GHOST TRAIL

by Brian Tyree

  Trest looked it over. It was a few names with a brief description next to each and their location. He needed no further instruction. It was the President’s new kill-list.

  “Commit it to memory,” The President said. “All of it. This doesn’t leave my office.” The President gave Trest a minute to memorize all the names. One was a high-ranking Islamic terrorist and one a Taliban leader. The third name caught Trest off guard, as did his location. Adolfo Vicente “El Lobo” Garcia—Hermosillo, Mexico.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE TERMINAL

  Hal gripped a door handle fashioned from a heavy bottle opener. Pulling it open to a blast of AC and stale beer from the dimly lit dive bar on base called The Terminal. The clack of a billiard break sounded in the distance. A lone drunk couple danced to country music. Creating their own dance floor in front of the jukebox while others played pool and darts nearby. A tilted neon Coors sign flickered its last sparks of life on a paneled wall. Both hung when the bar opened in 1978.

  Hal scanned the familiar surroundings, finding what he was looking for—a familiar face attached to a mug at the bar.

  “Uncle Hank!” Hal said. Patting the man on his flannel shoulder then giving him a firm handshake. Thanks for coming down.”

  “Coming down?” Henry said. “This is my second home!”

  “How many nephews has this ol’ fart got?” Maggie, the barkeep asked. Smoking a cigarette and drying a beer mug at the same time.

  “About everyone on base.” Hal replied.

  Henry Banks looked a few years older than the buxom Maggie, both well past retirement age. His nickname was apt, as he seemed to be a mentor to most pilots on the base. Henry was the one to show Hal the ropes at the imagery analysis office, and the two became fast friends. Henry was stocky for his age. Slightly balding, with a boyish face and gap-toothed smile that could brighten anyone’s day—man, woman or child.

  “The usual?” Maggie asked, and started pouring before Hal could answer. Setting the Jameson rocks down in front of the seat beside Henry’s. Hal thanked her and sat down.

  “What the hell?! He threw it right to him!” Henry’s neck craned up, watching a football game on a TV above the bar. Hal looked up to watch the replay of the Denver Broncos quarterback throwing an interception. “Broncos keep playing like this and there won’t be any Monday night games next year.”

  Hank glanced over at Hal and saw his mind was elsewhere—not into the game. “You okay? I think he needs another one.”

  Hal waived it off. “I’m good.”

  Henry knew something wasn’t right. “You sure? You don’t look yourself.”

  “Maybe I will have another.” Hal held up a finger to Maggie for one more. “The whole time I was at Creech, I never once got PTSD. I thought it was a myth. An excuse for the rookies to get out of duty.”

  “You think you have it now?”

  Hal was reluctant to answer. “I don’t know what the hell I have.”

  “You ever experience any of that from your combat?” Hal asked. “PTSD?”

  “Hey!” The over-protective Maggie butted in. “He don’t talk about that. None of the old timer’s do. Different generation.”

  “You know I didn’t mean anything—” Hal replied. “I was talking about after. When you got back. Did you get nightmares? Or see things, images from it during the day?”

  “Not too much anymore. Once in a while.” Henry replied.

  “There! That’s it—,” Hal said, looking at a news report on a TV next to the football game. “Can you turn that one up? Please?”

  Maggie was busy with another customer down the bar, so Hal reached up over the bar to crank the volume. A female war correspondent was in mid-report. “…Believed to be killed in the bombing was top level ISIS leader, Ali Abbas Nasser.” The picture of Abbas Nasser appeared on screen. It was the same man in agony from Hal’s earlier vision.

  The report continued. “It happened at midnight local time, and it has been confirmed that the pile of rubble behind me was indeed an ISIS safe house. Ali Abbas Nasser is also reported to be the man who replaced Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the leader of ISIS in Afghanistan. It’s not known whether the explosion killed any civilians, but other high-level ISIS leaders, Mohammed Jassim Ali and Hawar Abdul-Razzaq are believed to have been killed in the blast.”

  An image jolted into Hal’s mind as he watched the newscast. An MP10 submachine gun sprang to life in his hands. Firing bursts of bright muzzle flashes.

