The idiots were still shooting, even though they’d killed their own guy. Didn’t they grasp that bullets wouldn’t kill him? Maybe they thought he was a zombie, and only a head shot would put him down. He heard the American shouting to men outside the car, “Kill him already, goddamn it!”

There were lots of gunshots now, but most were outside the car, and he had to wonder if the chopper was now firing on them, or they were firing on the chopper, or some variation of that scenario. He threw himself out of the car, claws out, and he was almost instantly attacked by men in dark clothes who were either rival terrorists or the mercenaries’ back up. One jammed a knife in his back, but the blade snapped when it hit adamantium, and Logan tried to ignore the sharp pain of it as he lashed out, shredding weapons, cloth, and people with the same broad swipes. He stomped on one man’s leg hard enough to make the bone audibly snap; he screamed and fell aside, getting nearly trampled by the other men rushing in to subdue him. Logan threw an elbow that caught someone in the throat as he held out his other claw and let an ambitious thug impale himself on it, while he kicked another man in the stomach, making him drop to his knees retching. Someone tried to shoot him point b! lank in the back of the skull, and the kick of impact sent him stumbling forward, dark spots pulsing momentarily in his vision, but someone else was worse off. The bullet didn’t shatter, it ricocheted off his skull and hit someone else. Possibly the gunman himself; he really didn’t know.

He felt the electrical bite of a taser, but they were nothing compared to the paralyzer the Organization carted around, so he simply snapped the wires and punctured the man’s shoulder with his claws, in such a way that not only was he bleeding copiously and in a hell of a lot of pain, but his left taser firing arm was now useless. By the time these clowns ran out of ineffective weapons to use on him, there were no more clowns to deal with - they were all bleeding on the asphalt, useless and unable to get up and fight, even if they wanted to. But somehow he didn’t think they wanted to.

The helicopter was exchanging gunfire with the roof of the building on his left, and he could just see Sid standing on its edge, firing his XM8 at them. They must have figured out that the bullets weren’t hurting him, but could hurt them, as they veered off suddenly, getting the hell out of there. Down the street, he saw cordons had already been deployed in the form of what looked like bulletproof sedans, so that explained why there was no traffic driving through. Behind the cars, aiming official looking handguns, was a group of people who looked like plain clothes cops, but were probably intelligence agents. Logan picked up a Walther PPK from one of the useless mercenaries and stuck it in the waistband of his jeans, behind his back, just in case.

The American was across the street, and realized things looked really bad for him, as he had his own handgun out, but was aiming it at his shoulder bag as he shouted at the agents, “Anyone move and I scatter this shit all over the place!”

The agents were flashing each other questioning looks, judging whether or not he was bluffing, and Logan decided to clarify the issue by shouting at them, “He’s got it in the bag - he’s not bluffing!”

More curious looks from the agents, some of whom consulted their radios, as if trying to figure out which team he was on. The American shifted his gaze to him, and ordered, “Stay where you are, Wolverine! You even fucking twitch and it’s over!”

“I have a name, you know. Logan.”

The American continued glaring at him, but now his lip twitched in a sneer. “Who gives a fuck?”

Logan was signaling with his hand behind his back, and he hoped Marc or Sid saw it and knew what it meant. “I used to be in the Special Forces.”

The man’s look grew more baffled. “So? Who gives a fuck what a mutie freak show piece of shit like you used to do?”

Even Logan heard the noise on the roof behind him, and the American’s pale eyes flicked up to the top of the building, and he stiffened slightly. “Drop those fucking guns! Now! I’m not kidding!”

Logan pulled out his gun and fired, putting a neat hole in the American’s forehead as the back of his skull blew out, splattering blood and brain matter all over the sidewalk behind him. Even so, his body stood there a moment, eyes unseeing and perfectly dead. “So?” he told the corpse, throwing the Walther away. “So it means I know how to use a gun, fucknuts. Jesus, how stupid can one man be?”

