Power Play- America's Fate

by Diane Matousek Schnabel

  “Where the hell did you get these?”

  “They were inside the truck I stole—”

  “Damn it, Franny, why didn’t you mention that last night?” he demanded, blood pressure rising.

  “I didn’t search the vehicle last night. I guess I was too rattled after the crash—”

  “Crash? Why the fuck am I just hearing about this now?”

  “I wasn’t hurt,” she said with a shrug. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

  Ryan drew a deliberate breath, consciously softening his tone. “How many of these ... mosquitoes were in the truck?”

  “There were two huge crates. If I had to guess I’d say hundreds of thousands.”

  “Holy shit! We need to quarantine that vehicle until we figure out what’s in those flying syringes.”

  70

  District Six, Texas

  GOVERNOR KYLE MURPHY had been at the site for hours, poring over the evidence. The butchered remains of two district residents had been found inside the bombed-out house; and thus far, he’d told no one, not even Ryan Andrews.

  Both victims were females in their early forties; both left behind teenaged children; and both had husbands who were career military men, still serving their nation.

  Those commonalities are way beyond coincidence, Kyle thought, and Franny Andrews fits right into that profile.

  Deputies had set up a perimeter three blocks from the scene, and scores of curious civilians were gathering behind the barricades. They were craning and pointing, rising onto tiptoes and propping hands like visors against the sun, all in an effort to get a better look.

  Sheriff Turner was walking toward him, head shaking. “Can’t wait much longer, Governor. They know the women are missing, and Alex Ivans is on scene, fabricating rumors.”

  Kyle gave a solemn nod and walked toward the barrier.

  “Governor Murphy, tell them the truth!” Ivans’ expression contorted as though speaking the name left a bitter taste behind. “Tell them how the TEradS killed innocent women with their drones! Face the orphans! Tell them that their mothers are never coming home!”

  He glanced at the bereft teens, empathizing with their loss, then cleared his throat. “Yesterday, Mr. Ivans, there, faked a heart attack, duped some unsuspecting young girl into screaming for help, and when a woman named Franny answered that plea, Ivans and his buddies kidnapped her. She managed to escape and confirmed that there were no other hostages present; then the TEradS dispatched the men responsible.”

  A cocky smile spread over Ivans’ unshaven face. “Let me tell you all the truth! The TEradS commander annihilated that house because his wife, Franny, was having an affair ... with me! She jilted him and moved to District Six so we could be together. Then Major Ryan Andrews used military assets to settle a personal grudge; and instead of killing yours truly—the philandering wife’s lover—he took the lives of innocents!”

  “That is a deranged lie!” Kyle shouted. “And the evidence proves it. Pieces of machine guns and tattered sandbags corroborate eyewitness testimony. There was a fortified defensive position inside that house—”

  “The eyewitness is hardly credible,” Ivans interrupted. “My lover, the unfaithful wife, concocted that kidnapping story to cover her husband’s ass; and I guarantee she did it under duress.”

  A bizarre sense of reverence, both revolting and fearsome, ripped through Kyle. He was pitted against the kingpin of liars, a man who could spin, varnish, and conjure—instantly and effortlessly—all while undermining the truth.

  Instinctively, Kyle responded with facts. “The body parts of three men were found inside the rubble; they were pulverized by the drone strike; the women’s bodies were not. Why? Because they were abducted after the fact, murdered via grenade, and deposited there to advance his political agenda.”

  “You think I’m responsible for that?” Ivans asked, gesturing toward the leveled house. “You want to frisk me? See if I have any Hellfire missiles hidden in my pockets?”

  Kyle glared at him, wishing he could scour that cocksure smirk off his face. “Sheriff Turner, place Mr. Ivans under arrest and get him out of here!”

  71

  Langden Air Force Base, Texas

  REAR ADMIRAL GRACE Murray stepped off the C-130 without the usual fanfare. The base commander was not there to greet her, a car was not waiting nearby, and her accommodations were yet to be determined—a consequence of a last-minute schedule change.

