45

"BURN!"

Sadie rightly shouted back at her after being forced to tear ass through the burning plateau. Tara was certain that the car suffered a throbbing migraine, pounding just above and behind her headlights when she crashed into those imposing doors. The AI should be grateful the doors made like a thick doormat the first time around. Amazing really.

"Yeah…!" She clutched the wheel tightly. "I'm never doing that again!"

Ron rightly could not have cared less for anyone else, bringing those legs up and over Sadie's panel doors. He was on the floor a moment after, his torso practically lost on the carpet simply by the colors.

"KP!" he shouted while a hand of his stabbed into a bulky pocket.

"Why did you have to smash down the doors…?" the balding man on his wet, soggy knees winced. "They were not locked and the Waqf just HAD THEM REFINISHED!"

"That's gratitude for you…." She rolled her eyes.

"T, not now!" Her man chided.

"Well, well, well…." A smirk cut smugly across that punk's twisted face. Oh, how she'd like to cut something else into that nasty flesh as well! "What do we have here? Why, it's the A-Team - yet AGAIN! Why can't you all just be good little whelps and just die?"

"Shut up!" Ron's hand surfaced with a shinny revolver in the squared grip. The typical staccato of clicks tapped her drums as the boy thumbed back the claw hammer. "Let her go, Drazen!"

The punk's eyes rolled back into his head. That tawdry cowl flapped, pleating neatly behind the shoulder as Drazen's only hand went for that borderline howitzer strapped to his hip. It withdrew flawlessly from the holster, and it let out a single click when he pulled back the hammer.

Ron's wrist flexed, and he took a step forward when the metal-head angled that cannon down at fallen Kimberly. She was mess - yet again! Patches of her white t-shirt blushed, rosy with pink before they deepened with that unnerving color. It wasn't long till it was even with the carpet.

"Why?" the punk shrugged. "What're you going to do about it—?"

BLAM! -

Though Drazen's trigger was flush against its stop - it fired not! Ron simply struck first; the advantage of a revolver's hair trigger, supposedly. The punk's head was whipped to the side. A thick red line blew out from Drazen's neck, a red mist dissolving in the air while globs and drops were lost on the carpet! The massive pistol flipped by the weak finger, mooning back at her briefly before it stared at her coldly with that large, empty eye from the carpet.

"That!" Ron's retort was as cold as the steel in his hand.

"Major Drazen!" the lanky man's dark eyes went wide, yet that Jericho of his did not waver from the Chairman whatsoever. "Are you alive?"

Uzi let out a groan. His abs yanked him up - only to fail him as he dropped back to a weak crunch on the floor. The hand quickly went for that raw, red line. Safe to say, it was, that he hardly knew what had hit him. He was as helpless as Kim, the last bit of his -mighty- strength clutched at his own throat. Ron carefully let one of his sneakers go in front of the other, cautiously making his move for the punk.

"Back off, Blondie!" the lanky man shouted, the muzzle of the Jericho hidden by his hostage's thinning crop. The man took a position behind the Chairman, practically folding behind the balding man while keeping the muzzle on his hairline. "Back off now or this dog will go out like Old Yeller!"

"Pf…!" Ron scoffed, and his firm grip on the revolver waned quickly… a little too quickly. "All your time with Drazen's pretty boy, and that's the best you can come up with? Come on!"

"Just say the word, Yune." Her fingers wringed the wheel while she whispered to the passenger beside. She let her shoe rest against the gas lightly. "I'll have him flattened like a pancake before you know it!"

"Not smart, T." he replied. "Unless you can launch Sadie into an area the size of a quarter, you'd better leave it to us."

"Don't you mock me, boy!" the lanky man shouted back. "I got the Chairman. I got the gun AND THE HAIR TRIGGER TO PROVE IT!"

"You got a gun?" Ron shot back. "-Oy gevalt ishmer! - I got a gun too! Want to hang out?"

"Back -off-, Ron." Yune mumbled.

"Yune is right!" Robin seconded. "Do not let pride consume you as it did these fools!"

