The Grid

by Carlton Winnfield

  Timeline.

  I tapped acknowledgment and walked the remaining short distance to the door that would take me into the weapon room. I stopped three paces short.

  “There are 3 guards on the left and 3 on the right. 3 of them are still facing the doorway. Khan continues to work to arm the weapon.”

  I tapped, “1 PD and 2 of the Devices in the room to terminate 3 of the guards. Leave the weapon drone and the 4 outer surveillance drones in place.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  My heads-up display enabled me to see a very small object that had been near me move through the air out into deeper darkness away from the doorway. Then, for a very small fraction of a second, I saw a blur of movement from my right to my left – from the darkness of the hallway toward the brightly lit room. I raced to the doorway and into the room to bright light and the sound of yelling and the thumping of heavy objects hitting the floor.

  Initial impressions: Salim lying to the left of the weapon, motionless. Khan bent over a laptop computer connected to the weapon, but now looking behind him to see what all the noise was about. Miguel, his three men, and five Pakistanis lying on the floor amid large amounts of their own blood. Khan’s three remaining men looking about them, darting their eyes up and down, left and right, full circle, trying to see what had just killed their three comrades. I saw fear in their eyes.

  As I burst into the room, a dark shape racing out of the darkness, it took my adversaries more than a second to react to my presence. The element of surprise – even for a moment – in close quarters can make a terrible difference.

  Khan, who had been turning in my direction, saw me first. His eyes opened more widely and contained a look of bewilderment. He yelled to the guards, pointing a hand at me. “Kill it!” he screamed.

  Instinctively, all three guards first turned to Khan, then followed his pointing hand. A few more seconds gained. The guard nearest me, on my left, began to bring his weapon around and down to bring it to bear. I saw the other two guards beginning to turn. The last thing I noticed of Khan before I slammed into the first guard was that he was turning back to the computer screen and weapon console, once again lost in his fervor to alter the course of history. I admired his single-mindedness.

  My collision – at a full sprint – with the first guard jolted him very hard, backward off his feet, his grasp on his rifle lost as his left arm flung it behind him to my right, my elbow strike to his sternum knocking the wind out of his lungs as he toppled toward the floor. I felt his exhaled breath on my face. As we went down, I rammed my knife into his neck below his larynx and upward into the base of his skull and the top of the spinal cord. Blood spurted from the wound and he went immediately limp. As we hit the floor, I whipped my weight to my right and rolled toward the other two guards, neither of whom had yet fired a shot, probably out of fear of hitting their comrade, Khan or the atomic weapon. I rolled to my knees very close to the next guard nearest me and inside the arc from which he could engage me with his rifle. It was useless now, except as a club. His body stood between me and the last guard. I rammed my knife into his left leg behind the knee, burying it behind the hamstring tendons, and thrust outward with considerable force, away from the back of his leg, severing them. He screamed as his left leg buckled. He went into shock from the pain. As he began to collapse in front of me, I dropped the knife, knocked the rifle from his right hand, caught him in my arms and turned him toward his last remaining comrade. All of this had taken no more than ten seconds. The last guard panicked, brought his weapon up and started firing at us. At this close range, the bullets hit the man I embraced, went through him, and impacted my body armor. The body of the man I held absorbed most of the inertia of the bullets, his body jerking repeatedly. I felt the impacts through my armor. The weapon of the guard shooting at us clicked empty. I released my hold on the man in my arms and, as he fell like a rock to the floor, I grabbed his handgun from his shoulder holster, raised it and shot the last guard – now starting to turn and run from the room - in the side of the head.

  I heard a tremendous animal scream from behind me. I had no chance to react. Felipe would not be satisfied, I can tell you. I was pummeled to the side and backward by the impact of a fusillade of high velocity bullets. I instinctively turned my face away to protect it and the heads-up display. The projectiles struck me all about the torso; a few rounds hitting the side of my head, some going wide. Khan was firing the entire magazine of bullets from his assault rifle at me. The noise was deafening in the enclosed space. The pummeling knocked me violently to the floor. I heard the sound of his weapon click empty. He looked at it, then at me, lying there on the floor, disdain on his face. He threw the empty rifle down and turned back toward the nuclear weapon.

  After several moments, I began slowly to get to my knees and then stood, facing him. Khan heard the sound of my movements and turned back toward me. He stared at me. He was unbelieving, could not understand what was happening – that was the feeling I read on his face. He then found some deep reservoir of faith, straightened his back and yelled, “It is not important who or what you are. We shall all go to paradise together when I push this button!” So he had completed the sequence of arming instructions that had been in his laptop. He looked down at the weapon then at the laptop laying beside it. He looked back at me and smiled. “You are too late!” he screamed.

  I started to walk toward him. “Push it,” I said.

  He nodded his head in wide up-and-down arcs and chanted, “Yes, yes,” louder and louder. With the wide-eyed look of the deranged, Khan turned and leaned down to push the enter key on the laptop.

  I stopped and yes, I admit to you that I did hold my breath.

