The Siren Project

by Renneberg, Stephen

  “We have no proof of that,” Mitch replied. “I’m not prepared to write Lamar off just yet.” They hurried past the FBI perimeter. “Where’s Christa?”

  “She’ll meet us,” Gunter replied, his tone indicating she was unharmed.

  “Good, because I’m in serious need of dry clothes.”

  “Worse than that old buddy,” Mouse said. “You’re in serious need of soap. You smell like an oil refinery on a bad day.”

  Mitch grinned. “You should smell me from my side.”

  Chapter 1 3

  “Look at this,” Mouse called from his seat beside Christa in front of the hotel room’s television. “They’re talking about the bombing.”

  Mitch scrubbed his hair dry with a towel as he stepped out of the bathroom naked from the waist up. His skin was pink from the scalding hot water he’d used to blast away the last residue of smoke and grime from his body. Watching the television, he gently dabbed the towel over the row of fresh stitches in his shoulder and flexed his left arm experimentally.

  The image filling the screen was of a distinguished looking man in an expensive suit, with silver sideburns and metal rimmed glasses. The man made his way, flanked by security men through a crowd of reporters firing questions at him like machine gun bullets. The man stopped and waved the media frenzy about him to silence.

  “A little late for your speech, aren’t you senator?” Mitch said as Senator Fraser cleared his throat.

  A famous network reporter called, “Senator, do we know what terrorist group was behind this attack?”

  Before he could answer, a woman yelled, “Senator Fraser, where were you when the bomb went off?”

  Fraser raised his hand again, motioning for silence. “I'll be issuing a formal statement later today, once I’ve had time to review the situation with the FBI and local law enforcement.” A murmur of disappointment rose from the expectant crowd.

  A man stepped forward, thrusting a microphone toward the senator. “Do you think, sir, this attack was aimed at stopping your new security measures?”

  “I can assure you all, this attack will in no way weaken my resolve to do what I know is necessary for our security,” he said defiantly.

  “We’ve heard reports that the explosion could have been much worse,” a male reporter interjected. “Can you give us any details?”

  Fraser hesitated. “Thanks to the diligence of the FBI, it's true, the effect of the explosion was significantly reduced -”

  “The FBI!” Mouse declared in disgust.

  “- even though they’re working with one hand tied behind their backs. I believe if my proposals were law, the FBI would have had the power to prevent this attack, not just disrupt it.” He started to turn away.

  “Senator, there were reports you may have been the target of the attack. Is this true?”

  Fraser nodded regretfully. “I was scheduled to give a speech at midday today. Thank God I was running late, or I would have been caught in the explosion myself.”

  “Senator,” A female reporter called, “Will this delay your Security Bill coming up for a vote next month?”

  He waved for quiet again. “I believe this attack proves we cannot and should not let our nation’s security be undermined by apathy and penny pinching in Washington. Attacks can arise at any time, from any direction, so we must be ever vigilant. I am pledged to defend this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and naturally, those forces who would see our institutions overthrown would like to see me silenced.” Fraser paused theatrically, drawing out the moment. “I promise you, I will not be silenced. I hope and pray that when my proposals are voted on, what has happened here today will be remembered, and we will get what we need to defend this great country.”

  Mitch suppressed an urge to shoot the television. Instead, he turned to Mouse. “See what you can find out about Fraser’s proposals. Maybe there’s something in there that shouldn’t be.”

  Mouse turned to his computer, and began calling up search engines.

  Another reporter asked, “There are reports that convention security people may have been involved. Can you confirm this?”

  “There's no truth in that. I’m a member of the organizing committee, and I can assure you, the security people we hired were completely reliable. The FBI have informed me that the security staff perished in the fire, doing their duty ensuring as many people as possible escaped, and fighting the fire inside.”

  There was a moment’s stunned silence from the reporters, then one asked, “Senator, are you saying all of the convention security staff are dead? Every one of them?”

