by Shawn Keys
Kyle huffed. “Best thing we can hope for is that they start feeding her eugenics propaganda soon. As soon as they begin with the rhetoric, she’ll know we were right and get motivated to help us, if only to get out alive. Her doubts are our worst enemy.”
Jackie nodded, agreeing. “I think she’ll keep the secret, if only because of my badge. But yeah, she won’t take a lot of risks until she’s committed. And that might not happen until the first time they honestly suggest she’s better than other people and has the right to judge them.”
Inside, Kyle hated the idea. Her whole world is going to crash in. If she doesn’t keep it together when the truth hits home, she’s dead. He said with a little regret, “We fed her to the wolves.”
“We’ll be there to help, if she plays her part.”
“Small comfort if she catches a bullet while trying to get us through the gate.”
Jackie nodded. “Welcome to the world of covert ops handling. I’ve been sent in a couple times. Mostly at government departments to uncover some white-collar crimes and money laundering, so never with a huge death component to it. Didn’t mean I didn’t feel alone.” She jerked her head for the door. “Let’s go. She’ll be gone by now. We have a little momentum now. We’ve lit a fire under her ass, and best thing we can do is watch and be ready whether she goes down in flames or comes throughs for us in spades.”
Together, they headed for the door. Entering the lobby, they headed for Dazz, Chloe and Soo-Yun all sitting together at a table, a clear sign that Rebecca must have been gone, since they had let their hidden personae fall away.
He came up to the table, and Soo-Yun bopped out of her chair and wrapped a huge hug around him. Kyle curled his arms around her, asking, “What’s this for?”
She said softly, “Can see it in your face. That can’t have been fun.”
“Yeah. Making someone live their nightmare isn’t fun, especially since she didn’t seem like she was one of these assholes, yet. She’s given up so much for her father, and we just told her that he’s a dirt worm that doesn’t deserve her loyalty. Pretty much explained how she wasted her life, and then pushed her into risking it for people she doesn’t know. Kinda sucks.” H shrugged. “But needed to be done.”
Dazz snorted. “When this is all over, I might offer her a little help to track down her Dad and put a bullet in him. I’ll bet you he fed these Dawn types a full psych profile on her and ever dirty secret he has on his ‘precious girl’ so they could break her more rapidly. He deserves whatever’s coming to him.”
A somber quiet fell over them for a second, contemplating that. Also, contemplating the strange idea there might be an ‘after this was over’ time period. It still seemed hard to imagine.
Chloe suddenly broke out into a smile. “Want to feel better?”
“Is there a reasonable way to do that in public?”
She flashed him a saucy grin, but then turned her phone around for him to see. “Look what Yvette just sent on the daily download.”
Kyle leaned in, feeling a tender smile stretching his lips. In the picture, Danielle was in the pilot seat of a snowmobile, dressed in a costume fit for a ski-bunny. Her blonde hair was trailing off her in the wind along with the trails of her scarf. Her arm was stretched up, giving an enthusiastic thumbs-up to the one wielding the camera. Behind her, Laura was hunched in, probably giving her a driving lesson. For the picture, her arms were stretched around Danielle, one hand cupping a breast while the other hugged under the swell of her pregnant belly concealed under her winter jacket. Where Danielle looked like she was having a blast, Laura just looked content, perhaps due to her student’s progress or perhaps just from having her long-time friend and lover in her arms astride the powerful machine. Under them was a newly fallen layer of snow perhaps an inch deep, with a wispy trace of even more flakes falling around them.
Laughing in amusement, Kyle said, “They look cute. And like they’re having fun.”
Chloe grinned. “Danielle was never going to be a problem. I’d love to know how Claire and Yvette are coming along with riding them. Claire looked ready to spew at the thought. The ATVs were bad enough for her.”
Kyle said, “She’ll work it out. I have faith. She’s tougher than she looks. Remember how she took out that SUV by ramming it with her car?”
Soo-Yun’s eyes widened. “Who did that?”
