One of the gunmen looked like he had the relatively bright idea of going for Naslund’s car (they were immune to bullets, but he probably wasn’t), but he’d barely gotten three steps towards the Saab when the ground exploded by his feet, and he jumped back a step. “You didn’t say “Mother may I”,” Marc taunted, waving the barrel of the Magnum at him.

Logan caught Sid staring at him out of the corner of his eye, and he knew what the kid was waiting for: permission. Logan gave it, giving him a small nod, and the kid rushed forward to disarm them. It was incredibly fast, mainly because Sid just didn’t dick around. They shot him at point blank range, which did no better than shooting him from far away, and Sid ripped the gun out of one man’s hand while kicking the gun out of another man’s hand, and just as he was bringing his leg down, he stomped on the shoulder injury of the man sitting up against the car, making him scream and drop the gun he had just pulled. Logan stalked in after him, in no hurry - he was there to terrify them, not beat them up.

Sid took one of the guns and shoved it in the waistband of his pants, but he simply kicked the others pistols under the car and stepped back, giving him room. Logan rammed his claw just underneath the wound of the guy that Marc shot, and he was still in too much pain and lacking enough air to scream again as he hauled him to his feet. “Who do you work for?” he spat in his face. “Tell me or I’ll start putting new holes in you.”

The Lithuanian stared at him wild eyed, his eyes glazed with pain. The sound of the helicopter was getting louder. “You’re mutants,” he said. “Fucking mutants.”

“No duh, dickhead. Now who the fuck are you?”

He attempted to become macho and bull his way through this, but it was almost impossible to do. Blood and drool had soaked the bottom of his ski mask, and was now starting to drip off his chin. “You can’t win this. I don’t care what kinda freak you are, you can’t -”

“We don’t wanna win,” Logan snapped, shaking him. The pain of it startled a sharp noise out of him, kind of like a squeaky hinge. “Who do you work for?!”

“Black Star!” He shouted, half in pain, half in rage. “We will wipe you out! The scourge of the earth will not be suffered to live!”

“Black Star?” Logan repeated. “Isn’t that a beer?”

“Holy shit,” Marc exclaimed. “Black Star’s a terrorist group, man. They want independence for Whogivesacrapistan or something.”

“Mutant pigs!” He spat over his shoulder at Marc. “The streets will run red with your blo -” The last word cut off in a shriek as Logan pulled out his claws with excessive force, and he let the Lithuanian drop back to the ground.

“Yeah yeah yeah, we’re all dead, blah blah blah. I’ve been hearing that for fifty fucking years and it still isn’t true.” Logan told him, giving him a kick in the gut out of sheer bitchiness. He then turned to the closest uninjured man and held up his bloody claws. “You a righty or a lefty? Tell me what yer after, or I’m gonna decide for ya.”

The chopper was so loud now that Logan knew it was headed right for this spot. So Black Star had a helicopter - good for them. Now, if they could only get a tank, they might be ready to play with the big boys. Logan looked at Sid, caught his eye, and jerked his head back sharply, sending the tacit message that he should back off. He frowned, not happy about it, but he obeyed, retreating towards the rental car.

He glared at the terrorist, who had wide hazel eyes and an ill fitting mask. “You don’t know what you’re after?” the man asked, perfectly aghast. “Why are you after it then?”

“What the fuck do you call it?”

“The package,” he said, in a way that suggested he thought he was talking to a mental patient.

Logan threw up his hands in frustration. “The item, the package! What the fuck is this thing? Give it a name!

“Holy fuck!” Marc shouted. “Logan, move it!”

The chopper sounded fairly close, so he looked back over his shoulder and saw it was actually a bit farther away than he’d imagined - it looked like an old Soviet ‘copter, the kind you could pick up cheap on the black market if you didn’t mind it being hellaciously noisy and its occasional tendency to plummet out of the air like a stone. Did it ..? Yes, someone was leaning out the side, holding a shoulder mounted rocket launcher.

So, Black Star was doing pretty well for itself, huh?

There was no time to move at all. The man in the chopper fired, and Logan saw it coming at a speed that the chopper could never match, even if slingshot by the Earth’s gravity. Although it would do no good at all, he jumped aside just as the world exploded in sound and heat.

