Midnight Zone: a Cade Rearden Thriller

by JK Franks

“Call them, let me speak with them.”

  Carson shook his head, “Not that easy, Margaret. It was Guardian, The Lion was his former partner.”

  60

  “I am searching through all databases, archives, related text, and recorded conversations to see if I can confirm any of what the senator said,” Doris relayed.

  “Thank you, Doris. Also, I have heard nothing in the last hour, do they have our boy yet?”

  “No, Director, not yet. The Coast Guard is doing a grid search and should locate him very soon.”

  “Why a grid search? I thought you had precise coordinates of his CommDot.”

  “I do, ma’am, the problem is not our information. It is the Coast Guard’s equipment. It is simply not precise enough, and we are fairly certain we are looking for a small target in a very large ocean.”

  “Good enough, Doris, we should be at Gitmo within the hour. I need to know whether to request full military assets or not. If Thrall has indeed been squirreled away all these years, is he just building pet monsters or something else? I have to ask you for your best guess on what Project Saraph is.

  “Okay, Director, but it may not be all that helpful, really just opens up more questions. I have uncovered the name of the Israeli scientist, Shafi Rabin. She was a xenobiologist, at least that is what we would call her today.”

  “So, at least part of the story was true. She was working on something biological then, like he said?”

  “Yes, and what is most intriguing is where it came from,” said Doris.

  “I’m listening,” Margaret replied, highly interested.

  “You are familiar with Operation Highjump and Admiral Byrd from Rearden’s debriefing report. Well, Shafi was one of the scientists on the task force assigned to Paperclip. Her participation was primarily symbolic, a bit of a friendship offering to Israel. Something to help bond America and the newly formed country. What the U.S. didn’t count on was the Israeli scientist finding something. Something alive, or…formerly alive, in the Antarctic.”

  “Holy shit, Doris. They found the cave back then?”

  “Maybe, my best guess is apparently so, and it would seem there was some genetic material or maybe a genetic blueprint to study. There is no way to understand how it could have still been viable after that length of time, but perhaps the ancient aliens knew a lot more about preservation than modern science does. I would assume the U.S. scientific team was more interested in the images or maybe too busy looking for secret Nazi weapons and bases. I can tell that Doctor Rabin never publicly revealed what she had found. But from that doctor’s sample kit sprang forth a multitude of breakthroughs.”

  “How so? Especially if we stole her research,” Margaret asked.

  Doris went on, “The entire path we are on, the understanding that DNA was a blueprint to so many aspects of human development. Mapping the genome, inherited illnesses, gene therapy. While Rabin may or may not have had the ancient genetic material to study, it had already pointed her and her team in the right direction. She is a relative unknown in the field, but her contribution may be the greatest, right there alongside Darwin, Mendel, or Borlaug.”

  “I feel certain our government would have kept a close eye on her,” Margaret said. “They don’t just allow scientific discoveries to slip through their fingers, you know.”

  “Likely so,” Doris agreed. “It is puzzling, and the U.S. really should have seen this coming. While Germany may hold the lead in academics, Israel has been right there, too, in the forefront. They produce many of the top academics in various fields. Some of letting them run with it was possibly the desire to offer Israel a win. The Jewish state had been through a lot, and the Holy Land they were offered after World War II was not exactly a safe haven. What we may not have taken into account was the resolve of the Israeli people.

  “They are both paranoid and ruthless in their pursuits. They have never minded going out and acquiring what they need to complete a project or what they need to survive. Part of this is simply being a tiny nation surrounded by enemies. You need to remember that less than a year after being formed, they created the uleTafkidim Meyuhadim, which is the infamous national intelligence agency of Israel.”

  “Oh yes, the Mosaad,” Margaret said, remembering some of her own encounters over the years.

  “Exactly,” said Doris. “That would be like George Washington being elected our first president, and the very next thing he does is form the CIA, FBI, and Homeland Security.

