Dark Dragons (45 page)

Towsley nodded.  “There’s only one guard at the
security monitor just off the main corridor on the Level 3 office wing. 
Knocking him out would give us ten minutes or so of free reign about the
place.”  He looked at his watch.  “There’s a shift change in eight
minutes, major.  You’re on it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Doc, I want you to grab Geils Woodbury out of CU One after
Weinholt signals that the coast is clear.”

“No way!” Darren said. “He’s not coming with us.”

“He’s not staying here.  Drop his ass off next to a
highway somewhere.  I don’t care, but he’s used up his vacancy. 
Everyone has.”

Weinholt cleared her throat.  “Um . . . Dr. Ngatia . .
. I’ll need a Sevoflurane canister from your pharmacy.”

Darren could tell by her sudden fidgetiness that she wasn’t
exactly thrilled with her forthcoming role in this harebrained plot coming
together at the last minute.  The chomping speed on her gum had begun to
redline.

Towsley sensed her anxiousness as well.  “Cancel that
major . . . I’ll take care of the guard, and you escort the boys to the
hangar.”

“I can do this, sir.”

“Negative.  Do not leave this room until I give you a
single chirp on Channel Four to tell you the coast is clear.  You know
that little side corridor left of the elevator on Level Two?”

“Yeah, the power plant hall.”

Towsley nodded.  “Take them to Generator Room
One.  There’s a door behind the reactor that opens to the hangar just
below one of the gantry crane legs.”  He turned to Darren.  “The
electronics lab is left of that door, but there’ll be at least four or five
guards strolling around the hangar.  Do not go for the lab until the
lights in the hangar go down, which I’ll take care of.  After the lights
go out, you’ll only have about fifteen to twenty seconds to reach the lab
before someone in Circuits sees they’re out for no apparent reason and
overrides my shutdown.”

Darren shook his head.  “Why don’t you just order a
couple of your guards to escort us down to the electronics lab with some
bullshit story so we don’t have to do all this sneaking around?”

“Only General Taggart can give the Response Team an
order.  They’re basically his personal Praetorian guards anyway, and Papa
Bear thinks you’re still asleep.  No go on that.”

Towsley gave the guys a last individual look——similar to one
a platoon sergeant would afford his troops before shouting “Fix bayonets!” and
charging across an open field rippling with enemy crossfire.  The color
from Towsley’s face had disappeared.  A bead of sweat ran out of his
salt-and-pepper hair.  “Gentlemen, the enemy has put a serious ass
whooping on us from which I don’t know if we’ll ever recover.  It’s
probably too late to do anything anyway, and all I’m doing is just sending you
to your deaths.  But . . . our right to exist unmolested and our nation’s
shattered might demands retribution.”

“Thanks, colonel, you’ve inspired us,” Darren said.

Towsley studied his face for a moment before he winked and
tussled Darren’s hair.  “‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once
more.’”  He turned and headed for the elevator.

Darren gave themselves three-to-one odds.

*

A U.S. Secret Service agent stood blocking the way into
Level 3 when the elevator doors slid open. 
Shit.
  The president’s
conference.  “Hello.”

The agent gave Towsley’s ID card a quick glance and stepped
aside.  The entire office wing seemed to be packed with Secret Service
agents.  Several officers and civilian national security members stood
outside the conference room next to Taggart’s office.  The mood here was
as cheerful as a funeral wake.  He spotted the president and recognized
some of the faces circled around him, before he turned and headed in the
opposite direction toward the security monitor room.

A voice from a side office called out, “Marty?”

Towsley nearly tripped over his feet when the man burst out
to shake his hand.

“Jesus, Martin, how’s it going?  You’re a colonel now?”

“Hey, Paul,” Towsley said.  “How are you?”

Senator Paul Saunders, Ranking Member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee replied, “As well as I could hope for.  I didn’t know
you worked here?  This place is unreal.”

“Really?”

“It’s been . . . what?  Eight, nine years since we last
met in Washington?”

“Sounds about right.”

“Yeah, we had beers at the Hawk ’n’ Dove, remember? 
You look like you’re in a hurry.”

“Actually I am.  Got a little business to attend to
down here.”

“I’ll tag along.”

