Midnight Zone: a Cade Rearden Thriller

by JK Franks

  “Harris!” The older man trailed off, seemingly forgetting his advisor was standing right there waiting for instructions.

  Harris wondered again how much the ordeal and the months hidden away in the bowels beneath Cheyenne mountain had done to the man. That bunker was more commonly known as home to NORAD command than to a sitting president. “Yes, sir,” the president’s aide answered. “Would you like me to show her in now?”

  Ortiz turned and nodded, “Oh. Yes, of course.”

  Moments later, Director Margaret Stansfield entered the oval office. The greeting was warmer than she’d expected. Political alliances are fickle things, but the man seemed to genuinely like and trust her. Their friendship seemed to have reached a rather amicable level amidst all the chaos. He motioned for her to sit on one of the long sofas. A friendly sign, in her opinion, more relaxed. She was not here to receive orders, or be reprimanded. He wanted her help…maybe even her opinions.

  A steward brought in a coffee set on a silver tray, and they both took advantage of a cup. Margaret was assessing her boss with the same level of scrutiny his personal advisor had. She caught Harris standing discreetly against a far wall. President Ortiz took a sip, savored it, and placed the cup down, sloshing some liquid onto the antique table.

  “Margaret, we have a developing situation. Something that is clearly in your, um…” he seemed to struggle with what to call it… “your group’s wheelhouse. What are you calling it?”

  “The Cove Project, sir. Mostly TCP for now. You know how we love acronyms.”

  He nodded. “Of course, yes, yes.” The president stood and paced for a moment before continuing.

  She could feel the trepidation emanating from the man. Whatever this was, he was taking it seriously. Realizing he was wasting time, he returned to the sofa and sat.

  “Margaret, this is a bit baffling, and frankly, I don’t even know where else to go with it. Might be just more fallout from The Troubles, may be some entirely new threat. It doesn’t seem to come from any of the known players. The truth is, our intelligence apparatus is simply not capable of chasing this to ground right now.”

  Margaret was well aware of the gaping holes in the intel and enforcement community. Janus had sent a wrecking ball through the bloated and unwieldy system, exposing the myriad of overlapping agencies charged with domestic security. One positive was that the most incompetent had been exposed, and some overlap and waste had been eliminated.

  Ortiz continued, “We have discovered something major, what you might call an eminent threat, Director. You will discover in the files some theories on the who and the why. The border raids and growing boldness of the Mexican cartels, drug trade, and money laundering are a part of this. I know it was your assets who just helped take down a major piece of that. I wish that was all there was to it. Clearly, it is not that simple. Margaret, we need to keep the circle tight on this, and as much as it pains me to admit your TCP are the only ones, I fully trust them to do that.”

  “Certainly, sir. Happy to help. What are we facing?”

  Ortiz spread his hands. “That may be your first challenge. Before we get into that, I do want to thank you again for all you did, all you continue to do, for me and our country. I know you won’t tell me anything more about your operation, but can you assure me you have everything you need?”

  “I do, Mister President, thank you. The executive charter you provided along with the official cover for my agents when needed is enough. I will request anything else only when needed, as per our agreement.”

  An iron-clad, irrevocable presidential charter, Ortiz thought. One of only a handful ever created. His successors would hate him for that, assuming they were ever let in on the secret.

  The two had spoken many times over the past several months, mostly via VR conference, but also several in-person visits. Margaret had noticed the toll the job was taking on the man. He’d been an outsider and had made the cardinal sin of pissing off the mainstream media right out of the gate. His first year was a shit-storm of blunders, blame, and accusations, most unwarranted. Then The Troubles hit, and he was left to try to clean up the mess. His poll numbers had risen slightly, but politicians and the capital in particular, were taking the blame for most of it.

  For her part, Margaret didn’t concern herself too much with the politics of D.C. She liked the working relationship the two of them now had. Some leaders seemed to rise to the challenge during a crisis, while others, most, if she was being honest, seemed crippled by it. Ortiz seemed to be much more the former. It was doubtful she’d ever have as good of a relationship with another president. Right now, though, she doubted this one would even want to seek a second term.

  Ortiz nodded and motioned to Harris who silently stepped over and handed Margaret an almost identical looking binder to the one the president had read earlier. She opened it cautiously, glancing up at the president. “Go ahead, Director, I want you to review that here…right now.”

  Just over twenty minutes later, Margaret closed the folder and placed it near the coffee tray. Rarely would the President of the United States be able to give anyone this much time. Truthfully, she knew it was unprecedented outside of his inner circle. He sat back quietly, sipping his coffee and watching as one of his most trusted national security heads read the briefing document. Reading through the folder's contents, she fully understood the magnitude of what he faced and now knew his problem was about to become her problem.

  The president shook her hand warmly and looked her in the eye. “We need your best on this, Director.” The man nodded for his aide.

  Ortiz’s assistant was the most trusted confidant he had. Harris, although Margaret now knew that was a false name, knew all of his boss’s secrets. He knew about her, about The Cove, but not about Doris. No one in government knew about her. Margaret was escorted to a compact meeting room near one of the residence’s exit doors.

