Scott regarded the apoplectic man calmly. He was terrified, which suggested that whatever was waiting for them in the alleyway was highly dangerous. Which further suggested that it was both strategically and morally wrong of the suits to withhold information that might prove crucial to Scott’s survival.
But even that was not the full issue here. What was the issue was that he was being asked to destroy, or otherwise incapacitate, a target he knew nothing about. Given the circumstances, Scott was pretty sure – or at least he hoped – that if he did find himself on a charge, his superior officers would support the stance he was about to take.
Shaking his head, he said, “I think you’ll find, sir, that I’m not obligated to follow orders that I consider morally objectionable.”
The stocky man gaped at him. “Morally objectionable?”
“Yes, sir.”
Just behind the stocky agent, the skinny guy sniggered. “Trust us to get a smart one.”
The stocky agent was not amused, though. Taking a lurching step forward, he said, “Why, you little—”
He was interrupted by Keyes, who wearily held up a hand. “Do you object to engaging an enemy of the United States in conflict, Private Devlin?” the tall man asked quietly.
Scott shook his head. “Of course not, sir.”
“Good. Because that’s exactly the situation we’re facing here. I can’t give you full details, and I apologize for that, but what I can tell you is that there may be a… an individual in this alleyway who is not only highly adept in the art of combat, but who employs highly advanced weaponry – I’m talking highly advanced. You get me?”
Scott wasn’t sure that he did, though rumors were forever circulating in the military that the Russians were developing not only an army of genetically modified warriors, but also the weaponry to go with them. “You mean like a… a super soldier?” he ventured.
Keyes nodded. “Yes. Exactly that. Let’s call him a super soldier. A super soldier who has single-handedly brought this part of the city to a standstill. A super-soldier who is responsible for the loss of literally dozens of lives, one of whom…”
But there he stopped, the words seeming to choke in his throat. Scott noticed the two agents glance nervously at each other, and in that brief look he instantly discerned a whole conversation’s worth of meaning.
Something had happened here. Something aside from the devastation and chaos. Something smaller, personal, associated with Keyes.
Remembering the scientist’s last words, Scott said, “Did this ‘super soldier’ kill someone close to you, sir?”
Keyes shuddered. His mouth opened and closed, and a look of acute pain crossed his face. Then he said quietly, “My father. It killed my father.”
“I’m sorry,” said Scott.
Keyes screwed his eyes closed, and Scott got the sense that he was trying to bury his grief, trying to maintain an air of professionalism. Hollowly he said, “My father was only one of many this thing has killed tonight. Its only purpose is to kill and keep on killing. So you see now why this situation is so sensitive, and why the need for secrecy?”
“I guess so, sir,” Scott said.
“Then can we rely on you to do your duty, Private Devlin?”
Scott’s instincts told him there was still something missing here, something he wasn’t being told, but as always his curiosity was now beginning to get the better of him. He wanted to know what was in the alleyway.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
Keyes brought his hands together like a minister embracing the blessing of the Lord.
“Thank you. In that case, let’s not waste any more time. Lead the way, soldier.”
Rifle at the ready, senses alert for the slightest sound or movement, Scott ventured into the alleyway. It was no more than two meters wide and at least thirty meters long. At the far end he could make out a dim, mustard-yellow glow – most likely a caged bulb above a service door – that cast an insipid glow on what Scott guessed was a chain-link fence. Beyond that were the dark walls of more buildings.
He could hear nothing but the soft crackle of his own footsteps, and of the footsteps of the two agents some way behind him, laid over an almost ambient backdrop of distant helicopter engines somewhere in the night sky. It was now too dim to discern whether the trail of glowing green spots continued into the alleyway, or whether they petered out after just a few meters. If so, that would suggest that the “super soldier” had used the alley as a temporary refuge rather than a more permanent one.
As he crept forward in a half-crouch, Scott thought again about the green substance. If it came from a weapon, that meant the weapon was now damaged in some way. Damaged, however, did not necessarily mean disabled, although if the enemy’s weapon was out of action, that might explain why he was lying low.
