Whiplash Read online

“You all have a good day,” said Danny, turning and starting down the hallway.

  It had happened a very long time ago, more than a decade, during his last assignment with Whiplash—his last assignment at Dreamland, in fact. Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian had just turned the base over to a three-star general, officially completing his mission and restoring the base to its former glory after an infamous scandal had threatened its closing. Danny, who’d come on board with the colonel, was due to be reassigned when the mission came up.

  Just one more job before you go, son. Can you do it?

  The irony for Danny Freah was that if he had to list all of the action that he’d seen under fire, the mission that led to his medal would only have ranked about midway to the top. Five minutes of sheer hell wrapped inside days of boredom—the usual lot of a soldier, even a member of Whiplash—at the time, the ultraelite Spec Warfare arm of Air Force Special Operations, assigned to provide security and work as Dreamland’s “action” team. They had deployed all around the world under the direct orders of the President. Colonel Bastian had worked for the President himself, outside the normal chain of command. They’d accomplished an enormous amount—and burned bridges by the country mile as he went.

  Those days were long gone. Danny was a full bird colonel now, his life as boring as that of a life insurance actuary as he tried to get in line for a general’s slot.

  In a perfect world the coveted star would have been presented to him on a velvet pillow, thanks to his service record. But the world was far from perfect. The enmity that Dog had earned throughout the military bureaucracy also extended to those closely associated with him, including Danny Freah. Dog’s successor—who liked and helped Danny, though he wasn’t a particular fan of Colonel Bastian—hadn’t exactly won a lot of friends either. And then there was Danny’s record itself. Jealousy played a much more important role in the military hierarchy than anyone, including Danny, liked to admit. The fact that he was neither a pilot—a “zippersuit”—or a graduate of the Academy also hurt him subtly, denying him access to networks that traditionally helped officers advance. His closest friends and associates tended to be the enlisted people he’d worked with, and as loyal as they might have been, they had zero juice when it came to the promotion boards.

  Still, professional back-biting, petty rivalries, and old boys (and girls) clubs wouldn’t have amounted to much of a block to Danny’s career during ordinary times. Even two or three years before, he would have made the general’s list without too much trouble. But the world’s economic troubles had made the times anything but ordinary.

  The new administration had come into office the previous year by promising to both balance the budget and hold the line on taxes. Other administrations had made similar promises. The difference was that this President, Christine Mary Todd, actually meant to keep her word. Every area of the budget had been cut, including and especially the military. The Air Force was looking to cut the number of generals on its rolls in half.

  The man Danny was coming to visit had been a victim of those cuts, though in his case he hadn’t done too poorly. Harold Magnus was the deputy secretary of defense, a position he’d stepped into just a few months before after retiring from the Air Force, accepting the fact that earning a fourth star was highly unlikely.

  General Magnus had briefly served as Colonel Bastian’s commanding officer; though technically responsible for Dreamland, the general’s responsibilities were mostly on paper. A reshuffling had soon taken him out of the chain of command, and he’d had almost no contact with Dreamland or its personnel since.

  “Actually, I was looking forward to getting some serious fishing in, and maybe improving my golf,” Magnus told Danny as he ushered him into his office. “But I got suckered into this. Primarily because I’ve known the Secretary of Defense for thirty years.”

  Magnus winked. Though in his late sixties, he still had the look of an elf about him. Or maybe Santa Claus—the years had added several pounds to his frame, which had never been svelte to begin with. Known as a firebrand during his early days in the Air Force, Magnus had gradually softened his approach. He now came off more like a grandfather than a whip-cracker. He was, in fact, a grandfather, and a rather proud one, too, as an entire table’s worth of photos near his desk attested.

  “Coffee?” Magnus asked Danny.

  “No thank you, sir.”

  “I’m going to have some, if you don’t mind.”

  Magnus pressed the button on his phone console. His secretary knew him well enough that she didn’t have to ask what he wanted, appearing with a tray inside a minute.

