| From: | shadowtk@*********.com (Paul J. Adam) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Cleanup Stage Two: Take Names |
| Date: | Tue Nov 13 17:05:03 2001 |
>>>>>[This one was pretty bad for a while, sir. We tried to salvage the
data from before Colonel Lynch's recorder was hit, but it's soup.
Afterwards, it routed around the damaged area and we got acceptable
quality from the repair algorithms for most of it..
We've got the Pentagon footage coming, sometime. But we _did_ get the
data out of Ernang's officecam. Up to the point where the officecam got
blown away, anyway.
+++++begin video
+++++static and white noise
[Barely discernible footage of someone fighting his way through a
building]
+++++static and white noise
+++++signal resumed
Lynch is hit a couple of times in the chest, once in the arm, thrown
back by the bullets' impacts, dropping the rifle in shock. The FRAG
trooper, who's done superbly on tactics and marksmanship, fails the
final exam of judgement as she stays still, standing to watch her foe
fall.
Because as Lynch falls he yanks the old stainless-steel .357 from his
thigh holster, aims, and fires twice before his back protector hits the
concrete floor. One of the azide-cored hollowpoints blows most of the
FRAG tooper's larynx out through her spine, the second blasts
blood-soaked chunks of fibre-reinforced macroplast out of her helmet and
a big piece of bone out of her skull.
Lynch crashes onto the floor, rolling and rising at once (though gasping
for the breath that the rifle bullets punched out of him, and his right
arm trails useless). The FRAG trooper falls, hands fluttering at the
torn flesh of her throat and face....
Lynch leaves her to die alone and crashes through the last door, the old
Python searching for a target-
-A whisper of movement and Lynch whirls, raising and cocking the pistol-
Colonel McNally stares into his own face, reflected twice in the black
mirrors of Lynch's Ray-Ban Aviators. He and Lynch are an arm's length
apart, both holding pistols to the other's head: McNally pointing his
Guardian at Lynch's temple and Lynch pressing the Python's muzzle
between McNally's eyes.
"Standoff."
"Tradition."
"What?" McNally asks, incredulous.
"All that stamping around in black fatigues with HK227s, and you don't
even know who John Woo is." Lynch says scornfully. "This scene is _so_
twentieth-century."
"You just hate running up against someone who follows procedure, Lynch.
You're good against untrained losers, you can't handle a skilled trained
adversary-"
"You follow *all* the procedures?"
"To the letter, unlike cowboys like-"
The shot is terribly loud, and McNally falls at once, half his head
blown apart.
Lynch studies the corpse for a second, then takes the Guardian from
McNally's dead fingers and throws it away. "In a John Woo standoff,
*never* admit you're holding a double-action-only pistol with a
thirteen-pound pull, when your opponent's weapon has a three-pound
trigger and one of the fastest lock times ever." he lectures the corpse,
keeping the pistol in his left hand aimed between McNally's unblinking
eyes. "General, you listening? You're next." he says, before he breaks
the connection on the telephone.
"Oh, yeah, and if you _have_ to gloat, gloat over the enemy's corpse.
Less satisfying but much, much safer. You learn less but it's a fuck of
a lot safer." The Marine flicks the .357's chamber open, reloads the
three fired chambers, snaps the cylinder shut with a practiced jerk of
his wrist, and holsters the old revolver.
"Okay. Now, you'd have transport. Are you using milspec and trusting to
your Praetorians to make it all okay, or do you have a private air taxi
on site? I saw a stock Airstar on the pad, in armed-slick configuration,
and I'm going to assume it's yours." Lynch starts to rummage the desk's
drawers. "I have a appointment to keep and I want to be on time." He
finds nothing that interests him amidst the papers, datachips and
assorted trash. "So, I'm going to steal your helo. Adios, Colonel
McNally, it was nice meeting you, shame it was so brief."
Picking up his rifle and checking the magazine (nine rounds remaining,
so he changes it) Lynch cautiously leaves McNally's office. The corridor
is empty, smoke wisping through doors and the fire alarms sounding an
incessant background din. Rather than pick his way out through the
building, he opens a window, hangs by his one working hand and drops to
the ground outside.
It's getting light, only half an hour or so to sunrise now. By the ruins
of the gatehouse, the crater from Lynch's van-bomb still smokes, and
beyond that the pulsing blue and red strobes of many emergency vehicles
flood the twilight with lurid colour.
