A New World: Conspiracy (3 page)

Gav continues swiftly on, crouch-walking
down the hall, her barrel leading the way. Anyone emerging into the
hall will be quickly and quietly taken out, no questions asked. She
won’t hesitate pulling the trigger…be it man, woman, or child. Any
noise or startled shouting will alert others to their presence and
endanger the whole team. If this place, meaning the entire
territory, becomes alerted to the presence of Israelis in the area,
all other actions will cease in order to hunt them down. She and
her team wouldn’t live through the night.

Passing closed doors to the left and right,
her tension high and senses highly tuned to any disturbance or hint
of anyone around, she spies an opening up ahead about half way down
the corridor.

“Stairs ahead to the left,” she whispers
into her extended boom mic.

She doesn’t hear any reply but knows her
team heard her. She edges to the stairs and peeks quickly around
the corner. Old wooden steps climb steeply, the treads warped in
many places.

“Clear,” she breathes, stepping quickly
around the corner.

She turns backward and, making sure she
climbs the stairs near the wall where they are less likely to give
a tell-tale creak, focuses on the stairs and landing upward. The
rest of her team continues to cover the entire area with the last
two walking backward, keeping an eye behind them – they are
essentially a moving perimeter.

Her heart beats heavily as she continues
upward, adrenaline flooding her system. Any false move here and
they’ll never see their home again. There’s a touch of fear, but
it’s mostly about safeguarding her team. Most of what she feels is
a highly-tuned adrenaline rush. Long ago, she overcame any guilt
associated with her chosen lifestyle. This is what she lives for
and loves to do. There may some patriotic feature to it, but it’s
really about avenging the death of her parents. And, if she were
perfectly honest, that has little to do with it anymore. She shuts
the thought down as she reaches the first floor landing.

Reaching into one of her cargo pockets, she
withdraws a simple, triangular doorstop. Wedging it under the
inward-opening door, she continues her advance. The measure won’t
stop a determined effort to gain entrance to the stairway, but it
will definitely slow anyone down. It will perhaps gain enough time
to allow them to escape should they be discovered.

Gav and her team continue their quick march
upward, wanting to hit fast, hard, and quiet. So far, there hasn’t
been any sight or sound of the two guards who vanished inside. She
feels her warm breath as she exhales through her dark pullover
mask, conscious of keeping her breathing steady. They are nearing
their target, and now is not the time to let fear cause a mistake
by moving too fast. Quick yes, but hurried…no.

Sealing off the second floor door in the
same manner, Gav nears the third floor and their destination. Her
highly-tuned senses feel that something is amiss. Almost before she
can register this feeling, the door opens widely with a loud, long
creak of hinges that haven’t seen oil in years.

Two guards emerge through the doors at the
top of the stairs. With her weapon emitting silent coughs, she
fires three hurried rounds into each before they even know she is
there, dropping them quickly to the landing where they hit with
solid thumps. Spray from the high-speed projectiles slamming into
flesh and bone paints the walls with their blood, some of the
larger splotches flow downward in small rivulets. One moment, the
two were talking about how to live another day in their war-ravaged
land, and the next…they weren’t.

Not slowing, Gav continues quickly over to
the bodies and fires a single round into each of their heads. Bone,
flesh, and brain flow outward from a large exit wound each round
created, adding to the blood already pooling around the still warm
corpses, the subsonic bullets doing tremendous damage. She doesn’t
know if the guards will be missed anytime soon, but she has to
assume they will. The first card is played and the game is on.

She reaches down to one of the bodies and,
finding a radio, she turns it off and pockets it. This will be
additional intel regarding the frequencies they may be using. The
two bringing up the rear will remove the mags and insert different
mags with rigged cartridges. It is likely that the weapons will be
recovered after this and used again. The rounds inserted are
overcharged ones which will explode in the chamber when fired. With
any luck, the shooter will be severely injured. At the very least,
it will trigger distrust among others about using their weapons and
cause them to hesitate, hopefully at a crucial moment.

Gav checks down each hall. It is in the same
condition as the first floor corridor. She then turns right toward
the front of the building where she saw the light in one of the
windows. At the end of the hallway stands a closed door. It’s to
this that she quickly but silently makes her way, her suppressed
weapon up and ready.

She hears almost nothing behind her as her
team follows, only an occasional scrape of boots on the severely
worn carpeting. Like climbing the stairs, Gav keeps to the wall to
eliminate creaks of the weak floorboards; also, so she won’t stand
out as readily like she would if she were in the middle of the
hall. Nearing the door, she hears the door handle rattle and begin
to turn.

Not hesitating, she lowers her shoulder and
charges the door. If they are caught in the hall, it will leave her
and her team exposed. An initial volley may take out those in the
doorway, but the simple toss of a grenade from inside will spell
the end of her and her team. She hits the door with her shoulder
just as it is opening. The door crashes inward and stops abruptly.
She slams into it again and steps through.

Gav sees four armed men, two of which are
stumbling backward into the arms of the other two behind them.
Raising her Micro Galil, she sends short bursts into the two
stumbling men. The closeness of the delivered rounds slam into
their chest and face, sending the two men crashing hard against the
two others. Pink mist sprays into the faces of the two remaining
alive, covering them with gore. Gav delivers two more bursts into
the surprised men, sending all four of them crashing into the
ground. The men bounce off walls and collapse a small table as they
fall.

Stepping over the bodies, she enters the
room proper. An archway opens to the right with the main room
opening to the left.

“Opening to the right,” she calls quietly
into the mic.

