BROTHERS IN ARMS
Prologue part I:
The year was 2019. The President of the United States was enjoying his third year in office, and any minute now he was due to arrive in New York, to greet the public and deliver a speech on environmental issues. His chief security advisor, Kenneth O'Hara, now stood a little nervously as he waited for the President's helicopter to arrive. He told himself that there was no real reason to worry. Every possible security precaution had been taken to ensure the President's safety: every person in the crowd had been searched for weapons; every access to the street was being carefully watched by security personnel; the roofs were manned by spotters and snipers; all members of international groups who had a grudge against the US, anyone who might wish to harm the President, were confirmed as being nowhere near this event.
Even so, O'Hara still felt nervous. Relations between humans and the mutants were not good, and his main concern was that some mutant would make an attempt on the President's life, to make some kind of point. The trouble was, normal security procedures did not apply when dealing with mutants. The President's continued opposition to mutant registration meant that it was impossible to keep track of America's mutant population, and meant that any number of mutants could be standing anonymously in the crowd at this moment, possessing gifts that could only be guessed at.
O'Hara bit his lip; he had more than once urged the President to cancel or at least reduce the number of his public appearances, but the man could not be persuaded, and had insisted that he had to show he trusted the mutants. Determined as he was to bring about a peaceful solution to the mutant issue, the President refused to accept the common prejudice that mutants were abominations who had to be feared. O'Hara could still remember from the speech the President had given while meeting with the British Prime Minister and the Russian Premier, "…we cannot simply label mutants with a tag of mistrust. Though some have been witnessed as violent and hostile, many mutants will be peaceful and benevolent. In that sense they are no different from humanity – certainly none of us are perfect – and I feel it is essential that the peaceful, right-thinking members of both humanity and mutantkind are brought together…"
O'Hara shrugged to himself. He wasn't sure what to make of mutants. He agreed with the President that not all of them could be tarred with same brush. There were well-documented cases of mutants risking their lives and using their powers to save humans from death, but these tended to be forgotten when another mutant was witnessed using their powers for crime, or worse, murder. They were a security hazard, and one that had to be dealt with. That was his job.
The rotor blades of a helicopter could now be heard, and the buzz of the crowd increased in volume as the President's helicopter came into view. O'Hara knew the helicopter had been scanned and checked inside-out a dozen times for any sabotage devices, and he was confident that nothing untoward would happen while the President was in the air. He was right, and he unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief as the chopper touched down safely. A cheer went up from the crowd as the President stepped out, giving them a smile and a wave.
O'Hara scanned the crowd, his trained eye moving from face to face, trying to spot anything out of place or anybody who looked suspicious. He knew his staff would be moving amongst the people, doing the same thing, conducting a search of anyone who looked as if they might be carrying a weapon. The President was walking by the side of the road now, shaking hands with the people at the front of the pack, and O'Hara fell into step beside him.
"Good afternoon, Mr President," he said.
"Afternoon, Ken," the President responded. "Nothing's gone wrong, I trust?"
"Not so far, sir. You are wearing the kevlar vest?"
"On your insistence, yes. I'm not so sure it's necessary."
O'Hara said nothing. Despite being a brilliant politician and an inspiring leader, the President's one real weakness, if you could call it that, was that he always expected the best of people. He trusted too much in a person's basic goodness – strange really, for a politician – and O'Hara felt that the President didn't always fully heed the danger he put himself in by exposing himself in this way.
It was just as this thought passed through his mind, that he caught the flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned, his hand instinctively reaching towards the gun holstered under his coat. A young man had broken out of the crowd, and was heading directly towards the President.
"Stop where you are!" O'Hara yelled, training his gun on the man.
There was a flash of silver, as a throwing knife appeared from nowhere in the man's hand, and he flung it through the air towards the security chief. O'Hara screamed as the knife pierced his right hand, and he scrambled desperately to grab the gun with his left. He had no time, and could only watch in horror as the young man whipped another knife seemingly out of nowhere, and thrust it deep into the back of the President's neck.
Screams rang in the air as the crowd realised what was going on, and two or three security personnel jumped into action, heading directly for the assassin. After years of training and experience, O'Hara was a crack shot with a pistol in either hand, and he now held the gun in his left hand, aiming directly at the young man. As he fired, he knew his shots were true, yet the man raised some kind of shield to deflect them away from him, then ducked into the crowd and disappeared.
O'Hara ignored the blood and the pain from his right hand, and ran to the fallen figure of the President. As he got there, he knew it was too late to do anything. He grabbed a communicator and barked into it, "All security personnel, I want that man caught! Block off all exits! He's armed, so use caution!"
