BRAINSTORM

by Gordon Kessler

  * * *

  President Mason was in the third chopper in the flight of four Sea Kings. At least two other helicopters always accompanied the President’s, with the Commander-in-Chief never flying in the same one twice in a row for security. Above them, four F-16s circled protectively, ready to swoop down to defend the President, even fly into an incoming missile if the need arose.

  The President had boarded the U.S. Marine Corps helicopter, a VH-3D Sea King designated Marine One when he was on board, with his four cabinet members and had opted to ride the helo all the way back to the White House. They had gotten away ahead of a storm front bringing with it a heavier than usual snowfall for this early in the season. Now about five minutes away from landing on the White House lawn, Mason gazed out the port-side window at the glowing D.C. nightline on the horizon. It was always a relief to leave the Capitol, but he never failed to be eager to return. This time, as the lights grew brighter and snow streaked by the window, he wondered if these so-called “psychic assassins” were being trained somewhere nearby, perhaps even within a couple of hundred miles in the Appalachians. As he turned to look past his four cabinet members to the nearest starboard-side window, he considered the intel he’d just received. Still with no idea of where Major Jackson’s rescue operation was taking place, it seemed the Major was finding moderate success and might be close to grabbing Robert Weller and being able to answer a whole bunch of questions.

  * * *

  Sunny ran back to the small wooded encampment where Major Jackson waited.

  “Damn it, Jax,” she said, nearly breathless. “I brought him within two hundred yards, but he ran off.”

  Jax trotted up to her, and four of the five other men came behind him from their small, advanced camp. “Where’s he going?”

  “Back to his house,” Sunny said. “Come on, we can catch up to him.”

  Lieutenant Carpenter sat in the DPV with his headphones on and the notebook computer on his lap. He called out, “Major, I think you need to know about this.”

  “Come on, Jax,” Sunny said, tugging on his arm.

  The major turned away from her and hustled to the lieutenant. “One moment, Sunny. This could be important.”

  Lieutenant Carpenter said, “Got a message on the laptop again. Appears to be from the same source as before, it’s not coded and there’s no source signature. It says we need to get everybody out.”

  “What do you mean?” Jax turned the laptop to him and looked at the screen.

  Must get all hostages out. No time left. There will not be another chance. Those left behind will be killed.

  “That’s impossible,” Jax said facing the laptop’s LCD screen. “We’re up against a hostile defensive force of probably a thousand, and we only have three dozen men in two helos armed mostly with nonlethal weapons. We knew there was a time constraint, and we’d only get a couple dozen out at best. But there’s no way we can get everyone out. Last information we got, there were nearly a hundred hostages.”

  Words appeared on the laptop again causing Jax and the young lieutenant to gape at the screen. There are over four thousand.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jax said. “How could that be?”

  The lieutenant said, “The good news is the President is starting to soften up a little about our ‘little rogue mission.’ He and his advisors didn’t think we’d get this far. But he’s still upset at you putting this together under the guise you had Presidential authority. And he still insists to know where we are. Gunny Sampson’s Com people are doing a good job bouncing our messages all over the place—keeping those DOD boys busy trying to track us down. The bad news is the Thousand Eyes RVs are still real insistent there’s a nuclear element in the picture.”

  “Still sunrise?”

  The lieutenant nodded.

  “That corroborates what we’re getting here,” Jax said, pointing to the laptop. “Do they have any suggestions?”

  “They’re working on it, sir.”

  The major shook his head. “We’re going to need help. A lot of help. We might have to give the President our coordinates. But we don’t have any assurances that they won’t be the ones who nuke us.”

  “Let’s go, Jax,” Sunny repeated. “We’ve got to get to Weller before he gets too close to that house.”

  Jax looked up as Sarge came trotting back to Sunny’s side. The dog turned quickly and growled.

  “I see movement,” Lieutenant Carpenter said. He pulled off his SatCom headset, laid the laptop to the side and motioned for the men to spread out as he put on his helmet.

