Kill Chain (10 page)

“Christ!” exclaimed
Morrison, watching the video for the first time.

Child jabbed a finger at
the screen. “I can’t believe they’d do something like this!”

Morrison shook his head.
“We know they’re nuts, but this is taking it further than anyone expected.”

Leroux agreed. “I’d have
thought they’d drop a bomb on Seoul before they’d do some sort of high-profile hostage-taking.”
He turned to his boss. “What are we going to do?”

Morrison shook his head.
“I have a funny feeling we’re about to go to war.”

Leroux frowned. “What do
you think the Chinese will do?”

Morrison drew a long
breath then exhaled loudly. “I’m not sure. With the Chinese President’s wife on
that bus, I would hope they’d be on our side this time.”

Maggie
Harris Residence
Lake in
the Pines Apartments, Fayetteville, North Carolina

“Can
someone get that?”

“I’ll get it!” called Shirley
Belme as Maggie worked on a pitcher of Sangria. She heard the door open and
pleasantries exchanged as Atlas’ girlfriend, Vanessa Moore, arrived. The wives
had collected now that they knew where their men were, and Vanessa was in the
unique position as the only civilian non-spouse of the group who knew what her
boyfriend did for a living, the Colonel having recently given permission for
her to be read in when she had challenged Atlas on his cover, having figured
out on her own what he did.

It had almost ended the
relationship, though things seemed to be going well now, especially since she
had embraced the Unit, the family that connected them all.

She rounded the corner
into the kitchen carrying several bags and a tray of what appeared to be
homemade hamburger patties.

“What’s this?” Maggie
leaned over to take a peek, her frozen burgers sitting on the counter suddenly
not so appetizing.

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist
whipping these up when you mentioned you were going to barbecue. I hope you
don’t mind.”

A burst of air erupted
from Maggie’s mouth. “Are you kidding? How could I mind?”

“What’s in them?” asked
Spock’s wife, Joanne Lightman.

“Medium ground beef, pepper,
a homemade seasoned salt, mesquite, barbecue sauce, some fresh garlic—”

“Good thing our husbands
are away!” laughed Joanne.

“—and I stuffed them with
Velveeta and bacon.” Vanessa shrugged. “You know, the usual. Normally I’d top
it with homemade onion rings and a fried egg, but I figured that would be
pushing my welcome.”

Shirley laughed. “What do
you call them?”

“It’s my cousin’s recipe.
I call them Nick’s Heart Attack Specials, because eating too many of these will
probably kill you!”

Maggie’s mouth watered.
“Sounds delish. I knew it was a good day when Atlas started dating a chef.”

A round of cheers erupted
from the ladies, Sangrias topped up by Maggie.

“I just wish I knew where
he was,” said Vanessa, her face clouding over.

“Oh, we saw him on the
news. He’s perfectly safe.”

Vanessa smiled at Maggie.
“Really? Where?”

“South Korea.”

Vanessa’s eyes shot wide,
her jaw dropping. “South Korea? Haven’t you been listening to the news?” She
rushed from the kitchen, Maggie following. There was a mad scramble for the
remote as Bryson tried to play keep-away, a snap from his mother ending the
game. Maggie switched from cartoons to CNN.

“Oh my God!”

Unknown
Location
Seoul,
Republic of Korea

Nancy
gripped the bench she was sitting on, bracing herself as they came to a rather
abrupt halt. Something was said over the speaker in a language she didn’t
recognize, though it sounded Chinese or Japanese to her—hell, it could have
been Korean or Thai.

All she knew was it meant
nothing to her, and it was the first time they had been spoken to in anything
but English.

The Chinese woman seemed
scared.

I guess it’s Chinese.

The French President’s
wife leaned forward. “What did he say?”

The rear door began to
lower, sunlight pouring in, the sounds of traffic and life suddenly heard.

Nancy’s heart raced.

If I time it right, I
can get out of here.

“I think they’ve ordered
me off the truck.”

“You think?”

“I-I’m not sure. It-it
was a bad translation, but I’m pretty sure they want me off the truck.”

“But why?”

“I-I don’t know.”

Nancy tore her eyes away
from potential freedom and stared at the now shaking Chinese woman.

“I-I think they’re going
to kill me!”

The French woman jumped
up and shook a fist at the camera, anger etched across her face. “Who are you to
do such a thing! What gives you the right to treat people like this! This woman
has done nothing wrong! She’s only a wife like the rest of us! We have no
power!”

