On The Black: (A CIA Thriller)

by Theo Cage

  Rice knocked on the screen door's frame twice. They waited. About a minute passed, then just as he raised his hand to knock again, they heard the sound of a turning of a latch. A woman in her fifties, opened the door wide and smiled.

  “Hello?” she asked, immediately curious about their appearance. If she knew anything about soldiers, she would be puzzled by the odd mix of military and civilian clothing on both of them. As well as the rifles hanging from their shoulders.

  “Sorry to bother you,” said Rice, “but we're on a military exercise in the area and wondered if we could use your phone?” Their real reason was to get inside, out of the range of surveillance.

  “What base are you from?” she asked, the smile slipping a bit.

  “We're a long way from home, ma'am. We both train out of Fort Bragg. We're here to lend a hand to the new recruits out of Camp Atterbury, the Training Center.”

  “What kind of exercises do you do in the middle of a corn field?”

  “We're simulating a terrorist attack. That's why we’re dressed non-regulation. We're actually playing two Al-Qaeda operatives undercover on American soil.”

  “And why do you need my phone?”

  “It's all part of the game, Ma'am,” said Britt. “We can use civilian assets, just like a real terrorist might.” Then she gave the woman her highest-voltage smile.

  “A terrorist would probably use a gun. We didn't think that was necessary.” Rice added.

  The woman looked at Rice suspiciously, then gazed back at Britt. Rice, she didn't trust. His female partner was another matter. She looked as far from a serial killer’s wife as one could imagine. She sighed and stepped aside, then led them to a wall phone in the kitchen.

  As Rice dialed, Britt noticed the woman was wearing a wrist brace on her right hand.

  “Carpel tunnel?” asked Britt. The woman looked a little surprised by the question. She touched her wrist where she was wearing the blue wrap.

  “I type a lot. It acts up a bit once in a while.”

  “You run a home business?”

  “I write romance novels.”

  Britt smiled. “Would I know your name?”

  “Mary Logan.”

  “No. You're Mary Logan? I knocked on the door of Mary Logan! I've read all of your books.”

  “That's a relief,” said Mary. “I don't imagine Muslim terrorists are reading about love in the Corn Belt.”

  “You never know,” said Britt.

  At that point, Rice got through to Grace on the landline.

  “Grace. I'm on a residential phone. A farmhouse about five hundred yards south of highway 62. Midway between Corydon and Lanesville. I'm looking out the kitchen window north. I'm watching a Predator drone in the process of an initial flyby over our ten.” Grace said something Britt couldn’t hear. “Because of the low cloud ceiling. Otherwise they would have just launched the Hellfire missile.”

  A nervous pause followed. Grace responded. “No,” said Rice. “If they were just on surveillance, they wouldn't weigh them down with a hundred pound missile. They intend to use it.”

  Rice hung up the phone and touched Mary on the arm. “I'm hoping you have a basement.”

  “An old root cellar.”

  “We need to get down there. Now!”

  CHAPTER 107

  Logan Farmhouse, Ohio River Scenic Byway

  GLOBAL IMPERATIVES, THE COMPANY operated by the Razer twins, owned a drone. Manufactured by General Avionics, a hundred were known to be destroyed in combat over the past five years, three more lost in the ocean. Predators have been permanently infected by a computer virus that is poorly understood by military experts, partly because the contagion hasn't caused any serious defects other than an occasional guidance hiccup. But despite several upgrades and millions spent on new software, the bugs persist. The Razer's came by theirs during an exercise in Afghanistan that went seriously off the rails when a drone equipped with a Hellfire missile disappeared from radar minutes before an attack on the farmhouse of a known Al Qaeda leader. The drone failed, then glided to earth a few hundred yards from Brent's position. The operators blamed the failure on the virus and assumed the Predator broke up when it came to ground in the mountains. The loss of the Hellfire, valued at over a million dollars, has been an ongoing embarrassment ever since.

