by S L Shelton
Mac nodded and closed his eyes. As they drew nearer to Andrews, Wolf could feel momentum slipping away. The path forward had just become much harder to map.
**
8:55 p.m. — Defense Intelligence Agency Special Projects Section, research and training compound, Fort Detrick, Maryland
ALBERT EMRICK sat in the small situation room waiting for confirmation. The monitors of the center wrapped around the walls. Analysts and techs sat at various stations throughout the room, and Emrick sat at its center, his head buried in his hands.
“Confirmed!” A male tech yelled.
“It was Wolfe?!” he asked.
“No, sir. The techs confirmed the assets are dead and have extracted the bodies.”
“Where are they?” Emrick asked, rising from his chair.
The tech placed his ear to the phone and nodded as the field tech updated him. “Extraction of the bodies is complete, but they’re trapped in Occoquan until the local emergency crews leave.”
“No! I want to know what happened! Was it Wolfe?!”
The tech spoke into the phone then turned back to Emrick with a shrug. “They don’t know. They didn’t have surveillance on-site.”
Emrick walked over and snatched the phone from the tech, causing him to flinch backward. “Did I miss something or did two Jaggers just get killed in close quarters combat?” Emrick asked incredulously.
“They were SEALs, sir,” the man said.
“Bullshit!” Emrick snapped. “There’s no way a nonprogram asset could beat a Jagger.”
“Sir, I don’t know. We didn’t have eyes on them.”
Emrick threw the phone handset at the desk. “Someone get eyes on that site! Now!”
The small room became a flurry of activity. A few moments passed when a woman stood and waved toward Emrick. “It wasn’t Wolfe, sir. The NSA just intercepted a cell transmission from Clearwater with a voice match to Wolfe.”
“Let me hear it,” Emrick said, walking around the station behind the woman. She punched a few keys on her keyboard then clicked the voice recording.
“Don’t come here. I don’t have the resources. You’d be better off just handing yourself over for court-martial at this point… Do you understand? Don’t come here.”
“What number did it go to?” Emrick asked after he had listened to it twice.
“A cell phone that pinged off a Woodbridge, then a Dale City tower… They’re heading south,” the woman replied, pulling up the record for the phone. “It’s a clean SIM, never used before. There was a text that preceded the call.”
“Show it to me.”
She clicked the only entry for the phone. The text read: “Safe house compromised. 2 dead. 1 wounded. No longer operational. Coming to you.”
Emrick leaned against the table behind him. “Fuck,” he whispered.
“The cell phone is still on. It’s pinged twenty towers headed south along the I-95 corridor,” the woman said then waited for a few seconds for a response. When none came, she pulled up a deployment screen. “Should I notify assets about the Wolfe hit in Clearwater?”
He continued to stare at the wall, unable to organize his thoughts.
“Sir?” the woman asked.
It didn’t make sense. Jaggers taken down by SEALs?
“Sir,” the woman said more insistently.
Emrick turned and walked slowly toward the exit as if in a trance. “Yes, put a team on Clearwater, get Homeland Security to intercept that cell phone signal from Occoquan, then send a copy of those communications to Director Richards at the CIA,” he said to no one in particular as he left the room. “And get me General Ellis. I’ll be in my office.”
His intercom chimed as he entered his office down the hall. He stabbed at the phone with his finger. “I’m here.”
“The General is on line three,” a male voice replied.
He took a deep, calming breath before picking up the phone on his desk.
“General Ellis,” Emrick said, sounding in control despite the pounding pulse in his ears.
“Al…what’s wrong?”
“Have you released any program assets to JSOC military units?” Emrick asked.
“I don’t understand,” the general said, clearly still foggy but sharpening with each second.
“I mean, have you placed any program enhanced assets with active military units?” Emrick asked a little more belligerently. “Maybe a SEAL team?”
“What’s happened, Al?”
