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8
“What the ever-long fuck happened out there, Raptor?” Duke didn’t yell. He didn’t rant, he didn’t pound his fists on the table, he didn’t even look disappointed. He just stood at the end of the rectangular dark cherry conference table and looked at the remaining half dozen TECH Ops team members.
“We got our asses handed to us, sir.”
“I see that, but how? Alpha Team was made up of experienced soldiers. There were no half-assed civilians in that group, nor Beta. So how did our two best teams get turned into sausage by a bunch of home-grown David Koresh wannabes?” Duke looked to Raptor like he’d aged ten years in the last twenty-four hours. Shelia supposed losing half your team in one shot could do that to a person.
“I have no idea, sir. We were in the back of the—“
“They were waiting for us,” Blackout interrupted her. “Sorry, Raptor, but you weren’t up there. We were. Me and Breaker were in the ballroom. I don’t know what happened to Alpha, but they caught us by surprise because they were in the building before we were. So were their weapons.”
“How the hell did that happen?” Duke asked the man.
“I have no idea, sir.” The trim man looked abashed at having to admit to Duke that he got caught with his pants down, but his gaze never wavered. He sat ramrod-straight in his reinforced chair at the table, his hands folded on the dark wood in front of him. “The first shooter I engaged was dressed like part of the catering crew, but I honestly don’t remember if they all were or not. It very quickly turned into shoot at anyone who shot at us, and try to stay alive.”
“Yeah, it was a mess, sir,” Breaker added. “Longshot went down almost as soon as the shooting started. It was like they intentionally took him out first. ‘Dozer held out for a while, laid down cover fire for the Secret Service guys and the candidates to get behind the podium and try to stay out of the field of fire. Me and Blackout were at the back of the room by the sound guy, and we were pinned down by friggin’ waiters with MP-5s.”
“Were you injured badly, Breaker?” Duke asked, taking a look at the man for the first time. He was adorned with bandages, and a strip of gauze wound around his forehead.
He shook his head. “No sir. I got a through-and-through to my left bicep that would be a real problem if I couldn’t hold my gun with my right, but everything else is just scratches.” Raptor looked over at the man, who she only knew to nod at in the breakfast line. He flexed his cybernetic right hand, the gleaming metal catching the fluorescent light and making him look particularly menacing as he gave Duke a grim smile. Sheila very much wanted to see what he did to the men who planned this attack when he caught them.
“Do we know who the target was, sir?” Raptor asked.
“Not yet,” Duke replied.
“Has anyone claimed responsibility?” Lone Star chimed in.
“Nothing. There’s not even chatter on the DarkNet,” Viper replied before Duke had a chance to speak. “Oh, sorry, boss. My bad.” He motioned to Duke, who chuckled.
“No, go ahead, Viper. I’ll cede the floor to your expertise in all matters cyber.”
“Good idea,” Viper said, standing up. He seemed to never stop growing taller as he unspooled his lanky frame from under the table and turned to address the team. “Usually when something like this happens you get three waves of attention-seekers. First you get the Katos, the people who want to know something about the attack because they think they can get famous. You’ll even have a few false confessions, depending on how high-profile the attack is. The only people that died today are civilians, soldiers, and cops, so you won’t have much of that. Not enough public sympathy for the glory hounds.”
“Then you’ll get the conspiracy nuts throwing their theories around. These aren’t so much people claiming to have perpetrated the attack as people claiming to see a pattern in it, and to know what happens next. They’re every bit as useless as the first bunch. Then, finally, you have the real possibilities. Most of the time you’ll have two or three groups claim responsibility for an attack, especially one that threatens the election coming up. It’s usually pretty easy to figure out who’s a poseur and who’s the real deal, just based on history and ideology.”
“But this time there’s nothing. No chatter about who it might be, no conspiracy nuts, no thrill-seekers, nobody that wants their name in the papers – nothing. And that’s weird.” He finished and sat down, but not before looking around the table at the shocked expressions on the faces of his teammates. “What? You want me to say something about Raptor’s boobs so you’ll remember it’s really me? This is my shit. If it’s online, it’s my world. And nobody knows my world better than me. I want these guys as much as anybody else.”
“So we have no idea who did it?” Blackout asked.
“And likely won’t until the forensics teams are done, or someone comes forward to claim the attack,” Duke replied.
“Or there’s another attack,” Tank chimed in from a specially-built chair at the far end of the table. His enormous frame required special consideration before he added several hundred pounds of exoskeleton to it. Now, even using titanium for most of his parts, he weighed in at nearly a quarter ton.
“Unfortunately, Tank’s right,” Duke said. “And you all know that those words coming out of my mouth feels like putting a tuxedo on a chimpanzee. But the likelihood of another attack is definitely something we need to pay attention to.”
“Where are the candidates today?” Blackout asked. “They were pretty insistent about keeping their campaign appearances. Do we need to deploy the rest of us out there to keep an eye on them?”
“They’re sequestered,” Duke said. “And no. The Secret Service seem to think that they can protect the individual candidates better without us there to call attention to things, and I don’t hate that idea.”
“There’s also the possibility that they weren’t the targets,” Raptor said, a thoughtful expression on her face.
All eyes swung over to her. “What are you suggesting, Sergeant?” Duke asked.
