The Sector

by Kari Nichols

  Bullets ripped up the grass behind her, but she’d already outdistanced their range. She made the end of the fence and tucked in around the edge and headed into the forested area near the shore. She wanted to avoid going for a swim. It was too fucking cold to be paddling about in the Strait.

  The neighbor’s yard was more an overgrown woodland than a backyard garden. Ferns sprouted up at the base of the trees, providing her with ample ground cover. Her dark clothing blended well with the natural shadows. Ducking behind a tree, Tate forced her breathing to return to normal. She could hear one pursuer crashing through the bushes in search of her. A second man stopped at the edge of the fence, scouting.

  From a crouch, Tate paused to perfect her aim and then fired at the scout. The bullet caught him mid-forehead. A quick pivot and she put two bullets into the body of the runner. She double-timed it over to the runner to make sure he was down. Carrying on through the forest, up the side of the neighbors’ house, she used their extensive gardens as cover to ease around toward the front.

  The van was still parked in front with its side door wide open. One man was left with the vehicle, keeping an eye on the road. They searched the backyard and found the scout. Another minute of searching through the brush turned up the runner.

  A quick conference over their radio and the searchers started to drag the bodies back to the house. Tate lost sight of them, but assumed they’d come around the side with the bodies in tow. When ten minutes had passed, Tate wasn’t as certain of their intent. Her instincts were starting to quiver, so she moved away from Freemantle’s house, making her way across the front of the neighbor’s place.

  Tate heard doors slamming and turned around to see that everyone had piled into the van. The gate was still open and they drove out, barreling down the road. There was no license plate anywhere to be seen. No identifying marks of any kind.

  Giving up all pretense of stealth, Tate sprinted for the front gate, vaulted over the six foot brick wall and hit the street at full speed. She’d gone less than fifty feet when the force of the blast struck her. Flying twenty feet in the air, she tucked her shoulder under as she landed, taking the brunt of the impact on her right side. Skidding across the pavement, she wore the leather of her coat down to bare ribbons.

  She keyed in her mike. “Call off the Cleaners. Keep them out of the area.”

  “What happened?” Evan demanded. He could hear everything, including the explosion, but couldn’t talk to her until she’d keyed in again.

  “Someone else took care of the mess. The trees are on fire. Call it in. I’m betting when the rubble is cleared they’ll find the remains of three victims in there. Freemantle and two guys who came looking for me.” Tate raced over to her Range Rover and executed a speedy three-point turn, heading away from the mess.

  “Any sign of Morrison yet?” she asked.

  “No, he hasn’t checked in. I’ve got a plane at the airport, fueled and ready to go. It leaves when you get on it.”

  “On my way.”

  ***

  The Sector, HQ

  Tate’s plane landed at a private airstrip outside the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba. To the east was Winnipeg International Airport. Planes flew in and out all day, which aided her organization in masking their own movements. The pilot taxied straight into the hangar and the hangar doors were lowered before Tate exited the plane.

  Evan was waiting for her. Clomping down the stairs, loud as an elephant, Tate hurled herself into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist. The impact no longer threw him off balance. When they’d been kids and the same size, she could topple him. Now he exceeded her in height and bulk and could take the hit.

  Though she talked to him several times a day, she hadn’t been back to the base for three months. Evan spent all of his time at HQ, running operations for her and her runners. Her handler, Evan was also her twin brother, older by five minutes. Tate kissed him full on the lips before unwrapping herself from him and heading for the door to the main buildings.

  “Are you hurt?” Evan asked when he saw her work out a kink in her shoulder.

  “Probably lost some skin, but my jacket took the hardest hit.”

  Evan led her down a long hallway painted sterile white. It was devoid of people. Tate had never seen the place buzzing. If The Sector was active, she’d be out in the field in the thick of it.

  Evan keyed into the elevator and selected Sub-level 7. The Sector had built most of the facility underground. The hangars and a couple of office buildings created the civilian façade on the surface. Underground was where the real work happened.

