Operation Chaos (7 page)

She didn’t bother asking him to explain how control knew. This was not the normal world.

Well, Rainee thought, if I have to be with somebody under extreme threat, this guy is probably the best I could ask for.

She was still so stunned by the idea that Lester Raab was alive and well and running some secret program that she had a hard time focusing on the looming crisis they might be dealing with.

At the same time, she couldn’t avoid being excited at finally getting answers about her former patients. Even if she wasn’t going to like those answers.

15

When he pulled out of the enclosed yard into an alley and turned onto a narrow street, Rainee realized they were in Barrio Logan. Below San Diego’s downtown buildings and the Coronado Bridge lay directly in front of them. And the I-5 freeway.

“How long did you work with Doctor Raab?” he asked as he turned onto 28th Street, heading down to I-5.

She thought that was an odd question given the circumstances, so matter-of-fact, like they were heading to a picnic at the park. “About three years, right up until the investigations and hearings started to get serious.”

“The congressional investigations where you turned on Doctor Raab?”

“Yes. I did. He was a problem. But before they could bring him in to testify, his yacht was found empty floating twenty miles out to sea. He was presumed dead. That metabolic-enhancement program was shut down.”

“Well, he’s alive and well,” Lima Nine Four said as he eased slowly to the alley, “and so is the program.”

“Where?”

“The Facility, as we call it. It’s in Baja a few miles south of Tijuana.”

For all that he was a product of science, the military, that he’d kidnapped her and killed his assets, there was an appreciation, given where he’d been after the disaster that nearly killed him, for how functional the guy was. How enhanced. He was like the poster boy for the entire advanced-warfighter program.

He held up his hand and said, “Keep an eye on the intersecting roads. It’ll be a black Charger.”

A car shot out of a side street and turned toward them, a black Dodge Charger. It attempted to block the street, but her kidnapper swerved up on the sidewalk, knocked aside a shopping cart with someone’s belongings, and swerved back out onto the street and raced down the hill toward I-5.

She looked back in the side-view mirror. They had gotten a few blocks’ separation, but a van had no chance against a Charger.

Rainee held on as they barreled down the street, weaving around traffic, blowing through an intersection toward the on-ramp.

Rainee caught a last glimpse of the Coronado Bridge, which curved high across the bay to one of the most important bases in America’s arsenal: the Naval Amphibious Base, home of multiple Seal teams, Special Boat Team 12, and the Naval Special Warfare group. A place that was close to her in so many ways because it was where many of her patients had been trained. And where many of her military and intel contacts were. What would they think of this?

Johnny Cash took the van down the on-ramp to the freeway like coming off a sled run and then merged and slowed. Then he took another device from his pocket and did a bit of what appeared to be some sort of messaging.

All the while he was holding the wheel with his left hand, passing cars, changing lanes in the treacherous curves past the downtown and Little Italy turnoffs as he worked the instrument in his right hand.

The road straightened now as they passed the airport and headed north towards L.A.

They passed the La Jolla exits. Traffic was heavy but moving at a good pace going north. Her driver was tracing the mirrors and speeding up, passing, getting some offended horns. Then he suddenly slowed.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Highway patrol,” he said.

She looked everywhere ahead and behind and saw nothing until they passed an off-ramp and then an on-ramp and, sure enough, a motorcycle cop shot down and headed up the freeway ahead of him, the chip sitting ramrod straight, as all highway motorcycle patrolmen did.

The reality that everything that had plagued her over the past years about missing patients, men with severe TBI, now had an answer that meant she was going to stay with this enhanced soldier regardless of the risks. It was her program that had started the Z series. She had a responsibility to see where it went, even if she’d opposed the overreach.

“There’s a weapon under the seat,” Johnny Cash said. “In case we get into a bad situation.”

She looked over at him. Was he for real, or was this a test? No, he was serious. He wanted her to have a weapon! It was like the man who’d kidnapped her and shot his assets had flipped a switch. She was, apparently, and maybe, actually, his partner.

