CJ understood his angst. The same savages who had kidnapped Abby were threatening Missy and Matthew, and he had to forcibly suppress his empathy. He’d come here to befriend Bradley in order to uncover evidence of Russia collusion—evidence that would allow him to sign Conn’s affidavit without committing perjury.
He felt torn, spying on a fellow Soldier, a brother-in-arms, but CJ had to put his family first; and if Bradley Webber really was a traitor, CJ had a duty to expose him.
I swore to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic ... But what if Webber’s not in league with Vladislav Volkov? Do I bear false witness against a patriot? Or doom my family to the wrath of The Consortium?
Conflicted, CJ strolled around the perimeter of the command post. Off-duty volunteers from all branches were adding their skills to the search. Abby Webber wasn’t just the President’s daughter; she was a member of the military brotherhood.
Does she know about Bradley’s interactions with Volkov?
Could a wife be that oblivious ...? Maybe.
A wife who is a TEradS Sniper ...? Definitely not.
If the allegations are true, that Volkov helped get Murphy elected, Abby had to be in on it. Could her kidnapping be a publicity stunt to gain sympathy? An engineered distraction to change the media narrative?
But if The Consortium is after Webber, and Webber is working with Volkov, then Volkov must be working AGAINST The Consortium. Whose side do I take then?
Befuddled and eager to delay his unofficial spy mission, CJ halted beside a traffic light whose steel pole was plastered with posters.
What is Operation Mockingbird?
What is the Smith-Mundt Act?
When was it “modernized?”
Why?
Expand your thinking.
Patriot Anon
CJ extracted his Chi-phone and executed a series of Gaggle searches.
Operation Mockingbird was a CIA program that manipulated the news media for propaganda purposes ... The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 prevented the government from using propaganda against the American people ... And that provision was rescinded in 2012.
Our government granted themselves permission to lie to us? CJ thought. What the hell?
Is that why the media glorify Anti-Ty as peaceful protestors and ignore their violence?
The Consortium’s got to be tied into this somehow. Are they bribing reporters? Bullying them? Blackmailing them?
The smoldering knot of anxiety in his gut ignited into a firestorm.
Get back on task, he told himself, marching toward Bradley Webber. Protect Missy and Matthew; unearth the truth.
The Sniper’s thumb was lovingly stroking a lock of blonde hair while a hodgepodge of emotions played over his face: dismay, frustration, helplessness, and anger.
“How’re you holding up, brother?” CJ asked, extending his hand.
“Hey, Wingnut. Long time, no see,” Bradley said, reciprocating. “I’d be better if they’d let me join the search teams. Standing here, doing nothing ... It’s killing me.”
“I hear you. Do they have any decent leads?”
Bradley pocketed the braided hair and folded his arms across his chest as if holding himself together. “They found her shoes inside a parking garage. A half-hour loop was patched into the satellite footage to hide her abduction.”
“Listen, brother,” CJ said, scratching the underside of his chin. “I’ve had a few run-ins with The Consortium. I know what you’re going through, and if there is anything I can do, just say the word. I’m here for you.”
“Thanks, that means a lot.”
“Master Sergeant Webber ...? I have a message for you.”
CJ pivoted toward the voice and, seeing that the Private was presenting the Sniper with a note, he nonchalantly maneuvered to Bradley’s side to steal a glimpse.
“What the hell is that?” CJ asked, biting back a grin. “Are those Russian characters?”
24
District Three, Washington, D.C.
BRADLEY SURVEYED THE jumble of letters, thoughts spiraling. His mind vaulted back to another hand-delivered letter, a bogus obituary for Abby.
Is this message from the assholes who launched that RPG into her apartment?
Are they the ones who abducted her?
Bradley gawked at the Russian characters and, pulse thumping, he fished a BiC from the pen pocket of his BDUs and scribbled:
First column = З a Π a Д = zapad = west
Last column = c e B e P = sever = north
“I think this matrix contains hidden coordinates.” A chill blitzed his nervous system and converged on his heart.
God, don’t let this be the location of her dead body.
“I didn’t know you spoke Russian,” CJ said, suspicion skittering in his tone.
He thinks I’m colluding with Russia, Bradley thought.
Is this a Crooked Carter Sidney setup? Bogus evidence of communications between me and Volkov?
Or is it really from Volkov?
“I know a few Russian words, mainly directional terms,” Bradley said, rebutting CJ’s veiled accusation. “And no, I’m not a foreign agent or a traitor.”
The words consider yourself activated screamed through his head.
Did Volkov kidnap Abby to coerce cooperation? Why bother when he can control me with the owl?
“I never meant to imply that,” CJ apologized then abruptly changed the subject. “So how are you going to derive numerical coordinates from a word find?”
“Good question.” Bradley skimmed the horizontal rows, looking for words and came up empty.
Columns, not rows, he thought, drawing boxes around groups of letters.
Then he transcribed the vertical columns into a horizontal structure.
The Spirit Of
Springfield
Lis?
Or Li?
Damn! It doesn’t work on the second half of the matrix. Gnawing on the end of his pen, he searched for diagonal words; nothing. Reversed right to left rows; nothing; Right to left columns; paydirt!
