The Seraphim Sequence: The Fifth Column 2

by Nathan M. Farrugia

  Just his words made her shiver with anger. She didn’t want him here. She wanted him dead. She should be dropping him right now and that would be the end of it. But if what he was saying was even remotely true, she needed to know.

  ‘So what do you want me to do about it?’ she said.

  ‘I need it taken down,’ Denton said. ‘And so do you.’

  ‘Hell will freeze over before she works with your ass,’ Nasira said, her pistol aimed directly at Denton.

  His pistol was already pointing back at Nasira. ‘Hell just did,’ he said.

  Sophia resisted the urge to reach for one of her Gerber knives. She was confident she could get in close and cut an artery before he could get a shot off. But she wasn’t about to risk Nasira’s life on that. And that pissed her off.

  She looked over at Nasira’s pistol-wielding hand. It was trembling. Nasira’s pistol grip never trembled.

  Denton’s fingers were clenched so tightly around the pistol it seemed unlikely he’d be able to squeeze off an accurate shot. He seemed to notice it too because he blinked and lowered his weapon. Sophia glanced down at her own hands. They were shaking. She couldn’t calm herself. Everything in the room was making her angry: DC’s irritating aloofness, Nasira’s barely-contained control, Denton’s self-assuredness, Chickenhead’s silent mourning of his fallen friend.

  Sophia walked past Denton and looked out the window. A crowd of people strode past waving torches, poles, sticks with flames lit at their tips. Their murmurs slowly grew in volume.

  ‘This doesn’t look good,’ she said.

  Denton was peering out the fisheye of the door. He punched the wood in frustration, then opened his hand to inspect it, curious at his own emotions. She exchanged a glance with him and looked back at the others. They were all thinking the same thing.

  Nasira lowered her pistol. ‘They fucking beamed Miami, didn’t they?’

  ‘What?’ Chickenhead shouted, his cheeks pink.

  ‘They know we’re in the area,’ Denton said. ‘They want to slow us down.’

  ‘Well, what the hell do we do?’ Chickenhead said.

  ‘We should stay in here,’ Sophia said.

  ‘We should get the fuck out!’ Nasira yelled. She was breathing heavily.

  ‘Wait,’ Sophia said. ‘The Miami transmitter was the last transmitter. They shouldn’t have anything to beam us with.’ She turned to Denton. ‘Either our EMP attacks failed or you’re actually telling the truth.’

  ‘There’s a first for everything,’ Nasira said.

  Denton’s jaws were working as he focused on the door handle. A vein above his ear seemed to twitch. He took his phone from his pocket. ‘Check the local news in each area for reports on blackouts. That’s one way to confirm.’

  A window in a nearby motel room shattered.

  ‘Get away from the window,’ DC snapped.

  Sophia stepped back. A mob was forming. She grabbed her daypack from the bed and checked its contents. One of Nasira’s improvised smoke grenades was inside.

  ‘Looks like we’ll be using your grenades after all,’ she said.

  Denton suddenly looked interested. ‘You have grenades?’

  Nasira had made the smoke grenades after a quick shopping run at a nearby grocery store. She’d removed the ammonium nitrate from an instant cold pack and filtered out the anti-caking agent through a coffee filter. Then she’d mixed it with potassium chloride, a sodium-free substitute for salt that as far as Sophia was concerned wasn’t fit for human consumption. Nasira had used heat to dissolve it and then an intact instant cold pack to rapidly cool it. The result was potassium nitrate and ammonium chloride, which was easily separated by filtering the crystals. She’d mixed the potassium nitrate with sugar and a few other ingredients, then fashioned a fuse from nail polish and paracord. Chickenhead had found it amusing that out of all the items Sophia and Nasira carried on them, nail polish wasn’t one of them. For each smoke grenade to work, they would need to manually light the fuse. Nasira had set the length of the fuses at approximately five seconds, give or take a second.

  The window beside Sophia exploded. A metal pole had struck the window frame. A face peered in, slick from rain and eyes gleaming. More faces. Sophia moved back to her bed, drawing her Walther P99.

  ‘It’s her!’ the man with the gleaming eyes shouted. ‘It’s that fucking terrorist bitch!’

