Probe

by Douglas E Roff

  “They called Consuelo yesterday afternoon from Northern California, looking for Enrique and the menfolk. She did her part and informed them that the entire Seattle contingent was up here in Barrows Bay with family for a reunion. The family would all be together there through Sunday, then they would be back in the office Monday. A trap, nicely laid, and pulled off by our cousin Consuelo. She’s an actress, you know. Does Dinner Theatre. Misti says she’s very talented.”

  Consuelo Ramirez had been told by cousin Rafi to expect a call on Thursday or Friday from a number in Northern California. She wasn’t to volunteer anything or appear to be anxious to share, but she was to act a little ditzy and volunteer a little too much when asked intrusive questions. After the call came in, she was to close the office, send everyone in the company home early, warehouses included, then go to the hotel downtown that Uncle Edward had arranged for her and stay put. She could bring her boyfriend if she wanted; the entire weekend was on him with his personal thanks.

  Consuelo loved her Uncle Edward, he was always so kind and thoughtful. She would do whatever he asked, exactly as he asked. It was no burden; it was a pleasure. Until now, he had never asked anything of Consuelo except to be the wonderful niece she was.

  “Have I met Consuelo? I don’t remember?”

  “She was the Misti look-alike who you didn’t like chatting me up at the wedding. You know girl with the short skirt and the coquettish smile. Remember her now?”

  “Oh, her. Yes, I seem to vaguely recall that little tart.”

  “Now, now sweetie we mustn’t be that way. She did as Edward asked, and by the recording of the exchange he got, she did a great job. He’s already sent her flowers at the hotel. And a bonus.”

  “A what? Bonus? For that? Edward’s getting senile if he thinks that’s some great accomplishment.”

  He looked at his wife, who wasn’t normally given to sudden bouts of petty jealousy. “He loves you, you know. Loves you and Misti very much. Daughters he never had and you’re both his favorites. Always have been.”

  “Misti married his son. I think she edges me out. I’ve been displaced.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Misti is the lifelong bad girl married to his lifelong troubled man-child of a son. That’s recent and new news. You’re the good girl who married the good son and was never any trouble. Ever. Don’t underestimate how much he loves you. He really cares. Besides we gave him grandchildren. You know how much he loves them too.”

  She looked at her husband, shivering from the cold. “You know he told the girls they had to fight. They put up a fuss, but he told them they would never be as tough or as beautiful or as smart or as wonderful as their Mom if they didn’t. He was quite cross with them, even if only for a millisecond. Of course, he then proceeded to bribe them with beautiful new little girl Gi’s and the promise of many new cute dresses if they did as mommy asked. Plus, he promised to come to every practice, and cheer them on.”

  Her husband said, “He only ever asks what we can actually do. Nothing more. And you want the girls to fight too, so be happy he’s the granddad and a wicked manipulator of small minds. Pops would have them doing science experiments in his Lab with sulfuric acid and dressing up in frilly frocks. And Mom would be talking quinceaneras. Is that what you want?”

  She looked at him but said nothing. Then she kissed him on the cheek.

  “I lucked out with you, didn’t I?”

  “We both got lucky. Now pay attention, woman. It’s almost eleven and Adam has already started dimming the lights in the neighborhoods.” He looked at his electronics and said, “There are two helicopters coming in from the east and a bunch of trucks just arrived at the gate off Highway 1. They’re here.”

  They had all arrived in Barrows Bay the morning before, anticipating an acceleration of the timetable they had just learned from Paulo and his crew in Wilmington. They had set up in the hills with a crew of fifty, all of whom they had worked and trained with in the past. Some they had known since they were teens and were then just learning how to become lethal. Some learned better than others and some they had lost along the way.

  They all, all fifty, were there to follow only one leader. The one remarkable leader who had kicked all their asses, made them all look weak and whose leadership none had ever doubted since. Except maybe the one guy, the Frenchie, Francois. But he had come around too and was now her biggest supporter and fanatical devotee. He would do anything for her, as would they all.

