synopsis: Alexandra Ryder—a.k.a. Agent 47-D—is back and this time it’s personal.
Corruption Games
(By S.B.)
23 — Accardi Strikes Again
The stealth drone flew below the radar, expertly piloted from a distance. As quiet as it could be, no one could hear its propellers chopping the air and the reflective panels around its main body made sure anyone looking at the sky would see nothing but an occasional speck of light that could be absolutely anything.
“Melvin, talk to me. What’s your status?” Simms asked.
The FBI agent was stationed inside a van disguised as a postal office vehicle, alongside eight of the most talented Special Forces soldiers assigned to the Division. They often carried out operations overseas. For all but one, Lieutenant Colonel Dennis Mayborn, this was the first time they had been called to execute an operation on American soil, and one without hardly any preparation time. The clock continued to tick down.
“Approaching the warehouse perimeter now,” Melvin responded over the comms. “So far, I’ve got nothing. I’m looking for a clear opening to take a peek inside.”
“How good is that thing you’re controlling?”
“It’s the best in the business, Agent Simms. Other departments wished to have this kind of tech working for them.”
“Good to hear, but I still have my doubts about this whole thing.”
“That’s understandable, hence why I’m trying to minimize the risks. I’m going to patch the drone’s camera feed to your monitor inside the van. Please let me know when you have a clear picture.”
“The transmission is reaching us without a hitch, Melvin,” Lieutenant Colonel Mayborn said, holding a square silver tablet in his hands. He was an early forties’ rugged man who was missing two of his front teeth as well as the pinky finger on his right hand. The first had been an unfortunate accident fighting over a girl in the early days of his military career while the second came from an injury in the line of duty. He had been hit by shrapnel from a grenade explosion, one of which severed his member clean. At the time, poor hygienic conditions made the reattachment impossible and so he had taken the loss with pride. He had short dirty blonde hair, deep, resolute eyes, and an almost immaculate success rate the operations he had been involved with. While he wasn’t too fond of working with other agencies, Colonel Gibbons himself had sanctioned the mission after hearing Melvin’s plan and orders were orders.
“Great. I’ve entered the main perimeter from the western side now and it seems I was right. Some of this foliage is definitely artificial. You can tell by the odd coloring around the edge of the leaves. Only plastic gets scorched that badly.”
“There seems to be a broken window to your right, Melvin,” Simms noted.”
“Yes, but the gap is too small for me to safely maneuver the drone. One moment, please.”
The state-of-the-art device rotated in mid-air, its main camera going for a wider shot of the area. It hovered silently for a few seconds until it started veering to the right again.
“I see no more openings on this side of the building, so I’m going around,” Melvin said.
“Roger that,” Lieutenant Colonel Mayborn gently clicked his tongue.
The drone continued the slow, methodical sweep of the vicinity, still picking up nothing of importance. After two minutes that felt like two hours, it finally noticed a section along the right wall that had recently caved in.
“There’s our entry point,” Melvin declared, gripping the controls harder than before. One gentle push followed by a hard turn to the left and the contraption was in, finally free from the shield of foliage that didn’t allow the IR sensors to get an accurate reading of what was happening there. “Activating infra-red mode. Are you still picking up the signal just fine?”
“There seems to be a slight interference in the feed, but the visuals haven’t been sufficiently compromised,” Lieutenant Colonel Mayborn said.
“Interference, you say? Hold on, I think I can adjust the potency on my end. Let me...” Melvin tinkered with a couple of flashing switches on his controller and asked, “Better now?”
“Yes,” Simms replied. “We’re seeing it now as if we were really there.”
“Excellent. I’ve still got nothing on the IR range but... hold on a second! It seems I spoke too soon.”
“What is it?”
“There are definitely heat signals in here but they seem to come from a lower level. Perhaps there’s a basement or an underground bunker attached to this facility. Let me try another wider panoramic.”
The drone flew as high as it could inside the abandoned warehouse, filming the vast array of broken machinery and worn-out boxes still lying around. The reflection of a propeller blade partially pierced the drone’s cloaking before everything returned to normal again.
“What is all this?” Simms asked.
