Strike Matrix

by Aiden L Bailey

  “Good to see you Paul. Enjoying Mumbai?”

  He wiped his brow. “It’s awfully hot and humid all the time.”

  She smiled. “I hope that didn’t slow you in preparing my tactical ops center?”

  “It’s ready, Special Agent Keser. The safe house on loan from the CIA is ready too, but I don’t think I’ve got time to take you to either. Not yet, anyway.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “You know the tracking nano-crystals you sprayed onto Roger Gridley-Brooks in Cape Town?”

  “Yes?”

  “Our drone just pinged them. We have eyes on Gridley-Brooks. He’s in Mumbai with a team of eight South African mercenaries. At this very moment, they’re driving into the suburb of Mahim seven kilometers south of our current position. But not before they outfitted themselves with M16 assault rifles, 9mm handguns, body armor, surveillance kits and — get this — a Dragunov sniper rifle.”

  “That’s useful intelligence you gathered there.”

  His sweaty hands dabbed at the perspiration beading on his forehead. “Our Predator produced clear images.”

  “You think they’re onto Ashcroft and Skaffen?”

  He beamed as he said, “I do.”

  Finally, a break.

  The constant feeling of queasiness she’d been suffering from pushing herself too hard seemed worthwhile. “Well, we better get after them.”

  Szymanski beamed. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

  At dawn, after securing his two police handguns, two radios and the rest of his belongings in a snug backpack, Simon checked out of his hotel and headed south. His first stop was a busy market where long ago he had hidden a key behind a loose brick. It was out of sight to commuters, in an innocuous wall lining a bland side street, and protected from the weather inside a sealed zip-lock bag. Much to his surprise no one had moved the key, nor had it rusted. It appeared luck was on his side although Simon never relied on chance if he could help it. If this key had disappeared, he had extra copies hidden in other locations across the city, and most of them more secure than this one.

  He took the key to a bank several blocks away. It was a calculated risk entering this property, but he was the only person on the planet who knew about his connection to this facility, so he could assume Shatterhand would not be watching.

  After waiting fifteen minutes to be certain nobody was coming for him, he checked the items he had secured in a safety-deposit box over eight years ago: several false passports from various nationalities with his photograph, American Express and Visa cards matching the fake IDs, about three thousand U.S. dollars in cash and the same in rupees, and the surveillance CD discs with video footage of Matondkar selling out his people to the Pakistani terrorists.

  Simon had secured a dozen similar safety deposit boxes across Australia, Africa and Asia. All held cash, weapons, compromising secrets and alternative identities, his escape plans when trouble found him.

  He took the money, cards and passports but left the surveillance tapes, then headed out.

  His first stop was Mutton Street, also known as Chor Bazar. Mumbai’s main flea market was renowned for Victorian antiques, vinyl records, Bollywood movie posters, wrought iron oil lamps, intricate statues of the god Ganesh and an abundance of touristy junk. With the number of Western people taking in the sights or searching for a bargain, it was easier to ‘blend in’ so no one paid him much notice.

  He located a convenience store with a billboard above it featuring a young Indian woman helping a dirty but adorable child. It advertised an aid development NGO, a non-government organization. N6 was its name and its prominent slogan was ‘Because the world has already changed.’

  Inside the store he purchased bottled water, duct tape, a hand mirror, wire cutters and the best pair of binoculars he could find.

  At the counter, the proprietor watched the Hollywood movie Fight Club on a small television propped up next to the cash register. Brad Pitt and Edward Norton were driving in the rain. Pitt’s hands disappeared from the steering wheel and a violent head on collision soon followed. All the while Pitt kept telling Norton to stop trying to control his life and just let go.

  “Where are you from?” asked the proprietor, snapping Simon’s attention back to the moment. The man was rotund and middle-aged, with a thick mustache popular with older Indian men. His tight saffron colored shirt bulged open around his stomach, revealing a hairy belly.

  “London,” Simon lied, putting on a British accent. “On business.”

  “Computers?”

  Simon nodded. Software and information technology was a burgeoning industry in India. It was as good a cover as any and made him forgettable. Considering his current predicament, it was also close to the truth.

  The television switched channels on its own, surprising the proprietor as much as it did Simon.

  “—no government is ready to save its own citizens from this looming catastrophe. We aren’t even close—”

  It was the President of the United States, appearing confident and charismatic as always, behind a white podium with the American flag draped as a backdrop behind him. The scrolling caption announced that this was a live feed from the White House.

  “—despite years of planning, preparing, and warnings from countless scientists, experts, economists and government officials, we know our planet can no longer support burgeoning global populations. Humans, not the environment, cause water and food scarcity, agricultural land degradation and diminishing biospheres. We are all responsible for failing to curb exponential population growth, and it is time for us to take responsibility for our lack of action.

  “As economies expand and the middle class becomes more prevalent in emerging nations across Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, the demands for cars, housing, technology, travel and other luxuries will put unprecedented stress on our already damaged ecosystem. As caring, sympathetic and altruistic human beings — which we all are at heart — we all hope that everyone can eventually enjoy these luxuries. The frightening truth is that seven and a half billion people cannot live as Westerners live today, at least not without destroying our planet in the process.

