Power Play- America's Fate
Page 35
Where am I?
Bradley was lying supine on a leather couch that reeked of mildew. His legs dangled over the armrest, and his feet felt tingly and numb. He rubbed at his face, hoping to clear away the drowsiness, only then noticing the curly plastic tube that dead-ended into his right forearm.
An IV?
A spurt of adrenaline coursed through him.
Splintered memories pricked at a haze of confusion.
Volkov ... White powder ... Then what?
Bradley bolted upright, swinging his feet toward the floor, and ripped the intravenous needle from his arm. A rush of light-headedness forced him to slump back against the couch, knocking an IV bag from its perch. The pouch bounded off his shoulder and landed atop his bleeding forearm.
As the dizziness receded, he focused on the printed label: sodium chloride injection USP.
Standard IV solution? Did his captor inject something into it? Alameda fever? Smallpox? A truth serum to prep him for interrogation?
Bradley flicked the pouch aside.
Shit!
He’d been stripped down to his T-shirt and boxers, which meant that Volkov had the invisibility cloak and the billion-dollar, electromagnetic-energy-deadening pajamas.
He could be in this room, right now, watching me.
Bradley searched for a weapon.
Desk. Chair. Moisture-swollen books. Broken ceiling tiles. A thousand piece puzzle, formerly a decorative mirror ...
Better than nothing.
Reaching for a jagged shard, he heard a familiar voice behind him.
“Good-afternoon, Master Sergeant.”
Volkov strolled into the room, placed a metal suitcase on the desk, and eased his aging frame onto the chair. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, fit for his age, which Bradley placed around sixty. The general’s buzz-cut hair was virtually colorless, not blond, not white, not gray; and his penetrating pale-blue eyes underscored his ferocious reputation.
“You missed all the excitement. My base of operations was annihilated, mere minutes after our exodus. The rest of my team was not as fortunate.”
Volkov doesn’t have a squad backing him up? Bradley thought.
Just him versus me, one-on-one? Could I be that lucky?
Or is this disinformation?
“In that case, I’ll accept your surrender, General.”
Volkov uncorked a throaty laugh. “Such a sense of humor. I am truly looking forward to our collaboration.”
The word clawed at Bradley, scraping and inflaming nerve endings.
“I’d die before I betray my country!”
“Loyalty. Yet another essential trait for Dmitry’s successor.”
Dmitry? Bradley thought. Is this payback for shooting his son?
The latches on the suitcase thwonked, the hinges creaked, and Volkov retrieved a laptop. He roused it from sleep, and the monitor cast a bluish glow over his gaunt features, making him appear deathly pale; then the crazy general lifted another item from the metal suitcase. At first, Bradley thought it was a feather-covered pillow. Then he deduced that it was an owl.
“Is that a drone? Like the blackbirds?”
Volkov smirked. His fingers danced over the laptop keyboard.
The bird of prey was a horned owl with mottled gray-brown feathers, earlike tufts, demonic orange eyes, and sharp talons.
The blackbirds were a better choice, Bradley decided. A bunch of owls roosting on electric wires would’ve been a giant red—
“The good Lord always provides.”
The raspy tone, the inflection, the cadence of the voice—they turned Bradley’s spinal fluid to ice.
Gramps?
The voice of his deceased grandfather gave way to whistling; Can’t Help Falling in Love, just like his dream. The old Elvis tune had been Gramps’ favorite taunt regarding his romance with Abby.
“How’re you doing that?” Bradley leapt to his feet, pivoting, searching for a hidden speaker, and his heart slammed to a stop.
Abby was standing in the doorway, flashing that adorable, pissed-off pout.
How did Volkov capture her?
“Abby, run!” Bradley lunged at his adversary, fists clenched, right arm cocked, eyes scanning for the .45 caliber Springfield.
The general jabbed his index finger into the keyboard.
Instantly, Bradley’s muscles locked up.
Arms.
Legs.
Fingers.
Nothing was responding. His body had become a fleshy statue.
The IV, Bradley thought. He must’ve drugged me with a paralysis-inducing depressant.
Anger and fear surged through his core. “I swear, Volkov, if you hurt Abby, I verl deel oaf urski li kapota toe ...”
Bradley halted, shocked by the nonsensical gibberish spilling from his mouth.
