Chapter XXXVI: Beeldenstorm

0630hrs, 16 December 2013, Orange, Virginia, United States

"Fortune, which has a great deal of power in other matters but especially in war, can bring about great changes in a situation through very slight forces." Julius Caesar

The standoff between Amy, Mina, and the Nakanishi Security Solutions PMC was now in its fourth hour. Neither side was willing to budge, and it was looking like that the PMC was going to make its move to attack. The PMC had made no attempt to negotiate at all; in fact, there had been no communication whatsoever between them and the SAILOR Team.

"They're getting ready," Amy said, looking out a window at the SUVs parked outside. From what she could see, one of the SUVs had a lot of jamming equipment poking out of it, making it look like a hedgehog.

"Why the hell would Nephrite be all way out here?" Mina wondered, checking an AR-15 magazine from upstairs. It was a twenty round one, instead of the thirty round one she had purchased earlier.

"This is a huge operation. He's here to make sure that nothing goes wrong. Which in this case, has."

"Not for long if they attack us. There's, what, seventy of them and two of us?"

"That's only 35 to 1," Amy commented sarcastically. "Not too bad of odds."

"Yeah, if we were playing Call of Duty or something like that," Mina scoffed putting the magazine away in a tactical vest pocket.

"You played CoD?" Amy asked her, somewhat disbelieving. Of course, this was coming from a person who had managed to get through Heavy Rain…

"I played every single one of them," she said to Amy, smiling. "My favorite is actually CoD2."

"Really now? What about Modern Warfare?"

A bullet snapped by their heads, shattering a window, pinging about the plant and putting an end to that conversation.

"Did you see it?!" Amy yelled, ducking down and trying to find the sniper that had fired off that shot.

"No, did you?"

Amy shook her head and looked around, taking stock of their situation. Both Amy and Mina were holed up in the processing plant, which had two entrances and a loading bay; the bay was blocked by a truck that was going to move the WMD and the other two entrances had since been rendered unusable by Mina and Amy piling up junk in front of them. Only explosives would be able to knock a hole in the wall or the door, and use of those might compromise the WMD. So they were stuck; the PMC outside couldn't move in without taking heavy causalities or use explosives to gain entry. Mina and Amy couldn't move because they would be gunned down the instant they set foot outside. Unless…

"This is ridiculous," Mina said to Amy, huddling near a window. "We can't get out of here. That WMD is our only bargaining chip, and they know it."

"We can't just drive it out of the facility," Amy stated. "They'll snipe us as soon as we start driving." Would they though?

Several more bullets whizzed past, with the snipers trying to psych the two of them out. It was certainly working, since Mina jumped at almost every shot that was fired.

"We're not going to be able to defeat all of these guys, without any of the technology we have on hand!" she yelled, dodging another bullet.

"I guess we have to bargain. Or something like that," Amy said, considering the options. "The question is, who's going to act first? I mean…" Another bullet snapped by. "…I'm not up for negotiating with these guys. Mina, you're better at this than I am."

"Great."

Several more minutes passed by with the sniper fire, then there was silence.

"What's up?" Mina asked out loud. She peeked out the window and saw a couple of SUVs start to drive up. "They're making their move," she told Amy.

Amy scrambled up to one of the windows and looked outside. She saw someone get out of the lead SUVs; it was Nephrite, and he had a megaphone in hand instead of the Calico SMG.

"Hello Ms. Mizuno! Ms. Aino!"

"Shit," Mina hissed. "He knows our names!"

That didn't surprise Amy at all, since the SAILOR team was basically controlled by the Nakanishi Group. It still concerned her that a person as amoral and uncaring as the COO of Nakanishi America would have information on them, especially their personal stuff.

"Hey Nephrite!" Amy yelled out the window. Several more SUVs had moved up, and one of them at least, had a minigun protruding from the roof, ready to go. "Do you want your nuke?"

"It would be ideal," he said back, over the megaphone.

"It would be ideal," Mina mocked. "Bullshit."

"Well, come and get it!" Amy said back. She fired a warning shot at one of the SUVs. It pinged off the armor plating that had been equipped and disintegrated.

