Mind Power- America Awakens

by Diane Matousek Schnabel

“You sure you want to do this?” CJ hollered over the whumping rotors.

  Bradley slung the rifle strap over his shoulder, offered a thumbs-up gesture, and stepped onto the helicopter’s landing skid. He wove the rope between his boots in a lateral S-shape, under the left foot and over the right, a foot-locking technique that would act as a brake and allow him to control his speed as he fast-roped to the ground.

  Offering a silent prayer, he pushed back from the landing skid, and gravity pulled him downward through the frigid night. The thin rope and lack of gloves generated friction burns on his hands, and he hit the forest floor with too much velocity, sending an unpleasant jolt from his ankles through his knees and into his spine.

  Second time tonight I got away with doing something stupid, he thought. I’d better not press my luck.

  Bradley plucked a Ka-Bar knife from the backpack, sliced the rope to detach the survival gear, and waved CJ off.

  Once the noisy chopper retreated to the north, he shouldered the backpack and ventured through the woods, calling out to Abby.

  She responded, “Drop the rifle!”

  “Abby, it’s me, Bradley!”

  A warning shot zinged two feet above his head and thunked into a tree trunk. He hit the dirt, stunned and annoyed, but his irritation dissolved quickly.

  She’s amped up on adrenaline, he thought. And God only knows what those bastards put her through. I need to prove my identity.

  “Hey, Squirt ... it’s just me ... Sexy!” he shouted, using their Sugar Lake nicknames. “Do you remember when your dad walked into the lanai and caught us?”

  “Oh my God, it’s really you!”

  Bradley fished a flashlight from the backpack and walked toward her voice. As she emerged from behind an evergreen, his heart soared then abruptly plummeted. Her nose was swollen and an angry bruise arced beneath her right eye. Abby’s dress blues were tattered. The jacket was missing buttons, and the torn skirt hung crooked on her hips.

  Bradley extended his arms, and she lunged into his embrace.

  “Are you hurt?” he whispered, holding her tight against him. “I have a first aid kit in my bag.”

  Abby buried her face into his chest, and Bradley rested his cheek atop her head, jaw grinding to hold back emotion. He wanted desperately to fix this, to heal her bruises, to erase the trauma; and the fact that he couldn’t, made him feel inept and useless.

  “You kicked some serious ass tonight,” he said, rubbing her back reassuringly.

  “They ...”

  Her voice broke, and the pain and hesitation in that single syllable was like a spear impaling Bradley’s chest.

  “... They stripped off my clothes and shackled me to a pentagram for some kind of satanic sex ritual ...”

  Sex ritual? Did those bastards rape her?

  The possibility set off a seismic wave of anger inside Bradley. Fury radiated through his core, hot and vengeful. He wanted to beat those assholes to a bloody pulp; wanted to take a potato peeler to their skin and soak them in rubbing alcohol.

  “... Ibis, the maniacal priest; he was going to brand me with a satanic pentagram.”

  “Was going to?” Bradley repeated. “As in did not? How the hell did you manage to get out of there?”

  “An owl alighted on the windowsill, and, suddenly, Ibis was convinced that he was possessed by some demon called Moloch. He went into a bizarre trance and shot both his henchmen.”

  “Seriously?”

  “It gets even weirder,” Abby told him. “Then Ibis unlocked all the restraints, told me to run for my life, and surrendered his rifle. I was so stunned it didn’t register right away, and he just stood there, patiently waiting for me to shoot him.”

  “So he didn’t—” Bradley halted, groping for a phrase that wouldn’t sound callous. “Didn’t complete the ritual?”

  “No ... I swear, it was the creepiest miracle ever. And as I was bolting from the room, Ibis moans, ‘Moloch, why have you forsaken me?’ Then this disembodied, booming, wrath-of-God kind of voice replied, ‘I’m not Moloch, you sick fuck!’ ”

  27

  District Three, Washington, D.C.

  VICE PRESIDENT RYAN Andrews paced the Yellow Oval Room. The second-floor parlor was part of the White House residence, the very room where Franklin D. Roosevelt had learned of the infamous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

  Was Kyle destined to receive horrific news here as well?

