Mundus Novit: Dark Horizons – . . . I Would’ve Baked A Cake

In “The Stream,” Boyle and his team get jumped in Kathmandu by a crew who may work for the Chinese.

In “The Vault,” a special section of Canada’s Communications Security Establishment is monitoring Kathmandu, which has gone dark to all electronic and parapsychic traffic. Madison and Heather, two agents from the Vault, joined their international spec ops team in “Meet & Greet.” While on the trail of Boyle, the team is ambushed  by a group of parapsyches able to break through the Kathmandu silence. The team foiled the ambush, but at the end of “Dirty Hands,” they were facing the business ends of more firearms.

In “Mission Unlikely,” we learn that Boyle and his team have gone missing. Becca meets Alex in Monrovia in order to get him to come with her to Kathmandu to find Boyle. Off the record and off the reservation. Alex then goes to meet a contact in Burma in “The Russian.” Rudi the Russian agrees to supply both equipment and information for Alex’s forway into Nepal. Alex and Becca try to make contact with a prisoner in Kathmandu allegedly connected to Tangible Stream, but in “Target of Opportunity,” they find that someone is watching. That someone isn’t professional, and they capture him with ease. This doesn’t make them feel any better.

In “The Bedouin,” Kyle and Meredith from the Prospero Group contract the intelligence broker known as the Bedouin to get them a lead on what is happening in Kathmandu. The Bedouin returns to old haunts in “From Delhi With Indifference,” only to be ambushed by hit teams led by a man with a Nepalese name but an American accent. Rudi the Russian gets sent to Kathmandu to kill the Bedouin, but Boyle and “Cascade” emerge to save Rudi from “the Cat’s Reward.”

Now, Mads finds himself in the middle of a very tense situation with lots of people and lots of guns.

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Eleven:  . . . I Would’ve Baked A Cake

Mads hauled Psycho Number 2 behind him. Walker and Dyck both propelled their prisoners in front, manoeuvring them like they were driving. It’d work nice for a meat shield, but Mads just didn’t have those skills, so he dragged his guy.

Forward movement ahead of him stopped, but Mads still passed through the door. He wanted out of that coffee shop. Considering Walker had shot a guy back there, Mads expected the police to come swarming down on the place at any moment. Rather than wait politely inside the kitchen at the back of the shop, he pushed his way out into the alleyway, dragging his prisoner with him.

And right into a classic Sergio standoff.

Everyone had guns out—Heather, Walker, Dyck, some old dude and and Asian woman. Mads, however, wasn’t really thinking about the gun in his hand. He wasn’t thinking about the flex-cuffed prisoner he was hauling behind him. He wasn’t even thinking of the likelihood of getting shot should things go south. No, he was only thinking of the hot, buff, Korean-American woman aiming the sub-machine gun at Walker.

He lowered his gun. “Shit, Becca,  . . . Hi.”

Becca’s eyes narrowed, then went wide. Her sub-machine gun lowered just slightly. The Old Dude—wait, Mads remembered the face, that was the guy who was supposedly working with Boyle, the guy Walker knew—glanced at Mads, then looked at Becca.

“Friend of yours?” Alexander Scott’s tone didn’t carry any threat, no anger, no hardness. Mads though Scott sounded amused.

“We’re all friends here, right Alex?” Walker didn’t lower his MP5K. “Given that, you want to ask Lt.  Park to lower her weapon so we can all run like hell before the police show up?

A smile threatened the edges of Scott’s mouth. “Indeed. My safehouse or yours?”

“Are you joking?” Heather still had her pistol in hand. “Listen, the CIA seem to think that you’re part of some conspiracy. We’re here to bring your buddy Boyle in. The spook wasn’t so explicit about what we were to do with you.”

“Yeah, about that CIA guy.” Mads holstered his Sig. “I got here late because we got a landline connection, and it turns out the CIA are looking for us. They think we missed our briefing and are cowboying it in Kathmandu.”

“Missed our briefing?” Heather exhaled slowly through her nostrils. “We’ve been played.”

“We don’t have time for this.” Scott put his weapon away. “We have a place that’s nice a quiet to question these three.”

“No, you’ll come with us,” said Walker. “There’s questions we need you to answer as well.”

“I’ve got some bad news for you, news I don’t want to share in front of our unnamed friends here.” Scott gestured to the prisoners. “I think they’ve heard enough of our business as it is.”

Heather didn’t miss a beat, SIG trained on Scott’s chest. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

Walker lowered his MP5K, letting it hang beneath his jacket on his tactical rig. “No, I think that’s good enough for me. I know this guy. Trust me on this one.”

“On this one?” Heather put away her weapon. “You seem to be asking that a lot of me.”

And like that, the tension disappeared. Maybe not for the guys tied up and heading for interrogation, but for everyone else. Firearms disappeared. Everyone made nice.

“Lead the way,” said Walker.

Scott did just that. Becca fell in beside Mads.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.

“I have no idea.” Mads shook his head.

Psycho Number 2, the dog Mads took for a walk, stiffened. “You don’t know?”

The guy spoke perfect English. Thing was, it was too perfect. It was the perfect language with dialect that spooks got taught to match a legend. Mads filed that away, wondering if Walker or Heather had already marked it.

Mads wondered what Psycho Two in Tow might know. “Are you telling me you’ve something interesting to share?”

Psycho in Tow sneered. “You really don’t know?”

At that moment, Mads stopped. He felt  . . . felt someone ‘pushing,’ pushing on the air around him. It compressed—it seemed like the world around him compressed, tightening against his skin. He realized he looked down at his feet. He looked up. Walker had stopped also. His MP5K was out.

“Everyone down!” Walker shouted.

Mads was already diving to the side. Becca had as well. A cloud of red mist sprouted from Psycho in Tow. All the prisoners took hits. Dyck had dragged his Psycho down with him, and got tagged for his troubles.

Gunfire erupted. Everyone had weapons out. Mads did the same. Too late. Too late.

There, on the roof, a guy with an M16 and a scope. Mads realized he was the only one on that side of the street, the only one who could see the guy. The guy who was targeting Dyck—targeting Dyck who had been hit and lay in the street.

Mads gave Mr. Marksman something else to think about.

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Mundus Novit: Dark Horizons continues with “Switch of the Flick.”

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