The Pandora Deception--A Novel

by David Bruns

  West acknowledged the pilot and used the ruggedized tablet to call up the drone feed from the overwatch Reaper.

  “Plane landed at sunset, sir.” His S-2, a very young-looking captain in charge of his intel team, pointed at the airstrip on the tablet image. “Two pilots, still on board. Two people disembarked and drove to the warehouse. About an hour later, a single SUV with one occupant left the warehouse and drove south to the main highway. Vehicle is in Khartoum traffic now.”

  West cursed under his breath. They’d let one get away already. “Everyone else is still inside?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  West settled back in his seat, glad for the dimness of the cargo hold for time to think. He was bringing a hundred fifty Marines to assault a terrorist base with a security force of three dozen, according to their best intel. Not a fair fight, and never intended to be one, but right now his biggest issue was time.

  The Ospreys had twice the cruising speed and range of the Super Stallions. If he took eight Ospreys and went balls-out to the fight, he could get there twice as fast. The Stallions and remaining Ospreys would serve as reinforcements.

  He signaled to his comms man. “Get me Homebase,” he said into the mic.

  A few seconds later, O’Malley’s voice filled the headset. “This is Homebase actual.”

  “Sir, I recommend we go to plan Bravo. We’ve seen one vehicle depart the scene and I’d hate to lose any more fish out of the net.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the decision was made and the vanguard assault force was roaring over the deserts of Sudan. An all-hands call with his assault-team leaders passed on the new orders, which had been part of the initial briefing. Three Ospreys would land to the east and three to the south, forming an L-shaped envelope on the warehouse. The remaining two Ospreys would secure the landing strip. The F-35s would remain overhead for close air support as needed.

  He could hear the disappointment in the voices of the team leaders aboard the Super Stallions who were assigned as reinforcements.

  Just before 4:00 A.M. local, eight Ospreys flared to a stop in the sand three hundred meters from the warehouse. Marines poured down the back ramps, with four-man fire teams taking up preassigned locations along the front. Less than a minute later, the now-empty Ospreys took off again. Aircraft on the ground were targets. The MV-22Bs would stay on station, breaking off in pairs to refuel.

  West hit the sand along with the rest of his men. His pulse hammered in his ears, the smell of disturbed dust heavy in the air. In the green of his night-vision goggles, the warehouse stood dark and silent.

  West touched his throat mic. “All units, this is raid leader, advance.”

  All around him, men got to their feet and started a slow jog toward the building. He stole a glance at the overwatch display, seeing his men advancing along two fronts. Textbook perfect.

  They covered a hundred meters, then two hundred, with no reaction from their target.

  “Sir,” his S-2 said over his headset, “overwatch shows movement on the southeast corner of the building.”

  As if on cue, a blaze of heavy-machine-gun tracer fire shot out of the second-story windows of the southeast corner of the warehouse. Seconds later, the northeast corner joined in.

  The advance stopped as his men took cover and released a deafening volley of M27 IAR return fire. The tracer fire screamed over their heads, and the Marines’ return fire sparked like a million fireflies in the night.

  From his right, West heard one of the fire-team leaders calling for grenades. Seconds later, he heard the rapid punk-punk of an M32 launching grenades in quick succession. Explosions erupted on both corners of the building, and both machine-gun nests went silent.

  “Sir, we have two vehicles exiting the garage on the opposite side of the building!” West snatched the tablet from the S-2’s hands as he touched his throat mic. “Fighter escort, this is raid leader. We have two runners. You are weapons free to engage.”

  “Acknowledge weapons free on fleeing ground targets,” said the voice of the lead F-35 pilot.

  West heard the roar of the jet engines overhead and saw their fiery exhausts disappear over the top of the warehouse.

  The first fire teams had reached the warehouse now and were breaching points of entry, streaming into the building. West stayed outside. His presence was no good in close quarters. Two explosions in quick succession told him the F-35s had made short work of their targets. He listened as the platoon leaders reported progress. In the background, he could hear doors being broken down and the occasional pop of small arms fire.

