Harbinger

by S L Shelton

  “This is Gretel. One of your agents has just been captured. Nick Boxdropper works for John Temple, who is in the hospital,” she relayed breathlessly. “I need to talk to anyone who works in the same place.”

  There was a brief pause on the other end of the line before the operator spoke. “Connecting.”

  Several seconds passed before anyone answered.

  “Miss Fuchs?” Came the voice of a woman.

  “Ya. Scott has been captured. I have tracking capability, but we need to act now. He has been gone for five minutes,” she spilled out in one breath, relieved someone had enough knowledge of her to know her asset codename was Gretel.

  “Miss Fuchs. This isn’t a secure line. Can you find a secure line to relay this information?” the woman asked.

  “No!” she said, her tone rising with her anger. “I stole this phone from a drunk college kid. The attackers took everything, and Scott is gone.”

  Impatiently, she decided she was talking to the wrong person. “Let me speak to your boss!”

  “Hold on and let me see what I can do,” the woman said and put Kathrin on hold again.

  While she waited, she peered around the corner, suddenly feeling exposed. She was about to move again, in mid-rise from her squatted position, when the phone clicked again.

  “Miss Fuchs,” came a man’s voice.

  “Yes, yes…we’ve already established that. I need to talk to someone who can help me find Scott Wolfe.”

  “Please don’t use that information over an open line, Miss Fuchs.”

  “What does it take to get action around there?” Kathrin hissed into the phone, holding it in front of her face so it felt more like yelling at a real person. “Give me someone in charge…if not you, then your boss.”

  “That would be the President of the United States,” the man said. “And I can assure you, he would require a secure line as well. This is Mathew Burgess, Director of NCS.”

  Kathrin blinked in shocked silence.

  “Please give me all the information you have,” he said. “But try not to use any operationally sensitive information, like operative names.”

  Relief flooded Kathrin’s body as she spilled everything, beginning with the number on the phone that she had stashed on the Rover.

  “Thank you, Gretel,” Burgess said. “We will take over from here.”

  “Oh, no you don’t. I’m not being left behind. I have not yet contacted my people. If you dump me out of this, I will make my own arrangements,” she said, bluffing. She knew Benjamin would never commit Mossad forces to rescue Scott, especially now that she had contacted the CIA.

  There was a momentary silence on the phone. “Very well. Where are you now?” he asked.

  Kathrin smiled to herself. “Basel.”

  “If you can be at the Emmen Airport, north of Lucerne, in five hours, I’ll do what I can get you an observation position,” Burgess replied.

  “Not good enough.” Kathrin said.

  “Then you’ll just have to call your godfather,” Burgess said, sending a chill down her spine. “Because that’s the best I can do.” The director of the CIA National Clandestine Services knew who she was and knew her relation to a senior Mossad station chief.

  Kathrin swallowed her agitation over the revelation and clenched her jaw. His offer would have to do. “Five hours…I can manage that.”

  “Thank you for your assistance, Miss Fuchs.”

  She ended the call and left the phone sitting in the doorway before running from her cover. She immediately began looking for an older model car on the street that she could hot-wire—she had to get to Lucerne.

  eight

  Wednesday, February 2nd

  “That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” I heard my own voice say.

  I opened my eyes and was greeted by the sight of me—Wolf—sitting next to me in the floor of Maurice and Hülya’s apartment.

  I sat up. “I didn’t have a whole lot of choice,” I replied as I looked around the wreckage of the room. Two bodies, clad in street clothes with tactical vests over their jackets, lay in front of us.

  “There is only so much I’m going to be able to do for you,” Wolf said. “You are bound in the backseat of Harbinger’s vehicle.”

  I took a deep breath and then released it slowly.

  “I wish I had continued on to Brussels,” I said.

  “Me too,” Wolf said but with no bitterness. “But that’s a moot point now. He has you.”

  “Torture,” I muttered.

  “Probably,” Wolf said apologetically. “As long as they don’t use electricity, I’ll be able to minimize the pain. But even if they do, you can’t tell them about the enhancements made to you, or your knowledge of GGP Lab’s enhancement programs. They’ll dissect you.” He patted me on my leg. “Probably while you are alive and conscious.”

  “Great,” I muttered. “Any other cheerful news?”

  “You don’t have any internal injuries,” Wolf said supportively. “That’s a start.”

  I raised my eyebrows and nodded.

  “And…you still have the rest of the enhancements that grew with you, so you have advantages they don’t know about,” he added. “Your healing and reflex speed is still well above average.”

  “Unless my healing and reflex speed can counteract a bullet to the head, that’s not going to help me much,” I replied.

  “You are still smarter than the average mercenary,” he said.

  “Harbinger isn’t average,” I replied as I turned one of the bodies over and looked into his face.

  “No. He isn’t.”

  “What can you do to help me prepare?” I asked.

  Suddenly the scene changed. We were still in the same spot on the floor in the apartment, but I was now looking at a freeze-frame moment in time from the assault. There were now three of me in the room…me, Wolf, and a frozen me, firing at the man I hadn’t killed after turning his two friends into corpses.

