ONSET (Book 4): Stay of Execution Page 5

  “If mortal weapons can stop what you saw, they will stop it.”

  David remembered the rocket launcher in his vision.

  “And if they can’t?”

  “Then we beg to higher authority for the OK to go in,” Warner said flatly. “But if we send ONSET agents into Central Park in front of the goddamn March for Truth, we may just break the United States of America.

  “I can’t risk that, Commanders. Our orders from the Committee outright forbid anything close to public intervention. Stand your teams down.”

  The office was silent, David and Mason staring at each other while he tried to decide just what to do next. Before either of them could say anything, though, the door to the room opened and Veronica Dresden calmly walked in.

  The rest of the two teams was right behind her, and the vampire smirked apologetically after removing her mask.

  “I have exceptional hearing,” she reminded them, “and I presumed the teams would want to be able to follow the conversation.”

  “We’ve been ordered to stand down,” Mason told them all. “Higher up is terrified of the consequences if we unleash ONSET teams in front of the March for Truth.”

  “Yes…but are we actually going to stand down?” McCreery demanded. “All of us,” she gestured around herself, “know we can trust Commander White’s vision—at least enough to make sure we’re in position when this goes down!”

  “I did not join your organization to watch a monster wreck New York,” Dresden added. “If people are in danger, it is our job to save them.”

  “I dislike agreeing with the vampire,” Tsimote continued, “but she is correct. If nothing happens, we do not need to act. If something does happen, we must be there to intervene.”

  David chuckled, then turned his gaze on the last agent in the room. “Pierre?”

  “What’s the point?” the man asked dryly. “Either that lot have convinced you or you’re an idiot.”

  “I’ll point out that I’m already in shit for pushing the limits of my orders,” he replied. “Outright disobeying a stand-down order? I might not have a job afterwards.”

  Mason gave him a meaningful look and his chuckle turned to an outright laugh.

  “Which, as Commander Mason is so eloquently pointing out, is not exactly known for stopping me,” he admitted. “Load up, people.”

  Michael O’Brien looked at the email Warner had sent him for all of about ten seconds and then hit his phone.

  “Major.”

  “Commander.”

  “Permission to roll ONSET Nine out,” he said flatly.

  “The same damn rundown I gave White applies to you, O’Brien,” Warner snapped.

  “And we both know damn well that ONSET Thirteen and Fifteen will be in the air in fifteen minutes,” the werewolf replied. “And we also both know that White and Mason are smart enough to keep a low profile unless they’re needed.

  “Nothing in White’s vision suggests that the NYPD will be able to deal with whatever’s about to wake up,” he continued. “We’re talking heavy firepower or ONSET teams, and heavy firepower is just going to add to the body count.”

  “You’re four hours away, Commander.”

  “So, we’re all better off if I get moving, aren’t we?” he asked. “Either nothing’s going to happen, Major, in which case no will ever know any of us were there, or two under-strength ONSET teams aren’t going to be enough.”

  “You realize the order to stay out of the public view comes from the President himself?” Warner snapped. “I don’t know if Ardent and I can shield you from the consequences if you do this.”

  “Dump it on me,” Michael told her. “I’ve enough political capital to take it, and if I don’t…fuck it, I already gave this country five decades of my life. They can have my career if they want it.”

  “It may not be your career that’s on the block if this goes sideways,” she pointed out.

  Michael was silent, considering. If he defied orders and used his influence to cover for White and Mason defying orders, they could, he supposed, end up in jail. And a werewolf was a class one regenerator. They could jail him for an extraordinarily long time.

  They’d have to catch him first.

  “I’ll take that risk,” he told her. “Run interference for us?”

  “You know what you’re asking,” Warner replied. She sighed. “Okay, Michael. But when this comes apart, I’m holding you to your promise to take the fall. This could hurt a lot more than just the teams in play.”

  8

  There was no way that David could be certain of the timeline of his vision. He might have been an occasional hunter, but he was still primarily a town boy. He couldn’t tell the time by the sun, not in an unfamiliar city.

  So, as the two Pendragons swept toward New York City, he had the CNN feed running silently in the corner of his helmet visor. When everything went to hell, he got to watch it in real time with a sinking feeling of déjà vu.

  Even the camera angle was familiar as the van smashed into the stage and the crowd scattered, screaming. The reporter, speaking a moment before about the man speaking on the stage—the brother of an Oregon National Guard company commander killed when the vampires had decided they needed tanks—was shocked to silence.

  “We…we don’t know what’s going on,” the man admitted after several seconds of silence. “Something is attacking the March for Truth protest in Central Park. NYPD officers are in the area to supervise; they should be—oh, God.”

  A familiar fusillade of gunfire blasted across the screen. The cops were shooting at something behind the crowd, and this time, David could see some of the gunfire going astray. Not every person lying wounded on the ground had been taken out by the flying debris.

  The rocket launcher appeared just as in his vision, the missile streaking out of sight—and then the response of the entire stage flying into the police.

  The surviving cops fell back in a panic, only a handful of the survivors continuing to hold their ground, continuing to fire at whatever was coming.

