CHAPTER ONE
Rocko
“Put your motherfuckin’ hands up, or I’ll end you where you stand, you asshole cop,” someone slurred.
Rocko had to admit this might be a record for the fastest he’d been mugged getting off a damn plane, and he had to wonder how whoever this POS was knew he was a cop. But when he looked behind him, no one was there.
“I’ll do it,” the same voice slurred even louder. “I’ll fucking fill you full of lead.”
Turning slightly to the left, Rocko looked back at his rent-a-car, behind which the sign declaring the rental company wasn’t responsible for lost or stolen goods seemed past ironic. Beside the sign stood a man with half a handcuff dangling off his right wrist. In his other hand, he held a Glock 19.
The rootin’ tootin’ cowboy was wearing what had to be the most threadbare jacket Rocko had ever seen.
In front of this joker stood a slender man in a police uniform.
The kid was no more than five years out of puberty and barely out of the academy, which spoke volumes about his empty holster and his face full of fear and frustration.
“Great. Just fuckin’ great,” Rocko muttered under his breath before setting down his duffle and approaching the driver’s door of his rental as if he was oblivious to the situation unfolding behind him.
Not only had he sat through the flight from hell on his way to New York from Texas, but now he had to deal with some drunk idiot who decided to play tough guy.
The rookie stood frozen like a deer caught in headlights.
If this was any reflection of how this trip to meet Apollo and his crew was going to play out, Rocko was inclined to head back to the terminal and suffer being pretzeled into another airplane seat.
He jingled the rental’s keys to make sure the man who’d likely already racked up enough felonies to keep him incarcerated for at least twenty years registered Rocko’s presence. The dude spun around and pointed the gun at him.
“Stay where you are,” the felon warned.
“Or what?” Rocko asked.
The guy’s glazed eyes widened, and it took him a second to register what Rocko had said.
“Better do what he says,” the rookie advised Rocko. “Don’t be a hero.”
“Yeah, that was never my strong suit. How long have you been on the job?”
“What?”
“Hey, over here,” the asshole shouted. “I’m the guy with the gun. You do what I tell you.”
“Again, or what?” Rocko twirled the keys around his finger, watching numb-nut’s pinpricked eyes zero in on the tinkling sound. Wasted, high, and stupid. The trifecta.
“Whatcha do?” Rocko looked up and pointed at one of the many cameras posted throughout the parking lot.
Since it wouldn’t be long before this bozo caught the attention of innocent bystanders, Rocko had to move this along.
Casually, he took a few steps closer, still twirling the keys.
His body was nonthreatening, as if he didn’t give the slightest fuck that he was only a few feet away from the business end of a shaking gun.
It wasn’t the first time, and he doubted it’d be the last. Slowly, he moved the keys to his right, watching as asshat’s gaze followed them.
Captivated by the movement and tinkling sound, his mind was too fucked up to look away.
Hook, line, and sinker. How the hell did the rookie manage to get outmaneuvered by someone this baked?
With a simple flick of his hand, Rocko tossed the keys into the air, and as the guy turned to follow their flight, Rocko made his move. Grabbing the gun and the guy’s wrist, he twisted his arm, took the gun, and had the genius face-planted against the wall before his keys hit the pavement.
Rocko snapped the loose handcuff around the guy’s left wrist, then handed the gun back to the rookie. “You might want to consider another line of work,” Rocko told the rook.
He didn’t need to get involved, but here he was bending to retrieve his keys at the same time a cruiser pulled up. He needed to get on the road to Ticonderoga. He was already running late.
“Get on the ground,” the second cop ordered.
Rocko spun around to find another gun pointed in his direction. He looked over at the rookie, who was busy picking the drunk up off the ground. The fact that the guy wasn’t looking at Rocko told him everything he needed to know.
“Fucker,” Rocko growled before lowering to his knees and placing his hands on the back of his head.
This shit day kept getting better and better.
***
Apollo
“You’ve gotta be shittin’ me,” Apollo spat into the phone. “How the hell? Fine. Yep. Got it.”
He disconnected the call with Brick and looked up to find Griffin not-so-patiently waiting for the update.
His SEAL team member cocked an eyebrow. “What’s up?”
