“Roger that,” I replied. “Call Juliet. She’ll manage our EXFIL.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Oz.
“Not this time,” I said, gripping his shoulder tight. “You’ve followed too many crazy orders, mate. This one’s on me.”
Oz shook his head and muttered. But he let me go. Harry nodded, already whispering into his satellite phone.
The decision, now I’d made it, felt good. If I died tonight, I’d die the better man.
Yeah, I sort of believed it too.
I trudged towards the trailer park like a man in a minefield. Moonlight gave the marshes a ghostly sheen, picking out shadows in hedges and grass-fringed dunes. My head would be in the cross-hairs of night sights now, triggers tensed. The static caravans were closer now, weather-beaten and sagging on crumbling hard-standings. Beyond lay the clubhouse, overlooking the sea. A rickety balcony ran along the second floor. “My name is Cal Winter,” I called into the blackness.
The wind carried the crackle of static. Was it a whisper? A sniper asking permission to engage? I stood in the open, moon-shadow cast before me. I would never hear the bullet that took me out.
“An interesting play, Captain Winter,” said a voice. American. “You shoulda run when you had the chance.”
“I could never resist a lost cause,” I replied.
Erik Drexler stepped from the shadows, a high-tech knight in ballistic armour. His face was covered by tri-lensed night vision goggles, coppery beard braided like a Viking of yore. He wore a pistol on a chest-holster, a black fighting knife strapped to his belt. Ceramic plates protected his legs and torso, hands covered with Kevlar gauntlets.
I blew a plume of smoke from my cigar. “All dressed-up and nowhere to go?”
“To the contrary,” he drawled, “Erik shall go to the ball. There’ll be fighting, up in the city.”
“We need to talk.”
Drexler towered over me. “You might have asked sooner.”
“And you could’ve called a meeting, when you became PRIMO.” I unzipped my field jacket, showing I was unarmed. My satellite phone was taped to the small of my back, transponder bleeping my location.
“Touché,” Drexler nodded. “No sudden moves. There’s six rifles trained on you.”
“That’s okay. I’m not planning on dying. Maybe tomorrow. But not today.”
Drexler flipped up his NVGs on their helmet mount. Eyes glittered in a face smeared with black and grey camouflage paint. “Tell me, Winter, what’s your desire? A job? Money? Revenge? ‘Cuz all those things are in my gift.”
Revenge? I wondered if Drexler had done that for me already. The EVOCATI were all dead. The Firm was fatally compromised. “I’ll settle for an explanation.”
The American smiled, teeth flashing in his war-painted face. “Why would I offer something that precious?”
“Because I was blackmailed, just like you. You know I was planning on taking down The Firm. Why keep it alive? For Jacques Paradis’ convenience?”
“You’ve found out about Paradis? I guess Monty spilled his guts?”
“Actually no, but he confirmed it.”
Drexler shrugged armoured shoulders. “Nonetheless, that’s it? Just the itch for an answer?” He loomed closer, eyes boring into mine like a tractor beam. His hands were big enough to crush a man’s skull.
I nodded.
“Let’s walk.” He swept his hand at the sea, like a lord showing the extent of his domain.
I fished out two cigars and lit them. Drexler nodded his thanks. The walk to the beach took a few quiet minutes. Behind us, a figure appeared on the clubhouse balcony and levelled a long rifle at me.
“Let’s go to my office,” Drexler said. A dark shape hove into view, a trawler lit by glimmering fore and aft lamps.
“A ship?”
“Yeah, that’s CROUPIER,” the American replied. “Ingenious when you think about it. A floating office. The trailer park was never used for anything much. Another deception.”
A dinghy with two crewmen picked us up. One searched me and found my phone, tossing it into the sea. The dinghy chugged towards the trawler, the smell of diesel and brine filling my nose. A cold wind snapped across the waves as we neared the vessel. I saw the name painted across the bow: SEA WITCH - TRIESTE. A hooded sentry stood at the spray-rail, scanning the horizon with his rifle.
“I’m amazed your country has no armed coastguard,” said Drexler. “It makes you vulnerable.”
“Our neighbours are friendly,” I replied.
Another smile.
