Chapter 2: Hunting Wizards.

“They're coming, I can feel it.”

“Really?” Doubted the frazzle-haired youth in front of the computer. He continued typing as the man behind him spoke.

“Yes. We're going to have to leave.”

“Leave? But why? Can't your goons with the big guns just kill them and be done with it?” Norman Grateful asked with nary a pause in his frenzied typing.

“Maybe they can, but I don't like leaving anything to chance; it's too risky to let you stay here. It'd be better to get you to safety and rig a few traps for our little friends.”

Now the Wizard stopped typing. He spun in his chair. “Aw c'mon! This is so unnecessary! Those Interpol twerps wouldn't be able to stick anything on us, not even if the agents they send out here just disappear. We don't really need to move.”

“This isn't Interpol we're talking about. It's our friends with Code Red; they have strike teams moving into place already in Spain and France. The big guns are headed here. Agent Orange and her newest partner, Todd Trigger.”

“Agent Orange?” The Wizard smiled. “The one who foiled us in Morocco when we wanted to blow up the airport? The one who obliterated our South American drug distribution system? The one who killed Savanna, threw her off the Eiffel Tower?”

“Yes, the very same,” snapped the man in annoyance. “And the quicker we move, the safer we'll be.”

The Wizard took a deep breath. “Fine, just let me back up my hard drives. Uh, where do you plan to go?” He spun around to face his computer and began typing furiously, trying to take out his anger at having to leave his sanctum on the well-worn keys in front of him.

“America.”

“What?” The Wizard stopped typing for a moment and turned around in surprise. “Why? Isn't that like heading straight into the lion's den?”

“Don't worry,” the man said with a smile. “Everything is going according to the plan.”

“Even agent Orange showing up at our front door?” The Wizard turned back to his computer and resumed his work, backing up the terabytes of data that lay dormant and waiting in the large hard drive array sitting beside his workstation.

“Don't worry,” he was told, the voice stiffening slightly. “After your little stunt with the satellite, they were bound to come looking for us. I will admit, I assumed we would have had more time, but your foolish insistence on leaving our moniker in the Angel Strike's compromised computer system cut our time significantly.”

“Yeah, yeah, I said I was sorry. How was I supposed to know they'd even find that damn little snippet so quickly?” The Wizard swallowed, trying to hide how nervous he really was. SKULL didn't like failure, and his actions were reckless and stupid; he had seen a lot of otherwise brilliant people in the organization done in by their egos, and he hoped and prayed he wasn't going to be the next.

“Don't worry,” the voice said, the man standing right behind him now, breathing down his neck. His gloved hand reached out and secured a tight grip on the Wizard's hair, pulling it hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to distract him from his work. “We still need you, Wizard, so the board is willing to forgive you...this time. But if it happens again...well, let's just say I wouldn't want to be in your shoes, understand?”

“Yes sir,” the Wizard said, cursing himself for even thinking out his fears. He must have been afraid, otherwise he wouldn't have forgotten the most basic rule you had to follow around the man he only knew as the Colonel. Whatever you were thinking, make sure it was something he wanted to hear. Never question, never doubt, and above all, never panic.

“That's right,” the Colonel said smugly, releasing his grip on the Wizard's hair. “You don't question my judgment for any reason. And panic will only serve to get yourself killed, and you don't want that, do you, Wizard?”

“No, sir.” The Wizard licked his lips. “Why do you have to keep calling me that? My name is Norman, not Wizard. The Wizard makes me sound like a cheap James Bond villain.”

“Yes, but at least it's more mysterious than Norman. Now hurry up; we don't have long until our friends from Code Red arrive, and I want to be long gone when they find our surprise.”

“So do you all have the building layout memorized?” Orange stood in the small briefing room in the police station in the city of Hamburg, Germany. Just outside the city, there was a sprawling farm estate supposedly owned by one of the more well-to-do bankers in Hamburg, and the records showed that it had been in his family for more than 70 years. But though his name was on the deed to the land, the banker hadn't set foot on the soil there in over a decade. Instead it was being used, according to Savanna Venom, as a safehouse for SKULL. And it was one of the three safehouses they kept aside for the Wizard.

