Last
Issue:Aquaman and Lord Brim
came to New York to institute Atlantis’s first UN Ambassadorship.
The night before the first address, an anti-personnel grenade was fired
through the window of Aquaman’s hotel room. Nation of the Force
of July had arrived as part of the Homeland Security contingent to
investigate the attack on a foreign head of state on U. S. soil.
Now:Aquaman investigates the attack…
Washington DC; The Pentagon; Sub-Level 47;
A man sat behind an expensive-looking antique desk in a darkened
office. The light from dozens of screens showed various American
Security Agency missions going on around the world.
One screen showed Nation at a hotel in New York where an explosive had
been fired in the window of Atlantis’s head of state in New York
to present his country’s UN delegation.
“Incompetence,” the man muttered under his breath.
The man steepled his hands as he sat back in his heavily cushioned
chair, watching Nation on the screens. “The clone shouldn’t
be extending kindnesses to the Fish. Head of state or not,” he
said under his breath. “Especially when I put the op in
motion.”
“Sir?” the bespeckled functionary across the desk
questioned.
The man shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, glancing at the
squirmy, little bureaucrat that had been foisted on him when he took
this job as Director of the American Security Agency.
The President owed him a number of big favors from a lifetime of
political actions, public and private. He was one of those political
insiders who knew where the bodies were buried…because in a lot
of cases, he was the one who had done the burying.
So, when the President swept into office, he had gotten the chair at
the American Security Agency and a largely free hand. Unfortunately, he
hadn’t been able to sweep the Agency clean when he came in. But,
his ops were getting priority, whether they were foreign, domestic, or
personal.
The assassination attempt gone wrong had been a personal matter that
had a price tag on it that would have put a new Olympic size pool in at
his estate down in Georgia. He shook his head again.
“I should have kept it in house,” he murmured under his
breath. He reached out and touched a button sending a signal to Nation
in New York.
He stared at another screen, which was replaying the appearance of
Themyscira off of New York. “A damned invasion is what that
is,” he muttered.
He glared at the clerk across the large oak desk from him. “I
want more aggression from the Force,” he said, gesturing at the
notepad lying in the functionary’s lap. “They need more
training…,” he shrugged, “maybe drug therapy.”
“Yes, sir,” the functionary responded, making a notation on
his pad.
Looking at another screen, which showed a snowy blot, the man said,
“Have the tech guys figure out a way to bypass Pinup’s
privacy filters. We need to know who and what she is doing.” He
shook his head. “And who she is masquerading as.”
The functionary made another notation on the pad.
Another screen showed a chemical vat with a body floating within. The
body was male and looked to be about 7 years old.
“See about accelerating the aging process on the new Silent
Majority,” the man said. An ugly, evil smile touched his face.
“Sorry, on the new Percentile.”
“What about Red Glare?” The clerk asked, looking up from
the pad.
“I’ve decided to forego the Red Glare project. The
scientists are remixing his genetic components and adding a few new
twists,” the man said, looking at a screen showing a group of men
in white lab coats.
The functionary pursed his lips, making another notation.
Making a dismissive gesture with his hands, the man behind the desk
said, “That will be all. Have the notes typed up for my signature
review.”
“As you wish, sir,” the stenographer said. Gathering his
things, he rose and went to stand by the door.
After a minute, he dared to clear his throat to let the man know he was
still there.
The shadowy man gave him a disdainful look before pushing a button on
his desk buzzing the door open, allowing the functionary to exit the
room.
He watched the other man close the door. A smile touched his face as he
thought, “Always good to make sure your underlings recognize
their station.” He crossed his arms as he slowly turned his chair
to stare at the screens.
New York;
“This is the building,” Officer Handy said pulling his
patrol car over in front of the flashing neon Girls, Girls, Girls sign.
“One of the neighbors saw the flash of the rocket as it
launched.”
He gestured upward. “CSI released the roof about,” the
officer glanced at his watch, “20 minutes ago. They said there
wasn’t anything probitive on the rooftop pertaining to the
identity of the attacker. Do you need me to come up with you?”
