by Brandt Legg
From the top of the 747, Chase picked off two men running on the walkway, trying to stop Wen. A second later, she dropped from the plane and caught the railing, somehow dodging bullets and signaling Chase.
By the time he caught up to her, they were in the main hall heading away from the plane party.
“What are we doing?” he asked.
“They’re chasing us,” she said. “We can use that to our advantage.”
“Ambush?” he asked, knowing her tactics.
“Exactly.”
“Do we really have time?” He knew the police would be there any second, and they might be taken into custody along with the mercenaries. “Getting arrested isn’t going to help us figure out the weapon or target. The clock is ticking.”
“We’ll just have to make time.”
“If it’s that easy.”
They entered another cavernous section of the building, this one filled with spacecraft. “A little more room to navigate,” she said.
“Look at that,” Chase said, pointing to the moon lander. “And those are real rockets! Do you see how big they are?”
“Another time.”
“Yeah, we’ve got to bring Tu here. He’ll love this stuff.”
“Find cover.”
“I wonder if The Astronaut has ever been here?”
But Wen was already gone. He couldn’t believe how quickly she’d gotten on top of the Apollo-Soyuz capsules.
Chase dashed behind the Apollo 11 moon lander and tried not to look at all the supersonic jets filling the ceiling. Reality came roaring back as ten men entered the mammoth space.
Four of them were dead before Chase could line up a shot, but then it was his turn. The survivors were so distracted by Wen’s surgical assaults that Chase was able to cut down two of them with ease.
Wen, now concealed on the wide wing of a blue angel, higher than before, sprayed the scattering men and got two more.
“Two left,” Chase whispered to himself, guessing where Wen would go next. If he got it right, they could trap the last two between them. He moved around a rocket and spotted her across the opening. Seconds later, two more men went down, and their ambush was complete.
“Are there any left?” Chase asked.
“Maybe somewhere else in the building, but we don’t have time.”
“Oh, now we don’t have time!”
She pointed to the large doors as if to make him hear the sirens.
“Oh . . . That’s a lot of police.”
“Remember where we are.”
They slipped out a fire escape, concealing their guns.
Anatoly, still inside the museum, found himself engaged in a gunfight with police officers. A gunfight he would win.
“They weren’t shadow people,” Wen said again while they snuck through a bit of landscaping and found their way onto Maryland Avenue.
“Then why were they so intent on killing us?”
“Because they know we’re the only ones who can stop this thing.”
“Blackout?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll call Tess. She might be able to get somewhere if they can identify some of those bodies back there, find out who they belong to.”
“Some were Russian,” Wen said. “And I heard a German. Strange . . . ”
“World War III,” Chase said.
“Worse,” she said. “At least in World War III there’s a chance to fight back.”
Forty-Nine
Washington, DC – April 3rd – 11:03 am - 17 hours 41 minutes until 4:44AM on 4/4
Anatoly did not like to waste time talking to superiors. “The job does not always go smoothly, but it gets done.”
“You started a war in one of America’s favorite museums, in the middle of monuments to their democracy, and you failed to kill the targets.”
He laughed. “So?”
“Twelve cops dead. Six more in the hospital.”
Anatoly laughed again, as if this was amusing. “So? I will have Chase and Wen in the next hour.”
“How many people did you lose?”
He fiddled with the space on his left hand. A ring finger was missing from long-ago, when he wound up on the wrong end of a torture session. “It does not matter. This will happen.”
Tolstoy took a deep breath. Soon enough, she would see to it that Anatoly wound up dead. “Try not to wreck another landmark in the process.”
“What do you care about American history?”
“I care that we do not lose sight of our objective. More attention is not something we need. Understand?”
“I killed The Astronaut. We took care of Skyenor. Hell is with me. These two will join them soon.”
“Make sure it is very soon.”
Tolstoy ended the call and took another. Two more dead scientists. They are certainly easier to kill than this former MSS agent, she thought as she checked the time. Maybe making noise in Washington isn’t such a bad idea. Distractions, distractions. Keep them busy.
April 3rd - 11:19 am - Vienna, Virginia
Coco Jordon was the now-acting head of DARPA. The African American engineer had a deep background in both AI and lasers, specifically for military applications. Tess had met her several times and liked her, although she was concerned with Coco’s jumping back and forth between the government and private-sector positions.
“So tragic about Jay,” Tess said as soon as Coco came on the line.
“I know you were old friends,” Coco said. She had not been a big fan of Skyenor, believing he had been too conservative in dealing with the white-hot tech competition.
“Yes. And this is an initiation by fire for you. Have you reviewed the files I sent over?”
“How reliable is the data?” Coco asked, implying she was familiar with the situation.
“Very. We’re going to lose an American city in seventeen hours.”
“And you think it’s the Russians?”
“There seems little doubt.”
“Then they bought themselves some serious tech. And they did it in the dark.”
