Suicide Squad (12 page)

His time would come. Sooner, rather than later.

They dragged him to the restraint chair and shackled him in. Griggs was first.

“Time to pay for the room service, Deadshot.” He slammed Lawton in the face with the butt of his pistol. Then again, and again. Before long the prisoner’s eyes were nearly swollen shut, but he just grinned.

“That all you got, bitch?”

Griggs sneered and punched him again, only harder. That one actually hurt, but Lawton still grinned defiantly. Then a black hood was pulled down over his head.

“Just getting started,” Griggs laughed.

* * *

Diablo heard a strange noise he hadn’t heard before. He paced the pressure chamber, eyeing the walls for any sign of a malfunction. Anything that might make it possible for him to escape.

That was the one thing he wouldn’t do.

Diablo sighed. He knew he belonged here. Behind bars, in prison, where he’d be rendered harmless, and the rest of humanity would be safe. He knew he deserved all the punishment he endured, and perhaps more.

Bring it on, boys
, he thought wordlessly.
Bring everything you’ve got.
But then he figured out the reason for the sound. Water was gushing through the pipes. The pressure chamber began to flood. It was designed to fill up in seconds, if flames were detected—but Diablo wasn’t trying to escape.

He hadn’t done a thing.

Instinctively he generated sheets of flame, hoping to evaporate the water, but it didn’t work. His flames died out, and the level continued to rise. Water filled his lungs. It would only be a matter of seconds before he drowned.

Then he relaxed, and stopped fighting.

He should have remembered.

Outside the chamber, a gloved fist hit the dump switch, and the pressure chamber spilled its guts. Griggs enjoyed this, Diablo knew. Bringing the animals to the edge, then pulling them away. Then starting it all over again.

“Hey! They’re killers,” he would say. “They deserve everything they get. And if one accidentally kicks the bucket, so what? Crap happens.”

Diablo fell to the floor, coughing uncontrollably. Before he could even begin to recover, though, guards in firefighting gear stormed the chamber and injected him with sedatives. He went down for the count.

Do whatever you want to, boys
, he thought as he lost consciousness.
I’m fair game.

* * *

Griggs gave the order. Dixon and two others dragged Diablo to one of the Gitmo stretchers—the one with the big wheels—and he was strapped into it. They checked the restraints carefully.

“Give him a few minutes to recover,” the captain said. “Then let’s party.”

* * *

The riot squad used a cutting torch to sever the iron bars separating the Belle Reve sewer tunnel from the rest of the facility. The guards accompanying the squad had their tranquilizer guns ready. Croc wasn’t going to get within twenty-five yards of them unless they wanted him to.

The guards passed the bone shrines Croc had set up, tied together with viscera and tendons. Two of the newbies threw up on the spot. One of them walked along the edge of the water channel, opaque with filth and slime.

“Captain, if that thing’s ahead of us, why aren’t we going the other way?” he asked nervously. “I mean, like as fast as our feet can carry us?”

“Miller, just shut up and do what I tell you,” Griggs snapped. They walked another quarter mile through the darkness, their flashlights barely lighting their immediate area, let alone the path ahead.

Miller paused to wipe his brow. This place not only stunk, it was hot as hell, and humid, too. He wiped his face again, then shoved his handkerchief in his back pocket and took another step.

Into a slick patch of slime.

His boot slipped and he fell into the river of slime that ran down the center of the tunnel.

* * *

Dixon rushed to the edge and reached out to grab the kid, but the newbie was already under water. A moment later his helmet bobbed to the surface, followed by his body. Before they could try to reach him, his armor exploded.

Damned Croc
, Griggs thought furiously. He shook his head and looked to the others. “Prime your tranq guns. We gotta put the bastard to sleep.”

“You saw him. He’s a monster. Why can’t we just kill him?”

“Hey. I don’t like it any more ’n you, but they made it clear. We don’t do exactly what they said, we lose our jobs. ‘A course, they said nothin’ about not hurtin’ him bad. So feel free. Have your fun.” He added, “I sure as hell will.”