The dinghy nudged it’s mothership, bobbing in the swell of black water. Drexler scrambled up a ladder lashed to the trawler’s hull. I followed. The two men in the dinghy waited for me to make it to the top, pistols drawn.
Sea Witch was a battered tub, thirty metres long, with a rust-streaked hull and white-painted wheelhouse. Instead of winches and booms at the stern, there was a fibreglass pod with portholes. It was oblong, protected by curved steel revetments. As well as an Inmarsat array, a cluster of aerials and radar sprouted from it. “Looks like one of those old Soviet spy boats,” I said.
“It was,” Drexler nodded. “The Firm bought it when the USSR collapsed, turned it into a floating office. Millions of dirty dollars were washed through this tub.”
The two men from the dinghy clambered on deck. “It’s OK guys,” said Drexler, “go grab coffee. It’s a waiting game now.”
“Yes, Erik,” said the first. His accent was Eastern European.
“What now?” I said.
Drexler looked back towards the coast. “There are two ways this ends: You can join me or you can die. I was wrong to trust Monty’s opinion ‘bout you.”
“What if neither option appeals?”
“Then it might be a government that gets you instead. You’re implicated in an act of war. You realise you’d make an excellent scapegoat?”
“Yes, it occurred to me.”
Drexler nodded. “The world is changing, Cal. Join me. Men like us have a part to play in what comes next. The Firm was a means to an end.”
“No.” I gripped the rail running along the trawler’s hull, the trawler pitching beneath my feet. Old paint and rust flaked under my fingers.
Drexler made a hey-it’s-your-funeral face and sucked on his cigar. “I guess you’ve earned the right to an explanation. You’re the only one who’s been man enough to come ask me.”
“Gee thanks, Erik.”
“They tell me you’re a decorated combat veteran.”
I looked around us. Half a dozen armed men stood sentry nearby. “I imagine most of us are,” I shrugged.
“Modest too.” Drexler replied. “Ever heard of Lois Baker?”
“Yes, the EVOCATI. She died in the crash Pilbeam engineered.”
“Hey, give that guy a deer-stalker and a violin. Lois thought she was a big player, with her fancy DC contacts and ex-Marine Corps bullshit. She found out about a youthful indiscretion of mine and blackmailed me.” Drexler chuckled, tapping cigar ash into the sea. “Lois said The Firm wanted to add me to its menagerie. I’m trained to do unorthodox things, services they wanted to sell.”
“Youthful indiscretion?”
Drexler shrugged and rested his elbows on the rails. “Someone knowingly sold bad heroin to a friend of mine. A brother who couldn’t take it anymore. Got himself a habit. He saved my life in Iraq. The dealer who served up that shit died. What would you have done?”
“The same,” I replied. “How did Baker find out?”
“She had my name run through the FBI’s intelligence database. I’d been a peripheral suspect, ‘cuz my hire car was seen in the area where the dealer’s body was found.”
“Sounds like bad tradecraft to me,” I said.
“My head was in a bad place,” the big American shrugged. “There was nothing proven, but forensic techniques move on.”
“How did you kill the dealer?”
Drexler held up his gauntlets. “Bare hands,
man. I did it with my bare hands. She threatened to get the case re-opened if I didn’t play ball. Lois would’ve fucked half the G-Men at Quantico if she had to.”
“And Paradis?”
Drexler’s smile gleamed in his camouflage-streaked face. “Jacques was meant to be my first mark for The Firm. They wanted to blood me. There’s this tradition, a hit they drop on you with no warning?”
I remembered Greta Muller, murdered a lifetime ago. “Yeah, that’s what they do.”
Drexler nodded. “Right. They knew I’d done a tour as army liaison to SHAPE headquarters. I knew Paradis from the cocktail circuit. He was a big deal in EU intel and security circles. We’d shared ideas on future warfare and chaos theory, he published a couple of my papers in a journal he sponsored. The Firm wanted to exploit my access.”
“Yet you didn’t kill him. Why?”
Drexler nodded at a passing sentry. “There’s the rub, Cal. Answers. We’re always looking for answers. Jacques Paradis is like you, me and every other dumb fuck who ever put their name to a cause. Paradis got screwed by his bosses in Brussels. He had a plan. It was so… preposterous. Wagnerian, even. I couldn’t resist.”