  “This is the third attack in as many weeks,” the reporter continued, “taking out key ISIS figures…”

  The thought festered in Hal’s mind, raising questions he couldn’t answer. Has this been going on for three weeks? When did my headaches start?

  The news program switched stories. This one featured the Commander in Chief, President Clarke, announcing a pledge to ease tensions between China and Taiwan. Recommending a peace treaty brokered by U.S. delegates and UN officials.

  “What other news channels do you get?” Hal hollered to Maggie at the end of the bar.

  “Just this one. This TV don’t get news from the left.”

  Henry laughed. Hal would have laughed too—any other day.

  “That news report in Afghanistan...” Hal said to Henry. “I recognize it. Like I was there. Not just the village. I recognize the men too— the killed ISIS leaders.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Like you were there?’” Henry asked. “There like Patton and the Carthaginians in a past life??”

  “No. I’ve seen it before. Like I was there yesterday. The terrain, the village… The shape of the dwellings. I KNOW it. I’ve been there. And the men—I know their faces. Like a stranger you talk to at the post office or grocery store. You don’t get their name, but you know their face if you see them a day later.”

  “What makes you think you were there?” Henry asked. “Dreams? Is that what you’re going on?”

  “Dreams. Flashes of images. Detailed ones—like memories.”

  “So, you fell asleep when the news was on and then you dreamt about it?”

  “No. The timing doesn’t work. The attack happened last night. It was only reported today.”

  “All those mud huts look the same,” Henry said. “And so do all the towel heads. You think you can tell them apart when they have scarves wrapped around their faces?”

  Hal shook his head. He wasn’t convincing Henry.

  “See this?” Hal cranes his jaw at an angle, showing Henry his neck and chin.

  “What?”

  “The line. It’s a strap line. From a Mich helmet. I could put one on now and it would line up perfectly.”

  “I don’t see anything.”

  Hal rose to catch his reflection in a mirrored Michelob sign on the wall. It was too dark to see the chin-strap line. “The lighting—you can’t see it in here. It’s not just the line… I have bruises on my body, I ache all over. I’m more tired than normal during the day. It doesn’t make any sense!” He paused, turning to Henry. “Am I going crazy??! Tell me I’m not cracking up.”

  “There’s gotta’ be a reason for it,” Henry said. “You’re working long hours, stressed… Hell, maybe you got a concussion from that Kung Fu that you call exercise? Or maybe you really have PTSD. What do I know? Have you seen a doctor or the base shrink?”

  Hal shook his head. “I don’t need a doctor. Shrink maybe—but I don’t believe in all that mumbo jumbo BS. Half the guys at Creech have PTSD because they’re drug addicts—it’s not from the job. If they did something instead of drugs to blow off steam, they wouldn’t need the shrinks.”

  “What other choice do you have?” Henry asked. “Keep obsessing on it until you are crazy? Go to the head shrink. Or the doctor. It’s not like he’ll make it worse.”

  Hal nodded. He couldn’t argue the logic.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Hal stayed at The Terminal until the game ended, making sure Uncle Hank got to his car and was okay to drive. Hal declined a lift home telling He
nry he could use the walk home. He needed time to think.

  The night air was cool and full of stars. The streets of Soaring Heights were silent. A pair of F-22 Raptors practiced touch and go’s on the runway nearby. Breaking up the calm of the night. People on the base were so used to aircraft taking off and landing around the clock they grew numb to the roar of the engines. Just like those who lived near railroad tracks, Hal thought.

  Hal strolled down the middle of the street, devising a strategy of what he would tell the base shrink. None of it makes sense to me… How can I say it so a complete stranger will believe it? How do I phrase it so I don’t sound crazy?

  Hal didn’t know where to start. When was the first symptom? What day? He couldn’t remember. The symptoms happened slowly over time. He should know when they started—the doctor would be sure to ask. Hal pictured the calendar in his mind’s eye and felt a sudden sting. He reached for his shoulder and then fell to his knees. Hal’s world went black.

  A whip-like chord appeared out of nowhere. SNAPPING around his neck. His eyes flicked open with a horrifying thought—I’m under attack.

