Cannibal

by Jeremy Robinson

  “Motorcycle!”

  The noise reached a fever pitch, and then two motorcycles appeared in the mouth of the tunnel and shot up the ramp. King adjusted his aim and squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession. At such close range, there was no way he could miss, but the armor piercing tungsten-core rounds seemed to have no effect on the rider. The motorcycle continued forward, forcing King to throw himself to the side to avoid being run down.

  Knight fared a little better. What the nine-millimeter rounds from his machine pistol lacked in stopping power, they more than made up for in volume. The rider flinched under the assault, and then both he and his machine were tumbling end over end across the floor.

  But in the instant King and Knight engaged the motorcyclists, two more emerged right behind them, and before either of the Chess Team operators could adjust fire, another two appeared.

  Knight kept trying to engage targets, with more success than King, but the motorcycles were moving too fast, and the riders, now aware that the enemy was in their midst, were actively trying to reduce the target they presented by ducking low behind their handle bars and zig-zagging randomly as they sought refuge in the dark depths of the slaughterhouse.

  “Get to the truck,” King shouted.

  Knight moved, firing out the last of his magazine one-handed as he ran. King continued searching for a target, but all of the men—save for the one Knight had brought down—had all but vanished from sight.

  King ran to the sliding door and threw it back to reveal the newly dawned day. The sudden brightness stung his eyes, forcing him to look away, but the hiss of something whizzing past his head, followed a moment later by the report of a rifle, sent him ducking for cover behind the wall. The shot had come from outside. Beltran’s forces were waiting for them.

  He turned to meet Queen’s gaze and gestured for her to start moving. The truck reluctantly picked up speed. As it rolled past, King broke from cover, launching himself in a high flat dive onto the floor of the cargo bay, where Knight and Rook were already waiting.

  Rook opened up with the machine gun, hosing the dark interior of the slaughterhouse with a long sustained burst designed to discourage pursuit, but just a few seconds later, a storm of lead perforated the thin metal walls around them, forcing the three men to seek cover behind the stacked boxes. Although the waxed cardboard was even less effective at stopping a bullet than the sheet metal, the contents of the boxes—paper-wrapped portions of ground meat—kept them safe. The angle of the attack shifted as the truck rolled onward, and a few seconds later the incoming fire ceased altogether.

  As it continued to accelerate, the truck bounced violently over the uneven terrain, toppling the stacked boxes and spilling their contents onto the floor. Knight started visibly, as if scalded, when one of the packages brushed his leg, and King saw the same aghast look on his friend’s face as he stared at it.

  “You okay?”

  “No,” Knight admitted, shaking his head. He pointed at the jumble of packages and opened his mouth to elaborate, but then faltered, as if unable to find the right words.

  “Head’s up!” Rook shouted. “Company’s coming. Looks like it’s Road Warrior time.”

  Knight’s problems would have to wait. Although the slaughterhouse had diminished to a mere blip in the landscape, the objects throwing up horse-tails of dust in the foreground were definitely getting bigger. The motorcycle riders were giving chase.

  The violent shaking caused by the truck’s passage over the rough ground made accurate fire impossible, but King knew the cartel soldiers would be at an even greater disadvantage on their two-wheeled mounts. “Queen, slow down a little. Let’s bring them in a little closer.”

  Rook regarded him with faint amusement. “I don’t think she heard you, boss.”

  King swore under his breath, only partly out of embarrassment at his goof. His inability to communicate with Queen, just thirty feet away, was only a minor operational inconvenience, but it served as a stark reminder of a catastrophe with which he had not yet begun to truly process. They were on their own. Even if Deep Blue was able to organize a rescue—and something told him that was probably not in the works—there would be no way to coordinate their efforts.

