He’d jumped.
The soldier straightened up from the crouch he’d landed in, a move that reminded St. George of Arnold Schwarzenegger traveling from the future in the Terminator movies. He was a black man, at least nine inches taller than the hero, and a good foot wider. He focused on St. George with shining green eyes in a face shadowed by his helmet. There were two black bars on his chest, and stitched across the left side of his digital-patterned camos was one word.
FREEDOM
He pulled the biggest pistol St. George had ever seen from a thigh holster. It had a drum like an old Tommy gun and venting on the barrel. The muzzle came to bear on him as the huge officer barked out a command.
“Stand down, sir,” said Freedom, stepping forward. “Get on your knees with your hands on your head.”
“Hey,” said St. George. “There’s no need for this. It’s just a simple misunderstanding.”
“On your knees!” The captain grabbed the hero by the shoulder with his left hand and shoved down. St. George brushed the hand aside.
“I think you need to take a few deep breaths and calm—”
There was a sound like a sledgehammer hitting concrete as Freedom’s knuckles caught him under the chin. A shrub whipped St. George from behind and the wall of the gatehouse hit him in the back. He felt it crumble. The soldier marched forward, holstered his oversized pistol, and dragged the hero back to his feet by the lapels of his leather jacket. The man spun on his heel and threw St. George half a block down to 3rd Street.
The hero hit the pavement and skidded into one of the oversized planters. The concrete cracked and soil spilled out over him. He cleared his head with a quick shake and pushed himself back to his feet.
Freedom marched forward again. “Sir, stay on your knees and put your hands on your head,” said the huge soldier. “This is your last warn—”
St. George leaped up, grabbed the officer’s swollen biceps, and shot into the air.
When they were a hundred feet over the Mount he held the larger man up at eye level. “Unless you want to make that drop again,” he said, “I suggest you—”
Freedom slammed his helmet into the bridge of St. George’s nose. When the hero didn’t release him, he did it again.
Smoke curled up from St. George’s nostrils. He glared at the soldier for a moment and opened his hands.
The other man dropped six feet and grabbed hold of the hero’s boot with iron fingers.
“Oh, come on!” snapped St. George.
*
The soldier who’d taken the man named John to the ground dragged him back to the helicopter. The others shouted until the gate guards dropped their weapons, walked closer to the Black Hawk, and fell to their knees. Then they took up defensive positions around the chopper. Two of the soldiers kept the guards at gunpoint. Two others watched the nearby buildings for opposition.
One of the last two, a specialist with TRUMAN on his jacket, looked all around. “Where’d the woman go?”
“What woman?” The other soldier, labeled FRANKLIN, had been one of the last to disembark.
“With the black cape. Where’d she go? She was right here before the captain arrived.”
All six of them scanned the area around the helicopter. There was ten feet of open space in every direction. Where the woman had been standing, on the far side of Freedom’s impact crater, there was twice that distance to the nearest piece of cover. And most of that cover had been destroyed when the captain had punched the guy claiming to be the Mighty Dragon.
One of the civilian guards, a beefy man with dreadlocks, chuckled. He kept his hands on his head and raised his voice so they could hear him across the distance. “You guys might as well give up now,” he said.
“Keep it quiet,” snapped one of the soldiers watching him. “I’ll tape your mouth if I have to.”
He laughed again. “You guys are so seriously out of your league here.”
The five soldiers exchanged a quick set of looks. Then they looked at each other again. “Hey,” said Franklin, “where the hell did Mike go?”
*