“Doesn’t that make sense? If they want to circumvent the 1967 space treaty to avoid the militarization of space, they need to keep it secret.”
“They would need 500 kilowatt High Energy Lasers to do something like this, and a lot more systems beyond that HEL. However, last I checked, they were barely getting 100KW.”
Linda interrupted, “Hyland is on from Moscow.”
Tess muted Coco. “Tell him I’ll call back in five minutes.” She unmuted. “Where’s DARPA? Skyenor told me there was a lot going on with Laser Weapon Systems and Direct Energy Weapons.”
“It’s not LaWS, DEW, or even HEL you should be worrying about. It’s the Photon momentum Chemical lasers such as COIL, and Nuclear-Induced Plasmas of Gas Mixtures and Nuclear-Pumped Lasers, or NPL. Plus Space Based Lasers, or SBLs, Air Based Lasers, or ABLs, which are capable of delivering deadly payloads.”
“That’s a lot of alphabets and acronyms,” Tess said. “Even for Washington. I don’t see how shooting satellites down with lasers, or even hitting targets on the ground, is tied into destroying an American city.”
“They aren’t trying to shoot satellites out of the sky,” Coco said in an icy tone. “They are using the satellites for guidance. If the intel bears out, then I believe our adversaries are preparing to push a nuclear payload through precision stacking into a mid-sized city.”
“Lasers by nuke?” Tess said.
“Afraid so.”
“You’re telling me that’s really possible?”
“The technology exists. Who has it other than us, that’s hard to say.”
“Terrifying.”
“You have no idea. Incredibly far beyond Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and without the fallout.”
“What evil have we brought,” Tess said. “This arms race, tech run . . . ”
“Our job is to stay one step ahead, to always have the best weapons.”
“We develop these things
and our enemies steal them. When will it end?”
“Maybe sooner than we’d like.”
Fifty
Washington, – April 3rd – 11:54 am
Chase and Wen walked briskly down Independence Avenue, planning to cut across the Mall just before the Washington Monument on 14th Street.
“It’s The Astronaut,” Wen said as she answered her phone.
“There’s a list of scientists, high classified projects, DARPA, HITE, NSA data seeks, and others on Hayward’s watch,” Nash said in his all-business tone.
“What’s HITE doing involved in this?” Chase asked, having only slight knowledge of the agency almost no one had ever heard of, and a few in the know weren’t sure really existed.
“I’ve been tracking down the scientists,” The Astronaut said, not bothering to respond to Chase’s question. “Quite a few of them have died in the past twenty-four hours.”
“Because they know something,” Wen said. “If they don’t know the target, they must know the weapon, and if they know the weapon, that might tell us how and where and even who . . . where are these scientists?”
“Scattered all over the country. I’m trying to find them, get them on the phone. I just spoke to one in DC. She knows what’s going on. She’s scared.”
“Will she talk?” Chase asked.
“Not over the phone. But I got her to agree to meet you.”
“Where?”
“I hope you’re still near the Mall. She doesn’t work too far from there. I told her Jefferson Memorial.”
“Why?” Chase asked, not wanting to mention the Lincoln Memorial.
“She wanted somewhere public, but out-of-the-way. She’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Okay. How do we recognize her?”
“I just sent you her photo. I got it from a government website.”
“We’ll be there, “ Chase said. “Thanks.”
After the call, they decided there wasn’t time to retrieve their car. “It’s about a ten minute walk. We can get a cab after we meet with the scientist,” Wen said.
“Why didn’t you tell The Astronaut what happened at the Air and Space Museum?”
“Just trying to keep him stable. He’s got enough to worry about without thinking we might die any minute.”
A man heading toward them caught Wen’s attention. By the look of him, and the way he carried himself, she could tell he’d been trained. But by who?
“Potential shadow,” she whispered only loud enough for Chase to hear. She moved her hand into the duffel that concealed her submachine gun. “Coming up twelve o’clock.”
Chase knew to remain casual. He glanced up and agreed with her assessment, having seen so many shadow people. Chase gripped the pistol under his parka, and immediately looked for others. There were always more.
When the man was about ten feet away, he looked up and met Wen’s eyes. To her surprise, he spoke.
“Don’t shoot.”
She barely heard him, and registered his words as an odd statement under the circumstances, which instinctively made Wen want to shoot him.
“Watch him,” Wen said quietly to Chase as she swiveled continuing to look for additional threats, only taking her eyes off the man long enough to do the most cursory survey. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I believe you call us the ‘shadow people’.”
Wen raised her duffel, her hand already poised on the trigger of her MP7, and pointed it at him.
“Don’t shoot,” he repeated.
“Why not?” she asked, her eyes darting in every direction, finger ready.
“Grimes sent me.”
“Now I am going to shoot you,” Chase said as they all stopped a few feet from each other.
“The Caymans wasn’t his fault,” the man said.
