The Milestone Protocol

by Ernest Dempsey

  Diego knew the attack was coming before the trucks and a long line of SUVs encircled the estate. With security cameras positioned all around the property and two miles up the road in both directions, there was little that escaped his detection. From his underground control room, he watched as the veritable army of Odin’s men clambered out of their vehicles and took up a formation around the front gate.

  “No aerial assault?” Miyamoto asked, standing just behind his old comrade.

  Diego passed over all the screens in front of him. Sitting on the edge of his desk chair, he double checked to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

  “No,” Diego said. “Doesn’t look like any choppers. Not yet, anyway.”

  The answer appeared to satisfy the Shinobi warrior. He crossed his arms and continued watching. The katana at his hip hung at the ready. While the elegant blade was his weapon of choice, his weapons of necessity had evolved through the years. Just as his Ninja predecessors before, he’d learned to use the optimal tool for the job at hand.

  On his right hip, a SIG Sauer .45 rested in a holster, and he carried a carbine-length AR15 slung over his back.

  He imagined that the Shinobi of old might have wondered at modern firearms. Some may have rebuked them, but ultimately Miyamoto knew that even the most hardened traditionalist would bend to the efficiency and lethality that guns posed.

  “They will send reinforcements,” Miyamoto announced.

  “It’s possible,” Diego nodded. “But not a certainty. If Adriana and Sean can stop Odin, perhaps the organization will crumble before that happens.”

  “Cut off the snake’s head, and the body dies.”

  “Something like that.”

  “I suppose we’ll see,” Miyamoto conceded. “Looks like they’re about to ram through the gate.”

  “Yes,” Diego agreed. “Such a shame. That gate is two hundred years old.”

  They watched on one of the screens as a military-style Humvee revved its engine and barreled into the gate at full speed. The hinges broke free from the stone pillars holding up sections of the gate. The truck rumbled over the mangled metal and stone, crushing the hydraulic cylinders and bending bars.

  The Humvee ground to a halt on the cobblestone driveway just beyond. The driver waited as scores of soldiers poured into the freshly smashed opening.

  Diego’s phone rang next to the computer keyboard. He answered it, already knowing who it was.

  “Sir?” the woman said.

  “I know, Ella. Make sure you and all the others evacuate through the tunnels immediately. Everyone else should already be clear.”

  Ella Presley was an expat living in Spain. As a former security director for several high-level political campaigns, she had a wealth of knowledge regarding nearly all manner of risk prevention and defense.

  Diego hired her on as a consultant, though she spent many of her days on site, constantly looking for weaknesses in the systems.

  “You know,” she’d once said, “they can just climb over the fence.”

  Diego had laughed. The stone wall around the property was only a few feet tall, but was heightened by a wrought-iron fence with sharp spikes on the top. Standing at around ten feet with the spikes, it would still be difficult, and painful for many, to try to go over the fence.

  “Yes, sir,” Ella said. “I’ll make sure everyone gets out safely. What about you, sir?”

  “Oh, I’ll be all right. I have a little surprise in store for our guests. Just make sure you and the others are clear.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  He thanked her and ended the call, then looked at Miyamoto. “The last ones are evacuating now. I suppose we should get ready to clean up the mess.”

  “Yes.”

  The basement control room was a 15x15 area with four computer stations and multiple monitors. The wall to their left, however, contained racks of weapons and magazines.

  Miyamoto shuffled over to the armory and stuffed four more magazines of AR15-5.56 ammo into his utility belt. Diego followed and did the same, plus he added two more magazines of .40-caliber rounds for his Springfield pistol.

  “We shouldn’t need more than this,” Diego insisted, stuffing the last empty slot in his belt with a magazine.

  “I would hope not. Not with what you’ve done with the place. My concern isn’t handling the survivors. It’s dealing with the aftermath. We’ll be lucky if the mansion doesn’t burn to the ground.”

  Diego chuckled to himself. “Where’s your sense of adventure, old friend?”

