Yuri knew what to expect. It didn’t make the process any easier.
Babylon PD arrived first. The cops cuffed him, confiscated his gear, and hustled him to the nearest police station. They booked him, took his clothing, swabbed him for evidence, issued him a disposable orange jumpsuit, and allowed him a tepid shower. He emerged from the showers to discover two Special Agents from the Public Security Bureau waiting for him.
The Special Agents took him and the evidence into custody, then flew him to the Babylon field office. After another round of booking, they permitted him a few hours’ sleep in a max-security cell. The guards woke him for a meager breakfast of two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a bruised apple, and a cup of soy milk. The second he was done, they brought him to an interrogation room, where he recounted his story to a second set of Special Agents.
The questioning was remarkably painless, not the least because he had nothing to hide. Not this time anyway.
Not that the Special Agents believed him. Not for the first three rounds of questioning. They couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe that a man, a civilian, would challenge an Elect, and live, and win. And had done so repeatedly.
They knew who he was. They knew the legend that surrounded him. But there was a huge gulf between second-hand stories and a first-hand encounter.
At long last, they finally accepted the truth. That seated before them was the most dangerous man in Babylon, cuffed to a security bracket mounted on the table, as still as a mountain, as serene as still water, and that he had slain a Husk as easily as breathing.
Their questions petered out. Their disbelief gave way to awe and dread. They gathered their things and left.
Still cuffed to the table, Yuri did the only thing he could do.
Meditate.
A simple process. Sit and breathe and nothing more. So simple, and yet so fiendishly difficult for so many.
He touched his fingertips together, forming a steeple. He straightened his back and planted his feet on the concrete floor. He lifted his head to a neutral position, pressed the tip of his tongue against his palate, half-closed his eyes.
Breathed.
Counted his breath.
And nothing more.
Feelings swirled within his heart like eddies in a river. He released them. The seeds of thought sprouted in the depths of his brain. He released them. Stray sensations poked at the edges of his consciousness. He released them. He released everything that was not his breath and his count.
Five hundred and twenty-one breaths later, the door opened.
Yuri opened his eyes.
In strode a gray man in a gray suit. Bland and forgettable, he could have stepped out of an office building, an accountancy firm, a spy agency. Only the fit and finish of his clothing, the absence of labels, and the superior materials suggested that he was no mere salaryman. His smartglasses were true eyeshields, the lenses rated to stop low-caliber ballistic impacts, the earbuds doubling as hearing protection. Though his hair was as gray as the rest of him, his shoulders were broad and powerful, his gait smooth and confident.
“Joshua Gregory,” Yuri said.
Gregory’s eyes brightened.
“Yuri. Glad to see you’re still alive and kicking.”
“Same here.”
After the fall of the STS, both men had chosen different paths. Yuri had gone into self-imposed exile, returning only to deal with emergent horrors. Gregory had finagled his way into an advisory position with the Federal government, answerable only to the President.
The men were a study in contrasts. Yuri the prisoner, cuffed and powerless, at the mercy of the Establishment. Gregory the go-getter, the most powerful shadow bureaucrat in the nation, with the might of the government behind him. Had he chosen a little differently, Yuri knew he might have been standing beside Gregory instead.
But that would have meant making choices he couldn’t live with.
“You’ve done pretty well for yourself,” Yuri said.
Gregory shrugged. “Someone has to keep the flame alive.”
Both men began their careers as operators. Yuri in the military, Gregory with PSB ESWAT. While Yuri was a shooter through and through, Gregory had the gift for politics. Or perhaps the curse. Between Yuri’s expertise and Gregory’s influence, they had founded the Special Tasks Section. A short-lived unit, one that had burned brightly in the darkness before extinguishing itself in ignominy.
Or so the New Gods had been led to believe.
Gregory pulled up a chair opposite Yuri. For a long while, both men said nothing, studying each other, updating the mental folders that stored what they knew about the other. What they thought they knew.
At last, Gregory spoke.
“You can’t go a year without killing someone, eh, Yuri?”
“I tried. Then I returned to Babylon.”
The men exchanged a quiet chuckle. The tension between them eased a little.
“That was three months ago,” Gregory said. “I’d hoped you’d have reached out to me.”
“I was busy re-establishing myself,” Yuri said. “And I heard you were busy too.”
“You won’t believe how much networking and traveling my job requires. These days I spend more time sleeping in airplanes and hotels than at home.”
“Been running around the country?”
“I go where the job takes me.”
“Sounds like you’ve had a full plate. Had a chance to talk to our old friends about David?”
“Yeah. All of them. Some new ones too.”
“Including the Greens?”
“Yup.”
“Remind me… how many kids do they have again?”
“Three.”
Yuri’s heart squeezed in his chest. The rest of him remained totally, perfectly, still.
They’d always known that the New Gods would try to destroy the STS someday. OPLAN David was their go-to-hell operational plan. The plan to scatter the troops, hide out until the heat had died down, then reconstitute the STS. Not as a government agency, but as a shadow network of guerrillas and support cadre.