“No thanks, Officer. I can handle it,” Aquaman said
stepping from the car.
Aquaman moved to the end of the building and looked up the alley. About
midway, a fire escape half-hung its busted ladder, high off the
pavement.
Taking several quick strides to build momentum, Arthur leaped catching
the top of the ladder as his sea born strength shot him into a 30-foot
vertical leap.
His feet touched down on the fire escape landing at the apex of the
leap.
From the end of the alley, Officer Handy’s voice came.
“Michael Jordan eat your heart out,” he said with
appreciation in his voice. He waved to the King of the Sea and went on
about his patrol.
Aquaman climbed to the roof, twenty floors above street level.
He had let Brim believe that he was just going to blow off steam, but
he intended to get to the bottom of this tonight, if at all possible.
Before he topped the fire escape, he could smell the chemical
accelerant that had powered the RPG’s flight. He sniffed as he
climbed over the roof’s parapet.
He wrinkled his nose. Any identifying scents related to the grenadier
were lost amid the smells left behind by the police officers and the
CSIs…and the seventy-five years this building had stood on this
spot.
The same sense that allowed a shark to sense a single drop of blood in
a large volume of water gave Aquaman an amazingly acute sense of smell.
Ollie and Katar used to give Ralph a hard time about the twitching
nose…if they had known about this, Arthur would have never heard
the end of it. He had known when Ollie and Dinah’s relationship
had changed….he could smell it on them. He had known when Ray
was going to propose to Jean because he could smell the diamond dust on
Ray’s fingertips from the engagement ring.
But this rooftop wasn’t surrendering any scent secrets. Too many
people over too long a time helped to mask the grenadier.
Pentagon; Sub-Level 2-J;
The functionary note taker walked into another office, on another high
security level of the Pentagon.
He sank down in a chair and released a deep sigh. The focused psychic
energy that made up the disguise faded away, leaving PinUp sitting in
the chair. She shook out her long blonde hair, so that it cascaded over
her shoulders and around the pink body suit that she wore.
“DEO’s intelligence was right,” she stated.
“The President’s appointee
is playing fast and loose with the rules. He’s playing God in the
clone
banks and running private missions off the books.”
The man, facing her in a dazzling, expensively cut, white suit, sat
forward in his creaky desk chair, regarding her intently.
“What’s he up
to?” he asked.
“Samaritan from what I could gather tried to update Red Glare
and…,” she trailed off.
The man sighed, nodding. “I’m sorry, PinUp, but my eyes in
the Science
Division have informed me that Red Glare has already been scrambled
beyond recondensation.”
She shook her head sadly. “He was a good kid, an annoying little
shit, but a good kid,” she said.
Clearing her throat and wiping her eyes, she continued her report,
“The
Director is running an op in New York right now. Nation is
there…and it
somehow involves Aquaman from what I could gather.”
“Homeland Security reported an assassination attempt on an
Atlantean
national in New York about an hour ago,” the white-suited Good
Samaritan said, steepling his fingers.
“I, also, saw evidence of at least six other missions currently
ongoing
that weren’t mentioned in the briefing you gave me,” PinUp
finished.
The white-suited man ran his palm across his forehead. He reached into
the bottom drawer of his desk, lifting out a shot glass and a blue
bottle with a Milk of Magnesia label on it.
Twisting the cap, he poured himself a double.
Tilting his head, he threw the glass back, swallowing the contents
down. He sat for a moment with his eyes closed.
Placing the shot glass down on the table surface beside the bottle, he,
lightly, tapped his fingers on the cheap formica surface of his
government-issued desk. His brow furrowed as he considered what all the
Director might be involved in and getting the United States involved in
by default.
“Very well,” he said finally, raising his eyes to
PinUp’s. “Don’t worry
about the Director. I’ll handle it. Return to your barracks area.
Don’t
file your report. Shred it. There will be a commendation appended to
your service jacket.”
“Thank you, sir,” PinUp said as she stood and departed.
