The Minus Faction, Episode One: Breakout (7 page)

John shook his head.

"He's a patient here. I'm not surprised you haven't met him. He doesn't get out much. He's in a coma."

"That's tough."

"Yeah. There was an accident at a base down South. Something broke. Something fell. Lots of yelling and shouting. Poor Alvin was just in the wrong place, I guess."

"This story sucks."

"Oh, I'm not to the good part yet." Ayn leaned over the arm-rest. "Private Millard gets hit in the head and he goes into a coma. He gets shipped here to the military's fancy new trauma center. Nothing happens for a week or so. But then, last Saturday afternoon, Alvin—who never scored above average on any of the army's aptitude tests—woke up from his coma, disabled his monitors so that the nurses wouldn't be aware of his absence, locked his door from the
inside
, snuck past the hospital security cameras—not a single one so much as caught a glimpse of him, and you know how hard that is—procured street clothes and a disguise, infiltrated a crack house across town, and took down three armed men
after
being shot in the leg. Isn't that amazing?"

"You need to work on your delivery. The story takes way too long to develop and the punchline is predictable."

"Maybe you could give me your version."

"Never met the man."

"What's this symbol?" Ayn pulled a color printout from her file. Three circles connected in the center by three lines. "You Googled it from the fourth-floor nurse's station shortly after you were admitted."

John didn't answer.

"After that, you either figured out we had the whole network on watch or you learned to cover your tracks better."

Regent looked Ayn up and down. She was a blank. She was dressed nicely in a white shirt and gray slacks, but there was nothing to identify her as a human being, nothing personal. That wasn't an accident. He knew the type.

Ayn put the sheet back in her file. "What were you looking for, Captain?"

"Funny thing about you people." John shook his head in disgust.

Ayn raised her eyebrows. "Us people?"

"Bureaucrat spooks. You act all noble, but you don't actually care if the country's secrets are being stolen."

"Oh?"

"Not as long as you
know
they're being stolen. Known security breaches take months to fix, years sometimes. I've seen it. And why would you care? That's a score for the other team. They already got it. Fixing it quick doesn't change anything. They already got one over on you.

"But when something
new
pops up . . . Well, then you'll move mountains. It's a chance to score, to get one over on someone else. It's all about reputation, appearances, being seen as the best, the smartest, the most ruthless. Ain't got a damn thing to do with national security." John said it with acid.

Ayn didn't deny it. "And leaving Special Forces for a team that doesn't exist had nothing to do with ego? With 'being seen as the best?'"

"You like stories, huh? Okay, here's one for you. Once upon a time, something falls out of the sky. Something big. Lands in Siberia near the Kazakh border. Only it doesn't burn up, not totally. Leaves a big scar in the ground. Suddenly everyone's worried that the Russians or the Chinese had a satellite—or worse, some kind of orbital platform—that no one knew about. My God, that could affect the score."

Ayn scowled.

"My team gets mobilized. And we're the best, so we get there first. Only for us, being the best means we don't ever get seen. Radar absorbent wingsuits out of the back of a modified commercial aircraft, dropped with oxygen masks from thirty-five thousand feet. We each covered almost a hundred miles in the fall, crossed the border in the night sky. We met at the rendezvous and made it the rest of the way on foot. When we got--"

"Don't tell me." Ayn was flat.

Regent stopped. "I thought you'd have seen the files, big important person like you."

"They're gone." Ayn sat back and crossed her legs. She was unapologetic.

"Huh." The soldier frowned. She must have looked into the symbol during her investigation. "You tellin' me you aren't curious?"

"No."

John smiled. "Yes, you are. You hate not knowing. What happened? You ask and get an earful of 'don't ever ask again'?"

Ayn leaned forward again and pulled more pictures from her file. She tossed them onto a little side table covered in old magazines. "The police documented six incidents, but I'm guessing there were more."

Regent ignored her. "This thing, this smoking wreck, whatever, was over
eighty meters
long."

"Very few witnesses. But like you said, you guys are trained not to be seen."

"Burnt to a crisp. But it was clutching something. It had curled around it, protected it with its life. Looked like an egg."

"The eyewitnesses described some pretty bad ass hand-to-hand techniques."

"But it's still hot, and before we can get it open, another team shows up. We heard them coming, thought they'd be Russian."

"Do you know what poor Alvin Millard did before the accident that put him in a coma?"

"But they were private security. Contractors. Only not like any I'd ever seen."

"He was a helicopter technician. Guidance systems, mostly. Gyroscopes or something."

"They had some crazy tech. And signed, authenticated orders for us to hand over everything to them."

"According to his records, the last combat training he received was in
basic
."

"They knew about us, knew we'd be there. And the Russians never showed."

"You and I both know about the only thing they teach in basic these days is how to follow orders and piss in a pot."

"That smoking hulk was something, but those orders are by far the damnedest thing I've ever seen."

"Since he's in a coma and can't do physical therapy, he may never walk right."

Regent stopped and the pair stared into each other in the eyes.

John went on. "Their uniforms, their tech, it all had that symbol on it. Looks like there's a new team in the spy league, and it looks like they're winning."

"Listen, brother--"

"Ha! That why they sent you? They think you my sista?"

"No, they sent me because I'm damned good at what I do."

"But here you is leanin' on it."

"Come off it--"

"I ain't your brutha." Regent leaned into it. "My granddad taught me what it means to be black. It's about a helluva lot more than the color of your skin. You stopped being black a long time ago."

Ayn did her best, but John was serious, and it stung.

Ethan walked over and looked down at John. He was worried. "John." Very worried. "It's Gabe."