  David realized with a sickening sensation that they clearly weren’t expecting to bring the attacker down. They were trying to make it focus on them instead of the civilians.

  “Oh, my God,” the reporter whispered. “What the hell is that thing?”

  As the creature kicked aside the last of the stage and roared, the camera finally settled on the beast charging towards the crowd. The twenty-plus-foot-tall human-like figure was paying almost no attention to the gunfire as it snatched up running civilians who hadn’t made it far enough, stuffing them into its mouth.

  “That…is a troll,” David said flatly. “A greater troll.”

  One of the Awakened. The only real relationship between a greater troll and “normal” trolls was that both required human flesh to survive. This one had probably been asleep in the rocks of Central Park for several thousand years…and had woken up to what it had to think was an all-you-can-eat buffet.

  “McCreery?” he snapped.

  “Sir. We’re still fifteen minutes out without becoming obvious.”

  “Fuck subtle. Go supersonic. Now.”

  Michael O’Brien checked his ETA. Three hours, eleven minutes. Whatever happened, there was no way that ONSET Nine was going to get to New York in time to directly interfere with affairs. If he was going to cover for White, it was going to take some epic gymnastics.

  Fortunately, he’d been the Brigadier commanding the High Threat Response teams when they’d been based out of New York State, and he still had contacts with the New York Police Department and their SWAT teams. With those contacts and with him not being actively in the fight, he was the best positioned to coordinate.

  “Warner’s on the line for you, boss,” his pilot, Akono, told him grimly. “She does not sound happy.”

  “Pass it back,” the werewolf ordered. The soundproofing on the helicopter wasn’t enough to muffle the sound of the engines and the rotors on the inside, but locking his hel
met down took care of that as he linked back to the Campus.

  “Major, what can I do for you?” he asked.

  “You can call this mess off and talk White and Mason down,” Warner snapped. “We just got direct orders from the President and the Committee: all Omicron assets in New York are to stand down and get out of the way. The President has ordered a conventional military solution.”

  Michael winced.

  “Other than air strikes, do they have anything in position to deploy today?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “They can’t drop an air strike in Central Park without massive collateral damage,” he warned.

  “I know that,” the Major snapped. “You know that. Fuck, I’m pretty damned sure the President knows that. But our political masters have decided that they’ll take that collateral damage over exposing the existence of Omicron.”

  Michael was silent for several seconds. Warner knew what he was planning. She knew, as well as he did, that ONSET Thirteen and Fifteen were minutes from the Park at most. Two of their most effective teams, led by the two supernaturals Michael would have sent after a greater troll if he had to choose from all of ONSET.

  If she’d actually wanted an abort, she’d be on the radio with White and Mason. Not him. She was still running interference.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he told her. “But the President may be prepared to sacrifice civilian lives to keep our secrets but I am not.

  “I am assuming operational command of our New York assets and coordinating with the NYPD,” he continued. “We will do our duty.”

  Silence.

  “If you knowingly defy a direct order from the President of the United States of America…” Warner finally said.

  “The President. The Committee. Hell, let’s throw in you and the Colonel, Major Warner,” he said grimly. “When this is over and New York is still standing, you can sue me.”

  He cut the channel.

  “Get me Deputy Chief Giordano of the NYPD’s ESU,” he ordered Akono. Giordano was an old friend—and the man in charge of emergency response for New York.

  “And while you’re doing that, I need to talk to White.”

  David was focusing on the view from his aircraft’s cameras as they flashed over the outskirts of New York City. He’d locked his radio to a special command network of ONSET Thirteen and Fifteen, a logical tactical restriction as they went into combat that also, conveniently, removed any ability to order him to not go in.

  The last thing he was expecting was for his cell phone to ring. He stared at the expensive block of electronics that he could have sworn he’d turned off for several seconds. Then he saw the name coming up and hit accept.

  “White.”

  “David, it’s Michael,” O’Brien barked. “You need to open up your helmet tactical link; I’m pinging you to bring you into a new operational network for New York.”

  “…sir?” David asked slowly.

  “You’re heading in and are going to be face down on the ground,” his old team leader told him, not even bothering to ask if David was actually still standing by in the upstate base. “You won’t have the time to spare to coordinate.

  “I’ve got our in-the-know contacts at the NYPD on the channel and am linking them in as well. I’m taking over operational command and will coordinate with the locals to set up a perimeter to keep as many civilians out of what’s coming as possible.”

  “I…of course,” David replied.

  “All of this is under my authority,” O’Brien told him flatly. “Do you understand, Commander White?”

  What David understood was that while he’d been prepared to throw his career away, he wasn’t alone among ONSET’s commanders—and that the former Brigadier of the Omicron HTR teams had more political “armor” than he did.

  If O’Brien was going to cover for him, he wasn’t going to turn it down.

  “I understand, sir. Do you have any specific instructions?” he asked.

  “Save as many civilians as you can,” the werewolf instructed. “But kill that troll.”

  9

  The chaos hadn’t even begun to abate by the time the two Pendragons dove down into Central Park. The sun was half-obscured behind the towering skyscrapers, but the red on the ground around where the March for Truth had gathered was blood, not light.

