MISSION VERITAS (Black Saber Novels Book 1)

by John Murphy

  And he was alone.

  * * *

  Vaughn clicked the button that would show the interior cameras. The condition was the same as before—the cameras were covered in soot or blank with no signal. He paused on the soot-covered views, hoping to see some sign of Corporal Tyler and Annette.

  Nothing.

  Vaughn’s panic, already at a fevered pitch, rose even further. His chest heaved as he tried to suck in air. His head swam, and his hands and feet tingled.

  He had to get out.

  He had to find Corporal Tyler and Annette and bring them back. Then he’d feel safe again.

  But first, he needed a weapon. He envisioned the rifle in Corporal Tyler’s hands. In his mind it represented safety against the savages.

  How long had it been since they left, ten minutes? Twenty? Longer?

  He checked the clock on the monitor.

  17:42:25.

  What time is that? Then he remembered to subtract twelve hours from military time. That meant it was 5:42 p.m.

  He scanned the exterior monitors—still daylight. But the sun was near setting, its rays just touching the tops of the dust-covered trees and buildings.

  He looked again at the empty sky where the conference building no longer stood. No hoverjets, no assault vehicles, no indication of rescue.

  What time did the sun set? He racked his brain. It was usually dark by dinnertime. That was what, sevenish?

  Where had Corporal Tyler and Annette gone? The data center. Where was that? A map on the wall near the airtight door showed rough outlines of the building, as well as emergency routes and exits, but there were no labels to indicate the data center. He felt certain it wasn’t on the east side of the compound, where the general public would go for passports and visas. Somewhere on this side, where the American personnel stayed.

  Second floor over the dining room? No, that was the family quarters. On the other side across the foyer? Yes, that was where he’d most often seen the staffers he usually tried to avoid. But which floor? First? Second?

  His mind circled back to the rifle.

  He had to find them.

  Vaughn looked around the room. The walls were lined with crates and boxes. He opened a couple of heavy boxes. They contained energy bars, water, and medical supplies. No weapons. Presumably, no one from the embassy had thought it advisable to arm civilians—not when marines were supposedly around to protect them.

  Vaughn tore open a box of first aid supplies and sifted through its contents. He found some blunt-nosed scissors. They would be useless as a weapon.

  He looked again at the door.

  Kitchen knives.

  He approached the monitors and clicked through the exterior views. Everything looked quiet.

  The prospect of waiting by himself for another day, or maybe even indefinitely, suffocated him. He’d go mad. The only way out of this was to venture out with Corporal Tyler and Annette to find help, assuming they hadn’t left without him already.

  He stood in the middle of the room staring at the monitors, his face and fingers twitching, his mind wheeling through the risks and dangers.

  In a lucid moment, he looked at the clock on the monitors again: 17:55:14. Over ten minutes had passed. Daylight was escaping. Darkness might provide better cover, but he might stumble over dead bodies. A vision of falling face-first into Captain Leon’s charred remains sent yet another chill through him.

  Better to navigate the chaos in the light rather than the dark, he decided.

  He looked at the lock wheel and took a deep breath. His shaking hands came into his disembodied view, and he grasped the wheel and spun it. He could feel the locking mechanism disengage and the door release its tension ever so slightly. He took several breaths in succession, held the air in, then pulled the door open.

  Slight creaking came from the heavy hinges. The next noise he heard was dripping water from all around the kitchen. The fire suppression sprinklers had left thin pools of sooty water. Ripples from intermittent drips wrinkled the reflected waning light.

  It had definitely grown darker, which created a sense of urgency in Vaughn to find his protectors and get back into the panic room.

  Vaughn stood on the threshold, peering out the foot-wide gap. Just as he had glimpsed before, everything that had been hanging on the walls or the ceiling was on the floor, and everything movable had been overturned. The darkened fridge hung open like a disemboweled beast, its contents littering the floor. Buzzing flies swarmed in the twilight.

