The Transport - a scifi military action thriller by Alex Ames
Excerpt
Part One
The Transport
Chapter One
Herbert
Herbert Frommer was nervous. He knew this was a natural reaction many people had to endure, at least once in a while. Like before a big exam. When asking a girl out. Or on the morning of an important day that literally meant life or death, not only for him but for the Community. Herbert considered himself cool under pressure; it was one of the reasons he had been assigned to his current job. Diligently, he had managed his duties for a long time. Year after year. Both of his jobs. His day job as facility manager at Legion Analytics and his night job. But he had done it, and today, as it all came together, suddenly his body had the shakes, and he was nervous. Racing heart, butterfly stomach, sweaty palms, dry mouth, the whole ten yards.
Like asking a girl out.
Not that any girl would prefer to go out with him. Thin brown hair, round face and a beer belly made him definitely a swipe-left in the Tinderverse. Tinder didn’t have much of a critical mass here in Veracity, in the middle of New Mexico’s nowhere, of course. Nor did it help being a mid-forties guy who drove a fifteen-year old Toyota Camry.
“Dr. Carling, you got a minute?” Herbert knocked on the office door of his boss. Geoff Carling was the founder and CEO of Legion Analytics, a highly-esteemed startup leading in bio-chem analysis and synthesis. A tech jewel in the New Mexico desert. Herbert was as far away from Carling’s pay grade as you can get in a company full of chemists, bioengineers, doctoral degree holders, and other brainiacs. But they were a small company with an open-door policy, and it was common to approach senior management without appointments.
Carling emitted an energy befitting a dynamic, gray-haired marathon enthusiast. He had just arrived at work, a venti Starbucks coffee still in hand, and was about to start with the onslaught of e-mails and meeting preps. “Herb, what can I do for you?”
“I found something…strange in the basement.” Herbert wrung his hands and did not even need to act nervous.
Carling gave him a smile. “Define strange.”
“A mystery.”
“We scientists love mysteries! What’s up?”
“I think you’ll need to see to understand. It’s…unexpected, and I need your guidance,” Herbert explained.
“Now you have my interest. Lead the way.” Carling glanced at his watch. “I have my first meeting at eight; let’s make it quick.” He ushered his facility manager out of the office.
Senior Management resided on the upper fifth floor of a converted old factory brick building and the two had to ride the elevator down to the basement. Floors three and four hosted most of the bio-labs, doing their on-demand genetic and bio-marker research and molecule production that presented the majority of Legion’s business. The lower floor hosted non-lab scientists and administration.
“I’ve never been down here, like, ever,” Carling said when they stepped out of the elevator and found themselves in a corridor with concrete walls, painted in a light green. “So clean! And I don’t say this because it’s your area of responsibility.”
Herbert was slightly out of breath, as he could not walk as fast as his boss. “We keep it spotless to meet any spontaneous inspection. No messy corners in this company.” He took out a key from his pocket.
“Now, a door with a key-lock,” Carling mused. “Must be unique by now, in an otherwise fully digital company. No bio-metric scanners down here.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of a legacy anachronism.”
Carling gave Herbert a curious look. Maybe the choice of words had given him away? Usually, their small talk circled around baseball or hockey.
Herbert unlocked the door that featured a prominent yellow plastic ‘Danger: High Voltage’ sign. He swung the door inward and switched on the light.
The room was about six hundred square feet and mostly offered sturdy metal shelves placed in neat rows that held various analytics and monitoring equipment, similar to what could be found upstairs in the regular labs. Thick cables and tubes collected under the ceiling and ran into the depth of the room, vanishing into a hole in the wall.
“What?” Carling was a bit confused. “A lab?”
“I told you, a mystery,” Herbert said.
“Is this our lab equipment storage?” Carling shook his head as if to clear it. Most of the equipment was switched on and appeared to be in various stages of processing. “Is this a backup site to something?”
“I was wondering if you could tell me, Sir?” Herbert asked and wished Carling would be more curious and wander around.
“No, I am as confounded as you.” Carling peered at some of the monitors whose curves and data columns made no real sense to him. “What is this equipment measuring? Sucrose levels? Of what? We have no diabetes investigations…” His voice trailed. Then he noticed another door behind the third row of shelves. “What’s behind here?”
