Tag: Dark Horizons

Continued from Twenty-five: Hard Driving

Twenty-six: Overt Sly

The first word that came to Rudi when he met the contact was unimpressive. Short, squat, with a patchy beard and missing teeth, Gurung had told him the contact wanted to be known as ‘Sly.’ Apparently, he idolized Stallone. Rudi decided he had better play the silent partner role, as Gurung had warned him of ‘Sly’s’ fragile ego.

“He’s not much to look at, but he’s connected and he’s done his time in.” Gurung apparently meant time in the Brigade of the Gurkhas. Rudi didn’t question him. Perhaps he could do so later . . . if he cared to.
(more…)

Continued from Twenty-four: For The Count

Twenty-five: Hard Driving

Gurung had acquired some exemplary equipment. Alex doubted that Drift could have provided him anything similar if he had been operational somewhere like Nepal. Maybe in a few days, a week or so, but in a few hours? Not a chance.

While he had some facility with cracking encryption, Willow proved much more proficient, so Alex relegated himself to assistant. She did the surgery, he passed on the tools and gave opinions when asked. Alex figured they’d be more successful and faster with her driving.
(more…)

Continued from Twenty-three: Me and Yu

Twenty-four: For The Count

Yu’s death quickly followed the sound of the window cracking. It meant one thing to Heather. She wasn’t alone in that assessment.

“Sniper!” Walker dropped to the floor.

The room only had two windows, but they were large and uncovered. Yu’s body lay on the ground near Madison and Becca. Boyle and Walker both crawled toward the windows, Walker to the one without the bullet crack.

Willow crouched near the door, MP5 raised to her shoulder. She fired off three suppressed shots, each one eliminating one of the trio of lights in the room.

“That explosion is going to bring the authorities fast,” Heather said.

Willow apparently agreed with her. “We need to go.”
(more…)

Continued from Twenty-two: Warm Welcome

Twenty-three: Me and Yu

Mads and Heather sat in the back of a beaten-up, patched-up, still functioning luxury sedan that had probably seen a hard three decades. In the driver’s seat, Willow—the athletic and direct sniper from Boyle’s team—worked something that looked like a kind of smartphone/palmtop. She had a second cellphone open on the seat beside her which she monitored through an earplug and mic.

They had parked on a relatively wide road. Without a sidewalk, shops and restaurants lined either side of the street, most closed, some still open—the glow of their neon signs the only street lighting. Few people moved along the road. A handful of clusters remained in those open bars and cafés. The buildings flanking the street were almost uniformly two stories, though there were a couple with a third floor. Those second and third stories would likely be apartments, relatively impressive by Kathmandu standards.

“He’s within thirty metres.” Willow spoke through the phone, but—of course—everyone in the vehicle heard her.

“That’s a lot of space.” Mads muttered. He should have kept it to himself. Willow craned her neck to face him. Heather reacted as well. “I’m just saying, there’s plenty of flops for him in that radius.”
(more…)

Continued from Twenty One: Fruits of the Mind Field

Twenty Two: Warm Welcome

The van moved through side streets and alleys, avoiding main thoroughfares. Gurung knew the city. He knew how to get to the safe house and do it discreetly. Alexander Scott sat in the passenger seat, his Kevlar vest with plates feeling heavy, but his MP7 feeling oh so light. The two other occupants of the van sat in back.

The dark of the earliest morning had given way to touches of twilight. The sky heralded the arrival of the sun, but its face hadn’t yet made an appearance. It was a bad time of the day—everyone was drooping, everyone was wilting.

Alex didn’t feel it. Granted, he had been moving, had been awake and active for almost 24 hours, but there had been progress. He had seen results. Best of all, Dyck, who had been seriously wounded, was on his way to receive proper care. The crew had just transferred him to a helicopter and seen him off.

On the floor, against the wall, Sergeant Everson sipped at the coffee Rudi had procured him. “So we know those guys weren’t rogue, right?”

