Lieutenant Mansfield's office was the quintessential office of a modern-day working woman. Dully droning fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling above, slightly wilting plants on a shelf full of procedural binders and textbooks, pictures of her family on her desk and wall. The only thing missing was one of those corny "Live, Laugh, Love" signs that were so commonplace now that they verged on sociological cliche. Thankfully, the L-T wasn't a basic bitch who drank pumpkin spice lattes and talked about her love of the fall so much that Kabal almost seemed sure she'd gladly stuff a fistful of leaves up her ass. She was a broad that he could respect.
She was shuffling through her file cabinet when he and Stryker entered, her attention distracted by the evidence in one of the manila folders inside of it. She was nearly sixty and she looked it too. Her strawberry blond hair was cropped short in a Karen-style pixie cut, curled and coiffed like a grandmother's, streaked with gray and white strands that were hidden well by her natural color. There was little color in her fair skin, but she wore jet black mascara on her lashes and a rosy pink lipstick to give some semblance of life to her wrinkled face. As for her clothes, they were mature and respectable like she was, a smart gray suit custom-tailored to her short, slim build.
"What's the story, L-T?" Kabal asked her.
"You two like the strange cases, don't you?" she replied, never looking up from her folder.
"I don't," Stryker told her. "He does."
He scoffed and shrugged. "Well, they're typically more interesting," he replied.
"You're gonna love this, then," she said, finally turning around and carrying her file to her desk and sat down. "So that explosion on your street?" she then opened.
"Gas leak, right?"
Mansfield shook her head no. "Made to look like one. They used explosives."
Stryker frowned. "What?"
"There was hardly anything left of the unit where they were wired to blow," she reported. "But there was a strong box in there. A very strong box. And this was inside." She casually withdrew a cream-colored envelope and handed it to Kabal. Both men saw that someone had written in elegant cursive the words: Kadeem Kabal.
The detectives looked at her in surprise. "You haven't opened it?" Kabal immediately asked her.
"It was addressed to you, wasn't it?" she retorted. "But we did x-ray it and ran chemical analyses on it. It's not booby-trapped and it's not laced with anthrax or anything like that."
"How reassuring," he drily remarked as he now began to examine the envelope more closely. "Nice stationary," he softly spoke to himself. "Bohemian."
"What?" Stryker asked.
"From the Czech Republic," he explained.
"You don't think Tomas Vrbada had anything to do with this, do you?" he suggested.
Kabal looked at him. "If the Lin Kuei still operated like it did years ago, then it's possible. But ever since Icicle Dick made them into a clan of good-guys, I sincerely doubt it. Besides, Tomas has a strong moral code. He wouldn't go after innocent people just to get my attention. That's not how he rolls."
"Still should ask him, just in case."
"Obviously," he replied and then looked up at Mansfield once again. "No fingerprints, I take it?"
"No," the L-T shook her head.
"She used an old-fashioned fountain pen. Parker Duofold judging by the distinct cobalt blue color. Iridium nib judging by the calligraphy."
"She?" Stryker now asked, puzzled.
"She."
"Of course," he sighed.
"It's a feminine handwriting," he responded.
"Whatever."
Now Kabal grabbed the letter-opener from Mansfield's pen cup and carefully began to open the envelope, ripping gently as both the Lieutenant and his partner watched with bated breath. The paper cut easily and in a moment, an iPhone in a yellow case slipped out. He recognized it immediately; it was the same phone the girl had used in his last major case. No, not hers, he quickly deduced. Hers had been locked up in evidence. This was a fraud, though a damn good one.
"But that's the phone from-"
"From what, 'The Yellow Mask'?" the L-T interrupted.
"Well, it obviously can't be, but it's supposed to look like it-" Kabal abruptly cut himself off before whirling around and looking at his boss. "'The Yellow Mask'?" he demanded to know. "You read Stryker's reports too?" He looked at his friend, utterly betrayed.
"Of course I do," she replied. "I have an obligation to the people that we serve to ensure you're fulfilling your oath of office to the NYPD and to the Constitution," she said. "All the higher ups are in the loop." She paused and leaned over. "Do you really not know that the Earth goes around the Sun, or where Iran is on a map?"
Gritting his teeth, Kabal shook his head and continued on. "It's not the same phone, it's brand new," he told them. "But someone's gone to a lot of trouble to make sure it looks like the same phone, which suggests that your weekly reports have a higher readership than even you know." He looked at his partner with a disapproving glare.
While Stryker cringed beside him, he quickly turned on the phone and looked for more evidence on it. There was one phone message notification waiting for him. He tapped on it and put the phone on speaker mode in time to hear five shrill beeps. And then a photo message popped up, showing them in detail a tiny, decrepit living room in some empty apartment. Frowning, Kabal showed the others.
"What the hell are we supposed to make of that?" Stryker snapped, exasperated. "Some Zillow photo and the Greenwich pips?"
"What are the Greenwich pips?" Mansfield wondered.
The detective sighed and looked at her. "In the UK, radio stations use them to signal the exact top of the hour."
"It's a warning," Kabal murmured.
"What do you mean?" Stryker asked him.
The burned man exhaled noisily through his mask and then crossed his arms. "Some secret societies back in the day - and even some now - used dried melon or orange seeds to send messages. The Black Dragon uses pips all the time to tell members that danger is coming. Whoever did this is warning us that it's going to happen again." He took the phone from Mansfield and looked at the photo again. "I recognize this place. Let's go."
