by Brian Parker
The elder Harpers took Grady in when the two of them OD’d on heroin one winter night when he was six. His grandparents taught him to fear God, respect authority, and love Texas—with the United States as a close second to the Lone Star State. He’d never felt so loved and cared for as he did during his time living with the Harpers. But, try as they might, he always felt like a guest in their home. The day he turned seventeen, he got his grandfather to sign a waiver and he joined the Army without graduating from high school. Exactly two years later, he tried out for, and passed, the Special Forces Assessment and Selection course, then got rushed through the Q-course so he could join a team operating in northern Iraq to assist the Kurds in their fight against the Iraqis. Operation Desert Strike, the president’s bombing campaign of the Iraqi Army, failed to reinitiate a ground war with the Iraqis, so Grady’s team was pulled out, and then sent directly to Albania to evacuate US Government workers and American citizens before the hostilities in the region escalated further. Then, only a year later, he was drummed out during the military’s reduction in force of the Clinton years.
The only formal education he’d gotten was on how to blow shit up and kill motherfuckers. Soon enough, he found himself on the doorstep of a private security company that was seeking professionals with his skillset. He joined up with The Havoc Group and the rest was history.
“Whatcha thinkin’ ’bout?”
He looked over at his partner for the operation. The blonde woman, Hannah Dunn, was a new hire; this job was her first contract. “Wild” Bill Kizer, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Havoc Group, had told Grady to teach her the ropes by taking her on an easy assignment. So, added to the fact that he hated doing personal security work was the additional burden of keeping tabs on a rookie contractor, another task that drove him crazy.
“Huh?” he grunted.
“Your face went totally blank there for a minute,” Hannah continued. “Looked like you were deep in thought.”
He decided to add a third strike to this mission: he couldn’t stand it when people talked simply because they were uncomfortable with silence. Plus, he was deep in thought, and her question had brought him out of it.
“Personal stuff,” he replied. Grady didn’t want to be rude, but it was really none of her goddamned business what he was thinking about.
He’d known her for less than a week. He met her five days ago at The Pen—the nickname for the corporate headquarters of The Havoc Group. The headquarters’ location on Pennsylvania Avenue in Northwest DC had been the inspiration for the nickname when Grady began using it ten or twelve years ago, and the name stuck.
When he learned that Hannah would be his partner for the mission, he’d immediately pulled her file. Afghanistan War vet, but no time in Iraq, she’d been a Blackhawk pilot in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, SOAR for short. They were the guys and gals responsible for flying the helicopters and support aviation for USSOCOM—derisively known by the operators as glorified taxi drivers. She was Army, which was at least something he had in common with her. Lately Kizer had been hiring a lot of SEALs and Navy EOD guys. With the exception of Pete Thompson, most of the fucking SEALs just wanted to work out all day and try to determine just how much hair product a human being could physically apply to their body.
Hannah had earned an Air Medal and a Bronze Star with ‘V’ device, which meant she got it for valor in combat, not for being a jackass sitting on staff somewhere with enough rank on her collar to justify the bullshit award. Her marksmanship numbers were decent—45 out of the company’s standard 50-point pistol qualification. She did a little better on the rifle, earning 92 out of 100. Since she was new to the zoo, Grady could overlook the misses in a controlled, non-stressful situation. If she stuck around, she’d get enough trigger time to eliminate those errors.
This mission was a cakewalk, a way of easing her into The Havoc Group’s way of doing business. She’d been hired for her skills as a helicopter pilot and she also had her private pilot’s license to fly small fixed-wing aircraft. Regardless of their specialties, though, every contractor was expected to spend the majority of their time in the mud with their Agency counterparts or the military units they were advising. If she did too much bitching while she was up here on a roof, without any problems, then Grady was supposed to report that information back to Havoc for determination on her future employability.
Hannah nodded her head knowingly. “Lady problems?”
He sighed, glancing at the hooker being used down below. “I guess you could say that.”
She put her own pair of NODs over her eyes, watching the client bucking into the prostitute from behind for a few moments. “Damn, Ambassador Kellogg must’ve loaded up on the Viagra, huh?”
Grady smirked. “Guess so.” Maybe Hannah would work out. Kizer had insisted that Havoc needed a female operator to stay ahead of the changing military and for other situations where a musclebound, bearded asshole like Grady would have been a no-go.
“Not much of a talker?”
“Not really,” he replied. “At least not during a mission.”
Her eyebrows raised and she said, “Ah… This is one of those teaching moments for the new kid, right? One of those times when the venerable old master instructs the student in the time-honored ways of warfare.”
“I’m not that old,” Grady countered, lifting the NODs to his face and scanning the surrounding rooftops. “I just have a rule that I don’t discuss personal matters during a mission.”
“There’s literally nothing going on besides that guy banging a hooker,” she reminded him. “And before you go telling people that you’re not old, you should take a look in the mirror. There’s more gray in your beard than black.”
She was right. He was closer to 50 than to 40, and the years had been hard, following Havoc’s contracts from continent to continent, wherever there was a war to be profited from. “Okay, maybe I’m a little older than the guys you date.”
