It was the summer of 2016 when I first met Ash and Leon—only a few years after I revoked my vows as a priest of the Church and became an officer for the New American Federation, the officially reorganized United States government body. They’d been trying to rebuild and stabilize the government and police force ever since the War of 2005, 20 years before this story took place.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I was 33 years old back then, and I hadn’t made detective yet. Ash Brannigan and his buddy Leon Drake came roaring into New York City in their rusty-orange 1971 Pontiac GTO. We didn’t know what to think of them down at the police department. They were hotshots, wreaking havoc with the Syndicate. Technically, they were vigilantes, and needed to be apprehended. They came from the smaller area of New Haven, an almost-lawless place where they were used to being the “good guys.” (That’s not entirely true since Leon was originally from New York, but I can touch on that later.) The point is, we—the NYPD and New American Federation (NAF)—had officially declared Ash and Leon “honorary deputies.” In other words, we couldn’t touch them. It was the best and only move we really could have made. You see, at this point the Federation was more like a competing faction than a true government body. Moreover, the radical, people-favored team of Ash and Leon were enemies of our largest and most powerful rival—the Syndicate for Global Unity.
I quickly befriended Ash and Leon myself, as did most of the members of the NYPD. They were friendly guys, with a strong sense of justice. I remember Ash telling me that they considered themselves “champions of the people.” We did well to have them more or less on our side. I wish I could have had friends like them as a child—growing up as a black kid in Brooklyn isn’t as dangerous or frightening as areas in the South might be, but it still isn’t all fun and games to go through life as a minority. Maybe that’s part of the reason Ash and I get along so well—we understand each other in that respect.
I had some information I needed to share with them, so when I heard that there was a disturbance downtown involving the Syndicate over the scanner, I headed that way immediately, knowing that Ash and Leon would be there.
Before I had arrived, the two of them had their hands full with a total of seven Syndicate members. Six of them had submachine guns of some sort and stood on either side of a sedan on the side of the street, which contained two hostages—a young woman and her 12 year-old younger brother. They were bound in the backseat with their mouths taped shut. The seventh Syndicate member, a young man with bleached blonde hair, stood behind the vehicle with a smirk on his face and a pistol in his right hand. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” he shouted with glee at a building across the street where Ash and Leon made their hiding place. “I’m gonna get you good, then they’ll let me in Die Heiligen for sure!”
A chain darted out from behind the side of the building and smacked the SMG out of the hands of one of the Syndicate thugs. A figure dashed out from behind the building as another chain came hurling toward the same thug from the figure’s direction and hit the thug with a strong force across the head that knocked him out. The figure disappeared behind an empty vehicle across the street from the thugs and the rest of them started firing their firearms wildly at it, but didn’t appear to hit anything.
“Mr. Youngblood,” one of the armed thugs began to say, addressing the man with the bleached blonde hair, who appeared to be their superior.
“Just keep your guard up,” Youngblood responded hastily.
A shot rang out from behind the building that the previous figure had come out behind from. Another figure burst into sight, dashing behind another parked car to avoid the mad flurry of rapid-fire projectiles seeking his fragile flesh. The firing died down, revealing a creepy, ambient silence that was disturbed only by a cool breeze, the rustling of armed figures in the street, the muffled voices of a pair of innocent hostages, and the voice of the man who had just made an appearance; “Let them go, Jack,” he negotiated, “or the next bullet won’t be a warning shot.”
Jack Youngblood became visibly outraged. Instead of complying, he decided to point his pistol—a 9mm USP (a semi-automatic handgun)—in the direction of the vehicle that he suspected Ash was still hiding behind. He shouted unintelligibly and started firing rounds at the empty vehicle; the other men decided to follow suit and fired at it as well. Heavy gunfire rang through the evening air. Muzzle flashes caused dynamic lighting effects on the people and their surroundings.
When the gunfire stopped ringing and the evening was still, the car they had been firing at resembled little of its former self. The windows were almost entirely gone, bullet-holes riddled its body, and all manner of fluids were leaking from underneath. The men stood still for a bit, examining the destruction they had caused.
As the silence continued, the men seemed to ease up, though they remained on guard. The tension between them became less pronounced and they were almost relaxed.
A sudden blur of motion and the sound of flesh and bone being struck brought the Syndicate members to full attention as one of their comrades fell limply to the asphalt. There stood Ash Brannigan over the fallen body, with a bo staff in his hands, ready to strike again.
The small amount of time they had to shake off the fear of the initial shock wasn’t quite long enough. A whirring sound could be heard to their left as Leon Drake appeared twirling chains in his hands like he was wielding a pair of deadly nunchuku.
