Existential Read online

  Elizabeth Grey’s single, rather stoic conviction—if you don’t lead with your feelings and work your ass off, you’ll find success—was being tested. Sorely tested. And she sensed an uprising from that most pointless and deleterious of emotions: worry.

  She pressed a prompt on the touch-screen of her glass desk. The flat-screen monitor on her wall illuminated and, for the fifth time, began playing a transmission recorded almost thirty-six hours earlier at the dig site.

  “Ms. Grey, th—” Several seconds of garbled and pixilated nonsense followed before the person onscreen continued. Elizabeth forgot the woman’s name, but as one of Dr. Jung’s assistants, she held a Ph.D. in anatomy and cell biology. “—thing’s gone wrong, Ms. Grey.” The doctor gasped, taking a deep breath that lasted several seconds. She appeared ready to sob but held her composure. The camera twitched ever so slightly, indicating that someone had been holding it as opposed to having mounted it on a tripod. “Several people are missing: four research personnel, three from securi—”

  An explosion interrupted the woman who cried out in terror.

  “Jesus!” someone shouted, likely the cameraman. The camera pointed to the ceiling, then panned wildly across the laboratory before breaking into large pixels of slow-motion gibberish that lasted for thirty-four seconds before focusing on the woman again. The cameraman’s shaking hands made it look as though the building was being rocked by an earthquake.

  “Ms. Grey, we think the substance...that it might have something to do with the substance. Please! We need help. Now! Send more security. Send help!”

  The final few seconds of the transmission included a crash, quickly followed by the tinkling of shattered glass. The woman jerked to her right in sheer terror. “Oh my God!”

  The camera panned wildly again, punctuated by a man shouting, “Shit! Come on; let’s go!”

  The monitor went black.

  Though disturbed, Elizabeth Grey hadn’t been overly concerned when she’d first viewed the transmission. Shit had obviously hit the fan, but panic simply wasn’t in her nature. In truth, she’d been most annoyed that progress on the operation had halted. She’d taken proper measures, dispatching a team of two medical doctors and fifteen seasoned security personnel to the site, along with a chopper full of emergency medical supplies, food, and ammunition. Her instructions directed the head of the security team to contact her immediately when they landed and to keep her updated as they ascertained and eradicated the cause of this delay.

  She never heard from her security team. The helicopter hadn’t returned. Attempts to contact Base Camp proved futile. The last satellite pass had shown no apparent movement or activity at the base, only the remnants of a couple small fires in some of the outer prefab structures. With the situation now officially out of control, Elizabeth Grey had almost reached the point of worry.

  But damned if she wouldn’t continue to fight. What she had discovered was far too valuable to let go. What if they had discovered a sentient alien life form? She had only recently begun to truly accept that as a viable option. From the beginning, the possibility had teased her imagination, but the overwhelming weight of responsibility for such a discovery had finally taken root. Dangerous or benign, it had to be contained, researched. Lives were at stake, not only at the site but in hospitals across the country. Her Edward. She hoped—no, she knew this life form held the key to saving his life and many others. Everything Greytech had discovered could advance scientific and technologic research centuries ahead. The ramifications were almost unfathomable.

  This project would survive. She would see to that. After she had come so far and had invested so very much, no other option remained. She’d pushed her company ever closer to the financial precipice, cleverly hidden by hundreds of complex financial moves and accounting sleight of hand. This gamble had to pay out.

  Elizabeth swiveled around in her chair and gazed at the Seattle skyline, though, in actuality, she stared through it, her mind a thousand miles away. So, how to rectify this situation?

  Twenty well-paid, expert security personnel had failed to keep the site safe, and now fifteen more were missing. Overwhelming firepower alone wouldn’t bring the dig site back to rights. She needed something more. She needed brains and balls, someone used to dealing with unusual and sensitive problems.

  And I needed to hire them yesterday.

  Greytech had numerous military contracts and a small army of military contractors employed across the globe. However, she had already deployed all her top security personnel plus all her immediately available assets to no avail. If she tried to pull more people from the business units to assemble another team, eyebrows would raise. No, she needed help, outside help.

