Omega Force 01- Storm Force

by Susannah Sandlin

  “You do all this drawing and carving?” Robin picked up a wooden pelican that was one of Kell’s best pieces, detailed and delicate.

  “Carving’s mine. Drawings are by a friend.” Kell eased into the office chair behind the wooden desk, which he’d built of reclaimed cypress like everything else here. The art was Nik’s work, but if he wanted Robin to know, he’d tell her himself.

  Kell opened the Skype connection on his laptop and hooked his computer to the one belonging to Gadget, aka Garrett Foley, the team’s intel guy and a Ranger who’d served with Nik and Kell on their last tour. If there was Internet chatter, Gadget could find it.

  The image of square black geek glasses filled the screen, wrapped around a prominent nose. Blond hair in a background blur gave the whole thing a fun house vibe. Kell still treated computers with the suspicion they deserved, but the laptop and cell phone allowed him to hang out in Cote Blanche without being out of touch. He’d been able to cocoon himself here in the month since Ranger School, letting his back recover and popping ibuprofen without an audience.

  Kell adjusted the screen so Nik and Robin, sitting behind him, could see and hear. “You got the kitty-cats with you?”

  Gadget shifted to the side and a huge face framed with a mane of black hair came into view. “Meow.” Archer Logan grinned. “This kitty-cat ate your lunch last course at Ranger camp, old man.”

  “Ranger School.” Kell grimaced. Nothing he hated worse than a smart-ass shape-shifter, although it seemed to come with the territory. But everyone was accounted for. If Archer was there, his brother Adam was nearby, as quiet as Archer was gregarious. Purely muscle, those two, and virtually indestructible as near as he could tell. They wouldn’t be involved in the tactical end of things, but needed to know what was going on.

  “Got a call from the colonel yesterday, as you know.” Kell leaned back, pulling the sheaf of papers onto his lap and flipping through the notes he’d transcribed after getting the assignment. “You’ve all heard about the bombing in Houston.”

  “Told you we’d get that case!” Gadget whooped and high-fived Archer and Adam, or at least that’s how Kell interpreted the jostling images on the screen.

  “Shut up and sit down, guys. This is bad shit. Seven bombs brought the Zemurray Building down, at least two hundred and fifty dead or unaccounted for, including the governor of Texas. They want us in there by tomorrow.”

  Everyone sobered.

  “How come us and not the Houston PD or Homeland Security?” Nik leaned over Kell’s shoulder and scanned the notes written in small, neat script.

  “We’ll be working alongside them — they just won’t know about it because we don’t exist.” Kell handed him the notes. “Gadget, there’s been some online chatter about another strike being planned, so you need to start monitoring the channels I’ll be sending you as soon as we finish the call. It’s obviously a terrorist attack, but nobody’s claimed it so far, although there is a lead.”

  Robin had been aggravating Gator, but stopped flipping his ears inside out and looked up. “Another bombing is being planned even though no one’s claiming the first one? Weird. What kind of lead?”

  “Anonymous tip, with enough detail to be deemed credible,” Kell said. “Including hints that another bombing by the same people is being planned for Labor Day in New Orleans. That’s two weeks away.”

  Kell leaned in toward the laptop’s camera. “Gadget, you and the kitties need to set up base in New Orleans and see what’s planned for Labor Day weekend that might make a target. Look for something involving business, manufacturing, expansion, oil. Something with the potential for mass casualties. The info’s pointing to some kind of ecoterrorism. The governor’s big industrial expansion meeting could have been the target in Houston.”

  “You want Robin and me in Houston?” Nik handed the sheaf of notes to Robin, and Kell’s glance rested again on the photo of Emory Chastaine, all-American girl terrorist.

  “The rest of us in Houston,” Kell affirmed. “Houston PD’s anonymous rat said the bombing was engineered by this environmental activist group known as the Co-Op. No direct evidence, but Homeland Security is investigating. Trouble is, by the time the bureaucrats get their heads out of their asses, Labor Day will be a memory. They can’t move fast enough.”

