The Storm Protocol (45 page)

‘Al
l will become clear,’ said the director. ‘Bear with me for a couple more minutes.’

‘That's good,’ said Dodds, ‘because I’m not seeing the connection yet.’

Ray glanced across and shot him a look of warning. Dodds shrugged. The director seemed oblivious to both actions.

‘Does anyone remember
MASH
?’ asked the director suddenly.

‘The Korean war comedy,’ said Dodds. ‘That was a great show. Still holds the record for audience figures I think?’

The director nodded.

‘One of the strangest things to flourish in wartime is the advancement of medical techniques and technology,’ he continued. ‘Yes, MASH was a comedy, but the reality was Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, all those conflicts have seen huge advances in the appliance of medicine. Army doctors and medics have pushed the envelope further than most, mainly because they have to.’

He paused to further assemble his thoughts.

‘Do you remember a film called
Jacob's ladder
?’ he asked.

‘The one with Tim Robbins,’ answered Ray. ‘He was a Vietnam veteran I think, suffering all sorts of hallucinations.’

‘That’s the one,’ said the director. ‘So would it surprise you to know that war is also a fertile breeding ground for drug research?’

Both Dodds and Ray went to s
peak at once, but the director held up his hand.

‘Just hear me out for a second,’ he said, ‘then you can comment.’

They both sat back reluctantly, if not actually relaxing.

‘In the last three months, the prorated percentage of fatalities and serious injuries
, including amputation, has been reduced by forty eight percent.’

‘That’s only because we are pulling all the troops out,’ protested Dodds.

The director shook his head.

‘No, I'm talking about prorated. These figures are worked out based on the number of fatalities and injuries as a percentage of the troops deployed at that particular time.’

‘Less dangerous missions?’ ventured Ray.

‘Far from it,’ said the d
irector. ‘With fewer troops on the ground, it is possibly more dangerous now than it ever was.’

‘So this has something to do with Storm,’ said Dodds.

‘This has everything to do with Storm,’ responded the director. ‘Forget everything I’ve already told you about this drug. Yes, it's almost instantly addictive, it does create almost one hundred percent compliance with any subject that takes it, and it does introduce almost unimaginable highs, but there is another far more sinister side effect that you won't find in any of the protocol folders apart from mine. It is the reason, in fact, why you had to sign a new nondisclosure agreement.’

‘Now you're starting to scare me a little,’ said Ray.

‘You have every right to be scared,’ said the director. ‘When this drug breaches a specific concentration level in the body, the taker loses all self control. The drug itself and the acquisition of more becomes the only focus. Subjects who have entered this state will do anything, and I mean anything. The effects are not reversible and pretty much fatal.’

‘So it kills you?’ asked Dodds.

‘Not the drug itself,’ said the director. ‘But the things you will do under its control. Let me be very clear, when I say you lose self control, you literally become a machine; one which has only one purpose. Pain and suffering do not exist.’

‘And you know all this becaus
e you’ve been testing it,’ stated Ray dispassionately.

‘We knew about this unique
side-effect before,’ said the director. ‘Why do you think we developed it? Ostensibly, Storm was created as a weapon to control minds. If we could do this, we could prevent bloodshed and protect our troops and soldiers in combat situations. That was its original purpose. But we took it a stage further. We’ve developed it as a weapon of destruction. We’ve honed it into a gas; colourless, odourless and tasteless. Our troops on the ground have been firing smoke canisters into enemy compounds, outwardly to provide cover for our attacks, but the smoke canisters contain concentrated levels of Storm. Once the canisters are in you sit back and wait.’

‘Why wait?’ asked Dodds.

‘Depending on body type; height, size, mass, the effects kick in around the seven hour mark. Our troops sit back until all of the gunfire and bloodcurdling screams have died down, then they carefully enter the compound. After a dose of Storm, normally all they need to clean up an enemy compound is a hose for all the blood and entrails.’

‘So why not just stick to the original usage? Why not stick to the bloodless scenario?’ asked Ray. ‘It makes a lot more sense to me.’

‘Because the effects wear off very quickly, and we are then left with large groups of potentially dangerous opponents, which we have to feed, clothe, house and guard.’

