Mark One

by John Hindmarsh

  “Head Office says it’s A-OK. Bravo team has full control of the Wyvern, they gave the real test team the night off. They’re not recording, guaranteed. At the moment all they’re getting from the Wyvern is snow, anyway.” He paused for effect and there was a chorus of chuckles. “Well, not quite true. The IR and SAR images are coming through loud and clear, and should continue to do so, as long as the snow doesn’t increase.”

  The equipment on the Wyvern 10G was highly advanced and it included synthetic aperture radar, which provided high resolution imagery to complement its infra-red and video camera imagery. The results were processed at the UAS test center by a phalanx of powerful computers and relayed back to the laptop now being monitored by the lead SUV driver. They all were confident the circling UAS would detect any and all movements in the target area.

  “Switch on your helmet radios and transponders now, so Bravo team can track you.”

  “OK, if you’re happy—I guess we are.” Three was mollified. He had raised his objection, and he was now ready to carry out the mission. “So those’re the staff houses?” He pointed to the smaller darker shadows at the far left end of the hollow, located just over five hundred yards from the larger building.

  “Yes, two couples live on site including Dr. Weinek and his wife. Midway has a small apartment in the lab complex. The remainder of the workforce commutes daily. This weather should keep traffic away through the weekend. So, if we’re fortunate, we’ll have two days before anyone visits. In any case, we’ll be well away before daylight.” He pointed down the road. “The road runs down to a checkpoint beside the main building, on the right. The checkpoint’s not manned after midnight, although the security guard will respond to any visiting vehicle.”

  “Do we have enough time? If the weather is closing in? Why leave the SUVs here?”

  A couple of rude comments were softly voiced by other team members.

  “No Bob, we’ve plenty of time. A short walk downhill won’t hurt you. Allow ten minutes to get down the hill. While the road will be icy, we can make it, time is not an issue. We’ve an hour, hour and a half, to tap the targets, gather up laptops, hard drives and so forth. Their local computer network is very lightweight, our man did a good job of checking out the details. We’ll pull the hard drives from the network. It’ll take just a few minutes. Remember, we need to find this guy—Midway—and take him alive, that’s mandatory. Our bonus is blown if he’s damaged beyond repair.”

  “Shouldn’t be too difficult.” Tiny was sometimes overconfident.

  “Don’t underestimate him. While he’s young, reports say he audited a three-month LEO-training course in the fall and was rated one of the top performers. Our plan allows twenty minutes to deal with anyone living here, plus another twenty to find and capture him. Ten minutes to trash the laboratory. Another ten minutes to set the firestarters. Allow a further thirty minutes for plans screwing up. We’ll be on our way out by oh three hundred.”

  “So our vehicles will come down once we establish control?” Three wanted his exit guaranteed.

  “Yes. I don’t want you all to carry half a ton of thermite packs down the hill. We’ll drive down and, set out the firestarters and ignition fuses and load up Midway and everything else we find. Three, you’re forward scout—Jay can go with you. Cover each camera as you go. Take the first house on the left, then return to the main building. Security will come out at some stage to check what the problem is with the cameras. Tiny, you wait for him, he’s yours. Bob will be our rearguard once he has finished with the landlines. Bob, when you get down the hill, wait outside the laboratory building. Samuel will come with me; we’ll take care of the doctor and his wife. It’s important to collect all the laptops and hard drives that you find. We’ll meet back at the front of the lab building and go get Midway. Remember he bunks in the back of the lab building. OK, let’s move out. Come on.”

  Five camouflaged figures merged into the gloom as they headed down the narrow road while the sixth member of Alpha team made his way to the nearest pole carrying telephone lines up from the hollow. He knew his job and it would take only minutes to cut off landline communication. He would quickly catch up with his companions.

