THE GAME HAD CHANGED. MY HEART SANK DEEPER INTO my chest as the group of Strangers blocking the elevator parted and Tango, the shortest but by far the deadliest of The Strangers, emerged from the pack.
He only stood about 5’7” yet his muscle-bound frame made him considerably more physically imposing than any of his comrades. From the waist down, he wore the same black combat gear as his fellow Strangers, but the only thing he wore on his insanely muscular upper body was the white tape that was wrapped around his forearms and hands and two swords that were strapped across his back. I recognized his long dreadlocks and the ivory and black half-face masquerade mask that only covered the upper right side of his face from the picture that Howie had shown us.
Still holding the assault rifle, Jason took a step toward Tango and the ten Strangers that now blocked our path to the elevator.
“We were just leaving. We still have Bravo in custody, but we’re willing to return him so long as you allow us to leave peacefully,” Jason stated, firmly.
Tango chuckled but did not reply.
“Is there something funny?” I demanded.
“I didn’t come here to talk,” Tango barked. “If you want off this roof that’s fine; the elevator is right there. Just know you’re gonna have to go through me to get to it. Now, if you want to save the boys here the trouble of mopping up after I’m done, I’ll also give you an opportunity to jump.” His voice was a lot deeper and raspier than I thought it would be.
“He ain’t usually that nice, Hoss! You’d better listen to him!” Charlie yelled from behind us.
“You think I’m afraid of one guy?!” I asked, as I glared at him over my shoulder.
“You clearly don’t realize what you’ve stepped in, do ya, Hoss? Well I’ll tell you, you’re about five seconds away from gettin’ a chunk torn out of you big enough to clog a drain, boy!” Charlie quipped to his comrades’ delight.
Is this guy serious? I thought. Howie had warned us about Tango’s fighting abilities, but I couldn’t believe the extent of their arrogance. Did they really think we would jump off the roof of a building in order to avoid fighting them?
“Are you all gonna talk us to death, or are you and your men gonna make a move?!” I shouted at Tango. My stomach dropped as I completed my sentence. It felt like I had just poked a sleeping tiger, but I couldn’t help but react. That self-assurance on his face and the idiotic ramblings of Charlie were really pissing me off.
“The boys are sitting this one out, pal. Like I said, you’ve got two choices. You can either try to go through me, or you can make it easier on yourselves and take me up on my other offer.”
“You’re the only one going off of this roof if you don’t stand aside,” I growled.
“That’s pretty tough talk for a dead man,” Tango retorted.
“I’m not dead yet!” I barked.
“You’re right. My watch is about five minutes fast.” Laughter erupted from Charlie and the Strangers that surrounded Tango. As the blistering anger boiled inside of me, I balled my fists and was about to attack when I felt Jason’s hand fall onto my shoulder.
“This doesn’t have to get ugly,” he said while facing Tango.
“It’s too late for small talk, Hoss!” Charlie shouted. “You boys are already dead and you don’t even know it!”
“I don’t think you realize who you’re talking to!” I bellowed as I whipped around and glared at Charlie.
“Well by God, Hoss. Enlighten me why don’t cha? I’ve been dying to know who’s hiding behind that Bravo mask.”
“Reaper, don’t!” Jason yelled.
Too late. I had already ripped Bravo’s mask from my face and tossed it aside. The crowd of Strangers released a collective gasp as they recognized the skull-faced ski mask that I had worn the night I saved that woman from the mugger. They had all either seen it on the news or on the internet, which meant they all knew what I could do.
“Well I’ll be, dog. You really do exist. And here I thought those videos were fake!” Charlie exclaimed. “That does explain how that arm of yours is still attached to your body. But I’ll tell you what, Hoss, all that fancy stuff you can do ain’t gonna amount to a hill of beans against that man. If I were you, I’d jump.”
I had heard enough. The entire rooftop was left in slow motion as I turned and rocketed toward Tango with a devastating right hand cocked behind me. He was completely motionless as I zoomed toward him at sixty miles per hour.
I flung my right-handed haymaker at his face. To my surprise, my fist hit absolutely nothing as Tango quickly sidestepped the attack and kicked me hard in the back, causing my momentum to nearly carry me off the roof. The rage within me increased as I struggled to regain my balance. That smug smile was still plastered across his face as I turned to face him.
