Team Omega (28 page)

Dreamy Girl herself wore a garment that shrouded her entire body in a shapeless piece of cloth.  Dana made noises about forcing her to take it off, but didn't push it; Jackson couldn't tell if she was sympathetic to Dreamy Girl’s requests, grimly aware that exposing her would distract everyone, or merely unwilling to risk the lawsuits.  It wasn't as if Dreamy Girl was a penniless civilian who could be pushed around safely.  She sat in one corner of the room and completely ignored everyone else, even her so-called close, personal friend.  That worthy just kept making eyes at the soldiers.

“Chris, you and I will remain here,” Lane said.  “Dana, Ron, and Jackson will start searching the private compartment.  Keep in touch and don’t hesitate to sing out if you find anything.”

Jackson nodded and followed Ron and Dana through the doors into the private section, looking around for signs of luxury—or criminal activity.  The interior reminded him of a rather tacky hotel, although it was in better taste than the pictures he'd seen of the interior of the Young Stars hangout.  A large painting of Babe Ruth dominated the corridor, surrounded by images of lesser baseball players and a handful of rock stars.  He hadn't known that the Beatles had played in Washington until he saw pictures of them entertaining the President. 

“There aren't enough of us,” Ron said.  “It will take hours to search this building properly.”

“We should have the rest of your team once they’ve finished with the public part of the stadium,” Dana said, calmly.  She didn't seem intimidated or wowed by the operators, but it was quite possible that her superiors hadn't told her everything about Team Omega.  “This search will mark down areas for later attention, if we manage to get a complete FBI team out here.”

Jackson and Ron exchanged glanced as Dana stopped in front of a large pair of doors decorated with golden stars.  “Locked,” she said.  Before Jackson could say anything, she produced a lock pick from her pocket and fiddled with the lock, which clicked open a moment later.  None of the operators could have done it any quicker.  “Let’s see what she has in her private rooms.”

The smell struck them as soon as they opened the door.  It took Jackson several moments to place it as the smell of junk food, emanating from a pile of pizza and burger wrappers on one of the large tables.  The room didn't seem to have any air conditioning at all, let alone a window allowing the occupant to look out over Washington, or into the stadium.  Jackson was used to barracks intended for hundreds of soldiers, but even he would have found the suite a little claustrophobic.  The other rooms were crammed with bags of clothes, and a single golden mirror.

Ron posed in front of it with a grin.  “Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who’s the...”

“I have it on good authority that you’re too ugly for anything other than pity sex,” Jackson said, dryly.  “Why would someone like her need a mirror?”

“Perhaps because she needs to know what she looks like,” Dana said.  She scowled at the pair of them.  “I suggest that we concentrate on searching this place and leaving the clowning until later.  We can't legally hold them for very long; it isn't as if they’re under arrest.”

“And the lawyers would have a field day,” Ron agreed.  He picked up a bra and studied it thoughtfully.  “How many bras does the woman have?”

Jackson followed his gaze.  Several bags appeared to be crammed with bras; if that was all they held, Dreamy Girl had to have over a thousand bras in the room.  It wasn't the only thing she had in vast quantities; there were panties, shirts and nightgowns in thousands of different colours and styles.  One brand name leapt out at him, a fantastically expensive designer brand that charged upwards of five hundred dollars for a mere purse. 

“
Men
,” Dana said, with some irritation.  “Did you notice anything interesting about the shirts?”

“No,” Jackson said, slowly.

Dana picked one up and held it in front of her chest.  “It’s big,” Ron said, slowly.  “Much bigger than you need.”

“Quite,” Dana agreed.  “And the bras are huge too.  And so is the garment she was wearing when she came to wait with her staff.  Tell me...what do you think she really looks like?”

Jackson tried to envisage the woman who would need such a huge shirt.  The mental picture wasn't pretty.

“Fat,” Dana said.  She put on an expression that suggested insufferable superiority.  “And there you are, drooling over an illusion.”

She paused, looking down into the bathroom.  “And what the hell is this?”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Jackson had expected the bathroom to be luxurious, but he hadn't realised just how big it would be.  There was a shower, a bathtub large enough for three people and a sink, as well as a selection of towels, shampoos and designer hairsprays from a dozen different brands.  Dana ignored the luxury, moving straight to the bathtub and peering at the plug.  It was surrounded by black ashes. 

“Interesting,” she said, pulling on a rubber glove and picking up a tiny sample of the ash.  “I wonder what this is...”

“Cigarette ash?” Jackson hazarded.  “The anti-smoking mafia might have convinced the owners to ban smoking within the stadium.”

“You think that would have stopped them from allowing her to smoke?”  Dana asked, dryly.  “Dreamy Girl brought them millions; they’d be happy giving her pretty much anything she wanted in exchange.  Look at all the concessions they made to her privacy.  They wouldn't do that for any random stranger off the streets.”

Jackson nodded, slowly.  “So what’s the ash?”

“I have no idea,” Dana said.  She sniffed it thoughtfully.  “Doesn't smell of fire, almost as if whatever caused the ash wasn’t a real fire...”

