Chapter Thirty Six
Mr. Shankman has declined to comment on the Paladins’ recent attack on The Fortress, the popular superhero-themed café and
nightclub. Donald Welsh, a spokesman for Mr. Shankman’s campaign, has publicly denied any links between the “public-spirited Mr.
Shankman and any terrorist or militia groups, whatever their goals.” At the same time, the Shankman Campaign continues to decry
the city’s employment of “contracted peacekeepers,” whom it denounces as nothing more than licensed thugs.
Chicago Evening News.
* * *
To my surprise, instead of ordering us to remain at our position while the rest of the team mustered, Blackstone called us back to
the Dome. Arriving, we found everybody there, crowding the Assembly Room. Back from Washington, Watchman sat beside Variform and
“Agent Robbins,” a DSA agent in suit and shades and one of Legion. I wondered why Bob or New Tom or Willis didn’t just put on a
DSA badge as needed. Dad was there, Iron Jack, so solid and calm in the electric atmosphere (not Lei Zi’s fault) I just wanted to
go over and hug him.
Once we were all present, Blackstone stood up. He looked exhausted. Quin didn’t look much better, and her latex-like skin didn’t
shadow under her eyes like his did. But he smiled as he looked around the table, giving Artemis and me a nod.
“Thank you all for coming,” he said. “I’m sure all of you have been hearing the latest news reports, and the threats of
political action. It hasn’t helped that news of Villains Inc.’s reconstitution and its war with the Mob has gotten out.
Chicagoans can live with a lot, but the thought of a three-way superhero-supervillain-supervillain war doesn’t make anyone happy.
“The good news is that, finally, we are in a position to take the war to our enemies. Detective Fisher?”
Fisher pulled himself to his feet. Somewhere he’d found time to change, but he looked even more rumpled than usual. He gave me a
wink, and lit up. As he looked around the table, it was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat.
“Alright people, let’s do a refresher. This all started with a bank heist and a related murder. With the fingerprints of
organized crime all over it, the only reason it stayed in my department was superpowers were involved both times.”
There were nods around the table.
“Things started getting interesting when you guys tried to execute the warrant for Hecate’s arrest. Sure, she might have
realized she’d been outed when Dr. Cornelius banished her pet demon, but maybe not. If not, someone told her we were coming—and
outside of this team, only my department and the warrant judge knew about the raid. So when Mr. Ross quietly reached out and
touched me asking for police protection, I had a problem.”
“Mr. Ross?” I blurted, then flushed. Fisher smiled.
“Astra asked me what I thought had happened to our elusive Mr. Ross, and I told her that if he really was an Outfit banker we’d
be lucky to find the body. Since I couldn’t be sure of my own department, I made an arrangement with Agent Robbins and the local
DSA office; Mr. Ross has spent the last two weeks in a safe safe house. As the banker, he doesn’t know many real names, but he
has been able to provide several descriptions—the Department of Superhuman Affairs brought in a telepathic sketch-artist, and now
I believe I know who our leak is.”
He stopped and took a deep draw.
“So the Outfit wants Mr. Ross, but they’ve got other problems. Hecate is their biggest. Friends over in Organized Crimes tipped
me that Mickey Kean died of a heart attack the day after Mr. Moffat was put in a box. The name means nothing to any of you, but it
’s their guess that he was Ross’s boss. Three days later, his personal physician, Dr. Dresher, died a bit less naturally. The OC
guys’d had their eyes on him for awhile, on the theory that he was one of the Outfit’s more subtle hitters, and apparently he
was Dr. Millibrand’s doctor as well. Perfect cover for their meetings.”
“How did he die?” Seven asked.
“Fast—at least ninety miles an hour fast. It took us awhile to work out that it was murder. It’s a guessing game, but I think
that what happened was Mickey overreacted to the bonds theft and ordered Hecate to ‘send a message’. Mr. Ross had made himself
unavailable, but Mr. Moffat might have been involved, so, the box. But that tipped us that the Outfit was employing supervillain
hitters again, that Villains Inc. could be back in business.”
“Bad move,” Rush said.
“Absolutely,” Fisher agreed. “So they gave Mickey a funeral—even if he hadn’t gone off and had Mr. Moffat killed, he could be
fingered by Ross. And they tried to kill Hecate; Dr. Dresher’s practice records show a late evening visit with Millibrand just
before he drove his Jaguar into a wall. He wasn’t drunk.”
“So now it’s on,” Riptide said. “Got that—they want you dead, you bury them first. So why do they want the dude who stole the
bonds bad enough to try and go right through us?”
Fisher smiled, took another drag, then started a second smoke on the end of the first.
“The ten million dollar question. The attack on the Dome? Desperation. From what we now think we know about Kitsune’s motives,
our bonds thief has probably spent the last three years stalking the Outfit, and Villains Inc. was part of it. My guess is that he
knows something about Hecate or her people, something that could blow up their plans of taking over. He may have been attempting
to bring it to you when he was attacked at The Fortress.”
Riptide laughed. “I’m beginning to like this guacho. So he’s got them chasing him all over town? Why doesn’t he just take what
he’s got to the police? End it?”
“His family may have died because of a leak in the Organized Crime Department.”
“So there’s two leaks?” Seven asked.
“One, but it’s moved and it’s my problem now. No proof, but now we can play a little game of our own. Agent Robbins?”
All heads swiveled to look at our DSA guest. Agent Robbins took off his glasses, and he was Willis on steroids—really freaky
since Willis was dispensing coffee around the table.
“Hey guys,” he said, flashing a smile. “I’m sure you understand the operational limitations of the Department of Superhuman
Affairs. Mostly we’re an intelligence resource for local government entities, and we use special units in the Secret Service,
FBI, and US Marshals Department for active operations. We like to work with local Crisis Aid and supercop units when they need us
to help them to stand up. Which you Sentinels never have.