He was unconscious for a bit, but he didn’t realize it until he regained consciousness, his body aching and the smell of burned flesh, hair, and metal filling his nostrils. He opened his eyes to find Marc crouching over him. “You know how whacked out creepy it is to watch your skin grow back?” he said.

“Then don’t watch,” Logan snapped, rubbing his eyes. When he thought he was ready, he sat up, and found his shirt had been all but burned off, and his jeans had been charred well enough that one of the legs was still smoking. As soon as his eyes focused, he saw that where the BMW had been was a smoldering crater in the ground. There were some bits of terrorists about, but mostly just a random hand and a bit of anonymous charred organ. The car had been essentially vaporized, but there were small pieces of metal that were still smoking or actively burning, filling the air with acrid black smoke. “You guys okay?”

“We’re fine. Even Naslund’s Saab made it, although he’s going to need some body work.”

A glance at the Saab showed that all the windows had been shattered, and there were some smoldering bits of metal scattered about the hood and the trunk from the obliterated BMW. Sid was standing near by, keeping an eye out for any more marauders, but it seemed unlikely at the moment. “Black Star really doesn’t like its people talking, does it?”

Marc grunted in agreement, looking at the crater. “Either that, or someone else didn’t like the competition.”

“You can take the Swiss and German governments out of the running. Even if they were inclined to use rocket launchers on suspects, I doubt they’d do it in a decommissioned Soviet chopper.”

Marc nodded in agreement. “You know, I’m beginning to think this has nothing to do with Nazi loot.”

“Jeeze, ya think?” he replied crabbily, spitting blood out of his mouth.

They heard the noise of a car door opening, and turned to watch Naslund staggered dazedly out of his car, looking around at all the destruction as he held a hand to a bloody gash on his forehead. His eyes scanned the horizon before scudding over towards them, finally settling on Logan in a glazed kind of shock. “You’re not a German businessman, are you?”

Logan shook his head. “Sorry.”

But really, if that was the hardest truth he had to deal with today, he was a very lucky man.

4

Naslund didn’t think he needed a hospital, but Marc thought he did need a few stitches. Still, Marc just taped a gauze pad to Naslund’s forehead, and they took him with him as they drove off, as Naslund wasn’t sure his car would start. And then there was also that problem of people trying to kill him. Since Logan had twice been at the scene of these attacks and seemed to have some part in repelling them, Naslund was inclined to trust him.

They told him they worked for an agency they couldn’t name (mainly because Logan didn’t trust Marc to come up with a name that wasn’t outrageous, such as Crossdressers United), but were interested in the item he was trying to sell. This confused Naslund a great deal. “You’re interested in a music box?”

Unbelievable. The item in question was a music box. Okay it was a rare one, a Swiss one dating from 1865, with a polished mahogany case, highly prized amongst collectors and apparently worth quite a bit. There were rumors that it had belonged to a family that perished in the Holocaust, but he was unable to verify ownership of the box. (Or so he said.) He was selling it for a man who wished to remain anonymous, and was a “friend of a friend”, so he only knew him as “Mr. Bauer”. As for the buyer, he was an “overseas businessman” who was working through a broker named Nilsson. He’d been on his way to meet Nilsson, so they decided to go ahead and take him there.

But this made no fucking sense whatsoever. Terrorists would have no interest in a music box; nor should anyone else beyond some sad sack collector. So why were people dying over this fucking thing? Why were the governments of Switzerland and Germany also interested? Logan glanced at Marc, who only shrugged - he didn’t get it either. And Naslund wasn’t lying; he knew for a fact that he wasn’t lying. Naslund was just as puzzled as the rest of them. Who was risking an international incident over a music box?!

Things got worse. They arrived at the place that was supposedly Nilsson’s, only they found a tiny shop with a door off its hinges, and Logan smelled blood, dust, and cordite in the little shop, although there was no sign of gunfire or blood. There was also no sign of Nilsson, and his phone was off the hook.

After a little discussion, they convinced Naslund that he had to get the music box and turn it over to them now, until they could figure out what the fuck was going on. They also convinced him he had to call Bauer and find out what the hell he was actually handling for him.