“I’m not suggesting anything, sir, I’m just making sure that we look at this crap from every angle. We lost fully half our operatives in that assault, sir. We’re down to four field-ready operatives and two rookies, one of which is a convicted felon with no field experience of any kind. These bastards scared the shit out of a couple of politicians, and killed some good police officers and Secret Service agents, but they crippled us.”
“She’s right, boss,” Tank agreed. “We’re supposed to be able to respond to two situations in two cities with a swing team at the base for backup, but now we could barely cover one crisis.”
“I’m well aware of the desired operational parameters of this program, Tank,” Duke said. “But I doubt very seriously that anyone specifically targeted TECH Ops by blowing a convention center all to hell and killing a dozen police officers, Secret Service agents, and civilians. Especially when you consider the fact that this entire program is Top Secret, with yesterday designed as the big reveal. Nobody who would want to kill you even knows you exist yet.”
“Good for Viper,” Lone Star said. “Because wanting to kill him is like the normal reaction whenever somebody meets him for the first time.”
“Very funny, asshole. Don’t you have a river to swim across or something?” Viper shot back.
Lone Star gave him the finger, ignoring the racist jab so as not to give Viper the satisfaction.
“So what’s the plan, Duke?” Raptor asked. “We just going to sit here and wait for something else to happen? Or are we going to find out who did this and kick their ass?”
“The FBI is working the scene. In the meantime—“
“In the meantime, I found a few trees for us to shake. Let’s go to Nebraska, and see what falls out.” All heads turned to the door, where a short woman with nondescript shoulder-length brown hair stood. She wore jeans, running shoes, and a US Navy t-shirt, but something about her decried any history of military service. She almost blended into the wall, the way Raptor’s eyes just slid over her, making her hard to focus on. Sheila shook her head, trying to clear her vision, but she still couldn’t get a good look at the woman.
She reached up and pressed something behind her left ear, and her features snapped into focus. Judging by the confused looks and the shaking heads around the table, Raptor wasn’t the only one who had trouble looking at her. The newcomer stepped into the room and took the empty seat at the table next to Viper. He gave her a long look up and down, then sat up a little straighter and pushed his chair away, a predator who suddenly realized he was no longer anywhere near the top of the food chain.
“Hello, Tara,” Duke said. “Raptor, gentlemen, meet Whisper.”
A low murmur went through the experienced TECH operatives, with Lone Star and Viper trading confused glances.
After a few seconds, Blackout leaned forward and asked the question on everyone’s mind. “You’re Whisper? The Whisper?”
“The only Whisper I know of, Gerald,” she replied, her voice completely calm, as if explaining her existence was something she did every day.
“Yes, this is really Whisper. Yes, Whisper is really real. Only about a third of the things you’ve heard about her are real, but she really is our infiltration and surveillance expert, she really is that damn good, and she really is the deadliest member of this program, and that includes Tank on Chili Night.” Duke restored order to the room without moving from his chair, his voice and presence killing the whispers.
“So you’re sneaky,” Viper said. “Good for you. What do you know about the assholes that tried to kill us?”
“Nothing concrete,” Whisper said. “I’ve been on some message boards and chat groups that I monitor, but there’s been nothing.”
“I could have told you that,” Viper grumbled.
“And you did, about ten minutes ago,” Whisper agreed.
“How did you…” Viper looked around. “She wasn’t anywhere near this room.”
“I bugged the table,” the small woman said. “There’s another one in Breaker’s shoe, but Blackout wore his dress belt to the debrief, so I don’t have any devices on him right now.”
“You bugged me?” Breaker pulled off his shoes and started trying to turn them inside out.
“I bugged everyone,” Whisper said. “It’s what I do. The only one I haven’t bugged is Duke.”
“As far as I know,” Duke said.
“As long as you’re paying the bills, you don’t get surveilled,” Whisper replied.
“Simple plan, I like that,” Duke said. “But what brings you here, Whisper? You hate meetings.”
“I hate everything, Duke, I just hate meetings a little more than most things. I’m here for the mission brief.”
“We don’t have a mission,” Raptor said.
“We do now,” Whisper countered, tossing a red folder into the center of the table. “This was authorized fifteen minutes ago based on communication I intercepted. There’s a militia group in Nebraska making noise about taking out a bunch of fascist government enslavers. That’s us, by the way.”
“Even I knew that,” Viper grumbled.
“They’ve only marched up until now, but this new chatter looks like they’re claiming responsibility for yesterday’s attack.” Raptor closed the folder and slid it across the table to Blackout, who started flipping through the few stapled papers.
“There’s not a lot here,” Blackout said.
“There never is,” Whisper replied.
“Is this enough to go after them?” Lone Star asked.
“If that’s not, this sure as hell is,” Viper slid his cell into the middle of the table. One the screen was a video of a man standing in front of a military-style compound wearing fatigues and holding an AR-15. He was shouting at the top of his lungs, largely incomprehensible screaming.
“That’s Harold Manus,” Whisper said. “Leader of the Sons of Freedom. He’s shouting to the heavens that God visited death upon the fascists, and he is the instrument of God’s will on earth.”
“Sounds like a confession to me,” Duke said. “Let’s go light this bastard up.”
