Just Cause: Revised & Expanded Edition (12 page)

“Tornado passed away in October, and his parents wanted him buried in his hometown. Kansas City. John—” she nodded at Stone “—and Lionheart had just retired. Only Imp, Javelin, and my sister were still on the team from ’77. Your mother had retired when she became pregnant with you, and your father decided he was better suited to administrating the team than being an active member.”

“And you were leading the team then?” Sally speared a cucumber and ate it.

“Yes. We were the largest we’d ever been then. We had Fast Break, the Timekeeper, Foxfire, Danger, the Steel Soldier, and even Juice and Crackerjack—both still in college and only on the team part-time.” Echevarria shook her head in amazement as she counted them off on her fingers. “Ten—no—
eleven
of us on the team, plus your parents who were still actively involved. A real supergroup. We were the most powerful parahuman organization on the planet. We’d put away the Tyrant, the Malice Group. Parahuman violence was at an all-time low then. Nobody wanted or dared to challenge the might of Just Cause.” Echevarria paused to take a bite of her own food.

Stone took up the reins. “So there we were, all of us in Kansas City at Tornado’s funeral. Even your grandparents and their surviving American Justice teammates were attending. It was the perfect opportunity for Washington to commit his revenge against us.” He shook his head bitterly. “He threw a plane down on the funeral. He’d killed the pilot in mid-air, shut down the engines, and used his battlesuit’s strength to fling it at us from on high. We had almost no warning. If it hadn’t been for your father hearing its approach, things might have gone much worse.”

“My dad heard it?” Sally finished her salad.

Echevarria nodded. “His hearing always was exceptional. I grabbed your mother and flew her to safety. Both Fast Break and my sister tried to get your father clear.” She bowed her head. “Neither was fast enough. The plane came down on top of them.”

Sally shivered at the thought.

Stone went back to the kitchen and returned bowls filled with generous portions of spaghetti and meatballs. “At least they didn’t suffer,” he said quietly. “They most likely died instantly with the impact. A piece of debris decapitated Danger and another impaled Lionheart. Neither of them survived more than a few moments.”

“Your mother started to go into premature labor,” said Echevarria. “Fortunately Dr. Devereaux was there for the funeral. She was able to get your mother stabilized or else you might have been born three months too soon, Salena. But things had gone crazy. Everyone was running, shouting, trying to clear the wreckage away to find those who were underneath it. That’s when Destroyer arrived.”

“My mom hasn’t ever told me any of these details,” said Sally. She felt like she’d been cheated of this her whole life.

“Certainly you can understand her perspective,” said Stone with a gentle rumble. “She lost her husband, her friends, and nearly lost you. It is a very painful memory for her. I don’t blame her for not wanting to dredge up the details. It’s hard enough for me.”

“And for me,” added Echevarria. “I still miss Gloria even today. Although it’s more like the pain of an old injury when the weather changes. I’ll see something and think how I wish she could have seen it too.”

Sally wound noodles around her fork, careful not to splatter any sauce on her costume. “So then what happened?”

“Destroyer dropped out of the sky like a blue missile,” said Stone. “We didn’t know it was him yet, of course. We’d never seen a battlesuit like his before. Nobody had. The Steel Soldier warned him to surrender. Washington just transmitted a signal of some kind and the Soldier exploded. Then he said
stupid machine, I never should have fixed it in the first place
. That’s when we knew it was him.”

“We think when Washington rebuilt the Soldier back in ’77, even then he was planning on his revenge. None of us understood the technology that had gone into that robot, so we wouldn’t have been able to identify a bomb. We’re certain that after the Soldier took him down once before, Washington wanted to ensure the robot couldn’t do it a second time. Devious little bastard.” Echevarria bitterly speared a meatball. “Javelin and I cut loose on him. We were the only ones able to do so. But Destroyer was ready. He had shields to deflect my flames and Javelin’s lasers. He shot a brace of missiles at Javelin, who dodged most of them but broke his arm when he caromed off a tombstone.”

“The rest of us did what we could to help,” said Stone. “Juice tore away one of Destroyer’s guns. Estella melted another away with her plasma stream.”

Sally turned to look at Ms. Echevarria, who smiled at the memory.