  The reaction from the crowd outside was unmistakable. Someone slammed into the motel-room door, trying to knock it down. Denton pressed himself up against it, hand reaching for his knife.

  ‘It’s times like these I’m glad people don’t know how to kick down doors properly,’ he said.

  More cries from outside. Sophia heard the word terrorist a few times and then her name. A portion of the larger crowd started to grow curious about why the smaller group was gathered around the motel room.

  ‘This is not good,’ Nasira muttered, her pistol raised again. ‘This is not fucking good.’

  Sophia heard the echoing pop of pistol fire outside.

  ‘They have guns too,’ DC said. ‘Probably more than one. Sophia, step away from the window!’

  ‘I am away from the window!’ she yelled.

  She needed to get her head together, get past the rage that ramped up inside her. They needed a way out. The motel room offered no alternative exit. The only way in or out was through the front door or window. The sooner they got out, the better their chances.

  ‘We need to move now,’ she said. ‘Everyone, get your smoke grenades ready. Drop them outside and make a run for Denton’s car.’

  Denton shrugged on his overcoat and held his knife in one hand. ‘Knives out, ladies and gentlemen, let’s cut to the chase.’ He smiled. ‘So to speak.’

  Sophia was about to argue, but she knew bladed weapons might be essential in making it as far as the car. She handed her second Gerber Mark II to Chickenhead—he was the only person who wasn’t carrying a knife of his own, and his L22 carbine was a little too cumbersome for shooting through a mob at close range while running full tilt.

  She moved her pistol to her non-firing hand and her Gerber to her firing hand. Yells and the battering of improvised weapons clamored outside. Someone tried to get in through the window, cutting himself on the glass. Denton leveled his pistol and shot the intruder in the side of the face. The sound made Sophia’s ears ring.

  She didn’t waste any more time. Lighting the fuse of her smoke grenade with her zippo, she tossed the grenade outside and gave Denton the nod. He wrenched the door open, pistol aimed. He fired twice, a short measured pause between each round. The smoke grenade ignited with a purple and pink flame, then started pouring smoke into the night air.

  Denton stuck to the door, aiming high, while Nasira ducked under his arm, leading with her knife through the smoke. The chaos outside drowned the calm from the eye of the hurricane and heated the anger welling inside Sophia. She charged out after DC, slashing her knife at anyone stupid enough to stray too close.

  She limped her way through the smoke, her injured ankle slowing her down. Nasira was in the lead. Torn palm trees hung in the still of the night while men and women with fire in their eyes ran the street in hungry clusters carrying baseball bats and fence posts, rebars, pistols. They dealt damage to any car or building that crossed their path. Some fought each other, but mostly they moved as one, their momentum pulled by emotion. The work of Seraphim.

  For a moment, Sophia thought of blending in and mindlessly chanting with the masses around her, but as she looked around they seemed unfocused, confused. Their eyes locked onto her and wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t blend in. They didn’t even seem sure of what they were angry about.

  The smoke was starting to draw their attention. Sophia kept moving, following Nasira and DC. They stopped short of Denton’s car, and she realized why. It was in flames. People circled it, smashing it with crowbars. The car next to it was battered too, glass broken in every window. It wasn’t a targeted attack, but as
a man standing on top of the battered car noticed them, it was about to become one.

  ‘There she is!’ the man shouted over the crowd, his accent slightly Cuban. ‘The terrorist!’

  Sophia felt eyes turn to her.

  ‘Change of plan,’ Denton said, catching up from behind.

  He shot the man on top of the car. He fell off the roof, disappearing from view. Sophia checked her surroundings. The motel was crawling with people now. Some of them had heard the man identify her and were moving toward her. She couldn’t double back to their room now, but she noticed an aisle in the center of the motel. She took it, drawing Denton and the others away from the crowd. Nasira slung one of Sophia’s arms over her shoulder, taking weight off her injured ankle. She heard a couple more shots. Denton was firing again. She heard the buzz of a round as it smashed the wall beside her. Someone was returning fire. Nasira hauled her along as fast as she could manage.

