Midnight Squad: The Grim (33 page)

           
General Terwillicker stepped out. I stood at attention.
Unfortunately, the girls all just stood around so it made the lack of
traditional military discipline even more obvious. The general gave me a look
like he smelled something bad. When he got closer he looked past me like I
wasn’t even there. In fact he ignored all of us except for our boss. He
whispered a few words to Elizabeth, but it was too noisy for us to hear what
he’d said. It must have been something good considering how she suddenly became
giddy with excitement.
“Sergeant!”
General Terwilliker
squeaked. His voice was high pitched like he was ready to sing a chipmunk
Christmas. I fought to keep my expression neutral as I stepped up to exchange
salutes, and then the general chirped, “Sergeant! I want to thank you for your
services. You’ll be receiving a commendation for your efforts. While I find it
more than grating that you haven’t trained these…young women the discipline that
normally I’d expect, Elizabeth has assured me that you and they excelled in the
other phases of training. I’m proud to congratulate you Sergeant on handling
this very unorthodox mission effectively. Your efforts are going to usher in a
brave new world. For that I can’t thank you enough, and while I am thankful for
all your efforts, I am sorry to advise that your services are no longer
necessary. We will be leaving a vehicle for you to drive home in. Just contact
Elizabeth in a few days and she’ll have your gear and money transferred
anywhere you’d like. As for everyone else, I’m glad to say that I have other
positions for the rest of you ladies.”

           
My heart sank. Even though I knew that they probably
wouldn’t be keeping me, I still had a faint hope that they might have some use
for me. Now I was gonna have to face facts. I was between jobs. I had no real
employable skills. The ability to kill a man with a crazy straw isn’t exactly
something you can put on a resume at Wal-Mart. I was a thirty year old burnt
out soldier with documented time in a psychiatric ward. I’d be lucky if someone
would hire me to flip burgers. My chest clenched, but I never showed it on my
face. I still had my pride, and so I had to see this out as professionally as
possible. I nodded and returned to my place. Also, I didn’t want to rain on the
girls’ parade. They were moving on, and moving up. They deserved my support.

           
“Ladies, if you’ll please step into the transport. It’s a
long drive, but I trust you’ll find it comfortable. Elizabeth, Doctor, and
Daphne
is
it? I reserved a place for each of you in
the copter.” The General spun on his heal and stepped back into the helicopter.
The dude has all the personality of wall paint. The girls hugged me before they
hopped up into the large eighteen-wheeler trailer. It looked like they
converted the trailer to be more of a highly armored party bus. There was
practically every creature comfort.

           
“I think I’ll miss you most of all scarecrow.” Penny joked.
She was smiling, but her eyes were so sad. I wrapped my arms around her and
hugged her for all I was worth. I tried to keep it light by returning the
favor, “A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are
loved by others.” Why is it that right now the only quote I could remember from
the Wizard of Oz made me sound so sappy? Penny nuzzled in, and I didn’t want to
let her go. It was just one of those perfect moments where you have everything
you want, and for a moment time just stops. Elizabeth cleared her throat and we
both separated. I felt my face flush a little, and I may have had to blink away
tears.

           
“Sergeant, as a show of appreciation I’d like to give you
the opportunity to go down and transport Alhambra up to the second trailer.
Sitting on my desk are some restraints. We designed them specifically to hold
the Jinn. If you’ll take them down to her level and put her in those restraints
please. Then bring her back up and put her in the second transport. She’ll
spend a long time in custody. I thought letting you put the restraints on her
would be the best thanks I could give. Also since you are headed back down,
could you please take this and leave it on the desk.” Elizabeth then unsnapped
that gaudy necklace that had kept an almost permanent residence just above her
cleavage. She handed it to me and I moved back to the elevator. Penny and the
girls were already rolling away in the first transport. Elizabeth was walking
with the others to the chopper. The second transport, was just idling. A large
detail of guards surrounded it. They were waiting on me.

