Enraged, Logan runs through the woods with both sets of claws bared. When he reaches a group of cabins he runs into two para-military individuals toting guns. In no time, Logan takes them out with slashes. Once he does, the floodlights come on and a voice and says “Glad ye could make it, Logan. Took ye long enough ye dawdling bugger.” Looking around, Logan sees a bunch of dead bodies tied to posts. The voice tells him “I mean, these poor people in this lovely little village have died of boredom. Well, no. I tell a lie. I shot them. But ye get my meaning, don’t ye?”
At that moment, Logan takes a step forward and is blown backwards. The voice informs him “A gasoline bomb, Logan. Just a small one, like a motorbike’s gas tank blowing up on ye, maybe. Nothing like, just to pick an example out of the air, a motorboat’s fuel tanks exploding. Are ye getting the idea now, Logan? Do ye see what ye’ve been brought here for? Och, it’s gauny be a long auld night for Logan.”
Picking pieces of metal out of his skin, Logan thinks to himself that the pain brings him back to himself, just a bit. The animal’s caged for a while. He’s thinking again. He’s done nothing but react tonight, let the animal rage. He needs to start acting, with cold hard thought. The voice tells him “It was ma broken back that saved ma life, Logan. Funny, no? Your motorbike’s gas tank went off first. The side of the tank that laid on me ruptured before the rest, the explosion turned into a thrust. Blasted me diagonally through the deck and doon into the water.
I imagine it was being limp as a dishrag with me spine in bits that kept me alive, ye wee scab. The Triads found me in the water. They’ve spent ten years piecing me back together. There was a price, of course. I had to kill you. A man doesn’t get away with killing one’o the Triad’s best and brightest. Ye did know there was another man on ma boat wi’ me? Course ya did. I wrote ma murder plan. The Triads hired all the murderers I’d need – some of the finest paid murderers in the world. You’ve killed, mutilated or crippled them all, Logan. A fine night’s work. I’m proud. It’s what I wanted. Y’see, once I’m dead, one’o them would’ve been the best murderer in the world. And I wanted that person to be you.”
Walking up to one of the cabins, Logan thinks “no way.” Ignore it, he’s mad – keep going. As he opens the door, the voice tells him “I brought you here to kill them, and to kill me. Because I screwed it up the first time, ye bloody idiot! I lived! When the door opens, an assassin with two dragon tattoos on each shoulder leading into his chest opens up fire on Logan. The voice tells Logan “Ye’re a murderer, man! Ye’re an animal! Ye’ve killed and clawed and butchered your way here. Killin’s like breathing to you. Ye kill wi’out thinking about it now!” As the voice continues to yammer, Logan is able to knock the Triad member out with a kick to his stomach and a stiff elbow shot to his chin. Logan then informs the voice no, he doesn’t. The man before him isn’t dead.
Entering the cabin, Logan sees a shadowy figure and assumes it is McLeish. The man laughs and tells him McLeish is dead. The young Japanese man asks Logan if he liked his Scottish accent. His superiors had tape-recorded conversations with McLeish, ten years ago. He has listened to them almost to death. He then tells Logan that he killed his father. Pulling out a gun, he points it at Logan and tells him it is loaded with specially-shaped adamantium bullets. They will tear a large and rather eccentric channel through his brain. The shockwaves induced by something so fast and dense penetrating your head will suck the undestroyed tissue out through the exit wound.
He adds that his healing factor is somewhat depleted and that he’s a mess frankly. The man then says that he has chosen his death carefully. It has been slow, painful and terrifying at times. His father died quickly, engulfed in a gasoline fire-ball in Hong Kong harbor. If he believes for a moment that was kindness on his part, his death would have been different. Logan tells the man that his daddy was Triad, he knew the score. Enraged, the man puts the gun at Logan’s temple and says his dad was a good Triad, as is he. That is why his employers have agreed to the expense of his murder. He’s worth it, doesn’t he see? From his thirteenth year, when his father’s men brought news of his murder to his birthday party, he has made himself worth… Having heard enough, Logan kills him by stabbing him with his bone claws. As the man bleeds all over the cabin floor, Logan informs him that he wasn’t the only one lost their daddy that day.
As Logan prepares to leave, he senses somebody behind a closed door and calls out to McLeish to come on out. He can smell the whiskey on his breath. It’s time to die. Just then, Logan is shot in the chest by a bullet that travels through the wooden door. While Logan falls he realizes he can’t get up, his healing factor’s at its limit. Exiting the room, an old looking McLeish informs Logan he’s not dead yet. Walking towards Logan, he tells him he shot him with adamantium rounds coated in poison. *hhgk* They won’t kill him, not with that healing factor of his. Buys them time for a wee chat is all. *hekg* He adds that he used to like *cough* their wee chats in Hong Kong. Logan says he hated ‘em. He then angrily asks McLeish what’s keeping him. McLeish begins to laugh and cough at the same time and then tells Logan hate and revenge.
As he starts to cough more, he says that he’s gettin’ too excited. The heart doesna like it. It’s just a wee cinder of a thing since the explosion, no good at all. Logan proceeds to tell McLeish that he pitied him. That’s why he used to drink with him. He felt sorry for him. He was pathetic. McLeish replies aye, pathetic. He’s driven him half-mad wi’ lies and bombs and terror. He havnae heard a word o’ truth since the first bomb, that no’ bother him? Logan tells him that even when he killed him, he felt sorry for him. He was just some drunken loser with a rep and a vicious streak. McLeish replies are you no’ listening to me? There were no Triads, no crowning o’ yeself as his successor, no truth. They were colleagues and hirelings, his people. They’re a community. They found him, helped him back to…
Logan cuts him off and says that he always asked what his job was. Well, he worked for Canadian intelligence. He had him checked out. Logan then says to McLeish that he never mentioned he had a son, has he seen him lately. Kinda funny, you spent ten years getting healthy, if you call that healthy, all for an entire night tryin’ to kill him in revenge and he was already beaten. McLeish tells him that his son and him don’t talk. Haven’t for fifteen years, he lives in British Columbia. Logan corrects him. Six feet under British Columbia. He then challenges McLeish to go on, kill him, he’s already won.
In a rage, McLeish lunges towards Logan and asks what he did tae his boy. Logan stops him by placing his fist with his two outer claws extended on his face. With a shocked face, McLeish looks down in horror. Logan tells him that’s right, one claw left. In short time, McLeish drops to the ground dead, killed by Logan’s hand. While he lies there, Logan asks him how’d he like his mind games. Taking a swig of McLeish’s whiskey, Logan tells him he never did find out where he got all that adamantium from. Pouring the rest of the whiskey on McLeish’s head, he adds and he never met his son.
Logan recalls that it took a few hours to find what he needed to finish it. After pouring gasoline all over McLeish’s body and the cabin, he shot the cabin with a gun which in turn caused a fiery explosion. It’s a few days later when it occurs to him that he saved himself and his family by makin’ him think his son was dead. He killed McLeish with lies and fear. Just like he tried to do him. Some might say that makes him no better than him. Logan decides that he ain’t got an opinion yet.
