The Seraphs Call - Chapter Twenty Two

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

London, England

The convoy crept through the London streets between Heathrow and the Royal Medical Institute.  Villanova wished that he had gone to Africa in Stuart’s place, as he watched the rampant destruction of humanity and habitation in the British capital. 

Twice more, they put down Lucifer-born; one man ripped a light post from its base and proceeded to cave in the skulls of unlucky passersby cackling with each corpse that piled under his feet.  The other smashed through one of the many roadblocks in a beat-up lorry, red eyes focused on running down the scant people that he could find on the streets.  He spotted the convoy and swerved to smash into the lead vehicle.  He crashed through the windshield on impact and beat on the shattered window of the SAS truck, snarling through his ruined face as he tried to reach the hated living. 

The convoy came to a bone jarring halt, as the SAS piled from their vehicles to aid their comrades.  The U.N. Captain, leaped from his vehicle, and torched the screaming man with a High explosive white phosphorus round to the head.  The rest of the trip the lead truck made with its windows down to air out the smell of burning flesh from inside the vehicle.

They skirted the poorer districts, taking detours around White Chapel and the like, to avoid the riots that erupted often in urban London.  They passed through checkpoint after checkpoint.  Grim soldiers armed with Ingram assault rifles or the heavy 30mm NATO FN-RAL machine guns held position to their right and left to set up killing fields out to a hundred yards way from each post.  The Brits took no chances of damage to the facility that held their greatest hope for treatment or cure of Lucifer X. 

Around the Royal Medical Institute, troops fortified the area with quick erecting barricades and machine gun nests.  More people in military khaki patrolled the grounds then those in hospital white.  Like hospitals in most plague areas, the institute became more a camp of war than a place of healing.   

Dr. Casper Fairbanks came down the steps to meet the convoy. 

Villanova bounded from the truck before it stopped fully and gave his old Cambridge classmate a hug and a kiss on both cheeks.  He heard some snickers from nearby troops as they saw the hefty Spaniard engulf the stiff and formal Englishman in a bone-crunching hug.  “How are you, my friend?”

“Fine, if I can get you to let me breath…”  Fairbanks gasped. 

Villanova let him go, and Casper stepped a pace back, straightening his expensively cut Armani.  “Both dapper and uptight as ever…”  Villanova smiled.  “I wish this reunion was under better circumstances.”

“We never get together on more than a professional level old boy,” Fairbank’s tentative grin stretched tightly as if painted on his face.  “And that usually takes a disaster.”

 “And still no time for social things…” Villanova shook his head sadly. “Come my friend, we have work to do and a world to save…”

 

June 17, 2049 – 0700 Hours Somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountain Range

His visual processors detected nothing.  He failed to access the optic nerve of his host.  Panic began to bite into his childlike consciousness. 

My host is dead and I am going to die. 

Angel struggled against the stark reasoning, past the darkness of the moment.  Since he first awoke to self-awareness, this was the first moment that he sought something as short-lived as hope.

He sent his nanites out through the bloodstreams of the human Darryl Rathborn. All through the organism, he saw the wreck of the dying.  Oxygen slowly strangled from the blood stream had caused the giant red cells to drift derelict, the stream turned from red to a suffocated blue.  The heart no longer beat.  Angel traveled through the major arteries surrounding the pulmonary system.  He grew more desperate as he raced towards the brain.  The Bio-energy of the human drained as swiftly as the sands of an hourglass running out of time.

Angel arrived at the grayish strands that led to the human’s cortex.  The sparks of blue energy grew erratic, shorting from dendrite to dendrite along the nerve endings.  He sped through the field of unpredictable and explosive discharges, and though threatened from every corner, this new danger gave him a hard won optimism.  This much activity centered in the cortex meant Rathborn still fought for his life.  If Angel were to save him, every second the human won would count dearly.

Angel felt the convulsions tremor through Rathborn’s brain as the human fought back the wave of shock that threatened to overcome him.  So far, there was no damage in the brain.  He fought through erupting current to the pain centers, which were flaring with the highest focus of neural energy.  Angel worked with an expediency of desperation he sent his auxiliary processors to clamp off the pathways into the nerve plexus.  As he set up the feedback loop, his sensors detected the convulsions ravaging Rathborn’s body begin to subside.  Angel tested the blood stream, and with relief, he found the oxygen level began to increase from near zero level in painfully slow increments.  He could feel the first lungful of air shudder through his host.  The constricted airways loosened their clamp on Rathborn’s breathing, yet this would not be sustainable if Angel did not repair the damage that caused the first shock.  Methodically, the Nanite AI set out to test each disparate nerve dendrite that snaked into the link.  This would take some time and he could only hope that no further damage occurred that would risk his host and cost him the source that gave him life.