‘So th
is is all about economics?’ said Ray incredulously.

‘Isn’t it always,’ said the d
irector. ‘It also saves us a fortune in munitions, as they end up slaughtering each other. We only need to retain our guns for personal protection.’

Everyone c
ollectively shivered, even the director.

‘So this ma
kes killers out of people?’ asked Dodds.

‘As I said earlier, it removes all self-control and all inhibitions. Once you've taken this in sufficient quantities
, you're no longer human. You become a creature with the twin aims of eliminating your opposition, your competition if you will, and acquiring more of the drug.’

‘So to use your movie theme, it would be
night of the living dead
?’ stated Ray.

He wasn
’t smiling and neither was the director.

‘A very good analogy, A
gent Fox,’ he said. ‘But I would go further. If this drug gets into widespread circulation, there will be hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of deaths. These creatures will kill anything they regard as competition, and they absolutely positively will not stop until they get what they want. In fact, imagine a zombie and the terminator combined.’

Dodds shook his head.

‘This is too fantastical,’ he said. ‘Things like this only happen in the movies. A drug that creates zombies! Pull the other one.’

‘Unfort
unately Agent Dodds,’ said the director. ‘Not only is it true, but it leaves us with a unique problem, one I believe that one of your agents can help us with.’

‘You’re talking about Dale now right?’ said Ray.

‘Agent Foster, yes,’ replied the director. ‘I know he's over there without jurisdiction, but you seem positive you can trust him. We need to make sure that whatever he does, he gets those files back. I have an agent there at the moment,’ said the director, ‘but I’m going to need Agent Fosters help.’

‘Why do you need Dale’s help, if you have an agent over there?’ asked Ray.

‘The scale of the operation we are trying to break down is very large,’ said the director. ‘Not only does Agent Foster have invaluable domain knowledge in the area of narcotics, but I have it on good authority that he has hooked up with a team who seem more than capable of looking after themselves.’

Dodds and Ray looked at each other in surprise.

‘Gentlemen,’ said the director, not allowing them any pause for further thought. ‘At the end of the day we need his help. If this stuff gets out onto the open market, God help us all.’

10
th
April 2011 – One month before the Storm.

A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for the pursuance of policies which they dare not admit in public. – Mark Twain.

As a child he had always loved order. They say that you rebel against the background you were brought up in, but he’d been the opposite. His parents had been very traditional. His house had been orderly and logical and he’d relished it. It had not been a warm happy house, but it hadn’t been cold and unhappy either. Somewhere in between would have been fair; they were an average family.

He supposed his love of the alphabet stemmed from this upbringing. The letters represented order; grammar gave him a defined set of rules within which he could work and never deviate. He excelled in English at school and it came as no surprise to anyone
when he enrolled at Sandhurst Officer College. His father had been a career soldier, and the army represented everything he loved; a set of regulations outside of which he could not step and wouldn’t want to anyway. He was the opposite of spontaneous. His friends would have described him as solid and dependable but a bit boring too; Major Ian Reid, the perfect officer.

He quickly rose through the ranks, and it was with a sense of pride that he became the head of media relations for his regiment. He dealt with all aspects of communication, but his favourite was always the written word. He would delegate the others; retaining veto on all of the DVD’
s, websites and TV news segments, but always reserving the written parts for himself. There was no one in the team who could write speeches and condolence letters better than him.

He never meant any of it of course. Words for him were tools to fix any s
ituation; a means to an end. A soldier standing on a landmine was messy and unfortunate. Major Reid could use words to clear up the mess, to make everything sensible and ordered and clean again.

He signed the letter he was working on with a flourish, and placed it into the labelled envelope. She had looked so sad at the funeral,
the mother. Her son had been the sole victim of an attack on a Taliban fortified position, but when the colonel had got up and delivered the eulogy, she had seemed soothed and comforted by it. From where he was sitting, Major Reid could have sworn it gave her a sense of hope. He was proud of his work, and even though he didn’t normally do so, he decided this time to mail her a copy. Hopefully, she could revisit it and gain additional comfort from it.

He dropped it into the out tray and headed off to the mess for dinner.

He never gave it a second thought.