  Rook waited until the motorcycle riders were within a hundred yards to trigger a burst. Judging by the arc of the tracer rounds, his shots came nowhere close. Nevertheless, two of the motorcycles skidded to a halt and were immediately left behind by their comrades, who veered away from the truck’s dust trail—one going left, the other right, in what appeared to be a flanking maneuver. The reason for the abrupt stop of the first pair became apparent when the flash of muzzle fire signaled an incoming volley of automatic rifle fire. Sure enough, the interior of the cargo bay was suddenly filled with the noise and heat of bullet impacts. King ducked and returned fire, putting the iron sights of the SCAR directly on the tell-tale muzzle flash. He could not tell if he scored a hit, but at least the gunmen stopped firing.

  There was another loud report, this time from the front of the truck. It had to be Bishop, fending off a charge from their right side. Even as the echoes of the shot died away, King glimpsed a motorcycle rolling end over end across the field off to the right. The other side however would be vulnerable, since Queen was in no position to drive and shoot simultaneously.

  “Knight, see what you can do to protect our left flank.”

  “On it.” Knight immediately crawled forward, passing Rook, and moved to the very edge of the cargo door. Then, in a move that surprised even King, he stuck head and shoulders out into the open and curled his body around the corner. He held himself in place with one hand gripping the doorframe, while his other held his machine pistol. The floor of the cargo area was vibrating so violently that Knight bounced up and down like a dribbled basketball, but after just a few seconds in this precarious position, he started pulling himself back in, and a second downed motorcycle came briefly into view.

  King scanned the rising dust cloud behind them, but a minute passed, then two, with no sign of further pursuit. As the adrenaline drained away, he allowed himself to relax, but only a little. The immediate battle had been won, but they were still deep in enemy territory. He did not believe for a second that El Sol’s reach was limited to the small group of men that had been deployed at the ruins. It would take only one phone call to organize another ambush, and Beltran had the home court advantage.

  I don’t even know where we are, he realized, once more feeling the ominous loss of Endgame.

  Pull it together, he told himself. Control the situation before it controls you.

  They were not going to be able to fight their way all the way to the American border, and even if they did, there was no guarantee of refuge there. What did that leave?

  “We’re going to have to ditch this ride,” he said, remembering to speak loud enough to be heard over the roar of the engine and the high-pitched creak of the suspension. “I guess I should go tell Queen.”

  “Try banging on the walls,” Rook suggested, a trace of his customary humor returning. “That’s what she does when we run out of toilet paper.”

  Knight shook his head despairingly. “Tango Mike India.”

  Rook grinned but then became serious again. “Hey, what was up with you? I thought you were about to jump out of your skin when that package of sausage fell on you. You didn’t join some religion that prohibits pork, did you?”

  The light moment passed and Knight’s face clouded over. “That isn’t pork. Bishop and I found…bodies. They’re grinding up people.”

  Rook stared back aghast. “Fuck.”

  King felt a cold chill at the revelation. “How many? How many bodies?”

  “Too many,” Knight replied, and King knew exactly what he meant.

  “He killed them?” Rook said, incredulous. “The hostages? Killed them and ground them up for taco meat? Why?”

  “A sick joke,” King said, but the answer felt insufficient. Beltran was unquestionably evil,
yet he had not risen to the top of the criminal underworld simply on cruelty alone. There was some darker purpose at work, something that was so far outside the realm of normal human behavior that King felt unable to even make an educated guess.

  “He has to die,” Rook said, with almost child-like earnestness. “We’ve got to take that fucker down.”

  “We will,” King promised. He stopped short of adding: If it’s the last thing we do, because in his heart, he feared that it might be.

  39

  Endgame, New Hampshire

  As he exited the light rail tunnel and got his first look at the hangar-sized man-made cavern designated simply as ‘Dock,’ Boucher let out a low whistle of appreciation. He knew all about the Dock but had never actually visited the seldom used corner of the former Manifold Alpha complex, or beheld its contents with his own eyes. The headlights of the Zero SR electric motorcycles that he and Duncan had ridden down the ten-mile long tunnel from the Labs were hardly sufficient to reveal the scope of the enclosure, but what they did reveal was beyond all his expectations.

