Fallout sc-4 Read online

  And then a lone figure emerged from the darkness of the helicopter’s doorway. Clearly a man, the figure stood well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and squat, powerful legs. A hood covered his head.

  Murmured voices rose from the crowd.

  The man raised his hands to shoulder height, palms out, and the crowd settled.

  The man reached up and drew back the hood.

  The crowd gave a collective gasp. The face they saw was familiar: strong chin, hawkish nose, thick, black mustache…

  “Greetings, brothers. I have returned, and in that I offer you your country back,” said Bolot Omurbai. “I ask you: Who will fight at my side?”

  3

  SAN FRANCISCO

  Though Jackie had introduced her team — first names only — as soon as they’d regrouped at the safe house, Fisher was still in countersurveillance mode, so it took him a few minutes to stop thinking of them as dots on his mental clock face. Tail 6.1—the man who had for the final hour of the exercise stayed so doggedly on Fisher’s six — was named Frederick, and Tail 6.2.2—the arm-in-arm couple that had passed him right before his dash into the alley — were named Reginald and Judy. Most of the other eight faces were familiar, but a few were not, and Fisher absently wondered if he’d somehow missed them. As much as he hoped not, he knew the reality. For every rat you see, there’s…

  “Okay, people, I think it’s safe to say Sam taught us a few tricks tonight. So, despite the sting to our egos, let’s raise a toast to our rabbit…”

  As one, the group raised glasses of wine, beer, or hard liquor in a silent salute to Fisher. Fisher smiled, nodded, and raised his own bottle of Coors. The toast was heartfelt and the atmosphere easy, but for most of Fisher’s career he had worked alone, and so, like dozens of other surprises this turn in his career had given him, the camaraderie took some getting used to.

  After Jackie had pulled up in the Johnson & Sons van and admitted defeat, she, Fisher, and the team had regrouped at a CIA safe house in Sausalito, across the bay from Angel Island State Park, for a postmortem of the exercise. Of those assembled, only Fisher and Jackie knew tonight’s exercise had been Fisher’s final exam before graduation.

  Much of his training over the past three months had been familiar stuff — weapons, unarmed combat, covert communications, surveillance — so Fisher had had little trouble adapting his own background to the material. What had taken some time to get used to was that many of the tradecraft tricks were often done in broad daylight and under close surveillance. Passing someone a message in a darkened alley was one thing; doing so on a busy city street during noon rush hour with dozens of watchers studying your every move was an altogether different matter.

  Still, Fisher was unsurprised to find that he was enjoying himself. The challenge of playing and winning the espionage chess game with only your wits and guile was intoxicating.

  Tonight’s tour through San Francisco’s foggy streets had been the culmination of a weeklong “live fire” exercise designed to test his ability to slip into an unfamiliar city, establish and run a network of agents, and then cleanly ex-filtrate himself after securing “the key,” a crucial piece of information from a notional enemy ministry of defense. The final test had been straightforward if not easy: service a dead drop where one of his agents had placed “the key” and then transport it to his handler on the other side of town, all under the watchful eyes of Jackie’s secret police team.

  Now friends again, the group sat at a round poker table under a cluster of pendant lights that cast soft halogen pools on the baize surface.

  “So tell me this, Sam,” said Reginald. “That thing with the ladder on the roof… Did you bang it on the edge that last time just to make sure we heard it?” Fisher nodded, and Reginald grinned and shook his head. “Nice touch.”

  “How about the apartment?” Judy asked, sipping a glass of Chardonnay. “Did you just spot it empty, or what?”

  “Checked the newspaper ads two days ago.”

  “Where?”

  “During breakfast. The coffee shop on Sloan. The ad was brand-new, so it was a safe bet it hadn’t been rented yet.”

  “But you didn’t circle anything, did you, you crafty bastard,” Jackie said. “We picked up that paper, checked it.”

  “Hell, I don’t even carry a pen anymore.”

  There were chuckles around the table. Fisher knew nothing about these people beyond their first names, but he assumed each of them worked as case officers in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations — the real-ife, boots-on-the-ground, secret-stealing, shadow-skulking operatives of film and book.

