Dark Winter

by Anthony J. Tata

  He remembered showing her the video of her in her bedroom, masturbating with a vibrator. The slow shower she had taken afterward. Standing on the balcony in a sheer robe, the wind lifting it like a superhero’s cape. He returned his attention to the video.

  “You watch me? Do you love me, Ian? Is that why?”

  “You’re not mad?”

  She smiled. “You wanted a show, I gave you a show.”

  “But how did you know?”

  She turned and looked at the lamp. “That moth? There’s one just like it in my apartment and my office.” Dr. Draganova smiled. “Quite the coincidence, huh?”

  “I do love you, Belina. I want you,” he said.

  “Don’t you think that’s a bit cliché for a man of your stature?

  Loving his psychiatrist?”

  “I have to love someone. It might as well be you,” he said, the words ringing hollow.

  “Sweeter words a woman has never heard.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I rarely do, Ian. You’re a complex man. Brilliant. Handsome. You can have any woman you want. Why me? Because I’m inside your mind? That intrigues you?”

  “Maybe you’re right,” he muttered.

  “If I stood and walked to you. Kissed you. Removed your clothes. Made love to you. Would that make you fall deeper in love with me? Or are you looking for conquest?”

  “I would like that,” he whispered. “Is that what you want?”

  She paused. The video showed her processing.

  Gorham remembered the moment. It was a personal question he’d put to her. Initially, he’d thought he had caught her off balance, but upon reevaluation, Gorham believed it was he who had been outmaneuvered. He returned his attention to his tablet.

  “Unpack the box. What do you see?”

  “Desire, perhaps. Maybe also something—someone—I can’t have.”

  She nodded. “And what is it that you truly want, Ian?

  “For everyone to love me, including you.”

  “And if even I love you, then everyone else must?”

  “Yes.”

  He blushed at her beauty . . . and power over him.

  He snapped his tablet shut, stood, and walked the aisle of his up-fitted Boeing Extended Range 777. In addition to the sleeping quarters, he had a smaller version of the hologram battlefield toward the rear of the aircraft. In between that and the comfort zone where he stood was another command center that afforded him total situational awareness of all combat activities.

  Shayne pecked away at the computers and provided an update by having each primary battle front on one of four large fifty-five inch monitors. “In North Korea, you can see the DPRK, the North Korean Army, penetrating Seoul. They’ve taken some casualties, but are about to breakout to the south. Once that happens, the port of Pusan is in sight within twenty-four hours, I would think. ComWar is working. Gets better with every tactical engagement. The refuel trucks are automatically moving up when the tanks hit one quarter full—we originally programmed that at one eighth—but given all the narrow roads it takes longer for the trucks to move through to tanks and other vehicles. The computer optimized it at one quarter so that we don’t have as many tanks running out of gas. This will allow them to do a refuel on the move and keep the momentum all the way to Pusan. The jets are providing air cover. The worm we sent into the major defense contractors over the past two years has been everything we hoped for. Remote access Trojans are impacting navigation, guidance, weapons, and flight systems.” He pointed at the map where red icons were gathering near bridges that spanned the Han River to the south of Seoul and its vast sprawling suburbs of office towers, apartment buildings, and hotels. Dozens of bridges dotted the map where the half mile wide Han River meandered from the south of Seoul to the west.

  To their right, all of this played out on the hologram battlefield. The jet was outfitted with specialized satellite communications systems so much that the entire airplane was like a low orbit satellite. Shark fin antennae protruded from the fuselage in angular fashion, making the aircraft unique with its powerful, stand-alone capabilities.

  They discussed the relative positioning of Iranian Forces pushing through Al Anbar Province into the Syrian Desert and beyond the Jordanian border toward the important crossroads at Mafraq. Tanks, artillery, fuel trucks, and infantry were all moving toward the capitol city of Amman. Beyond Jordan lay Israel, the ultimate target.

