Allegiance Burned: A Jackson Quick Adventure

  ALLEGIANCE BURNED

  A JACKSON QUICK ADVENTURE

  By Tom Abrahams

  A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

  ISBN: 978-1-61868-888-0

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-889-7

  ALLEGIANCE BURNED

  A Jackson Quick Adventure Book Two

  © 2015 by Tom Abrahams

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Design by Ryan Truso

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Post Hill Press

  275 Madison Avenue, 14th Floor

  New York, NY 10016

  http://posthillpress.com

  For my nuclear family; Courtney, Samantha, and Luke

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE: NUCLEUS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  PART TWO: REACTION

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  PART THREE: FISSION

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  “The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.”

  --Freidrich Nietzsche

  Dr. Paul Wolf never felt the bullet, but he saw it coming.

  The matte black steel barrel of a semi-automatic Fort-12 was pushed so close to his right eye his retina registered the explosion inside the chamber, and the optic nerve sent a final message to his brain.

  Wolf’s body slumped to the floor of his laboratory nearly five thousand feet below the Cherozem soil of South Dakota. A dark red puddle spread from his brutalized head, staining his lab coat a violent shade of pink.

  Wolf’s assassin fired a second bullet into his body, thumbed the safety on the left side of the Ukrainian-made weapon, and surveyed the subterranean lab. It was a small space with white floors and walls. The bright Hydragarum medium-arc iodide overhead lighting was intended to mimic the blue undertone of daylight and help the room’s visitors forget they were merely four hundred feet shy of being a mile underground.

  He was surprised at how easy it was to access the lightly guarded complex, given the importance of the work there. The Sanford Underground Research Facility was, from the surface, a modest red brick building adjacent to a five-story white silo. At the top of the silo in green lettering was the facility’s original name, Homestake.

  A seven dollar surface tour earlier in the week, courtesy of the Homestake Visitor Center, provided the killer virtually everything needed to carry out the mission. The tour guide had taken the group into the main building and shown them the Yates Shaft hoist room. The guide mentioned all sorts of interesting experiments studied deep underground. He did not mention Dr. Wolf or his lab, but the assassin knew where to find both.

  Two days of surveillance from a gray Ford F-150, the most common car in the state, revealed what the cheap tour did not; the security rotation and the fastest routes from the complex onto highway 85. It also led to the Iron Horse Inn in nearby Deadwood, a favorite hangout for some of the technicians at Homestake. For the cost of six whiskey sours, ten plays on a dollar slot, and a room for the night, he nabbed an entry passcode, a couple hours of companionship with a horny technician, and a wicked hangover.

  On the night of the mission, he parked the F-150 in a space farthest from the building. With one bullet from the Fort-12 and the passcode, access to the A-framed building housing the Yates Shaft was almost effortless.

  Inside the building he moved silently to the cage-like elevator that would descend forty-eight hundred feet straight down. The fourteen thousand pound cage was nine feet tall and could carry ten thousand pounds. The assassin engaged the motor to lower the cage, and the wire ropes groaned into action.

  As the cage hummed its way deeper into the Earth, the air cooled and dampened. The dim light inside the cage did little to ease the assassin’s usually unshakable nerves. When the ride ended and the cage rattled against the floor, he inhaled deeply, sucking in the humidity, and stepped into the narrow hallway.

  To the left was a corridor that split into a Y, leading to a lab module conducting research on dark matter. Beyond that was what they called the FAARM and a temporary clean room.

  He turned right.

  The hallway forked almost immediately, but he knew it was a large loop and either path would work. Walking to the left, he checked the Fort-12, made sure the chamber was loaded, and approached the Majorana Demonstrator. An exhaustive intelligence file told him the M.D. was where researchers were working with pure copper for their experiments. A few steps beyond it was a large, suspended water tank. The researchers called this the “can”, part of a highly sophisticated instrument unlike any other in the world. Beyond the cylindrical tank, against a white wall framing the support poles, was a narrow ladder. The assassin moved with purpose to the ladder and felt around the back of the fifth rung, finding an almost imperceptible lever.

  The lever pulled to the left, and part of the wall behind the ladder hissed open. The doorway was only eighteen inches wide and five feet in height. He slipped through the opening and into Dr. Wolf’s hidden lab.

  “Hello.”

  The scientist, sitting at a table at the far end of the lab, spun to see his executioner aiming a gun at his head. “Wait!” Wolf protested, waving his hands and raising them over his head. “Who are you?”

  Without turning from the prey, he pressed the pneumatic lever next to the doorway and waited for it to close before moving closer to Wolf. The scientist was alone.

  “Who are you?” Wolf asked again, his eyes darting around the lab looking for an answer or for help. He found neither as the intruder put the gun to his right temple.

  “Shhhh,” the assassin put a finger to Wolf’s lips. “No talking.”

