Theatre of War (Matt Drake 28) Tenth Anniversary Novel

by David Leadbeater

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The day of the first attack dawned as any other. people woke as normal that morning; people who would not live to see another sunset.

  It was the most crucial fact of their morning, yet one they did not know.

  Madame Davic mulled this detail over in her head like a meat grinder mincing raw food. Standing before a floor-length office window, she looked out at the world and watched the souls below go about their day in the early Californian dawn.

  Santa Monica Beach lay in the distance, its pathways jammed with joggers who thought a long life stretched ahead of them, who dreamed they might make the cover of Rolling Stone or Vogue or even Fangoria in some far-flung future, who were already looking forward to meeting an attractive date tonight in some fancy restaurant under romantic lights, who had never seen their husbands, sons and friends gunned down in cold blood by an unfeeling, ruthless enemy.

  Madame Davic reveled in her knowledge of their upcoming agonies.

  She switched her gaze to the tall skyscrapers, the golden beaches and then, inland, to the far hills and the fields, cities and warmongering fortresses beyond. Today, an age-old question would be answered.

  How quickly could an advanced nation turn on itself?

  A stiff breeze gusted up the concrete canyons outside. Columns of sand whorled along the beach in mini-twisters, dying almost as soon as they were born. Dead, brown leaves twirled through the air like old flecks of blood.

  Davic could think of nothing better to do than turn this sun-drenched, cheerful picture postcard of Santa Monica and the rest of LA and America into a rotting, violent husk of itself.

  She turned to the room. “Proceed.”

  They had rented the top four floors of an office building with panoramic views of the city. They had filled it with desks, computers, mainframes and hard drives. They had then hired more than a hundred of the best computer hackers on the planet and transported them here—a task performed piecemeal, that had taken more than nine months to complete.

  They, she thought. Why do I always refer to them as they? I am part of their organization.

  But no. She was not a part of the inner circle. She did not know any private, privileged secrets. The Scourge were an intimate organization at heart. She didn’t know who they were, where they originated from, or what their ultimate objectives were.

  They called her a partner. A colleague, but she knew better, and, in truth, she had her own ongoing enterprise to run.

  “Madame Davic,” a voice called out.

  She turned to face rows of faces, of bowed heads, of nameless creatures with high IQs and a craving for either money or anarchy. Thick, impossibly entwined lengths of colored cable snaked across the floor in treacherous, untidy heaps, but there was no health and safety committee here. Only people looking forward to the next few anarchic hours.

  “Yes?”

  “We’re ready.”

  She shivered in anticipation. “Then what are you waiting for? Lay waste this theatre of war.”

  *

  Karin Blake leaned back in her comfortable chair, a mug of hot coffee in one hand, a blueberry muffin in the other, and surveyed the office. At this early hour on a quiet day, the atmosphere was chilled, only a few individuals beavering away at undisclosed tasks.

  Having said that, desks were untidy with paperwork, and supervisors strode back and forth. The big screen at the front of the room was blank, switched off for now. She shared her space with two other women, one older and one younger than her, but she knew very little about them. NSA workers—at least here—weren’t encouraged to make friends in or out of the smoked-glass-clad building.

  She took a moment to think about Dino, to reflect on how she’d arrived at this place at this time. She missed her brother, Ben, who’d been killed by the original Blood King on a mission long ago. She missed Komodo too, the Special Forces boyfriend she’d also lost along the way. These were quieter times. She didn’t miss the danger, the all-out action. But she was starting to wonder if she’d ended up in the right place.

  Dino, the man who’d stayed with her through army training and then as she re-joined the SPEAR team, had changed since their mission in Japan. The moment he lost his hand, the capable, comical, spirited person who’d always competed with her had lost much of his will to achieve, to move forward, to enjoy himself.

  Karin found herself enjoying the time at work if only to leave the misery behind.

  Of course, being situated thousands of miles from any member of the SPEAR team didn’t stop them asking for her help. Karin had stepped in to help dozens of times already, risking her job and her career but knowing it was the right thing to do. Drake and the others fought for and protected those that couldn’t do it for themselves. There was no job more righteous.

  Karin focused on her screen as a message flashed up. The message was red-flagged, which called for urgent attention. As she sat forward, Karin noticed several other colleagues taking note of their screens. She saw others tap at laptops. She heard the beeping of message apps and the ringing of cellphones. She saw supervisors change their gait from one of reserved boredom to one of marked urgency.

  The message opened on her screen: Data packets just exploded out of California.

  It meant a huge amount of information had been uploaded to the Internet. To social media channels, YouTube and other prominent platforms. Everything had been dumped at once from a site in California. In itself, this wasn’t a daunting prospect. It was the next message and then the next that caused Karin’s fingers to shake, and the coffee mug to slip between them and shatter on the marble floor.

  Misinformation striking all platforms. What the hell is this?

  Civilian targets hit.

  Disinformation dump is huge.

  Buckle in. This is a widescale, concerted attack.

  *

  Madame Davic checked that her phone was fully encrypted before calling the President of the United States.

  “Are you watching?”