"What'd you say?" the lanky man poked up his head, thin brow perked.

A door closed just as quickly as it was opened, and Sadie rocked on her chassis. If she were pressed against one of the many columns standing around, Robin would blend in quite easily if it were not for her skin. Camouflage or none, it did not stop the dark girl from strolling out in to open for Kim. But the question was why.

"Rob…!" Yune's drawling voice was a crescendo.

"Keep back, Robin." With an extended arm, Ronald warned. "Get back in the car!"

"I am sorry, but I cannot." Robin asked as she continued her walk. "What would that do? It would do nothing but give them something to feed on, to nourish on. And why should we give them that nourishment? Why should we give into the fear, the fury, and the volatile cocktail of emotion that saturates our minds? We should not!

"I cannot lie." The girl took a knee beside the auburn, one of those dark hands lost in her red locks. "I am frightened a little. I can feel my heart pound against my breastbone. But I cannot let it get to me! I will not let that happen. I utterly refuse to fall into that same bear trap that heathens like the VSA have fallen into!"

"That's enough, little girl!" the stringy man unfolded himself to his feet. "Or you'll be the next in line!"

"You would kill me?" Robin moved her head up to him. "You would further betray your own people, your friends, and your family? Slay an innocent in the eyes of the Almighty, on this holy Mount Mariah? This despicable wretch you call your Major is one thing, but are you truly ready to betray the Most High? He frowns upon murder and treachery!"

The lanky man's dark eyes were wide in ponder, parts of his Jericho rattling inside that shaky grip. He had been shaken, but it was not simply by her words. No, it couldn't have just been that. There was another force at work certainly. She could feel its presence, a sudden chill tingling in her body throughout, surging from the back of her neck around the circumference of her torso.

And yet it felt… warm.

"Aw - for fuck's sake, Eli…." The metal-head twitched. "Shoot them. Shoot them all!"

The man called Eli was at a loss. He seemed torn at the least, yanked between his senses of justice and unquestionable duty. She smiled in relief, her breath let out easier when that odd muzzle slipped off its target. Work without faith really was dead. Duty in itself was beginning to lose that sparkling, enticing sheen.

"-Aw…! -" Uzziel hacked, and he flopped over to his belly. "Are you deaf, Eli? I said shoot them!"

The lanky man shook his head.

"No…!" his gun dropped back into his holster. "I won't…!"

"Huh?" Drazen propped his head up. "What'd you mean you -won't-?"

"Simply because she's right, Sir." Eli sighed. "I can say for certain we're wrong… -really- wrong. I have forgotten what it means to be a fruition of Abraham's, Isaac's, and Jacob's seed. Life is a precious gift bestowed upon us by the Almighty Himself. He has chosen us to show and remind the world of that, and much more. It shouldn't be taken for granted. Likewise, who are we to determine who lives and dies without just cause, Sir?"

"ME, DAMNIT!" Uzi seethed. "This is my PURPOSE! THIS IS MY DESTINY! Too long have I lived on this planet! Too long have I fought! And too long freaks like -A-Team- over yonder TRIED TO PUT ME IN MY GRAVE! Well, I'll tell you something, Mr. Sentimental: the only one putting me in a casket is I! And I will NOT LET YOU TAKE THAT FROM ME!"

"I wouldn't dream of it, Major." Eli shrugged. "If that's what you really want."

"You're still in my outfit, 2nd Lieutenant!" the punk breathed. "You're in so deep, YOU'LL NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY AGAIN! Now do as I say and kill them!"

"I may have walked on your side, Major, but it's never too late to jump the fence!" the lanky man exclaimed. "Unlike Sergeant Jude, I refuse to take part in genocide anymore! I'm not going to Hell for you! I am a Jew, unlike you, Drazen, you heretic!"

"SILENCE!" the punk coughed. "I am your commanding officer!"