  I stood and walked around the frozen me. My arm was extended, and I was firing my Glock. A long flame was suspended in time, caught at precisely the moment the bullet left the barrel.

  “Do you recognize him?” Wolf asked.

  I looked at the face of the man I had tried to kill and a flash of clarity brought the answer to me.

  “Bellos,” I muttered.

  The scene leapt to life as all around me bullets and noise filled the air. It froze again a second later.

  “Now look at the others,” Wolf said.

  I went from man to man, looking into each of their faces, illuminated by muzzle flash. Three of the men, the two I had killed and one who came in through the back door, were couriers from Prosé Service Exécutifs.

  I nodded. “They are low on manpower,” I said. “They were using the couriers to round out their ranks for the assault.”

  “We know manpower hasn’t been an issue with them before,” Wolf said. “There’s no guarantee, but it’s possible this was a crime of opportunity. That would mean Harbinger’s main body is occupied with something else.”

  I nodded and then a realization hit me. “The rockets.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Knowing that won’t do me any good tied up in the back of Harbinger’s SUV,” I said.

  “You’re smart; you’ll figure it out.”

  I scoffed through my nose.

  “There,” Wolf said, pointing at papers sitting on the coffee table. “Read.”

  I picked up the pile and recognized them as some of the documents Patricia Jones had stolen for me. Among them were some of my father’s handwritten notes, although several pages were only partially filled with information.

  I looked up at Wolf. “Why are there parts missing?” I asked.

  “You skimmed past the boring stuff that your dad didn’t write,” he said. “I can only show you what you actually paid attention to.”

  I rolled my eyes at the notion that my single-mindedness had robbed me of useful information. I was le
arning all kinds of valuable lessons recently—I just hoped I’d live to put them to use.

  “In your defense, you had every intention of researching things fully once you were done with your training,” Wolf said. “You couldn’t have known the Farm would be attacked and that you’d have to flee before that training was complete.”

  I nodded before going through the pages. My father had two pages of handwritten notes concerning the Gold Rush project. Among the details he had jotted down was a description of physical properties and peculiarities about the program: increased size, aggression, awareness of surroundings…essentially, primal triggers enhanced.

  “I might be able to use that,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Wolfe replied. “It’s certainly more than most of Harbinger’s victims would’ve had.”

  “Ability to sense deception,” I muttered.

  “I thought you’d find that interesting.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to recall personality traits controlled by primitive portions of the human brain. Fight or flight came to mind first, but there was also a protective nature that had evolved. I nodded my head.

  “There isn’t much else,” Wolf said. “If his eyes start going red with blood, it’s a signal that he’s having an adrenaline reaction…adjust your responses accordingly.”

  “Is there any chance of me getting my flowcharting back before I have to face this?” I asked.

  Wolf shook his head but kept his eyes locked on mine.

  “Okay,” I muttered.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  I inhaled deeply, enjoying one last pain-free breath before I was plunged back into reality. I nodded.

  “I’m right here with you,” he said. “I’ll do what I can to help.”

  With that last reassuring note, I woke.

  **

  Time Unknown—Location Unknown

  The first thing I noticed was that my head was throbbing. I kept one eye closed more out of pain than anything else. Thick plastic straps cut into my wrists and legs, just above the ankle. When I moved to test the strength of the bonds, I alerted Harbinger to the fact that I had come around.

  “Ah. You’re awake, Mr. Wolfe,” he said, peering over the back of the seat.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Do you require anything? Water? Food?” he asked calmly, almost kindly. “We want you to be comfortable until we arrive at our destination,” he said. Then he smiled. “Well…as comfortable as possible anyway.”

  “No. Thank you,” I replied quietly, suppressing all anger and doing my best to be grateful for the small kindness. Most of all, I was trying to be sincere.

  And there it was. Surprise on the man’s face. He was momentarily disarmed. Of course, at this point it did me no good, being bound in the backseat. He turned around, facing forward again, and chuckled.

  “I have to admit, Mr. Wolfe, you are full of surprises,” he said over his shoulder. After a moment’s pause, he turned to me again. “It has been many years since anyone has caused me physical pain without the aid of a weapon.”

  “I apologize,” I said, again as sincerely as possible. “My concern was for the girl.”

  Another conflicted, confused expression rippled across his face.

  “Well. In that you did succeed,” he said, turning himself back around and then lighting a cigarette. “It is of no consequence, however. You were our interest. She is free to live a long and happy life, romanticizing about the boy who sacrificed his life so that she might live.”

  He half turned again. I saw a broad smile on the profile of his face. “How poetic.”

  We spent the remainder of the trip in silence. I didn’t know how accurate it was or what time zone it was set for, but the clock on the dash indicated it was after midnight. We drove for another hour after that until we turned off the paved road and pulled onto gravel. Aside from the fact it was dark, I couldn’t see my surroundings while I was lying down in the backseat.

  I heard other voices as we pulled to a halt.

  “ …two dead,” one of them said.

  “And no less than they deserved,” Harbinger said as he got out. “If he had gotten away again, I would have killed the rest myself.”

  Someone muttered something but I couldn’t make it out.

