Gemini Cell: A Shadow Ops Novel (Shadow Ops series Book 4) (11 page)

“Let’s go,” one of them said, jerking his head toward the door. The man’s eyes swept the wreckage of the targets, the broken remains of the dog in the center of the room. He looked up at Schweitzer, shook his head in disgust, motioned to the door again. “Move.”

Schweitzer recognized the curt bravado for the fear it sought to mask. A moment later, he realized this was more than just experience. He could smell the man’s fear, a thick, ammonia odor like stale piss. Ninip smelled it, too, and Schweitzer tensed himself to push back against the jinn, but the presence made no move.

“Where?” Schweitzer asked.

“Cold storage,” the man with the axe said. “Cool your heels for a bit while we decide what to do with you.”

—

Cold storage turned out to be a stainless-steel refrigerated unit that looked like a restaurant meat locker. It was completely featureless save the omnipresent red nozzles that told Schweitzer the room’s contents could be incinerated with the touch of a button. These were interspersed with other, smaller protrusions, brushed-chrome knobs with tiny holes in their tips. Schweitzer began to examine one, then realized that his heightened senses could pick up the cold emanating from them, along with the slightest whiff of oil. Liquid nitrogen likely, or Freon. If they weren’t in the mood for burning, they could freeze him solid.

Chill air fogged the room, emanating from louvered vents ringing the walls. Schweitzer knew he was cold, could sense the temperature, but there was no discomfort. His senses still functioned but reported at a remove, a secondhand story.

Why are they trying to freeze us?
Ninip asked.

A dead body rots,
Schweitzer said.
They’re trying to preserve us.

We do not rot,
Ninip said.
I see to that.

Guess you can’t be too careful.

You are too careful. It is cowardly.

Yeah, wish we were brave like you. You sure showed that dog who was boss.

It was an animal. You mourn it as if it were your betrothed. Do you fuck dogs in your armies?

Schweitzer didn’t bother responding. Ninip was silent for a moment before trying again, his tone conciliatory.
You fight well. Your rifle is impressive.

It’s a carbine. You need to pay closer attention.

Still, you kill at a remove. I will teach you valor.

No thanks. All valor does is get folks killed.

Don’t be a fool, valo—

Dude. Shut up. Your way of fighting is millennia in its grave. There’s a reason it didn’t survive. War isn’t chest pounding and reciting lineage. War is teamwork and professionalism. War is workmanship.

When Ninip finally replied, his tone was thoughtful.
I am a lord, a god.

Yeah, I’ve run with guys like that. They make lousy warfighters. A Saudi prince once tried to get me to carry his rucksack. I laughed at him. Rank and privilege might fly at the Marine Corps ball, but on an op, how good you are is all there is.

Ninip considered that.
You are a footman.

Schweitzer laughed.
We’re all footmen. Even our officers had to suck sand in BUD/S. Nowadays, footmen are all there is. You’re a lord? Good for you. I’m an American. We don’t kneel to lords.

Ninip was quiet for a good while after that. Schweitzer liked that even less than his predator binges. Evil, insensate rage was simple, loud. A quiet, thinking enemy crouched in the dark came at you when your guard was down.
Your woman, your child. They keep you weak. Even in battle they are with you. Even though they are gone.

Schweitzer instinctively moved their shared hand to their chest, held up the engraved dog tags. Sarah and Patrick stared back at him. Was the rust deepening already? For now it made the lines of their faces stand out in starker relief, but it wouldn’t be long before it crossed the line from help to hindrance.

They keep me going.
He could still smell the rosewater, so faint it was barely a whisper of a scent. He closed his eyes, tried to visualize it, a path leading back to her, but the smell seemed to come from everywhere at once.

How long have you been dead?
Schweitzer asked.

I cannot mark the sun. A very long time.

What’s it like outside a body? It’s different, right?

