Maltese Steel

by Stuart Field

  Sloan picked up the gun just as Tipp ran for the door. Steel picked up a nearby chair and hurled it at Sloan, but as it hit Sloan fired, shooting Tipp in the side of the left arm. Sloan hit the ground, and the pistol slid across the floor. Steel moved over to the Marine. His feet slid on the carpet, he was tired from the fight and exhausted from dehydration. Steel reached down and grabbed the Marine’s cuffs, then turned to Sloan, grabbed him by the wrist.

  Sloan forced himself up, knocking Steel backwards. Steel lost his grip, Sloan dived across the floor to grab for the Marine’s Sig Sauer.

  Several shots rang out – which echoed loudly in the confined space, defending everyone in the room. Steel looked over at the open door, where a man stood with Sloan’s gun in his shaking hands – it was Calver.

  Sloan lay in a bloody heap on the floor. The hallway outside was full with the deafening sound of an alarm, which drowned out the heavy pounding from the Marines' boots as they ran for the door. Their weapons drawn, ready.

  Sloan had taken several tight shots to the chest. Steel looked at Sloan and then back at the department chiefs, each of which wore a horrified look.

  Calver let the pistol drop from his hand, he had no use for guns. The truth was he did not really like them unless it was on a computer game.

  ‘Nice grouping, pity we needed him alive,’ Steel said mockingly, as he checked Sloan’s pockets. Along with his wallet and ID, there were two cell phones. Steel cracked a smile. He knew one was for business, and the other was hopefully in contact with the Trojan organisation. Steel clicked it on, it was password-protected, but he could see one number had tried calling him, the caller ID said Beta.

  ‘What for?’ asked Tipp, who was nursing his wound.

  ‘We needed to know what they have done. Stan mentioned about the software. Something was going to make it fail. We need to know if it has been done, or not.’ Steel said.

  ‘Both,’ Calver said. Everyone looked over to Calver, who slapped a hard drive onto the desk. ‘I was meant to swap it today, but then the car bomb went off last night putting everyone on alert. That’s when I realised; I was supposed to get caught with this so when it goes wrong, I get blamed.’

  ‘I take it that’s a fake?’ Steel asked.

  Calver nodded.

  ‘That’s what they gave me,’ Calver said. ‘And before you ask, a courier gave it to me, I never knew who sent it.’

  Steel nodded.

  ‘What would you get from this?’ Steel asked, taking a mouth full of water.

  ‘These people knew things about me, my past. They had enough on me to send me to prison forever, and what they did not have, they said they would make up. I was scared,’ Calver said. He had fear in his eyes. But Steel could not be sure why. The fact he had just killed a man or the fact he could be going to prison without trial. ‘What would you have done?’ Calver wondered about his friend – Bryce, and why he hadn’t heard from him in a while. Then he looked at the bloody mess that had been Sloan and realised – Bryce was dead.

  ‘They said it had to be done today,’ Calver said with a terrified look on his face.

  ‘Makes sense, the program goes online tomorrow at midday,’ said Alison Price. ‘If there were to be a switch, it would have to be today.’

  Steel looked at the hard drive with confusion.

  ‘If the drive has been changed already, why send you to swap it for another fake?’

  ‘I told you,’ Calver said. ‘So I would be caught and get the blame.’

  ‘Yes, sure I get that – but what if you had succeeded, what if you had swapped them, from what you are saying you, would be swapping a fake one with a fake. It does not make sense…unless?’ Steel paused as he let his mind work on a theory.

  ‘Unless… what?’ asked Tipps, who was sat down holding his arm.

  ‘This software, what does it do again?’ Steel asked as he went through his phone pictures until he got to the map's photograph and beamed it onto the back wall.

  ‘It’s a next-generation anti-terrorist software. We call it body mapping. It’s a step up from facial recognition.’ Bolton said proudly.

  ‘OK,’ Steel said gazing at the map. His brain starting to put as many of the pieces together as he could. ‘Here’s a theory. If Calver has the original software, someone swapped it out for a fake because someone was paying big bucks for it to fail. That someone being the organisation. Calver has the original, he gets caught with it, so what would you do when you find out it was swapped out?’ Steel asked the men.

