by Z. A. Recht
Franklin looked around and leaned forward an inch, dropping his voice an octave.
“Least, that’s what we hope it is.”
“And you needed me here why?” Sherman asked, thumbing through the transcripts. Most were gibberish.
“You were part of the force tasked with quarantining Africa. I know Suez has fallen, but that was only a few days ago. You’ve been in contact with the commanders of the naval and air blockades these past couple of weeks. Is there any possibility someone got through? I’d like to know so I can give my men some peace of mind. They can’t call home to check on their families, and they’re worried.”
Sherman frowned, but obliged, wracking his brain for any snippet of knowledge that might be useful.
“No,” he said after a moment. “Once we got those blockades set up, nothing and no one got off the continent until Suez was breached.”
“Once you got the blockades up,” Captain Franklin repeated, stressing the first word. “All our reports from home are incomplete, but look on the next-to-last page of those transcripts, halfway down.”
Sherman scanned the pages, and found the entry the Captain referred to.
VOICE 1: [static] to Mexico for [static] fueling. [static] isn’t [static] Be advised that Brazil now considered [static] back to Panama. Any ships [static] to the peninsula. Over.
VOICE 2: Say again. Over. [mumbling?] Losing signal here . . .
V1: Situation [static] untenable as of [LONG STATIC] fueling. Over.
VOICE 3: Coronado, your signal is breaking up. Relay sitrep on hard lines. Do you still need resupply & reinforcement? Over.
V1: [static]
V3: Say again, Coronado. Over.
V2: Andrews, we have lost signal from Coronado. Are you receiving? Over.
V3: Negative. Edwards can you recon? Over.
V2: Can’t do, Andrews. All flights on strike missions. Can divert by [static]
V3: Edwards are you reading?
V2: [static]
Sherman grunted and tossed the transcript onto an empty chair.
“Could mean nothing,” he said. “Cali’s been having trouble with brownouts for the past decade. Maybe they’ve just lost transmitter power.”
“They have generators, sir,” Thomas said.
“Wouldn’t have range on those,” Franklin added, agreeing with Sherman. “All the relays would be out.”
“Still,” Sherman began, leaning on a console, “Edwards mentioned strike missions. They don’t have much range either. They’re flying over our soil.”
“Civil unrest, maybe?” Thomas asked.
“Most likely. With Suez gone, the folks back home will be getting nervous,” Franklin said.
“This is worth thinking about. Captain, please continue your effort to contact Coronado. They might come back on,” said Sherman. He felt strange phrasing the request as such, and not as an order. Still, decorum had to be followed, and Captain Franklin was in command of this ship.
“Can do, General. We’re monitoring their frequency even now.”
“What about our task forces around Africa?” Thomas asked. “They picking up anything?”
“Similar reports from them. Britain’s broadcasting loud and clear, and Australia’s got their beacons lit. They’ve been taking in refugees—very carefully, I should add,” Franklin answered. “As far as the Navy is concerned, we’re running full steam. Army is holding positions on the ground, reporting minor incidents. This radio snafu is the first really bad news we’ve had since Suez.”
“Let’s keep on it, Captain. Can you keep me updated?”
“You’ll get regular bulletins, General.”
“Thank you. Sergeant, let’s finish getting the civvies snuggled in for the night.”
“Yes, sir.”
Washington D.C.
January 10, 2007
2020 hrs_
Julie had lost track of time. The cell she sat in was windowless and dismal. She spent most of her time hanging on the iron bars that kept her snugly segregated from the damp corridor outside. It felt like weeks had passed, but she knew that wasn’t the case. They’d fed her twice. She’d been ravenously hungry for the past twelve hours or so, she estimated, so it had probably only been a couple of days at one meal per day. It would keep going like this, she reasoned. They were wearing her down, trying to wrangle a confession out of her.
They were right, of course. She had betrayed her country’s national security by allowing the documents Dr. Demilio had given her to go public. She’d taken drastic steps to protect her own identity, though, and couldn’t for the life of her figure out how they had tracked them back to her.
