Extinction Machine

Chapter Three

Shelton Aeronautics

Wolf Trap, Virginia

Thursday, October 17, 10:37 a.m.

“Let me knock,” suggested Bunny.

He knocked really hard. The door rattled, the building shook.

It was an overcast morning and every light in the place was on. No one had answered any of the phone lines and no one was answering the door.

Top cupped his hands and tried to peer through the frosted glass of the big double doors. “Lights are on, but no movement that I can see.”

Shelton Aeronautics was a sixty-person firm—twelve engineers, two metallurgists, a handful of physicists, and various support staff. Owned by Howard Shelton—yes, that Howard Shelton, the one who was on the cover of Time, Newsweek, and every talk show from Hannity to Colbert. The guy who was putting gaudy chunks of money into commercial space programs to mine raw materials from asteroids. The Sheltons were very old money, having made their consecutive fortunes from growing tobacco, importing slaves, coal and iron mining, B-52 bombers, and more recently stealth fighters and missiles. Interesting karma.

It was a four-story block building, functional rather than decorative, with big windows on the upper stories and lots of sculpted greenery. Parking lot had a bunch of cars, one motorcycle, and a late-model ten-speed bicycle chained to a rack.

Bunny ticked his head toward the camera. “Maybe they think we’re the IRS.”

It was a running joke with us, because when we do plainclothes scut work like this the DMS policy recommended that we wear dark navy blue or black suits, white shirts, plain ties. The outfit marked us as feds, which was an intentional move, but at a glance we could be FBI, Secret Service, NSA, or any of the many investigative arms of the Department of Justice, Homeland, or the Department of Defense. It was a way of hiding within the nondescript federal motif. Most people, when confronted by big men in dark suits and sunglasses didn’t get smart-mouthed. Not since 9/11 and the Patriot Act. And, although I thought the Patriot Act was a hastily written and poorly considered rag that I wouldn’t clean my dog’s ass with, the fear of its nebulous but ominous powers worked magic on tight lips.

I tapped my earbud. “Bug, where are we with that eye in the sky?”

“Getting the thermal scans now,” said Bug, our computer guy. “Wow. Looks like a party in there. Massed heat signatures, all in the same room. Clustered too tight to count individuals, but there’s a lot of them. Maybe the whole staff. We must be getting some interference from the structure, though. Signal’s weak.”

“Which room?”

“Top floor, toward the rear. Most are stationary, two are in motion on the ground floor.”

“Bunny,” I said, “take a walk around back.”

The big young man nodded and turned to the left, heading across the manicured lawn toward the east corner of the building. Harvey “Bunny” Rabbit looks like a Southern California beach volleyball player—which he used to be—and comes off as a harmless goof—which he never was.

In a quiet voice Top said, “Not a big fan of surprises most days, Cap’n. Maybe less so on days like today.”

“Hooah,” I said under my breath. It’s a general Ranger response that could mean anything from “yes sir” to “f*ck you.” Occasionally both.

I stepped directly into view of the door camera and held up my leather identification case to show the NSA credentials. Again. Then I pocketed the ID, gave the camera a look that was a carefully constructed blend of annoyance, disappointment, and a threatened ass-kicking from Uncle Sam, and stepped to the right, out of video range.

“Call it,” said Top.

“Stay on the front door,” I said. “I’ll circle around the other way and meet Bunny.”

“What do we do if no one opens a door for us? We’re not here with a warrant.”

I shrugged. “We’ll improvise.”

He grinned at that.

Behind us, the main street was mostly empty except for a few cars. No one was looking at this building, so I eased around the corner. There was nothing on the side of the building but hedges, beyond that was a narrow side street. As I passed the end of the building I saw that there was a rear entrance to the Shelton campus that spilled into a small parking lot intended for deliveries. Instead of a proper loading bay there was a walk-in entrance with a metal roll-down door. I paused. That door was up, and there was a car parked at a crooked angle in front of it.

A black SUV.

I tapped my earbud. “Cowboy to Green Giant, what’s your twenty?”

