Hero (Gone 9)

A fight? It had been a while. So, okay, then!

Malik said, “Not necessarily,” and Armo groaned inwardly. He was restless after hours on the plane and more hours in the limo. He kind of liked the idea of stretching out by bashing a few heads together.

“I really don’t want to have to hurt cops who are just doing their job,” Dekka said, but she, too, was morphing, preparing for battle. None of them thought they’d have too hard a time winning this fight, but no one really wanted it, not even Armo, not really. They were all tired, and this was not the enemy. Probably.

“I’ve got this,” Malik said.

“I’ve got your bzzz zz zzz.” Shade Darby was morphing in mid-speech, vibrating in place like a hyperactive greyhound on a short leash.

Malik opened the front door and stepped out just as a dozen people in tactical gear, helmets and assault rifles at the ready, came storming up.

“Please stop. I don’t want to hurt you,” Malik said, but the SWAT team was not used to listening to protests from the people they were arresting.

“Hands in the air! Hands in the air!” They rushed him, guns leveled. There was a burst of wind, a blur, and the first three SWAT members suddenly had no guns.

“Take him down!” the special agent in charge yelled into a bullhorn, but a split second later the bullhorn was gone, and the special agent in charge was no longer in charge of anything, but had been physically dragged thirty feet to be propped up in front of Malik like a human shield.

“No one shoot! Safe your weapons!” the SAIC yelled, seeing sense now that he was in the line of fire.

“Please!” Malik said insistently. “Listen to me. We do not want to hurt you, but you will not win this fight. Please believe me: I can cause you terrible pain, pain that would drive you mad. I don’t want to have to do that.”

A woman in the navy-blue business suit of a federal agent held up her FBI shield and said, “We have warrants for your arrest. Release Special Agent Borowitz now! Do not attempt to resist.”

Then something strange happened: NYPD patrol cars raced down the block to come to tire-squealing halts, lights flashing. The street was soon completely blocked by NYPD forming a ring around the SWAT vehicle and the FBI’s SUVs. Out of one NYPD car stepped a man in a dress uniform so stiff it could probably stand by itself. He was one of those men who looked as if they must sleep, shower, and even use the toilet while at full, straight-backed attention. He had a voice to match the look.

“I’m Chief Hale, and someone better explain to me right the hell now why the FBI is pulling this bullshit while my city is still dealing with multiple deaths, panic, and looting.”

Shade released her hold on the FBI SAIC and pushed him gently away. There followed a heated conversation between the FBI and the NYPD over whether or not the Rockborn Gang was welcome in the city. After ten minutes, the mayor showed up looking like she hadn’t slept and was ready to explode at any minute.

“Get the hell off my streets!” she yelled at the federal agents. “Do you inflamed federal rectums even know what’s happening in this goddamn city? These people are here to help, and they have my personal guarantee of safety. So unless you intend to shoot it out with my officers, get the hell out of here.”

“On your head, Your Honor,” Special Agent in Charge Borowitz snapped, straightening his rumpled jacket. “I will inform Washington of your actions.”

“Yeah? You can tell Washington to go and—”

At which point Armo put his big paws over Francis’s ears. “You’re too young for language like that.”

The federal forces pulled away, tires squealing again, angry and frustrated. The mayor, the chief, and a youngish male detective in plain clothes came inside.

“I’m Mayor Chaffetz. Call me Louise. Chief Bob Hale, and Detective Peter Williams.”

They shook hands. They sat in the living room of the borrowed house, a house they’d scarcely explored.

“I’ll get right to it,” Mayor Louise Chaffetz said. “Something very bad has happened, and I don’t just mean asteroid shrapnel killing a bunch of my people and starting a bunch of goddamn fires.” She had bottle-blond hair, narrow brown eyes, a sharp nose, and a habit of drumming armrests with both hands at once, burning off nervous energy. She reminded Armo a bit of Shade.

The detective was white, under thirty, with a narrow face, thinning dark hair, and alert, watchful eyes. He did not sit but stood leaning against the wall. He looked like he was jonesing for a cigarette.

“Tell us,” Dekka said. “We’re not easily shocked.”

“No, I don’t suppose you are.” The mayor sighed. She looked around the room as if searching for allies. Her gaze lingered over a sideboard bearing half a dozen bottles of liquor. “Last night one hundred and three people who’d been struck by meteorite fragments were arrested by federal agents—some ATF but some ICE sons of bitches, too, and people we think were private contractors hired by who the hell knows anymore. The people—hurt people, injured people, people dragged out of surgery, for Christ’s sake, were driven to the Jersey Pine Barrens and . . .” Her weary but confident voice caught in her throat, and she backed up to start again. “They were taken to the Pine Barrens and machine-gunned. Shot down.”

The silence that followed stretched on so long Armo thought it might never end. He checked the faces of the others, not believing his own ears, but from their appalled expressions, they’d heard the same impossible thing he had.

Finally Dekka said, “I was wrong. I guess we are still able to be shocked.”

“It was a panic move,”

the mayor said. “And it seems to have failed anyway. One hundred and three people were driven there to be gunned down and their bodies burned. But the thing is, Jersey State Police say there are only ninety-nine bodies. That means four people are unaccounted for. Not to mention that there are still hundreds of people in the city who were hit.”