  “These guys are the best out there and, unlike the West, they focus on having the best technology, and so work hand in hand with the science teams. Project Saraph had many, many setbacks, but after nearly twenty years of working in isolation, Shafi and the Israeli science teams had worked out an enormous catalog of information. Keep in mind, this was before anyone had done any DNA mapping. Before computers even. Genetics were not clearly understood and still quite controversial. But the Jewish scientists working from a lab in Tel Aviv must have managed to start unlocking some truly amazing information.”

  61

  Caribbean

  “Yeah, Boss, they have him. Bringing him in now, only about twenty minutes out.”

  Cade nodded to his friend. “Good, at least that’s one thing. What are they saying about his condition?”

  Charlie’s next remarks seemed to suck most of the air out of the small room. “Kid’s unconscious, they said a shitload of blood was all over him, the life raft…everything. Vitals seem okay, some sunburn and likely dehydration. They have him on an IV and will transport him to the base hospital when they dock.”

  Cade took another sip of the bitter brew from the white cup and nearly spit it out. What was it with Navy guys liking coffee this damn strong? He’d never been to the base in Guantanamo Bay, but it wasn’t unlike dozens of others he’d passed through over the years. “Chaps should be landing with the director any minute now. I get the feeling she wants…no, needs to be here when Micah arrives.”

  The two began heading down to the Coast Guard’s mooring. Officially, the Coasties were only in the area to provide port security, but when it came to search and rescue or SAR missions, they were the best.

  “So, you were dead. The Battlesuit must have done it’s job,” Charlie said.

  “Yeah, more or less. Still hurt like hell, but a few days with Doc and everything seems to be working again. I only …”

  “Don’t do that, Nomad,”

  “Do what?” Cade asked.

  “No second guessing, no woulda, coulda, bullshit about how McTee should have had his helmet on or been guarding the entrance or…well, shit, anything else.”

  Cade just nodded, still only dealing with McTee’s death in the most abstract of terms.

  Charlie continued, “It’s a brutal business, dude, and people get hurt, and yeah, sometimes we die. That’s the cost of being a soldier, and don’t you think for one second that McTiernan would have traded anything for being your second on Charlie Team. He was a damn fine warrior.”

  Cade nodded but glanced away. Making eye contact would have broken him at that moment.

  “So, The Cove thinks they have the schedule figured out when the vessel climbs out of the depths?” Charlie asked.

  “They believe so, and apparently Thrall calls the damn thing Kalypso. Just based on limited intel, it seems the interval is timed to coincide when satellite coverage will not be overhead as well as surface traffic, like large ships, even low-flying planes. Anything that might easily spot a disturbance deep underwater,” Cade explained.

  “Calypso, like the music?” Charlie asked.

  “No, I wondered that, too, or the boat that Jacques Cousteau used to use. It’s Kalypso with a ‘K,’ a nymph in Greek mythology. The word apparently also means ‘conceal’ or ‘to deceive.’”

  “A nymph, like an insect?”

  “Don’t think so, like a goddess, I believe,” Cade said.

  “So, it wants to stay hidden?” Charlie asked. “Can we time an incursion th
at precisely?”

  The captain shrugged. “Do we have a choice? We have to assume Thrall will just get rid of Nance and the others if they sense any rescue attempt.”

  “Yeah. By the way their boss, that thing…the Kalypso is in Cuban waters. We can’t get in there legally, and a ship or sub might start a shooting war. You and the wiz-kids got any bright ideas on how we are going to handle insertion?”

  “They don’t, but I do.” Cade watched the black jet coming in for a near-perfect landing just off to the north. “HALO!”

  “Oh, hell no,” Charlie said emphatically. “Not HALO! Not into deep ocean with no recovery craft available.” He looked aghast at the very idea. To be honest, the HALO, or High Altitude Low Opening, skydiver was a lot more than just high risk. The jumps normally occurred above 15,000 feet but could begin much higher.

  “I have never heard of anyone HALO jumping into open ocean. That sounds like suicide, Rearden.”

