Talkin' Jive

by Erik Carter

  “What floor is the CLEAN Conference on?”

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  It was a large conference hall, like those in a hotel. A recessed ceiling above. Stately pillars. Rows of chairs, seating a hundred. To the side was a thin, folding partition wall, dividing an even larger space into two — a matching room was on the other side of the partition.

  Asa was at the front of the room, facing the guests. They were spaced out among the empty chairs, giving themselves a good amount of buffer room. These weren’t the friendliest of guys, after all, and they didn’t particularly like each other.

  Behind Asa, on a rolling cart, was a television. The local news played. At the bottom of the screen was:

  BREAKING NEWS: BREAK-IN AT OAK RIDGE NUCLEAR FACILITY

  Asa stepped to the TV and turned down the volume, leaving the images playing silently on the screen. He faced his audience again.

  In this moment of quiet, muffled sounds could be heard from the closet at the back of the room.

  Screams.

  The guests glanced at each other, perplexed. One of them was about to question Asa about it, but he cut him off

  “The bits of info I’ve been tempting you with over the last few months — that’s just the tip of the iceberg, my friends. Tonight is where you’ll get your chance at the real prize.”

  He held up an eight-inch square of thin, black plastic. It had a perfectly round hole in the center that was lined with a sliver of glossy material.

  “Gentleman, this is a computer disk. It holds 237 kilobytes of information.”

  The guests shifted in their seats, impressed by the mind-boggling amount of data.

  “And among that information is specifics on uranium supplies, enrichment processes, storage facilities … you name it. The winning bidder will get the disk upon clearance of his funds, but more importantly he’ll get everything related to tonight’s activities at Y-12.”

  Asa rested his hand on the television for emphasis.

  “As you can see, we’re exposing weaknesses in Y-12’s security plans, and our attack will give us many more details about the layout and their tactics. This information will be yours along with the object of our attack tonight: intel from the security office. We have spies who have been following Roy Becker’s most trusted allies, people like Kieran Burks. Simple, trusting souls guarding the nation’s most valuable secrets. Folks like Becker and Burks have unknowingly led us to the location of the most valuable secret within the Secret City: all the schematics and processes behind Y-12’s security. Think about it. Why waste your time and effort going after individual pieces of technical information when, instead, you can get access to all the information by knowing how to infiltrate Y-12?”

  Excitement bustled through the sinister group.

  Asa grinned.

  “Shall we start the bidding at a million?”

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Another bullet smashed into the shed, and Becker pulled in tighter against the wall. Beside him, Sloane fired off more rounds from his sidearm.

  Becker peered around the corner to the truck, where Hendrix’s people were unloading the third and final dirt bike. Cody Ellis had just straddled one of the bikes, and he threw a book bag over his shoulders. Becker made eye contact with the kid right before he kickstarted the bike. The engine snarled, the rear tire spat out some earth, and then the bike went straight for the dragon’s teeth.

  Becker looked at Sloane.

  “Stay here with your men,” he shouted. “I know where they’re going. They’re headed for the security office.”

  Sloane nodded then fired again.

  Becker darted out from behind the cover, spraying a burst from his M16 as he ran toward the truck.

  The people at the truck saw him, and they fired back. One of the bullets grazed Becker’s left ankle, and he stumbled before continuing forward.

  He fired his M16 from the hip, laying bullets into a guy mounting one of the bikes. The guy’s arms flailed, and he collapsed, the bike falling on him.

  Becker reached the group and swung the butt of his M16 across the jaw of a man holding the remaining bike steady. He grabbed the bike before it fell over and sprayed more rounds at another man approaching from one of the other trucks beyond.

  He straddled the bike then aimed his M16 at the other bike on the ground, shot it. Bullets rang against the metal parts, and the chain tore in two, rendering the bike useless.

  He looked toward the plant.

  Cody’s bike zipped through a gap between two of the dragon’s teeth and entered Y-12.

  Becker kickstarted his bike and took off after him.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Dale was in an elevator, and he bounced with adrenaline-fueled anticipation as he stared at the numbers above the doors. He took out his Model 36.

  The number 14 lit up, and the bell rang. Dale positioned himself protectively to the side of the doorway, squeezing himself against the elevator wall. The doors opened.

  He peered out cautiously.

  The hallway in front of him was dark, empty.

  He stepped out, both hands on his gun. There was a directory on the wall in front of him, arrows pointing left and right. He gave it a quick glance then took a left, moving stealthily down the hallway.

  At the corner, he stopped. He positioned himself cautiously against the wall, as he had in the elevator, and looked around the corner.

  A group of three men, armed with handguns, stood in the darkness beside the doorway of the conference room, lit dimly by the glow coming from the gaps around the closed door.

  They saw Dale as soon as he peeked around the corner.

  And they fired.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  The guests turned around in their seats and looked at the door, toward the gunfire they’d just heard.

