Gatekeepers

by Sam Ferguson

  “How am I supposed to help them with a broken ankle?” I shouted. “I can’t even walk.”

  CHAPTER 16

  I woke from my dream and pushed up in my bed.

  “Bad dream?” Mack asked. “I didn’t notice anything on the machine.”

  “Your machine sucks,” I hissed angrily as I forced myself to stand on my feet. Pain ripped up through my leg, but adrenaline pushed me through it. “Do we have a helicopter or something?”

  “Helicopter?” Mack asked.

  “Go get Dan, the cruise ship is about to be attacked.”

  “No, that’s not possible, we have teams there.”

  “We had a team in Moscow too,” I said.

  Mack’s expression changed and he turned to run out of the room.

  I had made it half way to the main exit when Dan came running up from behind with Flint close behind.

  “Hold up, Mills, what’s going on?” Dan shouted.

  “The cruise ship is stalled and about to be attacked. We have to get there.”

  “We’re in Nevada, and they’re in the Mexican seas,” Flint put in.

  “Yes, I understand, but I was told specifically that we need to get to them,” I said. “Either come with me or stay out of my way.”

  “I just checked,” Mack shouted as he caught up, laptop in hand. “The ship is running fine. It hasn’t stopped. Currently about one hundred miles south, southwest of Tijuana.”

  “There, see, maybe your dream magic is off,” Dan said.

  I turned and looked at them. “I met other dream walkers in my sleep,” I said. “They taught me how to project my dreams and target specific people and locations, but I’m not doing any of that until we go to the cruise ship, and I mean right now!” I wasn’t one to stretch the truth, in fact it had been pretty hard-wired into my system to always tell the truth, but this was one time I was willing to let all the rules hang until I made sure my family was safe. “Now, do we have a chopper or Quinjet, or something super cool or do I call Section Four and see what Briggs can scrounge up for me?”

  Dan and Mack blanched and looked at Flint.

  Flint pulled his 1911. For a second I thought he was going to blast me then and there, but much to my relief he checked the magazine and then holstered it. “You don’t want to count on Briggs at a time like this. I can take you.”

  “Well son-of-a-” Dan shook his head and didn’t bother finishing his sentence. “I’ll get my rifle.”

  “Mack, better suit up,” Flint said.

  “I’ll get Marcus too,” Dan said.

  The four of them were in the van and ready to go in less than three minutes, almost faster than I could hobble to the vehicle with my broken ankle. Flint drove us away from the safe house and out toward a small airstrip in the middle of the desert. Flint turned off the lights before we reached the outer fence and parked the van just a few feet from a big sign that read “No Trespassing, Violators WILL BE SHOT.”

  Marcus pulled a pair of wire cutters out of a green duffle bag and the group moved toward the fence.

  “Mack, could you cover their eyes?” Dan asked as he nodded with his head toward a security camera.

  “You kidding?” Mack said as he flipped open his laptop. “Everyone loves having Wireless security cameras, but no one loves them more than me. So easy to hack and disrupt!” He clacked on his keyboard for a few seconds and then he smiled and flipped the lid down. “They’re blind.”

  Dan nodded to Marcus. The large field medic snipped a hole in the chain link big enough for all of us to make it through, though I needed a bit of help to make it, as crouching put more pressure on my leg than I could fight through. We made our way to the nearest hangar and Dan had the lock undone in under sixty seconds.

  “We gotta be quick,” Flint said. “Cameras or no, the owner will hear the engine.”

  We slipped into the doorway and made our way through an office and into the area where the planes were kept. My jaw dropped open when I saw what was sitting there. Right in the middle of the Nevada desert, just fifteen minutes away from our safe house, was a massive helicopter. I wasn’t nearly as fanatic as some history buffs, but I knew aircraft.

  “That’s a chinook!” I said excitedly.

  “Yeah, it’s been decommissioned and retired to a peaceful life of firefighting, but if we hurry and get it going before the owner catches us, we can use it to reach your family,” Flint said.

  “But don’t they have a commercial version for fighting fires?” I asked. “Boeing makes a Vertol Model 234 for that I think.”

