Stormwatch: Team Achilles #4 is an issue of the series Stormwatch: Team Achilles (Volume 1) with a cover date of December, 2002. It was published on October 9, 2002.
Synopsis for "Back Doors"
At the UN building that is undergoing repairs, Stormwatch reservist Avi Barak, aka "Seeker", is greeted by field team leader Blake Coleman. He gets a cold welcome from Coleman and is led down to their new HQ in the sub-basement while Coleman explains that Stormwatch doesn't have the necessary funding from the UN. Barak pesters Coleman about the terrorists who attacked the UN in which Coleman declines to tell him as they are classified before warning him to stop talking by threatening to tear his ear off. He doesn't take his warning seriously in which Coleman fulfilled his threat by cutting off a piece of his ear before sending him in to see Santini.
Santini tells Barak that they take their operational security seriously and orders him not to ask anymore questions about the attack until he rescinds the order. He then sends him to Doctor Marie Grunier to see to his wound before reporting back. Barak finds Grunier treating Jukko. Seeing the disfigured man in front of him he asks him what happened. Jukko says he cut himself shaving but the real answer literally slams into Barak's mind and knocks him out. Coleman then explains to Grunier that Barak is an inductive telepath who saw Jukko's truth.
After Grunier revived Barak, she confronts Santini and admonishes him for not briefing everyone about Barak's power, especially when he absorbed Jukko's level of trauma that could have killed him. Santini tries to reassure her that Barak survived and will brief everyone about their new member. He then dismisses everyone from his office except for Barak. Santini and Barak talk (without Avi asking questions) about the situation with Jukko and why Barak isn't dead.
Santini reveals that Barak is actually a better telepath than he knows but he's only a partially activated comet seedling. He further explains Barak about his new Stormwatch's purpose to police all superpowered beings and preventing them from harming the "normal state of affairs," and he needs Barak's help track down Dhul Fiqar, the so-called "Sword of the Prophet" who is responsible for activating the terrorists' latent powers and allowed the attack on the UN to happen. Barak knows about Fiqar as he had previously activated sixteen other super-terrorists last year in Israel; he tells Santini about an incident in which he and the Israeli government failed to track down and stop one such terrorist who had the power to explode himself repeatedly and cost the lives of 238 people, including schoolchildren. It took Barak nineteen weeks to find the man after the latter killed 97 children in that time. But Barak, to his utter shock and horror, discovered the terrorist to be a six-year-old child. He shot the child, but his death still caused him to explode and take a bus of schoolchildren with him, leaving 39 nine people dead. Barak gladly accepts Santini's offer to fully activate his power to find Dhul Fiqar and kill him for good.
Santini then explains to Barak that he normally doesn't like SPBs and hates using them due to their many unexplored variables as previous Stormwatch teams always have been disrupted by "superhuman alpha-male" problems. SPBs have been known to band together and defend their own creates a loyalty problem. Santini swears he will not have that on his team. To activate Barak's full power, Santini provides Barak a sheet of paper and tells him to read it in front of a mirror and answer the questions written on it. First there are normal questions such as what his name is, things that he can answer. It moves on to questions he doesn't think he knows the answer to but his powers kicks in and force him to remember and answer correctly. The questions go on even further and Barak explodes with energy.
After Barak wakes up, Santini and Coleman take him to interrogate their prisoner Hamat. Santini and Coleman play some cards until Barak comes back with the location of the other terrorists: they are in Chechnya. Santini and Coleman are not pleased to learn of this because Chechnya is under the protection of the Authority.
Santini arranges a sit-down between him, Jack Hawksmoor and Midnighter to discuss the possibility of Team Achilles getting into Chechnya. But the Authority declines because they do not trust Stormwatch and their shady backers, the Special Security Council. Santini subtly informs them that the Council are no longer existent and not so politely insists on Stormwatch's intervention. The talks go nowhere that is exacerbated by Jukko threatening Midnighter and revealing his Finnish background. Hawksmoor ends the talks and warns Santini to stay out of Chechnya. Once Hawksmoor and Midnighter left through a Door, Santini had Tefibi hacked into the Authority's radio-telepathy and allowed him to hack into their computer systems. Santini had no intention of working things out with the Authority and is preparing for Team Achilles to go into Chechnya.
Appearing in "Back Doors"
Featured Characters:
- Stormwatch Team Achilles
- Ben Santini
- Avi Barak (First appearance)
- Marie Grunier (First appearance)
- Blake Coleman
- Jukko Hämäläinen
- Khalid Tefibi
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Hamat
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
See Also
- Cover gallery for the Stormwatch: Team Achilles series
- Images from Stormwatch: Team Achilles Vol 1 4