Splinter Self

by S L Shelton

  Casey barely contained his eye roll in time as the man looked his way.

  “Good. As you know, the vetting is going to be much more rigorous than it has been in the past,” the President said. “Be patient. We’ll have your packages ready for Senate confirmation as soon as possible.”

  The man chuckled. “The Senate and the House for that matter, are going to have their hands full reorganizing themselves.”

  “With almost twenty percent of both houses under active federal indictment, it could be a couple of years before they’re back to business as usual,” the other said.

  The President smiled and nodded, obviously unwilling to take potshots at the Legislature. Indeed, his administration had been infected with almost the same percentage of indictments among senior leadership.

  “Thank you,” he said. “We’ll talk again soon.”

  The two men left through the corridor entrance. As soon as the door closed, the President turned to Casey. “Are you sure you’re up to this?” he asked, leaning on his cane and limping toward his senior security agent.

  “Sir, with all due respect, if they had to prop me up in the corner on a hospital bed, I’d be in here,” Casey replied, smiling. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until we have indictments for everyone on those ledgers. Get used to seeing me day and night.”

  The President shot him a wry grin. “I think the missus may have something to say about that.”

  Casey laughed uncomfortably as the President hobbled back to his desk. The President reached for his phone but Casey cleared his throat, causing him to pause halfway through the motion.

  “Sir, if I may.”

  The President put the phone down and looked up. “You’ve more than earned my ear anytime you want it.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Casey said and stepped toward the desk, wincing at the tug to the sutures across his belly. “We have a few dangerous strings left to tie up out there. I’d feel better about this accelerated list of interviews if we had you do it via videoconference. Ned Richards and Albert Emrick haven’t been captured yet, and almost half of those super soldiers from the Pentagon program are still unaccounted for.”

  The President nodded, a thoughtful expression formed on his brow. After a moment, he sat and hung his cane on the corner of the Resolute Desk, a gift from Queen Victoria to Rutherford B. Hayes. He placed his hands on the polished wood surface, built from the timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship, Resolute, and rubbed it gently as if smoothing some unseen wrinkle.

  “Mike, I appreciate your concern,” the President said. “And Lord knows I’ve started taking the security of my person a bit more seriously in the past few days.”

  Casey nodded, already knowing the answer before he asked.

  “But I need the people to see I’m here, undeterred, unafraid, and at the helm of the system that protects us,” he continued. “And I want everyone who replaces the human garbage that betrayed their oaths and this country to look me in the eye when they answer the question, ‘do you promise to serve the Constitution, the law, and the people they protect’.” He patted the wood of the Resolute gently as if it were a living creature, needing reassurance. “I want them to feel the weight of their office the way I feel mine, and I want to see that register in their eyes.”

  “Understood, sir…how did their eyes measure up?” He nodded toward the door the two candidates had passed through.

  “One for two,” the President said with a grin. “Looks like I’m still in the market for an SEC chief.”

  That was precisely the feeling Casey had. He smiled and nodded at the President, letting him know without a word that he concurred.

  The President winked at him and picked up the phone. “Tilda, I’m ready for Congressman Thompson and Professor Ramey.”

  He set the phone back in the cradle then looked up at Casey. “But yeah, I’d feel better with Richards and Emrick pinned down too. Let’s hope our new CIA Director can run them down for us.”

  Casey grinned. “I think Director Temple will do exactly what’s necessary.”

  The President nodded as the door from his secretary’s office opened. “Professor, Congressman, thanks for meeting with me so early,” the President said, gripping his cane and standing. “Have a seat on the sofa. I’ll make it over in a second.”

  **

  5:25 p.m. on May 10th — National Security Agency Black Site, Culpeper, Virginia

  ALBERT EMRICK sat against the cold concrete wall, forty feet below the farmhouse that disguised the backup/black site location. In his hand, he held a Colt Delta Elite hanging loosely from his fingers. His ears rang with a pulse so loud, he wondered if he’d be able to hear his own voice if he spoke.

