by Evan Currie
There was a sudden rush of sensation that reminded Black of voiding himself, only from the wrong direction, and a spatter of liquid hit the carpeted floor. He grimaced, feeling the strength leave his arms. He tried to squeeze Masters’s neck harder but found his arm knocked clear from the navy man’s throat.
Black staggered back, falling into the sofa he had just jumped over as the SEAL climbed to his feet. Suddenly he found himself looking up at the man he’d come to kill.
“You’re bleeding all over my couch,” Hawk Masters growled, his second dive knife gripped tightly in his hand. “Don’t suppose you’d care to explain why the hell you tried to gut me?”
Black just stared at him as Masters stepped on his wrist and plucked the curved kukri blade from his grip.
“No?” Masters asked idly, not expecting anything as he looked over the dark blade in the filtered light streaming in from the streetlamps outside. “I suppose it was too much to hope for. You’re human, or at least you bleed like one.”
Black stayed silent as Masters walked across the room and flicked on a light. He could hear engines roaring in the distance, sounding farther away than he would have expected. Everything did, actually, once he considered it.
Masters returned to the couch, yanking the coffee table back a foot so that he could sit across from the dying man. “You look human, but you’re stronger than any man I’ve ever met. If you’re not one of those bastardized abominations from across the veil, who — and, more importantly, what—are you?”
Black closed his eyes, not quite believing that he’d been killed by this ignorant mongrel. The matriarch is going to have my line purged for this failure.
The man in front of Hawk Masters died just as tires squealed to a halt outside his place. The MPs burst in a moment later, M16 rifles leading the way as they came to a stop and stared in shock at the dead man lounging on the sofa.
“Throw down your weapon!” They snapped out of their shock, shifting their aim to Masters.
He tossed down the knives, keeping his hands in sight.
“I’m Lieutenant Commander Harold Masters,” he said. “This is my house.”
“We’ll check on that,” the lead MP said, eyes scanning the rest of the house. “Is there anyone else in here?”
“If there is, shoot them,” Masters growled. “I should be alone.”
“Right. We’re going to need NCIS,” the MP said, looking back. Then the man sighed. “I’ll wake the brass.”
Masters snorted. “Better you than me.”
* * *
Dawn was breaking when Judith Andrews pulled her car to the side of the street, eyes widening at all the flashing lights adorning the street outside Lieutenant Commander Masters’s assigned living quarters. She shook her head, killed the engine, and climbed out of the car. Another glance at the sheer number of MPs and official vehicles parked around the building left her both stunned and annoyed.
This is supposed to be a covert operation, damn it, she thought as she crossed the road and flashed her ID at the MP who was trying to stop her. “Where’s Lieutenant Commander Masters?”
The man stiffened. “Inside, ma’am. He’s with NCIS.”
“Perfect,” she muttered, stalking forward.
She shouldered through the men at the door, pushing inside to where an older man in a suit was glowering at Masters and asking him questions.
“Captain Andrews,” she said, stepping on the interrogation. “This man is part of a national security operation, agent. You can’t question him without a SOCOM representative.”
The NCIS agent turned to glare at her. “The name is Biggs, Captain. Your man here gutted someone like a fish, and laid him out on his sofa. You trying to tell me that was an authorized mission?”
“I suppose that would depend on the identity of the corpse, Agent Biggs,” she countered, shooting a glare at Masters. “You have anything back on that yet?”
Biggs scowled, but shook his head. “No prints in any database we can access. We’re sending samples for DNA analysis, but that’ll take weeks.”
“Until you get that information back, I’ll thank you to restrict your questions to scheduled sessions with proper supervision. That is, unless you think the lieutenant commander lured the man into his home at three a.m. in order to kill him,” she snapped out coldly.
“Yes, ma’am.” Biggs closed his notebook, sparing a glare for both Masters and Andrews. “Still, this is a crime scene, and you’ll both have to leave.”
“Fine with me.” Hawk shrugged, getting up. He picked up a bag from beside the table and slung it over his shoulder. “I’m not coming back here anyway.”
“You can’t take that.”
“This is my bug-out kit. It’s got jack all to do with any of this,” Masters growled.
“I don’t care, it’s evidence,” Biggs snapped.
“Jesus, did you use lube to shove that stick up your—”
“Commander!” Captain Andrews cut him off, pulling the black bag from his shoulder and dropping it on the table. “Agent Biggs, feel free to search the bag. If you find something you like, by all means, feel free to keep it. Otherwise, I think it’s reasonable for the lieutenant commander to take a few personal effects.”
The agent scowled again, but opened the bag and rifled through it. He unfolded the shirts and pants, shoving them back in messily, and ignored the shaving supplies. After a moment he paused and withdrew a wickedly curved kukri blade with mottled patterns in the steel, raising an eyebrow at Masters.
“A souvenir.” Masters shrugged. “It’s from Turkmenistan, twelve years ago.”
Biggs seemed to consider that for a long moment, then finally dropped the knife back into the bag and roughly zipped it up before tossing it at Masters. “Get out of my crime scene.”