“This way,” Wen instructed, moving toward something with better cover in a cluster of trees bordering a Rugby field across from the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.
“Don’t worry. I’m alone,” the man said, complying with Wen’s corralling. “And I’ve got a message.”
“I bet you do,” Chase said.
“Let’s hear it,” Wen snapped, backing him up against a large tree.
“Belfort, the guy who hires us, found out that Grimes was meeting you. He keeps pretty close tabs on all of us, but especially Grimes and Shelby. He’s been suspicious. Anyway, somehow he found out.” The man stared past them into the trees, a worried expression on his face, then looked back to Wen. “They were waiting for Grimes and Shelby. Would have killed them both.”
“But Grimes never came,” Chase said.
“Grimes has a few friends . . . and many contacts.”
“Someone told him?” Wen asked, still holding her gun against the man.
“Yeah.”
“Then why in the hell didn’t he get word to us before we walked into that ambush?” Chase demanded.
“He tried. Obviously it wasn’t successful.”
Chase scoffed. “Obviously.”
“Why should we believe any of this?” Wen asked.
“Because the same people are after Grimes and Shelby now.”
“What people?”
Fifty-One
New York City – April 3rd – 12:19 pm
Jie Shi was furious with the congressman, but there was still time. She placed a call. “Liquidate my position,” she said to the man on the other end.
Someone listening in might have believed she was speaking of stocks. They would be wrong.
Jie Shi checked her hard drive back up. She had enough dirt on six powerful US politicians to make things go her way on any number of projects her superiors were involved with, but her future depended on just one.
Mister congressman, she thought, looking at his photos and the details of his life she had amassed, why do you believe you are safe?
Vienna, Virginia
Tess sat in Mission Control surrounded by her top analysts. “We have to figure this out.”
“Five-Fours?” a man said.
“Yes, we need to know the meaning of five fours. Why did they choose that date and time?”
“We’ve run it a million different ways,” the analyst replied. “ We looked at it as fifty-four, as five plus four being nine, and a number of other variations.”
“And?”
“It appears that five fours is twenty. Twenty being the number for teamwork and diplomacy.”
Tess stared back at him for a moment. “Are you serious?”
“There could be five teams of four,” another analyst suggested. “Maybe five strike points, not a single one.”
“You’re telling me nothing,” Tess said, annoyed. “In fact, you’re telling me we know nothing. How can we have the code name of this operation, the date and time it’s going to happen, and yet we have no way to attach any meaning to it?”
He tilted his head. “It could simply be that was the time it all comes together.”
“It is not random. Five fours means something.” She sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. “Maybe it does mean twenty. That seems logical, but what does twenty mean?”
The two men shared embarrassed, blank looks.
“Linda, find me The Astronaut!” Tess shouted. “And not the dead one.”
“You mean Nash Graham?” Linda asked.
“Yes,” Tess said impatiently, even though it was a fair question. CISS had, over the years, employed the services of eight different Astronauts, including the one killed on the mall. But Nash was her favorite. Nash was the best. And Nash was being hunted now, so he would not be easy to reach.
“I’ve got it,” an analyst said, getting to his feet. “To the Chinese, the number four is considered bad fortune. Similar, but worse to how the number thirteen is seen in the western world.”
“Why?”
“Because ‘four’ is pronounced ‘Si’ in the Chinese language, the same as 死 death.”
Washington, DC – April 3rd – 12:22 pm
&n
bsp; Popov stared at the two agents. The two men were her performers. “You take care of this, and then get out of Washington by midnight, understand?”
“Yes.” The tall one glanced at the file. “Jie Shi is an important MSS asset. Do we really have the okay to eliminate her?”
Her stern stare gave him the answer, Either way, don’t ask.
“What about the congressman?” the other asked.
Popov shook her head. “He’ll be dead tomorrow.”
They nodded. “We’ll let you know when it’s done.”
The Russian agent was managing far more than her fair share. Blackout had changed her life. There is so much to do, she thought. And almost no time remaining.
Washington, DC – April 3rd – 12:31 pm
The man stood nervously against the tree, knowing Wen could kill him in an instant, but he thought she was beginning to believe him. However, it was Belfort and the cartel that worried him more than the woman in front of him—submachine gun or not.
“What people?” Wen repeated. His time to answer had expired.
He looked at her as if this were a silly question. “Shadow people,” the man said. “But that’s only what you call them. They’re all really just mercenaries for the cartel.”
“I know that much. Who are they? Who is the cartel?”
The man looked back out to the street.
“Who are they?” she demanded, all patience lost.
“I wish I knew.”
“Then why are you here?” Wen asked, keeping her concealed gun trained on him. “Why are you and Grimes putting your life at risk to allegedly help us?”
He looked back to the street. “There’s enough people in Washington gunning for you. Belfort has a private army in the city, seventy or eighty people all looking for the kill. First one who brings in your heads earns a ten million dollar bonus.”
“Why?”
