Fast (2 page)

            Neither were there any external handles nor latches. In fact, there seemed to be no way of opening the containers at all. They looked designed to only open from the
inside
. He double-checked the freight notice on his clipboard. The authorization code checked-out, but how the hell could he open them?

            Ralph worked on the bottom level of the Complex, in the basement storage area under the freight lift.

            Having a bright idea, he checked the authorization code against the staff records, identifying to whom the contents belonged. Suddenly the mystery made more sense. This consignment belonged to Francis Gould, ordered the day before armed guards escorted Gould from the Complex.

            Ralph tapped his class ring on the container thoughtfully, listening to the metallic echo. Vanessa Sharp had ordered Gould’s labs be immediately sealed.
The containers must have arrived this morning with nowhere to go.

            He hadn’t liked Gould. They had little contact, but Gould always turned up in places he didn’t belong.

            Ralph thumped his palm on the container, laughing at the stupidity of the situation and his own scaredy-cat reaction. As he turned away, a tremendous wail of shrieking metal assaulted his ears.

            Ralph spun. Right before his eyes, both massive containers dropped open like castle drawbridges.

            But that didn’t shock him the most. It was the gunmen that came rushing out, raising their weapons….

            Ralph covered his face with the clipboard, but it offered no protection as the gunmen opened fire, shredding him in a hail of gunfire that shattered the glass wall behind him and sent the clipboard spinning from his hand.

#

Three levels up from where Ralph’s blood spilled from his body, Dana Lantry led a group of twelve investors on a guided tour of the Complex.

            Dana felt flustered.

            Born in Cambridge, England, Dana had lived in the United States for nine years, and under the Arizona desert for three. According to her co-workers, not long enough to lose her posh accent.

            She just prayed her accent masked her anxiety from the investors. It wasn’t just her who felt it, either. Alarm was infecting the Complex like an epidemic. Every person she spoke to shared an edge of escalating unease.

           
It’s little wonder
, she told herself.
It’s not every day a senior research scientist is caught stealing.

            Francis Gould’s crime and subsequent high-speed removal by the Irish Government left everyone stunned. That was just two days ago, and long enough for people to start worrying about what Gould had been up to. And the people who looked most worried were the same people who actually
knew
what type of mayhem Gould could have caused.

            He’s gone
, Dana reminded herself.
His government took him away. Whatever he was up to has been stopped.

           
But still, that feeling….

            She turned and flashed her beaming smile at the trailing investors. The Communication Officer’s responsibility included demonstrating everything operating smoothly, regardless of how she really felt on the inside.

            Dana raised her voice and continued, ‘More than eighteen percent of this Complex is constructed from genetically-enhanced building material. The unique combination of strength and flexibility was derived by genetically isolating the polysaccharide chitin found in the cell wall of fungi. This is the same building material in the hard exoskeletons of insects and crustaceans.’

            Dana ticked off attributes on her fingers. ‘Our bio-construction materials won’t collapse in an earthquake. They won’t crack from foundation settling. They are resistant to the Earth’s harshest atmospheric conditions. They are cheap to produce. They are water and fire-proof, and their insulation rating is off the chart.’

            Dana felt relieved to see a few positive faces as she reached the ‘hard sell’ part of her speech.

            ‘What about protection from other humans?’ asked a tall, middle-aged investor with bushy eyebrows and deep frown lines. His smart suit looked creased and crushed from too long sitting in a small plane. He quirked an eyebrow as though he wanted to hear about the
good
stuff. ‘What about the terrorism-proofing?’

            Dana didn’t let her smile slip for an instant.

#

The Pave Hawk helicopters thundered over the Arizona desert. The long-range aircraft had refueled in flight.

There was no stopping.

            Onboard the lead helicopter, five United Nations Weapons Inspectors fidgeted in their seats. The three men and two women looked uncomfortable. Five hours ago they’d been in civilian clothes. Now they were clad in military fatigues from bootstrap to chinstrap. Every few minutes, one of the inspectors checked their wristwatch then stole an uneasy glance at the accompanying Marines. Supporting the weapons inspectors were five teams of United States Marines Corps
FAST
Special Forces Operatives.

            FAST
(
F
leet
A
nti-Terrorism
S
ecurity
T
eam) was charged with the tactical priorities of domestic counter-terrorism and installation security.

            This morning they were doing both.

            Captain Alex Coleman waited restlessly in the lead Pave Hawk. In the first seat behind the co-pilot, he sat directly across from a young female weapons inspector. Coleman had army-green eyes and a white-picket-fence smile. At thirty-four, he’d commanded a FAST platoon for the last eighteen months. He remembered taking command of the platoon four days after his thirty-second birthday. It made quite a birthday present.

            His platoon jokingly called him the Tom Cruise of the elite forces. With his strong jaw line, deep dimples, and thick clipper-cut brown hair, he admitted a slight resemblance, but not enough to warrant all the remarks.

