Son of Cerberus (The Unusual Operations Division Book 2) (27 page)

The 7.62mm rounds tore through everything, though the man in charge of the weapon was hardly capable of keeping it aimed. The bullets pierced through two of the three tables easily, moving them as they did. Those that blasted into the wall shattered tile and tore through steel leaving pipes hissing and walls bare.

Henry squeezed off a round and then pulled himself hard into the wall as the man with the automatic weapon turned on him. The concrete between him and his prey was quickly being disintegrated, meaning Henry only had seconds left on his clock.

Marcus couldn’t let anything happen to his friend—they had already lost too much. He jumped to his haunches and shot two more rounds over the table blindly, hoping one of them would meet its mark. Neither did and the hose of gunfire was once again concentrated on the tables.

In just a fraction of a second, Cynthia felt something rush through her. As she grabbed her head, horrified that she would very quickly be meeting her maker, she had a sudden confidence. Bullets had started tearing through their only defense now, leaving little trails of dust to hang in the air as they did. Her arm, the one that had been left eternally disfigured, felt suddenly warm and tingly. The surging feeling worked its way through her entire body like a drug in the blink of an eye.

Suddenly, her disfigured arm held her pistol. With something like calm, she stood quickly. The wind of a passing bullet did nothing to faze her as she rose her own weapon and squeezed off an entire clip as fast as the weapon would operate.

Though she couldn’t see through the haze before her, she knew she had somehow hit her targets one after the other. The only sound to fill the room now was the clanking of brass as it hit the ground, the slowly leaking trickle of the dozens of broken jars, and the hissing of pipes from somewhere behind her.

Marcus eyed her with awe. She stood as still as a stone, completely stoic as if she were not a human at all. Her firing arm, though usually covered in an elegant glove, was covered in strange, jagged, bloody lines. Her steel frame was that of a warrior, one who had just won.

He quickly changed his gaze from sheer amazement to one of concern.

“You okay up there?” he said, patting the back of her steel-like leg. He snagged his coat on a jagged hole jetting through the table near his arm as he did. Trying to pull it free ripped some of the fabric off. Marcus didn’t mind, he was simply trying to ensure Cynthia hadn’t been shot.

“I’m okay,” she said, strangely different in some way than she had been moments before. Her steel nerves didn’t break and her icy eyes didn’t flinch. She felt good, satisfied that she had accomplished what she wanted. She also felt a confidence, like she knew she wouldn’t be dying anytime soon.

“Good, in fact.”

Henry brushed the large amounts of dust off of his shirt as he poked his head around the corner. The only bad guys that were moving were the one that had been shot through the leg and the scientist-like man that had greeted them.

Marcus jumped over the tables, his weapon trained on anything resembling a silhouette. He found the scientists on the ground, writhing in agony as he tried to stem the flow of blood from a hole in his back.

“We’re going to help you,” Marcus said reassuringly. He grabbed the scientist’s hand. The man looked as if he had seen a ghost. The color was quickly draining out of his face and his eyes were very wide.

“My liver,” he said shakily. “I’ve been shot through the liver.”

“How can we help you?” Marcus said, signaling to Henry to call an ambulance.

“You cannot,” he said begrudgingly, holding tighter onto Marcus’s hand. “Unless you’re a trauma surgeon, I’m finished.”

Marcus didn’t want to see the man die. At most he felt as if the guy was misguided in his ambitions. He didn’t seem as if he wanted to bring harm to the world. He might have been an extremely useful man to have around, too, seeing as how he knew everything there was to know in terms of the
little masters
, or whatever the guy had been calling the pink blobs.

“Then can you please help us,” Marcus said, imploring the dying man to use the rest of his time to help Marcus and the team. “There are things about this operation that aren’t good, things that are outright evil. Taking people by force is one of those things.”

“But they will better us as a society,” the man said.

“Don’t you think people should have a choice? Forcing people to be better, just because someone thinks one way is better than another way, is not right.”

“You don’t understand,” he said, coughing as he tried harder and harder to pull breath into his faltering lungs. “You can’t stop it. Soon they’ll be on the shelves of pharmaceutical stores everywhere. Even now, they’re en route to pharmacies we own. It’s inevitable—even if you want to stop the betterment of mankind, you won’t be able to.”

“What about the machines?” Marcus said angrily. “Don’t these things need the machines to fully integrate into a body?”

