James Acton 03 - Broken Dove (2 page)

He felt it drop.

Not into his mouth.

He looked down and saw it fall through the grate, and onto the shoulder of the guard directly below him. No reaction. At least not from him. His partner however, pointed at his shoulder. Dawson reached for his sidearm, removing it from its holster, flicking off the safety, and as the two men looked up, placed one bullet between each of their eyes. They crumpled to the ground.

“Two hostiles eliminated, our cover might be blown. Bravo Two, status of security override?”

“Security override in place and functioning.” Red’s voice came across the comm crystal clear, and confident. Dawson never doubted his second in command, and best friend. They were Delta Force, the best trained group of special operations soldiers the US military had to offer, and his platoon, Bravo Team, were the best of the best, in his completely biased mind. He, Command Sergeant Major Burt Dawson, Big Dog, or BD for short, was their leader. As with all Delta teams, the command structure was very flat, with everyone ranked at some level of sergeant. He happened to be the highest ranked in his unit, and by default was in command, but he had earned that position, leading his team of operators on missions throughout the world, successfully, and unseen.

And today better be another one of those.

He grabbed the power screwdriver off his utility belt, slid the head through the grate, then pushed forward on the slide adjusting the angle of the head. It snapped several times as it bent to a 180 degree angle, a small mirror showing him the position of the head. He adjusted it, then pressed the button, providing power. The screw unwound, then the magnetic charge held onto it when it was freed. He pulled back on the slide with his thumb, pulled the head with the dangling screw through the grill, and pocketed it. Repeating this three more times, he pulled the grate up and into the duct with him, placing it against the side, resting on the lip. Snapping the screwdriver back on his belt, he pressed a button on his harness to lower himself the final few feet, then unhooked, dropping to a knee, his weapon drawn, as he checked to see if the area remained clear.

Both ends of the long corridor were empty, the two gunshots, though muffled with a silencer, apparently not drawing any attention. He looked through a small window on the door nearest him, and found the room vacant. He tried the knob. Locked. A quick glance showed it to be a standard household type. He pulled his pick gun off his belt, stuck it in the keyhole and squeezed a few times, feeling the tumblers fall into position. The door unlocked. He pushed it open, then pulled both bodies inside.

The door clicked shut behind him just as he heard a voice in the hall calling out. He looked at the floor and breathed a sigh of relief. No blood trail, his shots at enough of a downward angle there were no exit wounds. He pulled the bodies out of sight from the door’s window, then positioned himself on the side of the frame, knife at the ready. The light pouring in from the hallway dimmed as someone put their head to the glass. Dawson shifted his foot so his boot would block the door if whoever was on the other side gave it a casual push.

Then he remembered the missing grate.

Don’t. Look. Up.

He heard footsteps walking away from the door, along with what he guessed was cursing. A few moments later a click echoed through the emptiness. He opened the door to his hiding place, and peered quickly up and down the hallway. It was clear. “Control, Bravo One, proceeding with mission, over.” He trotted to the end of the hallway where a door with electronic keypad stood and activated his comm. “Bravo One in position.”

“Bravos Five and Eight in position.”

“Bravo Six in position.”

He punched in the code from memory, provided by someone not too thrilled at a jihadist state having nuclear weapons, and the door clicked open. He drew his weapon, and a breath.

“Proceed on my mark. Three. Two. One. Go! Go! Go!”

He shoved the door aside and stepped into a brightly lit room the size of five football fields, the ceiling extending over one hundred feet above him. Stretching in long rows were thousands of centrifuges that, according to his briefing, were used to enrich uranium. Two technicians immediately to his left stopped and looked at him. He put two bullets in each of their chests. They dropped, and he began a clockwise round of the massive room. Another technician, sitting at his desk, engrossed in a display never knew what hit him. Dawson rounded the first corner, eliminating three more scientists with clipboards in a heated debate over something, when the alarm went off.

Shit!

“Control, Bravo One, we’re compromised. The alarm has sounded, say again, the alarm has sounded, over.”

“Bravo One, Control Actual, assessment?”