“Reaper, wait!” Jason shouted. But it was too late. I was already zipping toward Tango once more by the time he had finished his sentence. Tango sidestepped my attack with even more ease, which sent me flying toward Jason and Charlie, who scrambled out of the way before I collided with them.
My 800-pound body threatened to cave the roof in as I lost my balance and fell. Charlie and the crowd of Stranger spectators erupted into laughter once again at my expense.
“I suggest you stay down!” Tango howled as his men cheered him on.
“Listen to him, Hoss! He ain’t gonna tell you again!” Charlie yelled from the crowd.
A sharp pain shot through my left shoulder as I attempted to stand.
“I’ve got you,” Jason said as he kneeled beside me and placed his hand on my shoulder.
“I’ve got this! I don’t need any help!” I shouted as I slammed my hands against the roof below me. Jason took a step back and discarded the assault rifle that he was carrying as I pulled myself to my feet.
I tried to focus on my rage and forget about the fire burning pain in my left shoulder.
“We have to be strategic about this, Reaper,” Jason said quietly.
“I don’t need help!”
“Reaper, don’t be stupid!” Jason hissed.
“I said, I’ve got this!” I yelled.
“Not from where I’m standing, pal,” Tango said. “This fight was over before it even started because you tipped your hand when you showed me that mask. There’s a small chance you could have caught me off guard with that speed of yours if you hadn’t shown me who you really are. Now that I know, you’re kidding yourself if you think you can cover thirty feet faster than the time it takes me to move a few inches to the left or right.”
“He’s right, Reaper. He’s using your speed and momentum against you. We have to do this together,” Jason insisted.
I don’t know what made me angrier: the fact that Tango was right or that fact that I needed Jason’s help to take him on. He was just a man, and I was supposed to be something more. I was supposed to be special.
I nodded at Jason and slowly started toward Tango. Jason’s long headband fluttered in the wind as he quickly joined my approach and moved alongside me with cat-like grace. Tango smiled as he folded his massive arms across his chest and looked past me as we approached him. A tremor shot down my spine as I realized that he wasn’t looking behind me. He was staring at my injured left shoulder because I had been favoring it without even realizing it. I fought the urge to wince in pain as I quickly straightened my posture, but it was too late. He had already noticed my weakness.
I maneuvered my way to his right as Jason slid to his left, and the crowd of Strangers formed a circle around us.
“You’re up, Ace,” I whispered.
Jason nodded and cautiously advanced toward Tango. It almost felt like I was throwing him to the wolves, but I needed him to distract Tango long enough for me to get a good shot in. He was quick enough to elude my attacks but I doubted that Tango was tough enough to withstand one of my punches if I was actually able to land one.
As Jason neared, Tango suddenly lashed out at me, taking me by surprise. I was astounded by how quickly
he was upon me. He hit me twice in the face and three times in the gut before I could even react. Luckily, he didn’t know how dense my body was when he threw the punches. They didn’t hurt, but I could tell that if I were normal, I would have been incapacitated.
I threw a wild right backhand and missed as he quickly dodged to my right. He swiftly ducked Jason’s incoming roundhouse and threw him into me, causing us both to stumble backward.
Jason promptly charged him again, but he was almost instantly floored by a devastating three-punch combination from Tango.
That was the first time I had ever seen Jason on the losing end of a fight. Before that moment, Jason was the best hand to hand combatant I had ever laid eyes on, but I had just witnessed Tango put him on his back without even breaking a sweat. For the first time that night, I began to wonder if we could actually win.
I sprang into action as Tango prepared to stomp Jason. Tango gracefully leapt away as I attempted to grab him. I quickly whipped around to try again, but to my surprise, Tango had vanished.
The fire in my left shoulder erupted and engulfed the entire left side of my body, bringing me to my knees. Tango had maneuvered his way behind me and delivered a crushing roundhouse kick to my injured left shoulder, further dislocating it. Jason sprang to his feet as Tango delivered a crushing, spinning heel kick to my head.
