Dead Six (54 page)

“I’ve already talked to the others, Val. We’re going.”

“I know. I understand. It’s okay. If you guys want to go, then go. I know how it is, man. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

“I’ve gotta go get ready,” Tailor said. He turned to leave, but paused by the door. “I’ll see you around, man,” he said, and was gone.

VALENTINE

Exodus Base

Somewhere in Southeast Asia

May 20

Strange music echoed in my ears as I pushed open a heavy wooden door. I crossed the threshold and entered the room beyond, despite the suffocating sense of apprehension that squeezed my heart. Directly across from the door was an ornate four-poster bed. A painting hung on the wall above it, but I couldn’t make it out.

Slowly I turned, looking across the room I was in. It was familiar; I’d been here before. At the far end of the room a woman hung from the ceiling, her hands bound above her head. I approached her, unsure of what was compelling me onward. The apprehension was turning into dread. My skin began to crawl.

I looked up at the girl as she hung from the ceiling, motionless. Her body had been cut open, her organs removed. Black hair hung down over her eyes, and her face was shrouded in darkness. I tried as hard as I could to focus on her, but I just couldn’t make out her face.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was overwhelmed by fear and confusion. I knew where I was, but I couldn’t remember where that place was or why it was important. I didn’t know how I got there. I turned to leave.

Something clamped down on my arm as I turned around, and squeezed. The girl was now standing behind me, grasping my arm with her hand. She lifted her head, the dark hair moving aside. It was Sarah. Her eyes were gone.

“You said you’d stay with me.”

My eyes snapped open as I was wrenched back to consciousness. I sat up in bed, looking around the room, trying to remember where I was. It was dark. I nearly knocked my lamp off the table trying to turn the light on. The little fluorescent bulb flickered to life, and the room was illuminated with pale light.

My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my ears. I sat in bed for a few minutes, breathing through my nose, trying to calm down. I’d had that nightmare before. I had a nightmare every time I went to sleep.

I sighed and rubbed my face with my hands. The clock on the wall told me it was just after three in the morning. There would be no getting back to sleep tonight. Resigned to that, I swung my legs off the bed and stood up.

Exodus had housed me in a small metal Quonset hut that, despite its utilitarian appearance, was actually pretty comfortable. It lacked a kitchen but had its own bathroom. (In any case, I’m a terrible cook; I was more than happy to get my meals from the nearby cafeteria.) I headed into said bathroom to take the first leak of the day.

My heart was finally slowing down as I washed my hands. I missed Sarah so much it hurt. I knew her death wasn’t my fault, but that didn’t make it any better. She died because she came back for
me.
Worse still,
she
died and
I
lived. That was so unfair it made me sick.

Sarah was one of the kindest people I’d ever known. I, on the other hand, had spent most of my adult life shooting people for money. I had blood on my hands, and I knew it. If anyone deserved to die, it was
me.
Worst of all, I’d broken my promise to her. I told her I’d stay with her until the end.

Looking down at my hands again, I realized I’d been washing them for several minutes straight. I got lost in thought like that once in a while, especially since I’d woken up on the
Walden.
I wondered if it was a side effect of them drilling holes in my head.

I turned off the water and looked at myself in the mirror. I barely recognized the man that looked back at me. My hair was buzzed short, military style. There was a horizontal cut across my forehead, just above the hairline over my right eye. This had been from a Zubaran grenade, I think. Another gash went from my left cheek up my face, splitting my eyebrow in two. Lorenzo, whoever the hell he really was, had given me that one. Missed my eye by a fraction of an inch. My right arm had been similarly carved up.

There were more still-healing scars from where Exodus doctors had treated my injuries. There was the mark on my shoulder from where a bullet grazed me after we assassinated Al Falah. Yet another one cut across my left calf, where a Zubaran bullet had winged me and caused me to fall on my face. Small frag marks peppered my arms and legs. I frowned at my reflection in the mirror before turning off the bathroom light.

