A New World: Conspiracy (16 page)

“The weapon was silenced. Again, it’s not
your fault. Take him down,” I say, dropping the man’s head back to
his chest.

Returning to the group, I sense a certain
confused tension. As if it weren’t there already.

“Jack, Drescoll’s team says they haven’t
seen him since—” Lynn starts.

“Let me guess…since this afternoon,” I
interrupt.

“Yes, one of his team remembers seeing him
leave in a Humvee, saying he had to run deliver a quick message to
one of the crews, and that he’d be back soon. They haven’t seen him
since and assumed he was with one of us. Wait, how did you know?”
Lynn asks.

“Our only tie to who sent the team against
us is gone,” I state.

“What do you mean, gone?”

“Dead. Assassinated,” I reply.

“Ohhhh…shit,” Lynn says, the light
dawning.

The others stare with mouths open, some eyes
going to Drescoll’s empty chair. The look on their faces indicates
they have put the pieces of what happened together as well.

“I should have seen that coming,” Lynn says.
“Damn!”

“What do you mean, you should have seen this
coming?” I ask.

“Allie’s death hit him pretty hard. Harder
than I imagined,” she says and details the conversation she had
with Drescoll.

“I can’t say I blame him, but he sure hasn’t
made this any easier for us. Lynn, have the teams conduct a quick
but quiet search for him. Let’s make sure he isn’t still in the
building,” I say, rising.

“And where are you going?” Lynn asks.

“To look for him if he isn’t here,” I
state.

“Jack, as much as I want to as well, you
can’t do that,” Lynn says.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s dark out. Even if you did make
it to the ramp, you’d never make it inside the aircraft quickly
enough. The noise of your arrival will draw every night runner
around. You heard Frank and sensed them yourself, they’re up there
in numbers now.”

“I’m afraid she’s right,” Frank
comments.

I stand uncertain. Even though Drescoll
killed the prisoner exacting revenge for McCafferty, he
was…
is
still one of us. And he may be out in the night
alone. However, if I go, that would entail putting others at
risk.

Lynn places her hand on my arm, “Jack, he’s
my friend, too. I want nothing more than to go out and find him,
but, we can’t. He made his choice. We’ll search for him at first
light.”

There is a pause as I still stand there,
plan after plan running through my mind about how to conduct the
search at night.

“Jack, I know what you’re thinking and we
can’t take the Strykers either. They might be able to hold out
against some of the middling packs, but there is still that group
of ten thousand or more out there. There’s no way much of anything
can stand against something like that. You know the night runners
are cunning and would find a way in,” Lynn adds.

I stand a moment longer and then let out a
heavy sigh. “You’re right. Conduct a quiet search for him and
organize search parties to head out at first light. Then let’s meet
back here. There’s still a lot to cover.”

Upon returning, a dejected sounding Lynn
says, “He’s not here.”

“I didn’t think he would be,” I say.

The news casts a pall over the group. Most
of us can’t believe he did what he has – executed the prisoner and
then fled into the night. I totally understand why he did it, but
to flee? PTSD does funny things to the mind. It makes the most
ridiculous decisions seem like sane ones. In each, it can do
different things – depression, anger, emotional turmoil, rob one’s
spirit to live. It’s been manifesting itself in all of us since the
beginning. We can’t keep up the way we have, with stress each and
every day, without signs of breaking. It can take the strongest or
weakest. The bottom line is that it will affect each and every one
us at some point to some degree. It’s one of the reasons to
institute the one day that we take for ourselves, to gather and
just socialize, to stave off the ramifications of the stress for as
long as we can.

I know most of us aren’t really interested
in continuing the meeting with what’s happened, but if we end with
this, it will not only carry into tomorrow, but it will have rooted
itself more deeply. That will happen anyway; right now we have to
focus on the job of living. We’ve had a few setbacks, yet we still
need to deal with the cards set before us.

