After I testify against President Murphy, I’ll become a liability, he thought, climbing from the vehicle. They’ll kill me ... Or worse, murder my family and frame me for the crime.
He found Bradley inside the master bedroom closet, kneeling in front of the safe, fingers frantically spinning the dial like an addicted gambler.
“Morning.”
The Sniper grunted an acknowledgment, attention fixated on the safe.
CJ shuffled through the frames and gave the picture of Bradley’s dad an assessing stare. There was a strong resemblance between father and son, the same hazel eyes, the same rugged jaw; but the elder Webber had a malicious smile, the smile of a man who took pleasure in the misfortunes of others.
CJ knew what it was like to go years without speaking to your father, to carry the burden of resentment. Fortunately, he had reconciled with his dad a year before the EMP claimed his life.
I hope Bradley puts his feud to rest, before it’s too late.
The back of the old photograph contained a hand-written date, March 20, 2003, and CJ’s eyes narrowed. “Man, your father was really young at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
Bradley snatched it. “This wasn’t taken in 2003.” The Sniper picked up the framed portrait of the Murphy family and extracted the picture. It, too, featured a date, written in the same cursive script.
“Abby wasn’t even born yet on October 7, 2001,” Bradley scoffed. “Oh shit! The dates! That’s the order for the combination!”
CJ helped him remove all the pictures and arrange them in chronological order. Each date corresponded to the onset of war.
7/28/1914 World War I—4 people
9/1/1939 World War II—9 people
6/25/1950 Korean War—2 people
11/1/1955 Vietnam War—5 people
8/2/1990 Gulf War I—6 people
10/7/2001 Afghan War—3 people
3/20/2003 Iraq War—1 person
“So the combination is left to 49, right to 25, left to 63, and the photo of my dad is useless.” Bradley crumpled the image into a compact ball and pitched it over his head. “Just like him!”
I guess now’s not the time to suggest a reconciliation, CJ thought.
Bradley dialed in the sequence, paused dramatically, and said, “Cross your fingers.” He yanked on the three-spoked lever. A dull metallic clunk echoed, the sound of locking bars retracting into the massive steel door.
Anticipation became an electric current supercharging CJ’s neurons, and fragmented thoughts buzzed through his mind. What did Volkov hide in the safe? A weapon? Secret intel?
The heavy door swung open, and his gaze toggled from the top shelf to the bottom and back again.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
40
District Four, Florida
BRADLEY GAPED AT THE contents of the safe, a briefcase secured with a biometric lock and a timeworn cigar box.
“Seriously?” he griped, lifting the wooden box. The century-old antique featured a colorful picture of Teddy Roosevelt and still bore the 1917 tax stamp on the top.
“You think this belongs to Murphy?” CJ asked.
“He never mentioned it, so I would have to say no.” The lid creaked as Bradley opened it. He removed a folded sheet of dingy newsprint. The waxy residue of crayons acted as a seal, and he gingerly peeled the folds apart to avoid damaging the document.
A page from a coloring book? Bradley thought.
The smiling grizzly bear was adorned with broad, burnt-umber strokes that strayed beyond the lines.
“Seems like Volkov’s got a hard-on for bears,” CJ said. “The teddy bear’s namesake and a grizzly.”
“And it’s been a symbol of Russia for centuries.” Bradley set the artwork on top of the safe and examined a fragile newspaper clipping that was older than he was. The headline read, “CIA Traitor William Julian Jackson Flees U.S.”
According to the article, Jackson was granted political asylum in Russia, where he redoubled his efforts to dismantle the Constitution and fundamentally transform his homeland into a communist state. Jackson was best known for providing financial and logistical support to the 9/11 terrorists and for manipulating the black pools—secret exchanges that allowed big investors to trade behind closed doors—that crashed the stock market in 2008.
That’s why he looks familiar, Bradley thought. I probably saw his mug shot on an old 9/11 documentary.
An image permeated his mind, molten steel streaming from the World Trade Center, glowing brilliant orange like fast-moving lava. Why did the fires burn for three months? Why was nano-thermite—an incendiary compound whose chemical reaction produces temperatures over 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit—found in the dust?
Is that disinformation Volkov planted into my mind? Bradley thought. And how the hell am I supposed to weed out the propaganda?
As he placed the article beside the wax-coated bear, he tipped the empty cigar box and felt something shift. Puzzled, Bradley gave it a vigorous shake.
Something was rattling.
Noting that the cigar box had a false bottom, he retrieved his tactical folding knife, eased the blade’s tip between the seam joining side to bottom, and dislodged a thin wooden panel.
“Check it out,” he told CJ.
Two Zip-Loc bags had been secreted inside the hidden compartment, one containing the CIA identification card of William Julian Jackson; the other, Volkov’s Russian driver’s license. A note scrawled in black marker urged him to compare.
Side by side, the resemblance was obvious.