They’re FBI, she mused. They have ways.
She almost chuckled then, tossing the thought in the imaginary rubbish bin she usually kept for less-than-stellar copy on the news floor. There was no way these guys were FBI. She’d figured that much out early on.
Firstly, she thought, there’s the matter of this cell and their methods. It’s all designed to wear me out. The dampness, the dark, the lack of food, the inch-thin straw mattress—I’m supposed to crack like a piece of shitty porcelain from a budget souvenir store. One thing’s for sure—they aren’t getting the satisfaction.
The men had been back to see her four times since they’d dumped her in the cell. They hadn’t bothered to open the door since they’d tossed her in, but rather had sat out in the hallway, faces obscured by the dimness and dark shades, and had pitched questions at her. When she refused to answer, they’d pitched other things at her: Buckets of freezing water, generous spritzes of Mace, and half-finished scalding cups of coffee. And they’d been ramping up the pain. On their last visit, they’d brought a cattle prod with them. The methods they used were unconventional, not to mention illegal. There was only one agency that could effectively hide such activities from their overseers for any extended period of time. Judging from the dungeon she was in, they’d been hiding these interrogations for decades, maybe centuries.
And that brings us to the matter of the building itself.
Usually, historic places like the wine cellar she was now entombed in were eventually turned into museums, historic homes, or tourist destinations. This one was being used for a distinct purpose without the public’s knowledge. This made her believe that the men who were holding her belonged to a group older than the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and had kept the secret of the rusty dungeon for quite a while. Again, there was only one group that had been around, in one form or another, long enough to have access to such an old facility, if only for psychological purposes.
Thirdly, there was the agents themselves, who were far too cliché to possibly be real FBI agents. As a reporter, she’d met dozens of such federal agents. Most were laid back enough to be considered human, even during interrogations. These guys dressed themselves in suits, ties, and dark sunglasses even in the depths of the dungeon she languished in. They were all business, all the time. They were playing a part—acting, if you will. There was only one agency that would go to such lengths to protect its own identity even from the people it arrested.
No Such Agency, Julie thought. The NSA.
That went higher than mere treason. If the problem were just leaked information, the FBI really would have come to arrest and question her. Without solid evidence, and her high-profile job, she would have been released within a day or so. With the NSA, one could never really tell. For all Julie knew, the outside world had been told she had died in a tragic car accident.
Despair was getting harder to fight back.
One of the few things that kept her going hour-by-hour was the increasing distractedness of the agents questioning her. It was as if each session their minds were less on prosecuting her for treason and more on events outside, whatever they were.
Perhaps things were coming to a head. Or perhaps they were simply toying with her. From the confines of the dark cell, Julie Ortiz couldn’t tell one from the other.
USS Ramage
<
br /> January 11, 2007
1202 hrs_
Ewan Brewster found that life at sea wasn’t as bad as he had thought when he’d turned down the Navy recruiters with an upheld middle finger while the Army reps chuckled in the background. There was plenty of hot chow, the view on deck was spectacular—and, as a ground-pounder, he wasn’t expected to do anything more than wait until they made landfall. He expected boredom would quickly become a factor, but he was still in the thrall of enjoying his downtime.
“Got any kings?” asked Corporal Darin, peering over a fanned-out hand of cards.
“Go fucking fish,” Brewster said, puffing on a cigarette.
“Hear the latest?” Darin asked, plucking a card from the center pile. Brewster arched an eyebrow at him in silent response. “People are saying we can’t raise bases stateside. They think home’s been contaminated.”
Brewster scoffed. “Fuck that. We’ve probably had our borders sealed for weeks. There aren’t any viruses or illegal immigrants getting in until well after this shitstorm blows over.”
“Hope that’s true. But, man, what if it really happened? What would we do? Stay out on the water? We can’t do that forever.”
“Got any aces?” Brewster asked.
