By the time Clark, Homelander, Maeve, and A-Train reached the coordinates, the fight inside the hideout was already over.
If it could even be called a fight.
The door came off its hinges. Homelander stepped through first, his jaw set.
It was another basement. Spacious and dim, with sparse furniture left behind by previous tenants. Crates of guns and ammunition sat stacked in the corners. The smell of gun oil hung thick in the air, layered over the stale scent of unwashed bodies. On the wall, a two-headed snake flag hung straight and spotless. It was the only clean thing in the room.
The bodies stopped them at the doorway. Thirty-odd men were scattered across the floor, their limbs twisted at unnatural angles. A low chorus of groans rose and fell in the dark. But there was no smell of blood. Not a single drop.
"Every one of them has the tattoo," Homelander said. "Shining Light Liberation Army. All of them."
His gaze drifted over the room. His vision cut through the dark, registering the Southeast Asian features of the men muttering in a language he didn't understand. He didn't need a translation. The flag on the wall told him enough.
"Every arm and leg broken," Clark said. He crouched by the nearest man. "Jaws dislocated so they can't scream. Whoever did this was precise. No blood, no calls for help, and barely any bullet holes in the walls. My guess is they killed the power first and worked in the dark."
He stopped.
That's not just efficient. That's a very specific kind of efficient. The method had a shape to it he recognized, though the person he was thinking of never bothered cutting the power. He would just put a batarang through the nearest light fixture and call it a night. And he's not in this world. I would know. Clark pushed the thought aside.
This happened right around A-Train's race, he thought. He scanned the room. Coincidence, or did somebody plan it that way?
Maeve pulled out her phone and swept her flashlight over the flag. A dead light fixture was mounted right above it.
"I'll get the power," A-Train said. He vanished out the door and down the hall, returning in under ten seconds as the overhead lights hummed to life.
Pale fluorescent light washed over the flag and illuminated the room. Maeve clicked off her flashlight. She and A-Train took in the scene.
"Twenty in here, seven or eight more outside. Over thirty total," Maeve said. "A group this size, armed, inside city limits. If this had gone wrong, we'd be looking at a mass casualty event on the evening news." She walked the room slowly. "Power first. Then someone breached in the dark and moved through the crowd close enough that nobody could risk shooting without hitting their own guys. Dislocated jaws so nobody could shout a warning. Broken limbs so nobody could grab a weapon or run. Everybody in this room wanted to fight back, and not one of them could find a target."
"You'd think they'd care about their own people," A-Train muttered. He crouched over one of the fallen men, turning a shattered wrist over in his hand. A wet groan rattled in the man's throat. "I figured this crew didn't care about anybody's life, theirs included."
"It's not that they didn't want to shoot," Homelander said. He peeled a glove off one man's hand, revealing a thick wad of bandage underneath. "It's that they couldn't. Every one of these guys has a hole straight through his hand. That's why the rifles are still stacked in the corner instead of on the floor. In this condition, most of them can barely hold a pistol, let alone fire one."
Maeve crossed to the wall. She traced her fingers over the scattered bullet holes. "Near the end, a few of them managed to get a shot off. Whoever this was, they were good. There were probably several of them, given how fast this room went down. Most of these guys were already on the ground before the first shot fired. The last few just wasted rounds into the dark." She stepped back. "The gunfire brought the neighbors' attention and got the police called. Efficient, thorough, and nobody is dead. Whoever did this cleared out before we got near the place."
"Maybe night vision gear," A-Train said. "But why go to all this trouble? Why not just kill them and be done with it? Some kind of code of honor thing?"
He trailed off. His gaze drifted to the next man over. He stopped.
He knew that face.
This was one of the men who used to handle the Compound V handoffs in Chinatown back when A-Train made the runs himself. After the basement was hit, this crew spent two days combing the city for the culprit. They found nothing. Then, this morning, they vanished from Chinatown. They figured out what Vought wanted from them: answers, and then silence. They went dark first.
As of this morning, the two sides were officially no longer partners. The plan, as far as A-Train understood it, was simple: find these men, put out the warrant, and send Homelander to finish it.
Sweat pricked A-Train's forehead. The man on the ground stared straight at him. His lips worked. His throat produced a broken, muffled sound. He was trying to speak with what was left of his jaw.
Don't. Don't say a single word.
If this man made it to a police station alive and talked, it was over. For him, for Vought, for all of it.
A-Train's head snapped up. His eyes met Homelander's. Neither of them spoke. They were thinking the exact same thing.
"Superman," Homelander said, his voice dropping into a smooth, practiced cadence. "You're faster than I am, and you have the eyes for this. Mind sweeping the streets nearby?"
Clark blinked. "Why?"
"It has barely been two minutes. Whoever did this can't have gotten far." Homelander was already moving. He hauled the fallen men into neat, even rows across the floor. "If you spot anyone out there running around with night vision gear, that's probably your guy."
"And you?"
"I'll bring in the seven or eight still outside." Homelander offered a close-mouthed smile. "So we can get everyone taken care of."