Vigilante by Robin Parrish Page B

city. But he’d no sooner arrived there than his view was obstructed by a police helicopter that dropped into position and hovered right before him.
    “Open this door!” shouted a policeman out in the hall.
    Behind him, Branford heard the sounds of whispering. He figured Alice must be praying again. She seemed to do that a lot.
    Branford had no interest in prayers, instead scanning the building blueprints again, looking for options to feed to Nolan. All the while, he glanced back and forth to the primary monitor that relayed Nolan’s point of view. Nolan’s eyes were trained on the helicopter and the two men who sat in the open cargo area, rifle sights focused on the glass window.
    Angry pounding came from the office door, and then the thin door was cracked open and an arm pushed through, blindly searching for the doorknob.
    Nolan backed up five paces and then ran flat out toward the window and the helicopter waiting thirty feet beyond it.
    The glass shattered in an explosion of shards and Nolan plunged, first out and then down. Branford couldn’t believe his eyes as the picture swiveled from showing the ground rushing toward Nolan to the helicopter rushing away. Nolan’s grappler came into view in a flash and suddenly Nolan was no longer falling. He’d stopped in midair, the hook of the grappler having punched through the floor of the chopper.
    The pilot responded to his jump by pulling the helicopter away from the building, taking Nolan along for the ride. Seventy-five feet below, he dangled, clutching the grappler with both hands. Nolan built up momentum when the helicopter swerved away from the skyscraper and used it to swing toward another building close by that had a roofline only twenty feet or so below his current elevation.
    Branford held his breath as the helicopter glided above the second building and Nolan retracted the grappler at just the right moment to fall onto the rooftop and into a rolling stop.
    On solid footing again, Nolan ran for cover, dropping down from the opposite side of the rooftop, beyond where the helicopter could see, and found his footing on a lower ledge.
    Conversationally, as if nothing had just happened, Nolan said, “Okay, then. I’m going to reconnoiter that warehouse on the Lower West Side we talked about. I’ll check in when I get there.”
    And with that, he was off on his next task.
    Branford took off his own headset and dropped it on the table before him. He leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and shook his head slowly. He had to take a few deep breaths to shake off the death-defying escape that Nolan had regarded as just another day at the office.
    I am way too old for this. . . .
    When he opened his eyes, he found Alice still staring at the computer monitor, frozen in place with both hands over her mouth.
    “It’s okay,” he told her. “Don’t worry, he’s fine.”
    Alice dropped her hands. “I’ll never get used to this.”
    “I still haven’t,” Branford said, rubbing the cobwebs out of his eyes, “and I’ve commanded men in two wars. But he thrives on this.”
    Alice shook her head. “Are all soldiers trained to do the things he can do?”
    Branford sat back in his seat but turned to face her, letting his attention wander from his screens for the first time in hours. “Nolan’s unlike any other soldier I’ve ever served with. He’s had training in every form of combat that our armed forces teach. If he were from a different time, he’d be a ninja or a samurai or something. He was born for the fight.”
    “He’s not superhuman,” observed Alice. “Everybody has limits.”
    “Nolan’s the best physical specimen humanity has to offer. And that’s not an easy thing for an old war horse like me to say. When he was training for the Army Special Forces, every time his drill instructors thought they’d found his limits, he’d prove them wrong. He excelled at every discipline. Survival. Sharpshooting. Martial arts. Heavy artillery. Bladed