Gurung didn’t take his eyes off the road. “They were not CIA.”
(more…)

Continued from Twenty: Face to Face

Twenty-One: Fruits of the Mind Field

The night hadn’t started out so well. Ambushed while having a cigarette? That should have never happened. Rudi had chided himself in the past about getting soft. This just reinforced the truth of it. Sitting at a desk in Burma, enjoying the perquisites of the job, it had turned him into that which he had always detested: a slow and lazy talker who didn’t do.

That it had been Boyle’s protege, young Lt. Park, who had surprised him made the wound sting only slightly less. It may be that his cigarette had saved everyone time and troubles. If Lt. Park and her friends had stormed the safehouse, would the mistake have been realized before someone got hurt–or killed?

But here they sat and stood, all together, talking strategy, sharing information. Rudi liked it. It made him feel alive again. Fuck the Burmese. Had they planned to kill him? They at least didn’t trust him, if he believed Boyle

He did. It made sense.

It was all slowly making sense.

Then it came. Boyle had information on a shipment that had moved through Vladivostock and into Kathmandu. Gurung offered to take the lead on that. Rudi knew the ex-Gurkha, ex-contractor would get the information. No one in the room had worked as closely with Gurung as Rudi.

No one else in the room even knew his real name.

Boyle pointed to Rudi. “Take Rudi with you. He has the proper skillset for this kind of job.”

That got Rudi excited. This promised some level of action, some application of skills. Gurung trusted him, likely more so than anyone else in that room. This could be good, could be fun. He tried not to let that out. The smile though, that smile he couldn’t contain. “I do at that.”

Nothing ever reached Boyle’s face. Nothing ever touched his voice. When he nodded, Rudi read a lot into it. Perhaps too much.

Then Cascade appeared at the top of the stairs. She looked like Hell. Like she had been there and back, walking the entire way.

“We’ve got problems.” Her words came strong and confident. If she were ready to drop, Rudi didn’t hear it in her voice. “I think I know the opposition, and you’re not going to like it.”

Boyle rose from his chair. “You okay?”

Cascade waved him off. “I just got a bit of a work-out. I’ll be fine.”

Rudi ushered her over to the chair Boyle had just left. She didn’t protest. He had expected she would. Perhaps she had endured more than a simple ‘bit of a work-out.’

“So, who is the opposition?” Boyle moved to join Lt. Park leaning against one of their work tables.

“The CIA,” Cascade said.

“Fuck me.” Madison said it, but all of them were surely thinking it.

Lt. Walker rubbed his face, exhaling loudly. “So maybe Hitch wasn’t as far off the reservation as we had thought.”

Cascade shook her head. “No, your briefer was totally off the reservation. This whole group is off the reservation. Listen, our subject’s got surface memories of being part of a Narcissus forward action team, but those were plants. They were good, but they were plants. Beneath them was a lot of static. There were catatonia trip-wires and triggers for an emotional shock so huge it would essentially lobotomize the subject. That’s not amateur stuff. If this wasn’t planted by the CIA, it was someone or something with plenty of time and skill.”

Boyle leaned against the table beside Lt. Park, his arms crossed over his chest. “The way you’re talking, I’ll assume you didn’t step on any brain mines.”

That got a chuckle out of Cascade. “No. No brain mines. I took it slow and careful. The problem is, I don’t have a full picture. There are places I can’t go, at least not right now. To get everything we need, I’ll need days and days, preferably supported. His head is a real mess right now. He doesn’t even have memories stretching back more than five years. He calls himself Sapan, but that’s a Nepali name and he isn’t Nepali.”

Heather’s eyes narrowed. Rudi had worked with her back when she was still officially with the military. She was the reason he no longer denied the theoretical inclusion of women in special operations. “Can you trust anything you pull from it?”

“I’ve done this before.” It didn’t sound patronizing coming from Cascade, just a statement of fact. “I’ve worked in worse. There are things I can’t say for certain are facts. All I can pull from a subject are perceptions. Nothing taken out of someone’s head is 100 percent accurate. That’s just the way our brain works.”

Boyle took a bottle of water offered to him by Lt. Park. “Did you get anything actionable?”

