The Sector

by Kari Nichols

  “What is it, Dr. Ho?” Godin demanded.

  “There are armed men in my laboratory. They’ve killed all of the scientists.” He stated the facts as though he was reporting on the weather.

  Godin stood up and leaned over his desk to dial his phone. He informed the head of his garrison that they had a breach in the lab. He replaced the phone and turned back to Vlad. “You are a disappointment to me.”

  “So are you, father,” Vlad said. He waited for the hand to strike, but Godin didn’t move. Instead he smiled and leaned back against the desk.

  “You remember the day your mother came home?” Godin asked. “She wasn’t happy to see you, as I recall. She cursed you as much as she cursed me, do you remember? You must, you were already fourteen years old. She swore that she hated you and all that you represented.”

  “Can you blame her?” Vlad demanded. “I looked like you, so I would have reminded her of you. The fucking devil she knew!”

  “And then I sent her to Pleski. Another devil that she knew. Do you remember that, Vladimir?”

  Vlad shrunk back, trying to forget that day, but the images had haunted him ever since. Pleski had cut his mother straight down the middle, like a coroner opening up a cadaver. He had pulled her skin open to reveal the inner workings of her chest cavity. He’d cut through muscle and tissue until he’d revealed the bones of her ribcage. Her heart had beaten a strong tattoo and her lungs had inflated and deflated quickly, with each frantic breath. Then Pleski had begun excising her organs. He’d held each one up for his captive audience to see. Vlad had vomited on himself, the tears mercifully blurring his vision. His mother had been awake the entire time. She had watched as pieces of her body were removed from her chest cavity. Pleski had kept her alive for over two hours before her heart had given out. He had continued to carve at her for another three hours before Pleski had considered his work to be completed. And Vlad’s father had sat there the entire time, forcing Vlad to pay attention. “This is what happens to people who betray me,” his father had said, over and over again.

  Vlad shoved the memories from his mind. He looked at Morrison, who gave a very slight nod.

  It was time.

  “I see that you do remember that day very well,” Godin continued. “Don’t force me to repeat the lesson or I’ll hand you over to Pleski.”

  Vlad smiled at his father. The look startled the older man, but his instincts weren’t quick enough to ward off the blow that came. Vlad kicked him in the side of his knee, dislocating the lower leg. Godin crashed to the floor and screeched in agony. Morrison, his gun already out, shot both guards in the chest. Getting up off the couch, he walked over to each guard and added a bullet between their eyes as insurance.

  Dr. Ho stood where he was. He stared at Godin, lying on the floor of his office, trying not to jostle his leg. He felt nothing for the man who had funded his projects for the past ten years. He’d worked for him for too long to have any regrets over the changing of the guard. He was surprised that Vlad hadn’t made the move long before this.

  Vlad stared down at his father. “Your threats have finally caught up with you, father. Blackburn got tired of them. By the time I approached him with a change of plans, he was all too happy to jump ship. He isn’t on his way here, as he led you to believe. I’ve sent him on to our newest facility to wait for me.”

  Godin’s eye’s narrowed. The pain radiated up through his body in waves, crashing in and then receding for a brief moment before crashing in again. He knew that even with the best care that his money could buy, he would walk with a distinct limp for the remainder of his life. He silently cursed his son.

  “Something else you might like to know?” Vlad continued to taunt his father. “When my mother was away from you for those ten years, she had another child. She had a son who is currently employed by you, here at this very facility. Can you guess who he is?” Vlad coaxed.

  Godin tried to recall all of the people who worked for him, but he had over four hundred staff on site so far. He couldn’t know them all.

  “I’ll give you a little hint, father.” Vlad stepped away from Godin and moved closer to Morrison. He watched as his father’s eyes searched Morrison for any resemblance to his dead wife. Vlad shook his head. “No father, it isn’t Morrison.” Vlad kept moving, past Morrison, over to the guards by the door. He stepped over one and reached for the door handle. Pulling the door open, he gestured for someone to come into the room.