“It seems they stored material here for ship repairs but everything has gone to waste. What a fucking mess!” Mayborn replied.
“What are you seeing, Melvin?”
“There are a couple of rats around, possibly a cat too, but the two signals underneath me are definitely human.”
“Accardi and the General? Could it really be that easy?”
“Let’s find out. I’m lowering the drone to see if I can find a passage to the subterranean level somewhere.”
“Be careful. If it’s really them, the chances of this place being rigged have increased dramatically.”
“I’m well aware of that, Lieutenant Colonel. Are your men ready to intervene if need be?”
“We were born ready, Melvin. Do your thing and let us do ours.”
“Understood.”
The drone descended deeper into the graveyard of shipping parts, the camera picking up every remnant of what used to be a bustling building. There was something incredibly off-putting about being surrounded by so many metallic memories, a stark reminder that nothing lasts forever. The lower the contraption got, the more difficult it became to control it.
“The interference is back, Melvin, even stronger this time,” Simms said.
“Do you still have visibility?”
“We do, but the resolution has dropped considerably.”
“Hmmm, there must be something else around here that’s messing with the feed.”
“Like what?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not registering anything suspicious that could cause it. I’ll keep going, nonetheless. Let me know if the quality drops below the minimum threshold.”
“What if it does and visibility becomes a no-go?” Simms asked.
“I considered that option as well, which is I have another bird currently above your position. If needed, I’ll have it enter the building as well...”
“... and use each other’s frequencies to boost the signal, got it,” the FBI agent concluded.
“You’re getting quite good at this, Agent Simms. Yet another reason for you to consider our recent discussion.”
“There’s nothing to consider. Only the mission matters for now.”
“Okay. I’m approaching the source of the heat signals right now. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
Simms and Lieutenant Colonel Mayborn stared intently into the screen that was now showing what appeared to be a trap door with a built-in digital keypad and an electronic lock. Unlike the rest of the surroundings, the device was brand new.
“That’s not suspicious at all, huh?” Melvin quipped.
“Is that the only way into the lower level?” Simms asked.
“It looks like it but now I’m wondering...”
“What’s wrong?”
“I just remembered what you said earlier about convenience. All these little breadcrumbs are starting to give me shivers. Also...”
“Also what, Melvin? Spill it, please! Everyone here is getting pretty impatient as well.”
“Someone went to a lot of trouble installing this here as well as the fake foliage outside but there aren’t any cameras around? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t. Is there anything you can do with the lock from there?”
“Negative. We’ll need to run a decoder on the site. I can upload the program to your tablet from here and then you’ll need to link to the keypad.”
“It looks like we’re going in after all,” Lieutenant Colonel Mayborn said. “Agent Simms, you better stay in the van and leave the heavy lifting to us.”
“No. I didn’t come all this way to get benched out at the very last minute. I can do this.”
“Very well. I’m still going to ask you to stay with the rear team, though. I know you’ve had your training at Quantico, but ours is more specialized in every sense of the word.”
“You don’t need to tell me that, Lieutenant Colonel. I’ll follow your lead gladly.”
“Good. Men, we’re moving out,” he glanced at the other soldiers, all of them ready for some action at last. “Delta-2 formation. Harrison, McGuire, you two take point. Sanchez, Wilkins, and Gray, you guard the outside perimeter alongside Agent Simms. The rest of you come with me so we can bust that lock open.”
“Yes, Sir,” the group responded in unison, black tactical uniforms, carbines, and assault rifles on the ready. They moved noiselessly through the shadows of the other derelict buildings, always in proximity to one another. The two men on the front line had been a part of the team that had seen Mayborn lose his finger, and they too had wounds from that day. Harrison had a nasty scar running through the back of his scalp after narrowly escaping a lobotomy by shattered glass while McGuire suffered severe burns on his right shoulder he was forced to disguise with the tattoo of an acid-spewing black dragon.
The party quietly traversed the distance separating them from the main goal, entering the old warehouse through the back door. The sepulchral feeling of the place was even more noticeable now that they were inside, and Simms was the one most affected by it. The hairs on the back of his neck raised to heighten the nervousness. Above his head, the almost invisible drone was still hovering over the trap door. He touched his earpiece and asked,
“Melvin, are you still picking up the heat signals coming from below?”
