Apocalyptic Visions Super Boxset

by James Hunt

  “You made the right decision, Mr. Turk.” The attorney general gathered up the papers then pocketed the pen. “I’ll get this in front of the judge this afternoon, and we’ll schedule the hearing for next week.” His phone rang, and he was at the door of the conference room when he answered then stopped and turned around, looking at Dylan as he spoke. “You’re sure? How credible is the sou—”

  An uneasy churn circled Dylan’s stomach, and he leaned forward. The attorney general hung up the phone and dropped the agreement Dylan had just signed onto the table. “We have a problem. I need to speak with your counsel alone.”

  Before Dylan had a chance to say anything, the attorney general motioned for one of the guards to escort him out of the conference room and into his cell. They hurried him past the other inmates, all of them hissing, shouting their curses.

  With the mainstream news broadcasting Dylan’s story, word of his presence inside the federal penitentiary had spread, and Dylan was forced into solitary confinement on his first day due to fear that someone would kill him before he was able to sign the plea agreement his lawyers had set up.

  Rapists, murderers, and thieves were Dylan’s peers, and every single one of them looked down on him as if he was the scum of the earth. Once past the barrage of threats, the correctional officers thrust him into the cell, where one guard uncuffed his wrists while the other made sure Dylan didn’t make any sudden moves.

  Finally, with the shackles removed, both guards locked the cell and left Dylan alone. He paced back and forth in the cramped space, only eight feet from the back to front, and half as wide.

  The longer Dylan had to wait, the more violent the sour pit in his stomach churned, and with no clock, his sense of time was useless. He couldn’t tell if he had been waiting for one hour or three, ten minutes or forty minutes. The anxiety built to a crescendo when his cell door opened and Cooper stepped inside.

  “Hello, Captain.”

  It was like seeing a ghost. Dylan felt his mouth go dry. He smacked his lips fruitlessly. It took a few tries before anything actually came out. “What are you doing here?” His eyes went to the folder in Cooper’s hand as she walked around the cell, looking at everything but him.

  “I heard they let you attend the funeral,” Cooper said then finally turned to meet his gaze. “I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

  “If it wasn’t for you, I would have been able to save her.” Dylan’s words were bitter, resentful, and he could see the effect they had on Cooper as some of the color drained from her face. “I don’t have anything to say to you. Guard!”

  “They’ll come when we’re finished.” Cooper took a seat on the edge of the cot and laid the folder down next to her then motioned for Dylan to pick it up. “New plea bargain. The attorney general just put it together.”

  Dylan picked it up hesitantly but didn’t open it. “Why’d they send you to give it to me?”

  “Dylan, what you’ve been through...” Cooper rubbed her palms together, shaking her head. She fidgeted with her hands uncomfortably. “It’s been more than anyone in your position should be asked to take on.” She looked up at him. “Perry reached out. To me. He wants to speak with you.”

  Dylan tossed the folder back onto the bed without even looking at it. “I’m done with him. I’m done with you. I’m done with all of this shit. Understand? I’m done!” He turned his back and leaned against the rear cell wall. What would Perry want with him? What was the game now?

  “You’re not done,” Cooper replied. “And if you think your family is still safe—”

  Dylan spun around so quickly and was on Cooper so fast that the guards jumped inside, but they stopped once Dylan didn’t lay a hand on her. “My family is safe! Perry can’t reach them anymore.” Spit flew from his lips, and he was close enough to Cooper’s face to see the red veins in her eyes.

  Cooper took a step back, her hands in the air, until she made it to the cell door. “Read the file, Dylan.” And with that, she disappeared, and the guards locked the door.

  Dylan paced back and forth so many times a rut formed in the concrete underneath his feet. He eyed the folder then sat down next to it. Whatever was inside couldn’t be good, especially if Perry had anything to do with it. Finally, he picked up the folder and scanned the first page then quickly read the second and third.

  When Dylan was done, he reread it a second time, making sure he didn’t misunderstand anything. Still in a haze of shock, he laid down. The scratchy cloth from the bedspread scraped against his back. He closed his eyes and tried to calm his mind.

  If everything in the report was true, then this could be a way for Dylan to be with his family. As long as he could deliver. And as long as he didn’t die in the process.

  Chapter 4

  The attorney general signed off on the papers with an aggressive swing of the pen then flung them at Dylan and Cooper, who sat across the table, backed by Dylan’s lawyers. He got up, walked to the door then stopped and turned around. “I’ll make one thing clear. To both of you.” Whatever cordial manner or air of sophistication he used to have was immediately washed away. “This deal didn’t come from me. This is an executive order. From the president. That’s how big all this is. And if it doesn’t work, that failure will be on both of you. Can you handle that? Can you handle that type of weight?”

  “It’s nothing we haven’t carried already,” Cooper answered.

  “Yeah,” the attorney general said. “We’ll see about that.” And with that, he was out the door, leaving Cooper and Dylan with the lawyers.

  Dylan folded his hands together, looking back to his counsel. “So what now?”

