The Sector

by Kari Nichols

  Jimmy pulled his boat over to the dock, took care of any survivors and pushed the buttons to activate the docking bay doors. Klaxons blared out and lights in each corner of the docking bay lit up and circled, throwing swathes of red across the walls and out over the water.

  Jimmy turned his boat toward the bay doors and waited. Keeping an eye on the ladder leading toward the submarines conning tower, he hoped that Tank had had enough warning about his visitors.

  ***

  Armed with an M4 Carbine that he realized might have come from one of the missing soldiers, Tank wished he’d been able to find an attachable grenade launcher to go with it. The two extra magazines he’d found would have to do.

  Slipping from the small armory back into the main corridor, Tank stopped and listened for movement. Heading up and forward, toward the conning tower, Tank opted to meet the force head on. He had no desire to be chased through a submarine he was unfamiliar with. As a SEAL he’d been on numerous submarines, but those stays were often brief, lasting as long as it took to get them to their insertion point. Though he doubted he’d get turned around, he still preferred an upfront approach.

  Not knowing where on the boat he might be lurking, or if he knew they were even about, the Russian soldiers had been forced to fan out to cover the immense space. Tank was within twenty feet of the ladder leading from the control room to the conning tower before he sighted his first set of unfriendlies.

  Weapon at the ready, he pulled the trigger. Set to three-round bursts, he concentrated on center-of-mass shots. None of the soldiers appeared to be wearing body armor. The reverberations from his assault brought the remaining soldiers to attention.

  Acoustics on the boat distorted the point of origin of the shots, forcing each soldier to move carefully through the bulkheads. Tank didn’t want to get caught between the control room and the conning tower access compartment, so he waited for the soldiers to give their positions away.

  He heard a shoe scraping on the deck. Was it coming from fore or aft? Tank ignored the distractions and focused on staying out of sight while his pursuers hunted him. Another scrape, a light shuffle and there he was, coming from the forward compartment with another on his tail. Gentle pressure from Tank’s trigger finger sent them both to hell.

  Stepping over to the bodies, Tank relieved them of their small stockpile of grenades and one rifle. Exchanging his M4 for the new one and now armed with a grenade launcher, Tank fired one grenade forward and one aft, before climbing the ladder to the conning tower access. He’d barely pulled his feet up into the access when the grenades detonated.

  Slamming the hatch and climbing the next ladder, Tank raised his weapon and wedged himself against the side of the access, as far away from the hatch opening as he could get in the confined area. Tossing the hatch open, he waited for gunfire or voices to filter down, but didn’t get either. Looking up, he saw that the compartment was empty. Climbing the last ladder and tossing back the remaining hatches, Tank saw that the soldiers’ commander had opted out of providing them with backup.

  ***

  Jimmy angled a wary eye up toward the ceiling. The explosion from the unexpected crate of grenades had blown through two major support beams in the structure of the wall. The cracks that had run up the wall had continued on to the ceiling. Chunks of cement were starting to drop down, hitting the submarine and splashing into the water.

  The docking bay doors moved at a snail’s pace and weren’t halfway up yet. The entrance to the docking bay, from the main part of the facility, was blocked due to the damage from the grenades. If the Russians tried to force their way through, they’d destroy what little integrity the walls maintained. Jimmy wanted to be long gone before that happened.

  Searching the wreckage for survivors, Jimmy’s attention was focused on the area in front of the submarine when he heard it. The whistling sound was distinctly familiar. Not bothering to look around, Jimmy dove over the side of his boat and swam straight down.

  The rocket slammed into the side of his boat and exploded on impact. Three boats roared into the docking bay from outside, heading straight for the wreckage of Jimmy’s own boat.

  Having swum down far enough to avoid the brunt of the impact from the explosion, Jimmy surfaced forty feet away from his insertion point. A boat skimmed by in front of him and Jimmy caught on to the side railing and hoisted himself inside.

