"Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained."

1^st Duke of Wellington
To Lady Shelly
1815

"Christ, what a freak!" the voice of the young officer filtered through Dack Shannon’s ear-communicator. "Who is that damned guy?"

Dack didn’t look over his shoulder as he heard the young man’s superior officer quiet him. Not every US Marshal assigned to central Illinois was conscious of sleeper agents like Dack. Granted, Dack Shannon’s unusual appearance certainly wouldn’t merit the cover of GQ.

"Shut your hole, kid! He’s the forward team so we all don’t look like a-holes in this matter!" the older US Marshal’s gruff voice resounded in the communicator sounding not unlike a macho fly to Dack. His pink albino eyes scanned the cornfield and saw no other flies, though. The voice pounded on and said, "You know they send in the shadow government spooks when the bad crap comes down!"

"But Christ, sir! Why did they send a freaking ghost?"

Being a MAJESTIC Agent assigned to the middle of nowhere for the first time was a rough task, Dack noted, especially when one was an albino. This fact alone made it difficult to blend in. Paying the young man in his earpiece no mind, Dack headed into the cornfield on a late summer night. He accessed the youth’s ignorance as vast and knowledge of those from Majestic Services as nil.

While Dack navigated the dry corn stalks, he reasoned that the other officer on the link was correct. The Attorney General wanted to make certain a drug operation actually existed in the target area before the Marshals moved in. It wouldn’t be good for the government leaders to appear foolish if all information proved false. Blowing up an innocent farmer’s tool shed smacked of bad P.R. Dack’s assignment in central Illinois could be labeled Insurance Man this night.

Another US Marshal in the silent helicopter whispered in the comm. line, "Ya never saw that guy, kid. Ya will get a lot older if ya forget him. He doesn’t exist. Buggers like him only come out at night."

"Crude, but very true," Dack muttered, pushing sharp edged corn stalks away from his alabaster face. The US Marshals would receive the credit for this huge drug bust on a secluded farm, but Dack would be the one who got his hands dirty. The nameless, faceless agent from Majestic Services, a finger of the intelligence community buried far too deep to find, would be their forward team of one.

Hundreds of ethereal voices unrelated the men in the chopper hummed in Dack’s ears, and he buried them. These were the reminders of why he was exiled to Illinois duty late that summer of 1996. His mistake, his sin, and his cross to bear left these hundreds of souls free of their bodies. Eventually, they would go away like the fiery embers of their demise. Now, it was time for Dack to begin his penance.

The Marshals normally wouldn’t have needed a man from Majestic Services, but this case was a little different. One of the largest junction areas for the distillation and distribution of crack cocaine and meth-anphedamine was in this huge metal machine shed in front of Dack. Six miles outside of rural Emington, Illinois, this simple, harmless appearing locale was on a back road a hundred miles south of Chicago. It certainly didn’t look like the hub of drug production, Dack mused as he glided through the stalks, unable to hear the choppers overhead in whisper mode. US Marshals could easily remedy this situation, save for one element: The man running the venture, Greg Pennington, was a former agent of the NSA. A paranoid driver for Pennington’s operation squealed when stopped for a speeding ticket. The monkey on his back got the best of him and he screeched for mercy, spilling more guts than a double shift at a slaughterhouse. When Pennington’s name went to a common computer file, the computer hackers of Majestic Services took notice.

"Taking down a Company man in a broad based drug net is a dangerous thing," Dack’s boss, Hank, told him gruffly hours before the raid. "See that he is taken care of properly."

Dack recalled Greg vaguely. In the walls of his memory, Pennington stood out as a big man, sort of mouthy, but a good-natured fellow for a Red Sox fan. His specialty used to be neckties. Greg had a gift for double throat cuts and "cloning" gang wars…thus other gangs blamed each other for his activities, thus causing gangland strife to further confuse the drug trade. Greg picked up the pieces of this vocation when the leaders destroyed themselves, apparently.