"I'm going to ignore that," Nephrite calmly said back. "You have five minutes before we assault the facility, and your inevitable deaths as a result. Surrender the WMD, and you will be allowed to leave with your lives."

Amy didn't respond to that. Nephrite had forced their hand, and now the two of them had to figure out a way to get the WMD out of there and/or destroy it, prevent the bad guys from getting the WMD and escape with their lives. All without contact from the outside, outgunned and outnumbered.

"Let's just go."

"What?" Mina asked. The ridiculousness of the suggestion hit her like one of the sniper bullets. "I thought you said that they would snipe us if we just drove this thing out of here."

"We are outgunned and have been outplayed, Mina." Amy glazed at the WMD sitting on the floor. "We have everything to lose if they allow this WMD to be detonated tonight." She looked at Mina, her eyes piercing the soft gaze from Mina. "I. Will. Not. Let. That. Happen." She emphasized every word.

Mina looked back at her, but she trusted that woman with her life, even if it meant the end of hers. If she was going to make it happen, Amy would find a way.

"Alright. Let's get this thing into that truck then."

Mina and Amy manhandled the WMD on the trolley it was resting on to the back of the truck that they were about to drive out. It wasn't very heavy, considering it could take out an entire city, but then again, such was the nature of nuclear warfare.

Amy left Mina to finish up and went around to the front, where she noticed something very particular about this very truck. The windows were slightly tinted, bending local ordinance banning the tinting of windshields. The driver must have thought that it might give him an advantage in getting the WMD to Washington without being IDed. She took a look at the logo on the side; it read, GOURMOND CATERING (A SUBSIDIARY OF NAKANISHI AMERICA). Amy guessed that since that this was a company vehicle, that they might have some remote-kill device that would stop the truck in the event it was stolen or something like that.

"I've got an idea. One that doesn't involve a suicide mission."

Mina shrugged. "I'm game for a plan that doesn't get us killed."

Nephrite saw the truck start up and start to leave the facility. It wasn't unexpected though; the SAILOR team was a resolute and resourceful team, and they knew that the WMD was their only ticket out of there. Nephrite however, smiled at that thought. He was already one step ahead of them.

The truck had a remote stop feature built into it, and since it was a company vehicle, Nephrite had complete control over its systems, and could stop the truck whenever he felt like it. Maybe he'd get their hopes up by letting them get to the gate and then killing the vehicle there, letting his men get the coup de grace. He'd figured that the SAILOR team would come after the WMD, since they had been slowly building up evidence against them but no matter. Tonight, they would settle this nonsense once and for all. Then, they could finally get back to conquering the world again, heh. Someone fired a round off at the truck.

"Would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapon?" Nephrite announced over the radio.

The truck moved forward a moderate pace, going all-terrain as it veered off of the road, past their blockade and onto the snow, toward the chain link fence that surrounded the perimeter of the processing plant.

"Not today you don't." He hit a button on his Blackberry and killed the engine, bringing the truck to a halt before it crashed through the fence. "First squad," he said over a radio. "Check out the truck. The rest of you, get into the building and make sure it's secure. Keep those guns ready." The SUV with the minigun drove over to the truck and several soldiers spilled out to check the disabled vehicle.

Nephrite resolved not to be fooled; in his position, he would have jammed something on the accelerator and would have slipped out while the enemy was trying to chase after the out of control truck. But he had enough men to go after the truck and secure the facility, so nice try SAILOR team. Better luck next time. Oh wait.

Nephrite moved in with his command squad flanking him on either side, talking into their radios and giving out orders. He walked quickly and deliberately, arriving at the facility in no time at all it seemed.

"Sir!" one of the PMC soldiers called out to him. "There's no one in there!"

"Are you sure?" he asked. Not a surprise at all. They were probably in the truck, and he had that angle perfectly…

BANG!

…covered.

He turned around to see one of his soldiers go down from a shot to the chest as they opened the rear door to the truck. Mina jumped out and shot another one of them by the door. Reacting, the minigunner swiveled his gun around toward Mina…and was promptly shot down by Amy, who had hidden in the cab of the truck, manually controlling it in an uncomfortable position. She had kicked open the door and delivered a shot to the gunner's head. He went down.