“Something that is being addressed,” he said, closing his eyes peacefully. “Something that is being addressed by bigger people than you…bigger people than I…”

With that, he slipped away. His firm grip loosened and his chest fell deeply. Though it tried desperately to kick start itself again, it could not. He was gone and there was nothing any of them could do to save his life. Marcus reached for a microphone that was usually near his collar, but remembered they had forgone the usual communications plan for something more generic. Cellular telephones wouldn’t let the UOD know everything they were doing during the operation.

The other man, the one who had survived through the onslaught of both enemy and friendly fire, was busy trying to back up with his one good leg. He tried to stem the flow of bleeding as he backed up, apparently trying to get himself stealthily away from the carnage toward the only exit. Marcus briefly wondered how he was going to get up the stairs with a damaged leg.

“Tell me where the shipment is headed,” Marcus said, letting go of the dead man and walking purposefully toward the injured one. “Tell me where the ‘little masters’ are headed, or I’ll blow your goddamn head off.”

The man looked frightened, but pulled on a brave façade as Marcus approached. Instead of breaking, he laughed a forced laugh.

“You will not be able to stop it,” he said between gasps of pain and laughter. “You can’t stop what has already been put into motion.”

“We can and we will,” Cynthia said, jumping forward and kicking the man directly in his wounded leg. He sent a howl of pain through the warehouse, and grabbed the injury with both hands, temporarily disabled by the kick.

“You’re not going to be able to stop it,” the man said. “And I will tell you nothing.”

As quickly as Marcus had ever seen anyone move, the injured man pulled a gun and caught everyone off guard. Instead of pointing it at anyone in particular, he shoved it beneath his chin and pulled the trigger. Before Marcus could utter a word of protest, the mysterious man had blown a hole through the top of his skull. He slumped over backwards, his head making a sickening thump as it bounced off the concrete.

“Fuck!” Marcus yelled, shocked and horrified by what had just taken place. They were in a supposedly abandoned warehouse, near Snoqualmie Falls, that happened to be full of body-snatching organisms they couldn’t even begin to comprehend, and dead bodies. Add to that the fact that they had almost just been killed, Cynthia had proven herself somehow capable of doing the improbable, and that they might lose their jobs as a result of participating in a bloody shootout from which they had expressly been warned against, they had a lot to think about.

Marcus rubbed his temples and grabbed his phone. His side hurt and the gash that could have very easily been worse was bleeding and would require stitches, but he needed to keep moving. They now had a shipment of whatever the blobs were to contend with. God only knew how many had already been sent out.

His phone had zero service in the deep well of the warehouse. Because he hated staring at the dead bodies and carnage anyway, he decided to get the hell out of the basement-like warehouse. He gathered as much ammunition as he could from the dead men, including the Desert Eagle with three full magazines, and left. Carefully, he and his team moved up the stairs and peeked over the top to make sure no one was around. The area was completely abandoned, just as it had been when they had arrived.

Marcus peered out of the front door window before he left the building. Making sure they kept the door propped open, Cynthia stayed behind. She was peeling the bloody glove from her maimed arm when Marcus exited to make the necessary phone calls.

Service so deep into the wilderness was awful, but Marcus was able to get a signal after a few feet. Henry called 911 and explained the ordeal while Marcus called Gregory for guidance.

“You what?” he roared. “Ambushed in a warehouse doesn’t sound like you were being careful.”

“We used the warrants we were given. It’s not my fault some assholes wanted us dead. It doesn’t matter anyway, this place is a biohazard if I’ve ever seen one.”

“What do you mean?” Gregory asked suspiciously. “Give me details.”

“They’ve been cloning or growing some sort of organism here that integrates into the human body.” Marcus tried to word it in a way that didn’t make it sound too outlandish. “From what the scientist was telling us, it acts as sort of an external hard drive, and it’s been around for a very long time. Unfortunately, it also adds its personality into the host, meaning—”

“They’re manipulating the host into doing what they want it to do.”

“Exactly,” Marcus said, spitting a bit of dust from his mouth. “They’re also the culprits who have been ruining bodies for years now. It’s the reason we saw raisin-intestines in a few of our victims.”

“We will get a team out there immediately and inform the NSA of the situation. They need to be aware we have something that qualifies as either a zombie or an alien out there.”

