Weir Codex 1: The Cestus Concern

by Mat Nastos

  It was a feeling Kiesling very much wanted to experience for real in the future.

  Ms. Roslan interrupted Kiesling’s White House daydreams as she eased into the SUV next to him, smoothing down the deep blue material of her short skirt to keep it from revealing too many of her executive assets.

  Noting the way her perfectly sculpted eyebrows stitched a harsh line just above her nose, Kiesling asked, “You look unusually flustered today, Ms. Roslan. Who pissed in your porridge?”

  Director Kiesling’s right hand woman stared sharply at the driver, waiting until he had closed the large, faux wood-paneled door and hopped into the front seat out of ear shot.

  Once the convoy was in motion, Ms. Roslan finally answered.

  “It’s Congressman Fountain, sir.”

  “Fountain?” Kiesling was surprised. “I thought we had our favorite politician on lockdown at one of the off-site suites. How much trouble can he cause us without outside contact?”

  “We’ve got his cell blocked and no landline or Internet access going in to his rooms. He should be completely cutoff.” Ms. Roslan’s voice trailed off as her face became a mask of frustration.

  “Should be…but isn’t?” finished her superior.

  “I’ve been fielding calls about the Congressman all morning. Somehow he’s spent the last twelve hours doing his best to throw as many monkey wrenches as he can at us. We just can’t figure out how. If we’re not careful, he’s going to get us shut down.”

  “Don’t be foolish, my dear,” scoffed Kiesling, dismissing the idea with a wave of his tanned hand. “If he gets in our way, we’ll get rid of him just like the others.”

  “I’m afraid we may find Congressman Fountain to be quite a bit more trouble than the last two government liaisons, Director,” countered Roslan in the closest impression of a grumble Kiesling had ever heard cross her lips. “He has some pretty heavy-duty connections on Capitol Hill.”

  Kiesling laughed loudly at the idea but found his own retort cut off by a call coming through to Ms. Roslan’s phone. She smiled apologetically and stuck her index finger into the air in the universal sign for “one moment” as she answered.

  “Yes?” Roslan said into the tiny phone that was a weapon as fearsome as the semi-automatic pistol she kept concealed on her lithe form at all times.

  Kiesling could hear the raspy, weak-chinned voice of one of Project: Hardwired’s technicians filter out from the phone, but couldn’t tell which. Not that it made much of a different to the Director. One nerd was much the same as any other.

  Leaning back, Kiesling half-tuned out his assistant’s one-sided conversation as the parade of vehicles turned off of West Fifth onto the Harbor Freeway on-ramp. They accelerated to seventy miles-per-hour and were well on their way to their meeting location when Roslan called for his attention.

  “Mr. Anderson says they’ve got a hit on Zuzelo’s car,” she said, muting her phone for privacy. “A California Highway Patrol unit in Orange County called in a traffic violation attached to the vehicle’s registered license plate. CHP dispatch lost contact with the officers involved.”

  “Two lone cops against one of our Prime Units? They didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell,” said Kiesling, punctuating the statement with a derisive snort. “I can’t imagine Cestus leaving the officers in any sort of an identifiable state.”

  “The two officers are in critical but stable condition. Local law-enforcement has APBs out for the car and occupants,” Roslan continued her recap of the information she’d been passed by Anderson. “Do we let them run our fugitives down for us or pull them off the trail?”

  Kiesling blew out a long, hard breath. He liked the idea of someone else’s budget taking the beating of trying to take down the rogue operative. On the flip side, he hated the thought of word getting out that he’d lost control of the situation. He saw no way to avoid the heat he’d get for having the locals back-off, but there was no way around it.

  “This situation has gotten far enough out of hand without bringing in the state police. Get me the CHP commissioner on the line.”

  “What about Designate Cestus? All indications show he and Zuzelo are heading out towards San Bernardino County,” Roslan asked.

  “Why there? Another hideout of this David Zuzelo like the junkyard?”

  Ms. Roslan braced her phone between her shoulder and the crook of her neck, keeping Mr. Anderson on mute, and pulled a tablet PC out of the dark brown leather satchel at her side.

