One Week Later
London
Jeffrey Boothroyd, once Major Boothroyd of British Intelligence nervously waited in the interrogation room, sitting behind the table with an SAS operative at each side. The door opened, and in walked a man of sixty.
"Basil." said Boothroyd as he recognized who it was.
"Q, we need to talk." Said Basil, "Gentlemen, give us the room."
The operative quietly left Boothroyd's sides and headed for the door, once the door clicked shut behind them, Boothroyd spoke.
"I'd heard they made you M. I suppose congratulations are in order?"
"Who'd you hear that from?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You still have friends in both Themes House and Vauxhall, I realize that, they tell you things, naturally. Well, whoever they are, did they tell you about Bond?"
"Last I heard he got some sort of Lordship, didn't he?"
"He's sick, Q, he's in critical condition."
"This is about 007?"
"His doctors, and you do realize that these are the absolute best there is don't know what's made him sick, his personal aid just disappeared… The league suspects foul play."
"God, you're running their errands!" Boothroyd said in disapproval, "Is this what it's come to?"
"Don't give me that, Q. You know what it's like, you know I don't like the concept of them, they cost us a lot of good men over the years. Just earlier this year I buried Powers and it was because of them. It was either this or they'd pull you in themselves, would you have preferred that?"
Boothroyd sighed.
"Why me?"
"They know you had dealings with the opposition, don't bother denying it."
"I'm not."
"They want to know about a specific item. A machine you constructed for Captain Nemo last year, based upon designs he provided you with."
Boothroyd hung his head.
"It was Algernon, wasn't it? My assistant, he's working for them?"
"Did you think they wouldn't keep tabs on one of Britain's top weapons men?"
"I had my workshop, my cottage, my garage, all equipped with dozens of devices to scramble anything they could be conceivably or otherwise used to monitor me, and still they got me with a fucking plant."
"That's the way it is, Q."
"Now what happens if I tell you?"
"The league won't just have you keep designing on equipment for whoever you take a liking to and can pay. If you're going to do it for anyone…"
"Yes, I understand."
"So tell me, what was it?"
Gotham City
"What do you mean we wait?" Dorian asked loudly from where he kneeled, his voice bellowing through the dusty abandoned ghost station.
"I've agreed to kill Mina for you because it was my responsibility to put the horrid creature out of her misery, but if you think for one second that I'm going to engage in your criminal op-"
"Calm down, father." Nemo said calmly, "You'll get your chance, I'm just telling you of what's going as a courtesy; I thought you wanted to know that our old company was getting shot at."
"I don't." said Dorian as he rose to his feet, "So when will I get my chance? What are you waiting for?"
"An opening. We're outgunned, Gray, surely you realize that. To eliminate the branch directors, we must time in right. Mina will be saved for last because her presence sustains a state of divide and differences in the League. So just sit tight, and wait."
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"I don't think he was too convinced." Said Shaun as he walked alongside Nemo on their way to the busy subway platform, "I've never seen a priest so determined to kill someone else, I will say that."
"He and Josephine have a complicated history. He needs us to tell him where to strike, so I doubt he'll be a source for much trouble."
"I heard he used to be your colleague."
"He was. Speaking of partners, have you been speaking with Miss Sax?"
"No. Not recently. Lucy has, though." Said Shaun as a subway train loudly came to a halt, the doors parted, spitting out commuters and allowing others to cram themselves onboard.
"Even when we were together in Cairo to deal with al-Kherish, she didn't say a word that wasn't necessary. Apparently, she's not too pleased with most of us these days."
"That's because it'll be three months since Priest disappeared next week." Said Nemo as Shaun and he got onboard, "I trust you know what that means?"
"I do." Said Shaun, trying not to look Nemo in the eyes as he did.
"How does it make you feel?"
"To know that he'll be dead soon? Is that what you mean?" asked Shaun, "I know you and everyone else has their ideas about me and Priest, but it's not like that. We've had our differences-"
"You blame him for your wife's death."
"Well, I do. But I don't hate him for it, strange as that sounds. He also helped me gain some perspective in the aftermath, taught me things I needed to know. So how do I feel about him dying soon? I try not to feel anything about it, I try to think of how he's going to die soon anyway, on count of the disease he had and didn't tell any of us about, sometimes when that doesn't work, I think of all the lives he cut short over the years, try to think that he deserves it. I can't do a thing to help him, so me feeling anything is inconsequential, all that's left to do is not to dwell on the past, and try to keep busy."