  But her way had always been to have her husband, Rod give the commands and assure compliance with the plan. He was excellent at command, was clear and concise in what was expected of each cog in the wheel. And he never took credit nor did she. They heaped praise on their men and women, and their men and women were, in turn, devoted. Promotions had been offered; changes in duty and status. But this wasn’t the military; they couldn’t be arbitrarily ordered to a new assignment. Each offer had been turned down. Each man on this team believed that the key to his survival in this line of work was to follow a leader who returned from every assignment with all of her contingent intact and alive. This she did. At least, almost always.

  She planned and trained and ask her people to take no risk that she herself wouldn’t or hadn’t already taken. If she hadn’t done it herself, she would do it first before anyone else. And she never did anything herself where she was unsure of the outcome. She was x’s and o’s, numbers and plans, trial and error, and train, train, train. When they were out in the field, they were golden.

  The night vision goggles, the thermal sensors and the satellite telemetry all triangulated on the exact location of approximately four hundred heavily armed Black Shirt military fanatics bent on killing every human on the grounds of the Victoria Institute that night. As the militia advanced down the road in trucks to the main campus, and the foot soldiers swept through the forest looking for stray humans, Rod kept track of their advance on his monitor.

  “Rod?” was all Cindy said. “We don’t want them in any of the buildings, right?”

  “Another thirty seconds and the helicopters land. Those will be the high value assets. Edward wants them very badly. He’s guessing the guy who’s responsible for Portland will be on one of those copters. As soon as they’re on the soccer pitch, we launch. Let the launch teams know there’s a countdown. They go on my mark.”

  Cindy conveyed the guidelines and every man held his ground. The cleanup teams were in place and if the neurotoxins didn’t put their targets to sleep as planned, they were to go in guns a-blazing. The formula had been developed and tested in clinical trials in South Dakota. Every man on the team had a high degree of confidence that in less than ten minutes, the tech would launch, would find its intended targets and put them down. Then the cleanup teams they would collect the bodies, bind them with plastic ties, and move them onto the barge waiting just off shore. They would be barged to Boundary Bay on the British Columbia mainland, then placed on board transport aircraft small enough to take off on the short runway. Within four hours of takeoff, they would be the guests of Edward St. James in South Dakota.

  Demitri Asinimayov and his son Pyotr would be there to greet them too. So, would fifteen Gens interrogators recruited for the task. Marsha Nelson would also be in attendance, but her fate would be quite different from the others. She was a weak link and immediate pressure would be applied to her person in the Gens fashion.

  She would talk, or she would die.

  ***

  “Go, go, go,” Rod shouted into his mouthpiece.

  The concept of the new smart bomb technology wasn’t the original brainchild of Maria. It was based on existing military missile tech, patterned after the Air Force’s CBU 105 cluster bombs. Maria had updated the design for even more sophisticated guidance, targeting and delivery capabilities. This new generation of smart bombs carried the small laser guided, and was remotely operated, deploying heat seeking projectiles as well the new DNA target-lock technology software. The p
rojectiles carried either paralyzing toxins, lethal poisons or explosives, the latter laden within individual bomblets, as their payload. The smart bombs had also been sized modified and could be lunched from a helicopter, light airplanes or on shoulder mounted tube, very much the look and size of the “WMD” weapon used in Idaho.

  Today the bomblets carried only paralyzing toxins designed especially for Gens DNA detection and unique Gens physiology. Edward wanted these soldiers alive and talking. Today he wanted to demonstrate human capability and restraint, together with corresponding Gens futility.

  Additional human targets, like PMO, would be dealt with individually.

  Enough were launched with enough capacity to take out several thousand individual Gens. When the bomblets failed to contact a living, breathing individual, they would fall to the ground, run out of energy within minutes and disintegrate harmlessly into pixie dust. The toxins, designed to be unstable, would break down chemically and also dissipate within twenty-four hours.

