GHOST TRAIL

by Brian Tyree

  The Chinese President leaned with his back against the wall in the lit exit corridor. “We’ll stay here, where we can see.” Weng said. “If we move to the building exit, we might head into an ambush.” He slid across the wall, away from the President. “Stay here, sir.”

  Weng scooted further down. Staying below a row of windows on the assembly side. The cavernous room appeared vacant through the headband NVGs. He arrived at the door jarred open by Matt’s body. He raised his submachine gun to provide cover, should Hal need it. Weng spoke to Charlie over his microphone. “What’s the status of the lights?” Hoping the spotlights would come on and help reveal enemy ghosts to him.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Charlie was rattling away at the laptop, typing code and trying to hack…something. “Working on it,” he replied over the radio.

  Jenny took it as an opportunity to speak. “How is everyone?”

  “President is alive,” Weng replied. “Un-injured. I’m not injured. Hal is okay in the assembly.”

  “And Matt?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Weng was inches away from his fallen comrade. He looked down at Matt’s lifeless legs sprawled into the hallway beside him. Weng rubbed the sweat from his face with a forearm and focused back inside the assembly hall.

  Hal climbed the elevated platform and stood up against the marble podium. He knew the other ghost was somewhere in front of him. Too close for either to risk giving up their location with a muzzle flash. He scanned the floor ahead, hoping for any ghost trail ripple from his enemy’s moving feet that might give him away.

  Weng’s voice was a relief when it sounded over Hal’s radio. “I’ll cover you if I know where you are.”

  Hal turned his head and whispered. “In front of the podium. Can you see it?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Shoot ten feet in front of the podium and spray to your left, out into the seats.”

  “Roger.”

  Weng rose on his knees, aimed at the podium, moved his barrel to the left to estimate ten feet and pulled the trigger. RRRD RRRD RRRD! The suppressed fire of his Type 06 was much louder than the MP10s. It shot out yellow-orange tongues of fire, flickering like a torch and illuminating the entire assembly in strobe. A sprinting of footsteps pounded the carpet toward the muzzle flashes.

  “Fire again! He’s coming!” Hal yelled.

  Weng fired, but was aiming deeper into the auditorium. He missed the ghost, but Hal saw what he was looking for—a ripple of movement from the other ghost, sprinting toward the glow of the muzzle flash.

  “MOVE!!” Hal yelled. Weng ducked for cover into the hallway. Hal ripped off a burst of shots at the moving ghost trail. He heard a PING! Hitting something. Hal switched his vision to thermal and could see a faint glowing dot just above the floor, moving slowly. Hal inched toward it. It was a bullet hole in the ghost’s rebreather backpack. Cool recycled air was spewing out, much cooler than room temperature, creating a signature in Hal’s FLIR. Electricity danced across the ghost’s pack and suit. Hal switched back to night vision. The enemy ghost’s suit was short circuiting, losing its optical camouflage. A human form emerged, crawling across the carpet, appearing uninjured. Hal thought the bullet must have only hit the backpack.

  The ghost knew Hal had the drop on him. He tossed his MP10 across the carpet as if to surrender. In night vision, Hal could easily see him. “I’m unarmed,” the ghost said in a muffled voice through his helmet. He raised his hands up and started to rise. “I’m unarmed. Don’t shoot.” The ghost had no clue where Hal was, still unable to see him.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Why is he giving up!?” Trest asked, agitated. “Tell him he doesn’t surrender!”

  “Do not surrender,” McCreary said. “Under no circumstance. DO NOT SURRENDER.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “I’m removing my helmet,” the ghost said. “Don’t shoot.”

  Weng trained his gun on him from the doorway. Hal moved in closer to the ghost as he took off his helmet. It hit the floor in a thud. The man turned, raising his arms. Hal recognized him, astonished. “Yarbo?!?” Yarbo heard his muffled voice and lunged toward the sound, tackling Hal. Hal’s submachine gun fired wildly into the ceiling. Weng rose to his feet, entering the assembly. Training his gun on the wrestling ball of a man in a black suit and the invisible Hal. He didn’t have a shot.

  Hal rolled and threw Yarbo off him. Yarbo clung to Hal’s MP10 as his momentum tore him away from Hal. The gun went flying over a row of chairs.

  Yarbo rose to his feet and spoke into empty space, assuming he was looking at the invisible Hal. “Now, we’re both unarmed. Think you can take me, Sheridan? Deactivate and let’s go mano a mano. I know you’ve been dying for the chance. Now, you’ve got it. Here I am.”