  The eye of the hurricane seemed to be passing: rain and wind lashed them once more. On the other side of the motel was more parking and a wooden fence. There were gaps in the fence and Nasira steered her toward one. Behind the fence there was a factory and plenty of open ground.

  Sophia slipped through the gap and held the plank for Nasira. Close behind them, Denton, soaked from the rain. He shoved his wide frame through. It took him two attempts but he made it to the other side and almost slipped on the wet grass. Chickenhead was after him, but he didn’t come straight through; he pumped a few rounds into the aisle with his L22, pinning the crowd down long enough for DC to get through. Sophia aimed her pistol over the fence, squinted through the wind that tore across the motel, and fired a single round in the direction of the pursuers, giving Chickenhead a chance to escape.

  ‘Anyone injured?’ she asked.

  Everyone checked themselves. With the adrenaline rushing through them, even a severe gunshot wound could go unnoticed. They were all soaked from the rain, their clothes rippling in the wind.

  Denton was growing impatient. ‘Let’s go,’ he yelled.

  ‘That was close,’ Chickenhead said, checking his magazine.

  ‘How’s your mag?’ DC said.

  ‘Almost half,’ he said.

  ‘Burn the bitch!’ someone shouted from the other side of the fence.

  Sophia peered through the gap. People were pouring out of the motel’s center aisle, heading straight for them. From the edges of the motel more of the mob moved toward them, improvised weapons in hand. The hurricane wasn’t slowing them down.

  ‘Go!’ Sophia shouted. ‘Go, go!’

  Denton didn’t need any further encouragement. He took off toward the factory. DC was gripping their last smoke grenade. He kneeled down and Sophia sheltered him while he took her zippo and tried to light it. Chickenhead ran after Denton while Nasira lingered.

  ‘For fuck’s sake! There’s no time!’ she yelled.

  Sophia ignored her. Without the smoke grenade, they wouldn’t make it far. Rain smashed into her back. She held the zippo under her soaked T-shirt while DC held the grenade under his shirt. Sophia lit the flame but it disappeared almost instantly. She tried again and managed to get it to the fuse, but it didn’t take. The wind slipped through and snuffed the flame. She tried again. Nasira raised her pistol past Sophia and fired another round.

  ‘Almost,’ Sophia yelled over the wind.

  She could hear the yelling and footsteps closing behind them. Nasira fired another round. Her P229 locked to the rear.

  ‘Yeah, so that’s all I’ve got,’ Nasira said.

  ‘Come on,’ Sophia muttered. She struck the flint on her zippo again and brought the flame over the fuse. She held it there a moment and it caught. With the zippo still lit, she carefully moved it away from the fuse. The fuse started to burn. Once it reached the inside of the grenade, Sophia could hear the crackle as Nasira’s mixture started to ignite.

  ‘Drop it!’ she yelled at DC. ‘Go!’

  He let the grenade drop at her feet, smoking pouring from it. Someone moved to the gap in the fence behind them. Sophia turned and snapped her boot into the man’s head with her good foot. The pressure on her weak foot almost made her collapse. The man tumbled back into the gap, blocking the way for everyone else.

  Nasira was running toward the factory. Sophia broke into a sprint, DC taking her arm over his shoulder. With the rain and the wind, she could hardly see a thing. They followed Nasira, who circumvented the factory and headed for a chain-link fence further ahead. Denton and Chickenhead were already climbing it. The building on the other side was four stories high, and as Sophia and DC stumbled closer she noticed it was abandoned.

  Once they hit the fence, Sophia used her upper body strength and her good leg to climb, leaving DC to climb on his own. Her lungs burned and her newly healed arm was screaming in protest. She reached the top and hurled herself over, then ran with DC to the left side of the building, following Nasira in through a door that Denton had breached, the door jamb splintered. Sophia searched for something to barricade the door with but the entire ground floor was bare.

  She could hear the echoes of Denton’s footsteps as he climbed the stairs. She was soaked and exhausted but forced herself up the steps, DC behind her in case she fell. Her breathing was still fast and her ankle was on fire. She had to lean on the blistered wall as she made her way to the topmost level.

  Denton was standing in the corner of the building, peering out a window at the chaos below.

  ‘Here they come,’ he said, taking his pistol into both hands.

