Bug Out! Atlantic Book 8, page 16
“Yes,” Art said. “This mission will be extremely dangerous. Our best chance is to get close enough to fire the rockets at the ship’s sensors before they notice the Speeders. They have a very small radar cross-section, which will help.”
“As soon as the first rockets hit, the enemy will be watching the seas like a hawk,” Henry said.
“It is what it is,” Art said. “Given the impact of an attack on Boston, it’s worth a try.”
Art left the conference room.
“We’re sending these men off to their deaths,” Henry muttered.
Jaak shook his head. “Don’t look at it that way. We’re all in danger. Everybody in the resistance, and everyone helping the resistance. If we fail, our citizens will be in danger. We’ve got a job to do. Some of us are going to die. It always works that way.”
***
Sturm woke in a start, trying to get up, pulling out his IV in the process, the nurse next to his bed in an instant.
“Stop,” she said. “Stay put. We’ve got to get that IV back in.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in a safehouse in Manhattan,” the nurse said. “Hold still.” She put a new IV in, and taped the tube down to his arm.
“How long have I been here?”
The nurse looked at her handywork, then backed up. “Don’t worry about it.”
“How can I not?” Sturm asked. “I don’t know anything, and there are people hunting me.”
“They won’t find you,” the nurse said. “We had you sedated for several days. Turns out your hip isn’t fractured, but you’re heavily bruised in that area… and your leg is broken. You need to relax so your body can heal itself.”
Sturm eyed her a moment, the nurse not looking away from his stare. Strong. He noticed her beauty for the first time… dark slightly frizzed hair surrounding a beautiful Hispanic face and gray eyes. “You’re quite striking.”
She smiled, her eyes still locked onto his. “Thank you.”
“You have gray eyes.”
“I’m half Columbian, half Welsh,” she said. “Kids in school made fun of me.”
“I’ll bet nobody makes fun of you now.”
She backed up, putting a hand on her hip. “You don’t have to turn on the charm. I’m a UN employee, and I’m well connected. You won’t persuade me to let you leave before you’re well enough.”
Sturm laughed. “Yes, I can see that. I don’t want to leave before I’m ready. Quite the contrary. I wouldn’t like to go up against my adversary in this condition. Do I have access to a phone?”
“Your cell phone was in your pants pocket when you were found,” the nurse said. “I’ll go get it. We charged it.”
“What’s your name?”
She turned back towards him. “Selma.” She hurried away. Sturm turned towards the machines he was hooked up to, monitoring his vitals. Selma was back after a moment.
“Here it is,” she said. “I think Director Sanchez will want to talk with you when you feel up to it.”
“Sanchez?” Sturm asked. “He had me picked up?”
“Under orders from Mateo himself,” Selma said. “Both of them consider you quite valuable.”
“Who else is here in this facility?”
“A small commando team, to protect you if we are discovered,” Selma said. “A doctor comes in twice a day. He should be arriving in about an hour to check you over.”
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Mid-afternoon. You’re looking tired already. Don’t force yourself to stay awake. The more sleep you get, the quicker you’ll be back in action.”
Sturm chuckled. “You know just what to say, don’t you?”
“Claude left a diary from when he helped you recover after your last injury,” Selma said. “We recovered it from your last safe house.”
“Why can’t I go back there?” Sturm asked.
“You probably will, after you’re well enough,” she said. “There’s no medical equipment there, and moving what we need into that location might attract attention.”
Sturm nodded, the sleepiness creeping up on him. Selma saw it in his eyes, and went to the door, dimming the lights. “Sleep.”
“You talked me into it,” Sturm said, drifting off as Selma left the room.
***
Albena leaned back from her PC, brow furrowed. Penko walked in with two cups of coffee, handing one to her, stopping when he saw her expression.
“Uh oh, what happened?”
She looked at him. “Lance is back. I sent him to the Bulgarian travel site again, but he’s already out, and he cut off my access to MVS. We don’t need this right now.”