The other members of the squad scrambled to fight the immediate threat in front of them, but in quick succession, Mina and Amy gunned down them all.

"Mina! Minigun!"
"On it!" Mina tumbled down from the truck and into the cold snow. She was shocked by the sudden burst of cold, but it spurred her on to get to the minigun. She ran over to the SUV, which was a scant fifteen feet away from her. Another PMC soldier popped out of the SUV, trying to get a shot off. Mina dropped to one knee and fired two shots, double tap. He went down. She kept running and jumped into the SUV. A quick check of the vehicle revealed no one inside. Mina hopped up to the minigun and aimed it right at Nephrite.

Unfortunately, that remote stop feature also applied to the SUVs. Just when she was going to fire, Nephrite hit the kill switch to all the vehicles in a brief moment of panic.

This also included the electronics vehicle that Amy had seen earlier.

"Amy!" Mina screamed, realizing that the minigun wasn't going to work. Then her HUD came back to life, illuminating the buildings and in Amy's case, scanning for additional targets.

"I'm on it!" Amy ran over to the SUV, whipping out her tablet computer and trying to find the IP address for the truck. Surprisingly, many vehicles had IP address for a variety of maintenance and diagnostic properties, such as telling the driver that the oil needed changing, or that a tire was flat and that the appropriate services had been notified. That being said, someone could probably use that information other than its intended purposes.

Nephrite exhaled, thinking he had dodged a bullet on that one. "Get them!" he yelled to his mercenaries. They hesitated, seeing what had happened to their comrades.

"They cannot use that minigun, now go!" He raised his Calico and fired a couple of shots, ignoring his previous order to not shoot at the nuclear device. It would be fine…right? That seemed to work, and a couple of squads moved forward, their weapons firing. Another couple of squads covered.

"Any century now, Amy!" Mina screamed. She fired from the turret of the minigun, using her HUD to identify and track targets, but there were so many of them. The torrent of incoming fire forced her to duck down.

Amy found the remote access key were still in the car (in the cupholder), much to her surprise. She thought that they would have been smarter than that, but maybe these guys were just that dumb. She turned the car on, and a quick burst of data shot out from the computer that ran the GPS and other onboard systems essential to maintaining and running the car. Nephrite quickly shut it down again, but Amy had all she needed.

"Goddammit, shouldn't have got those keyless systems," Nephrite bitched to himself. "I'll just disable the SUV from here." Despite his efforts, the SUV started up again.

"What the…"

"Mina, I can't get you enough power to the minigun without completely draining the battery on this vehicle," Amy stated from below. Within a couple of seconds, she had accessed the onboard computer and disabled the remote access feature.

"That's great," Mina bitched back. She fired some more shots, but the PMC soldiers kept getting closer. "Have any more ideas?!"

"Well, I have control over this vehicle, so I can at least get us out of here!" Amy shifted over to the driver's seat and started over to the truck, where the WMD was still in the back, on that stupid trolley.

"Get ready to move!"

Mina saw what Amy was about to do, and ducked back down from the gun turret and opened up the back of the SUV. She fired some more rounds off at the advancing PMC troops.

Amy put the car in drive and sped it toward the truck.

"Hold on!" Amy slammed on the brakes, sending Mina flying around in the back, bouncing around like in a pinball machine. She drifted the car so that the back was facing the doors of the truck.

"Ow!" Mina got back up and saw the WMD in the back of the truck. She figured that she had to get out and push it toward the open space of the SUV. "Do you want me to get out and push?"

"No need."

"Wait, what does that mean…?"

"You might want to get out of the way."

Mina found that statement to be somewhat strange until she realized what Amy was about to do.

Amy punched the car into reverse and accelerated, ramming the truck and sending the trolley rolling forward into the back of the SUV. It landed with a loud "clunk" in the back.

Mina braced herself for a nuclear explosion, but the bomb was made to withstand such abuse. Hopefully.

"Get the door closed and we're out of here!" Amy screamed at her, leaning out of the window to fire some more shots at the advancing troops. They were only fifty feet away.

