Suicide Squad (13 page)

“Yeah,” the panda said. “I sorta figured that could happen. I mean, this is a surprise gift, so your Criss guy wouldn’t’ve known to put our name in. No prob. Hey, you mind if I leave it with you? I mean, I’m way behind.”

“Sure,” the guard said, shrugging. The panda handed him an overflowing basket then made him sign for it. When he got back the guard’s autograph, he rolled his window shut.

The basket exploded in the guard’s face.

* * *

The Joker opened the van’s back door and leapt out. He was carrying a good-sized ball-peen hammer. He pushed his way into the shack and used it to finish off the semi-conscious guard.

Tie off all loose ends when you can, and they won’t unravel later.
He read that somewhere. He thought it might have been in a bubble-gum comic. Joker tapped the button on the shack’s computer, and the gate slowly swung open. He looked down at the dead guard and smiled his rictus grin.

“Never trust a gift panda driving a van,” he said. “Words to live—or in your case—die by.”

* * *

The alarms started blaring the moment he shot his way into the building. He could have ripped a security badge off the dead guard, then walked the halls without triggering the company klaxons, but then he’d have had to search for guards to kill. This way they came to him.

Besides, Joker realized, his personal thugs would have set off the alarms anyway, once they stepped inside and shot at everything they saw. These guys didn’t believe in subtlety. It’s why he hired them in the first place.

Joker took a gun from a dead guard, thanked him for it, then used it to kill several more security goons. He was living evidence that they weren’t very good at their jobs. Panda Man used a silenced assault rifle to take out several other guards, scientists, and technicians, while the thugs cleared the rest of the way toward their ultimate target.

The assembly vault stood at the rear of the lab. Dr. Van Criss watched the chaos through the vault’s bulletproof glass and over the monitors positioned throughout the large room.

“What the hell is going on?” he shouted. Frost suddenly stepped into view, but he wasn’t offering answers. He was, however, carrying an oversized carbine which he fired at the glass. One shot.

Two.

Three.

He looked at the window and ran his finger over a tiny divot, the sad result of some pretty extensive firepower. Inside the vault, Van Criss looked confident.

“Why are you in my way?” Joker said, pushing Frost aside. “This is what I get for allowing my underlings to do my job for me. Move. Vamoose.”

Frost stepped back as Joker held up a tablet for the doctor to see. On its screen was a live video feed of a woman. Her mouth was duct-taped shut and a very nasty-looking gun was pressed to her head.

“You like movies, Doctor?”

Van Criss rushed to the switch that opened the vault door. “Please don’t hurt her,” he begged. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

Joker nodded enthusiastically. “I know.”

He entered the vault. Van Criss stared at his feet. The Joker was barefoot.

He padded around the room, searching various shelves and cabinets before finding the object of his desire lying on a steel table in the back of the vault. He held up the nanite injector gun.

“This is it, isn’t it?” he asked menacingly. “What you used on them.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dr. Van Criss responded. “Who was it used on? What do you mean?”

“Look at me, Doctor. Do I look like the kind of guy who likes sitting around and explaining crap?” He let out an exaggerated sigh. “Good help is so hard to find these days.” He placed the injector to the doctor’s neck and before Van Criss could respond, Joker squeezed its trigger. “I’ll just have to do this all by myself.”

Dr. Van Criss fell to the ground, screaming in agony.

Joker looked at the injector and grinned.

“Yep. This is it.”

Colonel Rick Flag, exhausted from battle, wished the damn war was already over.

He stood on the helicopter skid as they approached the Midway City Airport. In the distance he could see large columns of smoke staining the clouds gray.

How much of Midway has already been destroyed?
he wondered. He glanced at the news channel streaming over his cell phone. Getting up-to-the-minute intel from reporters on the ground was always faster than waiting for it through “official” channels.

Government bureaucracy. Still immobilizing America after more than two centuries.

“War has come to our country,” the on-air reporter said. “A good part of our city has already been overrun, and we have yet to see the face of our enemy.” She paused for dramatic effect before continuing. “Too many have died, and experts fear this is just the beginning. Let’s go to Walter Goodwin, standing outside of city hall, for further details. Walter…”

Flag shoved the phone back into its holster and marveled at the makeshift base the military had hastily set up. It looked as if it had been there for years, not hours. The tarmac was littered with inflatable tents. Air Force gunships sat on the ground. Weapons were being loaded onto them while the ground crews pumped fuel. Everywhere Flag looked, armed choppers lifted off and disappeared into the cloud-shrouded city.