  Godin craned his neck in an attempt to see around the couch, to the door. His view was blocked by Morrison, who didn’t bother to move. Godin saw a pair of boots beneath the couch, but couldn’t see anything else. The boots moved closer and then they moved around the couch. Godin’s eyes widened when he saw their owner.

  ***

  Braddock stared around him in awe. Once the flatbed trucks had exited the tunnel leading away from the cavern warehouse, it had entered a massive covered shipping port. The bulk of the shipping port was taken up by three berths. Berths one and three were empty. The ship in berth two, called Godin IV, was a mid-sized freighter capable of carrying 800 shipping containers, but loaded with barely half that number. The port had been carved out of the island, so that ships arriving had to come in under the ‘ceiling’ of the surface of the island. To the left of the port was a large expanse of water leading to the exit and next to that, Braddock saw the sleek body of a submarine.

  “Sir, I’ve got that second submarine here,” Braddock informed Tate. They’d assumed that Godin would be housing the second of two submarines that he’d purchased from the Russian government somewhere near this facility.

  Hancock, who was in the lab, heard him. “We’ve cleared the lab of hostiles, sir. Do you want me to make for the sub?”

  “Free the prisoners first and then continue to the sub,” Tate ordered.

  “Roger that,” Hancock confirmed.

  Braddock sent Fargo to search out a vantage point at the far northern end. He wanted the man to have eyes on the sub as well as the rest of the port. That left him and Worthington to investigate the port and determine where their supplies were coming from. Once the truck had cleared the end of the tunnel it had turned to the south and made its way along a stretch of road that led to the main dock area. Dropping down from their perch as the truck completed the turn, each man had scrambled across the surface of the road. They had ducked down onto a wharf that ran the full length of the port starting at the dock and ending forty feet from the sub.

  Braddock headed for what appeared to be an office. Worthington remained at the edge of the dock, covering Braddock’s movements. Cranes whizzed by overhead, attached to a track system built into the ceiling. Able to reach each of the ships, they hauled the heavy containers off the ship and moved them to the stacks along the south wall. A truck turnaround had been created between the main dock and the south wall, allowing the trucks to continue their transport between the shipping port and the cavern warehouse with little delay in between.

  The wharf nearest the tunnel road was also the largest, with smaller wharves in between each of the berths. The wharf housed a gas station at the far end of the dock, for the Jet Ski’s and small power boats tied up along its length. A larger petrol system had been constructed on the east wall, near the truck turnaround. It consisted of ten enormous tankers set on risers, similar to propane tanks found at a regular gas station. Pipes and hoses leading from the tanks were attached to the ships. Thousands of liters of gasoline were pumped into the ship’s tanks.

  Braddock sprinted to the far end of the wharf. Three short steps brought him level with the truck turnaround. Crouching behind some barrels of fuel, Braddock surveyed the area. Trucks were coming and going, non-stop, and forklifts worked the cargo area with speed and efficiency. The office was dark, but that didn’t mean it was unmanned.

  Between the wharf and the office lay close to three hundred feet of open ground. The distance would have to be taken in smaller sections. From the wharf to the middle of t
he truck turnaround was thirty feet. In the middle of the truck turnaround stood a series of stacking racks; each rack was ten feet long and four feet wide. A path between each section of racks allowed the forklifts to collect their cargo and load the trucks. With a two-foot clearance between the bottom rack and the ground, there was just enough room for Braddock to crawl through for cover.

  The trucks at the front of the line were ninety percent full and would soon be heading back for the tunnel. Sitting exposed at the end of the wharf, Braddock couldn’t wait for the next set of empty trucks to roll up. Scrambling up from the wharf, he crossed the short distance to the first truck and crawled underneath the bed. He paused for a quick check of the drivers in the cabs and the location of the forklifts. Braddock passed between the trucks, coming to a stop under the bed of the second truck.

