The Antiterrorist: A Jake Corby Sci-Fi Thriller (Mysterious Events Book 2) (2 page)

I woke up in a hospital bed and groaned. This was one noisy hospital, with a constant whooshing noise in the background. Was it in my head? And the bed seemed unstable somehow. A doctor appeared out of nowhere.

I asked, “Where am I?”

The doctor held a clipboard. The tag on his uniform read “Swanson.” He was in his late fifties with plenty of laugh lines and a square jaw. He had a strong Maine accent. “You’re on an Air Force hospital plane, sir, headed for Washington D.C. How are you feeling?”

“Like I was run over by—”

“By a truck?” he asked, paging through my chart.

“I was going to say rhinoceros, but truck works, too. I want to call my wife.”

“We’ve told her you’re okay.”

“Thank you for that, but I’d still like to speak with her.”

They got Mary on the phone, and I downplayed my injuries. She hadn’t known my mission was dangerous. It was good to hear her voice.

“Jake, I’m guessing it’s worse than you say,” she said. “You know my policy. I don’t interfere with your decisions, but remember, you don’t need to do this any longer.”

When I hung up, Doc told me that FBI Director Hallstrom was on the line.

Dane Hallstrom and I went way back. I’d always expected him to go into politics, not security and intelligence.

I rested my head back against the pillow. “You took your time rescuing me, Dane. Did I slip through the cracks?”

“Of course not. I’m sorry, Jake. By the time we realized they’d captured you, it was too late. They’d moved you out of the compound to the farmhouse. We tailed some of the militia members and wasted time following a few false leads. Sorry about that.”

I closed my eyes. “Let me tell you what I’ve got before I pass out again. I was able to eavesdrop on conversations and break in and read some notes. They are indeed involved in the satellite destruction along with a network of other militia-slash-terrorist groups. I didn’t learn how they do it, but their weapon requires at least a week to recharge. That’s the word they use, ‘recharge.’ So they shoot at the satellite and then they can’t shoot again for a week. It’s a big weapon, and I’m not sure whether it’s mobile.”

“How could these guys have the technical sophistication for something like that?”

“They don’t.” I shook my head, which sent a shock of pain through my right eye. “There’s a technical guy who’s been radicalized and aligns himself with these militia groups. His name is McClaran or McClearan. They discuss him like he’s some kind of über genius.”

“Got it. Good info, thanks. Sounds like he’s the key. We’ll find him.” Hallstrom’s voice relaxed. “How are you feeling?”

“Lousy, but I’ll survive. The doc’s going to fill me in.” I glanced at him and he frowned. Uh-oh.

Hallstrom said, “You’ll be getting to Washington in a few hours, you can rest up and come in whenever you’re ready.”

“I’ll soon be ready enough to sit at a meeting or two. I want to get these guys.”

A nurse took the phone, and I turned to the doc. “What’s the deal? No sugarcoating.”

He nodded. “You’ve been banged up like crazy—you know that—but most of your injuries will heal.”

“Most?”

“What happened to the right side of your face?”

“That’s the worst, huh?” I touched the bandage. “A minor-league sadist hit me with a major-league bat. I’m a little hazy, but I think I remember the bat whistling as it came toward me.”

“Well, a blood vessel supplying your optic nerve was damaged. Essentially you had a stroke in your optic nerve.”

Ah, Cripes.
“Blind in that eye?”

“Yes, probably. Shall we check?” Swanson raised his eyebrows.

It took a while to remove the bandaging around my eye. I’ve gotten plenty of injuries in my life, but I usually recover fully. This was different. Would it be life-changing? You take the cards you’re dealt in life, I guess. Yeah, that made me feel much better. I pressed my hands against the bed so the doc wouldn’t see them shaking.

When Swanson removed the last strip of gauze, I opened my eyes and there was nothing to the right of my nose. When the doc waved his hand over to my side, I could tell something was moving, but that was all.

“Will it come back?” Sweat tickled the back of my neck.

