When they were still two hundred kilometers from America, they abandoned the warship.
Then they rowed two lifeboats across the final stretch of sea.
As for the warship, they left it to drift with the wind and waves. Barring anything unexpected, it would sink in some deserted stretch of the Gulf of Mexico a day later.
After several dozen minutes of rowing, they spotted the Statue of Liberty in the distance.
She shone with a pale blue-green glow, holding her torch high as she gazed resolutely out to sea.
July 10, New York, the capital of the Illuminati.
The Messiah members looked at her from afar, then skirted Manhattan, making a wide detour to land on a quiet, deserted stretch of coastline. They punctured the lifeboats and sank them, then split up and left.
As agreed, they eventually regrouped one by one on Vik Street in Brooklyn.
The street was notoriously lawless. Ten local gangs occupied a stretch barely three kilometers long.
Graffiti and advertisements of every kind covered the street, while the filthy, shabby low-rise buildings made the place look like it didn't belong in New York at all.
Their meeting place was a storefront called Adams Dental Clinic.
The clinic was spacious and occupied two floors. The interior looked nicely furnished, and the dental tools were neatly arranged and clean.
The only odd thing was that there was just one person inside, without even an assistant or receptionist.
That person was, of course, the clinic's owner, Adams.
"Hey, long time no see, Adams," Evil Dragon said softly with a smile.
Adams sucked in a breath. He glanced at the people filing into his clinic, then looked at Evil Dragon, his face twisting as though his day had just gone straight to hell.
"You're still alive? Just my rotten