  The Russian forces were laying siege to Minsk, surrounding the town with tanks, artillery, and infantry forces as bombers and jets pummeled the feeble Belarus military. While the Russian and Belarus militaries had a close relationship, politically the two countries had escalating tensions. The plan for the Russians had been to parlay a joint military exercise into the defeat of the Belarus military. During the war game the military commanders had agreed that the Russian forces would represent themselves, while the Belarus military portray NATO forces defending from Minsk to Poland. Unbeknownst to the Belarus military, the Russian military units were using live ammunition at the onset of the “exercise.”

  “In addition to inflicting casualties on the Eighty-second Airborne Division brigade combat team, the other good thing here is that the Russians already have troops lined up on the Polish border. Minsk is one thing, more symbolic, but Warsaw will be a whole different ballgame. Once that falls, this won’t be like the Crimea issue, as a capture of Minsk might seem to the casual observer. Warsaw was the spark of capitalism in the former Soviet bloc,” Gorham said. “That counts.”

  “So, RAIL is functioning smoothly as it updates ComWar automatically,” Shayne said with a hint of pride. He had created the rapid automated integrated learning system that used machine learning, specifically a subfield called transfer learning, that allowed for the simultaneous storing of knowledge learned while solving a specific problem and then applying that learned solution to a similar, but different problem set. What was the perfect call forward time of the autonomous refuel trucks? They had guessed at one eighth tank based upon simulations. But computers rarely emulated the friction of real life, therefore the machine had learned and adjusted automatically. Meanwhile, it was simultaneously updating the call forward times for the fuel trucks supplying every form of vehicle.

  “Look at that.” Gorham pointed at the fourth flat screen television. He had manipulated the control to zoom in on the firebreak where Stasovich had last been seen.

  “Where did he go?”

  Gorham smiled at Shayne. “I told you. The guy is unstoppable. “I’ve already sent him an airplane.”

  * * *

  Dax Stasovich ran a bloody hand across his mesh-link wearable technology body armor. The heavy fabric had mostly protected him from the onslaught of weaponry that his nemesis Jake Mahegan had assuredly unleashed upon him. It had also slowed his egress from the farm where he had spied upon Mahegan, Owens, O’Malley, and Bagwell. He had studied them all.

  After the machine-gun rounds and rockets had rained down upon him, he had feigned injury, though he was injured. Shrapnel had splattered into the back of his neck and hands as he turned his head away from the drone that was wreaking havoc on him. He had laid motionless for fifteen minutes—time he didn’t have to spare—out of an abundance of caution. He had used the noise of the cargo plane landing to escape and evade. Unfortunately, Mahegan had been smart enough to destroy his truck, but he had flagged down the next motorist, pulled the unsuspecting man from the driver’s seat, snapped his neck, and had made his egress in a prissy Prius that barely allowed for his significant body mass.

  He wanted to avenge his humiliation by Mahegan as much as he wanted to satisfy his benefactor, Gorham. As a private military contractor for Copperhead, Inc., Stasovich had taken liberties with enemy prisoners of war—called detainees by the bureaucrats—and had been part of a human trafficking chain that ultimately flowed back to the swamps of eastern North Carolina. Mahegan had unwittingly stumbled upon that operation, which had been pulling in som
e pretty good coin for Stasovich. After Mahegan had blown the cover on Copperhead’s smuggling of ghost prisoners to the United States, Stasovich lost his job and everything that was important to him—his women, financial independence, and seventy foot cigarette boat, with which he roared through the intracoastal waterway. It was true that some of the prisoners had escaped from their lair in Dare County to conduct terrorist attacks, but nothing that severe. Just a few hundred Americans killed and injured.

  If anything, Stasovich thought, it was a good reminder to the American public that they shouldn’t take their security for granted.

  Additionally, he was beyond curious about everything he had been overhearing between Gorham and Shayne regarding the RINK alliance. After Stasovich had lost his job in North Carolina, he fled the state and holed up in New York City—an easy place to get lost. He met Gorham in a lower east side nightclub where he had been working as security—a bouncer—and Gorham had managed to get into a scuffle with another wormy tech company genius. They were arguing about who was the wealthiest and the verbal lashings had turned physical. Turned out, the other guy had been a collegiate boxer and pummeled Gorham until Stasovich stepped in and landed one punch on the boxer, who dropped like a shot quail.

