Brainrush 03 - Beyond Judgment

by Bard, Richard

  Francesca cringed at the efficient ferocity of the attack. She sat at the boardroom table with Lacey and Ahmed. Kenny and Timmy had worked together to coordinate the hijacking. They sat back and shared a collective sigh.

  “Wow,” Timmy said. “They’re good.”

  “Some of the best,” Kenny said. “They have to go through hell to earn those berets.”

  Ahmed said, “They killed that guy, didn’t they?”

  Francesca cringed. She hated that Ahmed had watched that. She placed her hand on his.

  He twitched but didn’t pull away. Instead, he returned her concerned gaze with an expression of calm determination. “I’m okay,” he said, patting her hand. “Truly, I am.”

  She searched his emotions and knew that he was.

  “Yes!” Marshall suddenly shouted behind them. He punched both fists overhead, standing up so fast that his chair toppled behind him. Then he jabbed his index finger at his computer screen like a boxer taunting a felled opponent. “I own you!”

  Lacey rose and made her way behind him.

  “Yeah, you think you’re all that,” he shouted at the computer.

  She gently removed his earbuds.

  He didn’t seem to notice. He remained focused on his screen. “But you ain’t nothin’!”

  Lacey slowly positioned herself in front of him. She laced her hands around his neck.

  Marshall leaned to one side in order to maintain eye contact with the flashing icon. “Who’s the man?” he said, sticking out his chest.

  Lacey lifted to her toes and leaned forward.

  “I own you! You’re my b—”

  Her lips covered his. There was a moment of wide-eyed shock. Marshall blinked several times. Then his shoulders sagged. His arms embraced her and he closed his eyes.

  They kissed.

  Even though Francesca recognized their behavior as a learned ritual, she was transfixed. So were the guys.

  After several moments, Lacey pulled away. “Better?” she asked.

  Marshall grinned. “Oh, yeah.” He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into a passionate full-on kiss. Lacey melted into it. When he pulled back, he said, “Much better.”

  He took in the rest of the room, and his face flushed at the gawking stares from Kenny, Timmy, and Ahmed. But any embarrassment he may have felt was washed away by his eagerness to share the news.

  “Dudes!” he said, spinning around his screen so everyone could see it. The window in the center of the screen read ACCESS GRANTED. “We now have one hundred percent control of the outgoing signal to the grid. Let’s put together a message of our own, and then we’ll hit ’em broadside!”

  “A message of our own?” Francesca asked.

  “Yes,” Ahmed said, stepping forward and pulling out his smartphone. He turned it on, tapped an icon, and held the screen so the others could see. “Like these.”

  Everyone moved closer to get a better look. It was a video of a large African tribe—men, women, and children, eyes glistening, joined in song, their faces to the sky as they appealed to the matrix of light overhead. Ahmed tapped the screen to reveal a similar scene taking place in what Francesca recognized as Piazza San Pietro in Vatican City. Ahmed swept through several more. It was the same the world over, the videos live-streaming to the Internet from smartphones. They depicted what Francesca held to be the true nature of mankind—the loving heart and soul of humanity.

  “Right on,” Timmy said. “That’s exactly what we need.”

  “What better way to show them who we really are?” Lacey said.

  Marshall was scratching his chin, deep in thought. After a moment he said, “We need more than a message—we need a movement. Each of those streams is coming from a different website.” He edged closer to the phone and pointed to a hit-counter on the current video. “This one hasn’t even collected half a million hits yet. We need something that will capture billions of hits in a few hours. The world’s attention needs to be focused on these scenes.” He pointed at the countdown monitor on the wall depicting man’s violent history. “Instead of those!”

  Timmy leaned forward, his palms on the table. “We’d need access to a massive base of web servers to handle the load.”

  “I’ve got a few friends who could help us with that,” Kenny said.

  “Me, too,” Timmy added.

  “Oh, yeah,” Marshall said, a grin spreading on his face. “If we could get the hackers of the world united in a common cause, we could spread the message faster than wildfire in a windstorm.”

