Читать книгу Force Lines - Don Pendleton - Страница 11

“We’re creatures of habit, Mr. Radfield. Each one of us is, to some greater or lesser extent, predictable. We wake up at the same time for the same job. We drink the same brand of coffee and the same amount before we drive roughly the same route to our place of employment that expects us there at the same time, five days of the week. We drink the same brand of beer, watch the same brand of movies, listen to the same brand of music. We go to the same church at the same time on Sunday and sit in the same pew, on the same side. We…”

Paul Radfield got the gist of it. And still he went on with the infernal litany, until Radfield had the urge to bellow at the guy to shut his damn piehole. But that was just a wishful thought. He’d been stalked and kidnapped, and was now cuffed, blind, and God only knew where.

How they’d done it—and who they were—was beyond him, but he had some general suspicions.

He stared at the pitched blackness, listening to what he began to think of as the Voice. It was smooth, educated, white, a taunting ring to the words, and why not? The SOB held all the right cards, and in his roundabout infuriating superior way was letting him know all about it. There was no Texas twang or Southern drawl he could make out, no accent of any kind, and that made him just about any man from Anywhere, U.S.A., with the possible exceptions of New England and New Jersey. As for where he was? Talk about a shot in the dark. There was something like 367 miles of Gulf Coast—624 miles of tidewater coast when he threw in all the lagoons, swamps and bays and with the longest chain of barrier islands to be found anywhere on the planet—so he could be anywhere, even south of the border. Or maybe he was out on the water, only there was no discernible rock and roll that would come with even the most gentle of swells. And, for all he knew, once he’d been hit with the dart in the garage of his suburban enclave southeast of Houston, recalling how he’d glimpsed the dark shadow rising from beside the free-weight jungle gym, it could have been one hour or one day since he’d gone under. A little bladder gauging, however, told him it was the former, give or take.

Where then? And what about…

“We make love to the same woman the same three nights of the week, but, to one man’s credit—that would be you, Mr. Radfield—rarely in the same position, though Cynthia—or Kit, as she likes you to call her when in the throes of passion—seems to like Thursday nights a little more than the others. That is, if I judge the sound of her voice and the way she cries your name correctly.”

Radfield felt the blood pulse into his eardrums like a molten war drum. The bastard had bugged, worse, maybe installed hidden mini-cams all over the house, but he wasn’t surprised. He felt his face flush next, as hot as live coals, wondering if the rotten SOB had maybe videotaped their passion for his own personal viewing pleasure. Get a grip! Shame was the least of his woes, he knew, as he then smelled his breath, sucked back in on his sweaty face, thanks to the tight confines of his hood. It was still ripe from the previous night’s veal and pasta, those three whiskey and waters and a glass of red wine, with the residue of the morning’s three—predictable three—cigarettes swirling up in his nose. He also took a whiff of the first tainted aroma of something else.

Fear.

Then he felt the sweat run cold down his face, slithering up under his jaw and chin, but where it ended suddenly, as the hood had been cinched—or noosed?—tight around his neck. The faceless human viper chuckled about something but the cold steel bit into his wrists as he felt his fists clenching, so hard his knuckles popped off like pistol cracks.

Impotent rage was not a feeling he was used to.

The former United States Special Forces captain knew how to keep his cool, though, and under the worst of conditions. These—as it next turned out to his mounting horror—were worse than dodging Iraqi bullets and sniffing out chemical and biological stashes for a little known black op during Gulf One called Operation Specter Run. And his heart began to beat like a jackhammer, harder than before, if such a thing was possible, as the Voice recited, chapter and verse, the daily routines of his wife and two sons. Their likes, dislikes, habits. Right down to the type of music Ben and John both listened to, Kit’s favorite television programs and which room she preferred, which sealed it that the house had been wired for visual spying. Then their movements, and by the hour, the eateries and friends they visited after school, when, where and who, down to the same time his wife hit the same health spa after work, and which housewives and where she had two dry gin martinis at her favorite bar, and which two days of the week. Son of a…

Stay cool, breathe slow, he told himself. Instinct told him nothing had happened to his family—yet—and he kept hope alive.

There was a long pause, during which Radfield wondered if his captor had left the room, the building, the boat, wherever he was.

“I have yet to hear the usual questions, Mr. Radfield. Even for a Medal of Honor winner, you’re too cool and collected.”

“Okay. I’ll bite. Who are you?”

“Wrong first question. Unanswerable anyway.”

“Right. If you told me, you’d have to kill me. You want something. What? And if I don’t agree, then what happens to my wife and sons?”

