"I do not wish to be a coward like the father of mankind and throw the blame upon a woman."― Ouida, Wanda
DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT- WASHINGTON D.C.
The 747 touched down a little after three in the afternoon. It had been a particularly turbulent flight for Ms. Allen, not in the literal sense but emotionally. She was only a week removed from seeing an entire foreign police force get gunned down and the best and worst thing in her life get swept away, the man she thought to be the love of her life taken out by an assassin's bullet.
An annoying stewardess that took her job way too seriously prodded Dia to remove her headphones. She did so begrudgingly whilst getting all of her other belongings together.
She had been expecting to get called back to D.C. after the incident but not this soon. It seemed like every national police agency in Spain wanted to question her on the accounts of that day. Her answers were still the same as the day she showed up at the scene; she still didn't know what the hell killed all those people or who the masked vigilante was that gunned down forty-seven well trained officers and civilians.
Even Inspector Anibol Sanz and his partner had fallen victim to the masked assailant, dying later from what initially seemed to be superficial wounds. She had been hoping to get someone to give some testimony on what had transpired that day but every professional law enforcement personnel that was in the square that day died in the line of duty. The only people that could corroborate Dia's story were a few CSI experts and spectators but most of them took off and ran for cover when the first shots rang out.
Dia disembarked the plane. After she cleared customs, there was a man holding a sign with her name on it in the greeting area. Did Livebriik have a god damn doppelganger? Surely God couldn't be this cruel. The man had warm eyes, an athletic build and curly blonde hair. She walked up to him mimicking his warm grin. "Hi, I'm Ric. Ric White," he said.
"Hello Ric."
"The lady, the myth, the legend, Ms. Dia Allen. It is so good to finally meet you. I've been trying for damn near two years to live up to the folklore that you left behind. And I say folklore because they are such tall tales. Are any of them true?
"It depends on which stories and your definition of truth."
"Well one story goes that a superior officer, not to be named, had an issue with lets say hygiene and you took it upon yourself to show this person the error of their filthy ways. The story goes that you came into the building that nigh and filled this persons office with a thousand or so of those pine tree shaped car air-fresheners, along with a can of deodorant and typed instructions on how to use it."
"I'm sorry sir but I cannot confirm nor deny my involvement in that endeavor," beamed Dia. "Well Ric it is finally nice to put a face with the voice after our conversations over the past couple of days."
"Same here, even though I would be disappointed to say the least if you hadn't done your research yet to have seen what I looked like."
"Ok, you got me. I knew what you looked like long before I got to D.C..
"I knew it," he chuckled.
They walked out of the airport and up toa blacked-out SUV that was sitting on the curb in a no-parking zone. Ric grabbed Dia's bags and put them in the back and they both jumped in. They pulled of into the busy mid-day traffic.
"A rule breaker I see."
"I prefer rule circumventor. Don't you think that the people that make the rules and put their lives on the line day in and day out should be able to sidestep them every now and again? It's just one of the perks of being law enforcement, you know what I mean? Being able to park wherever the hell you want should be inherent to the job don't you think?"
"I'm always game for a little rule breaking. So what's the plan?"
"Well I'm going to take you to headquarters first and get you sun-up and then I'll get you checked into your hotel if that's ok with you. I know you're tired."
"Sounds good and sleep is overrated in my book. I'm anxious to get to work on this case."
"Exactly what I expected...Look I just wanted to say that I'm sorry to hear about what happened to your team and your partner over there. I heard he was a shit hot agent and a good man."
"Thanks. He was an excellent agent. The latter is debatable."
Ric seemed taken aback by her response. "Ok. Looks like I stepped into a bit of hornets nest."
"No you're fine. It's just me. James and I were an item for a while but before his passing we weren't in a good place."
"I'm sorry to hear that. I have never been one for work center relationships. Someone always gets hurt in the end."
"Is that right? Look lets get this out of the way. I'm an attractive woman and you're a semi-attractive man. The likelihood of us hooking up is pretty high I would say. I'm however beginning to think that I am cursed when it comes to men. I can't guarantee that you would live to see your next birthday if you got involved with me."