  “Best guess is that he’s going to see this man,” she showed the Project: Hardwired Director a montage of images containing Malcolm Weir and an older gentleman in the uniform of a United States Army officer. “Lieutenant Colonel Michael Denman, former commanding officer of Malcolm Weir’s Ranger unit in Iraq.”

  Rubbing his chin, Gordon Kiesling tried to put it all together in his head before issuing his next round of orders. What did Weir’s old CO have to do with this—who else was involved? Nothing was adding up.

  “Send a unit to follow them,” responded Kiesling. “I want to know exactly what Designate Cestus and this Zuzelo fellow are up to. Who they’re talking to. We need to find out who broke Mister Weir’s programming and how they did it.”

  Ms. Roslan nodded and quickly relayed her boss’s orders to the man on the other side of the cellular connection.

  Pausing to listen to a question, she looked up and asked, “Do you want Designate Gauss in pursuit?”

  Kiesling’s handsome face scrunched up in thought as he considered the question. The director’s face answered her with a frown.

  “No,” responded the overseer of Project: Hardwired, shaking his head. “Gauss had his chance to bring Weir down. Twice. He’s on the bench for now.”

  Well-manicured hands reached out and snatched away the tablet computer Ms. Roslan had resting on her lap. The pair sat in silence as Kiesling moved slowly through a mountain of computer data, hunting. He smiled as he found the subject of his search.

  “We should give someone else a chance, especially now that Designate Talos is gone,” he said as he held the thin silver and white computer screen up for his assistant to see.

  Kiesling enjoyed the look of surprise on Ms. Roslan’s face.

  “Him? Are you sure?” asked the beautiful woman. “His last mission was…messy.”

  “I’ve been trying to keep things clean up until now,” said Kiesling, icy blue eyes growing dark. “But I think it’s time to get a bit messy.”

  Roslan nodded and moved her tiny smartphone back up to her mouth.

  “Mr. Anderson,” she said, “Have the May brothers reactivate Designate Pyroclast. We’ve got a job that requires his…unique set of talents.”

  CHAPTER 13

  The single piece of wisdom David Zuzelo would always remember from his time on the run with Malcolm Weir was this: arriving at an active military facility in a bullet-ridden vehicle, wearing burned and battered clothing, and asking to see the man in charge of the base will only result in having a large number of fully automatic weapons pointed out you.

  That was precisely what occurred when Zuz and Mal rolled up to the front gates of Fort Irwin and announced their desire to meet with Lieutenant Colonel Michael Denman. The sentries, dressed in standard-issue gray and black urban pattern ACUPAT uniforms, took one look at the pair, pointed their M16A4 riles menacingly at the men and promptly called for back-up. Which, according the Mal’s internal computer system, resulted in a grand total of sixteen guns being aimed at them.

  Zuz was pretty sure the computer had miscalculated the number of arms with a bead on them. By his own count, there were closer to a billion guns about to shoot them.

  Give or take, that is.

  “Please exit your vehicle and keep your hands above your heads,” shouted one of the soldiers. “Move it!”

  “I’m starting to sense a pattern here, Mal,” Zuz said flatly as he started to open his door as slowly and non-threateningly as possible. “I feel like people have been
pointing guns at me all day.”

  “Same here—and it’s beginning to piss me off,” growled Mal, the plates and cables of his living metal arms bulking up substantially in reaction to the potential threat posed by the cadre of soldiers focused on them.

  Seeing his friend’s nanotech transforming into a more aggressive attack profile, Zuz began to hyperventilate.

  “Mal,” he wheezed, “I don’t want to get shot—don’t get me shot, Mal.”

  The only response Zuzelo received was a not entirely reassuring half-smile from his friend as the cyborg exited the car, palms held high and facing out to show he was unarmed. The staccato drumbeat of nearly every gun snapping focus onto Mal echoed across the open grounds surrounding the public entrance to Fort Irwin and the National Training Center, causing Zuz to unconsciously smile. At least they were no longer pointing in his direction, thought the terrified man.

  Paying no heed to the potential storm of small caliber fire from the near dozen-and-a-half MPs training their ordnance in his direction, Mal targeted the soldier nearest to him and marched forward slowly towards the man.

