CHAPTER 11
Eagle Eye waved his left hand in front of his nose, as if doing so would somehow dampen the stench that hung in the air like an invisible cloud.
He looked down at the group of people massing down at the bottom of the stairwell he and his company of prisoners were descending. Eagle Eye was unimpressed with the array of assault rifles and handguns aimed at his and Shadow's direction.
He was, however, getting a little nervous at one of his prisoners. Both of them had their hands clasped behind their heads, but while Bomber Jacket, who led the procession down into the rebel headquarters, was calm, the Mexican was jittery.
"What's the matter with you, huh?" the Mexican said, looking up at Shadow, who just stared back at him and waved his MAC-10 casually at his face. "This is embarrassing!"
"Don't even think about it!" Shadow bellowed. "Move! And calm the fuck down!"
"We've got a stand-off here," said Eagle Eye to the assembly of rebels down below him. As he reached the bottom floor he looked around and asked, "Anybody ever clean this dump?"
He followed Shadow and their two captives deeper into the rebel hideout, while the rest of the group closed around and trailed behind them. The procession of captured, captors, and tense onlookers finally stopped when they came upon a large common room dominated by dining tables of various sizes and shapes, with chairs of various designs strewn all about.
Eagle Eye hung back a bit, standing behind Shadow's bulk, content to watch everything unfold.
Presently another group of rebels rushed into the room from another entry point. Almost everyone had a weapon in their hand.
The lone exception, Eagle Eye noticed, was Michael Donovan.
"Alright," Donovan said as he sauntered into the room. "What happened here?"
"Them!" the Mexican said, pointing back at Shadow.
"Relax, hombre," Shadow said, who pointed his MAC-10 up towards the roof and clicked on the safety, chuckling quietly.
Eagle Eye chose that moment to step out from behind his big friend and face Donovan.
"Oh," Donovan said with mild surprise. "Well… I guess I should have known you would have shown up sooner or later."
"How you doing, Gooder?" Eagle Eye replied.
He watched Donovan laugh without amusement. "That's short for 'Do-Gooder.' It's a little nickname he's got for me." Donovan said to the assembled group. "Oh, yeah, we've met before. Lebanon, Nicaragua, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, every other hotspot in the world you can think of, you name it."
Eagle Eye didn't move as Donovan strode towards him. "He blows it up, I cover it with the camera, and you folks back home hate him for it without knowing who he is," Donovan said. Jerking a thumb at Eagle Eye, he said, "I want you to meet Ham Tyler, master of covert operations, communications, and bad relations."
Tyler stepped forward. "This is Chris Farber, my associate," indicating Shadow, who smiled at everyone. "And you people are doomed."
He watched the gathered people take in his declaration, then murmur amongst themselves.
"Gooder's got you believing that with a little muscle and God on your side you can pull the bad guys down," Tyler said. "Now that kind of thinking's gonna get you dead. It's time you let the professionals do their job."
"Now that sounds familiar," Donovan scoffed.
"Look, Donovan, I didn't come here to fence with you. We don't have time. I'm here to tell you there's a world network, and from now on you'll do as you're told."
"Now wait a minute, pal –" Bomber Jacket started to say.
"Shut up," Tyler interrupted. He looked at everyone assembled in the room, his gaze moving from one face to the next as he spoke. "You people got real lucky last night pulling off a nice stunt. But without proper leadership, you're gonna get hung out to dry. Now we're organized and we've got a plan, and…" Tyler reached out his hand, and Farber slapped an ammo magazine into it. "... we've got a new kind of ammo that'll cut those lizards in two."
He turned to Donovan again, handing him the magazine. "You can stay independent, get wiped out, or you can join the organization and really help hammer punch these lizards back off the planet. The choice is up to you."
The assembled rebels talked among themselves again, more loudly than before. Tyler had no problems picking up on the various conversations going on all around him.
"I don't trust this guy."
"So there IS a worldwide organization! Julie was right!"
"I don't care about joining up with a larger group. We're doing fine on our own here."
"Way I see it, it's just trading one set of leaders for another. As long as we get the job done."
"I dunno. It doesn't seem right to me. Feels like we're just throwing Julie away if we join up with this guy."
"I just plain don't like this guy."
Then Bomber Jacket spoke up. "You heard what Donovan said: The guy's a warmonger. Getting people killed turns him on –"
Tyler grabbed Bomber Jacket by the neck, gave a slight squeeze, then pushed him away. "Don't you ever say that," he said through gritted teeth.
The Mexican held Bomber Jacket back, who tried to counter-attack. Tyler didn't so much as flinch. He looked at everyone gathered in the room. "Donovan may hate my guts," he said in a booming voice. "But he'll tell you I know what I'm doing."
He stepped back towards where Farber was standing, then leaned on a wall. His gaze traveled from one face to the next, and he could see that as no one moved nor spoke a single word, every person in that room was weighing up every word he'd said in the last few minutes on their own.
In the silence of the room his keen hearing picked up the sound of a telephone ringing. It rang only once, cluing him in to the likelihood someone was waiting for that call.
The silence in the common room lasted for a few moments more, until finally Mike Donovan spoke. "You know, we're not killers like you, Tyler. We may be bumping into each other down here, but we're a unit. We've made more noise than you have." He walked up to Tyler and thrust the ammo magazine into Tyler's leather coat's breast pocket. "They know we're here."
Tyler almost laughed. "Which brings me to my next point."
"Donovan!" A middle-aged Catholic priest ran into the room, his eyes wide open in panic. "Everybody! That was Ruby who just called. The Visitors – they're on their way! We've got to get out of here!"