It is . . . chaos. There are many of us there, but the strong know their own. Only the greatest of us can find our way back to the few like that goatherd who can speak to us. It took me a long time to learn how, but I did.

This is what you came back for? To kill people?

There is nothing there. Here, there is light, and speech, and the rush of the wind. There is . . . life. Killing is still life.

Schweitzer pictured Ninip, stranded in darkness, the millennia ticking by. A chord of sympathy sounded in him, and he felt the presence shudder in anger at the touch of it.

Is that where Sarah and Patrick are?

Ninip shrugged.
I suppose. I know of no other place. I was like you, believing in priests’ bleating promises. There is only the storm, and it is nothing like the stories.

We call that purgato—

I know what you call it,
Ninip said, conjuring up the image of Schweitzer’s first Bible, dog-eared, child’s scrawl in the margins. Schweitzer tensed in revulsion at the stolen memory.
It is the prattling of shavepate divines seeking to wring gold from their betters. Only merchants lie more than priests.

And only jinn lied more than merchants,
Schweitzer thought. Ninip’s entire perception of the world was a membrane of falsehood pulled over their collective eyes.
If you can reach out, you can reach back, right? You can help me find Sarah and Patrick.

Impossible,
Ninip said.
The dead are legion. All but the strongest are whirling in panic, they know nothing but the storm, hear nothing but their own shrieking.

Goddamn it, you can try!

No, I cannot. Were this body to be destroyed, we would go back to the maelstrom together. You would be lost and no closer to being reunited with your wife and child. Your heaven is a lie. You do not reunite with your beloved dead.

Bullshit. Show me.

Show yourself,
the jinn said. He felt Ninip’s presence slide aside, a void stretching out within him. Schweitzer turned into it, fumbling blind through the blackness. He recognized the void from his first moments of death, before Ninip had spoken to him. It was the deepest dark he’d ever known, not the painted black of the inside of his living eyelids, but the true night of a space devoid of even the concept of light.

The void stretched out for what seemed an eternity, then Schweitzer caught a sudden glimmer, a hint of palest light, the tiniest whisper of sound. And the smell of Sarah’s perfume. Schweitzer reached out toward it, moving through the black toward the source, Ninip laughing outright at his excitement. At last the sound crystallized, became something with a name.

Screaming.

Ninip was right to call it a storm. A tangle of whirling limbs stretched across Schweitzer’s vision. Ethereal, spinning bodies, sliding around and through one another, howling terror as they circled, tossed by some invisible tornado current. All SEALs developed a healthy respect for the sea, came to know it as intimately as a fickle lover, as likely to kill as kiss. This then was a sea, violent and storm tossed, made of people.

The scent of Sarah’s perfume led toward it.

The ocean of souls was so vast that Schweitzer couldn’t begin to take it all in.
You’ll never find them in there. Not if you spent the rest of eternity looking.

Ninip’s voice softened.
You cannot have them back, but we can avenge them. That is something.

Schweitzer bit down on his despair.
Whatever. What the hell do you know about family?

I had nine wives, twelve sons.

No daughters?

Ninip snorted.
Some. I did not keep them.

Schweitzer felt his anger rise, sensed Ninip’s satisfaction as the jinn felt it, too.
You go ahead and do your whole animal angry valor dance in here. When we run an op, you let me drive. That hunger does no one any good. It’s a waste of fucking time.

No,
Ninip replied.
It is the nectar of what we have become together. You mock it now because you do not feel it. But you will, and soon.

TRIAL RUN

Their cell was featureless, no chairs, bed, toilet. Schweitzer simply stood, talking internally to Ninip, feeling the jinn continue to dig in his memories. He was aware of his body’s functions, the fatigue in the leg muscles, growing stiffness in the joints. He set their shared body pacing, keeping it limber, the glycerol they’d used to replace the blood in his veins flowing.