#

Roughly a week later, he watched the barman switch to another channel and felt the slight impact as his colleagues all slapped him on the back and congratulated him.

‘You looked good sir,’ said Robinson. ‘No offence, but you are the best we’ve got at speaking at length, but yet saying absolutely nothing at the same time.’

‘None taken,’ he replied. ‘It is a special skill. With words you can spin anything. Maybe I should go into politics?’

‘The a
rmy’s loss if you do,’ said Campbell. ‘You’ll have another pint before you go?’

‘No, early n
ight for me I’m afraid,’ he responded. ‘There was another ambush last night apparently; two casualties and one fatality. Have to get something written for the CO before they arrive back at base.’

He threw a fifty onto the bar to ensure a good time would be had by all except him.

‘Well done guys,’ he said, before making his excuses.

He nodded to the MP’s on the way back to his small maisonette. Another perk of army life; you didn’t have to look for accommodation. It was small and basic but that’s all he’d ever needed.

He went to unlock the door, and realised he’d left it unlocked; good job there was plenty of security. He locked it behind him and switched on the hall table light and the first thing he noticed was a shapely pair of legs extending from one of his leather wingbacks in the sitting room. He walked in and confronted the intruder; an elegant looking woman in her late forties.

‘Did you write this crap?’

She was waving a piece of paper at him. It was both a question and an accusation rolled into one.

He ignored her.

‘How did you get in here?’ he asked, with all the authority he could muster, already knowing the answer.

‘The front door was open,’ she said stiffly.

‘You’ll have to leave, I can’t talk to a civilian about army matters,’ he said sternly, taking a step toward her.

The bang made them both jump. He felt the bullet impact into the wall to his right; saw the plaster disintegrate and the small whiff of smoke from the old service revolver she was holding.

‘That should bring them running,’ she said with satisfaction.

She gestured to him that he should sit in the other chair; the one opposite her.

‘Sean gave me this; insisted I keep it under my pillow.
Shoot them in the guts, Mum
he told me. It’s the biggest target apparently.’

She paused for a couple of seconds.

‘But you have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?’

He ignored the question.

‘The MP’s will be here in a matter of minutes,’ he stated.

‘Let them come,’ she answered.

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

‘I want to know who wrote this garbage?’ she said, throwing an envelope at him. ‘When I asked at the gate they said you were the
media
liaison. They even gave me directions to your house. Very helpful they were. I obviously don’t look dangerous.’

He glanced at the envelope and recognised the backward sloping capital letters immediately.

‘I did,’ he said haughtily.

‘Sergeant Kelly was like a brother to his unit; bonds of brotherhood that even in death could not be broken.’ she said, quoting directly from the letter.

She looked up, and this time there were tears in her eyes.

‘He didn’t lik
e being a sergeant,’ she continued. ‘He disliked the petty jealousies; found it hard being in charge. He couldn’t get used to the sniping at him and name calling behind his back. But you were right in one thing, Major.’

She accentuated the word
major
slowly and a little sadly.

‘He would have done anything for those guys; he would probably have put them ahead of me
, in fact.’

‘That’s the army, Ma’am,’ he said. ‘That kind of camaraderie is hard to fathom or break unless you’ve lived it.’

She laughed without humour.

‘He was an only child
, you see; an accident. I told him that once; that he was an accident. I was really pissed off with him and wanted to hurt him. I think I managed it.’

She paused again.

‘But being an only child of course, he had no brothers and sisters. The army gave him an instant family; he craved their approval. I think they secretly laughed at him a little behind his back. They thought he was a little weird; a little too needy for an NCO, but he was winning them over, or so he thought.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ he asked uncomfortably.

She waved the letter at him.

‘Because this boy died perfectly,’ she said. ‘This boy is ascending straight to th
e angels. But my boy wasn’t an angel. He was raw and flawed and honest, and because of that he wrote me a lot of letters. They were full of rage and pain and terror and love, but never perfection.’

She indicated the letter again.

‘I don’t recognise the person on this page; it sure as hell is not my son.’

‘I was only saying what I
thought you would want to hear,’ he said defensively.

‘But you didn’t know him; how could you? You didn’t even know what his name was, how could you know what he was like?’

