Issue #5: "Sins of the Father"

Oliver Queen watched Green Arrow on the video monitor as he made his way over the inner wall of the compound of the man who was now holding him hostage: Kemel Asad. A man of Middle Eastern descent who Ollie and his partner Eddie Fyres had discovered was making part of his vast fortune in white slave trade… child slavery to be exact.

“I see by the look on your face that you were not lying, you had no idea that the vigilante was here, did you? Not that it matters much; your life was terminated the moment that he entered my premises.”

“WAIT! Can you at least tell me how you can get your jollies by selling young American girls to the highest bidder? What sort of sick ^$@# are you?”

Asad laughed. “I get no kicks, or thrills from it. I find it no different than selling imported clothing, or American cigarettes. It is nothing more than an ends to a means.”

“Well, that makes you even more of a monster than I thought. Doesn’t matter though, pal; even if you kill me, Green Arrow will still take you down.”

They glanced at the monitor to see several guards battling the archer, who was gliding through and over them like they were barley even there.

Who ever he is, Ollie thought. He’s one hell of a martial artist! Even Dinah could learn a thing from him.

Asad shrugged. “I will be long gone by then.” He pulled out his gun and aimed it at Ollie’s head.

“You know there are CIA agents crawling all over this country. Eventually they will find you and bring you down.”

This time when Asad laughed, it was as if he had been told the funniest joke he had heard in years. “You really think so? How totally naïve of you. So completely American with your blind patriotism. If you only knew the truth.”

It was with a dawning horror that Ollie began to put the pieces together, and the answer should have surprised him more than it did. Instead, it only made him sick inside. “I’ve been called a lot of things, Kemel, but blindly patriotic has rarely been one of them.”

“The time for talking is over.” Asad said as he placed the gun directly at Ollie’s forehead. The archer could do nothing but hang there, his eyes watching the video screen, realizing first, that Green Arrow wasn’t going to get there to save him, and second, that was his costume, but not his bow.

The shot echoed through out the dimly lit halls of the dungeon.

Kemel Asad staggered forward, blood already beginning to pour from the wound in his shoulder. Still on his feet, he swung around and used the hanging body of Ollie as protection when he eyed the man who had shot him.

“Give it up, Kemel, there’s no way your getting out of here,” Eddie Fyers said. His shirt had been torn off, and several open wounds were still wet with fresh blood, but he stood straight as he used the doorway as a partial guard.

“About damn time!” Ollie shouted.

“Oh don’t wet yourself… huh, never mind,” Eddie replied.

“Real funny, just do something, will ya!”

“Listen, Asad, we just want to talk to you. We’re looking for a young blond girl.”

“Stand in line,” the political figure sneered.

Eddie took a deep breath, “She’s important, Kemel, and you’d be doing me a big favor if you just tell us what you did with her. We know she got as far as here; which means you sold her. Just tell us where, and we’ll leave.”

“The hell we will!” Ollie shouted, dumbfounded by his friends sudden change. “This sicko is running an illegal operation and we’re bringing him down.”

Asad began to chuckle, still using the hanging blond man as his shield. “He doesn’t know, does he, Mr. Fyers? Were you afraid to tell him the truth, or is this one of those secrets that you have to carry to your grave?”

“Shut up!” Eddie screamed.

“What the hell is going on, Eddie?” Oliver demanded.

“What’s going on is that Agent Fyers is going to put down his weapon and back away, right now!” The voice came from behind Eddie.

Ollie looked past his friend to see the two CIA agents standing there, guns drawn and aimed at Eddie. “Dammit! Eddie, don’t…”

It was too late though, as an obviously defeated Eddie lowered his gun to his side. “Don’t call me Agent; I don’t work for you anymore.” But his voice gave no substance to the words.

Ollie recognized both of them from earlier that day; they had been the agents chasing after them. The final piece of the puzzle clicked in the mind of the liberal whose belief in his own country's governmental system was tenuous at best. His stomach began to turn as the concept washed over him.

“Awww, Eddie… no…”

Eddie looked up at his friend, a mixture of remorse and shame on his face. He didn’t reply, he didn’t have the courage.

Eddie Fyers was broken, it not only showed on his face, but in the way he now stood; slightly bent forward, his shoulders hanging low. His head was lowered and he could not look his friend in the face.

“The CIA has always known about this operation, haven’t they?” Ollie demanded.

“Shut up!” One of the agents barked as he walked up to Eddie. “Sorry about this, Fyers. We warned you to back off. We told you it was going to get you killed. But you just wouldn’t listen, would ya?”

“He took my daughter, Carl. He took that sweet, innocent little girl and sold her. I just want her back.”

Asad scoffed, “Sweet? Innocent? You don’t know your daughter at all, do you? That young woman was anything but innocent by the time I got her off the streets.”

The blood that had drained from Eddie’s face came back in a rush of scarlet. “You do know where she is, you son of a bitch! What did you do to her? Where is she?”

Asad sneered, “I sold her, you pathetic little man. I received a nice little sum for her, as well. She was a handful, though. I couldn’t wait to get her out of my hair. I’ve never seen anyone so stubborn and willful. Try as I might, I couldn’t break her… and I did try.”

