by S L Shelton
The man’s eyes narrowed.
Not that it would have made any difference, but that was not the response Harbinger had been looking for. A giant, meaty hand flashed out of nowhere, landing squarely in the middle of the man’s face and causing an eruption of blood from his nose. The man began to crumple, but Harbinger reached out with his other hand, grabbing him by the collar of his tactical vest, holding him up.
“Not exactly what I had in mind,” he said, gesturing with his arms, flailing the limp body as if it had no weight at all. He extracted a knife from his belt with his free hand and walked down the line, dragging the unconscious man along, almost as if he had forgotten he was still holding him. The others stepped back as Harbinger neared them.
“I don’t see that certain…something in your eyes,” he said, raising his blade up to examine it closely. “That look that says, ‘I am death, I am precision’…or ‘I know how to follow a fucking order’.”
He walked back down the line, still dragging his ragdoll soldier behind him.
“I know I shouldn’t expect much from security guards,” he said, looking the other couriers in the eye, one at a time.
“But each and every one of you were hired because you had particular talents…certain experience.” He paused and stared. “Hell! You wouldn’t be here now if someone hadn’t seen your value when they looked into your eyes.”
He paused to admire the fear he had created.
“I’m just wondering where that look went?” he continued as he lifted the limp form up for examination.
“Maybe I need to look more closely?” he said before inserting his blade at the corner of the unconscious man’s eye. He deftly flicked the blade, popping the eyeball out of its socket.
He sheathed his knife and then lifted the dangling orb from the man’s cheek with his overly large fingers. After a moment of fingering the white and brown mass, he let the man’s body drop to the ground, ripping the eye from the socket.
Several of the men backed away. One vomited. The big man held the eye close to his face, examining it.
“Nope. It’s not here. We must have used it all up. The container is empty,” he said, dropping the eye to the ground. “I guess the responsible thing to do is recycle.” He pulled the Desert Eagle .50 cal automatic from his hip and shot the limp figure in the now-empty eye socket.
He turned and walked back toward the garage office.
Pointing at the reserve team with his sausage of a finger, he said, “Brussels. I want to make sure proper backup is in place if we get lucky.”
The team began loading into two new Range Rovers as he slammed the office door behind him. He dropped his big handgun on the desk and then sat down on a short filing cabinet.
Bellos was in charge! Harbinger thought. I should have punished him as well.
He shook his head. “Those couriers are worthless,” he muttered, defending Bellos. “He did the best he could with what he had.”
He looked through the window of the office and watched as two men pulled the corpse across the concrete floor. The smell of their fear was more than he could handle… It fed the rage.
I shouldn’t give into it like that, he thought. I shouldn’t feed the beast.
He shook his head again. Bellos was the only one who didn’t reek of fear—the only one who didn’t set off the genetic triggers. He accepted his place as Harbinger’s subordinate and respected his authority without fear of him…just as Jonathan had.
“Ha!” Harbinger scoffed at the thought. It did nothing to protect Jonathan either.
Project Gold Rush, 1980s
Harbinger was training in the gym by himself when three of his brothers ran through.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Mother’s been in an accident!” one of them yelled with fear and anguish on his face. “They’re bringing her in now.”
Harbinger dropped the four-hundred-pound weight in its cradle and jumped to join them. When they arrived at the loading dock, guards were standing at the entrance with automatic weapons aimed at the boys.
“Back off,” one of the guards said. “Let them unload her.”
“What’s happened?!” Harbinger yelled as he pressed through the crowd of boys.
“Back off!” he yelled again as he raised the weapon at Harbinger.
The boys separated and let the medics bring Mother through the crowd, the guards nervously flanking the gurney.
Harbinger pushed through again and ran to her side, pressing past the guard as if he were a hollow mannequin.
“Mother,” Harbinger said, grasping her hand in his giant fingers.
Her eyes fluttered and she looked at him. She blinked in distress as her blood-matted hair fell into her face.
“What happened to her?” Harbinger yelled to no one in particular.
“She ran her car off the road in the storm,” the medic said as the crowd moved with the rolling of the gurney.
Mother shook her head discretely at Harbinger.
“What is it, Mother?” Harbinger asked, pleading.
“Jonathan,” she whispered.
“What about Jonathan?” Harbinger asked.
Mother’s eyes flashed with fear.
“Leave her be!” came a bellowing voice from behind them.
Harbinger turned to see Father, drenched, walking toward them.
“Take her to the infirmary and seal it,” Father said. “No one is to go in.”
The medics nodded and wheeled her more rapidly as the boys stopped at the implied order—all but Harbinger, who refused to release Mother’s hand.
“Harman!”Father yelled. “You will stop now.”
Mother’s eyes began to water. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I tried.”
“Harman! Halt!” Father snapped.
The command caused Harbinger to react involuntarily, and he froze, releasing Mother’s hand.
“All of you go back to the barracks,” Father said.
Harbinger and his brothers turned after a beat and began to sullenly walk toward the dorms. Before he had taken two steps, Father dropped a heavy hand on Harbinger’s shoulder.