“Something you definitely should see, too,” Herbert said and led the way.
The second basement room was even bigger than the first one. Instead of lab equipment this one was filled with shelves full of large glass tube containers with metal tops and bottoms. Each of the pods was about three feet long and a foot thick, standing upright, polished and clean, row after row after row, all filled with the same white milky fluid. The cables and tubes spread out into this room and connected to the glass tube tops. It was warm and the air held a slight pungent smell, like in a greenhouse with rotten plants.
“I… I…” Carling just stared. “How many containers? Hundreds? They all look the same.” He stepped closer and peered at the milky foggy fluid inside, tapped against the solid glass with a finger. The fluid appeared to move gently within.
“No idea, didn’t count yet,” Herbert lied. “But there’s more. Check this out.” In the middle of the room stood a large old-style metal bathtub. In it the same foggy liquid. The pungent smell grew more intensive.
“Let’s call security, we need to find out what’s going on here. Definitely nothing under my watch. Maybe Darryl knows.” Darryl Grant was Legion’s R&D head. “This looks expensive, too. If this turns out to be a secret side project of someone, there will be hell to pay! What’s this tub for?”
“It’s for the same purpose as these here,” Herbert stood beside a table on the left where a long row of loaded small syringes were laid out on white sterile cotton cloth.
Carling’s eyes roamed the room, coming back to the glass containers. For a second, he thought that he detected movement inside the glass tube, inside the fluid.
“How do you know?” Carling asked, while he still explored. In one corner of the room lay a large stack of folded towels and packs of diapers for seniors. Diapers?
“You are my first Convert in a long time,” Herbert said, and with a smooth motion stuck a syringe into Carling’s upper arm and pressed the plunger.
Chapter Two
Sina
The large transport plane touched down and Sergeant Sina Washington’s stomach took another deep dive, but recovered momentarily. She hated flying! Give her a truck anytime, anything from four wheels and up, and she was a happy soldier. But planes? She did not need to look left and right; the plane held no windows, and she was its only passenger. The loading space of a C-17 Globemaster was made for a lot more soldiers, equipment, or trucks, and now felt like an empty church. An extremely loud and bumpy church, though. She felt the taxiing movements of the big bird through the hard-netted seating. No luxuries in Uncle Sam’s Air Force.
“Sergeant?” The loading master appeared from his seat behind the cockpit, addressing today’s lone payload, shouting over the turbine noises. “Gather your stuff. We are here and instructed to not to approach any further and take off right again.”
“Where’s here?” Sina shouted back, but the airman had already moved to the back of the plane where he pressed a big button on the side wall. The huge loading ramp underneath the plane’s tail started to move downwards with whining electric noise. A wailing siren and red flashing lights made it clear to everyone on either side to get the hell out of the way.
Sina threw her well-read Stephen King paperback into her canvas bag and slung it over her shoulder. Her disappointment in the latest It movie had motivated her to read the book again. She walked out of the ramp into the late morning heat of a bleak desert landscape. The second her feet touched the ground of the runway, the loading ramp whined its way upwards again, the plane’s engines revving up. She stepped aside towards the apron of the concrete runway that stretched out endlessly in both directions and watched the plane take off again.
It rose into the air with a roar, made a lazy turn and vanished westwards into the yellowish blue of the desert sky.
Talk about being sent into the desert, girl.
Sina had no idea why she was here.
There was nothing around except desert, the endless runway the only sign of civilization. Low, water-starved bushes, a flat landscape, and some hills in the distance. Best guess was Nevada, New Mexico, or Arizona; definitely the South-West. The trip had taken them four hours from Fort Lee, and this was clearly not Kansas.
She dropped her canvas bag on the ground and kicked a stone. It was early morning but hot already, hitting the hundred, sweat immediately forming on her exposed black skin. She was an Afro-American woman with short black hair at five-eight, giving her a boyish look. She put on her olive-green army cap and her sunglasses to shelter herself from the brutal sun.
