Rogue Faction Part 1 Read online

  The corners of Boone’s lips curled at Reid’s realization.

  “What?” Reid insisted.

  “He has no idea,” Boone admitted. His pride was evident in the broad smile that spanned his face. “He doesn’t know that I fast tracked him, either. He has no idea that I bypassed his time on your team and moved him straight into undercover work. As far as he’s aware, he followed standard training procedure.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Think about it,” Boone reasoned. “He only knows what I tell him. I just never explained that the traditional training for work in our undercover division takes a minimum of five years.”

  Reid leaned on the edge of the table; his eyes were fixed on Boone, and his mouth agape. Boone could tell he had about a million things on his mind, each struggling for a voice. He cut him off before he could get started.

  “You’ve seen him work,” Boone explained. “The kid’s a natural. I’ve never seen anyone with a greater gift for this kind of work. And I think his last op speaks for itself. Cyrus brought in Sutter and his entire crew, all by himself.”

  Rocking back in his chair, Reid let out a sigh. His eyes fell to the table. He clearly couldn’t argue with results. “I’m just having trouble believing you threw him into the deep end of the pool like that. He’s done what…? Six missions since you cut the leash and let him work solo? And he’s been with us less than two years? I can’t believe Monica signed off on that.”

  “It was a tough sell at first,” Boone admitted. “But, like I said, the kid’s a natural. I’ve never seen anyone like him. No exaggeration intended, but he may be the best field operative I’ve ever seen.”

  “Sure, one day. Once he’s got more experience under his belt. You know as well as I do that there’s no substitute for experience.”

  “That’s what these last half-dozen missions have been about.” Boone sat straight in his chair, his posture adding silent emphasis to his point. “Like you said, I threw him into the deep end. And not only did he prove he could swim, he proved he was a shark!”

  “That’s high praise coming from the man commonly regarded to be our best and brightest.”

  Under different circumstances, Boone would’ve expected Reid’s comment to be laced with vitriol, but he was being sincere. Reid had always been a fiercely competitive man, but it seemed that, at least in this regard, he had no aspirations or intention to subvert Boone’s unofficial title within the organization. He really was generally believed to be their best field operative.

  “I’m not kidding,” Boone clarified. “He’s got everything I have, and more. Plus,” he added, with a chuckle, “kid’s got youth on his side. Truth is, there’s only one more thing he needs to learn and he’ll have mastered everything I can teach him.”

  When both of Reid’s eyebrows rose in unison, his surprise was unmistakable. “One thing? What’s that?”

  Boone sat back and took a long look at the table’s surface. The enthusiasm drained from him as he considered his response. “He’s got to learn how to lose,” he said quietly.

  After a moment, his eyes shifted to meet Reid’s. He saw the question before it reached the man’s lips. “Every op he’s run has been a success, no matter how long or high the odds were stacked against him,” Boone explained. “And winning is great. There’s nothing better. But, sooner or later, something always goes wrong. It doesn’t matter how well you plan or how prepared you are, no one can beat the odds forever.

  “Someday a mission is going to go sideways on him and he won’t have a way to fix it. I’m just worried how he’ll react when that day comes. He’s so used to winning, so accustomed to beating the odds that the real question is, what will happen to him when he finally loses one? Will he have the resiliency to rebound and move on? Or, will he be too set on always coming out on top to accept a failure? If that’s the case, a loss could destroy him. And that would be a waste of something special.”

  Reid sat silently for a minute, obviously letting the reality of Boone’s words sink in. He was an experienced agent, working in the A.T.F. before coming to the Coalition. Boone had no doubt that he could name a dozen such cases where promising agents burned out after a mission that went sideways. It was a reality of their world, and a real danger—particularly for a young agent who had been rushed through training.

  “Wait a second,” Reid said finally. He grimaced, as if he had just tasted something disagreeable. “Is that why you’ve been feeding him these hardcore ops? Some sort of…‘trial by fire’?”

