Relentless

by Jonathan Maberry

  “Or to Palestinians,” said Isaac. “Or to Israelis, for that matter.”

  “His preeminent buyer would likely be underdogs in any political or military conflict,” said Church. “If ISIL wanted to make a comeback, for example. Or the Taliban. There are endless possibilities, and any one successful strike becomes a catalog page to sell this technology to the next fifty buyers. Being apolitical, Kuga can sell to both parties in any conflict.”

  “Then we are in real trouble,” said Coleman.

  “Yes, we damn well are,” said Doc, and Church nodded.

  “I really, really, really hate to ask this,” said Nikki, “but is there more? And please say no.”

  Doc Holliday gave her a smile as bright as the noonday sun.

  “Why, sweetie, of course there’s more.”

  CHAPTER 109

  THE TOC

  PHOENIX HOUSE

  OMFORI ISLAND, GREECE

  “Now we get to the areas where we don’t know much for certain,” said Doc Holliday. She clicked to change the image. This one showed a collage of several documents with handwritten notes or Post-its, each with a different acronym. Doc used her laser pointer to tick them off one at a time.

  “The most commonly repeated code is AO,” she said. “There’s also a few references to the AO or TAO, which is probably the same thing. Based on the Croatia documents, we had very little to go on, but in the notes Joe gave to Toys, there are references to ‘the American Operation.’”

  “Which is…?” asked Wilson.

  “Beats the living tarnation out of me, duckie.”

  “We can conjecture that it involves a deployment of the other technology,” said Church.

  “Sure, but how can we pinpoint the target?” asked Isaac.

  “Without a time frame, we cannot,” Church said glumly. “We’re early in the summer, and with COVID restrictions lifting, baseball season will continue in earnest, with sentimental fans now flocking to the stadiums. The same goes for concerts, and there are outdoor events like Coachella, Burning Man, and many others. If we go into fall, there’s football season, schools reopening, election rallies…”

  He left the rest hang.

  “Moving on,” said Doc. “There are a few references to G-55. Isaac thinks it’s another product line that we don’t have specs on yet. Ronny-bear thinks it’s a code for a generation of a bioweapon. But we’re just guessing.”

  They all batted theories around, but again, the lack of context foiled them.

  “Then we have R-33,” said Doc. “That is a chemical, and there were extensive notes in the Croatia papers. There were even some samples of earlier versions of it—notably, R-16 and R-31. But I’ll let Wooly Bear tell you his theory.”

  Ronald Coleman got to his feet. He was relatively new to Rogue Team International and not used to giving presentations to Church and his chief of operations. But he took a breath and plunged in.

  “I have a theory about R-33,” he began. “There are several references to R-33, Relentless, and the 33 Protocols in the notes we recovered in Croatia, and I believe they’re all the same thing.”

  “Excuse me,” said Wilson, “but ‘Relentless’?”

  “Yes. It appears to be a category of designer drug therapies in the eugeroic category. What some people call nootropic. Wakefulness drugs. Modafinil is the best-known drug in this category of drugs. It was developed to work for people with narcolepsy. It’s now used in all kinds of contexts where people need to stay alert for long periods of time. The air force uses it as a ‘go pill’ for certain situations. They did a really interesting test where they kept pilots awake for thirty-seven hours and made them fly in a simulator under the influence of it. That has real benefits for the military on long missions, and I know that it’s been tested in some countries to help firefighters on long shifts, emergency room staff, and so on. There are clear benefits, but as with all drugs, there are both known side effects and potential misuses. Not accidental … I mean deliberate uses for less-than-admirable purposes.”

  He paused to make sure everyone was following. They were.

  “There’s a mention in the old DMS files of a case you worked on, Mr. Church, and which was later completed by Joe Ledger. At different times, you were hunting for black marketeers moving a performance-enhancing synthetic steroid. The first generation of a formula that combines the select lean mass–building steroids with a synthetic eugeroic compound that significantly increases and regulates the hypothalamic histamine levels. In normal pharmacology, these drugs are wakefulness-promoting agents often prescribed to prevent shift-work sleepiness. That version was designed to build stamina and wakefulness to a point where the treated person won’t tire and won’t lose mental sharpness.”

