Danger Close

by James P. Sumner

  Jericho did the opposite. Without hesitation, he charged like a raging bull toward the group, aiming dead-center. His instincts were engrained in his genetics. He confronted danger head-on. He could acknowledge fear without feeling afraid. He could be cautious without being hesitant. His logic was sound too. Closing the distance gave his enemies less space and opportunity to react. While the colonel was reactive, Jericho was preemptive.

  He dropped his shoulder as he slammed into one of the soldiers, turning his body and diving like a bowling ball hitting the pins. The group of six scattered and sprawled across the floor. Jericho landed on top of them but quickly rolled away, ignoring the thousands of tiny shards of glass that pricked at his skin. He knelt on one knee and focused on the nearest man to him. He held onto his gun, pinning it to his body as he rained down three stiff blows to his face. The third knocked the man unconscious.

  Jericho tore the gun from his grip and tossed it aside. He then got to his feet as the rest of the group began to recover. In a whirlwind of unbridled strength and indiscriminate ferocity, he moved from one side of the hallway to the other. He swung right fists and elbows at one man, then used the momentum to spin counterclockwise and deliver left forearms and punches to the next.

  Each blow staggered and stunned the men, further delaying their retaliation. He reached the wall and slammed his back against it after his final turn. His weapon was already drawn as he cleared the group. He fired two rounds at the man nearest to him, who crumpled instantly to the floor in a lifeless heap. A second later, a cacophony of gunshots rang out as the colonel and the line of allies opened fire at the rest of the group, dropping them all within seconds.

  Silence fell. The acrid stench of cordite filled the air. Jericho leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. He looked up to see the colonel standing in front of him, holstering his sidearm.

  “You really are a crazy sonofabitch, Mr. Stone,” observed Ramirez with a light tone.

  Jericho stood straight and shrugged. “It was instinct, I guess. Come on. There’ll be more where they came from. We need to stay focused and maintain our hold on the palace.” He turned to address the men standing with them. “Dropping in from the roof didn’t work for them. The general’s unlikely to try it again. His last option is a frontal assault on the ground. He’ll only use the tank as a last resort. The palace symbolizes control. If he blows it apart, he’ll struggle to stake his claim as Paluga’s leader. That means he’s going to send in every last man he’s got and try to overwhelm us. Make sure all first-floor entrances are covered. Use the doors as a funnel, make a kill box, and drop the bastards. Understood?”

  Murmurs of agreement rippled through the men.

  Jericho nodded to the colonel. “Let’s go.”

  24

  The jet cruised above the clouds. A clear blue sky and unrestricted sun surrounded the plane as it headed toward California.

  New York was almost two hours behind them now. Julie and Collins sat in silence, staring anywhere except at each other, nursing a plethora of minor injuries they both felt embarrassed about having.

  Collins cradled a thick glass tumbler half-full of whiskey. The amber fluid swirled and splashed around inside the glass as the plane rocked gently with turbulence. Opposite him, Julie held an unopened bottle of beer to her forehead.

  On Buchanan’s instructions, they were returning to the GlobaTech headquarters in Santa Clarita. They knew Buchanan was maybe an hour behind them since his hearing ended prematurely following the president’s intervention.

  Collins looked over at Julie discreetly. Her vacant stare did nothing to hide her emotions. With all this happening so soon after her father’s funeral, and with Jericho in the situation he was in, Collins was impressed she had held things together as long as she had. He knew for sure he wouldn’t have fared as well as she had if he had been in her position.

  “He’s gonna be okay, Jules,” he said after a moment.

  She looked up, distracted. “Hmm?”

  “Jerry. He’s gonna be fine. He’s a one-man army, that fella. Don’t worry about him.”

  Julie smiled politely. The gesture was weary and without humor. “You trying to tell me you’re not worried about him?”

  He held her gaze for a few seconds, then glanced away. He reluctantly nodded as he conceded her point. “Aye. Of course, I am. Just trying to… ya know… be comforting.”

  Julie smiled again, more genuinely this time. “I know. Thank you.”