  The man breathed softly at the other end, having answered almost instantly. “Facebook,” he said. “Thousands of new accounts posting anti-government bullshit. Extremist propaganda balanced with just the right number of facts to make it seem real. Great job. Twitter is getting endless tweets from fake government accounts, calling for action against various senators, public officials, and buildings. I do like the deepfake videos of influential YouTubers screaming about food shortages. That’ll get the idiots into the streets.” Lacey chortled. “What next? Celebrity porn? That works every time. You’re swamping the Internet. I see fake videos of train station and bus depots burning. Instagram has photos of stadiums and casinos being attacked. Shit, is any of this real?”

  Madame Davic chuckled. “Some of it, yes. But you sound scared, Mr. President. This is the time to keep your nerve. To prove that we picked the right man. This is your time to shine.”

  “I know, I know. Act against principles. Give the rioters and the angry mob time to build, to make statements of their own. Pretend to act for the American people and garner support by badmouthing my opponents while constantly, silently undermining the people. Offer promises that can never be fulfilled. Be enigmatic. Draw attention. Turn them against each other. I know my job.”

  “Good. Keep your nerve and do your job. This is only the beginning.”

  *

  Karin studied her feeds with growing horror. Someone was orchestrating a misinformation attack on the United States, and it was only spreading. That same person appeared to be augmenting their posts and stories with real events, which may or may not be related, but were incredibly coincidental. She’d already verified a mortar attack on Ohio Stadium and the Superdome. The MGM Grand had been hit, along with a prominent Las Vegas shopping center. Or had it? Nobody knew what was real and what was not—and that appeared to be part of the plan.

  Panic was setting in.

  The news stations were predictably stoking it, sensing hours and days of juicy footage.
The lurid rags would be preparing their headlines to help fan the flames.

  Karin had a battle on her hands. A digital clash, a network-based confrontation escalating by the minute. Alarms were going off all around the NSA and no doubt inside every other governmental office. It was clear, right from the off, that this was going to be huge.

  She had no idea how huge.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mai broke into Shin Kudo Prison on the afternoon of her third day in Japan. Or more accurately, she was marched through the corridors wearing chains, white overalls, and black Velcro-topped boots by cold, detached men carrying batons and tasers. In normal prisons an all-male guard would have been unworkable. But here...

  This was the black hole of dark penitentiaries.

  Shin Kudo didn’t exist. Mai no longer existed. The male guards, their batons and prisoners ranging from peasants to princesses didn’t exist. But the pain... that did exist.

  Mai was thrown to the ground and kicked into her cell. The hard concrete floor was cold, the walls as jagged and pitiless as medieval weapons. She rolled away from the boots and beyond the reach of the batons, scrambling across to the stone platform that would be her bed for at least the next two nights.

  She looked up. A man was standing with his face pressed between the locked iron bars. “Enjoy,” he whispered, then walked away whistling.

  Mai wondered at his cruelty. She hadn’t expected anything less—they didn’t know she was here undercover—and she guessed he was used to dealing with the worst of the worst down here, but still a little humanity never went awry.

  Opposite, Zuki’s cell waited in shadows. Mai saw no sign of the royal brat through the iron bars of her cell door. It was only late afternoon, so she shouldn’t be sleeping. The ticking of a clock she couldn’t see weighed heavily on her mind, but she couldn’t call out to Zuki. Guards were stationed just up the corridor and there were other cells close by.

  Mai sat down to wait, taking in the sounds of the prison. Distant cries and muffled shouting. Boots stamping down some far-off corridor. Everything muffled by thick stone walls.

  Every minute that passed increased Mai’s frustration. But most of all, the torture here was that ticking clock. Something that, as time passed, she began to believe was done on purpose to exacerbate the inmates’ despair.

  But somewhere outside these walls, a terrible dark power was planning mass panic and genocide on an enormous scale. And the only way to stop it was to pray for Zuki’s assistance.

  The assistance of a royal psychopath that the Devil had been planning to break out.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  The stone platform soon grew cold and hard on her back and Mai thought back to her younger days. She’d suffered far worse and been happy with her lot, jumping into the fray time and time again. Now, while her life wasn’t exactly easy, it did have its comforts. Had she grown used to them? Or was she getting too old for this shit?

  But she hadn’t lost her edge. Recent encounters had proven that. And walking into this black site prison wasn’t exactly the act of someone looking to retire. Mai shrugged it off, thinking about Bryant and Alicia waiting for her on the outside.

  Bryant. What an odd man he was and yet somehow appealing. Mai liked the fact that she knew the man behind the disguise. She’d often infiltrated criminal dens undercover and knew the importance of holding up a perfect, practiced façade. Bryant appeared to be a complex man, one that required knowing before a decision on him could be reached.

  Thinking of men brought Luther to the forefront of her mind. She began to wonder where he might be now and if he also might be fighting against—or for—the President? Luther followed orders... there weren’t an awful lot of gray areas in his decision making.

  A noise caught her attention. A soft, scratching sound, like nails on a concrete wall. It was coming from above her head.

  “Hey,” a voice said in Japanese. “I can make it easy for you.”