The lanky man shook his head soberly; free from the painful hangover he'd been through. The left hand of his lifted up to his pectoral, the red Hebrew hidden by the greasy leather of the glove. The cloth of the BDU wrinkled, the pleats running for that clutching hand - and there was a sharp rip! The jacket then appeared oddly asymmetrical and the man held out a thin flap of cloth.

"Not anymore, Sir." He threw it at the metal-head. "I woke up, just like everybody else!"

Uzziel swore loudly. Writhing, stewing in his juices while utter defeat stared back at him from that thin, rectangular piece of cloth a foot away.

"MOTHER-FUCKERS!" Drazen seethed painfully. "You're the WORST ARMY EVER!"

"It's over, Drazen." Ron remembered the steel in his grip, and he trained it on the punk. "Kim better not be dead, or I'll personally ditch you into Ramallah! You can catch a real view of the city from a lamppost, last I checked."

"She is not, friend." Robin dropped her gaze. "She is still with us, thankfully."

"Hear that, Drazen?" She yanked herself head-and-shoulders above the steering wheel. "It's your lucky day!"

"It's not over, you bitches…!" The cloak inflated to above knee height while its wearer pushed himself up. The dark cloth flowed over that handheld howitzer. "It's not over…!"

"Yes, it is." Ron said. "Give up now, or we'll throw you out into the West Bank. I'm sure the locals would love to get their hands on you."

"We'll see about that." Drazen said. "2nd Lieutenant!"

"What is it, Uzi?" the lanky man's dark eyes rolled along his head.

"Nothing really." Those dark swathed shoulders perked and dropped instantly. "I'd just like to say that it's been nice knowing YOU!"

The miniature howitzer disappeared into the dark folds - reappearing immediately, spearing out of the rippling cape by an outstretched arm. Barely Eli had the time to draw out his own before the howitzer unleashed a flowing fireball! The Chairman hit the deck - and just like that, it was over. The stick man's head bobbed to and fro like a speed bag, the fresh -bindi- a gaping hole. Those dark eyes rolled into white on his ovoid head, and the man crumpled to the carpet like a loose faggot.

Drazen pulled a one eighty as he leapt to his feet, huffing it pretty good for a leaky packet of hot sauce. The oozing red line on his neck didn't cross her mind at all. No, but the folds of cloth brushing against his waist glinted rather slickly, kind of like the poor Chairman's forelegs.

Ron didn't know what hit him, flattened to the carpet before he brought the revolver up to his target. It would have done him the same if the blond just chucked it! Drazen had gotten around him professionally with trained ease of a Special Forces grunt. There was a dark elbow to the red gut; Ron keeled over - and kissed the floor with that same elbow to the back of the head.

After a mere kick to Rob's back, Uzi huffed it straight for her! Her foot felt a lot weightier against the pedal - till she felt that warm palm cup her kneecap.

"Don't!" Yune barked.

"Why not?" she demanded.

"You couldn't stop in time." He said. "You'd kill the team!"

"You make that sound like it's a bad thing!"

Uzi laughed as he rushed up beside. Her head smacked against the headrest when a piece of dark cloth smashed into her crown rather firmly. She whipped herself around. The punk let out another laugh as he ran straight into that flaming maw, consumed entirely by the hot tongues. If only that were literally true…!

"He's getting away!" she exclaimed.

"Forget him." Her man replied. "He won't go far. He's way too proud for that."

She put a hand to her head, hissing as the pain burned behind her skull.

Ron slowly pushed himself off the carpet, putting a foot underneath him, the other one following as he straightened himself. The cold steel found favor again when the blond plucked it off the floor, only to drop it into a cargo pocket. He stumbled for Kim like a drunk after a long night at the bar, sorrow drowned like a yellow rubber duck. Overwhelming, certainly, and it shoved him to his knees beside his love.

"Kim?" he shouted. "KIM!"

"Like I had said," Robin carefully turned the auburn on her back, "she is still among the living, but her bleeding is bad! I do not know how or why. It is as though something had torn open!"

Torn open was right! The little heart stitched between her perky mounds was gone, lost in an encroaching field of pink. Her peachy skin were a few shades lighter, a ghastly light that made her look like an albino. Her blood oozed out in a thick red line, blossoming out of Kim's left side unevenly, creeping gradually for the pink.