  “Sir, stand down or we will be forced to open fire on you,” ordered the solider, a pretty-faced private with the name ADORNO emblazoned over the left pocket of his uniform.

  Mal stopped less than six feet away from the private and caught the young man with his eyes.

  “My name is Captain Malcolm Weir, Third Battalion, Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment, Private Adorno,” Mal said, shooting a withering stare down the barrel of the machine gun pointed at him by the youth. “I’m a grunt, just like you.”

  Adorno licked his lips, caught as he was in Mal’s gaze and unable to look away. Sweat ran down the back of his neck and for one brief moment Zuz was afraid the beleaguered youth was going to start shooting.

  “What can I do for you, Captain Weir,” said Adorno, finally lowering his weapon and signaling for his comrades-in-arms to do the same. Zuz could feel the tension drain away from everyone in the area as guns were slung, pistols were holstered and the soldiers began returning to their stations.

  “Thank you, Private Adorno,” smiled Mal, warmly. “If you’d be so kind as to get Colonel Denman on the horn for me. Let him know Malcolm Weir is here for the poker game. He’s expecting us.”

  “Yes, sir,” answered the youth, visibly relaxed.

  Mal watched the private disappear back into the small guard booth positioned to the left of the hydraulic gate arm barrier Zuz’s car had stopped in front of. The cyborg’s enhanced senses picked up Adorno calling Denman’s office on the hard wired land line phone mounted in the tiny shack. The man quickly repeated Mal’s request to see the Colonel.

  A moment later, Adorno had hung up the phone, raised the yellow and black barrier, and pointed Zuz towards the large, five-story building housing the offices for Lieutenant Colonel Denman.

  “See?” chirped Mal as the Nissan puttered and spat its way through the gate and down the road surrounded by mothballed military vehicles to their destination. “No one got shot. You’re fine.”

  “You may be fine, but I need a new pair of underwear,” responded Zuz, easing his car into a visitor’s spot and sliding the gear shift into “park.”

  Waiting for them just outside the entrance to the National Training Center’s main administration building was Denman’s assistant, Corporal MacAnders, a short but stocky man whose height pushed five feet six only with a lot of imagination, and close-cropped hair so red in color it made his scalp look sunburned. The most interesting thing about the man was the beat-up dark hard leather holster and antique six-shooter strapped to his right hip and looking rather out of place on a twenty-first century soldier.

  “Is that an M1917?” Zuz asked the man, nearly hopping in excitement. Mal was completely confused by the change in his friend’s demeanor. As far as he knew, Zuz wasn’t a big fan of firearms. “It looks like an early Colt model.”

  “Good eye, Mr. Zuzelo,” smiled the man as he took them through the double glass doors that lead to the administration building’s air-conditioned interior. “It was my great-grandfather’s sidearm in the First World War, and my grandfather’s in the Second and Korea.”

  A ridiculous smile split Zuz’s face and he pointed at MacAnders’ holster as the trio mounted a large flight of stairs leading from the lobby to the offices on the second floor, further confounding Mal.

  Comprehension finally slammed into Mal’s brain when Zuz mouthed the words “Indiana Jones” while pointing at the sidearm. They were escorted down a tiled hallway and passed a row of office doors by the Corporal before finally stopping in front of heavy wooden door flanked on one side by an American flag and wall of pictures, and by a tidy steel desk on the other.

  Gesturing for the visitors to wait, Corporal MacAnders leaned over his desk and pressed a button on his phone, activating its intercom.

  Waiting for the beep, MacAnders spoke clearly into the machine, “Colonel Denman, sir?”

  “Yes, Tommy,” came the slightly static-y voice of an older man over the intercom’s tiny speakers.

  “Captain Malcolm Weir and Mr. David Zuzelo have arrived.”

  Half a tick later the door swung in and powerfully-built man in his mid-fifties, dressed in the same digital-camo patterned uniform that seemed to be standard attire at Fort Irwin, stomped out of the office, a look of disbelief shone out of the two granite-gray eyes set deep in his face.

