Chronicles of War

Part 1: Way of the Storm

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    "It's how the world is made!
     Men prefer sorrow over joy...
     suffering over peace.

    "Look at them in the first castle.
     They revel in pain and bloodshed.
     They celebrate murder."

    - "Ran"

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Chapter 13: A Telling Silence

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Ed stood over the body outside of the little music store, looking over
an empty hallway. The hallway wasn't empty though, filled with that
modern clutter the trained eye ignores. The body at his feet was covered
in its former owner's coat. Ed himself had pulled the eyelids over the
corpse's glassy eyes, and draped its coat over its face. He moved like a
robot the entire time, acting out a scene he knew from television and
movies but never imagined he would be performing himself.

Television did not convey the smell the of death, and in many ways, Ed
was thankful for that. Television could not convey the value of life,
and the brutal sense of loss that witnessing someone's death inflicted
upon your soul. It was unfair. It was a waste. It was too many things,
and nothing Ed could put into words.

He could pretend that it didn't matter, and stand here in an artificial
shell of non-feeling. Right now, that was all he could do about it.
Later he would scream and decry the pointlessness of this loss and
question his own mortality, but for right now he had to be calm,
collected, and alert.

He did not think about the people he had already killed. When the time
came, would he? He wondered how cops dealt with it. Perhaps he would be
in therapy after this was all over. Briefly, he wondered how James was
taking this. Did James feel the same way?

He spent the next minute praying that there would be an 'after,' that
there would be a 'tomorrow.' Cursing fate and questioning his motives
could come later, after, some other day.

He stood there, and wondered if that day would ever come.

----------

While the anonymous, if cute, woman answered Dan's continuous string of
questions, James leaned casually against one of the large CD displays.
When he knocked the small label from the display with his elbow, he
picked it up sheepishly and considered looking through the store's
selection. He had a minute to kill. No, wait. He couldn't do that if
there was no one here able to check out his purchases.

His eyes settled on the two music store employees, the waif with the
freaky blond hair and the tight end with the hair gel addiction. Hey,
they could check out his purchases.

Then again, he had a job to do. Certainly his time could be better spent
planning the next strike against their enemy, gathering intelligence,
giving pep-talks. Contemplating the security system of a store that
sells compact discs and planning to bully the only remaining employees
was not--

Wait one minute.

Security systems. James had been operating under the assumption that the
mall's security systems were all employed by the enemy. So far there was
no real reason to believe that, despite the voice over the phone
promising to keep an eye on him. Most of the stores had close-circuit
video systems and associated recording equipment. Why not use it to spy
on the enemy? James filed that plan away for future use. It
had...possibilities. He'd have to stay alive to explore them, but they
were there nonetheless.

Leaving the formation of a concrete plan until he had a situation to
mold it to, James waited with a patient, genuine smile while the woman
finished with Dan. She handed the phone back wordlessly, inspecting
every feature on his face as if weighing its value.

"Thank you," he said, fighting to keep his mild smile from erupting into
a face-distorting grin. He turned away. "James," he said into the
mouthpiece.

Dan responded right away, but his voice was slow and thick with
trepidation. "I have a statement I want to put before you, but it may be
offensive."

"I'm not going to let a few words get in the way of building a solid
friendship, Dan. Spit it out."

Though James wouldn't hear it, he just knew Dan was sighing. "It sounds
to me like you want to fight these terrorists."

"Yeah, I'm not good at that whole begging and pleading bit. They're
after me anyway, I'd rather take 'em head-on."

Dan's voice was carefully level. "You realize that engaging the enemy is
what got Peter killed, right?"

Ah, so this was the heart of the matter. "Oh yes, and next your going to
remind me--unnecessarily--that continuing to fight these guys will
endanger the remainder of the hostages. Sure, I understand that, but
let's consider what happens if I surrender. Let's see...I give up my
guns, and get taken into custody. The military forces here liquidates
the remaining hostages unopposed, and is free to clean up the evidence
of their activities by blowing up the place. Meanwhile, I'm tortured,
drugged, interrogated, when they find out that I'm not who they were
looking for, killed. Where does that leave us?"

The negotiator pressed on, "James, I understand--"

James put a subtle hint of force behind his words, "That was a question,
Dan. Now answer me. Where does that leave us?"

After a pause, "With a lot of dead bodies and no explanation for why
they died."

"I'm not going to leave these people undefended. I'm going to arm them
and put them in the safest place possible. Then I'm going to go out and
kill these...terrorists. I'm going to eliminate the threat." They won't
get away, James wanted say, they've locked themselves in with the
monster.

"Okay, James." Dan said, though James knew he'd have this argument again
and again later, it was getting easier to deal with each time. "How can
we help you?"