Mina looked at the damaged swing-out doors and hoped that they would close, after all the abuse that Amy had just put them through. She reached for the handles and pulled the doors shut. They closed, despite the damage.

"Done!"

"We're out!" Amy hit the accelerator and pummeled over the chainlink fence, escaping into the pre-dawn darkness.

"Why won't you work?!" Nephrite screamed at his phone. He hit the kill switch over and over again, but to no avail; Amy was in complete control of the car now and there was nothing that he could do to stop it.

"Fuck!" he slammed the phone on the ground, and it exploded into a thousand different pieces as it hit the hardened earth. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

The rest of the PMC looked on, dumbfounded by his sudden outburst. It was very rare to see him like this, but then again, he did just lose a nuclear weapon.

"Don't just stand there!" he swore at them. "Chase them!"

"We can't sir," one of his command squad leaders said to him. "You've disabled all of our vehicles."

Nephrite realized his mistake, but was not going to have his authority questioned. He pulled out his Calico and shot the man square in the face. He flopped down, dead.

"Would anyone else care to point out my mistakes?!" he shouted out to them. "Or would somebody like to grow a pair and get these vehicles started again?!"

This made the PMC soldiers get back to finding a solution to getting their WMD back. They quickly scattered to their vehicles and tried to get them restarted.

"Amy…" Mina said to her as she was driving down the road away from the facility. "Don't ever do that again."

"Heh," she replied, giving a slight smile. "Easy for you to say."

"I thought that we would never get out of there."

This time, there was a bigger smile from Amy. "Me too."

They drove on in silence before Amy started to slow the car down.

"Uh…" she said out loud, like she was unsure of something.

"Yeah?"

"Where are we taking this thing?"

That statement hit Mina like…well, a nuclear explosion. They really hadn't thought this one through, but then again, this was simply the consequence of finding out the earth-shattering plans three days earlier and spending half of them travelling.

"I don't know…it's the only definite, concrete proof we have of Nakanishi's plans in America. But if we bring it into D.C, there is a very real chance that Nakanishi will recover the WMD and carry out their mission."

The two of them sat in silence for a moment, weighed down by the situation.

"We'll ask Artemis," Amy finally said, making a command decision.

Amy tapped on her HUD to alert Artemis that they really needed to talk to him.

"What's up guys?" he replied, munching on some cheese puffs. He was watching the rest of the SAILOR team drive into Tokyo to assault the Nakanishi HQ.

"We have the WMD."

"Great."

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"Uh…what do we do with it?" Amy asked.

"Oh…yeah. Let me ask Luna about that, hold on. Luna!"

Again, another moment of silence before Luna got on the line with them.

"Okay, you have the WMD?"

"Yes, it's riding in the back of the SUV we have here. It's a Nakanishi vehicle, but I've managed to disable the remote kill and GPS tracking on it." Amy took another look at the WMD riding in the back. It sat there, lazily like a fat man.

"I'm going to bring up your location. Standby."

Using the secure channel that neither the Japanese government nor Nakanishi knew of, Luna routed a signal through several communications satellites, through the CIA's KH-13 and focused down on their location.

"Located. You're on Constitution highway, continue driving until you reach the main highway toward DC. Looks like the Nakanishi units are still stuck at that meat processing plant."

"Can you explain why they have a PMC out here?" Mina asked, looking out the back window. It was cracked a little bit, but the advantages of having an armored vehicle were apparent in this case.

"My guess? The county outsourced its police force to Nakanishi. They take over some on the policing and in return, Nakanishi pays the county and gets a nice playground for its operations."

"That's nice and all," Amy said, cutting Mina and Luna's guesswork off. "But what the hell should we do with this thing?"

Luna thought about it for a second.

"What do you think about it, Amy?" she finally replied.

"Why me?" Amy shot back.

"You're kind of in charge. You guys found the information. We just process it."

Amy sucked in her breath, irritated but Luna was right.

"We compromise. We take this thing somewhere isolated and drop it off. We take the vehicle to go see the President, and we get her to send out someone to confirm the WMD is active."

Mina didn't see any other options other than what Amy was suggesting.

"I agree," she stated.