  The volume of the tone being relative, he supposed, when his question answered itself.

  “Sir, there are only five of us who answered the recall signal,” a Jagger said as he entered the small concrete room, clearing up the ringing in Emrick’s ears.

  “I want all of you in here, now,” Emrick said, standing but keeping his back to the wall.

  A moment later, the five of them filed into the room and stood opposite him—four males and one female. He shook his head. There should have been more than twenty Jaggers left in the open. To have only five answer the signal meant either the others were all dead, out of reach of public broadcast, or had spontaneously developed a will of their own.

  He opted to believe they were dead or out of reach.

  “You have a problem,” Emrick said as the fearsome killers stood before him. “You are an abomination before nature.”

  Questioning expressions formed on their faces, curiosity, confusion—they weren’t created to solve word puzzles.

  He took a deep breath, feeling his peace rushing toward him, then let it out slowly. “Jaggers, Rainer, Echo, Stampede. Terminate the others, then self-terminate.”

  Without hesitation or even a twitch of emotion, the Jaggers drew on each other, identical Colt’s in both hands, and fired on their Jagger brothers and sister. The one that remained standing after the volley, stepped over each of the fallen and popped another round in each skull in turn. When she had finished, blood dripping from her neck, she raised her pistol to her chin.

  “Jagger, hold,” Emrick said.

  The Jagger lowered her pistol. Emrick stepped toward her and walked around the woman, looking at her wound, and posture. “Are you operational?” Emrick asked.

  The Jagger tipped her head from side to side then lifted the shoulder below her neck wound. “Operational,” she replied. “Superficial to moderate loss of muscle function in middle and anterior scalene only.”

  Emrick nodded, tapping the pistol against his thigh. The ringing returned, and he spoke before consciously making the decision to. “You know, it’s funny, the name Jagger…it’s not what your name was meant to be.”

  The Jagger stared forward, watching Emrick without emotion, not even breathing hard.

  “Did you know that?” Emrick asked.

  “No, sir.”

  Emrick nodded, again not sure where the impulse to do so had come from. “The program was originally called, Jäger…German for hunter.” He turned his back to the enhanced killer and looked at his shadow on the concrete bunker wall. “But the half-wits at the Pentagon didn’t like the foreign sounding name and were loath to call you Yeager. They thought Jagger sounded…cooler.”

  He turned again and stared the Jagger in the eye, moving to within a few inches of her face. “I want you to remember the command, ‘Rainer, Echo, Stampede’,” he said, then stepped back. “I want you to remember it because you are going to be using it on other Jaggers.”

  “Sir?”

  “I have no doubt you’ll fail in being able to terminate the final Lance Asset still wandering around out there. Lance was so much more headstrong and independent than you faithful bunch.”

  “You want me to terminate the Lance?”

  “I want you to kill them all…kill the remaining Jagge
rs, any Gold Rush assets still alive, and last, because you will most probably fail, kill the last Lance asset. Kill them all, then put the gun in your mouth and kill yourself.”

  Shock at having that phrase rise from his throat, shook him to his core, particularly since he had not willed the words forth. Kill them all, then put the gun in your mouth and kill yourself.

  “You are released from all command protocols but that directive. You are to hunt down and kill the hunters…every last one, then self-terminate.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Emrick sank to the floor, his back against the cold concrete wall. “Go,” he said.

  The Jagger looked down at Emrick then holstered her Colts as she left the room. Down the short hallway Emrick heard the metal door clank closed and the latches spin shut. As he sat, the ringing in his ears rose again in the silence left behind.

  “Kill them all, then put your gun in your mouth and kill yourself,” he whispered, then brought the pistol to his mouth.

  Whatever demand his conscience had required of him seemed to be satisfied by ordering the Jagger to finish his work. Peace swept over him at the click, then the explosion of powder and bullet through the roof of his mouth. As he slumped over, the ringing in his ears gave way to a faint whisper in his ear, Mike Nance sends his regards.

