“Yeah, I guess. Finger hurts like hell though.”
Sam shrugged. “Listen, don’t think he doesn’t understand the consequences of that act. He’s had years to think about it. How do you expect him to act? He doesn’t like it any more than you do but what are the alternatives?”
“I really don’t care. You can play your game of life or death chicken all you want but I don’t want to be any part of it. C’mon Sam you’ve been involved in this for a long time. What the hell is really going on?”
“Let’s talk about it more during the flight. C’mon, let’s get your medicine and go.”
West knew despite his blowup with Tank that he had limited options and didn’t really have any choice but he also wondered how much of his decision to help the LT’s was because of Sam.
They were driven to the airstrip and West followed Sam into the small plane. They sat next to each other in the backseat while the pilot and co-pilot went through the preflight checklist. The plane was bigger than the one he flew to the compound on but the space in the back of the plane was tiny and their hips and legs were pressed against each other. West felt a stirring he hadn’t felt for a long time.
He glanced over at Sam. Goddamn, she was beautiful. She caught him looking at her and gave him an awkward smile.
“So what is your story, Sam? How in the hell did you get here?”
“It’s a long complicated story.”
“It looks like we’ve got some time?”
“I was a military brat. My father was a career Sergeant in the Army. He spent the last ten years of his life stationed in North Africa. I followed in his footsteps and joined the Marines right out of high School. I served three tours of duty.”
“You were in the Marines?” West asked in disbelief. “Where else were you stationed?”
“North Africa was my base but I moved around the world on various assignments.”
“What kind of assignments?”
“I was in the sniper division, which means I was really nothing more than an assassin.”
“Wow,” West finally said after digesting the information. “If you had told me that a few days ago I guess I would have been shocked.”
“And now?” she asked turning back toward him.
“I guess it is just par for the course. So how’d you get hooked up with Tank?”
“I discovered the truth.”
“Which is?”
“We live in a make-believe world. Nothing is as it seems.”
“How so?”
“Well, this is a small example. I was sent overseas to fight and kill indiviiduals we were told wanted to destroy us. You know, the Forty Year War on Terror. We were instilled with the doctrine that we were fighting to save America. Let me tell you the truth. There was no such enemy.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was all bullshit. We had these huge military bases in Northern Africa and when I wasn’t assassinating people I helped support a military unit. Our job was to escort convoy vehicles transporting natural resources back to the United States. Basically, we were there to steal resources.”
“I don’t understand. What about the Al-Jihadi?”
“Al-Jihadi,” she laughed. “Just like everything else they were nothing more than a DC-created illusion. A smokescreen. They never really existed. Al-Jihadi was nothing more than a false flag to build the military bases in Africa and to keep Americans back home in line. Do you know we virtually created directly or through our own incompetence every major Middle East terrorist group?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Study your history. The CIA directly funded the Mujahedeen in the 1970’s to fight the Soviets and were also allies with Iran until their revolution. So the Mujahedeen we supplied with arms splintered into the Taliban and one of their leaders named Bin Laden, who we also gave arms and money to, helped create Al Qaeda who were our allies in the 1980’s until 9/11. We also created ISIL to destabilize the region and on it goes. Iran, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, dozens of terrorist’s organizations and leaders have been friends then enemies and sometimes both simultaneously for decades until the whole region finally blew itself up. It is a complete joke and a lie of historic proportions.”
West sat back and didn’t say anything for a few minutes before changing the subject by asking, “Who’d you assassinate?”
“Anybody I was ordered to. Politicians, business leaders, political dissidents, supposed trouble makers. Most of the people I killed I had no idea who they were, let alone why I had been sent to kill them.”
“Jesus. How many people did you kill?”
“I stopped counting after twenty.”
“Why’d you leave the military?”
“I got a week of R & R that coincided with my father’s and I went home. It was the first time I had seen him in person in three years. I knew the moment I saw him that something was wrong. He looked different. He was no longer the fearless dedicated military man I had always known. He looked tired, defeated. We had a big family dinner and afterwards he took me on a walk at a park. I thought he just wanted to catch up but as we walked he explained that he had something he needed to tell me and he thought the house was bugged. He also told me this would be the last time we saw each other because his squadron was planning a military coup.”
“A coup? Wow. What happened?”
“I was still a good soldier at the time. I yelled at him that I couldn’t believe he was going to betray his country. I called him a traitor. I begged him not to go through with it but he wouldn’t change his mind. He wanted me to go AWOL because he was worried about what the military might do to me afterward.”
“Why would your father, a career military man, do such a thing, especially if he was that concerned about you? Why not just retire?”
“I asked him that exact question and he told me he had discovered the truth.”
“Which was?”