Lynch checks around him, then walks quite brazenly towards them: rifle
held well to the side in his left hand, his ID card in his gloved,
blood-slicked right. Several weapons are aimed at him as someone yells
"Identify!"
"Colonel Jason Lynch, Fast Response Action Group." Lynch replies. "Get
in here fast! We've been hit hard."
"Who by?" the SWAT captain asks, nervous and not eager to run into a
recent warzone.
"How the hell do I know? Infiltrators in our uniform. Pick up everyone,
don't trust anyone, get the wounded treated but keep them secure. After
you authenticate me, I need to get back to DC and report in to the
General."
The policeman is pondering this, as an olive-drab truck screeches to a
halt and camouflaged troops spill out. One of them, commander's insignia
discreet on his collar, greets Lynch. "Colonel? How bad is it?"
"Pretty much wiped out, Turner." As Lynch puts his ID card away, he
looks with annoyance at the blood coursing down his arm: finding a field
dressing, he wraps it around the wound (there's already a bulky,
blood-soaked dressing around his right forearm, now someone's shot him
through the tricep too). Commander Zachary Turner helps to tie it
securely in place. "We need to get in, secure the wounded, and start
trying to tell who's who, Zach."
"Impersonators? We heard the warning..."
"Turns out it was right. Captain, can you secure the perimeter?
Commander Turner's Team will do the sweep-and-clear."
"Yessir." The SWAT captain is convinced by the arrival of the SEALs, and
their commander's easy recognition of the unfamiliar Marine: the SEALs
begin a careful deployment into the FRAG's compound, and the captain
moves the police units to cover the fence and the exits while the Navy
cleans up..
Lynch, meanwhile, is making good on his promise to McNally: once again
he's stealing one of the FRAG's Airstar helicopters.
+++++end video
That was where he ran out of usable memory, sir. Everything else
involving Colonel Lynch is third-party-only.
Like this.
+++++begin video
Ernang sits at the wide mahogany desk, surveying the sweeping curve of
display screens that show everything from the aerial radar picture of
the District of Columbia, to the Pentagon's interior security system.
His telephone rings, and he picks it up at once. "McNally?" he asks with
faint hope.
"Chuck? Colonel McNally can't answer the phone, on account of he's
caught a nasty case of Death. Lynch is alive and well and on his way to
come kick your ass, which I know all about on account of him actually
being me." The voice has Lynch's West Coast accent, his good-natured
tone, and the right edge of cheerful confidence, and it shocks Ernang
into silence for a moment.
"Lynch? You won't get within fifty miles of my office before you're run
down and killed."
"You just go on believing that, General, it's already untrue. Meanwhile,
better pucker up for a home invasion."
Ernang looks, incredulous at his displays, bringing up a radar image to
fullscreen: a rotary-wing air contact is lifting off from the FRAG
emergency HQ, beginning a high-speed run up Chesapeake Bay, and as Lynch
promised he's already within fifty miles.
The General pauses, then picks up a telephone, dials the 45th Fighter
Interceptor Squadron at Andrews AFB. "Hello? This is General Ernang,
Fast Response Action Group. There's an unidentified air contact heading
towards Washington DC. It has to be dealt with."
A pause, an indistinct reply. "I mean, Colonel, that it is a suspected
terrorist aircraft which must be found and forced to land in order that
it and its contents can be properly identified. If it refuses to obey
your directives, it must be destroyed, but under no circumstances should
it reach the Federal Zone... Thank you. Of _course_ this order is
official and on the record."
Ernang sits and watches his displays, coldly angry. The helicopter
follows the Potomac, staying overwater at around fifty feet and one
hundred and fifty knots: the radar having trouble tracking it in the
ground clutter. Two fixed-wing fast-movers lift off from Andrews within
a few minutes and rapidly close the distance: Ernang keys into their
frequency.
"Duchess, this is Pencil Flight, I don't show any contacts in the
assigned sensor. Pencil Flight is popeye, closing on your co-ordinates,
over."
"Pencil One, engage for a weapons-tight VECTAC, I'll steer you in.
Contact is a low-level helo in ground clutter, he'll be a bitch to
spot." 'Duchess', the ground controller, reassures.