  “No,” Boone admitted. “Unfortunately, not. So far he’s just been the right man for the job. His age has been key to most operations. Particularly this last one with Sutter. People tend to let their guard down when they’re working with someone so young. They see someone young and equate it to inexperience. It becomes difficult to perceive him as a threat.”

  Reid nodded with obvious relief. But then his look turned suspicious once more. “But you’re thinking of setting him up for a fall—a test to see whether he bends or breaks.” It wasn’t a question so much as a statement. Reid was realizing for the first time just what kind of snake pit the other side of the company could be.

  “It’s been suggested.”

  Chapter 20

  Express train out of Paris, France

  8:37 pm

  The train had pulled out of the station precisely on time. Paul Gladd was relieved. In his experience, the French were not the most reliable—at least when it came to maintaining a tight schedule. The overnight express train was destined for Hamburg. The Germans, on the other hand, were known for their precision, so he’d given an on-time departure fifty-fifty odds. The train had departed the Paris station at 8:25 pm, and ten minutes later had reached cruising speed. It would be a twelve hour, twenty minute non-stop journey to their destination.

  Removing his chauffeur’s cap, Gladd tossed it to the bench seat before repositioning the wheelchair in the center of the small, four-passenger compartment. All of the bunks were in their stowed positions, folded up against the walls, leaving a bench seat along each of the two main walls. The outer wall held two tall windows, while a short counter and a sturdy sliding door leading to the hallway, occupied the opposite wall of the claustrophobic space. It had been difficult to maneuver the wheelchair through the narrow doorway, though the cabin was supposedly designed with the handicapped in mind.

  Gladd double-checked the door’s lock, confirming it was engaged. Turning to his charge in the wheelchair and engaging the brake attached to each wheel, he released a pair of straps and removed a large, hard-shelled travel case from the back of the chair. Laying the case on the bench seat and flipping it open, he retrieved a small, broad headed hammer.

  Circling to the front of the wheelchair, he considered his task. The patient was wrapped head to toe in a full body cast and bound to the chair with a Velcro seatbelt. Only the eyes, fingertips, and bare toes of the man inside the cast were visible. Gladd noticed the eyes following him as he rounded the front of the chair.

  “Just speak up if you need a hand,” Gladd said with a grin. His finger tapped expectantly on the hammer’s long wooden handle.

  “Very funny,” a voice grumbled from inside the plaster shell. Irritation was plainly evident.

  The entire frozen form of the man swayed slightly, then a crack formed at the shoulder of the right arm. The crack quickly spread, as a chasm opened down the outside of the arm, finally reaching the man’s hand. The sleeve of the body cast fell away in several large chunks, as the process was being repeated on the opposite side.

  Gladd knew the body cast had been specially designed to break in such a way. Still, he’d been told to expect his partner to require assistance when it came time to extricate him from the contraption. Apparently, his help wouldn’t be needed.

  Once both arms were free, the man reached up and grappled the sides of the shell surrounding his head. It took only a moment of prying and twisting before this, too, fragmented and
was quickly pulled away.

  Taking his first unimpeded breath of fresh air, Cyrus Cooper shook his head and sighed with apparent relief. After a moment to stretch his neck, he set about freeing his torso and legs from the remainder of the cast.

  “I hope our guy isn’t claustrophobic,” Cyrus said, as he met Gladd’s gaze.

  Gladd couldn’t help but chuckle. “It won’t matter if he is. We brought enough tranquilizers to get Jerry Garcia stoned.”

  A few swift blows from his fist quickly fractured the rigid shell surrounding his hips and knees, and Cyrus finally slid free of the chair. The last of the cast clattered in chunks on the floor.

  Cyrus wiggled his toes and stretched. He bent over and proceeded to unroll the cuffs of his jeans, which had been tucked back inside the cast to prevent chafing. Finally, he retrieved a pair of socks and a pair of black hiking boots from the case on the bench.

