by JK Franks
“Dee, what the fuck is that I hear?”
The nearly invisible CommDot high on his cheekbone had lots of unique capabilities, including a super-sensitive microphone and a built in AI assistant he called Dee.
The crisp, slightly British voice calmly said, “I believe it is a human infant, Nomad.”
“A baby? Someone brought a baby to a fucking stakeout?”
“I am unsure if that is a rhetorical question or not. Do you require a response?”
“Forget it,” he growled, zooming in on the approaching convoy. Maybe staying home trying to sleep in a bed wasn’t the worst thing. Many large SUVs were heading straight toward the little town. “McTee, please tell me that isn’t you crying like a baby?”
The response was a little slow in coming. “Umm, sorry, Boss. The informant said she had to bring him…it. Umm, not sure which or what.”
The informant was a seventeen-year-old Hispanic mother who looked too young for any of this. She had agreed to provide the intel on this op. They were targeting an offshoot of the ruthless Sinaloa gang. For the information, she and her family were getting protection and a new life here in the U.S.
Venturing this far inside Texas was well beyond the gang’s normal hunting grounds, but these were strange times. Since The Troubles, the southern border was more porous than ever. To be honest, this mission was not the usual for a Talon strike team. Drug runners and gangs fell under DEA or Customs & Border, but the intel suggested a potential national threat, an organized terrorist attack, something clearly in The Cove Project’s current operational mandate.
Cade had assumed the baby daddy was one of the gang-bangers and hadn’t stepped up to the plate the way the new mother had hoped. But shit…bringing the baby with her? Whose job was it to make sure that didn’t happen?
“That would be your job, dumbass,” one of his internal voices said out loud. Cochise gave a gentle whuff, apparently agreeing.
“No time for this, Gus,” Cade said in response to his near constant inner-monologue. Okay, Gus acknowledged internally. But…the girl could be playing us, that’s all.
Gus was one of three distinct personalities, all inside his crowded skull. Gus was the one gifted with common-sense, though. Cade agreed, something was definitely off; had the girl signaled the cartel somehow? No reason they should approach from the north. Would she give them away in the next few minutes?
She’s a kid, a new mother, and she’s been wronged by her boyfriend, Gus replied. So, yeah, pretty volatile I’d say.
“McTee, get the mamasita and her baby out of here. She’s now a liability more than an asset,” Cade ordered. They wanted the girl to identify the leader so they could question him. That had been part of the deal, but now all that seemed unlikely. The baby cried again, even louder than before. “McTee, do you copy?”
Cade knew the man heard him. Their comms equipment always worked; they could talk from anywhere on the globe. But his second in command didn’t respond. “Hammer, you got eyes on?”
The man’s deep voice echoed what Cade feared, “McTee is no longer in position. He appears to be…ummm, well, in pursuit of the asset.”
“Nomad, I have surveillance if you want.”
No, Greg, I do not want to watch my super special operator, former SEAL buddy, chasing down a young Mexican mother. Those were the words he wanted to say, took everything he had not to say, but he held it inside. McTee would have to handle this himself. “Negative, Greg, stay on target.”
Once again, Cade questioned the director’s logic in putting the teams out here for a mission like this. Shit, even the ATF was better at law enforcement than his team. Talon were soldiers, now just one more group of private military contractors to the U.S. government, but they were not cops. Even the real cops here in this town had been of little help. They were outgunned in every way and had been barely competent in vacating the downtown under the guise of a potential gas leak. Now they, too, were nowhere to be seen.
He clicked his goggles, enabling the new digital zoom feature. Still not as good as his old-fashioned binoculars, but like most of his team’s gear, pretty damn impressive. A red square appeared over a small running figure. Obviously, the girl was carrying the baby in a carrier and heading past a parking lot toward the main road. “Fuck,” he growled.
The approaching convoy was less than a mile away. “Cochise, target, stop, non-lethal.” The dog at his side took off at once, understanding the complicated commands thanks to some ingenious upgrades he’d received at The Cove. The large German shepherd was down the metal stairs and in pursuit of the girl in seconds, the animal’s black and brown fur a blur of movement against the neighboring storefronts.