“She was angry, furious at Destroyer for his temerity. She rained so much fire onto him in that suit. It’s a wonder she didn’t cook him inside it. It was as if she’d opened up the very gates of Hell. She burned the ground all around him into glass and smelted metal out of the surrounding tombstones. I was afraid for my own skin.” Stone laughed. “Something that’s almost never happened in sixty years.”

Sally set down her empty bowl and regarded Echevarria with newfound respect. She’d known the woman was one of the more powerful parahumans ever to be in Just Cause, but the way Stone described it, Echevarria might be one of the most powerful in the world. And with all that power at her disposal, she’d still elected to devote herself to teach the future generations of heroes, like Sally and her classmates. For the first time, Sally really understood the phrase
with great power comes great responsibility
. It occurred to her that her own speed abilities placed her in the top echelon of parahuman performers, and she ought to think about how else she could use those powers to benefit the greater good besides being in Just Cause.

Maybe she’d look into a position at the Hero Academy herself once she retired from Just Cause, although she figured she’d have to be old before she ever considered something like that seriously. At least thirty, she figured.

“Whatever else I did, I scared him,” said Echevarria. “He had an escape pod built into the torso of the suit. I must have done enough damage that he used it. It was like a coffin-sized missile shot out of it, driven by an intense rocket that accelerated faster than any of us could follow. The rest of the suit self-destructed and nearly caught the rest of us in the explosion.”

“Area radars hadn’t tracked him either on his incoming vector or the escape pod’s course.” Stone collected the empty bowls and headed to the kitchen with them. “We don’t know where he went after that, except certainly it was to build the next model of the Destroyer battlesuit. Does anybody want more spaghetti?”

“No thank you,” said Sally. Echevarria likewise declined.

“We only encountered Destroyer once more before we lost Headquarters on 9/11,” said Echevarria. “We were fortunate that time—nobody was killed and only a couple of us were hurt. He’d come back to New York and was gunning for us.”

“He was gunning for you,” corrected Stone. “You were the one to take the suit down in ’85. He’s always had a strong vindictiveness about him. The Soldier took him down in ’77 and Destroyer blew him up. You took him down in ’85 and he came looking for you in—what was it, ’94?”

“Yes,” replied Echevarria. “The same year I retired and handed Just Cause over to Juice. Destroyer tried to attack us in our Headquarters. Fortunately, we were able to repel him without too much collateral damage to the World Trade Center. Not that it ultimately did that much good.” A tiny curl of smoke issued from one of Echevarria’s nostrils like the fire inside her threatened to spill out.

“Easy, Estella,” said Stone.

“He hated us, hated Just Cause so much,” she said, still very much angered. “I’m sure he was jumping for joy on 9/11 when the plane hit and took out most of the team in one shot. The only downside for him would have been he wasn’t the one to take them down.”

“That’s awful,” whispered Sally.

“He’s an awful person,” said Echevarria. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d somehow had something to do with the 9/11 attacks.”

“I think you’re reaching, Estella,” said Stone in the tone of someone who’d had the same argument many times over.

“Am I? You know how long he’s carried his vendetta against Just Cause. You know the depth of his hatred. Do you really think it’s so far-fetched that he’d be involved in terrorism? He may not have been at the controls of the plane, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been involved.”

Stone sighed. “No one has ever been able to find any connection to him. And the Feds did look into it.”

“Even so, I can’t help but wonder what his next move will be.” Echevarria sat back in her chair and drank some more wine. “You don’t have any idea about that, do you, Salena?”

“No, ma’am,” said Sally. “At least, nothing I think I’m at liberty to talk about.”

Sparks danced in Echevarria’s eyes, but for only a moment. “I understand, Salena. I know I’m out of the loop now that I’m at the Academy, but perhaps you’ll let me know what happened when it’s all over? If you can take him down for good, I’d like to hear about it. It would help me to finally know my sister can rest in peace.”

Sally swallowed a nervous lump. “I’ll do my best,” she said at last. “I should probably get going. Thank you so much for talking with me today, Mr. Stone and Ms. Echevarria.”

“It was my pleasure, Sally,” said Stone. “I hope we were able to shed some light on Destroyer for you.”

