Chapter 15
“We got the team out.”
Jack Burke nodded as he looked over the map sprawled across his desk and made a notation on it before he looked over to Evelyn.
“The Army Helos will finish a tour of Pakistan, a little international show of cooperation as they perform at some air shows and do maneuvers with the local forces,” Evelyn said, “As far as anyone is concerned, that’s all they’ve been doing over there.”
Jack smiled, “Can’t imagine how you pulled that off so fast, but it’s damned good work.”
“Getting them over the border into Afghanistan was trickier as far as I’m concerned, if they’d been spotted… well, my cover story wouldn’t have held for long.”
“A flight of Tomcats off the Saratoga got the Soviet air defenses buzzing along the southern border while our choppers ducked across the border on the North,” He told her.
“We extracted the team and their kill, and told them to keep it under cover and tell no one. I’m making arrangements to get it back stateside, but it’ll take a while because I don’t want to raise any flags. ”
Evelyn nodded in understanding, “What about Bastion?”
“Tracked him this time,” Jack snorted. “He broadcast from Pierson International. We alerted CSIS and they sent in the RCMP, but there was no sign of anyone out of place at all.”
“From an airport?” Evelyn frowned, “I can’t decide if that’s brilliant or reckless as hell.”
“Brilliant. The airport never even noticed a disruption in their systems, whatever he’s using is a very discrete transceiver.” Jack said, sighing, “He either works there or, more likely, had a secure exfiltration path.”
“Toronto was… almost within the detection range of his original pulse?”
Jack nodded, “True. He could be from the region, or just across the border. Hell, he could have flown in from anywhere in Canada or the US with no issues. All you need to hop across the Canadian border is your driver’s license, and no one looks all that hard.
At that level, we’re barely different countries. ”
Evelyn nodded, “Right. So for now, nothing.”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed, “We’ve got another data point, but not enough to pin him down. The team will be back here for debrief in a few days, hopefully we’ll know more then.”
*****
USS Saratoga, Arabian Sea
Rico Lopez looked out over the edge of the carrier, watching the sea churn in their wake as they steamed South through international waters.
A Navy flight would take them off the Saratoga in the morning, along with their cargo. He hadn’t been told what the trip would look like, or how long it would take, but he knew that the biggest part he had to play was over.
It left him with more questions than answers, though that was hardly a new thing for him in the Army to be sure.
Who the hell built that thing? The Russians couldn’t have done it, right?
He didn’t know and, now that he wasn’t in the moment and pumped full of fight or flight hormones, he was second guessing every thought he’d had in the moment.
Everyone knew that the Russians got up to some weird stuff, much like the CIA seemed to. He’d never seen anything that even hinted at something like the thing they’d killed, though. There was top secret, and then there was whatever the hell that thing was.
“Lopez.”
Rico looked over his shoulder, then turned sharply and saluted. “Captain.”
Pruso returned the salute casually, then flipped him something that Rico had to catch with a near fumble.
He stared down at the can of beer, confused for a moment.
“Stole it from officer’s country,” Pruso said, cracking one of his own as he stepped up and leaned on the security railing. “Figured you might need it.”
Rico snorted, “Don’t know if I need it, Sir, but I’ll take it.”
“Good man,” Pruso said as Rico cracked the can open.
They stood there, staring at the luminescent wake for a long time, taking occasional sips of their cold drinks.
Finally, Pruso sighed, “Look, I know you probably can’t say much, but I don’t suppose you can tell me anything about what the hell that was?”
Rico shook his head, “Not that I can’t… more that I can’t. As in I don’t know what the hell that was. Been trying to square that circle all day, Sir.”
Pruso groaned, “I was afraid you’d say something like that. In the middle of the fight… you got a call on the radio.”
It wasn’t a question, which was slightly surprising since Rico hadn’t known that the Captain was close enough to notice, but on the whole of it… not shocking.
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “Bastion. Bastard called me by name.”
“Didn’t do that last time?” Pruso asked.
“Nope. Last time was the epitome of ‘to whom it may concern’,” Rico said, frowning before he leaned closer and whispered, “Cap… he had eyes on us during the fight. Told me to roll left… if I hadn’t, I’da been fried crispy.”
“He was there?” Pruso stiffened.
“I don’t know. I looked for cameras afterwards, didn’t see any. No sign of aircraft… and satellites aren’t that good… right?” Rico asked, his tone uncertain.
“None that I’ve seen,” Pruso confirmed. “You should have said something, we could have searched…”
“Sir.”
Pruso grimaced, “Fine. We weren’t in any shape, I know. Still not your call, Sergeant.”
“I don’t think he was there, he had a camera on us. Just don’t know how or from where,” Rico said. “And we didn’t have time to do more than search the hut before the Helos arrived anyway.”
Pruso didn’t like it, but he nodded, “True enough. Not that there was anything to find in that pile of rocks. Still don’t know how that thing was even in the hut in the first place. Too damned many things make no sense.”
“You ain’t wrong there, Sir. No you surely aint,” Rico said, taking another long draw to finish the can before he crumpled it in his fist, then tossed it to the waves.