  Khan pushed the key. A moment passed. He looked back up at me, then back down at the laptop. He pushed the key frantically again, one, two, three, four, five times. Armageddon did not arrive. History was not changed. He continued to look at the weapon, then at the laptop. “Why did it not …” He stopped in mid-sentence and looked back at me. In a voice filled with tension and deep rage, he yelled, “How could you do this?! Who are you?!”

  “I am a friend of your wife,” I replied.

  Khan became motionless; his eyes grew huge. He had just attempted suicide with a nuclear weapon – a daring feat - and failed. His reality was crumbling and he was struggling to understand why. He looked completely perplexed. You could understand his dilemma. Finally, he said, “You were the one who did those things in the Yemen.”

  “And to your brother and your men in Pakistan. But listen to me, Khan - none of that is important now. What is important at this moment is that you know that all of your plans to change history are ended - and that your wife sends you greetings.”

  “Greetings?” he asked. “She…?” He was still trying to understand.

  I helped him.

  In one fluid movement, I raised the handgun and shot him in the center of his forehead. No discussion.

  “Timeline?” I asked.

  “The Embassy’s initial response team will be here in 18 minutes. It will include Mexican Special Operations Forces.”

  “Countdown, every minute.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  I walked over to where Salim lay on the floor. As I bent over him, I asked the Machine if there were any members of El Centro or Khan’s group still alive in the building. The Machine said there were not. I reached up and removed the body armor from around my head and stored it underneath the top of my shirt at the back.

  I slapped Salim’s face. Hard. Again.

  He remained unconscious. I checked his pulse. Weak, but there.

  I walked over to the laptop, ejected the disc and put it into my pocket. I took a small backpack from my back and shoved the laptop into it.

  I returned to Salim. Slapped him again. Hard. Again. Again. A cough, jerky movements of his body. I watched him. His eyes opened then closed. He opened them again, staring into the distance, trying to focus. He took several deep breaths. Noticing me,
he turned his head and stared up at me, not recognizing me. “Where am I? Who are you?” The Machine translated.

  “You speak English, don’t you, Salim?”

  “Yes, I do,” he answered in that language. “Who are you? Where is Khan?” He had fear in his eyes.

  “You are in the same room where Khan struck you with his rifle when you refused to detonate the nuclear weapon. You were very brave. He is lying just there.” I pointed to his left and behind him. He pushed himself up on one elbow, turned and looked at Khan’s body lying on the floor, his eyes still open, the back of his head blown away; blood, skin fragments, pieces of bone from his skull and brain matter spattered on the wall behind and lying on the floor nearby. He then looked about him at the rest of the room and reacted in disgust at the carnage he saw there. He wretched. When he had finished, he asked, “How did this happen? Who did this?”

  “17 minutes.”

  “You are safe, Salim.”

  He reacted almost violently. “How can I be safe?” he yelled. “There are dozens of them!”

  “They are all dead. You are safe.”

  He just stared at me. Then, in a moment, he asked, “How is that possible? Who did this and who are you?!” He looked at me with wide and frightened eyes and started to push himself back away from me, until he hit the wall. He stopped trying to move farther away but continued to stare intently at me.

  “Friends did this. I am one of them.”

  “How do I know that – that you are not like them or one of them?”

  “Your sister once asked me the same question.”

  Salim’s head rose at these words and a light came into his eyes. “You have met my sister?! Where is she?” he demanded.

  “Yes, I had the great honor of meeting her once when she needed the help of a friend. She is safe and her name is Jamila.” I held out my hand to him. “Come, Salim, I will take you to her.”

  He hesitated, a look of longing in his expression, but also ongoing doubt. Understandable. He had been living in fear for a while now.

  I waved my right arm about me. “If we can do all of this, I could have easily taken your life, Salim. Instead, I offer you my friendship and help. It is that simple. You either trust me or you do not. Look about you; they are all dead and you are alive. That should be evidence enough.” I reached out my hand farther toward him. “Jamila needs you.”

  He looked into my eyes, trying to feel the truth in my words. He took a deep breath, looked about him at the bodies and gore, then back at me and my extended hand. He nodded once and took it.

  I slowly helped him to his feet.

  “16 minutes.”

  “Salim, we must leave here now.”

  He staggered, taking his first steps. I steadied him. “But what about the weapon?” he asked.

  “The weapon will be taken into custody by competent authorities. There are men coming now to retrieve it. They will be here soon.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait for them? To be certain?”

  I admired his sense of morality and responsibility.

  “Salim, you do not want to be here when they arrive. With everyone else here violently dead and you and I the only survivors with a rogue nuclear weapon, neither of us will get back home - ever. We must leave. I promise you that the weapon will be in safe hands.”

  He wanted to believe me. He also wanted to get home. I could see it in his eyes. Still, his sense of honor caused him to hesitate. “How can you be certain, if we are not here?”

  I gestured about me at the carnage in the room. “Like this, it is something I can do. Come with me.” I held out my hand.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, looked at the dead bodies again, then at me, took a deep breath, nodded his head and said, “Yes.”