“What happens?” The Voice made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a snort. “Do I actually have to say the words?”

Radfield ground his teeth, steadied his breathing some more. No, the bastard couldn’t see him sweat, but he had to control his own voice. “Yeah. You do.”

“They’ll be killed. Very quietly, very efficiently.”

“Are they safe?”

“For the moment, they’re going about their daily routine.”

“What do you want?”

“How do you like Miami, Paul?”

Friendly like, confidence growing, the hook was in.

“Too hot, too much crime, too phony.”

“Agreed. Not to mention there’s something vaguely disturbing about an entire city built right over a swamp.” The Voice chuckled. “It’s almost as if the fools who live there are begging for some natural calamity to happen, between a giant sinkhole swallowing them whole and hurricanes blowing them clear out to the Everglades. Anyway…be that as it all is, it’s the business you perform as part of your duties for your company out of Miami that will require an immediate attitude readjustment on your part.”

And there it was. But the punch line, he suddenly knew, was merely part of the irony of his predicament.

His captor knew as much, and went on to tell him, “As chief of security for Manexx PetroChem, you designed certain safety procedures at the Trans-World Bank of Miami.”

“Okay. And?”

“Hasn’t it ever struck you as odd that you are required every three months to escort the same three men donning the exact same black sunglasses and wearing the same three-piece black suits and who you, of course, do not know but provide security to and from the WBM and to and from their posh hotel suite, and who literally have the same briefcases chained to the same wrists? That for all of their public mantras about the need for this country to tap into new oil reserves that there are all of two—count them—two Manexx platforms out on the Gulf and with no plans in the foreseeable future to expand? That when you designed their off-shore security there was virtually no mention of deep-sea drilling, with just the basic equipment and skeleton crews necessary to maintain appearances?”

Radfield had, in fact, wondered about all of that, among a few other items not yet mentioned. As he had some nagging idea where this was headed, he felt the first itch of nicotine craving coming on when—

Fingers like iron rods twisted up the hood around his mouth. He heard something metallic—the snap of scissors?—then raw combat instincts flared. There was fire in his limbs, sudden anger to strike back coiling him. He was an inch or so off the seat when the gun muzzle was shoved against his temple. He barely heard the snip against the metallic click of the weapon’s hammer as a section of hood was sliced away from his mouth.

“Here, have a smoke.”

It was placed on his lip and lit.

“Now. Sit down, relax and listen. Should you even for the flash of an instant again think about fighting back you will be shot dead, dumped in the Gulf and…well, you can imagine the next regrettable step. Or, rather, three steps.”

The weapon fell away, the second presence melting back. That left his captor, right in front of him. Two, then, at least, and his hands were cuffed in front of him, as he lifted them to work the cigarette. If not for his family…

“Are you with me so far, Paul?”

“I’m listening.”

“We know that you suspect fallen comrades under your command in Gulf One were infected by our side in a vaccine program that was meant to combat the effects of what is now commonly referred to as Gulf War Syndrome.”

“But which, was, in fact, our guys contracting the effects of a nerve gas agent and an unknown bio agent that was covered up by Washington after we blew up a couple of depots and were infected by subsequent fallout and which we were never told what was in said depots.”

“Or everyone in the area in question was stricken by undetermined biohazards relating to Saddam’s torching of those oil fields when his soldiers were sent packing from Kuwait.”

“Or both.”

“Or both. Correct. You made something of a spectacle a number of years back, but, as is the case of general public apathy when it comes to the military and the running assumption out there in America that national security is, in fact, ‘secured,’ and how it gets done is none of their affair as long as their lives go happily on in blissful ignorance, you kept up contact with certain men in the armed forces. Most of whom, I need to inform you, are no longer among the living. You were fanning the flames from the shadows, Paul.”

“I was looking for the truth.”

“The truth. You want to know about the truth, Paul?”

“I bet you’re going to tell me, ‘I can’t handle the truth?’”

The Voice turned cold. “That stash you came across in southern Iraq was some of the most virulent bacteria before then known to man. Those three mobile labs you seized? Those bioagents were confiscated and shipped back to America for analysis.”

“For upgrade and potential deployment, you mean. Unless some of those late comrades of mine you mentioned missed their guess, they were cultivated in germ factories in Idaho and Montana—recombinant DNA, altered genes and so forth—and for the advancement of a secret biological-chemical warfare scheme.”

“Of which you and the others had nary a clue as to what it was—is—really all about.”