After a long time, panels slid aside in one wall, revealing a reinforced transparent panel that opened on a featureless gray hallway. Schweitzer could see military personnel pacing there, two guards outside his door. Beyond them, a ready room buzzed with activity, huge screens taking up an entire wall. Eldredge stood there, writing on a clipboard. Jawid was seated in what looked like an aircraft pilot’s chair, electrical leads flowing under his robes, plastering his head. His eyes were closed.

Good morning.
Jawid’s voice echoed in Schweitzer’s mind. It was halting, hesitant. Schweitzer could tell he was translating someone else’s words.

Is it morning?
Schweitzer asked.

It is. The sun has not yet risen.

Is it good?

Jawid went silent at this, and he saw the Sorcerer turn and speak quickly with Eldredge, who glanced toward the cell. At last, the old man shook his head.

Yes. It is good,
the Sorcerer finally answered.

Ninip stayed silent, but Schweitzer could feel him circling the edges of the channel opened with Jawid, sniffing at it, reaching tentatively toward the Sorcerer. He felt Jawid’s wariness and concentration, ready to push back against the jinn.

To what do we owe the pleasure?
Schweitzer asked Jawid. He liked the banter, there was something in it that made him feel tied to who he had once been. If it puzzled his handlers, then so much the better. He was dead. They could put up with a little snark.

We’re ready for you to go to work. Your first run,
Jawid said.

Schweitzer shrugged off the images of carnage Ninip projected. The jinn shivered with anticipation.

So, you’re putting me . . . us . . . on an op?

We are,
Jawid answered.

Good,
Schweitzer said.
Then you can explain to me how this leads to the people who killed Sarah and Patrick.

In the room across the hall, Jawid opened his eyes, had a short conversation with Eldredge.

This is your trial run,
the Sorcerer said.
We need to know that you are in control, that you can respond to tasking. Do this well, and we’ll send you after the people who killed you
—a pause as Jawid listened to Eldredge, then the Sorcerer focused his attention back to Schweitzer—
just as soon as we have good information on where they are.

Schweitzer gave Ninip just enough rein to fuel him with anger, channeled the rage down his connection to Jawid.
You tell Eldredge I’m not fucking around. This is your free one. The next op better be working a lead to whoever did this to my family. It had to be the Body Farm.

He could feel Jawid’s confusion, Ninip’s frustration with the delay. The jinn knew there was slaughter once the mission was launched and was bristling with impatience to get started. The emotions hit him and scrambled his thinking; he dug deep and found his center. Ninip could wait.
The Body Farm. Tell Eldredge that’s who killed me. Ask him to talk to my old lieutenant. Name’s Martin Biggs. We ran an op . . .

Jawid cut in, speaking quickly. Schweitzer could faintly hear Eldredge’s voice in the background and realized he was hearing through Jawid’s ears.
We know about that. That doesn’t mean we know who exactly did the deed or why. We’re working on it. You of all people know how networks like this operate. There’s no way to do it quickly.

The words gave Schweitzer pause. He had always been patient as a spider, sizing up dangers, stoically accepting hard realities, taking the time to plan. Pushing like this wasn’t him.

He turned his attention back to Ninip, noted the jinn’s increasingly frantic scratching at the channel linking them to Jawid, a cat pawing at a sliding glass door. He recalled his reaction to the slaughtering of the dog. He was losing the bubble. When his guard was down, he was making the jinn’s ways his own. Not good.

He took a moment to center himself. Okay. An op. By the numbers. That was the best way to slow down and do a thing right.

What’s the op?
Schweitzer asked.

KC,
Jawid answered without any hesitation. He hadn’t needed to translate for Eldredge that time, which meant that either he’d been prebriefed or all the ops the Operators were sent on were Kill-Capture missions.

Target?
Schweitzer asked.

Schweitzer felt Jawid push deeper in, and his vision dissolved to white, then resolved to a closer view of the wall of screens. Seeing through Jawid’s eyes. He still felt himself, could still see his own surroundings in his peripheral vision, as if Jawid had turned his perspective into a set of binoculars Schweitzer could peer into.