"Send in a pile of weapons, a bullet-proof vest, then get the hostages
out and let me at these guys." Give the monster more teeth and claws.
James grinned a very anti-social grin.

"I wish that were possible, James. Perhaps we can provide blueprints..."

"The blueprints are always wrong, Dan. I'm an engineer, and I know
blueprints. I can pick apart this building like..." James chuckled, his
evil grin fading. "Like a Thanksgiving turkey."

Dan asked his last question casually. He might have been asking James
for his pants size. "Nice choice of words, James. Can you tell me where
your confidence came from?"

As if quoting from a book, James responded, "A good citizen is prepared,
at all times, to defend their country against all aggressors."

"Can you tell me what you plan to do next?"

"I plan to find and defuse some bombs. Since these mercenaries, or
whatever they are, seem to congregate around them, I think I'll pick one
off and question him. The last time I tried that, things didn't turn out
well. Sooner or later one of them will slip, though. And information is
worth many times gold on the battlefield."

"Busy day," Dan quipped.

"Yeah. You could say that." James carefully sighed into the phone's
mouthpiece. "Dan?"

"Yes?"

"I don't want to see anyone else here die. But...you know, this is an
us-or-them situation. I can't just take care of the bombs and ignore the
military forces here."

"I know, James."

"Well, thank you for understanding."

"Yes. We'll be touch."

"Dan, don't call me. I'll call you."

"I...I see."

The line went dead.

James smiled. The entire police department was probably scratching their
heads right now, but there was a reason behind his plan, a method to his
madness. They wouldn't see it yet, but eventually...The thought of a
whole mass of police officers scratching their heads in unison while he
saved the day was more than a little amusing, but everybody looked at
him strangely when he laughed out loud.

He got the laugh under control quickly.

"The police," He announced loudly, "send their best wishes. Help to
follow."

Was there anything else to say? He'd made his decision, and now it was
only a matter of putting the details in order. Ignoring the bewildered
crowd and the questions they were just bursting to shout at him, James
came up to Ed's elbow and stood next to the taller man, scanning the
hallway for any sign of danger.

"You realize this is something like dressing in colors contrasting your
background and standing at the peak of a tall hill overlooking a
battlefield filled with snipers, don't you?"

Ed answered as if he'd been waiting for James to say that. "Yeah, but we
can't run and hide."

James raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because the good guys don't hide."

James clapped softly. "That's a good attitude, but who are the good
guys?"

Ed turned and looked at him.

Seeing this was not going to be a two-way exchange just yet, James
continued, "Still in shock, dude?"

The guard wiped at his brow. "Is it that obvious?"

"Dude," James said with emphasis, then rolled his shoulders. "Later. For
now, I have to tell you...you have more courage than I, my friend."

Ed looked back to the hallway, frowning.

"James?" Carl asked from inside the store.

The assassin answered without turning around, "No. We're staying right
here. Ed and I might--will--move Peter to a...better spot. For when, you
know, the police come."

"Uh, okay," Carl said. He seemed about to say more, but left the words
hanging there like the forgotten act to a famous play.

Ed and James remained in self-imposed silence for another moment, before
Ed spoke, "How could you say you're not as courageous as me? You're an
assassin. You're an expert. You do this stuff like you're just rolling
off a log. I'm just an ordinary guy."

"Ordinary guys are heroes, Ed. I'm just scum."

Ed looked at his friend as if to say 'don't say like that.'

James continued, "I didn't do with what I did because I needed to, I did
it because it was convenient, because it was easy. Fighting to survive
is not the same thing. You're scared when you're fighting for your life.
You do the right thing because doing the right thing basically means
going on living, or protecting the lives of others. That's not an easy
thing to do. An assassin? An assassin would walk away from this. If
there's an escape route, he'd be gone. I'd be gone, but I'm trying to do
the right thing, after years and years of being a horrible person."

Ed glanced at James again. James noted that he was ready to ask where
and when James learned his trade. James debated what to tell him, but
Ed's resolve, or curiosity, wavered. "We're going to go back out there
again. We're going to spit in death's eye."

"Yeah, it's not over yet."

"When it's over, I'm going to jump for joy," Ed said with inspiring
certainty.

James smiled. "I'll join you," he said, slapping Ed on the shoulder in a
friendly gesture of camaraderie. "I'll join you."

----------

In the mobile command van, Dan hung up his phone. The Chief of Police
stood behind him, rocking back and forth on his heels impatiently. His
arms were crossed over his chest like a barrier against great evil.

Dan stared at his hands for a minute, collecting his thoughts. The
detectives on either side of him made a few notes, but otherwise waited
in silence with the chief.

"I can't tell if he's crazy or not. He's determined and uncompromising,
but highly objective. He's had military training, or something very
close to it. He's not afraid of playing with us, but he's dead set
against making us his enemy. He sees this situation as a problem with
one simple solution, and he's pushing for that solution to the exclusion
of all others."