  Each one, like Fisher, would know the rules of working and living as a professional paranoid. In this case, pens were often considered instruments of betrayal, something that can leave a trace of your presence or intentions or even passing interest. The CIA’s informal history, passed down from generation to generation of operatives, is full of stories of otherwise smart men and women who’d died from a case of ink poisoning. In this business, memorization and recall was not a luxury but rather a requisite for a long life.

  Fisher said, “That homeless guy I paid off… Did you—”

  “Rough him up?” said Jackie. “No. But Frederick did tug on his beard to see if it was a fake.”

  More laughter.

  “What I meant was, did you let him keep the hundred bucks?”

  This brought more gales of laughter. When they subsided, Jackie said, “Yeah, yeah, we let him keep it. We’re not barbarians, Sam. The poor guy had peed his pants. I wasn’t going to rob him on top of it.”

  The dissection of the exercise continued for another half hour until finally Jackie asked, “Any feedback from your side of things, Sam? How’d we do?”

  Fisher shrugged, took a sip of his beer.

  “Come on, man,” said Reginald. “Let’s hear it.”

  Fisher glanced at Jackie, who gave him a nod.

  “Okay. Frederick, you were on my six most of the night.”

  “Right.”

  “Almost flawless, but when you stopped at that shop window and made your fake call, you only punched four numbers — too few for a real number and too many for a speed dial. Reginald and Judy: Reginald, you never changed your shoes. Same pair of Nikes with the black scuff on the toe. Jackie, your command van: It’s a 2005 model. The day I first noticed you, I checked the Johnson & Sons fleet. None of them are newer than 2001, and all have painted logos — not magnetic.” Fisher paused for a moment, scratched his head. “That’s about it, I think.”

  Collectively, the faces around the table were staring openmouthed at him. Finally, Jackie broke the silence: “Well, I guess we’re gonna call that a passing grade for you.”

  “Come on, man, you noticed how many numbers I punched into my phone?” Frederick said.

  Fisher shrugged.

  “Seriously?”

  Fisher nodded. “Seriously.”

  As much as Fisher preferred being on his own, now that the program was coming to a close, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was going to miss this camaraderie.

  The experimental three-month program that had brought Fisher here — a joint venture between the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and Third Echelon — had been code-named CROSSCUT and was designed to teach Third Echelon’s lone Splinter Cell operatives the ways of “open water” espionage tradecraft — in essence, to teach Fisher and others like him how to do what they do in broad daylight, without the benefit of shadows, stealthy tactical suits, and noise-suppressed weapons.

  Fisher’s boss, Colonel Irving Lambert, had chosen Fisher as a guinea pig. If Fisher survived the program — which it seems he had — and then was able to put what he learned to work in the field — which was yet to be seen — Irving would send other Splinter Cells through the program.

  Truth be told, Fisher didn’t need a real-world field test to tell him what he’d learned in CROSSCUT would be invaluable. He would always prefer to work alone, and he’d always pref
er shadows to sunlight, but this business rarely conformed itself to one’s preferences. The world of covert operations was a roller-coaster ride of balance: chaos versus order; well-laid plans versus inevitable disasters, both large and small. Of course, whether or not Third Echelon continued to participate in CROSSCUT would be Lambert’s decision, but Fisher knew what his recommendation was going to be.

  Jackie’s cell phone trilled. She flipped it open and walked a few steps away from the table. She listened for a few moments, then disconnected and said to Fisher, “Call home.”

  Fisher turned around in his chair, retrieved his cell phone from his coat pocket, powered it on, then dialed. After two rings, a female voice answered, “Extension forty-two twelve.”

  “It’s me,” Fisher replied. Though the woman who answered knew his voice, she followed protocol and paused a moment to let the voice-print analyzer confirm his identity. “Hold a moment, Sam,” said Anna Grimsdottir. “I’ve got the colonel for you.”

  Lambert came on the line a few seconds later. “Sam, I’ve got a Gulfstream headed to the Coast Guard Air Station. Get on it and come home.”