June 17, 2049 – 0700 Hours (Local Time) - U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland

Kovax barely noticed Janus enter the laboratory.  His mind focused on the results of his experiment.  He paused to rub the soreness on his throat, the five faded blue marks that only happened days ago.  His pale gray eyes flicked impatiently from screen to microscope as the chemical analyzer displayed the contents of his latest sample.  It had been some time since the scientist had slept, bathed, or shaved and his unkempt pale features sported at least three days of white stubble.

The hallucinations still plagued Kovax, of having the breath squeezed out of him, of that relentless iron grip on his throat, of waking up in the morgue locker.  Even now, the waking nightmares only faded into the background of his consciousness because he refused to sleep.  He searched desperately for the why to his dilemma, because the maddening truth of the what, was more then he could face.

“Have you finished obsessing with your little problem Gregory?”  Janus’ comment was a cold wash on Kovax' concentration.  “I need you to get the 2^nd “Long-reach” team ready for their first mission.  An issue of National Security.”

“That’s impossible Roger,” Kovax mimicked Janus’ purposeful exclusion of his title.  “Fourteen have completed combat training and not one of them is implant trained.  Sergeant Davids is still insane from his procedure. If you think you can handle him Roger, go ahead.  I’ll look forward to officiating over your autopsy.”

“You survived and if I’m not misreading the data from your test results, you developed something that stabilizes the process and may prove useful for once.”  Janus hinted on the secret that Kovax was unwilling to face, all the while trying to keep it from anybody else’s attention.

The older scientist hesitated.  Kovax couldn’t trust Janus.  He would have to be careful.  “We knew from the field test in mainland China that a normal human controller won’t be enough for the team…now I’ve got something that might serve but I want concessions from you before I’ll cooperate.”

A smoldering darkness passed over Janus’ face.  “I don’t think you’re in a good position to negotiate,” he lied, “but I’ll listen for the moment--”

“On the contrary Roger, I am in a position, if you want this project to go forward.  Only I can do this and you’ve no foreseeable possibility of copying it.”  The smugness increased in Kovax’ tone with every word.  “If you need a controller, I’m all you have, and without a controller, “Long-reach” fails…unless you’re willing to undergo the same procedure--be a guinea pig.”

“For now, you’ll have what you want.  But realize that you’re playing with fire, fire so hot, one slip will incinerate you.”  His eyes glowed like cold embers.  “So spell it out…time’s of the essence.”

“This isn’t open to negotiation Roger.  I want control of the team, making me their permanent commander, and full autonomy, due to other black-ops sections, assigned to Project Long-reach as under the National Security Act.”  Kovax tried not to betray the elation that he felt at impending triumph.  “This paper work will be signed by you and the President and then copies will be couriered to a safe place of my designation.

Janus saw the spark in his eyes, and added Kovax to his mental list of people that he would kill as soon as circumstances allowed.  “The paperwork will be drawn up, sealed and signed by the President, Colonel Kovax…I will need to know how to contact your courier.”  Janus’ eyes twitched with the tension of withholding his hands from strangling the older man’s neck.

“As soon as I see the document, take it to my courier.  If there’s nothing else, I’ve much to do and a short time to prepare.  Have a good day.”  Without waiting for a reply, Kovax turned on his heel and walked out of the lab, leaving Janus in a seething silence.

June 17, 2049 – 0700 Hours (Local Time) – Atlanta, GA

Ilyana was alone in strange half-remembered surroundings.  The gray pall of predawn held light in its fist.  Over her a murky shape loomed, surrounded by the skeletons of trees, shed of life in the cold grip of winter.

Her head throbbed painfully as she picked her way over ground littered with broken and rusted tools.  She could barely focus, taking each step cautiously, but still tripping several times.  Then she felt the texture of the wall, the sliminess of decayed and rotting wood, disused and abandoned to the despair.  The smell of soured hay filled the air, mixed with old piles of dried animal feces.

Light bled from the horizon, as the open sore of the sun breached the tree line.  Slowly the shape coalesced into a recognizable form, and she stumbled away in dread, tripping over a rusted sickle that stuck halfway from the ground like a claw grasping for her.  She was on the Scott’s farm in Iowa, standing under the shadow of the old barn, abandoned since Joshua’s death ten years ago.