Hannah laughed quietly and then said, “You don’t know the kind of men I date. You don’t know anything about me.”
“Ah…” Grady wasn’t certain if he’d accidentally crossed some invisible line with the woman.
He was saved from any more embarrassment by a blinking light in his periphery vision. “What’s that?” Grady asked.
“I said that you don’t know me well enough to say what kind of men I date,” she answered.
“No,” Grady said, shaking his head and pointing off to the south side of the building. “Look, there’s a quadcopter.”
The single blinking light on the top of the small quadcopter alternated between red and blue, blending into the Arlington skyline. It had flown in from the direction of DC across the river, but Grady knew that it could have come from almost anywhere.
“Big deal,” Hannah replied. “Those things are all over my neighborhood.”
“Right, but we’re just outside of Reagan. There is an established no-fly zone for a half a mile around the airport.”
He pressed the button on his throat microphone. “This is Harper. We may have a problem.”
“What kind of a problem?” Pete’s grizzled voice answered immediately. He’s the old one, Grady thought.
“Quadcopter, rising toward the ambassador’s room. Fast.”
“Probably some goddamn paparazzi fuck. What can you do about it?”
Grady considered his options. They were pretty much nonexistent. He knew that companies—and by extension, the military—were working on ways to bring the small UAVs down through electronic countermeasures and net capture devices, but nothing reliable had come to the field yet. He could attempt to shoot it out of the sky, but the hotel rooms behind it made that a bad option.
“There’s not much I can do about it, Skipper.”
“Well, figure something out, Harper.”
As his mind raced to determine what he could do about the quadcopter that was only a few feet below the ambassador’s window. Then the dec
ision was made for him.
The quadcopter exploded, shattering the windows all around it.
Grady ducked as he felt something fly by his head. His ears rang from the concussion of the blast and he turned his head. Beside him, Hannah held a hand to her shoulder, blood trickling through her tightly-pressed fingers. He low-crawled to her and saw that she had a quarter-sized chunk of quadcopter rotor sticking out of her 5.11 Tactical shirt, embedded into her front deltoid. It was painful, but she’d be okay.
The buzzing continued in his ear until he could finally make out the sounds. It was Pete saying, “Harper. What the fuck? What’s going on?”
Grady pushed himself up and peered over the ledge toward the hotel. Men in dark suits raced around the room, likely gathering medical supplies while two more men knelt over the bloody, nude form of Ambassador Kellogg.
One man stood beside the hole in the window and glared up to where he’d been positioned for overwatch. Simon Groves, the ambassador’s chief of security.
“This isn’t good, Skipper,” Grady said into the throat mike.
He stared back at Groves while he relayed the details of what had happened to Pete Thompson. Sirens wailed nearby. Beyond Simon, he could see that the men had stopped working on Ambassador Kellogg. He was dead.
No one bothered to cover the decapitated hooker on the bed.
TAEDONG, NORTH KOREA
“All reports are that the attack was a success.”
Nampoo Yi clamped his hands behind his back and rocked on his feet. The communications overseer was short, even by DPRK standards. He had to stand on his toes to see over the shoulder of the radio operator seated in front of a complex machine covered in wires and blinking lights. ”You are certain that Kellogg is dead?”
The technician nodded. “Yes, sir. The ambassador’s death was front page news across every major news outlet. I am confident that this was not a ruse to force us to show our hands too early.”
“Excellent,” Yi stated with a wry smile.
Kasra Amol would be proud that he’d orchestrated the demise of the British ambassador before he’d been able to pass any information along about the tests that had occurred at Site 18.
They were just weeks away from the implementation phase. If they were discovered now, all could still be lost. The fate of the entire planet literally hung in the balance.
Yi and his fellow DPRK colleague, Kim Pujon Hi, had worked tirelessly for years with the Iranians, Kasra Amol and Hamid Abdullah Sari, to bring about the destruction of the West. While the Iranians believed it to be an extension of the ongoing religious battle, the Koreans saw it as more of a way to eliminate their competition permanently.
“Soon enough, it won’t matter,” Yi said aloud.
“Excuse me, sir?” the technician asked.
“Nevermind,” he replied. “I need to speak to Kasra Amol.”
“Yes, sir. I will attempt to reach her.”
“Good. I will be in my office.” Yi turned and walked back down the corridor to his office. The bright overhead lighting made the bunker complex feel much more like he was in a hospital building rather than forty feet underground.
As he made his way past his personal bedroom chambers, he heard the clinking of chains as the occupants cowered in anticipation of his return. He was the master of everything he saw and he felt on top of the world.
Yi removed his shoes before he stepped onto the plush, burgundy carpet that covered every square meter of his personal spaces. It felt glorious on his feet as the threads of carpet slid between his toes. The drab, threadbare rugs over wooden rugs were for the masses, he was one of the political elite. His grandfather had fought alongside the Great Leader, Kim Il-Sung, during the revolution and later against the Americans during the Korean reunification efforts. His father had been the Premier of the Supreme People’s Assembly.