"Roger that, Duchess. Following your vector and searching target area-"
"Pencil Two, I have a bogey on infrared, low level... getting rotor
signature, I have radar and IR contact on a helo. Confirm?" The wingman
breaks in, the datalink adding the details of the acquisition.
"Pencil One, roger. Bravo Zulu on clocking him. Duchess, Pencil Flight
is now judy on the threat. Single rotary-wing bogey, following the river
at 150 knots and zero altitude. Two, I'll eyeball, you shoot, you earned
it."
Two clicks of the transmit key in reply, as Pencil Two breaks high and
around to position for a standoff missile shot: Pencil One slows and
goes low, setting up for a low pass astern of the mysterious helicopter.
A grainy video feed shows a high-speed pass over the Potomac, coming up
astern of and then breaking away from a helicopter painted in the dark
green and muddy grey camouflage of the UCAS Army.
"I see a UCAS Airstar... no sign of any hostile activities. Doorguns
unmanned, nobody shot at me." Pencil One says. "Looks friendly."
"Negative, Pencil Flight, negative. Bogey is hostile. Engage and
destroy." Ernang says firmly.
"Uh, sir, that's not procedure. He's not committed any hostile act yet."
Pencil One says patiently as she breaks away (careful to stay away from
those door guns, just in case they get used). "Unidentified Airstar
helicopter skimming the Potomac, just turning north now, been buzzed by
an Air Force Mustang, please respond, over?" the pilot adds on GUARD:
they might not know the aircraft's ID, but there's little doubt who
they're talking to.
"Colonel Jason Lynch, Fast Response Action Group responding, flying an
Airstar, military ID, running northwest and NOE up the Potomac.
Flashing my nav lights and turning on the strobe, you confirm?"
"Confirm your lights, Colonel."
"Who's up there? I heard 'Pencil Flight' but that doesn't help
differentiate you lazy 45th deskjockeys and your computer-generated
callsigns-"
Ernang crushes the push-to-talk switch under his fingers. "YOU KILL THAT
SONOFABITCH RIGHT NOW!"
"Say again, Washington, you're breaking up?" Lynch asks. "You're telling
me to shoot down Pencil Flight here? One or both?"
"I think he means I'm meant to shoot _you_ down, Psychopath." Pencil 02
replies with an apologetic tone.
"SHOOT THAT FUCKER DOWN NOW!" Ernang bellows into the microphone.
"I got work to do, Pencil 02. That you, Mule?" Lynch asks. "I think I
know that voice, it's got less of a nasal whine than most Chair Farce-"
"Yeah, Psycho, it's me. Bongo's flying Pencil 01. Why is this jerkoff
telling us to kill you?"
"Because Colonel Lynch is a traitor and a terrorist!" Ernang shouts into
his microphone.
"Because I helped catch the General with his fingers in the till." Lynch
suggests. On the radar, the two fighters are forming up and flying lazy
S-curves across the Potomac to keep pace with the helicopter... and so
one of them always has missiles trained on it ready to fire. "He's
playing power games and I found out. I'm about to relieve him for cause
and he's playing Charlie Yankee Alpha."
"So why should I believe you, Psycho? You lie and cheat all the time.
Like when you said 'no all-aspect missile shots' during a briefing."
'Mule' asks with an aggrieved tone in her voice. "Then you called a
Fox-Three on me during that flight. Twice!"
"I cheat on training hops every chance I can. Taught you to _never_
assume Red Force can't shoot you in the face from twelve miles out,
didn't it?" Lynch replies. "Bongo, Mule... it's your call. Kill me, or
RTB, but make it fast either way."
There's a short pause: then the two fighters turn and point their
velocity vectors back at Andrews, breaking away from the helicopter as
it approaches controlled airspace.
Ernang stares, horrified at the screens. "What the... Major Hunna, I'm
ordering you and your wingman to engage and destroy that helicopter!"
"I'm sorry, sir, your transmission was indistinct. Can you repeat?"
Major Hunna, also known as "Bongo", currently flying as "Pencil 01",
responds.
"I'm ordering you to shoot Colonel Lynch down!"
"Sorry, sir, you're breaking up. Switching to alternate channel. I
authenticate Kilo Mike Alpha."
"Kilo Mike...? What sort of..." Ernang tries the code chart. "There's no
authentication for that code! There's no alternate channel for today!