"Is he a danger to the hostages?" The chief asked first.

"Only in the sense that his position means there's a lot riding on his
shoulders."

Bates ran a shaky hand through his hair. "So if he screws up, we're
looking at a double-digit body count. What if he succeeds?"

"He's hiding something," Dan said as if coming out of a daze. "He's a
skilled liar; sticking to omissions, half-truths, and ambiguous
definitions. I can't even tell what he's lying about."

"Theories?" The chief asked quietly.

"He doesn't want us to know what's really going on in there."

"I second that observation," said Limbaugh.

"What about Dogson?" The chief asked.

Dan sighed. "She didn't know that they knew each other, but she's taking
it as a given now. Doesn't surprise her at all. Now, she claims that
James appeared here with a big confidence boost, and also said she
hadn't seen him since high school. He just up and left--cut off
contact."

"Flemming?"

"Occupied, but I talked to another hostage, a woman named Miranda Banks.
She thinks James is out of his mind and some kind of military death
machine. Doesn't have a clue otherwise, and James isn't exactly
showering them with his theories about the whole situation. She keeps
saying that he's organizing his friends and a couple of other hostages
like he's building an army, planning attacks."

"A real go-getter," Bates muttered.

Then it clicked. Dan sat up straighter in his chair. "That's it. He's
investigating. That methodical approach to finding the bombs; he's
trying to get answers out of the terrorists."

"That's suicidal," The chief said, perfectly echoing the very words both
detectives were about to utter.

"He's a professional," Dan said, mostly to himself.

"He could be in league with the terrorists," Limbaugh asserted.

"Gentlemen, we're talking in circles again," the chief said calmly,
"Let's try and look at this from a fresh perspective."

"He...knows the terrorists? Former comrades let's say. He wants them out
of the picture, but not dead," Limbaugh offered.

"How about he knows the guy who planted the bombs?" Dan pondered.

"He needs to explain where the fuck he learned all of this stuff," Bates
said.

"He's vowed to protect the hostages, with no conditions."

The other three looked at Limbaugh as if he'd just spit up a lit match.

"It comes down to what he's lying about and who the terrorists are.
Continue to support him as we have been. Dan, get him to trust us, get
him on our side. Limbaugh, dig up everything you can on him. Pull every
piece of paper from the Kennewick school district. Call every law
enforcement officer in North Dakota, all ten of them, and question them.
Call the DMV, call his fucking neighbors, old boss, girlfriend, his
newspaper boy. Talk to the lady that sold him coffee at the corner
convenience store. Dig, and don't stop digging until I tell you to. I
want every piece of information about his life in our hands, and we've
got no time at all to get it. Let the FBI check on everyone else."

Limbaugh nodded gravely and yanked the nearest phone of its hook.

"Bates, I want you to question him about everything these terrorist have
and are doing. Talk to Flemming, talk to any hostage you can. I want
their weapons, their uniforms, identifying marks--get the artist in here
and start describing people. The FBI can help us here too. Figure out
who these guys are. If can build a list of names, we stand a better
change of unraveling this mystery."

"Yes sir," Bates grabbed a radio and started demanding phone numbers
from dispatch.

The chief put his hand on the van's only door. "Fifty lives are at
stake. I'm going to calm down the press. Tell me something in ten
minutes."

----------

Three minutes later, Peter had been moved out of sight, and James and Ed
were hunched over the counter, examining James' map. The engineer had
taken a minute to mark off their encounters with the mercenaries in red.

"This is it." James pointed at a large square area on the map. "Food
Court."

Ed glanced at the expertly drawn diagram, and idly scratched at one of
the stickers near the counter's edge advertising a music savings card.
For frequent buyers only, read the fine print on another document, and
so on. The damn things never told the whole story. "What are we going to
do about the hostages?"

"They'll be fine," James said instantly, holding up a radio. "On the
battlefield, communication is king."

"Right," Ed said uncertainly.

"We'll have the element of surprise," James pressed, then quickly
covered the sound of his growling stomach with an obviously fake yawn.

Just there for bombs, eh?

"What surprise?" Drawled a sarcastic voice. "They know we're here, they
know what you're after. They're just waiting out there to make another
attempt at cornering us."

"Then I'll have to work quickly. James said. Besides, the Marines in a
better guarding position now. They were helpless with everyone else
milling around. And furthermore, what were you doing dragging Peter out
into the open?"

"I didn't drag him out there, he said he was feeling claustrophobic!"
Kat stomped her foot for emphasis.

James made a big show of looking around the entire store.
"Claustrophobic," the skepticism dripped from his words.

"Yeah," Ed said, watching James closely. Was he trying be an ass? "That
happens from time to time."