Twelfth Prime
Special
Letters
“If letters is plural, it’s L-I; definitely not L-I-S,” Bradley muttered, speaking more to himself than CJ. “There’s got to be a number associated with each of these phrases.”
“You mean like the spirit of seventy-six?”
“Exactly!” Bradley jotted it down. “And the twelfth prime number is thirty-seven.”
“How do you know that off the top of your head?”
Bradley paused, and a sense of déjà vu prickled along his backbone.
Volkov’s owl!
Certain that CJ would never believe the truth, he said, “I had an awesome math teacher ... oh, and Springfield is a gun, .45 caliber.”
“Not necessarily,” Wingnut argued. “Springfield makes a .40 cal and a 9mm.”
“Volkov had a Springfield .45 during my captivity. And special, that could be a gun reference too. As in a thirty-eight special.”
“And there are twenty-six letters in the alphabet,” CJ offered. “If it’s English, that is. How many in the Russian alphabet?”
“Thirty-three. But I’d go with English since it’s the majority.”
“What the hell is L-I?” the Sniper continued, thinking aloud. “L is the twelfth letter; I is the ninth; so twenty-one?” For some reason it didn’t feel right.
“Capital L, capital I,” CJ said. “That could be a Roman numeral. Isn’t L twenty?”
“No, it’s fifty, which means LI is fifty-one. So the coordinates are ... north 37 degrees, 38 minutes, 26 seconds ... and west 76 degrees, 45 minutes, 51 seconds. I need to find out where this is. You have Gaggle Earth on that unauthorized Chi-phone?”
“Negative.”
Muttering under his breath, Bradley approached the commander tasked with the search, tore off the bottom corner of the paper, and said, “We need to check these coordinates.” Realizing his tone came out more l
ike an order than a request, he belatedly added, “I believe Abby is being held there, sir.”
The Colonel gave him a long stare, then handed off the paper to a computer jockey. “Corporal, can you pinpoint the location of these coordinates?”
I never would’ve gotten away with that if Kyle Murphy wasn’t my father-in-law, Bradley thought.
The Corporal tapped at his keyboard, squinted at the monitor, then said, “It’s west of Fredericksburg, Virginia.”
The Colonel frowned. “With the Potomac Bridge crossings out that would be a 150-mile drive. They couldn’t have gotten that far during the satellite blackout.”
“But what if the kidnappers had access to a boat?” Bradley demanded.
“NSA has already vetted all river and air traffic,” the Colonel insisted.
“Sir, can you just take a look?”
The Colonel’s posture shifted. Shoulders back, chest puffed, he said, “I’m not pulling a team out of a high probability area in order to send them on a wild-goose chase.”
“Then send me and my buddy,” Bradley pressed on. “He’s a chopper pilot.”
The Colonel’s eyebrows pinched. His patience and compassion were dwindling. “Son, I know you’re worried about your wife, but I’m in charge of this operation.”
Bradley uttered a perfunctory, “Thank you, sir,” snatched the coordinates from the Corporal’s hand and stalked away.
“Where are you going?” CJ asked, trailing after him.
“To find my wife!”
“Come on, Bradley. You could be walking into a trap.”
Doubtful, he thought, breaking into a sprint. If Volkov wanted me as a hostage, he could’ve used the owl to abduct me at the train station ... Did the crazy general hack into The Consortium’s servers to locate Abby? Why would he help me? What’s in it for him?
“Tell me those coordinates are not from Volkov,” CJ called after him.
Bradley hoisted a one-finger salute and hastened his stride, running west.
How the hell am I going to get across the Potomac River?
22
West of Fredericksburg, Virginia
ABBY SCURRIED THROUGH the aisle of the macabre church. The sanctuary was draped with red and black fabric, and candelabras illuminated a demonic-looking owl. She’d awakened to talk of Dull Care and a satanic sex ritual, unsure what had happened to her.
Did that pervert behind the demon mask rape me while I was unconscious?
Abby’s nose ached and her mouth was cotton dry, but the rest of her body seemed okay.
Am I numb from that sedative Leezuh gave me?
And where IS that double-crossing Secret Service agent?
Bare feet padding against hardwood, Abby approached a floor-standing candelabra. Its base consisted of intertwining serpents, each fanged mouth spitting forth a blood-red candle. Irreverently, she extinguished all six flames and removed the wax cylinders; then, swinging the four-foot iron sculpture like a baseball bat, she shattered a gothic stained-glass window.
The sound lured Agent Peters into the nave, handgun extended in front of him.
Abby swung the candelabra again, striking his wrist.
The traitor cried out in pain.
His SIG Sauer P229 bounded against the floor and skidded beneath the pews. She delivered a secondary, jabbing blow to knock him backward, but the agent latched onto the base of the metal sculpture and jerked her toward him.
Barefoot and lacking the traction to win a tug-of-war, she waited for Peters to yank the candelabra again; then let go.
He plumped onto his backside, moaning and cursing.
Abby dove beneath a pew and scrambled for the handgun.
The candelabra crashed down, splintering the wooden bench above her head. Her fingers tightened around the SIG Sauer, and she rolled onto her back, praying that the slide hadn’t been damaged.
