Chapter 1: The Breakout
It was a cold night, only one cloud half-covering the moon. A lone armored truck was traveling down a dark narrow road with no trees, houses, or anything along the way. The truck did not make any noises to intrude the silence, but it moved like it was gliding over the asphalt. Five minutes later, the transport approached a gigantic metallic gate surrounding a shadowy compound. The truck soon stopped near a security camera posted at the top of the gate. The driver's window rolled down and the driver showed the camera a bronze badge on his wallet. Three seconds after, the gate opened, allowing the driver to enter the compound.
"Welcome, Agent Beklin." said a voice from the intercom.
The driver put the badge back in his wallet, rolled up the window, and proceeded to drive towards the gates of the compound. Within a few more minutes, the driver stopped, having reached the main gate. The compound now loomed large over the truck; with its windows all blacked out and with its tall surveillance towers shining their searchlights at every direction. Two men dressed in black army suits with silver badges sewn on to their uniform shirts, walked out to greet the driver as he and the passenger with him unbuckled their seat belts, opened the doors, and exited the vehicle. The first man, who had combed back caramel brown hair and sharp gray eyes, looked older than the other agents, and whose uniform was more intricate than his companion's, walked up to the driver and passenger.
"Good evening, Greg," he said to the driver. "You too, Ryan." He mentioned the passenger, who also had a bronze badge on his shirt. "Rounded up tonight's garbage, have you?"
"Yes, sir," the driver responded. His name was Greg Beklin, and he and his partner, Ryan Shackloft, were fellow federal security agents for France's personal army. Greg was twenty years old with dark green hair and brown eyes, and Ryan was twenty-five with a bleached blonde crew cut and blue eyes. The agents motioned the two men at the gate to the back door of the truck. Greg and Ryan the opened the door, showing four men in scruffy clothing with ski masks on their heads, each one bound by metal handcuffs.
"One nightly street gang, all wrapped up to go. These aren't just your run-of-the-mill crooks, sir. These guys are with the good bad guys. They used very convincing fake I.D. to get their hands on $100,000 worth of tech, weapons, and cash." Greg and Ryan got the men in the truck to their feet, and walked them out, harshly holding their arms while walking.
"Take it easy, man," one of the men said. "You're breaking my arm."
"And you're breaking my heart." Ryan retorted, tightening his grip on his own captive. This only served as the means to make the man wince all the more. "Your orders, sir?" Ryan asked the first man.
"Check them into Detention Cell 21 and get it over with," the man snorted. "I can't stand the sight of them."
"Gladly, General." Greg motioned for a guard patrol, which led the gang down a dark hall and into the shadows.
"Good," said the first man, the general. "Now then, gentlemen, I have something to show you both. Please follow me."
The first man, the one at the gate, was General Alistair Gordon, Commander of the Second Secret Service of France, and Honorary Sheriff of INTERPOL. He was about in his early forties, and he had worked in the service for thirteen years. His partner was Dan Larkson, Deputy Sheriff of National Security. He was in his late thirties, and had jet-black hair and jaded eyes. The building that they, Greg, and Ryan were in, and that Alistair was in charge of, was the French National Detention Center, an ultra-high-security prison specially built to hold the worst of the worst. General Gordon led his partner and the two agents down a long corridor where, at every turn, they were met with scowling, growling, and sneering of criminals, some of which were behind steel cell bars, and others were behind a one-way unbreakable glass wall. All of them lashed out at the men from their confinements, and growled at them.
"Nice collection, sir," Greg commented. "But what is it that interests you enough to only show it to two federal truckers, and not the federation itself?"
"I'm glad you asked, soldier," Alistair replied. "In fact, the answer to everyone's questions may just be beyond this door."
As he said this, he stopped, having reached a steel door with a keypad and several genetic locks barring the door.
"What's with this door, sir?" Ryan asked, clearly seeing the prison before and never having seen this particular door.
"Behind this door," The general replied after a pause, "is by far the worst scum that this government has ever scraped off the windshield of our country. This man was a very powerful force in one of the worst criminals ever to come from Europe. He was the new leader of the one and, thankfully, the only, criminal syndicate known as…
…The Black Cobras."
The very notion of these words was enough to give quite a shock to these men.
"Black Cobras?" Greg gasped, visibly shaken. "THE Black Cobras? The very criminal syndicate that, ever since World War II, has been dealing with and creating even worse terrorists than the Iraqis or Afghans?"
"One and the same," Alistair said, solemnly.
"I thought that they were just a legend," Ryan whispered.
"Well, Agent Shackloft," Alistair responded, "I can assure you that they are anything but legend."
He immediately punched ten numbers in the keypad and stepped up to the retinal scanner, handprint scanner, hair scanner, and lastly, a scanner that shot out a small wave of light that scanned his entire body. Afterwards, a microphone protruded from a console in the wall.
