The Grid

by Nick Cook

Reuben, Hetta and I have taken the opportunity to lay a few false trails in our communications traffic to give the impression we are still deeply immersed in the investigative phase: Hetta at PIAD; me, post-release in my office; Reuben in his. To get around the communications ban, Graham has driven to Beltsville to brief the CAT. He has put a small team of agents on my desk and Hetta’s, who, between them, will work to a script – emailing each other, exactly as we would – to make them believe we’re in D.C.

  ‘Wish I was coming with you,’ Reuben says between drags.

  ‘Bullshit.’ I sit on the edge of a white wrought-iron table, at which, in better times, I’ve seen the President, his wife and kids smiling in publicity shots. ‘He needs you here. We need you here.’

  ‘You think they know? I mean, really know? About everything? Our every move?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  He stares at the smoke curling from his cigarette. ‘So, all his fears really did come home to roost.’ He lets the stub fall and stares back across the Rose Garden toward the Oval Office.

  ‘This may be something or it may be nothing, but the trail that led Hart to the INSCOM science program also led to your former boss, Tod Abnarth. He was the Minority Leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee when he learned the Bush presidency had duped him over the resurrected remote viewing program. All this was before your time, but only just. I’m telling you because Hart is onto it and, as you once told me, when she gets her teeth into something, she doesn’t let go.’

  ‘Abnarth knew about the science program that led to this?’

  ‘More. He threatened to go public about the Executive Branch breaking all the oversight rules. Abnarth’s quid pro quo was that INSCOM should place the science in the public domain, on the grounds there was never any need to classify it.’

  ‘That’s what I don’t understand. Why did INSCOM comply?’

  ‘I don’t think they believed the science would ever work. They just wanted the committee’s funding approval for the classified part – using psychics to support the Activity’s hunt for WMD-toting terrorists.’

  Reuben sits back and thinks about this for a moment.

  ‘Abnarth and the President have history,’ he says.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Abnarth was the first politician to endorse Thompson for the Democratic nomination.’

  ‘I know that too. So, let’s not get blindsided. Talk to the President. He’s a lawyer. He’ll understand. There’s got to be an explanation. Cabot’s onside, but it won’t take much for that to change if he believes we’re hiding something else from him.’

  I wait a beat.

  ‘Listen. Back there, what Hart was saying—’

  ‘What is it with her?’

  ‘She’s a good agent.’

  ‘She was taking Thompson to task, Josh.’

  ‘So there isn’t a probe?’

  ‘No. If there was, I’d know about it.’

  ‘And you don’t.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, man.’

  I’ve known Reuben long enough to tell when he’s hiding something from me, and he isn’t.

  I hesitate. ‘Do something else for me, would you?’

  ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘Name it.’

  ‘When they come for Johansson, the INSCOM leadership team, and Triple Z in Herndon, they’re going to pull in Ted van Buren. I can’t begin to guess how Ted’s mixed up in all this, but I don’t want Cabot and his goons putting him through the wringer. He’s old and this will terrify him. Keep him safe until I get back. Then I’ll handle it.’

  35

  FROM FIVE MILES OUT, IT LOOKS AS IF SOMEBODY HAS TAKEN A giant chainsaw and lopped the top off the mountain. The plateau, 1,500 meters above sea level, is dotted with pines and boulders, and a long, arrow-straight runway that cuts through the middle of it. The treetops have been dusted by a recent snowfall.

  The field was built during the war to test stuff they didn’t want anybody to see, and some of the infrastructure is still visible: two black hangars nestled amid a cluster of modern white buildings.

  Two minutes after we land, we taxi up to one of the hangars and shut down. Our pilot steps into the cabin and opens the door.

  Snake Ranch Mesa is a small general aviation field with a parachute club, and a couple of Gulfstreams registered to the billionaire businessmen who have wilderness lodges nearby.

  The Citation Jet’s air stairs flop to the ground. Graham, in jeans and a fleece, is waiting for us; his aircraft is more modern and at least fifty knots faster than the Comet. It’s ten degrees colder here in Utah than it was in D.C. Hetta is in field-standard white and black. She shivers behind me.