  “You’d think by now we’d get the point on over-population. Never before has the failure to take on a single challenge so detrimentally affected nearly every aspect of our well-being. And never have the possible solutions had the potential to do so much good for so many generations to come.

  “Our objective is simple: we can’t just be satisfied with putting the brakes on population growth hoping for a gradual decline in birthrates, we have to reduce it, and do it fast. If from today, every woman on this planet gave birth to no more than one child, our population would halve in a single generation, and halve again the next generation after that. The future citizens of our ‘One World’ could all experience the privileged lifestyles we in the West take for granted, because the planet’s natural resources could support the smaller global population.

  “But drastic population reduction burdens the world with the same problem that challenges China today: who will remain to care for the elderly? Our frail and infirm seniors will become our largest population demographic. We will require new strategies to ease the economic and social constraints their generation will place on the rapidly shrinking future society.

  “I ask my fellow citizens of the world, what if there was a pill we could swallow, that kept us healthy, active, mentally alert and able to care for ourselves right up to the moment we died?

  “If such a pill existed, it is easy to envisage that the burden of care would vanish overnight.

  “I ask my fellow human beings to consider, would you swallow such a pill if the world asked it of you—?”

  The station switched again. Fight Club’s cigarette-smoking Helena Bonham Carter replaced the President. She stared at Edward Norton as if trying to work out who the hell he was, much the same way Simon
had been staring at the President’s on-screen image just moments before.

  Simon looked up.

  The proprietor had found his remote allowing him to switch channels. “It’s old news,” he dismissed the unusual Presidential interlude with a casual shrug.

  Simon shuddered. He knew with certainty it wasn’t the real President of the United States they had just watched. What he couldn’t be certain of, was which one of the two AIs, Shatterhand or GhostKnife, was mimicking the Leader of the Free World.

  He still believed he was working for the ‘right’ side, that the AI looking out for him and Casey wasn’t the one set upon a path of mass global genocide, but how could he know which was which? And how would the President enact his plan? So much was uncertain. He could verify nothing.

  Then he remembered all the dead elderly and infirm he had spotted yesterday…

  “How old is the news?”

  “Yesterday.” The rotund man shook his head as he stroked his bushy mustache. “All the world’s leaders are talking about population culling. Even our Prime Minister. Don’t they know, it will cause riots, rebellions, even coups?”

  “You believe it?”

  The man shrugged. “With what is happening in the world, who knows what to believe anymore.”

  Simon knew too well what he meant, smiling as he handed over a five hundred rupee note.

  “I’m sorry Sir,” said the proprietor as he stepped back from the money.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you not know about the currency crisis? These are old notes. No longer legal tender.”

  “Right,” Simon blurted remembering the Indian Government’s recent efforts to curtail the country’s black-market economy, by forcing people to exchange old notes for new ones through the banks. “Do you accept U.S. dollars?”

  The proprietor nodded. “I hear more currency changes are coming. It will happen again soon in China, Pakistan and Indonesia, so U.S. dollars are good for everyone right now.”

  “Right. Thanks.” They exchanged money and goods.

  “You’re welcome, Sir.”

  Simon felt numb as he exited the convenience store, again not sure he understood what was transpiring at a global level.

  Feeling his stomach rumble, he concluded food might improve his mood as it had yesterday. Sensing he had been on Mutton Street too long he walked several blocks to a different market where he grabbed a spicy vegetarian curry and bottled water from a street vendor. He devoured the dish then caught an auto-rickshaw to Mahim. He got off two blocks from the Pankot Palace Hotel. Then he walked.

  He passed the corpse of an old thin, white-haired man leaning up against an alcove like he was asleep, but really, he was entering rigor mortis. Younger men were arguing who should take the body away.

  Simon kept walking, disturbed by what he saw. The AIs were active on so many levels he barely understood. They were changing the world with no one seeming to notice the changes transpire before their eyes.

  He shook his head, not wanting to reflect on this situation at least not until he reunited with Casey. One goal at a time.

  After five minutes of brisk walking, with his destination in sight, he halted. Standing motionless with the crowds of commuters moving around him, he watched and listened. He wasn’t sure why, but his gut told him he was walking into a trap. He trusted those instincts and took the time to plan his next move.

  His first goal was to discover if the Pankot Palace Hotel was under surveillance. That meant watching the buildings best placed for a surveillance team to watch the hotel.

  Pankot Palace was six stories high and perfect for the stakeout he had in mind, but he would not risk entering the hotel in case strike teams were inside waiting for him. The building next to it was a seven-story apartment block, better suited for his purposes. Simon entered through a yard at the back, passing goats and chickens. Men thrashed soaked and scrubbed clothing or hung them on washing lines. They paid Simon no notice as he walked past and inside, like he belonged here.

