Before putting the knife back, he’d sat down at a wooden table in the mess hall and stabbed at the wood in rapid succession. The little experiment had been worthwhile indeed, because Miguel had found he could not place the tip of the knife in the same place every time—he’d almost stabbed himself in the hand, in fact. It was only with firearms or thrown objects that he’d been perfect. It was … odd, to say the least.
But by the time they were deployed to Old Baldy in relief of A Company, Miguel had known it was a blessing. The hill had been under constant attack and bombardment, and the Chinese had spent three horrible days trying to take their position. At one point, one of the sergeants had chided Miguel for not using up his ammunition in defense of the hill, but Hugo and some others had been quick to his defense, having seen Miguel’s newfound ability in action. Every bullet had found a home in the body of an enemy. One of the others, a farm boy named Paco, had counted Miguel’s kills and was up to 173 on the afternoon of the second day. Paco was still on Old Baldy, along with Hugo. Together in death and honor.
Well, at least in death. Honor seemed trivial now. There were only twenty-three men with Miguel now, the remnants of his company who were still able to walk and fight. All of them had the faces of ghosts, men who had seen far more than they would ever be able to take in, knowing that whatever they couldn’t process now would revisit them again in nightmares, over and over, for the rest of their lives.
A shot rang out. And the sergeant next to Miguel fell.
Ambush, he thought as he reflexively hit the dirt, bringing up his weapon and firing into the distance. A Chinese soldier screamed from the ridge above the road, falling down the hill as he died.
“Down! Down!” the officer in charge cried out before he, too, was silenced by a bullet.
The men scattered into ditches and behind the scrubby trees and bushes. The road was shit for cover, but from the sound of it, there seemed to be maybe only twenty or thirty Chinese firing on them—a couple of squads caught behind the lines when the Air Force bombing sealed off their way home.
Miguel crawled over to the fallen officer and grabbed his sidearm. The M1911 only held seven rounds, but Miguel knew he could fire faster and more efficiently than with the M1 rifle he’d been carrying. Using the officer’s body as cover, Miguel looked up and saw movement. Six shots later, six more Chinese were down.
There was more shouting in Chinese, more movement. Miguel caught a glimpse of something on his left flank, fired again, and watched as a Chinese soldier rolled down the side of the hill toward the road. That led to more shouting and shuffling around while Miguel scrambled on his belly to another fallen comrade, grabbing his rifle before diving into a ditch with three other terrified soldiers—two Americans and a fellow Colombian he hadn’t met before. One of the Americans was shouting into his radio in a panic, and Miguel knew just enough English to know he was practically begging for backup.
What was more surprising was the response—someone was coming. That was a rare bit of good news.
“Five minutes,” the American said, holding up five fingers, panic now mingled with hope. “Cinco minutos.”
Thanks for the translation, Miguel thought. He’d been serving long enough to know the basics. The big question was how long they could realistically last. And that meant protecting their flanks, keeping the Chinese in front of them. Miguel pointed toward the right. “Watch there,” he told the soldiers around him in English. “Keep in front.”
The American looked like he wanted to argue, but instead just nodded and tapped his compatriot on the shoulder, speaking in too-rapid English with a horrible accent Miguel couldn’t follow. Miguel turned to his countryman. “What’s your name?” he said in Spanish.
“Pablo,” the man said, eyes wide as saucers. Miguel automatically assumed the man wouldn’t make it out alive, and felt bad for thinking it immediately after.
“Cover the left flank. If it moves, fire. We can’t let them get on top of the ridge on either side of the road, you hear me?”
Pablo nodded and brought his weapon to bear once more, while Miguel took stock. They had two extra rifle cartridges between them. He hoped the Chinese were merely scouts, rather than a vanguard of a larger assault. Otherwise, they would all die.
The Americans started firing to the right, and Miguel saw one man fall—and two others scurry between the trees. He turned, waited patiently, and within the space of ten seconds, found his targets. Hearing Pablo fire, he turned back to his left, finding another target and another victim.
