by Shawn Keys
She hissed back, having ripped open a first-aid kit provided in the back of the vehicle meant for FDPC agents. She had a thick bandage pressed against the wound and was tying it tight. “Yes!”
“Stay strong! We’ll get you to Soo-Yun and she’ll patch you up. For now, take down the pilot! Get Rebecca set up. Dazz, take her MP5. We need to give them time!”
On the side nearest to the helo, Rebecca jumped out, not waiting for Jackie. She still had her weapon, and she let out a peal of well-aimed shots that cut through the interior and managed to catch the co-pilot from behind. Jackie came out with her pistol on point. Crouching under the whirling rotors, she fired a quick burst at the pilot. He fired back with his own pistol, but missed as he simultaneously tried to get enough power to the engines to get off the ground. Jackie fired again, and the pilot went limp. The two women scrambled inside, heading to pry the dead men out of their seats and make room for the helicopter’s new masters.
Meanwhile, Kyle clambered over the center console and out the driver’s side door. He heard the snarling whizz of bullets hissing by overhead, as well as the dull, metallic thuds of their impacts on the far side of the SUV. He glanced over the hood and went white at the sight. Easily two dozen Dawn guards, agents and students were drawing closer. Some were bold, trying to close the distance fast. Others were creeping in, using buildings and objects like statues positioned on the lawn as cover.
Deciding they still needed time, Kyle fired at the ones coming in hard and reckless. He spread out his shots, firing at as many as possible, trying to make them think that a bold charge was only going to end in them getting killed. He fired and fired and fired, glad for the high-ground that made it harder for them to return fire.
On the opposite side, Dazz was doing the same. Her MP5 didn’t have the range, but she was still able to make a few of the charging agents duck and dive instead of continuing their run.
Rebecca yelled over the deafening sound. “We’re ready to go! Get in the back!”
Kyle turned to Dazz. “You first! I can hold them off better!” He didn’t wait to see if she objected. He slapped the last of his magazines into his weapon and blazed away once more, trying to buy just a few more seconds. A fragment of metal from the truck was chipped away by one of the return shots, zipping by him and burning a deep mark along his left cheek. Growling away the pain, Kyle homed in on the nearest agent he could see and fired off a long burst in pure rage.
Dazz scrambled into the back of the helicopter, then turned to fire off another set of shots. She shouted, “Come on! Get the fuck in here!”
Kyle backed away from the SUV, not daring to look back. If he let off the pressure for even one second, the hoard of agents getting closer every second would cut him apart…
From behind, Dazz grabbed hold of him. Surging with adrenalin, she grasped hold of Kyle’s shoulders and hauled him into the Blackhawk’s cargo area. His bolt locked back as his magazine emptied in the same moment.
Rebecca bellowed, “Hold on!” The helicopter started to rise as she applied power smoothly.
The agents around the field realized the suppressing fire wasn’t coming at
them. A dozen rifles cut loose, peppering the rising aircraft with a hail of bullets. They sizzled through the open space like a swarm of angry wasps. Some ricocheted off the helo’s shell. A couple punched in, giving rise to a little smoke but without breaking anything vital.
Another punctured through the meat of Dazz’s shoulder, outside where she was wearing her vest, passing right through and through. She clutched to one of the handles on the helo interior, trying not to slide right out and fall to the ground on the far side as she crumbled.
Yet another hammered into Kyle’s vest, piercing in and finding flesh, but fortunately hitting a rib instead of penetrating a lung. The bullet lost enough of its kinetic energy that it cracked the rib instead of breaking right through it, then deflected along the bone, digging under his skin. He gasped from the pain, losing track of a few seconds as he blacked out from the raw stab of agony unlike anything he had ever felt.
That savage hail of gunfire continued, doing all they could to bring down the aircraft before it could fly beyond reach. Rebecca was applying thrust fast, the rotors beating the air and blowing away a few of the agents that got too close. They had leaped to catch hold of the strut, but none of them succeeded at the action-movie style stunt. A final bullet clipped Kyle’s leg, burning along his calf more than it actually dug in. Kyle barely even felt it next to the agony throbbing along his rib cage.
