A Police Officer's Story - part 2
by Ben Nettleship

To be frozen in ice is considered to be a horrible way to die, by many, as it combines the worst aspects of freezing to death and being buried alive. The psychiatrists of Patriot City, after the Nuclear Winter crisis, considered it fortunate that most of the people who had been frozen were not conscious during their ordeal.

Officer Patrick Conner had no way of telling how much time had passed since he was frozen. All he remembered was that in one instant, he was seeing the ice come out of Nuclear Winter's Hands, and in the next instant, there was ice melting off of him, and a strangely dressed man in front of him.

"Hey, you all right amigo?" El Diablo asked.

"M-my partner's trapped in the ice too," Patrick stammered, his teeth chattering.

"Hey, no problem," he replied, and sent a small tongue of flame into the ice encased figure.

"Th-thanks, whoever you are," Jack said, as he was released from his icy prison.

"You can call me El Diablo! Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to roast some more minions," the superhero proclaimed, and then jumped into the air, with flames coming out of his feet, and flew off.

The two cops stood in stunned silence for a moment, their recent ordeal forgotten.

It was Patrick who finally broke the silence. "Did he just do what I thought he did?"

"You saw it too? Thank God, for a moment there I thought I was going mad."

"Who the hell is that guy?" Patrick wondered. "This is like something out of a comic book."

"Not so unusual when you compare him to those other two, and that Nuclear Winter guy."

"I guess superheroes do exist after all."

"Can't deny the evidence."

The pair remained at the car, checking the radio at regular intervals, but they couldn't raise anybody. After about forty minutes, another patrol car pulled up, car forty.

"Armstrong, Conner! What the hell happened to you? They haven't been able to raise you on the radio or on any police call boxes. We thought you were dead, when Officer Lyonel reported the terrorists here," the driver shouted, as he pulled the car up close.

"Radio was jammed," Jack called back, not mentioning Nuclear Winter or the freezing they had endured he would save that for the report. "And the car's stuck in a snow drift."

"Damn, hop in the back, we've got to get to the docks. Reports coming in that some Soviet terrorist called Nuclear Winter is there. It won't be easy, the entire city's covered in snow."

Conner and Armstrong ran over to car forty, threw open the doors, and climbed in the back. The officer threw the car into reverse, and pulled out of the park.

As they drove towards the docks, the driver briefed them on the situation. "We got a call in a few minutes ago from a civilian near the docks. He reported armed men overpowering the soldiers and harbor police with guns and some sort of a freeze ray. Officer Jones confirmed that a minute later and then we lost contact with him after a short period of gunfire. Dispatch assumed the worst, so they're sending in everybody. They think he's after the nuclear bomb on the aircraft carrier in port."

Patrick let out a low whistle. "Damn, we've got to stop him."

"You bet. They're calling out the army, but it's going to be a while before they get to the docks, so it looks like we're going to be the ones stopping him."

At the docks, two other police cars arrived ahead of Armstrong and Conner, and a third was a short ways behind. The first two pulled into the docks, and suddenly slid to a halt, as a barrage of bullets blew their tires apart. Some frost troopers had set up a barricade with a machine gun, and were shooting down at the police officers.

"We've got officers in danger!" Sergeant Victor Maxwell, who was in the third car, yelled into his radio, as his driver pulled to a halt. "They're pinned down by machine gun fire! Those bloody commies have a machine gun!"

"Hold your position and wait for back up," dispatch responded.

"They're not going to last that long!" Maxwell yelled.

"You won't help them by getting killed."

Maxwell was forty-five years old, and was an old veteran from World War II. He hadn't adapted well to the civilian life after the war ended, since his major talents consisted of jumping out of a plane over a foreign country and killing people with a knife, rifle, grenade and machine gun. Eventually, he joined the Patriot City Police in 1946 and stuck with it ever since.

As he talked with dispatch, Armstrong and Conner arrived. The driver of the car pulled to a halt, then jumped out and opened up the back doors.

"What's the situation, sir?" Jack asked, after he and Patrick took cover with Vic behind his car.

"Those boys are pinned down," Vic replied. "We can't circle around, 'cause the roads are blocked off. There's some fighting going on further down, but we can't get there for the same reason. And it looks like the soldiers here were frozen by that maniac."

"Let's go in and help 'em," Patrick said, drawing his pistol.

"With what? Our .38s? Those men have battle rifles and machine guns."

"Damn it all to hell, we can't sit here and watch them die, we' ve got to do something."

The machine gun fire continued, as the trapped officers tried to return fire. One of them slumped down, hit in the shoulder.

Jack suddenly saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was a guard post, with the guards frozen into the ice. Next to it was a jeep, with a mounted gun.

"How about we use that, sir?" Jack suggested, pointing at the jeep.

Vic turned, and stared at the jeep, then ran towards it. Patrick and Jack followed.

"Browning fifty caliber machine gun," Vic said, when they arrived. "I fired one of these during the war. Armstrong, you drive. Conner, grab a rifle and ride shotgun. I'll man this baby."

Fortunately, the keys were in the ignition. Jack turned on the jeep and got ready to move, as Patrick grabbed a fallen M-14. "I've never fired one of these before," he said nervously.

"The theories simple enough. You'll do fine," Jack reassured him. "You handled a rifle pretty well at the range. Same principle."