"Alright then, that's the plan. I'm looking up an area that you might be able to drop it off…"

Luna searched around and found the Manassas battlefield.

"This might be a bit out of your way, but here's an relatively isolated location." She punched up a location near the visitor's center, but tucked away so that no one would notice it.

"The Bull Run Battlefield?" Amy asked.

"Manassas." Amy didn't really understand the entire dynamic between calling it "Manassas" or "Bull Run", but it was the all the same…right?

"Whatever."

"There's a spot you can drop it off here without too much of a fuss."

Luna highlighted the directions and location on both of their HUDs.

"Affirmative," Amy replied. "We'll let you get back to your operation there."

"Thanks. Contact us if you really need something, but again, we're really busy making sure that Nakanishi goes down here."

"Got it. Thanks for the help."

"Luna out."

Mina looked at the direction on her HUD. "It's about an hour or so drive from here. We'd better get going."

"I'm already on it."

Amy continued driving on Highway 522, then up to Highway 15N/29N, and followed it all the way to the spot near the Manassas Battlefield Visitor's Center.

It was a mostly uneventful drive.

"Hey Amy," Mina piped up after thirty minutes of silence. She had been watching out for police cars and the like, but even cops had to take a vacation now and again.

"Yeah?"

"You wanted to become a doctor, right?"

Amy hadn't thought about that in such a long time that she had almost forgotten about that little fact.

"My mom was a great doctor," Amy replied, keeping her focus on the road. "Dad left us, and then mom started working overtime to help support me. I saw how much good she did, how many people she helped, how many lives she saved. I've done the opposite. I've hurt so many people, I've ruined so many lives. I'll never be able to make up for what I've done."

"Amy…" Mina started to say, but Amy kept going on.

"I know that we were thrust into this, that we were not given a choice, but I knew. Dammit…" She clenched her hands around the steering wheel. "I knew that there was something wrong from the beginning. I went along with it. But now…"

Mina let Amy rant on a bit. It was extremely rare to see Amy this upset, but the stakes were getting higher and higher by the hour, and the stress of the mission was getting to them.

"Pull over."

Amy looked at Mina. "What…?"
"Pull the fucking car over."

Amy complied, pulling the SUV to the side of the road.

"Mina…I…"

"Look, this entire situation blows," Mina said, taking her HUD glasses off for a second. "And I understand your frustration. So, get out of the driver's seat and let me drive for a little bit."

"But you drove all the way from…"

"Amy." Mina looked straight into the eyes of Amy. "Get into the passenger's seat and take a nap."

"Okay…"

Mina and Amy switched seats, spending a few seconds in the frigid air outside before hopping into their respective seats.

"You don't have to do this Mina, I'm perfectly okay…" Amy said before drifting off into a deep slumber.

Mina just smiled at her and pulled out onto the highway, checking the traffic and making sure that the Nakanishi vehicles weren't following them.

Mina drove the rest of the way in peace, punctured by the heavily breathing of Amy. She looked just as beautiful as she had earlier this morning.

This time though, Mina easily pushed those thoughts out of her head, focusing at the mission on hand. Love could wait for WMDs, was her reasoning.

They finally arrived at Manassas thirty minutes later, with Amy still asleep in the passenger's seat. Mina took a right onto a small, unmarked road meant for the audio tour of the battlefield. There weren't very many visitors this time of year, if at all.

"Amy…" Mina reached over and shook her. She gasped for air and woke up.

"Yeah…yeah!" she sat up quite quickly.

"We're here. Let's get this thing out."

"Okay."

Amy got out of the car and did a quick scan of the area with her HUD. No one was in sight.

"Clear."

Mina opened up the back door, still damaged slightly from the rough use this morning. Along with Amy, she pulled the small WMD out, and set it on the ground.

"That's still kind of heavy," Mina noted, rubbing her hands together.

"Uh-huh." Looking around, Amy found a small ditch by the side of the road. They hefted the WMD over to it, and covered it with some loose branches and snow.

"Hope that keeps it hidden away," Amy said nervously. It wasn't everyday that you had to hide a nuclear weapon away from someone.

"It will."

They both stood there for a second, wondering about the situation before leaving and driving off to the meeting point with the Congress members.