Cayden’s face was rigid. ‘Yeah. He was like that a lot.’ He hefted the canister. ‘But what’s that got to do with this, or Advent?’
‘A couple of weeks before Seattle went up in smoke, we were called back to the States, after a job in Indonesia,’ Leah said. ‘We were given an assignment a lot like yours: in the Rockies, not far from Boise. Before heading out, we were refitted at the Project labs – ARC booster shots, clinger tune-ups, the usual process.’ Her voice became flat. ‘At one point, I went to talk to the Doctor in his office, and found him in the middle of a file dump from his main terminal. He told me it was a back-up precaution for a few crucial files, in case of an attack on the lab’s energy sources and connections to the outside world, or even the lab itself. When I asked him what the likelihood of that was, he just smiled, and said he wasn’t sure, but that he wanted to be prepared, even if it meant keeping the data somewhere he wouldn’t have come within miles of before. At the time, I didn’t make much of that. But when I remembered his dealings with contractors – including Advent – they were the only possible candidate. And this was the only way the files would’ve been secure enough for him.’
Greg cut in. ‘Two weeks later, we’re partnered up with three others, and sent off to comb for a cell of Aryan crazies supposedly camped out in the mountains. The word from On High – meaning the Pentagon, or the Project, which amounted to the same thing – was one of these groups might have stolen a suitcase nuke two weeks ago, and had plans to set it off in one of the camps taking in refugees from the militia attacks on Denver and other towns further east. For almost a week, we saw nothing – just trees and rocks. Then, the same night the Bomb goes off, we find the encampment, just south of the border with Idaho… ’
*
A tiny fragment of light showed through the branches and undergrowth – almost a thousand yards distant, give or take a few. Greg halted and raised a fist, dropping to one knee at the same time. The other four Golems – Yelena and Akande to his left, Samir and Leah to his right – mimicked him, silenced XM10s up and tracking for any threats. Greg squinted. The lenses in his clinger’s hood automatically compensated, zooming in and focusing on the light, night-vision filter dropping in. The trees and brush were still thick enough around the clearing to hide most of the light source, but he could nonetheless see enough of its outline. A prefab mobile home, two or three rooms: closest thing to the camp’s HQ, probably. He held up two fingers, pointing first right, then left. His teammates silently fanned out, still in pairs, to sweep the perimeter and position themselves. With Greg approaching from the south through the thickest brush, the camp would then be covered from three sides, and the easiest escape paths on the northern side cut off.
Greg moved forward, clinger-clad feet hardly whispering over the mulch and foliage. More of the campground came into view as he wove through the brush: a half dozen dome tents, two slightly larger, square four-corners. No lights, other than those behind the shaded windows of the prefab. Two heavy pickup trucks parked between the prefab and the four-corners. No one in view yet, either, near the tents or walking any sort of beat in the enclosed area. Not uncommon with small insurgent groups, especially in areas like here in the Idaho panhandle, where they had considerable support or presence. Still –
A figure stepped out from behind a tree, twenty or so paces ahead. Greg immediately pressed himself against another; the darkness and the clinger’s camo function concealed him at once, or so they were meant to. The figure gradually coalesced into a blocky, bearded man in woodland-pattern fatigues and cap, combat boots and too-small bulletproof vest, an AK-74 slung carelessly over one shoulder. Greg could smell the booze, cigarette smoke and sweat on him even from a distance; the clinger hood’s filters couldn’t keep those out, or not quite. The sentry – undoubtedly what he was supposed to be – ambled in a vague zigzag in Greg’s general direction, NV-goggled gaze wandering disinterestedly over the forest. He stopped to hawk and spit into the nearest bush, then grunted and reached for his fly – turning and bringing himself face to face with Greg’s tree.
Greg was moving before he could finish the motion. The sentry had time for one startled grunt before the Golem’s hands grasped his head, snapping his neck with not much more effort than a typical human would have turning a stove knob. Greg caught the man as he fell, sitting him against the tree. He could’ve stayed hidden, even let him finish taking a leak – the clingers were shielded against night vision, and that, too. But if there was one, there could easily be more – and he and his team had to eliminate the targets fast already, before one raised an alarm and the whole group decided to go out in a blaze courtesy of the cargo they’d stolen.