  Hal’s mind switched gears to survival mode—calling upon his special forces training. He had to get the cord off of his neck. He knew he only had seconds. He dug his fingers deep into his neck, under the cord, creating a bridge to free his blood flow. Buying time. He felt the attacker’s forearms leaning onto his shoulders. A leverage point. Hal felt the attacker’s right knee pressing into this back. The concept of martial arts triangulation flashed through his mind like the diagram of an intricate patent. Hal remembered from his training that bipeds are essentially unstable. No matter how a person stands, there is a point in space where they are most vulnerable to falling over. Hal had to find that balance point of his attacker by sensing where his feet were. The knee and shin bracing against his back gave him that information. Hal thrust his head backward, reverse-head-butting the attacker. Hard enough to get the attacker to ease his grip for a moment. And long enough for Hal to use leverage. Still holding the cord, Hal lunged downward with all his might. Toward the attacker’s balance point on the ground in front of him. Flipping the attacker over the top to a hard landing on the ground in front of him.

  Hal moved to subdue him and another attacker appeared from his right. Wielding a knife. Hal saw that it was a tactical, fixed-blade knife, which told him these guys were professionals. A third attacker appeared from his left. The knife lunged forward. Hal swiped at the man’s wrist, blocking the knife and in the same motion releasing the man’s grip—depositing the knife in his own hand. Three against one became three against Hal with a knife.

  Hal’s attackers were all head-to-toe in black, but something was off with them. Hal couldn’t make out their faces. Their facial features were blotchy and surreal. Muddled skin tones and textures. Hal couldn’t dwell on it too long, seeing the third man pull a 9mm sidearm from his coat. Hal charged as the man brought the gun up to aim. Hal’s left arm thrust in to the inside of the man’s arm. Throwing off his aim while Hal buried the knife in the side of the man’s neck.

  An attacker lunged from the right. Hal stepped fast. Twisting a heel in the dirt toward the attacker to give him leverage, then delivering a thundering elbow to the charging man’s face. Fracturing his cheekbone.

  All the attackers were down. Hal stood over them. He eased closer for a better look at their faces, and at once the attackers vanished. Hal heard a faint, but familiar voice. “Mission prep is complete. Put him under and prep for mapping sim brief.” It was the voice of Beacon. Hal’s vision went black and he felt groggy.

  Trest stood behind the open doors of the box in Hangar 302, looking toward the side wall of the hangar. Pads lined the wall and floor of a section of the hangar all the way to the doors. A sweaty, shirtless man wearing virtual-reality headgear stood motionless on an omni-directional trainer. It had an angular bowl-shaped floor that looked like a steel drum, which allowed the user to walk or run in place in any direction, while wearing the VR headgear.

  Three men rose from the ground near the shirtless man, wearing bear-suits. Thick padding and lacrosse helmets, covered in hundreds of tiny white balls. Motion-capture dots that served as reference points for animation. They could be made to look like anything in the virtual reality computer. In this case—three attackers in black.

  Two handlers cautiously approached the shirtless man. Like approaching a king cobra. One quickly raised an injection pistol to the man’s neck and fired a tranquilizer into his jugular. The man started to faint. Both the handlers caught him, easing him down to the padded floor.

  Baldo rattled away at a computer keypad in the box. “Mapping sim is up and ready for brief, sir.”

  “Alright,” Trest replied, “Move him to the clinic, have the doc look him over and we’ll start the mapping sim debrief in a half hour.”

  The handlers removed the man’s virtual reality headgear, revealing the face of Hal beneath.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Hal seemed unconscious, but looked straight forward. His eyes didn’t flinch—as if he were asleep with eyes wide open. McCreary guided him back to a reclining position in what appeared to be a contemporary dental chair. A metal tray attached to the chair, but that’s where the friendly-neighborhood-dentist similarities ended. A curved flat screen was a foot in front of Hal’s face, wide enough to fill his peripheral vision. A map appeared on the screen with rapidly changing locations. They flickered in the reflection of Hal’s eyes as he seemed to be absorbing it all. McCreary stood next to Hal in the small dark room while Baldo typed at a laptop nearby. Its screen showed the same images as Hal’s monitor. Both screens went black and the room was completely dark. “Mapping sim complete,” McCreary said. “Starting targeting program.”