  He saw a short but serious-looking carving knife on the floor about eight feet from where he stood. He darted out of the panic room’s safety and grabbed at the knife.

  It skittered and sloshed underneath a metal prep table.

  Vaughn lay down flat and reached desperately for it. The front of his body quickly soaked. He strained to keep his face out of the water. Cockroaches scattered to escape his intrusion. One raced across his face.

  Ignoring it, Vaughn felt under the darkness of the table. He could barely reach the blade. He tried to press it to the floor and scoot it toward him, but his fingers slipped. He pressed in further, his face squeezed against the cool metal. Dozens of cockroaches scuttled out the other side into the dim light of the kitchen.

  His finger touched the blade again. He could feel its dangerously sharp edge, but this time the knife rotated away. His pinky barely touched the heavy handle. He adjusted his hand and hooked his ring finger and pinky around the handle. He carefully pinched the knobby end between his fingers and scooted it closer. He had it! He dragged the knife out of the darkness, and a small wave of grimy water created by his arm splashed his lips.

  Vaughn gripped the knife, got to his hands and knees, and looked warily around the kitchen, ears straining for any sounds of activity.

  “Annette? Corporal Tyler?” Vaughn edged back toward the panic room.

  Three shots.

  Vaughn dove back into the panic room and pushed the door nearly all the way shut. He waited and listened, one hand holding the knife, the other ready to slam and lock the door. Then it occurred to him that perhaps the gunshots came from Corporal Tyler, who might have successfully dispatched an intruder.

  He exited the panic room, careful to step around anything that would make noise. He headed out of the kitchen and down the corridor toward a small foyer between the offices and staffing quarters. There was a pile of partially burned, broken furniture in the small foyer, the wood damp from fire-suppression sprinklers. His feet created a slight sucking, sloshing sound on the spongy carpet.

  Thumping sounds came from upstairs.

  Vaughn paused and looked up, afraid that his pounding heart might give him away. He crept up the carpeted steps with a soft squishing sound.

  Vaughn wasn’t familiar with the layout of the staff offices, but he followed the irregular thumping sounds. Every room he peeked into was in disarray, full of soggy, burned furniture.

  A noise came from the next room. Vaughn slid across the carpet and peered inside. He saw a leg, blood, and a skirt.

  Annette.

  Something moved on the far side of the room. A dark figure…looming over Corporal Tyler’s body.

  Vaughn stood bolt upright, pinning himself against the wall. His head hit a light fixture, which clanked.

  The noise inside the room stopped. Footsteps shuffled through the junk.

  Vaughn bolted down the stairs, his feet creating splashing sounds with each step. An instant before zipping around the corner to the panic room, he glanced back up and saw the dark figure holding Corporal Tyler’s rifle.

  When he reached the kitchen, he found two figures peering into the supply-laden panic room. They turned toward him.

  Vaughn froze.

  The intruders wore digital camouflage shirts, likely taken from the bodies of marines posted in the compound courtyard. T
heir faces were covered with soot, making their eyes bright blue in comparison. Their lower lips, held open by the stone disks common among the protesters, were caked with soot, drool, and blood.

  Bloodshot eyes assessed Vaughn, the intruders’ ghoulish grins exposing decaying lower teeth.

  Vaughn’s body exploded with energy. He bolted out of the kitchen and ran for the front door, leaping over the charred heap that had been Captain Leon. He sprang off the porch, down the four stone steps, and onto the receiving patio.

  Vaughn coiled to absorb the impact of his jump and nearly jabbed the knife into his face. He’d almost forgotten that he even had it. He recovered and raced toward the gates, vulnerable in the wide expanse that had once been the compound’s tiny lawn.

  Vaughn heard a rifle report and felt a shot graze his left shoulder. He darted to the right. Three more shots whizzed past him, striking the ground yards away. He zigzagged to make a difficult target. He reached the dislodged gates and dove outside the compound walls, tumbling to the ground. He leapt back up and ran down the street, thankful Captain Leon had told him to wear good shoes.