It wasn’t a long wait. A dust cloud announced company long before she could hear it. It was an ancient-looking jeep, not the real World War deal, but maybe from the seventies or eighties. Someone did not favor this place with budget, it seemed. The jeep dashed down the length of the runway and came to a stop ten yards away from her.
A young Lieutenant jumped out. “Sergeant Washington?”
“Would you believe me, if I said ‘no’, Sir?” she answered and gave a salute.
The officer did not smile or laugh, gave more of a tense nod, and saluted back. He had a freckled face and reddish hair and looked more high school than Army command. Sina had just turned twenty-five and was still at odds to be commanded around by people younger than her.
Her new commander looked stressed, wore a thin-lipped mouth and tense body language. Well, he was an officer, smiles not required.
“I’m Lieutenant Ben Kimmig, your CO for our little project. Welcome and hop in!”
Sina threw her bag onto the back seat and sat beside Kimmig, who turned the jeep around and put the pedal to the metal to race down the runway again.
The hot wind tore at Sina’s head, and she had to hold her cap. “What is this place, Sir?”
“The place the world forgot, Sergeant,” Kimmig said grimly. “It doesn’t appear like much from the outside, but wait until you see the hangars.”
There was something, after all. A concrete feeder road led away from the runway, still wide enough to take the largest of planes. Kimmig made a sharp turn that had the tires screeching. When the bushes gave a free line of sight, Sina saw that the hillside consisted not only of rocks and bushes but also of three giant steel hangar doors, all set back into the hill’s rocky cliff to avoid detection from curious eyes in the sky. The closer they got, the larger the hangar doors loomed, each easily fifty yards high. This had to be some sort of ancient Cold War bomber base. The middle hangar door had a small truck-sized gate that stood open, guarded by four heavily armed soldiers, all very alert. They checked Kimmig’s credentials, though he must have left the hangar to pick her up only a moment before. And they scrutinized Sina’s papers. One guy vanished behind the gate to return with a red-colored, lanyard-bound plastic card without any print on it. “Wear this all the time, Sergeant. All the time!” the guard barked.
“That avoided any misunderstanding, thanks,” Sina said. “Sir!”
Kimmig gave her a curious sideway glance. “Something’s bugging you, Sergeant?”
Sina swallowed, closed her eyes briefly. She had to cut back her frustration, otherwise she would be back behind her Fort Lee desk quicker than she could make up sassy one-liners. “No, Sir! Just tired and hungry. And curious why I am here.”
Kimmig looked at her a little longer, then started the motor again and drove through the gate. “Curiosity, hunger, sleep: we’ll solve your requests in that order, Sergeant.”
The hangar behind the giant doors was huge, as expected. Huge huge! A cathedral made of rock, blasted into the hillside. It could hold four football fields easily, and this was just the middle hangar. On the right side, along the walls, an arrangement of living quarters stacked along the wall in prefabricated metal containers, three levels high with lighted windows, walkways, and staircases. An assortment of jeeps and trucks was parked on the side in an orderly fashion. The temperature was much milder than on the outside, the layers of solid rock made good insulation.
But the biggest surprise was Kimmig’s target in the middle of the otherwise empty hangar space. Sina’s heart beat faster. A multi-chained MMTU system, the biggest and meanest transport vehicle of the US armed forces, if not in the world, filled a large piece of the hangar. If something really heavy needed to be moved from A to B, this was the tool. It had been Sina’s command until last year, so she knew the system inside and out. But the sight of it in its maximum payload configuration always gave her goosebumps. This vehicle had the size of a football field, a beast made of hundreds of large wheels, controlled by computerized hydraulics.
Kimmig stopped the jeep near the front of the MMTU and both got out. Sina stayed beside the jeep, unsure what awaited her.
Someone shouted from between one of the connected transport modules, “Officer present,” and suddenly various soldiers came forward from the depths of the machine, climbing down from the nine feet high tires and the transport unit’s platforms.
Sina shifted her weight from one leg to another. This was a different type of homecoming, definitely no roses for her. The crew eyed her a while, some whispering to each other. Some faces Sina recognized; some were new to her. Kimmig waited for attention.
From behind the group, came a stocky, mustached man running. He pushed aside the rest of the gang and stopped in front of Sina. “Washington, they sent you? Of all the logistics specialists in all of the US Army, they sent you?”
