Authors: Dale Brown
The office door burst open. “You!” shouted a German soldier. “Stop! Hang up that telephone immediately! Orders from
Oberst
Townsend!” He complied. There was a submachine gun pressed against his face.
Time had just about run out.
T
ownsend hung up the phone after speaking with his lieutenant in charge at the Mather site. Sure enough, Chandler had tried to call someone right after he got off the phone with him. He ordered the lieutenant to cut off all communications from the R & D facility except for secure radio communications, and to place Chandler under arrest. He had outlived his usefulness. He would dispose of him before long.
It was just about time to complete the final phase of this operation and get out of the area.
He went into the mess hall. Reingruber was waiting for him, ready to give a report, and Richard Faulkner came over and sat down. “How are you progressing, Faulkner?” Townsend asked. “We need to be able to operate that suit now.”
“Not quite yet, Colonel,” Faulkner replied. “But Masters is falling into line very well. I think he is cooperating fully.”
Reingruber agreed. “It does appear that he has turned into a proper little soldier, sir.”
“Small doses of you and large doses of me do seem to be working,” Townsend said. “But it is going much too slowly. I want a demonstration outdoors in two hours, Major. If Masters is not ready, you will ask the reason for the delay—
forcefully
ask. Then I will pull you out before he turns into a blubbering infant. That will put the pressure on. That suit must be working for us before the final phase of our plan is put into motion. Get in there now, Faulkner.”
After Faulkner left, Reingruber warned Towns-end: “We may be running short on time, sir. Our informants tell us that the targets are entering final inspections prior to buttoning up. Sign-offs could be completed by this afternoon or tomorrow morning. The targets could be ready to depart within twenty-four to thirty-six hours.”
“No better estimates than that,
Herr Major?”
“I am sorry, sir,” said Reingruber. “Security is still very tight, especially with the National Guard troops. The normal security forces appear to be deployed the same, but the forces outside the target area have increased.”
“Very well then, we will put the Phase Three contingency plan into action at once. Assemble your men, Major. H-hour will be at zero two hundred hours local time. Instruct your men at the Sky Masters research facility to start confiscating all the materials they can carry and rendezvous with us here immediately. Have them bring Kaddiri with them—and execute Chandler just before they depart.”
“Very good,
Herr Oberst,”
said Reingruber. “We will be ready to go in two hours. It will be a glorious operation. And what about Masters, sir?”
“We may have use for Dr. Masters in the future,-his psychological reprogramming has been very successful. Bring him along too.”
Townsend walked over to the room where Jon was working on the suit. He was eating breakfast. Faulkner was wearing the suit, experimenting with its mobility. Jon put down his coffee cup and stood at attention. “Good morning, sir,” he said.
“Good morning to you, Dr. Masters.” Townsend extended a hand, and Jon shook it, formally bowing his head and standing until Townsend had seated himself. Reingruber passed by the open door and Townsend saw the fear in Masters’s face. “Has the Major been bothering you, Doctor?”
“No, not really,” Masters replied. “But I’m always afraid he’s going to hurt me. He keeps watching me, and he speaks to some of the men while they’re working with me. It’s as if he’s plotting to hurt me and make it look like an accident.”
“You need not worry about him. Stay close to me and it will be all right,” Townsend said. “I am the one in command here.”
Jon seemed reassured.
Townsend was pleased. They had organized the psychological dismantling of Jonathan Masters well. Reingruber had had another session with him yesterday afternoon, after the water drum, pressuring him to tell how to work the electronic suit. Masters did a creditable job of resisting the threats, but the pressure took its toll. Reingruber barely even touched him, but he was terrified. When Townsend appeared, he was ready to run into his arms like a child.
From then on, he confided in Townsend, describing his inventions to the point of forgetting who he was talking to, where he was, and the fact he was a captive. Before long, he began to explain the intricacies
of the suit—the real evidence of a successful indoctrination, Townsend decided. He and Faulkner had made him feel included, liked, respected. He was eager to please them in return. The belligerent John Wayne attitude was gone. He agreed to let Faulkner wear the suit, and got up before dawn that morning to start working with him, explaining all its systems.
“How is everything progressing?” Townsend asked. “I understand Dr. Faulkner is having a little trouble with the suit.”
