Authors: Ben Sussman
Headquarters had received the intel a week ago. A drone plane with heat-seeking signature capability had done a sweep over this lonely desert stretch of border between Pakistan and Iraq. Dotted with rocky mountains and outcroppings, it was an ideal location for Al-Queda or another group to set up a secret camp. The drone had nearly completed its flying pattern when something popped on to the radar screen back at the desert command camp the Rangers were stationed at.
“Sir!” a young techie watching the monitor had called out.
Hollander had been in the room chatting with his Colonel at the time and joined him to walk over and peer at the screen.
“We’ve got signatures,” the techie said, grabbing a nearby joystick and toggling it to control the plane. It banked left and executed a silent U-turn to slowly track back over the location. “I’m grabbing photos right now,” the young man said, his fingers flying over the keyboard.
The colonel stepped to a printer in the corner and pulled out a series of colored pages. He slapped them down in front of Hollander.
“Looks like there’s five of them,” Hollander said, stabbing his finger at one of the papers. On it, the edges of a room were visible, creating a rectangle in which the fuzzy forms of a cluster of people stood. He looked at the next printout, another boxy room, this one with several round tables.
“Bomb factory,” the colonel grumbled.
Hollander nodded his agreement. He met the colonel’s eyes. “Flush them out?”
“Absolutely. Go in strong but quiet.”
Hollander took his usual team: Gonzalez and three other Rangers. None of them spoke a word of objection when he told them where they were going. Operations that included death was a distinct outcome were simply part of their day-to-day existence, even though most of them had barely edged into their twenties.
The desert was illuminated by a half moon and star-splashed sky as the team’s Hummer jounced across the sand. A few miles out, they caught their first site of the mountainous ridge looming in the distance. Holes pocked its surface.
“Those will be their entry points,” Hollander said over the whine of the engine, pointing to the shadowy crevasses.
“Which one?” Kowalski asked.
Hollander smiled, “Hell if I know. Guess we’ll find out the hard way.”
An hour later, as he dove behind a dun-colored boulder, Hollander cursed his previous flippancy. Bullets chopped up sand where he had stood a second before. He thumbed his throat mike.
“We’re pinned down, Gonzalez. Watch for the muzzle flash and give us an assist.” He did not need to wait for the reply, trusting his team member. Hollander nudged himself out from behind the rock, squeezing off three shots towards the ridge which lay fifty yards away. They were answered instantly by another spew of bullets in his direction. The moment they ceased, there was a short burst of fire from the ground.
A scream echoed across the desert as a body toppled from the rocks above.
“Got him,” Gonzalez’s voice said in Hollander’s ear. “Looks like there was only one.”
“Let’s move.” Hollander waved his other two men forward, zigzagging across the ground with no interference until they reached the base of the rocks. Gonzalez and his comrade met them.
From one of his pockets, Hollander withdrew a smooth plastic ball. Pressing a button on its side caused a series of clicks and whirs. He hurled it at the mouth of the cave where the sniper had fallen from.
Flipping down a small screen from his helmet, Hollander’s eyes filled with a new sight. He was looking into the cave itself. The ball he had thrown was filled with embedded video cameras that provided a live feed directly to the screen in front of his face. It continued to rotate, making Hollander slightly dizzy, until righting itself in a corner.
“It’s a square room,” Hollander told the others. “Empty. Hallway leading off on the right.”
The team fanned out in practiced formation. Two of the Rangers split and pulled collapsible steel ladders from their packs. Extending them, the group swiftly climbed and entered into the cave.
Hollander whispered into the murky darkness, “Hackman, Kowalski. Take position at the-”
The room was lit up by gunfire.
A trio of guttural yells filled the room as three men with bandanas covering the bottom half of their faces blazed from the hallway.
Kowalski and the soldier behind Gonzalez took bullets to the chest, blood spraying. The other Rangers dived to the side, returning fire. Bullets pinged off the close-set walls, the stench of cordite filling the air. In a moment, all fell silent again as the bullet-riddled bodies of the Al-Queda fighters sprawled across the hallway entrance.
Hollander stood and surveyed the scene. Two of his men lay dead, leaving him, Gonzalez and Hackman.
