by Nick Thacker
Larson stared at the younger man in his living room. “They’re already here.”
8
0226 Hours
Jen heard a loud groan. Her husband. She stood and walked over to his bed; a hospital gurney set up in a makeshift operating room. The powerful lighting in the room projected shadows along the warehouse walls—brick, no doubt old. She took in the surroundings. Why a warehouse? Who are these people?
The old brick building loomed overhead. Though the room they were currently in was small, the walls climbed almost a hundred feet straight up to meet the sloping corrugated steel roof of the structure. The door to the room was also modern reinforced steel. It was an odd juxtaposition, but Jen had a feeling there was a reason for the setting. No doubt this place looked innocuous from the outside.
Mark Adams was lying on the bed wearing a hospital gown and trying in vain to scratch an itch on his shoulder, but finding it impossible to lift his arm. A military doctor, Dr. Pritchett, was bustling about in response to her husband’s waking.
That ass, she thought. “You okay? What the hell was that?” she asked him.
Mark just frowned. “That bastard shot me!” he said.
“Well no shit, Mark, you ran from a man with a loaded gun. I told you stay down.” Her voice shook; she knew she couldn’t feign anger with him. After everything that had happened, she was in no place to lose another person close to her.
They needed to find Reese.
“Well, I wasn’t going to just sit there and let them kill us. If he would have just said he wanted to talk…” his voice died as the metal doors to the small warehouse’s inner room opened.
“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Adams. Excuse me—you prefer ‘Ms.’?” Jen didn’t know how to respond to the question.
She recognized the man’s voice was the same as their captor’s from the university: British, deep, posh, and educated.
She turned to look in the man’s direction and almost choked. The man in front of her was absolutely huge—at least six-foot-five and made of pure muscle. The hulk of a soldier walked up to the bed, and only then could Jen see that he was being followed. When she’d seen his outline in the hallway at the Academy, she noticed he was a large male figure, but seeing him in the surgical light of the warehouse was shocking.
A woman—the same one she’d “met” before—strode up behind the large man. She was almost as tall as the man. A small torso and short, skinny arms rippling with well-formed muscle made her look like a runway model-turned-mercenary. God, who are these people? Jen thought. The woman nodded once, curtly, and stood at attention behind and to the left of her commanding officer.
“Thank you for your cooperation thus far,” the man continued. Jen couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. “I’m terribly sorry to have to have met under these, well, circumstances, and I am especially sorry for your shoulder. How are you feeling?” He faced Mark.
“It’s, uh, well it hurts like a bitch, but I guess I’m fine.”
“The rubber pellets we used are meant to stun, but not seriously injure. I’m glad you weren’t closer when I fired. Either way, I’m sorry we had to use force. We just cannot allow any unnecessary setbacks.”
“What’s going on? Who are you?” Jen straightened. She sensed she needed to be as straightforward as possible. “If you don’t know, my son—”
The man held up a hand, and Jen immediately fell silent.
“Yes, yes. Your son, Reese, has been kidnapped. We’re aware of the situation. Actually, that’s what we’re all here for.” He stretched an arm out to signify a look around. “This is a warehouse my superiors purchased for inconspicuous rendezvous such as these. It’s completely safe, and you have nothing to fear.
“My name is Sergeant Daniel Carter, and this is Lance Corporal Rachel Saunders. We’re with the British Royal Marines, Amphibious Task Division.
“We’ve been tracking the group that we believe kidnapped your son and killed Professor Storm. They’re a mostly underground unit, completely self-sufficient and irrelevant to the outside world.”
Jen looked confused. “You think some radical religious group took my son?”
The woman, Rachel Saunders, spoke. “Not religious, Ms. Adams. This group, at least from what we can tell, seems to be focused on environmental targets.”
“Environmental? Like trees and Earth and Mother Nature crap?” Mark asked, now fumbling with the bed-raising lever.
“Well, somewhat, yes,” Carter responded. “They’re interested in preserving the Earth in its natural state. We don’t know much about them except that they’ve been dormant—as much as we can tell—for the last thirty years after a brutal massacre in the seventies. They killed thirty-seven men and women, all scientists and engineers.”
Jen’s heart raced. “What? They killed all of these people? And Professor Storm?”
“Ms. Adams, we have no reason to believe they’ve harmed your son. Honestly, they have no need for him, except to get to you.”
“To get to me? What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know. We don’t know what exactly they want. But you worked with Dr. Storm, and one of these people who were murdered was Dr. Storm’s brother, Mitchell Storm. For whatever reason, it seems the group wants you to find the information they think Dr. Storm was withholding.”
Jen shook her head. “No, that’s not right. I mean—I don’t—I have no idea what they want from me. And Dr. Storm didn’t have a brother… at least not one he ever mentioned.” She realized then that she didn’t have a clue as to what her late boss’s family life was like. Other than knowing he was unmarried, she really didn’t know much about his personal life.