Ric held up his ring finger and his platinum black diamond incrusted wedding band. "You know that I'm a happily married man."
"Haaaaa like that ever fucking matters. Plus that's not what your Facebook said. I believe the word complicated came up under status. Sounds like there is some trouble in happy-land to me."
Ric let out a booming guffaw. "I knew you did your research. So no man is safe with you huh. Yeah, well lets just say that's a chance that I might be willing to take."
They both laughed as they made their way into the city. It was at that moment that she knew that she had Ric hooked and that he would do anything within reason for her. She felt sorry for him because little did he know he was doomed at least according to her recent epiphany anyway.
INTERPOL HEADQUARTERS- D.C. BRANCH
The elevator opened, Dia and Rick walked out into a room filled with agents. Everyone seemed too busy with their own cases to pay them any attention. Dia was looking around to see if there were any familiar faces but she didn't see anyone that she knew which was something she was hoping for.
Ric led her down another long corridor that led to another long corridor. At the end of the hallway was a large metal door. There was an acronym written over the keypad that granted access to the SCIF. It read A.A.D.A.A.M, she had never heard of that appellation in all her years as an agent. Hell she didn't even know that that particular wing of the building existed. "What the hell is AADAAM?" demanded Dia!
"You are about to find out." Ric put his right palm over the biometric pad and then his right eye. A piston pushed the hefty door open. Ric ushered Dia inside and the door closed automatically behind then when they got through the jamb. She could feel her ears pop as the room pressurized itself. The gears inside the door churned and grinded, sealing them in.
There was a video wall that ran the length of the massive room. The screens were filled with live video feeds from all around the world. London, Manhattan, Tokyo, Frankfurt were all represented; the feeds changed every twenty seconds or so showing different parts of each city. Dia felt like she was at NORAD where she had done a short mentorship program. Ric led her to small meeting area that overlooked the entire room.
There were four other agents sitting around a horseshoe shaped table. Ric prompted her to have a seat where there was a table tent that had her name and United States written on it. She thought it felt like day one week one back at the academy. Ric took his place in the middle of the shoe.
The other names at the table were Alexi Sokolov, who was a huge blocked faced Russian that looked like he was going bust out of his sports jacket. Sitting next to him was Ozioma Akume, a six foot-six Nigerian; his skin was so dark that it seemed to have a purple sheen to it. Sitting next to Akume was Paulo Dominguez; a strapping Brazilian with piercing green eyes, wavy slicked back black hair and skin the color of bronze with the muscles to match. Dia could tell he was into some sort of martial art due to his one coli-flowered ear. Not a guy to be fucked with! Rounding out the group was a Chinamen, Ming Gui. He saluted Dia and she saluted back. They all greeted her in their native tongues. "I feel like I'm in the UN," she jabbed. All the men laughed.
"She's going to fit right in," said Alexi.
Ric pushed the button on a small remote and all of the screens on the video wall merged to form one. A.A.D.A.A.M. scrolled across the massive monitor. A depiction of a bitten apple with a serpent wrapped around it appeared in the center of the screen.
"So just as Adam was the first of his kind, we believe so are we. To my knowledge there has never been another organization such as this one. All right, so we all know why we are here. There has been a plethora of attacks in all of your respective countries, the latest being in Spain. Our governments have decided that these attacks have been serious enough that they need to be addressed as unexplained phenomenon. So welcome to the first meeting of A.A.D.A.A.M., which stands for the Alliance Against the Dark Arts and Arcane Magic." What the fuck thought Dia. "Before you ask," Ric continued. "We don't exist and the gods' honest truth is I don't know whom the fuck we work for. I get my marching orders from the SIPRNET through emails and I execute them. I have no idea who is pulling the strings. No one in this building knows what we do and they have specific orders not to ask. On that note, Ms. Allen thinks that an attack on American soil is imminent. I happen to agree and so do our benefactors. We have been given autonomy to do whatever we must to stop the next attack. There is only one problem. Dia."