We're already _on_ the alternate! Hunna, report! Report!"
The radio just hisses an empty carrier wave back. The two fighters turn
into the Andrews AFB landing pattern, while the helicopter (still shown
in the angry red 'enemy' encoding) descends to skim the river, as it
passes Ronald Reagan International Airport and ducks under the airport
approach airspace into the District of Colombia Federal No-Fly-Zone.
Meanwhile, Ernang hits another button.
"Security detail! Hostiles landing at the helipad!" Ernang shouts, when
the Crisis Line is answered.
"We show no terrorist threat, sir-"
"There's a terrorist helicopter approaching the Pentagon! Shoot the
bastard down!" Ernang shrieks.
"We can't, sir, not at this alert state. We'd have to be at-"
"I don't care! Kill the pilot before he gets to the Pentagon!"
"Sir... we can't just-"
Ernang snarls "You have your orders!" at the intercom, and punches up
the cameras. The west helipad is already being covered by the weapons of
a dozen soldiers as they run out of the building and find assigned
positions behind heavy concrete planters that just happen to make up a
superb defensive position. Their rifles are aimed at the dark-green
Airstar as it makes a contemptuously slow and careful landing, curving
around the Pentagon to settle onto the small pad near the western
entrance.
The Crisis Team are lightly flayed by the windstorm as the Airstar
flares amd settles gently onto the pad: several berets blowing away in
the downwash. They don't seem to be worried by that, keeping a lethal
assortment of weapons aimed at the Hughes as it makes a textbook
landing.
The helicopter's skids clank down onto the asphalt, and rifle bolts
clatter in response. As the rotors begin to spin down, the pilot's-side
door opens and a battledress-clad, warpainted figure climbs out, his
long grey-and-black hair blowing in the rotorwash. Lynch pauses a moment
to retrieve his PSG-7 from the copilot's seat, before limping towards
the huge grey concrete wall of the Pentagon. The muzzles of twelve
rifles track him in unison, like sunflowers following the light.
Lynch pauses in front of the Quick Reaction Force commander. "Major
Coutelle." Blood drips from him, unheeded, and speckles the asphalt with
dark droplets: startlingly crimson where a few fall onto the white paint
of the pad's marking. More blood runs down his rifle's barrel, where
he's holding it one-handed and pointed at the ground.
"Colonel Lynch." Coutelle has his sidearm drawn, but not aimed.
"Major, you can shoot me... or you can salute me and step aside. Your
call." Lynch's voice has no bravado, no bluster in it: he's tired and
wounded and bleeding, but far from ready to quit. "I got work to do.
Kill me or get outta the way."
Coutelle holds Lynch's gaze for a long moment... and then holsters his
pistol, comes to attention, and snaps off a drillbook salute. "Sir."
"Major. Thank you." Lynch returns the salute with unexpected crispness,
begins to climb the steps towards the Pentagon's west entrance.
"Major Coutelle, you kill that traitorous sonofabitch right now or
I'll-" Ernang roars into his radio.
"Or what, sir? I trust Colonel Lynch. I don't trust you. He's your
third-in-command, you passed plenty of other folks over to promote
_him_, how come you suddenly want me to shoot him?" Major Coutelle asks
sarcastically. "Betts, Chant, go with the Colonel, make sure he's okay."
"I... I... you... I'll break you for this, Coutelle."
"Yeah, right, sir. I'll just hold my breath and wait. I got serious
doubts about the legality of your orders, sir, so you just sit tight and
let the dice fall."
Ernang stares, horrified, at the display. The Pentagon's internal
security sensors pick up Lynch and track him just fine, and follow his
progress into the building on a remarkably direct path aimed right at
Ernang's office.
"Security. We have an intruder-"
"General Ernang? We show no penetrations of the system."
"Colonel Lynch is in the Pentagon illegally!"
Whoever's on the Security switchboard snorts. "He's used a valid access
code and he's cleared as a member of your staff. We're not permitted to
interfere with FRAG operations."
"I'm revoking his status!"
"I'm sorry, sir, I need that order in writing. Until then I can't
interfere with any FRAG staff under any circumstances whatsoever." The
duty security officer might be enjoying herself too much for Ernang's
comfort. "You and Colonel McNally made that *extremely* clear. As soon
as I have an order in writing, I can do something. Sir."