Reaching the halfway point of the alleyway, Scott paused for a second to take stock. He raised a hand to signal a halt to the two agents, who he estimated were roughly ten meters behind him, and then he listened. Could he hear faint rustles and scuffs of movement somewhere ahead, or was that simply his imagination? Certainly the illuminated area at the end of the alley was a little clearer now, and beneath the dim, somehow dirty light, Scott could see a cluster of industrial trash cans – three, maybe four of them – and a stack of cardboard boxes, bleached and wilted from the recent unrelenting heat. The ground was strewn with glinting shards of broken glass and the usual accumulation of debris that had blown in from the sidewalk and had nowhere else to go – candy wrappers, fast-food cartons, crumpled newspapers and cigarette butts.
Motioning that the agents should stay where they were – he didn’t want them crunching glass underfoot and alerting a potential enemy – Scott moved forward with all the poise and grace of a big cat stalking its prey. His senses were primed now, his gaze flickering between the trash cans and the boxes, both of which were potential hiding places. He edged forward, step by careful step, instinctively aware of where he was putting his feet.
Suddenly he stopped. There! On his right. Just beyond the trash cans.
The faintest suggestion of movement.
Four more careful, silent steps revealed the source of the movement. It was a bulky hunched figure in dark clothing, crouched down, its back to him.
“Don’t move,” Scott said. “I have you covered with a high-velocity rifle. Now, slowly put your hands out to your sides where I can see them, and then rise just as slowly to your feet and turn to face me.”
Scott saw the hunched back of the figure rise and fall slowly, as if the man had let loose a weary sigh. However, he complied with Scott’s request, first stretching his hands out to either side of him – very big hands, Scott noted – and then rising slowly to his feet.
The man was so big that Scott thought for one disorienting second that it was Sarge. Not only was he tall, but his chest, shoulders and arms were packed with muscle. Then he realized the guy wasn’t quite as big as Sarge, and neither was he wearing a military uniform. He looked dressed for business, though, in black combat jacket, black jeans, black boots, and a black baseball cap pulled down low over his brow. It was a little hard to tell in the gritty orange glow that illuminated the scene, but he thought the guy’s face was smeared with black camouflage paint too. Clearly this was a man who did not want to be recognized.
“Raise your hands,” Scott said, and as the man did so, shifting his weight, Scott noted that, despite his size, the guy was poised and light on his feet. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that he was a martial artist, maybe even combat trained. But could he be the “super soldier” who had caused such mayhem here tonight? It was hard to believe. Scott thought again of Keyes’ reference to technologically advanced weaponry, and glanced at the ground just behind the man to see what he had been crouching over. What he saw was so unexpected that he almost cried out.
It was a hand. An oversized hand, encased in some sort of metal gauntlet, that was at least twice as brawny as Sarge’s and oozing more
of the fluorescent green stuff from the severed end.
Scott’s mind reeled, his thoughts hurtling along at a hundred miles an hour. Where could the hand have come from? Talk of genetically modified super soldiers he could just about believe, but this… this was something else. He guessed the gauntlet could have been part of some new form of combat armor, but the hand and forearm were so massive they couldn’t possibly have been severed from a human body. Which meant what? That the army was using trained gorillas as soldiers now?
He was so shaken by what he had seen that he did something he would never normally have done: he made the basic and unforgiveable error of allowing his attention to wander away from the real source of danger here. Before he realized what was happening, the big man in black had burst into life, and the next thing Scott knew he was on the ground, staring up at the night sky.
He lay there, stunned. Not only had the guy put him on his back, but he’d disarmed him too. When Scott raised his head he saw his rifle was now lying ten meters away, where the man had presumably flung it.
“Motherfucker,” he said, and a heartbeat later he was on his feet, and wondering how far away his backup was. Deciding he could neither retrieve his rifle nor rely on the agents behind him to come to his aid in time, he reached for his Taser.
