by Leo Nix
“Ethan,” Lauren said slowly and deliberately. Although she thought he looked ridiculous it was time to reward him for agreeing to her 'suggestion'. She dropped her dressing gown to reveal her toned, wiry nakedness. The youthful-looking grandmother ate healthily, thanks to her personal chef; she went to the gym twice a day for her workout with her personal fitness coach; and she used bottled Perrier Natural Spring Water for her tea and coffee.
With the generous support of the church congregation she also managed to fit in weekly manicures, massages and hair treatment. Her cosmetic surgery was done by the best surgeons in Thailand - her lovers considered her physical augmentations well worth the church's investment.
Ethan reached up to caress her enhanced breasts.
“How would you like it today?” She nudged his organ roughly with her knee as she straddled him. “How about I just sit here… like this…” she was surprisingly agile for her age. The Black Widow smiled inwardly as her lover's face contorted, he groaned loudly. “Or would you prefer if I just… did this?” Ethan's manhood grew larger as she crushed his scrotum. He enjoyed inducing pain.
The Black Widow excelled at manipulation and to get revenge on those who tried to oppose her. If there was one thing she excelled at and enjoyed the most it was the manipulation of weak underlings.
She also wanted her son, Darren, to receive his punishment for failing her. How dare he allow himself and his brother to be caught by the police? Besides, it had been too long since he had felt the buckle of her belt.
“Base said they might need a week to place the caches and prepare for the extraction.” Obi-Wan informed everyone that evening around the campfire. “They're having all sorts of trouble with their satellite communications. It seems someone is playing games, changing the code and sending it all over the world other than here.”
Obi-Wan's blond hair was bleached almost white from the sunshine on the west Australian coast. His week of surfing and diving with his friends at Geraldton had toned his body and he now looked like the Norse God, Thor. His commander, Sue-Ellen Cullen, said he looked more like Yoda, the wizened Jedi master.
“Obi-Wan,” called Nancy, the tactical team's driver and sometimes master chef, “if the spies at Pine Gap can manipulate the big board satellites that means they can manipulate the other satellites. Is that right?”
Obi-Wan liked Nancy, her short brown hair, brown eyes and straight-up-and-down manner reminded him of his first girlfriend at college.
“I've been busy working on that, Nancy. Skip had an idea that we might be able to vaccinate the satellites against the terrorists with our own Trojan or a virus. I haven't been able to crack the code the spies are using though, not with the radio equipment we have here. But I will once we get back to Pine Gap.”
Ray was sitting with Cindy, the two had been on and off lovers for the past year and it seemed that his wandering eyes had finally settled on the one girl. That was his problem, his eyes were bigger than his brains and he could never keep his eyes from wandering. Cindy and his other girlfriends simply got fed up with his flirting. He never quite understood why they dumped him.
Since the apocalypse something had happened to Ray, he began to settle down. He and Cindy got back together and soon became inseparable. Ray was powerfully built from his daily work-outs but to his dismay he was an inch shorter than his girlfriend. Never-the-less he was enjoying his time in the sun and the sand. For him the crisis was a holiday – it couldn't get any better.
“Obi-Wan, I think there's a good chance we might be stuck out here for a while. Not that I don't mind and all, I've got good food and a good woman, and I don't have to polish my shoes every day.” He squeezed Cindy's hand, they were like young lovers.
Danielle, the girl with the brown eyes and attractive, dusty smile, was seated next to Burger, his hand was resting on her leg.
“If base can't see what's happening here or Geraldton then we don't know if we've been betrayed and the terrorists are listening in to us,” she said.
Skip pulled a woollen jumper over his broad shoulders as the cool wind blew in from the sea. He had once skippered Sydney's Newington College senior rowing team. When he went to study engineering in the United Kingdom, he soon became skipper of Oxford University's successful men's rowing team as well.
