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  “A thorough cleaning, and some stitches and you’ll be fine,” Joseph said, dismissing the severity of the injury. Although a human bite could carry high quantities of bacteria, Bowali’s bite was medically superficial. In their current situation, his bite could be much worse.

  His ears still faintly ringing, Joseph said loudly, “Wrap it in this towel. I’ll clean it in a moment.” He tossed a rag to Bowali, who pressed it into his arm.

  Joseph surveyed the blood-spattered room in shock. His research hospital utterly destroyed looking like a horrific slaughterhouse. Bodies were strewn about what should have been a place of healing. “What have you done? You shot these people,” he yelled at Nixon, gesturing madly.

  “Couldn’t you have done anything else?”

  “Listen, Joe, I don’t know if you saw what those ‘people’ were doing, but they were gutting that guy,” Nixon shouted, his voice rising in a frenzy.

  “It doesn’t matter. We have a responsibility to help them. It’s possible this was only a symptom of the disease. Maybe it could be treated.”

  Joseph rushed over to the bodies of the fallen patients and began to palpate their carotids for signs of life. He would never be able to save them here. He would most likely be ostracized from his medical community for allowing his patients to be killed. Joseph rolled over the nearest body to examine the wounds. Shredded flesh protruded from the man’s wounds like he had eaten an exploding mushroom. Poor bastard, Joseph thought. Well, at least he won’t suffer anymore.

  Joseph glanced up as Nixon’s radio went off. “This is Reliford… we… oh shit, get back.” A loud gunshot boomed, followed by another boom.

  Nixon’s brow bunched up over his narrow-set eyes as he responded. “Nixon to Reliford. You copy? Over.”

  Static erupted through the radio as Nixon spoke into his mic again. “Nixon to Reliford. Do you copy? Over.” More static reverberated. The tent’s eerie silence contrasted with the occasional scream and the slap of running feet from the outside.

  “We have to move to the rally point,” Nixon said.

  Bowali nodded, a terrified look in his eyes. “Yes, we must leave here,” he slurred. Joseph glowered at the interpreter who looked like he was about to faint.

  “You Agent Nixon are responsible for this. This carnage,” Joseph chided. A loud moan resounded from behind Joseph startling him. The patient with the mortal gunshot wounds to the chest pulled himself into a sitting position, a rag doll sitting upright. Blood ran freely from his wounds his body unable to keep it in. Then he stood up as if two bullets hadn’t just decimated the organs contained within his puny skeletal body. This is not possible, Joseph thought.

  With horror in his eyes, Joseph took a few steps back.

  “But... but… that’s impossible,” Joseph whispered. The thunder of gunfire roared through the tent. Finding a place to hide was his only thought.

  STEELE

  Undisclosed Location

  The cabin of the aircraft shook with turbulence, shuddering violently. Were they using duct tape to keep this thing together? He took a sideways glance at the man next to him. The suited businessman cast an eye over the cabin nervously, pupils shifting side to side. His hands dug into the armrests, white-knuckled and afraid.

  “We’re going to be fine,” Mark Steele said to the man.

  His words seemed to appease the man momentarily. The man closed his eyes and whispered what sounded like the Lord’s Prayer over and over. Jesus. I hope this guy isn’t some sort of nut job, EDPs were the worst.

  Steele looked at the passengers around him seated in the plush leather seats of first class. A body filled every seat, four passengers per row split down the middle by a single aisle. A relatively unsuspecting group surrounded him: a host of businessmen; a couple of honeymooners, flight attendants and a few upgrades. One man kept ringing his flight attendant call button, of which the male flight attendant in the galley actively ignored now.

  There was nothing of note on the surface, but something wasn’t right in the first class cabin. A tension hovered over them that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. In the industry, they called it a ‘sixth sense’ or ‘intuition.’ When something didn’t feel right, odds are it wasn’t. Always go with your gut.

  Steele turned his broad frame in his seat, eying the passengers behind him with unsuspecting suspicion. A woman sat stoically behind him. She wore a light tan jacket with a red scarf around her neck. She stared right back at him, her eyes cold and her facial features flat as if waiting to be impressed. He gave her a friendly smile and a nod.