It was like the emergency ride back from Escutcheon all over again.

"Oh no!" Kim's man exclaimed. "The wound! It tore open!"

"Shit!" Yune cursed.

"Kimberly had been wounded?" Robin asked.

"Yes." She interjected. "Except the bleeding wasn't this bad!"

"And she doesn't have that suit this time around." Yune noted. "That, or Uzi must have nicked some organs! No time for a diagnosis, either way."

"What's my orders?" she glanced at him hastily. "What should I do?"

"Stay here, T." The passenger door opened. Sadie rocked gently as her man hopped out of her, disappearing behind the passenger seat. "Stay here with Robin and the rest. Treat the wounded the best you can. There should be a first-aid kit somewhere in the back, if I remember right. I'm leaving you guys the ordinance as well."

"What about you?" She put Sadie's rumbling heart into arrest with a jangle and a flick of the wrist. "What about you guys?"

"Drazen's overdue for rude awakening, T." Yune reappeared from the empty seat beside, his bare arms occupied fully with that machinegun. Brass chains were draped over his shoulder like a bandolier. "And we're going to make sure he takes it!"

"You're going out with just that .357?" her eyes crossed. "Are you nuts?"

"We'll be okay, T." he set the machinegun down. Brass jangled on the carpet as he simply shrugged them off. "Besides, you'll need all the edge you can get should anymore of Drazen's cronies or an angry mob storm the place."

"That should not happen." The Chairman mumbled out a reply, even with his tired lips kissing the carpet. "I know the Palestinians can get out of control, tribal clashes and terrorist actions and all, but I believe they have the sensibility not to go - as you would say - 'ape-shit'.

"And if you would not mind…!" the man groaned. "I do have a medical condition affecting my legs! I could get lead poisoning, you know."

"Forgive us, Mr. Chairman." Robin apologized. "We will attend to you as soon as we can."

"Forget the Temple Mount." The man's sleeves extended evenly from his body, and with a shove to the carpet, he gradually pushed himself up to his knees. "I will wholeheartedly accept your treatment as a true goodwill gesture."

"Thank you, Sir." Robin nodded. "But understand, I must treat this woman first. Her wound may become mortal if I do not do something!"

"Proceed." The man nodded back. "But please, do what you can quickly for my sake."

"We will try." Robin said.

"You heard the man, T." Yune had disappeared again, only to reappear with the rockets and the launcher in arms. They joined the chains on the floor, but a little more gently this time around. "You'd better get started."

"Okay." Her side felt a little bit cooler as she made her door swing open. Her insoles slapped against her feet when she hopped out of the car. "But please. Whatever you have to do, just come back in one piece!"

"I will." He smiled weakly at her back. "No promises, though."

"Please." She shook her head. "I'm too experienced for that now."

"Good." He smiled back before he turned around. "You ready to go, Ron?"

"As I'll ever be, Yune!" the boy reared himself back up to his feet. "Let's take that bastard down!"

"You got it!"

Ron's fist found its way into his pocket again, slipped back out with the revolver in hand. Yune took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, relishing in it with closed eyes before he let it all escape. Those brown eyes popped open behind a wrinkling, furrowing crown. Fire burn within those eyes, burning hotly with such resolve it forged his nerves into steel. She saw it too in Ron, chocolate eyes melting in the fire, so much so that his eyes would have burst if it were real.

They couldn't be bothered to say their farewells, fueled by the noxious fumes of testosterone and machismo while they raced out into the flaming maw. Hopefully they'd run empty before things got a little too hot outside in the Devil's fire-pit.

God, if you can hear me, please… save them from Drazen and themselves—! -

Taken aback couldn't begin to describe it when she heard - -heard- - her own mind reply. Was that even possible?

