Consortium of Planets: Alien Test Page 3

  Even through his heavy overcoat, Gretchen could see the power and strength of the man as she watched Dean's rapid approach through the open hangar door. He was the type of man you didn’t give a second chance to. If she hadn’t already known him, she would have put a bullet between his eyes and two into his heart, center mass, just to make sure. Out of the whole team, she had worked with him the longest – about two years – and she remembered every bloody mission like it was yesterday. She also remembered all the times he saved her from certain death and how much she owed him. If she tried to thank him, he got embarrassed, mumbled something about just doing his job, and changed the subject, but she knew in her heart that someday she would return the favor.

  Dean knew better than to mix business with pleasure, but he had to pull up short just outside the hangar. Still standing in the rain, he took in Gretchen’s piercing, light-blue eyes and flowing red hair. Those eyes made her the best sniper he could find, but today the two operatives were on duty.

  “You beat me,” he said to the curvaceous redhead.

  Gretchen knew that he was staring at her and liked it, but like Dean, she knew they had to maintain their objectivity and couldn’t get involved with each other.

  “You better get out of the rain before it washes you away,” she said playfully. With that eclectic, European accent that Dean couldn’t quite place, she added, “You know we need a team leader.”

  Dean followed her advice and stepped out of the rain as Antoine, the second-best sniper he could find, stepped up and saluted.

  “Colonel Forge, I am honored to be part of your team.” Pride and enthusiasm with a French twist rang in his words. Dean’s male sniper had brown eyes, black hair, and a medium build. Neither sniper looked lethal, but both had extensive martial arts training, so if the mission called for a fight they would be able to hold their own and then some.

  “And I am honored to welcome you to my band of marauders. But this is the last time you can use my rank. If someone overheard, it could become a huge liability and may be even compromise the mission. Do you understand?” Dean asked.

  With a shocked look, Antoine replied anxiously. “I am sorry. It will never happen again.” And it didn’t.

  As he took off his overcoat and folded it over his left arm, Dean looked around for his demolition expert, but he hadn’t arrived yet.

  “I guess I’m getting a little soft,” he said to Gretchen as they walked around the plane, inspecting it before takeoff. “The two of you beat me in. Normally I get here first. As soon as Ralph gets here, we gotta take off.”

  Gretchen couldn’t help herself and looked Dean up and down in that way that made him very uncomfortable. She leaned into him and almost whispered so no one else heard. “With that much muscle, I could never imagine you soft.”

  “Look, the mission has already started and we gotta stay on point to stay alive.” Dean swallowed hard. He was flattered but didn’t want to hurt her. “I know we’ve worked together a long time, but we can’t let feelings affect our work. May be we should think about breaking up the team when we get back?”

  That was the last thing that Gretchen wanted. “No, I know better. It won’t happen again. I know I can trust you and I don’t want to go through getting to know someone new.”

  Dean was starting to get a bad feeling. He had already corrected the behavior of two of his team members, and the fourth member was late. Normally, everyone performed like machines with minimal communication and just did their jobs extremely well. After another twenty minutes, Ralph, mousy-looking and nervous as usual, finally showed and they took off for France.

  They landed a few kilometers outside Mets, France, at a small airfield not much more than a paved road without incident. Each of them carried a small bag of gear and jumped on the waiting motorcycles. They averaged about 110 kilometers per hour in the dash to Paris. The weather was mild and the speed was exhilarating as the beautiful green countryside and occasional castle flashed by.

  The sidewalk café sat on the side of one of the many shopping squares in Paris that spanned about four hundred meters from side to side. A large fountain, bubbling away in the middle of the square, was a testament to a fallen hero from some long ago war.

  By the time they reached the café, the temperature had dropped a few degrees, signaling a cool front. Accompanying cloud cover had washed out some of the old stone buildings’ vibrant colors and the newly hung banners proclaiming the presidential election the next day.

  Team Bravo Oscar got off their bikes and gathered around Dean. He was looking for a red beer can that his contact would have displayed prominently on one of the sidewalk tables. The can was there, but a nun was sitting beside it, enjoying a double espresso. Interesting, Dean thought as he stepped up to the nun and smiled.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  She looked up at him with large, soft, brown eyes and smiled back. “There is always room at my table.”

  “Do you always have an unopened beer can with you?” That wasn’t part of the verification code Dean was given. Curiosity had gotten the better of him, and the nun began to shift nervously. He decided, before anyone got hurt, to get the conversation back on track. “It’s such a nice day…it would be a shame if someone got hurt.” He had to say it perfectly or his contact would disappear.

  The steel that had crept into her eyes softened and she visibly relaxed.

  “Yes, let’s get back to my flat and get you set up,” she said as she assessed the rest of his team.

  Gabriella’s apartment was small, even by European standards: about six by seven meters, Dean estimated. A simple curtain separated the bedroom from the combined living room and kitchen. A tall wooden wardrobe sitting by the twin bed was the closet. The only other door was probably for the bathroom. A few pictures of birds hung dutifully from the walls. It wasn’t dirty, but it wasn’t exactly clean, either.

  This woman travels light for a quick getaway, Dean surmised.