“Aye,” Ritchie Connelly, leader of the Rapid Assault Team said from his position at the head of the table, which sat overloaded with maps, papers, and automatic weapons. He had originally hailed from Ireland, where he had risen to the ranks as a bomber with the IRA, but in reality was an undercover cop planted by the British. When his cover was blown and the Brits left him out to dry rather than risk their entire operation, Ritchie fled to the US and was quickly hired by Code Red to put his unique talents to good use, and there he had been ever since.

“We've got these boys right where we want 'em, right lads?” The men around the table nodded, reaching for their various guns to check them over one last time before they headed out to hit the farm, and hopefully find the Wizard.

Orange took solace in the fact that if they didn't find him here, one of the other two, highly-trained RATs would get him. Either way, they won. She smiled as she watched her team go about their business. Her guts always churned during the planning stages of an operation, afraid she would make the wrong choice and damn the mission before it properly began, but once that was over with and all that remained was the action, Orange felt a strange sense of calm. It was almost as though it was out of her hands, and all she could do was try her best to see it through to the end, whatever it may be.

She glanced over at Todd, her new partner, and watched him check over his Glock. She tried to repress the sudden overwhelming bitterness that struck her nerves at seeing him. She didn't want him here; in fact, she didn't want him anywhere. She had no use for a partner, not after Mick. She was sure Todd meant well, and he might even have been a good agent, but he wasn't needed here, least of all by her.

But neither of them had any say in that matter, and each had to make the best of a poor situation.

Orange stepped over to him as he finished loading his gun. “You ever shot anybody before?” She asked quietly, so the men at the table couldn't overhear.

Todd looked up, a nervous frown partially clouding his face for a moment. “Uh, not really,” he said sheepishly. “But I've had a lot of time at the shooting range.”

“Do you think you could shoot someone if you had to?”

Todd swallowed and began to sweat noticeably, giving Orange her answer before he opened his mouth. “Sure,” he said hesitantly. “I mean, I could try and wing them, right? Aim for an arm or a leg?”

Orange sighed. “Listen, you just stay behind the rest of us and try not to shoot your own foot off, okay?” She was about to head back to the table and go over the floor plans of the grounds, generously provided by the German government, but paused for a moment and looked back at Todd. “And try not to shoot any of us, alright?”

The RAT moved in from the south, just as the sun began its slow ascent into the sky. They had spent the late night climbing a wide hill that faced the property SKULL was occupying. There was no way they were going to try and make a frontal assault, so they were going to hit them from behind, leaving two men to guard the front and make sure no one managed to escape that way if the alarm was sounded, something they hoped wouldn't happen. The RATs were trained to strike hard, strike fast, and strike silently, and they were equipped to follow through on those parameters.

Dressed in black and gray skinsuits, with only a light Kevlar vest to protect themselves, all RATs were armed with small, tactically appropriate weapons. Most had silenced Heckler & Koch submachine guns, and all carried their choice of sidearm with attached suppressors. They wore night vision goggles, had infrared laser sights on their primary guns, and carried an assortment of grenades on their belts for emergencies and situations that happened to go sour. They were the equivalent of high-tech ghosts, darting slowly from location to location, ready to pluck another unsuspecting soul away to the dark, grim afterlife that awaited it.

They crawled down the hillside, using the trees for cover and staying below the tall, unkempt grass that bordered the lawn of the farmhouse. These precautions were likely pointless, as a thick mist had slid over the landscape, making it nearly impossible to see anything from the house, but that didn't matter; the RATs were trained to cut the odds however they could, and if that meant moving at a snail's pace through damp grass in the German countryside then so be it.