  As the significance of the news—and the plan—began to settle in, Francesca turned to see the sergeant major stride in. He’d led the hijack team and had apparently returned in the helicopter. He didn’t stop until he stood in front of her. He clasped a small plastic baggie at his side. It held three bloody capsules that she recognized as RFID implants. She stiffened as she realized that they must have been carved from the skin of the three passengers on the cruiser.

  The Aussie’s uniform was wet. His lips were tight. He looked from Ahmed to Lacey to her, as if sizing each of them up. Finally, his gaze settled on Francesca.

  He said, “So, I understand you come from a boating family.”

  Chapter 68

  Grid Countdown: 1h:50m:30s

  The Island

  5:41 a.m.

  THE WATER WAS cool. It felt good. Jake swam across the center of the pool toward the wall on the left edge of the falls. An undertow tugged at his legs. He pulled through it with strong strokes, grabbing a clump of dangling vines when he made the far wall. The roar of the falls was deafening. Mist and spray blurred his vision. The gap between the raging water and the sheer rock wall was less than eighteen inches wide. The rock glistened with algae, making it difficult to gain a handhold. A fingerhold here and there was the best he could manage as he edged his way behind the frothy curtain of water. He moved slowly, blinking constantly to clear his vision as he looked for signs of a tunnel or pathway. The falls tugged at his back, the plunging water pulling his feet outward like a rip current. His fingers trembled as he inched along the wall. Any slip and he’d be pummeled by thousands of tons of force. Bones would shatter.

  He kept moving.

  The strain he felt in his hands and forearms was severe, but it was also invigorating. He was alive. He was making a difference. He may have lost what others might have referred to as his superpowers, but he still had a few wild cards up his sleeve. For one, his brain and body worked in concert unlike ever before. It was more than simple eye-hand coordination. It felt as if his previously supercharged reflexes had left an imprint on his system. Like muscle memory. He wasn’t superfast any longer, but he was still quick. And exacting. His body reacted to his environment instinctively.

  The falls thinned, and he was out the other side.

  There was no hidden passage.

  His spirits fell.

  He was halfway back to shore when the underwater current suddenly surged. It tugged him backward toward the center of the pool. He kicked hard and pulled toward the shore, but the current wouldn’t let go. Jake fought back a wave of panic as it drew him backward with increasing speed. The agitated water spiraled in a widening whirlpool—as if someone had pulled a plug down below. When he realized the force was too strong to resist, he turned and swam with it, accelerating into the widening funnel. Centrifugal force was his only way out. So he lurched toward the center of the vortex, accelerated, and jackknifed up the other side.

  But it wasn’t enough—he wasn’t going to make the outermost lip, and the widening funnel began to suck him backward. That’s when he saw the rope unravel onto the water. He grabbed hold with a death grip, and his body twisted and spun like a lure on the end of a fishing line.

  “Hang on!” Tony yelled, reeling him in hand over hand.

  When Jake’s knees scraped sand, Becker and one of his operators helped him up.

  “You California boys are all the same,” Becker said. “Always looking for that next wave.”


  Jake spit water. “I guess I found a way in.”

  “Yeah,” Tony said. “Into a toilet, maybe.”

  “Either way,” Jake said, “that’s gotta be man-made. It’s the first sign that there’s more going on here than meets the eye. We’re going to need scuba gear.”

  “Right,” Becker said, motioning to the operator who’d helped pull Jake out of the water. “Jonesy, prep up for a look-see.”

  “Sir,” the operator said. He was in his early twenties, leaner than the rest of the team, with sinewy features that hinted at a man built for speed. He unhitched his backpack and began removing gear.

  Becker pressed the selector switch on his wrist display to issue a command to the drone. But his mouth froze half open. “Dammit,” he grumbled, pulling out a waterproof placard from a cargo pocket. It was the cheat sheet Timmy had given him for controlling Mother Ship. He ran his finger down the list of commands, nodding when he found what he wanted. He spoke into his boom mike. “Record message.”

  “Recording,” a sultry female responded.

  Jake chuckled at Timmy’s selection for the drone’s voice.

