Doomsday Exam [BUREAU 13 Book Two] (21 page)

That was my cue to roll over and bellow into their faces, “BUT I'M FROM MARS! MARS! MARS! MARS! You can't arrest me! I gotta get back to my spaceship or die!"

The cuffs clicked with brutal force and I was roughly hauled erect. I loudly burped in one officer's face while the other attempted to frisk me.

"Whew, what breath,” one of the police said holding his nose.

"Don't touch me there,” I screamed again at the top of my lungs. “That'll kill a Martian! And I'm from Mars! Mars! I gotta get back to my ship and go home to Mars!"

"And where the fuck is your ship, Darth Vader?” the first officer demanded, grabbing a fistful of my collar neatly cutting off my air and greatly restricting movement. “On the moon?"

About time he asked. “Bangor, Maine,” I said, attempting to vomit or fart.

Caught by surprise, the second officer smiled in spite of himself, “Bangor, Maine?"

Screeching insanely, I struggled futilely against the cuffs. “No human can say that word! Only another Martian like me! Bangor, Maine! Bangor, Maine! Argh!"

Charging head first, I butted one cop in the stomach, then attempted to spin around and the kick the other, but I fell down with a thump. Ouch. Then the patrolmen moved in and I gave them the best fight I could under the conditions. Kicking, biting, spitting, clawing and constantly shouting over and over again that I was a Martian on my way to Bangor, Maine.

The Saddle Brook police actually accepted my behavior for a lot longer than I ever would have. But finally, bleeding, sore, dirty and half deaf from my raw-throated screams, they pulled out the night sticks and did a little tap dance on my head, using Morse Code to politely inform me that it was nappy time.

As I was pounded into a red haze of pain, I tried once more to shout out my home world and goal. I had to be the most memorable arrest these two ever made. It was imperative! The fate of the world depended upon it.

Along with revenge for a skinny blonde girl whose name I didn't even know.

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Reeking of disinfectant, I was languishing in my cell nursing a severe headache from both the bad booze and the beating, when I noticed a thick black line form on the exterior cinder block wall.

About six feet off the concrete floor, the line steadily progressed in both directions until it was three feet in length, then the ends did a sharp angle downward and extended to the floor. With a creak, the rectangle swung aside and Mindy stepped in through the hole.

"Hi, Ed,” she said softly. Beyond the doorway, I could see a wooded park with our RV from Chicago looming in the shadows underneath a nearby copse of trees.

Summoning superhuman strength, I raised a trembling finger. “Shush,” I whispered, my temples throbbing. “Stop screaming."

She nodded and the snoring of the other forty inmates of the drunk tank resumed their normal singsong buzz sawing. Personally, I did not believe that saturation bombing by the U.S. Air Force could wake these guys, but I was playing it safe.

"What's the story?” Mindy asked in a hushed voice. “Do you want to be rescued?"

"Believe it,” I said softly, forcing myself to stand. “We've found Mystery Man."

"Great! Where's Raul?” Her voice had unaccustomed emotion.

I rested a hand against the wall to keep myself erect. “Heading smack into the lion's den, but leaving a breadcrumb trail for us to follow."

"Then let's go."

"Yowsa."

As we stepped through the magical portal, the wall closed and sealed in our wake. Climbing into the van, I kissed my wife hello and we drove off into the night.

"Cincinnati, downtown,” I told the front of the van.

A hooded video monitor in the dashboard changed from displaying a street map of Saddle Brook into a grid of neighboring city.

"Faith and begorra, will we be wanting city hall or the wee police station?” asked a redheaded bear of a man behind the steering wheel. Wearing a flowing black cassock and track shoes, the Irish goliath had a string of rosary beads dangling from the holstered Bible at his hip and a massive gold crucifix hung about his neck.

"Donaher!” I cried, then held my head in both hands and pressed hard, trying to force the pieces back together again.

George and Ken helped me to the couch, while Katrina knelt before me and drew apart the top of a leather medical bag to produce an assortment of items. Pouring an envelope full of blue powder into a jelly jar containing a yellow liquid, the mixture turned green. What a surprise. But then it went purple, brown, red, frothy white and clear. She shoved the jar into my hands. “Drink!” she commanded.

Hoping it was fast-acting poison, I chugged the brew down and wham I was a new man. Headache, pain, tiredness, gone-gone-gone. I felt fit and ready to do battle.