“Yes, I’m glad you joined us tonight,” said Echevarria. “Please do so again.”

“I will,” said Sally. “And I’ll let you know what happens with Destroyer, so long as I’m still… I mean, if I can.”

“We understand.” Stone smiled at her.

Echevarria’s expression wasn’t quite so pleasant. “Be careful, Salena. Harlan Washington is a killer, and he won’t hesitate to kill again. I haven’t had any of my graduates die at his hands and I don’t want you to be the first.”

Sally shivered. “I won’t.”

Chapter Ten

It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

-Gautama Siddharta Buddha

January, 2004

Denver, Colorado

“I never realized just how much he hated everyone.” Sally sounded as glum as she felt. She’d just recounted to Sondra the tales told to her by Stone and Echevarria.

“Yeah, he’s really full of anger,” said Sondra.

Sally set down a report and picked up one of the recent pictures taken in Guatemala. “I wonder who the other guy in this picture is?” Sally took a sip from her lukewarm hot chocolate. She and Sondra had been perusing the Archives all morning, looking into the life and times of Harlan Washington, a.k.a. Destroyer.

They’d begun with the CIA report which placed Destroyer in Guatemala and worked backwards, tracing his appearances for the past five years. The slow progress tested even Sally’s stamina and she felt the beginnings of a headache. Finally, Sondra had leaned back from her terminal, squeezed her eyes shut and massaged her temples. “I need a break, kiddo.” She sucked down the last dregs of the black tar she called coffee. “I’m going to go stretch my wings. You keep plugging away if you want to and I’ll be back in awhile to help.”

Sally gave an absent nod as she paged through the hard copy of the CIA file. It contained four pictures of Harlan Washington. He was engaged in conversation with a tall, muscular man of indeterminate age by a shipping container in Port San José, Guatemala. The stranger was Caucasian, with hair so light in the bright sun Sally couldn’t tell if it was merely blonde or white. Inwardly she cursed the CIA stringer who’d shot the pictures for not getting better quality. She could see, for example, the corner of a vehicle in two of the pictures but nothing detailed. The writing on the shipping container was legible and therefore traceable, but not likely related to either of the men. Sally planned to research it only if she had no other leads to follow.

She set aside the picture, the face of the mysterious blond man almost mocking her with his anonymity. Instead, she selected an evaluation of Harlan Washington performed by the psychologist at the juvenile hall where he’d been consigned after his short reign of destruction upon Harlem in ’77. She began to read, careful not to skip over anything, and was so engrossed in the details she jumped when Sondra appeared next to her with foot-long sandwiches from the cafeteria.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” said her winged friend. “It’s been hours. I thought you might be getting hungry.”

Sally’s stomach rumbled as she caught a whiff of the toasted bread and tangy mustard. “Oh my, yes.” She took one of the sandwiches and took a huge bite. “Ooo are an an-hel,” she said around the mass of turkey, bacon, and provolone.

“I know. I’ve even got the wings to match.” Sondra fluttered hers for emphasis. “How’s it going?”

Sally chewed a moment, swallowed, and wiped her mouth with the paper napkin. Her stomach clenched around the food with glee. “Pretty good. Did you know my mom wrote the first report on Destroyer?” She turned the monitor so Sondra could get a closer look.

“Wow, no kidding. I was only five when this happened. You should call her up, get her personal take on the whole thing.”

“What, you mean talk to her? About this?”

“Yes, Sally. It’s all right to talk to your mother. I call mine a couple of times a week.”

“Oh.” Sally felt guilty about her reticence. She didn’t always see eye-to-eye with her mother. She supposed it was normal teenage angst and had always figured she’d get over it sooner or later. If only the woman wasn’t so unreasonable about the smallest things! “She’s never really wanted to talk about Destroyer.”

“Maybe that will change now that we’re investigating him. Surely she doesn’t want a repeat of any of his past escapades.”

“You think there’s more than what’s just in the file?”

“Look, nobody ever puts everything into a report. You’d go crazy trying to put in every little detail. Trust me, when you have to write your first, you’ll gloss over all kinds of things and forget others. But a lot of times, just rereading your words will help you remember important things that you didn’t include before.”