“Go fish.”
“But to answer your question,” Brewster went on, “I guess we could. We’d just go up and down the coast, do a few fuel runs and stay away from the cities if we could, I guess.”
“What about food? Water? Drinking water, I mean,” Darin added. “And we’re packed in here pretty tight. I mean, not cramped like Shanghai tenements or anything, but it’s not comfortable.”
Sounds like dull thumps from the interior of the ship made them look over their shoulders, but Brewster shrugged.
“Dumbass civvies, knocking shit around. The Captain’ll be pissed. But, man, I’ll take being uncomfortable over being dead any day of the fucking week,” Brewster said, getting back on subject. “Hey, Sergeant Major, what’s the news?”
Thomas had been on his way to the bridge when his route took him past the irrepressible private and worrisome corporal. He scowled at Brewster.
“News is the skullfuck palace is open and you’re the first customer,” Thomas said, continuing on without a backward glance.
Brewster turned to look at the retreating NCO with a wide grin on his face, waving his free arm.
“And you have a nice day too, Sergeant!” he said, then turned back to Darin. “I like that guy. He’s friendly.”
Darin stared at Brewster with a perplexed look on his face. He was about to say something in response when the belowdecks door slammed open, revealing a sailor half carrying, half dragging a civilian refugee whose clothes were stained with blood.
“Help!” he cried. “Someone down there has it!”
The cry made Brewster’s blood turn to ice. The sailor didn’t even have to define what he meant by ‘it.’
Morningstar was onboard.
“Shit!” Brewster exclaimed, standing up sharply and knocking over the box they were playing cards on. He snapped up his rifle.
“No fucking way,” Darin muttered, recoiling a few steps. A line of sweat had broken out on his forehead. He hadn’t forgotten his close call at the Sharm El-Sheikh docks.
“Come on, man!” Brewster shouted, gesturing towards the bulkhead.
In the few moments since the sailor’s terrified cry, the deck had begun to swarm with activity like a disturbed hornet’s nest. By the time Brewster reached the open hatch, a few more soldiers had already grouped up nearby, standing with their backs to the forecastle wall. Sergeant Decker had been one of the first to arrive. He directed the soldiers with authority.
“Sidearms if you’ve got ’em!” he said. “Check your targets before you fire!”
It was going to be close combat. Brewster was glad to have an excuse to save rifle ammunition. He only had twenty-nine rounds left. He leaned his rifle against the steel wall of the ship and drew his pistol, holding it downwards at the ready.
The ship’s alarms sounded general quarters, the steady whoop-whoop driving the frightened refugees even further from the open bulkhead that led below decks. Decker raised his voice to be heard above the din.
“Nobody get separated! Move in teams of two! If you find dead or wounded, you know what to do! Make sure they stay down! Ready?!”
He was interrupted as a figure came running up, breathless.
“Wait!” called Rebecca. “There’s wounded up here! I need to get down to medical!”
Decker held a hand up to forestall any protest.
“No. You’re staying up here.”
Rebecca flashed him an indignant look. “I have to get to medical, Jack—”
“You have to stay on deck, Becky,” Decker said, voice steely-edged. “Those things won’t take prisoners.”
Decker seemed to relent after a moment, gaze softening as he looked at her determined face.
Brewster watched the exchange between the two. His trigger finger was getting itchy.
“Decker, c’mon, man!” Brewster said, tapping his finger along the length of his Beretta’s barrel. Decker cast a look at the soldiers, and seemed to make up his mind.
“What do you need from medical? We’ll bring it up,” he said. “Hurry!”
“Gloves, bandages, antiseptics, morphine,” Rebecca rattled off. “I can make do with that!”
“Got it,” Decker said. He turned back to the bulkhead, pistol at the ready. “Alright, on my signal.”
Brewster tensed, awaiting the command.
“Go!”
Brewster swung into the doorway, scanning for targets. The corridor was empty. He moved inside, pistol held out in front of him. Behind him, the other soldiers began filing in, spreading out, covering one another. They moved slowly, deeper into the bowels of the ship.