“Not actionable, no,” Cascade said. “Information, yes. I’m as certain as I can be that he’s involved in the CIA somehow, but not Narcissus. He’s working for a dark operator, someone off the grid, but not renegade. There’s an organization here, something permanent. This isn’t a rogue agent, or even a group of rogue agents. The sense is something hidden, something deep.”

“Wow, and I thought I was already pants-shittingly scared.” Madison didn’t smile. He spoke in a light tone, but he had drawn features, a tense face. “So we’re up against the evil CIA? Do they all have goatees?”

Boyle did a good job of ignoring the comments. “But he’s not Narcissus? Does the CIA have another ESPer unit that has this level of skill? How could we not know about it?”

“The CIA doesn’t know anything about the Stream,” Rudi said. “Why assume the Stream must know everything about the CIA?”

“This isn’t official, this isn’t the CIA that keeps records, has human resources, and provides benefits.” Cascade massaged the back of her neck. “We’ve seen shadow governments before. Now we know there is one in the CIA. One that knows who we are and what we are doing here.”

“Who we are?” Heather leaned forward. “And who is we this time?”

“We is all of us,” Cascade said. “Everyone in this room. Sapan knew all our faces. He had photographs. For us, the photos were taken in Kathmandu. For your team, it was in India.”

“That makes sense if Hitch was one of them,” Lt. Walker said. “They would have had the meet under surveillance. We did the usual sweep, but that was a pretty big location. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had recordings of everything said.”

“And they would have tracked us here.” Heather started to pace. “This is a mess. This is a total mess.”

“If by here, you mean Kathmandu, then yes, Sapan and his people were aware of your precense,” Cascade said. “If you mean this location, then no. Sapan, at least, had no information on your whereabouts or your safehouses. His team was there to intercept others. There were parapsyches in the cafe, and Sapan and his team had been sent to neutralize them.”

“Two teams.” Madison smacked his palm with the back of his other hand. “Two fuckin’ teams. Just like I said. Out back of the cafe was us caught in the crossfire.”

“Two groups, yes,” Cascade said. “And Sapan’s group has little to no information on the other. The impression is that they are amateurs, short-term contractors, ill-trained and poorly led. Still, they are making Sapan’s people nervous. The communications gear that can pierce the Kathmandu silence originated from Sapan’s people, from this shadow CIA, but the opposing force got it, reversed engineered it, and now they have their own.”

“Wait, if the evil CIA has equipment that can pierce the silence, that means they were prepared for it.” Madison’s gaze moved around the room. He cracked his knuckles as he spoke. “They would have had to test it. I mean, this can’t just be a coincidence. This was purposeful. And the weaponized ESPer? Your ‘parapsychic asset; from the ‘non-state actor?’ That non-state actor is our evil CIA. They developed this silence. This is the effect of your parapsychic asset.”

Boyle put out a hand, palm forward. “Hold on, Mr. Sinclair. That’s a lot of suppositions on very little evidence.”

Just as Boyle had ignored Madison, Madison ignored Boyle. “It’s all making sense. Except for Kathmandu. Why Kathmandu? Proximity to China? Is it a warning? There must have been better targets.”

Walker took Madison’s arm. “Slow down, Madman. That’s some interesting analysis, but we need something more immediately useful, you know?”

“The only thing I can offer is St. Martin,” Cascade said. “It was almost a talisman or mantra, something buried deep but bubbling up. It’s something Sapan doesn’t understand, but recognizes. He doesn’t realize how messed up he is, but he knows there is something wrong, and St. Martin is the key.”

“St. Martin?” Lt. Park peeled off pieces of label from her water bottle. “What’s that have to do with anything?”

“There’s the island,” said Lt. Walker. “Saint Martin, in the Caribbean.”

“And there are a bunch of towns around the French-speaking world,” Heather said.

Rudi frowned. He knew that term, had been wondering about it. He had no conclusions, only questions.

“The dude’s the saint with the sword, right?” Madison looked at each occupant of the room in turn. “You know, from that movie, Flesh and Blood? The one with Rutger Hauer? Jennifer Jason Leigh? Jesus, people, come on.”

“Not terribly helpful, Mr. Sinclair.” Boyle watched Rudi. “Rudi, what is it?”

