Reflexive Fire - 01 (36 page)

   Downing the final mouthful of coffee, Deckard tossed the cardboard cup into the trash.

   The worm viruses that Adam had infiltrating the enemy's computer databanks had continued to feed data back to them.  The sheer volume was staggering and left them trying to drink from a fire hose.  They were now entering twenty consecutive hours of intel analysis and mission planning.

   “Hey, boss,” Frank said from across the table.  He waved a circular can of smokeless tobacco at him.  The dip provided a buzz that helped keep you alert, but he'd quit that stuff a long time ago.

   Schematics and printouts covered the table, the dry erase boards were filled with scribbles, notes, and doodles that they had used to explain ideas to each other with.  Note books were held open with mugs of coffee, and empty soda bottles were a refilled with brown dip spit.

   They had been attacking one problem after the next, readjusting as Adam brought in fresh information every few minutes until he had finally exhausted the hard drives in Singapore.

   “You sure?”

   “Fuck you,” Deckard said, grabbing the can of Copenhagen.

   A projector displayed a satellite image of a small island in the Pacific Ocean.

  
This is really happening.

  
Even after reading the news articles, it still seemed surreal, enough to make a person doubt their own reality.  Maybe that was what the enemy was counting on.  Engineered cognitive dissonance on a massive scale as they turned the planet into one big global snuff film.

   Tapping out a pinch of dip, he packed it into his lower lip, spitting the excess into the garbage can.

   The Center for Disease Control preparing for death on a global scale, gold bullion mysteriously transferring between countries, large shipments of weaponry being moved offshore, the National Guard being mobilized.  All the periphery information suddenly made sense.

   Kammler.  Jarogniew.  Hieronymus.

   It was clear that they had been planning this for years.  The news articles had been written by their psychological manipulators to help ease the public into its extinction.  They didn't want everything collapsing all at once, no; the wars and strife could damage the environment or destroy infrastructure they wanted for their own purposes.

   A global pandemic.  Once activated, it would only take a few weeks before it chewed through the world's population.  Deckard's eyes darted to his troops.  They didn't look up from their work.  They couldn't allow it to happen.  He had known from the beginning that he was being hired for something sinister, but this was beyond anything he could have imagined.

   It was finally time for Samruk to go off the reservation.

   The mission they had in mind was ridiculous in complexity, extremely difficult in terms of logistics, and a final assault that was next to impossible, no matter what angle they attacked it from.  They'd be going up against layers of security and the most highly trained and experienced soldiers in the world.

   “O'Brien,” Adam said, looking up from his laptop.  “There is one aspect we haven't discussed.”

   “What is it?”

   “The most reasonable option.  We go after their families.”

   “Killing children isn't acceptable.”

   “We don't have to kill them.  We just have to make them think we will.  Send a small team stateside and grab a few of them up.”

   “These are the most ruthless people in the world,” Deckard replied.  “Psychopaths like this can hardly be bothered with anyone's well-being other than their own.”

   “Is that your final answer?”

   “It is.”

   Frank turned the satellite phone over in his hands, knowing he was playing Russian roulette with his friends' lives.

   Once again they needed to find replacements, warm bodies to take the place of those killed in action.  He knew that of the friends he called, nearly every one of them would show up and be standing plane side, ready to go in twenty-four hours.  It didn't matter what the reason was, not really.  When you had saved each others' lives more times than either of you cared to count, they would be there for you when you needed them.

   That didn't make him feel any better though.  Roger had gotten pulped by that landmine as they pulled off their objective in Burma.  In fact Samruk's mercenaries were dropping like flies.  At this rate every one of them would be a salty veteran after just two or three missions with the unit, probably taking a hundred percent casualties before long.

   The ex-Ranger's thumb hovered over the phone's keypad, wondering who he would be condemning to death.  Pushing aside his guilt, he punched in a thirteen-digit number and pressed send.  The call went through, bouncing off a satellite before connecting in the United States.

   “Hello?”

   Adam was frozen in place as his heart beat wildly.

   Gently, he set down the phone, terminating the call.

   “Who was that?” Deckard asked.

   Moments ago he'd interrupted mission planning and got the immediate leadership together for an emergency meeting.

   “My source in the SIGINT business,” Adam replied.  “This is getting crazy.”

