Super (7 page)

E
ric Landers
, head of the NSA and one of, if not
the
most powerful intelligence official in the United States of America, sputters and gags underneath my grip. “Let…me…go,” he gurgles. Actually, he hisses, but it’s hard to tell if he’s angry or if it’s a byproduct of my vise-like claws around his Adam’s apple. I’m going with a combo of both.

“Not until you tell me why.”

“Why,”—
cough, gag
—“why
what
, Leo?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Who’s setting me up?” He tries to spit out another non-answer, and I finally give up, and let go. This back and forth nonsense will take all night, and besides, the shower of spit is kinda gross, even if it’s coming from His Holiness Landers.

He stumbles away from me, rubbing his throat. He’s grown a mustache since I last saw him, and flecks of spittle dangle from the hair above his lips. “You think somebody is trying to frame you? For what?”

“You know damn well what. I’m losing my patience with this stupid—”

“Leo, for God’s sake. It’s three o’clock in the morning, and I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. I can’t help you…” he says, pleading with his eyes, his hands, “I
really
can’t help you unless you tell me what’s going on.”

I take a deep breath and snort it out in a frustrated huff. If I were a bull in a rodeo ring, I’d be pawing the ground, preparing to charge the idiot clown hiding in the barrel. I’m tempted to mow him down and leave a puddle of NSA goon juice in my wake, but given the expression on his face, I’m inclined to believe that he might be as clueless as he claims. After all, he supposedly handed me over to the DPS, and they’re pretty freaking crappy about sharing information. “Okay, let’s back up a bit. Tell me about the DPS.”

Landers retreats, holding his palms up to me, shaking his head. “That’s beyond my—”

“Eric!”

His hands drop and he looks forlornly at a bottle of scotch sitting on the wet bar. He’s been sober for twelve years and that particular bottle keeps him honest. It’s a constant test of willpower; at least that’s what he’s told me before. I couldn’t say whether it’s true or not, but he’s salivating. He resists however, and, instead, he pulls a can of diet soda from the mini-fridge near his thigh. The top hisses when he pops it. He offers me one, and I decline, telling him to get on with it.

To speed things up, I explain to him what Phil had learned about Direct Protection Services and Landers says, “Then, believe it or not, you know as much as I do.”

“You’re the head of the NSA, Eric. How can you
not
know about a department that’s operating under your nose? You don’t have any operatives inside their ranks? You haven’t tried to sneak some info? C’mon, I’m not buying it. You probably know what I had for breakfast this morning. How does anything this big get past you?”

“It gets past you when you don’t have access, Leo. DPS is all George Silver. He’s got his little band of cronies running around, pulling rank on all my agents, stealing my assets,” he says, indicating me. “As far as I know, DPS is there to do exactly what your pop said it does. They’re sweepers. They clean up messes—the kind of shit the public would go crazy over. Look at me—
look
—I have nothing to do with them.”

I back up to his sofa and plop down. I point at a cushy looking armchair and motion for him to sit, too. He shakes his head, tells me he’d rather stand, and moves over to the giant picture window overlooking a lawn the size of a football field. I say, “Then help me figure this out, because the way I see it, right now the DPS has two piles of dirt they’re trying to sweep up. First off, these two agents—”

“Kelly and Carter?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah. I thought you didn’t know them?”

“Bulldozed their way into my office a couple weeks ago, demanding I hand you over. Balls the size of grapefruits, but she’s a looker. Doesn’t seem like the type.”

“While that may be true, she’s shady, Eric. Wild swings on loyalty and sanity. How much do you know? She mentioned she got clearance from you to use me for a while.”

“Something about a plot on Palmer. That’s all she’d give me. Silver confirmed it when I checked in, but that’s all I got.”

“She comes to me and says there’s a traitor running with the S.A.’s. Somebody’s trying to kill the President, and it’s one of the people in this support group. Wants me to join it to see if I can find out who.”