  “The boss man pulled off a miracle by getting the U.N. to drop their bullshit hearings and charges.”

  Julie shrugged. “That’s only temporary, though. Once the Palugan situation is over, Moses will be right back on the Hill. The president’s intervention is nothing more than a Band-Aid on a broken arm.”

  Collins downed the contents of his glass. He sucked in a deep breath through gritted teeth as the whiskey burned its way down his throat. “Not necessarily. Jerry’s gonna do a job over there. We both know it. If we resolve that, maybe the U.N. thing goes away.”

  “I hope you’re right, Ray, but I’m not holding my breath. I’ve seen nothing to suggest our run of bad luck is anything other than temporarily postponed. Whatever’s really going on here is far from over. I can promise you that.”

  They fell into a comfortable silence, and a half-hour passed by quickly.

  Louise, the stewardess, appeared from behind the curtain, interrupting the brief respite.

  She smiled apologetically. “Guys, you have a call from Mr. Buchanan. I’m going to patch it through to the screen here, okay?”

  As she turned away, she momentarily placed a hand on Collins’s shoulder. He looked up at her and smiled gratefully at the gesture before she disappeared. Julie noticed the brief exchange but said nothing.

  She spun her chair around to face the screen mounted on the wall of the cockpit. Collins stood and moved across the aisle. He sat in the chair opposite Julie and spun it the same way.

  The screen flickered into life, showing Buchanan sitting on a similar private jet. His expression was one of fatigue. His face looked thinner than usual, and his eyes were bloodshot.

  Julie waved a hand casually. “You look like crap, Boss.”

  Buchanan rolled his eyes, which seemed to take more effort than it should have. “The pair of you don’t exactly look the picture of health, either.”

  The three of them shared a weak but well-intentioned laugh.

  “Any word on Jerry?” asked Collins.

  Buchanan shook his head. “No. And that’s what I want to talk to you about.”

  Julie and Collins leaned forward in their seats.

  “I think I’ve figured out what’s really going on here,” he continued. “In part, anyway. My working theory is that Orion International are behind this.”

  “Behind what?” asked Julie. “Paluga?”

  “All of it. The meeting I had with one of their directors a few days ago didn’t end well. I think all of this is some elaborate retribution.”

  “How bad was it?” asked Collins.

  “Bad enough,” said Buchanan. “He threatened me in no uncertain terms. Said GlobaTech would regret getting involved in Orion’s and Tristar’s affairs.”

  “But they own news networks, right?” said Julie. “Private security and international espionage seem a bit of a stretch.”

  Buchanan shrugged. “We’ve long-suspected Orion’s claims of ignorance over what Tristar was involved in are bogus. If they’re really pulling the strings here…”

  “I reckon ya might be onto something, boss,” said Collins. He looked at Julie. “Think about it. Jerry’s blind down there. How can a military coup, potential civil war, and the investigation into a presidential assassination not be on the news? Like, everywhere.”

  Julie nodded slowly, putting the pieces together. “Orion control some of the biggest news networks in the States. They could easily manipulate the story so—”

  “So that we
’re made to look like the bad guys,” confirmed Buchanan. “Exactly. The assassination was on every channel around the world. But the story wasn’t the president dying. It was GlobaTech failing. Today, the world is shaped by social media and public opinion. You see it all the time—celebrities falling victim to cancel culture because the story was spun a certain way to suit one of the parties involved.”

  “You think we’ve been cancelled…” said Julie.

  Buchanan nodded. “President Herrera died on our watch. For twenty-four hours, the story was that GlobaTech let it happen. That story broke on every network Orion owns. I checked. All the others picked it up from them. The next day, I’m sitting in front of the U.N. Security Council, who react to the PR nightmare by immediately pulling our contract with them. The day after that… I’m on Capitol Hill having my company taken off me and broken up into tiny, harmless pieces.”

  Collins let out a long sigh. “That’s… insane.”

  “Honestly, it’s impressive. To have that much pull… to read the situation and orchestrate something so completely and effectively in less than two days… I think we underestimated Orion International. Spectacularly.”