  His XO wasn’t wrong. When you jump, you need a protective suit due to the cold and an oxygen supply due to the thin air. Jumps from altitude were done for stealth, often from planes in the same airspace as commercial jets, so that nothing seems unusual. “Due to being over Cuban airspace and the fact that the Kalypso won’t ascend when flights are nearby, we’re going to need to go a bit higher than normal.”

  “How-high?” Charlie asked.

  Cade nodded his head out to sea, to a bit of white and red on the horizon. The Coast Guard cutter was coming into port. “Upper limit of suits and planes. 39,000..”

  “You have lost your ever-loving over-crowded brain! Surely Doris and the kids can come up with something better! We’re going to put an entire team in that much risk just to rescue four people who are in unknown condition?” questioned Charlie.

  “No, even I would have had to veto that,” Cade responded. “We would have waited until the vessel was back in open water. Use subs or depth charges or whatever to make them release our people.”

  “So, what changed?”

  “I think you better ask her,” Cade said, pointing to Director Margaret Stansfield, who was striding down the dock. She was followed by Chaps and what looked to be a Naval lieutenant commander who was trying in vain to catch up to the woman. A base ambulance was just pulling in next to the docks to await their patient.

  Cade stepped forward and shook hands with Chaps and nodded to his boss. Margaret turned to the Navy man and dismissed him with a few short words. In his defense, he did meekly voice an objection, but Margaret’s attention had already shifted. “That the boat?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Charlie said. “He’s still out from what we hear. No visible trauma, but the recovery scene was a mess.”

  The woman’s expression didn’t change, nor did she offer a reply.

  The Coast Guard cutter pulled into its slip where sailors jumped off and quickly moored. They lowered a gangway as soon as the pilot went through the shutdown procedures. Several medical corpsmen wheeled a gurney through an opening, and Cade finally got a look at Micah.

  He was strapped down as they wheeled him down the dock and onto dry land for the first time in days. He looked weak but otherwise uninjured. The right arm was outside the thin sheet, and the exposed skin was pink and raw, probably from the sea and sun. Every few seconds, Micah’s entire body twitched and jerked as if he was fighting to get away.

  The Coast Guard corpsman passed him off to the base EMTs. Margaret stopped the little procession to look at the boy. She brushed hair away from his face, then peeled the backing from a flesh covered patch and placed it on his neck. “Don’t let them remove that.”

  Cade assumed it was a larger MedPatch, something new from Riley’s magic shop. One of the men looked at Cade. “He’s been doing that jerking thing ever since we fished him out of the water. We were going to give him a stimulant to try and bring him out, but decided not to. Figured it might do more harm than good.”

  “Probably best. Thanks for getting out there so fast. He might not have made it otherwise,” Cade said.

  “Hey, um, you may want to come take a look at this,” a corpsman said.

  They followed the man back aboard the boat and all the way aft, just behind the pilot house to the stern ramp where one of the large Coast Guard Patrol RHIB craft was stowed. “This was what your man was in, just a typical commercial grade life raft.” He pointed to a large round yellow raft that was semi-deflated.

  Cade moved around, then climbed up into the RHIB to see inside the raft. “Holy shit, they weren’t kidding about the blood.”

  Charlie had climbed into the recovery craft, too. “Is it just me, or does that blood look…off?”

  “Yeah, a bit too deep red, nearly purple.”

  “None of it was the boy’s. We checked him over good. No injuries to account for that much blood loss, but yeah, this looked odd to us, too,” the Coast Guard corpsman said.

  Cade tapped his cheek. “Greg, you busy?” He knew the kid had come up with Charlie and had been waiting around to see how his friend was doing.

  Greg relayed, “Just saw Micah, they’re taking him back to ICU now. Riley and Doctor Han are already running more tests with the advanced telemetry patch the director had. I imagine they’ll know more in a few minutes than these guys will know in hours.”

  “Sounds good. Listen, you think you could join us down on the recovery boat? We have something we need your smarts on.”

  “My smarts? I don’t usually get called on for that. Sure, on my way.”

