CodeY

by Lamar Rutherford

  The TOPO team was hiding behind another building a short distance away. Three buses were parked in front. They guessed these were for the prisoners who had been transported to this warehouse for disease infection. The prisoners that were being infected would then be “freed” into Africa, unaware they were being released to spread a deadly virus across the continent. ISEX would then vaccinate those who pledged their loyalty to the cause, saving only the people who were willing to support their beliefs. It was a sinister plan.

  “Okay, everyone ready?” asked Devon as they quietly piled out of the truck.

  Everyone nodded in agreement. “Quick review,” chimed in Rane. “Lingo and Guns will go to the door with a supposed delivery. They’ll create a distraction so that Devil and Peanut can slip past the guards. Then Devil and Peanut will open the side door.”

  This was a door on the side where they had seen the guards go out for smoke breaks on satellite imagery. They were confident that either the door did not have an alarm, or the guards had somehow silenced it, so the team believed this to be the safest entry.

  Rane continued, “Pilot, Racer, and Fin slip in with Devil and Peanut. Killer, Cross and I will cut around back and hopefully enter through one of the ventilation shafts, after Pilot and Racer sub in fake security scenes on the cameras and cut the power to the alarm. Devil, Peanut and Fin will find and release the infected prisoners.”

  The plan was that if the prisoners who were already infected with the virus were released on the Arab peninsula, ISEX would need to use all their military forces and vaccination supply to recapture the prisoners and save the people on the Arab peninsula from the virus. This would put stress on their limited vaccine resources and, if nothing else, at least delay their attack on Africa or other continents.

  “Once released, Lingo and Guns will help provide cover for the prisoners so they can safely get away. After letting the prisoners out, Devil, Peanut, and Fin will try to steal as much vaccine as possible, and Pilot and Racer will try to destroy the virus. We’ll all return to the truck for our getaway.”

  As Rane stopped, Calice asked, “And you, Killer and Cross are providing backup?”

  “That’s right, Fin. We’re backup in case anything goes awry. If anything does go wrong, all of you need to get out as fast as you can. Okay? Everyone clear? Remember, safety is our first priority. We need all of you out safely.”

  They all nodded in agreement.

  Zander said, handing out their weapons, “Remember, stun gun on the right, real gun on the left. Hopefully, we’ll only need the right, but be prepared to use the left if they start shooting. Their bullets are real. I know we’ve all practiced this, but remember your reflexes and accuracy are all faster and better with your Robustor suits on. The guns all have silencers, but if you need a shot to be heard as a warning or for whatever reason, flip the switch on the outside of the barrel. Everyone got it?”

  They had run many drills in their suits, both with weapons and hand-to-hand combat, so all were comfortable with the equipment, and nodded.

  They slipped out and under cover in the nearby brush. Zander and Sanji got into the front seat, Zander taking over as driver. Sanji, practicing his Arabic for his encounter with the guards, started a running diatribe, annoying Zander as best he could. Zander had a translator in one ear, and the TOPO team communicator in the other. He did his best to ignore Sanji’s soliloquy as they drove slowly to the entrance. The others following through the brush.

  As soon as they parked the truck, Rane, Devon, and Shanta were off, heading around back. Sanji and Zander walked to the warehouse door. They knocked, peering through the peephole. There was rustling on the inside. Sanji held up some paperwork as if that explained why he was there. The door opened and two heavily armed guards stepped out to meet them. Sanji, in his best local dialect, explained he had a special delivery in the truck. He said they should have been notified. He rattled off the name of one of the high-ranking officials in ISEX. This definitely caught the guards’ attention, but they did not have the notice. Sanji feigned surprise.

  In Arabic, “Really? Are you sure? They told us it was very important and to drive all night to deliver it. Can you double-check to make sure you didn’t get the notice?”

  The guards looked at each other, then one finally decided he would check while the other waited.

  While the other guard was away, Sanji did everything he could to engage the one remaining guard in conversation, asking him all kinds of questions about his post, how he liked working here, what the others were like…anything he could think of to keep the guards' attention away from looking behind him as Jadyn and Jaya slipped in behind, out of view of any cameras.

  Once they were in, Sanji kept up his dialogue, hoping Jadyn and Jaya would get to the side door and get the others in quickly. He saw the side door open, and Calice slip in as the first guard returned.

  The guard said there were no orders, so they could not receive the delivery. Sanji argued for a bit that they needed to take it, that he and his driver had driven all night.

  “What were they supposed to do? Turn around and drive back? He knew they’d have to return the next day.”

  Sanji made a big pretense out of maybe they should simply sleep here until morning and see if the instructions came in by then. The guards were willing to let them sleep in their truck in the parking lot but were not about to let them stay at the place. Sanji put on a little scene trying to talk them into letting them sleep inside, that the truck was not comfortable, and it was cold, but to no avail. He and Zander started to walk away, but then he turned back and asked if they could pay them to stay there. When they said “no” to this, he asked if there was a local Inn where they could stay. Finally, seeing the side door close out of the corner of his eye, after Pace, Kala, and Calice were all safely inside, Sanji and Zander left and got back into the truck.

