A FEW MOMENTS LATER ON TOP OF THE PLATFORM FOR THE FLOAT. Raina had gathered up the vials as directed, putting them carefully inside a bio bag brought just for this task. It was now the explosions expert Chris Bradley’s turn. Chris took one look at the generator and informed Raina, “I have just what I need for this one—an implosion bomb.”
Raina couldn’t help but laugh, “What—you just take one with you wherever you go?”
The truth was a little more complicated than that, it was Kyle’s suggestion that such a device may be needed—but Chris went with it anyway, laughing, “Yep, don’t leave home without them.”
The work ahead was no laughing matter however, it required the intense kind of concentration that only a veteran bomb expert like Chris Bradley possessed. As Chris worked the whole world often seemed to slow down around him, until only his highly focused concentration on the task at hand remained.
Chris rummaged in his bag and pulled out a menacing looking plastic explosive, shaped like a small hockey puck, along with an ignition key which when placed inside, would start the chain reaction leading up to the explosion.
Raina remarked, “I hope you know what you are doing Chris…”
Chris Bradley was all confidence and bravado as he bluntly offered, “I do.”
Bradley then stuck the puck right under the generator, and plugged the ignition key in before calmly, but loudly shouting, “Ok—get back. Time to go.”
Raina and Chris then hopped off the platform and waited for the fireworks a short distance below. Just seconds later, they heard a sizzle, pop, and then an odd sounding boom that seemed somehow distorted as the whole generator seemed to disintegrate in reverse, completely folding in on itself. Chris grinned, “Another successful implosion—I love it.”
Just then Raina noticed a familiar face. Down in the crowd below was a man dressed in an Armani suit. She immediately realized that it was the same exact guy that they had spotted at the abandoned church. She told Chris as much as she pointed at the guy, “Chris—it’s one of the suspects!” Raina realized in retrospect that pointing and yelling may not have been the best tact, since it only prompted the man to turn around and run in the other direction.
Nevertheless, Chris and Raina leapt off the float and began tearing their way through the crowd to the suspect. They lucked out when Mr. Armani reached a road block. Chris then closed the distance between them and managed to grab a hold of the man’s collar. As several spectators attempted to get away however, he was able to jerk loose.
Raina hearing the loud ripping of fabric looked up to see Chris Bradley holding onto a chunk of fabric ripped from the man’s suit, but Mr. Amani himself was nowhere in sight. In the end, all of the suspects—quite literally in some cases—had managed to elude their grasp.
20
Back to the Old Drawing Board
AFEW HOURS LATER BACK AT THE ONYX COMMAND CENTER IN NYC. The group is seated at a conference table with General Thomson at the head. The cantankerous old General was looking through the latest reports from the debriefing memo that Kyle had compiled. After a moment of silence which for the Onyx team members seemed to take a small eternity, the General finally asked, “So you have the virus in your custody?”
Without saying a word, Mason got up and opened a nearby minifridge and pulled out the biobag containing the sealed vials of the virus. Watching him as he did so Thomson remarked, “I hope you don’t keep your lunch in that fridge.” Mason handing him the bag of biological agent sarcastically replied, “No sir, we don’t keep our ham salad in here—just weapons of mass destruction.”
Holding up the bag in the light, Thomson smirked, “You double bagged it—good thinking Mason.”
Mason grunted, “Just don’t expect me to bag your groceries later.”
Thomson slightly chuckled, “Right”.
Even though he was playing it cool, Mason was slightly amazed that he was getting along so well with Thomson. There were many other occasions in which he could have sworn that the General had it out for him. But now they were cutting up like old friends. Mason wasn’t sure what the winds of fate had in store for him, but for the moment he seemed to be riding high.
As Mason pondered these happenings, General Thomson quietly turned the bag around in his hands as if he were some kind of expert pathologist examining a new specimen. In reality of course, Thomson new next to nothing about such things, but he seemed to be taking an active interest in the deadly pathogens all the same.
Staring at the vials he quietly remarked, “It’s hard to believe that just one of these could have killed hundreds—truly frightening.”
Placing the biohazard bag of Ebola in his briefcase, Thomson then abruptly got up and went to the door as he barked out to everyone assembled, “I’m going to have this processed in the lab, I’ll get back with you guys tomorrow.”
Mason slightly annoyed by the abruptness, asked, “Is that it?”
Thomson then turned and smiled, “Oh—and great job.”
With that, he simply turned, and walked out. Leaving the Onyx team to wonder what it all might mean. Raina looked over to Mason with a knowing smile on her face as she silently mouthed the word, “Wow”.
Marshal Oliver was happy too, as he announced, “This is probably the best you guys have done…” He laughed, “You have now officially moved from being the B-Team to a true A-Team.”
This remark inspired Kyle to geekily reference the 1980’s TV show of the same name, as he commented, “Wow we’re the A-Team…” He then could help but offer up his best Mr. T impersonation, as he declared, “I pity the fool.”
Kyle quickly realized that this wasn’t one of his comic con conventions