“Jesus,” Gonzalez whispered through his teeth.
“No time to mourn. We have to move,” Hollander said. “The drone counted five heat signatures. Four of them are down now.” He found the plastic ball filled with cameras and picked it up.
The team clipped lights on the end of their Heckler & Koch’s, stepped over the bodies and streamed down the hallway. After a few minutes, it emptied out into a small antechamber with two other tunnels leading in opposite directions. Hollander withdrew a piece of paper from his pocket. On it, the picture taken by the plane provided the information he needed.
“Take the left hallway,” he said to his men. As they moved ahead of him, he turned and tossed the plastic ball down the other tunnel. Might as well take a look, Hollander mused.
Before he had a chance to flip down his screen, Hackman’s voice called, “Sir! We’ve got something!”
Hollander sped down the tunnel, following Hackman’s voice. At the end, a steel door was embedded into the rock, propped open. He could see shadows moving beyond. Entering, he caught his breath.
Behind him lay the ancient innards of the mountain. This room, however, was firmly rooted in the current century. Pristine whitewashed walls formed a perfectly square room. Gleaming metal racks lined them, stocked with a combination of steel canisters and glass tubes filled with colored liquid. In the center rested a round metal table with computer equipment that was unfamiliar to Hollander.
“Sir,” Hackman’s voice snapped him back to attention. He and Gonzalez were in the corner, both their rifles pointed at a tall, thin man with his hands in the air. He wore a white laboratory coat and wire-rimmed glasses.
Hollander stepped up to him. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
The man simply shrugged. “No English.”
“Yeah, right.” Hollander moved over the table, inspecting its contents. He pulled out a digital camera the size of a credit card that was clipped to his belt. Snapping pictures, he hit a green button on its back to begin transmitting. The pictures would be instantly uploaded to the command center twenty miles away. Everything here had the appearance of a chemical weapons lab but something seemed off to Hollander. He bent down to take a closer look at the table.
“Syringes,” he wondered aloud, finding a collection of them nearby. Straightening, he turned back to the man who was their prisoner. “What are you doing here?” he asked again.
“Bomb,” came the answer, after Hackman prodded the man in the chest with his gun.
“Suddenly you speak English,” Hollander frowned. “What kind of bomb?”
The man stared back defiantly. Suddenly, Gonzalez cracked the butt of his rifle across his skull. “Talk,” he commanded. The man stumbled forward, a gash opening up where he had been struck.
“Stand down,” ordered Hollander. He stepped into the bleeding man’s face. “Either you start talking or-”
Something caught his eye on the rack in the corner.
He moved forward, peering closer. A row of four syringes stood with their needles pointing into the air, clear liquid resting inside of them. It was obvious, though, that there should have been five, for there was an empty hole where another syringe should be.
Yet none of that was what gave Hollander pause. At the bottom of the rack holding the syringes was a white sticker. Upon it was printed, “Property of the U.S. TOP SECRET. RX-17.”
He whirled, pushing into the scientist’s face. “Where did you get this?” Raising his fist, he punctuated the question with a jab to the man’s wound.
“An American sold it to us. He said he only needed one for himself.”
Before Hollander could ask anything else, voices echoed from beyond the steel door. Remembering the camera ball, Hollander flipped the screen down.
“My God,” he breathed.
Several pairs of dust-covered boots thundered down the hallway.
“There’s more here than we thought!” Hollander shouted. He sprang towards the door, grabbing its thick metal handle. He yanked but it wouldn’t budge. Shouts caused him to look up. A dozen insurgents with guns were rushing down the hallway. With another strong pull, the door began to move. Hollander ducked behind it as the first of a hail of bullets struck the steel. He dove back into the room as the door clanged shut.
Fists pounded from the other side.
“Command, do you copy?” Hollander said into his microphone, switching to a different frequency.
“Go ahead,” came the colonel’s voice.
“We’re cornered in the lab, sir. Can you send air support?”
He heard the colonel confer with someone. “Affirmative,” he finally said. “We’ll get it there as quickly as we can.”