  As the truck turned and their faces were no longer visible to the guards, he and Zander grinned at each other and hi-fived, “Step one, check!” said Sanji.

  “Man, you have the gift of gab in Arabic! Smooth dude!” exclaimed Zander, clearly impressed with Sanji’s distraction abilities, especially in a foreign language that Sanji had only started learning a few months ago. “I think it’s easier for you to speak Arabic, than it is to not act gay!” he added.

  Sanji, with a sly wink, “Damn straight!”

  They both busted up at the double entendre, both relieved to be through the first challenge.

  On the inside, Jadyn, Jaya, and Calice split off from Pace and Kala, on their way to find the prisoners. The prisoners were being held towards the back of the facility, in airtight chambers, where they were unwittingly being exposed to the virus, through their food and water.

  Pace and Kala headed for the IT room.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t question this earlier,” said Pace quietly as they stealthily traveled through the corridors, hoping to not be spotted in the dark, before they reached their destination, “but doesn’t it seem like Killer should be doing this job?”

  He continued, “I mean, we’re both good with technology, but he’s a complete whiz. Why aren’t we on backup and him in the lead on this one?”

  Kala, focused simply on getting their part of the plan done, “I don't know, but I do think it’s a little late to debate that now.”

  They reached the door to the IT room. The door was locked. Kala applied a substance that quietly burned a hole through the lock. Pace pushed the door open as carefully as possible, but the hinges squeaked slightly as it opened. Two surveillance guards turned. Kala shot both of them quickly with her stun gun. Another standing to the side reached for his gun, but Pace shot him, stunning him too. They quickly entered the room, closed the door, and tied up the guards, covering their mouths so they could not be heard.

  Pace pulled a small tablet out of his backpack and started to hook it into the system. Kala standing guard was monitoring him and the screens. She saw Jadyn, Jaya, and Calice come i
nto view. They were slowly moving towards the prisoners. Also, a back vent slid to the side and Rane, Devon, and Shanta slid in. They were near the labs in the front part of the warehouse. Pace had to get the substitute monitoring views up before any of them were noticed by guards monitoring the screens from other locations.

  In only a few seconds, but what felt like an eternity, Pace had the fake screens up. Now for the real challenge, he had to activate opening the sealed prisoner rooms. Kala, still monitoring the door, watched as he searched for the code and re-wrote it to activate the doors. He was about to hit enter, when she stopped him, “Wait! Remember, you have to de-activate the alarm first.”

  “Oh geez, you’re right.” He clicked over to the alarm system.

  He started writing the code to silence the alarms. “Kala, can you look this over? I’m not sure it’s right.”

  Kala peered over his shoulder. “I see what you mean. That’s the code Killer said to use, but the code we’re changing doesn’t look exactly like he thought it would. Hmmm.

  “But we don’t have a lot of time to figure it out,” she continued.

  “Okay, let’s try to open the doors and hit the alarm silencer at the same time. Then, at least we’ll get the prisoners out. We’ll just have to hustle to try to do the rest if the alarm does go off!”

  He put his finger on the alarm button and Kala put hers on the button for the doors. They counted to three and then hit them. No alarms went off.

  But just as they were breathing a sigh of relief, the alarms started sounding. They grabbed their gear and flew out the door, changing course quickly as they saw guards heading down the hall toward them. In their Robustor suits they could move much faster than the guards, but as they reached the virus room, more guards stepped in from the other side. They kept them at bay for a short period, long enough to destroy one tank of the virus, but it was clear they had to vacate before they could destroy them all. Under heavy fire they darted and dove until they got to a section where they could leap, using their Robustor boosters, and catch a pipe near the ceiling where a high window provided their escape route.

  Calice, Jadyn and Jaya, a few minutes earlier, had reached the prisoners. They waited for the doors to open. Their eyes met the prisoners behind the glass. They all looked scared and hopeful at the same time. Jadyn and Jaya searched the crowd for any familiar faces, women they had been held with after the game, but these were all men. Most looked African. Calice couldn’t help but meet the gaze of an older, gentle-looking man. As the glass doors slid open, Jadyn and Jaya started telling the prisoners to follow Calice out. They told a few to try to get to a coastal town, Al Khaburah, and the US would try to save them there. Of course, most only understood a few words in English, but they gave a few slips of papers with the name of the town, hoping that would at least help. They said to pass the word to the other prisoners. Then the alarms started sounding and Jaya and Jadyn were off to try to retrieve as many vaccine doses as they could find. Calice led the prisoners down a corridor that led to the outside.

  As they reached the outside door, Calice held it open and the prisoners started running out, eager for their freedom. The guards, alerted by the alarm, started shooting. Zander and Sanji, perched a couple of trees with automatic weapons, picked off any guards that tried to stop them. Some prisoners ran to one of the buses and drove off after several joined him. Others disappeared into the nearby brush. Some tried to take the truck the TOPO team came in, but fortunately Zander had locked it.

