by JK Franks
Cade lined up the grill of the Cadillac in his rear view mirror. He hated to deliberately crash the Dodge but saw no other good options. Just then, a stream of rounds stitched over the roof and across the dash beside him. He stomped the brake just as he thought about the innocent baby in the backseat. He reached for the carrier and missed as the impact of the larger car drove his body forward and into the steering wheel. Tearing metal and the smell of burning tires assaulted his senses. Then the sound of the baby crying brought all of his awareness back online.
We got this, dude, a recognizable voice said. You just sit tight and babysit the kid.
Shit, Cade knew he was not the one in control of his own body anymore. A hand, his hand, gently placed the baby back upright on the backseat. Another hand opened the car door and stepped out. Cade watched through his own eyes as more of a passenger than a driver now. The scene was total chaos with both cars in pieces and locked together like an unholy marriage of Detroit excess.
A limp arm dangled from the Cadillac’s passenger window. A starburst impact shaded in blood on the SUV’s windshield suggested that particular hostile would not be a problem. Gus, or most likely it was Brutus, literally jerked the crumpled door off of the huge SUV and grabbed the back of the head of the dazed driver. In one violent motion he drove the man’s face down onto the splintered steering wheel driving a piece of the hard plastic deep into the man’s skull.
The sound from the rear seat of a gun slide being racked back on a new magazine got his attention. Brutus reached behind him to his plate carrier and withdrew something. A brief flash of metal identified the knife just before it pierced the gunman’s chest.
Cade watched helplessly as the Brutus virtually dismantled the Cadillac looking for the primary target. The baby’s daddy. He had been seated behind the driver, but now there was no one. No body, no blood. Where had the bastard gone?
The sound of the baby crying again brought Cade back to the moment, and at least for now, back in control. Stepping back out of the wrecked SUV, he saw the man they were after pulling the baby carrier out of the Dodge. He turned and faced Cade. Blood was streaming down the man’s face from a gash on his head.
“Don’t make me do dis, man,” he said, holding the carrier high and threatening to smash it and the baby onto the highway. “Jus let me go.”
“Is this our man?” Cade said softly to Dee. He couldn’t tell with all the blood, and it looked like the guy’s nose might be broken.
“Affirmative,” came the response.
He saw his team cars approaching and knew the desperate man was close to doing something stupid. He had forgotten why the guy was important, he supposedly had some much-needed intel, but increasingly, it looked like keeping him alive was not going to be a viable outcome. Cade slid his H&K automatic out and aimed it from his hip. The guy went nuts seeing the gun. Fear edged the gang-banger past the edge of rational decisions.
“Drop it, esee. I swear I’ll do it.”
The punk’s only play was to murder his own baby. Cade set the targeting reticle with an eye blink, then selected the ammo round. “Autofire mode,” he whispered.
The gun position shifted slightly in his hand before firing. The round impacted the hostile just below the shoulder in the arm holding the baby. The round severed muscle and bone causing the arm to rotate down bringing the baby carrier to a relatively gentle landing on the ground. “Que te Jodan! They gonna fuck you up, esee!” Cade brought the gun up and fired twice more, kneecapping the punk just for good measure. As the local head of the Sinoloa cartel began screaming, his son, just feet away, began giggling again.
Cade walked over and picked up the baby carrier and handed it to Lieutenant Maratelli who had just climbed out of the lead silver SUV. “Take care of him, Marty, he’s a pretty cool little guy. Get him back to the rest of his family if you can.”
McTee was zip tying the Mexican’s arms and legs ignoring the injuries for now. “Status.”
“All Tangos KIA, he is the only survivor, Boss,” the soldier said. “We have a few minor injuries but nothing too bad. We will hand this turd over to NSA as soon as we get the bleeding stopped.”
“Hey, McTee, this one has a steering wheel through his face,” Hammer yelled going through the suspects’ car.
