by Bill Brewer
“I’m walking into a trap.”
“Yes, you are, but if you didn’t know this, you’d be walking into your grave.” Fatima brought the jeep to a halt and looked beyond Diegert.
“There it is. It’s totally wired with closed-circuit TV so they will be watching everything, and the clock starts when you first come into view. You’d better survive.”
Diegert stepped out of the jeep. Fatima accelerated and left him standing in the dirt road on the edge of the Zone. The place was like an abandoned city block being reclaimed by nature. Just beyond the tall pine trees around him was a high chain-link fence with a gate marked “Urban Zone.” The gate was unlocked and had an eight-foot crossbar above it. Diegert recalled what Fatima had said about things that looked too obvious, and he did not walk through the gate; rather, he stole through the woods adjacent to the fencing. As he moved, he pulled a folding multi-tool with wire snips from a vest pocket. He cut through the fencing and entered the Urban Zone away from the gate.
When he stepped through the hole, he set his watch for a twenty-minute countdown. It was uncanny how urban the Zone looked. It had city streets, manhole covers, streetlights, traffic signs, and buildings of various different heights and architectural designs. The eerie thing was, there were no people. These streets looked like they should have people on them, living the urban life, but there were no inhabitants. When he found building H7, it was a six-story apartment building, gray concrete with rectangular windows. He pulled the climbing gear from his backpack and used the folding grappling hook and a length of rope to climb the side of the building from one floor to the next until he was on the roof. There he could find no suitable place to anchor the rope. He had to use valuable length to secure it to the back side and run the rope the width of the building so he could rappel down the front side. Once it was secure, he clipped in and rappelled down to the fourth floor.
The fourth floor was illuminated, and like the rest of the building, the hallways were exterior balconies. He stepped onto the balcony hallway. As he did so, he was ensnared in micro-mesh netting, which clung to him like a spider’s web and entrapped him more and more as he tried to get out of it. His struggling triggered a mechanism that cinched a system of cords, retracting the netting, with Diegert in it, pulling him thirty feet to the western wall and depositing him on the floor. The netting had him entangled, and there was no way he could reach his knife. He was, however, able to reach a cigarette lighter in a pocket on his outer vest. He struck the lighter, and the netting ignited quickly, burning to ash with very little flame. His tactical suit protected him from harm, and he was free of the netting and surrounded by gray ash. He looked to the ceiling and saw the cords that ran through a tracking mechanism that were designed to entrap trespassers.
He drew his weapon, aware now that activating the trap would alert the hit squad to his location. A check of his watch indicated that he had seventeen minutes and thirty-five seconds remaining.
He moved down the hall, searching for the target. The first door he tried was locked, and so were the second and the third. The fourth door opened. Diegert gradually eased the door open; looking in, he saw four men sitting at a table playing cards beneath a bare bulb. He entered the room, firing lethal shots. As the bullets entered, stuffing flew out of the men. Plastic shells cracked and facial expressions remained unchanged while no blood spilled. The men were mannequins.
On the far wall, there was a doorway leading to another room also occupied by a mannequin. A laptop sat on a table in front of the mannequin. On the floor was a computer case. Diegert used the keyboard to shut the computer down. As the shutdown began, a message on the screen read: 25 seconds to explosives activation.
Diegert’s eyes grew wide, as he did not know if the message meant the computer would explode or the building. He ripped the cord out of the computer and placed it in the case, zipped it shut, and slung the strap over his shoulder. With the computer case across his back, he headed back to the hallway. His watch read 16:45. As he proceeded down the hallway, passing one of the locked doors, it exploded with a concussive force that blasted Diegert against the opposite wall, spraying him with splintered wood and plaster dust. Once again, the tac suit saved him, but his hearing was shocked. He stumbled forward, disoriented and confused. The dust and smoke made vision unreliable, but he knew he had to keep moving to the western part of the building to access the staircase.