Sina stared at him unflinchingly, outwardly cool, devastated on the inside. The other team members watched the confrontation play out. Sina had the feeling they all knew what this was all about already.
“Mac, good to see you, too,” she nodded. She didn’t mean it and every one of her former crew knew it.
Except for Kimmig, apparently. “Great, you have met First Sergeant MacDonald, our loading master, before,” he said, overplaying the tension. “That makes bringing you up to speed a breeze, right?”
Mac gave the Lieutenant an ‘are-you-kidding’ look but Kimmig’s eyes briefly became steely, and Mac knew better than to give a flip comment. Unlike Sina.
Kimmig addressed the assembled unit. “Sergeant Washington will replace Master Sergeant Frohmer, who had the unfortunate accident yesterday.” And to Sina’s benefit, “He had a fall from one of the units, broke his ankle. Washington, I understand you are familiar with the MMTU units and VHDT operations?”
“Yes, Sir,” Sina answered. VHDT stood for Very Heavy Distance Transports, which explained her specialty perfectly. And the MMTUs were perfect to do just that, because it stood for Massive Mass Transport Unit. Her new assignment must have been organized at the last minute, indeed, if even her new commanding officer had no clue about her background. But maybe it was for the better.
“Washington, you’re under my command and will be responsible for the rolling wheels. First Sergeant MacDonald and his team take care of the payload. Security will be handled by an Army Rangers unit and the Air Force. We are supposed to report for a first briefing in fifteen minutes.”
“Understood, Sir,” Sina said, although she did not. But officers always liked to hear that their underlings were up to the game and who wanted to let down an officer?
“Mac will introduce you to your team. I’ll pick up both of you in a few minutes for the briefing. Questions?”
“No, Sir!” Sina said, though she had. She saluted and retrieved her canvas bag from the jeep. Kimmig gave a small salute back and drove towards the quarters.
Mac waited until the jeep was gone. Then he turned to Sina, started to speak, but stopped himself, just held up a finger at Sina, as if he was giving her a warning. He then swallowed, turned to the team and barked, “Rolling wheels unit, come forward. Club of loading slackers, back to work!”
Part of the group went back to their tasks, and Sina’s team remained. “Some changes around here since you left us,” Mac started introductions. “Fenton, Shiva, and Goresuch you know, of course. Private Carl Gerkin has been with us for two months now and is managing the front power units. Ludowick and Caspar came over from the Twenty-second; they were sick of lugging around a hundred tons or less and wanted to play in the big league. They handle hydraulics and the rear power units.”
That brought smiles from the newcomers. In the heavy mass logistics business, MMTU transports were the holy grail and everyone was apparently very motivated and proud to be assigned to the unit.
“Your team looks pretty much unchanged,” Sina said.
“Yeah, they would die of a broken heart, should they ever leave me,” Mac said, not smiling.
Sina looked at her little platoon. She played with the brief idea of saying something about her reason for leaving, but this was not the time. What was there to say, anyway? The rumor mill would fill in any blank for the newbies. “We seem to be prepared for something big and the rig is at maximum configuration. What’s the status?” She nodded her head towards the giant transport monster.
Ivan Goresuch, the most experienced specialist in her unit, spoke up. He was a six-foot-four giant with Russian roots. Reliable, sensible with a deep voice. “98 percent availability. The remaining two percent are being worked at by Fenton and Shiva. ETA by when, guys?” Fenton showed eight fingers to not disrupt his chewing gum jaw movement.
“Twenty-hundred hours it is, or no dinner for you,” Sina said, which brought a light chuckle from the team. “Ludowick, what are you working on?” she asked the pale overweight private first class.
“Running link-diagnostics. All units are synced up. Caspar has just finished testing the hydraulics and tire pressure control components,” Ludowick replied. “We are good to go. Apart from the few non-critical problem tickets.”
“Anyone any idea why we are here?” Sina asked the group.
“Resettling rare birds?” Fenton proposed which brought a laugh, easing the still tangible tension.
“Yeah, Big, big birds,” Gerkin added.