  **

  2:15 p.m. on Wednesday, May 11th — RTR Grand Cayman Banque et Assurance, George Town, Grand Cayman

  MARK GAINES stepped off the curb at South Church Street, then crossed the intersection and turned right onto Shedden Road. To his left, a blast from the horn on a cruise ship filled the air, signaling to passengers it was nearing time to return aboard.

  He looked up at the roofline shielding his eyes then returned his attention to the front door of the bank. “Deadeye, I’m coming up under your position. If you haven’t got the ball, let’s pass off to Crow.”

  “Roger, DJ. Crow has the ball.”

  Mark stopped at the window of a coffee bar and ordered an espresso, keeping his back arched against the wall so the drape of his Hawaiian shirt didn’t reveal the lump of the weapon beneath.

  He blew on then sipped his coffee after dropping a ten on the counter, then walked back to the edge of the street. There he leaned against a palm tree at the curb.

  “Check, Crow,” he said, quietly.

  “Crow here. Coming into position now,” Boller replied, then a few seconds later, “Crow, in place. I have the ball.”

  “Roger that,” Mark said quietly. “To the right of the door, the guy with the straw Fedora, like mine.”

  “Roger. Check designation, tango one,” Crow replied.

  Mark shifted his gaze to the sidewalk, just in front of the bank. “And another one in front of the mailbox, twelve meters from the entrance.”

  “Roger. Check designation, tango two.”

  Mark looked over his shoulder at the cruise ship dock, busses and taxis began to slow in their parade toward the ship, backed up like the entrance to the post office on tax day. He smiled at the thought of sitting on a boat in the water, wondering if his conditional pardon would allow for such an extravagance.

  As he sipped his coffee, a wisp of air pushed the palm fronds around above his head. He felt good, real good. The only things nagging at the back of his mind were John Temple being in his ear once more, though so far it hadn’t been bad, and the lack of any news on Scott Wolfe.

  Try as he might to hate that bastard, he just couldn’t. And any lingering resentment over Scott beating him to within an inch of his life evaporated when he learned that Kathrin had died under him in that fall. Mark felt a strong connection to Scott anyway, tainted with anger as it might have been. But to lose someone who meant more than life itself—that sort of kinship was a close and personal tie.

  “Ball is in play,” Boller said into Mark’s ear.

  Mark looked at the entrance and watched as their primary target, dressed in a white linen suit, exited the bank carrying a metal briefcase. A sedan turned the corner as the man walked down the stairs.

  “Transport on station, Tin Star,” Mark said.

  “Copy. Moving.”

  A taxi backed out of the alley and the sedan T-boned it—Mark was already halfway across the street.

  Distracted first by the car accident, the man in the white linen suit turned a second before his bodyguards did, to see Mark crossing.

  The first guard reached into his suit jacket for a weapon, but Mark continued forward, coffee in hand, seemingly unfazed by the move. As the gun cleared the jacket, the man jerked back and fell against the mailbox.

  Still walking at a casual pace across the street, pausing once to let a car go by, the second guard saw his fallen partner and reached for his weapon as well. By now, the man in the white linen suit had started back toward the bank entrance.

  As the second guard’s weapon cleared his jacket, he too jerked backward and flopped to the concrete, dead.

  “Splash two,” Crow said as Mark picked up his pace.

  Before White Suit reached the stairs, Mark caught up to him, grabbing him by the arm, and yanked him around the side of the bank with his wrist folded up between his shoulder blades.

  He dropped the metal case and fumbled at his waistband, but Mark slammed him face first into the bank’s brick wall. He reached under the man’s coat and took the pistol, holding it to inspect before stuffing it in his own pocket.

  “I knew you were a stupid sonofabitch, Richards. But seriously, did you think Scott Wolfe would give you any account number that didn’t have access alarms set up?” Mark asked. “And you call yourself CIA.”