“Affirmative. There are two people right under your feet but they don’t appear to be moving at the moment.”
“No movement at all?”
“It doesn’t seem so, but it’s hard to tell. for sure. The interference levels are way off the charts now. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Mayborn!” Simms exclaimed. “Don’t do anything to that lock yet.”
“Why not?” The Lieutenant Colonel asked, visibly aggravated.
“I need to check something first. Melvin, you said you had another drone on standby. Can you please send it here now?”
“What are you thinking, Agent Simms?”
“I’ll tell you when the other bird is in place. Please hurry.”
“Okay. Deploying it now. E.T.A. three minutes.”
“We’re wasting time we don’t have, Agent Simms!” Mayborn grumbled, waving the tablet in his right hand.
“Please bear with me, Mayborn. If I’m right, you’ll thank me later.”
“The nerve of this guy!” one soldier grumbled by the door. Simms ignored him and waited for the other flying mechanism to come to their meeting. He only noticed it was already there when Melvin said,
“Okay, using the combined frequencies to boost the signal and... wait, this can’t be right!”
“What are you seeing now?”
“There are four heat signals coming from below that trapdoor now. I repeat, four signals. It’s almost as if they’re...”
“The same image duplicated, right? They’re overlapping one another.”
“That seems exactly what’s going on but how on earth did you think of this?”
“Accardi was in our system recently and I’ve been thinking what else he could have compromised with that intrusion. I know you ran your tests and whatnot, but did those include the drones as well?”
“No,” Melvin gulped, suddenly realizing his mistake, “but they should have because they have to connect to the system to receive the latest firmware and...”
“What are you two babbling about?” Lieutenant Colonel Mayborn queried, his patience completely exhausted. “Are we doing this or not?”
“No, Sir,” Melvin said. “This is all a charade just like Agent Simms suspected from the start. The heat signals aren’t really coming from there. They’re coming from the drones themselves.”
“Excuse me? How is that even possible?”
“They’re like phantom images, uploaded into the memory of the devices. When our system was breached, the drones were infected by them somehow. What we’ve been seeing is a collection of data from another source that’s been made to simulate the whole thing. Because the same data is present in every drone when the two approached one another, the signals got scrambled, revealing the ruse. We’ve been played again.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! That lousy son of a bitch! Who does he think he is?” Mayborn grumbled. “Is there anything down there or not?”
“I dare say no and that this was a wild goose chase from the moment Accardi contacted us. I do believe that the General was there at some point so that the original recording could be made but they must have vacated the area shortly after that. He knew we would decipher the hints he left us and wanted us distracted to make his escape.”
“Shit! I fucking hate this asshole! If he’s not here, then where is he?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Lieutenant Colonel.”
“Washington,” Simms suddenly declared. “He’s taken off to Washington too.”
“Why do you assume that?” Melvin asked.
“Because that’s where Alexandra is, and she’s the one he wants to hurt the most in all of this. Think about it, he tries to get her to do his dirty work for him so she’s arrested and discredited in full, bringing the whole Division down with her, but that’s not enough suffering in his twisted mind. No, what better way to break her fully than to have her witness the General’s death at the end of all things as well. He’s been in the shadows long enough, but to deliver the final blow, he needs to be there in person to show her she never stood a chance to win.”
“I hate to say it, but that makes sense,” Melvin sighed. “And that means he continues to be ahead of us no matter what we do. It’s like we’re playing chess with a Super GM that has already calculated every line from the first couple of moves. I need to reach Alexandra again right away...”
“Huh, Melvin... we may have a situation here...” Mayborn said, his voice faltering slightly despite trying not to show it.
“What situation?”
“The keypad screen just lit up and a countdown was initiated,” he pointed at the device at his feet. “We have three minutes until something happens and I’m guessing that something is likely to level down this place if not the whole block.”
“Damn it!” Simms vociferated. He had never been more furious to be right. The last time Accardi had played with a bomb threat, it had turned out to be a decoy too, but every fiber of his being was telling him the real deal had come to bite them in the ass.