Crucible of Fear

by D. W. Whitlock

  Dante shook his head and slipped his finger onto the trigger.

  “We’re not Dark Messiah,” Skylar said.

  “Fer de lance?” Dante said.

  “We’re the front line against threats like this. We’ve been preparing for a very long time.” He motioned behind him, high voice dropping to a conspiratorial croak. “Just let me show you.”

  Briana looked from Skylar to Dante, then back again, stepping closer. “This isn’t Dark Messiah’s style,” she said. “For one, we’ve never seen them and this guy is standing right here in front of us. Let’s see what he has to show us. If they have a way of getting to Dark Messiah and finding Abigail, it’s worth a look. We came this far. What other choice do we have?”

  Dante’s eyes remained locked on Skylar’s.

  He looked young but handled himself like he was much older. And his eyes. A light shone there in the pale blue, a fierceness, the wisdom of someone who’d lived and seen things. Terrible things. How many people could stare down the barrel of a gun held by a desperate man the way Skylar was right now? Dante lowered the gun, but held it down at his side.

  “Show us.”

  CHAPTER 81

  Rat Traps

  The door eased open without a sound and they entered. Dante watched the door close behind them, eyes widening as he saw how thick it was. It sealed shut with a series of ratcheting thumps that vibrated the ground. A large, empty room stretched out before them. Evenly spaced support pillars jutted up from a concrete floor. It was hotter in here, the air still and dry. Dante peeled the upper half of his suit off, tying the arms around his waist. Skylar eyed the prosthetic arm with interest as he did so. Briana did the same and Skylar gazed at her a moment too long before turning away.

  He led them along a diagonal path tracked through a layer of dust to the far corner. A grungy odor hung heavy in the air with a tinge of something bitter, along with a darker smell underneath. Cloying and dank. Rotten. Littered throughout the room were large, black boxes about the size of a travel bag with an opening on one side.

  “Traps,” Skylar said over one shoulder. “The kind that kill. Downtown has a tremendous rat problem. Not too many get in here but when they do, whammo! When I was a kid, my brother had a pet rat and it skeeved me out seeing that tail and giant rat balls dragging all over his shoulders. Disgusting.”

  “This is what you wanted to show us?” Dante said.

  Skylar ignored him and came to a stop at the far corner. A square hatch was set into the floor with a metal handle inset in the lid. He knelt down and pulled up on the handle, an ugly metallic screech in the silence. The hatch opened, revealing a rusty metal stairway that led down. Dingy yellow light filtered up from somewhere deep inside.

  “After you,” Skylar said.

  Dante climbed down the steps, his feet clomping on the metal grate. At the bottom, he gazed down a long, dimly lit hallway of water-stained concrete. Pipes ran along the ceiling, scaled with gray. It was cooler down here and he sighed with relief. Briana descended and stood next to him.

  “This place is so cool,” she said.

  Dante sniffed the air. “Stinks down here.”

  The metal hatch dropped with thunderous crash and they both jumped.

  “Sorry,” Skylar said with a smirk. “This way.”

  Their feet crunched on loose concrete scree as they made their way forward, the occasional naked bulb overhead throwing dim pools of yellow light.

  “It’s rumored there are over seventy miles of tunnels under Los Angeles,” Skylar said. “Some built for subways, others used during prohibition to hustle alcohol and later, to keep convicted murderers safe while moving them between jails. Fallout shelters came later, built in the early ’50s after Russia successfully tested their first atom bomb. Most are now used for storage or have been sealed up and forgotten.”

  “See any Lizard people?” Briana said.

  Skylar laughed. “I heard about that one too. God, I wish. None yet, but I’ll let you know if I do.” He grinned over his shoulder.

  The walls shifted to pale green, the paint cracked where the joints of cinder blocks came together. A sign was riveted to the wall, three yellow triangles in a black circle with the words “Fallout Shelter” below. The hall juked and ended at a metal door, painted the same pale green as the surrounding brick. A well-worn T handle jutted from the center with circles etched in the paint from countless rotations. The handle rotated with a squeal and they followed Skylar inside.