James sighed and looked very sad. "That's terrible. Look, I know this is
about as comfortable as getting slowly run over by a steam roller, but I
can't wave my hands and make it all better."

Kat seemed to find this satisfying. "I know."

"Now, ladies and gentlemen," James said, holding his hands out in a
gesture of peace. "Hear me out."

"I don't see any gentlemen," Kat said flatly.

"I don't see any ladies," Ed shot back, indignant. Kat favored him with
an lip curled at him in an unfriendly manner.

"People!" James snapped, "if anyone is going to resort to childish
insults, it's going to be me, and don't you forget it!" He slammed a
fist into his empty hand for emphasis.

Kat ignored him completely. Ed watched the exchange with a pleasant
smirk, in spite of himself.

"James," she began to advance her argument, "they're expecting you. They
set up a fucking ambush for crying out loud. They KNOW you're coming."

"But we know that they know that we're coming, and even though they know
that we know that they...nevermind. I've got it under control, okay? You
and Carl and Jimmy, you three need to promise me something."

Ed watched his old friend closely. Where was he going with this?

"Like what?"

"Kill the mercenaries on sight. Don't let them get close, don't even let
them open their mouths."

Ed saw the logic instantly.

Kat cover his wide-open mouth with her hand. "I don't think I can..."

"We can't let them get close again. You saw how careless they were first
hand. Peter--"

"I know!" She shouted, drawing stares. More quietly, but with no less
force, she leaned closer to James and repeated, "I know."

James gave her a little smile. "You're one in a million."

Kat shrugged.

James assumed a stiff stance, hands clasped behind his back, and
regarded the two carefully for a minute. "You want me to say a few words
about Peter?" He asked quietly.

"Why?" Kat asked.

"It might make you feel better."

Shit, it would make me feel better, Ed thought to himself. He nodded
quickly at James' words.

Kat took a second to think this over, then shook herself and answered,
"Sure."

With a smile, James offered, "Should I say something existential, or
should I go with a religious outing?"

"How about something involving a high-powered rifle and lots of room
between us and them?" Kat muttered under her breath.

Ed's eyes widened. Where had that come from? He pointed at her, but
spoke to James. "You know, she's got a point."

"Excuse me, but just _who_ is the professional killer here?" James
asked, raising an eyebrow, crossing his arms, and tapping a foot against
the floor. "We should take them out with knives, not a rifle."

Ed could only shrug helplessly.

Kat stared.

"Eulogy first." James rubbed his hands together. "Peter...uh, Peter was
a fine human being who, uh...insert witty philosophical banter here.
We'll miss him, family survives him, yadda yadda yadda, amen."

"That's it?!"

Time for Kat to switch to decaf, Ed didn't say.

James put his hands up defensively. "I didn't say I was good at this
kind of thing."

"Good? That was the worst eulogy I've ever heard." Kat stated.

"Look, when I did this, I usually didn't hang around for twenty minutes
singing and crying and counseling others in their grief...well, there
was that one time, but I didn't do a very good job of it because I was
trying to laugh at the whole situation and the grandmother was
hysterical and my 'partner' PUT ITCHING POWDER IN MY SOCKS!" James
stopped shouting, an accusatory finger jammed into the air. He looked
like he couldn't remember how he wound up standing here.

He slowly patted down his clothing, which did nothing to ease the
wrinkles in his well-worn flannel, and ran a hand through his hair,
which remained a terrible mess. Suitably calm, he regarded his old
friends with a shy smile. "Sorry, I do get carried away. First thing's
first. Kat, your question." He took a deep breath. "They're military,
and I've seen them in action. I know where they'll be. Rather than
wander into a tiny, cramped store that I'm not familiar with, the Food
Court is an open area that hasn't changed much--"

"At all," Ed cut in.

Picking up flawlessly, James said, "--at all over the years and I can
both mount an effective defense and pick apart their plans there." He
folded his arms over his chest and put on a smirk. "That and I've got
this...feeling."

Ed narrowed his eyes. Kat rolled hers. This had something to do with his
feelings all right, feelings of hunger.

"You may not understand me, and you may not believe me," James
continued, "but when you're dealing with matters as complex at these, I
listen to my instincts. They've been honed by a thousand battles. I'm
standing here because of them."

Ed wondered if that was really speaking highly of his instincts. Uh-oh,
James had stopped talking. "The food court then?" Ed asked to fill in
the silence.

Kat looked from one to the other and sighed. A single word escaped from
her mouth and seemed to echo around them, both inescapable truth and
cruel joke, "Madness." She glared at each man in turn as if to warn them
to be safe. Her motherly side was threatening to show. At least Ed was
certain she had one, now.

"Be careful," she said.

"Always," they both replied instantly, all traces of humor gone.

She took the submachine gun James offered without a word.

And just like that, they left.