At the stairwell, Diegert grasped the outside railing with his left hand and descended the darkened staircase. He rounded the landing, continuing on to the third floor. Crossing the third floor landing, he stepped forward and his foot dropped into open darkness. As he fell, he twisted his body 180 degrees, catching the edge of the landing with his fingers. He struggled with his grip, desperately holding on as his legs helplessly flailed in the air. Realizing what was happening, he raised his left elbow onto the ledge. Looking up, he could just make out the position of the handrail about three feet away. He pressed hard with his left arm and reached for the handrail. He was so surprised when he missed it that he almost lost his entire grip on the stair ledge. Regaining his left elbow position, he swung his left leg up and got his knee on the stair ledge. With both a leg and an arm over the edge, he rolled himself onto the flat surface of the landing. “SHIT!” he shouted as the frustration and relief combined into an emotional outburst.
Rolling onto his stomach, he peered over the edge. In the patchy darkness, he could see that the stairway had collapsed, and all the material was in a pile of rubble three stories below. Climbing back up the stairs to the fourth-floor balcony, he found his rappelling rope was gone. Stepping back from the balcony, he realized that others were in the field and someone had removed his rope, making his precarious position even more dire. He remembered the micro-mesh netting and the cords in the tracks on the ceiling. He reached up and pulled the lines out. He kept pulling until he had all the available line. He knotted the sections together into a substantial length of strong cord. Deploying the line from the edge of the balcony left about a twenty-foot gap between the end of the line and the ground.
Dejected, Diegert rolled up the cord and descended the stairs to the dark abyss of the third floor. Securing the line to the handrail, he rappelled down to the rubble pile of the old stairwell. The darkness and the uneven surface of the pile made it a struggle to find secure footing. Soon, though, he was standing in the entrance to the stairs on the first floor. He stepped through a door that opened into the entrance lobby of the building. Light filtered in from the street, and Diegert pushed on the crash bar located on the front door. The bar was inoperable, and the door wouldn’t budge. Looking at the casement and the surrounding structure for the door, he realized it was load bearing and blowing it open would destabilize the front of the building. The adjacent window was thick double-paned glass, but the casement was not load bearing. C-4 charges at all four corners blew out the window, shattering it into thousands of shards of sharp glass.
Diegert peered out the hole and looked across the weed-infested parking lot to see four vehicles. He also noticed the movement of a dark figure taking cover near the vehicles. Holding his position, he waited and saw the first figure make a hand signal, and two more weapon-carrying personnel moved forward into shooting positions around the parking area. He had 8:38 left to complete the mission.
Taking stock, Diegert had a full clip of twelve rounds in his pistol. Attached to his vest, he had four more twelve-round magazines, two flashbangs, and two frag grenades. As he inventoried his equipment, a canister flew in through the window, clanged off the back wall, and landed on the floor in front of him.
Instantly, Diegert dove back to the entrance of the stairwell. Just as he crashed through the door, the explosion ripped apart the area between the window and the front door, and a great fireball erupted from the front entrance, propelling the door ten feet from the building.
Diegert was fortunate the force of the blast went in the opposite direction of him. The kill team w
as sure to come forward. Trapped in the stairwell, he found a piece of metal handrail in the rubble and used it to barricade the door. Holding his pistol ready for whomever broke through the door, he stepped forward, peering through the wire mesh–enforced glass window of the stairwell door to see if the hit squad was coming.
The three men approached the building cautiously, seeking to confirm Diegert’s status. The first looked in the window and could see the crater in the floor the grenade had made, but he didn’t see Diegert’s body. He signaled to the other two to move forward and check through the front door. As they approached, the load-bearing walls buckled and six floors of concrete facing sheared off, collapsing to the ground. The two operators were crushed as tons of material fell on top of them. The third operator was partially buried in debris. Both of his legs were trapped, and his left arm was impaled by a piece of rebar that pierced his biceps and pinned his arm behind him.