  The ceiling was low and Dante felt the urge to duck, even though he had at least a foot of clearance. It was cool inside, bordering on cold. The room was a large square chamber with cinder block walls—all painted the same green as the hallway. Various carpets of all shapes and colors were scattered across the smooth concrete floors that peeked through. Tables of all shapes and sizes dotted the room. Laptops or workstations sat on top along with toys, board games, Post-Its, crumpled coffee cups and energy drinks. The sound of chattering keyboards filled the air, helmed by at least a dozen or so people as they typed in rapid fits and starts. Others sat on beanbags or pillows on the floor, laptops resting on laps as they typed. Incense and warm electronics permeated the air, along with the unmistakable undercurrent of body odor.

  A man in his early thirties sat at a table nearby, dressed in a gray three-piece suit and wingtips, spine ramrod straight as his slender fingers flew across the keys. His pale, freckled skin glowed in the blue wash from his monitor. Sitting beside him was a large man with puffy cheeks flushed with red, a pair of reading glasses perched on his stubby nose. He blinked rapidly as his fingers hammered the keyboard.

  Others had green or purple hair and wore loose fitting clothes. Two people wore dazzle camo. Some wore button up shirts and slacks, hair combed within an inch of its life. A girl near the back had a tan hijab on her head, dark eyes glittering in the dim light from her screen. Next to her sat another person wearing a burka that covered their whole body, only the eyes showing. The thumb on their right hand was covered with a thick bandage. None of them looked up from their work. Installed along the far-left wall were wooden bunkbeds. Soft shapes lay under blankets on some, gently rising and falling.

  “What is this? Some kind of hacker army?” Dante asked.

  Skylar smiled. “This is Fer de lance. We like to think of ourselves as Modern Templars battling in the crusade for the digital holy land.”

  “Modern Templars and digital crusades,” Dante said, shaking his head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I know how it sounds. But future wars are going to be waged in cyberspace. It’s just skirmishes right now. Data theft. Industrial espionage. Misinformation through social media channels, election scams. Cyber-stalking, cyber-harassment, malware, ransomware.”

  “Sounds like war already,” Briana said.

  “Those are just the opening salvos. Remember Stuxnet? It was a worm created by the United States and Israel to attack Iranian uranium enrichment centrifuges to affect plutonium purity. Brilliant. Iran couldn’t make nuclear weapons and not one shot was fired. But this is just a small taste of things to come. The big one is coming. I’m talking about a concerted, large-scale effort to take control of nationwide, governmental infrastructure. Can you imagine the stranglehold a group, whether government or terrorists would have over a country if they could achieve this? Better believe the NSA and CIA are giving this some serious consideration. People are just now becoming aware of it. It all started when Edward Snowden peeled back the veneer and exposed one of the many battlefields. An American citizen’s right to privacy.”

  “Isn’t he a traitor?” Briana asked.

  “Well,” Skylar said, “yes and no, depending on your point of view.”

  “Not sure I follow,” Dante said.

  “When Snowden joined the CIA, he swore an oath to god and country. He broke that oath to expose government secrets. So, through that lens he’s a traitor. But he also exposed the power, the tremendous, previously unknown p
ower the U.S. Government had over its citizens. The ability to spy on anyone through their cell phone, tablet or computer without any oversight, FISA court orders or sense of responsibility. That kind of power is just too much for one group to have.”

  “But if you have nothing to hide, isn’t it worth the loss of a few freedoms to protect us?” Briana asked.

  “What if your boyfriend posts nude pictures of you after a break up? What did you do to deserve that? Absolutely nothing except trust the wrong person. And you never truly know someone until it’s too late. What if that kind of person has access to the surveillance on anyone at any time? The results could be disastrous, and I’m not talking about the Fappening.”

  “The Fappening?” Briana asked.

