StormWatch: Team Achilles (StormWatch: Team Achilles #2)

"Cogele El Golpe"

In a hotel in New York City, a naked man in a bed picks up a special communicator device labeled "UN." The man is Charles Cottsworth Pickney. On the other end of the line, Santini tells him that he (Santini) is his new commanding officer and his first orders for Pinckney is to turn on the TV. Charles switches on the television in front of him and sees the news reporting the attack on the UN building. Santini tells him that he, Coleman and Tefibi are inside and so far, unnoticed, but they need backup. Pinckney asks what he should do while a woman steps out of the shower in the hotel room, and Santini tells him that he and Captain Galena Golovin need to get dressed and get to the UN building. Pinckney asks where he'll find Golovin and Santini tells him that Golovin is the woman he had sex with the night before. Santini says he doesn't care what Pickney does on his free time and tells him that they need to pick up some supplies.

In a log house in the snow-covered woods of Finland, a muscled and scarred man sits alone. His name is Jukko Hämäläinen. A red light emanates from behind him and a uniformed man steps out of a portal. The man introduces himself Jaeger Weiss from Stormwatch and makes a crack about the scars all over Jukko's face (and the rest of him). Jukko says that most people can't even speak after seeing his face for the first time, but Jaeger makes jokes. Jaeger asks about guns and Jukko walks over to a closet and opens it, revealing all sorts of high tech rifles. Jaeger says that's why he likes Finns, they seem so harmless on the outside, but that's just a cover. Jukko reminds him that Finland was invaded and burnt to the ground by Russians and Germans, and that tends to make a country cautious.

At Fort Bragg in North Carolina, two soldiers try to talk a third soldier out of killing himself in his house. They're too afraid and cautious to go inside and get him since he's armed and more than a little crazy, so they send in Luis Cisco. Unarmed, Cisco walks in and takes down the soldier, tossing him on the other soldier's car on the way out. He tells them that next time they need to clean up their own mess. When he does, one of the soldiers (who turn out to be Cisco's superior officers) tells him to address them by their proper ranks. Right then, Cisco gets a call from Santini offering him an immediate transfer to Stormwatch if he'll help out with the current situation at the UN. Cisco accepts (not that he had a choice anyway) and Santini tells him to walk into the red portal that just materialized nearby. Cisco asks if he can be flown in instead, but Santini needs him right away so he's forced to use the portal. He tells himself to keep his eyes closed and nearly throws up when he crosses through the other side and reappears in the UN building where Benito Santini is waiting.

After Cisco gets over the shock of the teleporter, he asks why they have a terrorist wrapped in duct tape, and why he's pretending to be asleep. Coleman, standing right next to the man, asks what Cisco means by "pretending" right as the terrorist stops faking and bites Blake's hand. Santini separates the two and tells Cisco and Coleman to arm themselves with the man's guns. The terrorist says that the guns are holy and won't work for them. Santini decides to test that by pointing the gun at the man's head and pulling the trigger, but nothing happens. Tefibi tells him that the guns must be keyed to his nervous systems so only he can use them. He also inform that he and his twin brother (killed in issue 1) are Egyptian terrorists killed 39 high school students on a summer trip just for walking into an Egyptian museum and "desecrating it" with their presence. That's all Santini needs to hear before he takes a scanner to the man's hand, finds a firing wire in his finger, and uses his bare hands to rip it out. Now that Cisco and Coleman are armed, Luis asks about everybody else. Santini says that Jukko has enough guns and that he's lending some to Jaeger, not only that, but he has two people outside to deal with the terrorists out there.

At a nearby storage facility, Galena Golovin and Charles Pickney threaten the owner to bring out some crates. They get the crates and go 12 blocks over to a building near the Stormwatch UN HQ. Golovin tells the soldiers who are working out plans that they have a strategy to take down the spaceship and the terrorists attacking the building. The commander of the unit tells them he isn't taking orders from her, but she knees him in the balls and changes his mind. She gets him to give them their best helicopter for their plan. Inside the UN building, Santini and Tefibi watch the news as the terrorist start broadcasting the execution of hostages. Santini demands to know what's going on with the SPBs and the ship outside, and one of his men tells him. The helicopter Golovin had asked for is being used to distract the SPB (a flying man covered in nuclear flames) while Golovin shoots a special bullet (created by Khalid Tefibi) at the flying ship, the Steel Scarab. On contact with the vessel, the bullet generates a focused EMP that brought down the ship, but nothing else. The pilot tries to get out his vehicle but receives six crippling, but non-fatal shots (delivered by Pickney) before he can take a step. The flaming SPB goes over to his partner and asks him how he can help while cans of gas are being shot in his direction. He thinks the gas is tear gas (which can't affect him) so he lights up to attack (and defend his downed friend) but sets of the gas, creating a fuel-air explosion with the intensity of a nuclear bomb. The gas (also created specially for this purpose) is consumed quickly, which leaves the most of the surrounding area unharmed by the blast.

While everyone is disoriented by the explosion, Santini sends all of his team that are inside through the teleporter to reach the other terrorists and their hostages. Jukko is the first to encounter an enemy and tells him that he'll let him live if he surrenders and leaves the hostages alone. The terrorist says that he's a living weapon, the ultimate in human potential, that he's fought the battle a thousand times in his mind and that Jukko lost before he even got there. Jukko, however, smiles and says he loves it when "freaks say things like that because it makes it more rewarding when he snaps their necks." The superpowered terrorist attacks and Jukko grabs him by the neck and puts him in a headlock almost immediately. Before he can finish it though, a badly dressed young superhero flies through the wall and offers to help.