by James Hunt
A sigh escaped the lips on the other end of the communication link that sat inside her left ear. The device was no larger than a pinhead yet allowed her to stay connected with her designated support agent and partner from anywhere in the world. “I told you to go when you got off the plane,” Bryce said.
Sarah remained frozen, the pain in her bladder like a thousand tiny knives stabbing her insides. “I didn’t have to go then.” She exhaled slowly, afraid that even the slightest movement would trigger her bladder’s detonation. “I think I might actually be already peeing on the inside.”
The sound of rushing water suddenly broke through the transmission in Sarah’s ear, followed quickly by the light drip of droplets splashing into puddles. Sarah narrowed her eyes, her irritation growing dangerously violent, coalescing in the form of the low growl that ended the sound effects and triggered a chuckle from Bryce. “Oh, c’mon,” Bryce said. “It can’t be that bad.”
“It can,” Sarah said. “And it is.” And if the pain in her bladder didn’t drive her mad, the smell in the alley certainly would. She scrunched her nose at a foul stench that accentuated the light scarring along her cheeks that years of fieldwork had left behind and focused on breathing through her mouth. “It’s like someone puked in a diaper, ate the diaper, then puked it back up.” She gagged and wiped the matted bangs off her forehead, still damp from the rain. “Tell me why I’m here again?”
“Three names,” Bryce said, his voice mirroring that of a radio host. “Abd Mustafa Mohammed, Abu Bakr al-Adnani, and Aaqib Mohammed. Their contributions to the Islamic State are responsible for over six thousand deaths across Europe. And they are scheduled to meet in that apartment complex to discuss plans for their next attack.”
“Right. Bad guys.” Sarah flexed her hands, her knuckles cracking, her fingers itching for the two .45 Colt 1911 pistols that were holstered underneath the Kevlar jacket.
“Hold on,” Bryce said. “I’ve got movement. Two SUVs heading east on Conley.”
Less than a minute later, the same vehicles turned into the apartment complex Sarah had been watching, the two pairs of headlights illuminating the old brick of the building where they parked right next to the front entrance.
The vehicle engines shut off, along with the headlights, and all eight doors opened simultaneously. The first four individuals that exited were tall, muscular men dressed in suits with AR-15 assault rifles strapped over their shoulders. The three men that followed wore traditional Arab robes. The security detail split in half, two following their terrorist masters inside and two remaining stationed on either side of the front door.
“Performing biometric scans,” Bryce said. “Aaaaaaaand, bingo! Those are our boys.”
Sarah snapped her neck to the left, then to the right, triggering three quick pops. She rotated her shoulders and shook loose the rust accumulated over the past three hours. Her nostrils flared from a sharp inhalation and breathed life into muscles that had grown stagnant. “Time to go say hi.”
Sarah emerged from the depths of the narrow crevice between the townhomes and stopped at the darkness’s edge, keeping low. She examined the path across the street, which exposed her to the two security guards’ line of sight. “Bryce, can you jam their communications?”
Bryce chortled. “I don’t know, is Thor the god of thunder?” And as though he could sense the eye roll, he quickly added, “Yes.”
Sarah waited until the two goons faced each other then darted from the townhouses. Once on the other side of the road, she slowed her pace to a casual stroll. She examined the apartment complex, noticing that a few of the windows had lights on in them. “The complex still has tenants?”
“Yeah. Looks like there are around twenty people still registered to live inside. So remember, don’t—”
“Blow up the building.” Sarah turned off the sidewalk and into the parking lot of the apartment tower, keeping the same leisurely pace, and finally catching the attention of the two guards out front. “Time to turn on the charm.”
“God help us all,” Bryce said, his voice low and dry.
The two brutes had buzzed heads and square jaws. Their jackets were pulled tight against muscular arms and broad shoulders. If there were ever poster boys for evil henchmen, she was looking at them. They nodded to one another, whispering in their foreign tongue as Sarah approached, and then when she was within ten feet, Thing Two held up his hand. “Stop.” The English was muffled, but from their body language and the fact that neither of them lifted his rifle on her, she knew they didn’t see her as a threat. Not yet at least. “Building closed. Come back later.”
