The 4 Phase Man Part 31

"Jesus!" Canvas screamed as he instinctively reached over and jammed the pilot's stick to the side.

But before the helicopter perilously banked out of the way, Xenos-his clothes on fire, silhouetted by fire breaking through the roof-emptied a clip into the chopper's c.o.c.kpit.

The helicopter shook and trembled, threatened to overturn and break apart, but somehow the pilot got it down.

Canvas, the pilot, and the one living gunner threw themselves flat on the ground, barely in time to avoid the spray of automatic fire from the inferno roof.

"Can we get it up again?" Canvas screamed at the pilot, who was crawling around, checking his s.h.i.+p.

"I think so."

Canvas turned to the gunner. "How many RPGs left?"

"Five, if they're still working, Guv."

"Give him all of em!"

The gunner was cut in half by a burst from behind after he'd fired the first two. Canvas grabbed the third, fired it into the dark, hitting something as an explosion ripped the air behind him. He turned, sighted in on the devilish figure on the roof, and fired his last two grenades.

A sheet of flame erupted from the roof, a roar of explosion and the sounds of cracking beams filled the air.

As no more firing came from the room.

Canvas crawled back to the helicopter, not having to give the order for the pilot to take off. As they flew back toward the Med, he tore the ground with the heavy rounds of the .50, killing men-his and Corsicans-women, and children. Finally they were back over water and the firing stopped.

He struggled his way back to the c.o.c.kpit.

"Ground from Vulture! Pull back! Pull back!"

"Pull back what?" was the pained reply.

Canvas tossed the microphone aside, realizing for the first time that he was wounded in the upper arm.

"b.l.o.o.d.y carp," he mumbled as he tried to slow his breathing. "All they ever give me."

It was known only as La Sortie.

The Exit.

It was a place the Corsicans of Toulon had been coming to for over three hundred years. A place of refuge, safety, survival. A tightly held secret which was never referred to or mentioned at any time.

But in those days when the world-the outside world-had decided that Corsican lives were cheap enough to take at will, it was the place they all came to.

A natural grotto, invisible from the sea in its tiny, un-navigable cove; reachable on foot only at low tide, the rock ledges, stalact.i.tes and stalagmites would've been a geologist's dream. Over two football fields in depth, over forty feet high in the central chamber. It always held provisions for thirty people for a month, and first-aid supplies to match.

Which were being sorely strained at the moment.

Forty-two people crowded into the central chamber. Most of them children, they cried softly, moaned to themselves, died without disturbing the others. Many of the women of Toulon moved among them, rendering what care they could. A Corsican medical student who had survived the attack had learned more about emergency medicine in the last two hours than he had in three years of med school. And he knew the worst was still ahead.

Avidol, wounded, in pain, did what he could to help. Comforting frightened silent children, helping a few of the soon-to-be lost to say their final prayers. Praying himself with all the vigor he could muster while still being useful to the destroyed lot.

Trying not to think about his missing son.

Sarah and Bradley were in the back chamber of La Sortie. Uncrating clean clothes, food, blankets, that had been stored in fifty-five-gallon oil drums against a disaster like this.

As if anyone could have ever prepared for something like this.

They marveled at the resilience of the Corsicans as they calmly, with undisguised anger, distributed the supplies while muttering epithets to themselves and curses to their G.o.d.

In the front chamber, not far from the opening, grim-faced men carrying many guns stood and faced the entrance, prepared to vaporize anyone who might try to gain entrance. Behind them, the Council sat-where other councils had sat-on a rock ledge in the dim light.

As they tried to take in the scope of the disaster.

"We have no choice," the old man from the center chair said sadly. "The Cinesi have left us no choice."

Franco-broken, b.l.o.o.d.y-struggled to his feet. "Ma sei pazzo?! Hai perso il cervello?! They kill our people, the children we have given our protection to, and we bend over for these serpenti! Disgraziati! I am ashamed to be called Corsican!"

"Be careful, Franco," the old man warned. "Do not let your feelings for this woman-"

"Lupo, sono il tuo schiavo. Sappilo. But you cannot give them this victory. The crying of the widows, the mothers, the newborn ghosts of our finest men demand vengeance. Taglia quelle teste! Cut off their heads, don't suck their d.i.c.ks!"

"Basta!" The old man was furious. He gestured and two of the gunmen turned on Franco, forcing him back at rifle point.

The old man turned to Valerie, who was watching quietly from the side. "Congresswoman, understand me. If there was any other way, I would not do this thing. But-" He shrugged as if the weight of the world sat on his ancient shoulders. "But we have no other way. Understand?"

Oddly-as if the world had gone completely mad-Franco saw her stand, then nod.

"I understand completely," Valerie said in a quiet, somehow changed voice. "It's enough. I want no one else to die because of me."

The old man nodded in respect. "But know this. The day will come-in G.o.d's time-when the Brotherhood will take its revenge. For Paolo, for the children, for our men ... for you."

"Thank you," she said quietly as she sat down again.

"No!" Franco screamed out. "You cannot do this!"

"It has been decided," the old man said simply. "No further discussion of the matter will be allowed."

He closed his eyes, gathered himself, then spoke in a strong, clear, commanding voice.