  Her most urgent mandate, locating General Volkov, had been stymied on every front, communications, transportation, and finance. After exhausting every traditional avenue, she was hoping that Major Andrews’ hard drive with the phantom partition would resurrect her quest.

  Dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her, Grace crossed the tarmac. Although she’d never visited Langden before, she didn’t need directions. A momentary glimpse of a map during the flight was enough to engrave the information into her memory. While her body was lagging due to the ravages of time, her mind was still lightning fast, able to record, retrieve, and multitask better than the whippersnappers a fraction of her age.

  A group of Airmen did a double take, gawking at her gray hair and elderly demeanor, then snapped off a hasty salute as her rank registered. Two Corporals offered to porter her bag, an overture she politely declined.

  I must really be showing my age today, she thought ruefully.

  She wrested open the door to TEradS Headquarters and ambled inside, giving her bag a stern tug to coax it over the raised threshold. “I’m here to see Major Andrews,” she told the young clerk.

  “I’m sorry, Admiral, my orders are not to disturb him unless the building is on fire.”

  “Well then, I certainly can’t ask you to disturb him ... I’ll do it myself.” Grace marched to his door and gave it three vigorous kicks.

  Above a muffled string of expletives, she heard wrathful footsteps. The door swung inward, and a red-faced Ryan Andrews sputtered, “Private, I thought I told you—Oh, Rear Admiral Murray. I wasn’t expecting you until Wednesday.”

  “Good-afternoon, Major. I was able to shuffle my schedule and free up twenty-four hours. My clerk should’ve sent an e-mail.”

  He flashed a chagrined smile and ushered her inside.

  “Is that a TEradS laptop?” she asked, pointing toward his desk.

  “No, ma’am. We acquired it this morning from one of Volkov’s cells, but haven’t been able to crack the password protection.”

  Grace settled onto his chair, downloaded several scripts from the Cyber Command server onto a jump drive, and got to work.

  By the time the Major plucked the hard drive from its lair within a heating duct, she had penetrated the laptop and installed a translation program, which divided the screen into two windows. The left was a hodgepodge of Russian characters; the right, its English translation.

  “Is there something specific you’re searching for?” she asked.

  “You’re in already? No wonder they call you ‘Amazing Grace.’ ” He gaped as if she were a celebrity, admiration and awe twinkling in his brown eyes, then he circled around the desk and stood beside her. “Can you search for the word mosquito?”

  Her puzzled gaze swerved to a mason jar containing winged insects.

  “They’re drones,” Andrews told her. “Flying syringes filled with God knows what.”

  Her query produced two files, a PDF and an executable program. Speed-reading through the document, she noted a blueprint for the tiny drones. “Your flying syringes are quite sophisticated. A nanocomputer chip in the head controls flight and navigation. The antennae detect minute electromagnetic frequencies given off by living creatures and use them for targeting. The thorax and abdomen are filled with various biological agents, depending on the quarry. Cows were injected with a time-released drug designed to mimic the symptoms of mad cow disease; pigs, with an engineered strain of the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus. Human beings were infected with a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis or something
called nanoclotter.”

  “Does it say anything about typhus or malaria?” Andrews asked. “There was a recent outbreak in District Six.”

  “Nanoclotter is a combination of malaria and self-reproducing nanobots.” Repulsed and intrigued, she continued to read. “Think of them as microscopic bullets that enter the bloodstream and grow to the size of a blood clot, triggering heart attacks or strokes.”

  “Are you fu ... fully ... certain?”

  Grace smirked, aware of the obscenity that had nearly escaped, and said, “Positive, Major ... I am not fucking kidding you.”

  His utter astonishment erupted into a choked laugh.

  Grace minimized both windows and executed the program file. A GUI window appeared, a graphical user interface prompting her to input parameters. She entered longitude and latitude coordinates that created a box around Langden Air Force Base. “I assume that you’ve properly quarantined the remainder of the insect fleet?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ve got a million of them locked away inside Faraday cages.”