“Sorry, Nomad,” McTee’s strained voice registered in his ear. “She got the drop on me, hit me with something heavy and got away before I knew what had happened. I do have a shot.”
“Negative,” Cade said bitterly. No way they were shooting a young mother, even if she had set them up.
The digital assistant, Dee, offered, “Nomad, your man could use non-lethal rounds to subdue the subject.”
That had occurred to him. Back at The Cove, one of the other super-smart kids, Riley, and her R&D team had also made significant improvements to the weaponry and ammunition. One problem all the squads had with the originals was, they felt unfamiliar. A soldier’s relationship with his weapon has to be instinctual, even though ReLoad, the near-instant learning process they had, could provide you the knowledge needed for almost anything, including guns. That did not match the level of experience that a soldier earned through months of carrying, caring for, and shooting thousands of rounds through his weapon. Most of the guns they carried now looked very much like those of the military, M-16s and H&K subcompacts. They weren’t, but they felt like it. The ammo, though, was anything but ordinary. Each magazine contained traditional rounds, smart bullets, and non-lethal, all of which could be chambered by a mere thought or done remotely by the shared live-fire AI command systems.
“She’s carrying a baby,” Cade said. “We stun her, she could injure the child.” He knew Dee wouldn’t get the fact that an uninjured infant was one of the mission objectives but, well fuck, that’s why they were human and not a team of robots.
“And being attacked by your K9 unit is less damaging to the child?”
“Well…” Shit. The goddamn computer has a fucking point, Gus quipped. Cade furiously used hand signals to Cochise. These would be translated to sensors placed in the dog’s tactical vest. He watched as the dog bit at the girl's heels, then darted in front of her, bringing her to a stop. A piercing sound joined an ultra bright, flashing strobe emitted from Cochise’s collar. She sat the baby carrier on the ground as she covered her ears and eyes. In seconds, the takedown was over, and neither baby nor mother were injured, although the intense wailing cries of the child could be heard throughout the downtown.
“Nomad, be advised we now have vehicles approaching from the south as well.”
Wow, Cade thought, this just keeps getting better. “Team-2, focus on the new targets, McTee and Hammer, stay on Tango One.” His teams only totaled six soldiers, seven if he counted Greg, which he did. He eyed the drone feeds coming into his tactical goggles. Now they were facing nine vehicles and God only knew how many thugs. “Greg, any way of knowing which group the primary is in?”
“Negative on that, Nomad,” Greg responded from his hidden position a half-mile away.
A female voice said, “Team-2 back in position. Looks like the convoy is splitting up, trying to flank us.”
Cade tapped his cheek and directed, “All Talon Teams, we are blown. So much for covert. Weapons free at the first sign of hostilities. We are out-manned, and they obviously know we’re here. Let’s not give these guys any other advantages.”
He then opened a private channel to Greg. “You and Dee have about thirty seconds to identify the primary. Otherwise, we are lighting all of these fuckers up.”
An alert signal began flas
hing in his goggles. Cochise was signaling a problem. Cade focused on the dog and saw the girl attempting to stand while waving her arms wildly at the approaching SUVs.
“Weapons, north side, second car,” McTee yelled just as Cade saw the young girl’s head explode in a cloud of red mist and near-simultaneous sound of a shot.
8
“Light ‘em up!” Cade ordered.
Dee spoke calmly, “It appears they are going after the infant. I have instructed Cochise to protect.”
Cochise's idea of protecting was to assess, then attack all threats by priority as they came into range. A car slid to a stop near the downed girl, and two men jumped out, guns aimed toward the dog who was already moving at blinding speed toward one of the men. The second man dropped as a round from Hammer split his throat apart and lodged in the car door behind. Cade was at ground level and sprinting for the baby before he had time to think. He used the auto-targeting feature built into the H&K style sub-compact to lay down a withering barrage of suppressing fire while he ran. Dee was using the KillPoint scope to pick targets for him, all he had to do was hold the trigger.