  He pumped his arms and legs madly, not knowing where he was going. He knew only one thing: speed was his only protection.

  CHAPTER 3

  Bangkok, Thailand

  4:30 a.m., September 26, 2074

  1 year, 8 months, 12 days from Day Zero

  ONE GOOD THING ABOUT the torrential rain, Vaughn Killian thought. It helps keep down the stench of rotting corpses from the body dumps.

  As Killian crawled through mountains of rubble, he wondered if the hunks of building in front of him were from the one his parents had died in nearly two years ago. The hunks were in the same area as the bombing, but one destroyed building looked pretty much like another.

  Killian crawled ever so carefully in the dark, feeling for dangerous rebar poking out of the slippery chunks. His sandaled feet added to the slickness, his toes often scraping on coarse surfaces. His synthetic running shoes had fallen apart long ago in the tropical conditions.

  He kept an eye on the Global Alliance compound, the command post for the quarantine area. Among his team of rebels, he had drawn the short straw and had been chosen to penetrate the encampment. He had to probe and find the reason behind the sharp decline in patrols and activity in the area.

  A heavy rain before dawn was the best time for such probes. The lax soldiers would certainly be sleeping. They couldn’t be compelled to stay on the alert in such bad weather. The white noise of the rain helped mask Killian’s approach from guards and dogs.

  Ahead was a dimly lit array of inflatable buildings, forty in all. They had arrived in crates. Once unfolded, supporting tube-like structures were inflated, creating large tents within minutes. Several weeks ago, Killian had watched this encampment go up in a matter of hours. Compared with the other Global Alliance encampments north of downtown, this one was tiny. The white roofs of the inflatable tents, which let in natural light during the day, looked like ghostly pillows against the crumbling city’s backdrop.

  The need to move slowly gave Killian’s mind too much time to wander over torturing thoughts.

  He felt certain it was his eighteenth birthday. Generally, it was hard to keep track of days and dates, but as September approached, he paid more attention to the date. Today was the day.

  Killian wondered what he might be doing today had he not been sucked into this war. He wondered about his friends at the private school for children of diplomats and corporate types. Were they dead or had they been evacuated?

  He thought of Felicia, the first girl for whom he had ever felt anything like love. He’d sought her out in the early days after the bombing, but the Finnish embassy had been deserted. He liked to think she was alive somewhere, still pretty, still clean and pressed with her blond hair combed.

  A moment of embarrassment swept over him for the wretch he had become: long, filthy hair; perpetually muddy, deathly skinny, battle-scarred, and clothed in rags.

  Feral.

  Ruthless.

  Would she even recognize him?

  More likely she would be frightened of him.

  Killian snapped out of his feelings of loss as he approached the barrier surrounding the compound.

  He had to stay focused, sharp, lethal.

  Razor wire coiled in ten-foot-high loops protected the area. It often ensnared dogs in search of food. During the daylight hours, local Thai people bargained with the Global Alliance guards for their carcasses. The guards were only too happy to let them have the dead dogs, seeing as their remains would do nothing but reek of freshly rotting bodies. The disposal sites for uncooperative refugees were kept several blocks away and downwind. Anything trapped in the perimeter razor wire would be right under the guards’ noses.

  Killian paused at the last debris pile, scanning the fence line for threats before he made his final approach.

  He spied a single guard by the main gate. He was huddled beneath a poncho and likely sleeping. Global Alliance soldiers were conscripts from sovereign member nations. They hated their duties and were sloppy. The only things they took an avid interest in were extorting goods, bribes, and sex from the remaining population.

