by Matt Rogers
They were close.
When the pastures ended the trees swallowed them up once more. This section seemed to be a little more remote than the others. The trunks were clustered closer together. The moss winding around the trunks grew thicker. The weeds covering the forest floor stood higher. It felt like no-one had set foot in these parts for years.
‘Long to go?’ he asked Kate, slightly unnerved by the change of setting.
’Not far now,’ she said. ‘I told you it was in the middle of nowhere.’
Finally the track led into another clearing, indistinguishable from all the others King had seen during his time in Australian woodland. This one had been set on a slope which descended ever so slightly in the opposite direction. The majority of the space was taken up by the concrete plant, broken up into two sections. The main facility was an enormous warehouse, constructed of steel. Behind it lay the concrete plant itself. Six massive cement bins towered over the warehouse, clustered close together. They were all connected to a belt conveyor that descended into the main building, bringing all the structures together into an amalgamation of industrial prowess.
Already, the effects of neglect were beginning to set into the plant. It seemed the freezing weather had started taking a toll on the outer surfaces of the plant. Machinery left out in the open had been worn down by the elements, the dormant cement bins had rusted and the whole place had a feel of dilapidation about it.
They got out of the car and crossed the open stretch of ground. No sounds of activity came from the plant. It appeared deserted. King took the lead as they approached a small door at the front of the warehouse. He made sure to be cautious. Aware of all his surroundings. Ready for an ambush. No-one would sneak up on him this time.
He reached out and twisted the handle.
Unlocked.
The door swung open to reveal a massive interior space with a dirty concrete floor, packed with all sorts of machinery. This equipment, however, had a different feel to the rest of the plant. They were out of place, seemingly brand new. As if they had been produced recently, specifically for a certain project. Not the regular gear that usually fills a concrete plant. These machines had a different purpose.
King cocked his head as he looked around. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The shiny new contraptions lay in the open, unmanned, untouched. The place gave off a similar feeling to Rafael Constructions’ head office. Like the entire area had been deserted in a hurry.
He stepped inside and crossed to the nearest machine. His footsteps echoed off the walls, the only noise inside the cavernous space. The contraption was a large metal box, bolted shut, with two exhaust pipes trailing out of the top. A small glass window had been installed on one side. He squatted and peered in, squinting in the dim gloom of the unlit warehouse.
The box was filled with a white powdery substance, still coarse. King took one look at it and recognised it instantly. His throat dried and his stomach fell and his hands grew cold and clammy even before he stood up and read the label plastered to the side of the container.
Bacillus anthracis.
‘Kate,’ he whispered, his voice hoarse.
She sensed the panic immediately, and quickly came to his side. ‘What is it?’
He rested a shaking hand on top of the box and took a deep gulp of air. ‘This is the anthrax. From Kuwait.’
‘That’s impossible.’
What the fuck is it doing here? he asked himself. Why Jameson?
‘I know what they’re doing now,’ he said, now speaking quietly. Demoralised. In over his head. ‘I know what this whole thing is about. If these spores get weaponised into an aerosol, it’s enough anthrax to wipe out an entire city.’
‘They’re weaponising it?’ she said. ‘Here?’
‘That’s what all these machines are for,’ King said. ‘I read hundreds of files before heading into Kuwait.’
‘I didn’t think anthrax could do that.’
‘Enough of it can. It took 9/11 for people began to realise the power of a biological attack.’
‘9/11?’ she said.
‘A week after the planes, letters containing concentrated anthrax spores were mailed to news offices and government officials. They killed five people, and the shitstorm that followed was unprecedented. It opened up a whole new side of terrorism.’
‘That’s what this is? Terrorism?’
‘I’m certain. But why here? Why me?’
‘Maybe it’s a huge coincidence.’
He turned to her, and registered the shock on her face as she saw how pale he had turned. ‘It’s not. My last mission in Black Force fails, and somehow the result of that failure ends up in the exact place I decide to travel, halfway across the globe?’
‘You still think it has something to do with you?’
‘Of course it does.’
‘Who’s doing this?’
‘I don’t know. Not the terrorists from Kuwait. Someone else…’
Noises, outside. The sound of heavy footsteps.
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
‘What?
‘This is far worse than I thought, Kate. It’s a national security crisis. I need to make some calls. We have to go, right now.’
They hurried for the door they’d come through. King hoped it wasn’t too late. He drew the M&P and stepped outside, barrel up, ready for confrontation.
He need not have bothered.
The warehouse was surrounded on all sides. More than ten men had emerged from the forest, forming a rough semi-circle around their position. They all possessed similar qualities. Tall, well-built. Hard expressionless features. Seasoned combatants. Each man held an M4 carbine, identical to the weapons brandished by the bikers back at the metal work factory. But these men knew how to use them. If King took a single step further he and Kate would die in a storm of gunfire. He knew that much.
Without command from any of them, he threw his pistol onto the wet grass. Kate let out a noise, a resigned sigh, accepting that they had been defeated. King felt a cold tingle creep up his spine. Perhaps this was it. He would die without answers, never knowing how everything fell into place.