Bringing his weapon up again, he moved to the very edge of the clearing. Other than some mild snoring, and the normal background buzz and rustle of the forest, he didn’t hear anything, from the surroundings or his team; they wouldn’t break radio silence, in any case, even if each of them was tangling with a whole squad. He blinked twice, then twice again. The filters shifted, to the multicolour of infrared. Two human-shaped forms were huddled in each of the tents; two more in one of the four-corners, and four in the last. Five – no, six – were clustered in the prefab, around an electric heater; probably the higher-ranking ones. One of these last sat a ways apart from the rest, in another section of the prefab: the “commander”, most likely, or whichever semi-military title this bunch preferred. He risked a quick look at the – dimmed – map on the holo-screen on his arm. The four green dots of his team’s transponders blinked, all in the appropriate positions. He closed the screen and raised his arm, letting the sensor attached to his wrist do its work while he pressed a control at his mission gear belt. A low crackling filled his ears: the Geiger counter. The sound grew strongest when he aimed it towards the prefab. Smart and stupid, to keep it so close. The level also seemed a bit low, for the type of cargo in question. Maybe they’d improvised shielding for it, since reports indicated the original had been left behind with the convoy.
He brought his weapon up and sighted on the nearest tent. First the men in those, then the rest around the prefab. Then Yelena or Akande would enter the prefab and deal with the last half-dozen, up close; they couldn’t risk shooting into the place and setting off the triggers on the cargo. Then secure the cargo itself, sweep the area one last time, and radio for extraction. Smooth as clockw –
The door to the prefab opened the same instant he squeezed the trigger. Another man in fatigues, this one with a sparse pencil moustache, stepped out onto the prefab’s tiny front porch, yawning and stretching. The bullet snapped cleanly through the tent, taking out the first man with an audible slap-punch of tearing fabric. Tired though he might be, the second man was alert enough to catch that. ‘What the hell?’ he muttered, reaching for the pistol at his belt. He hadn’t even unsnapped the catch when two more shots from Greg punched into his chest. With a strangled shout, he dropped, thumping facedown over the trio of porch steps.
A babble of raised voices and shouts rose from inside the prefab. Shit, Greg mouthed; silence mattered above all, even when a task went south. He shifted aim again, firing once, twice, twice again, then twice more. All four tents were dealt with by the time another figure appeared in the doorway. As Greg shifted aim, however, he ducked back inside, and his round punched into the doorframe. The shouts became even louder. Behind the shades, more figures dashed about, taking up defensive positions; they knew they’d be vulnerable outside.
Of course, the prefab was no defence, either. Switching back to infrared, Greg made out two men crouched low beneath the main window, another behind a couch on the opposite side, rifles in hand. A fourth man was upright and moving to the rear of the prefab with a shotgun. The fifth and last man was flat on the floor, apparently unarmed – and appeared to quail, when the fourth stood over him. Greg dropped the shotgun wielder with a quick three-round burst through the thin aluminium wall, then targeted and picked off the two by the door with equal speed; he saw blood spla
tter against the window shade. The man behind the couch rapid-crawled to the door and sprayed a volley out into the darkness, maybe to give him cover to roll out and make a break for it. Two or three of the rounds passed within a foot or so of Greg. He didn’t flinch, only fired a pair of shots, dropping the shooter.
No more shouts or shots rang out. Greg stayed still, waiting and scanning the camp. On the infrared, the sixth man still lay on the floor: breathing, yet barely moving – and still near the cargo hotspot. Not the commander, then, unless he’d already been wounded somehow, since Greg hadn’t done it. A hostage? That made more sense – except the report of the convoy attack hadn’t mentioned any taken. Some other prisoner, or a snitch? The unknowns were beginning to pile up. This wasn’t unfamiliar, in itself – but they shouldn’t be, in an assignment this routine.
He slammed the door on the speculating. The cargo was first; everything else, secondary. He made a final heat sweep of the camp, checking all the now-cooling bodies. When nothing moved or changed, he pressed at his arm, sending out the converge signal, and advanced.
