The black-and-white video was tinged with green, an indication that it was shot by a high-resolution night-vision camera. Abby was outside the commissary at Edgar Air Force Base, talking to a teammate.
John Cozart, Bradley thought. Her team leader.
He blinked then vehemently shook his head.
No, he told himself. Consortium pricks edited the video; slapped Abby’s face onto someone else’s body.
Or is there another mind-control device out there?
Volkov’s owl made me kiss that hooker. Maybe Abby thought Cozart was me.
Damn, it took the bastard long enough to end that kiss ... Cozart better hope our paths don’t cross.
A hidden door opened and a second agent peeked inside. He had an elongated neck with a protruding Adam’s apple and hunched shoulders that evoked thoughts of a buzzard.
“He’s not cooperating,” Dumb Ass told him.
The Buzzard nodded and strode into the interrogation room, pushing a rolling metal cart.
Bradley’s bloodshot eyes flitted over the shelves in search of vials and syringes. Instead, he saw a metallic swimmer’s cap with dozens of wires attached.
Oh shit! They’re going to eavesdrop on my thoughts!
He toggled his head side-to-side, dodging the cap, until Agent Dumb Ass put him in a headlock.
“Apologies for messing up your hair,” the Buzzard said, guffawing at his own joke. “We had a wireless version until your buddy, Volkov, destroyed it.”
Queasiness was turning somersaults deep in Bradley’s gut.
Volkov was right when he said my brain wasn’t a safe repository for sensitive information.
He offered a quick prayer, beseeching God to help him resist. He couldn’t betray his country; he couldn’t allow The Consortium to install their New Global Order.
“Torture without getting our hands dirty,” Dumb Ass said, tsk-tsking. “No scars. No blood. Damn, I miss the old days ...!”
Don’t think about anything important, Bradley reminded himself as the Buzzard plugged a ribbon cable into a computer. Abby, Ryan, Kyle, TEradS, Volkov, Night Sector, The Consortium—fuck! My entire life is off limits!
“... That’s right, Bradley. Your woefully inept brain’s got nowhere to hide.”
Feigning defeat, he hung his head and expended a frustrated sound, two parts hiss, one part groan. Then he ceremonially cleared his throat and began to croon, “A ... hundred bottles of beer on the wall, a hundred bottles of beer. Take one down, pass it around, ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall ...”
55
District Nine, California
INSIDE THE BELOW-GRADE mechanic’s pit, Abby huddled against a steel column engineered to bear the weight of the concrete ceiling plus a six-thousand-pound vehicle. Would it withstand the burden of the crumbling service bay?
Hunks of brick, mortar, and steel were raining down, clogging the rectangular opening used for engine access and burying the stairwell. Bursts of dust pelted her face. They burned her sinuses and invaded her mouth. Abby couldn’t hear the bedlam, but she could feel the chaotic destruction, pulsing and vibrating.
Cozart was hunched over her, shielding her, the same way Toomey had.
The ordeal on the roof replayed.
By the time Abby heard the whistle of the incoming mortar, it was too late. There was no cover, and there wasn’t enough time to get to the access hatch. Resigned, she’d tucked herself into a fetal position, lowered her chin to her chest, and began to pray.
Toomey, her overwatch partner, had rolled toward her, maneuvering his body to insulate her from the 2,600-mile-per-hour hail of shrapnel. Abby had felt the impact of each fragment tearing through Toomey’s flesh, and she was grateful that the explosion had deafened her to his pained cries.
Only one ribbon of twisted metal had breached Toomey’s defenses, and it had felt like a power drill boring through Abby’s thigh.
Once the pain ebbed and her respiration returned to normal, she’d pressed her fingers to her teammate’s carotid artery. John 15:13 had bellowed through her mind: Greater love has no one than this; that he lay down his life for his friends.
Toomey saved my life, she thought. Why wasn’t my first instinct to shield him?
Guilt-stricken, she shrugged off Cozart’s protective crouch, and the sweep of his flashlight illuminated her left leg.