She stopped and the tears came afresh, but the revolver was unwavering.

‘I pushed him into the army,’ she continued. ‘I couldn’t stand having him at home. He was getting bigger and stronger and harder to manage. He did not do well at school; he was always more physical than cerebral. He was getting into rages; mostly directed against me.’

She saw his face and corrected herself slightly.

‘He was never directly violent towards me you understand, but would smash chairs and throw plates. He hated the fact he had no father and he blamed me for it. In truth, I didn’t know who his father was, but he never believed me.’

‘I don’t see what this has to do with me?’ Major Reid asked, genuinely puzzled.

‘I’ll tell you what it has to do with you,’ she said. ‘I was doing ok
ay or so I thought. The funeral was hell; I hate all that pompous bullshit and so did Sean, but you have to put up and shut up for Queen and country. The speech was particularly irksome; that arsehole of a CO hadn’t a clue who he was talking about; but I got through it, and got a flag for my trouble.’

She looked up at him then; her eyes narrowing through the tears.

‘And then you send me this same bullshit all over again. All you have given me with this crap is empty platitudes; what am I supposed to do with those?’

‘It’s a bit of a deviation from protocol,’ he said stiffly. ‘But I thought you might appreciate it as a token to remember him by.’

She laughed humourlessly.

‘And there lies the problem I’m afraid. With all your fancy words
, you can’t give me what I want.’

‘What the fuck do you
want from me?’ he asked sharply, before he could stop himself; getting genuinely frustrated.

‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ she said. ‘A bit of feeling; a little bit of emotion bubbling to the surface.’

‘I don’t make the rules,’ he said defensively.

‘No, but you carry them out with ruthless efficiency, I bet,’ she said. ‘At the end of the day Major, not a single person has been able to tell me what I want to know.’

‘Ok I’ll bite,’ he responded stiffly. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Well for a start, how did he really die would be nice. Taliban fortified position does nothing for me as a mother. Was he alone? Did he die immediately? Was he frightened? Was it instant? Did he suffer? You see, his letters to me outlined a disturbing portrait. He talked of creating monsters and watching them rip each other to shreds, as squads of soldiers watched and cheered. He talked of wholesale slaughter; rivers of blood running through the towns and villages. He talked of special suits and masks. And pointedly, his last letter to me told of a malfunction with some equipment, and how he would have to lend his own to one of his men. He was too petrified to bring it to the attention of his commanding officer, but also terrified of the consequences of not wearing the proper equipment.’

Major Reid shook his head.

‘I can’t answer any of those questions,’ he said.

‘Can’t or won’t,’ she retorted sharply.

‘I just don’t know the circumstances in this case,’ he said apologetically. ‘I just can’t remember it. I get so many of these to comment on
, that I just put in the normal phrases that I think people will want to hear.’

‘Thank you Major,’ she replied
, getting genuinely emotional. ‘At last I have a true statement from the army.’

She took a moment to compose herself.

‘The problem with you people is that boys like Sean are commodities; the same way as tanks and planes are. If you lose one, you replace it with another, but let me tell you; he was not a commodity. He was a lonely frightened boy, whose last days on earth seem to have been lived in a perpetual state of terror.’

She looked at him
again, her face twisted into a mask of sadness.

‘Do you know the worst thing about it Major; the thing that has tortured me more than anything ove
r the last month? My last words to my son were said in anger. I never got a chance to take them back.’

The front door splintered inward, and they both jumped a second time. Before they had a chance to register what was happening, three marines had leapt into the room; Major Reid could see the infra red laser sights from their rifles illuminating key parts of her body.

‘I’ll sort this out,’ he said gently to her. ’And if it’s any consolation, I really am very sorry.’

He made to turn to the Marines.

‘I’m sorry too, Major,’ she said softly. ‘Do you know what? I used to think I couldn’t live with him; that I would have been better off if he hadn’t been born. It’s taken this to realize that I can’t live without him.’

With that she raised the weapon towards him.

‘Goodbye Major,’ she said. ‘Please find out what happened to my baby. Let at least one of us rest in peace?’

She pulled the trigger once again and the brutality of the bang made him wince, until he realised the shot had whistled harmlessly wide.