“Sir! If you move any further, I am authorized to use lethal force. Do not make me put you down.”
The man had turned to pick up the arm. He did not seem the least bit worried by Scott’s threat. Indeed, he gave a small sigh, and rumbled, “I don’t have time for you. Stand down, soldier.”
What was that accent? German, maybe? Outraged, Scott drew his Taser. “Listen, Adolf. You need to stop whatever you’re doing right now before this gets ugly.”
He turned the Taser on and thrust it forward, aiming for the man’s chest. Despite his training, the man dodged easily, and before he knew what was happening the guy was on him again. Belying his size, his opponent dodged nimbly to one side, knocked the hand that was holding the Taser out of the way, and spun Scott sideways.
As he slid behind Scott and exerted a chokehold on his throat from which Scott found it impossible to break free, he tilted his head and murmured directly into Scott’s ear, “Adolf? Do I look like a Nazi to you, boy?”
Scott felt himself losing consciousness. As his lungs fought for air and blackness swarmed into his brain, the last thing he was aware of was a couple of dark shapes rushing up the alleyway and a lot of shouting, the words jagged, distorted, because of his failing senses. He felt himself slide to the floor, felt unconsciousness flooding him. Overcome by an acute sense of shame, he fought against it with everything he had. But to no avail. A second later, his dwindling senses were engulfed by black, and oblivion claimed him.
* * *
Dutch looked at the young soldier lying unconscious on the ground with regret. He felt sorry for the kid, and hoped he wouldn’t get in too much trouble. He had made what could have been a fatal mistake, allowed his concentration to wander, but if he had anything about him, it would spur him on to be better prepared next time.
Meanwhile, the two CIA agents who had rushed into the alleyway after the kid – playing the hard men only after allowing someone younger and less experienced to take the real risks – were still waving their guns about and shouting at him to put his hands up. Still holding the alien arm, Dutch complied. There was no love lost between himself and the CIA. Ten years ago he had been set up by them to undergo a mission that had resulted in the deaths of the rest of his team. Yet despite undergoing all kinds of hell, he had been treated, upon his survival, not as a hero, not even as a soldier who had done his duty and thus deserved respect, but as a villain, or at best a potentially dangerous liability. His chief interrogator had been Peter Keyes, and though he and Keyes had since developed a kind of grudging acceptance of one another, there was no way Dutch had ever been able to think of the man, or OWLF, the organization he worked for, as a possible ally.
Now, though, things were changing – or at least, Dutch had finally come to realize that operating as a one-man band was severely limiting his options, and thus his potential achievements. The harsh truth of the matter had first introduced itself to him the previous year, when, after spending the best part of a decade hunting the Hunters, he and his makeshift team had come across a PMC camp during an evacuation detail in Nicaragua that had been reduced to a killing field strewn with skinned and headless corpses. Spotting a strange heat shimmer while searching the camp, Dutch had instinctively opened fire, and seconds later his team, trusting him, had followed suit, unloading their weapons in the direction of an enemy none of them could see.
Perhaps more by luck than judgment, the Hunter had been fatally wounded, as a result of which a chain reaction of explosions had destroyed the camp. Once the debris had settled, the fires had burned themselves out, and the ground had become cool enough to walk on, Dutch had spent hours sifting through the embers, and had come away with a selection of the Hunter’s mangled body parts and some charred, twisted, utterly irreparable chunks of alien technology. It was only when the euphoria of his victory had faded, and everything he’d salvaged had been safely interred in a cold storage unit in Arizona, that the doubts had begun to creep in.
Perhaps for the first time since starting his quest, it finally occurred to him to wonder where it was all leading. Procuring alien body parts and fragments of alien technology was all very well, but the big question was, what was he going to do with it all? Ideally, what he salvaged from his missions should be scrutinized, analyzed, in the hopes of finding inherent weaknesses in the invaders, or more effective means of fighting them. But it wasn’t as if he had a private R&D team at his disposal to handle the scientific stuff, added to which, Hunter incursions were becoming more frequent. There was no way he could keep up with them all on his own; he needed help.