   “Okay,” Deckard said, sitting down.  “In the last hour General Lancaster was killed in a car accident outside the beltway, and I just found out that Admiral Whitcomb died in a hospital, supposedly of food poisoning, last night.”

   “Former National Security Councilman Dale Werbacht was found shot in his bedroom by police this morning,” Frank added.

   “Lynn Chapman was found by his wife floating face down in their pool forty-five minutes ago,” Adam said in monotone.

   “What did you just say?” Deckard blurted.

   “Lynn Chapman is dead, it's under investigation--”

   “Holy shit,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

   “A friend of yours?”

   “Lynn was providing top cover for me for the duration of my time with Samruk.  I had been working for him.  Hell, he was the one who got me face time with those creeps at Bohemian Grove.  I didn't know what he was getting me into at the time.” 

   “Who was he?” Frank asked.

   “He worked on the fringes of the National Security Agency.  He often piggybacked his own missions on non-officially funded operations.  Lynn was one of the good guys.  He even served with my dad in 'Nam.”

   “What the hell is going on?” Adam wondered.

   Deckard rubbed his temples, trying to take it in.

   “They're killing anyone in the system that might be able to intercept and interdict their plans.  Anyone who could have the wherewithal to put the pieces together and interfere with this pandemic they have planned.”

   “Does this mean your cover is blown?”

   “Probably not, all the backstops are still in place, and knowing Lynn he would have a fair amount of redundancy built into his system.  Then again, if they go digging deep again, they might find some cracks.”

   Just then the fax machine clicked on with a whirl.

   The three mercenaries looked in its direction as it warmed up for a moment before spitting paper onto its tray.

   With dread filling his gut, Deckard stood and snatched the paper printouts.  It was another Operations Order.  He flipped through the pages looking for the second paragraph.

   “Mission,” he read aloud, Frank and Adam's eyes drilling into him.  “Samruk International relocates to Denver International Airport, fully operational, with all personnel and equipment needed to conduct sustained combat operations in the continental United States.  All maneuver elements will be prepared to execute time-sensitive special operations missions, cordon and search operations, civilian internment and relocation, and other tasks, as directed by Higher Headquarters in accordance with local conditions and emerging threats.”

   They had just been ordered to go to war with the American public.

Twenty Eight

   Footsteps echoed across the floor, reverberating through empty space.  Obsidian was inlaid into the marble floor, forming a black sun wheel, stylized rays of dark light branching out from the center.  Situated in the heart of the underground compound, the black sun formed the most ancient of archetypes.

   The very Void of Creation.

    Hieronymus crossed over the antediluvian symbol, a single pillar of light shining down from the oculus and reflecting off ebony rock.  The circular room was cloistered with various pillars, each a different style, originating from ages long forgotten.  Some of the pillars were caryatids, shaped in human and non-human forms, idealizations of man throughout the ages; others were of creatures from before recorded time.  The imagery was buried deep in the subconscious of man, but known to make the uninitiated ill with just a glimpse of their visages. 

   The entrance to the next chamber bore stone reliefs that displayed an owl on one side and a deified woman bearing the features of a bird of prey on the other.

   The warrior woman was named Lilith in some cultures, Inanna or Ishtar in earlier civilizations, and went by yet another name in time immemorial.  To the Babylonians she was massless and able to assume any form at will.   Hieronymus knew her real name and true purpose.  She was nothing less than the gatekeeper of initiation into the Order of the Black Sun.

   The Order maintained the hidden knowledge of mankind's true origins, the truth of a fabled land long lost beneath the sea.  Human civilization was not a progression of development but rather a legacy inherited from those who came before.  After man's fall from grace, Lemuria sank beneath the waves. Humankind migrated to the Ancient Near East, a series of despotic rulers conquering the souls of man and rendering them pliable ever since.

   Just as the useless eaters had been given mass religion, many members of the elite had been given a secret doctrine to help them feel like insiders.  It was something that allowed them to view themselves above the people they were expected to subjugate.  Soon, they too, would be led into the Charnel House of Time.