“Behind every strong
man is a strong woman.”

Nancy held her breath,
the excitement of someone finally fighting back nipped in the bud with the
cold, digital reality that faced them.

Everyone flinched then
turned as one as the rear ramp hit the pavement with a rattle. Nancy felt her
body tense as the internal debate raged on whether to bolt.

Two drones suddenly
dropped into view from above, making the decision for her.

“Leave now, or you
will die. You will stand on the side of the road until the drones leave. If you
attempt to leave before that, you will be killed, and so will the others.”

The Chinese woman stood,
straightening her jacket before sucking in a deep breath, forcing as much
dignity as she could muster on her face, though her trembling chin betrayed the
terror she felt as she jerked forward, a step at a time.

Nancy reached out on
impulse, squeezing her hand. The woman flinched then looked at her, forcing a
smile on her face before patting Nancy’s hand.

“Be safe, little one.”
She reached the rear of the truck and turned back to face the others. “I-I’m so
sorry. I don’t know why they’re letting me go.”

“It’s okay. Tell my
husband and kids that I love them,” said the Italian woman, tears flowing down
her cheeks, she suddenly human again, Nancy immediately regretting her horrible
thoughts of earlier. A flurry of messages burst forth, but Nancy sat silently,
gripping the bench as she continued to resist the urge to follow the Chinese
woman down the ramp.

The moment her feet hit
the pavement the ramp began to rise, the large rectangle of light disappearing
quickly, becoming a narrowing shaft, then nothing.

“Why do you think they
let her go?” asked someone, Nancy not sure who, her eyes still adjusting to their
old reality.

Suddenly she blurted out
the first thing that came to mind.

“Maybe the Chinese are
behind this?”

Crawford
Residence
Forest
Hills, Washington, DC

“Dude,
are you seeing this?”

Jeff Crawford’s head
bobbed as he snapped his jaw shut before his friends noticed. “These guys need
a new special effects company.”

“Pretty cheesy,” agreed
his best friend and fellow Squad member Clarence. “How can you be taken
seriously as a nuclear power if you can’t even make a realistic looking
propaganda video?”

“What’s the difference
between North and South Korea?” asked Vic, the third member of their group he
had managed to reach.

Jeff stared at a monitor
to his left, it split screen with his two friends. “Are you kidding me?”

Clarence shrugged. “I
don’t know either. Which one’s the bad one?”

“They’re both bad, aren’t
they? I think my grandfather fought them.”

Jeff shook his head.
“Man, you guys are useless. North is bad, South is good. We all fought the
North, and we all tried to protect the South.”

“Where’s Nancy again?”
asked Vic.

Jeff let out a low growl.
“South.”

“So then she got
kidnapped by the North in the South.”

Jeff nodded. “Yes.”

“I call bullshit on
that.”

Jeff glanced at
Clarence’s feed. “Why?”

“I’m pulling timestamps
from the metadata on these posts all over the web and they’re too close
together.”

Jeff tore his eyes away
from the video showing the dead bodies. “What do you mean?” 

“Well, this is an HD
file. It’s pretty big.”

“So?”

“Sooo, according to what
I’m reading here, North Korea only has 2.5 gigs of bandwidth for the entire
country, all through China.”

Vic spun in his chair.
“Are you kidding me? I’ve almost got that coming into my house!”

“Exactly! So how the hell
did they upload that much data in seconds with that little bandwidth? They couldn’t
have!”

Jeff agreed. “There’s no
way.” His eyes narrowed as he watched the video. “Maybe someone did it for
them?”

Clarence nodded. “That’s
the only way I can think of.”

Jeff leaned forward and
cracked his knuckles. “Then we need to find out who.”

Operations
Center 1
CIA
Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

“Show me
their bandwidth usage.”

Leroux watched the
display as Child brought up the data. “Looks like they’re pretty much tapped
out, but then again, they always are.”

Leroux agreed. The North
Koreans had a single line connecting the country to the Chinese networks,
though there were rumors of a second, high-speed line reserved for the elites.
There were also satellite connections, though those were limited in capability.

Bandwidth was at a premium,
and a high-definition video, uploaded to hundreds of sites within seconds, just
wasn’t possible unless they had shut down all access, reserving all the
bandwidth for this one task.

Something he highly
doubted.

Child motioned toward the
screen. “You’d think the Chinese would give them more bandwidth than that.”