by Tony Roberts
And for that matter, what of the officers? Who were the new officers there? It was likely that any new officer would be a Brotherhood agent. There would be only one or two but they would be high up. Somebody at Ops would be, simply because of the rapid switch of orders to Richards when Hayley had refused to shoot Casca. So Ops was one of his targets. The medical center was the other. Trouble was they were in opposite directions on different floors.
Casca braced himself as Danny got the ambulance going again. Hayley now donned a surgical mask and made herself look like the popular – and misguided – vision of a nurse. No point in Casca donning a mask; his build and general stature told anyone with military experience he was a soldier.
“Carlos,” Danny called back over his right shoulder, “there’s a CD lying next to my laptop. You see it?”
Casca glanced down. The silver disc was there, in a clear CD case. “Yup, got it.”
“Use it in Ops; it’ll wipe the records. It’s a damned powerful virus. Trojans – the lot.”
Casca grinned and slipped it into his vest pocket. “Can it be traced back to you?”
“Nope. It’ll self-wipe once you send it.”
Casca shook his head. “Clever. You know it’ll destroy all the Black Ops’ terrorist records as well. The FBI and CIA will be jumping up and down.”
Danny nodded. “I coded it just like al-Qaeda’s experts. I’ve been studying the different styles used over the world. If you look hard enough you get a kinda pattern, just like listening to accents.”
“Checkpoint’s just up ahead,” Hayley commented tensely.
“What if they get suspicious?” Danny asked suddenly. He was outside his comfort zone here.
“Bullshit your way past. The passes should be good enough and they ought to have your bogus clearance on their manifests,” Casca said, then crouched down in the rear. The rear windows were blackened, but the cab was open to the rear and anyone looking through the windshield could see into the back. Their ally was the night; darkness would conceal much.
The lights of the checkpoint lit up the cab and Danny slowed, then came to a halt under the canopy. Two gun-toting soldiers stepped forward. “Who are you and what is your business here?” one asked. Casca slowly slid under the bunk and dropped the blanket down, hiding himself.
Danny passed the two I.D.s out. The guard checked them while his companion walked round the ambulance, looking for any tell-tale signs of problems. “We were told you’d be coming,” the guard at the window said. “Is Doctor Goldman bad?”
“I hope not,” Danny said. “We’ve been told to get him stat and back to base by morning.”
“And where’s that?” the soldier asked.
“You know I can’t tell you that, soldier,” Danny said, grinning.
The other soldier stopped by the rear doors. He flipped the handle and opened them. Danny twisted in his seat. “Hey, there’s sensitive stuff back there.”
The soldier was staring at the bank of laptops, equipment and the web of wiring. “Hey, they ain’t medical items!”
“Cardiovascular monitoring equipment,” Danny snapped nervously. “This guy is going to be monitored by some of the best heart doctors in the country until we reach our destination. You can look around as much as you like but don’t touch anything! It’s calibrated ready for Doctor Goldman and I don’t want you to screw the pooch on this assignment. We don’t wanna be sued ‘cuz some homesick abortion fucked with it!”
The soldier grunted. What the hell did he know of such things? “Shit, sure, bud.” He flipped the door shut.
“We just gotta check under your vehicle. Routine,” the first man said and grabbed the telescopic mirror for that purpose. After a nerve-wracking few minutes, they were pronounced clear and Danny drove through the now-raised barrier into the Castle compound.
“Where to now, Carlos?” Danny asked.
Stifling a chuckle Casca could only respond with “homesick abortion? I mean really, homesick abortion?”
“I was nervous; it was the first thing that came to my mind.”
“Well remind me never to get under your skin, Danny. Straight ahead,” Casca said, peering forward through the two seats. “Hayley, take me to the underground entrance.”
“They’ll stop us, Carlos,” Hayley objected. “No visitors allowed. We’ve got to go to the visitors entrance! They’ll be expecting us to go there, and when we don’t, they’ll activate the alarm.”
“Sure, but drop me off there first – I gotta sneak in while you and Danny go to the medical center. Time we stopped doing what they expect us to do and start doing what we want to do. Hayley, you and Danny get to the medical center and get Goldman out. Take him to the roof.”
