Redemption (The Alliance Series Book 1) (5 page)

              "I stole them from my project director’s computer." Chen said with a hint of pride.

              "Why?" I asked.

              She sat up straightening her back, looked directly in my eyes and said. "I have my reasons."

              I tried another tactic. "Why are you here in San Francisco?" Hoping her explanation might give me more to go on.

              "We left China, hoping to find a new home." She said reluctantly.

              "Why?" I asked again.

              "I have my reasons." She repeated, once again finding steel in her spine.

              "I could make you talk, you know.” Trying to sound sincere.

              She looked at me again, this time taking a bit longer before answering. She searched my face for something, finding it she said. "I don’t think so."

              I looked at her with more scrutiny. She was acting brave. She was trying to protect herself and her daughter. I wasn't going to hurt her and she knew it. Well, damn.

              "How do I know what you've told is the truth?" I asked.

              She looked at me and with a small smile said. "You don’t."

              I had to admire her; she was in way over her head. In spite of that, she was being strong for her daughter who looked at me with hope. I came to a decision, nodding to no one in particular, knowing Nathan would understand me.

              The pressure and background noise returned to normal. The sounds of the airport seemed louder than normal after my conversation with Chen. They both visibly reacted to the increase in sound.

              "As long as I haven't reported in that you two are still alive you have some time to start running. I overheard you saying something about meeting someone at dawn. Can you contact them sooner? Have them help you get out of town now?" I asked.

              "We made contingency plans for something like this." She said, as she reached up and absently held the necklace she was wearing. "If you can give us an hour or two we will be able to get where we're going."

              "I can’t make any promises, but I'll see what I can do." I said.

              I got up and walked away, leaving Chen and Lijuan alone. I wished I could do more, but I had to trust that they could take care of themselves. I really couldn't take them with me and I had no way to help them.

              The only thing I could do for them was give them the time they asked for. I figured that's the least I could do. I went over to where Nathan was leaning up against the wall.

              "Get anything useful?" He asked.

              "Not really. I think it's time we talked to the Sarge." I said.

              "He’s not going to like it when he finds out you not only didn't eliminate the target, but that you actually let them go." He said.

              "That’s his problem." I answered.

              We left the airport through the departure gate. Nathan had shown the airport cop enough credentials to allow us to keep our car in the drop-off lane.

              We walked back to the car, nodding at the cop as we got in. This time I drove. We slowly made our way to the debriefing site.

              We followed the earlier path we took to the airport only this time we went north. We drove slowly, taking a much longer path than we needed to. I explained what had transpired between Chen and me to Nathan on the way. Finally, we drove past Chinatown and about an hour and a half after we left Chen and her daughter we arrived at Fisherman's Wharf.

              We drove down the long stretch of road that housed all of the distribution warehouses on either side. Local trucks were pulling up from all over San Francisco and nearby cities. They were getting the catch of the day and other goods the ships that frequent the wharfs bring in daily. The entire area was awash with activity.

              We pulled into a nondescript warehouse whose garage door was open and address matched the one we knew as the debriefing site. 

              I killed the engine and we got out, slowly taking stock of our surroundings. We were in an empty storage area. Grey concrete walls on all sides, small square windows high up on the rear wall. Towards the back and to the right was a red metal door. We made our way to the door. I knocked on the metal and I heard a voice say. "Go away, we aren’t opened right now." I answered back, "It's too bad, I just caught some fresh calamari."

              I heard the lock on the door turn and it opened. An armed soldier stood in the doorway, carrying an assault rifle at an angle, held in place with a shoulder strap.

              He was dressed in black and had no insignia or rank. I noticed another soldier dressed like the first guy standing on the other side of the door.

              Nathan and I entered as they settled back to their positions, standing on either side of the entrance facing toward the interior of the room. 

              Nathan stopped just a few feet from the door, in between the two soldiers. I stepped forward a few paces making my way further into the room. My footfalls echoed in the empty space. There was a small desk in the corner with a closed laptop on it and an old style landline phone. On the back wall was a large window that opened up to the San Francisco Bay.

              The horizon was getting brighter as the sun began making its daily trek across the sky. You could see the water as the sky slowly started showing the first signs of daylight. Boats were coming in from their nighttime fishing trips and others were heading out for an enjoyable day sailing or fishing. The water was blue and inviting. The sounds of seagulls were clearly audible as they followed the fishermen into shore, hoping to get some fish parts that the boats left behind.

              Standing, with his back to us, was the Sarge. His official name and rank was Major Bennet. He was average height but made up for it with muscles most men would spend hours in a gym working hard to attain.

              The Sarge got his bulk from his extensive training. He was an avid martial artist and loved entering tournaments where he liked nothing more than taking his aggressions out on those who were a lower rank than he was.

              He had a power complex and believed the military didn't need N.C.O.'s.

              He was an ass.

              He treated those who weren't officers with disdain and disrespect. He generally mistrusted anyone who wasn't a military officer. He especially had issues with Nathan and me. We were the worst kind of people in his mind. We were trained by the military, but left them in order to operate more or less independently. He probably deep down considered us traitors. We still worked for the government and when we were on duty we obliged by the rules and regulations that surrounded our particular job, but once we were not on an assignment we were civilians.