  Arms barricading his chest, the newly sworn-in President stood silently, staring through the swing-sash door that led to the Truman Balcony.

  Ryan admired his courage, standing up to The Consortium despite his daughter’s abduction. Every soldier contemplated priorities, but no one truly knew what he would do until put to the test.

  He glanced at Franny, dozing on the sage-green sofa, exquisite and exhausted at eight months pregnant.

  Would I have had the guts to do the same? Ryan asked himself.

  Jessie was asleep in the master bedroom, courtesy of a mild sedative administered by the White House physician. She’d already been through so much, wrongly burying her daughter not even a year ago.

  That has to intensify the horror of the abduction, Ryan thought. I hope the Marines find Abby before Jessie awakens.

  His mind circled back to Rockenfeld’s threat and Bradley’s dire intel about the fourteenth of February.

  Why would The Consortium abduct Abby if their new mind-control weapon goes live in twenty-five days? Why aren’t they content to run out the clock? And—

  The door leading to the Center Hall burst open, derailing Ryan’s thought, and Admiral Rone marched into the room. “Abby’s been rescued.”

  “Thank God!” Kyle wheeled around, shoulders relaxing, a hint of color seeping into his gray complexion. “Where is she? I need to see her.”

  “A helo is en route to the White House.”

  “She’s okay?” Kyle sputtered. “They didn’t hurt her?”

  “No serious injuries. Otherwise they’d be flying her to Walter Reed.” The Admiral briefed them on two incidents, one at a church, another at an orphanage.

  “... The Marines rescued seventeen children, ages twelve to fifteen, who were chained up like dogs. Three dead men at the scene: two gangbangers for muscle and a priest running the show. It appears as though Abby stumbled into a sex-trafficking operation.”

  “Those bastards are pimping out American teens?” Ryan asked.

  Sadness dulled the fire in Rone’s brown eyes. “Unfortunately, this isn’t a new tactic. Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, eight thousand children went missing.”

  Outrage, empathy, and a craving for justice were boiling inside Ryan.

  Those poor kids, he thought. Forced into a life of sex slavery—this has The Consortium’s fingerprints all over it.

  Kyle’s face was a beet-red mask of indignation; his clenched fists were perched on his hips. “Can I order the inspection of all orphanages, nationwide?”

  “Mr. President,” Rone said, a guilty smile touching his lips. “An executive order declaring a human-trafficking emergency is being drawn up and TEradS teams are staging as we speak.”

  Nostalgia hollowed out a cavern, deep in Ryan’s gut. He missed his guys, missed being on the ground, making things happen.

  Stop looking back, he scolded himself. “Hey, Rone, did you find anything on that thumb drive?”

  The Admiral’s hand plunged into his pocket and emerged with Bradley’s train station prize. “One encrypted file. Wizards are working on it, but it’s likely to take a while. Someone used sophisticated, cutting-edge encryption.”

  “Volkov?” Ryan asked.

  “Unclear, but the drive must contain something important,” Rone continued. “No reason to protect open-source data.”

  “Maybe it’ll shed some light on The Consortium’s plan for February fourteenth,” Ryan said, thinking aloud.

  The Admiral’s eyebrows tightened, and he cleared his throat, heralding bad news. “We’ve picked up chat
ter regarding an artificial-intelligence drone currently in development. It will use facial recognition for targeting, will be small enough to fit in your palm, and will carry three grams of explosives. So when it literally lands on your head, it can fire a projectile into your skull and turn your brain into scrambled eggs.”

  Kyle’s bloodshot eyes widened in horror. “A pocket-sized flying terminator?”

  “And they’ll be programmed to function as part of a swarm.”

  “Can the Warlocks disable these drones?” Ryan asked.

  “Negative,” Rone said, his voice thick with frustration. “At present, Warlocks technology is ineffective against pressure sensors, infrared triggers, and hard-wired devices. But according to the chatter, these flying terminators are at least a year from production.”

  “Bradley believes the February fourteenth weapon is a mind-control device,” Ryan said. “A next-generation blackbird.”