  All five gathered around a low coffee table that was surrounded by four straight-back chairs.

  “Sit,” Gabriella said as she waved them toward the chairs and stepped into the kitchen.

  Dean moved up sideways to the small window. He carefully peered out at the narrow cobblestone street two floors down to see if anyone had followed them. His team took their seats but watched him carefully, in case he saw something. Satisfied, he turned and nodded that it was clear.

  “Would anyone care for coffee?” Gabriella inquired brightly.

  Through their jet lag, they all said “yes” in unison.

  Dean smiled at the unified response. It was a small thing, but small things quickly add up to a successful mission, which in Dean’s mind meant the target died and none of Team Bravo Oscar. They worked the rest of the night hammering out every detail for the following morning’s event, scheduled for 10:10 a.m.

  At exactly 10:00, Gretchen lay prone on the roof top of a three-story stone building with her favorite British-made L115A14 sniper rifle. She slapped in a five-round clip and surveyed the typical tree-lined Parisian boulevard. Through its powerful scope, she gazed in the direction of the coming motorcade. From three hundred meters, she could almost count nose hairs. Antoine was doing the same on the top of the building across the street. Their target would be a man standing in the second vehicle, waving to the crowd.

  Gretchen never asked who the targets were because it might affect her objectivity. Her life depended on swift accuracy. The first shot had to take out the target; additional shots took too much time and would slow down her getaway. Sitting on a roof made her an excellent target once someone knew she was there.

  At 9:30, Ralph was down below, in the smelly sewer system. He placed a large amount of C4 explosive directly underneath the middle of the street. It would explode and stop the motorcade in order to set up a killing zone for the snipers above. He moved about ten meters up the sewer to where the second vehicle should be once the procession stopped and placed another bomb. This one
would blow up the target’s vehicle after the snipers shot him, to eliminate evidence and ensure the mission had been completed.

  Gabriella had hacked the security company’s records a few weeks before team Bravo Oscar arrived and placed Dean on the detail guarding the target. He got into the black limo and sat on one side of the Frenchman that he was assigned to kill. Another guard got in and sat on the other side. At about 9:30, the motorcade pulled away from the palatial stone building where it had formed and began the one-hour procession. They had decided to make the hit toward the end of the trip, hoping that security might relax slightly and increase Team Bravo Oscar’s edge.

  Ralph sat at a café half a block farther up the street from his bombs and watched the first car make the turn. It was a big, black sedan with heavily tinted windows, no doubt full of security. A second vehicle, a long black limo, came around the corner right behind the first car. As expected, their target stood in it, waving happily to the crowds lining the broad avenue. A third black car was starting to come around as Ralph put down his cup and reached into his pocket. He pulled out his phone, which would act as the detonator. When the first vehicle rolled over the bomb closest to him, he triggered it to blow and create the killing field for Gretchen and Antione.

  What Team Bravo Oscar didn’t know was that they had been set up by the highest authority in their chain of command – someone Dean knew very well…someone who wanted him dead.

  Right after Ralph set his bombs, another team of experts went along behind him and disarmed them. Gretchen, Dean, and Antoine realized immediately that the bombs were out of play. They had to improvise. Adrenaline triggered by the sudden change in plans, plus the fact that the target continued to move away, threatened to effect Gretchen’s shot. Dean knew that he had to stop the motorcade. He slipped his 9mm handgun out of its new stiff leather case, hidden under his jacket. He held it discreetly by his side and glanced past the target’s standing legs at the other guard. As expected, it was toward the end of the procession; the guard, no longer vigilant, was now looking out the car window at girls.

  Dean leaned forward and placed his 92A1 pistol against the driver’s head and pulled the trigger. The sudden movement got the other guard’s attention. Before Dean could take him out, he grabbed Dean’s outstretched arm with both hands.

  “I was wondering when you would make your move.” He brought Dean’s arm down hard against his knee, and Dean dropped the gun reflexively. “I was beginning to think you had lost your nerve, you American dog.”

  Now Dean knew that the bomb hadn’t just failed to explode, but that the entire mission had been compromised. As his gun hit the floor, the now driverless car veered out of control. It crashed into a corner café, causing people and chairs to fly everywhere.

  Moments before the crash, Gretchen and Antoine lined up their shots. They fired in unison to keep the car from getting away, but the shots went wide as the vehicle suddenly swerved wildly into a crowd. Their target fell into the car and out of sight.

  The struggle in the car continued until the target suddenly fell on Dean. Before Dean could get out from under the man, the security guard opened the door and shoved Dean out onto the street. As the door slammed shut behind him, Dean rolled across the asphalt and jumped to his feet. In that instant, he faced all the security guards from the other two vehicles. They stared back with their weapons drawn.

  Dean’s snipers immediately saw what was happening. Gretchen fired into the security guards, followed by Antoine. Gretchen switched to auto and quickly had to replace the five round clip. Antoine followed her lead and had to do the same. Seven guards dropped at once in the deadly crossfire. The other guards quickly forgot about Dean and took cover wherever they could find it. Dean dropped through a manhole cover and into the sewer…as he began to make his way to the rendezvous point, he hoped his team was right behind him.

