Fractured: V Plague Book 15

by Dirk Patton

“Don’t be a pussy,” I said, lighting up and taking a deep drag.

  “What the hell is with you guys? All balls and no brains and call me a pussy because I don’t like breathing in your smoke. It’s fucking old!”

  “You guys?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Ray does the same goddamn thing. Knows I can’t stand the smoke, but still lights up and tells me to quit whining.”

  “Tell me about Ray,” I said.

  “Tell you what? You know him.”

  “How do you? What does he do for your project?”

  “He’s the tactical trainer for the project. Taught me most of what I know. Bit of a prick, but he knows his shit.”

  “That he does,” I said, peering at him through a cloud of blue smoke.

  Right on schedule, Rachel got up and walked over, taking the cigarette out of my hand. With a sigh, I lit another, much to Bering’s obvious displeasure.

  “What?” he asked, waving a hand in front of his face.

  “How much do you know about Ray?” I asked.

  “About him? He’s former Delta and he’s hot shit in a fight. Why?”

  “He have access to your systems? Like the one that made that video?”

  Bering frowned when I asked the question.

  “Don’t know for sure, but probably, if he wanted to. Why?”

  I shook my head.

  “Not important. I was just curious,” I said.

  “Why did you save us?” Rachel asked.

  I didn’t turn to look at her, rather kept my attention focused on Bering’s eyes. He glanced her way, then picked up the iPad and tapped a few times.

  “Hadn’t gotten there, yet,” he said.

  Placing the tablet back on the table, he spun it around so I could see the screen. I flicked my eye down and saw that he’d queued up another video.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “This is what happened after you died.”

  I stared at the iPad for several seconds, unsure I wanted to watch.

  “Just tell me,” I said.

  Before he could speak, Rachel stepped next to me and reached out, tapping the play icon. My eye was drawn to the screen and we watched in silence as Barinov’s building was destroyed, presumably by air-dropped ordnance. The image jumped to what were obviously various feeds from surveillance cameras. In every view, throngs of infected were tearing apart fleeing civilians.

  “That’s several Australian cities. Next is Hawaii,” Bering said.

  A fresh view from a camera high above the surrounding terrain came on and I immediately recognized Hickam Field in Honolulu. Everything was serene for a couple of seconds, then a brilliant flash bloomed on the horizon. Within moments, the camera blanked out and the video ended.

  “How?” Rachel asked, sinking into a seat next to me and reaching for the fresh cigarette I’d just lit.

  “After you were killed, Admiral Packard moved to plan B. Dropped a big ass bomb on Barinov’s head. Unfortunately, that triggered a release of the nerve gas and a nuclear attack that wiped Hawaii off the map.”

  “Have you told him this?” Rachel asked.

  Bering nodded in response.

  “That’s why he recalled the SEALs, then sent them to stop you when you wouldn’t stand down.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I breathed. “All he had to fucking do was tell me!”

  “All you had to fucking do was obey orders,” Bering snapped.

  “Fuck you!” I spat, not sure if I was angry at him or myself.

  “Both of you stop!” Rachel said, still staring at the paused video.

  I glared at Bering for a moment then turned to look at her.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “If you’ve warned the Admiral and he isn’t going to drop a bomb, why did you save us? You said you’ve come back in time to undo bad things. Well, what’s so bad about us being killed? In the scheme of things, I mean.”

  Bering looked at her for a long pause, then smiled and stood up. He went to one of the windows and released a heavy bolt which allowed him to rotate the shutter into an open position. Reaching through, he pushed open the glass. Going to one on the opposite side of the room, he repeated the process. A breeze began flowing through the house, flushing the haze of smoke out into the night.

  “Because as time progressed, it became obvious you were needed,” he said, earning curious looks from each of us.

  “Needed for what?” I asked, confused.

  “I’ll get to that in a minute,” he said, waving the question aside. “What does is that she’s asking a good question. With the Admiral not repeating the mistake of bombing the building, you two were no longer a factor. Your deaths didn’t matter. In fact, they eliminated the possibility of you doing something to trigger the events we were trying to stop, so the decision was made to not interfere.”

  “Not interfere?” Rachel asked. “You mean to let us die?”

  “Yes,” Bering said without hesitation.

  “Then why did you save us?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

  Hell, I still wasn’t sure I even believed the fantastic story, video evidence aside. But as I thought about it, was it really that incredible? Technology had been advancing at an exponential rate my entire life. Things I took for granted today would have been just as impossible for my father to have accepted when he was my age. And that was just on the consumer side. Considering we’d created the first atomic bomb in the 1940s, what could the government have done in the shadows with nearly unlimited funds?

  “Twenty-four hours from now, all of this happens again,” he said, gesturing at the iPad.

  “We die?” Rachel asked.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “The second part. You’re already dead, remember? Or you were. I just undid that. What I mean is, tomorrow night Barinov is killed, which triggers the release of the nerve gas and the nuclear attack on Hawaii. I saved you so you can save Barinov.”

  27

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I exploded when what he’d said sank in. “Save that motherfucker? I’ll dance on his goddamn grave then take a piss on it!”