  It went quiet as Buchanan’s words sunk in. The sheer scope of what they had been battling against this whole time wasn’t easily comprehended.

  Julie slammed her palm down on the arm of her chair. “Sonofabitch!”

  Both Collins and Buchanan turned their attentions to her. She looked at them both in turn.

  “Maybe we didn’t underestimate them at all,” she said.

  “What have you got, Fisher?” asked Buchanan.

  “Okay. This all started with Tristar, right? Last September, they stole the sixteen million dollars we secured from Daniel Silva’s client. A couple of days before that, Roachford’s old squad hit our guys in Cambodia and stole that tech from the warehouse. We know for sure both of those attacks were Tristar. We hacked their servers looking for dirt and gave what we found to Roachford so that he could use the information where we couldn’t. But Tristar found out.”

  Buchanan nodded. “Yes. That’s why they went after him. They incorrectly assumed he had stolen the data himself.”

  “Exactly. I imagine he’s still a little pissed at us for that. But that’s when we first found out Tristar was owned by Orion. We didn’t think anything of it because it’s not uncommon for large companies to own several small ones.”

  Buchanan nodded again. “That’s what Hall said to me originally. Orion owns hundreds of assets and companies.”

  “So, what if Orion knew about everything Tristar was doing all along? What if Tristar’s apparent war against us has been Orion’s plan from the beginning, and this whole Palugan thing is just an extension of it?”

  Everyone went quiet as they rearranged the pieces of their own internal jigsaws to accommodate Julie’s new interpretation of the big picture.

  It was Collins who broke the silence. “We have two main issues, right? We got Tristar stealing our shit, and we got Orion’s smear campaign that has a much bigger impact than it has any right to have.”

  “Basically.” Julie shrugged.

  “What if they’re not two issues?”

  On the screen, Buchanan put a hand to his mouth. He leaned his elbow on the arm of his chair and stared blankly ahead. “Christ…”

  Collins continued. “We’ve been thinking Orion knows everything Tristar’s been doing for months, right? So, let’s assume for a minute that Tristar has just been following orders.”

  Julie shook her head. “Why, though? Orion don’t need sixteen million dollars. Hell, they probably make that every hour. We don’t fully understand what the tech they stole from Cambodia was, but I can promise you that whatever it was, it’s of no use to a news channel.”

  Collins thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Perhaps from their point of view, them having it is better than us having it, right?”

  “You think it’s that simple?”

  “He might be right,” said Buchanan. “I think it could be that simple. We do good work here. We help the world. We’re a true global brand with a stellar reputation. The best way to beat someone who thinks they’re invincible is to show them that they’re not.”

  “You think they’re proving a point?”

  Buchanan shrugged. “Maybe. Taking the money was, for sure. Cambodia… we don’t know what that was. Perhaps your new friend can shed some light on it?”

  Julie rolled her eyes. “He made it quite clear last time I spoke to him that we’re not friends. Besides, he’s gone to ground after New York, and we’re too busy to find him right now.”

  “Fair enough. But let’s run with this for a moment. Tell me how Paluga fits in.”

  Collins frowned. “Jerry said the general’s men have Tristar weaponry, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did we not know those bastards made guns?”

  Buchanan flicked an eyebrow. “Good question.”

  “Jesus!” shouted Julie.

  “What?”

  “Tristar! What if they made the goddamn bullet?”

  Buchanan stared out at Collins. Both men were visibly perturbed they hadn’t realized that themselves sooner.

  Julie moved to the edge of her seat and placed a hand on her forehead. “Just give me a minute. Let me… okay—Tristar has armed the general’s military to help them take control of the country. Why would Tristar care about a civil war in a South American island nation half the world hasn’t heard of?”

  “They wouldn’t,” said Collins. “Right?”

  “Right. So, why do it unless it was on Orion’s instructions?”

  Buchanan shook his head. “Same question. Why would Orion care?”

  Julie looked at the screen. “Because Orion knew this whole situation could be used to destroy GlobaTech.”