New York;
Aquaman turned a slow circle, taking in the rooftop that his assailant
had fired from. Walking to the building’s edge, he sighted the
distant
window of his hotel room. He found the most likely spot where the
shooter had stood.
“10 blocks…and it hit the window of my room
specifically,” Arthur murmured. “That’s a hell of a
shot.”
“Why shoot at me, if you weren’t going to use a weapon
powerful enough
to take me out?” he wondered aloud. He glanced aside at a cluster
of
helicopters transiting the city.
Pentagon; Sub-Level 2-J;
The white-suited Good Samaritan sat at his cheap government furnished
office for a few minutes after PinUp left. He opened the bottom drawer
of his desk and pulled out a bread box-sized contraption. Carefully, he
laid his hand on top of the device.
The sophisticated electronics in the device read his palm print, before
sending a scrambled signal through the Pentagon communications network.
A small holographic screen lit up on top of the box. “Waller,
this is Samaritan,” he said to the fuzzy blank image.
“Samaritan, go,’ the gruff-voiced response came. The figure
remained indecipherable.
“The intel from DEO was accurate. The President’s man has
his own
agenda,” Samaritan reported, detailing the missions that they
knew
about and the fact that there were other ones currently running.
“We
can’t be sure what all else he is into.”
Samaritan could hear paper shuffle. “Hmmm,” Waller said
from the other
end of the comm. channel. “CIA has evidence that he is using the
FoJ
for personal business.”
The shadowy, static-filled form nodded. “It doesn’t matter.
Shut him
down and take over the programs in place. Report to me when you are
green across the board. I need evidence of where the money he is taking
in is coming from and we need to bring the ASA back in line,” her
response came.
“What about the President?” Samaritan asked.
“Officially, the ASA Director will die in a plane
crash…somewhere where it can’t be readily
investigated,” the voice responded.
“Affirmative,” the Samaritan responded as the comm. screen
blanked out.
He pulled his hand from the top of the comm. box, before sliding it
back into the bottom drawer.
He sighed deeply, lifting the 9mm that lay the communication box.
“Well,” he said quietly to the empty room, “no use
putting it off.”
New York;
The roar of the helicopter rotors grew closer.
“Probably one of those incessant news organizations,”
Arthur thought.
They had been buzzing all through the neighborhoods since the
rocket-propelled grenade had hit his window.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! RATA-TATA-TATA-TAT! Bullets tore at the tarmac
roof all about him.
Aquaman dove behind one of the large rooftop air conditioning units.
His blue, white, and black wave pattern uniform camouflaged him as he
moved from pool of light to darkness and back.
He smiled. “This could have all been a scam to draw me out in the
open,” he murmured as he stole a glance around the side of his
shelter
at the helicopter hovering over the roof. Thoughts of the limited
explosive power of the RPG that had struck his hotel room ran through
his head. He nodded to himself. “Definitely could have been a set
up.”
He glanced at the helicopter again. Not a news chopper, or a police or
military model….civilian all the way. The chopper had a large
bulbous
wraparound windshield and open doors to either side of the fuselage.
Arthur saw the bullets chip, rip, and crumble the masonry at the
roof’s
edge, walking toward where he crouched behind the air conditioning unit.
“They may be using a big enough caliber to hurt me,” he
considered.
TAKA-POW! TAKA-POW! Bullets ricocheted off of the air conditioner.
PSSSHHHH! Steam or freon began to escape from inside. A cloud of
condensed air gathered around the leak, obscuring the pilot’s
vision of
the gunman’s target.
Arthur saw the gunman waving to the pilot to bring the helicopter
around so he could fire at his target from the other side, just before
the cloud of steam and escaping air conditioner gas blocked his vision.
Moving rapidly, Aquaman took advantage of the mist shroud. He charged
the edge of the roof and leaped in the direction of the
helicopter’s
sound.
“What?” the pilot yelled as the blue, white, and black-clad
form of the
King of the Seas came flying at him from the cloud of mist. The
pilot’s
eyes went wide as Aquaman struck the windshield.
