He tried to rise from the bed, but his ribs and back protested in pain. His legs throbbed and he knew that he was damaged far worse than he originally thought. Flashes of the battle came to him and he remembered seeing his men being torn limb from limb. He pressed his eyes closed tightly, trying to rid his mind of the memories, but they wouldn’t leave. He knew he was lucky to have survived, but he wished now that he hadn’t. For a fleeting moment he questioned himself, ‘Is this survivor’s guilt’?
He slowly rolled to his side, and a small cry escaped his lips. Then he heard movement from the darkened corner of his room. “You’re awake. Excellent.”
It wasn’t Nadia’s voice. Definitely male, but not very masculine. At least, not very macho sounding like most of the soldiers he was used to dealing with. Again, a slight accent, but he couldn’t quite place it. “Forgive me if I startled you. Nadia and I were taking turns looking after you while you slept.” With that, the figure stood and stepped out of the shadows and closer to the bedside, bringing an antique French-styled chair with him. Setting it near the bed, the man took his seat again and sat facing Jack.
“There now. That’s better.” He reached out and fluffed a pillow and placed it under Jack’s head in an attempt to make him more comfortable. “And how are you feeling today?” he asked.
Jack could tell at first glance, this ‘man’ wasn’t human. Vampire, was his first thought, but something just isn’t quite right. He couldn’t quite place his finger on it, but somehow he knew. And if he wasn’t a vampire, he was something very close to it.
“Who are you?” Jack asked, clearly defensive.
“Forgive my rudeness,” the man replied, standing slightly and bowing. “I am Rufus Thorn. Owner of this castle and, at the moment, your host.” With that, he took his seat again. “And, how are you feeling today? Better, I hope.”
Jack pulled back slightly to get a clearer look at this Mr. Thorn. “You’re not human,” he stated bluntly.
“No, I am not,” Rufus replied with a slight smile. “Quite perceptive of you.” Rufus sat back in the high-backed chair and gave Jack a studying look. “Of course, I suppose I should expect as much from someone who spends as much time of their life as you do hunting down my kind and exterminating them. But you are correct in your assessment. I am most definitely not human. And I haven’t been for centuries.” Rufus cleared his throat and gave Jack a rather pleasant smile.
“Is this where you kill me? Or are you going to heal me up so you can torture me? Or…”
Rufus appeared genuinely shocked. “My God, boy, I should say not! We are...how do the dime store novels say? Vampire vegetarians. And I must say, for those who risked their very lives to save yours, you have a rather odd way of giving thanks.”
Now it was Jack’s turn to appear shocked. “Vege-what? You’re a fucking vampire! How can you be a vegetarian?” With his outburst, Jack began coughing and could not quite get it under control. Rufus stood and poured some water from the pitcher into a crystal glass and offered it to him to drink. After Jack got his coughing under control, Rufus retook his seat.
“It seems to me that you and I have much to talk about. It would appear that you really do not know all that much about who…or what…you are hunting when you go tromping through the night and shoot at anybody with fangs. Do you, old boy?”
Although Jack was more than just a bit skeptical, he had to admit to himself that he was more than just a bit intrigued. Why would a vampire bother to save a human for anything other than a snack? Especially one that had been given an anti-vampirism cocktail? Or maybe the bloodsucker didn’t know that? Wouldn’t he be in for a surprise when he tried to get a little SOCCOM snack in the middle of the night! Still, if that were the case, wouldn’t they both be dead right now?
“Let me tell you a little story about vampires. And not the story that mummies and daddies tell their kiddies to keep them from going outside at night either…”
*****
“Squad One is in the briefing room. They’re up to date, and as expected, it hit them hard,” Matt said as he slumped into his chair.
“I can only imagine what it must be like for them,” Laura said, reliving the deaths of the other squad again in her mind. “Have you figured out yet whether to incorporate the newbies into the existing squad or keep them together?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Matt replied. He poured a cup of coffee and turned back to his desk. “Part of me thinks that breaking up the existing squad would be harder on their morale, but another part of me thinks that the best way to train the new members and keep everybody alive longer will be putting old with new.”