  I’ll probably have to shoot her. He fingered the course handle of his SIG Sauer P226 .40 caliber pistol wedged inside the front of his pants.

  He would have to wait though, until she made the first move. Slouching a bit in his seat, he pulled a magazine from the pocket of the seat back. A couple on the front cover strolled causally through a marketplace on a cobbled city street. Visit the Cradle of Civilization: Damascus. He flipped through a few pages trying to ignore the uneasiness winding in his gut.

  Why would anyone want to go to Syria? Steele looked back at the cover. The date read October 2010. No wonder.

  “Hey, look here,” he said, showing the magazine to the man next to him. “You ever been to Aleppo, Bob?”

  The man next to him shook his head no and peered out the window. Guess he isn’t going by Bob today. Oh well. He would probably live. Steele flipped the page, trying to appear nonchalant. Some people just couldn’t fly.

  The aircraft swung into a nosedive and Steele felt his body slide forward in his seat. Only his seatbelt prevented him from face-planting into the seat in front of him. His stomach rose up into his throat. Is anyone flying this thing?

  People yelped in surprise. Hands pushed on the seats ahead of them, holding their owners in place. A male flight attendant sat down in a folding jump seat near the cockpit. Steele wasn’t that surprised. He had flown more times than he cared to count in the past six years; something his muscular body hid well. Dropping hundreds of feet in the air wasn’t unheard of, especially when they hit an air pocket, the equivalent of hitting a pothole in a car.

  Ding. The yellow seatbelt light flashed above the galley and the aircraft leveled out again.

  “Sorry about that, folks. Just making sure you were still awake,” the captain said over the PA system.

  A few people laughed out loud. Bunch of comedians in the group. Its always easier to laugh at the guy in the hot seat. A man cursed, and a moment later angry footsteps pounded up the aisle.

  Steele knew they were coming. He wondered why they had waited so long. Perhaps they were just toying with him. Perhaps not. The bastards are coming. More than one.

  He tried to get a look back out of the corner of his eye. A body blurred passed him, then another and another. They were eerily quiet until their kicks and fists reverberated off the cockpit door with loud, hollow booms.

  “Open the fucking door,” one screamed.

  Positioning themselves strategically in the aisle, the hijackers pulled out handguns, brandishing them at the passengers in first class. Glock 9mms.

  “Oh my God,” yelled one of the businessmen, half standing in his seat. The thumping of fists on the door continued from the front galley. The honeymooners held each other in terror. Jesus Christ, Steele thought. He peered over his shoulder at the shorthaired woman behind him. She still stared straight ahead, not responding to the stimulus of guns. Unusual. His heart beat a mile a minute.

  “Everyone shut the fuck up,” the hijacker yelled, pushing his gun into a female flight attendant’s face. He wrapped an arm around her neck, holding the handgun to her head. His bald head poked up over her shoulder. “Hands up,” he shouted, spit flying from his goatee lined mouth.

  “I’ll blow this fucker out of the sky,” said another hijacker from near the lavatories in the middle of the cabin. He held something in his hand, wires running under his shirt.

  Steele looked at him caut
iously. Really? A half-dozen hijackers with bombs and guns. Christ. What have I gotten myself into?

  Focusing forward once again, he collected himself. He hoped one of his partners was paying attention. Out of his peripherals he barely noticed a fist sailing his way. He half-ducked, catching it off the top of his head covering the side of his face with his arm, ramming a shoulder into the gut of the businessman next to him. Really Bob? You are in on this too? The man grunted upon impact with the skin of the aircraft.

  Steele shoved his hand down hard onto his gun, drawing it deftly. Keeping the firearm close to his body, he fired two shots into Bob’s stomach. The concussions from shooting the gun so close, reverberated over him. Steele ignored the ringing in his ears and leaned across the seat backs, popping the guy wearing the suicide bomb vest with two rounds to the face. He collapsed without a sound.