Then a voice, from behind.
The same voice he’d heard in his ear just a few hours earlier.
‘Smart move, buddy.’
He turned and saw a man standing just inside the warehouse. He had short, close-cropped hair and small beady eyes that hung over a tight-lipped mouth. His features were soft from lack of exposure to the elements. He’d obviously spent much of his life indoors, probably behind a desk.
King knew which desk.
He knew which building the desk sat in.
He knew the man standing across from him like he was part of his family.
Since its inception, Black Force had been run by a single man. This man held more power than the Joint Chiefs of Staff, yet officially he did not exist. Lars Crawford held no government title, but for over ten years he had organised and commandeered some of the most dangerous missions in United States military history. For ten years, he’d told King what to do, and where to go, and who to kill, and who to save.
Now he stood across from him. In the middle of a forest. In the last place King had ever expected to find him. When he’d walked out of the same man’s office two months ago, he thought he would never see Lars again.
How wrong he was.
CHAPTER 31
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ King said.
He couldn’t think of anything else to say. His senses were reeling, half from the injuries he’d sustained and half from the massive revelation that a man he’d trusted with his life for almost a decade had engineered this entire situation.
‘Officially, I’m on leave,’ Lars said, sneering. ‘Visiting family.’
‘Your aunt…’
‘What?’
‘I met some of your family. In Jameson. I told your aunt that I’d never heard of you. I couldn’t say a word.’
Lars scowled. ‘Bu
nch of abusive fucks, the lot of them. I’m never laying eyes on them again. Convenient excuse, though. The higher-ups lapped it up.’
‘So what are you really doing here?’
He motioned to the warehouse in a broad, sweeping gesture. ‘Preparing for a show. Have been for months. Your presence is a bonus. Thought I’d show you the price of walking away.’
The ten soldiers behind King didn’t make a sound, but he knew they were still there. Kate stood by his side, dead silent, not moving a muscle. He knew she was scared out of her mind. He was too.
‘That’s the anthrax from Kuwait,’ he said. ‘What those corrupt bastards escaped with.’
‘Bingo,’ Lars said. ‘Want to know why I have it?’
King said nothing.
‘You see, sitting around in the bowels of the Pentagon just wasn’t cutting it for me anymore. You and Slater and a handful of other operatives made a fortune. The four-stars revered you. And me? Well, I was given a slightly larger office. No-one gave a fuck about me. No-one cares about the brains behind the operation. I’d had enough.’
King still did not respond. He looked at the man across from him with utter contempt. Shocked as to how a seemingly good person had stooped so low.
‘You know, King,’ Lars said. ‘I never knew how you did it.’
‘Did what?’
‘Managed to stay sane while you were treated like dog shit.’
‘I was treated fine.’
‘None of us were. We were thrown around like slaves. It’s about time I did something for myself. Wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Not really.’
‘The only people who are remembered are those who do great things, and those who do terrible things. We did great things, King. The pair of us. And no-one gave a shit. No-one cared. What we achieved … it should go down in history.’
‘You’re a sick fuck.’
‘You see, the benefit of doing terrible things is that you can get rich in the process.’
‘You got in touch with the lab employees after they escaped with the anthrax? You thought that was a rational thing to do?’
Lars laughed, a cruel harsh noise. ‘Who gives a shit what’s rational? I knew enough anthrax spores to decimate a city had just left the premises. I knew they wanted to weaponise them. I knew they didn’t have the resources to do it. But I did. I’d spent enough time in the Pentagon to have private knowledge of the worldwide power structure. So I knew exactly who was willing to pay billions of dollars to carry out a bioterrorism attack on a major city. All the pieces fell together. It was too good to pass up.’
‘You knew where the anthrax was?’ King said, fists clenched, knuckles white. ‘Even after it left the facility?You could have tracked them down and ended it just like that.’
‘What’s the point of stopping them?’ Lars said, now smiling. ‘To do what? Go back to a shitty job. Retire with a shitty paycheque. Waste away a shitty retirement. I don’t think so. I thought, you know what, let’s shake up the world a little. And as it turns out, a few of my underlings like money a whole lot. Including Cole Watkins. I take it you two had a meeting, because I haven’t seen him since yesterday.’
‘I’ve met a few of your friends.’
‘I can tell. You’ve looked better.’
‘Who’s funding this?’
Lars laughed again. ‘A couple of royals in Dubai. What do you care? There’s always a certain few extremists with more oil money than they know what to do with. And I’ll happily take the payday. Sure beats what Uncle Sam was paying.’
‘Why me? Why here?’
‘You were our best operative. By far. And what did you do with it, King? You broke. You caved in. You walked away when the going got tough. You left me to run a division of men who were ten levels under you.’
‘I couldn’t do it anymore.’
‘Neither could I. We chose to move on in different ways.’
‘That doesn’t explain how this facility ended up here. In the same town I happened to be passing through.’
Lars cocked his head. ‘You still haven’t realised?’
‘Realised what?’
‘Remember when you came into my office and told me you wanted out?’
King nodded. ‘Like it was yesterday.’