Sarah raised both eyebrows and waved her right hand toward the apartment complex. “But the flyer said the Jihad Anonymous hours were from eight to ten.”
Thing Two looked back to his partner, the two exchanging quick words in their native Arabic. Thing One stepped down from the doorway and joined Thing Two. “You leave. Now.”
Sarah jutted her jaw forward and furrowed her brow, hanging her arms low like a gorilla. “Me Tarzan. You Jane.” Neither laughed. She dropped the act and took a step forward. This time both men raised their rifles, fingers on the triggers. She lifted her hands defensively. “Easy, boys.” Sarah edged one more step, putting her just within an arm’s reach of the ends of both rifle barrels. “You know what happens when you get excited too quickly.”
But before either Thing One or Thing Two reacted, Sarah knocked the rifles away with her hands. She kicked her boot into Thing Two’s groin, dropping him to his knees, and immediately followed the strike with an uppercut to Thing One’s chin that sent him stumbling backward.
Thing Two scrunched his face in pain, and his skin flushed a cherry red as he cupped his manhood, wailing in pain. Sarah spun a roundhouse kick and cracked her heel against the side of his head, knocking him unconscious and to the pavement.
Sarah turned and watched Thing One regain his footing, shaking off the stars and cartoon birds circling his head. She pressed an attack and dodged left then right from two quick jabs headed by the boulder-sized fists of Thing One. She stepped close, eroding the advantage of his long arms, and landed a blow to his ribs where she felt the crack of bone.
“ARGH!” Thing One buckled, and Sarah stepped around to his back. She cupped his chin and snapped his neck. The distinctive pop preceded the dull thud as Thing One flopped to the damp asphalt.
Sarah unzipped her jacket and removed both pistols, bounding up the front staircase. “What floor?”
“Heat signatures are telling me they’ve clustered on six. It’ll be the fourth door down on your right when you exit the stairwell. And remember—”
“Don’t kill them right away, we need the intelligence, blah, blah, blah. It’s like you think I’ve never done this before.” Soundless, Sarah hustled up the stairs, both hands poised to fire at a moment’s notice. The burn in her muscles was a welcome reprieve from the lack of movement of the past few hours. Stakeouts ranked only slightly higher on her list of most hated things than being stuck behind her desk at HQ.
Once on the sixth floor, Sarah paused at the exit. Slowly, she cracked the door open. Both ends of the hallway were clear, and she spotted the fourth door that Bryce had mentioned. She slithered into the hall, her boots falling silently against the carpeted floor.
The two remaining security guards were undoubtedly inside the room with their clients, and Sarah knew it was only a matter of time before they radioed their counterparts outside for a check-in. She knelt next to the door handle, giving it a light push, unsurprisingly finding it locked.
A door opened down the hall where a middle-aged man stepped out of his apartment holding a trash bag. He took one step on his turn toward the staircase and locked eyes with Sarah, who still held both pistols. Without a word, the man retreated into his apartment. She heard the heavy slide of a deadbolt.
“You’ll have to be quick,” Bryce said. “The moment you step into that room, they’re going to try and destroy the plans th
ey brought to discuss.”
“What do you think?” Sarah said, her voice hushed. “Pizza delivery?”
“No, don’t—”
Sarah pounded on the door with her fist. “Moose Rack Pizza! I’ve got a large pepperoni for Tim!” She stepped so close to the peep hole that only her face was visible from the other side. The mumbled voices inside fell silent and were replaced with hurried footsteps.
The door unlocked, and the moment a polished black dress shoe stepped out, Sarah aimed her .45 and sent a bullet through the toes. The shoe’s leather cut open, and blood spouted up through the hole as the guard jumped backward and screamed. Sarah charged through the door, jamming the barrel of her Colt into the goon’s stomach, and pulled the trigger again, ending his high-pitched wail.
