"Prisoner's been questioned," JC called as he came into earshot of Kaplan. "Put an IX in; I'll sign it."
Kaplan sneered. "Jeez, I really hate that shit, agent. The rest of us have questions too, you think?"
"Mine are more important," JC replied, brushing him off with a gesture. Kaplan grunted and went back to his work.
JC cast about until he found a security officer who looked less than busy. "Private..." he glanced at the name tag, "...Lloyd."
"Sir?"
"You into anything right now?"
"Your name, sir?"
"Denton."
"Paul's brother?"
JC realized he would always be known this way. "None other," he replied.
"Good to meet you agent," enthused the private, offering his hand. "What can I do?"
"Can you take me to Manderley?"
"First time at HQ?"
They began walking. "Yeah."
"Sure thing," Lloyd answered. "He's on the second level. In fact, so are you. You know there's a couple of boxes, been in your office for weeks."
"No kidding?"
"Your stuff, I guess."
JC had assumed as much. "I guess."
"I'm security, so I do patrols." Lloyd kept talking, "I check your office, nobody ever moves that stuff. Sometimes the agents, they get offices they never use, or maybe use once. You guys are in the field so much and all, you know?"
"Sure."
"They put you out there just as soon as you come in the door, it seems. See, with me, they kept me working shit jobs forever, and now I just do security and mop-up work. Still not really field action, you know?"
"I suppose not."
"Not that you guys shouldn't get offices. I mean, it's nice to have a place for your stuff, you know? I wouldn't know, really; I never got my own..."
The conversation, if one could call it that, continued this way right up to Manderley's office. JC had been playing a homeless bum in Battery Park for nearly three months now. While Private Lloyd's constant, and mostly inconsequential, noise might have annoyed another, to JC, it was welcome change from the prattle of the strung-out, the criminal, and the diseased. In fact, were he better rested, he actually might have participated. As it were, he was looking forward to briefing down and going home, or at least the derelict van near Battery Park serving as a home.
As they stepped through a doorway and came to a stop, Lloyd was still talking. "So ever since then, they make us check those fixtures. Just in case, you know? Still, whole thing was pretty random, if you ask me. Anyway, that's Janice Reed, Manderley's secretary."
"Oh." JC had introverted and lost track. "We're here."
"Glad to help." With that, Private Lloyd was gone.
JC turned to the secretary, introduced himself, and was momentarily ushered into the next room, where tall, grey haired Manderley sat at a rather largish desk typing away at his PC. Chief Joseph Manderley was the division head of the Security and Investigations Division. He was, in short, the boss. He was an authoritative figure, but still had an aspect of civility and diplomacy to him. JC waited patiently while he finished his task.
Without turning from the monitor, Manderley spoke, "Good work out there."
"Thank you, chief."
"No joke, people are impressed." Manderley finally stopped typing and faced JC, motioning for him to sit. "So did you learn anything useful?"
"I believe so, sir." He knew what was coming up.
"I sure as hell hope so." Manderley's face was hard to read. He was neither angry nor cordial, but a simple straight line. "You put an IX on this guy, which you need to sign, by the way."
JC braced himself. "Is that a problem?" He knew when he promised Ussery that he might have been overstepping a bit.
"I don't know, agent, is it?" Manderley continued. "See, the thing is, you're pretty green to all this still, and people don't take these things lightly."
JC was frustrated; he couldn't tell if he was being corrected or commended. "I apologize if--"
Manderley cut him off; Manderley had a habit of cutting people off. "No need agent, if it was worth it." JC thought the pause overdramatic. "So, was it worth it?"
Time to drop the bomb, he thought. "The shipment's not in the park. Not most of it anyway."
"What?" Boom.
The shipment that everyone seemed so heated up about was the three refrigerated crates of United States appropriated cold-culture vials of a single-strain virus manufactured by a biotech company in Hong Kong, China. The shipment contained 2500 vials, which amount to approximately 500,000 doses of the virus, to be injected directly into the blood. Because of the population index at this time, that number of doses was all but negligible, and therefore, each vial was extremely valuable. In NSF hands, it could keep them well funded for some time. The market value of the virus was so high because it was the only known effective vaccine and treatment for a fatal epidemic known as the Gray Death.
The virus in the vials was commonly known as Ambrosia.
"I had already thought they moved some of it, and Ussery confirmed it. One George Fine, aka Jojo, is networking it. He's a local drug runner. I think does some pimping in the Black district. We have a file on--"
Manderley interrupted, "You're sure of this?"
"Mostly."
"You've laid eyes on it?"
Oh, thought JC, he meant that sure. "Well... no."
"Then get your ass back to the park and lay eyes on it. Let Alex know when you've seen it, try to secure whatever's there. I'll set up a raid team with... oh, Navarre, I guess. She's out that way." He said it as though he were ordering a burger at a drive-thru, as though he weren't assigning an exhausted Agent Denton another three plus hours of operations.