  Robin had stopped at a page in the notes headed Co-Op. “Says here the director is a woman named Emory Chastaine — goes by the name Mori. They’ve been protesting the meetings to create a new industrial center northwest of Houston, particularly biochemical manufacturing. She’s openly accused the governor of creating a cancer hazard for local citizens as well as encroaching on native habitats. They’ve always been outspoken but peaceful.”

  Kell nodded. “Unless they’ve changed tactics. I’ll be going in as a Co-Op volunteer. You and Nik, see what you can find at the crime scene, and check out the link with the governor. He’s presumed dead, but the body hasn’t been found.”

  Kell looked back at the screen. “We’ll work out the rest of the details on the way to Houston. And remember, this job doesn’t exist. We don’t exist. Stay undercover and in touch. Nobody’s a cowboy. Everybody clear?”

  “Except for one thing,” Nik said as Kell closed the connection. “You’re about the least crunchy-earthy guy I know. How the hell are you gonna pass for a granola grabber?”

  He was talking to Kell, but his hooded eyes were focused on Robin, who’d stripped off Kell’s T-shirt and was giving Nik an assessing look right back.

  Great. On top of everything else, he’d have to come up with a No Sex Within the Omega Force rule. “Robin, don’t you have to fly away somewhere?”

  She grinned at him, then shimmered back into a golden eagle and squawked at Nik when he opened the door to let her outside.

  Kell swore that, before she took flight off the end of the porch, she shook her tail feathers at them.

  CHAPTER 2

  Mori Chastaine thought she’d be prepared when the phone call came. Not so much.

  She’d known Shonna was dead, had been convinced of it deep in her gut where fears hadn’t yet been molded into words. Her admin hadn’t missed a day of work in almost a year of employment, and if she were going to be late, Shonna would call, text, and e-mail to make sure Mori got the message. They’d even joked about her overdeveloped sense of responsibility.

  Until yesterday. Everyone in the Co-Op offices had gathered in the cramped conference room, watching the small TV set with sick fascination and a growing sense of dread as the morning dragged on and the news from downtown Houston grew worse.

  Nobody said it, but the unspoken thoughts filled the room. Shonna took the Southwest Freeway to work every morning, right past the Zemurray Building. The force of the building collapse had taken down a big chunk of the freeway, always heavy with traffic.

  Shonna was never late. No one answered her phone.

  Still, when Shonna’s husband finally called, Mori hadn’t been prepared for the sick feeling that threatened to overwhelm her. His voice was thin and tinny, as if coming through a dense fog. Rescuers had found Shonna’s car beneath the rubble of the collapsed section of I-59 nearest the bomb site, he said. It happened so fast Shonna hadn’t suffered.

  But that was what officials always told family members to make them feel better. One could never truly know another’s pain or fear or the fleeting regrets that had to pass through a person’s mind in the moments before death.

  Standing beside Shonna’s desk, Mori flipped through the stack of donations waiting to be processed. Gifts of ten, twenty, fifty dollars from people who couldn’t afford to support an environmental action group but who believed in the work they did.

  Except it didn’t seem so important now. Even the issues she faced with her family seemed to pale beside such violence, although Mori knew her personal problems would resume their proper place of horror soon enough.

  Walking into her own office, she slumped in the chair and picked up a wooden carved tree she used as a
paperweight, crafted generations ago by one of her ancestors from a piece of live oak uprooted by a hurricane. It symbolized the strength of her people, their ability to draw solace from the earth, the passion that drove her to try and preserve what land they had left.

  A passion that — according to her parents, anyway — didn’t sink deep enough into her fiber for her to make the sacrifices needed to save them all.

  She shouldn’t have to bear that burden, damn it.

  A tear splashed on the wood worn smooth by years of handling. She wasn’t sure if she was grieving for the lives lost in downtown Houston or for her own diminished future if she let herself be bullied into becoming the wife of a man she hated.

  “You ready to go downtown?” Taylor Stedman stuck his head in the office door, interrupting Mori’s attempts to make sense of the senseless. “Our flyer crew will work harder if they see you there, supporting them.”

