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“Cash Cropping”
The club was bustling with customers, filled past safety capacity. Seated at the bar was Avi Barak, twenty-one years old and apparently enjoying his third drink of the night. Approaching him was a slightly older man, his darker skin reminiscent of a Latino background. Men were enjoying themselves all over, with not a woman in sight.
“Hi there,” he said with a smile. Barak returned it, but said nothing. “I’ve been having the same drink.”
“Really, how interesting.” Barak took a sip, his eyes drinking the man in. “My name is Kofi. What about you?”
“Hector.”
A small smile creased Avi Barak’s lips. “My, what a strong name. What do you do for a living, Hector?”
“Landscaping is my business.” Hector leaned an arm against the bar. “What say you and I get out of here and-”
But Barak’s eyes seemed to catch something at the far side of the club. “Shit, there’s my boyfriend. Sorry, Hector. He’s the jealous type.” Without a word or a look back, Barak left his drink on the bar and walked away.
Three minutes later, handsome Jaegar Weiss met with Avi Barak, and they walked out of the club together. “You found what we needed?” Jaegar asked.
“Oh yeah.” There was disgust in Barak’s voice. “Everything’s just been confirmed. How soon are we shutting this down?”
“Don’t say ‘we’, freak,” Jaegar warned in an icy tone. “You aren’t combat.”
“Fuck you, Aryan. I shot at living bombs. That said, no fucking way am I getting near what I just saw. Hell on Earth, and the faster you – happy, you semantic fuck – blow their asses dead, the better.”
In spite of himself Jaegar grinned. “We’ll see about that, after we get this Intel to Santini.”
Colonel Ben Santini stood in front of a massive red plasma screen that hung on the wall. There was a tapping sound in the air, but his feet were planted. When Santini got anxious his knees twitched, and metal was loud. Far behind him was Khalid Tefibi, at work on the computers.
“Should I ask Columbia for permission?” Tefibi asked.
Santinti gave the computer geek a look that said he was the biggest idiot alive. “Have you asked?”
“No.”
“Don’t. Not only will they refuse, but they’ll tip off ‘campaign contributors’ i.e. the drug lords who keep the soldiers paid. That would just make our job harder when we ignore the Colombians and rush in anyway.”
“But since we won’t ask then there’s nothing to ignore,” Tefibi finished. “Except a nation’s sovereignty. Thanks for clearing that up. Still, we need United Nations approval to-”
“We need a member of the UN Security Council to request Stormwatch aid,” Santini interrupted. “Read the papers. America is fighting a war on drugs.”
“I thought it was terror this week.”
“Terror’s dropping in the polls. It’s back to drugs.”
“So you want me to ask the President to ask us to run an operation in Columbia?” Tefibi asked. “Because I’m pretty sure he’ll tell us to go fuck ourselves. That would be the standard response I think, after you threatened to have Flint rip his head off.”
“What is this ‘you ask’ shit?” Santini shot back. “I’m the one who deals with these assholes. All you need to do is hack their MySpace accounts and find stuff for me to blackmail them with. Once the DEA Administrator gets the green light to send a Special Forces team in Columbia, he’ll learn they have SPB support and request Stormwatch aid. By the time our murdering Klansman President finds out, we’ll be done.”
“The Administrator of the DEA has a MySpace page?”
“You’ll find it under the name Justin Cyrus, age fifteen. He doesn’t know it but most of his ‘friends’ share more interests than he’d care to admit.”
Tefibi’s eyes widened. “Ah. That explains the drug raid on Chris Hansen’s house.”
The two hours it took United States Special Forces to wade onto the coast of Columbia was time that Sergeant Charles Pinckney and Captain Galena Golovin had put to good use. Galena’s blonde hair was a tangled mess when she opened the van’s rear door, and Pinckney was still pulling down his shirt. By the time Galena had reached the beach, her hair was more-or-less set in order.
“You men are early,” she stated at the U. S. soldiers approaching her.
One of the soldiers moved his gaze from Galena’s unkempt appearance to the van and Pinckney. “Our job isn’t determined by your ability to cum in a timely manner.”
Galena barked a laugh. “You could have been three hours late and I still would not have gotten over.”
“Hey!”
“Everything has been prepared,” Galena said with no regard for Pinckney’s exclamation. “We will transport you to the location and meet with the assault team.”
“This is the assault team.” The same soldier who spoke before indicated the others to his right and left. “You and yours are backup we won’t require.”
“I’m not riding in something that smells like sex,” one of the other soldiers interjected.
“The ocean is behind you.”
Captain Golovin’s eyes never left the soldier that was apparently in charge. “I presume you are Captain Liam Mendoza.”
“I usually go by Paris.”
“So you clearly have no problem with sex.”