“You really have done a marvelous job of fucking me over,” Father whispered into Harbinger’s ear.
Harbinger snapped to attention, stopping his forward movement before turning to Father. “Father, I am not clear about your meaning,” he said, responding as trained when asking for clarification.
“I know you are responsible for Mother taking Jonathan out of here,” he hissed.
“Father, I am not,” Harbinger lied. The secret is in my bones. My life before my bones.
“What follows is your doing,” Father said before turning to leave.
Harbinger thought on that for a second. “Father…where is Jonathan?”
Without turning to face him, Father yelled, “Check the dog pit.”
Harbinger’s blood ran cold. It felt as if his head had been opened up and ice water had been poured through his core. He turned and ran toward the training compound, smashing past a guard exiting the side door of the common building before sprinting across the muddy ground.
The dog pit—the lights were on there, highlighting the streaks of rain falling diagonally across the yard. He reached the edge of the circular concrete pit and screamed in rage upon seeing the bloody, mud-covered form of his little brother.
“Jonathan!” Harbinger screamed and jumped the fourteen feet to the floor of the fighting pit as if it were just a step down.
He kicked one of the Neapolitan Mastiffs in the ribs, lifting it from the muddy floor and sending it crashing against the curved concrete wall of the pit. The second Mastiff jumped for Harbinger’s throat, propelling itself several feet off the ground in a move it had been trained to perform on the larger students.
Harbinger grabbed the dog by both sides of its neck as it took Harbinger to the ground.
“Jonathan!” Harbinger screamed as his fingers encircled the throat of the big dog. As th
e second beast recovered and charged toward the prone Harbinger, he wrenched the neck of the top dog, snapping it, before throwing its body at the second one.
This sent the second dog into an angry rage. Harbinger crawled toward Jonathan’s body before the remaining dog jumped on his back, sending him facedown into the mud. A bite from its powerful jaws on Harbinger’s shoulder woke the combat reflex, and he rolled, putting his two hundred eighty pounds of bulk on top of the beast. A strong elbow to the dog’s ribs opened its back as it tried to flee. Harbinger grabbed the rear legs and then spread them violently, snapping the hip. The dog curled around to bite, but Harbinger was on his knees and took the opportunity to fall on the dog, trapping its neck in the curled position. He squeezed the body of the dog, breaking the spine, eliciting a brief, high-pitched squeal.
“Jonathan!” Harbinger yelled as he crawled toward his brother.
There was no response…no movement. Harbinger placed his hand on his brother’s chest and felt no heartbeat.
With the rain beating down on his back, he scooped up the body of his brother and climbed out of the pit. As he walked back toward the barracks, he could feel the blood boiling behind his eyes.
There were more corpses to create before the night was over.
**
12:50 p.m. EST—New York City, Spryte Industries Headquarters
HEINRICH BRAUN was sitting in the back of a large conference room, listening to William and Edward Spryte speak to a group of six prospective Combine members about the benefits of joining the organization—and paying the two percent annual tithe. When Braun’s phone rang, he quickly ducked out of the meeting and answered the call.
“Braun,” he said in a quiet voice as he walked away from the room. Behind him, his personal bodyguard broke away from the group of other guards and followed him toward Braun’s office.
“Your INTEL was correct,” boomed the bass of Harbinger’s voice. “Wolfe was in Antwerp.”
“Was?” Braun asked.
“As I predicted, your French boy scouts jumped the gun and gave away the incursion,” Harbinger replied in an uncaring tone. “It cost four of them their lives.”
“Scheiße,” Braun muttered. “Have we lost Wolfe again?”
“For the moment. But there’s another wrinkle,” he said. “It seems Wolfe is working with Mossad support.”
“Mossad?!” Braun exclaimed.
“Yes,” Harbinger grunted. “It looks like the rogue operation within the CIA has expanded to include allies.”
“We have to put an end to this quickly,” Braun said, tension creeping up his spine. “We have few assets in Israel and even fewer in Mossad. We could quickly lose control if this spreads further.”
“You appear to have little control regardless of Mossad’s involvement,” Harbinger replied, snide. “I can’t imagine the addition of two women to the conspiracy would do much more damage than your own incompetence has already.”
Braun’s mouth turned up in a sneer he couldn’t bring back under control. “Have you taken any action to follow up?” Braun asked after a few beats.
“I’ve sent a surveillance team to the Israeli Embassy to monitor any communications that might be picked up, but I doubt it will yield anything,” Harbinger replied. “The Israelis are much more adept at keeping things quiet than the rest of the free world. Plus Wolfe and his companions have a six-hour head start on us.”
“Do what you can,” Braun said, still tensing from the news. “I’ll work from this end to see if I can get a lead on the two women.”
“Is the execution of the launch on hold?” Harbinger asked.
“No,” Braun replied, clipped. “That is still the priority unless we discover something has changed in the background. But we must balance that with stopping Wolfe. We must discover what he knows and who else is involved.”
“Understood.”
“Four men?” Braun asked.