  “Down,” Jax ordered in a whisper into his mike.

  He hustled to Sunny and pulled her to the ground. The dog went prone beside her.

  “Company on the right, too,” came one of the other men’s urgent and low voice over Jax’s headset.

  The rhythmic thumping of a helicopter rotor beat through the fog.

  The major tapped the arm of the soldier next to him and said, “Chang, get on the fifty. If the chopper fires at us, we have no choice but to defend ourselves.”

  Airman Chang jumped to his feet and sprinted to the fifty-caliber machinegun mounted on the back of the DPV.

  Into his mike, Jax said, “Sergeant Chambers, get the smoke pots out there. We need a screen.” He glanced at Sunny. The dog was licking her face. Her eyes were closed, and she was unresponsive to his prodding. Had he pulled her to the ground too hard and caused her to hit her head? Or had she been struck by a sniper’s silenced bullet?

  Chapter 18

  I struggled up the ravine, nearly breathless, every muscle now aching. With each step, I shoved off with a hand on the corresponding knee. I was definitely out of shape. If I lived through this night, I vowed to spend at least twenty minutes a day on the Stairmaster for the rest of my life.

  Then Harvey paid me another visit. Keep at it, Superman. Don’t slow down.

  “Leave me alone, Harvey,” I said aloud. Then my thoughts began tumbling like a sparrow in a tornado. Michelle—would she be okay? Had they left her alone? Sunny—friend or enemy? Why? Who was she working for? Who were these guys in the dark-blue, SWAT outfits? Were they police or military? And the other guys in blue—and what about the people dropping like cut tree limbs around me? There were now five lives I would account for when my day of reckoning came. It was a heavy burden to carry up the hill. My eyes watered with confusion and exhaustion as my breath puffed out in clouds of steam.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Maybe I was making a mistake—I should turn around and go back to Sunny.

  No! Harvey said. It’s not safe.

  But Harvey wasn’t saying where it was safe.

  I considered the day’s many strange happenings. What was with the black disks, the bugs or whatever they were? Why didn’t my pursuers say anything to identify themselves? What was up with Sunny, and why didn’t my condition affect her? Why did my enigma affect only certain people, like the one SWAT guy I’d punched and not the others? Why my first victim, the lady? And had she planted the bug on my clothes?

  I tried to think logically. It all started this morning—the note in the shower, the exploding TV. People were dying from something I had or was doing. Then the people in blue began stalking me, trying to catch me, and when that didn’t work, they tried to kill me. Why not? People were dying because of me. They had to stop me, they had no choice. They were doing the right thing. I was doing the wrong thing, and if I kept evading them, more people would die. Maybe they could help me. Maybe they could cure whatever it was I had, if only I turned myself in.

  Harvey said, And maybe you’ll be arrested for murder, tried, convicted and sentenced to death.

  I stopped, took a deep breath and scanned the misty gully and small trees surrounding me. Briefly, I thought of those trees as people, people who might approach me, and whom I might will dead. Or the disease I had would fell them. Or some sniper would shoot them with a dart gun with tiny darts, poisonous and deadly, that would somehow dissolve or disapp
ear when they hit the skin. I shook my head. Hell, maybe the town had been taken over by aliens. That thought wasn’t much more far-fetched than the others rattling inside my head. The possibilities were endless, but none of them made sense. All seemed to come out of B sci-fi movies and paperback spy novels.

  The wind picked up, and the cold but gentle breeze thinned out the fog. A light mist touched my face, and raindrops beat the canopy of aspen above. By the time I made it home, I’d be soaked. I swallowed hard and decided on another simple plan. Since Michelle hadn’t been affected by my problem when I left for work this morning, I would go home, kiss my precious wife, change into dry clothes, and then surrender to the authorities.

  Let’s not get too hasty with the “surrender to the authorities” plan, shall we? Harvey said. How ‘bout taking things one step at a time?