No moon shown this cool night in early September and Dack enjoyed his invisibility in the parched rows of corn in his black boots, pants, shirt, trench coat, and fedora. Stopping at the edge of the cornfield, Dack peered into the expansive yard of Pennington’s farm property. The metal huge shed that supposedly held the drug lab was very close to where Dack paused. Beyond the shed Dack perceived a standard two story white farm house with a green shingled roof, a shabby two car garage and a rusty swing-set. Nearby, a vast pasture stretched out containing a few horses, oblivious to the universe.

Dack thought that the average look provided a good cover. "Neighbors would never know," Dack murmured at the sight. Pick-up trucks with toppers on left the gravel lane, knowledgeable of the fact that these wouldn’t arouse suspicion in central Illinois. Whatever their cargo was it would be safe until they drove far away. Trucks pulling horse trailers wouldn’t be suspected either. He noted two of these present on the property. Dack grimaced as he looked at the swing-set, recalling that Pennington did have two young kids when he left the NSA…or that is what his file said. "Hell is war," Dack muttered to no one. His voice traveled over the communicator, but Dack didn’t care. Let them puzzle out what he meant.

More incoming long horse trailers navigated the section of Pennington’s property near the pasture. Dack watched several men unload horses from these trailers, carry boxes out from the tool shed to install in the front of the trailers and then reload the horses. As these men drove the trucks out of the yard, Dack slipped on a pair of sunglasses that were actual Night Vision goggles and stared straight up into the pitch-black night. He could barely see the green signature from the Black Anastazi helicopter as it watched over the operation. This chopper was above those from the federal government and was from MAJESTIC Services proper.

In his ears he heard a low voice tell him, "Clear, Dack."

The helicopter high above in whisper mode confirmed that Dack would be safe to go into the open. Slipping out of the field and over to the backside of the metal shed, he made no sound.

Hank wanted this matter scrubbed up smartly and he was leaving no stone unturned—i.e. the Anastazi helicopter. Dack thought it very hypocritical that Hank only wanted this affair cleared away when Pennington’s name came up. Suddenly, Hank desired the sanctity of mid-American life kept pristine and rogue agents of the intelligence field silenced. Dack, well aware that there were no righteous men to work for, let it all go. He also saw the evil of humanity every day and was well aware that Majestic Rule was a purer form of justice. Did Hank care about the drug lab? In a broad sense Dack thought his superior did. Hank had other irons in the forge and this was a minor league annoyance. Hank would never agree to take something like this out if it didn’t benefit him or Majestic Services.

Dack turned around one corner of the shed and came face to face with a tall man in a black t-shirt and jeans. This man froze, sucked air in his nose and opened his mouth. Before a sound came out of him, Dack punched him in that open maw with a leather-clad fist. The tall man flew back as the agent from Majestic Services pummeled him repeatedly in his face and gut. Every blow that fell Dack felt a bone crack or break. As the big man in the t-shirt went to his knees Dack pistol-whipped him across the cranium with the handle of his silver auto-magnum. The man went down with a grunt and passed out. Quickly, Dack felt on the man for a weapon, found a 9mm Glock in the back of his pants and that his heart raced. When Dack peeled up one of his eyes to see how dilated it was the man convulsed, flailing at Dack with both arms. Dack smashed him between the eyes with the Glock and sent him into darkness again.

"Damned fool," Dack snorted, wiped the blood on the Glock on the man’s shirt and pocketed the weapon in his trench coat.

He eased about the wall of the shed as he screwed a silencer on the end of the barrel of his silver plated auto-magnum. There were three newer model GMC pick-ups near the door of the building. Light bathed the back ends of these trucks from the open doors. Dack did a small circle, seeing that there was no form of cover to hide behind. He hugged the wall as a few men walked out of the opening. These men loaded in several small suitcases and a few long flat boxes into the trucks. Dack’s pink eyes widened for he knew that no drugs were in the long boxes. These were likely carrying cases for rifles.