“Danielle,” said Skip, “Commander Cullen is using her own ultra-secret channel and protocols. The only way the terrorists would know where we are is if they were told by someone in Pine Gap who had access to her secret channel. It's on the cards the Revelationists are on their way here right now but we have little choice other than to sit tight and wait for orders. Commander Cullen may have other satellites she can use but if they're compromised too then we just have to keep a sharp eye on the horizon for the enemy ourselves.”
“So that means we could be tracked here through your conversations with Pine Gap?” asked Ray, he had a cigarette sitting between his lips, it seemed to be part of his anatomy. He lazily held Cindy's hand. The two sat a short distance from the others. The wind picked up and most of the group moved closer to the warmth of the fire. Ray and Cindy stayed where they were, they just snuggled up closer to stay warm.
“Yes and no, Ray,” answered Obi-Wan. “It means our transmissions might be passed on to the terrorists. If the spies are able to scramble our communications with Pine Gap, plus control the military satellites, then they can just as easily get a message to Perth or Geraldton of our whereabouts. It won't be easy to avoid detection if that's the case.”
Obi-Wan stood up and stretched. “OK, folks, Sergeant Dyson has the watch roster for tonight. Just to remind you all - if you get caught you will be tortured and killed, there is no doubt of that. We are currently basking in a false paradise. There's a rattlesnake out there waiting to strike - we will only be troubled if we blink first.”
It was way past midnight as Commander Sue-Ellen Cullen sat with her second in command, Major Will Binks, in her office. They each had a drink in their hands as they discussed the events of the day, as they did most evenings.
The couch at the back of the commander's office had become Sue-Ellen's bed since the apocalypse. She had barely slept these past few weeks and felt somewhat responsible for the events that had occurred on her watch.
“Will, we've got to get Obi-Wan and Skip back here, we're flying blind. It's like there's a little mouse loose inside our computer and he's chewing through cables and messing up our networks. The satellites have all gone down and we have no control over them. We need those two here to sort it out.” Sue-Ellen ran her hand through her short, blond hair and wondered when was the last time she'd washed it. It was as though she never had time for anything these days. There was always just one crisis after another. “And the big board, Will, what have our comms guys done with it? It works then it stops working. I tell you, I'm losing my patience with everyone.” She slurped the last of her dry martini and reached to pour another.
“Sue-Ellen,” said Will. “We've got the best IT specialists here with us, they're working flat out, they have since the apocalypse. They know what they're doing but I still think it's coming from an outside network who have taken control of our computers and satellites.” Will was tall, over six feet. He was once slim and well muscled, but lately, he'd begun to put on a lot of weight. Tonight, under the artificial lighting in the commander's office, he looked tired, obese and ready to drop where he sat.
“I know I know, they just have to work harder, Will. We've got two helicopters busting their balls right now, working twenty-four-seven to bring our team back to us and we can't even tell the crews if they'll arrive to find our boys alive or dead. We're blind Will, damn blind to the entire continent.”
“I've had our investigators working back to back shifts trying to sort out the problem, Sue-Ellen. They've uncovered nothing. No suspects, no evidence, just more errors. Now we have what appears to be a damn Trojan, or virus of some type, controlling some of our satellites.” Will pulled a handful of pages out
of his case and held them out for Sue-Ellen to read.
“What are these?” she asked as she leafed through them. “So you've definitely found a virus in our network? Is that responsible for our computer blackouts and communications problems with the satellites? What about the International Space Station, can we still talk with Dr Tantoni?”
“Sue-Ellen, the IT guys think this is caused by the virus that attacked our system yesterday. We can't communicate with some of the satellites. We can't get Dr Tantoni and his team in the ISS up either.” Will leaned back in his chair and tossed back the last of his bourbon. “I've got to get back to the big board, Sue-Ellen. I'll wake you if anything comes up. Get some sleep.” He stood and leaned across to kiss his commander on the cheek. “I've got it tonight, you can take over at dawn. I'll be needing a break by then.” He strode to the door and closed it quietly behind him.