  I could care less what Harvey said—tried not consider his words that were forced into my head. I continued ascending the gully, and in another five minutes the rain turned into a fluffy snow. The moisture made what had been a dry and rocky creek bed as slick as a whale’s belly, and I slipped several times. My brown trousers became coated with mud up past the knees, as were the sleeves of my sport coat past the elbows.

  As I struggled along, Harvey attempted to distract my focus from the burden of worry. I envisioned him reaching deep into a dark corner of my memories and finding in the shadows there an old dust-covered box that contained another one of those cadence songs I’d forgotten about years ago. Quickly shaken dust-free, brought into the light of thought and to my lips was this jingle, “Saw an ol’ lady runnin’ down the street.” Harvey sang in accompaniment. “She had tanks on her back, she had fins on her feet. I said, hey ol’ lady, ain’t you been told: better leave that divin’ for the brave and the bold. She said, sonny, sonny, can’t you see, I taught Recon U-D-T.”

  Once again, I was confused at where this ditty could have come. I knew what Recon UDT was—probably heard about it from a news story, the television, or in a movie. It stood for Marine Reconnaissance Underwater Demolition Team.

  I paused at the remembrance, absentmindedly stepping on a spot of wet, loose soil and slipped face first into the mud.

  My little mishap doesn’t faze Harvey. I imagine him looking into that dust-laden box of hidden memories again, searching deeply. He whispers in a low, raspy voice, It’s not just from knowledge of the term—memory of the song—but from experience, Superman. And look, there’s more. In my vision, he tips the box for me to look inside, and what I see is terrifying—a swirling, dark storm, full of death and carnage, explosions and screaming, grotesque mutilation and frightful things. And when I look at Harvey again, he has fangs—long and dripping with blood.

  * * *

  I couldn’t see and I gasped for air. Shook my head, feeling the mud on my face, covering my eyes. I’d fallen face first into the mud, must have blacked out momentarily. Harvey was gone, and I was glad. I gathered a handful of snow and used it to clean the mud from my face.

  Ahead, I finally saw the clearing that was behind my house. I recalled taking solitary strolls there after Michelle had driven off the bridge, and our son William had been paralyzed. Still, this cool wet night had numbed my memories and my body of all but one emotion, now—incredible terror.

  In another three hundred feet, I’d be at my back door. I proceeded watchfully up to the bank of the creek bed in case the house was under surveillance. Although I intended to turn myself in, I’d rather do so on my terms, in dry, clean clothes. Additionally, I didn’t wish to surprise anyone and receive a lead-pill cure for my deadly condition before I had a chance to raise my hands in surrender.

  An inch of snow covered the treeless area that was slightly smaller than a tennis court. The white blanket completely hid the narrow path leading from the ravine I stood in now to the back of my house. I climbed up and hurried across the opening unconcerned with the tracks I left. By the time anyone saw my footprints, I would already be in custody.

  A hundred feet past the clearing, I heard voices. I slowed and left the path, taking to the woods once again. Instead of coming up directly behind my home, I made my way along a cedar fence between two houses about a half block down from my own. When I came to the front yard, I edged along some bushes beside a front porch and slipped next to a Toyota SUV parked in the driveway. Then I crept up to the rear bumper and peeked around the side.

  I decided my little plan was hopeless. My place was three lots down. At least a dozen more of those SWAT-looking guys waited, spread out in a perimeter around the house. These men carried M-16s on their hips or hanging down at their sides. Some were smoking cigarettes, and all seemed at ease.

  Next to a patrol car parked in the street, I thought I recognized Chief Dailey talking to one of his men. He too was wearing SWAT gear. His Southern twang was unmistakable, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying due more to the sound-absorption quality of the snow than the volume of his normally boisterous voice. Eavesdropping on their conversation before giving up could be valuable. I figured I’d have to forget about the clean, dry clothes. At least I might hear a little more of what was going on before I allowed them to take me into custody.

  Car lights came from down the street, and I flattened to the snowy ground next to the SUV to wait for the vehicle to pass. A dark-blue limousine drove by slowly, and I read Mount Rainy Biotronics on the side. They used this vehicle to chauffer their officials and visiting board of directors around.