  She revolted at the thought; she hated asking anybody for anything. Wealth and power meant never being beholden to anybody. However, Elizabeth knew every second that passed marked the loss of more precious time and decreased her chance of regaining control of the situation.

  She pressed another prompt on her touch screen to summon her go-to personal assistant, Cynthia Hilliard, who entered the office and stood before her desk within a matter of seconds. Though Elizabeth had several personal assistants, Cynthia had been with her the longest and was one of the very few people she trusted. Forty-one years old, Cynthia appeared to be roughly half her age, courtesy of an exhaustive workout routine and minimal cosmetic surgery. She kept her natural blonde hair short and possessed a delicate, rather Nordic physiognomy capped off by a striking pair of cobalt-blue eyes. Perhaps the highest-paid personal assistant in the world, Elizabeth found her indispensable.

  “Yes, Ms. Grey?” Privy to all of Greytech’s secrets, Cynthia had viewed the final transmission from Base Camp and had been a bit shaken by it. But she had recovered her bearing quickly, eager to implement whatever plan her boss had in mind.

  “Call my government contacts: CIA, State Department, DOD. I need the most skilled tactical team currently available. Somebody that can work off the books. Be even more discreet than usual.”

  “Immediately, Ms. Grey.”

  “Thank you.”

  Cynthia turned and marched for her desk in the outer office. Despite the overnight hour in DC, she soon announced over the intercom, “Ms. Grey, I have Mr. Peter Banner on line three.”

  “Thank you, Cynthia.”

  Despite holding a mid-level position with the CIA, Banner had proven capable of bypassing much of the government’s cumbersome and comically inefficient bureaucracy. She tapped the prompt to open the line. “Good morning, Mr. Banner.”

  “Morning, Ms. Grey. So lovely to hear from you again.” Banner spoke with a down-home Oklahoma drawl. To the uninitiated, he sounded like a guileless country boy.

  Elizabeth knew better. “I have a situation.”

  “Alaska?” Elizabeth heard his barely audible chuckle, confirming her fears that word had gotten out.

  She stifled her anger at that fact. “I need a tactical team, the best available; I need a capable leader, no by-the-book tool; and I need absolute discretion. I’ll see to it that you’re well compensated, as always.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, I won’t promise anything, gotta see who’s available.”

  “The best, Mr. Banner. Nothing less. Pull favors to make this happen. If it takes further incentives, let me know.” And don’t fuck with me.

  Banner laughed heartily, all for effect. “As you wish, Ms. Grey.” A moment passed in rapid typing, punctuated by heavy thumps on the enter key. “It’s your lucky day. Just so happens I have the perfect man for the job. We may be able to help each other out. Now, let’s talk about Alaska...”

  Max sat in a plush recliner in the darkened living room of his home—a rambling contemporary overlooking the city of Las Vegas. Through floor-to-ceiling windowpanes, he watched the twinkling lights of airliners stacked up in the night sky approaching McCarran International Airport in the valley below. He sipped on a cold glass of Diet Mountain Dew, grateful for a brief respite from the administrative
side of his job, his eyes burning from the last two hours he had spent gazing at his laptop.

  The numbers didn’t lie. The team needed another mission. Though his team filled a unique niche, it operated like any other business. There were bills to pay, most recently for the repairs on the jet they had used to escape Mexico, and for the two SUVs they had destroyed in the desert. Max also leased a large warehouse on the outskirts of Vegas for training and storage. He had an assistant on salary to help with logistics, manage payroll, and oversee the generous benefits he provided for his team. To cover all his bases, he also kept a lawyer, a private investigator, an IT specialist, and an accountant on retainer. Max’s business was killing; he had never expected to play the role of businessman, for which he found himself wholly unsuited.

  He placed his glass next to the Glock 21 pistol and bottles of prescription pills on the end table. From the bottle of Ambien, he swallowed several pills, washing them down with the rest of his soda. That dose would have put down an average man for a couple days, but Max had developed a tolerance from years of use.