  Owning a Predator, and controlling a Predator in the air, are two entirely different propositions. Kreegar had to pull some very delicate strings in order to commandeer a control van with the appropriate Predator control gear and technology. They had 24 hours. Careers were on the line. And they had one shot.

  The operator of the drone crouched over a computer in a cube van in Louisville, in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart. A dish on the roof communicated with a US comm satellite, feeding instructions to the Predator and returning a video feed from the camera in the unmanned airplane’s nose.

  The Predator and its technology were designed to operate at altitudes that made visual sighting difficult. In desert operations, five thousand feet was considered ideal. Over the cornfields of Indiana on a cloudy day, the visual ceiling was only one thousand feet. Locals were not going to be able to miss the flyovers. UFO reports were already streaming into FM Radio stations in the district.

  Trent had already grown tired of the Rice mission. If it was so critical to National security to find this ex-agent, why not use overwhelming force at the first engagement? Someone had made an emotional decision, the worst thing to do in the heat of battle. He knew Kreegar was responsible. The Director had made a flawed decision that had already cost a dozen lives. He should be packaged out. He festered from a thousand wounds. Maybe they were psychological, but it didn't matter. It added up to a waste of skilled operators. And they weren't growing those on trees anymore.

  Trent had received a call from a contact at NPIC, the DIA branch that collected and monitored live satellite data. They had caught Rice and his accomplice leaving the highway and heading into a crop field. The GPS tag on the baby Hummer was now tracking some unknown third person, driving the vehicle into New Albany. Where did this other driver come from? He wasn't in the vehicle when it left Corydon.

  “Have you got a visual on our terrorist?” asked Trent.

  “Your terrorist and accomplice have entered a building. A farmhouse. They appear to be inside.”

  Trent was convinced this latest detour was all part of Rice's plan. The house could be the center of operations. Maybe he was headed into another tunnel. The Predator was so exposed now. There was a good chance someone in the house had made a sighting.

  “Can you take out the house? Will there be survivors?” asked Trent.

  “Roger that. The direct blast will level the two-story. The over-pressure will kill everyone in the area. The pressure wave destroys soft tissue. It's more deadly than the heat and debris.”

  “Then do it. Take down the headquarters.”

  “Confirmed. Preparing to launch Hellfire.”

  Trent had no view of the battle zone. He stood at the side of the road about five miles away, knowing the operator was experienced. Ex-air force. Drummed out due to PTSD. But happy to be sitting in a chair and pushing buttons, his hand gripping a joystick.

  Trent listened, expecting to recognize the roar of the Predator's Rotax engine. All he could hear was the buzz of car tires, flying past him on the highway. The rain had started, just spitting, a half-hearted attempt at precipitation. Then Trent heard the thump, the echo of a pressure wave bouncing off the land's surface and radiating out and up, an angry black curl of smoke and flame breaking the horizon. Then Trent's phone chirped.

  “Direct hit,” said the operator, no emotion in his voice. Just another target eliminated. A few more terrorists converted into atoms. All in a day's work.

  CHAPTER 108

  Logan Farmhouse, Ohio River Scenic Byway

  THE CIA TRAINED RICE extensively on firearm use, but he was no expert on airborne munitions. He did know what a Hellfire missile looked like though from his d
uty in Afghanistan.

  When he spotted the Predator drone, he felt an instant chill. The Hellfire was plainly visible, hanging from the undercarriage strut. Predators without missiles do reconnaissance; armed drones are attack weapons. Seeing an unmanned airplane flying toward you armed with a hundred thousand dollars in ordinance, should at least make the hairs on your neck stand-up.

  The woman who greeted them at the front door of the farmhouse, presumably the owner, opened a door off the kitchen and led him and Britt down into a musty basement - stone walls and a crumbling cement floor. Rice kept pushing them to move faster, waiting for the Hellfire to detonate above them. He didn’t believe the rock and earth around them would cushion the explosion, so he would be responsible for the deaths of two innocent women as well.

