Project Apollo

by B. B. Gallagher

  “Good,” Xander responded.

  “This is going to get press coverage now. We need to expect a panic. Have you contacted the White House?” Ashton asked. Xander shook his head.

  “Why not?” Seamus turned to him.

  “I found something…” Xander checked his six for anyone close enough to hear him. It was all clear. He continued in a hushed voice. “I found a text message on Azir’s phone…”

  “Oh?” Ashton responded – her interest piqued.

  “It said ‘Our man in the White House has been contacted. All is going according to plan.’” Xander watched as his partners’ faces fell, contorting into confused disgust.

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means we can’t trust the White House anymore, especially with the President out of command. Who’s running the ship over there now?”

  “For the time being it’s Marty Jacobs, the Chief of Staff,” Xander answered.

  “I hate that weasel,” Ashton followed.

  “I know me too, he’s got a stick up his ass!” Seamus agreed. “Wasn’t he responsible for Catherine being holed up in the hospital.” Both Spartans turned to their leader for the next move. Xander, as usual, remained reflective and serene, analyzing the different scenarios before them.

  “We may be able to learn something from here. I suggest Ashton stays behind. Keep things under control and make sure that we find out anything and everything that comes from the investigation unit,” he instructed, nodding toward the Hazmat team, who was picking apart the crime scene. “Not to mention, when we find the cure, administering it will be difficult. We will need to control the scene.”

  “I always get stuck with the shitty assignments.” Ashton grew abrasive. “Hey, thanks for all your help today, Ashton, but why don’t you stay behind, and watch people bleed out of their eyes and seizure to death?” Xander shrugged and flashed an apologetic smile.

  “Seamus, come with me. Ashton keep the site controlled. If anyone tries to escape, kill them. Pedestrian or not.” Xander’s eyes conveyed the seriousness of the order. Ashton nodded. “We need to go dark. We can’t be feeding the White House progress on our mission if they have a mole among them.”

  “Well, we can go ahead and expect to be branded fugitives,” Seamus explained, knowing the next plot point.

  “Yeah… the best we can do is to reach out to Hardy and try to keep them off of us for as long as possible.” Mutual agreement met between them. Ashton placed a hand on Xander’s shoulder.

  “Take care of yourself.” Her eyebrows arched, as if referring to Xander’s blackouts. He ignored the command and remained focused on the mission.

  “If I know Ezra, we will find the cure. It’s the truth that comes with it that I am worried about.” Xander spoke from his feet.

  “What do you mean?” Seamus asked.

  “Ezra, doesn’t want this.” Xander waved his hand at his surroundings. “He doesn’t want to kill innocent civilians.” His colleagues listened intently.

  “What are you talking about? He’s a terrorist. Terrorist kill innocent people.”

  “Sure, they do, but terrorists don’t care about killing people. Killing people is merely a means to an end. I just don’t know yet what that end is and where it leads us.”

  A moment later, Xander and Seamus emerged from the mobile scrub unit, after cleaning off their gear. On the other side they were inspected by a Hazmat member and inspected over scrupulously. Upon passing inspection, they were allowed to pass through and, so they hiked up the stopped escalator two steps at a time. Xander flipped his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number by heart. After two rings, the raspy voice of Jackson Hardy answered on the other end.

  “Hello?”

  “Repeat after me: ‘Cusick! What do you have?’” Xander ordered sharply. After one beat of thought, Hardy caught on.

  “Cusick, what do you have?” He sold it pretty well to the PEOC.

  “Don’t let anyone know you’re on the phone with me. Find some privacy,” Xander ordered quickly and then waited for Hardy to step away from the others in the White House.

  “Go ahead.” Hardy’s voice lowered, sensing something awry.

  “The terrorist got into Van Ness station. Mohammad Azir infected himself and died on the lobby floor. He was acting as a biological bomb.”

  “There’s a cell phone video circulating the news organizations. Nothing like our patriotic news organizations to stir up a panic…Why the discretion?”

  “I found a text message on Azir’s phone that said ‘Our man in the White House has been contacted. All is going according to plan.’” Xander could hear the disappointed sigh on the other end.

  “So, you’re going dark and you need me to cover for you as much as possible.” Hardy obviously knew full well what it meant.

  “Yeah… Ezra is about to give us the next clue. I need you to make something up and feed it to them. Keep them off my back as long as possible.”

  “I can’t do that, Xander,” Hardy responded admitting the limitations of his loyalty.

  “I figured you’d say that. Treason is a pretty big favor to ask of you… Then investigate the people around you, see if you can’t sniff out our mole. I have to focus on finding the cure and you have to understand I am going to have to go dark from you as well.”

  “I understand.”

  “Watch your back. It appears that yet again, ‘Nothing Is As It Seems,’” Xander recited the last line of the Project’s Credo.

  “Indeed, it does appear that way.” Xander hung up the phone and took off with Seamus in a full sprint down the streets of Washington, DC. They found Mickey’s AC van and hopped in. The keys fell from the sun visor and with a turn of the wrist the van churned to life.

  “Ten minutes till the next clue,” Xander updated as the time illuminated on the radio. He pulled out his phone and texted Fiona.