He looked angrily in the direction the man had disappeared, looking for some sign of the killer's fleeing form. Then he saw him, heading directly for the five-storey office building in front of him. O'Hara set off after the assassin, waving to his staff to follow him. The killer of the President of the United States was not going to escape justice. The young man had stopped before the wall, and turned to face O'Hara. The security chief raised his weapon and fired. Again the man raised some kind of metallic shield in front of him, and the bullets bounced harmlessly to the ground. Another throwing knife appeared in his hand, and with a flick of wrist he skimmed it towards O'Hara. The security advisor dived to the ground and rolled over to avoid the knife, coming up in a crouch with his gun trained once more on the killer.
A white cloud, some sort of gas, had risen, obscuring his view. As it spread, O'Hara felt an irritating sensation in his eyes and the back of his throat. Tear gas! He backed away, waited for the gas to dissipate, knowing the killer had nowhere to go. His gun was empty; he slammed in a fresh clip. The pain in his right hand was intensifying, but that could wait. It wasn't going to kill him. He had other things to take care of first.
When the gas had cleared, the man was nowhere to be seen. For a moment O'Hara's jaw dropped and he stared in confusion as he tried to work out what had happened. Something made him look upwards, and then he saw the assassin, climbing the sheer wall of the building, almost at the top. Instinctively he aimed his gun, then he spoke into his communicator, "Attention, security personnel on roof! Unidentified assassin coming your way! Stop him in any way you can!"
He stepped backwards until he could see his security staff on top of the building, hurrying over to intercept the killer. A smile – a grim, bitter smile – crossed O'Hara's face. How the man had managed to smuggle those weapons through searches, and escape the way he had, was beyond comprehension, but he had reached the end of the road now. Even if he could overcome the security men, he'd be stuck on top of the building with nowhere to go. O'Hara hoped he was right. He had a sort of sinking feeling as he realised that everything the man had done so far should have been impossible. What was one more impossibility to a man like this?
His worst fears were confirmed as the man ascended on to the roof of the building, and faced the three security staff who had gone to stop him. The killer pulled yet another throwing knife from wherever he was hiding them, and bisected the neck of one of the security men. The remaining two aimed their guns and fired, but the young man had raised another of his remarkable metallic shields to protect himself. Another cloud of tear gas formed, and the two security men were coughing and choking, backing away as quickly as they could. The assassin meanwhile was running in the opposite direction, towards the edge of the building.
O'Hara looked up into the air as he heard the sound of another helicopter approaching. Pulling a compact pair of binoculars from inside his coat, he took a closer look at the chopper. He didn't recognise its designation, which meant it wasn't supposed to be here. He realised it had to be here to pick up the killer. There were two people on board – with the sun behind them they appeared as nothing more than silhouettes – and it was definitely heading towards the running man on top of the building. The door at the side of the helicopter was thrown open as the craft hovered over the building, and the assassin jumped to climb inside.
O'Hara swore. He knew it would be several minutes at least before he could get any anti-aircraft weaponry on the scene, which meant there was nothing he could do to stop the helicopter. Which meant the killer was going to get away. The security chief could only watch as the helicopter's door was closed from inside, and it rose again, flying off and disappearing into the horizon. He slammed his left fist into his right palm, and the sudden pain reminded him about the wound to his right hand. Tearing a strip of material from the sleeve of his coat, he wound it around his hand, stemming the flow of blood.
He couldn't understand it. He just couldn't understand it at all. How the hell had the assassin managed to get through the security checks in possession of at least four knives, two tear gas canisters, and some kind of personal shield? Even if the security staff had been careless, there was no way they would have missed all of those items. There was simply no explanation, nothing that could be said to account for what happened. O'Hara, however, knew that he was going to have to find an explanation, and find it soon. It had been his responsibility to ensure the President's safety, and he had failed utterly. The trouble was, he couldn't even begin to imagine how it could have happened. Everything had happened so fast, and the shock was still numbing his logical mind.
He walked back to where paramedics were clustered around the President's body, making fruitless attempts to resuscitate him. The knife. O'Hara knew the assassin hadn't stopped to retrieve the knife he had slid into the President's neck. Maybe it would provide some clue as to who had done this. As he knelt by the paramedics, he saw it was gone.
"I'm Ken O'Hara, chief of security," he told them, showing his identity card. "Could I have the knife? It might give us an ID for the killer."
The paramedic nearest him shook his head helplessly, "We didn't find any knife."
O'Hara frowned. He ordered his staff to conduct a search of the area, and of the crowd still milling around in terror, in case one of them had somehow made off with the weapon. The search proved futile. No trace of the knife was found. Nor was there any trace of the two knives the killer had thrown at O'Hara, or the one thrown at the security man on the roof. Nor were the shattered remnants of any tear gas canisters found. Even with all his years of experience, the security chief was at a loss to find any explanation for what had happened. It was almost as if the weapons had disappeared into thin air.