“Well, the training reports are looking really good, sir,” Laura said as she dropped a stack of papers on Matt’s desk.
“How are they coming along?” he asked, looking up from his daily scheduling.
“Actually? Better than previous efforts. The Air Force guys were a better fit than I thought they’d be,” she replied, taking a seat. “Like always, once the Army and Navy guys got through trying to see who’s dick was bigger, they fit like cogs on a gear. I was a bit leery of mixing in the Combat Controllers, but with all of the air support we’ve been using lately, I really felt they’d be necessary. And Sanchez is more than pulling her own weight. Plus we’ve got three qualified snipers, all have been taught hand-to-hand, they’ve all…”
“You don’t have to sell me on them, Laura. I trust your judgment, remember?” the colonel replied.
“Yes, sir.” She answered back feeling less defensive. “They’re all fitting in nicely. And the augmentation is working quicker than with the other teams. I think the new formula really has it down to a fine art.”
“Good news.” Matt allowed himself to smile for the first time since the attack. Since losing his team, he hadn’t allowed any good news to truly lift his spirits, but this was the turning of a new leaf. “So what’s on the agenda for today?”
“They’ve finished up the new hand-to-hand techniques. Not too tough for most of them as you’d expect. We’re moving on to firearms and armaments.”
“All the FN stuff. Gotcha. Is Jay Wolf coming in for this again?”
“He should be arriving within the hour, sir.”
“Let me know when he gets here.
The colonel had his men prepare the briefing room and indoor shooting ranges for Jay Wolf, owner and CEO of Elite Ammunition based in Harvard, Illinois. Although the team was used to some pretty heavy firepower in the field of battle, this new battlefield was almost always close quarters battle or CQB. This sort of scenario called for an entirely new breed of weaponry and the Monster Squad liked to keep things simple. If you can use the same caliber cartridge for both your sidearm and your carbine rifle, that made it a definite plus.
The unit decided on FN’s lineup of 5.7X28MM weapons for CQB and the SCAR-H 17 308 for sniping. The US military had a very good working relationship with Fabrique National de Herstal and procuring the weapons wasn’t a problem. Getting the proper ammunition was. Enter, Jay Wolf of Elite. Mr. Wolf was a specialty ammunition manufacturer and when Matt went searching for other ammunition suppliers besides FN for 5.7 ammo, there was only ONE. That one was Elite. Being that they were a small company, and the fact that Mr. Wolf was ex-military, Matt knew that Wolf could keep a secret. If Matt needed umpteen rounds of silver hollow point ammunition, then Mr. Wolf would see to it. The problem was getting the bullets. Matt actually had to have another bullet manufacturer make the bullets, ship them to Elite, and then have Elite make the rounds for the squad.
What made Elite’s rounds ‘elite’? The fact that they spent thousands of man-hours finding the maximum ft/lbs that could be safely pushed through both the handgun and the carbine for maximum carnage, whereas, FN, in an effort to appease the populace, and facing unfounded rumors that the FiveseveN pistol was a cop-killer gun, had begun to water-down their factory produced rounds. Not the kind of ammunition you wanted to use when hunting a monster with a really thick skin.
&
nbsp; When Jay Wolf entered the compound Laura met up with him and escorted him to Matt’s office. It was as if two old Army buddies had met again after many years apart. Scotch was shared, war-stories swapped, and condolences given for the loss of the squad. Jay knew some of those guys personally and would feel their loss later once it had really sunk in. He knew the news would be devastating to his wife and business partner, Lisa once he got home and broke the sad tale to her. Although bound by secrecy, the agreement had to include her. There was no way one could produce tens of thousands of rounds of silver ammunition for the federal government and not include your wife and business partner especially when she was an integral piece of every part of the business.
“Jay, we got these new boys out here training to replace that squad,” Matt said, staring out the window of his office at the guys running obstacle courses or practicing their hand-to-hand skills. “I’d like you to go over the importance of the weapons and rounds.” He turned to face Jay, his face obviously holding something back.