Diegert was fortunate to have been in the stairwell, which was constructed independently of the front wall and had withstood the collapsing debris. He removed his barricade and climbed over the rubble of the front wall. To his left, he saw the third operator. He was a pitiful sight and would not survive many more minutes. Diegert looked at him and mercifully removed his combat helmet. The guy was delirious and suffering incredible pain. David Diegert stood back, aimed his weapon, and fired a round that brought peace to the wounded warrior’s tortured body. He had 4:04 left.
Beyond the debris field, parked in a row was a motorcycle, a Hummer, and a sedan. Diegert approached the Hummer first. He opened the door and heard a faint growl. In an instant, the growl erupted into the vicious snarling of a ferocious dog. Diegert slammed the door shut as the powerful beast lunged into the truck’s door. With a sigh of relief, he stepped away from the Hummer as the dog continued to attack the window with intent to get blood from any intruder.
Diegert straddled the motorcycle and kicked the starter. He noticed an electric crackle as an overloaded wire sent a surge of electricity from the starter to the gas tank. When the gas tank exploded, the force hit Diegert directly in the protective chest plate of his outer vest. The force lifted him clear off the motorcycle, propelling him through the air until he ended up sprawled on his back in the dirt. Debris from the motorcycle lay all around him. He struggled to get his bearings. His face was burned, his hair was singed, and his ears were ringing. He sat up and wobbled to his feet. He stepped over to the sedan to find the front passenger tire pierced by a metal shard from the motorcycle. 3:15 remaining.
Back to the Hummer. He grabbed a shaft with a twisted metal end on it from the motorcycle debris. He climbed on the Hummer’s roof and used the elongated metal piece to open the driver’s door. The dog blasted out the door ready to attack. He ran forward snarling, but there was no one to bite. The dog realized Diegert was on the roof and launched into a relentless assault on the side of the Hummer, leaping up trying to reach Diegert. After watching for a moment, Diegert drew his pistol and fired a bullet into the dog’s chest. The beast staggered and fell to the ground. Diegert descended and stepped toward the wounded animal, which continued to snap and snarl. Sighting down the length of the barrel, he fired into the dog’s head, permanently ending his aggression. He slipped the computer case off his shoulder, climbed into the truck, and drove the Hummer back to the armory, arriving with fourteen seconds remaining.
Strakov, Jaeger, Blevinsky, Lindstrom, and others had been watching on the television monitors. They saw it all, and still Strakov sat stunned when Diegert pulled up to the armory and walked into the monitoring room.
“I guess you’re going to have to do a little building reconstruction, and you’ll need some body bags.” Diegert placed the computer case on the table and took off his backpack.
Turning to Lindstrom, he said, “You’ll have to ask one of these guys what happened to the contents, because I sure as hell didn’t lose them.”
Pulling his gloves off and removing his outer vest while looking at Strakov, Diegert said, “You couldn’t beat me in DTs, and now you’ve failed to kill me.”
Strakov stood up. “You still have to survive the tournament.”
Diegert stepped right up to his face, saying, “I’ll not only survive, but win the fucking tournament, you shadow of a man.”
The two men stared into the hate simmering in their souls. Diegert stepped back without breaking eye contact, wiped the blood from his head, and said, “I’ll be in medical.”
39
As the adrenaline wore off, the shock from the trauma began to eat away at Diegert’s strength and even his consciousness. The medical staff recognized the symptoms of slowed speech and an awkward gait. They immediately got him out of the tac suit and into a gown and on a hospital bed. Using IV sedation, they forced his injured body to rest. Fatima arrived and sat by his bed for a long time. Eventually, the medic had to leave the clinic, saying, “I have to go for about fifteen minutes. Will you be staying with him?”
“Yes, I’ll stay until you get back, and maybe even longer.”