  “Not important,” Skylar said. He cleared his throat before continuing. “Let’s say this particular person works for the CIA and has an axe to grind with someone. All they have to do is catch the right moment, or manufacture a police record with the help of deep fakes and falsified documents. Arrests. Drug possession. Even falsified juvenile records that are not allowed to be opened. But what if there is probable cause? A judge will order that seal torn right off. Not to mention they’ll have the full power of the U.S. Government on their side once they collect enough evidence. It wouldn’t matter if the evidence is manufactured. Who would know? The CIA has a blue wall of silence just like the police and they protect their own. All Snowden did is yank back the curtain for the world to see what kind of wizard is back there, yanking levers and smashing ‘like’ buttons. And if you ask me, he is one evil, ugly motherfucker.”

  “This is all very exciting, Skylar,” Dante said, “but what about Abigail?”

  The young man waved one of his small, delicate hands over the room, his icy blue eyes locked on Dante. “What do you think they’re all doing right now?”

  CHAPTER 82

  Hit

  “Follow me,” Skylar said.

  He led them through the people hunched over their computers to the back of the room. A long table stood across the back wall with two large monitors mounted above, at least eighty inches across. Various data feeds marched across the screens, but what they were monitoring, Dante could only guess. The table was covered with electronic odds and ends and various gadgets, some half-finished. Underneath were milk crates full of motherboards and other electronics. A soldering iron sat in a sheath of metal loops in front of a small chest of labeled plastic drawers, each one containing a specific electronic component. An oscilloscope was perched off to one side, its green electric eye displaying an oscillating sine wave.

  “What’s it doing?” Briana asked, pointing at the small screen.

  “60 hertz,” Skylar said. “I knew you guys were coming so I switched it on ’cause it looks cool.” He turned and glanced at Dante. “Good job finding my message portal.”

  “I didn’t.” Dante nodded toward Briana. “She did.”

  “Really?” Skylar asked, a slight smile curving his lips. He moved a mouse next to a keyboard and a monitor on the table lit up. After typing in a few commands, the screen filled with a video feed of an airport interior, the images whizzing by at dizzying speeds.

  “That’s the Burbank Airport,” Dante said, peering closer.

  “Our watchdog software, Creeper, uses machine learning to-”

  “Creeper?” Abigail said.

  “C-R-P-R. Cognitive Relativistic Parametric Review. Creeper. Well, I thought it was cute. Anyways, Creeper started downloading cam feeds as soon as the plane hit. We didn’t know exactly was going on until the software flagged an anomaly.” Skylar pointed at the screen. “This.”

  The video slowed and played at normal speed. Black smoke choked the airport terminal as people streamed through in a mad dash to escape. Dante saw two small shapes huddled against the wall in the lower right and his breath caught.

  “Oh my god, that’s them. Abigail and Kelly.”

  Two men dressed in black military gear with white skull faces peeled off from the rushing throng. One delivered a powerful kick to Kelly’s face while the other grabbed Abigail and pressed a hand over her mouth. Kelly shook off the kick and lunged after the man carrying Abigail, punching furiously at the side of his head. He stumbled, almost dropping the girl to the ground as he tried to spin away from the fierce series of jabs. His partner struck Kelly in the lower back and she stiffened, throwing her mouth open. Another jab to the back of her head dropped her hard to the carpet. The two men disappeared from view, Abigail struggling to break free from between them.

  It was over in seconds.

  A flare of bright light caused the screen to darken and Dante leaned in, trying to peer through the glare. The image returned and he felt a bitter taste in his mouth as he saw Kelly lying on the ground, helpless and bleeding as people rushed past her. Bile rose in the back of this throat as he wheeled on Skylar. “Where’d they take her?”

  “Watch.”

  The feed changed to show a dark sedan pull up on the tarmac outside, the two men hustling a helpless Abigail inside and speeding off. Another feed showed the car swerving into a parking structure and skid to a stop near a white Ford truck with super crew cab. Briana inhaled sharply next to Dante as the men yanked Abigail out and hustled over, one dragging her by the hand. Abigail tripped and was roughly yanked back to her feet.