  “Now you have to deliver,” Cooper said. “This deal is only good for as long as you and Perry are in communication. I don’t know what he thinks he’ll be able to gain from speaking with you, but that’s not what’s important. What’s important is you find out where he is and how far along he’s gotten with the Taipan.”

  “And my family?”

  “They’re under lock and key,” Cooper answered. “We have them with the best. Perry won’t be able to get to them this time. But if he decides he wants to start launching nukes, then there won’t be a safe house in the country that will keep your family protected. Remember that.”

  It was a tall task, Dylan knew. But the tantalizing light at the end of the tunnel, his freedom, being with his children, having a chance at something good and normal again, all that was his drive to stay focused. “Now what?”

  “Perry set up a time to speak with you this evening. He’ll be teleconferencing in. The idea is to keep him on the line long enough for us to get a location.”

  “You don’t think he’ll know that and have something to stop us from finding him?”

  “We know he will.” Cooper clapped Dylan on the back of the shoulder. “That’s why it’ll be important for you to keep him talking.”

  ***

  The lab coat looked like he was going to wet himself right then and there when Perry arrived. He immediately jumped from his seat, the lines of stress and coat of grime that had collected over his face in the past seventy-two hours present over his expression. “M-Mr. Perry.”

  “Sit down. Show me.”

  The engineer did as he was instructed as the two guards armed with automatic rifles flanked him on either side, the barrels of their guns dangerously close to his head. “Once we made it through the last firewall, the encryption algorithms gave us some trouble, but—”

  “You can skip the technicalities, Professor,” Perry said.

  The scientist cleared his throat and quickly brought up the Taipan’s user interface. “As you know, the Taipan controls all the land-based nuclear missiles in the United States. There are 450 missiles spread across three separate military facilities in the country. Now, each of them have their own codes, sequences, and protocols we have to work through, but we’ve managed to break through to one of them so far. Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.”

  “And
you’ve kept off their radar?” Perry asked, licking his lips at the prospect in front of him. “They don’t know you have control?”

  “No, not until we start sending commands.”

  Perry clasped the engineer’s shoulder firmly, staring at the screen in front of them. “Good. Let me know when you have the other two up and running.” Perry went for the door, leaving the scientists alone, but one of them turned to stop him.

  “Wait, are you going to let us out?”

  Perry looked back at the man in his dirty clothes, oily skin and hair, a look of dazed confusion and fear etched across his face. The engineer looked to his peers, all of whom kept to themselves, leaving the speaker on the island he’d stranded himself on.

  “I m-mean, we’ve done what you’ve asked.” The engineer pushed the glasses that slid down the greasy bridge of his nose back up to his forehead. “Shouldn’t we be allowed to leave?”

  “What for?” Perry asked, walking around the table, examining the surroundings then making sure to step around the stain of dried blood that still occupied the floor from the earlier casualty. “You have everything you need here. Food. Water.” Perry suddenly stopped then squinted his eyes. “Or is it companionship you’re craving? If you like, I can bring your friend back here. I’m sure my team hasn’t buried him yet. I’ll call for him to be brought down.”

  Perry motioned to one of his guards, who nodded, and the engineer leapt to his feet. “Please! No.” He walked over and fell to his knees before Perry, his hands clasped together, pleading. “I just want to go home. I want to be done.” He glanced over to his fellow captives. “We all do. I’m just the only one brave enough to say it.”

  “Is that so?” Perry examined the downcast eyes of the man’s peers. “I’ll tell you what.” Perry stepped around the supplicant and made his way to the other sheep shivering in the corner. “You point to any of these men, I’ll have one of my guards shoot them, and then you can leave.”

  Each of the scientists shuddered, and the engineer on the floor started to breathe heavily. “What?” He looked to his peers, all of them frozen in terror. “I-I can’t.”

  Perry shrugged. “Then let me know when you’ve taken control of the other bases. I’m sure it won’t take you long, especially since there are still so many of you.” Perry stopped at the door once more then turned around. “But I wonder if someone else could. You.” Perry pointed to a shorter scientist, his hair completely gone and his skin pale and loose around his neck and cheeks. “I’ll offer the same deal as I did to your friend over there. Point to someone in this room. I’ll kill them. And you get to go home.”

  Perry loved watching them squirm. He had the heel of his boot on all their necks, and it wouldn’t be long before one of them finally caved once the pressure became to great. When the scientist didn’t speak, Perry offered it to another. “How about you?”

  “Yes.” The answer escaped the man like a demon being exorcised from someone.

  Perry smiled. “And who would you like to sacrifice?” A few of the sheep were crying now, each of them muttering his own prayer to be spared.

  The Judas took a shaky hand and pointed to the bald, loose-skinned scientist from earlier who sat across the table, who immediately jumped from his seat and rushed for the exit, where Perry’s guards stopped him. “No! Let me go! Let me go! You bastards!” He squirmed and writhed fruitlessly in the guard’s arms as they lifted him to the center of the room for the others to see.

  The guards forced him to his knees and then handed Perry a pistol. Perry looked to the traitor who had sacrificed his friend and then extended the pistol to him. “Well, go on. Be done with it.”