  “Yeah well, this one used to be the real deal. Which means it’s faster,” Flint explained.

  “You better be right about the danger,” Dan warned me.

  We scrambled into the aircraft and Flint hopped into the pilot seat, with Marcus quickly sitting next to him. They began flipping switches and checking gauges as Dan ran out and pushed the heavy hangar doors open.

  “I’ve always wanted to steal a helicopter,” Mack said as he rubbed his hands together. “Ever since that one Grand Theft Auto game where you could steal the tank!” He started laughing as he strapped into a seat. “I love this!” He looked over to me and pointed at me. “See, no better job in the world!”

  Within a few minutes we were out on the runway and the blades were spinning above us. Mack was laughing like a giddy schoolboy, but I was busy watching the lights turn on in a house in the distance.

  “Mack, did you already cut the phones?” Dan yelled.

  Mack was still laughing and stomping his legs as he stared out the window.

  Dan reached back and smacked Mack in the shoulder. “Hey! Grow up!”

  “What?!” Mack shouted.

  “Did you cut the phone lines?” Dan pointed out the left side of the helicopter. Mack saw the lights and nodded. “Yeah, man, I cut all communications in and out of here while we were driving up.”

  “Incoming!” Flint yelled.

  I looked out the window and saw the outline of a pot-bellied man in boxers bringing a rifle up to his shoulder. I never heard the report, but I saw the muzzle flash. A bunch of sparks shot out near the front, but Flint and Marcus were already down on the deck, reaching up with just their arms to control the aircraft. Another flash was followed by more sparks on the side of the chinook.

  “Dan! Where you at?” Flint shouted.

  Dan threw open the door and dropped to a knee. He brought a rifle up to his shoulder and a pit grew in my stomach.

  “You’re gonna shoot him?!” I tried to rush Dan, but my ankle stopped me after my first step and I fell to the deck.

  Dan pulled the trigger. Less than a second later, the man in the doorway staggered backward. I saw the muzzle flash fire toward the roof of the house as he toppled over. Flint and Marcus jumped back into their chairs and Dan closed the door.

  “What the hell!” I shouted.

  Dan turned and winked as he threw something to me. I caught a strange dart and stared at it. “Tranquilizer,” Dan explained. “I knew Jeremy might give us some trouble, so I thought it best to bring these along.”

  “Tranquilizer…” I continued staring at the dart and then tossed it to the ground. “Wait, you know the guy’s name?”

  Dan set the rifle down and nodded. “Jeremy used to be one of us. That’s how we knew where the Chinook was in the first place. He spent three years with us, and then asked to be retired.”

  “So we’re stealing a helicopter from a former team mate?” I looked to Mack who was back to laughing and stomping his feet as the helicopter left the ground.

  “WOO!” Mack shouted.

  “Nah, we’re just borrowing it. We have permission,” Dan said.

  “Permission? Then why’d he shoot at us?”

  Dan shrugged. “When Jeremy retired he said we could use his helicopter any time we needed, but the problem is he wanted his memory wiped so he wouldn’t remember the monsters we fought with.”

  “So he can’t remember that he gave you per
mission? So you are stealing,” I shouted.

  “Depends on how you look at it I guess,” Dan said. “Either way, it’s the best we have access to without going back up to Washington.”

  Flint called out from the front and Dan moved up closer to hear him. Then he came back to me and Mack and knelt by us. “We should reach the ship in about four hours. We’ll have to stop to refuel once, but I have a contact in Mexico that should be willing to do it for us. Just hang tight.”

  The helicopter tilted and spun around and then we tore off through the night. In all of my haste, I hadn’t thought about how we were going to get across the border. Heck, I hadn’t even thought of U.S. airspace. I was about to ask Mack about it, but I caught a glimpse of his laptop and noticed what looked like a map of flight patterns. I figured the less I knew about the specifics of this particular trip, the better.

  I spent the flight with a basket of snakes squirming inside my stomach. Would we reach them in time? Were we going to get shot down if Mack made a mistake with his computer? After we made it to the ship, then what? How was I going to warn Susan? I couldn’t even walk.