  More gunfire erupted from the front of the cabin, and one of the male flight attendants took down a hijacker at the cockpit door, gun in hand, apron hanging loosely around his neck.

  Steele breathed heavily. White smoke filled the cabin and his ears continued to buzz from the gunfire. He scanned for more threats, and it appeared as though all the bad guys were down. He exhaled a bit, momentarily relaxing. A decision he immediately regretted.

  A fiery singe of pain raked down his left side. He twisted in his seat. The straight-faced woman behind him swung wildly with a knife that blazed. He dodged her swing, throwing himself backwards into the seat in front of him and put two rounds in her. She writhed in pain and sat still in her seat. That sneaky bitch.

  “Are we clear?” called a gun-toting flight attendant from the front.

  “We’re clear,” Steele called out taking the skin of the aircraft. The smoke settled in the cabin.

  “Okay, everyone out of role,” called the instructor.

  Steele holstered his gun, showing his hands to the masked instructor wearing a red shirt with an eagled badge on the breast. The man loomed near the back of first class where he observed the entire scenario. He nodded to Steele, prompting him to help Bob up.

  “Everyone is clear,” the muscled man with the clipboard, yelled out. Steele took in the clean air finally released from the confines of his claustrophobic protective helmet.

  “Shit, you almost knocked me out with that sucker punch,” Steele said with a smile to the role-player.

  Bob returned the smile letting him know there were no hard feelings. “Jesus, what have you been taking, or maybe I am just getting too old for this,” he said, rubbing his sternum.

  “We sweat more now, so we bleed less later. Besides, how long have you been doing this?” Steele said with a laugh.

  “I’ve been helping young bucks like you get ready for the real world for much too long,” he said wiping the pink paint off his shirt where Steele had shot him point blank with the simulation rounds.

  Steele rounded on the cold-eyed female role-player.

  “Claire, I swear to God. Do you not have a soul?”

  The short, blonde-haired woman shrugged her shoulders removing her protective mask. “Per our wager, you owe me lunch,” she said, lips curving upward.

  “I said you’d get lunch if you eliminated me from the scenario. I was still in the fight when Instructor Mitchell called out of role,” Steele said, raising a finger in objection.

  “No. No. No. You aren’t getting out of this that easy. Another few minutes and you would have been down for the count.”

  “It was merely a flesh wound.” He smiled triumphantly.

  “Next time then,” she said.

  “Role-players, take ten. All the agents with me,” shouted the chiseled-jawed instructor. He wore a navy blue hat with an American flag stuck to the front. Instructor Mitchell always looked pissed, even when they performed well.

  Steele rubbed his side where Claire had taken the stun knife to him. He lifted up his shirt, revealing a nasty red line. The pink skin stung, irritated by the 10,000 volts that had zapped through his flesh during the hijacking scenario. That wound would have left him in a world of hurt in the sky. Going to have to tighten it up in the field.

  The three Counterterrorism agents gathered outside the simulator; a mock aircraft they used for training.

  “Thank God we are done with this training for the year,” Blake said, taking off his flight attendant apron.

  “Definitely safer in the field,” Steele said with a grin, turning in the red gun used to shoot the simulation rounds. Rounds that flew at a slower speed than real rounds with paint filled tips. They stung, often leaving scars when they dug into the flesh. The welts were a painful reminder to check your six, before you made a move.

  “Bring it in,” Instructor Mitchell said.

  He reviewed his clipboard, running a pen down the side, then stopped. “Everything looked pretty good out there until Steele got stabbed,” he said, eyeing Steele disapprovingly.

  “There’s only so much I can do. I stopped two sleepers and the bomb guy.”

  The other members of the team chuckled. “Let’s try and stay alive out there,” Mitchell said, glancing back down at his clipboard. His strict scrutiny was cut short by a PA announcement.

  “Attention in the office. Agent Steele, please report to Operations,” echoed over the loud speakers.

  “Saved by the bell,” said a honeymooner in disguise, Agent Andrea Carling. She gave him a slight look of contempt. “Probably got busted for something.”