The plan had three major phases. Green Three was the last phase. The network was in place and ready to begin operations against the New Gods.
The STS was dead. Long live the STS.
“How are your folks doing?” Gregory asked.
“Stubborn as ever. They won’t leave,” Yuri replied.
“You’d think that they’d be looking for overseas properties by now.”
Yuri shrugged. “They don’t want to be separated from the community.”
There were few places the New Gods could not reach, and they were growing fewer by the time. They were the rulers of the world, with tendrils extending to the furthest corners of the planet. Disappearing like Yuri had wasn’t a realistic option, not for people without his level of training. At least by staying in Babylon, the Yamamotos had the support of the underground Christian community. What few there were left.
“You won’t leave Babylon?” Gregory asked.
“Can’t.”
Gregory leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper.
“You’re Public Enemy Number One to the New Gods. The only people they hate more than you is each other. Last night’s violence placed you back on their radar. From here on out, they’re going to hunt you again.”
“If I put myself out of their reach, they’re going to come after everyone I know. I have to protect them.”
“You can’t abandon them either.”
Yuri fixed Gregory with steady, steely eyes.
“That’s right.”
“I don’t envy your position. Me, I don’t have anyone the New Gods can get to, and I have a large personal security detail. You… don’t.”
Yuri spread his hands. “That’s how things go.”
“I’ve got something for you that could help.”
“Yeah?”
Gregory reached into his pocket and placed a card on the table.
“You are now permitted to carry any kind of firearm, anywhere in Nova Babylonia. You and everyone else in the STS.”
That was a pleasant surprise. As a former soldier and a federal law enforcement officer, he should have been entitled to that right. But with the closure of the STS for ‘police brutality’ and ‘excessive force’, every former operator had their status as LEOs revoked.
Many of them handed over their guns—the ones the government knew about. A few fought for the restoration of their rights. Even fewer won.
Every single one of them stashed away gear, guns and ammo anyway.
They couldn’t not do it. Everyone expected the New Gods to hunt down the former members of the STS the second the Temple Commission hearings ended. It was a minor miracle that they hadn’t. Yuri suspected the New Gods were too busy clawing at each other’s throats and dealing with upstart minor Powers to go hunting for the former operators. But it was only a matter of time before they got around to it.
The New Gods rarely forgave and never forgot.
Whenever the opportunity arose, they had taken potshots at the team. They’d come close to taking them out a few times. Their only sin was not following through, but only because they didn’t have the resources to follow through, or the manpower to absorb tremendous losses. For now.
Yuri had arranged for a ceasefire with the New Gods in exchange for hunting the Leviathan. After he had held up his end of the bargain, they had trapped the team in a storm sewer to drown. He had anticipated it, pre-empted it, which was why he and the rest of the team were still breathing. They had broken the ceasefire first, one written in blood.
They would see his latest kill as a violation too. It didn’t matter that he’d killed a Husk. He’d lifted his hand against a believer. They would come for him.
Soon.
“Thanks,” Yuri said.
“No problem. Sorry it took so long. I had to pull a lot of strings, talk to so many self-absorbed bureaucrats, work around the puppets of the New Gods.”
“You’re a bureaucrat yourself.”
“I work outside the system now. It’s… refreshing.”
Yuri was an outsider who had somehow found a place on the inside. Gregory had always been an insider. Yuri had no idea how a man could live the way Gregory did, as a cog in a machine engineered for crushing souls into dust. Gregory in turn thought that Yuri was tilting at windmills, powerless to do anything from the outside. Somehow, they had overcome their differences to build the finest tactical unit in the nation.
Yuri wouldn’t say he _liked _Gregory. But he respected him. And Gregory had pulled through.
Yuri examined the permit. The blue card had his face, name, a mailbox as his last known address. It stated that he was a former federal LEO, and was entitled to unrestricted carry all across Nova Babylonia, regardless of local law. Though thin and light, its edges bit reassuringly into his calloused fingers.
“There’s one problem with this,” Yuri said.
“Yeah?”
“It’s not going to do me much good in here.”
“As soon as I leave this room, you’ll be free to go.”
“And my gear?”
“They’ll be held as evidence. Nothing I can do about that. Sorry. But the PSB will determine that this was a case of self-defense.”
Which meant three, maybe six months from now, they might deign to release his belongings from the evidence locker. Maybe.
“Appreciate it,” Yuri said.
“You did the hard work, Yuri. All I did was make a couple of phone calls.”
“How did the Liberated respond to the kill?” Yuri asked.
“They’ve acknowledged the decedent was one of theirs. They disavowed all responsibility for his actions from the moment he turned into a Husk.”
“As they always do.”
The maneuver freed them from legal liability. Every soldier caught or killed in the act was routinely disavowed as a Husk, preventing the mortal authorities from digging deeper into the affairs of gods and demons.
Gregory lowered his voice by an octave. “Do you think the Liberated tried to whack you?”
Yuri’s lips tightened into a thin streak. “The thought has crossed my mind.”