  The snow had eased in the few minutes they had spent peering down at their targets and the moon was now exposed. It would soon disappear again—another snow-laden cloud was heading directly towards the ridge. The five walked in silence. They were professional warriors, pumped now that the action had commenced. No one noticed the cold.

  ***

  Chapter 6

  Mark fought back grief and nausea, but he kept his anger. He had lost two friends, two people he had regarded as his parents, in the absence of the real thing. He was certain the killer or killers were still somewhere in the LifeLong grounds, perhaps in the doctors’ house. He froze at the thought and his anger strengthened. If they were here, somewhere in the house, he would find them. He hefted the Glock, taking comfort from its weight. He was prepared to use the weapon when he found the intruders.

  He stepped across the carpeted landing and down the stairs leading back to the ground floor. Dr. Otto, he knew, had a study on the far side of the living area, where it was almost hidden from the front entrance. The intruders—no, he corrected himself, they were killers and that is how he must think. While he didn’t know their motives, he had seen the results of their actions. He moved cautiously towards the study.

  A soft glow from a desk light provided a faint warning, its light barely falling outside the study door. He edged to the open door and peered in, weapon ready. Two men wearing military-style combat clothing were on the far side of the study; judging by their bulk, they were wearing body armor as well. They were intent on a small safe set into the far wall. Mark knew its contents, a backup drive containing details of all the research conducted here at the lab, and a bundle of dollars Dr. Otto always kept on hand. Both men, Mark noted, had removed their helmets and placed them on the desk, next to two laptops which he recognized; they belonged to the two doctors. He could hear other voices, very faint, and surmised the two men were not alone and they were in wireless communication with their associates.

  The two men were trying different combinations, but without success. “Should’ve kept one of them alive until we had the combination,” muttered one. “This is taking far too much time.”

  “Just try a couple more, perhaps birth dates, in reverse,” suggested his companion. “Otherwise we’ll have to rip the safe out of the wall. Now hurry, we’re spending time we didn’t schedule.”

  Mark watched and listened for a moment more, but the killers were silent, their concentration focused on the wall safe. His anger had not weakened, his resolve to avenge the two murders had not lessened, as he stepped forward, his grip on the Glock almost deathly tight. He raised the weapon and, with the technique and accuracy he had acquired on Schmidt’s firing range, fired two shots. The explosions were surprisingly loud.

  He shuddered. He had only ever shot at paper targets and this was very different. Both men had fallen and were motionless. Dead, he thought, either instantly or within seconds. Blood from their fatal injuries had splattered across the wall and Mark avoided looking at the red mess. The two bodies were sprawled across the floor, arms akimbo, face down.

  Then squawking electronic voices caught his attention, and he turned and picked up one of the helmets and held it closer to his ear.

  “What happened?” demanded a voice, obviously forsaking security. “Casey, speak up. We heard shots.”

  Mark tried to imitate the southern drawl he had heard from one of the men and pressed what he guessed was the transmit button. “Shot,” he gasped, keeping his voice faint. “Should—be—OK.” He released the button and listened to the exchange that followed, trying to assess what the responses meant.

  “Alpha team, reception’s back to normal. Note we still have passing clouds and snow falling.”

  “This is Taxi One. We had problems raising Casey—Alpha leader a
t Target One.”

  “This is Bravo team. Wyvern shows both transponders are operative. Can you get someone there to check?”

  “This is Taxi One. Will do.”

  “Let’s know ASAP. If Wyvern detects anything, we’ll advise.”

  Mark heard nothing more from the speaker identified as Taxi One. He placed the helmet back on the desk and stepped over the two bodies and stood beside the wall safe. He spun the dial back and forth. The combination was a birthday and he doubted anyone now apart from himself, knew it was his—at least, it was his theoretical birthdate. He opened the safe door. There were two small external drives and an envelope of full of dollar bills in the safe. He did not count the money, he did not have time for diversions. He stuffed everything into his backpack. He closed the safe door, automatically spinning the dial to set the lock. Mark ignored the laptops on the desk, knowing they contained nothing of interest to anyone. The doctors had a firm rule, to keep all their data on removable drives, with back-ups made to secure, non-US, cloud-based storage facilities. He shrugged back into his backpack and tightened the straps.