The other four team members moved into the campsite at nearly the same moment he did. They probed each of the tents, checked all the sightlines, coordinating with a few hand signs and not a word spoken. Only after that did they move to the door of the prefab: Akande and Yelena moving through and fanning out, Greg behind them, Samir and Leah taking up watch to either side.
The inside of the prefab was filthy, even without the sprays of blood decorating the walls and floor: decrepit furniture, ripped-up muddy carpet, cigarette burns and gouges in the walls and all over the cheap wooden kitchenette. A small pile of empty beer cans sat in one corner; other than this, though, there wasn’t much litter. There were plenty of guns and clips, however, laid out on the “living room” table, on the couch, and on the kitchenette counter, every one of them clean and well-maintained. A tiny hallway, no more than eight paces long and two wide, lay past the kitchenette, with a bathroom on one side, a tiny space that had probably once been a closet, now a bunkbed compartment, on the other – and a sliding fake wood door at the very end, almost fully open, giving onto a larger room, with two beds against either main wall.
The Geiger’s crackling reached a crescendo when Greg aimed his sensor towards this last. Yet the emissions still felt weak, even close up. A soft moan emanated from the room. He tensed; Akande and Yelena took aim in its direction. He motioned to Akande: Move up. The other Golem fell in behind him; Greg went into a half-crouch, to give him better aim. Gun at the ready, he stepped into the room. The sixth man still lay between the beds, his back to the door. Greg checked the corners, then moved to his side. In the shaft of light from the hall, he saw the man wore a uniform: Type IV naval working garb. When he turned the man over, he made out the bars of a captain at his collar. No name tag, but a tape strip insignia above his breast pocket, and another at his upper arm: a trident, wrapped in the symbol of the atom. A nuclear weapons security officer.
He ran the sensor over the man. The Geiger readings matched, and there were slightly stronger traces nearby in the room. A hostage, then, who probably worked close enough to nukes – and might’ve been exposed to the stolen ones, here in this room – that the radiation still clung to him. Very close, judging by the patches of blonde-brown hair beginning to fall from his scalp, and the first burns and blisters of serious rad poisoning on his hands and face. There were multiple bruises over his face as well, and a slight giving sensation when Greg probed carefully at his side indicated bruised or broken ribs. He took in all this in a couple of seconds, trying to fit what it meant with the report. No hostages from the convoy, and none of the team had turned traitor. A deserter from another unit? Maybe – yet it seemed too much of a coincidence. And again: where was the nuke itself?
The man moaned again. His eyes fluttered, struggling to open. Greg put an arm under his neck as a pillow, lifting him up a bit, then looked to Akande. ‘Take Yelena and search the rest of the camp – check if the weapon was moved.’ His teammate nodded and left the room without a word. The man coughed harshly several times; flecks of blood were clear amidst the spittle. Greg lifted him a little higher, to a more reclined position. He groaned again, then finally seemed to come awake, or close to it. He looked up at the Golem, gaze still somewhat unfocused. ‘Wha… who’re you?’ he forced out.
‘Special Forces, sir,’ Greg replied: the standard answer. ‘You’re safe; the rest of the group holding you has been dealt with. We’re signalling for evac now.’
The officer coughed again; more blood showed on his lips. He managed to bring his arms beneath him, propping himself up without Greg’s help, and looked around. His face, already pale, lost even more colour, making his injuries even starker. ‘Where… Where is it?’ he whispered, the panic clear in his voice. ‘The case… they dumped it in here, along with me, right after we got… Where is it?’
‘We’re searching now, sir,’ Greg replied. Reasonably good news: if the nuke had been here, it couldn’t be far; they’d had the camp under surveillance for two days, and the bomb had gone missing only a day and a half prior. He paused, then decided it was better to know, given everything else that was still unknown: ‘What’s your name, sir?’
‘Drew… Drew Barsamin.’ Another coughing fit forced the officer back to the floor. Greg turned him on his side again, to help his breathing. When the fit passed, Barsamin rolled over and looked his way again, red now trickling freely from his mouth. His gaze, however, was much clearer, like he was focusing all his strength into it. ‘Wait… ’ His eyes, a pale green, went huge. ‘You’re… You’re a Golem.’