  “Talk to me, Fisher…”

  She took a breath. “Paluga is in chaos. It has been for a couple of months, right? A divided military, an angry populace, and a president fearing a coup. It’s the perfect melting pot. If you were Herrera, dealing with all of that, what would you do?”

  Collins shrugged. “I’d probably do exactly what he did. I’d call us. Or, at the very least, ask the U.N. for help, who would’ve sent us anyway.”

  “Exactly!” Julie looked at the screen. “Boss, you said yourself that Orion orchestrating our cancellation on the world stage in three days is impressive. What if it’s not as impressive as you think? What if they didn’t do this in three days?”

  Buchanan leaned forward. “You think they somehow manufactured the Palugan crisis knowing it would lead to GlobaTech’s eventual involvement?”

  “Why not? You said it yourself. The media’s influence nowadays is frightening. They would’ve known the political climate in the country weeks ago, just as everyone else did. It’s an isolated country thirty miles offshore. Easy to have a full news embargo if you have the reach and power they do.”

  “Christ on a bike…” said Collins. “Jerry and our boys were lured to that island like lambs to the slaughter.”

  Julie nodded. “We sent… what? Two thousand operatives? I know it’s less than one percent of our security force, but like you said, Boss—it’s proof they can get to us. We’ve been set up to lose a lot of people and look bad doing it. This is a goddamn liver shot.”

  Buchanan sighed. “Okay. If we’re going with this, we need to start filling in the blanks. Tell me what we don’t know.”

  “We don’t know for sure Tristar made that sci-fi bullet,” said Collins.

  “We also don’t have proof Tristar was behind the assassination,” added Julie.

  “Nor do we have any proof that Tristar is actually involved at all,” said Buchanan. “Selling arms isn’t an admission of guilt. We do it all the time. Doesn’t mean they knew what their weapons would be used for.”

  “True,” sighed Julie. “But the fact they were able to design and manufacture cutting edge tech that leaves ours for dust
without anyone knowing…”

  “Is definitely cause for concern. I agree. What else?”

  “We don’t have any proof Orion is actually involved at all?” said Collins. “They might just be really good reporters.”

  “We know that’s not how it is,” said Julie.

  “I know, but that’s how it looks, which is all that matters, right?”

  “Okay, here’s what we know,” said Buchanan. He held his hand up to count on his fingers as he went through his list. “We know who the shooter is. We know Tristar weapons are being used by General Guerrero. We know Orion has a vendetta against us, and they’ve manipulated the media to destroy GlobaTech’s reputation beyond repair. The best way for us to help Jericho right now is to link those three things together. Once we land, that’s our only job. Questions?”

  Both Julie and Collins shook their heads.

  Buchanan nodded. “I suggest you use the remainder of your flight to get some rest. There won’t be any more until this is over.”

  The screen clicked off. Julie and Collins looked at each other, both feeling overwhelmed by what they now knew and what awaited them on the ground.

  25

  In the last fifteen minutes, the general’s men had forced their way into the palace and taken over much of the first floor. There were casualties on both sides, but despite suffering heavy losses initially, the general’s forces still outnumbered those of Jericho and the colonel by almost three to one.

  Jericho had taken a small squad of men, consisting of both GlobaTech operatives and the colonel’s soldiers, to secure the east balcony. It gave them a strong vantage point of the courtyard below, cover, and a side view of the general’s tank, which still dominated the palace grounds.

  A burst of automatic fire peppered the balcony just to the right of him. Jericho fired a couple of rounds in retaliation. As he glanced down to take his shot, he caught a glimpse of the battlefield below. It was littered with bodies from both sides, yet the number of enemies never seemed to decrease.

  The deafening noise of the skirmish momentarily fell away. The back and forth of gunfire suddenly seemed distant. His gaze locked on the body of a GlobaTech operative who lay awkwardly on the blood-soaked ground. He realized he didn’t even know that man’s name. He was just an anonymous sacrifice in a war they shouldn’t even be fighting.