“What I was telling you earlier, there were no real enemies. Russo-China and DC had basically split the world into two halves and then they declared war on their own people. The US got the western half and Russo-China got the eastern. The secret agreement was that each country was to stay out of the other’s affairs in their own part of the world. Basically, China and the United States made a strategic decision to split the world up instead of fighting each other. Those in power knew a war against each other meant mutually assured destruction. You know what the economic conditions have been like here for the last twenty years but you haven’t seen what it is like outside of the United States. You think it is bad here? Go to Africa or the Caribbean, the Philippines or South America. You literally would be stepping over people who are dying in the streets from hunger, illness or rioting. In some cities every street is a mini war zone.”
“What happened to your father?”
“He left the next morning and I went back to my base in North Africa. I was in Brussels on an assignment to assassinate the opposition leader for the German Democratic Federation.”
“I thought Germany was an ally?”
“Ally,” Sam laughed. “DC does not have any true allies, only degrees of enemies. I followed my orders and killed anybody and everybody. And it was easy. We’d use insect drones to inject deadly toxins, remote bombs, non-traceable drugs that would mask heart attacks. We implanted internal bombs and occasionally, if we were lucky, we got to do it the old-fashioned way with a sniper rifle. Anyway, after I shot the German politician in his hotel room I went to a designated safe house. This safe house operated in a looser military fashion and a fellow sniper who I had known for years told me I had to get out immediately. When I asked him why, he gave me the news I had been dreading. My father had led a coup against a military council that had come to tour their base. His regiment had taken three Senators, five Congressmen and a host of government officials hostage.”
“Holy shit. Are you talking about Tunis?”
“Yes.”
“But I thought it was terrorist
s who had stormed the complex, murdered the politicians and then blew up the base?”
“That is what DC wanted everyone to believe and the media reported it as such but that was not what happened.”
“So what happened?”
“Our Air force dropped a vaporizer bomb that incinerated the entire base in an instant. They murdered every man, woman, and child. Over four hundred people were killed instantly.”
“Why the hell would they do that?”
“Because there had been uprisings within the military for years and DC was losing control of their military complex. I guess what my father did was the last straw and DC decided to send a very direct message to their own military, which was follow your orders. No negotiations. No mercy. You are either with us or against us and if you’re against us we’re simply going to kill you no matter how many innocent people die.”
“God, I never knew things had gotten that out of control. So what did you do?”
“I went AWOL. I had no choice. They were going to come after me for retribution, revenge, who knows.”
“But you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It didn’t matter. He was my father. I was in the armed forces. You should know that by now. I spent the next two years living in basements, abandoned warehouses, and empty buildings throughout Europe. I was constantly on the move.”
“How were you able to get back to the United States?”
“I couldn’t fly back, that was for sure. Arrangements were made and I hopped on a cargo ship from Amsterdam that was making port in New Orleans.”
“And you’ve been underground ever since?”
“Yes.”
“I just don’t understand how with the technology and the surveillance systems DC hasn’t found you yet.”
“It’s really not that difficult to understand.”
“How’s that?”
“You remember the old FBI Most Wanted list?”
“Yeah.”
“Well that list typically had ten individuals who were deemed the biggest public threats to the country. If they had that list today there would be tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people on it. The Dracun’s technology has developed so rapidly they can’t keep track of their own data. They are suffering from system overload. I was trained to hide as an assassin and I was good at it. My biggest risk is getting caught up in some random check point or police sweep and being brought in for fingerprints, DNA exam or iris analysis. If that happened, they would discover who I really am.”
“Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?”
“Nope.”
“Why.”
“I would never end up in that situation. Either the people trying to apprehend me would be dead or I would be. I’ll never see the inside of a government prison. I can guarantee you that.”
The prop engines roared to life and the plane began taxiing down the runway. Sam turned away and closed her eyes. West took two pain pills and closed his eyes, thinking that things were sure fucked up in this world.
“I disagree with what the majority of the American people want.”
– John McCain
Chapter 21
West didn’t open his eyes until he felt the plane touching down. It took a few moments for him to realize where he was and that the past few days hadn’t been part of some crazy nightmare. He looked over at Sam who was sleeping. He looked outside the window and they appeared to have landed at a small airport in New Jersey.
West stared at Sam with mixed feelings. He felt something for her but he knew beneath her physical beauty laid a cold-blooded killer and his intuition was telling him there was something quite not right about her.
He was conflicted about his feelings. Who was she really? A sociopathic killer? A loyal soldier dealt a bad hand? A freedom fighter trying to help save America from a tyrannical government? Or was she just using him like Tank?
The plane taxied to a stop and Sam opened her eyes. “Hi there,” Sam replied after a deep yawn.
“Hey,” West replied. “I guess we’re back into the frying pan.”
“Guess so,” she answered while stretching.