  ‘We’d check it and swap it back. But why do it in the first place, it makes no sense,’ Tipp remarked.

  ‘Actually, it makes perfect sense. It’s a double dupe. Stan already said they were using the terrorists, so what if this software went online after they thought it had been sabotaged?’ Steel said.

  ‘They’d all be caught, but this guy Stan said they were going to be blamed for something…’ Bolton said, then thought for a second. His eyes widened with clarity. ‘The car bomb?’

  ‘No, I got a bad feeling it’s something else. The embassy strike I saw the plans for would only be the start,’ Steel said, his gaze fixed on the sixty-by-twenty map. ‘But we shouldn’t worry about that just yet,’ Steel said, turning to face them. ‘You need to find the others. Before they kick down your front door tomorrow.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’ asked Price, her eyes following Steel’s gaze to Calver.

  ‘What is it you do?’ Steel asked Calver with a cunning smile.

  They all raced over to the blockhouse and took the elevator down. The Chiefs looked uncomfortable with Steel’s presence, but after everything, they would waive it. The paperwork for keeping his mouth shut would come later.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ Calver asked nervously, hoping he would see daylight again after everything that had happened.

  ‘You keep watch of the whole island, right?’ Steel asked.

  ‘Right,’ Calver replied nervously.

  ‘Ok, so, if you have Malta on satellite, it shouldn’t be a problem to pick an area and go back on any activity happening at that point, correct?’ Steel asked.

  ‘In theory, yes.’

  ‘Just try it, it might be a long shot or not, you won’t know if you don’t try,’ Steel said. Calver shrugged and pulled up a screen on his monitor.

  ‘What we lookin for?’

  ‘Find the farmhouse in Gozo, near a place called Qala. Then re-trace anyone who had left there in the last hour before I arrived,’ Steel explained as if he did it every day.

  ‘What farmhouse?’ Calver asked. His voice wrang with a mix of a question, and fear he would be searching every farm on the damned island until they found the correct one.

  ‘Oh – you can’t miss it, it should still be on fire,’ Steel said with a serious face. Calver shot Steel a look, then turned slowly back around.

  ‘Oookkkaayyy,’ Calver said.

  Calver followed Steel’s directions to find what was left of the farmhouse. Then used the downloaded data to trackback.

  ‘When do you want to start?’ Calver asked.

  ‘I’d say… yesterday afternoon, two o’clock,’ Steel said.

  ‘Why two o’clock?’ Price said, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘The ferries over from Gozo,’ Steel said. ‘They run, what? Every forty minutes? Our boys aren’t in a hurry, but they also don’t want to be caught in a rush,’ Steel explained before taking another sip of water. ‘Most tourists will want to go over in the morning or afternoon. That means most people will be going over to Gozo at around half one, and a half-empty ferry will be returning to Malta around two,’ Steel said.

  Bolton, Price and Tipps nodded. They could not find any fault in the logic, and it did make sense.

  Calver typed commands into the computer, and a new picture came onto the screen. It was a picture of Gozo at two o’clock the day before. Calver played with the scroll mouse and zoomed in on the farmhouse. It was busy with box vans, cars and lots of small shapes movin
g about – people.

  ‘We got them, four vehicles in total, unknown numbers of targets though,’ Calver said. Bolton picked up his phone and called the watch commander while the Price phoned Washington.

  Calver tracked the trucks to their new safehouse and wrote down the address, as he handed it to Steel, Tipp snatched it from Calver and read out the targets' location. Steel looked over to Calver and nodded with a subtle smile.

  ‘Good job.’ Steel patted Calver on the shoulder as he got up from the desk.

  ‘OK, let’s go,’ Steel said, rushing towards the corridor which led to the elevator. Suddenly Steel felt a hand on his shoulder, and he stopped.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Steel, we can’t let civilians get involved. You’ve done a hell of a job, now let us do ours.’ Steel nodded at Bolton’s request. Sure, it was dangerous for civilians, but Steel wasn’t a civilian.

  ‘I take it you know who I really work for, and you just want me to – ?’