“The roof?” Danny said, turning his head in surprise.
“Hayley knows why,” Casca grinned, clapping the woman on the shoulder.
She smiled briefly. “You take care of yourself, Carlos – they want your ass badly.”
“See you up on the roof. If I don’t make it in twenty minutes, go without me.”
“Hell we will,” Danny said strongly.
“Lieutenant – that’s an order,” Carlos said.
“Yes, sir, Major, sir!” Hayley mock saluted.
“Hoaah!” Danny interjected, somewhat needlessly. The other two looked at him without expression. Danny shrugged and slowed as the road forked. The headlights picked out parked Humvees, a couple of Striker APCs, and other assorted hardware, flanked on either side by a pair of M1A2 Abrams Battle Tanks. All were parked in a covered concrete car park, set back from the road and fenced off. Dark silhouettes of soldiers could be seen patrolling here and there.
As the ambulance slowed Casca killed the lights in the back, hastily opened the back door, slipped out, and shut it just as quickly. They were in the dark of the walls, right by a corner, and the ambulance then continued towards the visitor’s entrance. Casca moved against the wall and looked up. The walls rose sheer, as any castle’s should. But there were no turrets or battlements. Off to the left an electrified fence ran round the Castle, and here was a little-known entrance. In the old days it might well have been referred to as a sally port.
Casca made his way to it, but knew two men should be on guard close by, keeping an eye on it at all times. Sure enough, a small sentry hut stood there and one guard could be seen. Casca sucked in a deep breath; no time for hanging about, get on with it. He walked up boldly to the guard who was standing with his 7.92 cradled in his arms, alert. “Hi, buddy,” Casca hailed him softly. “Anythin’ happenin’?”
“Who wants to know?” the guard asked suspiciously and raised his muzzle, stepping forward. He hesitated, seeing the familiar gear and uniform, and Casca knocked the gun up and chopped hard across the carotid artery. The man sagged at the knees so Casca whacked him hard again across the back of the head. The guard collapsed and Casca dragged him into the hut, then made his way past to the sloping concrete entrance of the sally port.
Down there was a second guard. He was on his rounds, making sure all was well. Casca walked confidently down, calling out that there had come an order from operations to check the lock. Someone had apparently tried to break in over by the fence at the far end. The guard turned round, checked the keypad and was busy examining it when Casca clubbed him hard with the butt of his gun. Stepping over the prone man, Casca keyed in his pass code and slid his fake I.D. into the slot. Danny had done his business. The fake I.D. worked.
With a hum, the steel single man-sized door slid aside and Casca slipped in, knowing he would only have three seconds before the door slid shut again, and nobody would be able to stop it. Beyond was a small vestibule and another door in the other wall. It was dark but Casca used a flashlight he had in his belt, and keyed in his number again and used the I.D. By now someone in operations would know somebody had used the sally port and his I.D. wasn’t one that had been used before. Hopefully his entry would distract security from Danny and Hayley.
A lit corridor la
y beyond and Casca quickly moved along it to a cross passageway. Cameras were mounted high up and Casca knew he would be on the monitors. He walked on fast. Somebody would surely be passing orders to stop him or at least to question him. Who was he? His head was lowered so nobody would see who he was.
Up the first flight of stairs and round. A long corridor ran ahead. Doors stood left and right and at the end, by another, stood two guards. Casca didn’t go there. Left, along another passageway. More doors. There was a hum in the background. It was on this floor that operations were to be found. He passed two guards who were doing their rounds and clearly had no idea what was going on. Earphones were hanging from their left ears and microphones pressed against their mouths. Instant communications.
No sign of any action. Casca was puzzled.
Danny breathed out as they were allowed past security on the doors. Hayley, still masked, pushed the wheeled stretcher. They were escorted by one guard who was under orders to show them the way. In the excitement and anxiety of the moment he had forgotten to tell Casca that he had jinxed the communications in the Castle. No matter, he’d inform him when they met up on the roof. He was at the back of the stretcher, just to the rear of and to one side of Hayley. He couldn’t help but keep looking at her ass as she moved. Wow.