Some of the Sergeants around Paris snickered. But he simply grinned, shifted his eyes toward Pinckney, then back to Galena. “I also have a knack for finding the magic spot. Once we arrive at the location, I’ll decide if you and yours are required.”
“He’s not ready for the field,” Doctor Yvonne Grunier said adamantly to Colonel Santini.
“Cisco’s made a full recovery according to the charts,” he replied.
“Physically yes,” Grunier conceded. “But mentally-”
“He’s as fucked up as everyone else here. Can you tell me for a fact that he’ll go ape-shit and shoot at his teammates, doctor?”
“You know I can’t predict his behavior that-”
“Then I’m not cutting him. You’re dismissed.”
Fuming, Grunier appeared willing to argue the matter further. Even though the look in Santini’s eyes told her it was ill advised, she did. “I know that, with Coleman gone, Cisco is-”
Now Santini was standing out of his seat. “If I have to repeat myself, you’re going to find yourself dismissed off a cliff.” There was no further threat. Just the look in his eyes.
An oval-shaped gateway had appeared on a red world. Three men walked out in a straight line, towards a second oval that was ten feet away. Jukko Hämäläinen and Jaeger Weiss were staring ahead very intently, with Jaeger even whispering to himself, “Don’t look back. Don’t look back.”
Luis Cisco wasn’t looking back either, but his eyes were fixed quite so intently. He allowed them to wander, to take in the carnage around him. Dead bodies littered the landscape, posed like sick modern sculptures commissioned by madmen for psychotics. At least they didn’t have to worry about the creature responsible for the bodies, the thought of whom made Cisco’s hand tremble in spite of himself.
They walked through the second oval, these three men with faces so similar in that they were so radically different. Jaeger’s face was covered with a steel mask specifically to prevent what’s happened to the other two. Scars covered Jukko’s mangled face, as well as the rest of his body beneath the combat uniform. Cisco may have been similarly disfigured if it hadn’t been for the reconstructive surgery.
On the other side of the oval the sky was blue and filled heavily foliaged. The three agents of Stormwatch were met by a number of the U.S. Special Forces, among them Paris. He was the only one who didn’t give a reaction to Jukko and Cisco’s faces. Many of the others raised their rifles, with one looking as though he might throw up.
“These are our justification?” inquired Jaeger. He tapped the Stormwatch fetish on his chest and said, “Galena, why haven’t you sent these guys to the local whorehouse? Any of them die it’s our asses.”
“They insist that they’re in charge of this operation.” Galena sounded bored through the fetish.
“You men do not know nor are you prepared for what is here,” Jukko said to the Special Forces. “We have run the necessary intelligence and have prepared an appropriate plan to kill every man within a five-mile radius.” His smile as Jukko said this only made him more frightening.
Paris met Jukko’s gaze, an impressive feat for which Jukko immediately respected him for. “Of course you have. I’m not the kind of idiot to send my men to their deaths. Whatever your plan is, we’ll incorporate into it. But this is as much our mission as it is yours.”
“One thing you need to understand,” Cisco said. “If you men do not do exactly as we say, you will die. Follow our instructions to the letter and you’ll have a slim chance.” He removed a roll of paper from his pouch and handed it to Paris. “These are placement points for some of your men. Primary purpose will be to cut off any escape. The rest of you will provide cover for the assault. At no time should any of you be engaging SPBs. Those you leave to me and mine.”
With every word out of Cisco’s mouth, there was a metallic click. His nose and jaw had been almost completely replaced, altered into a grisly mockery of a human skull in chrome.
“I’ll assign men to these spots,” Paris responded. He made marks on the paper and handed it to a fellow officer, who began speaking into his radio. “So you can tell your snipers not to waste their time watching those areas. I’ll be among those in the assault, and if I see any Super-Powered Being I’ll kill it, simple as that. How soon do we begin?” “As soon as I call in the angry black woman.” Jaeger double-tapped his fetish. “Whenever you’re ready to kill some people Flint.”
They walked into the elevator first, ahead of the tourists and sightseers. A look from a tall, heavily built black woman with scars on half her face may have been enough to keep the elevators to themselves, but Colonel Santini gave a look as well for good measure. The doors closed, leaving Santini alone with Stormwatch operative Victoria Ngengi, codename: Flint.
“How’s your finger?”
The splinted index on Santini’s right hand flinched. “Better than other parts of me would have felt. We’ll need to work more on your self-control.”
“Anytime. It was good for me.”
The doors opened, and the two stepped out on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Santini pointed south. “Okay, you’ll need to jump off that side.”
“Any particular reason?” Flint asked.
“You’ll see mid-jump.” Santini tapped his fetish. “Tefibi, she’s ready.” To Flint he said. “Rip the heads off those fuckers.”
“Best. Pillowtalk. Ever.”