Swanson pulled on his ear. “Unlikely.”

“Is it too late to change my mind about the sugarcoating?”

He grinned and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Am I going to see the world as two dimensional?” I looked around. “Sorry, dumb question. Why does the world still look normal? You’re sure the vision won’t return?”

He shook his head. “You’re lucky, in a way. Some people with only one eye do perceive things in 2D, but there are a lot of cues to distance other than stereopsis, and apparently your brain uses those. You’ll bump into people at the mall, but you’ll be able to drive. Are you good with a rifle?”

I waggled my hand.

“Well, you’ll have to put the stock against your left shoulder to use the sight. Or you can get a special offset sight. Other than that, you’ll get by. And you’re lucky for another reason.”

“What’s that?”

“If the stroke had been a centimeter to your left, you’d be totally blind, a little further back and—”

“I’d be able to play the violin.”

“What?” He frowned at me. “No, you’d be dead.”

“Right. Dead. That’s what I meant to say.”

CHAPTER TWO

With some begging, the docs released me after only one day in Walter Reed. I spent the night in my hotel room and planned to go into the “office” the next day. The investigation had momentum, and I wanted to keep it going. And I’d forgotten to tell Hallstrom about Mr. L.L. Bean.

Then I woke up. Ow. Going anywhere? Not going to happen. The worst was the nausea. I was in the five-star Hotel Monaco, on my own dime, but couldn’t appreciate it. My stomach didn’t let me read, eat, watch TV, or surf the internet.

I lay there for five hours without moving—trying not to throw up—and thinking about my life. Did I really want to continue saving the world? Catching bad guys? My introvert tendencies were surfacing. Mary and I were trying to create a kid. When that happened, according to our plan, I’d become a full-time dad—no more commando stuff. Maybe play jazz piano in a seedy bar.

We had the money to do it. My anti-kidnapping books were selling well. I could pass the company on to my veep, Renata Perez, who was doing most of the day-to-day stuff anyway.

Enough thinking. It was time for more Vicodin. Time for the cozy, Christmasy feeling it gave me. My new friend.

Doc Swanson’s note told me to get three days of bed rest. I called Hallstrom and told him I’d be in soon. I’ve never been good at tolerating boredom.

* * *

The next morning, I caught a cab to FBI headquarters.

A few years ago, my niece made me sit at a computer and complete a maze. Not too hard, even for a grownup. Near the end of the maze, a grotesque monster face flashed on the screen and I screamed like a little girl. My niece screamed too when I paid her back by tickling her unmercifully.

Now I was the grotesque monster face.

The entire right side of my head was essentially a black eye. I had stitches on my forehead, and it looked as if Frankenstein had been in a car crash on his way home from a bar fight. Some cuts were still oozing blood.

An aide led me to the conference room, but I asked him not to announce me. I waited until everyone was milling around, then stuck my head in the doorway and said, “Boo!”

I think the short blonde peed in her pants a little. She scowled at me and headed down the hall toward the lady’s room.

Hallstrom was shaking his head. He probably would have been laughing, but this was the first time he’d seen my injuries. Injuries that were partly his fault.

Director Hallstrom had a careless look to him, with the toothy smile found on traveling salesmen and politicians. Pushing fifty, he was broad in the shoulders with a paunch that was under control. Barely.

“Jeez, Jake, you’re a mess. I’m really sorry. We did everything we could to rescue you. You look like … sheesh, shouldn’t you be in the hospital?”

I waved dismissively. Gotta play the tough guy. Too bad the cute blonde didn’t get to see how tough I was. “Hey, I knew the risks. The docs released me when I promised to stay in bed. I was regretting coming here, but it was worth it to see the expressions on your faces. It—” I started to chuckle and doubled over in pain. I tried to take a deep breath, and the pain hit again. I wiped away some tears.