They had shown their passes and had been waved through with no trouble. He wondered if operations had been yelling into their mikes not to let them through. All they would get would be static. It would take someone a little time to un-jinx it. He was good at that. No so good with women, though. He wondered if he could be good with Hayley.
Or more to the point, could she be good with him?
He put that out of his mind as they neared the medical center entrance. The guard stood aside and let them in. Hayley knew where to go, and led him on. Two doctors were standing by the bed of a patient and they looked round as the noise of the stretcher reached them.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” one asked sternly.
“Medical emergency for Doctor Goldman,” Danny said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.
“Who says?” the doctor demanded. “And where are you from?”
“Santa Fe,” Danny answered, coming to a stop. Hayley moved round to examine the patient, who was, clearly, Julius Goldman. He was out cold and had a drip in his arm.
“Stand back,” the doctor snapped, grabbing Hayley’s arm. In a flash Hayley had spun, pulled the arm up and then down and forced the man to his knees. The other doctor snarled and grabbed inside his white coat for something but Danny was waiting for a move like that. He pulled out the dart gun from under the stretcher by his hand and shot a red-marked dart into the man’s neck. The doctor dropped the pistol he’d produced and sank to his knees, then toppled over to lie still at Danny’s feet.
Hayley chopped hard at the other’s neck and laid him gently onto the floor. “Let’s get Doctor Goldman out of here,” she said urgently.
“Don’t ever let me get you mad,” Danny commented, whipping aside Goldman’s blanket. To his surprise they saw Goldman was trussed up, legs and arms bound.
“If these two are genuine doctors then I’m a lesbian,” Hayley said.
“So you’re not, then,” Danny grinned.
Hayley shot Danny a severe look and they lifted Goldman up, and then down onto the wheeled bed. “Cover him over, Danny. We don’t want people asking questions!”
As Danny did so, he looked at the door. “What about the guard outside?”
“I’ll take care of him. Follow me.” She moved across to the door and threw away her face mask, and nurse’s hat, now she no longer needed them. She threw off the rest of her nurse’s disguise and once again was in her black combat fatigues. Danny thought she looked much better. The door opened under Hayley’s I.D. and the guard turned round in surprise, to get a stunning blow from her automatic pistol butt and then a round-house kick that knocked him against the wall and he slid onto his ass, eyes glazing over. “C’mon, over to the elevator!”
While this was happening Casca had gotten to the operations doorway. Still puzzled as to why nobody had challenged him, he approached the guard on duty. The man, someone Casca recognized, looked in surprise at him. “Hey, you’re supposed to be down in Mexico, ain’t cher?”
So the word wasn’t out fully that Casca was persona non grata. “Hell, Locke, I was ordered to get my ass back here ASAP! Know what it’s all about?”
Locke shrugged. “Naw, but then some odd shit is goin’ on down hereabouts. Some weird guy turned up yesterday and said the general had been relieved of command. Had all the right orders appointing him as the new commander so what the hell?”
What the hell, indeed. Casca guessed the Brotherhood had taken the chance when it had presented itself. They knew they had only a short time to act so they had sent in as many of their group as they could to do a snatch job. “No problem, Locke. I’ll go in and ask what the hell they want.”
“Good luck,” Locke grinned and stepped aside. Casca was grateful he didn’t have to hurt Locke. That left just the ones behind the door, and he was certain most if not all who were in there weren’t legit. As he punched in the key code and pushed the door open, he had a chilling feeling in his bones. He was entering their lair.
Operations had multiple screens over one wall and a bank of desks in front of them. Normally a whole range of operators sat behind them on the black leather chairs, but only five were present. Two chairs were set back from the screens and it was on these that the commanders sat, issuing orders and so forth. One man was sat here and he swung his chair round and glared at the man who stood at the rear of the room, the silenced gun in his hands pointing at the four operators who had also turned.
“So, Longinus,” the commander said in a low, venomous voice, “it was you responsible for the communications blackout. I should have guessed.”