Her face darkened suddenly.  “Smell it,” she said, extending her fingers towards Ron.  “Doesn’t it smell familiar?”

Ron shuddered.  “Burning human flesh,” he said, darkly.  Burnt flesh wasn't uncommon on military operations—and there were superhumans who used fire as a weapon.  Several operators had left Team Omega because they were too badly burned to continue to serve.  “Someone burned a human body in the bathtub.”

“Maybe,” Dana said.  She picked up her cell phone and looked down at it.  “I’m not a forensic expert—we’ll have to call someone in to look at the ashes and do a DNA test—but the tub isn't even scorched.  The fire happened somewhere else and they tried to wash the ashes down the bathtub into the sewers.”

“Fuck,” Jackson said, grimly.  Parker Lewis had been fourteen years old, with his entire life ahead of him.  Now...if this
was
Parker Lewis, they were looking at his remains.  “What the hell did Dreamy Girl
do
to him?”

“I would hesitate to speculate,” Dana said.  She clicked her cell phone and called the FBI’s office.  “This is Anderson; I need a forensic team out here now.”

Jackson listened as she rattled out a description of what she was seeing, including snapping photographs with a modified digital camera of the crime scene.  The FBI would start analysing them even before the forensic team arrived to start dissecting the entire suite piece by piece.  Ron stepped back and nodded for Jackson to follow him back into the main room, looking over at the remains of someone’s feast.  It was possible that Dreamy Girl had ordered the food to cover the smell of burned ashes.  They hadn't smelled anything until they’d found the ash themselves.

“Damn it,” Dana said, as she finished her call.  “Should have had the team on standby, or brought them with me, but the Director was worried about the political implications.  That smarmy bastard back there shelled out a vast amount of money in a city where everything is up for sale; we start prodding too hard at Dreamy Girl, we get roped in by our superiors and crucified by the media.”

“I need to inform the Captain,” Ron said.  Jackson cursed himself.  He should have thought of that too.  “And then...do we arrest Dreamy Girl on suspicion of murder?”

“I should have convinced the FBI to give me that all-female team I wanted,” Dana said, without answering the question.  “One look at her unveiled and you’ll be too distracted to arrest anyone.”

She shook her head.  “The forensic team should be here in twenty minutes,” she added.  “Call your Captain, but don't let the suspects know that you’ve found anything.  I assume you have a procedure for that?”

Ron nodded and activated his communicator.  “Oscar-Blue-Sierra,” he said, a term meaningless to anyone outside Team Omega.  “Confirm, over.”

There was a pause as Lane sought privacy.  “Confirmed,” his voice said in their earpieces.  “Go ahead.”

“We have evidence of at least one body destroyed, perhaps by extra-normal means,” Ron said.  “Dreamy Girl may have become the number one suspect in the disappearance of Parker Lewis and the others.  Code Black; I say again, Code Black.  The forensic team is on its way to attempt to ID the dead body...”

“I’ll call in the others,” Lane said.  “Remain with Agent Anderson and don’t allow
anyone
to contaminate the crime scene.”

Jackson nodded to himself.  At least Dreamy Girl didn't have any abilities apart from her ability to look like the most desirable woman in the world.  Or, he reminded himself sharply, they
thought
she had no other superpowers.   What if she had something else, something that allowed her to break down a dead body into ash?  Jackson couldn't imagine how that power and her semi-telepathic power went together, but so little was understood about the genetic lottery that produced superhumans—and mutants.  For all they knew, the seemingly-harmless woman was deadly dangerous.

Gamma Team was armed, but it would take time for them to get into position and back up the Captain if necessary.  Besides, there
was
a legal issue here; Dreamy Girl was rich enough to afford the best lawyers in Washington, people who could take an inch of doubt in the prosecution’s case and widen it enough to convince a jury that she was actually innocent, or the helpless victim of circumstances.  He was still mulling it over when a team of FBI agents arrived, chased them out of the suite, and started to examine the remains.

“Got an ID,” their leader said, ten minutes later.  “I downloaded the DNA record of the boy’s father from the Pentagon database and ran it against this one.  There’s no doubt that the dead body was related to Major Lewis, almost definitely his son.”

Jackson frowned.  “Almost definitely?”

“DNA testing is a little more finicky than anyone likes to admit,” the agent said.  “Particularly when the crime scene has already been badly contaminated—and this one has.  It could be his son, or his brother...anything past that is highly unlikely.  I’ll need to get a copy of the mother’s DNA to confirm that it was her son who died here.”

“But we have enough to proceed,” Dana said.  “We know that Parker Lewis died here, right in Dreamy Girl’s bedroom.  I think it's time we arrested them, read them their rights and carted them off to holding cells.  The SDI will probably want Dreamy Girl, but we can start by taking her statement—if she has anything to say.”

She stood up.  “I need to speak to Captain Lane and then deal with her,” she added.  “Make sure you file copies of everything offsite.  We don’t want to lose our prey now we’ve caught her.”

