by Tim Curran
About that time, a pair of AH-64 Apache helicopters showed up.
Obviously, somebody had been smart enough to call them in.
And thank God. Because the Iraqis were tiring of the fun and games and were about to let loose a barrage of Spandrels at the recalcitrant Yankees.
The Apaches came in low and the Iraqis tried to scatter. No dice. The Apache gunners opened up with their 30mm chain guns and turned the fleeing Iraqis into dog food. They showered down salvos of Hydra-70 rockets that exploded and sent razor-sharp metal flechettes flying in every direction. What the chain guns missed, these ripped into confetti. The BMP-2s, once so deadly, seemed positively impotent. They and their crews tried to evade as well, but all they got for their trouble were TOW missles that blew them into flaming fragments.
So as quickly as it had started, it was over.
And until she had snapped out of her shock and attended to the wounded, she just hadn’t gotten it. Until she’d seen the bullet-ridden corpses torn sometimes completely in half she hadn’t gotten it. But when she’d seen the seared limbs and bodies burnt black and the vehicles turned to blazing iron sculptures, then she’d gotten it.
It had put her down, vomiting, into the sand, but she’d gotten it, all right. She was a little slow sometimes, but she always figured it out in the end.
She’d been home for five years now. She’d been having pains in her belly for the past month, dropping a frightening amount of weight while her belly continued to swell like it was filled with gas…or she was pregnant. She was a trained nurse. She knew the warning signs. But she had done nothing.
Now she was pretty sure she was dying.
She was no diagnostician, but she had a good idea that whatever was eating away her guts wasn’t good. The pains were unbearable now and the clinical side of her was saying that there was probably a good-sized tumor devouring her innards. It was also saying that she was a real damn idiot for not getting this taken care of in the first place. In her job, she saw people like that every day. People who just refused to go to their doctors. People who put off medical exams because they made them uncomfortable or scared them or they just couldn’t spare the time in their busy lives. They put off the very things that could start the wheels of medical science spinning in their favor.
But Carolyn had never thought she would be one of them.
She hadn’t been out of her apartment in three days now. She was simply too weak. Couldn’t move. Could barely think. For the past twenty-four hours she’d been on the couch, near-paralysis, awash in her own filth. What sleep there was, was thin and grainy. She was not sure where reality started and dream stopped. And she was hungry. Godawful hungry. She kept dreaming of raw meat. The very idea of it made her head spin and her mouth water.
Her brain was working good enough in-between the walls of gray nothingness to tell her she was hallucinating freely. For instance, right now the clammy, discolored flesh of her belly was bloated obscenely. It had become a huge, distended mound like a nightmare pregnancy coming to term. And that had to be a hallucination.
It just couldn’t be.
But what was really crazy was the other thing. The tight, damp skin of her belly kept... rippling, as if some living thing were moving in there. Something muscled and thick pressing against the flesh.
This had to be a hallucination.
But, once again, Carolyn just wasn’t getting it.
It was about that time that she heard a key in the door. In the back of her mind she knew it had to be Rhonda. Rhonda had been after her for weeks to go to the doctor and now, not hearing from her, she was coming to check on her. It was what significant others did.
Carolyn’s head whipped back and forth. She tried to cry out, to warn Rhonda away. Please please oh please darling get out of here get out of here. Too late. With a gasp, Rhonda was at her side, taking hold of her.
“Carolyn!” she cried. “Carolyn! What’s wrong with you?”
So Carolyn showed her—Rhonda had arrived just in time to see her give birth.
7:33 P.M.
Cave wasn’t in the mood for it, but they gave it to him anyway.
“Listen, boss,” McKenna said. “You know me. You know how I operate: I don’t ask questions, I don’t pass moral judgements… but this, I mean, Christ, this is just wrong. These people are vets, for godsake. This is a hell of a thing to be doing to them.”
Stein nodded his head. He knew just as McKenna knew that you didn’t ask questions in this game and you sure as hell didn’t complain... but this, this was wrong in just about every way.
Cave said, “Just do what you’re told.”
“We are, boss, but this is getting weird and you know it,” McKenna said with all due respect. “Usually they contract us out for one or two, sometimes a few more than that... but this... shit, what the hell is going on here?”
Cave brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his overcoat. “What’s going on here is none of your concern and none of mine. We do what the Old Man says and that’s that. If you two can’t stomach it, transfer out.”
“You know it’s not that,” McKenna said. “You know both of us very well, goddammit. We do our jobs, sir. We always have and we always will. But these guys in the biocon suits... what the fuck gives here?”
“He’s right, sir,” Stein chimed in. “We’re not stupid. We know how to keep our mouths shut. Just do the job and move on. But it’s different this time. I mean, what do these people have that makes them so damn dangerous? Is it a disease or something they got in the war? And if it is—”
“If it is,” McKenna finished for him, “if it is, then how contagious is it? I mean, shouldn’t we be wearing that HAZMAT gear, too?”
Cave nodded slowly. He wanted to tell them both that they were breaching protocol, that they were compromising a highly classified operation. That they were treading in shit so deep that they might drown at any moment.
