The Siren Project

by Renneberg, Stephen

  “Thanks.”

  Mitch followed Christa out to the garden path that led back toward the car. “I don’t get it. What makes a guy like that flip out so bad. He turned into a vegetable literally overnight?”

  “He didn’t ‘flip out’,” Christa whispered, her voice wavering with emotion. “It was our fault.”

  “How could it be our fault? He’s been sweating on someone catching him for years now. He slipped up, someone started investigating him, and he cracked.”

  “No, this was no accident.”

  “How can you be so sure? There wasn’t a mark on him.”

  “Because I’ve seen it before,” she replied, falling into a stony silence.

  Mitch remembered what Knightly had said to him that first night, and the memory chilled him: There are some things worse than death.

  Chapter 5

  Mitch clambered out of the shower, not bothering to towel off as he hurried to answer the telephone.

  “Be out front in five minutes.” Mathew Prescott said quickly, then hung up.

  Mitch pulled on his clothes, then hurried down to street level where a blue Ford pulled up in front of the hotel. Mitch climbed in, then Prescott pulled into traffic barely waiting for the door to close.

  Prescott lifted a finger to his lips ordering silence, then pulled a small black box out of the glove compartment. He depressed one of the plain gray buttons on top of the box, then set it down in the coin tray. “I check the car daily for bugs, but you never know. That should disrupt any radio signals leaving the car.”

  “Expecting trouble?”

  “Just cautious, considering who we’re dealing with. Safer here than in your hotel.” He handed Mitch a buff colored envelope. Inside were the photographs Mitch had given him several days before, a report pinned to each photograph. Prescott pointed to the photographs of the two men who'd left the Newton Institute. “Those guys are civilians, an electrical engineer and a computer systems engineer. Nothing special about either of them. Both have worked in the defense industries for most of their careers.”

  Mitch glanced at the notes on each engineer, then slipped their dossiers to the rear.

  “Now that guy’s interesting,” Prescott pointed to the picture of the well dressed man in the dark suit who had entered the Institute. “His name is Richard McNamara. Ex-NSA. He left about two years ago, and promptly disappeared off the face of the Earth. He’s been involved in intel ops against rogue states in the Mid East and Africa. It’s all there.”

  Mitch examined McNamara’s history. “Iran, Yemen, Somalia, terrorist training camps in the Sahara. He’s been a busy man.” Mitch noticed McNamara’s last couple of years in the NSA were conspicuously obscure. “What does this mean? Secondment 721?”

  “No idea. The security covering it is off the scale.” Prescott completed his second pass of the Washington Monument, and headed off for a third circuit. “I know who, but not what it was. There were about a dozen NSA people transferred to Secondment 721, all long time associates of McNamara. All of them left the NSA within a month of each other. Either Secondment 721 is so stressful, it brings on early retirement-”

  “Or a bunch of high class spooks went into business for themselves.”

  “Each of them retired ill health, so they went out with full benefits. Each of their retirement packages were signed off by one Herbert Norton, then a very senior NSA officer. Way too senior to sign off on these guy’s retirement plans.”

  “So whatever these guys were doing, they did it with Norton’s approval. Is he still with the NSA?”

  “Nope. The strain of snooping on the world was too much for him. He ran his car off a cliff about a week after the last of the Secondment 721 guys left.” Prescott looked puzzled. “If it was a fix, they’d have left immediately after he died, with paperwork approved by him just before he died. That would make the approvals obvious forgeries. But this guy dies after the Secondment 721 boys are long gone, so if it was a scam, he would have had time to say so.”

  Mitch flipped to the last of the four photographs, a picture of the tall well built man with gaunt features. “And this guy?”

  “His name is Bradick, ex-navy SEAL. He's done some crazy stuff, sneaking into places no sane man would go. Not someone you want to mess with. When he got out of the military, he went downhill fast. He was in and out of trouble with the LA and SF PD’s. He was the prime suspect on a couple of armed robberies, but nothing stuck. Witnesses against him have a habit of disappearing. For the last few years, he’s been quiet, not even a parking ticket.”

