Gray Matter Splatter (A Deckard Novel Book 4)

by Jack Murphy

  “Got a minute?” the security executive asked.

  “I'm watching the building you lent us burn to the ground right now.”

  “You're what? What the fuck is going on out there? I thought you guys were doing that job that I asked you never to speak to me about.”

  “Yeah, we did that job that we aren't going to talk about just fine but now we’re arriving back in time for hot sandwiches and we’ve discovered that we are homeless vagabonds. I just hope that we're not unemployed homeless vagabonds, because I'm trying to run a jobs-for-vets program over here.”

  “No, no, no. Listen, I was going to call you and bring you up to date. Things are blowing up over here at corporate.”

  “Yeah, here too it seems.”

  “I don't know what the hell is going on but the Russians are going apeshit.”

  Deckard appreciated the vernacular, Eliot being a former Marine who had heard of Deckard through the old-boy network, but he wasn't feeling any more illuminated about their current situation.

  “Talk to me.”

  “My contacts in the Russian government are saying that they got hit. They are telling me that it was Site 17 in the Ural Mountains. Supposedly a highly secure facility. We were thinking it was separatists from Chechnya or Dagestan, but something is going on. The Russians are scrambling forces into the Arctic.”

  “Who the hell tries to make a getaway into the Arctic Circle?”

  “Think of all the commercial shipping lanes opening in the Arctic. That’s the whole reason why we sent you guys up there. No one is really telling us what is happening and I'm beginning to think that not many people in the Russian government know in the first place.”

  “And they burned my place on their way out? What for?”

  “Maybe they were expecting you guys to be there.”

  Deckard let that sink in for a moment.

  “Listen,” Eliot continued. “Just lay low for a few hours until I can sort things out on my end. We'll divert you to another one of our company’s stations up there once we figure out what is going on. You should know that the Russians have Navy icebreakers and fighter jets sweeping the entire region, presumably looking for whoever hit their base in the Urals.”

  Otter looked down at the computer screen, which displayed the ship's Automatic Identification System, or AIS. AIS was a VHS responder and transmitter that displayed the call sign, heading, and speed of commercial vessels in the area. After seeing which commercial vessels were in the area, Otter then turned his attention to the radar display.

  “Yup, look at that,” he said. “AIS is showing a dozen commercial ships just within a few miles, and radar is picking up a few more ships not displaying any AIS information. That must be the Russian Navy.”

  “Any idea who they are after?” Deckard asked.

  “It looks like they are trying to intercept a couple of these call signs,” Otter said, pointing to the AIS screen.

  Deckard picked up a set of binoculars, knowing that he was going to have a hard time spotting anything at night.

  “Deckard,” Eliot’s voice came from the Iridium phone. “You still there?”

  “Hold on. I think—”

  Suddenly, a burst of yellow flashed on the horizon.

  “Oh shit,” Otter grunted.

  A second flash came a few kilometers away from the first, and a little farther out. Then a third. Otter reached over and grabbed the binoculars from Deckard.

  “Fire boat,” he said after examining the burning fires in the distance. “They go back all the way to ancient Greece.”

  “Loading a ship with explosives and then using deception to lure in an enemy vessel,” Deckard thought aloud.

  “And then they both go kablooey,” Otter finished. “They just used decoys to take out the Russian Navy.”

  Otter was right about the fire boats, even if the modern term used was SMVIED.

  “Deckard,” Frank whispered. “This isn't some half-assed Chechen terrorist action. This is an act of war.”

  “Eliot,” Deckard said, picking up the phone. “I think we're in deep shit.”

  “Tell me about it. Turn on the television. Any channel will do.”

  Kurt reached up and turned on the satellite television mounted in the corner of the helm. The sound was muted, but they didn’t need to hear. One of the major news networks was reporting on a series of terrorist attacks against Americans at home and abroad.

  Deckard looked back out at the sea, seeing several more flashes across the ocean and a few more in the sky as Russian aircraft were shot down.

  “Welcome to the Thunderdome,” Frank mumbled.

  * * *

  Tampa, Florida

  Outside a nondescript building, a man in a black trench coat lit up a cigarette. Flicking the lighter closed with one hand, he quickly looked down at the insignia etched into the side and remembered another time.

  Another place.

  “Hey,” someone shouted from behind him, “it's done, Will. You're all set.”

  Taking a deep drag on his cancer stick, Will dropped it on the sidewalk and stubbed it out with the sole of one of his cheap dress shoes before turning to face the man holding open a glass door. Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he walked over to the door.

  “I've never heard of a security clearance being reinstated that fast,” Will said sarcastically. “It reeks of desperation.”

  “Don't start. I had to pull some serious strings to bring you back in.”

  “I'm sure World War Three cooking off helped, Gary.”

  At the front desk, a bored-looking kid in an Army uniform checked Will's ID card and then issued him a visitor’s pass. Both men were then waved through a security checkpoint. As they walked, Will looked around, seeing that not much had changed since he had left. He still had a lot of bitter memories about the place. He never expected to be allowed back inside.