For them the war was just beginning. Flag was pretty certain he would never see any of those men and women again.

He watched as soldiers were carried on stretchers to portable hospital units that hadn’t been there four hours earlier. Medics were rushed in from nearby medical facilities to patch up the wounded so they could be sent right back into the fray. Their injuries had barely been stitched together, let alone healed.

His chopper landed and Flag stepped off the skid and crossed the strip toward the building where his twenty-three-man SEAL platoon waited for him. He passed a blacked-out window and noticed his haggard reflection. He looked as if he’d been through hell, and hadn’t yet made it back.

He entered the complex to see his men. They looked just as drained as he was. Four soldiers, however—Kowalski, Gomez, Grey, and Nate—were different from the rest. They were muscular, oozing with confidence, covered with armor and ass-kicking weapons.

Fresh meat for the fight.

He’d never worked with any of them, but he knew they were SEALs, the best of the best, and unlike Flag’s so-called team, they’d follow orders. Without question.

Their leader, Lieutenant Edwards, went by the nickname GQ, and his combat record read as impressive. Besides being an Academy grad, and having a PhD from Stanford, GQ had been awarded a trunkload of medals. It spoke volumes that he wasn’t showing off by wearing any of them now.

But Flag had been in the military for most of his adult life. On paper the man sounded perfect. Over the years Flag had run across a lot of corpses who did, as well. He would reserve final judgment until after their first skirmish.

GQ gave a big smile and saluted Flag with crisp precision.

“First fight I’ve been able to drive to,” he said

Flag nodded. “Let’s hope it’s not a regular thing.”

GQ leaned over and dropped his voice to a whisper. “So what’s in there, Rick? People are scared. I heard a squad of Rangers fast-roped off their helo, then shot themselves.”

There was the sound of an aircraft, and Flag turned away answering him. The C-17 had landed, with Waller’s recruits from the inner circle of hell. It was rolling to a stop.

Damn
, he thought.
This is so wrong.
Then aloud, and to no one in particular, “They’re here.”

GQ knew just enough to return with dangerous snark.

“I’m calling it now,” he said. “This is gonna be a total goat rope. How’d you get sucked into this?”

“I don’t like this any more than you do, Lieutenant.” Flag couldn’t turn back to answer Edwards to his face—not without betraying the depth of his own doubts. “But once we’re on the objective, these assholes are mildly interesting. ’Sides, if they get their domes canoed with accidental headshots, I’ll shed no tears.”

GQ understood perfectly.

The tail ramp of the C-17 lowered. Flag drew his pistol from its holster and checked the mag.

“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s welcome our little choir boys to ground zero.” Though they both wished they were anyplace else but here, the two of them made their way to the aircraft.

* * *

As the two walked toward the newly arrived aircraft, GQ looked back to see his men still lodged in the doorway, waiting for orders. No question they were the best. If anything went south it wouldn’t be because of them.

“Alright, kids,” he said. “Show of force time. Any of these walking targets makes a move, put a Chuck Taylor in his ass.”

His SEALs gave him a thumbs up and followed. They got to the C-17 just as Harley, Deadshot, Diablo, and Croc emerged—all wearing orange jumpsuits, all shackled to their restraint chairs. Croc, still chained to the forklift, was wearing a mask designed to prevent him from using his powerful jaws. They were wheeled down the ramp, only to stop in front of several closed black bags that were sitting on the ground.

Croc and Diablo were conscious, but weren’t resisting. There were dozens of military sharpshooters positioned on rooftops and along the pathway who would trade a night with a porn star to put as much lead in their heads as their weapons could fire.

You just don’t fight that kind of stupid over-the-top determination
, GQ thought to himself.

Flag walked up to Diablo. If looks could’ve killed…

“So here’s how it’s going down,” he said, “and you better listen. We’re going to remove your restraints. Anyone testing me gets a face fulla brown tips.” As one, the sharpshooters disengaged their side locks.