“You bastards,” Casca replied. “How did you get in here?”
The commander got to his feet and stepped down onto the floor. “Irrelevant. You appear to have had help. No matter, we will take care of that. This won’t take long. Get him.”
The last had been said to the four others. They grabbed nearby sub-machine guns but Casca was already squeezing the trigger of the Koch & Heckler, sending slugs across the control room, tearing holes in the bodies of the Brotherhood men who were spinning and twisting in pain and shock from the bullets plowing into and through them. Even though he was using the single shot selector, he was shooting too fast for the helpless enemy to react. He also didn’t want to spray bullets all over the consoles as he needed them for the next few seconds.
The commander cursed and grabbed for his pistol but Casca swung the muzzle of his gun to the side and sent two bullets through his chest, shattering ribs, puncturing lungs and sending his chest cavity exploding into red fountains.
The smell of cordite filled Casca’s nostrils as he surveyed the scene before him. Five men lay dead or dying. He moved swiftly to the central computer and slid the CD panel open. There was a disc there already but he threw that out and it clattered onto the floor behind him. He slid the one Danny had given him in and pushed it shut. The screen above it went blank for a moment, then began to spew up lines and lines of commands and something to do with file names and the like, but it scrolled far too fast for Casca to read it, and if he had been able to he’d probably not understood what the hell it meant.
Time to go. He made for the door and coded it open. Locke was still there and Casca blocked his view of the room behind. The door began to slide shut as he spoke to the guard. “None the wiser. I’ve gotta go to medical center. They think I’ve picked up some kinda bug.”
“The pox?”
Casca laughed. “No chance of that. Not had the opportunity recently. Too many ops.”
“Hear you there, bud,” Locke nodded. Then he sniffed the air. “What the heck?” he exclaimed as he detected the smell of cordite. Casca struck out viciously, catching the unfortunate L
ocke in the guts, and then as he folded over, chopped him across the neck. He lowered the unconscious man gently to the floor, then trotted off down the passageway. He turned right, then found the narrow stairs and climbed up, round and round up the floors until he got close to the roof.
It had gone too well and he heard voices ahead. “That’s far enough,” someone barked. “Put your hands up. I don’t know what you think you are up to but you ain’t supposed to be here.”
Casca guessed the other two had run out of luck. He peered round the corner and saw the open elevator, the bed jammed in the doorway, and Danny and Hayley standing with hands on heads, covered by two men while a third, clearly a colonel, standing in the center, examining their fake I.D.s.
Casca crept carefully along the corridor, keeping silent on his rubber soled boots, and made his way up to the nearest guard. The guard lost interest in covering the two suspects as a warm suppressor suddenly pressed against his neck. “Drop it, bud, or you get sprayed over the wall.”
The colonel whirled and Casca could see him quickly working out how to overcome the new problem.
Casca didn’t let him gain the initiative. “Frisk this jerk,” he snapped to Hayley.
She stepped forward, took his pistol and frisked him one-handed, the pistol against his teeth. “Turn round,” she commanded. The colonel reluctantly did so.
Casca got the two others to drop their guns and kicked them across to the elevator. They vanished into the space beyond the doors and Danny pressed the buttons to send it to the basement. “Okay,” Casca snapped, “let’s go for a walk.” He got Danny to push Goldman along to the ladder that led to the roof. Goldman was untied and Danny lifted him up, grunting with the effort. The colonel and the two guards lined up against the wall, Casca covering them, and Hayley opened the hatch at the top of the ladder. There, she hesitated a second as she took in the sleek appearance of the jet black Sikorsky MH-60L Black Hawk Direct Action Penetrator, the Special Operations modified MH-60L. The aircraft sported a pair of M230 chain gun 30mm automatic cannon and 70mm rocket pods on each wing with M134D mini-guns protruding from each side of the fuselage. The momentary reflection over, she sprang out and made for the four-bladed beast she considered a thing of beauty. Danny went next, slowly, struggling, but he eventually did it. Casca grinned at the three men. “Now, let’s try to break the world record for running back to operations, shall we? Who wants to be Usain Bolt?”