“Okay, folks. I know it’s difficult, but
let’s get through this. We have information on the one facility. If
the others are operational, then we’re sunk. However, if we’re only
dealing with this one, then the way I see it, we are evenly
balanced and they know it or they would have attacked already. They
have the numbers and a more secure location, but we have the
Spooky. If they come out in the open, we can tear them apart,
providing they don’t have anti-air capabilities,” I say.

“I didn’t see anything like that mentioned
in the arsenal for the site,” Harold chimes in.

“Share all of the information with Frank.
Look through it with a fine-toothed comb. We need every scrap of
info we can get,” I state. Frank and Harold nod their replies.
“They could have shoulder-fired weaponry, but we can counter that.
Anyway, we can’t go in and get them, at least in force.”

“Unless we draw them out,” Robert
states.

“Yes, unless we can somehow draw them out
into the open. Until then, we’re at a stalemate until our fuel
situation runs out. When that happens, the balance will shift
dramatically, and not to our benefit. So, we have to do something
before that happens. And there’s the weather to think of,” I say.
“For the moment, we need to consolidate like we have been and get
the Spooky in close to protect it, and be able to use it in a
moment’s notice.”

“As likely as it is that the attack and this
facility are connected, we still don’t know that for a fact. We
lost the only thing we had that would do that for us,” Frank
offers.

“That, unfortunately, is true,” I agree. A
faint light glimmers in my mind. “Frank, do we still have the
tablet we took off the shooter?”

“Yes. I didn’t see anything much other than
satellite imagery of the compound and surrounding area. Oh, and
close-ups of each of us. Do you want me to fetch it?” Franks
asks.

“Yes, please.”

Frank brings the tablet and fires it up. As
he mentioned, there is current satellite imagery or our compound.
That in itself doesn’t prove anything other than the fact that this
other group reportedly has control of satellites; that the imagery
is recent only provides a weak tie between the attack and the
facility. Something catches my eye on one of the satellite images.
It’s an overlay of our compound, and in the lower right corner, the
annotation ‘A-US-1’. It’s the same annotation format as the one in
the facility document listing it as A-CC-1. Another potential link.
I show it to Frank and the others.

Frank studies it and some of the other
images. “I think we have to go with the fact that this facility
ordered the attack. All indications point to it,” he says after a
moment.

“I agree. So, what do we do with it?” Lynn
asks.

“It doesn’t seem like there’s much we can
do,” Bannerman says.

“Well, we can’t very well just lie here
waiting for another strike,” Roberts adds.

“And we can’t penetrate the bunker with our
forces. We’d be outnumbered and outgunned,” Lynn states.

“Can’t we draw them out?” Bri asks.

“Yes, but it would have to be in way that
they couldn’t immediately head back inside the bunker,” Robert
states.

“We need to do a flyby to get a better
picture of what we’re up against,” Franks suggests.

“I agree completely,” I say. “We need more
information before we can come up with a plan.”

“A flyby will alert them that we’re onto
them. That’s the only advantage we have at the moment,” Frank
comments.

“We can hide it as being like any of our
other flights. We weren’t bothered on those. If we pick a nearby
base, fly there planning our route so we can conduct an overflight,
then it will just look like something we’ve done in the past. They
might think we are on a normal flight like we’ve done more than a
few times,” Robert says.

“I think that’s as good a plan as any other.
However, they’ll know by now that we took one of theirs prisoner.
They’d be fools if they didn’t have a satellite trained on the op,
and I seriously doubt they are fools. Especially given that they
may have a trained Israeli agent in charge. No, they’ll have to go
on the assumption that we know about them already. But, I still
agree with your plan. I don’t see that we have any other choice,” I
reply.

“I’m guessing they reached the same
conclusion about us being at a stalemate and made a pre-emptive
strike to take out our leadership. The only thing that doesn’t make
sense is why they didn’t try to take all of us out,” Frank
says.