              Of course, he was good at his job and his superiors overlooked this aspect of his personality. Those of us who dealt with him from time to time had nicknamed him The Sarge just out of spite.

              He continued looking out the window for a half minute then turned to me and said. "Captain Adams, report."

              I gave him a rundown of the night’s events. I explained how during our surveillance, we discovered conflicting evidence and I went in to investigate. I told him about the Intel I gleamed from the computer laptop. When I paused after the dragon’s arrival and my subsequent dash to safety the Sarge spoke up asking, "You’re telling me that you had eyes on the targets, and then intentionally let them get away? Go to the market where they could have done god knows what?"

              "The targets aren't a concern Sa-Sir." I corrected myself.

              He obviously caught my slip up because his face got as red as his hair. He said between clenched teeth. "How do you know they are no longer a concern Captain?"

              I went on to tell him about the acquisition of the targets outside of the market and the meeting at the airport. I condensed the story, giving him just the highlights.

              He looked at me for a full minute before he said. "Are you telling me that not only did you let the targets walk once, not only did you fail to take out an obvious threat to this nation while allowing him to take a laptop that could have national security secrets on it, you willingly let the targets go again after tracking them to the airport where they were able to disappear?" He almost screamed the last.

              I was stunned at his summation.

              "Sir, Chen and Lijuan aren't important. What was on their laptop is." I started saying.

              The Major had taken a couple steps away from me when he whirled back and said.             

"Chen and Lijuan? You are on a first name basis now?" He was fuming.

              "Sir, we need to look into Project Frankenstein...” I started again and again he interrupted me.

              "You're not going to be doing anything for a while Captain. As of right now, you and Lt Blackcrow are under arrest. You have willfully disobeyed a lawful order. Aided and abetted an enemy of the State and pending investigation it is yet to be determined if you didn't provide the information to the dragon yourself!" He finished.
              I was beginning to get angry. "Are you out of your goddamn mind Sarge?" I asked.

              I don't think calling him Sarge was a great idea. He pointed a finger at me and said.

              "Place these men under arrest until further investigations can be completed."

              Both soldiers took a step towards Nathan and me. Nathan looked at them and said quite calmly. "Are you sure you want to do that?"

              They must have seen something in his eyes because they both paused. I looked back at the Sarge and said. "I’m leaving; Nathan and I are going to walk out of here. We are going to finalize our report and send it in to headquarters."

              The Sarge reached for his sidearm as he pulled it out, he said. "Like hell, resisting arrest is punishable by the use of deadly force."

              I didn't want to kill him. I had no idea what was going on but I wasn't going to kill a superior officer. Neither did I like the idea of killing the two soldiers. They really had done nothing wrong. Kicking the teeth in of a superior officer was a different story though.

              The Sarge was fast. Years spent honing his skills in the fighting arena gave him great instincts.

              He pulled the 9mm out of its holster and pointed it at my head.

              I was faster.

              By the time he got the sidearm up in position I was already moving. I came towards the Sarge, quickly closing the distance between us. As I got within range I swept my right arm out and grabbed his wrist, twisting, using the advantage my weight allowed me to disarm him. The firearm hit the ground and the Sarge quickly disengaged, taking a few steps away. I swept my foot across the floor and kicked the weapon into the far corner. He looked at me while rubbing his wrist with surprise in his eyes. I guess he wasn’t used to someone manhandling him so effectively. He bent his knees and assumed a stance that put the weight of his body on the balls of his feet, allowing him the ability to quickly advance or retreat depending on what his opponent did. I recognized the stance. It was a common martial arts form, great at close combat and gave an adept user the most maneuverability in a small space. I had no doubt that the Sarge was skilled in this technique, but I also had no doubt that I was more skilled in mine.

He came in fast, attempting to keep me from using my magic, hoping to catch me while my attention was on throwing some juice at him. I never bothered with magic. This one I planned on taking out with my fists. He quickly started throwing punches at my head, trying to land a blow that would stagger me so he could get in close for more damaging punishment. He seemed to ignore a more traditional martial arts attack and used a street brawler tactic. Land as many hard thrown strikes on the head and put em out quick. His punches came in fast, and each one required my full attention, I couldn’t ignore his lethality. One of his fists could easily have knocked me out if he connected. I made sure he never did.

I brought my arms up in a defensive stance, 

allowing him to waste energy landing strikes on my forearms and fists. In a few seconds, he had inadvertently positioned himself where I wanted him. I let him throw a few punches, acting as if his strikes were taking a toll on me. I could see the eagerness in his eyes as he put too much power into his next punch, over balancing and giving me just enough time to dip under his powerful right cross. I gathered a small amount of energy and gave him a quick jab to his exposed ribs, releasing the energy as a small surge of electricity.

              He staggered back as I reinforced the relatively weak punch with a fraction of my lightning. I stopped his completely offensive assault with one small rabbit punch to the ribs. He, once again, looked at me with shock. I guess he was sure I couldn’t concentrate on using magic while under his pummeling. I suppose he didn’t realize I had to learn to do that sort of thing with much more dangerous bullies trying to smash my face in.