Now, Nampoo Yi was following in his forefathers’ footsteps. First, in his public role as one of three Vice-Premiers of the Supreme People’s Assembly, in which he assisted the Supreme Leader with policy decisions and administration of the country. But privately, he was far more involved with the day-to-day oversight of the experiments.
They’d started out as a way to develop super soldiers, to give the Korean People’s Army the advantage of strength, stamina, and pain tolerance. But the experiments had evolved into so much more—something that even Yi considered an abomination against nature. They’d developed a glorious weapon that could be aimed directly at the heart of the Americans people, destroying their cities and institutions. And they were mere weeks from unleashing their revenge upon the pompous capitalist dogs.
He sat at his desk, rubbing his feet on the carpet underneath, as he clicked on the computer monitor. While he waited for the call to Kasra Amol to go through, Yi cycled through the observation cameras at the newly operational Site 53. There was a slight delay each time he changed cameras as the images traveled thousands of kilometers from their origination point in Brazil to where he sat in his complex underneath the city of Pyongyang. However, it was not enough to annoy him. Nothing short of a full-scale American invasion could annoy him now.
In the monitors, he watched the People’s new super soldiers as they thrashed against the bars of their cages, trying to get to the workers and scientists inside the facility. Their all-consuming hunger knew no bounds—except the basic human needs of food and water. They were the perfect weapon. They could be unleashed upon their enemies, wipe out the population, and then be dead of dehydration or starvation within a few weeks.
When there was a sufficient number of the People’s super soldiers dead, then the Supreme Leader would authorize the Korean People’s Army to move forward with the second stage of their plan—the invasion and seizure of the North American continent for their own.
The phone rang and he picked it up immediately. “Yes?”
“What good news do you have for me?” It was Kasra Amol.
“The British ambassador is dead, Kasra,” he stated, licking his dry lips.
“You are sure of this? It’s not a trick by the Americans?”
“I am as sure as I can be. Our agents detonated the device outside of his hotel room. A secondary drone confirmed his security element conducting first aid for a very short while before giving up.”
“And we’re sure that he didn’t pass his information along to the Americans?”
“He was scheduled to meet with officials at the Pentagon tomorrow. Today was all about pleasure for him.” There was a pause on the other end of the line. Finally, he asked, “Kasra?”
“Quiet! I am thinking.”
In his private thoughts, Yi allowed himself to admit that he was frightened of her, terrified really. The only other person he feared was the Supreme Leader, all others were of no significance to him.
He waited for several minutes, patiently biding his time. If it weren’t for the faint scratches of a pen on paper, barely audible through the phone’s earpiece, then he would have thought the connection had gone dead.
Finally, she spoke. “We have been discussing something else for months. It is time that we make a change to the plan.”
“A change?” he blurted out. “We are mere weeks from execution. There can be no change to the plan!”
“Calm yourself, little man,” she hissed. “You are a partner with me in this matter. My leadership has decided that we will expand the operation beyond North America.”
Yi’s heartbeat increased rapidly. “What do you mean?”
“There is too much pressure from Europe and the Chinese, too much military strength that can stop what we are attempting. We see this as a way to relieve that pressure and allow us the ability to operate freely.”
This was not part of the plan. The Supreme Leader would not be happy. “But we do not have enough of the serum—”
“I will handle that. There will be enough.”
The change to the plan at the last moment was not good. They’d spent years perfecting it, devel
oping the disease to transfer rapidly while still having a termination period. Unleashing it upon the entire planet would require much more planning and safeguarding of their nation. They’d taken care to build strong walls along the northern and southern borders in case of an accidental spread of infection through air travel. But, would those precautions be enough to stop the targeted destruction of their neighboring countries?
“There is one other thing, Nampoo Yi.” Something about the way she said it made his blood turn to ice in his veins.
“Yes?”
“The entirety of North America is no longer exclusively yours. We will migrate from the desert sands to this fertile soil.”
He blanched. “But if Europe will be free upon the death of the super soldiers—”
“Europe is used up. Worthless as an old woman’s tits. We will occupy the eastern half of the continent. You may have the west. We have also trained teams to safely shut down the reactors, so there will be a reduction in your workload. This is a good thing for you.”
“I— I cannot agree to this, I must—”
“There is nothing for you to agree to. It is done. This is the price of our cooperation and assistance. We will speak again soon.”
The phone clicked and went silent. His mind raced. What could he tell the Supreme Leader? Certainly, the Iranians change of plans to include spreading the infection to China on their doorstep and to Europe, eliminating a future trade partner, was of utmost importance.
He leaned back in his chair, ignoring the feel of the carpet as he stretched his short legs. Did he dare mention the Iranian’s new plan to take the eastern half of the United States for themselves? It was a massive country, there was little chance that they’d be able to utilize all of it, but the Supreme Leader had a habit of killing those who disappointed him. If the attacks occurred as planned, they had weeks, if not months, to adjust to the idea of the Iranians taking over part of the country.
Yi did not want to be the messenger for that. Let the Iranian president tell the Supreme Leader what they were doing after the fact.