When they came to the first intersection without incident, Decker spoke up.
“We split here. Half right. Other half, head left. Move!”
Brewster found himself ahead of Darin, Decker, and a sailor toting an MP-5. They rounded a corner, heading in the vague direction of medical. Brewster had no doubt Decker would want to pick up the supplies Rebecca asked for before they cleared the rest of the level. Ahead of them, a heavy door was hanging open. Brewster pointed at it silently and saw Decker nod in his peripheral vision. The four moved up to it and tensed themselves, then swung around the corner with weapons at the ready. The room was empty, but Brewster’s eyes picked up spots of blood on the floor and wall. Something had gone down here.
They closed the door as quietly as they could, aware that any noise could draw unwanted attention. Darin’s booted foot kicked up a spent shell casing, sending it skittering down the hall ahead of them.
“They were shooting,” he whispered.
“Must have been those noises we heard,” Brewster agreed. “And here I thought they were just fucking around in the supply rooms.”
“Knock it off and keep it tight,” Decker told them as he took the lead.
“Some civvie quarters up on the left,” said the sailor, nodding towards another door.
This one, while not hanging ajar like the first, was cracked open, and light spilled out into the cold gray corridor. The four approached silently, preparing themselves to clear another room. Decker took up a position on the far side of the door, peering into the crack.
“See anything?” Brewster whispered.
“Shut up!” Decker admonished, one eye illuminated in the narrow shaft of light as he scanned what little he could see of the room. “Don’t see anything. Let’s clear it. Ready?”
“Ready,” Brewster said, holding up his pistol.
Decker flung the door open, and the four soldiers brought their weapons to bear, sweeping the room for targets as they moved in. Nothing jumped out at them. In fact, the room was mostly empty of even inanimate objects—a couple of bunks, a card table, and a few bags in the corner were all that adorned the space.
&n
bsp; “Casualties,” Darin said, holstering his pistol and moving ahead of the group towards a pair of fallen civilians. They lay in pools of blood, unmoving, eyes open and vacant. Darin knelt and put his fingers to their throats. He shook his head after a moment. “They’re gone.”
“Get back,” Decker told him, narrowing his eyes. Darin stepped away. Decker leaned over the corpses, holding his pistol point-blank against the heads, and fired twice, splashing gore against the wall and floor. Blood flecked his boots. He hurriedly wiped them along a blanket on a nearby bunk.
“Well,” Brewster breathed, surveying the damage, “I don’t think they’ll be getting up again.”
“Oh, goddamn it all to hell and back,” Darin mumbled. “You got blood on my shit, too. There isn’t a dry-cleaners for two thousand miles.”
“Get over it,” Decker said. “Let’s keep moving. This room’s clear.”
They filed back out into the hallway, closing and securing the door behind them.
The sailor with the sub-machine gun took point, nodding his head down the corridor. He advised, “Medical’s just ahead, around the next corridor.”
“Right. Keep it tight. Don’t pull ahead,” Decker said. The four were off again, keeping close to the walls, tense and ready for anything. They were nearly at the elbow in the corridor when the sailor held up a fist. Darin, Brewster, and Decker stopped in their tracks, holding their breath.
“There’s something there,” he whispered. “I can hear breathing.”
Brewster strained his ears. The metal of the ship’s body distorted sounds, but he could definitely hear muffled, labored breathing, almost a wet pant, echoing off the steel walls.
“I hear it too,” Decker said.
“It’s getting louder,” said Darin, glancing furtively back and forth. “It’s coming this way!”
Safeties were clicked off and the group tensed, scanning the corridor in both directions.
“Nothing for it, it knows we’re down here by now,” Decker blurted. “Move! Get to medical!”
The sailor nodded, swinging around the corner. Brewster expected him to open fire immediately, but the sub-machine gun remained silent. The sailor relaxed a bit.