  Kyle expelled an exasperated sigh. “Yet another technological Frankenstein paid for with American tax dollars. How the hell are we supposed to locate and destroy something that we can’t even identify?”

  “I’ve got a suggestion,” Rone said, an ominous warning in his voice, “but you’re not going to like it ...”

  28

  District Three, Washington, D.C.

  BRADLEY TOOK A LONG, hot shower, donned a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt, then skulked into the hallway. After the joyous reunion, Kyle had invited him to spend the night at the White House—contingent upon separate sleeping quarters.

  “My house, my rules,” he’d said, reminding Bradley that their marriage was unofficial.

  Is Kyle afraid of a scandal? he wondered. Or worried that I won’t make good on my promise to marry Abby?

  He knocked lightly then peeked into the Lincoln Bedroom. Abby was still inside the en suite bathroom, most likely soaking her sore muscles in the antique claw-foot tub.

  This feels more like a museum than a house, he thought, ambling inside. A busy diamond-checked rug, in heady hues of emerald, gold, and purple, stretched wall-to-wall and mimicked the pattern of the creamy wallpaper. The bed boasted a six-foot carved headboard, and a gilded cornice shaped like a kingly crown hung above it, festooned with regal purple fabric.

  A cellphone was lying on a marble-topped coffee table. Did Abby seize it from her captors? Why didn’t she turn it over as evidence?

  Bradley sank down onto an uncomfortable, camel-backed settee and examined it. The phone had been used as a video camera, and he viewed the footage of his naked wife bound to a pentagram. Anger blazed through his core, scorching and consuming, leaving in its wake a confounding sense of gratitude.

  Volkov saved Abby from being raped and maimed, he thought. How can I possibly kill the son of a bitch?

  Bradley cringed at the notion of the love of his life living in squalor like the prisoners at that orphanage. The teens had been sleeping on filthy mattresses, using buckets in lieu of toilets. They’d been branded with pentagrams, beaten, and raped with the aim of breaking their minds, in preparation for a life of sexual servitude.

  Experimentation into mind control had begun in concentration camps, under the direction of scientists, and evolved into two distinct varieties: the ancient satanic method that relied on trauma to shatter the mind into reprogrammable “alters”; and the technological method that Bradley had experienced.

  Damn it! How do I know all this ...? And what is Volkov turning me into?

  As he returned the phone to the coffee table, the bathroom door creaked open, and Abby emerged wrapped in a luxurious white towel. Surprise registered in her deep-blue eyes, her cheeks flushed; then flashing a flirty smile, she scurried toward him.

  Bradley rose from the couch, arms extended, and held her tight, thanking God—again—that she’d survived the ordeal with just a swollen nose and a few bruises.

  Abby began planting a trail of kisses along his chin, each one more sensual, more seductive. The warmth of her breath, the wetness of her tongue, the feel of her nearly naked body pressing against his nylon gym shorts—she was arousing thoughts and urges that Bradley was struggling to suppress.

  Her lips captured his in a long, slow kiss that progressed from tender to tantalizing to demanding, and Bradley pulled back. Forehead resting against hers, he croaked, “Are you sure? After what happened? I mean, what almost happened?”

  “I refuse to let them ruin our time together,” Abby said, her voice velvety and thrumming with emotion. “God only knows when I’ll see you again.” She wrenched his T-shirt up over his head. The towel dropped to the floor, and she resumed their passionate kiss. Her hands tugged at his gym shorts, forcing them lower until they slipped to his ankles, then Bradley’s self control disintegrated.

  Gripping her backside, he lifted her. Abby’s legs tightened around his waist, and his entire body began to throb with anticipation. Bradley carried her to the oversized Lincoln bed, and hovered over her, kissing and caressing and fondling until the craving became unbearable.

  Abby’s fingers raked his hair; her hips ground against him; and this time, making love to her was even more intense, more intimate, more satisfying.

  Because he’d almost lost her? Because it was an emotional release? Or because there was nothing between them? A thought flickered, but distant consequences couldn’t compete with the heightened sensations.