“What’s Paradis’ motive. Why?”
Erik shot me a do-not-interrupt stare. “There I was, a syringe full of pentobarbital at Paradis’ throat. He asked to parley, just like you. That takes balls. He offered me an opportunity - use my Obsidian Futures techniques and destroy The Firm.” Drexler took another puff on his cigar and looked out to sea.
I saw something, a dark shape in the water halfway between us and the headland. The sentries hadn’t seen it, stood in a huddle sipping coffee. “Obsidian Futures?”
“Fifth-generation information warfare. Statal paralysis and disruption ops. My government didn’t like the direction I was taking it. They undermined me.”
The shape in the water disappeared. Was I seeing things? “My heart bleeds, Colonel, but this is my country you’re playing God with,” I said.
“It’s a pissant little place. Who cares?” Drexler exhaled blue smoke. “Now, you’ve had enough secrets for one day.”
“Then I’ll find Paradis myself.”
“There’s confidence, then there’s stupidity.” Drexler pulled a leather-bound flask from an ammunition pouch and took a swig. He passed it to me. “That’s a Remy Louis XIII cognac, a present from Paradis. Three thousand dollars.”
I chugged three heavenly ounces and zipped up my jacket against the cold. More lights clustered in the distance, ships making the crossing from France.
Drexler took the flask and drained it. “Consider my offer, Cal. This operation is a big ol’ wake-up call to the World.”
“Aw, Erik, you ain’t going to spoil our special moment with a load of utopian bullshit?”
“Utopian? Hell no. But I think the end result of this experiment will be more simpatico to the type of government I’m interested in.”
“Fascism?”
Drexler shot me a look, eyes narrowed. “No, but it wouldn’t necessarily be the worst outcome. I’m thinking refreshed leadership, the kind vested interests have conspired to prevent. The sort of leadership that’ll get China’s respect, put the Russians back in their box and stamp a boot on Iranian throats. I’m just jump-starting the change. The digital future needs better, leaner government. Call it Democracy Version 2.0.”
“Democracy-lite?” I replied.
“Possibly,” he shrugged, “but this stuff ain’t even controversial in Silicon Valley. You ever read Heart of Darkness? Palo Alto is the end of the river, man. If we don’t provide the right leadership, people of action and valour, those tech company pussies will. Fuck them.”
“So, the world will be run by people like you?”
“Influenced, not run. Influenced by people like us, Winter,” Drexler’s tone was matter-of-fact. “People who’ve served. Shed blood. People who eschew bullshit. People who …”
“…If it goosesteps like a fascist and gives orders, it’s a fascist.”
Drexler’s eye twitched. Then he smiled. “Hey, you’re a washed-up grunt with substance abuse issues. I’ve got a Kennedy School of Government PhD. Let’s agree to disagree. When my Obsidian Futures operators ride to the rescue, mopping up the punks rampaging through London, restoring order… I’ll be given the keys to the security establishment castle. Nothing is ever gonna be the same again.”
“How many people do you have?”
“Ninety. Handsomely armed, thanks to GROUNDSMAN. Pilbeam got hacking collectives, protest groups and every flavour of extremist loony-tune ready to deploy too. And, of course, The Firm.”
My eyes scanned the water for the strange shape. Surely Marcus couldn’t have traced me and mobilised SF this fast? “I’ve taken a bite out of your operation,” I said. “That takes you down to eighty. You really think you can pull this off?”
“It would be easier if I could fold your team into mine.” Erik Drexler lifted his face towards the moon. “Follow me.”
Drexler’s men watched their boss stride across the deck, like an all-conquering general. Too busy with their hero-worship, they didn’t notice the shape break the waves, no more than thirty metres to starboard. Then another.
A sentry glowered at me, weapon trained at my chest. I pointed at him and ran a finger across my throat. The sentries bridled. I didn’t care, because they were looking at me. Not the dark shapes, drawing ever-closer.
“Stop goading my men. I wanna show you something,” said Drexler over his shoulder.
“What?”
“The future,” he replied, striding towards the trawler’s aft-mounted pod. “Let me show you the future.”