  ‘We know who you are Major, and who you work for, but this wasn’t sanctioned by them, so this is our rodeo, do we have a problem?’ Bolton said. His words were hushed and angry. Bolton did not appreciate a Brit rocking their apple cart, especially their secret service.

  ‘And just in case, there will be four Marines posted around the room. For your protection – of course,’ Bolton said.

  ‘But of course.’ Steel smiled casually.

  Steel watched as Bolton, Price and Tipp with a medic trying to attend to his wound, rushed off to make phone calls and set up briefings – all except Steel and Calver.

  Calver sat back on his chair and began to rock backwards and forwards. Steel picked up one of the bobbleheads from the desk and nudged the head – causing it to wobble back and forth.

  ‘Thanks for saving my arse back there,’ Steel said.

  ‘No problem,’ Calver said, as though it was nothing.

  ‘I take it you didn’t like him much?’ Steel said, putting down the toy. Calver reached over and held the head of the figure, so it stopped moving.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Calver said, innocently. His gaze moving over to the computer screen.

  ‘Because you shot the guy in the balls before the nice grouping,’ Steel said, with a respectful grin. ‘Like I said…nice grouping.’ Steel patted Calver on the back.

  It was twenty minutes later when Price, Bolton and Tipp returned. They had a game plan, and it would involve Calver. He was to give minute by minute intel to the ground forces. He had done the same thing for years, but under different names, working for lots of various agencies. He wasn’t a double agent, just a guy who liked his work but got uncomfortable being in one place. The CIA knew his rap sheet, and if anything, it made him more attractive to them, or rather Sloan who had hired him. Now Calver knew why.

  There would be two Marines teams, who would back up the Maltese Rapid Intervention Units as they breached the building.

  A sound plan typically.

  However, Steel knew these were extremists, and they would do anything to take out US soldiers if they had the chance.

  The infiltration of the safehouses would have to be swift and with no prisoners.

  Steel grabbed a chair and pulled it over to calver’s desk. Leaving Calver to do his thing.

  The time moved on slowly.

  They watched as the teams move into the safety cordon. Getting briefed by the team leader, discussing triangulations and positions.

  Steel was forcing himself not to scream at how long it was taking. He drank the bottle of water dry, then tossed it into a nearby wastebasket.

  ‘You got a coffee machine here?’ Steel asked.

  ‘Down the corridor, to the left, there’s a break room,’ Calver said, his gaze fixed on the monitor.

  ‘You want anything?’

  Calver shook his head quickly as though moving slowly would make him miss something. Steel got up and headed for the breakroom, all the while checking what the other screen watchers were doing.

  Steel still had no clue what the group had planned. The embassy would be a big statement if it were they who were planning it. But wasn’t, they had outside help.

  As Steel walked past one monitor with a big guy with a Punisher logo on his T-shirt. Steel stopped, his gaze fell on the monitor and appeared to be a familiar shape – it was a C-130 transport plane.

  ‘Where’s this?’ Steel asked with fearful curiosity.

  ‘Tunisia, why?’ asked the man in the chair.

  ‘How long has it been there?’ Steel asked.

  ‘I don’t know… a couple of days…why?’ the tech asked.

  Steel’s blood ran cold.

  ‘Who’s dealing with my photos?’ Steel asked, suddenly looking around the room.

  ‘Sarah, I think,’ replied the T-shirt, guy. His large football head full of nervous sweat.

  ‘Imagine I have no idea who Sarah is?’ Steel growled in a low, quiet voice. The man stood up and pointed to a pretty redhead in a far booth.

  ‘Thanks, and nice t-shirt,’ Steel said, before rushing over to speak to Sarah. Sarah was slender with long thin legs covered by black and red striped long stockings that came up past her knees. She had cut off jeans that she had made into shorts and a pink and white t-shirt. Steel figured Sarah was in her late twenties, and from what he could see of her t-shirt and the gathered on her desk, she had a thing for fat unicorns.

  ‘Sarah? Hi, I’m John. Those photos, have you done them yet?’ Steel asked impatiently. He watched as she opened the image and showed it to Steel. Steel leaned forward, leaning on her chair for support while staring at this stranger next to her with large, curious, blue eyes.