"You would have made an excellent spy." Said Nemo coldly as the train rumbled away through darkened tunnels.
"Meaning?"
"What do you plan on doing next month?" asked Nemo, "We'll have won or died by then."
"Or captured."
"Well, there's always that. Have you given any thought to what you'd do then, after it's all over?"
"It won't be over, not for me." Said Shaun, "We had an agreement, didn't we?"
"Yes, and I'll honor my end of it, don't worry."
"That's settled, then. Now can you tell me why you've brought me along? I don't think you just wanted some protection while you got the vic to pipe down."
"I'm going to the Narrows. You are going to the Cauldron, that's the city's Irish district. There's someone I'm meeting, I have a transaction to make with him, he's asked to meet me alone."
"Who with?"
"Have you heard of the Joker?"
"Err... Sure."
"Well, the person I'm meeting is a diluted version of him, though he just wants the money, so I should walk away alive."
"Unwise, Captain."
"I appreciate your concern, but I have a few tricks up my own sleeve, don't worry about me."
"Alright, so why am I going to the Cauldron?"
"You're going to talk someone into helping us again."
"Who? More super criminals?"
"No, this one's a superhero."
"Really? Wait, not Bat-"
"Your old friend Eel O'Brien protects that part of town now." Said Nemo, "They call him Plastic Man, believe it or not."
"And you want me to bring him back? He made it abundantly clear he wanted nothing to do with us."
"We only need him for a day, for just one job."
"He won't do it."
"Convince him."
"I'm not sure I can."
"Lie if you have to," said Nemo, "Tell him we're trying to free Priest. Tell him Mona and Jenny were caught and this is the only way to help them, but not Lucy, we'll need her on this. Do whatever it takes. Think you can manage that?"
"Alright." Said the guard with a smirk as he walked into the guards room at twelve noon, he picked up a baseball bat and headed for the electronic switchboard.
"Time to give F-3044 his daily exercise."
"It's not." Said the warden as he read his newspaper, "Doctor Szell gave orders not to harm the prisoner."
"The hell he did."
"The call came this morning. He also asked that he not be drugged, they want him as lucid as possible."
"You gotta be shitting me, the hell for?"
"They're bringing in someone to try and break him."
"What's the use, he's been beat up, cut up, burned, we even clamped jumper cables to his balls and connected it to a car battery. He's not talkin'."
"Well in that case why do you want to beat him up so bad?"
"'Cause It's one hell of way to work off some pent up aggression. Besides, I don't like him. It's the way he looks at us, like you're wearing a chump jacket. Shit, don't you, Klinger?"
"Not especially." Said Klinger as he put down the newspaper.
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The numerous locks to the cell's door slid open. Priest looked up, waiting to see the door open and half a dozen guards walk in with truncheons, rubber hoses or whatever instruments that the guards often used to try and break him. To his surprise, it was a single guard, the warden who'd taken part in his beatings only once or twice over the three months had been where he was.
"Just you, old man?" asked Priest with a contemptuous smirk, "Did the girls get shy all of a sudden?"
"I'm Ed Klinger." Said Klinger calmly, standing by the door he'd closed, "I'm the Warden here."
"Well, bully for you."
"I'm not sure you remember me, but I'd been here in this cell a two or three times, giving you your exercise with the others. The others…. They can't get enough of you, you're the best thing that ever happened to them. As you understand, they have to restrain themselves with regular captives, but not with you. The last prisoner we had who could take as much punishment as you was a mutant called Creed Eight years ago.
"Anyway, they get off on it, and I'm not too averse to it myself. The thing is, the first time I was here, I had this nagging suspicion I'd seen you before. It's not the first time I ever had Dejavu, but by the third I decided I didn't really need to be here.
"Then something odd happened a couple of weeks back. I was staying with my kid for the weekend. I was helping her put together a bunch of old photos into albums. One was of all kinds of pictures of my old man, god rest his soul. I was trying my best to arrange them by date, when I come across this one.
Klinger took an old, yellowed photograph out of his shirt pocket and held it out with an outstretched arm.