  Sub-level 1 was closest to the surface, at twenty feet below ground. Sub-level 7 was the furthest from the surface, at a depth of 180 feet. The building had been constructed over the course of three years, during the mid-‘80s. A six-acre area had been cordoned off by opaque Plexiglas and guarded throughout the construction phase. Massive white tarps had been set up overhead, ostensibly to keep the elements out.

  For three years, the site had looked like a giant square marshmallow. Trucks went in, dirt came out. When the fencing and tarps came down all that remained of the entire project was the airstrip, the hangars and the office buildings. They used less than a quarter of the entire area. The remaining surface area was converted into a corn field.

  Urban legend had the site pegged as a Canadian version of Area 51 in Nevada. The Sector perpetuated the rumor by scheduling periodic night flights of low-flying aircraft. Mostly it was helicopters, but that didn’t stop conspiracy theorists from making it into something more sinister.

  The Sector was a watchdog organization that kept its eye on the rest of the world. It filtered information, acting upon anything that could have catastrophic global implications. Such a vague mission statement gave The Sector a large field to play on. Control of the organization was handled by non-governmental representatives from across Canada, both military and civilian.

  The Sector boasted one of the largest covert military forces in the world. Each 16-man Sector Task Force included ex-SAS and ex-JTF2 soldiers as well as any other soldier who held dual citizenship with Canada. When their respective military forces determined they were no longer needed, they came to The Sector. If they passed the rigorous training and examinations, they were in. Stationed throughout the world, a Task Force could reach any target within a four-hour window.

  Sector Agents were a separate entity from the Sector Task Force. Sector Agents could be male or female. All were ex-military. They were loners, completing 90% of the on-site work singlehandedly. When a Sector Agent was called in, people died. It was expected.

  Descending into the earth felt oppressive to Tate. She’d lived 90% of her adult life outside. Her visits to Sub-level 7 felt like entering an enormous burial crypt. She spent as little time at The Sector as she could manage and the entire time she was there she’d be praying for go-time.

  Sub-level 7, nicknamed The Basement, was the largest level in the complex. The elevator opened into a small corridor with two doors. The door on the left led to a hallway with half a dozen storage spaces and Tommy’s lair. The door on the right led into a cavernous room where military personnel tested experimental devices created by their tech department.

  Evan turned left and keyed into the storage wing. Tommy could have taken an office on a higher level, but preferred the quiet of the basement. Human interaction was not his strong suit. Pressing the call button next to his door, Evan waited for Tommy to complete his scan and pop the locks. Tate walked in and flopped down on the couch. Tommy’s domain was nothing like the typical geekdom one would expect from such a supreme hacker.

  Taking over a space as large as the average urban apartment, he’d styled it to be more a man’s library than a computer room. Persian carpets graced the floor; studded leather couches and matching wingback chairs were positioned in a comfortable conversational grouping. In the back right corner he had a kitchen with manual espresso maker, wine cooler and stocked liquor cabinet.
/>
  Tommy didn’t look like the typical computer geek, either. He could grace the pages of a GQ magazine. Tall, chiseled good looks, rugged appearance, extremely fit; Tate would have considered him as a lover if he ever came above ground. He slept in his office; there was a partitioned area next to the kitchen, for his bedroom. She couldn’t even hazard a guess as to the last time he’d stood outside in the fresh air.

  Tate gave them both a quick rundown of the events in West Vancouver. Tommy half-listened as he scanned through some data he’d been collecting, taking mental note of files that seemed interesting at a glance. After a few minutes he remembered he had guests.

  “Can I make anyone a coffee?” he stood with his own mug in hand and gestured toward the espresso maker. Tate nodded and Evan declined. A man for details, Tommy didn’t bother to ask what she wanted. Tate had the same thing every time.

  “I want to have a look at Fiona’s apartment.” Tate accepted the coffee with a nod and took the first bracing sip. He knew how to use the machine, could tell her every technical aspect it possessed, but Tommy had yet to brew a decent cup of coffee with it. She liked her coffee strong, but not thick enough to stand a spoon in it. Still, she’d drink it. “Did anyone search her cubicle?”

