Thermals

by Evan Currie

  “Damn it, Gwen, I can’t let him release that virus,” Anselm told her firmly. “There’s no choice.”

  “Suicide isn’t a choice, Anselm, it’s a stupidity. Now stop thinking with your little head and try contributing something to the solution!”

  “Damn it, Inspector, I’m not talking about going out with guns blazing!” He snapped back, “But I’m going to need more than my automatic no matter what we decide!”

  “We need help,” She told him flatly, rising to her feet.

  “Fine, I’ll just wave my hands and say presto!” He told her sarcastically, “Instant help.”

  A slow, rhythmic clapping filled the room and both of them spun to the front of the main offices and stared in shock and surprise at the nearly twenty men in black tactical gear standing there carrying large, and presumably heavy, duffel bags.

  The man who was clapping smirked at them, “Not to interrupt the lovely bit of a lovers spat and all, but did someone here call for backup?”

  *****

  “Ma’am, we just lost contact with the Interpol Agent.”

  Natalie Cyr looked up sharply. “What?”

  “Our system was just refused access to the precinct’s local hub,” The technician said again, “It just went dead on us.”

  Natalie exchanged glances with Carl Severson, who had been monitoring the progress, and their expressions darkened together.

  “Not good, Natalie.” The DCI told her grimly.

  “Stating the obvious isn’t going to get us much of anything,” She replied dryly, shaking her head. “The question is, what happened? An electronic break? Or something worse?”

  “Find out.” He told her, “Before we send any of our men into the breach, or ask the Aussies to send any of theirs.”

  Too late for that, Natalie thought grimly, but she nodded anyway.

  “Right,” She said aloud.

  *****

  “I’m Lieutenant Greene, Agent,” A young dark haired man said, stepping forward out of the group of men, extending his hand towards Gunnar. “We were ostensibly sent to provide security for Agent Somer’s husband however, judging from your discussion with the lady, may I assume that things are not quite as they were?”

  Anselm smiled wryly, nodding as he took the officer’s hand, “You could say that. We’ve got a minimum of sixty terrorists, presumably heavily armed, with several thousand local hostages. To make matters worse, our evidence suggests that they have a weapon of mass destruction and that they intend to use it.”

  The other men uttered muffled curses, but one of them, an older man, stepped forward with a grim look on his face.

  “Agent Gunnar, I’m Major Malcolm.” He said curtly, “I’m going to need a full situation report.”

  Anselm glanced to the man, whose dress and insignia marked him as Australian Special Air Service, then back at the Interpol Lieutenant.

  “The Major and his men were, unofficially, dispatched to escort us and provide such help as they could,” Greene said with a wry shrug.

  Anselm nodded, smiling slightly, and turned to the Major, “Alright Major, here’s the situation. We’ve got a lunatic with a bio-weapon, and he doesn’t have any demands. He intends to infect the local population, and then use the thermal properties of the Tower to spread the disease into the Jetstream to kill millions.”

  The men stared at him for a moment, before they finally reacted.

  “Bloody fucking hell.”

  The sentiment was echoed, in various forms, among the men but the Major just looked grimmer.

  “I have to contact my superiors,” He said after a moment’s thought, “This situation isn’t what I was intending to walk into.”

  Anselm snorted, “You and me both. Good luck with that.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “All normal lines of communication are cut off,” Gwen Dougal put in, shaking her head. “Portables aren’t getting any signal, and the main trunk lines to the Network are all cut.”

  The Major nodded slowly for a moment, “Makes sense. Alright, Kenny!”

  “Sir!”

  “Set up the radio, get me a line back to the base.” Malcolm ordered, “Mick, you take Johnson and Teal up to the roof and give me a watch.”

  The men nodded and quickly set about doing their work, leaving the rest of them to listen as the Major turned back to Anselm, “Alright, a more detailed brief now, if you please?”

  Anselm nodded, tipping his head toward the center of the police station, where the largest wall screen was located. “Come on, I’ll give you what we have.”

  “Very good then.”