  “You understand the situation, Director?”

  She nodded. “I believe so. This Operation Outfield is the best response?” she asked, referring to the proposed mission’s name. The folder had detailed several seemingly random incidents, many of which were already known to her via Doris and her many digital ears in various government offices. Someone very smart had made some rather bold connections tying together the events. Whoever this analyst was, she would have to discover. Data and facts were malleable things when it came to world politics. Someone who could see through the bullshit and ferret out true motives…well, that kind of intuitive leap was an essential skill. One that Doris couldn’t help with and definitely something The Cove could use more of.

  Harris shook his head, “No, not really. Outfield is just the best we can do right now, Director. Our position with the other superpowers is tenuous to say the least. Every major world power suffered because of Janus. The U.S. and China the worst, and due to our weakened state, Russia is even more hell bent than ever on securing former alliances and developing new client states, not just on their borders, but also in the Mid-East. Since Janus wiped out the national archives at Granite Mountain, we no longer have any significant intelligence advantages.”

  Margaret had never told anyone that it was actually Doris who destroyed those records. “We are holding the weakest hand in the game, Harris. Is that what you are suggesting?”

  Something flashed in the man’s eyes, but only for a moment. The man was a patriot. Deep down, he wanted to challenge this statement. It galled him how far the country had fallen under his watch, but her words were true. He handed her an even larger folder. It seemed none of the files on this mission were being kept on a computer. President Ortiz had gotten wise to the potential vulnerabilities of that. “Take your time, review everything, but leave the files here on the table. When you are done, let the sentry know. Contact on this op will be with the president or my office only. Good luck.” He shook her hand and abruptly left.

  Margaret sat down heavily in the office chair and went to work. She didn’t trust computer
s either, well…there was one. She reviewed each file, and at the same time, a tiny sensor in her glasses was storing a digital copy on her TCP’s servers. Before she’d even finished, she’d triggered her Dee via subvocalized command to start organizing the data and to signal The Nest to have one of the Talon Teams begin prepping multiple teams. They would have multiple targets, it would seem.

  Near the end of the operations folder, she came across an odd file. It seemed to have been included almost as an afterthought. The content of the file was not essential, in her opinion, but it concerned an old and very covert operation that she’d been somewhat familiar with during her time with the agency, as well as a contact named Golette. Whatever was going on had a lot of moving parts. Someone had been working on this plan for a very long time. Right now, she was sure most of what she was seeing were false leads and red herrings, but she agreed. The president was right to be nervous. Someone was looking to cripple world financial markets and drain America’s reserves of cash. The nation couldn’t withstand much more, a financial collapse would be devastating for the nation…and the world.

  11

  The Cove

  Cade Rearden glided effortlessly through the water. The underground pool was a relatively recent addition to the base, as was the adjacent workout facility.

  “Rearden, we need to talk,” a familiar voice called out.

  “Hey, man, what’s up?” Sergeant Charlie ‘Deuce’ Taylor reached down a hand to help him up. The two had served together and did time as prisoners of war in the Middle East. Their trust and friendship was now a bond as close as any brothers would ever know.

  “The Director has something…not sure what exactly. She wants to brief us both,” Charlie said. “Prepped Bravo Team as well as Raptor, going to be something fun.”

  “My mini-vacation is definitely over, I take it,” Cade said, running a towel through his blonde hair and heading to the locker room to change. Cochise eased up and stretched before languidly following.

  Charlie followed along, obviously wanting to discuss something else. “Cade, you thought anymore about what I said?”

  Cade thought for a moment, trying to recall the recent conversation. It slammed back into his head like a hollow-point slug. “Yeah, Deuce,” purposefully using his combat call sign. “You’re thinking about retiring, and you want me to talk you out of it.”

  “No…not exactly,” the big man said. “I just wanted your opinion. This shit is getting more and more serious. Every mission could be my last, and since…” he trailed off. Cade was pretty sure where he was going. Since the government’s official sanction of The Cove Project, every mission was more complicated, more dangerous. No more simple pickups or recon. Way too much shit like the Mexican gang shootout. “Face it, brother, we’re skilled, cheap, and politically expendable.” And as such, they had become the go-to team for countless hairy black-ops missions. That was clearly not what the charter had been designed for. The Cove Project, or TCP, was a highly technical and tactical response to the ever-increasing threat of malevolent technologies. Not just AI, but bioengineering, neural manipulation, gene editing, and a host of other more nuanced threats.

  Cade sighed, a sound that held more sadness and regret than he cared to consider. “Charlie, I get it. But look, you got my ass into this. Remember that?”

  “You were being held prisoner in the Sudan at the time. Would you have preferred we left you there?”

  Cade finished lacing up his boots and looked up, winking. “Just admit it, Charlie, you missed me… just like you would if you retired. Besides, I need your goofy ass out there. The teams are still a mess.” They had all been reshuffled, new faces brought in, but way too often it came down to Nomad, Deuce, and a couple of the other top operators to pull off the impossible. Charlie had a talent at assembling the teams and getting them combat effective in record time. Not an easy task considering all the new weapons and tech available to them.

