by Joshua Hood
“What was it, 5.56?” Deano asked from the doorway.
“H&K 416,” Hayes replied. “Tricked out with all the bells and whistles, and the man behind the trigger knew what he was doing. When I rabbited on them, he let the rest of his team pursue, waited to see how it would shake out.”
“Anything about him stand out?” Deano asked.
“He was older than the rest of the guys,” Hayes said, remembering the salt-and-pepper goatee. “I’d guess mid-forties, definitely ex-military, with eyes as dark as two pissholes in the snow.”
“Adam, please,” Martha said, digging into the wound.
The lidocaine had numbed the nerve endings, but the grate of the metal tweezers against bone made him cringe, and Hayes felt himself flinch.
“Will you sit still?” Martha chided him.
“I thought you said it was a pass-through,” he said, glaring.
“It is,” she replied, eyes narrowed in concentration. “But it looks like there is a piece of bullet fragment lodged against the bone. If I don’t get it out, the wound could get infected.”
Hayes closed his eyes and retreated into himself, just as he’d been taught. There is no pain, he told himself, focusing on his breathing and wishing the exercise worked as well as it had back in Treadstone.
“Almost . . . got it . . . There,” Martha said triumphantly.
“Damn,” Hayes protested. “Didn’t you nurses take an oath about not doing harm?” he asked, as the tweezers came out of the cavity with the wet suck of blood and tissue.
“You men are such babies,” Martha said, holding up the tweezers.
Hayes forgot all about the pain when he saw the object held in the tweezers.
“What in the hell is that?” he asked aloud.
17
DECEPTION PASS, WASHINGTON
Hayes held up his hand and nodded for Martha to drop the grain of the rice-sized object into his palm.
“Is that what you were squalling about?” Deano asked incredulously. “That tiny little bit of frag?”
When Hayes first came to Treadstone, the only time you really had to worry about finding fragmented bits of copper or lead inside a wound channel was when you were hit by a pistol round. But that all changed with the bin Laden raid.
According to the 1899 Hague Peace Conference, the basis for the U.S. military’s current law of war, it was illegal for any army to use bullets that flattened or expanded. Which is why soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan were still carrying ball ammunition—bullets with a soft lead core encased in a harder metal jacket. Because of ball ammo’s aerodynamic design, a bullet was able to maintain higher velocities, which was great for long-distance target shooting, where higher velocity equaled greater distance.
But like many soldiers, Hayes knew high-velocity bullets were worthless against flesh. Which is why the SEALs who went after bin Laden were carrying Black Hills 77-grain hollow points. Once word leaked that SEAL Team 6 had used a hollow point to kill the world’s most-wanted man, every ammunition manufacturer in the country started working on “tactical rifle rounds”—bullets that created devastating wound channels on impact.
With the prevalence of expandable bullets, hollow points that expanded on impact, and frangibles that literally disintegrated on contact with tissue, it was common to find bits of copper or chunks of lead in a wound channel.
“This isn’t from a bullet, at least not one I’ve ever seen,” Hayes said, rolling the object around in his hand.
“I don’t see how you can tell what it is with all that blood on it,” Deano said, taking the tweezers from his wife. “Let me clean it off for you.”
Before Hayes had a chance to offer a protest, Deano had plucked the object from his palm and turned to the sink.
“You better put your readers on first,” Martha chided.
“Woman, please,” he said, turning on the water.
Hayes tracked his progress in the mirror, watching Deano place the tweezers under the water long enough to wash the object clean and then hold it up to the light.
“Looks like some kind of polymer,” he said. “You know, I heard the Agency was working on a polymer bullet . . .”
Hayes watched Deano’s face crumble and his eyes drop to the sink, knowing what had happened the moment he heard the gentle tick of the sliver hitting the bowl.
“Shit,” Deano cursed, his left hand shooting toward the drain.
“You dropped it, didn’t you?” Martha demanded. “Didn’t I tell you to put on your damn glasses?”
“Whatever it was, let’s hope it wasn’t important,” Hayes moaned.
“Don’t make such a fuss, it’s still in the P-trap,” Deano said, dropping to a knee and opening the cabinet beneath the sink.
“Why don’t you do something useful, like taking your butt in the kitchen and putting that meat loaf in the oven.” Martha frowned.
“But—”
“Unless you want to sew Adam up.”
“No, thank you. I’ve seen his stitch jobs,” Hayes said.
“That man, I tell you what,” Martha said under her breath once Deano was gone. “He means well, but sometimes . . .”
Five minutes later, she tied off the final suture and pressed a 4x4 bandage over the wound. “Good as new,” Martha said, stripping off her gloves. “Now, how about some dinner?”
* * *
—
After dinner Hayes followed Deano across the yard to a small outbuilding with light brown vinyl siding. “This is my man cave. The building came with the house, but I made a few modifications,” he said, thunking the steel handle down and tugging the heavy door open.
Hayes paused to let Ajax pad into the room and examined the four-inch-thick door. “You put a blast door on your man cave?”
“Well, I made a few modifications,” Deano said and shrugged.
