Shepherd One by Rick Jones Read Free Book Online

the preliminary
reports, please.”
    Alan Thornton was a man of bookish appearance who wore
outdated suits and believed his bad comb-over was good enough to belie the fact
that he was balding. Whenever he sat down he did so with aristocratic posture
where his spine remained rigidly straight and his chin raised in haughty
manner. And when he spoke he did so with a powerful voice. “According to our
sources,” he said, “it appears that the device is a workable unit armed by the
transference of codes from an independent source, such as the BlackBerry found
at the scene.”
    “Is it Russian made?”
    “The early assumption, Mr. President, is yes, we believe so.
The Cold War versions are antiquated to what we consider the backpack version,
a cylindrical component roughly the size and shape of a five-gallon drum. But
this unit is state-of-the-art, something never seen before, not even by our own
intelligence agencies. So the question is this, do the Russians have the
capability to cannibalize from the old units to create something new, compact
and far more deadly? And right now, Mr. President, the answer is yes. Or at
least it appears so.”
    The president faced Doug Craner, the leading principal of
the CIA who was responsible for monitoring insurgent activities abroad. “And
what’s your account, Doug?”
    Craner was old-school military whose roots went beyond
twenty years and whose service was invaluable as a Marine. His flattop was
cropped to specs and the clipped tone of his voice was evident that habits were
hard to relinquish. Even now, nineteen years retired from the ranks, Doug
Craner continued to air something stoically martial about him. “Of course we know
of the Cold War versions, Mr. President, but this package is something unique.
The word from intel is that a Russian by the name of Yorgi Perchenko, a former
KGB chief who ended up as the assistant director of Directorate S at the end of
the Cold War, and summarily dismissed due to his refusal to change his
hard-lined views for new alternatives, may be indirectly responsible.” He then
handed the president an 8x10 black-and-white glossy photo of an aged male with
salt-and-pepper hair. The collar of his jacket was hiked against the cold with the
fabric covering the man’s lower jaw, but not enough to cover his face.
    “I remember him,” the president said lightly, placing the
photo down. While serving as a statesman in the Senate, Burroughs kept a
watchful eye toward the Eastern Bloc when the Berlin Wall fell and communism
collapsed. But during that time Perchenko’s name kept coming up as a stolid
hardliner who constantly voiced his opinion to the elitists in the Russian
parliament that resistance was to be met with brutal force for the sake of
self-preservation, not with the totality of surrender. His recompense for his
verbal barrages was a quick reassignment to the Directorate S, where he did a
brief stint before disappearing altogether.
    It was a name he had not heard until now. 
    “We believe,” said Craner, “prior to Perchenko’s assignment
to the Directorate S, that he had accessibility to the military-based storage
units and absconded with the antiquated versions during the confusion at the
time of the Soviet Union’s fall. We know for a fact that some portable versions
have gone unaccounted for, and Perchenko maybe the reason why.”
    “But why now?  Why would Perchenko retaliate against
American sovereignty more than twenty years after the fall?”
    “He’s not,” said Thornton.
    Craner nodded. “We believe Perchenko has developed a more
sophisticated weapon by cannibalizing parts from the Cold War versions, and is
now proposing them on the black market to the highest bidder. At this time
we’re trying to verify this information.”
    The president fell back in his chair, his jaw muscles
working out the growing tension. “And the highest bidders, in Perchenko’s black
market sale, were the Arabs at the border.”
    “It appears