Consider it done, Stark. - It replied calmly, collectedly: the complete opposite of everything around. -Consider it done…. -

XXX

The southeastern area of the Temple Mount was rather peaceful, untouched by the blaze completely. Stupid Eli hadn't bothered to pour the chemicals around here. Uzi did wonder for a moment why before the simple fact gazed at him like a -bulge-. The second bulge, it was, the consequence of irrational tolerance and -carte blanche- on both sides. Surely enough, the bulge would come to a festering head, popping violently and it would take down a hefty chunk of the Temple Mount.

And the world down with it…! -

Not if those soldiers had anything to say about it! Typical Americans: hotheaded and prideful, they were. Simply because they had developed -the- bomb first, they achieved the right to police the world. On a past day, he could have appreciated it better if they tried not to due him in. They would have lived to seen it in him, but because of the cold stares of their pistols and rifles had given, that would never come to be. Those stares had burst into flaming glares; the speeding manifestations of hot anger had zipped for him uselessly.

But how useless it truly became as he dealt with those pompous assholes one by one.

Those hot glares had dropped back into stares. Endless gazes all around, blank and accusing, staring at anything that happened to be in the field of view. It reminded him of picture he had seen a while ago, "The 1000-Yard Stare". Set in French-Indochina with a nameless GI in the foreground, his eyes dead, gaze never-ending, staring down oblivion infinitely. Forever frozen in the pose the artist chose to give him. Creepy, yet beautiful in its own right: an a-temporal masterpiece.

Taking down the Americans may have been fun, but it was over far too soon. He should have left one alive, so that he may have the pleasure of prolonging the merriment. Galil would surely have had a blast, playing with fresh meat courtesy of Uncle Sam. Playing, patting, scratching, tearing, ripping it apart like a cat before he feasts. Yes, it would have made a perfect show before the world caved in—!

He snapped his fingers; that was it! The light bulb just popped out of its trans-dimensional pocket right above his head, though the glowing light of his genius was but a mere amber to the raging flames. The next ass that crossed his path, man or woman, red, yellow, black, or white, Gentile or Jew, he would -play- with them just like dear G would. Galil's endless trip through the proverbial Nod would be just a little easier that way—

—"DRAZEN!" —

—But not at this moment.

There they were, two of them standing in the midst of the fallen: the underlings of his blonde, wannabe executioner, training on him a tool of the trade. Protecting the Muslim menace everywhere so HAMAS and the United Nations wouldn't have to: it was pathetic! Surely they couldn't see past those loose sacks of rotten meat, their putrefying stench clouding every thought. They couldn't, they -wouldn't-! Nothing stubbornly naive was meant to survive. He would make sure of it.

"Drazen." the yellow devil called. "It's over! No mater how you got it twisted in that thick skull of yours, it's over. You lost! I know you're a sore loser, but starting a nuclear holocaust is not the answer!"

"What do you mean?" he shrugged back. "After all I've put you through, are you still that dense, Bin-Mok? -Shtup! - And you call me thickheaded!"

"Death's your love, eh?" the blond 'Jew' said. "You're doing all this so you can meet him in a blaze of 'glory'? You really are nuts! No one's going to give a damn about you! If you're so adamant about it, just drill one into your head yourself. Save the planet a mess of trouble."

"After the Spaniard's villa," he sighed, "a bullet wouldn't do any better than the propeller to the head… or the grapple to the throat! And even if the .44 did blow my brains out a small hole, that'd be far too easy. After their attempts, the world shouldn't laugh and cheer at my demise. They don't deserve that privilege! So if I have to go down, I'll be sure as HELL they'll be coming with me!"

Blondie shook his messy head bitterly while that .357 did the cold staring for him.

"Why, Drazen?" the boy asked. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why…?" he cocked his head. "The earth is forever trapped in a the spiral of death. That's why. The planet reputedly was once pure and holy, the masterpiece of a grand creator. But since the 'fall' of man, everyone after Adam and Eve was born into damnable sin, thrown into a prison you could not escape.