  On his cell phone, he selected the picture gallery for his son, David. However, as he scrolled, the images soon morphed into the faces of the dead. Some were brothers in arms; others had died by his hand. Their faces had become more familiar than those of his ex-wife and son, as though they’d been seared into his brain with a white-hot branding iron.

  Max had dealt fate to dozens of people. The only life he didn’t have the nerve to take was his own. At first, he’d killed naively for his country, then for his fellow warriors, and eventually for his own reasons. Now, he simply sold death for cash. He still liked to think he was helping people, perhaps making the world a better place, but he knew deep down that he was nothing but a hired gun—a tool the wealthy used to solve their problems. Though a consummate problem solver, Max usually left a bloody, smoking mess in his wake.

  * * *

  A rocket-propelled grenade blasted the vehicle in front of Max’s command car, an armored Humvee with a turret-mounted machine gun. The world seemed to slow down as black smoke poured from the burning vehicle. AK rounds smacked into the side of Max’s Humvee. Iraqi insurgents poured down a narrow alley to his right, snaking their way toward the convoy.

  Max yelled for his turret gunner to engage them, but received no acknowledgment of the order. Overhead, Lance Corporal Humphries slumped over his M2 .50 caliber machine gun, blood oozing down the front of his plate carrier. Max pulled the young Marine, barely nineteen, from the weapon into the bed of the vehicle. He applied pressure to the neck wound, the blood warm and sticky on his hands, but realized immediately that he couldn’t possibly save the kid.

  The sensation of slow forward progress dissipated. Max’s panicked driver, Corporal Reynoso, shouted at him. It took Max a moment to make out his words over the maelstrom of combat. “Sir, what are your orders?”

  They were boxed in behind the burning vehicle. Max’s instincts returned to him. “Get out and find cover! Return fire!” He climbed into the turret and pulled back the charging handle on the machine gun. He got a bead on the insurgents and poured a steady stream of .50-cal fire down the narrow alley, taking out six men in the group.

  One boy stopped, dropped to a knee, and aimed an RPG at his vehicle.

  Max depressed the butterfly trigger on the weapon and fired a two-second burst.

  The kid’s head jerked back as though he’d been struck in the forehead with a howitzer shell. His anti-tank weapon fired in the same instant. The rocket shot a few feet over Max and his men to explode inside a building across the street.

  His Marines returned fire with M16s as Max continued pouring bursts of lead into the insurgents. He heard the typewriter chatter of a SAW light machine gun and the slightly slower, bass drum rapping of another M2 .50 cal.

  Max paused and took brief stock of the situation. Two of his Marines lay wounded beside the trailing vehicle with a Marine and a corpsman huddled over them. Far down the alley, more insurgents darted toward the rear of a building. The men toward the rear of his convoy were pinned down, taking fire from two buildings his vehicle had just passed. The enemy intended to flank his Marines. A simple mission to provide security for a broken-down supply convoy while it completed repairs had turned into a major firefight.

  Max dropped down from the turret and picked up the radio handset. “Lima 6 Alpha, this is Lima 2 Bravo actual. We’re under heavy small arms fire and need immediate air support and medical evac. How copy?”

  After a long pause, a distant, garbled voice in the headset replied, “Copy, Lima 2 Bravo. We have two Snakes inbound to your position. ETA ten minutes.”

  Shit! We’ll all be tits up in ten minutes. “Copy, Lima 6 Alpha. Marking our position with yellow smoke.” Max dropped the handset.

  Corporal Williams fired his rifle wildly over the hood of the Humvee, his first taste of combat.

  It isn’t like the movies, is it? Max got out of the vehicle, grabbed Corporal Williams by the shoulder, and barked in his ear: “Find Staff Sergeant Badger and tell him I have two Cobras inbound in ten mikes. Tell him to pop yellow smoke to mark our position. I’m gonna try to flank these bastards. If I’m not back in five, he’s in charge!”

  Max hefted his M16 rifle and charged down the alley, now clear of insurgents. Nearing a dumpster, he slowed. On the far side, an old man holding an SKS rifle crouched behind it. Max fired a burst into the startled man, who raised a futile hand to stop the rounds from tearing into his body.