 I’m asleep…only a nightmare…  She tried to tell herself.  …I can’t be two thousand miles away from the facility in Stone Mountain, but everything was so real that she found it hard to convince herself what was impossible or not.  She felt her way under the vast eve of the barn, moving towards the east away from the encroaching light that glared unwelcome in the corner of her eye.  If this were the Joshua Farm, the main house would be to the east of the barn nestled under the enormous shadow, so it remained cool in the morning on the hot high summer days.

Illyana let out a huge gasp of air, as if someone had punched her squarely in the sternum.  It was there, falling apart from disuse and neglect like some cavernous empty ghost in the shadow of the old barn.  Panic seized her and she balked, terrified to continue.  She felt something bad was coming, an unquantifiable presence invading her senses. 

Illyana climbed the last steps to the sagging porch, each stair screeching like a nail driving into a coffin.  Her feet tapped hollowly on the veranda boards, sharp echoes as she walked.  The squeal of a dying cuckoo clock struck one, twice…six times from inside the swinging screen door.

She pushed the screen door out of her way, and shoved the sagging door back, tearing it the rest of the way from its hinges.  To her left the den lay choked with dust, among buckled furniture and scattered books spread all over the floor like dead insects from the collapsed shelves that once held them.  In front of her, the remains of the staircase led into the gaping maw of the upstairs hallway.  Wood rotted dust choked the air, the stairs halfway caved in and blocking the entry into the wood-floored dining room.  The sparkling crystal chandelier that once lit the room lay shattered, its bejeweled prisms lost in the splintered remnants of the great table over which it had shown so brightly.  The only door that remained intact led into the farm’s kitchen.  The lights flickered sporadically as if to die at any moment.  In the tomblike silence, she heard the gurgling drip of the kitchen faucet that echoed with each pattering drop shattering the stillness with its aberrant staccato.  Each sound, the click of her shoe on the tile, her breath, the swish of her clothing seemed made louder a thousand times to a deafening cacophony.  She blocked her ears with her hands before she could continue, holding tight, as her mere sanity depended on it.  So distraught by the rising noise was she that she did not see the thing stir on the kitchen table until it spoke to her with a gravelly, rotted voice of a thing long dead.

“Illyana, why have you betrayed me?  I trusted you….”  He was barely recognizable.  Rotting flesh oozed from his skull, framed with tufts of red hair that shed off in bloody patches as he lifted his eyes towards her.  His eyes were naked, long uncovered after the lids had rotted from the sickly green orbs, shot through with hemorrhaging blood.

Through all the decay, Illyana knew who he was.  Her mouth opened, unable to scream, as Joshua Scott lurched from the table towards her.  She slipped on the scarlet ooze that washed over the crumbling tile floor from the thousands of tiny sores that bled from his emaciated torso.  He staggered over her, washing her with the red blood of her sins, enveloping her in the blackest of fear.

"You promised to take care of my Gabriel...."  His hoarse voice croaked.  This was the last she heard before he collapsed into a putrid mass over her violently spasming form. 

The pain in Illyana’s head returned to an earsplitting intensity.  Cold restraining metal clamped around her wrists and ankles.  She woke up screaming, several pairs of hands trying to restrain her thrashing in the sterile white metal railed infirmary bed.  She struggled in vain against the metal reinforced restraints that bound her screaming, “I did not mean to hurt him Joshua…  Please forgive me.”

“Calm down Illyana…  You haven’t hurt anyone.”  The familiar voice with its thick south Georgian accent gave her an anchor place with which to draw herself back to reality from the nightmare maelstrom of her mind.  She looked up to see Shelby’s hawkish features.  “You should be more careful Illyana… We almost lost you from a stupid accident.”

“It might have been better if you had Shelby…” sobbing shook her body as tears began to stream from her eyes.

Shelby gathered her in his arms and held her closely.  “Nonsense… Whatever has happened it can’t be that bad…calm down and stay with me and we’ll sort it out together.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done…” she shivered and pushed him far enough away from her so she could gaze straight in his eyes. “  I’ve put the entire project in danger… and worst of all I’ve betrayed yours and Gabriel’s trust because I was afraid and running from my past.”

“What do you mean?”  Shelby’s frown turned his face more severe than his sharp features normally portrayed.  “Do you know something more than your letting on?  What is going on around here?”  His grasp on her arms tightened.

