“We’ve got all the time in the world,” Vezeto shouted. “You don’t.”
Stropky readjusted his improvised bandage, and blood sluiced down his saturated pant leg and pooled onto the floor. His jaw jutted forward, rocking slightly. His mouth twisted into a lopsided sneer, and giving an ominous nod, he said, “Equalize the balance of power, Agent Patel.”
The man with the lacerated cheek drew a suppressed pistol.
Wachter’s sights locked on him, and two shots were fired, separated by a fraction of a second.
A .22 caliber bullet slammed into Wachter’s thigh.
A .40 caliber slug punctured Patel’s forehead, producing a pink mist, and a boom resonated through the hallway.
The riflemen—unwilling to turn their backs on the TEradS—glanced over their shoulders, their beleaguered expressions underscoring their predicament. Kill one and get overpowered by three? Or maintain the stalemate.
Stropky’s bloody hands shot up over his head. “Shoot a guy who’s surrendering and you go down for murder, Wachter.” Then he turned toward Vezeto and tsk-tsked. “If I bleed out, he bleeds out. Time is no longer your ally.”
Vezeto’s gaze circulated, hovering briefly over each team member, and the rigid cords in his neck began to pulse. “You’re paler than snow, sweating profusely, and your lips are turning blue,” her team leader said. “I’m a medic. Let me stop the bleeding before you go into hypovolemic shock.”
Stropky glanced at the expanding scarlet puddle beneath him, stutter-stepped to maintain his balance, and resignedly waggled his fingers in an unspoken invitation.
Vezeto edged past the rifleman, palms extended until he’d closed within range; then he struck with the quickness of a cobra, disarming the injured man and face-planting him onto the floor.
Abby’s teammates rushed the riflemen, and it was like watching a militant ballet. One controlled the barrel of the long gun, a second took out the man’s legs, and a third leapt onto the downed enemy, restraining him.
Stropky grunted, “You lying son of a bitch!”
“My Bad. Forgot to mention the part about kicking your ass,” Vezeto said, applying pressure to the gut wound. “Smith, get Wachter to the Med Center!”
Military Police swarmed the hallway.
That’s why Sereno went AWOL, she thought. He slipped away to call in the cavalry.
Abby and the disarmed riflemen—Agents Combs and Shaw—were transported to Military Police headquarters. A female Airman wearing a service dress uniform introduced herself as Colonel Jensen, commander of Langden’s Security Forces, and invited them into her office. She was petite with smoky-gray eyes. Her dark hair was swept into a tight bun, and she had the crushing handshake of a weightlifter.
“You’re obstructing a federal investigation!” Shaw barked, violating her personal space in an attempt to intimidate, but Jensen was having none of it.
“According to the memorandum of understanding between the DOJ and DOD,” she said, standing her ground, “crimes committed either on or outside a military installation by persons subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice which, normally, are tried by court-martial WILL BE investigated and prosecuted by the Department of Defense. So ... if you have probable cause for Sergeant Webber’s arrest, present it.”
Shaw was a deer caught in headlights. His sunken cheeks retracted deeper into his skull, and his squinty brown eyes toggled between Jensen and his associate.
Combs harrumphed and rolled his eyes. “We’ll have to clear that with our superiors.” He stepped into the hallway and placed several calls, growing increasingly agitated.
President Andrews anticipated this, Abby decided, watching the Colonel settle in behind her desk. He had Jensen on standby, locked and loaded.
Combs returned, red-faced, and closed the door behind him. “Colonel Jensen, Sergeant Webber,” he said, presenting his cellphone, “you’ll need to sign non-disclosure agreements.”
Abby skimmed the digital document. The text was innocuous boiler plate at odds with their aggressive tactics; then, following the Colonel’s lead, she signed the electronic document with a stylus.
“Sergeant, this may come as a shock,” Shaw said, “but your husband did not die in a plane crash. He’s in FBI custody.”
He’s alive! Relief and joy dumped into Abby’s bloodstream, intoxicating and overwhelming. The Consortium hasn’t stolen our future!