  *****

  “How many people do we have?”

  Jacob glanced down at his computer, checking the latest numbers, then grunted softly, “Thirteen thousand, Amir.”

  Abdallah nodded, his face seemingly serene, but Jacob wasn’t fooled by that look. Some men had the ability to compartmentalize their rage, lock it away beneath the surface like the calm sea. Only a fool, though, would look at that calm sea and not recognize the power of the seething currents beneath it. Jacob didn’t fancy himself a fool, and so he didn’t underestimate the hidden anger that lay in his superior.

  “That’s within the minimum requirements,” Abdallah said after a moment.

  Jacob hid a flinch, and nodded. “True, Amir. And we can increase concentrations if we push them in closer to the center of the facility.”

  Amir shook his head, “Not necessary, the wind currents will do that for us. Better to stick with the plan, Jacob. They will be easier to handle if we leave them in the reception areas.”

  “Yes Amir,” Jacob agreed. “People are still coming in, and probably will continue to do so…”

  Abdallah nodded, “Yes. We will let them until the last possible moment, but it is time to begin deploying our defenses… secretly, Jacob! Secretly.”

  “Of course, Amir.”

  Amir sighed, hiding the tremor that was forming in his right hand by grabbing a rail in front of him. “Such plans we have laid, Jacob. To have them…reduced at the last moment in this manner. It is…infuriating.”

  Jacob privately agreed more passionately than he felt wise to communicate, but he did nod in agreement. “As you say, Amir.”

  “Are we prepared to make the public broadcast?” Abdallah asked suddenly, his head swinging around.

  “Yes, Amir. We still maintain access to the primary Network lines.”

  “I will do so soon then,” Abdallah decided, “Before official response can arrive and cut our line to the outside world.”

  “That would be…most wise.”

  *****

  “Major!”

  “What is it, Kenny?”

  The radio operator shrugged as Malcolm looked over his way, “I’ve got a low level interference on all channels, Major. We’re being jammed pretty neatly.”

  “Can you break through it?”

  “Not with this gear, not from here.” The trooper replied, “But from the roof I should be able to get a sat-link running.”

  “Do it.” Malcolm said gruffly, “get back to me when it’s done.”

  The Trooper nodded, gathering up his gear quickly, and headed for the stairs.

  “Abdallah’s got the bases covered,” Anselm said grimly, shaking his head.

  “Trooper Tavish will cut through that flop,” Malcolm said gruffly, looking to the schematics of the Tower Facility that were displayed on the wall screen, “He’s one of the best.”

  Anselm just nodded in return, neither agreeing nor disputing the claim. Trooper was the lowest rank in the Australian armed forces, but Anselm knew that when it came to the SAS that didn’t have much, if any, impact on either the skill or experience of the man in question. All enlisted members of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) started as ‘Trooper’, no matter their previous rank in whatever unit they served in, so it was entirely likely that Tavish was indeed one of the best.

  Anselm, however, had seen Abdallah
Amir pull off too many impossibilities to feel overconfident at the moment. Abdallah was, perhaps, not as good as the ‘best’, but he was smart and he had had time to plan. Maybe they would get a communication link working, maybe they wouldn’t, Anselm couldn’t say, but he wasn’t going to rely on it until it was proven.

  “Before we lost the network we saw that they were assembling people in these places here,” He said aloud, highlighting several points on the large top-down image of the facility. “Gwen tells me that these are the common areas for town gatherings and large parties. Sort of large indoor-outdoor parks.”

  Malcolm nodded, looking at the individual schematics of each area on a smaller screen. “Looks wide open, not much cover in there.”

  “Agreed,” Anselm replied, “I’ve been inside a couple times myself, and in some areas there’s nothing for dozens of meters to cover movement.”

  “What’s this?” A Trooper asked, pointing to a computer colored green area.

  “That’s the fields,” Gwen replied, tapping out a command to bring the area up on the large screen. “They grow food for export there.”

  “What kind of plants?” Malcolm asked, leaning forward.

