Harvey Bennett Mysteries Box Set 3

by Nick Thacker

  She wiped away the tear that had been collecting on her cheek and flicked it down into the sink, then started washing her hands. Julie’s face was still pristine, the makeup she rarely wore still hiding all her imperfections, all the vain flaws she loved to hate.

  None of those mattered now — she was dealing with an imperfection inside of her, something that had been put there. Something that didn’t belong.

  She needed to get rid of it, and in the last hour, she’d finally found a way to do just that.

  She hoped Ben could forgive her.

  14

  Ben

  Ben was up early the next day. The alarm hadn’t gone off yet, and he surprised himself by feeling rested, even though he and Reggie had stayed up far too late and had a bit too much to drink. And then Ben had stumbled into the bedroom, waited for Julie, and fallen asleep.

  She was gone now, too, her spot in the bed empty. He saw that the bathroom door was closed and opted for the hallway bathroom in the new CSO suite. He rose, stretched, and headed around the cabin and into the hallway.

  After showering and shaving, Ben decided to check in with someone he hadn’t spoken with at all the previous day. He turned into the small conference room and pressed a button on the device sitting on the table. About a minute later, the television screen faded on, a rail-thin man appearing in front of him.

  “Mr. E,” Ben said. “We didn’t get a chance to chat yesterday.”

  The man smiled back at him. “No, I am afraid we did not. My apologies — but congratulations, Harvey. I am thoroughly glad for you and Juliette.”

  Ben nodded. “Thanks. I, uh, wanted to ask about something else, though.”

  “Vicente Garza?”

  He nodded again. “He needs to be stopped, but —”

  “But you do not believe you are the man to do it?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “Something like that.”

  Mr. E, the founder of the Civilian Special Operations, and the team’s benefactor, stared back at Ben. For a moment Ben felt as though they were sharing the same room, as if Mr. E was there in the flesh. He had never met the man in person — Mr. E was reclusive and sickly, and he preferred his own study in his home in Michigan. To Ben’s knowledge, the man never left his house. He had plenty of money, thanks to an ownership in one of the largest global communications companies and other related investments, so it was quite possible he simply hired help to shop, clean, and cook for him.

  His wife, Mrs. E, was equally enigmatic, and all Ben knew of her was that she was a well-trained fighter, specializing in hand-to-hand combat, and that she was — he thought — of Russian descent. They made an odd pair, but they were both likable and loyal.

  “Harvey,” Mr. E said. “I understand your fear. You were not trained for this. You were a park ranger, a man solely wanting to find solace in the world around him, and nothing else.”

  “Yeah…”

  “But now you are here. Look around you, Harvey. You helped create this. Sure, I paid for it, but I would not have had anything to invest in if not for you. You believe that there are organizations specializing in this sort of work, and you are wrong. There are, certainly, organizations — governments, police forces, private militaries — that specialize in finding evil and corrupt powers and removing them. But they are either too large or too small, too overt or covert, too politically minded or answering to no one. There is little in-between. There are no forces that work for the common good and do not have to answer to a politically driven narrow-minded entity.

  “Think about Agent Etienne Sharpe at Interpol. He was serving with the Guild Rite while working for Interpol. Neither had any idea of what the other was doing. Police forces are understaffed, militaries are bloated with bureaucracy, private security is untrustworthy. Add to that the fact that most organizations will only work to right a wrong if there is a large payoff for them. Harvey, these are the reasons that an organization of civilians, men and women who are interested only in discovering the ancient truths and mysteries that may cause others to resort to evil, needed to be created. It is why the CSO exists, why you were recruited and now lead it.”

  Ben nodded along. He’d heard the arguments before, that governments were too bloated and corrupt to achieve anything philanthropic, and he’d heard the same from Agent Sharpe at Interpol. He’d joined the Guild Rite, a Masonic-like fraternity that claimed to have an ancient lineage, because of his interest in righting wrongs in the world. Many of his brethren were now just charred remains in the Chachapoyas Valley in Peru. Though there were many more members around the world, Sharpe claimed that they were mostly scattered, their ideals and goals not always overlapping.

  So it was with many other organizations that had grown too large to maneuver.

  “But… it still doesn’t seem to be the right fit for me.”

  “Why? Because you are not a soldier? A brilliant tactician? No, Harvey, that is not why you are the perfect fit for this role. You are where you are because you are here.”

  “Because I was in the right place at the right time?”

  Mr. E shook his head. “No, because you kept coming back. You have seen your friends killed, innocent people murdered and tortured, and you rushed in to help. You fought back, where most would recoil and hide.”

  “But… I want to hide now. I don’t want to ‘rush in and help.’”

  “And that is precisely why you are the right man for the job.”

  Ben sighed. He squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to think about this right now, but at the same time he wondered what had led him to walking into this room in the first place? What had urged him to press that button, to hail their friend and ally?

  He had a feeling Mr. E was right — the man usually was.

  “Why don’t you ever come here?” Ben blurted out. “Why not come see what you’ve been building?”