  Abby moaned against his lips, and Bradley collapsed, panting. He lay there for several minutes, exhausted and content, before rolling onto his back and pulling Abby on top of him. A hand stroking her damp hair, he whispered, “What do you say, we find a justice of the peace tomorrow and get married?”

  Her swollen nose crinkled, causing her to wince. “Every bride’s dream: a face full of bruises on her wedding day. And I doubt you’ll have time, anyway.”

  A sense of foreboding rumbled through Bradley. Admiral Rone had scheduled a drug-assisted “interview” in hopes of extracting more information regarding the February fourteenth weapon.

  “I can’t believe my dad is subjecting you to interrogation,” Abby griped.

  “He’s not,” Bradley said. “Your dad vetoed the idea, then Rone asked me to volunteer.”

  Will the interrogation reveal that I disclosed sensitive information? That I already betrayed my country?

  Deciding that Abby needed to understand the scope of the threat posed by the owl, Bradley recounted his experiences—the voices, the hallucinations, the jumping jacks, the downloaded knowledge—and her brow furrowed deeper with each subsequent statement.

  “How do you know that wasn’t just a really strange dream?” she asked.

  Bradley recoiled at the disbelief in her tone. “Did you dream the blackbird telling you to cut yourself?”

  “That was just voice projection—”

  “No. The blackbird manipulated your emotions too. And the owl is just the next generation.”

  Abby rolled off his chest, onto her side, and propped an elbow beneath her head. “What if Volkov injected some classified drug into that intravenous line? A weapon that needed to be kept secret? He could be using the owl as disinformation.”

  “Why is a brain-to-computer interface so difficult for everybody to accept?” he asked, irritation spilling into his tone. “Before the pulse, we had technology that allowed electrical impulses from the brain to control prosthetics—”

  “Because they’re both hardwired, inside the same body.”

  “Not always,” Bradley told her. “There was an experiment at the University of Washington a few years back. Using magnetic stimulation coils, one researcher’s brain was able to make another researcher’s index finger hit the fire button of a video game. The electrical impulses traveled from brain-one to Internet to brain-two in order to remotely control the limb. And just like phones and the Internet, the owl made the jump to wireless transmission.”

  Abby’s lips pursed in contemplation, a partial pout that made him smile.

  “But how would an EMF wave know
which area of the brain to stimulate?”

  “Same reason your eyes don’t see sounds and your ears don’t hear colors. The frequencies are different.”

  Frustration and worry settled over her expression. “I think Volkov did a number on your mind.”

  “Come on, Abby. The guy gave me the coordinates where you were being held.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that Volkov might’ve had the coordinates because he orchestrated my abduction? To manipulate you into trusting him?”

  Bradley’s head shook vehemently. “The owl made Ibis shoot his henchmen and let you go. Volkov saved you from ...” His voice trailed off, and he swallowed hard to clear the emotion from his throat.

  Abby rested a palm against his cheek. Her thumb caressed his upper lip in a gesture that came across more condescending than affectionate. “Okay, let’s assume you’re right and that’s all true, why did Volkov bother with that puzzle when he could’ve merely inserted the coordinates into your mind?”

  “Because the owl has distance limitations,” Bradley explained. “It can only project thoughts within a hundred yards. Damn it, Abby, what’s it going to take for you to believe me?”

  Her hand retracted. She looked away and expelled a weary sigh. “I’m sorry. This is just really hard to swallow.”

  Suddenly, her knee jerked upward, nailing Bradley in the groin. His eyes clenched against the pain, and breathlessly, he grunted, “Why?”

  “I-I-I didn’t,” Abby stammered. “My leg ... It, it just moved ... like some weird reflex and ...”

  She halted, looking as if she’d entered a trance, and slinked from the bed. Abby approached the antique secretary desk adjacent to the fireplace and, using a pen and paper imprinted with the White House logo, she began to scribble.

  Bradley lay there until the sharp pain dwindled to a dull ache then, glimpsing the south-facing window, he swore under his breath.

  Volkov’s owl! That’s why Abby kneed me in the balls, he thought. Did that bastard eavesdrop on our love making? Did he record images of my naked wife?