Shaw cued up a video on his cellphone, and Abby huddled closer to Jensen to better her viewing angle.
“For the past year ...” Bradley began, and Abby’s pulse quickened. His facial expressions, his voice and inflection, they wrapped around her, warm and reassuring like a desperately needed hug.
“... acting on behalf of Kyle Murphy and Ryan Andrews, my wife and I conspired with Vladislav Volkov to steal the election and deny Carter Sidney the presidency.”
Abby felt like she’d been crushed by an Abrams tank.
Betrayal and anger exploded inside her. “What did you do to ... to make him lie like that?” she demanded, resisting the urge to smack the pretentious smirk from Shaw’s pasty white face.
Unmoved, the Colonel said, “You’ll need to furnish the raw footage. The legitimacy of the confession must be verified before we trek too far down the rabbit hole.”
“That’s classified,” Combs told her, his tone contemptuous and condescending. “I doubt your experts will have the security clearance to view it.”
Jensen’s brow crinkled, spurning his disrespectful attitude, and she said, “Have you ever heard of DeepFake technology?”
Fake ...? His confession was fake? Abby’s emotions yo-yoed from anger to dread.
Does that mean the FBI doesn’t have him in custody?
That he didn’t survive the mission?
Combs’ eyes tightened into slits, and he folded his arms across his chest. “Are you accusing the Federal Bureau of Investigation of malfeasance, Colonel?”
Electing not to respond to his question, Jensen lifted the handset of the landline phone on her desk, dialed, and said, “Major, get sworn statements from all suspects and witnesses. Hold the corpse for autopsy. And remand Sergeant Webber to solitary confinement.”
“Solitary?” Abby repeated. “Why?”
46
South of District Six, Texas
STRAPPED TO THE ANTIQUE electric chair, Bradley clenched his eyelids to shut out the depravity, and a jolt of electricity coursed through his body like a million concurrent static shocks.
“That was five milliamps,” McCann said. “Close your eyes again and you’ll get ten.”
He’d enjoyed a brief reprieve while low-flying jets buzzed overhead. Distant explosions had rattled the hangar, filling him with hope, but none had been close enough to end his torment.
The hideous video replayed from the beginning. Abby was beating a naked three-year-old with the wooden end of a hobby horse. Swollen red welts crisscrossed the boy’s milky skin, forming a repulsive plaid pattern, and his despondent shrieks were more painful than the electric shock.
As the abuse escalated from physical to sexual, Bradley’s abdomen heaved. Acidic water raced up his throat, scorching his nasal passages, and he defiantly averted his eyes.
Ten milliamps induced involuntary muscle contractions. Charley horses besieged his limbs, his feet, his jaw. His torn quads felt like they were on fire, and he groaned through clenched teeth.
“Look at you,” McCann scoffed. “The badass Sniper sniveling like a baby. And we haven’t even gotten to the climax yet.” The acting FBI director guffawed, amused by his double-entendre. “Wait ‘til you see how it ends.”
Bradley glared at him. “Abby would NEVER hurt a child. That’s a look alike or ... or some kind of computer animation.”
McCann’s mouth tightened, his bottom lip protruded beyond the top, and he gave an approving nod. “This was generated using DeepFake technology, a type of artificial intelligence that pits two machine learning models against each other. One
forges a video, the other detects the forgery, and the process goes round and round until the forgeries are so good that they can no longer be detected. Faces can be seamlessly superimposed onto source video, and words can, quite literally, be put into anyone’s mouth.”
Bradley’s mind was jetting at Mach 2.
Why did McCann admit that the video was a fake?
Son of a ... bitch!
General Quenten’s confession was a DeepFake!
The video resumed, and Bradley stared dispassionately at the advertising kiosk. This wasn’t real; it never happened; that innocent child didn’t suffer. Then McCann’s words chanted tauntingly through his head.
Faces superimposed onto source video ... source video ... source video ...
Oh shit! The underlying footage is real.