  He grabbed the soldier nearest to him and snapped his neck. Holding the man aloft, Jimmy guided the soldier’s gun toward his compatriots and pulled the trigger. The soldiers fired their weapons, but Jimmy used the dead soldier as a shield. Safe from their bullets, Jimmy’s shots ripped through the two soldiers. Jimmy tossed the bodies overboard. Back in command of a boat, this one with decent armament, Jimmy drove straight through the flaming wreckage of his old boat.

  Chapter 13

  Seoul, South Korea

  Tate drove as Emily navigated, using the GPS signal that Tommy had transferred to her cell phone. The truck carrying the bombs had headed straight south, cutting right through the middle of the country. They didn’t know how many bombs Vlad had brought to the warehouse. The truck could be filled with them.

  They were keeping a constant five-mile gap between them and their quarry. With the GPS, they didn’t need to risk closer surveillance. There were very few cars on the road at this time of night.

  “They’re heading southeast on Highway 1,” Emily said. “The entrance is another mile down this road.” She looked up from the phone and scanned the road ahead. The highway entrance was marked, although the Korean characters were incomprehensible to her.

  Tate took the exit and accelerated up the onramp. The highway had a little more traffic on it. Trucks hauling cargo from one city to another swept past her at 120 kilometers per hour. Twenty kilometers later, just outside the town of Suji-gu, Emily instructed Tate to take the exit to Highway 50.

  They’d gone ten kilometers when Emily realized where they were. “It looks like we’re heading back toward Incheon. Are they taking the long way to the airport?”

  “No reason for them to take the long way back. There must be something out this way.” Tate drove for twenty minutes wondering if this was nothing but a wild goose chase when Emily piped up again.

  “Ok, they’ve turned off the 50 and are now on some sort of access road.”

  “What does it link up with?” Tate scanned the road in front of her, but couldn’t see the access road exit yet.

  “There’s a Route 77 five clicks away, which leads along the coast of the Yellow Sea.”

  “Anything useful in the area?”

  Emily conducted a secondary search through Google Maps and input their current coordinates. Dragging her finger across the screen to move to the area in question, she clicked over to satellite view. “It’s an industrial site. There are hundreds of places they could be going.”

  ***

  Gibson drove the speed limit, keeping the sedan at the edge of his sight. When they neared the airport, he wasn’t surprised to see the sedan take a left toward the private airfields. Gibson passed by The Sector’s plane, waiting inside the darkened hangar. He knew it would be fueled and ready to go, the pilot sleeping on board.

  When the sedan pulled into a driveway three hangars further down, Gibson doubled back to The Sector’s hangar and parked his borrowed hatchback near the entrance. He grabbed his rifle and crossed the street. There was no cover in front of the hangars. If anyone emerged from the building, they’d spot him in an instant. Across the street from the hangars was a grassy field. The gardeners hadn’t been by in a while, providing Gibson with much needed ground cover.

  He bent over as he ran the distance between the first two hangars. At the edge of the third, he hit the dirt and crawled on his elbows and knees until he was in front of the open hangar door. Pulling his rifle around, he settled his eye against the scope and looked inside.

  “Fucker!” he spat, the word inaudible over the faint whistling of the wind.
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br />   He could see the pilot and, standing next to him with a cigarette twitching between his lips, was Morrison. Gibson was too far away to hear the conversation and his lip reading had never been very good. He didn’t care what they were saying. There was no good reason for Morrison to be anywhere on this Op.

  One good shot and the asshole would be dead.

  Vlad was nowhere in sight. He could already be on the plane, or still inside the sedan. He’d not exited the building. Nowhere for him to go, Gibson would have seen him. Gibson looked to the top of the hangar, to the wind flags that flapped in the light breeze. Wind to the west, barely registering. The shot would require little adjustment to his aim to compensate for it. Peering through the scope, Gibson got his target in his sights. His finger started to squeeze the trigger.

