Book Read Free

The Identity: The Black Unit Series: Book One

Page 5

by Lund, S.


  Anna sighed. "There's no way to know until the power and cell coverage return. So I hope you don't mind if I consider you a possible threat."

  He glanced at her, then nodded slowly. "I would, if I were you. Part of me wants to say not to worry, that I don't feel like I'm on the run from police. The other part wants no police involved, so…"

  They were both silent for a moment as that sunk in. Even he thought she should be wary of him—he could be an innocent victim, or he could be a threat.

  Neither of then knew for sure which it was.

  Chapter Eight

  Her face, pretty as it was, drew a complete blank.

  Her fair skin, the smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose, the blue-green eyes, the long red-brown hair… There was no way Brandon would forget her if he knew her.

  She was a beauty.

  One thing he couldn't tell was whether she was an agent pretending to be some innocent civilian caught up in all this, or if she was really what she claimed. He had no way of knowing. She seemed innocent enough, genuinely nervous around him, hesitant in a way that seemed natural rather than studied, but he’d met trained clandestine agents before who appeared to be nothing more than pretty young women a man might meet at a bar on a Saturday night. Before the unsuspecting target knew it, their computer and cell phone would have been cloned and their every move monitored by whatever agency or state intelligence service wanted to track them.

  Or turn them.

  What bothered Brandon was that he had no idea why he was in Davis Cove, Maine, of all places—if that was truly where they were. He had no idea and couldn't tell from his place on the sofa. He had no memory of her brother—Theo McLean. The name meant nothing to Brandon. While he knew brain trauma could cause temporary amnesia surrounding the traumatic event, it wouldn't affect memories from earlier in life the way his memory loss did.

  The only explanation was that she was telling him a story, wanting him to believe he had memory loss about her brother for some purpose. Clearly, he didn't remember the crash—if there was one—or how he got to the middle of nowhere, Maine. There were drugs that could be administered to a target that made them lose consciousness, which would result in amnesia for days, depending on how long the drugs lasted. It was limited to the time span involved. The victims didn't lose their identities.

  Brandon knew who he was, which he wasn't going to admit to her.

  His mother, Galina Vanek, had been born in the Czech Republic, a ballerina whose father was an administrator in the Czech intelligence service. She had defected to the US during a trip to New York with the Ballet. She married Christopher O'Neil, his American father, who worked for the CIA and was assigned to her case.

  Given Brandon’s parentage, his life seemed predestined to be involved with the military or intelligence service. He had been special operations, as he told her—if that was true. He had been with DEVGRU, which apparently he had told her as well. Then he’d grown dissatisfied with his superiors and had left the service, and shortly thereafter he’d realized the real threat to liberty wasn't from terrorists but from the government itself.

  He’d joined the Montana Militia soon after and had been training recruits at their base outside Helena ever since. But the cover story of being a private investigator? He had no memory of that or any of the seven other identities she’d showed him. As far as he knew, those had been planted to make him look guilty of spying or being a hitman. Brandon’s last memory was of being in Montana at a training camp, taking new recruits through their paces, getting them ready for training exercises.

  Then he woke up in a cabin in the middle of a snowstorm—no power, no cell coverage, a bullet wound in his side and a bitching headache that made him think his head was going to split open. It sounded suspiciously like a scenario that had been set up to trap him.

  "I need to sleep," he said and covered his eyes with an arm. "Can you shut the drapes? The light's bothering my eyes."

  The woman—Anna—rose and closed the drapes, then turned down the two LED lanterns so that the room was dim. Soon the pain in his head lessened a little.

  "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  He lay in the darkness for maybe fifteen minutes. The pain in his head eventually began to subside.

  "How long is the storm forecast to last?" He turned his head to watch her sitting across from him in the dimness of the room. She seemed watchful, afraid, but trying to be brave.

  "Three days."

  He sighed. "That means we have to wait another two days for the power to be restored and cellular service to return?"

  "Looks like it."

  "Ideally, I want to leave before that," he said, knowing one thing for certain. He had to leave the cabin and get back to Montana. He’d know who she really was if she tried to stop him. "If I can, I want to leave tomorrow."

  He’d find his way to a highway and hitch a ride to a nearby town. Once he was out of the storm's track, he’d return to Montana.

  "You're just going to leave without knowing who you are or what's happening?"

  He thought for a moment whether to tell her the truth. He could always restrain her as soon as he was well enough. If his cover had been blown and she was working for the government, at least she'd be unable to stop him.

  He figured that if the person who shot him knew where he was, they'd just come in and finish the job if his death was their goal.

  So, whoever shot him didn't know he was there, or they would be there already.

  Part of him wanted to trust her. She had brought his weapon in from his vehicle and left it lying on the coffee table only a few inches away, the ammo close by. He could have it loaded and pointed at her in seconds if he deemed her a threat. That made him suspect she was who she said—the sister of someone he might have known in the Navy. Daughter of a lifelong CIA officer.

