It struck him then for the first time, that he’d accepted this mission for more than information and money. He considered it his duty. After all, if his team—no, if you—had found the missing hard drives, there would be no North Korea mission. Finding the drives was an objective of the mission and you botched it, no excuses. To make such excuses would have been easy; the creatures were relentless, merely surviving one encounter with them an achievement. He’d survived several, and all while babysitting a group of civilian survivors. Since they had exterminated the creatures and destroyed the substance, Max believed after the mission that his team had died saving the world.
Yet the mission had not been fully accomplished.
Turns out they died for nothing. That’s all on me. Time to end this thing.
His flight to South Korea aboard a CIA private jet would depart at 2200. He checked his watch—1910—and then pulled from the rack his primary weapon: an HK416 assault rifle with a holographic reflex sight, silencer, 100-round drum magazine, and an M203 grenade launcher mounted beneath the barrel. Though slightly more convenient than his lost 40mm launcher—he wouldn’t need to switch weapons to launch a grenade—the M203 was a single-shot as opposed to a pump.
Again, that’s on you. And again, he might have made excuses but did not. You were busy with Banner. That’s the price of fixation.
Perhaps the CIA would have “wonder weapons” awaiting them in Korea. They had debriefed Max, after all, and he’d told them everything regarding the fantastic alien weaponry he had used. Whether they’d believed him was another matter. Expect nothing from them but ammo and shitty intel.
An FN SCAR assault rifle, likewise equipped with an M203 beneath the barrel, also stood in the rack. Max decided to bring it along in case some horrible accident befell his 416 in transit to Korea. He would also bring an HK UMP-40 submachine gun as a backup weapon. He didn’t technically need to bring any weapons at all; the CIA had plenty lying around. But these he had mastered, and he’d be damned if he would enter combat without a familiar weapon that he’d sighted in himself.
He grabbed a couple of combat knives: a traditional KA-BAR for his belt and a new Böker he would carry tucked into a boot. Lastly, he picked up his range bag, which still held his Glock 21 and M1911 pistols. Seven weapons heavier, he departed the safe and locked it.
He spent the next hour and a half preparing his gear, beginning with a thorough cleaning of the Glock, still filthy from the range. After that he moved on to light discipline procedures, using a can of black spray paint to color in any shining metal. He tried on his gear and found that his plate carrier fit a bit more tightly than when he’d last worn it.
Gym’s in the other room. What’s your excuse? None came; he was through making excuses. You’re nobody’s fault but your own.
Max didn’t have to worry about being tailed to the airport. The CIA sent a car for him, one of their clichéd black Suburbans crewed by two black suits. Neither asked questions regarding the cased arms or the backpack loaded with combat gear. No one uttered anything at all during the drive to the airport. The one tolerable thing about working with the CIA was they never questioned what they didn’t need to know. And for good reason. Sometimes it was better to know far too little than just a little too much.
7
With the faintest squeak of brakes, the black panel van came to a stop. Hopefully the last stop. Max had been sequestered in the back of the van for almost three hours since landing in Seoul, permitted only a narrow view of the countryside through the windshield between the two CIA stooges up front. Now he saw a paved road running arrow straight, picked clean of all trash, a camouflaged HUMVEE parked in the distance in front of a lone beige building. The restricted side of some military base. A typical enough embarkation point for a CIA mission.
The lackeys got out of the van. One opened the rear cargo doors to grab Max’s gear; the other flung open the side doors. Max raised a hand to shield his eyes from the brilliant morning sunshine.
“Forget your sunglasses?” a woman asked.
Max recognized Juno’s voice. “In my luggage. It was dark when we left.” He’d departed Seoul around 0415. He lowered his hand and took in yet another bewitching incarnation of Juno Rey. Today she appeared all sweet young innocence in a simple olive halter, black shorts, and expensive lightweight hiking shoes. She might have been a coed taking a semester off to backpack through Europe on daddy’s dime. Ever a different look, a different facet. Max wondered just how many she had and which was the real Juno Rey. If that woman even exists.