“It’s going well, sir,” Masters said. “Richard’s a fast learner and he’s patient.”
“But he doesn’t seem to be learning to use the systems as well as I’d hoped.”
“It takes time,” Masters said. “The coordination necessary to use the eyeball sensing menu system is complex. It may take another day or two. But we should be able to try a test outdoors tomorrow morning, perhaps even with live ammunition.”
“We really need to do it much sooner than that. We have very little time to waste. Can you set it up for early this afternoon?”
“I’m not … yes, sir. We’ll make it work. Sir …”
“Yes?” Townsend said patiently.
“I wondered—have you reconsidered perhaps having the suit fitted for you? It will take some time, but I think I can do it.”
“Perhaps later, Doctor,” said Townsend. “Now get back to work.”
Masters jumped to his feet, snapped to attention, and hurried back, to Faulkner, who was about to try on the gauntlets. The helmet lay on the table; it would come next.
As Townsend walked off, one of Reingruber’s lieutenants came running up, out of breath. Reingruber
was following, as angry as Townsend had ever seen him.
“Wir haben ein Problem, Herr Oberst,”
the lieutenant said.
“What is it?”
The lieutenant held up a portable receiving unit. “This. We did a routine electromagnetic security sweep this morning. We found this.” A needle on the receiving unit was oscillating across the scale. “It is a high-power omnidirectional UHF satellite uplink,” the lieutenant explained. “A tracking beacon.”
Townsend didn’t need to be told more. “Get your men assembled and out the door immediately!” he ordered Reingruber. He drew his Calico automatic pistol and went back into the room where Masters was working with Faulkner.
Masters saw his livid face and froze. Faulkner, oblivious, raised his arms proudly. “What do you think, Colonel?” he said. “I get a shock every time I get-hit, but the sucker works.”
“Oh, it works, all-right,” Townsend said. “Very clever, Doctor. Pretending to be brainwashed so you could get your hands on the suit and activate some sort of tracking beacon, correct?”.
Jon Masters positioned himself behind a confused Faulkner. There was no point in dissembling. “Listen, Townsend,” he said, “I spent enough years with
real
military guys to know when I’m being brain-drained. Hell, if the only way to survive was to let you think you screwed with my head, it was worth the try.” He looked at Faulkner mockingly. “And
you
a Dartmouth grad? Not in a million years, loser. A child could see that newspaper was phony.”
Townsend raised the automatic. “Well, your friends are too late to save you, Doctor,” he said. “And they’re too late to save your friend Helen.”
Jon blanched. “What did you say?”
“Did I forget to tell you?” Townsend asked. “Yes, Dr. Helen Kaddiri is a guest of mine. An unexpected bonus. She will be my insurance policy. If your friends try to come after me, she will die. As for you …”
An enormous blast shook the room and the wall behind Masters crashed down. The concussion threw the three men to the floor, and as the sound of the blast subsided they heard heavy rotors coming close. Masters curled himself up behind Faulkner, as if willing himself to become even smaller than he was.
“You bloody bastard!” Townsend shouted. He lifted himself on one arm and pulled the trigger on the Calico, but the shots went wild as heavy cannon fire erupted outside. Townsend fired again, raking the floor with automatic gunfire. The suit protected Faulkner, and Masters behind him, until one shot hit Faulkner in his unprotected head. Another missile hit the building, then another volley of heavy-caliber cannon fire.
“Hen Oberst!”
Reingruber shouted. “Helicopters! We must get away fast!”
Townsend leaped to his feet, reloading a fresh magazine into his autopistol as he fled. “Remember, Doctor,” he shouted, “I have Kaddiri. Tell your friends to back off or she dies!”
T
he MV-22 Pave Hammer tilt-rotor aircraft swept over the rolling wooded terrain. The pilot had activated the helmet-mounted targeting system, which directed the 20-millimeter Hughes Chain Gun onto a target when he turned his head and pulled the trigger. The targeting system also gave him a virtual targeting reticle for the MV-22’s pylon-mounted laser-guided Hellfire missiles. Once
he designated a target by looking at it and pushing a button, the targeting computer locked on to the target and illuminated it with a laser beam. One push of a button, and a Hellfire missile leaped off the Pave Hammer’s weapon pylons, followed the beam of laser light, and scored a direct hit.