“Support group?” He turns to me, confused, eyeing me over the rim of his soda can. In the low light of his study, I can tell that he’s thoroughly mystified. It feels strange to have more information about something than the head of the NSA.

I smirk. It’s not really funny, but damn it’s been a long day, and I think I’m starting to get a little loopy. “It’s called SASS. The Superhero Assassin Support Society. Almost every S.A. out there working gets together to bitch and moan about how hard this life is.”

“No kidding? Isn’t that a bit risky? I mean, what if Billie Bombshell showed up? We’d have to recruit and train an entirely new set of you people.”

“Glad to hear your
current
assets are valuable, but yeah, I’ve said the exact same thing. Look, I could go on and on, but it’s all unnecessary detail. DPS mess number one is this supposed plot against Palmer’s life, and they think it’s someone in SASS.”

“Do you?”

I lean back and cross my arms. Shaking my head and shrugging at the same time, I answer, “I’m no closer to figuring anything out than I was a month ago. That first week, I thought it’d be a cakewalk. To be an elite bunch of assassins, they’re all—every single one of them—they’re all as transparent as plastic wrap, but I’ve got nothing.”

“Interesting.”

“How so?”

“If somebody tells you there’s an idiot in the room and you can’t find him…”

I offer a lifeless chuckle. “Then I’m the idiot. That’s part of the reason I’m here.”

“You think George Silver is setting you up? You really believe he’d dare to get his hands dirty like that?”

I lift a shoulder, let it fall. “I don’t know what I believe any more. And that’s why I’m here. Answers.”

“What’s mess number two?” He drains the last of his soda and tosses it into the trashcan, but not before eyeing the scotch bottle. For a second there, I think he was seriously considering it.

I rub my hands together and push myself up from the couch. I hate admitting what I’m about to say, because from the first moment I was recruited to do this, my last mark had been strictly off-limits. He was too good, too pure. Plus, he’d retired and was no longer considered a relevant entity by anyone in the upper echelons of governmental control...at least not until George Silver lied to me about Patriotman’s intentions.

I ask, “You’ve seen the news lately, haven’t you?”

Eric leans back with his arms out wide with that look of a disappointed parent, as if I’d gotten busted on a Wal-Mart parking lot for underage drinking. “No, you didn’t?”

“I did. I had to.”

“Why?”

I lie and tell him, “You know why, Eric. I say no, and the requests stop coming. It’s always about the money, and, besides, he’d been out of the game for years. Hadn’t done any meaningful work in—God, I couldn’t even tell you how long.”

Three years, actually, but he doesn’t need to know that I’ve been keeping up with Patriotman. Goddamn, it was like murdering an old friend.

“He was off limits, Leo. You know that.”

“Not according to George Silver.” I explained George Silver’s story to Landers, the one about how Patriotman had intended to side with the North Koreans and had a little bit of a Stockholm Syndrome effect on his would-be assassin—the original one—and now said assassin was doing Patriotman’s dirty work for him, or would be, if and when he decided to eliminate President Palmer.

Landers stands there dumbfounded, mouth hanging wide open, unable to process what I’m saying, and I assume it’s due to the fact that Patriotman was the very symbol of nationalistic pride. “How could he do such a thing? I don’t believe it.”

“I couldn’t either, but Silver swore it was true.”

“Now I’m glad you got rid of the son of a bitch.” He puts a hand on his forehead. “All those years, and for what? He turns his back on us the moment we get some nincompoop in office that doesn’t know his head from a hole in the ground? Jesus Christ Almighty.”

I push myself up from the chair. It’s clear that Eric Landers knows nothing. I’m getting zilch accomplished here and I woke the poor bastard up for nothing. “Sorry I wasted your time, Eric. I thought maybe you’d…”

My words trail off because I really don’t know what I was thinking, other than the fact that I’d assumed the head of the
fucking
NSA
would have some answers. I’m angry with him for being so clueless. I’m angry with myself for wasting precious time.

He moves to the window, puts his hands behind his head, and stares out over the kingdom that is his backyard. “No, no, you’re fine,” he reassures me. “I wish I had more for you.”