  Carefully rehearsed emotion flickered across Fraser's face. “Yes, they were killed in the explosion. They gave their lives so that others may live. I will personally be attending a church service tomorrow morning in their honor. Each and every one of them was a hero.”

  “What a load of BS!” Mitch exclaimed. “They were murdered as surely as if they’d taken a bullet in the head.”

  “No wonder the FBI think the security guards are innocent!” Mouse declared bitterly. “No one will ever believe they stood there like lemmings, waiting to be incinerated!”

  “I wouldn’t have believed it myself, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

  Senator Fraser gave a parting wave, turned and continued on toward the convention center's burnt out entrance. One of his security men stepped in behind him, as another reporter attempted to push forward with a question. The security man gently placed an arm barring the reporter’s path, turning his face toward the camera as he eased the man back.

  “McNamara!” Mitch exclaimed, as the ex-NSA officer’s face filled the screen momentarily, then he turned his back on the camera and walked after the senator.

  “Nothing flushes out vermin like a good fire,” Gunter said.

  Mitch tossed the towel into the bathroom, then pulled on a shirt. “With McNamara, Fraser and the general all there, it makes quite an impressive little group.”

  “I’ll pull Gray's bio,” Mouse said. “It shouldn't be too hard to get.”

  “Hopefully, Lamar doesn't realize who he's dealing with.” Mitch said. “I'm hoping he's a straight arrow. We could use a break.”

  “He’s got free will,” Christa said.

  “While you're doing the background check on Gray, I'll get a map,” Mitch said as he finished buttoning his shirt. “I want to plot the latitude and longitude we got from the satellite truck. See what’s there.”

  “I can tell you what the map will show,” Mouse said cynically. “Absolutely nothing.”

  * * * *

  All four studied the large map of Arizona, while Mitch carefully plotted Sincom One's latitude and longitude. When he found the location, he drew a neat cross on the map at the coordinates and printed Sincom One underneath.

  “I told you!” Mouse declared. “A big fat nothing!”

  “Not exactly nothing.” Mitch said. “We now know Sincom One lies in a wilderness region a few miles west of the Eagletail Mountains, and it’s not part of any known military base. That’s a good start.”

  “I imagine it is hot there this time of year,” Gunter said, guessing what Mitch had in mind.

  “Hot as Hades, so pack a hat.” Mitch folded the map, then threw a curious look toward Mouse. “What did you dig up on the general?”

  Mouse turned his attention to his notes. “I’ve got his personnel records. General Nathan Gray, born Atlanta, Georgia. Third in his class at West Point. He's got a degree in engineering, spent the early part of his career in Army Aviation, then he moved into the Army Space and Missile Defense Command. He spent quite a bit of time down at Redstone, where he got a taste for NASA. That's where the Marshall Space Flight Center is. He made four applications to NASA, none successful. After the fourth rejection, he applied to Stanford to do a Master’s degree, was accepted, but then withdrew. No reason given. That was almost ten years ago. His designation changed about then to an ambiguous Special Projects designator, whic
h means he was doing something classified. At that point, his career dropped off the radar. No more applications to NASA. No requests for transfer. Nothing, except he picked up his three stars. Someone liked what he was doing.”

  Mitch looked thoughtful. “It’s not enough to make him the puppet master, but it keeps him in the running. What about Fraser’s Security Bill?”

  Mouse thumbed through his notes. “It’s big. Huge budget increases across the board for the military, and for the intelligence agencies, but the scariest thing is the suppression of rights. Even US citizens won't have the right to a trial, under certain circumstances, and suppression orders will be able to constrain free speech in the name of national security. There's so much money involved, there's no way to know if any of it's going to black projects.”

  “It would be easy to hide money for any purpose in all those hundreds of billions of dollars,” Gunter observed.

  “Legitimate or not, if he gets his way, he'll turn the country into an armed camp,” Mouse said.

  “Christa,” Mitch said, “How close do you have to be to know if someone's conditioned?”