  By the time he reached the end of the alley, Max’s heart pounded in his throat. He peeked around the corner into the next alley. When he saw no enemy, he cautiously continued down the backside of the building, spying an open gate to a courtyard ahead. He swept the courtyard through his rifle’s sights, found it clear, then proceeded down the cracked cement path leading from the gate to a shadowed doorway. Though he could clear the room beyond that doorway with a grenade, he only had two remaining. He’d need them for the rest of the building.

  Instead, he ran the last few feet into the doorway and slammed his shoulder into the door. The cheap lock held, but the door frame shattered. The door swung slowly inward. Max paused for a second, listening, then pivoted and ducked inside. He swept the room with his weapon and glimpsed movement in the corner. Tensing his finger on the trigger as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he realized two women and some kids cowered in the corner. He pressed his index finger to his lips, hoping they would understand his silent order to keep quiet.

  One of the kids pointed a finger straight upward before the older woman quickly grabbed his hand and pulled it down.

  Max crept down a hallway toward the stairs. The chatter of weapons firing from rooms above grew more distinct. Atop the stairs were two doors; Max chose the door on the right. He crouched, pulled the pin on an M67 hand grenade, opened the door, and tossed it inside. He heard panicked cries in Arabic before the grenade detonated, a concussion that shook the adobe building as he hit the deck.

  He jumped to his feet and kicked open the door, mindful to stay well clear of any windows in the room. Two insurgents lay dead on the floor. Max caught a glimpse of another man’s legs as they disappeared behind an overturned couch. He rounded the couch and put three rounds in the insurgent’s back. The room had no other exits.

  Through a window, he witnessed the chaotic scene below as his Marines continued to take machine gun fire from the room next door.

  Max returned to the hallway, then approached the second door. When it cracked opened, he fired his M16 into the door. Splinters flew. He felt the thud through the floor when the hidden insurgent fell. When Max slammed his shoulder into the door, he exposed two stunned insurgents reloading a Russian DShKM heavy machine gun. Max unloaded the rest of his magazine into them.

  As he scanned the rest of the room, he ducked below the sightline from the street through the window. He pulled a fresh magazine from the mag pouch on his chest. The door at the back of the room swung open, and with n
o time to reload his rifle, Max reached for his pistol. He completed his draw as an insurgent hastily fired into the room. When Max returned fire, the insurgent responded by feebly tossing a grenade into the room as the bullets struck him.

  The grenade sounded like a bowling ball as it slowly rolled across the wooden floor. Max tried to stand, but his body stiffened up like setting concrete.

  He moved impossibly slowly.

  Then he saw movement in his peripheral vision.

  Corporal Reynoso entered the room. “Look out, sir!” He shoved Max backward as he dove atop the grenade, smothering it with his body.

  Max found himself falling over a flipped table, the only cover. The explosion rippled through his body before he landed. Three or four tiny pieces of red-hot shrapnel tore into his legs, each feeling like a particularly nasty hornet sting.

  In the ensuing stillness, Max stood, limped over to what remained of Corporal Reynoso’s body. Most of his legs were gone. When Max rolled him over, scorched and shredded entrails poured from the corporal. He cradled his lifeless body and mumbled to himself, “No! You were supposed to stay down there, goddamn it! You were supposed to stay!”

  His ears rang from the grenade blast, but he could still make out some sort of alarm sounding faintly through the firefight. The ringing continued until the dead Marine dissipated mercifully into the ether, but Max knew he’d not seen the last of that bloody, dusty street in Iraq.

  Max opened his eyes. The digital clock on his stereo system read two thirty-one a.m. He’d slept a few hours. Most people—normal people—might have been pissed at someone calling in the middle of the night. Max, however, felt grateful. He’d endured many nightmare encounters with his past, haunted by the faces of dead friends and foes alike. He never died in his dreams. Yet he suspected the dead would take their vengeance on him some night, landing a killing shot that would stop his heart.

  Max turned on the lamp and fumbled for the cell phone. “Yeah?”