  “Here? Mostly strawberry plants.”

  “Hmmm…” The Major hummed uncertainly before crooking a wry grin, “Gotta say, that’ll be a new one on me. What do you think, Mac?”

  The trooper who had asked about the fields frowned, shaking his head. “Don’t rightly know, Major. We have any live images of them?”

  The last question was directed to Inspector Dougal, who immediately leaned to her computer, finally coming up with a tourist pamphlet that showed people walking through the fields. “This do?”

  The trooper nodded absently, rubbing his chin. “Oh, aye, that’ll do.”

  After a moment of contemplation, Malcolm prodded him, “So?”

  “Workable, Major. Workable.” Trooper Mackenzie said, nodding, then he smiled suddenly, “Not perfect though, and I’m gonna get red stains all over me Gillie.”

  Major Malcolm chuckled, “Just so you make sure that they’re nothing but berry stains, Mac.”

  “Too right, Major.”

  “Sniping from a strawberry bush,” Malcolm shook his head, rolling his eyes. “What’s next?”

  Mac just shrugged, still grinning, “Least I won’t get hungry, Sir.”

  “Can it, Mac.”

  Anselm shook his head, lifting a hand up, “Look, this is all fun and everything, but we can’t mount an assault on these people, Major.”

  The Major raised an eyebrow, smiling slightly, “Oh? Weren’t you planning something similar when we walked in?”

  Anselm flushed, but shook his head, “No actually. I was thinking about finding Abdallah and blowing his head off.”

  Malcolm quieted, nodded for a moment, “That’s one possible move. You think they’ll fall apart without the head?”

  “No, probably not, I’m afraid,” Anselm admitted, “But I didn’t have anything better.”

  “Well you do now,” Malcolm told him, “We’ve got a twelve man SAS team, and six of your Interpol Special Tactics men and women as well. With yourself, and the Inspector if she’s willing, that’s twenty trained fighters. Ten times the force you had before we arrived. At least.”

  The major’s men chuckled at the wry inflection the SAS man put into his words when he said the words ‘at least’, leaving no doubt that they felt it was a good deal higher than ‘ten times’.

  Actually, Anselm wasn’t inclined to argue that point. The Special Tactics and Response Team alone multiplied his available forces by several times more than the numbers would indicate, the Australian SAS men would be even better, but there were times when Quantity overruled Quality, and he very much feared that this might be one of them.

  “Major, the opposition has at least sixty men, probably a great deal more,” Anselm said, “They are deployed in unknown locations, with unknown armaments…stop me if you think I’m wrong to worry about this…”

  “Agent, this is what we do,” Malcolm told the Interpol man, just a little more confident than he actually was.

  He was Special Air Service, literally the best of his country’s military, which meant that Ian Malcolm wasn’t an idiot. He saw the odds as clearly as Agent Gunnar did, but he also saw the consequences of not acting. If what the Interpol man was telling him was true, and he had no reason to doubt it as yet, they didn’t have much choice.

  Ten thousand plus citizens of his nation were under the thumb of a psychotic.

  The lives of twelve of their protectors would be a small price to pay if it even bought those men, women, and children just a little more time for the cavalry to arrive.

  *****

  The rooftop of the police station was less than three stories off the ground level, but that was around the average that the three SAS soldiers noted in the other buildings around them as they quickly setup a watch that covered the streets around them.

  Sergeant Mickey Franks eyed the skyline around them while troopers Teal and Johnson quickly surveyed the roads. The buildings were unusually squat for any modern city, though the architecture was certainly what one might refer to as ‘modern practical’. It made for good views all around, despite the low level of their vantage point.

  The one stark, riveting sight was, of course, the enormous tower that absolutely ruled the vista to the north. It’s checkerboarded mass simply climbed so high into the sky that Franks had to crane his head back to see where the top of it was obscured by a thin mist. He’d been born only a few hundred miles away from the tower facility, and came home every year for his holidays like clockwork, but had never bothered to come see the ‘wonder of the world’ that was on his doorstep.

