by Brandt Legg
“I don’t think—”
Two shots rang out so fast that Chase didn’t even try to move. He thought he might be dead until he saw that the cop had dropped to his knees, joining his partner on the sidewalk.
Chase kicked the man’s gun away.
“I’m truly sorry,” Wen said, grabbing his radio, “but I was telling the truth. If I wasn’t, I would’ve killed you.”
“Screw you,” the cop grunted, clutching at the two bullet wounds in his thigh.
Wen looked at Chase. “You’re bleeding. Were you hit?”
Sixty-Six
Washington, DC
A guard gave the news to Mars. He wasn’t surprised, but he was a little sad. He’d given his word, and he’d meant it. But now Irwin was dead.
“Hung himself in his cell,” the guard said.
“Couldn’t they come up with something more original?” Mars asked rhetorically.
“Apparently not.”
Mars got to one of his hidden phones and tried to call Chase, but there was no answer. He texted him instead. “Irwin dead. Obviously he knew too much. Hope you got to Bollinger.”
After he sent the message, he worried that this time it was bigger than Chase, bigger than all of them. Mars looked at the phone once more, wanting to call Chase again, suddenly afraid he might have been killed. Who else can I call? he thought. The well connected inmate felt the familiar dark feelings return—of being trapped and isolated. He put the phone away and went to a secret computer, one that he used to implement decoying. “It’s the one thing I can do to help,” he muttered. And he set in motion more than forty false sightings of Chase and Wen around the globe. “God speed, my friend.”
It would be a long time before he discovered who had actually killed Irwin. Normally, it wouldn’t have mattered that much, but in this case, with the stakes being so high, world peace, a million lives, and the very real possibility . . . they could easily be coming for him next. It did matter.
Washington, DC – April 3rd – 2:35 pm
Tu looked at Nash over the video call and wished he could be there in person. Yet, the excitement of his discovery kept him rambling. “It’s only been in the last hundred years that humans have had any clue as to how seemingly limitless energy is created by stars, including our own sun,” Tu said. “An English astrophysicist, published an essay, ‘The Internal Constitution of the Stars,’ theorizing that sub-atomic energy must be the source.”
“He was correct,” The Astronaut said.
“Yes, and ever since then, people have tried to duplicate that unlimited, carbon-free power.”
“I’m aware.”
“Hundreds of reactors have been built, scientists have slammed hydrogen atoms together . . . the elusive dream has never quite been fulfilled.”
“There’s a joke about fusion energy that it’s thirty years away and always will be.”
“That’s funny,” Tu said giggling. “And it’s been more than three decades since engineers started designing the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.”
“Ah, yes ITER. Excess of $25 billion spent. Constructed of ten million parts. I’ve been there.” The Astronaut smiled at the memory. “It’s in France, surrounded by vineyards. The main machine is twenty-five thousand tons.”
“Wow!” Tu said. “I would like to see it.”
“I’ll take you someday, but tell me, what does ITER have to do with lasers destroying a US city?”
“I think they’ve built one here. They aren’t getting the energy from power plants. It’s coming from fusion. It provides the power to destroy a city . . . maybe many cities,” he said sadly. “Fusion energy will be ten times hotter than the sun.”
The Astronaut was silent for a few moments. “But the ITER campus is four hundred-forty-five acres, it consists of dozens of buildings. Where would they hide such a facility?”
“America is a big country, with lots of land. Four or five hundred acres is not so much, it could be disguised as anything.” Tu grew angry. The military industrial complex weaponizes everything, he thought. Fusion energy could save the environment, but now . . .
The Astronaut did a quick online search—Defense contractor Lockheed Martin was building a nuclear fusion reactor. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was developing a compact Fusion reactor that would “fuse together under high pressure and temperatures of tens of millions of degrees.” He scanned the article and saw that the entire donut-shaped reactor could be “about the size of a tennis court,” and would produce about ten times more energy than is required to ignite and maintain the fusion reaction. China successfully powered up its “artificial sun” nuclear fusion reactor. Russia developing a hybrid fusion-fission reactor. The US military, DARPA, Germany, the UK . . . It was moving too fast. “Someone has done it,” he whispered. “Unlimited energy, and they’re using it to power a laser weapon.”
“A death ray,” Tu said.
Sixty-Seven
Washington, DC
Chase looked down at his blood soaked pants, surprised by the wound. “I don’t think I got hit.”
Wen checked the street and saw they were still clear, then quickly examined his leg. “It’s not a bullet wound. Must be a ricochet, maybe a chunk of the sidewalk, I don’t know.”
“I’ll live.”
“Famous last words,” one of the cops sneered, flipping him off.
Wen blew the officer a kiss.
Chase and Wen stayed low behind vehicles. More men appeared at the other end of the street.
“There!” someone shouted. Bullets started hitting all around them.
Chase grabbed Wen. “Bus.”
The Metro bus rolled up, giving them temporary shelter. Traffic came to a standstill after a motorist was killed at the intersection.