But he didn’t.
Because he knew exactly how they felt.
“Listen, boys. I don’t know much more about this business than you do. But you’re completely safe. You’ve got my word on that.”
Stein and McKenna looked at each other, then at Cave. They didn’t look convinced.
Cave sighed. “The Old Man assured me that if we follow proper procedure, we’d have nothing to worry about. Whatever you might think of him, I tell you that you can trust him. He might act like an uppity prick, but he’s on the level.” He shrugged. “Besides, do you think if there was any danger of contagion the Old Man would show up dressed in street clothes? Don’t you think he’d be wearing a rubber suit too?”
They still didn’t look satisfied; not really.
“Yeah, but he didn’t handle those bodies, boss. We did,” McKenna said.
“There’s no danger,” Cave affirmed. “You’re just going to have to take my word for it.”
“I guess we don’t have a choice,” Stein said hopelessly.
Cave smirked. “Oh, but you do, you do. You can get out right now, boys, if that’s what you want.” He looked from Stein to McKenna. “Go ahead. Don’t worry, this ain’t the fucking X-Files or some such shit. Nobody’s gonna kill you for what you know. Of course...”
“What?” they both said.
“If the Company doesn’t think they can trust you, that you might betray your loyalty oath, that you don’t deserve the security classification they stamped on your ass, they might have to tuck you away somewhere for a while.” He sighed. “But it won’t be too bad, boys. They’ll just tuck you away in one of their mountain hideaways. There’s a nice one out in Utah, I hear. They call it The Resort. Anything you want, you get. Of course…they’ll have to debrief for about eighteen hours a day while you squat in a dark cell so small you can’t stretch your legs or even stand up. But after a few months or a few years they’ll let you out. By the time they’re through with your sorry asses you won’t remember any of this, let alone your own mother’s fucking name or whether you’re animal, v
egetable, or mineral. Don’t worry, though, they’ll program you with a whole new personality. That’s how they retire guys like you.”
Stein said, “Wait a minute. Unlike you, sir, we don’t work for the Company. We’re private contractors, remember? We work for XI.”
“That’s right, boss,” McKenna chipped in.
Cave lit a cigarette and laughed. “Now don’t play stupid, boys. Who do you think owns XI?”
Stein said nothing. He’d suspected it as did many but here was confirmation—XI was a CIA proprietary.
“All right, all right,” McKenna sighed. “Enough said.”
“Stein?”
“Let’s do it.”
“Good. Because you’ve both wasted enough of my time. Let’s not have this conversation again. I’m gonna let you guys get away with this and it won’t go in your file. But next time...”
Stein said, “Let’s get to work already.”
Cave smiled, satisfied.
They made their way casually to apartment #6. It was the residence of another Iraqi vet. Beyond that, he didn’t know much. And truth be told, it was probably much better that way. When they got to the door, they all heard it—some kind of crazy howling, a loud moaning, a gobbling sound.
McKenna looked to Stein. His eyes were beady and staring. McKenna knew that look: it was fear. He knew it real well, because he was feeling it right then himself. His belly was full of cold, crawling snakes.
“The door,” Cave said, an edge to his voice. “Open it.”
McKenna licked his salty lips with a dry tongue. Carefully, quietly, he tried it. It was open. He pushed it in and all three men went in quickly, moving in a prearranged formation. One man slipping forward, covered by the other two. Then the next man and the next. Repeating.
The moaning sounds had stopped.
The dread silence was almost worse.
It wasn’t a bad place. Nice furniture, potted plants, prints by Van Gogh and Monet on the walls. A huge oak entertainment center with a widescreen TV, Blu-ray player, a few books. The carpet was a butterscotch in color, deep and plush as summer moss. Everything looked new, expensive, and in its proper place. And that’s why none of it made any goddamn sense. A person with this kind of taste, this kind of time spent decorating and arranging... they just didn’t allow their place to smell like this.
And the place really stank.
It was a heavy, pungent odor, a decaying smell like a seething jungle swamp clogged with rotting vegetation.
“Jesus,” McKenna said, turning away.
“Like a death camp,” Cave said without a trace of humor. From the look on his face, both men were pretty sure he knew what he was talking about.
Then they heard a sound: a wet, awful slithering.
Cave nodded and Stein moved towards it, McKenna at his heels. Cave followed. All three men had their automatics out. They were all sweating, uneasy. It was hot in there... but not that hot. The rain slickers and leather driving gloves didn’t help much.
On the bed they saw two bodies.
At first it looked like one... but then they separated.
“Sonofabitch,” Stein gasped. “What the fuck is that?”
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA:
CIA CRISIS CENTER
7:46 P.M.
The more DCI Pershing thought about it, the better it sounded.