  “I doubt he found God,” Mitch muttered, then noticed another smaller envelope behind the last of the four photographs. He opened it and quickly thumbed through another ten pages of notes and several photographs.

  “Don’t say you don’t get value for money from me, bud. Those are most of the other Secondment 721 guys, all top people by the looks of them. All worked for McNamara on previous operations, a real cozy little club.”

  “If I told you these guys are on the West Coast, would that help track them down?”

  “I’m the Secret Service, Mitch, not the FBI. I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise anything.”

  “What about Siren? Any luck there?”

  “Nope. Nothing. It’s like it doesn’t exist.”

  “Keep digging, but keep your head down.”

  “Always.” Prescott said as he pulled the car to a stop in front of Mitch’s hotel.

  “Good job.” Mitch climbed out of the car and went back upstairs. He stopped at Christa’s door and knocked.

  She answered the door already dressed. “I thought we were meeting for breakfast at nine?”

  Mitch stepped inside and closed the door. “We are, but I wanted to ask you something.” Mitch noticed she was in new clothes, and there was a new suitcase sitting on a stand in the corner. “Where’d you get the clothes from?”

  “Downstairs, from the hotel shops, last night. Charged to your room.”

  “At least you won’t be wearing my clothes anymore.”

  “So what did you want to ask me?”

  Mitch began to summarize what Prescott had just told him, but before he could finish, the phone rang.

  “You expecting a call?” Mitch asked.

  “No.”

  Mitch picked up the telephone beside her bed. “Hello?”

  There was a short silence, then a man spoke with a hint of a central European accent. “There is supposed to be a woman in this room.”

  “Who is this?”

  There was a longer silence, then the accented voice spoke again. “Are you John Mitchell?”

  “Never heard of him. Who are you?”

  “They are in your room, waiting for you. They will be coming for the woman next. Get out of there, now!”

  “Who is this?”

  “They traced the call Lawrence Rayborne made to you thirty hours, twenty one minutes ago. They have been investigating you, before moving against you.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “This line is bugged.” The man hung up.

  “Shit!” Mitch slammed the telephone down, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed quickly. “Christa, we’re leaving!”

  She glanced at her new suitcase, full of newly bought clothes, in dismay. “But I just convinced you to buy me this stuff!”

  “No time for that. They know we’re here.”

  Christa cursed under her breath, then picked up her purse and the pistol lying beside it. “I think you arranged this just so I’d have to leave this stuff here.” She checked the weapon’s ammunition and switched off the safety.

  “Yeah right, Princess, everything is about you.” Mitch said as he waited for the phone to make the connection. “Mouse, you there?”

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “I need an escape route, right now. We’re in Christa’s room, hostiles in my room.”

  In Mitch’s California beach house, Mouse clicked a program that he'd carefully pr
epared before they’d flown to Washington. In seconds, he had control of every system in the hotel.

  Mitch drew his gun and listened at the door for any sound of someone approaching, while Christa stood back from the door as if listening, that far away look in her eyes.

  “There’s no one in the hall,” she said with certainty. “But, there are four men in your room.”

  Mitch threw her a curious look, but before he could ask how she knew, Mouse’s voice sounded from the cell phone.

  “Okay, I’m up.” On the array of screens set up in front of him, he had live video feeds from the hotel’s security cameras on Mitch’s floor. “The hall is clear!”

  Mitch glanced at Christa again, this time with the knowledge that Mouse had proven her right. She gave him an 'I told you so' look, then he stepped back from the door and nodded. She pulled the door open for Mitch, who stepped through, gun in one hand, cell phone in the other. He checked left and right, finding it clear both ways, as Christa closed the door behind them.

  “Lock my hotel room door, and Christa's. Keep them locked.”

  Mouse sent the command immediately. “Done.”

  Mitch headed toward the elevator, while Christa followed at a slower pace, the unfocused look in her eyes.