“I don’t know either. If they are striking
at us, we need to counter that somehow. I don’t think this was a
one-and-done attempt. But to do that, we need more information. So,
I suggest we head out at first light to search for Drescoll. Then
we can make a flight plan to locate Captain Leonard and relay this
information to him, jump over to find Greg and pick him up, then
stage a fake rescue effort and overfly the facility. Frank, we also
need a better picture of what is going on up north with regards to
the night runners. If we have more cameras, set them up around the
base and outlying area. We’ll take the Spooky up tomorrow night and
take a look as well. Bannerman, when will the runway be
completed?”

“It should be finished sometime tomorrow,
I’m guessing toward late afternoon.”

“Okay, we’ll bring the Spooky down the
morning after and then depart in the other 130,” I say.

“How many teams are you taking with you?”
Lynn asks.

“I was thinking I’d only bring Red Team.
We’re only doing two flybys and picking Greg up. I don’t want to
leave us too thin here,” I answer.

“You’ll be landing for a day at an outbase,”
Lynn says.

“True, but if there’s any trouble, we’ll
just leave. It’s not like we’re there actually looking for
something.”

A soldier approaches and whispers in Lynn’s
ear. I watch and see her shoulders sag with whatever is said. The
soldier departs.

“I have more bad news,” Lynn says after a
moment. “Allie’s dad was just found dead by his own hand.”

The news cuts through us almost as much as
Drescoll’s disappearance.

“Could this week get any worse,” Bannerman
mutters, hanging his head.

The next morning, all but two of the teams
are sent out at first light to search for Drescoll. Craig and Roger
each take a light aircraft out to assist. They are to look for the
Humvee or sets of tracks in the otherwise undisturbed dust covering
the roadways. I take Red Team with Lynn in the Spooky to utilize
its equipment. Frank coordinates the search from base so we can
cover the area effectively.

In addition, the teams broadcast both over
the radio and loudspeaker, letting Drescoll know that all is okay.
That’s in case he thinks he is in trouble and is staying away.
We’ll definitely be having some words if he returns, but the
important thing now is to get him back. He’s had more than a few
hours head start on us, and the area we have to cover is vast.

At the end of the day, after covering
thousands of square miles by air and ground, we are no closer to
knowing where Drescoll is than when we started. If we haven’t found
him with such an extensive search, we aren’t going to by prolonging
it. It’s with heavy hearts that we work our way back to the
compound. I cast a thought out, wishing him well and hoping he will
return. I will miss him.

The runway is completed at the compound so I
land the Spooky there. I plan to take it up just before dark to try
and get a better picture of how much the night runners have
infiltrated the area north of us. I don’t know what caused them to
vanish from there a short while ago, although I have a pretty good
idea, but it’s apparent that there is a vacuum that is being
filled. If night runners are venturing out of Seattle as Frank
suggested, it doesn’t bode very well for us, and we need to get a
fix on how many there may be.

Lynn is quiet as we enter Cabela’s and, like
the rest of us, subdued.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask as we
gather around the table to plan for the night and for the route to
take come morning.

“No, not really. I just should have seen it
coming. I’ve known him for some time, and I keep thinking there was
something I missed. This is so unlike him.”

“Stress can do some fucked up things to the
mind. I’m guessing he knew what he was going to do before he talked
with you,” I say.

“Probably but…shit. I guess I’ll have to
find someone to lead his team. How about Gonzalez?” Lynn asks,
turning to look at me.

“She’d make a great team leader, but with
the loss to Red Team already, I need her there,” I answer.

“Okay, I’ll find someone else. I think
Taylor is ready. I don’t want to think of that now. Let’s get
tonight planned.”

Frank joins us to point out where he has
placed the cameras and found the greatest increases in the night
runner presence. We map out a search pattern and get to the
business of planning our flight route to find Leonard, pick up
Greg, and conduct our overflight.

With the sun sinking low against the western
hills, its glow flashing through a break in the clouds overhead
illuminating the underside of the overcast in oranges and reds and
silhouetting the mountains, we send a cloud of dust to the rear as
we apply full throttles. The Spooky lurches forward as if eager to
escape the earth and find the peace of its home in the sky. This
has been an emotional week, and it will be nice to lock the wheels
up and find the solace of flight.