Hallstrom put his hand on my shoulder. Gingerly. “Jake, should I call an ambulance?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m okay. I’ve got three broken ribs. I should have known better than to make myself laugh.” I pictured their faces again—
no, stop.
“I’m really tired so maybe you can bring me up to speed and let me go home early.”

Miss Petite came back from down the hall. She was strikingly attractive in a miniature way, with straight hair and an oval face that was made to be looked at. She wore a dark, pencil skirt and a silk blouse. Late twenties. She frowned and stared up at my face as she went by, like a highway looky-loo passing the smoking remains of a head-on collision.

Hallstrom gestured to her. “Jake, I’d like you to meet Charlotta Keller. I’ve hired her as my campaign manager—”

“Whoa. So politics finally got you.” Turning to Charlotta, I said, “Nice to meet you, Ms. Keller. I apologize for frightening you. I have an eleven-year-old inside me who takes control of my body whenever he sees an opportunity for a joke.”

“I understand. I have a nephew like that … only he’s six.”

Touché.

She took my hand and smiled. “Please call me Charli.”

Hallstrom sat down. “Charli is as smart as they come and has a science background from MIT, so I’ve asked her to help with this project. She’s been vetted and has a high security clearance. We’ve learned a lot about this McClaren fellow, and Charli will fill us in.”

I eased into my chair like a ninety-year-old with hemorrhoids.

Charli stepped to the front of the room and triggered a slide showing a nerdy guy holding a small object. “This is Lenny McClaren. He completed his college education at Stanford at age seventeen. Soon after, he developed the device you see in his hand. It’s a power transmitter. Put one of these in your living room, and it will charge any compatible electronics device you bring into the house. Wirelessly. He sold the patent for an undisclosed sum, perhaps several hundred million. It will be on the market soon.”

Charli took a sip of water and glanced again at the train wreck that was my face. I thought about how I was going to explain it to my wife without alarming her. “Walked into a door” wouldn’t cut it.

Charli flipped to the next slide. “Here’s McClaren at last year’s IEEE conference, describing his work. Everything was fine until halfway through his speech. That’s when he described an implant that the federal government places in the brains of all newborns. By the end of his talk, everyone knew he had a severe mental illness.”

While she was speaking, a man with thinning Einstein hair and a worn tweed suit jacket tiptoed in and sat down.

Charli clicked off the slide. “Soon after that conference, McClaren disappeared. We believe he’s been radicalized, and based on the information from Mr. Corby, we think he’s aligned himself with anti-government terrorists and is behind the attacks on the satellites.” She sat down.

“Thanks, Charli.” Hallstrom gestured toward the academic-looking man who’d come in late. “Now I’d like to introduce Dr. Seth McGraw, a chief scientist at NASA. He will describe what we know of the satellite attacks. Welcome, Dr. McGraw.”

McGraw ran his fingers through his hair, only making it more unruly. He had a pleasant appearance, like the favorite uncle who takes an interest in your science projects. He ambled to the front of the room. “We’ve lost five satellites so far. They don’t explode or drop out of the sky, they just vanish as if vaporized. One of them was the Hubble telescope.”

No more beautiful photos from deep space for a while.

“I’m very, very sad to see it go, but it was actually lucky that they targeted Hubble,” McGraw said. “Here’s why. Take a look at this video.”

A technician got the video going. It started with a shot of the night sky, deep blue with the branches of a tree in the foreground.

McGraw walked up to the screen. “A Hubble enthusiast filmed this in his back yard, and this dot you see moving slowly across the sky is Hubble. Without this video, we’d have been clueless as to why the satellites were disappearing. Watch what happens.”

The dot continued across the screen. Then a streak, like lightning but straight as a laser beam, appeared for an instant. The dot that had been Hubble blossomed into an orange-white disk. Then it was gone.

McGraw turned back to his audience. “We think this weapon is essentially a wireless power transmitter, with a wide-spectrum burst.”

“Hold on a second,” I said. “Why are they going after satellites? Wouldn’t it be more dramatic to shoot down passenger planes, for example?”