“Is there anything you can do for me? Anybody to talk to? Questions to ask?”

“I can make some calls, ask around, but I’ll tell you this, Leo, I gotta be careful. This gets on the wrong side of George Silver, I’m out on my ass, maybe even buried.”

I move over beside him, study his face, looking for any signs of malfeasance. When he turns to me, there’s nothing. He simply looks old and tired, and a bit lost now that there’s a group out there with more power than he has.

“So I’m on my own, huh?”

He nods apologetically. “One thing I’m coming back to, Leo—did you know that Silver was
never
a fan of Patriotman?”

“What? No.” News to me, because for as far back as I could remember, from his time in the Senate, up through his reign as governor of Virginia, campaigning for the Presidency himself a couple of times, and then finally onto the cabinet, he’d always been the biggest damn proponent of Patriotman among any political figure out there. Hmm. Now that I think about it, maybe that was why he was crying—or pretending to—the dude had to keep up appearances.

You know, before every word out of his mouth was a big fat honking lie.

“He had to play nice on TV because who the fuck doesn’t like Patriotman, right? If he came out against the defender of the human race, he would’ve been crucified by the media. Dead in the water before his political aspirations ever got off the ground.”

“It goes back that far?”

“Something like twenty-three years, if my math is right.”

“Damn. I was, what, sixteen?”

Yeah, I was sixteen, and I was fairly familiar with Silver, even back then.

I was a big kid, too. I mean, a
big
kid for my age. My classmates called me Pops because I was already shaving and packing on muscle just by looking at weights.

“So what happened?”

Landers turns to me. Just as he opens his mouth, a red dot blinks onto his forehead.

The insane thing is, I know exactly what this is—I’ve had them trained on me who knows how many times. I’ve painted them all over my own targets for the last three years. I know exactly what’s about to happen, but I lack the ability to react. My brain is unwilling, or unprepared, for this to happen right in front of me, especially when I’m not the one initiating it.

My arms go numb. My skin prickles. I manage to lift a hand and squeak out a pitiful, “Get d—”

The glass picture window crackles. Landers grunts when a hole opens in his forehead. His body folds in half as he crumples to the floor.

I
tackle
my West Coast counterparts for the first couple of days, and so far, I’m batting the biggest zero in the history of batting averages. I’ve been spinning it as a “new guy wants to get to know you personally” kind of thing, lest they start talking amongst themselves, wondering why the new weirdo is visiting each of them individually.

I’ve got nothing to show for it.

Which leads me to here—I’m back at home now, in my apartment, preparing to jot down some notes. I’ve got some white noise playing on my cell to block the sounds of Portland outside; the lights are low, and I can’t sleep, which leads me to this: thinking.

It’s what I do.

I flip my notebook open and write down eleven names, checking off the S.A.’s I’ve already visited; then I create a little brainstorm of thought clouds out beside each one.

Charlie Bravo appears to be as clean as the man who shares his name, Charlie Delta. In fact, Charlie Bravo is even mushier than Charlie Delta about how much SASS has helped him “get through it all,” to the point where he’s almost crying he’s so thankful.

Then, Fred McCracken doesn’t come across as fishy in any way, nor do Mike and his wife, Eleanor. They’re two of the best assassins in the world, but they wear matching tracksuits for God’s sake. She uses curlers and wears a muumuu to bed. Mike, when he’s not slipping into some superhero stronghold like an invisible ninja, moonlights as a computer repairman. They’re boring in the real world, but they’re happy. Why would they want to upset that balance? No matter the size of the paycheck, some people just aren’t motivated by the money this job offers.

So, I have to check off both Charlies, the twins Mara and Tara, Fred, Mike, and Eleanor, which leaves Don Weiss, who’s even newer than I am, John Conklin, Charlene, and Dallas. Truth be told, my West Coast people are so clean and lacking in motive that for about three hours, I actually weigh the possibility that being so clean is part of the charade.

Like they were
too
innocent. Like maybe they were all in on it, and I’m the odd man out.

