LeBeau frowned as he looked out the window at the three gun-toting Justice agents, cautiously making their approach. The Storm-Breaker was ready to take off, but it couldn’t do that without its passengers. Now the passengers who were expected to climb aboard had to get past Ed Carr’s Gestapo and he didn‘t believe that was going to be an easy task.
“Lord, are Ya up there?” he asked, glancing upwards. Then, he rolled his eyes. “Of course, Yer up there! Sorry, Lord. Look, I’m in a really big jam here. I need to get some people aboard and then hogtail it on outa here, but these guys are gonna have to go in order for me to do that. Can you help a fella out?”
As if to answer, one of the agents fired at him. The bullet slammed into the bulletproof window. “Turn it off!” the agent exclaimed.
LeBeau flinched from the shot. He closed his eyes. “Well… shucks! I really hate that.”
The agent leveled his aim at LeBeau’s head through the window. “Shut it down!”
LeBeau smacked the window. “It’s bulletproof, ya dope!”
He fired again.
In spite of the window being bulletproof, the pilot jumped again and noticed two circular holes in the window where the bullets had struck. LeBeau angrily pointed at the agents. “Stop that! Just stop that, ya hear?”
The agent who fired, the one called Jerry, stepped forward and shouted, “You will turn this thing off or we’re coming in to shut it down ourselves.”
LeBeau suddenly grinned and shook his head. “No, you won’t.”
“What makes you so sure?”
He pointed.
Jerry began to turn around, but was struck by a fist before he had a chance. Before he fell, Shiva grabbed him, put him into a Sleeper Hold - a wrestling move he had once favored - and stepped back away from the other two agents. He dragged Jerry with him. The agents leveled their weapons at him, but held their fire. They couldn’t take a chance at shooting one of their own.
From inside the Storm Breaker, LeBeau yelled, “It’s about time, Hercules!”
The agents concentrated on Shiva.
“Let him go!” one of them demanded.
Shiva flexed his arms and lifted Jerry right up off the floor. Jerry gagged and moaned as his face turned red. His feet dangled above the floor. “Drop your weapons!” The ex-wrestler shook Jerry. “Now, or I’ll break him like a stick.”
The agents looked at each other. Then, they slowly lowered themselves so they could set their weapons down. Once they did this, they stood up and showed Shiva their hands.
“Now back off,” Shiva ordered.
They did, concerned about the shade of purple Jerry was turning.
“Let’s go!” Shiva exclaimed.
Bandjough and King came out of the stairwell, carrying Sumter between them and followed by Staci. Shiva waited for them until they got into the Storm Breaker, which LeBeau had opened for them. Once they were inside, Shiva dropped Jerry and began to close the door.
Staci reached her hand up and stopped him. “Wait! Aren’t you coming?”
Shiva shook his head. “I was only ordered to get you on your way…Not to go with you.”
She frowned. “Well…Marc, I…I hope I see you and Darren again.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “Doc…one way or the other, we will.”
She hugged him and he returned the hug. When he let go, he looked in at King. “Take care of our sister, bro.”
King nodded. “You know it, my brother.”
Shiva closed the door. As the Storm Breaker rose above the rooftop, Shiva took a few steps back and began to turn. He stopped when he realized the agents had not only helped Jerry to their feet, but they also had their weapons again.
Jerry took a deep breath as he rubbed his neck. “You’re going to pay for that!”
Shiva shrugged as he turned his back to watch the rising of the Storm Breaker. He saw Bandjough’s face in the window, looking down at them. “Just go,” he said, knowing they were unable to hear him. They didn’t do what they had just done for them all to be captured now. This mission could not afford to be carried out in vain and he hoped the others realized that.
As the Storm Breaker began to turn about, the door leading to the stairwell was flung open and Justice agents poured out onto the rooftop. Shiva was happy to see some of his own fellow ATD agents also arriving on the scene, Fuller with them. Unfortunately, Carr was also there.
“What’s going on here?” Carr demanded, moving past Shiva to glare up at the Storm Breaker. “What are they doing up there? This is unacceptable!”
“And I told you,” Fuller told him, stepping forward, “they had a mission to perform. A mission they’re getting back to.”
Carr glared at him. “We’ll see about that!” As if in response to his declaration, several agents of Justice broke off from the group and climbed into each of the three Bell AHRs. The Chief Director smirked at Fuller. “Call them back or I’ll have them blown from the skies.”