KI-SSTSSH! The curved glass, supposedly unbreakable, windshield of the
helicopter shattered as Aquaman hit it.
Arthur closed his hand on the pilot’s arm. “I’d
suggest that you fly
the helicopter. I would survive a crash from this altitude. You, on the
other hand, may not,” he said as he climbed into the rear of the
helicopter.
The pilot wrestled the collective to bring the helicopter under control.
Aquaman clawed his way into the back of the chopper, tearing the
copilot’s empty seat loose from its underpinnings and coming face
to
face with the green and camo-clad villain standing at the .50 caliber
gun mounted in the open door of the helicopter.
150 miles off the Atlantic Coast of
Florida;
A man-sized cocoon floated in the current. It touched against a sea
wall and attached itself.
As the current wafted the cocoon back and forth, a pulse of color began
to beat within. With each pulse, a wave of color washed out of the
cocoon to swirl through the nearby water, before pulsing back to the
cocoon, leaving the area touched by the wave gray and lifeless.
A small rainbow-colored tropical fish crossed the edge of the wave. The
color drained from the small creature as it stopped swimming and began
its death float.
New York;
Arthur had a brief impression of the villain, a drab dark green tunic
and camo pants with brown shoulder pads and padded boots. He wore
bright yellow goggles, which could probably adjust for day or night
vision.
And he was armed to the teeth. In addition to the heavy machine gun
mounted in the doorway, he wore two holsters on his belt and an ankle
holster hung outside his left boot, probably a few more secreted around
his person, as well.
The villain swung around as Arthur charged him. He clawed at one of his
holsters trying to draw the gun.
Arthur hit him in a diving tackle carrying them both crashing into the
gun mount.
SKRANK! The light machine gun mounting at the door gave way,
falling
to smash on the rooftop below, leaving Aquaman and Cannon rolling back
and forth fighting on the floor of the helicopter.
The helicopter swerved and veered as the pilot fought to control it. 30
feet above the rooftop, the pilot flared the blades trying to keep
altitude as they dropped toward the roof. Cannon and Aquaman slipped
out the window.
One-handed, Arthur caught one of the landing struts of the chopper as
he fell. He clasped one of Cannon’s up flung arms keeping
the would-be
assassin from falling to his death. Arthur, briefly, considered
throwing him at the roof below, but he needed him conscious to find out
who had sent him.
Arthur recognized the villain from his JLA file. He was a gun-for-hire.
There wasn’t much information about him…other than the
notation that he
had a close working relationship with another felon named Saber and had
fought the second or third Vigilante.
Twisting as best he could, Arthur surveyed the surrounding area,
looking at windows, rooftops, and such to see if Saber were nearby.
“Better to not catch a knife in the back while fighting with the
gunman,” he thought.
A “what if” scenario flashed through his mind, causing him
to glance back at the pilot to confirm that he wasn’t Saber.
At that moment, Cannon twisted against the hand holding his arm.
Flailing momentarily, he worked his arm around, grabbing something from
his belt. He raised the object to his mouth, pulled it away quickly,
and tossed a grenade up and over Arthur’s head into the
helicopter,
spitting the grenade’s pin out.
Arthur dropped Cannon toward the roof, 20 feet below.
Grabbing with both hands, Arthur did a gymnast twist and somersault,
landing back in the open door of the staggering helicopter, just in
time to see the grenade roll under a seat.
SKERANK! Grabbing at the seat, he tore it loose from its supports and
reached underneath, catching the avocado shape as it rolled away.
Hurling the grenade out the open door of the chopper, the small green
explosive detonated within 10 feet of the helicopter.
BA-LLLOOOOMMMMMM! Shrapnel ripped through the helicopter. Aquaman
caught himself in the opposite door from the explosion. Smoke and dust
filled the cockpit. He heard the pilot screaming that they were going
down as the helicopter dipped again.