  ***

  The signal had stopped over twenty minutes ago. Tate and Emily had left their truck parked along a side street a half a kilometer away and walked in. The streets were deserted. The businesses that bustled with activity during the day were little more than hulking shadows at night. Very few lights shone in the darkness.

  Tate crept along, tucked into the shadows of those same empty buildings. Emily kept pace behind her. Their quarry had parked their truck at the back of a building, near the last of three loading bay doors. Tate couldn’t read the Korean symbols on the front of the building and there were no accompanying English translations.

  If the men inside the truck had already gone into the building, Tate hadn’t seen it. There was no movement outside the building and no light inside. A transport service was separated from the target building by a narrow service road. Semi trucks with detached trailers were parked end-to-end, three deep, and extended for half the city block.

  Tate led Emily into the maze of truck cabs and trailers, checking underneath for movement. Wending her way toward the far end where the target building lay, she encountered no signs of pursuit. Nor did she spot any movement from the truck.

  At the last row, Tate walked to the rear of the second row trailer and climbed the ladder to the roof. Lying flat and instructing Emily to do the same, she elbowed her way to the edge and peered across the street. Pulling her Bionacles from her jacket, she cycled through the various modes. Nothing moved and nothing glowed. No bodies in the front seats. The Bionacles couldn’t penetrate into the back.

  The dead calm made her twitchy. She didn’t like the feel of the place. Tate and Emily descended from the trailer’s roof and hiked across the service road. Hugging the side of the building, Tate peeked around the edge. The truck was too dark to see inside.

  Across the street, in front of the target building, the Russian soldier stood as still as stone. Any movement could be spotted. If he screwed this up, Vlad would kill him. He held the trigger in his palm. The bomb was primed. One press of the button and the two nosy bitches would be obliterated.

  Tate moved down the length of the loading bay, toward the offices at the far end. Looking through the window, Tate could see no movement. Scanning for heat signatures, she found no warm bodies, alive or recently deceased. The loading bay doors were locked up tight. She tested a padlock. A band-aid bomb could destroy it. Tate turned toward the truck.

  Pulling a band-aid bomb from her pocket, she slapped it into Emily’s palm. “Put that on the lock and blow it. I want to check out the truck.” She stepped away and headed for the stairs leading down from the loading bay.

  Emily pulled the backing off the bomb and wrapped it around the lock. She pressed the center and stepped back. Tate descended the stairs. She peered in the passenger window of the truck. The rear section was closed off from the cab. Tate stepped around to the back of the truck. Stepping onto the back bumper, she tried the door handle but it didn’t budge.

  “Tate?” Emily called out. “I think the bomb is a dud.”

  Tate looked over her shoulder and saw Emily reaching for the bomb. “Don’t!”

  The Russian pressed the button.

  Tate jumped off the back of the truck, vaulting up onto the loading bay. “Never touch an activated bomb. It may have a–”

  The truck exploded. The force of the bomb shredded the metal as though it were paper. The concussive wave punched Tate in the back. It blew Emily off her feet, slamming her against the office door. Tate flew face first, toward the loading bay doors. Twisting at the last second, she saved herself from a crushed skull. The fireball increased in ferocity as it billowed outward. The flames licked toward Tate as she lay crumpled on the ground a few feet away. The truck’s roof lay fifty feet away, charred and smoking. The windows had exploded outward, reduced to little more than dust. The truck’s carcass spewed black smoke and the acrid smell of gasoline. The delay on Emily’s band-aid bomb finished counting down. The small explosion destroyed the padlock.

  ***

  Gibson heard someone approaching. Flicking his eyes to his left, he saw a truck barreling down the road toward him. He eased his finger off the trigger and flattened himself in the grass, waiting for the truck to pass by. When he heard it start to slow, he removed his SIG from the holster inside his jacket.