"Of course people said of ways out: Judaism, Christianity, even Islam and others. Are they really? No, they're not. They cannot be. Even if they were, how would you ever know? Dead men tell no tales outside of empirical, physical evidence to how they met the end. We can believe in many things, but on our march through time, we become disillusioned. The things we believed in blindly were lies; perceptive vagaries, nothing more. Truth is not absolute, just relative, nothing more than cultural rationale."

"So what do you believe in, Drazen?" the boy frowned. "Enlighten me!"

"My boy…!" He smiled whimsically. "During my time on this mud-ball, I have found only one consistent truth that crosses oceans, borders, nations, cultures, gender gaps, and even ages like cardinal virtues. Death is what it is. Though this degenerating ball of filth maybe a flophouse to many peoples, we are all human. We all have an expiration date; no one lasts forever… not even me!"

"Thank God for that." Blondie's smirk was as clear as day, even through the hazy smog: Uzziel's case in point, right there!

"The nineties." He continued anyway. "The Balkans. Shortly after my homeland was torn in two, I was sent to live with extended family for a spell in Serbia. Some years later, I was sent to fight in the ensuing conflict even though Dad had found me before then."

"How could I forget…." The yellow devil shook his head soberly. "It was his idea, after all."

"Getting stuck in the quagmire did more than a youth reserve at the local police department would." He said. "I was one of the best of the child soldiers who fought in that conflict. Certainly Milosevic had a decent army of his own, but I wasn't one for sitting on the sidelines. No sir, far from it! I couldn't get enough of the conflict, the carnage and callousness of it all. I even became leader of a platoon of my own. My records earned me several monikers, including 'Concertina' and '-Dajjal-'. Of course you wouldn't find that in a revisionist's textbook. Geneva Convention and The Hague frown upon it, but they don't mean shit during a firefight!

"After 'Slobo's' loss for the Yugoslavian presidency, and his capture at his estate, I could see victor's justice as it truly appeared. Watching from across the street as the APC bashed down the gate, hauling the fearless leader off to Belgrade. Till then, I hadn't questioned why I fought. Just someone put an AKM in my hand and told me to kill as many KLA and Albanian Mujahideen as I could. But when Milosevic surrendered, everything I had fought for was for nothing. For my labor underneath the Serbian sun, I had inherited the wind - nothing at all! My friends had died in vain. It reminded me how too I was going to die, everything I would have accomplished for nothing.

"In the end, Serbia was defeated, and I was defeated - by THEM!"

"The Americans?" Yune said rather than asked.

"Of course." He nodded. "Them and the Muslim hordes! It only fueled my hatred toward them. I was withdrawn from Serbia, and on the same day did I realize what I was born for. Blondie might have seen them too, wondering around my base for his fuck-buddy."

"Apollyon!" Blondie's eyes lit up. "Those photographs!"

"My self-fulfilling prophecy." He nodded shallowly. "Created, Galil and I, to be the ultimate weapons, a borderline Gilgamesh with the desire for immortality conveniently engineered out. Giving a person the thoughts and desires of a gun, cold and emotionless, carrying out tasks without question or conscious. From steel and fire to flesh and blood, the pros of each without the cons! That was the real revolution in weaponry, don't you agree?"

"Sick and WRONG!" Blondie exclaimed bitterly. "SICK AND WRONG! What possessed Israel to even imagine something as so twisted?"

"Death, of course." He replied. "The very emotions that brought about the onset of that nihilistic desire. It's the natural extension of politics, you know. If they couldn't persuade the Palestinians themselves, then they were going to give them something- rather - someone they were going to listen to. And if not, with about a billion of them festering on the planet, you'd think they'd miss a couple hundred thousand?"

"Nope." Blondie shook his head. "They wouldn't. If they did, they're sure hiding it well."

"Indeed." He nodded back.

The large bird wiggled at his hip, aching to stretch its wings. It came easily enough, shoving that wide butt of its against his palm, middle finger just grazing his thumb as he slipped it out. Beautiful as always, it was; a true work of gun world's art. The steel frame flawless, just the way he liked it. Its flickering sheen was sharp as a blade in the scorching light. No matter what the jokers at Magnum Research called for, the Mark VII line was always the best! To think the legend began from a design by a couple lowly Americans.