“This way,” Chase said, leading her up the street still shielded by the big vehicle. They cut through an alley and managed to get to the other side of the block, where they spotted more shadow people.
“This is like a military invasion,” Wen said.
Still more shadow people streamed in from both directions.
“Belfort must be desperate,” Wen said.
“What if they’re connected to Blackout?” Chase asked the question that almost always came up when they were involved in an operation and shadow people kept appearing.
“I think whoever is behind the shadow people have something much, much bigger going on.”
“Bigger than laser nuking a million people!”
“Wait a minute,” Wen said. “What if it’s not one city?”
“What are you talking about?”
“It could be 100,000 people in ten cities or, 50,000 people in twenty cities or any combination like that.”
“Then we can’t save them,” Chase said, as they jogged past a normally busy outdoor cafe.
Police helicopters were now overhead and given the proximity to the capital and the White House, Wen knew the National Guard and even special ops were soon going to be on the ground.
“We’re going to get some help,” she said, looking up at the sky. “The feds are going to be killing shadow people.”
“As long as we don’t get caught,” Chase said. “We. Can’t. Get. Caught.” They both understood that they had the information and best chance to stop the attack, but even that might not really matter, they were running out of time. “I can feel the seconds ripping away.”
Three men armed with submachine guns jumped out of a doorway. Only one fired before Wen kicked him, slid into his body, threw an elbow to his face, grabbed his gun, spun, and killed the numbers two and three. She slung the gun over her back as Chase got the other two machines guns off the dead men. He handed one to her as they dashed away amidst sirens and screams.
“Through here!” she said, rounding the corner.
They were suddenly staring up the steepest steps they’d ever seen.
“We’re trapped!” Chase said, as they looked over their shoulders and saw shadow
people closing in from both directions. “I don’t think we can get to the top before they catch us, or at least their bullets catch us.”
“Won’t matter,” she said, panting as they started up the steps. “We’ll have the high ground.”
“About a third of the way up, the first group came around the corner, Chase and Wen stopped and fired. “Three down,” Chase said. “A thousand more to go.”
Two more shadow people peered around the opposite corners. She waited for them to come into full view, before firing. With those dead, they continued to back their way up the endless steps. “Wen,” he yelled, gesturing to the top.
She saw at least six shadow people up there.
Wen moved to the wall and sprayed bullets above them. In the pause that followed, Chase laughed.
“What could possibly be funny about being surrounded on dungeon steps?” Wen asked, between firing bursts down and up.
“A few weeks ago, Bull showed me a picture of herself standing on these steps, you know she loves horror flicks,” Chase said. “ These are the Exorcist steps! I remember she told me they date to 1895, but it was the 1973 movie scene where the priest falls down them and dies, that made them a historic landmark, she’ll be excited we were here.”
“Not if we die on them.”
“Good point.”
Wen fired up to the top again, knowing she wouldn’t hit anything, but needing to keep them from descending. She looked down. An unknown number were still at the bottom, too many. The police might be there soon, but would it be soon enough, and would the police get past the private army arrayed against them. All this flashed through her mind in an instant. There was no time. She pressed closer against the wall of the old building that framed the wide steps. A flat section gave her a bit more concealment, but she believed this time they might actually be doomed. They didn’t have enough ammunition and they were trapped. The walls on either side of the steps were too high and too far apart to scale.
She looked at Chase. He saw it in her eyes. He looked up and down the steps, crowded with killers, and then back at her questioningly. “Really?”
“They have the high ground.” She motioned up as the men were slowly moving down. “We go back down. I can clear the way with this Uzi,” Wen said firmly. “If we make it, you go the other way.”
“No,” he yelled. “They’ll kill you.”
“They’ll kill us both if we don’t.”
Sixty-Eight
Washington, DC
Wen started down the steps but the barrage from below was too much. She looked back up and fired long enough to get the ones above to retreat. “There’s a window in the middle of the high wall on the right side,” she said. “Can you tell if there are bars on it?”
“No, and it’s high enough they might not have installed any. Maybe if we can get there, we’d have a chance.” But as he said it, he knew he could only climb that wall, if she stayed below and fought off their adversaries.
Shadow people began advancing from above and below. For the first time in Wen’s life, she could see no way out. There’s always a way, she thought, but knew she’d eventually run out of bullets. Outnumbered, outgunned, and trapped in some horror movie tomb.
Wen was about to fire another burst when suddenly two of the shadow people fell. She knew it hadn’t been from her bullets. “Was that you?”
“No,” Chase said, surprise in his response.
She looked up to the top of the steps to see if they had somehow shot their own men in crossfire, and watched as bullets ripped into the heads of three more who tumbled down the steep steps.
“Where’s it coming from?” Chase asked.
Wen followed the trajectory of the shots and craned her neck across to the top of the other wall, covered in ivy. “There’s a sniper up there.”
“Helping us?”
“So far.”
“But who? Why? What’s going on?” Chase hissed, as two more fell below, and another up top. The shadow people retreated again behind the corners.