“They’re scattering!” the MV-22’s copilot shouted. “I see a helicopter lifting off to the northwest, and several vehicles heading west. Do you want me to go after them?”
“No!” McLanahan shouted. “I want to get Jon Masters first! Set it down by the building where the tracking signals are coming from.” Minutes later, the MV-22 had transitioned from airplane to helicopter mode and set down a few dozen yards from the main building on the isolated Sierra Nevada-foothill ranch.
The first ones off the MV-22 were California Highway Patrol SWAT officers, who surrounded the landing pad and moved out to secure the landing zone. This was done deliberately. It was highly illegal for the federal government’s Intelligence Support Agency to run any operations within the United States, but it could fly support missions for state or local law-enforcement authorities. As long as the ISA was in a support function only, its men could fly and fight inside the United States.
Lieutenant’ Colonel Hal Briggs led the way into the main building, armed with his 45-caliber Uzi submachine gun. Right behind him was the commander of the California Highway Patrol Special Weapons and Tactics Detail, Deputy Chief Thomas Conrad, followed by a sergeant representing the Placer County Sheriff’s Department’s SWAT team. Gunnery Sergeant Chris Wohl and Patrick McLanahan followed behind, guarding their rear. Three more four-man squads of SWAT officers fanned out
across the ranch and began to search the grounds, but there were no signs of resistance. Afraid of booby traps, Briggs recalled the teams as soon as they completed their sweeps.
To Briggs’s amazement, he found Jon Masters running through the main house, darting from room to room. “Jon!” Briggs shouted, lowering his weapon. “What in hell are you doing?”
“I’ve got to find a phone! I’ve got to find a phone!” he was screaming. Briggs grabbed him and held him tight. “Let me go, dammit! …”
“What in hell are you talking about, Doc?”
“Helen! They’ve got Helen!” he cried. “We’ve got to find her!”
“Jon!” Patrick McLanahan shouted when he caught up with them. “My God, Jon, are you all right? What’s that about Helen?”
“They got her,” Jon told him. “Townsend and Chandler grabbed her. I don’t know how, I don’t know where, but they’ve got her.”
“We’ll find her,” Briggs said. “Don’t worry. We’ll scour this whole state until we …”
“No! You can’t!” he shouted. “Townsend said he’d kill her if we tried to interfere!”
“That’s exactly why we
must, go
after her,” Briggs said. “They’ll kill her anyway. We’ve got to find her before they try to harm her.”
“No!”
Jon shouted. “We can’t take the risk! Oh God, it’s all my fault. I called her after I got out of the jail. I told her … told her I wanted to see her. She must’ve come to Sacramento.”
“Jon, we’ll do, everything we can,” Briggs said. “We’ll save her if it’s at all possible. But you’ve got to be prepared for the possibility that she’s dead. I’m sorry, man—I promise we’ll do everything we can …”
Patrick’s earset communications beeped. “McLanahan.”
“General, this is Sky Masters Security Operations Center,” said the caller. Patrick recognized the voice; it was the chief of the company’s security division at their headquarters in Blytheville, Arkansas. “I’m patching an urgent call through to you from Dr. McLanahan.” There was a beep; then: “Go ahead, Dr. McLanahan.”
“Patrick?” Wendy asked.
“Wendy, are you all right?” Patrick asked. “Is Bradley all right?”
“We’re okay, Patrick,” Wendy said, but he could hear the fear in her voice. “Listen: A few minutes ago, I got a message on my voice mail.” The company voice-mail system automatically notified the recipient via nationwide pager when a message came in. “It was from Tom Chandler, that police captain from Sacramento PD.”
“What?
Chandler called you? What did he say?”
“He said he was out at the research facility at Mather,” Wendy said. “He said someone better get out there right away or Helen was dead. He said there were twelve of Townsend’s men out there, going through the company’s computers.”
“Helen at Mather? We’ll get right on it—thanks, love.” Patrick turned to Briggs. “Get everyone on board, Hal,
now.
Chandler and Helen Kaddiri are out at the alert facility at Mather.” Hal radioed his tactical ground crews to return to the MV-22, then notified the cockpit to get ready for liftoff, “ton, where’s the suit?”