As they came in from the sea, she glanced at San Diego awakening to the day. It seemed like a long time ago that she’d been kidnapped, yet it was just over two days ago that she’d been jogging along the cliffs of La Jolla.
They dropped into a remote landing strip at the very western tip of the base. An armed team surrounded the chopper. An ambulance rolled up.
Mora was taken away in the ambulance and they were directed to a green van.
They climbed into the back seats. The driver waited a minute, then Rainee’s contact, Jason Styles, slid into the passenger seat and they drove off.
He turned. “Folks, I’m Jason Styles. We’ll be going to a barracks. You get cleaned up, take showers, whatever food you need, we’ll get for you. Then we’re going to have some after-action conversations. You all know the rules.”
He glanced at Rainee. “Nice to see you, Doc.”
She smiled. “You have no idea how nice it is to see you, Jason.”
65
That was the last conversation she had with anyone for several hours. She went to a small, separate barracks from the men. Not even the women who brought her clothes, toiletries, and food said a single word or would answer a question.
With no answers yet about what was going to happen, where this was all going, Rainee tried hard not to think about anything while she took a much needed shower in an empty barracks, letting the water wash away as much of the past fifty hours as possible for the moment.
She had guards outside the building. No phone, no communication. She understood but still had to fight off some negative thoughts. The damn neutraceuticals would take a few days to completely wear off.
She wanted to see Jason Styles but that request fell on deaf ears.
It gave her time to think. Maybe too much time, because she found herself doubting her profession, the way it was changing the rules of evolution. The way it was being used in a new kind of militaristic eugenics.
Maybe they’d lost. Had Jason gone over?
The country was on the verge of something and she was desperate to know what was going on. Maybe Raab and his generals were having a nice meal and getting ready for the fulfillment of their dreams. Maybe Keegan and Metzler were being interrogated with the new interrogation drugs.
Everything but information was provided: toiletries, clean clothes that actually fit pretty well, a tray of fruit, bagels and cream cheese, pots of coffee. All in the empty barracks that she was instructed not to leave.
What the hell is going on? Rainee wondered, sitting alone at the small table at the back of the barracks. She began to have some serious doubts about Jason Styles and about the huge military force that had come to escort them.
Rainee struggled to keep her paranoia in check. Blamed the damn drugs. Where were Duran and Metzler and Keegan? What was happening?
She tried to nap. A woman in a naval uniform spoke to someone outside, then left. Vehicles and formations of trainees jogged past the windows. Then silence.
Another night and morning. She felt some calming of her system.
Around noon, a jeep pulled up and she saw Jason Styles climb out of the passenger seat, then he came into the barracks.
“Sorry to keep you sequestered here,” Jason said, walking back to the table where she was on her third—or was it her fourth?—cup of coffee.
He sat down across from her. She asked, “How’s Mora?”
“He’s at the Naval Hospital and in good hands.”
She studied Styles, looking for some sign of bad news. “What’s going on?”
Jason nodded. “I can tell you that Lester Raab is under arrest. There will be a roundup of his clique. Operation Chaos will be shut down. It might be messy, but it will be shut down.”
“Keegan and Metzler?”
“They are going to lead the cell stand-down operations. As we speak, National Guard, FBI squads, Homeland, and other agencies are moving into position in case some of these cells aren’t cooperative. It turns out your friend, John Keegan, knows a great deal about the cell leaders in the major cities, and he’ll be directing a lot of the operations. We’re going to bring in everyone who has the Z3 enhancement. Dealing with that will be up to you and whatever medical task force you need. That is, if you’re willing.”
“Of course. Is Raab cooperating?”
“Doesn’t have to. He’ll be fully interrogated, and very quickly, that I can assure you. And we don’t have to get wet in the process.”
At another time, in another situation, she would have smiled at his dark sense of humor about chemicals replacing waterboards. She didn’t now. “It’s not going to be over quickly, is it?”
“No. But we have made a good start. We have necessary information to put this down. But it will be some time before we know when it’s over. The issue is keeping it from going public. We want to bring down Operation Chaos as quietly as we can, if possible. The country is struggling. It will have to know in time, but we’re so divided, so factionalized, everything has to be done with caution.”
Rainee remained at the base for two weeks while Operation Chaos was being shut down. Jason took care of informing her colleagues and family that she was on a mission.
As the days went on, she learned bits and pieces from Styles about the progress.
She spent hours studying Raab’s notes and computer files and the videos of operations, preparing to deal with the issues with the Z3 chips, and worked hard to understand the problems she would face when dealing with the enhanced soldiers once they were brought in.
Waiting for them to bring in those who’d undergone the advanced “dark R&D,” she resumed her morning runs at the base. She had the company of SEAL bodyguards never far away and, of course, her long-beaked, swept-wing pelicans, birds so perfectly designed, they expended almost no energy as they rode the winds with graceful perfection.
She thought about Einstein’s gloomy fear of technology and she hoped he was wrong.
THE END
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About the Author
Richter Watkins currently lives in Southern California with his wife, Mary Leo, and their cat that thinks she’s a dog.
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