by Brian Tyree
“Sonombu—” Hal botched it.
“Sleepwalking tests. All the candidates had experienced some level of sleepwalking in their past. The injections induced and intensified their sleepwalking.”
“Why? What’s the program you work for?”
“Are you familiar with Project MKUltra?” He shook his head. “It was a CIA mind control experiment from the sixties. It got out of hand and was shut down back then. Its purpose was to break down enemy combatants during interrogations with a combination of psyops and psychotropic drugs. I work with the Scientific Intelligence Division of the CIA. We used MKUltra research on proactive mind control—to advance our own research on controlling people during sleepwalking episodes. But they told me it was only R&D. They showed me all the equipment— including a virtual reality trainer with an omni-directional walker. I even tested it out! They let me observe tests with subjects, and I collected data on a couple of your tests.”
Hal was stunned. Absorbing it all.
“They never told me it went live! Cloudcroft was for testing and research they said!”
“Cloudcroft?”
She exhaled. Not believing she just gave up the classified name. “The project name. Now you know all I know.”
“We’re far from that. What exactly did you do?” Hal asked.
“Like I said. I was under the belief you were a chemist. Our goal was to increase your productivity during REM sleep and subconscious thought. We injected you with a cocktail of drugs designed to make you sleep while stimulating subconscious brain activity— the most creative part of the mind. In this state, we can program sleepwalkers like you to carry out simple commands. They instructed me to never speak to you or communicate in any fashion as it may alter the programming experiment. Only one of the controllers could speak to you.”
“Controllers? Like a CCT?” He saw she didn’t know the abbreviation. “Combat Control Technician. Pararescue controller?”
“I assume so.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know his name. He goes by a call sign— Beacon.” The name didn’t register with Hal, but he thought it sounded familiar. Like the name of a neighbor from decades past.
“My job was done after administering the injection,” Jennifer said. “You were out of my hands and I was ordered to leave. I only saw you on a couple occasions during the VR testing. I have no idea what they did with you after I left.”
“Who are the other subjects—” Hal noticed a bright red dot from a targeting laser on the back of her head. He grabbed her shoulder and tugged her down just as the windshield exploded from a suppressed bullet. “Scoot!” He helped her crawl over to the passenger seat, staying low.
Hal tugged the driver’s seat release, pulling the seat down flat, and crawled forward below window level to turn the ignition on. “Stay down!”
Bullets pinged off the roof and riddled the back of the car. Hal threw it in gear. Ducking low with one hand on the gas and one on the wheel. Driving blind. They took off out of the bushes. Hal driving from memory of the alley. Keeping the car straight. Branches scraped the side of the car. Bullets smashed out the back windows. Jennifer’s eyes screamed in terror looking up at Hal. He looked back for an instant with the expression that seemed to reveal his thoughts, I hope we’re going in the right direction.
The passenger window exploded from a gunshot, starting Jennifer. She screamed. Hal angled his head oddly, while flooring it. “What are you doing?” Jennifer asked in a panic.
“Listening.”
With the windows shot out, he could hear the wheels on the dirt. When he heard the car going into thicker bushes he cut the wheel back. Keeping it in the dirt alley. Hal reached up to the rear-view mirror and tilted it down. He saw a black pickup truck on his tail. Two men inside and one in the back, leaning over the cab with a sniper rifle. The man in the passenger seat fired a suppressed machine gun. Taking out the rear-view mirror.
Hal heard the wheels hit a gravelly texture. Then a bump and the sound softened. Pavement. Hal blindly whipped the wheel to the left. A horn BLASTED from an oncoming car. Its wheels screeching as it dodged Jennifer’s car.
Hal felt the car dip to the right, touching the gravel shoulder. He edged the wheel back, peeking his head up enough to see the road from the side window. He slammed the pedal to the floor. Creating distance. Then glanced in his side mirror and saw the shooters lower their weapons out of public view. Hal slid forward into the seat and tilted the back up enough for him to see a sliver of the road over the dash. Hal sped up.
“Who was that? Why are they shooting at us?” Jennifer asked.