  “How does that work?” asked Wilson.

  “While these drugs do upregulate hypothalamic histamine, they more directly work as a dopamine reuptake inhibitor, which means that they keep dopamine in the brain from being reabsorbed into the signaling neurons. This has the effect of building up more dopamine in the synaptic space, which is the business end of a neuron. Now … this works really well for what it is intended to do. A situation where you have to be okay for a long period of time, but not one where you have to be super awesome for a short period of time. Follow me?”

  “What does this have to do with Kuga?” asked Nikki.

  “Getting there, getting there…” Coleman took a drink from a bottle of water. “One problem with most of these drugs is that they take two to three hours to kick in. And it’s sort of a gradual and subtle effect. Per the air force study, there is still a 15–30 percent decrease in performance. However, we were able to obtain sufficient material from Croatia to subject it to GC MS and found four distinct compounds—L-Dopa, tetracycline, N-methylamphetamine hydrochloride, and oxycodone. The last two are in the sub-milligram to low-milligram range per injection. Really not enough to get someone high and certainly not enough to cause superstrength and hyperaggressive behavior, but they are the only parts of the concoction that make any sense right now.”

  Bug raised his eyebrows. “So … these cats are loading up on meth and oxys?”

  Coleman said, “In a way. N-methylamphetamine hydrochloride, or meth, has a long history of being used in combat situations. During World War II, the Nazis gave it out like candy to their soldiers. It was distributed under the name Pervitin. By the end of the war, they had created a pill code-named D-IX. It contained five milligrams of cocaine, three milligrams of Pervitin, and five milligrams of oxycodone. R-33 seems to be a continuation of that work.”

  Church asked, “What about the other components?”

  “L-Dopa is a dopamine precursor that is used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease,” said Coleman. “And the tetracycline is a common antibiotic. But let me get to the really key part here. Among the recovered materials was this.”

  Coleman held up a small white packet about half the size of a business card and less than half an inch thick. “According to their clinical records, something like this is intended to be surgically implanted just beneath the skin of each Fixer. And this is an expanded polytetrafluoroethylene pouch that contains hundreds of millions of cells.”

  “What type of cells?” asked Church.

  “Well, you see, boss, that’s the really interesting part. RNA-Seq showed that they were most likely chromaffin cells. Those are the cells in the adrenal cortex that are responsible for the release of catecholamines.”

  “Cate…?” began Wilson, fumbling with it. Coleman stepped right in.

  “Catecholamines are the molecules responsible for the body’s fight-or-flight response, which was interesting by itself. But when we dug down and did whole genome sequencing, we found a number of genetically inserted tet-on promoters. Specifically, they were attached to inserted versions of DOPA decarboxylase, dopamine β-hydroxylase, and phenylethanolamine N-methyltransferase.”

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  Coleman, who was in gear and
very excited, tried to scale it down, but he was a lab rat and very rarely had to explain these things to ordinary mortals. “Tet-on promoters are a little bit of DNA that can be used to control when a gene is expressed. Think of it as a light switch for a gene. But this switch is flipped by adding tetracycline. It has been used in biotechnology for a long time, but this isn’t just some off-the-shelf version. This is highly specialized to turn on very fast and make huge amounts of the genes. And the genes they control are the genes in the synthetic pathway to turn L-Dopa into norepinephrine and adrenaline.”

  “But … but…,” fumbled Nikki, “why put the cells in the pouches? Why not just inject them somewhere into the PMC?”