Mac shrugged. “We arrived yesterday but no one told us anything. We were asked to redeploy here directly from Al Udeid in Qatar three days ago.” He spat out onto the dusty concrete floor. “No expenses spared, arrived yesterday and started assembling the units.”
“Two days? To move the full config? That is…”
“Impossible. But someone made it possible. There is always a first and here we are. Tired but ready.”
“That must have cost a fortune.”
“Sixteen planes for our own 800 tons of config, the rest was flown in from various other parts of the globe. Yesterday, the airstrip outside resembled O’Hare for a few hours. I learned they yanked part of the equipment away from Gomez in Guam just when he was about to move the local power plant from one end of the base to another.” Mac smiled grimly. “I bet, they love us, sitting in the dark for the coming week.”
“You hate Gomez even more than me, Mac,” Sina said but did not dare to break a smile.
Mac gave her another long look. “You have that wrong, Sina. At least Gomez didn’t kill one of us.” His hands clenched into fists.
There it was! The elephant in the room. Hadn’t taken long.
“You want to repeat that, Mac?” Sina took one step closer to her old friend and mentor, fists ready at her side.
“Washington, face it, you killed The Kid.”
“And paid the price for it.” Sina heard the blood rushing in her head.
“Demoted from Master Sergeant to Sergeant? You call that ‘paying the price’?” Mac turned away in disgust. “Tell that to the parents of…”
Sina kept Mac in her sight, and her old friend did not disappoint. Quick as a cat, the barroom-brawl-proven loading-master came for her and tried to land a fist at Sina’s face. For him, ‘The Kid’ was personal. It made him angry. And predictable. She had seen it coming a mile away and stepped aside, letting momentum do the rest. The arm passed her face with an inch to spare, she grabbed it in one fluid motion in a vise-like grip, pulled Mac even further, blocked his step, and he landed flat on his belly. Mac looked chubby but he was a package of muscles. Quick as a cat, he bounced up again, ready for another throw at Sina.
Goresuch stepped between the two Sergeants, always the mediator and made a ‘no-no’ sign with his finger at Sina in case she had planned a follow-up. Which she had, actually. Goresuch knew her too well. Mac had over a hundred pounds on Sina’s petite frame, which had to be compensated somehow.
Mac grunted and tried to get around the Private. “Get out of the way, Ivan, that’s an order!”
“I agree,” Sina hissed, also ready to rumble. “Let’s clear this once and for all.”
“Sometimes common sense beats rank,” Goresuch said and stayed put between them. “We all want this operation to go smoothly. And then Sina will leave us again. Right?” His look told Sina that he, too, was seething on the inside, blaming her of The Kid’s death. “Right?”
“Any problems?” the voice of Lieutenant Kimmig asked. In the heat of the moment, they had not heard him coming up. And he was not alone.
Chapter Three
Charles
Charles Nauman was not really surprised when he got asked away from his desk at the CIA headquarters by three Secret Service agents dressed in black suits. His own boss stood on the sideline with a worried frown on his face, phone at his ear. The man worried about himself and the fallout on his department, no doubt. Maybe worried about Charles, too, but then, maybe not. He wasn’t a good boss.
“Dr. Nauman? Please follow us,” were the only words he heard from the leader of the group that had flashed his credentials. The look on their faces and demeanor did not invite discussion. And Charles had a degree in history, not martial arts.
His colleagues spoke in hushed tones, averting their eyes while Charles and his black-dressed entourage mazed their way out of the cubicles of the European Desk section, to the elevator and out of the lobby.
One agent joined Charles in the back seat of a black Town Car and they took off. After a minute, he knew that their destination was D.C. They crossed the Potomac ten minutes later, helped by a flashing blue and red light clipped on the roof of their limo.
The White House it was. Charles handed over his driver license, and they entered through a side entrance, driving up to the side of the building. They led him up a small set of stairs into the original central building, not the West Wing where the Oval Office was located. Maybe twenty people waited to pass the security check. It was like a beehive, a constant low-level noise of conversation. Langley’s CIA headquarters and the Pentagon had a similar buzz, but not as intense as here. Countless staffers and guests around him shuffled paper while waiting or were discussing the state of affairs and votes on the Hill. One Secret Service agent talked to the checkpoint security, and Charles received a preferred treatment and could bypass the queue. Someone scanned for weapons and dangerous objects. Charles had no briefcase with him and had forgotten his phone in the charger on his desk, so the procedure was quick.