Towsley continued toward the security monitor room, his
heart now doing the Jitterbug in his throat.  The canister of Sevoflurane
in his camo jacket’s bottom pocket felt a little heavier.

“Guess who I talked to on Monday?” Saunders asked. 
“Frank Adams.  Yeah, he’s working for a security firm in Bethesda. 
We talked about the old days in the Thirty-Fifth, Desert Storm, and all that
old school stuff.  Hell, we must have talked for three hours.”

“Is that right?”

“I still got that picture of us and the wives half naked in
Antigua?  Remember that?”

Towsley did recall that.  His first foray into marital
infidelity began that night on the beach with Jack Mitchell’s wife.  The
good Senator Paul Saunders knew that, too.  “Yeah, I remember.”

Towsley rounded the corner into the short hallway leading to
the security monitor room.  For the first time as far back as Towsley
could remember, the guard now sitting at the console was not alone.  A
Secret Service agent stood quietly behind the guard with his hands locked
behind his back, both of them staring stoically at the dozens of tiny camera
monitors.  How quickly a plan could unravel the moment it was carried
out.  The sweat under Towsley’s t-shirt grew thicker.  The agent
turned to give the colonel’s ID badge a cursory glance before returning his
attention back to the HD screens.  There was hardly enough room for four
people in the room.

“You don’t look good, pal,” Saunders said.

“I haven’t been feeling well lately.  Sinuses.” 
Towsley could see the guard had the image of the corridor outside the infirmary
on one of his biggest screens.

“Can I help you, Colonel Towsley?” the Response Team man
asked.

Think fast.  “Toggle the camera in Caliban’s cell,
sergeant.”

The man flipped a switch and the image from a corner camera
appeared on the big screen.  Caliban was sitting on the floor drawing with
his pastels.  The alien had several pictures spread across the
floor.  His hands were quick, insect-like.

“That is the creepiest goddamn thing. . . .” Saunders said,
trailing off.

“Keep an eye on him and let me know if he does anything
irregular.”

“He’s always doing something irregular,” the sergeant
replied.

“Well, more than what’s typical.”

“Yes, sir.”

Towsley stepped out and headed for his office just around
the corner.  “Can you give me a moment, Paul?  I’ll catch up with
you.”

“Sure, Marty.”

Towsley closed his office door behind him and sat down on
the couch.  Now what?  He didn’t have enough gas to knock out the
entire floor.  He paced around his office for a couple of minutes, drank a
glass of water from the bathroom, and guessed Senator Saunders had to have left
the monitor room by now.  He stepped out of his office.  The Secret
Service agent was talking to another agent in the main corridor, and Saunders
stood at the candy machine stuffing in quarters. 
Thank you
.

The security guard in the monitor room was finally alone.

Towsley rounded the corner.

Check that.

“Wow, they do look like dragons,” the president of the
United States said.  “Can you zoom in, sergeant?”

“Yes, sir.”

Towsley couldn’t wait.  He had to do both of
them.  He closed his eyes, his head still swimming from the scotch. 
Ten-by-eight
cell.  Small toilet next to a flimsy mattress with springs poking
out.  Meals served through a slot in the door.  Twenty-three hour
lock down with one hour spent stretching in the yard.  For the rest of
Towsley’s miserable bastard, rotten ass life.

“Colonel Towsley, how are you?” the president said with a
low, somber tone.

“Hello, Mr. President.” Towsley saluted his
Commander-in-Chief and he received one in return.

The president turned back to the security monitors, and
Towsley’s right hand disappeared into the bottom right pocket of his camo
jacket.  His fingers wrapped around the cold can of knock out, one of them
finding the spray trigger.

He savored a fleeting memory of him and a 9 year-old Sarah
jumping up and down on a trampoline in the backyard, that girl now a married
twenty-six year-old woman with a son living in Atlanta.  A woman he would
certainly never see or hear from again.  Not after this.

Towsley pulled the Sevoflurane out of his pocket, turned
ever so slightly toward the president, his heart nearly out of his throat.

“Mr. President, General Taggart would like a word.”

Towsley pressed the cannister tight to his leg, afraid to
jam it into his pants pocket and cause unnecessary movement, the steely eyed
agent right behind them.

