Gorgon

CHAPTER 13

‘James Caresche, Janus Caresche, Janus Carew, Janus Caruthers … the list goes on,’ Sam Reid said. ‘This guy is, was, unreal — he had multiple aliases, and properties all across Europe, Asia, and even in Australia. He was worth millions, and all of it secreted away via shell corporations in tax havens from Switzerland to the Caymans.’

Sam zoomed in one after the other on images from the satellite feed of Caresche’s properties, which were projected onto the giant screen on Jack Hammerson’s office wall.

Hammerson pointed to several open doors, showing glimpses of scattered items inside. ‘Looks like most have been turned over. I’m thinking the Turks are running down their leads pretty quickly.’

Sam switched to view communications cables from the Turkish Ministry of Finance. ‘Well, well, looks like they haven’t managed to pry open his private banking information yet. They’re applying to the BIS in Switzerland for an overriding emergency authority based on a national threat. So far the Swiss are dragging their heels.’ Sam laughed softly. ‘Ah, bless those Swiss.’

‘Excellent. Which accounts are they after?’ Hammerson rubbed his hands together.

‘Got a list, sir — long- and short-term investments. We’ll need a bit more firepower to crack them open.’

Sam moved aside, and Hammerson sat down and commenced typing long strings of characters into MUSE. He placed his hand on the screen for its whorls, indentations, and scars to be recognized by the system’s security. The screen went blank for a few seconds before welcoming him into the most powerful and intuitive search engine in the world.

‘Okay, now, let’s have a look at any recent deposits into Mr. Caresche’s accounts, then track them back to their source.’

In twenty minutes, Hammerson had traced multiple enormous cash and securities deposits to shell organizations originating in the Seychelles, then transferred from Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of England, all the way back to Italy, to a small company called Jupiter Import-Export, rolled up into a massive conglomerate owned by local billionaire Gianfranco Ruffino Monti.

Sam whistled as MUSE organized the data on the screen. ‘Shipping, warehousing, construction, movie production. Wow, this is serious money. And Monti’s rumored to hold one of the largest private collections of Asian and Middle Eastern art and antiquities in the world. Hmm, and what do you know? Italy’s FBI equivalent has a permanent watch on the guy for drugs and arms smuggling. Seems if there’s money in it, then Mr. Monti is also into it.’ Sam straightened. ‘This is our guy — right profile, and could probably buy and sell whatever was in that vault a thousand times over.’

Hammerson pulled up the surveillance information from the local police and Interpol files, and came up with a primary residence — a castle on the northern shore of Lake Como in Italy.

Sam looked impressed. ‘Fit for a king … and with his own private security.’

Hammerson grunted. ‘Private army more like it. I recognize some of those Italian security names — they’re soldiers of fortune and ex-paratroopers.’ He sat back and folded his arms. ‘Well, Mr. Monti has something we need. I think we should pay him a visit, find out if he can assist us.’ Hammerson reached for the phone. ‘And time for the prodigal son to earn his pay.’

He dialed. The call was answered immediately.

‘Alex, we have a project. Time to get you some new HAWC kit,’ Hammerson said. ‘You’re officially out of retirement, Arcadian.’ He disconnected and turned to Sam. ‘Pick him up, collect the team, and get in there — today.’

Sam got to his feet with a small whine of electronics. ‘You got it.’

‘One more thing — put Alex in harm’s way. I want him to remember what he was good at.’

‘Colonel Hammerson has provided the authorization, but I didn’t catch the name,’ said the scientist, Walter Gray, who was accompanying Alex down the long white corridor several levels below the USSTRATCOM base.

Alex ignored the man, his mind on the work he’d been doing with Alan Marshal in the Alpha Soldier Research Unit. His memory, so long like a moth-eaten rug, was now almost fully intact. The neural pathways were still there; seemed they just needed a little chemical kickstart. But the more doors Alex opened in his mind, the more he became aware of the presence lurking there. He referred to it as the Other One, and Marshal now did the same. The young scientist had told him that they would eventually be able to eradicate the psychological shadow, but for now they would manage it. Alex just hoped the Other One didn’t turn out to be stronger than he was, and eradicate him first.