“When Detective Fisher approached the DSA with the Villains Inc. problem and his own departmental issues, we decided the
possibility of a shooting war between organized supercriminal factions in the middle of Chicago called for active involvement. We
’ve had Mr. Ross on ice in a detection-proof environment since Detective Fisher brought him to us, and we’ve moved a few assets
into the city. Since Detective Fisher considers his own department compromised, we took custody of Villain-X in service of the
warrant issued by the State of Michigan—the one for the murder of Mr. Early at Grand Beach last week. But we can’t hold him
here; we have to transfer him to the appropriate authorities in Michigan as soon as possible, or turn him over to the Chicago PD.
”
“Has he told you anything?” Seven asked.
“Nope. He doesn’t believe that Chakra probably saved his life, or doesn’t care, and we can only hold him so long without
granting access to his lawyer—which means disclosing his location. But that’s good.”
Anyone hearing that and looking at Agent Robbin would ask Why is this man smiling? Artemis looked at me and shrugged; she’d been
out of the loop on this one, too.
“It’s good,” Blackstone said, “because it gives us a plausible reason for speed. Until now we’ve only been able to react to
what Villains Inc. has been doing. Now they’ll have to react to us. Lei Zi, could you explain the op?
Lei Zi stood, and she had all our attention; if our ex-marine and army guys were talking about operations, we really were finally
going to war.
* * *
I feel like a piece of cheese,” I said.
Fisher smiled. “Actually, you’re one of the steel jaws of the trap. He’s the cheese.”
Beside us, Villain-X snoozed in his restraints and cage as the paddywagon bounced us over the speed-bump and out into the street.
He jiggled against the bars, the Morpheus headset he wore keeping him in dreamland, a sleeping, unexploded bomb and the center of
Operation Stalking Goat.
I winced at each bump; any plan that had me riding along next to him was not a good plan.
It was simple; the DSA was turning Villain-X, ex-sergeant Jason Leavitt, over to the Michigan authorities. They were driving him
out in the predawn light, taking him to a local airport and flying him to Detroit Supermax, Michigan’s high-security superhuman
prison. Murder carried the Death Penalty in Detroit, and they were going to make Leavitt an Offer He Couldn’t Refuse; they’d see
his sentence commuted to life in prison, he’d spill everything he knew about Villains Inc. And in Blackstone’s opinion, since he
’d been set up yesterday morning as a sacrificial pawn expected to kill kill kill and then burn out, he probably knew a lot and
wasn’t Hecate’s most devoted minion.
So if we got him to Detroit, great—he’d be a huge break in our case. But Fisher, liaising with the DSA, had made sure the leak
in his department knew about our “quiet” departure from Chicago. It made sense; force your enemy to act when you’re ready for
him; if he doesn’t, he’s hosed anyway.
Fisher and I shared the prisoner compartment with sleepyhead. I was back in my armor, packing Ajax’ maul, not happy about being
bait in a box even if Seven sat up front, Lei Zi, Iron Jack, and The Harlequin rode in the lead and tail cars, and Galatea and
Variforce stood ready in the DSA helicopter overflying our convoy. “You’re cheese, too.” I flinched at another pothole-bump. “
And I’m sitting next to both of you.”
“Relax, kid,” Fisher said. “If anything does go down, we’ll have plenty of warning.” He watched our progress on his e-pad
link to the DSA helicopter high overhead.
I forced myself to look away from Leavitt. “Fisher?”
“Hmm?”
“Why can’t you die?”
“Because I’m a fictional character.”
“What?” I’d expected him to tell me what kind of weird breakthrough he was.
“I’m the main character of the Max Fisher series. Only three books ever got published, around fifteen years before the Event.
Obscure hard-boiled detective fiction about a hard drinking, hard smoking, cynical Chicago detective who grew up an orphan on the
mean streets. Main characters don’t die.”
I stared, but he stayed focused on the e-pad. “How…how is that possible?”
“Don’t know, but all of my memories before entering the police academy eight years ago are fake.”
“Where’s the author? Could you be him?”
He looked up, chuckling. “You’re wasted at the Dome. Nope. Vernon Wilder died of a heart condition from complications of his
drinking and diabetes six years ago. And the series never had a fan club, so I doubt I’m just a Big Fan. Vernon probably created
me out of a breakthrough-fueled obsession before he died. According to Dr. Cornelius, I’m probably a self-propagating thought
form, a sustained projection.”
And I’d thought Shelly had existential problems. “So you really can’t die?”
“Hell kid, I can’t even change. I don’t shave and always have five o’clock shadow. And I never even thought about it till the
day I took three slugs to the chest. Mob hit, long story, but no witnesses except the hitter—and he looked real surprised when I
sat up and shot back. The last thing he said was it wasn’t fair.”
I must have looked completely wigged, because he patted my knee.
“Don’t worry about it, kid. It doesn’t make me reckless—getting killed hurts, and if it ever happens in front of the wrong
witnesses I’m off the force.”
That hadn’t been my worry. The wagon slowed and stopped for a traffic light. I hadn’t been hearing any cars around us other than
our convoy, which meant the rolling police barricades were working. Our route avoided all residential areas, so this early in the
morning the streets would be nearly empty anyway.
“And don’t worry about the other half of the plan,” he said. “Blackstone’s got Team Two, and he knows what he’s doing.”
Did telling someone not to worry ever work? I didn’t say it. Besides, with Seven in DSA gear and driving the wagon, what could go
wrong? Oh, just everything.
We were almost to the airport when Villain-X opened his burning eyes.