“The Husk was an Elect, but he was a civilian. No known connections to the militant wing.”
“He didn’t show any signs that he recognized me either. He messed around with the bouncers instead of trying to take me out. He only attacked me after I engaged him.”
“You think it’s just a random meltdown?”
“Could be. Or it’s a hit meant to look like a random meltdown.”
“The Husk creates a commotion, luring you in. Once you step into range, it attacks you.”
Yuri nodded. “A hitter on a job would just walk up to me and try to blow me away. Or, after transforming, he would charge at me right away. He wouldn’t have bothered with he bouncers.”
“But you would have seen him coming.”
“Which is why luring me in would have been a better strategy. Gives the Liberated plausible deniability.”
“If it were a hit.”
“If.”
“Odds are fifty-fifty either way, huh?”
“That’s how the New Gods work. But…”
“But?”
“The Husk spoke with the voice of Namanah. She was possessing him at the moment he attacked me. And the New Gods all know what we look like.”
“We have to assume she wanted to kill you.”
“Yup.”
The only real question is whether this was planned, or if it were opportunistic.”
“And I don’t think we’ll get answers.”
“The New Gods move in mysterious ways.”
The men shared a tired chuckle.
“This, old buddy, is why you should’ve undergone plastic surgery,” Gregory said.
“You didn’t.”
“I’ve got the Federal government behind me. You don’t.”
Yuri shrugged. “Plastic surgery isn’t going to help much. The New Gods are pioneers in biometric identification tech. Gait analysis, voice recognition, adaptive biometric systems, the works. And I heard from Kayla that there’s tech out there that can defeat disguises. Probably aura analysis or something like that.”
“You can’t hide any more, can you?”
“Never could.”
“Sucks to be you.”
“That’s why we’re counting on you and yours to run interference.”
“I do what I can… but the New Gods have a long reach.”
Having high friends in low places was nice. It was no substitute for tradecraft and personal security. Babylon was the non-permissive environment to end all non-permissive environments. The only zone more hostile than this was a war zone—and anyone with eyes to see can tell that all-out war was on the horizon.
It was only a matter of time.
“Will there be blowback from the Liberated?” Yuri asked.
Gregory exhaled sharply.
“Hard to say. There shouldn’t be any legal consequences for putting down a Husk in the middle of a rampage. However, the New Gods know you’re in Babylon. The Liberated don’t take kindly to someone killing one of their own, Husk or otherwise.”
Yuri fingered his card.
“Looks like I’ll need this soon. A job, too.”
“You need money?”
“I have some savings. But what I really need is income.”
“You were working a PSD gig at the Rose House, right?”
“Yeah. Got it through my network. After what happened there, though, I don’t know if anyone will want to hire me any time soon.”
“I wish I could hire you, but my expense accounts are strictly monitored. I’ll try to figure out how to bring you in as a contractor, though it could take a while to justify it to the bean counters.”
“I’ll find a way to get by.”
“I’m sure you will. I take it that you’ve tried applying for other jobs?”
Yuri counted off on his fingers.
“The military won’t have me back. No police department wants to hire me. The big-name private military and security companies aren’t responding to my inquiries.”
“Damn… I heard it was hard for most STS guys to find a job, but you have it harder than most.”
Yuri had expected that. It was what happened to everyone who stood against the powers and principalities of the world.
“I heard some of the guys formed a training and consultancy firm. Tried talking to them?” Gregory asked.
“They’re out in the country. It’ll take me away from my parents and my community. It might leave an opening for the New Gods. Applying there is an option, but I want to exhaust all other options in Babylon first.”
“You realize that all you have left is under-the-table work,” Gregory said slowly.
Cash-only gigs. Minimum wage jobs. Or mercenary work.
“I do,” Yuri said with equal deliberation.
“I’ll try to find something for you to do, but you’ve got to be prepared for the possibility that I can’t.”
“Roger that.”
OPLAN David called for the creation of a self-sustaining guerrilla network. In addition to operations, it would secure sources of income and supplies for its cells and individual operators. Men like Gregory could funnel money into the network by using their positions to hire operators. Less well-positioned operators had to figure out something else to do.
Operators like Yuri.
“Good luck finding a job,” Gregory said. “But keep a low profile for now, until we’re sure the Liberated or the other New Gods won’t come after you.”
“And if they do, we’re ready.”
“_When _they do, call me. I’ll see what I can do.”
Gregory fished another card from his pocket. Pure white, thick and heavy, it stated his name, phone number and email address on one face. Nothing more.
Yuri stowed the card. In another life, he wouldn’t have carried such an obvious connection to someone high up in the government. But things have changed. Wouldn’t stop him from memorizing the details and discarding the card though.
Gregory stood to go. Turned to the door. Paused. And turned back to Yuri.
“One more thing,” Gregory said.
“Yeah?” Yuri said.
“If there’s too much heat, you’ve got to bug out. Babylon has more than enough martyrs already.”
“No promises.”
Ready for the rest of the story? Purchase BABYLON BLACK here!