  The ground clearance of the flatbed truck was over three feet high, offering him the ability to run hunched over. With ten feet still to cover and that two foot clearance to get under the racks, he had to get his timing perfect. The forklifts whizzed back and forth between the racks and the trucks without pause.

  At the first break, Braddock crawled out on his knees and elbows, covering the distance in less than ten seconds. He pulled his feet clear just as a forklift came whizzing out from between the racks. The setup at the next section of road was different. The trucks here were waiting their turn to drive around the bend and get loaded. No forklifts ran between them. On the far side of the trucks lay an open area. Braddock’s goal was an unmanned forklift sitting next to a Jeep.

  Braddock waited until he had a small break before leaving the relative safety of the racks. Duck-walking under the flatbed trucks, he perched at the edge and waited for their chance to run. Before the area had cleared of people, the trucks started their engines and shifted into gear. Releasing their engine breaks, the trucks started to rumble forward. Braddock moved back toward the middle of the flatbed, allowing it to pass by overhead. Careful of the double wheels coming straight at him, he waited until the trucks were gone before running for the cover of the unmanned vehicles.

  Crouching in between the two vehicles, Braddock pulled out his binoculars and took quick stock of the area around the office. It still appeared to be unmanned. There was a distance of close to two hundred feet of open ground to cover, but this corner of the shipping port was much darker than the rest. Opting for a hunched over run, he left the safety of the vehicles and started toward the office.

  A truck turned out from the tunnel and headed down the road toward the turnaround, its lights spearing the darkness. Braddock dropped flat to the ground, below the level of the lights. He crawled along the ground making slow progress toward his final destination. When the trucks’ lights disappeared and no other truck appeared from the tunnel, he to his feet and sprinted the remaining distance to the side of the office.

  Built of corrugated steel, the shed-like structure was windowless and possessed a single door, on the very front. Back pressed to the side wall, Braddock stepped out from the side of the shed and walked up to the door. It wasn’t locked. Slipping inside, Braddock scanned the area through his goggles, checking for heat signatures. The place was empty.

  Though the office had no windows, it wasn’t built flush to the ground. Any light used inside could leak out from below the walls. Braddock covered his flashlight with the palm of his hand and used it to scan the documents on the desk. Expecting to find them written in Russian – a language he was fluent in – he was surprised to see instead that the documents were written in Asian characters.

  “I can’t read the documents in here. Either of you guys familiar with Mandarin or Cantonese symbols?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I can read both,” Fargo replied. When he’d been young and stupid, he’d gotten engaged to a girl from Shanghai. He had been in love; she had wanted Canadian citizenship. She’d taught him the basics of reading Cantonese. The Sector had continued those teachings and thrown in Mandarin as well. Two years later, he was fluent in the basics of both languages. And he was single. “You want me to come there?”

  The delay, plus the risk of being caught, made Braddock wary of calling Fargo over. Checking his gear, he remembered that he had his phone in one of the cargo pockets of his pants. “Fuck it, I’ll email it to you.”

  Braddock took a few quick photos of the documents with his phone and sent them to Fargo. Perched on the scaffolding of the dock, near the bow of the submarine, Fargo scanned each image. “That second image is the ships’ manifest. Send me more of that one.”

  Braddock complied and Fargo read through the full manifest. “It looks as though the ship in berth two came from Ningbo, which is south of Shanghai. She’s carrying guns but not a type I recognize. It says they’re assembled at Ningbo, but it doesn’t say if they’re manufactured there. The ship is delivering twenty containers, each with eight crates per container. One crate holds twenty-five guns, so that’s two hundred per container and 4000 in total.”

  “There are a lot more than just twenty containers on that ship,” Braddock replied.

  “Yeah,” Fargo agreed. “Some contain spare parts, like magazines and scopes. Others have supplies for the compound.”