  He picked up a weapon from the desk. It apparently had belonged to one of the dead killers. It was a Heckler and Koch, one of their newer compact submachine guns with a sound suppressor—a military stealth weapon. Mark decided to add it to his arsenal. He switched off the desk light and waited a moment until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He headed out of the room carrying the helmet. He wanted to monitor what this gang had to say. He placed the helmet on his head and the voices were loud and clear.

  “Wyvern’s holding lower at fifteen hundred feet. We have a clear image. There’s movement inside Target One, looks like there’s at least one warm body.”

  “OK. We have two on the way to check.”

  “Wyvern has them. There’s someone exiting at the front of Target One. Transponder identifies Alpha team leader.”

  Mark realized his every move was visible to whoever or whatever Wyvern was. He suspected the complex was under aerial surveillance of some kind, and that Wyvern was the name of a drone. After he stepped through the front door, he paused to let his eyes adjust. He was protected on either side, at least temporarily, by two faux Greek columns guarding the small porch. The temperature had dropped further while he had been inside the doctors’ house and he tugged his jacket closer.

  Snow reflected light and created an eerie dawn effect even though he judged the time to be around 2:00 a.m. He examined the path to the main building where he expected to see whoever was tasked with checking the house. He checked both sides of the porch as well as directly in front. Nothing moved and the blanket of snow was effectively dampening the normal sounds of the night.

  The human body is an amazingly complex structure and the human eye even more so. When a target moves in a peripheral visual area, the stimulus triggers, in the retina, a cellular circuit responsible for motion detection. This circuit sends a signal to the brain. The process takes as little as 120 milliseconds. Mark had fast reactions. There were two intruders. The Heckler and Koch was cushioned against his shoulder, each target validated and the trigger pressed in less then 300 milliseconds. He aimed and fired bursts at each target’s head. The sound suppressor subdued the splutter of the weapon. The two men fell back. He thought they were both dead or at least now out of action.

  Mark threw the machine gun away and ran. He had emptied the magazine. He followed the shelter of the row of trees in an attempt to avoid the overhead surveillance. He wanted to recover the weapon he had deposited at the foot of the disused tank stand. As he moved towards the stand, he tried to ignore the voices in his ear.

  “Bravo to Taxi One: your men have stopped moving. Subject has disappeared off our display. Heavy clouds are drifting across the target area. Visuals and detection are blocked now by heavier snow falling. We surmise Alpha team has four down. This communication channel’s compromised.”

  Taxi One cursed savagely, then realized his microphone was live.

  “Bravo to Taxi One, Wyvern will depart in ten, understood? Until then we’ll continue to observe and update. ”

  “Alpha team, did you hear that? The target has Casey’s helmet. Bravo is calling a halt to Wyvern. Suggest we meet as intended in five. Taxi One, out.”

  Silence followed.

  ***

  Chapter 7

  There were one hundred and ten rungs on the vertical access ladder reaching up through the center of the old water tank tower. Mark had counted each one, innumerable times, when he used the ladder ascent and descent as part of his exercise regime. He estimated the top of the tower was at least one hundred feet above ground level. There was a small protected area where the tank once stood: this would provide modest shelter. He would be protected for a little while against observation from below. His remaining worry was the drone above.

  Mark climbed the ladder, fighting the ice which had formed on every rung. He struggled with the weight of the heavy weapon, which he intended to use to finish this confrontation. It was an experimental device, equipped with composite telescopic and other target detection and acquisition functions through a linked electronic command unit. When he affixed the main unit to the tripod, he would be able to accurately and remotely control its target detection, acquisition, and destruction functions. The weapon was driven by electronic servo-mechanisms which ensured the short counter-weighted barrel followed every instruction from the command unit, aligning itself instantly with the target tagged in the command viewfinder. The electronic command unit could be affixed to the weapon and then controlled from a computer, iPad or similar remote wireless source.