On his feet now, Max surveyed the rest of the landscape. Juno stood atop a concrete stoop before the front door of a long one-story building constructed of orange bricks. No other structures close by, just fields of grass to either side, each due for a mowing. In the far distance, gray stabilizer fins of Air Force transport aircraft were faintly visible against the ubiquitous mountain backdrop of Korea.
Max climbed the stairs ahead of the guy carrying his gear.
“I trust you had a pleasant flight?” Juno asked, leading the way inside.
“Sure. Nothing like flying on Uncle Sucker’s dime.”
She laughed. “It’s the only way to go.”
They entered a drab foyer of institutional linoleum tiles and eggshell white paint, devoid of furnishings but for a few plastic chairs and an unmanned desk. She led the way deeper into the building.
“Since I lost a day of my life flying here, you mind telling me where I am?”
“South Korea, silly. We won’t be here for long, so does it really matter where we are?”
“Guess not. I’m just geographically curious. When is zero hour?”
“We’ll have three nights to train and prepare. The mission is on the fourth night, weather permitting.” She opened a door on a long hallway lined with doors.
So we’ll be jumping. Likely a HAHO insertion. High Altitude High Opening, a parachute drop used for inserting forces behind enemy lines without violating enemy airspace.
“What’s on schedule for today?” Max asked.
“We have a lot of planning to do. But right now you’re headed to a meet and greet.”
“Good. It’s always fun slapping personalities on details.”
“So I trust you found the biographical information valuable?” She directed the lackey to stow Max’s gear in one of the barracks rooms they passed.
“Always good to know.” Upon accepting the mission, Max had insisted that Juno provide him dossiers of the operatives he would be working with. His life would depend on these strangers, and it paid to know as much about each as possible. They seemed like a qualified bunch on paper; unfortunately, this was not a clerical operation. He would take his own measure of them in person now that he’d digested their statistics and bios. Should be interesting.
Raucous shouts of encouragement and numbers counted out loud—sixty-eight, sixty-nine—emanated from behind the closed door at the end of the hallway. Juno pushed through the door, and they entered a spacious common room featuring the usual recreational amenities: big-screen TV, pool table, dart board, a couple of weight benches, stained couches and threadbare chairs, miscellaneous tables for cards and drinking.
The shouting came from three men standing before the TV, which played a muted Korean sitcom. “Seventy-siiiix...” called the tallest of them, a man with short black hair and a three-day beard whom Max recognized as former Navy SEAL Andrew Heinz, an explosives and weapons expert and master of several languages. Of German birth, he had attained American citizenship by serving in the Navy. He stood around Max’s height, but twelve years younger and built like a superhero. He’ll do.
“Seventy-sevennnn, let’s go, Delorn!” Heinz shouted.
“Seventy-eight!” came a shout from the floor, guttural yet feminine. “Seventy-nine! Eighty!” Max stepped closer and saw what he’d been expecting: a pushup contest, man vers
us woman. How OCS. The woman—Patricia Zuckerberg, a West Point graduate who had been one of the first female Army Rangers—was winning. She kept pumping them out, counting on her own and way ahead of her opponent, who collapsed breathless to the floor on number seventy-nine. Not surprising. The blond Zuckerberg looked as if she resided solely in a gym/tanning salon. Her muscle was all long-and-lean, not the bulk of steroids.
She jumped to her feet from the pushup position and pointed down at the man on the floor. “Try again when you can do a hundred!”
Two of the three standing men hooted derision, while the third—a gangly, geeky sort wearing round John Denver spectacles—bent to help the loser, Ian Delorn, stand up. Max considered Delorn, as the kid rose shakily to his feet. His background information was sketchiest of all: a very brief stint with the Atlanta PD after college before being recruited by the CIA, where he’d been ever since. No military experience. For all those reasons, Max couldn’t help but regard him warily. And only seventy-nine pushups? Max could have done 179 at Delorn’s age, a mere twenty-six.