  “Take Mr. Wolfe to the car…carefully. We don’t want him harmed any more than he already has been,” Harbinger ordered and then turned to me. “That is of course if Mr. Wolfe cooperates. You do intend to cooperate don’t you, Mr. Wolfe?” he asked, though it was clearly a command, not a question.

  “For the moment,” I replied sincerely, smiling, stretching my split lip until it hurt.

  The big man laughed and shook his head…genuine surprise. I’m not what he expected.

  “Good enough,” he said boisterously and stepped out of the way so the others could pull me from the vehicle.

  A cold blast of air hit me as two of the men dragged me between them toward a small gondola lift facility. Once inside the small building, someone flipped on the lights, revealing a good-sized cable-type gondola. It creaked and groaned quietly as we entered.

  “Sit,” one of the men said as he shoved me onto a bench, sending me sideways into the wall, unable to catch myself with my bound hands. “Stay.”

  Some of the men chuckled. I noticed Harbinger flash a warning glare in his direction, prompting the man to help me back into the seated position.

  We rode for what seemed like an hour, but it was probably more like fifteen minutes. I could see nothing but black sky once we left the small landing station. The bright stars twinkled and blinked in the otherwise dark canopy. Ahead of us was a black giant—a mountain that blotted out even the stars. At the top, I could see white caps and snow dust lifted skyward in our direction by wind on the other side.

  The gondola rattled and clanked to a halt at the top after sliding into a narrow shed that had been constructed to house the lift. The car doors and then the wooden-plank sliding door moved aside, revealing that we had arrived in a sturdy-looking wood and stone structure.

  Though we were protected from the wind, it howled and buffeted the tiny wooden shed from the outside, making the gondola creak from time to time on its cable.

  “Get a wheelchair,” Harbinger said without moving from his seat.

  Several men had already stepped into the fortress-like building, while two remained behind with Harbinger and me. I noticed that Bellos was one of them—his ear and the side of his face had been bandaged with a field dressing. My bullet hadn’t killed him, but it would leave a nice scar.

  I turned and looked at him, noting the ballpoint pen sticking out of his pocket. I wanted it. I winked at him, sending him lurching across before he punched me in the jaw. Harbinger stood, moving faster than I imagined he could, and grabbed Bellos’s arm, preventing him from hitting me a second time.

  “You’ll get your chance,” Harbinger said. “Don’t make me intervene again.”

  He shoved Bellos in what seemed like a mild action for him, but my attacker ended up on the floor of the gondola several feet away.

  “You’ve stirred up some emotion in my men,” Harbinger said, turning to me.

  “I noticed,” I replied mildly as I tried to sit up.

  Before I managed to do so, two men returned with a wheelchair. Harbinger reached down and lifted me as if I were a bag of groceries and sat me down.

  What kind of a place is this? They have a wheelchair handy?

  “Put him in a nice room overlooking the valley,” Harbinger said as they wheeled me out. “And tend to his wounds.”

  The structure was old…parts of it anyway. The stone and timbers looked ancient, but modern cement and lighting had been added. As they rolled me down a wide hallway, I noted that one side was the same stone and timber construction as the landing we’d arrived on, but the opposite wall was smooth concrete, with modern double-pane glass windows.

  They stopped me in front of a heavy wooden door with an iron latch and g
rabbed me by the arms. The other two stood me up as Bellos peered down the hallway before turning back to me.

  “This is for shooting me in the face,” he hissed and punched me in the face again.

  “Sorry, I didn’t hear that,” I said, mocking his wounded ear after spitting blood on the floor. “Can you say it again?”

  A sneer swept over his face and he punched me again—and then twice more for good measure.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked.

  I reached up like a flash and grabbed his jacket, wrapping my fingers around the pen in his pocket before throwing my head forward, smashing it into his nose.

  “Yeah, I think I got it that time,” I said as I released him, palming the pen and tucking it into my waistband as he fell backward to the floor.

  The other two began punching me in the gut. The air left my lungs, and I curled into myself as best I could rather than attempting to fight them as well—I’d gotten what I wanted.

  As Bellos sat up, pressing his hand to his nose, the two who were beating me stopped abruptly and shoved me through the door after unlatching it. With my feet bound and hands bound, I had no way of catching myself. I rolled to the side and let my shoulder and hip take the impact of the stone floor.

  “You motherfucker!” Bellos yelled as he launched toward me, but the other two men restrained him at the door before pulling it closed. The latch clanked heavily into place on the other side.

  “I’m going to kill you,” he said through the door. “When they are done cutting the information out of you, I’m going to kill you so slowly that you’ll think it’s your new career.”

  I just rolled over and looked around the room, checking for cameras before moving any further in. In the corner was a pail, presumably for my waste—not very useful with my hands and feet bound—and against the wall were several pieces of cardboard. My bed, I guess.

  “Do you hear me, you rat fuck piece of shit?” he continued, sounding as if a vein was about to burst in his head.

  “Whatever,” I muttered as I folded my knees under me and then stood.

  I listened as two sets of footsteps moved away from the door. One remained behind.