   Most of the symbolism had been used by his family for hundreds of years having double or triple levels of meaning.  One level for the masses, another for initiates, and finally the third, which held the true secrets to the architecture of power.  The third layer was held in reserve by several powerful families and passed down through the mystery schools.  They prevented the truth from losing its power through overuse, misinterpretation, and blatant abuse by those unworthy of its hidden energy.

   Since recorded history the esoteric and arcane had been kept hidden, for use by only those properly indoctrinated.  Otherwise, control would be lost, the grimoire welded against man taken from them for all time.

   Perception was reality and they were the self-appointed perception managers, the invisible governors who provided the handrails for a domesticated populace.

   Crossing the threshold, the old man shuffled into a room with a black and white checkered floor.  The inner sanctum was dimly lit, the large subterranean hall seeming to stretch on forever, disappearing in the blackness somewhere beyond.

   Standing in front of the Leviathan, Hieronymus clenched his fists.  He felt
it
ripple through his body.  Thousands of years had led to this moment.  Tomorrow was Day Zero.  The beginning of the end for humanity.  The beginning of a new future for those who occupied the capstone of the pyramid.  The coming of a time when they could enjoy the empty, wide open expanses the earth had provided for them.

   At ninety-four years old many thought that he would never live to see his new order realized, but beneath the flowing black robe his skin was pulled taunt with thick layers of muscle.  The best nutritionists and doctors had cared for him from the beginning.  Human growth hormones were carefully administered, artificially restarting his life cycle over again from a chemical standpoint.

   With the breeders wiped out by his plague, he could finally bring a new line of long-suppressed occult technology to the forefront.  Life extension technologies would ensure that he and those he selected would survive to carry on their ambitions for hundreds of years, until such a point came that technology rendered life as currently perceived irrelevant and their species evolved into something altogether different.

   Oh, a portion of humanity had been there before, in a time long forgotten.  Prior to The Fall, a race of optimally functioning people had existed even more powerful than he.

   Before him Leviathan purred, electronic hums idling by, waiting patiently for work.  A small field of databanks were interconnected, containing solid state data storage, enough to contain every piece of information that had existed, into infinity as near as occult scientists could tell.  Centered in the core of the data processing center was the brain, a quantum computer that was not supposed to exist.  For the moment it was isolated, underground, and quarantined from the outside world.

   The supercomputer made use of the bizarre effects of quantum entanglement, manipulating information laterally across the time domain to provide any calculation, any function, faster than the human mind could comprehend.  The effects were so unbelievable, so shocking, that several of the world's preeminent scientists had to be condemned after working with Leviathan.  Hieronymus made sure they stayed in solitary, pumped full of pharmaceuticals, not that anyone would believe them anyway. 

   In the darkness of their cells, they whispered to themselves that the computer made the calculations in the past, before the data was even inputted into the system.

   He could have had them disposed of, but found that they made far better pets; they bore testament to The Order's agenda, the coming amalgamation.  Their feeble minds were literally driven insane, unable to comprehend what he had known since Leviathan's inception.  It wasn't science but black magic, drawing on the power of the black sun.  It channeled the power flowing from the reality that geometrically unfolded itself from the Void.

   The artificial entity called the United States Government was allowed to run a parallel but far inferior project called Main Core, making use of more conventional technologies.  Still, it had served its purpose, monitoring enormous swaths of the eaters simultaneously.

   Power consumption, financial systems, infrastructure, political opinion, psychological trends, and much more were cataloged by Main Core and filtered through its periphery systems.  Closed-circuit television camera systems from London to New York to Basra were monitored.  Cell phone conversations were listened in on for key words and exact coordinates to that person's location, triangulated and tracked.  Social Media networks and other websites compiled massive amounts of data hourly.

   All of it was added up into an aggregate, one that when processed through the computer systems could be used to predict the future with a fair amount of accuracy.  When the collapse was initiated and the US Federal Government was eliminated on Day Sixteen, Main Core would be taken offline if the chaos hadn't knocked it out already.

   On that day, Leviathan would be unleashed on the planet.  Tapping into dark fiber and redundant systems put into place years prior, it would keep the world running, and running by Hieronymus' rules.  The earth's resources would be quickly calculated and redistributed as he saw fit, and Leviathan's systems would maintain Total Information Awareness, an all-seeing eye that never blinked.  Silently, it would monitor what was left of the cattle.           