  “Give me an elevator, send the rest to the roof,” he whispered into the cell phone.

  “Nearest elevator is two floors away. It's on its way, the rest are going north.”

  “There are two more men on the ground floor, covering the elevators,” Christa said calmly. “There could be more, but . . . they’re too far away.”

  Mitch gave her a dubious look, then spoke into the cell phone. “Christa says there are two more on the ground floor covering the elevators, and four in my room. Maybe others.”

  Mouse checked the lobby camera. “I see them! Dark suits, whispering into their sleeves.”

  A small explosion thundered through the hall, as the door to Mitch’s hotel room exploded.

  Geez, these guys came prepared! Mitch thought.

  “No time to wait. Give me the nearest exit!”

  Mouse called up the floor plan, ran his finger quickly across the screen. “There’s a fire exit to your left ten feet, then turn right.” Mouse leaned forward to study the security camera feed. “Was that an explosion?”

  “Damn straight,” Mitch said as he started towards the fire exit, followed by Christa. “Probably a shaped charge.”

  Behind them, the remains of his hotel room door were kicked aside and four men stepped into the hall. Mitch recognized two of them, McNamara and Bradick, from his photos. McNamara locked eyes with Mitch for only a second, then started toward them, raising his wrist to speak rapidly into the radio transmitter sewn into his sleeve.

  Mitch pulled Christa into the fire exit, forcing the heavy steel door shut behind them. “We’re in the fire escape. Lock the door.”

  Mouse executed the instruction, then hooked his headset into the telephone so he could operate hands free. “There's an elevator waiting for you on the fifth floor.”

  They ran down the stairs as their pursuers tried to force open the fire escape door. Suddenly, the banging on the door stopped abruptly. Mitch started counting silently, then the stairwell thundered with the sound of the fire door being blown open. It had taken them only seconds to set and detonate the shaped charge.

  That was fast! he thought, with a sinking feeling.

  “Man, these guys are the Borg!” Mouse exclaimed, watching the second explosion on his camera feed. “The elevator doors are open, waiting for you.”

  They ran out of the fire exit and headed for the elevator. Mouse watched them on the security camera screen, locking the fire escape door behind them, then the elevator control system on his screen flickered and went blank. The elevator door closed just before they reached it.

  Mitch yelled into the cell phone, “Open the door, we’re not in yet!”

  “I’ve lost the elevator system,” Mouse reported, confused. “The bastards have booted me.” Mouse started typing fast, trying to find another way in. “How the hell did they do that?” He was as impressed as he was worried. “Mitch, there’s a freight elevator at the end of the hall. It’s on a different system. I’ll get it heading your way, ASAP.”

  Mitch turned and started toward it. “This way!”

  They were halfway down the hall when another explosion reverberated through the corridor behind them, signaling the end of the fifth floor fire escape door.

  “How much of that stuff are those guys carrying?” Mitch wondered aloud.

  They reached the wide freight elevator, just a few feet from a picture window. “It’s not here!”

  Christa took a breath, steadying herself, using the time to regain her focus.

  “It’s coming.” Mouse said as he watched the square blip, marking the freight elevator's position in the shaft, crawl toward them. “Man, this thing is slow.”

  “Mitch,” Christa whispered, trying to speak without losing concentration.

  “What?” Mitch demanded as he fired a shot at the first of their pursuers, who appeared at the end of the hall. He caught the man in the shoulder, knocking him back.

  “Incoming,” Christa warned.

  “I know! I just shot one.”

  “No,” Christa said, turning towards the window. “Out there!”

  “What?” Mitch said confused, following her gaze.

  A helicopter dropped down outside the hotel window, it's side door open revealing black curtains, flanked by blacked out windows. Inside the chopper, two men pulled the curtains apart revealing a black machine, which began to emit a brilliant red orange point of light. Christa groaned, as if struck full in the face by an unseen force. She staggered back, her legs giving way beneath her as she crumpled to the floor, barely conscious. Instantly, Mitch’s cell phone exploded in electrical sparks, burning his hand as tiny flames licked out, forcing him to drop it.