  With an obvious degree of satisfaction, Cyrus went about pulling on his socks.

  Gladd was puzzled by the uncharacteristic display. “What are you smiling about?” he asked.

  Cyrus looked up. Although the gaze was confused at first, he soon smiled. “Well,” he said, considering his words. “I guess I’ve never been a fan of going barefoot. Besides, there’s something to be said for the simple pleasure of a fresh pair of socks.”

  Gladd stopped what he was doing and stared at the younger man. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Ever done deep cover work?” Cyrus asked without pretense.

  Gladd just shook his head. His career had been almost entirely comprised of fieldwork. He hadn’t worked undercover, but he’d given a lot of thought to what it would be like to work such operations. Those guys were a different breed. The difference between undercover and deep cover was vast. Deep cover involved going under and staying there for protracted periods of time—often without outside support or even a means of contacting support. If deep cover guys had any lifeline at all, it was never within easy reach. Beyond that, Gladd didn’t know how they did it. He was used to functioning as part of a team. The thought of going it alone was more than a little unsettling.

  Not that he would ever admit to it.

  “You spend time in some really messed up places with some even more messed up people,” Cyrus explained. “The trick to getting through it is to focus on and appreciate the simple things. Like a good night sleep in your own bed, for example. Or,” he held up his second sock as an object example. Flashing a broad grin, he slipped it over his foot.

  Gladd shrugged. “Fair enough.”

  Who am I to say otherwise?

  Dropping the unused hammer back in the case, Gladd retrieved a collapsed vinyl pouch and quickly expanded it into a large, five-sided container. Once formed, it was rectangular, nearly two feet long and about half as wide. It had an open top and was a little over a foot deep. Placing it on the floor, he began collecting the remnants of the body cast into a pile beside the container.

  While Gladd was collecting the mess from the floor, Cyrus retrieved two small bottles from the hard-shelled case on the bench. Double-checking the unit markers on the outside of the first bottle, Cyrus removed the cap and dumped several ounces of the gelatinous fluid into the empty vinyl container on the floor. After replacing the bottle’s cap, he repeated the process with the second bottle.

  Gladd saw the small pools of binary chemicals begin to react as soon as they touched within the bottom of the soft-walled container. Though he’d read about the technology, this was his first chance to work with it. He didn’t understand how two tiny splashes of chemicals could combine to fill the two-gallon box with solvent. But, the reaction was taking place right before his eyes.

  At first, a bubbling foam spread across the bottom of the container, quickly growing in height and climbing the walls. Then, shortly after the bubbling concoction’s expansion passed the halfway mark, its composition began to change. The bubbles gave way to a gooey gel. Still, the reaction continued to expand. The walls flexed under the weight of the newfound mass, becoming rigid as the density of the material inside the container continued to increase. Finally, as the box reached three quarters capacity, the gel transitioned into a fully liquid form.

  Cyrus went to the window and slid aside the small vent panel. It wasn’t until then that Gladd realized a mild chemical odor had filled the compartment. It wasn’t caustic, but it was unusual, and who knew if it was safe to breathe. He’d never witnessed anything as unnatural as the chemical reaction before, and couldn’t help wondering what sort of fumes now filled his lungs.

  Cyrus must have read the concern on his face. “It’s nothing to worry about,” he reassured.

  Crouching on one knee, Cyrus started tossing some of the larger chucks of the body cast into the now water-like chemical. The material comprising the cast began to disintegrate instantly.

  “Believe it or not, this solution is completely safe,” Cyrus continued. “I don’t know if I would drink it, but they claim you could water flowers with it.”

  Piece by piece, they dropped all that remained of the body cast into the solution, destroying all evidence of Cyrus’s disguise. Once they were done, Cyrus returned to the small vent below the window. It was the only part of the window that passengers could open. He gouged out the small sturdy section of screen and nodded to Gladd.