As soon as the president left the monitor room, Towsley
swung the door shut with his left boot, wrapped his arm around the guard’s head
and sprayed a short burst of knock-out into his face.  The man’s right
hand went for the service pistol on his hip but never made it.  He let out
a wheeze . . . a gurgle . . . and went spaghetti noodle all over.  Towsley
turned the lock on the handle and closed the door on his way out.  He
pushed the squawk button on his radio, signaling Weinholt the coast was clear.

“Colonel, can I talk to you for a moment?”  Senator
Saunders stood between him and the elevator.

“Not now, senator, I’m in the middle of something.”

“It’ll be quick.”

“Colonel Towsley,” Taggart said over the group of men
huddled around him. “Yourself and Major Weinholt are requested in the
conference room in five minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bring those culture assimilation reports as well.”

“Yes, sir.”

Towsley maneuvered around Saunders and entered the
elevator.  He pushed
LEVEL 2 HANGAR DECK
. 
Saunders took another bite of his Snickers and followed him in.

“Look, Marty, I just want to . . . well . . . about
Jack.  I’m really sorry about . . . everything, you know?  They made
me testify against you, Marty.  I didn’t want to.  I know it’s been
twenty-some years and a lot of water has passed under the bridge, but . . . oh
for Christ sake, are you still pissed at me?”

Senator Saunders received a full blast of Sevoflurane in the
face.

*

Weinholt motioned for them to stay in the elevator until she
scoped the main corridor on the Hangar Deck for guards.

“Hallway’s clear.  This way.”

She led the guys around the corner to the left.  A dim
hallway lay on the other side of a swinging door there.

Weinholt stopped at one of the doors in the corridor marked
A4G REACTOR – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
and
inserted a plastic card into a keypad panel, typed a few numbers, and
successfully unlocked the heavy steel barrier.

Three large steam turbines being turned by three equally
large General Electric A4 nuclear reactors sat in the middle of the room, sunk
in a long pit below the floor.  Each of them had to be ten feet high,
twenty feet long.

“It smells like my mom’s old electric blender in here,” Nate
said, looking up at the giant transformers and cables buzzing above their
heads.

Weinholt pointed to a door at the other end of the
catwalk.  “This is as far as I go.  The hangar is on the other side
of this door.  Remember to wait for the lights to go out.  As soon as
they do, run for the red emergency light above the electronics laboratory
entrance just to the left of this door.”  Weinholt used her card to unlock
it.  “Tony, stick your foot in here to keep the door open, and don’t let
it close or it’ll lock.”

“Roger,” Tony replied.  He put the tip of his PF Flyer
in the doorway.

“Darren over here.”  She motioned him back to the
reactor room door, behind a tall electrical switch box.  “Here.  I
don’t want them to see this.”

Darren received the butt-end of Weinholt’s 9mm
Beretta.  “Are you serious?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m serious.  You cannot let anyone get between
you and your suits.  If you do . . . it’s all over.  Understand?”

Darren checked the safety and tucked the pistol into his
jeans behind his back.  “Why can’t you come with us?  At least to the
lab.”

She shook her head, smiled.  “I’m not into the gunplay
thing like you.”

“You just gave me your service pistol, major.”

“The Air Force issues guns to secretaries for crying out
loud.  I’ve never fired it.  This is your fight anyway, soldier, not
mine.”

“Soldier . . . yeah, I almost forgot.”

Her choice of words seemed to have a demoralizing twinge,
and a sad hint around her radiant blue eyes bored that melancholy into his
own.  He felt a lump forming in his throat.

“You and the colonel aren’t ones for rousing pep rallies
before the big game are you?”

Weinholt let a tiny smile grace her face, which highlighted
her soft crow’s feet.  Then she slipped two forefingers through the front
loops in Darren’s blue jeans, pulled him forward, and sucked his tongue hard
into her mouth with a sloppy, spearmint-scented lip lock.  A few seconds
of oral grinding later, or it could have been a minute later——he couldn’t be
sure——they disengaged with a slurpy SMACK.

“Good luck, Darren Seymour,” Weinholt whispered with a
breathy look.  She gave him a wet, follow-up smooch, spun around and left
the reactor room.