Orange crawled along with them, her tactical goggles up on her forehead. They would prove almost useless in the morning sun. She kept behind the first row of RATlings, as the members of the Rapid Assault Team were called, and let them them lead even though she was technically the one in charge of this operation. She knew when she was out of her league, and this was one of those times. Ritchie and his RATlings were pros, and they knew how to move about in hostile, unknown territory with ease.

And it was indeed hostile territory, as they learned when they came upon a sentry sitting on a wooden bench near a path of crushed stone. He was smoking a cigarette, listening to an MP3 player, and letting his rifle lean against the bench at his side, completely ignored. Apparently SKULL felt they were safe here. The RATlings proved them wrong.

Crawling around behind the sentry, one of the RATlings slowly rose up as the others covered him from the edge of the trees. With lightning swift movements, the RATling caught the guard in a chokehold, pulling him off the bench and down into the mist without so much as a gurgle. Then, once the guard had been incapacitated and tied up, the RATling dragged him back to the others. They were under orders not to kill if at all possible, and so far they had been lucky; the mist was a boon for their side, and if all the guards at the house were as lax as this one had been, they could be in and out in no time.

A sudden feeling hit Orange with all the force of a sledgehammer. Something was wrong. It wasn't anything she could put her finger on, more like a gut feeling, but she trusted it all the same. She hadn't managed to live as long as she had by ignoring her instincts.

Crawling over to Ritchie, Orange whispered to him, “Something's up. Let's check the rest of the yard.”

The leader of the RAT looked over at her speculatively. “Alright, you're the boss.” He brought the other RATlings over to his side and began assigning orders to them. Soon, they all crawled off in different directions, continuing their search of the grounds around the house.

“10 and 12, report in. Can you see anything?” Ritchie asked quietly over his radio headset.

“Negative,” came the crystal clear voice across all their headsets. “From what we can tell, it's a ghost town around the building.”

Ritchie shrugged to Orange and moved on, leaving her with Todd.

“What's the matter?” Todd asked nervously.

“Nothing, just nerves I guess.” Ritchie and the other RATlings returned after several minutes, walking upright, no longer bothering to hide themselves. Orange and Todd got to their feet to greet them.

“Nothing,” Ritchie said with a quizzical frown. “We didn't find a damn thing. No electronic surveillance, no one besides that one bloke we already bagged, and no sign of life from the house. Something isn't right about this.”

“Maybe we got the wrong safehouse?” Todd suggested almost hopefully. “Maybe the Wizard was never even here!”

“Maybe,” Orange said doubtfully, leading the way to the front door, “and maybe not. Check it,” she commanded to one of the RATlings, who quickly went over to the door and began waving a thin black rod over it. “It's a detector to help us spot any electronic alarms or traps,” Orange explained to Todd.

“And there's nothing here,” the RATling said, stepping back from the door. “At least, nothing electronic. Your turn, Bert,” he said, gesturing for another RATling to take his place, who then began examining the door with more physical methods, to check it for wires or other old-fashioned forms of security. Again, there was nothing.

“Well, what do you say, boss?” Ritchie asked. “Do we go in, or not? You've got to admit there's something mighty strange about all this.”

Orange hesitated and then finally nodded, almost a little reluctantly. “We go in, but carefully. Everyone be alert; I still have a bad feeling about this.” The RATlings hardly needed any encouragement to be on their toes, living as they did with constant danger and violence that could overwhelm them at any moment if they weren't aware of everything around them.

Orange made up the end of the line that formed in front of the door. They would go inside in waves; wave one would consist of two of the best shooters, one moving right, the other moving left. Then Ritchie and the rest would go in, each moving in twos so they could keep up a field of fire that covered each of them. Orange and Todd would bring up the rear.

“You still don't have a gun?” Todd asked in a whisper as he unholstered his Glock.

“No, I told you, they just get in my way.” She glanced back at him. “Now put that back before you hurt anyone, namely me!”

“Sorry,” Todd muttered a little sullenly, replacing his gun. And then the time for talk was over and the time for action began.