“You’re bleeding!” His shout was muffled and barely audible above the residual hum of the mortar.
Abby glanced down, only then discovering that her pants were blood-soaked and that a puddle was forming beneath her.
Cozart ripped open the fabric. “Shit!”
Abby jerked her leg away from him. “It’s not that bad—”
“Come on. Let me see it, Webber.”
Abby frowned, wishing she’d never enlisted under Bradley’s surname. It was a perpetual reminder, auditory shrapnel more painful than the stupid metal dagger.
Intuiting her dismay, Cozart said, “Don’t let it get to you. Bradley will come to his senses.” He offered a melancholy smile then latched onto her knee. “You ready?”
She gave a resigned nod and gasped as her team leader plucked the razor-edged metal ribbon from her leg.
The pain spiked.
Blood gushed from the wound, scorching hot like molten steel.
Sweat blanketed her face, and she felt light-headed.
“You’re okay. Just breathe.”
Abby cringed, watching him retrieve an XSTAT from his backpack. The hemostatic wound dressing consisted of tablet-shaped, compressed cellulose sponges designed to swell and fill a wound cavity, thereby stemming blood loss.
“It’s a freaking two-inch cut,” she protested. “Not a gunshot wound.”
“Who knows how long it’ll take them to dig us out.”
“Just slap a Band Aid on it.” Emotions were rising like a tsunami, irritation over Cozart’s uncanny insight, exasperation over his protectiveness. She was certain that his concern strayed beyond Toomey’s selflessness. Her team leader was acting out of emotion, a fact that scared the hell out of her.
This is why the military bans fraternization, she thought. Why they kept Bradley and I separated.
Fighting back tears, Abby channeled heartache into anger. “Seriously, Cozart, if I were a guy, you would be telling me to tough it out.”
He looked away, evading her glare; an unspoken admission of guilt. “Fine,” he snapped, handing her a bandage, then he began tapping out a distress call against the steel column.
Within the hour, the TEradS had cleared a narrow shaft and extracted them from the pit. Abby accompanied Toomey’s remains back to base and reported to the Med Center. A CT scan determined that she’d sustained no nerve damage and that the nick in her genicular artery had self-sealed. A nurse cleansed the wound and sewed it shut with evenly spaced stitches.
Abby left the treatment room with a bottle of antibiotics and a three-day standdown order, due to a concussion rather than her shrapnel wound. She lingered in the waiting area, joining a handful of Airmen gazing at a newscast. Cellphone video had captured an A-10 Warthog conducting a bombing raid.
“... As you can see,” the flush-faced reporter continued, “a Marine Corps fighter jet has attacked Mariupol, California. And at this time, the TEradS have yet to explain why they called in an air strike against the town’s school ...”
Those sons of bitches stationed a mortar team on the roof of the school, Abby thought.
Toppled walls, collapsed roofs, and mounds of smoldering debris gave way to a parade of bloodied, crying children.
“That’s not Mariupol,” one of the Airmen grumbled. “That footage is from Syria!”
“This isn’t news; it’s propaganda,” another griped. “Why’s the media allowed to broadcast this bullshit?”
“... We’re also getting unconfirmed reports that Mariupol’s primary supply of drinking water has been tainted by depleted uranium, making it necessary for survivors to be relocated.
“Mr. Presid
ent this isn’t Bosnia or Iraq, and we, the American people, will not tolerate the use of depleted uranium bombs against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil ...”
Sounds like the CIA propaganda machine is trying to incite a coup, Abby thought, then, head shaking in disgust, she left the Med Center.
She trudged across the base, headed back to her apartment, squinting against the low angle of the morning sun and murmuring under her breath.
“Fair-minded people will see through the ‘Murphy derangement syndrome’ ... They’ll realize they’ve been duped by the mockingbird media, the CIA, and The Consortium’s roster of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats ... The streets won’t be safe for the cabal. They’ll be begging my dad for protection, hiding behind the Constitution they’ve been undermining.”