"Uh, sir, I was hoping--"
"There's no time JC. The fellas put your hobo clothes in the vault. Janice will take you to Carter."
JC recognized that name. "General Carter?" The man had been something of a legend ever since his work in the Merced Operation.
"Yeah, he runs the vault," answered Manderley. "Get changed and get out there. Do your thing."
JC was not sure. "Sir, I'm not sure--" At least he got the main idea out before being cut off again.
"Can you get in the castle, agent?"
"It's a risk."
"Give me a number."
"Sixty," JC replied, referring to the percent chance of successful completion.
Apparently, sixty was enough. "Make it happen. And sign that IX."
The ferry dock on the southern tip of Manhattan Island had been shut down for six years now, but by no means was it completely out of use. Outside of being a public restroom for the transients of Battery Park, it was also used to move things and people from one island to another. The bridges, to include the Brooklyn Bridge, were heavily patrolled by police due to the ease of traffic constraint. The cops who worked there were so irate with being there, they couldn't be bought. In fact, most were crooked in the other direction; they would make criminals of innocents out of spite. Most of the subway lines had long since been shut down due to lack of security and frequency of attacks there.
The waterways, however, were largely neglected by law enforcement agencies, mostly due to the logistics of it. It simply wasn't worth the small number of actual busts to be made there. These waterways were the lifeline of the Manhattan and Brooklyn underworld, which, in this time, was expansive. It was these waterways that Jojo's network used to traffic his goods back and forth. It was these waterways the NSF had used to beach the stolen Ambrosia.
The story began with a man named JC Denton. For the past three months, however, Agent Denton had been known to his peers as Bronce Keesley. He had played in his head with the idea of trying to use the nickname "Keese," but no one in Battery Park had gotten to know him well enough to use a nickname. Developing deep, meaningful relationships with the impoverished, ailing community of the once celebrated New York park had not been Bronce's job. Developing shallow but informative and usable relationships had. These relationships had, for Bronce, brought to light many underground personalities and illegal resources. Ussery and Jojo were two of the people he had met; resources included drugs, weapons, and now Ambrosia, as well as the means to store and move them.
Among these means had been the storage tunnel used by Jojo's crew wherein the three missing crates now sat. This tunnel began at a hole torn out of a basement wall. The basement was under an abandoned building overlooking the piers where the Staten Island Ferry had once docked near the park before it had been shut down. The gaping entrance was covered over by a nonfunctioning soda vending machine, and it was this entrance that JC had discovered. About three hundred yards away was the old Clinton Fort, and within were the two kiosks that had once been tourist attractions and were now just drug addict attractions. The other egress was a metal hatch in the floor of one of these kiosks.
JC had once again entered the field at Battery Park, heading first to the old wharf building. He was again wearing the same dirty, beat-up brown jacket, raiders t-shirt, and torn jeans he'd worn since he started working out here. This time, however, he had brought along his Mark23, stuffed into the back of his pants. He made his way through the building, carefully and quietly. Soon he came to the room that led to the basement, in which were the two guards Jojo had apparently posted on this end. It was a dark room, illuminated only by a large flashlight lying on the floor and the moonlight that streamed in.
He had expected these guards and expected a gun fight, which was part of the reason he brought his sidearm. He was pleased, however, to note that one of the guards, it being both late in the night and dark here, had fallen asleep. The other, being one of Jojo's delinquent, undisciplined thugs, was high out of his mind, lying on the ground, drooling on himself and moaning. Without incident, JC proceeded to the basement.
The situation here had become tense as soon as JC reported the presence of the tunnel to UNATCO, and his belief that the Ambrosia was being stored there. The belief was confirmed as the police had closed in, when the NSF elements led by Ussery had simultaneously taken hostages in the statue and in one of the few active subway stations near Central Park. The terrorists were very clear about what they wanted: they were to be allowed to move the shipment out of Battery Park without interference, or the shipment would be destroyed, and the hostages killed.
JC was fairly convinced that the UNATCO authorities were more concerned with the Ambrosia than the hostages, which was one of the reasons he had withheld his conjecture that it was all smoke and mirrors, that most of the shipment had already been moved. If the forces came storming in and exposed the ruse, the hostages might have been killed out of spite, so JC had waited until the folks working the subway station had resolved the situation.
He moved quickly through the tunnel, eager to complete his assignment and get some much needed rest. When he came to the end, the tunnel opened into a cube-shaped cave in which was a ladder leading the Castle Clinton hatch and three large portable refrigerators. He opened the first. He opened the second. He opened the third.
Out of 2500 vials, he estimated maybe 80 to 100 were here. He had been right, and now he had laid eyes on it. He reached for the earpiece in the jacket pocket, still linked to Jacobson, put it on, and gave it two taps.