  “We’ve located an underwater entrance,” Becker said into his headset. “Request immediate aerial drop of scuba gear for teams one and two. Launch backup teams three and four to our location. End recording.”

  “End recording.”

  Referring to the placard, Becker added, “Copy to Homer One.”

  “Copied to Homer One.”

  “Launch Homer One.”

  Jake followed Becker’s gaze overhead. The sky shimmered, and the surveillance drone was suddenly visible. A wedge opened in the mesh umbrella above it, and an object flew out. The mesh closed, a quick shimmer, and Mother Ship vanished.

  “Homer One launched.”

  The minidrone looked like an angry hornet. It moved just as fast, buzzing past Jake and disappearing over the jungle canopy. The image on his own wrist screen zoomed out as Mother Ship rose to an altitude that allowed it to take in the departing tracks of its offspring.

  “It’s headed for the ship,” Becker explained. “As soon as it clears the energy field that’s messing up our comm, it’ll transmit the message.”

  Behind them, the whirlpool had vanished as quickly as it had formed. Jonesy had stripped to his T-shirt. One of the pockets of his cargo pants bulged. He wore fins and a face mask. Wires dangled from his headset to the waterproof cummerbund housing his battery pack and transmitter. He wouldn’t be able to transmit while holding his breath. But he could still listen over the comm net. He carried a flashlight. A climbing rope was looped around his waist. Tony held the other end.

  “Off you go, lad,” Becker ordered.

  The operator dove into the pool. Two kicks of his fins and he was out of sight. The minicam in his face mask allowed them to watch his progress on their wrist screens. He hugged the edge of the pool, diving to its depths. The flashlight panned left and right, the powerful beam reflecting off thousands of bits of agitated particulate matter twisting and swirling within an underwater tornado. The above-surface whirlpool had temporarily vanished, but the underlying current that had caused it was still flowing with full force. Jonesy’s fins were suddenly visible on the video. He was sinking in a seated position, kicking steadily to prevent being pulled into the flow. Tony kept a steady tension on the rope wrapped around the operator’s waist.

  Visibility was limited to seven or eight feet. When Jonesy reached the bottom, it was apparent that the current was no longer tugging at him. The flashlight stopped panning. He’d spotted something. He moved toward it, and a metallic column came into view. It resembled a ship’s smokestack, projecting seven or eight feet from the bottom of the pool. The funnel appeared wide enough to pass a car through. Jonesy hugged the bottom as he approached. He slid slowly up the stack. Handholds along the upper perimeter allowed him to keep from being sucked in. He peered over the top. The opening was covered with a mesh grate. Water rushed through it.

  Jake ground his teeth. It figures, he thought. A tunnel. Filled with water. Pitch black. And his kids were somewhere at the other end. A claustrophobic’s nightmare come true. He suppressed a shiver.

  “Rig it,” Becker ordered.

  Jake watched as the operator opened his cargo pocket and pulled out the first C-4 demo-charge. He’d been under for fifty-seven seconds—Jake had kept track. He watched with admiration as Jonesy calmly placed a charge at each of four connecting points around the grate. Red warning lights illuminated on each as he armed them. When the last charge was set, he turned and made for the surface. Tony kept tension on the line. By the time Jonesy’s head broke clear, the total elapsed time was two minutes and twenty-four seconds.

  “The guy’s a fish,” Tony said.

  No kidding, Jake thought. He remembered back to his days of holding his breath underwater longer than the other kids in the pool. He doubted that he’d ever gone longer than ninety seconds.

  Jonesy removed his mask and fins and stepped out of the water. “All set, sir,” he reported, pulling the remote detonator from his pack.

  “Let her rip.”

  “Fire in the hole!” the operator said. He pressed the switch.

  Jake heard a soft rumble. A moment later, a surge of bubbles disturbed the surface of the water.

  “Back door’s open,” Tony said.

  Cal’s voice broke over the comm net. “Raider One, this is Rogue Two-Four. How do you read?”

  “That was fast,” Tony said.

  Way to go, pal, Jake thought, grinning at Cal’s choice for his call sign. It was a reflection of both his personality and his love for surfing the biggest rogue waves he could find.

