Freedom slammed his helmet into the bridge of St. George’s nose. When the hero didn’t release him, he did it again.
Smoke curled up from St. George’s nostrils. He glared at the soldier for a moment and opened his hands.
The other man dropped six feet and grabbed hold of the hero’s boot with iron fingers.
“Oh, come on!” snapped St. George.
* * *
The soldier who’d taken the man named John to the ground dragged him back to the helicopter. The others shouted until the gate guards dropped their weapons, walked closer to the Black Hawk, and fell to their knees. Then they took up defensive positions around the chopper. Two of the soldiers kept the guards at gunpoint. Two others watched the nearby buildings for opposition.
One of the last two, a specialist with TRUMAN on his jacket, looked all around. “Where’d the woman go?”
“What woman?” The other soldier, labeled FRANKLIN, had been one of the last to disembark.
“With the black cape. Where’d she go? She was right here before the captain arrived.”
All six of them scanned the area around the helicopter. There was ten feet of open space in every direction. Where the woman had been standing, on the far side of Freedom’s impact crater, there was twice that distance to the nearest piece of cover. And most of that cover had been destroyed when the captain had punched the guy claiming to be the Mighty Dragon.
One of the civilian guards, a beefy man with dreadlocks, chuckled. He kept his hands on his head and raised his voice so they could hear him across the distance. “You guys might as well give up now,” he said.
“Keep it quiet,” snapped one of the soldiers watching him. “I’ll tape your mouth if I have to.”
He laughed again. “You guys are so seriously out of your league here.”
The five soldiers exchanged a quick set of looks. Then they looked at each other again. “Hey,” said Franklin, “where the hell did Mike go?”
* * *
At Four, Zzzap searched the air for information. Telemetry danced around him from all five helicopters, and here and there a terse command from the troops on the ground. He knew their call sign was Unbreakable and it sounded like another squad from the same platoon was getting ready to deploy. On the Mount’s frequencies the Melrose Gate had gone silent, but many of the spotters on the wall stepped on each other in their rush to report in. The soldiers had taken the Melrose guards prisoner. Three people reported gunfire but weren’t sure from what or at who. And they’d seen St. George carry someone into the air and start to wrestle with him.
He sent a pulse out to Stealth. He knew it reached her cowl radio, but she didn’t respond. Which meant she was fighting the other soldiers. It shouldn’t be too hard for her. If he’d gotten the numbers right, there were six or seven on the ground and maybe that many more getting ready to deploy. A ridiculously small amount, from his limited experience with the military. The sun was almost up but there were still a ton of shadows. With home-court advantage, Stealth would probably have the soldiers disarmed and hogtied before the—
Zzzap had an ugly thought. There was no reason for it, but a lot of things made sense if he was right. Maybe whoever gave this platoon of soldiers their call sign was as big a movie fan as he was. Which would explain why they didn’t need to put that many soldiers on the ground. And why one of them was trading punches with St. George.
Keep an eye on things here, he said to no one in particular. I think they might need some extra help out there.
* * *
St. George tried to shake the larger man loose, but Freedom’s grip couldn’t be broken. He kicked the huge soldier in the wrist again but it didn’t seem to have any effect. The hero finally dove down towards 12th Street in the middle of the North-by-Northwest residential area. He pulled up at the last minute and slammed the other man against the ground, confident it wasn’t a lethal tactic. At this point he wondered if it would even slow the soldier down.
Freedom tumbled across the pavement and rolled to his feet next to the capsized truck that blocked the North Gower Gate. His helmet skittered loose across the street. He drew his oversized sidearm and squeezed off four thundering bursts at St. George. Over a dozen slugs hit like punches. They pattered off the hero’s chest and shoulder and chimed on the ground with the spent shells from the pistol.
St. George glanced over his shoulder, but it looked like most of the stray rounds had just taken chunks out of Thirty-One’s outer wall. “Look,” he said, “isn’t this a little cliché? I’m one of the good guys. I’m pretty sure you’re one of the good guys. Let’s pull our heads out of our asses before either side does something stu—”
The four guards from Gower Gate lunged forward with pikes and weapons drawn. One of them howled a battle-cry. A pike got close to Freedom and he grabbed it by the end and snapped the tip off. He blasted the ground by their feet. “Drop your weapons,” he bellowed.
The guards smiled. One pointed behind him.
He turned and St. George’s fist cracked across his jaw. The soldier shook it off and a second punch knocked him back against the truck. He swung a roundhouse with his free hand but the hero leaped away and up.
Freedom holstered his weapon and charged across the pavement. He leaped up and tackled St. George in mid-air. The hero’s concentration faltered and they slammed into the ground.
The huge soldier drove three quick punches into St. George’s face with the distinct sound of large stones being slammed together. Each one drove the smaller man’s skull down into the pavement until the surface cracked. “You will stand down, sir,” said Freedom. “I’m not going to tell you ag—”
St. George slammed his palm up. Hard. It caught Freedom in the breastbone and knocked him a dozen feet into the air. The soldier hit the ground running and threw himself back at the hero before he could finish getting to his feet. The two slid across the road and into the side of Thirty.
Freedom brought his knee up and St. George folded over with an all-too-human pain. The huge man drove his fist into the hero’s gut twice, then grabbed his collar and threw him back out into the street. St. George coughed out some smoke and a few tongues of flame.
At which point the gate guards opened fire.
A dozen rounds struck Freedom in the back. He turned and caught a dozen more in the chest and arms. He lunged forward, far too fast for a man his size, and three of the guards had been disarmed and knocked down before the fourth had time to re-aim. The soldier took another burst to the chest before snapping the edge of his palm against the guard’s temple. The man dropped like an empty set of clothes.
St. George grabbed Freedom by the neck and hurled him away from the gate. The soldier was charging forward again before the hero could finish turning. They traded blows that echoed in the tall canyons of North-by-Northwest. Then Freedom blocked a roundhouse punch and slammed his fist up into St. George’s gut. The impact sent him sailing into the air. He soared up and over the spiked top of the Gower gate.
He landed outside the Mount.
“Son of a bitch,” muttered St. George as the exes swarmed over him.
* * *
Stealth’s arm swung around and delivered a fast strike to Specialist Truman’s throat before she dragged him between the potted shrubs. One blow to paralyze the voice box and give her time to incapacitate him. The man let out a faint hiss of air. It was a weak noise under ideal conditions. With the Black Hawk’s rotors still making a last few circles in the air, he was effectively silenced.
The soldiers were each carrying an M240B as a standard weapon and a complete set of body armor with no apparent effort. It indicated great strength, bordering on superhuman. It was more time-consuming, but she delivered a series of strikes across Truman’s body. Biceps, armpits, pectorals. Each one hit a nerve cluster, the end result being two arms numb from the shoulders down.