Direct Action - 03 (4 page)

Underneath his clothes, the shooter wore concealable body armor. Over it was a locally procured chest rig that held magazines for the MP5 sub-machine gun he had been carrying. It looked like the tags had been cut from his clothing and kit. The team had gone in sterile.

Deckard suddenly realized that he might have known this man in another life. Was he rifling through the body of a guy he had gone to selection with? Could he be an old Ranger buddy? Was this a former teammate who had gone over to the other side? He pushed the thought away.

As the police lights closed in, Pat positioned the SUV between two connex containers and cut the headlights. A half dozen police cars screamed by towards the scene of the explosion. Once they had passed, Pat crept back onto the road, turned on the headlights, and began driving towards their safe house.

The corpse also had tattoos. A red crusader cross on the forearm. SPQR tattooed on the shoulder. Stripping off the chest rig and body armor, Deckard located a black rectangle on the ribcage. It was where Nazi soldiers would get their dog tag information tattooed during World War Two. Many modern-day soldiers, including Americans, had adopted the practice. This soldier had gone back to a tattoo studio to have that information blacked out rather than pay for a laser removal.

He had nothing. Maybe dental records if he could get access to military databases but even that seemed doubtful.

Deckard leaned back against the side of the SUV as Pat navigated the back roads of Karachi. Cold sweat trickled down his neck and seeped into his clothes. It hit him like sucker punch.

He was trying to analyze what he had to find a lead where there was none. What he did have was a body. What he did know for a fact was that Liquid Sky had just had a member killed in action. What he had was an opportunity: an opportunity to entice Liquid Sky into finding him.

Come tomorrow morning, Liquid Sky would be looking for a new operator.

Deckard grinned.

He knew just what name to drop in the hat.

3

Washington DC:

This is the dumbest fucking idea you've ever had.

Deckard thought over Pat's words to him before he had stepped on the airplane. The passenger plane had just touched down in the bizarre city where every other jerk off had a graduate degree and a plan to save the world.

It wasn't that Deckard disagreed with what Pat was saying, he just didn't see any other option. With no trails to follow, the only path left was to put one of their names out there into the netherworld as seeking employment and see who called. Both of them began making phone calls to certain former Special Operations and intelligence professionals who served as personnel feeders for various black projects.

Pat insisted that it should be him going in, not Deckard. Deckard was the CEO and leader of Samruk International, and he wouldn't be leading anything while working undercover. Deckard insisted. There was a big difference between Pat and him. Pat was something of a legend in the Special Operations community. He retired out of Delta Force as a Master Sergeant. He was a rock star operator who was loved and respected by the community.

Deckard on the other hand, was completely disgraced. When shit got ugly between him and the CIA, they had completely disavowed him. Today he was considered
persona non grata
in many circles by people who were pissed at him. Some were angry over things he actually did, others were angry over baseless rumors they had heard. Still others were just angry.

They were trying to infiltrate a rogue group of para-military contractors. Bad ass operators like Pat with sterling reputations wouldn't cut it. Not on this op. Liquid Sky would never even consider someone like that. They would want someone who was already on the fringes, maybe someone who was already guilty of something. They both knew that Deckard was the right man for this job.

You always had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel,
Pat had reminded him as he boarded the plane.

Deckard unbuckled his safety belt as the flight attendants opened the doors, and he made his way down the aisle. He didn't have any bags with him. It was another one of those trips.

After floating his name out there as a freelancer looking for work, Deckard received a phone call in less than twenty-four hours. He had no idea if it was Liquid Sky or some other group that was trying to recruit him. He just knew that Liquid Sky would be looking for a warm body and threw the dice.

Some times you just have to let them bitches roll.

His instructions, received via email, were to report to a nondescript building near Embassy Row for processing, whatever that meant. Pushing through the glass doors, he spoke briefly with the receptionist before she took his photo with a webcam and printed off a black and white photo building pass for him.

“You want to go up to Jorge Bio-Medico on the 5th floor,” she instructed him.