  Mori scrubbed her hands over her eyes, wiping away the tears, and stared at her assistant director. What was he thinking? “Tay, I told you to call in the flyer crews yesterday. Now’s not the time to be handing out pamphlets and bad-mouthing the governor. The man might be dead. The executives from the other countries are either dead or wounded. Nobody is talking about building new manufacturing plants anymore.”

  Tay flinched, and Mori closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go off on you. It’s just that Shonna…” She took a deep breath. “No flyer crews until further notice, OK?”

  “What about the calling campaigns? It might be a good time to shore up our support.” Taylor had that pinched, obstinate look Mori had grown to dislike — one he used a lot since she’d beat him out for the director’s job last year.

  Co-Op volunteers had been blanketing the area around the Zemurray Building throughout the week as Governor Felderman and industrial leaders from several G-8 nations met to discuss new manufacturing inroads into southeast Texas. Their position was clear, but now wasn’t the time to press their point.

  “Call the phone crews and tell them to wait for further instructions. We do nothing else until things calm down. All we’d get now is bad publicity.”

  Mori stood and walked around her desk, not ashamed to use her five-eleven height to intimidate her shorter assistant director. Taylor was a good organizer and had the passion for protecting what was left of the native East Texas–West Louisiana habitat, but the man didn’t have a lick of common sense, as Mori’s granddad used to say.

  “But there are a lot of people out in that area, and it’s a good time to remind them what a biochemical plant in their backyard would mean.” Taylor got that whine in his voice that annoyed the bejeezus out of her. He was proof that the line between passion and fanaticism was often a fine one. The environmental movement’s greatest strength across the board — passionate people — was also its greatest weakness.

  “Give it a rest.” She raised her voice, not something she did often. The slump of his shoulders told her she’d made her point. “If we go out there now, we look insensitive and lose support, not gain it.” .

  As soon as Taylor sulked his way down the hall to his office, Mori returned to the small conference room. Two of the three Co-Op office volunteers, college students from nearby Rice U, watched the ongoing disaster coverage.

  “Anything new?” These kids had been with her when the phone call came about Shonna, and both were failing miserably in their attempts to maintain their cool-dude demeanors.

  Brian, an engineering major, looked at her with red-rimmed eyes. “Think there’s any way we can help?”

  Mori shook her head. “It’s too soon. They’re still looking for evidence, I imagine. The best way to help is to stay out of their way.”

  The explosions had turned Houston into a chaotic doughnut. Business ran at its usual frantic pace around the edges, while everything in the central area near downtown remained at a shocked, fearful standstill. The downtown streets were eerily empty except in the vicinity of the Zemurray Building, where investigators swarmed like ants around a smoke-bombed anthill.

  Mori couldn’t blame the kids for wanting to help; they were joiners who kept organizations like the Co-Op alive. She’d come to consider this little gentrified house-turned-storefront in Montrose more of a home than the furnished one-bedroom where she slept. She’d poured everything she had into the Co-Op since taking over the directorship, and they’d made progress in small steps, even convincing a couple of the governor’s industry-rich backers to consider scaling down expansion.

  Feedback screeched through the TV microphones as a middle-aged, stone-faced reporter stopped his ongoing commentary to listen into a headset. “We have a development in the recovery efforts at the Zemurray Building,” he said, nodding as the video cut to a barely recognizable pile of rubble. Concrete and rebar had been piled into a mountain beside the tall uprights that at one time had supported an elevated section of roadway and a seventy-story high-rise.

  “Sources are saying that a local environmental group known as the Co-Op has been identified as an entity of interest in the investigation. The Co-Op has been actively protesting the industrial expansion policies of Governor Felderman and, specifically, this week’s meetings…”

  The voice droned on, but Mori blocked it out. Her sense of unreality deepened as she honed in on the image superimposed behind the reporter, the oak leaf in a circle that made up the Co-Op logo. Surely they couldn’t be serious. Could anybody really believe they’d work so hard to protect wildlife habitat and then do something that would kill people?

