Project Northwoods (104 page)

Her own eyes didn’t move. “You wanted him dead,” she said accusingly.

“I won’t deny that,” Arthur responded softly. “But I didn’t want him killed.” The pause between them was uncomfortable and seemed longer due to the gun’s involvement in the proceedings. A slight shift in Julia’s demeanor softened her face, ever so slightly, and the gun seemed to waver in her grip. “I struggled for years to become a villain to embarrass dad. Him being dead and all sort of ruins that,” he said.

“Is that what this is about?” she asked. “You want to be a super villain?” Julia choked as she shook her head. “With dad dead, you team up with the Italian Mob to…” she trailed off as she sucked in air. “… Just make a name for yourself?”

“At that point, it didn’t matter,” he growled. “It was a rescue mission.” He folded his arms defiantly. “Remember, you kidnapped a hundred-and-fifty thousand people?”

“It was for their protection!” she shouted. Arthur had to wonder if she was so angry because she legitimately sided with Arbiter or if his specific presence made her more belligerent. “If you hadn’t fucked everything up, Tim would still be alive…”

“And behind bars!” Arthur interrupted, louder than he intended. He paused, hoping he could regain his composure. “I know I’m not your favorite person. But you and I both know that we can’t let the death ray stay active.” Julia’s gun hand faltered again. “Even with Arbiter out of commission, it’s too great a danger to be left for someone to find.” She seemed to be considering something, readjusting her aim when the gun trailed off too far. “Julia, we can end this.” He offered a weak smile in an attempt to pacify her.

Julia swallowed and worked her jaw, her hand wavering. Finally, she holstered the weapon and turned toward the monitor. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Right,” Arthur agreed, jogging out of the cramped corridor the towers offered him. He sped to the command console and moved toward the keycard slot. Looking up at the monitor, he brought his free hand to his ear. “Mollie, you ready for this?” he asked, the keycard in his other hand hovering above its future home.

“I was programmed ready,” she said in her sing-song manner. Arthur nodded and slid the card into place.

“Who’s Mollie?” Julia asked.

Arthur cast her a glance. “A friend.”

The monitor flickered to life, and the green whirling eye appeared to scan the room. “Freedom’s Sword console activated,” the voice announced.

“Thing gives me the creeps,” Julia muttered, eyes trained up at the green whorl.

“Overseer,” a masculine baritone called out, familiar and distant at the same time. Julia and Arthur whirled around to the source. Someone bled out of the shadows on the catwalk, black robes concealing his figure. “Be a good boy and put Freedom’s Sword in standby,” the man drawled. “And cut communications while you’re at it.”

“I-impossible,” Julia stammered as she stared at the shadows. The voice sent chills down her spine.

“Acknowledged,” Overseer announced.

From the gantry, the figure leapt and landed, hitting the floor in a crouch. The impact sent Arthur back a step as the black-clad shape rose to his full height. A wave of revulsion washed over him as the smiling face of his father beamed at him. “It is so nice to see my children working together for a change.” Neither sibling moved, staring at what should have been a dead man. “My, my, you both look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“F-father…” Arthur stuttered.

“You… you’re supposed to be dead!” Julia shouted.

“Yes I am, aren’t I?” He strode forward, staring up at the green iris of Overseer. “But I could not miss out on the glorious rebirth of super heroes… after all I have worked for.” He cast a sideways glance at Arthur. “After all I had sacrificed.”

“But… but I saw…” Julia said, taking a few steps back.

“You saw my cloak, Gunslinger. Nothing more.” His attention turned toward his daughter. “The dead bodies of Desert Ranger and Tom Gavin, the ash that had once been an Italian goon, and my burning cloak.” He took a step toward her and smiled warmly. “Don’t beat yourself up. It was a natural assumption.”

“Arthur, I cannot activate the configuration utility due to the startup phase,” Mollie squeaked quickly. “We are running out of time.”

Arthur swallowed, eyes darting from his father to the console where the keycard was embedded. He was close enough to maybe reach it… if Dark Saint didn’t intercept him…

His body made the decision before he consciously did, leaping toward the computer. Arthur’s hand brushed up against the card reader… only to have fingers wrap around his throat. He was thrown to the floor as his sister screamed his name. A solitary gunshot thundered. “Oh, Gunslinger, there is no need for the theatrics,” Dark Saint said with a chuckle. From his prone position, Arthur saw his father turn, the flattened slug from his sister’s gun hovering in the air before being plucked away by Dark Saint’s gloved hand. “Arthur always did have problems with touching things that weren’t his.”