  Hal reached up and detached his helmet, immediately losing his stealth invisibility. He set the helmet down. Yarbo assumed a Muay Thai martial arts stance and Hal took a Brazilian Zu-Zitsu stance…

  Weng could easily pick off Yarbo now, but he knew it would be bad form. He gave Hal a chance. Keeping his finger on the trigger, just in case.

  Yarbo lunged first, striking with a punch that Hal deflected, and followed with a kick to Hal’s calf. His suit absorbed most of the blow, but Hal couldn’t take too many more like it.

  Weng glanced back down the hall at the President Weilen. He was fine. Eyes closed, leaning against the wall. Weng flipped the NVGs down on the blood-soaked head band, scanning the General Assembly for other potential threats. He realized staying in the hall was the best way to keep the President safe. He ducked back into the doorway while keeping his firearm trained on Hal’s attacker.

  Hal threw a jab with a right and Yarbo bobbed his head, dodging it. Yarbo kicked low at Hal’s calf. Striking the meaty part below the knee. It was a Muay Thai misdirection tactic. Yarbo kicked at his calf again. Hal jumped back to avoid it. Hal knew the tactic—get your opponent to focus on the leg and lower their guard on a more vulnerable target above. Yarbo threw another kick. Hal blocked it with a left arm, exposing his face. Yarbo threw a haymaker toward it. Hal saw it coming. He deflected it across his body, which opened Yarbo’s torso as a target. Hal rifled a shuddering left jab to Yarbo’s rib cage. Yarbo winced and couldn’t hide the sound of the air forced out of his lungs. That’s gotta’ hurt, Hal thought.

  Yarbo stumbled backward and regained his footing. He pulled his SRK knife from his belt—standard issue fixed-blade for ghosts. It was similar to the sharkie they sparred with in class—only this one wasn’t rubber.

  “Unarmed, huh?” Hal asked, mocking Yarbo’s cowardice.

  “I lied!” Yarbo laughed. Lunging forward. Taking a poke at Hal. Hal easily dodged, stepping back. Hal reached for his own fixed blade, but the sheath was empty. He remembered losing it in the battle with the sniper. “You’re so naïve, Sheridan. That’s why you were a prime candidate for the proj—

  —Hal lunged, throwing a right jab while his left shielded his face from a knife swing. Yarbo moved and Hal’s punch connected harmlessly with Yarbo’s shoulder.

  Yarbo threw quick jabs with the fixed-blade knife. It’s sharp tip glinting from the doorway light. Hal dodged the knife. Hands open and fingers twitching—ready for a grab move. Yarbo aimed for his hands as the two rotated in a dance. Like two cobras fighting, measuring each other with faux strikes. Taunting and waiting for the opportunity for a lethal blow.

  “Why?” Hal asked. “Why you? I thought you were above this.”

  Yarbo chuckled with arrogance. “Isn’t it obvious? To be able to kill an enemy with impunity. Who would pass that up!?”

  “The enemy?!” Hal said, implying himself. “You crossed the line, and you murdered Hank.”

  Yarbo brushed the accusation off like a fly, swinging his blade through the air at Hal. Making no effort to pass blame or defend himself.

  “You did do it,” Hal said. “It was you.”

  “That’s right. And I’m gonna’ do you the same way.” Yarbo swiped th
e knife at Hal’s face. Hal arched his neck and head back, but not far enough. The knife sliced across his cheek, flicking blood through the air.

  A scrambled call sounded from inside Yarbo’s helmet on the floor nearby. “Ghost two, SITREP?” Hal heard it, wiping the blood from his cheek. He turned toward Yarbo and charged head-first, tackling him like a linebacker drilling a quarterback.

  They wrestled on the ground. Now, they were in Hal’s world—the domain of Ju Jitsu. Hal’s thick arms wrapped around Yarbo’s upper arms and neck, gripping him in a choke hold. The radio transmission repeated from Yarbo’s helmet. “Ghost two, repeat. SITREP?”

  Hal gripped even tighter. Cinching the power of his strangle-hold on Yarbo. Giving him the same medicine he imagined Yarbo gave Henry.

  “SITREP! Ghost Two reply!” McCreary’s voice crackled.

