ANOMALY.MIL (The Conspiracy Series Book One): A Romantic Suspence Novel (22 page)

CHAPTER FORTY

It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and Ben sat at work, exhausted. He hadn't been sleeping much, and now that Seneca had gone to Salt Lake City, he wasn't sleeping at all.

He couldn't believe that she was reckless enough to follow the men that had taken her friend, Catherine Miller. It was so dangerous, and to be honest, Ben was still angry with her for going. But he had known Seneca long enough to know that she was very stubborn. All of his logical arguments about her leaving had fallen on deaf ears, so Ben had just stopped trying.

The only thing he could do now was tell her where her cell phone was located. Or rather, the location of the car with Seneca's phone in the trunk.

While he was worried about Seneca, the other phone trace scared the shit out of him. If she was recording a three-star general, Seneca was in some serious trouble. Ben spent half of the day with his hand on a phone ready to call the authorities, and his nights trusting that what Seneca told him was the truth.

Even if he did make the call, the army would tell the local authorities one of two things: that Seneca was crazy, or that she was a national security threat and needed to be arrested.

Either way, she was in trouble.

As for himself, Ben didn't know what to do. If he were caught running unauthorized traces, at a minimum he would be fired. Worst case scenario, he could go to jail.

But if what Seneca was saying was true, that the army had abducted Catherine Miller and her brother…It was his responsibility to help them. Ben couldn't just stand by and watch a building burn when he knew there were people inside. He would try to save them, knowing he was risking his life.

This was the same situation.

Wasn't it?
Fuck, he didn't know. He never thought straight where Seneca was concerned. 

He shook his afternoon protein shake, and then took a swig just as his boss knocked on his door. "Hey, Ben."

"What's up?" He set the chocolate shake down on his desk.

"I just got a notification that you're running a trace on a level one phone?" His boss looked at him, as confused as ever.

"I guess so." Ben shrugged to hide the fact that his pulse had doubled. "I just ran the numbers Homeland Security gave me to run." He had made sure to bury the general's number among the legitimate phone numbers Homeland Security requested he monitor.

"Oh, okay." His boss clearly had no idea what to do next. "So you'll run the trace for a week just like all the others?"

"Yeah, I'm following all the normal protocols," Ben nodded, adding, "Who knows why Homeland picks the numbers they pick. I swear to God, last week I was recording an eighty-three-year-old grandmother from Iowa." That, at least, was true.
Ben shook his head and smiled, so his boss did too.

"All righty," the man said, seeming satisfied. "I guess I'll let you get back to it."

"Hey," Ben stopped him. "Are we still having that all hands meeting on Friday?" he asked, so that the last thing on his boss’s mind when he left Ben's office would be the presentation he had to give.

"Yeah, four o'clock. Marketing is going to talk about the new products being launched." His boss rolled his eyes. "And then they’re going to let the people who actually
made
those products speak."

"Well, that's nice of marketing."

"Just kill me, please," his boss attempted to joke.

"Not until Saturday." Ben hoped he wasn't smiling too much. But as his boss craved constant admiration, he didn't think the guy would notice. "Someone's got to do that presentation."

"Keep it up and you'll be the one speaking at that meeting." His boss pointed at him and Ben chuckled, "Well, I guess I better go work on my speech."

You do that.
"See ya." In about a week.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

"They will be expecting us at to assault the base at night." Gunner was looking down at the original 1941 blueprints Seneca had managed to get from the contractor, along with the plans of new upgrades made to the base since then. "So, let's not hit them when they expect us."

"Captain?" Win was skeptical. "A daytime assault—"

"I don't want to hit them during the day either."

"Then when do you want to hit them?" Drew stared at him like he was crazy. "Because last time I checked, day and night were our only options."

"I want to hit them at breakfast." Gunner smiled. "Dawn to be exact."

"What?" Drew's eyes were as wide as saucers. "Are you crazy?"

"Hear me out." Gunner put his hand up so they would wait before passing judgment on his plan. "I know General Hawkins. He will expect us to hit the base at three or four in the morning, and will increase patrols at those times.

“But if we go in at breakfast, right at shift change and as the civilians are arriving for work…" He waited for them to absorb what he was saying. "Nobody knows the new guys on duty except the men handing out the duty rosters. If we get there at the beginning of the shift, the base will be confused and disorganized. They won't even realize what we've done until it’s too late."

"And what will we have done?" Win asked.

