by S L Shelton
“Shit,” I muttered.
I adjusted my alarm settings to account for the stealth mode the bad guys were using and double checked the virtual drive on my phone…the one with the honeypot of data about me. I was about to alter some of the content when I suddenly got a feedback warning on one of my proxies. The back trail spike lasted for a few seconds and then stopped. A minute later, there was another, only this time, the back trail indicator showed it had hopped past several of my proxy servers.
“Here they come,” I muttered.
I watched as they tried to disguise the trace as DNS calls, treating them as single automated pings. They obviously hadn’t discovered that I had taken ownership of the proxies and was getting real-time reporting from them.
“Oh, you’re so sneaky,” I muttered.
My worm continued to operate, sending their fake firewall data back to me every few seconds. When the last signal hit the cell tower, I was expecting it to stop again. Instead, I got a silent intrusion detection alarm on my iPhone. I smiled as the prescreened honeypot of personal information streamed through the connection. There would be no doubt in their minds who was attempting to identify them.
After the last sacrificial file downloaded, their network guy tried to probe deeper on my phone. When the virtual drive proved to be too well camouflaged, he ended his assault and severed his backtrace connection.
“I’m going to report you for illegally downloading music,” I muttered to my phone as I got up to go locate Nick. My ruse had worked. They had taken the bait, confirmed the firewall detection level, and downloaded every scrap of false phone data I had provided them.
I went from room to room, looking for Nick before walking out into the dark night to see if I could track him down. After peering into the mess hall and not seeing him, I decided to hike up the hill to the gymnasium. He and Kobe might be up there sharing a quiet drink, out of sight from the students and other instructors.
I was halfway up the hill when Eric called to me.
“Scott,” he said in a whispered hiss.
I stopped and turned. “Hey,” I replied.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re living with the instructors now, you haven’t flown out for special training since before Christmas, and now they’re putting guys in civilian clothes on the fence,” he said. “Something is going on. What is it?”
“Eric. I can’t talk about it,” I replied before starting to turn away.
“Hold up,” he said, grabbing my arm.
I turned, suddenly getting frustrated with his prying. “Eric, you need to stop. That’s not how the CIA works, and you know it.”
I jerked my arm away from him and began walking away again, but he ran around in front of me, blocking my way.
“Goddamn it, Scott. We’ve been here for months, and I’ve left you to your privacy, but something weird is happening, and I’ve got a feeling it affects all of us. Tell me.”
I stared at him for a moment. He did have flits of anxiety dancing across his face in microexpression.
I sighed. I needed to tell him something if only to get him off my back.
“My boss was injured. They’re just taking extra precautions with me…that’s all,” I said and tried to leave again, but he put his hand up to my chest.
“Bullshit, Scott.”
I looked down at his hand on my chest, and then back at him. “Eric, this is not a good time,” I said, pushing his hand away and taking another step before he blocked my movement again.
“Who are you protecting?” He asked. “Nick?”
I pushed his arm away once more and began walking toward the gym again.
“I know about Gaines,” he said after I was a few steps away.
I stopped in my tracks and turned to face him. “What did you say?” I asked, my anger starting to rise to the surface. When I walked back up to him, it looked like fear in his eyes.
“I heard some of the instructors talking,” he said quickly.
“Forget that name, and stop listening in on the instructors,” I replied angrily. I suddenly didn’t trust Eric.
He ran around me once more. “Who is Gaines? And what do you know about him?”
“What makes you think I know anything about him?” I asked angrily, pushing Eric to the side. And then he shoved me.
“Where is Gaines?” Eric asked. “Is he here?”
The little follicles on all the hairs of my neck flipped to attention at once. I shoved Eric back, harder and with both hands, but to my surprise, he sidestepped most of the force and attempted to bring my right arm behind my back. It was far too fast to be the Eric I knew…he was clumsy on the fighting mat. And it was far too strong for the Eric I knew…he was barely able to pull himself over the wall on the obstacle course.
My limbs responded as trained, a sweep and a turn freed me of his grasp and a back punch whizzed around to his face. I had no intention of hitting him full force, but I was instantly dismayed when his hand flew up to stop my punch.
This wasn’t Eric…not the Eric I had gotten to know for months anyway.
He threw a punch of his own, followed by another. I blocked both easily, but he was being far more aggressive than I had ever seen before.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Eric,” I said.
“Where is Gaines?” he asked between punches. “Why are you acting alone on this?”
That was the last bit of information I needed to completely discard any notion that Eric was one of the good guys.
His next punch met with a crushing, sweeping block that would dislocate the average man’s shoulder. Before he could recover, I threw a side kick to his chest, sending him crashing through the air and into the dry leaves and brush to the side of the path. I turned to run toward the gym. I needed to find Nick and raise the alarm.
As I set off at a sprint toward the gym, Dylan came out of the door.
“Hey, Scott,” he said with a smile.
The security lights overhead illuminated him well as I ran toward him. “Is Nick in there?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said and then his expression changed to pure intensity. He reached behind him.
Shit! Another one? I thought and rushed Dylan to try to disarm him before he could draw whatever weapon he had.