  “Because the pouch protects the cells from the immune system of the person it is implanted into, so there is no rejection,” explained Coleman. “The pouch lets small molecules and liquid back and forth, but it doesn’t allow cells in or out. There is a clinical trial underway right now where similar technology is being used to encapsulate insulin-secreting cells to treat type 1 diabetes. However, in this case, they are using the pouches as small bioreactors to make huge amounts of norepinephrine and adrenaline but only in the presence of tetracycline. L-Dopa is a synthetic precursor for those hormones, so that makes sense, too.”

  “Okay,” Nikki said. “I think I actually understood that part.”

  “Still clinging on by my fingernails,” Wilson said under his breath.

  “So the capsules under the skin are filled with cells that have been engineered so that the presence of this antibiotic causes them to create huge amounts of norepinephrine and adrenaline. The combination of those two hormones is what is believed to cause hysterical strength. That’s the kind of thing where a mom lifts a car off her baby or whatever.”

  “Isn’t there a great physical cost to that kind of sudden exertion?” asked Church.

  “Oh yes,” said Coleman. “Very much. Especially with this Relentless series of drugs. If they use this for any significant length of time, it’ll probably kill them. The heart is not designed to take such a huge and sustained adrenaline dump.”

  The room fell silent as the implications of that sank in.

  “Bloody hell,” said Wilson after a while. “This will turn those Fixers who are already in bleeding-edge body armor into supermen, and then it will kill them, triggering the explosives.”

  Everyone in the room looked sick and scared. Even Church.

  “Footage taken from Top’s and Bunny’s button cams have shown that quite a few of the Fixers at the Pavilion have surgical scars,” said Coleman. “So we can assume these packets have already been implanted. Since Top and Bunny are relatively new recruits, they haven’t yet received these implants. The others, though…”

  “Maybe we can try to tell the Fixers this,” ventured Nikki. “Maybe we can tell them that their employers have turned them into suicide bombers.”

  “That would be great,” said Coleman. “But…”

  “Dear lord, save me from scientists who say ‘But,’” pleaded Wilson.

  “Sorry,” said Coleman, and there was just a hint of the same ghoulish excitement on Doc Holliday’s face. “There’s a kicker. And it’s a kicker that really does make this worse.”

  “Then just hit us with it,” said Church.

  “Even though we don’t have samples of R-33, which is apparently their latest generation … we do know what they intended to add to it to make the super Fixers even more dangerous.”

  “Christ,” breathed Wilson, and he literally grabbed the arms of his chair as if bracing for a blow.

  “These packets will contain trace amounts of Rage.”

  CHAPTER 110

  DAS VERARBEITUNGSZENTRUM

  The black car idled at the edge of the parking lot, and the three passengers watched the processing plant burn.

  They saw two helicopters land and several small figures in black, and one in orange, climb aboard. The chopper lifted into the air just as a line of police cars came screaming into the lot from two entrances.

  “Holy moly,” breathed Harry Bolt. “Did Joe do all that?”

  “What do you think?” asked Toys snidely. “That bloke could start a riot in an empty room.”

  Violin studied the figures still visible as the helicopters climbed into the air.

  “Those were soldiers of some kind,” she said. “In body armor. Not a style I recognize.”

  “How can you see that without binoculars?” asked Toys, but Violin only smiled.

  Harry said, “She has superpowers. You wouldn’t believe some of the things Violin can—”

  “Hush now,” she murmured. And he hushed.

  The police cars screeched to a halt in front of the building, and the officers piled out, some pointing their weapons at the choppers, but there was no chance of a hit. The machines were climbing and turning.

  “Any sign of our boy?” asked Toys.

  Violin looked around. For a moment, it seemed as if she were about to say something, but then shook her head.

  Suddenly, a new series of explosions rippled through the building. And then an absolutely massive detonation lifted the entire roof off and hurled flaming chunks of concrete across the parking lot. The police scattered, but most of them were caught by the blast or knocked down by flaming debris.

  “Christ!” gasped Toys.

  “We need to help them,” said Violin.

  “We need to find Joe,” said Harry.

  “No,” said Toys, “she’s right. We need to help.”

  And the car drove into the parking lot.