Then, they were beyond the Dawn’s reach. Soaring out over the lake, Rebecca curved through the air, breaking back toward land and pushing the engines to their limits. Their airspeed increased, and the wind howled through the back. Kyle lay sprawled on the deck, buffeted by the force of that wind, but totally unable to get up and haul the cargo doors closed. Dazz was clamping down on her own wound, sucking in ragged breaths, pinned to the back wall by that continual rush of air. Neither of them called out for Rebecca to slow down. They knew that they needed to get distance. This was a military-style aircraft, so it had a little more speed than a civilian model. But it wasn’t a jet. It wasn’t that much faster than what a ground vehicle could manage. Their only advantage was the ability to arrow straight through the air instead of following roads.
A sudden fear stabbed into Kyle’s heart. He grasped frantically at his transmitter button, then called out over the roaring wind, “Chloe! Soo-Yun! Tell me you got the hell out of there!”
Soo-Yun’s voice sounded in his ear, barely audible in the windstorm. “We got away! Chloe is driving like a bat out of hell. We just got across a field and are picking up a road heading south. Umm, I can’t see a sign! I don’t know what road we’re on. Hold on! I’ll use my phone…”
Kyle yelled out, “Just keep going south! Rebecca! Where are we going?”
Jackie answered instead, pain lacing her own voice as she struggled against the nasty wound in her leg, “We need to get out of the sky! If they have any contacts with the FAA, they’ll be tracking us anywhere we go.”
Rebecca warned them, “I’m already getting calls from a local aerodrome wondering where I’m going! They don’t control you as strictly when you aren’t near a big city, but country controllers still hate radar contacts on their scopes without identifiers.” She groaned a little as the control stick kicked in her hand. “Plus, I think those assholes might have put a hole in the hydraulics. Jackie is right. We need to ditch this ride fast!”
Kyle growled, “Give us a few dozen miles, then land us in a field where Chloe can pick us up!” He tensed up, pain wracking him and stealing any further words. Collapsing totally, he closed his eyes. He could do nothing but grasp hold of whatever deck fitting he could find to stop from being sucked out of the hold, then tried not to pass out before they landed.
* * *
Fred Reigns stoically finished his report, beyond miserable with his squashed nose, black-shrouded eyes, rash bruises along his cheeks, missing teeth and fatigue-hooded eyelids. “Beyond the agent losses we suffered during the raid, six of the new students took the opportunity to escape the compound. We have two patrols out looking for them as they are also potential breaches of security. However, most of our manpower is being directed toward camp take-down and sanitation from any residual presence here. That will take substantial effort. The camp might have begun as temporary, but after ten years, some semi-permanent fixtures have taken root.”
In the background, Andrew could see the man’s private office that had been totally trashed and ransacked. The camp’s lieutenant, Craig Morgan stood in the background, playing the doorkeeper while Fred was on the VTC with the council. The lights were on, but low, probably in an effort to lessen the pounding headache Fred must be suffering from after the severe beating Hutchings had given him.
Andrew Lark was struggling to contain his emotions. He had asked his questions along the way, and had a clear picture of the night’s debacle. H
e was in his robes in his apartment, conducting the VTC from his personal security room. It was not much past five in the morning, with the sun a couple hours below the horizon. The hour combined with the news coming across the technology he distasted all combined to make his foul mood that much worse.
He ignored Reigns for the moment. He shifted to Vera Clyde. “Has anything filtered onto the news channels, yet?”
Vera shook her head. “No. Honestly, I don’t expect it to immediately.”
“Oh?” Lark’s question was sharp. He wasn’t in the mood for anyone being hopeful.