  A laser guided the Hellfire. An operator, sitting at a remote location, had exacting control over the moment of detonation. Rice guessed the blast would be centered over the roof, or the missile might be flown right into the side of the farmhouse. Every sliver of wood and nail and screw would become a deadly projectile. And the pressure wave would finish what the shrapnel didn't.

  Rice quickly swept the basement for options. There weren't a lot. The cellar lacked interior walls; just an open space poorly lit by three narrow windows revealing a grey muzzy sky. In the far corner stood a steel box the size of a large closet.

  “What's that?” he asked pointing.

  “Used to be coal storage. A long time ago,” said the older woman.

  “Like a chute?” he asked, running up and grabbing the metal handle. He opened a partial door, about three feet by three feet, several feet off the floor. Just high enough to shovel the coal out they used to use back in the forties to feed the furnace. He looked in. The chute to the outside had been sealed long ago, but he could still see some remnants of coal on the interior floor, the walls covered with black dust.

  Rice pulled Britt to him and lifted her up. “Climb in. Fast. We only have seconds.” Britt pulled her upper body through the opening and Rice pushed her the rest of the way. She fell inside and let out a grunt. Then he reached for the older woman. She put up her hands.

  “I'm not going in there,” she said, shaking her head, her eyes wide.

  “We're running out of time,” said Rice.

  “You go ahead. I'll stay here.”

  Rice shouted. “You'll die out here!”

  She shook her head, her hands on her neck. Rice had the feeling the coal bin frightened her more than an air-to-surface missile. “I'll take my chances out here.”

  Rice could see in her eyes he would have to drag her kicking and screaming. He wanted to negotiate, but the seconds were ticking away. Predators were fast. The drone could have already completed the flyby, locked into the co-ordinates and turning for the final run.

  Rice tried one more time. “I'll help you in.” Mary had stepped back, her eyes like searchlights when she looked over and saw Britt's face at the coal bin door. Then Rice heard the distant whine of the Predator's engine, growing louder. This could still be reconnaissance, he thought. He looked back at Britt, who had a black streak of coal dust across one cheek.

  Rice turned back to Mary. He imagined seeing the farmhouse the way the Hellfire's operators would, through the nose-mounted video, from a mile up, speeding down through the low clouds, hurtling towards a second-story window. Even if Rice could wrestle the older woman across the floor and somehow get her up to the level of the door, he wasn't sure they could squeeze her through. Rice was wasting valuable time. Even under her own steam, she probably wouldn't fit. Everyday physics was against them.

  Rice turned and lifted himself up over the edge of the coal bin door and Britt helped to pull him through the rest of the way. When he landed, he picked himself up off the floor, his hands coated in black dust. He pulled the steel door closed and heard the latch click into place. Then he led Britt into the corner, against the wall facing the foundation, and pulled her down and wrapped his arms around her.

  They listened, hearing the distant buzz of the drone. A few seconds of near silence passed.

  Maybe he was wrong, he thought. Maybe in the heat of the moment he had imagined a missile.

  Then some vengeful God reached down and tore their world apart.

  CHAPTER 109

  Logan Farmhouse, Ohio River Scenic Byway

  THE FIRST REPORT THAT HIT the newswires blamed the farmhouse explosion on a propane tank mounted on two concrete footings in the backyard. But when they interviewed the owner, who immediately turned his tractor around in a distant field when he heard the blast, he said the tank hadn't been used for a decade. The media, crowding the near road, began to speculate on methane gas next. It wasn't until many hours later that speculation about a terrorist cell began to find its way into online reports, thanks to Trent. Global Imperatives had a PR company, and they were busily plying their trade. A leak here. An unattributed hint somewhere else. Terrorism was sexier than swamp gas.