   The puppet master grinned, watching his creation, blinking red lights flashing as it waited in the darkness.  Hieronymus inhaled sharply.  It knew he was in the room. 

   After the cleansing, the world would be redesigned in his image.  Singapore would explode into a metropolis of technology-manufacturing with serfs assembling the tools the elite required.  Meanwhile, the planetary regime would establish a massive spaceport just outside the capital of Kazakhstan.  The elite themselves would peer down on their subjects from heavily fortified enclaves and towering skyscrapers.  True technological progress would be unveiled, harnessing energies yet unrealized.

   In a few decades the terraforming of the planet Mars would begin and two decades after that the first human-led superluminal space travel would take place.  Channeling ancient, esoteric energies, they would create craft that moved faster than light itself, exploring the vastness of space.

   Remote viewers had already made contact with no less than five extraterrestrial consciousnesses in their galaxy alone.  Gliese 581 had been transmitting signals at least since the elite's scientific foundations and societies had begun listening.  The data contained in the transmission had been decrypted by Leviathan, but the message remained obscured; the occult scientists remained baffled by the language and manner of speech. 

   It was no matter.  It would be no more than forty years before they made first contact.

   Assessments would be carried out; the alien planet's mineral and sentient life forms would be calculated and cataloged.  Then the harvesting would begin once again.  The alien species would be subjugated and used as slave labor until they were rendered useless by further technological advancements.  Planned extinction would come next.

   There would be one remaining thorn in his side and that was the elite themselves.

   Their will to power, the need to conquer and kill would never be quenched.  Not by the global culling, nothing would satisfy those elites who operated near his own level.  After the pandemic they would war with each other, sooner rather than later in Hieronymus' estimation. 

   Leviathan concurred. 

   Weapons, conventional and non-conventional had been prepositioned and secreted away in caches across the globe, hidden for later use by Jarogniew, Kammler, and many others.  They thought their contingency plans remained clandestine, but in truth nothing remained a secret from him.

   Deeper in the hall, resting alongside Leviathan were all manner of officially non-existent weapons.  Directed energy, psychotronic generators, geoengineering, radionics, and orthogonal frame rotational weapons were already at his disposal.  In the aftermath of the culling, around Day Thirty the weapons would be fired upon his fellow elite, not to mention at least two other factions he expected to survive his apocalypse in China and Japan.

   He alone would have first strike capability, hitting hard and fast the moment the elite let their guard down as they attempted to consolidate power after the plague.

   Letting his hands rest on the composite plastic cube that housed the supercomputer, he let out a laugh that resonated throughout the great hall.  The cube was now nothing more than a mental placeholder, a receiver at best.  The calculations and processes were done elsewhere, inside the infolded electromagnetic space all around them.

   Turning away, he walked from the cavernous hall.  He could feel Leviathan disengage from him, the mental link severing as the computer, or being, or whatever it was, noted his absence and went back into meditation.

   Back in the initiation room he changed from his robe and back into his customary fitted suit and loafers.  Without bothering to glance back at his work, Hieronymus left Lilith and the others behind, boarding a heavy freight elevator. 

   With a push of a button he began ascending to the surface.  Minutes crawled by, the darkness interrupted by the occasional service light.  When the elevator came to a halt, he stepped off and sat down on an electric golf cart.  Powering the cart down the long corridor, a gust of cool air brushed across his wrinkled face.  Motion detectors activated banks of overhead lighting as he sped down the tunnel.  Behind him a series of heavy blast doors slammed shut.  Leviathan would be running the compound in his absence.

   With the final blast door swinging shut, Hieronymus squinted in the natural sunlight, continuing to drive down a dirt road.  Behind him a bulldozer rumbled up to the twelve ton door, pushing dirt over it.  The work crew in charge of concealing and sanitizing the area was already taken care of.  The activation agent to the binary virus was laced into their catered lunch.  They would be dead before they ever stepped off the work site.

    Hieronymus remained stone-faced as his private jet came into view.  The engines were already warmed up, the pilot waiting for him to arrive.  Pulling up alongside, he put the golf cart into park and walked towards the open hatch.  As he climbed the steps, the cold Colorado wind tossed his gray hair.  The old man couldn't help but smile.

   The black stork was on its way.