“Long story. Alright, let’s get going. Jackie is right. We need to be ready to move. Could be a week. Could be two. Either way, whatever window Rebecca manages to open for us, it isn’t going to be a large one.”
* * *
Dirk Crowder sank into one of the chairs of the private plane he had chartered to take him from Seattle to Sacramento. He didn’t care about privilege. Nor did he care about expense. He cared about efficiency of movement. As long as Trisha told him the Dawn’s finances were healthy enough for him to charter flights like this, he would. Walking into the airport, right onto the plane and getting underway as soon as clearance from the tower could be obtained was worth every penny.
He didn’t travel with an assistant. He didn’t need a handler. He was the handler. He didn’t need someone to organize for him. He organized others. If they couldn’t keep up, he killed them and found people who could.
The pilot came over the speaker. “Two hours in the air, two fifteen gate-to-gate, Sir.” Nothing else. He had worked with Crowder before. He knew his customer. He didn’t waste the terrifying man’s time.
Dirk said, “Fine.” It was the shortest answer he could give to achieve signaling that he had heard, while expressing his desire to be left in peace for the duration. The pilot got the hint. He clicked off the intercom and didn’t say another word.
Folding his legs comfortably, Dirk accessed his table computer on his lap. The display was small enough to be light and comfortable to hold, while large enough to show schematics and drawings with sufficient detail.
The details shown were of the large, fenced, decently protected home of one Yohannes Drake. He recalled the direction from Lark: the addresses of Drake’s rental properties were the no-fail, primary tasks. They were worth any number of lives, including Drake’s.
Which was perfectly fine with him. Simpler, actually. Papers and transaction records didn’t need to be tortured to give up their secrets. He could kill anyone without fear of eliminating the one person who had the answers he needed. There was a minor concern about needing passwords for protected systems. Then again, these days, people often used biometrics to open things. A dead man’s fingerprints worked just as well.
In modern times, one had to find efficiencies wherever possible.
Chapter 9
Over the microphone in his ear, Kyle heard Soo-Yun worry, “This is soooo dangerous! You guys aren’t superspies or anything!”
Keeping his voice muted, aware of how far sounds could carry at night, Kyle answered with a small laugh, “What are you trying to say? Don’t think we have it in us?”
“Well, no, but… do you know how many things could go wrong?”
Kyle agreed, but he wasn’t about to start doing the math now. They were coming up hard on the point of no return in all this nonsense. Hell, we might already be past it. Not sure how we’d get away clean at this point.
Chloe came over the line. “Well, for what it’s worth, we’re in position. Gate house is visible. We could put a few rounds through it whenever you want. Haven’t seen any patrols wandering this far out. Then again, I have to be careful whenever they walk around. Can’t be sure they won’t see the glimpse off my scope. Laura said to be careful about that. No-one at the gate is going to see me, but the ones driving around spook me.”
Kyle asked, “Do what you think’s best. I’m not going to see the danger before it’s on us. If you need to take a shot, you take it. We’ll deal with what happens either way.” He dearly hoped she didn’t have to do anything like that, but he would have to trust her. He was going to be blind and deaf pretty soon, cut-off from the radio. “W
e’re not intending to be doing this all night, but don’t fall asleep on us. Once we’re inside, if things get nasty, it’s going to happen fast. The gate might be our only way out, and we’ll need to you to pick off anyone who tries to put up any barricades.”
Chloe cautioned him, “Don’t be putting too much faith in my sharpshooting. I mean, I can pick off a couple before they know what’s happening. But I’m not Laura. If they start running around, I’m not going to be doing any action-movie take-downs of soldiers on the run.”
Dazz quipped beside Kyle, “Just lead the target, Chlo.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Kyle insisted, “Whatever you can do might make the difference. But if things go really shitty, be ready to get in the jeep and get the hell out of here.” They had bought as much of an off-road vehicle as they could find that was still road legal. Part of their ‘everything has gone to shit’ contingency plan demanded Chloe and Soo-Yun to beeline out of there, save themselves, and dump whatever evidence they had onto social media. The only chance was to make as big a splash as possible before getting up to the chalet to make sure the others were safe.