  Sophia looked out and saw a surge of people moving around the abandoned factory.

  Chickenhead was on one knee at the top of the stairs, carbine aimed down them. He was tired too, one shoulder propped against the wall. DC and Nasira lingered on the top floor, pistols in hand but not quite sure what to do with them.

  ‘We’re sitting ducks,’ DC said. ‘And I’m almost out of rounds.’

  ‘Join the club,’ Nasira said.

  ‘We’re all running low, so if you have any better options, I’d love to hear them,’ Denton said.

  Sophia shushed them. She leaned further out of the window, putting weight on her good leg. The crowd dispersed, moving past the building. She listened for the door downstairs but heard nothing. Even the rain and wind had died down. So much for the hurricane.

  ‘Chickenhead, any movement?’ she said.

  He was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Nothing. Are they here yet?’

  Sophia leaned away from the window and exhaled slowly. ‘They’re gone.’

  She relaxed her wet pistol grip and lowered herself to the dirty floor. Her ankle could rest now. Nasira joined her on the floor, face turned to the ceiling, her eyes closed. DC crouched against a wall, staring at a patch of cracked concrete between his feet.

  ‘Well, that was quite a party, ladies and gentlemen,’ Denton said, ‘but we really must be moving along now.’

  ‘We’re not going anywhere,’ Sophia said.

  Denton turned on his heel. He looked unsurprised at her reaction but handed her his phone. On it she could see a news feed of regional news. Among them, a news story that ran just thirty-four minutes ago.

  CIA: Cyberattack caused multi-city blackout.

  Sophia shook her head as she read through the article. Alaska, New York and Nevada were mentioned. It was probably too soon for Miami to be picked up and included, or perhaps the hurricane would be blamed for that.

  She handed the phone back. ‘Fine, until people realize all their electronics are permanently fried.’

  ‘They’ll likely change the story to a terrorist attack,’ Denton said.

  ‘At least this time when they blame me, they’ll be telling the truth for once,’ Sophia said.

  ‘All the EMPs were successful,’ Denton said. ‘You know I’m telling the truth now.’

  ‘For now.’

  ‘Look, this super-array isn’t just a single transmitter,’ he said. ‘It’s an entire array of transmitters. Ei
ghty by sixty miles, right alongside Denver International.’

  ‘An airport?’

  ‘Parked next door to Cecilia’s home address. The Fifth Column OpCenter.’

  ‘The OpCenter’s under an airport?’ DC said. ‘I never would’ve guessed that.’

  ‘I wasn’t even sure it was real,’ Nasira said. ‘Until now.’

  A chill worked up Sophia’s spine, dispersing across her arms and legs. She checked her watch. ‘We suspect the Seraphim launch time to be in twenty-five hours. That’s not for the backup transmitters at all, is it?’

  ‘No,’ Denton said. ‘They’ve been active for some time now. At least, until you fried them.’ His face creased with concern. ‘The super-array, on the other hand, draws too much power. The transmitter’s power station is being brought online as we speak. I imagine we just saw a test run at low capacity.’

  ‘Low capacity?’ Nasira said. ‘Motherfucker.’

  Sophia shivered at the thought of full capacity. If Denton was to be believed, Cecilia’s fancy launch day and Schlosser’s supposed deadline—which, it seemed, were one and the same—was not for the transmitters at all. It was for the super-array in Denver.

  ‘Why do you want it stopped?’ she asked Denton.

  She needed to know his angle, his agenda. Even his surface agenda could reveal his hidden one.

  ‘I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news,’ Denton said, his smile flashing teeth, ‘but I’m kind of a hero now.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ Nasira said.

  Sophia held her hand up to hush her.

  ‘Once the super-array powers up, everyone in this country will want my blood,’ Denton said. ‘Because they’ll be persuaded to.’

  ‘That won’t be hard,’ Nasira said.

  Denton’s gaze shifted between her, Sophia and the others. ‘And yours too,’ he said.

  ‘You seem quite sure of this,’ DC said, stepping forward.

  ‘There is no stopping it,’ Denton said. ‘This is happening.’

  Denton’s heart might as well be liquid-cooled, but Sophia could see he was scared. He needed her. And she needed him.