“Can’t leave the kids alone for a second,” Juno said.
“And here I was expecting a bunch of pogs huddled around a coffee maker,” Max said. This mission had no room for personnel other than trigger pullers.
All five of his future teammates now looked upon Max, their appraising faces running a gamut of expressions from satisfied to skeptical to amused.
“Looks like we got exactly what we expected,” Zuckerberg said with a sneer.
“Which was?” Max asked.
“Sure you’re young enough for this?”
“Yeah. You sure you’re good enough?”
“Knock it off, Zuck,” said Daniel West, a lean and lanky former combat medic with the Green Berets. “You just hate him because he’s male.” He introduced himself and shook Max’s hand.
Max met them all in turn. In addition to the sour Zuckerberg, he likewise received a cold welcome from Heinz. Delorn and the man in glasses—Zach Koontz, former Air Force, an expert in computers and munitions—seemed neutral enough toward him.
“Let’s get started,” Heinz said. He took a seat on one of the couches, and the others followed his lead.
“Yeah, let’s,” said West. “I can’t wait to hear some of these stories from Alaska.”
Something in West’s smile and tone irked Max. “I’d brace myself if I were you.”
“That bad, eh?” West neither looked nor sounded convinced.
“Ever seen a monster rip a man’s head right off his shoulders?”
He laughed. “Oh, is that all we’re dealing with?”
Juno interrupted before Max could tell him to fuck off. “You’re all about to see what you’ll be up against.” She alone stood, the muted TV program playing behind her. “I wanted to wait until Max arrived before you witnessed it for yourselves. What we’re about to go over is the reason we’re here, the briefing before the briefing, so to speak. Please be reminded that all of this information is classified above Top Secret. What you are about to hear, only a handful of people know about. I hope this helps clear some of the skepticism in the air.”
“I’m skeptical whenever a ufologist enters the room,” Zuckerberg said.
“So was I,” Max answered. “Until I toured a starship.”
“Oh, do tell...” She cracked a smile and shook her head.
“Yes, do so, Max,” Juno said. “And please, no interruptions while Mr. Ahlgren gives his account.” She stepped to a couch and waved Max up to take her place. “The floor is yours.”
Max rose and faced down this new team. For all his doubting remarks, West looked intrigued as well as amused. Heinz, Delorn, and Koontz gave Max their undivided attention, while Zuckerberg lounged across an entire loveseat and appeared bored.
Max gave it to them straight, start to finish, over the next half hour.
“Great, we’ve heard your story now,” Zuckerberg said when he’d finished. “And I still don’t believe it.”
“Gotta say, it’s kinda fantastic, Max,” West said, shaking his head.
“Call it what you want,” Max said. “You’ve been warned.”
“If the alleged alien substance that formed these creatures was all destroyed in the explosion,” Heinz asked, “why are we here?”
Juno responded, “Because of the research hard drives missing from the Alaska site. The North Koreans now possess them, and they’re in the process of culturing a virus containing reverse-engineered genetics from the substance.”
“And their objective in this?” Heinz asked.
“Since the substance has incredible properties of regeneration, they’re hoping to engineer a version to increase Kim Jong-un’s lifespan.”
Koontz raised a brow. “As well as recreate the creature version for the battlefield, I’m guessing?”
“Not sure how they’ll control them if they do,” Max said. “That’s why we need to get those drives out of their hands. If those creatures are unleashed into the world, you can kiss humanity goodbye.”
“Fortunately, it hasn’t gotten to that point yet,” Juno said.
“How do you know?” Heinz asked.
“We have an inside source, a scientific research assistant in their lab feeding us information. And yes, in addition to the longevity research, they are also working on weaponizing the substance. They have not been able to reverse engineer the same substance Max dealt with in Alaska, but they’re apparently planning to use their viral version as a biological weapon.”