When Rainee reached under the seat and pulled out a flat container, she found inside an H&K laser nine with advanced infrared tracker. It was a beautiful weapon and exclusive to the most elite forces. It had a technology that allowed the shooter to lock onto a target and control the targeting.

“You okay?” he asked.

“So far,” she said with a bit of a sardonic bite. She checked the clip and chamber. “I’m not shooting at law enforcement under any circumstances.”

“Nor am I. The ones we might tangle with aren’t law. They are on the other side of the street.”

He’d given her the potential to take over. He’d handed her a weapon. And he seemed utterly nonplused.

Then he went a step further and took her smartphone, which he’d confiscated earlier, from his cargo pocket and gave it to her. “Best if you put it on dead. We’ve been tracking you with the help of your phone.”

Rainee did as directed. The latest phones could be rendered dead and completely untrackable.

“You don’t like Doctor Raab?” he asked.

Another odd question, she thought. “Raab is a brilliant man,” Rainee said, “but he has a towering ego filled with great ambitions and furious hatreds. Rules don’t mean much when you are on a quest to change the world.”

Johnny Cash said, “In times like this, you have to go outside the box, outside the mainstream, and that is what Doctor Raab understands. We’re at war not just around the world, but here in every city in America. If the right people don’t win, we’re finished.”

Christ, she thought, he sounds like a recording of Raab.

Is he programmed? No, it sounds too emotional, too real. He sounds far more like a true believer than a robot.

Rainee had run into extreme thinking among the generals, admirals, and scientists who oversaw some of the DARPA programs. It frightened her at times that they were involved in creating the enhanced-metabolic warfighter program because she knew they wanted to take it way past boundaries.

She’d helped stop that by testifying to shut down one of the most extreme. Now she was being told it wasn’t shut down. And the proof was sitting behind the wheel.

“What name can I call you?” Rainee asked. “Or is Johnny Cash okay with you?”

“Keegan, John Keegan.”

She didn’t believe for a second that was his real name, but it was what he wanted.

Rainee felt the weight of the weapon on her lap. She could shoot him. She could control the situation. And she would do neither.

They had a car behind them that Keegan was watching in the mirrors. She looked in the side mirror. It was the black Charger about four cars back.

“They the assets’ control?” she asked.

“Yes,” Keegan said.

The Charger remained back and they continued for another twenty minutes, until the traffic slowed to a crawl for a checkpoint up ahead.

Because of all that had happened in the past year around the world and in the States, with the collapse of many of the “support” programs, and mall attacks adding to the riots, the checks were extensive, and many vehicles, campers, and vans had been pulled over in the search area.

For a moment, she thought Keegan was going to do something crazy as he reached into the left side of his cargo pants.

She expected a gun. But instead, to her relief, he pulled out a thin wallet and put it between his legs.

When they reached the checkpoint, the young security officer manning it walked up to the window as Keegan lowered it and offered up a leather ID folder from the wallet.

The checkpoint sentinel looked at it, at Keegan, then Rainee. He gave a positive nod.

The checkpoint sentinel waved them on, but it looked like his hand was caught between a wave and a salute.

Keegan put the ID folder back in the wallet and returned the wallet to his cargo pants.

Rainee stared at the rearview mirror. The black Charger was five or six cars back. It had no more problem getting through the checkpoint than they did.

Were they all part of the same organization?

She glanced at Keegan, wanting to ask who the hell he was connected to—FBI, Homeland, CIA, military intel? But he had one of his devices out and was busy doing something.

The idea that the Charger might try and stop them, triggering a major freeway gunfight, one in which she might be forced to participate in some fashion, scared the hell out of Rainee Hall. She prayed that didn’t happen.

16

The chopper, a highly modified HH-60 Pave Hawk with speeds of well over 200 miles an hour, dropped down out of the noon sun into the Baja Facility and settled on the back landing pad near another chopper.

Cars were coming in through the front gate. This was a big day, and a big night was coming, with the man who would be the next president of Mexico having a dinner with the men who would reshape North America.

