The First Daughter, page 25
‘Eggs and omelettes–’
Carson’s fist crashed into Fenton’s face, with the audible slap of flesh hitting flesh at high speed. Fenton’s head lolled to the side, a trail of blood seeping down from his mouth.
‘Just spare me that greater good patter. I’ve heard it all before!’
Adam walked back in, putting his phone away inside his pocket. He had changed into a blue windbreaker with FBI in yellow emblazoned across it, over black cargo trousers. He was carrying another folded windbreaker along with a black ballistic vest, and a pair of folded blue jeans, which he handed to Carson, the look of incredulity on his face expressing his unvocalised question, which was namely, what the fuck? Adam didn’t deign to pass comment on the claret leaking from Fenton’s face.
‘Heli inbound,’ he said to Carson. ‘Need to get that clobber on, we’re going in as Feds on counter terror operations. Dalton is going to be our SAC, that’s Special Agent In Charge –’
‘Yeah, I do know what an SAC is, thank you very much.’
‘Alright petal, no need to get yer kickers in a twist. Anyway, these bigwig researchers in Area-51 who’ve been smoked have been linked to an imminent attack on American soil, need to know and all that bollocks. That puts it firmly within the remit of the FBI, so Dalton is going in, and we’re going to be his merry men.’
‘You assuming my gender there, cowboy?’ Brooke said, appearing at his shoulder. A flash of grim satisfaction crossed her features, as she took in Fenton’s bloodied face.
‘I thought they were staying at arm's length?’ Carson asked Adam.
‘Given what's at stake, the president apparently re-evaluated their position on that. It’s still us dickheads that are going to be doing the donkey work, but they made a serious fuck-up in slotting these people. They’ve given the Feds a legit reason to go on base and poke their noses around. Anyway, you know how this all works, don’t you? Everything works out, we’ll get a pat on the back while some other fucker gets the credit. Things go pear shaped, then we’ll be the ones in the shit.’
‘Nothing new there,’ Carson muttered.
Trevor, or whoever the fuck he really was, had unprecedented access. MI5, MI6, UKSF, Whitehall and even bloody Downing Street. No, if things went wrong, Carson knew that as far as the powers that be in the UK were concerned, they would be loan nutters who had been impersonating intelligence officers.
Nothing to do with us old boy!
Unabashedly, Carson changed on the spot, taking the highway patrol shirt off to reveal a white vest beneath. He pulled the ballistic vest over his head and fastened up the tabs. He kicked off the beige trousers and kicked them away, before slipping into the jeans, which were a little on the loose side. That problem was soon remedied when Adam handed him a belt, along with a Glock 17 in a pull to release hip holster, a mag in the weapon, along with two spare in mag holsters. After getting it all in place on his belt, Carson drew the Glock and did a press check, the glint of brass in the breech showing the weapon was loaded and ready. He dropped the magazine out, and saw brass cartridges through all of the numbered indicator holes in the back which told him the mag was full. Instructors were teaching their students to do tactical ammo checks by partially removing the magazine so that they could quickly assess how many rounds they had left.
Call me old fashioned, Carson had thought at the time. But I’ll just stick to counting my fired rounds.
He looked dubiously at the windbreaker, then at Adam, who looked pointedly at the windbreaker. With a groan, Carson pulled it on.
‘This is bloody ridiculous. Playing more sodding roles than Nicolas Cage on this op,’ Carson complained.
‘Nah mate,’ Adam laughed. ‘Cage never played a ginger!’
Adam nimbly dance stepped away as Carson swung a boot at him, and made his way upstairs
‘What do you Brits have against red heads, or gingers as y’all call them?’ Brooke asked, the word gingers sounding strange in her accent.
Carson just shook his head.
‘Don’t rightly know myself. A eccentricity on a national scale I guess. Anyway, what are we doing with him?’ He nodded at Fenton.
Fenton was gazing fixedly at them, the knowing look of a condemned man resigned to his fate on his face.
‘Him?’ She asked, turning her attention to Fenton, the hate she bore him positively emanating from her. ‘Why, he’s coming with us,’ she said.