The thudding of metal striking flesh was near-continuous. The clanking of metal against asphalt resounded several times as the men’s SMGs fell out of their hands like useless paperweights. It was at this point that everyone heard my cruiser sirens as I made my way to the scene. It may have been this sound that encouraged Jack Youngblood to take aggressive action. While Ash and Leon struggled with the remaining Syndicate members, Jack took the initiative to grab the 12 year-old boy in an attempt to make a clean escape. My partner Bree was already out of the vehicle with her gun drawn as soon as I had the cruiser parked. She was about a decade younger than me and almost over-zealous about her job.
“This is the NYPD! Put your hands in the air!” she screamed, her firearm secure in her arms in a well-trained aim at the busy fighters. She could hear my footsteps trouncing up behind her to provide back-up. She was hot-headed and fast-for-action—a real headache for me, sometimes.
As another set of sirens and screeching tires neared the scene, the remaining Syndicate thugs had apparently given up and slowly put their hands in the air when they could escape fighting. These guys usually didn’t give up so easily, but their morale must have been crushed when their superior, Jack Youngblood, had vanished from sight—having escaped into a nearby back alley with the hostage child.
Ash and Leon weren’t the type of guys to just let a villainous criminal get away—especially one with a hostage. They followed after him, at their earliest opportunity, through the narrow corridors created by the close vicinity of falsely chummy city buildings. The chase was distant with Jack’s headstart and our would-be rescuers might have lost their target were it not for Leon’s sensitive ears catching the sound of a rustling chain link fence. “This way!” he exclaimed, leading his partner through another alleyway toward the direction of the sound of rustling metal.
Their hasty footsteps echoed against half-empty buildings and bits of broken glass cracked and scraped underneath them as they hurriedly encroached upon their prey. After they rounded one more corner they came upon their target: cornered between two buildings and the fence he desperately struck against repeatedly with a combat knife, trying to make his way through without letting loose his unwilling insurance. Alerted to Ash and Leon’s careful but aggressive approach, Jack gripped the boy harder and raised the knife to the boy’s throat. “Don’t come any closer,” he threatened.
The rescue attempt halted in its tracks as the duo froze in their feet for fear of the bodily harm that the desperate Syndicate criminal might inflict on his helpless victim. The visible perspiration of the hostage hinted at his fear almost as much as his unsubtle quivering. His wide eyes pleaded for a rescue. With his knife-arm clinging menacingly around the boy’s neck, Jack grabbed his handgun with his free arm and pointed it toward Ash—who, at that moment, had retrieved his own handgun, and had it pointed at Jack. The sound of metal softly clanging came from Leon’s direction as he revealed the chains hidden beneath his long, black, open-collar trenchcoat.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Ash warned, “You’re not in a good situation right now.”
Flustered and angry, Jack retorted, “You’re the one in a bad position. One wrong move and you’ll be cleaning this kid’s blood off the ground.”
With unwavering reproach, Leon spat, “You’re an idiot.” He cautiously but fearlessly strode forward. “You’re not going to do a damn thing if you value your life.”
“Leon—” Ash began, worried that his partner might dangerously force their enemy’s hand. The quivering knife that found its way closer to the boy’s neck did not make its nervous captive any more comfortable. “Leon,” Ash repeated, “he has a hostage. Don’t do anything hasty.”
Jack eyed the two men with contempt. “Listen to the man,” he told Leon, still clutching tightly at the boy. “I’m willing to die for the Syndicate.” Of course he was willing to die. He was a fanatic for his cause, and that made him dangerous—and stupid. His fanaticism placed him in a black and white world where the Syndicate was God and everyone else was an enemy.
Leon pressured him. “Just like you were willing to die five years ago?” Jack could only respond with a glare as Leon pushed on. “It didn’t seem like you had the balls then that you claim to have now, Jack.” If Leon had managed to place a knife in Jack’s ribs, the look on his face said that Leon had just twisted it. “How is this any different?”
Jack wanted to turn around this verbal battle and thought he had just the response to do it without responding directly to Leon’s implication. “You know,” he snarled, “that bratty girl would be dead right now if you didn’t have help from that boy playin’ hero.”
“You don’t have the right to talk about Kelly or Ryan like that,” Ash interjected with a tone of personal infliction. “If it weren’t for your sister—“
At this point Jack interrupted with an angry, raised voice: “Shut up, you fucking gofer!”
Leon didn’t allow the verbal battle any resolution. “Officers will arrive any second, now,” he simultaneously predicted and warned. “Why don’t you take it easy,” he suggested, leaving just a hint of condescension in his voice, “and make this easy on everyone?”