  At an unmarked door, Gary swiped his security pass against a scanner, and a light above the doorknob turned green. Stepping inside, he walked around a table where several other men were already seated. Will stood in the corner, eyeballing the group. They were drilling holes in him as well.

  Craig wore old-man glasses with a cord that ran behind them so they could hang around his neck when he wasn't reading something. Joshua wore a pink polo shirt and sported a perfect military buzz cut. In Will’s eyes they were a bunch of geriatric spies, despite his being just as old as they were.

  “Let's welcome Will back to the team, gents,” Gary said, his words ringing hollow with the other three men.

  Joshua nodded toward Will. Craig sat motionless. The second hand on a wall-mounted clock ticked slowly.

  “We’ll get Will read back onto the project in a more formal manner, but right now we have more pressing concerns.”

  Will took a deep breath.

  “What are we looking at?”

  “We've been tasked with assessing a situation developing in the Arctic Circle. The Russians got hit at one of their Ural facilities, and we are now receiving reports that they are losing naval ships and fighter aircraft in the Arctic Ocean.”

  “So we’re in agreement that today’s attacks, including in Russia, are not merely a coincidence?” Will asked patiently.

  Craig and Joshua looked at each other before turning back to Will.

  “We are,” Craig answered.

  “But we are not just to assess,” Gary elaborated. “As of 0300 this morning, SCOPE has been operationalized. NORTHCOM has the lead for anything in the Arctic, but domestic terrorist attacks and cyber-war penetrations are keeping them tied down. Resources are being diverted everywhere but to our area of concern.”

  “Operationalized? SCOPE is just a think tank for JSOC,” Will said. “I guess someone finally found their balls.”

  “The White House signed another exemption letter in order for us to support Arctic operations,” Gary informed him. “I don't think I need to tell you that they are desperate.”

  “Desperate and scared,�
�� Will said.

  “And apparently someone felt that you were needed here,” Joshua said bitterly.

  “Don't be such a sourpuss, Joshua. How many times did I try to warn you about this? Instead, you railroaded me right out of SCOPE and threw me out on my ass after stripping me of my clearance.”

  “You only have yourself to blame for that,” Craig said. “For the record, I was completely against bringing you back. I regard you as an unbalanced lunatic at best, and a national security disaster at worst.”

  “Thanks for the endorsement. Maybe I can put that on my resume.”

  “You should be pitching old ladies Amway products in a supermarket somewhere.”

  “I thought ponzi schemes were your forte, Craig. Think I forgot about your little foray with discretionary funds in Algeria?”

  “You know what Will,” Craig countered. “This reminds me of the time you tried to brief the director of Central Intelligence on 9/11 conspiracy theories.”

  “This reminds me of the time I fucked your wife at 29 Palms, but you don’t hear me bragging about it.”

  “Motherfucker—” Craig’s chair shot out from behind him as he stood up.

  “Sit the fuck down!” Gary ordered. “You two are yakking like a couple girls in junior high. For Christ’s sake, I thought this was a professional organization.”

  “More like a fucking high school organization,” Will said under his breath.

  “I told you to knock it the fuck off, Will. Now sit down so we can get to work. Last time I checked, we were hours away from a global fucking war.”

  Will and Craig sat down.

  “Bunch of drama queens I have to work with,” Gary muttered.

  “Getting back on track,” Joshua interrupted. “We're looking at a nuclear incident in Missouri; our embassies in Kenya, Libya, and Saudi Arabia under attack; the White House was penetrated both physically and via cyber attacks; gunmen shot up a movie theater in North Carolina; the Russian northern fleet is under attack; a Special Forces team got taken out in Croatia; and suicide bombers detonated themselves in Washington D.C. and in Austin, Texas.”

  “They are trying to overwhelm our ability to respond by using swarming tactics,” Will said.

  “Yeah, but who are they?” Gary asked.

  All eyes went toward Will.

  The disgraced intelligence operative cleared his throat.

  “America's enemies are now emerging from the shadows. They have prepared the environment for decades using probing techniques, testing our defenses. They know where our stovepipes are, they know about our bureaucratic rice bowls, they have assessed our reactions to cyber attacks and know damn well that we won't respond to hacker penetrations with military force. Now they have hit three embassies and launched domestic terrorist attacks to overwhelm our counterterrorism forces. Three Delta squadrons, three embassies. Do the math.”

  “But we still don't know who they are,” Craig said.

  “Again, do the math. Make an inference.”

  “Stop being cryptic, Will,” Gary said in frustration.

  “Through our actions, America has created a coalition of countries who see themselves as adversarial to us. If we don’t like what a country is doing, we call them rogue states. We sanction them. We try to strategically encircle them. We sabotage them. Sometimes we even use military force against them. It was only a matter of time before we had to face the aggregate result of our political policies.”

  “Here we go again,” Craig said, rolling his eyes.

  “The nations we’ve ostracized have begun working together to counter America's status as a global hegemon. We are heading toward a multi-polar world, but they don't want a multi-polar world. They want a world crafted in their own image.”

  “What the fuck does that even mean?” Joshua said in frustration. “I told you Gary, we're getting nowhere here.”

