The Bleeding Sun (10 page)

‘
Don’t worry Lucas, you are safe
now’. Lucas could finally get some well-deserved rest. As he closed
his eyes, he could hear the sound of rotors. A chopper had been
called over.

Lucas underwent surgery when he was taken ashore by
the helicopter. After all the bullets had been removed from his
body, he was taken to the Key West International airport where an
Embraer ECJ-135 of the Indian Air force was waiting to take him
back home. When Lucas finally opened his eyes, he was crossing the
Atlantic on the Indian Air force aircraft. He was strapped on to
the stretcher with medical equipment placed all around him. Annie
was sitting by his side with a warm smile. Lucas was really
thankful that Annie had managed to save his life.

However he had a lot of questions that needed to be
answered. The doctor on board removed his straps, but warned him to
stay put on the stretcher. Also he advised him not to move too much
as he could feel dizzy owing to the medications he had been
subjected to over the past few hours. Annie handed him a cup of
coffee and explained the events that had unfold over the past few
hours. Rosmus and his group had got hold of Lucas at the hangar. By
the time Annie gave up chasing the truck, Lucas had been taken
away. However Annie managed to get hold of a radio in the hangar.
After tweaking it a little bit, she was able to track the frequency
at which Rosmus’s men were transmitting. They were taking Lucas to
Romanovich’s tanker which was docked at Matanzas. Romanovich
meanwhile had been escorted back to the Russian embassy in
Havana.

Annie had to quickly head out of
the Castle. The police and firemen had arrived there owing to the
blasts and were checking every nook and corner to ensure that all
civilians and support staff had been moved out of the castle. Annie
briskly moved out of the castle along with the guards and other
maintenance. She got hold of a cab and headed towards the port of
Matanzas. On the way to her destination, she had called up the ANNT
headquarters using the driver’s cell phone. The Serpent personally
assured her that she would get complete support once she reached
Matanzas. Her new mission was to get Roy Lucas back to base at any
cost; the ANNT could not afford to lose its gem. On reaching
Matanzas, she headed straight to the port where Romanovich’s tanker
was docked at a distance.

The port master
informed her that the tanker was named ‘
krovotecheniyesolntse
‘; it meant
‘Bleeding Sun’ in English. It was scheduled to head out towards the
port of Miami at midnight, but had been delayed owing to delay in
delivery of some cargo. However, a truck had arrived at the port
and the contents had been loaded over to the ship which was now
ready to head out. Annie requested the port master to allow her to
use the telephone for a call to the police. Using the phone, Annie
dialed the Indian Embassy in Havana, who rerouted the call to the
ANNT headquarters. The Serpent’s orders were clear. Annie would
need to go to the Juan G Gomez airport in Matanzas immediately.
Meanwhile the Serpent would make a few phone calls and arrange for
her transportation from Cuba to the US. Annie got hold of a cab and
immediately travelled to the airport.

The Serpent had kept his word. A
bi-plane was waiting to take her to the Key West International
airport. The Serpent had also arranged for her immigration and
diplomatic visa in the US. After landing in Key West, Annie headed
over to the Key West harbor where a motor boat was waiting for her
to take her to the American coast guards. Using his connections,
the Serpent had managed to convince the US officials that
Romanovich’s ship had a few members belonging to the Columbian
cartel disguised as crew members, who were planning to enter the US
mainland through Miami and hence needed to be intercepted as they
entered the American waters. Also, a diplomat from the Indian
embassy in Havana named Lucas was being held hostage in the ship
and he needed to be recovered as well. Annie, his wife was present
during the kidnapping and hence she would meet and lead the coast
guards to the ship.

Annie set up a back story on how
Lucas was kidnapped from the embassy while explaining the details
to the Chief Petty Officer of the coast guard vessel. She followed
the beacon that was still sending signal from Lucas’s wrist watch
to find out the exact location and movement of the vessel before
informing the same to the Coast guard. Two long range interceptor
ships had been sent out for the mission. When the ships finally
intercepted the Bleeding Sun about 30 miles off the Key West
harbor, Lucas was already drifting away from the ship in the life
boat while the assailants were planning to pursue and eliminate
him. However as soon as they noticed the coast guards, the Bleeding
Sun drifted away frantically trying to move into international
waters. Lucas was rescued and brought up to the ship. He was taken
ashore and operated in an emergency facility in Key West. Meanwhile
the Serpent had sent over a special plane to take them back home.
The Serpent had specifically mentioned that Annie needed to ensure
that the contents of the briefcase that Lucas was protecting was
securely delivered to his office.

Lucas moved his head around trying
to locate his back pack. Annie assured that it was securely kept in
the storage compartment. Lucas was not satisfied with the
assurance. He asked Annie to bring over the back pack as he wanted
to examine the contents and figure out what they were really
dealing with. Why was the cargo so precious to Rosmus and
Romanovich? Why were so many briefcases loaded to the armored truck
and sent over on the oil tanker ‘Bleeding Sun’? What did the brief
cases contain? Did they contain the same set of rectangular and
cylindrical cases? Also who were these briefcases being sent to and
for what purpose?

Lucas’s mind was filled with
unanswered questions. He needed to examine his package to try and
figure out the answers. As soon as Annie brought over the briefcase
and opened the same, Lucas asked her to check the contents of the
two containers. Being an expert with timers and circuitry, Annie
carefully removed the casing of the rectangular container and took
out the contents. It was a small piece of circuitry with an inbuilt
power source. The construction was similar to the APTS module that
he had found earlier. However, this circuit was far more compact
and complex. It would need to be tested in the DRDO labs for
understanding the complete functionality once they arrived in
India.

