by Karl Weber
The red team entered the central building. The few plant workers inside the room shuddered at the sight of the team. Jack pointed his AK-12 at the ceiling and fired off a burst. The entire room screamed and went into a panic.
“We are the Dominion!” Jack shouted. He fired off a second burst. “We are the revolution!” Jack continued moving forward. His team followed close behind. An alarm went off, so loud that it drowned out the sounds of panic coming from the plant workers as they made haste to the nearest exits. The red team headed further inside the grungy facility while plant workers ran past them in fear for their lives.
The red team approached an intersecting hallway. Jack slowed his pace and let his teammates take his side. They stopped short of the intersection. Half the team turned right with other half turning left to have all sides covered. All part of doing a clean sweep of the facility.
Jack and the other red squad member at his side both had their guns up when they saw two security guards rounding a corner headed their way, pistols in hand. Both guards shuddered when they saw the darkly dressed men with assault rifles in hand. The guards raised their pistols but immediately dropped them after Jack and his teammate used their rifles under barrel taser attachments on them. Both guards fell to the ground still shaking from the rushes of electricity. After kicking their pistols away, Jack returned to the rest of his team. “Clear.”
“Clear,” responded the other two members of the red team looking down the other end of the hallway. Being former members of Homeland and the FBI, Jack and his team all had experience with clearing buildings of hostiles. They grouped back up and continued toward the center of the facility. The squad reached a staircase and slowly proceeded upward. When they reached the top, there were more plant workers cowering in the hallway. Jack fired another burst from his AK-12 into the ceiling.
“Get out of here,” Jack shouted. He and the rest of his squad moved out of the way as the dozen or so plant workers ran past them to use the stairs. The alarm was still blaring, drowning out the sounds of panic. Jack tapped on his SCU to communicate with the blue team. “Blue team, we’re almost at our destination, how are things on your end?”
The sound of automatic fire could be heard followed by the blue team leader speaking up, “Local authorities have just arrived. We just fired some warning shots and let them know we had hostages. They won’t stand down forever though.”
“Roger, we’ll keep up the pace. Red team leader out.” Jack looked down, hit the magazine eject on his rifle and swapped the near-empty magazine out for a fresh one that he had stored on his chest pouch. He looked back at his squad and yelled, “Let’s move. The clock’s ticking.” Jack led his team down the hallway. After making a right turn, they could see the control room they were looking for. Jack swung his rifle over his shoulder before taking out a wire and plugging his SCU into the control board that spanned the length of the entire room.
“I’m plugged into the control board. Do your thing, Price.”
Back inside the Vigilance command center, Price tapped away furiously on the large flat screen of his computer. After a few seconds of non-stop typing, he suddenly stopped with the look of somebody who had just discovered he won the lottery. “I’m in. The power grid is ours. Just waiting on your mark.”
“Roger.” Jack looked back at his squad, more specifically Chuck Walker, the former FBI agent who was also a former member of their bomb squad. “Walker, set the device,” Jack ordered.
Walker got down on a knee and swung the black backpack he was wearing over his shoulders and unzipped it. He reached inside with both hands and pulled out several stacks of C4 wired together to a small electronic module that was wirelessly synced to Jack’s SCU. Walker tapped on the small screen with his index finger until the word “ARMED” appeared. “Ready on your mark, sir,” Walker stated as he placed the bomb underneath the large console.
The bomb only served to give the idea to the public that the power grid went offline because of a bomb going off and not from a hack via hi-tech spy equipment. In reality a bomb going off next to the control panel probably wouldn’t be enough to disable the entire power grid. But it was theoretically possible, and that was what mattered in this situation. It was just important that the bomb exploded immediately before the grid went dark for the whole thing to sell to the public.
“Price, the bomb is in place. Be ready,” Jack stated over comms.
“Roger,” Price replied.
“Everybody out now,” Jack ordered his squad. The four men ran out of the room and back into the hallway. Jack tapped on his SCU to contact the blue team leader. “Blue Alpha, this is Red Alpha. My team and I have set the explosive and are headed toward the exfiltration point.”
“Roger. Will begin heading that way now,” the blue team leader replied. He looked back at the rest of the blue squad who had taken cover at the guard station, along with about half a dozen plant workers lying face down on the floor being used as hostages. “It’s time to get out of here. Prepare the smokes.”
Every member of blue squad unclipped the several smoke grenades they had attached to their chest harnesses. One by one they thew the grenades through the windows that had been blown out from previous gunfire. The grenades hit the ground only yards away from the police line that the Chicago P.D. had set up on the outskirts of the facility.
All law enforcement panicked and raced to get behind their vehicles, thinking the grenades thrown might have been explosives. Large clouds of smoke started pouring out of the metal canisters. The four-man team continued throwing the metal canisters until almost the entire outskirts of the facility were in a huge cloud of smoke. It was impossible to see a hand in front of one’s face, the cloud of white was so thick. Not wasting the opportunity, the blue team ran out of the guard shack in a full sprint.
