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  She presses the “End” button on her phone and flings it into the lap of the passenger seat. The absolute nerve of him… he seriously needs to invest in getting a life. I promised mom that I’d keep us together. There is no way they’re taking Camil e and Cameron away from me.

  Conrad turns on her multimedia player. Her SUV is suddenly

  immersed in the sounds of James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain”. Little does she know how prescient that song title is.

  19

  Chapter Three

  Super Sleuth

  SVR 6 Headquarters

  Yasenevo 11 Kolpachny

  Moscow, Russia

  The Cold War has been over for decades, but the CIA still has a penchant for keeping tabs on its Russian sister agency. This provides covert operations officers like Agent Cynthia Fighting Bull a world of job security. Her current assignment—retrieving files on former Soviet nuclear scientists from the SVR archives—is going smoothly so far. Her ability to shape-shift no doubt helps this along. She operates under the guise of SVR Security Chief, General Anatoly Andropov.

  Her operations officer, Dalton Clemens, talks to her over the radio earpiece, addressing her by her call-sign.

  “Chameleon, your exit window closes in thirty seconds. Have you secured the package?”

  “That’s affirmative; I’m almost done,” Fighting Bull responds.

  After downloading the file, she pulls the jump drive out of the 6 Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki—-Russian Foreign Intelligence Service 20

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  computer’s USB port and tucks it into her coat pocket. Clemens comes back in her ear.

  “Chameleon, infrared is picking up movement in your direction.”

  She taps her earpiece before responding. “I’m leaving now.”

  As she proceeds to the exit, much to her surprise (and chagrin), she bumps into the genuine General Andropov.

  “What the hell?!” Andropov blurts out in his native Russian.

  Fighting Bull hesitates briefly as Andropov reaches for the H&K

  P-10 pistol in his left shoulder holster. Regaining her mental bearings, she kicks the pistol out of his right hand and follows through with a forceful roundhouse to the chest. The impact knocks the wind out of Andropov. He loses his balance and tumbles to the ground. She sprints out of the room just as the back of his head hits the floor.

  A trio of security guards walks by to find one Andropov sprinting out of the archive room while another is sprawled on the floor. The guards are understandably confused by what they see. The real Andropov, struggling for air, orders the guards, “G-get him.”

  The men pull out their Kalashnikov rifles and begin firing on

  Fighting Bull, as they chase after her. She deftly navigates a myriad of corridors and stairwells. Shattered pieces of plaster splatter across her face as bullets pierce the walls, just narrowly missing her.

  She reaches the roof, where her extraction team hovers above in an MH-60 Enhanced Black Hawk helicopter. Clemens motions for her to jump in. Just as she leaps for the helicopter, a bullet grazes the side of her right leg. Fighting Bull stumbles and barely grabs hold of one of the landing skids with her left hand as the helicopter begins its ascent. As she dangles from the skid she draws a black Sig Sauer P-225 from her shoulder holster and returns fire. The bullet pierces the chest of one of the guards, and his body crumples to the ground.

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  P . B . O B E N G

  Fighting Bull loses her grip, but before she can fall, Clemens snatches her left wrist and pulls her into the cabin. Their gunner returns fire with two mounted 7.62mm miniguns. The pilot releases burst flares from the M-130 flare dispenser, disorienting their attackers and covering their escape.

  Fighting Bull hands the jump drive to her operations officer.

  “That was too close, Cynthia,” Clemens comments.

  “I know,” Fighting Bull counters. “It won’t happen again.”

  “You said that in Sarajevo, and in Kandahar before that.”

  Fighting Bull nods contritely. Deep down though, she wasn’t truly penitent. The fact is that she thrives on episodes like this. To her, the rush of being on the precipice of death is like being high on cocaine.

  One could rightly assert that Cynthia Fighting Bull is an adrenaline junkie with no intention of ever going into rehab. Competent as she is at her job, her love of excessive risk-taking is her one major flaw as an agent.