Shaking now, the General punches up a camera view, sees Lynch slide his
ID card into the reader and hold his hand in the scanner: the door opens
for him. The two soldiers catching up to him are held back by the
security guards. "Sorry, guys, just the Colonel."
"We got orders to keep him safe-"
"I know, but I can't let you in."
"Guard? These guys are with me." Lynch leans on the doorframe, dark
blood leaking out of his combat jacket to run down the jamb and stain
the carpet.
"Sorry, sir, you check out just fine but I need General Ernang's
authorisation to let any non-FRAG personnel in when he calls a
lockdown." The guard's tone is a mix of contempt for such bureaucracy,
and awe that a mere one-star pulled off such a feat of personal power.
"Hell, I'll deputize them FRAG right now. Chant.... Eduardo Chant?
Thought you were with the 25th."
"Nossir. Francesco Chant, third of the 75th. Eduardo's my big brother
and _he's_ with those Tropic Lightning wusses." The soldier says,
smiling. "Can't do that, sir, not even for you, Colonel. Sorry. We got
to stay outside." The guard is friendly but firm. "You okay for
firepower? We got to take that rifle from you, but I wouldn't want you
to go short."
"Wouldn't mind a few more pistol mags, if you got the same Predator in
.408 that I do."
The guard takes one of the two spare magazines for his Predator, accepts
two more from Chant and Betts, hands them to Lynch in exchange for the
Heckler & Koch rifle that still drips with Lynch's blood. "You go easy
now, sir. Get this straightened out, don't screw nothing up."
"Getting used to this, Sergeant Chant. Thank you. John, Adrian, you take
care, you stay out of trouble."
"Vaya con Dios, Colonel." Chant replies softly.
The marker symbol of Ernang's new second-in-command moves through the
A-ring corridor, along a crossway. Loses him for a couple of minutes in
'Ground Zero', the manicured central park, before picking him up again:
Lynch keeps a quick walking pace back out to the eastern face, pauses by
an elevator.
The security system automatically brings up the safety camera, and the
reaction of three startled occupants (one Navy commander in dress
whites, one Air Force master-sergeant, and a civilian staffer) to
finding an armed, blood-soaked half-Sioux Marine sharing the small car.
Lynch's eyes are hidden behind his sunglasses, his face is painted in a
traditional warrior pattern (though in subdued, matte shades of green
and brown and grey), and he evidently causes them some serious alarm.
"Fourth floor, please." Lynch asks politely.
"Yessir!" The Navy officer stabs at the button. "Uh... sir... you're
bleeding."
"I know."
"Oh. Shouldn't I get you a medic?"
"Send a medical team and a security detail to General Ernang's office."
Lynch gives the grid reference: fourth floor, A-ring, facing west with a
fine view of downtown DC. The very office in which Ernang now sits.
"Quickly."
"Uh... yessir." The commander starts hastily poking at his wristphone,
as the elevator doors open and Lynch walks out.
Ernang watches, horrified, as the security system maps Lynch's steady
progress to the FRAG offices. Outside, there are sounds of a scuffle,
raised voices, a scream of terror or pain... then silence. And now there
are no more buttons for Ernang to push.
General Charles Ernang rises out of his luxurious leather chair, steps
back from the wide mahogany desk... then steps forward, rummaging at one
drawer. It refuses to open, and he sobs with fear and frustration as he
fumbles his credstick out of his pocket-
"Leave your piece locked away?" a voice from the door, just out of
camera view, asks. A Seattle accent, and one whose emotional content has
gone through rage and hate and out the other side into fatigue and,
almost, boredom.
"I... Lynch... I can..." Ernang drops the credstick, backs away with his
hands raised: Lynch walks into view of the office's camera, the old,
well-used, lethal .357 Python aimed at Ernang's face and a Predator
automatic almost forgotten in his right hand.
"Do you really want to be _recorded_ while you plead?" Lynch asks, and
turns, firing one shot at the camera which obligingly dies in a snarl of
static.
+++++signal lost
And until we get the subpoena acted on... that's all she wrote,
sir.]<<<<<
-- SSgt T R Porter <21:52:26/11-13-62>
Data Extraction & Recovery
Cyberspace Special Forces