Which was why Dutch was not at all disappointed to find himself in his current situation. He had heard the young soldier and his companions clumping up the alley and, despite his token resistance (more of an instinct than a serious attempt to evade capture), had decided to make use of the resources on offer. So when a tall figure came striding down the alleyway in the wake of his two gun-toting goons, spouting some bullshit about how this whole area was out of bounds by order of the DEA, Dutch just laughed.
The skinny agent said, “Find something funny, boy?” but Dutch ignored him. By now the tall guy had stepped into the light cast by the overhead bulb, so Dutch knew exactly who he was dealing with. Ignoring the guns trained on him, he lowered his left arm to pluck a cigar from the breast pocket of his jacket, popped it between his lips, then produced a lighter from the same pocket and lit up. He took a long drag and raised his head, so that the tall guy, who Dutch had recognized as Sean Keyes, son of his old sparring partner Peter, could see his face in the sudden bloom of light. He enjoyed the way the color seemed to drain out of Keyes’ shocked face.
“You!” the tall man gasped.
The skinny agent half-turned toward him. “You know this guy?”
“I’m afraid I do,” Keyes said, clearly shaken. “This is Major Alan Schaefer, US Special Operations Forces, retired.” He emphasized the last word.
Dutch took another puff on his cigar and grinned at him. As several vehicles screeched to a halt at the mouth of the alleyway and heavily armed OWLF agents swarmed toward them, he said, “Hello, Sean. Take me to your leader.”
* * *
Captain Parker had contempt on his face. But there was a hint of something else, too. Something even worse.
Pity.
“Did I make a mistake bringing you onto my team, Devlin?”
Scott was squirming inside. But he stood up straight, kept his chin raised and his shoulders back, his eyes fixed on the Captain’s face.
“I don’t believe so, sir,” he replied, his voice even.
“Then explain to me again what happened.”
It was the day after Scott’s humiliation. He was
standing to attention in front of Parker’s desk. The Captain was seated and Sarge was standing at ease to Parker’s left, eyes narrowed and fixed on Scott.
Scott didn’t think the Captain wanted another blow-by-blow account. Neither did he want excuses.
“He was faster than me, sir,” he admitted. “He was better than me. I strongly believe he was combat trained, maybe even more than that. But that is not an excuse. I screwed up.”
Parker’s expression gave nothing away. It was Sarge who asked, “And what do you plan to do if you stay here, to make sure it doesn’t happen again?”
Scott considered, but not for long. “Everything I possibly can to get better, Sergeant.”
Now the Captain smiled. “That is the correct answer, Private Devlin. You were recruited for this team because you have a stellar record. I appreciate your honesty and the fact that you are not trying to make excuses for your failings yesterday. You do realize what would have happened if your assailant had had lethal intentions?”
“I would be in the morgue now, sir.”
“You would.” Parker regarded Scott thoughtfully for a moment. “All right, Private, we’re going to overlook this one incident. But make sure you don’t screw up a second time.”
“Yes, sir,” Scott said, trying not to sound relieved. He knew when he was being dismissed. He saluted and the Captain saluted back.
“Get out of here.” That was Sarge again. “Oh, and I’ll see you at oh-five-hundred, Devlin. You and me are going for a jog.”
Scott knew full well what that meant. Thirty klicks in full gear with the Sarge riding in a jeep alongside shouting “encouragement.” Still, it was better than being discharged or sent back to the minor leagues.
“Yes, Sergeant,” he said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.
CHAPTER TWO
1998
As Marcus Thorne entered the Chinook he flashed Scott a wide smile and dropped into the seat beside him. Scott smiled back and the two men bumped fists. It had been almost nine months since what Scott thought of as his “shaming” in LA, and during that time he had been working hard not only on his general fitness, but also on his combat technique – working privately with a sensei that Sarge had put him on to.
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