  Clemens inserts the jump drive into his laptop’s USB port and begins transferring the encrypted files to Langley’s server. The on-board medic bandages Fighting Bull’s leg wound. Thankfully for her, there is just superficial damage with minimal blood loss.

  With the release of superhuman growth hormone from her anterior pituitary gland, she transforms from the Andropov identity back into her original slim five-foot, five-inch frame. Her protean ability is both amazing and unsettling to witness, best described as wax melting, with Andropov’s visage liquefying away to reveal Fighting Bull’s true face.

  Clemens looks up from his laptop to catch this process.

  “No matter how many times you do that it still gives me the creeps,”

  he comments.

  Fighting Bull smiles and ties her long, light brown hair into a pony 22

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  tail as she takes a cabin seat. She grabs the duffle bag with her change of clothes from the side of her chair and places it in her lap. An unfortunate downside to her ability—she can’t transform her clothes whenever she shape-shifts. Thus, constantly requiring a change of clothes to fit her original body frame.

  “It’s what helps me do my job, sir.”

  “Yeah, but you were this close to not making it out, Cynthia,”

  Clemens says.

  “We secured the package and made it back in one piece. I’d call that a success, boss,” the pilot says. “Cynthia, you want to grab something to drink before we head home? You know, to celebrate.”

  “You know she doesn’t drink, Barton,” Clemens says. “Just worry about getting us home.”

  Fighting Bull nods at Clemens then looks down at her phone. She notices the time and sees that she is almost late in giving her video debrief to her handler. She touches the overhead flat-screen monitor above her. Agent Tony Dickson appears onscreen.

  “How was it?”

  She responds with a smirk. “ Smooth as a baby’s bottom. They didn’t have the slightest clue that I was even there.”

  “Yeah right, and there’s a bridge in New York that I’d like to sell you. I saw your little fiasco from the SATVID.7 Next time, leave when Clemens tells you to!” Dickson chides.

  “Now where would the fun be in that?”

  “It’s all fun and games until I’m reading your eulogy.”

  “I understand. I won’t make that mistake again, sir. So when’s my next assignment?”

  “You won’t have one. You have a press conference to go to, remember?”

  7 SATellite VIDeo

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  P . B . O B E N G

  “Uh, no. When did this come about?”

  “Didn’t you get the memo about being sanctioned into that new

  special task force?” Dickson retorts matter-of-factly.

  “No, sir.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Back at Langley, Dickson clicks the Microsoft Outlook icon on his computer screen and retrieves the errant email. He pauses as he reads.

  “On second thought, scratch that. There’s no way you could’ve gotten that memo because I’m staring at the copy I was supposed to email you.

  Sorry, I must’ve forgotten to send it. My bad.”

  “‘My bad?’ Sir, isn’t it you who always reminds me that this CIA stands for the Central Intelligence Agency, not the Center for the Inept and Amnesic?”

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  Chapter Four

  Feds

  Shadyside Café

  Venice Beach, California

  Agent
John Arrowhawk grows impatient by the minute. He sits alone at a wire-framed table covered by an umbrella shade waiting for arms dealer, Derrick “D-Tech” Sylvester. What kind of stupid nickname is D-Tech, anyway? Arrowhawk wonders as he checks his watch. The arms dealer is more than thirty minutes late, and Arrowhawk fears that the deal may have already fallen through before it’s begun.

  Sylvester supplies weapons to many within Southern California’s criminal underworld. Posing as a rising cocaine trafficker in the L.A.

  underworld, Arrowhawk has arranged a buy with Sylvester. He’s been working on this meeting for weeks, with hopes of not only apprehending Sylvester, but also obtaining his client list. Arrowhawk taps his earpiece.

  “He’s got cold feet, the deal’s off—”

  His field leader interrupts. “Don’t get your paranoid thong in a bunch, we got him on surveil, he’s heading right for you.”