  “So how’s your wife?” Magnus asked Danny.

  “I’m afraid we divorced a number of years ago.”

  It was five, to be exact. The marriage had floundered long before then.

  “I see. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Magnus stirred his coffee. Married to the same woman for nearly forty years, he was a little baffled by marital discord. He never knew exactly what to say when confronted with it. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d had a disagreement with his wife in all that time. But he knew it existed, and realized it wasn’t a character flaw. His usual strategy when the issue was raised inside his family—one of his daughters and son-in-law had been having troubles for over a year—was to stay silent for a moment, offering the other party a chance to speak if they wanted. If nothing was forthcoming, he always changed the subject.

  “See the old Dreamland crew much these days?” Magnus asked when his internal time limit had passed.

  “No, not really,” confessed Danny. “I still see some of my men occasionally. Ben Rockland’s a chief now, out at Edwards.”

  “Rockland—I think he may have been after my time.”

  Danny nodded. The general was being polite. He’d had no dealings with the enlisted members of Whiplash, and thus had no reason to know Rockland—whose nickname was Boston—let alone any of the other team members.

  “What about the scientists?” asked Magnus, sipping his coffee.

  “The scientists, not really,” said Danny. “Ray Rubeo invited me to his birthday party two years ago. It was an interesting affair.”

  “Some estate, huh?”

  “You can tell he doesn’t work for the government anymore.”

  Rubeo had been the chief scientist at Dreamland for several years. He left after falling out of favor with Dog’s successor. He was now the owner of a portfolio of companies in the alternative energy field; his biggest had recently won a contract from the government to build an orbiting solar power station. Rubeo’s birthday party, his fiftieth, had lasted two weeks and featured a Venice night, a Cairo night, and a Taj Mahal night, all in the actual places. Danny had caught the Taj Mahal celebration.

  “You don’t see Jeff Stockard anymore?” asked Magnus.

  “Zen? Oh yeah, I see him every so often. Couple of times a year. A little more if I’m around. We’ll go to a ball game or something.”

  “Really? I’ve been spending a fair amount of time with Senator Stockard myself. He likes to take my money.”

  “You don’t play poker with him, do you?”

  “I’m afraid I do. Though it’s more like work.”

  “You can say that again.” Danny shook his head. “I’d never play cards with Zen. Much easier just to give him my wallet.”

  “Some people think he might run for President next time out,” Magnus said.

  “Oh?” Danny hadn’t heard that.

  “Some people think he’d be perfect. He wonders if the voters could deal with a guy in a wheelchair. Roosevelt was in a wheelchair, but no one knew it.”

  “I think if anybody could convince them, Zen could.”

  “I agree with you there, Colonel.”

  Magnus glanced at the clock on his desk. It was early in the morning, but he was already running a little late. “I suppose you must be wondering why I asked you here,” he said, putting down his coffee. “Actually, it has
to do with Breanna Stockard.”

  “Bree?”

  “You know she’s working for the Office of Technology, right?”

  “Uh, yeah, she might have mentioned something like that.”

  Breanna had left the regular Air Force to help Zen when he ran for Congress twelve years before. After that, she’d stayed at home for a few years to raise their daughter, Teri. But even a rambunctious preschooler wasn’t enough challenge for the former Megafortress pilot, and Breanna had begun examining her options soon after Teri learned how to count.

  Her husband’s job as congressman complicated things. Zen was borderline fanatic about avoiding even the appearance of a conflict of interest, which ruled out working at any company that did business with the government—a surprisingly large range of firms, especially in the Virginia area where they lived. Though Breanna was still in the Reserve and flew C-5s and C-17s part-time a few months a year, returning to the Air Force full-time was out of the question because of Teri. So she’d gone back to school for a law degree.