  “What about the ammunition?” Braddock asked.

  “Not listed on the manifest. They must be expecting another delivery for that, or it’s already here somewhere in that cavern warehouse.”

  ***

  Cisco drove while Druid marked off the charges they’d laid. With a limited understanding of how large the complex was, they had to get the most bang for their buck with their charges. Setting charges near weak points in the structure would ensure maximum damage. If it couldn’t be completely destroyed, Druid would ensure that all of the major areas of the complex collapsed.

  Tate had called in with the location of the explosives that her team had set. Braddock’s team would plant their explosives in the shipping cavern and Tank’s team would see to the main complex. Druid and Cisco were responsible for the remainder of the complex.

  The west tunnel had run into a dead end. Cisco had backtracked to the parking lot and taken the main tunnel. Several bricks of C4 had been primed and placed along the length of the tunnel. As they approached the entrance to the cavern warehouse, Cisco stopped the Jeep behind the others. Druid led the way to an air intake duct positioned in the small parking area. The ceiling was twenty feet high. The duct system ran beneath the ceiling, extending down seven feet.

  Cisco, the tallest, hopped up onto the roof of a nearby Jeep. He hooked the end of his rifle into the grating and pulled the cover open. The duct ran straight up another four feet and then branched off in all directions. The height of the Jeep put Cisco within two feet of the top. Positioned dead centre of the opening, he dropped to a crouch and then sprang up, extending his long arms outward to grasp the edge of the duct.

  Before Cisco could haul his ass up, three men walked into the parking area. The Russians stopped at the entrance. Gripping the edge of the duct with one hand, Cisco reached down his leg for his weapon. Druid stepped out from behind the nearest Jeep and shot the middle man in the chest. Cisco pulled his gun from his thigh holster and fired off a quick round. The Russian on the left dropped to the ground. The final man had already turned back to the warehouse. He shouted a warning before Druid’s second bullet crashed through his skull. Cisco dropped back to the ground. A quick glance into the cavern warehouse proved that no one had heard the third man’s shouted warning. Hauling each man over to one of the Jeeps, they piled them inside.

  Jumping back up to the opening, Cisco pulled his body into the air duct. Druid quickly followed. The ducts traveled across the roof of the warehouse. Their progress brought them to a room north of the smaller warehouse that Tate’s team had investigated. The room was large, over two thousand square feet and it was filled with heating and air conditioning machinery. Popping the grate off the vent, Druid levered himself down to the floor, Cisco right behind him.

  The machiner
y required to heat and cool a complex the size of Godin’s was not quiet, by any means, but it still paled in comparison to the activity outside the room. Opening the door a crack, Druid stared at the giant double wheels of a flatbed truck. The cavern was hopping, people were yelling orders, trucks were dropping off cargo and forklifts were moving it out of the way. He surveyed the facilities before closing the door again. Tate had explained that the east wall held a gas station and one door, which led to the main complex. On the west side, where he was now, there were three doors. He knew that the further door was the smaller warehouse that Gibson and Jimmy had already taken care of. That left the middle door for them to scout.

  Druid searched for a vent that led south. The one they’d arrived in had passed straight over the heart of the cavern warehouse. Along the west wall of the room was a vent that started to head further west, but then took a turn toward the south. Hopping on top of a furnace, Druid popped the mesh grating off of a ceiling vent and looked inside. The furnace wasn’t below the vent, because that would have been far too fortuitous. Instead it was shifted to the left by a foot and a half. Druid gestured for Cisco to go first, a shit-eating grin on his face.

  Cisco rolled his eyes and climbed up the furnace once Druid had hopped down. Angling his body into the vertical shaft of the vent and standing up as far as he could, his fingertips barely grasped the edge of the horizontal shaft. His left hand had a better grip than his right, given the angles. Leaning against the side of the vertical shaft, he lifted his feet off the furnace and controlled his swing with the friction against his belly.