  Hal leveraged his arms even tighter, squeezing Yarbo’s windpipe closed. Yarbo was powerless. Having to direct all his energy on breathing. He flailed his arm with the tactical knife, but to no effect. Hal leaned to Yarbo’s ear, tightening his grip, knowing Yarbo would soon take his last breath... “There’s a reason I’m Ghost One.” The tactical knife dropped from Yarbo’s hand.

  “This… is for Henry…” Just as Hal was about to choke the life out of Yarbo, he spotted Weng above both of them. His submachine gun trained on Yarbo.

  “Death is too good for this one,” Weng said. “He can lead us to the others. Let him go.” Hal’s eyes flicked up to Weng. “I’ll get the answers from him.”

  Hal was reluctant to release his grip even though he knew Weng was right. Hal quickly let go and stood up, away from Weng’s barrel should Yarbo have any strength to fight. Yarbo choked and coughed for air, curling up in a ball. He took deep breaths. His blue face slowly regaining its natural color.

  Weng noticed a flashing light out of the corner of his eye. “What’s that?”

  Hal looked down at Yarbo’s helmet and saw the familiar countdown on the HMD of Yarbo’s face shield. “It’s a self-destruct.” Hal said, picking Yarbo’s helmet up and hurling it to a dark corner of the assembly, fifty feet away. “There’s a bug in the design. It won’t activate if the helmet isn’t attached.”

  Yarbo lifted himself to his hands and knees. Gulping deep breaths.

  “Start talking,” Hal said. “Don’t make him do it the hard way.” Referring to the torture Weng was about to dispense.

  In the corner of the assembly, the helmet lie tilted on its side. The digital countdown ticked down on the HMD.

  03…02…01…

  Yarbo looked up. His eyes went wide in panic. Smoke rose from the neck and sleeves of his suit. He screamed in terror. Hal and Weng stepped back. Black smoke poured from the suit. Yarbo’s skin bubbled and boiled at his neckline. An internal chemical reaction sent plasma through the circulatory system of the suit. Causing the suit and the human inside to melt like magma. Yarbo’s arms and legs flailed on the carpet, steam and smoke rising from his bubbling body. The writhing stopped, and he was quickly reduced to a tar-like pool of blood, melted flesh and plastic.

  A sizzling sound came from the dark corner of the room. The helmet glowed red hot and began to melt. Blackening the carpet.

  “I guess they fixed the bug,” Weng said. Lowering his gun to his side.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Hal said, “I’ll lead you out.” Hal put his helmet on, and it sealed to the neck ring in a WHOOSH. He retrieved his MP10 from the seats and strode to the hall, passing the Chinese President. He pulled back the flap on his wrist and activated the suit. He disappeared ahead of Weng and President Weilen on route to the General Assembly lobby.

  A SWAT assembled in the lobby, prepping for a raid on the General Assembly. The doors burst open with Weng and President Weilen. Chinese officials and the SWAT team rushed over to help them. A flurry of reporters clamored at the door and windows outside. FBI and UN security paraded in and out of the entrance. Weng scanned the lobby for any sign of Hal, but could only imagine him disappearing through the entrance doors. Weng dipped his head and spoke into his concealed microphone in Chinese, “Mission accomplished. President Weilen is safe.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Jennifer heard the static transmission over the laptop speakers and looked to Charlie for the translation. “It’s over. The Chinese President is safe.” Jennifer cupped her hands over her mouth with joy. Ecstatic and relieved. She rose to her feet and shook Charlie by the shoulders, unable to restrain her enthusiasm. He laughed. Charlie returned to his laptop. Typing in commands. “Watch this. Look out the window, to the north.”

  Jennifer leaned over the desk, peering out the bunkhouse window to the far right…

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Strike team alpha, SITREP?” McCreary frantically said over the radio, a line of sweat rolling down the side of his face. He repeated the command.

  Trest was also nervous, pacing behind him in the confined quarters of the box. “Wrap it up. All of it! We have to get out of here. Douglas, you keep the AOD on us. Everyone else, pack up.”

  “Hanger One, sir?” Baldo asked, using slang for the latrine. McCreary nodded.

  McCreary repeated his order over the headset. “Strike team alpha, respond.”

  “SIR…” Douglas said, turning back toward Trest with a horrified expression. “I’ve lost control of her.”

  Trest and McCreary turned intent gazes to Douglas’s monitor, showing the camera feed from the AOD stealth drone. It rolled and banked. Diving toward the box in attack position. Launching two Hellfire missiles. The missiles streaked toward the box, trailing white wisps of smoke behind.