  As expected, all the Gens were unconscious within the estimated ten-minute window after launch. A team was dispatched to collect the drivers up off Highway One who would never transport their comrades back to Victoria, onto ferries and back to safety. They would join their friends and slumber on their way to their next assignment.

  “Cindy, we have three individuals making their way back up the hill. Apparently, the bomblets didn’t make contact, or the toxin didn’t deploy.”

  “Who’s closest?”

  “Jameson, Adamson, Peters and Connolly.”

  “Give them the coordinates and tell them to bring the hostiles back. Any resistance, any at all, kill them. They get one chance to surrender or we terminate them. We take no chances with armed fanatics.”

  “OK boss. It’s done as we speak. The instructions were sent automatically to the members chosen and read out on the face screen of the helmet each commando wore.”

  Cindy called another channel. “Middleton, have we secured the choppers?”

  “Yes ma’am. Tagged, bagged and stored on board. What do we do with the choppers and gear?”

  “Get the tail number and any identifiers and send the intel on to South Dakota. Mark it urgent. Secure the choppers and put any gear inside. Lock it up tight. We’ll get someone down here to fly them out.”

  “Gustafson and Pendrick are checked out on these crafts. They can airlift the gear with some of our folks over to Boundary Bay.”

  “No, let’s leave them. I want the craft inspected for surprises; we just got some fresh intel from London. The targets like to have explosive surprises that go boom if access codes aren’t input properly into an onboard computer terminal. Let’s see what bomb squad finds first.”

  The man looked at Cindy, smiled and said, “Good call boss. I’ll inform the team.”

  Two hours later, the entire Institute had been swept and all bodies accounted for. The barge left immediately and arrived at Boundary Bay in the morning. The cargo, now placed in air cargo containers containing cylinders dispersing a continuous supply of aerosolized knockout toxin, was offloaded onto large transport planes, and airborne two hours after they arrived. The cargo bay was specially adapted to be sealed air tight, and the gas in the containers vented into the atmosphere.

  Four hours later, the planes arrived in South Dakota, and the containers bearing the Gens taken to a processing facility.

  By Monday morning, the campus of the Victoria Institute was completely back to normal operations and the security alert that evacuated the campus cleared; no evidence that anything had happened in sleepy Barrows Bay on Saturday night could be found. The Fellows, researchers and staff were all relieved that it had all been just a big kerfuffle.

  The FBI, CSIS and RCMP personnel knew better. Most were now going to be reassigned, but a few would remain behind for the foreseeable future. Just in case.

  The bomb squad out of the Victoria Canadian Naval Detachment had come quickly, the copters disarmed, and the relatively new equipment generously donated the Canadian Armed Forces.

  Rod, Cindy and their crew were flown to South Dakota to assist with security and to be debriefed.

  They were met on the tarmac by Edward, Adam, Misti and Rafi, who had just arrived from London. With them were a couple of men no one recognized.

  Rafi would be fully briefed by Uncle Edward, and Cousins Adam and Misti for several days. He would view the captives in natural, and transformed states, view the video of transformation and attend the interrogations of the Black Shirt captives. Then he would be flown back to London, to the Manor where he would take up new duties with Team Hannah. And Bitsie Tolan.

  Chapter 50

  Fifty-one men and one woman deplaned from a transport plane. On the tarmac, waiting for them to approach the main hangar entrance to the underground facility, were four men and a woman. As the two lead commandos approached, looking haggard and worn, the older gentleman approached them.

  “Gentlemen, and ladies, I want to welcome you all to the former, now decommissioned, Casky Air Force Base in … well, Who the Hell Cares, South Dakota. It’s a pleasure to see each and every one of you back here, alive and well. If you will forgive my favoritism and indulge me just this once, I need to hug my son and daughter and tell them just how much I love them.”

  He held his kids, speaking softly and briefly. He had teared up, evident to all assembled there that day. The men looked down to pass the few moments until the man in charge, benefactor and the man they much admired, could regain his composure. The women in the crew watched intently. Maybe the old man wasn’t the psycho he was made out to be.