“Jagger thirteen and fourteen were just killed in close-quarters combat,” Emrick said as if he were reading an interesting headline.
“I find that highly unlikely without the presence of other mitigating factors,” the General said. “Do you have all the facts?”
“I guess not,” Emrick said, feigning amusement. “Because from what we can tell from this end, three Navy SEALs just disarmed and ripped two Jaggers apart in less than five minutes.”
“And you are sure they were SEALs? Did they sustain any casualties?”
Emrick dropped heavily into his chair. “I’m not sure. We intercepted cell traffic saying two dead, one wounded. But I’m not sure of anything anymore…except we just lost two, twelve million dollar assets.”
“To my knowledge there are no enhanced assets placed with any military units,” he said.
“Gold Rush! That was an in-vitro program,” Emrick said.
“What about it? They’re all accounted for.”
“Whoever killed the Jagger said, ‘Predators aren’t made they’re born’… Gold Rush was the only in-vitro program.”
“No, no, no,” Ellis said. “Gold Rush participants were giants. Seven feet tall or more, and the program stopped in the late ’70s. If any rogue Gold Rush assets were out there, we’d have detected them in the enlistment process. Fingerprints, dental records…it’s impossible.”
There was a long moment of silence while Emrick tried to solve the mystery.
“Is it possible your lab has a side project going?” General Ellis asked. “Or a contamination?”
“I’ll check on that,” Emrick said. “Okay. I’m sorry to disturb you so late, General.”
“I’ll look for more information on my end,” Ellis replied. “In the meantime, I think we need to rethink your strategy. You shouldn’t be using those assets domestically. Not only is it illegal to have JSOC black Ops running on US soil, it’s also more dangerous.”
“I’ll take it under advisement, General. Good night.” Emrick ended the call before General Ellis could respond.
He drained his drink and went back to the bar. Mid reach for the bottle, he stopped and stared at his empty glass. Rage bubbled in him at being caught off guard again. As his head clouded with panic and anger, he threw the glass across the room, shattering it against the wall of photographs. One fell, cracking the glass and frame. After clenching and unclenching his fists several times, he walked over and looked down at the mess.
The photo was of him and Roger Gallow on the back of a sport-fisher. The two held a large Bluefish between them.
“You’re doing this to me, aren’t you, you son of a bitch,” he whispered to the image.
With a flash of vengeance in his mind, he turned and went to his desk before punching an extension on his phone.
“Lab,” came a woman’s voice.
“Is Tris on-site?” Emrick asked.
“She is, sir, but she’s in confinement support mode with LOT 44.”
“Get a message to her as soon as you can,” Emrick said, a cruel grin sliding to his face.
“What’s the message, sir?”
He thought for a moment. “Never mind. I’ll go down there myself.”
“Yes, s—”
He ended the call and pulled the jacket from the back of his chair before leaving his office. As he walked out of the command building and across the compound to the lab, he wondered if Roger Gallow had switched allegiances.
Are you messing with me, Roger? Are you running a si
de project you haven’t told me about?
He looked up after getting lost in thought and realized he’d walked two buildings farther than he had intended. He turned around and stalked toward the side entrance, angrier at Gallow with each step.
He must be doing this. There’s no other explanation.
He entered the lab building then hurried down the long corridor to the containment unit. When he arrived, Tris lay on a cot outside of the isolation booth in which she had “incubated” only a few months earlier.
On the floor inside the sealed unit, Kathrin, LOT44 lay curled in the fetal position in the corner, shivering. Sweat pooled beneath her, and her dark gray workout pants and sports bra appeared darker around the edges where the moisture wicked from her skin.
Her body would go through five or six of those cycles a day for the next week or more. The LOT conditioning, if it didn’t kill her, would wreak havoc on her body, rewriting key DNA sequences so that the Lance Protocol could target them. Her body and her own DNA would fight the LOT re-sequencing, bringing her to the brink of death in the battle to maintain its identity.