  ‘Follow me,’ he says. ‘We got here thirty minutes ago. Weather’s turning. There’s snow showers inbound. Let’s push it.’

  We jog across the apron and shimmy through a gap in the hangar doors, where I’m hit by a sound I haven’t heard in a long time: the clink and rustle of people getting ready with purpose.

  Two dark gray Hueys sit under the strip lights, surrounded by the assault team Graham brought with him from Beltsville.

  He walks us over to a big guy in black tactical gear with his back to us. He’s wearing a baseball cap, a T-shirt and a black nylon belt festooned with pouches. A helmet, a ballistic vest, a knife, a holster, a gas mask bag, half a dozen grenades and his weapons – an SR-16 and a SIG Sauer – lie on the ground behind him.

  He turns. ‘Colonel Cain.’ His voice is a familiar baritone. ‘John Hayden. We—’

  ‘John Hayden.’ I shake his hand warmly. ‘Christ, you look a little different from the last time …’

  ‘You two know each other?’ Graham says.

  Hayden smiles. ‘We do. Since a certain zit-faced captain gave me a triage lesson outside of Ramadi. I was on the receiving end of a shell splinter that damn near took my arm off.’ He holds it up to display a six-inch scar above the elbow.

  He’s still gripping my hand. ‘Shit, it’s good to see you, sir.’

  ‘You too, John. You know Special Agent Hetta Hart?’

  ‘Don’t believe I do.’ He lets me go and turns to her. ‘Mighty glad to meet you.’ He smiles, Hetta brushes her hair out of her eyes, and I feel something I don’t expect somewhere in my gut.

  Hayden gestures to the open door of the Huey behind him. On the floor is an Alice pack. ‘That’s our standard backpack, Colonel. You’ll need to check it through as I’m guessing there’s a shitload in there that’s different from the last one you played around with.’

  Graham taps his watch. ‘Briefing in two, John. Let’s go.’

  ‘Ready our end,’ Hayden says. He picks up his ballistic vest and slips it over his head. I make my way over to the helicopter.

  I count off the essentials: a surgical kit with every kind of blade, probe and needle; different types of scissors, battle dressings and tourniquets; an IV infuser kit, saline, blood bags …

  ‘OK, gentlemen, listen up. If I could have your attention, please.’ Hetta’s voice echoes beneath the hangar roof. She’s standing next to a whiteboard with a hastily sketched picture of the target. The arroyo, which angles north to south. The rectangular bunker a third of the way up it. A fence where the arroyo ends and the valley floor begins. A guard-post. An access road between. The checkpoint. The building itself. Pinned beneath the sketch is a blow-up of the image from the cabin, the gray roof of the facility stark against the salty white desert floor.

  Hayden’s assault unit comprises two five-man-strong tactical teams. They’ve also brought in two pilots with Huey experience. PPD agents are tasked to take a bullet for the President. These guys are different. If the shit goes down, the CAT is there – a few vehicles behind the Beast – to take the fight to the enemy. They train for every contingency, but they won’t have trained for this: taking down a bunker guarded by ex-servicemen with much the same level of experience. This is the kind of op you’d normally give the SEALs, Delta or the Activity.

  His men gather by the whiteboard.
>
  Graham nods to Hetta.

  ‘Before I left the White House,’ she says, ‘President Thompson handed me an executive order. We will touch down weapons hot; you have permission to return fire if engaged. Data on what we can expect is patchy. The nearest public land is five miles from the perimeter, so we reckon there’s only a small security detail at the site itself. But the second we hit the ground, they’re going to call in reinforcements.’ She directs our attention to the paved road that runs from the bunker building to the main Bluffdale complex. ‘And they’re going to come right down this road. Your task is to hold the perimeter long enough to allow Colonel Cain and myself access to the building.’

  Hayden stands behind his men, chewing on a match. He sticks his hand up. ‘What happens then, Agent Hart?’

  ‘I’ll be honest with you. We don’t know. We hope they’re going to see that the game’s up and do what we say.’

  She looks surprised at the laughter from the floor.

  She waits a moment. ‘If there are no further questions, we’re good to go. Weather is going to restrict our visibility on the way in and over the LZ, which isn’t good, but on the plus side, it’s going to fuck with them, too.’