  It was too bad he hadn’t, he decided then. The tower deserved better than to be viewed as a target, he thought.

  “Hey, Sarge?”

  “What is it, Teal?” He turned to see where the Trooper was kneeling by the edge of the building, waving him over.

  “You better come see this,” Teal told him, nodding down into the street. “Looks like we’ve got five tangos coming this way.”

  Franks frowned, but hurried over to the edge of the roof, dropping into a crouch as he approached it so that he wouldn’t present too much of a silhouette to those below. He looked down and his frown deepened when he saw the group of five men hurrying up the steps of the police station, weapons clearly visible in their hands.

  “Shit,” He muttered, touching his hand to his ear/throat radio, “Major, you’ve got trouble coming your way.”

  There was no response but static.

  “Major? Major!”

  “Bleedin hell,” Sergeant Franks cursed, pivoting on the balls of his feet, waving the other man over, “We’re being jammed. Johnson!”

  “Sarge?”

  “Get your ass down there and warn the Major he’s got trouble coming in the front door!”

  *****

  The five men, led by Rico Marks, a former citizen of Argentina, marched together up the stone steps that marked the front of the Tower City PD. They’d drawn their weapons as they reached the police lot, the streets around them empty, there was no reason to hide.

  “Alright guys, remember, we hit the two cops then get out of here.”

  The others grunted in agreement, a couple of them smiling a little too much for Rico’s taste. He had no love for cops himself, having grown up in a community which might charitably be referred to as a ‘ghetto’ by some nations, he’d been considered less than human by those in authority and had striven to survive their attentions as much as the knives and guns of his peers. He did worry a bit about those who drew too much enjoyment from it, though. Not because they shouldn’t enjoy their work, he did after all, but because excessive enjoyment often led to uncontrolled repeat actions, and those were dangerous.

  “No worries, Rico,” One of the men grinned as they reached the heavy doors at the front of the station. “This is gonna be fun.�
��

  “Yeah. Right.” Rico shook his head, “Let’s do this.”

  *****

  Major Malcolm and Agent Gunnar were pouring over the schematics of the tower facility, looking for entrance points, when the doors at the far end of the large conference room suddenly burst open.

  Around them were two teams of highly trained and, at the moment, jumpy soldiers and police officers who took immediate exception.

  The SAS and Interpol men snapped around, their pistols practically jumping into their hands even as the doors smashed into the walls and the five men crossed through it with weapons in their hands. The men in question had a few seconds to stare in betrayed shock as they saw themselves looking down the barrels of fourteen guns, then one of them made the mistake of pulling the trigger on his Type 99 Assault rifle.

  The single 6mm round went wide, the man’s surprise ruining his aim, and the response was instant and lethal. Fourteen powerful handguns roared, firing 4.6mm and 5.7mm projectiles, riddling the five men in an instant of roaring chaos.

  In the aftermath of the violence, the echos of the firearms still ringing in their ears, Major Malcolm and Agent Anselm turned to look at each other in disbelief.

  “What kind of frigging genius tries to stick up a police station??” Malcolm asked in disbelief.

  Anselm curled his lips up dryly, shaking his head, “I expect that they were here for Gwen and I.”

  “Ah.” The Major nodded, “Yes.”

  The two men shook their heads just as Trooper Johnson came skidding around a corner, his own gun in hand, “Major! There’s five guys coming…ah…right then. Never mind.”

  Malcolm looked over at the man, piercing him with a dry glare and Johnson swallowed, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

  “I’ll just be going back up to the roof then…” He said, walking backwards. “Uh…Major?”

  “Yes Johnson?”

  “We’re being Jammed, Sir.”

  “We know, Johnson.” Malcolm said, “Go tell Sergeant Franks that we’re clear.”

  “Right Sir.”

  Malcolm watched the man retreat, then shook his head.

  “Damn it, alright, Jenks! Cal! Clear those bodies and barricade that damned door. Pauly, you take whoever you need and secure all the doors to this place and set up a perimeter watch.”