Apocalyptic Visions Super Boxset (90 page)

Both Sarah’s and Bryce’s desks were paired together, as were those of every other field and support agent team, but none of the field agents hated being stuck at their desk more than Sarah, which was a sore spot for Bryce, because he loved his desk. He loved his computer. He loved the fact that he had terabytes of processing power and that the room temperature was always a crisp seventy-one degrees. And he loved that he had the best piece of technology in the world at his fingertips. The GSF satellite that hovered in the atmosphere high above them had the capacity to see anything, or anyone, anywhere in the world. It was the epicenter for the entire agency, and it was Bryce’s pride and joy. However, not everyone was as appreciative of his accomplishments as he would have liked.

“How long?” Sarah asked, slumped in her chair, her feet twirling her around in a circle, face staring up at the ceiling.

Bryce glanced at the time on his watch. “Six minutes.”

“What’s the time to beat?”

“Twelve minutes.”

“Ha! Your money’s mine, Johnny!”

One of the other support agents poked his head up from his desk. “Well, if you’re going that slow, then of course you won’t puke. Hell, I could go that speed forever.”

“Bullshit!” Sarah pointed her finger at Johnny then quickly at Bryce, Mitch, Heather, Ken, Miley, Frank, Sean, Suze, and then Johnny again as she continued her spinning. “And besides, you didn’t say how fast I had to spin to beat it.”

“Agent Hill! Agent Milks! My office. Now!” Mack shouted.

Bryce powered down his computer, and Sarah skidded to a stop with her feet. She jumped up from the chair and pointed back to Johnny. “The clock starts right where I left off when I get back.”

“That’s not how it works,” Johnny said.

Sarah flipped him the bird and found herself tilting to the left. She smacked into Heather’s desk, knocking over one of the picture frames as she steadied herself. She pushed herself off and shut the door behind her after entering Mack’s office.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Mack asked.

“She was spinning in her chair, sir,” Bryce said.

Sarah collapsed in the seat next to Bryce and held her head between her hands, looking a little green around the gills. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Mack said, shaking his head. “I have an assignment for the two of you.”

Bryce pulled out his phone and opened his email app. “What’s the case number?”

“It’s off the books.”

Sarah snapped her head up from her hands. The fact that there was espionage within espionage returned the color to her cheeks. “Sweet.”

“What are we looking at, sir?” Bryce asked.

Mack flipped the switch on his desk, which tinted the glass walls of his office, and the projector from the wall behind him slid down. He clicked a small remote, activating a picture of a Missouri newspaper with an article headlined “Pastor leaves flock to join his father.” “Pastor Ernest Turnick was found dead in his office yesterday afternoon when his assistant came in to use the church’s printer.”

“The article says he died from natural causes,” Bryce said.

“There’s foul play afoot!” Sarah yelled, pointing her finger to the sky in traditional Sherlock Holmes deduction, which both Bryce and Mack ignored.

“I need the two of you to head to Clinton, Missouri and retrieve any and all data from the pastor’s computer.”

“The two of us?” Sarah and Bryce said at the same time.

“Agent Hill doesn’t have the amount of computer training you have, Bryce.”

“I’ll have you know that I managed to set up my email today.”

“You just set that up today?” Bryce asked. “You’ve worked here for six years.”

“What? You give me the rundown of everything I need before I go out on a mission.”

Bryce shook his head and turned back to Mack. “Can’t I just hack it with the satellite?”

“No, the PC isn’t hooked up to any network.” Mack flopped the manila folder containing their orders on his desk. “Your cover and gear are at check-out.”

***

Sarah adjusted the laminated badge around her neck as Bryce grabbed his gear out of the trunk. Police vehicles, traffic cones, and yellow tape had the parking lot completely sealed off. The large tower of a television van sat parked outside the crime scene, milking the story for everything it was worth. Sarah couldn’t imagine there was much happening in the small town stuck in the middle of nowhere, so the fact that they had a dead pastor on their hands was like Christmas in July.

“You have what you need?” Sarah asked. Bryce’s grip slipped on the handle of the equipment, and it hit the asphalt. “Pending it still works?”

“Yeah,” Bryce said, his breathing quick. His arms, legs, and head twitched sporadically, and the sun reflected against the glossy coat of sweat over his face.

“Hey, you’ll be fine,” Sarah said, gently patting his shoulder. “It’s a cakewalk. We go in, pretend to be the cleanup guys, put on some hazmat suits, you get what you need off the computer, and we get out of there.”

“We don’t actually clean anything?”

“Oh, god, no. We’ll leave that for the professionals.”

Sarah picked up one of the cases of equipment and took the lead as she ducked under the yellow police tape. An officer stopped them at the pastor’s office door, and Sarah flashed the phony badge. “Hazard Solutions. We’re here for cleanup.”

“Cleanup?” the officer asked.