"Shit." Esme must have said something.

Ethan was pale. "He's upstairs."

Ayn shot Ethan a look. "The Captain and I are--"

"We're done." Regent spun his electric chair and rolled toward the elevator.

Ayn stood and held up the folder. "This was suspicious enough to get some serious people interested."

John stopped but didn't look back.

"You know the people I mean."

Ethan looked between the captain and the spy.

Ayn took a step forward. "They'll be here any minute now."

Regent looked at the clock on the wall. "But they ain't here yet." He did his best work under pressure. And his mission wasn't over. He turned to Ethan. "What floor?"

T Minus: 050 Days 13 Hours 59 Minutes 47 Seconds

"He can't go in there."

Ethan stood behind John's chair. They watched the argument from the sidelines.

"That isn't your call, Lieutenant." Amarta barely reached the young officer's chest.

The pair had a history. They squared off in a nook by the main hall of the third floor. The L-shaped building had one long hall to the right of the elevators and a shorter hall straight ahead where guards stood on either side and at both ends. The floor had been cleared as soon as Gabriel Gonzales drew his sidearm. He hadn't threatened anyone. He was just sitting, alone, holding the weapon inside Exam Room 3. It had no windows and only one door. There was no way out except past the uniformed men.

"Respectfully, ma'am, it is my call." The lieutenant was from Iowa. He was three weeks past his twenty-fifth birthday. He had called the doctor a bitch more than once, but never to her face. He was contemplating it. "Colonel Philip--"

"Isn't here!" The doctor objected. She had her back to the stairwell, but she wasn't in a corner.

"I'm responsible for the safet--"

"And I'm responsible for my patients. Corporal Gonzales is my patient. Captain Regent is my patient. The two of them have developed a certain rapport, and in my professional opinion, the best way to get Corporal Gonzales to surrender his sidearm without anyone getting hurt is to send the captain. So that's what we're going to do. Both men are my responsibility. The whooole rest of the playground--" Amarta made wide circles off to the side with both hands-- "is yours. That's gonna have to be big enough for you boys, 'kay?" Amarta motioned Regent in.

John fought back a smile. He liked the doc. She didn't fuck around. He didn't wait for the lieutenant to object. He rolled past the guards and down the white-floored hall. The whine from his chair's electric motor was the only sound. The door to Exam Room 3 was open.

John stopped in the doorway. He wasn't afraid of his friend, but neither did he want to escalate the situation. He had a time limit. If Ayn's colleagues showed up and dragged John out, it might send Gabe over.

"How's the leg?"

Gabriel Gonzales was a stout man of average height, dark complexion, and thinning hair despite his youth. His right leg was artificial from mid-thigh to the floor. He had opted for a more functional prosthesis over a more realistic one. He wore a pair of baggy, camo-print shorts and a loose, white button-down shirt with flower-shaped stitching. His eyes were bloodshot. He sat on a small chair next to a clean counter speckled in taupes and blues: hospital standard colors.

Gabe held a polished .45-caliber automatic. He didn't look up. "You know, when I joined, I had so much trouble with the long runs. I've always been a little heavy, and I had a hard time keeping up. Now, after I get discharged," he tapped the dark metal prosthesis, "I'm faster than I ever was. Ain't that just like the army? Doing everything backwards."

"Pretty much." John nodded at the weapon. "What's that for?"

"You shouldn't have come, Cap."

Regent was pretty sure he knew what was on Gabe's mind, but he had no idea how to stop it. He rolled into the room anyway. "You don't get to give me orders, Corporal," he joked.

Gabe snorted. "No, sir. I know." He rested his elbows on his knees and held the weapon between his legs with both hands. His artificial leg curved backward from the knee-pivot to the floor and ended in a long ball of a rubber "foot."

John moved his joystick and whirled to a stop directly in front of the troubled man, face to face. No sense in holding back.

Gabe exhaled slow. "Esme stopped by to see if I was lying about checking into the hospital."

"I know."

"She said she can't be with me no more, that we're separated or whatever." Gabe still didn't look up.

"I saw her. Downstairs."

Gabriel nodded.

John waited as Gabe moved one hand from his gun and pulled a folded paper from his shirt pocket. "She gave me this. It's a sonogram. Of the baby."

Gabe looked up and smiled weakly. His lips shook. Tears were close.

John could see them coming. He didn't know what to say. He wasn't one for marital advice.

Gabe held the paper in one hand and the gun in the other. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He cleared his throat and tilted his head to the side. His voice was a whisper. He forced as much curiosity as he could. "How do you keep going, Cap?"

John took a deep breath. "Some days, I really don't know." It was the truth, and he said it without thinking.

"So why keep fighting?"

Regent thought for a moment. It seemed like he should have a ready answer to that. But he didn't. "I could say 'because we're soldiers' or something like that, but you'd know that ain't it."

Gabe shook his head and looked at the floor. "Don't play me, Cap. All right? I'm asking about you. Why do
you
keep going, even after everything?"

It wasn't something Regent liked to face head on. He preferred helping others. It was easier than helping himself. He felt his own tears coming and choked them back. He took a deep breath and let it out slow. He liked to think he wasn't afraid of anything, but it wasn't always true.

Gabe looked up, waiting.

"When I was over there, in that pit, I learned something about the world, kind of like what you read about when some scientist makes a discovery. They always talk about the 'fabric of the universe' being pulled back and shit like that. I guess . . ." John shrugged. "I thought maybe something was going to come of that, that something was going to happen. Something big. A chance to count. But it looks like that's passed."