The Treadstone Resurrection

by Joshua Hood

  A pimple-faced kid with stringy brown hair and a dingy floral-print button-up raised his hand.

  “I-I do, sir.”

  Felix glanced at the monitor, stroking his goatee, the satphone in his cargo pocket vibrating against his leg.

  Black knew the only person who had this number was his boss, Jefferson Gray, and he wanted to be sure they had their prey before answering.

  “You sure this time?”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “You better be fucking right,” Black said, turning to the door.

  Outside the trailer, his team leader, Murph, leaned patiently against the cab of the truck.

  “What’s the word?”

  “Tell the boys to jock up,” Black said, pulling the satphone from his pocket and answering the call.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Tell me you found him,” Gray demanded.

  “We got him,” Black said.

  The clatter of the ramp hitting the ground behind him drew Black’s attention to the lead trailer, where the aviation crew rolled an egg-shaped machine off the truck. He glanced at the illuminated face of the Sangin Atlas on his wrist and did the math in his head.

  “We can be on target in ten minutes.”

  “Kill him,” Gray ordered.

  “Roger that.”

  He stowed the satphone in his cargo pocket and hustled to the pair of Little Birds, where the kill team was already strapped to the benches mounted on the outside of the helos, the green glow of their night-vision goggles pooling over their eyes.

  Black ducked under the blades of the lead helo, the heat from the turbines scalding his neck. He lifted the scarred bump helmet from the bench, jammed it over his head, and rotated the noise-canceling MSA Sordin headset over his ears.

  After snapping his safety lanyard into the D ring, Black pressed the push-to-talk attached to the Thales MBITR on his chest and checked in with the pilot.

  “Raven One-One, Alpha Six, radio check.”

  “Alpha Six, read you lima charlie—loud and clear.”

  “Roger, Alpha Six, let’s roll,” Black said.

  He rotated the PVS-15s mounted to the front of the bump helmet over his eyes. The light amplified by the night vision cast the world in an emerald-green hue.

  The pilot advanced the throttles, and Black felt the increase in RPMs vibrate up his spine.

  Overhead, the blades bit into the air, picking up a static charge that turned the tips yellow under night vision. The Little Bird squatted on its skids and then they were airborne.

  The pilot twisted the helo south, skimmed over the trees, and shoved the nose toward the river.

  “Feet wet,” the pilot said.

  Even with night vision it was hard to pick out any landmarks, and Black had to use the GPS monitor on his wrist to navigate. When they were five miles out, he gave the “one-minute” warning over the radio, his left hand closing around the carabiner that secured him to the bird.

  “Feet dry,” the pilot announced, banking the Little Bird toward the city.

  Black checked his GPS and saw the target building was coming up. He leaned out into the slipstream, the wind making his eyes water behind his NOD, and when he saw the Hotel Bolívar, he used his infrared laser to mark the target for the pilot.

  The Little Bird was nimble as a hummingbird and the pilot deftly bounced over a set of power lines, the maneuver causing Black’s stomach to leap into his throat.

  Fucking cowboys.

  The pilot dropped the helo to ten feet above the road, the skids barely missing the tops of the cars parked on the street, and followed the laser like a wire-guided missile.

  “Thirty seconds,” Black announced.

  A moment later the pilot flared the Little Bird ten feet short of the front gate. Before the skids were even on the ground, Black had unclipped from the bench and hopped free of the bird.

  “On me,” he said, moving across the courtyard.

  The second helo touched down on the roof and the assaulters hopped from the bench, preparing to work the target from the top down. By the time Black reached the lobby door, the Little Birds had lifted off and silence returned to the street.

  “Breacher up,” Black whispered.

  He jerked the door open and charged into the room. He dug his hard corner, the echo of the roof team’s breaching charge rolling down the walls. He pivoted back to the center of the room and was about to call “clear” when he saw a man duck behind the counter.

  Black had been deployed to enough shitholes to recognize when someone was going for a gun and when they were taking cover. His instincts told him the man was going to come up blasting.

  He raised the H&K 416 to his eyes, thumbed the selector to fire, and activated the infrared laser. The moment his target’s head eclipsed the invisible beam, Black fired.

  Thwap.

  The bullet hit the man below the eyes, the 5.56 hollow-point emptying his brains onto the far wall. He was dead before he hit the ground, the shotgun in his hand clattering off the tile.

  Dumbass.

  The rest of his chalk was already flowing up the stairs, and Black turned to follow.

  “Target is in room number four,” the tech’s voice echoed over the internal net.

  “Roger that,” Murph said, “stand by for breach.”

  Black caught up with his team at the top of the stairs and knew from the fact that they were standing there that Murph’s chalk was already prepping the room.

  No need to put more meat in the hall.

  Boom.

  Black leaned out to get a look at the breach and watched the first two assaulters enter the room. A third was about to follow when the room exploded.

  “Man down!” Murph screamed.

  Black was already moving.

  He stepped into the room, saw the two men splayed out on the floor, their blood black through the night vision. They are fucking done.

  “Get them up,” he ordered, masking for the evac team.

  The words weren’t out of his mouth when he heard the pop, pop, pop of a handgun and saw the spray of plaster from the bullets punching through the wall.