  That wasn’t without its potentials for conflict, either, considering how many law firms had dealings with the government. She’d held several posts, including civilian jobs with the Air Force, and had last worked for the U.S. Satellite Agency, a quasigovernmental concern responsible for putting and maintaining satellites in orbit. The Office of Technology was a Defense Department entity that had largely taken the place of DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—the military’s central research organization, during the last administration.

  “We’re putting together a special project out of that office,” Magnus said. “And we’d like you to be part of the team.”

  “I see.”

  “Breanna suggested you for the position. I immediately agreed.”

  “It’s a civilian job?”

  “Not exactly. You’d still be a member of the Air Force,” said Magnus. He was hedging, because he couldn’t tell Danny too much about the job unless and until he actually agreed to take it. “Your responsibilities—let’s say they would be multidisciplinary. And in keeping with some of your past experience.”

  “I see.”

  Danny leaned back in the chair. He had suspected there would be some sort of job offer, of course, but he had been hoping the assignment would be something more traditional—a base command would be ideal. He’d already done two stints at the Pentagon and hadn’t particularly liked either. From everything he had heard, a staff position was unlikely to help him get promoted, unless he worked directly for the Joint of Chiefs of Staff.

  “You’re worried about your career,” said Magnus, deciding to be blunt.

  “Well, a little.”

  “You should be in line for a promotion, but with the freeze on, you know the odds of getting a star on your shoulder are pretty slim.”

  “I’ve heard slim and none.”

  “None may be an exaggeration,” said Magnus. “But I think you’re right as far as the immediate future goes. I don’t see any additions being made to the list of generals this year, or next. It’s tough. They’re encouraging people to retire.”

  “I know.”

  “This team would be outside the normal route to promotion,” admitted Magnus. “In fact, it might make it harder for you to get to general—at least in the traditional way.”

  “Is there another way?”

  “There’s always another way,” said Magnus. “This job could lead to other things. But it won’t help you become a general, not by itself. I’d be lying if I told you that.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’ll understand that I can’t go into too many details,” said Magnus. “But it’s very similar to the job you had at Dreamland. Part of that job, anyway.”

  “Part.”

  Magnus decided he had to give Danny more information if he was going to win him over.

  “We want to resurrect Whiplash,” he said. “Only this time, it’ll be even better.”

  3

  Coliseum, Rome, Italy

  NURI’S HEART DROPPED A BEAT AS HE STARED AT THE SOLID stone wall cutting off his escape. He threw himself to his right, pressing against the wall as a bullet flew next to him. Stone flicked from the wall, hitting him in the forehead. Unhurt, he threw himself down out of desperation, crying out as if he’d been hit by the bullet itself.

  “There! There!” people were yelling above.

  “Look out!”

  “Watch!”

  “There’s been a murder!”

  “That man has a gun!”

  Nuri heard footsteps running toward him. He collapsed facedown on the ground, pretending he was dead.

  The shooter hopped over the wall and saw him. She pushed him over to his back, extending her arm toward his heart and firing twice. Then she raised her aim for his forehead and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened. The pistol, smuggled past the metal detectors by an accomplice she’d never met, was empty.

  Nuri looked dead. Ordinarily, the woman wouldn’t have taken a chance on looks alone, but she had no choice. She was out of bullets, alarms were sounding, people were watching. She dropped the gun on his prostrate body and fled.

  The bullets that hit Nuri in the chest had bruised his chest and trachea, but he was otherwise okay, thanks to the thin-layer protective vest he wore under his shirt. The Teflon and carbon polymer vest had diverted most of the energy from the small caliber bullets, saving him from death, though not pain.

  He rolled over, trying to get back his breath. With great effort he forced away the black shroud around the edges.

  Scumbags, that hurt. Damn.

  Nuri pushed up to his knees, his whole body trembling. He couldn’t hear anything—there was sound around him, echoes of noise, but nothing his brain could process.