  As I helped him walk slowly from the room, avoiding the blood and bodies strewn about us, as best we could, he asked me, “What should I call you?”

  I didn’t hesitate this time. “You can call me Michael.”

  I picked up my knife.

  “15 minutes.”

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  As we walked away from the building, a convoy of black 4-wheel drive vehicles and large vans raced by us, going in the opposite direction. No sirens. No flashing lights. Just speed. Salim and I were a block and a half from the weapon site. Two street bums making their way.

  Thirty seconds later, the Machine reported, “The Embassy’s initial response force is arriving at the building. DELTA is in route to Mexico City and will arrive in 85 minutes. No one has entered the building since your departure. 4 PDs are standing watch with the weapon. The 5th will track the response team from entry to the weapon room.”

  I guided Salim into an alleyway to give him some rest and to wait – to be certain.

  Five minutes passed.

  “The response team has reached the weapon room. Mexican Special Operations forces have established a perimeter. The US Chief of Station has telephoned the Director of US National Intelligence and his Ambassador to confirm the presence of an apparent nuclear weapon at the site. The commander of the Mexican Special Operations force has telephoned the office of the Mexican President with the same information. All communications and photographic data confirm the identities of these persons. The weapon is secure.”

  I moved Salim out of the alleyway, farther away from the weapon site and a little closer to home.

  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

  The product over time of all the Grid’s intellectual and physical activity was that it became the world’s most effective private detective – collector and connoisseur of information – and agency of direct action. It did not possess the large-scale tools of coercion and security – military and police forces – that States controlled, but the nature of its own tools enabled it to be a highly effective and surgically focused agent of influence. Still, it needed to address its opponents - choose how it interacted with them - carefully. If a group of individuals happened on the scene and developed or looked to be developing the ability to threaten the Founders’ philanthropic values and goals, the Grid employed various methods to deal with them. One of those methods is to send people like me, armed with the Grid’s magic, against them, to influence and dissuade them, as we say, from such intentions. If the minds assessed that the threat is or appears to be particularly virulent, especially fascist in nature, the Grid authorizes the employment, should it be required, of what it calls “Roman Rules” to achieve that influence and dissuasion. In other words, the Operator may take the gloves off and employ the full scope of the Grid’s resources, though not always at his or her sole discretion. This attitude is based on the presumption that such exclusionary groups most likely will not be dissuaded by intellectual argument or legal restraint, though the Grid may try those options first.

  Given their potentially extremely coercive nature and the Grid’s underlying values, the Grid took very seriously and placed great formality on sanctioning the use of these Roman Rules. It required that it be done in person whenever possible, that the involved human individuals or Ops Machines acknowledge and accept the authorization (it has happened that the Operator and – once – a Machine declined to do so), and that the event be recorded visually and acoustically in an unimpeachable manner. This was the Grid’s protocol - always. In this manner, the Operator could hold the Grid, the Founders themselves, accountable for authorizing their employment – or so went the thinking. In principle, the Operator was not out there operating on his or her own. In this manner, if the Operator needed to employ those Rules, no human or Machine of the Grid, in principle, could refuse to support him. In theory, if an authorized Operator employed them, the Grid would protect him or her from punitive action by whomever. That theory has yet to be tested. Indeed, the Operator in question is always provided a copy of the recorded pledges for his or her own protection and, perhaps more importantly, peace of mind.
Something to remind us that we are not acting alone when we let loose the hounds of war.

  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

  CHAPTER 16 – The Sting

  Within ten minutes of the US Chief of Station’s discussion with Mexican authorities, Soares was informed of the communication from the Americans - awakened in the middle of the night. Two minutes later, Mendoza telephoned Miguel. No answer. He called again. No answer. Over the next 3 minutes, Mendoza telephoned ten other members of the cartel security force at the weapon site. No answer. He informed Soares and then went personally by van with seven men to the weapon site. Five blocks from the site, his vehicle was diverted by Mexican military personnel into a loop that extended 360 degrees around it at the same distance. Mendoza reported this to Soares.

  The morning news and talk shows said nothing about anything to do with the weapon site. Not one word. Soares looked at all of them. Mendoza reported that dozens of Mexican military personnel had entered the blockaded area at 5:30 in the morning. At 6:05, he reported several helicopters arriving over the area; two of them apparently landing on the top of a building and nine others – heavily armed gunships – maintaining a security cordon from the air. None of the aircraft bore insignia.

  Through its five remaining Devices at the weapon site, the Machine observed and reported to me the arrival of the two helicopters on the roof of the weapon site and the unloading of a US Nuclear Emergency Support Team and its equipment and their escort, a team of DELTA Operators. The Machine watched both teams move from the roof to the weapon room, where the NEST team had officially confirmed the presence of the Pakistani nuclear weapon and its condition. The DELTA Operators had interacted with the US Chief of Station and their Mexican counterparts, adding to the already high degree of security.