“Yeah, gotta make sure the place smells good for the new guy.” Sarah laughed, slapped the officer’s arm, and stepped inside. Bryce gave a weak smile and set the duffel bag on the floor once inside. Sarah grabbed hold of the door and started closing it. “We’ll just be a minute.”

Bryce unzipped his bag,pulled out the laptop, and hooked it up to the pastor’s computer. With the PC still unplugged, the screen turned on, and Bryce started his hack into the hard drive. “I don’t know how long this is gonna take, so you should probably watch the door.”

“I locked it,” Sarah said, walking around the pastor’s office, examining the different books, pictures, plaques, and degrees that adorned the walls and shelves. “I don’t think I could do it.”

“Do what?” Bryce asked.

“Go celibate, join the church. No sex? No thank you.”

“Not all religions require their ministers to be celibate.”

Sarah picked up a plaque that read “Clifton Table Tennis Champion 2010.” “Still, I don’t think this guy was getting much anyway.” She flashed the plaque at Bryce then set it back down. She continued her meandering around the room until she came to a framed picture of the pastor and a few other men next to the desk.

The picture caused a double take, and she ripped it from the wall, leaving a gash in the paint. Just to the left of the pastor, sporting a full head of hair and a cigar in his mouth, was their boss, Mack Farr. “Holy shit.”

“More table tennis?” Bryce asked.

“Mack knew this guy,” Sarah said, handing Bryce the picture.

The cop pounded at the door, and Sarah set the picture back on the nail on the wall, which now hung crooked. The download finished, and Bryce unplugged the laptop and quickly stowed the gear back in his bag. Sarah swung the door open with the officer in mid-swing for another round of knocking. “So, this is embarrassing, but we forgot some of our gear back at the office. We’ll be right back.” Before the officer had time to object, Sarah and Bryce hurried out of the church and drove off.

***

Once they made it back to HQ, Bryce rushed over to his desk and wrapped it in a loving embrace. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.”

Sarah walked up behind him and smacked the back of his head with the files they’d gathered. “At least buy it dinner first.” The windows to Mack’s office were tinted. “Hey, Johnny, Mack in?”

“I don’t think so. He stepped out an hour ago. I haven’t seen him come back.”

It was never a good thing when your boss told you to go investigate a death out in the middle of nowhere off the books, then failed to tell you he and the victim knew each other. In the spy world, that was called a “real big fuck-up.”

“What are we gonna do about Mack?” Bryce whispered.

Sarah shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out whenever he gets back.”

“You two,” Mack said, sneaking up behind both of them and causing Bryce to hit a pitch reserved for professional opera singers. “My office. Now. Bring what you found.”

Once the three of them were firmly squared away in the office, Sarah crossed her arms over her chest and made a few sweeping steps around Mack’s desk in the manner of a principal addressing a student sent to her office. “Is there… anything you want to tell us?”

“Sit down, Agent Hill.”

“Yes, sir.” Sarah took a seat next to Bryce, who had his lips sucked into his mouth and his legs crossed so tight it looked like he was trying to prevent himself from crapping his pants.

“I didn’t tell you about my relationship with Pastor Turnick because I wanted to make sure you were focused on collecting the facts before you let your imaginations get the better of you and delved into whatever wild conspiracy theories popped into your brain.”

“Sooooo, you’re not tied to an Illuminati assassination of the pope?” Sarah asked.

“Pastor Turnick and I served in the Gulf War together. When the tour was over, he chose not to reenlist and decided he wanted to help heal people spiritually, and I decided to make sure the bad guys didn’t bother us at home,” Mack said. “We’ve kept in touch over the years, and last month he started sending me emails telling me he was getting unusual pressure from the company that handles their taxes. They wanted the church to sign off on a deal that would put a large chunk of land under the church’s name for future growth at no cost to the church in exchange for a large sum of money.”

“Where was the land?” Bryce asked.

“Spain.”

“I hear it’s nice this time of year,” Sarah said.

“Turnick didn’t feel comfortable signing off on a piece of land that his church would be responsible for without any knowledge of or control over what it was to be used for. When that happened, he started receiving threats, and that’s when he called me.”

“When did he first get in contact with you?” Sarah asked.

“Three days ago. I was planning on going down there myself today, but in the current climate, I didn’t think it best for me to be answering any type of questions from reporters or police.”

“What are you thinking, boss?” Sarah asked.

“I want you two to find out who did this, and why.”

Rick Demps leaned back in his recliner and glanced out the window into the busy downtown that was Manhattan. From atop his tower, he couldn’t hear the roaring streets or the hordes of bodies walking about, trying to go about whatever meek life they had to live. No, Rick Demps was above them all, and he would never stop rising. His dark eyes, almost black, like they were void of any color, took in the skyline around him. His black hair stood slicked and stuck together in straightened spikes, glued together with a thick gel.