  He got up and stumbled into the next passage, saw someone’s legs moving ahead to the left. He leaned forward, using gravity to help him move. Disparate sounds began to emerge from the incoherent cacophony. People screamed and shouted in panic as they tried to funnel through the Coliseum’s narrow outer passages.

  I have to get close to her, he told himself. Close enough to get a marker on her.

  He reached into his pocket for the vial of marker liquid and held it. A wave of pain hit him as he reached the hall where he’d entered the arena area. Feeling faint and nauseous, he put his free hand against the wall, steadying himself while waiting for the pain to pass. It didn’t, though, and finally he lurched off the wall, heading toward the steps.

  There were so many other alarms and sirens sounding that if the alarm went off when he pushed through the door to the main level, no one noticed. He walked into the main hall, then took a step back as a flood of panicked tourists rushed by, running toward the exit despite the pleas of one of the guards for them to stop.

  “Which way?” he asked.

  “The subject is below,” replied the Voice. “He has ceased to move.”

  “The shooter?”

  “No data.”

  Of course not; the system had no information to use to follow her. Nuri pushed out into the corridor, weaving left and right as people fled. He went to the archway, looking out on the stone path below. But he didn’t see her.

  It was too late now to go back to Luo. His best bet would be to get outside, take a wild shot at finding the shooter or maybe someone supporting her. If that didn’t work—and it almost certainly wouldn’t—he would find someplace to catch his breath, then start figuring out what had happened.

  People were still running toward the exit. Nuri took a few steps with them, his chest heaving but his legs sturdier now. He felt a sting in the top of his thighs and pushed harder.

  The woman had been wearing khaki green pants, with black running shoes. The detail crystallized in his mind as he reached the exit. He tried working his memory toward her shirt. It was some sort of print T-shirt, over another T-shirt.

  Italian, maybe. A soccer team?

  No, some sort of sl
ogan. Not in Italian. French, he thought.

  Maybe one of the cameras had seen it.

  Her face?

  Nuri pressed his memory but it wouldn’t yield an image. He turned in the direction of Piazza del Colosseo, the street at the end of Via dei Fori Imperiali. There was a truck there, selling water and other drinks. The alarms were still sounding in the Coliseum, but the people milling around didn’t know what was going on. Most thought there was some sort of fire, or a false alarm.

  Nuri quickened his pace, his stomach queasy but the rest of him feeling stronger. Adrenaline buzzed through his body, making his ears ring. He saw a woman with green pants eyeing him in front of the truck. He glanced at her shoes and saw that they were black. But she was wearing a red silk blouse, and her hair was long. The shooter’s had been short.

  A wig.

  He stared at her face. The woman turned abruptly, walking up the hill. Nuri glanced around, making sure there were no other likely suspects, then started to follow. But as he did, a girl nearby began to yell.

  “There he is! There he is!” she said in English, pointing and screaming. “There! There!”

  The girl had seen him in the ruins and thought that he had been the one shooting. Everyone nearby turned, and one of the men near Nuri reached to grab him. He pushed the man away, then saw a pair of policemen running toward him from the Coliseum.

  The last thing he wanted to do was end up in police custody. Nuri spun and ran across the street, dodging past a tourist bus to run into the Metro stop. Leaping over the turnstile, he ran toward the down escalator, pushing people aside and then squeezing past a pair of old women. His stomach felt as if it was going to explode.

  A train was just arriving. Nuri ran through the doors and found a seat, then closed his eyes as he waited for it to move again. The doors shut. The train lurched forward, then stopped. Nuri pushed his eyes closed further, worrying that it wouldn’t start, afraid he’d been caught. But then the train began to move again.

  He leaned his head back against the window and contemplated his next move.

  Two stops later he got off at Termini, hoping it would be easier to blend into a crowd there if anyone was looking for him or following him. He decided he would find a hotel where he could see to his wounds and perhaps monitor the news. He walked up and around the piazza, down the block, then back, and finally across to Nationale. He chose one of the hotels a few blocks from the station that he had passed earlier.