  Greg often sold himself short. He was academically the less impressive of the original crew of The Cove and looked more like a semi-pro ball player than a scientist, but truthfully, the kid could hold his own with Alan and Micah, sometimes even with Riley. In some fields, like engineering, Greg was clearly the leader thanks to his natural mechanical abilities and the instant learning Doris had started him using as a teen. In either case, he was by far the smartest person on the team down here.

  Twenty minutes later, Greg was leaning over the edge of the raft taking blood samples. Using a special light to identify any other organic tissue. “Damn, that’s a mess,” he said, leaning up apparently satisfied.

  “Blood is the wrong color, isn’t it?” Charlie asked.

  “Well, it's not human. Just because it isn’t red, though, doesn’t totally mean its anything too unusual. Numbers of animals that don’t have red blood.”

  “Octopus blood is blue,” the Coastie said, trying to be helpful.

  “He’s right,” Greg agreed. “Some lizards have green blood, and the crocodile icefish has clear blood. Unlike every other known type of backboned animal, they don't have any red blood cells—or hemoglobin.”

  “Never heard of one of those,” the man said. “Oh, you guys hang on, there was something that was with ‘im. We put it in the cooler.” He raced off toward the galley.

  “Something else, guys,” Greg said. “You notice how the thin netting was draped over the raft?”

  “Yeah, probably to keep the sun off of Micah, had to be unbearable out there,” Cade said.

  “Yeah, but Micah was unconscious, we think, from the time he went into the raft. And the netting was duct taped from the outside.”

  “Someone put him in the raft,” Charlie said as the other man came running back up with a long styrofoam cooler that was also battered and covered with specks of purple blood.

  “This was in there with your friend. Thought it was some sort of…well, hell, honestly, we didn’t have a clue.”

  Greg leaned over and removed the lid and stared inside. “Holy shit.”

  Cade joined him, and then Charlie, all with essentially the same reaction. Inside was a bloody severed end of a fleshy tentacle about two feet long and thick as a man’s forearm. It was a dark blue, fading to black, with one side covered in vicious looking suckers, encircled by toothed barbs that reminded Cade of a carpenter’s hole saw.

  “It’s a tentacle,” Charlie said somewhat needlessly.

  “Ye
ah, but what is that on the end?” Greg responded, mouth still hanging loosely. Where the dark tentacle tapered to its thinnest part, a long and deadly looking claw extended out. The end was broken off, but you could guess the overall size by gauging the taper. Greg was the only one wearing protective gloves, so he gently picked it up, and they now could see the inside edge looked to be razor sharp.

  “That’s not natural,” the Coastie said. “Must be some kinda mutant or something. All I know is the cook wants it out of his freezer, and the captain wants it off his boat. It’s your problem now.”

  Greg leaned in to get a better view. Cade knew what he was inspecting. More blood, the entire claw-blade was covered in it, but this was all bright red. A color they all could recognize—human blood.

  “I have to get this back to The Cove. I’ll get it ready for transport back with Chaps,” Greg said.

  “Looks like Riley and Jaz have their sample,” Cade offered. “Someone was on the ball out there. We know that boat wasn’t on the surface long after the attack. Yet, they saved Micah and the evidence.”

  62

  Static electricity crackled again from the small device. Nance heard Coffee nearby, his deep voice bellowing in outrage, then a sound like vomiting. She had no memory of being brought to this place. In fact, what memories she had since the attack were deeply troubling, fever dreams. Slowly, the realization came to her, they were inside the monstrous craft. The UFO, or, what did they call underwater flying saucers? Not ’flying’ saucers, she assumed. Then the answer was there in her brain, USOs, underwater submerged objects. The name sounded too neat, too small for what she found herself in.

  The room she was in was a bit cramped, mostly white, with little in the way of adornment. The design was more functional than minimalist. She got the distinct feeling it was a holding cell of some type. She could see the outline of someone in the translucent material of the door. The outline looked human, or at least humanoid. The door swung open, and a small Asian man with tiny eyes and an unnatural-looking smile walked in.