"Right, okay," Patrick said, racking the gun.

"Move out," Vic commanded, as he swung the gun around, the old skills coming back to him.

Jack obliged, putting the gas pedal to the floor, and taking off towards the trapped policemen. As they moved, Vic swung the Browning around towards the frost troopers machine gun, and opened fire.

The machine gunner was the first to fall, three rounds blowing his head apart like an overripe melon.

"Kill them, you incompetents!" yelled the commander at his men, as he got off the radio. This wasn't supposed to happen, he thought angrily. Americans were weak, why would they risk their precious hides like this?

"Yes commander," a trooper replied.

"Hurry, Nuclear Winter needs our help. Those costumed Americans are confronting him as we speak."

The jeep pulled to a halt next to the two patrol cars. Vic was in a different era now. There wasn't any evidence, rules of conduct or lawyer. There was just you, the gun and the other guy. For the first time since he had become a police officer, he truly felt like he was making a difference.

Patrick dived out of the jeep and into the snow, as the jeep took off again. He lay on his chest, aiming and firing his rifle, as the bullets whizzed by him.

"Grenade them! Blow them to pieces!" the commander screamed, firing his ice pistol randomly over the barricade his men had set up. The situation was rapidly deteriorating for him. He had three men down, and was taking heavy fire. One of the troopers nodded, then stood up, pulling the pin from a grenade, and started to count to three.

Easy target, Patrick noted mentally, watching the man stand up over the barricade, and then aimed and fired.

A .308 bullet slammed into the chest of the frost trooper, knocking him backwards and down to the ground. The grenade fell from his hands, and landed on the ground, clearly visible to all that the pin was missing. The commander had barely started to scream when his world exploded.

"Bloody hell," Patrick said, as he saw the explosion. "Did somebody hit a gas tank or something?"

The jeep screeched to a halt, Vic was clutching his left arm.

"What happened?" Patrick asked, as he stood up and started to brush the snow off of his.

"Te took a bullet in the arm," Jack replied, getting out of the driver's seat. "Lucky bastard. A few inches to the right and he wouldn't be here."

"I've had worse," Vic stated simply.

Now that the battle was over, all of the men present could now hear something. The sounds of a fight going on in the distance.

"What's that?" Patrick wondered.

"Don't know, let's go find out," Jack ordered, running back towards the street. More patrol cars were arriving now, and Jack scrambled into the back of one that slowed down, followed by Patrick. The convoy of police cars took off, sirens wailing, into the docks. They managed to get around the blocked roads, and pulled up at another part of the docks just in time to see Minutemen, Mentor, El Diablo and Manbot drag Nuclear Winter up to a dock.

More police cars, as well as trucks and jeeps from the local army base, pulled up as Conner and Armstrong slowly advanced towards the superheroes and their prisoner.

"Take him away, boys," Minuteman chortled, as the policemen ran up.

"One day, your pathetic democracy will freeze in the clutches of Nuclear Winter," he predicted, as some officers cuffed him.

"Thanks for the assist, but what do we call this team of yours," Jack said, as Patrick pushed Nuclear Winter towards a car.

"You can call us, Freedom Force!" Minuteman proclaimed, then turned to engage in a discussion with his fellow heroes.

"Who are they?" Patrick asked, as Jack rejoined him.

"They're calling themselves Freedom Force," he replied.

"Sounds like something out of a comic book."

"Yeah. Still, they managed to take down this lunatic on his own. Oh yeah, almost forgot. Conner, charge him."

"Right," Patrick said, and turned back to Nuclear Winter. "Andreich Sukov, you are under arrest for the charges of espionage, attempted murder, assault and battery and other crimes to be determined at a later date."

"Bah, do you what must," spat Nuclear Winter. "You do not have a jail strong enough to hold back the might of Nuclear Winter!"

"Right," Patrick said. "Watch your step," and shoved him into the back of the patrol car.

Jack locked the door. "He's got a point, you know. How the devil are we going to keep him in jail?"

"No idea. They'll think of something."

The next day

Nuclear Winter was still in his cell, guarded by a dozen police officers, who were authorized the shoot to kill if he tried to break out. Armstrong and Conner had just returned from the hearings where they it was determined that they had used lethal force properly in the situation, and were meeting with Captain Scott Murphy.

"Good job at the docks," the captain said. "I've recommended the two of you and Sergeant Victor for medals, due to your quick thinking. Those men would be dead if you hadn't thought to use the machine gun on the jeep."

"Thank you, sir," Jack said.

"As for Sukov, I've sent word to Washington. Some federal agents from the local bureau of the FBI are coming. They should be here soon. They' ll take him to a military base or something. He's not our problem anymore, and I'm glad for that."

Just then, two men wearing suits and sunglasses entered the room. The first one presented his ID. "I'm Special Agent Johnson from the FBI."

"I'm Agent Williams."

"We're here to take in Andreich Sukov."

"He's all yours," the captain responded. "Need some assistance."

"No, we have a military escort to assist us. Just help us get him out to the truck."

"Sure, I'll get some of the boys guarding him to help. Conner, Armstrong, you can take the rest of the day off. You need some time to recover anyway."

The two officers nodded, and headed towards the door.

To be continued...