“The moron got himself arrested,” Apollo grunted. “He’ll be late.”
“The detective from Florida got arrested. How the fuck did he manage that?” Griffin asked, not bothering to hide his amusement.
“Apparently, he came to the aid of a wet-behind-the-ears rookie who neglected to inform his buddies that Rocko was the good guy. He’d disarmed a guy who was holding the cop at gunpoint with his own gun in the car rental parking lot.”
“Why the hell did he bother getting involved?”
“He’s a detective. It’s in his blood. Anyway, the situation got cleared up fast enough after they confirmed Rocko’s ID and got ahold of the security video.”
“Brick said he’s on his way, so we’ve got a couple of hours before meeting him in town.”
Brick Matthews was a former Navy SEAL lieutenant commander and the head of an elite investigative group based in Texas that Apollo had encountered during a recovery mission in New Orleans. From that point forward, the two teams kept each other in the loop.
“This proves my point. We shouldn’t have some fuckin’ stranger poking his nose into our business. He should take the hint from the local PD and go the hell back to Florida. Pansy-assed beach cop.”
“The only reason I agreed to any of this was as a favor to Brick. If the guy didn’t come with a tight background, he’d be out on his ass.”
“He still might be if I get the slightest hint Dee-tec-tive Rocko isn’t the real deal.
If he’s not, he won’t have to worry about getting a return ticket.
I’ll dump his ass in the lake, and I’d make sure the pieces would be small enough to feed the fish.
” Griffin chuckled as he extended his canines and claws.
Apollo couldn’t help but grin. They’d been through hell and back over the years since they’d started fighting the Noah Group. A war with no end in sight, and more bodies piling up daily, meant they needed Dee-tec-tive Rocko’s help.
The Noah Group originated in the 1950s as a military operation aimed at creating the perfect warrior as a weapon to use against their enemies.
Unfortunately, the lead scientists, including Isabelle Noah, who, thanks to Brick and his team, were deceased, and Dr. Frauste, currently missing, didn’t follow any kind of ethical guidelines.
It had resulted in extreme mutations that crossed the spectrum from physical to mental, and what could be best described as supernatural powers in the test subjects.
The Project had been discovered and shut down by the Navy, and in an effort to make the program disappear as quickly as possible, the survivors were shipped across the globe without any consideration for their futures.
They’d been offered no help in assimilating into the non-mutant world and everyday society.
Apollo’s and Brick’s SEAL teams had encountered them and made it their mission to destroy the Project completely and intended to find the survivors and give them peace and a place to live.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Apollo said. “For now, we go forward as planned. Show him the basics, get a feel for who he really is, and go from there. We owe Brick that much.”
“The fuck with owing people. That kinda shit causes more problems,” Griffin huffed.
Apollo hated owing others anything, but in this case, Brick and his team had earned the right. They’d saved his sister, helped take down the local Noah group in New Orleans, and provided invaluable information on an ongoing basis as the number of mutants kept rising.
This raised another question plaguing Apollo: how many more survivors were waiting for help?
After a bloody battle, escaping the group’s holding facility, and gaining his freedom, Apollo had dedicated his life to this quest, and he’d been picking up survivors and team members ever since.
Some in his military group came from closed labs.
Others were former military personnel, commandos, and security-for-hire types who worked outside societal norms because they couldn’t function within conventional society.
All test subjects of a megalomaniacal desire to improve what nature had built.
“Facts are facts, whether we like them or not. We’re better off working together with them in this fight than working alone. Until that statement is proven wrong, we continue with the status quo.”
“Fine,” Griffin growled as he paced over to the office window. “But this Rocko got no claim to past debts or arrangements, and if it comes down to him or anyone on our team, then he sleeps with the fishes.”
Apollo couldn’t help but laugh at Griffin’s attempt at an Italian mafia accent. “Been watching The Godfather again?”
“No one does it better than Don Corleone. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. The man knew his shit,” Griffin said with his usual bravado.
“Yeah, yeah. If we ever find ourselves in a firefight with the mob, I’ll keep that in mind. For now, let’s go welcome our new visitor and leave Don Corleone and his mafioso friends on-screen. We’ve got enough to deal with shutting down the Noah Project.”
***
Rocko