“Yes, Jen, he did have a brother. And he was very wound up in this group. At least until they cracked and killed his research team at their small firm. Look, we’re still trying to piece this together as well. But we need your help. You’re obviously a part of this puzzle for some reason,” Carter said.
Rachel Saunders picked up where Carter left off. “We need you to come with us and help find what they want. We know this group. They’re completely under the radar when they want to be. We know they left you a message to find this—whatever it is—for them, and we don’t think they’re going to interfere with you while you find it,” she said.
“Chances are they’re holding your son over your head to motivate you; to make sure you know how serious this is. But they won’t do anything—or even show up—until you find their prize.”
“Ms. Adams—and you, Mr. Adams—we’d like for you to find this missing link, this item they’re looking for. We’ll get your son back, but if you can make them happy by delivering on their expectations, it’ll be much quicker, and we might have a chance at catching them.”
Jen looked at Mark, who gazed back at her in disbelief. It was all too much to take in. How in the world was she supposed to find something if she didn’t even know what she was looking for?
“Can’t we just wait and see what the police figure out?” she asked. She knew it was a pitiful question. Still, the panic and hysteria she’d been feeling had now seemed to settle into a comatose state of numbness. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to find some stupid artifact these murderers were after. Especially since they’d be looking in—
“Wait,” she said, before anyone could respond to her previous ridiculous question. “You never said where we were going. Do you know where we’re supposed to be looking?”
The two soldiers shared a quick glance at one another, and Carter turned to respond to Jen. “Yes. We think they’re after a specific piece of research your professor was working on prior to his death. And have reason to believe it’s in an undisclosed location in the Atlantic Ocean.”
The Atlantic, she thought. “So, like an island. The Caribbean, maybe?” she asked.
Carter smiled a half-grin. It appeared and disappeared within a second, and it was first time she’d seen a hint of emotion other than stoicism from the man. “Somethin
g like that. We can talk as we prepare. The other half of my team has already been dispatched and is preparing for the briefing.
“Mark will be in good hands as well. My doctors are the best in the world, and so are their drugs.” He winked at her husband, but Mark just squinted as he was reminded of his sore back. “Let’s get you two outfitted and ready, and we’ll meet back here at 0300 hours—that’s half an hour from now. We’re catching a flight to Miami, then leaving from the base there. We’re all tired, so I’ve scheduled some downtime for us before we launch.”
Before they could respond, the pair of soldiers turned and left the room. The doctor, as well, had left.
Jen thought about this turn of events. She wasn’t relieved; there was still so much confusion and strangeness surrounding it all. What the hell is all of this? Most importantly, though, her son was still missing. Mark was still trying to sit up in the bed, and she walked over to help him.
She had no idea what was going on around her, but she did know one thing: she needed to keep moving, to keep pressing on. The longer she waited and the more inactive she was, the stronger the images and memories of Reese flashed through her mind.
If she had to, she’d give her life to make sure her son wouldn’t become just a memory.
9
The man didn’t come this time.
Instead of the tall red-haired man, Reese Adams was surprised to see a woman enter his room. The woman was also young, like the red-haired man, but she was blond, and much shorter. He immediately didn’t like her. She reminded him of the people Mom worked with; the ones who didn’t have kids and probably didn’t like them much, either. They didn’t understand kids, and they treated him like he was four.
She slid a chair out from underneath a desk against the wall and sat down next to the bed. She was wearing a white lab coat, and when she sat down, the back of it crinkled out of the hole in the back of the chair. She placed a clipboard on her lap and produced a pen from her lab coat pocket.
“Good morning, Reese. Were you able to sleep?”
He nodded. He had slept, as much as he’d tried not to.
“Did you eat?”
He nodded again. Wouldn’t they already know this?
“And how do you feel now?”
What kind of questions are these? He didn’t know how to respond, so he just blinked. The woman didn’t seem to care, and she kept asking more questions.
“How old are you, Reese?”
He answered this time. “Twelve.”
“And do you have many friends at school?”
“Where’s my dad?”
“Reese, we’re keeping you here for your own safety. We explained that to you already.”
“But I don’t remember… I don’t remember what happened. I was at home with Dad…”
“I know you’re confused, Reese, but if you just answer my questions—”
“I don’t want to talk to you. I want to go home.”
The woman sighed and looked toward the door. He thought she might get up and leave, but she stayed seated. “Do you know why you’re here, Reese?”
He shook his head. Of course he didn’t. He couldn’t remember anything.
“Did your parents ever discuss their work with you? Did your father mention anything in particular about what it is he does for a living?”
Reese didn’t know if he should answer. He hadn’t said much so far, and it was getting to the point that he didn’t even know how long he’d been in this room. In fact, there wasn’t much at all about last night that he remembered. He was with his dad, about to watch a movie, and then…
A while later he woke up here. But he didn’t know if he had awoken from sleep or if he’d been here all along, just unable to remember. He remembered a few things, like the two men’s faces who’d brought him here, and the granola bar and glass of milk he’d been given, but that was about it. He’d been in this room ever since. The walls, bed, and mattress were all a stark white color. The bed—where he found himself when he woke up—was pushed into the corner of the room, situated so that his head was against the far wall, and he could see the single door on the other side. He had only been awake for about two minutes when this door opened, and the red-haired man entered.