  Wolf tried to grasp his reality. In front of him, a sleek figure in black held a deadly weapon to his head. Face obscured by what looked like a ninja mask, the scientist could see only a tubal device above the man’s right ear and black eyes which told Wolf he would not leave his lab alive. He would die a mile beneath the Earth, buried without ceremony.

  “Tell me,” the man whispered, “where is it?”

  Wolf, obeying the earlier command, said nothing.

  “You may speak,” he pushed the barrel against the side of Wolf’s head.

  “Where is what?” The scientist shook his head. Tears welled in his eyes.

  “You know why I’m here,” the assassin said. “You knew I’d be coming.”

  “It’s not here,” Wolf admitted. “I don’t have it.”

  The quick admission surprised the intruder. Maybe this would be easy. “Where did you hide it then?”

  Wolf said nothing.

  “Where?” A jab with the barrel. “You’ve got five seconds.” Maybe not so easy.

  “I don’t, I don’t...” Wolf stammered.

  “Five.”

  “Please!”

  “Four.”

&
nbsp; “I really can’t—”

  “Three.”

  “Okay, okay—”

  “Two.”

  “It’s not in one place!” The scientist closed his eyes and pressed tears down his cheeks.

  “What does that mean?” The assassin dragged the Ukrainian barrel across the scientist’s face and planted it against his eye.

  “It’s in several places,” said the scientist, his hands shaking from fear. “I separated it.”

  “Where?”

  “I...I can’t—”

  “One.”

  “Please! Don’t!!” Dr. Wolf opened his eyes in a last desperate, futile plea for mercy.

  The gunman pulled the trigger and, with a pop that echoed against the solid walls of the lab, it was over.

  Maybe, with more time, Wolf would have coughed up the needed information, but there wasn’t time. The mission guidelines were clear: find Wolf, get him to talk quickly, and kill him within thirty seconds if he hesitated. It would send a message to the others. They didn’t need Wolf. A confession from the good researcher was a bonus, but unnecessary. They already had leads. They knew where Wolf had traveled and who he’d visited.

  After the second shot, the assassin found the hard drive that was the real target of the mission. It was in a drawer to the left of the scientist’s body. It was white, like everything in this ridiculous tomb. He checked the serial number on the back of the drive and matched it to the number committed to memory before removing a head mounted 1080p digital camera and inserting it into the USB slot of the dead scientist’s desktop computer. The five hundred gigabyte memory within the camera recorded the entire mission from the killer’s perspective. Whoever found the body would find the video, and that video would find its way to the people who most needed to see it. Unless, of course, the video upload led to the discovery of the murder.

  How much fun would that be? he thought, checking the lab one more time before slipping out of the exit and sliding it closed with the pull of the hidden lever.

  Sixteen minutes later, he was just another late night traveler on highway 85, headed west toward Wyoming.

  PART ONE: NUCLEUS

  “The fear of death follows from the fear of life.

  A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

  --Mark Twain

  CHAPTER 1

  The silent alarm flashes and vibrates against the hardwood floors next to my mattress. There’s somebody in my apartment. It’s 4:36 AM.

  The adrenaline shocks me instantly awake and focuses my attention. From under my worn feather pillow, I wrap my hand around the synthetic grip of a Smith & Wesson Governor revolver. It’s loaded with shot shell and is excellent from close range.

  As I’ve practiced countless times before, I quietly roll off the mattress onto the floor and then slide away from the locked bedroom door. Underneath the door, in the narrow gap above the floor, is the erratic beam of a flashlight. There’s no sound. I push myself to a squatting position.

  Resting on the balls of my feet, I press my back against the wall. To my right is the bathroom, a shelving unit is on my left. With my left hand, I reach onto the second of three shelves and grab a familiar four-inch canister and place it on my lap. Still holding the pistol at the bedroom door, I reach back to the shelf and pull down a TM-X thermal camera.

  My bedroom is dark, barely any light from the single window peeks through the cheap metal blinds pulled down for privacy. For a moment, I close my eyes and hold my breath, listening for the intruder or intruders who are here to kill me.

  Nothing.

  Crouched like a baseball catcher, I inch my way to the bathroom door and position myself two feet past the opening into a shadow. I lean forward onto my knees and lay the gun on the cold tile next to a pedestal porcelain sink.

  Grabbing the canister, I pull the large ring from its top and roll it toward the bedroom door. Smoke pours from the top of the paintball tactical smoke grenade, filling the bedroom as the door blasts inward, followed by the repetitive thump of at least two silenced semi-automatic weapons.

  From my position in the bathroom, the attackers can’t see me. They’re maybe ten or twelve feet from me when I pull the thermal camera to my left eye and secure it with a homemade head strap.

  The room fills with shades of green and in front of me, next to the mattress on the floor, stand two neon green images. At their armpits, heads, and rifles, the green transitions into a yellow and pink heat signature. Both look like large men. I level the pistol at the pink image to the right and pull the trigger. A spray of pink shot shell hits the target and he stumbles back. I fire again and shift my weight to my left. The second man is confused, peppering the room with bullets, unable to see the direction of my fire. Another two quick pulls of my trigger and he’s on the floor with his partner.