They climbed out of the plane and a tall man dressed like an old-time gangster walked over. He ignored West and went straight to Sam. They hugged tightly. Certainly she wasn’t romantically involved with him, West thought with a sudden pang of jealously.
Sam stepped back with an enormous smile on her face. “You look well, Tom. How’ve you been?”
“Good. And you?”
“Eh, same ole same ole,” Sam answered. “This is West Collins.”
The man shook his hand dismissively and replied back to Sam, “I think we’re a go so we’d better get going.”
West looked over to Sam who said, “I’ll explain in the car.”
They followed Tom over to a 40-plus year old black limousine. Sam jumped in the front seat and West got into the back, a little peeved about the situation.
“I thought you were going to drop me off back at my apartment?” West replied to Sam.
Tom lit a cigarette. “Relax, Chief. We have some business to take care of first.”
“What going on?” he asked Sam.
She put a finger to her lips then pulled out a disposable phone and dialed. She whispered something then rolled down the window and threw the phone out.
“It’s a go,” she replied calmly.
Tom nodded and punched the gas pedal, throwing West back into his seat.
Sam turned and looked back at him with an apologetic expression on her face. “The fire is about to get a little hotter. We’re going to go meet a DC agent.”
“To do what?”
“He’s bringing us the schematics for the underground facility that houses the Whispering Project.”
“You mean the metadata collection facility?”
“Yeah. They’ve developed the technology to record and store all electronic messages. If we can destroy that and have the DC back down on the micro-chipping directive we might have bought ourselves a few years.”
“Why would a DC agent give you that information?” West asked.
“Everyone has a price,” Tom answered.
“But what would getting the schematics do?”
“He’s just doesn’t get it, does he?” Tom cut in.
“If we get the blueprint and location of the facility,” Sam explained, “we can eventually destroy it or we can hack the computer with viruses and at least slow it down for a while. But if we don’t and DC gets this up running and fully functional they are going to have the capability of recording and storing every form of communication, forever. Even worse, they are close to solving what has been DC’s biggest problem with the massive amounts of data they receive and store.”
“Which is?”
“They have developed a workable quantum computer. And that computer will give them the capability to analyze and decipher astronomical amounts of data and information at the speed of light.”
“I still don’t understand why this is all that catastrophic.”
“Are you brain dead, man?” Tom snarled. “DC has surveillance satellites right now that are recording this conversation but what they can’t do is analyze the data efficiently or quickly. But with a quantum computer they can run a program and as we are being recorded talking about meeting with an agent, in milliseconds it would alert their technicians who can triangulate our location with satellites and have us cornered by Homeland agents, special military ops or they could just have a drone blow us up, all in a matter of minutes.”
“You know what the LT’s are planning,” Sam added. “You said it yourself, what if DC doesn’t give in to their demands? Tank is trying to do everything possible so the LT’s don’t carry out their plans if DC decides not to cooperate. If the Whispering Project is neutralized even for a little while it buys us all some time. So now you have your chance to help.”
West leaned back into the car seat. A bad feeling started to sink in as he realized
everyone was hell bent on a mutually assured destruction.
He stared out the window, once again relegated to the fact he had no control over his fate. The car sped through an industrial wasteland. Nothing seemed alive. The few sickly trees he saw had no leaves, the sparse grass was brown and dead, and row after row of burned out vacant buildings and abandoned factories filled the landscape. West had yet to even see a living creature. No dogs, no birds, no rats, nothing.
After five more minutes of driving through the hellish landscape Tom pulled the car off the road and drove into an empty parking lot of an abandoned factory. He turned off the car and they sat there for a few minutes.
“What are we waiting for?” West finally asked.
“Quiet,” Tom hushed him.
A couple more minutes went by and a phone rang. Tom opened his jacket and handed Sam the phone.
“We’re here,” she replied. “They will be here in a few minutes. We’re supposed to meet them inside.”
Tom turned around and handed West the car key.
“Take this.”
“What for?”
“If something goes wrong.”
“You want me to stay in the car?” West asked.
Sam turned to face him. “We’re going to meet them in that building. I want you to lay low. When their car pulls up just stay out of sight and we’ll be back in 20 minutes. We need you to be a watch out back here. If someone else pulls up, honk the horn twice.”
“What if more than 20 minutes go by? Do you want me to come looking for you?”
She shook her head. “If we’re not back in 20 minutes we’re probably dead so just get the hell out of here.”
“Sounds like a well thought out plan,” West mumbled under his breath.
Sam smiled. “Sometimes we don’t have time to plan.”
He began to protest but knew he would lose any battle with them so he remained silent and watched as they got out of the car. He sunk down into the seat so no one could see him.
Sam and Tom walked into the factory through a section of missing wall. Five minutes later West heard a car approach from behind. He lifted his head and peeked out the back window.
The Unraveling Page 18