The man asked Reese a bunch of questions. Most were about his mom, but also about his dad, what they did for work, and even a few about his pet lizard. Reese had tried to answer them the best he could, and after almost every question he asked about his mom and dad. Most of the time the man just smiled, a huge toothy grin full of perfect teeth, and sometimes he just said, “We’re looking into it.” No matter how many times he asked, though, the man wouldn’t tell him where he was or how he got here.
The woman asked the same question again. “Reese, I need to know. Please give me any information about your father’s work, or your mother’s, for that matter. Anything is helpful to us.”
He looked down at his lap and shook his head.
After a minute, the woman wrote something on her clipboard and left the room.
10
“Anything?”
“Nothing yet, but I’m not even sure he knows anything.” Sylvia Etienne-Gray frowned, then looked up at her boss. “Are you sure this is right? How do we know he has what we’re looking for?” As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she flinched. She knew better.
Graciously, her boss let the question slide. “We know what we’re looking for. That’s all you need to be concerned with at this time.” Sylvia saw his nostrils flare slightly and sniff. He was thinking about something else, but kept it to himself.
She thought about asking what it was. Thought about asking if he was okay. She was glad she didn’t.
Jeremiah Austin wasn’t the type of man to show his emotions, nor did he appreciate it in others. Sylvia knew intimately that a legitimate show of emotion from him was extremely rare. His staff had worked with him for years and also knew that when their boss was in the room, it was all business.
Sylvia thought one of the more ironic things about him was that he had what most people would call a “baby face”—soft features, soft complexion, and an overall charismatic look about him that drew people in. It was what initially drew her to him and had a lot to do with her falling in love with him, though she could never tell him that.
She knew he didn’t love her back; he couldn’t. She was okay with that. He didn’t have time for anyone else anyway, so she wasn’t ever afraid that there would be another woman. He lived and breathed his work—was consumed by it—and she was just a tool, a way to de-stress once or twice every week. It wasn’t perfect, she knew, but the frustration of it all seemed to add to the effect.
“He didn’t seem as talkative with me. Maybe you’d like to try once more?” Sylvia asked.
“I will, but not now. There’s no rush—at least not with him. See what else you get out of him, but wait about an hour. I know he’s tired, and there’s no reason to work him up any more than he already is.”
Sylvia nodded, and turned to go.
“Grey—”
She loved it when he called her that. She swung around, and was annoyed to find that her breath caught in her throat for a split second. She felt like a schoolgirl. What the hell is wrong with me?
“Be patient; we’re getting close. I know you’re as excited as I am, but we can’t lose sight of the goal.” He stopped for a moment. “Also, stop by my office in a few hours. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you on a more personal note.”
She nodded, trying to stifle the smile creeping onto her face. She knew exactly what he meant and had been waiting for two days to hear it.
Jeremiah Austin watched her go, admiring her posterior as she trotted down the hall. He let the slightest of smug grins come over his face and briefly thought ahead to their meeting. He was tempted to move it up to right now, but he knew that work was more important.
Much more important.
He ran his hands over his suit, pressing it
smooth again, as if he was about ready to walk into a meeting—a habit he’d gleaned from an old mentor many years ago. He forced himself to smile, showing his teeth and all, and stepped back into the room where Reese Adams was being held.
“Hello, Reese. I was hoping we could speak some more about your mother.”
11
0514 Hours
“You can’t be serious,. Is that a submarine?” Jen asked Carter as he led the way down the concrete path.
“Indeed it is, Ms. Adams.”
They were standing on an obscure concrete dock behind a U.S. Coast Guard office, across from the cruise terminal in Miami. In front of them, floating ominously two-thirds underwater, rested a jet-black submarine.
The four of them—the British Sergeant, the quieter Saunders, and Jen and Mark Adams—had taken a commercial flight from Boston and landed an hour ago in Miami. In the airport, they met up with two men Carter had introduced as “his contacts”—Mr. Vertrund and Mr. Durand.
Now, the civilians and the two military personnel were joined by Carter’s remaining team members, Stuart "Hog" Nelson and Lance Corporal Gerald Mason, Jr. Daniel Carter stood in front of the loading ramp and delivered the introductions.
“Good morning. Behind me is the Austere-class submarine the Aura. She was completed earlier this year, based on designs from the previous Astute-class. BAE Systems rigged her up as a much-smaller copy, added the dry-dock access hatch you see protruding from the deck, and replaced most of the weapons outfit with enhanced diving apparatus.
“The sub is capable of diving and maintaining for about two weeks without resurfacing; because we’re going light on crew, we expect to be able to increase this to over four.”
Jen felt her stomach rise to her throat. She squeezed Mark’s hand tightly. When did I start holding it? He asked the question for her.
“Uh, yeah, excuse me, Mr. Carter?” The tall soldier frowned. “Should we, uh, expect to be underwater for that long?”