           
Still
, he thought, catching the pretty weapons inspector’s eye so that she blushed and turned away,
there are worse people to look like
.

            Sitting to his immediate right, the three Marines with whom he’d served in Afghanistan and Iraq swapped corny jokes to break the tension. They wore their ‘Mission Faces’. Every Marine had a mission face. It was the way they looked, the way they acted, every time they deployed for an operation. Some people stared blank-faced straight ahead. Some people fiddled with weapons. For these three, their mission faces always manifested just before touch-down.

            First it started with the jokes.

            ‘So anyway,’ continued Corporal ‘Marlin’ Martinez. ‘What do you say to a terrorist with two black eyes?’

            In the next seat along, Sergeant William King shrugged.

            ‘Nothing,’ insisted Marlin, raising his fist. ‘You’ve told him twice already!’

            King’s booming laugh shook the Pave Hawk. Bright white teeth flashed in his coal-black shaved head. King was built like a human bulldog. His hulking shoulders took up two seats.

            Smirking at King’s big-grin reaction, Marlin looked like a movie-star slumming it with the grunts. His handsome features were painted on an olive canvas. His hair was just a tight black swimming-cap. Before joining the Special Forces, Marlin worked as a freelance security consultant.

            By contrast, King studied structural engineering at college, played scholarship football, and then moved on to competitive body-building. A rising star in the body-building circuit, King had dropped out after allegations of performance-enhancing drug use. Three months later he joined the Marines.

King was the godfather of Marlin’s four year old daughter, Emerald.
Both
men kept a photo of little Emerald in their wallets. Everyone knew that the big, black body-builder and the Latino matinee idol were like brothers.

            ‘That is pu-ure gold,’ crooned Forest, sitting next to King. Corporal Kelso Forest made up the last member of this close-knit brotherhood. ‘I can never remember the good jokes.’

‘That’s because you suck at telling them,’ replied Marlin, leaning across King to thump Forest on the knee. ‘The cows on Daddy’s farm just don’t get em.’

            Forest had light blond hair and those sharp blue eyes where the whites showed right around the iris. He looked wiry and lean all over. Before joining Special Forces, the young Corporal guided high-powered business executives on survival retreats. Back to Mother Nature with nothing but a pocket knife and a prayer. Unfortunately, on his last retreat, one participant carried a gun and a grudge. Three people received gunshot wounds, including Forest. Once recovered, he’d quit his job and enlisted in the Marines.

            Smiling, Forest flipped Marlin the bird.

            Coleman checked his wristwatch.
It’s almost show time.

            ‘Weapons check,’ he ordered. Down both sides of the Pave Hawk, hands instantly leapt to weapons and ammunition.

            Ironically, the weapons inspectors shifted uncomfortably.

           
They have every reason to feel nervous
, reasoned Coleman. Sitting crammed among six armed Marines wasn’t everyone’s typical day at the office. Coleman had kept all the inspectors travelling together. Today, his platoon comprised of five task-organized units, designated First through Fifth Unit, each with eight Marines apiece. Coleman operated with Third Unit. Keeping the inspectors together meant two of his unit travelled in another Pave Hawk. The two bumped Marines would be dropped off just seconds behind Third Unit.

            Coleman finished checking his assault rifle. The CMAR-17 (Caseless Modular Assault Rifle) was replacing the M16A2 among Special Forces.

            The smooth, black, ergonomically designed CMAR-17 fired 5.56mm caseless ammunition. The high velocity projectile gave the small caliber round its armor-piercing capability and very low recoil. The modular design allowed useful secondary systems to fit snugly under the barrel. Today their CMAR-17s sported high-powered torches.

            Strapped to Coleman’s right thigh rested a big silver colt M1911. The colt represented the strongest and most reliable automatic pistol ever made, its type having served the US Army from 1911 to 1985. This model, a Government Series 80, carried only seven rounds. Every bullet was a thumper. The .45 caliber round was far more devastating than an assault rifle bullet at short range.

            Coleman’s uncle, the last of his living family, presented him with the pistol the day he reached the rank of First Lieutenant. Special Forces operatives chose their own backup weapon, so Coleman carried the heavy silver colt.

            ‘We’ve got a good visual,’ reported the pilot, winking over his shoulder at Coleman. ‘I just know you’re going to want to see this.’

            Trying not to seem
too
eager, Coleman shrugged out of his seat harness and clambered forward. The sight through the Pave Hawk’s windshield left him speechless for three seconds.

            ‘Unbelievable,’ he breathed.

The Biological Solutions Research Complex.

            His awe mixed with a guilty sense of adolescent fulfillment. For any professional dedicated to installation security, this represented the Holy Grail of missions.

            From the air the structure resembled a giant cement plug embedded in the desert. Half a kilometer wide, three hundred feet deep, and all constructed snugly within the pit of an abandoned open-cut gold mine. A concrete pancake, the ‘plug’ really functioned as the roof of the underground Complex.