‘Obviously not well enough. What happened after all the shouting died down?’
‘You asked what I’d do. I said I’d travel.’
‘And who suggested you see the backwoods of Australia? Who made up a lie saying that they’d taken a holiday down in Victoria a few years ago, and that they’d loved it?’
King’s stomach fell.
How had he been so stupid? He remembered the conversation vividly. Lars must have known he was in a bad place, battling inner demons. King had been easily influenced by the subtle recommendation. He hadn’t even given it a second thought. Lars had manoeuvred him like a chess-piece so that he ended up in the exact location he wanted him.
‘You were plotting this attack before I told you I would retire?’ King said.
‘Of course I was,’ Lars said. ‘This facility was under construction well before you walked into my office. While you went off and disappeared for a month after Kuwait, I was left to clean up your failure. This has nothing to do with you. But then you showed up one day, high and mighty as always, telling me you’d had enough. So I thought I’d teach you a lesson. Show you who’s the real superior. There’s no rules out here. There’s no bureaucrats sniffing around, no official structure, no paperwork. You can have all the success you want over your career, but it doesn’t mean shit when I manage to pull off the largest bioterrorism attack in the history of man right under your nose. What good are you?’
King did not know how to respond. It was true, Lars had outsmarted him. But he was taken aback by the horrid bitterness that had been crumbling the man’s insides for so long, that he’d failed to detect until now. Lars had done well to hide it over the years. King had known him as quiet and reserved, but he’d never anticipated that timidness festering into resentment. It was undeniable that Lars was a genius, responsible for planning some of the most tactically sound and effective operations in military history. King never guessed that those skills would be used to create something so devastating.
‘How did you set this up out here?’ King said.
‘It’s simple enough,’ Lars said. ‘You have no idea the influence I hold. The contacts I have access to. Anything I want. It’s as easy as picking up a phone and dialling.’
‘But surely this type of equipment would warrant an investigation.’
Lars smiled knowingly. ‘Have you heard of Project Bacchus?’
Silence.
‘I’ll take that as a no. I was involved in it, right when I was first starting out. 1999, I believe. I was just a lowly worker at the DTRA. We tested whether a bioterrorism facility could be constructed with regular everyday materials, and kept secret. Our team was able to produce almost a kilogram of bacteria — much like anthrax — without detection. So when I got wind of the Kuwait payload, I knew I could get away with it.’
‘Who are these people?’ King said, motioning to the men surrounding them, weapons raised. ‘More Delta Force? Black Force boys?’
Lars shook his head. ‘You underestimate those two factions. Cole was the only one from Delta who I knew would take the bribe, so he was the only one I offered it to. The rest are all hired guns.’
‘Amateurs.’
‘Amateurs compared to you. But they’re trained mercenaries. And look where you are now. All that speed won’t help you here, will it?’
King reluctantly admitted to himself that it wouldn’t. There was no way out of this situation. No magical solution to ten fully-automatic assault rifles aimed in his direction. He hoped Kate didn’t think that he was superhuman. There were some situations that were impossible to resolve, no matter how much talent one possessed.
‘I’d kill you now, but I really want you to watch me leave this place with everyt
hing I’ve made. So you know you failed completely. All those injuries, all that fighting, all that hard work, for nothing.’
‘You’re done here?’
‘The spores are ready. Took us a while. A few people chanced upon the site. Couple of construction workers, and a police officer. Think his name was Brandt. I killed that guy myself. Got some hired guns to kill the other two.’
‘I know. You won’t be seeing those hired guns again.’
Lars shrugged. ‘Figured it was you. Who cares? I win. You lose. I don’t give a shit about anything else, and neither should you. Because it all doesn’t matter, does it? Here we are.’
He signalled to his troops. Before King had time to react, a pair of men grabbed an arm each and escorted him inside the warehouse. Another pair shoved Kate in after him. They were manhandled toward a machine with steel poles on either side. One of the men pushed King’s back up against the pole and looped a thick rope around his midsection. He ran the rope across his arms, effectively pinning him against the pole, then tied it off behind him. King couldn’t budge. The same was done to Kate and then the men retreated. Lars slammed a button on the side of the warehouse door and a large set of roller doors began to groan toward the ceiling.
CHAPTER 32
King was helpless to do anything but watch as a pair of military-style trucks rolled into the clearing. He recognised them as Hawkei PMVs. Australian Defence Force vehicles. Big, brutish, fast. Designed for the battlefield. Probably purchased by Lars unofficially, through back-door systems, for a hefty fee. Clearly, they had been waiting for the call to enter. This entire event had been a set-up from the beginning. With grim realisation he figured Lars had kept him alive towards the end just to demonstrate that his plan would succeed.
It didn’t take long to load the steel crates of anthrax spores into the back of the Hawkeis. With both drivers, Lars’ forces numbered fourteen in total. They were a mixed bunch. Some black, some white, all stern and silent. They were paid to follow commands, and that was what they did without question. Lars ordered them around until every last piece of anthrax was inside the vehicles. Then he crossed to King and patted his face demeaningly.