Most residential doorframes were four inches wide, but due to the weight of the blast door, its frame was twice as thick. Since the front of the door was flush with the exterior wall, Hayes expected to see some overlap when he stepped inside, but the interior wall was flush with the frame.
“Put in a layer of cinder blocks,” Deano said, pulling the door closed behind them. “Never can be too careful.”
“This isn’t a man cave, Deano, it’s a bunker.”
The interior was tidy, and the cast of the overhead light off the pine floor and the sand-yellow paint on the walls gave the room a warm, open feel.
“Bunkers don’t have sitting rooms,” Deano said, nodding toward the couch in front of the coffee table made from an old pallet. “Or an office.”
“I didn’t know you could read,” Hayes said, taking in the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves flanking the sawhorse desk on the other side of the room.
“Came with the house, smartass,” Deano said, stepping into the short hallway to his front. “Latrine is in there.” He nodded to the door on his right.
“And what is behind door number three?” he asked, while Deano punched a code into the keypad mounted in the center of the metal door.
“My arts-and-crafts room,” Deano said and winked.
The locking bars disengaged with a thunk and the door swung open on well-oiled hinges.
Between his time in Special Forces and Treadstone, Hayes had seen his share of arms rooms. But nothing prepared him for what lay beyond the door. It was a gun owner’s wet dream, and despite himself, Hayes felt his jaw drop.
“Okay, now I’m impressed.” Hayes nodded as he walked over to the fully stocked armorer’s bench in the near corner.
“You haven’t even seen the best part,” Deano replied.
He flipped a second switch and the ceiling lights blinked to life, illuminating a row of climate-controlled display cases on the far wall.
“Impressed and maybe even a bit jealous.” Hayes exa
mined the first case and tugged a Springfield SOCOM 16 with a thermal scope from the rack.
The SOCOM was a modern version of the classic M14—the last of America’s great battle rifles. The M14 was designed to replace the legendary M1 Garand, and like its illustrious predecessor, it came to be known for its knockdown power, accuracy, and for being heavy as hell.
Springfield fixed the weight problem with the SOCOM 16 by replacing the wood stock with a lighter composite stock and cutting the barrel from twenty-two inches to sixteen. Hayes hadn’t thought it possible to improve on perfection, but the feel of the rifle in his hand told him that he was wrong.
“Now, this is a man’s gun,” Hayes said, dropping the magazine and looking at the ballistic-tipped hollow-points inside.
“You always did have a thing for the classics,” Deano said, taking a bottle of rye off the side table, pulling the stopper, and filling two mason jars.
“Call me crazy, but I like it when I shoot someone and they stay down,” Hayes replied, rocking the magazine home and returning the rifle to the shelf.
“This ought to take the edge off,” Deano said, passing him a drink.
“Thanks, brother.” Hayes took a slow sip from the drink. “Speaking of edges, did you ever have any side effects when you were in?”
“Well, there was the fucking thirst. Back then we called it the beast. Damn near drove me crazy the first couple of times.”
“I know the feeling,” Hayes said. “What about the nightmares? You still dream about it?”
“Not really.”
“No nightmares at all?” Hayes asked, reaching down and scratching the dog’s ear.
“It was different when I went through. I was a Gen-2.”
“Gen-2?”
“Yeah, Gen-2. It was the only thing written on the vials.”
“I’m not following you.”
“You know how Treadstone was started, right?”
“Yeah, during Vietnam.”
“Yep, well, what they don’t tell you is that there isn’t a manual out there on how to fuck up a man’s brain so you can turn him into an assassin. They were pretty much figuring it out as they went along. Back when I came through, the doctors hadn’t figured out half the shit that they used on you guys.”
“So how did they do it?”
“Drugs, mostly. Subdermal applications of God knows what. After a few rounds you didn’t feel anything but rage. They told you to go kill someone and you did it; when you came back, they gave you another shot, and you’d forget all about it. Those were the easy days, but that all changed during the Cold War, when they started using us as rat catchers.”
“I’ve never heard of a rat catcher,” Hayes admitted.
“It’s what British Intelligence used to call their spy hunters. Any idea what the life expectancy of an American operating in Soviet Russia was in the eighties?”
Hayes shook his head.
“Not long. Even with the chems.”
“Chems?”
“CNS stimulants, old tech. We used to carry this little pill case around our necks. Green pill for go, blue for stop. The blues were supposed to help us deal with stress, but . . . shit, I haven’t talked about this in years.”
“Did they help?”
“Naw. Even with the blues, the stress got so bad that some of the guys started eating their guns. I’m going to be honest, I just couldn’t take it. The nightmares, taking one pill to keep you up, another one to bring you down. So I just said fuck it.”
“The entire time I was in, I don’t think I ever heard anyone talk about the life expectancy of an operative,” Hayes said.
“You were a smart kid, getting out when you did, because on a long enough timeline we all end up at zero.”
It didn’t feel like a win to Hayes. Treadstone had taken everything.
“The VA had this thing—memory removal trials up at U of W.”