With that confirmation and wanting to spend as little time on the radio as possible, Kyle stopped transmitting. He used his pen light to look around the cramped interior of container transport they were in. It was a full 53-foot model, similar to the one they had bought and transformed into their ‘tank’. Only this one wasn’t filled with pleasant furniture and cleverly arranged sleeping lofts. Stacked palettes of shaped steel filled the space, stacked using reinforced racks that could support the heavy-weight materials. He wouldn’t have known what it all was, except they had been told by Rebecca what was on the manifest. These were sections of armor to upgrade SUVs, the building blocks used to create the fleet of vehicles favored by the Dawn-faction within the FDPC.
This was their chance. One of the few potential ways in. Like Soo-Yun had said, they weren’t ready for any sort of miraculous stunts like in action movies. There wasn’t going to be any diving out of planes or low-altitude parachuting going on. He didn’t even know if that would help to get them into a camp like this. There would probably be a hundred guards laughing as he floated into the middle of a field, punching bullets through him like a grotesque piñata. Yeah, no thank you. After five days of waiting, Rebecca had finally contacted them with a real idea. An idea that came with substantial risk, but at least it didn’t sound totally insane.
When she called, she had been scared out of her mind, certain that she was going to get discovered crouched over the phone she was using. They hadn’t wasted time asking how she had gotten access to a phone line. Details like that could wait till later, spinning stories over a few beers once they were safe.
The important part was that she had called them. Under all the fear, there had been a lot of anger. Kyle knew Rebecca had heard what she needed to hear in the camp. She believed them now. Kyle didn’t know where her anger would lash out, but for now, she was going to help them, and not just because they were forcing her to do it. She had her own axe to grind. Especially with her father.
When she had called, she had quickly confirmed a couple things they already knew. Trying to sneak through the forest and over the fence was pretty much suicide. There was everything from preplaced landmines to tripwires to drones, all waiting to cut them down. The whole perimeter was electrified and with concertina wire to cap it all off. The gatehouse was nearly as bad. Access was controlled; anyone without a clear purpose was stopped and investigated even more aggressively than the group had first feared. Incoming delivery loads were all transported in by local staff, off-loaded inside the camp, and then the empty trucks were returned into town without allowing outside people to know where the truck had been. There was a lake, but the shore patrols were random and frequent. Not only that, but Rebecca had heard them say that there were hydrophones listening under the surface. Walking up onto the beach was going to get them killed.
When Kyle asked if it had been hard to gather all that, she had said that they weren’t even hiding all the defensive procedures from the students. In fact, they had been given a bit of a tour. She suspected that had two purposes: one, to make sure they knew they couldn’t just run off; and two, to give them a weird sort of security that they could finally allow themselves to revel in being among ‘the elite’ without having to pretend any longer.
What came after that was when it got dangerous. Rebecca had looked for a hole in all that security, and found the only one she could on short notice. Most deliveries were off-loaded from the trucks almost immediately. Anyone hiding inside would stand a good chance of being discovered. Far too risky. But there was at least one exception. The Dawn hadn’t decided to order armored vehicles that were pre-assembled. Maybe it was a lack of trust, or maybe they just wanted the chance at a little extra customization. Whatever the reasons, the Dawn did the mechanical work of upgrading their own SUVs inside the camp. That required massive stockpiles of material. Apparently, they didn’t want to deal with all the loose material sculling about their warehouse. In this one delivery case, they offloaded the containers and stacked them together until a new set was needed.
Problem was, the containers were sealed at the site where the metal items were loaded. They were counted, the contents confirmed, and then a packaging seal was strapped in place, binding the doors closed. It could be weeks before the straps were cut and the material removed. By then, anyone inside stood a good chance of being dead.