  “Going dark. Can’t trust the White House, they’ve been compromised. Will call you for next target.” He hit the send button. After the message went through, Seamus punched the glove compartment open and brought out two new phones, ready for emergency situations. Seamus and Xander then dropped their government issued phones out of the speeding van, letting them crash to the asphalt as they sped away.

  Chapter 39

  Dupont Circle

  3:55PM

  Jeanette Pollack rose to the balls of her feet, peering over the seven-person line to the pharmacy counter. Being a Type 2 diabetic, the pharmacy was a familiar spot for her. At a young age, after her diagnosis, she developed a rigid schedule to maintain her insulin levels. Just like a scheduled shot, she found herself amid her normal routine, picking up her second bottle of inventory.

  The line is longer than usual.

  Her eyes found the tabloid magazines at a nearby rack.

  Really Kardashians? The game is up.

  Her phone vibrated in her back pocket, shaking her alert. Fishing it out of the back of her jeans, she read the text message illuminated on her screen.

  Mom: Are you in the city? Are you safe?

  She punched her response in and accidently nudged the woman in front of her. The woman spun with indignation scrawled across her face.

  “This is my spot! Back off!” The harsh reaction startled Jeanette who backed a step from the aggressor. A long-haired man barreled past the line knocking Jeanette’s shoulder violently. He marched to a halt at the counter.

  “Excuse me! I need some medicine!” he ordered forcibly into the pharmacy with a fist pounding on the counter.

  “Hey buddy! Back of the line!” a voice called.

  “Shut up!” The long-haired man called over his shoulder. “I need some medicine now!” he called again to the pharmacist, prepping a prescription in the back. A chorus of voices joined in protest. The timid pharmacist shrank away, overwhelmed and diffident as he scurried about the shelves behind the counter.

  “Hey buddy! We were here first!” The room accelerated against him as the other cus
tomers found strength in numbers.

  “What gives you the right to—” Another man yelled from the back, interrupted by the long-haired man. He turned from the counter with a handgun, aimed down the line. Everyone ducked – Jeanette hit the floor.

  “This is what does! Now, shut the hell up! I’m getting my medicine now!” He was in a full frenzy. The pharmacist approached, quickly trying to direct the man’s attention to him. Both hands out in a calming gesture.

  “Now what symptoms do you have?” the pharmacist asked.

  “I have a temperature of 101. I have aches and pains all over my body,” he rattled off, looking around as if realizing that pulling a gun on the scene was not a good idea.

  “Anything else?” The gunman shook his head as he checked behind him.

  The pharmacist continued in a placid tone. “Well, it could be anything in my opinion, but it sounds like the flu—”

  “It’s not the flu! It’s the plague the news is talking about. It’s in the city!” The pharmacist was at a loss of words.

  “There is no way to tell for sure, but the list of symptoms posted by the National Institutes of Health does not match yours.”

  “That’s bullshit!” The gunman nervously wiped the sweat from his jaw line.

  “Sir… why don’t you put the gun down. I know you aren’t feeling well. I have some Tamiflu I can give you.” The gunman raised the gun to the pharmacist’s head.

  “I told you it’s not the flu!” The man pulled the trigger and sent a bullet into the pharmacist’s skull. A shrill came from the men and women on the floor, who scattered behind shelves as the man hopped behind the counter to collect as many antibiotics as possible.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Harak Khan watched over the steering wheel of a red pickup truck parked outside of a pharmacy. Lose wires dangled from the access panel, hotwired together beneath the steering column. A yellow, cigarette stained smile crept over his face as he watched the people run out of the pharmacy away from the sound of gunshots. His eyes crossed the street to an electronics store with television feeds playing in the display case. Breaking News of the outbreak was airing and was quickly becoming the story of the nation.

  “Panic is settling in…” He turned to the passenger seat in the truck and unlatched the case he had escaped with from the freezer truck. After snapping the lock open, he opened it to reveal a device. The device had a network of wires, a countdown monitor, central compartment and a motorized fan all cobbled together into one weaponized apparatus.

  Khan fished out the vial filled with blue liquid from his coat and placed it inside the device. It attached properly and turned on. Khan did not start the clock, but shut it down knowing that everything was still on schedule. A second smile crept over his face, as he looked down on the bomb-like device, armed and ready to spread the disease.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Porter Nash paced the bullpen, reviewing a folder of talking notes that Rachel had prepared for him. Press Secretary Gannon had sent a list of bullet points to stress over the airwaves. He came to a group of FBI agents hovering over a computer console. One cyber specialist was at the helm, presenting a set of sound waves shown on the central monitor, while the video component played alongside it in the upper right corner.

  “Whatcha got?” Agent Graves asked.

  “I’ve been able to isolate some background noise apart from the voice.” There, on the high monitors was the video from the hack and a set of sound waves, tracking the underlying audio.

  “What it is?” Graves leaned forward over the tech’s seat.

  “It’s hard to say, but it is some kind of low humming,” Porter overheard a member of the team explain. The tech hit play and turned up the speaker. The team listened closely as the low humming sputtered slightly, almost in a rhythmic manner. The sound brought Porter to the group.

