Sleeping Dogs: The Awakening

by John Wayne Falbey

  “Cliff, it’s been a long, hard six months of endless training and challenges. They’ve been cooped up and restricted to hard training for six months, just completed a very challenging training exercise against an elite military unit, and are on the verge of being sent on a highly dangerous, and as yet unspecified, mission. These are hard men, used to living life on their terms. They earned an opportunity to let off some steam.”

  “Let off some steam? Hell, they were brawling. Do you not understand how dangerous it is for you men, with your unique abilities, to get into fights with Norms? It’s a dead giveaway that you’re not like the rest of us.”

  Whelan shook his head. “Of course I understand. We all do. But it wasn’t like that, Cliff. It wasn’t anything that you wouldn’t have seen in any blue-collar bar. Hell, fighting is as much a part of that culture as it is in professional hockey.”

  “Wrong on a couple of counts. A guy Rafe’s size tossing three hundred pound men around like rag dolls? Picking one up and running him halfway across the room and slamming him into the bar rail? A tough guy bouncer having to sap Rafe three fucking times in order to subdue him? Larsen holding another man off the floor at arm’s length like he was a friggin’ daisy or a petunia?”

  Whelan waited patiently. He knew there was more to come.

  “And that’s not the worst of it. Stensen undoubtedly offed the woman-abusing bastard Larsen disciplined.”

  Whelan said nothing.

  “It’s complicated. We know people who know people. We got word earlier that the sheriff’s office here in Transylvania County reported a homicide.”

  “And…?” Whelan said.

  “And they’re looking for you men. Think about it. Six strangers walk into the bar, all with extraordinary physical power, and get into it with Ricky. Then Ricky shows up murdered a short time later, his body propped up against a tree just uphill from the bar’s parking lot. And he didn’t die a pleasant death. Whoever killed him took pleasure in what he was doing.”

  “Why are you so sure it was Nick?”

  “That’s who I’d place my money on. Did you have him in sight the whole evening?”

  Whelan shook his head. “No. What actions do you want to take?”

  Levell stared silently at the scarred tabletop for a few moments. “There’s an APB out for the six of you and the Hummer. It’s being dismantled as we speak and will be airlifted out of here and disposed of. We’ll also airlift you men out and relocate you to a safe house in Virginia.” He looked up and stared hard at Whelan. “For God’s sake, Whelan, keep these men on a short leash. I have no doubt that last night’s episode will end up on the Bureau’s radar screen. They’ve been looking for you for months and they’re smart people. They’ll connect the dots and realize the Sleeping Dogs are wide-awake.”

  Whelan’s back stiffened. “Wait a minute,” he said. “The Society hasn’t been exactly forthcoming with us.” Levell stared at him, but offered nothing. “We have busted our asses for the past six months, training for some mysterious mission. Based on the kinds of operations you and your people put us into twenty years ago, there’s going to be a high mortality risk. Yet we haven’t been told a damn thing about it. And you have the balls to bitch about six very tired and bored individuals slipping off the reservation for one evening of R and R? That’s bullshit, Cliff. Tell us what we’re training to do. What’s our objective?”

  Levell made a sound that was somewhere between a snort and a chuckle and said, “Yeah, Brendan, I’d be pissed off too if I were in your position.” He paused, as if shifting gears conversationally. “The entirety of the mission is strictly on a need to know basis, and you’re not at that level yet. But I can share a little background with you, if that helps.”

  “It might.”

  “There’s a political group that’s managed to capitalize successfully on what Nietzsche called resentment of the existing social order. They’ve used it to generate serious class warfare, getting a huge portion of the population to believe that the ‘haves’, the so-called ‘one percent’, are treating them unfairly. That the deck is stacked against them. They resent those who have an education or a better job or a nicer house. They want what the others have, but don’t want to do what’s necessary to earn it.”

  Whelan shrugged. “So far you haven’t told me anything I don’t know.”