  She selected “humans” as the target; then the program prodded her to declare a start time and provide coordinates for extraction. After keying in all the information, Grace launched the attack.

  The drones in the mason jar fluttered to life, bumping into the glass, but never each other.

  Flaunting a devilish grin, she said, “Major, it seems you’ve captured a million mosquito army.”

  72

  Scoville Air Force Base

  District Five, Illinois

  BRADLEY WEBBER WAS keenly aware of how close he’d come to losing Abby. If she hadn’t noticed the trail of smoke from the RPG, if her response had been delayed by just a few seconds, she would be dead; and the likelihood of a follow-on attempt shuddered through him.

  He was tired of playing defense, merely reacting to Volkov’s provocations. Bradley intended to accomplish the task he’d trained for: to hunt down and dispatch that bastard—with or without Ryan’s blessing. He felt a smidgen of guilt for deliberately withholding the information about Malcolm.

  A lie by omission, he thought. That’s what Gramps would’ve called it.

  He shirked the condemnation, stowing it inside a mental time capsule, where issues languished, always waiting to be dealt with “later”; then he returned to the earthquake-damaged barracks. Malcolm was exactly where Bradley had left him, hog-tied and gagged inside a vacant room, formerly occupied by victims of the AIEDs. As he retrieved his tactical knife, the kid’s eyes bulged, two bloodshot balls of sheer panic.

  “Relax,” Bradley told him, slicing through the layers of duct tape. “Do everything I say, and you’ll get to meet up with your contact and take that crate of food home to your siblings—as planned.”

  Nodding, the kid clambered off the bed, onto his feet, and flexed his limbs, which were undoubtedly sore from that awkward position.

  “We’re going to take a walk across base,” Bradley said in a tone that was both soothing and authoritative. “You’re in uniform, so just act natural. Like you belong.”

  Halfway to their destination, they crossed paths with a Colonel. Instinctively, Bradley saluted; Malcolm didn’t, drawing a long stare from the senior officer.

  “F-Y-I,” he muttered. “You’re supposed to salute anyone of higher rank. As a sign of respect.”

  “Oh ... sorry.”

  A minute later, the kid saluted an underage Private, earning another quizzical glance; and Bradley rolled his eyes skyward.

  Is he just nervous? Or intellectually challenged?

  “Malcolm, do me a favor and just wait here. Don’t talk to anybody; don’t even look at anybody. I’ll be right back.”

  Bradley entered a single-story cinder-block warehouse and greeted the Armory Custodian. “I need to sign out my rifle.” He completed the paperwork, indicating that he was headed to the range, and the smidgen of guilt swelled into a glob; another lie to be reckoned with later.

  Exiting the building, he exhaled in a frustrated hiss. Malcolm was now holding court with three female Airmen, all ostensibly charmed by the flustered new guy. “Private Johanssen, let’s go!” Bradley barked, using the phony name displayed on the kid’s stolen uniform.

  When Malcolm didn’t respond, he latched onto his arm and dragged him away from his adoring audience. “Come on, focus. You need to follow orders. Your siblings are counting on you.”

  With a Herculean effort, Bradley managed to smuggle Malcolm off base, and they receded into the woods. They meandered around sand blows and felled trees, headed due north, until reaching a dirt fire road.

  “You’re sure this is where you’re supposed to meet him?” Bradley asked, inflection wavering between a question and a statement.

  Malcolm’s head swiveled from east to west, brow crinkling in thought. “Yeah ... well ... pretty sure.”

  Swearing under his breath, Bradley crept into the brush, putting several yards of tree trunks and leafy weeds between himself and the addlebrained boy.

  What am I doing here? he asked himself. This kid’s too rattled to think straight.

  Nearly an hour passed before a plume of dust appeared on the horizon, and Bradley zeroed his scope on the approaching truck. The vehicle braked to a stop, and the driver emerged, a big, mean-looking blond man—exactly as described.