  At that moment, a thin man with a close-cropped hair, and dressed in an Armani suit, arrives at Arrowhawk’s table. His appearance comes 25

  P . B . O B E N G

  off more like a GQ cover model than an arms dealer. He pulls up a chair across from Arrowhawk.

  “You got the money?” he asks calmly.

  “No money till I see the merchandise,” Arrowhawk answers.

  Sylvester nods and the two get up from their outdoor table and head inside the café. They walk past numerous café patrons and into a side room just across from the kitchen. In the room is an oval wooden table with three chairs.

  Sylvester places a two large metallic suitcases side by side on the table.

  He releases the latches on the sides and the suitcase lid springs open.

  Within the foam-lined cases lies an assortment of weaponry, including two Glock-36s, one Walther 9mm submachine gun, and an Uzi.

  “This is just a sample,” Sylvester says. “I’ll take you to the rest once I see the cash.”

  Arrowhawk looks at the weapons and then at Sylvester. “Thanks, but that’s all I needed to see.” He presses a button on his wristwatch.

  The door is kicked open, and suddenly, Sylvester is accosted by a slew of café patrons. Unknown to Sylvester, most of the café patrons were in fact undercover agents. He slips his right arm free to grab the Glock from one of the suitcases. Sylvester trains his weapon on Arrowhawk.

  Before Sylvester can squeeze the trigger, Arrowhawk swiftly grabs the second suitcase and uses it to bat the weapon out of his hand. Sylvester is then slammed face-first into the ground with his arms pulled behind his back.

  “You set me up!” a bewildered Sylvester blurts out.

  “Way to state the obvious, Tech,” Arrowhawk replies.

  “I’ll get you! You ain’t seen the last of me!”

  “‘You ain’t seen the last of me’,” Arrowhawk mocks. “Do you know how utterly unoriginal that sounds? You sound like a perp from a bad 26

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  cop drama.”

  “Go to hell!”

  “Let’s be honest, you’re just mad ’cause you got caught.”

  He slaps Sylvester on the back of the head as he’s lifted off the ground by one of the agents.

  “You gotta be slick, my man.”

  Arrowhawk motions to the agent. “Get him out of here. I want him in interrogation within the next half hour. Also, make sure we get a team to the industrial park to recover the rest of his caché.”

  “Right away sir,” the agent says. “But, I’m just curious, why didn’t you just zap him when he pulled the gun on you?”

  “Because it would’ve been too dangerous. I can’t risk one of our guys getting hurt.” As he turns to walk away, one of his colleagues pulls him aside.

  “Samuels is on the line for you, John.”

  He takes the cell phone. “Arrowhawk.”

  L.A. office Special Agent in Charge Kevin Samuels comes on the line.

  Arrowhawk worked briefly under Samuels as his ASAC, but stepped down shortly after the Kerrington affair. The two still maintain a fun yet professional relationship.

  “How did it go?”

  Arrowhawk responds in his own slightly satirical way.

  “As well as it could have. Some of these arms dealers aren’t that bright. They wouldn’t recognize a sting operation if it ran up and bit them in the crotch.”

  “You know, I really could’ve done without that mental image, John.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Anyway, make sure you write up your field report before your hot-shot press conference.”

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  P . B . O B E N G

  “The Vigil thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What time was it again?”

  “Do I look like your secretary?”

  “No, sir, but you are one of the most informed and astute people I know,” Arrowhawk responds.

  “Enough with the brown-nosing. It’s at two o’clock, east coast time.”

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  Chapter Five

  Mister President

  Oval Office

  The White House

  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

  The White House is intended to be one of the most secure buildings on the planet. Common sense says it would have to be, considering that it houses the most powerful person in the Free World. Yet, two would-be infiltrators from the militia group, the National Freedom Alliance, have managed to infiltrate the Oval Office. The men, one of them armed with an H&K P-10 pistol and the other with a Mac 10 submachine gun, train their weapons on the back of the president’s chair. They think they have the president right where they want him.

  The pistol-toting infiltrator speaks up. “All right, Mr. President, you’re gonna listen to our demands or we’re blowin’ this building sky high.”