  “Think about it,” Levell said. “The key to all of this has been the careful nurturing and development of the entitlement culture. Roughly half the population is on one or more forms of federal or state dole. Entitlement programs now consume sixty percent of the federal budget. It was twenty percent in 1979. Over that same period, defense spending has fallen from forty percent of the budget to less than twenty percent. We’re becoming a nation that won’t be able to defend itself against aggression. A nation populated by a citizenry that mistakenly believes it can have a life of ease that will be paid for by future generations. The reality is that it’s being paid for by a government that debases the coin of the realm, creating enormous amounts of it with keystrokes on a computer. And, in addition, creating an unrepayable servitude of debt to foreign entities that clearly do not have our best interests at heart.

  “The course has to be changed.” There was a hard edge to Levell’s voice. “That’s why we need the services of the Sleeping Dogs. This operation may well be the blackest in history.”

  “You still haven’t explained how we fit into this.”

  “As I said, it’s strictly on a need to know basis. But I can tell you this much. It involves one or more assassinations under very difficult conditions.”

  Whelan continued to lock eyes with Levell for several seconds, then said, “Assassinations? I told you before, I won’t participate in the assassination of the President of the United States or other political figures.”

  An enigmatic smile spread slowly over Levell’s face. “We’ll see.”

  49 Virginia Tidewater Country

  Less than an hour following his conversation with Levell in the Cavern, Whelan and the other five men were picked up by an AgustaWestland AW109S Grand helicopter owned by a subsidiary of a company controlled by the Mueller brothers. Powered by twin Pratt & Whitney PWC207C turbine engines, the 109S Grand carries up to seven passengers and two crewmembers. It can cruise at close to two hundred miles per hour. In just under two hours it transported them three hundred and fifty miles to the Lodge near Fairview Beach, Virginia.

  Whelan and Larsen were assigned a room to share in the main building. The others were assigned rooms in the accessory building. Kirkland volunteered to bunk with Almeida when it became clear that Stensen and Thomas would not.

  The six of them spent the next week battling boredom. They weren’t permitted to leave the buildings except by the tunnel that connected the lodge and its accessory building, and though Rhee Kang-Dae and Paul Fontenot also were brought in, the workouts were repetitive, and limited to the small gym on-site. They weren’t allowed to make outside calls. That was particularly difficult for the family men, Larsen and Whelan.

  The closest they came to covert ops involved keeping Almeida from gaining access to the Lodge’s alcohol stores or hitchhiking into town. On three separate occasions, he was caught trying to slip off the premises—twice at night and once in the middle of the day. After that episode, Whelan assigned rotating shifts to keep an eye on him at all times during the day. At night they relied on the high tech surveillance gear and the security people on staff to keep track of him.

  On the seventh day, Levell, McCoy, and certain other members of the Society arrived. Whelan and the other Dogs were called to a meeting in the concealed chamber beneath the library. It was the first time any of them had been in the room. As they descended the stone steps, they took in the scene – long mahogany conference table lined with comfortable looking executive chairs and racks along the walls stacked high with bottles of wine. The sight brought a smile to Almeida’s weathered face. He immediately liked the place.

 
Thomas didn’t. He shuddered slightly as he descended into the chamber and murmured, “This place creeps me out, dude. It’s like a freakin’ tomb.”

  Levell’s and Whelan’s eyes met and the older man nodded slightly, a hint of a smile playing across his lips. He pointed to empty chairs at the other end of the table. The seats near Levell were already filled by other members of the Society. One by one, Whelan and the other men took a seat and looked around the table. They knew Levell and McCoy and assumed they would recognize, as public figures, the two who were wearing hoods in an effort to conceal their identities. The remaining three people were unknown to any of the Sleeping Dogs except Whelan. He recognized two of them. The lone female was Maureen Delaney, CEO of a high-profile tech company. Another was Alfred Mueller, the eldest of the three billionaire industrialist Mueller brothers.