She approached Fenton, and unlocked his handcuffs which fell away with a jangle. She had positioned herself so that she was squarely between Fenton and Carson. She then stood and turned away from Fenton, her holstered Glock coming to almost within arms reach of him.
Carson tried to yell a warning as Fenton made his move, Carson’s own Glock clearing his holster, but with Brooke between them, he didn’t have a clean shot.
Brooke nimbly pivoted away and drew her Glock. Deafening gunfire echoed in the confines of the cell house. The acrid smell of cordite permeated the air, as Brooke’s shots punched into Fenton. Two of her rounds had caught him in the sternum. The last one struck dead centre in the throat. Fenton slumped back down, his back against the bars, his mouth opening and closing, blood gurgling from his mouth. Then, his eyes rolled back, and his head slumped over, as he slipped away into that dark void.
‘You did that on purpose,’ Carson spoke, after a few moments of stunned silence had elapsed.
He noted that nobody had ran back downstairs to see what all the gunfire had been about.
‘You see anything?’ She cooly replied as she holstered her weapon, her eyes still on Fenton.
Carson thought back as he watched the lights go out in Fenton’s eyes. Thought back to where he had shot the man who had kidnapped his family at gunpoint in cold blood while he was tied to a table. Then, the memory of killing Big Al flashed through his mind. The man who had held his wife and daughter captive, forcing his wife to work in one of his brothels while his daughter had been kept in a place of utter deprivation. A boarded up house on a Glasgow estate that had been used as a brothel for paedophiles. Carson had rescued his daughter from a man who had been in the process of abusing her, beating him to death with his bare hands.
Later, his family had been taken again. Only this time, Big Al had raped and nearly killed his wife, and traumatised his daughter to the point of having a complete psychological breaking down. Carson had killed Big Al, with the cold steel of a combat knife.
It hadn’t been a quick death either. He had made him suffer. And the only motive was one of the oldest of them all.
Revenge.
‘Yeah, I did. He was going for your gun. You had no choice,’ he said at length.
Brooke didn’t answer. She turned away, and walked out, her boots slapping on the concrete as she ascended the stairs.
Wordlessly, Carson turned away, and followed her up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The rotors thudded overhead, the Nevada desert streaking by below them, a silver monochrome tinged a blue hue from the half moon. The lights from Vegas lit up the horizon to their south. Small ranches occasionally broke up the landscape below, lit up against the red hues of the desert and the low, rocky hills.
Brooke, Dalton and Adam sat with their backs to the cockpit compartment, Adam’s head lulling to one side, his eyes closed. Bradley and Carson sat facing them, Bradley’s legs jammed down past Adam’s to accommodate his tall frame, as he sat with his arms folded and his own eyes closed.
Their long weapons had been returned to them, the unloaded M4 Carbine’s laid across their laps. They weren’t wearing OP’s vests, so each of them had had to tuck away the magazines as best they could about their person.
Carson’s eyes were fixed towards the west as he turned everything over in his mind. Carson thought he understood what was going on. Sidney would almost certainly have known about this new generation, anti-matter weapons system, Absolutus Imperium. Doubtless in Sidney’s mind, he saw himself forcing all out war with all of America’s enemies, then he would be the hero of the hour by bringing this terrible weapon to bare. Russia would be forced to capitulate, and other nations, allied or otherwise, would be falling over themselves to curry favour with America. Hell, maybe they would even make him President.
Even throw up a statue or two of him for prosperity.
But things hadn’t quite worked out that way for him. Trevor had intimated that the UK had been aware of this project for a long time. Who was to say Sidney’s war mongering opposite number in Moscow was not also aware of it? He would have been mad to have initiated a war with America if he had known about its existence. But, perhaps the Russian’s had found a way to infiltrate, gain access to, and seize this weapon system for themselves? Russia would become the worlds sole superpower overnight. The world would become a Stalinist utopia, with the hammer and sickle flag flapping in the breeze across the globe.
Neither prospect sat well with Carson. Absolutus Imperium. If he had a chance, however remote, he would destroy it. The prospect of any one nation wielding such power was a terrifying thought. Absolute power corrupting absolutely, and all that bollocks.