The smoke was thick enough to cause everyone behind the police line to go into a non-stop coughing fit. It was a good thing the helmets that both squads were wearing were equipped with respirators. The blue team ran from the southside of the facility toward the eastside, where red team exited the central building. Both teams approached the solid ten-foot-high concrete wall that wrapped around the facility. The two converged at a point next to the wall.
Walker pulled out another explosive charge from his backpack. He attached the charge to the concrete wall and armed it before flashing a thumbs up.
The two teams put some distance between themselves and the wall. Jack tapped on his SCU and set both bombs to explode with a single button press. “Price, everything’s ready on my end. On my mark. Three, two, one, mark.”
Price tapped a single button on his keyboard just a moment before Jack tapped his SCU with his index finger. Every light pole and anything else connected to the power grid went dark. The only sources of light in the entire city district came from vehicle headlights and the blue-and-red lights coming from emergency vehicles. It was as if Chicago had almost reentered the stone age.
Both bombs exploded simultaneously, the one planted inside the central building being three times larger than the one attached to the concrete wall. The explosion was so bright it lit the area up for a brief second and made the entire block shake as if there were an earthquake. In the midst of the chaos, the two squads ran through the hole made in the concrete wall and made it across the dark street to their black van that had relocated to a nearby alley.
Jack was the first one to it and opened the back doors, signaling for everyone to pile in. After the seven other men were inside, Jack hopped in and shut the two doors behind him. “Drive and don’t stop for anything,” Jack ordered. The van pulled onto the side street and was down the road before authorities could fully grasp all the chaos and destruction that had just ensued.
Jack pulled off his helmet followed by the rest of his team and took a long sigh of relief. He was still breathing heavy due to his nerves that he felt were still racing at a thousand miles an hour. He tilted his head back and looked at the van’s ceiling with a smil
e of relief. “Fuck, I think we might’ve actually pulled that off.” Everyone else in the van started high-fiving and cheering from Jack’s statement.
He looked toward the team’s bomb expert. “Jesus, Walker. When I asked you to make a bomb that would draw attention, I didn’t mean one that would rival Hiroshima.”
Walker rubbed the whiskers on his face and then shrugged. “You said we would need a diversion. I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.”
“That you did.” Jack then returned to his serious demeanor. “Let’s not celebrate yet though. Still got a long dark night ahead of us.”
Chapter 21
Benjamin Cross spoke up in the conference room, “You better not be wasting our time, Blake. We have more productive things to do than listen to your cries for help.” Cross’s voice was deep and gave great emphasis to each word he spoke.
“Gentlemen, you all know who I am. That I can be a very resourceful individual.”
“Really proved that with the UN job,” Graham Schulz said with a snarl of disapproval in his voice.
“The job accomplished what it needed to, didn’t it? Let’s not harp on past oversights and instead spend that energy on something that could be very fruitful for us.”
“You were bare on details when you contacted us. What exactly are you proposing?” Chao Lee asked.
Blake put his hands together and smirked like someone getting ready to show off. “We all know about Huckleberry’s pet project that has become an absolute grievance to us.”
“You mean the one that’ll be disbanded before U.S. President Coleman hardly has the time to learn where every room in the White House is?”
“What our peers fail to see is how useful Vigilance could be to us.”
Schulz snorted. “Doubt it. Didn’t exactly make the UN job any easier for us.”
Blake brought up his index finger and pointed it at Schulz as if it were a gun. “If somebody pointed a gun at you, your first thought would be to resist. We kidnapped Annabelle Perkins and took her into foreign lands against her will. After all that, of course, she would see us as a threat. Had she been approached and introduced to it like the rest of us, she might’ve had a much different perspective. But I’ve led her to see us in a more favorable light. Why else do you think she would set me free? I’m bringing a proposal from her.”
“You actually convinced Ms. Perkins to release you? To join us?” Cross asked, with a look of disbelief on his face.
“It’s all about the presentation, Mr. Cross. Me and Ms. Perkins are both in the same person’s crosshairs. There’s the old saying, The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
“Let me get this right. You’re saying that you and Ms. Perkins want us to help convince the rest of our people to bring in Ms. Perkins and her agency into our fold?” Cross asked.
Blake shook his head. “No. Gaining the support for that would be next to impossible. I’m seen as a loose end needing to be tied off and Vigilance as a pest that needs to be squashed. What I’m suggesting is that we, as in only those of us in this room, bring in Ms. Perkins and her associate, Mr. Shepard, to become our own personal cell for intelligence unknown to the rest of our peers.”
The trio sitting across from Blake all shook their heads like they had heard something that was out of this world.
“Are you actually mad?” Lee asked.
“I would prefer the term opportunistic,” Blake replied.
Cross spoke up, “The rest of our organization would have our heads if they found out. Why risk everything we have just to go along with your ludicrous idea, Blake?”
Blake raised his hands in a way of feigning innocence. “It’s simple. Independence. Don’t tell me you three always wish to forever live under what the higher-ups tell you. By having our own personal spy ring, we would have power to make decisions and cast votes using more than just the intel fed to us.”