  “Miss me that much, Colonel?”

  “No, I just got a message from the State Department. A man admitted to Johns Hopkins asked to see someone from the CIA. It’s Peter, Sam. He’s in a bad way. You need to get here.”

  Fisher felt his heart flutter in his chest. Peter…

  “I’m on my way.”

  4

  ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, EDGEWOOD AREA, MARYLAND

  Fisher pulled to a stop at the guard shack, rolled down his window, and handed his driver’s license to the guard, who checked his name against a clipboard. It was a crisp autumn day with a slight breeze; the scent of burning leaves wafted into the car.

  The guard scrutinized Fisher’s face, then nodded and handed back the license. “Straight ahead to Administration. Long white building with a brick entry. You’ll be met.”

  Fisher nodded and pulled through the gate. The administrative building was a short fifty-yard drive away. Fisher pulled into the awning-covered turnaround and climbed out. An army private appeared at his door. “I’ll park it for you, sir. Your party’s waiting inside.”

  “Thanks.”

  Fisher found Lambert waiting in the lobby. The decor was done in vintage army: pale pus-yellow linoleum tile and walls painted mint green on the upper half and paneled in dark wood on the lower. The tangy odor of Pine-Sol hung in the air. A lone nurse sat behind the reception counter; she looked up as Fisher entered and gave him a curt nod.

  Fisher shook Lambert’s extended hand. “What’s going on, Colonel?”

  Just minutes before Fisher’s Gulfstream had touched down at Andrews Air Force Base, Grimsdottir had called Fisher with a change of plans. Peter was being moved to the army’s Chemical Casualty Care Division at Aberdeen. The CCCD is a division of the army’s Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense. Fisher had had his own dealings with the CCCD over the years, most recently a few months ago as a patient after the Trego incident.

  Why Peter had been moved Grimsdottir didn’t know or couldn’t say, but either way, Fisher knew it wasn’t good news. Peter’s admitting hospital, Johns Hopkins, was top-notch; the possibility that Peter’s condition was beyond its abilities worried Fisher.

  “The doctors are with him right now,” said Lambert. “The chief attending ER doc at Johns Hopkins took one look at him, then got on the phone with the CCCD. They’re not talking so far, but if he’s here…”

  “I know.” Fisher paced away, stopped, and pressed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He turned back to Lambert. “So we wait.”

  “Yeah.”

  The lobby was empty, so they took a pair of orange Naugahyde chairs near the counter. On the arm of Fisher’s chair, scrawled in faded ballpoint pen, were the words, The Army way: Hurry up and wait.

  Fisher chuckled.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Remember Frank Styles, back at Fort Bragg?” Fisher asked.

  He and Lambert had history dating back to their Army Special Forces days and then later as they were selected to participate in an experimental program that took special operators from the army, navy, air force, and marines, and transferred them to another branch of the special forces community. In Fisher’s and Lambert’s case, they had gone from the Army’s Delta Force to the navy’s SEAL (Sea, Air, Land) teams.

  Lambert, who had early on shown a head for organization and logistics, had later been tapped to head Third Echelon’s Field Operations slot, including all its Splinter Cell operatives. At Lambert’s urging, Fisher had resigned his commission in the army and joined Third Echelon.

  Lambert said, “Stylin’ Frankie. Yeah, I remember.”

  “He always used to joke when he got out he was going to start a Nauga ranch and sell their hides to the army for all these damned chairs.”

  Lambert smiled. “And dentists’ offices.”

  “Yeah.” Fisher leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and stretched his neck. After a moment he asked Lambert, “Did you see him?”

  “Peter? Only briefly as they were packing him into the ambulance.” Lambert paused, cleared his throat.

  “What?” Fisher asked.

  “They had him in a tent, Sam.”

  This made sense. The CCCD dealt with biological, chemical, and radioactive infectious processes. Until they had a diagnosis or could proclaim him noninfectious, the army would handle Peter with Level 4 containment procedures, complete with biohazard suits and positive ventilation plastic barriers. Unless he was unconscious or sedated, Peter had to be terrified watching those space-suited doctors and nurses milling around him.

