Team Omega (17 page)

“Think about it,” Chester said.  “We’ve known that superhumans exist since 1979, even if we didn't see an American superhuman until 1980.  It was an event as powerful in our collective zeitgeist as the development of the atomic bomb, or the discovery of the Holocaust.  And yet we as a society have taken a very blinkered view of our superhumans.  We
like
it when they save cats from trees and small children from drowning; we try to avoid thinking about the power they wield, the power that could be turned so easily against us.  So we tell ourselves that most of them are smart enough to realise that they get a better deal by working with us rather than against us, and use the cooperative ones to keep a lid on those less inclined to be cooperative.

“But now, superhumans have stepped forward and started to act independently of the world’s governments,” he continued.  “And suddenly we realise that there’s no longer any security in the world.  It hits us right in the face—there’s no security, and only luck and improvised measures have prevented us from realising it sooner.  What is the President of the United States in a world that includes walking, talking atomic bombs?

“Sam Colt put the power to kill in the hands of the average person.  He made men equal in a very fundamental way.  No one needs real training to handle a pistol, where it took years to become an armour-clad bully boy from the Dark Ages.  Hell, our
country
was founded on the belief that men have the right to own guns that can be used, if necessary, against the government.  But now...what good is a pistol against a man who can shoot laser beams from his eyes or disarm an army before they can blink?  No hiding place, no security...and our country has been hiding from that fact for the last thirty years.  Time has run out.”

“We have created our own superhuman teams,” General Kratman pointed out.  “The SDI has passed all the psychological tests that we devised for them...”

“Tests that are badly flawed,” Chester argued in return.  It had been a sore spot between the SDI and Team Omega ever since the latter had been created.  “As individuals, a human’s ability to cause damage is very limited.  Those who become highly-trained military operatives are built up slowly, each one tested and retested before they are allowed to advance further.  But superhumans?  We don’t really account for their powers in our tests.  How can we account for a person who spent his life in helpless rage suddenly being gifted the power to change the world?

“Hope cares—and our best psychologists say that he will continue to care,” he said.  “But he’s going to discover that healing a country, particularly one as war-torn as the Congo, will be incredibly hard.  He may still succeed, but our people believe that he will become heavily frustrated along the way, maybe even more violent.  Patience has never been one of his characteristics, not when he could merely hit his problems to make them go away.”

“All of a sudden,” Marlowe observed, “you seem to put a lot of faith in your psychologists.”

“The Congo and the Saviours are going to become a powder keg,” Chester warned, ignoring Marlowe’s snide remark.  “I think we have to be braced for trouble—and do what we can to assist them in repairing the country.  Besides, it would be popular.”

“Not with Congress,” the President growled.  “They’re still insisting on a stern warning that further invasions will not be tolerated, a warning backed up by force if necessary.”

“Look at it this way,” Chester said.  “How would we react if some Podunk little microstate issued a warning to
us
?”

“They have,” General Kratman said.  “And we do nothing.”

“Because we have to worry about keeping the world stable,” Chester said.  “Hope does not share our concerns.  And why should he?  In his mixture of idealism and ruthlessness, he will punch the world if it doesn't give him the help he thinks he needs.  This situation will likely grow a great deal worse in the very near future.”

Chapter Seventeen

Von Shrakenberg opened the door and stepped through, sliding on ear protection as he did. A fringe benefit of the budget Team Omega enjoyed was a properly set-up range.  It might not be as advanced as the Shooting House, but it let the troops practice regularly.  He waved to Gunner Bell, a Chief Warrant Officer, who nodded and turned away from watching the monitors.

“Looking for somebody, Shrake?”

“Heard my jarhead is down here, sir.”

“You mean Gasman?”  Bell asked.

“Yeah, him,”

“He's down on lane twelve,” Bell said.  He nodded towards a screen on the display.  “About to shoot right now.”

Von Shrakenberg nodded coolly, then watched the live feed as the targets presented themselves to Jackson.  Jackson’s left hand blurred, snatching the weapon out of the holster on his hip. The pistol bucked in his hands repeatedly before he brought it down, right hand coming up with a speed loader. The empty casings fell to the ground in a clatter, even as the new clip slid into place, before the cylinder snapped back and he holstered the weapon.

Bell nodded in quiet approval.  “8.2 seconds, with a cross-body draw.”

“Nice for a bar trick,” Von Shrakenberg grunted.  “But he won’t be accurate for shit.”

“Heh,” Bell said.  He reached into his pocket and produced two crisp hundred dollar bills.  “Usual rules?”

“Deal.”

The two men stepped out of the booth and walked down to lane twelve.  Jackson was standing there, eying his target thoughtfully.  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, without turning his attention from the target.  “I think I pulled my left hand between the fourth and fifth shots.”