Greg went rigid. Before he could decide whether to answer yes or no – or make the normal, reflexive move and snap the man’s neck – Barsamin grabbed his wrist, with sudden, desperate energy. ‘You need to get the nuke… and get back,’ he gritted out through the pain of the wounds and irradiation. ‘The convoy… the nuke was from Seattle. Two of ’em… stored after a Project mission… in China… Xinjiang.’
Yet another deep, hacking cough paralysed him. He spat out a mouthful of red and black, and collapsed on his back. Greg moved to help him, but he pushed the Golem back, feebly. ‘No… no point.’ He took several shuddering breaths, whispering raggedly in between: ‘When… when the Turmoil hit the fan, not far from us… I gave the order… move to Livermore. Two convoys… different times. First one… then the second, another route.’
His voice dropped further, until it was almost inaudible. ‘Crazies hit us… just outside Medford. Knew we were coming… had to. Killed some, grabbed me… and the package. Dirty nuke, stuck me with it… didn’t keep it shielded. Pounded on me when I… ’ He coughed again, or rather gargled. More blood flowed, noticeably blacker. ‘Heard one say they were watchin’ for the second… don’t know if… ’
He lowered his head, words trailing off. Greg put a hand to his shoulder and beneath his neck, shaking gently. ‘Sir… Captain.’ Barsamin’s eyes opened a slit. He wasn’t going to last much longer, but any intel he had was essential – especially with the Project involved. ‘Captain… did you see or hear where they might’ve moved the package?’
‘N… no.’ This came out as barely a whisper. ‘Something… the sale… went wrong. Said they kept me… ransom, or just hostage. Mighta hit the jackpot… if they knew…’ A tiny twitch of his mouth; he was trying to smile. ‘Or woulda just shot me… save you the trouble, or my peo—’
He broke off, doubling over and retching. His whole body shook with the pain and effort of the spasm. Greg turned him over and started to call for Leah – she was carrying what meds they had – when Barsamin let out a final, choking gargle, and went still, slumping on his back a final time. His eyes were blank and staring, his chin and mouth dripping blood.
Greg put a finger to the man’s throat. No pulse. He studied the body for a moment or two longer, then closed its eyes – a gesture he’d picked up from Caswell, one of his trainers, though he wasn’t quite sure why – an
d stood up. Turning, he saw Akande standing in the hallway, his hood pulled back. The other Golem’s dark brown face was the same unsmiling mask Greg’s likely bore. ‘He’s gone?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ Nothing more needed to be said – at least not until the after-action report. Especially that last from Barsamin, about “my people” – who, by implication, also knew about the Project. He pulled back his hood, and checked and reloaded his XM10, as much out of precaution as to keep his mind on the mission at hand. ‘Anything in the compound?’
‘Plenty of small arms and ammunition, and a pair of Stingers with a case of warheads for each. No sign of the package itself – or hints that it ever was here, apart from the radioactive traces in this structure and a few footprints elsewhere.’ Akande also checked his weapons, then walked back out into the main living area. The dead militiamen were all gone, bloody drag marks leading to the door. ‘The others are checking the tents and laying out the bodies for the clean-up teams. We’re ready to signal for evac once they’re done.’
‘Good.’ It wasn’t, not until they’d recovered the bomb. The main threat was neutralised, however, and their next steps were clear. ‘See if you can find any sign of recent departures, and check any computer gear they may have. Long shot, with backwoods paranoids like this type, but they had to have left something pointing to where they moved the package, or sold it.’
Akande nodded and began tossing the room. Greg went back outside, jumping down from the porch. Leah and Samir, hoods off, were standing over a row of bodies – some in fatigues, others in underclothes – in the centre of the campsite. Yelena, also with her hood back, was just emerging from one of the two larger tents. Even in the near-darkness, her frown was plain, making her round, pale Slavic face and buzz-cut black hair even more severe. Something had to be off, and badly, to give her that look. She held an object in her right hand: a satellite phone.
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