  Mr. E paused. Gripped the back of the chair he was standing behind. “I wish I could, Harvey. I truly do. I miss my wife, and it would bring me great joy to meet you all in person. But, as you probably know, my health is… failing. It has been for quite some time. My house is actually more of a hospital now, and I believe that is the only reason I am still alive.”

  “Cancer?” Ben asked.

  “Yes, some. But the cause of that cancer is something else. Something doctors are not as familiar with. It is a disease, a debilitating one, and they are unsure how it developed. For that reason, they are unsure whether my life will end in a year or in ten. They have more questions than answers.”

  Ben felt a pang of regret for the man. He must live in fear that every day might be his last.

  “My illness is the reason I gave up running my company — not because my health prevented it, but because I realized that running a business was not what I was put on this planet to do. No, Harvey, it was something else — something bigger.”

  “The CSO?”

  “Perhaps. Only time will tell. But I believe it is a step in the right direction. If I can do only a little good, root out only a little evil, then I have done what I need to do.”

  “I see,” Ben said.

  “Do you?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I am asking if you truly see what I am talking about.”

  “I… I guess.” Ben suddenly felt like he was a kid again, a nineteen-year-old running through the woods on a camping trip, trying to understand something profound about life but coming up short.

  “Ben,” Mr. E said, surprising him with the use of his nickname. “Now is the time to decide what it is you are fighting for.”

  “Okay…” he said. He still didn’t grasp what it was Mr. E was trying to tell him. He was about to open his mouth and protest when Reggie burst into the room.

  “Ben,” Reggie said, gasping. “Julie’s gone.”

  II

  Act 2

  15

  Garza

  The morning sun seemed to press down, and that combined with the high humidity made it
feel as though Garza had a hot, damp washcloth on the back of his neck. The tunnel’s gently increasing temperature that led from his base in the mountain to the wide-open valley hadn’t fully prepared him for the late summer heat. And even though it was October, he still couldn’t bring himself to admit that it was fall.

  In this portion of Peru, summer seemed to be the constant, broken only by a few weeks at a time by the rest of the “seasons.” There hadn’t been a day so far during his time here that he would have preferred being outside.

  He wiped a growing collection of sweat from his brow using the sleeve of his fatigues. For these field exercises, Garza always wanted to look like his men. He might be set back a bit, off the field of play, but it helped him feel connected with his team. Today, however, he questioned his desire to fit in, wondering how much more comfortable he’d feel wearing a t-shirt and shorts.

  “Move into position,” he said, his voice carrying easily through the throat mic he wore around his neck. The dual-sensor mic and earpiece kit was a new addition for his team. They had helped design the product, and some of his men were currently testing the new waterproof underwater send-and-receive technology. So far the frequency hadn’t interfered with the other all-important frequency: the one that accompanied Garza’s main line of experimentation, and the one they were testing out here today.

  “Affirmative, sir,” his team leader said. “TTE?”

  Garza wasn’t sure about the exact time-to-engagement. He wanted to create the element of surprise, so he’d told the men manning the computers back inside the base to wait fifteen minutes for him to get topside, then an arbitrary amount of time after before starting the test.

  “Unknown. Heels up. Shouldn’t be long.”

  “Confirming paint rounds only?” another man asked.

  “Correct.”

  Garza strode over to the tall metal tower the construction crew had put up. It had been fabricated atop one of the ancient stone buildings that had been left here by the valley’s previous inhabitants. Most of the building had disappeared — the heavy stones having either settled into the earth or fallen away completely — and what was left was a triangle-shaped stone wall. He climbed the ladder and walked out to the edge of the lookout station, the entire valley open below him. His tower was on the edge of the valley itself, tucked between a few trees that backed up to the base of the mountain.

  “In position,” he said.

  It only took three-and-a-half minutes. The techs inside the mountain sounded the alarm, then Garza caught sight of the metal box opening up in the field in front of him, about a football field away. Two Ravenshadow units, wearing full tactical gear and protective goggles, converged on the box from opposite sides, their rifles pointed at the swinging door.

  They stopped short, about fifty feet away, and he saw each unit’s leader issuing orders.

  The door on the box opened fully and the machine inside stepped out. An exoskeleton with a subject inside, guiding it forward on its two reinforced legs.

  “Engage,” he heard a tech’s voice say in his ear. The machine immediately turned to its left and began firing a blistering amount of Simunition paint rounds toward its target. Six rotating turrets on the machine’s shoulder-mounted modified M134 minigun fired tactical paint rounds at a rate of 5,000 rounds per minute. In less than a second three of the unit’s men were “dead,” clutching very painful, very brightly colored “wounds” on their chests.

  “Hold,” the tech said. The subject inside the exoskeleton halted the machine, awaiting further orders.

  “Okay,” Garza said, trying to hide his excitement. “That didn’t take long. Teams One and Two, fall back to cover and regroup. We’ll hit him again in exactly one minute.”

  The teams dispersed, finding cover behind trees and boulders that lined the edges of the valley. The subject waiting in the exoskeleton watched Garza with cold, dead eyes.