  The only thread of hope I had to hang on to was the fact that the old man had warned me in my dream, so that had to mean we would get there in time. Every few minutes Dan would ask for a status report on the cruise ship. Mack would check in and assure everyone that the ship was still sailing normally. Dan shot me the evil eye a few times, but about an hour into the trip he pulled out a satellite phone and got in touch with the team on the ship. He had them set up a defensive posture and prepare for an assault. Problem was, when they asked for more details, he couldn’t give them any.

  “New guy says there will be an attack,” Dan shouted into the phone while holding a hand to his other ear. “Yeah, he learned about it in a dream.” Dan looked up at me. “I’m not sure. Frankly I’m doubtful, but if he’s right…” Dan was quiet for a minute. “Listen, after what happened in Moscow and to us in California, how about we play it safe and you just hop to? Got it?” Dan nodded then and hung up. He came over to me and reported on the conversation. “They’ve set up their equipment. If anything opens a gate, they’ll detect it. They’re ready. Your wife and kid will be fine.”

  I nodded, but I couldn’t shake the worry that was settling deep in my bowels and making me nauseous. “Can we go any faster?” I asked.

  Dan shook his head. “Maybe if we had a plane, but I can’t shoot from a plane. I need a helicopter to cover from above.” He patted me on the shoulder and went back to his seat.

  I looked down at my watch. In the rush I hadn’t even bothered to see what time it was. I was more than a little surprised when I saw it was only a minute after three in the morning. My dream had been an entire night long, and yet only a couple hours had passed in the real world. At least the darkness would help hide the behemoth we were flying through the sky.

  Dan strapped into his seat and leaned back to try and catch some sleep. I watched him for a few moments and then turned to look out the window. I kept checking my watching and wishing that the Chinook would somehow grow jet engines. By the time five o’clock rolled around, I was sitting with my arms folded over my chest and tapping my outside thumb against my inside arm. Flint called out to Mack and Mack flipped open his laptop to check on the cruise ship.

  I turned to watch, just as I had the last hundred times he had given a status report. Only, this time Mack’s giddy smile faded from his face. His fingers worked the keyboard quickly and then he turned to me.

  “The ship is stopped.” Mack jumped up and ran toward Dan. “Dan, wake up, the ship is stopped!”

  Dan snorted awake and rubbed his eyes. “Are we there?”

  “The ship is stopped,” Mack said once more.

  Dan’s eyes snapped open and he got onto the satellite phone. “Give me a report, why are the engines stopped?” he shouted over the deafening whir of the blades above us. The veteran FBI operator nodded and then hung up. “They say the engine has stalled. No paranormal activity though. Just a malfunction.”

  “You saying it’s a coincidence?” Mack asked.

  The pit in my stomach grew to the size of a large, spiky jackfruit and threatened to make me hurl, but my anger rose up to subdue my nerves. “It’s no coincidence. This is what he told me would happen. We have to hurry!”

  “She’s going as fast as she can,” Dan shouted. He undid his seatbelt and stood up to go speak with Flint. When he came back, he had the most serious look on his face that I had ever seen. There was no playful smile, no twinkle in his eyes. He was down to business. He set aside his tranquilizer rifle and pulled up a rifle that I didn’t recognize. It didn’t look half as big as Katya’s rifle that had blown the head off of a werewolf, but Dan treated it like it was made of gold. He strapped himself to a hook in the ceiling and then threw the door open.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Setting up for over watch,” Dan replied evenly. “What exactly did you think I did with HRT?” Within a few moments he was braced against the side of the open doorway and sighting in his scope.

  Mack came to squat next to me and tried to pull my attention away from Dan with his laptop. “Look here, you can see the ship sent out a distress call. They aren’t taking on water or anything, but their generators have died. They’re on backup power only.”

  “What is he going to do with that?” I asked. “Doesn’t he need something bigger?”

  Mack smirked. “That is a GA Precision HRT rifle. It’s built to custom specs to match HRT operator needs. It may not look as impressive as some of Katya’s toys, but it will get the job done. Besides, when you’re shooting from a helicopter, you don’t want to be swinging something massively heavy.”