The center screen was a pastiche of photographs, all showing a bald man with a wide jaw and deep-set, kind eyes. He had the look of a man who spent a lot of time frowning, but in concern rather than anger. A politician, or an aid worker. The only full-body image showed him to be thick around the middle, and in the corporate uniform of blue button-down shirt and khaki slacks. Painfully nondescript.

This target was nominated by the code name
JACKRABBIT
, written across the bottom of the screen.

Your target is a cultist.
Jawid was translating again.
He leads a group of people who believe him to be the second coming of Jesus Christ. They walk the border between religious and terror group. They poisoned a meat shipment last year. Seven people died.

Schweitzer remembered the news story. He flashed the memories toward Ninip, but the jinn batted them away, entirely focused on Jawid.

They are currently planning an attack on a subway system,
Jawid added.
Gas.

How much time do we have?
Schweitzer asked.

We don’t know. Not much.

Okay. Where are we hitting him?

The pictures of the man vanished and were replaced with an image.

Ninip had at last grown frustrated with his stalking of Jawid. Schweitzer could feel the jinn rifling his memory again, grasping at touchpoints that explained what he was seeing, stumbling down the web of concepts that linked to it: satellites, photography, space travel, computers.

The image was a satellite view of a building on a waterfront. Schweitzer had seen shots like this in briefings for scores of ops. Large structure, corrugated steel roof, piers leading up to the walls. Dockside warehouse or fish-processing plant. Another building stood across a wide avenue, air-conditioning units, water tower, and elevator mechanism on the roof. Probably residential. Industrial and residential this close together meant a major city. The superdense Western architecture gave it even odds for New York or London.

This is the location,
Jawid said.
We have eyes on, and will insert you once we know Jackrabbit is inside.

What else is in there?
Schweitzer asked.

It doesn’t matter,
Jawid replied.

Of course it matters! You don’t hit a target blind.

Ninip finally stirred at this.
What does it matter? He is a target.

Schweitzer felt the seductive thrill of the bloodlust, struggled with it before forcing himself to say,
No way. I’ve never run an op with this lousy a targeting package. This isn’t sufficient detail to go on. I need a lot more. What assets do we have? What’s around that building? What’s the layout?

Schweitzer could see Jawid speaking to someone out of view, then arguing with Eldredge. At last he came back.
He is a criminal. He has killed many people. You will have a map. There is no need to worry about your surroundings. Just remain in the building.

He’s alone?
Schweitzer asked.

He will have his supporters. Other criminals.

How many? What are they packing? Where are they located? This is bullshit.

Jawid sighed, then spoke slowly and deliberately, careful to deliver the message verbatim from Eldredge.
You do not understand what you are. This is the reason for the Gemini Cell: to hit targets where we don’t have the intel to risk a team with homes and families who’ll ask questions. We need a ghost to materialize out of the darkness, push this button, and vanish. That’s why you’re here, Jim. That’s who you are.

The words stopped Schweitzer cold. Ninip shook his head.
You still cling to life. You are more than that now. We do not need to know what faces us because nothing can stop us. We need not fear death, because we are death.

Schweitzer had been caught up in the old preop battle rhythm. It had been a touch of the familiar, an anchor to the life he’d lost. Jawid’s and Ninip’s words rekindled grief in him, and he gave himself a moment to acknowledge it before squashing it.
Lock it up. Dead or alive, you’re still a SEAL.

Still, it was stupid to go in unprepared. He couldn’t resist another question.
What about squirters?

If anyone runs, we will see to them. We’ll have eyes on from the air, with limited cover.

No team?
Schweitzer asked.

You are the team.

Ninip exulted. The primitive love of combat, the glory-seeking, was as infectious as the jinn’s bloodlust. Schweitzer fought it down. He might be a possessed corpse, but an op was an op, and cold professionalism was what was needed.
Let me review the map.