"You'll excuse me if I don't come closer to you, Lieutenant Priest. I figure you can see it from over there. In case you don't, it's a picture of a Khe Sanh army unit, the writing on the back reads, 'Sam Loomis, Red Forman, Maxwell Klinger…. And Jude Priest'. Maxwell Klinger was my father."
Priest wasn't looking at the picture, choosing to stare into the warden's eyes instead, and did not seem to be concerned with what he said.
"On every thanksgiving, for thirty-four years, my dad would tell me, my brothers and my cousins about how he and his buddies fell to a North Korean Army unit's ambush, and were rescued at the eleventh hour by a fearless Lieutenant and his 50-cal." Klinger said and placed the photograph in his shirt pocket, "I thought you'd be taller."
"I'm not going to apologize for what we have and will continue to do to you, and I'm not going to be eaten up with guilt over it, either. I'm a realist, I served in the marines and did bad things to normal folks so that others may live and freedom my reign. I know what we do here is evil, but it is a necessary evil. I believe in the league and what it strives for. You and your terrorist cronies may try to sabotage that, but that doesn't change the fact that my father, and by extension myself, my brothers, my kids and grandkids all owe you our very existence. So….. Thank you.
"I'm not supposed to tell you, but they're brining in someone to extract information from you. It's not going to be like Szell or any of the other interrogators that questioned you. They're brining in a mind reader. A psychic. The game is over, in a few hours all your secrets will be at Director Josephine's disposal, and by tomorrow all your buddies will be in cages or in body-bags.
"I'm imploring you, as someone who genuinely wants you see you walk away from this place; talk, tell them what they want. They might just let you go. Don't think this is just a windup, I've seen other prisoners released in exchange of information. So why don't you play ball. You do want to live, don't you? See the world?"
"I've seen it already." Said Priest blankly.
Klinger didn't say anything and just opened the door and prepared to step out.
"Max Klinger was a good man, a funny man. I remember he used to pull the craziest shit, hoping he'd get a section 8 and ticket back to Ohio" Said Priest, "How did he go?"
"I'm going to keep my eye on the screen. If, and I realize how futile this all is, you change you mind, just holler."
The door slammed hut with a clang, the bolts and locks slid into place, leaving Priest locked in again.
Nemo straightened where he stood as he saw the old green Lincoln continental came coasting down a ramp and onto the underpass, driving up slowly till it came to a stop a few feet away from his car.
The captain took a couple of deep breaths as the man in two men got out of the backseat, they were of heavy set, each with a noticeable bulge where a gun holster would hang. The bodyguards weren't Nemo's concern, but the third man to step out. The man in the passenger seat got out with some difficulty, using a cane with a curved handle for balance, he was tall and gangly, his hair was wild ginger, and he wore a bright green jacket over a black shirt and a green tie.
"'You Nemo?" asked the mystery man as he walked with the limp, the bodyguards stayed close, while the driver remained behind the wheel with the engine running.
"Yes. Are you Nygma?"
"Yeah. Did you come alone?"
"As you can see." Said Nemo.
"That's a dangerous thing to do in Gotham, haven't you heard?"
"I have."
"Well then, shall we get down to business?"
"Of course." Said Nemo, taking a suitcase from behind the pillar against which he leaned and then handing it to one of the bodyguards, who unlocked it on the head of his car. He quickly started counting the bundles of money that were revealed to him.
"Is it all there?"
"Do you need to ask?"
"Heh. If you only knew." Said Nygma as he snapped his fingers, the other bodyguard went to the trunk and opened it, retrieving a silver briefcase that he handed to Nygma who held it close until the first bodyguard was done and declared that the money was complete. Nygma handed over the briefcase. Nemo placed it on the ground and opened it, smiling with glee as he gazed upon the contents.
"How did you manage to steal this from Wayne Enterprises?"
"They said it was impossible to steal." Said Nygma, "So I stole it. Do you mind telling me what do you plan on doing with it?"
"Has anyone ever told you that you ask too many questions?" asked Nemo as he closed the briefcase and picked it up.
"Yeah, I get that a lot." Said Nygma as he limped back into his car, "This was fun. Let's do it again."
The green car drove away. Nemo walked in the opposite direction, heading toward concrete steps that would lead him to the street above.
Next Chapter
Restrained and unprotected while the recesses of his conscious are penetrated, Priest's journey with the opposition comes to a point. While a team of opposition operatives convenes in Rome to perpetrate a masterful assassination.