Once he was out of the room Sue-Ellen clicked her computer awake and checked the base security protocols. She then tried to establish contact with the big board and satellites using her personal, ultra-secret code, but nothing worked. She slammed her fist on the desktop in frustration. Suddenly she noticed that there was something wrong with her computer screen background image. Sue-Ellen always used a picture of herself and Reece, her deceased husband.
'So… what is this?' she asked herself. She studied the picture carefully. All looked fine except a small smudge in Reece's left eye, it wasn't like that before, someone had changed it.
She sat for a few seconds then had an idea, converting the image to raw code she saw her message. It was from one of her and her deceased husband Reece's most trusted spooks - an enigmatic ghost who went by the call-sign, 'Goldmine'.
“Sue-Ellen, your man's left a thumbprint - goes by the call sign 'beeprep'. I found a message today to your man in Adelaide Alpha Army, Major Daniels. Your base spy has asked for an upload of special porn. He has top secret possibly ultra security clearance. Be careful, I can only guess that he is a 'He' from the message. Watch your back, he's very close to you. Your best clue is his call sign, work that out and you've got him, 'Goldmine'.”
Sue-Ellen sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. 'My God I'm tired,' she thought as she instinctively rubbed at her face and straightened her mess of hair. 'So Goldmine has a lead, but there's only me, Will, Obi-Wan, Skip and a half-dozen staffers at top and ultra-secret level.'
The call sign, 'beeprep', made no sense to her. She left her mind there as she put a call through to the Black Hawk. Captain 'Curly' Moe confirmed they would be ready before midday tomorrow.
'Reece, where are you? I need you now my love, I miss you so much.' She felt tears forming behind her eyes and let them flow down her cheeks. It helped, it usually did.
It was late and she really needed some sleep if she was to be of any use tomorrow. She felt the weight of responsibility for her staff and that of their families now living under her roof since the apocalypse. Sue-Ellen crawled into the messy couch she used as a bed, pulled the blanket over her shoulder and fell asleep.
As she drifted off she had a thought to check the personnel files of all top and ultra-secret staff - perhaps that is where she would find a match to Goldmine's clue.
Captain Lim took control of the four-wheel drive patrol vehicle for the last hundred kilometres into Shark Bay. His battalion signals operators were wise to the skills of the Pine Gap experts, Obi-Wan and Skip, and kept their communications systems off.
The terrorists were going to stage a two-pronged assault right at the moment the Black Hawk and MRH-90 Taipan helicopters arrived to pick up the Pine Gap group. They moved into the Shark Bay caravan park to meet up with several of their covert operatives and began their preparations.
Chapter 5 – Chopper Down
Sergeant Darren McIntosh staggered across the sandy beach back to his brother. He looked like a dead man.
“What the hell's wrong with him?” ejected Colonel Harry McIntosh. Harry's beard had grown long and bushy but it was quite clear to the police officers that he knew his secret was out. His face went from red to white as he looked into his brother's eyes.
“What bullshit did they tell you, Darren? Did they say something to turn you against the church?”
Darren didn't respond he just stared at his brother, an unnerving, dangerous stare. Sergeant Brad Hopkins tied him to a tree trunk away from his brother.
“What?!” Harry yelled, his voice becoming hysterical, guilt written all over his face. “What! They told you bullshit about me didn't they!”
“You lying, deceitful, blood-sucking scum bastard! You knew, didn't you! You knew our mother would execute them the day of the apocalypse, that's why you visited, wasn't it! I thought it was strange, not once in twelve months have you been to Kollarena to see me yet it all happens exactly the day of my family's execution. You knew and you let her do it!” The venom in his cold voice was worse than a blow to the face. Harry sagged against his tree trunk and mouthed soundless words.
Brad looked at Oddie and the two walked away to leave them to argue it out. They'd be back in a few hours to pump Darren for information. He'd then willingly testify against his church, of that they were certain.