  When one minute had expired, the tech in Garza’s ear delivered the next set of orders to the subject and the exoskeleton. “Initiate heat tracking, engage all hostiles.”

  The men’s weapons exploded to life, hoping the long-range attack would be devastating enough to confuse the exoskeleton. But the suit reacted immediately, dropping to its knees and crouching, turning into a smaller target. At the same time, miniaturized reflectors all across the suit triangulated and immediately pinpointed the locations of the shooters. That data was sent at the speed of light to the suit’s central processing unit, which relayed targeting orders to the seventeen individual guns across the suit’s armor. Those guns began shooting less than a quarter-second after the units’ own firing began.

  The Ravenshadow men had not been briefed as to the devastating accuracy of the tracking and defense technology Garza had built into the exoskeleton. His tests of the suit’s effectiveness against unsuspecting enemies needed to be as accurate as possible, so he often rotated his testing units in the field, giving all of his men their own first-time experience with new builds. He knew his men talked, swapped stories of what they were building here, but he also remembered what it was like to be a young soldier. Lots of speculation, plenty of hyperbole, and a great deal of skepticism.

  They were professionals, and he wasn’t concerned about what they knew of the project. Keeping them in the dark was simply a way to keep his experiments as clean and streamlined as possible.

  And this experiment was certainly impressive. Still, he needed to know one final piece of data.

  “Switch to live rounds,” he said into his throat mic.

  “Sir?” the technician asked. “Live rounds will most likely impact the subject inside the —”

  “I’m well aware of the effect live ammunition will have, soldier,” he said. “Do you know of any other way to test the suit’s structural stamina?”

  He already knew the answer. The exoskeleton was just that — it was nothing but a heap of metal and electrical components without a living human being inside. Robotics technology had advanced rapidly over the past decades, but armies around the world were still years away from bringing to battle fully functional robotic weapons that did not need direct human guidance.

  Garza hoped that he could build not just the exoskeleton suit, but an army of soldiers who were willing to wear them, as well.

  “Exchange magazines,” he said. “And engage immediately. Note that the subject will be firing returns with Simunition rounds, but please act as though you are engaging with an actual hostile force.”

  He needed the experiment to be clean; he needed to know how long the suit would hold up against two hostile infantry units approaching from opposite fronts, but he wasn’t about to sacrifice his own Ravenshadow forces for a test.

  He watched the subject inside the suit, flicking a magnification switch on the side of his tactical sunglasses that digitally zoomed his field of view. The subject’s face came into focus, the eyes and cold stare betraying nothing of her internal emotions. Garza knew well the effects of the anti-stimulant; he knew that the subject was still feeling everything, still processing, still thinking. They just… couldn’t act on those thoughts. Their mind had been overtaken, turned into a compliant computer processor, ready to receive external input.

  This subject, a young woman, had responded well to the dosing and had shown that she was capable of managing the suit’s appendages easily while drugged. The younger, more agile subjects tended to be that way — not a surprise to Garza or his doctors.

  He flicked the magnification back off again and removed his glasses. He wanted to see the battle with his own, unaltered eyes.

  “Engage when ready,” he said.

  16

  Edmund

  Father Edmund Canisius wished he could lose the collar and tight-fitting robe. He wanted to relax, to forget this whole thing. He was tired of the charade, the appearance, and wanted nothing more than to head back to his luxury accommodations and soak in the massive tub for an hour, catching up on his reading.

  He shifted i
n his chair. No, there is a job to do. He pushed away the thoughts of laziness and reminded himself why he was here. He believed in the mission of his church, the church. He believed in his team back at the Vatican, and he believed in himself. He knew he was the best person for this job, even if he had not been informed of exactly why he was the best for it.

  Canisius pushed a cold, hard pad of butter around an equally cold and hard piece of bread. He had torn the bread violently from the loaf, prepared to shove it into his mouth — he often overate when he felt impatient or anxious — but quickly recovered and set it back down on his plate. He sniffed, then looked around.

  No one is watching me, he reminded himself. No one cares that I am here.

  For the entirety of his time in Peru, from the moment he had disembarked from the jet and was met on the tarmac with Peruvian journalists and reporters, to the moment he had left his hotel to be driven to this restaurant, he had been inundated with people. Requests for autographs from the celebrity-seekers, blessings from the devout, and quotes for those whose careers were based on nothing but the vapidity of chasing another lede.

  Until he’d settled into his booth. At this restaurant, the premier Peruvian upscale restaurant within driving distance from the hotel district, he finally felt alone. The other men and women here were like him — important, wealthy. They didn’t need his blessings or attention, and they were more than happy to leave him to his own business.

  He sighed a breath of relief. Relax, he told himself again. You are the right man for this job. Whatever it may be, they have chosen you for a reason.

  He cleared his throat as a party of three men and two women neared his table, all wearing elegant gowns and tuxedos. Have I underdressed? he wondered.

  No matter. In his line of work, there was no such thing as underdressing. Wearing the cloth of the clergy was always en vogue, and he wore it proudly, smartly.