“Don’t worry. It’s all part of my hallucinations.” He looked over at her. “Think you can believe me now?”
“Who are they?” She started to raise her head to look.
“Stay down!” he snapped.
Hal watched them through the side mirror. Trying to figure it out. From this distance, they were three silhouettes. The road cleared of cars as they passed through a flat farming area. No witnesses, he thought. Lowering in his seat. “Keep low!” Hal spotted the sniper laying his rifle over the cab. Lining up a shot. He fired. Demolishing Hal’s side mirror. Hal turned his head from the spray of glass and debris. Oncoming traffic appeared and the sniper ducked down in the back.
The road reached the outskirts of Alamogordo, entering the rural desert scrub. Flat terrain on both sides of the road. No hiding places, Hal thought. “Put your seat belt on.” He latched his own seat belt, eyeing the flat desert on his right. He cut hard right into the desert. Wheels spinning on the caked earth, producing a massive cloud of brown dust. Some of it wafting into the windowless cab. The black truck took a more cautious turn. Slowly following. Keeping to the left of the dust cloud.
Hal swerved the larger clumps of weeds and sagebrush, but it was still a bumpy ride with both of them bouncing around. “Where are you going?!” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he yelled back over the loud thumps coming from the undercarriage. The car’s suspension was not exactly designed to bounce over desert terrain. “There’s no cover anywhere!”
Hal looked back. Noticing they were avoiding the plume of dust that created a natural smoke screen. It gave him an idea. He veered the wheel back and forth from ten o’clock to two o’clock. It created a massive dust cloud that obscured the vehicles from each other.
Weng was driving the pickup. “Roll it up,” he said to Charlie and they both rolled up the windows. Matt, the sniper in the back, pulled his shirt collar up over his mouth and nose, filtering out the dust.
“Should we go around?” Charlie asked. The smoke plume was large and there was no sign of the other vehicle in it.
“No,” Weng said in Chinese. “We go where it’s the thickest.” He accelerated into the thick brown cloud. Charlie held the rugged laptop on his lap, but details of the satellite image were too difficult to see with all the bouncing.
Snaking the car back and forth had concealed them in the cloud, but also caused them to slow considerably. Hal thought the pursuing truck was either way off or right behind them. He made the cloud even thicker by hitting the brakes, cutting hard left and stepping on the pedal at the same time. The wheels spun with velocity. Churning and spitting a rooster tail of dirt and dust as the car spun in a circle. After a couple “donut” revolutions, the car was completely obscured inside.
Hal counted the revolutions in his head. Keeping his bearings. He straightened the wheel and the car blasted out of the dust cloud. Blue sky and sun-scorched earth opened up before them. Along with the main highway they had just left. Hal gunned it toward the road.
Weng and the others were in the middle of the dust cloud. All bearings lost. He plodded straight forward and the dust thinned. They gained visibility—seeing vast desert before them for miles and miles. No sign of the car. Or the road.
Hal glanced at Jennifer. They shared a grin as they were in the clear with a quarter mile buffer from the dust cloud and anything in
it. They drove up the bank to the shoulder of the road and just as they hit pavement a loud THUMP sounded followed by the grate of steel on blacktop. “Shit. Blowout.” Hal took a left, back the way they came and saw tread fragments behind them on the shoulder, confirming what they both felt.
Hal looked at the cloud for the black truck, going as fast as he could on three wheels and a rim. Glancing down at the speedometer. Fifty miles per hour.
“There!” Jennifer said. Spotting the truck blasting from the far side of the dust cloud like it was shot out of hell with a path of destruction in its wake.
Matt banged on the roof of the cab, yelling and pointing when he saw Jennifer’s car on the road in the distance. Weng spun the truck around, avoiding his own dust, making a beeline toward the road.
The bare rear rim of Jennifer’s car sparked and spun loosely on the pavement with no traction to propel it. “What are we gonna’ do?” she asked, spotting the sinister truck barreling toward the road. Knowing it was only a matter of time before they caught up.
The truck hit the pavement and instantly made up ground. Ninety mph versus fifty.