  The man, whose height topped out a good inch or two above Mal’s own, stared down at the cyborg, thick black brows bunching into a single, furry caterpillar above eyes, for a full thirty seconds before the salt-and-pepper whiskers of his mustache parted to reveal the yellowed teeth of a lifelong coffee addict in an expression Zuz could only assume was a smile.

  “Hol-ee shit!” bellowed Colonel Denman, clapping Mal roughly across the shoulders. “If it ain’t my favorite ground pounder!”

  “It’s good to see a friendly face, Colonel,” Mal grinned, shaking the man’s hand. “Even one as ugly as yours.”

  “Time was, a soldier could be court-martialed for saying that.”

  “I’m not a soldier anymore, Colonel,” countered Mal, deadly serious. “Tell the truth, I’m not sure what I am anymore.”

  Denman nodded grimly, understanding that something had happened to his former soldier.

  Casting an askew glance towards the Zuz, who was busy trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, Denman quizzed, “So, who’s your girlfriend?”

  To Zuz’s annoyance, Mal chuckled, his mood lightening up at the good-natured ribbing from his once-commander.

  “I’d like you to meet David Zuzelo, my best friend—only friend in the world right now.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Zuzelo,” Denman reached out with one of his giant, calloused hands and gripped Zuz’s tight.

  “You too, Colonel Denman,” responded Zuz, politely trying to extricate his fingers before the big man crushed them.

  Corporal MacAnders pretended to sort papers as he watched the exchange from the vantage point behind his desk.

  “What brings you back to my corner of the world, son?” asked Denman.

  “I need to know what happened in Dahuk, Colonel,” answered Mal. “What happened to me—to my men.”

  The Colonel’s face darkened at Mal’s request.

  “Let’s go inside my office and talk, Captain” said Denman, cutting off Mal’s line of thought and pushing the two visitors through the door. Denman called back to Corporal MacAnders that they were not to be disturbed and Mal thought he caught a flash of paranoia in his former CO’s face as he allowed himself to be led into the office.

  The door slammed hard behind the group and the Colonel loomed over them, eyes blazing in barely restrained fury.

  “You’ve got ten seconds to prove to me that you’re Captain Malcolm Weir before I have you arrested,” growled Denman, hand tightening around the textured grip of the Glock-22 holstered at his waist. “If I don’t shoot you myself first.
”

  Both Mal and Zuz were stunned by Denman’s the sudden reversal in attitude.

  “I don’t understand, Colonel.”

  “Son, I was sure as Christ you were dead,” the Lieutenant Colonel responded, pure amazement coloring his tone. “How is God’s name are you up walking around—even a year later? It’s impossible. No one comes back from what you went through. Not as a whole man.”

  “No one said I came back whole, sir.”

  Mal slowly removed the jacket he’d been wearing and showed his former commanding officer the full price of his miraculous recovery.

  “Dear God,” was all Denman could say as he took in the sight of Mal’s nanotech arms, watching as they changed shape, grew spikes, and turned into living weapons. “What did they do to you, Weir?”

  Allowing his arms to return to vaguely human shape and size, Mal responded, “That’s what I was hoping you could tell me, Colonel. I woke up yesterday in a secret government lab with a hole in my memory. Tell me what happened in Dahuk.”

  “How much do you remember?”

  Mal laughed, “I’m CRS, sir. Can’t remember shit after our chopper was hit.”

  Denman told the men to take the two padded wooded chairs facing his desk and the large bank of windows behind it. The old soldier sat on the sole clean spot on the ancient oak desktop, rubbing his chin slowly, eyes narrowly slits as he decided where best to start his tale.

  Grunting, the Colonel looked up into Mal’s face as the words began spilling from between his lips.

  “Our regiment had been stationed at FOB Sykes for less than a week when rumors of unrest in the outskirts of Dahuk came over the horn. I ordered your unit out to scout the area and get back with a sit-rep. A trio of black hawks carrying your men lifted off at nineteen-hundred hours on April 3rd of last year.

  “Your birds must have been coming in too low to the ground when they were hit by enemy-fired rocket-propelled grenades and crashed just inside the Dahuk city limits, well outside our area of control. Most of your men were killed on impact. As far as the boys in intel could determine, only yourself and the two sergeants—Douros and Jay—walked away from the crash.