  After the limo passed, I brushed the snow from my clothes and carefully made my way along the vacant automobiles parked at the curb. Every now and then, someone would turn my direction forcing me to duck down beside a fender or behind a car trunk. Each time, I was able to slip a little closer after a few seconds of cautious pause. When I came to a deserted but idling ambulance parked across the street from the police cruiser, I hunkered down behind it. I wondered who the medical vehicle was for—was it a precaution or did they know who would be its next passenger? Was it for me?

  I peered carefully from the back window glass through the front windshield of the ambulance. The limousine had stopped in the middle of the street only fifty feet away, and Dailey and another man also in the SWAT gear stepped to the back window. When the other man turned in my direction, I was surprised to see it was my best friend—my brother-in-law—Mike Wu.

  * * *

  I dropped low behind the ambulance, shocked at Wu’s appearance in the paramilitary outfit. I didn’t remember Mike being a reserve police officer or in the National Guard. I would have known that. He’d never been in the military or associated with law enforcement. He was the Gold Rush Gazette’s editor, for Pete’s sake.

  I heard a hum that sounded like the limo’s window motor, but I didn’t risk peeking to see.

  The voices were low, but the one I figured was from the limo sounded like Dr. Xiang’s. After hearing his voice, the temptation became too much. I crab-walked to the side window of the ambulance and raised my head to get a good look. It was Xiang all right.

  And yet another surprise came into view. Michelle hustled down the walk from the house toward the street. The snowflakes had become huge, and they drifted lazily in the still night. Michelle hugged herself, wearing a blue cable-knit sweater, and her breath came out in fog as the big flakes gently found her head and shoulders. Her face, always angelic even when sad, had lines of worry across it, and I wished I could reach out and assure her I was okay.

  “They have them cornered along the outside of the perimeter,” Xiang said. “Your helicopters have helped, Colonel Wu.”

  “This has been a nightmare,” Michelle said as she stepped up to them.

  I couldn’t help but fall behind the ambulance again. Colonel Wu? How ridiculous. He was no colonel. In addition, he sure as hell had no helicopters. What kind of drug-induced trance had I been put into? Michelle’s nightmare comment was right. Had I gone into a coma when I hit my head, and now my life had become only a dream from a hospital bed? I
pinched myself on the hand so hard it bled and hurt like hell.

  Nope, reality, Harvey said in a not-so-welcome return to my rattled brains.

  Yeah, I told him in my thoughts, like the words of an imaginary rabbit would convince me I wasn’t dreaming?

  I don’t know what possessed me, but I raised again and tried to get Michelle’s attention with a weak wave. At first I thought she saw me when she glanced in my direction. Maybe she had but didn’t want to alert the others around her.

  I remembered this morning, before I left for work.

  She had been in such a great mood while cleaning up the breakfast dishes before I left. She looked so cute, the straight black hair, the large dark eyes, the full lips and high cheeks—my little China doll, I’d thought, as she smiled at me and gave me a wink before I went out the door. I asked her then, “Did we make love last night?” She’d laughed and asked, “What? You don’t remember? Is it that bad after seven years of marriage?” I’d persisted, and she threw the dishtowel at me. She’d giggled and called me her “big stud” and then kissed me.

  That was before the world began spinning backwards.

  Dailey cleared his throat. A large wad of chewing tobacco in his right cheek influenced his tone. “What’re their orders?”

  Colonel Wu asked Xiang, “Shoot to kill, sir?”

  Dailey frowned. “If they have him surrounded, they can catch him, right? I mean, he can be reprocessed.”

  Hey, Mike, I thought, easy on that “shoot-to-kill” stuff. And reprocessed? What did that mean?

  “We can take no chances,” Xiang said without the compassion I was accustomed to hearing in his voice. “The chairman has ordered the situation be contained immediately or he has threatened to close the facility. Do you understand what I am saying, Dailey?”