Dawson immediately recognized Colonel Thomas Clancy’s voice. He was always happy knowing Clancy was in charge of an op. He trusted him. In the past, there were occasions when he had no idea who Control was, and on some of those occasions, they had been left hung out to dry, or compromised in some way, left to their own devices to save themselves.
But not today.

Scientists and technicians were poking their heads out from amongst the centrifuges as the alarm wailed overhead. Dawson picked each off as he ran, and began pulling magnetic explosives off his vest, tossing them toward the centrifuges as he ran by. As he threw each one, he could hear a satisfying clank as they attached themselves to the metal. Two more down. Running toward him, he could see Bravo Six, Mickey, his distinctive ears hidden away, doing the same, having entered from the other end.

“Almost finished clearing the room, explosives being set. Estimate exit two minutes, over.”

“Roger that, proceed at your discretion.”

Dawson and Mickey met up and turned inward, clearing several rows of centrifuges, then broke off again, heading back toward their entrance points. Dawson continued to toss explosives, but only encountered one more tech on his way out. He closed the door behind him and raced down the hallway toward the missing grate in the ceiling. “Bravo Eleven, drop the rope.”

As he skidded to a halt the rope, drawn up earlier by Atlas, dropped in front of him. He hooked himself on, then pressed the control to begin pulling him up. As his head cleared the ceiling, he heard something, then the pounding of footsteps and yelling. Hands grabbed his feet, pulling him back down. He looked, and could see someone in a military uniform, markings indicating a Colonel. Dawson, weapon still drawn, took a bead and fired. The man crumpled to the ground, freeing Dawson’s legs, and he ascended, the machine pulling him up, along with the massively muscular Atlas yanking on the rope at the other end, speeding things along.

Within moments he was at Atlas’s position. He propped himself up on an intersecting duct, and disconnected from the rope as Atlas folded up the equipment. Dawson rapidly crawled down the duct, Atlas bringing up the rear. “Bravo One to Bravo Five and Six, status?”

“Bravos Five and Eight clear.”

“Bravo Six, clearing now.”

Dawson looked ahead and could see feet dangling from the junction ahead, then disappear. Moments later he was there, shoved himself to his feet and raised his arms. He felt two sets of hands grab him and pull him up, Atlas below pushing on his boots. He rolled onto the concrete slab housing one of the more remote exhaust ports for the facility, and cleared it as Atlas was hauled out. Stucco and Casey replaced the cover as Dawson got his bearings, then they all began a fast sprint across the desert sand, away from the alarms and lights.

“Control, Bravo One, we’re clear, over.”

“Bravo One, Control, execute, over.”

“Control, Bravo One, executing, over.”

Dawson nodded to Red who flicked a cover protecting the detonator switch, then pushed his thumb down on the exposed button. The entire area rumbled, the ground shaking, as the explosives below detonated. Dawson looked back and saw nothing at first, then, as the explosion spread, the roaring flames forced their escape through the ductwork they had just been in, and out the exhaust ports behind them. The entire desert lit as they ran.

“Overseer to Bravo One, you’ve got a vehicle in pursuit, standby.”

Dawson looked over his shoulder and saw the bouncing headlights as they mounted a crest. He and his team disappeared over the hill and down the other side. He skidded to a halt at Overseer’s position, who squeezed off a round as he did. Dawson looked back over the hill and saw steam hissing from the engine block of the vehicle.

“Okay, let’s go,” he said, slapping Overseer, nicknamed Niner, and his spotter, Jimmy, on their backs.

Both jumped to their feet and followed the rest of the team. Another hill crested, and in front of them sat their salvation, an ultra-top secret Gen-3 Ghost Hawk chopper, or “Jedi Ride” as they liked to call it, its remarkably silent engines powered up and ready to go. As Dawson took up the rear, the rest of the team piled aboard, then hauled Niner and Jimmy, and finally Dawson, inside. “Go! Go! Go!”