Gray’s voice rose as he talked faster, nervously, pointing to different sealed doors as they passed: laser technology, biologicals, handguns, rifles, combat body armor, sensory enhancement. Alex nodded, but stayed silent. He knew all these weapons intimately; it was his team — former team — that had trialed them in the field. He had already opted for active camouflage — micro-panels capable of altering their appearance, color and reflective properties, enabling the soldiers wearing it to blend into their surroundings. It was something he’d used before and knew it was invaluable for an incursion that required stealth.

Alex decided it was time to stop Gray talking. ‘Give me two HK CTs with variant triggers and a nitride finish. Throw in some frequency shifters while you’re at it … and leave off the over-rails — I won’t need a scope.’

Gray smiled, raising his eyebrows. ‘Good choices … and will you —’

‘Long and short Ka-Bar, tanto edge,’ Alex said. ‘Also, the usual HAWC field kit.’

‘Excellent.’

Alex found he remembered the powerful weapons with absolute clarity. The Heckler & Koch USP45CT pistol, his favorite, was a smooth matte-black sidearm made of a molded polymer with recoil reduction and a hostile-environment nitride finish. The variant trigger made it lightning quick, and the upgraded frequency shifting didn’t so much muffle the sound as shift it beyond the range of human hearing. The knives — the Ka-Bar with its distinctive chisel-shaped head and black laser-honed blade — were scalpel-sharp, and thick enough to be both lethal weapon and field tool. He’d used them many times, on all sorts of materials — flesh and armor.

Alex became aware that Gray was talking again. He blinked and listened as the man pointed to the sensory-enhancement section.

‘For night-time incursions we have some new pupil-lenses that will —’

‘No, thanks, I have my own,’ Alex said.

Gray snorted. ‘Well, I doubt very much they’ll be as good as —’

‘No.’

Alex kept walking until he came abreast of the next room — combat body armor. He turned and raised his eyebrows.

Gray caught up. ‘Ahh, you’ve come at the right time. We’ve just completed testing on some new plating that is literally out of this world. One of Colonel Hammerson’s former operatives brought in a biological sample of some creature’s carapace — toughest thing we’ve ever seen — sea creature we think. We analyzed its chemical and amino acid components and then simply grew it ourselves. It’s light, harder than the toughest metals — about nine-point-five on the Mohs scale — and surprisingly easy to work with. We can grow it into any shape we need in a matter of hours.’

Gray pushed a stud, and the door slid back into the wall. The dark room lit up the moment the pair entered as sensors picked up their movement. The small space turned out to be about as small as a warehouse, complete with a single-lane firing range. At its end was a target dummy kitted out in mottled gray body armor, which looked heavily scarred from repeated direct hits.

Alex exhaled, eyes narrowing. The last time he had seen that mottled armor plating in place it was during a little jaunt to an Iranian nuclear facility, when some naive scientists opened up a black hole that allowed a chitinous-shelled nightmare to come through. The scientists all ended up dead — mostly as food for the creature.

Gray handed Alex a sample of the armor — it was light and tough, like a combination of ceramic and compressed chalk. Alex tried to break or bend it, but couldn’t. The piece he had retrieved all those years ago had been a shell fragment blown from a living creature. However, the piece he held was square, polished, and round-edged. The white coats had been busy.

Gray took it from him and held it up. ‘We can grow it to mold to any body size or shape. We can even build it directly into the active camouflage suit — you won’t even know it’s there … until you get shot at point-blank range, and are able to get straight back onto your feet.’

Alex nodded. ‘What can it stop?’

‘All small arms — even a .357. Most rifles, unless they have armor-piercing or uranium-tipped projectiles.’

‘Good. Make it happen,’ Alex said.

Gray grabbed him by the arm. ‘We can do it right now … step up on here.’

‘Here’ was a small circular platform, with a console nearby. Alex did as requested, and Gray stood behind the console, his eyes moving from Alex to the controls.

‘More toward the middle, please, sir … that’s it. On the mission, will you be engaging in hand-to-hand combat?’

Alex smiled. ‘More than likely.’

