Callsign: Bishop - Book 1 (An Erik Somers - Chess Team Novella) (7 page)

“How good is he with that rifle?” Bishop asked.

“Pretty damn good,” CJ replied. “He might not look like much, but that old geezer is a product of the Iranian Special Forces. They forced him out after they discovered his palsy a few years ago, and he came to Hassi to live a quiet, nonmilitary life. But he’s still got the eye. As long as the rifle is braced against something solid, he could shoot the tail off a field mouse at five hundred yards.”

“Field mice don’t shoot back,” Bishop said, but even inaccurate cover was better than no cover. He turned his attention back to the cylinder and resumed his examination of the site’s exterior. There were no cameras or security devices that he could see. The only wires that ran into the structure came from the solar panel. In fact, the only other feature on the outside was a vertical set of metal bars that formed a crude ladder to the top. Since he couldn’t find any way in, he reasoned that the door must be on top of the cylinder.

“I guess we go up,” CJ said, echoing Bishop’s thoughts.

Bishop went first, climbing the ladder and pulling himself up and over the edge in less than two seconds. Once at the top, he noted the hatch. It should pull right up, provided it wasn’t locked. But what would he find when he opened it? An empty site? Or a small army of heavily armed terrorists? He turned toward Ilias and saw the man staring at him through the scope of his rifle.

CJ pulled himself up next to Bishop and casually reached out to open the hatch. Bishop grabbed his arm, stopping him.
It’s a wonder the man is still alive
, Bishop thought.
He’s as quick to act, as he is to talk.
“Slow down.”

“Nobody’s home, B.”

Bishop agreed with the man. There were no guards. No fresh tracks. But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any danger. Tracks could be concealed, as could security measures, not to mention traps. And Manifold was good at all of the above. “Pull the hatch on three. I’ll sweep.”

“Roger,” CJ said. He took his place at the side of the hatch. He crouched and took hold of the hatch’s handle. “Ready,” he said.

Bishop aimed his Sig toward the still closed hatch. If he saw anything move inside, it would get a bullet. Or three. “One.”

CJ tightened his grip on the hatch.

“Two…three!”

CJ jerked the door upward.

Bishop began to lean over the hole, sweeping the Sig from right to left. As he did, he saw the familiar shape of a shotgun barrel just a foot below. But instead of firing he flinched back, yanking his arms away from the opening.

The shotgun boomed just as the hatch fully opened and a fraction of a second before Bishop pulled his arm back. There was a pinch of pain in his forearm but he ignored it when he saw CJ spill over the side.

8.

“Damn!” Bishop swore, skirting the now open hatch. With his free hand, he grabbed his radio. “Ilias, CJ is down. Repeat, CJ is down. Can you—”

A string of coughs and curses rose up from the other side of the cylinder. “I’m okay,” CJ said. “—the hell happened?”

Bishop looked back to the hatch. He could see the unmoving shotgun muzzle. “A trap.” He’d seen the shotgun with no operator when the hatch opened. It wasn’t exactly a deterrent to any force larger than two, but it could have killed one of them.

CJ popped back up over the edge of the roof.

“You hit?” Bishop asked.

“No. I tripped.” CJ held up a finger and was clearly about to defend himself, but looked suddenly serious. He turned the extended finger toward Bishop’s left arm. “But you were hit.”

Bishop looked at the arm. The sleeve was stained with blood. Not a lot, but enough. He rolled up his sleeve. The blood came from a small red hole where a single ball of buckshot had struck. He saw the lump of metal just beneath his skin, a centimeter away from the wound. He pushed his thumb against the ball of metal and pushed it back toward the wound.

CJ sucked in a quick breath. “Geez.”

The black ball popped out of the wound a moment later. Bishop picked it up, rolled it between his fingers and flicked it away.

“That’s…hardcore, B.”

Bishop leaned slowly over the open hatch, aiming his Sig down the hole. He saw no movement and the shotgun had been spent. It was a trap using a system of wires and pulleys, rigged to fire when the hatch was opened. Not likely to be the work of Manifold. Too crude.

“You going to take care of that?” CJ asked, motioning to the wound.

“It’ll stop on its own,” Bishop said. “I’m on point.”