Hal knew they were dead in the water. Too far out of town away from the cover any building would provide. He thought for a moment. Gazing at the speedometer and other gauges. “Do your airbags work?”
“As far as I know. Why?”
“Hold on.” Hal pulled the e-brake while whipping the car to the left, performing a skid-stop maneuver that spun them around in a dead stop, facing the charging truck a half-mile away. “Get out.”
“Why” Wha—”
“—Now! Get out!!” She pulled the door handle and crawled out. “Take cover in the bushes!” Hal yelled.
Weng eased up on the gas. Wondering what the other driver was doing.
Hal gunned it. Aiming straight for the speeding truck. The bare rim spinning a pinwheel of sparks on the black top. The sniper on the roof lined up, and Charlie extended a submachine gun out the window. Opening fire! Hal ducked down as the barrage of bullets assaulted the vehicle.
“Aim for the engine block” Weng yelled. They did. Plinking it with bullets. A geyser of steam shot up from a direct hit. The damage to the car didn’t matter as fast as Hal was going. “Hold on!” Weng reached to his seat belt, but didn’t have time to buckle it. Charlie jerked the wheel to the right, but it was too late. Hal SMASHED head-on into the truck. Their pulling to the right was even worse on the truck. The collision forced it to roll in that direction. Throwing the sniper out the back and expelling Charlie from the passenger door.
The truck rolled, landing on the passenger side with airbags deployed.
Hal unburied his head from the deflating airbag that enveloped it. His face covered in burn marks, lacerations and powder dust from the exploding airbag. He was groggy. Pain shot through his neck and back.
Jennifer watched in horror, kneeling behind bushes off the side of the road. Unsure if she should check on Hal or run the opposite direction.
The sniper, Matt, was motionless on the pavement. Weng opened his eyes in the cab. Overcome with dizziness. Wondering where he was. His world upside down. Literally, as he had fallen to the passenger side, which was now the bottom of the truck. He raised his arms and clinched his fists. Testing his own movement. Realizing he survived intact and was mobile.
The impact jammed Hal’s door shut. He crawled out the window and cautiously approached the truck on its side. He saw Weng through the broken windshield. Hal kicked it in and grabbed Weng by the chest, tugging him out like a dead weight Manikin used for CSAR PJ training. He made eye contact with Hal while lying flat on his back on the pavement. Still out of it. “Who are you?” Hal asked.
Hal looked over to Charlie, who was dusting himself off in the desert, beyond the shoulder of the road. Looking for his machine gun. Weng’s eyes glanced over at Charlie and he yelled something in Mandarin. Charlie hobbled over to Matt, the sniper lying on the road. He was alive, but barely conscious. Charlie helped him up and they hobbled off into the scrub.
Hal asked again. Standing over his captive. “Who are you?”
Weng gasped an answer. Hal couldn’t hear and leaned in. Weng lunged up, grabbed Hal and tugged him down, hurling Hal over and behind him in a Tae Kwon Do throw.
Weng leaped to his feet and threw a flying kick at Hal who was still on the ground. Hal twisted and blocked it, sweeping Weng’s feet out from under him. Both were on the ground and rose at the same time. Weary.
Jennifer emerged from the desert, slowly approaching from behind her car. Using it for cover.
Weng attacked in a flurry of punches. Hal could only block a couple and others found their mark, knocking Hal backward. He regained his balance, stepped forward and launched a missile of his ham-like fist into Weng’s chest. His sharp knuckles the tip of a spear that plunged into Weng’s solar plexus—a mass of radiating nerves below the sternum—knocking the air out of his lungs.
Weng stumbled backward. Gasping and sucking air into his lungs. Hal advanced and swung again. Although weakened, Weng was agile and sharp. He blocked Hal’s swing and hooked an arm under Hal’s arm and shoulder, flipping Hal onto his back, following it up with a combo technique meant to end in a lethal windpipe-crushing strike. Weng stopped short though. His fist hovering in midair above Hal’s throat.
Hal was even more surprised than his adversary. Wondering why he held back on the kill shot after trying to shoot them both before.
