Anvil

by Dirk Patton

  She almost dropped the phone when it beeped again. This time it was a photo with no message, but she understood his intent. It was a pic he had snapped of the two of them engaged in sex. Jessica was on top as he lay on his back and captured the expression of ecstasy on her face while they coupled.

  Anger surged through her belly, spreading into her limbs until they quivered. The son-of-a-bitch! The motherfucker had used her, and was still trying. Thought all he had to do was throw a few good fucks into her and she’d come running whenever he called. Tell him secrets.

  With a profound sense of despair, Jessica acknowledged that was exactly what had happened. She had avoided romantic entanglements for a long time, focusing on her budding career with the Navy. She’d had plans to put in her twenty years, building a skill set and reputation that would land her a high paying job in the private sector when she retired in her late 30s.

  But Mark and his Russian masters had smashed that dream. There were no civilian jobs any longer. No civilian world she cared to be a part of. For that matter, if they survived, there wasn’t even retirement to look forward to. Just more of the struggle to live that was now the new normal.

  Anger returned, and with it came cold calculation. She knew that she was on borrowed time. The only reason she had any freedom was there was no one else with the skills to complete the job she was doing. What would happen when she finished? Interrogation? Jail, or worse? Did they really think she was a traitor? And in this new world, did anyone have the time or resources to keep someone branded a traitor alive?

  Jessica was angry, but she was also a patriot. The Navy was a means to an end, but she had enlisted because she genuinely felt a calling to serve her country. Maybe she wasn’t one of the warriors out there shooting a rifle or flying a combat mission, but her job was just as vital to the security of the United States, perhaps even more so.

  She might be going down for having let her carnal desires cloud her judgment, but she wasn’t going down alone. If the Navy wasn’t going to do anything about Mark, she was. Securing her station, she stood and walked to Lieutenant Hunt’s console.

  “Yes, Petty Officer?”

  He didn’t bother to look up. Jessica did her best to ignore the cold demeanor of the normally warm and open man.

  “Sir, the system is going to regenerate keys in seventy minutes. There’s no point in me starting until then, so I’d like to take a break. Get some chow and a shower.”

  Hunt looked up, staring at her for several uncomfortable moments. Finally, he looked across the room and motioned the Marine guard over to where he sat.

  “Sir?”

  “Corporal, escort the Petty Officer to her personal quarters so she can shower, then the mess hall. After that, straight back here,” Hunt ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” the Marine snapped.

  He remained at attention for a moment, then stepped back and gestured for Jessica to lead the way. With a sigh, she grabbed her purse and phone as she walked by her station, the Marine close on her heels. As they rode up in the elevator, she texted a reply to Mark, telling him to meet her in the mess hall in half an hour.

  Walking into the fresh air outside the building, Jessica almost faltered in her steps when she realized they hadn’t taken her phone. That didn’t make sense. One of the first things they should have done was to cut off her communications with anyone. But she still had it and had even used it in full view of her guard, who had not so much as blinked to see it in her hands.

  Was it an oversight? No, the Navy was many things but they weren’t incompetent. Were they hoping she’d use it to contact someone and give herself away? What was the term? Stalking horse. Was that it?

  Not seeing how she could use it to her advantage, Jessica walked quickly across the base towards the large building where she shared a room with another female Petty Officer. She smoked a cigarette as she walked, thinking about what she was going to do.

  Jessica showered quickly, her long hair tucked under a shower cap. Body clean, she dressed in a fresh uniform and checked her look in the mirror. Satisfied that she was squared away, she grabbed her purse and opened the door to find the Marine Corporal waiting patiently.

  “How do you do that?” She asked as they began the walk to the mess hall.

  “Do what?”

  “Just stand there, not moving. Not talking. Waiting patiently. I couldn’t do that.”

  “I’m a Marine,” he said, feeling that was all the explanation necessary.

  Jessica shook her head, not understanding and not in the mood to try. It was a long walk to the mess hall, and she moved slowly. Stopping, she lit a cigarette, suppressing a smile when the Marine moved upwind away from the smoke.

  “Can I ask a favor?”

  She had started walking again. The Corporal just looked at her, not speaking.

  “When we get to the mess hall, would you please wait outside for me? I don’t want my boyfriend to find out what’s going on. Not yet, anyway.”

  Jessica looked up at the much taller man as she made her plea.

  “I can’t do that,” he said. “My orders are to keep you in sight at all times.”

  “Did you watch me shower?”

  Jessica put a little something in her voice when she asked the question. The Marine blushed slightly, but didn’t waiver.

  “No, but I was right outside the door and there wasn’t anywhere for you to go,” he said. “The mess hall has more than one door.”

  “You think I’m going to run? Afraid I’ll outrun you?” She teased.

  “You won’t outrun me,” he said, unamused.

  Jessica sighed, recognizing that making the man uncomfortable had been the wrong approach. She slowed slightly, puffing on her cigarette.

  “OK, how about this. We go in together, but not like we’re together. Like two people that don’t know each other and just happened to arrive at the same location at the same time. You keep an eye on me from somewhere else in the room, but like you don’t know me. Can you do that? Please?”