Fuller shrugged. “Take your best shot.”
Carr nodded. “Oh, I will.”
The man shot a glare at Shiva and then waited expectantly with that smirk still on his face. It was a smirk of triumph because he was confident the Bell ARHs were far more powerful than the so-called Storm Breaker. It wouldn’t be long before they overtook the lone helicopter.
But time passed.
The Bell ARHs did not sound as if they were coming to life. The rotors did not appear to be turning. They continued to remain still on the rooftop of the Federal Building as if they were simply a part of the scenery.
“Why aren’t you people lifting off?!” Carr shouted angrily.
“They’re dead,” was the answer. A pilot had popped his window open so he could speak clearly to Carr. “Nothing’s coming online, sir.”
“That’s not possible! These helicopters are equipped with the latest technology! The computer technology itself is idiot proof!”
“Depends on who the idiot is,” replied Fronk as he joined Fuller. “Idiot proof is an idiom to prevent idiots from having to prove anything ‘cause it just can’t be done.” He waved his hand toward Carr. “Proof is in the pudding…and ew!”
Carr glared at him. “What did you do?”
Fronk blinked and gave him a look of innocence. “What? Me?”
A man rushed to him from one of the Bell’s. “Sir…we’re missing a bag.” He paused. “We think it’s yours.”
Carr glared at him. “Mine?” He spun around and pointed at Fronk. “You have my laptop!” Before anyone could respond, he went to one of the Bells, leaned into it and appeared to be shouting for something. When he came back, he was placing a headset on his head. “We’ll see who wins this round, Darren.”
Fuller, Shiva and Fronk exchanged concerned looks.
“Bell Four, are you receiving?” Carr said into the mike as he stood with his hands on his hips, watching the skies. He could still see the Storm Breaker moving out above the city. Then, he smiled as he picked up a response. “Good. Then, here are your orders…Shoot them out of the skies. That is a direct order.”
Suddenly, a Bell ARH soared from overhead and it headed after the Storm Breaker.
“Where did that one come from?” Shiva inquired as he shielded his eyes from the sun.
“We came with four,” Carr replied, his smirk back. “We just couldn’t put all four down here on this rooftop. Now…I’m glad we didn’t.” He watched one of his helicopters cruising after the Storm Breaker.
* * * * * * *
LeBeau concentrated on flying, or at least he tried to. All he could think about was how close they came to getting captured by Justice, led by a guy who thought everything of himself. “I am not a big fan of close calls, ya follow what I’m sayin’?” he asked as he glanced over at Bandjough.
Bandjough nodded his head, a huge grin on his face.
“What are you all so happy about? Did ya think that was fun?” He aimed a thumb toward the rear of the helicopter. “Would you like to go back?”
“Yes, it was fun!” Bandjough exclaimed. “Come on, man, aren’t you having the time of your life?” He made his hands into fists and let out a loud, “Wahoo! I’ve never been so alive like this before! You guys never told me it felt like this to be saved. I feel like a totally different person, Ace.”
LeBeau blinked at him. “You got saved?”
“Got milk?” Bandjough grinned. “Nope. Got Jesus, that’s what I got.”
LeBeau couldn’t help it. He grinned, too. “Well…now you’ve got some sense about you, kid. That’s what I like to hear.”
Something caught his attention outside the window so Bandjough turned his head to look. “Oh oh…There’s one of them Bells out there, Ace. It’s coming at us fast.”
LeBeau scowled and shook his head. “That is not what I wanted to hear.” He began to pour on the speed to keep ahead of the Bell in hot pursuit. “Where did it come from? I thought you and Crazy Man disabled them all!”
“We did. We disabled all three of them. I’m telling you, they can’t fly!”
“Well, this one can!” LeBeau paused. Then, he slapped his forehead. “Wait! There were four of them, Rookie. This one must have been set down somewhere away from the Federal Building.” He let out a sigh. “Poke your head back there and warn the others…This ride is just about to get a little bumpy.”
* * * * * * *
Staci was deeply concerned about Sumter. He was lying on the floor and she and King had made him as comfortable as they could. How-ever, his appearance was disconcerting. He was ashen and perspiring profusely.
“I…I don’t understand what’s wrong with him,” she said, looking across her patient at King. “This can’t be caused from the gunshot wound. There’s something else wrong…but what?”
King shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know, Staci. I wish I did.” He paused in thought. “He mentioned that he had pain in his head. He also said that he wanted it out of him.” He shook his head. “Only I’m not sure what it is. I thought perhaps he was just speaking out of delirium, but he said there was something in his head and he would like to have you remove it.”
She let out a deep sigh of frustration. “Ed Carr is right. I need to get this man to a hospital or I’m afraid he’s going to die. I don’t even know what’s causing this.”
“Perhaps we can find help for him once we get to the shelter.”
She nodded. “Yes…I hope so. I--”
At that moment, the cockpit compartmental door popped open and Bandjough poked his head through it. “Just want to warn you…this ride could get rocky, so you might want to hang onto some-thing.”
“What is the problem?” King inquired.
“We thought we disabled all the Bells.” He shrugged. “We didn’t. One of them is closing in on us.”
King happened to notice the bag Bandjough had set down before going into the cockpit. “Didn’t you use something in there to disable the others?” he asked, pointing at the bag. “Perhaps you may need it again.”
Bandjough smiled. “Oh, yeah. That could work.” He grabbed the bag. “Thanks. Just hang on.” He went back in and the compartmental door closed.
King looked at Staci. “Perhaps we had best pray for our journey.”
Staci and King held hands over Sumter and began to pray.
* * * * * * *
“I’m getting mad,” LeBeau said through clenched teeth. “I can tell, ‘cause, boy, do I wanna cuss right now!”
The Bell was right behind them now, trying to intimidate its way into their air space.
Bandjough shrugged as he opened up Carr’s laptop on his lap. “I wouldn’t sweat it. They’re not going to open fire at us while we’re over the city.”
“What do you think yer gonna do with that thing?”
“I’m gonna do what Crazy Man showed me to do back at base.” He glanced at the pilot. “I’m going to tell the Bell’s computer to shut down.”
LeBeau frowned. “How can ya do that?”
Bandjough shrugged. “I don’t know. By following the steps I saw him take. He said the new Bells had new microchips inside their computer brains with some new kind of virus protections. It’s even rumored these chips might have some kind of barrier designed to stop EMP’s. That’s a theory that hasn’t been proven yet.”
LeBeau scowled. “You sayin’ that choppers and planes with these chips won’t be affected by EMP’s while in the air?”
“The theory is they will be, but can be immediately restored before a…crash.”
“Well, what kinda nutcase would want to test out them theories, ya dolt?” He shook his head. “And besides, even if ya get into that thin’, ya can’t do it, ‘cause ya’d kill whoever is in the Bell. If ya turn off it’s brain and it falls asleep, it falls. Period. Ya gettin’ that?”
Bandjough hesitated as he stopped typing away on the laptop. “Oh, yeah…I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Yeah. Well, what’s worse is that if they fall out of the sky, they’re liable to land somewhere else in the city. Innocent lives might be taken, so put that away.” He shrugged. “I ain’t worried. We’ll lose them.”
As if to prove it, he suddenly caused the Storm Breaker to dip low and then he caused it to bank hard to the left. The timing was clearly perfect because if they had remained in the flight path they had been on, they would have been history.
The Bell had opened fire just as the Storm Breaker made its sudden maneuver. Two rockets sailed right where they had been and then detonated inside the 21st floor of a sky riser. Glass and debris exploded out from the building, raining down onto the streets of Albany below.
LeBeau banked hard to the right, trying to get out of the Bell’s sight even if only temporarily. “Aw, fer cryin’ out loud!” He glanced at Bandjough. “Why am I listenin’ to you! Ya told me they wouldn’t open fire while we were above the city.”
Bandjough scowled. “Well…I didn’t think they would!”
“You was wrong, bucko!”
“Man, don’t we have weapons?”
LeBeau nodded. “Yeah, but we ain’t gonna fire on anythin’ while above this city ‘cause I don’t wanna take innocent lives. These bozo’s clearly don’t care about innocent people! And besides, they‘re behind us!” He frowned. “Look, I’ll get us away from the city and dodge ‘em the best I can. You start gettin’ that laptop computer talkin’ to theirs and be ready to shut ‘em down.”
Bandjough nodded as his fingers once again began to dance across the laptop’s keyboard. He concentrated on remembering everything Fronk had done earlier because if he made a mistake, there was going to be a dogfight above the city of Albany that could take the lives of innocent people. It already could have happened with the rockets exploding inside the building they had passed. They had no way of knowing whether people had been there or not, but unfortunately, there was a chance that there had been people there and a lot of them.