Griggs’s men held their tranquilizer guns and waited for the monster to come up for a breath. Nothing happened. It felt like it took forever. Then they saw the top ridges of Croc’s head breach the surface.

They had a place to aim.

“Now!” Griggs shouted.

As one they fired their guns. A dozen tranq darts slammed into Croc, and he roared in pain. Screaming, he lumbered toward them, intending to rip them apart. He pushed closer. Closer. They fired a second round.

He stopped screaming as he fell unconscious into the sludge. A dozen flashlight beams immediately danced along his back, checking him out. “He playing possum, Griggs?” Dixon drawled.

“That’s what we’re gonna find out,” Griggs replied. He pulled out a tranquilizer gun and shot an ox-dropping dose into the monster’s back.

Raging in pain, Croc sprung to life and groped for the dart. He thrashed around frantically, then his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed, face down in the sludge.

Guards with ropes and chains jumped into the water to secure their prize.

“They can’t win,” Griggs said, and he laughed. “They keep trying, I’ll give them that, but they never, ever win.”

She counted down the seconds, as she had been for the past two days. One second at a time. Sixty times a minute. Thirty-six hundred times an hour. Eighty-six thousand four hundred times a day.

She knew they’d be coming.

On time, just as promised, and now it was Harley’s turn. She reached into her mouth and carefully pulled out a long jailhouse knife, the culmination of the world’s greatest sword-swallowing act. She drew it out slowly. Cautiously. Each second was torture to her—normally she wasn’t someone who believed in taking her time.

Harley Quinn liked to act the instant she got an idea.

Like now.

Still, the woman who had been Harleen Quinzel understood, better than most, the concept of delayed gratification. Pull the blade out fast—like she really, really wanted—and the odds were she’d give herself a fatal tonsillectomy. Now Mr. J might want her to go through life without saying a word, but Harley didn’t much like the idea.

Just as the blade’s tip cleared her lips, she heard footsteps approaching. Right on time. The riot squad stopped in front of her cage, their weapons aimed and ready. She gave them her sweetest ‘You got me, copper’ smile and raised her hands in submission.

“I’m cooperating,” she said innocently. “Look—it’s me being cool. See? Harmless.”

Cautiously they opened the cell. Without saying a word, they fired their tasers.

She was ready.

Harley spun out of the way of most, but two or three slammed her in the back. This gave her time to twist and pull the shiv from its hiding place in her sleeve. In a single, elegant dance, she whirled and stabbed the closest guard. She recognized him.

Milo
, she thought.
Perfect. I didn’t like the way he leered at me. Only Mr. J gets to do that.
He gurgled, clutched his throat, and dropped to the ground while she giggled.

Another group stepped up and tasered her.

This time she couldn’t dodge.

* * *

They strapped her to the restraint chair and immobilized her arms, legs, chest, and neck. A gag was tied around her mouth. She liked that. It was something Mr. J might do.

They wheeled her down a long corridor that took her to the Belle Reve airstrip. Outside she recognized many of the faces lining the path—guards with whom Harleen Quinzel had worked, and others she got to know better as Harley. Mixed in with the guards were soldiers. Armed. Grim. That was new. She’d never seen any of them before.

There was a big plane waiting out there, and a military helicopter hovering overhead. As they moved toward it, some distance away Griggs came running from the prison. She wished he’d been the one to get the shiv, and not poor, dead Milo.

Before he could reach the group, though, they stopped in front of a group of medics. They grabbed her head and held it in place, while one of them held a medical wand to her spine. Another opened the Pelican case he was carrying, a “Van Criss Labs” label on its side, while yet another removed an injector gun from it and held it up to her neck.

She tried to resist, but whatever it was, he injected it into her with pinpoint precision. Harley screamed through her gag. She’d never felt anything quite that painful before, and it was no fun at all.

She swore she’d die rather than go through that again.

The medic operating the portable wand checked some readings and gave a thumbs up. A bandage was placed over the wound on her neck, signaling the guards to wheel her toward the plane again.

* * *

Griggs ran toward the C-17 Globemaster, but found his way blocked when a different crew of soldiers wheeled yet another restraint chair toward the special forces medics. Deadshot was strapped into this one.