That was all it took for Eddie to see red as he screamed in rage and lunged for the injured man. Kemel staggered back in shock, but the agent named Carl was already grabbing for his ex-teammate.

As he grabbed Eddie’s arm, Eddie surprised him by suddenly reversing his lunge and striking Carl, causing both men to fall to the ground. Before the second agent could help his partner, Eddie had grabbed the gun from Carl’s hand and swung it around, pointing it at Ollie.

“Eddie, NO!” Oliver screamed, but the gun had already gone off. Ollie flinched, and suddenly found himself falling to the floor. Eddie had shot the rope that he had been tied too, splitting it and causing it to break.

“Get them, you idiots!” Asad screamed in something sounding very close to panic.

Carl’s partner was now on top of Eddie, wrestling for the gun as Carl head butted his nemesis, causing Eddie to grunt as stars appeared in front of his eyes and released his grip on the weapon.

The other CIA agent grabbed it and aimed it at Eddie’s head, but before he could fire, there was a sharp snapping sound as the end of the rope that had bound Ollie’s hands, lashed into the agent’s arm, startling him backwards.

Using the momentary distraction, Ollie leaped on the man, punching him in the jaw as they both hit the brick floor with a hard thud. The agent tried desperately to crawl out from under his attacker, but Ollie would not allow him the advantage. He struck him again, harder, and this time the agents head snapped back, striking the hard floor. He stopped moving, his breathing became shallow.

In the meantime, Eddie, who was wrestling with CIA Agent Carl, flipped the man over his head and threw him into the nearest wall. He rolled to his right and jumped up, swinging with his right arm and slugging Carl in the side of the face. Carl’s eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped to the ground.

Eddie looked around frantically with the realization that Asad Kemel has slipped out during the fight. He swore under his breath as he started to run out of the room, then hesitated and turned to see Ollie staring at him.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Eddie?”

“Tell you what? That I had been recruited to keep a white slavery ring from being cut off at the knees so that our government could get vital information of national security? Do you have any idea how disgusted I was when I discovered the truth? It was the final straw for me. That’s why I left, but I knew too much, and these days, our government is very tight lipped about how we acquire our information. The old rules are gone, Ollie. They lay buried in the ruins of that September morning. So I ran, I ran as fast and as far as I could. It wasn’t too long after, when I received word that Mia had run away. In my worst nightmares, I would never have expected for her to end up in the middle of all this. I don’t have anymore time, I’ve got to go.”

As he ran out of the room he couldn’t help but be surprised that his friend was running down the hall next to him. They didn’t say anything else to each other. That would come later. They still had a young girl to save.

“Where were you? How the hell did you escape?” Ollie asked as they ran down a deserted hallway.

“It took me a while, but they were so busy torturing me that they didn’t notice that their knots were coming loose. I guess none of them were ever Boy Scouts.”

They rounded a corner and found themselves facing six guards who opened fire. Ollie grabbed Eddie and pulled him back around the corner as bullets whizzed by their heads.

Eddie went low; taking the gun he had stolen and brought it around the corner, firing blindly down the hall. There was another hail of bullets that hit the wall next to them as the crouched down, covering themselves the best they could.

Then they heard startled cries, the gunfire erupted again, but this time it wasn’t toward them. It sounded as if it were coming in the other direction. They exchanged a glance and Eddie peeked around the corner for a quick second. He brought his head back, his eyes revealing a look of shock, and then took another quick peek.

“What is it?” Ollie asked impatiently.

“Unless I’ve really gone nuts, their getting their asses kicked by you… I mean, Green Arrow.”

“I was hoping to run into him. I want my stuff back.”

Before Eddie could object, Ollie had run around the corner and out of sight.

“And he tells me I’m impulsive,” Eddie sighed as he cocked his gun and leapt into the fray.

Sajid had reached the office of his boss and was planting the last of the explosives, when he heard the sound of someone clearing his throat.

He turned to find Eddie Fyers standing there, gun in hand and pointing right at him.

“I will die proudly,” Sajid exclaimed as he brought the detonator up and reached for the trigger.

Eddie fired the gun and the bullet pierced through his left knee cap. “Yeah, maybe, but not today.”

He kicked the device away from the man and knocked him out with the butt of the gun. Then he began to rifle through the office. Ollie and Connor caught up with him.

“You move fast for an old man,” Ollie grunted, trying to catch his breath.

Eddie was rifling through papers that he had found hidden in a secret compartment under the desk. His eyes widened as he found a picture of Mia. He showed it to his friends. “He did sell her, and now I know where she is,” he said in triumph.

“Well don’t keep us in suspense.” Ollie said.

“She’s in Vlatavan; she was bought by Count Werner Vertigo.”

Ollie’s face drained of color. “Count Vertigo? #@%*! Could this get any worse?”

“Oh, I think it could,” said the voice from behind them.

The three men in the room turned to see Asad Kemel standing outside the doorway, the detonator in is hand. He smiled at them as he slammed the door shut and locked it. Laughing, he walked down the hall and out the front door of his compound.

One of his remaining guards ran up to him. “Sir! We are unable to locate the intruders.”

Kemel flipped the switch and the roar of the explosion was felt as much as it was heard.

“You can stop looking,” the slave trader said with a hearty laugh.