End Game
Page 1
END GAME
THE CARDS IN THE DECK #4
A Scott Evers Thriller
ROBERT STANEK
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This is a work of fiction. All the characters, names, places and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual locale, person or event is entirely coincidental.
END GAME
THE CARDS IN THE DECK #4
Copyright © 2015 by Robert Stanek.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Reagent Press LLC, Attention: Permissions Department, P.O. Box 362, East Olympia, WA 98540-0362.
Text and illustrations copyright © 2015 Robert Stanek.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. First Printed in the United States of America.
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REAGENT PRESS
Also by Robert Stanek
Ruin Mist Chronicles
Dragons of the Hundred Worlds
Keeper Martin's Tale
Kingdom Alliance
Fields of Honor
Mark of the Dragon
Guardians of the Dragon Realms
Scott Evers Thrillers
The Pieces of the Puzzle
The Cards in the Deck
The Pawns on the Board
The Players in the Game
After the Machines
This Mortal Coil
The Secret of Us
Look for spoken-word versions of these
and other Robert Stanek books!
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my writing group, my editors, and my publishers for their many years of support. A writer can’t survive in this business without such wonderful support. I want to personally thank Jeannie Kim, Tom Green, Lisa Johnson, Tony Andover, Frank Martin, Ed & Holly Black, Patrick Gaiman, George Harrison, and Susan Collins for encouraging me and keeping me on track with the writing. Your insights and assistance have always been much appreciated. I also want to thank Will, Jasmine, and Sapphire for always being the first readers to devour my work and come back hungry for more.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
World Time
Hawaii Time
Coordinated Universal Time -10:00
Mountain Time
Coordinated Universal Time -07:00
Brussels, Paris & Madrid
Coordinated Universal Time +01:00
Beirut, Cairo & Tripoli
Coordinated Universal Time +02:00
FACT:
The National Cybersecurity Initiative and the NCI Data Center exist, as do the code-named surveillance programs and the secret branches of the NSA and CIA.
All science, technology, literature and historical references are real, including Big Black, D-Wave and quantum computing.
Chapter 1
Mediterranean Sea
Early Afternoon, Wednesday, 20 June
Ghar Lapsi, the rendezvous point, was three minutes away. As the fast boat slid into the inlet and came ashore, Scott, Edie and four soldiers rushed up the stone path to the landing zone for the incoming chopper, surprising tourists and locals at the popular snorkeling site.
Scott was close enough to Edie to feel the vibration of the phone in her vest pocket. “Hello?” she said, answering. “No other Blakes, you’re sure?” A pause. “Scott? Yes, he’s… Oh, okay, I understand.”
With that she hung up and glanced at Scott, a worried look on her face. “The chief,” she said. “It seems the professor hasn’t been seen or heard from for some time. He was on extended sabbatical since before spring semester and then a research trip through the summer months. They’re contacting known associates to establish a timeline and treating it as a missing person’s to give FBI and Homeland basis for executing searches on his Chicago and NYC properties.” She paused, listening. “The chief wants you to sit with a sketch artist—”
“That’s not going to happen, is it?” Scott said, interrupting. “We’re running out of time and I’m probably the only one who knows what our primary target looks like.”
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Edie asked, looking alarmed. “Blake wants you dead because you can identify him.”
Is that it? Scott wondered. Could it really be that simple? He’d seen Blake only because he’d twice been in places he shouldn’t have been. The first time he’d been in a drunken shore-leave stupor and mistakenly followed Kathy onto the Bardot. The second time he’d jumped into the zodiac at the last minute, going over to the Bardot with Angel, Kathy and Lian on a support call.
The group reached the top of the rise, just as the helicopter was landing. “In, in,” Edie told everyone. “Valletta,” she shouted to the pilot. To Scott, she said, “Ten minutes, a little more maybe. Let’s hope for some answers soon.”
Scott was just about to climb in when he heard a voice calling out from behind him. “Scott, Scott Evers!”
At the sound of the woman’s voice, two of Edie’s team jumped out of the chopper, and leveled their weapons, shouting in a mix of Italian and Maltese, “Fermati! Iwaqqfu! Tieqaf jew i ser rimja!” All of which basically meant: Stop or I’ll shoot!
Scott interceded quickly. “Friendlies,” he shouted, running to meet the two women rushing at him. No sooner had he wrapped his arms around Kathy than Edie wrapped hers around them both, saying, “More than friendlies. Friends.”
“Kathy, Angel,” Scott said, grinning widely. “We’d all but given you up for lost. You don’t know how good it is to see you.”
Kathy’s long black hair was a tangled mess, buffeted by winds from the spinning helicopter blades, and there was a blue tinge to her lips that spoke of a long night exposed to the elements. Shivering and teeth chattering, arms crossed in front of her chest, she pressed into Scott while the chill on her seemed to take away his warmth.
