Mecrats

by C J Klinger

  Bill Lenkowski considered Greg’s question before answering. “There all the same size, so there won’t be any customization.” He watched Randy move around the hanger before adding, “Why don’t you spend a night field testing it before I order the rest of them. I believe we could have them all outfitted in ten days after you give the okay.”

  Greg agreed with the idea and ordered a night run to the Papoose Mountains to check out the new suit. He asked Randy to stand still so he could take some pictures for his report to General Emerson. The Kevlar-graphene suit added an inch to the big Mecrat’s already formidable dimensions, but it rounded out his form and gave him a more human appearance compared to his more mechanical look. The suit was desert camo colored and Greg asked Bill, “Can we change the exterior coloration for different conditions?”

  Bill answered, “I’m told they can have any design we want.”

  Greg said dryly, “I’m sure we’re going to need that option.”

  That evening, before the run to Papoose Mountains, Greg moved his pulpit stand from Randy to 3Rat, Angela Gonzales. so he could observe how Randy moved in the new suit. They took off for the mountains a little earlier than normal because of an unexpected satellite-dark window of opportunity. Tonight there would be a full moon, so Greg would be able to watch the Mecrat in motion. Three hours later he and Randy were satisfied the suit would not interfere with his performance. Judging from their mental reaction, the Mecrats were understandably excited about having better protection, but also about Randy’s more human appearance.

  By midnight there were back in the hanger and getting ready to rack up for the night. Greg checked his phone and found a message from Cathy asking him to come over when he got in from maneuvers. It was an invitation he was not going to turn down.

  An hour later, after making love, all Greg wanted to do was go to sleep, but Cathy wanted to discuss the Mecrats’ reaction to the new suit. He propped his head up and willed his tired body to stay awake. “I can’t explain it,” he said trying not to yawn. “The reaction to Randy’s more human shape was visceral. They just liked it.”

  Not for the first time, Cathy wished she had a better back ground in the psychiatric side of the mind, not just the medical, neurological part. Had she been in better tune with the Mecrats’ potential psychological needs, she might have encouraged the design team to incorporate more human-like features into the end product. Perhaps it was not too late. She looked over at Greg trying to stay awake and said, “Okay, you can go to sleep now, stud. I’ve got some work to do.” She got up and put her robe on. At the door to her bedroom, she looked back at her warrior. He was already asleep.

  Chapter 37

  Marshall Washington parked his car on a side street several blocks from his destination, a small grocery store next to a mosque on the near east side of Baltimore. He had driven by several times to check the area for any obvious signs of surveillance before deciding that any more drive byes would attract unwanted interest. With studied indifference, he entered the small, ethnic grocery store and looked around for the party he was supposed to meet. The store owner recognized him and made a motion with his head to go toward the back of the store. In the back room Marshall recognized and embraced a second man who had been putting a long case into a duffle bag.

  “Omar,” Marshall said excitedly. “I was surprised to hear from you. When did you get out?”

  Omar bin Habib released his friend and said, “Last month. I wanted to call you earlier, but we have to be very careful.”

  “I know, my parole officer grills me about everything. He seems to know a lot about what I’ve been doing before I tell him.”

  Omar had been one of the men in prison who had taken Marshall under his protection. He had calmly walked up to one of the most notorious gang leaders in the exercise yard and informed him that Marshall was off limits. The gang leader had quickly agreed without argument. It graphically demonstrated to the young man just how powerful the Muslim Brotherhood was. The word had spread that Marshall was under the protection of the brotherhood and none of the gangs in the prison had made an effort to recruit him into their organization. Omar had spent hours telling the young Marshall what the Brotherhood stood for and had gradually shifted the message to Islam. Marshall had never been particularly attentive in the Baptist church his mother had taken him to as a young man, but the Prophet’s clear directions on how a man should live his life struck a chord with him. Along with that came an admiration for the lands of the Prophet. He began to view his own country, America as an adversary instead of a land of opportunity.

  Omar looked at his young protégé as if measuring his resolve. He handed Marshall the duffle bag he had been working on and said, “Everything is here.” When the young man started to look inside, Omar stopped him, “Not here. Wait till you get to your apartment. There are written instructions inside telling you what you must do. Follow them exactly. When you are finished, don’t come back here. I will contact you. Do you understand?”

  Marshall nodded his head solemnly. He knew it had something to do with the information he had passed on earlier to his regular contact about the planned location of the Mecrats’ scheduled appearance. He did not know what the Brotherhood had planned, but he was excited to be a part of it. They chatted for a minute catching up on life outside the confines of a prison wall, but Raymond could tell Omar was anxious for him to leave. He made his goodbyes and slipped out of the store and walked quickly to his car two blocks away. He did not observe anyone taking a special interest in him or the store he had just left.