  The third was a well-dressed black man, tall and lean. He appeared to be in his early forties. Whelan wondered if the man purposely had chosen the chair next to Levell or had been assigned to it.

  “Everyone here knows who I and General McCoy are. Otherwise, introductions, for the most part, are not in order,” Levell began. “What is important is the situation that has just come to light.”

  McCoy was chewing an unlit cigar. Without removing it from his mouth, he looked at the Dogs and said, “You men are in luck. This involves a special mission that requires your exceptional skills.”

  “Then this isn’t the mission we’ve been training for?” Whelan said.

  “Consider it an additional training exercise, only this time you’re playing for real,” Levell said. He turned slightly toward the man seated on his left and said, “This gentleman now works for us. We were successful in turning him in recent months. He’s our mole and is deeply embedded in the apparatus of this nation’s domestic enemies. He’s just learned of an operation they intend to carry out. We’ve decided to do stop it.”

  “Why?” Whelan said.

  “The operation is designed to co-opt the effectiveness of someone who is useful to us. It involves potentially harming his family members and making it appear that it was done by you.” He looked pointedly at each of the Dogs. “Because of that person’s position, such an action would call unwanted attention to his current areas of responsibility, primarily the Case matter. This might result in additional assets being employed. We don’t want that to happen. We believe countering it will send a message designed to confuse and frighten those responsible for this planned operation.” Levell smiled at Maureen. She smiled affectionately in return.

  McCoy yanked the unlit stogie from his mouth and said with a growl, “We’ll have the bastards pissing in their pants.” He realized Maureen Delaney was staring at him, and said, “Oops. Sorry for the language, Maureen.”

  She waved the apology away. “I grew up in an Irish Catholic family with six older brothers, all of them Marines. I’ve heard far worse.”

  “Well, now that we’ve got the housekeeping issues out of the way,” Levell said dryly, “let’s get down to business.” He turned to the man on his left and said, “Please fill our guests in.”

  The man looked around the room, making it a point to make eye contact with Quentin Thomas. Black man to black man in a decidedly white environment. After several moments, he said, “My name is Shepard Jenkins. I’m the chief political strategist for Howard Morris, the senior senator from New York.”

  “Isn’t he planning to run for president?” Kirkland said.

  Jenkins nodded. “He hasn’t officially announced yet, because the incumbent hasn’t officially agreed not to seek reelection. But that’s the plan. He has very powerful people and a great deal of resources behind him. The nomination is his if he can keep his pants on.” He glanced at Maureen Delaney.

  She smiled. “His reputation in that area is hardly a State secret.”

  “My kind of guy,” Almeida said.

  Jenkins continued. “I was in a meeting the other day involving the planned campaign, and overheard something that disturbs me greatly.”

  “Where was this meeting? Who was there?” Whelan said.

  “I’m getting to that,” Jenkins said. “The meeting was held at the New York City penthouse of Chaim Laski.”

  The six men nodded their heads in recognition of Laski’s name. Even Almeida knew who he was.

  “Man,” said Thomas, “your senator dude’s got some major resources behind him.”

  “Yes, he does,” said Jenkins. “Besides Laski, the senator and myself, the others present were Laski’s chief aide for political affairs, and a man from a leftwing union umbrella group – who, by the way, is a close friend of the current president. The last person was a large and nasty looking man who spoke to Laski in what sounded like an Eastern European dialect. Very guttural. Frankly, he scared me.” He paused and looked at Whelan and the others. “If you men are who I think you are, maybe you aren’t intimidated by people like that, but he seemed very menacing to me.”

  “I don’t know who you think we are,” Stensen said. “We’re just regular folks.” He smiled in a way that sent shivers down several spines in the room. The red dots in the center of his eyes began to grow.

  “Time’s wasting. Get to the point, Shep,” Levell said impatiently.