Marcus laughed. He hadn’t put much thought into what to call them other than bacteria. It was strange, however, that the man who had died holding Marcus had referred to them as beings. He had called them ‘his master.’

“We’ve got bigger problems.” Marcus hated the fact that he had to break the bad news to his boss. “Apparently these little buggers are already being shipped somewhere. We were both mistaken for and ambushed by the movers responsible for transporting the organisms. I don’t know how many have already been taken, but I’d estimate it’s over a couple thousand.”

“Good god,” Gregory said under his breath. “Where are they headed?”

“Pharmacies owned by Lambert or one of his associates.”

Gregory now had a decision to make. He had to start the gears of progress moving in every direction he could. He knew then that they may have been in far over their heads, but he would work with what he had been given. Marcus, Henry, and Cynthia were all well-trained agents and they would do what they had to in order to get the job done.

“Look,” Gregory said. “You need to stop these things. Take any action necessary to stop the shipment. I don’t know if you can do anything from where you are, but analysts will be feeding you information on every single pharmacy Lambert and his goons have ever visited.”

Marcus grinned. Parked right next to their own vehicle was the one the ‘delivery guys’ had driven. It was a van, more importantly a large white van with ample amounts of room inside. From the windshield hung a small GPS unit, something Marcus had a very good feeling about.

“Let me call you back in a minute,” Marcus said, closing out his conversation with Gregory and jogging toward the van. There was no one around. Obviously these guys didn’t think they were being investigated, or at least that the investigation would get to them so quickly.

The doors were unlocked and Marcus jumped in. The GPS was still on. It showed the route they had taken from the port district in Seattle to where they were currently parked. Marcus could have shouted with glee. Instead he cleared his throat and called his boss back.

“We’ve got a lead,” he said triumphantly.

“Local police will meet you at the docks,” Gregory was explaining to Marcus, who drove recklessly through the country roads toward wherever the GPS was taking them. They had stuck around just long enough to meet a small contingent of police officers at the pseudo research facility before heading off toward their next hunt. Marcus didn’t know what to expect other than men with guns. He hoped there wouldn’t be any more men with guns.

“You’ll have help from the Coast Guard, too,” Gregory said as Marcus whipped around a corner. The freeway was just minutes away, but Marcus couldn’t help feeling as if he needed to rush. “Hopefully we can put an end to this before it starts.”

“Right,” Marcus breathed heavily. “Before it starts.”

“Well if what the scientist said was true, we’re going to be stopping what may essentially boil down to a global outbreak.” Gregory was excited. “We need to do our best to keep those ‘creatures’ off the street.”

“True,” Cynthia said from the back seat, grasping the sides of the front seats to keep herself from smashing into a door. Her arm was still bleeding. “It’ll be fun, I’m sure.”

“In any case,” Gregory grumbled, “it looks like you’re searching for the
Catalan
. The name was derived from a ship that sank in the seventeen hundreds.”

“Not interested in history, Gregory old chap,” Henry said sarcastically. “What’s it look like now?”

“Approximately three hundred meters long, big, and gray,” Gregory grumbled. “You’ll be looking for Terminal 30. Port authority has already been notified that no ships are to leave the area because of the threat of biological weapons being present.”

“Great,” Marcus said out loud. “Sounds like we’re going to have quite the party.”

“Complaining about some much needed backup,” Henry laughed. “Sounds about right for you, Marcus.”

“Quiet, old man,” Marcus retorted, screeching his tires around a bend and almost taking out an oncoming vehicle. “I’m trying to drive here.”

The sun set as they drove. It had already been getting dark outside, but the sun finally gave up and sank below the horizon. It signified the end of the day, something Marcus hated knowing he would be fighting through. He heard through the tone in Gregory’s voice that other things were transpiring, too, but he could do nothing about it.

Marcus drove like a madman through the downtown area, hoping at every corner he wouldn’t ram into an oncoming vehicle. A police escort was right behind the small vehicle, struggling to keep up. They knew where Terminal 30 was, but Marcus had took off before the escort arrived.

Dodging around corners and careening through neighborhoods ended with Marcus arriving on the street housing Terminal 30. Lights made the dark sky as bright as day and shipping containers moved as if nothing bad had ever been reported. The huge cranes did their job, regardless of what was going on around them. Marcus punched it down the long bright road, knowing the flashing blue and red lights ahead meant they were getting close.