The weaker pistol jiggled in the boy's squared grip. Blondie did his best at control, though the TV police shows could only do so much for a -shmuck-.

"Take it easy, Drazen." The boy said.

"What's wrong, Blondie!" he sneered, thumbing his bird's firm, spongy feathers. "Don't tell me you've never seen the greatest handgun ever made before? Ah… my IMI Desert Eagle. .44-magnum! Nine rounds, eight in the magazine and one in the pipe - more than enough to kill anything that moves!"

"Kick-ass pistol." The boy smirked. "Now put it down!"

"You want it?" he smirked back. "You Americans…! You expect everything from everyone! You're not worthy of its power! The technology that made this pistol possible is Israeli - since you dumb fucks couldn't figure out the feeding and cycling yourself! And you want it? Ha! Tell you what though. You can have it when you pry it from my dead fingers!"

"Still using that clunker, I see." That yellow devil shook his head. "Still too proud to learn."

"What?" he yelled.

"A nice gun as always," Yune replied, "I'll give you that. But its size and weight gives you no advantage past recoil. Long and cumbersome, large and heavy won't win you any quick-draws! It's a high-class weapon, Uzi. It wasn't designed to shoot people."

"No matter." He dismissed. "It was with me back in Serbia and served me well. It hasn't failed since I first got my hands on it. I was about fourteen at the time, and many men of NATO and KLA fell since then. On a good day, I could take out nine mongrels before the first clip ran dry.

"Those were the good old days." His good eye ran over his prized weapon, thumbing the rough down at the back of its long head. "Everyday when I woke up, I checked this pistol for rounds. And everyday, I found it suckling on a fresh slug, courtesy of my CO who slapped a fresh magazine in the night before. My fight wasn't over just yet, it seemed.

"Yugoslavia, the great 'quagmire', the ethnic cleansing, and the dried blood on my hands: all of it was real! But here I am, standing before you on the verge of destiny, driven back to war by something less than real. Much like you, more or less, driven by something one cannot begin to comprehend."

"Whatever, Uzziel." The yellow devil replied. "Your gun's not going to do you much here, unless Judea and Samaria's home to some deer and elk."

"In the Middle East, we don't hunt deer." He replied. "We hunt Jackals! And I spy a rather blond one right now!"

"You compare me to a scavenger?" Blondie growled. "That's interesting, coming from one himself!"

"I admit that." He shrugged. "Death is my business, death is my purpose! Death is my art, and today I'm about to put the final brushstroke on my masterpiece."

"Uzziel, for once, I feel kind of sorry for you." The blond sighed after a deep breath. "Red, yellow, black, or white, a child has the divine right to be a child. Despite the world around us, politicians and the militaries shouldn't choose who should fight on the battlefield. A child shouldn't have the privilege to fight for their homeland, not while they're still innocent. How will they learn to live and to love? They couldn't!

"You better not get me wrong, Drazen. You're still a murderer, a -rodef-. You chose to utterly reject the Lord's way in favor of your own terrorist fervor. It's too late for you, but it's not too late for other children stuck where you were! They still have a chance to turn their lives around. If you've ever done anything good with your life, then please… I'm begging you! Do not take that away from them!"

"I'd applaud your attitude, but I'm a hand short." He smiled, his precious pet dropped back into its nest. "But consider whether or not that the children you speak of will be completely without hate or murder in their hearts in today's disgusting materialistic century. Somehow I doubt it. People change along with the times; the flow of the ages corrupts them into darker shadows of their former self.

"This certain terrorist war will end. It cannot go on forever, no matter how much this dirty - rotten - inbred - filth wish different. This conflict will spark countless others, new hatreds will arise. When these mongrels go extinct, they will be replaced by new faces, new enemies to smite down and destroy! Life is but a nuclear chain reaction. It's almost tragic. Almost, not quite!