  The local police cordoned off the two acres surrounding the shattered debris that was once the two-story farmhouse. Trent Razer bludgeoned his way through the police line using his government ID. He told one Detective onsite he was investigating for Homeland Security, the abracadabra magical phrase for breaching police barriers. You didn't step on the American flag, and you didn't question HS.

  Trent was immediately concerned about bodies. The farmer told the authorities his wife had been home alone. But they hadn't found a body in the rubble. Could all three have escaped somewhere? Trent barged in and pushed aside two burly cops and pulled the farmer aside.

  “Do you have any tunnels attached to the house?” he asked.

  “Tunnels? No. I'm telling you, she’s a writer. These rumors about terrorists are just horseshit.”

  “How about a bomb shelter. Or a storm room of some kind?”

  The farmer squeezed his eyes; his shoulders slumped. “Can't you just leave us alone? Stop asking stupid questions.”

  “Was your wife in the basement?”

  “Basement? She hates the basement. She's pretty sure it's haunted. That would be the last place she'd go.”

  At this point, the two cops took Trent by the shoulders and led him away from the farmer.

  “You're upsetting him,” said one of the cops.

  “No one is going anywhere. Let us finish up our work here. If you don't find what you want, you can interview him later till the cows come home.”

  Cows come home, thought Trent. He must be in Indiana. He'd never seen a cow close up in his entire life. He was certain he had lost Rice again though. And no one had found his brother yet. What had Rice said? Check the river. Even if Brent lost his phone, he wasn't that far from civilization. Then he had an idea.

  “Hey!” he said to the two cops leaving. “Anything else reported today? Accidents? Crashes?”

  One of the cops turned to the other.

  “If you want to know if things are fucked up in Harrison County, they are. A helicopter crashed earlier today in Indian River. Maybe it had something to do with your terrorists. You need directions to go check it out?”

  Trent just stared at the two policemen. He didn't need directions. He knew exactly where the bird went down. Where his brother sighted Rice. Then his phone rang. The police were at the lodge as well as the FBI. They had a lot of questions. They needed him there. Now.

  Trent dropped the smart phone on the hard packed dirt and stomped the screen until the light faded. The last thing he needed right now was a phone.

  He had no one to call.

  CHAPTER 110

  Logan Farmhouse, Ohio River Scenic Byway, Indiana

  BRITT KNEW THE END WAS NEAR. She had experienced death close up hundreds of times in the ER; she knew the shape and the taste and the feel of it. The mystery was gone. All that was left was an empty feeling of surrender, or futility, then nothing at all.

  She saw the look on Rice's face, and she knew what was coming. He never gave up, even in the last seconds b
efore they were hammered by the explosion, but she felt him relax next to her for the first time. He knew nothing more could be done. The last thing she remembered before the world went dark was the smell of him. Coal dust, sweat and river water. It wasn't unpleasant. Simply a catalog of their last strange day together.

  Then a monstrous fist punched down on them, and the house flattened above them, dust and debris raining down on their heads. The lights went out, the metallic sides of the coal bin squeezed inward, punching her in the side and sending both of them sprawling across dust and nails and gritty blackness. She laid there, her face in the dirt.

  At first she heard nothing but a painful buzzing in her head, her ears aching. Then she heard the sound of running water and felt moisture on her back. A ruptured pipe, she guessed. She lifted herself up in the dark, felt her body. Everything was sore, like she had fallen down several flights of stairs. But nothing broken.

  She reached for Rice and felt his leg. She shook the limb, but got no reaction. She crawled up to him, searching for his head. She felt for his neck and checked his pulse. He was alive too. But for how long? She heard a sharp groan. The entire weight of the house seemed to bear down on them, the remaining timbers crying out in agony.

  Britt felt her way along the wall for the exit and searched for the latch. The door was frozen, probably bent out of shape by the force of the blast. They were sealed in an iron box, the same room that saved their lives, now buried under tons of rubble.