Flint leaped up onto the high fence around the observation deck, crouched briefly to give Santini a spectacular view of her ass, and jumped straight into the air. Above her, a red oval appeared and Flint disappeared through it. On the other side was the red world, and Flint saw that below her a partially collapsed tower of corpses stopped short of the observation deck. She imagined towers on the other sides must have been more successful, and relished the memory of what she did to the devil responsible.
As Flint was starting to drop, she noticed that the second oval wasn’t exactly lined up with her trajectory. “Tefibi, you fucking idiot.” Shifting her weight in mid-air adjusted Flint’s fall, and she did her best to be careful. She had seen people hit the edge of a tele-portal. Being invulnerable wouldn’t keep her from being cut in half.
Twisting her body, Flint dove headfirst down the rabbit hole. Through it was blue sky over fields in Columbia. A series of large warehouse and factory style buildings were interconnected on the ground below. Flint didn’t have much of a choice as to which building she crashed through. That was up to Tefibi, and he’d positioned the portal over a modernized barn.
The roof wasn’t nearly as strong as it should have been under standard building codes, and Flint’s rapidly falling heavy body broke straight through. Inside, the building’s construction was sturdier, and Flint crashed through steel next. She landed harshly on the ground floor but had used the time to compose herself, and had landed in a bad-ass position on her feet with fists touching the ground.
Men were screaming in Spanish all around her, and Flint swiveled her masked head to see gun-wielding drug thugs aiming rifles in her direction. Flint lifted up her arms and clapped. The roar of thunder and thrust of air floored three of the men in its path. One remained standing, and he rushed at Flint as other men around her opened fire. Bullets were bouncing off Flint’s skin, but she paid it no mind and met the onrushing enhanced drug thug.
“That’s our cue!” Jaeger yelled when a body went flying through a wall. “Go!”
Armored and armed, Stormwatch and the Special Forces soldiers moved in. Shouldering his rifle, Paris drew his knife as he approached the rising man Flint had thrown out. Clearly he’d been enhanced, had invulnerability and likely some strength as well as who-knew-what-else.
“Hukhk!” the man gurgled as Paris plunged the knife through his eye. It entered easily and pierced the brain. The man went down and didn’t get back up. Paris casually wiped the knife and sheathed it before continuing on. Cisco was in the lead, and smashed the doors open with a single kick. He went in shooting, as did Jaeger with his massive pistol that fired rifle rounds. One shot from it went through two men’s chest and caused a tanker truck at the far corner to explode.
Fire was reflected in Flint’s goggles as she grabbed men and threw them up into what reached up to the second floor. She knew perfectly well what was in them, and that those men would overdose and die within minutes. With there being no time to rip heads off, it was the next best thing. At least she thought there wasn’t any time until she spied Jukko leaping onto a man’s back and twisting his head all the way around.
“That must hurt!” she said loudly.
“Oddly no,” Jukko responded. “Drugs are dulling their pain.”
“For you I’m glad. For them…” Flint slammed her hands together with a young Colombian male’s head between them. She couldn’t see through the blood over her goggles and removed them.
Cisco kicked in another door and walked into what appeared to be a packaging room. Firing rapidly, he blew apart dozens of large bags, filling the air with a white powder. Leaping through the white fog at Cisco was a seven-foot powerhouse with steel hands and feet. Metal clanged against metal and Cisco was down. The man was on him before Cisco could bring his weapon to bear, knees pressed against his shoulders and steel hands raised to strike.
“Don’t be flashy fucktard!” Cisco yelled. The words were incomprehensible though, due to his lower jaw elongating. The metal extended nearly two additional feet and the razor sharp teeth ripped open a non-metal torso. It was like Cisco had scooped ice-cream except this was a stomach, some ribs and pieces of lung.
The dying man backed away, his strong steel hands useless in keeping more of himself from falling out. He fell while Cisco stood. After checking the room for any further surprises and finding none, walked back into the loading area. “That’s two SPB’s down.”
The area was now empty of life except for Stormwatch and Paris with his men. Pinckney’s voice crackled through the radio. “We just downed a speed-freak that couldn’t outrun a bullet. Special Forces are mopping up the rest of the stragglers. That makes three of the four.”
“The one who can’t run,” Cisco declared. “Jukko.”
“I can go straight to him.”
“Let’s go then. The rest of you fan out and clear each area.”
Up until then, all of the troops in the Colombian drug plant had been dressed in little more than rags. Torn jeans and dirty tee-shirts, a sign they weren’t paid nearly enough for the kind of business they were in. All the real profit went to the cartel heads, with their lieutenants making just a little more than the troops.
That small difference was enough for tailored suits and groomed appearances. But with the benefits went responsibility, and the lieutenants had to oversee the operation. From that particular plant, the operation was an extraction room located near the center, with delicate equipment and sophisticated computers. Two lieutenants were present with the half dozen technicians needed for operating the equipment. Distant gunshots made one of the lieutenants, Hector, wince, while the other was directing the scientists.