That’s a dumb idea, though, and I toss it. With so many massive egos—even when they’re bruised and looking for comfort—there’s no chance in hell that they would all come together to work on something of this magnitude just to trap me.

Would they?

Nah, not a chance.

None, nada, zero. I know these people. I know their type. I can read them all like the back of the shampoo bottle while I’m taking a dump.

What I can’t figure out is why any one of them would want to eliminate President Palmer. They simply don’t have a reason to unless there are a couple of extra commas in the paycheck, and I can’t see them giving up a good living to be on the run for the remainder of their days.

Why go that big? They may have super-sized egos, but they’re content to live in the shadows and make bucket-loads of money doing what they do.

Historically, Presidential assassination attempts, both successful and unsuccessful, tend to draw a lot of media attention.

You say the names John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald to anybody over the age of ten, they can tell you who, what, where, and when all these years later.

I can guaran-damn-tee you that none of my cohorts whom I’ve questioned have any desire to be known on an international level by the time 2164 rolls around.

Say any one of their names five to fifteen decades from now, and they’re likely to hope the response would be akin to, “Who the fuck is Fred McCracken?”

Not, “Oh, Fred McCracken! He killed President Palmer in the study with a pipe wrench in 2014.”

At this point, I’ve only been to a handful of SASS meetings, and I can already tell you that I’m not a fan of Dallas, the South Korean woman who suffers from compulsive lying. John Conklin is strange, with a capital “strange” and I’m not sure what his problem is yet. He’s fairly new, too, and hasn’t opened up much.

Charlene—the attractive redhead—was there for the first meeting I attended, and I haven’t seen her since the news broke on
Tonight with Don Donner
. According to the others, she’s been dealing with all-encompassing paranoia for a while now, and having her identity revealed on national television can’t help. Don Weiss…I don’t know much about him.

They’re the only four remaining, and they’re scattered all over the US. They specifically fly into Portland—as do the Californians—every Tuesday and Thursday evening, just for SASS. I’ll have to visit the rest of them later, because right now, I have like three hours to get some sleep before my flight to the other side of the world.

I reach over, flick off my bedside lamp, and then I ponder what I’m about to do.

I’m about to kill off the most beloved superhero in the history of tights, muscles, and masks.

It’s bittersweet, if I’m being honest. It’s the end of something that meant more to me than just about anyone on this godforsaken planet.

I close my eyes, and the birds begin to chirp outside before a fitful sleep finally comes.

W
hen I wake
up an hour later, I’m in a state of mild panic because, damn, have I not thought this through. I’m careful, and I’m thorough—really, I swear—but I’ve had so much on my mind lately that I’ve failed to properly plan for Patriotman’s demise.

See, how this usually works is, like I’ve said, I get the call with an order from some suit-wearing, smug old bastard like Eric Landers sitting up in Washington. Next, I take a couple of days of prep time, which mostly means I wait on Phil to gather some intel for me while I pack up my gear, drink a few cocktails to calm my nerves, and then wrestle over which fake passport I’m going to use.

Should I get a fake spray tan and dye my hair? Or go with the shaved head and round glasses look of the unassuming Portland hipster? These are the questions I typically grapple with.

Once it’s settled, I hop on a plane to France, Thailand, or Lansing, Michigan, where I stalk my prey, catch them in an unfortunate situation like sleeping or showering, and I do the deed. I’m in, I’m out, with no traces left behind, and then the news reports will begin some twelve to forty-eight hours later, depending on how beloved the particular superhero was and how long it took an obsessed fan or relative to find them.

The reporters will generally lead with the blood, and it goes something like this, “On
Tonight with Don Donner
, yet another superhero is brutally murdered in her own home. How long will this savagery continue, and who’s behind it? Some say the U.S. government. What do you think? More on the death of the Power Princess after the break.
Tonight’s broadcast is sponsored by Sweetums toilet paper…keeps your bottom neat and sweet
.”