  The most prominent feature was the moored Typhoon-class submarine, which stretched across the length of the cavern like a black leviathan from a Jules Verne novel. He could see only a little of it; nearly six hundred feet long—almost the length of two football fields—its full extent was well beyond the reach of the headlights. Even the stubby sail—the tall superstructure that rose just aft of the sub’s middle, extending forty feet above the dorsal hull, spiked with various antennae, periscopes and other protuberances that disappeared into the darkness overhead—was almost too much to take in. There had been a time in his long career as an intelligence officer, when he would have killed—literally—for a chance to be this close to one of the largest submarines ever built. Now, it was merely a curiosity to be glanced at and just as quickly forgotten.

  Duncan dropped the kickstand on his motorcycle and dismounted. “This way.”

  Boucher hastened to keep up. Years of sitting behind one desk or another had not slowed the former Army Ranger, but there was an added urgency to his old friend’s pace. It was not merely that time was in critically short supply. Duncan was not running away from the forces that were, even now, sweeping through the Endgame facility; he was running toward a different kind of confrontation.

  The ongoing conflict between the senior senator from the State of Utah and the former President of the United States, which had run hot and cold over the years, was not merely a bitter political rivalry. Marrs was consumed by a thirst for power, and the man made no secret of how he intended to exercise that power, leveraging populist sentiment into a secretly authoritarian government that would doom the two-century long American experiment in democracy.

  Duncan’s decision to sacrifice his own presidency to block Marrs’s earlier attempts to seize power had not been made lightly, and Boucher knew that his old friend had been plagued by doubt regarding his strategy to preserve both the Chess Team and the world. Those concerns now appeared to have been validated. Duncan’s decision to surrender the presidency had been only a temporary victory, not nearly enough to thwart the ambitious Marrs. In a perfect world, Duncan would have been content to allow the democratic process to be the final arbiter. If the American people were willing to be hoodwinked into supporting Marrs, then who was he to stand in the way of the majority? But Marrs had now acted outside the legitimate process, conspiring with international criminals in an act of treason that had cost the life of American servicemen.

  Marrs was no longer merely a distasteful political rival. He was the enemy that both Duncan and Boucher had sworn to defend against. Escaping from Endgame was no longer the primary objective. They had to escape so they could strike back.

  Duncan ran at what was probably for him, merely a fast jog, to an exposed stairwell that crawled like a fire-escape up the wall of the cavern. Boucher assumed the stairs led up to the concealed cabin entrance and followed along to the extent that his tired old legs and lungs would permit.

  There had been precious little time to discuss strategy. They had raced on foot to the computer room, where Duncan had manually initiated the incendiary charges that were part of the self-destruct system. Because the air was not saturated with methane, as the Desperado protocol intended, the damage was limited, but nonetheless far-reaching. The thermate charges had completely slagged the innovative quantum computer, instantly rendering the entire network dead, leaving Chess Team high and dry in the field. Boucher knew that was a preferable alternative to allowing Marrs to gain control of the computer. This was not just a scorched-earth retreat. Marrs would have been able to use the information stored in the computer to expose the entire network of Endgame contacts worldwide, to say nothing of exploiting a technology with the potential to reshape the global power structure.

  The acrid smell of burning metal and plastic was still in Boucher’s nose, a bitter aftertaste of failure.

  From there, it had been a sprint to the light rail tunnel, where the electric motorcycles intended for security patrols and track maintenance, had been waiting to bear them to the Dock. Boucher had been relieved to learn that they wouldn’t have to make a ten-mile long trek in the dark, but unfortunately, the electric motorbikes could not shorten the ten-story ascent to the exit in the lakeside cabin. He didn’t want to think about the long hike that awaited them once they reached the top.

  Because his head was filled with the sound of footfalls, tapping out a staccato rhythm on the steps, as well as his labored panting and the rush of blood in his ears, he didn’t realize anything was amiss until he heard the crack of rifle fire.