“Cowboy,” said Bunny, “I’m on the far side by the back corner. I can see a black—”

“I see it but I don’t see you.” I said quietly. There was a subtle movement to my right and I saw a muscular shoulder move into and back out of my line of sight. Bunny was at the far corner of the building, in a shaded cleft between the wall and a row of trees.

“I see you,” I said. “Any movement?”

“Nothing. You?”

I drew my weapon and moved away from the tree, cutting through the hedges to the side street to put them between me and anyone who might be in the car. I bent low and ran fast along the pavement until I reached the driveway, then stopped for a moment to study the scene from this new angle. The windows of the SUV were smoked to opacity. Both front doors were open. I lingered at the corner of the building, searching the scene with narrowed eyes.

Bunny spoke quietly in his ear. “I can see the plate. Federal tags. Running it now.”

“Copy that. I’m going to the car,” I said. “Watch me.”

I rose from cover and ran in a diagonal line to come up on the driver’s side blind spot. I reached the car in two seconds.

“Empty,” I said. “Nothing inside. Bug—what do you have on the plate?”

“Uh-oh,” said Bug, “MindReader’s kicking back a ‘no-such-number.’ These guys are either phony or deep, deep cover.”

“We’re not the only gunslingers investigating this thing,” I said.

“I’ll keep looking,” said Bug.

Bunny said, “You’re thinking these guys have cover that goes deeper than MindReader? Is that even possible?”

I hurried over to meet Bunny near the open back door. The big man had his gun out, too. We nodded to each other and then wheeled around the edge of the open door, bringing our weapons up in two-handed grips.

All we saw was a storeroom filled with boxes. No people.

There was an inner door at the back off the storeroom. It was closed.

We moved inside, each of us moving along one wall so our field of fire could cover a large portion of the room and offer crossfire backup. Very quietly I murmured, “Cowboy to Sergeant Rock, hold your position. We’re going inside.”

“Call and I’ll come running,” he said.

At the back Bunny and I faded to either side of the door.

“You open and cover,” I said. “I’ll go through.”

Bunny nodded and reached for the handle. But before he could even touch it the door opened and two men stepped through into the storeroom.

Two big men. Dressed exactly like us. Black suits, white shirts, dark ties. Wires behind their ears.

The newcomers stared at Bunny and me.

Bunny and I raised our guns.

“Federal agents,” we barked. “Turn and face the wall. Hands on the wall. Do it now.”

The strangers did not move. If the license plates hadn’t popped up as phony we might have handled this different, but my spider-sense was tingling.

“You’re making a mistake,” said the taller of the two. His voice was calm, his pronunciation of each word very precise.

“And you are pissing me off,” I said. “I told you to face the wall.”

“We’re federal agents,” said the shorter of the strangers. “We have identification.”

“Nice to know. But the man said to assume the position, chief,” said Bunny, getting close enough to fill the man’s line of sight with a lot of chest. “Don’t make a mistake here.”

The two men looked at each other. There was no change in their expressions, no obvious exchange of signals, however without another word they turned and placed their palms against the cinder-block wall of the storeroom. They spread their feet and waited.

Bunny nodded to me and I took up a shooting position, feet wide and braced, hands holding my Beretta rock steady. Bunny holstered his piece and used both hands to do a quick but very thorough pat down of each man. He wasn’t rough about it, but it wasn’t a Swedish massage either.

“Gun,” he announced as he pulled the first man’s jacket back to reveal what looked to be a Taser in a shoulder holster. “I think.”

Bunny took the gun and showed it to me. It wasn’t a Taser but I didn’t know what it was. It had a chunky frame with a slightly elongated square barrel. At each of the four corners of the barrel were curved metal prongs. There was no opening to the barrel, so whatever this gun did, firing bullets was not part of its function. That didn’t mean it was a toy. There were a lot of variations of Tasers out there and some of them were quite nasty. A few of them were even lethal. Bunny dropped the gun into his jacket pocket, then took the man’s wallet and ID case. He continued with the pat down and paused again, feeling along the agent’s arms. Then he grabbed the back of the man’s jacket collar and yanked the sports coat down and off.

“What?” I asked.

“He’s wearing something under his shirt.”

The agent said, “Don’t ruin your career with a bad choice.”

