The Fall

by R. J. Pineiro

  Javier walked over to Riggs, who was breathing heavily, his face twisted in pain.

  “Take a good look at her, my friend,” Javier told him, reaching for his face, forcing him to stare at his dead wife, before shoving the ends of his thumbs into the base of his eyes, gouging them.

  Riggs screamed, lurching against his restraints to no avail.

  Javier ripped them out of their sockets and threw them in the bucket, before producing a switchblade and castrating him, letting him bleed out.

  Riggs howled, blood streaming from his face and groin as his back bent like a bow, tight fists fighting the restraints, before slowly going limp.

  Pete shrunk back in his chair, his throat dry, his mind in turmoil, the coppery smell of blood filling his nostrils.

  Slowly, a door slid open and General Hastings stepped in.

  He pointed at the video recorder and one of Javier’s men turned it off and walked away with it.

  Hastings took a moment to inspect the bodies.

  “I see you haven’t lost your touch, Javier.”

  “Gracias, General.”

  Slowly, he turned to Pete and approached him.

  Pete tried to control his breathing, his rocketing heartbeat, his mind still trying to comprehend what he had just witnessed.

  Hastings stood in front of him awhile, looking larger than life, and finally said, “Riggs didn’t have a choice, Flaherty. But you do. I could use someone as talented as you and Dr. Taylor in my operation. Now, are you finally ready to talk?”

  * * *

  He came in from the water.

  Under the cover of darkness.

  Like a SEAL.

  He had used one of Pete’s WaveRunners to get him close enough, before ditching it and diving the rest of the way, using his compass to hold a course of one seven zero, heading south for two miles in the Banana River, which bordered the east end of the Kennedy Space Center’s industrial park, at a depth of just ten feet, letting the SeaScooter do most of the work.

  Jack relaxed in the pitch-black waters, the battle dress keeping him comfortable, enjoying the ride, surfacing only once to check his position, spotting the NASA Parkway bridge in the distance, which connected the Industrial Park to the launchpads by the Atlantic Ocean.

  He went under again for another fifteen minutes, surfacing for the last time by a narrow bay that curved inland from the main river, leading to Tenth Street, the southeast corner of the Industrial Park.

  Jack followed it, reaching the marshes a few hundred feet beyond, stopping by a narrow sandy path that sneaked up to the street past a narrow forest.

  He remained immersed, except for his eyes and ears, which surveyed the surroundings under a star-filled sky, listening for several minutes, examining the terrain beyond the protection of the water.

  The place was quiet this time of night. Jack removed his tanks, masks, fins, and BCD, leaving them partly hidden in the marsh alongside the SeaScooter, before reaching the waterproof pouch strapped to his left thigh, removing his Sig Sauer 9mm semiautomatic, a sound suppressor cylinder, and four spare clips. He screwed the suppressor to the end of the muzzle and slipped the extra clips in elastic pouches on his battle dress. He also secured three fragmentation grenades and three M84 stun grenades, which he hoped he wouldn’t need to use tonight.

  Before heading out, he put on a black bandanna, reapplied camouflage cream on his face, donned a pair of skin-tight gloves, and hooked up his throat mike.

  “In position,” he whispered.

  “Read you loud and clear, Jack, but I can’t see you on any cameras,” Angela said from Pete’s house.

  “Good. That means they can’t see me either.”

  “Starting the loop now,” she said. “Give me a second.”

  Jack waited. Angela had recorded an hour’s worth of video footage for each camera in the Industrial Park and was now launching an algorithm that would replay them so anyone watching wouldn’t see the live feed for sixty minutes—the time he estimated he would need to complete this mission.

  “It’s done,” she reported.

  “What’s the guard situation?” he mumbled.

  “Looking now,” she replied. “Pretty dark out there.”

  Jack crawled out of the water, staying low in the thick forest separating the marsh from the road, like a predator in the jungle, reaching the gravel by the edge of the trees, peering beyond it, inspecting the street, devoid of any traffic this late at night.