Before the guard could collapse, Sarah gripped him by the collar and puppeteered the dying meat sack to shield her from the hail of bullets from his partner. Sarah stuck her pistol under the puppet’s armpit and poked her head over his shoulder. Three brass shells ejected from the chamber and dropped the last security detail to the floor.
Sarah shrugged off the brute and aimed both of her pistols between the three terrorists who’d remained frozen at the table. She stepped over the dead body and examined the stoic faces wrapped in the long garments of their culture. “Aaqib, you never return my calls anymore. And after we had such a great time at last summer’s terrorist retreat in Cancun.” She glanced to the other two and raised both eyebrows. “Ever seen him shotgun a beer? It’s like he doesn’t have a jaw. Probably comes in handy with the fellas.”
Aaqib Mohammed stood, Sarah following his rise with the end of her pistol. He lifted his chin before he spoke, his air of confidence surprisingly high for someone without guns or protection. “No woman has a right to speak to men as you do,” he snarled, his upper lip flashing his teeth. “It is written that—”
The ring of the gunshot lingered long after Aaqib’s body hit the floor, but not as long as Bryce’s incessant yapping about shooting him. “You were supposed to interrogate them!”
“Relax,” Sarah said. “There’s still two left.”
Abu and Abd exchanged a glance and then simultaneously lifted their hands in surrender. Abu, the smallest of the three but with the longest beard, cleared his throat before he spoke. “There is no need for violence—”
“I’m gonna stop you right there, Abu.” Sarah stepped forward. “My bladder is about to explode and I don’t have time to hear about all of the ‘my daddy never loved me so I take it out on the world’ issues that you’re working through, so hand over what you have, or you can join your friend on the floor.”
Abu Bakr al-Adnani handed her the computer drive, while Abd looked like he was concentrating on not emptying his own bladder. After a quick patdown to ensure that the remaining parties weren’t hiding any further documents, Sarah crossed her arms and examined the two pieces of human scum before her, considering her options. “So what do you think, Bryce? Should we leave a nice little present for Toronto’s finest when they arrive?”
“You’ve got some time before your flight leaves. I say go for it.”
Sarah clapped her hands together and rubbed them vigorously. “I do love it when I’m allowed to express myself.” A series of cries and defiant foot stomps followed as Sarah stripped both men down to their birthday suits and sandwiched them together, stomach to stomach, head to toe, each with the other party’s ankles wrapped around his neck, tied horizontally to the table.
Sarah paused at the door, admiring her handy work. “If we had a newsletter at the GSF, this would definitely make the cover.”
“Probably not,” Bryce said.
“Damn censorship.” Sarah shook a clenched fist in the air.
“Chopper takes off in less than an hour,” Bryce said. “I’ll send the coordinates for the pickup to your phone—what are you doing?”
Half listening, Sarah jimmied open the door of the first-floor apartment closest to the stairwell. She made a beeline to the bathroom and eyed the toilet eagerly, her bladder screaming a chorus of relief. “Cover your ears, Bryce. This could get intimate.”
Taylor Grimes stood next to his black sedan, the tinted windows reflecting the afternoon sun. His clean-shaven face formed a grimace, the poorly kept grounds not up to the same standard as his freshly buzzed haircut. Dressed in his grey suit and black tie, the only spot of color amid his drab attire a small flag pin on his lapel, he looked out of place among the abandoned and broken property he’d purchased two years ago.
The pavement of the parking lot was cracked and worn. Weeds had sprung from the asphalt, and trash littered the grounds of the old textile mill. The factory had shut down in the eighties, remaining unused and untouched for decades. But now it served a purpose once again.
Taylor flexed his fingers around the handle of the briefcase in his right hand, the flesh of his knuckles a light shade of pink from the tight grip. Although he had visited the factory several times over the past few months, familiarity did little to calm the uneasiness of his endeavors. There was a tickle in the back of his mind, harmless yet annoying. He examined the broken windows, the peeling paint, the overall deterioration, but it was more than the appearance that bothered him. The factory was more than just a relic of a broken past, it was part of a broken ideology. An ideology that Grimes had embraced all his life. But things had changed.