Rudi met Boyle’s eyes. “The ESPer who tried to kill me, the one when I first arrived in Kathmandu, he mentioned St. Martin. He asked me if I knew of it, what it meant.”

“Yeah, Dolme, one of the crew that jumped us right after we hit Kathmandu,” Boyle said. “They thought they worked for the Chinese. This may mean they were CIA all along, which would be ironic.”

Boyle didn’t elaborate on that.

“That is all I got.” Cascade seemed to sink further into the chair, as though she had focused her energy on delivering her message, and with that done, was shutting down. “Not much of a lead.”

“Enough,” Boyle said. “The more we know about the opposition, the better we can face them.”

The beeping actually startled Rudi. He hoped no one saw his slight shudder. He had focused so much on the deliberations, on the information, that he had all but forgotten his surroundings. The beeping came from the collection of communications and computer equipment. Slim, dark-haired Willow–perfect name for her–had been silent for the entire discussion. She moved to the electronics array and worked on one of the laptops.

“Son of a bitch.” She spoke with a British accent that Rudi found inordinately attractive. “We’ve got him. Target Yukon activated his cell. We’ve got it locked. We can activate and track it anywhere now.”

Boyle visibly straightened. “We have a location?”

Willow turned to him with a broad smile. “We have a location.”

“Kit up everyone,” Boyle said. “The game is afoot.”

Continued in Twenty Two: Warm Welcome

Continued from Nineteen: Getting In Your Head

Twenty: Face to Face

The alley provided long shadows and plenty of cover. Mads crouched beside some old, apparently empty crates, his eyes on the door. Was the target in there? Somewhere, deep inside where he didn’t have to examine it too closely, Mads hoped the place was empty. It wasn’t that he was particularly afraid for himself. He wouldn’t be expected to do any of the hard charging, not with Walker, Digs, and Becca all there. No, Mads just didn’t like all the turns this mission had taken.

In there? Maybe the biggest turn of all.

Even though he knew where Walker hid, with Gurung—minding an unconscious prisoner—close beside him, Mads couldn’t really make them out. He couldn’t see anyone except Becca. She had decided she wanted to get a look in the second floor window. Gurung’s information was that the second storey was vacant. It would make an easy entry if so.

She hung there, suspended—Mads had seen her gear, all straps and pinions—while she examined the window frame. The door swung open. Mads grip tightened around his Sauer .40 P229 autoloader pistol. His mouth went dry. He didn’t recognize this guy. Tall, the guy had fair hair, military short and a little thin. He had broad shoulders, a strong jaw, and looked pretty thick under his jacket.

The guy looked down the alley as he withdrew a pack of cigarettes from under his jacket. Cigarette in mouth, his hand disappeared into his pocket. Over him, Becca had shifted. The climbing device held her aloft as though she were some kind of spider. She had a suppressed Heckler & Koch USP Tactical autoloader at the ready.

She always has the coolest kit. Mads shifted as he watched her.

Did the guy hear? His brow furrowed. His eyes scanned the alley.

Becca put the gun to his head. “Stay quiet. I cannot hesitate in killing you.”

Inwardly, Mads cringed. That was some horrible, horrible Russian.

And that made him pause. Why Russian?

“Your grammar is terrible.” The guy spoke Russian. Perfect Russian. Good guess on Becca’s part?

“You move, I shoot.” Becca should’ve switched to English. Maybe she knew something about this guy, had recognized him.

From the top of his head? How did that make sense?

The guy’s hand, the one with the lighter, started to move for his hip. A gun. Must be.

Had Becca noted it also? “You get gun, you dead.”

That’s when Walker spoke, using English. “You say the wrong thing, she will kill you. Is Boyle inside?”

Gurung had led them there. He claimed he had set this place up for Boyle and crew, and had recently delivered some equipment. It sounded like the Stream were setting up their own little interrogation chamber in there.

Slight movement caught Mads’ eye. He noted the red dot on Becca’s neck. “Becca’s lit up.”

Had it been Mads, he would have jerked around up there, frantically trying to get the laser sight’s aiming point off him. Becca, however, simply removed the gun from the Guy’s head.