  “McTee is more capable than I am. Several of the new SEAL guys and, shit, nearly all the female operators have more leadership skills,” Charlie argued.

  “Okay, Charlie, what’s her name?” Cade asked with a smile, both men now heading to the elevator up to the director’s level.

  “What do you mean?” Charlie asked with a tone of mock insult.

  The truth was, they were in a dangerous business. That was what they had all signed up for, but it was also crucially important. Usually, it was not ‘saving the world’ levels of importance but occasionally coming close. They were nearing the briefing room door; Cade paused and turned around to his friend. “Charlie, we are soldiers, we follow orders. That was basically all we did. We let others, often total incompetents, make decisions for us. Decisions that nearly cost both of us our lives. Now let me ask you one question—did you ever see yourself at a place where you could make a real difference?” Cade signaled the sensor to open the door. “Come on, we don’t want to keep her waiting.”

  The group’s ‘boss,’ Director Margaret Stansfield, was sitting on one side of the long table alongside the brilliant young Riley, Director of New Technologies for The Cove. Stansfield formerly led the CIA’s Cybercrime division. Her affiliation with her former agency now was a bit unclear. Officially, she was still missing and presumed dead after the previous year’s drone attack at Camp David. Riley Sandoval was a no-nonsense twenty-something with an IQ that was off the charts and more patents filed than most corporations. Her role was mostly running the complex R&D side of the base, but the director called on her for help regularly.

  “Captain, Sergeant, thank you for joining us,” the director said as she motioned up to the large display wall. “We may have a confusing situation developing.” The map on the display was zooming into various locations, but stopped on a region familiar to most of them.

  “Gulf of Mexico, 300 miles off the tip of Florida’s south coast. Massive fish kill, one of the largest ever discovered. Cause is unknown,” she said. The view shifted slightly.

  “Cayman Trench, south of Cuba. Four weeks ago, Portuguese submarine on a training mission went down, all hands presumed killed. They are calling it a training accident, but we are pretty sure it wasn’t.”

  The director sped through several more slides showing everything from clear sabotage at numerous Guyana offshore oil rigs to a sharp increase in drug trafficking originating in Central and South America.

  The map view was replaced by a different image, one that was well known to one person on the senior staff. Doctor Jasmine Kline sucked in a breath of surprise. “Snowbird,” she said in a near whisper.

  “Yes, the XS1R spaceplane,” Margaret said. Lost over a year ago on a top-secret Air Force mission to the interesting interstellar anomaly known as Oumuamua. While the ship and its commander were lost, the automated sampling probe launched from Snowbird had a failsafe protocol to return to Earth if it could not locate or return to ship. That probe reentered our planet’s atmosphere approximately five months ago. You may also recall that Doris indicated that Janus claimed he wasn’t the cause of that event.”

  “Did we recover it? Where did it go down, and why is this just coming out?” Jaz asked the questions in a rapid-fire staccato.

  “Everything I am showing you is off the books—most of this Doris was not even aware of, Doctor Kline. We are still looking at the trajectories to see where it may have hit. The probe hasn’t yet been recovered, not by the United States at least. The Air Force has been actively looking, though. Doris and Jimmy both expect it came in over the ocean, probably the Caribbean Sea. Jaz, we need you to work your magic and help us narrow down the search grid.”

  Cade and Charlie made eye contact, and both gave a small shoulder shrug. They were the sword arm or the gun hand of The Cove, not the brains. All of this seemed over their head. Thankfully, the smartest kid in class asked the question for them.

  “These are a lot of random events. Other than location, how is all of this connected?”

  “Well, Riley,” the dire
ctor continued, “that is where it gets truly weird. Someone in D.C. had made a very compelling case that it is all related. Mainly because of Sigint and some very impressive detective work. The short answer is, we have a name, ‘Golette.’ Doris has run the name through every database and came up with nothing. We know it was the name of an intelligence asset from the late 1960s. His code name was ‘The Lion.’

  All of them now knew signals intelligence, or Sigint, meant intercepted communications, emails, chat servers, cell phones, and various other techniques the NSA and other agencies used to covertly learn what targets around the world were up to. As the eavesdropping technology got more sophisticated, so did the techniques used by those wanting to stay hidden.

  Doris spoke, “As you can probably guess, most of the files from that era were never digitized, and even the archived folders were heavily redacted. There is a very thin thread on this person. Something called ‘Project Saraph’ was mentioned. No other details.”

  “A spy from the 60s and a project name? This seems awfully thin, Director,” Riley interjected.

  She agreed, but continued, “We’ve worked this from several possible angles and gotten nowhere. Golette could have been a man or a woman, we simply don’t know, and Saraph led us nowhere. A project that simply shows up in no other reference.”

  “Golette is an unusual name, Doris….as is Saraph. I believe that is some sort of bird.”

  “It’s an angel, Riley. In particular, it is Hebrew for angel.”

  “Golette sounds like it could be a Jewish name. Does that help us at all?” Jaz asked.

  “Possibly,” Margaret answered.