Abby hesitated, searching for the key to her apartment, and a breath-stealing sting radiated outward, propagating concentric rings of pain. Something had just struck her derriere, and she reached back to rub her aching backside.
What the hell?
A powdery white residue coated her fingertips.
Her eyes surveyed the cement porch and zeroed on a white lump. Unlike the nonlethal, wax “simunition” rounds used during training, this one was made of chalk; and, judging by the sting, it struck with a muzzle velocity much greater than the 375 feet per second generated by a powderless cartridge.
Why the hell did somebody just shoot me with a supersonic chalk bullet?
56
District Three, Washington, D.C.
FOR HOURS, BRADLEY had endured a gamut of pain, a mind-control festival of torture. Although no real damage was being inflicted on his body, he’d experienced the eighty-mile-per-hour impact of a Louisville Slugger against his knee; the scorching heat of flames devouring his feet; and the slow, systematic removal of his fingernails.
It’s not real, he told himself as his stomach began to heave. A bitter green fluid dribbled from his mouth, and he wondered how long it had been since he’d eaten.
Time was becoming distorted. How long had he been here? How long had they been besieging his brain with phony signals?
“I can keep this up indefinitely, Bradley.” It was the Buzzard’s voice, taunting him. “Tell me what’s inside that suitcase and I’ll let you take a thirty-minute nap.”
Sleep, he thought, his eyelids drooping at the mere mention of the word. Bad idea. Who knows what I might dream about; these idiots could charge me with a crime that never even happ—
Damn it!
He’d caught himself thinking again. Censoring his speech was challenging; censoring his thoughts was maddening.
“A software upgrade is on the way, Master Sergeant. Last chance to earn a quick, merciful death.”
Can’t be any worse than what I’ve already endured.
“Did you know that Consortium servers were impervious to the pulse?” The Buzzard rotated the laptop screen, and Bradley’s heavy eyelids instantly retracted. The bastard was displaying a photograph of Abby in a bikini, her sun-kissed curves lounging on a pool float.
His interrogator uncorked a sexually suggestive whistle. “That sexy thing will never get a lethal injection. Blonde hair, blue eyes, she’s a premium asset. Figure, forty johns a night humping her, she could pull in over a million dollars a year for the organization.”
When I get out of these shackles, I swear, I’ll ...
“You’ll what, Master Sergeant? Assault me? Execute me like Ames, Arnold, and Hanssen?”
I didn’t execute any—damn it! I need to go on offense.
Bradley’s hands fisted; his weary eyes tightened in concentration. “What do you think the American people will do when they find out about Operation Mongoose?”
Noting his tormentor’s confusion, he continued, “It was a CIA plot during the Kennedy administration. And I quote, ‘We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington.’ ”
The Buzzard flinched then shook his head as if awakening from a trance. “Why should I care?” he said with a shrug. “I wasn’t even born then.”
“Then there was Operation Northwoods. ‘Two civil airliners could be painted with identical identifications. One would be converted to a drone and hidden at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle, while the other became a chartered flight full of hand-picked college students bound for Venezuela or some other country that would require flying over Cuban airspace. Somewhere over Florida, the two planes would rendezvous; the one with the passengers would descend and proceed to Eglin Air Force Base. The drone would then continue on the filed flight plan until it was over Cuba where it would begin broadcasting a Mayday distress signal that it was under attack by Cuban MiGs. Shortly thereafter, a radio signal would detonate the aircraft.’ ” Bradley feigned a smile. “Hard to believe that they could fly an airliner by remote control in the 1960s. Kind of makes you wonder about 9/11, doesn’t it?”
Rolling his eyes, the Buzzard said, “Not interested in your conspiracy theories, Master Sergeant.”
Bradley slumped back against his chair, savoring the reprieve from pain and, for the first time, appreciating Volkov’s cerebral upgrade. “Ah, conspiracy theory ... A term coined by the CIA to shame critical thinkers who were questioning the narrative about the Kennedy assassination. I wonder how long it’ll be before the public figures out the truth—”
“The media will ignore the files and they’ll be reclassified as soon as Murphy takes a dirt nap.”