  Hayden’s agents push the Hueys out onto the apron. Hetta and I clamber on board the lead craft, which will set down on the LZ between the perimeter and the building; the other, with Graham on board, will deliver its men onto the roof of the facility.

  I strap myself into a seat behind the pilot and grab a set of headphones. Hetta does the same.

  Hayden pulls the door shut. Snowflakes swirl around us as the pilot fires up one turbine, then the next. I close my eyes as fifteen years slide by – the only difference was that we’d used Black Hawks then, not Hueys.

  We make a course adjustment at a waypoint north of a clapped-out junction town, clipping the southwest corner of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation.

  The terrain switches from desert to forest and, as we flash over a large frozen lake, the CAT operator next to me waves at a guy fishing on the ice, then flips him the bird.

  Hetta, eyes down, points to the map. We’re heading for a valley with 3,000-meter peaks either side of it – our frontier with civilization. Beyond it lie the suburbs of Salt Lake City, an eight-lane stretch of Interstate 15 and the perimeter of the closed-off military training area that houses the Bluffdale site, the arroyo and our LZ.

  Fifteen minutes later, my guts lurch as we crest a ridge and start to descend rapidly. There’s a crackle in my headphones. ‘Unidentified aircraft entering Class A airspace south of Sandy, this is Salt Lake ARTCC, please identify yourselves. Over.’

  ‘Ah, Salt Lake ARTCC, this is Coyote Two-Three. We are a law enforcement flight out of Green River en route to Herriman requesting transit at flight level two-zero, estimated transit time—’

  ‘Coyote Two-Three, you are about to enter restricted airspace. Request you immediate right turn, heading three-two-zero.’

  We are now thirty degrees nose-down, hugging the slope. I crane my neck and see a patchwork of buildings and streets over the pilot’s shoulder. To the left is Utah Lake. To the right, I can make out lines of ski-lifts on the slopes of the mountains to the east of Salt Lake City’s southern suburbs.

  ‘Coyote Two-Three, repeat: you are close to restricted airspace.’

  We fly on.

  ‘Make an immediate right turn, heading three-two-zero, repeat, three-two-zero.’

  We shoot over the interstate, bank hard left, and I get a snapshot of a semi-circular cluster of large white buildings. They’re so big, I could reach out and touch them.

  The Utah Data Center.

  We pull over a ridge and down the other side, using the terrain to mask our approach. High winds and snow buffet the Huey. Our pilot comes on the intercom: ‘Thirty seconds to the LZ.’

  Hayden slides back the door. Cold air rips into the cabin.

  We haul over another ridge, make a turn above the bunker and come in low, pulling up in the last seconds to bleed off our speed.

  Our skids bump along the sand. Hayden jumps out. Everybody else follows.

  At the head of the arroyo the second team has already deployed onto the roof of the bunker. Two agents abseil to the ground and blow the steel door.

  By the time Hetta, Hayden and I reach them they’re already inside, probing with flashlights. The entrance is cold and dark.

  Through the smoke, beyond a barrier fitted with biometric scanners, I spot a stairwell. The stairs go just one way: down.

  36

  A HIGH-TECH VERSION OF A VICTORIAN OPERATING THEATER, LIT by the glow of three Cyalume sticks.

  Banks of seating extend three tiers up from a circular floor area.

  There are workstations for half a dozen people.

  A three-foot-high circular plinth stands at its center. Bits of broken kit lie everywhere.

  One of three large screens hangs on its wires. Two are on the floor, beyond repair.

  Hayden raises his NVGs, jogs down a gangway, squats and runs a gloved hand across a six-inch-deep crater beside the plinth. Hetta and I stand next to him. The two others carry on sweeping the room.

  ‘Fragmentation damage,’ he says. The light from the Cyalume catches his breath as he speaks. ‘It’s still warm.’

  I was wrong. They’ve refined the lag time: down from twelve hours to ten. They knew we were coming, but only just.

  Feet tramp down the stairwell. Two CAT agents appear at the door.

  ‘We got company,’ one blurts. ‘There’s a fuckin’ convoy of Humvees coming up the road. What to do, boss?’