The sandy beach was idyllic. White sands, fresh fish and other seafood delicacies, that, plus mild sea-breezes by day and pleasant tropical nights. The team of special ops and police felt more refreshed each day. The sun was high in the sky when Brad and Oddie made their way back to where they had placed their captives, but the space in the shade beneath the trees was empty.
“What the hell?!” exploded Oddie, “where the have they gone?”
“Shit!” Brad exclaimed, then he saw the knife a short distance away, towards the water. There were traces of blood and it looked as though the knife had been deliberately thrown there. There were scuffle marks showing there had been a fight. But there was no body or bodies, no trail of blood.
Brad and Oddie raced to gather the team together. They left four to guard the boats and the rest separated into pairs to search the beach and the bushes behind their camp. They found nothing.
“Damn it, Brad, what else do they have if they could get a knife off us without anyone knowing?” said Dyson looking closely at the site where the two prisoners had been.
“Sergeant, Burger and I'll head inland,” offered Skip, he had his AK47 as did Burger. The two got along well, both were experienced in the bush. “We'll track them if we can and fire three shots if we find something.”
The two loped off into the bush where they soon came across tracks and scuff marks of a fight. They followed for twenty metres when they found Darren's body. There was blood but it looked like he'd been strangled. Skip fired three rounds and they waited for their comrades to gather.
“It's possible Harry was the one who had the knife. He must have cut free, stabbed his brother then dragged him here to strangle him after he'd lost his knife,” said Skip, examining the ground. He began walking in ever-growing circles to try to cut the tracks Harry had left in his escape.
“Harry's our man then, if we find him we'll string him up. We're the law now and I don't give a donkeys-arse if Commander Cullen wants him for an interview and cup of tea.” Ogden 'Oddie' Danse, ex Australian commando and now AFP sergeant, had known Darren McIntosh well. He'd worked beside him in several investigations for the AFP. He liked the guy and had met his family at several social outings. They were such a nice, gentle family. Like Dyson he was shattered by the events that had unfolded. The horror and the evil that had visited their land had finally broken him too. He now knew what his colleague, Senior Sergeant Wayne Dyson felt: a loathing fanned by a savage, primal lust for revenge for all the innocents executed by the Revelationist Church.
Skip and Burger failed to locate Colonel Harry McIntosh, he'd obviously escaped them in the dense undergrowth. Night was falling and it would soon be too dark to see.
Realising that there was a god chance that Colonel McIntosh would survive to contact his battalion, Staff Serg
eant Ben 'Obi-Wan' Kennedy suggested that the group should move to the mainland side of Shark Bay straight away. It was easier for the helicopters to pick them up as well as a strategic move if they needed to escape by vehicle. If the terrorists came now they would be trapped on the peninsula with their only escape being the water.
Oddie called their new campsite 'Bush Bay', it looked much like anywhere else on the Western Australian coast. Over the next few nights they went by launch to collect fuel and brought back four, off-road vehicles to transport them to Pine Gap across the desert if the choppers didn't make it. By their fourth night they had a collection of fuel, fresh water, packaged food from abandoned caravans plus dried and salted seafood - they felt prepared for any emergency.
Captain Lim was now ready to set and initiate his ambush with the help of their operatives from Carnarvon and Geraldton. A half-dozen nights after the group had relocated, Lim's company silently made their preparations to assault the camp at Bush Bay. They now settled in to wait for the signal from their spy in Pine Gap to launch their assault.
Obi-Wan's group had made good their time while waiting for their evacuation as well. They'd set their defensive perimeter and were confident they could get back to Pine Gap regardless of what was thrown at them. 'Just hurry with those choppers,' thought Obi-Wan.
“We have a scrambler on our system, some bastard's screwing up our radar and radio,” said Major Samuels in his lazy, southern drawl. “Can you isolate that signal and clear it?” he asked Captain 'Curly' Moe, who was in the co-pilot seat of their MH-X Stealth Black Hawk helicopter.