Gunner pointed at a spot on the blueprints. "You and Drew walk into the barracks like you own the place." Drew laughed, but Gunner ignored him, continuing, "Take Catherine. And if anybody objects, you tell them that you've been sent by General Hawkins to get her. The guards at the barracks are there to make sure the prisoners don't escape, not to stop other soldiers from carrying out their orders."     

"And what will you be doing while we stroll into these barracks and requisition Catherine Miller?" Drew asked, his sarcasm warranted.

"I'll be getting Ansel out of the brig."

"How?" Win asked with a detached curiosity.

"With a pair of scrubs." Gunner had thought about this long and hard. "There are two communities working on the base. The scientists and the soldiers there to protect them. The two groups rarely mix."

"True," Drew conceded.

"I'll pose as a medic and go to Ansel's cell, telling his guards that I need time-sensitive blood samples taken every hour on the hour." Gunner shrugged. "These guys will have just started their shift, and they will just assume that these samples were being done throughout the night."

"And if these guards recognize you?" Win asked, glancing at his blond head.

Gunner was a bit of a legend in the army. He had accidentally become the face of Special Forces. Something about his white-blond hair and pale blue eyes unnerved people, and they tended to remember him.

It was a serious problem.

Gunner dangled the surgical cap off one finger. "I'll wear this." Eliminating one if not the other of his distinguishing characteristics.

"And how are you suggesting we get to the barracks where Catherine is being held?" Drew flopped on the hotel couch, flinging his leg over the puffy arm. "It's not like we can drive onto base without identification."

The topographical map was somewhere beneath the blueprints. Gunner pulled it out, laying them side by side.

"When I went on reconnaissance, I found a gulch running through the desert that ends less than a mile from here." He pointed at the visiting officers’ barracks. "That will be your entry point. Once you get close enough just walk in like you’re headed to your quarters."

Drew chuckled. "That'll take balls."

"I'll do it by myself, if you don't have any." Win grinned at Drew, always knowing the perfect thing to say to piss the kid off.

"Fuck you, Winchester." Drew swung his feet to the floor, standing up. "I'll do it, but it is a brass balls type of plan."

"I'm afraid that's the only type of plan that will get Ansel out." And he didn't really think it would work, but getting caught was better than getting his guys shot. Gunner sighed. "If you two have any better ideas…?"

"No." Win was more thoughtful than he let on. "You’re right. The base will be swarming at night, so getting Catherine out then is highly unlikely. Plus, with our experience at breaching, the general will expect an armed assault, not a daytime infiltration."

"Well," Drew said, scratching the back of his neck. "I don't like our odds." And then he smiled. "But I do want to see if we can pull it off."

Win was looking down at the map. "So, when do we do this?"

"O seven hundred tomorrow morning."

"Fuck!" Drew was surprised. "That gives us, like, twelve hours to plan this thing."

Gunner was well aware of the time. But the sooner they hit the base, the better chance Ansel and his sister had of making it out unharmed.

"Then let’s get busy." Win said it to Drew, but he was looking to Gunner. Wary.

"Wait." Drew remembered something. "How are we getting to our entry point at the visiting officers’ quarters?"

Gunner just grinned. “I’m glad you asked.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The lights in his cell were fluorescent with that soul sucking glow. But since he had been 'enhanced', Ansel was able to see the pulsing of light emanating from the bulb. Able to feel the electricity dancing across his skin.

It was so strange.

He walked to the bars of the cell window, his hand instinctively grabbing one inch above where the bar disappeared into the concrete below. He pulled, and the concrete turned to dust around the metal, but that was all Ansel could achieve. He could feel that the metal extended all the way down the wall, leaving him no chance of escape.

He looked outside as the sun rose behind the mountains to the east. Purples and oranges lit up the sky in those moments of suspended uncertainty between day and night.

Ansel laid on his bed, crossing his fingers over his stomach and waiting patiently for the soldiers who would escort him to breakfast. Where he would eat, and then be hauled off to the hospital for Doctor Rumsey to pump him full of someone else’s DNA.

So he would become someone else. 

There wasn't much he could do about it.
Not yet.
Who knows, maybe when they injected him with Einstein's DNA, or the intelligence of someone like him, he could figure a way out of the brig. But in the meantime, he would be experimented on so Catherine wouldn't have to endure the same fate.

Doctor Rumsey had not come right out and said it, but the man implied that they were doing research on him before they started enhancing Catherine. They were closely related, after all, and would most likely respond similarly. The only complication was the baby. The doctor wanted to enhance his niece or nephew in utero.