  Stasovich had helped Gorham to his feet and ushered him to a private place where the man could gather his dignity and clean up.

  “You saved my life,” Gorham said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Well, I doubt he would have killed you,” Stasovich had replied.

  “What’s that accent?”

  Immediately, Stasovich knew that Gorham was thinking something else when he had asked that question. The bouncer had pivoted and responded with an open-ended question. “What are you offering?”

  After a moment, Gorham had said, “I like it. The indirect approach. I’ve read Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, all the others. I might have something for you if you’re willing to travel.”

  “I like traveling,” Stasovich had replied.

  Gorham had nodded slowly, his curly light brown locks remaining motionless.

  “I’m an American citizen, but have some Russian lineage by way of Serbia,” Stasovich had added to fully answer Gorham’s question.

  That conversation had led to Stasovich becoming Gorham’s one man personal security detail. He had traveled everywhere with the tycoon, all around the world multiple times. Stasovich had gathered that Gorham was putting into place something big. Combat action on every continent except Antarctica—maybe even there, who knew?

  * * *

  Once Stasovich recovered from the attack by Mahegan, he chatted securely with Gorham, who instructed him to go to Oakland County airfield where an airplane would pick him up to deliver him to an undisclosed location. After securing the vehicle, he pulled into the private jet portion of the airfield and climbed aboard the waiting Gulfstream 5. When he laid back in a leather recliner he noticed two duffle bags in the seat next to him as the pilots shot up from the runway. One duffel had a change of clothes, basic personal hygiene items, and medical supplies such as antiseptic, sutures, and bandages. The other contained all his favorite weapons.

  Stasovich stared into the night sky unaware of exactly where he was headed, but certain that his destination included a rendezvous with Mahegan.

  CHAPTER 9

  “WHAT’S A MIG DOING OFF OUR WING?” SAVAGE ASKED, PEERING into the night through one of the XC-17 porthole windows.

  Mahegan said, “Sean?”

  “Working it, man. We’re over the Pacific nowhere near Russia. I’m inside their operations database and there is an order from yesterday but I can’t read it. Just see the date.”

  “What about the cook? She had an accent,” Mahegan said.

  “Under no circumstances,” Savage barked.

  “Boss, we’re defenseless up here. Give me a little rope,” Mahegan said.

  “So you can hang all of us, Jake? No way.”

  “Look at her. She’s tied up with a sandbag on her head.”

  “You put her on a computer, she can probably tell the rest of the Russian military who we are, where we are, and what we’re doing.”

  “Well, if the MiG puts a missile up our ass it’s kind of a moot point, don’t you think?”

  Savage blinked and looked at the cook’s inert form.

  Then through the sandbag came a muffled voice. “I can do it. Your guy Sean can watch me. I don’t want to die like this,” the cook said. When everyone stared at her, she shrugged and said, “The battery died on my headphones. I can hear you just fine.”

  Mahegan wasted no time. “Patch, untie her. Sean, make room. Let her see what you’re seeing. Cassie, keep an eye on the MiG. I’m thinking we’ve got maybe a minute before he figures out this is a high value target. He’s radioing in the tail number of the aircraft and if their hacking capabilities are as demonstrated, they’ll know that he’s got a high value target to knock out of the sky.”

  Owens walked the cook over to O’Malley’s computer terminal with the two large monitors reflecting gibberish back at them.

  “What’s your name?” Mahegan asked.

  The cook looked up at Mahegan, who was almost a foot taller. “Spartak,” she said.

  Mahegan stared at her, nodded, believing it was bullshit, and said, “Okay, Spartak. Figure it out. You’ve got about a minute.”

  Her smile showed surpisingly good teeth. Beyond the shaved head and the thin veneer of almost artificially downgraded appearance, she had all the makings of a beautiful woman. Full lips. Wide brown eyes. Small, upturned nose. High cheekbones. Perhaps she was Eastern European.