  “Where’d they find him?”

  Lambert cleared his throat, hesitated.

  “Colonel?”

  “We’re still working on all the details, but from what I gather, a fishing boat found him floating in a life raft in the Labrador Sea, off the coast of Greenland. He was suffering from hypothermia, barely hanging on. He was taken first to Nuuk, then to the States.”

  “Greenland,” Fisher whispered. How had this happened? he wondered. Had he fallen overboard or gone over of his own accord, and if so, why? “Did any ships file a missing persons report?”

  “No,” Lambert said. “I’ve got Grim digging, but as of an hour ago, nothing.”

  It seemed unlikely such a disappearance would go unnoticed. What did that mean? There seemed to be only two explanations, then: Peter had either been a stowaway, or he’d been thrown overboard.

  * * *

  An hour passed, then two, and finally a doctor in dark green scrubs and square, thick-rimmed black glasses pushed through the swinging doors beside the counter. He walked over to them. His hair was plastered with sweat.

  “Dr. Seltkins. You’re here for—?”

  Fisher nodded. “How is he?”

  “Well, we’ve got him stabilized, but I don’t know how long that’ll last.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Lambert asked.

  “We don’t know yet. We’re running tests. It’s an infectious agent, but of what type we don’t know. I’m inclined to rule out biological; his symptoms are… unique — too unique for fungal, viral, or bacteriological. My guess is we’re looking at some kind of chemical or radiological exposure — or both.”

  “I want to see him,” Fisher said.

  “We’ve got him in Level 4—”

  “I know that. Suit me up. I want to see him.”

  Dr. Seltkins sighed, then looked down at his feet.

  Lambert said, “Doctor, if you need authorization—”

  “No, you’re both cleared,” Seltkins said, then looked hard at Fisher. “His condition is… It’s not pretty. Are you sure you want to—”

  “Suit me up,” Fisher repeated.

  * * *

  Fisher had been inside Level 4 environments before and had hated each experience for the typical reasons. He was neither claustropho
bic nor terrified of running out of air due to a suit puncture. What bothered him most was the lack of freedom. He owed his survival over the years to a number of things — relentless training and practice, superb conditioning, quick thinking, dumb luck — but all of them were useless without freedom, the freedom to move quickly and freely. The ability to react in the blink of an eye had saved his life more times than he could remember. With a Level 4 suit on, its bulbous helmet, oversized boots, and bulky gloves left him feeling as vulnerable as a newborn infant. It was born of rote instinct, he knew, this irrational aversion, but it was ingrained in his mental circuitry.

  Led by a pair of nurses, Fisher was taken first to a locker room, where he changed into one-piece surgical scrubs with bootied feet, then on to the first Plexiglas airlock alcove where he was helped into a Level 4 biohazard suit. The nurses checked him from head to foot for proper fit and, satisfied there were no gaps or tears, hooked him into the oxygen system, a series of hoses that hung from swivel tracks in the ceiling. Fisher heard the gush of air rushing into his suit, felt it fill his headpiece. The oxygen, so cold on his skin he felt goose bumps rise on his neck, had a slightly metallic taste.

  One of the nurses checked the gauge on his arm, said, “Positive vent,” and then they guided him to the second airlock. Beyond the Plexiglas wall, under the cold glare of fluorescent lighting, he could see a single bed with a figure in it. Peter’s face was turned away; all Fisher could see was his ear, the curve of his jaw, the clear nasal cannula tube snaking over his cheek toward his nostrils.

  Another biohazard-suited figure — a nurse or doctor, Fisher assumed — stood beside the bed, reading a vitals monitor and making notations on a clipboard.

  Fisher felt a pat on his shoulder. “You’re set,” the nurse said. “When the airlock door closes behind you, the next one will open. There’s a panic button on your wrist cuff.”

  Fisher looked down, saw the square, stamp-size red button beneath a hinged clear plastic cover.

  “If you run into trouble, just push it, and we’ll get to you within sixty seconds. Do you understand?”