“Wonder how that happened,” Cade’s second in command said as he smiled and hauled the injured man back to the vehicle with the team’s medic. “So, Boss, you liked the Hellcat I take it?” The rear end of the car was now sitting flat against the ground, the big Cadillac SUV still perched up on the crushed trunk lid. Bullet holes riddled the body, but the front of the burnt orange metallic beauty was still pristine.
“Love it!” Cade said running an adoring hand down the one unblemished fender. This mission barely qualified as fighting a global threat, but it had still been a good exercise for them. It’d been fun.
9
Dust swirled over the edge of the arroyo; Cade looked down the dusty stream bed as he raked a sleeve across his forehead. “I thought you said it would be cooler here?”
Jasmine shrugged. “I lied.” She walked on several yards before turning. “Look, you needed a break, okay? Somewhere away from it all.” The farm was only a few hundred miles from the border town where they’d battled the Sinoloa gang, but it felt worlds away.
He nodded, sipping from the water tube going to his hydration pack. Jaz was right; he knew that. They all needed a break. The AI known as Janus had all but wrecked the country, done irreparable damage to the intelligence community, and it would take years for the world to recover. For months, they had been playing mostly cleanup jobs much like the last mission. With a shiny, new irrevocable charter from the president, they now had official status to perform some of the most dangerous and sensitive of missions.
In the wake of Janus’s collapse, scores of corrupt politicians and corporate leaders had been forced to step down, and many of those would soon be heading to prison. The Troubles, or the ‘reset,’ as some in the media and in D.C. had started calling it, actually had produced many beneficial changes. On the surface at least, there was more transparency in government, more oversight of abusive industries, and recently, the push for an absolute ban on developing any Lethal Autonomous Weapons system-capable AI. While most of the world didn’t know, and never would know, that a computer program was behind the series of near-catastrophic events, rumors and suggestions had flourished that automated systems had made the situations worse, as in the automated sell-off and resultant bank runs. Or they had failed altogether, as in the manipulation of social media-based newsfeeds, helping initiate riots as well as altering political races. Worst of all were the known failures of automated water treatment and power plant management. The latter had been lethal, and no one found satisfaction in having to put blame on a computer.
“A getaway was fine, Jaz, but damn…you know a beach with a drink would be okay, too…right?”
She winked. “Served in a coconut with a tiny umbrella, I suppose.”
“Well…sure, I mean, if you insist.” Georgia had the heat and the humidity; Texas just had the scorching heat and not nearly enough shade for his liking. He topped the small rise and looked back over his shoulder.
“He gone again?” Jaz asked, shielding her eyes from the sun as she scanned the scrublands.
Cade nodded, then tapped his CommDot. “Cochise, signal.” He heard the bark off to the west, several hundred yards away.
“I can’t believe you stole the senator’s dog,” she said, resuming her trek.
“It wasn’t the senator’s, not really. Pretty sure it belonged to the security team assigned to him. But still, bastard is lucky to still be alive and just missing a dog.” It had taken all of his resolve not to snap the man’s neck that day. Of all the voices in his head, none were exactly the voice of reason in the days after Janus was destroyed. Director Stansfield had been clear, though; Senator Carson would be more helpful under their control than dead. To his credit, the man had del
ivered a full list of all his known co-conspirators, bank accounts, and any other intel he had on the rogue AI’s mission. Still, it galled Cade that the man was still alive, much less holding public office. With upcoming elections suspended for two years, it seemed they would be dealing with the slimy politico for the foreseeable future.
Operational headquarters was still known simply as The Cove. His new boss, Director Margaret Stansfield, had been called on to help stabilize the country in the wake of The Troubles. Cade and the Talon Teams had been called on regularly for months now, not just to bring in Janus supporters, but also to capture many other opportunists who had stepped out of the shadows in those bleak days.