Getting on the elevator, Deckard punched the button for the 5th floor.

When the elevator doors opened, Deckard walked to the door with the Jorge Bio-Medico logo on it and hit the buzzer. “Please look directly into the camera,” a female voice instructed through the speaker system.

Looking up, he saw the CCTV camera mounted in the corner of the hallway and looked into it. After a moment the door buzzed to allow him in.

A stunning redhead rounded the corner and came to meet him at the door. Deckard was flustered for a moment and at a loss for words. She wore a tight dress that left little to the imagination as to her profile, along with a collared shirt with the top buttons undone. Her smile lit up the room, her features framed by flowing red hair.

“Hi Mr. Deckard,” she extended her hand. Deckard held it a little longer than he should have. “My name is Sarah.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said with a grin that he hoped didn't betray him.

“Just this way,” she said, still smiling as she spun around and led him to an office.

A bank of computer terminals was set up along with a series of different electronic scanners.

“What's this?” he asked.

“I just need to take some biometrics.”

Sarah instructed him to place his hands down on a glass scanner which read his finger and palm prints. She sat down at her desk and followed the computer prompts to save Deckard's bio-metric data.

“Now please stand up against the wall Mr. Deckard.”

There was a large white sheet tacked to the wall, like where passport photos taken. He stood right in front of it. A camera mounted into a ball-shaped casing rotated up and down on a pivot mount until it focused in on Deckard. He could see the shutter move across the lens as it took his picture.

It seemed like the entire office was empty except for him and Sarah. What was this place?

“Okay, now we need to get voice. Please state your full name.”

“What is all this about?” Deckard asked.

“We are just gathering your biometrics Mr. Deckard.”

“You don't already have all this stuff on file somewhere?”

“We are a private firm, Mr. Deckard. Various entities contract us and we have no access to your military or other service records,” Sarah explained politely. “Can you say your last name please?”

“Deckard.”

“First name?”

Deckard opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted.

“Never mind. It was recording the entire time and it looks like the system has enough of your vocals on file now.”

“Great.”

Biometrics was a game-changing technology that measured various biological characteristics. Fingerprints had been used by law enforcement for years, but today advanced sensors could also measure other unique details from person to person such as the distance between a person's eyeballs, his gait, the shape of his face, conduct voice spectrum analysis, or match DNA samples. The technology could help the government and corporations secure their property by ensuring that only authorized people were given access, but biometrics also carried with it a lot of historical baggage.

The Nazis had used eugenics, racial hygiene, and other types of junk science to catalog human beings for extermination. Another holocaust, this time in an era of advanced biometrics, would make the extermination of the Jews in Nazi Germany pale by comparison. Big brother was watching, and even professional spies were feeling the heat. In a few years the technology would be so pervasive around the world that it would be impossible for the CIA to plant covert operatives into foreign countries.

While Sarah continued to work on another camera to record his specifications, Deckard just had to grin and bear it. It was a high-tech cavity search, painless until it wasn't.

Grabbing a pen and a piece of paper, she wrote something down, folded the paper, and walked towards Deckard with her heels clacking across the floor. She slipped the paper into his shirt pocket and smiled again, her blue eyes showing interest.

“There is a Greek restaurant not far from here,” she whispered. “I wrote the address down. Meet me there in three hours.”

“I'll be there.”

She held the door for him on the way out.

“See you soon!” she beamed.

Deckard walked to the elevator wondering what had just happened.

It was a beautiful sunny day in Washington D.C., but Deckard decided to show some discretion and chose a table in the back of the restaurant rather than sit outside. He had no pressing need to get all spooky, but if Liquid Sky had people watching and assessing him, they would lose respect for him for meeting with Sarah while using sloppy tradecraft.

He ordered a beer and told the waiter that his friend would be along shortly.

Taking a sip from his Heineken, he looked up as Sarah slipped into the chair across from him with a sigh. She tossed her hair back and smiled.

“Hi.”

“Howzit?”