  Locating the stairwell, he took a Pistol Auto 9mm 1A from his daypack, loaded a magazine and pulled back the slide, chambering the first round. Proceeding, he checked every corner as he ascended.

  Once on the hot roof, Simon discovered more laundry drying in the sun, but otherwise he was alone. He crouched low and advanced until he reached the concrete lip of the building edge.

  Between the cover of colored and dripping clothes, Simon took his binoculars and stared into every window of each building on the opposite side of the street. He’d checked about fifty windows identifying men, women and children going about the usual routines of family and business life. Nothing unusual.

  Then, in his peripheral vision, he noticed movement on the roof. Careful, controlled motions.

  Focusing the binoculars, Simon zeroed in on the motion, but when he looked there was… nothing?

  The prickling hairs on the back of his neck told him someone was being careful to remain hidden and may have already seen him.

  His paranoid thoughts turned to a sniper.

  A professional killer would barely move at all, concealed in the shadows, staring down their telescopic sight from a narrow opening, limiting their chances of being spotted. A mostly closed window or a small space between drying sheets was an option. Simon glanced around again noticing that in this building a sniper would take advantage of the crumbling cracks in the concrete that had left football-sized holes, of which there were many. In one he identified what could be the barrel of a high-powered rifle.

  For the second time this morning, luck was on his side. The sun hung over the buildings he was staring into, so Simon took his hand mirror, angled it and shone the bright light where he suspected the sniper hid.

  As he hoped, the blinding rays found its target, and a shape moved. Not by much, barely noticeable if Simon hadn’t known what to look for. But this was enough proof for Simon that he was under surveillance. He ducked down before the unveiled sniper could take a shot at him.

  Crawling close to the floor for cover, Simon returned to the stairs and rapidly descended. He jumped onto a green and yellow bus to cross the street so the sniper couldn’t take a shot at him while exposed on the road. Through a grimy window, he noticed a tall, slim, dark-haired Indian woman in a blue and gold sari entering the Pankot Palace Hotel. Her dress triggered an elusive memory. An aspect of the clothing bothered him.

  But he had no time to concern himself with a stranger. Once on the opposite side of the busy road, he jumped from the moving bus then took the stairs of the sniper’s building at a run.

  He slowed only when he reached the roof, advancing with his pistol drawn.

  Identifying the spot where the sniper would have been, he found nothing.

  Everything was quiet, despite the distant hustle and bustle of the commuters and traffic on the streets below.

  Perhaps his mind had imagined a threat where none existed? Maybe there was no one coming for him? The woman in the blue and gold sari was nothing more than an attractive woman, distracting him. Was his paranoia getting the best of him?

  He was about to walk from the scene when he noticed a wet mark on the ground near the crack where he thought he had seen the rifle barrel, the length of a human adult.

  Simon crouched low, ran a finger across the wet stain, then smelled it. The odor was like body sweat.

  There had been a sniper here.

  He soon identified the crumpled remains of a cigarette pack nearby. Its placement was too convenient as if the sniper had deliberately left it for him to find. He picked it up anyway.

  He smoothed the pack flat, to see the words ‘Manufactured in Lagos, Nigeria’ displayed on the packaging.

  Only one man he knew smoked this brand of cigarettes.

  Sergeant Ndulu Adebayo.

  Ndulu was a former Nigerian Army sniper and a proficient one at that, with over fifty confirmed kills in the Sudan. Less than a month ago, Ndulu had been Simon’s boss at DevWorld Security
, and a friend. DevWorld was Roger Gridley-Brooks’ company, and Ndulu reported to Roger. Not the artificial intelligence Simon had conversed with yesterday, but the breathing, organic and human version of the man.

  Both men must be in Mumbai. He had to presume they were hunting him. But why?

  He knew why, even if he didn’t want to admit it. Shatterhand would feed them lies, turning Ndulu and Gridley-Brooks against their former employee. The two men would think three weeks ago Simon had just upped and vanished without a word. That action would make him look guilty, regardless of whatever stories Shatterhand presented to his former colleagues right now.

  Fuming, Simon crumpled the cigarette pack into a tight ball before throwing it far away.

  He turned and hurried, knowing he had been here too long already. He knew he was about to walk into a trap, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to avoid it.

  Feeling foolish and off his game, Simon halted.

  He realized who the woman in the blue and gold sari was.

  It wasn’t the dress or her slim figure he should have been staring at. He should have stared at her face.

  CHAPTER 12

  Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

  Less than fifteen minutes after Conner Rafferty entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, he stepped out again, into the mid-morning heat that felt like a slap in the face.

  He slipped on his sunglasses and swore. He hated this country, but this country hated him more.

  Within minutes a Honda Civic pulled up with Nahla behind the wheel, saving him from the forty degree Celsius heat. She’d been doing laps looking for a carpark and now he’d saved her the trouble. He climbed inside, welcoming the air conditioning and tinted windows. His only discomfort now was the sweat on his back, sticky against the passenger seat, if he ignored the lingering aches and pains from his beating a week ago.