“What’s that?” Harbinger replied.
“You said four men died.”
“Yes. Three died during the breach, and one died of stupidity several hours later…all from Prosé.”
“Use what remains of their forces to round out your own,” Braun said. “I’m aware of your distaste for them and their lack of effectiveness, but with the extra manpower mixed with your own, it should provide you with the resources required to cover both operations.”
“I’d prefer to bring another team from the US,” Harbinger replied. “I can arrange—”
“Do what you must, but do not let Wolfe slip away again,” Braun interrupted as the threat to the floating operational funds began to overwhelm his senses. “He is on the trail of our money. Any disruption in the flow of those funds would be catastrophic.”
“If you are that squeamish concerning your funds, perhaps you shouldn’t have consolidated such a significant percentage of them under Frau Loeff,” Harbinger replied. “You have only one course of action if she’s discovered.”
“That’s why there are so many layers of stealth on the funds,” Braun snapped. “Her operation has been successfully circumventing government scrutiny for years.”
There was no answer from the other end of the line. A few seconds ticked by before Braun realized he was arguing with someone who not only had no control over the funding but also responded poorly to rude confrontation.
“Thank you for taking on the extra responsibility,” Braun added with a softer tone. “Your account has already been adjusted to reflect our gratitude.”
“Whatever the amount you added, it will only be a down payment,” Harbinger replied. “My work for Combine has just become more expensive.”
Braun squeezed his fist closed until he could feel his fingernails digging into his palm. Nevertheless, the smile returned to his face as he replied. “As would be expected, considering your service,” he said. “I’ll expect your new terms in short order.”
“Fine,” Harbinger muttered. “Let me know if your contacts in Israel come up with anything new.”
“Rest assured—”
The call ended abruptly. Braun felt as if his chest and belly were conspiring to suffocate him as he sat back in his chair. This has been spiraling out of control for far too long, he thought. The Sprytes have been too greedy and too impatient to consolidate power, and now it’s coming back to haunt them. I need an out. I need to make sure a stable organization remains once the Sprytes implode.
He dialed another number and waited for three rings before it was picked up on the other end.
“This is Cedric,” came a man’s voice with a refined British accent.
“Is Sir Thomas in?” Braun asked. “Tell him it’s Heinrich Braun.”
“Just a moment, sir,” Cedric replied, and judging by the sound, set the phone down on a wooden surface.
A moment later, there was a click. “Braun?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Sir Thomas, but I have news I thought you and the board should be privy to.”
“No trouble, Braun. Go on then,” Thomas replied.
“It would appear the Israelis are now involved in that business we spoke about,” Braun said.
“In what regard?”
“It’s not something we should discuss on an unencrypted line, sir,” Braun warned, alluding to the seriousness of the matter. “But suffice it to say your adversaries have adopted a more international reach to their operation.”
“Understood,” Thomas replied. “Are our resources still safe?”
“For the moment,” Braun said. “But I would recommend commencement of any backup measures that might be required for a change of management.”
There was silence at the other end for several tense seconds.
“Has our leadership collapsed?” Thomas asked finally in a very quiet voice.
Braun looked up at his closed office door and then turned his chair around so it blocked his sight of even that. “I’m sad to report that it is most certainly crumbling under its own weight,” Braun said so
quietly that even he barely heard it.
After a few quiet seconds, Thomas cleared his throat. “Very well, Braun,” he said. “Thank you for the update. We’ll take the appropriate steps from this end.”
“Yes, sir,” Braun replied.
“Continue to represent the organization as best you can…we are relying on you to keep track of our assets.”
Braun winced at the mention of his obligation but found it more palatable than going down with the Sprytes. “Of course,” he replied. “You can count on my complete compliance with organization policy.”
“I know we can,” Thomas said. “Good-bye, Braun.”
“Good night, Sir Thomas,” Braun replied before ending the call.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. A small grin slid across his lips as he rose from his chair and left his office. Patrick followed several steps behind before stationing himself outside the conference room as Braun entered.
As Edward addressed the group of billionaires in the room, William Spryte discretely moved to the back, toward Braun.
“The fact of the matter is,” Edward said, “a middle class is an aberration…a fluke of societal evolution, born of the socialist policies of post World War politics. The theft of power from the wealthy through punitive taxation and the corresponding rise of mongrel middle class comfort have done more to change the course of society than any other factor in the industrial world. By merging resources—just a tiny percentage of your wealth—with others like you, you guarantee the continued reversal of the policies that have corrupted our power structure.”
“I don’t see any possibility of reversal to those policies in our lifetime,” said one of the men seated around the table. “Why should we commit ten percent over five years when those resources could be placed in investments and doubled in the same amount of time?”
“How have your investments been in the last three years?” Edward asked.
“In the past three years?” the man repeated. “Outstanding now! But we lost half of our investments before things started to go back up. It’ll be years before we make up the losses.”
“Had you been a member of the organization prior to October of 2008, you would have been out at the top of the collapse and in at the bottom,” Edward replied with a sly grin.