  Jessica came to a stop and looked up into his eyes as she said the last. He looked back at her for several moments, finally sighing and looking away.

  “I guess that doesn’t violate my orders,” he said. “But if you try to get away, I’ll drag you back in cuffs. Understand me?”

  “Thank you,” Jessica smiled, resisting the urge to rise up on her toes and kiss his cheek. “I’ll behave. I just don’t want my boyfriend to know until I’m ready to tell him.”

  The Marine nodded and Jessica picked up the pace for the rest of the walk to the mess hall. They entered together, the guard holding the door for her and peeling off to a mostly empty section of the large, open space. Jessica looked around, spotting Mark seated by himself at a large table on the far side of the room.

  He was sitting with his back to the wall and had already seen her. She walked over to him, smiling despite the revulsion and anger that were threatening to overwhelm her. Taking the seat next to him she allowed him to briefly take her hand underneath the table.

  “Why here,” he complained. “I can’t even kiss you here.”

  “There’s other things we can do here,” Jessica said coyly.

  Turning in her seat to face him, she placed her hand on his leg and slid it up into his crotch. Mark jumped slightly, not expecting the intimate touch in a public location.

  “What are you doing?” He gasped as she squeezed his quickly stiffening penis.

  “Having fun,” Jessica said.

  She squeezed him again, hard, then found his zipper and pulled it down. Reaching in the opening, she worked her hand through his underwear and grasped his now fully erect cock. Roughly, she pulled it through his fly, continuing to stroke it.

  “Jess…” he said, trying to maintain his composure.

  “Shhhh. Hold still,” she whispered, leaning down as if she were going to take him in her mouth.

  Jessica’s right hand slipped inside her purse as she continued to stroke Mark’s co
ck. She had positioned her head so that when she withdrew a small dagger she had retrieved from her quarters he was unable to see the danger. Her first strike was lightning quick, to the inside of his thigh. She severed his femoral artery, but the knife was so sharp the pain didn’t register in his brain.

  Then, grasping the end of his penis, she slashed with the razor sharp blade. There was little resistance as the appendage came free from his body. Hot blood spurted across her face, dripping from her hand and chin as she held the severed penis up for him to see.

  “Dos Vedanya, bitch,” she hissed in his face.

  30

  “Is it time?” I asked when Colonel Blanchard appeared out of the darkness.

  I was sitting on a scrounged poncho in the snow, leaned against a large rock. Rachel was snuggled against me, my arm around her shoulders. Irina sat a few feet away, but none of us had been talking. We were just sitting, staring into the flames of a small campfire. We’d been that way for several hours.

  I was exhausted and hungry, but was too tired to sleep and had too much on my mind to worry about food. Rachel and Irina had tried to share an MRE, but neither had much of an appetite. Rachel and I had argued, at length, but she hadn’t changed my mind.

  “No,” he said, and I thought I detected something in his voice. “Come with me.”

  I gently pried myself free of Rachel and got to my feet. Blanchard led the way to one of the tents. When I followed him inside, I recognized the wiring embedded in the fabric. This was a portable SCIF, or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. The wiring was part of a system that blocked electronic eavesdropping. On the modern battlefield this was about the only way commanders could have a conversation that was guaranteed to be private.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I just got off the phone with Admiral Packard,” he began, dropping into a folding chair and waving me to take a seat. “It sounds like they have a regular Lifetime Movie going on at Pearl. Petty Officer Simmons is under suspicion of espionage, and now she’s being charged with murder. But she’s still working.”

  “What?” Was all I could manage to say.

  “Long story short. She came forward and confessed to telling her boyfriend, a Chief Petty Officer, about the help she was giving you. Apparently she told him enough for him to pass it on to the Russians. That’s how they kept showing up whenever you changed locations. She claims it was innocent, but Naval Intelligence isn’t sold.”

  “For what it’s worth, I believe her,” I said, deciding it was time to come clean. “Actually, I’m the one that gave her a heads up there was a problem.”

  Blanchard stared at me for a long pause before shaking his head.

  “Colonel Crawford was right. You are a pain in the ass,” he said.

  “By the way, where is the Colonel?”

  “You don’t know,” Blanchard said, sadness passing across his face.

  “What happened?”

  “He made it to Seattle after the Russians captured the ladies. Linked up with the SEALs securing the research facility, but decided to stick his thumb in the Russians’ eye. The SEALs helped him make a pair of limpet mines and he went to the waterfront and sank their flagship and a destroyer. He didn’t come out of the water.”

  I sat there speechless, knowing the look on my face mirrored the one of loss on Blanchard’s. Colonel Crawford had been one of those leaders, and there are damn few of them, that you would follow to hell and back. He was just one of that rare breed that inspired that level of loyalty in the men under his command.

  “What about Igor and Dog,” I asked when I was able to speak.

  “Igor called it a war. Stayed back and took up residence in a house in the mountains overlooking Seattle. Dog is with him. They’re safe, for the moment.”

  “For the moment?”