"Are we green?" came Alex's voice. JC gave it another tap, and gears began to turn. Anna Navarre, the agent who had been JC's partner since the shipment vanished the day before, had a task force ready to wreak havoc on Jojo's flunkies. JC had given the signal, and the rest was up to her.
Suddenly, he thought again about it. He knew it wouldn't have left the kiosk, but the scary possibility that the rest was above the hatch was enough to compel JC to make certain. As he came out of the hatch, he found no vials, but he did find an armed man, compliments of Jojo, no doubt. The guard, a young black man with fairly long dreadlocks, turned and saw him. As Dreadlocks began to raise his pistol, JC though quick.
"Don't shoot!" he cried, holding up his hand. "Jojo sent me."
"What?"
JC needed to buy more time. "You gotta hurry. He says they got the other guys, and you gotta move. I don't even know what that means, but he was worked up. Said they're coming for you."
Dreads was considering it. Gesturing with the weapon, he said, "Stay right there," and he walked to the open door of the storage room they were in and began to call to another of the thugs.
This was when JC noticed movement. There was another person in the room. In the far corner, shrouded in the dark, was Josh.
Agent Navarre had been assigned to receive the shipment once it reached New York and escort it to its next destination. The shipment was lost at sea, and the boat had been scuttled. None of the crew, including the on-board UNATCO agent, made it back, and were presumably dead or working with the NSF. When it did not arrive, Navarre had been made responsible for finding it. Denton had not been informed until after he had already realized something was abnormal in the park; he had contacted Navarre. The progress so far had been mostly accredited to her. In truth, it mostly belonged to Josh.
JC quickly approached the terrified twelve-year old boy, knelt down, and asked with urgency, "Josh, what're you doing here?"
"I came in looking for food," answered Josh, and JC knew "food" probably meant drugs or alcohol. "Sometimes people stash here, but then they wouldn't let me go."
"It's alright."
JC had befriended the little street urchin out of pure coincidence, helping to keep him fed, and out of pure coincidence, Josh told JC about the hole in the basement wall, and about the people going in and out. Apparently he had been using it as well, and now he was here, he was stuck, and he was scared.
"I don't wanna get shot."
"It's okay," JC put the ear piece on as he tried to console the boy. "Yeah, abort, no gravity. Repeat, abort. Do you copy?" said JC, into the air.
Josh was surprised, recognizing the radio-style talk. "Who are you?" Up to now, Josh thought he was just another homeless junkie.
JC put a hand out at Josh, "Shh. No, november hotel, abort, do you copy?" There was trouble. Alex was telling him that Navarre wasn't interested in non-hostiles, but in getting this over with. JC cussed when he heard commotion outside, realizing she had begun and wasn't pulling out. In fact, he cussed a little louder than he had meant.
Dreads had spotted that something was awry. "Hey! What's going on over here?" He approached, sticking the gun out toward them. "Who the fuck are you?"
"I told you, Jojo--"
"Bullshit!" The ruse had failed.
Another man, this one displaying a well-thought out tattoo reading "Str8t Killa," dashed into the room, and headed for the hatch. "We gotta go," he called, "now!"
Dreads turned and said, "Hey, we got a rat problem."
"So kill 'em."
In that moment, as the last word tumbled out of Str8t Killa's mouth, as Dreads turned to face them and the synapses required to pull the trigger began to fire, inside that moment, JC reacted.
With inhuman speed, his right hand came up and tore the Glock from it's path as the free left hand slammed into Dread's chin, throwing his head back. The pistol rang out, putting and impotent 9mm round into the floor, and muffled the sound of Dread's neck as it broke and he slumped to the ground.
JC dropped into a crouch, and his left hand wasted no time in finding the Mark23 and bringing it around. Finding his bead, there was a moment's hesitation as he watched. As Killa began to bring the muzzle of the AK toward JC, three reports sounded, followed shortly by several more as Killa's finger pumped bullets into the ceiling and he fell back against the wall.
Killa was wounded, and JC was fairly certain that Dreads was dead. He darted across the room, risking the open door, to snatch the AK-47 from Killa's hand. A third man was running toward the shed door, and just as he came through it, JC grabbed his wrist, spun him, and send him tumbling into the far wall with a push, out of the room.
He slammed the door shut, and slid a nearby rack of stainless steel shelves into a barricade position, just as a fourth assailant ripped holes in the door from the outside, probably with another AK. JC ducked and scooted back to the corner and the kid, and began to gather him up.
"No!" He was screaming and fighting, terror having taking over reason.
"You've got to, come on, I can't leave yet." JC overpowered the boy and hugged him to his chest, then made for the hatch.
Once inside, he found a corner that provided a good vantage, should anyone follow, and simply sat, rocking the boy petrified with fear, saying over and over, "It's alright. It's okay."