“Holy shit!” Bradley blurted. “Is Vladislav Volkov actually William Julian Jackson? An American traitor?” He felt disoriented, as if his mind was whirling out of control.
That would explain why he substituted Colonel McNeal’s photograph for his own, he thought. Volkov couldn’t risk being recognized.
“Everyone has a look-a-like,” CJ said, dismissing the facial similarities. “Until we can verify the authenticity of the ID cards and confirm the match with facial recognition software, you should be careful about buying into Volkov’s head games. I mean, why didn’t he just tell you who he was back in May?”
Or download it into my mind?
Bradley kept the thought to himself. “Maybe this is a dead man’s trigger to release information,” he said, returning all four items to the cigar box before fetching the briefcase from the safe. His fingertips skated across its smooth surface, unable to discern whether it was cloth, paper, or leather. He pressed his thumb against the biometric reader, then his index finger; neither disengaged the lock.
Hands perched on hips, CJ said, “Let’s just pry the son of a bitch open.”
They retreated to Gramps’ garage and experimented with an array of tools: knife, screwdriver, crowbar, chisel—nothing was able to penetrate or even dent the seam.
“What is this made of?” Bradley moaned. “Freaking titanium?”
“Wait! Wait! Wait!” CJ exclaimed. “There’s something written on it. A varnished image.”
Bradley waggled the briefcase, varying the angle of natural light, and faint letters became visible.
“A-D-M-T-E-R. What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
41
Edgar Air Force Base, California
DEJECTED, ABBY LEFT the armory and traipsed across Edgar Air Force Base beside her teammates. She hadn’t slept since the St. Nicholas raid, caught in the no-man’s-land between her teammates and her conscience.
Unable to lie under oath and unwilling to testify against Evans, she’d taken the coward’s way out, allowing Cozart to “mistakenly” record her position at the time of Sinclair’s death.
Does that make me an accomplice to murder?
Abby still wasn’t sure why she’d caved, but suspected it stemmed from the fact that she’d wanted to shoot Sinclair and was glad the bastard was dead.
How many more psychopaths are out there? she asked herself.
That unanswered question magni
fied her frustration over tonight’s mission. The operation had begun with a successful raid on a Night Sector checkpoint and ended with a failed rescue effort.
How did Night Sector amass tanks and Predator drones? Abby wondered. Did The Consortium steal them? Or were they conveniently left behind, like the mechanized artillery that ISIS inherited in Iraq?
Regardless, that weaponry didn’t bode well for Missy and Matthew Love.
Their last known residence had been incinerated into a ghostly white footprint, but the young mother had survived and left a note with a neighbor.
CJ,
We had to leave the district because Night Sector is targeting us. I have no idea where we’re headed, but I’ll contact you when we get to safety. Pray for us.
All my love,
Missy
Is she being held in a hellhole and used in some satanic sex ritual?
Is that adorable toddler locked in a cage to sate the perverse needs of pedophiles and cannibals?
Thank God my dad is taking on these monsters.
The fourth in a long string of executive orders had expanded the TEradS mission to include the eradication of Night Sector, a noble move that may have come too late for Missy and Matthew Love.
A war was raging within Abby’s mind: truth versus lies, reality versus fiction, good versus evil. The roots of The Consortium were so depraved, so vile that she wished she could erase the haunting memories and embrace the comforting notion that Sinclair was a one-off serial killer like Jeffrey Dahmer.
A “lone wolf,” she thought. An artful term we’ve manufactured to avoid connecting dots and seeing the big—horrifyingly ugly—picture.
Maybe it was post-traumatic stress or a virulent strain of survivor’s guilt, but Abby couldn’t find peace. How was she supposed to sleep at night, knowing what was happening to innocent children?
This is so weird, she decided. I actually feel more complicit in the children’s suffering than in Sinclair’s death.
Abby unlocked her apartment and trudged up the steps to the second floor. She took a long shower under lukewarm water and unleashed pent-up emotions. She cried for the slaughtered seniors, the women forced into prostitution, the abused children, the murdered infants, and for her own culpability.
This has been going on for years and I was oblivious.
How can anyone be so cruel to a child?
She just couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
And how could so many good people stand by and do nothing?
Abby toweled dry and changed into a Marine Corps sweat suit, then leaned closer to the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, an obvious indication that she’d been crying.
Not going to the chow hall like this, she thought. Why am I so emotional?
Attributing blame to the damn blackbird drones and sleep deprivation, Abby padded into the hallway, and a violent flinch raced through her body. Her brain felt like it had slammed into her skull, and a fiery queasiness blazed in her gut.
“What the hell are you doing in my apartment?”
Cozart fidgeted under her impaling glare, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “You weren’t answering the door, and I was worried, so I bumped your lock ...”
Because Abby’s grandfather had been a locksmith, she was familiar with the trick. Her team leader had inserted a similar key into the lock and bumped the pin tumblers into position.