“Yes, sir.”
Andrews grabbed Masters by the back of the collar and pulled him out the door.
Outside she pushed him over to her car, watching as he walked around and settled himself in the passenger’s seat before she climbed in behind the wheel.
“What the hell was that about?”
“I don’t like NCIS,” Masters replied.
“Not that, you idiot. The dead man in your housing unit.”
“Oh, that.” Hawk shrugged. “Dunno. He broke into my place and tried to kill me. I have no idea why.”
“You’ve never seen him before?” she asked, unbelieving.
“Nope.”
“While I have no problem understanding why people who know you would want to kill you, Lieutenant Commander,” she told him sarcastically as she drove, “I’m a little skeptical that even you can rouse that kind of ire from people you’ve never met.”
“Cute,” he replied with a twist of his lips, “but I’ve really never seen him before. He didn’t say anything the entire time we were fighting, and the only identifying thing he had on him was this.”
She glanced over at him, eyes widening as she saw him draw out the large kukri blade. “You stole evidence?!”
“Yup. The guy tried to gut me with it, but I gutted him with my dive knife instead.” Masters shrugged calmly. “I figure it’s the spoils of war.”
“It’s evidence!” she snapped.
“Relax, I’ll probably be dead before Biggs gets his investigation moving anyway.”
She let out an annoyed sigh. “Why do you keep talking like that?”
“Because I know something you don’t,” he told her, then added a belated, “ma’am.”
They drove the rest of the way to their assigned center of operations in silence.
WASHINGTON, DC, THE PENTAGON
Admiral Karson pinched his nose as he read the report out of California, wondering what the hell was going on with Masters. One day back in Coronado and someone had already tried to kill him in his own base housing? He tacked a note to the report, informing NCIS that Masters was indeed working on a project vital to national security, and sent it back up the line.
Th
e question he had to ask now, however, was why?
It was possible that Masters had developed his own enemies over the years he’d been absent from the government radar. Certainly the man’s home in Montana seemed to indicate something along those lines; however, it did seem odd that someone would actually go to the trouble of infiltrating a military base in an attempt to assassinate him.
So did it have something to do with the project?
That, more than anything, was gnawing at the admiral. If it was related to the project, then they had a security leak already. He was going to have to talk to Masters, Karson decided. Get a read on the man, probably face to face.
He had too much on the line now, including the president’s attention among other things, not to put some serious focus on keeping things from falling apart and coming down on his head. If this was a personal enemy of Masters, well, maybe he could use that as leverage to get the man to open up about what the hell he’d found.
If it was project related…
Well, Karson would have some serious work to do to plug any leaks in the case. Even if he had to cut them out and sew up the holes with his own bare hands.
“Jane?” he spoke up, thumbing the intercom.
“Yes, Admiral?”
“Book me a flight to California. I need to make a visit to Coronado.”
“Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER 5
DESCENDING TO WILL ROGERS MEMORIAL AIRPORT, BARROW, ALASKA
The aging C-130 transport was clearly one of the most venerable platforms still in use, but it was also one of the most versatile. The one that was currently carrying sixty National Guard reservists and state police officers had been specifically modified to survive the extreme conditions that existed in northern Alaska.
For the reservists, more so than the state troopers, this current mission was something to be nervous about, and their silence on descent showed that none of them was in a joking mood. They trained for some combat and a fair bit more in terms of disaster relief, but as a rule, riot suppression of American citizens wasn’t high on their list. Only those with the appropriate training had been tapped for this run, of course, but there wasn’t a single man or woman among them who was looking forward to it.
“All right, listen to me and listen well,” Master Sergeant Gregory Kell growled as he walked between the rows of Spartan seats. “Keep your damn weapons on safe unless ordered otherwise, and listen to your officers and the state troopers. Hopefully this little ‘riot’ will have died down, and we won’t have to do anything more than clean up, but we don’t know what caused it, so keep your eyes wide and ears open.”
The men nodded as he passed, and Kell didn’t bother waiting for any acknowledgment.
“Our job is to support the troopers in restoring the peace or, failing that, clear the road for the emergency relief, fire suppression, and medical teams that are on their way,” he said. “I don’t want any hero bullshit out of you dumb pricks. Do your jobs, don’t kill anyone, and for God’s sake, don’t get yourselves killed. I don’t need that paperwork.”
A few people chuckled, but a death glare sent their way by the sergeant made it clear that he wasn’t joking around.
The lights in the transport changed, green bulbs coming to life as the pilot signaled their descent, and no one spoke as the big plane came around and put its nose in the wind to come down on runway nine.
The town of Barrow had only a single small airport, with one strip that ran east to west, so picking their approach had been dead simple despite the fact that they’d still received no response from the local control tower. Luckily, there wasn’t any traffic on the field either, so the C-130 had no difficulty setting down and coming to a stop at the far end of the strip, well clear of any and all buildings.
