Action Figures - Issue Five: Team-Ups by Michael C Bailey

Author:Michael C Bailey
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Innsmouth Look Publishing
Published: 2016-02-02T23:00:00+00:00

4.

Colonel Coffin was not happy that Manticore got away — or as she put it, that I let Manticore get away.

Manticore slipped away by flying low, a tactic that allowed him to avoid radar and thwart the two Stafford jets circling overhead (Air National Guard fighter jets are not well suited for low-altitude enemy engagement). I don’t have that excuse, so when the colonel called me in the next day for my debriefing, she let shared her displeasure over my “highly questionable decision” at top volume and demanded to know why I let Manticore walk away.

With the utmost respect, I said to her, “Colonel, if you have any recommendations for disabling the low-yield nuclear device built into Manticore’s suit, I’d sincerely love to hear it.”

She didn’t have an answer.

That didn’t keep her from yelling at me for another five solid minutes, though.

Edison returns home on Saturday, as scheduled, but I give him the day to recuperate from the long flight. I call him Sunday after lunch, and I get as far as, “I ran into Manticore” before he calls me in to HQ.

Edison and Bart greet me at HQ and hustle me into the conference room for debriefing. “Tell me everything,” Edison says.

“I’ll do better than that,” I say, and I hand him my headset.

“You recorded it.”

“I started rolling video the second we landed,” I say.

Edison synchs my headset to the giant TV at the far end of the conference room and settles in for the show. I expect a barrage of questions afterwards. Instead, Edison and Bart sit there in silence, brows knit.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I was hoping to get something useful out of him, but —”

“Don’t apologize, Carrie,” Bart says. “This is a gold mine.”

“It is?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but this is hardly worthless. Did you catch that Charlie Foxtrot crack?” Edison says to Bart.

“Oh, yes.” I look a question at him. “Charlie Foxtrot is military slang for — uh, well, to put it delicately, it’s a euphemism for a not nice word.”

Jeez, guys, I’m a high school student, not a nun.

“I’ve heard civilian pilots use the term as well, but given his skill set, my guess is Manticore is former military,” Edison says. “Maybe Air Force or Air National Guard, considering how comfortable he is in the sky.”

“And you saw his hands when Carrie needled him about prison.” Bart turns to me. “What was it he said to you when you clashed over New York?”

“Something like he’d rather blow himself up than spend one more second of his life in prison,” I say, doing my best to recall the moment.

“A veteran and an ex-con,” Edison muses. “That doesn’t exactly narrow the field of suspects down to a manageable number, but it’s more intel on Manticore than we had before.”

“He also likes The Fifth Element,” I point out, “but that probably isn’t very helpful.”

“People like Manticore are a puzzle,” Bart says. “Individual pieces might not make sense taken all by themselves, but if you get enough of the pieces.

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