Even if Kyle figured out a way to store up the food and water to survive, none of them had any desire to spend weeks inside a metal box, only to risk discovery during the offloading. Fortunately, they had Rebecca. With her acting as the insider, she could cut the seals and let them out on arrival.
Which left the problem of how to get inside the truck in the first place. That was what had taken the next two days. Scouting the company that provided the material, getting through their warehouse protections, and deciding how they were going to burrow themselves into the packages to ensure they wouldn’t be discovered while the bad guys did their count and then sealed them inside.
That part had gone well enough, though it had been nerve-wracking the whole time as they had listened to the people shuffling around them. If they had been found, there wouldn’t have been any time or chance to anything but die. Simple as that.
But they hadn’t. The Dawn’s drivers had strapped the seal in place, leaving Kyle, Jackie and Dazz locked inside. After the trio peeled themselves out of their coffin-sized hiding holes, they had spent a miserable night hunched in the pitch-blackness, eating nothing but granola bars and drinking from water bottles.
Their small group wasn’t chosen at random. Kyle wished Soo-Yun could be there to patch them up if one of them got hurt, but she wasn’t comfortable enough to pull this kind of stunt. She was in good shape, but she hadn’t been up at the chalet, taking part in the training as Kyle and the women turned themselves into a bit of a paramilitary crew. Not only that, but he didn’t want to leave Chloe all alone out on the perimeter. She had trained to be their supporting fire, and she needed a spotter. There was no way Jackie was staying out beyond the fence, and Dazz had to come along to do the computer work: that was the primary reason they were there, after all.
The truck had finally lurched into motion, and driven the couple hours it took to get clear of the city and up into the woods where the camp was concealed. Chloe had told him as soon as the truck came into sight of the camp. Now, they were keeping quiet again, not wanting to risk anyone inspecting the truck to hear them. Chloe had described their procedures: checking with mirrors under the truck, looking on the roof, and inspecting every nook and cranny. On the surface, it was a good process. But the seals were keeping them from checking the inside. This was their loophole… he hoped.
Kyle whispered, “You two ready? Once we’re inside the gatehouse, that’ll be it.”
Dazz smirked. “Pretty sure that ship sailed back in the lo
ading yard.”
Jackie nodded, hating the feeling of being a fired bullet just waiting to hit the target… or not. “Rebecca better be able to get away tonight.”
Kyle shrugged, “I think we have enough to survive another day. Maybe even two. She’ll have a couple chances.”
Jackie scowled. “Not if I go bananas, first. Damn, it’s tight in here. And all this polished metal stinks.”
Suddenly, the truck lurched back into motion.
Kyle gave a smile. “We’re through. We’re headed in.” Part of him wanted to confirm that with Chloe and Soo-Yun, but he knew it would be wasted breath. One more transmission that could give them away. Stay focused. Keep the nerves under control, he coaxed himself.
But Kyle took one last fretful look around as the trailer shook and made some of the shelving wobble. He laughed softly at this winger they were taking. What the hell are we doing? So stupid. But they didn’t have a choice. If they didn’t do something a little crazy, this camp would turn into a dead-end and they’d have to do something none of them wanted to do: risk hurting some innocent by taking shots in the dark to find one of the access keys. Even if they found one, Jackie still wouldn’t be able to get her photos and hard evidence of this camp. Kyle could hear her superiors in the DOJ saying that a website and email chatter could be faked. Could hear them dismissing it all as one more elaborate hoax, no matter how compelling the evidence. So much fakery was out there on the internet, Kyle could hardly blame them.
No. No, we need to see this first-hand. Most importantly, Jackie has to see it first-hand. Taking a deep breath, Kyle shut away his second-guessing and focused on the matter at hand. At least we don’t have to crawl back into those hidy-holes. Being in the truck is bad enough. Being wedged inside those cramped, oddly shaped spaces carved out among the crates had been seriously claustrophobic. He wasn’t prone to that kind of fear, but even he had felt it. Probably because of the people with guns floating around just outside who would have killed him immediately if they’d found him.