The corpse gave way to gravity, but Logan caught it and ripped the bag off his arm, letting his corpse thud to the street as he held up the bag. “Weapon secured,” he told the agents, who now started to swarm towards him, but cautiously, with their guns out and trained on him. He rolled his eyes at their paranoia. “I’m Canadian, I’m working alongside Swiss intelligence. I’m on your side, damn it! And they’re with me, so don’t shoot them either.” he added, gesturing at Marc and Sid. Just to make themselves less menacing, they dropped the XM8’s, but they seemed in no great hurry to get off the roof.

The first agent to get close to him was a tall, trim woman with severely cut brown hair and rather attractive hazel eyes, who lowered her gun with lingering caution. For some reason, he had come to expect the female intelligence agents to be braver than their male counterparts, if only because to get anywhere, they had to work twice as hard and take twice the risks to prove they weren’t “soft”. For that reason, he usually took them more seriously than their male colleagues too. “You were in the bank,” she said, her voice betraying the accent of a born Berliner. Ah, so this was German intelligence - it was an awful stereotype to say that that made sense, as they’d probably get a cordon up a lot faster than Swiss intelligence, but it was true, as this proved.

He nodded. “I was supposed to see if I could pick up a scent of the stuff. I didn’t think it’d turn into Dog Day Afternoon on me.”

“The scent of it?” She repeated, slightly confused. But she must have figured that that was too outrageous to be bullshit, as she completely lowered her handgun. “It has a smell?”

“Oh yeah.” As if to illustrate this, he took a deep breath, and being this close to the object now, holding it in his hands, he got a truly layered scent, something with more nuance than a simple trace, and the gears clicked in his mind, his brain finally coming up with a memory match. He was so startled he almost bobbled the damn thing.

Son of a bitch. This wasn’t a biological weapon - this was weapons grade uranium. No wonder everyone was scrambling after it; with this, you were half way to your own nuclear weapon.

He looked at the woman gravely, and asked, “You got people to handle this, right?”

She nodded, and he knew why she was keeping her distance. Uranium of this type wasn’t overly radioactive, it wasn’t likely to give you a lethal dose after a few seconds exposure, but it was hardly harmless. You wouldn’t want to give it to little Timmy in lieu of Play-Doh. “We have doctors who can treat you.”

“Don’t need it.”

“It would be best if we could check you out -”

“Darlin’, healing is my mutant ability, and I’ve been exposed to uranium, plutonium, you name it - it stings a bit, but I get over it.”

An intense puzzlement entered her warm brown eyes. He pegged her in her early forties, but she was attractive for it, even if her haircut was a bit severe. “How have you been exposed to all of that?”

He was forced to shrug. “Let’s just say this whole afternoon wasn’t exactly an anomaly for me.”

Oh, if only it was.

6

The woman was named Anke Schlesinger, and she did work for German intelligence, like Logan assumed. She was also rather nice to him, once time wore on. She wasn’t nice to him because she was a woman - the fact that they had to work harder to be taken as seriously as their male counterparts usually meant they were harder than granite - but because she seemed to get that he was just doing a favor for the Swiss, who were swamped and having a hard time with the investigation. As soon as she confirmed a few things, she admitted that he seemed ideally suited to tracking down missing uranium.

It also helped that the bank hostages confirmed that he (and Sid) had undoubtedly saved their lives. Although they were curious where Sid and his “other friend” had gone, because while the drama played out on the street, with the safe handling and securing of the uranium, Marc and Sid had somehow slipped away. Not that Logan was all that surprised - Marc was very good at his job. And if he was at liberty, he and Sid could come rescue him if he ended up arrested or in jail or something. (If he actually needed rescuing, which was a longshot at best. But still, it was worth erring on the side of caution.)

The Swiss said he wasn’t working for them, a weaselly cop out, but did admit he was working “in concert” with them, which seemed like a way to cover their ass. The Germans, for all their reputation as stern, actually seemed to be more forgiving - or at least Anke was, as he caught her rolling her eyes at the Swiss’s weasel words.