Distant gunfire confirmed that the other team was also now fully engaged. Cade emptied a clip into the lead car, which burst into flames as the fuel tank erupted. He slid down beside the baby carrier like a baseball player stealing second base. His hand wrapped firmly around the carrier as rounds began pinging the dirt around him. This was a stupid move, he was well aware, but that was sort of his thing. He darted for cover behind several cars in the nearby lot. A side window shattered, showering him with glass. He looked down to see the baby, a dark-haired little boy, now silent and grinning up at him. He dusted a few bits of broken glass away from the child and gave him a little tickle under one arm.
“Cochise, patrol wide,” he ordered the dog. He was now able to switch his view to that of a camera mounted on the dog’s vest to see all the hostiles. “McTee?”
“Go ahead.” The former SEAL’s voice still sounded strained.
“You got two Tangos hugging the sidewall of your twenty. Might want to say hello.” He sent the video feed to the man's visor. The location, or ‘twenty’ as they called it, was indeed too damn close.
“Roger that, Nomad,” McTee answered, followed closely by, “Frag out!”
The massive explosion rocked the car Cade and the baby were behind. “Hostiles down,” came McTee’s voice as another volley of rounds peppered the parking lot.
“Primary identified,” Dee stated flatly as an image of a man holding a weapon in one of the SUVs near Cade displayed briefly.
“He’s mine!” Cade yelled as he leaned over the hood and took aim at the black SUV that Dee had lit up brightly in his goggles’ overlay. Cade squeezed the trigger just as a round impacted the hood of the truck he was using for cover. Shards of metal cut through his nose and cheek. Blood was flowing freely, but he felt nothing but rage. Cade knew Brutus was coming. Gus, calm him down, I don’t need the barbarian.
He thinks you do. You’re letting them shoot at you, so…I kinda agree.
“Fuck all of y’all,” Cade said angrily. “Dee, can you get some doves over here to take out some of these Tangos?” The ‘doves’ were a general-purpose bird-sized drone. They had defensive, and even some offensive, capabilities and could be used in swarms to engage an enemy force. She acknowledged as the whisper-quiet drones appeared overhead and began circling the other two SUVs.
“Deploying incendiaries,” Greg said, now in control of the drones. They began dropping small objects on the cars which immediately began to smoke before igniting in a bright white phosphorus fire. This would eat through the metal roof of the vehicle and any humans beneath. Screams of agony echoed across the open ground. “Primary is bugging out, Nomad,” Greg said. “Too fast for our doves.”
“Assist Team-2, all assets!” Cade yelled. I got this asshole. How he was going to pursue was another matter. Both of the teams’ vehicles were parked well away from the town. The plan had not been to engage in a full-on firefight and car chase, but like most battle plans, this one had gone to shit at first contact with the enemy. “Dee, scan plates, best option,” he ordered.
His digital assistant had learned a lot about him over the last few months, and cryptic commands like this now needed no other explanation. He was in a parking lot full of cars, the AI would take various drone images to scan the tag numbers of each, match that to a serial number in one of a multitude of data files, and discover which was potentially the best choice for vehicle pursuit. All of this was done in seconds.
“Vehicle is three rows back and two over,” she replied.
“Great!” Cade took two steps, about to break into a run, when the baby let out a cry. Oh shit, he thought. The baby. With the rest of Team-1 moving south to fight alongside Team-2, he had no one to take the child. Deciding quickly, he grabbed the carrier and raced to the selected car. “Looks like we’re going on a ride, little man.”
And what a ride it was. “Damn, Dee!”
He took his SmartCom, the agency’s highly specialized smart phone, and triggered the key fob icon now blinking on the screen. Dee could clone any digital key just from the serial number. Through the main AI, Doris, she had access to even the manufacturers’ secure databases. The supercharged, special edition Dodge Hellcat fired up with a throaty roar. This was simply a beast of a car with a massive motor capable of over a thousand horsepower. Cade felt sure he’d wet himself a bit.
Dirt sprayed for nearly a hundred yards as he peeled out of the lot and onto the blacktopped highway. In the backseat, the baby carrier slid from one side to the other, the infant giggling loudly now. Probably should have at least buckled that in, Gus said smugly.