  “Then you’ll be dancing and pissing in the middle of a city full of victims of the nerve gas! And Hawaii will be glowing in the dark,” Bering said, ignoring the emotion of my outburst.

  I was breathing hard, jaw clenched so tight it hurt. Dog, sensitive to my mood, moved next to me. His hackles were up and he growled deep in his chest, eyes locked on Bering. Rachel put her hand on his head and after a moment he went silent and sat down next to her.

  “You’re not serious,” I said, calming slightly.

  “I’m very serious,” he said. “That’s the only reason you’re alive right now. You’re needed.”

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Rachel said, frowning at him. “If you’re able to save us, why can’t you stop something that’s going to happen twenty-four hours from now?”

  “Two reasons. First, we’re having problems. Normally, I could and would. But I could be pulled back home at any second, with no warning. And if that happens, again, the machine that transports me could be out of service and I lose the window to stop this.”

  “What does all that really mean?” I asked, earning a shake of his head.

  “More technical than I can understand,” he said. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

  I snorted but didn’t say anything.

  “What’s the second reason?” Rachel asked.

  “Barinov will be killed by a large team of trained operators. Too many to go against on my own, even if I am here.”

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” he said. “Our intel gathering capabilities have been severely degraded. But I can tell you where they’re going to be six hours before they attack. I’ve already loaded all the data onto a jump drive that will stay here if I get pulled back unexpectedly. All you’ll need to do is find a computer or tablet.”

  “What’s wrong with that one?” I asked, pointing
at his iPad.

  “It came with me. That means it will go back with me. I can’t leave anything physical behind. The jump drive was already here and data isn’t physical.”

  He walked into one of the bedrooms and I got up and followed, still not ready to trust him fully. Dialing a combination into the safe, he tugged the heavy door open and I pulled it to the side so I could see what he was doing. There were half a dozen rifles, several pistols, knives and a lot of ammo stored inside. He ignored these and picked up a small USB drive off a narrow shelf and handed it to me. I stared at it a moment before scooping it up and putting it in my pocket. Leaving the safe’s door swinging open, we returned to the kitchen.

  “And you think the two of us, and a dog, can stop an entire team bent on killing Barinov?” I asked.

  “No, but I think you’ve got resources here in Australia available to you that I don’t.”

  I nodded, acknowledging his point.

  “Why don’t you just warn Barinov?” Rachel asked. “Let his security handle the threat.”

  “We gamed that idea. The concern is that if he knows he’s about to be attacked, he’ll preemptively release the gas and launch the missiles. He’ll see that as a way to stay in control, then he evacuates from Sydney and heads for wherever he feels safe.”

  I sat there thinking about that for a minute. There was nothing I’d seen of Barinov’s behavior that led me to believe this wasn’t a likely scenario. In fact, I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. All that was keeping the majority of the Australian citizens alive was that the Russians didn’t know the world was in a death spiral.

  “The Aussies. Tell them. They’ve got a vested interest in protecting Barinov,” I suggested.

  “Same problem,” he said, shaking his head. “Who do I trust to keep it quiet so word doesn’t reach the Russians that there’s a kill team coming for their president? You’ve got the contacts that will listen to you. I don’t.”

  I stared at him for a long stretch, finally bobbing my head in agreement.

  “Fair enough.”

  “So?” Bering asked with raised eyebrows. “Are you in?”

  “What’s your game plan if I’m not?”

  “Don’t have a good one,” he admitted. “But I’m pretty good at coming up with shit on the fly.”

  I snorted again. He had no idea.

  “Who betrayed us?” Rachel asked. “How did the Russians know to have a team waiting outside the fence?”

  I was glad she asked and was also a little miffed at myself for not having already done so. That’s what getting upset does to you. Clouds your mind and keeps you from focusing on the important details.

  “Can’t tell you,” Bering said.

  “Can’t, or won’t?” I asked.

  “Can’t. Don’t know. Tried to figure that out, but like I said, our intel gathering ain’t what it used to be.”

  I chewed on that for a moment, trying to make a decision. Lighting a cigarette, I sighed when I decided it was better to tell him what had been bothering me.

  “Ray Cox,” I said.

  “What about him?” he asked, surprised at the sudden change in topic.

  “Bothered me when you said he was working on the project. Something like you’re describing is going to have really tight security. People are vetted up and down, then an investigator crawls up their ass with a really bright light. Am I close?”

  He nodded without saying anything.

  “So, I’m wondering how Ray passed the vetting.”

  “What are you talking about? He was Delta. Aren’t you guys already cleared for all kinds of shit?”

  “We are,” I said. “Or were. But I don’t see them just accepting someone based on a clearance issued by the DOD while they were on active duty. They’d still dig into someone’s past. Right?”

  “I suppose so,” he said. “I’m kind of a unique case, but even then, they still knew everything there was to know about me when I was brought in.”

  “Okay. But you need to be careful what you do with this.”

  I paused until he nodded his understanding.