“Damn, son, you’re a fine shot,” the American with the radio said. “How’d you do that?”
“Suerte. Luck,” Miguel said, hunkering down again. “Watch. Careful.”
Ahead, more shots were fired. There were a couple other clusters of still-living U.N. troops ahead, but the shots grew less frequent. Miguel imagined they were being winnowed down. This wasn’t some kind of scouting mission; this was an assault. The Reds were going around Old Baldy to strike at their underbelly—and Miguel was nestled right in that underbelly.
“What the hell?” the other American said in wonder. The man was staring forward, not toward the right flank where he should have been. Miguel turned and dropped two more Chinese where the American had been slacking.
“American! You watch right!” he yelled in English, but the man kept staring forward. Miguel followed his gaze, and then saw why.
An entire squad of Chinese were walking up the road, out in the open, about seventy-five yards ahead. They were alert and ready, but just walking. No cover. Nothing. A stroll down the street.
“Tu funeral,” Miguel muttered, bringing his rifle up and focusing on the point man of the group, a very serious-looking Chinese man with a baby face. Miguel fired.
The Chinese waved a hand. The shot … missed.
“Qué es esto?” Miguel breathed. He took another shot. Another miss.
The radioman also opened fire, squeezing off three shots. All misses.
Then Miguel saw chips of bark and tree flying away off either side of the road. Ricochets.
Miguel’s mind raced, and he quickly came to an impossible conclusion. If he was somehow lucky enough to land every shot, it stood to reason that someone else might be lucky enough to cause them to miss.
From up ahead, he heard a man yell “Down!” in English, and saw another American lob a grenade at the oncoming Chinese. The enemy point man lazily moved his hand toward the grenade while it was still ten yards out—and it changed course in mid-flight, heading right back to the ditch it had been thrown from.
Miguel ducked just in time. Dirt and pebbles rained down on them as the grenade exploded. The debris was sticky, but he didn’t have time to think about that too much, because his problems in that moment were so much bigger.
“Run!” the American radioman screamed. He and his compatriot took off quickly down the road. Miguel didn’t even have time to call out to them before they were shot in the back and fell. Miguel rose up with his rifle and fired again, this time landing a shot against one of the Chinese in the rear of the squad. His second shot whistled past his ear before he hit the deck again—had he not moved ever so slightly after firing, he’d be dead.
Pablo turned to him, tears in his eyes. “What do we do?”
Miguel weighed his options. Retreat, whether straight back or up the hills on either side, would get them killed quickly. They needed a distraction.
Suddenly, he heard a jeep motor coming up from behind them. Their reinforcements. But they didn’t know what they were up against. All those bullets ricocheting around…. Miguel looked around for the radio, but the now dead American had taken it with him.
“Don’t come!” he yelled, turning behind him. “Retreat! Retreat!”
The jeep rounded the corner and was greeted with a steady staccato of Chinese rifle fire. They were all going to die.
But a blinding white light and a massive explosion suddenly filled the air.
“The Air Forc
e!” Miguel shouted, grabbing Pablo by the shirt. “Move!”
They immediately started running back down the road to the jeep, which had stopped. There were three men inside—two Americans, one of them a black man, and what looked to be a Korean. “Go! Go! We go now!” Miguel yelled. The white American stood up and motioned them to hurry, while the Korean …
Another blinding white light and explosion sent Miguel and Pablo to the dirt. For a moment, Miguel could’ve sworn the light had come from the jeep itself. From the Korean man. But it had to be a trick of the light or something. So he got up and kept moving.
Pablo was right there with him—until the Chinese started firing again. Miguel’s countryman went down without a sound. Miguel kept running.
A third flash and explosion silenced the rifle fire, and several strong hands lifted Miguel into the back of the jeep. “Others,” Miguel panted. “There are others. Friendlies.”
“Go!” the white man yelled.
Miguel struggled to sit up. “No! Others! Reinforcements!”
The black man sat down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Ain’t no reinforcements. We gotta go.” He then closed his eyes a moment. “He’s fine, Danny.”