It seemed everyone had lost someone during The Troubles, friends, family members, loved ones. Most lost count of the funerals they’d attended. It was this generation’s Pearl Harbor attack or 9/11, a shared national horror. Talon Team had suffered as well, fatalities and career ending injuries. The teams had been shuffled and new members added. His old executive officer and best friend from their Ranger days, Charlie ‘Deuce‘ Taylor, as well as Nance and McTee were assessing the remaining members now back at The Nest in Kentucky. Two new teams, WarHawk and Raptor, were just beginning to take new assignments. Cade was officially on all of the teams and none. He went where he was needed.
Cade felt they had done admirably despite the lack of training and a short time working with each other. They had pulled together as an effective fighting force and helped get the job done. Still, he had to admit they had made mistakes. A glaring one was too many on the team were ground pounders like him and Charlie. Ex-Army, mostly Rangers or Delta, good for fighting on dry land, less adept at sea. Also, too few with backgrounds in law enforcement. So much of that first mission had taken place in urban environments. Despite some similarities, soldiers are not cops. They don’t teach many of the required ‘people skills’ in war college. Talon would reshape, add new people; they would form additional teams, and leaders would emerge. That was his job now.
Right now, though, he was just glad to have a day off. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure what was going on between him and Doctor Jasmine Kline, still just friends, but perhaps the spark of something more. In the days after Janus, the two had grown close. She taught him all about what new and wonderful things she was learning at The Cove, and he was very slowly opening up about the ghosts in his head. He knew her invitation to him for a layover here at her grandparents’ farm had been a deliberate manipulation. He wasn’t sure of the goal. Perhaps she needed to know if he could be fixed or if he was irrevocably broken.
Cade still mainly thought of her as the fiancée of his late C.O., Tim Jurgins. That would probably never change. He wouldn’t deny an attraction, but that was something he would just deal with…or maybe he wouldn’t. This was not the time—was it? For once, the voices in his head all remained quiet.
Later that evening, Cade watched as Jaz piled up wood, smaller twigs, then some other kind of wood she referred to as a lighter, and lastly, larger pieces. She touched a match to a small bundle of dried grasses she’d placed beneath the twigs, and soon they were enjoying a proper campfire. “You’ve done that before?”
She nodded, “Once or twice.” She pulled off her boots, dusty from the long hike. “You don’t grow up on a ranch in this part of the country without knowing the basics. Besides, I’m sure you could have done one in half the time.”
“Damn right…well, maybe. I’d have just used the firestarter kit Riley stuck in my pack, though… much simpler. Laziness is a virtue, you know.”
She laughed deeply. He decided it was a good look for her. One he’d like to see more of. Maybe Doris had a point.
“Why are we here?” he asked.
“In Texas, or out here?” She waved her hand around in a loose circle.
“Both, I guess.”
“Well,” Jaz said softly, “we are out here because I knew you probably wouldn’t sleep inside my grandparents' house. You are pretty weird, you know? We were both in Texas, and just to give us both a break, and well… I thought maybe seeing what a somewhat normal family looks like would do you good.” She poked a stick into the fire. A minor celebration of sparking embers rose into the air. “You’re a good man, Cade. You’ve done things…” she drifted off momentarily, “…endured things I can’t even begin to imagine to survive, or to defend us all. Yet, you view yourself on the outside, flawed, broken even.” She gently placed a hand on his knee. “You don’t have to be that person.”
So, this was therapy. Probably something she and Doris had cooked up, he thought.
“Don’t look at me that way,” she demanded. “I am not trying to fix you. I just want you to be ok with yourself, you’ve earned that right many times over.
He nodded slowly, he’d been the one member of the team that had no family to return home to after The Troubles. No dead friends to bury, other than the fatality from Charlie Team, a woman named Pickett whom he barely knew. He’d stayed mainly at The Cove or up at the Talon base in Kentucky. As with Jaz, Doris had provided him a beautiful house nestled alongside the river, but like most places, it was just a thing; it had no connection, no deeper meaning. It would never be home to him.
Sensing his reluctance to engage her on that topic, Jasmine tactfully changed the subject. “So, how long before the country gets back to normal?”