“I’ve been reporting to the U.N. deputy director of intelligence all of our findings on the project and more, I think he’s been selling the data to someone who has no right to this knowledge.”  Illyana collapsed from relief as the floodgates opened and her guilt was released. 

“While that’s bad, I don’t believe that clicks with what’s going on.”  The age and worry etched into his sleep-hollowed eyes.  “Gabriel has been missing… four days…Rathborn disappeared shortly thereafter and Reutger disappeared as of last night.”

“Can’t you track them via the security tapes prior to the disappearances?”  Her head pain dulled to a throbbing as her mind began to focus on the dilemma.

“Of course I could…”  Shelby replied sourly, “If I hadn’t been barred from security OPS apparently per Rathborn’s last orders.”  He shook his head in frustration.

“There’s got to be a way.  Think!  We’ve got to find them!”  Illyana’s tone had assumed a hint of desperation that was growing inside of her.  “I owe it to Gabriel to find a way.  Please help me.”

“You’re not the only one that owes Gabriel that….”  His tone had a quiet sadness to it.  “We need somebody who’s not corrupt like my government or doesn’t have divided allegiances like your intelligence services…”

“Joshua once told me about Gabriel’s relatives in New Orleans.”  Illyana’s brow crinkled with concentration as she tried to remember.  “To them it was better to stay out of his life and throw money at his problems or at least that was with the old man said, but Joshua has always been protective of Gabriel.” 

“Damien … Damien Demoir…I remember.  He was the sole owner of R &D Petrochem and a real notorious person in New Orleans even for the short time that I was there.  Some people said he had Syndicate connections…”  Shelby snatched the phone from the infirmary wall.  “I have a buddy who is still there with the fire department he should be able to give us the full scope on Damien’s residence and how to contact him…”

“Well he can’t be worse then the people that we’re fighting with right now whatever his ties, but why don’t you call information, seems a lot faster--”

“Because sweetie pie,” Shelby drawled, “people like him don’t have listed information.  Don’t worry, this shouldn’t take long.”  He dialed too quickly from memory,” Lieutenant Luc Thibodeau please…Luc this is Shelby Holiday, I need a big favor man.  I need you to track down through records, one Damien Demoir.  No, I’ll wait.  This is important.”

June 17, 2049 – 0705 Hours - R&D PetroChem International Headquarters New Orleans, Louisiana

In the skyline of New Orleans, the two obsidian towers of R&D Petroleum raised their shadowy fingers in stark relief against the crimson and gold of the setting sun.  Below the Seraph crowned reaches of the south tower, Damien Demoir reclined on his black died doe skinned chair in his penthouse.  Daily reports of his corporate holdings displayed on flat screen touch panel suspended from his ceiling.  The thin dark haired billionaire was the richest men in New Orleans in both legitimate and some would say underworld circles.

“Mr. Demoir, you have a call from Nablinsk Russia, a man named Alexi Kreschenko.”  The video screen popped up in the corner of Damien’s monitor and his trusted secretary and bodyguard Saul Iverson’s image appeared in the video feed.

Everything about the man spoke of his crisp efficiency, and like all people that Damien surrounded himself with, the nondescript pale haired Swede with his frost blue eyes, was far deadlier then he appeared.  “Should I patch it through the encryption Boss?”

“Yes.  Please Saul…use my specialized encryption algorithm alpha 1.”  Damien’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile.  Alexi is late again and he knows he’s in trouble, time to vamp up what I’m asking from him in exchange for this small amount of problem that he’s causing me.  With the associates the Russian mobster is used to dealing, he would do anything to prove this thankfulness for me sparing his life.

 Sometimes it was good to have ties to the Syndicate.  In the digital age, the most gifted programmers and hackers didn’t work for the government because the feds couldn’t pay them enough, hackers like Iverson.  Damien logged himself into the secured video monitor.  It booted and worked through 30 seconds of secure encrypting before the microphone crackled and the video screen came up in standby.

The picture derezzed and formed into the familiar hollow faced large beaked, image of Alexi Kreschenko.  The hollows in the man's eyes gave him the look of being continuously ill.  It was the trait of spies, forced to sleep lightly and very little, catching a few minutes whenever they could.  The former KGB Colonel had the nervous edge in his eyes, more so when he saw Damien’s image come up on his video phone.  “Comrade Colonel Kreschenko, how is the weather in Nablinsk these days…I hear its getting mighty cold.”