Later in the morning, I found myself sitting on the bed, digging through the backpack that served as my bug-out bag. Inside were all the things I thought I’d need for a quick escape, or if I had to be on the go for a while. I’d had it with me when I’d been hit at Fort Saradia.

I laid several stacks of bills on the bed, my half of the money we’d taken from Adar’s safe. It was a shame I’d lost my share of Lorenzo’s money. I found a zippered pouch. Inside were my driver’s license, passport, concealed firearms permit, and other personal identification documents that had been confiscated from me. I wondered if it was safe to use any of these documents. Were they looking for me? Did they think I was dead? Would I get flagged at the airport or something?

Hidden beneath a box of .44 Magnum ammunition was an envelope. I’d tried several times before to open it, but hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it. But this time I succeeded. I carefully opened the envelope and removed the pictures inside.

These were the only pictures I had of Sarah. She’d gotten her hands on one of the cameras we had and used the equipment in the lab to print out photographs before clearing the camera’s memory.

The first was one of me. It was an awful picture. I wasn’t even looking at the camera. I was standing by a building, sunglasses up on my head, mouth open. I’d been halfway through a sentence when Sarah jumped me with the camera. It was a completely natural picture. The next one was of the two of us together. I had my arm awkwardly around Sarah’s waist as she pulled me close to her. She had a bright smile on her face.

My God, she was so beautiful. I stared at the pictures for a long time. My hands started to shake. I set the pictures down and buried my face in my hands as my chest tightened. There, alone in my room, I sat on my bed and wept for the first time that I could remember.

Some time later, I noticed something else in the bag as I put the pictures away. It was Colonel Hunter’s flash drive, with his bloody thumb print still on it. I had forgotten completely about it. I held it in my hand and struggled to remember, there was something important about what was on here. Information he wanted me to see. I had to take a look.

I made my way across the Exodus base in the early morning darkness. The base was a walled compound that seemed to have sprouted out of the jungle, big enough to house a couple hundred people. The low, utilitarian buildings were interspersed between huge trees and thick vegetation, permanently shrouded in shadow by triple-canopy tree cover overhead. Misty shafts of light would poke through the trees during the day, giving the base a very ethereal look, but right now it was dark.

The compound sat on a flat spot between thickly forested hills and a rocky beach. The dense tree cover probably made the place difficult to study from the air or by satellite. I could faintly hear the low rumble of waves over the constant din of nocturnal animals and insects, generators, and a few vehicles.

Across the rocky beach was a dock big enough to service a ship the size of the
Walden,
though that ship was long gone. On the other side of the compound, in a narrow clearing, was a short airstrip, and planes would occasionally come and go. Only one road led out of the compound. Out the gate, the gravel path wound its way through the hills until it disappeared.

Many areas of the small base were off-limits, at least to me. An armed patrol roved the facility, and guards were posted at the entrances to a couple buildings. These areas were fenced off from the rest of the compound, even. Vehicle traffic was sparse, but there was a motorpool.

I’d been here for a couple of weeks, but hadn’t ventured out much without Ling. While everyone I met was exceedingly polite, I was regarded as an outsider. No one spoke to me unless I engaged them in conversation first, except for Ling and Dr. Bundt. But I’d been around enough to know where to find a computer.

There was an Internet cafe in the compound, apparently for use by transient Exodus personnel who needed to check their e-mail or something. I’d been past it several times before, but had never gone in. What did I need to get on the Internet for? I was scared to even check my e-mail, lest the people behind Project Heartbreaker realize I was still alive. I suppose I could’ve at least checked the news or something, but honestly, at that point I didn’t give a good goddamn what was happening to the rest of the world.

Entering the café, I noted that it was all but deserted at this early hour. Out of fifteen computers, only two were occupied. A squat Asian man sat behind a desk near the door, reading a newspaper in a language I didn’t recognize.

I approached his desk. “Uh, good morning,” I said awkwardly. “I need to use a computer.”