  Killian was committed to the fight, as were his fellow rebels. Only forty-five in number, they cared only about survival and fighting back against the forces that had systematically destroyed Bangkok. For the Global Alliance soldiers, it was about counting the days until they were discharged or relocated to another duty station. Hence, the Global Alliance soldiers were slovenly whiners and terrible fighters who fumbled madly when fired upon.

  Killian thought of himself as the nicked-up, rusty knife that he’d obtained from the embassy kitchen so long ago. It was the perfect symbol for him: pathetic looking but honed to razor sharpness and deadly when applied with skill.

  He skirted across the zone between the debris and the fence. He found what appeared to be merely another puddle, but it concealed a narrow trench he and two other rebels had dug two nights earlier.

  He slithered into the trench, submerging himself completely to avoid snagging his clothes or his skin on the unforgiving razors. It was slow going, but he dared not raise his head for a breath.

  His lungs ached. The eight-foot length of the trench seemed endless. Finally, he felt the end of it and raised his head above the muddy water. He gasped. Fortunately, the relentless roar of rain drumming on the inflatables drowned out the sound.

  He crawled out of the trench and lay on his back in the muck for a moment to catch his breath.

  Killian rolled onto his stomach and looked around for any sign he’d been detected. The guard hadn’t moved.

  Killian rose and dashed fifty feet to the southernmost inflatable, the roar of the rain cloaking his sloshing footsteps. He ducked into the shadows.

  He waited in the darkness for several moments, chest heaving. He looked back and saw the guard was no longer at his post. He scanned the expanse he had crossed and saw nothing.

  A barking German shepherd startled him.

  Killian felt around on the ground until he found a palm-sized rock. He picked it up and prepared to defend himself. The German shepherd raced toward him, barking furiously.

  “Down! Down!” a guard shouted.

  The dog obeyed, keeping ten feet between itself and Killian, but still barking.

  The guard approached cautiously, shining his rifle-mounted flashlight in Killian’s face. Killian squinted in the glare.

  “Stop! Who are you?”

  Killian recognized the accent as Spanish. He dropped the rock, fell to his knees, and held up his hands to show he was unarmed.

  “You shouldn’t be here! What are you doing here?”

  Killian spoke rapidly in Thai. “Chan mai mee are woot!” I am unarmed.

  Although English was the international language of the Glob
al Alliance Defense Force, Killian spoke in Thai to confuse the guard into thinking he was a local.

  Soaking wet and covered in streaks of mud, Killian stooped lower and kept his face down to conceal his true height of over six feet.

  “Mai mee puen hen mai! No gun, see? No gun, see?” He feigned a Thai accent.

  The guard paused for a moment, then gestured with his rifle. “Okay. You come,” he said, waving his rifle-mounted flashlight toward the middle of the compound.

  Killian complied, staying stooped as he hobbled along on sore feet.

  The German shepherd kept pace, barking continuously. This drew the attention of others in the compound, who emerged from the inflatables to see what was going on.

  “Over there.” The guard directed him toward the only inflatable with lights inside.

  As they pushed through the tent flap, Killian resisted the urge to straighten up with relief from being out of the rain.

  “Down on the floor,” the guard directed.

  Killian knelt.

  “We have an intruder,” the guard announced.

  A fat duty sergeant with a scruffy beard and rumpled uniform sat behind a desk. He eyed the prisoner. “Send the dog back out there in case there are others.” He turned to another soldier in the corner. “Go get Babineaux.”

  They each did as directed. The rain-soaked guard sent the dog out, yet remained inside.

  Killian detected a French accent. He recognized the sergeant as one who often picked out desirable women, girls, and boys from the locals. Rumor had it he sold them into the sex trade—a practice the Global Alliance turned a blind eye to.

  As per protocol, the sergeant had summoned the Officer of the Day. Judging by the officer’s name, he was French as well.

  They waited quietly until the other guard returned with Lieutenant Babineaux. He wore fatigue pants, as well as loose, untied boots and a T-shirt.

  “What is going on, Sergeant Fournier?” Babineaux asked.