“Mr. Demoir…there is no need for such formal titles…I have news on the U.N. Viral project.  Bad I am afraid.”  Alexi coughed nervously, his thin sandy hair, which was in disarray, took this moment to fall in his eyes and he brushed it away irritably.

“Nothing to fear I hope Alexi…it would take me at least 36 hrs for me to set suitable penalties in play for you in the corner of the world you have hidden yourself in.  Depending on how cooperative you are, it may seriously ameliorate the harshness of my mood and thus those penalties.  So shall we dispense with the hesitancy and be cooperative with each other?”  The corner of Damien’s smile took on a predatory gleam, one that he was sure translated in Alexi’s eyes to a look of death.

“But of course Mr. Demoir…”  Alexi croaked after a visible gulp.  “I would like nothing more to avoid any of those penalties.  It is my operative inside the U.N. Intelligence Branch, his source has dried up, and I cannot get in contact with him…the last tracking we had of his movements he was heading for New York.”

“Tsk…this is a most unfortunate setback…but not insurmountable Alexi.  I’m sure you can provide me with a little bonus while you are reestablishing the link to the information that I need…I shall have to think how you can make this up to me and get back to you.  I do however expect you to keep me more consistently updated on the progress of this endeavor then you have as of late, are we clear Comrade Colonel.”  Damien’s dark eyes took on a hard and deadly glint above his predatory grin.  “I know you won’t disappoint me again…”

“No Mr. Demoir…I will not.”

Damien pushed the end call icon before the Russian could get out his last statement.  He had always felt it was best in moments like these to leave people that disappointed him hanging and uncertain on what he would do next.  He turned to go back to his reports when the screen blinked again standby.  What was this?  Nobody was supposed to have access to this line.  Incoming secure transmission U.N. Security line Stone Mountain Georgia.  Darryl’s image appeared on the monitor, close-cropped dark hair peppered with gray, his father’s Indian blood plain in the always-tanned skin, aquiline nose, and low forehead.  His uniform looked starched.  All perfect seams matched and lined up.  The insignia and rank of Colonel gleamed on his collar of the military grays.

“If you are receiving this transmission…”  Darryl tone was crisp, routine and suggested nothing to betray the gravity of what Damien was to hear.  “Something has gone wrong…I am either dead or disabled, any plans that I had in reserve have failed and your grandson Gabriel Scott is alone and in the gravest of danger.  I am on a mission for Dr. Scott to recover something that is the key to the success of the entire operation.  After you have found Gabriel safe and secured his current status, you will need to find me dead or alive and get what I carry back to Stone Mountain.  I trust you with this brother, because I do not feel I can trust anybody else in our government or the U. N.  .  You alone have come through for me in the past when I have found myself in the same situation.  Attached to this file are the frequencies of my personal location transponder so you may locate me or my remains, please tend to this after you secure Gabriel.”  The transmission ended and the screen derezzed to the call ended screen. 

So, Darryl, we found something the good soldier can’t handle again.  Well, you owe me one more, big brother.

Damien let out a pent-up breath and sighed, it had been many years since he last saw his grandson, and then he had kept his identity a secret, known to the teenage boy as the “Angel.”  He owed it to the memory of what he had done to his son to take care of the boy.  It was in no way easy, even for a man of Damien’s callousness, to get over killing his own son.

“Saul…”  Damien tapped on the intercom window on his console.  The image of the pale Swede appeared on his monitor.

“Yes Mr. Demoir.”  Saul seemed slightly distracted, unusual for such a focused individual as him.

“What is the problem Saul” Damien’s curiosity was more then slightly peaked.  What else strange could possibly be afoot today.

“Somebody has gotten the number for your private line sir and has been calling for the last hour continuously…I told them that you where otherwise occupied by they are insistent that they must speak to you.”  This was the first time that Damien had heard any edge in his bodyguard’s normally impassive tone.

“Saul who is it…”Damien’s patience was reaching the end of its limits, he did not have the time for any more interruptions to his schedule time was going to be critical enough as it was.

“They claim that they are Doctors Shelby Holiday and Illyana Andropov, U.N. Viral Research Stone Mountain Georgia.”  Iverson responded shortly, he winced perceptibly from the unspoken warning from his employer.