"What is that stuff?” I asked, licking the rim before returning the glass container.

"Old family recipe,” Katrina said, wiping off the jar with a disposal antiseptic towelette.

"Okay. But what is it made of?"

"Old families."

I laughed. Then paused. Nyah.

Moving to the rear of the RV, I rummaged about in a locker until I found some respectable and less odious clothes. In my personal box, I obtained duplicate personal effects and another FBI ID commission booklet. Going to the weapons locker, I got a watch, more body armor, a new double shoulder holster and my spare set of Magnums. Ultra-light weight ***42 in the left, combat model ***66 in the right. I grabbed a fistful of pens, filled my pockets with speedloaders and added a HE grenade for luck.

"Perfect!” I exclaimed, straightening my tie in a small mirror.

Timidly, Jessica handed me a breath mint. “Not quite yet, dearest."

Properly chastised, I sucked and munched. Cheap whiskey did that to a man, along with a severe lack of food. So I raided the stash of MRE military rations we always keep on board. The US Army vacuum-packed meatloaf was like chewing a shoe and just as tasty. Forcing a lump down my gullet, I briefly wondered if the Mexican Army had field rations more fitting for a soldier about to do battle.

"Did my message get to you,” I asked after swallowing. “Or did you locate me some other way?"

Jess smiled, “When the InfoNet computer rattled off a report of a drunk with two Magnums claiming that he was from Mars and on his way to Bangor Maine, we knew it had to be you."

"Why didn't you try and contact me?” I asked. With the halogen streetlights illuminating her from behind, my bride was even lovelier than ever.

"I did,” she replied blushing. “But in Huntsville. This place is a thousand miles off target."

True enough. Moving to the front passenger seat, I checked the map on the monitor and showed Donaher where we wanted to go.

"By the way, Michael, how did your assassination attempt, I mean, your sabbatical end?” I asked, buckling on the seatbelt.

Busy paying attention to the traffic, Father Donaher scowled, and then smiled. “I actually made it into the throne room this time, before they discovered it was me and threw me out.” The priest lowered his voice. “Faith, Ed. Satan is a lot larger than I had ever imagined."

"How big?” I asked curiously.

"Texas is what comes to mind."

Wow.
Mucho grande
.

"What will police do when they discover that your fingerprints are those of an FBI agent?” Sanders asked, the huge Thompson machine gun he held in both hands appearing to be a child's toy. Ken Sanders was the only human being I had ever met that made Father Michael Xavier Donaher seem small. With these two protean behemoths tagging along, it was going to be difficult remaining inconspicuous.

"The Bureau will not identify the prints of any agent in jail,” I explained. “How would the folks at HQ know if a field agent is going undercover as a criminal and wants to be in jail? They only ID the fingerprints off a dead Bureau agent. I'm not missing until roll is taken in the morning."

"Besides, there is a number we can call to get us out of jail on anything but a Murder One charge,” George said, his own M60 resting across his lap.

"What is?” Katrina asked.

He smiled. “1-8-0-0-B-U-R-E-A-U-1-3."

She quickly counted. “But this is too long. American phone numbers only have seven integers.
Da
?"

"Not ours,” George smiled, patting a shapely knee.

As we turned onto Fifth Street, I brought the team up to date on the current situation. Parking the RV by a meter at the curb, Donaher took change to feed the municipal quarter-eater as the rest of us prepped for underground warfare.

Wadding boots was the first thing we wanted, but there were only two pairs. Katrina fixed that by having Mindy slice the boots into rubbery shreds and then magically repairing the pieces into seven whole sets of boots. Now that was a useful trick. Wonder if she could do it with money?

We also took gloves, flashlights, bug-repellant, gas masks and magnesium underwater flares. Plus, an ultra-violet lantern.

After emptying the weapons locker, Jessica was carrying an Uzi machine pistol with a bulbous silencer on the barrel and a pouch of clips over a shoulder. Rare indeed was the fight when my lovely telepath went deliberately armed with lethal weapons. On her back was a canister and pressure tank assembly, with a holstered pistol at the end of a segmented hose. Katrina, George and Ken also had similar tanks. Each was color coded differently.

"Okay, what did you guys come up with?” I asked, smearing on the bug repellant. Good stuff, it had even worked on Them!