Carson, gazing out the port window at the desert below, felt a kick against his shin. He looked up, and Brooke held her palm out facing him, fingers splayed out, indicating they would be landing in five minutes. She in turn tapped Adam’s leg, giving him the signal when his eyes opened and snapped onto her. Adam then reached down and wrapped Bradley on the side of his knee with his knuckles.
Each of them pulled out a magazine, checked the top round, before easing it into the magazine housing on their M4’s, sharply tugging down to make sure the magazine was secure on the weapon. They would make ready as they stepped off the heli.
The heli banked and turned sharply, rapidly dropping height as the desert landscape below was broken up by rows of high wired fencing topped with concertina razor wire. Moments later they were over the apron of a massive runway, linked by tributary roads to a large cluster of buildings comprising of hangers, warehouses, supply and maintenance depots, administrative buildings and accommodation blocks. A cluster of vehicles were swarming below, their lights flashing angrily at the incoming intruders.
You didn’t have to be a lip reader to understand that Dalton, the only one of them wearing a headset with a boom mike, was not a happy camper, his shouted words inaudible over the din of the helis engines, but Carson could see that he was using the words ‘the president’ repeatedly. Dalton looked up at Carson, directly across from himself, and pointed a stubby finger at the M4’s, sweeping his fingers across his throat with the other hand, his meaning clear.
Keep those out of sight until I can sort this mess out. Seeing to it that everyone else had the message, Carson ejected the magazine from his carbine and slotted it away, the rest followed suit.
On the ground below, an air marshal was waving neon red wands, directing the pilot to a landing spot on a wide strip of road north of the runway. The pilot obediently touched down where he was directed to, and the approaching convoy of vehicles encircled the heli as its skids bumped down. All of the vehicles were Humvee’s, three of which had mounted gunners manning 50. Cal machine-guns, the barrels of the weapons aimed squarely at the heli. The din of the engines faded away as the engines dwindled down.
‘Everyone, disembark one at a time, hands in the air, starting with the pilot!’ A voice commanded over a loud speaker.
‘We ain’t got time for this, we’re already playing catch up with these bastards as it is,’ Adam said, looking at Dalton.
‘Leave it with me, boy!’ Dalton drawled.
Adam inclined his head, as if considering raising an objection to being called boy. But then he smirked instead, deciding that the old lawman was entitled to his eccentricities.
‘Next!’ The voice barked.
‘Go get em’, Pilgrim!’ Adam drawled.
‘That’ll be the day,’ Dalton quipped back as he stepped down from the cabin.
Carson shook his head, sighing theatrically.
‘We should do something!’ Brooke hissed.
Adam looked levelly at her, shaking his head.
‘Not being funny, sweet-a, bollocks, sweet child of mine!’ Adam back-pedalled, ‘But even if this heli was filled with the Regiment’s finest operators, we’d still be sitting tight. We have 50.Cals aimed at us. A short burst or two from each of them, and we’d be turned into mincemeat faster than the last mincemeat pie disappears at a weight watchers Christmas party.’
‘Say what?’ Brooke asked. ‘What is weight watchers?’
‘It’s like AA for fat knackers wanting to lose weight. Me ma’s been going off and on for years,’ Adam laughed.
‘Ah, your Mom. You actually have a Mom?’
‘Course I’ve got a fucking Mum, ya daft cow. Made in Liverpool I am. Cut above the rest an all that, but we still make em the old fashioned way.’
‘What, you don’t all mate with sheep now?’ Brooke enquired.
‘Do I sound Welsh to you?’ Adam asked incredlously.
‘All of ya all pretty much sound alike to me, except the Scot here,’ Brooke said, catching Carson’s eye.
Carson just shook his head, conveying in no uncertain terms to leave him out of it.
Chance would be a fine thing.
Most people got stressed out in, well, high stress situations. Adam on the other hand, and people of his ilk, laughed in the face of it all. And then took the piss.
‘Well of course he’s a jock. No mistaking them skirt wearing, bagpipe blowing, haggis chasing bastards,’ Adam started, before vocalising a few bars from Scotland the Brave in a mock Scottish accent. ‘La da da da dah!’