Though Tris had successfully transmuted the LOT and Lance virus, Kathrin would be only the fourth to survive it—if she survived it.
Emrick looked down at Tris who hadn’t stirred when he entered. He knew, though, there was no way he had arrived without her knowing it.
“How is she?” he asked.
Her eyes, he realized, were watching him in the reflection of the Lexan isolation wall. “Her fever is higher than mine was at the same time in the treatment.”
“She hasn’t taken the Lance component yet…just LOT. You took both at the same time.”
Tris rolled over, peering at him over her shoulder. “Lance is the candy. LOT is the acid.”
Emrick nodded and looked at Kathrin. She was quite beautiful, aside from her current emaciated, convulsing state. Her long blonde hair curled and hung across her shoulders and back. Though matted with sweat and vomit, her thick mane set her apart from all other female asset conversions. Most had come from the military and arrived with short, or at least tightly managed nails and hair. LOT 44 came to them looking more like a hippy flower-child, seeming she would be more at home in a flowing skirt and tie-dyed blouse at a Grateful Dead concert than in combat boots and body armor.
“You’re happy with the Jagger bonding she demonstrated?” he asked.
Tris shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I think. You and Braun are the ones running the show.”
Tris’s tone took him off guard—it almost sounded as if she were feeling sorry for herself. Is it possible the Jagger in you re-bonded with LOT 44?
“Braun and I have no personal frame of reference for the bonding process. It requires—”
“Yes. She bonded to me…Is that what you want to hear?”
“I didn’t come to argue with you.”
She rolled over again and glared at him. “Then why did you come?”
“Scott Wolfe is in Clearwater.”
She turned her head back to Kathrin and stared. It almost seemed as if she couldn’t decide if she would leave Kathrin’s side.
“I’ll be ready in ten minutes,” she said, sitting up and pivoting out of bed.
“Tactical is on standby.”
She picked up the bundle of clothing at the foot of the cot, then stuffed them into a small duffel bag.
“I won’t need tactical,” she said, shouldering her bag on one shoulder and her holstered, twin, Colt Delta Elites on the other. “Just get me on a plane and keep local law enforcement off the site until I get there.”
Emrick nodded. “Homeland Security will be point.”
“No,” she said as she strode from the room. “I will be. If they have a problem with that, I’ll sort it out on the ground.”
Emrick watched her leave then returned his attention to Kathrin.
“How are you, tonight, LOT 44?”
Aside from a particularly violent shiver, she showed no indication she’d even heard Emrick’s question. While he rarely attached an emotional value to his subjects, he had a strong wish for LOT 44; he hoped the virus would kill her. She was Braun’s creation. That tainted her presence from the beginning. If LOT 44 survived, she would be the first from his program to be custom-tailored to non-Department of Defense entities. A rogue from the start—a feral stray.
“Do me a favor, will you?” he said, then put his hands to the glass. “If it’s not too much trouble, will you please not tear down my entire program…I’ve put a lot of effort into it.”
No response.
“And, just between you and me, if you want to kill your white-haired countryman while you’re not destroying my program, I’d be okay with that too.”
A mild shiver rippled up her spine, reminding him that his weren’t the only ears in the room. He turned and looked up at the camera in the corner and smiled, jabbing his middle finger in the air. After one more glance at Kathrin, he left the room.
I should burn this place to the ground, He thought, then shook his head, shocked the notion had even risen. No…I should give Braun the Jagger treatment, then smile as I order him to put a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger.
“Wouldn’t that piss him off.”
He chuckled as he crossed the compound.
seven
Saturday, April 30th
1:25 a.m.—Mortuary Services Receiving Hangar, Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.
Wolf helped Chief Petty Officer Seifert arrange Hawkins’s personal effects in the chest next to his coffin. With his uniforms sanitized of any identifying tapes and his dog tags safely in Seifert’s pocket, it would be days, possibly weeks before they were able to identify the body. The fact that he was in a lineup of fallen fighters from Afghanistan might protect him from any dishonor currently assigned to his AWOL comrades—it might be considered a paperwork error that he was counted among them to begin with.