Penko sat at his PC. “Let him think he’s got you stymied. We don’t need MVS. I ran into Cary in the snack room. The Falcon drone mounts for the choppers are ready. They’re taking six up just after dark tonight, going to the backup hub in the hot zone. About an hour later another chopper will take six more to the main hub. Lance can’t cut off our access to those video feeds.”
Albena thought about it a moment. “If I don’t fight him he’ll know something is up. I have other tricks up my sleeve, and you’re right, MVS surveillance isn’t important at the moment. I’ll have some fun with him. Maybe he’ll slip up again and I’ll figure out where he is.”
“We can’t send Dannon right now,” Penko said.
“I know. It’ll take me a while to get him worked up enough anyway.”
“Speak of the devil,” Penko quipped as Dannon came in.
“Something’s going on,” Dannon said.
“Lance is back,” Albena said. “I’ve got time to play, so I’ll make him think he’s really causing us problems.”
Dannon laughed. “Good. What’s he doing?”
“Same as last time… he cut my access to the MVS system. I banished him to the travel site, but he got out pretty fast.”
“What brings you here?” Penko asked.
“Believe it or not, I came to see if Lance was back to messing with you guys,” Dannon said. “Since they’re trying to hide their actions with us, I figured he might be back on the attack. Let me know if you get any location data.”
“He won’t be that stupid again,” Albena said, hammering on her keyboard. “At least not for a while.”
“Ask him how his house in the Hamptons is doing,” Penko quipped.
“Don’t do that yet,” Dannon said. “I can’t spare my team to go chase the guy right now. Wait to piss him off until after we’ve got the rocket launchers placed.”
“When are you doing that?” Albena asked.
“Soon,” he replied.
“Both locations?” Penko asked.
“No, Jace’s team is handling the main hub.”
“You’re not afraid of the radiation in the hot zone?” Albena asked.
“Not really,” Dannon said. “Dempsey and his friend Doctor Saperstein have been chatting with the Blockbuster team who are at the backup hub. They’ve got RAD stickers that show the radiation levels, and Saperstein has been quizzing them about symptoms. Sounds like it’s not a problem, but tell us if we glow in the dark after we get back.”
Penko burst out laughing.
“That’s not funny,” Albena said. “Some of us lost people in that attack.”
Dannon stopped, a hurt expression on his face. “I’m so sorry, Albena.”
“Me too, cousin,” Penko said. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Albena saw something on her screen and started hammering her keyboard again. “Don’t worry about it, you two. Sorry. Time I got over it anyway.”
Dannon shot Penko a glance, and then left the intel room.
“Chased him away, didn’t I?” Albena asked.
“No, he found out what he needed to know,” Penko said. “Is Lance being aggressive?”
“Not nearly as much as before,” Albena said. “He’s scared.”
{ 14 }
Video Game
Z ander was on the bridge of the EU Taskforce Flagship, scanning the horizon, the swells getting bigger. Captain Schroeder came onto the bridge.
“Weather is kicking up,” Zander said to him.
“Yes. No sign of anybody?”
“No sir,” Zander said. “We’ve got lookouts on all the ships. Maybe we should move closer to the coast.”
Captain Schroeder thought about it a moment. “If it gets much worse we can do that, but we don’t go further south. Head a little north when we get closer to the coast.”
“Yes sir,” Zander said. “You okay?”
“This waiting. It’s driving me nuts. We should be attacking tonight, instead of waiting on the sidelines.”
Zander glanced at him. “Nothing on the subs heading for Bremerhaven?”
“Nary a word,” the captain said. “I’m beginning to think it’s just a decoy.”
“If there are subs there, they might not attack unless we do.”
The captain shrugged. “That is the most logical expectation.”
“But you still want to go forward.”