The jeep tore back down the road at high speed, the futile pops of Chinese fire fading in the distance. “Why? Why do that?”
The white man—an officer from the leaf on his collar—turned back to face Miguel and, to his surprise, responded in Spanish. “I’m sorry, soldier. But we had to get you out of there. You’re more important than you realize.”
Miguel took several long seconds to process this, then ventured a guess. “Because I have good aim?”
“How good?” the officer asked.
“I never miss. Ever.”
“Yes. Probably that.”
“Except there was a man back there, I couldn’t hit him. He sent my shots flying back at me,” Miguel said. “He stopped a grenade in mid-air and sent it back to the American who threw it.”
The officer frowned. “Let’s get you back. You have a lot to tell us.”
FIELD REPORT
AGENCY: Central Intelligence Agency
PROJECT: MAJESTIC-12
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET-MAJIC EYES-ONLY
TO: POTUS, DCI Dulles, GEN Vandenberg USAF, DR Bronk MJ-12
FROM: CMDR Wallace USN
DATE: 25 Mar 1953
Agents Hooks, Yamato and I have successfully recovered the new Variant previously uncovered by Subject-1 on the Korean peninsula. He is PFC Miguel Padilla of the Colombian Battalion, 31st Regiment, 7th Division, and was successfully extracted from Hill 266 as the Chinese entered the area in force. No Variants suffered injuries during the extraction.
Padilla (DOB 2/17/30) is a native of Bogota, Colombia, and a Colombian national. At this time, he has elected to continue service to his Battalion, which remains under U.S. Army command. MG Smith, CINC 7th Division, has agreed to my request that PFC Padilla be placed on temporary detached duty under my command for the duration, though may follow up with GEN Vandenberg as to the particulars.
After preliminary experiments it appears Padilla’s Enhancement allows for limited control of kinetic energy, along with enhanced hand-eye coordination. As a result, he is a superlative marksman with any firearm or thrown object. The upper end of his range is limited only by the weapon or object in question. His Enhancement does not seem to extend to any other applications other than marksmanship, broadly defined.
At this time, neither I nor Padilla has identified any particular side effects. However, his Enhancement seems to have occurred only a few weeks ago, and the circumstances in which a side effect may manifest might have yet to occur.
While I do not have the capacity or facilities necessary to conduct a full psychological profile, Padilla seems to be a well-adjusted individual under the circumstances. He has expressed a desire to continue fighting the Chinese on behalf of fallen compatriots, and while this is an admirable goal, I have convinced him that, for now, his newfound abilities may be better utilized as part of the MAJESTIC-12 program. Nonetheless, he remains a foreign national and, thus, I have given him very few details as to the nature of the program, other than the fact that there are others out there with various preternatural abilities. (He had already seen Agent Yamato’s Enhancement during his extraction under combat conditions, so shielding him completely from the existence of other Variants was not an option.)
I recommend he undergo further testing and evaluation prior to full indoctrination into MAJESTIC-12. However, I believe current circumstances require us to make use of Padilla on a probationary basis, and I recommend the following new operation, tentatively codenamed FLAPJACK.
OPERATION FLAPJACK PROPOSAL
At the time of Padilla’s combat extraction, Padilla encountered an individual in the uniform of a Chinese Army sergeant who exhibited abilities consistent with Enhancement. According to Padilla, this individual appeared to be able to redirect kinetic energy, to the point where he was able to deflect and redirect bullets and, in one case, a hand grenade.
Up until now, MAJESTIC-12 and its associated agencies had not discovered evidence of Variants in the employ of the Chinese government or military, but given the size of the Chinese population—over 500 million according to current estimates—it is likely that several Variants exist there. A program similar to MJ-12 or Bekhterev may or may not exist; we should find out the truth as quickly as possible.
I propose that PFC Padilla accompany Agents Hooks and Yamato and myself in an attempt to locate and capture this potential Chinese Variant. Doing so would give us critical intelligence into any Chinese effort to collect Variants, and whether any such program is being run in cooperation with Beria’s Bekhterev Institute, thus also furthering Operation TALISMAN.