Bell smirked, then produced a silver dollar from his uniform blouse, placing it over the neat grouping of holes. All five fell within the dollar, though the fifth was right on the edge.

“A damned good grouping,” he said.

“Still missing a shot,” Von Shrakenberg muttered.

“The chamber only holds five,” Jackson said, holding up the revolver. 

Bell snickered.  Von Shrakenberg glared at him, then fished two bills out of his wallet and paid up, glaring at Jackson all the time. 

“Thank you,” Bell said, his smirk growing wider.

Von Shrakenberg gave him a nasty look, then shrugged.  “How long has he been doing this?”

“Since Chicago,” Bell said.  “Asked me some questions, then started experimenting and moved on up from there.”

Von Shrakenberg nodded, then looked at Jackson.  “You feel comfortable carrying it?  Concealed?”

“Yes and yes, Sergeant,” Jackson said.

“You have completed the close-protection course?”

***

Jackson took a breath.  Von Shrakenberg wasn't asking for fun.

“Yes,” he said.  Team Omega’s close-protection course involved defending principals from superhumans—and was very pessimistic.  They could do everything right and still see the person they were supposed to defend having his head torn off.  “I can forward you the records if you wish...”

“Don’t ever think that we don't watch you carefully,” the Sergeant growled.  “You will remember Mr. Harrison, of course.  He will be going into the city later this day and you will be going with him, temporarily seconded to him as driver and bodyguard.  We have some reason to believe that he may be going somewhere dangerous.”

Jackson blinked in surprise.  “Why me?”

“Because you need to broaden your experience, and because we need to keep one of the few good political ass-kissers safe,” the Sergeant said, tightly.  “Draw one of the civilian cars from the garage, check everything from the gas to the emergency supplies, and then wait for his arrival.  Consider yourself on detached duty unless we need to deploy Team One.”

Jackson nodded.  Team One was currently on the rest and exercise part of the deployment cycle, while Team Three and Team Four were ready to respond to any superhuman crisis across the nation.  It had sometimes struck him that they were badly overstretched if they had to respond to more than one crisis at once, but the Sergeant had pointed out that politics mandated against giving anti-superhuman training to police SWAT teams, even if they desperately needed it. 

“Yes, sir,” he said.  “Ah...civilian clothes?”

“Make sure you look smart and respectable, but not military,” the Sergeant ordered.  “The garage is expecting you.  Go.”

Jackson tossed him a salute and walked out of the building, towards the compound storing a handful of civilian vehicles.  Team One normally used anonymous vans, but there was a small number of cars for covert operations, all modified in the FBI’s motor pool before being forwarded to Team Omega.  Jackson picked one of the larger cars at random—he had no idea what Harrison might want as his personal vehicle—and ran through the basic checks.  The FBI had supercharged the engine, worked additional armour and bulletproof glass into the bodywork and adjusted the licence plates so they could be altered at the touch of a button.  Jackson had to admit that they’d been very ingenious, but a single Level 4 superhuman could probably tear the vehicle apart with ease.  Superhumans made a mockery out of most protective vehicles, even tanks.  Rumour had it that the President’s personal transport actually
was
something not too dissimilar to a tank.

He picked up the keys, drove the car over to the main block, and parked it while he walked inside to change.  The Sergeant had stipulated looking smart, so he donned a basic business suit, one with a roomy enough jacket to conceal a pistol, his knife and a handful of other devices issued to all Team Omega operatives.  Something else that had never occurred to him before becoming an operator was how best to disguise himself.  Team Omega’s training courses included passing for a civilian, a foreign soldier or even a low-powered superhuman.  His sister, who had had dreams of going to Hollywood and learning how to act, would have loved pretending to be something she wasn't.  Jackson himself wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

And we walk around like slobs
, he thought, wryly. 
The Drill Instructors would cry if they saw us
.

Mr. Harrison appeared twenty minutes later, from the direction of the base’s administration block.  Jackson wondered how he’d gotten onto the base before dismissing the whole question as silly.  The man who was the link between Team Omega and the President presumably had the clearance to walk onto any military base he chose, even Area 51.  He smiled at the thought.  There were rumours that Area 51 had been involved in genetic experimentation that had produced the first superhumans, working from alien DNA recovered from the UFO that had crashed at Roswell.  It was as good a theory as any other; no one, even thirty years after the first superhuman had appeared in Africa, had managed to explain what created superhumans, or why.  There were even crazier theories out on the internet.

“Pleased to meet you again,” Harrison said, as Jackson escorted him out to the car.  “Are you enjoying your time with Team Omega?”

“Yes, sir,” Jackson said.  He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.  “Where exactly are we going?”