Chapter twenty-one
The pod’s interior was lit by the glow of monitors. Three men sat tapping at keyboards and murmuring into headsets. Digital clocks counted down the minutes in Washington DC, London, Brussels and Moscow.
“Status update?” said Drexler, folding his arms.
The first operator was a skinny Asian kid wearing an Atari tee-shirt. “Russia’s aggressively de-valuing the rouble. BASNEFT shares tumbling, energy markets tanking. Erik, am I good to DOS Trans-Persia LNG?”
“Do it,” Drexler replied. “The Russian response is consistent with the Hoffman Curve prediction, right?”
“Copy that. Hoffman performing as predicted,” the Asian kid replied, smiling. “The Russian troll factories are ramping up fake news like crazy.”
“Okay, Trans-Persia is go,” the second man nodded, wiping coffee foam from his beard. He was a beefy American, with two full sleeves of heavy metal tattoos. “We got Darkmail incoming – Gundam Collective ready to compromise UK air traffic control. Blind Angel requests Bitcoin transfer.”
“Pay Blind Angel fifty per cent, but tell Gundam to hold,” the last operator ordered in a clipped German accent. He wore steel-rimmed glasses on a stern, pinched face. “We’ll have complete interdiction of UK emergency service Airwave comms in two-zero minutes. It would be optimal to let that occur first.”
“Okay, I got that,” the tattooed American replied, fingers click-clacking across his keyboard. “UK critical infrastructure degradation running at thirty-percent, I need fifty…”
“Whoah, I’ve got the Euro falling too fast,” said the Asian guy, almost to himself. “I need to adjust that. Dieter can you contact Anna in Beijing?”
“Ja,” the German replied, “do it. She’s ready and waiting for virus version 3.0. I’ll tell her to fuck the pound harder, too.”
“Sterling is fucking itself nicely,” the Asian guy nodded. “I’m looking at the grid – Dieter, can you upload the UK public unrest content?”
The German jabbed a finger at a touchscreen. “Copy. Running police brutality counterfactuals.” The screen showed a squad of yellow-jacketed cops battering a black youth. They wore distinctive British police helmets. The video was grainy cell-phone footage, the kid’s eyes wide with terror. The cops grinned and laughed. The darkened street was amber-lit, the walls
covered in graffiti.
“Where’s that?” I said.
“East Berlin,” the German replied. “We filmed it using actors. It will go viral on YouTube, and in half an hour youths will be throwing petrol bombs at London police stations.”
“Then they’ll be shootin’ at pigs,” the American added, grinning. “I guess the pigs’ll have to shoot back. Then there’ll be more riots. Think of it as the negative feedback loop of the apocalypse.”
“This is my way of war,” said Drexler. “This is Obsidian Futures. Forget all that military Psyops bullshit. This is pure information warfare, augmented by irregular small-unit operations. We zero in on every Achilles Heel, every societal fault line, with precision strike packages: political, economic, cultural and paramilitary. We surf the Hoffman Curve, to our desired outcome.”
“Yeah, it’s like a voodoo doll,” said the American operator. “Every pin hurts like a bitch. We can cripple a country in forty-eight hours.”
Another screen showed a Darknet chat-log. Russian hackers were haggling over the price of shutting down the UK’s Police National Computer. I watched Dieter authorise a fee of five-hundred thousand US dollars.
Drexler turned to the hackers. “Guys, where are we on Event Zero?”
“Mebbe forty hours?” the tattooed American replied. “We’re getting a feed from an NSA bird over the Baltic. The Russian 128th Surface Ship Brigade just steamed into Polish territorial waters. The Swedes are freaking out ‘cuz there’s a flotilla of Russki subs off Gotland.”
“Event Zero?” I said.
“Most likely a limited NATO – Russian Federation military exchange,” said Drexler dismissively. “The Curve points towards the Baltic right now. Superpower dick-swinging. The apogee of our operation, the fulcrum of change.”
“You mean a bloody war?” I shook my head.
“I prefer the term conflagration,” Drexler replied easily. “They’ll be smoothing it over via backchannels within 24 hours. Pussies. But there’ll be a recalibration of the international system...”
I shook my head. The man was a lunatic. “You can’t possibly control that.”
The Saint Jude Rules (Cal Winter Book 3) Page 16