When the medic had left, Fatima went to the medicine locker, picked the lock, and searched until she found a vial labeled, “Multisystem Performance Enhancer.” The medicine was a booster. It enhanced neural function, increasing strength and reaction time. It improved sight and hearing while facilitating faster reflexes. It improved aerobic capacity, allowing for greater endurance as well as anaerobic energy supply, creating greater speed. The fluid also had the capacity to reduce the experience of pain by blocking pain receptors in the brain. The medicine would give Diegert an advantage and allow him to recover quickly. Fatima filled a syringe and injected it into the side port on Diegert’s IV. The fluid flowed unimpeded into his bloodstream and was distributed throughout his body.
For Diegert, there was no sudden reaction; in fact, he didn’t wake up. The influence on his systems would create no visible changes in appearance, and the performance enhancements would only be functional as a result of use. If he didn’t practice, the stuff wouldn’t make any difference. He wasn’t going to become Captain America, but with practice, he would be a better David Diegert.
Fatima closed up the medicine locker and disposed of the syringe. When the medic returned, she was sitting right where she had been. She stayed another thirty minutes and then said to the medic, “I have to go, but please call me as soon as he wakes up.”
Walking down the hall, she was pleased with herself for giving Diegert an advantage. In this dangerous business, any advantage had to be utilized.
When Diegert awoke two hours later, Fatima was called. She stepped into the room and drew the privacy curtain around the bed, shielding them from the medic’s view. She had a very happy, energetic, and, Diegert thought, sexy smile. She seemed genuinely glad to see him. She could still turn him on with her beauty, energy, and charm, even though he had been so wronged by her beguiling ways before. She picked up on his reactions, saying, “Keep your gown on, big boy. I’m not here for any of that. I’m just glad you did so well in the Urban Zone.”
“You make it sound like I just won a blue ribbon at the fair. Three operators died while trying to kill me, and a building is lying in ruins, and I’m supposed to celebrate this as a success? It’s fucked up!”
“Oh, stop your sniveling. You were brilliant. You got by every obstacle they threw at you. Maybe no one else is telling you how well you did, but I am.”
Looking at her, he didn’t know if he should thank her or call the medic for a psych consult. He just looked down and asked, “When do I get out of here?”
“Right now,” replied the bossy dark-haired lady, shouting, “medic!”
The startled medic rushed in. “What?”
“Please remove the IV and release the patient.” The medic looked bewildered. Fatima provided clarity, snapping, “Now!”
After a late meal and a comfortable night’s sleep in his own bed, Diegert felt good the next morning. Following breakfast, Fatima had a full day of activities
for him: shooting in the range, including both sniper rifles and mobile handgun practice, and hand-to-hand combat, using defensive tactics against assailants with weapons.
Pierre served as his opponent, and he showed Diegert some very effective takedown maneuvers, using the legs while on the ground. Diegert practiced the moves, surprising Pierre with how quickly Diegert learned to master the complex maneauvers. Diegert was surprised as well. He wasn’t one to tire easily, but today he felt like he was never going to get tired, and it felt great. Pierre attacked with knives, clubs, a hatchet, and even a long-handled pike, and Diegert learned quickly how to respond to the variety of weapons.
Finally, Pierre shared some methods of disarming an assailant with a gun. The key to success was proximity. If the assailant was within six feet, then the probability of success went up.
Diegert practiced moves that allowed him to strip the gun from the assailant and use the weapon against him. None of this was new to Diegert, but practicing the techniques refreshed his reflexes, improved his reactions, and boosted his confidence. He spent the rest of the week practicing the skills of combat using the extensive facilities and guided by the expert personnel of the Headquarters.
“You’ve spent your time well,” remarked Fatima. “The tournament is in two days, and I can tell you a little about your opponents.”
“Oh yeah, are they some of the guys who’ve been training here?”
“No, these men are arriving from other facilities. I don’t know how extensively they’ve been trained, but presumably they have the same skills and abilities you do.”
“So what’s the point?”
“The tournament’s goal is to expose operators to the challenge of facing opponents who are as deadly and lethal as they are. This gives each operator the chance to see if they can face the most dangerous and violently skilled assassins in the world and prevail.”