  He looked up just in time to see Duncan come about for a hasty descent, hands loose on the rails as he bounded down four or five steps at a time. “Down!” he shouted. Boucher was already pivoting.

  Muzzle flashes high above marked the location of several gunmen, FBI, SWAT or possibly National Guard riflemen, who had evidently decided to secure the entrance at the Dock after all. If Boucher and Duncan had been just a little faster in their egress, they probably would have run into the waiting arms of the assault team on the surface. That was little consolation now that their only exit was cut off. Boucher stepped aside to let Duncan pass. His friend seemed to be moving with a purpose, and Boucher could only hope that it meant that Duncan had one more ace up his sleeve.

  The metal stairs deflected the incoming fire, a fact which did not escape the notice of the shooters, and after the initial volley, the guns fell silent, to be replaced by the ringing of footsteps on the metal treads high above. The reprieve was short-lived however. As soon as Duncan reached the bottom and ventured out into the open, the firing resumed, and this time the bullets did not deflect harmlessly off the stairs, but slammed into the concrete floor all around him. Boucher realized he would have to run the same gauntlet, but without any idea of where exactly he was going.

  Duncan made it across the concrete dock to a tall metal structure that reminded Boucher of something he might have made in his childhood, using Tinkertoys or an Erector Set. The scaffold-like contraption sat at the water’s edge, and after a moment’s scrutiny, Boucher realized that it ended at a catwalk that led out to the Typhoon’s sail.

  Duncan paused at the base of a ladder leading up the structure. “Dom! Move it!”

  Throwing caution to the wind, Boucher launched himself out into the open. He was halfway across before he heard the crack of bullets on the floor and the noise of gunfire high above. He veered off, running headlong into a cloud of concrete dust, then angled in the other direction. His zig-zag course got him safely to the base of the structure, but the evasive maneuvers were not without cost. As he skidded to a halt in front of the ladder, he saw the several men in black tactical gear pouring down the stairs where he had been only moments before.

  Duncan’s ascent had caused the ladder to vibrate crazily, and Boucher had to fight past his rising trepidation to follow. He felt sure the ladder would come apart in his hands, but that was a les
s certain outcome than what would await him if he lingered any longer. With an alacrity borne of fear, he scrambled up until he saw Duncan’s outstretched hand. He took it, allowing himself to be hauled the rest of the way onto the catwalk, and then Duncan was moving again, crossing the narrow span out to the Typhoon’s sail.

  Boucher muttered a curse, then rose and chased after his friend. “You can’t be serious,” he said, the words coming out choppy between labored breaths. “Tom, we don’t know how to drive a submarine.”

  If he heard, Duncan did not acknowledge the implied question. Instead, he vaulted over the rail at the end of the makeshift bridge and spun the flywheel mechanism to open the hatch into the Typhoon’s interior. Then, he hauled it open and stepped back, gesturing for Boucher to go first.

  Out of the fire and into the frying pan, Boucher thought as he dove through the open hatch. The pitch of incessant rifle fire changed as he transitioned from the vast open space of the Dock to the claustrophobic confines of the Typhoon, but the change was less than comforting. There was a scuffling noise as Duncan came through and pulled the hatch shut with a funereal thump, sealing them in the dark belly of the beast.

  The oppressive darkness lasted only a moment before a green glow, like the fleeting shine of a lightning bug, appeared before him. The light, which was almost painfully bright, issued from a chemical glow stick that Duncan now held aloft like a torch.

  Duncan reached into a small cabinet mounted on the wall next to the hatch and took out a plastic wrapped item about the size and shape off a cigar. He tore it open and shook out another glow stick, which he activated with a quick bending motion, and handed to Boucher. “I’ve sealed the hatch, but it won’t keep them out for long.”

  “Please tell me you have a plan,” Boucher said.

  “‘Plan’ might be overstating it a bit,” Duncan admitted “This is more like a Hail Mary pass. If it works we’ll be home free. If it doesn’t…”