  “I don’t think what you have planned is my kind of adventure.”

  “You think it’s a bad plan?”

  Miyamoto returned his gaze to the screens filling with Odin’s soldiers. They were fanning out, surrounding the manor in a giant circle. “No. Your assessment was correct. Their best chance of rooting us out is encircling the house. That will leave no room for escape, except for the tunnels.”

  “Which we already discussed. If we leave with the others, they will eventually find us. Probably sooner rather than later. Staying here is the only way to protect them, and take out a good chunk of Odin’s forces.”

  “Yes, I know.” He indicated the monitors. “Looks like they’re moving in now.”

  Diego looked over at the screens again. On each one, lines of men moved up the knoll toward the mansion. They maneuvered just like a military group would: advancing, taking cover on the ground with weapons aimed forward, then allowing the next in their platoon to advance.

  It was exactly as Diego had believed they would attack.

  He moved back over to the control panel and flipped a switch. While he and Miyamoto couldn’t see it, both men knew what the switch had done.

  All around the manor, sprinkler heads automatically rose out of the ground, aiming out toward the perimeter of soldiers encroaching toward the home.

  Diego shifted his right hand to a nearby red button that was covered by a piece of plastic on a hinge. He flipped up the cover and waited, keeping a close eye on the screens.

  “I suppose every great castle or historic manor has to go through a fire every few centuries or so,” Miyamoto mused. “No reason for yours to be any different.”

  “Yes, you could be right,” Diego said. “I hope that isn’t the case.”

  There’d been a good amount of rain during the season, but only a few centimeters in the last two weeks. Things weren’t totally dry, but they weren’t exactly damp, either. That was a double-edged sword, and Diego knew it.

  “Nearly there,” Miyamoto said, watching one monitor closely before shifting to the next. There were markers set out on the grounds to guide the two men’s decision regarding their surprise attack. The markers looked like ordinary stones to anyone else on the property, but they had been placed deliberately. Diego reached over and flipped another switch next to the first. All around the property, pilot flames attached to the sprinkler heads ignited.

  When the enemy reached the markers, Diego would press the button.

  He leaned forward, keeping his eyes locked on the screen nearest him. The seconds ticked by like a sledgehammer on an anvil—slow, rhythmic, foreboding.

  The first of the attackers passed beyond the line of markers on the east side of the building. Miyamoto saw it but said nothing. Diego knew what to do. He had to wait until all the men were beyond the boundary.

  The next group passed the line of markers on the north and west sides about the same time. If those to the south didn’t cross soon, Diego would have to hit the button anyway and face the consequences after the fact. If he couldn’t get all of Odin’s assault team, he’d have to settle for most.

  His palm hovered over the button as he watched. The second he saw one of the attackers pass a marker on the southern border, Diego pressed his hand down.

  Within seconds, the sprinklers spewed liquid flames in dramatic arcs out from a circle surrounding the manor. It looked like a ring of fiery death.

  The attackers saw the fl
ames spraying toward them, but there was nothing they could do to avoid the rain of fire.

  The burning liquid shot eighty feet down the gentle slope, cutting off the assailant’s escape. Men screamed as the fuel splattered on them from above. Some of them were instantly covered by the concoction, and no matter how much they rolled around on the ground, they couldn’t extinguish the flames. Even if they had, it wouldn’t have made a difference. The fuel continued to spray.

  Some were only struck by small droplets at first, but they had it just as bad as the others, if not worse. They were exposed to a finer mist that covered their skin with searing droplets that seemed to melt their flesh.

  The brave few who figured their only path to safety was rushing toward the house were cut down immediately as the erratic and overlapping streams shot north from the makeshift flamethrowers.

  Within one minute of the fiery attack, only a scant few from the assault team remained, though even they dropped one by one as they inhaled the toxic fumes from the burning mixture. Flames on the lawn caught up to those trying to crawl to safety. Once the grass ignited, they couldn’t stop the fire from setting their clothes ablaze.