His secretary entered with the day’s itinerary. “You have a meeting with the board in three minutes. They’ll be phoning in via satellite.” She disappeared, and the white, blank wall across from his desk suddenly revealed twelve different screens on its digital surface. One by one, the screens filled with the manicured, bulging faces that comprised the Tuck Investments executive board, except for one.

The face in the middle of the screen was blurred out. While the rest of the board didn’t mind the openness of the meeting, this particular investor enjoyed his anonymity, which Rick didn’t mind. The man’s money was still valid regardless of what his face looked like. “I was told we have a setback with Global Power, Rick. I hope that isn’t true.” The man’s voice was distorted when he spoke, using a scrambler to conceal his words.

“Nothing but a slight bump in the road, gentlemen. In fact, I was informed this morning that we are go for our test tomorrow, which will give us plenty of time before the markets open on Friday,” Rick replied.

“We have our contracts ready for the buyout once the stock plummets,” another face added, the fat under his chin wiggling with excitement.

Rick’s secretary returned with a bucket of ice and champagne. She poured Rick a glass and handed it to him. He raised it to the air, and the faces on the screen reciprocated. “Gentlemen, it’s a wonderful new world. Our world.”

***

A rusted, sagging chain-link fence surrounded Tirreno Power just outside of the city of Rome. The power station provided electricity to over 2.5 million people. The night lights flickered in the backdrop. The bustling city had just started its evening of food and wine. A black van pulled up to the fence’s perimeter, and out poured six men dressed in matching black gear complemented with masks and assault rifles.

The tip of a blowtorch ignited, and the light-blue flame cut a six-foot-tall, three-foot-wide hole through the thin pieces of metal like a hot knife through butter. The six men piled through, stomping over the rusty mesh and onto Tirreno Power’s property.

The massive smokestacks billowed pollutants into the air as the factory pumped out its 1,980 megawatts of power to Italian citizens. The old concrete buildings, platforms, and piping looked as if it was in the same sagging condition as the fence they’d just breached.

Due to the hour, the only staff present was the night shift, which rotated out on a skeleton crew to keep the plant operational. A guard tower was stationed near the front entrance, where two guards yapped back and forth over the soccer game on the small television in their sheet-metal box. Two of the masked men broke off from the main group, making their way over to the unsuspecting guards.

Before either sentry had a chance to reach for the alarm on their dashboard, both their necks were snapped, and their lifeless bodies dropped to the floor. The two masked men rejoined the main group as they infiltrated the station inside.

Once they made it into the building, they maneuvered through the halls in organized patterns, like fire ants collectively swarming against an enemy far greater in size. One by one, the masked men choked, snapped, and slit any neck or throat they came across. A trickle of blood flowed to the edge of the platform where one of the workers was slain, and it dripped off the edge in slow, tiny globules to the floor below.

The door to the control room, a massive piece of welded steel at least five inches thick, required a key to enter. The men gathered outside the door, three on either side, and one of them pounded the door with his fists, which sent deep, bellowing echoes through the hall. “Aprire!” one of the men yelled.

“Chi e la?” a faint Italian voice relayed back.

The man flipped over the badge in his hand to see a picture of a skinny man next to the name Alessio Bugemio. “E Alessio.”

“Alessio? Che cosa hai fatto con il tuo distintivo?” the man asked, and the behemoth door squeaked open. Alessio’s colleague was greeted with the muzzle of an AK-47 shoved in his face, upon which his hands immediately flew into the air. “Per favore! Per favore!” the man begged, dropping to his knees.

“Shut. Up,” the masked man said. The rest of his unit hastily dismantled the cover of the computer’s dashboard. Wires were stripped and then rebound and hooked up to a laptop. One of the men gave a thumbs-up. The lead man pulled off his mask, revealing a scarred and boil-covered face. He reached for the satellite phone and dialed a number. “We’re live.”

Both the Italian man on the floor and his unexpected visitors were frozen and silent, one stricken by fear, the other in anticipation. When the scarred man received the all clear, he looked to his unit and gave a firm nod. A few quick keystrokes later, the lights in the control room started to fluctuate. The gauges on what was left of the dashboard began to vacillate sporadically, tipping back and forth between safe and dangerous levels.

The hum of the plant’s generators grew to a roar, and the lights in the control room exploded, sending bits of glass raining down amid a resplendent shower of sparks, before the entire room and plant were cast into darkness.

The intruders flicked on the lights attached to their rifles, and the white beams illuminated the room. The scarred man brought his light to the quivering Italian man, his palms still frozen to the floor. He squinted in the intrusive light, breathing heavily and sweating profusely.

“Per favore! Per favore! Non uccidermi!”

The scarred man cocked his head to the side. “And why wouldn’t I want to kill you?” Quicker than the Italian man could blink, the flash of the AK-47’s muzzle sent four bullets into his chest, killing him instantly. The scarred man pulled his radio out and pressed the side bar. “You’re clear.”