It was the mark of a superior man that could turn an ugly, adverse situation to his advantage. And Robert Pershing was such a man. His beginnings were humble: a three-room farmhouse in northern Wisconsin. But Pershing hadn’t been content to starve and struggle like his father and mother. He studied hard and was accepted to West Point. He graduated in the top ten percent of his class. In the early 1980s, he’d been a military advisor in Beirut and Honduras. Following that, he’d joined the CIA and was appointed to the Special Activities Division’s Political Action Group. As a SAD/PAG paramilitary officer, he planned and executed the downfall of various enemy states and individuals (all without ever leaving his desk). He returned to Beirut in ‘86 as the Station Chief in the years following the abduction and murder of William Buckley. It had been a struggle from then until now. And Pershing bore the battle scars of ambition—two failed marriages, three children who wanted very little to do with him, innumerable enemies. When you had ambitions, godly aspirations, you collected enemies like a dog collects ticks.
Pershing couldn’t count all the people on five hands, let alone two, that he’d shit on, coerced, and even blackmailed to get where he was today. But if it had taught him anything, it was to spot opportunity.
According to his calculations and those of his closest aides, the country was fucked.
Oh, the BioGen dilemma could be controlled… possibly… but it was seriously unlikely that that general populace wouldn’t find out about it. The infestation would cause widespread panic. People would lose faith in their leaders.
They would want someone strong and capable.
In the resulting maelstrom, Pershing could be that man.
It wouldn’t be easy, of course.
It would mean plot, subplot, and counterplot.
It would mean that when the country was plunged into anarchy, men in power would have to be removed by force. It would mean a military coup. A violent, revolutionary takeover of the government.
Pershing had been thinking about this for a long time.
In the coming weeks, the opportunity would be coming.
But was he up to it?
Did he have the balls, the audacity, to even consider usurping the most powerful man in the world? Did he dare to think that he could seize control via military overthrow of the United States? After all, this was the USA he was thinking of, not some Third World banana republic. America wasn’t some mismanaged, backward hellhole in Central America or Africa. Had it been, the entire thing would have been fairly simple. Pershing was an old hand at such subterfuge.
In order to do what had to be done, a few things would have to happen. The first was that the current situation—the fallout from BioGen—would have to get very bad. The second was that the situation would have to deteriorate sufficiently enough to cause mass panic and confusion. When that happened, when people lost complete faith in their leader, when the country teetered on the edge of revolution, when rioting and clashes between police and civilians became commonplace and your average Joe had his civil rights violated on a daily basis... then, then there was a good chance for a coup.
Pershing had been thinking of such a coup for years.
And why not? In his job he had planned and executed many such insurrections for more than one President. What this one would need, as all usually do, would be the support of the military. Without it, it was hopeless. There was no way Pershing could take the country with the limited paramilitary resources of the Special Activities Center. Three or four hundred SAC/SOG operators bolsters by CT units could realistically seize key seats of power in the country, but they could not hold them. The moment it happened, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and CENTCOM would qualify the SOG teams as saboteurs and enemy combatants and they’d be put down by the military and police.
No, if that’s all Pershing had, his revolution would die quickly. The regular military would crush them. Counterterrorist teams like Delta Force and SEAL Team 6 would be mobilized instantly. Although such groups were prevented by the constitution from being deployed domestically, the President or his replacement would find a way. A simple slash of the pen.
No, he had to have support.
There were plenty of old hard-liners in the military’s command structure who despised the country’s half-assed leadership. They would be the ones to work on when the time came, as well as their counterparts in the police and intelligence communities. And by that time, the seat of power would already be seized.
The bottom line was this. Once the President and his cabinet were eliminated, the power vacuum would be filled by Pershing and his associates. They would cut off the head of one snake and graft
another onto its writhing body and the vacuum would be sealed.
Pershing smiled.
It was possible. It certainly was. He would support VanderMissen and Sleshing for the moment. He would turn over some Emergency Response Teams. And they would play along... until he gave the order for things to begin. And then everyone involved with BioGen (save himself) would be the first to go.
The time was coming.
He began looking over his list of names.
EAST CHICAGO, INDIANA: MARKTOWN
7:56 P.M.
Stein, like McKenna, had been through the shit.
He’d been playing the game for twenty-odd years, first in the Army, then for the DEA, and now with Blackpool/XI. He’d seen dead men before. He’d seen them blown piecemeal by grenades, artillery, airstrikes. Seen them ripped in half by machine gun fire. Seen guys get their throats slit, their heads cut off by machetes. He’d seen men beaten to death with baseball bats, tortured, skinned, turned to blackened husks by napalm. He’d seen mutilations of every possible kind. He’d seen human wave attacks reduced to human pulp by heavy machine guns and airburst shells.
In his way of thinking, you could not truly understand the human condition until you saw the wreckage of war firsthand, until you’d smelled death and tasted its blackness in your mouth. Until you looked down the smoking barrel of failed diplomacy and saw death staring lividly back at you. Then, and only then, would you know the sort of hell on earth men had made of their Eden.
And having seen it, he was perfectly fatalistic in every way.
Just like every other man or woman who’d been in combat.
No flag-waving, no patriotism, no political agendas, just death laid raw. That’s what life was, he knew: a hand reaching towards the grave.