Anke did give him a bit of a dressing down, telling him the blindly obvious, such as the fact that intelligence agencies didn’t like civilians getting in on their ops, and he was still a civilian even if he had once been with Canadian intelligence and he was a “superhero”. But after that she told him he was a real hero today, and let him go.

From what she’d told him and what he’d picked up eavesdropping, the whole things had been a German operation from the beginning. They heard about the music box first, although not before it was on Swiss soil. The Swiss were working with them, but it was their deal, basically.

They were also nice enough to get him a t-shirt to replace his shredded, bloody one, so he could walk outside and only have about half the people stare at him as opposed to all of them. It was nearing dusk, judging from the shades of lilac and pink that were painting the sky, and he wondered how in the hell it had gotten so late so fast. He got about thirty feet from the blocky government building when there was a high pitched, sharp whistle. He turned to see Marc smiling and waving at him from across the street.

Logan cut across the street and joined him. Marc led the way down a side street as he said, “I knew it. As soon as I saw you were talking to a female G-man, I told Sid “Oh, he’s walkin’”. The ladies just love you.”

He gave him an evil look. “Except for the ones who try and kill me.”

“Well, you’re always gonna get those.”

Once they got into the rental car that Marc had gotten for the occasion, he updated him on all he had learned. When he mentioned that the item in the box was uranium, he wincced. “Damn. Do you know how much you can get for that on the black market?”

Logan glared at him.

“What? I’m not sayin’ I’d sell it, I’m just sayin’ that stuff can write its own ticket. Which explains why so many groups were willing to pull out the heavy artillery for it.”

“I know, and since I’ve had encounters with various terrorist groups in both Special Forces and the Organization, I guess that explains why Swiss intelligence was worried I’d ruin things.”

“Ruin things? If they had two brain cells to rub together, they’d run the moment they heard you were in on this.”

“But they want to arrest as many of these guys as possible. So if they did run, I would be fucking things up.”

Marc considered that a moment and then shrugged, starting the car. “I guess. But they were morons for not recruiting you from the outset. You probably could have prevented a few deaths.”

It was Logan’s turn to shrug. “I’m not sure about that. It’d be more like different people dying, probably.” After a moment, he added, “You know we still got a problem.”

“What?”

“Haun. Did he hire you to retrieve the music box, or the uranium being smuggled inside it?”

Marc sat back, staring out the windshield as he considered that. “Yeah. You’d think a businessman of his standing would have no use for uranium, but if he’s aware how much it could go for on the open market, he could want it for that.”

“’Cause he’s a greedy amoral bastard.”

“Exactly. Weird how many CEO’s seem to fit that definition nowadays.”

“We should go ask him.”

Marc gave him a sidelong glance, and frowned before shaking his head. “Sorry, no can do.”

That made Logan fix him with a harsh glare. “Excuse me?”

“If it gets out I smacked the shit out of a client, I’ll probably never work again.”

“Let me do it then.”

“Man, I’m sorry, but no. You’re a known associate of mine.”

Logan couldn’t believe this. “Since when do you pussy out of anything?”

“I ain’t pussying out, I just have a reputation to uphold, no matter how slender and tenuous. Isn’t there some other way we can nail this bastard?”

Logan thought about that, still not happy that Marc would pull this shit on him. But he supposed he did have a point, as much as he didn’t like it. “I could drop his name to Johannes, see if they could keep an eye on him.”

“There’s an idea. And this way, we don’t have to stay in fucking Zurich anymore.”

He supposed he couldn’t argue with that; he felt he’d had enough of Zurich for a while. “Where’s the next stop - home?”

“No. Matthias told me about this club in Amsterdam that we just have to check out. Maybe it’ll loosen Sid up a bit.”

“Matthias?”

“The bartender from the hotel. He quit; he got bored.”

Unbelievable. “And now he’s traveling with you? Do you really need a boyfriend weighing you down?”

“I haven’t known him long enough for him to qualify as a boyfriend. I think he’s more in line of a fuck buddy.”