  “Mori?” Brian touched her arm, and she startled, looking up and following his gaze to the conference room doorway. Taylor, so pale his long dark hair looked like a bad dye job, stood next to the anti-Taylor. Tall, tanned, short dark hair just unkempt enough to look as if it might be starting to grow out, strong cheekbones, and eyes a shade of clear blue-green she’d only seen in the Caribbean on her one trip to the Cayman Islands. An Army green T-shirt hinted at the muscles beneath.

  She hated to say it of her own people, but this guy looked way too buff and downright masculine to be an environmentalist.

  He held out a hand for her to shake. “Name’s Jack Kelly, and I was hoping to come on as a volunteer at the Co-Op. You’re the director, right?”

  Mori struggled to focus on his words, glancing back at the TV, where the Co-Op logo had been replaced by the mayor giving yet another press conference. “I’m sorry, Mister…Kelly, was it? This is really not a good time. Maybe you could come back in a couple of weeks?”

  Surely to God this nightmare would be over by then, including the ridiculous idea that the Co-Op was involved. Although, for many families, it wouldn’t be over for a long time.

  A little wrinkle of annoyance briefly appeared between his brows, then smoothed away. Mori knew that look from working with the power brokers. Jack Kelly was used to getting his way. “Call me Kell. I’m sorry for the lousy timing, but if you give me a chance, I promise to make myself useful. I’ve just come off active Army duty and need something to fill my time. I believe in what you guys do.”

  Mori rubbed her eyes. She had to find out how the Co-Op had been linked to these bombings, not babysit a struggling soldier. Be nice. He deserves a break for what he’s been through. But his timing sure sucked.

  “OK, of course.” Besides, Taylor needed to stay busy and training a new volunteer would do nicely. “Taylor, can you show Kell around and give him the volunteer spiel? Then I’ll —”

  Holy cow, when had the Co-Op gotten so damned popular? Two nondescript, somber-faced men wearing somber suits and even more somber expressions had appeared behind Taylor and the new volunteer.

  One of the men, a blank-faced brunette, stayed in the background. His companion stepped forward. “Emory Chastaine?”

  Jack took a side step so he was facing the newcomers — definitely looked like something a soldier would do. These guys looked more threatening than the soldier volunteer, though.

  These
guys looked like cops.

  She walked toward the man in front, her hand outstretched, ready to greet him despite the dread churning her stomach to acid. “I’m Mori Chastaine. Can I help you?”

  Instead of shaking her hand, the guy in the suit thrust a Homeland Security badge in front of her face. “Agent Tim Bradford. We need you to accompany us downtown, please. We have some questions in relation to the Zemurray Building bombing.”

  Mori swallowed hard, and her gaze met Kell’s. He had that look again, the one that said he wasn’t getting his way and he didn’t like it. Join the crowd, buddy. She turned back to the FBI agent. “Am I under arrest?”

  His smile was grim. “Not yet.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “I don’t need a fucking bag of cash — she’s been detained, not arrested. Find out how long they can hold her without charging her.”

  Kell ended the call and tossed his cell phone on the scarred dinette table of his apartment, part of a big complex located between Westheimer and San Felipe just inside the 610 Loop. He’d held the lease on the place for more than five years, and it still had the same old furniture he’d taken from his folks’ place in Jeanerette when they died in an auto accident. He hadn’t been able to make himself move back into their house, where he’d stayed whenever he was home on leave or between tours. So he took Gator, sold everything but the cabin (their “fish camp”), and moved to Houston.

  The cabin had survived Audrey, Rita, Ike — any number of lesser hurricanes and tropical storms. He figured any building that stubborn deserved to be kept.

  Nik sat at the table nursing a scotch. The city was painful for him, and Kell recognized the tightness of his jaw that gradually disappeared when he stayed outside the city a few days. The man never knew when something he’d touch would bombard him with a story, usually an emotional or traumatic one. The whiskey didn’t seem to get him drunk or dull his reaction times or judgment, but it did dull the visions.