  Jack followed the tree line east, for almost a half mile, using the forest to shield him as he reached the intersection of Tenth and F Avenue and quickly crossing it, entering another narrow forest in between E and F Avenues, and continuing north for five more blocks, arriving at the west end of Fifth Street, where it met D Avenue, and telling Angela where he was.

  Again he paused, listening, observing, measuring his approach. His eyes, long accustomed to the darkness, probing deep beyond the edge of the woods, searching for figures, for shadows, for anything that would break the natural pattern of the—

  Jack held his breath, his ears picking up the sound of soles crunching gravel.

  “I just spotted a guard by the edge of the parking lot.”

  “Taking a look now,” he mumbled, inching forward, peeking around the corner of the waist-high grass separating the woods from the parking lot, spotting the guard’s silhouette fifty-some feet away, dark against the streetlights on C Avenue at the other end of the parking lot, walking at the edge of the tall grass in his direction.

  “I see him,” he whispered.

  Beyond the parking lot rose the main set of structures making up the heart of the space center, including its headquarters, labs, office buildings, processing facilities, and, most important, Building M7-1345, the old Project Phoenix location, where Angela guessed Pete was hiding the damaged OSS.

  The guard, armed with a standard-issue M-17 SCAR-H rifle, patrolled the edge of the parking lot, focused on the perimeter, scanning the top of the grass.

  Jack frowned. Angela was right, as always. Pete and Hastings had certainly turned this place into a military facility.

  The guard continued his assigned route, moving methodically, in Jack’s direction, slowly, his eyes probing the woods.

  Jack waited, blending with the tall grass, his eyes on his prey as the man’s left boot came into view.

  He surged from the grass, surprising the guard, their eyes locking for an instant, as Jack chopped him in the neck before clapping his hands over his ears.

  “Jack, the guard just fell.”

  “Not quite,” he said, dragging him into the marsh.

  “Oh, I see you.”

  He removed the guard’s jacket and rifle, pretending to be him while crossing the short parking lot, while ignoring a pair of guards posted a few hundred feet away at Gate 2F, which led to State Road 3—ironically the way Angela and he took to reach their house in Cocoa Beach.

  The guards glanced in his direction and one even waved at his dark figure, and he waved right back.

  “Jesus, Jack,” Angie said.

  “It’s okay,” he said, walking up Fifth Street and reaching an alley, dumping the rifle and jacket. “All right. Which way?”

  “There are guards at every intersection down Fifth. You just can’t see them because they’re around the corners on B, C, and D Avenues. So take a right on D and a left on Fourth street. I don’t see anyone there now.”

  Jack complied, rushing down for a block on D Avenue, stopping short of the intersection and peeking around the corner, looking down Fourth and verifying it was clear.

  “On Fourth now,” he said.

  “Yeah, I see you,” she said. “Coast looks clear.”

  Jack rushed down the street, stopping at every corner, before crossing intersections, quickly making his way to the southeast corner of the KSC Industrial Park, reaching A Avenue, his eyes—

  “Hold it right there.”

  Jack stopped, feeling the muzzle of a barrel pressed against
the middle of his shoulder blades.

  “What the hell do you think you’re—”

  Instincts took over.

  The human brain, as amazing as it is, has a key flaw: it delays physical reactions by a second or two whenever the subject is talking, which allowed Jack to pivot on his right foot while also sweeping his right forearm, shoving the gun out of the way and palm-striking the guard, driving the heel hard up his nose, shocking him as bone and cartilage pressed against the brain’s prefrontal area.

  Thank God for amateurs, he thought when the guard dropped the gun as his legs gave out from under him.

  Jack caught him and the rifle, keeping his counterstrike silent as he dragged him into a recess between buildings, knocking him out completely with a chop to the neck, stressing his vagus nerve system.

  “Just got surprised by a guard,” he said into his throat mike.