"Gordon, Alistair." The general spoke into the mike. It then retreated back into the wall as the door started to open.
"Access granted." came a voice from the console. The men proceeded through the door, into a long hallway that led outside, to the center of the compound. When the lights cleared, Greg and Ryan saw a box suspended a mile from the sea by steel cables. The only way to get to the box was a single walkway, enclosed by a tunnel and was also supported by steel cables. The box was completely empty except for a man in a white prisoner's uniform in what seemed to be a cage of steel, and the walls of the box itself seemed to be perfectly clear.
"This is the most inescapable containment unit ever made by man," General Gordon said to the agents as he led them down the walkway leading to the door of the cell.
"Reinforced steel framing, carbonium walls, everything needed to hold a crook like Geraldo Danzkhi, the new leader of the Black Cobras, and the stepson of the worst criminal that European secret government have ever caught…
…Kirk Fromm."
During his discussion with the men, Alistair slid a security card through a slot in the door and punched in a long and complicated series of letters and numbers. Afterwards, the door opened, and all three men entered the cell.
"Sir," Ryan asked, "who is Kirk Fromm?"
The general paused for a while, and then looked at the agent intently.
"He's the reason that the Germans almost won the war."
Upon hearing this, the agents were shocked. Almost immediately after he had said this to the agents, the general sat at a desk in the cell, and the prisoner sat at the seat across from him.
"Two years it's been, Danzkhi," Alistair said, harshly. "How long do you expect us to wait for you to give us the answers?"
"As long as it takes to drive you nuts, 'General'," the man snorted with a thick Russian accent. "Heh, and with all that's been going on here, I should keep you guessing on our goals for quite a while."
Alistair instantly rose from his chair and grabbed his captive by the neck. "I've been more than patient with you for far too long, and now I want some answers. If you won't willingly talk, I'll make you talk. Now, tell me, what do you have to say for yourself? What is the Cobra's master plan?"
At that, the agents were confused, for they had no clue as to what was going on, but after the general's temper subsided, his captive just snickered and raised his head to Alistair's face and whispered into the general's ear in a sing-song tone:
"They're back…"
Alistair took a step back, confused by this. In that instant, the man pulled up his sleeve to reveal a miniature detonator, timed to go off in fifteen seconds. The general went white.
"Get back!" he shouted at the agents, who, along with the general, quickly ran out of the cell and ducked behind the door. Then, Geraldo threw the bomb at the floor right at the zero mark, causing an explosion that made the diamond-hard floor shatter, sending pieces flying everywhere.
The men looked from behind the rubble, and noticed that Geraldo jumped out of the box through a new hole in the floor, and he shouted out, "So long, boys!"
Unlike what they expected, he did not fall to the sea. Instead, after a few moments of silence, they soon saw him floating up on a small wire, almost invisible. Then, a loud whirring noise came from the clouds. The men looked up to see that the noise came from a black helicopter that had just got there, almost as if the people driving it knew that the whole event would transpire.
Suddenly, a range of alarms flared to life all around the prison, which could be heard for a mile around. In a matter of seconds, every guard in the compound was on the scene, firing at the vehicle like their lives depended on it. Even the guards at the surveillance towers were firing their turrets like crazy. Unfortunately, amid the gunfire from all directions, the craft flew out of range and out of sight.
After a while, the two agents looked at the general. "Sir, are you okay?" Ryan asked.
"Don't worry about me," Alistair started, but was cut off by a ringing from his communicator. As he answered it, the image of Harold Augustus, the C.E.O. of the European Private Militia appeared on the screen.
"General Gordon," he said, "I received a priority alarm coming from your location. What is your situation?"
"Not good, sir," the general replied. "Geraldo has escaped thanks to a small explosive he rigged together over all this time and to a stealth helicopter that was lying in wait right over our heads. The Cobras sprung him out. They're the only ones who would or could. We froze off all of his other assets except for them. They must have been recruiting all these years under our noses just for this moment."
"I see…" the chief replied. "What is your plan of action?"
For a minute, Alistair did not answer. Then he said:
"There are only two people in this world who could answer that question, sir."
"Do you mean… them?" the chief started.
"Yes, sir. I mean them. I'll let you know when they arrive at Camp Gideon." he finished.
"Understood." Harold replied. With that, the image disappeared, and General Gordon turned to the other guards and to the agents.
"You two," he said after a while to Ryan and Greg, "I need you to go to the address on this card, find the people who live there, and get them here as soon as possible." Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small card, the size of a business card, and handed it to Ryan.
"Who lives here?" Greg asked, looking at the card. "This is a civilian address."
"Who lives there, agent?" the general replied, then solemnly added:
"Just…
the last hope for the free world."