Cannon had tucked and rolled when he hit the roof below. He drew a
Walther P-99 semi-automatic handgun, the black on black finish of the
gun excellent for night shooting when any glint of reflected light
could give you away. The P-99 was modified to reduce muzzle flash, a
perfect assassin’s weapon.
Absently, Aquaman heard bullets pinging off of the fuselage of the
dying helicopter as Cannon shot at him from the rooftop below.
“This guy is really starting to piss me off!” The second he
said it he smiled, remembering Ollie.
The control panels of the helicopter were belching smoke. The pilot was
slumped back in his seat with his head lolling to the side. A
star-shaped crack in the windshield showed where his head had struck.
The helicopter tilted over, almost dumping Arthur and the unconscious
pilot out the broken portion of the windshield. The rotor blades parted
an electric line strung between the buildings. Sparks shot outward as
transformers on both rooftops exploded adding to the shower of sparks
as both buildings went dark.
Arthur grabbed the pilot by the shoulder tearing the safety harness
away. Moving with all of his deep sea-born speed, he tossed the pilot
to the rooftop, now a mere 5 feet away.
Stepping out onto the landing strut and a short leap to the roof, he
grabbed the landing strut and anchored his feet as best he could, and
held on as the chopper tried to fall past him to the street below. His
arms locked. His trapezius bulged out and stood rock hard. His feet
slid toward the roof’s parapet.
Groaning, he let go of the helicopter with one hand and locked his iron
grip around a steel rooftop support.
Grunting, Arthur pulled the helicopter back toward the roof, one hand
holding the landing strut, the other the steel girder.
The fire-suppressant system deployed in the burning chopper’s
cockpit,
putting out the fire in the control panel. A foamy blast of goop rained
out onto Arthur’s arm and spilled onto the rooftop around him.
The
motor died causing the blades to stop spinning.
“That’s one of the most incredible things I’ve ever
seen,” Cannon said
from behind him as Aquaman lifted the helicopter up to sit on the
roof’s edge.
As he sat it down, Cannon continued, “But despite the
appreciation, this is business.”
BLAM! BLAM! Aquaman felt the sting as two shells from the Walther P-99
struck him in the back.
“AAARRRGGGHHHH!” Arthur dropped the helicopter the last few
inches to the ground.
His deep sea hardened skin and musculature kept the bullets from
penetrating deeply into his body. That, however, didn’t keep them
from
hurting like hell.
BLAM! BLAM! Cannon fired twice more.
“So, I guess the RPG was supposed to kill me after all,”
Arthur said,
glaring at his attacker, “otherwise, you would be using a higher
caliber weapon.”
Cannon staggered slightly, having injured his ankle in his landing. He
tried to back away from the very, very angry looking King of the Sea.
He raised the P-99 to put a bullet between Aquaman’s eyes.
CLICK! Only to have the hammer, fall on an empty chamber.
“Dammit!” He cried, tossing the gun away. He went for his
pistol-grip
shotgun, which was slung across his back, bandolier-style. As he
brought the gun around, Aquaman charged him.
As Arthur reached out to grab Cannon, a rapidly moving form flew
between them, snatching the gun from Cannon’s hands.
Aquaman bounced across the rooftop, coming to rest against the crashed
helicopter.
“Get out of here!” He heard somebody yell.
Opening his eyes and rolling back to his feet, he saw Cannon wrench
open the rooftop door and limp away down the stairs. He swung his head
back to look at his new attacker.
There lit by the light of the fall moon and the glow from the few
surrounding buildings that still had power stood the red, white, and
blue clad figure, who had helped him out at his hotel earlier tonight.
Nation floated there a few inches off the rooftop, holding
Cannon’s shotgun by the pistol grip.
Pentagon; Sub-Level 47;
The Director nodded his approval as a screen showed a Volkswagen beetle
explode on a Latin American street, taking out the target and his
family and wounding a dozen others.
KNOCK! KNOCK!
The appointed Director of the American Security Agency tapped a button
on his desk. An image of his visitor appeared on one of his screens. He
buzzed the Samaritan in as he darkened the screens showing the missions
currently underway around the world.