“Okay, Matt. I guess I can do that,” Jay said. “But don’t you usually have your smiths go over the weapons systems with them? I’m sure they’d have a lot more input than I would—”
“On the weapons themselves, perhaps. But you know the nuances. You know these rounds. Hell, you hand load each one to match specs.” Matt drained the remaining puddle of his drink. “Besides, these guys are still of a mindset that bigger is better. They don’t understand the concept behind the firing rate, the faster, smaller bullet, ft/lbs of energy and all that crap.” Matt sat on the edge of his desk and gave Jay a good hard look. “You’re not military anymore. You’re a real person in the real world with real world results. You brought the presentation with you?”
“Of course.”
“Then let’s do this.” Matt stood and opened his office door. “I just want somebody who won’t let these guys walk all over them, and I figure a tanker like yourself is just the man for the job.”
In the briefing room Jay went over the weapons systems and the rounds he created for the squad. He explained how a smaller bullet travelling at a higher rate of speed could give as much kinetic energy as a larger bullet at a slower rate of speed, but still have armor piercing capability. And while the team was not likely to meet up with anything out there wearing body armor, they were likely to meet up with something whose skin was as tough as armor, if not tougher.
Jay ran through his slides and videos showing how his ‘hot loads’ could pierce car doors and still remain lethal. He gave graphs, slides, and photos showing the end result of pig cadavers shot through windshields and the dissection of the remains and the damage caused by the tumbling bullets when they entered the bodies and struck bone. He explained how the 5.7 was, in all actuality a .224 bullet with a much smaller grain weight; that when it struck a body would tumble and leave a wound cavity very similar to that of a .45 caliber bullet. Ballistic gel videos showed a cavitation effect that was down-right frightening for such a small projectile.
When his presentation was finished, he asked the men, “Any questions?”
Dave Marshal was the first to raise his hand. “If you can get this kind of result from a souped-up fuckin’ .22, why can’t you just soup us up some real rounds like a .40 or a .45?”
This brought a few chuckles from the other men and few nods. Matt averted his eyes and simply sighed. He was afraid of this.
“I guess you weren’t paying attention during the presentation, were you?” Jay refrained from calling the man a dumbass. Knowing that he had begun his augmentation regimen, the man could probably tear him in half already with little effort. “The FiveseveN is a high-capacity, low recoil firearm with dead on accuracy and a reputation in the field second to none. With a recoil less than half of a nine millimeter, you can reacquire your target in a fraction of the time.”
“Meaning…what, exactly?” Marshal goaded.
“Meaning you can put all twenty rounds dead on the bull’s-eye in less time than it takes to put eight rounds on the bull’s-eye with a .45,” Jay stated flatly. “Plus you will also have the P90 carbine that can empty fifty rounds in 3.3 seconds with deadly accuracy in close quarters, and they both share the same ammunition.” Jay walked around the podium and approached the table that the men were seated behind. He placed both hands flat on the table and stared directly into Dave’s eyes. “In a shit-hit-the-fan situation, it’s a damned good thing to be able to use the same ammunition for both your sidearm and your carbine, wouldn’t you think? Not to mention being able to reacquire your target in a fraction of the time of any other weapon platform available on the market, especially when the things you are going to be shooting at has reflexes ten times faster than a cheetah.” He allowed a moment for the statement to sink in.
“Now, when you consider that this ‘souped-up fuckin .22’ – as you call it – has the kinetic energy of a standard .40 caliber, leaves the wound channel of a .45 due to tumbling, and about half the recoil of a 9MM, not to mention the standard magazine holds twenty rounds with one in the pipe, it sounds to me like a pretty nifty little fucking weapon, wouldn’t you agree?” He left little argument for them as he turned back to the podium and turned off the overhead projectors. “Now. Are you boys ready to start seeing just what these weapons are actually capable of first hand? Or do you want to sit here and keep making dumb-assed assumptions?”