While he had his arms raised, Charles recognized the National Security Advisor on the other side of the security check. She was in a quiet conversation with the Secretary of the Army, surrounded by a small group of officers and staff. Looks were thrown at Charles. Not-so-nice looks; especially the military ranks gave him evil eyes.
Uh-oh, busted, Nauman!
“Doctor Nauman?” the National Security Advisor stepped forward as soon as Charles had passed security. “Noona Patel. Follow me.” She was an overweight woman whose parents had immigrated from India to the US in the nineties. She had risen to the highest levels in her profession and was known to go head to head with generals and agency directors alike to get her will.
“Good to meet you, Madam.” Charles shook the offered hand and hoped his nervousness didn’t show too much. A White House visit had not been in his job description. But had been an inevitability when his predecessor had briefed him. Too many things had to be set in motion, and despite the secrecy around project TINCAN, someone in the highest levels of military had to start asking stupid questions why the instructions of a simple political CIA analyst were moving so many wheels in Army and Air Force.
“Not the Oval Office?” Charles asked when they took an elevator into the basement.
“Are you kidding, young man? There are more microphones in the Oval than touchdowns the Washington Football Team has scored all season You get the real deal, young man.”
They rode down several floors. Bare walls greeted them, long corridors in all directions. “This is the part of the White House where the serious things happen,” Patel explained.
As long as it doesn’t involve rubber hoses and pliers! The naked concrete made Charles think about bad spy movies where people vanished in wet basements. But this was the US. Wasn’t it? And he had done nothing illegal. Perhaps.
They came to a door guarded by two Marines, and Charles recognized it as a bubble room. They had similar equipped ones in Langley. A Marine soldier guarded the room.
“Phones, smart watch, anything electronic remains out here, Sir,” the soldier commanded and pointed at a row of lockers beside the door. Charles and Patel did remove all possible spyware from their pockets and wrists and entered. They sat down on a stylish meeting table with six uncomfortable chairs around it.
“The less the room offers, the more difficult it is to install a bug,” Patel explained. “I am very curious what your story is, but we will wait. You caused some stir, I tell you.”
“Apologies,” Charles said. He was not the strongest small-talker and Patel seemed comfortable with silence. No phones to twiddle with, they simply waited.
The President of the United States entered, his Secret Service detail staying outside after a quick look into the room and a double look at Charles.
“Hi, Noona. Is the civilized world safe?” the President asked. He looked like the countless photos and TV clips, and in reality, appeared a little smaller than on the screen. He had developed a gray head during his first term but carried the seniority well.
“Everyone, except for the dry-cleaner who lost my favorite cocktail gown, Mr. President.” Patel said, jumping up.
The President turned to Charles who also had risen. “And you must be the man who keeps everyone awake.”
Charles took a deep a breath, his heart was racing. This was it. “Sir, an honor to meet you.”
Patel introduced him. “Charles Nauman, CIA, one of our analysts for Europe.”
The President’s handshake was firm and trained to perfection by a million shakes a year.
“We have thirty minutes, so let’s use them,” the President stated. “Charles, my Generals found out that strange things happen in their bailiwicks and their own staff is not allowed to talk about it. They dug deeper and discovered that a low-level analyst at the CIA called Nauman was calling the shots to move million-dollar equipment into the New Mexico desert into a base that most of the military had never heard of. And he sets up a giant security parameter that will disrupt the air traffic in the Southwest for more than a day. Rumor is, you’re planning to move something from A to B. Something very big. Questions go up the chain until they hit my desk. I have no answers.” He looked at Charles. “And here we are. The President of the United States is asking Analyst Doctor Charles Nauman what’s going on.”
“Sorry for the ruckus, Mr. President,” Charles admitted and started to speak, but the President waved him off. He glanced at a slim briefing file that Patel had opened in front of him. “Charles Martin Nauman, born and raised in Philadelphia, thirty years old, B.A. in History from Columbia, Ph.D. from Harvard, specialized in European affairs, started at the CIA five years ago as an analyst.” He looked at Charles. “That sounds to me like an ordinary man. Not like someone who suddenly has the authorization codes to shift major resources of the Army and Air Force around. Now you.”
