Forging the Nightmare

by J. J. Carlson

  Wagner flushed red and turned his attention back to his tablet, doing his best to ignore Emily’s gaze. He pulled his secure phone out of his pocket, looked at it, then put it back. He looked at his watch, then the clock on the wall, then his tablet. He pulled his phone back out and set it on the table.

  Emily relished in his discomfort. She propped her chin up on her elbows and smiled as he took of his glasses and started to clean them.

  When his phone started to vibrate, he dropped his glasses and snatched it up. “Yes? Mmm-hmm…I see. And you’re certain about this? Of course I would like to see the files.”

  Wagner set his phone down. “You may go,” he said quietly.

  “What’s that?” Emily asked in an exaggerated southern accent. “I could hardly hear what you said.”

  Wagner grit his teeth. “That will be all, thank you Doctor Roberts.”

  Emily stood up and sashayed past him. “I’d love to stay, but I’m all tuckered out. Y’all have a good night, alright.”

  Jarrod had not gone far from the abandoned factory. He stopped in an alleyway no more than eight blocks away, and Sparrow circled overhead, watching him with an infrared camera. On the ground, four SUVs sped toward him.

  Daron contacted the helicopter. “Sparrow, can you describe the target’s location and activity?”

  “Roger, lead. Target is stationary in an alley. There are three ways into the alley, one north, one south, and one east. The target appears to be naked and crouched down next to a dumpster.”

  “Copy, Sparrow.” Daron took a moment to process a plan, then addressed the convoy. “Vehicle One, I want you to stage at the north entrance. Vehicle Three, I want you to the south. Vehicle Four will accompany me to the east entrance, and we will approach on foot. Keep your headlights off until you get my command.”

  “Vehicle One copies.”

  “Vehicle Two, copy.”

  “Vehicle Four copies.”

  “I’ll be accompanying the ground team. I want Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta with me in a modified wedge formation, three-meter spacing.”

  “Ground team copies,” Alpha responded.

  Daron glanced at the tracker. “We’re almost there. Move into position.”

  At his command, Vehicle One sped away, moving north. Vehicle Three turned down a side street, and Vehicle Four moved in close behind Daron.

  “This is it,” Daron said to his driver. “Stop here.”

  The two vehicles slid to a halt at the east entrance to the alley. Daron clambered out of his SUV, and four of his team members moved into position around him, creating a precise formation. They moved forward as one unit and as quiet as ghosts.

  “Tracker shows the target is still stationary at the end of the alley,” Charlie whispered.

  Daron could see the dumpster at the intersection of the alleyways. They were perhaps forty yards away. They moved on until Daron held up a fist, signaling for the team to stop. He could hear gasps at the end of the alley.

  Daron keyed his radio and whispered, “Lights.”

  Two sets of headlights illuminated the alley. Jarrod was hunched over, feeling his way along a brick wall and apparently oblivious to the sudden brightness. Aside from the metal bands around his chest, he was completely naked.

  Daron signaled for the team to move forward. They could hear Jarrod calling out in desperation.

  “Melody? Where are you? I don’t know where I am…I can’t see. Something’s wrong, I’m blind and I can’t find Joshua anywhere. Melody, baby, where are you?”

  Daron felt a sting of sympathy, but cautioned himself that it might be a ruse. He signaled for his men to stop at the mouth of the intersection, and four TASERS pointed at Jarrod’s vulnerable form.

  “Who is that?” Jarrod called out. “Please, you have to help me. I can’t find my son.”

  “It’s me,” Daron said, offering only his voice as clarification.

  “Daron? What’s happening? Where am I?” Jarrod kept one hand on the brick wall and stood up.

  Daron spoke in a high, soothing voice, as if addressing a child. “It’s complicated, but everything is going to be alright. We are going to take care of you.”

  Jarrod sniffled and reached a hand toward the sound of Daron’s voice. “But…where are Joshua and Melody?”

  Daron hesitated. “They’re fine. I can take you to see them.”

  Jarrod quickly withdrew his hand. “No. You’re lying.” Panic entered his voice. “Why would you lie about that? Are they okay? What happened to them?”

