Regenesis (Book 1): Impact (28 page)

“So,
there are others in the group be-besides us?” Nick stopped and repeated his
question without stuttering.

“Glad
you asked Nick.” Mizuno confirmed it, “There are approximately thirty-eight
members, but only twelve confirmed members.” He glanced at Melanie, his eyes
gleamed, and he added, “Not all of the prospective members have declined my
offer, which is why I said ‘approximately.’”

“So
are there different groups in this whole project of yours?”

“No.
We act in one accord and so long as I can help it there are other agents in
various areas of the world who only wait for the call to act. I try to handle
everything on my own and if and when I need you all, I’ll call.”

“So
we’re nothing but tools to you?” Mithra questioned.

Mizuno
groaned, “Would you two shut up? We’re here because Nick needs training, not
because I want to hear you two gripe.”

They
were quiet the rest of the climb to the roof. Once they reached the door at the
top of the stairwell, Mizuno opened it and an overpowering heat swept over
them. It was bright and dusty and it took Nick a moment for his eyes to adjust.
But after they did, he found one other soul on the opposite end of the building
hunched over a sniper rifle and a duffel bag. He wore a black dress shirt and
tan dress pants; a black duffel bag lay on the roof next to him. On his belt
was a pearl mask with the silver outline of a ghost.

Mithra
and Melanie stopped dead in their tracks. Nick asked, “What is it?”

Mithra
couldn’t speak, but Melanie, who trembled, whispered, “Him…Wh-Wh-Why is he
h-here?”

Mizuno’s
expression was as serious as Nick had ever seen him. He answered, “He’s here to
do what I am paying him for,” he paused, “Strom, now if you don’t mind,” and
then quickly added, “The boy, by the way.”

The
man was still and didn’t even breathe, but then a shot was fired. The man had
pulled out a handgun off of his belt and fired one shot at Nick’s forehead
without so much as looking at Nick. The bullet vanished before it would have
hit Nick and became nothing more than tendrils of black smoke that flew past
him.

Nick
felt his heart beat hard and fast.

Mizuno
was the only one who moved; he walked without hesitation toward the man,
retrieved a sum of money from his coat and handed it to him. “Half now,” he
muttered.

“Of
course,” the man agreed, in a German accent. He turned and faced the group. He
was a large man with very short brown hair, glasses, and on his face, beneath
his right cheek bone, was a small horizontal scar. He looked at Nick and asked
Mizuno, “Is he any good?”

“No,
that’s why I hired you.”

“True.”

“Stop,”
Mithra finally spoke. He cautiously walked forward and asked Mizuno, “You asked
him to come here?”

“I
did.”

“Why
the hell would you do that?”

“Calm
down.”

“No!
You answer me! Why is that person here?”

“It’s
not your business.”

“Answer
me or I’m leaving the group.”

“M-M-Me
too,” Melanie finally spoke up.

“He’s
only going to be working with Nick.”

“What’s
wrong?” Nick asked.

“Don’t
you know who that man is?” Mithra whispered. Nick shook his head.

“Allow
me to introduce myself,” the man said as he hoisted his rifle into his arms,
“I’m the German Hostile Operative Strom Trenor, the world’s greatest assassin.”

---*---

3:02
AM

Baltimore,
Maryland

“You
haven’t heard anything yet have you?” Geoff Murdock asked Detective Felton.

“If
I had I sure as hell wouldn’t be up at this hour,” Felton retorted. He stopped
himself and apologized to the sergeant. “It’s just been–”

“I
get it, I’m sorry.”

They
stood hunched over Detective sage’s desk and tried to sort through the mess the
detective left behind. Sage was the expert on the investigation, and although
Detective Felton assisted him in the process, Sage was leaps and bounds ahead
of him in terms of understanding Cladis’ methods and patterns. Detective Sage
hadn’t turned up since he escaped the hospital, despite the station’s best
efforts to find him.