  “Attention in the office. Agent Carling, please report to Operations,” the voice echoed.

  “Ha, looks like you’re busted too,” Steele said.

  The short brunette, who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, smiled. “It must be a pay raise if they’re calling me. Come on, knuckle-dragger. Let’s go see what they want.”

  “Have fun getting your hands dirty. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks,” Instructor Mitchell added, flipping a page. “We got a special week long course coming up with the Secret Service on protection details the fifth through the tenth, then a survival, evasion, resistance, escape course with our Devil Dog buddies at Quantico on the twelfth, and last but not least, a prisoner transportation course with U.S. Marshals on the thirteenth.”

  “Yuck,” Blake said.

  “It’s all part of the job,” Mitchell reiterated. “Extradition doesn’t work if we can’t move the subjects,” he said, showing some teeth in place of a smile. His finger ran down the clipboard.

  “Ah, I almost forgot. After that, I get some alone time with you guys in the mat room. Andrea, bring your A game. I heard you won that Brazilian jujitsu tournament last weekend. I want to see what you got,” he said, making a fist in the air.

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” she said, and Instructor Mitchell dismissed the agents with a curt nod.

  Agents Steele and Carling marched through the facility. Framed pictures adorned the off-white walls of men and women shooting guns, fighting in hand-to-hand combat and exercising. They had been on the same squad for more than a year. They rounded the computer room, a few agents sat in front of screens. Steele saluted a giant blond man as he hunt-and-pecked his keyboard, his brow furrowed in deep concentration.

  “Jarl, keep up the good work,” Steele said.

  “Ah, fuck you, Steele,” the hulking brute retorted with a glower through his beard.

  “They should really get him a bigger keyboard,” Andrea said, grinning.

  “I know. No wonder he’s angry all the time,” Steele said.

  They passed a giant Counterterrorism Division seal that hung on the wall; a gold shield emblazoned with a bald eagle, talons gripping a sword soaring above a globe. The Division, as it was called by people in the know, was a joint counterterrorism organization. It existed to defeat all terrorist entities worldwide, and the best personnel from every corner of the government and military belonged to it. Military special operations, CIA, FBI, NSA, even the Treasury Department had personnel in the Division. If you wanted to be on the frontlin
e fight against terrorism, you strove for a position within their ranks.

  Steele’s team had been re-upping their certification in aviation security and tactics over the last three months. They spent an extensive amount of time training for every plausible ‘shit hits the fan’ scenario that some twisted mothers could come up with. After 9/11, the Counterterrorism agents were made to certify every three years to ensure they were up to speed with the latest threats and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. It fell in line with being the federal agents who would go anywhere, track anyone and win against all odds.

  When the federal government wanted to be eyes on but unseen, it called the CT agents to action. They were tucked away from the public, absconded by layers of bureaucracy. There had been rumors that they existed, but nobody really knew for sure. The internet teemed with conspiracy theories. They were the watchers, silent swords in the darkness, poised ready to strike evildoers worldwide.

  Glass doors slid open as they entered Operations. A horseshoe ring of people on computers, all facing a host of wall sized flat-screen TVs. The televisions depicted every event of interest to the Division taking place in real-time.

  A heavyset man in business causal attire waved them over from behind a computer screen. He plopped down into his seat and shoved part of a submarine sandwich in his mouth.

  “Mika, what have you got for us?” Steele probed. “Better be something good. Last time I had to sit in a safe house near the Chennai airport for three days.”

  “Sorry pal, nothing I could do on that one, but I hear they have a wonderful curry dish there,” Mika said, licking his lips. Jesus man, you are literally eating, Steele thought.

  He rolled his eyes at Andrea, who laughed under her breath.

  Mika squinted over his computer at them. Tossing down his sandwich next to him, he smashed away at his keyboard with a slight frown. “You two picked up a Special Protection Detail coming from Kinshasa,” he said, staring at his screen.

  “Kinshasa? What’s a Kinshasa,” Steele asked, running a hand through his thick blond beard.