  Asa thought of Dale, the federal agent, his main reason for having the armed men with him. There was something about the guy. A tenacity. Originally, before encountering Dale, Asa had planned on bringing no one tonight. No witnesses. But since Dale stumbled into his life, Asa knew he needed to be better prepared. Asa had been meticulous about covering his tracks to that point, so it seemed illogical that anyone would trace him to Knoxville that night. But Dale was a different kind of opponent. And now the gunshots outside only proved that Asa’s nagging suspicions had been warranted.

  Dale was here.

  Somehow the guy had tracked him. He’d charmed Sonya. She’d gone screaming to him about the “Cherokee Building.” The bitch. And Dale had somehow used that one piece of information to figure everything out. Incredible.

  Good thing Asa had brought his armed men. And the other surprise he had waiting for Dale.

  Asa waved his arms, regaining the guests’ attention.

  “Fellas, it sounds like my boys outside have caught an intruder. So let’s wrap up the bidding. The last bid was to Mr. Salazar. Three-point-six million. Do I hear four?”

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Becker crashed through the entrance of the security office. The building was almost completely dark, just a bit of red light coming in through the windows. He tried the light switch on the wall beside him. Nothing.

  As he took a step forward and stumbled. He looked down at the wound on his leg where the bullet had grazed his ankle. Blood pooled out into his slacks.

  He kept his M16 aimed in front of him as he walked farther into the pinkish darkness toward a door at the back of the hall. He threw the door open, revealing a staircase beyond.

  Right on the other side of the door — stunned by the sudden interruption — was Cody Ellis, making his way out of the staircase.

  Becker noticed that the book bag on Ellis’s shoulders was now full, and he could just see folders and black computer disks peeking out of the gap in the top.

  There was only a split second of confusion before Ellis jumped at him.

  Becker’s M16 went off, light blazing in the darkness. Pieces of ceiling tile rained down on t
he two of them. They grappled, all hands on the rifle, and tumbled to the floor.

  Ellis looped his arm around Becker’s elbow, and with one vicious tug he yanked the M16 out of Becker’s hand. Becker threw a punch into Ellis’s side. The kid bent in half, and Becker used this moment to lunge at him. But just as he got his hands to Ellis’s neck, the kid brought a knee to the underside of Becker’s chin, cracking his teeth together. Ellis’s eyes flicked to the wound on Becker’s ankle, and he quickly smashed his boot into it. Hard.

  Becker screamed out, and for a moment, his body was stunned by the flash of pain from his leg. His vision went white, and a sweat flushed his skin. He blinked his eyes, regained himself a bit, and rolled over. He tried to get up, fell back to the floor. His ankle had been lamed.

  He looked down the hall. Ellis was sprinting away, almost to the doors.

  Becker pulled out his sidearm from the holster behind his back and fired three times from his crouched position. Missing.

  Ellis pushed through the door and dashed outside.

  Chapter Seventy

  Dale dove around the corner just as a line of bullets sprayed the wall.

  He fell to his knees, keeping his hands over his head as glass rained down on him. He looked up and saw where the glass had come from — a recessed cabinet with a tightly folded firehose and a fire extinguisher. The glass door had been shattered by bullets.

  Crouching, Dale went to the cabinet, reached through the broken glass, and grabbed the firehose. He returned to the other side of the hallway, taking the firehose with him. It stretched along the tile behind him, spanning the width of the floor.

  Dale positioned himself right at the corner, both hands holding tightly onto the firehose.

  And he listened.

  Footsteps came in his direction. At a run.

  He tightened his grip.

  And just as the men came sprinting around the corner, he yanked up on the firehose, creating a big tripwire. The first two men went tumbling over the hose. One of them cracked his head on the floor, instantly unconscious. The other landed hard on his shoulder, screaming out.

  The third man, who had been farther behind the other two, came to a stop before running into the hose, his shoes squeaking on the floor. He spotted Dale and ran at him.

  Dale bolted up with a punch that caught the man under the chin. The man stumbled back. Dale went to make another attack while the man was momentarily stunned. But Dale couldn’t move. Something held him back. He looked down.

  The man on the floor had his ankle. And he was leveling his gun at him.

  Dale brought his other boot across the man’s face, knocking him out.

  There was a sharp pain to Dale’s side, and he let out an oomph. The third man had jumped upon him. They smashed into the wall.

  Their arms were tangled. Dale’s Model 36 fell to the floor. It clattered on the tile.

  The man grabbed at Dale’s head, wrapping his arm around his neck, getting him into a full-nelson.

  Dale gasped for breath.

  He saw the destroyed firehose cabinet in front of him.

  And the fire extinguisher.

  Dale reached toward it.

  The man behind him yanked hard against his neck, pulling him backwards.

  Dale gasped again, louder. His eyes watered.

  The man pulled his gun around, and Dale grabbed him by the wrist, pushing it back. With his other hand, Dale stretched for the fire extinguisher.

  It was almost within his grasp. An inch away.

  He reached out …

  And finally grabbed it. With one motion, he swung the extinguisher backward over his shoulder and pulled his head to the side. The canister collided directly with the other man’s face with a loud metal ping. The man fell limp to the floor.

  Dale took a deep breath.