  “Twenty feet, maybe a little further if I’m not too tired.”

  “I can’t help wondering about the timing of a three star general and a senator, both arriving at the convention center, right after it went up in flames. If it'd gone the way they'd planned, downtown Manhattan would have been a crater. That's a good platform to make a pitch direct to the American people. They had to be waiting outside the blast radius.”

  “There is an alternate possibility,” Gunter said cautiously. “General Gray may be investigating what is going on, and the timing is coincidental.”

  “I don't believe in coincidences. We need to get Christa close to the general, to confirm he's still got his marbles.”

  “And if he isn't conditioned, then what?” Christa asked.

  Mitch exhaled slowly. “Then we’re facing a military coup d’etat.”

  * * * *

  The FBI had cordoned off the area surrounding the convention center, keeping the dwindling numbers of sightseers and news crews well back from the smoking ruin. Inside the cordon, police, fire brigade, forensic investigators and FBI teams analyzed the crime scene and collected evidence. Shortly after sunset, large portable floodlights were placed around the building so the investigation could proceed through the night. By midnight, only a single news helicopter was overhead, circling like a vulture above a rotting carcass, reporting General Gray was still on site with a military team.

  Mitch looked perplexed as he walked past late night curiosity seekers beyond the cordon. “Why would he stay? The fire’s out. Everyone who's going to escape, is gone.”

  Christa looked thoughtful. “I don't have a sense of him. We're too far away.”

  “G, keep the car ready, and close. I’ll radio you if we need to bug out of here fast. We’ll stay and try to spot the general as he leaves.”

  While Gunter slipped into the side street toward their car, Mitch, Christa and Mouse moved around behind the spectators, looking for a stretch of unwatched police tape. Uniformed police guarded the perimeter, so they turned into an alley and worked their way behind the buildings opposite the entrance to the convention center.

  “Did I mention,” Mouse said, “That I’m not comfortable sneaking through dark alleys in New York this time of night?”

  Mitch ignored him, halting at a deserted lane that led back toward the main street. A glance confirmed there were no police barring the way, so they moved forward at a leisurely pace, and slipped under the police tape. Fire engines still blocked the main road and abandoned media trucks obstructed much of the opposite side of the street. Using the vehicles for cover, they found a vantage point with a clear view of the center's entrance, but there was no sign of General Gray.

  Christa shook head. “Still nothing. I've got to be closer.”

  Mitch studied the entrance, catching glimpses of white coated forensic experts gathering samples of the burnt out interior. “We can’t get in that way, that’s for sure. We’d be spotted in a second.”

  “Some of that chemical had to survive,” Mouse said. “If those guys are straight, it won’t take them long to figure out what it was.”

  “Make sure you get us a copy of their report. It’ll make interesting reading.”

  They continued on past the entrance, until they had a clear view of the street running alongside the building. Two large flat bed army trucks and a Humvee were parked near the rear of the burned out building, guarded by a small number of heavily armed soldiers. One of the flatbed trucks had a large object placed on it, covered by a green tarpaulin. Odd protuberances pushed against the tarpaulin, hinting at the unrecognizable shape within. At the end of the street, several men in civilian clothes quietly ushered a TV camera crew away from the side street, preventing them taking pictures of the vehicles. Overhead, the lone TV chopper attempted to circle over the trucks, but a military helicopter swooped in out of the blackness and obstructed their view. Mitch was sure instructions were radioed to the news helicopter, ordering it to move away from the area. Orbiting high above the scene, were more black helicopters, obscured against the night sky.

  “Call me paranoid,” Mouse said, “But what’s with all the military choppers?”

  Two large doors swung open at the rear of the building, near where the military convoy was parked. A dozen men came through the doors, one driving a small four wheeled tow vehicle mounting a short heavy duty crane. Suspended from the crane by steel cables was a blackened metal object, bent and twisted from heat and explosive force. The tow vehicle’s engine groaned under the weight as it lifted the melted machine onto the back of the truck, then soldiers clambered up to secure a green tarpaulin over the wrecked object.