"It is the decision of the Council of Unions of the Brotherhood that all requests for compensation from the Cinesi be withdrawn; that it be made known to them that there will be no disclosure of information from the Brotherhood about their affairs. And that the congresswoman Alvarez will be turned over to them at the earliest opportunity. Non ho pie niente da dichiarare."

At that moment a cold wind swept through the chamber, an unclean thing that chilled each man down to his soul. Then the light from the narrow chamber entrance was suddenly obscured.

"Il Diavolo!" one of the gunmen called out in primitive fear when he turned around.

"Chi e il diavolo?" another said in a terror-filled whisper as he crossed himself.

A man, smoke still rising from his smoldering clothing, blood covering much of his exposed body, skin blackened in oozing patches, stood in the entrance, a destroyed little girl in his arms.

Armageddon in his eyes.

"Durete," the old man said after crossing himself. "There is nothing to say. It has all been decided."

Xenos tenderly handed Gabi's dead form to Franco, then took a threatening step into the cavern.

"Not by me, it hasn't."

He lay on the spot overlooking the Afghan camp for three days.

His team couldn't find him, so followed his abort order and fled the country. Herb Stone wouldn't look for him-a missing, presumed dead Four Phase Man was regrettable, sure, but not completely unexpected; no searches were mounted. And he was already dead to his family.

So he lay there, completely alone, waiting for an unforgiving G.o.d to take him.

Waiting for the release that his unprotesting death would bring.

The Moujahadeen found him on the morning of the fourth day.

Normally an unconscious European would've meant little to them. He wasn't Russian, so there was no trade value. The English and Americans never acknowledged their sources in Afghanistan, so there was no profit to be made there. He was just another unnamed fatality of an unknown war that no one cared about.

But their leader-a man who believed the Moujahadeen were commanded by G.o.d to return the faithful to Allah-ordered them to take the mostly dead man with them.

As a "blessing."

There was nothing left in the man-no hate, no love, no fear, no sense or emotion of any kind-and he allowed himself to be carried to the nearby camp.

A week later, after these bare survivors had sacrificed their water and food to nurse this horrifically sunburned man back to life, their leader came to see him.

"Who are you?"

The man didn't answer.

"Why are you here?"

No answer.

"What is your purpose?"

"To die," the man wheezed out.

The leader thought about that for a long moment. "Will your death have a purpose?"

"What?"

"It is the time of the demons on earth," the leader said simply. "If your death purposes those demons ill"-hepulled out his razor-sharp dirk-"I will kill you myself. But if your living will more trouble them"-he shrugged-"I will see you well." He smiled simply. "Is same. Is timeof demons, when each man must do what he is placed here to do. To give the world of the demons back to the humans as Allah-the G.o.d of us all-intended." He picked up a canteen of sweet water in his other hand. "So which is ...what is your name, Mr...."

His words were cut off by the first explosion.

If Herb couldn't make his point on the ground, he would do it through the air; and the F-111s screamed over the camp, their supernatural growls echoing the death they so easily released from their wing pylons. Within moments the entire camp was ablaze, the smells of napalm and high explosives mixing with charred flesh.

The early after-action bomb damage a.s.sessment was "100% destruction, 100% killed."

But Herb was a thorough man, and ordered a second photographic pa.s.s the next day.

And in his office, hidden away from the prying eyes of Congress, the people, and G.o.d, he trembled as he saw the last frame taken on the last run. A man, holding two small children by the hand, leading them up into the hills.

Staring directly into the lens of the drone recon aircraft.

For over a decade, Herb would wonder why he pulled that photo from the file and locked it away in his private safe. Why he had declared Jerry Goldman dead and closed the file.

Maybe he was worried about G.o.d's judgment for his life of apostasy and wanted one good act in his record.

Maybe he was afraid of the wrath of the Four Phase Man he had abandoned and tried to kill.

Maybe it was all of that and none of that.

But the letter he received one month later made him glad he had.

Administrator Stone: Jerry Goldman died of his life in the Chakira

Valley, Afghanistan.

Leave him in peace, or join him in pain. The choice is yours.

Xenos Filotimo Black ops were ending; covert wars had become bad taste. Lies and deceit, manipulation and sabotage had become pa.s.se. Herb could see the day down the road when all human intelligence operations would be phased out.

The Four Phase Men most of all.

So he let him go, let Jerry Goldman pa.s.s into obscurity and espionage myth. What other choice did he have? Whom could he send after him, anyway? How could he explain to Congress and a Boy Scout administration the body count and damage that going to war with the last of the Four Phase Men would mean.

The decision was actually quite simple.

But every now and then-when the growing paperwork load and lack of "great goals" would wear the old man down, when the "special ops" he'd be asked to handle had to do with spying on Eurorail's new high-speed train design, or what the new Liechtenstein monetary policy would be toward the Bretton Woods Agreement-he would dig through his safe, pulling out the high-resolution photograph of a man staring defiantly into the lens of a reconnaissance camera.

And raise a toast to Xenos Filotimo, endangered species-hero, conqueror, romantic warrior.

And to the soul of the man he'd helped create and destroy... Jerry Goldman.