“Who’s
at his home again?” Sergeant Murdock asked.

“Officer
Hendricks. She volunteered.”

“Anyone
with her?”

Felton
shook his head. “I offered Brown or Kato but she said she’d be fine.”

“Nothing
I take it?”

“Nothing
at all, but she did tell me that from the looks of things Ryan hasn’t been home
in quite some time.”

Murdock
frowned and asked how she could tell.

“Hendricks
asked around and no one’s seen him in nearly a week,” he reported. “A few of
them didn’t know he still lived there. So odds are Ryan won’t return there.”

Murdock
scratched at the back of his head and asked whether Felton believed Ryan was
hiding from them. “The man’s injured, crippled actually, and you’re suggesting
he’s hiding?”

Felton
sighed and said he wasn’t sure what to think. “Have you read the report of how
he disappeared? It says he jumped out of a damn hole in the hospital wall. The
hole’s the size of this room and moreover, how the hell was he able to move
enough to get to the window let alone leap out of it.”

“And
his room’s a few flights up, I know,” Murdock finished. “I read it too.”

“It
doesn’t make sense.”

“No
it does not.” Sergeant Murdock looked through the notes and litter strewn
across the detective’s desk. At a glance he couldn’t tell what was a part of
the investigation and what was garbage from week old takeout. “We need to get
someone in here to sort through this and clean it up. It’s still a health
violation whether he’s on a case or not.” Murdock leafed through a few other
notes before he asked Felton who he thought the next victim would be. “We
didn’t have an opportunity to pick his brain before he vanished. Do you think
we’ve lost the trail?”

Detective
Felton muttered that he wasn’t even sure they were on the trail to begin with.

---*---

9:36
AM

Mumbai,
India

“Calm
down.”

“No,
I will not associate myself with that monster!” Mithra yelled.

“Watch
it,” Strom told him with a glare.

“I’ve
already told you, I hired Strom to teach Nick about his ability–”

“You
never said that until we arrived,” Mithra spat. “And you didn’t say it was this
murderer who would teach him!”

“And
what if I had?” Mizuno asked him. “You would have lashed out, just like you are
now, and we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere.”

Nick
remained where he was since Strom tried to shoot him in the head. It wasn’t
terror that planted him where he stood (as was the case for Melanie), Nick
simply wasn’t sure he wanted clarification as to why Mizuno planned on using a
serial killer as an instructor or even what Nick’s abilities were. Mithra was
red in the face and though Mizuno seemed calm Nick could tell the Japanese man
quickly lost his patience.

“Mithra,”
Mizuno continued, “I know how difficult this is but you’re going to have to
trust me. This is all for the project.”

“How?”
he snapped, “What part could he possibly play?”

“He’s
going to train Nick.”

“To
be what? A killer?”

Mizuno
swore, “Mithra, please shut your mouth and trust me, alright?” He looked at
Nick and told him to join him. Nick obeyed, though he tried to keep a bit of a
distance from Strom, who sat completely relaxed and intrigued by Mizuno’s
actions. “Strom I’d like to borrow your Zastava M76 if you don’t mind.”

Strom
shrugged and walked it over to him. Mizuno set the rather large rifle on the
edge of the building, looked through the sights, and after everything was
satisfactory he told Nick to crouch at the edge of the building, press the butt
of the rifle against his right shoulder, wrap his first two fingers around the
trigger, breathe evenly, and steady the rifle with his left hand.

“There’s
an empty bottle on the roof of the building across the way,” Mizuno instructed
the young man, “Take as accurate of an aim as you can and once you’re ready
fire at the item. Use the scope to take aim by setting the object between the
crosshairs and fire once you’re ready.”

Nick
nodded and after a few seconds found the bottle, lined up the sights as Mizuno
told him and pulled the trigger. He couldn’t tell if he hit the bottle or not
as he failed to brace himself for the recoil from the shot.