If it bleeds, it leads, right? That’s how the old saying goes? The truth is, at least in my case—and I can’t speak for the others—I tend to lean toward the humane side of the job. A peaceful, resting submergence into the afterlife. There’s
rarely
an instance where I have to resort to guns and full-fledged violence.

Seriously, think about it. These people are superheroes for a reason; speed, strength, genetic mutations, billionaires with ultra-cool, one-of-a-kind gadgets, whatever the case, they know a hundred and ninety-two ways to off a bad guy. It’s better, trust me, to accomplish your mission undetected. Otherwise, you might find yourself getting tossed around like a sack of potatoes and getting beaten like mashed ones.

I made that mistake once, early on, and I still get pains in my leg on really cold days. Regardless, I’m alive, and yeah, that was an epic battle.

Anyway, the reason I’m panicking is this: Patriotman is supposedly in the Maldives on vacation. It’s an extended vacation, really, more like a mini-retirement, and his intent was to come back for another go at fighting crime.

Think of it as Michael Jordan coming back to play for the Wizards, only not as sucky.

While most everyone on the planet will believe whatever manufactured news is on their favorite channel each night, there are others out there—crime units, SALCON, conspiracy theorists—who will question the legitimacy of Patriotman’s death.

Why is this a problem?

I need proof. I need a witness.

And I can only think of one credible person that will suffice.

Damn
.

K
immie answers
the door in a pink tank top and cut-offs made from sweatpants—the ensemble leaves little to the imagination, nipples ripe for nibbling poking through the thin fabric—and as much as I hate to say it, I feel a little wiggle in the worm. If she didn’t hate me with the burning rage of a thousand suns, I would find this hard to ignore. Matter of fact, acknowledging her immediate vitriol takes a backseat as I let my gaze linger a half second too long.

She moves to slam the door in my face, but I manage to sneak my arm inside a millisecond before it crushes flesh and bone. It hurts, because she’s damn strong for her size, and I almost drop the thick stack of hundreds into her foyer.

Instead, I clinch my fingers tighter around the wad of money and sort of shake it at her as she uses her weight to lean in, smashing my arm. With my nose pressed to the open space between the wall and the door, I say, “I need a favor, Kimmikins.”

“Leave, Leo.”

“Honey, listen—”

“No. No, no, no, you do
not
get to call me that
ever
again.” She grunts and leans into the door, and, I have to admit, I’m seriously considering a full-fledged mission abort.

“Would you stop for a second?” I’m bigger than her—like outweighing her by a hundred pounds bigger—and I could easily use my weight to shove her out of the way, but that would only serve to make her angrier. Plus, if I hurt her, I’ll have absolutely zero chance of convincing her to help me out. “Give me thirty seconds.”

“No.” She grunts, struggles, and shoves.

The good thing is, Kimmie has always been greedy, and motivated by money even though she has plenty of it already—two facts that I doubt will ever change—which is why I’m sure this will work if she’ll only hear me out.

“Five grand,” I say. I let go of the stack of bills and it thumps to the floor inside her apartment. “Thirty seconds of your time. If you agree, there’ll be two extra zeroes on the end of that.”

She stops shoving and grunting and leaning on the door long enough to pause and think this over.

Good
, I think.
The zebra still has her stripes.

I feel the pressure ease off the door as she steps back and allows it to slowly swing open.

“Thank you, Kimmie. I’m in something deep and—”

Before I can react, her leg is up in a whip-fast forward kick, burying the top of her foot and those pink-painted toenails into my nads. I let out an
oooph
of pained breath and fall to my knees. I can almost hear her smile around the words as she begins to count, “One, two, three…”

Please allow me to introduce my ex-wife: Kimmie Strand, formerly known as Polly Pettigrew, also known as the Blue Baroness, also known as White Cloud.

I look up, and she’s standing there with her arms crossed, hair up in a ponytail, mouth pinched tight in annoyance and anger, looking as tanned, blonde, blue-eyed, and beautiful as ever.

Three years later, she hasn’t gotten over the fact that I accepted the NSA contract on her life.