  CHAPTER 111

  SCANDIC BERLIN POTSDAMER PLATZ

  GABRIELE-TERGIT-PROMENADE 19

  BERLIN, GERMANY

  First thing I did was find a public trash can on a deserted city street, pull over, and dump the remaining bee drones and my MindReader gear into the metal can. Then I stripped off my own body armor. Last, I activated four blaster-plasters that I hadn’t needed to use. I raced back to my car and was halfway down the block when it all blew up. It was a big and very hot fireball that I knew would completely incinerate everything. All anyone would find was slag. Nothing was traceable to begin with, but now it was not even remotely recognizable as what it might have been. While I drove, I muttered apologies to Doc and Bug.

  Then I took a long and complex route back to my hotel in Berlin. I stopped my car on a different side road halfway there and spent some time changing out of my combat rig and into a nondescript suit with a drab tie and fake eyeglasses. Cleaning the blood off Ghost took a while, and he whined and glared as if I were doing something truly awful to him.

  “Stop being a big baby,” I scolded, and he replied with a loud and eloquent fart.

  My hands shook as I worked. Partly it was the adrenaline still trying to get my nerves and muscles to fight or flee. Takes a lot longer for that to wash out of the bloodstream than it does to inject it in. Comes with a bit of nausea, too.

  Mostly, though, I was scared. And … relieved?

  I’d done the whole mission without the Darkness taking me over. And that was something I had to actually think about to make sure I was correct. But there were no memory gaps. I could map out every minute of my time inside the processing plant. So … yay?

  On the other hand, I’d seen ghosts. Spoken to ghosts. To my brother, Sean.

  If it had been Sean.

  When his eyes changed … that was how Top, Bunny, and Rudy had all described someone else’s eyes changing color. It was a name of a person I was sure had died in California at Church’s hands. At least, that’s what I thought. I hesitated even thinking the name.

  But it came anyway, and my lips and tongue and breath stained the air with it.

  “Nicodemus,” I whispered.

  Ghost whined and curled his tail between his legs, as he had back in Casanova’s cell.

  “He’s coming for you, Joe. If you keep hunting Santoro and Kuga, you’ll find him. And he really wants you to find him, Cowboy. Oh yes, he
does. He wants that so much.”

  God almighty.

  I debated driving to a church—any church—instead of back to my hotel. And if I thought that would have helped, I’d have done it.

  Instead, I drove us into town, parked the car myself rather than let a nosy valet have it, and went up to my room. I ordered enough food for six people, and while I waited for room service, I showered and spent a few minutes just standing under the spray. Maybe I lost some time. I don’t really know. What I do know is that I have no clear memory of drying off or getting dressed again.

  That should have scared me more than it did.

  And the fact that it didn’t scare me should have really freaked me out. It was as if I could stand a few feet away and objectively observe the process of my own psychological fragmentation.

  The knock on the door shook me out of those kinds of thoughts. Like any good total paranoid nutjob, I peered through the peephole while pressing a gun barrel to the door panel. But it was a bored-looking twentysomething in a hotel uniform. I slid the pistol into my waistband and pulled the shirt out to cover it, signed the check, added a couple of extra euros to the already exorbitant precalculated tip, carried the tray inside, and closed and locked the door. I set two of the trays on the floor for Ghost. Medium-rare steak on one, chicken fingers on the other, both with lots of fries. Ghost ate them one at a time and with great delicacy.

  While I ate, I typed up an after-action report. When I’d hit town, I’d purchased a low-end laptop because I thought I’d have a lot to record. A computer’s memory was far more reliable than my own swiss cheese brain. Once I was ready to check out of the room, I’d email the data to Bug and then abandon the laptop here. Even though I was not technically operating under any kind of orders from Mr. Church, there were things he needed to know.

  The report had almost all of it—the Fixers, their newfangled tech, the strange psychological weirdness, the suicide vests, the resistance to Sandman, and the presence of Eve.