“We know who you are,” Weng said, “and we know about the suit.”
“What suit?”
Weng looked up the desolate road. A mile from the edge of town. Knowing he had to leave immediately to avoid blowing the cover of his entire operation.
“What suit are you talking about?” Hal asked. “Who are you?”
Weng dashed off, stopping at his truck, searching for something. He emerged with the laptop and continued to scan the shoulder of the road.
Jennifer arrived behind Hal, stretching a hand out to him. He waved it off, hoisting his aching bones up.
“You okay?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Hal said.
“Who were they?”
Hal looked back just as Weng found the sniper rifle between the road and the desert. Hal wasn’t sure if they collected the other weapon. If they didn’t, Hal had to find it first. He hobbled to the truck, walking out a limp on the way, then searched around the truck. He peered into the cab and leaned through the broken windshield as Weng arrived behind him. Hal removed the machine gun with suppressor, extracted himself from the truck and was surprised to be standing face to face with Weng.
Hal got a good look at the submachine gun before handing it over to Weng. Weng made a subtle nod and disappeared behind the truck. Hal and Jennifer watched as Weng ignited a wet patch of pavement below the truck’s fuel door. Weng scooped up the weapons and retreated to the desert. The truck engulfed in flames within moments.
“We should get out of here too,” Hal said and started off in another direction than Weng. Through the desert toward Alamogordo. He looked back, realizing Jennifer was standing still. “Now! Come on.” He held out his hand. She grabbed it and the two scurried down the shoulder bank and into the desert scrub.
She pulled up and froze. Releasing his grip. “I can’t go. They’ll know it’s my car and that I fled.”
“Right.” Hal pondered a solution.
“So, who were they?” She asked.
“Guoanbu.”
“Who?”
“MSS. The Chinese CIA.
“How do you know?”
“They were speaking Mandarin and that rifle was a QCW05. A Chinese special forces submachine gun.”
“What are they doing here?”
“I don’t know. Probably trying to find the same answers we—” —A fire truck horn interrupted, blasting from the distance, followed by the sound of faint sirens on arrival. “Tell them you were in a head-on hit and run,” Hal said. “They drifted into your lane
and swerved out, but it was too late. Just one driver. White guy. Brown hair. You didn’t get a good look. He fled into the desert. She nodded. Understanding.
“Will they come back?”
“No. They weren’t trying to kill us.”
“What?! They’ve been trying to kill us the whole time!”
“They were trying to capture us. I saw the laser dot on your forehead and they hesitated. Firing into the car. It was a warning shot to scare us. He said they knew me and asked me about a suit. What does that mean to you?”
“Nothing. This is all new to me,” she said.
Hal saw the fire engines getting closer. “I gotta’ go. Dirty yourself up. If they ask why you don’t have powder burns from the air bag say you wiped your face.”
“Where are you going?” she asked. “What will you do?”
“Nothing yet. Just keep doing your job like nothing happened. I’ll do the same. When things calm down, I’ll find you.”
“How?!”
“I memorized your address on your base ID. Sorry about the credit cards. I didn’t know what else to do. It’s not a busy street. They’re probably still there.”
With that, he took off. Ducking low and scurrying through the dry threadgrass, sagebrush, and buffalo juniper shrub.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
STAKEOUT
Hal opened the door to Alamogordo Lanes, engulfed in a wave of cool air that smelled of diver bar and wood oil from the freshly polished lanes. Pins crashed at the far end of the alley—the only lanes occupied in the late afternoon. He spotted a payphone by the vending machine and strode over, lifting the receiver—realizing he had no change. He returned five minutes later with a handful of change and a brand new bowling ball at his feet. Hal lifted the receiver and dialed. Pretending to slur his words in the phone in a drunken stupor. “Hey, buddy. How are you? I’m down at the lanes and I’ve had a little bit too much to drrrink. Bartender cut me off too. Think I can trouble you for a ride?” There was a pause as he listened to an understanding voice on the other end. “Thank you, kindleey! I’ll just be here waitin’ out front.”