  “OH FUC—”

  —KA-BOOM!! A double explosion of Hellfire missiles obliterated the box.

  Baldo was blown back from the blast, squatting with pants around ankles in the weeds nearby. He tugged them up and darted into the desert.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Charlie rose to his feet, cheering the orange and black fireball blooming on the horizon.

  Jennifer watched in awe, not sure what she was seeing. Charlie went back to the controls, swooping the stealth drone up out of its attack dive. He banked it around, watching the image from the drone camera he now controlled. “Keep watching. Out the window!”

  The Barrett ranch house and bunkhouse appeared on-screen from a low altitude via the drone camera. Jenny spotted the angular, black drone flying straight toward them. The lethal drone buzzed right over the top of the bunkhouse as Charlie laughed at his controlled fly-by.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Sir, I’ve got an unauthorized explosion,” a radar operator said, looking up from a bank of screens at the Holloman tower. “North-northeast of our position.” The superior arrived, looking at the screen and the nearest blip, identified as MQ-10S. “It’s the AOD, sir. I’ve been radioing the ground control center, but there’s no response.”

  “Who’s controlling her?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “What else we got up there?”

  The radioman scanned the screen. “Two unarmed F-22s on a training mission.”

  “Scramble a pair of F-35s. Take it out—on my order.”

  “Roger that.” He sounded the klaxon alarm to the ready room, where pilots waited on standby. He announced over their PA system, “Voodoo One and Two, proceed to aircraft…”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Shouldn’t you land it?!” Jennifer asked.

  “I can’t,” Charlie said. “They’ll know we hacked it when they go over the onboard computer.”

  “So… where are you flying it?”

  “Out over the desert, away from everything. I’m sure they’re sending up jets—”

  —On cue, the roar of two F-35 Lightning II fighters took off, interrupting Charlie. Rising in tandem attack mode on the runway. Charlie and Jenny watched the nation’s most advanced fighter jets rise and bank back over Holloman, toward the desert.

  Charlie looked at the monitor from the drone camera, flying over the rolli
ng ivory dunes of the White Sands. Within ten seconds of being airborne, an F-35 had already targeted the drone from several miles away and launched a single missile. Charlie’s monitor flashed with static and a few frames of the drone disintegrating in mid-air.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  It took twice as long for the pair of F-35’s to arrive over the crash site than the time it took for the missile to hit its target. A pilot leaned to his cockpit window. Eyeing the debris field of jet black particles strewn over the snowy, windswept waves of gypsum crystals making up the white sand. “Voodoo One to HAFB, target is down. Repeat. Target is down.”

  “Voodoo One and Two,” the tower replied, “maintain posture and overwatch until ground crew arrives.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Good afternoon, Chairman,” Hal said, removing the stealth helmet—instantly appearing from thin air in a corner office chair of Congressman Watson Trent.

  “Who are you—How’d you get in here?” the Congressman asked, then leaned to his intercom. “Pam, call security.”

  Hal rose, striding to the Congressman’s desk. Appearing ominous, decked head to toe in the SCIROC suit. Hal handed him the flash drive. “I know you’re a straight shooter, Congressman. And as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, you should look at this.” Trent accepted the flash drive with curiosity. “Call the Ambassador to China. He’ll confirm everything. He’ll ask you to draw up Articles of Impeachment for the President of the United States. Do it—it’s warranted—as you’ll see.”

  Hal heard the commotion of security guards arriving in the neighboring office outside. He put the helmet on and disappeared. Congressman Trent couldn’t believe his eyes. Two guards barged in, finding the Congressman alone at his desk.

  “Are you alright, sir?”

  Trent nodded. “I’m okay. Sorry fellas. False alarm.”

  “No problem, sir.”

  The guards left and Congressman Trent strode around his desk to the area where Hal stood a moment ago. He swiped his arm through the air. “Where’d you go? Are you still here?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  A pair of hands leaned a framed painting against the side of a cemetery headstone that read, Henry Alfred Banks – An Uncle to All. 1946 – 2018. The frame was a weatherproof, outdoor picture frame. The painting inside—a small print of Frederic Remington’s “The Cowboy.” Henry’s headstone was next to his wife’s. Hal stood up from the headstone, beside Jenny, also dressed in black. She set a vase of wild flowers on Henry’s grave. They paid their respects, turned and walked away, toward the New Mexico dusk. Hal held her hand as they passed through the green cemetery dotted with trees.