The Guy put his lighter away. His hand came out empty. “Do I have a guardian angel? I always hoped so.” He spoke in English with only the slightest of accents.

Becca detached herself from the wall, landing almost silently beside the Guy. He surged back, but his face remained impassive.

“I’m betting that you would be Rudi.” She holstered her USP.

The Guy watched her, taking a long drag from his cigarette. He snapped the fingers of his free hand. “Rebecca, yes? The one he calls Becca.”

Becca smiled. “Then Boyle is in there.”

Walker emerged from the dark, Gurung at his side. Walker’s MP5K sub machine-gun hung on its tactical harness. Gurung carried the prisoner taken in the alley shootout in which Dyck had been wounded.

“There’s no need for this hostility,” Gurung said. “Rudi is on our side.”

“I thought you were in Burma.” That came from Heather, who approached Rudi with a hand out.

The Guy, apparently named Rudi, took her hand in both of his. “Heather, Heather, I should have known the beautiful Canadian would be you. Now all this trouble is of worth.”

The door opened. Hands went to weapons, but no one drew. Mads had burned the face of the man at the door into his memory. Here he was, the object of their mission. Boyle had a half-smile on his face as he offered his hand to Becca.

“I guess you were worried.” He spoke with the slightest hint of a lilt.

Son of a bitch. Mads thought he heard genuine warmth in that voice.

“The CIA wanting you dead?” Becca shook his hand. She all but beamed. “Yeah, I got worried. Then I got Scott.”

Boyle turned to Walker. “Scott is back at your safehouse?”

Walker nodded. “He brought a doctor for a wounded teammate. He stayed on with another of my team.”

“Yes, I was wondering where Sergeant Everson might be.” Boyle’s eyes moved around the alley. “But is all the party here?”

Mads stood up. “No one here but us chickens.”

Two feet hit the pavement an arm’s length to his right, and Mads jumped. The woman standing beside him unhitched herself from a line. She had a Knight’s Armament SR-25 sniper rifle in hand. Slim beneath all her gear, her hair tied back, she had sharp features that made her almost look like a classical statue in the shadows.

“Chickens is right.” And she spoke with a decidedly English accent. If he had to guess, Mads would have said Lake District.

“Shadowy meetings with excessive firearms and posturing make me nervous.” Mads holstered his weapon. “I’m funny that way.”

She winked. “Yeah. That’s about the only way, too.”

Mads immediately liked her. She turned to Boyle. “You want me back in overwatch? Front or back?”

“Sensors and cameras in position?” When she nodded, Boyle gestured through the door. “Then let’s all sit down for some tea and a face to face.” He turned to Walker. “I am guessing you need this prisoner interrogated and Gurung told you we had the goods. Is that right?”

Boyle and Becca went in first, followed by Rudi and Heather, chatting away as though they had met at the local market. Gurung entered without further comment. Walker watched Mads. He had a lop-sided grin playing on the fringes of his mouth.

The woman patted Mads’ arm as she passed. “Let’s get going then, chuckles.”

Walker shrugged and followed her in. Mads did the same, before the door closed. He didn’t know what he expected inside, but something more than what he saw. The place looked abandoned, save for some very temporary looking tables on which sat plenty of electronics equipment. He saw cots and packs, a gas stove and a small electric fridge. The diesel generator beside it told him this crew came prepared. That shouldn’t have surprised him. Weren’t these the ninjas?

Boyle sat in a small folding chair, encompassing the rest of the sparse furnishings with a wave of his arm. “Get comfortable, all. Rudi, can you show Gurung where to deposit the package?”

Mads didn’t like the way Boyle referred to the live prisoner as a package. Then again, why would he expect these guys to be anything other than stone cold?

“I’m guessing Gurung brought our guy to you.” Becca already had the fridge door open and had pulled out a bottle of water. “Did you get anything from him?”

“His name is Huang,” Boyle said. “Family name is all, though if it’s his own or not is up in the air. He’s had his memory wiped by someone good. He’s got false implants, but weak ones. They left him particularly vulnerable to parapsychic exploration.”