Bypassing the opening and knowing the
teammates behind her will sweep into there, she turns to the main
room. Four other men are rising from chairs around an old dining
table. Light from a TV shines in the room, but no sound emits from
it. The only other light is from a couple of candles on the table
itself. The startled men are rising quickly and reaching for the
carbines next to them. She can tell they are having a hard time
seeing who has invaded their domain, but that doesn’t slow them
retrieving their arms.

She, however, can see quite clearly. Her
first burst takes the closest man squarely in the chest. The rounds
hit with solid, meaty thumps; flowers of dark liquid instantly
stain his light-colored T-shirt. Gav hears his breath as it is
forcefully exhaled. He clutches his chest and falls forward to his
knees before falling prone. She only witnesses the hits before
directing her fire into one of his companions next to him.

The bullets hit in close proximity just to
the left of his sternum, spinning him around and sending him
crashing across the dining table. She hasn’t stopped moving and
sees the remaining two lift from the ground as the combined rounds
from three of her team connect with force. They are sent crashing
into the wall before slumping slowly to the ground. She hears two
of her team, who hit the room to the right by the entrance, call
clear. Four hollow coughs follow as part of her team behind put
rounds into the first four. The only sound is a low groan emitting
from one of the men near the table.

The main room opens into another large room
to the right, past the first one. Normally, she would toss a
flashbang and enter. However, this is to be a silent op if they are
to get out in one piece. She signals the others and they turn the
corner together.

Another room opens, looking much like the
main one with a kitchen on the far side. Nothing moves. She directs
three of them in to search farther as she steps over to the table
and nearer the four downed men. The man lying across the table is
the one moaning. Putting a round into each of the others to ensure
they remain quiet, Gav checks for signs of a grenade under the body
of the groaning man. Yeah, she’s learned that one. Satisfied that
he hasn’t booby-trapped himself, she rolls him off the table. He
falls to the floor face up. She looks down at his pain-filled eyes.
The pain turns to fear. With a wicked grin, she raises her
weapon.

The room goes silent.

She shakes herself out of the memory of
times past. The click of her heels echoes in the wide hall, off the
polished white and black tiled floor, as she makes her way to the
control room. The call asking for her presence had come moments
ago, interrupting another meeting. Gav takes note of the mostly
bare corridor painted in a calming sky blue. She was mostly
responsible for getting this facility together and paid attention
to every detail with its construction. After all, there was a
chance that they were to be down here a long time – a chance that
proved right.

The abandoned, underground government
communication bunker was originally forty-five thousand square feet
of below-ground real estate sitting beneath over two hundred plus
acres that were located approximately twenty miles to the northeast
of Denver. She oversaw the renovation of the facility for their
purposes; enlarging it to over five hundred thousand square feet.
That provided enough room to house the equipment and personnel
required to operate as a command-and-control center, along with the
battalion of troops on site for security. She also has several
reconnaissance and special operations teams to deploy as
needed.

Gav passes by large windows, looking into
the offices and conference rooms along one wall as she makes her
way down the long hall. Most are empty, the vacant chairs circling
equally empty tables just waiting for bodies to file in and occupy
them. Passing under one of the many air vents, she feels cold,
filtered air as it is blown in from the surface after passing
through the comprehensive nuclear, chemical, and biological
filtration system.

Passing her card through the reader, she
glances at her picture and name imprinted upon the white plastic:
Gavriella Rosenstrauss. That name seems foreign to her as she had
left it behind long ago…in her mind at least. The woman that person
was had left the moment her parents were killed by a mortar blast
fired from across the border of her old home. The girl who lived in
fright from those attacks emerged from the rubble a changed person.
After the initial shock – her parents being torn out of her life –
the pain of what happened began to surface. Every day she felt that
tearing within her heart; a physical pain that she felt she
couldn’t bear any longer. But she endured and learned to suppress
the agony within until her fear and grief turned to anger. A
deep-seated anger without an outlet. She railed at the world. Over
time, the fire of anger burned out and coldness was left in its
place. At first, that was directed at those responsible for the
cowardly attack; later, it was funneled into her operations against
that very same enemy. Over time, it just became her job, one she
enjoyed doing.

As for the picture, it was a recent one,
and, although she never thought about her features much, she has to
admit this was a rather good one. Her dark, almost black, flowing
hair frames a narrow face with a strong chin. Her dark eyes stare
from under thick, dark eyebrows as if daring anyone to cross her
path. Her nose…yes, her nose, that part of her that identifies her
as classically Jewish, is the part of her she likes the least. Her
darker skin, just that color a shade deeper than a tan, blends
nicely with her hair. Some have called her beautiful, but she never
has paid attention to things like that. Hers is a world of death,
and she has had little time or energy for anything else. She has
had flings in her life, but they were merely that to her; flings.
Her priorities have always been geared toward her work, and she
just never wanted to devote the energy necessary to sustain a
relationship.

No, that’s not entirely correct
, she
thinks.

She had actually fallen in love once, and
thought her life would change along with those feelings. Her career
in the special operations world was going nicely. It sustained her,
but she was willing to give up even that. That was before the
capture and arbitrary killing of the one she was willing to give up
everything for. That event devastated her and killed any thoughts
of all further relationships. She turned back to the dark world in
which she circulated. It once again became her only family, and one
that she felt secure in. Never again would she allow her feelings
to go past the mission and her fellow operators.

The door clicks, accepting her card as
valid, and she pulls it open. Entering the control room, she lets
the door close behind her and surveys the room. Three large screens
are set into the wall on her right with rows of tiered workstations
set before them. Each workstation has its own large monitor, but
each is wired to present information to the larger ones. At
present, only the center screen is on, showing an overhead view of
the United States and several satellite tracks. It’s the default
view kept on screen and only replaced with other vital information
during a planning sessions.