Bunny showed him a lot of white teeth. “How about you pour yourself a nice big cup of shut the f*ck up?”

Then he hooked his fingers between the folds of the man’s shirt and yanked. Fabric tore, buttons flew everywhere and Bunny stepped back to let me see. Beneath the crisp white shirt was what looked like a gray leotard. It was very thin and formfitting, and it was crisscrossed with a mesh of thin wires.

“The hell is that?” I asked.

“Thermal underwear,” said the agent.

Bunny pinched some of the fabric between his fingers and rubbed it. “I think it’s some kind of Kevlar. Like that new spider-silk stuff, but thinner.” He gave the agent an uptick of the chin. “What’s with the wires?”

“Insulation for duty in cold weather.”

“Uh-huh,” murmured Bunny. He repeated the pat-down procedure with the second man, found another four-prong gun, and confirmed that the man wore the same micro-thin Kevlar. He took their ID cases and flipped them open. “FBI. Agent Henckhouser and Special Agent Spinlicker.”

I glanced at the pictures on the IDs Bunny held up, but I didn’t lower my gun.

“May we turn around?” asked the shorter man, Spinlicker.

“Turn around,” I said, “but stand right there.”

The agents turned slowly. Their faces were bland, their eyes dark and calm. Spinlicker asked, “Are you with the Cyber Crimes Task Force?”

“Are you?” I countered.

“You’re required to show us your identification,” said Henckhouser.

“Blow me,” I said.

Bunny backed six feet away and drew his gun. With his other hand he tapped his earbud and read the ID info to Bug.

I lowered my pistol, letting it hang by my side. “Okay, gents, you want to tell me who you are and why you’re here?”

Henckhouser said, “How about returning our weapons and possessions?”

“How about I don’t and you answer my questions?”

The agents said nothing.

“Where’s the staff?” I asked.

Henckhouser and Spinlicker exchanged a look, but said nothing.

Top buzzed me. “You need backup, Cowboy?”

“Negative, we got this,” I said. “Let me know if you see anyone else.”

“Copy.”

Then Bug was on the line. “Got something for you. The names and descriptions match active agents, but I have a couple red flags. The first is that they are currently assigned to the Alaska bureau. They’re not supposed to be all the way down here.”

“That’s interesting,” said Bunny. “Maybe they’re allergic to moose.”

It was a joke but it was also a code for Bug’s ears. Alaska was where the Poker Flat testing range was. One of the first sites of the cyber-terrorism campaign.

“Give me something better.”

“That’s the second red flag. MindReader kind of burped while running these guys down. At first we got a message saying that they were inactive, with a pop-up screen providing details of how they were both KIA while on that white supremacist terrorist thing in Pine Deep, Pennsylvania, ten years ago. But then the system did an autocorrect and replaced that with an error message. Now I have data saying that they are on active status.”

“So—is that a computer error or what?”

“I’d go with ‘what,’” said Bug. “Doesn’t feel good, Cowboy. We’re contacting the FBI deputy director to the lowdown.”

“Keep me posted,” I said. “In the meantime I think we’ll take these jackasses into custody. Maybe they’ll enjoy sitting in a holding cell for the rest of the month.”

Agent Henckhouser said, “You’re making an unfortunate mistake, Captain Ledger.”

That froze the moment.

I took a half step forward and pointed my gun at Henckhouser’s face. “Now how in the wide blue f*ck do you know my name?”

Henckhouser continued to smile. “We’re working toward the same goal, Captain. We both want to know who is behind the sabotage.”

“Not liking this, boss,” murmured Bunny.

I sucked my teeth. “Okay, I want both of you ass-clowns facedown on the ground, hands on your heads, fingers laced.”

Bunny produced a fistful of plastic flexcuffs and reached a hand out to turn Spinlicker.

Then without a word or a change of expression, Agent Spinlicker lunged at Bunny.

It just happened.

There was no tensing of muscles, no sign at all. Spinlicker went from bland immobility into a full-speed attack that was so blindingly fast—so improbably fast—that Bunny was caught totally off guard.

Before I could even react, Henckhouser’s left hand whipped out and knocked my gun arm aside and he chopped at my throat with the stiffened edge of one callused hand.