  “Jarrod, it’s alright. Everything is fine.”

  Jarrod shook his head frantically. “Stop lying!” He backed against the wall and the black armor started pouring out from the bands on his chest, covering his abdomen.

  “Drop him,” Daron ordered. Four gel projectiles hit Jarrod in the chest, each bearing metal pins that delivered a powerful shock. Electricity surged through his body, and he arched over backwards, then fell to the ground.

  Alpha, Bravo, and Delta kept their weapons aimed at Jarrod while Charlie ran forward. He put a boot into Jarrod’s cheek, pinning his head to the ground. With one hand, he grabbed Jarrod’s wrist. With the other, he retrieved a set of heavy shackles from his belt. Lifting his boot, he pushed on Jarrod’s shoulder to roll him onto his chest. Before he could shackle the other hand, Charlie felt a shooting pain in his wrist and butterflies in his stomach.

  In a flash of movement, Jarrod rolled back over and pulled Charlie down. A black arm snaked around Charlie’s back and Jarrod jumped to his feet, bear-hugging his prey. The black liquid oozed over Jarrod’s body until it covered him from head to toe. He stood with his back to the wall, using Charlie as a human shield.

  “Stand, back!” Jarrod growled. His voice had dropped an octave and was dripping with hostility. “Stand back or I will crush his spine!”

  Charlie struggled uselessly against Jarrod’s immense strength. Alpha shot a sideways glance at Daron, who nodded almost imperceptibly. Alpha took the shot.

  Another gel projectile hit Jarrod on the left side of his face. There was a rattling noise and visible sparks. Charlie shook in Jarrod’s arms, then slumped unconscious. Jarrod remained standing, his featureless visage betraying no pain. “

  You are mistaken to challenge my resolve.” Jarrod’s voice was low, and dripping with venom. He flexed his arms slightly, and there was a popping noise as Charlie’s ribs began to crack.

  “Alright!” Daron shouted. “Just… take it easy. Don’t do anything you’re going to regret.”

  Jarrod’s face turned toward Daron. “If you do not back up right now, I will kill him and every one of your men. Then you will know the meaning of regret.”

  Alpha, Bravo, and Delta stood fast, but Daron motioned for them to back up. Keeping their weapons high, they retreated into the eastern alley.

  Jarrod walked Charlie toward the northern alley and said, “If I see anything come around this corner, I will break your friend in half.”

  Daron and his team held their breath as Jarrod disappeared from sight. The tense moment lasted only a few seconds, then a peal of gunfire split the night air.

  Daron hit his radio. “What happened?”

  Vehicle One’s driver responded immediately. “He’s gone. He dropped somebody in the alley and took off running. He jumped clear over our truck and we tried to take him down. We must’ve missed, because I don’t see him.”

  Bravo sprinted around the corner and put a hand on Charlie’s throat, then said, “He’s alive.”

  “Get the backboard,” Daron ordered. “We’ll have him evac’d to the nearest hospital.”

  Daron set his teeth and looked at Alpha. “Get anyone who isn’t needed for treatment and evac loaded up. I’m done playing games. We’re going to follow that son of a bitch and take him down.”

  22

  The world was bathed in pre-dawn twilight as Jarrod nosed a four-cylinder sedan onto I-81. Despite the earliness the hour, there had been steady traffic a
ll the way through the D.C. greater metropolitan area. Heading south, traffic had greatly diminished. Jarrod could hear the beat of a helicopter behind him, perhaps a mile away. He could not see any signs of vehicles pursuing him on the road, but he knew they were no more than a few minutes behind.

  It had been easy to steal his escape car, which had woefully inadequate anti-theft measures. His chosen mode of transportation was nearly fifteen years old, rusty, and slow. Still, it had excellent gas mileage and was all but invisible to law enforcement.

  Jarrod peered into his rear-view mirror. In truth, local and state police were the least of his concern. It was Hillcrest’s bristling private security force that posed the real threat. He knew they would not hesitate to act outside of the law, and would use any means necessary to bring him in or put him down.

  Despite his physical and cognitive prowess for combat, Jarrod had an obvious weakness, and he would never be safe until this weakness was removed.