The door was kicked open and the RATlings moved in, their submachine guns up and ready. The first room was a small, clean kitchen. It was empty, as was the living room, dining room, and the entire upstairs. The only room of interest on the ground floor was a darkened computer room that the Wizard had obviously used as his primary HQ. Orange, Ritchie, and Todd searched this room as the other RATlings went down to the basement.

“I guess he had been here,” Todd said as he glanced around the electronics filled room. “But he's definitely not here now.”

Orange grunted in response and leaned over the main computer, which was on and running. She began searching the hard drive, finding nothing. Then she began searching through the emails stored on the computer.

“Save it for the lads in intel,” suggested Ritchie, his submachine gun hanging from its sling. He felt sure that there was no human danger there.

“Yeah,” Orange said with a sigh, “they can go through this mess. I only hope the other teams are having more luck.” She was about to turn away from the monitor when there came a beep, signaling the arrival of a new email. “What the...?”

Orange leaned forward again and read the subject line. It said: “Code Red, Important Sweepstakes Information for Agent Orange!!” She opened it.

“Agent Orange,” she began reading as Todd and Ritchie leaned in to see over her shoulder. “I am flattered by your interest in me. So flattered in fact, that I am going to give you a special, once-in-a-lifetime prize! Now, keep your credit card in your wallet and your eyes on the screen, because this is a completely free, no-strings-attached, reward just for you and several of your closest friends. What is it, you ask? Well just open the attachment and find out! But this offer is only good for a limited time, and that time is short, so don't delay!”

It was signed, the Wizard.

Orange moved the mouse to open the attached file.

“Wait!” Todd said, stopping her. “You shouldn't do that, not until we know what it is. I mean, it could be a virus that erases the hard drive or something.”

“I've got to agree with Trigger on this,” Ritchie advised. “We don't know what it is.”

Orange considered this, but the temptation was too great. How had the little creep even known she would be here? “Relax,” she said, trying to sound confident. “The Wizard is a vainglorious showman; this is probably another one of his taunts, like what he left after hacking the Angel Strike. What's the worst that could happen?” She opened the attachment before any of the others could answer.

The file was an .exe, and it loaded up immediately, filling the screen with a cartoon man in billowing purple robes. The little cartoon waved his arms, the word “Presto” appeared above his head, and the screen flickered and came back in a very different manner. It showed a cartoon bomb, with an electronic timer that started at 00:15 and began ticking down immediately.

“Shit!” Orange swore as the three of them began to move at once. “Everybody out, now!” She shouted, surprising the RATlings that had just come up from their fruitless search of the basement. “Get out of here!”

They made a run for the door. Orange remembered seeing Ritchie hanging back, helping his men along, and she remembered seeing and smelling fresh air. She wasn't quite clear yet, and had just made it to the porch when her world went up in flames.

She didn't remember the explosion. Or the ear-shattering sound that buffeted her. She didn't even remember the white light that engulfed her like a thick quilt. She didn't remember being thrown through the air either, or hitting the ground and bouncing once like a beach ball until a tree painfully stopped her journey.

The last thing she remembered, before the blackness took over, was trying to get to her feet and call out for the others. How could she have been so stupid? The image of the flaming house was the last thing she saw before she collapsed, the beckoning of the shadows too great to run from any longer.

The last sound she heard, coming over her headset, was, “Christ! What happened? Commander Connelly? Is anybody alive down there?”

Sitting on a plane bound for New York, Norman Grateful, alias the Wizard, was smiling. He wondered if any one of the Code Red agents had survived his trap. Maybe, but he doubted it. He could have detonated the bomb remotely, and he would have if nothing had happened for another minute or so, but he liked the idea of one of those agents executing his program on their own. Executing, what a fitting word.

Glancing down at the image of the burning farm house, Norman Grateful turned off the special bird's eye view of the devastation he was receiving from one of the satellites he had hacked and shut his laptop down.

He needed some rest. Tomorrow was going to be a big day. That is, if he survived his flight and didn't catch some ghastly flu or other sickness from anyone here. Unclean, he thought to himself, that's what they all are.