  “I have twelve million in that briefcase. It’s yours if you let me walk right now.”

  Mark pulled him back then slammed him into the brick again. “First, if my freedom had hinged on letting you walk, I wouldn’t have taken that deal, and second, I had access to all hundred billion for months. What makes you think I’m not richer than you are,” he said, then smiled. “…were.”

  “Then just kill me now. I’ll never see the inside of a courtroom,” Richards said with a tone of anger that only thinly disguised his fear.

  “He’s right you know,” came John Temple’s voice in Mark’s ear. “They typically hold FISA court proceedings in absentia and just execute the sentence after a meeting over coffee.”

  Mark leaned forward and whispered in Richards’s ear. “John Temple is in my ear telling me I should grant your wish.”

  Richards looked back as best he could. “I know everyone involved. I’ll tell you everything. I’m too important to just summarily execute.”

  “Mark, behave,” John said with a chuckle. “Don’t make him piss himself. You’ll have to ride all the way home with that smell next to you.”

  Mark laughed. “Don’t worry, Ned, you’ll have plenty of time to honor that promise.”

  As Petty Officer Cooper pulled the van around to the back of the bank, Gaines looked up at the roofline. “Are we clear Crow?”

  “All secure. Tin Star is just parking their sedan on the corner now.”

  “Copy. Circle around and we’ll pick you both up on Church Street.”

  “Roger that. Coming in.”

  Mark shoved Richards into the van and zip cuffed his hands to the seat rail on the floor. Cooper drove off, taking a slow pace to the corner.

  As Mark pulled the black bag over Richards’s face, John Temple spoke in his ear. “Transport is waiting moored off Rum Point. See you in a few hours.”

  “Roger, Momma.”

  “And DJ,” John added. “It’s good to be working with you again.”

  Mark shook his head as he climbed over the center console and dropped into the passenger seat. “Whatever. DJ out.”

  Cooper looked over at Mark and smiled. “Just like old times.”

  “Yeah, that means I’m only about a month out from having Temple getting pissed at me and dropping me in some hellhole to teach me a lesson.”

  Cooper nodded, returning his attenti
on to the street as he rolled up to Boller and Gregory. “Yep…just like old times.”

  **

  8:05 a.m. on Thursday, May 12th — Intensive Care Unit, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland

  STORY “STORC” CARSON stood over Scott’s bed with tears in his eyes. There was nearly nothing left to recognize of his oldest, closest friend. Scott’s face, the little that remained exposed through the bandages, was a swollen and bruised mass of puffy meat and hardly looked human. His limbs had been haphazardly patched with a series of metal protrusions, strung together with wire and metal rings, holding the many pieces of his shattered bones in place.

  The machine that breathed for him, pushed air into his lungs at regular intervals with a rhythmic hiss, raising his chest then lowering it. And the sensors that sprung from nearly every part of his torso and head ran together with neat ties to their monitors, like network cables in a NOC.

  In the chair across the room, Jo sat, her arms hugging her knees to her chest, her eyes red and puffy from a second night of crying.

  “Can’t we do anything to stop it?” Jo asked quietly.

  Storc shook his head. “His sister is his next of kin. It’s her call.”

  Jo started crying again, burying her head in the nook of her arms and knees.

  Storc wasn’t happy about it. He’d been closer to Scott than anyone. His sister, Caroline, hadn’t even been a part of Scott’s life for the past eight years, leaving home and running as far from the memory of her family as she could.

  Storc looked up at the clock and noted that even for this, Caroline hadn’t shown up on time.

  As if the mental rebuke had been the catalyst, the door to the room opened and the attending doctor walked in, followed by John Temple, Caroline, and Scott and Caroline’s aunt who had raised them, Kelly Wolfe.

  Kelly and Caroline cried, sobs renewed upon seeing Scott in his condition. John quietly wheeled around to the other side of the room as Storc reached over and wrapped his arms around Caroline.