           
My mind was racing in a dozen different directions. I
struck the button to go down. When I got there, the elevator doors popped open.
I went to Elizabeth’s room and snatched up the restraints. I started to head
down to Alhambra’s level when a thought slipped into my head. In theory these
restraints would hold her, but who knew. I turned around and slipped into the
security room. I snatched up a few “attitude adjusters”. I grabbed a Pancor
Jackhammer. I’d been drooling over it since I first saw it, a fully functioning
shotgun that operated like a machine gun. What can I say?
The
thought of firing a shotgun that has a rate of fire of two hundred and forty
rounds per minute gets me hard.
I’m not exactly a complicated man, and
since there were only a couple ever made it was like getting to put my hands on
a piece of military treasure.
 

           
I wanted to try it out since I first saw it, but nothing
during our training ever gave me a chance. I first was using a machine gun, and
then eventually had moved to a sniper rifle. Everyday I’d look over at that
sweet piece of equipment, and then I’d have to bypass it for a more traditional
weapon. I had hoped we’d have eventually gotten to work on some room clearing
exercises, and then I’d have had an excuse to pull out that puppy. Well if this
was going to be my last day here then I was going to roll out in style. It felt
so good in my hands, like it was Christmas, and I’d just unwrapped the biggest
and best present. It came with a few detonators, and three extra drum magazines
for the twelve gauge shells. I clipped them onto my pants.

           
Since I’d snatched up the Pancor, I figured I might as
well equip the stuff I’d probably never get to use again in my life. In the
corner was an Electromagnetic Personnel Interdiction
Control,
or E.P.I.C. for short. It was an awesome bit of nonlethality. Shooting someone
with it would give them the worst case of motion sickness ever. You can’t put
up much of a fight when you’re vomiting up your insides. It looked kind of like
a boxy rifle. I pictured Alhambra doubled over vomiting her herself inside out,
and I admit it. I got a perverse sense of joy.

           
I even grabbed an FMG9 submachine gun. It looks like a
flashlight, but then unfolds out into a fully functioning, fully automatic
weapon that fired nine-millimeter hollow points. I was in, as Niki would say,
“Gun-nut heaven.” On the way out I grabbed a Raging Bull model 500. It held
five rounds. It was a revolver that would have made Dirty Harry cream in his
shorts. Hunters use it to put down buffalo and elephants. It was ridiculously
overpowered, but it was also very reliable. The other weapons were prototypes
and experimental. This baby was the real deal. Besides, from what I’d seen
nothing could really stop Alhambra, but I figured if need be then this would at
least get her attention. I grabbed a few speed loaders for the Raging Bull,
because Dad would crawl up my ass if he ever caught me carrying a weapon
without at least two changes of ammo.

           
I slipped into the elevator. The Raging Bull was on a
holster on my hip. The FMG and the E.P.I.C. were on straps. The E.P.I.C was on
my back, and the FMG swung against my other hip. I was holding the Pancor in my
right hand. The barrel rested against my shoulder as it pointed towards the
ceiling. I looked like I was ready to kick some serious ass. The elevator
opened and the lights went off. That wasn’t a good sign, but I pressed on. The
FMG light flickered on and I began moving towards Alhambra’s security door. It
swung open and Alhambra glared back at me. “Well Joseph, I have to say I never
thought I’d die in such poor company.”

           
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I growled. The
FMG’s light circled Alhambra like a spotlight. The Jinn stood at the door and
sighed, “You haven’t figured it out yet? I thought you were a lot smarter than
this. This all has been my mate’s way of killing two birds with one stone. He
gets rid of you and me both. It’s genius really, so it surely can’t really be
his idea. Now that the end is here, I really think I haven’t given Elizabeth
nearly enough credit. I knew she was disturbed, and truly wicked, but I
certainly didn’t think she was as smart as this.”