Tension grew as Jack’s narrowed eyes darted between the two men standing opposite him. The boy he held let out a faint, fearful whimper. Seconds passed that seemed like hours. A bead of sweat found its way down Jack’s face. He couldn’t give up. “No,” he said, quietly and determinedly, “I can’t.” There was no hint of bluffing in his voice.
Ash was straightforward. “Just tell us what you want, Jack,” he pleaded matter-of-factly.
This was no longer the time for negotiations or arguments. There was a deafening silence, like the quiet before the storm. Rationality stood out of the way of the instinct of self-preservation and the blind approach to reach for a greater desire that the fear of death cannot overcome. In a single act of defiant resignation, Jack raised his knife and brought it down between the child’s shoulder blades with a swiftness that brought the boy to the pavement as Jack headed for the fence behind him.
Leon was on him. Jack was on the fence. Ash ran over to the boy. Jack was climbing over the fence when Leon made it over to the fence himself. Ash looked up. Leon grabbed the fence. Jack swung a leg over the top.
“Leon!” Ash screamed, clutching the boy’s hand, “Get help, now!” There was a distinctness in his voice that told Leon that he better change his course of action. Disappointed twofold for letting the criminal escape (who now made his way across the property opposite the fence) and for not having his priorities straight, Leon sprinted his way back to the main road to meet up with my colleagues and me.
The boy’s name was Charlie. I discovered this after talking to his older sister. I couldn’t piece together a solid motive for Jack’s actions. What did the Syndicate want with some inconsequential woman and her younger brother? I was far from having any answers. Ash and Leon stood patiently next to me as I scribbled some notes on my pad. Bree and the others were taking care of the rest of the criminals—the ones that didn’t get away. We were glad, though, that Charlie was alive and in good hands—he would see Dr. Goodwin as soon as the paramedics could get him to the hospital.
We couldn’t have remained gloomy about the young boy. It may seem harsh to say this, but we had things to do. We couldn’t have known his fate, and we only had so much time—we only ever had so much time. I motioned Ash and Leon off to the side, out of earshot of the other officers and bystanders. “I got a lead on an informant,” I told them in a hushed tone.
Ash looked relieved and shocked. “You found him, huh?”
“Not him—her,” I corrected him. “I can’t say much,” I continued, “Take this.” I handed Ash a slip of paper. I had written down the name and address of the informant. Dr. Julia Windsdale. 1900 Sumner Ave, Newark, NJ.
Ash handed the note to Leon for him to look at. “We should go tonight,” ushered Leon, not one to idle.
“Let’s not waste time.” It was a simple statement Ash made like a declaration of intent. Together, in a unison that spoke of an untold closeness in their partnership, the two of them turned and headed for their vehicles.
Almost instinctively, I called out. “Good luck, and God Bless.”
Ash paused for just a moment and turned around. “You know I don’t believe in either, John.”
“Old habits, Ash,” I told him as he headed away; “Old habits.”
***
No one could have expected events to unfold the way they did that night. Leon opted to drive his bike to the Jersey address, so the two partners drove together on the streets but alone in their vehicles. Newark wasn’t coming quickly to them in the cold, still air of October that rushed by their speeding vehicles like a tornado from Kansas City.
It’s just like them to rush into things. As long as I had known them, they were like that—always heading into danger head-first. They were reckless, they were careless—they were good. I’m not sure I would have condoned their actions as the man I once was: a Father of the Church. I might have prayed. But it takes more than faith to get results, and I understand that, now. Even after leaving the Church, I retained my belief in God; I just developed an understanding of what it means to work toward your destiny—or to create it. The world is a beautiful place, and men like Ash and Leon are the types that help to keep it that way. I think my God would be pleased with them—even though Ash was an atheist.
When Ash stepped out of his car the chill of the night seeped through his clothes and tapped on his bones. He took in a deep breath; he could still smell the mildew on the grass from the rain of the night before. The chirping of the crickets was nearly inaudible as Leon parked his bike next to Ash's car on the side of the road next to the house.
They walked calmly across the driveway to the entrance of the house. It had a solemn appearance, and the only light around came from a single dim bulb on the porch. There were no lights on inside. The two of them could hear their footsteps echo on the pavement, making quiet music with the rustling leaves of the large oak tree in the front yard. It was a nice, large front yard, coupled with a nice, large house. If I were a different man, with a different past, in a different time, I might have liked to settle down in that house; marry a nice woman and raise three children in that neighborhood. But these weren't good times and my job kept me too occupied with the Federation to settle down. Ash and Leon climbed up the short steps to the porch and rapped on the door.