  His intel officer provided a running progress report of the assault team inside the warehouse. “First floor is cleared … second floor is cleared … six hostiles down in the machine-gun nests. They found a berthing area … six hostiles dead, ten surrenders. Looks like there were four hostiles in each vehicle, sir. All KIA.” He paused. “Building is secure, sir. Captain Rodgers is in what looks like an underground garage area. He requests permission to breach the elevator.”

  “Tell him permission denied,” West said. “Set up a command post in the garage and collect the dead hostiles in one location for biometrics.”

  “Aye, sir,” the S-2 replied.

  West checked his watch. It had been eleven minutes since the Ospreys touched down. He touched his throat mic. “Homebase, this is raid commander, target topside is secure.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Sudanese airspace

  Janet felt the nose of the C-130 tilt down and craned her neck to see out the window.

  The horizon was a pale pink. Sunrise was coming, but it would still be dark when they landed.

  Janet and Don were seated together in the very forward area of the packed cargo hold facing Dre, Michael, Shira, and Noam on the other side of the aircraft. The rest of the cargo area was a full platoon of Navy SEALs in jump seats lining the fuselage. A line of what looked to Janet like modified dune buggies occupied the center of the cargo hold. LT-ATVs, Michael had informed her when they boarded, lightweight tactical all-terrain vehicles. The ATVs were packed with bright yellow cases labeled BIOHAZARD SUITS.

  The SEAL team officer-in-charge, Lieutenant Peter “Harmony” Harmon, was seated next to Don. He spoke into his headset to his men, then leaned across Don so Janet could hear him.

  “When we get on the ground, I want you guys to stick with me. The Marines have the topside area cleared, but you never know. They left the underground stuff for us.” He gave Janet a tight smile.

  “We’ve been on a SEAL team raid before,” Janet shouted back. “We won’t cause you any trouble.”

  Harmony’s eyebrows hitched up. He was cute, with shaggy red hair, freckles, and a ready smile. “That sounds like a great story. I’ll buy you a beer when we get back.”

  Janet smiled sweetly. “You can buy me all the beer you want, but I’m not gonna tell you anything.”

  “I’ll take that challenge.” Harmony winked.

  The aircraft crew chief stood and raised his hand in the air, fingers splayed. “Five minutes!” he shouted.

  Harmony spoke into the open circuit. “Gentlemen”—he looked at Janet—“and ladies. That’s our cue to saddle up.”

  He climbed aboard the nearest LT-ATV, as did the rest of the SEALs.

  The operators were heavily armed. Each of them carried an FN SCAR combat assault rifle as well as a sidearm—most of them opted for the SIG Sauer P226 nine-millimeter—at least one wicked-looking blade, grenades of various types, and breaching charges to penetrate the underground facility.

  Under Harmony’s supervision, Janet and the rest of Don’s team strapped into jump seats on the back of the ATVs.

  The C-130 Hercules rumbled as it touched down on the desert airstrip. Before the aircraft had even slowed, the crew chief removed tie-downs from the ATVs, and the rear ramp began to lower. As soon as it was near the ground, the first ATV driver gunned the engine and launched into the night. By the time the Hercules had come to a complete stop, the car
go hold was empty.

  They blasted across the desert sand, whipping past a pair of MV-22B Ospreys, their tilt rotors in the upward, vertical-lift position.

  The sun was just cresting the horizon when they arrived at the warehouse. Outside the open garage door, they passed a neat line of corpses and a pair of Marines adding another dead body to the queue. The dead men were all dressed identically, in paramilitary olive-green uniforms and black body armor. Janet guessed there were at least two dozen dead men. The ATV rolled belowground into a large, well-lit garage area.

  A Marine lieutenant colonel in full battle gear strode up and shook hands with Harmony. “Bill West, raid force commander. Topside is secure. Twenty-two bad guys taken off the boards and a handful of prisoners.” He pointed at a set of closed elevator doors. “I assume you guys are here for that part of the operation. I hear it’s a biothreat?”