This brought a few more snickers as Marshal lowered his eyes and simply nodded. He heard a few affirmatives come from the men, but they didn’t seem quite as excited as he would have liked. “Trust me, gentlemen. Once you get the feel for these weapons, you’ll wonder why you ever questioned them. Many federal agencies have made the switch to this platform including the United States Secret Service, the FBI, the Air Marshal’s Service and a whole slew of sheriffs and police departments. And they aren’t even using my ammunition.”
6
Senator Franklin’s car pulled into the parking garage, circled its way up to the roof, and parked in the far corner away from any of the other cars and as deep in the shadows as it could be placed. The honorable senator from Illinois sat in the back and waited to meet a man he had never met before and knew only as a voice on the phone. Put together by a mutual friend who needed some sensitive work done, the senator had hired the man to do some investigating for him. “Dirt digging,” the private investigator said. “Fact finding,” the senator corrected him. The subject, Colonel Matt Mitchell.
Leslie Franklin knew that if he couldn’t get the other men who sat on the oversight committee to shut down or defund the black operation, then they had to be destroyed from within. The only way he could think to do that was to destroy the leader. Laura Youngblood was an untouchable. She was CIA and her records were sealed. Her past destroyed, her new existence written so perfectly that the truth couldn’t be found, and if anybody was found sniffing around her, he or she would simply disappear never to be seen again. But Mitchell was another story. Career military men always leave a trail of destruction. Ex-wives, drunk & disorderly charges, brawls, something. Anything. It just had to be found. Nobody was clean and anybody who climbed to the top usually did it by stepping on someone else. He knew that from experience.
As the senator sat nervously, he would glance at the watch on his wrist, then out the window of the car. Then at his driver, then back to his watch. From the shadows a hand appeared and knocked on his window and the good Senator nearly wet himself. He had no idea why he was so nervous, but he literally jumped when the knock came at his window. Hitting the button to roll the window down, he was about to go into a tirade about how the man was late, but a large manila envelope was suddenly shoved in the window and the shadowy figure was gone as suddenly as he appeared.
Franklin had dropped the envelope in the floor of the car, but picked it up and set it in the seat beside him. He stepped out of the car to speak to the investigator only to find himself standing alone in the parking garage. However the man had gotten into the corner of the ga
rage where the car was, he was gone now. Spooky sonofabitch, he thought as he stepped back into the car.
Ordering his driver to take him back to his office, he opened the envelope and perused the contents. Not much here that he couldn’t have found on his own. Birth certificate. Copy of college transcripts. Highlights of his service jacket. Operational records. Locations of service. Dammit. Nothing of use as far as he could tell. As he was about to put the contents back into the envelope, he happened to notice the last page: a summary and conclusion sheet. Although on paper Matt Mitchell appeared to be an exemplary officer and had done nothing wrong worth reporting, the man had never had so much as a speeding ticket. No credit rating other than a single Visa with a $5,000 limit and had never been married. Conclusion, he was manufactured. Unknown by whom, but manufactured, nonetheless. Anybody who lives long enough to attain the rank of colonel in the United Sates military leaves a longer paper trail than Matt Mitchell had. Most college-age kids left a longer paper trail than Mitchell had.
Well, this left more questions than answers. But at least the investigator appeared to be on to something, even if that something was actually a whole lot of nothing. Or, rather, less than enough.
Franklin sat back in the soft leather of the Lincoln and pondered the ramifications of a manufactured officer running a clandestine group of black op SOCCOM soldiers in the middle of America’s heartland. “At least it’s a first step,” he said.
“Sir?” the driver asked.
“Nothing. Just thinking aloud,” Franklin answered absent-mindedly. Either way, bringing down Mitchell alone still might not be enough to destroy the entire project. I’m going to need more than this. A lot more.
*****
After ensuring that Jack Thompson was comfortable and had some solid food in front of him, Rufus took his seat next to the bed again and settled in for a chat. “It would seem to me that you and your comrades may well have been misinformed on quite a bit concerning we vampires,” he started. Jack simply hiked a skeptical eyebrow. “I can tell by that look that you aren’t sure of what I’m about to tell you, and while I can’t very well prove everything I’m about to disclose to you, I can assure you that it is all the truth.”
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