Please advise on approvals for Operation FLAPJACK, as Subject-1 is continuing to track this potential Chinese Variant to the north of the front lines.
GET A TELEX TO WALLACE. FLAPJACK APPROVED WITH HOOKS, YAMATO AND PADILLA. WALLACE IS ORDERED TO STAY WITH TALISMAN AND PROCEED AS PLANNED.
—VANDENBERG
March 29, 1953
Frank gratefully sat amid the hustle and bustle of Moscow, resting on a park bench and smoking a horrible, acrid Russian cigarette with unabashed enjoyment as he waited for the next leg of his journey—a very long, boring, occasionally harrowing trip that was leaving him as tired as he’d been since his Army days.
His trip started, of course, at Mountain Home two weeks ago. He wished Danny would’ve let him commandeer a plane—he could fly damn near anything thanks to his brain full of memories—but the boss wanted to go as deep into cover as possible. So Frank played the traveling businessman. He hopped a bus from Boise to Denver, which was a horrible idea, then it was good old Delta Air Lines from Denver to Chicago and Chicago to New York. Two full days after the briefing and he hadn’t even left the United States, but from there he walked right onto the Pan Am headed for London—with stops in Newfoundland, Reykjavik, and Shannon, of course, which meant a twenty-hour commitment. Frank gave himself a day and a night in London to hit some pubs and sleep—on the CIA’s dime, of course—before taking off the next morning for Paris, then Rome, and finally Istanbul. One final evening of luxury awaited him in a decadent hotel in Sultanahmet. Frank couldn’t help remembering his misadventures in the cisterns below that venerable district five years prior, but this time he took the opportunity to see the Hagia Sofia and Blue Mosque like any old tourist. He avoided the Topkapi Palace, however … just in case someone there had a long memory. That diplomatic reception in 1948 didn’t quite go as planned for anyone, after all.
The next day, Frank grabbed the package he’d sent ahead at the hotel’s front desk, and carefully laid his freshly laundered, Russian-tailored, and horribly ill-fitting business suits in his suitcase, along with some more proletarian options, should the need for them arise. He chose a simple jacket, shirt, and khakis for the next leg of his trip, and had the front desk send h
is American clothes back to the States. He was going native now.
Frank crossed the Bosphorus by ferry and caught a bus for Ereğli, a small Black Sea port town on Turkey’s northern coast. It was mostly a steel town, though the bus passed a few little beach resorts as well, all of which looked ghostly and abandoned, out of season. The town was otherwise pretty much working class, like Pittsburgh with fezzes. He arrived just as first shift was heading home, and he grabbed dinner at a little tea house with a friendly waitress who complimented him on his Turkish.
At least language wasn’t a problem. He couldn’t imagine trying to do all this without all the languages at his disposal.
After dinner, it was time to make contact. He walked down to the docks, where most of the commercial vessels were brightly lit as crews conducted maintenance under the evening stars. There was some singing and laughter, and Frank felt a twinge of something at that—simple lives, lived well. No politics, no need to be constantly looking over your shoulder. He thought back to Cal, hoping that MAJESTIC-12 would indeed let the man have a retirement of some kind somewhere down the line. Because if Cal could, maybe he could too.
Frank stopped at a beat-up trawler near the end of the dock, owned by a man who once helped ferry supplies to the Red Army during the war, part of an O.S.S. program to help the besieged Soviets fighting the Nazis. Naturally, the CIA kept their contacts after the war, and from what Frank read in his briefing papers, the fisherman was more than willing to continue earning a few bucks on the side.
“Mehmet! Permission to come aboard!” he called out in Turkish.
A bearded man in a battered fez poked his head out from the small quarters near the bow of the trawler. “Who is it? What do you want?” the man demanded, sounding put out.
“I’ve come from Bezapan seeking work,” Frank replied, just as his brief spelled out. “The crops have been poor, and my uncle Baki says the sea will do me some good. He says you might have a job for me.”
MJ-12: Endgame Page 7