Jackson and Ron followed her back through the corridors to where Lane was waiting, along with the Sergeant and two armed and armoured men from the backup team.  It was an uncomfortable reminder that they were only wearing light body armour so that they didn't look too military.  The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team used military-grade gear, he reminded himself, promising to bring it up during the AAR.  They shouldn't have had to use weaker body armour when they could have posed as HRT operatives. 

“I’ll make the arrest,” Dana said, once she’d briefly outlined what they’d discovered.  “If it hits the fan, you need to put her down as hard as possible.”

“I think we may need to try to get people out of the room first,” Lane reminded her, dryly.  “We don’t want civilians in the area if we can afford it.”

“They’re all under arrest,” Dana said, flushing slightly.  She wouldn't be used to superhuman violence, even if she
did
have a good arrest record.  “Can you handle that?”

“Just tell them that we need to speak to them separately,” Lane suggested.  Behind Dana, Ron winked at Jackson, who fought to keep a straight expression.  “And then we can move in on Dreamy Girl herself.”

Jackson could envisage hundreds of things that could go wrong—he’d worked through dozens of simulations where hostages and innocent bystanders died because someone made a rookie mistake—but surprisingly most of Dreamy Girl’s support staff agreed to be interviewed without a fight.  They walked out of the room, where the FBI formally arrested them and read their rights, before handcuffing them and marching them outside to a prisoner transport.  At least they’d be out of the firing line if something went badly wrong.  In the end, only the bodyguards and the manager remained with her.  They’d refused to leave.

He followed Dana into the room, one hand on his pistol and the other on his baton.  “Miss Reynar, I must inform you that you are under arrest on suspicion of multiple murder,” Dana said, kneeling down in front of the shrouded Dreamy Girl.  “You have...”

“This is outrageous,” the manager interrupted.  “You cannot arrest my client...”

“You are also under arrest,” Dana said, interrupting him in turn.  “You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law.  You have the right to an attorney; if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.”

Her eyes narrowed.  “Do you understand these rights I have just read to you?”

Dreamy Girl said nothing.  “I have to ask,” Dana said, sharply.  “Do you understand...?”

A hand shot out of Dreamy Girl’s cloak and latched onto Dana’s hand.  She started to struggle and then started to scream.  Jackson lunged forward, unsure of what was happening, until he saw Dana’s arm growing old and wrinkled.  Her bright red hair was turning grey so quickly that he could
see
it.  Desperately, he pulled out his baton and brought it down on Dreamy Girl’s hand.  There was a crack as her wrist broke and Dana staggered backwards, hitting the floor with a sickening thud. 

Dreamy Girl seemed to look up...and then slammed a punch right into Jackson’s chest.  The impact threw him backwards, dropping his baton as he stumbled and fell on his ass.  Hadn't he just
broken
her wrist?  Why wasn’t she screaming in pain?

Dreamy Girl moved to her feet with stunning speed, her cloak falling away to reveal her face.  It seemed to be shimmering, as if Jackson had been too badly stunned to see the illusion properly. One of the FBI agents stumbled forward, but Dreamy Girl caught his arm, her fingers touching his bare skin; a moment later, his entire body disintegrated into dust and ashes.  The stench of burning human flesh filled the air. 

“Take her,” Lane ordered.  “Now!”

Gamma Team moved in, surrounding Dreamy Girl and hammering away at her with their batons.  She lashed out twice, nearly beheading Lane with a single clawed hand, before finally falling to the ground.  Gamma Team hit her several more times just to be sure, before pulling back in horror.  Jackson stumbled to his feet and joined them, staring at the stunned girl.

The girl he'd seen on the stage—the illusionary girl—had been everything he'd ever wanted.  But the girl in front of him now was chillingly different; she was so huge that she was almost misshapen.  His sister had complained about being fat.  Dreamy Girl was so large that Jackson couldn't see how she had walked on her own two feet.  She had to be at least six hundred pounds.  In some ways, her misshapen body reminded him of the Sergeant’s body, but he’d been the result of Dr. Death’s meddling with superhuman genetics.  Dreamy Girl was almost certainly a mutant.

“Medic,” Ron bellowed, calling their attention back to Dana.  He was hovering over her, trying to find a pulse.  “Get a medic over here, now!”

Jackson stared as two of the FBI’s medics ran in to tend their special agent.  Dana looked as if she had aged fifty years overnight, whimpering slightly as she struggled to come to terms with what had happened to her.  There had been no long slow passage into old age, but the sudden theft of years she should have enjoyed before growing old.  What the hell had Dreamy Girl done?

A sudden sob broke the air as the manager seemed to snap out of his shock.  Lane nodded to Gamma Team; they picked him up and cuffed him, before marching him out of the room to the FBI’s vans.  The SDI would probably want Dreamy Girl—according to the medics, she would probably recover completely—but the manager would go to the FBI.  God alone knew what would happen to him.  Whatever else he’d done, he’d certainly helped conceal Dreamy Girl’s crimes.