  The man’s eyes widened as he looked from the pistol in Perry’s hand to his colleague trembling on the floor. “W-what? You s-said you would do it.”

  “I changed my mind.” Perry took the scientist’s hand, slammed the pistol’s handle into his palm, closed his fingers around the weapon, and aimed for the colleague on the floor. “Shoot him.” Perry took a step back, the pistol shaking violently in the scientist’s hand. “Do you want to go home or not?”

  The man put a trembling finger over the trigger, tears streaming down his face. Then the colleague on the floor cried, his entire body shaking as he pleaded nonsense and curses. After over a minute of waiting, Perry rolled his eyes and ripped the pistol from the scientist’s hand. “I guess you didn’t want to go home as bad as you thought.” Perry aimed at the head of the man who had failed to shoot then squeezed the trigger.

  The gunshot thundered through the room, and all the onlookers jerked, ducked, and covered their ears. Perry looked around to the rest of them, the gun hanging loosely at his side. “There is no hesitation anymore. I say do something and you will do it, or I will kill you. If you don’t have the conviction to want to stay alive, then you are of no use to me or yourself.”

  Perry handed the pistol back to one of his men then left the room, again leaving the slain body to rot and fester with the rest of them. There would be time to deal with their issues later. Right now he had a call to make.

  ***

  Dylan rubbed the flesh around his recently freed wrists. The cuffs had cut gashes and rubbed his skin raw. He was alone in the room save for the computer screen in front of him and a few cameras monitoring his activities. He shifted uneasily in his chair, knowing that whatever Perry had planned wasn’t to be taken lightly.

  Everything that Perry had done to date had been calculated. He’d seemed to know everything even before Dylan thought it. Could Perry have known that he would be there, in jail? Or was it all a coincidence, and was he just caught in the middle of some mad man’s nightmare?

  “Dylan.” The speakers positioned in the corners of the room boomed and echoed. He recognized Cooper’s voice. “Remember that you need to keep him talking for as long as possible. We don’t know how hard it’s going to be to lock down his coordinates. He could be anywhere.”

  Dylan nodded. But there was something Cooper and the rest of them still seemed unable to grasp, and that was the fact that Perry only let you see what he wanted you to see. When the screen signaled an incoming call, Dylan jumped a bit from the high-pitched ringing. He hovered the mouse over the accept call button but hesitated. He closed his eyes. My family’s safe. He can’t hurt them. He can’t get to them. There is nothing he can threaten me with. We’re safe.

  “Dylan, answer the call.” Cooper’s voice boomed through again, and Dylan clicked the green phone icon. A few seconds later, Perry’s face appeared on screen.

  “Captain, so good to see you again.” When he smiled the coffee stains on his teeth were accentuated from the tint of the screen. “I see they let you out of your orange for more tasteful attire.”

  “No more games, Perry. What do you want?” Dylan flashed a quick glance to the camera in the corner of the room.

  “I understand that a new deal was presented to you in regard for your cooperation with me. I imagine that must leave a nasty taste in your mouth.”

  “It does.” And the fact that Perry knew about a deal sent a crack through that protective layer of knowledge that Perry couldn’t reach his family.

  “Have you given any thought to our last conversation?”

  Dylan’s mind returned to the field, the fires burning the tree lines. The screams, gunshots, and heat all flooded back to him, along with why Perry had picked him, why all of this was happening. Truth was, Dylan hadn’t thought about it much. He’d blocked it from his mind. With the future of his children at stake and the prospect of spending the rest of his life in jail, most of his brainpower was preoccupied. “If you think you can try and get something out of me, you’re wrong.”

  “It’s a question you need answered, Dylan. And it’s one I want you to find out. But I suppose both of us have other pressing matters to attend to. I know Cooper and a cluster of intelligence goons are trying to locate my position, and as of right now they’re within two hundred miles. I’ll save them some time and te
ll them that I’m in Minot, North Dakota, heading for the Air Force base.”

  Dylan gave a long, sideways glance at the camera through which Cooper and the rest were watching. “And what are you doing in North Dakota?”

  “Cooper will know. Let’s just say I’m on my way to collect a few things. But I have something to keep them busy in the meantime. You asked for my demands? Here they are: I want every United States soldier that is stationed overseas to be brought back home. For every two hours that an American soldier is still on foreign soil, I’m going to blow up a city within the United States. Tell Cooper that clock starts now.”

  The signal died, and the computer shut off. After that, the door to the room burst open, and Cooper poured inside with the rest of her team. “Check the laptop now!”

  Dylan was pulled from his chair as one of the men immediately turned the computer over and ripped off the cover and yanked out the hard drive. “I’ll run a diagnostic on it, see what we find.”

  “What the hell happened?” Dylan asked, still being subdued by two men even though he wasn’t struggling. “Did you find him?”

  Cooper motioned for the guards to let Dylan go. “No, when we tried tracking the signal, he countered us with a virus trying to hack into our servers. We managed to cut it off just in time, but we wanted to make sure nothing happened to the laptop. It has a connection to our network that Perry could have accessed.” She walked closer, so when she spoke, only Dylan could hear her. “What was he talking about? What conversation did the two of you have?”