  Baldo rattled at the keyboard, pulling up an image of an ominous Mexican with long hair and handlebar mustache. Bold flashing letters appeared over his image, readingTARGET.

  McCreary spoke calm and clear, directly into Hal’s ear. In the same voice he used in radio communication to Ghost One. “Target,” he said. “El Lobo. Alfredo Vincente Garcia.”

  Other images of Garcia appeared. Some from further away and some profile angles. Each had the sameTARGET label over them. An artificial 3D rendering of El Lobo slowly rotated. The reflection appeared in Hal’s eyes. He didn’t blink at all. Retaining everything.

  “Secondary targets,” Baldo said, loading new images of armed men onto the screen. Henchmen of El Lobo. Bold letters appeared over each one.

  SECONDARY TARGETS

  “Running aggression sim,” Baldo said.

  Thermal images of human forms appeared on Hal’s screen. They flashedAGGRESSOR TARGETS in red.

  “Aggressor targets,” McCreary said to Hal. “Watch for red flashes. Heart rate spikes in sensors.” One flashed on the thermal sensor of a man.

  “Kill red flashes,” McCreary said. Ordering Hal to kill anyone who approached with the label of aggressor and spiking heart rate—the sign of a would-be attacker.

  “Sims completed.” McCreary said. “Let’s get him home.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  EL LOBO

  Moonlight gleamed off the sharp edges of the Aurora as she flew above the clouds over the Sonoran Desert—an arid expanse sprawling from Arizona through Southern California and down to northwestern Mexico. The Aurora seemed from another world. The MQ-10S fit snug to her belly, inside long panels attached to the Aurora fuselage, which cut the wind resistance and radar signature of the drone.

  “Nightwing to Beacon” the Aurora pilot sounded over the radio. “Crossing the border now. Preparing for AOD release.”

  “Roger that,” McCreary replied. “Release on your go.”

  Metal brackets opened like jaws beneath the Aurora. Releasing the stealth drone.

  “The angel is under my control,” Douglas sounded over the radio. “Powering up AOD motor in three, two, one… power up.”

  Once the stealth drone cleared the Aurora, its propelle
r fired up. Turning it from a glider into a powered aircraft. The Aurora peeled off and the pilot radioed his return to base.

  In the box at Holloman, Baldo watched a satellite feed with an overlay of a map of Mexico. A flashing light labeled AOD represented the stealth drone. It flew southwest toward the Baja coastal town of Kino Nuevo. About a hundred miles west of Hermosillo.

  “ETA to target—five minutes,” Baldo said. He looked behind him, expecting to see Trest peering over his shoulder, but there was no sign of him. He lowered his headset microphone and asked, “Where’s the Major?”

  “Off base,” McCreary replied. “Monitoring remotely.”

  “I can’t believe he’s not here,” Baldo said.

  “You’re complaining?” McCreary asked.

  “Give me a target, Baldo,” Douglas said. Piloting the drone in the general direction of the Baja coast.

  “Roger.” Baldo rattled on the keyboard and a perimeter outline appeared on his map of the coast. Labeled “El Lobo Estate.”

  “El Lobo!? Are you kidding me?” Douglas asked, his back straightening in the chair, alert. The other two stared straight ahead. For a Project Cloudcroft insider, Douglas was on the outside. Not intimately involved in all the details of the missions or their targets. His only duties were to fly the drone, blow things up and not ask questions. All three of them were more at ease without Trest breathing down their backs. “El Lobo. The wolf. The most notorious drug cartel kingpin in Mexico.” Douglas continued. “This shit’s gonna’ be good.”

  “Alright,” McCreary said. “Keep your head in the mission. How long until drop?”

  “Just another minute. Let me circle the perimeter and find a good DZ.”

  The night vision feed from the drone showed a palatial Spanish-style villa on a cliff overlooking the ocean. A ten foot stucco wall surrounded the estate. The property included an expansive yard facing the ocean with a swimming pool, vineyard and horse corral. The backyard facing the hill was much smaller, with a perimeter wall hugging the villa.