  Harmony nodded. Around him, the rest of the SEAL team was pulling on biohazard suits and checking compressed-air tanks.

  “Good luck. Let us know if you need anything. We’ll set a perimeter and secure the airfield. The facility is yours.”

  Harmony called Janet and her colleagues together. He pointed at the elevator, where a pair of his men were erecting a clear plastic enclosure. “We’ll set up a temporary airlock around the elevator. I’ll lead an assault team in full bio gear to clear the lab. Then we’ll let you in. Everyone goes in full bio gear until we’re certain what we’re dealing with.” He slapped a lieutenant junior grade on the shoulder. “This is Dogbone. He’ll be topside with you the whole time and you’ll be able to see everything on our helmet cameras.”

  Within a few minutes, the containment area was set up around the elevator doors and ten armed SEALs dressed in full yellow bio suits were inside the clear plastic structure. Ten more SEALs kitted out in biohazard suits waited in reserve.

  Everyone’s eyes were locked on Harmony’s visual feed showing on a small laptop screen. “Dogbone, this is Harmony, how do you read me?”

  “Five by five.”

  “Copy that. Entering the facility.”

  One of the SEALs used a crowbar to force the elevator doors open. Two more already in rope harnesses stepped up and rappelled off the edge. The picture inside was a grainy infrared image.

  “We’re on top of the elevator car. Nobody inside, doors closed. We’re proceeding.”

  “Acknowledged.” Dogbone muted his microphone. “They’re packing low-velocity rounds to minimize damage if there’s any shooting. We don’t want to break anything we don’t have to in this kind of situation.”

  The interior of the well-lit elevator car looked like it belonged in an office building. The car was packed with six SEALs, rifles at the ready.

  “We’re gonna crack this open and see what’s inside. Stand by.”

  Harmony pushed the elevator open-doors button, and the doors parted. The picture rushed forward, and Janet heard cries of “Clear!” She caught glimpses of a table with the remnants of a meal still on it, a sitting area, then a hallway, and bedrooms.

  “I’ve got one!”

  The picture shifted to a woman with long dark hair lying on a bed. “Woman, midthirties, no visible wounds, strong vitals. Looks like she’s asleep, maybe sedated. We’ve got a locked steel door in the last bedroom. We’re going to breach it. Minimal charge.”

  Dogbone muted his microphone. “We don’t like to use explosives inside a biofacility for obvious reasons.”

  A SEAL slapped a series of shaped charges on the door’s edges and retreated.

  “Breach, breach, breach!”

  Boom!

  The image passed through a smoking door-sized hole and onto the set of the Mahdi.

  “We were right!” Don said, a flood of relief in his voice.

  “Dogbone, upper level is cleared. Looks like a movie studio in here.”

  “Understood,” Dogbone said. “Based on the reaction I’m getting up here, that’s a good thing. Proceed to level two.”

  The image returned to the two SEALs who had been left guarding the stairwell. The full team entered the empty stairwell and crept down two flights of steps to a heavy steel door. They crashed through the door in stacked formation.

  “We’ve got bodies,” Harmony said. The camera showed an open space hemmed in by a solid glass wall. “One very dead guy dressed like the terrorists upstairs, one guy with his head blown off—”

  “That’s Manzul,” Don said.

  “We’ve got a live one,” Harmony continued, “but she’s in bad shape.”

  The image swung to a dark-skinned woman dressed in a business suit. Her face was swollen and she had a wad of bloody gauze strapped to her belly. A handgun lay on the floor next to her.

  “That’s Rachel,” Noam said.

  “I’ll send a corpsman down—”

  “Dogbone!” Harmony interrupted. “We have positive evidence of a biothreat.”

  The picture shifted to the lab behind the Plexiglas. Janet counted five bodies on the floor. A blond woman was near the glass, her face swollen beyond recognition. Bloody mucus leaked from her nose. Janet couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

  “We’re transporting the survivor upstairs,” Harmony said. “Then we’ll seal the stairwell.”