Radfield pulled on his cigarette, blew a stream in what he suspected was the general direction of his tormentor. “Really? So, our theory that a general conspiracy about a shadow government within our government engineering a controlled genocide program and running experiments on live test subjects without them knowing it is a bunch of nonsense?”

“Not necessarily. What you suspect has been done before. Pesticide spraying in New York, New Jersey, Miami, for instance.”

“Where there were so-called mosquito infestations that were spreading the West Nile Virus? Except the only areas being sprayed were the black and Hispanic neighborhoods? That conspiracy?”

The Voice chuckled. “You’re getting warm. Think of a circle, Paul. Think of how the past somehow all circles back to the present.”

Radfield felt his hand freeze as he put the cigarette on his lip.

“That’s right, Paul. Manexx PetroChem.”

“You’re telling me…”

“I am, indeed. You work for a classified Homeland Security operation that is involved in producing both counter and offensive biological and chemical weapons, the likes of which would be catastrophic if they were unleashed. Only there is far, far more involved.”

“Homeland Security?”

“That’s right, or, rather, a recent and covert arm known only among the few elite as National Security Military Intelligence. Paul, you were chosen, you were groomed, and specifically for this moment in time. Think of it as destiny calling.”

Radfield was inclined to believe the man, all of it. There were secrets, things—black ops—the United States government did in order to protect, secure and maintain the country’s vested interests, both at home and abroad. Even if he were a nonmilitary citizen, reason alone would tell him the United States was number one in the lion’s share of global weapons sales. That, all by itself, informed even the most unsuspecting and naive that America was, by and large, using its vast wealth to either thwart the expansion of rogue nations and terrorism, or seeking to foment chaos and plant their own lackey criminal regimes in countries of interest in order to keep the United States on top of the world heap. At the forefront of that list were the oil-producing nations. Then there were various strategic nation states that could serve as buffered armed outposts where attack could be launched with the quickest of ease…

Then it hit him.

Now he knew who and what the Voice represented. Now there was no choice how he left what was, without question, the hot seat.

“I can almost hear your thoughts, Paul. Play ball, save your family or—I would at least allow you the dignity of making your peace with God.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Go to your office. Proceed with the day as you normally would. You will receive an e-mail that will give you step-by-step instructions on the access codes we require. Your movements for the immediate future will be detailed, and monitored. You will obey?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“There’s always a choice, Paul.”

“I’ll go with the program.”

“Then, not only will I spare your life and the lives of your family, but I assure you that when this is done you will be more than adequately compensated. Both in terms of money, and the truth you seek.”

And he was abruptly dismissed, as the cigarette was knocked off his lip and a viselike grip hauled him to his feet. There was no point in counting paces, direction and time from there on, but instinct took hold. It was roughly a dozen yards before a door opened and the sense of sound and smell began to give him some clue as to his whereabouts. There was a faint but sickly taint of sulfur in the air. There was no other smell like it he knew of, and it was more than noticeably noxious in certain areas around Galveston Bay where the waters around the island city were still yellow from ships spilling the infernal toxin from years gone by. He heard seagulls, caught a whiff of shrimp and diesel fuel, figured he was in the general vicinity of Seawall Boulevard, named so for the ten-mile, seventeen-foot-high wall built after the 1900 hurricane had all but wiped the fledgling town off the map and dunked it in the Gulf. He was three steps, smelling and listening, when a hand he figured could palm two basketballs dropped over his skull, bent him at the head and shoulders and shoved him ahead where he crashed into the soft padding of a long seat.

“Don’t move.”

By God, he wanted to spring at the new voice, would have if it had just been himself he was looking to save. Before he knew it the cuffs were gone, the cinch around his neck loosened. The hood was whipped away, but just as he began adjusting his eyes to harsh sunlight the figure was a blurring shadow, slamming the door in his face. His temporary home, he found, was the well of a limousine, with, of course, the windows blacked out from the inside. Hunched, he moved to the other seat, discovered the driver’s partition was likewise blackened, and, most likely, shatter-proof. As he picked up the small black file on the seat beside him, a voice patched through the intercom and told him, “You are to read and memorize that and leave it on the seat when you leave. Do what you are told, Mr. Radfield, and you and your family will be fine.”

They were pulling away, smooth and slow, when he picked up the file. No sooner had he opened and looked at the first sequence of numbers than Paul Radfield felt his stomach wanting to roll over. He wasn’t one hundred percent certain what they wanted, but judging by what they wanted him to do—at least initially—a dark cloud settled over his thoughts.

Conspiracy and treason leaped to mind.

And which he was now part of. With three innocent lives he cared about more than his own life he was along for the full ride.

Stuck.

No way out.