  “The Russian flag ship the Colonel sank was Peter the Great. Nuclear powered. The reactor core was breached and is sitting right next to downtown Seattle. That, and the Navy engaged the Russians off the Pacific coast. It went nuclear. Fallout is spreading towards the region. We don’t know how bad, but the SEALs are getting some gear to keep tabs on it.”

  “We need to go get them,” I said, already trying to work out how I was going to get to Seattle and pull Igor and Dog out to safety.

  “For the moment, they’re OK,” Blanchard said. “If the SEALs have to move I’ll make sure Igor gets evac’d. There’s more. There’s a chance to turn this around.”

  I shook my head, not understanding what he was talking about.

  “The Petty Officer. The murder she’s being charged with is the boyfriend. She cut his dick off.”

  “She did what?” I asked, stunned.

  “Cut it off. Sat in the mess hall giving him a hand job under the table. Got him nice and hard, then leaned over and sliced it off. Also got his femoral artery. He bled out before they got him into surgery.”

  “Holy shit,” I breathed. “But wait a minute. You said she’s still working.”

  “She is. Admiral Packard is beside himself, but apparently she’s the only person who can get through the security into some mystery system. Before the attacks there were supposedly about a dozen people in the world that could have pulled off the hack. Now, as far as we know, she’s all that’s left. The Admiral doesn’t have a choice. And, she got in half an hour ago.”

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t know. The Admiral won’t tell me, and frankly I don’t want to know. Not sitting here with the Russians just a few miles away. What he did tell me is that if we can get it operating we can counter Barinov’s threat. That means you don’t go to the Russians and Hawaii doesn’t get nuked.”

  Blanchard sounded hopeful, but I’m a little older and little more jaded.

  “What do you mean “if we can get it working”? I thought Jessica had gotten in.”

  “She did. But the system was still under control of the contractor that built it. Hadn’t been signed off yet. So, while she’s in, she can’t control it. Not without the software. To do that, we have to get into the contractor’s servers and transfer the operating system. And it’s offline,” Blanchard said.

  Besides being a little more jaded when you get older, you also learn to recognize when someone is leading up to something they want you to do.

  “Where’s the contractor?” I asked.

  “Salt Lake City,” Blanchard said.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I blurted. “That’s where the goddamn Russians sent all the infected they pulled out of the west coast cities.”

  “I’m not kidding,” Blanchard said, shaking his head. “And you’re right. There’s over five million infected, all within a ten-mile radius of the center of the city. We don’t know if this is just a coincidence, or if the Russians know what’s there and are trying to make sure we can’t get to it.”

  “A small nuke would take care of that,” I said.

  “For some reason we don’t understand, Barinov wants North America. Wants it as unspoiled as possible. Maybe it really is just a coincidence.”

  I shook my head. No way was this a coincidence. Whatever this was, this weapon or weapons system, I was willing to bet the Russians knew all about it. The mystery a few days ago had been why were they drawing huge herds of infected into Salt Lake City. Now the mystery was solved. Or maybe I was giving them too much credit. If they knew enough to send the infected, why do that and not just go in and capture or destroy it? They certainly had the troops available and in close proximity.

  “OK, doesn’t matter if they knew about it or not. What’s it going to take to activate it? And how do we keep them from figuring out what I’m doing and dropping a bomb on my head?”

  “What you’re doing?”

  “You’re not telling me all this just to keep me entertained,” I said sarcastically.

  Blanchard leaned back and grinned. He looked at me for a moment before standing and moving to the tent door. Pulling the flap open he stuck his head o
ut and said something. Stepping back in, an Air Force Captain followed with an open laptop. Pulling a portable table in front of me he placed the computer on it and began briefing me on the facility in Utah.

  31

  Thirteen hours. That’s how much time I had left to pull this off. I was in a Black Hawk helicopter, sitting on the deck with the back of my head resting against a vibrating bulkhead. We were screaming along a few thousand feet in the air, having just left Mountain Home Air Force Base after a quick refueling. We were heading for Salt Lake City, about 250 air miles to the southeast.

  Several helicopters had made the flight to the base, one of them peeling off and heading in to town to try and convince Titus to leave his bunker and be available for the virologists. I would have liked to go with them to talk to him. Convince him to help. I also wanted to know how he’d taken out the sniper that had me pinned down in the park, letting me escape from the Russians.

  But the clock was ticking and I had a job to do. If I didn’t get it completed in time, well… to put it in no uncertain terms, I was fucked. Just under thirteen hours from now I’d be in Russian hands. To make matters worse, if Barinov wasn’t already holding a grudge, I’d royally pissed them off over the past few days.

  Rachel and Irina had been with me for the short hop to the air base. They were catching a ride on a C-130 that was transporting wounded back to the Bahamas. Once there, they would lay over for a couple of days, waiting to see what happened. If I did my job, and whatever the Thor System was actually worked and prevented the Russians from bombing us, they’d fly to Hawaii and eventually on to Australia.

  We had all climbed out of the helicopter while it was being fueled. Irina had embraced me tightly, kissed each cheek as she liked to do, and walked away without saying a word. I appreciated her good bye. I’m not one for drawn out, emotional parting scenes. But I didn’t get off easy with Rachel.