“Well, yeah, but I was busy, okay? And if you want to really be helpful, tell me before I do something stupid, not after.”
“Primary Tango is nearly a mile ahead of you, Boss,” Greg said.
“Dee, can you disable his SUV?” Cade asked. He wasn’t sure how she did it but had seen her do that before.
“Negative, Nomad, they have disabled onboard computers. Probably didn’t want the car’s tracking system ever used against them.”
Cade floored the gas pedal, feeling the power surging through the car. He wasn’t exactly a ‘car guy,’ but behind the wheel of this thing you had no choice. It was a bucking bronco, and he was glad just to be hanging on. From the cheerful sounds in the backseat, his passenger felt the same. Shame the little guy would have to grow up without a mother, but she’d chosen stupid over motherhood. Cade wouldn’t mourn her. His own mother had essentially abandoned him as a child after his sister’s brutal murder, and he felt his life was actually better because of it. She was unfit, uncaring, and unwilling to do the basic minimum requirements of motherhood.
He could see the car ahead; the Hellcat was gaining on it fast. It appeared that the target was turning onto a main road heading back south. “Hang on, Compadre, going to be a bit of a ride here.” He arced the Dodge through the left turn at ninety, the back wheels losing traction several times despite the track-mode software compensating for the crazy man at the wheel. Cade steered with one hand as the other held tightly to the shifting baby carrier behind. Another giggle confirmed the child was still enjoying the ride.
“Nomad, town is secure, all hostiles down. Do you need an assist?” McTee called.
“Roger that, track my twenty. Target is heading roughly south, deploy to intercept.” He thought briefly about who all he’d left behind. “One of you grab Cochise, we may need him on this as well.”
Cade caught up to the fleeing SUV, then eased to the driver’s side. A window in the backseat rolled down and the barrel of what looked like an M4 slid out. If he’d been in one of three tactical vehicles, it wouldn’t have mattered. They offered unprecedented protection from small arms fire, but this Dodge didn’t. He slowed slightly and slid in behind the big Cadillac SUV.
The road ahead widened, and he eased up on the passenger’s side. Hol
ding his pistol out the open window, he fired several times into the tires before slowing to fall back.
“That model is equipped from the factory with run-flat tires, Captain,” Dee said.
“Well, great. Again, you guys, this info is much more useful before, not after.” He thought for a few minutes. All I have is this massive car. “Can I successfully do a PIT maneuver?” PIT was now standard training for most law enforcement. It stood for Pursuit Intervention Technique and involved nosing the front side of your car into the rear quarter of a lead vehicle to spin it out then accelerating on through. It had some dangers, not the least of which was flipping one or both cars in the process. Also, it tended to work better when you had multiple cars in pursuit, since the action wouldn't put the target car out of commission. Typically, it just caused them to be banged up and facing in the opposite direction. If they took off again or jumped out shooting, then he wasn’t a lot better off.
“You are currently driving at 163 miles per hour. PIT would likely be fatal to all involved at this speed.”
“I am going to take that as a no, then?” Cade said questioningly. “Give me some options, guys. Greg, you have anything?”
“Time to intercept team is fifteen minutes. Time to the international border is ten,” Dee said.
“Nomad, get your car in front, then brake hard. This should cause him to stop, or he’ll crash into you, damaging the cooling system, which will put him out of action.”
“Greg, let me get this straight. You want me to let him crash into me at 160 miles an hour? That’s the best you have? Okay, you and Miss Wizard have got to come up with some better toys than this. I need to be able to spray oil out the back of the car or launch rockets or something.”
“We have all that and more, Nomad,” Greg answered with a touch of humor in his voice. “You just didn’t take the right car.”
“Point taken, but you should see this thing. It’s freaking awesome, man.” Both cars were still traveling south at something that felt close to light speed, yet when he punched the gas, the Hellcat jumped forward like it had just been unleashed from its shackles. The back end twitched slightly as Cade swerved to go around the big SUV. Man, this thing is a monster, he thought as the car screamed past the gang leader.