Chilton stared into the distance. “We should go back in, to Mosul. But it would take a thousand troops and a mountain of armor to fight our way into that city. Congress would never allow it.”
“And even if you got approval, what if you managed to get your troops and mountain of armor to kick down Mosul’s front door, and they had another nuke, just waiting for you?” Harker shook his head. “Can’t bring ashes home in body bags, sir.”
Chilton turned, his face grim. “We still need to go in.”
“We need to go in, but can’t be seen in there. Need something that can travel under the radar, but has high lethality.”
Chilton picked up the small computer tablet, and looked once again at the screen images. “Hammerson gave us this, did he? Seems he’s already taking an interest.”
Chilton’s finger tapped on the desk for a moment as his eyes narrowed. “If I know that old hardhead, he’s already halfway there.” He leaned forward and snatched up a phone. “Get me Jack Hammerson, now.”
Hammerson put the phone down — the Iraq mission was a green light. He looked back to his screen. It was a shot of the Middle East taken from low orbit. A huge oily stain spread across the landscape, from the center of Baghdad, out for a hundred miles, almost touching the city of Fallujah to the west.
He recast the impression timeline. Once again the HRE trace had emanated from Mosul, and this time it was a 220-mile walk. Hammerson frowned, and pulled out a calculator, tapping in numbers. He wrote the result and began again. When he finished he compared the numbers and then sat back.
“You sons of bitches left at the same time, didn’t you?”
Based on his calculations, the walking bomb vectors, the Travelers, had set off from Mosul at the same time, the extra distance to the ground zero point at the Zone had delayed the second bomb detonation. Hammerson looked at the time line — the speed and pace were constant for days on end. This vector didn’t sleep, didn’t deviate, and never stopped, not even for a sip of water.
“Who or what the fuck are you guys?”
Hammerson rubbed both hands through his iron-gray crew cut before springing forward and snatching up his phone to call their electronics surveillance factory beneath the base. He sought out Gerry Harris, a friend and the man responsible for coordinating the constellation of orbiting birds that fed back a lot of the high-altitude intelligence from over the United States mainland, and also much of the globe.
He got him on first ring. “Gerry, it’s Jack, I need a favor. Can you tap into the Iraqi communications grid and find me any data from the last twenty-four hours relating to the Zone?”
“Easy. What are you looking for, Jack? Ah, wait, the nuke in Baghdad, right?” There was a furious tapping of keys. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll extract comms and bounce around the security grids for any stored CCTV.”
“Good man, Gerry, I’ll be here.”
Hammerson went back to his mission files and started to select a team. He wanted a small unit — two or three bodies, max. He had several HAWCs off-mission. He needed the best, the most formidable and experienced, and given they might need some local support, he had the perfect candidates in mind.
He selected several classified HAWC files, and then called up each individually. Firstly, there was Alex Hunter, the mission leader. His picture was at the side of screen file. Hunter was six foot two and had a brutally handsome face that could turn women’s heads or deliver a stare that’d freeze combatants to the spot. Alex Hunter was his protégé, and in some ways he was like a son. After all, Hammerson knew he was responsible for raising Alex from nothing — first to the HAWC ranks, and then later bringing him back from the brink of death.
Hammerson stared at the photograph. Hunter was older now but didn’t show it, other than a haunted sadness behind his eyes. After a mission in Chechnya, Hunter had suffered a catastrophic battlefield trauma and was brought back to the HAWCs more dead than alive. He’d been expected to live out his life in a vegetative state until his body withered, perhaps with his mind trapped inside, screaming to be free. But Hammerson had handed him over to the newly formed ASRU, the Alpha Soldier Research Unit of Fort Detrick’s Medical Command Installation. Hunter was to be their test subject for the experimental Arcadian treatment. It wasn’t expected to do more than deliver some cerebral stimulation for enhanced cognizance and muscular mobility. After all, the man was little more than a vegetable. But Alex Hunter had woken — and was much more than he had been. In fact, much more than anyone had ever been on the planet.
He was the one real success of the Arcadian treatment. Something already in Hunter’s system had bonded at the DNA level, changing him — mostly for good. He had increased strength, increased speed, improved cognitive abilities and wound recovery. But there were dark psychological side effects, some which nearly destroyed him. Hunter managed them, but the monster from the Id lurked inside the man. His fury was chained for now, but always there, waiting to break free.
Hammerson half smiled. The codename had stuck; Hunter wasn’t just the only Arcadian subject, now he was the Arcadian.
Hammerson’s phone buzzed and he lifted it to his ear. “Gerry?”
“Got something, Jack. Weird, but it might fit. No footage, but a call from the suspension bridge’s watchtower over the Tigris. Seems they had someone walking across the span bridge, carrying something on their back. The words they used in Arabic translated to: it looked like a giant.”
“Carrying a thousand-pound nuke on its back?” Hammerson frowned. Even Hunter would struggle with that. And this guy carried it, day and night, for hundreds of miles. Impossible, he thought.
“A walking WMD; like I said, weird,” Gerry said. “Give me a call if you need anything else.”
“You got it, and thanks, Gerry.”
Hammerson put the phone down and looked again at Alex’s picture. “Send a WMD to find a WMD.”
He flicked to the next screen. The scarred face of Second Lieutenant Casey Franks appeared. She had been HAWC Special Forces for a number of years. Standing five foot ten she was the most ferocious HAWC they had for hand-to-hand combat, and spent her time training her body — ripping it and punishing it — until she looked like she was assembled from whipcord and iron. With ice blue eyes and a snub nose, her face may have been called attractive once, but a cleft scar running from just below her left eye down to her chin pulled her cheek slightly to one side, giving her appearance a permanent sneer. If you ever needed someone to kick a door down and go through it to Hell, she’d be your first choice.
Hammerson selected her for the mission and moved to his last team member. The next image made him smile as the broad face of Sam Reid stared back at him. Sam was a two-legged tank, standing at six foot eight.. He was older than the rest of the team by a few years, and a man who exuded total confidence and calm. He was as laid-back as they came and was “Uncle Sam” to the team. Sam had been personally recruited by Hammerson himself — he was an ex-Ranger, 75th Regiment, just like he had been.
A previous mission to the Amazon had ended badly for Sam, with him shattering his L1 and L2 spinal plates, and worse, severing the cord. But fortuitously, advancements in bionics and battlefield armor had moved to field-test phase, so a few years back, Hammerson had authorized Sam for a trial of the new MECH suit — or part of it. The Military Exoskeleton Combat Harness was designed as the next-generation heavy-combat armor. On Sam, the half-body synaptic electronics were a molded framework built onto, and into, the unresponsive lower half of his body.