He watched the can vanish into the surf below, wondering what else was out there that made no sense.
Too damn much, I’m willing to bet. Too damned much.
*****
“Transmissions have returned to normal levels, all numbers stations are currently offline, Mein Herr.”
Sebastian nodded absently as he lay back in his little twin bed and thought about the events of the previous night.
I’ve changed so much already…
At least he thought he had. It was hard to tell, ripples becoming tsunamis was a hard thing to track, but he had to assume that the track of time was moving along a new path by this point.
I wonder if that means this isn’t my past? Maybe it’s just a past. Maybe it’s not even the past, just another branching timeline that was running a century or so behind my own.
This was the sort of reason why he despised time travel fiction, most of the time.
Too many uncertainties, too many bullshit possibilities.
It seems to be so powerful and so easy, but then you drown in the minutia…
assuming the universe didn’t decide to self correct and John Wick you in a dark bar with a number 2 pencil.
It didn’t matter now, though, he could only move forward as best he could.
Decision by decision, make them one at a time, and hope I don’t corral myself in a dead end alley.
“Seb! Breakfast is ready, hurry up, the bus will be here soon!”
“Coming, Mom!”
Everything about time travel is messing with my head. Everything.
*****
“Madam Senator, Welcome.”
“Thank you, Gil,” The slightly awkward woman smiled thinly, an expression that did not reach her eyes. “I’ll be in a meeting for the afternoon, please hold my calls.”
“Of course, Ma’am.”
She walked past, ignoring the man from that point forward, and into the well appointed office suite. The door closed behind her, locking automatically as she slumped and showed an irritated expression.
“Damn this form.” She grumbled, rubbing the back of her neck. “Everything hurts all the damn time.”
“I checked on that, actually,” a slightly amused voice said from across the way. “Apparently it’s normal. For them, I mean. It’s just how their bodies work.”
“Unreal,” She mumbled. “I think I’d just refuse to move.”
“It gets worse if you stay still,” The male voice said as he walked out of the adjoining office, his tall form wearing an Army General’s uniform. “Welcome back, Madam Senator.”
“Oh save that for dealing with the simpletons of this planet,” She said. “I understand we have movement on the Bastion problem?”
“Some, yes, but not in the right direction.” The General said with an annoyed tone.
“One of the colonels in SOCOM took it upon himself to run a mission against one of our stations, but he disguised it well enough that we didn’t see it in time.
The team took out a transfer station, including destroying one of our new armored drones in the process. They have the remains, I’m afraid.”
The Senator glared, “Ensure they don’t keep them.”
“Of course, we’re discussing options now, but the current issue is that we don’t quite know where it is.
We only know they have it due to the last transmissions from the station,” The General said tiredly.
“There are no less than twenty eight possible returning flights they could be on, and hitting that many would be almost as damaging as letting them examine the remains. We’re eliminating them as fast as we can, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to finish in time. ”
She nodded, “I understand. I’ll have orders cut to claim the remains at the highest level. If they get inside the states, we’ll ghost them out of wherever they’re being held and let the local intelligence and military groups blame each other for taking them.”
The General nodded, “Excellent, should we use military or civilian orders?”
She paused, considering that.
“Civilian, I think. A countersign by the President won’t be difficult to acquire, not with his degrading mental state.” She said thoughtfully, “His handlers will fall over themselves to cover it up in order to hide his illness.”
“Very well.”
“Now, what about this Bastion?” She asked, lips tightening as she said the name.
“Tracked his transmission point, just over the border in Canada, the signal came from Pierson International Airport.” The General said firmly.
“By the time our people arrived, there was no sign of anyone that could have fit the description. Likely he used the terminal as a transmission point, then escaped either into the city or flew out on any of over two dozen local and international flights that left in the time frame.”
She nodded slowly, “Are we checking the flights?”
“Yes Ma’am. Every flight will be scrutinized, each passenger will be followed until we can discount them.” The General said firmly. “Unfortunately, we don’t think it’ll turn up much.”
“And why not?”
“This is a trained operative,” The General said with a simple shrug, “If he’s carrying his equipment… we’ll catch him. But he won’t be. Chances are good that his equipment is already in a landfill outside Toronto.”
“Of course.”
The Senator sighed, rubbing her face idly… a habit that she’d picked up without realizing it. Damn this body.
“Very well, did we get any further intelligence that can be used to track him down outside that?”
“Possibly. His voice is definitely computer generated,” The General confirmed. “But we got more of it this time, and it wasn’t isolated in a single pulse. He conversed with one of the field men. It seems that he may have an organization with considerable assets behind him.”
“Oh? How do we know that?”
“It seems that he had the station under surveillance. The transmission indicated that he could see the soldiers in real time,” The General said. “As you know, that sort of international level of surveillance takes a fair amount of effort and resources.”
“So, we’re dealing with an Intelligence group. One we’ve never detected previously,” The Senator mused idly. “Unusual, but not unheard of. We’ll need to put more assets into locating them, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Find them, infiltrate them, and get them working for us,” She said with a wry smirk. “Make it happen, General.”
“As you say, Senator.”
*****