“Uvas onof vasitch—”
“Shut up!” Volkov depressed another key, and Bradley’s vocal cords ceased functioning.
“Close your eyes!”
Bradley’s eyelids clamped shut and, despite his best efforts, would not reopen. Standing there, unable to see, move, or speak, he felt powerless, and his imagination cycled through terrifying scenarios.
Is he going to shoot me?
No, if he wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead.
He wants to torture me for information.
“The owl is quite an improvement over the blackbird prototype,” the general began, his tone unnervingly friendly. “It uses electrical frequencies to jam the signals between brain and muscle. And it can control bodily functions as well.”
Keys clacked, and Bradley’s pulse accelerated until his heart felt like a bucking stallion. A sheen of sweat blossomed into itchy tendrils that trickled down his face, his neck, his back.
“I could make you soil yourself,” Volkov said, his throaty laugh returning. “I could induce a panic attack, a myocardial infarction, or a seizure. I could make you feel the pain of a beating, the agony of fire devouring skin, the terror of drowning, with no evidence of torture—all at the stroke of my keyboard.”
Bradley gasped. This kind of technology in the hands of a madman? It’s even worse than I imagined.
“Madman?” Volkov scoffed. “I am no such thing.”
How did he know I called him a madman? Bradley wondered.
Was that a wild-ass guess?
Faint swishing and crunching sounds suggested the general was moving closer.
“Behold, Master Sergeant.”
Bradley’s eyelids snapped open, and he stared in disbelief at the laptop screen. His private thoughts were on display, neatly typed in real time.
Can the owl inject thoughts into my mind? Or only eavesdrop?
“Bradley, do ten jumping jacks and count them out.”
Go fuck yourself!
Volkov’s lips curled into a benign smile. “You really do remind me of Dmitry. I’m looking forward to our newly forged alliance.” Then with dramatic flair, he depressed the enter key.
Bradley’s body responded involuntarily, arms and legs pumping, syllables croaking from his throat.
Shit! This psycho’s going to weaponize me ... going to turn me into an assassin who betrays his country ...
135
Langden Air Force Base, Texas
GOVERNOR KYLE MURPHY trudged alongside Ryan Andrews toward a C-130 at the southern end of the tarmac. Self-preservation and a pesky sense of duty were brawling inside Kyle, engaged in a fight to the death while anxiety refereed. Was it wrong for him to put his family first? To protect Jessie from the intense scrutiny of a Presidential campaign? To provide Nikki and Billy with a normal childhood, without Secret Service agents overshadowing their world?
“I bet Admiral Rone is going to be your VP,” Ryan said excitedly. “Did you notice the way he smirked when he said, ‘We’ll discuss that during the briefing’?”
The TEradS commander had short tawny hair and inquisitive honey-brown eyes that were constantly in motion. The contours of his cheeks a
nd chin were smooth and rounded, yet there was an inherent strength in his face. Street-smart and battle hardened, the thirty-eight-year-old was an artisan with expletives, a contortionist with rules and regulations, and an expert at pushing boundaries.
Kyle slanted him a damning look, still irritated at Ryan for shoving him into a political lion’s den. “I AM NOT running for President!”
“Come on, Murphy. Everybody between sixteen and forty is putting their lives on the line for the country. Why shouldn’t you serve?”
The words were a dagger of conscience-piercing guilt. “But I’m not qualified. This is tantamount to drafting me on Monday and asking me to fly a fighter jet on Tuesday.”
“Rone’s not going to set you up for failure. Believe me, the Admiral has a plan ... Then again,” Ryan said with a snap of his fingers, “General Quenten could be your VP. That would explain why he flew in to Langden.”
The C-130’s rear cargo door was down, angled like a ramp, and Kyle’s gaze fixed on the fuselage. “What the hell is that?”
A gray shipping container was wedged inside the aircraft and barely cleared the ceiling. Its dual cargo doors were open, revealing a solid wall and a steel door with the largest hinges Kyle had ever seen. A metal box, mounted beside the handle, housed a keypad; and above it, a dome-shaped surveillance camera recorded their approach.
“That’s a portable SCIF,” Ryan said.
“This just proves my point,” Kyle grumbled. “I don’t even know what a SCIF is.”
“It’s a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility,” Ryan told him. “A vaultlike room impervious to high-tech eavesdropping.”