Suddenly, there was a muffled blast and the center of the steel door folded inward. It held in place but Hollander knew that it would not for much longer, certainly not for the time he needed.
“There’s something you should see, sir.” Hollander said into his throat mic as he stepped over to the rack of syringes and snapped a picture of it. “Transmitting now.”
Behind him, he heard the door wrenched off its hinges. The last few seconds of Hollander’s life were a blur of noise and confusion.
Gonzalez and Hackman opened up with their guns but were cut down immediately.
The scientist shouted something to his comrades, waving his arms.
Hot slugs slammed into Hollander’s back, toppling him forward. He watched as bullets chewed up everything in the room, including the liquid-filled tubes that filled the wall racks.
A giant rushing sound filled Hollander’s ears as his world was consumed by white.
Twenty miles away, the techie shouted across the command center to the Colonel.
“Sir, there’s been an explosion at the mountain!”
The colonel crossed the room in an instant, leaning over the young man’s shoulder. “Where?” he demanded, scanning the empty screen. “Show me the damn mountain!”
“I am, sir,” the techie replied, earning a perplexed look from his superior. “It’s gone.”
“Dear God.”
The techie looked back at the colonel, surprised at the man’s blanched face. He realized, though, that it was not the sight of the vaporized mountain that had filled the commander’s face with terror. He was looking at the monitor to the left of it, where the full image of Hollander’s transmitting photo had at last popped up.
Where the letters “RX-17” were on the screen.
C
ampanile was a yellow stucco restaurant with Moorish arches and tiles, accented with sleek modern updates. Built in the 1920’s to house Charlie Chaplin’s production company, the Little Tramp was forced to instead surrender its ownership in the divorce from his second wife. Aside from its superb risotto, Matt also enjoyed its location on busy La Brea Avenue, straddling the neighborhoods of Hollywood and Beverly Hills. The only downside was their sluggish valet parking, which he found himself impatiently waiting for after lunch.
He sighed, glancing at his watch. Nearly three o’clock. The repast had been leisurely, something that was necessary for Matt to woo the client he was entertaining. The restaurant had held its lucky streak for him, though. There was a contract with ink drying on it in the leather portfolio clutched in his hand.
Just when he was about to complain to the head valet, his black Porsche Panamera swung into view. He could not help but smile upon seeing it. Despite appearances, most of Matt’s income went into IRA’s and savings accounts for Luke’s future. The Porsche was one of the few luxuries he permitted himself. It was one of his rare joys to push the fine-tuned engine to its limits on the city’s streets whenever possible, as evidenced by the pile of speeding tickets he had amassed since its purchase.
The valet popped out from behind the wheel uttering profuse apologies. Matt muttered that it wasn’t a problem, handing the man a ten dollar bill. He climbed inside and shut the door. As he eased the shift into drive and pulled forward, he noticed something on the passenger seat.
A small black gift box with a white bow on top.
He stepped on the brakes, earning a honk from the Bentley behind him. Matt ignored it, clambering back out. Waving his valet down, he held out the box.
“You must have left this in the car.”
“No, Mr. Weatherly. Yours.”
“It’s not mine. Maybe another customer’s?”
The man shook his head again, reaching for the box. “Yours,” he said emphatically, revealing a folded gift tag half-hidden beneath the bow. It read, “Matt Weatherly.” The valet turned at his name being called, nodded to Matt and hurried away.
Matt shook his head. Weird, he thought. Maybe a secret admirer? Perhaps that hostess he had dated briefly at Il Cielo had moved over to Campanile and had seen him. He lifted the top of the box and pushed aside the creamy tissue paper that lay beneath it.
A slim silver cell phone was nestled inside. Something that appeared to be an iPhone but a bit longer. The front was a smooth screen of smoked black glass. Before Matt could investigate further, a series of honks pulled his attention. The Bentley driver was angrily gesticulating for him to get out of the way. Matt waved apologetically and climbed back into his Porsche while tossing the gift box on the passenger seat. Within a few minutes, he was cruising down Sunset Boulevard towards his office.
The high-rise tower came into view just as his Blackberry rang. He thumbed it, shoving his Bluetooth into his ear.