I jumped when I was within five feet of him and flattened my body out, spinning in mid-air to kick him. However, he dipped at the last second, avoiding my foot crashing down on his shoulder. As he ducked away from me, two shots spat out from a small pistol with a sound suppressor on it.
Clack, clack.
Before he could regain his footing, I launched sideways, my shoulder slamming into him with all my weight behind me. He grunted, but it wasn’t until I had him on the ground that I realized the last shot hadn’t come from his weapon.
He reached out in front of him and fired twice more as I pressed his shoulders to the ground. I suddenly felt something warm and sticky on my hand.
“Get off me, you fucktard!” he yelled as he tried to elbow me in the face. His effort resulted in a howl of pain before dropping his weapon and putting his hand to his shoulder.
I looked down the trail in the direction he had shot to see Eric lying in the middle of the path with two holes in his forehead.
“You’re some fucking genius, aren’t you?” he yelled at me as I jumped away from him and grabbed the weapon he had dropped. “Ow! Jesus Christ!”
“Who are you?” I yelled, pointing his weapon at him.
Nick and Kobe came running out of the gym. “What happened?” Nick asked as soon as he saw Dylan on the ground.
“Your boy almost got us both killed,” Dylan said. “I had the drop on Eric, but Bruce Lee here decided he wanted to dance with me.”
“What?” I asked.
“He’s with us,” Nick said.
“Well, shit! I must have missed that meeting,” I snapped.
Nick kneeled next to Dylan and pulled h
is hand away before tearing the bullet hole in his sweatshirt open to expose the wound Eric had inflicted on him. After a moment of shifting the shoulder around in the light of the security lamps, he stood.
“Get up, you fucking cry baby…it’s a twenty two, and it didn’t even go in. It’s a scratch.”
“Fuck you, Nick!” Dylan spat as he climbed to his feet. “No one likes to be shot.”
Kobe was already down by Eric’s body, kicking the small weapon away from his hand before leaning down and checking for a pulse. “Gone,” he said after a second.
“Ya think?” Dylan replied sarcastically. “I was going for his belly, but Superman over here—”
“That’s enough,” Nick said dismissively. “He didn’t know you were internal security.”
“Eric came after me,” I said. “He was fighting way better than he did in class.”
Nick nodded. “Too bad he’s dead. Having him alive would have given us a crack at his handler.”
“Eric’s been here since day one,” I said. “They didn’t send him in because of the network incursion.”
“True,” Nick replied, walking over to look at the body before turning back and looking at me. “But I can guaran-fucking-tee that they activated him because of it.”
He was right; it wasn’t a coincidence that Eric had exposed himself as a mole at the precise moment my system hacks were discovered. “I came to tell you they followed my breadcrumbs back here. They know who I am now.”
“Ya think?” Dylan spat sarcastically.
“I have to say, Dylan, I liked you better when you were friendly,” I said with a mild sneer.
“Yeah, well. You spent four months keeping me at arm’s length no matter how hard I tried,” he said in the least-friendly manner I had ever heard from him. “So for all those times I bit my tongue: fuck you.”
“Sorry. If I had known—” I said and then glared at Nick. “If I had only known.”
“Get inside before another sleeper pops up,” Nick said, reminding me immediately of Penny Rhodes.
“Where’s Penny?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Kobe, get Scott back to the farmhouse,” Nick said. “We’ll take care of Eric the Joiner.”
Kobe walked with me down the hill toward the farmhouse and then stopped at the staircase. “Don’t let Dylan get to you,” he said.
“I won’t,” I replied. “But I feel bad he took a bullet because I didn’t know he was with us.”
Kobe shook his head. “That’s on John and Nick.”
I looked for sincerity on his face but saw nothing but the stony features he always displayed. I nodded before turning and going to my room. There I stayed, watching my worm continue to flail pointlessly against the firewall from my phone screen until Nick came in a couple hours later.
I looked up when he came in and turned back to my screen. “Find anything in his stuff?” I asked.
“Nope,” Nick said as he pulled his shoes off and lay down in his bed. “If he had a phone or a radio, it wasn’t in his room or on him.”
I nodded without looking up. I had already assumed he didn’t. After months of living together, I would have noticed something…or maybe not. I hadn’t detected any sign that Eric was a danger to me.
Nick turned his light off, drawing darkness into the room—except for the glow of my phone screen on my face.
“Are you playing a video game?” Nick asked after a moment.
“No,” I said without looking up.
“Watching your program run?”
“Uh huh,” I muttered.
“Go to sleep. It’s done its job.”
He was right. There was no point following it any longer. I turned off my phone and lay down. After a moment of reflecting on the events of the night, I suddenly needed an answer.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Dylan?” I asked. “Didn’t trust me?”
I could hear him flip over in the dark. “No. We didn’t want to blow his cover,” Nick replied. “We didn’t know if you could keep up the charade if you knew who he was.”
“Too bad,” I said after a moment of reflection.
“Why’s that?”
“Because it would have been a good test for me,” I replied.
There was silence for a few beats before I heard Nick grunt, “Huh…never thought of it like that,” he said finally. “Next time.”
“Next time my ass,” I replied. “As soon as this is done, I’m going to work for the Park Service.”