“Put them through Saul on video feed if they have it, this may turn out to be another important addition to the day.”  Gabriel’s colleagues were calling him from Stone Mountain--this was getting more and more interesting.  “Also Saul, work me up a prospectus on erasing our liabilities in Nablinsk, we may be able to cut out the middle man on that little project for our biomedical division.”

Shelby’s Hawkish, high cheek boned face appeared on the video monitor, with a honey blond green-eyed woman that Damien was unfamiliar with.  Damien assumed this had to be Dr. Illyana Andropov.  She had grown into a more beautiful woman than the girl that Damien had last seen on Joshua Scott’s farm in Independence Iowa.

“Damien Demoir I presume…”  Shelby’s manner was nervous and cautious.  “Before I continue I would like to know your exact connection with Doctor Gabriel Scott.  I need something to convince me that I can trust you.”

“Tsk…tsk good doctor…I barely know you or what you are talking about and you come out right up front questioning my character?”  The tips of Damien’s lips twitched to a light smile that made his pale dark haired features look something akin to a death rictus.

“Don’t play with me Mr. Demoir…I know from Illyana, some of the things that you are capable of and I want to know what your mysterious guardianship of Gabriel entails…how far you would go to ensure his survival.”  The angry glint in Shelby’s eyes could still be easily seen through the fuzzy satellite video connection, and told Damien much of Shelby’s overriding conviction in the matter.

“Very Well…Dr. Holiday…I would do anything to protect my grandson…is that what you wished to hear…the family connection, the blood is thicker then water?”  Damien drawled back at Shelby in reply, mockingly copying the other man’s South Georgian accent.

“Gabriel and two other members of the staff have disappeared all within the last 72 hrs.” Shelby’s face reddened only slightly by the jibe at his accent and he kept his calm to the best of his ability.  “We think Gabriel is still on the base somewhere but need one of the other two to identify his location since there are places in the facility that only the Director and the Security Chief have authorization to enter.  He may be in trouble…we have to find him soon.” 

“Who are these two personnel that you need to track down to find Gabriel?”  Damien was getting markedly annoyed by the seeming incapacity of people to come to the point in a brief amount of time—some illness that had been all too catching this evening.

“Both the top security personnel of the Project, Colonel Daryl Rathborn, and Lt. Colonel Desdin Reutger,” Shelby acted oblivious to Damien’s tone.

“Wait a second…both Gabriel, the Security Chief, and his second are missing and you do not have that facility under secure lockdown?  You are the next in command Dr. Holiday, why aren’t you performing your duties?”  Damien’s normally pale features had turned the color of livid ice.

“You are not here Mr. Demoir, Rathborn left other orders apparently as a contingency, and Illyana and I can’t access the security tapes to track their last movements before they left.”  Shelby blustered, his face reddening around the ears as he fought to control his temper.

That’s because Gabriel is still in the compound and you don’t trust these two isn’t it, brother.  Damien knew implicitly how Rathborn thought and should have guessed before that his older brother would not let his nephew and charge leave the compound.  He could see in his minds eye the Colonel insisting if Gabriel was involved at all, it would be purely support.  Though that was still dangerous considering the boy used a neural network interface, Damien accepted that among other things Gabriel was a brilliant programmer.

“I will handle this personally from here on Dr. Holiday, since apparently you have lost all control of the situation on that end anyhow.”  Damien said abruptly and dismissively.

“But Mr. Demoir…”

It was the second time that evening that Damien felt satisfying cutting someone off as he tapped the disconnect icon.  “Saul…”  Damien flipped over to intercom to page his bodyguard.  The Swede appeared on his video window, “about that prospectus…”

“Yes sir…would you like the prospectus by tomorrow morning sir.”  Iverson showed a renewed assurance of tone, this was in the man’s element.

“Not necessary…I will however need for you to put our special operations team on standby, we may have to take a trip out to the Appalachians for a little excursion.”  Damien turned to his encrypted console and downloaded the file attachment to Rathborn’s video message.  “I am sending you some transponder frequencies.  Have satellite tracking services pull up detailed maps locating this signal, and all the surrounding terrain for say 10 kilometers.  I want Captain Nodachi fully briefed on every bit of information we can squeeze out of the database.  Ready the men for jump procedures at 23:00 hrs.”

“Got it boss, what reason should I give for you wishing to join Captain Nodachi on this mission,” Iverson guessed his employer’s unspoken intents.

“Oh you are coming too Iverson, that’s why I’m not requiring you to finish that prospectus tonight…we are going to rescue an important subject—in fact—my brother Darryl Rathborn.