  At the far end of the grounds there was a small firing range which Mark used on weekends, while everyone was away. On one of those weekends he had thoroughly tested the rifle and he was confident, now, that he could successfully use it against his attackers.

  He hefted the pack through the open trapdoor and followed it, clambering from the ladder onto the top of the tank stand. He switched on the red LED torch, hoping its faint light would not be detected from below, and prepared his offense. Mark quickly fixed the tripod onto floor fittings, left over from his previous firings. The weapon was too light by itself to provide the necessary stability when the rifle was fired, and he had added clamps as a temporary fix. The issue would be part of his report to Schmidt, assuming he was able to complete that task. He mounted the rifle and carefully tightened the clamps. He hoped the battery powering the servo-mechanisms and electronic functions held enough charge.

  He activated the command unit and tested the barrel movement. It was working, and the barrel followed every minute adjustment he made with the controls. Satisfied, he turned to the pack and checked his remaining ammunition. He had three full magazines and a mix of loose 0.50 caliber shells, some of which were undoubtedly illegal in the hands of non-military personnel. He found the shell he wanted; the projectile was designed to explode on impact, and should be able to either destroy or deter whatever was flying above. He loaded the weapon, hoping one shot would be adequate.

  He lifted the command unit to eye level and dialed in his estimates of prevailing wind speed and direction, pressure, weather conditions, and then added temperature and humidity. He leaned back, ensuring he was below the level of the mounted weapon and, with a careful eye on the viewscreen, began a careful sweep of the sky above, moving the command unit in short, slow arcs. Beside him, the slaved weapon copied his sweeping movements. Mark selected the IR function, and zoomed out, in order to view more of the sky above. He again swept the sky, slowly and carefully. Clouds, moving rapidly, stretched across the sky, impeding his vision.

  Mark paused his search and held the unit still as it locked on to a possible target. There was a small flickering object in the viewfinder. He zoomed in and the display provided more details. The unit had detected heat emissions, an IR source, and he pressed a command button. The unit tagged the object, and displayed distance, elevation, and direction. The weapon would continu
e to track and align with the object, adjusting for any misalignment caused by Mark’s unsteady hands. He pressed another command button. The weapon beside him fired, an explosion of sound that seemed shocking in the still of the night. His ears rang. The sound was temporarily deafening. He did not move his eyes away from the image in the display. There was a splash of heat from the object, represented by a white flash flaring across the IR detection display. He looked up in time see a flash of fire from the craft above. It seemed to split and fall.

  ~~~

  The senior member of Bravo team leaned back in the creaking office chair. Their mission had dropped into a nest of vipers. The UAS pilot, his shoulders hunched, was unplugging his laptop from the test network. He did not like losing a drone when he was the pilot in command. Normally, the paper work would keep him busy for a week. The other two men were silent.

  At last the senior member spoke. “We need to clean everything. Delete software, remove all traces from the systems. Make sure you clean everything from your laptops. We need to check them before we depart. Austin, when we’re ready, wipe everything down with those bio-cloths. We must ensure the site is anonymous, sterile.”

  “This is going to be a very difficult report,” commented the pilot.

  “You’d better believe it,” replied Bravo team leader.

  None of the test center’s occupants were aware of the person outside the trailer, none were aware of the minor adjustments being made to the heating system that warmed the interior. Nor were they aware the battery had earlier been removed from the trailer’s gas detection unit. Carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless and tasteless; it is an insidious, deadly gas. Often, badly adjusted heaters will silently fill an occupied space with carbon monoxide gas without detection and typically with fatal results. It only takes minutes. The captain, curious that he had not received the promised phone call, discovered the bodies at 0700.