The thick steel door swung open, and Kyle followed Ryan into the claustrophobic space. Its interior walls were pale-blue steel, studded with fabric wrapped rectangles.
For acoustical security? he wondered. Or to absorb voices and deaden echoes?
The heavy door clunked shut, amplifying Kyle’s feelings of entrapment, then Admiral Rone initiated a round of introductions.
“... And last but not least, our vice-presidential candidate ... Major Ryan Andrews.”
Ryan let out a rambunctious laugh that waxed and ebbed, undulating into a manly giggle. “Admiral, you missed your calling,” he said as they hunkered around a small conference table. “You’re quite the comedian, sir.”
“On the contrary, Major, I’m quite serious.”
Ryan’s smile faded. His jaw went slack. His eyes bulged then contracted into slivers as shock yielded to anger. “Uh ... No, sir! My deficit of diplomacy and surplus of political incorrectness would make me the worst candidate. Ever!”
Unable to squelch his taunting grin, Kyle said, “Isn’t that for the voters to decide?”
The question provoked a look that could have pulverized granite.
“Candor can be an asset,” Rone said. “And as commander of the TEradS, your favorability rating with the American people is close to eighty percent. Apparently, their firsthand experiences with TEradS trump the media’s dishonest hearsay.”
Face flushed, Ryan extended both hands like stop signs. “General Quenten, you know how I feel about D.C. I accepted the TEradS position contingent on HQ moving from Washington to Texas.”
Kyle grinned, watching Ryan’s expression mutate from alarm to full-blown panic; then, head tipping forward to establish eye contact, he said, “Your country needs you! Do it for your unborn baby! And every other child in America!”
Ryan’s jaw pulsed with unspoken expletives; his glare promised retribution.
Undeterred, Kyle continued, “At the very least, you should suspend judgment until you have all the facts ... Like me.”
“Excellent suggestion,” Rone said. “Gentlemen, our government is rife with corruption. Have you ever wondered how a politician like Senator Conn can afford to live in a $4.3-million-dollar mansion on his $174,000 congressional salary?”
“Then there’s the Sidney Foundation,” Quenten added, “the biggest influence-peddling and money-laundering scheme in U.S. history. Remember that uranium scandal prior to the pulse? Carter Sidney personally facilitated that deal. She sold off one-fifth of our uranium reserves in exchange for $140,000,000; and that uranium made its way through Canada over to Europe and, ultimately, into hostile nations.”
“Let’s be clear,” Kyle interrupted. “Are you telling me that Carter Sidney knowingly gave uranium to our enemies?”
“Affirmative.”
“And your brother appointed her to replace Aaron Burr as Vice President?” Ryan asked, disgust resonating in his voice.
“Committibank funded my brother’s campaign,” General Quenten said with a somber nod. “Post-election they submitted ‘recommendations’ for cabinet positions; then, lo and behold, my brother appointed each and every one of them.”
Ryan muttered, “Explains why he had so many traitors in his cabinet.”
“If the American people knew the truth about what is really happening,” Rone said, “ninety-nine percent of them would need to be hospitalized. You see, a corrupt Commander in Chief appoints a corrupt attorney general, corrupt department heads, and corrupt federal judges. That means all the alphabet agencies—FBI, CIA, DOJ, EPA, IRS, and the State Department—are infected and in dire need of a deep cleaning. All Consortium-connected politicians and bureaucrats must go.”
Kyle fidgeted in his chair, intimidated by the scope of the undertaking. “You’re talking about taking on the most powerful people in the world. They’re not going to relinquish power willingly. And I’ve seen the ever-growing list of suspicious deaths associated with Carter Sidney; this would put a huge bull’s-eye on our families.”
Concern skittered over the Admiral’s features. “We have been war-gaming this ‘cleansing’ for years. And we can minimize risk using something called game theory; mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between decision makers that predict behavior. You can depend on our council of Wizards and Warlocks to protect you.”
“Gentlemen, it all boils down to a simple question.” The General’s chin jutted forward and a sly smile tweaked his lips. “Can you—in good conscience—allow Carter Sidney to become Commander in Chief? The woman who furnished the uranium used to EMP our country?”
End of Book Three.
Book Four: Mind Power: America Awakens
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
TIDBIT # 1
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
TIDBIT # 2
TIDBIT # 3
TIDBIT # 4
Epilogue