  A few minutes passed before he found what he was looking for. Three miles to the west, a mountain ridge jutted from the landscape like the bit of an axe. Jarrod eased onto an exit ramp and pressed the accelerator. The engine whined as he blew through intersection after intersection, ignoring stop signs and traffic lights. He grabbed the hand brake and pulled it, sliding off pavement onto gravel and dirt.

  The poorly maintained road led closer to the base of the steep ridgeline. Jarrod leaned forward to look out the windshield. When he neared a steep hillside, he hit the brakes and brought the car to a shuddering halt. Jarrod grabbed a small box from the seat next to him, a tracking device that he had torn from the guard that tried to handcuff him. Jarrod leapt out of the car, leaving it in gear. It continued to roll down the gravel road as he started to ascend the hill.

  All he needed was five minutes alone…

  “Vehicle one, pull off here.”

  Daron watched the lead SUV pull to the side of the paved road and stop. The gravel turnoff was visible straight ahead. Daron switched his radio to the air-to-ground frequency. “Sparrow, what is the target’s position?”

  “Target is moving up a steep slope adjacent to the road, one mile north of your position.”

  “Can we get a truck above him on the ridge?”

  “Affirmative, there is an access road that leads to the top.”

  “Copy, sparrow. We’ll have two vehicles moving up the ridge and two staging below.” Daron switched his radio to address the convoy. “Vehicles One and Three, move down the road until you are beneath the target. Vehicle Four, follow us up the hill.”

  “Vic One copies.”

  “Three Copies.”

  “Four Copies.”

  Vehicle One turned right onto the dirt road, and Vehicle Three sped past to follow. As soon as the two SUVs had turned off, Daron’s driver punched the accelerator.

  In the rear of the vehicle, Daron took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “You know,” he said to his driver. “I almost thought we saw the real Jarrod for a minute there. I thought we were done, that we were gonna bring him in and be done with it. Even after he split, I wondered if maybe he was just trying to protect himself.”

  The driver nodded, but didn’t speak.

  “It was a mistake,” Daron continued, “He set a trap, and used my sympathy to his advantage. Now he’s got one of our trackers. I don’t know why he would corner himself like this, unless he’s counting on us to try and capture him again. If he is, then we have the advantage. I’m not holding back this time.”

  The pair of SUVs rolled onto a paved access road meant for service vehicles to reach a cell tower at the top of the ridge. The engines roared as they climbed the switchbacks.

  Daron’s headset crackled. “Lead, this is Vic One. We are in position at the base of the ridge.”

  “Copy, Vehicle One. Deploy Remote Weapon Systems and use infrared. If you see him, don’t hesitate to engage. We’ll let you know when we get to the top so you can check your fire.”

  “Roger, lead.”

  Daron’s face turned grim. He punched over to address the helicopter buzzing overhead. “Sparrow, do you have a visual on the target?”

  “No joy. Scanners indicate the target is stationary about two-hundred feet from the top of the ridge, but we do not have visual.”

  Jarrod settled into a dense copse of junipers on the near-vertical slope. Using his hand to dig into the hillside, he made a depression just big enough to fit his body. Then he grabbed rocks and lined the outside of the makeshift foxhole. He hoped the hasty barrier would conceal his heat signature from below, and he was almost certain the junipers would hide him from the helicopter.

  Two vehicles parked at the base of the ridge, and Jarrod assumed they were heavily armed. Staying low, he activated the hand-held tracking device. A small, black bar appeared on its display. As the tracker oriented itself to the isotopes in Jarrod’s leg, the black bar filled the width of the display, indicating its target was very close. Jarrod lifted it above his head, and a single white line appeared in the center. When he set the tracker on the ground, there were two white lines through the middle of the black bar.

  A wide black bar means close, one white line means below, two white lines mean above.

  Jarrod moved the tracker all around his body, trying to find the source the signal he was giving off. The device seemed to be homing in on his right calf. With a thought, Jarrod pulled the black armor away from his lower leg. There was no evidence of an implant or injection of any kind.

  Whatever it is, it must be subdermal, Jarrod thought. Anything painted on the outer layer of skin would wear off over time.