“... Were you crying?”
“Get. Out!”
“Yeah, I will,” he apologized. “But there’s something you need to see. Before starting my after action review, I checked our team e-mail and ... and there was a message for you ... from Bradley.”
Abby’s irritation melted into fear. It was against regulations to use the TEradS account for personal correspondence. This had to be a dire emergency. “Oh God, was he shot?”
“No ... I ... it’s just,” Cozart stammered. His brown eyes shone with a sadness that bordered on pity. “Anyway, I printed it out for you and got Fitz to delete it. I don’t think any of the guys saw it.”
He handed her a sheet of paper, head bowed, expression grave as if delivering a death sentence.
Her respiration accelerated. Her muscles tightened.
Abby,
I apologize for this less than private forum, but time is of the essence, and I didn’t have any other recourse. Things can’t go on this way. You deserve the truth.
Through no fault of yours, my feelings have changed. Although I hate the prospect of hurting you, the pain of an abrupt breakup is preferable to the slow betrayal of infidelity. I respect you too much to run around behind your back ...
Abby’s throat ached. A trapped scream was swelling, choking off her airway.
No, she thought. Bradley suggested getting married when we were in Washington for the inauguration. This e-mail isn’t real—Cozart made it up.
“How could you stoop so low?” she demanded, her tone bubbling with disgust and righteous anger.
Surprise and confusion fluttered over her team leader’s expression, an Academy Award-winning performance. “I beg your pardon?”
“Fitz deleted it? No one else saw it? How stupid do you think I am?”
Cozart’s stubble-coated jaw dropped, then he huffed out a nervous chuckle. “You think I wrote that e-mail? To drive a wedge between you and Bradley? That is not who I am.”
“Right, because you would never lie.”
He recoiled, registering the cutting reference to his bogus Sinclair report. Cozart’s brow furrowed, his lips contracted as if preparing to mete out a blistering retort, then an empathetic calm settled over his features. “You didn’t finish reading it, did you?”
Another jolt of fear dumped into Abby’s bloodstream, and another crop of tears was threatening as she glanced down at the e-mail.
Given that our marriage paperwork was lost in the chaos of the EMP, we can both just walk away.
Please know that I truly meant what I said back in Sugar Lake, the night I cooked you that “slithering” dinner. I’m just not that guy anymore. I wish like hell I could be, but some things can’t be undone.
Find somebody worthy of you and be happy, always.
Bradley
The room began to spin. The chicken dinner he’d passed off as snake meat, the fact that they weren’t really married—there’s no way Cozart could’ve known those details. Bradley was the only one who could have written that e-mail.
The paper slipped from her grasp.
A toxic combination of despair and outrage surged through her core, and she buried her face in her hands. “How could he just ...?” Her voice trailed into a whimper.
“Because he’s a fucking idiot!” Cozart’s arms closed around Abby, and she slumped against his shoulder, sobbing.
Mia Candelori, the hooker at the train station, and now this, she thought. Maybe Bradley’s not the man I thought he was.
42
District Three, Washington, D.C.
RYAN HAD REDECORATED the library in the Vice President’s residence. The hoity-toity, exceedingly uncomfortable furniture had been replaced by a pair of brown La-Z-Boy recliners. The built-in bookcases no longer showcased the “best sellers” written by previous residents with Consortium ties; instead, they housed framed photographs of the fallen heroes who had served under his command.
A flat-screen monitor was disseminating the day’s news, and Ryan eyed the time. 2047 hours. His countermove was sure to strike the mockingbird media at the top of the hour, and he didn’t want to miss a second of it.
Franny waddled into the library, belly swollen to the breaking point with ankles to match, and eased herself onto a recliner as if its cushions were filled with nitroglycerin. Weary from the endeavor, she huffed out a sigh then unrolled a wand of paper clenched in her right hand.
“Can I tempt you with one of my limited-time-offer, money-back-guaranteed foot massages?” he asked, smiling to hide his guilt. Franny had been utterly miserable these past few weeks, sleepless n
ights, days spent trekking to and from the bathroom; and Ryan was keenly aware that he was responsible.
You think you feel bad now? Kyle had told him. Just wait until she goes into labor.
“I’ll take a rain check on the foot rub,” Franny said, handing him the curling paper.
Ryan reverse rolled it to counteract the coil and smoothed it flat.
Barack Obama 2008: “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
How is Night Sector funded?
Drugs?
Gun running?
Human trafficking?
Refusal to secure the border—coincidence?
Were any of the “jihadists” conducting door-to-door executions actually Night Sector “security forces?”
Expand your thinking.
Patriot Anon
“Is the guy over the target?” Franny asked.
“Unfortunately, he is. And he’s got uncanny timing. Kyle just signed an executive order that expands the TEradS mandate to include Night Sector.”
Mind Power- America Awakens Page 16