Peters raised the iron sculpture, wielding it like a sledgehammer, and Abby unloaded a three-round burst into his chest. The candelabra slipped from his grasp, smashed against the wooden pews across the aisle, and bounded onto the hardwood floor. Then the agent melted into a treasonous pile of pinstriped wool.
Expecting enemy sentries to investigate the gunshots, Abby took up a defensive position.
Minutes elapsed.
Where’s Leezuh? Is she waiting outside to ambush me?
Abby edged closer to Peters, keeping watch over the doorway, and extracted his cellphone from the breast pocket of his suit jacket.
Locked, damn it! And it’s not facial recognition.
Her kidnapper’s mouth was hanging open as if expelling a horrific scream. His lifeless eyes were fixed on a pool of his own blood.
Can’t get the password out of him, she thought, cramming the phone into her pocket.
Leery of the elusive Agent Leezuh, Abby exited the church through a basement window and made a crouched run for a stand of trees. Frozen weeds crunched underfoot. Her heart was drumming, and she surveyed the darkness, scanning for threats.
It was a cloudy night with no moon, no stars to navigate by, and her breath materialized in the frosty air like a ghostly apparition.
Moloch and satanic rituals, she thought, teeth chattering. If I disclose those details, will people write me off as a nutcase?
Abby trudged through the barren countryside for an hour without seeing any signs of civilization. The darkness was unending; the bitter night air, unrelenting; and her bare feet had progressed from cold, to sore, to numb. Then she stopped shivering—a sure sign of hypothermia.
I need to find shelter, Abby thought, squinting into the distance. Is that a light in the window of that building? Or a mirage?
The single-story structure looked like a condemned juvenile home—partially boarded windows, gray-painted brick, and a solid steel door—but a sign identified it as an orphanage.
A crappy building in the middle of nowhere? she thought, advancing on feet that felt like blocks of ice. How do they get supplies? And potable water?
Dozens of orphanages had sprung up since the EMP, most populated with children whose parents had been drafted into military service, killed by Alameda fever, or slaughtered by terrorists.
Kids like Nikki and Billy, she thought, ascending the creaking wooden steps. Abby secured the frigid SIG Sauer at the small of her back then rapped her knuckles against the steel door.
A man bearing a battery-powered lantern greeted her. “Can I help you, my child?”
Dressed in black and wearing a clerical collar, he had strange inky-looking eyes, all pupils with no irises, and for a split second, his complexion looked scaly, almost lizardlike.
A trick of the light? she wondered, blinking. Or a side effect from the sedative?
“I was won-nering,” Abby said, her words slurred by frozen, unresponsive lips, “can I use-soor phone?”
“Of course. Of course. Come in out of the cold.”
The sixty-degree air felt balmy and, fleetingly, Abby contemplated how they were heating the building. She hadn’t heard any generators.
But if they have electric, why does he have a battery-powered lantern?
“I’m Father Ibis,” he said, locking the steel door.
Abby introduced herself as Sergeant Webber and followed him through a dimly lit corridor that branched off in two directions. Her pious host ushered her to the right, jockeying like a basketball player guarding an opponent, and his behavior aroused suspicion.
Peeking to the left, Abby thought, Is that a man lurking in the shadows, clutching a long gun? Or are my eyes playing tricks again?
Faint cries wafted into the hallway, each resonating with pain and fear.
“Poor dears,” Father Ibis said. “Most orphans suffer from nightmares, reliving the loss of their parents.”
Abby glanced over her shoulder. A gunman was trailing two yards behind, and an intense sensation of dread blossomed.
This isn’t really an orphanage. I need to get out of here.
The squeak of
a hinge drew her attention to a second armed guard.
Shit, I’m surroun—
Her face slammed against the plaster wall, she heard a bony thunk, and a sharp pain radiated through her skull.
Blood streamed from Abby’s nose, and she felt momentarily disoriented.
The gun ...
As she reached for the weapon, beefy hands restrained her wrists. Knees thrust against the backs of her thighs, pinning them against the wall, then the creepy priest leaned in, close enough for her to feel his breath against the nape of her neck.
“Windsor may have failed to deliver you into my custody, Abby,” he hissed, retrieving the SIG Sauer from the waistband of her skirt. “But Moloch always prevails. The midnight ritual will proceed, right on schedule ...”
23
District Nine, California
MISSY LOVE HUGGED her son tighter. She and Tilli were holed up inside the laundry chute while a cyclone of destruction raged around them. Thuds, crashes, the ksssh of shattering glass—Night Sector was ransacking the house; and after witnessing the massacre at the Odessa polling station, Missy knew they would make good on their threat to set the house ablaze.
Will they be waiting outside with crowbars? Ready to beat us to death?
The words burn or bleed screamed through her memory.
When the crunch of heavy footsteps finally subsided and the soldiers’ voices grew distant, Missy handed off her slumbering son to Tilli and peeked from beneath the towels. The bathroom was empty.
Clambering from the laundry chute, she whispered, “I’m going to see if they’ve gone.”
Mind Power- America Awakens Page 9