First, the music box. Naslund was careful to use only people he trusted in shipping and handling material, and since Bauer had insisted the box be held under “strictest security” (he assumed he was paranoid about his investment), Naslund used a shipper who was known not only to be discreet but to have some of the best security in all of Switzerland as a holder for the object. The fact that he said “best security” gave Logan a really bad feeling, like they were taunting some luck god. (Was there a luck god? Well, Ganesha - although Bob said he was really an entropy god. Whatever the fuck, it just seemed like Ganesha would’ve been pissed at the hubris of this proclamation.)

What they found was a dockside office that was the scene of a massacre. The place had been shot up so badly that some of the holes in the walls were as big as his fist, and a couple of the guys had been shot up to the point where you couldn’t make out their facial features. They were fresh on the scene, considering the wisps of smoke still lingering in the air, but not fresh enough to encounter any of the gunmen. All they found was corpses (about a dozen in all) and ransacked offices, one after another, and a safe whose door had been blown off. Naslund said the music box had been in the safe, and promptly passed out from having to be around so many dead bodies.

Marc carried Naslund out to the car and they drove out ahead of police sirens. “What the fuck now?” Marc wondered. “Bad guys got the box.”

“But now they have to get it out of the country,” Logan said, thinking aloud. “I’m betting that won’t be easy. Also, we really don’t know who has the box now or what their intentions with it are.”

Marc gave him a sidelong glance. “You don’t think Black Star has it?” It sounded like a question, but it wasn’t.” What did you pick up that I didn’t?”

“Black Star wanted Naslund alive,” he said. “They could have killed him when they ran him off the road, but I really believe they meant to kidnap him.”

Marc thought about that, then nodded slowly. “They needed him to tell them where the box was, ‘cause they didn’t know. But these people seemed to know where it was.”

“Another group, but one just as ruthless - they didn’t want to risk leaving living witnesses.”

“More terrorists, or freelancers like us?”

Logan shrugged reluctantly and sunk back in his seat, feeling a bit sour at not having any further answers. But didn’t he know someone who might? “Best case scenario, they’re mercenaries. They’ll want to get it to their client, and it might not be that cut and dried. Worse case scenario, they’re an experienced terrorist group who can run anything through any country’s borders.”

There was something he hadn’t told Marc, because he hadn’t known what to say. The safe had smelled … funny. He knew the smell vaguely, but couldn’t place it, couldn’t name it, couldn’t say why he knew it. But he knew smelling it it wasn’t a fucking music box, and it was incredibly bad news; in fact, it set off every internal emergency alarm he had. But he couldn’t cough up a name to go with the scent, so he decided to wait until he could before letting Marc know.

They went back to the hotel, because they didn’t know what else to do. Besides, they were dragging Naslund around with them, and the sweatshirt Marc had found him to wear (in lieu of his own burned shirt) was way too tight and really starting to annoy him. While changing his clothes, he asked Marc to find a direct line phone number to Swiss intelligence.

In a technical sense, you could look up their number in a phone book, but it wouldn’t take him where he needed to go. Marc was incredibly talented in finding out things he shouldn’t know, so by the time Logan was pulling down his new t-shirt, Marc had the number for him.

Logan called it and got a receptionist he quickly flustered by his insistence on leaving a message for an operative he only knew as Johannes. “Write this down, ‘cause he needs to hear this precisely. Tell him Wolverine needs to meet him in the bar. It’s urgent. If you talk to the right one, he’ll know what it means.” It was as rude as hell, but he hung up before she could insist she had no idea what he was talking about.

Marc looked at him from across the room. “You sure about this?”

He shrugged. “We don’t really have a choice, do we?” And that was the shittiest thing about all of this.

Down in the bar, he had a beer, and the bartender from last night decided to talk to him about his “cute friend”, clearly meaning Marc. He assured the guy that Marc would be down later, and thought he was attractive as well. Man, how did gay guys just know each other? It wasn’t like Marc was flaming, or even the bartender. How did they know? Was there a secret handshake or something?

On the plus side, since the bartender was interested in Marc, he got superb service. After an hour, Johannes entered the bar and took a seat at a small table near the back. Logan got up and drifted back there, aware that Johannes wanted to keep his distance from him since last time, and putting a table between them was the best thing he could do under these circumstances.

As soon as he sat down across from him, Johannes fixed him with an evil glare. “I thought I told you to go.”

