The Return of The Phantom General

That Weapon Isn't A Toy

Floor 30. CEO's Office.

Marcus Sterling was pouring a drink into a glass. He heard the alarms below, but he was confident his forces had already taken care of the intruder.

"Probably just a madman with a toy bomb," Marcus muttered, trying to calm himself.

Ding.

The sound of the elevator was heard from the end of the hallway outside his office door.

Marcus put down his glass. He opened his desk drawer, taking out a pistol. He aimed the gun at his office door.

Footsteps.

One. Two. Three.

The footsteps echoed.

Then stopped right in front of the door.

"Who's there?!" shouted Marcus, trying to sound brave. "I'm armed! Come in and I'll fill you with holes!"

No answer. No words.

BAM!

The five-inch thick door wasn't opened. It was kicked.

The hinges holding it were torn from the concrete wall. The heavy door flew across the room like a sheet of cardboard, smashing into a display cabinet and shattering it to pieces.

In the now gaping doorway, Caleb Thorne stood. Thin smoke rose from the tips of his boots.

He stared at Marcus Sterling, who stood trembling behind his massive desk, the Magnum pistol in the old banker's hand looking like a child's toy.

Caleb stepped into the luxurious office, stepping on the door without looking down.

"Hello, Marcus," greeted Caleb coldly. "I heard you have a hobby of collecting antiques. Are you interested in collecting your own coffin?"

Marcus pulled the trigger.

"Missed. What a pity. Even though we are close. Is your hand shaking because of age, Marcus? Or because you know your end is near?"

Caleb's voice sounded calm, cutting through the cloud of gunpowder smoke that had just come out of the muzzle of Marcus Sterling's pistol.

Marcus gasped. He saw a gaping bullet hole in the wooden wall behind Caleb. He was sure he had aimed right at the man's chest. He saw Caleb standing there, without a single scratch, as if the bullet had passed through his body like it was passing through fog, or maybe... deliberately missed because it was afraid of hitting its target.

"You... you're wearing a bulletproof vest?" Marcus laughed nervously. He took a step back, his sweaty hand groping the underside of his desk. "Who do you think you are, huh? Do you think you can walk in here and walk out alive?"

Caleb didn't answer. He stepped forward, past the shattered door, approaching Marcus.

Marcus pressed the hidden panic button under the desk. Once. Twice. Three times.

The small indicator light on the button blinked red. The signal had been sent. A signal that was supposed to summon a private SWAT team and a helicopter in less than three minutes.

Marcus's confidence returned. He grinned widely, showing his teeth.

"You're finished, Thorne! I just sent the signal," Marcus exclaimed triumphantly. "In two minutes, this building will be surrounded by a force more deadly than the security in the lobby. You will die riddled with bullets, and I will piss on your corpse!"

Caleb stopped in front of the desk. He stared at Marcus with an inscrutable gaze.

"Press it again," said Caleb flatly. "Press it until your finger breaks. No one is coming."

"Bullshit! This system is connected directly to satellite!" snapped Marcus.

"Man-made satellites," replied Caleb. He walked around the desk.

Marcus reflexively backed away, pointing his gun again with trembling hands. "D-don't come closer! Back off!"

Caleb ignored the gun completely. He pulled out Marcus's chair—the throne of the CEO of Sterling Bank—and sat there casually. He swiveled the chair slightly, crossed his legs, and placed both hands on the armrests, as if he had owned this building from the start.

"Comfortable chair," commented Caleb, rubbing the leather. "Real cowhide? Or the skin of customers who defaulted?"

Marcus's face turned red with anger and humiliation. Seeing a vagrant sitting in his seat of power made his blood boil. "That is my chair! How dare you... Get up from there, trash!"

Caleb reached into the inner pocket of his coat, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper containing a row of numbers in Lisa's handwriting. He placed the paper on the desk, then pushed it toward Marcus.

"Transfer," said Caleb. One word. Without a commanding tone, but it felt absolute.

Marcus glanced at the paper. It was a regular bank account number. "Transfer what? Spare change to buy cigarettes?"

"Everything," answered Caleb. His eyes stared sharply into Marcus's pupils. "All your money. All the reserve funds of Sterling Private Bank. All bonds, stocks, and your secret savings in the Cayman Islands. Empty everything into this account. Now."

Marcus fell silent for a moment, then exploded in hysterical laughter. He laughed so hard his stomach hurt.

"You... you're crazy!" Marcus coughed between laughs. "Do you know the value of my assets? It's trillions of Francs! You think I'm going to give it to you just because you're sitting in my chair? Do you think this is a cartoon?"

"Consider it interest," Caleb cut in coldly. "Interest for making my mother go blind. Interest for making my sister, Lisa, cry in the snow. And a late f*e because you are still breathing at this very second."

"You are mentally ill," hissed Marcus. He cocked his gun again. This time he wouldn't miss. They were only separated by the desk. He aimed right between Caleb's eyes. "I won't transfer a single cent. I will kill you, then I will hire people to kill your sister and your blind mother. I will wipe the name Thorne from history!"

"Bad decision," whispered Caleb.

"DIE!" Marcus shouted, his finger pressing the trigger.

However, his finger couldn't move.

Not just his finger. His entire arm was stiff.

The temperature in the room dropped drastically. Frost appeared on the window glass, obscuring the view of Zurich. A foul smell suddenly filled the room—the smell of flesh rotting from gangrene, the smell of wet earth, and the stinging smell of gas.

"What... what is this?" Marcus tried to pull his hand back, but it was locked in the air.

He felt a bone-chilling cold on the back of his neck. Something... someone... was standing right behind him.

"Who's there?!" shouted Marcus in panic, but he couldn't turn his head. His neck was also stiff.

From the corner of his eye, Marcus saw a hand appear over his shoulder. The hand grabbed Marcus's wrist that was holding the gun.

It was a skeleton wrapped in the remains of rotting flesh. The uniform sleeve worn by the figure was an old military uniform, moss green and tattered, full of bullet holes and dried black blood stains.

"No..."

A voice whispered right in Marcus's ear. The voice was raspy, like someone whose lungs were full of fluid.

"This weapon... is not a toy for little children..."

The figure revealed itself more clearly. A World War I General. Half his face was destroyed. A gas mask hung around his badly injured neck. One of his eyes was missing, replaced by a dark hole filled with spectral maggots.

"AAAAHHH!" Marcus screamed. A scream of terror. "GHOST! THERE'S A GHOST!"

"Allow me to introduce," said Caleb casually from his chair. "That's the General. He died in the trenches of Verdun in 1916. He doesn't like people pointing guns at his superior."

***