"We don't have a clue on where they will attack next. We do however have an idea of whom we might be dealing with. We are calling them The Black Sun," she said. The A.A.D.A.A.M. emblem dissolved into the screen and was replaced by another, that of The Black Sun. It was a shadowy sphere with shards off dark light emanating from its core.
"I thought that was a Neo-Nazi faction," asked Ozioma?
"You're right. The Third Riche did adopt the moniker of The Black Sun during WWII. The swastika is loosely based on The Black Sun symbol but Interpol Germany told me that there has been very little movement from pro Nazi groups over the past ten years and that they are probably not our guys. We are dealing with something way outside the box here. The weapon that the shooter was using was unlike anything that Dia had ever seen. Over fifty officers and they didn't even scratch this guy. There is something very primordial about all of this. They might as well have been shooting fucking water guns. Everyone that got hit with a round died, even if his or her wounds were superficial. The doctors said they all died from infection no matter how minor the wound," stated Ric.
"Sounds like we need to contact the CDC," said Paulo.
"Has anyone communicated with the FBI, ATF or DEA," asked Feng?
"I did but they just fucking laughed at me when I told them about the weapon that Dia described. They said it was impossible. Plus all the agencies are spread thin as snot dealing with protecting the borders and all these terror cells," stated Ric.
Paulo chimed in again. "Our CSI teams did some research on the white powder that we found at all the sites where there was an attack. It was found on all the bodies of the victims but it was concluded that it was not an accelerant. No one knows what made them burn like that."
Dia pounded her fist the table "That's what I mean. We are getting nowhere fast. All these theories and no fucking answers, it's killing me. We are so behind the curve and in the dark on this thing that it isn't even funny."
"A shaman from a village that fell victim to this Black Sun kept on saying that the powder was not of this world," said Ozioma.
"Well that's just ridiculous. Where the fuck is it from then, Pluto," asked Ric incredulously? There was an awkward moment of silence and then the room erupted into another volley of laughter.
"Technically Pluto isn't even considered a planet anymore," Alexi chimed in.
"Ok, Steven fucking Hawking. Lets back to business guys. Spain was the only place that had CCTV where the attacks occurred but of course we didn't capture shit. One-minute people were eating breakfast. The next-minute, the camera flickered for a second and everyone in the square was dead. But we do have this."
Ric brought up the found footage from the courtyard. It showed the shooter pelting the police in the square with gunfire but the gun the shooter was using looked standard. Dia wasn't happy with the footage.
"That's not what fucking happened? Well it is but it isn't. I saw the shrapnel from those rounds going back into that gun," she swore.
"Cameras don't lie," said Feng.
"I know what I fucking saw ok!"
Feng flung his hands up in the air and pushed his chair away from the table and spun around as a child would. Dia knew people were going to question what she saw. She told herself that she wasn't going to become angry when they questioned her accounts but she had apparently lied to herself.
"Look we cannot confirm what Dia saw or didn't see but there were no casings from the shooter's gun found at the scene or bullet fragments for that matter. How do you explain that when this guy popped off more than a thousand rounds? Something's amiss don't you think? They didn't even find any ballistics in any of the victims."
"So where do we start," asked Paulo?
"There was an assassination attempt at Yankee Stadium about a week ago. There were a shit load of casualties and very similar circumstances to the one in Spain. Reports said that people were dropping like flies with injuries comparable to bullet wounds but again no fucking bullets," said Ric.
"How does that connect to our case," asked Dia?
"Well right now it just fits into the weird as shit category. Even though there is no footage, people are saying that they saw a projectile kill multiple people. They said this thing roamed around the stadium like a Great White Shark looking for something to eat. Reportedly it was an assassination attempt on the pitcher Rune Hartsmund." Footage of Rune popped up on the screen. It showed him hobbling to his car holding his neck then later driving out of the parking gate. "The last known footage of Mr. Hartsmund is in an upper east-side parking garage where he looks noticeably injured. He hasn't been seen since," said Ric.
"So," inquired Ozioma?
Dia walked up to where Ric was standing and grabbed the remote from his hand. She zoomed in on Rune's face. "So if we find Hartsmund we might be able to find a lead to The Black Sun. Sounds like as good as a place to start as any. When do we leave for New York?"