“Yes, Zander, I do, but there’s no sense in that if there is no coordination with Saladin and Daan Mertins, and they are frozen in place at the moment. Daan is probably trying to figure out how to save face with his peers.”
“Why, what happened?”
“His people in San Francisco did a raid, trying to capture Ivan the Butcher.”
“What?”
“Yes, it’s all over the news wires. The resistance wired the location with explosives, and contaminated a Peacekeeper’s body wearing Ivan’s costume with his DNA. Killed half of Daan’s commandos, but they rushed to judgment on the body and announced they had gotten Ivan. Then he showed up on TV, mocking them.”
Zander burst out laughing, then looked at the captain. “I’m sorry sir.”
“Why be sorry? That was my immediate reaction as well. Ivan the Butcher is quite a character, and the act causes our side to not take him seriously. That is an error of great magnitude.”
“Where did this happen?” Zander asked.
“Skyscraper in San Francisco. It was an actual base, only a few blocks from Daan’s western headquarters.”
“Ouch, that’s got to hurt.”
“I’d like to meet this man someday,” Captain Schroeder said. “Before his execution.”
Zander nodded. “Yes, he is fascinating.”
“He’s wasted on the resistance, but such are the fortunes of war, Zander. I’ll go back to my stateroom. Keep your eyes open, especially for subs.”
“Yes sir,” Zander said, feeling a twinge of relief when the captain left the bridge.
***
Cary and Hector rode the elevator to the roof of the deserted NYPD Headquarters building, rolling the Falcon drone cart out, Hector pushing the roof access door open, the combination of wind and prop wash from the chopper almost slamming it shut on them.
“Damn, boy,” Hector quipped. “A little breezy up here.”
“Wait a minute, let’s let the chopper shut down,” Cary said, pulling the door shut. They stood at the top of the stairs, listening to the chopper whine a moment, stopping, the rumble subsiding. “There we go.”
“I’ll hold the door open,” Hector said, pushing it back open, Cary rolling the cart onto the roof towards the chopper, the pilot and co-pilot walking over.
“These them?” asked the pilot.
“Top six are for your chopper,” Cary said. “The bottom six are for the second one. You got the release switch wired up?”
“My tech team did that before we left,” the co-pilot said. “and he showed me how to fix it if something goes wrong.”
“You’re gonna climb outside?” Hector asked.
The copilot laughed. “No, there’s a Bluetooth link to the ejectors. Everything I need to access is inside the cockpit.”
“We’d better get this done,” the pilot said. “We’re on a schedule, and we don’t want to go straight to the location. We’re taking one of our normal routes.”
“That’s smart,” Cary said, wheeling the cart to the chopper, Hector trotting to keep up. They got to work, attaching the Falcon launcher platforms to the ejectors.
“Those platforms are gonna come off in the air, right?” the copilot asked.
“Yeah,” Hector said. “That’s the first thing that the Falcon drivers do.”
“This seems dicey,” the pilot said. “Wish we had more than six.”
Cary shook his head. “Don’t worry, as long as three of them make it we’ll get the coverage we need.”
Hector checked the Falcons after Cary attached them. “They’re good, boss.”
“Great,” Cary said. “All right, you guys can go. Good luck.”
“Fly casual,” Hector quipped, the copilot bursting into laughter.
“Thanks, guys,” the pilot said as they walked to the front of the bird. Hector and Cary pushed the cart back through the roof door.
“The second chopper should be here in a few minutes,” Cary said.
“We’re gonna find out that things at the hubs aren’t what they seem.”
Cary eyed Hector a moment. “What makes you think that?”
“Hunch.”
***
Rico and Duffy were sitting in the office, listening to the radio. Chippy and Wick were in the garage, their Play Station twelve hooked into the video screen, laughing to the sounds of explosions.
“What the hell are they doing out there?” Duffy asked.
“Some new video game that Chippy bought,” Rico said. “Told me it was homemade tanks.”
Duffy turned towards him. “You mean like our homemade tanks?”