The prison captain cursed his luck. He had to get past the guards, but his way was still blocked. He had to get past the guards, so he’d have to bide his time, and wait for an opening. It had better come fast, though. He had to do what Joker had ordered him to do.

Otherwise… well, he didn’t even want to consider the alternative.

Deadshot struggled, but couldn’t move an inch in any direction. These guys were pros. One of them held up an injection gun. Disappointingly, Lawton didn’t scream, but his whole body shuddered. Griggs just stared at him.

One day I’m going to put a bullet right between that bastard’s eyes.
But today wasn’t that day. The guards wheeled him away.

Diablo was next. He was already unconscious when he was wheeled into place, fire-retardant blankets wrapped around him. That was a good idea, Griggs mused. If the man was conscious, and decided to play games, he could pretty much incinerate everything within a five-mile radius. He’d done it before.

There was an IV strapped to his arm. A heart monitor was in place. If he began to stir they’d know it immediately, and additional sedatives would be pumped into his system. He was brought to the medic holding the injector.

The man was recognizably nervous as he placed it to Diablo’s neck. He activated the injector. Diablo shook for a moment, then settled back into blissful unconsciousness. The medic let out a sigh of relief as he was wheeled away.

* * *

Not two minutes later Croc was brought into position. Unlike the others he was chained upright into a small forklift. No restraint chair could possibly hold him. He roared as the medic approached, but the chains holding him were made of unforgiving and unbreakable promethium-infused steel. The medic placed the injector to Croc’s neck, near his spine, and fired it.

Croc bellowed in pain, but the chains held. Then the medic scanned him, checked the results, gave a thumbs up, and the monster was taken away. The medic collapsed into a folding chair and reached for a cold bottle of water.

Griggs knew how he felt, but he had bigger fish to fry.

Better the fish than him.

He watched from behind the barriers, pissed off that his best prisoners were being taken away from him, and no one knew the hell why. Truth to tell, he didn’t care about most of them, but he desperately needed to get to Harley.

The guards pushed her restraint chair toward the jet’s ramp and waited there. If Griggs delayed any longer he’d never have another chance. He rushed over just as they started up the ramp. Leaning in close, he whispered in her ear.

“You’re being transferred,” he hissed. “I don’t know where.” He pressed something in her hand. “It’s from Mr. J. Take it. He wanted you to have it.”

It was a tiny cell phone with a jeweled letter J on it. Tears welled up in her eyes. Walking alongside her chair, Griggs gave her his best warm, hopeful, bullshit smile.

“Please tell him I was good to you.”

Harley grinned at him. “You are so screwed,” she hissed back, and she laughed.

Griggs stopped in his tracks and his face turned white with fear. He wanted to apologize for all the crap he’d pulled, and beg her for a break, but the guards wheeled Harley up the ramp into the Globemaster’s cargo hold. A dozen armed military personnel stood ready to receive her. They all looked dour, so she grinned at them with her sunniest, happiest smile.

“I love field trips. Hope you boys do, too.”

* * *

Harley’s chair was chained to a wall alongside the others who were already inside. The guards took their seats and strapped themselves in. The ramp was pulled into the plane and the hatch was sealed behind it. A moment later they lifted off the runway and roared into the sky.

Harley looked at the others and laughed.

“So this is the freak flight, huh?” she said brightly. “Well, I dunno ’bout you, but I’m happy to have the company.”

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. A moment later she opened them again.

“Hey. You know if we get snacks on this flight? I am starving.”

The van that pulled up to the guard shack gate was driven by a large panda. He lowered the van window and looked at the guard.

“This is Van Criss Labs, right?”

The guard answered slowly. “Ummm, yes,” he said. “And you’re…?”

“From Grant’s Gifts. I gotta deliver a gift basket to a Doctor Van Criss,” the panda said, checking his notepad. “They said they wanted it delivered by a panda. We get asked that a lot. In-joke, I guess. Go figure.”

The guard smiled and nodded. They’d had stranger deliveries. He checked the computer list for today’s guests.

“Sorry. You’re not on the access list. I can’t let you in.”