  David wasn’t sure how many people had been gathered to watch the speaker, but he couldn’t count the unmoving or cringing forms scattered across the field. The troll seemed to regard the collection of dead and survivors as its supper and was messily eating, ignoring the running crowd beyond its reach.

  “Drop us off, then get its attention,” he ordered McCreery.

  “You ready to jump?” the pilot asked.

  David glanced over at Dresden, both of whom nodded. Her face was still hidden behind her mask, but her determination was clear. If they were lucky, this wouldn’t last long enough for the vampire to be able to remove her shield against daylight.

  “Let’s go.”

  He kicked open the side door on the gunship and stepped off, plummeting fifty feet toward the ground beneath him. Even for him, this wasn’t the smartest thing to do. His odds of making it through uninjured were only about fifty percent.

  Of course, the odds of him taking an injury he couldn’t heal in short order were more like two percent, and he managed to land perfectly, absorbing the impact through his knees. Proper landing or not, a normal human would have broken bones in the landing.

  But David White had long ago accepted he was not a “normal human.”

  Dresden simply floated down on a platform of her magic, her body language suggesting that the non-vampire should have asked for her help…without her saying a word.

  When Kate Mason and Hiro Tsimote floated safely down beside her, the point was very much made, and David shook his head at the two women with a grin they couldn’t see through his helmet.

  A roar from the troll destroyed any humor, however, and he looked up in time to watch the two Pendragons sweep in at the massive man-like beast, ripple-firing anti-tank rockets at near-point-blank range and following them up with bursts of silver-loaded shells from the chain guns.

  Explosions flung the troll backward and away from the civilians—David could only hope the bodies closest to the troll were all already dead—hammering it flat into the ground of the hill behind the stage. For a moment, he hoped that was enough—if ONSET’s silver-laced munitions had taken the troll down, no one else would ever know the difference.

  That hope was dashed as the troll rose again, bellowing in rage and flinging a stone at the helicopters.

  Dupond’s helicopter was hit, the rock tearing the tilt-rotor aircraft’s starboard jet engine clear off the hull. The chopper spun in the air, striving for more altitude, and managed to clear the buildings in time to dodge a second rock.

  “Right, so that isn’t working,” David said grimly as he drew Memoria. “Smile, everybody, you’re on camera.”

  “Fuck,” Mason replied. “What do we do?”

  “Tsimote, pound that thing with your gun and firebolts. Aim for the eyes, keep it distracted. Fire and silver, keep the bastard blind.”

  “And us?” Dresden asked.

  “Hit it with everything you’ve got,” David told his two Mages. “I’m going to go wrestle a troll.”

  As Memoria’s ruddy glow became clearer in the growing dim, David realized he could hear the rotors of multiple news helicopters and at least six drones. If the troll hadn’t been enough to get the eyes of the nation—of the world—on the evening news, the force he was about to unleash would certainly do so.

  “I was told once I couldn’t wage outright supernatural war in New York,” O’Brien murmured in his ear. “I guess they were wrong.

  “You’ve never faced an enemy like this. I’m not sure even Memoria can hurt it. The only one of these anyone’s killed that I know of took an entire tank company’s load of armor-piercing shells to bring down.” He paus
ed. “If anyone can, it’s you lot. Good luck.”

  “Now!” David barked, and Tsimote’s carbine opened up. Heavy 7.62mm rounds hammered into the troll’s head as it rose to its feet, following by flashes of fire as the elementalist unleashed his gift.

  The creature roared again, its stone skin shattering the bullets as they struck home. Black and blue bolts of magical fire joined the barrage as Dresden and Mason opened up as well, glittering fire lighting up Central Park with impossible colors.

  The creature dodged with impossible speed, clearing out of the path of the streams of fire and bellowing words in some language David didn’t understand.

  “It can talk?!” he demanded.

  Of course it could talk. The Awakened might be homicidal and sapiovorous, but it was still intelligent.

  “Yeah…” O’Brien trailed off. “Best guess, it’s been underground for a couple thousand years. Whatever language it’s speaking was probably half-dead before the Europeans’ arrival wiped out the local tribes. It might be able to speak, but we don’t have anyone who can listen.

  “And it’s killed enough people I don’t really care. Put it down, Commander.”

  David had already made that decision. He charged across the shattered stage, dodging around the wounded, dying and dead as he closed the distance. More fire and bullets flashed overhead—and the troll responded with flying stone.

  A rock crashed down inches away from David, barely missing him…and then, to his shock, sprouted arms and legs and charged at him. The headless creature was so unexpected, it managed to get inside his guard despite his prescience, a rocky fist slamming into him and knocking him to the ground in mid-charge.

  The rocks around David were all rising now as the troll unleashed its powers, summoning a legion of reinforcements to guard it from the tiny humans. His cracked ribs healed in a rush of warmth and he clambered back to his feet, studying the wall of mobile rocks now barring his way from the troll.

  They weren’t neatly matched, the size of each defender clearly decided by the rock the troll had animated more than anything else. They had no faces, no eyes that he could see. Just legs and arms and fists of solid rock.