In either case, he had a better chance of being buried with honors if found here than if his corpse had been found in Occoquan.
“Hey,” Mac hissed from around the corner.
Seifert looked up and Mac flashed him two fingers. Seifert nodded and closed the chest. He put his hands on the flag-draped coffin and bowed his head. “The only easy day was yesterday,” he said quietly. “Not for self, but for country.”
“Seif,” Wolf said placing, his hand on the big SEAL’s shoulder. “We need to go.”
He nodded and grabbed the cart they had used to bring the previously empty casket and personal effects locker into the hanger from the storage unit outside. It had been a gamble trying to get onto base with a body in the SUV, but SEALs with authentic looking orders from JSOC aren’t often questioned. A Ramstein Germany deployment for DevGru isn’t exactly the kind of cover someone would use to travel if trying to avoid detection. In fact, there’s a bit of hero worship when other service members encounter SEALs. The gate guard had been visibly nervous when he saw the orders. As Seifert had driven them on base, the guard had called him, “Sir”.
Seifert had chuckled and replied nodding to Wolf, “He’s a ‘sir’. I’m Chief.”
The guard had nodded, embarrassed. “Yes, sir… I mean Chief.”
The three of them had changed into their uniforms prior to coming onto base, and the fake military IDs were not only passable but nearly perfect. Wolf took on the identity of a Lieutenant Junior Grade, and Seifert and Mac had retained their own ranks, though their names had been changed—Kelly and Roundhouse.
Wolf had correctly predicted that by keeping them in uniform and with their own ranks, Mac and Seifert would be more confident in their deception.
“Psst!” Mac hissed again from the door and pointed at his watch.
Seifert pushed the cart against the back wall of the hangar and joined Mac at the door. Wolf followed close behind but paused at the check-in clipboard. He added an entry for Hawkins’s coffin and copied the transport origin location from the entries above—Bagram Air Bas
e, Kabul. Any mystery Wolf left in missing data would only delay identifying Hawkins’s body.
Across the tarmac and field stretched a second airstrip. With the back of the C17 Globemaster lit up like Las Vegas on a Friday night, there would be no chance of getting lost on the way. A small number of troops and equipment moved back and forth on the wide ramp as Mac, Seifert, and Wolf grabbed their duffel bags from the back of the Explorer.
Parked where it was, it would be days before anyone questioned the Explorer’s presence, and even then it would show as being registered to one William Jakes of Richmond, Virginia. Jakes would inform the authorities, when questioned about it, that he sold it to a guy in the Army. Jason something…the Icelandic name was unpronounceable by most westerners. Jason Vilhjalmsson, of course, was really Wolf. But that fact died upon payment and delivery—he had paid in cash.
As they walked across the first runway, then across the field to the next one, Wolf watched Mac out of the corner of his eye. He worried the wound, though not immediately life-threatening, would give them away. Wounded SEALs don’t deploy.
“You got it?” Wolf asked as Mac seemed to struggle under the weight of his gear.
“I’m fine. I’ve done this part before.”
Wolf nodded but stayed vigilant. At the first sign of visible weakness, he would have to intervene. If they were caught now, there would be no hope of a second chance.
They walked up the ramp, skipping the line of troops waiting to board. A husky army captain with a red face rushed over to intercept.
“There’s an order here,” he said before taking a more reserved stance once seeing the SEAL warfare insignia on their uniforms above the left pocket, Navy tape and Diver Tab.
“That’s okay,” Seifert said as he unslung his duffel bag and weapon then saluted. “I asked the guys in line and they said it’d be okay.” He turned and looked at the nervous line of soldiers after the captain returned his salute. “It’s okay, ain’t it fellas?”
The first two men in line nodded nervously, one taking a step backward and bumping into the man behind him.