Queasiness resurged and his eyelids drooped, a transgression that sent thirty-milliamps throughout his body. The current scrambled nerve signals, and Bradley’s diaphragm seized, making it difficult to breathe. His heart began to beat erratically, and it took nearly a minute for its natural rhythms to return.
“Pay attention or I’ll zap you again,” McCann told him.
Pseudo Abby tugged and yanked and pulled, peeling the skin from the screaming toddler, removing his little face as if it was a latex mask. She taunted the child with it, reveling in his terror, then viciously snuffed out the boy’s life.
Revulsion gave way to an unquenchable desire for vengeance. Bradley wanted to kill these Consortium pedophiles with his bare hands, in the most inhumane, painful manner possible. He wanted them to suffer, to feel the agony they’d inflicted on that innocent child.
“So ... are you going to protect Abby?” McCann asked. “Or the LIT Society?”
“I told you before,” Bradley snapped. “I can’t give you what I don’t have.”
The acting FBI director right-clicked the video to display its properties. “Notice the time and date stamp. Abby was in Washington, D.C., conducting an off-the-books assassination—which means she’ll have no alibi.”
“That footage will never stand up in court,” Bradley shot back. “Experts will know it’s a computer animation.”
“Possibly ... but the public won’t.” McCann projected an arrogant confidence, the swagger of a man who fancied himself above the law. “All it takes is one outraged vigilante gunning for her.”
Bradley contemplated the backlash: being stalked on social media; inundated with death threats; assaulted by vengeful mobs; his unborn baby becoming collateral damage.
Emotions swelled and crashed inside him, violent waves of frustration, fear, and hatred.
I can’t let that video be released, he decided.
But if The Consortium penetrates the LIT Society, “white hats” will be executed.
Another electric shock crackled through his nervous system, this one of a longer duration.
Muscles cramped.
His lungs froze.
Bradley’s spastic heartbeat sounded like gunfire, and his chest felt like an overinflated tire about to rupture.
Is this what dying feels like?
McCann jettisoned his laptop, shot from his seat, and propelled the director’s chair into the wall. With his Glock extended in front of him, he charged out of the interrogation room.
Shit! It really IS gunfire!
Huffing to catch his breath, Bradley wrestled against the leather buckles binding him to the wooden chair.
Pops and thuds reverberated through the hangar, a bassline of single shots, three-round bursts, and fully automatic fire juxtaposed against a chorus of terrified wails.
He heard a sharp sound like the snap of a whip and, instantly, he realized it was the supersonic crack of a bullet whizzing past his head. The shock wave arrived as the hunk of lead punched through the corrugated metal that partitioned off the interrogation room.
Fuck!
He twisted and yanked, inflaming his bruised wrists in a fruitless attempt to stretch the aged leather.
A second slug shattered the kiosk’s liquid crystal display.
A third burrowed into the leg of the electric chair, an inch from Bradley’s calf; and above the uproar, McCann shouted, “Don’t shoot! I surrender!”
The word ceasefire relayed through the strike team, each subsequent voice sounding farther away and weaker, like a fading echo. The gunfire petered out, supplanted by the cries of traumatized children.
The barrel of a Chinese Type 56 long gun poked through the open doorway. A teenager dressed in civvies scanned the space and yelled, “Clear! Found another hostage!”
“Who are you?” Bradley demanded.
“Peter Francisco. District Six security forces,” the kid said, working the buckles to free him. “And you are?”
“Oh my God, Bradley!”
His head jerked toward the familiar voice, and he blinked, waiting for the hallucination to dissipate. Standing in the doorway, holding Matthew Love and a cellphone, with an M4 slung over his shoulder, Kyle Murphy’s green eyes widened. His mouth curled into an elated smile.
Leery of identifying himself since the public believed he was dead, Bradley borrowed Volkov’s American surname and feigned a southern accent. “Prav-vate Bra-adley Jackson, USMC,” he said, rising from the electric chair on wobbling legs. He offered his hand to Kyle then Peter, hoping layers of grime, crusted blood, and unkempt facial hair would prevent the teen from recognizing him. “How’d y’all find me?”