  The smoke starts to dissipate and I have two shot shell bullets left. Deliberately, and with the help of the camera, I quickly eliminate the distance between me and the two men. Standing over them, I pull the trigger twice more, emptying the Smith & Wesson and ending their assault.

  The acrid smell of the grenades fills my nostrils, I taste fireworks before the haze begins to lift.

  It’s 4:38 AM.

  The sound of gunfire likely has police on their way. I walk to the bedroom closet opposite the shredded mattress on the floor and flip on the light. Sticking to the plan, I get dressed in a dark, long-sleeved cotton T-shirt and some black Nike sweatpants. From the top shelf, I pull down some slip-on Merrells.

  It’s 4:40 AM.

  In the corner of the closet, behind some hanging dress shirts, there’s a black rucksack already packed. I unclip the top and pull open the drawstring closure to check the contents.

  There’s another smoke grenade can, a Gerber Bear Grylls survival kit, a bottle of water purification tablets, an Intratec 9MM Luger, two box magazines holding 50 rounds each, a box of shot shell for the Smith & Wesson, an extra pair of Merrells, a Garmin eTrex handheld GPS, a blue metal box with a combination lock, three rolls of duct tape, and a pair of photochromic Ray-Ban sunglasses.

  In a side pouch there’s a large plastic bag containing forty-thousand dollars, two fake driver’s licenses, matching passports, and the key to a safe deposit box. Another pouch contains a Spyderco four-inch military jackknife, car keys, an extra shirt, black military surplus cargo pants, some socks, and a couple of pairs of underwear. The TM-X thermal camera, with its head strap, fits into a third pouch next to four smart phones.

  It was only a matter of time before my planning paid off.

  Still, it’s surprising how fast they found me. I’d paid six months’ worth of rent in cash to sublet this crappy one-bedroom. Nobody knew I was here. Or so I thought.

  There they were, though, on my floor; paid killers sent to end my life because of what I knew, what I’d done. Both men looked like the others who’d chased me: short cropped hair, thick necks, and rounded shoulders. They were anonymous contract workers assigned to terminate someone they didn’t know. I was a target.

  I am a target.

  It’s 4:42 AM.

  There are sirens wailing in the distance. I slug the rucksack on my back, pull a polyester Under Armor beanie onto my head, tuck the Governor into my waistband, and walk out into the night. Six minutes ago I was asleep and dreaming.

  ***

  I leave my apartment building through a rear entrance, expecting more resistance on the way out. There’s none and I shrug the rucksack into a more comfortable position on my back as I make my way through the quiet, if low rent, neighborhood in Alamo Heights. The streetlights flicker from neglect as I pass Deerwood Drive. It’s a couple of hours from sunrise, so most of San Antonio is asleep. Still, it’s surprising there’s nobody following me.

  A woman with earbuds and a leashed black Labrador named Henry jogs past without noticing me as I turn right on Eisenhauer. She’s two minutes behind her normal schedule.

  The number fourteen bus that services Alamo Hei
ghts should be at the Eisenhauer/Austin Highway stop at 4:43AM. It’s the third stop on the route and if it’s on time, which it usually is, I’ll be long clear of the dead bodies in my bedroom before anyone finds them.

  For four months, I’ve gotten to know this part of the city as well as possible— the streets, the bus schedule, the traffic patterns— anything that’ll help me escape easily and without detection. I’ve carefully blended into the fabric of the community, familiarizing myself with people and places without ever revealing anything real about myself. It hasn’t been easy.

  My face was plastered all over the news for weeks after I was involved in a televised shootout. Then the whole thing with my boss made it hard to slip out of the spotlight. However, time has helped. With every passing day and week it seems like my anonymity is slowing returning. That is, except for the douchebags who keep hunting me and trying to kill me.

  A green Honda Accord turns left off of Eisenhauer into the parking lot shared by an Express Lube, an Asian Buffet restaurant, and a Goodwill store. Curt Eugene is on time for work, parking the Honda ten minutes before he raises the garage bay at the lube shop.

  Millie Fong’s battered Jeep Cherokee is already parked at the side entrance to her restaurant. She’s up to her wrinkled elbows in crab Rangoon.

  The bus is on time, squealing its way to a stop. I climb on, notice a woman sitting in the seat nearest the door, and take a seat on the third row behind the driver. It’s a new driver, a guy I don’t recognize. He nods and pulls shut the door lever before easing into the sparse pre-dawn traffic. I’ve got twenty-four minutes until I’ll transfer to the forty-four bus at Flores and Houston.

  The attackers worked for F. Pickle Security Consultants. I’m pretty sure of that. They had that look about them, ex-intelligence dudes. They were sent by my former boss, the Governor of Texas, and his friends.