Ansel slammed his fist against his bed, feeling the metal beneath his mattress dent. Giving him strength might have been a bad choice. Perhaps he should have let them inject him with more…What? Strength. Foreign DNA. What exactly did they call what was happening to him?

Modification.
That's how he thought of it. Ansel 2.0 after updates. And what else would they do to him? Take his sperm to grow a better Frankenstein? After all, Ansel could only be modified from the original parts. But a fetus…A fetus could be grown to fulfill their every need.

So what would that make him? A father. He laughed. He'd never wanted kids. Didn't want to bring them into this fucked-up world. But then he had met Seneca, and he could imagine why a person would want to take the risk.

He closed his eyes, sad and angry that he would never have the choice to decide if he wanted a kid. Or, for that matter, to decide if he wanted Seneca.
'Perhaps I should pursue someone a bit more substantial.’
Or the chance to see if she wanted him.   

Footsteps pulled him from his thoughts, and he covered his eyes with his forearm so the soldier would not glimpse his despair. He took several calming breaths, and then realized he was hearing more than two soldiers approaching his cell.

Instantly alert, Ansel peeked beneath his arm, thinking they must have added more soldiers to escort him since his enhancement. The metal slid back and Ansel watched as a pair of brown eyes came into view.

"Sergeant Babineaux, we need you to assume the position," the guy said. Ansel got on his knees and faced the wall. "Hands behind your head."

He complied, because what else could he do? Leave without his sister? General Hawkins had his nuts in a vise, and the son of a bitch knew it.

One guy grabbed Ansel's left arm and yanked it up, cuffing it. The right arm followed. Ansel turned his head and stared at a jittery kid with a gun. Great, that was all he needed, to be shot while complying fully with these assholes.

"Stand up," the guy who cuffed him said, before helping him to his feet. But rather than take him to breakfast as they usually did, the guy sat him on the edge of the bed. "We're clear."

Ansel waited, staring at the floor when a guy in blue scrubs walked in the room, complaining, "I can't draw his blood with his hands cuffed," in Gunner's voice.

He tried not to smile, looking bored as the jittery kid raised his weapon towards him.

"Why do you need more blood?" Ansel asked, playing along.

Gunner arranged syringes on a metal tray as if he knew what he was doing.

"We're testing your blood every three hours to see if certain amino acids are being rejected by your body. And, if so, at what rate they are deteriorating." It was complete bullshit, but it sounded good. "Mr. Babineaux." Gunner eyes spoke to his. "If you will just hold still, this will be over in—"

Gunner kicked the kid with the gun so hard, he could hear the guy's arm break in several different places. The soldier who had cuffed him was a little more competent, pulling out a metal baton. He attacked Ansel, who caught the baton in mid-swing, bending the carbon metal in the process.

Both shocked, they stared at the curved metal and then at each other.

"On your knees," Gunner ordered, now holding the jittery kid's gun.

The guy with brown eyes dropped the baton and fell to his knees, looking at Ansel when he asked, "What did they do to you?"

"I don't know." Ansel shook his head then looked at Gunner. "Where's Catherine?"

"They're getting her," Gunner assured him, both of them knowing who 'they' meant, Win and Drew.

The guy with the broken arm was groaning, endangering Gunner's mission. That was never a good idea, so Ansel said, "Shut up, or he will shoot you."

The jittery kid had enough sense to pipe down.

Gunner handed Ansel the gun, then went over to his many syringes. He lifted one of the smaller ones containing a clear liquid before returning to the kid with the shattered arm, saying, "This will help with the pain," before injecting him in the neck.

"Is this going to kill me?" the guy on his knees asked. The kid was brave; he would give him that. He just looked up at Gunner, wanting to know if he was about to die.

"Nope," Gunner reassured him, jabbing him in the neck with the needle. "But you will be out for a few hours."

The kid nodded, accepting his fate. His dark eyes rolled up in his head, and Ansel caught the guy before he hit his head on the concrete floor.

"About time you showed up," Ansel teased his closest friend. "How in the hell did you find me?"

Gunner chuckled, his icy eyes warming. "Seneca put her cell phone in the trunk of the car they took you in."

A slow grin spread across his face, warming his heart. "Did she?"

"A clever girl, your Seneca." Gunner raised a brow, and there was no sense in denying what his friend already knew.

"Well, she's not my Seneca yet," Ansel said. "But she sure as hell will be, when I get home."

Gunner smiled, cracking open the door and whispering, "Then let’s get you the fuck out of here."

"Right behind you, Captain," Ansel said, before walking out of his prison cell on his way to freedom.