Kyle glanced at the voice-to-text translation on his cellphone and grimaced, acknowledging his blunder. “The Consortium kidnapped little Matthew, here,” he explained, giving the child an affectionate squeeze. “And the Secret Service tracked him to this hangar ... Never expected to find you here.”
47
3,000 Feet below White-Jefferson
Air Force Base, Ohio
PRESIDENT RYAN ANDREWS had been awake for hours, thumbing through a gallery of pictures on an encrypted phone. His virtual “wall of heroes” began with Dannel, Marcos, and Mike, honorable men who’d sacrificed their lives in service to their nation, and ended with Bradley’s official TEradS photograph.
Swallowing hard to subdue the grief throbbing at the base of his throat, Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose and blotted the welling regret from his eyes. The death of a best friend was traumatic, even more so when you were the one who facilitated it.
I can’t even honor Bradley with a eulogy, Ryan thought. The country will go on believing that he died in a plane crash; unaware that he saved them from a tyrannical, mind-controlled hell.
At 0500 hours, Ryan indulged in a long shower. Salty streams joined with the steamy spray, but soap and water couldn’t wash away the veneer of guilt. He dressed, kissed his sleeping wife’s forehead, and tiptoed from the bedroom of their private residence.
Ryan stopped by the nursery to check in on his infant daughter. He marveled at her perfectly formed fingers, bow-shaped lips, and button nose, wondering how anyone could harm such a precious angel.
I need to eradicate these Consortium pedo-vores and—
His encrypted phone rang, startling him. He grimaced at the caller ID and, speaking in a smothered whisper, said, “How the fuck did you get this number, Kyle?”
After a voice-to-text-app delay, his deaf friend replied, “You didn’t get back to me so I pulled rank on Python. Didn’t your chief of staff relay my messages?”
“I left orders not to be disturbed,” Ryan said, thinking that Perfidulo deserved a raise for running interference and sparing him from another unhinged rant.
“The FBI arrested Abby. They’ve got her in solitary confinement. You’ve got to do some—”
“Negative!” Ryan interrupted. “I had Colonel Jensen place her in protective custody. Any word on Matthew Love?”
A contemplative silence lengthened.
“Didn’t Perfidulo tell you?” Kyle asked. “Matthew and a bunch of other kids were rescued from a hangar a few miles from that college you bombed ...”
/> Relief spread through Ryan, warm and intoxicating, before solidifying into a vexing question.
Why the hell did Perfidulo sit on this information? Screw the raise! The guy deserves an ass chewing!
“... And you’ll never believe who else we rescued ... Bradley!”
“What?” The word exploded from Ryan’s mouth. “CJ said he was shot and killed.”
The delay became excruciating.
Freaking voice-to-text—
“Disinformation,” Kyle finally said. “Acting FBI Director McCann had him strapped to an old-school electric chair.”
Ryan’s emotions vaulted the spectrum from elation to confusion.
Why did CJ lie about Bradley’s death?
Was he just regurgitating Hellhound’s propaganda?
“Is Bradley there?” he asked. “Can you put him on the line?”
“Negative. I’m home and he’s still at the District Six sheriff’s office,” Kyle told him. “When we didn’t hear from you, we made the call and decided that waltzing into Langden with a dead man’s ID would be problematic.”
That’s an understatement, he thought. How am I going to explain his resurrection?
“Did anyone recognize him?” Ryan asked, weighing the political fallout.
“The sheriff,” Kyle said. “But he’s former military. He knows how to handle classified info.”
Ryan rubbed a hand over his forehead, massaging the onset of a headache. “Tell Bradley to stay put. I’ll send someone for him.” Noting the time, he added, “I gotta go,” and ended the call before his friend could read the text translation, then hustled into the command center.
A steaming mug of coffee graced Perfidulo’s desk, but his chief of staff was nowhere in sight.
I’ll deal with him later, Ryan thought, double-timing it up the stairs to his office. He fired off an instant message, advising Rone of Bradley’s status and ordering an unorthodox extraction. He included a link to the Global News Network and suggested that the Admiral “get some popcorn and enjoy the show.”
The Power of We the People Page 19