  The semi-liquid armor on Jarrod’s hand started to move, first coagulating into a lump on his thumb, then sharpening to a razor’s edge. Without hesitation, he dug the razor into his calf and cut downward. Blood poured from the cut, soaking his lower leg and pooling on the ground. He removed a six-inch strip of flesh, placed it on a rock, and held up the tracker. The directional bar spun wildly, focusing on his leg then swinging back toward the strip of flesh.

  With no time to lose, Jarrod sharpened his other thumb into a razor and continued his field-expedient surgery.

  Daron’s vehicle closed in on the crest of the ridge. “Hold up a second,” he told his driver. The vehicle slowed to a halt on the steep slope, and Daron keyed his radio.

  “Sparrow, any visual yet?”

  “Negative. It looks like he concealed himself in a clump of evergreen trees.”

  “Vehicle One, do you know the trees he’s talking about?”

  “Yes sir. I can see them.”

  “Still no sign of a heat signature?”

  “Negative. No heat signature.”

  Daron addressed the air and ground assets together. “We are going to do a reverse-fire mission. I want Vehicle One to take a shot at the trees. Sparrow, you watch for the tracers and the impact. If you can confirm it’s the same trees you’re tracking, we’ll open up on them.”

  “Sparrow copies.”

  “Vehicle One copies, stand by.”

  Daron typed a command on his keyboard, and the feed from Vehicle One’s Remote Weapon System lit up his central monitor. The crosshairs were held steady on a group of dense trees. Tracers flashed across the screen, streaking toward the hillside. Hundreds of high-velocity 7.62 millimeter rounds tore into the trees, and the air thundered with a brief brrrt!

  Sparrow’s response was immediate and decisive. “On target, fire for effect.”

  A bright yellow stream of rounds poured from the minigun in the back of Vehicle One, and a deep thumping resounded from Vehicle Three’s .50 caliber machine gun. Daron watched the trees splinter, tear, and explode under the biting hail.

  “Alright, cease fire,” he ordered. “Weapons down, we are moving downrange for casualty confirmation.”

  “Copy, weapons down.”

  Daron’s vehicle lurched up the hill. The tracker was still displaying Jarrod’s position, so the driver eased to a stop directly above t
he now-mangled Juniper trees. Vehicle Four pulled up beside Daron’s truck, then backed toward the guard rails on the edge of the road. Alpha and Bravo jumped out, each carrying large bundles of rope. They laid the neat coils on the ground and fed one end into an electric belay system on the back of the SUV. They then tied the free ends of the ropes into the back of each other’s harnesses.

  With a nod, they mounted the guard rail and began to walk face-first down the side of the cliff, controlling the speed of their decent with a button on the side of their rifles. This allowed them to keep their weapons directed toward their target the entire time. They took wide strides down the hillside, moving left and right to avoid shrubs and small trees.

  Daron watched the infrared feed from Alpha’s helmet camera, and the visible-light feed from Bravo’s.

  “One-hundred feet to target,” Alpha breathed into his mic.

  Daron leaned close to the monitor, his eyes dancing around the screen. He keyed up his radio. “Be careful, this guy could probably write a book on tactical concealment.”

  “Sixty feet to target.”

  No movement was visible on the cameras. The infrared feed showed a broad, diffuse area of warmer temperatures where the guns had pummeled the hillside, but no distinct heat source that would indicate a warm body. Alpha and Bravo’s rate of descent slowed.

  “Twenty feet to target…fifteen…”

  Bravo stopped short, covering Alpha’s movement. Alpha descended to a protruding embankment, level with Jarrod’s destroyed hide-site. Taking extra slack from the electronic belay device, he stood upright on the steep slope.

  Daron watched as Alpha took one step toward the foxhole, then another, his rifle sweeping back and forth with sharp, precise movements. Another step and he was on the edge of the shallow burrow.

  “Lead, this is Alpha. I’ve got nothing here.”

  Daron squinted at the infrared feed. A small area of orange stood out from a sea of green. Daron punched up his radio. “Something is giving off heat on the far side of the hide site, looks like it’s partially buried.”