  “Loud and clear, Rogue,” Becker said. “Welcome to the party.”

  “It ain’t a party until the gifts arrive. And I’ve got a pile of ’em. I’m feet dry. Two clicks out.”

  Jake wondered at the clarity of Cal’s transmission—and the fact that he couldn’t hear the distinctive thrum of the helicopter’s rotors. He said, “You’re riding pretty quiet up there, Rogue.”

  “Our mutual pal calls it silk mode.”

  Jake knew he was speaking about Kenny. They never used names on the air. The stealth chopper was another one of Kenny’s toys.

  “Rogue Two-Four,” Becker said, bringing the conversation to the business at hand. He pressed a designator on his wristband. “Sync to network Charlie Alpha Four.”

  “Roger, Charlie Alpha Four.”

  A flashing icon appeared on the perimeter of Jake’s wrist screen. It was designated R24. Cal was now linked into their digital command network. His HUD—heads-up display—would provide him with the same images as those available on their wrist screens.

  “Tallyho, Raider One,” Cal said. “I’m ninety seconds out.”

  “There’s not enough clearance to land, Rogue Two-Four,” Becker said. “You’ll have to winch it down.”

  “Copy, Raid—” Cal cut off and said, “Stand by, One. I’ve got activity.” His voice was urgent.

  “Movement on our flank!” one of the scouts reported over the comm net. “Ground force. Multiple targets. Danger close.”

  “Shit,” Tony said, pulling his M4 to the ready position. He sprinted toward the trees. Jake and Becker were right behind him. Jonesy scooped up his SR-25 sniper rifle and made for higher ground.

  “Mother,” Becker ordered. “Scout rear. Two hundred meters.”

  “Where the hell did they all come from?” Tony said, looking at his wrist screen.

  Two dozen hostile-designated icons fanned out behind their position.

  “Gotta be a trap door in the jungle floor,” Becker said. “We must have triggered a sensor.”

  “Standing off, Raider One,” Becker said. “This bird’s got no teeth.”

  “Get small,” Becker ordered on the comm net. To Jake and Tony he added, “Problem is that the chopper is strictly recon. It isn’t a gunship. Ground fire would eat him alive. And it’s loaded with A
qua-Lungs, not reinforce—”

  Gunfire erupted in the distance. All three men dove for cover.

  “Weapons free!” Becker ordered, scrambling behind the base of a coconut tree. “Set claymores. Fall back to the secondary perimeter.” Then he pressed the drone command switch and said, “Record message.”

  “Recording.”

  “Emergency transmission. Under attack. Ground assault. Execute tactical plan Delta. End recording.” He issued the launch commands.

  More gunfire.

  “Activate defensive systems,” Becker added.

  Mother Ship’s voice remained sultry. “Defensive systems activated. Twenty-one ground targets acquired.”

  The sharp crack of the first exploding claymore popped Jake’s eardrums. A plume of white smoke broke the canopy less than one hundred meters ahead.

  Gunfire resounded from within the trees. The buzz of a ricocheted bullet spun past the trio, and Jake ducked lower.

  “Thirty-eight ground targets acquired.”

  “Jesus,” Tony said, kneeling behind the next tree. “They’re popping out of the ground faster than rats from a flooding sewer.”

  Mother Ship switched to tactical support mode. It rose in altitude and superimposed an electronic grid on Jake’s wrist display. Friend and foe were identified with glowing green and red icons. Jake’s stomach tightened as he watched the scene unfold. The six outlying team members blitzed inward to form a defensive perimeter near the edge of the small clearing. Enemy icons closed in on them from three sides. Tactical plan Delta called for an orderly retreat that was dependent on backup support from teams three and four. But by the time they arrived, Jake and the rest of them would be overwhelmed. He’d never find his children. Victor would win.

  No way.

  Movement to his right caught his attention. The surface whirlpool was visible again.

  A second claymore went off. More rounds buzzed overhead.

  Jake ignored it all—including Tony’s shout of dismay when Jake took off in a sprint toward the water.