“Don’t hurt him, dad,” Julia said, pulling the hammer and aiming her gun one-handed at him. “I won’t let you.”

Dark Saint laughed, clapping his hands together with pleasure. “Wonderful! Wonderful! Getting along at last.” He gestured to his daughter, an unseen force ripping the gun out of her hands. He caught it in mid-air and regarded the weapon. “But if you can’t play nicely, I’ll have to take your toy away.” With a flick, he knocked the cylinder free and set the dismantled revolver on the console.

Arthur rolled onto his back and coughed. “Wildfire,” he croaked.

“Arthur, no!” Mollie squeaked.

“There’s no other way,” he whispered, his hands shaking as he shoved himself to his side, trying to stand.

“My dear son,” Dark Saint said, whipping around at the sound of his voice. “I apologize deeply for forcing you to build your own friends.” The tone was condescending, false pity mixed with mockery. “Especially when I have to kill them.”

“Wha–” Arthur began.

His father cut him off. “Overseer. Quarantine.”

“Acknowledged,” Overseer announced. “Initiating quarantine.”

“Mollie!” Arthur shouted, turning toward the monitor as though he could see her. He scrambled to his feet before a hand clamped down on his shoulder. His father was there, watching the screen along with him.

“Unauthorized activity detected in e-mail servers. Eliminating file,” Overseer said. Arthur collapsed to his knees in the time it took for Mollie to be destroyed. “File deleted.”

“It’s better this way, Arthur. You have a family again,” Dark Saint said. He clapped his hands together triumphantly as he looked at his children. “Why so dour? We are ushering in a new age!”

“You monster…” Arthur growled. He fell forward to his hands. “All this… just for some conspiracy you and your buddies made?” He looked as his father paced back toward his sister, stopping to regard him.

“Project Northwoods is no mere conspiracy, Arthur. It is the means to bring order to the world,” he said, voice devoid of emotion. “I do not expect you to understand at the moment, but you will with time.” He turned back to Julia. “Gunslinger… I am so proud of you.” He held his hand toward his daughter, only to be met with her backing away.

“People died in your name,” she spat.

He nodded sagely. “Of course. It was the way things had to be.”

“But why?” she asked.

He cocked an eyebrow. “In the eighties, it was becoming apparent that the situation between villains and heroes was becoming more and more unstable. The Cold War threatened to go hot after years of stagnation. Villains, rapidly dwindling in numbers and resources, were growing more brazen and violent. Pandora’s Legion had suffered a terrible loss at the hands of Iron Curtain: Cryoman and his family slaughtered, my own body broken. But in my long recovery, I had a vision…”

“A vision of a world free of villains,” Agent Mast interrupted. Her gun was trained on Dark Saint as she stepped from the shadows. “I didn’t ruin the ending, did I?”

Dark Saint laughed. “I suppose, Agent Mast. But it’s hardly about the destination, is it?” He took a step toward her. “A climactic battle between the two groups, supported by neutrals… to achieve such a thing we’d need a tragedy… the likes of which would make the world turn a blind eye to the genocide of villains.”

“The 1988 bombings…” Julia whispered in shock.

Dark Saint pointed to her and winked. “The Soviet Union in the early throes of collapse, a massive attack on our own soil, perpetrated by a coordinated villain cell… well, the populace was terrified. Arbiter and I led the assault to protect our way of life.” He sneered at Mast. “Until someone put a stop to it.”

“Sorry about that,” she hissed.

“No matter.” He tapped his temple. “I had a backup plan.” He crossed to Arthur and yanked him to his feet. “There was always a chance Northwoods would be untenable, and if word got out about the attempt at annihilation… well, retaliation wouldn’t be far behind.” Dark Saint took a deep breath as Arthur worked his way free of his grasp. “So I changed it… developed it… worked within the system that you,” he pointed at Mast, “developed to hamstring our rights.”

Agent Mast growled, “You made the bureaucracy weak, minimizing oversight in order to prevent any kind of intervention as you maneuvered another event into initiating Northwoods again.” She took a step forward. “I was on to your little game from the start.”