  No response comes from the man in the chair. The two men look at each other in exasperation, agitated by the president’s seeming disregard for the threat they pose. The second man reaches over to turn his chair around.

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  P . B . O B E N G

  “Hey, listen to the man when he’s talkin’ to…you…” The militia

  man’s voice shrinks to that of a preadolescent boy as he discovers that the person sitting in the president’s chair is actually Secret Service agent Terrell Morrison. The men stare at him dumbfounded. Morrison responds to their obvious shock with some levity.

  “What? You were expecting someone a little lighter and thinner?”

  They quickly compose themselves and fire their weapons. Before the first bullet can pierce his body, Morrison converts his six-foot, eight-frame from flesh into solid steel.

  The bullets tear through his clothes but ricochet off his steel skin.

  Without hesitation he quickly grabs the submachine gun from the man closest to him, and flips it around to the butt end. He delivers a devastating blow to the infiltrator’s left temple. The impact knocks the man unconscious. The second man, being the wiser, makes a beeline out of the room, but not before letting off a few rounds as he retreats. When he reaches the exit, to his mortification, he’s greeted by three Secret Service agents. The agents waste no time tackling him to the ground and clasping handcuffs around his wrists.

  Morrison converts his body back to its natural state; gleaming steel skin recedes to reveal warm flesh and blood. He frantically pats down his suit.

  “What’s wrong?” his colleague Jeff Garner asks.

  Morrison reaches into his right breast pocket and pulls out a gold wedding band with the engraving: “T&D.”

  “There it is,” Morrison says with a smile.

  He kisses the ring and puts it back on. Then he looks at the remains of his suit and laments. “I paid over two grand for this thing. What a waste.”

  “Next time, you might want to leave the Dolce and Gabbana at

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  home,” Garner comments.

  Feigning shock at his friend’s lack of designer-brand savvy, Morrison says, “It’s actually Kenneth Cole.” />
  “Sorry,” Garner replies with eyebrows raised, as if to say, “Excuse me.”

  Morrison smiles and quickly changes the subject. “Did you guys get all the audio on that?”

  “Yes, we did. Those idiots won’t see the light of day for a long time.”

  “What about the planted explosives?”

  “We retrieved and deactivated all of them.”

  “Good. Tell Stiles he can bring the president back in from the safe room now.”

  “Copy that.” Garner taps his earpiece lightly. “All clear, let the eagle out of the nest.” He shifts his attention back to Morrison.

  “So, are you ready for your big press conference today?”

  Morrison lets the corners of his mouth betray a warm smile. “Yeah, but not until after I get a bite to eat. I’m starving like you wouldn’t believe!”

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  Chapter Six

  Acid Dreams

  Eight Years Ago

  Jakarta, Indonesia

  Under the cover of a moonlit night, an MH-60 Apache helicopter descends silently onto the rooftop of a skyscraper in downtown Jakarta.

  Four CCI operatives descend from the helicopter. As soon as the last person is clear, the helicopter ascends once more and disappears into the night. The top level of the building is the headquarters of former high-level Jordanian intel igence operative Omar Al-Khatib. He previously served as a Defense Intel igence Agency liaison until going rogue a few months earlier. Al-Khatib was in possession of the highly sensitive Missile Defense Protocol (MDP) discs. The discs outline the entire US missile defense infrastructure, including launch codes, missile silo sites, and mobile units.

  This information would be invaluable to a number of American enemies abroad. Al-Khatib’s apparent duplicity has severely strained relations between Jordanian and US military intel igence. And both the Americans and the Jordanians wanted him back, badly.

  This CCI unit was specifical y tasked by the DIA to retrieve Al-Khatib 32

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  by any means at their disposal. Their strike team is small but lethal; consisting of Conrad, Blankenchip, and team leader Major Paul James, with support officer David Breslin. Breslin breaks away from the trio to the main building’s main circuit breaker to override the failsafe mechanism.