And she flops back onto the bench. She’s staring up at the bar, and I swear to fucking God if she says what I think she’s going to say I will kill this bitch.
“Do it,” she says. “Two more.”
Fucking cocksucker bitch cunt whore !
They all stop talking and stare at her. It already looks like a cartoon barbell, there’s so much weight on it. There’s about three inches clear at either end. Just enough to fit one more plate.
“Sarge,” says Monroe, “you sure? That’s—”
“One thousand ninety,” she says. She nods. “Sorensen says we should be able to break a thousand. So let’s break it.”
There’s another moment of quiet and then they’re all hollering and stomping. Kennedy the she-bitch is still staring at the bar. Gus and Monroe trek across the gym, grab the last seventy-five pound plates, and lug them back across the gym. One plate is nothing to any of us these days. They’re carrying them one-handed. She’s got seven on each side of the bar now.
I’ve gotta admit, I’m pissed but I want to see if she can do it.
She swings her legs up, crosses her ankles, and we can all see her abs tighten. Her arms spread a bit and her fingers wrap around the bar. Gus and Monroe are standing on either side. That’s a fuckload of weight for one guy to spot. Even for us.
She takes in a deep breath. Then another. Her arms tense up and the barbell comes off the stands. The bar’s wobbling, there’s so much fucking weight on it.
It goes down real slow. She’s sucking in air while it comes down on her tits. Just brushes her nipples. Fucking little cock tease.
She breathes out hard and the bar goes up. One thousand and ninety pounds. Over half a ton.
The first rep is a little slow, but then the bitch does a second. And a third. And a fourth. She almost gets the fifth one up but her arms start shaking. Gus and Monroe lean in and she barks at them to back off. Sweat’s pouring off of her. You can hear it hitting the floor. And she forces the bar up. Five reps of more than half a ton each.
She rolls up off the bench and the whole squad is hollering and pounding her back and hugging her. She’s the fucking bitch hero of the moment. She goes through and punches everyone in the shoulder one by one. Her knuckles land right where Monroe slapped me, right where I got my shot. Fucking cunt probably did it on purpose.
There’s a rattle down at the far end of the gym, and we all turn to look. A bald black guy is using the other bench down there. A big guy. Six-eight, maybe six-ten, easy, and built like a fucking linebacker. He’s just hoisted his own barbell off of the rests. We’ve got every big plate in the gym so he’s loaded up his bar with thirty-fives. After so much time in the gym, we can all tell the plates apart on sight. He’s got three-twenty on there and he starts doing these clean, precise reps, one after another.
Britney looks at him, already getting her panties wet. “Who’s that?”
“Our new CO,” says Ryan. “Just transferred in. He’s in the program now, too.”
“Kind of late in the game, isn’t he?” says Eddie. “Take him forever to catch up to Sergeant Kennedy.”
They chuckle and punch her in the shoulder. She bats their arms away, stuck up bitch. I take the fucking high road, cause I’m such a nice guy and this guy looks like a real man. “Wasn’t that long ago we were all proud doing three hundred,” I say. “I bet by the time he’s done with his shots he’ll be blowing her out of the fucking water. No offense, sarge.”
“None taken,” she says. “He’s welcome to try.” And you can see in her eyes the bitch is looking forward to the fight.
Ryan looks at her, then at me. “You guys don’t know?”
“Know what?”
Ryan grins. A big shit-eating grin. “He hasn’t started yet.”
Sergeant Kennedy looks over at the big officer, pumping out rep after rep like a machine. He’s done twenty-five now, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to be slowing down anytime soon. “Hasn’t started what?”
“The process. Sorensen hasn’t done anything to him yet.”
We all watch him for a moment. He’s up to thirty reps, easy.
“All of us guinea pigs are already obsolete,” says Ryan. “You’re looking at the next generation of super soldier.”
He drops the barbell back on the stand at thirty-five reps. Thirty-five fucking reps of three-twenty. And he’s not enhanced yet. He sits up and looks at all of us, and that fucking look lets us know he could take any of us grunts right now, shots or no shots.
No fucking way.
Chapter 11
NOW
Barry’s words were still echoing in St. George’s ear when the second Black Hawk dropped a belay line. The rope hadn’t even uncoiled before a soldier slid down fast. He was halfway down when the end of the line swung free, a good hundred feet over the Plaza lot.
“It’s too short,” said St. George, stepping forward. He focused, started to rise, and the soldier kneeling by the first helicopter opened fire with his rifle. The rounds hit hard. He imagined it was a lot like getting blasted by a firehose would be for normal people. The hero dropped back to the ground. He glanced up and the man on the belay line shot past the end and fell.
The soldier ended his hundred foot drop and hit the ground like a falling tree. The pavement cracked out from the impact point and kicked up two years’ worth of dust the first helicopter had swept into small drifts. Bits of gravel and dirt pitter-pattered down across the area.
St. George was back on his feet, taking in a breath to shout for medical help. In those few instants the dust cleared and he froze. The man hadn’t fallen from the line.
He’d jumped.
The soldier straightened up from the crouch he’d landed in, a move that reminded St. George of Arnold Schwarzenegger traveling from the future in the Terminator movies. He was a black man, at least nine inches taller than the hero, and a good foot wider. He focused on St. George with shining green eyes in a face shadowed by his helmet. There were two black bars on his chest, and stitched across the left side of his digital-patterned camos was one word.
FREEDOM
He pulled the biggest pistol St. George had ever seen from a thigh holster. It had a drum like an old Tommy gun and venting on the barrel. The muzzle came to bear on him as the huge officer barked out a command.
“Stand down, sir,” said Freedom, stepping forward. “Get on your knees with your hands on your head.”
“Hey,” said St. George. “There’s no need for this. It’s just a simple misunderstanding.”
“On your knees!” The captain grabbed the hero by the shoulder with his left hand and shoved down. St. George brushed the hand aside.
“I think you need to take a few deep breaths and calm—”
There was a sound like a sledgehammer hitting concrete as Freedom’s knuckles caught him under the chin. A shrub whipped St. George from behind and the wall of the gatehouse hit him in the back. He felt it crumble. The soldier marched forward, holstered his oversized pistol, and dragged the hero back to his feet by the lapels of his leather jacket. The man spun on his heel and threw St. George half a block down to 3rd Street.
The hero hit the pavement and skidded into one of the oversized planters. The concrete cracked and soil spilled out over him. He cleared his head with a quick shake and pushed himself back to his feet.
Freedom marched forward again. “Sir, stay on your knees and put your hands on your head,” said the huge soldier. “This is your last warn—”
St. George leaped up, grabbed the officer’s swollen biceps, and shot into the air.
When they were a hundred feet over the Mount he held the larger man up at eye level. “Unless you want to make that drop again,” he said, “I suggest you—”