You can review it in the air,
Eldredge answered through Jawid.
We’ve got a short window. We’re going now.

—

The helo, the weapon, the weight of tactical gear, all were notions of the life he had known, reminders that Schweitzer’s new world wasn’t total strangeness. He trotted out along the flight line, his first steps in the outside world since his . . . reawakening? Rebirth? Animation?

The moon was bright in the sky, blotting out the spray of stars, shining like crushed glass farther out. A warm breeze rocked thin pines, carrying the scent of box elder. He was definitely still in the Mid-Atlantic, and probably still in Virginia. Another handle on his old life. Another reminder that he was still James Schweitzer.

He could feel Ninip’s contempt for the idea.
In the beginning, I was the same. That man is dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can start being what you are.

No way. They brought me back because I’m supposed to be a god of war, right?
Ninip grinned at the expression.
Well, that comes from my memories, my training. Those things are part of me. You want Jim Schweitzer the SEAL? You get Jim Schweitzer the man, the whole package.

Ninip was silent at that, and Schweitzer turned his attention to the helicopter.

Two men sat in the cabin, feet dangling out over the side. They held the now-ubiquitous flamethrower and fire axe, insurance for his makers should he decide he wanted to stray outside mission parameters. Ninip snarled, the expression reaching their shared face, contorting the stretched surface into a twisted horror. The men slid inside the helo, weapons at the ready. Ninip’s killer’s litany began to flash through Schweitzer’s mind, and he fought it down yet again.
Save it for the op.

The men scooted out of the way, crowding as far as they could against the far cabin wall as Schweitzer leapt in easily, ignoring the rattail and carabiner one of the men offered him. He slid to the cabin edge, dangled his legs over the side. The rotors spun up, and the helo began to rise. One of the men called out to him. “Sir, I need you to come inside. You’re not clipped in and we can’t risk you fa . . .”

Schweitzer raised one shared hand, and the man’s voice died. Schweitzer turned his attention to the ground, beginning to broaden in his vision as the helo rose. He could feel the shared thighs and abdominals tightening with inhuman strength, keeping them perfectly balanced as the helo banked. They could have stood tiptoe on the edge of the cabin floor and not fallen out. Ninip’s power was amazing.

The ground blurred beneath them as the helo leveled off and picked up speed. Death hadn’t taken Schweitzer’s internal compass, and he judged them heading east before the woods gave way to coastline, and the helo beat out over the ocean before turning north.

New York, then.

Schweitzer could feel Ninip watching through their shared eyes, awestruck. It was one thing to read Schweitzer’s memories secondhand. It was another thing to experience it.
We are flying.

Schweitzer shrugged.
We’ve been at it for over a century now. Not all it’s cracked up to be, honestly. You should see our delivery vehicles.

He smiled as Ninip retrieved the memory of the submersible, parsing the weight of the water pressing on his wet suit, the dull throb of the motors as the vehicle propelled his team along the ocean floor, fish scattering out at their approach. Ninip’s awe was palpable, his presence pulsing with it.

An hour into the flight, Schweitzer realized he could barely hear the rotors. The usual roar was a dull patter, even quieter than the modified helos he’d roped out of his entire career, quieter than the machine that had delivered the Body Farm’s hit team to his door. He fought against the surge of anger, but Ninip stoked it, forcing it on until Schweitzer could feel the rage pulsing in his glycerol-filled veins.

Ninip caught the idea.
Let this be our blood. It will serve.

“On target in five!” the crewman called to him. “We’ll set up a pattern and extract you in twenty minutes. If you get slowed down, give us a call.”

Ninip grinned.
We will not be slowed.

Schweitzer watched the ground rise as the helo banked again, slowed, descended, the picture from the satellite image slowly matching up to the reality unfolding beneath him. Schweitzer felt the old familiar thrill, the anticipation before the drop, the sudden calm and focus.