  The truck slowed until it was right in front of him and then it turned into the driveway of the hangar. Parking out of the way of the hangar door, the truck doors swung open and a half dozen men got out. One man opened up the back and instructed the others to load the boxes onto the plane.

  Gibson used the camera on his Bionacles to capture video of the meet. He recognized the men from the truck as being the same ones from the warehouse. They’d waited outside while Vlad had gone in. Taking a closer look at the boxes, he saw that they were the same ones he’d watched them load into the truck.

  Gibson pulled his phone from an inside pocket and dialed Tate’s number. If the truck with the boxes was here, where was she? When her phone rang without picking up, he hung up.

  After a brief chat with Morrison, the pilot climbed into the cockpit and started the plane. The remaining men unloaded the truck and stowed their gear in the plane’s rear hold. The plane taxied out of the hangar and turned onto the road, heading for the runway.

  When they were out of visual range, Gibson jogged back to the hatchback and grabbed the rest of his gear from the passenger seat. He banged on the door of the plane and waited for their pilot to open up. The stairs popped down and Gibson jumped in, telling the pilot to ready for takeoff.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “I don’t know yet. Give me five minutes to patch in with Tommy and figure that out.” Gibson sat at the desk and booted up the laptop. He established a connection with The Sector’s server, plugged a USB cable into the goggles and uploaded the video.

  He pulled out his cell phone and called Tommy. The man was already downloading the video.

  “What do you have for us, Gibson?” Tommy asked.

  “You’ll recognize one of them, straight away,” Gibson replied. “I don’t know the others.”

  Tommy played the video. “Fucking Morrison!” he swore.

  “Yeah, he met with the man called Vlad after the truck split off.” Gibson filled Tommy in on the rest of the details and Tommy checked the plane’s ID.

  He hacked his way into the airports’ database and called up the flight plan for the plane. After a few minutes of searching, he found their destination. “They’ve scheduled one stop in Russia at a small town about a hundred kilometers east of Murmansk.”

  “Where’s Tate?”

  “I don’t know. Her radio fritzed out when the bomb exploded.”

  “What bomb?” Gibson demanded.

  “Presumably, the one in the truck she was following. They must have found the band-aid bomb you placed on the box of bombs. Morrison could have told them what it was. Tate got as far as some industrial park south of Incheon when the signal stopped moving. She was checking out a warehouse when I lost connection with her. I checked the local radios and they were reporting a blast in that area.”

  “Has she called in yet?”


  “No.”

  Gibson refused to believe that she was dead. He pushed the thought aside and focused on his next moves. “I’m taking the plane. I don’t want to lose sight of Morrison now that we know where he is.” Gibson called up to the cockpit and gave the pilot their destination. He disconnected the goggles from the laptop and returned them to his pack. Settling into a seat and buckling in, Gibson prepared himself for the long flight ahead.

  ***

  Tate could hear a tremendous wail and at first she thought it was her ears. Focusing her mind off the pain coursing throughout her entire body and onto her surroundings, she realized that the wail was from approaching sirens.

  Flexing her muscles, Tate checked herself over for broken bones. Everything ached. She had a small gash on her leg, but it had already stopped bleeding. Her left shoulder had taken the brunt of the impact.

  Turning her head, she spotted Emily lying in a crumpled heap ten feet away. Rolling to her hands and knees, Tate crawled over to her. A bullet pinged off the cement in front of her. Tate dropped flat to the ground. Pulling her SIG from its holster, she searched for the shooter. Spotting movement across the road, she opened fire. Three rounds, stop, adjust aim and fire again. Tate heard a distant cry of pain and knew that one of her bullets must have found their mark. Edging sideways, Tate worked her way over to Emily’s side. She reloaded her SIG. No more shots were fired from the assailant across the street.

  Emily had struck her head on something, again, and wasn’t moving. Pressing two fingers to her throat, Tate was relieved to feel a pulse. It was strong and steady. Pushing up to her feet, Tate leaned over and picked Emily up.