  “American power has side effects, and this is one of them,” Will continued. “By isolating and casting out various nations from the global community we created after World War Two, we inadvertently created a coalition of enemy states. A shadow NATO.”

  “This is pure conjecture,” Craig said. “You can't prove a fucking word of it. Not a single national intelligence estimate supports any of your conclusions.”

  “That's because people like you got comfortable. You thought things would stay the same; you had hoped they would so that your bureaucracies would remain relevant. But the old rules don’t apply anymore. The players involved will soon signal their hand. Watch for Russia to invade what is left of Ukraine and for China to take over some key islands in the South China Sea. That, or they simply go for the killing blow that takes America out as a global power.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Craig said as he threw his hands in the air.

  “We can debate what might be true some other time,” Gary said, trying to get the think tank back on track. “Let’s address what is. We have HUMINT and SIGINT data coming in that the Ural facility was not just attacked, but that something was stolen. The Russians are panicking and are deploying their forces into the Arctic as fast as they can. Then they get blown up by players yet unknown.”

  “Players without names.” Will shrugged as he tapped a cigarette out of his pack.

  “This is a federal building, you can't smoke in here, Will,” Gary said before continuing. “Considering what happened in Missouri and the reaction of the Russians, I think we have to assess a worst-case scenario.”

  “That terrorists hijacked a Russian nuclear weapon?” Joshua asked.

  “Yeah,” Gary sighed. “DOD thinks this conclusion is premature, but we have to consider the possibility.”

  “You’re probably right,” Will said. “Except in thinking that it was terrorists who stole it.”

  “So the question is, what kind of assets do we have in the Arctic that can intercept the weapon, if that is in fact what happened?” Joshua asked.

  Gary swallowed.

  “What?” Craig asked, seeing the frown on Gary's face.

  “Next to nothing.”

  * * *

  A castle sat atop a mountain, over which dark storm clouds gathered. The villagers at the base of the mountain knew better than to approach the castle; the reckless few who had tried in the past were never seen or heard from again. It was just as rare to see anyone emerge from the castle and travel down the treacherous path to the village. When they did, they passed through the village without a word spoken. Once, those dwelling inside had been adventurers, but today they lurked inside the dark corridors of the castle, conjuring the dark spells of necromancy.

  Inside one such corridor, a single torch lit the way, casting long shadows against the cyclopean walls. The massive stones used to build the structure looked like they had been melted together. Such architecture was only possible for something old, something ancient, as such knowledge had long since been lost.

  In one of the adjoining chambers, a council of three met to discuss a matter.

  “The talisman has been stolen,” an old mage reported. He wore long black robes, his face framed by a hood that left little to be noticed aside from his burning black eyes.

  “But it is not yet in our hands,” the necromancer standing next to him said.

  “We are close,” the third man, a druid of the Tuatha order, said.

  The old mage reached toward the pedestal in the center of the room and pulled a heavy bear fur from it. The portal revealed a map with sparkling stars at various important locations.

  “The plan progresses as expected,” the mage stated. “The king and his men have grown vain, his kingdom ripe for the taking.”

  “It will do little good if the talisman cannot be extracted,” the necromancer said as he rubbed a small leather bag tied around his neck.

  “The kingdom is in a panic,” the mage said to alleviate the necromancer's concerns. “They lack organization and structure. They are a new kingdom. An immature one.”

  “Others have tri
ed,” the druid said as his eyes narrowed.

  “Now is not the time for doubt,” the mage said as he pointed to one of the stars that was slowly moving across the portal. “Even now, our dark lords carry the talisman back to us.”

  “The time grows near,” the necromancer confirmed with a smile.

  “Yes,” the mage said as he looked up at the portal with fire in his eyes. “And when it is done, we will be crowned the kings of a new world.”

  Chapter 4

  Russian Arctic

  “They want you to go after them.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means the Russians are desperate,” Eliot said over the satellite phone. “They are scrambling more ships from the Northern Fleet, but they will never get there in time.”

  “How is this supposed to work?” Deckard asked.

  “You intercept the enemy vessel—”

  “Assuming there is a vessel.”

  “And they pay the company in oil, so it is all legit. Just like that job you didn't just do for us. Deckard, they are talking about opening up the entire Pechora oil field to us. That is worth hundreds of billions of dollars—”

  “Assuming the check clears.”

  “This is huge. Everyone at Xyphon is very excited, but frankly they need me to sell you on the idea. Suffice to say we will cut you in for a percentage. Three percent of hundreds of billions of dollars is a lot of money.”

  “Enough to keep my company running indefinitely.”

  “You're a hell of a soldier, Deckard, but unless you acquire some serious business acumen in the next year, you are going to need a steady stream of revenue.”

  Deckard was silent for a moment. Everyone on the bridge of the Carrickfergus was looking at him.

  “Any idea how I'm supposed to track them down?”

  “One lead. Our crew on the Orion gas and oil platform spotted a ship passing them an hour ago. Heading east. No AIS and the radar signature was so small that it looked like an iceberg on their displays. That ain't normal. They never would have spotted it if we didn't have so much illumination tonight.”