  There were at least three hundred infected prisoners now running free. Anyone who came in contact with them would likely be infected with the virus. The TOPO team was carefully protected from infection with gloves and facemasks.

  As the prisoners filed past Calice, the shooting from the guards intensified. They tried to herd the prisoners back in, but with Sanji and Zander shooting at them from the trees, they managed to stop only a few. Through her headset, connected to everyone on the team, Calice heard Zander yelling at her to get out. She started to move towards them and then retreated as several guards swept close by her. Zander screamed in frustration and started to move away from his machine gun, determined to save his baby sister.

  But Sanji caught him, “No, you’re a better shot. I need your cover. I’ll get her.”

  Sanji leaped to the ground. Darting between barrels and bushes, he headed for Calice. Still yards from her, he yelled, “Watch out!” as a guard approached her from behind.

  Calice swiftly elbowed the guard and flipped him over her head with her best martial arts move, then ran to meet Sanji. He grabbed her arm and turned to retrace his steps, checking over his shoulder and shooting as they ran. As they neared the truck, Calice took a shot in her left side. She went limp, just as he grabbed her under his arm. He opened the front door of the truck, put her in, and jumped in behind her. As he pulled himself in, he felt a splitting pain in his right ankle. The Robustor suits provided great protection from bullets, but they were weakest in the joints. The bullet had found the weak part of his ankle. Calice had only had the wind knocked out of her, recovering she saw his ankle. She quickly jumped into his lap, grabbing the wheel to the truck.

  “Tell me what to do!” she yelled over the gunfire as she started the truck. Sanji immediately started instructing her, “Foot on the gas, turn right.” They felt Zander jump in the back as they started to peel out, a little recklessly under Calice’s novice driving.

  “On the other side of the building, turn left onto the path behind it,” Sanji continued.

  In the meantime, Zander crawled out of the back and onto the roof to get to the front compartment, dodging sniper fire from guards on the warehouse roof. Leaning over he tapped on the passenger window. Wincing, Sanji reached over and lowered the window. Zander dropped in, barely holding on as Calice accidentally swerved, distracted by her brother’s entrance.

  “Nice driving there, Sis,” he commented sarcastically as he sat down.

  Calice grinned a little sheepishly as she tried to stay focused on the road.

  Zander said to Sanji, “Move over. I’ll take it from here.” Sanji slid as far over as he could.

  Zander crawled over him and behind Calice, slowly taking over control of the truck as she slid out from under him.

  “Way to keep your head about you, Sis. I was impressed.”

  She grinned up at him appreciatively.

  Sanji pointed ahead as they saw Jadyn and Jaya emerge out of the building, carrying a box that looked almost as big as Jaya. Good thing her Robustor suit gave her extra strength. They started running toward the truck. Zander stopped and they jumped in, loading the box with them. Pace and Kala came behind them from the other side of the building and popped in back with them.

  Sanji continued to give instructions, “Okay, turn around. Then we continue down this road at 25 kilometers, no faster.” Zander, who already knew the instructions but appreciated Sanji’s verbalizing, followed his directions.

  In what seemed like an eternity, they heard the aircraft overhead. “That’s a welcome sound,” shouted Zander over the din of increasing gunshots.

  Sanji and Calice both nodded. As the claws from the aircraft overhead reached down, they cracked the windows to help them get a better grip. Within seconds they were being airlifted off the ground.

  “What about Striker, Killer, and Cross?” asked Calice, wide-eyed.

  “Don’t worry,” Zander reassured her. “They’ll get here.”

  As the truck was being gently landed inside the air transporter, Zander pointed in the rearview mirror. They could see Rane, Devon, and Shanta running towards them.

  Rane was in the lead, Shanta behind her, with Devon protecting them from behind. The shooting was intensifying as more guards joined the ones on the roof and on the ground. As they got close to the hovering plane, Rane, in the lead, stopped and formed a step with her hands for Shanta, who came running towards her at full speed. Shanta sprang up with the extra oomph from Rane and her Robustor suit and l
anded on the back edge of the plane’s opening. Pele and Keece were shooting at the guards from the back edge, to help provide cover. Rane now turned and alongside Devon, they both took running leaps and reached the edge of the plane. Zander and Pele helped pull them up. As they closed the back gate, they all slumped down in relief.

  Pace, frustrated they hadn’t been able to destroy the vats of virus, swore, “Dammit! If we’d only had a couple of more minutes to destroy the virus.”

  Pele looked over at Rane and Devon, who both nodded, and then commented, “Don’t worry Pace. That was actually part of the plan. We wanted ISEX to think we were not successful in destroying it, but the truth is, Shanta had developed an antiviral that the three of them introduced to the cells carrying the virus. This should quickly spread and kill the virus in the vats.”

  A big grin came across Pace’s face, “Oh brilliant!” he said excitedly.

  “Dad!” screamed Kala, interrupting everyone, as she rushed over to Keece.