“Downtown New York,” Harrison said.  He reached into his wallet and passed Jackson a card with an address written on it.  “Try to forget that you saw that address afterwards.  It is something of a state secret.”

Jackson nodded, inwardly convinced that made no sense.  A CIA safe house, perhaps, or something belonging to the SDI?  New York was pretty much the superhuman capital of the world, even if the entire city had nearly exploded in violence a couple of years ago.  No one was quite sure what had happened—Jackson had only heard rumours, none of them very convincing—but the love affair between New York and superheroes had cooled noticeably. 

He drove out of the base and onto the road that led towards New York.  It would take at least four hours to reach the city, perhaps longer if they ran into heavy traffic.  They did have authority to pose as policemen if necessary, using the federal plates the FBI had added to the car, but that might have attracted attention.  Besides, no one had said anything about them being in a hurry.  If Harrison had wanted to be there quicker, he could have taken a military aircraft and flown to the city.

Harrison spent most of the trip reading papers he'd taken from his briefcase.  Jackson hoped they weren't top secret documents, as they would cause a major problem if they were lost and found by a random civilian.  He'd been warned in no uncertain terms that briefing papers were not to be taken off-base without special permission; when they were taken off-base, they were to be secured carefully.  It was a great deal safer to use USB sticks that the NSA had designed to be inaccessible to anything but government-issue computers. 

Jackson glanced at him from time to time, before looking back at the road.  Traffic was worse close to New York, the roads heavily congested; the car slowed almost to a crawl.  There was no reason to believe they were being hunted, but some of the scenarios Team Omega had worked through in the Shooting House ran through his head.  Slowing a targeted car was often the first step in an ambush.

“You’ve had nearly seven weeks on the job now,” Harrison said, suddenly.  “What do you think of Team Omega?”

Jackson hesitated, remembering the Sergeant’s droll warning.  Anything they said or did would be recorded—and probably used against them by Grimes and his fellow psychologists, when they weren't drawing up useless psychological profiles on dangerous superhumans.  But Harrison was, technically, a superior officer and deserved an answer.

“I enjoy it,” he said.  He wouldn't have become a Marine if he hadn't wanted to test himself—and Team Omega took that to a whole new level.  Besides, they were kept so busy that he didn't have time to get into trouble.  “It’s very challenging—and sometimes it’s disconcerting.”

Harrison smiled.  “Disconcerting?”

Jackson had never been a great wordsmith.  Now he found himself struggling to put it into words.  “It’s a military operation, but at times it seems to be...odd,” he said.  “Like we’re a cross between a military and police unit; spies and cops as well as soldiers.  And most of our enemies don’t really
look
like enemies.”

“That’s been a problem before,” Harrison said.  Jackson looked at him, wondering just how long Team Omega had been in existence.  The files seemed to go back almost ten years, but some of the earlier files had been scrubbed, with all time and date information removed.  It was hard to tell, yet reading between the lines he suspected that whoever had fought those battles hadn't really been part of Team Omega.  “Just keep reminding yourself that most of them can take your head off with a single punch.”

Jackson chuckled - Von Shrakenberg had said the same thing - and then shook his head.  “How did you get involved in Team Omega?”

Harrison laughed.  “You mean how did a civilian like me wind up in charge of a very military operation?” 

Jackson flushed bright red.  There were commanders who would have reacted very badly to any hint of questioning from their subordinates. 

Harrison shrugged.  “President Cheney needed someone who could keep it out of the media—and someone who could take the blame if everything went wrong.  You know how the average person regards superheroes.  One hint of an operation intended to kill superheroes, and the President’s political ratings would fall sharply.”

Jackson nodded.  It made sense—and seemed to fit in with the cutthroat nature of Washington politics.  Superheroes were big business, even ones as unpleasant as the Young Stars; their licensed merchandise probably accounted for a sizable chunk of the country’s GNP.  Charging a superhero with a crime would be like trying to charge Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley, with the added problem that their friends and allies were walking atomic bombs.  From the files he’d read, it was obvious that the local police preferred not to charge any superhero unless there was clear proof, enough to satisfy anyone.  And even then, they tended to be absurdly solicitous of their famous prisoners.

Superheroes seemed to have a lifestyle that the Emperor Nero would envy, as far as he could tell.  The most powerful and famous were millionaires, with everything they could want at hand whenever they wanted it.  Some were surrounded by young female groupies who were willing to do anything for them; at least one, according to the surveillance reports Jackson had seen, slept with a different girl each night.  Jackson wasn't sure if he disliked that because he envied it, or because the superhero took advantage of young girls and then pushed them out of his life.  It was a minor miracle that he hadn't been hit with hundreds of paternity suits.