  “Oops. Sorry. Hard to see clearly in the dark.”

  Jack sighed, realizing he would have to be more careful. Angela’s ability to use the security cameras was limited to areas illuminated by streetlights.

  “But it looks good to the target,” she added. “And by the way, Pete’s car is parked in front of the building.”

  Jack peered beyond his hideout at the street leading to M7-1345. He could see its worn-out facade, which looked the same as when he saw it a week ago, when Angela and he had arrived to meet up with Pete the night before the jump.

  “I have eyes inside the building, Jack,” she said. “One camera in the lobby and another one upstairs, in the hallway.”

  “Guards?”

  “Two in the lobby and two more on the second floor, standing by a door near the stairs. All four have rifles. I’m guessing that’s where Pete’s hiding the OSS.”

  He narrowed his gaze.

  Pete Flaherty.

  It was time to pay his old friend a little visit.

  * * *

  Pete crossed his arms while looking out the second floor of the old Project Phoenix building, trying to decide if he would bring Hastings in on his discovery.

  The general was due in from Washington in the morning, and as much as he hated to admit it, Pete’s multiple attempts to secure his runaway friends had only resulted in more disasters.

  The body count, between his own soldiers and mercenaries was close to twenty dead and twice as many wounded.

  Damn it, Jack, he thought, once more chastising himself for having underestimated his former friend, and perhaps wondering if he should have done the deed himself. He certainly had the training to put him down. Maybe then he could secure Angela and the missing component from the suit.

  But first I need to locate them again.

  And that’s where Hastings might be able to assist.

  But Pete needed to be careful on a number of fronts. First, coming out with a way to spin this to the general to avoid pissing him off for having left him out of it for nearly a week. Second, doing so in a way that Pete could still retain control over the project. And third, getting Hastings over the first two fast enough to stop Jack and Angela before they somehow managed to reverse the tables on him—something he knew Jack was quite capable of doing.

  He checked his watch.

  Seven more hours before Hastings’s C17 transport landed on the runway a few blocks away, the same runway used by the shuttle for so many returns from space.

  His gaze landed on the suit, which Gayle Horton and three more of his trusted scientists had dissected to the core, extracting the information they would need to reproduce it—except, of course, for the missing module.

  He’d had them lay out the disassembled suit across three lab tables, including the small membrane-like solar antenna, which Gayle had left for him on its own table ready to be activated by a pair of LEDs in case he wished to put on the show for Hastings.

  Pete yawned. He was tired. No, strike that. He was downright exhausted, having not returned home since getting that call from Angela in the middle of the night, which meant sleeping in his office in KSC’s headquarters for the past several nights.

  And with Hastings arriving on an early morning flight, it meant yet another night with little or no sleep, especially if he planned to have everything ready to break the news to the general about his discovery.

  And it also meant he needed to decide how he would present it to his boss.

  Pete walked away from the windows to face the tables, gazing at the various components, at the damaged helmet, the outer shell, the boots and gloves, amazed at how much more advanced it was from their last prototype.

  We were certainly busy in that other world, he thought, wondering how much time it would take them to catch up.

  He stopped when reaching the last table, where Gayle had set up the stage for the membrane. Everything was there.

  Everything except for the membrane.

  What the hell?

  He first thought it was a shadow shifting in the corner of his left eye, perhaps the reflection of streetlights diffusing through the lab’s large windows.

  “Looking for this?”

  Pete turned around and froze. Standing in front of him, looking larger than life, was his former friend, Jack Taylor. And in his hand he held the miniature solar antenna, which he stowed in a pocket of what looked like a very advanced version of the same battle dress he had worn on that ill-fated mission in Afghanistan a lifetime ago.

  * * *

  Jack observed Pete from a short distance before shifting to the right, though not fast enough to avoid telegraphing his position. In an ideal world, he would have preferred doing this SEAL style, sneaking into his office while Pete was looking away, stealing the membrane, and getting the hell out of Dodge before he even knew it was gone.