"This Temple Mount, these bullets in my Desert Eagle, my light machine gun…. There's a bullet for everyone, and a time and a place. An end…! Yep, this is how it has to be. The end's upon us, even as I speak. I die here, and the wheels of justice will inevitably start to turn. A shame you won't be around to see your precious country go up in flames!"

"You'd better believe that, Drazen." Bin-Mok agreed. "It's the end, all right. You're only down to your king piece. You're all out of moves! Just throw down your arms and come quietly. Mark my words, Uzi: you sure as hell aren't taking the easy way out! Not after all you did."

"Mark your words?" He blinked. "Hell - mark my words, and wipe my fucking ass, Bin-Mok! Have you been listening? This is the end. This is my destiny! And I'm not about to be dragged out of a patrol car and torn apart by a bunch of rabid mongrels! Besides, the world made its last move when they trashed the king. A valiant effort indeed, but I still have one last move to make before checkmate!"

Blondie's mud eyes shrank to specks on a bed of white. The steel revolver angled heavily to a side when that firm stranglehold weakened.

"The nuke!"

Yune was taken aback promptly.

"That's right." He smiled warmly. "When it goes off, it'll take everyone on site with it. You, me, the alpha mongrel, all of us will become dust and the Temple Mount be a toxic no-man's-land for years to come! The soldiers around your feet had given your government all the reason it needs to invade, and so will others! A shame I won't be here to take the fall. That's Mr. -Putz's- job, of course."

"Your wrath complete…." Yune growled. "Beautiful - just fucking beautiful!"

"Tell us where we can find the bomb!" the steel in Blondie's hands found use again, squared fingers strangling the grip. "Where'd you plant it?"

"Where is it?" the Asian demanded.

"Somewhere on this 35 acres." He sighed. "Don't worry, it's close by. Think you can find it? And just to make things interesting, I'll give you ten minutes!"

He took a handful of his cape - and the boy stamped a foot forward when the button snapped cleanly off his collar. The shroud became just another piece of cloth, flowing and flapping in the breeze as useless as the flag of green, white, red, and black. In a second it was lost to him, just another one of the many black puddles dappling the mount.

The looks on their faces were priceless, paralyzed for the moment in something that could have been seen on a variety show. He was sorry he didn't bring his camera; a cool prize purse would be his easily. It was so easy to touch the button on his vest - the most important button, as far as they knew. By the time the buffoon pushed the revolver just a little bit closer it was too late.

"What did you just do?" The boy demanded. "What is that?"

"Ten minutes, I said." He smiled warmly. "Of course, there's always a way to defuse a bomb, no matter how much the engineer tries to preemptively thwart the possibility. It would take at least two minutes to defuse the bomb, and luckily for you, there's a two-minute delay. In ten minutes time, the bomb's delay timer will activate but it'll be far too late to do anything. The nuke will detonate and irradiate the hell out of this place! But if you can either defeat or kill me within the initial ten minutes, you'll be able to deactivate the bomb in time. If you truly wish to save this disgusting mud-ball, you'd better win!"

"But no pressure?" the blond said sardonically.

"This is the final battle." His pet's time had come as he snatched him out of its narrow nest. He thumbed one of its only pressure points and his eagle took a hearty dump on the ground, its waste clattering at his feet. Its fresh suppository slapped inside easily enough. "Let's make it a good one. Let's make this the greatest ten minutes of our lives!"

"Uzi…!" Yune growled like one of the mongrels next door.

"Don't ever call me that again, yellow devil!" he barked back. "I am Uzziel Lichtenfeld Drazen, and I will be the last opponent you'll ever face!"

The piece of rotten -Kimchi- dropped into his typical Hapkido stance. The color of the boy's knuckles drained of their light color as those square hands strangled the pistol grip. The -CLANK- of his combat load shook the ground. The -POP- of his trusty rapier wasn't there, lost to the shifting breeze. The empty howl in his ears was a crescendo. The flames behind his last two opponents leapt eagerly for the red sky, the angry sun. Everything was as it should be.

It would make a fine arena for his final battle.

"So you want to make me pay?" he asked rhetorically. "Then - FACE ME!"