  Gretchen and Antoine were so focused that they didn’t see Dean drop out of sight. They kept firing to cause as much confusion as possible so that Dean could escape. A fatalistic attitude overtook Gretchen – she knew that she had been there too long. It was only a matter of time before they found her and stopped her, but she couldn’t leave Dean unprotected, so she just continued the “wild ride.”

  Ralph’s bombs always went off when he told them to. These bombs are being bad, he thought nervously as he continued to press their trigger, trying to make them work. While he tried to make sense of what was happening, three large men in black overcoats and dark glasses surrounded him. Feeling closed in, Ralph looked up at them.

  “How did you know?” Ralph asked innocently.

  “You can never trust a nun with a beer can.” One of the men smirked as they dragged Ralph away.

  Dean had only made it through about one hundred meters of the wet, foul sewer before he stopped. He could still hear Gretchen and Antoine – they hadn’t stopped shooting. They weren’t following protocol and should have already gotten out of there. What’s the point of a rendezvous if everyone is dead? He raced back. As he slowly pushed the manhole cover up to check the situation, he saw four attack helicopters. They were hovering high above the buildings that Gretchen and Antione were firing from. Antione had taken on all four helicopters with his rifle. Gretchen continued to provide cover fire for who she hoped was Dean.

  Two of the choppers released rockets onto Antione’s location, silencing him. Debris and dusty rubble exploded and flew everywhere. The other two choppers began chasing Gretchen around the roof with their deadly Gatling guns blazing relentlessly. Thousands of casings from all the huge bullets they fired at her rained down on the street. They fell like burning tears all around Dean.

  “Run, Gretchen, run!” Dean screamed in helpless desperation at the rooftop, not knowing if she was alive or dead.

  In the mayhem, no one noticed Dean burst through the front door of Gretchen’s building and race up the stairs to the roof. She had locked the door to the roof and braced a board against the knob so that no one would disturb her. Dean bounced off when he threw his body against it and came up firing his weapon into the locking mechanism. After ten rounds and two adrenaline-aided hard kicks, the door flew open. He fell through the opening onto the harsh sunlight.

  “Gretchen,” he screamed desperately, “where are you?!”

  Miraculously, she was unhurt. She had taken refuge behind a large air conditioner unit about ten meters from Dean. All four choppers were circling around and would have her in their sights in less than a second. She had emptied all her ammunition into the street and could no longer defend herself. Her only chance would be the door Dean had just opened for her.

  “You’re alive!” she screamed back with a huge smile. Her beautiful eyes were filled with defiance and desperation as she jumped up and began to run flat-out toward Dean and to safety.

  The choppers were already lined up and eight Gatling guns unloaded on her right in front of Dean. The first round that hit her blew off her arm at the shoulder. The force of the blow spun her around like a helpless rag doll to face her attackers. Dean emptied his gun at her killers, but it did no good. Gore and blood flew everywhere as hundreds of rounds ripped into her limp, lifeless body. They made a statement by continuing to shoot the bloody, mangled mess for another twenty seconds. By then, there was nothing left to bury.

  Dean was completely numb and his ears rang with the choppers’ thunderous attack. He stumbled back through the door in a sick daze. Gretchen’s carnage was burned indelibly into his mind. The only thing driving him now was finding out who set them up and avenging Gretchen’s death. It had to be someone high up in his chain of command. He would listen to their lies in the mission debriefing and act like he believed them. Once he knew who was responsible, he would establish a plan and no force on Earth would be able to save that person.

  Years ago, when Dean joined the Corps, everything was easy – nothing felt impossible. But after hundreds of missions and the death of so many of his partners, Dean had developed a sense of h
is own mortality. He wondered if those experiences were worth so many lives. Were they worth the pins and metal plates that now held him together and made those God-awful detectors go off every time he walked through a door? Would his experience and new partner be enough to get through this latest…?

  “Sir, I can’t believe how calm you are under pressure!”

  Right on cue, the rookie once again interrupted his thoughts drawing him back to the Moon and his current mission.

  “I’m about to explode!” she continued with rookie enthusiasm.

  Dean glanced at his new partner and latest project, Lieutenant Beth Stone. Because of his success through the years, the Corps looked to Dean, with his leadership and experience, to break in the most promising new academy graduates. But Dean hadn’t felt like a success in a long time. In fact, feeling responsible for Gretchen’s death and the death of so many other talented people made him feel less successful all the time.

  He hoped things would work out differently with the Lieutenant. Although ten years younger than Dean, she was mature with a resume that read like she had spent much of her life preparing for the Corps. The first time they sparred, he found that she was physically equal to many of the men in the Corps that he had fought. She was skilled, athletic, and mildly distracting in her red spandex top and matching shorts. Now he could barely make out her large brown eyes through her visor’s heavy tint.

  Light from the sunrise finally lit up the floor of the crater and brought it into focus on their surveillance gear. Beth stared into the monitor. Slowly she panned the camera across the vast basin and was first to break the tension. “My God, it’s like they’ve been there for years!”

  Dean could feel the beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he watch the monitor expose strange machines and tall silver-and-black structures that seemed to sit randomly across the crater floor.