Joe vs low tier Closers

Doors opened in both cars. Front doors, both sides. Four men got out. All of them tall, all of them in black suits with crisp white shirts, nondescript ties, sunglasses. Their jackets were unbuttoned and there was a slight breeze, however each man used one hand to keep the jacket flaps closed.

“Uh-oh,” I said to Ghost. Actually I said, “Rut-roh,” in my best Scooby-Doo voice.

Ghost straightened and looked out of the windows, turning to look in front and behind us.

The agents closed in on my Explorer. Two on the passenger side, two on the driver side. The point man removed his identification wallet and held it out as he approached my window. Ghost growled softly, the ridge of hair on his spine standing as straight as a wire brush. He bared his teeth, four of which were made of gleaming titanium—replacements for the ones he’d lost on the Red Order gig in Iran. Ghost loves biting things with those chompers. He’s never hugely friendly with strangers at the best of times and right now he was picking up my tension. This car stop had “wrong” written all over it. It was weird, it was unexpected, it was improper and today wasn’t the day for that shit. I gave Ghost a couple of get-ready-but-wait commands.

I rolled my window down one quarter of an inch. Enough for sound, not enough for any hanky-panky. The glass is bullet-resistant. I’m not.

“Federal agents,” said the point man. He was a medium-size guy with a beaky nose and hardly any lips. All I could read on the ID were the three big letters that my boss insists do not stand for “Fart, Barf, and Itch.”

I slapped my ID against the glass. I’d dug a set of NSA credentials out of the glove box. Since these guys were FBI, I wanted to both trump them and also play home-court advantage—and the NSA is based in Fort Meade here in Maryland. The DMS doesn’t have ID cards or badges being one of those “we’re so secret we don’t officially exist” things.

Beaky Nose barely looked at my credentials. “Federal agents,” he repeated. Which, in the circumstances, was kind of a silly thing to say.

“Me, too, friend,” I said coldly. “I am responding to a matter of national security. Please move your car.”

He did not acknowledge my statement in any way. Instead he said, “Please step out of your vehicle.”

“Sorry, did you miss the part where I said that I’m with the National Security Agency? Perhaps you’ve heard of us? Bunch of officious pricks with way too much authority? Including the authority to tell you to back the *bleep* off and let me go about my business.” Just to be pissy I gave him a toothy smile and added, “Please.”

Beaky Nose opened his jacket and laid his hand on the butt of the pistol clipped to his belt. “Please step out of your vehicle, sir. Don’t make me ask you again.”

“You just did,” I said. “You made yourself say it again.”

Beaky Nose didn’t seem to know how to answer that. While he was sorting it out I opened the door and stepped out. He stepped back, his hand still on his pistol. I was wearing jeans and an unbuttoned Orioles shirt over a thermal undershirt. My Beretta was in a quick-draw shoulder rig, out of sight but in easy reach. The second agent, a beefy man with black hair and an Italian face came around from the far side of the car and stood a few feet behind me and to my right. My car door was still open, and it formed a nice barricade between us. The guys from the follow car, a scarecrow with sallow skin and a black guy with a precisely trimmed mustache and a gleaming bald head, stood behind me and to the left. Maybe six feet behind me. Almost but not quite the right distance to stay out of my range. Ghost stood up on the seat, but I kept him in place with a small hand sign. I left the door open, though, just in case things got creative out here. Ghost makes a great party crasher.

“We need you to come with us,” said Beaky Nose.

“Why?” I asked.

“We need you to come with us.”

He repeated the comment with exactly the same deadness of voice. No emotion, no inflection.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

He didn’t answer.

“Let me see that ID again.” Beaky Nose didn’t answer. He stared through the black lenses of his sunglasses. I couldn’t see his eyes at all, not even the outline of them through the opaque lenses. It was a sunny morning, but the street we were on was shadowed by the tall buildings on either side. I was surprised he could see with such dark glasses.

“We need you to come with us,” repeated Beaky Nose. It was almost robotic. Lifeless.

Yeah, it was a little bit scary.

The whole setup was scary.

And it was all wrong.

“Listen to me,” I said, “I’m a federal agent and I’ve been called in on a matter of national security. Unless you have a warrant, then detaining me is a federal crime. Now, you’re going to get into your cars and I’ll get into mine. You’re going to move your cars so I can get around you. Are we understanding each other here?”

Beaky Nose looked at the Italian, then over to the Scarecrow and Baldy. Then he looked at me again. There was no flicker of expression on his face. He did not repeat his favorite catchphrase. He did not, in fact, say a goddamn word.

Instead he went for his gun.

Up till that moment I’d hoped that this encounter wasn’t as weird and threatening as it seemed. And, up till that moment Beaky Nose had a chance of ending the day without severe physical discomfort.

That moment passed.

I kicked Beaky Nose in the nuts with the tip of my shoe. Very, very hard. I have big feet and my shoes have steel toes. This is never good news for the sorry son of a bitch whose balls get in the way of my rage issues.

He screamed loud enough to crack glass.

“Ghost—hit!” He launched himself out of the car like a snarling white torpedo as Scarecrow moved in on me. They went down hard and messy. I slammed the half-open car door into the Italian, jolting him to a sudden stop, I whipped the door shut and jumped at him with a short-range front kick, crunching the flat of my foot onto the front of his thigh. It knocked his leg way too straight and way too hard and the leverage bent him in half and sat him forcefully down on his ass. Even as his tailbone tried to drill a hole in the asphalt, I pivoted my hips, cocked my leg and gave him a flat-of-the-heel side thrust right above the eyebrows. I’m pretty sure he was in happy land before the back of his head hit the blacktop.

Then I whirled to see the bald guy caught in a moment of indecision—help Scarecrow or go for me. He spun and went for the dog. Wrong choice. I reached him in two fast strides, grabbed his collar and jerked him backward off his feet. His gun went flying straight up into the air. I twisted my hip and dropped into a crouch, using the torque and downward weight shift to slam Baldy’s back against the ground with a meaty thud. Air burst from his open mouth, and before he could take the next breath I leaned over and drove a two-knuckle punch into his solar plexus. He made a strangled screech and lay there, gasping and twitching like a gaffed marlin.

“Off!” I called, and Ghost released Scarecrow’s bleeding arm. Ghost’s metal teeth had done impressive damage. The man screamed in pain. I knotted my fingers in Scarecrow’s hair, half lifted him and used my other hand to punch him in the face twice, breaking nose and mashing lips. He went out like a light and I let him drop.

I spun, crouched, ready for more.

But there was no more.

The Italian and Scarecrow were out; Baldy was trying to figure out that whole breathing thing, and it was going to take him a while to remember the rules. That left Beaky Nose, who was curled into a fetal ball. As I approached him he tried to wriggle away, but we both knew that wasn’t going to happen. I felt something give when I’d kicked him. Probably his pelvis.

-Extinction Machine: Kindle Location 1363-1431