Colonel David Tessler, code name
Eagle
, a nimble, retired, 62-year-old much-decorated Marine, jumped out of the chopper, ducked under the rotors, and quickstepped toward the main house’s back door.

He returned the salute of two Mexican Special Forces soldiers.

Coming from a secret base north of Mexico City, Tessler was making an unscheduled stop on his way to L.A. and the pickup.

As he headed down the long hall toward the war room, staff was busy setting up the big dinner. A band from Tijuana was setting up out in the inner courtyard.

Tessler stopped at the entrance to the conference room. Delivering any kind of bad news to Doctor Raab was never a pleasant job.

Three years ago, General Snyder made Tessler Doctor Raab’s protector. Tessler created the security system that protected the compound and hired the security forces. General Snyder, forcibly retired, was a major player in the world of military research.

“This is the most important scientist in the nation,” General Snyder had said. “You will have no more important role in your life and you will have all the assets at your disposal.”

Inside the war room, a huge curved screen showed an operation Dr. Raab was explaining to his guest with a laser pointer, displaying parts of the brain that had been operated on.

Tessler was glad he’d never gone through that. He admired the advancements and figured he might consider some for himself when he got a little older, but not yet. He’d seen too many mistakes.

At the table were some of the most important men in the nation, in the world, in Colonel Tessler’s estimation. These were his heroes, the men he admired. They were going to transform America.

He watched them a moment as they were engrossed watching the big round screen showing Dr. Raab removing the patient’s skullcap.

It was one of those “teaching moments” as Raab liked to characterize them. Tessler knew that men like him weren’t going to be much in the future. What science was creating made things like courage and tactical creativity irrelevant. But that was still a ways away. Especially given all the problems with the Z-chips.

Tessler, using a channel no one else could hear but his boss, told Raab to leave the room and come speak to him immediately. Code Red One.

The doctor nodded. He hated to be interrupted, but a Code Red was not to be ignored.

Raab nodded, turned the pointer over to his assistant, apologized to his audience, and walked out of the room, following Tessler at a distance well out of earshot.

“What the hell is going on?” Raab said. “Aren’t you supposed to be in L.A. retrieving the package?”

Tessler said, “We have an evolving problem, sir. Something’s gone wrong with Seneca and the operation.”

Raab frowned. “Goddamnit, I don’t need problems. What happened?”

“This isn’t what you’re going to want to hear, but the assets were killed, Seneca is on the run, and apparently Doctor Hall is with him. They are heading toward L.A., but we can’t contact him. The asset control from San Diego that was supposed to make the delivery is right behind them. They lost two men and it could get ugly.”

“They are not to make a move.”

Tessler followed Raab into the control room down the hall.

Raab said to his communication control chief as they entered, “Gaines, what the hell’s going on with Seneca?”

“We don’t know yet, sir,” Gaines said. “We’re getting some information, but it’s very sketchy. He’s past the checkpoint and the asset control has been stopped. But they have another team. They aren’t communicating with us either.”

“Has the Blacksnake team in L.A. been alerted?” Tessler asked.

“Yes, sir, they are aware of the situation.”

Raab turned to Colonel Tessler. “We don’t need this. Intercept Seneca any way you can and find out what the hell is going on. And I want Doctor Hall protected at all costs. Make sure the Blacksnake teams all understand that. And get the asset teams to back the hell off and let us handle it.”

“I don’t know if they’re willing to listen,” Gaines said. “They lost two men and aren’t happy.”

“I don’t give a goddamn if they’re happy or not. Get them off of this,” Raab said. He turned to Tessler. “Get up there and deal with this. Doctor Hall can’t be harmed. Find out what the hell Seneca is dealing with. If necessary, call the whole operation with Metzler off. Get it cleaned up. Get Landra to move his Blacksnake team into position to go into central L.A. Get moving. And keep me informed.”

Tessler nodded. “Maybe it’s just a problem Keegan had with the assets.”