  The haunting screams of the men climbed into the sky amid the black smoke soaring upward. Then, with every dying breath, an eerie calm swelled over the property.

  Staring at the screens, neither Miyamoto nor Diego could find any survivors from the assault team.

  Diego flipped the two switches, and the flaming streams stopped, though the fires in the grass continued.

  The two men surveyed every inch of the grounds, but none of the attackers moved. Hundreds of charred bodies littered the property. Miyamoto couldn’t tear his eyes from the grisly sight.

  “Terrible way to go,” he commented reverently.

  “It was them or us,” Diego countered.

  “I know. And I don’t feel sorry for them. They served the forces of evil, those who seek to enslave humanity, and murder billions. They got what they deserved.”

  Diego flipped another switch and pressed a blue button next to it. The sprinklers resumed spraying again, though this time it was a whitish-blue liquid that spewed from the nozzles. The second concoction extinguished the flames rapidly, and forty-five seconds later there was no sign of fire anywhere. Only the destruction and death it had caused.

  As he gazed at the horrors on the monitors, Diego quoted a verse from the Bible he recalled reading many times. “And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever.”

  “Yes,” Miyamoto said. “I just hope Adriana succeeds. Otherwise, we could all suffer a similar fate.”

  42

  Russia

  Magnus looked over at his driver and scowled. The man was bleeding from his side and weaving left and right on the highway.

  “Is he okay?” Kevin asked from the back seat. He didn’t care about the man’s well-being, only his own, but their two fates were woven together as long as the bleeding man was behind the wheel.

  The driver didn’t answer, and Magnus didn’t have one either, though he suspected the worst.

  “Pull over,” he ordered.

  The delirious bodyguard did as instructed and swerved off the road and onto the shoulder. They were minutes outside the city limits of Moscow, close enough that Magnus could see the skyline in the distance.

  He looked over at his driver, inspecting the wound. The man’s shirt and coat were soaked with blood. Magnus swore under his breath at the sight. Then he turned to Kevin. “You drive,” he commanded.

  “What? Me? Why me?”

  Magnus raised a pistol and pointed it at Kevin’s face. “Because you work for me and you do what I say.” He cocked his head sideways, brandishing the gun. “And because if you don’t, I’ll blow a hole through your face.”

  Kevin swallowed hard at the threat and nodded. “Good enough for me.”

  He stepped out, then opened the front door and assisted the wounded man into the back seat. After he closed the door, he looked into the driver’s seat at the blood smeared on the leather.

  Magnus sensed his hesitation and rolled his eyes. “Oh, for the love of Asgard,” he spat. “Get one of the bags in the trunk and set it on the seat if it bothers you so much. But hurry.”

  Kevin shuffled around to the back of the car and retrieved an empty duffle bag from the interior. He placed it over the blood on the driver’s seat, climbed back in, and guided the car onto the highway.

  After five minutes of continually looking into the rearview mirror to check both for someone tailing them and on the injured man, he spoke up. “He needs medical attention,” Kevin said. “I know you’re not planning on taking him to a hospital.”

  The man in the back groaned something unintelligible.

  “Yes, I know,” Magnus said without elaborating. “And you’re obviously correct about the hospital.”

  “Not to mention ditching the car.”

  “It’s almost as if you think I don’t have a plan in place for every contingency,” Magnus groused.

  “You have a plan for this?” Kevin motioned to the back seat with a jerk of his right thumb.

  “Of course I do.” He noticed the exit coming up on the right. “This is the one. Pull off up here.”

  Kevin frowned. “There’s nothing here but a bunch of old Soviet factories.”

  “Just do it.”

  “Okay, fine.”

  Kevin steered the vehicle down the exit ramp and stopped at the bottom of the hill. “Now where to?”

  “Go right. Straight at the next intersection, then in two blocks you’ll pull into an old junkyard.”

  “Seriously?”

  Magnus fired him an irritated glare.