“Planning on assassinating him?” Bradley asked. “That makes sense since Murphy is echoing Kennedy’s vow to ‘splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the wind—’ ”
The door to the interrogation room sprung open and crashed against the cinder-block wall.
A figure in black tactical gear barged into the tiny space, and Bradley froze, staring unblinkingly down the barrel of a gun.
57
District Three, Washington, D.C.
AT THE CONCLUSION OF his meeting with his most trusted military commanders, Kyle invited the press corps into the room for a photo op. As camera shutters clacked, he proffered a wry smile and said, “This could be the calm before the storm.”
“What storm, Mr. President?”
Eyes narrowing on the reporter cum CIA operative, Kyle softly added, “You’ll find out.”
“Have you ordered a TEradS standdown in response to the massacre in Mariupol?”
“Since when are U.S. fighter jets authorized to bomb American schools?”
“Are you aware that you’re now a suspect in the murders of Emily Dawson and Cara Delaney?”
“The calm before the storm,” Kyle reiterated then started toward the exit. “Thank you all.”
The press continued to shout a mixture of questions, demands, and accusations. He’d been roughed up by reporters during his Major League baseball career, but he’d attributed the exaggerations and distortions to a competitive desire for market share. Now, the truth was blatantly obvious. The mockingbird media served the goals of The Consortium.
This is it, he thought. The die is cast. Kyle glanced at the windows overlooking the South Lawn. Anti-Ty had amassed a thousand protestors just beyond the White House fence. The mob was waving torches and setting rubber tires ablaze. Metal flag poles, bearing the red and black triangles, clanged against the wrought iron pickets, and the crowd’s professionally printed signs were a manifesto, demanding everything from the dissolution of the TEradS to Kyle’s public execution.
Will they be dumb enough to scale the fence? he wondered.
That would put the Marines guarding the White House in an unenviable position. Although they were equipped with nonlethal means of crowd control like sound cannons and millimeter wave guns, a confrontation would exacerbate the military’s public relations nightmare.
For days, Night Sector had been slaughtering Mariupol residents. Adult corpses and the remains of sacrificed children had been stashed inside the school; then The C
onsortium’s private army had ambushed TEradS personnel in order to prompt a retaliatory air strike on the building.
Teeth grinding, Kyle entered the PEOC. He settled onto his chair, attention fused to a wall of monitors. A flock of Super Stallions and Vipers lifted off from Ansley Air Force Base en route to the George Bush Center for Intelligence, named after the forty-first President of the United States, who—ironically—had only served as CIA director for a mere 357 days.
A nine o’clock, Friday night raid, Kyle thought. Hopefully, the CIA will only have a skeleton crew on duty.
Tonight’s mission wasn’t about arresting agents; it was about extracting intelligence to thwart the coup and preserve evidence so that every traitor would face justice.
The helicopters were flying low, following the Potomac River northward, past the Lincoln Memorial, past Georgetown and Palisades to McLean, Virginia. The CIA campus sat on a 258-acre tract of land with a private access road off limits to the public. Its cluster of buildings provided 2.5 million square feet of floor space, and they were buffered by woods to the south and east; massive parking lots to the north and west.
Kyle leaned forward, squinting at the satellite footage. “Is that a helicopter in the parking lot?”
“Looks like a Little Bird,” Ryan said.
Two people scurried from the southwest corner of the building toward the waiting helicopter. A balaclava-clad man had a gun barrel lodged beneath his prisoner’s chin.
“And that,” Ryan continued, “looks like an illegal rendition.”
“Can you get closer?” Kyle asked.
Rone relayed the order. The video zoomed into a blurred-out smudge of pixels and slowly reconstituted into a high-resolution image.
Ryan blurted, “Holy shit, that’s Bradley!”
Noticing the thunder of approaching Super Stallion rotors, the gunman locked an elbow around Bradley’s throat and dragged him back inside the building.
Mind Power- America Awakens Page 22
