Project StrikeForce (29 page)

Area 51

urse Tulli prepared John for
surgery, and Eric was reminded of a picture his Mom had taped to her
refrigerator door, his father in the hospital, IV’s dripping chemo in his arms.
Dr. Elliot and Dr. Oshensker were scrubbing up and preparing to operate while a
host of other nurses and technicians monitored John’s vitals.

Kelly stood next to him. “Jesus,” he breathed. “He
looks worse then when we snuck him out of Bellevue.”

Nancy nodded. “At least they managed to keep his
heart beating,” she said.

Eric dismissed them and walked next door to the
recovery area. Deion lay in a hospital bed, but his eyes were open and he pulled
himself up and grinned, giving Eric a thumbs up. Eric saluted him. Deion tipped
his hand to his temple in a mock salute, then settled back in bed, smirking.

Martin Taylor lay in the next bed, his head
bandaged from the emergency brain surgery. He did not smile, but he nodded
weakly before closing his eyes.

Eric shook his head and went back to the
observation room. He watched as the operation started, until Fulton Smith
entered, the door closing softly behind him.

Smith stood quietly, watching the surgery.
“Excellent work, Mr. Wise. You saved New York City.”

He shook his head. “John saved New York.”

“Did you have problems retrieving him?”

“No, we flashed some paperwork and the locals
handed him over. The feds weren’t too happy. I’m afraid the DHS might be
causing some trouble.”

Smith smiled icily. “No, they won’t. What about
the VISOR?”

“Nancy removed the evidence bag from the NYPD,
along with the rest of the Battlesuit.”

“Very good.” There was a pause. “It was a bold
move, dropping him in Times Square.”

Eric returned the icy smile. “It worked.”

Smith raised an eyebrow. “Indeed it did. How is
Mr. Frist?”

“He’s got severe trauma to pretty much everything.
They’re going to have to amputate his foot. He’s got a broken wrist, multiple
fractures to his skull and ribs, several cracked vertebrae. Shards of
nano-carbon from the bones in his foot lacerated his other leg. And, he has a
concussion.”

Smith turned back to the operating table. “He will
live?”

“The docs think so. Everything will heal, except
for the foot. They want to fit him with a prosthetic.”

Smith leaned closer to the window. “You sound
morose.”

There was no going back. “You don’t actually care
about him. He’s just a guinea pig.”

Smith glanced sideways. “After what he did? The
people he killed? Tell me why I
should
care?”

“Because he’s still a person,” Eric said. “In the
end, he almost killed himself to stop Abdullah. He did the job.”

Smith turned, a genuine smile spreading across his
face. “You’re a good man, Eric, that’s why I want you to be my successor.” He
stuck out his hand.

Eric reflexively took it, then paused. His eyes
were opened to what the Office did and how it operated.

Try as he might, he couldn’t think of anyone he
trusted to do the job.

He shook Smith’s hand firmly. “I guess I’m your man.”

Smith nodded. “I always knew you were.”

* * *

Washington, DC

“Do you know how many problems
you’ve caused?” the President asked. “I’ve got the Joint Chiefs on my ass
wanting to know why the hell a secret space plane was flying through
Manhattan.”

Smith blinked in the harsh light of the
underground bunker. “It’s not as bad as it appears. The Pentagon has known for
years that work continued on a supersonic stealth aircraft, ever since Project
Aurora.”

The President frowned. “It’s called stealth for a
reason, Fulton.”

“Mr. President, the world knew we had a stealth
plane, just not how advanced it was. But, think of this. What good is a weapon
if your enemy doesn’t know about it? The entire concept of MAD was based upon
both parties knowing they had the capability to annihilate their enemy, and
furthermore, their enemy knowing the same. Without Russian displays of nuclear
force, would we have been so hesitant to attack? I can assure you, Mr.
President, I was there for those discussions. It was closer than you realize.”

The President shook his head, but his face
softened. He picked up his coffee cup and blew on it before taking a long sip. “The
military isn’t supposed to operate on domestic soil. I could be found guilty of
treason. Impeached, at the very least. My own party thinks I’m an incompetent
boob, and the Vice-President is ready to measure the Oval Office for new
drapes.”

Smith noticed the President’s weary face, the deep
bags under his eyes. He understood the weight of such a position and what it
cost a man. His relationship with his daughter was a daily testament. “I can
handle the Vice-President. I’m afraid he’s not fit for this office. His heart
isn’t in it.”

“You could keep him from running?”

“Nothing like that. It’s his heart. I’ve seen his
medical report. It couldn’t handle the strain.”

“What about the Joint Chiefs? What am I supposed
to tell them?”

Smith handed the President a folder. “Here is the
report. DHS stopped a man from attempting to detonate a primitive bomb in Times
Square, and that through the hard work of the NYPD and DHS, this tragedy was
prevented. Unfortunately, the mentally ill man, an Afghani engineer, was
killed. He was driven mad with grief over his wife’s death from cancer, and
blamed the entire city of New York for her lack of medical care. The crude
explosive device was dismantled and destroyed.”

The President leafed through the folder, then
closed it, staring at the cover. “Even an idiot wouldn’t believe that. You
think that’ll play in Peoria?”

“The back-story has already been created. They can
claim a conspiracy if they want. In fact, that might tamp down a few of these
more troublesome groups.”

The President opened the folder again and leafed
through it. “What was the real reason? Why did this Abdullah fellow want to
nuke Times Square?”

Smith shook his head. “He wanted to set off a
dirty bomb, to spread fear, to create panic. To strike back.”

“Why?”