  That made sense to me if you were fighting humans, but werewolves and drakkul were another matter. I shook my head and grunted. “I wish I could get to them from the dream world,” I said.

  “Dan will take care of anything he sees,” Mack assured me. “Our teams on the ship will keep your family safe. Don’t worry.”

  “Target, six o’clock!” Dan shouted.

  Already?

  I tried to jump up, but Mack put a hand on my bad ankle and squeezed. I cried out in pain, but just then the chinook pitched and banked hard to the side.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Dan worked the bolt action rifle so quickly it sounded like a semi-automatic.

  “Three tangos down,” Dan shouted into his mouthpiece.

  “Sorry ‘bout the leg, just didn’t want you to fall out the door,” Mack said as the Chinook leveled out. He scampered over to his seat and kept working the keyboard on his laptop. “Ship doesn’t report anything unusual,” Mack said into his mouthpiece.

  BOOM! BOOM!...BOOM!

  “That looks like everyone, confirm,” Dan said.

  I heard Flint loud and clear in my headphones. “Nice shootin’ Dan, looks like you got ‘em all. I’ll circle once to make sure.”

  Marcus left his seat and slowly made his way to the open door with his green duffle bug.

  “It’s just a little F470,” Flint called out. “Don’t waste more than you have to.”

  Marcus said, “Understood,” and then pulled something out of the bag and dropped it out the door. The chinook then banked the other way and we started getting back on course. Even with the deafening rotors I could hear the explosion down below.

  “What’s an F470?” I called out to Mack.

  “You know those rubber inflatable motor boats the Navy Seals use?” Mack asked.

  “So who was on this one?” I pressed.

  “Six drakkul,” Dan answered as he changed the magazine. “Looks like you were right. No portal, no warning, but they’re headed for the ship.”

  The final hour of travel time was horrible. I was helpless. A prisoner of distance that separated me from the ones I loved while they were in great danger. Mack had hoped that I would feel better with the drakkul dead, but instead it only made me feel worse. The angst and anxiety gr
ew to the boiling point, and then I retched onto the deck until I got the dry heaves.

  “Marcus, Mills needs a shot,” Dan called out.

  I barely heard the words as my stomach convulsed and twisted my body down toward the deck once more and I made a grotesque gargling sound.

  “Holy sh-” Flint started. “Someone pull his mouthpiece off so I don’t have to hear it, bloody hell!”

  Someone, probably Mack, pulled my headset off and then a moment later I felt a prick in my shoulder. Just like that, I was out. Lights were gone and I felt numb and cold. When I came to, Marcus had that blasted bottle of Nose Tork under my face again and Dan was leaning out the side of the chinook working his rifle as if unused bullets would blow up our aircraft.

  “He’s up,” Marcus called out. The large black man then went to the door on the right side of the helicopter and strapped in just before throwing the portal open.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Mack was at my side, satellite phone in hand. “Here, the man on the other end is Alexi, he’s one of ours. We’ve got multiple boats inbound.”

  “Like the one we saw before?” I asked.

  Mack nodded. “Alexi will call in where they need us, then you shout it out to Flint so he can maneuver the Chinook, got it?”

  I nodded. “What about you?”

  Mack didn’t answer. He just jumped back to his seat and frantically worked the keyboard on his laptop while simultaneously speaking into some other communication device. I realized then that my own headset was in my lap, so I grabbed it and put it on. To my dismay, the mouthpiece was covered in wet, cold vomit, but there was no time to clean it off.

  “Hello?! We need support starboard aft, deck three. They’re climbing up the side of the ship!”

  I shouted the directions into my dirty mouthpiece. Dan and Marcus braced themselves as Flint took the helicopter into a sharp turn.

  Ga-BOOM-ga-BOOM-ga-BOOM!

  I looked up to see Marcus firing an M60 from his shoulder.

  We were right in the thick of it.

  Screaming could be heard on the other end of the phone. It wasn’t Alexi, but someone nearby. My thoughts were flooded with Susan and Tommy, but I realized that asking about them would only interrupt the rescue operation. I had to trust my team.