The pilot pulled up on the stick and the chopper lifted from the ground, and within seconds was racing across the barren landscape toward Iraqi soil. Niner, his nickname provided by himself after a racial slur about his Asian heritage resulted in a bar fight, looked at Atlas and gave a thumbs up. “Man, that was more fun than that time we planted the fake drone!”

The entire team began to chuckle. “You’d ’ve thought they’d at least get suspicious when it supposedly crashed and had no damage,” said Atlas.

“Yeah, and the few hundred dollars of Radio Shack parts didn’t even raise an eyebrow,” laughed Niner.

Spock’s eyebrow shot up.

Dawson smiled as the camaraderie enjoyed after a successful mission began to play out. “Control, Bravo One, we’re on our way out.” He muted the comm and yelled to the pilot. “ETA?”

“Fifteen minutes!”

“Control, ETA fifteen minutes.”

“Bravo One, Control Actual. Acknowledged. As soon as you’re clear, I have a priority one mission for you and your team, over.”

Dawson looked at the expressions of confusion on the exhausted faces surrounding him.

“Control, Bravo One, confirm that last transmission, over?”

“Bravo One, Actual, we received an SOS from an old friend, over.”

An old friend? Who the hell could that be?

The Vatican

Three Days Ago

Father Granger held the flashlight far in front, its beam slicing through the pitch black confronting him. The light bounced off the dusty shelves as he slowly made his way, revealing dozens of priceless pieces of history with each step. And he had examined every one. His heart pounded in his chest as he waved his free hand ahead to catch any cobwebs, confident however he would find few if any here; this particular section searched just yesterday. Today he continued his methodical hunt in the adjacent section. An hour each day, before the rise of the staff. In secret. No one could know he was in the Vault. No one could know the Vault existed.

If they knew what I was doing, where I was!

The scandal could destroy the Church, which, despite his purpose, he would never let happen. He would die before he would let anything happen to the Church, or his beloved Father. It was at his request that he was here, looking for something the world knew little about, and for those few who knew the truth, even most of them had no knowledge of this mission.

The Archivum Secretum Vaticanum, the Vatican Secret Archives, were massive, with enough history to make all of the museums in the world envious. The Secret Archives were in themselves huge, and if you didn’t know what you were looking for, you weren’t getting it. The entire collection was available, and indexed, however anyone wanting to view something, had to request it specifically—there was no browsing in the archives.

But where he searched now was something completely different. There were no catalogues or indices showing the location of artifacts, no tour guides to answer questions. Where he was now, merely a handful knew even existed, and in almost two millennia, little more than five hundred were made aware, and of those, three, maybe four score had actually laid eyes on.

Which was why, when he rounded the last stack he had previously searched, he was shocked to not only see fresh footprints in the dust, but a hand swinging through the flashlight beam, followed by the excruciating pain of something hitting the side of his head.

He dropped to his knees, the flashlight rolling away from him, revealing the boots of his attacker, but nothing more. He raised his hands to cover his head when a second blow landed, breaking the fingers interlaced over his scalp. He cried out in pain, the desperate plea’s lonely echo falling only on his own ears, and that of his assailant, whose merciless assault continued with blow after blow. With pain racking his body, and the assault showing no signs of letting up, he put himself in the hands of God, and prayed.

Apostolic Palace, The Vatican

“What do we do?” whispered Eugenio.

“I don’t know!” hissed Giorgio. “This has never happened before!”

Eugenio looked at the intricately carved door in front of them, then down at the fresh, hot towels, rapidly cooling, then made a decision he wasn’t sure was his to make. “We can’t wait any longer.” He reached forward and knocked three times as he had seen Father Granger do every morning, then opened the door, the others gasping as he did so.

“It’s not permitted!”

Eugenio looked over at Giorgio as he stepped through the doors. “And what would you have us do? Wait for
him
to come and get
us
?”

This seemed to halt Giorgio’s protests. Eugenio looked at the others whose heads bobbed in agreement. They had no choice. A duty was to be performed, as it had been for years, every day, without fail, regardless of where he may be on God’s blessed creation. He stepped into the chambers, then stopped, unsure of what to do. He felt somebody lean into his shoulder, then whisper in his ear.