You Americans are all insane.
: Jaeger Weiss- Damn right.
: Ben Santini
Stormwatch: Team Achilles #7 is an issue of the series Stormwatch: Team Achilles (Volume 1) with a cover date of March, 2003. It was published on January 8, 2003.
Synopsis for the 1st Story
It's 1:00 in the afternoon and Santini, Tefibi and Weiss are renting a car at the Atlanta International Airport. They also go and grab some "special" luggage. Once they have their package and their car they head out on the road. While Tefibi drives, Santini briefs Weiss on the area they're heading towards. Tefibi asks why they're using such low tech methods instead of just teleporting in using Project Entry. Santini tells him that teleporters leave energy traces and he doesn't want anyone to know they were there. Plus, he thinks it will be more satisfying to just walk in through the front door.
They keep driving until they see a billboard near the road and Santini tells Tefibi to pull over. All three of them pile out of the car and then they get to work altering it. They change the plates to government ones and switch the tires. After their work is done they take a look at the package. Inside is an alien laptop for Tefibi and a pistol for Weiss. Weiss feels like he's been slighted until Tefibi fills him in on what the gun can do. It has better range than any other handgun and fires specially designed rifle ammunition. The weapons talk turns into sex talk and Weiss starts making fun of Tefibi. Santini splits them up and they get to the real work. They put on FBI uniforms and Santini grabs some more weapons from the trunk.
As they near their destination they pass a cotton field. Santini tells Weiss that the man they're going to see is really big on the old traditions. They soon pull up to a large white mansion guarded by armed men. In the back of the vehicle Tefibi tells Santini that he's gotten control of all cell phone towers with an alien laptop (which Santini describes as the equivalent of a palm pilot). Santini tells him to grab the land lines too before promising him an alien version of a desktop if he keeps doing his job right.
The guards come up to the car and ask for their badges so they can be checked out in which Santini hands them over. Tefibi monitors the guards' conversation on their walkie-talkies as they check out the badges and he sends a false message to the guards from his laptop, making them to think that whoever is on the other end has confirmed that they're FBI. They are allowed into the mansion and escorted to the office of Senator Sonny Terns by a civil servant. Terns asks what they have come for and Santini tells Tefibi to make their meeting private. The technician uses the laptop to shut off and erase the listening devices in the room, and Weiss stands guarding outside.
Terns demands to know what's going on and in response Santini flips on the TV and puts on C-Span. On the screen is a meeting about the United Nations funding where Santini is arguing to get the money Stormwatch is owed. Santini explains that the man on the screen is a shape-shifter named Alias who's giving him an alibi by being seen on TV. With everyone believing Santini is testifying before Congress in Washington, D.C., he can do whatever he wants to Terns. Terns sees how much danger he's in and tries to reason with Santini to see the "big picture". But Santini asks him why he and Ivana Baiul are trying to kill him and his team.
The senator starts talking about how super powered beings are a resource and how the United States cannot fall behind in the superhuman arms race. Santini then asks what that has to do with Team Achilles and Terns replies that he knows that his team's goal is to kill all the world's SPBs, including America's, and he won't allow that; that is why he stopped the funding from reaching Stormwatch and had Baiul to attack the U.N. and try to kill Santini and the others, so that no SPBs from another country could come in and take over his country. While they're talking Terns activates a hidden switch to call in his guards. But moments later the door to the hall opens and Weiss steps in carrying one of Terns' dead bodyguards; Weiss reveals that he dealt with the guards, who were mostly tech-enhanced SPBs, and he thanks Tefibi for his gun.
With no one coming to save Terns, the senator nervously tells Santini that he cannot kill him. But Santini informs him that the last guy who told him that got gunned down in his office, but he says that's not what's going to happen now. Instead he sees that an important, racist thug senator like Sonny Terns need "special treatment." He's going to have Alias, who is not only an SPB, but also Dutch and Zulu, take Terns' place and pretend to be him from now on while he spends his life trapped in a special cell in the basement of U.N. building watching everything Santini has Alias do and say in his name. Santini and his team shove Terns in a crate, throw him in the car's trunk, and blow up his house.
Appearing in the 1st Story
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- Alias (First appearance) (Behind the scenes)
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Trivia
- Santini sings the first verse "Oh I wish I were in the land o' cotton"' from "Dixie" while explaining to Weiss about the cotton field.
See Also
- Cover gallery for the Stormwatch: Team Achilles series
- Images from Stormwatch: Team Achilles Vol 1 7