  * * *

  It was midafternoon before the area was deemed safe enough to allow Janet and the rest of the team inside. When Harmony came topside to brief them, his face was flushed and sweaty.

  “The door seal on the lab where the bodies are located is intact,” Harmony said, “but we sealed off the lower levels anyway. The CDC guys can handle that. We’ve done swabs all over the living quarters on the upper level. They all come back clean.”

  “What about Rachel?” Noam asked. “When can I see her?”

  “Right away, but I warn you, she’s in bad shape. The corpsman can’t believe she’s still alive after all the blood she lost.”

  “She’s tough,” Noam said, but the lines on his face deepened.

  Harmony addressed Don. “I’m supposed to let you guys in to access the computer systems. Once you’re done, we’ll tear it all out and send it back to Lemonnier.”

  Janet sidled next to Harmony as they made their way to the elevator. “How bad was it?”

  The young SEAL shook his head. “You can’t unsee that shit. It was like their bodies were melting. What kind of sick mind would do that to another human being?”

  The first level of the research compound resembled a cross between a war zone and a college dorm. Next to the pile of discarded bio suits, a dining room table had been turned into a makeshift hospital bed for the injured Mossad agent. She was still unconscious, and her dark skin had an ashen undertone.

  “How is she?” Noam asked the SEAL platoon’s corpsman.

  “She is one tough lady,” the corpsman replied. “If you’d asked me two hours ago, I’d have said it was touch and go, but I think she’s gonna be okay.”

  “What about the other one?” Harmony asked.

  “The Indian gal?” The corpsman shook his head. “Not good. She was sedated when we got here. Roofied, I’m guessing. When she woke up and saw what had happened, she lost it. I knocked her out again. There’s a whole lot of therapy in that woman’s future.”

  Don pointed to the computer workstation in the sitting area. “Dre and Michael, you guys work on that system. We’re looking for what these guys were working on, names of the scientists, anything that will help us wrap this thing up.”

  Janet and Don continued with Harmony to the living quarters. They entered the last bedroom and passed through a breached door into the Mahdi studio.

  Don gave a low whistle. “This guy was not fooling around.”

  Janet had looked at the Mahdi videos so many times that the scene felt familiar. She touched the tapestry hanging behind the couch, tested the plush of the carpet with her toe.

  Janet sat behind a computer workstation and logged on to the computer. There was no password. “I guess only one perso
n used this computer and he was pretty confident of the lock on the door.”

  “Let’s see what he was up to,” Don said.

  Janet scanned the contents of the hard drive, clicking quickly through the folders. She found information for dam projects in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt.

  “This looks like our guy, Don.”

  “Check the search history.”

  Janet opened the browser. “Search history’s been wiped. I’ll recover it from the server.” After a few moments of work, Janet found that that had been deleted as well.

  “Seems like a lot of work for someone who doesn’t bother to put a password on their computer.”

  Michael appeared in the doorway. “We got something.”

  Dre was working the computer when Janet and Don joined them.

  “Using some old security footage and facial rec, we’ve identified the staff in this picture.” She flashed up an image of five people sitting at the same dining room table where the injured Mossad agent now lay. They seemed to be enjoying each other’s company.

  “They’re all top researchers in the fields of various biology specialties and gene-editing work. They are all on sabbatical from their current jobs. We’re making educated guesses that these four and the sleeping woman are the ones in the picture. But notice there’s a sixth place at dinner.”

  Dre flashed another still image showing an attractive woman with brown skin and blue eyes. “That’s the WHO researcher who was killed in the plane crash,” Don said.

  “Correct, Dr. Talia Tahir, and very much alive. Yesterday evening, all the security cameras in the facility were shut off except for the one in the garage. This is the last bit of footage we have.”

  She showed a grainy image of the underground garage above them. The elevator doors opened, and Dr. Tahir exited with a small bag slung over her shoulder. She got in a black SUV and drove off.

  “Okay,” Don said. “Tahir is in the wind, our Mossad agent is out of commission for now, and everyone else is dead except for the one woman. Who wants to wake Sleeping Beauty?”