  “Delta is divided into squadrons. Think of each squadron as a platoon, if that helps. Ray was in a different squadron than me, so I knew him, but not well. We kind of passed in the night, if you get my meaning. My unit was going into Iraq as his was coming out.

  “So, there’s this rumor going around that Ray and a couple of other guys in his squadron ran into an Iraqi Colonel that was trying to get out of the country. Supposedly out in the middle of nowhere, heading across the desert to Saudi Arabia. The story is that the Iraqi officer had loaded down a truck with as much of Saddam’s gold as it could carry, stuffed his family inside and took off. Ray and the other two shot them up before they knew there were women and kids in the vehicle. Killed them all. Then the gold disappeared.”

  “How much gold we talking about?” Bering asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Depends on which rumor you believe. I’ve heard everything all the way up to a hundred million dollars. But there doesn’t have to be much. A standard sized gold bar was worth about half a million bucks back then. That’s around twenty-five pounds. So even if he only had four of them, that’s two million.

  “Anyway, one guy could easily put four bars in his pack and just walk it out. Back then, at least for special forces, no one paid a bit of attention when we rotated home. No checks for contraband at all. Hell, there were guys that started smuggling in heroin. Made a small fortune until CID got wind of it.

  “But back to Ray. That’s the rumor. And the day before his squadron was scheduled to rotate home, the two guys that were with him got killed in a blue on blue accident.”

  “What’s that?” Rachel asked.

  “Friendly fire,” Bering said, explaining before I could.

  “Ray was the one on the radio, calling in an airstrike on a small convoy of insurgents. His two buddies were unfortunate enough to be in the wrong location when a flight of A-10s came over and obliterated everything.”

  “There was an investigation?” he asked.

  “Of course there was, but if you’ve seen what I think you’ve seen, you know what’s left after a bunch of A-10s use you for target practice. The investigation was limited to interviewing Ray, who had just inherited the shares of the gold his teammates had. Assuming there was any, of course.

  “So, with no evidence, he skates. CID climbed in and out of every single one of his orifices when he got back to Bragg, but they didn’t find anything. No gold. No suspicious activity. All they had was a rumor that couldn’t be attributed to any single person who might actually know the truth.”

  “What happened to him?” Bering asked.

  “Our CO at the time didn’t like Ray to begin with. This pushed him over the edge and he bounced him out of Delta. Ray was sent down to a Ranger training brigade. Kept a low profile and finished out his time. Then, the day he separated, the Colonel’s dog turned up dead on his front lawn. Shot. Now, you aren’t going to believe this, but when the vet pulled that bullet out, it was solid gold.”

  Bering looked at me, starting to smile. He thought I’d just told a long story to get him with a joke at the end. Unfortunately, I wasn’t kidding. I kept my face straight and stared back at him.

  “You’re serious?” he asked, the smile fading.

  I nodded.

  “The Colonel went bat shit. CID got involved. Questioned every single one of us in Delta. Dug into bank accounts. Followed Ray around for weeks, but didn’t find a damn thing. No surveillance cameras on post in the area where the Colonel’s house was and no witnesses to the dog being killed, so no evidence. They tried to analyze the gold and compare it to what was found in some of Saddam’s vaults, but the results were inconclusive. After a couple of months, they closed the investigation. Ray’s record should have been full of references to him being under a cloud. Both the blue on blue deaths of his team as well as the Iraqi Colonel, the gold and the CO’s
dog being killed.

  “My point is this. I’ve been around a while. Been part of projects and missions that required a thorough vetting, even though I already had a high security clearance. And I’ve seen guys get turned down over something in their file as minor as an article fifteen for being late to training. So how does a guy who’s been the subject of multiple CID investigations, and rumored to have caused the death of two of his teammates, wind up cleared to be part of a project that’s got to be as tightly held as the Manhattan Project was when they built the bomb?”

  “I don’t know,” Bering said, concern on his face.

  “Only one way I can think of,” I said, then paused.

  “What’s that?”

  “Someone with one hell of a lot of horsepower and access had his record scrubbed clean before he was vetted. Then they got to the people who might say something and found a way to ensure they kept their mouths shut.”

  “That’s a hell of a conspiracy,” Rachel said.

  I shrugged, then noticed Bering staring contemplatively at the table.

  “Did a missing piece just fall into place?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Ray doesn’t know that I know this,” I said. “The Army did its best to keep everything quiet and under wraps.”

  “How’d you find out?” he asked.

  “Long story,” I said. “For another time. But that’s why I asked you earlier if Ray had access to the data you showed me. I don’t trust the fucker.”

  28

  “What name?” Igor asked the SEAL.

  They were looking for fighting positions near the north edge of the stand of trees in preparation for the arrival of the guards.

  “Chief Strickland,” the American said. “Todd.”

  Igor repeated the first name, struggling with the English vowel, then said his as he thumped his chest.

  “Nice to meet ya, Ivan.”

  “Asshole,” Igor mumbled.

  “Know that word, do ya? Must’ve learned it from that crazy Army Major.”

  “Da,” Igor said with a grin. “Asshole squid.”

  “Goddamn, Ivan! You did get an education!” Strickland said with a toothy smile.