‘Then you’ll need glove, elbow and knee plating. Open your hands and spread the fingers so I can get a clear reading.’

Alex did as requested, and a curtain of light fell around him. It closed on him, analyzing, measuring, designing a template of his exact shape. In another minute the light disappeared.

‘That’s it?’ Alex asked.

‘All done; you can step down. The growth medium and presses will do the rest. It’ll be built into your camo suit in a few hours. The active camouflage technology will be woven around the biological plating so you still have the stealth capabilities,’ he grinned, ‘but now with enough lightweight armor to stop an M16 at close range. How’s that sound?’

‘That sounds real good.’ Alex stepped down from the podium and looked up at the ceiling above.

‘There’s 120 laser-based micro-sensors up there,’ Gray told him. ‘They can measure your body shape to a nanoscopic scale. Don’t be putting on weight any time soon now, will you?’ He chuckled, and directed Alex back toward the door.

As they passed another alcove, Alex stopped and his face broke into a broad grin. ‘Holy shit … what the hell is that?’

The suit in the corner looked like a gunmetal-hued skeleton that had been hollowed out and mounted like a hunting trophy. Small power packs at the small of the back, neck, and chest blinked with tiny iridescent green lights.

Gray scurried over, rubbing his hands together. ‘Like it?’

‘A lot.’ Alex ran his eyes over the formidable-looking suit. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘Not fully tested yet, but this,’ Gray motioned to the suit like a game-show host, ‘is the full-body Military Exoskeleton Combat Harness — MECH suit, the next-generation heavy-combat armor. This is just the base model; we have … accessories.’

Like a kid delighted at showing off his favorite baseball card collection, Gray moved quickly to the wall and pressed several small studs, causing various doors to slide back. More suits were revealed, some with built-in helmets, others with weapons built into the forearms, shoulders, and chest. Some of the frameworks were just legs, and others were upper-body sections that fit over the arms and shoulders.

Alex was impressed. ‘Operational?’

Gray bobbed his head. ‘Sort of. We have one of the HAWCs trialing a half unit, but that’s more for mobility. No one’s taken the full kit out yet — still a few things to iron out. With all its electronic and hydraulic-assisted technology, the suit weighs about 200 pounds — too much for your average soldier, especially as you need more than a degree of finesse to move this monster around. Maybe next gen.’

Alex nodded, still staring at the armor-plated technology. ‘Nice.’

Gray laughed. ‘Come back in a few years, when we’ve managed to solve the weight-to-support capability ratios.’

He led Alex back out into the corridor, and stopped at the emitted-light weaponry vault. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Lasers? Great for stealth incursions — no noise, can move from pulse to beam, and put a hole through a skull at half a mile.’ He grinned and jiggled his raised brows.

Alex considered it, then shook his head. ‘Not this time. Leave that to the other guys. I’ll be getting in close, real close.’

Gray sighed and motioned to the elevator at the end of the corridor. He pressed his thumb to a dark pad, which ringed it with red. Immediately, the hiss of machinery moving could be heard behind the huge brushed-steel plate.

He turned to Alex, staring up at him and frowning slightly. ‘I could swear I’ve seen you before.’

Alex simply stared back, his gray-blue eyes never wavering.

After a while Gray shrugged and turned away. ‘But if Colonel Hammerson says you’re the new guy, maybe I’ve been doing this job too long and you’re all starting to look the same to me. I’ll get your kit sent up to the colonel’s office. Pleasure doing business with you, ah …?’

Alex stepped into the elevator and pressed the button to close the doors, cutting off Gray’s question. Alone in the steel box, he held up his hands and looked at them — rock solid. He hoped he was doing the right thing. People would be relying on him, and him on them — the change would take some getting used to. There would be no more lone wolf now that Hammerson had intervened.

Of the memories Alex had regained, the good ones were fleeting. Most involved brutality on an unimaginable scale; and in the sea of blood, there were the faces of those who had fallen beside him — good men and women who had died under his command. They stayed with him now, and haunted him.

He made fists, heard the knuckles pop. He remembered something Franklin D Roosevelt had said: Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds. For Alex, his own mind was his biggest fear.