I felt that one. He had to have realized how dense my body was and adjusted accordingly because that kick was delivered with enough force to shatter concrete.
I was slipping out of consciousness as my face slammed against the floor. The only thing that kept me from passing out was the sound of Jason getting absolutely hammered by Tango.
Get up! I thought! Get up; he needs you! He’s going to kill him!
I slammed my right hand against the roof beneath me and turned myself toward the fight.
Jason was concentrating his efforts on defense but his will was fading fast as Tango’s relentless barrage of punches and kicks continued to rain.
“Come on, kid! Aren’t you gonna throw a punch!” Tango roared as he broke through Jason’s defense and delivered a stiff left jab to his face, sending him stumbling backward.
I tried to pull myself to my feet but collapsed due to the pain in my left shoulder. Tango unleashed another combination of lightning fast punches, but Jason did well to block them all. They were both astonishingly fast, but Tango was simply stronger and much more vicious. He took more risks but was always able to dodge and deliver a devastating counterattack whenever Jason threw a punch.
“Come on, Ace!” I shouted.
“Yeah, come on, Ace! Keep beatin’ his fists with your face!” Charlie mocked.
As I glared at Charlie, I was shocked to see that The Strangers near him were now holding Howie at gunpoint. The terror in Howie’s eyes matched the desperation that I heard in Jason’s voice through my ear piece as Tango’s unyielding attacks bore down on him. As I looked from Howie to Jason, I felt powerless to save either of them.
Get up! I shouted to myself. I bit my lip as Tango finally hammered Jason to the floor and quickly grabbed his head and pulled him into a sleeper hold. As he tightened his grip around Jason’s neck, my heart rate doubled. I knew that if I didn’t intervene, Jason was going to die.
The extra adrenaline provided by Jason nearing the brink of death gave me the strength to launch myself into the air with my right arm. I twisted in midair and landed hard on my left side. A deafening scream escaped my lips as a piercing pain shot through the entire left side of my body. It hurt like hell, but I had accomplished my goal. Though my shoulder was in even more pain at that point, it was now back in its socket, which allowed me to pull myself to my feet.
An icy chill shot down my spine as I zoomed toward Tango just as he prepared to snap Jason’s neck. The rooftop seemed to be frozen in time as I rocketed through the space that separated me from him. Despite my speed, I could tell that Tango was somehow still able to track my movements. Before I could land the wild jab that I threw at his chest, he released Jason and leaped to the left, causing my momentum to carry me past them.
Jason rolled to Tango’s right as I whipped around and charged him again. My approach was slower and more controlled this time, but Tango still managed to evade my punch by sliding to his right just in the knick of time. He never even saw it coming. Jason had fired a vicious right hook at the same time that I rushed Tango. By dodging my attack, he had stepped right into Jason’s leaping power shot.
The entire roof fell silent as Tango stumbled backward, barely able to keep his footing. Before he could recover, Jason pounced and connected a ferocious five-punch combination, knocking him to the deck with the last blow. The crowd of Stranger’s released a collective gasp as they watched their greatest fighter go down for the first time ever. Jason leapt backward as Tango quickly unsheathed the two swords strapped to his back. Tango sprang to his feet as Jason slowly and deliberately unsheathed the katana at his waist. The slender blade of Jason’s sword seemed to emanate a diffused glow as the moonlight shone against it.
They lashed out at each other as quickly as two bolts of lightning. To my surprise, it was Jason who was now the aggressor. As their steel blades clashed, I could tell that something about Ace’s sword was giving him the edge.
Just hang in there, Ace, I thought as I abruptly launched myself into the crowd of Strangers behind me. I was a bowling ball against pins as my 800-pound body sent most of them flying and toppling into each other. Jason continued to hold his own in the sword fight with Tango as I plowed my way through the crowd of Strangers heading toward Howie.
I came to a dead stop when Charlie pressed his massive pistol to Howie’s temple. They were both fifteen feet away from me. I could have covered that distance in no time but I knew that I couldn’t cover it in less than the time it would take Charlie to squeeze the trigger.
I whipped around as soon as I heard Jason’s piercing scream in my earpiece. I turned just in time to see Tango withdraw the blade of one of his swords from Jason’s right shoulder. I instinctively sprinted toward them just as Tango pulled his swords above his head.