“Sounds like some heavy shit,” Deano said, pausing for a moment before getting to the subject at hand. “So what happened today?”
“I got an email from Ford,” Hayes began. “It’s encrypted, so all I could read was the subject line.”
“What did it say?”
“It said, ‘By the time you get this I’ll be dead.’”
18
DECEPTION PASS, WASHINGTON
Felix Black backed the Dodge Challenger into the parking spot outside Denny’s and cut the engine. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver disk about the size of a can of dip. Holding the base firmly in the palm of his hand, Black twisted the top section clockwise, ignoring the red safety seal that warned users not to exceed two doses per twelve-hour period.
He was exhausted. Worn thin from the past thirty-two hours, and at forty-three, Black knew his days of running and gunning without a little help were long gone. That’s where the device in his hand came into play.
The single-serving amphetamine inhalers were the latest in a long line of battlefield innovations designed and manufactured by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. The inhalers were designed to replace the old-school go pills that had gotten Black and most of his teammates through Iraq and Afghanistan.
The instant upper had been distributed to Special Operations Command six months ago, and the reviews from downrange were glowing. Not only did the instant release get into the bloodstream faster, but it lasted longer.
However, it had already been recalled because, like Black, most hard-charging Spec Ops soldiers subscribed to the P-for-plenty philosophy of life and there had already been three reported heart attacks in Africa.
But that didn’t stop Black, and as soon as the spring locked into place and the dispense button on the side of the inhaler snapped into position, he brought the inhaler to his lips and sucked the contents into his lungs.
The IR formula worked as advertised, and a moment later Black felt the worrisome offbeat flutter in his heart followed by cold sweats—two common side effects of too much speed.
Black knew what he was doing to his body wasn’t healthy, but calling time-out wasn’t an option, and if he failed again, he knew that he’d have eternity to rest.
You want to live forever? he asked himself, scanning the parking lot outside the diner.
It was only 1500 hours, but the lot was already starting to fill up with seniors looking to eat an early dinner so they could be back in front of the TV before Judge Judy came on. Black watched a Cadillac DeVille whip into the lot, the blue hair behind the wheel steadily puffing on a Virginia Slim as she trolled for an empty spot.
From his position, Black could see plenty of open spots on the back row, but apparently the woman wasn’t a fan of walking and was hellbent on fitting her Caddy in the minuscule space between a Dodge Caravan and a Buick LeSabre. She might have made it, except that the Buick had come in at an angle and the back tire was hanging over the white line.
Not going to make it, Black thought.
But the woman disagreed and cut the wheel hard to the left and inched forward until Black heard the screech of a collision. “Told ya,” he said aloud, expecting the woman to realize that she’d hit the Buick and back up.
Instead, she goosed the accelerator and used the Caddy to bulldoze the Buick back over the line, centered her car in the spot, and parked like nothing had happened.
That’s an impressive display of not giving a shit, he thought, tossing the expended inhaler onto the floorboard with the rest of the empties.
When he looked up, he noticed a black Audi pulling into the lot. A man in a blue shirt and glasses got out and headed inside. Black waited for him to be escorted into the dining room before getting out and heading inside.
The interior of the restaurant looked like every other Denny’s Black had ever been in—the same puke-green carpet, grease-stained wallpaper, and hazy windows. The air smell
ed of superheated butter, day-old grease, and burnt coffee.
A girl with bleached-blond hair and too much makeup was slumped over the hostess station, red-rimmed eyes glued to the cellphone in her hand.
“Help you?” she asked without looking up.
“Restroom?” Black asked.
“Back thataways, but it’s for paying customers only.”
“Good to know,” he said, heading in the direction she’d nodded.
He’d learned long ago to never walk into a place without knowing how to get out. It was a habit that had saved his life more than once. Black passed the emergency exit and made a note that it was wired to an alarm, before heading into the bathroom.
The floor was slick from either grease or oil, which made his shoes slip. He checked for a window, and after seeing there wasn’t one, went back through the dining room, passing the hostess, who still hadn’t looked up from her phone.
In the rear of the diner, David Rogers sat with his back against the wall, pretending to read the paper. In his blue button-down and gold-rimmed glasses he looked like an accountant, but Black knew better. David Rogers had been a legend at the NSA and helped design most of the signal intercept platforms the Agency used to combat the War on Terror before he got tired of his bullshit salary and entered the private sector.
“Felix,” he said with a nod. “You look like shit.”
“Been a shitty day,” Black said, taking a seat.
“Can I get you anything?” the waitress asked.
“Just a coffee,” Black said.
Neither man spoke until she returned with his coffee.
“I don’t want to come across as rude, but I am kind of in a hurry,” Black said, ignoring the coffee. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a thick yellow envelope, and laid it in the center of Rogers’s open newspaper.
Rogers deftly closed the page over the envelope and pulled it into his lap. “Sugar packet holder,” he said, nodding to the plastic container near Black’s elbow.
He pulled it over, and nestled between the blue packets of Equal and yellow packets of Splenda was a thumb drive with a sliver of paper rubber-banded around it.