  Back in his apartment Marshall made sure his door was locked and the blinds were drawn. He set the duffle bag on the floor next to his small dinette table and opened it. The biggest item was a long, metal case that instinct told him contained a rifle of some sort. When he unclipped the case and opened it, the disassembled, heavy gun took his breathe away and explained the weight of the bag. In his entire life he had never held a rifle much less fired one. For a second he panicked thinking the brotherhood might actually want him to kill someone with the fearsome looking gun. He wasn’t sure he knew how to shoot one, much less accurately enough to hit a target. The gun was in three parts; the barrel, the center section and the stock, all of them a dull black color. Marshall emptied the rest of the bag and got his second surprise; a bundle of money and a credit card. He riffled through the bills and estimated there was twenty thousand dollars in the bundle, more money than he had ever seen in his life. He put down the stack of bills and decided to read the instructions contained in a manila envelope. He was suddenly very anxious to find out what the brotherhood wanted him to do.

  Fifteen minutes later, after rereading the instructions he felt relief and disappointment. He was not being asked to kill anyone, only to help someone else do the deed. As he suspected, the target was based on the information he had passed on earlier. The Brotherhood planned to extract vengeance on the creatures, the Mecrats that were threatening their plans to create an Islamic State in the Mideast. The location was Baltimore’s inner harbor.

  Marshall looked at his watch and decided it was not too late to start the process. He changed into his best, casual clothes to make it look like he was worth the money he would be spending. The last thing he wanted was to arouse suspicion. Next he took the money and divided it in half. He put fifty, one hundred dollar bills in his wallet and put the rest in the manila envelope and returned it in the duffle bag along with weapon and the instructions. He stashed the duffle bag in his shower thinking it would be the last place a casual thief would look.

  Twenty minutes later Marshall parked his car in the lot adjacent to the Rusty Scupper restaurant on the south side of Baltimore’s inner harbor. He located the dock master office responsible for the two piers that jutted into the harbor and entered with as much confidence as he could muster. The sun tanned man behind the desk looked him up and down as if trying to judge if the man in front of him was worth his time and effort.

  “May I h
elp you?” the man asked without any amenities in his voice.

  “Well I hope so,” Marshall answered with an engaging smile choosing to overlook the man’s dismissive attitude. “I’m interested in the fifty-foot Hatteras you have listed for charter.”

  “It’s expensive,” the dock master countered, a little less sure of his earlier stance, but still wanting to qualify the black man asking about the lease of one of the boats under his care.

  “I assure you, money is not a problem, Mr.” Marshall paused to let the man fill in his name.

  “Edwards, Captain Blain Edwards.”

  “Excellent,” Marshall said without giving the man his own name. “My boss is flying in from Hong Kong for a convention and he specifically wanted me to find him accommodations on a boat instead of a hotel room.” Marshall paused to let the words “Money” and “Hong Kong” sink in. Before the now interested captain could respond, Marshall asked him, “He’s rather particular about where he stays. Do you think your Hatteras will be satisfactory? He lives on a large yacht in Hong Kong harbor.”

  Captain Edwards had swung from being skeptical to now having to defend the yacht he was trying to lease. “She’s very nice, owned by the president of a large wholesale firm, who’s in England for the next six months. He’s allowed me to lease it to qualified parties.”

  “How much is he asking for a week’s lease?” Marshall asked hoping it was not beyond his stash of funds.

  “Seventy-five hundred plus the cost of fuel and a crew,” the captain said, knowing this was the proverbial fish or cut bait moment.

  “Oh, that sounds reasonable, but he won’t need a crew,” Marshall said. “He told me he was just looking for a place to sleep where he could feel the boat move on the water and hear the sounds of boat lanyards, whatever those are.”

  Captain Edwards laughed for the first time. “You’re not a sailor, are you?”

  Marshall joined in the captain’s laugh and said, “Water is for drinking and bathing as far as I’m concerned.”

  Captain Edwards smiled. He’d heard it before, but still didn’t understand some people’s lack of appreciation for the sea. “Would you like to see her?” he asked, now convinced the unlikely visitor was a viable prospect.

  “I would like that,” Marshall answered feeling relief at how easy it had been so far.

  The captain locked his office door and led Marshall down the outer pier toward a line of boats docked with their sterns to the pier. There were several larger yachts tied up on the harbor side parallel to the pier and Marshall hoped the Hatteras in question would not be docked behind one of the bigger boats, blocking the view of the harbor. It was not; in fact it had an excellent view of the entire harbor including the Constellation pier approximately three hundred yards across the harbor. They went aboard and Marshall examined the open deck space carefully wondering how anyone would conceal a rifle while aiming at a target across the bay. When the captain unlocked the sliding glass door leading to the interior he saw the possibility of concealing the weapon in the shadow of the interior saloon. Another possibility presented itself on the top bridge, but it would require some improvised cover. Marshall estimated it might be worth the effort because of the elevated position, but it was not his call. Someone else would make that decision.

  “This will do fine, Captain Bridges. I know my boss will feel right at home here.”

  The captain was pleased. The affable young man was not at all like he had originally assumed. “Let’s go to the office and sign the necessary papers.”