  “Now we know why the general hasn’t left,” Mitch said. “He didn’t come here to inspect the damage, he came here to find out what survived the explosion. This is a cleanup operation.”

  “They don’t look like much now,” Christa said, “But I bet that wreckage is all that's left of the machines inside the speakers, that caused the electric arc.”

  One of the men that accompanied the melted machine yelled a command, then hurried to the rear of the truck for a final inspection. Mitch caught just enough of the man’s face to recognize him. “Bradick!”

  The former navy SEAL finished his inspection, looked up toward the open double doors and gave the thumbs up to someone unseen inside. The man stepped forward, still partly concealed by shadows, but even at that distance, Mitch was sure he was wearing a uniform. Bradick saluted, then the man in the shadows returned the salute.

  Mitch grabbed Christa’s arm, and whispered urgently, “That’s him, in the doorway!”

  The general disappeared back inside the convention center as the double doors shut behind him.

  “Did you get him?”

  “No, he was too far away to register.”

  The soldiers on the trucks now boarded the Humvee as Bradick climbed into the cab of the rear truck and its engine growled to life.

  Mitch raised the radio to his lips. “Gunter, we need the car on the south side, now.”

  “We’re leaving?” Christa asked surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “But we don’t know if the general is conditioned.”

  “Yeah, we do,” Mitch said with certainty. “He isn’t.”

  “How can you be sure?” Mouse asked.

  “Because that bonehead Bradick saluted him. Bradick wouldn’t salute a robot, he’d only salute the real thing.” Without waiting for further discussion, Mitch started toward the southern periphery of the FBI cordon.

  They hurried after him. “Is there something we should know?” Mouse asked suspiciously.

  “We have to test Lamar,” Mitch replied, not taking his eyes off the trucks that were slowly pulling away from the curb behind the Humvee.

  “Christa said he wasn’t conditioned.”

  “Not that kind of test.
I want one of those machines.”

  “What the hell for?” Mouse glanced apprehensively toward the three military vehicles now moving away from the convention center. “In case you happened to be on some other planet for the last five minutes, those guys were soldiers! They’re carrying assault weapons.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you know what kind of damage a bullet from an assault weapon does to human flesh?”

  “We’ll have to be careful.”

  “Even if we get hold of one of those trucks, then what?” Christa asked. “Are you just going to hand it to Lamar?”

  “That’s the plan. If he’s rotten, he’ll give it back to Bradick. If he’s one of the good guys, he’ll hang on to it. He might even get some Bureau egghead to figure out what it was.”

  “That’s a good plan?” Mouse asked incredulously. “You left out the part where those military rednecks cut us to pieces with their machine guns.”

  “Lamar is just a cop, Mitch,” Christa said. “Even if he keeps the machine, he’s going to have no idea what he’s up against.”

  “If he’s the real deal, he'll figure it out.” Mitch ducked under the FBI tape and ran to where Gunter waited with the car. He jumped into the car and pointed down a side street. “That way, and step on it.”

  Christa climbed into the rear while Mouse hesitated.

  Mitch turned to him. “What are you waiting for?”

  “This is nuts,” Mouse said with obvious frustration.

  “You got a better plan? You know anyone in the Pentagon, the CIA, or the Justice Department we can trust?”

  “What makes you think Lamar is worth the risk?”

  “I'm betting he’s too much of a hard ass to be a traitor. And we're desperate.”

  Mouse shook his head resignedly, then climbed in beside Christa.

  Gunter planted his foot on the gas, quickly speeding away from the FBI cordon, swerving onto the road the convoy had disappeared down. Several blocks flashed by, then they spotted the two green trucks threading their way through traffic in convoy behind the Humvee. The military helicopters had vanished, satisfied that no news helicopters were tailing the convoy.