“I am a Gatekeeper,” Charles blurted.
“Ah!” remarked Patel. “This explains it.”
The President curiously glanced at both. “Explains what?”
Noona Patel started, “Within the US government, we have a special secret layer, outside of the regular reporting hierarchies. They are called Gatekeepers and handle super-secret long-term situations or operations.”
“What kind of operations?”
Patel hesitated. “I have no way of knowing. I only know that the concept exists and that a secret amendment to President Truman’s Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 legitimizes it. The content remains with the Gatekeepers and anyone performing actions on behalf of a Gatekeeper is required to keep the secret.”
The President looked at Patel. “Am I not allowed to know? Really? I thought I am the Commander-in-Chief who is supposed to know everything?”
Patel considered her answer. “The amendment specifically… avoids involving too many political leaders. The Gatekeepers are only reporting to us when needed.”
The President eyed Charles. “I like you less and less. Our country relies on checks and balances in the world of political and military power, and someone acting without oversight at large scale makes me nervous.”
The National Security Advisor continued. “The Gatekeepers are used for cases that are so secret and sensitive that the CIA compartmentalized their knowledge to the extreme. In his day job, Charles is a regular analyst within the CIA, writing European briefings. He is moonlighting as Gatekeeper and only comes into the open when something needs to be done.”
The President asked Charles. “Is this the first time you need something to be done?”
Charles looked at him, shifting on his chair. “Yes. I took over the job just a year ago, from my late boss and mentor, Patrick Steed.”
“Oh, I remember Patrick,” the President mused. “He was in front of the oversight committee for the CIA while I was a Senator. Tough guy, but fair. He was gone very quickly, I understand.”
“Cancer, Sir.” Charles confirmed. “He briefed me shortly before his final sick-leave and gave clear instructions for a pending Gatekeeper project. I started activating the first items on the plan about six months ago. Things picked up seriously last week.” Charles shrugged. “And the extensive scope triggered the rumors.”
“How does this work? You tell people a secret code word and they start working for you?”
“Well, yes, in a nutshell. The command structures of all military branches recognize my authority codes. Many people cover only their small part. In my operation, there is a small group within the Army that keeps the physical parts safe from discovery. There are specially screened scientists to investigate. Selected people from the administration to create the pockets of funding.”
“Funding, you mean, whatever you are guarding is funded off the books? Nothing worse than a government spending scandal a year before the elections,” the President said without irony with a sharp look at his National Security Advisor.
Charles kept calm, outwardly. He still wasn’t sure whether his Gatekeeper role was fully legal, despite what his late mentor Patrick Steed had claimed. “Some of it, yes. But most of it is hidden in the operational or project costs of whatever the various army and government branches are doing. But what I am guarding is definitely outside of congressional oversight. It’s… delicate.”
“Yeah, Congress is known to keep a secret,” the President said dryly. “Are you even allowed to tell me what you are doing? I could stop the whole charade, call off the Army and the Air Force, throw you into one of our CIA secret prisons and set up a committee to investigate your secret. And maybe rip Truman’s secret amendment apart.”
Charles understood that the President meant every word. “You want Ms. Patel to stay during…?” he asked.
“Nauman! Talk!”
Charles cleared his throat. “Then let me brief you about Gatekeeper project TINCAN. It had been classified by President Truman himself in accordance with the 1951 Invention Secrecy Act Amendment. The classifications were reconfirmed by President Kennedy in early 1963 and in 1994 by President Clinton. You are the fourth president to receive the TINCAN briefing. Sir. Mr. President.”
Man, he was nervous!
The President stared at Charles a little longer. “Go on, son, tell us about your tin can.”
Chapter Four
Leo
“THERE GOES MY HERO, WATCH HIM AS HE GOES, THERE GOES MY HERO, HE’S ORDINA—”
The phone disconnected from the car stereo as Leo removed the key from the ignition lock.
Yeah, I’m ordinary. Welcome to another day of Leo Parker, ordinary data-crunching workhorse!