  “It was cleaned out when they got the notice about the bomb. HR assumed she wouldn’t be returning to work.” Evan pulled out a manila file folder and tossed it to Tate. “That’s her personnel file. It’s pretty thin, so Tommy is looking into her background.”

  Tate read through the sparse details. Fiona Engleton was 28 years old, a couple inches shorter than Tate’s 5’11” with blonde hair, green eyes and pale skin. She’d listed her brother as emergency contact. Not married, she lived alone in a one-bedroom flat on the other side of town.

  “She’s gorgeous,” Tate commented. Looking over at her brother, she raised an eyebrow and gestured to the photo.

  Rolling his eyes, he shook his head but didn’t say a word.

  Tate grinned. Struck out, did he? “You know if her rent is paid up?”

  “She owns it,” Evan replied.

  Abandoning the rest of her coffee, Tate made note of Fiona’s address and headed for the door. Tommy’s voice stopped her before she could get away. His phone had rung while she was looking through Fiona’s file.

  “Yes sir, she’s right here,” Tommy replied. “Yes sir, I’ll send them up.”

  “What does Ogilvie want?” Tate asked. That many sirs coming from Tommy could only mean the big boss. No one else got such reverential treatment.

  “He didn’t say, but he wants you both in his office, pronto.”

  Tate pulled the door open and Evan raced to catch up with her. Ogilvie’s office was on Sub-level 4. Tate led the way down the hall to the desk outside his office.

  “Hello Juliet, I believe we’re expected,” Tate said with a smile. Ogilvie’s secretary was a young woman, but she had a spine of steel. Tate could appreciate that she’d need one, to work for a man like Ogilvie.

  “Yes, they are expecting you,” Juliet replied, getting up from her desk and heading for the door leading in to Ogilvie’s office.

  “They?” Tate asked.

  “Bailey is in there as well.”

  Tate smiled. She hadn’t seen Bailey in over three months as well. Tate considered her a close friend. Given how little time she had to invest in friendships, Bailey was Tate’s only friend. She stepped into the office and knew that something had happened. She could see the strain in Bailey’s eyes. Bailey was a half a foot shorter than Tate and built like a china doll. Her hair was thick, honey blonde; her eyes were dark brown. Tate knew the news would be ugly.

  “TA-4 have been found?” she asked. Given Bailey’s expression, if they’d been found, they weren’t alive.

  “No, they’re still missing,” Ogilvie replied. He stood next to his desk, facing her. Of a height, Tate could see the concern in his eyes, too.

  His typically booming voice was markedly hushed, worrying her further. If it wasn’t TA-4 then it must be Fiona. Ogilvie shook his head again when she asked and then held up a hand for her silence. He turned to Bailey and offered her the floor.

  Bailey stepped up to Tate and looked her in the eyes. “The paperwork you sent us from McMaster showed some disturbing additions to my original design for the locator beacon.”

  Tate unconsciously rubbed the base of her neck, her fingers brushing over the scar. She waited for Bailey to continue.

  “McMaster has changed the self-destruct mechanism to be significantly more powerful.”

  “How powerful?” Evan demanded.

  “If utilized, it would be enough to blow a giant hole in the soldier’s spine, killing them instantly.”

  Tate froze. She had a bomb inside her. Her own people had inserted a bomb under her skin. Tate pulled her hunting knife from her boot and slapped the hilt into Bailey’s palm. Whipping her shirt over her head, Tate turned and dropped to her knees. “Cut the thing out of me, now.”

  Bailey looked at the knife in her hand. It was a crude tool, but it would get the job done. “I can’t do that,” she whispered.

  “Then I’ll go to the infirmary where they’re trained to do shit like that,” Tate said. But she didn’t move. If it were that simple, Bailey wouldn’t look so devastated. Tate waited her out.

  Bailey brushed her fingers over the scar on the back of Tate’s neck. “The new locator includes a tamper-proof mechanism that initiates the self-destruct if it detects any attempts to remove it. Once a locator is implanted and initialized, it can no longer be removed unless the null codes are received first.”