  “Why are you investigating them? The Collective seems to be the good guys. Right?”

  “They could know more than we know and hacking a news outlet is a major crime,” Graves responded, tersely, over the humming to the journalist.

  “Could be an engine of some kind…” Porter speculated. The team turned to him to entertain the idea.

  “It’s pretty muffled…” the tech reminded him.

  “Then they must be underground,” Graves concluded, following Porter’s logic.

  “Like in a sewer?” Another member of the team asked.

  “I don’t know. But it narrows your search. Keep up the good work guys!” Porter patted the tech on the back and flashed Graves a condescending wink, as he paced along back toward his desk.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Marty Jacobs stood before the long conference table, where his eyes ran down the row of chairs. They then settled on a set of closed doors, which he knew separated the disease from the open bullpen of the PEOC. His long time best friend, a man who happened to be the President of the United States was dying behind the door. He had no time for nostalgia or pity rather he had a job to do as the operations were in his hands until further notice.

  “Has anyone been able to reach Xander yet?” Jacobs barked.

  “No, he’s not picking up my calls.”

  “I am not going to lie… This worries me.” Jacobs’s finger tapped a speeding tempo out on the table. Something in his answer alarmed him. He was almost apologetic about it and Jacobs knew Hardy didn’t apologize for anything.” He shot an indignant glance shot in the direction of the Spartan director. Hardy noticed and squared his massive shoulders towards the Chief of Staff.

  “Is there a problem?” Hardy asked plainly.

  “If your men had more discipline and respect for their superiors maybe we would be in the loop!” Jacobs’s voice rose above the others. The aggressive advance struck a silent note through the room.

  “That’s the point of Project Sparta… to be effective and not have to deal with the bureaucratic bullshit that comes out of this place.”

  “All I see right now is an operative who may have gone rogue. He holds the fate of this city in his hands. How do we know he is not a traitor, as well? There has already been one defector from your regime! You sure groomed some patriots, didn’t ya?”

  “Enough!” Hardy’s bark echoed through the room. Even Jacobs stepped down from his stance on high. “Project Sparta has its skeletons, just as any government agency here. Is the terrorist behind this attack a former Spartan? Yes. He did not go bad in Sparta. He flipped when government bureaucrats got their hands on him.”

  The silence continued. Hardy cocked his head to the side as he offered another biting rejoinder.

  “Project Sparta is responsible for more counter-terrorism victories than you can count. And the only reason you don’t know about them, is because we don’t have the reports delivered to country clubs. It’d be a breach of security!”

  Jacobs turned beat red, embarrassed by the slight.

  “I can see where the Spartans get their insubordination from…” Jacobs tugged the bottom of his suit coat, gathering himself. Then, he leaned over the table and glared at Hardy. “You better get your man in the next 10 minutes or he will be issued a rogue agent and be hunted by all the resources from this office.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  A traffic surveillance feed populated Mac’s central monitor. The footage had the Hyman Seafood freezer truck traveling downhill under an overpass that split right through Connecticut Avenue.

  Cusick had a map of the DC city streets up with twenty or so push pins marking the breadcrumbs of the truck’s trail.

  “So, we traced him here and you are saying the street cameras along this section of Connecticut Avenue have no feed.” Cusick backed up to summarize the truck’s path.

  “The cameras could have had a technical malfunction or maybe they were wiped,” he explained. Cusick’s finger ran down the city map and considered each side street, splitting off from the main avenue.

  “You have checked here, here and here…” Cusick noted.

  “No hits,�
�� Mac explained again, frustrated with the lack of progress. They fell to silence for a moment and strategized. Mac brought up the street view of Google Maps.

  “Let’s see our surroundings…” he spoke under his breath. Cusick turned from the physical map to the digital one and looked over his shoulder as he scrolled through the three-dimensional environment.

  “Wait, wait, wait… turn it 120 degrees,” Cusick instructed, something had caught his eye. Once Mac spun the street view, a three-story building on the corner came into view. It had a grey stucco façade and a series of high windows. A golden sign was emblazoned over the large front doors – PNC Bank.

  “How would you like to hack into the security network of one of the biggest banks in the country?” Cusick asked him, as if baiting him. A moment hung while the challenge was considered.

  Mac shrugged with a smile and began typing.

  Chapter 40

  The Compound

  3:55 PM

  Fiona sidled into the control room where the surveillance monitors were mounted on the wall. All of the monitors were off, except for one, showing Ezra sitting in his cell. He was still, but Fiona was pulled to the screen. She approached.

  What the hell does he want me to find? A truth about what?

  And then she imagined the other surveillance populating with young boys and girls training during the Compound’s hay day.

  They were watching us…

  She turned from the screen on a thought and entered Hardy’s office. With a tug and a screech, an old file cabinet opened from the days of Project Sparta. A cloud of dust formed over it and slowly dissipated. Fiona’s finger immediately ran over the tabs of the different manila folders inside. Section dividers inside the cabinet broke up each file system by Spartan recruit. Her hand stopped when she reached her folder.