  Jenkins rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and slid his lanky body farther back in the seat. “Laski complained that a certain FBI agent in charge of the Harold Case affair was becoming a pain in the butt. He said if he was successful in finding…well, you people…it would destroy an important plan they had been working on for a long time.”

  “Catching us would destroy their plan. Interesting,” Whelan said. “What plan?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. I haven’t been privy to that information, nor has the senator. But it seems to have something to do with creating a situation that will do great damage to the opposition party. It would deliver a majority of the votes in the general election to the senator and his party.”

  “Let me and the others worry about that,” Levell said. “Shep, I want you to tell these men about this interim action involving the fellow from the Bureau.” He nodded at Jenkins.

  “This FBI agent, his name is Christie, is like a pit bull. He’s determined to find you—all of you. For the past several months,” Jenkins said, “Laski has tried going through certain channels to have Christie replaced by a somewhat less dedicated agent, but that didn’t come about. Christie continues to pursue every lead, interview witnesses—surreptitiously, of course.”

  Levell said, “For example, he jumped on that little barroom brawl in Carolina the other day.” The memory caused him to shake his head in disgust.

  “Now,” Jenkins said, “it appears Laski has decided to take direct action.” He looked around the room. “I don’t know how much you know about Chaim Laski, but he has enormous wealth, and, as a result, wields enormous power. And he’s quite ruthless.”

  “Ruthless? We can tell you about ruthless,” Stensen said.

  “Bet your ass,” Almeida said.

  “So I’ve heard,” Jenkins said. He swallowed nervously. For an instant, his eyes met Stensen’s. The bright red dots in their centers flared. Jenkins quickly looked away. “Morris plans to gain control of Christie through his family,” he said.

  “How?” Whelan said.

  “The wife and kids will be abducted and held as insurance that Christie will play ball.”

  “Why don’t they just kill Christie? Seems quicker and easier,” Larsen said.

  Levell answered. “It’s too messy, killing a federal agent in a high profile case like this. Using the wife and kids to pressure him is cleaner and safer. Plus, once Christie has compromised himself, they’ll always have leverage over him.”

  “And we care about Christie…because?” Whelan said.

  “Because we don’t want any more attention drawn to the Harold Case investigation. We’re hoping it eventually will grow cold and fade away.”

  This didn’t add up for Whelan. The
unit was too valuable, too much had been invested in it by the Society to risk the ultimate mission on something like this. He looked at Levell quizzically. Almost imperceptibly, Levell’s right eye seemed to wink. To any of the others, it would seem to be a slight facial tic. Whelan knew what it was—confirmation that more was at stake than it would appear.

  “And you want us to see that this abduction doesn’t succeed.”

  “Correct,” Levell said.

  PART FOUR:

  BAD DOGS

  50 The Club

  Whelan and the others learned from Shepard Jenkins that Laski employed a number of very large, thuggish men, all of them Ukrainians, all of them in the country illegally. Rumor had it that they performed whatever dirty deeds Laski required. Presumably these men would carry out the abduction of Agent Christie’s family. Using information gathered principally by satellite surveillance provided by a corporation owned indirectly by the Mueller brothers, they learned that Laski’s men each had one day off per week. They usually sought female companionship at a certain nightclub on the outskirts of Georgetown near the Maryland state line.

  Laski’s minions seemed to be creatures of habit. They generally left the estate about the same time. They usually parked in the same area, arriving at the club at about nine o’clock. On busy nights, it wasn’t unusual to find a line of patrons waiting to be admitted. The club’s staff always waved Laski’s people in immediately, regardless how long the line was.

  Whelan’s plan called for an activity inside the club. It had precise time requirements. Waiting in line was not acceptable, so he, Larsen, Thomas, and Kirkland arrived early before business picked up. They entered individually in order to minimize drawing attention to themselves. As it was, a black man with bright blue eyes and another man with similar eyes and no neck always drew attention. One from the ladies, the other from bouncers. Thomas briefly considered wearing sunglasses, but realized that could draw unwanted attention inside the dark club.