“Finish the process now!” he screamed in Spanish.
More shots could be heard. The scientists were getting nervous. “If we rush this, the subject will die,” one objected. “But if we take too long…how can we even get out of here?”
“Do not worry yourself.” Near the lieutenant was a small platform of technology recently exclusive to the United Nations. “Finish the process, safely, and we can all leave right away. Fail, and you won’t have to worry about the shooters outside.”
At this, Hector began to chuckle. His associate glanced in his direction.
“Do you find that funny, Hector?”
“Heh, no,” Hector replied as he pulled his gun out from his jacket. “Just ironic.” He aimed and pulled the trigger, shooting his associate’s head off. As Hector leveled the gun at the scientists, “Stop what you’re doing or die,” his features shifted. When the door into the room was kicked in, Cisco almost put a bullet into the face of Frederick Braumholtenstein, Stormwatch codename: Alias.
Cisco glanced down at the headless corpse. “That almost put a bullet in your head. We thought it might have been you.”
“A lost head never stopped me before.”
Jukko walked into the room. He didn’t spare a glance for the scientists or his compatriots. With eyes fixed on what was trussed up in the room’s center, the source for the “extracting,” Jukko bent over the headless body and withdrew a handgun. “She is in so much pain.”
Suspended in the center of the room was a nude twelve-year old girl, for all appearances unconscious. Tubes in every orifice both natural and man-made siphoned fluids from her. They emptied into vats at the back wall of the room. No fluids were being fed into the girl.
“Never-ending,” Jukko whispered.
“Her body’s some kind of inter-dimensional portal or some-such,” Frederick told them. Not that he had to, with them knowing the same information he did. He was no longer covering the scientists, now that Cisco had his weapon raised. “Thanks for arriving when you did. I almost couldn’t take being this giyn any longer. Where can I ride?”
“Not inside,” Cisco said. “Wait to leave with us.” To the scientists, all Cisco said was, “Get up. Outside.” As though pulled by a string they all stood up and moved single file. Cisco followed them out the door. Seconds later a spray of gunfire could be heard. Cisco was soon back inside.
“We can’t risk damaging the equipment.” Cisco tapped his fetish. “Colonel, we have the package. Send Tefibi and Grunier through and we can-”
Jukko raised his rifle and squeezed the trigger. The little girl was torn in half, many of the tubes severed. Fluids with highly stimulating scents flowed along the floor. Backing away from the spreading pool, Frederick mouthed, “Holy shit.”
“Uh, you can cancel that request.” Cisco tapped his fetish off. “Jukko, what was that?”
“The easing of a little girl’s pain.” Jukko lowered the rifle. “And my own. We can go now.”
“Yeah, sure.” Cisco ran his eyes over the teleportation platform. “Just as soon as we get Flint in here for an extraction.”
Next: In Stormwatch: Team Achilles #2: How does state of the art, top-secret equipment end up in the hands of a drug cartel? Colonel Santini suspects the answer is three words: Civil Defense Administration. But can Stormwatch do anything about it?
I got into Wildstorm late in the game. I missed the Jim Lee era, the Alan Moore run of WildCATS, Warren Ellis on Stormwatch, WildCATS Volume 2 and even the original run of Authority. No, I didn’t look at Wildstorm until Eye of the Storm, the Mature Reader’s line.
Ah, and what a line that was. Joe Casey had created what may very well have been the first corporate-driven comic book with Wildcats 3.0, Ed Brubaker was redefining noir with Sleeper, and Micah Ian Wright was doing political satire and bloody military action with Stormwatch: Team Achilles. Over the course of the latter run we saw the destruction of an alternate world, a team of regular soldiers beat the shit out of Wildstorm’s premiere super-team the Authority, the annihilation of everybody in Finland, and an attempted political coup inside the United States of America.
For all the controversy surrounding the writer and the title, Stormwatch: Team Achilles was a good read that I thoroughly enjoyed. For all the fantastic situations and satirical content, the title was steeped in a sense of realism. You got to believe that regular soldiers with proper training and weaponry could realistically handle super-powered beings. In a universe where the heroes were often as bad as the villains, this also brought a sort of comfort.
Back when Stormwatch: Team Achilles first came out, the September 11 attacks had just occurred. The President of the United States had a great deal of support and Homeland Security was in everybody’s hearts and minds. This title saw the destruction of the United Nations building by terrorists, a government agency kidnapping people for secret interrogation and a President that was also a Klansman. For obvious reasons with the title’s eventual cancellation, but I can’t help but wonder how it’d be received now.
The original Stormwatch: Team Achilles didn’t just push buttons. It ripped those buttons out and shoved them up the ass. Expect me to do the same here. But don’t worry, I wear gloves and keep my nails trimmed. Most of the time.
Stephen Crosby
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