Cade shrugged. “Dunno, Jaz. We took a hell of a hit. Stock market crashed, inflation is skyrocketing, the dollar is for shit, several of the mega banks failed, and national elections have been suspended. Confidence in our country may be at an all-time low. No one even seems to believe we can have honest elections anymore.”
“So, we are mortal,” she said softly.
“Apparently.”
She watched as the striking German shepherd entered the circle of firelight and curled up between her and Cade. She reflexively began stroking Cochise’s fur. “I think that might be a good thing.”
“How’s that?” he asked, not looking up.
“You’ve traveled a lot, you’ve seen how America’s perceived around the world.”
“We’re a confident country, we bust our asses to be number one,” he said defensively.
“Calm down,” she said. “I’m not disagreeing, but we also love shoving it in the face of everyone else that we’re a superpower, we’re number one. Maybe that’s why the rest of the world seems to love taking shots at us.”
He conceded her point, “We’re just different. Our country, I mean. I’ve always thought people are generally the same everywhere. They like spending time with their kids, enjoying a nice meal, having fun. There’s more about all of us that is alike than is unalike, yet…we can allow the most mundane of differences to become massive obstacles. As a nation, we have spent decades rubbing it in their faces, and I’m just afraid…”
“Afraid of what, Cade?”
“Afraid payback is coming.”
They sat like that, not speaking for a long time. The sounds of the crackling fire faded to allow the night birds and insects to take over. Jaz looked into the night sky and pointed at a shooting star. The now sleeping dog stirred quietly at the removal of her hand.
“Meteor?”
She nodded. After all, she was an astrophysicist; she could probably name all the constellations, as well as plot the trajectory for the falling piece of space rock.
“Or,” she grinned, “astronave.”
Cochise shifted and used a leg to push Cade away slightly. The dog was obviously fond of Jasmine, and he and Cade were forming a tight bond, but it was hard to see who the alpha was just yet. “What did you just say?”
She looked confused, “Um, I dunno. Oh, meteor?”
“No, the other.”
“Oh, astronave. It’s Spanish,” she said with a grin. “Spaceship.”
“Do you think about them, the aliens, much?” Cade knew the story now. An alien race called the Dhakerri had beamed an interstellar message to Earth. The tightly compressed message
was discovered by Doris at The Cove. From that original message had come an array of new technologies and discoveries.
“Of course.” Jaz answered. “It was my dream as a scientist, and now I’m in a position to really pursue it. The alien message is amazing. It’s just slow to reveal itself, like peeling an onion just to get the next nugget of info.”
Cade once had a therapist describe his mental state in much the same way. “This is nice Jaz, I needed it. Thanks!”
She just looked at him, the firelight giving her pretty face a glow that left him mesmerized. “Cade…” she began.
Thanks to Gus yelling at him not to speak, he remained silent, letting her words come out when she was ready.
She stayed silent; so did he. Cochise nuzzled in between them enjoying his humans. To Cade it felt as close to home, to family as he’d ever been. He absently scratched behind the dog’s head. Soon, Jaz’s hand was doing the same, and for a moment, both their hands rested atop one another. Cade didn’t pull away, in fact he never even thought about it. His mind fell silent and enjoyed the peace of the moment fearing that it wouldn’t stay that way for long.
10
Washington, D.C.
The advisor watched his boss closely. The man had aged considerably since taking office. Hell, who could blame him? The country had nearly come apart at the seams, and now the vultures seemed to be circling constantly, looking for more signs of weakness. The man placed the leather-bound briefing ledger on the corner of the desk. He ran his hand along the edge. Nearly everyone who came into the room wanted to see it. The Resolute Desk. President Ortiz thought it was a gaudy, impractical thing, but it was tradition. Made from timbers of the HMS Resolute, a British Arctic exploration ship which the U.S. saved and returned to Britain as a sign of friendship. In 1880, the Queen of England presented the desk as a thank you to President Hayes.