"Wait, what's going to happen again?" he called as he rushed after his partner through the busy police station.
"Boom!" he yelled as he dramatically threw his arms outward.
Unexpectedly, Kabal led Stryker and Mansfield back to their apartment, the chaos on the street outside dying down somewhat, and when they arrived, he practically threw himself out of the unmarked police car to get inside. But this time, he didn't climb the stairs to his apartment on the top floor of the three-story house. This time, he went down a flight of stairs to a neglected basement door where the bottommost apartment had remained empty since before he and Stryker moved in. The splintered, weathered door was locked.
Stryker quickly found the landlady, Mrs. Huang, who joined them on the lower landing and was fumbling through her keys. "You looked at this one, Kadeem, when you first came around to rent one of the apartments. I can't get anyone interested in this one. It's probably because it's damp and dark."
Kabal was only half-listening to her as he pressed his ear to the door. There were no sounds coming from within, but the doorknob had been polished to a shine. Strange that the rest of the door was neglected. It was obvious what that meant.
"This door has been opened recently," he told them, stepping back.
"That's impossible," Mrs. Huang argued. "I have the only key right here."
"It's like you've never heard of people picking locks," he muttered before he yanked her keyring from her hand and slipped the appropriate key into the lock. Carefully, he pushed the door open, praying that the door wasn't wired with a bomb. But as it opened, nothing happened. Thank God for small favors today.
"We'll bring the keys back when we're done," Stryker now reassured the landlady as he gently shoved her back up the stairs. "It could be dangerous in there so you can't go with us." She grumbled a bit, but obeyed him, and left them to investigate in peace. "How sure are we there's no bomb in there?" he asked his partner a minute later.
"I'm not sure," he quietly replied, "but it seems like a pointless thing to do, leave all these breadcrumbs only to kill us now. If killing me was their endgame, why not just blow up our building instead?"
"I hate your insidiously logical logic," the other retorted as he and Mansfield now crept into the apartment after Kabal, all of them barely breathing as they moved.
They emerged into a dimly lit living room, the dusty net curtains pulled slightly apart, letting only a trace amount of sunlight through the eye-level windows. It smelled old in here, old and musty like sour earth. The carpet was threadbare and coming up at the corners. And in the center of the room, harmlessly sitting there like some sort of post-modern piece of art, was a pair of white and blue Nike Air Jordans.
"Shoes?" Mansfield asked in confusion.
Carefully, Kabal knelt onto all fours and began looking at them from all angles. They didn't seem to be wired to explode, but he still hesitated to touch them. While he looked at them, Stryker went to work looking for clues or for evidence elsewhere in the room - on the walls, on the window ledges, on the hearth above the fireplace. Dust had accumulated and dust bunnies hid in corners, but beyond that there was nothing significant about the scene.
"I doubt we're going to find anything, but I'll get forensics down here to go over it with a fine-tooth comb," Stryker told his partner.
"Agreed," the L-T told him.
"We should let the bomb squad look at those before we move them," he then suggested as he pointed to the Air Jordans. "I-"
Before he could finish his thought, the yellow telephone in Kabal's coat pocket began to ring. Curiously, he withdrew it and saw that the number was blocked. Because of course it was. Quickly, he answered it and put it on speakerphone so everyone else could hear.
"Hello?" he greeted.
A woman's voice - sniffling, wavering, whimpering - answered him. "Hel...hello...sexy," she said, clearly crying.
"Who is this?" he demanded to know.
"I've sent you...a little...puzzle...just to say...hello," she trembled and sniffed.
Kabal exchanged a glance with his partner. Her voice was such an odd contrast to the tone of what she was saying. Stryker's eyes were wide in alarm, the expression in them revealing that he was as lost for words as the other felt.
"Who's talking?" he asked, his tone softer. "Why are you crying?"
"I'm not crying...I'm typing," she stumbled.
Now the three of them were heartily confused. Typing? What in the hell was going on?
But the sobbing woman continued. "I'm typing...and this stupid bitch...is reading it out. Twelve hours to solve my puzzle, Kabal, or I'm going to be very naughty."
Realization immediately struck the detectives as the woman began to bawl uncontrollably now. The sound of it seemed to echo around them like surround sound, horrifying both Stryker and Mansfield. But Kabal stood there thoughtfully, his heart almost cold and his soul almost amused. This...This is what he'd been craving. Something interesting…
Something new.
DinoLord00, yes, I agree. I think they kind of explored that theme of how these cosmic level events affect the average joes in Avengers: Age of Ultron, so it's kind of cool to be able to do that here. This type of story is more conducive towards that then most MK stories can be. Although, I did try to show that theme as well in The Curse of the Dragon Medallion by having Onaga's actions affect all the people in Outworld, not just our heroes. And yeah, Kabal may be a cop now, but he still has the potential to be ornery and defiant. Walker's not a "bad" guy per se, Kabal just resents being controlled by anyone. It doesn't hurt that Walker is a smug FBI agent that thinks no one, least of all Kabal, is redeemable. I'm glad you like where this is going!
ROCuevas, thank you!
The-06, oof, tell me about it. My other one turned 21 today. I can't believe how fast time is flying! And yes! Save the world stories get exhausting to write as much as they get exhausting to read. But sometimes fun little ones are what I need, and I liked the idea of Kabal and Stryker doing actual police work for once. I'm glad others are on board with that as well.