted hard in his grip, her free arm wrenching so high it must have pulled her muscles. She dug a rusting corkscrew into Harlequin’s chest, dragging it down, ripping through his uniform, tearing a line of agony across his chest.

He shouted, yanked on her arm, pivoting his body to spin her, put her on the ground. Her huge weight overbalanced and she pitched forward, escaping his grasp, head rebounding off one of the metal posts that held the chains screening the parking lot from the housing-complex grounds. Blood sprayed from her mouth, misting Harlequin’s face. Her eyes rolled up in her head, and he felt her current go slack as she collapsed across his leg, pinning him. He felt her pulse, watched her chest. She’d taken a nasty knock on the head, but she was alive.

He looked down at his own chest, blood welling up to soak his shirt, mixing with hers. ‘Jesus,’ he said as Ward helped move her off him. He sent lightning crackling across his wound as soon as Ward let him go. It was an old wives’ tale that immediate electrical cauterization of a wound could keep disease out, but Aeromancers all did it anyway.

He brushed a fragment of the woman’s tooth off his shirt as Ward stared at her. ‘Jesus, Lieutenant. You didn’t have to bash her head like that.’

‘I didn’t do it on purpose,’ Harlequin growled. ‘She weighs like three hundred pounds, and she was fucking trying to dig out my heart with a . . .’ He looked around for the corkscrew. It had vanished somewhere in the grass. The dancing shadows of the firelight made it impossible to see anything.

‘Well, we got it now,’ Ward said. ‘We’ll book her.’

‘I’m coming with you. I need to keep her under Suppression.’ Harlequin bent to help Ward lift the woman.

‘She’s out cold, Lieutenant,’ Ward said. ‘Help me get her a few more feet to the ambulance, and I’ll make sure they sedate her so she doesn’t wake up.’

Harlequin shook his head. ‘If she comes to for any reason, it’s going to be my ass. I’m coming with you.’

‘You’ve got a Suppressor at the liaison office. We’ll take her straight there!’ Ward argued.

NYPD had the command for this op, and Ward radioed in the results as they got her closer to the line of ambulances clustered among the fire trucks in the parking lot, their spinning lights adding to the glow from the police cruisers, making Harlequin squint. The seeds of a ferocious headache began to blossom behind his eyes. His chest burned as the Bound electricity did its slow work, the stink of his own flesh making him angrier.

The big woman sagged between them, limp hair covering her face, burned dress smoking. Her mouth hung open, blood drooling from one corner. The EMTs were busy, and Ward had to shout to get the attention of two of them. They raced over with a wheeled gurney, then stopped short, eyes fixed on Harlequin. For a moment, he saw himself as they must see him: streaked with grime and gore, his uniform covered in soot and blood. Small runnels of lightning still danced across the cut on his chest, as if they needed a reminder of who he was and what he did.

They stared, refusing to come forward.

‘Come on!’ Ward said, then cursed, dragging the woman closer to them. ‘She needs help.’

The first of the press were arriving. Harlequin could see them over the EMTs’ shoulders, setting up tripods, turning on lights, readying boom microphones. He knew he looked like a monster. The Selfer didn’t look much better, but he was the one both Latent and conscious enough to be interviewed.

Harlequin looked at the EMTs, then at the line of firemen who’d stopped their work to stare at him.

He could feel their fear, their revulsion, as clearly as a magical current.

Sheep, seeing the sheepdog, but smelling the wolf. The press would be no different.

Maybe his instructor was right.

He fought down his anger and turned back to Ward. ‘Sedate her. Get her to the Suppressor stat.’

Ward looked up at him, surprised, and nodded gratefully.

He kicked off and flew north. SOC policy was not to engage in overt displays of magic unless absolutely necessary. It frightened people, reminded them that powers beyond their control were present in their midst. But right now, Harlequin didn’t care. He needed to be away from the burning building, from the accusation in the stare of the people struggling to haul order out of that chaos. Maybe a few hours from now, they’d remember that he’d been the man who’d gone around that corner, who’d risked himself to take the Selfer down. Maybe they’d remember and be grateful that there were people like him out there to do it.

But probably not.

He let the wind rush over him, chilling his skin and washing the stink of smoke and blood away. He set down in Fort Tryon Park, silent and dark at this late hour. The high ground overlooked the city, giving him the silent remove he needed to master his anger. He’d let Ward take the woman. He’d displayed magic openly. He’d gone airborne without filing a flight plan. He was breaking regs left and right.
It’s getting to you, the isolation, the pariah status. Get it together.

Harlequin pulled out his cell phone. It rang twice before picking up on the other end. ‘SOC. Crucible.’ Crucible was the call sign of Harlequin’s supervisor, Major Rick Allen. The two were old friends and didn’t stand on formality.

‘It’s Jan.’

‘It’s also late. What’s up?’

‘I just got a takedown and had to leave her under sedation with the NYPD. They’re taking her straight to the liaison office, but there’s a . . . gap in coverage. Shouldn’t be a big deal, but I wanted to let you know.’

‘You left her with them? Under sedation?’ Crucible sounded awake now.

‘Regs allow for it in extreme circumstances.’

‘They don’t smile on it, though, Jan. What the hell happened?’

‘It was just . . . better without me there. The Selfer was a friend of one of the cops, and she got hurt. The press were about to descend on me. I wasn’t up to talking to them.’

Silence on the other end, then a slow rumble across the phone’s speaker as Crucible rubbed his eyes. ‘You okay, Jan?’

‘I’m fine, sir,’ Harlequin said. His lapse into formality told both of them he was anything but. ‘I think I just frightened them a little . . .’
The sheep,
he almost said.

‘It’s fine,’ Harlequin continued. ‘It’ll be fine.’