  The guy shook hands with Malcolm, seemingly puzzled by the boy’s frazzled demeanor; then he hoisted a foot onto the rear tire and climbed into the truck bed. His right hand dipped into a wooden crate packed with MREs and swung upward clutching a handgun.

  Malcolm’s head jerked backward before the crack of the gunshot registered.

  Bradley’s trigger finger was in motion. Conflicting thoughts simultaneously shrieked through his mind.

  He’s a cold-blooded murderer; shoot him!

  But I’m supposed to be at the gun range; I’ll get court-martialed.

  Malcolm’s dead and it’s my fault; no, it’s the Russian’s fault; shoot him!

  But he’s my only link to Volkov.

  Self-preservation fused with Bradley’s desire for vengeance, and his finger retracted from the trigger.

  Volkov is the ultimate objective, he reminded himself. And that guy would’ve killed Malcolm whether I was here or not.

  The murderer opened a large metal crate then pecked away at a laptop keyboard.

  What’s he doing? Reporting back to the crazy general?

  A band of blackbirds emanated from the crate and took flight, one after another. Bradley counted twenty-four of them. The flock circled, gaining altitude until they were soaring above the treetops, then flew off toward Scoville Air Force Base.

  73

  Jilin Province, China

  GUANG HAD BECOME A corn farmer, following in his father’s footsteps, a job that was turning his life into a marathon of misery. Warlords—who had never so much as planted a seed—were now dictating “best practices” and establishing “benchmarks” to gauge his performance.

  Guang was self-motivated and conscientious, always striving for this year’s crop to exceed the last. He wanted to help feed and mend his war-torn country. The problem was that those “best practices” were actually decreasing productivity; and the “benchmarks” were dependent on factors beyond his control—temperature, precipitation, the length of the growing season, and infestations.

  Harsh chemicals that effectively managed pests in the past had been banned prior to the cataclysm in favor of safer, natural compounds that didn’t pollute the rivers.

  A wonderful idea in theory, Guang thought, and a disaster in practice.

  He gawked at his decimated fields, certain there was nothing else he could do. He’d already treated the armyworms three times, with ladybugs, wasps, and a natural horticultural spray, but this year’s swarm seemed immune. Even natural predators like birds were showing no interest in feeding on them or the eggs laid by the mature winged moths. Guang had even tried applying the banned chemicals, a reserve stash that he’d squir
reled away—to no avail.

  The green-striped menace continued its advance, invisible by day, marching like an army under cover of night through field after field, devouring leaves, skeletonizing stalks, and reproducing fast enough to complete five generations in a single growing season.

  Guang sighed. He’d nearly been fired back in 2012 when armyworms wiped out ten percent of China’s corn crop; and this infestation was sure to eclipse that debacle. He dreaded the thought of being called before the warlords.

  This time, I’ll dispense a dose of truth, he thought.

  “Your ‘best practices’ produced this result,” he said aloud, rehearsing. “I was following your orders, so if you are looking for someone to hold accountable—blame yourselves!”

  He gave a sad smile, certain that he would never have the courage to actually say it. Then, pulling a wagonload of environmentally friendly spray, he trudged toward a distant field where the armyworms would resume their attack tonight, transforming the remaining patch of green into a brown wasteland.

  74

  Langden Air Force Base, Texas

  MAJOR RYAN ANDREWS retreated into his office.

  Grace must’ve gone to dinner, he thought, grateful to have a few minutes to himself. A dull headache had grown into a throbbing pain behind his eyes, and he rooted through his desk drawer, dumped two aspirin onto his palm, then tossed them into his mouth without the benefit of water.

  Insect drones? He hadn’t been trained to fight this type of war. The Russians had transcended China’s devious use of vaccines as a biological weapon and delivered their own lethal germs as naturally occurring infestations.

  How exactly am I supposed to defend against a swarm of mosquitoes? And what else did they weaponize? Flies? Bees? Cockroaches?