“The Catalan has thrown their mooring lines and taken off through the harbor,” Gregory said, angry the Coast Guard hadn’t arrived sooner. “They’re making a break for the open ocean. From what I’m hearing, there’s a cutter out in front of them waiting to cut them off, but it hasn’t been confirmed yet.”

“Damn,” Marcus said. “Means we won’t get to have our fun.”

Marcus came to a screeching halt in front of the shipping yard. Huge containers were stacked ten and more high in areas. The enormity of the ships and the containers they carried hadn’t hit Marcus until now. It was like looking at giants.

Marcus and Cynthia jumped out of the car and glanced around. There was one police cruiser present, but no officers in sight. A bad feeling started in Marcus’s stomach and spread through his body. He hoped the men hadn’t been shot or taken hostage. From what he had seen up at the warehouse, it wasn’t above the men participating in this operation to kill whoever might get in their way.

The police in the tailing cruiser jumped out, too. Though there were only two of them, they seemed determined to help.

“What now,” Henry said, looking around. The bright lights showed men walking this way and that through the huge stacks of shipping containers. The cranes, so large they used two massive pylons to roll back and forth over the stacks, were still operating. Marcus wondered if anyone had even been informed about the danger that they were in.

“I don’t know,” Marcus admitted. “I guess we should try and find the Port Authority and figure out how to stop that ship.”

“Leave that to us,” one officer said, radioing in that he needed immediate backup before heading off down the pier.

Marcus spotted two other police officers walking with someone up ahead. They were clad in their usual black uniforms with trim of gold and blue. They both wore patrol caps, too, and carried large pistols and batons on their side.

“Looks like we might not have to look too far after all,” Marcus said, breaking into a light jog to catch up to the men. The three were just under a hundred yards away, but the loud banging of containers, the shriek of cranes, and low rumble of ships made it impossible to communicate from this far away. Marcus tried waving his hands as he ran, but it was no use.

Henry jogged beside Marcus, muttering something about the police being no help when they both stopped cold. One officer stood to the side, facing the dock worker in his uniform while the other officer pulled his pistol. Leveling it on the back of the port worker, he didn’t even hesitate before putting a bullet through his head.

Execution wasn’t something the police usually participated in.

Cynthia was the first to speak. From just a few steps behind, she had seen the very same thing Marcus and Henry had just witnessed.

“They’re not going to give us any help.”

The three of them moved behind the closest container before the so-called police officers turned their attention away from the deceased man. Marcus didn’t want to see what the imposters would do to them and really wanted to avoid any future shootouts. Instead, they chose to move stealthily through the shadows toward the police in order to figure out what the shooting was all about.

The yard was nearly as bright as day, making movement between the huge stacks of containers difficult to do while maintaining their hiding spots. Each time they moved meant they could be spotted.

Running from shadow to shadow was difficult, but they reached the
police
quickly.

Marcus darted as quickly as he could to the next hiding spot, a place that seemed completely abandoned. A narrow corridor between the containers opened up and the three quietly crept into the darkness. There, they could at least get their bearings before darting out into the open again.

The three held their breath when the lead officer, a tall white man holding the hands of the deceased, walked by nonchalantly. The second officer, a seemingly Hispanic man, held the body’s feet. From ten feet away, Marcus could hear him complaining about the weight.

“Guy’s heavy,” he said, surprised. Perhaps it was just the worst luck a man could have, but Marcus heard Henry let out a great sneeze from behind.

Marcus grumbled audibly as the pseudo-cop stopped in place and turned his head slowly toward the three creeping agents. He didn’t seem surprised, just inconvenienced.

Cynthia didn’t mind springing into action first. She swept past Marcus at full speed, jumping headlong into the officer’s abdomen and spearing him to the ground. She was on him in the blink of an eye, laying into his face with blow after savage blow from two clenched fists.

Marcus rounded the corner just in time to save her from being shot. The large Desert Eagle pistol he had confiscated earlier did a good enough job intimidating the officer into laying down his own weapon.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” he said while his counterpart was being pummeled on the ground. His white skin turned a lighter shade of white knowing he had just been caught. Sheepishly, he put his hands up while he stared at his friend. Henry pulled Cynthia off by the armpits as the man she’d been pummeling fell into unconsciousness. She tried her hardest to kick the officer in his head while she was pulled backward.