CJ nodded. For once, it seemed, he was out of bravado.

Bishop checked the trap once more to make sure it couldn’t fire again. The shotgun was old, but clearly still functional. However, it had been loaded for just one shot. Without someone to pull the trigger a second time, it was technically disarmed. That didn’t stop him from kicking apart the wire and pulley system. With the trap in ruins, he put his pistol in his waistband and grabbed the top rung of the inside ladder.

“Cover me,” he said.

CJ nodded and pointed his Beretta down into the building. “If anyone pokes their head out, I’ll put a bullet in it.”

Bishop lowered himself down into the structure. CJ would come down behind him. So far, the guy had proven pretty handy, if only he’d take this a little more seriously. He reminded Bishop of Rook in that sense.

Thinking of Rook brought a twinge of tension to his back. The team hadn’t heard from him since they lost contact with him in the former Soviet Union. He had yet to resurface. Bishop hoped his friend was all right. Too often, someone on the team would say something, and then pause for Rook’s inevitable jab, but it never came. It was weird, like losing a limb. It felt like it was there, and it
should
be there, but no matter how many times you closed your eyes and opened them again, it never grew back. Queen took Rook’s disappearance the hardest. She hadn’t said much to anyone before heading out on a personal mission to find him, but it was obvious to everyone how heavily his disappearance weighed on her mind.

Rook will be fine,
he thought.
He can take care of himself.
Bishop found himself wondering what Queen would do first when Rook finally did resurface. She’d most likely either hit him or kiss him. Probably both.

He reached the bottom of the ladder and looked around, squeezing thoughts of Rook and Queen from his mind. The last thing he needed right now was to be distracted. He would worry about his friends when this ergot business was finished.

He stood in the center of a large room filled with computers and other electronics. Everywhere he looked, a light blinked or a control screen beeped. Here and there, he spotted signs of human habitation: a coffee cup, an empty water bottle, a jacket draped over a chair. Yet there was not a single person in sight, and a thin layer of dust coated everything in the room.

Almost everything,
he realized when he looked down.

Multiple sets of footprints marred the dust on the floor. The tracks led in every direction, and occasionally he spotted a square of dust-free space that he guessed to be the former location of lab equipment. Someone had gone through the place and taken everything they deemed valuable. Bishop’s money was on the jihadists. They hadn’t taken much, though. They probably didn’t know how to use most of it. Bishop could relate. The vast array of blinking and beeping machines would confuse just about anyone who wasn’t trained in their use. The only thing he thought he recognized was a base unit for a small, hardwired security system. If he followed the wires leading out of the unit, they would probably take him right to the facility’s security console. He would have to check that out before he left; there might be some video files that would help.

“All clear?” CJ asked from the entrance above.

“Clear,” Bishop replied, moving deeper into the facility, following some tracks.

He walked down a narrow hallway, passing numerous doors that opened into empty rooms. Tracks leading in and out of the rooms indicated that the jihadists had looted most of them, but as he looked into one room, he found a plain white refrigerator in a corner. The door hung open, facing him and blocking his view of the inside. On the door was a bright yellow and black Biohazard sign.

“Uh-oh,” CJ said behind him. “Don’t get too close.”

Bishop ignored him and took a step forward. He walked around the refrigerator, giving it a healthy distance, and peered inside.

It was empty.

“They took whatever was in there,” he said.

“They got the weaponized ergot?” CJ asked.

Bishop shook his head, just how much
did
CJ know, anyway? He would have to have a long talk with Deep Blue and Keasling when he got back. “Looks like it.”

“This is bad,” CJ said.

“Keep looking. Maybe we’ll find something useful.”

The room with the refrigerator occupied a corner of the facility, with the hallway leading off in two directions. They split up, with Bishop going right and CJ going left. Numerous doors lined Bishop’s section of hallway, but none of them were locked. Some had been forced open by a crowbar or some other tool. All proved useless. The very last door opened up on a room lined with row upon row of empty shelves. Bishop tried to think of what it could have been used for when he spotted the empty potato chip wrappers in the corner.

Food storage,
he realized. It had been cleaned out, as well. No surprise, there. He turned and walked out of the room, almost bumping into CJ. He dodged aside just in time to avoid crashing into the man. Why was he back already? Had he found something? Had he even looked?