Mizuno
immediately seized the rifle from Nick (as the weapon nearly flew out of Nick’s
grasp and off the roof) and Strom laughed at the poor shot. Mizuno returned the
rifle to the assassin, pulled Nick back up to his feet, and asked Strom, “Did
he hit the bottle?”

Strom
removed his glasses, looked over to where the bottle was, and nodded. He put
his glasses back on and congratulated Nick. “That was a five-hundred meter shot
you just made.”

“That’s
approximately five-hundred forty-six and eighty-one-hundredths yards,” Mizuno
clarified.

Nick
tried in vain to wipe the dirt off of his clothes and asked, “Wh-What was the
p-p-point of th-that?”

They
all looked for an answer from Mizuno, but the Japanese man simply waited for
Nick to repeat the question without stuttering, which he did after one other
failed attempt. Mizuno folded his arms across his chest and took a seat on the
ledge of the building. “Nick, close your eyes and concentrate. Picture the
rifle in your hands. Remember the color, the weight, the feel, the kick, the
design, and the smell of it after you fired. Just try to remember everything.”

Nick
nodded and did as he was told. They all waited in silence for nearly a minute
before a cloud of smoke erupted around Nick. Once it cleared they all found
Nick standing there with an exact replica of the rifle he held minutes before.

“Holy
shit,” the German swore with his eyes wide. “Did…Did he just make a Zastava M76
out of thin air?”

Mithra,
Melanie, and Nick all stood amazed at the feat as well, though Nick most of
all, as he’d never witnessed anything of that sort other than when Strom shot
at him.

“I
told you he was going to be great.” Mizuno smirked, “Explain everything to
him.”

“Okay,”
the man brought out his and began to explain the weapon, “This is a Zastava M76
sniper rifle. It’s good, it’s Serbian, and it’s my favorite.” He pointed to the
barrel of the gun, “That’s a suppressor; it muffles the shot which allows you
to remain hidden when you’re sniping people out.” He then flipped to the butt
of the gun, “Synthetic polymer, I prefer black. It’s not really important what
color it is, but material does matter. And all of my weapons have one of
these,” he said as he pointed to a small emblem on the end of the gun. A small
ghost emblem was emblazoned there.

Nick
checked his weapon to see if the emblem was there as well and discovered it
was. “Like this?” he asked the man.

The
German walked over, grabbed the gun, and took a look. He grinned, “Exactly like
that.” He glanced over at Mizuno and asked, “Where’d you find this kid anyway?”

“Seattle,”
he muttered, “Get back to the point,” he told him as he pointed back to the
rifle.

Strom
nodded, “Of course, of course…Well you get about an eight-hundred meter range
with this–”

“That’s
eight-hundred and seventy-five yards,” Mizuno elucidated.

“Yes,
but if you get really good you can push a thousand or more.”

“H-How…How
good are y-y…How good are you?”

“He’s
the best,” Mizuno answered. “I’ve crossed paths with sharpshooters and a wide
variety of gunman across the world and he is by far the best.”

“The
best at what?” Mithra scoffed.

“The
best at blowing off the heads of people other people want dead,” Mizuno flatly
answered. “I’d appreciate it if you simply kept quiet until we all left, that
way you don’t have to deal with him and Strom won’t provoke you.”

“Yeah
why is that?” Strom asked. “Why are you so pissed at me? I mean, besides my
profession that is.”

Mithra
readied himself to continue his argument but Mizuno answered for him. “You
killed his father about six years ago.”

“Oh,”
Strom nodded. “That would explain things.”

Mithra
scowled at Mizuno and barked, “You can’t simply act as if it was nothing
Mizuno!”

“I’m
not,” Mizuno defended himself, “It was a travesty that your father was killed,
but Strom was nothing more than a weapon. You should be wroth with the
individual who hired him to kill your father.”

“But
who just kills people for money?” Mithra asked, “What sort of monster does
that?”