“You come right place,” he said with a thick accent, not lowering his paper. “This Internet place. Many computers. Here.” He began to slide a laminated card across the desk to me, but stopped. “Wait. You guest. You can’t get on Internet. Information security rules, okay? Sorry!”

“Listen, I really need to use a computer.”

“No Internet, okay? Sorry!” he said, sounding testy.

“Listen. I don’t need the Internet. I just need to use a computer. Please.”

The clerk folded his newspaper in a huff and thought for a moment. “Okay. Use computer ten. Internet not work. Okay?”

“Uh, okay,” I said. “Um, thank you.” I turned on my heel and headed for computer number ten.

The computer, like most Internet cafe machines, was a few years old and was pretty beat-up. But it would do for my purposes. I fished Colonel Hunter’s thumb drive out of my pocket and plugged it into a USB port. It took a few seconds for the computer to read the drive, then a window popped up displaying all of the available files. It wasn’t even password protected; Hunter had put this together in a hurry.

There was more information on the drive than I could’ve imagined, hundreds of files. One was an initial proposal, more than five years old, describing the theory behind Project Heartbreaker. It was written by someone named Walter Barrington and was vague, at best.

The use of a DEAD unit would accomplish overall regional goal, but with limited chance of blowback to core elements. See success of D2 and D3 in completion of Project Red in China. The failures of D4 in Chechnya and the eradication of D5 in Mexico were unforeseen setbacks, but in no way undermine the viability of the DEAD program as some program administrators have alleged. I am certain Zubaran security could be achieved with a limited expenditure of resources.

They had done this before.

There were personnel files for every member of Dead Six, including our field leaders. I found mine. It proved to be a fascinating if vaguely surreal read. It was almost frightening how much they knew. My Air Force service, details of my time with Vanguard, bank statements, phone records, everything about me up until my recruitment. After that were newer entries about my performance in Zubara, evaluations, even notes regarding my relationship with Sarah. Apparently, I had gained Hunter’s admiration, though he’d suspected I was a flight risk.

There were bios for every one of us, nearly clinical assessments of our suitability. There was one common thread in the pre-recruitment section. Nobody of importance would notice if we were gone.

The meat, the part that Hunter had entrusted me with, came from his personal logs. There were two sections, official daily entries reporting back to some unknown overseer about our operations, successes, goals, and losses.
April 1—Successfully neutralized terror cell in city. 20+ kills. No losses.
It was all very professional. In addition to the official entries, though, were his notes, almost like personal journal entries. Apparently these had not been sent in with his reports.
April 1—Tailor’s chalk hit a club. Murdered a bunch of them. Burned it down. Sent a real message. Good op. Not getting support from above. Logistics are a nightmare. I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.

I began to skim.

April 15—Tailor and Valentine eliminated Adar. Gordon screwed them, sent just the two of them. Said he wasn’t authorized more, but I think it was a test. I think he’s eyeing them for Direct Action jobs. They got the job done, though. Chalks are running without enough support. Intel is shit. They’re lucky to be alive. Two chalks have taken casualties now because of Gordon’s bullshit. I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing, but nobody will answer my questions.

It seemed that Colonel Hunter had grown increasingly disaffected with the project as time went on. He distrusted his superiors, especially Gordon Willis.

April 18—I got confirmation today. The hit on the assistant ambassador was Gordon’s call. Anders pulled the trigger. That was unnecessary. They were being evacuated anyway. They were no threat to OpSec. This was not part of the plan. This is not what I signed up with the organization for. Things have changed over the last twenty years, and not for the good.

Frustratingly, there was almost nothing
about
his organization on the drive other than a few scattered opinions. It was, however, pretty clear that whatever the late colonel’s organization was, it was powerful, it operated strictly behind the scenes, and it had been around for a long time.

April 21—Singer is dead. Two chalks took heavy casualties. Gordon didn’t give two shits, and now I know why. Gordon secured another asset for Project Blue. Blue is so much bigger, but still. As much as I dislike Gordon, I can’t believe he’d compromise this entire operation just to boost his career.