  “Jack!” Pete said, facing him just as he was about to walk out the door. “Wait. I can explain.”

  He didn’t reply, measuring Pete up as he approached him slowly.

  “That’s far enough,” Jack warned, remembering all of those trophies in his house, before reaching for his sidearm and leveling it at Pete.

  “Jack? Who are you talking to?” Angela asked through his earpiece.

  “Pete,” he replied.

  Pete looked at him funny as he stopped a few feet from him and raised his hands, asking, “Who are you talking to, Jack?”

  “Your old girlfriend,” he replied.

  “Who?” asked Angela.

  Jack shook his head, said, “Hold on, Angie. I’m having a little chat with Pete.”

  “Please don’t kill him,” she said.

  Jack sighed. He could end it right here so damn easily. But a promise was a promise. Although he truly didn’t get it, he still had to respect her wish, however irrational it seemed at the moment.

  “Turn around slowly,” he said.

  Pete complied.

  Jack got right behind him and was about to knock him out when Pete dropped to a deep crouch an instant before Jack realized his mistake. In making him turn around, Pete faced the large windows and saw Jack behind him in the reflection.

  Jack stepped back, but not fast enough.

  The turning roundhouse kick landed on the side of his face, right behind his left ear, striking him in the exact spot still tender from that female operative kick three days earlier.

  Stunned but conscious enough, Jack rolled back into the hallway, his head throbbing, his eyesight blurring as he stood, taking a step back, tripping on the bodies of the two guards he had disabled before sneaking into the lab.

  “Jack!” Angie screamed into his ear now that she could see him on the security camera in the hallway.

  “Get up!”

  He stood with difficulty, realizing that he no longer held the Sig.

  Pete rushed into the hallway clutching the 9mm semiautomatic.

  “He’s got the gun, Jack!”

  Realizing he had a second, maybe two, before Pete turned the gun on him, Jack sprung into action, rushing across the few feet separating them, his left hand sweeping th
e space in between them in a semicircle, striking the shooting hand with the edge of his palm, pushing the gun out of the way just as Pete pressed the trigger.

  Jack’s left arm stung, but the battle dress deflected the shot, punching a hole in the wall next to him. He ignored it, following the chop with a palm-strike to Pete’s sternum, which he blocked with his right hand just as Jack grabbed the shooting hand, twisting the wrist, forcing him to drop the Sig.

  Pete pulled his arm free and turned sideways to Jack, recoiling his left leg, faking a low kick and spinning toward him, bringing his right leg up in a stretch that reminded Jack of that same female operative at FIT, agile, lightning fast.

  This time Jack was ready, shifting back and sideways, missing the roundhouse kick by inches, feeling the air in front of his face as Pete’s foot rushed past him.

  Angela screamed for an instant, before the earpiece popped out of his ear, dangling from its coiled cord behind him as Jack stepped in, connecting a palm-strike to his sternum, pushing him back.

  Pete fell, rolling away, scissoring his legs, landing on his feet, hands in front, pivoting to the right, the left, the right again, faking with his left fist before swinging his right hand at his temple.

  Jack barely had time to duck, the hand caressing his bandanna before he shifted to his right, recoiling his left leg, extending it toward Pete’s midriff, heel high, toes pointing down.

  Pete drove his right elbow down, driving it into his attacking ankle, connecting at the same instant as Jack, pushing him into the door to his lab.

  Still recovering from that first strike to his temple, Jack blinked, retrieving his throbbing leg, wincing in pain, thankful for the battle dress, which cushioned the elbow counterstrike, and surprised again at Pete’s nimbleness, at his ability to move so fast and precise.

  Both men reached their striking poise again, eyes narrowed, hands in front.

  Pete lunged first, spinning, hands slicing the air like a cyclone, whirling, feigning to go high before extending a leg and driving it toward the side of Jack’s left knee, aimed at the anterior cruciate ligament that controlled rotation and forward movement of the tibia.