  “Bathroom!” he yelled as a round snapped over his head.

  An assaulter booted the door and fired inside.

  Thwap, thwap, thwap!

  “Tango down,” the shooter said over the radio.

  Black lowered his rifle and checked himself for holes.

  “Control, this is Alpha Six, we have two Eagles down, need immediate medevac, at grid—”

  “Break, break, break,” Gray broke in. “Alpha Six, this is Control, are you jackpot?”

  That motherfucker, he swore under his breath. Knowing the man cared more about the target than his men. “Stand by, Control.”

  Black moved to the bathroom, saw Nick Ford splayed out in the tub, his brains splattered on the tile. “Are we good?” he asked.

  The assaulter spat a line of tobacco juice onto the body before answering with a “Roger that, boss.”

  Black flipped up his night vision before pressing the push-to-talk button on his chest.

  “Control, this is Alpha Six, we are jackpot.”

  “Control copies.”

  “How ’bout that medevac?”

  Silence.

  Fuck. “Murph, get your boys downstairs, we will bag this shit up—”

  “They’re gone,” Murph said.

  Black lowered his head and was turning to the door when a voice stopped him in his tracks.

  “Boss, we’ve got a problem,” the assaulter said, stepping out of the bathroom.

  Black turned and saw the laptop in his hand. “What the fuck is that?” he demanded.

  “He had it on him. I checked the sent folder and the asshole got an email off before I tagged him.” />
  Black wiped the blood and bits of pink brain from the screen with his glove and read the name in the address bar.

  Adam Hayes.

  1

  LA CONNER, WASHINGTON

  Adam Hayes was lying in the center of the bed when the nightmare came. The tremor started at the edge of his lips, a ripple that twisted into a feral snarl. He started to sweat, hands tearing at the sheets, eyes pinballing behind closed lids, mind trapped in the horrors of the past.

  * * *

  —

  He waited in the shadows, eyes closed, ears straining for the sound of his approaching prey. Kill them all—that was the order. He was just the instrument—a man conditioned to kill without hesitation. His hand closed around the hilt of the knife at the small of his back. The metal hilt felt cold through the latex gloves. The blade came free with the hiss of steel on leather and Hayes opened his eyes; the sentry’s face was green in the night vision.

  Now, the voice told him, and he struck.

  * * *

  —

  Hayes’s hand snaked under the pillow and his fingers closed around the reassuring steel of the Springfield 9-millimeter EMP. He rolled off the bed and dropped into a crouch, the hardwood cold as a corpse on his bare knees. Muscle memory had taken over, and his hands worked independently of thought. The snap of the pistol onto the target and the flick of the thumb disengaging the safety came unbidden.

  It was only when his index finger curled around the trigger, compressing the spring until all it would take was a whisper of pressure for the gun to fire, that Hayes became conscious of the moment.

  Then the nightmare evaporated.

  Hayes blinked the world back into focus, his eyes falling to the outstretched pistol, sights centered on the shirt hanging on the back of the door. Jesus Christ.

  He let go of the trigger and snicked the safety into place. The realization that he’d come within a hairsbreadth of sending a 9-millimeter hollow-point through the door made him sick to his stomach.

  It was 5:05 in the morning and the nightmares were getting worse.

  When he trusted his legs to hold him, Hayes grunted to his feet, placed the pistol on the bedside table, and padded across the hardwood to the bathroom. He palmed the wall switch and the overhead lights flashed to life, revealing the mass of scars that crisscrossed his bare torso like lines on a topographic map.

  He stopped at the sink, plucked the orange pill bottle from the open medicine cabinet, and twisted the cap free. He shook a dose into his hand. The oblong pill in his callused palm reminded him of the last appointment with the shrink in Tacoma.

  “What about the nightmares?” she asked, over the scratch of her pen across the paper.

  “Haven’t had one in months.”

  “Adam, you are making wonderful progress,” she said, tearing the sheet from the prescription pad, “but.”

  There’s always a but.

  “But there will be setbacks.”

  Setbacks.

  He felt the anger stir in his gut, like a wolf waking in its den. Three nightmares in one week wasn’t a setback; it was a fucking meltdown. He was pissed. Mad that he’d listened to her—let himself believe that he’d made progress.

  That he could be normal.

  “No,” he said aloud. “That’s not who I am anymore.”

  He took a breath, placed the pill in his mouth, and gently closed the door. He took a drink of water from the sink, and when Hayes looked up, his eyes alighted on the sheet of construction paper taped to the glass. The stick-figure family holding hands beneath a lemon-yellow sun.

  Hayes brushed his finger over the “I love my Daddy” scrawled in crayon, a sad smile stretching across his face.

  In the shower, he twisted the cold-water knob all the way to the left and ducked under the showerhead. The water came out of the pipe ice-cold and hit his flesh with the sting of a bullwhip. His mind recoiled, muscles tensed like hawsers beneath his skin, forcing the air from his lungs, but Hayes stood fast and waited for the question that had greeted him every morning for the past eighteen months.

  How did I get here?