  “What the hell?” He glanced at his sparking phone on the floor, confused, then raised his gun and fired a volley of shots through the window, at the helicopter. The window shattered as bullets sparked off the chopper hull. A moment later, a white electrical flash inside the chopper revealed two men serving a machine, then the red orange point of light faded out. The chopper banked away sharply, just as the freight elevator door opened.

  Mitch fired a poorly aimed shot down the hall toward their pursuers to keep their heads down, then hooked his hand under Christa’s arm and dragged her into the elevator. Without touching the buttons, the metal door clanked slowly shut and the elevator began a rumbling descent.

  Christa moaned, blinking. She rubbed her forehead with her hands, swallowing, then inhaled deeply, trying to clear her head. She looked up at Mitch with dilated unfocused eyes, as if she had just been knocked out. “Sorry,” she whispered, fighting the blistering pain in her head.

  “What was that?”

  “I don’t know. Something new, something we haven’t seen before.”

  “How come it didn’t affect me?”

  She smiled. “I guess Neanderthals are immune.”

  “Nice,” Mitch said sourly. “Whatever it was, it fried my damn phone.”

  She noticed the burn on his hand. “They knew you were talking to Mouse. They wanted to cut us off.”

  “Yeah, well they did a good job. Can you walk?”

  Christa nodded weakly, as he pulled her to her feet. She closed her eyes, forcing away the spots flashing before her. After a moment, she touched the back of her head feeling for something.

  “Did you hurt your head?” Mitch asked moving to take a look at the back of her head.

  She stopped him with her hand. “No! . . .” She used her fingers to examine the base of her skull apprehensively, then relaxed. “It’s nothing, I’ll be okay.”

  The freight elevator clunked to a halt, then the metal door rumbled open. Dark gray concrete walls lined with metal pipes stretched off into the gloom, broken occasionally by a dim bare l
ight bulb. The mechanical hum of the hotel air conditioning compressors filled the air with a distant drone.

  Mitch glanced at her uncertainly as he changed ammo clips. “What do you think? Anyone out there?”

  She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t even know what day it is.”

  The ringing of an unseen telephone broke the muted sounds of the underground basement. Mitch hesitated, peering out into the gloom, spotting a wall mounted telephone ten feet from the elevator.

  “Come on,” he said, helping Christa to the phone, which he snatched up without hesitation. “Yeah?”

  “What took you so long?” Mouse demanded.

  “I had to wash my socks. And some asshole blew my phone up!”

  “Yeah, I saw your phone melt. That's freaking crazy technology.”

  “Where to now?”

  “Go left from the hotel phone. You’ll come to stairs leading up to the kitchen. There’s a door to a back alley. At the end of the alley turn right, run two blocks. A bus is due to pass there in six minutes. If you miss it, go a block further to a phone booth. I’ll call that phone in eight minutes.”

  “Got it.”

  “And Mitch, get your ass out of there. I just lost control of the elevator.”

  Mitch turned to see the freight elevator door had closed and was climbing toward the fifth floor. He slammed the telephone down.

  “This way!” he yelled, dragging Christa as he ran.

  When they reached the stairs, Mitch climbed them two at a time to find the door at the top locked. Behind them, the sound of the freight elevator door rumbling open echoed down the dark passage. Mitch tried the door with his shoulder, but it was a heavy wooden door and wouldn’t budge. He aimed his gun at the lock.

  “If you shoot that gun,” Christa said, “They’ll know which way we came.”

  “If they can take the elevators away from Mouse, they already know everything.”

  A moment before Mitch fired, there was a click, and the door unlocked. A small Chinese kitchen hand opened the door while he balanced a cardboard box on his shoulder. Mitch pushed past him, forcing his way into the kitchen. Christa stepped through after him and locked the door behind them. The kitchen hand started yelling at Mitch in a stream of Chinese until Mitch pressed his gun against the kitchen hand’s nose, holding a finger to his lips.