  It could all be true. Or a cover story. He had no way of knowing which, for he had no memory of her brother. She was pretty enough that he could believe she had been sent as a honey trap to entice him into opening up about his mission.

  What he couldn't figure out was why he didn't remember anything that had happened since the day in Montana, weeks ago. His last memory was of sitting in the bar in Helena with some local militia recruits after a long day of boot camp. They’d done the obstacle course, the recruits carrying mock-weapons, blanks firing around them to simulate a battlefield. It was exhausting work in its own right, but then he had them run five miles carrying all their gear, the way they’d done in Special Forces training.

  That was his last conscious memory. He really couldn't say how he ended up here, of all places. None of it made any sense.

  "So, you didn't find a wallet on me? Most men carry wallets with money. There was no wallet in my jacket or pants?"

  "Nothing. Just those business cards I showed you. You gave me one of them in the bar."

  He didn't know what to think. "You searched the truck?"

  "Not everywhere. The truck's upside down in the ditch, partially submerged. I fished around in the water looking for anything to identify you and all I found was that case, and in the back, the duffle bag."

  "Did you try the glove compartment?"

  She shook her head. "I'll go out and try again. But you should eat something first. You need food.”

  Chapter Nine

  Brandon sat up on the sofa and ate the soup Anna prepared for him. It was the first thing he'd eaten since he woke up and he seemed remarkably well for someone who had just been shot and in a crash that put him into a concussion-induced coma for eighteen hours.

  "How's your side?" she asked as she watched him eat.

  "Better," he said and reached down to press his hand against the wound. "Strangely enough, it feels almost normal."

  "I'll check it when you're done. It probably needs to be cleaned and a new bandage on it."

  He nodded and continued to eat, almost wolfing down the soup and bread I. He finished and wiped his mout
h on the napkin, then lay back down on the sofa.

  "I'll head out in the storm after dark."

  "You're really going to just strike out in the middle of a nor'easter like that? At night? You'll never make it,” she said. “You'll rip open your wound and bleed to death."

  "Nah," he said, one hand behind his head, his eyes closing. "I feel fine. Better now that I've eaten. Really." He turned to Anna. "It's better to leave after dark. Better cover."

  "You're going to try to find your way through the forest in the darkness?"

  "I've done a lot of night missions on foot in worse conditions than this."

  "Really," she said with a shake of her head.

  "Really. The mountains of Afghanistan at night in the winter during a storm are much worse. Especially because there were bad guys all around our unit, trying to kill us. I figure whoever's out there will hold off attacking until this storm passes. People Stateside are pussies. Don't know what harsh conditions really are."

  Anna went over to him and sat on the coffee table so she could examine his wound.

  "Let me check that before you go to sleep."

  He opened his eyes and then pulled up the t-shirt so she could check his wound. To Anna’s surprise, there was no fresh blood on the bandage. She made a face and peeled away the bandage to find that the flesh had already healed, the hole closing so that only a small area of red remained.

  "My God," she said and peered closer, unable to believe it. "Your wound. It's almost healed."

  He glanced down at his side and touched the area around the wound.

  "Look at that," he said, frowning. "It is." He met her eyes. "I don't know how that happened. A bullet wound should take a week or more."

  She glanced at him suspiciously. "You were with DEVGRU, right?"

  He shrugged. "Like I say, technically, civilians aren't supposed to know about it."

  Anna remembered doing research for Professor Singer about DARPA projects that were investigating gene therapy to make soldiers more resistant to blood loss and pain. The goal was to create a super-warrior who could go without sleep, needed little food, whose wounds would heal up without needing much besides a bandage, and whose blood clotted faster than normal without the usual complications of blood clots and strokes.

  "You must be one of what the military calls 'Super Warfighters,'" she said, remembering the paper.

  He made a face of disbelief. "That's news to me if so. I remember getting injured in Afghanistan and believe me, I bled like a stuck pig. I was out of commission for weeks, so no. I don't think so."

  "Maybe you just don't remember? Maybe you were part of some secret program?"

  "All I know is that I got out three years ago and no, I wasn't a Super Warfighter," he said, his tone derisive.

  "How do you explain your wound healing? That's unnatural, no matter how you explain it."

  "Maybe it wasn't as bad as you thought."

  "The bullet went right through you!"

  He shrugged and closed his eyes, seemingly unconcerned by what the rapid healing of his wound meant.

  "I’m going out to the truck to see what else I can find. I need some fresh clothes."

  “There was a change of clothes in your duffle bag,” she said and went to the door to his bedroom. “I hung them up to dry.”

  She brought him the pair of black carpenter pants and a thick black sweater she’d found in his bag. He dressed in front of her, seemingly unconcerned that she saw him almost naked while he dressed. Then he went to the closet by the front door, and pulled on his jacket and boots.

  “You really shouldn’t be going out when you’re recovering from being shot.”

  “Apparently, I’m pretty much healed. Don't worry about me," he said and smiled like it was nothing. "I've seen combat. I've been wounded before. I know what I can and can't do."