  Marshall filled out the papers with the information provided in the instructions he had received. The company was an actual company in Hong Kong, but if anyone called to confirm the identity of the person Marshall put on the lease, he would be informed the person was traveling and was unavailable. Marshall produced the credit card to pay the deposit, but hesitated when he was about to hand it to the captain. He smiled sheepishly and said, “Do you mind if I pay the total in cash. This is my company credit card for travel expenses and this deposit will put me over my limit.”

  The captain was delighted. Cash was a lot more convenient than a credit card. He could easily skim off a thousand dollars and no one would be the wiser. “Cash will be okay.” He realized he had never gotten the young man’s name. He looked at the filled out lease, but couldn’t make out the signature. He was about to ask for his name when the young man handed him a stack of one hundred dollar bills. He became so preoccupied in counting the money he forgot about asking.

  Marshall picked up his copy of the lease and a set of keys and said, “My boss, Mr. Chung will be here Saturday morning. I’ll come by tomorrow and drop off some supplies for his arrival.”

  Captain Bridges pocketed the cash and shook Marshall’s hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.” Marshall was gone before the captain remembered to ask him his name.

  Chapter 38

  One of the things Abdullah did miss about America was having a cold beer. His father had been an on again-off again Muslim and had never insisted his son follow the proscriptions laid down by the Prophet. As a result, Abdullah had experienced a more or less, normal American, young adulthood; girls, football and beer. His father’s fall from economic security and eventual death had quickly radicalized him, but in spite of his new found commitment to Islam, he never lost his desire for a cold beer.

  “The Prophet is testing me,” he thought, as he squinted his eyes against the midday glare. He had the sudden thought that if the Prophet had ever had a cold Budweiser on a day like this, he might have had second thoughts about banning alcohol. It was unlikely he would find a beer in this part of Iraq, cold or hot, so he pushed the thought aside. Besides, he had more pressing things to think about.

  Abdullah’s life centered around two hates; Americans and Shi’ite Muslims. They were visceral hates, not ones born of a logical thought process. He was angry over his father’s death and needed something to strike out at to satisfy his anger. Hatred of America and Americans could be explained. His hatred of Shi’ites came with becoming a radical Sunni. In Abdullah’s opinion, the Mideast was similar to Europe in the thirties, boiling over with suppressed anger and generations of resentments. A little spark would set the whole thing on fire and in the process destroy traditional boundaries, many of them arbitrarily established by western powers a hundred years earlier.

  Abdullah knew America would have to get involved again, for the fourth time, but this time the two local biggies, Iran and Saudi Arabia would not be sitting on the sidelines. America would be consumed by the battle, because it was not possible for Russia and China to stay out of the fight this time; too much of the world’s supply of oil was at stake. It was almost inevitable that the Russians and the Chinese would side with Iran and their Shi’ite leadership while the Americans would side with their traditional allies in the area, the Saudis, who were Sunnis. In the post-apocalyptic world, Abdullah envisioned the Mideast separated into two caliphates; one east and one west with the rest of the world struggling to recover from the effects of what would come to be called World War Three.

  His resentment against America now specifically included the mechanical monsters they had unleashed on his troops. Three weeks of recovery had not diminished his shock of seeing them in action. They were a formidable foe, but now he knew they were vulnerable; he had seen one go down in the battle at Karemlesh, a victim of a fifty caliber machine gun. That would be the gun to use the next time they met these abominations claiming to be Angels of Death. Abdullah knew he would never dispel the rumors running rampant through his troops until one of these monsters was laid out in front of them, full of bullet holes. True angels were not made of metal and could not be killed by gunfire.

  His contacts in America had assured him they would be able to extract a small measure of revenge by killing one of the scientists who had helped create the monsters and maybe even one of the monsters themselves. That would please him greatly. As for the rest of them, Abdullah felt reasonably ce
rtain he could come up with the right kind of hostages to induce the American military to send their mechanical monsters back to Iraq and his waiting trap. This time Abdullah would be prepared for them.

  Chapter 39

  Cathy had to admit she was excited. When General Emerson had called her and asked her to be part of the entourage to introduce the Mecrats to the public, she had reluctantly agreed, but only after Greg had pleaded with her to accept. But now, after having met and talked to the President of the United States during the reception at Andrews Air Force Base, she had to admit it had been an experience she would remember. President Brewer had been remarkably well informed about her work and asked several penetrating questions that told her he had spent more than just a cursory amount of time reading up on the program.

  “Of course he interested in what you’re doing,” Greg said. “You saved his bacon twice.”

  She smiled at the man she had let into her life so quickly. “You think that was it? Are you sure it wasn’t my pretty blue eyes?”

  Greg laughed at her pretend feminism. “I don’t know if it was your eyes or not, but I did notice he was examining your cleavage pretty carefully,” he said, once again marveling at how much the beautiful doctor had come out of her protective shell.

  Cathy shrugged dismissively, “Well, he is a man, isn’t he.”

  “Are we that easy?” Greg asked, speaking for men in general.

  She started to give him a scientific explanation of why men constantly looked at women’s breasts, but he stopped her and said, “Please don’t ruin it for me. I don’t want to have this scientific explanation running through my head the next time I’m kissing your tits.”