“And powerless to stop me,” he said. “I played nice for the cameras, covered my tracks, and left that useless fool Arbiter to his own devices.”

“He was your friend!” Julia shouted.

“He was a means to an end!” Slowly, Dark Saint pivoted to look at Arthur. “Just like my dear son.”

The words seemed to slap Arthur across the face. “What?” he muttered, taking a step backward. His eyes darted away from his family, trying to find something to focus on other than the truth. “You… you planned everything…”

Horror washed over Julia’s face. “You can’t be serious!” She took a defiant step toward her father. “You’re a monster!”

Dark Saint turned his attention to her. Behind him, something rose out of the console, catching Arthur’s eye. “To be fair, fortresses and death rays aren’t really in a hero’s M.O.” He smiled wanly as he looked at his son, Arthur quickly returning the motion to keep the anomaly on the console hidden. “I’d need a villain for that.”

“Everything… everything you ever put me through…” Arthur said in between gasps of air. “I was abandoned so you could live your power trip?” he shouted. The feeling was familiar, a call back to the countless arguments of the past.

“Only physically abandoned, Arthur,” Dark Saint said in an effort to be reassuring. “You are a genius, and heroism would have prevented you from realizing this potential. I had to guide you to the proper path and… pave the way for you.” He smiled. “Who do you think bought your mother’s jewelry whenever you ran out of money?” Julia seemed fazed by this revelation as Arthur looked away from his father. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a look at the thing in the console: a camera. Dark Saint whipped around to Agent Mast and clapped his hands together. “Arthur was the perfect architect. Every time he failed to be approved, his plans were sent to us, allowing me to change the name and start a secret project the moment something interesting crossed my desk.”

“Over the years, you made it harder to follow you,” Agent Mast interjected. “You knew just how to maneuver to keep yourself off my radar.” She took a few steps closer to her target. “Keep all eyes on Arbiter so you could be left to your own devices.”

The two, eyes locked on each other, didn’t notice as Arthur mouthed ‘Mollie?’ to the camera, the thing responding by twisting its lens. The light by the lens flickered in a series of blinks, Arthur splitting his attention between his father and Mollie.

Dark Saint continued to smile, oblivious to the interaction. “Arbiter was a useful distraction.” His eyes glimmered in the faint light of the computer room. “He did his song and dance, while I engineered his PR masterpiece with that insufferable actor Weston Marsh.” He snorted a laugh. “Make civilians love and support him while heroes realized he was the sole voice of reason since 1988.”

“Weston Marsh’s sister made him a valuable asset,” Agent Mast said. “You had someone to threaten.” Arthur’s eyes still flicked from his father to the camera, trying to make it seem like he was paying full attention to his father as he tried to figure out what Mollie was doing.

Dark Saint scoffed at the notion. “Threaten? We do not threaten unregistered villains, Agent Mast.” The corner of his lip curled upward. “It is our duty to eliminate rogue elements.”

“They said she killed herself,” Julia said quietly.

Her father looked over his shoulder, devoid of any readable emotion. “Such inaccuracy in the media these days.” He returned his gaze to Agent Mast. “He proved to be most difficult to corral, but once he knew we meant business and could destroy his career… well, unfortunately, we had to move a bit earlier than expected to get too much of a popularity boost for Arbiter.” He held a finger up and squinted, as though recalling an obscure fact. “But he was still right on the money when Desert Ranger was blown up, so there’s that.”

“You were Arbiter’s friend…” Julia said, shaking her head. “He made you the rallying cry of his mission… and you treated him like he’s not even human.” Arthur realized the flashing light was Morse code when he recognized three quick flashes followed by three long and three short – S.O.S.

No shit, Mol
, he thought with a degree of hostility, even as the code was continuing.

Oblivious to the camera on the console, Dark Saint gave his daughter a dismissive handwave as he snorted in annoyance. “Please. You gave up Claymore to buy yourself time to stop Arbiter’s plan.” Julia swallowed and took a step back. “A move which, if only it had been for the right reasons, would have made me proud.” Dark Saint shook his head disapprovingly. “Sadly, there are others just like you who failed to fit in to the true definition of ‘hero’.”

A gunshot echoed off the walls, and Agent Mast fell face down, snapping Arthur’s attention away from Mollie’s code. She hit the ground, unmoving, as Arthur made an instinctive lurch toward her.