Glancing at Angel, who had been a step behind Kathy and was now midway between him and the helicopter, Scott’s eyes went wide just as Kathy, her lips turned to Scott’s ear, whispered, “Bomb! Run!”
Scott had only a moment to react and did so by grabbing Kathy and Edie and pulling them with him as he twisted away and launched into a run. What followed was something so surreal he thought he was experiencing déjà vu. He heard himself shout a warning, but it was like someone else was saying the words and not him. Then a fireball reached out and licked at his flesh while he spun away and pulled Kathy and Edie with him down the hill.
Tourists and passersby who had only moments earlier been ogling the chopper shouted and shrieked, bolting away. As the onlookers scattered, a second explosion sh
ook heaven and earth as the fuel tanks on the helicopter went up in flames. All Scott could do was wrap his arms around his head and watch Kathy and Edie do the same.
With a sudden crashing thud, chunks of the helicopter came down from the sky and smashed into the ground, increasing the panic of those running for their lives. An eerie stillness followed, broken only by the cries of the dying and the wounded, some of which were bystanders.
Scott’s response was bred into him. While others were running away from the carnage, he found himself on his feet, running toward the flames and the screams. Soon he was assisting victims, dragging others from the wreckage, shouting for assistance. “I need help. Paramedici, ambulanza!”
He saw Edie answer his call, but Kathy could only look on, dazed and stunned. It didn’t matter that no one else responded. He and Edie passed an injured soldier off on a pair of bystanders. “Ghajnuna lilu.” Help him.
They went back into the flames and wreckage. This time when they returned, they passed the injured off to waiting hands. Soon a man and a woman from the crowd volunteered to help. Scott saw others on their cellphones, speaking excitedly.
Chapter 2
Mediterranean Sea
Early Afternoon, Wednesday, 20 June
A soft-spoken elderly woman reached out to Scott from the crowd. “Aiuto sta arrivando. Polizia e ambulanza,” she said. Help is coming. Police and ambulances.
Scott worked alongside Edie and the volunteers to help those they could. Sweat and grime covered his arms and face. The pungent odor of jet fuel and burning flesh filled his nostrils. For a time, he lost track of Edie.
In the distance, he heard sirens and something else. The familiar whop-whop-whop of a helicopter and not just any chopper, a Rescue Hawk. He glanced toward the sea and saw a pair of Rescue Hawks coming in fast.
When he looked back, Edie was there, saying, “Scott, we can’t stay. We have to go as soon as the choppers get here.” She was on her cell phone, but looking directly at him. “Our orders are to find and stop Owen Blake and Alexis Gosling.”
“Like hell we have to go,” he said. “Right now, this is where we’re needed.”
“Your crates,” she said, “several were found at the boat site, discarded and empty, but they were stamped with clear biohazard symbols.”
Scott knew the biohazard icon well. Like the nuclear hazard symbol, it was universal and easily understood. Anyone who saw it knew that what was inside a container marked with the symbol was dangerous. “Can they run tests to find out what we’re dealing with?”
“Unlikely, I’m told, unless there was a leak or a spill, but if there was…” She didn’t finish the statement. There was no need. A leak or a spill meant they’d all been exposed. She slipped her phone into a pocket, put a hand out to his chest to stop him from turning away. “We’re running out of time. Imagine this times a hundred or a thousand because that could be what’s coming if we fail.”
I need air, Scott thought. Air and answers. He didn’t understand how Angel—someone he knew and trusted—could do such a thing. There was no answer that made sense, unless she’d been forced and had no other choice.
Flames and screams pulled him like a beacon. Standing in the maelstrom, he let his instincts guide him. The chaos felt so familiar, so permanent. A wounded man was right in front of him and he went to the man, trying to pull him to safety only to take a startled step backward.
It was the co-pilot, his body ripped in two by the force of the explosion. Unable to breathe, Scott went down on his haunches. Edie was there instantly, pulling him to his feet and from the wreckage. “We’ve done all we can. We have to go,” she said, pointing skyward. “We’re running out of time.”
With the crowd and confusion, the Rescue Hawks couldn’t find landing sites, so they hovered to allow sailors and marines to repel to the ground. Edie signaled the team leader as soon as he touched down. As the soldiers began to push back the crowds to create landing zones, a woman, her hair dripping wet from the beach, came running toward Scott and Edie. “Can I help?” she said, reaching out her hand.
“Sixty-second debrief. Stay right there,” Edie said to Scott giving him a stern look that said she meant business before turning and walking swiftly away. Scott was about to direct the woman to the aid workers rushing from the helicopters when she grabbed his arm, dropped down, and pulled him over her shoulder, taking him completely by surprise as he suddenly found himself flying through the air before landing with a resounding thud.