Catching the hint, Vera quickly said, “That isn’t a guess. Hutchings has delayed for months without raving like a crazy person on social media. He’s been holding back. Clearly, they found out about the camp from their download of Lawson’s files. They spent his long planning the way in. Now that they have something? They won’t just dump in on some internet site and let it get picked apart by scavengers. They’re going to figure what they have, then target it to do the most damage.”
Gregor Jones rumbled out, “Remember the DOJ agent. Odds are she’s only cooperating as long as they stay within the law. She’ll want an investigation. She’ll want all her ducks in a row before they do anything.” He scrubbed at his unshaven face, trying to wash the last bit of sleep away.
Andrew grumbled, batting that around in his mind and deciding it was probably right. “I’ll have to send this upward, anyway. Not sure what pressure my superiors can put on anyone in the DOJ, but they’ll have to get ready to squash this. Delay it. Anything they can. Delaying it might be better. Make this Moraker woman chase her tail inside the system until the whole thing is forgotten.” If Moraker had chased it this far, Andrew was fairly certain she wouldn’t let it die. But it would give them time.
He shook that off. He wasn’t going to sell himself on too much hope, any more than he would accept it from his staff. He shifted to Angela Mainland, his computer expert. “Computer forensics?”
“Reigns accessed and downloaded a significant amount of information around two in the morning. Understanding it could not have been him, we were able to track down the exploits in the system that the hackers used to get in.” She shrugged. “Nothing unusual for any system. There are always ways in. Problem is, they had an access key, were accessing from a node previously identified by our network as trustworthy, from the computer the user normally accessed it from. Most of my defensive A.I. programs were defeated because of the location they were using.”
“Can they read what they found?”
Again, Angela shrugged. “Difficult to know. The Laurier woman is an acknowledged expert, but we have no idea how fluent she is. Even most experts studying dead languages don’t gain a functional fluency in them. It took them eight months to get to this point. It could take them another eight months to translate everything they saw.”
Andrew scowled. “Or, they could be dictating it all to her right now and have the whole story in a matter of hours.”
Gregor shook his head, dead certain about this point. “No way. Fred just told us that the agents reportedly shot at least one of them, with another possibly downed during the evac. We’ve already found the Blackhawk. They set it down in a field about a hundred miles south of the compound. They must have had a vehicle waiting. The helicopter was showing signs of mechanical stress from the repeated rounds fired into it. It wouldn’t have made it much further. Whoever their pilot was, they had skill to handle it in that condition.”
“Knowing how incredibly well prepared they were does not strike me as good news,” Andrew scoffed.
“True. But it does mean they are on the run, hurt, and they know they are being hunted. As soon as we’re done, I’ll leverage police resources along the southern coast, highway patrol, and even honest FDPC agents. They are still fugitives. We can update the law enforcement bulletins with a recent sighting. It won’t give us more than 48 hours support before the police turn back to other concerns, but that might be enough since we know the region that he’s in.”
Andrew nodded. “Their escape seems messy. Either they didn’t know how they were getting out and were playing it by ear, or their expected escape route got cut off. I agree, they are making this up as they go along. Push hard. Find them. Now.”
He went to Trisha next. “What is moving the camp going to do to us?”
She tapped a pencil in thought on her desk. Unlike the others, she looked like she had been up for an hour, her hair-bun tightly in place, already at an office desk doing work when the call came in. “The difficulty is that we don’t have an alternate site secured. All the equipment being torn down will need to be stored. I’ll take care of that. I’ll begin hunting for an alternate location to reestablish the grounds immediately, but such transactions do not go quickly.”
Andrew waved off that problem. “This crop of students is broken already.” His expression darkened as he turned to Dirk Crowder. “If Gregor’s hunt fails, Hutchings is going to retreat to his little den. We need that address. Get it now. The planning window is over. I don’t care if you have the perfect solution. Losses are now acceptable.” His grim tone made it clear that that included Dirk himself, as long as the data got back to him.