They dropped the ramp, the first few men and women from the guard stomping out first, their weapons displayed clearly and prominently just like their camo-green. If they managed to make anyone think twice about screwing with the plane or the people, they’d have done their job well. That was the theory, at least. In practice, there was no one within sight despite the fact that the town of Barrow was practically glued right on the airstrip to the north of them.
“Creepy,” Corporal Jenner mumbled as he stood guard outside the plane, eyes glued on the flickering glow of fires that brightened up the night to their north.
“You don’t want to look south, then.”
Of course, the first thing he did when he heard his fellow corporal speak was lean around the plane and glance south. More like southwest, to be honest, but it didn’t matter. There was an evil glow in that direction, and it didn’t take much time for him to identify them as the well fires from the briefings.
“Lord, the environmentalists are going to have a field day with this one,” he muttered, shifting back into position.
“Five bucks says one of those eco-nuts caused it,” Corporal Merrin offered.
“You’re on,” Jenner told him. “I say this whole mess was caused by the oil company’s incompetence and ‘cost cutting.’ ”
“Sucker’s bet,” Merrin scoffed. “You think it’s a coincidence those started burning just when a riot kicked off?”
“Maybe it’s what caused the riot?” Jenner offered with a shrug.
“Both of you, shut the hell up,” Sergeant Kell growled as he supervised the rest of the unloading. “Keep your eyes open and make sure we don’t have any company here while our balls are hanging out in this goddamn wind.”
“Yes, Sergeant!” they both said as one, returning their focus to their surroundings.
The darkness was pretty deep by now, but it didn’t matter a whole lot. They were packing decent-generation night optical devices, which lit up the terrain with an eerie green glow. The NODs showed that there was no movement between them and the airport buildings, but that was about the limit of their range, so they couldn’t see much of anything beyond that.
“Creepy,” Jenner mumbled again, now looking at the world through the green-tinted NODs.
“You said it.”
This time the sergeant just ignored them as he continued to oversee the unloading and organization of the reservists. He kept an eye on the state troopers as he worked, but they weren’t his concern really. They had a better idea of what they were doing — this was their jurisdiction after all. He and the rest of the reservists were here to back them up and provide disaster relief, and that was the extent of it.
* * *
Captain Marcus Jones looked out over the deserted runway, glaring at the firelight in the distance. He didn’t know what the hell had happened, but he and his troopers had to find out in a hurry and put a stop to it.
“How long until the fire teams get here?”
“Twelve hours.”
“Shit,” he murmured, shaking his head. “Won’t be anything left to put out by then, not here anyway.”
“Yes, sir.” Corporal Miller nodded from beside him.
They were just lucky as hell that the recent thaw had made the whole place slushy and wet, meaning that most of the fires would be isolated to relatively small areas. The same could technically be said of the fires to the south as well, Jones supposed, but burning oil wells was a whole different ball game.
Those would still be burning by the time the fire teams arrived, of that he had little doubt.
“All right, get the men ready. We’ll move out ahead of the guardsmen, regroup at the terminal building.”
“You got it, Captain,” Miller said, nodding before turning back to relay the orders.
Jones looked over the group of men and women in camo BDUs. He was bothered that they were here, but at the same time he hoped he wouldn’t need to call them in for anything more than disaster relief. State of emergency notwithstanding, Jones didn’t like the idea of using military against American citizens, so he really hoped that the riot was over. That was just a level of publicity he didn’t want or need.
The state troopers quickly gat
hered around, bundled up in their cold-weather gear. Most held Remington shotguns, but a few of the Special Weapons and Tactics boys had MP5s and Remington 700 long rifles.
“We’re going to move up to the terminal building as a group, scout the immediate area, and then break up into teams to secure the area and get things under control,” Jones said. “Keep your eyes out for any rioters or locals. I want to know what the hell happened here, everyone clear?”
They confirmed their understanding, so he just nodded and turned to look at the terminal building off in the distance.
“All right. Let’s go.”
The state troopers set out from the C-130, marching toward the terminal building. They crossed the cold ground in a few minutes, arriving at the darkened building quickly as they spread out a bit and began to poke around.
The officers called out to whoever might be around, identifying themselves as state troopers, as the men looked in through the large windows, tested the doors, and generally began investigating the area.
“Locked up, sir,” the lieutenant reported.
Jones nodded. “Pop the lock, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir.”
They needed a headquarters, and the terminal building would serve them well enough. A man with a breaching tool stepped up and jammed the titanium prongs into the door, snapping it hard enough to pop the lock with ease, but accidentally shattering the lower pane of tempered glass in the process.
Jones winced, but brushed it off. It would have been nice to keep the door properly sealable, for heat if nothing else, but they’d just have to board it up. He nodded to the officers in front of him, gesturing for them to lead the way. They leveled their shotguns, cleared the door, and moved in. He followed them with one hand resting on his gun belt, but did not withdraw his weapon.
“It’s clear and quiet, sir.”
Jones nodded — he could see that. It was hardly a large terminal building, and most of the space was a single large open room. The rest was divided up into small offices, back rooms for luggage checks, and a small pair of restrooms.