The trio stayed silent for a moment to think over what Blake had just told them. His proposition had piqued their interest. The trio huddled together and whispered to one another.
After about a minute of whispering, the trio separated with Schulz speaking up. “My partners and I have talked it over and we have come to the conclusion that your proposition sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.”
“I beg to differ,” Blake retorted.
“Listen, Blake, you came to us off the street with your head in our organization’s crosshairs. The last thing we need …” Schulz’s statement was cut short when the lighting throughout the entire room and floor went dark. Looking out the window overlooking Chicago, the lights that flooded the city one by one went dark until the financial district disappeared into a void of darkness. “What the hell is going on!” Schulz yelled. “And why haven’t our backup generators kicked on yet?”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” Anna said as she reappeared standing behind Schulz’s seat holding a knife to his throat. The red glare from her Predator Lenses were the only thing noticeable in the pitch-black room. Schulz looked up at the dark-clothed figure with red eyes holding him at knifepoint and shuddered in fear.
“This whole meeting was a trap, wasn’t it?” Cross said.
Blake raised both his arms, feigning innocence. “Please don’t take it personally, gentlemen. I’m just a man playing with the hand he was dealt.”
Schulz regained his composure. Looking straight up at Anna’s bright red eyes, he asked, “What is it that you want from us, Ms. Perkins? I assume it to be something of importance. I find it hard to believe this power outage is merely a coincidence.”
“Just follow our exact instructions, and you can beg for forgiveness later,” Anna said with authority.
Lee laughed. “Have you forgotten where we’re at, Ms. Perkins? This is our home. There are guards just outside the door. What could you possibly do?”
Anna smirked under her balaclava before saying, “Price, bring power back to the fiftieth floor.”
“Roger.” The lights to the conference room turned back on.
“Like magic, right?” Anna teased. The trio stared at her with absolute astonishment on their faces. Blake kept a still face through it all.
“Call your guards into the room,” Anna said. “And do me a favor and don’t sound like you’re under duress. That kind of thing upsets me in a bad way.”
Schulz complied. “Gentlemen, could you please come in here for a moment.” It was as normal as a man could sound with a knife to his throat. A moment later Anna removed her knife from under Schulz’s chin and tapped on her SCU to vanish. The door leading to the hallway slid open, and the two guards from before walked into the room.
“What do you need, boss? Don’t know why it took so long for the generator to …” His sentence was cut short when he and his buddy collapsed onto the floor. Both were unconscious, courtesy of Anna’s sedation rounds.
“Price, kill the lights again,” Anna ordered. A moment later her order was granted. The room along with the rest of the floor returned to darkness.
Blake rose out of his seat. “Gentlemen, I would recommend you follow me, please,” Blake told the trio as he made the gesture for them to follow. The trio got out of their seats and did what they were told.
They followed Blake out of the room and into the almost pitch-black hallway. Then, all of a sudden, the emergency lighting turned on as if creating a path for them to follow. “Let’s go,” Blake ordered.
“This is ridiculous,” Lee said at the rear of the pack. He shuddered when he felt a gun barrel poke him in the lower back.
“I would do as you’re told if you know what’s best for you,” Anna whispered in his ear. She was invisible, which made her statement all the more frightening. Lee just nodded his head and followed along with the rest of the trio. They followed Blake down the barely lit hallway, past an assortment of cubicles with workers walking back and forth with no idea what they were supposed to be doing in the just above pitch-black office space.
Schulz raise
d his hands toward the crowd like a dictator getting ready to give a speech while he walked past. “Everyone, do not panic. The power will return soon. There’s nothing to worry about.” The crowd nodded their heads at the group who entered the nearest elevator. Blake hit the button on the elevator panel for the underground floor that contained the vault.
As soon as the door slid fully shut, Schulz spoke up. “You want the vault. You’re insane if you think we’ll open it. Our peers would have our heads.”
“We figured that. That’s why we came prepared,” Blake said.
“What do you mean?” Chao asked, slightly concerned.
“You’ll find out,” Anna said as she reappeared behind the group.
Schulz tried to get in her face. “Our guards will gun you down. There’s no way either of you are leaving this building alive.” Anna just shrugged as a response. “Is this whole thing just a joke to you? You are targeting something bigger than a bitch like you could ever understand.” In less than a second, Anna brought the tip of her knife to Schulz’s throat. He made a large gulp.
The group remained in awkward silence for the rest of the elevator trip. The elevator doors slid open, revealing nothing but a void of darkness. Barely two feet into the hallway leading out of the elevator could be seen, thanks to the elevator’s interior lighting.
“Stay here,” Anna said quietly as she brushed past the four men who immediately lost sight of her as she walked into pure darkness. Once the elevator’s door shut behind her, she contacted Price. “Price, kill the power to the elevator.”
“Roger.” She wanted to make sure they were all trapped and couldn’t get away from her.
With night-vision Anna could see another set of elevators just across an intersection from her. She made a right turn and at first glance saw a group of guards standing together in the wide-open room with employee office spaces off to the right and a large room full of nothing but lockboxes to the left.