Dirk didn’t even blink, not offended at all to be considered expendable. To him, all people were, after all. “I have connected with my counterpart from the California sector to ensure none of my actions would disrupt their operations. I have their blessing, and she will be accompanying me on-mission, in case any information we obtain is useful in their sphere. Expect results within the next 24 hours.”
Andrew considered pushing him harder, then decided against it. Whatever pressures they were under, this was critical information they needed. If he pushed Dirk to attack too early and they were cut down with zero results, nothing would be gained. “Fine.” He gave a wave that somehow managed to convey that he didn’t mean to include Fred. One after the other, the other section heads signed off to get on with their own part in handling the aftermath.
With the others signed off, the VTC screen automatically enlarged the image of Fred to fill the screen. It made the connection feel a lot more personal. Andrew leaned in, as if he could impose on the man from a hundred miles away. “Not everything can be forgiven, Fred.”
The camp Director’s eyes closed in quiet pain, knowing what that meant.
Andrew’s glare went to Craig Morgan.
The lieutenant had been paying attention without looking like he was paying attention. He was a pragmatic man. The Dawn didn’t waste resources foolishly. Small errors were not punished with the severity of movie villains. After all, they were all ‘Superior’. Each of them wasn’t a resource to be cast aside too easily. But even he knew what that look meant. In the span of a single breath, Craig pulled his sidearm and fired a round through Fred’s brain. The spatter caught the lower edge of the camera, leaving scattered, crimson droplets in the display.
Craig wasn’t disrespectful. He left Fred where he was, collapsed over the desk instead of callously shoving him aside or mocking the dead man. He simply came up behind him, waiting for direction.
Andrew approved of that. Time to see if Fred’s deputy had what it took to step up. “Get the mess cleaned up, Craig. First, keep the students who were already identified as committed. Only those who the instructors are absolutely certain have bought in. Kill the rest. Make everything disappear. The whole camp needs to melt into the forest by noon.”
Craig blanched at that. “By noon today, Sir?”
Unlike with Dirk, Andrew was willing to push the younger agent hard. It might be an impossible task, but at least he would see what Craig was made of as he struggled to meet it. If he did well, Andrew would grant him a little extra time at the last second. If not… “Shall I discuss this with Marissa? I feel certain she’ll have a plan.”
The mention of Craig’s rival and now (with Fred’s death) his second-in-command reminded Craig of how fragile his new place might be. With th
e realization that they called things like this ‘trial by fire’ for a reason, Craig returned as steady a nod as he could. “We’ll handle it, Sir.”
“Good. Don’t waste any more time talking to me. Dismissed.”
The connection dropped off on his end.
Andrew spent about ten seconds debating his next moves. Some actions were mandatory, but they could be done in a certain order. Deciding that ripping the proverbial band-aid clean off would be the best way. He placed simultaneous calls to both Rita Marks as his direct shadow-FDPC superior and Reggie Fisher in his role of covert surveillance. Both were going to need to know.
Both of them were stationed on the east coast, so it was no surprise to find them in the Baltimore and Washington offices. Both picked up too close together and too quickly.
They already know something, Andrew was certain. That could make this both easier and harder. “Hello, Ma’am. Sir.” He gave a nod of respect to both. “There has been an incident.”
Reggie’s right eyebrow crept upward at the choice of words. “Indeed. That seems like something of an understatement.”
Andrew tried not to let his irritation show. Of course, he should have guessed Fisher had covert sources inside his own organization. A man like that lived on secrets. What Andrew hadn’t expected was that he would have already shared it with Rita. Andrew have preferred to be the bearer of bad news. He could have shaped the information properly to better the odds of his own survival. A grim thought occurred to him: at least no-one is waiting at my door with a gun…
Reggie gestured for him to get on with it.
Focusing, certain that his life was literally being weighed for value at the moment, Andrew said, “The breach was severe. Someone entered the Farm and made off with both training materials and data. We are assuming it was Hutchings and his supporters.”