  Kevin responded by stepping on the gas and turning right onto the road. He followed the directions, going through the intersection and then, after traveling two more blocks, slowed down next to a chain-link fence that wrapped around an old junkyard.

  “How did you know this place was here?” Kevin wondered.

  “I own it. One of my operatives is meeting us here to handle the situation.”

  Kevin accepted the answer and turned into the driveway where two guards held open the gate. Once the car was through, the two men in gray coats and pants closed both sides of the barrier.

  “Over there, by the main building,” Magnus said, indicating a rectangular two-story concrete building with a metal roof. Compared to the piles of junk and debris everywhere, the structure looked almost new.

  A black BMW 8 Series sat next to the entrance, along with two black Range Rovers.

  Four men in black stepped out of the SUVs and stood by them as Kevin pulled up next to the building.

  “Here is fine,” Magnus said, and Kevin stopped the car. “Get out.”

  “Okay, okay. You don’t have to be rude. I’m going.”

  Kevin got out and stood by the open door, looking at the other men with a suspicious gaze. He was the picture of discomfort and insecurity with one shoulder slumped lower than the other and hands in his pocket.

  Magnus, on the other hand, had full command of the situation. “The one in the back needs medical attention,” the Swede said. “Take care of the car, too.”

  “Yes, sir,” said one of the men standing by the SUV on the right.

  At once, he stepped toward the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. He shifted into gear as he closed the door and drove the car over to a vacant spot near a pile of compressed metal, plastic, and other rubbish.

  “Your car is ready, sir,” another man said, motioning to the 8 Series.

  “Excellent. Thank you all,” Magnus said genuinely.

  Kevin couldn’t take his eyes off the sedan at the other side of the lot. He watched in rapt curiosity as the driver got out and opened the back door. Before Kevin could ask Magnus where the man was going to receive medical attention, the driver drew a pistol and fired three shots into the back seat.

  “What the—” Kevin stopped himself and continued watching, his curios
ity replaced by sheer horror as a crane maneuvered a magnet toward the car and then centered over the roof.

  The huge disc lowered and attached to the roof of the sedan, then picked it up off the ground as though it were a child’s toy. The crane slowly swung the car over to a platform with three normal walls and a fourth that was tilted at an angle and propped up by two hydraulic pistons. The crane operator lowered vehicle into the container, and when the tires touched the bottom, he switched off the magnet and pulled the disc away.

  A man in a control box above the crusher pressed a button, and a lid slid over the top of the vehicle. Then it slowly pushed down, driven by two more hydraulics from above. Kevin shook his head as he watched the powerful machine smash the car into half its size.

  “Are you coming?” Magnus asked, interrupting Kevin’s view of the macabre scene.

  He tore his eyes away from the crusher as the side wall raised until it was parallel, then started moving in to squeeze the destroyed vehicle on both sides.

  “Yes,” Kevin said. Fear and a hint of regret smothered his tone.

  It wasn’t lost on Magnus.

  The two men climbed into the back of the BMW, and the driver started the vehicle with the push of a button.

  When the car began to move, Magnus spoke, though he kept his gaze out the window. “You are disturbed by what you saw?”

  “No,” Kevin lied. “I mean, I’ve never been to a salvage yard or seen a car crushed like that in person. Only in the movies.”

  “You shouldn’t lie to me, Dr. Clark. I know it bothers you. I can tell. Body language speaks louder than any words from a person’s lips.”

  “I…I thought you were going to get him help.”

  Magnus huffed. “We did help him. We gave him mercy, the greatest mercy that can be given.”

  “You killed one of your own men,” Kevin whined. “Am I next?”

  “I would hope not.” There was no lie in the statement. “But if you are wounded as he was, we may not have a choice. Although at our bunker on Svalbard, we have medical professionals, people who can take care of these things.”

  Kevin pondered the statement before speaking again. “Please don’t take offense when I say this, but I thought you controlled everything.”