“Have they created a prototype yet?” Koontz asked. Of all the team members the airman seemed the most interested in the substance and its capabilities. Max didn’t doubt he had brains but wondered how Koontz would fare under fire. He truly did remind Max of a pog who came with a coffee pot attached. And you’re only as fast as your slowest man.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Juno said.
“Bullshit,” Zuckerberg said with a sigh. “Pic or it didn’t happen.”
“Let’s watch a movie instead,” Juno responded. “And as Max advised earlier, you might want to brace yourselves.”
The TV screen turned blank gray, abruptly ending the muted sitcom they hadn’t been watching. White Korean characters appeared on the screen. Juno translated: “Observation record: test subject number six.”
Typical security loop footage: grainy black and white, silent, with the date and a running timer in the upper right corner. The footage began 27/09/17 at 2231 when two hulking orderlies in hospital scrubs wheeled a man on a gurney into a medical observation amphitheater. Test subject six lay completely nude, his genitalia shriveled in what must have been a chilly atmosphere. A bespectacled researcher, perhaps a medical doctor, stood beside a tray upon which lay one hypodermic syringe. Though the test subject did not move—leather restraints secured him to the gurney: one holding his head, one on each limb, and one around the waist—his eyes rolled and looked about for release from his panicked captivity. Like a calf entering a slaughterhouse.
The orderlies stopped the gurney before the doctor and then retreated from the picture. The doctor regarded test subject six for a moment before turning to address an unseen group, gesturing for effect now and then. After briefing the spectators for a couple of minutes, he turned and picked up the syringe. The subject shook his head in weak protest, obviously drugged, as the doctor inserted the needle into the vein at the crook of his left arm.
Sixteen seconds passed—Max counted them—before the subject lapsed into a fit of violent convulsions for a few seconds. The subject then entered a state of catatonia.
Juno fast-forwarded the next ten minutes of video, which consisted of the doctor addressing his observers while the subject stared blankly at the ceiling. “Right about now,” Juno said as she clicked the remote to play the video at normal speed.
The subject convulsed again, more violentl
y than before. Foam bubbled from his mouth; rivulets of blood trickled from his ears. Max watched in rapt fascination as the subject ripped his left leg free from the leather ankle restraint and attempted to kick the doctor in the head, barely missing. The doctor flinched and shouted in panic. Again, the orderlies appeared, but by the time they arrived the subject had upset the gurney and toppled it. He writhed on the floor, still mostly strapped to the gurney, as the orderlies produced stun guns from beneath their scrubs and began shocking him. It took a dozen or so high-voltage jolts to finally subdue the man, after which the orderlies righted him on the gurney and quickly wheeled him from the chamber.
The venue on screen changed from medical theater to a padded observation cell. Twelve minutes had passed since the last video cut. The subject lay on the floor twitching as though in an apoplectic fit.
“Holy shit! Look how he’s changed,” West said as he craned his neck to get closer to the television. “Look at the blotches in his complexion.”
Zuckerberg grunted. “A couple of orderlies just beat the shit out of him, what do you expect?”
“Nah, those aren’t bruises, I’m telling you.”
“He’s right,” Juno said. “Keep watching.”
The quick pops and twitches exhibited by the subject gradually turned to more exaggerated movements. The blotches on his face grew darker with each passing second, and his features changed as well. A gout of blood shot from his nostrils and splattered the padded wall as his nose suddenly turned bulbous and wrenched to one side. Despite the video silence, Max could hear him wailing in anguish as his body morphed. Several random fingers grew an inch in a matter of seconds, and every fingernail grew just as fast into a claw cracked down the center like a cloven hoof. His black hair started falling out, clumps floating and riding on the air currents from his palsied movements. His right arm flapped as it grew an extra foot in a couple of seconds, so fast that his skin tore open to reveal naked bone beneath.
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