“What can I do for you, Sam?” The Director asked in a
condescending
voice, ignoring the frown on the Samaritan’s face. He knew the
familiarity galled the spy, but what did he care. He gestured his guest
to the chair across from his desk.
The white-suited Good Samaritan ignored the proffered chair. He
clenched and unclenched his hands as he paced the room. “We have
a
problem,” he said. “The President appointed somebody to a
powerful
agency position. This appointee is abusing the power of the
agency.”
The Director leaned forward, almost salivating. “It’s Sarge
Steel,
isn’t it?” he asked. “Or that guy over at DEO? Or one
of those
Checkmate bastards?”
He sat back in his chair, steepling his hands. “Whoever it is,
the ASA
can deal with them…as public or private as it needs to
be,” the
Director said.
He tilted his chin back down and grinned wide. “It’s not
Waller, is it?”
He waggled his hand as he tilted his chair back. “Whoever it is,
I will personally…”
BLAM! A bullet tore through the Director’s frontal lobe. A curl
of smoke rose form the muzzle.
Dusting at his white suit, the Samaritan slipped the weapon back into
his pocket. He picked up the phone and dialed another extension within
the building.
“This is Samaritan…no the other one. Code S-715. Clean and
dispose at
P-sub 47, room 19,” he explained. He listened for a moment, then,
hung
up.
He touched the surface of the antique desk. “Figures! The
bastard’s
desk costs more than I make in a year,” he muttered, pushing the
dead
body of the now former Director of the ASA back. The corpse settled
back in its comfy rolling office chair as it rolled over into the near
corner of the office.
Samaritan tapped a sequence into the control panel bringing the screens
back to life.
Five minutes later, he raced from the room, passing the cleaning crew
in the hallway. He had transferred all the computer files to his office
and had put in a request to transfer the desk there as well.
His cell phone pressed to his ear. “I need a shuttle to NYC ready
to go
in ten. I also need a scrambled line to Nation,” he said into the
phone
as the elevator doors slid shut.
New York;
“Nation, what are you doing? He’s getting away,”
Aquaman cried forcing
himself to his feet. “That’s the guy that attacked my hotel
earlier
tonight.”
The smiling, helpful ASA agent from earlier wasn’t evident in the
man’s demeanor now.
“I am completing the mission objectives since the operator is
obviously
overmatched,” Nation said in a mechanical sounding voice.
“Mission…?” Aquaman said.
“Mission objective is the elimination of Aquaman,” Nation
responded as he raised the shotgun.
BLAM! He fired it at Aquaman, causing the Sea King to dive aside.
Tossing the gun aside, Nation raised his fist. His gauntlet glowed with
power. A phased laser blast erupted, blasting Aquaman, knocking him
backward, and tumbling him head over heels across the roof to smash
into the parapet at the edge near the helicopter.
Wiping his face, Aquaman struggled to stand up again.
CRACK! Nation’s fist crashed into Arthur’s jaw with all the
force his strength-enhancing exo-skeleton could produce.
Nation lifted, the half-conscious Aquaman. He held him out, dangling
him by one foot, 20 stories over the distant street.
“I wonder,” Nation asked, “would you survive a fall
from this height in your current condition?”
Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland;
The F-16 lifted its nose as it roared off the runway, stabbing at the
sky. At altitude, the pilot took the plane supersonic, unusual for
inside the Washington-NYC corridor, but his orders were to have this
man on the ground in New York quicker than possible.
“With traffic patterns, I’ll have you at Kennedy in 20
minutes,” the pilot said.
“Roger, Captain. Thanks for the ride,” the Samaritan said
as he opened
his laptop and brought up the downloaded information on the Force of
July and the various other ASA missions currently running.
He sat back and stared out at the night sky. A worried expression on
his face as the pilot took the plane supersonic.
Nation wasn’t responding to the recall signal and, if what the
Samaritan suspected was true, couldn’t break free of his
conditioning
via remote control.