As of the cylindrical container,
it too had a small encasement along the side holding a small piece
of circuit. The container itself was some kind of a compact
cylinder possibly holding a chemical or a gas. This too needed to
be thoroughly tested in the labs. Based on Annie’s understanding
the pair formed a remote switching mechanism whereby the
rectangular circuit would switch on the one present alongside the
cylinder. However the exact contents, functionality and purpose
could be determined only after thorough testing. Lucas had found a
few answers. Rosmus and his Vipers with the help of Romanovich’s
stature, contacts and control was planning to mimic the APTS
circuitry for something big. The Vipers were the handpicked
mercenaries that Rosmus used to carry out his dirty work and also
provide protection and cover to dictators, cartels and radical
extremist leaders.

As of Dimitri Bertsekas, the
ghost, he still had no idea where he was or how was he involved in
the whole thing. However he was still not sure of one thing; how
could Rosmus really utilize the APTS module since the prototypes
never had access to the functionality whereby missile systems of
nearby nations could be hacked and used. Well he would need to do
some more research on these when he got back home. Lucas was
feeling tired due to the medications that he had been subjected to.
He asked Annie to securely store the containers as he closed his
eyes and finally drifted off to sleep waiting for his arrival in
India.

ANNT Headquarters
Dehradun

The room had the appearance of one that did not have
a single speck of dust. The Persian carpets, the velvet curtains,
the huge mahogany desk, a big globe of the world, a set of tall
mahogany racks holding files and facts that no one would ever know
about. The small man was working on something in the computer on
the desk. The man was Colonel H. K. Subramaniam alias Serpent, the
director of the ANNT. Lucas entered the room and waited for the
Serpent to finish his work. Lucas had been released from the
hospital in the morning. His left arm was in a sling while bandages
covered many parts of his body. The last mission had been tough. He
had a lot of questions to ask to the Serpent. The results from the
test lab should also have arrived. The Serpent lifted his head and
gave him a wry smile. He typed a few more keys, made a few notes
and slowly lowered his pen on the desk.

He took a sip from the cup of coffee kept at his desk
and said, ‘Well Lucas, do you know why Rosmus’s agents are called
Vipers’. Lucas knew it well but he let the Colonel continue. ‘Each
of these agents have a tattoo of a snake located on the upper
section of the body, mostly on their shoulders or necks. The Vipers
maintain a hierarchy among the agents. So if you notice closely,
you will see four distinct types of snakes. The krait, the black
mamba, the rattle snake and the king cobra. Based on the hierarchy
the lowest members of the squad have a tattoo of the krait. The
commanders carry a mamba. Dimitri, who is assumed to be the supreme
commander of the entire force carries a rattle snake, while the
leader of the entire order carries the tattoo of a king cobra. You
must have met and eliminated multiple kraits and mambas. However,
the bad news is that you did not manage to locate the rattle snake
and more importantly get any information on the king cobra and his
plans. The good news on the other hand is that, we know a part of
their plan for world domination.’

Lucas looked amused by the fact that the Serpent
chuckled out loud before starting his tale. ‘As you must have found
out, although our top secret project APTS had been shut down
several years ago, the prototype modules have been moving around in
the black market for several months. We believe someone from the
Russian side did not keep their word and managed to smuggle out few
of the prototypes before the entire lot was destroyed. The good
news is that when the prototypes were developed, the ballistic
missile control firmware was not ready yet. So they will not be
able to access the missile or the nuclear arsenal. Now coming back
to the bad news; Annie had provided me photographs of the
containers and circuitry that you had recovered. I know these
things too well. The circuitry recovered from the rectangular
container is a customized version of the APTS module. Once armed,
it can be used to trigger the circuitry attached to the cylindrical
container, disbursing its contents, when both the circuits are
within a certain range of each other. I have sent Annie over to the
DRDO labs to get the contents validated in details, but I believe
that the cylinder would be used as some form of a chemical
weapon.

Based on the recent reports from RAW and IB, a new
strain of a genetically enhanced virus is being developed by Al
Qaeda in collaboration with rogue scientists based in Chechnya and
Albania. I still don’t know the exact details, but I strongly
believe that this customized APTS could be used to trigger the
virus. I’ll let you know as soon as I obtain further details. What
concerns me the most is the fact that Romanovich’s ship was loaded
with a handful of such devices and they intended to enter the
US.

There is a major convention scheduled next month
where the leaders of the BRICS nations as well as the president of
United States are supposed to meet in Dallas. They will be signing
up several major treaties on several major issues ranging from
counter terrorism operations to global warming. Presence of the
heads of state for Russia, China, India and the USA at the same
place is supposed to make this conference a historic one. I think
they will try to eliminate all the leaders together along with our
Prime Minister. Even if they don’t eliminate them all, the panic
such an attack is going to create will be a nightmare. Also we
cannot rule out chemical weapons if the information about the new
virus is true. I believe we need to get as much information as
quickly as possible and locate and eliminate these criminals even
before they are ready to strike’

Lucas also wanted to talk to the Serpent about what
had happened in Cuba. He strongly believed that there was a mole in
the system that had been continuously leaking out confidential
information about the mission in every step. As soon as he brought
up the issue, they were interrupted by Annie’s arrival. ‘Have you
delivered them to the test lab?’ asked the Serpent.

‘Yes, we shall have all the information available by
evening. They will email you the details. I’ll personally collect
the hard copies and the devices from the lab.’

‘Make sure you bring up the reports first to my
office. No one should know about these apart from me. I’ll let you
know the details and then will divulge the appropriate information
to the ministry. The President needs to be made aware as well.’