Even before he fully righted himself, the woman was on him, knee strikes to his chest and stomach, elbow strikes to his neck and back of his head as he went back down. He swept out with his foot, catching the woman’s legs. She went down but didn’t stay down long as she expertly pushed off the ground and popped back up, elbows and knees flying as she wheeled around him.
Her moves were precise, clean and fast. Expert. Once she was behind him, she locked her arms around his neck and squeezed using her weight and knees to bend him to her will. He attempted to break the chokehold by thrusting back into her chest with his elbows. When that didn't work, he reached back with his one good hand and clawed at her face, probing for the socket of her eye. Her response to his thumb digging at her eye was to drop backward and try to bite at his ear.
Somewhere in all the confusion, he heard Edie shouting. He hit the ground back first but his attacker was no longer behind him. Instead, she was standing over him, pushing her foot into his throat while she leveled her gun at him and started to squeeze the trigger. He fought back, twisting and pushing with his one good hand to keep her from crushing his larynx.
A shot rang out and then another. A bullet struck the ground no more than an inch away. As he broke free, the woman dropped to her knees, firing a wild shot that he felt swoosh past his ribs. “Why can’t you just die?” she said, her face pale as a bright red rose blossomed on the middle of her chest. “Why?”
She fired a third shot or at least Scott thought she did, but this time he was on his feet and able to twist away. When he spun back around, the woman was tumbling to the ground with a fresh bullet hole in the space between her eyes. It was in that moment that everything slowed enough for him to recognize the woman. Knowing his attacker was Peyton Jones brought no solace, but it did seem to bring answers to his questions about Angel.
Angel had been coerced into carrying the bomb or at least it’s what he told himself, but he wouldn’t know for sure until Kathy was debriefed. Edie was right about one thing—well, many things really. The clock was counting down. They were running out of time.
Chapter 3
Mediterranean Sea
Afternoon, Wednesday, 20 June
Aboard the USS Kearsarge, Master Chief Roberts paced back and forth in the hall outside Sit 1, a satellite phone pushed against his ear. “This whole damned thing is a cluster fuck. It’s way past time to issue civilian alerts,” he said firmly to the Commander, United States Sixth Fleet in Naples, Italy. “We tried to get out in front of this and got bit in the ass.”
Last year the chief had given up cigarettes and chewing tobacco because Meg, his beautiful wife of 26 years, told him she wanted to make sure they grew old together. The irony, he told himself, the fucking irony. None of it stopped him from wishing for a nicotine rush that would help take the edge off. It was either that or a glass of brandy. Not a shot or a tall pour, but a glass—the whole, damned glass. Maybe even the bottle.
Too many good soldiers were dying. Too fucking many.
“Chief,” the vice admiral said, “you know I have the utmost respect for your experience and opinion. You and yours have walked into the abyss for us again and again. This is no different.”
“Like hell it isn’t. They just blew up another fucking chopper and took more good soldiers with it,” the chief said, almost spitting into the phone. “Call this thing or I’ll find a way. Swear to hell, I will.”
Sometimes, like now, when things got beyond bad into downright awful, the chief wished
his Sam was with him. A call to Samantha, irrespective of the fact he couldn’t share any details of an op with her, calmed and soothed him. Always.
But Sam was six months in the ground and now they’d never spend their golden years together. She’d married him, but he’d married the Navy years before. He didn’t have to serve past thirty. He could have retired, having given more than most. Thirty years was a lifetime. “The last reenlistment,” he’d promised, “the last tour overseas and I’ll be home. Promise.”
“Bill,” the vice admiral said, “It’s been decided. Out of my hands. Any alerts would only cause widespread civilian panic. Can you imagine all those people trying to get out of one airport? Gridlock and pandemonium would only be the beginning. We’d lose control of everything. Do what you and yours do best and get them. Get them for us, for yours and ours. Get them before they can do their worst.”
The vice admiral calling the chief by his first name wasn’t unusual. They’d known each other for almost twenty years. They played golf together whenever the chief was in Naples. Their wives were active in the same charities and events from Wreaths Across America to the Annual Charity Ball. “Local authorities are already involved,” the chief said, continuing. “We’d simply be escalating and sharing our intel so all parties know what we’re up against. The cover story of unspecified threats is wearing thin. Hell, a bomb just went off in public.”
“Civilian and military commands know the risks. Containment remains our best chance of success. Keep this a quiet operation. Keep this on a need to know basis. Civilian authorities at the local level do not—repeat, do not—need to know the full scope or extent of the threat. You yourself said we don’t know where safe ground is. You have until sundown to square this away, then the fleet will be in range to take over and lock everything down. Understood?”