None of the characters portrayed here are meant to portray any real people or bartenders, and no offence is meant towards same. Can't you take a joke?
He went up the stairs, paid his money, and walked into the club.
The bar was dark and depressing; after the comparative brightness of The Hatchet, downstairs, he found himself blinking in the gloom, waiting for his eyes to adjust.
Hell of a place to arrange the drop, thought Crowley, and scowled. Motherfuckers oughta pay extra just for having to hang out with geeks like this.
He looked around and saw a sea of nearly identically made up, androgynous figures standing, but mainly sitting around in the mopey poses that he supposed we de rigeur for these people.
Sweet Satan, I need a drink. Clutching his attache case in one hand, Crowley made his way towards the bar, feeling the patrons' collective gazes boring into his back.
"What the fuck do you want?" demanded the barman, as if his mere prescence was a deadly insult not only to him but to his honour and his entire family as well. Crowley mollified the guy by ordering a very expensive and mind liquefying drink known as a U.N. resolution- equal parts Bourbon, Vodka, and Absinthe thrown into a small glass of tonic water. He sipped at his drink and nearly gagged, then ordered up a beer as well.
"Not good enough for you, eh, your majesty?" said the bartender, pulling a pint which he then spat in. "Here you go." Crowley just shut up and payed, not needing the trouble. He had more important things on his mind as he settled down to watch the door.
The sound system was blasting out some kind of techno-medieval dirge to the accompaniment of a full male voice choir and eerily ringing church bells. A mopey figure in a full length trench coat was gyrating around the dance floor like he had just been nerve gassed, as the DJ snapped open another CD and cocked her head to listen to a pair of headphones she had in the other hand.
Goths. I hate 'em. thought Crowley as he sipped his drink, and glanced at his Rolex to find out exactly how much longer he'd have to put up with this crap, only to find that his contact was already two minutes late.
Another five minutes, he promised himself, then I'm walking out of here. As the time for the deal ticked by, drops of sweat gathered on his forehead like metallers at an Iron Maiden concert. Against his will, he found himself passing the time by considering what all the things that could go wrong, the least of which was being stood up and the worst that he might actually have to activate the thing he had in his attache case.
Just stay cool, Billy-boy, he told himself as he glugged at his sputum-laced beer. Just hang out, make the deal, and fuck off, about five million bucks richer. All you have to do right now is wait… and in fact, here he comes right now.
It was so; his contact, Hartz, was at the door and haggling with the ticketers. Eventually he bounded in, his natural enthusiasm making him seem like a bunny rabbit in a morgue amongst the perpetually depressed denizens of the club.
At the bar Hartz pumped his hand enthusiastically and ordered a drink while Crowley bitched to him about the choice of meeting place. "Why the hell did we have to meet here, for crap's sake?" he asked. "Why?"
"Are you kidding? This place is great. No aggro, no beer boys, and, best of all, who the hell would get anything out of a listening device or rifle mike with that racket going on?"
"Point taken." said Crowley, mollified. "Now can we get to it?"
"Sure." grinned the other man, pointing to a spot some metres behind Crowley. "We can talk in the back room, it's more… private."
He followed the perky buyer into a plushly appointed chamber set almost opposite the entrance, at the near end of the bar. It was deserted and had just enough noise leaking into it from the main bar-room to foil any of the listening devices Hartz seemed so paranoid about. They plomped themselves down on a sofa at the far end of the room and began negotiations.
Crowley put his attache case on the coffee table and opened it for inspection. "One portable nuclear device, yield approximately five kilotons. Classic KGB design. Perfect condition." He turned his gaze to the other, who was already in love. "What have you got for me?" he asked.
"I'll have to Geiger it first." replied Hartz, reaching into his coat.
Crowley went for his gun. "I said, what have you got for me?", he demanded, his hand brushing the grips of his automatic.
"Hey, it's cool. May I get something from my pocket?"
"Go ahead."
Hartz brought out a small, velvet lined box, which he opened to reveal a test tube, which he took out and set down next to the nuke.
"What the fuck is that?" demanded Crowley, seething with rage.
"Concentrated culture of smallbox-B and Ebola virus. Both of them have been extensively genetically modified; there is no vaccine and no cure." He put his feet up on the table. "Hardcore as fuck."
As if by magic, the bartender appeared at the door and dashed towards them. "Get your filthy feet off my bloody table you bastard!" he yelled, and swept Hartz's legs off the coffee table, taking the vial with them.
The two arms dealers held their breath as the vial full of bioweapons toppled, in slow motion, towards the plush carpeting. In a flash Hartz reached out and grabbed it from gravity's lethal embrace.