Logan sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Too much information.”

“Oh, like you couldn’t smell him on me.”

Okay, that was fair enough. “Still, that kinda makes me and Sid third and fourth wheels.”

“Sid’s the third wheel. You can pick up a chick any time you want. Although if you must know, that baffles me. I mean, I know you’re buff, and you got a great ass, but you’d think the sideburns would queer the deal.”

Logan stared daggers at him, but Marc grinned at him in that smart ass way of his, and seemed immune to his anger. “I refuse to dignify that with a response.”

“Can’t think of any, huh? Okay, I’ll give you a mulligan this time, bud. Anyways, I figure if we get Sid to Amsterdam, I can get him to smoke some pot, and maybe he’ll finally loosen up and start acting like a Human being, not a robot.”

“Hey, that’s not fair. The kid can’t help it. He was trained to be just this one thing all his life. He breaks his training in fits and spurts, but he never quite commits to it. At least he’s trying. I mean, it took me a while to break my training after I escaped the Organization.”

“Yeah, but they fucked with your mind. Telepaths never moved into his head and redecorated, did they?”

“No, but they didn’t hafta, that’s the sad part. He was raised that way. It’s gonna take him longer.”

Marc grimaced and nodded, driving off towards the hotel. “Poor kid. You can’t help but feel bad for him.”

“Yeah, I know. I think in twenty years he’ll be just a regular guy, we just hafta be patient.”

“I still say we give pot a try.”

Logan snickered, shaking his head. “You just wanna get stoned for pseudo-noble reasons.”

“Pseudo-noble? Well, who’s mister la-di-dah with the ten dollar words?” he teased sarcastically. “You know, I’m actually thinking Sid might be a good partner to take on in the biz if you ain’t available. The whole bulletproof thing is pretty handy.”

“It does have its uses. He might like it, actually, as it’ll give him a chance to use what he knows without Scott telling him to tone it down.”

“And let’s face it - if anyone can loosen that kid up, it’s gonna be me.”

Logan mock shuddered. “Okay, now I’m having second thoughts about this.”

Marc gave him a playful shove. “Oh right - like I’m a worse role model than you.”

“Are you tryin’ to hurt my feelings?”

That made Marc laugh so hard he almost lost control of the steering wheel. Once he got himself under control, he wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. “Okay, now I think I know why the chicks dig you.”

“Just drive, Jeeves.” He supposed he would be just damn happy to get the hell out of Zurich. It wasn’t that it wasn’t a nice little city, as it was … but what happened to that “simple job” this whole thing was supposed to be? All the dried blood on his skin was starting to itch, and he figured he was going to need a three day shower. Also, he figured if Xavier heard about this - and he probably would - he’d get a big ass boring lecture. Also, Canadian Intelligence might chime in since he used their name for credentials.

Amsterdam was starting to sound better and better.

“I know,” Marc exclaimed, apropos of nothing. “Pot brownies!The kid likes chocolate, right? I know this place in Amsterdam that serves ‘em. We’ll just not mention the special ingredients, and let him have a couple. Then we all watch Dodgeball, and I betcha the kid laughs ‘til he pisses himself.”

“I’m not sure if that plan is genius or cruelty.”

“Probably a bit of both.”

“Probably.” Logan let a moment of comfortable silence pass, then insisted, “Shoot me in the fucking head if I ever agree to go on a gig with you again.”

That made Marc chuckle. “You love it and you know it.”

“Oh yeah, I love getting in the middle of international incidents with crazed mercenaries, weaselly intelligence agents, and uranium. It’s like a blast of sunshine up the ass.”

Marc kept chuckling like this was all funny, but in a familiar way, like he’d heard the joke a dozen times before but wasn’t quite over it yet. “I got one thing going for me, one thing that’ll always have you comin’ back for more.”

“Oh really, smart ass? And what’s that?”

Marc flashed him his patented shit eating grin, and said, “I’m never boring.”

Oh damn it - he was right.

He hated it when that happened.

The End ...