Patting her weapon, Jessica spoke. “Mine is a possible stun. It squirts a combination of MSG and DMSO, with a stabilizing agent."

Ah yes, MSG, also known as monosodium glutamate, was a flavor enhancer used in cheap food. It boosted waning tastes by stimulating the nerve endings of the tongue. It also gave terrible headaches and swollen joints to many people sensitive to the stuff. Occasionally even unconsciousness. It would cause these symptoms in anybody who got a massive dose.

DMSO, which stood for something or other, I forget, was a by-product of making paper. Considered useless for decades, the bizarre garlic-tasting chemical had only one known function. It could permeate the entire human body in less than a second. I once participated in a demonstration where I put my finger into a beaker of the stuff and tasted garlic in my mouth. My mouth tasted what my finger was in! Incredible, but generally useless. Mixing the two was brilliant, instant liquid headache. I liked it.

The tanks on Katrina's back were frosty cold with whips of escaping vapor spurted from a release value on top. The hose was heavily insulated, as was the pistol.

"Liquid nitrogen,” she stated proudly, adjusting her thick gloves. They went to her elbows. “Intense cold can crystallize steel, making brittle as glass. What does to flesh is painful to watch. My magic in no way hinders operation of device."

Tucking away the tube of bug goo, I heartily approved. Let's see Mystery Man beat that!

"Ken?” I asked.

"Nothing special,” the man mountain rumbled. “Just 99% pure, concentrated, hydrofluoric acid."

Gasping in horror, I took a step back. Concentrated? Wow, and he was carrying maybe fifty gallons. “You're a brave man, Mr. Sanders."

He nodded in lieu of a salute. “Sir, thank you, sir."

Shy and quiet as always, George had a satchel charge of C4, a pouch of grenades and was sporting the usual M60, plus a backpack jammed full of rolled ammo links. A new feature was the tiny black box clipped under the pitted maw of the long ventilated barrel, a short-range microwave beamer.

"It gives 30 second emissions that cook a man solid as a potato,” he explained, with a fiendish grin. Mr. Renault enjoyed our line of work just a tad too much to be considered normal.

Father Donaher was carrying the usual M1A flamethrower, his favorite weapon for general combat and a sawed-off double barrel shotgun rode in a holster at his hip. Mindy had a triple quiver of arrows on her back, her ever-present sword slung at the waist and a bandoleer of wooden knives across her chest.

Donning combat armor over my street clothes, I put a .44 AutoMag at my hip, a derringer in my boot, checked the action on a M203 and kissed it hello. A combination M16 machine gun and M79 40mm grenade launcher, this handy little deathdealer had gotten me got of more tight squeezes any even the friendliest of lubricants.

A mixed clip of 5.56mm ammo went into the M16 machine gun and a bandoleer of 40mm grenade went across my chest. A thermite shell was thumbed into the underbarrel launcher.

Everybody was wearing a cross.

It was an odd fact, but since Count Dracula was the very first vampire and was Catholic, and violently allergic to garlic and white roses, all of the subsequent vampire created by his biting people and their biting people, and so on, all have the exact same weaknesses.

Also, I also found it amusing that so many folks got Count Vladimir Dracula and Prince Vlad Tepes confused. Yes, both operated in the same section of the world at the same time. Both were named Vlad, and Tepes had the nickname of Dragqul ‘The Dragon'. But the two were entirely different people and bitter enemies. Vlad was the equivalent of ‘John’ in those days. Yes, indeedy, if I ever get to travel through time again, their grand finale duel in the Transylvanian Alps was the very first event I would go out of my way to avoid. Those two guys were dangerous and seriously crazy.

"Should we alert the locals to the possibility of a terrorist attack,” Mindy asked, preparing a haversack of magical supplies for Raul. “So they'll have the ambulances, fire department and such ready."

"Negative,” I stated, testing the spring action on my signet ring. “For the same reasons I couldn't call you over the phone or radio. If the Tanner part of Mystery Man is listening it'd blow the whole show."

Upon arriving, we left Amigo to guard the van and moved individually out of the side door of the vehicle and into the dank alley. When the street was clear to both binoculars and sunglasses, the team scampered into the road, Ken thumbed up the manhole cover and we quickly climbed down a steel ladder. The eighty pound manhole cover was replaced with gentle fingertip pressure.