"C’mon," one of the men told his two comrades as they headed back into the shed. None looked Dack’s way. "We’ll see if Senator Meyers ever gets my attention again after tomorrow."

"Ya think?" one of the other men replied with a laugh.

"Sure," the lead man extolled. "He’ll know a wax-job when he sees it. He’ll know that his daughter travels the same route on the same train every Monday to SIU. He’ll also recall just whom he screwed with recently in this area and know my background. That rich sucker will think twice before jerkin’ me off!"

"Where’s Zeb?" one of them asked the man giving out the orders.

"Dunno. He went out to smoke one. Don’t see him."

"This operation is kinda rough, man."

"Don’t worry about the fall for this one. The Hoosier’s truck we are using will take the rap for Meyer’s little girl. I used to be a spook, kids. We never are the ones who do what we did."

Sounds like a spook, too, Dack thought. He couldn’t get a good look at the tall man but Dack guessed this person was Pennington.

Dack’s mind churned, remembering that Eli Meyer was a Senator from Illinois and indifferent to the Intelligence community. If anything Meyer voted the line when it came to defense spending. Dack wondered what these guys had in for Meyer, a Jewish man with rumored, but no real ties to the Ultra-Zionist movement in Israel. Were they Neo-Nazis? They didn’t seem to fit the bill to Dack. Whatever Meyers did to anger Pennington would be a mystery for another day, he sighed to himself.

They stepped inside the shed, but Pennington came back out. It registered in Dack’s eyes that this man bore a similarity to the man he just knocked out. Were they brothers? Refusing to care about the puzzle, Dack raised his pistol and aimed at Pennington’s head. Greg’s eyes went right to Dack and he wore a confused look just as Dack pulled the trigger. But when Dack fired, one of the men came out of the shed holding a long weapon’s case. The bullet intended for Greg Pennington struck the left temple of this man’s head. There was no small hole nor enormous exit splash of brains for Dack used a rubber bullet, a "mercy" slug. The silenced round concussed the man, twisting him around and causing him to drop the case. Greg stumbled back into the shed shouting alarms to anyone who cared to listen.

When Dack drew out his Beretta automatic with his other hand and stepped into the light of the doorway, he saw a far more grandiose sight than he previously expected. The floor of the metal shed was non-existent. A chamber twenty feet deep had been hallowed out beneath the metal structure giving these men in denim and t-shirts ample room to set up their drug labs, purifying area and distribution center. Dack saw dozens of men working below him, many having masks over their mouths and smocks of their bodies. The tall albino moved away from the door of the shed as a bullet was fired in his direction.

As he leapt to one side he saw Greg run down a metal catwalk that ran about the interior of the shed leading down into the lower chamber. Dack leaned on the wall, popped the cylinder of mercy bullets out of his silver auto-mag and inserted real hollow points. He licked his bottom lip, thought about how many men were in the chamber and grabbed the tiny black device on his belt. This object generated a signal to the US Marshals to say that the situation had changed. He didn’t feel much like explaining it over the communicator.

Dack’s heart was steady as he theorized if Hank knew what these fools were up to in relation to Senator Meyer’s daughter.

Then with another sigh, Dack went to work.

* * *

In the bottom corner of the dug out lab beneath the metal shed Dack Shannon stood in the corner. He was out of the way and staring placidly at the ceiling through thick sunglasses as the US Marshals did their work. Greg Pennington sat in a metal folding chair ten feet from Dack, his hands cuffed behind him, two US Marshals doing interrogation. All about them the team from the BATF scoured the labs, removing all drugs, distilling equipment, computers and bodies.

Pennington’s eyes darted from his two interrogators in filtered masks and often fell on Dack. Greg sweated, told them little and often wore a snide look.

Through all the commotion about them Dack watched the BATF men break open a false floor revealing a cellar cache. Dack observed them removing dozens of semi-automatic rifles and automatic handguns. Bewilderment spread in his mind as to where these guns were all going now, but quickly banished this thought for it was none of his affair.