He put his head onto the driving wheel and breathed in and out several times. He simply couldn’t bring himself to quit his job; the pay was too good. But he couldn’t bring himself to step into that dreaded building, either. Legion Analytics was in a shitty location, New Mexico’s radioactive middle, and the work was duller than dull.
But Leo liked money.
“What’s up, Leo!” Wendell Rahm pulled up beside him and shouted from his open-top sports car, a last-year’s-model BMW.
“There goes my hero, man,” Leo replied. Wendell and he had started four years ago on the same day. He in the data analytics department and Wendell in the bio-sequencer lab. Guess who had already climbed two steps up the ex-tra-or-di-na-ry career ladder?
“That’s right, my man, another day in paradise!” Wendell closed the roof of his car while he sang, “… and it never rains in the Southern California…”
Wendell, what would I give for your motivation. You are Mr. Sunshine.
Both men walked up to the main entrance, a stylish glass cube structure set before the old brick and mortar building and chatted about last night’s basketball playoff game. This was the time when everyone came to work and there was a steady stream of parking cars and people entering the building.
Suddenly a loud motor announced its presence on the campus, so loud that all heads turned to the source. A giant old-style Harley fnap-fnaped onto the parking lot. The motor gargled and took the remaining momentum to roll the last twenty yards, right up to the entrance stairs and stopped in front of the fire hydrant on a section clearly marked with red stripes on the asphalt.
Both men stood agape.
“I’m in love!” Wendell croaked.
“Jesus, they are hot, hot, hot!” Leo conceded.
The rider was a large woman, easily six-two, in black leather jeans, cowboy boots and a black biker jacket, zipper pulled up. Though she wore no helmet, her long blonde hair was perfectly in place, despite the previous drive. She was in her mid-forties and looked like a former photo model that had aged well. Very well. Behind her on the bike sat a younger woman, maybe twenty years old, shoulder-long jet-black hair, tight jeans and also a black leather biker jacket. She moved her legs gracefully off the bike in slow motion and gave her surrounding quite a show. The girl waved her black hair once and not a single strand looked out of place.
All commuters stood frozen in whatever they were doing and stared at the two women. The men in sexual awe, the females in a mixture of envy and disgust.
An overzealous security guard came bee-lining from the door towards them. “Ladies!” He was taken aback because both were good looking. “You… you can’t park your… bike here,” he whined.
Instead of an answer, the large blonde nodded at the young woman, restarted the Harley, revved it up twice, and made a lazy illegal turn against the one-way signage and left the campus, slaloming around two honking cars.
The sound fading into the distance.
The black-haired beauty looked lost for a moment as she glanced at the point where the blonde had vanished, checked her watch, and took in the stares and glances from the crowd. She then walked up the stairs to the lobby entrance, ignoring the flustered security guard, turning to Leo and Wendell instead.
“Christmas comes early,” Wendell whispered, and Leo thought desperately of something witty to ask the girl.
“Can one of the gentlemen show me the way to the HR department?” The black-haired girl had a mild soft voice with a slight southern accent.
Leo couldn’t get out a single word, his tongue stuck in his dry mouth. Leo, you’re such a loser!
Wendell took the opportunity, the slick charmer. “I can help you. No problem at all!”
The girl checked Wendell with a curious look and gave him a dazzling smile. “That’s mighty nice. I am Eva.” She held out her hand. Man, just to touch her hand once!
Wendell took it but did not shake it, just held on to it as if he was on a date. “And the lady on the bike was your big sister?” Wendell had already threesome phantasies.
“She’s my mother,” the girl replied. “I start today at…Legion Analytics. Can you show me the way to the HR department?”
Leo swore that she had glanced at the logo over the entrance before answering.
“Ab-so-lute-ly. Let me lead the way.” Wendell steered her towards the entrance, away from Leo. Every step of way, all eyes were on her until she had vanished inside.
Life returned to the onlookers, everyone started talking about the two women and their grand entrance!
Leo shook his head to clear it and continued his way. The security guard came up to him, shaking his head. “She drove down the one-way in the wrong direction!” he complained.
Leo had to smile, there were people more pathetic than him and further down the totem pole.
Back to the chain gang.
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