  Hayden gets to his feet. We’d preplanned for this. His voice remains calm. ‘Secure the perimeter. Don’t let them on site. Where’s—?’

  There’s a muffled bang below us. The vibration shakes the floor.

  I look at Hetta, then at Hayden.

  He turns to his men. ‘They want to parlay, fine. Graham’s in charge. He can keep ’em talking. It’s what he does. They want a fight, give ’em one.’ He glances down. ‘We got company too.’

  The two agents tramp back upstairs.

  Hayden turns to Hetta and me. ‘You both ready for this?’

  He unholsters his SIG, racks the slide and hands it to me.

  There’s a door at the back of the room. Hayden pulls the handle toward him. I’m hit by the smell of electrical equipment. Blue, red, green and white LEDs blink in two large equipment racks. They extend floor to ceiling, and front to back. Four fan ducts, each the height of a man, are set in the wall behind a wire mesh screen. Their paddle blades are motionless.

  We spread out. A flight of steps leads down from the end of the chamber. The acrid smell of the detonation rises to meet us. Wisps of smoke hang in the glow of the diodes and LEDs.

  Hayden is the first to descend. Then Hetta. I follow.

  The next level down is a duplicate of the one we’ve just left. Another flight of steps leads into the bowels of the facility. I wonder how deep the thing goes.

  The two figures crouching between the racks on the far wall are barely visible and too busy doing what they’re doing – assembling another charge – to see us. Against the thrum of the servers, they’ve heard nothing either. I raise my weapon.

  Hayden yells: ‘Right there, fellas!’

  One of them rolls left, the other right.

  Hayden and Hetta fire at the exact same moment.

  Muzzle flashes light up the room. Bullets ricochet off the metalwork. There’s a burst of return fire. Hayden staggers and hits the ground.

  Hetta covers me as I crawl through a rack to reach him. I check his pulse, roll him onto his back and pull out a flashlight. He’s taken rounds in the left shoulder and in his medial right thigh.

  I tear open the top of his pants and a jet of arterial blood arcs past my face. I jam the palm of my left hand into the wound, stick the flashlight in my mouth and rummage through the pack for a wad of combat gauze. I shove it in the wound and press down with all my strength
. Hayden screams.

  Good. He’s conscious.

  I slip a tourniquet around his thigh. Working it with one hand takes too long. I pull it tight ten centimeters above the wound and shine the light in his eyes.

  ‘John? You hear me?’

  He nods.

  ‘I need you to work the tourniquet.’

  He nods again.

  I’m guessing he’s lost a liter of blood. If he loses another, he’ll become confused, his pulse will weaken, his heart rate will jump, his systolic blood pressure will drop and he’ll go into shock.

  ‘Am I going to die?’

  ‘I saved you before, didn’t I?’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘No.’

  If I don’t stop the bleeding in the next ninety seconds, though, he will.

  I wrap his fingers around the end of the tourniquet and tell him to pull.

  Still applying pressure to the wound, I reach into the pack and grab a pressure dressing. I let go of the flashlight, tear the wrapper with my teeth, unfurl the bandage and wrap it tight around the wound. I then elevate the leg by lifting his foot onto the pack.

  Only now am I aware that the shooting’s stopped.

  ‘Hetta!’

  She’s gone.

  I direct the flashlight beam onto the gap between Hayden’s torso armor and the Kevlar protecting his upper arm. I cut open his shirt and the T-shirt underneath. The round has punched in and out, tumbling through bone and muscle. It’ll be hurting like hell, but it won’t kill him.

  I glance at the thigh wound. The bleed’s stopped, so I stick a fentanyl lozenge in his cheek and tell him to hold completely still. The fentanyl kicks in quickly and is as good as IV morphine.

  ‘Josh!’ Hetta’s voice reaches me from across the room. ‘We got a man down here. He’s dead. The other guy’s lost blood. Trail leads through one of the ducts. I’m going after him. Stay with Hayden,’ she tells me. ‘And keep your weapon close.’

  I look around. In all the excitement, it’s gone.

  Hayden tugs at the sleeve of my jacket and points to his SR-16.

  It’s lying where he dropped it, two meters away.