“Someone’s up there,” Wen repeated. “Someone on our side.”
“Someone who’s a damn good shot,” Chase said.
They heard continued gunshots as the sniper cleaned out the area. Then a solitary figure appeared at the top of the steps.
“Chase, Wen, this way!” A male voice shouted down. They exchanged a quick glance unable to tell who the person was, but they had been dead for sure before he arrived on the scene. “The sniper could have easily killed us already,” Wen said.
“Let’s go!” Chase said.
They worked their way up the steep stone steps, staying close to the wall, and keeping their guns pointed both ways. Finally reaching the top, they discovered the man was gone. All that remained were eleven dead shadow people.
“We should check them, Wen said breathlessly.
“No time,” Chase said, trying to catch his breath. Police cars were roaring down the street. “Now we have a new problem. We can’t get arrested.”
Wen took a few quick high-res photos, before bolting across the street, where they climbed the side of an old 19th century house. Once up on the metal roof, they watched as the police cruisers stopped below and began checking the bodies.
“Washington is seeing a little more crime than usual today,” Chase said, as they dropped to another level and sprinted along the roofs of several connected houses, before dropping down and off the other side.
“I think we’re only about three blocks from where we started,” Wen said, as she looked for the next ambush.
“Hey, look that’s our car,” Chase said a short time later.
Wen smiled. “You don’t think that’s a coincidence do you?”
Chase knew better, realizing that when Wen was on the roof she had surveyed the area, her knack for memorizing maps once again coming in quite handy. He’d learned long ago never to question her directions.
“Who was it?” Chase asked, as they got in the car, finally feeling safe enough to think.
“There were at least two of them,” Wen said.
“Maybe it was someone Tess sent.”
“It wasn’t Tess. If it had been, it would have been a full IT-Squad, and they would have waited for us at the top.”
“Then who?”
“Grimes and Shelby?”
“What?” Chase was astonished at the thought. “After what they did to us at the other Georgetown.”
“The Caymans wasn’t them,” she said, as they navigated through heavy traffic.
“Maybe not, but Grimes sent us there, into an ambush, an army waiting to kill us.”
Chase and Wen concealed their guns on their laps under light jackets as Chase drove out of Georgetown. “Mars came through,” Wen said, reading a text from The Astronaut. “We’ve got a meeting with the dirty FBI agent.”
“Great, I hope he can tell us where the weapon is.”
She nodded as she texted The Astronaut back, then gave Chase the location of the meeting.
“Anything else?” Chase asked, as he also noticed a text from Mars.
“I gave Nash the information on where we were, the Exorcist steps.”
“You want him to check surveillance cameras and see who helped us?”
“Yes, I want him to confirm what I know.”
“Why would Grimes and Shelby save us after years of trying to kill us?”
“I think what the man on the Mall told us was true, Belfort found out that Grimes and Shelby were going to meet us,” Wen said.
“Or Grimes told Belfort and he sent that full force.”
“That’s possible.”
“But you really don’t think it happened that way?”
“No.”
“So your theory is that Grimes felt bad about sending us into the lion’s den, so he tracked us down here, and came just in the nick of time to save us?” Chase asked skeptically.
“Maybe he was going to try to talk to us again, and . . . think about it, if Belfort did find ou
t about the meeting, then it would be just like that man told us, Grimes and Shelby are now being hunted like us.”
“Best we stick together,” Chase said sarcastically.
“Yeah.”
“So why just appear and disappear? Why not let us know it was them?”
“Maybe they will, but that was hardly the place and time with the police showing up and ten or twenty shadow people who might be able to identify Shelby and Grimes.”
“I guess.”
“Who knows how many more shadow people Belfort sent.”
“They saved us and left.”
“We were dead back there, Chase.”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t argue that point. Someone had saved their lives.
“Whether it was Shelby and Grimes or someone else, we owe somebody . . . and we owe them big.”
Sixty-Nine
Washington, DC - April 3rd - 3:17 pm
Chase believed this was too important to let go, as if the identity of the people who saved them could lead directly to the answer of where the Russians were going to strike.
“Could’ve been Astaria,” Chase suggested, recalling the former Mossad agent who often collaborated with Wen and had saved them before.
“Maybe,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of that. But it was a man at the top who called our names, and it just doesn’t feel like Astaria.”
Chase thought back to the time Astaria had helped them escape when they were surrounded behind a strip mall in Des Moines. “Feels a lot like Des Moines to me.”
“The Astronaut will find out soon enough,” she said. “Although he’s pretty busy erasing us from as much of the surveillance feeds as possible, reviewing the plans from Forbes and trying to figure out the target city . . . looking for our mysterious guardian angels isn’t high on his list.”
“He shouldn’t have to erase us,” Chase said. “I’m confident our vIDs were working. We had just sprayed it on before we went to meet Forbes.”
“The less sightings of us the better. It’s likely Belfort is using surveillance networks to help find us.”