  “Easy way or hard way,” another voice whispered. “You work for us, we work for you.”

  Soft laughter drifted down. Mai, looking up from her perch atop the stone bed, noticed a series of small holes had been drilled through the wall. Cautiously, and warily, she rose to her feet. There were eight holes, each maybe four fingers in diameter, three of which were filled with eyes peering at her.

  “Who are you?” she whispered, imagining a multitude of potential answers.

  “Your guards, idiot,” one said, sniggering. “How hard do you want it in here?”

  Mai’s first thought was to try to enlist their help. “How much can you help me?”

  “Protection,” one said.

  “Food without insects,” another chortled.

  “Water without additives.”

  “Shivs.”

  “Clothes.”

  The men laughed together in a kind of high-pitched cackle that put Mai in mind of seagulls. “Information?” she ventured.

  The cackling stopped. A harsh voice followed: “We don’t bargain, bitch. You do as we ask, or you will endure hell.”

  Mai would have laughed at his description of hell if it weren’t for the fact that she knew most of the women incarcerated down here had to put up with this kind of shit every damn day. Perhaps this moment was her opportunity to deal out a lesson that would be remembered for a very long time.

  “And what do you want me to do?”

  She heard a brief rustling. As expected, three small, flaccid objects were thrust through the holes. Mai stared at them for a short while then laughed. She laughed for a long time until the fleshy objects were withdrawn. She waited as more rustlings followed and bootsteps stamped to the door of her cell. Beyond the angry guards she spotted other women peering out, watching as events unfolded.

  Mai approached her cell door unfazed. “I guess you were the smallest.” She nodded at the angriest looking guard and then sneered before waving her little finger in his face. “And you...” She faced the middle guard. “I’d get that thing checked for chickenpox if I were you. But you...” She nodded at the third. “Not bad.”

  It was designed to put them at odds with each other and it worked. The third guard smiled, the other two glared at both him and her.

  “You’ll come around to our way of thinking,” the first guard said. “After a few days. They all do.”

  Mai wished there was a way to punish them, but black site prisons were off-the-books, ruled over by whatever entity was put in charge and answerable to very few. Certainly to no one that cared about the inmates. Most were down here because they’d murdered horribly or committed acts of terrorism.

  “Let’s see them again,” she said with a grin. “Go on, boys. Whip out those disease-infested maggots.”

  The first two guards rattled the bars in their anger. The third was fumbling at his belt when his colleagues shook their heads and dragged him away. Mai waved after them as the sounds of their frustration faded. To left and right the jailed women watched her. From Zuki’s cell there came a hiss.

  Mai looked over.

  Zuki stood staring at her, eyes narrowed, face suspicious, clearly recognizing her and knowing something was happening. Mai nodded and walked away, back to her stone bed, and turned her attention to what might happen next. Somehow, she and Zuki had to escape this place and quickly.

  Tomorrow was going to be interesting.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Cell doors opened at 6:30 a.m.

  Mai hadn’t slept, wondering if the guards might pay her a visit through the night. They hadn’t, which was lucky for them. She’d been feeling incredibly out of sorts, frustrated not to be able to take action, and ready to rain her frustration down on that trio of idiots.

  Mai watched as her fellow inmates exited their cells and lined up. For the first time she got a good look at them. Dressed randomly in what appeared to be the clothes they’d been wearing when locked up, they were a bedraggled lot. Dirty. Some bloody. All with the feral eyes of those who’d had their f
reedom taken away. Most were barefoot and stood unmoving on the cobbled floor. Some turned to Mai as she joined the end of the line.

  “You have to eat,” one whispered to her. “Don’t make it too hard on yourself.”

  Mai gritted her teeth and nodded. She watched for Zuki to join the line, hoping to grab a few quiet words, but the princess’s door remained shut. Even in here she enjoyed some kind of authority. Mai wondered where they were going and asked the woman who’d spoken to her.

  “Exercise,” came the curt reply.

  A man’s shout came from further down the passage. The entire line shuffled forward across the cobbles, marching for several minutes before coming to a large room where they paired and grouped off.

  The room appeared to be a communal area with tables and chairs, some weights in a corner and other exercise equipment. An open door at the far side led to a fenced yard. Mai decided a good look out there would help her to come up with a feasible plan.

  Leaving the line, she veered across the room, heading for the door. She avoided making eye contact with everyone, even the guards. She wanted to go unnoticed. Conversations hummed around her. Laughter and even some high-pitched singing began. The women appeared to relax, embracing what might well be their only communal time of the day.

  A guard with watchful eyes stood close to the door. Mai stopped near him and nodded at the door. “Can I go outside?”

  The guard nodded without looking at her. This man, unlike the trio from last night, was clean-shaven and proficient in appearance. He appeared to be the first professional she’d seen since she arrived.

  Outside, an early morning sun did nothing to raise the temperature. The ground was hard-packed dirt. The area was a square surrounded by fencing, open to the elements on three sides. Beyond the fence she could see the entrance gate and, past the front wall, rolling green hills. Even the shapes of moving cars.