Keys unlocked the handcuffs, the padlocks, and the shackles. They all clanked to the ground. Harley, Diablo, and Deadshot were free.

Flag put his pistol against Croc’s temple. “Okay. Unlock him.”

GQ and Gomez both reacted with a queasy gulp. Croc was more reptile than man, and neither had ever seen anything like him—like it?—before. His chains crashed to the asphalt and the two SEALs quickly stepped back. Croc massaged his wrists and turned to Flag.

“Thank you,” he said, almost apologetically.

That startled GQ—he hadn’t expected it. Hell, he hadn’t expected Croc to be able to talk at all, let alone in fluent English. Of course, even a monster like him could tell he was outnumbered.

“What’s that?” Harley said loudly. “I should kill everybody and escape? Is that what you want me to do? Is it?”

More than a dozen weapons were aimed directly at her head. She looked… sheepish. Tapped a finger to her temple.

“Sorry,” she said sweetly. “Ignore me. It was just the voices telling me what I should do.” They stared, and she grinned back. “Hey, I’m kidding! Geez. Chill out.

“That’s not what they
really
said.”

GQ shot Flag a look.
Is this really happening?

Then Harley laughed.

“You guys are gonna make this so fun.”

GQ nodded toward Flag and pointed up and to the south. A Blackhawk chopper was coming in. It prepared to land, and U.S. Marshalls with SWAT gear jumped from its hold even before it touched ground. A moment later a large canvas bag thudded to the asphalt.

The bag squirmed as it hit ground. Something was inside. Again the sharpshooters adjusted their gun sights.

“Stand down,” Flag said as he approached it. He removed his combat knife and sliced it open. A man had been folded into the bag. He was dressed in street clothes. “Been waiting for you to get here, Harkness.” He looked over toward GQ. “Meet George ‘Digger’ Harkness, known throughout Australia as Captain Boomerang. Or Boomer. You’d need at least two reams of paper to print out his full rap sheet.”

Edwards recognized the name. “Boomer”’s weapon of choice was, expectedly, tricked-out boomerangs. Give him one with a razor’s edge, and he could take down at least half of Flag’s SEALs without breathing hard.

Harkness saw Flag glaring at him.

“Flag. Rick Flag? That you? You are lookin’ ripper, mate.” He gave the colonel a huge hug, as if they had been best friends for years. “But I got to say, mate, what is this? One minute I’m having a nice dinner with me mum, and then this red streak hits me outta nowhere.”

“Harkness, you were robbing a diamond exchange. You don’t think I’ve been fully briefed on you?”

“Yes, of course, but we was dining on delicious Tim Tams at the time. Me mum specializes in buying them from the local bottle shop, you know. They’re like heaven’s throwing a party in your mouth.”

Flag pushed Harkness ahead. “Shut up and get in line with the others.”

Boomer turned back and grinned. “C’mon, mate. Show some respect.”

“Respect is earned, Harkness. Earned.”

“Well, start an account then.” As they approached the rest, he gestured toward the Belle Reve inmates. “I’m seeing what I expect are numbers one through four of the FBI’s most wanted.” He then gestured to the SEALs. “These soldier boys are carrying enough gunfire to take down most Middle East countries.” Finally he gave Flag a big insincere smile. “And there’s you. Mister Government Agent himself.”

“That isn’t the way to gain respect, Harkness.”

“I’m all twisted over with shame, mate,” Boomer replied. “Now, if you’ve recruited those Belle Reve rejects, you’re probably not here playing cops. So tell me, Flag, what’s all this?”

“I told you before. Shut up and behave.”

* * *

Before the Australian could reply, a black SUV pulled up. The door opened and a pair of FBI agents, dressed in identical black suits with identifying lapel pins, dragged a giant of a man out of the car and pushed him toward Flag’s new best friends. He was secured by reinforced handcuffs.

Flag had read his dossier. He was called Slipknot, and the big bastard came equipped with an elaborate array of ropes and tackle. According to the files, there was nothing he couldn’t do with them.

The lead FBI agent gave orders for the cuffs to be unlocked. As soon as they were, Slipknot thanked the agent by punching him in the gut. He went over like a sack of potatoes, and didn’t get up.