  The image on her screen had been enhanced and blown up. Steel moved forwards, and so did she. Steel looked over the map. He knew he had seen something in the room, something that had caught his eye, but never really took notice. Looking harder, he saw a bit of an island or some landmass on the corner of the photograph.

  ‘Can you make it bigger?’ Steel asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Sarah replied.

  As the image enhanced, he saw one of the markers was in Tunisia – specifically an old airfield by the pictures he had seen on the monitor. Coming from the picture was a red piece of string leading upwards to the top of the map.

  Steel kissed Sarah on the forehead and ran back to the T-shirt guy, who monitored the plane.

  ‘Has anyone been to the aircraft recently?’ Steel asked hoping he wasn’t right.

  ‘Uhm…yeah. Yesterday,’ T-shirt guy replied. ‘They were loading crates. Probably medical supplies,’ T-shirt guy said. Steel shook his head and raced towards Calver.

  ‘Calver, you need to let the chiefs know there is a plane leaving Tunisia and heading for the States. I think it’s got a bomb board,’ Steel said.

  Calver shot Steel a disbelieving look.

  ‘How could you know that?’ Calver asked, excited by the explanation.

  ‘These people want to make a lot of noise. They’ve got a large cargo plane, which means they are carrying something big. What do you think will happen if a military plane goes down in the US and explodes? Who will get the blame, especially if the US Embassy had been attacked?’ Steel said. ‘They will track it back to Tunisia, and as usual, they will put two and two together, and get seven.’

  Steel picked up Calver’s cell phone and put his own number into it then made a note of Calver’s number from his desk phone.

  ‘In case I need you,’ Steel said. ‘Just pass the information on the Bolton and the others,’ Steel said tossing Calver’s phone back to him. Calver thought about it, then nodded.

  ‘OK, I’ll let them know. Wait…where are you going?’ Calver asked. Steel nodded over to the T-shirt guy who was watching the transport plane.

  ‘Catching a flight,’ Steel replied.

  Chapter Seventy

  Steel rode the elevator to the ground floor of the blockhouse. He’d had enough of being sidelined, that’s not who he was. Besides, the others would be busy with the a
ssault on the safe house. The doors opened, and he shielded his eyes from the sudden brightness of natural sunlight. Even with his sunglasses on, the sun’s glare was still intents.

  Steel stood for a moment and basked, taking in the warmth and sunlight.

  ‘We were told nobody must leave,’ came a voice by the main entrance. Steel opened his eyes and smiled at a young Marine guarding the entrance. Steel figured Marine was green, very green. Possibly fresh out of Boot Camp. He already looked nervous. Steel smiled to himself as he approached the man who was no more than 19.

  ‘I’m here to pick up the two people who gatecrashed earlier, can you tell me where they are?’ Steel said, flashing his NYPD identification quickly.

  ‘Sorry, that a need to know, sir,’ answered the Marine. Steel walked towards the guard, still wearing his smile, hoping it would calm the man.

  ‘Good answer Marine, however, I’ve just come from a meeting with director Sloan, and he’s asked me to collect them,’ Steel lied.

  ‘Sorry sir, I've had no orders to let anyone through,’ said the Marine. Steel knew the man was just doing his job, and doing it well. But Steel was pressed for time.

  ‘That’s fine, not a problem, it’s just we’ve got the Pentagon on the horn, and they want to speak to the Mossad agent. But that’s fine, I’ll just go back and tell General Leyermont… What’s your name, Marine?’ Steel asked. Leaning forwards to check the name patch on the guy’s uniform.

  ‘Uhm. Over in the main building, sir, the first floor they’re in one of the safe rooms there,’ the Marine said nervously.

  ‘Thank you, son,’ Steel said, giving a quick nod and a well-done smile. Steel could sense the man had started to sweat the moment he’d mentioned the general. Steel was just glad he’d paid attention to some of the Generals' photographs and names in the lobby.

  He walked out and headed across the parking area to the main building. There were two guards at the front and two roaming patrols. Steel felt safer already, but he’d feel a lot better when he had found Samara and Kane. Steel passed the guards unhindered. Steel figured they had seen him come out of the blockhouse so he must have some sort of authorization. As he walked in, he saluted the men, who returned it just as quick.