  Taking the now rigid box by the two hand holds cut into opposite edges along the top rim, Gladd hefted the container. It was heavier than he expected, forcing him to lift with his knees. What had started out as a few ounces of a binary chemical was now over two gallons of a strange water-like solution. The box wasn’t exactly heavy, but its semi-rigid form made it awkward to maneuver. Not a single solid remained inside the solution. The cast had been completely dissolved.

  The closest thing to magic I’ve ever seen, he thought.

  After Gladd lugged the container to the window, Cyrus released the eighteen-inch fabric tube that was folded flush along the side of the container. Dropping the end of the hose out the window vent, he released the clip that served as a primitive valve. The contents of the box began draining out the window as the train sped through the pitch-black countryside.

  It took less than a minute to purge the box of the chemical solution. After that, Gladd collapsed the container and stowed it in the larger case. By that time Cyrus had folded the wheelchair and leaned it against the wall, freeing up some much-needed space in the small cabin.

  Gladd removed his chauffeur’s jacket, swapping it for a different coat that had been stowed inside the case. He also replaced his tie with a simple black affair that completed his disguise. Once he was done, he turned and looked at Cyrus.

  “Well?” Gladd asked.

  With a grin, Cyrus nodded. “You look like a conductor to me.”

  Cyrus turned and unlocked the cabin door. Sliding it open, he stepped aside for Gladd. “Good luck,” he offered, as Gladd passed him on his way into the hall.

  Assuming the role of conductor now allowed Gladd complete and unrestricted access to all parts of the train, as well as the ability to move virtually unnoticed among the passengers.

  Chapter 21

  Express train out of Paris, France

  11:41 pm

  Sitting at the tiny table in the dining car, Cyrus looked past his own reflection and watched the wilderness sweep by the window. Everything was a blur, but the full moon brought the scenery into view every time the train reached an open field or pasture.

  He took the last bite of his turkey and swiss sandwich, washing it down a moment later with the remains of a flat, but flavorful root beer. The dining car was due to close at midnight, which was just as well. He’d been making use of the facility primarily to observe his fellow passengers. No one knew that he and Gladd were on the train, but he was still on the alert. Even they hadn’t found out about the express run from Paris to Hamburg until a few hours before the train was scheduled to depart. And this stage of the mission would be a cakewalk compared to what wo
uld follow. There was little that could go wrong at this point. Still, he felt better getting a sense of the environment and the people who occupied it.

  His partner for this part of the mission was an operative named Paul Gladd. What little he knew of the man came from a personnel file and the largely antidotal character reference that Boone provided. The file was restricted information, something Cyrus wasn’t even supposed to have access to. Still, no one should be surprised. Such was the nature of his job. For the trouble he’d gone to in order to obtain it, there wasn’t much in the file that helped Cyrus form an opinion of Gladd. He was an ex-Special Forces solider who’d been with the Coalition for almost five years. Prior to that, he’d served on four continents and was once awarded the Navy Cross before leaving the service. Aside from that, Boone had simply said that Gladd was a good man to have at your back if things got hairy.

  That was good enough for Cyrus. This part of the op would be easy enough. Some of the CIA’s digital taps and filters had managed to capture Rutger Voss’s upstream communication, which had led them to Voss’s associate in Paris, France. Professor Richard Ragsdale, was a longtime friend of Voss, and digital archives proved the two had kept in touch for decades. Upon being assigned the case, Cyrus began looking into archives of all the digital communication that the CIA had collected over the years, but since Ragsdale had never drawn scrutiny from the CIA or the Coalition, his background with Voss was part of the wave of white noise amassed from general internet traffic in the region over the last fifteen years. That archived information contained massive dumps of unfiltered data that was warehoused for later reference. Since it was far too much information to review in real-time, anything digital that passed through cyberspace was simply cataloged and warehoused in massive underground server farms across the planet. If at any time files relating to a person, location, or date became relevant, it was simply a matter of querying the slush pile of raw data for the relevant information.