  The first time Hayes heard about Treadstone, he was in Afghanistan. Three months into a six-month tour and he’d already lost two men. That’s when things started to go sideways. Lines that had been black and white started looking gray. Hayes wasn’t sleeping, but he had it under control—or that’s what he told himself.

  Then he was called to Colonel Patten’s hooch. Hayes found his boss sitting at his plywood desk, his skin an ashen gray, eyes red from the Afghani sand that seeped into every crack.

  “Have a seat, Captain Hayes.”

  He lowered himself into the chair and listened to the echo of the helicopters coming up the valley. It was his third tour to the ’Stan and Hayes could recognize the helos by the sound. This was a Chinook; he could tell by the thump thump of the rotors.

  Can’t be resupply, they were just here, he thought. It’s too dangerous to send random helicopters into the valley.

  “I’m sending you to Bagram,” Patten said, guessing his thoughts.

  “For what reason, sir?”

  The colonel spit a line of tobacco into the stained foam cup on his desk and leaned back in his chair. “The men are starting to talk.”

  “That’s what soldiers do.”

  “The boss is worried, Adam. We all are. They are sending someone from the States, some kind of doctor who is going to check you out.”

  “A psych eval, are you serious?”

  “Look, I don’t like this any more than you do, but this came from the top. Just get on the bird and go answer the man’s questions. Think of it like a break. This guy will get you squared away and you’ll be back on the wall tomorrow.”

  It was a lie, but Hayes didn’t know it at the time.

  After the shower, he toweled off and dressed in a pair of worn Carhartts and a fleece button-down over a black T-shirt. He stomped his feet into a pair of worn Ariat Ropers, tucked the holstered Springfield into his pants, and walked to the kitchen.

  Breakfast was a pair of fried eggs, two pieces of wheat toast, and what was left of the steak he’d grilled for dinner last night. By the time he finished eating and carried his coffee out to the deck, most of the fishing boats were out on the water and first light was spreading across the horizon like a fresh bruise.

  Treadstone was a double-edged sword, one he thought would allow him to make a difference. He didn’t mind the pain that came with the behavior modification and the genetic reprogramming. Hayes could handle that—he could handle anything they threw at him.

  It was what happened after that he couldn’t handle. Which was why he was in Washington, and his wife, Annabelle, and their two-year-old son, Jack, were living halfway across the country.

  Adam . . . promise you won’t try to find us.

  The sound of the shop phone snapped him from the memory, and Hayes tossed the dregs of his coffee off the side of the deck and followed the sound to the red barn at the rear of the cabin.

  Who the hell is calling this early? he wondered, punching his code into the lock. By the time he got the door open and flipped on the lights, the machine had picked up.

  “You’ve reached Sterling Construction, please leave your message at the beep.”

  “Adam, it’s Sally Colvin, I need you to call me—”

  Hayes snatched the phone off the cradle and killed the recording with a jab of his finger.

  “Sally, I’m here,” he said.

  “Adam, hey, I . . .”

  Sally Colvin was the realtor he’d hired to sell the Smith house, the project that had kept Hayes sane during his eighteen-month self-imposed exile.

  It was also his nest egg. His last chance to show Annabelle that he could build just as well as he could destroy. And the money from the sale was going to allow hi
m to stop fixing other people’s houses and work on repairing his broken marriage.

  There was something in her voice that struck a chord. What is it? Hayes wondered before asking aloud, “Sally, is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, uh . . . I . . . I’ve got a motivated buyer who is interested in the house.”

  Again, the hesitation in her voice.

  “That’s great, right?”

  “Well, I told him it was move-in ready,” she said.

  “I don’t see why that’s a problem,” Hayes said, not understanding the panic in her voice. “All we have left to do is the flooring in the kitchen.”

  “Because he just called from the air. He is flying in today at noon.”

  Great, he thought, eyes dropping to his suitcase on the floor, the ticket to Florida peeking out of the side pocket.

  Annabelle had agreed to let him see Jack this weekend. It was all supervised, of course, since she still didn’t trust him alone with his son, but Hayes would take what he could get.

  “Sally, I can’t. I’m flying out at—”

  “Adam, this is everything you have been working for,” she said, the sudden passion in her voice catching him off guard. “My hardwood guys promise that they will be there at ten-fifteen. All I need you to do is lay the subfloor.”

  Hayes cast a longing look at the bag, then to the clock on the wall. It was a quarter to six. If he left now and worked fast, he could still make the flight.

  “I can make it work,” he said.

  Hayes loaded the compressor and the rest of his tools in the back of the ’66 Chevy Suburban, punched the garage door opener, and eased the truck down the gravel drive.

  He turned onto the coastal road, followed it down the hill and over the suspension bridge that connected the mainland with Cliffside Island. At the end of the street, bookended between two massive pines, lay Cliffside Manor.

  The manor was the brainchild of Amy Harris, a local heiress who’d taken the lonely island and turned it into an enclave for the nouveau riche. The only reason Hayes was allowed on the property was that he’d bought the Smith house in a short sale.

  Hayes slowed at the gate. The squeal of the Suburban’s brakes and the amused smile of the guard who stepped out of the shack reminded him that he didn’t belong.