Inside, the pungent musk of old, damp carpet lingered in the hallways. Grimes reached his hand along the wall, feeling the dirt and filth from years of neglect, and then flicked on the light switch. A chain reaction of florescent bulbs flickered above and stretched down the hallway until it ended at a closed door.
Grimes moved swiftly, but when he reached the end of the hallway he glanced up to the struggling light above, flickering, unsure of its purpose and whether it should remain on or give up and burn out. The same tickle Grimes had felt in the parking lot returned. Quickly, he opened the door, stepped inside, and sealed it shut behind him, casting himself in darkness. His first step down was careful, his left hand locating the rail of the staircase to help guide him down.
Splinters from the rail pricked his palm on his descent. When he reached the bottom, he again searched the wall for a light switch, which he found a little sooner than the one upstairs. Brown cardboard boxes, wooden crates, and rusted machinery littered the floor. Cobwebs and dust drifted lazily from the air vents, and Grimes maneuvered through the forgotten relics until he reached the only door in the basement.
Grimes glared at the biometric scan to the right of the door. Carefully, he pressed his left thumb into the groove, and a solid beam of red light passed under it three times before turning green and granting him entry.
The walls were freshly painted, and the concrete flooring had been replaced with new carpet. Directly to his right, along the entirety of the wall, sat six-foot-high servers. Their fronts blinked with lights, and a low hum buzzed about the room from their combined computing power. To Grimes’s left sat two desks, each with four computer screens across it.
The faces behind the screens paid Grimes no attention until he stood in the three-foot space between the desks. The man and woman at each respective desk shared many features: blond hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones with a weak chin, their faces more triangle than round. The fraternal twins even wore the same identical blue jumpsuits, along with matching handcuffs that kept them restrained to their chairs.
The twins stopped typing, and the female spoke first, staring at the case in Grimes’s hand. “Is that it?”
Grimes placed the briefcase on the edge of her desk and pressed his thumb against another biometric scanner similar to the one he had used to enter the room. The latches sprang open, and inside the black velvet case sat only one item, no larger than a thumbtack: a computer chip encased in plastic. He pinched it between his fingers, the twins eying the tiny device with a certain awe. Grimes snapped the briefcase shut. “How much longer?”
The male kept
his eyes on the chip in Grimes’s hold. “Depends on when we receive the last piece.”
Grimes placed the chip gently on the male’s desk. He reached for it and barely grazed it with his fingertips, stretching his cuffed hands as far as the restraints allowed. He held the chip for a moment and then reached for a black box no bigger than a shoebox. The surfaces of the box were smooth, the metal cold to the touch. Inside, a row of other computer chips lined twelve ports, two of them still empty. But once the latest chip was inserted, only one empty space remained.
With the twins distracted with their new toy, Grimes looked to the server bank and all of its blinking lights and processing power. Two years. He just hoped that the time he had spent putting this together wasn’t for nothing. “How have the simulations been running?”
“It’s hard to get an accurate read,” the male twin said.
“We won’t know its true potential until we have the last chip in place,” the female tacked on seamlessly.
The heat generated by the servers made him sweat, and what was worse, the tickling in the back of his mind had returned. He turned on his heel, grabbed his suitcase, and headed for the door. He had nearly escaped before the male called out.
“You said you’d give us the picture today.” He shouted like a child asking his father for what he had been promised for completing his chores even though he was a man nearing thirty.
Grimes reached inside his jacket as he turned and removed a photograph. He extended it to the male twin, who snatched it as eagerly as he had the computer chip. He smiled, flashing yellowed teeth, as his sister extended her arms in a gesture of “let me see, let me see.”
“Your parents will remain safe so long as you give me what I want.” Grimes returned to the door and again pressed his thumb against a biometric scan. “Provided that it works.”
Grimes turned off the basement light and ascended the staircase. Everyone had a button that could be pushed. Leverage was always a needed tool in his line of work. It was a game played in shadows, and if the wonder twins could deliver on what he wanted, then he would have changed the game forever.