  It wasn’t lost on any assembled there that day that the old man had contributed both his sons, and daughters to the fighting, not in some cushy office job taking credit for the real grit of field command. His eldest, they knew, had taken two slugs at the Grand Canyon and survived, icily planning the retaliation he had wanted to command; he had been denied, overridden by the old man who thought it too risky for any of his men and women militia, not just his son.

  The woman standing next to the old man’s eldest son was the one who had almost single handily been responsible for collecting her teams, patching up the wounded, and killing more than handful of the enemy. Her field team both loved and respected her and now she was standing on the tarmac, her belly rotund and full, carrying her first child.

  She seemed so petite, so tiny and pretty, her left hand gently resting on the top of her belly. Yet she was beautiful, and her smile was like the early morning sun: soft and radiant, with the promise of the warmth of the day ahead.

  They considered what the old man’s family had risked and considered what he had asked the men and women assembled on the tarmac to do. It was the same and they were pleased to be here today with the old man. If he wanted to hold his kids, and weep for the joy they knew he felt inside, that was an indulgence they would gladly grant.

  “OK, enough of my nonsense, crew. We enter the facility through the hangar, with several doors ahead, conveniently marked 1, 2, 3 and 4. They all lead down below to the staging area. If you intend to stay on, please use doors one and two. If you will be going home, please use doors three and four. When you get downstairs, you will be given your pay and bonuses with our thanks. Please sign the chit and the funds will be deposited automatically in your bank accounts.”

  He paused and continued.

  “The assignment was a resounding success and I’m so proud of each and every one of you. I cannot thank you enough and look forward to seeing each and every one of you tonight and personally shaking your hands. Dinner tonight is at eight, so get your room assignments, shower, relax and do whatever and I’ll see you then.”

  He continued.

  “For those of you continuing on with our little project, briefing will begin tomorrow morning in the mess hall. You will be assigned here for at least two weeks, then you will begin training for your next assignment. Cindy and Rod are in command, and you
will be joining up with some other men you all know to undertake new task. I hope to get to know each of you personally while you’re with us here. You will be assigned duty with the interrogation teams and go through specific training with new equipment and field tactics.”

  You will receive advanced training from these gentlemen here, Demitri Asinimayov and his son Pyotr. They will begin their indoctrination as soon as you complete your orientation tomorrow and process in.”

  Edward started to walk off then abruptly turned back.

  “And one more thing. Is Mr. Francois Armand present?”

  “Here sir.”

  “Yes. Your wife wishes to remind you to bring home the wine from the Napa Valley she asked for. Don’t forget.”

  Then men burst out laughing, shouting obscenities and slapping him on the back, each knowing that Francois’s beautiful wife was well worth taking orders from, and for a gentle ribbing from his comrades in arms. Francois would endure his humiliation with pride. He loved his wife. But he belonged with his men.

  The men disbursed, but as Francois headed into the hangar, he was approached by Rod and Cindy.

  Rod said, “The old man would like a word with you in two hours in his office. He has something he’d like to discuss with you.”

  “Do you know what this is all about?”

  “I could say no, but then I’d be lying to a dear friend. Just be there on time. Cindy will be attending with you.”

  “And you?”

  “Above my pay grade. Plus, I intend to be sound asleep. Good luck.”

  Cindy smiled. “Don’t fret. It’s all good. I promise.” Then she walked off and caught up with her other half. She swung around in front of him, stood on her toes and gently kissed him. Then she held hands with him like a teenager out for a walk after school.

  Francois loved his friends and colleagues. What they had seemed so natural, so effortless.

  ***

  Two hours later he was outside the sparsely appointed temporary office of Dr. Edward St. James. The space contained one old government issue desk, two chairs plus the one Edward was seated in. There were some file cabinets, but if they opened or anyone still had a key to unlock them, it would’ve been a surprise.