Rico nodded.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Duffy asked, getting up, rushing into the garage, seeing Blockbusters on the screen doing battle with a horde of infantry in a vivid cityscape. “That supposed to be us?” Rico followed him, shaking his head.
Chippy laughed, not looking away from the screen, his thumbs working the controller. “It’s close, they probably saw footage from early on.”
“Bullshit, man,” Wick said. “You know how long it takes to cook up one of these games?”
“It’s all modular programming now,” Rico said. “There are good starting point programs for tank games available. Somebody just had to change the cosmetics to make these look like homemade tanks. They got the guns wrong, though. That’s a machine gun on the roof.”
“Yeah, they don’t have grenade launchers,” Chippy said as his tank exploded. “Shit. That’s what I get for having a conversation. This game is pretty crazy.”
“I need to rest my eyes,” Wick said, ending the game, setting down his controller. “We ought to get royalties. I know they were thinking about us, even if they didn’t get it exactly right.”
“Wonder what the Mayor is gonna do about that location in the hot zone?” Chippy asked. “Seems like it’s been long enough for a response.”
“They’re not going to share their plans,” Duffy said, “and that’s the right way to go.”
“Yeah, but we’re part of the team,” Chippy said. “Ah, never mind. Probably better we don’t know for now. They’ll call us when they need some firepower.”
“I doubt we’ll be involved,” Wick said.
“Are Satch, Dougy, and Kent still down there?” Rico asked.
“Don’t know, I’ll call them,” Chippy said, hitting a contact on his phone. It rang twice, Satch picking up. Chippy put it on speaker. “You guys are still there, huh?”
“Yeah, watching for Chief Harvey,” Satch said. “The enemy is still bringing vans here. Obviously dropping people or equipment off, because they leave after a few minutes. Surprised nobody else has noticed this. It’s ramping up, we’re seeing a van here every twelve minutes during the day. Rare to see them at night.”
“Where are they coming from?” Duffy asked.
“How we supposed to know that?” Satch asked.
“He means what direction,” Rico said.
“Oh, sorry. They’re turning right onto Franklin from Hudson, going straight into the parking structure driveway.”
“Shit, they’re coming from the south?” Duffy asked.
“Well, looks that way, might not be from very far south, and it’s not that bad for several blocks in that direction. We had a couple guys walking further south on Church Street. They got as far as Worth Street before their RAD strips lit up.”
“We’d see that level of traffic coming from the north,” Rico said, rushing into the office, picking up his tablet. He brought it to the couch in front of the TV screen. “They’re sneaking people in from someplace else. Dammit. Holland Tunnel, ten to one.”
“That’s clogged up with cars and debris,” Satch said. “Isn’t it?”
“You been telling NYPD about the level of traffic?” Duffy asked.
“Yeah,” Satch said. “Hey, I hear the chopper coming.”
“Chopper?” Chippy asked.
“Yeah, police chopper patrols the boundaries every night. Might be why the vans aren’t coming after dark.”
“How close do they get to you?” Rico asked.
“Pretty much right over us,” Satch said. “Just a sec, Kent is trying to tell me something.”
Rico and Duffy glanced at each other as a muffled conversation came over the speaker.
“Something’s going on,” Wick said.
“Hey, guys, Kent saw some birds flying down from the chopper. Said they look like Falcons.”
“I know what those are,” Rico said. “Better stay under cover, there’s liable to be action soon.”
“Oh, those are the drones they used against the enemy in front of New City Hall,” Satch said. “Heard about them, saw a few video clips but they were pretty grainy. I’m gonna get off the phone, I want to move to a better place.”
“Take care of yourselves,” Chippy said. He ended the call, pocketing his phone. “Something’s about to go down. Should we contact the team?”
“No, not yet,” Rico said. “They use those Falcons for surveillance. We don’t want to make a show yet.”
“Want to try the game?” Wick asked.