           
“Your mate?
Your mate! Explain!”
I leveled the Pancor at her nose. Alhambra was unfazed, “After all this time,
how can you possibly be this dense? General Terwillicker is my mate. He made me
long ago. He’s a pencil pushing moron, but power hungry. That bastard has been
biding his time trying to build an army, and now you’ve given him everything he
could hope for. He wants to use the clones to build a ready-made army to take
over this country. If he controls America then he is also simultaneously
crippling the rest of the world. I’ve been trying to throw a monkey wrench into
his plans all this time, but then you came. Now he’ll kill us both, and
everything he’s hoped for can be realized. He’ll have an army, and Elizabeth
will soon replace me as his Jinn.

You
see when a male
Jinn
creates a mate. He has complete
control over them. A female
Jinn
, despite our power,
is a complete slave to their mate. The only balance is our containment vessel.
It’s what the male uses to store our soul. Whoever has my vessel can override
the wishes of my mate.
A jinn
can’t touch the vessel,
and if he does then it would steal his soul as well.”

           
“The necklace?”
That piece of
jewelry that Elizabeth had me put on her desk held Alhambra’s soul. That was
how Elizabeth kept the Jinn under control all this time. Alhambra just nodded
as pieces started falling into place. I was lost in thought when an overhead
speaker came on. Elizabeth’s voice crackled, “Sergeant. I’m sorry, but Eisen
and I think this is for the best. You’re a brave man, but too stubborn for your
own good. Eisen says you’d likely come after us if you could, and he does hate
loose ends. Therefore, we decided to remove you from the equation. Alhambra,
I’d love to say that I’ll miss you, but frankly, you should have been put down
like the rabid dog you are a long time ago. Don’t worry because once you’re
gone Eisen will make me into his new mate. You never appreciated all the power
he gave you, and I think it’s about time Eisen had a supportive woman to help
him rule. Together we’ll crush everyone like the insignificant worms they are,
and we’ll start with you two. Don’t worry though, the others will be joining
you both real soon. We just need to get them all into a lab so that we can tear
them apart and figure out how their powers actually work. Can you imagine a
full battalion of vampire soldiers, or werewolves? What about a strike team of
witches, and if we can figure out how to make and control ghosts, could you
imagine all the possibilities? It’s almost a shame that none of you will be
around to see it. Goodbye!” The speaker cut off.

           
Alhambra screamed. She was so angry that she wasn’t even
speaking English anymore. It sounded like Arabic but I didn’t understand any of
her crazy jibber-jabber. The power came on and a monotone computer voice came
out on the speakers. “Self-destruct in twenty minutes.” Well if that’s not a
double dip of donkey shit then I don‘t know what is! I ran to the elevator, hit
the button, but nothing came of it.
“Seriously?
Joseph, you couldn’t possibly have thought that they’d set us up like this and
you could just ride the elevator out of here.” I glared at the Jinn, but she
was right. I asked, “Any ideas?”

           
“Well to be honest…no, but then again normally I’d have
my powers. My mate has ordered me not to use them, so unless you have my
necklace in your pocket I think we’re as good as dead.” Alhambra slumped to the
floor. She’d given up. “Well at least I’ll finally be free. I wonder if it’s
going to hurt. Will I just stop, or will I go somewhere else?”

           
I stared at her in disgust.
My mind
clawing for an escape.
They reinforced the elevator doors on this level.
If we were on a different floor I could have pried open the doors and made my
way to Elizabeth’s office. We were trapped. A slight rattle caught my
attention. It was a large air conditioning vent, and a light bulb came on. I
made a beeline to the vent. There was a steel grate over it, but it was very
thin. I grabbed one of the drum magazines for the Pancor. “Got any tape?”
Alhambra responded, “Of course, but what good will
that do
?”
I glared at her, and she eventually went back into her rooms. It wasn’t long
before she brought out some duct tape. I slipped a detonator onto the drum
magazine. I then taped it up to the grate.

           
It detonated. That was the beauty of the Pancor. The drum
magazines could be used like an antipersonnel mine. It blew the grate apart. I
had two additional spare drum magazines. If I could make it to another floor, I
could blow the elevator doors and make my way to Elizabeth’s office. Alhambra
watched me and snorted, “Really? You don’t really think you can escape do you?”
I didn’t even acknowledge her. I started scampering into the vent.