  “How the fuck does it detect tampering?” Tate demanded, pulling her shirt back over her head. She had visions of taking a hard blow to the back of the neck and instead of waking up a few hours later with a nasty headache, she wouldn’t wake up at all.

  “The locator is sub-dermal. It resides in the hypodermis, where the skin layers meet the fat layers. It’s embedded far enough to be unobtrusive without resting on the spine. Four prongs are deployed to stabilize it. If those prongs are retracted without the proper sequence being keyed into the system, it triggers the self-destruct.”

  “And you can’t remove the locator without retracting the prongs?” Evan asked.

  “No, they’re designed to retract if the main housing is pulled, so that it doesn’t tear the skin.”

  Great! She had a tiny fucking bomb inside her that wouldn’t hesitate to blow her spine out the front of her chest, but was kind enough not to tear a few layers of skin. Tate paced the length of the room, her mind raging. She needed to hit something. She needed to pound her fists into someone. And that someone was already dead, by her hand.

  “Why?” Tate demanded. When they looked at her with blank expressions, she clarified her question. “Why did McMaster design the locators this way? If it’s not something you requested, who did?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Ogilvie admitted. “We’re checking his financials to see where his money went and who had access to his manufacturing plants.”

  “Where are these plants?” she asked.

  “One is in Seoul and the other is in Berlin.”

  “I’ll go,” she decided.

  “We need you to find Fiona Engleton, first,” Ogilvie informed her.

  “Why is she so important?”

  “Tate, The Sector received 1000 units of the new locators. All have been implanted,” Bailey said. All but three which were still inside her vault.

  Tate didn’t need a roadmap to understand where Bailey was going. “TA-4 had the new locators. That’s why they were taken.”

  “We believe so, yes,” Bailey agreed. “In addition to the modifications I’ve already mentioned, McMaster added one other feature. It’s a secondary GPS signal that is sent when the locator is activated. This is a mod that I asked for. The locator sends out two GPS bursts. The second one is a backup in case the first gets a busy signal.”

  Evan frowned. “Why haven’t we had
any notification of TA-4’s whereabouts if each man has the chance to get two signals out? The odds of getting that many busy signals seems a little farfetched to me.”

  “We think the signals are being jammed. It’s the only explanation for a complete lack of response from any of them. We think Fiona may have found a way around it and knows where TA-4 is right now. Find TA-4 and you’ll find the person who paid McMaster.”

  “Why wouldn’t Fiona tell us that TA-4 was still alive?” Evan demanded.

  “We think she got spooked,” Ogilvie explained. “Someone put a bomb in her car. It’s sheer luck she wasn’t inside when it blew. Parker and Jarvis were killed and that hit the news, so she’d have been aware of it. She probably didn’t know who to turn to.”

  Ogilvie barely managed to conceal his rage. He’d been with the Air Force for thirty years before he’d been offered the post here at The Sector. He’d signed on in 1999 and realized what an absolute fucking mess the Ops department had become. Led by an incompetent imbecile who’d never served in the military, the man had all but destroyed The Sector’s reputation for swift and decisive action.

  It had taken Ogilvie two years to undo what had been done and to get Ops back on track. He’d created the SA program himself and had overseen the initial stages of its development. Tate Ryan had been the third woman to enter the ranks of the Sector Agents. Four other women had joined after her. Tate was the only one still active. The program had run into a few snags along the way and people had died. Good people. Ogilvie had considered changing the SA mandate to only accept men. He was old school and believed that men fought for their country, but Tate had changed his mind by being damn good at her job.

  Now she had a bomb in her neck as a thank you for her hard work and dedication to her country. If she hadn’t already killed McMaster, Ogilvie would have ordered her to bring the bastard in. A few hours in the Rehabilitation Centre would have set the man straight. He’d have answered every question posed to him. He wouldn’t have had any choice. He also wouldn’t have lied. A paper pusher like him didn’t have the training to withstand Rehab. Instead, they were scrambling to catch up. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but Ogilvie recognized that this is what Tate had been trained for.