"Christ." he breathed, and set it down on the table again. The irate bar steward, oblivious to what he had done, was rushing around the room picking up glasses and muttering things like "Bastards. Never bloody clean up after themselves. Bloody hell. What do they think I am, a flipping servant?" under his breath. Finally he left and they resumed their conversation.
"Kinda small, ain't it?" said Crowley, not impressed.
"Hey, it'll kill a lot more people than your crappy little nuke. If you survive the smallpox, the Ebola will get you, and vice versa of course. In fact, one could say it's potential was… limitless." Hartz lit a John Player Special and smiled.
"How do I know it works?"
"How do I know what you're giving me works?"
"You've got the Geiger. I'd need a major biology lab to test this shit out."
"You could have faked the bomb. Used hospital waste instead of plutonium, or left the trigger somewhere else."
"Look, I'm sorry, but I cannot accept a vial of water in exchange for a nuclear bomb. I'll just take the money, if that's all right with you."
"Your loss." Hartz shrugged and was just reaching into his coat for a bundle of extremely high denomination banknotes when Crowley pulled out his gun.
"OK, fun's over asshole. This conversation has been recorded and you are under arrest."
"What the fuck?" said Hartz, hand frozen inside his jacket. "Who the hell are you?"
"Agent William Crowley, M.I.5. Take your hand out of your coat real slow and put 'em up."
The other man obeyed, but not before pressing the button on the concealed radio device that summoned half a dozen highly trained and extremely pissed off Al-Quieda militants from the curtained alcove by the settee. As they cocked their weapons and pointed them at his head Crowley, a true professional, didn't turn around to look but kept his gun and his gaze trained on Hartz.
"Come on Crowley, give it up." said the buyer smugly. "These guys are hard core, they'll blow your head off even if it means you do shoot me, so let's just talk, OK? You could have a lot of fun with five million dollars."
"Yeah, but I'd kind of like to live to spend it. No dice, asshole."
Hartz looked shocked. "I ain't kidding, pal. Just put the gun away and we'll have a nice chat, otherwise we're both gonna die."
"I don't think so." said Crowley. "I've got a radio controlled detonator in that thing. It telemetries to my vital signs, so if you kill me, your buddies lose the their lives and the nuke, not to mention a couple of kilometres of surrounding real estate."
"Bullshit." said Hartz. "If you've done that you couldn't possibly be an intelligence officer. They just don't work that way."
"I'm not." said Crowley, and keeping his gun trained on the other man, opened his coat to reveal a complex of wired-together electronic devices strapped to his chest. The effect was dramatic. The militants, who had surrounded the two in a loose semi circle around the sofa, backed away in shock. As it happened none of them spoke English but the sight of the telemetry devices winking away on Crowley's chest spoke volumes in any language.
"We have a problem." said Hartz at length. "So who are you working for then, anyway?"
"It doesn't really matter, does it? The main thing is for you to call your boys off. You know, I really don't need this shit. I was planning on coming here, shaking you down for your bioweapon and your money, then going home for a nice cup of tea with the rest of the Coven. But it was not to be."
"Coven?" said Hartz, just as a group of black-robed figures toting automatic weapons emerged from the shadows.
"Yeah, it's my church. The Angels of Death Reformed Satanist and Black Magic Coven. We needed to get hold of some serious firepower with which to properly celebrate the forthcoming Billenial celestial alignment and Sabbat properly." He tut-tutted. "Really, the Russians were so much more co-operative."
While he had been talking half of the militants turned around to face the Coven while the others began to aim their rifles at Crowley's chest. Suddenly he realised that he was dealing with Al-Queda, and as such it probably wouldn't really bother them that much if the bomb got set off, as long as they got the credit for it.
He was only just beginning to ponder the ramifications of this train of thought, and whether maybe he should put the gun down- after all, they had several more bombs stashed away, in preparation for the great Black Sabbat, and wouldn't miss one of them all that badly- when the door smashed open and the bartender stomped in, even more pissed off than before.
"Come on, boys and girls, we're closing NOW! Didn’t you hear me in there, you fuckwits-" he said, before being shot.
All hell broke loose. Hartz dived to the floor and went for his own gun, which he fired at the black-hooded cultists. They shot back, instantly killing him, and faced a barrage of return fire from the Al-Qieda operatives, whom Crowley methodically shot in the back while he dived for cover.
Militants and Satanists blasted away at each other, instantly redecorating the walls with one another's internal organs. Screams of panic sounded from the next room as the remaining goths and bar staff got hip to what was happening and threw themselves out of the windows to escape the bloodbath, and in the distance, police sirens wailed. Back in the back room, the last surviving fundamentalist drew a bead on Crowley's chest, trying not to slip over on the gore-splattered carpet…
Crowley almost managed to switch off the detonator in time.