“We know,” Marcus said, making sure he was careful with the spooked man. “We’re federal agents here to stop the Catalan from making its departure. From what we hear, there should be more police here soon. I find that hard to believe now.”

“You’re feds?” the cop said. His nametag said William. “What are feds doing out here?”

“Trying to stop the dispersion of biological weapons,” Cynthia said. “Tell us how to get aboard that ship, or you’re going to join your friend here.”

“The ship has already shoved off,” the cop said, his voice shaking. “I’m not sure there is anything you can do now.”

“Well,” Cynthia said, brushing blood from her knuckles. “I guess that doesn’t bode well for you.”

“Wait,” William said. “Don’t hit me, man. I think I saw the gangway down still. If you can get a boat, you can board using the gangway.”

“There’s no way they will hit international waters,” Henry said. “We might as well leave the ship for the Coast Guard.”

“They’re not headed for international waters.” The officer was frightened enough to divulge information he hadn’t been asked about. It was a plus for the team. “They’re just getting away from the dock so that they can transfer the merchandise.”

“Great,” Marcus said. Henry was already on the phone with Gregory, who was apparently having a very bad day. The information was more than enough to shock him into action.

“So,” Henry said as he hung up the phone. “William, you’re going to stay here. Hopefully none of these containers move while you and your partner are chained to them. Team, we’re going to head out to sea.”

“Great,” Marcus said, eyeing Henry. He remembered the last time they were in water. It didn’t go well for his friend.

“Well,” Cynthia said, taking pleasure in the act of chaining the officers up. “Hopefully we’ll be back here in a few hours. If not, you’re going to have to start yelling really loud.”

“You’re going to leave me here?” William was not happy about the prospect of being chained to a shipping container near the man he had just seen executed. “This isn’t your best idea.”

Cynthia slapped him as hard as she could, sending his head back against the container. He gritted his teeth at the sting of the slap, but grabbed the back of his head from where it had just rebounded from the steel.

“Shut it.”

Making sure the two cops couldn’t get loose and were completely unarmed first, the three trotted off without another word. They saw a small tugboat-like vessel nearby they would be confiscating in order to catch up to the distant cargo ship. Its massive size was still visible in the narrow strait of the shipping lane, but it was quickly getting smaller.

Marcus wondered what was taking the Coast Guard so long. He could only assume they were dealing with imposters, just as the police officers had been.

The small boat ended up being nothing as they had first thought it was. Just over twenty feet long, it had a thin-walled cabin meant to keep its pilot out of the elements and nothing more. Even though it resembled a tugboat in shape, it couldn’t have been used for much more than piloting larger ships into the docks.

The three were happy to see that boats were rather easy to hotwire. Marcus made quick work of the wires while Henry chatted away on the telephone and Cynthia stood guard. In just under a minute, they had power where they should and the motor was revving away. Not a single worker looked at them as they worked. Come to think of it, Marcus couldn’t recall seeing much more than one or two hard-hat clad men.

Marcus pegged the throttle to full and the boat jumped forward. The bow went skyward as it gained speed, digging a wide swath through the calm waters. Cynthia gave a hoot of joy as the boat leveled out and glided easily through the dark sea water of the shipping lane. The shore passed by quickly as the cool night air battered her face, sending her black hair whipping about behind her.

They were closing quickly with the slow moving cargo ship. Though they had been over a mile behind the titan, they were moving at least three times as fast as it was. As they closed in, they became keenly aware they were once again going up against something much larger than they were. Lights shined from on top of the ship, illuminating the large containers which seemed stacked impossibly high. All in all, Marcus estimated the highest point of the ship at over a hundred feet above sea level.

The boat powered on anyway, taking them closer and closer toward the container ship. As they approached, they realized that they may be too late. A smaller boat mimicked the large ships every movement. It bounced just alongside the larger ship and from what Marcus could see from their current distance, it was floating alongside the dangling gangway.

“Crud,” Marcus said. “I think they’re already transferring material.”

“Oh come on,” Henry said, obviously annoyed with the amount of action they had already been through. “When does it end?”

“Now,” Marcus said, punching the throttle until it hit the stops. They were under a half mile away and closing as fast as they could. The whine of the engine was making Marcus wonder whether or not they would actually be able to catch up to the departing ships. He had a brief feeling that the boat they had taken might not make it.