“That was fast,” Bishop said.

“Sorry, B,” CJ said. “I should have warned you I was there.”

“Did you find anything?” Bishop said, ignoring the apology.

“As a matter of fact, I did. That’s why I was coming to get you. Follow me.”

CJ turned and walked back the way he’d come. Bishop fell into step behind him, wondering what was so important CJ couldn’t just tell him what he’d found. When they reached the other end of the hall CJ opened a door on the right. Judging by the icon painted on the front of the door, he was leading Bishop into the facility’s lavatory.

Bishop stepped into the room and stopped. Not everyone had left the facility, it seemed.

Two dead men sat on the floor in a rust-colored puddle of dried blood, propped next to one of the urinals. The bodies leaned against the wall in a sitting position on either side of a urinal. Both looked to be of Arab descent, with black hair and dark, Mediterranean skin that had paled somewhat after their deaths.

The cause of death for each was immediately obvious. One of the men had a flat spot on the back of his head where his skull had been caved in, and the other sported a single gunshot wound to the head. The dry air and moderate temperature had combined to preserve the bodies a bit, but decomposition had begun, and the room smelled of dead flesh.

“That’s nasty,” CJ said. “What kind of guy wants to take a leak with that right next to him?”

Bishop ignored the joke. There was nothing funny about this. “Any idea who they might be?”

“A couple of terrorists who pissed off the rest of the bunch?” CJ offered.

“Maybe,” Bishop said. “But weren’t there two guys from Hassi that led the terrorists here by mistake?”

“You think that’s who these two are?”

“It’s as good a theory as any. And I know how we can find out.”

“How?”

“I think this place had security cameras inside. I’ve noticed a bunch of wires close to the ceiling that look like they’ve been snipped. If we find the room where their security was based, maybe we can scan the video files. That should tell us something.”

CJ’s eyes widened. “That’s a pretty good idea. But what if they took the security system?”

“I don’t think they did,” Bishop said. “They might have taken the cameras, but I think the system itself is still here.”

“You saw it, already. Didn’t you?”

Bishop nodded. “Just the base unit. Back in that first room. If we follow those wires,” he pointed to the ceiling, where a group of cables ran along the length of the wall, “we should be able to find it.”

“You’re good,” CJ said, his smile returned. “Let’s do it.”

The two followed the wires to a room in the center of the facility. The door was solid steel with a large window made from reinforced glass. The door stood ajar, and Bishop pulled the handle to reveal a small room with a bank of monitors on the front wall. There were eight monitors in all, and each one flashed static, casting the room in an eerie light. On the left hand wall was an empty rifle rack, and on the right wall was a row of cabinets. All the doors were open, showing them to be empty. Here and there a stray round sat on floor, the brass casings glinting in the light of the monitors, and Bishop guessed the cabinets to have been used for ammunition, among other things. The jihadists had even taken the chairs.

“They really cleaned this place out,” CJ said.

Bishop stepped into the room. He walked over to the bank of monitors and examined them. The equipment had been left intact. The terrorists probably hadn’t seen a need to smash it since no one knew the place existed, but had they searched it thoroughly? He hoped not. In less than a minute, he found what he was looking for.

“There it is,” he said. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the KA-BAR knife CJ had supplied, which he then inserted into a thin seam in the base of the bank of monitors. After a few moments of prying, a panel popped off, revealing a compartment underneath. The door to the compartment was locked, but the designer hadn’t put in a very strong lock. Most likely, they didn’t think they would need one since the compartment itself was supposed to be hidden.

“Did I say you were good?” CJ asked. “You’re James Freaking Bond.”

Bishop didn’t reply. Instead, he jammed the KA-BAR into the compartment seam and pried it open. It took a few seconds, but the lock eventually gave under the pressure and the compartment popped open, revealing a stack of DVDs. Bishop looked through the discs; all of them were labeled according to date and sector, with the last of the entries dated just over two weeks previous. Above the compartment, a single DVD drive sat, its light blinking red. Bishop touched the eject button and another DVD came out. This one was dated the day the two men from Hassi had found the place. He held it up to show CJ.