LeBeau concentrated on two things.
Praying and flying.
The Storm Breaker flew throughout the city of Albany, attempting to keep the buildings in between them and the Bell. The Bell, however, opened fire every chance it got. Sometimes with missiles and other times with heavy caliber bullets fired from an M197 automatic machine gun. The tracers sailed through the air and chewed huge gaping holes out of everything they hit. The only thing they weren’t hitting was the Storm Breaker.
“We’ve got to get out of this city!” LeBeau shouted.
With what seemed like forever, the Storm Breaker finally found some ground to fly over, which wasn’t the city. He banked sharply to the right and pulled up as he coaxed a little more speed.
Bandjough’s fingers continued to dance over the keyboard. Then he stopped and kept his finger above the Enter key. He looked at LeBeau. “I pray I have this right. If I do, once I hit this, they’re done.”
LeBeau glanced at the rapidly moving forest below them. “We’re out of the city, kid! Just hit it!”
Bandjough pressed Enter.
Behind them, the Bell was in hot pursuit. Its pilots, who were in constant contact with Carr via headset, were preparing to fire another volley of missiles when the entire console board went dark. All of the lights went out and simply stopped operating. The two pilots exchanged worried looks.
“Mr. Carr,” one of them said into his headset, but realized that was out, too.
Then, the men screamed as they realized they were falling. The Bell plummeted out of the sky and the ground came up to meet it fast.
LeBeau banked to the right some more as he and Bandjough craned their necks to watch the Bell’s downward plunge. They saw it fall into the trees and then disappear. There was no explosion. Exchanging looks, they realized the pilots of the Bell had a decent chance they were still alive.
As they continued on with their flight, LeBeau snorted. “I’ve always hated computers. I’m glad the Director had me tear out all of the computer gadgets from the Storm Breaker.”
Bandjough nodded.
Suddenly, a voice came through over their headsets. It was Fuller’s. “Storm Breaker, are you out there?”
Bandjough grinned. “We’re out here, sir. We had a bit of trouble, but we’re okay.”
“You were pursued by a Bell ARH. Is it still in pursuit?”
“That’s a negative. It’s down, sir. Somewhere just south of the city.” He paused. “The pilot’s might have survived. We didn’t see an explosion.”
There was a pause. “Good. Carry on with your mission. Pick up Albert and Erin and return them. I believe they had some of the President’s surviving Secret Service men with them. They’re going to need to be relocated. Pick them up, too. On your way back, I’ll let you know where to take them before you return home.”
LeBeau nodded, even though he knew Fuller wouldn’t be able to see the gesture. “We’re on it, Director. Won‘t Knox be with them?”
Fuller paused. “I imagine he must be. Just bring them home. Good flying, gentlemen, and Godspeed to you.”
With that, LeBeau and Bandjough continued flying toward Maine with their passengers. They hoped the rest of the flight would be uneventful.
* * * * * * *
When Fuller had spoken to his pilots, he had kept his distance from Carr so the man would not eavesdrop on his end of the conversation. When he was done, he turned and watched as Carr approached him. Anger was all over the Chief Director’s face as he glared at Fuller.
Fronk puffed out his chest and stood in front of his superior and friend and blocked Carr’s way.
Carr narrowed his eyes. “You have always been annoying, Fronk! Get out of my way.”
“Annoying, am I?” Fronk began to bounce on his feet like a boxer and wave his arms as if he were a bird. When he wagged his head back and forth, it made him seem as if he were trying to be a rooster. “Do I annoy you? Huh? Hmm? Much? Do I? Huh? Huh?” He flapped his arms and bumped into Carr with his chest. “Do I annoy you now? Well, do I, Mr. Grandeur?”
Carr was forced to take a step back but he was ready to have Fronk hauled away.
Fuller put his hand on Fronk’s shoulder. “That’s enough, William.”
Fronk frowned, but he stepped back. He stuck his tongue out at Carr and waggled his fingers beside his ears.
Carr took a deep breath. Then, he focused on Fuller. “We need to talk.”
“Fine,” Fuller agreed. “Let’s go to my office then.”
Everyone began to leave the rooftop, but the air between the Justice agents and the ATD agents was full of hostility. Fuller didn’t know if he could do anything about that, but he certainly intended to give it a try.
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