Becca leaned against one of the tables. She frowned. “That’s all we know? No handler?”

“We got a name, got some contact information, and we’re trying to run it down.” Boyle nodded at the various electronic equipment on the tables. “We got their broadcast technology reverse engineered and re-built into something that helps us monitor them. We’re seventy-five percent certain that we have the handler, a guy named Chris Yu, but who’s going by Yu Le around here.”

“Progress.” Walker sat on one of the cots, right on the edge. “I like it.”

“Does that mean you’re not planning on arresting me?” Boyle asked.

“Frankly, ever since our fake briefer linked you to Alexander Scott, I’ve had my questions.” Walker shrugged. “If it were my decision, I’d say it’s time to join forces. It sounds to me like we’ve got a common enemy.”

“If it’s not your decision, whose is it?” Boyle’s eyes moved to Heather.

“Yeah, it’s kind of mine,” Heather said.

Boyle’s smile made Mads think he was either amused or really didn’t care too much. “And you have reservations?”

“Let me tell you what I see.” Heather still stood, and Mads noted she leaned ever so slightly toward Boyle. “We mark a Tangible Stream signature in Kathmandu–“

Boyle raised his hand. “We being the Canadian military?”

“We being none of your concern, right now.” Heather glanced at Walker. “Let’s just say we work with Walker’s gang. So, the Stream is in Kathmandu and then the place goes dark. Totally dark.”

“I can tell you for certain that Cascade wasn’t the only ESPer in theatre,” Boyle said. “We were here because we had a lead on a non-state actor with a parapsychic asset intent on inserting this asset into China.”

Becca stood straight. “That would be Blackout?”

Boyle raised an eyebrow. “Blackout was the name we had for the asset. Theirs, not ours. How’d you hear about it?”

Rudi had returned with Gurung but without the prisoner. Rudi crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “I told you I passed on what information I had to Scott. That was part of it.”

“We thought we had quite a coup with that intel,” Boyle said. “I didn’t realize it was in the open. From the Russians?” Boyle waited for Rudi to nod before continuing. “Figures. So, we had a rogue ESPer, possibly weaponized, named Blackout headed for China. Then we get jumped, here, by the Chinese who think we are CIA. The thing is, I don’t think they were Chinese, and this Chris Yu may be the lead we need to track down that end of it. Someone here is playing a game.”

“And they want you out of it,” Becca said. “What about the girl in prison, the one we thought was your sniper?”

Boyle rubbed his forehead. “Yeah, that was a kind of a dirty trick. We planted the weapon on her. She matched Willow pretty well, enough that anyone who had intel on the team might make the mistake. That left us with a hidden ace.”

“And now?” Walker asked. “What are your plans now?”

“Now?” Boyle looked around the room. “I guess that all depends.”

“Heather held up her hands in surrender. “Consider us in, at least for now. Your story fits our information, and given the situation, I’d say cooperation makes sense.” She looked to Mads, a little late if looking for input.

“I’m all for joining forces.” Mads would have made the same call. It still bugged him that Heather had kept information from him, but he was a professional. They had a job to do.

“Then we’ve got two targets for now.” Boyle held up one finger. “Chris Yu, once we have a positive fix, is begging for a visit. Second,” he held up a piece of paper in his other hand, “we have information on a shipment that moved through Vladivostock and ended up here. That could provide another lead.”

Gurung stepped forward and took the paper. “I can look into it. Give me a few hours. Is this our rally point?”

“This is.” Boyle pointed to Rudi. “Take Rudi with you. He has the proper skillset for this kind of job.”

The smile that came to Rudi’s face had a touch of the predator to it. “I do at that.”

“For the rest of us, we have leads on Chris Yu that need to be run down, both physically and electronically.” Boyle inhaled as if to speak more, but paused when a woman appeared at the top of the stairs.

The woman had an athletic build and an attractive face, with fine, fair hair pulled back in a bun. She looked exhausted. “We’ve got problems. I think I know the opposition, and you’re not going to like it.”

Continued in Twenty One: Fruits of the Mind Field