‘Gotta watch these scousers,’ Carson returned, shaking his head. ‘He’ll have the skids off this heli and leave it up on bricks, and then he’ll scran all yer cheeseburgers, mars bars and cans of coke as well!’
‘Ah, so that’s why your Mom goes to weight watchers?’ Brooke asked Adam.
‘Aye, pretty much pet,’ Adam laughed. ‘But tell you what, wanna know how to get rid of a Jock? Tell them it’s their round!’
‘Want to know how to confuse a scouser? Ask them who their Dad is,’ Carson rejoined.
‘Your quiet there Bradley,’ Brooke prodded him, as a grinning Adam flipped the middle finger at Carson.
‘I can’t rightly understand what all of ya all are saying, although I get the gist of it. You all poking fun at each others home towns, all while a group of pissed off people outside are aiming 50. Calibre machine-guns at us. Yeah, that seems about right for you crazy Brits.’
‘Dalton must be making headway out there, given that nobody else has been told to come out yet,’ Carson said, bringing the collective focus back to the current predicament.
‘Yeah, probably just beuqacratic, this is ma jurisdiction bullshit. Know what these yanks are like.’ Adam postulated.
‘Scuse’ me?’ Brooke said acidly.
‘Guys,’ Carson tried, and failed to interject.
‘What? I do have a telly you know,’ Adam responded with a nonchalant shrug.
‘Guys,’ Carson tried yet again, and again was ignored.
‘Well, that explains a lot. You believe everything you see on television?’ Brooke responded acerbically.
‘Guys!’
‘Really? You lot can talk. Over one and a half million of you American’s,’ Adam said, drawling the word out, ‘Believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.’
‘Fuck you, you–’
‘Ah-hem!’ A voice coughed at the side of the cabin. Dalton stepped forward so that everyone could see him.
‘After this is all over, you two can feel free to go get a room,’ Dalton drawled, much to Brooke’s visible disgust. ‘Mean time, after sorting out the jurisdictional delicacies here, Major Barker here and his men are at our disposal, providing that is that we are escorted at all times while we are guests at this facility. Leave your long weapons on the chopper.’
Barker stepped into view, a US Airforce MP. He was a tall, imposing man, the greying hair on his large head thinning to a windows peak, his pronounced jawline making him amusingly reminiscent of Toy Story’s Buzzlightyear to Carson’s eye. The MP’s around him all cradled MP5’s slung around their necks, with boxy Glocks in drop down thigh holsters.
‘Told ya,’ Adam muttered under his breath to Brooke as they checked and stowed their weapons.
He received a withering look in return.
They all stepped off the chopper and congregated around Dalton and Barker.
‘Good evening, and welcome to Groom Lake,’ the Major began. ‘The name is Major, Major Barker, or Sir, if you feel so inclined. But don’t even think about calling me Buzzlightyear, or I’l shoot you myself,’ he warned, fixing Adam with a knowing glare, accurately zeroing him out as the smart ass in the group.
Sensibly, Adam decided not to call is bluff.
‘Sir,’ Adam drily replied.
‘Everything you hear and see here is to be treated in the strictest of confidence. That said, it has been impressed upon me that this is time critical. The underground facility you are looking for is two miles north of this location. So, without further ado, get onboard the vehicles without the 50.Cal top cover where you can. Let’s go!’
They quickly dispersed, Dalton and Barker heading for the lead vehicle, Adam, Brooke and Carson jumped into the middle, and after the MP in the passenger seat of the rear vehicle climbed out and hopped into the back, Bradley folded himself in front, and they started rolling.
‘To infinity, and beyond!’ Adam yelled out of the open window into the night.
‘You are such a dick!’ Said Brooke.
DAWN WAS BREAKING OVER MOSCOW, the growing orb of orange visible between the skyscrapers in the near distance blossoming outward, as the day won the battle against the blues and the blacks of the night. Jack looked up at one of the buildings, as he rubbed his hands against his tired eyes. It’s panes were painted crimson orange by the sun, the buildings odd shape, making it appear as if it was built of giant blocks of mismatched lego.