  Anna said nothing in response, watching as he went out the front door. When he opened it, snow blew into the foyer.

  “Watch out for the ice under the snow. Maybe take the lawn instead of the walkway.”

  He nodded and she watched him walk down the lawn to the driveway. The landscape outside was completely white and the snow still fell, the wind blowing it almost sideways.

  After the door shut, she waited in the dim room for him to return with whatever else he found in the truck's cab.

  She checked her watch; he'd been gone for fifteen minutes. Finally, the front door opened once more and he entered, his head and boots covered in snow. In his hands were two items, and she was eager to learn what they were and whether they might help explain why he was there.

  He brought the items to the living room and sat on the chair across from Anna. "I found these," he said, and placed two items on the coffee table. "Plus this," he said and added an Android cell phone. It was wet and would yield no useful information.

  "I can put it in some rice and hope it dries off, but it's probably dead,” she said, picking up the cell, checking it out.

  “If that’s mine, I don't recognize it,” he said. “I thought I had an iPhone, but given the multiple identities, I imagine there’ll be multiple cell phones to go along with them.”

  “What are those?” she asked, pointing to the two items. She waited while he examined the small zip-up kit.

  "I found them in the water in the truck's passenger side. I couldn't get the glove compartment opened. It was locked so there must be a key for it somewhere, but it was nowhere to be found in the cab. I have no idea what either of these are.”

  He checked over the black box, which was about four inches on each side, with a combination lock at the opening.

  "I don't recognize this. I take it the box holds valuables but if there's a combination to open it, I don't know it. I don't know what the black leather kit is for either."

  He unzipped it, opening it up and laying it flat on the table. Several disposable syringes and several dozen needles that looked like those for insulin had been tucked into a pocket. Anna took one and examined it. Small, with a very short fine 6mm needle and a barrel that measured 0.3ml. There were three vials containing clear fluid. Brandon picked up one of the vials and examined it briefly, before handing it to her.

  She turned the small vial over in her hand, but the only writing on the label read 0.3ml BID.

  She knew what that meant. The drug was meant to be taken twice a day, 0.3ml per injection, twelve hours apart. The vials of medication contained 20ml each, so by her calculation, each vial would last for about a month. There was a three-month supply of the medication but no indication what it was for or what it contained.

  "This is supposed to be taken twice a day."

  "Yep. I have no idea what it's for,” he said doubtfully. “It's not labeled. Just a dose and frequency." He took the vial back from her. "If I’m supposed to take this, I’ve already probably missed two doses since I arrived." He shook his head and tucked the vials back into the small kit. "I'm not taking it if I don't know what it is."

  "It's got to be yours. Unless it's to drug someone else, but then you wouldn't have a three-month supply, right?” she asked. “It would be a one-time thing or dose. This says it should be taken twice a day on a regular basis, like insulin or some other medication."

  "It's an insulin needle but I know I'm not diabetic."

  Anna watched him carefully. "Would you use drugs to subdue an enemy? When you were in special operations?"

  "Yes, but not like this. We had single-dose disposable injections that could be hidden on the body during an op. Also, special darts and dart guns so you could subdue someone from a distance. This is more like a regular medicine."

  "Maybe this is some special medication you take for a disorder."

  "I don't have any disorder," he replied, his jaw set. "I was perfectly healthy until this. Very healthy, in fact. I run several miles a day. I work out—I have to keep in top shape because I'm a trainer."

  Anna shrugged. "Then this may be someone else's medication. Someone close to you? A w
ife or girlfriend? A parent?"

  He shook his head. "I'm not married and I'm not currently dating. My mother's in a nursing home in Virginia with dementia. She doesn't even know who I am. My father died of a stroke a few years ago."

  "Any siblings?"

  "No. Only child."

  He zipped up the case. "I don't know what this is, but there's no way I'm going to take it. Not when I don't know what it's for."

  He threw the case onto the counter dismissively.

  Anna shook her head. "It's probably yours, and we'll only find out if you start getting symptoms, or withdrawals from the medication. Your memory may return over the next few days and then you'll remember what it's for."

  He shrugged. "Look, there's no way that's mine. I don't have any condition that would require daily injections. It's not mine."

  Then he took hold of the black box and examined it carefully.

  “You only lock something up if it’s valuable, so I imagine whatever’s in here, it’s pretty important.”

  “There’s a combination lock. Do you remember the code?”

  He shook his head. “I have no idea. But I do have a few codes I use for things like this. I’ll give them a try.”

  Anna watched as he fiddled with the lock, curious about what the box contained. Whatever it was, it might hold a clue to why he was there—but she knew there were only two possibilities:

  He was either here to hurt her or to help her.

  Chapter Ten

  While Brandon fiddled with the black box, Anna leaned forward, watching as he tried several different combinations.

  “Maybe your birthday? Try the six digits,” she suggested.

  He entered 021985, which was his birthday. It didn't open.

 

‹ Prev