“We have Naslund,“ he said, ignoring the jibe. “You need to take him into protective custody.”

This news seemed to surprise him. His brown eyes widened and he sat back in his chair, his posture still military rigid. “We thought he was dead. We found his car abandoned near the … wait a second, were you there?”

“Where he was run off the road by Black Star? Yeah, we were - that’s why he’s not dead.”

Johannes’ look became strangely stark. “Black Star? You know who attacked him?”

“Before their compatriots killed them, we made ‘em talk.”

“We? You mean Marcus Drury and the Eden kid?”

It was Logan’s turn to glare at him evilly. “You’ve researched us.”

“We’re an intelligence agency, Wolverine; that’s what we do. The problem is, we were unable to confirm the specific identity of the Eden kid. The Rahjani ones look a great deal alike.”

“You’re a racist bastard, aren’t you?”

He bristled at the accusation. “Don’t slander me. I’m just saying -”

“I’m not giving you his name. Keep them out of this. This is about me.”

Johannes tapped his fingers anxiously on the table and continued glaring at him like he was the most vermin ridden piece of meat he’d ever seen. “I’d never have ascribed noble traits to you. Suicidal ones, yes, but not those.”

“Somebody has the box, but we don’t know who. We - I assume it’s not Black Star, because they couldn’t find their own assholes with a flashlight, a global positioning system, and a head start. Do you know who has it?”

His lips tightened to a thin line, and he shook his head faintly. “We’re treading old ground here -”

“Suck it up,” he snapped, not bothering to hide his irritation. “I know this stuff is fucking dangerous; I’ve smelled it.”

Johannes’s look was simply incredulous. “You’ve smelled it?”

“And you know I can help you. Unlike the rest of your people, I’m not easy to kill, and you know that. I’m also expendable, if worse comes to worst.”

“You’re also a civilian.”

“For the moment. But if your investigations are worth shit, you know I used to work for Canadian Intelligence. In fact, I just did a gig for them not long ago hunting down some terrorists, although it was under the table so they probably won’t officially confirm it, but we’re all allies, right? I can understand if you distrust the Americans, but fuck, I’m Canadian - everybody likes us.”

Johannes looked down into his glass of scotch and shook his head, but in a way that Logan figured meant he was thinking about it. “You know there’s protocol, rules to follow, and this violates every single one.”

“So? We work this under the table. I won’t even mention it to Marc and the kid - this’ll just be between us.” Of course he was lying, but there was no way for Johannes to know that. But he knew he could trust Marc and Sid, while Swiss Intelligence didn’t know shit about them save for hard facts that really didn’t paint an accurate picture.

Johannes bought himself some time by having a sip of his scotch, looking at everyone else but him as he considered it. “No. I know you have a background in intelligence, but there’s no way this could work. It would be trouble.”

“For you, you mean,” he replied, although not as angrily as he could have. He did understand - Johannes’s job would be on the line if things fucked up royal. “You need help, Johannes, and don’t deny it. Black Star used a rocket on your soil, and I believe Zurich’s homicide rate has just jumped up a million fold. You can blame the aftermath all on me - it ain’t like I don’t have worse on my record. I won’t sell you out.” He sat forward, and belatedly wondered why he was pressing so hard for putting his own balls on the line. “I have skills that could help you, and you know it.”

He continued tapping his fingers on the table, and his eyes were sharp, boring into him like lasers, trying to discern his intentions. “Why do you care? Why do you want to help?”

Logan shrugged, mainly because he didn’t know himself. “Because I can. Also, I don’t appreciate being blown up.”

At that, he raised an eyebrow at him, but then looked towards the bar, sipping his scotch once more. After a moment, he asked, “You can smell it? Can you track it by smell?”

Funny - how did he know that that would be the first thing he’d be interested in? “In an urban setting? Only in relatively close proximity. But if anyone’s been exposed to it recently, I’ll know right away. I’ll smell it all over them.”

Johannes looked back at him now, his eyes bright with interest. “That’s a very … unusual talent.”

“It comes in handy sometimes.” He took a gulp of beer, and asked, “So what was it I was smelling? What’s really in the box?”

Logan was equally curious to see if Johannes would tell him the truth.