“We killed his wife. Jack Trevino, one of the CIA
officers killed in FOB Wildcat, mistakenly authorized the strike based upon SIGINT
from the Sentinel drone. They bombed Abdullah’s house, killing his wife.
Revenge is a powerful motivator.”

The President leaned back. “We make our own
problems, don’t we?” he mused. “What about Frist? What do we do with him?”

“Project StrikeForce has succeeded beyond our
wildest hopes.”

“I still don’t trust him,” the President said.
“What if I told you to cancel it?”

“The project would be terminated and all assets
erased,” Smith said solemnly. “Unfortunately, we need him.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it. I’d like to keep
that option open.”

“Of course. Mr. President? There’s something else.
I told you I was looking for a successor? I found him.”

“You trust him?” The President took another sip of
coffee, watching him over the lip of the mug.

“Yes. I have done my duty, sir, well and above
what is required of any man. I need to know someone can take my place.”

“At least something good came out of this debacle.
He’s a good man?”

“Above reproach.”

The President nodded and stood. “When that time
comes, I’ll be glad to work with him. Fulton, I’ve never told you this, but
your guidance has been a comfort.” He stuck out his hand.

Smith smiled at the still-young man from Texas and
shook the proffered hand. “It’s been an honor.”

* * *

Jim Rumple snapped awake, heart
pounding, struggling to sit up. The room was so dark he could barely make out
the dresser against the far wall.

He strained his ears, but heard nothing except the
normal sound of late night traffic. He reflexively felt for the soft spot where
his wife slept, before remembering she had left years before.

He sighed heavily and scratched his balls,
wondering if the urge to pee justified getting out of bed. He decided it didn’t,
and was almost on the verge of sleep when he heard the noise again. He bolted
upright and hit the light with one hand while his other fumbled for the Glock
in the nightstand. He blinked, squinting, trying to make out the approaching
shape, and then he screamed as something hard smashed into his wrist.

He dropped the Glock and rolled across the bed. He
came up on the other side and saw the woman from Afghanistan with a gun in one
hand and a collapsible police baton in the other.

He froze. “What are you doing in my bedroom?”

“Calm down, Jim,” the woman said. “Sit back. We
need to talk.”

There was a cold knot in his stomach, his wrist
hurt, and he could barely see. “You can’t do this. I’m CIA!” The woman said
nothing but motioned again to the bed. He scrabbled back until his head bumped
the oak headboard. “What the fuck is your problem?”

The woman took a seat on the edge of the bed.
“Where’s your wife, Jim?”

“What? She’s-I don’t know. Somewhere in New York,
I guess.”

The woman nodded. “Couldn’t handle the stress? I’m
assuming you read her in. Was it the travel that got to her? Or the lying?”

“Something like that.”

“You almost got my team killed. You know that,
right?”

“You didn’t provide official orders!”

“You were told to stay out of it, but you pulled
the Delta team back. You’re a good officer. People respect you, even though
they don’t like you. I can understand that. People don’t like me, either. We’re
two peas in a pod. Why did you pull the team back?”

“I’m not telling you anything!” The sleepy
confusion was gone and his heart was pounding. The woman was clearly insane. He
tried to reason with her. “How was I supposed to know you’d get caught by
Al-Qaeda? As soon as the orders came in I redeployed the Delta team to your
location. I saved your life!”

The woman stood up, the pistol shaking at him with
every word. “
You. Saved. My. Life?
My
teammates
saved my life.
You don’t even know why you did it. You pulled them back because you don’t like
what you don’t understand.”

As she talked, he remembered what his superiors
said when he made it back to Washington.

Don’t ask more questions. You fucked up. Don’t
talk about it. Compartmentalized security. Need to know. Take the paid vacation
and relax.

He desperately tried to remember what his
instructors at The Farm taught him about establishing a rapport. “That’s not—”

“That’s not what?” she interrupted. “Not true? You
made a mistake. Like I said, I understand. You just had to know who I was and
why I was in Afghanistan and how I got your orders countermanded. So, you asked
around. You really shouldn’t have done that.” She shook her head.

“Look, I’m sorry. You’re right, I couldn’t let it
go. That’s no reason to do whatever it is you’re thinking of doing. Just leave.
Nobody will know you were here.”

He trembled as his voice broke.
I won’t go out
like this. I’ll knock the gun away, tie her up, then call the Agency. They’ll
take her away and I’ll finally find out who she is and what agency she works
for.

The woman smiled cruelly. “If you think you can
escape, you’re wrong. You can’t.”

His surge of hope faded. “This isn’t right,” he
said, deflated. “Someone will hear the gun.”

“It’s a .45 with subsonic ammo and an integrated
silencer. It’s no louder than a sneeze.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I’m fucked up in the head,” she answered calmly.
“I mean, I’m trying to be a better person. There’s a man I like, a good man,
and I want him to like me, too. But, I’m like you. I just can’t let things go.”

He saw the look in her eyes and knew the
conversation was over. He wanted to scream, to run for his life.

All those thoughts ran through his head in the
fraction of a second it took for her to pull the trigger. As he saw the flash
he wondered if his ex-wife would care when they told her he was dead, a bullet
through his brain and his bowels released over the bed they had shared, and
that was his last thought as the bullet stopped his thinking forever.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kevin Lee Swaim studied creative writing with
David Foster Wallace at Illinois State University.
He is currently the Subject Matter Expert for Intrusion Prevention Systems for
a Fortune 50 insurance company located in the Mid West. He holds the CISSP
certification from ISC2.
When he's not writing, he's busy repairing guitars for the working bands of
Central Illinois.