He chuckled briefly before turning back over. There were a few seconds of silence before I decided to relay one of my fears. “I don’t know if we can trust Penny,” I said very quietly.
There was a long silence. I thought perhaps that he hadn’t heard me—but I knew better than that. Nick had better hearing than anyone I knew.
“Good night, Monkey Wrench,” he said tiredly.
“Night, Nick.”
**
2:15 a.m. on Tuesday, January 18th—The Farm, Camp Peary, Virginia
I awoke to the sound of boot steps pounding up the stairs. The door flew open and Ray stepped in.
“Get up,” Ray said with an urgent whisper. “The Baynebridge guys are all gone, landlines are cut, and no one’s got cell signal—something’s going down.”
“Shit,” Nick muttered as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and pulled his pants up.
“What happened to Baynebridge?” I asked as I grabbed my phone to verify no signal—true.
“The log said contract coverage ended at midnight,” Ray replied.
“Did you wake the chopper pilot?” Nick asked.
“I woke him first,” Ray said before turning and leaving.
I reached over to turn on the light.
“No,” Nick said in a loud whisper. “If this is a breach, let’s let them think they still have total surprise.”
I nodded and finished pulling my clothes on, followed by my boots.
“Here,” Nick said, reaching into his bottom drawer. He tossed me a weapon and shoulder holster.
They were the ones he had taken from me when we left for A.P. Hill in September. He’d had them all along. After strapping them on, I pulled my jacket on and rose to leave.
“Whatever is going on out there, you are getting on that chopper,” he said with warning in his tone.
“But what if—”
“No arguments,” he said.
We headed downstairs in the dark and followed two other instructors toward the COM room. Marcus was on his way out.
“Nothing,” Marcus hissed angrily. “It’s like someone set off an EMP in there. Every piece of equipment is fried.”
“Shit—kitchen,” Nick muttered as he turned, grabbing me by the arm as he went. I was still trying to figure out how someone silently set off an electromagnetic pulse in the communications room.
Kitchen?
“What’s in the kitchen?” I asked as we round the corner.
Nick dropped to his knees in front of the cabinets of the HQ staff kitchen. He immediately began pulling pans, boxes, and cans out.
“Shit. They’re gone,” Nick said as he stood.
“What’s gone?”
“The TACSAT radios and burst COMs,” he replied
This was well planned, I thought.
I followed Nick out the front door. Ray grabbed him by the shoulder as we ran toward the helipad.
“We sent a messenger to the base,” he said in a quiet voice. “We’ve asked for an armed deployment. But if their lines are cut as well, we’ll have to make do with who’s on post.”
Cooks and Clerks, I thought.
“TACSAT and the other stashed radios are missing,” Nick said as we jogged toward the landing pad. “Looks like the Baynebridge guys did some pillaging before they left.”
Ray shook his head. “They wouldn’t have had access to the COM room. This was someone on the inside.”
“Did you put the pilot on standby?” Nick asked, but his answer came with the
sound of the turbine starting up when we were just about fifty yards away.
Two more steps were all we got in before the Black Hawk burst into flames on the pad. The shockwave thumped my chest before a wave of hot air swept over us, blasting the chill of the winter night away. The concussion knocked us backward to the ground.
Nick righted himself quickly and grabbed me by the collar. “Plan B,” he said, dragging me back the way we had come.
“What’s Plan B?” I asked.
“I’m working on it.”
“Get to the armory,” Ray said and looked over at Marcus who was running toward us. “Did you get all of the trainees up?”
“If they weren’t up before, they sure as hell are now,” he replied. “They’re already headed for the armory.”
“Have we seen any ground troops yet?” I asked, but no one answered.
Bailey reached out and grabbed Ray by the collar. “Hey!” he yelled, dragging them both to a stop before entering the armory. “Have we seen any ground troops?”
Nick looked at Ray and shook his head. Ray shifted his attention to the landing pad before looking at me. “That was a rocket,” he said.
Just then, several explosions further up the road spewed flame into the sky.
“That was on the main road leading into camp,” I said.
“The messenger...” Ray muttered through clenched teeth.
“Cratering charges,” Nick added. “That’s the main road coming in from Peary. They’ve cut us off from the rest of the base.”
How do you know these things? Cratering charges?
“They’ve cut us off, but they haven’t got ground forces in the compound yet,” I said. “Why would they blow their surprise like that unless—?”
I looked at the armory door we were standing in front of. Students and instructors were cramming themselves in to load up on weapons and ammunition. “Oh shit,” I muttered.
Nick looked at the crowded building and immediately jumped to action.
“Everyone out of the armory,” he yelled. “Take what you have and run.”
A couple of dozen men and women started pushing out of the door with rifles and ammo boxes as Bailey grabbed my arm and pulled me backward away from the doorway. The night suddenly filled with light and pressure. The impact of the blast felt like a riptide in the ocean; knocking me in one direction while pulling me in another, the confluence of force sending me flying through the air helplessly. I landed heavily on the ground and bounced in the direction of the shockwave as a giant plume of light and heat swept up into the night air. The weapons cage at the back of the building seemed to have become a supernova.