"I’m not tellin’ ya anything!" Pennington screamed, aiming his voice at Dack. "Yeah, yeah, ya scare me, ya big piece of crap! C’mon! I know ya can only do so much to me! Take me away and get it over with! Ya know I have immunity!"

Dack took off his glasses and looked at him. The US Marshals parted a little, but Dack didn’t move forward.

Pennington went on. "Yeah, I now what ya do to bad boys from the agency like me! There is no real retirement plan, eh? Once a company man, always a company man? Well, screw ya! Maybe I was funding my own company with all of this and they are getting to be as strong as yours, Send me away, and do the evil that ya do! Dissect my brain in one of your underground labs. Go on! Reprogram me. Ooooo! Scary! Good freakin’ luck!"

Dack stepped closer to him and then glanced about the room again. It was then that he counted just how many men in white were hauling out bodies, lots of bodies. None of which fell at the hand of a US Marshal. None of these spirits haunted him for they were guilty. The innocents plaguing Dack’s soul were hiding for now. His pink eyes returned to Greg and he smiled. Dack could see that his shark-like grin unnerved Greg, but the former NSA man tried to remain strong.

"Really?" Dack stated as he put his hands in his pockets.

Greg ground his teeth and then asked, "Why are ya here, in the middle of no-place? Out of the way for a guy like you! Who did you piss off to draw this assignment in the armpit of the universe?"

Dack kept smiling and raised his right eyebrow. "I was bad."

"Screw you!" Greg snapped, his face locked in an angry mask. "Wipe out my little syndicate, but others go on. Why else do ya think it was out in the boon-docks, huh? Chicago trash would be stopped right away out here! The good white folks trust good white folks…so it was easy to dupe them to make products and guns for their good white kids! Ever wonder why that is so easy, Mr. Dude in Black? We all know that this is the opiate of the lower classes and I’m just helping the grand scheme! So what if that Senator didn’t wanna play ball! Better not arrest me, bud, ya may be up-settin’ the apple cart! Ever think that maybe I’m doin’ a secret part of the Agency’s business? Crank out the crank, the crack and the coke for the kiddies and BAM! Ride ‘em cowboy! Gotta fund them budget cuts in with something! Maybe I’m in on the grand design to screw this land royal and drive it into the ground! Ever wonder that?"

"I wonder a lot of things," Dack stated plainly as he drew out his auto-magnum from his shoulder holster and aimed it at Greg’s forehead. The US Marshals didn’t move.

Greg smiled.

Dack went on. "The plans have changed, agent Pennington. You have me confused with someone who is about to arrest you."

* * *

Dack walked out into the country air and placed his warm pistol into his left shoulder holster. He turned his eyes up to the sky, then over at the horses dancing about and indeed, wondered things. As the young US Marshall went on all fours in the dirt by the shed, vomiting, the older Marshall helped two men drag out Greg Pennington’s body. The senior Marshal glanced at Dack and said so he could hear, "I hate it when they resist arrest like that." Dack said nothing, comprehending that the older Marshal would justify everything--chaste, sterile and tidy. No one would ever know that Pennington even survived the attack…an attack that would be blamed on rival drug gangs that attacked just as the BATF swooped in. The older guy was on the party line and Dack never once doubted his resolve. No information could be gained from Pennington so Hank wanted him silenced so he could never embarrass is intelligence community. The officer puking up his guts had a bit more to live with, Dack wagered, but he was young. This kid would learn to live with death and lies.

The Senator’s daughter would be saved, Dack would insure and Meyer would never know the name Dack Shannon. Dack wouldn’t want him to. None of these officers would ever see Dack again, he mused. Would he be a story told to others over beer or pondered over someday in a nursing home? Either way those who heard the tale would never believe it. Such was the curse of being legend.

In the cool, clean air of mid-America, Dack wondered more things…like how there would ever be enough room in Hell. He wondered how some men went to great lengths to disprove Hell and found inner peace that way. Dack believed in Hell. He thought about it a great deal.

Sometimes, it made him feel cold.

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