Faster! I shouted to myself as the blades of Tango’s swords descended upon Jason. I felt the roof beneath my feet crumble and cave in as I accelerated to a speed that I had never achieved before.
The blades of Tango’s swords were within inches of decapitating Jason when I swooped by and yanked him out of the clutches of the arching deathblow. Tango’s swords sliced into the roof beneath him as I rocketed across the rooftop with Jason in my arms and leapt away into the night air. As I soared through the piercing blackness of the night sky with Jason held tightly within my arms, I hoped that he would still be alive when we hit the ground.
Tango had been right all along. In the end, the only reason Ace and I were still alive is because I decided to leap from the rooftop. But what about Howie? What would become of him? It took everything in me to leap off of that building and leave him behind, but I knew that I could only save one of them.
Charlie had the drop on Howie, which made saving Jason my only viable option, but that sentiment didn’t make me feel any better about my decision. Maybe if I hadn’t promised Howie that I’d get him out if anything happened, I wouldn’t have been so devastated about leaving him behind. Maybe then I wouldn’t have felt like such a failure.
37. EXPENDABLE
HOWIE:
IT HAD BEEN ALMOST FOUR DAYS SINCE THEY LEFT ME on that rooftop. As I sat in the pitch black closet sized cell that The Strangers kept me in, I had to keep reminding myself that Reaper had made the only logical decision that he could have at the time. If he had moved against Charlie, Charlie would have shot me in the head. I knew he had made the right decision, but I still couldn’t help but wonder why they hadn’t come for me yet.
I was sure that Reaper’s density would allow him to survive the fall after he leapt from the rooftop; so where were they? Did he truly save Jason instead of me because it was the right decisi
on, or was it because I was expendable?
“Snap out of it, you idiot,” I muttered, surprised at how feeble and dry my voice sounded. The Strangers were only providing me with food and water approximately once every 36 hours so I had grown quite weak by that point. I expected them to kill me, but instead I was whisked away and immediately thrown into that forsaken place. In the beginning I was hopeful, but as I withered away, inundated by the darkness within that cankered cell, the last few remnants of my hope finally gave way to my despair.
In the movies, the clever heroes always figured out some ingenious way to escape. Unfortunately, for me it didn’t always happen that way in real life. The only purpose my 229 IQ served was to help me come to grips with how desperately hopeless my situation truly was. I was running out of time and I had no idea if my savior was even coming for me. To make matters worse…I didn’t even know if he thought I was worth saving.
38. MASTERMIND
THE SUSPECT:
I NEVER EXPECTED THEM TO GET AS FAR AS THEY DID. Then again, even I couldn’t have anticipated the Reaper variable. Who is he and why is he able to do the things that he can do? And most of all, why was he working with Howard Vargas?
I had to know. I had come too far to let some high school kid and a freak of nature derail my progress. The night vision equipped camera in the corner of Howard Vargas’ cell allowed me to watch him squirm in the darkness that beset him. He, like many before him, expected physical torture followed by a swift death, but my choice method of torture was always that of a psychological nature.
Tango, my most skilled operative, watched me in silence from across the dark control room in which we sat. It was he who I had to thank for the apprehension of the prisoner. I had my doubts when The Righteous chose him as my second in command, but his presence had certainly paid its dividends.
I was smarter than all of them, but I lacked the physical might to keep them in check forever. Without Tango, one of them was bound to challenge my rule at some point. With him at my side, my dominion over The Strangers went unquestioned.
Of course, I had considered the possibility of Tango making a play for my seat. At the end of the day, he was irrevocably a mercenary. His only true allegiance was to money and power. Sure, he was content for the moment due to the millions of dollars that The Righteous was paying him to serve as my second in command, but I could tell that he enjoyed power just as much as money. The Strangers were becoming more powerful by the day and I am certain he realized that.
I glanced at Tango, then back to the monitor. Fortunately for me, I knew his weakness. The Reaper and his partner were not quick enough to spot it, but I figured it out the moment I saw him. He was a thousand times more deadly than I, but if it came down to it, I knew exactly what to do to take him down.