  Only a short while ago, Mahegan had taken on the Bulgarian hackers responsible for the Carbanak hack and the Highway-Hack, as it was being called, that shut down millions of cars while driving on the highways around America.

  “Better to strangle someone up close than kill them with a missile,” Spartak said under her breath.

  Mahegan processed the comment. She was more than a hacker, for sure.

  O’Malley stood from his console after blanking the screen and eyed Mahegan. “This is not without risk.”

  The plane hit a rough patch of air, rattling the command pod as if to emphasize O’Malley’s point. Mahegan remained silent and nodded at Spartak and then the seat.

  The cook sat down in O’Malley’s chair still wearing her grease stained white T-shirt and black pants. Her head was shaved to a stubble and she had the pale features of someone who lived in their mother’s basement. Mahegan hoped she could make the computer dance. O’Malley was the best he knew, but there was a legion of capability between O’Malley, who was superb, and someone who bored the Internet with nefarious purposes in mind. The Internet of Things led to positives such as a refrigerator recognizing the need for more milk and remotely texting the owner to pick some up after his last meeting of the day. But it also heightened the ease of human trafficking, bank heists, energy grid shutdowns, and now weapons malfunctions.

  Spartak’s fingers flew across the keyboard in a whir. Her eyes flicked between the two screens. “Two MiG 35-Ds. Two seaters. Four missiles each,” she said in clipped sentences.

  The tension in her voice was not reassuring to Mahegan, who looked at Savage as if to say, be quiet. Let her do her job, whatever that may be.

  “They have instructions to make you land in Vladivostok.”

  “Distance?” Savage asked.

  “Let her work,” Mahegan said, prompting a glare from the general. Mahegan nodded. It’s okay, boss.

  Spartak paused and looked over her shoulder at Mahegan. “You were right.”

  “A minute?” Mahegan asked.

  “Precisely.”

  She turned back to the keyboard as Mahegan put on a headset and switched the internal communications system to the pilots.

  “Okay, the two MiGs off our wings have instructions to fire on us in a minute. I’m looking at my watch and fifty seconds from now, I want you to do some pilot shit and slow this beast to s
tall so that it drops like a stone from the sky.”

  “You’re crazy, Mahegan.”

  “Stu, thirty seconds we have a missile up our ass.”

  Mahegan knew both pilots, former air force AC-130 pilots that had been trained on flying this modified version of the XC-17 Globemaster cargo plane. Stu Langley was the pilot in command and had supported Mahegan in Afghanistan and Syria with deadly accurate gunfire on more than one occasion. Brian Sherrod was his copilot, a quiet professional who loved flying. To get him to say hello was a good conversation.

  After a five second pause, Stu said, “I know what I’m going to do.”

  “Roger. Just do it on my command. Cassie, grab everyone a crewman’s harness and static line with snap hook, please,” Mahegan directed.

  She darted to the rear of the airplane, secured the harnesses and snap hooks, connecting the two, knowing what Mahegan wanted. She passed them to each teammate, including the cook, who didn’t acknowledge it.

  Sweat poured from Spartak’s glistening scalp. O’Malley watched as he stepped into his harness, perhaps even impressed at her skills. Owens fastened his harness to the interior of the control pod and stared through a Plexiglas window at the 105 mm howitzers that had been up-fitted into the XC-17. Not an AC-130, but the experimental aircraft might one day evolve into an AC-17, perhaps. The cannons could shoot perpendicular to the axis of movement of the aircraft and had limited lateral movement. Mahegan had thought of the guns first, but there wasn’t time to reorient them, if it all possible, to the rear of the airplane where the MiGs would certainly take their shots from.

  “What you got, Spartak?” Mahegan asked with fifteen seconds remaining. He placed the Velcro flap over his watch face and stared at the cook. Slipping the mesh vest over his large frame, he zipped up the front and snapped the hook into a D-ring on the frame of the command pod.

  Like a hummingbird’s wings, her fingers were nearly invisible as they clicked the keys. He was certain she was attempting to hack the two jets. How? He had no idea, but that’s what he would do if he had the skills. O’Malley looked at him, shaking his head. Mahegan nodded.