  Then he grabbed his gun from the floor and took off running down the hall.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Sloane ducked behind one of the rectangular dragon’s teeth. Three rounds pounded into the block. He felt the vibration all the way through the cement and into his back. He whipped his rifle back to the top of the block and looked through the scope.

  The scene before him was an absolute battlefield. Carnage. With no end in sight.

  There was a potential target. Thirty yards away. He lined up up the crosshairs…

  And stopped.

  He ducked back below the dragon’s tooth and cocked his head to the side. He’d heard something. The loud whine of a dirt bike engine, drowning out the gunshots. He turned.

  A lone bike barreled up the northern perimeter road. It was Cody Ellis. Sloane looked farther back into the facility, behind Ellis, trying to find Becker. He was nowhere to be seen.

  Shit.

  Becker had been neutralized. Dead? Maybe. But Sloane didn’t give the notion a moment of abstract consideration. Zero emotion. He had more than enough training and experience to give him the necessary cold objectivity. Becker simply was no longer part of equation.

  Sloane pulled out a set of miniature binoculars and looked toward the bike. He saw a book bag strapped over Ellis’s shoulders. It was bloated, crammed with God knows what kind of world-altering data.

  Sloane’s rifle was strapped over his shoulder. He threw it around to his back, grabbed his M1911 from the holster strapped to his thigh, and sprinted toward the road. His men yelled out to him as he bolted away.

  “Agent Sloane!”

  Bullets zipped past. One struck the ground a few feet in front of him, spraying rocky debris.

  The bike raced forward, getting closer. Ellis looked his direction. They made eye contact.

  Sloane stopped at the side of the road and took a solid stance, placed both hands on his gun, and aimed it toward Ellis.

  Ellis crouched as low as he could beneath the handlebar and gunned the throttle. The dirt bike screamed.

  Sloane fired rapidly. The first few rounds clanked harmlessly off the metal. Finally, one of the rounds did some damage — either to the bike or to Ellis, Sloane couldn’t tell — and Ellis and the bike went tumbling forward in a tangled mess. There was the screech of metal on concrete, and the bike slid forward, sparks flying.

  It came to a stop.

  Sloane approached cautiously, gun at the ready.

  The bike was a crumpled mess. Steam came from the engine. Fluid of some sort pooled beneath it. All he could see of Cody was a leg coming out from beneath the bike and the book bag, which Sloane could see was full of file folders and disks.

  Sloane stepped up to the bike, and as he did, Cody’s foot came flying at him, a well-timed kick that struck Sloane squarely under the jaw.

  Sloane flew back, hit the ground. The impact of the concrete against his back took his breath, and for a brief moment, his body was stunned. He heard the crunching sound of the bike sliding against the ground followed by footsteps, at a run.

  Sloane shook out the fogginess and looked up to see a security police vehicle, its driver-side door shutting. Ellis was behind the wheel. The blue-and-red lights came on, followed by the siren. The engine started, the rear tires spun for a moment with a loud squeal, and then it bolted.

  It was headed toward the front gate. Ellis was disguising himself as a security forces member as a way to get out of the facility.

  To get all that info in his book bag into Asa Hendrix’s hands.

  Sloane rolled to his stomach and squeezed off the last few rounds from his 1911. Two rounds struck the vehicle, doing nothing.

  He pushed himself up, tossed his 1911, and swung his rifle around. He got into a solid stance, a kneeling position with his weak-side knee toward his target and his strong-side leg at ninety degrees, knee on the ground. He looked down the scope. Steadied himself. And fired.

  His round went through the car’s rear window, shattering it.

  But the car kept going.

  Another round.

  This shot went through the windshield too, closer to Ellis, making him jump. But sti
ll the car raced forward.

  It was almost to the gate.

  Sloane took in a breath, released it.

  And fired.

  Contact.

  A spray of blood, and Ellis’s body jolted forward. The car screeched, swinging violently side to side before smashing into the guard station.

  Sloane ran toward the building, grabbing what cover he could along the way, bullets flying all around him.

  He approached the car. Its front end was mangled, smashed into the cinder block wall. Steamed billowed out of the hood.

  He went to the driver’s side and peered in. The interior was covered with blood. Ellis was slumped over the steering wheel, motionless. Wound to the back of the head.

  The book bag was on the passenger seat. Sloane reached into the car and pulled out the bag, looked inside.

  Disks and diagrams and folders marked TOP SECRET.

  The information, so valuable, so volatile. Only feet away from escaping into the wide world. Safely in Sloane’s hands.

  He exhaled.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Asa was so giddy he was about to jump out of his skin. His moment had finally arrived, the last part of the masterpiece he’d been crafting for years. But he needed to maintain his composure. For just a few more moments. Because all eyes of the distinguished guests were still upon him.

  The Cuban looked very pleased with himself, a small grin, arms folded over his chest. The others were disgruntled. Except for Lebedev. He just looked back at Hendrix with that mischievous sparkle in his eye, the smug joy of a well-orchestrated scheme.

  Asa had never been so happy in his entire life. He was about to be rich. Rich like he could never have dreamed. Ungodly, unheard-of rich. A freakin’ millionaire.

  He held the disk high into the air.