  “Motherfuckers!” Dante said, slamming the table.

  Abigail sprang to life like a coiled spring and latched onto the man’s gloved hand and bit down. There was no sound, but Dante imagined he could hear the bastard yelp. Abigail ran away in the slow, panicked run of a terrified child before the man caught her again and carried her over to the truck and pushed her inside. The truck drove off past incoming firetrucks and police cars, moving no faster than twenty miles an hour.

  The screen went black.

  “You have a very brave little girl,” Briana said, touching his arm.

  Dante shook, his breathing ragged. Blinking away tears he swallowed. “Where’d they go?”

  When Skylar spoke, his voice was low and steady. “Creeper is tapped into cameras all throughout the city but somewhere outside the airport, we lost them. The search parameters were updated to check footage from other sources from that day but unfortunately most privately owned cameras are on, but not recording. It’s going to take some time to find sources and scan through all that footage.”

  “We’re running out of time,” Dante said. “We have less than eight hours to find Abigail.”

  “Seven hours, thirty-six minutes,” Skylar corrected. “We ran the plates. They’re registered to a 1996 Nissan Sentra so the plates were stolen and they would have no doubt switched to another set. They know what they’re doing. Finding that specific truck is going to be tricky. But we have an ace in the hole.”

  “And what’s that?” Briana said.

  Skylar typed in a command and ran the footage back. The two militia men approached Abigail and Kelly where they crouched against the wall. The video played in a loop shuttling back and forth.

  “The guy on the left, he’s got a bit of limp there. See? We figure he’s ex-military, got a prosthetic lower leg. So, Creeper analyzes all the footage we have of this guy and compiles a movement profile based on how he walks, runs, and so on. Then it creates an animation that can be loaded onto a skeleton. We call it a DMM, Dynamic Movement Map.”

  “Kind of like motion capture,” Dante said.

  “Yes, with a dash of physical simulation.”

  The screen changed to a three-dimensional skeleton. It jogged, similar to the man in the video, a slight bouncy limp on the left side. The motion then changed to a walk showing a similar movement style.

  “You’re going to scan footage for someone that walks similar to the DMM?” Briana said.

  “Exactly,” Skylar said with a grin.

  “Won’t that take forever? I mean, it has to analyze and build maps of other people for comparison before it can compare, right?” Briana said.

  “Wh
o are you?” Skylar asked, shaking his head. “You’re exactly right. It goes deeper than that. We have a database of militia groups all over America. A lot have cropped up over the last few years. Most are just rednecks who like to play soldier. They get together and drink and shoot up old cars. Others, though, are the real deal. Heavily armed preppers getting ready for a possible race war, end of the world, what have you. An even smaller subset are mercenaries, soldiers for hire. These guys are ex-military and usually do illegal undercover missions outside the US for the CIA. And on very rare occasions, if the money is right, they’ll do a job right here on American soil.”

  “You know which group?” Dante said.

  “We’re looking at five right now. One from Michigan, one from Texas, another from Ohio and two out of Nebraska.”

  “Wait, two from Nebraska?” Briana said.

  “Yep. They’re active right now.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Their trailers are dark and the sheep aren’t nervous.”

  Briana’s brows furrowed and Skylar laughed. “Internet chatter. All these clowns use the dark web to communicate, so it can be difficult to trace who it is and from where. Creeper is also analyzing the chatter for patterns, searching for keywords like ‘package’ or ‘mark’ that will reveal which group is responsible. Sometimes they’re dumb enough to just say outright what they’re up to. We’ll know as soon as it gets a hit.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “I have no idea,” Skylar said.

  “This sounds like a bunch of bullshit. How do you know any of this works?” Dante said.

  “We got a hit!” called out the pale man in the three-piece suit.

  CHAPTER 83

  Esperanto

  “What do we got, Neil?” Skylar said as he marched across the room.